Does anyone have any ideas why level scaling was in oblivion? please don't give answers like 'mainstreaming' or 'to appeal to the general populace'. sure that these might be reasons, but does anyone have any other ideas about why the devs might have put this in?

People complained that Morrowind got too easy above a certain level so Bethesda put in Oblivion's style of level-scaling to give some challenge to high level characters.

Interesting. although, couldn't they just have put in a script that checks the players level, and, if the level is high enough, spawn different types of enemies while keeping the lower level ones? (sorry if that was way off. I know almost nothing about scripting)

That's what was done for Morrowind, yet Bethesda still got complaints.

Interesting. maybe there will be a combination of these in skyrim (i know. off topic and wrong board).

They confirmed something along those lines. Gstaff told us that Skyrim's level-scaling would be similar to Fallout 3's, which was, in my opinion, great. I really don't think there will be anything to worry about if Skyrim's truly is like Fallout 3's. Fallout 3's had a Morrowind-style approach with some minor Oblivion-style elements. Lower-level enemies never completely disappeared while higher-level enemies were more subtly leveled. The game does get easier as you rise in level, giving that sense of progression, unique loot didn't get scaled, and those enemies whose levels actually did scale to your own were more subtly leveled (no high level armor on those once poor bandits raiders, but they do get some better weaponry, although they noticeably are much easier to dispatch of at higher levels than at lower levels, anyway).

yay!! :celebration:

There are those that don't like it, of course, but coming to Fallout 3 from Oblivion, I think it's great, although, again, that's just me. At lower levels, I would get killed if I wandered too closely to deathclaws, super mutants, or, on more rare occasions, even raiders. At higher levels, their names change a bit (as in Morrowind; super mutant --> super mutant brute --> super mutant master), but they remain relatively the same (aesthetically and, as far as I can tell, in power) with the weaker ones not being eliminated completely) and I easily wipe the floor with them. No enemies got tougher as I grew in level (so no goblin warlord types of incidents) and, most importantly to me, I didn't have to put off getting unique loot as unique loot was just as powerful as it was and always will be whenever you get it.

This is proof that Oblivion was meant to be played with mods.

At least use Francesco and Oscuro's overhauls. They fix that level-scaling crap once and for all. No more having the game punish you at high levels just because you weren't a munchkin. No more beating the main quest and becoming the Arena grand champion at level 1. No more scaling some skills faster than others. No more having disproportionately strong low-level characters. No more bandits wearing mithril, elven, or glass armor.

Or go with FCOM (Francesco's, WarCry, Oscuro's and Martigen's). You can finally wipe out that goblin horde that chased you out of that cave twenty levels earlier. You can have a strong necromancer raining death and destruction on a whole town and feel like you actually EARNED IT.

It was put in so that you could sandbox from the very beginning of the game rather than having areas that were too dangerous for your character. Plus I think it works just fine unless your an idiot.

I built a transcendent sigil castle in my Anvil home today, three on the bottom, two on the top, need one more...

There is a game seeting that determines the maximum difference in level of spawned creatures. If you are level 25 and the top level spawn on a leveled list spawns at level 20+, then only level 12+ spawns will spawn. Changing that game setting to 30 would essentially achieve what you are asking for.

The problem in Morrowind was that by the time you maxed out all your class skills you were about level 75-80 so there was a huge power gap bewteen low level and high level characters. And around level 20 the game stopped spawning new creatures. So once you reached level 20 the game would keep getting easier and easier and you still had up to 60 levels to go.

Level scaling is an attempt to fix the symptoms of the problem instead of going for it's roots. The real reason why MW was easy at high level is because player charcters were overpowered, not because monsters were too weak. What I would have done in their palce is change the Health formula so it's based only on your stats (mainly Endurance) and not on level. When you level up Health could increase if you increased the proper attributes, but level alone wouldn't give you any extra health.

Morrowind started getting easier before level 15 as chances to run into level 20 enemies was low. It was also very easy to get good equipment in Morrowind if you knew where to look.
Never levelled much behind 30 even if I used Morrowind exchanged who added lots of high level monsters.

