Only if you want to exploit the video game to the fullest to get the best loot. However, most people play the RPG aspect and go about their business not worrying about if a dungeon will have better loot at a higher level. The idea most people play a game to maximize/exploit everything is kind of silly. I play the game for entertainment, not to ensure I get the best stuff. Only people it discourages from questing are people who only care about getting the best stuff.

dontlikelevelscalingkthnxbye

How so?

Let's say I wanna make a character that utilizes Goldbrand as his signature weapon. However, the game has level-scaling.
See how this forces me to wait 30 levels before grabbing it? Very counter-productive to using it as my signature weapon. It ends up forcing you to dike around for 30 levels before doing the stuff that your character is actually meant to do, if you want balanced end-game gear that suits your character's purpose.

Maybe that would be enjoyable for you but having predefined goals kind of takes away from the game for me. If I knew where and what weapon I wanted and how to get it, I'd lose interest in the game fairly quickly. You kind of make my point for me. You want to exploit the game to meet certain criteria you have for your character instead of exploring and making due with what you find and discover then adjusting based on how the game is going.

Maybe more people enjoy that scripted type of play. Its not for me though.

No, he's right. A static world is always a railroaded experience.

Of course the two things can be mixed, but Skyrim already does that to what extent is possible.

I don't see how that's exploiting as it is just wanting the weapon to match the character. I mean whether you like it or not, you typically ARE gonna play an RPG game to death to the point where you know where to get all the sweet gear.

I don't find wanting to use Volendrung on an Orc to be the most outrageous thing in the world, do you?

I like scaling. At least when it's done well, like I've seen of Skyrim.

It adds to the replay value. I don't really get much fun out of older RPGs other than to hear the story again, because nothing is scaled, and so, because I've played them so much for so long, I know where all the best items are and can't help myself from grabbing all the best gear at level 1. I know where all the strongest and weakest mobs are to quickly level, and I know where all the easy money is.

It tends to get boring when it's not scaled.

Though, I would like if there was at least SOME chance of finding better than usual gear/mobs at every level. It would make finding such items more thrilling.

Agreed. Its the difference of approach players have and its something thats changing the way Pencil and Paper RPGs are being made as well. Some people just can't accept "this is the story, this is the game, play what is there", but rather approach a game with the attitude of "this is what I expect, I don't care whats their, this is what I want and its what I expect to be there".

The problem with the latter approach is that you will always be disapointed not matter what game you play because simply put, you can't design a game with every person who will play it in mind, meeting each of their demands. All you can do is create a game from your own vision.

The Elder Scrolls series already has more freedom than any other game I have ever played by a very wide margin, yet somehow the ability to use gold swords at level 1 is somehow a failure of the developer? I don't get that, I honestly don't. Its kind of like saying "I want to be level 60 when I start the game, I don't like leveling up"... ok? I mean I think thats why we have games that are moddable, so people can take the game and hack it up anyway they want without it affecting the players who are fine with just playing what is there. If you want gold swords for example.. just mod your game and give yourself gold swords!

Yeah - See the Baldurs Gate Series of games. Released around 1999 to 2000, and still more playable than Beth games.

Static items which you 'knew' existed and what protected them. But, oh god, so much fun to try and get those items, especially if you tried to get them at a low level.

No he's wrong, limitations don't mean railroading.

You keep mentioning specific things when the discussion is talking about overall loot and leveling. I play the game to experience it not maximize the system of which it uses. I'll agree to disagree with you.

Limitations do mean limitations though, can we agree on that? I mean most RPG's of the past don't have open worlds, even those that where more open than others like the Fallout series for example still had a lot of limitations placed on them in regards to where you could go, what you could do and how you could do it.

The issue with level scaling in Skyrim is that when you level up you level up a generic level on which your scaling is based, but it does not take into account which perks you select and what gear you are wearing. Hence if you get to level 20 you might only have blacksmith skills, hence you are going to svck as a fighter and the game might be too hard, but on the oppossite end you might focus on combat and dealing damage and it might be too easy.

Hence I agree that level scaling is still in its infancy and requires considerable more thought than was put into Skyrim but as a concept its far better than static MMO like balancing that dictates to you at what level you can go where and do stuff. Its not a perfect system in Skyrim and can easily be broken, but its definitily a concept heading in the right direction.

The scaling is probably fine. Some players' perspectives may be all that needs fixing. If you encountered only the weaker, familiar enemies in familiar places, and encountered the newer, tougher enemies only in out-of-the-way places you had never visited before, you wouldn't have an issue. If you have an issue with leveled enemies, its not that they exist, but only that they fail to exist according to your rules.

As players, our only job is playing our characters. It is no surprise, but is only to be expected, that we will run into harder and harder enemies. When I encounter some leveled enemies, my only thought is, "I knew I would bump into these sooner or later, and it might as well be here." That's all there is to it.

