Level Scaling isn't bad if it's done right however Oblivion killed that idea and rightly so too as Oblivion overdid the scaling big time.

Fallout 3's system will work fine in Skyrim. There needs to be some form of level scaling though otherwise your character will become a god at high levels with no competition.

They dais scaling will b e LIKE Fallout 3, not exactly similar. about dungeons, it definitely helps make the ambience, and about the wilderness, I'm sure they set a random number in a range of like 5 below and above your level, so you can sometimes feel like a god, sometimes get your ass handed to you on a platter, and sometimes just be even.

Also, I think it adds to variety that there's actually scaling (when it's not pushed to the extreme like Oblivion though).
Seriously, look a Divinity 2: Ego Draconis. The game is awesome yeah, but the enemies are too fixed. And even worse, they're almost NEVER below your level.

This partial level scaling is not the same as the one in Fallout 3 or the one in Skyrim. It's not a difference in leveling rate. Levelscaling in F3, was with upper and lower limits, areas locking at a specific level, when you entered it. Now things are challenging, yet you can get stronger, because when you enter the same area again, it has not leveled with you since last.



New Vegas is a nice show of how no levelscaling limits exploration, in New Vegas you can only go a specific route because going anywhere else will kill you, high unscaled enemies basically act like invisible walls.



A world is not devoid of life, just because your level influence the level of creatures on first contact. Especially not when these creatures and dungeons have lower and upper limits. It won't matter if you enter a level 25-30 dungeon at level 5, sure it will lock at level 25, but you will still get your ass kicked.



Like I said New Vegas is a great example of how linear things can go, when nothing is scaled. And then you go on to attribute uniqueness,exploration, discovery, to non level scaling even though these aren't relevant to the level scaling mechanic. Your last line does not even make sense, if some is random, then it is obviously not gonna feel the same, and if something is scaled with relevance to a level, than it is not random, and diablos levels were scaled with relevance to difficulty, not the characters level, they were not level scaled.

Anyway;

No Level scaling at all creates a static world. A world of Constants. New Vegas suffered that, and it was one of the largest complaints towards the game's design (Rather than just the poor bug control).


With Fallout 3, you had, still an imperfect, but really good system of dynamic scaling overall. While there were a set of relatively few given statics (Deathclaws at Olney), there was a good amount of scaling to keep the endgame interesting. It may have not been particularly common, but the occasional Deathclaw to break up the swarms of Molerats kept high-level players perceptive while exploring, something that was pretty much lost in New Vegas. Most of the problem with Fallout 3's scaling, was the actual enemy design and combat systems themselves. New Vegas relied less on the HP-bomb that Fallout 3 did, and more on clever(Pre-patch) use of their Damage Threshold mechanics, to balance certain enemies against certain lower-tier weapons. The problem for most people, is isolating the scaling, from the other game mechanics.

No scaling is definitely the lesser of two evils, when you consider Oblivion's Hyper scaling. If we had only the two, I'd definitely favor a No-scale scenario.

But we don't just have two options, there's a wide range of scaling options.

No, I was just showing that level scaling has no point in a game because you can reproduct its effect without it being included.
The "locked once you enter" is yet another form of implementing level scaling, but it still is pointless.

Your reasoning makes no sense. "open exploration" doesn't mean "you can walk into the dragon's lair without risk". It means "you have a world to explore".
Where does "exploration" means "risk-free" ? And even, where does it say that "risk-free" is, in fact, desirable ?
Oblivion was HUGE. But it was pointless, because its size amounted for nothing because of level scaling, which made everything the same everywhere.

Where is there more exploration ? In a "you can go everywhere, but everywhere is the same", or "you can go everywhere, you'll die if you try too much, but it means many unique places that will still be interesting to explore for the whole length of the game" ?
The answer is obvious, and it's not the first case.

