Maybe done to death but I just can't get past the level-scaling thing. Maybe I grew up on too many old-school RPG's but after investing tens of hours into the game I want to feel like I'm actually the god-like person that people are supposed to be expect me to be, not someone that still gets slapped around by bandits and hired thugs.

Borderlands has scaled enemies and surely does not svck. You shouldn't be having a problem with the mobs in Skyrim though. Even on master, if you used your perks wisely, you should be breezing through this game.

I agree completely.....every time I see a new item/enemy show up just because I recently levelled up....it completely breaks the immesion for me.

What are all the traders holding back the Orcish 'cause they dont think Im good enough for it yet'?

Level scaling can be done right, and when it is done right it makes the game better.

Skyrim did it better than Oblivion, but there is still a long ways to go.

Yes, Borderlands did it well but that isn't what I had in mind by RPG. And no, I probably didn't use the perks wisely, just made a character that had the traits I enjoyed using. In the end I turned the difficulty down when I hit lvl 20 or so and that way it felt like I was getting more powerful. I know it comes down to personal preference but it is something that I enjoy and my only real complaint with Skyrim.

In most rpg games you have either level scaling or zone levelling for mobs. Games like Diablo, Sacred, WoW, Guild Wars, Aion, etc are all Zoned because you more or less funneled from one area to the next and it's easy to keep players decently matched with their enemies. If you rushed ahead into the wrong area, you found out in no uncertain terms that you had just made a bad mistake. Likewise, it's also occasionally fun to go slumming with a high level character and put a world of hurt on all the nasties you outgrew along the way.

In games like TES series, where the entire point is that you can go which ever way you want without any real restrictions makes zone leveling a LOT more impractical so they pretty much have to do level scaling to attempt to keep things interesting. Vanilla Oblivion did it horridly. So much so that I stopped playing until some decent overhaul mods came along a fixed that nonsense.

So far Skyrim is at least doing it better if not great. I am running into some places where I am well challenged when I first find them. Also when I go back through some of my early haunts like the area around Whiterun, I find it east to one-shot all but the biggest things there. It's not perfect and I'm hoping some of the overhaulers from Oblivion return to tweak Skyrim to finish what Beth started.

My personal opinion is that for the most part, the game areas should be level scaled to reflect you character's first quest into a given geographic area. But every area ought to have a place or two, or a boss-type critter that is locked at a significantly higher level than average if not a near max level. That way you can still get that pucker factor the first time and it will be harder to "clear" an area and completely move on to the next.

There is nothing like wandering thru a section of the map you've combed over a lot, gotten leveled enough to blow away the opposition and the smugly opening an obscure door, much like all the others around.. and then getting butt slammed by what's inside with no way to succeed without another hand full of levels under your belt or cheating. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for.

They saw you coming and turned to one another and were like "DAMN MAN HIDE ALL THE GOOD [censored] THIS GUYS [censored]" and then ran around dropping all their ebony swag down the toilet.
Then you come up to the counter and get shown the Iron Sword of Mediocrity.

EDIT: I don't mind world and low down dungeon monster scaling as it is now. The big clincher for me though is no statically placed rewards in chests, sold by shopkeepers or on shelves to be stolen.

I'm pretty sure that basically everything in the "open world" of Skyrim is level static. Like wolves, giants, orcs, bears, sabres, trolls and some random bosses.

Then it's just dungeons (and dragons... lolz) that are scaled. Probably most of those "random events", assassins, etc, are scaled. But even then... It's not like all the enemies are the same level are you. There's a mix of enemies, some high some low. And then some dungeons will have "level ranges" and all that jazz.

Think Skyrim is great for level scaling. Much better than Morrowind which got boring, very, very fast (the combat). And an improvement on Oblivion that also got boring for a different reason.

My axe swinging brute got the "I kick anyone's ass" feel around lvl 30...so much that by lvl 35 I had raised the difficulty not to fall asleep during fights. Really depends on your build and gear, it seems, much more than on the actual level scaling.

Which unfortunately scales to your current level of mediocrity.

I don't know what's happened to real gamers latetly but the expectations that people have these days have become completetly idiotic and unrealistic. They put out a game like Skyrim with soo much in it, packed full of goodness and you guys spend your time focusing on the few things that are a little unrealstic. Its almost like your getting paid to find flaws or something. Level scaling is fine, it does what its supposed to do, scale the game. Of course its not realistic, its a [censored] video game!

Yea scaling is not that good in Skyrim sadly.
Did upgrade my armour from plain iron to Exusite orchish and made a level from smithing it yesterday.
Left town with much more armour and better weapon and a level higer and did almost die on some crabs that i did one-hit kill and could tank forver before i did level

So much for that upgrade...

sooo nieve...

Once you get up in the levels you'll notice this not to be true.

Skyrim's level scaling for mobs is quite well done.

The part i actually hate is leveled unique loot/reward that requires you to hold off getting it until you are eligible for the highest version. This annoys me greatly as I make it a point to collect every unique item in game and want them all to be the highest versions possible.

**Naive ... :facepalm:

What about it is not true?

Mobs in world do also scale, look a couple of posts back and you se what did happend to me yesterday.
However i don't think it's gamebreaking but it's not a good implementation of scaling eighter.

^this^

i might be the only person for it??

i love a bit of scaling. i cant stand levelling and then 50% of the quests being useless due to enemies i can own in one hit. very boring and dare i say it, feels like grinding.

i love how its done in skyrim perfect balance. some areas are very hard and some are easy. i.e just realized i can own a giant now used to get [censored] by them earlier on in the game.

This!

Why couldn't the game have simply scaled leveled loot to your current level dynamically, so that, even though you got Nightengale armor at level 20, it's still good armor at level 50? I hate that items that are supposed to be better than any normal items become petty and mediocre by the time you've gained a few levels.

Sure, this topic is discussed to death, but I'll respond none the less.

I agree. I hate level scaling in any incarnation. I do not want the world to revolve around me. I want it to be the world that it's going to be and let me forge my own adventure. The game doesn't need to have level scaling to let you go where you want. It can have static levels and still be open world. You'll get your ass handed back to you by charging blindly into an area above your level and that's okay.

Level scaling plus an open world leads to quick boredom for me. If I can go anywhere I want and virtually do anything I want to do then there is no sense of adventure, challenge, or reward. I have nothing to hold in front of me and tell myself "That... you'll get THAT if you work hard enough. See it dangling out of your reach basically taunting you? If you're clever enough and work hard enough then it's yours."

Skyrim suffers from the same issue, though, not in the same way that Oblivion did. I go where I please and do what I want for the majority of the game and it's sapping the fun out of it.

Well... Crabs were a fair fight for me when I was like lvl 1. I now one hit them with a firebolt at lvl 25. So my experience is completely different to yours. If they scale, they don't scale much.

pro-tip: many old school RPGs have level scaling too.

Especially TES

Epic hyperbole.

Totally agreed. I cannot see any reason why scaled loot would be a good idea.

One person creates topic where he is sad that giants don't scale, other creates topic that he is sad that other mobs do scale ... :whistling: