Having no level scaling at all makes the world linear, forcing you do stay in one area of the map until you are stronger. Level scaling allows you to explore the entire world without having to worry about being destroyed.

Real world is neither scaled, nor static, nor level zoned. So many dynamic systems can be created than the "scales to your level" system. An open world must be a complex system, scaling to a number is too primitive for such a thing. An open world deserves so much more than level zones and/or level scaling. It wants more complex dynamic systems. A food pyramid, an ecosystem with population control, a flexible economy, a population with more goals and dynamism.


You are not gonna thank level scaling for that now. That's the beauty of not having level scaling. With even less level scaling, it would get better. Level scaling creates so many problems, it is best not to use it. The things like "not overpowered high level characters" can be achieved through better balancing. And if some people find the game hard/easy overall, decrease the difficulty. The game difficulty as a whole isn't a problem. The relations between the difficulty is a problem. Giants being more powerful than dragons is jarring.


The villains already advanced in their abilities before you met them. You don't start at their level and go beyond them. You start at low level. If the system randomly generated enemies in the world at each start and randomly advance them through the game within random ranges, I would have no problem. It is not like the game have to keep track of these random advancements though, it can still have more random spawns and hand place static content or cycling static content and I can fill the gaps with my imagination. That would be dynamic and non level scaled at the same time. But it is impossible to believe they are all advancing at the same rate with me and even scaled to the same level with me.


I am a roleplayer. Immersion is important for me and thus that's why I am a TES fan. I would love to see power leveling being punished but level scaling punishes me too. Can't you think a way to punish powerleveling without punishing me? Can't you think a way to implement a dynamic system without level scaling and without level zones or staticness?

Level scaling should be used only as filler material, that is all for its existence. This is how it is done in Morrowind and also a reason for why people think Morrowind had more content. Using it for other things like dynamic difficulty is destructive. And it is awful when the whole game is filled with filler material, a la Oblivion.

In the end, level scaling and progression nullify each other. One of them is not for TES.

Disclaimer: This was a general rant about level scaling and not Skyrim. I am enjoying Skyrim very much. Less scaled than Oblivion, more dynamic than Morrowind. RS is a much needed innovation. Level locking and level ranges for dungeons make the experience more dynamic and random based on exploration. If there were dynamic cycles, that would be even better. With even less scaling, Skyrim will become even better. People are reporting 1-25 level ranges, that is a huge gap. It takes away the random feeling and makes it obviously scaled. Also those dragons need to be shifted next to giants in power.(and a fix for that dragon AI, they are going after anything but me and landing too much.)

Finally someone that understands!!!

When the cheapest rusty sword does 10 damage, a normal soldier's sword should do 16 or so, and and Excalibur equivalent should do no more than 25 damage. There's still progression, but it's in a much smaller range. This allows you to go allover the world, without scaling. But nowadays people only know WoW and Diablo, where the starter items do 5 damage and the end-game kit does 5000 damage. No wonder that those games gets repetetive and boring, as it's all a grind to kill monsters to get better gear, which allows you to kill better monsters, etc etc.

I think I nailed down the problem you have with the system.

Point being, while it may be true the bear you meet later in the game has more HP and deals more damage than the dragon you faced earlier, if you for a second stop perceiving the game's world in numeric terms... does it matter?

I'll explain. At level 10 I fight a dragon - pretty damn challenging, takes me 30 swings or so to down, as I'm dealing 20 damage per swing and he's got like 600 hp, I need to use a few potions and so on.
At level 30 I fight a bear. He's scaled to my level, so he has 1000 hp. However, I now swing for 200 damage thanks to gear, perks and my own skill level. 5-6 strikes and he's down.

What was "easier"? Does it matter that if for some reason the level 30 bear could meet the level 10 dragon he would win?

No, because they can't exist at the same time. The level 30 bear would meet a level 30 dragon and be burned to a crisp.

And this can help understanding the rational of scaling. When I do 30 damage at level 10 and 300 at level 40, I'm not doing actually doing 10 times as much damage in the game's continuum. And brigands don't magically grow 10 times tougher. The level system's granularity is a necessity to allow me to build my character the way I want, but it doesn't represent a 1:1 growth inside the actual game's world. A daedric greatsword doesn't do 30 times as much damage as a steel greatsword, in practice, and that's why it doesn't oneshot everything. However, that granularity in numbers is necessary to allow me to enjoy progress as a player and make fine tuning to my character.

