this thread has a few overblown people in it shouting there viewpoints as facts and belittling others for differing. they need there accounts locked regardless of what they may or may not provide to the thread...its rediculous and childish.

now from reading this thread, when it comes down to it, its not whose right, its whose opinion is loudest. there are people who want it one way, and others that want it a different way.

and ill say right now, stating "things proven wrong ten times already" and not providing what said things are beforehand...but bashing the guy when he magically mentions one is either ignorant, or a straw man strategy, and needs to be stopped as well.

Fact is if the agme wasnt scaled YES it would be more linear...not completly as there are more options then A,B,C tehre could be AaBb, AbaB, AcCb, etc, etc.

morrowind wasnt linear, but certain areas were impossible at certain levels, and others were piss poor easy. to some they may find this fun, ot others they may find it boring/frustrating...again, opinions. and if you pretend for one moment your opinion is in greater importance/quantity then someone elses, you better have the certfied graphs and pie charts to back it up.

Also if you think about it within the confines of the world. a arrow should still hurt when it hits you. a sword should still hurt, a fireball should still hurt (barring blocks/resist gear of course). which brings us to leveling

leveling is NOT just a method of getting stronger. sure there are skills taht increase damage directly or indirectly. but there are also skills that provide options to player growth.

you want to do more damage with a twohander you can get that

you want to sneak better you can get that

you want spells to cost less you can get that too.

when you start this game you have light armor, a sword, and some fire. would be a boring ass game if you went thru it like that.

on the other hand it would be a boring ass game if i got to level 50 and mowed everyone down.

I play demons/dark souls when not playing this so difficulty is not a foreign concept to me. but arbitrary difficulty isnt fun and neither is strolling thru a bandit cave because they cant hurt you. what do you know, i just put up a opinion again...see how those seem to drip from every orifice that enters thist hread?

Morrowind was not level scaled. and I loved it

So make the game truly linear? Brilliant.


And I honestly don't get this "no challenge", "scaling makes you able to beat everything."

So that's why I still have problems with bears and saber-cats?
Giants and Mammoths are scaled?

At the end of every Dwarven ruin there's at least one Centurion, the only scaling I saw was that higher levels there are two!


But of course, you had to be cautious in Morrowind, even though random Daedra and Blighted creatures only appeared after a certain level...

YES, IT WAS

Are the call of duty servers down or what?


Says who? Perhaps I use all the potions, gold and intelligence at my disposal to take on a higher end dungeon. It is not necessary to follow a pre-scripted order.

I prefer not to view RPGs strictly through the lens of "combat combat combat," and I often prefer to play characters who are more focused on non-combat related abilities in PnP RPGs and in video game RPGs which will allow it. With that said, I still like to see my non-combat character forced into dangerous situations, so that I have to come up with clever ways to get out of it. (Or in the worst case, make a desperate fighting escape.)

Just because a dungeon contains powerful enemies who can tear me to shreds doesn't mean that the dungeon has to be closed off to me. I should be able to use other skills to "defeat" the challenge through avoidance, distraction, using the environment to indirectly kill the enemies, carefully exploring for alternate entrances/paths, etc. The penalty of failure is of course much, much higher than if I came back when I was sufficiently powerful, so I have to weigh the decision of "extra risk and complex strategies for a big early payoff" VS "greater security and simple confrontation for a less impressive reward." And this is something I think a lot of people have trouble with, but sometimes trying to escape or salvage a failed situation can be more fun than succeeding.

Speaking of rewards, I'd like to see weirder, more interesting things that are worthwhile regardless of the character's level. Not just a weapon/spell that does X amount of damage appropriate for your level, but strange magical curios with unique effects which a character of any level could find useful. An amulet that glows in the presence of vampires, thus revealing their identity to you. A pair of glass orbs through which the location of the other can be seen. A dagger that can never be found on your person, no matter how thoroughly you are searched. It's all the more fun if the function is not immediately obvious. (Of course, the game would have to be designed in a way to provide situations/quests where these items would be useful.)

