Just wait until you get to level 25+. In Morrowind you had to either beat the game multiple times and consciously try to break it or cheat and look up locations online of where the good stuff was. In Skyrim you just play the game and end up with all the best gear. I guarantee you every single person will eventually get glass / ebony without trying. Not a single person had to go out of their way to specific dungeons because this armor was so rare, just go to any dungeon and eventually you'll find the whole set.

Then simply take Glass & Daedric out of the Leveled Lists and put those particular items in specific static locations. Problem solved.

Please, can you just stop posting here? You don't seem to understand the point of this mod, so why do you bother posting negative comments? If you think level scaling is fine, then just go play the game or start your own project.

I'm all for the Idea and would love to help out with un-scaling / staticizising a couple or more dungeons depending on how long it takes.

A thought: Is it possible to have, for example, bandits with names and handpicked equipment, but still "slightly scaled" like, within lvl 5-10?

That would probably be possible, and it's close to my line of thinking as well. Enemies and their loot should be hand-placed, but enemies' levels could be slightly randomized (as long as this randomization doesn't rely on the player's level, a.k.a. is level scaled!) to ensure that the dungeon is a bit different each time.

One thing to think about... the game's supposedly balanced around 50 levels. Given the variable-leveling-speed thing, I imagine that lv50 represents what a "regular" player would get to if they maxed out a "class" worth of skills. (i.e, 6-7 or so)

In making the dungeons static, do you really want to design them for the power-player/level maxer demographic? i.e, target it at hitting the lv70-80 range? Because then you're limiting the audience for the mod somewhat - people not going the Max Level route might not really want to play a mod that utterly locks them out of a good number of dungeons/content.


Like I said, just a thought.

edit: apologies if this was already referenced, get so caught up in response ideas sometimes that I forget the thread's gone on pages longer.

As I love how Morrowind handled level scaling I'd love to help this project out, as long as its done the right way. But as someone stated earlier in this thread I dont want to spoil anything of the game untill im completely done with it. Once I am done I will for sure try to help out anyway I can. Gathering info, coming up with ideas, helping out in the CS or whatever needs to be done.

The mod will of course have to be tested very rigorously before release, spending all this time it will take to change the dungeons without making sure they are balanced would be rather dumb.
Regarding max level; I am of the opinion that if a player creates his character with the mindset that he wants to power-game and reach as high a level as possible, then it's his own decision that makes him over powered and I don't want to cater towards that. If you play the game normally, you'll probably end up around level 50-60, and this mod will be aimed towards those normal people who want to be immersed in the game-world rather than mathematically power-game their way through the game. If I intend to take advantage of every opportunity and getting myself all the way to 100 in every stat though vigorous power-gaming, I feel it's only fair that I'd become over-powered.

I read this whole thread last night and it's an interesting idea. I like how you rationalize your concern for the immersion, M'Aiq.

Sorry for the long post, but reading gave me a lot of thoughts. Here's some:

I haven't played Morrowind extensively, but I know Fallout 2 well. In that game all the "dungeons" had enemies with common names like Raider or Bandit, sometimes added with a boss with unique name (and the dungeons also were static, I believe - at least they were not entirely dynamic). I feel that this is the best course to take, because naming every bandit uniquely may be going too far: in that case, I really feel that all guards and other generic NPCs in the game should be named as well. Only naming bandits and leaving out town guards etc feels like inconsistency to me. THAT breaks immersion, because when I exit the town and go into a dungeon and see "Relgor", "Targas" and "Corrinus" the bandits, I instantly remember "Oh yeah, this is the part of the game that someone put a huge amount of work into" - it's like you suddenly become aware of things that you normally wouldn't know (names of common thugs); whereas boss names you just might well know because they're the worst and most notorious of the lot.

This slight but sudden change in information available to you would be immersion-breaking to me. In fact, I don't feel that having bandits named just "Bandit" is immersion-breaking. Like someone already said, it's not like you're able to get to know the background stories of all of them, even if you wanted. But this is just my view and I can understand how someone can see commonly named NPCs as unimmersive, it's another "school of thought."

Regarding the items, I'm largely on the same lines. Maybe leaving in SOME of the leveled stuff makes sense? Very small amount, like turning around the ratio of how things are now?

