After playing the game for a few hours, exploring a good bit of the landscape and cleaning a few dungeons I still haven't encountered a single enemy who was stronger than me. I met a few enemies who were harder than others, but none of them were too hard for me even though I've already set the difficulty to expert. Most of them were one hit kills even. I didn't find any loot not 'appropriate' for my level either. Even the first dragon I encountered was (relatively) easy to defeat with my weak level 4 character and wearing an Iron Greatsword and cheap armor. The only time I died so far was when I was driven off a cliff while swimming too close to a waterfall.

This leads me to the conclusion that the level scaling is more or less the same as it was in Oblivion. Maybe there are a few unscaled enemies I didn't find yet scattered throughout the world, but there can't be many of them as I didn't find any of them yet (I saw some Giants and Mammoths, but didn't attack them - since they're peaceful they don't count as strong enemies).

Anyone planning to make a leveling mod similar to OOO? Or is it just a coincidence and did you experience something else while playing the game? I'm a bit annoyed by this as it was the biggest flaw in Oblivion for me. Everyone said 'calm down, there will be dungeons for level 30-35, level 5-10 and so on'. But that is apparently not the case.

I got mauled pretty hard by some ice wolves near winterhold at like...level 2 or 3?


Also the scaling is like Fallout 3. Individual enemies don't scale but stronger/different enemies spawn depending on your level, within a range.

I can only look at my own observations...maybe you were 'lucky'. What I met so far:

1. Bandits. All of them were cannon fodder, one power attack and they're gone.

2. Witches. Same as bandits.

3. Wolves. Same as bandits.

4. Forlorn people (or something like that, some kind of evil shaman people). A tiny bit harder, but still absolutely no problem.

5. Necromancers. Same as bandits.

6. Skeletons. Same as bandits.

7. Draugr. Same as bandits.

8. Trolls (Frost/Regular). Relatively hard I guess, but fortunately they move like Dovakhiin's grandma so it's very easy to kill them by stepping back.

9. Dragon. My level 4 character with crap equipment can defeat one. So what is all the fuss about? Oblivion Gates I look at you.

I think that's all I've seen so far apart from peaceful creatures like Horkers, rabbits, elks, giants, mammoths etc. Like I said, I haven't met a single enemy who was far too strong for my low level character wearing crap equipment. To me that's just not right. Guess I'll have to check how it works exactly once the CK is out.

A snow leopard destroyed me, in a good 1- 2 hits. A master vampire destroyed me(master vampire and like 4 followers at the least, followers is easy, the master is hard). Trolls destroyed me(two of them. a couple I guess). And master mages are too [censored] powerful. Even spiders are very tough. I am level 10 now.

EXPLORE MORE!

Guess I'll do that. Maybe I went into the wrong areas. But after 5+ hours of gameplay I thought I would have met at least one enemy too hard for me. I hope for the best though.

@phitt
Yeah what i have heard is that the scaling is done similar to fallout nv

All the creatures in your list are scaled according to your level including the dragon i'd wager as it is part of normal progression. If you want an example of a 'hard' enemy try and melee a giant, hell there was one fireball throwing creature in a camp of witches that caused me to skull those healing potions. Spriggans can hurt if you don't take em down quickly.

I'd say run of the mill creatures/enemies could be beefed up a little, but not too much.

I have to agree with reserve. The bandits and quests I met around Riverhold and Whiterun do seem leveled, and I completed them all very easily. All the loot was hide / padded / iron stuff, i.e starter loot as far as I know.
However, Mirmulnir kicked my ass repeatedly, as well as a Snow Troll on the way to High Hrotgar. And a spriggan. And a snow leopard. So I theorize that places of interest along main questlines and in the wilderness might hold tougher creatures as level checks.
Or maybe... a lot of my roadblocks in combat matters have to do with being a mage and being utterly mana starved as soon as I try to use anything above novice spells, which is a vanilla Oblivion problem OOO used to fix as well...

