I would greatly appreciate seeing Skyrim's levelling more like Morrowind's. I hated the system in Oblivion. And like so many have mention it was because of the scaling up of ALL enemies, how is it as my character got stronger it took longer and longer to fight goblins and became more and more difficult? Or my stealthy ranger is able to sneak and kill bandits in 1 bow shot early on, but at later levels it takes 5 or 6 shots? Because the damage my bow can do is capped, but as I've kept levelling my enemies get more health? Ridiculous!

I strongly hope they return to a non-scaled approach. I liked that aspect of Morrowind, not knowing what lurks inside a particular cave or tomb. Having to hastily retreat as I found my low level character out matched. It was great it added depth to the game.

The only thing that I really hated about the scaling was the way certain enemies scaled with you, en masse, and never the enemies that made sensce. Certain Trolls and Goblin Warlords seemed to have unlimited scaling, which was awful. I would rather have seen unlimited scaling in the Dremora Princes. When it reached the point that goblins were more powerful than Daedric Lords (Xivalli, Valkynaz, Aurouran, Mazkan et al) I started to become disgusted. What was the point of leveling up if the most common enemies in the game leveled right along side. There should be a cap for all but the most rare enemy NPC types.

You should care because they are the same publisher, and for FO3 the same developer. There are comments on how they changes the level scaling in FO3 based on their experience with Oblivion. Oblivion directly influenced the level scaling in that game. The level scaling in FO3 was generally well liked.

it would be better if enemies did not become more powerful, but more numerous (in certain events, otherwise morrowind it up)





edit: i didnt like fallout 3s that much either (it was better than oblivion though). morrowind was were its at

I've played Fallout 3 but never actually understood how the level scaling in the game worked, care to explain?

as you get more powerful, more powerful enemies appear . although its not realy very strict as raiders are still easy kills in the later game and rarely the player will find enemies that will own them (such as a mutated bear in the wilderness)

Leveled scaling was by Far Oblivion's greatest problem, and it was a huge on for me. From the ridiculousness of Bandits in Glass or Ebony armor (or even worse Daedric armor, which completely took away the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment when finally collecting a full set of your own) to the ever stronger random creatures you'd run into as you leveled up, to the utter meaningless of exploring because their was quite simply never anything or real value or anything special to find.

Those were some of the best aspects of Morrowind. You never knew what might be in that new cave or in those ruins, You might get your character killed going in there or you might have to retreat and try again later and have little hope of making it to the end till you got stronger, but their was a chance you'd find something special, be it an amazing piece of armor, or weapon, or something altogether different and unexpected such as the Nord Burial grounds or hidden tomb, or who knew what else, and that made it worthwhile to try and gave you a sense of accomplishment when you finally did make it. Leveled scaling killed that in Oblivion, after a while i didn't bother going into ruins or caves any more because quite simply there was no point.

I much prefer the way it was done in Morrowind, from the way Loot was scaled to how valuable and unique items were hand placed to how Levels were set for NPC, as was their equipment, to certain regions being more dangerous and risky than others, etc.

Technically, roughly same as Oblivion, with a few key differences:

* Level addition is done away with; instead, enemies have a multiple of your level, with most lower-level enemies having half of your level, better ones your full level and some few more.
* The level those levelled enemies is based on doesn't depend on your current level, but on the level you were when you entered the general area they are in. This improves consistency, but at a cost: Play like me and explore a lot, and most of them will be based on a level 2 or 3 player character, and the game will be very easy when you actually start levelling up.

In addition, there are a few features which where already available in Oblivion, but weren't used there properly by the game, if at all, and were used in Fallout 3 for a better result:

* Most enemies have a max and a min level; levelled enemies in Oblivion typically don't.
* Most NPCs are using the same system; Oblivion's were mostly static, not levelled.
* The random lists are set up so that there's always a chance of a lower-level enemy appearing instead of the one appropriate to your current level, increasing the diversity as you levelled up.

That said ... I still made everyone and everything static level, and spawnable even for a level 1 character. And I liked it that way.

Whatever you do, change the format from the level scaling that was used in Oblivion. Personally I think a good example of level scaling can be seen in Diablo II.

