its horrid

better to always upgrade our gear than hold off all quests to get better level items

in OB it was fail

the only and best solution for me is to simply make MORE items for every level, which u can buy, find, or make

Well Morrowind didn't really have a problem with non-leveled loot. Sure if I knew already where something was I could run there at level one and grab it (Mentor's Ring) but there were not that many great unique items in the game and I never found myself hunting them down.

The Daedric quest had the problem solved by not allowing the quests to start until the player reached a certain level. (which some would argue as good or bad)

I just think the really good unique items need to be fixed, and well guarded. Sure someone will figure out a way to nerf the item and get them earlier, but they are just playing their game the way they want to. If I don't want to go after a great axe because there are 4 giants guarding it, I'll wait. Maybe if I can figure out a way around or past the giants then maybe I deserve the item anyway.

Another solution is to have level restrictions on the items themselves. I've seen this used many times, though it often hurts immersion. I would say you could have a STR or DEX restriction (like DAO) or something but since stats are out this game that wouldn't work.

Yes some items are unique, good and levelled, if you power play a mage you would wait with the mage guild quests until later as it has lots of unique items for mages.

As I understand Skyrim uses a new system, instead of having a ring oblivion style levelled item they will use a levelled list with unique items, you get a item who fit with the quest giver and your level.

Here is how I think it will work, you claim your reward, as the quest giver is a fighter he will give you a fighter style reward. The games filter the list on this and the level of you or the quest and find select a random item, I you have got all the relevant items you probably get a levelled standard item.
Should work better, if you has to use a specified item use level limits as in the daeric quests.

How can leveled loot be good ?

That could work if all leveled loot is pulled from the same table. If however I know that one particular quest gives a certain item I would still be in the same boat of waiting until higher level to do the quests. Or, worse yet, reloading the game because I didn't get the item I wanted from the list.

ps - Love your avatar.

I guess the levelled list will work as a container not a regular Oblivion levelled list so if an item is selected it will be removed.
One upside is that as you can not plan quests to get the items you want, always nice to do the fishing quest early for the water breathing constant effect.
The only downside I see here is that a cool looking but petty low level item might be pushed out of the bottom of the list as you level up.

Ty about the avatar, I stole it from another forum user who is inactive, much later I found the deviantart page where he stole it, very fitting for a Khajiit thief

Alot of posts in this thread are confusing two things: Leveled Loot and Leveled World. They're slightly connected, but are not the same thing. (Like, Fallout 3 didn't have leveled loot - all the "unique" items had set stats. And every other item just had one form - there were no "enchanted" assault rifles.)

So, "Skyrim's level scaling is llke Fallout 3's" refers to the World Scaling. Doesn't give any point of reference for Leveled Loot.





But if the map is divided up into basically "set" difficulty levels, then the game isn't really "open world", is it? Like FO:NV - you end up with a theoretically open world, that isn't actually because most areas are blocked off (as effectively as if they had zone walls around them) by the high level monsters. Linear game, not open world.

"Okay, you escape from your execution. Now you need to quest around this area, until you're tough enough to survive in the next one. And then quest in that area until you're tough enough to get to The Big CIty. Then quest around that area until you're tough enough to get to zone 4....." That's not open world.

So I guess the issue is, how important a component of TES is "open world". Would the game series be better if they just threw that out the window and made a linear-zone style game like everyone else?

This, 100%



Also semi agree with this

I personally dont care either way if there super amazing static weapons that you can randomly stumble upon, but i DO think there should be hand placed unique weapons that are of the caliber of all the other weapons in that area just with a very unique skin/look and only a small magical benefit over the rest in that general area/level range.

For those complaining about these static powerful weapons being just for people who wiki them to get and blaze through the game, i personally think thats fine that people do that, but another solution could be to make these "static super weapons/items" possibly guarded by maybe a wise old dragon or something magical that would only allow you to pass after a certain level requirement.....and if not level requirement, then have you defeat a number of enemies appropriate to the items level of power based on similar items.

