"When you go into a dungeon, it'll look at you and adjus

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:14 pm

Oblivion was a fantastic game, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, one of the aspects of the game which I felt could have been handled much, much better were the game's dungeons. Not only were they monotonous, with the same small selection of textures and colour-palettes strewn throughout the game-world (something which Bethesda is reportedly addressing), there were also very few surprises to be had, because you always knew that the monsters dwelling within each dungeon would be levelled to be on a par with your character, and that, in addition, the loot found within each dungeon would be entirely random, and "appropriate" to your character's level.

The quote from this post's title seems to suggest that the problem that Oblivion had will remain, and that dungeons will still be predictable in the sense that you'll know going in that the monsters inside are probably going to be around the same level as yourself. So still no more Morrowind-style dungeon-crawling where the enemies are sometimes far more powerful than you are, and where it's only by a great deal of effort and a large dose of luck that you occasionally somehow manage to sneak your way past everyone to snag the unique, hand-placed loot hidden inside. It looks like this most joyful of gameplay elements from Morrowind, sorely lacking in Oblivion, will again not be making a return.

However, I don't think that we have any word yet on whether the loot found within dungeons will also, like the enemies, be levelled to the player-character's level. I can just about accept the enemies within dungeons being levelled to the player-character, but I really hope that Bethesda have learned from the levelled-loot fiasco in Oblivion, and make dungeon-crawling feel worthwhile. In Oblivion I very quickly realised that unless a quest asks you to dungeon-crawl, it's really not worth the effort, as the rewards for doing so were so often both uninspiring and hugely predictable.

Now, I know that dungeon-crawling is not the be-all-and-end-all, and I have no doubts at all that whatever Bethesda serve up, it's going to be very well done and hugely enjoyable. I just can't really see how having the enemies and loot in dungeons levelled to the player-character will make them enticing places to explore. I want to pass a dunegon and become giddy with excitement at what I might find lurking within, not shaking my head in a derisory manner as I stroll past, firm in the knowledge that it would be a fruitless exercise.
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Alex Blacke
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:42 am

I remember reading somewhere that the game won't always put stuff at your level. If you're breezing through the game and killing everything in sight, the game might ramp up the difficulty and put enemies that are quite a bit stronger than you in the next dungeon. So it seems like Beth is using the same principle as Oblivion, but still trying to bring back the sense of surprise that you could get out of Morrowind dungeons.
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Eric Hayes
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:11 am

I don't want Adaptative AI in caves, dongeons,...
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Robyn Lena
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:49 am

i dont understand why dungeons cant just be filled with random leveled enemies(could be lower, could be way highier than the character) and random loot(some handplaced items/some random) Once the dungeon is cleared, after so much time it is refilled with another random leveled group of enemies.
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Kelly Upshall
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:45 am

I think it's nice. If they implement it intelligently, all that it'll mean is that every character you play will have a unique experience.
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DAVId MArtInez
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:07 am

As long as it's implemented intelligently (like in New Vegas) and not as obnoxious as Oblivion (lol, marauders in daedric), I'm okay with it.
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Siidney
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:26 am

I think there should be some higher level dungeons, and NPCs relating to late game Guild quests and such should be a higher level. As for the majority of the game, it should be scaled. Its bad game design to punish players for not following a linear progression path in an open world game.

Edit: I agree with the randomized loot though. Like there should totally be unique "boss" NPCs with custom weapons, and even if theyre scaled the item should scale too though, but for the most part there should be a chance for some goodies in a dungeon. Its not fun when everything is scaled AND you know loot drops are capd to your level; there should definitely be a chance to get some slightly better loot if you take the trouble to clear a dungeon out.
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Manuel rivera
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:28 am

"Do you want loot to be hand placed and unique?"

"No, I think that it's totally rad to go into each dungeon knowing beforehand the sorts of items that I am likely to find inside. I hate surprises."

