It's you who is being stupid here. Apparently you don't know how level scaling works and how leveling worked in Morrowind.

In Skyrim and Oblivion if the encounters level with you. So if you go in to a dungeon at lvl10 it will have ~lvl10 enemies in it.

In Morrowind the world was pre-existing and level of enemies didn't depend on player level. If you went to a dungeon at lvl10 it could have lvl20 enemies in it and you would get your ass kicked pretty bad. You would have to return later at higher level to complete the dungeon.

Now this is why level scaling completely [censored]s up the game for those who don't like to level combat skills:
In Skyrim or Oblivion your level doesn't matter when you enter the dungeon because the enemies will be on the same level anyways. Only your combat skills do. Oh, you didn't level those up? Well, you are [censored].

In Morrowind you can clear ~lvl20 dungeon with lvl15 combat oriented character but you may need lvl25 non-combat character to do the same thing. Skyrim and Oblivion don't give you this option. If you enter the dungeon at lvl15 with combat skills it will be lvl15 dungeon and you will have easy time clearing it. If you enter the same dungeon with lvl25 non-combat oriented character it will be a lvl25 dungeon and you are in for quite a beating.

Hah, that reminds me of last night. Was walking up to a word wall. High level Draugr Sword Master popped out of a tomb. Attempted to take him on with Lydia. After the 9th time of dying I noticed that there was a battering ram trap. Aggro'd the draugr onto the trap and completely destroyed him. Got my dragon word and proceeded to loot chest.

This is from a character that I've leveled almost entirely with 1hand, block, heavy armor and heavily into smithing with Dwemer items.

Sometimes it isn't always taking the foe head on, but formulating a plan to decisively take down your target. Still loving every minute of this game!



So Bethesda should create linear game play for an open word game? This is where I always see arguments pop up. People don't want level scaling. Ok, so on your 5th run through of the game you already know what you need to do. Do X, Y, and then Z dungeon in that order. No exceptions. Gameplay would be repetitive. Dungeons will seem boring. It just doesn't work. It would feel like I'm leveling in an MMO with set parameters for zones that I had to do over and over on every playthrough. Going through x, y and z zones in order.

For example, Risen (from the makers of the Gothic series) had set in stone enemies. There were zones that were very unforgiving and you couldn't go to without dying. So once I've beaten it, I decided to play another class. Started playing it again. Oh hey, I have to take the exact same route as I did my first playthrough. Well this is boring. Suffice to say after my first play I was in awe at the experience. The second time playing I made it half way through before uninstalling the game.

I want a game with re-playability. Not some linear, open world hash job that would resemble a Fable game. Play it once then toss it on the shelf sort of game. Note: I have nothing against Fable, I loved the series. But after one playthrough I didn't want to play the same content in order again.

I simply don't understand why anybody thinks this comment has merit. The *actual* comparison here is between the following two situations:

Person A who spends half his time leveling his 1-hand and his armor, and the other half searching for exotic elvish women, drinking skooma, and falling into drunken stupors (sleeping).
Person B who spends half his time leveling his 1-hand and his armor, and the other half grinding herbs into potions and hammering dwemer metal into bows and swords.

Person B encounters, arbitrarily, *significantly* more adversity in his world than Person A. He will live in dread of each level up - perhaps going to far as to avoid sneaking or purchasing from shops, so as not to inadvertently contribute to "unproductive" leveling. It doesn't make sense, it isn't realistic, and most damning of all, it isn't fun. This is why ES fans uniformly begged Bethesda to dump the level scaling aspects of Oblivion. They pretended they heard, and claimed they would do something about it - yet as far as I can tell, it's worse than ever.

To those who say the Person B should use their crafting to boost their combat prowess - it simply doesn't compensate for the enemy leveling at medium levels. At level 50 smithing, you can make Orcish weapons and armor (as Rocketeer said), and at level 50 alchemy, you can make a pretty mediocre health potion (assuming you have all the perks available at that level). That isn't going to do anything against veritable gods you encounter in every pathetic crevice, shack, and cave that you find at level 25.