Related to this: One of the most interesting mechanics I've seen in a PnP RPG is from the Dying Earth RPG based on the works of Jack Vance. I forget the exact details and don't have the book handy, but it basically suggested that the characters have some sort of stat which determines how many powerful items they can have at one time. As they exceed this number, they run an ever higher risk of randomly losing objects to accident, theft, magical overload, etc. And even when below the threshold, they should still occasionally lose something but receive something else in exchange. Many of the suggested items and spells in the game are also like what I described above: odd little artifacts with strange but potentially useful effects rather than direct damage dealers. This keeps the players on a sort of never-ending treasure hunt, using whatever they have on hand to come up with unique solutions to challenges, but never being able to over-rely on a specific item forever. The manner in which an item is lost (and potentially retrieved) can itself provide interesting gameplay opportunities.

What are you talking about? I'm starting to think you are playing a different game to me. How is that scenario different from you unlocking one quest after another with the companions? If you think the game is totally open world you are an imbecile. It has linearity all over the place. But there is a huge difference between making a game like Dragon's Lair which is totally linear and having different sets of linear quests that can be completed in any order. Skyrim is the latter but the level scaling ruins it

Want another example? If I want to join the Dark Brotherhood I need to 'insert spoiler here' first. that is linear progression. You're complaining about having something put into the game that is already there

If we go back to oldies rpg like Might and Magic, we find obviously there was NO need of level scaling. Every monster and dungeon had a perfect fit in a zone, area.
You knew that if you wanted to travel to a city near the first one, you had to face monsters and enemies much stronger.
And the most far you went, the most dangerous mobs you encountered. So I hope this is not the case in skyrim, if so mayve it's pretty much dungeon related with only the "boss" enemy scaled, because the most relevant enemies I meet in the lands are the fauna and bandits... and at level 14 are one shot kill

Fallout NV and its locational scaling were fun. You could go south, sure, but there was an interesting risk-reward mechanism: go north at low level and be very careful? You could pull it off, but obviously not by attacking everything in sight. It was a meaningful decision.

The game was good at telegraphing 'this is a dangerous place' with signs, NPC comments, etc. - so it didn't feel random.

Just scaling everything is bland, there are none of these interesting decisions.

It feels a bit more like the real world, too: you can take on a difficult task if you want, nobody's stopping you... but you'd better have thought it through! You might need additional healing items, bigger guns, or whatever, compared to what you're used to.

The issue I have with Skyrim is similar to what I faced with Oblivion. Even as I gain levels and built up my health and combat stats, I get progressively weaker against the enemies I must face until one of two things happens. Either, I find I can not continue at all as I've leveled up "wrong" and I must start over, or I get past the hump in difficulty and beyond that point things get easier. Skyrim's system is certainly better than what came before, but it still posesses the same flaws. Also as I'm not a person who would ever gain 30 straight levels in Smithing then complain that I'm not a god on the battlefield, I haven't experienced some of the more extreme (and understandble) methods of breaking the leveling system. Indeed, a pure blacksmith is not likely to fare well against an armada of Sabre Cats, even if he does have the finest Sword this side of Blacklight.

I also find Skyrim's system adds a huge degree of uncertainty as to just where you can go and what you can do. I die frequently, sometimes just after completing one part of a quest easilly then finding the next stage to be unduly difficult. At times I find myself tearing through bandits only to then be two-hit killed by their nefarious leader. It's also not possible (always, at any rate) to run away from danger effectively, the aforementioned Sabre Cats for example can be quite fast. I guess my point is there can be a huge and sudden jump in difficulty at random times such that an area or quest you were prepared for at the start, suddely becomes out of your grasp moments later. This might be subjectively reasoned to be "realistic" but it's not what I'd call fun or rewarding. Particulary so if you're playing by a "Dead is Dead" rulebook.

I still enjoy the game, in fact much more so than Oblivion, but the scaling issues persist much to my chagrin. I suppose I'm somewhat unique in that I don't play TES games for combat, so I'm totally indifferent to difficulty on that front. In fact, I would prefer to one-hit kill everything after 100+ hours of play as I like to feel I've earned my stripes at that point. Simply put, I'm not looking for combat challenge anyway. I'm in this for other reasons, so I'm obviously biased and my opinions here are most certainly not objective. I am glad to see Bethesda has made an effort to get things right however, that does count for something.

