This, a million times this.
I have made 4 characters, some dungeons were easy, some were hard, and some were down right impossible(labrinthian at level 15).

Give the game a chance before you condone judgement.

I think the best way to handle this, by keeping the realism factor alive is to have random statics. So like Phitt said, there would be the really hard enemies in the corners of map or in unique area's with occasional strong enemy in any given area. The area you start would have lowest level obviously.
Nehrim handled it perfectly, no level scaling, the difficulty was based on region which worked out perfectly I think.
So if someone created a mod, they would call it Nehrim-scaling mod for Skyrim.

I would never go as far as to say that,


The Modders are only able to do what they do because the Developers enable them. I mean, the current situation is the best example of that. Without a Construction kit most modding is left to texture edits or tweaks.


Not to mention Modders can do what they do on their own time, without a set budget, or a deadline, or any external pressure at all.

Leveling as far as I know, only slows at around level 50, because by that level you should have already leveled your preferred skills, depending on the type of character you created, so at that point you have your important skills 90+ w/e, and then most of the rest still in the teens or low twenties. So say for instance you chose light armor for a thief type character, your heavy armor should still be around 15ish, so leveling that to level your character would in a word be a chore. Though as those low skills start to get higher and higher, leveling should become quicker again.

Good to see someone doing real experiments thankyou very much Phitt, from this information it can probably be seen that potentially doing some tweaking to the current scaling would be a lot more efficient than hand replacing everything.

• If bandits were put in their place with a range of level 1 - 10, or even 1 - 5, with only fur / leather/ iron equipment (class dependent (archer / brute /etc)
  
• tthen a mid tier bandit of higher level added between 10 - 20 or 10 - 15 with steel or lower (with perhaps a minute chance of something mid tier)
  
• then bosses potentially hand crafted with a little flavour added, such as a named enchanted item, or a little set piece.

If this kind of template were applied then the inherent difficulty of a dungeon would be how many of each tier enemy is present, not what level you were you when you came in. (though that would still have a minor effect) for example a low level bandit dungeon might have a couple of regular bandits and one hand placed boss who is level 7-9.
A very hard bandit dungeon might have a mainly mid tier bandits and 1 -2 hand crafted sub bosses mixed in to be mid - 20s and a final chief at level 35. with hand made approprate equipment.

This idea could be applied to all enemies which have tiers of enemies, eg novice - master necromancers.

The key parts are constraining tiers within what they logically would be (bandit isnt as strong as a sabre cat or a troll.) and ensuring they have equipment which makes sense. (this does not mean no bandits would ever have an orcish or elven weapon, but it wouldnt suddenly turn from everyone in iron to everyone in steel to everyone in orcish.

Level scaling is not a peep for me, though some tweak, to have things stay in logical levels (enemy-centric scaling, not by area or player: Bandits scale up to... lvl15?, fom lvl 5? and let's say, bears (normal ones) range from lvl 20 to 30? and you can find them anywhere it makes sense...)
What puts me off is loot scaling. Nice, I'm seeing no daedric-clad bandits... but they still get their hands in large amounts of finely crafted material a Bandit shouldn't have (elven, glass, ebony, enchanted, even...) Loot should be logical: elven stuff is VERY rare except for Thalmors, daedric only found on Dremora, glass or ebony only in very powerful quest bosses, dwemer never in the hands of anyone (well, rarely, and no more than daggers), only found in ruins (what's the point of dwemer ruins if we can find their stuff all over??). and so on. Bandits should stay on iron, for the most part, maybe steel for bosses, sometimes (only rarely) anything else.

I think the core of the problem lies in the skill leveling system and not the enemies/loot scaling.

The main flaw lies in the way we level based off every skills gains; skill gains can be gained all the way to 100 using the same method over and over. (Ie smiting making only iron daggers, magic casting a novice spell over and over again.)

If any mod needs to be made its one that associates skill gains based on what you do with it: You want more one hand skill you need to fight tougher enemies, not just beat on some level 1 invulnerable NPC, blacksmith you have to make better items to keep getting skill upgrade, lock picking might need expert or master locks at some point. Same with magic, you would need expert magic to skill up past a certain point etc etc. This would solve the super fast leveling problem, you would still find combat very hard if you focused entirely on non combat skills but i don't see why you should excel at combat when you have 0 training in it. We could also base character leveling contributions on skill gains, so a level 40 character would gain pretty much nothing from raising alchemy from 10 to 20 but might gain a good deal from raising that same skill from 89 to 90.

