Animals and Creatures should NOT level with the player at all, this just does not make sense. Instead, certain area's of the game world should have wildlife associated with it.

Example:

In a forest, you should encounter wolves/deer/bears/ ect. Let's say...

Spawn chance:
Rat - 30%
Wolf - 15%
Deer - 50%
Grizzly Bear - 5%

In this scenario, a level one PC could probably take on the rat and the wolf (the Deer would not be hostile.) And she could most likely make it through the forest ok. On the other hand, there is a chance a Bear could spawn, and assuming a level one PC can't take on a Bear, she would have to run like hell. Let's say she comes back to this particular forest area 10 levels later. Maybe she encounters the Bear again?

No problem this time, she is much more powerful.

The Eco-system of a forest should not change with the power of the player.

This is just my idea for creatures/wildlife. I suppose other types of enemies could be handled differently. Maybe a slight bit of leveling in regards to Bandits and the like.

But please, not bandits in full Daedric. I mean...there was BARELY one set of it in morrowind, (That is...Vanilla Morrowind WITH official plugins)

In Oblivion Daedric armor basically fell out of the sky starting at higher levels. Kind of takes away from the importance of it.

I think you directly have that backwards. Enemies and loot that appear only once you have leveled up are scaled to your level. Enemies that get stronger as you do are leveling.

No level scaling. I loved how in Morrowind I wasn't able to go to certain zones until I was high enough level or accidently wandering into an area too high lvl for me and getting obliterated.

level scaling is fine in small doses, keep high level stuff the same but only slightly scale stuff you pass.

I hate finding that I out-leveled several dungeons, and get next to no XP from an entire area.

There is definite loot scaling in Morrowind, I vividly remember having gone into a shrine in Morrowind, with the sole purpose of fighting the daedric lord that summons when you loot the shrine, so that I could gain his daedric weapon, I was lvl 5 at the time, I beat him, and he did not have a daedric weapon, like I had experienced before, he had a dwarven weapon, I reloaded, and every single time it was always a dwarven weapon.

Now I don't know whether or not the daedric lord was scaled, but the only reasonable explanation for my experience is that Morrowind thought I was too low a level to deal with a daedric lord with daedric weaponry, and so decided to scale the weapon material down. How unfortunate that it was the unscaled weapon I was after.

The Dremora in that example was either from a levelled list, or else triggered by a static-placed "trap". The Dremora's weapon was from a levelled list, dependant upon the player's level. No matter what the character's level was, the Dremora itself was still the same, but the equipment could vary. The creature was either static or levelled, not scaled, as was the weapon. IF the Dremora had more or less hitpoints or skills, depending on the player character's level, THAT would be scaling. BTW, there are also a couple of Dreugh weapons in that list, which appear almost as often as the Dwemer ones at low level. Higher quality Daedric weapons begin to appear at some point, but the basic ones can still occasionally spawn even at very high character levels.

There were a number of creatures, as well as bandits, that scaled in OB. Goblins were the worst example, gaining enormous amounts of hitpoints. You could sometimes kill one with a single weak Flare spell at Level 1, but it took several minutes of hacking away with a decent weapon to get rid of one at Level 20-30. In effect, the player got WEAKER by advancing, in comparison to what he or she was facing. The increase in Goblin Warlords and Goblin Shaman, as opposed to basic Goblins, was an example of levelling.

There are several ways to prevent players from grabbing all the neat static-placed goodies at low level, or at least make it so it's not "game breaking". Scaling the items (as done in OB) is the WORST way, making it preferable to wait to do quests, because you'll only get a weak version of the reward at your current level and give up the chance of ever getting the "good" version. Having the item itself scale with the player to address that problem is just stupid; why should it change stats just because you do? A much better method is to use a combination of static and levelled guardians of the item. The static guardian(s) make it extremely difficult for a low level character to just waltz in and take it, because the guardian is at least "moderate" level. The levelled guardian(s) keep it challenging at higher levels, even though by that point, the static guardian may present no great threat. A third method is to use the cost of repairs and maintainance of high-end items to keep them only marginally useful to the player character. You can get them, but how long will it be before you need to repair them, and with what money? That way, high-level items would be far more useful to a well established and financially sound character than to one who is still struggling to afford the basics.

NO LEVEL SCALING EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR

the world is full of danger, deal with it, that's the game I like.

If there is an option in the game to not level up (oblivion):

all creatures in the world would still spawn, so you could meet minotaur lords and such while beeing level 1. All creatures would have a basic power and difficulty and when you level up they don't get exponentially more powerful, they still get stronger but you get even stronger and eventually when you have progressed enough, they would be just as good as you. But on level 1 they might be real hard to kill, but still not completely impossible.