-- Another (rather tangential) thing about items/random loot: many people feel that static loot is predictable - logically this is true. But others feel that instead, randomized loot is predictable. If you study the game system, you can look at your own level and know approximately what kind of gear you're going to find. But if there is static loot, chances are you'll find something that you totally didn't expect - even if it's just that one time. Still, it's all a matter of how you see things.

One thing is sure: this is not a mod for everyone. It'll be a blessing for people who instinctively play the game in an immersion-seeking way, not in an optimal stat-max way. In glorious Fallout 2, you could walk straight to Navarro from the starting village and get the second-best armor in the whole game, if you knew about it and wanted to. And then walk to NCR and get the best Big Gun in the game, too. The same applies to this mod, but how things happen is entirely up to the player.

And M'Aiq is right about something that is common for basically every game out there: all the ancient, legendary and world-devouring powerful artifacts and weapons of immense power that sages and elders always froth about, are lame and seriously underpowered when you get your hands on them. Fixing this isn't possible for every game for many reasons, but at least most of it would be possible to fix in an Elder Scrolls game. It changes the game radically, but to me it would still be fantastic to see, at least try out and see how it feels.

A good post, and the criticism you bring up touches subjects which I will want to have a discussion about when the mod reaches the implementation stage. Testing and exploration with the CK will be needed before decisions on such big issues as 'completely static versus some randomization' are made.

Indeed. Scaling makes the game predictable in a much worse way than static loot does, in my opinion. There will always be some "predictability", one simply has to choose the lesser evil, really.

Personally I think alike. If you give all bandits in dungeons a name you would need to give every single NPC in the game a name as well. Which would be too much work and cause unnecessary compatibility issues (guard overhauls etc). I would opt for only naming bosses and possibly mini bosses (the bosses' lieutenants), but leaving the generic bandits, necromancers etc alone. There are already some named bosses in Skyrim and I think it would be the best way to deal with it. I don't like inconsistency, that's why I for example never added a bathroom or a kitchen to one of my house mods in Oblivion - even though in some cases it would have made sense there is nothing like that in the vanilla game and it feels odd if just one house in the whole game has this.


It is possible to make static loot unpredictable as well via script. At least for higher quality items it would be feasible to make a quest script that enables/disables items each time a new game is started (or the first time the mod was loaded). Either by using persistent references if the items are placed in the world or by adding the items to containers via script. That way you could have a few different locations for each item and the player would never know whether he would find the same item in the same spot. I did something like that in my artifacts mod in Oblivion, with a quest script you could do that for hundreds of items if needed.

I think that having enemies named 'bandit' is a bad idea because one, it marks them as cannon fodder and you know they are only there to be killed, and two, you instantly know the name of every other friendly NPC in the game (except guards), so this telepathic ability could just as well applied to bandits. There are some issues with roaming NPC's, though, as they would have to be generated by the game or the world would run out of people after they die one by one in "roadside accidents". So, as I said, this will of course be discussed when it's time to start working for real. I'm not a dictator just because I started this thread

EDIT: The naming thing is one of the things I care least about, though. A mod that fixes the scaling is the primary goal.

Do you intend to just focus on the dungeon and monster scaling? or also delve into the players leveling? Such as seen in other threads where it seems clear that every skill in the game currently acts as a primary skill to level the player. This in my opinion directly affects the dungeons and monster scaling.

I don't particularly think that scaling is entirely a bad thing, but at the same time i feel that static placement is good too. I think a balance needs to be found and im sure once the CK is released it will be possible to write a script that can merge the two together...

I think randomness in an RPG only adds to the experience. Too much randomness is a bad thing as is too little. Same goes for static placement of events and monster and loot, too much is a bad thing, as is too little.

When it comes to the 'unlimited' quests in Skyrim, i think that is a very innovative system. It does lead to very random monster scaling and loot based around the player level, which from what I've read most players don't seem all that thrilled about. But the way i see it its like when Diablo first came on the scene with the completely random dungeon maps. To me, this new quest system is only the tip of the iceberg of what can and will be achieved and is a brilliant idea that i think can only be improved. And for that reason, static placement may deter the evolution of such a grand idea.

Which brings me back to a balance needs to be found.

I am all for this mod idea. I just feel a proper understanding of how the level scaling and random quest lines work in Skyrim will better help direct us in what needs accomplishing. But of course, some hand placed monsters and items are great too!...