As for the loot, I am currently level 42; the loot i find is usually level appropriate, i sometimes find some unique and very cool weapons/armors (even with my 100 blacksmith and enchanting made gear) that are usually great for the level i find them at. The enemies? I sometimes see a half decent piece on equipment on an enemy but more than not they wear stuff that at level 42 is just junk to me. This is spot on as far as i am concerned.

Challenge wise, on Master, its pretty much spot on except for maybe the amount of Bosses/Overlords i tend to find.

So there you have it, fix skill gains based on activity and the scaling would make much more sense.

I really hated that. The game was really fun at first, but after you levelled up it was wildly lopsided. I'd go along trivially one-shotting everything, and then every once in a while run into an insanely powerful bullet sponge. Totally ruined the game for me.

I have nothing but the highest respect for Bethesda's programmers and artists. But whoever is making their top-level design decisions is smoking some serious crack.

Well when you are high level, common enemies should be mere students before the master of death. The problem is making them enemies actually feel like they are mighty enough to challenge you. Not just hp-sponges but genuinely powerful...kinda hard to pull off ^^

I'd like to see it where enemies near roads are low level, and the deeper into the wilderness you delve the more dangerous the foes you face. A party of weak bandits may live in that mine next to a main road, but the bandit lord with his elite raiding party will know to make his home far away from the roads so they're harder to find.

After playing for a bit, I definitely remember why Oblivion's scaling bothered me so much (more than Fallout 3's... and NV's scaling is a totally different system I actually really liked). It's because of how the player levels.

As much as the idea of "gain skill by using it" makes sense in a lot of ways, it doesn't mesh well with the scaled-world system. The reason's really simple... the more you experiment with various skills, the more the world levels up. It's not just the more you kill/quest/work on your main skills, the world levels up around you if you decide to spend some time crushing up flowers in a bowl or picking locks. This means that, optimally, you will never use any skill that you don't plan to seriously level up. These skills will be useful if you level them higher, but they'll just be padding your level if you only add 20 or so skill to them and move on.

In "traditional" RPG leveling systems (and I'm not saying they're good, I'm just saying they match a level-scaled world better) you gain XP from most things you do that involve your skills, then use that XP to level up the skills you choose. It's not realistic, but it allows the player to:
1) Use any skill they want to at any point without fear of "harming" their character build,
2) Decide which skills matter when it's time to level up (and for the world to level up).
So you get to play with low level smithing, enchanting, spell-casting, whatever without it resulting in a sub-optimal build. If you decide you like one of these skills, you can start pouring points in there during a level up.

On the other hand, if the world were static-leveled (by which I mean each area has its own level, so you might find a level 40 dungeon if you wander too far into the deep forest) then the "use it to level" it system suddenly becomes perfectly balanced. Since your level no longer determines the difficulty of the enemies encountered, you can level your character however you like without worrying about "gimping" your build. Then you can decide which difficulty of encounters you want, using your level as more of a general guide than a world-scaling variable. The other thing a static world adds is the ability to try to fight above your level, which is the whole point of trying to make an optimized build in the first place; to take on higher level challenges. With the leveled world, there simply are no higher level challenges.

I really think that one of these two things needs to go. Personally I still like "use it to level it" so I'd much rather see a completely static-leveled world (maybe the main quest could be exempt; let it level with the player if you need to, but I want to encounter dungeons of pre-determined set difficulty).

I fully expect this is going to get a lot of feedback from people saying, "it's more fun if you don't try to game the system," and to be honest that may be true to some degree (I'm having more fun with my first character, who pretty much just does whatever and says "screw it" to any idea of making a reasonable character build). The problem is there are also a lot of us who enjoy the challenge of trying to make the best build possible in order to overcome difficult odds, and when we play like this we find ourselves forced to micro-manage our actions in game more than is actually fun.

I'll hit one more common counter-argument, which is that if you static-scale the world then you basically have less content, because you'll level up past the low-level dungeons and there will only be a few high level ones. I suggest a less magical version of scaling for the problem; as the player levels up, have some of the really way-too-low dungeons get repopulated with higher level mobs. If the player has skipped a level 5 dungeon and he's level 40 now, have it raplace that dungeon with one anywhere from lvl 30-50. Determine the specific level by the same parameters that were used for its original level; if it's near a town or a road, make it lower than the player (say 34) while if it's deep in the forest it could be higher (closer to 50). And yes, this whole system relies on obvious sign-posting that "immersion" players probably won't like; have dungeon levels listed on the map. "That bear cave (15)."

