What if you knew for a fact that the odds of you running into a frost troll is reasonably rare depending on what part of the world your in, what if you knew at level one you dont have a chance at beating the necromancer in that dark secluded cavern and untill you have some Silver weapons you wont be able to defeat the wraiths they summon. What if Dwarven armor never became a common loot found on Giants? what if in order to get a Dwarven helmet you had to delve into one of there great ruins, and in order to craft a set? Impossible! in order to craft a set of Dwarven armor you would have to somhow find the long lost recipes to crafting such fine armor in the deepest lair of Dwarven Mechs.

I went a little crazy with that but what im saying is that without level scaling "rare" items like Silver and Elven would be insanley valuable instead of junk loot at the higher levels, do any of you remember what a Deadric sword was worth in Morrowind?

I dunno, revert to Morrowind tactics I guess.

Well, one thing is for sure, the leveling is better than Oblivion's. Although Morrowind did have the best leveling. Oh and in answer to your question 4,000 for a long sword and I think its 2,000 for a short sword

it means the kids with get frustrated and cry

something i would love

best level scaling is no scaling

run into something evil? well, you're dead if you don't run

makes it that much more interesting, and gives you a reason to actually watch what you're doing rather than walking in knowing you can kill whatever is in there

I would be very happy, i can tell you that right now. If i actually had to delve deep into a dwarven dungeon to craft dwarven armor because it was the last forge that was made for that. Hell yeah, count me in. It would be accomplishing. I like challenge.

Nope. Was somewhere around 10000 for the longsword. Im sure. Or was that a curiass?

well i know my glass curiass is worth over 6000

It actually works pretty well.

Most parts of the world would be too 'scary' for a low level character, meaning that you'd need to be cautious for the first few levels. Then as you level up to mid-level more and more parts of the world and most quests would be 'safe' for you to go to, but there are still quite a few badasses and one or two 'extremely dangerous' regions that would be very hard to overcome. Then you get to be higher level and you're one of the badasses, you feel like you've accomplished alot and gotten really strong, it's time to take on the end-game content like the last mid of the main quest, a few extremely hard dungeons, whatever else. Then expansion packs come around which are designed for higher level characters, in some ways 'resetting' the difficulty of your character for the duration of the expansion pack which hopefully would be 20 hours or more of content in and of itself. Then a second expansion pack comes out, and by the time you finish that you're seriously like level 40, go start a new character bro.

Some minor level scaling should be included though, to make sure that 'special' creatures or people are always at least sort of a challenge for the player, and never have a period where they're extremely easy to defeat. I believe this was the case in Morrowind, which I think did great in terms of providing a difficult but rewarding experience. Everytime I started to think I was too powerful I'd run into something with a doom spell that turns me into a splat on the wall or something.

Take a look on UESP for some of the prices haha. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Daedric Daedric cuirass worth 70,000 :0. The glass curiass is also a lot.

No level scaling, I'd be happy, it would mean a harsh world where you actually had to become powerful or really clever to go to really epic places.... Morrowind did have level scaling, but it was the mostly just in terms of which deadras would spawn and stuff like that... I want that so bad. But I agree, unlike oblivion, skyrim is playable with the vanilla scaling, of course I've already downloaded every mod I can find to take away the scaling there is, but, it's still playable vanilla.

Either way, children will cry, because when there is level-scaling, it makes me angry. When I get angry, I yell. When I yell, children cry. By the transitive properties, when there is level-scaling, children cry. (Disclaimer: this statement is not serious and I do not advocate making children cry; it is intended as dry humor and should be treated as such.)

ive been level 1 since i brought the game and yeah,there are places that i wont go into or near,even with a follower, playing at level 1 for me has been a blast for i have no interest in leveling up and becoming a god and destroying everything i come across, my first go i leveled up to 22, but decided i just wanted to be a nobody in the game, im level 1,live in anises the witch's house and i just live in the game,and yes there are creatures and npcs out in the world that can clean me up very fast

Combat would get boring faster. People like to underscore the "Hand Holding" aspect of it, and totally ignore the "Difficulty" curve portion of it. I think Skyrim's difficulty scale-curve is as perfect as a procedural product could be. I still think all NPC's placed in the game should have been Hand-written and named though. Procedural creatures is one thing, NPC's(people) need an individual identity to give weight to the conflict. You can also tell a better story when the antagonists don't draw from a random pool of 10,000 Variables.

This sounds awesome. I think I'd like that.

