Look, "time still passes and the enemies still get stronger and get better gear" doesn't make sense from a roleplaying game perspective. The game world may have sprung into being the moment you started the game, but it's not supposed to have from a lore perspective; from a lore perspective it's millennia old. The people populating the world exist in an already established space, with established skills and jobs. Most of them are comfortable in their niches, and are at about the same skill from day to day. Take the smiths in Whiterun. All they do is smith, every hour of every day. But they aren't like the player character, they didn't start doing that the moment the PC entered Skyrim - they've done so for months. Years. They are already near the peak of their potential. You can see this in effect from the way trainer NPCs don't get better at training you as the game progresses, they have the same cap on day 1000 as they do on day 1.

Plus, it's not time-based. With the mana regen gear you find in the first dungeon you can master a school of magic inside the first game day, if all you do is sit in town and practice that magic for 1 day. That'll bump you up a fair few levels, and if you go into a tomb swinging a sword at the end of this day you won't be appreciably worse at it (again, from a lore/story perspective - 1 day is not enough for skills to atrophy) than you were at the beginning of that day... yet you will have an exponentially harder time killing whatever is down there with your sword.

This brings us to the undead, waiting in their closed graves in their barrows. How do they get better skills as time goes on? They don't, is the answer. You are trying to justify a game mechanic that doesn't make sense with an explanation that doesn't make sense.

Yes, the PC having such incredible potential with all skills and the ability to train the skills up quickly is a bit of a stretch, and also doesn't make sense. What does make sense, though, is this: If someone is a good warrior, they are a good warrior. They don't become a worse warrior from also being a good smith. Yet in this game, being a good smith automatically makes you a worse warrior, because you will have a harder time fighting barrow draugr from the same barrow if you instead go there after becoming also a good smith.

Then why even bother with any trade skills? Beyond a role playing aspect I don't see the point if they make you weaker. The whole point into putting the game time into improving a skill is to make your character more diverse and stronger.



Crud...so they lied. This is not at all like Fallout 3 scaling which scaled on the area you where in...a death claw was always a death claw. Why do they do it? Do people actually like this garbage? Are they just too lazy hard code in some stats for loot and enemies in an area.

Well, I will not be buying this game any time soon. Maybe when it is a $20 game and there are mods that help with the scaling.

Damn...now I need to go find a different game to buy.

Best post on this topic!

Because person B has a full set of Daedric armor and a Daedric longsword enchanted with gazillion damage whereas person A rocks a pleather vest and rusty hammer.

I keep seeing people complain about this, and everyone apparently has no idea how the leveling and skill system works, so let me break it down for you guys.

1) Your skill level in something does NOT change your stats, the perks you have purchased do. This means that if you have no perks, your skill level doesn't matter. For example, a character that has no perks in One-Handed Weapons will deal the exact same amount of damage if their skill level is 1 as they would if it were 100. This is the most important thing to remember.
2) You can purchase one perk in every skill tree without having increased that skill at all. This means that you have no excuse to not have at least 1 weapon and 1 armor perk bonus, regardless of your game or skill level. (Yes, you need a higher skill level to get more perks, but that is not my point here)
3) Equipment is a reflection of game level, but not skill level. You can start the game using Iron weapons, but you can later upgrade to Steel and then Elven or Ebony, etc. The higher quality the weapon or armor, the better its stats will be. You do not need to increase your skill level to be able to use these weapons. And as stated in #1, your skill level alone will not change the equipment's stats.
4) You can improve all weapons and armor once, regardless of skill level. Improving equipment increases its stats.
5) You can enchant all weapons and armor regardless of skill level. Enchanting equipment gives you increased stats or abilities.
6) Regardless of how you level, you get 10 points to spend in Magicka, Health, or Stamina. So if you are leveling through combat or crafting, you can increase your Health the same amount. More Health means you are harder to kill. Just as you gain Health as you level, so do the enemies. It's a logical progression.
7) You do not NEED any combat perks to be effective in combat. Seriously.
8) If you are fighting, which there is no way you cannot in this game, you WILL increase your combat stats, so you have no excuse to complain about not having access to higher level combat perks. Since you get a perk point every time you level, regardless of how you level, this means you have no room to complain about not having enough combat perks. If you want more, spend those points in combat skills rather than crafting or other non-combat skills.
9) Let me reiterate that your skill level does NOT change your stats, since no one seems to understand that. A character with skill level 1 in 1H Weapons will do the same damage with a weapon as the character with skill level 100, if they have no perks.
10) I am speaking from experience. I am level 25, playing on Expert, and I achieved about half of my leveling through all three types of crafting. Until level 20, I had 1 point in the One-Handed Weapons skill tree and 1 point in the Heavy Armor skill tree. My skill with One-Handed Weapons is 61, and my skill with Heavy Armor is 57. My skill with Smithing is 63. I have put the majority of my 10 point increases into Health. I am wearing Steel Plate armor that I crafted, improved, and enchanted myself (every piece), and I am using a Skyforge Steel Axe that I improved and enchanted myself. My follower is Lydia, who I equipped with an Imperial Bow that I improved and enchanted myself.