Obviously Bethesda isn't going to turn around and do... any of this stuff for the next TES game, but I like to rant about it because I really don't like the "everyone can always do all the content at any level" system, it seems like if you want that outcome you should just remove leveling entirely and make an action-adventure game. So uh.. enjoy that wall of text.

Disclaimer: I'm still enjoying the game, don't take this as an I-hate-Skyrim post.

Level scaling is a problem because of immersion reasons and because it determines the optimal way to build your character although it is supposed to be free to decide. My suggestion to deal with those problems while keeping the enemies at least somewhat challenging based on your level would be to put lower scaling caps on some dungeons and parts of questlines. This way even someone who leveled up without increasing combat skills and perks always has areas that are appropriate for his strength in combat, and he doesn't get unreasonably punished with stronger enemies everywhere just because he wanted to explore trade skills.

Enemies in all big questlines would scale to a pretty high level, but indivudual stages should be capped separately. The final part of major quest lines would be scaled around level 40-45, some few extreme cases could be as high as 50-60 when it feels appropriate. On the other hand, the earliest parts of those would have lower caps. The earliest parts of faction questlines would be divided to groups like level 5-10, the next level 10-15, the next level 15-20, etc based on what feels realistic. The levels need to be intuitive. A recruit isn't expected to clear a dungeon of level 30 monsters. If some commoner asks you to retrieve a stolen item from bandits for him, you can assume the bandits cap at 10 at most based on quest description, but when someone important or an experienced adventurer gives similar quest, you know it will be hard and require at least level 25. More difficult quests would require higher level, but have static reward. All dungeon loot, merchant inventory, etc. would have static loot to reward players for trying their limits.

If done right, there would always exist dungeons with enemies appropriate of your character skills even if you went level 20 with non-combat skills alone. You would be intuitively guided to the right areas based on the description and nature of the quest. You won't be punished as hard for leveling up fast with smithing, pickpocketing and enchanting anymore. Those skills' leveling speed should be adjusted though, but that's another matter.

I think what most people forget is that a 'level' is just an abstract value that is a rough estimate of an actors strength. If the player is level 20 a level 25 enemy won't be impossible to beat, neither will a level 15 enemy be automatically very easy to beat. You can overcome slightly higher level enemies at a lower level just fine and lower level enemies on the other hand can still be a challenge. It depends on the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy and the player.

A dungeon that has static level enemies with a level between 20 and 25 can be explored by a level 15 character or, if the player has a certain strength that will help him defeating the enemies inside (like a dungeon filled with undead if the player has enchantments/spells that help specifically against undead), by an even lower level character. And it can still be a challenge for a level 30 or even 35 character. So only because a dungeon has static level enemies between level 20 and 25 inside doesn't mean that only a level 20-25 character is able to explore it without facing instant death or deadly boredom. A static dungeon will easily be worthwhile to explore for a player level range of 15-20 levels, which is quite a lot if the soft cap for leveling is level 50.

The idea here is, as long as the enemies remain within a specific static difficulty range based on area the player can use subjective judgment to decide which areas suit him the best at any time. This namely helps with the problem that comes with the vague and situational connection between creature level and difficulty.

I'm level 8 and get constantly pwned by Trolls, Bears, Giants, a Master Vampire, Saber Cats etc

Heres what you need to realize I think... The common enemies you will find are indeed pushovers. The "chiefs" or leaders - any type of mob you find with an out of ordinary rank in their name, well they are less common and therefore more powerful. Trolls will [censored] you, giants will also. I think that's the way it should be. Common enemies = less powerful. Some dragons will tear you apart. Play more, you will see it's not all a cakewalk.

I think mileage varies. Im playing on adept on my first playthrough, and im well equipped. Yet, trolls sometimes kicked my sorry rear into next week and i had to sneak around them, some falmer hurt me pretty bad but arent a challenge anymore now. Giants will oneshot you into an orbit around Masser, too. Sabrecats and bears can maul you hardcoe.
Most OP encounter was against a draugr deathlord. Shot me once, 20% of my HP down. Shouted at me and made me drop my bow, then shot me again, DEAD. Next time around, with poison, 40% bow damage potion and lots of healing and some shouts, i got him though. was tough as nails that guy. So yeah, you will eventually run in some things that are tough. Id like some more of that too, but so far my sneaky archer found plenty challenge really, so im not complaining too much. Its all good while im sneaking, once im not anymore, it gets interesting.