This sentence contradicts itself to the point of getting me to respond despite the possibility of being called a variety of oppressive grammar troll.
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Anna Beattie
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:04 am

They've been over this already. The dungeons have a set difficulty range, and when you enter them for the first time they'll be locked into the difficulty within that range that's most appropriate for you at the time. Then the dungeon will stay at that difficulty until the end of the game.

As level-scaling mechanisms go, things could be much worse.
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Jessica Colville
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:41 am

Depending on how extensive it is, and how well/badly it's implemented, this is the one thing that could actually prevent me from playing the game. They've said its not the same as Oblivion. Well, Oblivion's scaling was terrible, so if it's only slightly less terrible, it will still be game ruining. Here's hoping it's not.
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Monika
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:09 pm

I am pretty sure the difficulty is scaled MILDLY ABOVE your level. Not exact.
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Madison Poo
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:37 am

Thats one thing that I hated about Oblivion was that basically all dungeons looked the same. I like how in Skyrim there will be uniqueness to the dungeons and not some dungeon that has the same feel and textures as the one I just got done looting.
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Cccurly
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:12 am

Why does it seem to be so hard for open world games to deal with leveling?

I feel an easy to implement system that adds mystery to the game is difficulty based on civilized locations, just like real life. The further you get away from civilized areas, the more hazardous the environment and fora/fauna become. This can be overturned for unique situations or story-line happenstances.

I don't just mean more difficult the further out you go, but the more randomly changing ranges of difficulty. Half a mile out of town you probably won't run into anything more than a colony of imps, wolves, or a small bandit camp; you know, the things that society only sees as annoyances but not world shattering threats. On the flip side, traveling to an unexplored cave in the side of a mountain fifty miles from the nearest civilized area bigger than a hermit's shack could contain from a simple wolf's den all the way to a forgotten tomb now host to diabolical lich.
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sarah simon-rogaume
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:04 pm

Gotta love how the poll creator's bias-es show up like a sore thumb in the poll options...
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Lucie H
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:22 am

I'm fine with leveled dungeons as long as they have restraints. My understanding of this has been that dungeons will have leveled inhabitants, but they are only leveled within a predetermined range with a minimum and maximum level they can obtain. This is what I want to see. I definitely want to see hand placed loot as well. The massive dungeon/fort/ruin thing for the Mehrunes Razor DLC was amazing. I went into it knowing I would emerge with a mighty artifact, and found many powerful unknown unique items as well. In addition to all of this there was random loot throughout it. I am fine with there being completely random dungeons as long as there are enough unique ones.
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Carlos Rojas
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:14 am

Gotta love how the poll creator's bias-es show up like a sore thumb in the poll options...


Really? I thought that I had masked my biases fairly well. :ninja:
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Rachyroo
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:29 am

Really? I thought that I had masked my biases fairly well. :ninja:


You're being facetious, right?
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Sylvia Luciani
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:36 am

You guys really dont read anything do you, they dont set to your lvl, dungeons have a high range and a low range say you a lvl 6 character and you enter a dungeon the lowest range for the characters in this dungeon is lvl12-16, whereas if you enter the same dungeon at lvl 28 the dungeon will set itself at maybe lvl 28- 34 this is not the same way in which oblivions dungeons were set up
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brian adkins
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:23 pm

I dont like the "If I prefer scaling it means I want to steamroll the whole game" suggestive tone. The point of scaling, to me, is that I CANT steamroll anything. In Morrowind once youre 20 you DO steamroll the majority of the game, there is no more challenge. In Oblivion even though those are just bandits, theyre packing Daedric gear. Not that Oblivion did it well or anything, but its the right idea for a "Go anywhere do anything in whichever order you want" game.

What makes Oblivion always sort of "easy" is poor AI, not the skill and health scaling by itself.
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Lil Miss
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:20 am

You're being facetious, right?


Right...

