I just recalled one of my major problems with OB while posting in another thread, Leveled Loot.

The loot in question was the Blackwater Blade you get in the An Unexpected Voyage quest from the The Bloated Float Inn. I remember that once the leveled loot issue was figured out I would actually try to do and find next to nothing until I was high enough level that the loot would be good. I mean there would be certain quests that I wouldn't even do until I reached level 20+, just because I wanted the loot to be better. That really was one of the big 'destroy immersion' things about OB.

Two easy solutions to the problem, either fix the loot so it's not leveled, or have the loot level with you. It just seemed pointless to get what would have been a great sword when you are at level 5 because it's then useless to you later on.

Has there been any news as to whether or not this method of loot is continued in ESV?

No, there has been no news.



edit: personally, I have no problem with the way it was done in Oblivion. But, then, the Bethesda open-world games are some of the few that I don't slavishly follow an FAQ in an attempt to get "the best" everything. After having played Oblivion a bunch of times over the years, I still have no idea which pieces of loot are leveled, where most of them are, (heck, I don't think I've ever seen Umbra).

But even if I did know all the leveled loot, I still wouldn't care. Yeah, I got this item at lv10, and it has stats appropriate to that level. That's fine - I'll be getting new loot at 20, with lv20 stats. "Old" gear getting outmoded and replaced is par for the course in RPGs. :shrug:

I always hated that too, but I also can't think of a decent solution. My current character's Chillrend is a frozen stick.

Levelled random loot is fine, you expect better stuff as you advance in a game.

Levelled Uniques and hand placed items, however, is a terrible idea. And while items levelling with you makes sense in a strictly 'this is a game, I wantz my rewardz' sense, it is totally illogical when viewed any other way. How the hell does a sword know you have gone up two levels?
Place them at a fixed level, with a commensurate challenge, unique items should be a fixed part of a fantasy world.
Do 'The killing fields at level 1, when the goblins are easy to kill, wait 'til you are level 20 or whatever to turn it in, get a much more powerful sword. Not exactly 'role playing', is it ?

I'm hoping for some sweet, hand placed loot.

no leveled loot. period.

loot should never be leveled. OB was horrible at how it did it. just because i hit lvl 20 every bandit in the land is in full daedric? what, they had it in the closet at home until i hit level 20???? don't think so.

all loot should be at it's fullest right away and all of it be accessible right away. however, my ability to use said loot will 'limit' it's usefulness to me. for instance, if i haven't worked on sword/blade skill then i wouldn't be able to do as much damage with a weapon at first. once i become a master i will then be able to take full advantage of it and not be gimped with a low level quest reward that i got at level 5. same goes for armor. i get an uber set of armor but i'm not strong enough to actually wear it and fight effectively in it i should suffer the consequences.

That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about "Sword Of Flames" (to create a Named magic item out of thin air), being 5 Fire Damage if you complete it's quest at lv10, 10 Fire Damage is you do it at lv20, etc. Apparently there are some people out there who, once they learn that some quest rewards are better at higher level, feel they can't complete those quests unless they're getting the best reward possible.

You want an inferior reward? Because last I checked, the whole point about being rewarded is to get something good. And the worst part about Oblivion is that they don't tell you about it. You don't know you are getting a horrible sword that would soon be useless because you started the quest too early.

A reward that is too weak would be out-classed by shop-bought items and thus, be rendered useless.

If the reward is appropriate for the level it was gotten at, I don't see a problem, no. :shrug:


I've never seen the point in "put off playing the game until high level, because it'll get you a bonus!" strategies, because..... the point is to play the game, not avoid it. (I had the same reaction to the original "you can get all your skills to 100 in Fallout 3" strategies - you had to avoid raising your skills due to leveling, get to level 20, and find all the hidden skill books and bobbles. They said it was "so easy". Personally, I thought it sounded stupid - by the time you'd done all that, there wasn't any game left, so why did it even matter that you'd maxed all skills?)

So you're saying you want it so that there's the possibility of doing a quest at level 20 and getting a loot item say a weapon that is actually at a fixed level of say 10? Which means you would get something that is useless anyway? I personally wouldn't mind that too much, but from what you're saying this is more appropriate. However, you also purposely waited until high levels to get better items meaning you couldn't handle getting things that are no good? You can't have it both ways. How about just play the game, do a quest and take your loot. Simple as that. Don't blame the game for choices you made.

I was just about to mention Chillrend. It's one of my Oblivion character's main weapons. I'm glad I didn't stumble across the quest while I was low enough level to get a weaker version.

I personally think unique powerful loot should have a static version, rather than a player being punished for doing a quest too early, as it looks like Zayle7 and others had happen.

Personally, I'm less of a fan of people being able to maybe exploit their way to grabbing The Uber Sword Of Doom early (at lower level than intended) because it's a placed static item. But, hey, different opinions.



Like I said, I've got no idea which items are leveled and where they are. Getting one of them at lv10 instead of lv20 isn't an "inferior" reward - it's just a reward.

....for ex. I finally played Shivering Isles this spring. That day/night sword, I'm guessing, is leveled? I got it when I got it. It beat stuff up quite nicely. And then I leveled higher, monsters got tougher, and I got a new, stronger weapon. And I don't see any issues with that. Gear gets upgraded over time. :shrug:

The trouble here is the difference between what you know, and what your character knows. If you are pure role playing, any unusual reward item would be wonderful for your character, but for a lot of gamers, the knowledge you didn't get the best can stick in your craw.
You can't turn around and tell everyone not to read wikis, or not to powergame, that's how things are, so the sensible thing seems to have fixed level items, doesn't annoy those with player knowledge the character wouldn't have, and if you don't know or care whether it's levelled or not, obviously won't annoy you either.

