I enjoyed the OB system. Whether we are talking about loot in general or unique gear that fail to give you max potential, it was appropriate for that level and I survived till I found my next item that replaced it.
You also have to keep in mind that leveling in skyrim is going to be much faster than OB and I'm sure that will influence whatever loot system they put into place. With that in mind I think they may be leaning toward open loot system with hopefully your skills doing most of the work and the need to find better gear not as high of a priority.

The way I see it, no matter how they do it, if you don't like the system they choose go DL the mod that changes it. I guarantee this will be modded early.

I think normal items and random normal enchanted items should be leveled(i.e. things like steel or enchanted elven stuff) but unique items should not (things like Chillrend). I hated it in Oblivion when i would get a unique item and it only be good for a few levels.

I agree the scaling that accompanies so many aspects of the past games made more problems than it solved. I can see how making enemies and weapons slide slightly up in performance is advantageous to the game play staying challenging, but there are smarter ways to do it. Unique items should have static attributes so no matter when you find them (early or late) in the game they are what they are without deviation. Some scaling can help, but there shoudl be cut offs so thinsg do not become ridiculous.

In the case of enemies their stats should slide with your through the game but should slide only a few levels before being replaced with a legitimately more powerful enemy to fight. Thus, as you progress through the game roadside thieves should stop appearing and in their place gangs of mercenaries should appear which in time are replaced with notorious "opposite aligned” adventures who would be your natural enemy. Thus you never meet a solitary thief with powerful armor, but would meet a high-level adventures with some back-story who do not like you or thinks stealing from you is their next adventure.

In the case of weapons they increase but only in chest you have not opened as much and mostly deep within well-protected tombs, crypts, or ruins. Low-level trash still appears in the easier to get to areas and some randomness is allowed so that good finds are possible without traveling too deep, but the best way to give out good items is to have them behind enemies you need enough skill to defeat to EARN the items.

DAM YOU Vallen! Everytime I go to tvtropes.org I end up clicking for a couple of hours and forget how or why I ended up there... LOL man, thats a good site.

Leveled loot isn't All bad, it's just mostly bad.

Morrowind did have leveled items, but they supplemented static items, which is how it can be done effectively. It all comes down to creating an effective weighted-random probability system, to load leveled loot to keep dungeons relevant, but also not make them formulaic. A particular dungeon should always have it's "Static" items, that the designer really wants there, but sprinkled in the various crates, barrels and sacks, depending on the difficulty of the dungeon, you could weight the "Random" leveled loot slot to favor "Lower" items in "Easier" dungeons, and "Higher" loot in "Harder" dungeons.

Again, the trick is not going overboard, like Oblivion did. Once the experience becomes formulaic, instead of exciting and enticing, it's ruined.


Quests should never have leveled items.

To remove the "forced linear path" feel of the world the zones and dungeons could be randomly assigned level ranges and have the appropriate random and static loot placed respectively. The challenge of getting something may not be exactly the same each time, but this is countered by never knowing where exactly you will find it. You would not lose on the sense of exploration because the challenges you face will never be set in stone for every character (except main plot and possibly major quest chain stuff). The static items always have the same stats but are randomly located with the appropriate critters or challenges to guard them. A special dagger may always be behind a 100 skill lock... but you never know which of those 100 skill locks it will be behind. That sort of thing.

Does that sound somewhat feasible and/or interesting?

Is it weapon's full potential or mine?

The worse part is having some weapons level while others don't. It breaks everything in relation. Solution, scale everything so relations will be kept intact.

See the error.

Level scaling is evil. The only way is not using it at all.

We should change how we're looking at LEVELING. Has it anything to do with internal character progressions? Well, not until Skyrim's perks. It is just a mechanic to change the difficulty. I see it as a time mechanic, only thing giving the game a sense of time.(So much, I would bind it to time instead, haha.)

Starting the player as a clean state and unleashing full difficulty at level 1 or increasing natural level of difficulty because they are level 50, these are EQUALLY wrong.

We must admit, the first few levels are for tutorial. Game must start with player becoming mature so the full content appear in game world.

Oblivion did it wrongly almost all possible imaginable ways.

Bethesda should design this living breathing world with its full content.

SKYRIM world.


Then put this world at level 10 or something. Until level 10, don't unleash hardest content but still hand place some 10-20 powerful actors to protect powerful items. Scaling ends at level 10, and the world become what it should have been from level 1. And by scaling I mean unique leveled lists that are randomized, not scaled uniques. Bandit inventory, generic chests, these contain general loot, they can scale according to place and NPC and be random as long as they make sense. And there is the hand-placed content, those don't scale.

Then player struggles through this world from level 10 to 50 BUT that level 50 means nothing for game world itself. Game world level is separate and always above player character except tutorial levels and again except few hand-placed content.

http://i.imgur.com/GsUDj.gif

After some point everything must be balanced, and it must happen early. PC should mature rapidly to that point. PC should overcome challenges NOT because of its skills are overcoming challenges but because of perks and player input. Player must care or be punished.

I would do this way. I would also add ecological, topological and faction/bandit interactions to make the content circulate in the system. So it would be more random.

I like

The worst thing, I think would be the possibility of there being leveled epic type items. I don't want to for example, kill Umbra at level 20 and get a level 20 Umbra sword..only to find out that if I had waited to 50 and killed them I would get a level 50 Umbra sword.

Umbra was not a very good weapon anyway.

Leveled loot is awful. They should put powerful unique weapons in areas and fill them with really tough enemies.