Once again WRONG. This ain't oblivion. That frost troll will be way easier at level 40. I died to a frost troll at level 7. At level 23 I killed him with two power attacks. This was using steel plate armor and a honed draugr war axe. The leveled enemies have a Max level they will scale too. tHIS ISnT OBLIVION.

Hrm... You must be talking about Oblivion, right? Because in Skyrim, Artifacts are static and enchantments' effectiveness are based on your enchanting skill.

So these are the people to blame for leveled quest rewards also? RAGE! :swear: :gun:

Ok... Well I have a pic but in at work posting from an iPod so i don't have it available but I assure you I did. It was on a boss in one of the barrows near riften.

Yeah, but the answer to this is better level design instead of leveled loot. Or put the best equipment on tough enemies rather then a chest.

Loot - and most importantly vendor lists - should never be leveled. Shops should only carry up to Orcish in weapons, and only in Skyrim since there are Orc smiths to make it. Other weapons in shops should be limited to steel and iron, with very rare silver. Shops should never have anything above this, and only have enchanted weapons at very high prices on extremely rare occasions. For Armor, Studded and Leather should be the limit of light armor at vendors. Steel and iron for heavy. There is no reason for a shop to carry anything above Orcish, ever.

Dungeon loot should be use levels to appear. Rather the caliber of enemy should determine the value of loot. Yes I know the work this involves for devs. But if one group creates easy, medium, hard, and extreme loot chests and lists, and populates them accordingly, another team can place them in the right places. Bandits should always have low end loot. Otherwise, they would retire. Likewise, Falmer and Forsworn should have shabby, homespun furs and bone/stone weapons. Which in fact they both do. Kudos there.

The use of leveled lists to slowly increase loot quality actually discourages people from questing early. Why go in that dungeon now if you know ten levels down the road loot gets better. It is lazy design, plain and simple and one of the reasons that, despite how much I love Skyrim, I have played my last TES game from Bethesda. I will now look elsewhere for open world RPG's because slowly leveling the world with the player is not open. It wrecks immersion and yanks you out of the world when faction members slowly increase weapon quality without ever leaving the hall/den/hideout, simply because you level up.

Bethesda please, do us a favor and consult with Obsidian on building a believable world with believable factions.

Agh what do you know, yet ANOTHER person talking about skyrim as if it's oblivion. (not you , the guy you responded to)

I know tHIS ISnT OBLIVION, and to be quite honest I wasn't a huge fan of Oblivion, but the enemies in this game DO SCALE. Even if they have a maximum level they scale up to, THEY STILL SCALE. I'm not complaining that difficult enemies like frost trolls don't exist at first and become progressively easier, and you completely ignored my info about the skill progression. You also aren't going to find a HONED draugr war axe at level 7, nor will you find steel plate armor. The problem is that there aren't enemies who are specifically hard or boss like, and the game doesn't reward preparation or exploration. There isn't a single enemy in the game that I can't kill at level 1 as a mage with some potions and armor. I also can't immediately go exploring and stumble across any awesome loot because it's all leveled.

In other words your wrong. I found an ebony shield at level ten. And ebony axe at level 25. And I garuntee you can't kill a giant as a level one Mage. You are WRONG. You have played to much oblivion and assume skyrim is the same way.
I also stumbled upon a heavy armor mask that gives me 70 stamina before I was level 20.

I've HARDLY PLAYED ANY OBLIVION. I'm not assuming anything, I'm speaking from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. That doesn't make me WRONG. I already told you, some high level loot is found randomly throughout the game. And I guarantee you I CAN kill a giant as a level 1 mage. They're ridiculously easy.

"I also stumbled upon a heavy armor mask that gives me 70 stamina before I was level 20. "
That mask is a specific item that doesn't level scale that belongs to a Dragon Priest.

That's your problem ... you don't do things just for the reward. Play game, do them to advance the story line, learn about the world etc etc. This is not wow where you grind to top level to grind for the top gear so you can then grind for the next gear level they make. It's not that style of game. This is a game for enjoying the world, the beings that are in it, the story line and become part of that world yourself.

Post a video of you completing Peryite's Daedric quest at level 1 and I'll believe the last part of your statement... Not only believe but I will bow down to it.

Ok hot shot post a video of you killing a giant as a level one mage. I garuntee it can't be done without some sort of crazy exploit or console command.

Talk about unrealistic and immersion breaking.

Level and class restrictions on items is the worst idea to happen to RPG's.

For some people "enjoying the world" is receiving awesome quest rewards. There's no reason I should travel halfway across the continent and clear out a cave full of vampires to retrieve some guy's drum and get 30 gold or NOTHING for it. A lot of the quests have absolutely no reward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrdQl8ykANw


"Ok hot shot post a video of you killing a giant as a level one mage. I garuntee it can't be done without some sort of crazy exploit or console command."

I don't have video equipment to record on my tv, and I realize this isn't a mage, but it's entirely possible to do. The giants are incredibly slow and easy to maneuver around. All you have to do is not get hit.

