I wish that your followers would actually level the same way the PC does. That way you could actually level them, as well; if you do all the work, they end up underleveled and start dying a lot. Of course, you'd have them level a bit faster and perhaps have limits on how well or how badly they can level, but at least that way you have some degree of freedom when it comes to them.

Ok dude I can't type out gigantic posts on my iPod so I'm done arguing . You win . See ya

"I broke the game. Its too easy now, whaaaa"

Please post a video of you killing a giant as a level 1 mage. Otherwise it never happened.

I think one thing we can all agree on that would solve everyone's problem without affecting anyone else: Give us the option to turn scaling on or off. If you want to play with level/equipment scaling, that's fine. If you don't, more power to you. However, in such a great game that tells us "You can play however you want!" shouldn't we be given the option to "play however we want?"

"Please post a video of you killing a giant as a level 1 mage. Otherwise it never happened. "
I already told you that I don't have the video equipment to record on my tv. That being said, go try it yourself using some actual strategy rather than running right up to a giant and letting him hit you. They are so freaking easy and I'm tired of people saying "giants are so hard!!!111" Even a few of my friends who play complain about how hard they are.

1. Aggro a giant.
2. Wait for him to run at you.
3. Sprint to his right, your left.
4. When you heard the loud thud from his club hitting the ground, turn and unload on him.
5. Repeat.

I have only ever been hit, yes, HIT once by a giant. It was the first time I encountered one and I was only hit because I didn't know they were hostile.

I don't think you guys understand where Bethesda is coming from, and I don't think any of you ever played Morrowind heavily enough to know why Bethesda wanted to change their old system in the first place...







This is why.

In Morrowind, once players knew of locations of certain high level gear early on, or knew how to get past certain high level areas easily via exploits or tricks (which are inevitable in a large game like this), then players would easily be able to get high level loot early on. I love how you guys say that exploration isn't rewarded when loot is leveled, yet you don't realize that once you get high level gear, exploration serves no reward either - because you already have the loot. When you know the location of uber gear early on and can get to it easily, it unbalances the game in your favor and suddenly exploration means nothing.

However that's not to say that Bethesda's current method works great - it IS very artifical and it svcks going through a dungeon, fighting a master vampire and opening his master lock chest with a key only to find 100 gold and an eleven helmit inside.



I think the best route to go would be to make it so it's a combonation of the random nature of the current system, and the hand-placed nature of Morrowind's.

For example, when you start a new character, have a set number of high level loot/rare items placed throughout the world in random locations, dungeons, powerful NPC's homes, etc. Then, as you progress through the game, you may or may not run into these special artifacts. Have some hihger-level radient story quests take you within the vincinity of these things too so players can at least get a taste of this "uber gear".

Such as, think back in Morrowind how hard it was to get a full set of Daedric Armor. There was only one full set in the entire game, and the last piece of it (it was the boots or the gauntlets, I don't remember) was on a high level NPC that also happened to be a major character in the main quest (of course you could kill mainquest NPC's in morrowind, but you'd get a message that you've broken the thread of prophecy and that you should revert to a previous save). So, it was really really hard and rewarding trying to find and get all the pieces of the Daedric armor, which was brillaint. Only issue? Once you knew where the pieces were it was "easy" to get at a low level, sans the NPC that was wearing the last piece. My idea is to do the same idea for high level or special loot, except randomize their locations, NPC's that use them, and quests that involve them from when you first start your character. Once you start a character and the game has placed "legendary" loot around the world, they are set in stone.

Of course this doesn't solve the issue of low level players being IMBA with such loot. In this case, just make it so you can't properly use stuff like Daedric Longswords unless you are within a certain skill threshold. Nothing artifical - make it so the weapon is powerful and damaging, but slow and clunky to use, and only have a fraction of the damage potentual a skilled user would be able to use with it. That way if you find such loot as a low level, its better off to store it away for when you can actually use it better later on, or to sell it for tons of gold. Or you could play around with it, but you'd probably not want to use it for serious fights due to how hard such weapons would be to use if you are low in skill.

Dark Souls (the game) works very well in this reguard - you can use most weapons as soon as you find them, but certain heavy items like higher level greatswords are VERY hard to use if you don't have the minimum requirements in skill met for using them. You'll swing your sword around but your sword around quite clunkily and it leaves you very open to attack, even though if you do manage to land a hit you'll do tons of damage. It's quite brilliant, and IMO has one of the best combat systems in any melee RPG ever made.

I am pretty content with the loot/enemy leveling in this game.

I had struggles with oblivion though.

In the end, different features work for different style games. Non-scaled linear world? Some RPGs, that's fine. Items with "unrealistic" limits on using them (level or stat requirements)? Some RPGs, that's fine. Scaling world so that you can go almost anywhere whenever you want? Some RPGs, that's fine.

Different games, different styles, different game mechanics. In the right combinations, all of these things work. Done incorrectly (Oblivion's scaling, for instance) and they don't.


But there's room for all these styles in the "RPG" genre. Personally, I like playing games in all those styles (JRPGs, Diablo-style ARPGs, Bioware RPGs, Bethesda RPGs - they're all good, and they all have their place. The problem comes when you go into a one type of game, with expectations & playstyle tailored to a different type. Example: I went into Fallout:New Vegas expecting a Beth style open-world exploration game, just because it was using the same engine as Fallout 3. Since it was an Obsidian style, pretty-linear quest-based game, rather than open world exploration, I reacted more negatively towards it than it probably deserved.)

My guy is wearing a full set of ebony armor and so is my follower, how did I get it? Not by going to dungrens and finding it, I got it because every mercenary I see now has a full set of ebony armor on.