And it helps consistency and immersion. Even in fantasy fiction, great heroes that reach "high levels" wouldn't rush into a room filled with 10 thugs armed with bows without fear of being shot down. Unless you consider some of the most superhuman fantasy heroes, it's not like at the peak of their career they would slice a mountain in half with a swordswing. It's still a human being. He may now require 3 swings to kill a bandit, instead of 6, but it's still a man fighting other man.
What makes him special isn't the numeric value of his HP and damage. He didn't become magically capable to take 100 arrows without dying or to kill a man in armor with a casual sword swing. He can now behead people will a well placed blow, he knows higher level spells, he can backstab for lethal damage, he has better and better shouts and so on.

Immersion is the reason to have scaling at all.
You have scaling because you're not 500 times as powerful at the end of the game than you were when you begun; your metabolism didn't really change, your anatomy is still human, and an arrow in the eye (bugs aside) will still kill you.

You see it as punishment or flaw Skyrim has dynamic consequences for how you develop your character. It makes little sense to me that I should be good at everything the game offers no matter how I choose to play my character. To me its pointless playing a certain way, as it is truly irrelevant the choices I make in developing my character skills. My decisions would have little impact on the game world, making it less interactive, more linear, and less enjoyable. I've always enjoyed games that gave the player an ability while having a drawback. i.e. I play a sniper, I'm not going to be good at taking blows or swinging a sword. I play a crafter, I can make the best stuff, but have no clue how to swing it. I play a mage, I can blast people with my magic and staffs, but if you put a sword in my hand, I'd have no idea how to use it.

Some of the people would prefer you have the ability to switch in midstream from being a crafter or enchanter to a tank who can use battle axes with out any drawbacks or consequences and be able to compete with monsters because it would be unfair for them not to be able to do this. That is unrealistic, limiting, and boring to me. I much prefer playing in a world where my actions and decision have an real impact, making the game much more interactive as opposed to it not mattering really which line I take as I'm always going to be competitive no matter which road I take and which skills I level.

The problem I have is that this system is extremely meta-gaming based, anti-immersive and destroying progression. It's not like if I had hidden the "why" I dislike it, it's plainly written in the open.


Basically, what you're saying is "pay no attention to how the system actually works, just pretend you're in a make-believe system that works in a completely different and unrelated way". I understand the rationale behind how you want to look at it, but you do realize it's a PROOF THE SYSTEM IS BAD (because you need to reinvent it) ant not at all a proof it's good ? If I have to turn a blind eye to the entirety of the mechanics, ignore the inconsistencies and the working of the system, and then cover the whole with lots of rationalization, then how can I say "it's just fine then" ?

You basically just proved this point I made previously :

If it's to keep the character to become too powerful, then just make it so that a level don't bring so much power, and/or make level harder to gain (the amount and speed of levels gained in the start is downright ridiculous). But giving much power to the player on one hand while giving also power to the foe in the other is just rather pointless.
In fact, I'd much prefer this situation, as the scale of incease in power by several factors it's not really immersive nor believable.

It was in the friggin' SAME POST you're answering to, and yet you have completely ignored it, just to reiterate this reasoning in your answer, but switching completely around the conclusion...

Do you realize how absurd it is to argue that a system is good because, well, if you imagine it is completely different, then it would be good... Well, tends to prove it's not good then, or you wouldn't need to imagine it's different...

Hi! I'am with your games from the begining. I hardly testing 3D with Skyrim, now, etc, etc. I decided to write about some of Skyrim and other TES games disapointments but I admire the rest of work You done with this title. I've found several bugs in the game, too which are disapearing of some objects sometimes, hope other people tested it more.