"Talk about unrealistic and immersion breaking.

Level and class restrictions on items is the worst idea to happen to RPG's. "

Too bad that's your OPINION.

Edit edit: I just meant that to get the full effect out of the armor you would have to be 50 heavy armor. A mage with 0 heavy armor skill who finds ebony armor and puts it on will have no chance of effectively maneuvering or using it. However, if he wore it for a while or trained in heavy armor, he could get heavy benefits from it.

Agreed. The Prima guide specifically states that it's best to level skills naturally and not try to "exploit" the game.

So people go out of their way to play the game in a way that it is not designed (power leveling a couple skills) and then complain that the game isn't designed properly...

Why? Both are selfexplaining features with rewarding outcomes as you progress them.

Ok elder Cain you just proved my point. He used an exploit to kill the giant. Ya if you really try and exploit melee reach and crap like that it can be done but the point is not ALL enemies are weak at level one. There are dungeons that will be level 20 to 30 sp ifyou go in as a level one you will get slaughtered. Same with some enemies, like the giant and frost troll.

As I've said often, level scaling is fundamentally a horrid idea, counterproductive, counter-immersive and just plain dumb.
So I strongly agree with the OP.

Have to admit though playing a thief, there is a good chance players are going to play the thieves guild quest line sooner rather than later which will give you worse leveled rewards than if you waited till you were a higher level. That does feel more like a punishment than reward to be fair.

Saying that, that is the only one thing I have seen to do with leveled loot in Skyrim that has irked me a bit. Compared to Oblivions leveled quest rewards, Its a gargantuan improvement.

I didn't prove your point at all. How was it an exploit? It's called strategy. He out maneuvered the giant. You're right, the enemies aren't "weak" at level 1, but they don't get "weaker" as you level up, most get stronger in accordance. In all my travels and hundreds of locations I've discovered across Skyrim, anywhere from adept to master difficulty, I have yet to see a set of enemies that didn't directly scale to my level. I play as a mage, so it's extremely easy to test as the flames spell does the same damage no matter what level you are. It takes less time to kill a frost troll with flames at level 1 than it does at level 40(even with points put into advanced flames). It takes less time to kill a guard at level 1 with flames 'anywhere' in the world than it does at level 48, and the fact that all the "Draugrs" you encounter at the beginning of the game are replaced with "Draugr Death Overlords" should be proof of obvious scaling. Have you even played this game past level 26? It's the same with dragons. Even if 'some' enemies don't directly scale, the rest do. For example, through levels 1-25, you will encounter mostly dragons. Levels 25-35 blood dragons. Levels 35-40 frost dragons. Levels 40-50 elder dragons. And you encounter more and more of the leveled enemies and less of the weaker ones. The scaling exists, even if you want to ignore it, there's blatant proof of it.

I never Said it didn't exist. I was saying it didn't exist to the extent that you made it seen like. You said a giant was ridiculously easy at level one. And thats a direct quote. You also said that you can never find loot above your level, which is also wrong.

Also that video is an exploit because the developers didn't intend for someone to be able to do that. Play the game and you would know that giants are not to be messed with at level one.

I play on PC. You can check the stats of followers using the console... they never change after you first get them. If you get Lydia at level 50 she's far more strong than if you got her at level 5 and then leveled your way to 50.

If it's in the official guide, then that makes me think it's a bug. It DOES seem completely illogical for them to not level with you.

"You also said that you can never find loot above your level" I never said this.
"You said a giant was ridiculously easy at level one." If you know how to defeat him, he is.
Even if you don't do what the guy in the video you did, all you have to do is wait for them to run at you, sprint to their left, wait for them to hit the ground, then unload on them. It's strategy.

"Also that video is an exploit because the developers didn't intend for someone to be able to do that. " How do you know what they intended? The guy obviously did it, and it indeed could be highly intentional. There's no way of knowing without a direct quote from a developer.
My argument was never that the level scaling didn't work as intended or that it was outrageous. I was simply saying that the level scaling takes away a lot of the thrill of adventuring that games like Final Fantasy had. In FF, if you were level 50 and wanted to go after Emerald Weapon, Ruby Weapon, Osma, Omega, Ultima, or any of the epic hidden bosses, there was no possible way you could defeat them even with the best strategy in the world. In Skyrim, there is no epic experience or reward for adventuring. Yes, you can find high level loot randomly throughout the world(it won't necessarily be there on a different playthrough), but there is no great discovery you make or epic quest you are set on in terms of how powerful you are. I can start most quest lines fresh out of the box on Skyrim and do them at any point in the game as I see fit. I don't get the effect of walking into an area that I have no business being in at my level, and there's no reward for going to any specific or hidden place that isn't directly quest related or difficulty gauged.

Indeed. :foodndrink:

A simple set of character based requirements for opening quests and/or using certain items would greatly narrow down the need to scale items and further incentivize building a certain type of characters and specialize, as well as open much higher possibilities for higher rewards (I'd think getting something really potent as a reward is more rewarding than getting something average even if one couldn't right away use the potent item).