Static Dungeons Project De-scaled Skyrim
- an attempt to replace level-scaling with handplaced loot and limited non-player-dependent randomization

(Scope of mod has changed from dungeons alone to points of interest in general, as working on mapping out the dungeons made me (or us) realize that the rest of the game needs to be balanced as well for any actual effect. New thread once this reaches 200 posts will reflect this better, but ideas are still the same as stated below.)
(Check out the section "where do I sign up" if you're interested in helping. Not much commitment is needed! Any help is valued greatly.)

Preface
In Morrowind, the problem with leveling was that the player soon became too powerful and could kill anything in one blow, since all dungeons (except Daedric ones) had static, hand-placed enemies and loot that you quickly out-leveled.
In Oblivion, they tried to solve Morrowind's issues by scaling everything to your level. The problem with this was that no dungeon felt unique.
In Skyrim, they fixed Morrowind's problems by making the player's leveling grind to a halt naturally at (correct me if I'm wrong) somewhere around 50+ - but they still kept Oblivion's level scaling! Why? Surely Morrowind's issues were solved by restricting how far the player could progress?

Skyrim's scaling system is a more restricted version of Oblivion's (though not much; tests, courtesy of Phitt, indicate that (at least) some dungeons are scaled as widely as levels 1-25), but the drawbacks are still obvious:
No uniquely named items in 90% of the dungeons, and some of the unique items you do find are adjusted to your level. Daedric artefacts are outshone by that "Dwemer Sword of Blah" you found in an earlier dungeon, making the artefact hardly worthy of its title, and robbing you of a sense of fulfilment.
Regular items, such as non-magical weapons, spawn depending on your level. The higher the level, the better the weapons that start spawning; this means that taking risks and going in to dungeons that are difficult is detrimental to you, as going in later at a higher level would have yielded better loot. Taking risks is punished while being comfortable is rewarded.
Enemies, even bosses, are in 90% of the cases named "bandit" or some similar generic name (as opposed to Morrowind where even bandits had real names), and bosses drop loot generated upon entry into the dungeon, adjusted to your level in, for example, an "X of Y" format (example: "Orcish Dagger of Smiting").

...and more, but I hope you get the point: scaling affects the difficulty of the game, but it has a huge impact on immersion and variation as well! Fighting through a dungeon only to realize the end is nothing unique, the reward is simply an item that was chosen and placed on the fly by the game (and is usually complete vendor trash) and the boss is a generic "Bandit Chief" is an immersion and joy killer for me.
Static worlds like Morrowind give me the feeling of a dangerous and mystical world that exists with or without the player. The player is simply part of the world and everything else is the product of thousands of years of history. When we introduce level-scaling, however, this is suddenly lost as the world starts adjusting itself after you, the player, as if you were Neo and everything revolves around you. That ancient burial site suddenly doesn't feel so ancient and mystical any more when you know that the game is generating stuff in there to adapt itself to you. And even worse, shops change their inventory to match your level.
I have played plenty of hours of Skyrim, but I have always felt like I already know what lies within the dungeon as the scaling is so predictable. The scaling is simply an attempt to keep the player on a certain upgrade path, such as iron to steel, steel to Orcish and so on, and Skyrim makes sure you follow that path quite rigidly.

Mods like OOO had hundreds of hours invested in them to make the scaling more sensible; so this time around, couldn't we just do away with the scaling and do it properly from the beginning?

What I want to accomplish
This mod aims to remove scaling, but note that this doesn't necessarily mean removing randomization. Some randomization is good and provides better replayability, but what must be done away with is randomization based on the player's level, a.k.a. level scaling.

The game has around 350 points of interest. What I propose is that we gather information about all the POI and when we have an exhaustive list, we go through them and replace the scaled items and enemies with static/de-scaled ones, with levels based on the information we gathered and loot appropriate to the situation/location.
What quests take place here?
Where is it located?
Does it contain a boss or an artefact?
What's the backstory?

...and so on. This work can obviously begin before the Creation Kit is released! This project will be a democratic one, and decisions regarding full conversion to static or leaving certain elements of randomness will be addressed when the time has come for implementation. Depending on how many are interested, extra artefacts such as Chrysamere and Ice-blade of the Monarch from Morrowind may be added as rewards. The mod will always aim at being lore-friendly, as lightweight as possible and favouring quality over quantity.