And yes the ridiculous amount of health you get in Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout was the main reason why the games become to easy at high levels, worse as your endurance increased you got even more health at level up. No problem to finish both Oblivion and Fallout 3 without raising endurance at all. Yes harder in the beginning but more fun at higher level, not the “What is it? Just a daedra lord hitting me” or “I should perhaps take cover from the Gatling laser” feeling.

please don't turn this into a "morrowind v oblivion v fallout" thread

level scaling really isn't a problem till you hit about 30 or 35ish, you began to see more leveled monsters that get stronger as you remain teh same. when your about level 25 not every bandit has glass or deadric armor. So i think that they didn't expect characters to max out when they made teh system.

Yes, that is a repeated error they make. They assume people will only reach somewhere around level 20-25. Maybe that's even true for most casual gamers (the ones that dont register on a forum), but it's still disapointing.

Simple answer is that BS just dropped the ball with Oblivion. I absolutely hate that you will practically never encounter lower level enemies, so even if one doesn't disagree with the leveling scheme as such they at minimum screwed up its implementation.

PS. Bethesda made years ago a statement that most buyers of games are people who have full-time jobs and even families so they don't have time to play the game past lvl 20-25!

Bethesda really went too far with the level-scaling. For one, there's no reason why weak enemies should be written out of the game at higher levels. Nor should you only be able to encounter stronger enemies at higher levels.

Also, having a highwayman accost you for 100 septims while he's wearing elven, mithril, or glass armor worth dozens of times that much breaks the immersion. Under the adage "crime doesn't pay", you'd think they'd only be able to afford fur or leather armor. Maybe iron plate armor or chain mail.

Then you have to sleep to raise your level and distribute some points across a few attributes. Why should I have to sleep to raise my level? My stats should increase naturally as my skills increase! No more of this "You've learned something, now go to sleep to benefit from it" crap! Yet if you don't sleep, you don't level, which can result in (after bribing your way to victory) becoming the new arch-mage of the Mages Guild, Gray Fox of the Thieves Guild, master of the Fighters Guild, Knight Commander of the Knights of the Nine, Madgod of the Shivering Isles, and grand champion of the Arena while at level 1, just by being an ultra-competent chronic insomniac. And while fighting off a demonic invasion! (Also, level requirements to do daedric shrine quests need to go. There was no reason to have those!)

Oh come on....they really said that? Hmm...



Agreed on all points!

Yep. It was apparently an over response to complaints in Morrowind were things got very easy and unchallenged at high levels. And at low levels, you character couldn't go certain places.

So Bethesda apparently decided that you should be able to go anywhere at any level, and still do thing with some challenge by changing the world as your character increases levels. That meant you could save the world by fighting scamps at low levels, and Bandits get great equipment and Goblin Warlord tons of hit points at higher levels.

OOO tones down the leveling to realistic levels.

Fallout 3 is better and unmodded Oblivion, but it still has issues. Some say it's always too easy. In response to that and the conflicting complaint about level caps, Bethesda increased the level cap and then added some monsters with insanely huge hit points and strong attacks to keep the challenge. Similar to OOO for Oblivion, FWE creates a more realistic environment.

Leveling and game balances are apparently very difficult to build in a game. Hopefully Skyrim will be like Oblivion with OOO, or like Fallout 3 with FWE.

The interesting thing about this is that in Daggerfall you also had to sleep to increase your skills. Then they changed skills so that they increase immediately, but they left leveling for sleeping.

I do recall someone from gamesas making such a statement, but unfortunately I cannot produce a source on it. Maybe Google can find it and either confirm it or remind what they really said. However, the fact that Oblivion's loot is spread across levels 1 to 25 would support that approach had been taken to it.

Anyone else think goblins are insanely hard in Oblivion? I never thought having to meditate to advance a level would be strange. The leveling scheme in Oblivion does have some positive aspects to it, but the complete lack of lower level opponents could have been fixed with a little change to how leveled lists work!

That sounds very familiar to me, too. I seem to recall Pete or Todd responding to complaints about how easy Morrowind was once the player reached level 25 by saying that they had never considered the possibility that players might continue to play after level 25. Hence, the introduction of scaling into Oblivion. Which segues nicely into my next quote:




I've never found Goblins to be particularly hard. Goblins in vanilla Oblivion are leveled but not scaled (always level 1). But Goblin Shamen and Warlords are scaled and can be insanely hard.

In Oblivion, I just never really level over level 25, and I have a good time of it. My character is still pretty much as powerful as its going to be, at least skills-wise if not completely attributes-wise, pretty much all leveled loot is maxed, all generic items are available, and the enemies are evenly matched to me. Perfect.