I would like having the option of going anywhere but at a risk of getting into a danger zone where I will die no matter how hard I try. I want to earn the levels to get to this place and defeat hard enemies, and if I'm not good enough I die.

It would limit my freedom of movement, which I dislike. Either you make an open world game, and make one in earnest, or you create a semi-linear experience and call it just that.

I would love no level scaling, as I've said before on other games such as final fantasy 12 there are areas which you would get destroyed if you entered before you was high level, it IS fun to go somewhere new and get owned but to return much later at a higher level and be able to get revenge.

Stores selling levelled equipment is silly as it makes smithing less meaningful. I have to reach level 80 smithing to create ebony gauntlets but once I reach a certain level it will magically appear in merchants inventory. Uh what?

I would like it too if alchemy merchants did not sell deadra hearts but in return there were a few extra deadra to kill in certain places to find hearts, this would make deadric equipment rare and valuable unlike now where I can literally leave helgen, go straight to whiterun and eventually leave in full deadric armour if I spent enough time there.

I hate level scaling some enemys should be strong some weak and it should be up to you to get yourself into a position to be able to take them on. If you only ever face enemys appropriate to your currant level then whats the point in having levels in the first place ?.

Just because the world is open doesn't mean your character has the strength to go everywhere at any point in the game.

I agree 100% with this. Leveled Vendors is utterly stupid. Dynamic (Random) vendors is an entirely different thing, which I support. But if I want to save up 10,000 Gold and buy an Ebony Sword at level 2, I should be able to do it.

Loot scaling is another thing I'm not too keen on, but still am conflicted about it. My biggest complaint isn't one of gameplay functionality, but in situations where you're procedurally generating loot tables, it's a lot harder to tell a story through context. Finding modern Nordic weapons in Dwemer Ruins will never make sense unless the ruins are being used as a base for Nordic Bandits.



Actually, that's exactly what it means. Play Dark Souls and try to get through to the Wolf guarding the Ring of Artorias at level 8 and tell me that game is "Open". It's just an illusion of open. It's like a Railroad, you can see everwhere, but you can only go where the game wants you to go at a specific time.

Just because the world is open doesn't mean your character lacks the strength to go everywhere at any point in the game.

Two can play that game and this 'opinion' is as valid as your lack of one. There's no reason/logic/RPG-specific-code to assume that you cannot simply walk north until you encounter the edge of the world, instead having to clear everything in the southeast corner of the map before venturing forth.

The no scaling works fine in linear RPG's. In open world games/RPG's I find it, personally, opinion, subjective, not a fact, subject to change, strange. Scaling keeps the entire world relevant at any time in the game, giving you the freedom to create your own story however you see fit, as opposed to being nudged in a specific direction, since you're not strong enough (aka. didn't grind enough) to go to a 'higher' area.

Why do people always forget the downside to no scaling?

If there was no scaling at all, then high-level characters would basically be confined to certain areas if they wanted to continue leveling up, and any quests that sent them elsewhere would be mind-numbingly boring due to lack of challenge.

I think that scaling was implemented pretty well in Skyrim, especially compared to Oblivion. Doesn't mean they can't keep tweaking it as they move forward, but it's definitely not something I'd like to see ditched.

I don't think it would work if they just took Skyrim and removed leveling and made all the enemies a set level. Most of the enemies then would either be far too easy or far too hard. The way it is now there are some enemies that are challenging and some that are less challenging than others. Fights are usually fun and interesting. If they wanted to remove leveling completely they would probably have to change the whole layout of the game so low-level players aren't being massacred all the time and high level players have no fun.

It would make the game linear. And if they kept respawning enemies it would make it a grinder

@Criminal_scum I can't play dark souls as it requires a console, so I'm afraid i can't make a call on that. But no, an "open world game" doesn't mean you can go anywhere at anytime and survive, it means you can go anywhere and then have to face whatever is there, the "world" is open, the challenges you face doesn't have to be possible to beat at any point of the game, that would render character progression meaningless.


@Mahoney
"justst because the world is open doesn't mean your character lacks the strength to go everywhere at any point in the game." ... That makes no sense at all as a refutation to what I said. I wasn't "playing a game" I was telling you that a "world" can be open without your character being able to defeat every single enemy in said world.

It is the perfect refutation to your inane statement that only covers up your lack of thinking of a proper argument to this discussion.

Which I did provide, to be precise.

... So you're just trying to be rude instead of actually having a discussion? Right, moving on.