As I see it M'Aiq your entire problem is with the leveled loot, not the leveled fighting. The easy solution is to give those level 40 bandits iron swords instead of dwarven or w/e the case might be. IMO however some bit of randomization is needed to keep the game fresh upon multiple playthroughs. Take the Sword of White Woe for example. It is so ridiculously easy to get that once you know its there, every blade character you make will be using ti right off the bat. Now all of the content that comes before it is entirely useless. The Dark Brotherhood attack in the Morrowind expansion is another example. Once they attacked, you now had the very best light armor in the game. Those were obvious game breaking problems that arose from morrowind's unleveled system.

Now with that said, I agree that the mystery of Morrowind makes it easily one of the top 5 games of all time. What we need is instead of finding a Sword of White Woe on top of a dresser every single playthrough, instead we have 10 possible places for it to be in the game and each time you make a new character the place is different (this is fairly easy btw just have all of the references disabled and randomly enable one for every legendary or surprise item that is added or moved).

In short, my angle on this idea is follows. Keep the character level scaling for the most part. Remove all item scaling. Remove all legendary item scaling(If possible make the items findable not given to you for completing a simple quest).

The mod is still up in the air, obviously, as the CK hasn't been released. In addition, regardless of the decisions that can be made come the implementation stage, this spreadsheet is the first thing that will have to be completed, and that's what I'm mostly concerned about now (you might have seen my shamelessly self-promoting posts strewn around the place ). And when it is time for release, rigorous testing is obviously a must to ensure things work as intended. This mod shouldn't be some hardcoe mod that punishes noobs, it should always aim to add fun, a good sense of exploration and worthwhile rewards.

I like the idea of semi-powerful items like the Sword of White Woe appearing in different places rather than the same one every time! But there would have to be restrictions on that in any matter, since one of the things I want to accomplish is that loot should feel like it belongs where it's placed. A boss that's based on fire magic should have a fire related item as a powerful drop, and so on.

And no, I don't have a problem with the gameplay. It's the lack of immersion I have a problem with.

I think that instead of removing the ranged level scaling "we" could just narrow it to make it static-randomized.

Also, a little rant to the OP:
Knowing the name of every bandit is more immersive than nameless bandits? Unique Bosses with Unique Names is fine.. But everyone?
(Sorry, I just love to put fire in the discussion and... Discuss. )

Yes, as I said the CK isn't released yet and who knows what is decided upon when the time for implementation has come. As long as the mod fulfils its primary purpose - reinstating "the magic of exploration and immersion" - everything is up for discussion.

About bandit names, the reason I want this is mainly because it is like a mark of quality. When you see that an enemy has a unique name, no matter the rank, you know he was placed there for a reason and thought went in to his placement. This is just personal opinion, though, and this is a democratic project.

This is exactly how I feel about Skyrim. Morrowind was amazing because it made exploration actually exciting. You could just stumble upon an amazing weapon or pair of greaves (which I sorely miss, by the way) instead of just receiving some item from a leveled loot list. In Oblivion, really the only way you could get these artifacts was through quests, which made independent exploration very boring for me personally. I don't have Skyrim yet, but I really hope that Bethesda has addressed this issue.

I can say that they at least tried to appeal to both crowds, leveled lists being the majority. There are some nice hand-placed items trough.

The dungeons (And their backstory) are great too.

The potential for the game to be amazing really is there, the dungeons are large and gameplay is fun - but... ultimately I find it unrewarding, and it's all because of the level scaling as far as I have experienced in my 40 hours of game time.

I support this project, great idea and glad to see it mentioned so early after the game's release.

For those of you saying that static creatures and loot makes an open world game from Bethesda too linear, well, if you do it right, it can work.
The Radiant story quests and related systems may be some challenges to be dealt with in this project, but it's doable, I think.

Examples of semi-open world games with static stuff include RPGs that many consider unmatched even today:

Fallout, Fallout 2, and Arcanum.

Sure, they are not as open world sandbox 3D as the TES series is, but you can go anywhere and do anything, and if you run into the wrong crowd, you get dominated.
The games were huge, and had content for even the highest level players. (They had level caps and were balanced pretty well)
I cite these examples because I found an immersive and exciting experience in the dungeons and loot-finding, which was orders of magnitude more fun for me than
all the scaled crap Bethesda put in Oblivion, Fallout 3, and now (to a lesser degree) Skyrim.

Anyways, this post is now semi off topic. Good luck to all those working on this one!