He's really complaining about doubling up on it.

Bunnies are already there, so we might as well add 100,000 more bunnies to the game because in my opinion, bunnies would make the game better.


Just because some of the elements are linear to help tell a story doesn't mean that the game should add more linearity.

Hey, I hear World of Warcraft doesn't have level scaling.

There's a number of posts here from individuals who clearly don't understand level scaling.


Bethesda appear to have learned some lessons from Oblivion and have largely done away with level scaling. Many quest dungeons are geared toward higher levels whilst others look as though they are more suitable for low to mid ranges.
I've tended to stay out of dungeons after running into a dwemer centurion at level 7 on my first Companion quest.
Needless to say the fight didn't go well. I'm now simply exploring the world map, fighting bandits, wolves etc to level my combat skills.
Most enemies and items are locked at the level you enter a random dungeon (as in Fallout). That's a good reason not to poke your head into unknown areas too early in the game.
I've noted that most of the better loot - apart from items gained through quests - don't start to appear in leveled lists until your around level 20, with DragonScale staring at 46 and Deadric items at 48.
It's almost impossible without the CK to investigate too much else.

No Glass, Ebony or Deadric gear to be gained from common bandits either

Just some observations.

These points are completely true and cannot be overstated, as even after countless repetition, they still don't seem to be understood by a lot of people.

So, I just started the game, and I want to kick the butt of some Daedra overlord that is supposed to be a threat to the whole world.
The game nicely scale him down to level 1, because if I could not kill him right from the start it would be AN AFFRONT TO MY GODGIVEN FREEDOM !

So I come to see him with a rusted dagger and a rotten leather jacket while I'm a complete newbie, smack him, take his leveled legendary gear that provides 2 armors and does 5 damages (well, it's level-scaled and I'm level 1) and go back to the city after having saved the world !

Sounds great, right ?

You mean... Having obstacles that requires you to use your skills to overcome and not the game handholding you ?
OH THE HORROR !

But yes, sure I much prefer a believable world than a metagamed one.


Nothing to add.

While I haven't have read the whole thread yet, let me just make one point:


If you haven't left Whiterun after 30 hours of game, you won't ever be able to leave it, because your fighting skills will be ridiculous compared to your level, and all the monsters around except mudcrabs and wolves will pwn you. You can probably still beat everything on Novice difficulty, but "move the difficulty slider" isn't a better argument here than it is against any other balancing issue.

Everybody who makes the point that levelscaling makes TES nonlinear should wonder whether it really succeeds at doing so.

I am pretty sure Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul was quite popular for Oblivion, and as far as I know it removed levelscaling. As http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1283479-skyrim-v11-an-attempt-at-a-review/, I am willing to collaborate on a similar mod for Skyrim. While it probably will make it a challenge to reach Winterhold at level 1, I am sure it won't take the nonlinearity out of Skyrim or force you to visit cities in a particular fixed order. It's just that some places will be a serious challenge for level 1-20ers. The resulting ones will still be more than enough to level up and have a lot of choices in doing so.

I heard several valid and invalid points against Nehrim (thanks a lot for all the bug reports, people), but linearity wasn't one of them. Still Nehrim is not levelscaled. (Uhm, yes, it has 1 (one) levelscaled enemy. I know.)

So, maybe the game shouldn't scale so much for non-combat related skills?

I agree and disagree with you OP although I don’t like your topic title... it’s not very open to different opinions.

I disagree that the game should be all level scaling. But I agree that it is needed in a TES game. The way Morrowind used level scaling is the best I have seen so far as the enemies themselves were static, but were designed for different difficulty levels. Rather than giving an enemy more and more HP, there should be hand made static versions of these enemies that appear as you progress.

That way they can be designed better to give players a challenge, but not as meat grinders that get a massive HP pool endgame.

