First off the game is a good one, the game world is as usual exceptional. The artwork remarkable, and I for one appreciate the fact Bethesda made this game so optimized where it looks like a next gen Elderscrolls game running on the same hardware practically. That is probably one of the most impressive feats I have seen from this company.

I think though that Bethesda has shown a total lack of creativity in how it actually improved on some elements of game play and also how it dumbed down aspects of the game, as well as leaving in scaled enemies....really why? What is blatantly obvious to any experienced Oblivion mod enthusiast is that Bethesda copied most all of the popular mods and put them into Skyrim...it does make sense. Had they not done this there would be a never ending barrage of complaints that a modded Oblivion was actually more full featured (it still probably is). So it seems as far as progressing combat and general gameplay Bethesda just turned to copying mods like Deadly Reflexes, Windows lit at night, the Companion mods, and so on. Some of the really surprising additions where the bards in the taverns, the voice acting in general is actually excellent in this game so it was nice to see this sort of thing added.


SCALING
The biggest problems with this game is how it ONCE AGAIN scales enemies. Having a character who is level 41 getting one shotted by a vagrant in the sewers of Riften is absurd, just like slaying a dragon at level 1 is ridiculous....see how this works in theory a vagrant in the sewers of riften should be the greatest dragon slayer in all of Tamriel. This is one area where Bethesda has just been plain lazy CONSISTENTLY. Having a character grow and develop is pointless when things scale with you. I am just confused, why even put in a leveling system at all? Just keep everyone level 1....get rid of it. I swear I think Bethesda is incapable of making a rpg with decent character development. I honestly believe they do not know how. To say the very least a world where varying degrees of danger exist is one of the most rewarding gameplay experiences you can have. Werewolves should be very high level encounters....just like vampires should be deadly to low level characters...and slaying dragons should be left only to the mightiest.

You could have areas designed for high level adventure. Where everyone knows only the bravest or strongest dare enter. Like a ancient vampire castle surrounded by dark woods that destroy any but the strongest. This would give someone something to look forward too. You might see the dark forest woods on the map or wander by it not daring to go in until you have properly prepared yourself by developing skills, magic and acquiring the proper equipment. When you simply make a scaled world it makes your world bland devoid of any wonder or challenge. Having varying degrees of challenge that are intelligently woven into the gameworld, give your world character. Skyrim is just like oblivion, very gorgeous but devoid of any character. And it is why Bethesda's games always get bland and old (without mods). Its like you do the 75% of the hardwork creating the gameworld but forget to breathe life into it by using difficulty and challenge to tell the story of your world or to help direct the player. It also undermines your entire character development system. Which is a shame.

Think about this Bethesda people can actually screw themselves by leveling certain skills and leveling up. If you raise speech or lockpicking you will somehow magically populate the world with higher leveled enemies. The whole concept is fail. Why to you stubbornly stick to this scaled enemy system? It is seriously hindering you in creating a masterpiece of a game. You have made once again a beautiful game with that is basically a facade with duct tape and rubberbands holding up the framework. Your scaling system is complete krap, please quit being lazy, hire some people to plan your gameworld intelligently so that you can add more mystery, danger, and a compelling storyline to your game. The story line just like quests in general cannot be compelling when there is no danger...you can always complete them...because everything scales. You dont even need to level your character or get involved in character development at all.

Difficulty
As many I suspect, i tried to overcome the lameness of enemy scaling using the difficulty slider. And well its a pretty sad state of affairs....just like oblivion. All it does is increase health, mana, and I guess damage of the enemies. And since everything scales you just get to look forward to every lowlife, bum, and thief one shotting you. I mean I am in fully enchanted glass armor and a man without a shirt and a stick he found in the woods comes up to me and one shots me. Yeah thanks. But I think the difficulty slider is kind of a symptom of the level scaling anyways. Its just plain awful and its random. But lets be frank here, why do you have drain magicka or stamina skills in this game? You give enemy mages infinite mana, archers infinite arrows, warriors infinite stamina. All this to cover up shoddy enemy AI and remove "exploits".....we are paying a high price for your attempts to cover up krappy AI. Personally I could live with krappy AI if my spells and abilities actually had a point. Just for the love of god get rid of scaling and get rid of all these inconsistencies where the enemies basically cheat. Its not all about challenge here, its about trying to roleplay a mage destroyer character and having no way to mana drain a mage, despite having spells and skills to do so. I would rather live with gamebreaking abilities than immersion destroying difficulty "gimicks". I mean I just am getting tired of mages who machine gun off master level destruction spells faster than I can shoot my bow. Having played a mage I know I would be done in about 6 casts unless I used the enchantment Opedness.

