I read the original post in this thread and wonder if we're both playing two different games.

My character is level 25 and my biggest complaint with scaling at the moment is that it doesn't seem to be beefing up my opponents at all. At the start of the game the fights were fun and what I expected. They also lasted a reasonable amount of time, which translates to opportunities to raise my melee skills. But now I'm literally killing my adversaries in one or two hits. Many times I chew through a small fraction of my opponent's health with an opening shield-bash, only for my followup swing to turn into a finishing move cut-scene. It's extremely ungratifying to have my opponents dying so quickly.

Currently I really only get a challenge (as in, I have to stop and cast a heal during melee combat) from giants and dragons. I think a large part of the problem is that most of my opponents don't appear to be scaling up to my level. I go into a dungeon and face Restless Draugr in it. Aren't they only level 6? Again, I'm 25. I just finished a dungeon filled with mages, and all but one of them were Adepts and Apprentices. Apprentices are level 6 and Adepts are level 12, according to the guide. There was, however, one Electromancer in the dungeon (and Electromancers are level 36, which explains why he was such a pain in the rear).

Maybe it works differently than I expected it to. I expected to walk into dungeon and encounter opponents at or around my level. For some creatures (dragons) that appears to be working (random dragons changed to blood dragons when I passed level 20), but elsewhere it doesn't seem to be the case. I came in this thread expecting to see complaints about the scaling creating opponents who were too easy and am surprised to see the opposite (that they're too difficult).

For the record, I use gear appropriate to my level and have allowed my skills to evolve naturally.

It's around level 30 when the "WTF!? " tier enemeis start to appear.

But the old enemies are easy to kill, draugr and Sabre Cats go down in two hits with a legendary Deadric Greatsword with skill of 96, restless draugr can't take much more, even Scourges are pushovers. I just think the new enemies have a bit too high difficulty spike.

Getting killed easily by mages i can understand for having only small magic and elemental resistances, but how can a bandit with a dwemer bow kill me in three shots when i'm wearing a Legendary Daedric armor? Well, my skill is only a bit under 70, and i only have one of the AR bonus perks, but still

Hmm, you may be on to something here, I abhor using potions, and usually die first. (Only in moments of pure annoyance, do I break down and use them. It's god mode in a bottle, given a large enough supply, you can't lose. )

Are you guys just chugging potions like there is no tomorrow?

I usually, blast with magic, run out of MP, switch to sword\shield(mix in shouting), and resume casting once my MP recharges, generally after killing a mob, I wait a bit, and move forward. (Still beats spamming potions, though, not super realistic either.)

http://www.flesheatingzipper.com/games/2011/11/skyrim-review-the-only-one-youll-ever-need-to-read/

In that review above, where he talks about "The Ugly", he is talking about level scaling as well. And his point of view is that if a bandit is x difficult to kill, then by level 20, the bandit should be (x - 20) to kill; as in, the bandit should be a lot easier to kill because you've become stronger, more agile, smarter and overall more powerful, as what is typically the case when leveling up.
I think they should get rid of the whole level-scaling thing altogether. Put hard enemies in certain areas and easy ones in other areas and leave it that way.

skyrims levelscaling is way better than oblivions. i died alot on my first character just running around in the game world from city to city. at low levels i encountered cave bears, ice wraith, frost trolls etc and they could all pretty much one shot me and i couldnt do jack squat to them. i didnt do to much dungeon delving on that one so i cant comment on how many dungeons are set above your character but i remember something about the higher you go up in the mountains the tougher the enemies get. maybe the higher the dungeons elevation is the harder the monsters inside are.

that being said i used a mod in oblivion that completely removed level scaling altogether exept roads and settlements for obvious reasons. basically there was an equal chance of level 1 all the way up to level 50 monsters showing up when you entered a dungeon, no matter what level you were. i have to say that that simple change made the game a LOT more challenging and much more intense. sure it meant that there were areas i had to run out of to save my ass at least until the next respawn or i got to a higher level but at the same time it made the game world seem more alive and exciting, at least as exciting as oblivion could get. im hoping someone gets rid of level scaling entirely for skyrim as well because i will install that mod in a heartbeat.

I remember when I was under level 5, I was heading up to High Hrothgar and ran into a snow bear that killed me several times. I now kill snow bears on a higher difficulty in fewer hits, never taking a threatening amount of damage. Same with sabre cats: I went into one cave early on and there were two sabre cats near the entrance. I could not work it out in a way that I came out on top so I left. Sabre cats are cake now.

I recently ran into a bandit camp. I stomped each bandit in two hits or so, but the bandit leader was killing me in a few hits as well and I had to chug some potions and use some shouts to beat him.

