I. Hate. Level. Scaling.

Edit - No. I can't agree with that. The above stands true.

Some level scaling. When you get to a higher level i would like to see occasional better versions of enemys a long with the regulars. No equipment scaling though. Just make the better things REAAAALLLYYY expensive.

Regional leveling anyone? For the people who get amazingly high level make a small region that is super challenging for end game characters with very challenging enemies that take an actual strategy to beat instead of swinging your weapon at them constantly.

This is not about mods that fix the things I'm about to mention. I know about those mods. This is about Bethesda's mentality when making Oblivion.

Everyone knows the details; Once you start hitting level 20 and beyond, see caves where every goblin is a goblin warlord and such. In essence, there's little to make me feel like leveling up was really worth it. Everything is still just as tough as you, so you're not a badass. Or, everything's worse than you because you didn't crunch the numbers and level your character *just* right.

Thing is, it reminds me a lot of Daggerfall. That game also had a very stricly regulated level scaling system. Could hardly play past Daggerfall's main quest because everywhere I'd go, nothing but fire daedra and the like. This is just one example. I see other similarities between Oblivion and Daggerfall and I'm not going to ramble. The gameplay might not feel the same, but then again one game is vastly more primitive than the other. But, much of the design shows similar lines of thinking.

For a while, I went around Oblivion's game world just shaking my head. From little things to big things. A lot of it just lacked common sense or was even worse than previous TES titles. At least in Daggerfall, I wouldn't pass by farmers wearing rags and tilling their fields with ebony weapons strapped to their sides.

But, I've recently learned that Bethesda started work on Oblivion almost right after Morrowind was released. Then, things started to make sense. If they started making Oblivion when they only Daggerfall's success rate to guide them... get the idea? Dunno if that's true. I'm no mind reader. Sure feels like it, though. Enemies always respawn in dungeons.. same thing as in Daggerfall. Makes Morrowind the odd one out where you can take out a cave of bandits then start using it as a base.

So it's my opinion that this strict level scale/always respawn system is primitive thinking. Since Oblivion made me worry about Bethesda's ability to apply common sense, I worry that the next TES game will have little to do with leveling at all and just be one, big arcade game. No thanks. The fact that someone even asks if we should have a similar level scale system makes me want to break out the [censored]-b-good stick. It's old. Let's go foreward.

My thoughts are that the world will end in 2012 because these polls will actually get the options clear, concise, and correct to the game data. That's what the Mayans were on to!

Most creatures in Oblivion are fixed level and fixed stat versions. Quest creatures and "top tier" randoms are the only enemies that ever change. (Note that all bandits and marauders are at the top of their food chains). WHAT spawns is based on level, but with the exceptions above, random enemies do not get tougher. The level 50 rat is a forum myth. It doesn't happen.

The ultimate matter to consider is this:

Oblivion's chief fault is "there are very few creature types". It is what it is. Look at the game data for Morrowind vs. Oblivion. Morrowind has a huge number of lists because it has the creature diversity to pull it off (and typically had repeated lists with the minimum level to spawn changed). Oblivion... doesn't. If you made that many lists in Oblivion, they'd look more the same than they do now.

The second problem is that Oblivion's PRNG produces a proper bell curve, leading to the "all bandits in glass armor" issue. If you consider one list tier to be a "standard deviation", Oblivion typically gives you the last 3 tiers of possible results. Morrowind may or may not do this. It's difficult to tell on account of there being lists (Much like Fallout 3) that consist of nothing but "crap" enemies. Is that rat a "crap" enemy list, or is it Morrowind hitting dead last on the regional master list?

For those saying Oblivion needed "Regional lists", it had them. As I said, the creature diversity is severely lacking, making it hard to notice the difference (whereas I can probably place a location in-game by the pickable plant life alone).

@HeavyMetalArchmage:

Not sure I understand everything you said, but here's basically how it feels to me:

Oblivion?
See a timber wolf. Come back at level 21. See a brown bear.
Whatever the mathmatics are, the game seems to look to keep every little incident a big challenge.

Morrowind?
See a nix hound. Come back at level 70. See a nix hound.
'Cept if you're level 1. You may see a rat instead. However, if you want tough, there's the daedric ruin over there.

The game simply looks to keep everything "a challenge" around me, no matter where I'm at. Might as well be a ramped up legend of zelda with no leveling up.

Doesn't even have to be an enemy for the game to try and "uber" something. Once I got to a certain level, I've even seen farmers tilling their fields, wearing ragged clothing and having ebony weapons strapped to their sides. That's so moronic it drools. So, the question is.. what does Bethesda have on their minds right now? Do they think we simply want the next level of space invaders and nevermind anything else? Or do they think we really want a RPG?