If you would level up instantly and without option (fallout 3/nv):

no level scaling or the same as above.

However, they might aslo add a choice in an early part of the game: do you want to play with or without level scaling? Might work, or might not.

Yeah, I know, and it isn't that big of a deal really, like I said I'm okay with some scaling or adjustment to the players level, but at the time I didn't, having been in several flamewars between OB & MO, I had been imprinted with this no adjusting to your lvl whatsoever fantasy of what morrowind was, and so went completely "FUUUUUUUUU" when it happened.



Hey, I'm not defending OB's handling, it's was a bad solution, you could still get pretty awesome, having played OB extensively I actually don't use enchanted weaponry much because it ends battles quickly, and usually in the same way. Without enchanted weaponry, battle get more drawn out, which gives you time enough to use your abilities. Arrows also disappear when the bow or the arrow is enchanted, and I like watching where I hit the enemy.



Like I said, not defending OB, I've got loads of things I can take a stab at morrowind for, but the whole leveling thing isn't one of them (although meeting high end monsters where there used to be low end can get a little weird), people just usually think there's no adjusting to the player level in morrowind.

I've always thought that lvl scaling is an unnecessary method to make things either easier or harder for the player. Has anybody here played King's Bounty: The Legend? The game is fairly unforgiving and has some seriously powerful mobs that can wipe you out in a turn fairly early on and none of them are level scaled. But it works. And this is because of the "scout" skill, which clearly tells you a.) What the baddy's army is composed of and b.) roughly what your odds are. The information system has a tremendous advantage over pure static spawns and level/loot scaling: the player knows when he can make it; the player will choose the perfect time to commit to an attack and so is always facing the right amount of challenge.

So how does this translate to an open world game? We know the pitfall of peeps traversing miles of dangerous terrain, barely making it through sneaking and rare potions and then hitting a solid wall against an insurmountable foe, forcing the player to run or teleport back making the entire enterprise seem like a waste of time. Which means the info system must tell the player BEFORE he/she is face to face with the enemy in question. I suggest some kind of omniscient ancestor guardian for the dunmer and some kind of spirit-trapped-in-an-amulet-that-is-a-family-heirloom for other races. The guardian is generally non-existent but whenever the player enters into a dangerous zone, makes his presence known and gives heads up in general terms + stat/level recommendations. He may also be manually consulted to identify the threat level of areas that player isn't even in (i.e. interior cells) although info will be more scarce to avoid ruining the surprise. Furthermore, the guardian should give very specific info about enemies that are within viewing distance.

Info about areas could also be more organically introduced to the player by means of wandering NPCs (i.e. inside the dangerous region), NPCs in town or in-game literature. The wandering NPC idea could manifest itself in various forms i.e. either literally a guy who's wandering around, or his dead body (how did he die?), or remnants of some guy's diary etc.

Static content simply makes the world more immersive and believable. Make it very difficult, to get at low level. It'll give you something to shoot for. If, on the other hand, you accidentally, or by design make a character capable of overcoming a seriously challenging lock, or the ability to climb or levitate over a particularly steep wall or cliff (yes, let's have climbing and levitating again), then why not be rewarded for being clever, or tenacious? An example would be:

You're very low level, but there is a tower somewhere that has a window which glows at night. You're DYING to get up there. The door has a lock that your newbie thief can't pick. You're not strong enough to bash the door, and almost the entire time there are guards by it anyway. By observing the tower for a 24 hr cycle you notice that the guard shift switches and for about 30 minutes (which is about 5 minutes real time prob if you don't mod the time scale) there are no guards. Well that's great but it doesn't solve how to get into the tower. So you explore all around town and you notice that there is a gate behind the apothecary shop that is relatively easy to pick. You break in, and go to the back door of the store. This lock is way more difficult and so you think you're stymied yet again in your pursuit of being a bad-a** thief. You do notice, however, a barrel or two near the door and another one tipped over near a sewer grate in the middle of the apothecary's courtyard. You look inside the upright barrels near the shops back door and sure enough there are a few light healing potions, and a few empty flasks. Going over to the tipped barrel you see that it is empty, but by clicking on the sewer grate you are able to access at least a limited section of the sewers under the city. Right there, in a pile of refuse are a few thrown away weak levitation potions. You then return to the tower, wait for the shift to end, levitate to the top, and enter through the window. Inside, there is a wizard who is not thrilled with your sudden uninvited appearance. At this point there is a very high probability you get totally annihilated. If, however, luck is on your side, and you're able to move about in such a way as to avoid the most deadly spell blasts, and take down the wizard before he's able to alakazam you a** into the ether, you will find on his body a key to the dias that contains a really great "item of worth having."