To those who say "crafters shouldn't expect to be good at combat" - you can't craft your way to victory (thanks Nemesis7884). If crafters can't be good at combat, then they can't complete the *vast majority* of quests in the game (excepting of course, that they throw wave after wave of their own companions at the enemy).

To those who say that the OP is "whining", read it again. It's a legitimate complaint. No one is insulting your mom or your dog or your car - it's an aspect of the game that can genuinely be improved. Heck, he isn't even saying he doesn't like the game - he has two different characters in a double-digital level for heaven's sake, less than a week since launch.

A suggestion to all you hack-and-slash gamers who bought Skyrim only to kill dragons with a big mace - you have nothing to add to this discussion, so don't post here. Rather, this discussion is for people who like the more sophisticated aspects of the game - crafting, speech-craft, sneakiness, etc. These are the people that I (and the OP) would like to hear from.

I, like you, am a fan of crafting, speech-craft, and other non-combat gameplay. I have put at least half my perks into such skills. But you cannot play this game without encountering combat throughout, which means you will level your combat skills. Just make sure you put those perk points into them (like my other half). I am level 25 and have not encountered one of the "godlike" creatures you referred to. I have had absolutely no problem in combat- the gear I am wearing, which I crafted, is significantly better than anything the NPCs are wearing, and I have gained half of my levels from non-combat skills. I think the problem is you, not the game.

Wow you are quick to jump in conclusions. Where did I ask for completely linear game? I agree that some random elements make RPGs better. Level scaling doesn't. I have played Morrowind for ages and haven't been bored with it yet but level scaling is starting to make Skyrim boring just after 30 hours of gameplay.

>THIS.

While I myself much prefer the Morrowind-style enemies we have to realize it's going to be even harder to do now with the radiant quest system. And, really.. all THIS system is doing is preventing you from being an exploiter/grinder. You are a freaking dragon-born, last, best hope of humanity to rid the world of the dragons and you are REALLY going to say FU to all that and concentrate on skulking around for days on end picking up flowers and mining for ore? How about being realistic and enjoying the fact that when you're a novice swordsman you will use crude iron and steel weapons and when you one day get to be a master swordsman you will also be able to craft yourself a worthy weapon? It will just take a lot longer, mind..

As much as I hated level scaling in Oblivion, at least it kept challange in the game. Skyrim is way too easy. My stealth character uses daggers for backstabbing, which have x15 multiplier. He wears Dark Brotherhood robes, which double the backstabbing damage, basically making it a x30 multiplier. I have invested heavily in one-handed powerattacks. So, all in all, my character can do about 3000! damage with a single hit. I actually back stabbed a dragon and killed it in one hit.

If you take nearly all non-combative perks then you can't expect to have the same experience of people who focus on combat perks.

I helped out Tom Smykowski back in the day.

Personally I have the opposite experience with Morrowind. After I've beaten it, I felt like there wasn't anything to do. Tried starting a few more characters, but every quest, every dungeon and every enemy felt scripted into the world and that I had no choice in where and when I wanted to go. In Skyrim on my three characters I've made have gone off in completely different directions. Mage is chilling up in the north. My 1hander warrior is chopping up baddies along the south. My rogue is hopping from house to house in various cities ransacking the wealthy. I never felt like I could do that in Morrowind.

I do agree that level scaling is a little off, but I enjoy the implementation of it.

If you think about it, the point of leveling alchemy is to gain an advantage through potions, you don't level alchemy to make the game harder. Ditto for enchanting.

You don't ever have to enchant anything in order to wear powerful enchanted items, ditto for using powerful potions you can just buy them.

Because speech is inevitable, you cannot avoid leveling it, it may be a more tactical power-gamer advantage to gain the full benefits of speech in order to attain so much gold that you can just go around buying all of the potions you want to use and enchanted items you want to use instead of leveling those crafting skills.