My idea posted in a suggestions thread a while back:

@HeavyMetalArchmage:

I don't want to be punished for leveling up, period. I don't care how lavish the leveling lists or how diverse the bestiary is. If all I get for leveling up is having my gear become obsolete, there's no joy in it.

A world should be a world. My RELATIONSHIP with the world should CHANGE as I get stronger. Dangerous trails should become easier. Unapproachable fortresses should become approachable. Certain challenges will become more worthwhile and others less.

If this doesn't happen, the treadmill feeling just wipes out my interest in the game.

This is an excellent idea and I too think this is how level scaling should work, as long as none of the scaling factors are close to 100%. IMO you could just make them all 50% and that would work fine.

Ah, thank you friend. Those are the words I was searching for. :thumbsup:

That "treadmill" feeling thing. Getting stronger should make it more interesting. Not just another excercise in just more of the same.

So why am I actually a little uptight about it? Bethesda's one of the best RPG makers I've seen. Trust me, I've seen a lot of RPGs in my day. It doesn't look like they forgot about this "staple" of RPGs. It looks like they simply threw it out the window. Yikes, don't do that now.

Sorry to anyone if my previous post was a ramble in trying to explain it.

I dont think they should have scaling at all, except for maybe some quests. For instance, if you finish the main quest and are a level 30 fighter type, then decide to jopin the fighters guild, maybe they could realize youre a little too powerfull to waste killing rats, and send you on a more dangerous mission, or skip that one or something.

I think scaling for creatures shouldn't happen much to the lower level creatures, but the high level ones it should work in two ways. One, by actually making them more skilled and dangerous. Two, by making them appear more often.

What I mean is, if you're going through a dungeon at level five, a lich has a lower chance of spawning, but if one does, you're [censored]. Just run.

At level fifteen, you're more likely to see the same kind of lich, but now you might see an ancient lich which will completely ruin your [censored]. Upper level creatures are the ones with the most variation, lower level creatures are never going to be epic or all that difficult past a certain point, but you're still going to see some of everything.

People enemies can varry in skill and armament, but not much in hitpoints. All the skill in the world with a sword shouldn't save you from a skilled bowman.

Edit: To this end, there were quests in Daggerfall that the Fighter's Guild tried to steal off of the Mages Guild and fulfill them first. I want it to be a legitimate finish to a quest for a fighter's guild member to run away from a lich and report that the quest was suicidal, and let the mages guild take care of it.

No scaling would be awesome. As others have said, it would be cool to have fortified town areas be relatively safe, but some wilderness areas get more difficult. That's how Everquest is. As much as I hate the combat system of Everquest, the way creatures are placed throughout the land makes alot of sense. Not strong enough to handle attacking something which is too strong for you? Don't go there!

I do like the way Oblivion's skill-system works, though (the more you use a skill, the more benefit is gained FROM that skill). Bethesda doesn't need to change it much...some tweaks would be fine, though, here and there.

I can see that working if the game were the size of Daggerfall, but I doubt it will be. With the amount of dungeons in the game, I'd like to see few to none of them with undetermined enemies. I shouldn't be able to walk into a Daedric ruin at level 3 and be able to loot the place if I'm lucky enough to not have Daedra spawn inside.

The low level stuff should be in place either way, they should be enough to keep low level players out of there. Medium level players would have a tough time getting through, but as long as they don't get a powerful spawner in that situation, they'd manage.

So it's not that all the enemies are undetermined or random, it's the presence and ability of more dangerous types.

Yeah, the way I see that working is:
Low level dungeons: Random low level spawns (Rats, Goblins, Bandits occasionally something more powerful to scare someone off as you said, like a Bonewalker).
Mid level dungeons: Mid level spawns (Better geared Bandits, Bonelords, Greater Bonewalkers, Skeletons, Zombies, maybe a Daedra for something more powerful).
High Level Dungeons: High to Godlike spawns (Daedra, Liches, and occasionally something that's hard for even a high level player to handle).

I don't know though, since I doubt the game will be the size of Daggerfall. With something the size of Morrowind or Oblivion, preset enemies in dungeons seems more appealing to me.

IMHO a good world design method is to scale the danger/reward level of areas and gradually change those levels from an area to another like a height map but instead of defining the height level, it would define danger level of each area.

The players start in a relatively easy place, and can move around a bit but the danger level of nearby areas might be a bit different from the current place, and as they progress through the land the danger level of those areas gradually change, so some places are more dangerous than other places, and in the dungeons the deeper that they go the more dangerous the place becomes, and so on...