I think we're missing part of the picture. In Oblivion, we had Fingleam. When I first found this item, I found it to be one of the most useful items in the game. It was a unique piece of equipment that allowed for water breathing and night vision. Where are all the random unique pieces of equipment in Skyrim? Other than Daedric artifacts, there are hardly any. The Daedric artifacts will always be in the same place, much like unique equipment from the previous game. Where are our boots of blinding speed? You're telling me that they didn't put these items in so that people wouldn't start the game and go straight for the most powerful equipment, but that's assuming that the person is going to create multiple playthroughs just to get the equipment? All they're doing by taking out these awesome items is artificially extending the length of their game while reducing the amount of content you actually get to participate in. We have fewer, and much less useful, unique equipment in this game. That can't be denied. But you're telling me they only did that to artificially extend the length of their game 'through multiple playthroughs.' And that's upsetting for me :/

Original author here. I think my point has been well made by a lot of people here, as well as by how quickly this thread reached an insane number of comments.

I never complained about the system in Morrowind. I thought it was wonderful. I think it would have been much better for the devs to think "ok, these 20 dungeons have really powerful stuff at the end of them. how can we make it challenging for a level 1 character to sneak in and grab it?" They shouldn't make it impossible, just really really hard. I should have the option of attempting this challenge.They removed chameleon and nerfed invisibility, which is the first step.

Clearly the challenge can't be "kill something that's 50 levels higher than you," because that can only be done with exploits. But if it requires being exceptionally clever and sneaky and well prepared, i think that's perfectly fair.

honestly, thieves (not assassins) are not a viable archetype in this game. In morrowind, you could steal epic gear right out from under a boss's nose. In oblivion, you could rob wealthy nobles blind and buy godly gear from merchants. In skyrim, you get a bunch of stuff that's only worth gold...which you can spend on...a house? another horse?

Maybe my problem is i've stuck to quests too much. maybe the dungeons that have a piece of ebony gear at the end are the ones that you're unlikely to find through early game quests/sidequests. That makes sense. I just feel like i've been through an inordinate amount of dungeons without finding anything like what y'all are describing.

I found a number of Dwarven weapons before level 20. More importantly, however, was their location. Not in a chest, on a leveled list. No. These were lying out on desks and tables, hand placed. Which means there at any level. Just have to look.

Also, I found a named weapon on a faction quest. Nabbed it using Stealth. No spoilers here, sorry. Still too early on.

Nonetheless, I agree. Leveled loot is ok here and there. But for the most part it just encourages power leveling and waiting until later to do anything.

That doesn't seem accurate... While several of my companions have perished, they've also survived through an epic number of caves and ruins and followed along with me killing everything I can kill as I've progressed up to 28th level... I find it hard to belive that I had Lydia join me at level 10 and that she has the same stats 18 levels later as she helps me take down an angry blood dragon.

It's the MMO-ization of the video game world. People cry that things aren't "balanced" when there's not even anyone else you're playing against. Found something overpowered? Great, don't use it. Problem solved. It's not like in a multiplayer game where a high level of balance is necessarily required for the game to function.

She does . It's been confirmed that followers don't level with you.

Personally, I think they should. I see little reason why, for example, a level 1 character should have a lv50 item in use. But that's just me.... I think that progression (both character ability wise, and equipment wise) is an important aspect of RPGs, and don't see why one would want to short-circuit that by "skipping to the end", so to speak.


(Another thought I have on the topic.... people keep saying, "oh, it should be a big challenge for me, I love challenge". But then, once you've grabbed your "challenging" pieces of amazing end-game gear at low level - you've reduced any further challenge you might have, by skipping ahead on the equipment curve to far beyond where you should be. For a couple challenges at the beginning, you've undercut the remaining challenges ahead of you. Seems odd to me. :shrug:)

Not even trying or exploring I went from a Hunting Bow straight to Orcish, and then Elven within about 10 minutes. I maybe shot the Orcish Bow 10 times before I got the Elven one. That is without Smithing even. I am surprised how incredibly easy it is to get gear as it is...It takes the fun out of the game when you are rolling around with the Best In Slot weapon less than halfway through the game.

One thing though. In Morrowind, even if you had the end game gear at lower levels, you could still die a horrible death thanks to the combat system, and the fact that weapons had a damage RANGE instead of just one number. A random bandit with an iron axe could get a few lucky hits in and kill you even in your enchanted daedric gear.

Because he managed to get it ? It doesn't have to be easy, or even remotely doable, the item just have to exists - even if it's technically impossible to get because you can't be level 1 and still able to tackle what needs to be overcome to get it.
The world existed before the character was born, why it shouldn't include items that are supposed to be powerful just because the main character hasn't reach such level ? Doesn't make any sense.

Level scaling is actually entirely conter-productive and the polar opposite of progression, so it's a bit weird to see progression used as an argument for it :shrug:

I find the system to be perfect in balance. You don't get daedric or ebony early in the game but you can still find some powerful stuff early on. Not to mention the faction armor is universal in strength and powerful too.

So they are just super-powerful before you even get them?

Sven got killed by a couple of teensy bandits.... That wasn't all that tough, right? I know, he's only supposed to be a lumberjack, and Lydia a warrior, but Lydia is insanely powerful and stands toe to toe with anything I've encountered. If she's been like this all along I don't know what to think. That seems like very poor quality scaling. I don't expect the NPCs to develop skills like I do, but are you saying that their HP and Magicka is the same when I get them at 10th level as when I beat the game at 50th?

Yep. Using the pc console you can track npc stats and the followers stats like health and magic do not change.

I know a lot of people may disagree, but I would not be against real time lockpicking in the least bit.

Oh wow... that makes me really sad.... I just found a new companion option