This topic is meant to address how the game should change as the character's level increases, possible level/skill schemes, and enemy level progression relative to the player.

Any suggestions about whether or not to have a scaling system, how equipment is dispersed and how it changes with the player's level, if the game world should open up gradually with level or not, if in-game NPC's should recognize your level; any input on how a character's level and skills affect the world and gameplay in the next installment of TES.

I personally think that generic enemies, such as bandits and animals, should not be leveled, nor should their gear, at least not past a certain point (I don't want the game to be too unfriendly to beginners either). However, I would like to see leveled generic bosses, with leveled gear. It would not only help them stand out as bosses, but would emphasize challenging fights with appropriately good rewards. As for Daedra, they should retain the whole "tougher ones don't appear until you reach a certain level" but should retain the weaker ones at higher levels. And like before, leveled bosses.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, as the scaling was the one of very few things that I felt went wrong in OB...not just the fact that enemies became juggernauts for no reason, but the fact that I didn't feel like my character got any stronger as my skills became better and my level went up. In many rpg's, the reward for leveling is that new areas open up, where the previously too-high-level enemies kept you from going. These areas then have loot and equipment appropriate for your level and your approximate skill set. However, I do understand why many people want there to be some semblance of a scaling system: otherwise, some areas of the game become boring and never get revisited. However, I think this can be remedied in two ways:

1. Make end-game dungeons with the best equipment in the game in all different leveled areas, where you must enter the dungeon itself to come into contact with the high level enemies. Also, make some (smaller) areas blocked off, only accessible if the character has the appropriate skill and skill level to remove the barrier. These areas would also be high level, and contain equipment, special spells, and loot that would enhance the skill that was required for entry.

2. Have Daedric realms, some caves, some ruins, etc., where the enemy levels scale, and make some of these realms generate randomly. These realms will have loot that is appropriate in value for a player's level, so the character can continue to make money while leveling at the same time. This lets the players who like to get the highest possible level for a character and max out all skills to do so. The reason for the different settings: different enemies, so that the player doesn't just have to fight daedra, or just trolls, what have you, and instead can opt to fight a different type of enemy if they please. Let the enemies gain different abilities as the level as well, so that the fights don't become too repetitive with time.

Also someone (it might have been you) mentioned how skill increases would affect leveling. From what I remember Skill selection would be DF style, with the main 3 skills having a greater weight on leveling than the other 7 or 10.

So lets say 1 level increase requires 13 skill ticks, and you get 7 minor skill to add to the 3 major skills.
- A skill level increase for a major skill gets 2 skill ticks towards leveling
- A skill level increase for a minor skill gets 1 skill tick towards leveling

So you could train heavily on misc stuff, or train lightly on primary skills, or train reasonably with 1 level per skill.

What about Daggerfall's primary skills?

mm, sorry, I was not specific. Selected major skills would follow the 3 option structure, like the primary skills from DF, the following 7 or 10 skills could either be minor, or a minor / misc. split......actually, screw that terminology.



So there could even be another option:

10 + 3 primary skills->
-> 1 level takes 24 ticks
3 ticks per Primary skill increase. (3*3=9)
2 ticks per Major skill increase. (2*5=10)
1 tick per Minor skill increase. (1*5=5)

7 + 3 primary skills ->
-> 1 level takes 19 ticks
3 ticks per Primary increase. (3*3=9)
2 ticks per Major skill increase. (2*3=6)
1 tick per Minor skill increase. (1*4=4)

...
Or however you want to use the magic of math to level the character according to their skills.

I don't particularly like to answer questions like these with 'the way Morrowind did it,' but honestly, I felt Morrowind did level scaling quite well, and that future level-scaling systems should revert back to a similar system as its. There should be changes of course, the system wasn't perfect. For instance, I agree with the notion that among randomly generated enemies (who shouldn't level, but instead cover a static range (i.e. enemy type 'x' may be levels 10 - 15, whereas enemy type 'y' may be levels 30 - 35, regardless of the PC's level)) there should be certain 'boss' types (think 'champions' from Diablo II) that may be a few levels higher and as such offer better rewards (bandits or other humanoid enemies are an easy example to think of). But basically, I think level-scaling in future Elder Scrolls games should be more like 'the way Morrowind did it.'