This is what I had in mind, but Diablo is too linear, this should be implemented over the surface of the land, but as in dungeon cells, a system like in Diablo I is good, so the deeper you go inside a dungeon, the harder it becomes.

The fixed stat, ultimate loot could be randomly distributed about in select high level areas.... that way you never know where you will find it, but you do know it will hurt to get it.

"The fans" is a slippery label. Most of the fans of a series don't log on to message boards to post about it.

What you have here is a poll of people that registered on these message boards. That isn't an accurate sample of what the fan base wants. It's a sample of what the most vocal members, those that seek out and register on the company's message boards, want.

I'm not saying I love level scaling. I think it was fairly broken in Oblivion. But still, I would not say it's a matter of "listening to the fans" especially when you specifically cite Morrowind. Morrowind has some very passionate and vocal fans. That doesn't mean they are most of the fans of the series. It doesn't mean their opinion doesn't matter of course, or that their feedback should be ignored, but it does mean the developers need to try and design a game that works well not just for Morrowind's fans, but for the potential player base in general.

Make it more like OOO. They really had the level and loot scaling down.

Actually, you are wrong about the fans. The fan base are the ones who post on the message boards and give their input on what they want the game to be. Those who just buy the game, play it, put it down and go play something else are the ones who don't bother with the message boards, dont' bother telling game companies what they want or how they felt about their product.

The fan base, we here on the message boards, are the ones the gaming companies should be listening to. We are the ones who promte their product on various other message boards and websites, we are the ones who buy multiple copies and collectors editions, we are the ones who know the lore backwards and forwards and have played every single game in the series.

There is a difference between a fan and the average gamer. The fan posts on the message boards, the average gamer doesn't.

the fan buys more

Fans are definitely an important aspect of the game, as they probably know the insides and outs of it better than anyone else. I think fans can provide a lot of good feedback and what worked and what didn't (specifically in regards to this thread, level scaling). But at the same time, Bethesda will still need to appease to a larger audience of regular gamers (mainly from PS3 and Xbox 360, as PC typically is the more hardcoe fan-base). Fortunately, I think many aspects that the fans would like to see improved (graphics, combat, better dialogue, more factions, more armor/weapons, etc) are easily things regular gamers would also appreciate improved. This game ideally needs to be well-rounded in that it allows regular gamers an easy transition into TES for a great experience. But at the same time, it also has to allow the more experienced TES fans to retain the complexities and lore-aspects of TES that makes it so special. An emphasis on this dynamic will more than likely improve the final product as a whole, and most, if not all, will probably be happy with the changes.

How about various degrees of scaling depending on the creature? A rat, for example, can scale 3 levels for every 10 levels you gain, while a dragon can scale 8 levels for every 10 levels you gain, as well as have a high starting level.

Don't include the silly "monster gets replaced by different, more powerful monster as you level up" mechanic from Oblivion though. (Why is every goblin I see a goblin warlord?)

The potential playerbase is a term we hear used a lot these days. I just don't get this idea that we, morrowind fans are a minority. As far as I can recall Morrrowind was a smash hit on both pcs and consoles. Morrowind still stands above the rest of the console rpgs. There are only few console games that are as complex as mw. So its not that players couldn't appreciate complex games. Its the developers who have chosen to dumb down games. How could the new generation of gamers ever learn to value a game like morrowind if developers don't release such games? I began my rpg gaming with baldur's gates, fallouts and morrowind. Those were hard games at first, but once I had read the manual and understood how rules work, everything worked like a charm. So did many others. Its not like we were so different than the people who begin their gaming today.

It purely depends what you expect from your players. The learning curve is not a sin. All the classic games were hard at first, but very rewarding after you had learned the basics. Nowdays games must be rewarding right from the begining which ruins the feeling of actually accomplishing something.

In a simple answer, consequence is what makes things believable.

Therefore, leveling should have the consequence of a power increase (either physically, or whatever) over what you knew before. If everything else gets a small boost, that consequence is essentially null.

And if I go out of my way too early in the game, get in over my head in an area I've been warned about or looks ominous, then if I die as a consequence, I realize I'm not strong enough yet. It makes the world seem like it exists for more than just my character, and I like that.