On the naming topic, the whole having "Guards" and named bandits worked really well in Morrowind, I actually never even thought about it. What i'm saying is that I don't think thats going to be a problem.

Different strokes for different folks. Personally, I prefer consistency in my game worlds, both in the internals as well as their presentation, above all else.

As you said, every skill acts as a 'primary skill' this time around, which makes scaling even worse an idea since a 'lockpicking-smithing-pickpocketing-sneaker' might reach level 30 from only these skills, but he'll get beaten to a bloody pulp in dungeons when they are scaled to his level as he has no combat skills.
This mod only aims to change dungeons, as I want to keep an achievable goal and not get in over my head the first time around. If it turns out to be a success, then other areas of the game may be tweaked to fit in better with this mod as well; but most likely there will be some OOO-like mod by then which takes care of outdoor spawning and such, which could, with some work probably, be used together with this one.
And yes, as I said, I think some randomness for replayability's sake is important too, as long as this randomness doesn't take the player's level into account, since then we have the whole issue of the world adjusting to the player and not the other way around.
The random quest system has to be explored further before I can say 100% this or 100% that about it, but my impressions so far is that these quests are usually misc. quests that aren't built in to a quest chain. Receiving a one-off quest that you can't complete due to difficulty is not a negative thing in my opinion, as it reminds the player that he needs to progress and that the world isn't centered around him. I want to put the danger and mystery back into the Elder Scrolls, and to do that there needs to be stumbling blocks like these for the player.

ye this scaling stuff has really caused me to slow down and almost stop playing now...

scaling to me should be determined by the skill of the enemies and the reward of the treasure

the player should have no impact on this, only to know that they can or cant access that area due to thier skills
fallout NV did this well at the start with u couldnt go nth of goodsprings coz the enemies were too hard so u had to go sth.
eventually u had enough skill and u could fight your way through them but not at low levels

i wish some areas/dungeons were filled with hardcoe enemies and had a great treasure at the end, and the treasure is a RARE item.
not something that can be made or bought easily.

this system is annoying how once u obtain something, every1 else gets it too. it reminds me of gta when u stole a car all of a sudden those cars were everywhere!!

systems like this made the whole effort of obtaining the item less rewarding


once the CK comes out i would like to help u with this mod

Don't get me wrong, something like OOO would be great.

Well, my character has just finished up the mainquest and civil war, and there's plenty of dungeons left to do, I'll try and record a few for your project as if done right, I think it will really enhance the game.

In addition, if you're willing to put up with occasional newbish questions such as "what does this bit of script do?" and "omg omg omg, I broke my game, haaaaalp!"(;P), I'd quite like to try my hand at doing a few of the smaller dungeons once the CK comes out.

I agree with the OP of this thread. I too am thinking of making my own overhaul for Skyrim that will follow a similar task.

The most remote the location, the Harder it would be, you know, like how they said the game would be pre-release.


Levels 1 - 7: would have limited access to anything. Merhchants would only have basic items (iron, leather, steel etc), and most dungeons outside the windhlem region would be impossible. Mostly this is so the player trains up a bit in the tutorial dungeon and has begun specialising when the real game starts.
Levels 8-20: Would be the main content of the game, where merchants would start stocking all possible equipment (anything up to steel plate but never higher). This would be the main content of the game. From this point other dungeons in other regions would be possible to complete, as they level up they cant get to mo0re and more remote places. Rare material type,s like daedric, ebony, glass would be hand placed and never in random loot. In this section there would be some level scaling in the playable dungeons, like boss characters and whatnot, so that through this there is always a challenge.This scaling would only be slight, just so it can be varied from completely static for low level dungeons.
Level 20+: Everything here is static, no scaling, there is simply harder and easier dungeons.

Basically idea in short is to have the scaling effect the start of the game, then after level 20 (which is no too hard to reach) have everything else static. I want the player to feel rewarded when they find that rare piece of daedric that is locked away in a Nord ancient tomb, and be forced at times to retreat from a dungeon when they stray too far. I would hope to place NPC near dungeons that I too high level eg. an Adventurer outside a High level place saying he has never been to a more dangerous place in his thrity years of adventuring would indicate that the dungeon was for character higher then level 30. etc and just tips like that to help guide the palyer into make the correct choice.

Its just some idea I've come up with as I've been playing that I hope to implement into a mod of my own. Feel free to use them yourself.

