I just hope we wont see any bandits with glass armor... -.-

Save often. The realm of Oblivion is a dangerous place.

I'd much rather have a dragon swoop down and one-shot my level 1 [NUMMIT] than have a dragon I can take on in normal clothes with an iron dagger. If you run into a dragon and die, then stay the heck away from it until you're stronger. I also find it an immersion killer that enemies just appear out of nowhere when you get to a certain level, and other enemies disappear. It's not the world respponding to you, it's the world changing to suit what the game thinks you should be. Wolves suddenly become extinct because you reached level 10? Giants suddenly pop out of the ground because you reached level 12? It goads you into min/maxing because if you don't properly increase your damage and defense, you may hit a level and realize all the available creatures out-class you. That's a trouble I have with linear games that let you select how you level up (*cough*Dark Messiah*cough*), because you're suddenly surrounded by monsters you can't handle, and you can't go back to improve on lower-level critters. I don't need the same problem in an open-world RPG.

How is this thread 9 pages long when the OP included a post saying ALL ES games have level scaling. Including the beloved Daggerfall and Morrowind, and that Skyrims LS would be nothing like Oblivions. Which was the only one people took issue with.

Fallout 3's level scaling i like best, it's good that they bas Skyrim's system on it. New Vegas system seems to be praised in this thread (it has level scaling too, BTW ), but personally i find it boring; same enemies in same places everytime. On high levels in Fallout 3 you had to be constantly alert or a deathclaw ripped you a new one, In New Vegas Deathclaws stick in their territory. Perhaps more realistic, but poorer gameplay, and in games, gameplay decisions have to come before realism, story, and lore *runs for cover* :bolt:

I would'nt worry, Bethesda knows that it's people like you that make up the majority of their fan base - that's why oblivion is the way it is, and that's why skyrim will also be similar. Unfortunatly for us people that like rpgs to be rpgs and not action games, it's a tough pill to swallow. Also - I take it you didn't like morrowind then?

I think the levescaling in areas that have it, should be more "step based". As in they don't match the player, but go over him/her after reaching a certain level - with a certain amount (not all) of the lower level foes being replaced by higher level ones, and the scaling stopping at certain point (as in no rats turning into wolves turning into trolls turning into ogres...) and after that, instead of getting better enemies, it would start to grow the lower level ones in numbers (up to a certain point of course, no armies of dogs and rats).

And to handle exploits like grinding rats to progress faster, the skill progression could partly be tied to the level of the enemies (for example: blade 50 -> no more blade skillprogression from rats and the like etc).

I'm playing New Vegas at the moment, and I have to say (at level 16) it seems perfect to me - I have a strong sense of progression as I'm able to enter areas that were too hard for me at lower levels, but the quest design is excellent at keeping you pushing up against those barriers, keeping the fights challenging. Loot seems to be generally appropriate both to the enemies and to my level, with the occasional super-cool item turning up so you get that wow! moment.

Maybe it will get boring later. I can see how limited level-scaling might lead to a less challenging experience as you approach the end-game, especially if you actively chased game-breaking advantages. This is the only justification for level-scaling that I have any sympathy with. However, I have 2 things to suggest.

Firstly, even a huge open-world game comes to an end at some point, and that's fine with me. It's a great feeling when you've beaten everything the game has to throw at you and you can go anywhere, do anything. You enjoy that for a little while and then yeah, it's boring, & it's sad to have to let go after hundreds of hours, but OTOH you're good'n'hungry for expansions, mods and replays.

Secondly, I think there's a form of level-scaling that really does work, and I think is one reason Morrowind got away with it better than Oblivion did - you keep the level-scaling true to the game's scenario so it's not immersion breaking. Oblivion *could* have done this but for some reason didn't stick to it. You have an apocalyptic scenario, with a proactive enemy trying to bring about the end of the world. Naturally the situation is going to get worse over time. You improve your skills, the enemy improves his (or her) skills. You forge an alliance with the locals, your enemy builds a stronger goblin army. This could selectively be used with several enemies in side-quests and you'd never really know, as long as it's plausible that your enemy would be gaining strength as time passes; ideally this would be reflected in quest dialogue and notes. LEAVE THE WOLVES AND HEDGE THIEVES OUT OF IT.