Oh and the spriggan I met... the bees... the bees! Basically, anything that is not a wolf or another human being tends to destroy me.

I find I can one-shot a lot of mobs with my melee attacks and go down quickly to spells, but I've also found that some (boss-type?) mobs are much harder.

The leveling scaling works great. Yes, many regular enemies aren't that much of an issue 1v1 - as it should. But when you start meeting 5 or more of them, it aint no game. And that's not counting the rarer and much harder enemies, and especially not the messed-up bosses you meet. I have been one-shotted from full hp more than once. So if anything it needs tweaking in that departement. But if the game is too easy for you, try turning up the difficulty. If you're playing on Master and it's still too easy, then either:
A: You're in the wrong place.
B: There's something wrong with your game.
C: I'm doing something very wrong. (approaching 70-something Smithing might have something to do with it...)

Both scaling and leveling speed are screaming for mods.

The combat too is way way too easy. Seems even easier than Oblivion.

I went into a cave that had trolls. I'm lvl 8 and two of them pretty much pwn'ed me (on expert). Likewise, I entered a small orc camp and went thru the regular orcs pretty easy. However, in the main complex I met a leveled boss that required me to use about 8 health potions to defeat. He was pretty much blocking everything I threw at him until his stamina broke. Then there is my vampire encounter. Not saying something akin to OOO (which I loved) is not warranted, but I think you can find enemies that are higher level than you. If anything, it appears there might be an issue with loot scaling.

you had me at killed-a-dragon-at-level-4. Just installing now but I had no doubts it would be easier than it should be but not quite like what you said

Problem with level scaling is always that if you level the 'wrong' (= non-combat) skills the game becomes harder and harder as you level up. Was the same in Oblivion. I almost exclusively leveled two-handed with as many perks as possible. Right now my level 7 char has two-handed 41 with 60% more damage, 10% chance for criticals and 25% less stamina use for power attacks - every perk I could get with a skill value of less than 50. I also have a rather good sword, an enchanted ancient nordic greatsword. If you mostly leveled smithing and if enemies become harder as you level up it's no wonder the game is hard for you. Maybe you have a relatively good armor/weapon for your level, but with a bad armor and weapon skill that doesn't help much.

I will keep exploring though to see whether I can find some tough enemies.


The combat still has the same flaws it had in Oblivion. Back stepping is a viable option to defeat enemies - I defeated Trolls without getting hit that way. The animations still make them stop each time they attack so they can't hit you if you take a step back.

What I like is that so far none of the enemies seem to be damage sponges like in Oblivion.

I play on Master and some fight can be pretty challenging ... to say even hard. I'm a thief/assasin relying ONLY on sneak, light armor, dual-wielded sword & alchemy/cook. I always had a companion with me though. (He tank while I dps)

In my early level I came across 3 Hired Thug patrolling around riverwood... I had to reload several time to beat them.
Bleak Fall Barrow... Although its overall pretty easy... I actually had some OMFG OUF moment... mainly cause of lack of healing potion/food. Thanks to the nine divine there is out of combat health regen.
The first true HARD moment I had is when I entered a cave meeting face-to-face with TWO troll. Using several potion and dodging around it was still a bit too hard so I gave up. 1on1 is challenging but not fatal.
Afterwards I faced a Bandit Leader and several Bandit Outlaw (3-4 at a time some of them using magic)... I was level 10ish at the time and yea it was pretty tough... the bandit leader could pretty much hit me one time (it paralysed or froze me wateva) then finish me off without me being able to do anything... so yea he could one-shot me.

And seriously the kill a dragon at level 4 thing is pretty normal when you could just sit back and let the 5 npc with you do the job. I would love to see you 1on1 at lvl 4 on master difficulty taking on the dragon solo, hint: you would get [censored]. (only way to win this would be with a [censored]load of health potion/food.)

It has been noted the RS quests are tailored to your character so it is natural that the quests you got are relatively easy. Exploring is the key for the non-scaled encounters.