I have NO trouble fighting enemies- dragons, hagravens, trolls, mammoths, giants, mobs, you name it. If you are having trouble in combat, it is because you are bad at combat. Stop blaming the level scaling. If the game didn't scale, I would probably one-hit everything.

If person A is using bad equipment, it means that they are playing the game wrong. If you do not craft your own gear, you can still loot better gear (loot scales too) or buy it from merchants. There is never any excuse to use bad equipment.

Maybe its just because I played allot of Final Fantasy (when it was good, SNES days). But Its always seemed logical to me that a healer or mage is always going to have trouble by themselves. That's why you had a party in them games.

Skyrim is no different, no build is broken or under powered, you just need to change your strategy to accommodate. The greatest thing about this game is that you CAN indeed change that strategy. You're not locked into any preset failure.
If the build is broken, its you're fault. Not that of the games.

Even the guards level with you? why the hell did they do that for, at lower levels i wanna get owned by the guards if I mess up o.o
Can't comment on the level scaling besides that but it seems atleast a bit better then oblivion.

What did you expect dude? Merchants svck at fighting, but they are great at earning cash, that is why you can't expect a warrior to earn tonnes of money selling his loot compared to a merchant. See where im going with this?

If you want to be an alchemist, you have to use that skill to your absolute advantage! Like quick mapping 100's of health potions to your hotkey and surviving dungeons that way.

Jeez, people love to complain!

I have no insight in Skyrim as the CS is not released yet.
But in OB this critic has merit insofar that you need to gain a lot of levels for NPCs to overpower you and some levels for creatures to overpower you. (creatures are stronger than NPCs generally speaking.) My guess is that it is similar in Skyrim. You would need quite a few levels gain solely on non-combat skills for enemies to plaster you.
Though most people level combat skills anyway due to the popularity of difficulty enhanced mods in OB. Okay, people knew the ins and outs of the game by that time.

Although reading al these remarks it seems the world resolves around the player yet again, instead of being a world pre-existing the char. Are there atleast some unscaled encounters?

So far I am starting to feel lucky I havent bought this yet. :S

The issue is that a good powergamer won't be able to make an awesome character from start with great gear and enchants and then move directly to a higher level area to kick some ass. The allure is to be able to plan your character and build him in such a way that he becomes invincible and can plow trough enemies which a normal char of that level couldnt hope to touch. Now it's simply better to NOT level unless it gives you a combat stat.

Sure it's still possible to powergame with ridicilous crafted armor and gear but getting the materials will still require leveling beforehand.

^ This.

This post is the perfect reply to the OP.

/thread

I think the problem is that with level scaling you can not choose to fight an imp instead of the troll since the game determines that for you. Not /thread afterall I am afraid
The game removes the option to be smart and pick a fight with something you can handle instead of the troll which you should not be able to handle.

You always have the option of running away. Let's not make comments that make Todd think he needs to dumb things down. Let's welcome challenge

That's just ridicilous comparing it to how it would be in real life.

So, let me see if I've got this straight:

The game allows Role-playing, as long as you Roleplay a melee fighter of some sort (or play something that directly augments melee fighting). You're free to do anything you like, but doing anything that isn't directly applicable toward your melee fighting ability will make the world level up faster than your combat skills do, so it's counter-productive. You can adjust the difficulty slider, but that makes the encounters shorter, so you gain less experience through whatever fights your less-combat character does get involved in, causing the problem to grow further until you run out of slider. I THINK they call that a "combat game".

Yes but after running away do you have the option to go and fight somewhere were you are not outclassed. I am not saying make it easier, hell no! I am saying give people options.

If level scaling means that all weak creatures get replaced by stronger ones its broken again. If there are still spots were weaker characters with higher levels can explore and fight versus the weaker creatures. its fine.

I havent played the game yet so dont know which one it is. but so far I get the impression that with you everything in the world gets stronger. In which case skyrim would suffer in the same way as oblivion did. Stronger creatures everywhere and not a lowlife weakass bandit to be found anymore.