Yes, you should think about it and be careful about not going where you're not meant to.

Are you listening to yourself?

The point of scaling is that of making it possible for a guy to take the Companion quest line early in the game, get decent experience, some fun and challenge and decent rewards out of it, or go and do the Thieves guild stuff, and get the same, and maybe come back to do the Companions quest later and still get something out of it.


The alternative?

Either you HAVE to do the Companions quest at level 10 as it's a level 10 quest, and the Thieves guild quest at 15 as it's a level 15 quest (linearity). Or maybe they're both level 10 quests, in which case, if you take one before the other, then you'll outlevel the other questline, and get little rewards and no fun from it.


Here is the problem with progression in roleplaying games: you progress by playing. If the content doesn't scale with you, either you make it mutually exclusive (or just trivial), or it needs to be on a strictly linear sequence to make sure you don't run into outdated content all the time.

Take The Witcher 2: it's either Roche or Iorveth. You can't do both in the same run, because besides the reused assets, the game doesn't have enough "levels" to support the content. It works for many games, but TES is TES, and it's built around scaling. It's really not a choice.

That actually made me chuckle.

My argument has been totally skewed here any way. I'm not saying let's throw linearity in everywhere but what I'm saying is that it's already in the game. So why are people going mad about it being 'added'?

Like I said. Linearity doesn't mean you have to do everything in a certain order. You don't have to do quest set 1 and then 2 etc... You could do quest set 100 first and then 75 and then 3. That is up to you. And that is basically how the game is any way. It's just if the level scaling was removed you've have a little less choice in order. The content would still be there and you;d still be able to choose your quest, it's just that instead of choosing from a pool of 50 quest chains you'd choose from ten pools of 5 quest chains. Less choice yes, but still enough and with the added bonus of having the game slightly more linear they could be better put together with relation to difficulty control and character progression. For me this is the best system because it gives enough freedom while still giving a sense of progression

How do you complete the quest in any order without scaling?
How do I pick up the "high level quest" before the "low level one"?

What is the problem with having to live with a consequence? Play the other quests in a second play through with a different character. If those quests are the same level then make them appeal to different characters. You wouldn't get much out of playing a warrior quest line as a mage anyway. If you want to then go for it.

People tend to play these games with different builds anyway so I don't see the issue with having an incentive to go a different route next time. If you can do everything in one play through where's the fun in playing as a different character?

So much going on here. There are some very close minded people here on both sides of the fence.

Actually, you've been already called out on the point that YOU are using "linearity" in a very stretched manner - basically anything that doesn't let you do ANYTHING right from the start, you call it "linear", which is simply a complete strawman.
It's quite hypocrital to then give lesson to others about the meaning of it.

If you have quite a bit of low-leven dungeons, quest, zone to explore, city to delve in and the like, you aren't forced into one path. It's not because there is some places too dangerous for a rookie that a game is linear - and who would find illogical that some places are too dangerous for a rookie ? Level scaling's way to make the world "nonlinear" is to make it meaningless - everything is the same everywhere, so sure you can go everywhere (hence the supposed "non-linearity" of it), but it doesn't mean anything, as you will find the same thing.

Why the hell are people saying level scaling = TES? Why do people have such rigid expectations of a series that changes it's formula with every installment?

There's nothing "bad" in that, but it's something hundreds of games do, and TES is different, and I see little reason to wish TES to be more like everything else.

I think people underestimates the challenge of creating and balancing a sandbox RPG, and in fact, TES games are unique in the way they work. There are other sandbox RPGs (from Riven to Gothic to Might and Magic oldies), but all of them have stricter progression than TES.

You've just picked a sample of my statement and skewed what I've said. I basically answered that question in that exact same post. You wouldn't do the high level one first. You wouldn't pick from a pool of ten hard quests, you'd pick from a pool of ten easy quests. Then once you've done those you would be ready to tackle the hard quests. You would still have a possible (edit: ton of ) different paths to follow through the pool of easy quests because you could do those in any order. If that amount of choice isn;t enough for you I don't really see why you play a particular game in the first place