I don't mind some leveled loot, but Oblivion really abused it. I think they hit the right balance with FO3.

But it is open world, you have the freedom to go where you want and do what you want, the varying difficulties in areas is to help with the whole progression aspect that makes an rpg an rpg, like Todd said they want you to be able to go into a cave and get your butt handed to you but then come back after you level a couple times and wipe the place out, to give you the sense of accomplishment.

"Leveled Loot" isn't referring to "high level bandits have Glass & Daedric equipment". It's referring to certain Named Magic Items having different stats depending on what level you do the quest that rewards them.

There wasn't any "leveled loot" in Fallout 3. A3-21's plasma rifle was the same no matter when you got it. Same with the Reservist's Rifle, Ol' Painless, Lincoln's Repeater, and all the other "special" weapons.

@kirayln2000
maybe you could look at my last post but could you tell me why you think that wouldnt make the game "open world." I know i couldnt kill dagoth ur at lvl 2 in morrowind and just skipped the entire game because it was "open world." Again the point of the varying difficulties in different areas/dungeons is to add to the progression aspect. Which to me is one of the core aspects of an rpg.

Curious what you would like to see as "open world" in an elder scrolls rpg.

i think in some cases, 'leveled loot' can refer to bandits having glass and daedric. For instance, why didn't some bandits have glass and daedric right when you exited the sewers? Because you weren't high enough in level to see that gear yet, that's why. To me, that's leveled loot. Yes, the main gist of the thread is the quest rewards but it also applies to everything they did in the game. This not only applies to loot but mobs as well. Where were all the minataur's and ogre's hiding when you exit the sewers? Were they in some cave somewhere just biding there time? They think we were too weak to take them on so they hid? No. The game didn't show them to you because you weren't high enough level. Personally I think they all should have been there from the start. It would have added so much to the experience. After your first experience with an ogre/minataur at low levels, it would certainly make exploring the next cave/dungeon a bit more exciting don't you think? And if I could make it through a cave filled with those types of mobs the reward should be worth it.

I think what I'm going for is..... if you have to follow a set progression through the areas of the map (Fight in area 1 until you're tough enough for area 2; repeat), then it's not "open world". Whether or not there are any physical walls between the areas - if stepping too far north gets you automatically smacked down by enemies you can't survive, there might as well be solid walls.

Sure, you can have areas be "harder" or "weaker" while still being scaled. Fallout 3 did this reasonably well - Super Mutant camps always had super mutants in them, no matter your level, so they were harder than Raider areas - but the quality of the super mutants still increased with your level. And there were harder set locations - like Old Olney - but their existance didn't fence you into one section of the map.

Yeah i agree with you in that it shouldnt be a like a straight path of areas becoming more difficult, but there dooes have to be those caves/dungeons w/e that are out of your range and i think those places are where you should find these static unique weapons we've been talking about. There should be a way they could make it so any level 4 cant just go grab it out of the place because they wiki it and know where it is, possibly having you defeat a number of the more difficult opponents in the game...and because when you enter the cave/dungeon/place and you get your butt handed to you by these extremely powerful dudes you would be like "damn these guys are strong i bet theyre guarding something really good, now ill remember this place and come back when im stronger."

" if stepping too far north gets you automatically smacked down by enemies you can't survive, there might as well be solid walls" -- but those walls are only in your head, not mine. on some play-throughs that's exactly what i want. it tells me to go into stealth mode. i love exploring area's where if i'm not careful i'll get eaten alive. that's the real challenge. if i can stroll through every area of the map from the start with really no thread of dying, it gets a bit old too quickly.

This as well, i dont think i couldve explored all of the island of Solstheim right after i came out of seyda neen without working towards it a bit.

loot should be by chance, higher chances of good stuff on tougher enemies, or in difficult to get to areas.