Planned workflow (though subject to change):
1. Surveying POI, collecting information (current stage)
2. Discussing design choices based upon information gathered in phase 1
3. Implementing design derived from phase 2
4. Testing -> beta -> release


Where do I sign up?
I have created a google-docs spreadsheet and filled in the information of a few dungeons.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai_PZ3oVoL9BdHlUX2RSQjk4alpnSXk3WFdOV2ZBWXc
What you need to do is simply to PM me your google-connected email address, and I will add you to the list of contributors who can edit the spreadsheet. Then (after reading the guidelines below), you simply type in information about POI you encounter!
When coming upon/clearing a POI, simply tab out and fill in the relevant information about it. If information already exists, check it out so that it is proper and add whatever additional/corrected information you may have gathered.
This is obviously not some kind of contract where you are expected to grind through stuff for the sake of the mod, but rather a casual thing to help out with after, for example, clearing a dungeon when playing the game as you normally would. Agreeing to help out doesn't force you to enter any information at all.
If enough people join in, it should be filled in no-time!
When all POI are accounted for, we move on to the next phase - but for now, this is all we need to do.

Phase one (surveying dungeons points of interest) current estimated progress:
|####################|
44% (155 of 334 points of interest surveyed)

Guidelines for helping out

• Dungeons that have sub-dungeons are only listed once, no sub-parts (for example in the case of "Geirmund's Hall" and "Geirmund's Hall Crypts", only the former dungeon is to be listed).
  
• Please use proper grammar and explain things properly! Everyone has to know what you are talking about.
  
• POI that contain legendary artefacts should be ~50+ in level, whereas a bandit camp close to a city should be a low level unless it's involved in a difficult quest.
  
• The column "new suggested player level" refers to what level you think the POI deserves to be. Is it a really long dungeon? Has an awesome boss-fight? Contains an artefact? Then mark it down as a high-level POI, no matter the vanilla level you may estimate it to be. Generally, awesome dungeon equals high level and vice-versa. This column is the reference for what level we should implement the dungeon as when we start working on the mod.
  
• Be wary of quests! If the POI is the first stage in a major quest chain (Companions etc.) the POI will need to be adjusted so that the chain gets more and more difficult as it goes on and doesn't skip around level-wise.
  
• The column "boss fight" refers to any enemy at the POI who is a lot stronger than the rest of the enemies there; not necessarily a uniquely named or scripted one. For example a large dwemer golem in the last room of a dungeon when there has been no other golem before it qualifies as a boss.
  
• The column "remoteness" should take into account how far the POI is from civilization and how difficult it is to get to it. 1 means right next to a city and 10 means on a remote mountaintop in who-knows-where.
  
• Use common sense, please

The (hopefully-to-be-great) List of Contibutors

• Ethulien
  
• Mortimer
  
• AmauriPavao
  
• peace_main
  
• Ninjasofii
  
• Damachi
  
• Fearless Hero
  
• logi13
  
• J.Corvus
  
• MinotaurWarrior

Final words
As I said in the title, this is both a WIP and an interest check. If it becomes obvious that I'm the only one who tries to work on this, I will simply scrap it since I don't have infinite amounts of spare time to work on this. It is obviously not 100% sure that this will work flawlessly since we don't have the creation kit yet, and we don't know all details regarding radiant story; but beginning to work on the spreadsheet now will give us a great advantage in correcting any flaw that can be fixed in the future.

Now, what say ye? I'm quite confident this should be doable.

I support this, 100%

The only restriction on leveling is if you were to get all 18 skills to 100. You end up somewhere in the 70's. They have done no 'making you grind to a halt'. It's just like Oblivion, only all skills count towards level, and how much they count depends on how high they are. (Gaining a skill lvl from 80 to 81 counts FAR more towards leveling than going from 30 to 31, etc)

I know, but progress slows so much when you've reached 50+ that coming up towards 70-80 is hardcoe player territory, and when reaching those levels, being overpowered is justified since untold hours of grinding is behind it. At level 50, the main skills you have ought to be 100. Advancing your levels further than that requires you to grind loads of lesser skills to achieve a single level since every skill-up contributes so little towards your leveling.

Well if you think into it that much, it would actually be below 50. Since most people, I think we can agree, specialize in 6 or less skills. You could get only 1/3 of the way to the max level (lets call it 75). However, since it does take more to lvl each time, that would really be more like half, or somewhere in the upper 30's.

Honestly at that point I think I'm just going to throw all my items in a chest, and effectively 'start over' with a brand new set of skills for me to use.

If dungeons were balanced properly, this wouldn't be the case, though, since there would always be those high-level dungeons containing artefacts of untold power that you knew you could get hold of if you kept playing.

Example:
I'm roughly level 17 in game at the moment. Just recently I completed Meridia's quest to purge her temple and receive her legendary sword. As it stands now, I was able to one-shot my way through the entire quest at the paltry level of 17, and while the sword I received looked cool, there was no pride in wielding it. Now, if the dungeon had been a static dungeon at the level of 50-60, I would have been awed by the concept of getting hold of this wondrous sword and I would have made sure to play my ass of to finally reach a level worthy of content like that. If the quest in question is truly difficult, I can be sure that the reward is amazing, unlike how it turned out for me just now when I completed the quest and received a cool-looking but useless sword.