I used to avoid giants, but now I can kill them in 1-on-1 combat without even using hit and run tactics or anything cheesy.

I have absolutely no problem with the moderate scaling that Skyrim has. Tons of stuff isn't scaled, and contrary to what people are saying, lots of enemies do get way easier as you level up.

I've yet to see anyone post how non level scaling is bettwr. I see people say that people who want level scaling want easy rewards. No. Those are two diff albet related issues. I want scaling so I don't overpower the game. That's the problem in morrowind. Too soon u were a unstoppable mess. And too early the game 1was linear because if u went the wrong direction u died.

I want a consistant challenge. Scaling is heading coreectly on that atm. The difficulty setting and comp ai needs adjusting however. Why don't I see a dark elf bandit use his racial? And things like that.

Too many ppl are reporting this to consider it a fluke.

I assure you, I'm not losing on purpose to low level trash mobs, something is wrong.

Does the GetLevel command still work, I may try getting some levels on these creatures to figure out what's going on. (What about stats, GetAV work?)

Hmm, I'll probably see what I can do after I get some sleep.

In a roleplaying game, I value immersion and realism (in game realism I mean, complete with dragons/magic) over game play. Scaling done wrong can seriously break immersion, and therefore must be done well or avoided. Because I'd rather steal an artifact from a poorly guarded room and become a level 1 god because of this artifact and have it ruin my experience then have homeless bandits wearing full Glass Armor worth enough to buy several houses. Does that make sense?

I think if scaling is done well and right, it is better than non-scaling. But so many games do it wrong or horribly that I just don't trust them. Mods fix it.

EG Good scaling - in Dragon Age: Origins, there is a growing doom taking over the land (The Blight). At first it is weak, and the monsters you encounter are weak and your player level is weak. But later, as your character is stronger, the darkspawn monsters are stronger because the Blight has grown. You face more of them and their stronger brood who have now surfaced. But you still face the original darkspawn from the beginning and can own them. That is good scaling and makes sense.

EG Bad scaling - well...Oblivion bandits wearing Glass Armor while living on the side of the road in makeshift camps. Or in Skyrim, a bear killed a dragon the other night because the Snow Bear was scaled to me and the random dragon was gimped for some reason. Bad scaling.

Unique loot should never scale to the characters level. It should be static or at the very least, as an artifcat, grow in power with your character. I have just read about some item that is gimped to the level you find it at, which is seriously the worst aspect of scaling and I can't see why anyone with a brain would defend that. It encourages linear game play.

I agree, level scaling svcks and should be tossed out the window never to be used again. I'm kind of irritated that bandits are just as difficult - if not even more so - at level 17 as they were at level 3. I'm thankful that at least they aren't wearing dwarven armor and stuff, but it is still annoying.

OP didn't put any points into health. I don't get 1shot on master difficulty and I'm a paper mage with 0 armor rating. Get about 400hp and you can take 2 hard hits without any armor at all.

At master difficulty you are expected to know what you are doing and plan carefully, utilizing all of your ability to overcome any obstacle. Some self-regulation may be required in order to achieve a challenge.

For me I had to stop using pacify, it just isn't fun to aoe pacify an entire room of enemies it trivialized the encounter. You also need to regulate your fortify enchantments to avoid having free spells, which is possible very early in the game.

I believe that some + difficulty mods might be in order to make it to where you can still utilize all of your abilities without it feeling like cheating.

Like if Pacify were on a 10 minute cooldown with a chance to resist, health and mana potions on a 2 minute cooldown, paralyze have a chance to resist.

Another thing might be stuff like bosses and dragons can't be staggered. etc etc

How is this possible? Cats killed me early and now they are a bit more pesky than wolves. taking no more than three shots from my arrow, well five now that I increased difficulty. I'm level 27.

I am not completely against level scaling, it is necessary!

The problem in Skyrim is, that it is not very well done. In both Fallout games there was level scaling. After Oblivion I was very skeptical about Fallout 3, but in Fallout 3 Bethesda redeemed themselves in my eyes. The game had level scaling, but you could feel it only if you watched. Raiders in level 1 were weaker than the same raiders in level 10 or so. But all raiders stopped to be dangerous after level 10 or 12. The mercenary group which hunted your character if you did not activate the bomb in Megaton were stronger from the beginning and leveled with you up to level 16 or so.

I did not research this in the game lists - this was how I felt it.