Now you can modify this little quest to make it more difficult, add a few steps, etc... but you get the idea. A player should be rewarded for being smart, lucky, and persistent. In Oblivion at level 1 you would have walked up to the door, entered, killed some rats, killed the wizard, and found a chest with a iron dagger in it. At level 10 you would enter, kill some elven armor clad rats, killed the wizard who now shoots fireballs from his eyes and lightning blots from his [censored], and the chest would contain...a silver dagger with a minor spell effect.

Guardian Spirit: "Hey, listen! Hey, listen! Hey, listen!"
Player: -run away screaming-

Introducing new creatures depending on the player's level isn't a bad thing, but I would prefer if the creatures stats remained static and the older/weaker monsters would still appear once in a while.

Good to know I wasn't the only one thinking of that. :laugh:

This may've been mentioned, and most likely will go overlooked either way, but my thoughts on level scaling are such...

if you scale a monster or an item, the scaling needs to be dynamic, with appropriate floors and ceilings to prevent things from being stupid. Kingdom of Loathing understands this concept and works with i very nicely; certain spells are capped at certain Mysticality levels, some are uncapped, and the same goes with scaling monsters.

Something like that would allow for dynamic monsters, dynamic items, and the chance to limit where and when to use scaling appropriately. It would also remove the redundancy of having 7 of the same items/monsters/etc, with different IDs, in the game.

could not have said it better this 1000% this ^^^^^^^^

However, the one problem with static content is that if you've seen it once, you have seen it....I think you could merge the two so were if you run into something loose and run a way if it's smart it learns from it's mistakes.

The scenario you have described has nothing to do with level scaling really. Static spawns are just a means by which something can be an insurmountable obstacle - the capacity for players to be restrained from entering the tower has nothing to do with level scaled monsters per se. For example, the "guardians" to the tower could simply be scripted to be invulnerable; the door may be too securely locked for any lockpick to open etc. etc. I think you're talking more about scenario design more than anything. You should also note that neither Morrowind or Oblivion have been very good at producing this kind of "emergent" gameplay because the current systems in place are fairly barebones. Levitation, for example, was removed in Oblivion and in Morrowind, could be abused to no end because NPCs failed to react appropriately to it. Spells like domination simply put NPCs on your side and made them indiscriminately attack anything considered hostile to the player (so none of that mind controlling some guy to have him open the tower door from the inside sort of sneaky stuff). But yes, I think until we get more a more sophisticated (read: authentic) gameplay system/sub-systems, all this Mcguyver'ing will probably be put aside.

Anyhow, static spawns must be balanced so that guys don't frequently butt-skulls with mortar walls wherever they go after trekking dozens of miles. In your example for instance, the wizard in the tower probably would annihilate your low-level thief with lightning bolts cast from the pupil of his eyes 99/100. That's when the frustration sets in and you feel like you've wasted the last 45 minute session doing nothing but suffering fatalities not necessarily from electrocution itself, but immolation from the electrocution. This is why I suggested a information system so that guys will know that in the tower, there is something in there that gives your ancestor spirit "a very, very bad feeling" and inspires thoughts of "imminent death" and that you should come back at level 15 at the very least.

And if guys are scared of the ancestor spirit you could always make him look cooler or friendlier or just give him a a bit of a formless sparkle and a caring voice.

Invulnerable guardians and unpickable locks with scripts in TES. That will be the day, I quit playing it. Wait...

TES games are emergent gameplay pinnacles. I know they are very primitive but that's the technology we have. But beth's ideal, creating mechanics and systematize things, is why I am here. I want to support this.

Levitation was removed for technical reasons(the towns are fake exteriors and their lod looks awful. It still looks awful nevertheless.) and as you stated the solution must be giving AI proper behaviors. Which was addressed with mods. So called complex domination AI was done in games like Jedi Knight and it is an old game. Requiem Avenging Angel has awesome domination mechanics. These game mechanics are done before and can be expected from a big studio in 2010s. Minecraft has liquid physics and lighting better than any game out there in its abstraction which was coded by a single man. These things are hard to code for a university student in his basemant but see there are people like this. A studio with multi-million $ projects should be able to implement much more. Radiant AI is promising but it should fully realized. The crippled state of it in Oblivion isn't fun. An item of high value should increase security of surrounding area automatically which results in more guards and lock levels.