Edit:
p.s. for me it sorta goes like this: Good level scaling > no level scaling > oblivion level scaling. And I am kinda scared skyrim picked the lowest of the three instead of the top spot so far. Please prove me wrong and ease my mind

I don't think the world/creature/NPC scaling is as bad as people think it is. When I started the game, I had to hit the Wolves a couple of times to kill them. Now (level 25) I can look at them and they die (ok, so I have to swing my axe or cast one Destruction spell, but thats all it takes). The first time I encountered a Blood Dragon in the wild, it kicked my butt. Yesterday (level 23 at the beginning of the day) I killed 2 of them and only needed to heal once each fight. When I started, Bandit groups provided a decent challenge. Now I can two-hit Bandits (one hit drops them on their knees every time). Yet I am being met by new challenges. Cave Bears are more frequent than Wolves, even though when I started I found Wolves everywhere I looked and only saw 1 bear. The giant spiders have replaced Skeevers (also common at first, but not as much as wolves). Those crazy hill people are all over the place now instead of Bandits. I don't know what game everyone else is playing, but I am seeing absolutely NONE of the things people are complaining about.

I'm definitely not a fan of non-combat skills affecting combat rank. I knew this was how it was going to be going in, so I've been careful to stab stuff periodically. So no problems for me.

My problem is I like to do everything with one character. If it were up to me, non-combat skills wouldn't affect level progress and would simply be level capped. But I don't mind working with the Skyrim system. I just have to remember to go kill stuff.

If your character is a master smith and enchanter and has no combat skills, of course you're going to get destroyed. Your fault for leveling stupidly.

Over the weekend I had to start over, I didn't want to slide the scale down. I made it to level 14 or so.

My first character talents were just spread too thin, I had talents and skills in just too many different categories. Plus I evenly leveled magicka/health/stamina. When I finally made it to Winterfell I kept getting worked by this Sabre Cat outside of the city. I tried a lot of different options but I wouldn't last longer than three hits. I even turned into a werewolf thinking it would help but nope, I got owned.

So I started over and this time I'm much more focused. Only putting points into health/stamina and only putting perks into 1h weapons/heavy armor/blocking/restoration. I do a lot more damage and last a lot longer. I think this new guy is level 17. I have not attempted battle with that Sabre Cat again though. Perhaps he dies tonight.

I think what the OP was trying to say has nothing to with persons A & B fighting a troll and A having higher melee and B having higher alchemy (obviously the player with higher melee will have an easier time, and im sure the OP understands that!)... I think he was referring to the lack of Primary and Secondary skills. Which this game does not recognize...

In previous TES games i could level any number of secondary skills and they would not affect my level. Only when i leveled my primary skills could my player level be affected. So i should be able to level alchemy or any skill i deem to be 'secondary' and not have the world bash me for it < That's the idea of secondary skills... Primary and Secondary Skills! In which this game does not have as ALL your skills are PRIMARY. Meaning it doesnt matter which skills you increase, whether or not you consider the skill to be secondary or not, the game considers it primary and leveling it will affect your player level...

Actually, wasn't there Primary < Major and Minor... and then everything else was Secondary?

Someone stated earlier that it doesnt matter what level your skill is, whether its 10 or 100, it only matters what weapon it is (iron, steel, dwarven etc) and whether u have perks or not... Clearly!... But the higher the skill the more likely you will be successful when using it and it does affect your player level which then affects the monster scaling...

I am not exactly sure how the scaling works.

My character does not use any magic. None. But i have read books that increased my Enchanting and Conjuration etc and they leveled me... I don't even use those skills!.

I agree with both sides of this argument. But my conclusion is that some form of Primary and Secondary skills need to be put back in place. The level scaling is fine in my opinion, as long as there are still encounters that are going to be extremely difficult and extremely easy because a variety is essential for an immersive RPG.

Item scaling is a little annoying too... It's definitely noticeable when suddenly elven equipment starts appearing in chests. Sure there's some hand placed good stuff, but not a whole lot.

It's still infinitely better than what Oblivion had though.

I've played the game according to Steam, 53 hours since release. Which is a pretty staggering amount in the short time it's been out.

Across three different characters, some of which *gasp* are abysmal at melee combat or have significantly upgraded tertiary skills.

I've come across none of the problems described here. Even Morrowind's level scaling system was about like this. Go into a Daedric ruin at level 1 and you'd just see scamps. Level 20, and you'd see Dremora, and Golden Saints. That's just how it was. How it's always been.

I'm not constantly dying. Sometimes I've had to be clever, but that's a good thing. That's interesting gameplay.

I have no idea where these problems people are talking about are coming from.