Logically, certain creatures of even the same type, can have quite different physical abilities. Each creature in the game, can realistically have a small level range it can spawn in, to create a semblance of natural variance.

But that's a whole different story.


I think OP doesn't recognize, that the game (Fallout 3 in particular) pretty much only scales Up to increase challenge, and doesn't scale areas designed as "High Threat" Down, just because the player found it earlier.

Where as Oblivion scaled every inch of the game, to match the player's level.

I did and I finished it. It was much less "in your face" than Oblivion, but the level scaling was VERY noticeable. And yes, Fallout 3 had very pervasively leveled enemies, you yourself gave the example of regular supermutants and supermutant masters. I was starting to grind my teeth when I could kill a supermutant at level 4, and that some level later this same kind of supermutant was weaker than a regular raider - just because I encountered the raider in a later zone.
Yes, some monsters had level "floors" (the deathclaws are certainly not killable at level 4, I admit), but it was still much too leveled to keep internal consistency between the lore and the mechanics.

Which part of "Yes, but I was using them in the more abstract "how the world is feeling" sense." escapes you ? Scenario 1 gives me the feeling of a more varied world. Sure, perhaps not "dynamic" in the strictest meaning, but with more variety, more discovery, which can be a form of dynamism.
Now if you really want to be anol about words, yeah, "dynamic" is not the good word to use, but if you, like you say just below, "know what you're trying to say", just point at the "you misused the word" and get on with the idea, will you ?

No, I don't want "player-level scaled world". I want a world with depth, which has content for every level in a logical manner and at logical places. It's the opposite of a "dynamically scaled world based on player level".
If you're going to nitpick at semantic, do you know what means "world scaled on the player level" ?

No they are not. The Deathclaw has a floor level, that's all, so it will never be scaled back to level 1, but it also levels with you when you breach its floor level, until you reach its ceiling level.
And yes a supermutant is a lot weaker than a supermutant master, where did I said the opposite ?

And the "challenge" thing is getting tiresome, especially seeing how much times it's disproven. The scenario 1 is more challenging than the 2, you do realize ? Challenge is not dependant on level scaling or not, it's depending on difficulty tuning.

This x9000

There are many open world RPGs without level scaling, like Fallout 1 and 2, Gothic series, Risen etc. It depends on what you want. Level scaling doesn't make a game more or less linear, just less challenging. In modern games, accessibility is a priority over challenge. I prefer not being able to kill a dragon until my character is level 20 +, but I guess that this would be too hardcoe for modern standards.

Which you got from a quote discussing Open Exploration.

You say Open exploration means you have a world to explorer, yeah with some form of level scaling you actually do, with your system we have a world to explorer, going the path neatly predetermined for us.

Fallout 3's scaling worked because of perks - you gained abilities that the enemies have no access to, and thus become stronger. If Skyrim's perks give you the edge you need to dispatch enemies of equal or greater strength than the PC, then the system is doing its job.

Though I agree that New Vegas really improved on this system. Why they're using Fallout 3 as a model instead of New Vegas, I do not know.

I never said it was perfect. But your static and Dead world solution is even worse.

Also, I can kill Deathclaws at Level 4, It's called use a Dart Gun.




From what I can gather, you have a problem with the Same Type of enemy being illogically stronger. It makes sense that a Super Mutant is weaker than a Master, no matter where it spawns, but it doesn't make sense that a Raider is Stronger than any Super Mutant? (A logical fallacy, since the player is, for all intents and purposes, a Raider, and can kill Super Mutants)

If the Raiders were Stronger than a Super Mutant before level scaling, would you have a problem with it? What if, instead of a Raider, you encounter an Enclave Hellfire at the same spot, but because you're higher level, he appeared instead? That's level scaling too.

Just cut out the level scaling, everyone was happy without it

Yes, and the less scaling there was, the better the game.
So it rather prove my point.