While there is level scaling in this game as well, it's not at all the same as Oblivion.

It seems to me that every dungeon have a level range. I've entered dungeons where I can just breeze through, oneshotting everything, and i've entered dungeons where if the enemy sneezed on me I was as dead as last nights mutton.

Not that it changes anything compared to this proposed mod, just wanted to bring it out there, that unlike Oblivion, not everything will be on the same (or roughly) level as you

Well there is still plenty of limiting factors to the level scaling. I'm lvl 22 and I still find places that I cannot fight through because I get my ass handed to me. The treasures are sure to be great, as are the enemies, because while they do level scale, they only scale from say, 30-35. Not like 1-35. So entering below lvl 30 still gets you killed.

So this somewhat already exists in the game...

I think this will be one of those mods I won't play without. Sure vanilla Skyrim is fun, but this would make it both fun and good.

If it ain't done by the time I get the game, I'll help you out.

I know, that's why I said "sure, it's a more restricted version of Oblivion's system"
The difficulty isn't even nearly the most important point in my mind, though, as the immersion is completely lost when constantly fighting the same generic "bandit" variations.

Thats a misconception and a SEVERE exaggeration of how leveling is at higher levels.

There is no overarching mechanic to slow down leveling at 50+ except the fact that skills are all naturally harder to raise as they climb individually (ie 99-100 is much harder than 29-30) and the fact most players wont FEEL LIKE maxing say, the second armor skill they never bothered with or two-handed if they use 1h+shield. Finally there's a very slight curve that means a handful of extra skillups are needed for a level. Your skill progression rate doesn't check or reference your current level however, just your current advancement in the skill in question.

It is RIDICULOUSLY easy to hit the level cap of 81 if you plan for it well in advance by using your training sessions from the very beginning to raise the skills that you never use and are anathema to your build. I expect to hit 81 legit within a week or ten days tops.

The "super hard at 50+" has been blown out of propertion by fans and PR so bad it hurts.

This being said Im all for hand-placed loot and less randomization.

If all you want is a name change based off of a list Unique names that can be done even in oblivion. leveling itself is yet to be seen.

Yes, sure, the enemies and loot are sure to be mathematically and logically great, but not immersively. Getting handed the same generic stuff in every dungeon with slightly different stats ruins the spirit that could be found in for example Morrowind, where you could find anything.

But this is a planned action from the player, where he plans to maximize his skill gains in order to become over-powered. Playing the game like a "normal person" and doing the Bethesda thing "you are who you play" will make you top out earlier. If the player wants to become over-powered, there's nothing wrong with that.

I have found a great variety of enemies all with very large ranges in stats. Bandits everywhere are weak and I crush them, animals like bears, plain dragons, and sabre's are stronger and its a fair fight. Then things like gaints, mammoths, frost dragons, blood dragons, and some of the elite draugr dominate me very quickly.

So unless you are looking to make things like bandits appear at ALL levels in the game at all strengths, the game already does what you want. And if that is your aim, wouldn't that actually make the game more generic overall? If instead of fighting specific groups of enemies at certain level, you simply fight all of them all the time, its much more bland and generic... Am I misunderstanding your intentions?

You never 'top out' but its admittedly extremely annoying to have to grind out 2-handed and light armor from 20 to 100 once you hit level 75 if you never worked at it at all and put no perks in.

However, in a few hours in the middle of an empty cave, with a simple atronach summoning spell and alot of tedious hit-4-times-to-aggro, take a few hits, finish it up, heal, summon a new one, rinse, repeat, you could do it just fine too. Bored to tears, I guess, but still can be done. There's no scenario under which you'll realize your character can no longer max out within a reasonable timeframe. There's just good ways to minimize future frustration with proper planning.

To me, that clearly highlights that the level 50 soft cap thing is overhyped.

You don't seem to be understanding my point at all. All you seem to be reasoning about is logical progression in enemies and gear. Have you played Morrowind? The magic of entering a cave and having no idea what you will encounter within is just not there in Skyrim. Even when I know what I'm going to get (as in Meridia example above), I'm still disappointed since what I do get is a watered-down version of the item that is described as legendary and awesome. Going in to an ancestral tomb in Morrowind and finding a legendary unique ring just laying there on an altar is an experience of pure joy, and even if it isn't an item appropriate for your class, you still take the ring home and place it in a display to remind you of that awesome adventure. Finding a magic item in Skyrim always boils down to "is this good enough to equip or should I sell it?"

