You can make daedric armour within a couple of hours of starting the game if you can be bothered to trek to an ebony mine.

Fair enough, and we all have different opinions. I find it respectable that you at least put that forward
As for your second paragraph, how would you feel about a combination of level scaled equipment and pre-placed hard to get epic equipment? My idea is that they need 'more' types of armor and weapons. We're given a basic list of equipment that falls into 3 categories: Heavy, medium, and light. Iron, Steel, Elven, Dwarven, Glass, Ebony, Daedric, and Dragonbone. I think it would be interesting to have 'light ebony, heavy glass, medium daedric" etc much in the same way they have heavy and light dragon armor. This is only part of my idea though. Other than Dragonbone, these are the same basic materials we've used in every game, but we have minerals like "moonstone, orichalcum" that are used as supplements in armor creation that could add to the variety. Mythril would be a good addition as well.

In the end, it still comes down to preference. I ultimately think we should just have an option to turn scaling on or off :/

I don't really see any difference between being able to grab a (example) set of Glass or Ebony armor at the beginning of the game, and opening the console and advancing yourself to level 40. Same effect - you skip all the progression and just pop right to "The End". Why would anyone want that?


How is level scaling against progression? You "progress" through the levels of character, enemies, and equipment; from weak to strong, from the beginning to the end. Progression. Not skipping straight from Weak to Strong with nothing in between. (Or, even worse, in advance of the rest of the game. Having Daedric gear when the rest of the world is low level sounds like it would be just as incredibly boring as doing "tgm" in the console.)

The problem is that you just spent all that time going from a level 1 wimp, to a level (just an example here) 30 BAMF with a sword, and the bears are just as hard to kill at 30, as they are at 1. Why spend all that time doing stuff, if it takes just as long to kill an enemy at level 1, as it does at 30. Oh sure, you couldn't kill a level 30 enemy at level one, but you aren't going to run into a level 30 enemy at level 1 thanks to level scaling. If there was no level scaling, you'd have to run away form that enemy at level one, come back at level 25+ or so (also an example), beat him, and feel like you actually gained power. Yes, that means that eventually you would be a demi-god among mortals, but honestly, if you put in the time to do so, you probably earned it.

If you grabbed a glass or ebony sword at the beginning of the game, it wouldn't do as much damage as it could until you reach 100 in one handed. In Morrowind, your skill determined your chance to hit, so even if you did have uber sword, you actually had to hit your enemy (and survive his hits) first.

You could but that requires a smithing skill of 90 and the perks. I don't think it's worth it unless you also raised a one handed skill or two handed skill up as well so that you can deal the damage when you wear that armor.

I agree completely.








...that is all.

I agree with this. It seems the best thing to do regarding all the different views on level scaling

There's the Gauldur Amulet, there's the Dragon Priest Masks, Wuuthrad, and others.

Yup. I found an enchanted Glass helmet (Glass Helmet of Eminent Conjuring) at level 9 (in a Master-lock-level chest in Mzinchaleft). I didn't find my first piece of elven gear until level 19. Loot does occasionally jump the curve.

You know, I've been wondering. If there is concern over placing legendary (non-scaled) weapons where any level 1 greenhorn could find them why not have them randomly assigned to high-level bandits and enemies that spawn in random areas and at random times. In this case, one could find a full power Volendrung or Ice Blade of the Monarch or what have you, but they'd never know when or where they might run across the item in question. The items wouldn't technically be "hand placed" so people couldn't game the system to get them, but they would be out there, somewhere, and the possibility of taking risks to discover them could be compelling. It could also be an inducement to do more adventuring, even in highly dangerous areas, as the possibility of a real solid reward would be that much greater. Anyway that's just something I've been thinking about, surely it'd be a bit of an improvement over what we have now.

There should've been a healthy balance of direct numbers and percentages. Loot goes from being really poor to being extremely good with enchanting. You're unable to enchant anything decent until 80 skill!

You don't need weapon skill, you just make a daedric sword to go with it and you'll pwn everything at your level; plus the damage will only go up as your skill improves.

I found some very nice bits of kit in specific quests which were probably above my then limit...to a certain extent, it depends on what you are doing, plus leveling. It's not wholly people abandoning junk when they abandon a chest somewhere.

Edit:

I'll also throw in that it's a role-playing game, not a linear FPS. That's a big difference...traditionally, RPG's are designed so that the character's advancement is the reward, earning better abilities and capabilities, whereas linear FPS improve the player's capabilities by providing better loot in the form of weapons or armour etc.

That means that in the RPG, Freddo the thief can still skulk around knifing dudes in the back with that +5 Daggger of Stabbing, because he will have 100 Sneak and the Sandals of Silence, and his skills will grant him an almost certain kill...where in the FPS Freddo is channelled into blasting his way into every scripted combat using his Mega-Awesome All-Conquering Blaster Cannon of Passing the Fifth Mission.