With the third DLC they inserted a new layer of difficulty, but still you can start a new game, and play it through without meeting enemies too strong for you, and still the game stays interesting with higher level characters. A very good example is the first DLC (Alaska) - it could be done in level 6, and it could be done in level 16! It was about the same.

In Skyrim certain enemies level in an inconsistent way. Saber Cats are not a problem for my character (level 30), but certain bandit leaders are, and certain mages are too a problem. I think this can be different depending on the character you play - I am a mage wearing only robes.

But the old problem still exists - raise the 'wrong' skills and the game adjusts its difficulty accordingly to your overall skills, and not according to the things you have done! You cannot use your Speak skill in all cases. So - in what differs Skyrim from Fallout 3 - except the different genres of course? The main difference is the XP system - in Fallout you receive XP for quests and for killed monsters. In Skyrim only your level gain and not your achievements in the game determine level and difficulty.

I think, the problem lies with a system, where skills are raised by using them, and your level is connected to this. Either the skills should be weighted against their value in terms of difficulty, or ES changes the system, so that you can receive XP for slain monsters/bandits and for quests, and your XP determines your level and the scaling. It is interesting, that the level scaling worked nearly perfectly in a game, where the XP system was used, and in the other (ES) system there a many discussions about it and always a certain degree of discomfort.

Again - I am not saying, that level scaling is wrong, and I think it is needed. But in FO3 we also had a free world ready to explore - and level scaling worked IMHO. In Skyrim level scaling is much better than it was in Oblivion, but still not as good as in FO3. There are bandit types (yes they have different names, but they are still bandits) who are much too strong for this type, even if they have no special weapons or armor. It is unbelievable, that bandits are that strong - give these 'bandits' good equipment and let them do the dragon slaying...
There are NPCs named 'Thief', who should be more accurately named 'Robber' by the way. These 'thieves' level with you constantly - and they also have much better equipment when they scale. They are not a problem but they just do not fit. I can accept that the DB assassins level with you, but the normal highwaymen??

So - I think Skyrim should be corrected or modded, that it behaves like it was stated before release: Enemies scale with you, but every enemy type has a range and will not go higher than a certain level. And this means the entire type range, 'Bandits' for example. It does not help, when 'Bandits' with fanciful names like 'Bandit Outlaw' are used - a bandit is a bandit, and should stay in his level range. Consider this - you have a cave at level 1-2 with bandits near Riverwood. These bandits you can slay in level 1-3 without big problems. Now in level 30 I still have bandits, and they are really dangerous to me sometimes, but they still are bandits. I can slay a frost dragon without too much problems, and a bandit chief is more a problem to me? I think this is not optimal.

Maybe they had trouble to think of fitting enemies for higher leveled characters? So they invented 6 layers of bandits, to level scale them? I did hope for more...

Magus
(Play ES since Arena)

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Morrowind do a brilliant job of this? That game was full of dangerous places you knew you couldn't set foot in until you were very powerful. And when you got to a high level you could demolish low level enemies like bandits.

I think it's just in Oblivion that they started to go wrong with the leveling. And yes it is still terrible in Skyrim.

Fixing scaling:

Animals:
1: Wolf (1--5)
2: Bear cub (4-8)
3: Young sabretooth (6-10)
4: Bears (8-15)
5: Ice Wolf (10-15)
6: Sabretooths (12-20)
7: Cave Bears (15-20)
(7,2: Polar bears / white bears)
8: Whatever black cats from the hells (lightning) 20-30
9: Whatever wolves from the hells (frost) 25-40
10: Whatever bears from the hells (fire) 30-50

Beasts:
1: Mudcrab
2: Skeever

3: Young troll
4: Dragon Hatchling
5: Troll
6: Wisp
7: Adolecent dragom
8: Ice Wraith
9: Wispmother
10: Vanilla fire dragon
11: Whatever...
50: Giant
51: Old dragon
52: Ancient dragon
53: Freaking "gods"

Most importantly however:

PEOPLE:
1: Diseased children
2: Civilians (<5)
3: Bandits (<8)
4: Smith civilians (<10)
5: Guard recruits and younger adventurers (5-10)
6: Seasoned bandits and mercenaries (7-12)
7: Bandits who live by the sword (8-15)
8: Regular guards and bandit band-leaders (bandit officers if you will; Second in command) (10-17)
9: Military and trained mages (10-15)
10: Seasoned adventurers and bandit leaders (12-20)
11: Guard officers and experienced mercenaries (15-20)
12: Criminal masterminds and retired successful adventurers (15-45)
13: Military officers and powerful mages, leaders of massive bands of bandits and necromancy guilds (25-35)
14: The aristocrats who profit from the bandits and pull the strings from within their castles; The psycopaths who do anything for power (1-50)
15: Military generals and archmages: 30-45


All people above tier 9 should have names, and background stories, and should ALWAYS have dialogue -- just in case.
And they should have glowing swords, armor or freaking glowing eyes, and should not fill a cave.
Challenge in numbers should be used more than challenge in nameless level-scaled generic bandits.