I also think that skills, such as blade, should be just one side of the coin. Each usable item should have it's own mini skill bar. use a certain sword for an extended period, and you'll get good with it. switch to another blade, and some of your skill remains, some you need to relearn with a new weight, length, balance and such. Higher blade skill means you adapt faster to new bladed weapons (gain more weapon Experience (WXP) per strike. With this kind of system in place, you could make relics and higher level items tougher to learn, making them less useful for characters who just aren't skilled enough yet, offsetting the "find epic gear early" phenomenon.

just my 2 cents on the balance issue, and that's how i'd do it, were i given the option when making an RPG of this size.

OB kinda had a skill/damge thing going itself. So what if you find the Sword of Awesome at level 3. If your Blade skill was only 20 you still couldn't do much damage with it. But added to that OB would let you find the SoA at level 3, with your Blade skill at 20, and then on top of that nerf the sword so it's barely half as powerful as it would have been if you had been level 15 (with still a Blade skill of 20). Thtat's just a broken system.

Give me the Sword of Awesome at level 3 (if I find a way to kill the two Dragons guarding it) and just don't let it have it's full potential until my Blade skill is at 100. Problem solved yes?

agree with this

a bit of semantics here. if i get sword of awesome at level 3 it should be awesome and be able to do it's full potential damage, full stats, not nerfed at all. what would limit it's effectiveness are my level 3 stats. my insignificant blade skill and my insignificant strength. those stats being what they are would 'encourage' me to get a weapon that i can use more effectively until i've improved my strength and my skill with a blade sufficiently enough to wield the sword of awesome in an effective manner.

You basically said the EXACT same thing as the person you quoted. Not sure if youre agreeing with him or not.

like i said it's semantics. he said "just don't let it have it's full potential " implying the sword shouldn't have it's full potential. the sword should have it's full potential. the limiting factor should be the players ability to use it, stats and skill.

Well, I used the quest award leveler - mod =D in Oblivion, of course

I like this idea a lot. I've envisioned the same basic thing - that higher level weapons would have, in some form, higher skill requirements, simply so that lower level characters can't gain much if any advantage from using an uber weapon. That not only settles the balance issue (which, by itself, doesn't really matter to me - people are entitled to play the game as they please, and while I think using an uber weapon ruins it, the fact that I have to rebalance virtually every weapon mod I use before it's not uber implies that I'm in the minority on that), but just makes more sense to me. I've often thought that if there were a way to do it, I'd make it so that a low level character is actually less skilled with an uber weapon than with a normal one, simply to represent that it requires more to use it. Sort of like the difference between driving a Ferrari and driving a Hyundai. But I really like the idea of each weapon having its own sort of internalized skill requirements and thus each weapon requiring at least some time to learn and be able to use well. Even if one switches from an iron to a steel longsword, they're going to have different weights and different distributions of the weight and they're going to handle differently, and that would represent that. And yes - tie it in to overall weapon skill, so that a highly skilled fighter would require virtually no time at all to learn a new weapon while a lower-skilled one would have to struggle a bit. And in addition, I'd like to see weapon damage FAR more dependent on skill, so that a relatively low level weapon in the hands of a skilled fighter would still do decent damage AND a relatively high level weapon in the hands of a lousy fighter would still only do poor damage.

With that sort of complexity in place, then it becomes less important to load the game down with contrivances to try to keep high level weapons out of the hands of low level characters. Then it could just be set up logically - high level weapons are generally used by or guarded by high level creatures and/or are in difficult to reach places. That all makes sense, simply because if they're readily available, one of the thousands of people in the area would've already gotten them. They have to be hard enough to obtain for it to make sense that nobody else has attained them yet. But then if some player figures out some exploit to get his hands on it early - that's fine. It's really not going to do him much good anyway, but it'll look cool, so more power to him.

And to the heart of the OP - I dislike leveled quest rewards. They should be fixed and the difficulty of getting them and likelihood of finding them should be keyed to their power - enormously powerful items should be well-hidden and/or well-guarded, while lesser items should be easier to find and/or obtain. Completely aside from any issue of balance, that just makes sense.