I definitely understand the thinking behind OB's loot and enemy scaling, however think implementation just seemed lazy. They really need to take a good long look at each creature, enemy, npc quest and area of the game and custom-tailor them all, including what is randomized/levelled and what is static or ranged.

The overall goal should be to make the player feel vulnerable til level ten, then on par with most anything from 10-20 and then powerful 20-30 and then god-like beyond 30. My level 33 spellsword one-shots just about anything anyway with Umbra or Finger of the Mountain so that seems about fair.

THIS

I like it in morrowind when I knew that when I got to level 10 I could finally be good enough to kill all the guys in Dren Plantation and get all that sweet daedric gear. The ability to restrict a player to certain items because they physically can't win the battle seems so much less restricting.

No leveling at all.

Very true, agreed.

Definitely agree with the restriction of gear based on skills and level, not because the enemies simply dont spawn, but rather because I can't kill them yet. I also like the idea of the enemy ranges, it allows for some scaling but not to the degree of always being on a completely even playing field.



Actually, it was me . Here's the original post:



Open to hearing anything that anyone would like to add/remove from this idea. Also, anyone have any ideas on whether there should be any higher level areas and/or areas only reachable with certain skill sets?

well i believe they should keep lv whit you but not their equipment or make the bandit always be 3 levels below you.

animals should not level at all.

i think the leveling whit you keep the game having replay value.

so people like me wo like to have 1000+ hours character will never be bored

How about no Manual Leveling. e.g. When you gain skills your level goes up automatically and adds stats based on what skills you increased. So you dont need to "level up" per say but it will happen automatically as you are playing the game. As you're playing you hear a "do do do!" sound and say "Hey I've leveled up, I wonder what I can do now." this way the game will go smoothly without all that need to muck about in hyper space. or a "You have gained a level!, You feel the weight of the world has become lighter on your shoulders and you feel increased vigor (You gain +2 strength and you can now carry 230 lbs)." or a "You have gained a level!. You have searched deep within your self and have unlocked the mysteries of Magika (You gain a +4 to your inteligence attribute and you can now cast "Magic Missle").

I wanna cast a spell.

That sounds like Galsiah's Character Development, which is a mod I use with Morrowind. It makes leveling a seamless process, and removes the need (or at least option of) getting certain multipliers when you level up, and such. It's quite good, and I don't think I'll ever want to go back to the standard character leveling system. I'd like it if character leveling worked more like GCD in future games, in fact.

It works. On some level. They got it right with Fallout 3

Majority of enemies are a fair challenge whilst there is still a chance for higher or lower level enemies to appear randomly, for both challenge and immersion aspects = good
Goblins taking 3000 hits to kill at level 30 = let's go outside instead

as bad as oblvion's levelling was I have found a worse example. For anyone who has played the borderlands DLC, what I found was that if you completed the main game and then tried to play the DLC, unless you specifically went around and killed all the same guys again and again, you probably finished the game in the mid to high 30's. Loading up the DLC had the zombies or Atlas guys automatically at level 47-50 making it next to impossible to even play the levels. I had to slog through half the main quest again just to be able to play the DLC's. I would appreciate it if some of the dungeons were levelled really high to give you sense of achievement for clearing them, but the entire DLC?
Oblivion's levelling was, as far as I have read, universally disliked by the community. Hopefully it is something they're looking into for TES5

Judging by what they did in FO3, it'll be similar to Morrowind. FO3's level scaling was pretty much that of Morrowind, you start off with raiders and weak things, and as you became stronger, more powerful enemies began to appear, but there were still bunch of weak guys too.

The way Morrowind handled the subject of level scaling seemed mostly acceptable to me. Random enemies were leveled, but you could still encounter enemies too powerful for you if you weren't careful where you went, at the same time, you could encounter enemies that were very weak to you, and high level armor types were as rare as they should be. The main problem with the way Morrowind did things was that the strongest enemies weren't powerful enough to provide a challenge for all characters, you would inevitably reach a certain point where no enemy would be a credible threat to you, but that could be adressed by adding certain high level enemies that could provide at least a moderate challenge even at the highest levels players will realistically be likely to reach.