I'd suggest you play the game more, M'Aiq.Except this is backwards, because this would only mean there are dungeons staying impossible through the entire game until near the end, at which point the player may very well not care, and also lots of dungeons staying ridiculously easy throughout the entire game, making them feel like a waste of time.
How can you call it level scaling when there are weak things attacking you? If it WERE level scaling, all the enemies you fight would be of below-average difficulty.

I'm level 25 right now, and I just did the quest to gain full membership of the Companions. In this dungeon, I found myself having my [censored] repeatedly handed to me by the Silver Hand AND draugar, both being rather challenging and requiring much effort to beat. I barely came out of that cave alive, with absolutely no healing potions or bits of food left. My partner barely scraqed through alive, too - I was healing him after every battle! Each corner was a step into a new battle... and the last battle was one I doubt I could've won without stopping to drink potions and set things on fire. Did I feel satisfied when I opened the final chest and found an Elven Shield and an iron ingot? Admittedly, no. But did I feel satisfied as I stepped out onto the tundra and gazed at the world outside? Hell yes.

This is my sentiment as well.

The concept of a completely static world is fine in theory, but in practice it isn't so good. It leads to railroading.

With static everything you will wander around, enter a dungeon, get killed in one hit, load your game and try the next dungeon and chances are each dungeon will be either ridiculously easy or ridiculously hard. There is little chance of finding a relatively challenging dungeon in a completely static environment. In Morrowind this problem was very apparent, but ignored for the sake of the overall experience. Oblivion introduced us to scaling gone wrong, but it had the right idea. In Morrowind you were either fighting something way too easy that it was no threat, or it was way too hard and you had to drink 50 bottles of Sujamma to kill it or just give up and die.

So if you're level 25, everything will be tuned for level 1 and level 50 in a static system? Or do you mean something else? How would every dungeon be either too easy or too hard? Out of all 150 dungeons or so, only very few (top 10%) would be made for level 50's. Better yet - divide the wings into levels. You can enter into some dungeons at a low level, but to make it all the way through to get the major loot puts you against some really tough enemies. Vary it. Make part of it easy, part of it hard. After all, the undead don't rank themselves by "difficulty to kill" and line up in tombs in the correct order. If you're level 30 and you face some level 20's and a level 40 at the same time, that would be pretty memorable, rather than every enemy taking three strong blows (which is what it came down to in the vanilla game).

If the world is static, and you are level 25, what are the chances of you encountering things that are also level 25? You will either be railroaded into going to particular areas at certain levels or you will always be fighting things way too easy/hard. If you make it so that only 10% of the content is meant for level 50, that means at level 50 you will have great difficulty finding anything worth doing. You already get to face a wide variety of difficulty. At level 15 bandits are easy, Bears eat your face, Spriggans are a tough kill, Giants kill you by looking at you, etc.

Its not to difficult. Considering how big skyrim is, what you do is split up areas that are designated level ranges.. For example the tundra could be lvl 5 to 18 etc... Even if your level 12 with skill, potions, and luck you could probably clear a lvl 16 dungeon or w/e... I would like to see named bandits, unique gear in dungeons, and static dungeons if possible.

There is a hut in the tundra that has a dangerous wizard in it.. I currently (lvl16 battlemage) cannot even touch her, but it feels right because now I am determined to get stronger to conquer her.. This is how the game should be in more areas and not just small scattered areas.

All that accomplishes is railroading players into certain areas at certain levels.

Is knowing the name of every random villager, vendor, shop keeper, crafter is more immersive than nameless people (until you get introduced)?

What you're arguing for isn't that bandit have no unique names. It's for everyone to have a generic name until you learn their name.

No, it isn't. That's what you're changing his argument into.

M'Aiq, it's like you're reading my mind and stating opinions that I thought I was almost alone with for the last 6 years!

Did you find the Daedric bow by chance in Morrowind after levitating?
Or did you come across the Daedric Dai-katana by chance in that egg mine?
Eleidons Ward after goiong into that 'non-descript cave', taking a chance and swimming in that pool and surfacing in that Daedric shrine!?

These were probably the greatest moments I've had in 25 years of playing computer games! Why did Bethesda do away with such a good thing?

Anyhoo, I know what you mean. Your posts explaining this to ad090 made me think of many posts I've made in the past.

You're overlooking a crucial factor here. Morrowinds equipment, spells, skills and gameplay was very diverse. So what it offered that Oblivion, and so far Skyrim haven't is an opportunity to use your noggin to think of an alternative way to get past these difficult situations.

For example, if you were an axe wielding Orc you could use your Berserk power, stack that with some strength and health modifying potions, and then if you could get lucky you could fell a foe many times as powerful as you. What's more satisfying than that for a combat based character? Especially when your reward at the end is an amazing bit of kit? Morrowind got this right.

