It was one of the most hated features in Oblivion and its back In Skyrim. Why? And dont give me that its necessary for open world games because its not. New Vegas and Morrowind did just fine with ouut it. And I hate the fact that I have to wait for my level to be high enough just to get good gear. This should not be. If I complete a quest, I should get the strongest gear in the first place. And if its to easy to get then its the developers fault and they should fix it.

You've gotta be trollin' me.

I hate level scaling as well. At least the way they did it in Skyrim and especially Oblivion.

They need to have reasonable level caps on things. Bandits no matter what title you put in front of "Bandit", should never be more challenging than a dragon.

I'm fine with higher level enemies being more common at higher difficulty, I'm fine with some variation in level for some creatures that could be adjusted to the higher end as you reach high levels, but in Skyrim they laid it on way too thick. It's very noticeable and ruins the feeling of progression as well as discouraging the use of many non-combat skills/perks.

1. Dont't be a grammer nazi.
2. Enemeys are still scaled. It might not be as bad as Oblivion but I still notice it a lot. There is also the fact that gear is still scaled to your level.

Level scaling is 100% necessary, unless you want the game to be completely linear. This is what happens without level scaling (i.e. Morrowind):

1. If you wander away from the specific quests given to you you will either die immediately, or you will be plagued with hundreds of incredibly easy but incredibly annoying enemies. (i.e. rats and Cliffracers)

2. If you finish a whole questline before beginning another one, most of the second one will be way, way too easy and no fun at all. This increases with the amount of time before you begin a new questline.

This is what happens when level scaling is taken way too far (i.e. Oblivion):

1. You come back to the same place 15 levels later and now the enemies are wearing daedric instead of leather armour

2. You come back to the same place 5 levels later and now there are Atronachs instead of Scamps

3. You don't get any sense of power after spending hours and hours training your character up - things just get harder instead

4. The whole world seems to revolve around you and is completely unrealistic

Skyrim is trying its best to have the positives of both, and avoid as many negatives of both as possible. It is the best compromise.

I'm more of a grammar activist.

I dislike level scaling intensely. It breaks any sense of immersion and it's done as a time-saving device for the construction of content (seriously, how many 'bandits' are there in Skyrim?). People who advocate it sight that it adds challenge to the game as you progress, but it really doesn't. It just kills the sense of acheivement when you're wearing gear that every common bandit seems to have access to.

I'm looking forward to a mod where people have actually sat down and thought about what should be where in the game world.

I talked to the devs and they swore me to secrecy, but the whole idea was just to make you- and only you- mad.

1. Its an RPG. Your suppose to level up. Then you go kick what killed you ass.
2.You should come back five levels later and find both.
3. Its an RPG. That should not happen.
It is a video game. It does not have to be realistic. Its not real life.

Did you just call Morrowind linear. You should brace your self for the worst.

I did notice it, but it is no where near the oblivion level. I'm still seeing the same enemies in the world, no wolves getting replaced by trolls :thumbsup: Armor and weapons do scale, but it does not replace anything, it is simply added to the mix.

If you genuinely just called Morrowind "linear" I'm wagering you've never actually played Morrowind. You couldn't be further from the truth; that was the best thing about Morrowind - the proverbial could get real at any moment. I understand what you're saying, but calling Morrowind "linear" - that word does not mean what you think it means.

if a game doesnt have level scaling then it becomes very linear because there are only certain areas you could enter without getting your ass handed to you, or you become a god halfway through the game and only a few enemies pose a threat any more

No bandit I've seen has anything better than steel plate, and I'm high level.

It was handled pretty well in Morrowind IMO. The information is in the game and is given to you fairly subtly but effectively. You know Daedric shrines are dangerous, for example, because you're told by some NPCs that they are. Same goes for the ashlands and so on. It's left up to the player to decide whether to risk it or wait until they've got better gear and higher skill and so on. You get an idea fairly early on what areas are more and less dangerous. Yes, eventually you became powerful enough that there wasn't much of a threat left, but that can easily be adjusted without the heavy handed level scaling they added in Oblivion and admittedly refined to some degree in Skyrim. They're still way too far to the extreme, where level scaling is something the player will notice and have to adjust their playstyle around.

Thats the fault of the designers and ccould be easily fixed. With your logic level scsling sounds like a cough out to not work.

I don't understand how people can justify level scaling as being a part of reducing linearity. I mean, whatever happened to the thrill of dodging and weaving through an area you shouldn't be at? Or the challenge of using improvisation and intelligence to defeat enemies you should not be able to, in order to get far greater rewards by taking bigger risks?

they do fix these problems by having level scaling

No. They really don't. They just make more problems and people like you dont seem to get that.

You can't be that high as every single bandit I kill now seems to be wearing a combination of Orcish/Elvish armours. I've yet to see any wearing Ebony, though I've found plenty of Daedric and Dragon Bone armour in chests.

Also; does anyone know how this dubbing of any game that doesn't have level scaling in it to be 'linear' came about? Those of you who have used the term in this thread - do you know what this word means, and do you think the Elder Scrolls has ever, ever suffered from it?

you know in skyrim you dont have to wait to get a high level to get really good gear, I got a glass waraxe at level 12

Every time I see these threads complaining about level scaling, I get the feeling that the posters have not actually PLAYED Skyrim yet; they simply read it has level scaling.

It's not like Oblivion where every single mob matches your level and ability. All the scaling in Skyrim does is "unlock" new, stronger mobs that spawn along side the lower level ones the higher you go so you're not without a challenge by the time you hit level 10.

In Oblivion, every Skeleton at level 50 becomes a Skeletal Champion (or whatever the highest level skeleton was).

In Skyrim, you still get regular level 1 skeletons spawning at level 50, but you also get varying types of skeletons that are more powerful than the low level ones.

In Oblivion, when you were level 50, every bandit would have glass/daedric armor.

In Skyrim, when you are level 50, only boss level bandits will have glass/daedric armor; and only on occasion will they have an entire suit.

Where as I disagree with getting the best armor I do believe:

-If I go through an extremely hard dungeon I should find some kind of good loot. Not for the seven hundreth time more Gold.

Rare unique items? Where did that go?

You never had to wait till a high level to get hmgood gear. You just had to use something calle your brain.

Don't get me wrong, Morrowind is my favourite game ever. Zelda OoT had been my favourite game for like ten years since I got it and a N64 for christmas at age 12. Then I happened across Morrowind in a bargain bin for $10 while looking for something to do in the uni holidays (this was only about three years ago), and I thought it looked pretty good from the pictures on the back and the most I could lose is $10 if it turned out to be crap, but I was totally blown away! It blew Zelda completely out of the water.

When I say linear, really it has about 50 "lines" to follow, which made it not seem like that. And probably a lot of them branch into multiple "lines" themselves by choices you make. But it has to be linear by definition - lots of the caves/dungeons are tied to quests, and the enemies that are in there are at a particular difficulty, because the game expects you to go in there after you've finished certain other missions, which you had to be a certain level to be allowed to do.

You do realize won of the points of an rpg is to level uo. Level scaling negates that. Completely.