So, little to no scaling, please.

I did find areas though that were high powered regardless of your level and you needed a high level to survive. And then there were areas that were easy and I felt like a god, but the loot was crap. Generaly I found the further I went from the roads, the harder it got.

The alternative is a giant world where Dirk Dunderhead the 1st lvl Dragon Slayer can travel to every nook and cranny.

I want the creatures and items found in the game to be constant. Besides maybe leveled, randomized dungeons scattered-about, I want certain regions of the wilderness to be populated with higher-level creatures and badass dungeons with rare loot, while leaving the roads and areas around towns and villages stocked with low-level enemies.

Certain areas should be scaled, but the majority or the map should stay consistent, IMO.

I wanted to share my experience with a game called "Might and Magic 7, For blood and honor".

First of all, this game is old, and it had old graphic even for its time, but the game-play and some of its RPG elements were great, and they had carved their mark in my memory, and still I miss them in newer and more flashy games.

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OK, now my experience:

You make a team of four different characters, by selecting their race and class, and those parameters really affect what the characters can do in the game, their path of advancement, what skills they can use and how much they can advance in them, and the items and spells that they can use now, or after the first and second promotion that each character can acquire, after achieving goals and completing quests.

Each promotion for each character opens the way to acquire new skills, and use current spells and skills in better ways, and enable them to use better items and so on...

But enough about character development, because I wanted to talk about level scaling in that game, as it had none, but let's talk about my experience in that game.

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You start the game in a newbie island called Emerald Island and you are introduces to a contest that the lord of a castle in the main land, "Lord Markham", has started and has offered to gift an abandoned, and as we find later, troublesome castle to the winner of the contest, so you have to find items and perform tasks in that island and the first group to complete those tasks first are the winner, and no doubt it would be the player's group.

[OFF TOPIC]
I wish quests would be made in future RPGs in a way that the outcome would not be predestined, and some other NPCs could be the one that provided the ultimate solution for the problem and become the hero of that situation, and player would be informed that he is not needed any-more for the task.
[/OFF TOPIC]

The dragon flies found on the surface of the island were not easy task for a newbie player, but with the help of some shrines scattered over the surface, you could buff your characters so that it became easier, and the guards on the local village were more than a match for a small group of them, so you could always retread to behind those guards and pelt them with arrows as those guards hacked at them.

And there was a sneaky character who offered you a relatively high level wand of fireball that could kill a few grouped dragonflies on a single blow, (and that was awesome for a newbie character), for free, but told you that you might have to perform a task for him later.

There were other people in the village who offered other items for their prices, but I did not pay for any of them and ran in the middle of those dragon flies and provoked a large group of them to follow me into the village and those started to kill villages as they followed me, but no doubt the guards would kill a lot of them before hitting the ground, and then I would go and fetch another group of those dragonflies to clear another part of the village.

Then I looted all the corpses, dragonflies and villages, and took the items, including that nice fireball wand, and went on finishing the rest of the dragonflies. After that there would remain no living body on the surface, but the village had still houses with vendors and guilds and so on...

After that, I sold the loot and equipped my group with good gear for a newbie player, and started to enter the caves and dungeons in the island.

There was a dungeon in that newbie island, that contained a lot of critters and a single green dragon, which was the lowest level of dragons, but extremely high level for my newbie group and could kill them all with just two fireball spits, but as we entered the cave, it would be busy killing those critters around him, so we could run around the cave and loot those critters and the bodies of other contestants around the cave, and run out of it before we got killed as well.

This way we found a bow that was quite low level in the whole game but high level for our newbie characters, and some relatively nice armors.

After that we could enter the rest of the dungeons and caves with relatively well equipped characters and do the rest of the tasks easier than what it could have been.

In the end, we were the masters of the island, and killed all the enemies in there except for the dragon, which we had no hope of defeating.

After we won the contest, we could use the provided ship to land beside our gifted castle, in another village in the main land, and we could be called the lord of the castle if we could reside in it, but for now it was infested with a lot of goblins, rats and the like.