People can use beasts and animals and summons to up the challenge.
War-bears anyone?
War-dogs?

Castles are perfect for keeping high level enemies.
The archers dropping your health by 90% in one arrow should send the messsage.
The master lockpick gates.
Or their war-bears. Or the summoned frost-atronach coming after you as you near the fort.
Or the dead giant, laying peppered with arrows right outside the gate. Or the enemies who barely bother to attack you when your arrow only deals 10% damage to their chainmail, and laugh at you for your pathetic effort.
Their coordinated AI, summoning more archers who fire a volley of arrows against your general position from out of your sight, explained by the other archers seeing the trajectory of the first arrow and firing to hit around the same spot -- while the AI simply picks a grid near the grid the first guy shot at.

Or the guards warning you about the threath ahead and mark the map with the location, marked dangerous.
In any case, Diablo II taught everyone how speeding up movement animation and changing skin colors from light brown to black, blue or red cause regular mobs to look dangerous and higher-leveled, perfect for higher tier mobs of the same base creature.

Yes true. Morrowind was nearly completely done by hand, I think. Every cave or dungeon had at least a small story to tell, mostly by the things, journals and the entire situation you found. Oblivion was a huge disappointment because of this, since all these places looked like copied to me. But it was much less work...

Skyrim has the old tradition, were you have first rate dungeon design, not everywhere but in many caves and dungeons. So Skyrim is much better in this, but level scaling is automated, and so the designer only has to use a spawn named 'Bandit'. He does not need to think "which level should this location be, which loot, which enemies? ". And the Radiant quest system with automatically generated quests needs this - if you receive a quest for a certain cave in level 6 and much later in the game you receive a quest for the same cave in level 40, the cave has changed. And to be fair, its all changed. The cave, riddles and traps and so forth are all in the same place (if you can remember it) but they are all active again and the containers are filled with new loot, and things standing around change too. Well done actually - but not the excitement from hand designed dungeons...

Imagine 1st leaving the Helgen City after its demise, and after running down the road, you spot a fortress full of bandits and criminals that have made a name for themselves, dressed in extremely powerful gear, knowing that if you tried to approach said area you would be torn to shreds with the amount of power and skill these men would bare down on your pathetic meager flesh. But the wonderment of knowing that such things, such adventures, and such treasures exist in this world. A world that you will later have the opportunity to witness again, this place of power, but the next time, you will be wearing their armor, their weapons and their bounties on your shoulders and as you stand over their limp lifeless bodies as you ventured forth to become ever mightier to accomplish such a feat. But for now, you venture down the path of obscurity, not knowing if you would ever be able to become one so great. Your journey, NOW, finally begins.



ISNT THIS THE WHOLE [censored] POINT OF AN ADVENTURE RPG?

level scaling is a crutch that allows them to make excuses for poor design and lack of innovative ideas and overall unpolished gameplay.

I agree with the OP 100 [censored] percent

The first thing I did to Oblivion was to unscale everything. Enemies, quest rewards, everything. It made the game amazing!

So far I'm finding Skyrim alright, but again, once my PC can run it I'll unscale everything again.

Yes, this is a game. It should be fun, and for some that's living in a persistent world. I love that "oh [censored]" moment where you accidentally enter a vampire lair and have to to run for your life. On the flipside I like getting my guy to the point where the average bandit is no match for me. A world where once I have overcome every mortal challenge it takes the intervention of the gods to get me sweating is really fun for me. Of course that's only after hundreds of hours of playing. It just makes logical sense to be able to rise up and beat the odds, lie the heroes of old. I bet Tiber Septim or Gaiden Shinji didn't get wupped by the average bandit on a regular basis.

Now, only your fellow PC elitists will take you seriously. Good job!

Someone hasn't played Morrowind. Well, guess what? Morrowind had zero, that's right ZERO level scaling. Everything in the game was a set level. That did not stop me from fully exploring and enjoying the game at Levels 1-10 on multiple characters, provided I actually used tactics to kill things.

Sure, some fights were hard as hell, but that's the freaking point. Challenge brings reward, a system long since lost from the transition to Oblivion and Skyrim from Morrowind. Believe me, very few things are as satisfying and rewarding as beating Tribunal at Lv 4.

