Every non essential character died two of them in the very last section inside the castle. The encounters were ridiculous with 4-5 xivilai along with their clanfears, a storm attronach, spider deadra and Daedroths all of them at once!!! I swear i had a moment that my high end machine couldn't handle the sheer amount of creatures and npc's chaos that was happening at the same time. Was that part of the plan or is something bugged in my game?

I'm playing in the default difficulty with a level 32 spellsword, developed naturally without any form of efficient leveling and the whole game up until now was smooth and easy. No mods except UOP

Yeah, that's pretty much how Oblivion's leveling goes. There's a reason it's advised to get that out of the way if you plan on doing the MQ and you don't want to struggle.

If you think the start of the MQ was bad, just wait for the end! Your allies don't level, your enemies do.

Yes i know about the leveling system and i love it but still the sudden change in difficulty in that mission was completely out of hand. Fighting two liches at the same time is a welcoming challenge but fighting 5 Xivilai 5 clanfears one spider deadra a storm attronach and a daedroth was sadistic. If these encounters aren't glitched makes me wonder if the devs even bother with any kind of testing.

I know, i saw my allies in Kvatch getting obliterated. I guess that's what happens when you try to fight demons with rusty weapons and armor.

My guess is that they didn't expect anyone to do the quest so late in the game so they just went "f-it" and left the scaling as is. Whether or not it was intentional, it's a terrible idea, I agree. It's just...it's the perfect example to point towards when someone asks what makes Oblivion's scaling terrible. That and the battle for Bruma.

Pointing to ogres, goblins, ghosts, and some other enemies I can't think of off the top of my head does the trick too. And the final battle in the Imperial City. Some of the level scaling is just absurd. Thankfully Skyrim did leveling far better (undoubtedly learning some lessons from Oblivion), but it still could be improved.

In the final battle your job is to take Martin and get him inside the temple as soon as possible. In my game every deadra in the Imperial city was fighting with the legion so it was pretty easy to make it inside the temple unharmed.

I may be a minority here but i really like the level scaling in oblivion even if it doesn't always make sense. Some minor adjustments would be nice but oh well, the game keeps you on your toes from start to finish so i call it a win.

I like enemy scaling. It provides a consistent challenge at all levels.

What I don't like is item leveling. This is the "bandits in Glass Armor" phenomenon. I hate item leveling with a purple passion.

I still prefer it to ''no one in Ebony except the player''. In Skyrim you are the only one wearing armor from such precious metals but people will still send you to a cave to fetch their lost cat. Awkward? Morrowind handle the matter nicely.