Again review the point of the skill, which is to gain an advantage. If the end result of your potions aren't greatly more powerful than ones you can buy, then to gain an advantage you actually might not want to ever touch alchemy. Granted I don't know if thats the case, especially if you create potions that give big boosts in the other combat skills you use. Like say a destruction does X amount more damage for 60 seconds.

I'm not worried about it though, I'm having a blast.
I'm playing a pure mage, leveling ALL magic trees about evenly, have high enchanting, high alchemy, high speech. Game is challenging but thats the way I want it. I use all of my abilities to make it through, wouldn't want it any other way honestly.

I don't like the level scaling because nothing feels unique with it. If I found something good like Glass Bow in Morrowind I was thrilled. I'm lvl26 now in Skyrim and I found Glass Bows in two bandit infested fortresses I raided right after each other. It really kills the immersion.

Finally, someone says it right!

The comparison is not high combat, low secondary vs low combat high secondary.

It is Same combat, low secondary vs Same combat, High secondary.

Person 2 will have a MUCH harder game.

Totally agree with the OP and here is why:

I have 5 characters, most of them high level and i've felt this first hand. You are actually getting "punished" by leveling up non-combat skills and it really should not be that way.
And since enemies level like you, raising them will make you weaker and even when you reap the benefits from them or while you are reaping them, a person who doesn't will always be more useful.

Some people use the argument that if you "spend time being a smith/enchanter etc" you will svck at combat (probably because the enemies spend time to raise their combat skills only ). Sorry but this argument is silly and i'm frankly amazed that people use it.
The reason it's silly is very simple and please take your time to think about it for a while:

These skills ultimate purpose is to give you certain benefits in combat. This is not real life, sims, multiplayer where these skills might give you some other benefit. They were created for the purpose of helping you in combat. There is absolutely no role, purpose or use for one who chooses to be for example a "profession specialist" in this game. If you gained enough money to hire an army/trade with other players/purchase items so powerful (so that a blacksmith is balanced with a warrior for his lack of skills) there might be a reason to raise them.

I could anolyse every single skill but let's take for example:

Pickpocketing - Raised it quite a lot to the point i could steal powerful weapons and armor of well equipped npcs. The thing is that these weapons - or better ones - i could get in dungeons as well without gaining so many levels since my combat skills do not level up so fast. Also after getting so many levels, even when i was equipped with this great gear i stole, compared to the time before i had leveled up, i was still weaker. The gear i got was actually less effective than the rags i had before i leveled the skill. The money i got from this skill was useless since the gear traders sell was already worse than the gear i stole and there was not anything else for me to spend them on.

Blacksmithing - Raised that seperately as a skill that could help me along with my combat skills. The items which i forged were less effective by the time i forged them compared to the gear i had before, because the enemies were "training" while i was forging weapons. So if you get weaker than before what's the point of even forging them?

The list goes on for all non-combat skills. Even for alchemy (since personally i almost never had to use potions - i play on master - the potions i looted were more than enough and since enemies hit way harder if you raise it you need even more of them) and even for enchanting (since the only way to not nerf you character with enchanting is to level it up to 100 in one go - when you have the best enchants and soul gems and then fully enchant your gear). The benefits in the end-game enchanting are huge -only for melee classes though- even when the enemies level. But it's ridiculous to raise it to 100 in one go and do all enchants right away, however it's the only way it will actually benefit you instead of penalising you.

Unfortunately, if you think about it and test it yourself, there is no benefit/purpose of raising non combat skills only except for rp-ing (a thief for example) and that thief, even when he does level up his combat skills, he will still be weaker than before.
It's almost like the enemies "powerlevel their own combat skills" while you "dare to waste time on anything else".

Personally it undermines my sense of immersion, progression and in-game realism, when the bandit i had easily killed trained to be stronger than a dragonborn who is saving the world while the latter wasted time to use the skills the game itself gave him.

