But Skyrim will have minimum and maximum levels on dungeons/areas. So even at a low level you will be able to find high level areas.

I haven't used Duke Patrick's, but I've used all the others plus some more that tweak combat. I've never ever found myself needing to use any magic, and that's with mods that allow your character to be one-shotted by a lucky roll or kicked over and pummeled.

I don't understand this pov
Since you will level up you will see all the game has to offer in time
The early parts of the game when you really have to struggle to survive are what I enjoy most
Still its your game, you play it how you want, and if Bethesda make it the way you want I'll just not spam spell use if it can't be modded out

All that it does is to decrease it's effect, so that I don't need to be at level 35 like with Oblivion. But I would still have to level up, even though at a lesser extent.

There shouldn't BE any minimum or maximum levels in areas. But I accept that Bethesda is stubborn and insist that this stays as a game mechanic. But in exchange I will be stubborn too and level myself as to not be penalised for not being "high level enough".

If I get the same game world at level one as level 50, I would be quite happy to go out into the world right away and play "properly". It is Bethesda's choice, not mine.

I enjoy that too. So why scale down all the dungeons to make them less rewarding then?
I don't level up artificially to make the game easier; I level up artificially because Bethesda told me I need to in order to get the rewards I want. I want the best item drops and chests the game can give me, balanced by the proportionally stronger monsters guarding the loot. And the only way to do that is to be at a high enough level from the very beginning.

I guess they better listen to you then

But what I don't get is how are you being punished? Has there been an indication that you won't be able to get the high level and unique equipment if you don't grind? Oblivion isn't really an indication, as the level scaling works much differently.

The indication is "The dungeon and its contents will scale to your level". True, it wouldn't be as bad as in Oblivion, but it is an undeniable fact that the reward is still decreased if my level isn't high enough.

There would be a minimum level for a Skyrim dungeon, but that would still generate worse loot than the maximum level. Thus, it is a waste of time for me to got to a dungeon that isn't maxed to get less than what I deserved.

Let me be as clear as I can; I don't want worse loot, ever. Under any circumstances. The fact that I get worse loot at a lower character level means I am unwilling to play at a lower character level. And the only reason I get worse loot at a lower character level is because Bethesda decided this would be the case.

Bethesda has the right to make this decision, they are making this game. But don't tell me to accept worse loot, when I can level up passively instead to make all the chests have better items.

I dont see what the big appeal is with 'loot'. TES games usually have terrible economies (in our favor), so unless you want top tier armor/weapons right from the beginning (which would be tiresome by the end of it), all this loot is really just stuff you pawn off.

Also, from my point of view, without a natural progression of levels-enemies-items, the game will feel like its stuck on one level of difficulty by the time you finish passively leveling. It would make the story feel too easy IMO.

"Your skills are still levelable through active use, in that performing said skill will advance it. However, you can’t just spam them now, as the active levelable skills require specific use. So, essentially, you can’t just stand on the spot and spam jump to level your Acrobatic skill, because it no longer exists. It’s a great system that requires consistent and active play and engagement with the game, which is something the team strove for from Day One."
http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3048710

This is from the Ausgamer article, make of it what you will.

Well I guess that's fair, I'm more of a collector type player who'd rather have one of every item than several copies of the best items.

But let me put it this way. You want a zero scaling system, where each dungeon has a set, hard level for enemies and loot, with some dungeons being a permanent low level, some being a permanent high level, and the rest somewhere in between. Skyrim will have a semi-scaled system where each dungeon has a range of possible levels, locking at whatever it is when you first enter it.

With your system, there is a prescribed "best order" in which to complete dungeons.
With their system, as long as you don't go around to every dungeon at level 1, enter, then immediately exit, you can complete the dungeons in an order of your liking and still eventually get all the high level equipment. This is a less linear system, which is the whole point of the game.

"Loot" is reward. I want the biggest reward I can get by taking the biggest risks I can. But Bethesda made the decision that somehow my personal level affects it too. So I change my game playstyle accordingly.

And the game is definitely not stuck in one difficulty, if Bethesda did their job and put a variety of difficulty in different areas. Which they sort of did via min-max level, but not willing to abandon level scaling completely.

There is nothing "natural" about level-scaling. So in return there is nothing "natural" about my passive levelling. An eye for an eye.

How so? You mean starting from the lowest level dungeon and work my way up?

