In the interview todd does with http://www.gametrailers.com/video/todd-howard-gt-tv-extended/713231 (at about 4:25), he talks about the semi-random 'side quests' of the game, and during it he says and I quote

I had hoped that they were going to get rid of the silly levelled items reward system....but it seems, at least for the side quests, we might have levelled rewards again.


That just how I read it though, what do other people think?

For generic semi-random quests, I don't really mind generic semi-random items. It would be fun if the randomizer occasionally gave you out-of-level results, though, in case you wanted to take on an extra challenge for the chance at a bigger reward.

I just hope there will at least be more random enchanted items around. Would be especially needed now that we don't have any sigil stones to make our own enchants with anymore. Doing long dungeon crawls and only looting generic steel, dwemer etc gear isn't a very rewarding experience.

I hate levelled items, if they do it I'll probably whine and moan but honestly I'll still buy the game so it won't matter

"Generate the item you're going to get" also sounds like "Ok, the quest is Go Find My Stolen Family Heirloom. Nearest appropriate dungeon is The Flooded Cavern. The Stolen Family Heirloom is generated in the final room, in the boss's chest."


i.e, quest item. Not leveled magic item.

I think the random levelled item for a random levelled quest is good enough. Of course, all side quests shouldn't be levelled and random, but the everyday problems of the population. A thief stole a ring very dear to me! My son went a few hours ago on a little hike through the mountains, but he hasn't returned yet! Someone ambushed the caravan coming from Cyrodiil!

Just let the generator have a small chance that the reward is above our level, and a smaller chance that the guy was lying and tries to kill us, or just won't give a reward. But don't put legendary weapons into it. Please.

It could....but if you listen to the way he says that line, you can hear that he seems to be refering (in my opinion) to the quest reward.




All these 'side quests' are hand crafted.....aka, there is a limited amount of them. Does this mean now, later on in the game we'll end up regretting doing these quests too earlier and getting crappy rewards....which at higher levels are useless? I really have an uneasy feeling about all this.

I don't think he talks about quest reward either, and even if he is, it will be leveled because the entire quest seem to be generated by radiant story.


Outside of that it's really naive to think that there won't be any leveled item at all, but nothing stops them to put more valuable static items next to the random leveled items.

Really, I thought that the radiant story was totally random and NOT handcrafted. You're right about the crappy rewards, I hated that in Oblivion.

I don't think Bethesda is going to do this again. At least not the same way. In the interview Todd is talking about generated quest items in generated quests, no? Even if the devs do levelled Equipment, I trust them to split at least unique items from levelled ones.

If Todd's talking about radiant story quests, then I'm okay (I guess) with leveled rewards. The main quest and guild quests had better not. I loved SI, but always put it off because the dawn/dusk sword was lame if you got it too early.

Why are ANY items frozen? What aren't they all like the KotN sword that levels with you? I think it's a great system. Iron would cap sooner than steel, steel sooner than silver, and so on. There must be some drawback that I'm not getting or getting and not appreciating.

I think it would be more rewarding to find strong and good armor/weapons less often, for keeping or for selling. In OB walking into a fort and seeing every bandit & marauder decked out in the best armor, weapons and bling got tiresome after a while. Really took away the joy of finding something good to sell or keep, I had so much gold from the stuff and it's not like there will be a shortage of the stuff anytime soon since I'm a high level now. Why bother?

Does anyone else find it odd that so many farmers and peasants have all this enchanted gear laying around that they are willing to just hand over to you after you retrieve a less valuable item for them?

Rewards from quests should be gold, gems, potions, etc. Leave the enchanted weapons and armor in the dungeons or in the stores (for large sums of money).

Lol. Good point.

All these 'random' quests arent dynamicly generated....in that very interview Todd says they tried it but there were to many variables to make it possible. In the end they hand crafted each quest, but added dynamic elemets, such as who gives the quest, and where you have to go.

The random quests arent infinite.....they have each been made and set into the gameworld just like in oblivion, the only difference is this time they ca nbe a bit more fliud depending on what you have done previously.



I too feel that they wont make the same mistake again, just have to hope and see.

Leveled Items are good, level scaled items are bad, really bad. I don't have a problem with getting a reward at a certain level as long as the reward doesn't get better over time.

Well, for those on PC, hopefully it's easy to slot mod-added quests into that kind of framework. That'd add a lot of replayability.