The purpose of level scaling is to prevent two scenarios: low level character cannot go anywhere without getting killed; high level character cannot find anything challenging to kill in the game.This is pretty straight forward and we all agree on that.

Then some people may ask, what's the point of leveling if it's all scaled? Well, the point of leveling is to reward your hardwork on clearing dungeons, killing bandits, monsters, completing quests etc. The keyword here is "reward". By letting you level up, you are rewarded better stats, more powerful skills, perks etc. This is more prevalent in linear RPGs such as Diablo.

In a open world RPG, however, there should be rewards from leveling that contribute to your freedom. Naturally, when we explore an open world, we'll face places that we cannot safely go to, treasures guarded by monsters that we cannot defeat, and quests that are too difficult that we cannot complete.And we'll swear that when we get better we'll come back for more! ("I'll be back" - terminator) Oblivion didn't do it right because by leveling everything it took out the reward for freedom, since either at level 1 or at level 20 you can go to the same place and face the same level of challenge.

Therefore I propose the following things that should be or should NOT be level scaled:

- Anything pertains to the main quest should be level scaled, but the further you progress into the quest, the harder it'll be for you.
- Side quests involving the guilds should be level scaled, that way when you do mages guild quests when you are level 25 you wouldn't feel it's a joke.
- Randomly generated quests should be scaled
- Randomly encountered enemies in the open should be scaled, but their equipment/items should NOT be scaled. That way you do not encounter bandits with daedric weapons, but bandits that are stronger and have better skills.

- Dungeons along with all the treasures in it should NOT be scaled
- Friendly NPCs along with their belongings should NOT be scaled (superman guards, anyone?)
- All other sides quests should NOT be scaled
- Certain areas of the map should contain powerful enemies that are NOT scaled

In short, we should scale the "random" stuff, and diversify the pre-placed stuff with different difficulty levels. Using this, we might even be able to get away with difficulty level setting.

It's being scaled like Fallout 3; Deal with it. :disguise:

/thread

Main quest and guild quests should not be scaled, imo. It should indeed be very hard to do the main quest on a low level, and it should require a very high level to become guild master. As you said, the reward in skill advance is that you can do new things with these new skills. In a linear game, you reach new areas, in an open world game you can always go anywhere, but you'll die if you're not ready. This should mainly apply to guild / main quest lines.

There has always been level scaling, Morrowind had it too. Oblivion severely overdid it, yes, but there's nothing wrong with how it was in Fallout3 and I'm glad Bethesda decided to make Skyrim's level scaling similar to FA3.

And they're not going to change it, so your best bet is to just accept that Skyrim will have level scaling.

I answered in bold.

Edit* typo....

Still think this element is a potential bad call. We wil have to wait and see.

Good RPGs have one thing in common, character development and levelling is rewarded in game, i.e. making more areas accessible as one example through your relative increase in strength.

An RPG with any major level scaling of the world around you is just a FPS.

I agree.
To resolve this, the main and guild quests should get exponentially more difficult as it progresses, that way you have to take some time to leave it and go improve yourself.

clearly you didn't read what I said and you have no idea how level scaling works in FO3.

You can't scale one without the other or vice-versa. In your proposed scenario you'd get assistance from some hunter in town and you'd pray that you don't encounter any hostiles along the road to your destination cause your companion will most probably end up with his face in the dirt. That's the case in most scenarios in Oblivion :facepalm: . It made fighting with assistance very frustrating and nerve-wracking :banghead: .

Ditto.

that's why you need to find the right hunter to help you and not the weak ones

All of Oblivion's scaling problems were solved with two simple changes in FO3:
#1 Each area has a minimum level it will not scale below.
#2 The level an area scales to is fixed when you first visit it and doesn't continue to grow with you.

the thing is, why not spend time getting levelling right given the massive issues with Oblivion, instead of looking at stuff like finishing moves. I really couldn't care about stuff like that.

I only hope they dont scale loot, I remember finding a deadric dagger, the masque of clavicus vile all in the same room with a Nord necromancer in Morrowind inside a dwemer tower. Various pieces of daedric armour was placed around specific dungeons too and all deadric briastplates were enchanted. :shakehead:

Problem is, the definition of "the right hunter" would change with your level. The higher your level, the narrower the choice, though it's the same destination that interests you :flamed: .

I agree, maybe the PC should be told they're not powrful enough to undertake a quest or something like that. In Oblivion I finished all the guilds before I figured out how the leveling works so I had everything beat at level 2.

Well so far the only thing we know is truly using level-scaling atm is random quests. My guess is that the world will use a level-scaling system and dungeons and caves will have set levels like a typical game.

Don't see why main quest events should be scaled...

Maybe those parts of the main quest that you are forced into with no warning. But there should be lots of bits where you are warned that this is a dangerous task, and that you should maybe consider going in prepared and trained. If you go right ahead with these quests, you should expect a harder-than-usual fight.

This happened repeatedly in Morrowind (the imperial guy in Balmora giving out main-quest tasks, and all the while warning you about the possible dangers), and the game was all the better for it. In Oblivion main quest you never really felt like that much of a hero, as each challenge was so obviously designed to have you break a slight sweat but survive.