I was a huge fan of Morrowind. Due to level and especially item scaling in Oblivion, I didn't even buy the game. I did try it, and hence decided against it.

This mod is essential for me to buy Skyrim. I am not going to buy the game before this mod is out. I can't really help out, but I will provide ideas.

For the haters out there. If you like level scaling, then that is great for you. No one is forcing you to use this mod. But if you got nothing valuable to add to this discussion, then stay away.

One thing I didn't like about Morrowind level system, was the lack of range of difficulty. The enemies weren't much harder in the north, or even in the centre and didn't carry much better weapons, with some exceptions. I would like to see this mod to be different than Morrowind in this regard. There should be caves that are nearly impossible to beat at low levels, but also drop good weapons.

I also would like to see more bosses in Skyrim, than what exists in Morrowind.

But anyway, good luck with the project.You got my support.

I agree with most of your ideas, but not with this (or the idea that level scaling should exist at some point). In my opinion vendors should always have static inventories, even at lower levels (with the exception that iron and steel items could be randomized and change randomly over time so that there are always spare arrows to buy, for example; but everything better than that should be static), but that wouldn't work in vanilla Skyrim since item values are just messed up. Orcish daggers are worth something like 75 gold, which is completely ridiculous. These laughable item values are obviously the result of level scaling as too much good stuff starts appearing at higher levels and they try to balance it by making it worth crap values. Everything above steel needs to be more expensive and much more rare. Dungeon difficulty needs to go hand in hand with vendor items, so vendors would have to be overhauled as well for this mod to work. As for Daedric armour and similarly powerful loot, I believe it should be like Morrowind, where only two sets of Deadric armour could be found in the entire game, including expansions (I'd also like to remove Daedric armour smithing, which I think is plain dumb; at the very least it should be extremely difficult to learn and use).

question:

how will u deal with the main quests that depend on a dungeon.
like main quest and guild quests

im not sure but would these need to be accessable to any1 at any level without being too easy or too hard?

and just make everything else static?

I didn't explain that bit very well....I intend to devide up the world into it's regions, and then into it's heights in order to decide how dangerous places are. the 8 - 20 zones are levelled as at that point there is too much ground to cover to make everything static....there wouldnt be enough openess in the dungeons to level up properly. The idea is that you can get up to level 8 in the Whiterun Hold region, it will have the easiest places, then as you advance past 8 you will be powerful enough to take on the average dungeons in Solitude Region and Windhelm Region (since they are MQ zones). These will be the travel areas until they reach lvl 20, at this point Whiterun regeion gets locked to lvl 10. Once past lvl 20, those three regions stay locked, and the player can then move onto trying some of the lower down dungeons in the other regions. At all times the high level regions are static, and venturing into them will cause a quick death from jsut the surface dewelling creatures.

The basic scale will be the higher up a mountain a dungeon is, or if it really dangerous area, the harder the enemies inside will be, but the better the potential loot. The set-up is simply so that at the starting stages, before you really have you character tooled in, you aren't locked into just a few dungeons. There would be exceptions for certain dungeons that are specifically powerful for a reason....but the player would be given warning before entering.

I agree with the pricing, it needs a complete rework so that the strong stuff is more expensive to balance out the buying of it and the reward of finding it. I also agree with the Daedric crafting.....Im going to leave it in, but I'm hoping to make crafting it a real nightmare so that it's really hard, if not nearly impossible to do. Im going to have the merchants still have randomised wares, but I intend to taloir them more....so an orc smith has more orcish armor.....a smith in Markarth has more Dwarven etc.

As I said, when gathering to information for the spreadsheet, we make note of what quests take place in the relevant dungeon. Dungeons involved in quest chains would obviously need to increase steadily in level.
In Morrowind, the quest chains sometimes tell you to go do something else and level up a bit before continuing, and it is an aspect I like since it reminds you that the quests aren't built around you; you are simply asked to go sort something out that you may or may not be able to handle. Skyrim keeps you too much on a rail on this subject, in my opinion. If you manage the first quest in a quest chain, you can just keep ploughing through the whole thing with little resistance.

Well, as I said in the OP, the spreadsheet we're making has a column named "remoteness" which takes into account how difficult it is to get to a dungeon and how far from civilization it is. When all dungeons are filled in, a map could be created which maps out the difficulties suggested for a good oversight, and then adjust any dungeon that feels out of place.