Now, we have Bandits using Fur/Leather with Iron Weapons that are somehow magically equal to that of Daedric. Hell, at least in Oblivion they actually wore Daedric, instead of this nonsense. Now, enemy mages? Good god, if players had their spells no one would be complaining about Destruction being pathetically weak. Something is horribly wrong if I take off my 100% magic resist gear and my Level 63 Warrior with 800HP gets 1 shotted by an Apprentice level spell on Master Difficulty.

Now lets get into the completely inconsistent and utter stupidity of enemy strengths. Bears and Sabercats are more of a threat than a Dragon. Explain to me how the hell that works. How exactly are Dragons supposed to be wreaking havoc and bringing fear across Skyrim, when Bears and Sabercats can kill them?

So yeah, continue to live in your imaginary world where level-scaling is better than not having it at all. I honestly can't wait till the Creation Kit is released so someone can remove level scaling and make everything appropriately as strong as they should be, for the second time.

dragon age origins is actually quite similar to skyrims. you still get weak enemies thrown in. whats different is the story works for the scaling better ten skyrim. skyrim throws a freaking dragon at you at what? level 4-8ish? its a byproduct of a sandbox style game.

now scaling items is different. im against scaling items, i also however think certain very powerful items should be level restricted (only gets applied at higher difficulty). so you can get the uber powerful artifact of awesomeness at level 1, but unless your on the easiest setting, your not gonna be able to use it until later.

and bandits can be scaled witout there armor/weapons automatically changing to something unreasonable.

what i hate is this concept that you HAVE to become godlike or there is no point in leveling. in fact leveling needs a big fat decrease in importance in power. you want realism within the world. whether it be iron or ebony, if that sword hits flesh its gonna hurt. the difference in damage shouldnt be so great, and id even go as far as to say there should be other reasons to use different armors/weapon types other ten just damage. like say elven is much lighter, daedra could poison or something (just random ideas)

just because your level 40, doesnt mean your a god, that bandits blade if it hits flesh will hurt regardless. I think that would make it more interesting, i mean, i see multiple posts in here complaining how bandits are still troublesome in the upper teens...what...you want tem to fall onto there own swords for you too?

Morrowind actually did have SOME level scaling. Remember the animals who also had diseased and blighted versions pop up as well? Though that was about the extent of it.

That bit about enemy mages though is spot on. They have infinite magicka with the health pools of warriors, wielding basically a machine gun. This is crap. Use lightning to drain their magicka? You are FAR more likely to just outright kill them before that ever happens.

The problem with static items and creatures is that the game will be identical every time you play it. Bethesda wants you to play the game over and over again. You can't do that with a static game, you can only do that with a random/scaled game. Not sure how to make that concept clearer.

There are already a million games out there that aren't worth playing more than once. Please don't add the Elder Scrolls to that trash heap.

its been said multiple times that morrowdin in fact did have level scaling, in fact skyrim is closer to morrowind in terms of scaling then it is oblivion.

and i played morrowind. heres why it didnt feel repetitive...look at the morrowind map...IT FREAKING HUGE, make skyrim look tiny. it linear in a sense that you can travel 5 different directions instead of just 1 and manage because of how big the game is. as opposed to the full 20 (arbitrary numbers)

skyrim doesnt have that scope to it, so if you give static strengths, it WILL be more linear. you will have a handful of directions you will be able to go at any one point instead of anywhere.

and even then levels 1-20ish in current skyrim you can be met with insurmountable odds like mammoths, giants, saber tooths, trolls (ran into two trolls at level 5, i had no chance at all). so dont go acting like it oblivion either.

you complain about bandit damage...turn down the difficulty? if a arrow hits you or a sword hits you (you, not your armor) its gonna hurt regardless. your "level" should only have minimal impact on that.

anyways i played morrowind, it was fun, interesting, terribly unbalanced (wich isnt a horrible thing as its a single player game) and by level 20 (way too early) the entire game gets kinda trivial and boring.

morrowind at level 20 didnt feel much diff then skyrim at level 40, you steamroll everything.

lack of level scaling DOES make a game more linear, is it strict ABC stuff? no, but its more linear...simple reason. that cave that you couldve tackled before now has high level stuff you cant handle at your current level, you gotta work around it.

oh and your "smart combat" in morrowind is laughable, the game combat is so sloppy there is no technique, just abusing AI and abusing skills/items/spells you get. tough as nails? hardly

hell i still play it today sometimes....people need to take off these rose tinted glasses!

i can see your point there too. imagine skyrim with the weapon/armor generating power beind borderlands O.o

you could get fus do rah daggers or something lmao