It's been over seven years and this topic has been beaten to death so very hard. I have no illusions that my thoughts or perspective on this are going to have any effect on anyone, or that what I am saying has not been said probably a million times. I guess I'm just venting.

The level-scaling in Oblivion really gets my goat, and I want to blow steam about it. Here goes.


1. Quest Companions can't handle it.

When I started the Path Of Dawn at level 20, I cringed because I knew Baurus was going to get wrecked (thankfull I was wrong because the Mythic Dawn doesn't scale). We got to the sewers and found Goblin Warlords. Thank Talos for essential Baurus because he probably got knocked out atleast three times. This effect is repeated so many times throughout the game. You have such a better chance of your companions surviving at level 6-8. The Bruma Great Gate, Farwil Indarys and the Knights of Thorn, et cetera. They do not scale up WITH you. I think the only non-essential quest companion that gets better with you is Mazoga The Orc and I had to save her behind too even with the Daedric.

2. Non-Combat Major Skills break the game.

The effect leveling up has on the Oblivion World is little more than making everything around you STRONGER and more FEARSOME. It ties in entirely to combat. Thats all well and good, except leveling up is not always the result of a stronger character. I recently made the mistake of having FOUR different non-combat Major skills. I'm at level 30 and everything around me is kicking my butt. Atleast they were until I nabbed the Escutcheon of Chorrol and 2 other 33% reflect damage. That, on top of a Mundane Ring and some Sigil Stones my character became invincible. Problem solved. But not really the point, levelling up is not a direct result of combat efficiency but levelling up requires your character to be more combat efficient. You see the issue?

3. Level Scaling is not area specific

You level up to 22 and then everyone and their MOMS has some armament. The Goblin Warlords, the Marauders branding top tier weapons. (I honestly always thought this was lore friendly. 59 Oblivion Gates with Valkynaz's in them. Im sure Daedric items were all over the place at this point.) There is no area in the entire game that your character is too high level for. It just seems unreasonable.

Well, that was 3 bits. But I think I got it out of my system. Play on!

We need to be clear about the terms we use. When players talk about "level scaling" they are talking about as many as four distinct game mechanics:

Enemy Leveling - controls when enemies appear
Enemy Scaling - controls the strength of enemies once they have appeared
Loot Leveling - controls when loot appears
Loot Scaling - controls the strength of loot once it has appeared

Myself, I like enemy leveling. I like knowing that I will face an interesting variety of enemies as my character levels up. I also like enemy scaling, for the same reason. I think Bethesda did a reasonably good job applying these two game mechanics. Most of the enemies we face in Oblivion are leveled but not scaled: they are handled exactly as they were handled in Morrowind. Scaling is applied with taste in this game, in my opinion. I think Bethesda did a good job here.

I don't mind loot leveling...when it is handled in a tasteful manner, as in Morrowind and, arguably, Fallout 3 and Skyrim. But I detest the heavy-handed way in which loot leveling was applied in Oblivion. I much prefer the way this was handled in Morrowind, which I felt was a nice balance between loot leveling and hand-placed loot. When I realized, back in 2006, that there was no possibility of ever encountering, say, glass armor anywhere, at any time, that just ruined the game for me. I quit playing after three weeks and did not start playing again until mods fixed this. I was used to being able to trek out to Ghostgate and at least see an example of glass armor at an early level. That made it feel as though glass armor actually existed in the world. In Oblivion it feels to me as though glass armor does not exist at all, anywhere, until my character level reaches a magic number assigned by a developer, and then suddenly it is everywhere. That goes beyond being unimmersive, in my opinion. It is poor game design.

I also think Bethesda did a poor job with loot scaling. This mechanic has encouraged some players to put off quests in order to get a better version of a quest reward. I don't see this as a good thing.

I like the leveling and scaling. Like anything else, there are certainly some tweaks that could have improved its execution:

- Perhaps the ability to pay a merchant (or some other type of provision(s)) to 'upgrade' unique leveled quest rewards as your level goes up. The Divine Crusader Armor was an example of one way to do this.

- Have those followers and NPCs who help in quests that were overlooked level up just like guards, bandits and most NPCs. There is no reason in the world why the Kvatch guards, Baurus, etc should not level up in both ability and gear as the player does. I view this as an oversight in execution detail. Mazoga is a perfect example of how to do this: She is always 1 level above your character and her gear is automatically upgraded as she levels. I realize you can't really upgrade the gear of Blades and city guards much, but they could certainly level up appropriately to balance things as the game goes on like normal legion guards do.

- Phase new foes and gear in just a bit more gradually. I level so slowly that it kind of does this for me but, for those who level at a bit more normal pace, this would reduce the sudden jarring some.