The Gauldur amulet is an extended quest line that isn't complete-able unless you've done part of the mage's college quest line. Not to mention, the Gauldur amulet is completely(well...at least for me)useless. Minor stat increases for extensive work. The Dragon Priest masks are pretty cool. I will at least give you that one. Most of them are centered around other quests though. And don't you lose Wuuthrad, much like the skeleton key, if you do the quest that it's related to? I've gone back to the axe on a couple of occasions while adventuring and still can't pick it back up.

Huh... funny I was toting around a elven sword and full set of armor at level 7 ^^

At level 3 I snuck out some dwarsoemer weapons and an elven sword at some buildings

The loot is there guys, and is relatively easy to get to you just need to look for opportunities and explore. Not everything scales

Agreed.

Also in regards to the stores, there should always be unattainable gear! I want to be motivated to go make those gold pieces so I can buy that totally awesome Glass sword on the high shelf, or whatever you have your eye on. Sorta like when you're saving up for a horse or a house. It makes it so much more rewarding when you finally hit the magic number and walk out of the store with that shining piece of weaponry in your hand. TA-DAAAAAAAA :shocking:

Yeah, it does. One of the criticisms of Oblivion was that you would never find x quality item until y level - and once it did start to appear it only took one dungeon with five enemies to get the entire set. Many people found that after getting their new armor set and weapon, they no longer had any incentive to explore new dungeons for several levels.

That's where radical behaviorism comes in. As it turns out, reinforcement at a variable interval or ratio schedule is sometimes more effective than a fixed one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Schedules_of_reinforcement). Think slot machines. Or any mmorpg. Actually, you can see it in most games these days. It gives players incentive to enter that next dungeon and keep playing until they have found all the treasure the game has to offer.

Unlike Oblivion, Morrowind gave players that incentive, but with most loot being hand placed, you could argue it hurt replayability. Personally I didn't mind so much. I found the Sword of White Woe (an enchanted ebony broad sword for those who don't remember) at level 3 with my first character, but I never picked it up with my second or third character. Nor did I feel the need to rush my way to Ghostgate or the Great House vaults to steal some end game equipment.

Because then you would likely get all your most powerful gear right off the beginning and never need to switch equipment; making pretty much all the quests and the dungeons in the game more useless for rewards than most already are.

My experience with Morrowind was very similar. I found the Daedric Dai-katana by chance in the egg mine at a relatively low level. The next time I played I ended up using that insanely heavy hammer that you find on the east coast somewhere. I also found Eleidons Ward by chance, and that ranks as probably the single greatest moment in a video game for me.

All of this was significantly better than Oblivion and sadly, Skyrims levelled loot system.

I don't see why good old 'requirements' to use certain equipment wouldn't work. That way you have the satisfaction of finding legendary hand place loot but you need to level to use it. This gives a great incentive to level up and prevents people with no self control/willpower from accidentally winning the game in the first 5 minutes.

Personally I don't want to be prevented from finding this stuff at all, because I know I will still enjoy it. If I think it'll ruin my experience at all then i won't use it. The important thing is, is that it is MY CHOICE, not Bethesdas.

I remember finding the dai-katana as well as Eleidon's Ward. I never found the shield with my first two characters, so to still be able to find such great loot after ~400 hours was pretty awesome.

Skyrim's random loot gets the job done, but I don't think it will provide as many of those memorable moments. Fortunately, Skyrim does have decent amount of hand placed loot as well. I did enjoy finding an entire set of Dwemer armor in a Dwemer vault at a low level, even though I only used light armor.

Beth - Damned if they do/Damned if they dont.

If they had thought about it for a while rather than catering solely to a single demographic...

Even worse, it's not like theres uproar over something that's never been possible in TES games. They've purposefully removed it and not bothered to think outside the box to cater to their existing fanbase and the squealing masses with more money than sense, simultaneously.

If there's rare item scaling then I'm annoyed but it doesn't matter anymore.

My character is level 40+ and I'm pretty sure scaling stops at 40+
If your one of those weirdos who plans on making another character for every tree skill who cares what you think

Though it is possible to get dragon armor from a chest.

I agree with this 100%. The [censored]ing of MMO player's caused them to nerf invisibility and remove control spells. How can it possibly matter how powerful an item is. If it makes you bored, why the hell would you use it, and why the hell would you want to ruin it for everyone else?

I don't get the MMO comparisons. There were games having balance and little to no scaling before there were MMO's and way before MMO's became as popular as they are now. Balance is not an MMO exclusive thing, or something inherently related to them. I hate MMO's, they make me sick to my stomach, but I do still want balance in my single player games.