Other than that I guess the game is great...I just wonder if Bethesda will ever wake up. They seem to be going in the wrong direction more and more...and if this game gets any more dumbed down it might should be put in ages 3-8 section of Toys are Us next time. The biggest draw of this game for me is it is a sandbox, a base for future mods.

If you can slay a dragon at level one all by yourself in the hardest difficulty, well done.

The main problem I have with scaling is having to wait until I'm level 40 to get gear that will remain useful.

Guy this isnt real life. Yea a guy with no shirt and a knife might have a powerful attack. This is a GAME. Meant to be fun. I personally like that there is still a challenge at higher levels. This was my biggest gripe about Morrowind.

I think the level scaling is great and much improved because I feel challenged and rewarded when appropriate. That's my honest review.

Jeez do you people even look at other threads? This is getting incredibly redundant. Why do people need new threads to say the same thing or discuss the same topic the last 1,278 threads had. Your opinion did not need a new thread started, as you bring nothing new to the discussion that has not been said before. If you want to share, put it in another thread that discusses peoples opinions of the game. You are not special, nobody values your opinion above anyone else.

While I somewhat agree, I think leveling is important if only because it creates a good way of distributing perks.

Perks are what makes combat easier, not the number of your level.

Gear is another matter entirely ofc.

WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN THAT WITHOUT LEVEL SCALING THE GAME WOULD NOT WORK! Grrr...rage over

Oh please do explain...it works just fine, much better than a bland world with no challenge that negates the underpinnings of character development. Having high level areas and areas for lower level adventuring has been done in COUNTLESS rpgs. It makes those games more compelling to play. Skyrim is a great sandbox, but this auto scaling will always be what makes their games less than superb. Oblivion's biggest mod removed level scaling, this is one mod Bethesda did not copy and integrate into Skyrim. And anyone who replies something a long the lines of "this is not real life" is a fool. Really? I mean people here don't know that right? Are you adding anything by saying such krap? Get a few braincells run them together and try to say something more articulate. We are talking about good gameplay here, and scaled enemies make the world bland and mind boringly predictable.

Also love the fact that armor and weapons are doled out to me at the "appropriate levels" in the shops.

But hey you can run around all awesomesauce and leet with dual daedric weapons without giving a thought to what your are doing amrite? Ah yeah man grab me an Xbox controller and run around mashing the X button pwnign everything.

If every other thread on a forum is a gripe about the same issue, Bethesda will get the message. If every complaint we had was just said once and then allowed to drift off, nothing would ever get changed.

Actually, the difficulty level DOES change enemy AI. On Adept I could spam power attacks all day long and not have to worry about the enemy bashing. On master they have to already have been staggering or else they ALWAYS bash me, so it stop my power attack.
Seems simple but it DOES make a difference

IMO having leveled enemies would destroy the exploration aspect of the game. And why write a tiny essay about why scaling is bad when most people don't give a crap?

Yeah, running around in Riften inside a suit made of dragon bones, weilding daedric weaponry and I get my ass kicked by a guy in hide armor with a flimsy iron sword. <_<

Scaling in Skyrim isn't excellent, but it's a huge step in the right direction. And can you blame Bethesda for doing it like this? No, people have requested scaling like in Skyrim since Oblivion's release.

Besides, without scaling the replay value of the game will take a huge drop. I'd rather they keep scaling in and keep experimenting (though nothing too extreme) than to drop it immediately.

No level scaling at all would restrict the freedom of the game, you simply couldn't go to some places if you aren't at some specific level and that would be also bad. I like the way it has been done in Skyrim, much better than what it was in Oblivion, you feel that you are getting better and better, but there is still some difficulty, being immortal gets easily boring.

Wahey sterotypes!
Let's assume there is not any level scaling. What do you propose, have different areas contain fixed, same level loot and enemies? What happens when you level up and are able one shot everthing in that area? It becomes redundant, so you move on to the next 'tier' area. The same happes: you become too powerful and it becomes boring. Until BAM, you are level 60 and nothing is a challenge, then what?

There are two camps... those that play these games for exploration, and those that play for advancement. TES caters to the explorer, while games like Diablo and TQ cater to those that like advancement. You start this game powerful, and you end it powerful. Level doesn't increase your power, and people need to get used to that or play another game.