1. This...the leveling. As we know Bethesda keeps the leveling of the world with leveling a player's character. This is really bad concept. In Skyrim it is better then in ealier games but the most annoyng is the situation when after a player's character leveled 1-2 levels then he finds much better stuff in orydinary hamlet's shop withis few days!!!! The stuff a player working hard for, for example to get better shoes, after 1-2 levels he can get even better but he cannot because new ones costs much more and there is any olders shoes he worked for (the same shop, a few days) And I ask. Is this so difficult to make normal and constants level monsters?? Really? Why not make this to be typical for older RPG games? Levels of the monsters should be from the lower level (as player is) to maksimum level (as player will be) but there should be different monsters so the player couldn't defeat some monsters when at lower levels and it cannot be linked with the level a player enters an area. Of course in Skyrim is some like that but you cannot find weaker type of monsters in new entered areas. To defeat stronger monsters the player has to use better stuff and tactics. This is stuff which should make a player stronger. IF You want to keep the leveling system in should be linked with a part of world only or with differnt starting places. For example, Nord character can start in WhiteRun, Reptile in South East City, etc. When it will be good if some surrounding places has lower lewels when player starts his yourney next to them, and higher when starts in different place. But I think that if the player finds often the same high level monsters (other types as is made in skyrim) when in higher level it kills the game!

2. Area scaling. Nobody finds that this is really, really bad. The world should be 3-4 times bigger with the same places in it because now we have the situation when next city is in the same distance as a next corner shop from player's home in real life. This is very annoying!!!!! Really and very unnatural. Why You still keep this? Why, when makes the same world bigger will support crafting much (more animals, more plants, more ore, etc.).

3. In Skyrim there is the third big mistake. There is any characer screen!!!!! As Skyrim claims to be a RPG game this is unintelligible. Why You have done this? A character is very important for seeing effects, stuff and as character grows.

My opinion is that: fix those things mentioned above and you will make a historical- big game. Now it is a medium-good game with some annoying and unnatural elements.

What? He pretty much described the system dead-on. You seem to have too much of a JRPG.
Level, hit-points, and Damage are all arbitrary, artificial constructs used to abstractly represent the complexity of skill and combat. Power level in Skyrim is logarithmic, not linear. However watching logarithmic advancement is excruciatingly boring. It's far more fun to see numbers go up by whole numbers instead of just tacking on an extra decimal value to the end.

And specialization through leveling-up is far more fun than watching less-used skill numbers go down as you progress through the game and become more defined as a character.

At level 1, you can go any direction because your Magic, Health, and Stamina are the same.

At level 21, that 100 Magicka you start with is (supposedly) now rather pitiful, but your 200+ health doesn't mean you're now capable of taking twice as many lethal blows as before.

Level scaling is so minute in this game I can't understand why people talk about it.

I like level scaling, and there's so little in Skyrim. People who say it ALL scales to your level are liars, NO IT DOESN'T. I couldn't kill Elder Dragons 10 levels ago, now I can. I'm still fighting weak bandits, weak wolves, weak mages, on and on. I can one hit any Stormcloak or Imperial Guard. Rarely is something strong enough to really hurt me.

So what the [censored] are you guys talking about?

Sorry, but you're just reaching the pinnacle of rationnalization here. The amount of wishfull thinking needed to make it works just blow the limits of actual rationnality.

And no, not everyone is going "ERP DERP BIG NUMBERS LIKE !". Especially funny when you try to take a jab about how I'm supposed to have too much "japanese RPG" and then revel in something that is one of their trademark.

I really want to agree with the people against people complaining about the level scaling, but I upgrade my weapons, my armor, My skills in my specific area of interest (Bows, Two-Handers) and I get destroyed by a bandit chief wearing [censored] I don't even pick up to sell anymore?!?

I upgrade my self because the last fight with the Bandit Cheif/Named Creature-Boss Spider type situation/Forsworn Leader etc...was a tough fight. It went from being tough due to being an even match because I had the area of armor/skills etc...but I come to say yet another Bandit Fort or Bandit Camp/Area, or Forsworn Situation, same looking/type guy, same looking gear, same looking buddies/mob names (Not Plunderer, Just Bandit, Not Maurader, JUST BANDIT AND BANDIT THUG) and this Cheif ONE Shots me because I leveled up speechcraft by collecting and selling loot?!? 1 Level means I just took on End-Game type Boss?!?

lol Na...Skyrim's system is flawed to holy hell.