If seriously bothers you that more powerful things appear as you gain levels, or that this or that thing gives you a harder fight than you expected, odds are you aren't as good a player as you could be. Rules about how powerful a bandit should be, or about how, when, and where any leveled thing should appear, are the responsibility of game designers. If you're thinking about that crap as a player, are actually taking offense that the game world doesn't conform to your expectations, you're doing it wrong.

I also dont like level scaling.

Its especially bad when you have the very small amount of enemy types, by the time you're level 5 youve seen every enemy in the game, and they get
recycled over and over. That is bad, and extremely boring.

I like going to areas and getting killed simply because they are too strong. It gives you a goal to get strong enough to
come back when you can kill them and see what was there.

Not just go anywhere whenever, who cares because everything will always be the same level as me. Its like why even go
anywhere but one cave, cause you know its going to have the same thing as all the others will.

:violin:

FYP.

And that's why Skyrim has limitations but no railroading. Skyrim seals bits and pieces behind minimum-level requirements when it makes sense, and stops some things from scaling to out-of-hand levels.

A static world tells you when you can go where at all times, and this is unescapable. If a certain dungeon is tuned for level 10, level 10 is the only time you will be able to enjoy properly. This means that either there's a single level X dungeons/area/questline for each level range (thus making the game a strictly linear experience), or there's several to pick from, and you need to choose what to run on different playthrough, making the game a (still linear) choose-your-adventure WRPG a la Witcher. You're still spreading the game thin instead of keeping it rich.

Sandbox wrpgs are meant to allow you to experience and enjoy how much of the game as you want at your own pace. You may or may not do the thieves' guild quest line, and the game will adapt to that. In a static world, I WILL have to run one of the level appropriate quests, even if I don't like any of them, or the rest of the content will be locked away.

Static RPGs work, and work well, but TES never was static, and asking it to become so is like asking Street Fighter to become a turn based RPG.

@Topic:

Nope. You just don't like games that evolve over time.

Small amount of enemy types? I've played the game for 50+ hours and been quite please with the varied enemy from forlorn warriors, to bandits, to igers, to bear, to spiders. to rats, to wolves, to vampires, to necromancers, to dragons, to trolls to mammoths, and on and on and on.....

> You can't have a sandbox without level scaling.

You can, but it requires that the character's abilities be kept to within a much smaller range throughout the course of the game. The idea of the PC becoming many times more powerful (if not exponentially more powerful) over the course of a few levels is pretty much the standard RPG model right now though.

Some musing on this point.

I like how it's not so. I like how the world is consistent. If there's people living in a particular area, then it makes sense I can go there. It's absolutely absurd that a part of the world is sealed off before level XX because the local fauna is too strong, and yet once I get past those creatures I find farmers and villagers happily living there.

Skyrim is... realistic. The region is inhabited. People live here. You can go anywhere, and generally survive. Cause people simply does. And you can meet a giant mostly anywhere, and he'll be impossible till you're a certain level, and so on.

This is how the world should work. Some places should be dangerous, when it makes sense, but areas shouldn't be level-sealed. Put a tomb that is impossible to tackle sub level 20 in the middle of an area populated by commoners and villagers - it's fine. Make the mobs and people have different levels according to how they live is best left to MMOs.

IMO <--!!! killing Camoran as level 1 should never be an option. In this case, scaling is bad. Similar to other quest chains.

I'm sort of leaning towards the same conclusion too. TES games could probably benefit from doing away with levels altogether, and focus on character progression on a strict skill/perk/equipment dynamic.

Something like PnP RPGs, where the difference in damage range between an iron sword and a magical artifact is going from 1-6 to 1-8+4. Tone down the numbers, work on much smaller spreads, remove scaling, and focus on character improvements that don't affect health or damage pools to excessive levels.

Oh, man. This is hilarious.

I just realized that even Dungeons and Dragons; the FATHER of the RPG genre, has level scaling. Unless your DM is a sinister [censored], you'll always have encounters appropriate for your party's level, and the loot you obtain is 100% based on the difficulty of the encounter. :celebration:

/thread

Yes, but not all limitations are a bad things ; in fact, on the contrary, many limitations (not all) are actually what make a game interesting. The limitations provided by a non-scaled system are what make it feel more realistic/consistent/believable and increase the fun of and immersion.
I don't know of any limitation that the "static" system Fallout provided which actually would have been improved by level scaling.


I'm also not supporting the MMO way, which is to define arbitrary zones as being of "level X to Y", and then stuffing in creatures and stretch them to these levels (hence having gnolls lvl 40 because they are in the "lvl 40 zone" and drakes lvl 20 because they are in the "lvl 20 zone".
What I support is a "logical/sensical" world, where creatures have level corresponding to their logical strength (a dragon is a lot stronger than a giant which is a lot stronger than a wolf which is about the same strength as a wardog, etc.) and are found in their logical places (wolves are found in the wilderness, mountain lions, well, in mountains, boars in forests, bandits in ambush positions or in their stronghold, etc.). Just a world that feels logical, and hence is much more immersive.