---

Stalker has a dynamic system to solve this issue. People don't spawn, they move. You cleared one cave from bandit group A, group B took the opportunity to fill it. There will be backstories to these things that you can investigate which are not a quest writers work but the real deal of the world itself. Think the dynamic world of Mount&Blade.

Brink/Quake Wars added the goals system and we play it like any other game, go and shoot people, but the experience is amazing because the balance creates unique outcomes and there is always a chance of epic final fight. It is the system gives this gameplay, we don't use our brains in an unmimicable way. Players check the time and try balance our resources, most of them at least. This can be mimiced.

Creatures obey food chains. You killed all deers, wolfs become hostile. You killed all wolves, deers everywhere; no plants to harvest. Having unimportant spawned creatures/NPCs for the player to hack and slash is so old and boring gameplay. Give them the AI to join whatever they want. Their backstory doesn't need to be written. They can have their class and factions and such dynamically inside the gameworld. They will have the flesh and bone without a writer writing them. So you can expand the game world without dealing with content. Show other provinces as the source of new content. No scaling. Dynamic environment and content.

Rant over.
:)

I don't really care for level scaling at all. If an enemy is incredibly strong, but weak-willed, then it will be easy for an Illusionist and hard for anyone else. If it's meaty but nearly blind, a thief can stroll right by it, while a fighter will be in over his head. If it is only as strong as the average person, but completely immune to magic, it will be difficult for mages to deal with, but not for a warrior. A flying enemy will be much more annoying for a character without good ranged attacks.

Level doesn't tell you anything about the challenge these enemies represent for any specific character -- one player's "impossible fight" will be another player's "walk in the park". It has more to do with skill levels than overall level. But enemies with those sorts of weaknesses would make the game much more interesting.

Think about it this way: locks aren't level scaled. An enemy is just a more interesting version of a lock, and arms and armor are just lockpicks (or you could "pick" the "lock" with magic). Provided the designers give fair warning (e.g. the "Deathclaws this way!" signs in FONV), they can let people get their head handed to them by enemies they can't easily fight. That's just a sign to come back later, with better stats or a better plan.

Grampy bone says dis place be home to many bad spirits.

By that I mean "static" creatures are as much obstacles as invulnerable guardians/unpickable locks, in which case making things fun would be dependent on the design of the thing in question, and not unlevelled creatures/loot.



Don't you think you're expecting a little too much? Oblivion had none of these features. And in S.T.A.L.K.E.R stuff like NPCs with motivations don't really create a real "backstory" when they interact - all you see, typically, are a bunch of dead bodies. This is because the things which give color to a narrative are things that cannot be dynamically modeled by the (a) game, at least not yet. You're not going to see dynamically generated love letters; NPCs dynamically trying to drill their way into a Vault from a nearby abandoned elementary school; NPCs posing undercover so as to rescue/sabotage; farmers hiring mercs to fight off the imperial army so they don't have to pay tax...etc. Most of these things cannot possibly be made by the A.I. in the near future. I suspect that the way forward is to actually go the other direction and put more focus on the narrative and the quests and basically create pocketfuls of quality experience for the player. Then slowly inch towards a more dynamic A.I - i mean right now in Oblivion everything is just so primitive in design and NPCs just mill around: its a big jump to expect all of the stuff you described.

Umm...anyway. Level Scaling. It svcks.

vtastek got a nice point.

Exactly, go to ghostgate, steal glass armor, stack up with healing potions go to Dren plantation kill guy with daeric sword, Congratulation you now have the best light armor and sword in the game.
No I have no problem with good equipment as quest rewards / boss level loot but not top items lying around or in the hand of a single weak enemy where a level 5 character can get it.
Fallout 3 escaped part of this problem with making .44 ammo for Lincoln’s repeater rare, other really good weapons was usually hard to repair.

Level scaling in Oblivion was just OK. It's the actual application that is a little messed up.
Some enemies get a little too powerful at higher level against common lore. For instance, goblins are what most players perceive as "level 1 enemies". While they are fairly weak at lower levels, at the higher level, their HP equals Underfrykte Matron. While their attack powers remain rather nonthreatening, this breaks the common expectation of the players and possibly break their immersion. Simply slowing and limiting their progress slope would have solved the issue perfectly.

When I fight NPCs like bandits and marauders, I felt that their abilities are very well scaled to my level. I did feel that they were getting weaker as my level progress. Their power/level/gears were calculated same way PCs are, so they had no such issues monsters had.

enemy level scaling is annoying.