Picking your class/major skills was ten times better. Mixing and Molding your class was cool as well, but making everything level you up (I.E. Blacksmithing) and then it not matter that the thing you leveled up helps you.

Example for above: I leveled blacksmithing, so it leveled me...Ok...So I made this bad ass armor, its increased in armor rating, my shield is maybe 1.5-2 times stronger now then the one I had and the fight was an even fight before. My weapon hits harder then my previous one...I only gained what? One ACTUAL level? So you mean to tell me in ONE level, I GOT UPGRADES, and this guy is [censored] super-man now?

Something ain't right. And its not like "WELL ITS A DIFFERENT DUNGEON! HE IS SET HIGHER!" I one shot his buddies before him, they all dressed in the same gear as the previous Bandit Fort/Same Types (No Change in Types of Bandit/Forsworn etc). Why is his buddies exactly the same but he is set at God-status from the previous place, I was in?

The game has terrible balancing and scaling isn't the problem? That's how simple it is. Complaining that the level 5 dragon wasn't as strong as the level 80 bear is asinine, what you want is the entire game to be designed differently and dragons to be hidden away until cap. Non-scaling world means you have less and less everything to do as you get higher, quit acting like it's the end all to fixing it. You are trying to replace one set of problems with an entirely different set of problems.

Yeah, I think you people are insane. Some characters level, like bosses. Most DO NOT LEVEL WITH YOU! I can fight anyone at Level 40 with a full Legendary Ebony set and demolish anyone, including Elder Dragons which at level 30 killed me in seconds. They have level RANGES, once you are past that RANGE, they don't level. At 30, a Bandit Chief and his Marauders killed me quick. Now, nothing. So please, shut up. All of you.

Then you misunderstand by what I mean. In a JRPG, 100 HP is ten time 10 HP. In games like Skyrim, 100 HP is more like twice 10 HP.

It's more fun to go from doing 1 point of damage to 2 points of damage than it is to go from doing 1 point of damage to 1.1 points of damage.

Ok, my bad then.

But I don't see how this make the wishful thinking that all these numbers are abstracts and the like, when everything in the game is plainly displayed and works plainly as if they were exactly that. I mean, you can imagine it's working like that, but, again, it's just requiring far too much of wishful thinking to be actually reasonnable. The Ockham's Razor deduction is just that they used a bad system.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm still not sure that I like scaling, but that does make me feel better about the issue.
I'm not sure it follows the 'RPG' style, though.

The griping about Level Scaling makes no [censored] sense, none at all.

Bears don't scale with you from what I've found. Bears and Sabre Cats at Level 10 demolished me, now none can even hurt me. NONE CAN.

Some places have higher levels, generally up in the mountains.

Most things don't scale, no regular Draugr have. I one shot them all in dungeons now. Some Draugr Death Overlords have appeared, but that's about it.

The Elder Dragons that [censored] me 10 levels ago? Cake now.

People keep posting topics and pretend this stuff doesn't happen. So they're either lying or delusional.

Ofcourse it doesn't! In a dnd game you can choose to do whatever you want. You can go at a lich's tower for example and at level 1 and IF you manage to sneak by him you can get his treasure. Likewise if at level 20 you choose to visit a bandit camp, bandits won't suddenly become godlike warriors to match your powers. The DM presenting you with challenges is a completely different thing. No DM will scale any enemy to your level. They will push you to pursuing more dangerous quests that match your level but they won't scale a thing. And the loot as you say depends on the encounter - NOT on your level. And in dnd you can virtually choose to have any encounter you wish.

The game can still be challenging without level scaling, if not more. But yes if you want challenge from the same low-life bandits you won't get it and it's perfectly rational.

I can't understand how people like the following:

-The appearance of "upgraded" bandits, mages, draugs etc as soon as you reach a certain level. Where were they before? How can they have been upgraded to match a damn dragon slayer's powers?

-All npc casters in the game suddenly learn higher level spells as soon as you reach a certain level. On my mage once i got expert level spells the npcs suddenly learned adept and expert spells themselves upgrading their repertoire.

-Loot depending on your level - not on the dungeon of difficulty. I could guess what quality of gear i would find in a chest before i opened it! How doesn't this svck?

