Locked level dungeons?

All the boredom of forever having to fight level 1 rats when you're level 20 in a certain dungeon?
But none of the adrenaline rush of having to fight a level 20 daedra when you're level 1?

Do I understand this correctly?

Just means once it's done move on. Hated the fact that in Mass Effect and DA:O you ran out of things to kill. Do a bunch of dungeons in an area, level up, find another bunch for a greater challenge if you like, but go back if you want to and sort out a place that kicked your butt a level ago.

From the remarks I read a while ago, it sounds as if dungeons won't respawn at all. That's good in one way, and bad in another.

On the positive side, it means you can't keep strolling in the front door every third day to "milk" the place, knowing exactly what you'll bump into because you've done it 20-30 times before. That will promote exploration, because the places you've been are "done", as they mostly were in MW after you cleared them (other than a few respawning vermin).

On the negative side, it means that you'll have to keep going farther and farther to find a fight, which might get a bit tedious at high levels.

The "optimum", in my opinion, would be to have "eventual" or "unpredictable" respawns (or at least "partial" respawns), which happen randomly, usually weeks or months later, and perhaps never for any specific location. Something like a 1% chance per game day would be enough to give you a reason to check back after a month or so. Making an increasing chance, so it goes from 1% per day during the first month, then 2% chance per day on the second, etc., would mean that extremely long-career characters might see the respawn of most of the places they had previously visited. If you "occupy" the place and keep visiting every 3 days or so, the place would remain "safe", but wandering away for an extended period would run the slight risk of it respawning, as new occupants take it over during your absence. Perhaps a "lock" could be purchased to keep it from respawning, if you choose to use the place.

Of course, locking the level of the place, instead of mixing static and levelled opponents, means that any place you walk in the front door is now "nerfed" for future exploration, so you might as well continue (unless you find yourself totally outmatched), since it won't ever get any better.

If that was the case then it staying at the same level as you were when you first entered wouldn't come into play. Respawn has to be there for that to matter.

I think it's a double edge sword. It's a good thing because it adds a little bit of realism and it will allow you to get a certain amount of items but the bad thing is it will always be the same level and it will prevent you from getting better items. I just don't know why we can't have a minimum level for dungeons, have the enemy level up to you for a certain amount of levels, and then max at say Level 20 or higher if it's a humanoid type enemy.

In morrowind you can advance through one of the great houses and you get your own, mini town or towers with your own living quarters & venders.

But I completely get your point, I would go back to cleared out place and spend hours going over every detail trying to find something missed while I was comepleting quest/fighting for my life the first time, like that very first ruin you get sent too in the MQ.

I can't remember ever doing that in Oblivion's cut and paste dungeons.

From how it sounds, that is exactly correct.

Yes, if you went to that dungeon when you were level 1 and then wait 20 levels before returning.



Not exactly. It is supposed to be like FO3's style of level scaling, which means there are some higher level creatures and areas that you can encounter at a lower level and get your ass handed to you.

I think it's quite the opposite. Exploration is about discovering new areas and finding a challenging fight. I almost never backtrack to a dungeon in any BGS game; because there are 130 dungeons to explore, gorgeous vistas to experience, cities to wander and creatures to murder. There's enough to do. With my playstyle I never noticed any difference between FO3 and Morrowind. I still got my butt handed to me when I got surrounded by 5 Super mutants and I only had a shotgun and a 10mm pistol.

I personally am not worried.

Exploration is about discovering new areas and finding a challenging fight.... Diddo. But it sound like you missed out on alot of the game. At low levels in Morrowind and also a little in FO3 you only get to see a small % of a place the first time you entered.

You go back when your lock picking skills & athletic skills are higher, or you have levitation & breathing under water spells and bam! you just found the other 75% of area that you couldn't see the first time.... or even better LOOT!

I hope your right and with the 130 dungeons, I won't notice "if" TES V area level system is flawed. Keeping my fingers crossed.

A lot of people are suggesting here that levelled dungeons means no "hand-placed" loot. Remember, there are only 130 dungeons--not that many to go through and place some unique items.

Having hand placed loot is good, having a specific reward to give you reason to enter any dungeon the first time. But if you enter a dungeon with level 15 bandits sporting refined mammoth leather armor but random loot in the dungeon only yielding gear that's not even fit for a level one character? What kinda sense does that make? If the bandits are so strong, it makes sense that they'd be able to pull off more daring attacks to get better loot. And that's why I am believer in level scaled random loot.