As far as leveling goes, I'm mostly actually fine with the standard leveling system, except they really need to adress the subject of stat multipliers, the way it is in the game, players need to focus too much on stat multipliers, and may be forced to level skills that don't fit their character in order to increase certain attributes, endurance and the skills it governs was particularly guilty of this as it increases your health, but the bonuses are not retroactive, so not only is it something all characters will benefit from, and governs skills that certain characters shouldn't have to focus on, but it's also most beneficial if you maximize it as soon as possible. At the very least, though, the leveling based on skills thing should stay, instead of being replaced by an experience based system like in most RPGs. It makes more sense, as if you want to get good at something, you have to practice it, or get someone to teach you, you don't get better at picking locks by killing lots of enemies, while it may lead to players sometimes doing illogical things like repeatedly jumping in the same spot to raise their skills, I suspect that would be considerably reduced if the matter of attribute multipliers were adressed.



This is how the game SHOULD keep certain items out of the possession of low level characters, you should be kept from using high level items before you reach a high enough level not because those items haven't spawned yet, and DEFINATELY not because you can't use those items yet (That's the worst thing Bethesda could do, after all, if I can use one longsword, why should I not even be able to hold the other in my hand just because it's a different material and I've yet to reach an arbitrary level of experience where it's deemed "fair" for me to have that sword?) But because you're not strong enough to take them yet. Not only does this feel less restricting than having those items not available or not usable until a certain point, it also makes more sense, as high quality items don't just pop into existence once you reach a certain level, they always exist, you're just not strong enough to get them at lower levels. The main problem with Morrowind's implementation of this was that some items weren't really that well guarded, and could easily be found by a low level character once you knew where to look. Not really a problem on the first play-through, unless you look at a guide instead of finding things for yourself, but if you replay the game, you'll likely to still remember where some of the powerful items that can be aqcuired easily are, and then the only thing stopping you frrom getting them early in the game is your own choice, but that can be adressed by just making sure that all powerful items are suitably difficult to get.

The problem with FO3 and Morrowind is that there comes a point where it takes excessive enemies to provide a challenge (examples: FO3 - Super Mutant Overlords have more HP than pretty much any character outside of the Broken Steel supercreatures, Morrowind - werewolves fare substantially more dangerous than Dagoth Ur, and he's allegedly a god.). The problem with Oblivion is that goblins can take more punishment than a Super Mutant Overlord at high levels.

How do you solve this? It's not "do less scaling and adjust more content", as many people believe. That leads to the game becoming mainland Morrowind after about level 20-30. Bethesda hasn't shown any signs of either: making content well beyond level 20 in a base game, or making a logically consistant level limit without making it arbitrary and artificial. So let's discount those as options until we hear Todd Howard actually come out and say "we are looking at putting in areas for level 40 characters" or "the primary focus of the DLC for TES V will be for players beyond level n".

So what would work with the level 20 plan? Go the other direction: make scaling MORE a part of every encounter than it ever was in Oblivion. See, Oblivion scales a few individual NPC types/creatures, but mostly just scales the spawns. The reason rats vanish at higher levels is because most of the high level spawn lists don't include them. Even if it did, it would still be the exact same rat as you face almost everywhere and all fighting them would prove is that the Champion of Cyrodiil is in fact the TES Large Hadron Collider. For rats, that's not a big problem: they're never really meant to be a problem individually anyway. However, the extreme majority of all creatures in the game are the same way: they have ONE set of possible stats and that is completely fixed. Every single spawn of that type is probably the exact same creature. This means when you can take down a Bear easily, you can take down ALL bears with ease instantly, meaning bears are just sword fodder (or bow fodder, or mace fodder, or... you get the idea).

A better solution is this: Not only are not all bears created equal, but some are significantly tougher than a level 7 creature with 60 STR and 150 HP. Some could be level 12 with 67 STR and 242 HP, and ones you want to be "potentially still dangerous" at high level might be "7 + (0.2 *PClvl) min 7 with 58 + ((3*CreatLvl)/2) STR and 80 + (CreatLvl*15) HP". That's a lot different than suggesting that some be PC-indexed level with a minimum level of 16, 75 STR, and what I believe to be 26 HP/level (That's an Ogre's stats, btw). What it means is that at level 50, you'll face a level 17 bear with about ~83 STR and 335 HP, and it'll only be slightly tougher than an average bear when you're at level 1. Now, at level 50, it's not a BIG threat, but this bear at least would have some longevity as a threat. A wider threat band, if you will, since he grows only 1/5th as fast as the player. That allows you to overcome bears, but not in just 1-2 levels aware, and 4 or so unaware.