If there is a cave with a "golden sword" and a "black dragon" in it. It needs to be that way at all times no matter what level I'm at. If I'm too weak to defeat the beast and get the weapon, so be it. If I'm too strong and the beast falls by my hand, so be it. At least that makes the game-world feel more real. When I go into an area and everything inside it (beasts/treasure) are scaled to my level, it makes every area feel the same, generic and also leaves me with no desire to go and explore other areas like it.

This is how I hope it is. I don't want every dungeon to possibly be randomly assigned stuff. That will still make me not want to explore it because I'll have 0 chance of finding something unique. Now if they mix up and have only certain dungeons like Summer suggests I would be fine with that. I just want to find unique artifacts while exploring. That is all! Every artifact does not have to come from a daedric quest. And as Miltiades points out, I also don't want artifacts to be leveled and I certainly don't want to see Bandits and Marauders in top tier armor.

Well all this does make me optimistic about Skyrim... Philosophically, I'm strongly in the anti-levelling camp, but in reality I have to admit... I loved how the rare and valuable things in Morrowind were where they were... The great house's treasuries, the Armigers with their glass, Telvanni Fyr with the only almost-complete suit of Daedric armor on Vvardenfell, and all that stuff was there because that's where it was--you and your level had nothing to do with it, except in terms of how easily you could make it yours. But on the other hand, the game did get downright boring by about level 20 or 30, when the kagouti that were terrifying when I first encountered them at level 1 were now total pushovers, as was everything else in the world, and challenging enemies were extremely rare.

It was too hard at lower levels and too easy at higher levels--and come to think of it, it was sort of rare to find anything that was just the right amount of challenge.

So Bethesda learned from that and tried to fix it...and went too far in the other direction, resulting in the travesty that was the Oblivion levelling system.

On the other hand, as stupid as it was having bandits in glass and daedric, one positive aspect of that was that your income was appropriate to your level. In my heavily-modded FCOM game I'm playing now, for once in my TES-playing career, I've been forcing myself to refrain from using the console to cheat for money, and I'm finding it very hard to get rich. I blow through money fast on cute outfits at the Goddess shop, and collecting the spells I want has been taking a very long time. I'm using a bag of holding (gives me a container with unlimited storage that I can access at any time), but even though that allows me to, if I want to, take all the equipment from every enemy I beat... (Which some may consider a cheat. I think it's no more a cheat than fast-travel...but then there are many for whom that's not saying much in its' favor...) Even taking full suits of armor from everyone I kill...it's barely enough money to make it worth the time it takes to transfer it into and out of the container. At this rate, I can't imagine I'll ever be able to buy a house.

So it's clearly a difficult balancing act, but it sounds like they're listening to the feedback and learning from past experiences, so I think it they'll get the balance closer to perfect this time than they ever have before. And if they don't do it to my liking, modders will be there to make up the difference.

I guess you haven't played Morrowind if you can't see the difference between Oblivion and Morrowind level scaling.
Biggest effect Morrowinds level scaling had was that you didn't encounter the most powerful late game monsters in the wild. There was still fantastic loot and best armor that could be found at level 1. To find the best armor pieces you had to know where they are/stumble upon them while exploring.
In Oblivion ALL world loot was scrub stuff. Every monster leveled with you. Your best chance to find good armor was to level to 25 and kill a bandit that was wearing either glass or daedric.

Looks like Skyrim is going to take Morrowinds stance on world loot (as it was in Fallout 3) as in, you can find the best and unique stuff if you know where to look. The world still levels with you though.

First thing that came to mind when I read the thread name? Trunks screaming. I loled.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is one of the few things we don't have to worry about. No bandit's with the best heavy armor in the game. No health sponges...well, I shouldn't say that...Only a few of the monsters are probably going to be health sponges, not every single thing alive besides the crabs.