And the other issue of static enemies, any one who knows me will tell you I detest static level enemies. You shouldn't be able to put off doing anything until you are 50+ levels above even the end boss is both a lot of hard work and lazy. You didn't want an actually challenging game play experience, so you worked your ass off so you can avoid it? Not sure weather that's lazy or stupid.

In point of fact I'm usually against leveling at all, it isn't natural. Ya'll are all for realism, yet realism gets in your way here. After all, don't mater how much you train in real life you will still be a human being with human limitations and won't be able to dwarf all around you like you can in games. That is why I'm pro level scaling, though I will admit the way it was done in Oblivion was stupid.

Not all items are random, special items will be hand placed.

I did miss out a lot the first time I played through each game for sure. But I also played each of their games more than once. But yeah, I'll admit I probably missed some things; I think the fact that you CAN miss out on some things in these games is fantastic. It's a testament to how big and expanse these worlds are. Finding loot in Dragon Age is a breeze compared to BGS games!

I love just walking around their worlds and just taking it in. A virtual hike so to speak!

nice one!!

Ok, too much complaining here...

It seems you are missing the point. It will be Fallout 3 style. There will be challenge, if you want it. Try to go to hunt Deathclaws at the beggining of the game. Their dungeons are Level Locked, but that doesn't preven them from tearing you into pieces. And without the need of going to hunt Deathclaws you will find some enemies problematic at the beggining, but them you'll be able to kick their asses. I just expect the game to be generally harder than Fallout 3...

Fixed and locked level dungeons sounds to me like two totally different things. fixed would be a dungeon with always the same leveled enemies, no matter when you have been there/if you have been there. While the locked means that, when you enter, it gets locked to what you currently were when you entered it. But that would be stupid, as you could enter all dungeons in the game world at level 1 and then pump yourself to level 10 for an easy picknick and walk int he park. Very odd. It can't be like that. That sounds so.. (T)odd.

I agree and I disagree.

I don't want the dungeons to be strictly locked to one set of critters, but I certainly don't want Oblivion's system back where, as the OP said, the cave is filled with rats early on and then minotaurs. Of course, this all comes back around to the level-scaling debate, and I don't think I've met one person on these forums who wants Oblivion's level-scaling to return in Skyrim.

I couldn't explain it any better.

The argument boils down to:

Static placements are bad because:
(1) you can just delay visiting places until they're too easy.
(2) they aren't challenging if you visit after a certain level.

Levelled placements are bad because:
(1) there's always the same bland and boring degree of challenge, no matter what you do.
(2) there's always the same bland and boring degree of reward, no matter what you do.

The obvious answer is to mix both static and levelled content in varying degrees in different places. In some places, the medium difficulty static opponents will probably kill you if you go there at low level. If you do survive it, you've earned the mid-level static rewards, along with the cheezy levelled rewards that match your own paltry status. When you reach high enough level to overwhelm the static enemies, the levelled ones will still make for an interesting enough fight. The mid-level static rewards will be no big deal by then, but you'll get some acceptable levelled loot to match your own lofty position. At low level, there will be more challenge, and more chance of juicy reward by taking risks. By the time the character matures, most of the risks will be more "mundane", and you'll already be too jaded by the abundance of exotic equipment and goods you've accumulated so far to be impressed by whatever you find.

ONLY 130 dungeons? I don't know about you, but to me that's still a LOT of them to explore, even if half of them will likely be quest related.

I'm fine with this system. I always hated how in Morrowind, the only real high level creatures and loot were in Red Mountain or specific fortresses, and EVERYTHING else was a milk run before long. Then in Oblivion, any and every fight was easy as hell at the lower levels, but then got really difficult around level 14 when the level scaling kicked in, and suddenly EVERY dungeon and random encounter was some high level creature or daedra that could whoop you without a sweat, and even when you were strong enough to take them later on, all of the high quality loot flooded you - so you no longer had a use for it.

The way I interpret this new system is that we'll have certain dungeons or events that are pre-set levels - such as dungeons or locations that carry placed weapons and equipment, and everything else will carry the difficulty of whatever level you entered forever; if you were level 5, it'll always be level 5, so you have something easy to milk later on, and if you want a challenge then go back to one of those high level dungeons you just explored.

Bascly mains there's less replay value in caves, if your a really high lvl your not going to go to a cave you've been at lvl1 that's full of rats with little to no loot.

Is that going to be that way ? :unsure: I'm not really sure I understand what the info means. I mean, I get that once I've entered the dungeon, it stays how it is : was kinda worried that it would mean that if I explored too much too early, I'd lock the dungeon at my low level.

Your way sounds much better.