Another example, there was a Daedric shrine in the mountains surrounding the Red Mountain. This shrine didn't follow the more common format of having a ceiling about 30 foot above you. Instead it was immensely tall, and way above the entrance you could see rocky outcrops in that familiar Daedric architectural style. If you were lucky/organised enough to have a levitation potion you could then take a look at the higher parts of the shrine. If you did this, you'd be rewarded with another fantastic bit of kit. Morrowind got this right.

Another example, there was a unique pair of boots called the 'Blinding Boots of Speed'. They boosted your 'Athletic' ability to hughe levels meaning you could sprint incredibly fast. However, they had a crucial failing, they literally cast a 100% 'Blind' spell on the user so you couldn't see where you're going! "What's the point in that?" you ask? Well, enterprising and skilled enchanters could enchant a peice of jewellery, clothing or misc equipment to dispel the 'Blindness' while wearing the 'Blinding Boots of Speed'. This meant you were now super fast but could see where you were going! Now, finally my point. This meant you could outrun practically anything, no matter how many 10's of levels above you they were (you can probably see where I'm going with this). So, you'd come across a cave or location with enemies far too hard for you, because of this you just knew there would be an awesome bit of kit somewhere at the end of it. So, you took a chance, donned your boots and legged it through to find a 100 strength locked chest. That's where you'd either cast a spell using your 100% enchanted unlocking amulet (you remembered to bring it didn't you?) and obtain an incredible piece of kit. Alternatively the incredible piece of kit might be hidden away in an alcove, making finding it even more incredible!

Anyway, the point is, these experiences don't exist in Oblivion. Bethesda presumably thought this system was bad, so they adopted levelled loot scaling. Disgraceful. Skyrim so far is better, but it still uses elements of this travesty of a system. This is why we want rid of it. We want the old experiences back. Also your argument is partly void, as long as areas/game concepts are designed to allow you to think & overcome.

Ta

Thing is, his argument can be equally applied to villagers. Why do we know their names instantly? Isn't it equally immersion-breaking?

If you consider it exclusively based on the 'realism factor' then yes you're right, it is.

However 'Realism alone is not = Immersion'. Immersion is feeling like you're part of a world whether it's fictional or not, in which case 'Bandit' is not as immersive as 'Joe Bloggs - Bandit'.

I guess it's a case of "Which is the lesser evil?". Personally I think Morrowind did it better, it was good to think that this bandit has an identity, even if that knowledge is not entirely realistic in a real world sense.

So ... why not replace everyone with a generic name depending on his or her role (bandit, villager, shop keeper, imperial soldier, necromancer, khajiit kid, ...) and then reveal their name when you somehow acquired it? If you manage to talk to that bandit (and that was possible in Oblivion, for example), you'd get to know he is called Joe Bloggs. If not, he's just a bandit.

I suppose that's a good way od adhering to both realism and immersion yes! Lot of work though.

I just woke up and I see most negative posts are about two things, difficulty and "railroading".
I'm honestly getting completely fed up with answering these two types of complaints as I have discussed it to death throughout these five pages, and those who complain never seem to try seeing it my way anyway - that is, that the largest problem with level scaling is not the difficulty scaling or anything else, it's how it ruins the immersion when you know the world adjusts around you and not the other way around.

Difficulty: The difficulty aspect of level scaling is in my opinion a worthless tradeoff for making the world feel like it adjusts itself around you and tries to make you feel comfortable while leveling. It's supposed to be a dangerous and living world out there, not a world that tries to put you on a smooth upgrade path.
Railroading: Complaining that this mod would lead to railroading means you have already ignored the railroading that goes on in Skyrim. The very concept of level scaling is that the player should be railroaded through the world on a strict upgrade pattern (which is also the case in Skyrim, my character has so far followed the intended upgrade patten with no exceptions), with the game adjusting itself to the player so that progression is smooth.

So, not to be rude, but if you like level scaling, then why are you posting in this thread? It's not like you are going to convince anyone to stop working on it.



And to the ones with positive words, thanks!
And perhaps consider helping out (see first post), it would help a lot no matter how little you contribute with.

No, thanks. Not needed. I don't miss Morrowind's experience, at all. Because while it is incredible satisfying to get a super-duper-uber-awesome loot as level 5 by sheer luck, tactic and organisation, once I get high level enough, I'll pretty much 1shot everything.

The system is fine the way it is. They modified it, capped level scaling. All it needs is some tweaks here and there.

-----> The door.