Leveled zones, I already talked about it. If it's a logical situation, then it's good and nice.
But if it's just to have "super warlord goblins" because everyone in this cave is magically level 25 (because it's, you know, an arbitrarily "level 25 cave" where everything that lives in it, from Supermegagoblins to Ultragigarats, is level 25 "just because", then it's just barely better than the more direct world level scaling from Oblivion.


Yes, and it's both more realistic and more varied to have this range between members of the same race. Having weaker and stronger creatures, and not everyone at the same level, is good.
But this difference must always be true, and not be dependant of the player level. If creature X can go from level 5 to level 10, then I should always be able to encounter level 5 to level 10 of them (in the appropriate circumstances, of course, like maybe their strongest members are usually the chieftain of the tribes/broodmothers/etc.).
But if I only encounter level 5 of the creature X when I'm level 4, and only level 10 when I'm level 15... Then it's not about the variance in the same race, it's just dumb, raw scaling - and if the ceiling and the floor are apart enough to encompass a majority of the gaming situation, then you have something like Dragon Age, which PRETENDED to have "moderate level scaling", and in practice was just EXACTLY like Oblivion, with 1:1 scaling for 90 % of the game (you just didn't notice as much because they weren't dropping daedric gear, but a look at the config files shown that in fact nearly every foe was exactly the same save for one or two abilities and the skin...).

As said above, not only the "the creatures of this area are of this arbitrary level" is downright dumb and anti-immersive, but if the floor level of the zone is low enough, then it's much like if there was total level scaling. And this was the case in FO3 with, again, the supermutants, which started to appear VERY soon (as I said, I could see one and kill him from level 4).
So they just felt very "deleveled" right from the start, and didn't feel at all like the powerful foes they should have been. I expected to run from them until I was quite experienced. Big disappointment :-/

it was fine in FO3 and NV though, why cut it?

I liked Morrowind's level scaling...

as long as there are places on the map that would scare the hell out of my level 2 character, I'd be fine. It feels so good to be able to kill a person easily, who once did the same to you.

I am having a really hard time making sense of what you're saying Akka, you support scaling in one paragraph, then oppose it in another.

I really don't think you understand the mechanics behind it all.


But let me ask this; the Exact same enemy should not scale with the player. But it's okay for the same area to spawn new and stronger enemies later?

Level scaling in Fallout 3, great.
Level scaling in Fallout NV, garbage.

Either way, it's all better than Oblivion's.

Funny you mention Fallout 1 and 2, because there's really one order you can visit the towns at the beginning.
If you don't like killing rats in Klamath and you would rather instantly go to Vault City, better be prepared to die a lot along the way...

Oh and Gothic... I still have nightmare about finding the New Camp...

You can go wherever you want, but if you travel a lot between cities, be prepared to die more often. Some areas are more challenging than the other and in my opinion, that's how it should work.

You're wrong x9000, and if you had actually bothered to read, you would know why.


You can explore it. You may just risk getting killed. This doesn't make it "non-explorable", it makes it "dangerous".
You have some places more dangerous than others, which means that not everything is the same, which is good, and which is the point of having something to explore - because if everything is the same, what is there to explore ?

I said it several times, but you seem to fail at getting it : "explorable" doesn't mean "without danger", and it would be pretty idiotic, in fact, to have a RPG without danger.
You also seem to fail at understanding that "dangerous points" doesn't mean "linear". It's not because you will get killed if you rush into Mariposa at level 1 that Fallout 1 was not openly explorable.

No, it's better.
First, it's not "dead". Inflating the levels of creatures and loot doesn't make a world "alive" (or maybe your criteria for RPG worlds are more in tune with Diablo and less with an actual RPG). What makes a world alive is the setting, the story, the characters and the like. Actually, like I said and like you PRETENDED to understand formerly, a rather static-leveld world tends to be more alive, because it's much less "mechanical/meta-gamed". Having the adequate creatures in the adequate places is more believable than having arbitrarily scaled creatures and the world that distort around the player.