You guys really dont read anything do you, they dont set to your lvl, dungeons have a high range and a low range say you a lvl 6 character and you enter a dungeon the lowest range for the characters in this dungeon is lvl12-16, whereas if you enter the same dungeon at lvl 28 the dungeon will set itself at maybe lvl 28- 34 this is not the same way in which oblivions dungeons were set up


I see, and various other posters have acknowledged this much. However, what about the loot found within dungeons? Is that levelled in a similar way?
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Fluffer
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:35 am

Right...



I see, and various other posters have acknowledged this much. However, what about the loot found within dungeons? Is that levelled in a similar way?


I'm not sure how loot leveling is handled. I'm fairly sure unique items will be hand-placed, but generic loot might be randomly generated based on the dungeon's difficulty.
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jessica breen
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:36 am

Why does it seem to be so hard for open world games to deal with leveling?

I feel an easy to implement system that adds mystery to the game is difficulty based on civilized locations, just like real life. The further you get away from civilized areas, the more hazardous the environment and fora/fauna become. This can be overturned for unique situations or story-line happenstances.

I don't just mean more difficult the further out you go, but the more randomly changing ranges of difficulty. Half a mile out of town you probably won't run into anything more than a colony of imps, wolves, or a small bandit camp; you know, the things that society only sees as annoyances but not world shattering threats. On the flip side, traveling to an unexplored cave in the side of a mountain fifty miles from the nearest civilized area bigger than a hermit's shack could contain from a simple wolf's den all the way to a forgotten tomb now host to diabolical lich.


This tends to ruin the spice of exploration for some people. They like to be able to go anywhere at any time. I think it can work (go from city to city by paying 500 to some transport service), but still is boring. This is because you don't get any surprises, or interesting notes. For example, there could be a draconic overlord of a city. With your system, he would be easy to kill. With no level scaling. He would be difficult (as it should be), but that means the player could note it down, level up some, and come back to kill him.

I honestly think that no level scaling is good. Enemies should be located where they could logically be found. This makes it so that high level enemies probably wont be near big cities anyway, using the logical approach (cities have armies, kill bad guys so that trade is not disrupted, citizens stay alive and don't revolt). That said, they probably wont clear out dungeons (army in a dungeon? what?). Virtuous adventurers would have put up warnings around caves, or the environment in and near the dungeon can give signs of what enemies lay in wait. Ex: If you're going into a crypt or burial ground, expect UNDEAD.
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ANaIs GRelot
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:13 am

You guys really dont read anything do you, they dont set to your lvl, dungeons have a high range and a low range say you a lvl 6 character and you enter a dungeon the lowest range for the characters in this dungeon is lvl12-16, whereas if you enter the same dungeon at lvl 28 the dungeon will set itself at maybe lvl 28- 34 this is not the same way in which oblivions dungeons were set up


This needs to be quoted enough times to get emphasis on how silly people are for not realizing this.
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Bigze Stacks
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:55 am

Depending on how extensive it is, and how well/badly it's implemented, this is the one thing that could actually prevent me from playing the game. They've said its not the same as Oblivion. Well, Oblivion's scaling was terrible, so if it's only slightly less terrible, it will still be game ruining. Here's hoping it's not.


Agreed. Well, at least, it's what would basically force me to play it on PC, because I'd need a mod to fix it. I stuck with playing Oblivion on my Macbook Pro because there was no way I could stomach the vanilla game with its level scaling, so there was no way I was going to play it on XBox.

Bethesda have described Skyrim's level scaling as like Fallout 3's. That's not so helpful for me, because I didn't play Fallout 3. But from the descriptions I've read of Fallout 3's level scaling, it sounds a lot like Morrowind's level scaling - which was fine for my tastes. I think the main difference is that in Morrowind once you enter a dungeon it's not the case that the dungeon stays at that level for the rest of the game.
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elliot mudd
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:49 am

I'm not sure how loot leveling is handled. I'm fairly sure unique items will be hand-placed, but generic loot might be randomly generated based on the dungeon's difficulty.


Actually I belive that the TODD said that much loot will be handled dnd style with a dice roll type of thing in which with the right roll a totally unique item will be dropped
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koumba
 
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