And I forgot giants. Aren't they supposed to be non-hostile? Whenever I get near them, they skyrocket my character, literally.

PS. Yeah, I took down a dragon too but we were like 10 people. Haven't encountered one by my own.

Still, level scaling can only be recognized in multiple playthroughs. And I hate it. I want any leveled creature, NPC out of my game. Ranges are OK if they are like 25-30 but any more would be too much to my tastes, it is immersion breaking. It destroys the relation between parties.

@AtomicBomber
Yeah, I met that troll couple too.

When I run away from tough encounters, they taunt me like "Yeah, run you coward!".

PPS. Difficulty was at default. I have H:1 M:1 S:0 ratios at level 9. It is amazing that you can deplete stamina with two moves only.

Ran into one myself, even the standard vampires were tough, but that master made it pretty clear that i have no business messing with him yet. At level 4. And i did have a companion too.

I'm lvl 21, and I've killed a couple of dragons, tough but doable. Then I get [censored] by a bear. Because the bear spawns in a higher lvl zone or something... jesus christ....

i love how people say how good they are and how eas the game is without stating the difficulty lvl or the fact whether or not they have been boosting their health

i havent used any health points ive put them all on magika and i started on master difficulty and and i dont use armor ........i say it was hard

soo.. if your gonna state how easy the game is please state what settings u are using

I think you misunderstand them. They are not braging, they are only commenting the dificulty level of the game. More exactly in the level scalling area.

tbh, this type of level scaling i can live with ( i'm lvl 18) what i am worried about, and what was an immersion breaker in oblivion, is IF when i near max level i come across bandits in daedric armor. That killed oblivion for me until mods corrected the issue.

I love how people don't read the OP before they start to complain.

Also, level scaling has nothing to do with difficulty (setting). I don't want all enemies to be hard, neither do I want all enemies to be easy/average. I want (more or less) unscaled enemies so some of them are very hard, especially for a low level character while others are easy. With a level 50 character I rarely want to meet a dangerous enemy, with a level 2 character I rarely want to meet an enemy who is not dangerous. Pretty simple concept, that's how most RPGs do it.

And finally this is not about bragging how 'good' I am at playing a singleplayer RPG. But I guess you knew that.

EDIT: And what you say doesn't make much sense by the way. So you didn't use armor and say it was hard? Surprise, surprise. If I don't fight back it's hard as well, but I doubt that's the point of the game.

I second all that Phitt said. ppl need to read before posting....

lol well for 1 mages robes dont have an armor rating or the ones i have are 0

and by not having maxed my health and not using armor and playing on max difficulty i have found that there are some creatures whuch i find difficult and others that are easy

and im not complaining its hard
im playing it for the challenge and thus i have no problems with the lvl scaling or difficulty of low or medium enemies are atm

my main point is if your playing on adept and maxing all your health and using the best armor i can see how u find it too easy

but either way im all up for more hardcoe mods,
but it amuses me when posts come out like this and they dont say that they are playing on max settings and also gimping themselves for the sake of making it harder
for all i know your playing it on easy..

I enjoy the scaling, I explored pretty hard from the get go, I went into one crypt and the undead were sorta easy, then one (must have been a higher lvl one) decided to two shot me. I reloaded, I could barely dent him. I will return when I grow up to be a big dragon slayer.

Well game dificulty depends on your playstyle.

About the first dragon it is suposed to be easy, he does always the same flight path, lands always on the same spot, and ignores the player over ther targets, its suposed to be a tutorial on how to fight dragons.

Trash mobs on leather armor are trash and you can 1 shot them with a lvl 8+ character, specially with bow shots from sneak (my experience)

Then you have "higher lvl mobs" like vampire master, trolls, elder dragons, groups of ice wraiths, that will be many times harder to beat, and dont forget giants one shoting players.

I think scaling is fine, from trash mobs close to towns, to harder enemys on specific areas.