I've a problem with power level not being in tune with in-game lore and logic. Considering how many times I've said it, I'm wondering if you're purposedly missing the point here. Do I need to repeat for the sixth times the examples about logical increase in difficulty and believable distribution of creatures and the like, or will you actually read and get them ?

Yeah, I don't understand people mistaking games like Fallout: New Vegas for Open world. They apply very clear barriers to the game. The Deathclaws at Quarry Junction exist only to drive the player south. You actually, are not free to do what you want.

Same goes for the Cazadores at the Tribal Village north of Goodsprings. They exist to block your path, and no other reason. I have managed to kill them from Sniper Positions (Since they can't fly, despite having wings), but to call New Vegas, and any Fallout game, save the Third, is a lie. Just because you can break the natural Progression of Goodsprings -> Primm -> Nipton -> Boulder City -> New Vegas Strip, doesn't mean the game isn't designed linear.

This times 1,000,000.

There is no difference between a Physical barrier, and an implied barrier. Just because you can break the game's natural progression does not mean that it isn't a barrier.


Not It's not better. And a dynamic scaling world does not mean that there is no Lore, story, characters, ect. A static world is by definition, a mechanically dead one. If you can't see that, then I am just glad you're not a Game designer.



I think you have no point, personally. You still refuse to answer the questions I give to give me a clear picture of your ramblings. Believable Distribution of Creatures, and Scaling are not mutually exclusive. Again, if you don't understand that, we're all lucky you're not designing games for a living.

Man, half of the bad arguments in favour of level scaling are about how without it the game is too easy, and the other half is about how people are unable to grasp that "exploration" doesn't mean "I can kick the butt of a dragon at level 1" :rolleyes:

Just to reiterate what has been said countless times before, the Elder Scrolls series has been implementing level scaling in some form since Daggerfall. It was certainly there in Morrowind, but it was minute enough to not really be noticeable. Level scaling has become a term that people instantly associate with Oblivion's horrendous level scaling system, but, when used correctly, level scaling can really enhance the game when it strikes a balance between providing challenge and a sense of character improvement. Oblivion leaned way too far towards providing a constant challenge, and as a result, it sometimes actually felt as if our characters were getting weaker as we leveled them. Fallout 3 did much better in terms of this.

Really? I've done exactly that on multiple playthroughs of FO:NV. :shrug:

Todd has clearly said he goes looking for things to remove from the games. Who can guess what I suggest he remove? :thumbsup:

So there should be one designed route, which you should stray away you would feel the consequences...

... Yeah, that's not a truly open world.

EDIT:

Okay, there's obviously a communication problem here.

You shouldn't be able to kill Ancient Dragons at level one, nobody said that! Yes there still should be areas that are more difficult than the others. But you should be able to reach all the cities any time you want, you should be able to do their quest any time you want, and they should be challenging all the time.

It's not that the game is too easy, it's that the game is too predictable. How you fail to see that is just an example of why you aren't making any sense in the big picture. You have a lot of good points, but none address the pressing issue of predictability, and thus, loss of exploratory thrill.

Part of the thrill of exploring is not knowing, and in a dead, static world, you know what's around every turn.

But they weren't "dangerous" in New Vegas, they were borderline impossible. Having some level scaling means you can go different routes in the world, complete the game in a entirely different sequence. Things will exactly not be the same because you can approach an area at a different time and level than your previous character, providing new challenges, couple that with the fact that your character will also have specialized in a different set of skills, and boom, it's an entirely new experience.



nobody is proposing a game without danger. You gotta stop this hyperbole. You haven't even thought about the fact that different enemies can have variating degrees of danger, regardless of the fact that their level is close to yours. If your a mage, than a brute barbarian of a similar level is not gonna be a cakewalk because of the very fact of what he is.

Enemies of levels close to yours is not a guarantee of safety, for christ sake the whole reason why Level scaling was added to the extent that it was in Oblivion, was because everything became incredibly easy in Morrowind once you started to approach level 15. By level 20 you were practically a god.