Playing a warrior/mage/hybrid will certainly be interesting as well

Mayber we don't play the same game, my mage with the 200% bonus from alteration have 300 armor and over 250 hp and get sometime one shotted by a random baddies.

It's really infuriating to see Bethesda still ruining their game with horrid level scaling, especially considering they always spend so much efforts in building a huge world, just to make it irrelevant because they couldn't be arsed to put actual fixed levels foes and loot...
Talk about being counter-producive and killing the very point that make everything else worth it...

If you're still reading the thread Phitt, I agree with you.

It's definitely a step up from Oblivion's scaling of EVERY single thing to your level, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of what things like FCOM or OOO did with Oblivion.
I don't think there's ever going to be a scaling system like that without mods though, to be honest. Most players I know don't really enjoy being thrown the 'This area is too high of a level for you; Come back at a later time when you won't get your ass handed to you on a golden platter' message.

In all honesty, I think Oblivion spoiled all of us with the amazing modders' work (Yours included). =P

Edited in: You have to keep in mind that a large portion of Skyrim players did not spend much time with Oblivion from what I've seen, and therefore don't really know what kind of scaling you're looking for.

In regards to the current Skyrim scaling, there are definitely enemies that are more tough than others. But there has been nothing thrown at me so far where I've thought 'This isn't possible to kill at my current level, with my current gear'.
There has always been a legitimate way to kill whatever has been thrown at me.

Many of the more popular Oblivion Scaling Overhaul mods have changed the scaling drastically to the point where it is not physically possible to travel through certain areas until you attain a certain level of power.
Essentially, a few of the scaling mods (I'm looking at you, Oscuro) would do something to the extent of this scenario:
You are level 5.
You want to travel to Markarth.
Nearing the Western edge of the wilderness, not near any Main cities, you encounter an Elder Dragon. At level 5.
You're not going to kill it. You are either going to die, or retreat, re-assess, and come back at a later time when you can actually kill it.

On a different tangent, however, if you come across a weakened Elder Dragon (It may have come across a Guard encampment), and manage to finish it off, the reward for doing so is drastically larger than anything you could get at your current level.

Edit edit: Just wanted to throw in a good example as to what I'm looking for in a scaling overhaul; The Battle of Kvatch. Vanilla Oblivion, level 1? No problem. FCOM Oblivion? Have fun making a dent in a single mob at level 1.

I think that is what Phitt (And I) is looking for.

TL;DR
Risk versus reward; There is no such thing currently implemented.

The level scaling svcks in this game. I'm sick of being underpowered for my level because I happened to craft a few pieces of armor or read a few books that gave skill points. There is no reason why things like selling items to a vendor, or making a iron dagger should level my character.

The entire system is counterproductive to having an open world where you can do anything you want. Sure, you could make some armor, or craft a few potions, but the more you do stuff like that the more you gimp yourself in combat. Nearly half of my levels have been gained from skill ups that have nothing to do with combat, which just makes combat that much more difficult.

I think the level scaling is an improvement over Oblivion, and maybe FO3, though it still needs work.

I was disappointed for the first few hours of the game, then switched to Expert, then to Master. Master was nearly perfect, but I started getting witches who'd soak 6+ hits from a 2H sword--and those were the ones who weren't using ward spells. Some of the bosses were frustrating, too.

Since then, I've been switching between Expert and Master. Level 15 on Master was easier than Level 20 on Expert. Now at Level 28, Expert is too easy again. This is with a character who hasn't been min-maxed at all, actually almost the opposite because I wanted to try different things out.

Part of the issue, as people have pointed out, is that not all skills are equal when it comes to combat, and the choice of perks makes a big difference, too. I think a smarter leveling system needs to be developed.

Have at least 3 skill weights, with regards to combat-effectiveness (for determining skill contribution to character level):

1. Direct combat skills (weapons, armor, etc.)
2. Combat support skills (smithing, enchanting, maybe alchemy)
3. Non-combat skills (speech, lockpicking)

The idea would be to reduce the effect of combat support and non-combat skills when determining character level. Maybe non-combat skills only have a 50% weight, for example.