Keep this thread alive or bringing it up, this is an issue worth getting the developers attention - even if they don't do something about it - i'm very curious what they were thinking when creating this system.

I do appreciate this response as a whole - very relevant and interesting anecdotal evidence. That being said, I did not disclose much information about my own character specifically to avoid irrelevant posturing (such as your quote above). For now, I'm willing to stipulate that my character is terrible, and that my lack of RPG skill is unparalleled in the history of the genre. Perhaps, with this out of the way, we can continue to discuss the merits of leveled adversaries without having to resort to unnecessary ad-hominem argumentation.

Maybe, the answer is to have two different kinds of game modes (chosen when a new game is started) - a "level adjusted" mode where the bad guys scale with your own level, and an "absolute" mode where the bad guys' stats are statically determined by the game creators, or perhaps even randomly when you create your character. Speaking as a software professional, it's difficult to imagine this would be hard to do. They can continue to make the "level adjusted" mode default, so all the newcomers to ES won't have a huge change in experience. Bethesda, are you listening?

Hi .

I understand and agree with many of the points (from both sides). Problem is that i dont see (or have myself) any suggestions on how to "change"/"Balance" the leveling for the better...

I mean lets say if Bethesda "fixes" the leveling of monsters so that they do not follow your level when you level only secondary skills.
Then this way of playing will be the preffered way as there is no downside in doing it and you will be more powerful than if you went out and only bashed things from the get go.
(Not saying that people would always play this way but i think the majority would)

If nothing is done and it stays the way it is then leveling combat skills primarely is more "efficient"
(and the majority of players will then have this "play style")

How would we (can we?) get more balance that we already have...Not an easy thing to work out..

Anyway as others have said Skyrim is really fun and engaging and cant wait to explore more (only lvl7 thus far).

I don't care much about the leveling system on enemies, what I really don't like is the loot scaling.
After a while you just don't care about exploring anymore, since you know that in the SECOND you level up, all merchants and dungeons will have the same level of equipment.

Why not have merchants selling better equipment in rich cities?
It could be outrageously pricey, but you would be able to see it, and try hard to buy it if you want.
Or some dungeons with a level slightly over yours, having a slightly better loot.

But no, the WHOLE world follow your progression, even if we don't have bandits wearing glass armour anymore, it's still pretty silly that, overnight, every merchant and every dungeon has better equipment just because you leveled up.

The only time that I saw equipment far above my level, was the Elven Sword on Dragonsreach, it's there the whole time, doesn't matter your level.
It's locked on a master showcase, but it's there, you can have it if you have the ability, I would like more things like that.

Even if bandits don't start wearing glass gear they surely hit and take hits like they do after a point...
About the items - completely agree...

Regardless of the opinions on either side, the game needs to have a balance pass patch to even out level scaling to how you level. Perhaps change the way non-combat skill influence leveling-- reducing the amount or something (because lets be honest, they aren't going to completely rework the skill system).

That said, regardless of how you level, you still have no excuse to be bad at combat. I made a new character to test this point. I am going into One-Handed Weapons and Heavy Armor. One-Handed Weapons starts at 20. This is enough to put 2 points into the starter perk. By the time I was done with the training dungeon, my One-Handed skill was at 25, enough to gain access to the first power attack perk. By the time I was done with the first dungeon (the Barrow), my One-Handed skill was 31. You need a skill of 30 to gain access to the entire second tier of One or Two-Handed Weapon perks. However, the majority of my leveling so far has been through Smithing (spamming Iron Daggers and Hide Bracers). The key is I did not put any perk points into anything but One-Handed Weapons and Heavy Armor. I now have more combat skill perks than I did on my level 25 character, who was having absolutely no problem in combat against anything. This new character is only level 6.

The point here is that you have no right or room to complain about being bad at combat due to level scaling because of non-combat skills. By the time you are done with the two opening dungeons, you have all the combat skill you need to be good in combat for quite a while. Even if you don't spend your perk points on the combat skills right away, your combat skill level should be significant enough at that point to get the perks you need. Once you have those perks (or really even if you don't), you should be fully capable to continue to increase your combat skills after power-leveling with non-combat skills.