The "problem" with New Vegas wasn't that it didn't have level scaling on the monsters, that wasn't what inhibited exploration.

It was the fact that they shut every single possible path out of the early areas of the game with the strongest, toughest and meanest enemies in the entire game. They intentionally shut you in so you couldn't explore and had to follow their linear path up to a certain point (Novac) with invisible walls and enemies they knew would be impossible or near impossible to beat.

That kind of game design was the problem, not the level scaling or lack thereof.

Everything in terms of concerns that I have, people have already said in this thread, but boy would I like a video on the hub of one of the Senior Bethesda people talking about Skyrim levelling in major detail, rather than the industry in general, or favourite games etc.

For expletive's sake, you're an Elder Scrolls fan.

"All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level."

"All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level."

"All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level."

"All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level."

"All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level."

"All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level."

How many times does it have to be said to you?!

phew!thank god...i honestly didnt excpect the level scaling to be like oblivion.i didnt mind the level scaling that match in oblivion because it didnt always go excactly to your characters skill especially if you really took your time. but the game definetly scaled with you way too much. but this is great news. but iam still hoping it will be a little more polished than fallout3

I may be the only one, but i prefer level scaling (in style of Fallout 3) over staticly placed enemies (like in New Vegas). In a sandbox gme some variation is required, and if enemies are (more or less) randomly spawned from a list of possible creatures, it creates more variation than statically placed enemies.

Mind you, there still should be dangerous areas. Like in Fallout 3, Old Olney and DC were always dangerous. ("Dangerous" in Fallout 3 terms, that in real terms equals about "A big snooze" :snoring: A bit higher difficulty this time, please Bethesda? )

sorry, but what exactly does level scaling mean? does that mean improving over use? like in oblivion?

God, what's with people. "HURR IT WASN'T IN MORROWIND AND I LIKED MORROWIND AND THEY SAID IT WILL ACTUALLY BE LIKE FALLOUT 3 BUT I'LL COMPLAIN LIKE IT'S OBLIVION ANYWAY."

Do you people read at all? And seriously, scaling has been around since Daggerfall. Sure, it's varying degrees of scaling but it still exists. Bottom line this is what you can expect:

Hand placed things to be of a static level
Radiant Story stuff being more closely scaled
Randomly generated things being moderately scaled (again not to the amount of Oblivion's).

Oh, nevermind, I get it now..

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Please, just make a smart, realistic spawning/leveling system

- I do not want to cross 10 rats at level 1 in a forest and come back in the same place at level 30 and cross 10 Minotaurs !!! Usual places should become more and more peaceful as enemies are killed...

- I do not want Bandits to have iron swords when I am level 1 and Glass Sword when I am level 30 !!! I want very few bandits, somewhere in Skyrim to have Glass or Daedric items... I want rare items and bandits to stay poor...

- I want to be killed if I decide to go in a place too early in the game, when I am too weak ! But if I am clever enough and I find a way to survive, I want to find the same loots as if I come back 20 level later !

- I want to be AFRAID to go somewhere.

AS I LEVEL UP, I AM ABLE TO DISCOVER AND SURVIVE HARDER PLACES WHERE I FIND BETTER LOOTS

That is BASIC RPG gaming

Thought basic RPG gaming was:
Attack 275!
Parry!
Parry!
Miss!
Miss!
Block!
Critical hit 1289!

Very boring if you ask me.

Morrowind's level-scaling was perfect imo. I have enough faith in bethesda to believe that they learned from their mistake in oblivion. Hopefully they have, because if they haven't it may ruin the game, simple as.

Also I haven't played the fallout series, can anyone explain to me what the level-scaling was like in fallout 3? (because I heard somewhere that Skyrim's level scaling was more like fallout's than oblivion's.)

I'd love more static levels. Morrowind and Fallout: New Vegas were exciting and fun because you never really knew what to expect.

Will this guy kick my ass if I shoot at him? Maybe snooping around an area covered in Deathclaws at level one isn't such a good idea. I love that.