Your thoughts about level scaling of both loot and NPC's. I personally hate level scaling of both loot and NPC's.

I didn't see a topic about this made yet.

It'll be interesting to see if the same people who don't want a voiced/"predefined" character (due to it removing their freedom) will also be in favor of no level scaling (which removes the freedom to explore, rather than having to do the "low level" area first, then the "mid level", then the "high level" one.)

For the record - I thought Oblivion did scaling terribly. I liked it in Fallout 3 and Skyrim (both somewhat different systems). I look forward to seeing what they've come up with in FO4. I do not want a rigidly-defined, set-level world that forces you to proceed through it in a linear fashion.

Todd Howard said there will be level scaling in Fallout 4, but this time it will be like as if there was no level scaling. He said in certain areas of the video game world map in Fallout 4 NPC's will be level 5 to level 10 and in other areas they will be level 30 to level 40.

If a video game has no level scaling it does not mean freedom of exploring will be linear. Have you played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? The NPC's have absolutely no level scaling and you can still explore the video game world map freely. Although if you don't keep running from NPC's that are higher levels than Geralt of Rivia he dies, but Geralt of Rivia can still kill level 30 NPC's if Geralt of Rivia is level 10.

Scaled monsters/no scaled loot.

I like Fallout 3's system the most. I hope they bring that back. I didn't think Skyrim's leveled actors were bad... the leveled loot was a real drag though.

i do dislike that NV had a huge swath of nearly immortal abominations (nearly immortal at the start anyway) blocking a lot of the world, but less level scaling is best. deathclaw territory would be absolutely deadly no matter what level you're at and raiders shouldn't downscale their gear just cause some random guy isn't a bad-ass yet

Nope. Can't stand Geralt.

Yes you can kill high level enemies but its not practical to do a lot, you are likely to use either lots of resources preparation or saves to do it.

You might do it to get better equipment or do high level quests.

Note that WOW is pretty open, you can go to level 60 areas as level 5, I did it was pretty pointless

Any MMO that is WOW or elder scroll online has an leveling path, wow has multiple for low level characters, the world is open but you will run into increasing problems up to anything kills you in one hit.

Fallout new vegas also had an leveling path, now if you start in an corner you might manage to hide it a bit, in NV you was forced south then west and north, this would level you up enough to survive the area around Vegas and continue the main quest.

It looks like they will use brackets like Skyrim enemies has minimum level so high level areas might start at level 30, got some feeling the upper bracket was gone so enemies will not be kept down in level anymore.

I cannot vote in your poll. I like enemy leveling but I dislike loot leveling.

Scaled loot give one interesting option together with repair system. At low levels enemies can have junk weapon and armor in perhaps 10% condition. At higher levels you scale the conditions and the gear will stay the same but become multiple times more efficient. This avoid giving enemies high level gear to stay competitive and the system will not have much impact on gameplay.

Skyrim used an cheat multiplier on enemies who made them more dangerous with low level gear so gear quality increased slowly and the high end one was still rare at high levels avoiding the Oblivion problem

I forgot to make it so you can choose multiple choices. As soon as you said you cannot vote because you like NPC's level scaling, but hate loot scaling I thought why not vote both then I went to check and saw I forgot to let people choose multiple options.

Now you can vote more than once.

I don't mind a majority of the game being somewhat leveled. I would like non-leveled enemies and loot in some places. For instance, there should be no leveled Deathclaws. Attempting lockpicking/hacking shouldn't be restricted by skill level, but high level locks and passwords should be damn hard at low skill levels. If you want to spend all day guessing passwords, it's your game. At the same time, if you get lucky ...good for you ...to the victor goes the spoils.

You know, I found it kind of annoying in Oblivion that all of the enemies and their equipment scaled with me. I never felt like I was getting ahead, and after awhile it started just looking silly that every bandit party I came across was suddenly wearing glass armor. I find I prefer having what Fallout 4 looks to be having - with some areas "banded" to your character level and others that are more set within a range. I actually prefer having areas of the map that are too dangerous for a low-level character. I don't find that restricting so much as giving me incentive to improve my character.

Level scaling of loot is a big no no. Skyrim pretty much ruined the idea of unique items with the level scaled loot thing they did.

I feel like F3 did a pretty good job: you have early areas with easy to beat bad guys and low damage weaponry. As you progress through the story, you get access to better weapons, but you also face tougher enemies - either stronger variants or bad guys with better weapons/gear. Loot doesn't level necessarily, but your skill in using them does and you get access to better weapons/gear.