If you still have trouble increasing your combat skills, go find some deer and start killing. There is no excuse to not be able to increase any of your skills in this game.

This is incorrect.

You can test this yourself with console commands to change the value of a skill. Changing the skill value tied to a weapon will change the damage value listed for that weapon. Changing the skill value tied to a piece of armour will change the armour value listed for that piece of armour. Both irrespective of perks. Perks have a bigger effect, but the skill value matters.

How much do you have to change the skill? I tracked my weapon damage for quite some time and never saw a single change. If the amount of increase is large, then the argument being made that you would be bad at combat because your skill is low is still invalid over the range of levels that are being mentioned here.

But the OP is right, it is a stupid setup the way leveling works. It is a shame they put all those extra abilities in the game, but if you use them you are punished for it. They could've left it like oblivion in that you only level up when your primary skills are increased and kept the others like smithing as secondary skills and let you choose perks for them, but not actually level up your character. I dunno, really I don't know the best system, but it's true this system svcks.

Like with my primary character, I would love to take more perks in alchemy, but I know that doing so will gimp me, so I have to put my points into combat perks instead, and it svcks that I cannot do more with crafting since it is a great addition to the game.

Edit: Ohh well at least i play on PC, I know there will be good mods which don't use level scaling, it just svcks having to wait for them.

I changed the skill by fifty and got a difference (on a two-handed weapon) of 8.

And no, the argument is not invalid. High skill is also required for a lot of the perks. That you can pull it off does not mean that the majority can pull it off. Your experience is an anecdote, and anecdotes are not data.

I did the same thing. I was playing a Mage type character, and at lvl 17, I realized my perk style was just all over the map. The Dungeons were getting tougher and I only sort of was. I started a new character with a more focused perk progression focusing on what I wanted to do well, vice what looked neat.

The Perk system is cool, it is what makes you a baddy, but you can't take it all. This second character I started feels so much more capable to me.

Because in Skyrim both persons can have the SAME skill-level in one-hand, light armor, blocking, etc. and still person B has a much harder time than Person A, because he gets stronger enemies, which is just stupid!
It's not like Person B wasn't swinging is sword. He did it as much as person A did. But person B also did a lot of other stuff ... which makes him effectively weaker in TES.

And yes, smithing for example is mighty (as some other secondary skills are), but generally the level scaling of enemies shouldn't be tied to the players-level, but rather to a value, which takes into consideration, how powerful he actually is.
I for example did a lot of pick pocketing and now often meet very hard enemies, because I leveled like 5 levels just because of pick pocketing.

Level Scaling should be based on skills and chosen perks and not just on the level.
Some skills should weight more and some less, and some shouldn't influence it at all.

I'm a level 21 warrior, my blacksmithing and enchanting are both around 50, my heavy armor, one handed weapon and shield skills are in the 40's and my destruction, restoration and conjuration (and somehow speech and lockpicking) skills are in the 30's. I'm probably a good example of a jack of all trades character and the game IS difficult at times but with my great smithing I was able to create exquisite steel plate armor for myself and lydia (enchanted with health bonuses) and an orcish shield for myself (shield enchantments) as well as fully upgraded elven weapons with 15 fire damage.
I pretty much destroy anything that comes in my path, though some silver hand bosses and dragon fights do get the better of me but I've never once met an unbeatable boss. Sure if I exclusively levelled my block, heavy armor and one handed till I was level 20 I'd be able to kill the bandit chief in 5 hits instead of 20, but the fact of the matter is that I didnt. Instead I have great armor and weapons and a whole lot of money I dont know how to spend, Its all about balance. If you fight alot, expect to be a good fighter and do even more fighting. if you craft alot, expect to be able to craft even better things and make a whole lot of money. Game's going great for me so far