Which is exactly why I put the word "logically". The MMORPG method of putting arbitrary levels on monsters is just as bad as level scaling. The FO3 methods of having different levels of monsters and just putting them into the world as your level increase is just as bad too (which is why the "don't worry, Skyrim will have level scaling of FO3 !" doesn't reassure me in the slightest, and the very fact that Bethesda feels necessary to reassure people about level scaling should be a hint about how crappy a mechanism it is).
Normal places should house normal people, with the occasionnal strong guy. Normal wild place should have normal wildlife, with the occasionnal dangerous monster.
Dangerous places should have a reason to exist (Ogre/Troll/Dragon lairs are reasonable, they live in after all ; abandonned crypts can reasonnably have some powerful undead with lots of weaker ones, etc.).

A logical world with logically placed monsters is the best for immersion. Supermutants who are pushover because you encounter them in the first region you cross, and who are about fifty times tougher and with "master" adjective because it's the last region you see, are idiotic.

You can have a better result without level scaling. Why bothering to put a broken mechanism and then partially fix it ?

You can go anywhere in New Vegas. You can die, but that's the risk of getting over your head. That's, in fact, exactly the POINT. See above : exploration doesn't, and precisely shouldn't, means "risk-free".

From what I gather reading all the incoherent posts, OP Supports scaling, just not any kind we've seen.



That's what's interesting, and often in a scaled situation, the "Strong" enemy, is the one that's written into the system as scaled against the player, while the peons themselves aren't written out.

Especially in the Super Mutant example, I can't make an accurate picture of what you're after. Scaling is supposed to fight against the whole "This super mutant is weak cause I was here first, but now it's strong because I'm in a new area" which implies a static world. In a Scaled game, the First super mutants you encounter, are "Weak", but you can come back to that area, and any tagged as "leveled" Will be stronger.

Proper scaling (And no game has done it right, yet) involves, what I'll dub "Dynamic Grouping". Just taking the already used Super Mutant example

A Dynamic Group might consist of, let's say, Five slots. With three spots set as static, and what spawns as statics depends on the actual area, and what spawns in the Dynamic slots, depends on what spawns in the Static slots.


Level 1-5 The Group Spawns as 3 Basic Super Mutants.
Level 6-11The Group Spawns with 5 Basic Super mutants
Level 12-16 The group spawns with 4 Basic Super mutants, and one Super Mutant Brute.
[skip]
Level 30 the Group spawns with 3 Basic Super Mutants and two Super Mutant Masters.


Even if you find this group at level 1, and wipe them out, eventually the group will respawn, and when they spawn once more, they're composition is set to the players level. So if they respawn in 3 Game days, and you're then level 12, the group will spawn as 4 basic Mutants and one Brute, but not actually rescale until you kill them and the respawn once more.

That's at least how I'd like it done.

You can go anywhere, but there's no point in it. Without level scaling anything but the low level areas is death. Without level scaling, once you're a high enough level to move on to the next area the previous area no longer holds anything of interest to your character.

So without level scaling an open world is full of stages. Can't advance to the next stage until you get to the next level, don't want to go back to the last stage because everything's weak.

Sigh.....Rough is awesome :celebration:


This is what happens with level scaling http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/fallout-3-20-head-shots-to/282847

Also with level scailing, one can brave the deepest dankest dungeons and find some level iron shortsword in what should have been a chest containing a weapon of the almighty pwn.

It also means aside from some extra skills here and there, Im no better off than I was level 1 vs other enemies.


the hope?


That Beths Level scaling for Dungeons (you know thresholds like 15-20) also applies for enemies and NOT ITEMS OR SPELLS DO NOT FING LEVEL SPELLS..........

But honestly, when you actually look for it, besides being linear, what's the difference between these two situations (just examples, not real situations):

1 - "The road just northeast of Leyawiin has 3 rats (level 2), 5 wolves (level 4), 2 Venisons (level 1), 4 boars (level 7) and one mountain lion (level 10)"

OR

2 - "The road just northeast of Leyawiin has 15 random enemies, of the "natural beasts" category, which are between level 1 and level 10"

Level scaling doesn't imply that it should exactly scale to the player. It can simply put random enemies of certain categories and the right levels, in the right places, without making it predictable.