So a virtual danger-map of the whole surface area defines the level of the monsters and loot in those areas. and the dungeon cells define their relative danger level regarding to an external cell.

There can be random lists for items and monsters, just like Oblivion, but those lists are tuned to the danger level of the cell, not the player, so the monster and loot spawns can remain random, but they would be place-centric, not player-centric, so the sense of progression remains.

Thus the players start as puny newbies who have to be careful where they go, but as they develop their characters, they can go into more dangerous places and explore more areas, until the places where the final stages of main quest happen are within their grasp, and it results to an intense and satisfying sense of progression, both for our character and the geography of the places that we can go and survive.

The height-map of danger, can have some outlandish places, that could remain too dangerous for a normal play-through, and would provide a continuous challenge for players who need to prove that they are the best.

Places like "Death Valley", "Molag Bal Palace", "The Kraken Fortress", and so on..., would remain too hard for players who would zoom through the main quest, but they could be gradually conquered for the players who develop their character thoroughly, and would provide better loot which would help conquer harder areas, and so on...

This could result in contests about who could beat a place first without cheats, and the like.

So, my point is no level scaling of at all or just a tiny bit, but to have place centric level of difficulty which goes far beyond the final level of a casual player.

This way you would still feel your character's power as you butcher through areas which are below your current level, but would still have some challenge because of the places that are beyond your current level.

My vote went to "no level scaling at all".

What makes games fun for me is if it's challenging. If I have to work my way up to kill big bosses and collect even bigger loot. So, if I venture into a cave with enemies inside that are clearly way to hard for a level 1 character, I'll know I have to get my character stronger before going into it.

Also, it's a good way to keep certain places "locked", in a way, for future parts of the game.

Your statement is flawed. Level-scaling caps at certain levels in Oblivion and the scaling actually does vary more than a few levels away from the PC's(up to 25 levels in the most extreme cases). The only enemies that actually noticably continue to gain as much power as the PC throughout all levels are goblins(I hate those things). With that said, I would like to question how an Elder Scrolls game without level-scaling would work(never been done before). I would think it would bring back the "it's too easy at higher levels" problem that was complained about from Morrowind and resulted in more extreme level-scaling in Oblivion, which resulted in some sense of challenge at higher levels in Oblivion.

I see it as being preset with kickers. I sort of see the opposite of what you're thinking.

Dungeons would be mostly the same with all the same enemy types and mostly the same levels of enemies. There would never be better geared bandits, never skeletons in a dungeon that wasn't involved with necromancy, never be a daedra in a location without someone who could have summoned one. Daedra don't wander around Nirn like they did in Morrowind. They are summoned for specific purposes.

If there are rats and goblins in a dungeon when you are level 2, there will be the same rats and goblins there when you are level 42, with no better gear or skills. There would be though at level 42 a few sergeant goblins with better skills, a couple commander goblins with better skills, a mage or two goblins, and a better attack strategy for them since they're now commanded.

Things used to make sense in RPGs. Stuff that lived in caves wasn't capable of doing much more than.. living in a cave. Yet, run across that fugly, evil-looking joint, and you just knew it was a nasty place. Yet, one was always careful because things don't always swing the same way.

At the same time, game design methods made more sense, too. All the explorable places around the game's starting point were among the easiest, because that's the area where the player tended to be at the lowest level. Less civilized/further outward usually meant more hostile. Easy enough concept.

Recently read up a little on Fallout 3's system. Not debating the goods or bads of the game. Just using it's own level scaling system to make the point. It's like they went to all this trouble to make all these scripts to do.. well, much of what we did before. Easier enemies near the starting point.. nastier baddies as you go out. So, we now need a bunch of stressed out scripts to accomplish what we did without them. Granted, I don't have the whole picture with Fallout 3. If Fallout 3 has multiple starting points, then I can certainly see the method behind the madness. Otherwise, it almost sounds like a great big excercise in thinking too much.

Like someone shot themselves in the foot.. then went on to practice shooting between their toes.

No level scaling. Reasons? Duh. I get stronger as I level up. But why do the Bears and lions get stronger too? Did they find steroids? o_O

Well I thought that first part was obvious. I didn't mean every dungeon should have those.

You want a challenge? Make quests which are impossible to solve fully. Make them such that they require you to be at two or more places at once to get 100% success. Make success in one quest depends on failing a previous one. Make consequences materialise a long time after you made your choices, and be neither obvious nor predictable nor guaranteed to be the same every playthrough.

That's challenge in an RPG, not killing yet another 100 dragons.

You expect such a game to sell, or Bethesda to make such a game?

Dragons? Kill? Elder Scrolls? I want to meet a dragon, but to ask it questions, not kill it.