Why would I do that, when the best way is to charge into the hardest dungeon I can get my hands on, fight tooth and nail through creatures by the skin of my teeth, and get out of the dungeon only after losing nearly all my blood, with high level treasure to show for it?

There is no "best order" to complete dungeons, as long as the reward is always as good as the dungeon is dangerous. I am happy to go into a low level dungeon and get a mere few bottle of potions at the end, as long as I know this is not gimped by any level scaling.

And you know what? The current Skyrim system actually restricts my dungeon entry order anyway. In order to dungeon crawl asap while still get good loot, I have to deliberately seek out dungeons that have a lower maximum level. So it is the opposite of what you are saying; to have no level scaling encourages freedom in entering dungeons, while dungeon scaling of any kind limits my actions.

WIN! :trophy:

What I'm getting from that quote is that Todd mentioned jumping and Acrobatics just as an example, and we will not be able to spam ANY of the skills. Whew! that gives me finally some peace of mind about this button mashing problem.

Made my day! Thanks for posting this :celebration:

Hmm, idk this is winding down to a sort of metagaming. I think your typical player is not going to have a table of dungeon min/max levels in front of them on their first playthrough. When I decide to go into a dungeon, it's not entirely because I know that it will have the best possible loot. It's usually because it's an interesting looking dungeon, and I just want to have fun exploring it, unaware of what I might find inside. As long as I know I can get all the best loot eventually, I have no problem going into dungeons at lower levels than their max.

But I can see why you would want to grind so that you can always get the best loot. But personally I'm glad that they're trying to put in ways that prevent characters from getting rewards for mindlessly pressing a button until your skills raise x amount of times. Why not just save some time grinding, open the console and type in Player.SetLevel 50

i'm just gunna throw this out there. I'm all for power-leveling, cuz i've done it in Oblivion. But the amount of level scaling in Skyrim will be minimal, so you power-leveling to 'get the strongest enemies' in Skyrim will result in less of a challenge generally cuz you'll be stronger than most level ceilings in most dungeons.

I'm definitely not trying to tell you what to do, i'm just making sure you're aware of how that may work out for you.


Now for the OP, I'd rather the magic leveling be based on actually affecting something. I dont think draining your fatigue should increase your destruction. you should have to damage enemies, or degrade their weapons, or weaken them somehow. Only spells that are designed to be used on self (shield, reflect, detect life, ect.) should be allowed to be used on self and leveled. I'm guilty of using drain fatigue on self to level my destruction in Oblivion, and i'd like it to be a little more difficult. Ik, i can just not do it. and a lot of times i don't, but BGS has stated they're trying to get rid of exploits in the leveling system, and this is considered an exploit, so expect things like this to be gonezo.

I am not glad that they are putting in ways that prevent characters from getting rewards for playing, period.
I don't powerlevel because I think it somehow rewards me; I powerlevel because I am punished with bad treasure for playing at level 1.

You are the one accusing me that elimination of level scaling all together would mean there is a "prescribed best order" to enter dungeons. Now that I have proven the opposite is true, please explain why you now say it no longer matters which order you enter a dungeon?

Just gotta say, after reading all your posts it kind of seems like your pouting about the level scaling.

So lets say it this way... "Fine, you can have your epic lootz at level one.. but cannot use them until level 50... so now you must STILL go through all the low level dungeons and get the basic "garbage" before its any use to you.

Even if you got your way, you wouldnt be able to wear it, and even though you said youd "play as intended" Im willing to wager youd just power level until you could wear it.

your coming across as stroppy because you want the best stuff, and you want it now.. you want the end game as soon as you start... thats the issue, instead, enjoy playing the game, enjoy the dungeons at lower levels even though you wont start at level 1 with mehrunes razor.

In Oblivion I just cast a weak/short-term Weakness to Fire spell on self. I don't see much difference ...

I wasn't accusing you of anything; I was pointing out a potential problem with your idea. It was intended to be constructive criticism, not destructive.

Anyway, "proven" is a bit of a strong statement. I don't think the developers are putting in level scaling to punish you. The scaling is intended to be transparent to anyone who isn't looking at a chart of min/max levels for dungeons as they play. But if you want me to expand on why the order of exploration is relevant, let me try to be a little more specific.