I'm really against universal scaling in all areas. Fighting really tough baddies when I go back to a beginner zone sounds tedious. That said, I wouldn't mind increasingly tough random encounters as I level or progress through the story. Limited level scaling in areas is also fine.

Honestly, I never had a problem with the leveled unique items in Oblivion & Skyrim. If you do a quest at lv10, fighting lv10 enemies, you should get an item with lv10 stats. No big deal. Not every unique item needs to be max level. It's "unique" not "all powerful".

(Skyrim made it even less of an issue with the way you could use Smithing to improve stuff. My first char used the Dawnbreaker from like level 15 or 20 to 50+)

Of course, the Fallout games don't really have that issue, since unique items just have predetermined stats. And frequently are just hidden loot, not quest rewards. "Leveled loot" generally just refers to what mix of gear you'll run into in combat - no getting mangled by a group armed entirely with tri-lasers & missile launchers at lv2. Unless, of course, you walk right into the middle of a BoS base and shoot someone.

Character scale being banded makes good sense.

Loot should not be scaled at all, as it really hinders excitement and exploration. No level locked loot either, because that causes similar issues. It was one of the few problems with the Witcher 3. Put the good loot near high level (banded) bad guys.

Personally I dislike the level scaling.

I'd rather explore and find places/enemies that are out of my league and then, at some future point in time, return and try my luck again.

You know, have a challenge to look forward to. If I want a challenge. Or simply level further until it's no challenge at all. Giving me, the player, the choice.

That being said, I fully expect more level scaling of either kind and while I dislike it, I don't hate it to the point where it takes the fun out of the game.

Some scaling is required if you're trying to make a completely open world. It's not a corridor game. Everyone who are against scaling would be bored to tears 2 days into the game and come complain here when they begin instagibbing everything and two-shotting boss characters. Your damage and durability increases like 100 times, no way you will have a smooth balance otherwise.

Either that, or they would be whining that they can't go into so many areas, because the baddies there insta-kill them.

Level scaling is only bad when you notice it.

In Oblivion, it made the world way less believable; you started getting tons of bandits clad in badass endgame armor, and dungeons would phase out weaker creatures for hordes of stronger, boss-tier creatures. Fallout 3 and Skyrim did a much better job, and Skyrim was especially better at making you feel powerful, but not over-powered to the point where things weren't fun any more. Fallout 4's "rubber-banding" sounds no different than what they did for Skyrim; breaking up locations into encounter zones with minimum and maximum levels, and including enemies that don't scale to your level at all, like Giants, Dragon Priests, or Deathclaws and Super Mutant Behemoths.

Not sure what to say about leveled loot, though. I think for an open-world game it's better to reduce the range between weak equipment and strong equipment and put that range more in character development; like, I could design my character to get more use out of "early game" gear, be it through weapon/armor mods or perks that add bonuses to them. The focus on crafting should help somewhat, too.

I don't want any scaled loot at all, I would want it ranged for the area. If the level range is level 5-10, I expect Items of that quality in that area with maybe a chance of getting something stronger. Also more preset items, New Vegas was perfect, Fallout 3 was pretty good with preset stuff.

Enemies I want ranged but different, from what we heard about Fallout 4, this is the direction they are going in which is fine.

I don't want the game completely non scaled because it makes difficulty a joke. Every non scaled game I've played with the exception of the souls series and maybe Dragons Dogma I've had difficulty issues. Reckoning and DAI are perfect examples of what happens when you don't scale your world, it leads to a much easier game. I don't want Fallout to be super hard but I also don't want it to be a snooze fest either.

I wonder how they tied loot in with the Luck stat. That might have a really cool effect on level scaled loot.

You can still have a open world video game without having any level scaling of both loot and NPC's. I made mods for the PC versions of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that gets rid of both level scaling of loot and NPC's and has set levels for both loot and NPC's instead and I can tell you I do not get bored at all of playing.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim I made NPC's be level 1 up to level 10 around the Whiterun areas, level 20 NPC's around the Solidtude area and level 30 NPC's in different parts of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's video game world map. I'm constantly tweaking my mods.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has no level scaling of NPC's without any mods in the vanilla version because CD Projekt RED did not want it and I'm not getting bored of playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt at all.

I'm telling you, have level scaling as an option in the menu. Bethesda could please everyone at once.