Level scaling is an essential component of open world, sandbox games. Without level scaling you have a linear game that is only fun the first couple times you play it. IMO, anyway.

Maybe you like playing exactly the same thing every time, but I have a feeling level scaling is a big reason why people keep playing this game in spite of its flaws, whether they know it or not. You can argue that the scaling isn't perfect, but I, for one, would hate playing a statically leveled game where everything was always the same every time I played it. Save that for linear games that pretend to be RPGs, not RPGs.

Bingo. Like it or not; without scaling the replay value would be absolutely butchered.

Also, OP, insulting people that have a different opinion doesn't really help your cause.

Most of which were more or less linear, even if they had an open world? In Fallout the difficulty changes as you go south, in Fallout 2 as you go clockwise around the worldmap, Arcanum had a mountain range you couldn't cross without metagaming which separated the game into two parts...

Now compare this with Skyrim - once you do Whiterun you're free to go wherever you want. More importantly, the game does not TELL you where you SHOULD go. You can go to Winterhold if you're a mage. Or you might get drunk with Sam and end up in Markarth, which is opposite end of Winterhold map-wise. Or you can go to Azura shrine, or to Solitude to join the Imperial Legion...

And the problem with freedom is not that the player enters an area that is too hard. It's that he enters an area that is too easy. Imagine 1/3 of dungeons in the game were for low-level characters, 1/3 for mid-level characters, and 1/3 were endgame locations. Now imagine all of them are mixed together and scattered all around Skyrim(if you group them then the game would be like examples in first paragraph - not really an open world at all). Would you want to spend half an hour killing bandits in some random cave only to reach a chest with 51 gold and a Golden Necklace at the end of it when you're level 40?

With level scaling, the enemies are always worth killing and the loot is always notable. The game locations are always worth exploring, and Skyrim is 90% about exploration.

Scaling is a necessary evil in a game like this. Deal with it.

If you're talking about OOO, level scaling was never removed. Just adjusted, like Skyrim is in comparison to Oblivion.

I would like for someone to point out an open sandbox RPG that didn't use some form of level scaling and was successful.

It's not laziness; Bethesda purposely scales enemies like this. This is a game about exploration. If you don't level scale, then there will be a ton of places with high level enemies from the beginning. This will effectively mean you can't explore a lot of the world until you've leveled up a ton. Understandably, Bethesda does not want that. I don't blame them because I certainly would not want to have to play the game for hours on end just so I can explore the entire world. Sure, it would give me a sense of achievement when I could finally tackle certain areas, but it wouldn't be worth missing the entire point of the game (unfettered exploration).

At the same time, I think it is worth having SOME sense of achievement in terms of power when you get to higher levels. In Oblivion, this wasn't there. The difficulty stayed constant because EVERYTHING scaled with you. In Skyrim, not everything scales with you. So at later levels, you'll see some of the same things that used to give you problems and kill them with ease. This gives a sense of achievement.

I think the scaling has been implemented very well this time around.

At low levels, there were many enemies/dungeons I had to deliberately avoid, and at high levels, I'm still occasionally running into low level enemies. It's keeping the game challenging without lending it the same ridiculously artificial feeling of Oblivion.

Another one .. really .. don't we have enough of these topics

I must be missing something. I'm level 33 with good 1h/archery/sneak/lightarmor/smithing skills (most around 60 with sneak about 88) wearing ancient shrouded armor (imporoved to flawless i think). And have fougth just about everything in the game.

The only times I've been 'one-shot' (which isnt really true, more like 3 shot) is by boss level characters with kick ass weapons (briar heart with awesome two handed magical glass weapon doing a power attack is the only one I can think of since I hit level 20 or so). But I can also kill him with four or five arrow shots or double wielding daggers. The only other times that I remember being damaged heavily is being stupid and rushing a boss type mage and getting severly hurt quickly (though I almost always catch it and heal then run away and then take care of him).

Now should they possibly have a scaling max for certain character types (which I thnk they do, at least for the animals in the game) yes, but scaling is necessary or the game becomes linear, I want a challenge doing any and every quest and that is what people expect from this game.

You make some good points but ruin it all with your delivery. This isn't Bethesda being 'lazy', it's a mistake in their execution based on their philosophy. How is this lazy? You've made what could be constructive criticism into a petulant whine fest.