I hate level scaling in all its forms! Well, half-scaling is OK. But I hear that in New Vegas there is ZERO level scaling at all. Can anyone confirm this? It seems a little too good to be true that Bethesda would completely abandon its favorite crutch.

I'm happy to say that level-scaling is barely present, if at all.

There are places in the wasteland where you can and will get your ass handed to you if you're not extremely careful, as it should be.

No level scaling. You can go and get eaten by deathclaws right at the start, if you want to.

There is sort of scaling through quest progression--that is, you are guided at the start to follow the main quest path, because the enemies are too strong for you in any other direction (although you are free to try). The places you won't get to until later are generally populated by higher-level enemies.

Nothing scales to your level, but there are higher and lower level areas.

I like level scaling. Now I'm back in a place where I can one-shot just about everything /sigh

That's not scaling.. scaling is when an enemy spawn is adjusted based on your level. It looks like there's none of that here. Yay!



That svcks. How do you get in such a situation?

IIRC, Level Scaling is present in most loots, and maybe what category of enemy spawns, but thats it.

I'm very happy not to have scaling in NV. There is something wonderful about having to actually listen/read what you are told by NPCs. Don't go north you will die was heard a zillion times and of course I had to go north and was crushed.

There should be critters that I afraid to even see until I am getting near the upper levels, and because of this there are areas that I will not fully explore until I am good to go for it.

Proper RPDness in my opinion.

From my understanding the main quest is scaled, but side quest and random baddies aren't. You can run right through the main quest or do everything else before the main quest and you have the same challenge. I think this makes sense even though I'm not a big fan of scaling. It's one of the main reasons I got bored with Oblivian after about 36 hours of gameplay.

I prefer leveling scaling and the lack of it in a recent Bethesda game is one of my main gripes with NV. I like to be able to take off in any direction and attempt any quest at any level. That's the nice part about an open-world, sandbox game such as FO3. Oblivion's scaling was too heavy handed and obvious - FO3 was better tuned and the changes were more subtle. In my opinion they got it just about right in that game and NV is a step in the wrong direction. Lack of level scaling is a cheap attempt to make you think you can do what you want but in reality you're being shunted along a lineal path just like in an EA type game (with no cut scenes). Hopefully Bethesda's next action RPG will be a completely in-house development.

You can still do what you want. You just need to be careful and use your head, unlike in Bethesda's games post-Morrowind.




Elder Scrolls, yes. Fallout, no.

Please no offense... do not listen to this persons plea. Level scaling is exactly what removes the benefits of slowly creating a Bad Ass char. The proof is in Oblivion where the level scaled everything. Twas a major failure and that is why we will "never" have to deal with it again with a Bethesda game. That's one of the things on a very short list that went well with this installment of the series.

So many conflicting answers! I'm going bananas.. EYAHHHHHHH

The weapons available tend to scale to your level, either through design, or the simple fact you don't get where the better ones are until you are on particular quests.

At least this should avoid the insane situation that happens in F3 if you game on past the game end - the number and type of enemies start to max out. In one F3 character of mine, virtually all the spawn points kick up multiple albino radscorpions. The DC wastes were infested with them.

Well, if nobody can give a straight answer, let me tell you that the game at least feels like it doesn't have level scaling.

That, combined with Damage Threshold means that you're not going to be taking down Deathclaws easily, or having Super Mutants go down with just two or three head shots.

Mojave's populations (Creatures, NPCs) : Not scaled according to player level.

Main Quest / Critical Path enemies : Semi-static scaling (leveled, but often with mininum, and maximum, values).

Item Lists : Rewards are, mostly, not scaled - there are exceptions to this rule. The condition of items tends to follow player level.

O.

I have a feeling you had a lot to do with the lack of scaling.

Yea pretty sure I heard in a Vid Doc from a dev that if you tried early in the game to jump ahead you will pay for

My God.. it's you! :celebration:

Thanks for your answer. And so much for OOO. Oblivion was seriously unplayable for me before you made that mod.

NV is very well balanced. Being an anti-scaling RPG'er, I feel this game found the sweet spot between a scaled environment and a static environment. This game shows that when scaling is used in certain ways, the world can bring a whole new level of immersion to the player. I'm gonna be wondering around in this desert for a looooong time!