-Dungeons being the same level as you. I've completed about 90% of every single cave/ruin in the game and until now, in every cave i entered, i completed it because it had enemies depending on my level.

-Merchants suddenly upgrading their inventories. They must have been hiding these items, like the rest of the things i mentioned and waited to show them to me when i leveled up. Not to mention that there is no point in buying anything from them since i find exactly the same quality of items i find in dungeons - all the same according to my level.

-Killing dragons etc at level 5. Do really people need to kill dragons at level 5 to feel "free" to do anything? Dragons are powerful creatures, wouldn't it be more rewarding if they had a high standard and high level non-scaled loot in the case you manage to kill them?

Personally these just break my immersion:


Will it the game really be so restricted and linear if you can't go to every cave and ruin from the start? Do you really prefer enemies and loot unrealistically adjusting to your level? I'm not saying that it should be strict area scaling so that you can't go to a whole area from the start but

as an example if you want to go to Winterhold from the start, the journey would be dangerous. And if you wanted to be an Arch-mage it would be bloody hard or impossible at low levels. Because you can't be an Archmage with apprentice spells. And when you become and Arch-mage (and progress to cast expert/master spells), the rest of the casters won't become arch-mages themselves and suddenly learn new tiers of spells.

You cannot guess what loot you'll find, I still find Iron and Hide stuff at level 41. Most enemies do NOT scale.

I haven't been affected much by Level scaling. I destroy everything pretty fast.
I went from getting owned by Frost trolls from level 25 and under, but now at level 36 I basically 3 hit kill them and they can barely even scratch me.
Maybe your playing the game wrong

The only thing I'm scared of facing is uh...well, Boss's that have uber frost magic. But even then...I'm a nord so i just LOOOOOL at em.

I really don't think this is a correct application of Ockham's Razor, because it requires the assumption that a static world would achieve what Bethesda wanted for their game better than the scaled one, and they simply fluked in picking one.

You complain about having to "rationalize" the system, and I can understand that, but I come from so many PnP RPG systems that right now it's like a second nature for me. It is really clear, to me, that what Bethesda is trying to go for in their games is verisimilitude. The word isn't the proper one, but what TES games try to be, at heart, is simulators. Once you accept the abstractions of a fantasy world, and you temper believability with the need to include the genre's tropes, then you can see that TES games, with no exception, are not inspired to D&D as much as they are to systems like GURPS or Savage Worlds or World of Darkness.

The world is consistent; human beings are human beings, and level isn't a function of power as much as it is a function of skill. Meaning, an arrow to the fact is almost as lethal at 40 as it is at 4. And the system is binary - as you level (since it's a trope, and what makes and breaks RPGs, and allows for customization) the world levels with you because you're the center of the fictional universe and the universe bends around your "stats" in order to preserve immersion and believability.

And remember - it's not flawless. Some things you just have to accept or "rationalize" - like, say, the fact that you didn't invest in Destruction means that while at level 1 your Spark two shotted bandits now it barely dents it; not getting better is understandable, but it getting worse is something you actually have to rationalize.

I understand you'd prefer a different solution, and I respect that. Most of my favorite games have static worlds; but I disagree on scaling being a problem for immersion. Static worlds have consistently felt a lot more abstract and illogical to me (why if my character returns to a low level area and gets shot with a machine gun he's now barely scratched? Did his skin grow bulletproof?). In fact, scaling is what makes the immersion works. Done poorly, it can break it (and it did in Oblivion, which was terrible), but it's not a problem with Skyrim.

It's rational in D&D. It is not in a (prevalent) number of RPG systems. In fact, the idea of keeping a guy pointing a gun at you being a threat no matter what level you are is the cornerstone of most anti-D&D systems. And it's the goal Skyrim and TES games have too, verisimilitude. You didn't grow arrow/daggerproof skin. A bandit can still kill, as you're a man and 2 feet of steel in your stomach WILL kill you.




1. they didn't upgrade. They're the same guys, as testified by how their gear barely scales (and it only does in order not to be completely pointless as a reward). Level scaling doesn't mean the entire world levels up with you; it means your leveling up isn't represented in a 1:1 growth in power within the actual game's consistency. At level 40, you're not 40 times more powerful, but instead of stifling your progression, giving you 0.x increases in damage and armor and generally making the leveling process feel irrelevant, the system gives you granularity in the choices you make leveling up, and then "updates" the world to your level (within limits) to keep your "power level" consistent with the premises of the world - which is that you're human and taking 4 guys with swords and daggers at a time will always be a life or death situation.

2. I didn't experience that. Casters are few and far between in Skyrim, they tend to have fixed spell-lists (for minibosses at least). If you're talking about random necromancers and similar monsters, I've rarely felt I was fighting an archwizard.

3. It doesn't svck because dungeons aren't on a progression ladder. The alternative would be requiring the player to tackle quests in the correct order in order to get the correct loot, which is NOT what TES is about.
If your criticism was that the game should work like it does, and then have a level cap - say 50 - and a few "end-game", nonscaled level 50 dungeons that contain legendary relics you can't match elsewhere in the game as rewards... I would agree. But the problem isn't scaling - it's not having endgame content, something I feel Bethesda could safely introduce without breaking the system and actually improving the games.

4. You were lucky then. Monsters scale within level ranges, meaning you may enter places you can't clear because the mob's minimum level is too high compared to your actual level. This is expecially prominent at Master level, when even a slight advantage for mobs can be lethal, expecially at low levels. Around 40 or so you tend to become powerful enough to face everything, but isn't that what people wants?

5. This IS an immersion breaker, but a gaming necessity. You need the world's economy to evolve with you, or trading will progressively become harder for the player. The only solution would be having elite vendors in elite areas, but once again, that's not TES. You can try to rationalized it thinking that as you loot and sell more powerful items, you make the world's economy evolve, or simply accept compromises in a videogame.

6. Once again, you need to understand the kind of RPG system TES is inspired to. A level 50 character isn't magnitudes of power stronger than a level 1 character. If at 50 you can kill a dragon by sticking a piece of metal in his neck, you can do so at level 5. A minimum of rationalization may be helpful here: at level 50 you'll do with skill and strategy and fearlessly, while at level 5 you probably met a juvenile dragon and killed him with a lucky shot.

It's actually a correct application of Ockham's Razor, in that there is a system that works rather plainly in a way, and you say "no in fact it's better if we consider it works in this way", but this requires to make a lot of assumptions that goes directly against what we can actually see and feel and notice and in fact most of the actual mechanics in the game. As such, the Razor tends to indicate that what you say about the system is just wishful thinking about how you would LIKE it to be, but not at all about how it IS.

Suspension of disbelief to accept small inconsistencies is one thing, making yourself willfully blind and actively reinventing everything that happens so that it can be re-interpreted in a way that works is actually a proof that the suspension of disbelief has failed (because the system stretched it far too much, so it finally broke and you start to mend the broken parts).
To take a blunt anology : I can repair my car, and then it will run, but it proves that the car was broken to begin with.
What you're arguing for is not "the system is good and fine and they were right to use it". What you're arguing for is "the system is crappy and broken, but if you just apply a lot of efforts, wishful thinking and make-believe, you can imagine that it works in a different way, and provided you look hard enough at the other way when all kind of nonsense happen, you can ignore it and it will somehow appear to make sense in the end".

All rpgs have you fight higher level enemies as you get stronger, but since most rpgs are linear this means you just keep moving to harder and harder areas. It even applies to shops selling better gear... in most rpgs the first town you visit will have basic gear and later shops will have upgraded and stronger gear. Since skyrim makes all areas accessible from the start it needs to scale to simulate the effect. Without level scaling in place some areas would become inaccessible because the enemies are too strong untill you level and other areas would become too easy if you don't do them early enough forcing you to progress though the game in a linear manner.

One could argue about how to implement level scaling... Oblivion's system with daedric armor clad lowlife was the bad way to do it. And rewards shouldn't scale at all, because it actually does the opposite and punishes you for doing certain quests early rather than whenever you wish. But level scaling itself is not bad since all games do it in some way.

You're wrong.
Fallout.

The only places too dangerous to visit when you're not high-level are the places which are actually logically dangerous and which would be stupid to be tackled on by a low-level guy.
Again, there is nothing bad with a greenhorn being unable to tackle a difficult challenge. It's the opposite which is actually bad, in fact.