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In this area, we were a total newbie again and could not go outside of the village for long before we were forced to retreat back again, the scale of the monsters in this area was quite low if compared with the rest of the game, but for our newbie group, they were tough opponents, but eventually I could develop my group of heroes and find better gear for them, and finally conquer the area around the village and clear the castle as well, and become the lord of the area.

But as soon as I moved from the village to another area, I became a newbie again, although in another scale, and had to start from the bottom of that area and conquer that area step by step, and this trend remained to the end, until I could enter an island called the land of giants, or some such, which was filled with dragons and titans, and my group could tackle with a few of them at a time and kill them all.

We could make them fight each other and kill them while they were busy trying to kill each other, and that initial dragon that had terrified us in the start of the game, was of the lowest level dragons in the game.

But this island were not the hardest place in the game and we still had more challenging places to go, and the sense of progression in that game was absolutely insane, and the replay ability, because of specialized characters, and the choices that we had in how to specialize them was immense, and I'm still looking for a game that can beat the overall game-play of that old game.

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Morrowind was great, and Oblivion is good, but in the end all your character felt the same, you could master all the skills and become a generic character who great at doing anything.

In Morrowind you felt the progression of your character, but the scale was not high and at first you could go to 50% of the land area, and then a few levels later, 80% and soon you would became the god incarnate. Oblivion had no sense of progression at all.

In TES games you can use all the items at the beginning of the game, so there is no sense of accomplishment in this subject, only when you find a new one, you feel you have done something, but in that game when I finally could use a high level item, or a new ability, I felt that I had reached a new era.

In that old game, after each promotion, you could use your current spells in a more advanced way, and use them in a better and more efficient way, and I see nothing like that here, sorry I err, you use less magicka for your spells, but in MM7, the old spells gained new effects and powers as you advanced you skills.

In that game it was like you are in an invisible prison that you could not sense in the beginning, with layers and layers of chain that tied your abilities and possibilities, but after you broke out of each chain, you sensed that you were previously in a prison that you could not sense, and you are now quite free, until you broke out of another chain and could sense a greater elation and triumph another time, and so on.

There was always another milestone ahead to conquer, and free yourself from another chain that had tied your powers and abilities, but in that action you specialized more and more, and could not master all the abilities in the game.

And there was always more dangerous places to conquer, step by step, until you reached the end of the game.

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But in open worlds like TES games, the end of the game should not be the most dangerous place, but somewhere in the middle, and the most dangerous areas and dungeons, should be kept for more adventurous players to find and conquer, and some misc and guild quest could send players to some of those places.

OK, that was a long post, but I wanted to show that limiting the players at the beginning of the game to safer areas, and limiting their abilities to a few newbie powers, limiting them to usage of newbie items, and letting them to conquer new areas step by steps, and acquiring new powers step by step, and learn how to use more advanced gear, step by step, can result in a great game-play that IMHO is the best experience in an RPG game, and would result in a great sense of progression that is the core of RPG game-play.

There were areas in Fallout 3 which had a mostly-static monster mix, or at least one starting at higher level than usual. Old Olney (which is overrun by Death Claws even if you're level 2) is one example, though you can still clean it up if you know how to play and pick them off one by one from the distance. But that's about the general world design, not something pertaining to the level scaling of the game.

I think in Skyrim level-scaling should be more akin to Morrowind. When you are level 45, you should be able to find some enemies that are noticeably weaker than you, and that you can take down relatively easily.

However, in an IDEAL game... in the beginning of the game there would be enemies scaled to the absolute level, but they would exist in out-of-the-way places. So, you would begin the game in a place with low-level enemies. However, there would be some very high level non-enemy NPCs, and this would include guards. As you progressed, the game would lead you into areas more suited to your level. Also, *some* higher level enemies would pop up in previously lower level areas. This type of game would benefit from a very large game world.

Put very simply, the game should allow you at any point in the game to either CHALLENGE YOURSELF AGAINST HIGHER LEVEL ENEMIES either a little bit or tremendously or to CRUSH ENEMIES OF LOWER LEVEL. At any character level, you should be able to seek out in various locations, numerous enemies that range from the lowest level possible to the highest.

This would allow a player to really challenge his/herself, and to play at whatever pace they'd like!