And you're not getting my point. I'm saying that does exist in Skyrim. As I said above not the entire game is leveled. There are still hand placed items in placed. At like level 7 I found a very powerful staff in a dungeon that had a mans journal describing stuff about it. I found exactly what you are talking about. It still happens. Granted it didn't really ever happen in Oblivion, it does in Skyrim.... Maybe you just haven't encountered it yet because you've only been playing the game for a day or two...

Just some quick maths...

70 pc levels, 150 dungeons. Are there enough dungeons to spread around? I'm not trying to down the idea, just pointing out that MW had 300 dungeons and still suffered at higher levels. I was thinking, keep some dungeons scaled as they are now but this does nothing to increase the overall number of locations and sadly the current game structure has you trekking over a good proportion of the map making localisation of levels tricky... But perhaps not impossible

As I said, I have encountered it! Once again, I refer to my Meridia-example where I did receive a unique item, but I don't value it beyond its good looks simply because it was scaled to fit my character. The knowledge that almost every item you find is somehow tailored to your level completely destroys the fun. Whether or not the staff you received was a static item, the fact that the sword I received was scaled and I was able to find this supposed legendary artefact at the paltry level of 17, finding that it was worthless, means that the system is broken no matter what staff you found.

And sorry if I'm coming off as a spotted owl, I'm just really passionate about this subject and want to get this project rolling with as many people as possible contributing.

Yes, I was thinking about that too. But then again, when I was through with the introduction (Helgen + first dragon + Bleak Falls Barrow) I was coming up on level 10, easily, and there should be enough dungeons around level 10-15 for the player to, shaky and difficult as it may be, start leveling.

I would be interested in this as well. Problem is I don't want to destroy my Skyrim experience like I destroyed my Oblivion experience. I modded the game to death (which was needed unfortunately) and once I reached the point where I could theoretically enjoy it I knew everything there is to know about the game and it was boring. So I wouldn't want to check out all the dungeons in the CK, but I would adjust a few of them (if possible those I've already explored in game) if we could find a common denominator on how to do it.

Well, yes, when all information has been gathered by (hopefully) many contributors, and the mod would be ready for the actual "getting stuff done"-stage, work would be divided between people and then merged together. It's not like one person would rework all the dungeons. I see what you mean, though, it would be very easy to learn all there is to know about the game and ruin the experience when developing the mod. In my case, though, I think there is already so much wrong with Skyrims scaling that having everything de-scaled but knowing everything about the game is better than playing it as-is.

But the staff I found wasn't scaled at all. First off, I'm 100% 2h weapon warrior, so how does a staff meet my needs at all? Second, it was worth like a billion gold and was clearly very high level and not scaled to me at all...

Weren't you reading my post? It doesn't matter if the staff you found was scaled or not, because one exception doesn't change the fact that 99% of the game is scaled! I'm beginning to sound like a broken record with my referring to my Meridia-example.
A handful of non-scaled items doesn't make the game good, because every item except those few are scaled, and the generic "X of Y" items outnumber the hand-placed items by the thousands, and item-progression is still extremely strict. My character has followed the standard upgrade path of Iron - Steel - Orcish - Elven - Dwarven with NO exceptions after 30 hours of playing the game. Finding a hand-placed item in a game overflowing with scaled stuff is like finding a diamond in a turd. You can wipe that crap off the diamond as much as you like, but you still know where you found it and it doesn't make you happy thinking about it.

EDIT: And I'm not just talking about high-level content. I'm talking about items like "The Sword of White Woe" that you could find relatively easily in Morrowind which gave you a great starting point, if you knew where to find it. Little tidbits like that spread across the world to reward the thorough explorer is desperately needed in Skyrim. The fact that better stuff just starts appearing here and there is not just unrealistic, but also extremely boring, since you know that thorough exploration is almost never rewarded with anything but vendor-crap.

Sounds good to me, I agree with the guidelines you posted in the OP.

From my experience with modding teams it can be a bit problematic if people get 'ideas'. Especially when they don't care much about quality (look, I made a purple retexture of a Daedric Mace and placed it into a dungeon, I called it the Mace of Molag Bal!11!!). Strict and clear guidelines are a must for a mod like this.


Maybe there are some static items in the world. Probably there are also some static enemies. But from my experience so far (around 10 hours, explored a good potion of the world and maybe 10 dungeons) 99% of the game is leveled (if you don't count crap equipment like iron/steel, which is lying around everywhere). I may be wrong since what I've seen is less than 10% of everything there is to see, but it can't be coincidence that I haven't met a single enemy who was clearly stronger than me and that I didn't find any equipment not 'appropriate' for my level.