Also, just having it in, doosn't totally prevent you from having a few set enemies here and there.

I am in total agreement with OP, LOOK AT RISEN, no level scaling, and it worked perfectly, you could go to this little mini island just off the main, where there was a giant scorpion, at any time during the game, but before you were strong enough to beat it, it would just completely kill you, there wasn't any "o well if I just try harder I can beat it" it was actually too strong for you, and so you couldn't just run around the island doing whatever, completing every quest, and it was perfect, it made the game world seem huge, then it was maybe a 100th of oblivion's size

The only problem that I had with Oblivion's level scaling is that the difficulty scaled too fast. The game gets harder as you level, believe it or not. Not just getting harder to match your growing capabilities, but enemies will grow stronger at a faster rate than you do. I'd expect a game to be easier at higher levels, honestly. There should also be leveled creature caps here and there as well, preventing some relatively tame areas from scaling with you all the way up to 50.

That is the good part of level scaling however their are some flaws to it but that's mainly game design like Goblin Warlords having a certain hit point level and then it keeps going up.

bethesda should have asked you before they put level scaling in, you obviously know more than them

Its not like this is an epitomal secret...its been in the last 3 games

Diablo was a great action game. But Skyrim is supposed to be an immersion-based RPG. It's not really the same kind of game, and the former doesn't lend easily to the latter.

That's the same flawed reasoning I've been battling from the start.
It's just completely false. Level scaling has nothing to do with difficulty. You can have an extremely easy level-scaled game and an extremely hard static one, and vice-versa. This whole, entire answer you made is just completely beside the point.
Variety != difficulty.

No.

From the VERY FIRST post :

(like said above, power curve can be adjusted to get the same "challenge" result without involving any amount of level scaling)


This kind of design, like I said formerly, is just as bad as level scaling, and is not at all a requirement of non-scaled game.
Did you try Fallout 1 ? Totally open-ended, with NO SCALING AT ALL.

This is why I talked about "LOGICAL population distribution". You can have adequate challenges at any level, it just requires to make the world actually more organic and immersive.
It's expected and logical to have tough foes when fighting the elite guard of the Baron of Somewhere, or fighting the leader of the Dread Cult of Whatever. It's not logical when every regular bandit is much stronger because you entered his region last, or that this lair is suddendly full of trolls rather than goblins, or that the Ogre you encountered first is weak and easily beaten despite being three times bigger than you (but hey, you encountered it soon, so obviously it had to be weak !).

Rather than an artificial strict region-based difficulty, a more organic and natural "event-based" difficulty is much better. Like in, having different QUESTS (not randomly-generated crap "please save my daughter, she had been abducted by {player level + X monsters}", more like having from the get-go quests that are logically different in difficulty (the tavernkeeper with some rough guys with more muscles than brains, the guards with better equipped and organized bandits, the mayor requiring some good and experienced diplomat for negociating a contract, the count needing an accomplished adventurer to assassinate some well-protected rival, etc.).
You may travel the previously-dangerous wilds, which are now a walk in the park, but that's not a problem because your challenge are objective-driven and not just the random boar that magically became a daedra.

Disagree with F:NV, as again you actually COULD go where you wanted, just had to actually take danger into account. There was reasons why dangerous foes where here, it was not like if they magically became the new most common races in the world (unlike giant albino radscorpion in FO3), and they actually kept the logical power ranking throughout the game (a supermutant was always strong, not "uber-weak regular supermutant and uber-strong supermutant masters, again like in FO3).
Still there was some level scaling, and it became irritating to see the sudden massive sprout of fire-breathing geckos, but it was much more tolerable than Oblivion and Fallout 3.

I thought it was in all of them?

So two different enemies with the same level has to act and be the exact same? If not, I don't know how level scaling would make the world less unique.