That's what really needs to be accomplished more with level scaling than anything: existing creatures need to remain viable as threats a bit longer without turning them into Oblivion goblins and Ogres. There might even be a way around that. Let me think about this for a second... Yep. The biggest problem with Oblivion's scaling at the high end is that the player's ability to deal damage is typically maximized well before reaching high levels with a combat character. In contrast, creatures can gain HP at more than 3x what the player can EVER achieve. Meaning every level you gain is at least 1-2 additional hits needed to kill the enemy if they have an armor rating of 0. Even the 15*level I used above is 50% more than the player can gain at a time. A basic solution would be to add a programatic restraint on HP growth that would limit a creature to 10 HP plus "natural" growth (END/10). That effectively clamps creature growth at 20 in the rare event there is a creature with 100 END. As many of you folk are probably number-crunching fiends, you'll be able to expose a flaw here, or a more balanced equation. I'm just looking at hard data and suggesting that the flaw is actually that the scaling engine is too weak.

A stronger scaling engine would allow: individual creatures to scale, creature stats can improve with scaling, and extend the threat band of individual creatures without turning them into thousand HP monsters that make Dagoth Ur look like a pansy. Isn't that somewhat a nice balance?

I'd like it best if there was no leveling at all. And I really mean no leveling, not even for the player. Just give us a lot more options to customize our character at character creation, including the ability to start as a master in a skill.

But I know that's not going to happen. So if they just made leveling more morrowindish and reduced the gap in power between low level and high level characters, I can live with that.

Morrowind had the problem that there were too many shiny "toys" lying around with nothing to prevent a Level 1 character from waltzing in and picking them up. It was NOT a good solution to remove those offending items from the game entirely until the character reached a certain level (as was done in OB). A better answer would be to place a fixed-level adversary in the area, so the character had to EARN the reward, and a low-level character would either need to do something pretty spectacular to get the reward or else come back a few levels later.

The problem with fixed-level adversaries is that they stop offering any serious challenge after a certain point (which was the problem in MW that led to OB's scaling system in response). Better solutions could be to either add additional levelled opponents (randomized, so they could either be at your level or lower) along with the fixed one, or to increase the difficulty of the first opponent at a reduced rate from that of your character, or only start increasing it after the character hits a certain point. Having your L1 character facing L10 opponents in someplace you really don't belong is fine with me, because you can go there at L15 and clean the floor with them; having every opponent in the place at L1 when you're starting, yet L15 when you're improved makes no sense, and is ONLY a viable mechanic in a pure "fight" game, NOT a RPG.

In short, MW's opponents were sometimes a little TOO fixed, or entirely missing where they were needed, while OB's were blatantly over-scaled. That "too fixed" situation is good in some places, such as in whatever the game uses for a "starting" or "civilized" area. As you venture further, or into more "forbidding" terrain, the odds of higher-level opponents appearing regardless of your level should increase. FO3 did NOT get that right, where high-level creatures would spawn right outside (and eventually INSIDE) the front gate at Megaton.

To avoid a surplus of "uber" items as the game progresses, the amount of "high end" items should be extremely limited, so their acquisition is something "special". Loot (and dungeon occupants as well) should not respawn like clockwork every three days, and if they respawn after some longer (and hopefully randomized) time, neither the loot nor the strongest opponents' gear should typically be as valuable as the first time around (except for the occasional random "extra-shiny" item now and then), rather than getting progressively better as the game went on (as in OB). That should provide incentive to explore new areas, not an excuse to keep going back and "milking" the same spot over and over every three days. Common bandits should NEVER end up walking around in Glass or Daedric armor, otherwise they wouldn't be "common bandits" anymore, they'd be rich and retired from banditry. Of course, it would be nice if all the pieces for those high-end armor sets are actually THERE in the basic game (unlike in MW, where one of the Daedric pieces was only available by killing a critical NPC. OOPS, small oversight.).