As its been mentioned, as you get stronger you find better weapons and armour. Then you sell anything you don't want, and lo, you get money to buy other equipment. Better equipment by chance? Or more potions for your next foray into a dungeon where another item awaits... Come on, this is what RPGs have been doing for years.

If you can grab the Uber Sword of Doom when the monster is 30 times stronger than you at level 1, you earned it.

Get your head around the idea that level scaling is the problem. As long as the treasure is given the equivalent difficulty obstacle, there is no exploit. It is only when you magically make every monster level 1 in order to scale with a weak player, that you cause the problem to begin with.

I don't know any old school RPG that turns a supposed ultimate weapon of doom into a pathetic toothpick just because you got the quest at level 1.

and you trimmed this out of what you quoted: "all loot should be at it's fullest right away and all of it be accessible right away. however, my ability to use said loot will 'limit' it's usefulness to me. for instance, if i haven't worked on sword/blade skill then i wouldn't be able to do as much damage with a weapon at first. once i become a master i will then be able to take full advantage of it and not be gimped with a low level quest reward that i got at level 5. same goes for armor. i get an uber set of armor but i'm not strong enough to actually wear it and fight effectively in it i should suffer the consequences. "

i know what they are talking about. i was expanding on it. no loot should be leveled, it doesn't make sense. i suppose if you think in a 'single playthrough' type mentality it doesn't matter as much but if you play through with more than 1 toon doesn't it bother you getting a different reward for the same quest just because toon A did the quest at a lower level than toon B and feeling deprived on one toon or the other? and didn't it bother you at all that just because you leveled up in oblivion all the bandits that you were fighting the day before are now in daedric armor where the day before they were in leather and steel? does that make sense? no. and at level 1, where are all the mountain lions in OB? are they hiding from you because they are too weak? don't think so. just because you level up a bit then they decide to come out of hiding and attack? again, doesn't make sense.

so, while the thread started with 'leveled loot', i expanded it to show that any sort of level scaling is bad. period.

course that's just my opinion. :biggrin:

Actually, loot levelling is directly related to enemy/dungeon levelling. If monster scales to the player level, it means that all the rewards had to be nerfed because you had to have the reward match the difficulty of getting it.

So the argument is this; don't level scale the enemies, so we don't have to be forced to level scale the loot. Then everyone is happy.

Whereas I contend that, if you were able to get past a level 30 challenge at level 1, something was exploited - bad skill design, bad AI, bad scripting, something. Because if a lv1 can beat it, it's not a lv30 challenge.


But I think we're stuck at a philosophical difference - I don't have a problem with level scaling (just BAD level scaling, like vanilla Oblivion's world scaling), so we're never going to agree on any topics that touch on it. Ah, well.

I didn't say that, if you were paying attention. It was stated that you find an item, then later as you go up in levels, get stronger, you find items that are better and use those instead. I don't remember many old school RPGs that gave you the possibility of finding an ultimate weapon of doom at so early a level as level one either. Only table top games if the dungeon master allowed it or some open world games would even have that remote option. Forgive me if arena or daggerfall had it, I never played those much to my chagrin.

Nice using my own sig against me too

so let's nerf the reward because some people might find a way to 'exploit' a quest/dungeon to get an uber reward too soon? i disagree with that way of thinking. i personally want the challenge to be there, not taken away from me.

i agree it's bad design but that's the way it is. developers don't usually have the same level of imagination required to imagine all the different possible ways people will come up with to overcome any challenge. i am the type that tries to find a way to accomplish things that a normal person wouldn't even attempt. not by using 'exploits' but by using my brains. if i can out-think the developers and come up with a way to beat a lvl 30 quest at lvl 5 so be it. the one way to make sure this is a true challenge is to put the uber reward on a lvl 30 mob you have to loot after killing it and not in some chest you can sneak in and loot while invis.

What makes you think it was an exploit? I could have died countless times, tried over and over again, and only got the item with the skin of my teeth.

Or in fact, I could just have been a very good player.
There are plenty of games out there where you can see so called low-level runs in unscaled worlds. People who managed to use everything they have to their maximum potential in order to do more than what people expected.

Are you saying I don't DESERVE to get a level 30 item after beating a level 30 challenge? Then that is the programmer's problem, not mine. If I beat a hard obstacle, I deserve a proportional reward. Unless you think I need to play three days in real life before I get anything decent? You want an in-game clock to decide what loot I can get?

If I can beat a level 30 challenge at level 1 but you can't, then that isn't your problem to worry about. Single Player, remember?

The relation to your sig is purely accidental, I can assure you.

And as for finding an ultimate item of doom at an earlier level than expected... Here, let me show you a link.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscOneNuke
This link lists all known example of games with such elements. As you can tell, none of them have anything that scaled to player level. Most of them are not actually easy to get, as they are intentionally placed there by programers to reward players who want to work towards something like that.

I don't mean placed static. I mean the stats are static.

You talk to the person needing help and they say something like, "Thanks for offering to help, but I don't want to send you to your doom! Come back later when you're stronger! [This quest requires a level of 40 or higher to accept.]

etcetera

But if I can finish the quest before I am level 40, isn't the quest giver lying?

This is almost as bad as level scaling. If I can beat the quest, let me beat the quest. Don't tell me I am not strong enough, because it is an outright lie. If I really can't beat the quest because I am not strong enough, then there would be no need to stop me from trying. The quest requirement is one big fraud.

I actually thought the leveled loot was a good idea. It always made the rewards or loot I received viable contenders for gear I would actually equip. I also agree that there may need to be a system where the loot levels with you, but I don't know if I would actually like that when I finally play the game.