Also with the limited scaling it wouldn't mean that you could go to the most dangerous cave and clean it at level one. It would allow you to travel to any town of your choice in any order you want, you could explore their surroundings and do most of their quests in any order you want. Obviously there still be quests and areas that requires more experience.

Saying how it's "unimmersive" doesn't make any sense either. Level scaling is (or should be) in the background. Fixing the levels after you enter them ensures a sense of continuity, so enemies and items don't just suddenly get better.

Not to mention Morrowind's "everything is a pushover after level 20" thing, which level scaling can easily fix.

I'm happy that they have changed it from the Oblivion level scaling to the one used in Fallout 3.

Hope there isn't DLC that has Albino Mudcrabs or Zombie Reavers

Well, maybe the best of both worlds is:

Level Scaling to THE PLACES: OK

Level Scaling to THE PLAYER: NO

That way, you DO get variety without it feeling like the world revolves around you

All of you guys need to goto IGN.com and look at the video interview with todd howard (or at least I think that's where it is) It could have been a podcast

but I heard from Todd Howards lips that the world dosen't level with you - there are fixed levels that never change

Yes their are some fixed levels and that's a good thing to an extent. Oblivion had them too with the Daedroth, Minotaur, Wolf, Mountain Lion, etc.

Some level scaling is good, some bad, but unique items shouldn't scale.

Actually that's the opposite. LEVEL SCALING creates a world of constant. It makes everything the same everywhere. Where is the variety when things are adjusted to your level ? They are the same, and that's what made Oblivion huge world extremely repetitive : you would see the same thing in every caves/fort/ruins. There could be no special places, because everything was scaled.

I don't know why people makes so often this confusion : "level scaled" is the total opposite of variety. When we say "static", it's only to mean "not related to the level of the player". You can add some randomization and dynamism, just don't index it on the player but on the logical setup of what the world should be.

You can go anywhere with level scaling, but there is no point because everywhere is the same.
And it's false to say that everywhere but the lew level areas is death. The only death-filled zones where the logically dangerous ones : west side of New Vegas, filled with raiders (what's surprising about it being dangerous to wander right into murderous sociopaths' playground ?), one north of the starting zone, filled with plot-driven Deathclaw infestation (again, it was actual plot that they were here, so no "out of the blue supermonsters" like the albino radscorpions, and again it was pretty obvious that it was dangerous). Then some wildlands with cazadores.
Man, that only leave about 90 % of the game to explore, with just requiring you to be a bit logical (don't look for fight untill you've got some experience). I see no problem in it, on the contrary (and the stellar critics New Vegas got tell me I'm probably quite in the right).

Both your examples are actually "not level-scaled", just so you know, and both are acceptable (though it seems pretty obvious that if you include every "natural beast", you could get a "mountain lion" when walking into swamp, which would be rather weird, so the first method, or a more minute grouping in the second, would be better).

Level scaling "à la Oblivion" would mean "The road just northeast of Leyawiin has 15 random enemies, of the "natural beasts" category, which are between player-level -5 and player-level +5".
Which means that when you're lvl 50, you'd encounter some daedric-filled bandits that would ask you for 100 gold while wearing a castle price on their shoulder.

Level scaling "à la Fallout" would mean "The road just northeast of Leyawiin has 15 random enemies, of the "natural beasts" category, which are between player-level (when he entered the zone) -5 and player-level (when he entered the zone) +5".
Which mean you would have a regular town surrounded with normal wildlife, and the next town in the same setting surrounded, somehow, with ultramegasupermutants and titanic albino rampaging radscorpion, because it's pretty logical that if you go later somewhere, it WILL be more dangerous. Duh.

Loot shouldn't scale.

I hate having to wait until evel 30 in order to get items at their full potential e.g. Dark Brotherhood rewards.

Incorrect. I really wish you would read some of the posts people have been making. Instead you're just using the same argument over and over, which has already been proven to hold no water in a discussion of FO3 and, by extension, Skyrim.