Most importantly, later spawns should never REPLACE the basic ones, only supplement them. If I stop encountering Wolves, for example, and now there are only Dire Wolves, there'd better be some rational in-game reason behind it as part of the plotline. Also, if there are more spawn points, but lower chances of anything spawning at each one, that removes the "certainty" that you know everything that's around you. When you see one creature hanging around the "usual spot", that should still be no guarantee that you won't encounter something else from another nearby "less likely" spawnpoint that you just weren't aware of. After a while, in MW, you could tell at a glance what was there, and most places ceased to be "threatening". That SHOULD be the case in the "safer" areas, but was a bad thing out in the wilderness.

In general I thought the MW levelled lists worked well
I liked the use of different lists for different regions. In Oblivion outdoors there seemed little difference in what you met depending on locality
The Ascadian Isles generally produced easy opponents and ocasionally more difficult but not incredibly so opponents, Daedric Ruins or Red Mountain produced anything from easy to very challanging for your level oponents, although less so at higher levels when the lists ran out of sufficiently challanging creatures
Dangerous areas were generally well-advertised as such ingame
If you decided to venture to Dagoth Ur's citadel at low level you only had yourself to blame
I'd have had no problems with some common NPC opponents like bandits and Daedric cultists being handled in a similar way
I'd also have no problem with bandits etc being equipped from levelled loot lists so long as high end items were suitably scarce
1 thing I'd like to see more use of in future TES games is mobs. A wolf pack or gang of goblins can provide a challange for a higher level character (especially when they are escorting someone!). I think the AI needs improving though so that mobs work together to make them more challanging

different area different opponents.

bandits and cultists by roads and towns
wolfs and bears in the Mountains.

This!!!

I agree, and I'd like to take it a bit further. When enemies spawn in a certain area, they should always spawn in that area. Why would certain creatures go extinct because I gained a few levels? Not only that, but leveling these creatures (to a great extent) doesn't make a whole lot of sense either, as wild animals don't really exactly practice their fighting skills and simply do what they need to survive. You also wouldn't expect bandits and basic human enemies to level very fast, as they do not train near as much as the character in combat. Some leveling would be appropriate but again, the player should whip them at higher levels. The enemies that should scale are those where it makes sense: cultists who have built their lives around protecting some ancient relic, warriors and mages also searching for the same artifact as you (and are willing to kill you to get rid of the competition), and enemies tasked with protecting their own encampments and cities (should you become hostile with them, you have a challenging fight ahead of you).

Equipment for enemies should also make sense. As Kovacius said, bandits and thieves shouldn't be wielding full daedric gear and glass weapons. I mean, did they rob a daedra? I kind of felt like human enemies had some common weapon and armor smith who started out retarded in the beginning of the game, but by the time you reached level 20, he was stephen hawking. Powerful armor and weapons should be in the hands of powerful people, otherwise they are just common. And the most powerful artifacts should either be guarded by some cult or formidable group in the game (who either worship the artifact or want to make sure the artifact never comes into anyone's possession again), or there should be another adventurer searching for the same artifact, and be ready to fight anyone who found it first to take it. Having the best armor and weapons in the game easily attainable by anyone at any level is just stupid, and defeats the idea of skill being a requirement to obtain certain things in the game.

One of my first posts on this topic said that in areas should be leveled, with enemies of level x to y spawning there, thereby forcing players to explore and quest in each leveled area and experiencing the entire game. This would also allow for "best armor and weapons in the game" since the PC would have to be high enough level to even attempt to get them. Then, certain dungeons and areas in the game should be scaled, so that players who play through and would like to continue leveling their character could do so, and these dungeons could have random drops which, at certain levels, are better than anything you could get in the regular game world, although these drops would have to be exceedingly rare. I would like to see a bit more fixed stats in terms of weapons and armor, so that the same armor that I have isn't better for some reason on some other enemy at higher level. I would also like there to be certain enemies in the game that are storied, such as dragons and famous warriors, who live in certain places or wander the world and are very high level and drop some of the best gear in the game, providing some more high end content and further challenge for people who have completed the MQ or are very close to doing so.