I'll simplify things for the sake of discussion. Let's say there are 100 dungeons, ranging from level 1 to 50. We'll assume even level distribution for both systems. The player advances 1 level for every 2 dungeons they complete. Obviously this is not quite how it will work, but like I said it's easier to discuss:

System 1 - No scaling
- 2 dungeons at a hard level 1,
- 2 at level 2
- 2 at level 3
...
- 2 at level 49
- 2 at level 50

System 2 - Capped and locked scaling
- 10 dungeons that range from 1-5
- 10 ranging from 5-10
- 10 ranging from 10-15
...
- 10 ranging from 40-45
- 10 ranging from 45-50

In either system, a player who sticks to dungeons equal to their level will play 2 dungeons per level, finding the same loot. But in system 1, there is less flexibility for the order that they explore. The dungeons progress in a more rigid, linear manner. With system 2, there's an increased possibility for the player to find dungeons close to their level in any region of the game.

Now the reasonable concern is that if you enter, for example a level 25-30 dungeon at level 1, the contents will forever be locked at level 25, and more importantly if you enter every single level 45-50 dungeon at a lower level than 45, you'll forever lose the possibility of grabbing the level 50 loot. But as long as you don't go intentionally searching out the highest level dungeons (which you would only know after a couple playthroughs without having a chart in front of you) and as long as the external areas around the dungeons are protected by equivalently leveled enemies as the interiors, this shouldn't be a problem.

But there's also one other thing: you'll most likely be level 50 long before you find all the dungeons in the game. I'm guessing that by the time you get to level 50 you'll still have at least 25% of the dungeons left to explore, if not much more. So yes, in dungeons a, b, and c you potentially could have gotten better loot by entering them later, but it just doesn't matter because you still have dungeons x, y, and z to get all the loot you might have "missed."

The real problem arises if there are unique items that level with you, like the quest rewards in Oblivion. So far I don't think we have much to go by to say that there will be. I'm sure Bethesda realizes that people didn't like having to be a certain level to get the good version of quest items, and I bet they're thinking of ways to fix this.

But as far as skill grinding, in Oblivion you were rewarded for playing the game in a way that they didn't intend (mindlessly casting spells) and punished for playing the game in the way they actually did intend, and it sounds like they're trying to fix this by requiring "specific use" to gain skill levels. This is good news for anyone who'd rather just play than metagame.

@Vallen Chaos

As you know, it has already been confirmed that we will have FO3-style level scaling where dungeons lock when you first enter them according to a range that can either higher or lower than the PC's level. A level 15 PC can enter a higher level 20-25 dungeon which will be locked to level 20 when he enters. The same PC could enter a level 5-10 dungeon for the first time and it would be locked to level 10 when he enters.

When you refer to loot, I imagine what you are most concerned about (as we all are) is the powerful unique items, especially artifacts. Will these be level scaled as well, or will they be fixed, as were the unique weapons in FO3.

The answer is that we don't know yet whether unique items will be level scaled. Hopefully not.

If as a low level PC in Skyrim, I make a choice to fight my way through a very high level dungeon and after dozens of deaths and reloads, I finally make it through and discover Umbra. I really don't want it to be a version of Umbra scaled down to my level.

His point is that he doesn't want to go into any dungeon at a level lower than the dungeon's maximum level, because he doesn't ever want the dungeons to lock at a lower level than what is possible, "punishing" him for entering it too early. He wants the best possible loot from every dungeon, every time. I understand the sentiment, but I really don't think it's how Bethesda is intending the game to be played (basically having a chart of all the dungeon min/max levels so you never enter one below the max).

I see that at least, you understand my point of view even if you don't agree with me.

In some ways, I can tolerate having a min/max level dungeon. Just as long as I stated earlier, I can make sure I am at the right character level when I start by tweaking the system via non-combat leveling.

As for "what Bethesda intended the game to be played"... I am sure Bethesda did not intend Oblivion to make players pick unused skills as their majors, for wanting gamers to deliberately never sleep, or punish gamers for training speechcraft with stronger spawned enemies. But it happened anyway because of game design.

If Bethesda do not want me to enter every dungeon at maximum level, then don't give me dungeon level scaling. Game elements have consequences, Bethesda can't expect me to play their way when it isn't actually the most rewarding way to play. Yes, Skyrim is improved from Oblivion, but not enough to make me play the way Bethesda want me to yet.

I play according to how the game is made, not according to what Bethesda tell me to do.