There's another problem, because a character with a full perk tree in a single weapon is more powerful than a character who's got perks spread across many skills. Because perks are determined by the level of the character, it's a tricky issue, but you could dynamically adjust the skill weights to try to cover this issue.

Urk, I really don't see the problem here. This is my own personal opinion though, but still:

This is a RPG, read it Role-Playing Game. Many of you have the game stuck in your heads without the Role-Playing bit in there, and it doesn't work that way. If you are playing a diplomat, who can talk their way out of every situation, of course you are going to be weak in combat. Subsequently, if you play a character who has combat-oriented skills, of course you are going to be godly in combat.

On the second note, i play on the standard ( I assume adept) difficulty, playing a battlemage with destruction, one-handed, alteration, enchanting and restoration perks. With Ebonyflesh and the lord stone i have 350 armor, at level 41, and i can get two-shotted by a giant. I CAN, but i don't because...well i run away from melee combat like a [censored]. It baffles me how people have problems with difficulty in this game, to the point that i hear tons of complaints all the time. I expect to be able to one shot bandits at level 42 and being an arch-mage. I expect to be able to destroy dragons after fighting 30 of them off already, and mastering destruction. And do you know what happens? A random elder dragon flies into solitude, and me and 15 other guards spend at least 20 seconds whacking it. Thank god i made it fly down otherwise half the city would be dead. It bit me once, took half of my life of, and i was careless. But if i'm careful, a dragon will die straight after it lands. Why? Because i have a constant channel spell that eats everything. Don't complain about your character being OP if they are high level and have 60+ in skills. 60+ is considered godly people. I was fighting a master vampire and he took my head off in 2 swings. 2 Freaking swings! And level scaling is done MILES better in Skyrim than it was in Oblivion. Bandits still wear fur and leather, with an occasional full steel set, even at this level. There is no more scaled monsters that make you feel like you're not progressing through the game.

If you want a game that has different level enemies at different locations, go play an MMO. Or, offer a better solution, that works on paper (at the least), about the entire system. I for one find it great that leveling speech levels your character. You get better at an action which gives you different rewards rather than combat. It is the core of RP games, and it should stay that way. I know that Skyrim doesn't have full options for every single skill, but you know what, go to a bandit lair and they will warn you off. You don't have to fight, just walk away. Get a companion to fight for you and stay back. Do what you want it's an open game.

Two bosses have done that for me: The boss of Meridia's quest one-shotted me, managed to kill him by avoiding the attack and spamming healing potions though, and the boss of the Silenced Tongues quest. Initially made it to him at around level 14, no chance. Went back at level 19, still no chance. I'm now at level 25, should go and see if survive longer than 5 seconds. Last time i also checked that his level was 21, if it's higher now i'm gonna be pissed (Edit: Still level 21, might even be possible if he didn't have a freezing sword and powerful friends )

Still, i wouldn't say "no" to a static levels mod. It really shows how you grow stronger. Stronger enemies no longer appear only after gaining certain levels, they were there to begin with, but now you have a fighting chance against them.

This is in to a certain degree, quite a big degree compared to other games. I was fighting a boss mob at level 13, and my girlfriend did the same mob at level 30, and we had a totally different experiences. I had to reload 20 times, she killed him easy. Now, arguably there could be more of these boss mobs that are not procedurally generated compared to your level, but it isn't bad enough for it to be called svcky and horrible.

Replying somewhat to Dayer-

You have a point, but the problem as I see it is that while there is plenty in the game to make use of the combat skills there is little to do outside cities with the sophisticated skills of crafting and speechcraft and pickpocketing. You can't talk your way out of a beat down from ghouls (.... err wrong game ... I mean) Draugr. Or from a dragon and guess what you are going to meet these foes. A companion or two is not going to do much when it is you who are the dragon born.

It is not open world enough to allow for that kind of thing. it is not sandbox either. I wish it were, but it is not.

As far as ideas on scaling those that have been around know the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/820948-scaling-overhaul-comparison/ already taken. What is in Skyrim is barely understood except that it has some qualities of Fallout3, but what the max encounters are or the regions or the level offset is not that well understood yet.

=======================

I imagine after script extender is stable that we will get mods like Progress for Oblivion that allows us to create skill leveling independently for each skill, so that we could have smithing and alchemy contribute far less than weapon skills.