A certain amount of upscaling in main-quest tasks I could understand, to avoid whole segments of the game feeling trivial because the player chose to play through another quest-line in between and now is high level and has good gear. But the main quest should never be scaled down. It should be difficult. That way it might take a little more effort, but in the end you will feel like a hero.

OK if Skyrim is to be the same as FO3 in terms of levleing, can anyone tell me the difference between the FO3 leveling and the Oblivion leveling? I don't know the difference.
Can't they just do it Morrowind's way, except just making sure that certain monsters level with you when you reach a certain level, to ensure you don't become a God/Goddess? So say if I got to level 30, and there was a level 25 monster, than it would be level 35 or something when I was level 40. Of course this wouldn't apply to simple rats and lesser creatures. Probably a stupid idea though.

Man, I just want to be able to enter really hard dungeons and eagerly struggle my way through it, because at the end I know I'll pick up an awesome weapon, and then know that not every single freakin' bandit out there has suddenly become fully armoured with the type of that weapon I picked up.

I really don't like this idea. So the difficulty of an area you're exploring is dependent on how long ago you were originally near it. I'd much rather the difficulty be dependent on what creatures are supposed to be in the area, irrespective of the player, instead of changing the creatures (and hence the difficulty) based on the player.

I like the idea of the MQ being scaled, but not scaling down to your lower level, but scaling up if you're higher level. It always felt cheap in Morrowind facing Dagoth Ur at level 40 and slapping him around like a dead fish. If bosses/important encounters could scale up to match your level or even be higher, I think that'd be great. But definitely not scaling down.

What I'm not too fond of in the Fallout 3 level scaling is that the enemies don't really match the location. It's allright in Fallout where most of the locations are the same, but for a game like Skyrim I would like the developers to choose which areas are tough and which areas are easy.

eg: Buttercup Meadows should be easy and filled with rabbits, stoats, birds and deers.
and Glacial Lavafields should have have tough magical creatures.

each area in fallout 3 has a minimum level and if you go there when your level is below the minimum area level, then it's set to the minimum level and locked there. if you go there when you have a higher level, it'll be scaled to your level first before being locked.

so just make areas with different minimum level setting

Nice ideas, but I have different ones.

I think that we can have games that have absolutely no level scaling, only different zones with pre-defined danger level, maybe a little bit randomized, and the danger level of those zones can be dynamic, and in each play-through can be different from other play-throughs.

In each game, you can start in different places, depending on your choices in the char-gen phase, and that place can be marked as newbie area, and an intelligent engine can start from that place and mark the different zones with different difficulty level, each zone can have a pre-determined danger level depending on some factors, one of which is the starting place of the player.

Other factors can affect the formula of defining the danger level of different areas, and a bit of randomization can enter that formula as well, the place for each major quest of the main quest can be defined in this phase as well, and can differ in each play-through.

In fact a real time engine can check the parameters of each quest line and decide where to start it and where to continue it's events, in the fly, and each play-through can be as different as the designers want, or they can decide that there needs to be some fixed elements for all the play-throughs.

In the end, the enemies and loot on each zone are scaled to the danger level of that zone, but can be selected from random lists scaled to the difficulty level of the place.

The players could be warned about the difficulty level of each area before they enter that area, for instance by the mood of that area, smoothness or harshness of the weather effects, the music theme, the signs of a previous massacre, and so on...

And they can decide if they like to take a risk and enter that area, or leave it for a later try, when they are more developed and prepared, but for sure they have to develop their character to higher level, before they could beat the main quests.

Each quest line can define a difficulty range for their setting, the theme of their setting, the required roles, and item types, and so on.., so the engine would prepare them in the difficulty level of their choice, and in the right setting, so that they would fit right in.

And when I say that the enemy and items should be scaled to the difficulty level of an area, I mean if an area is marked as a newbie area, then the loot and enemy level should fit for a newbie character, but there should be a really minimal chance of finding higher level loot there and in the stores of that area.

But when a place is marked as mid level area, then there should be from low level to mid level monsters, and from low level to mid level loot, but mostly low level ones, and a small chance of finding higher level loot.

And this formula can continue for higher level areas as well.

But there should always be hand placed monsters, items, setting, scenery, life, letters, and stories for each area as well, so that each are has a character of each own and be unique and individual.

This results with a dynamic game and land which would be totally different in each play-through, but each place has its individual uniqueness, and there is absolutely no level scaling at all, but all the places feel natural, and the players can decide for themselves if they want to stick to areas that they can easily survive or risk the more dangerous places for a chance of finding better loot earlier.

And in this setting, performing any task should yield to a skill progression, depending on the difficulty of that task related to the level of the player's related skill.

So if you kill a low level monster when you are low level with a blade, you should gain relatively adequate blade skill boost, but doing the same task when you are an experienced swords-man should result in much less skill boost, so that you have to find foes that are more appropriate for your level.

And each time you hit a foe, you should gain experience scaled to the amount of damage you inflict but should also depend of the level of your opponent scaled to your skill level.

So in the end I say that we can have a really intense but hugely rewarding and satisfying experience which is very dynamic and never the same, but have absolutely no level scaling, and in such place, players really can feel that they are growing and broadening their horizons, and feel greatly satisfied with each conquer, and each chain that they break.

OK, that's all.

One word: nehrim