I know there's been many debates on the level-scaling topic: either people hate it or don't like it. I would like to offer a potential solution even if it has been discussed before.

I don't think the problem is that enemies and loot are level dependant, rather that the range between the high tiers and low ones is too great. There's too great a health difference between a Draugr Scourge and a Draugr; there's too great a damage output difference between Daedric and Iron weaponry. And this is all done to compensate for the demi-god-achieved status of the player.

I don't really blame the devs for the design of Cyrodiil. They had one group complaining that Morrowind was too hard in the beginning while others (Probably the majority) complained that it was too easy at the end. The middle ground was the funnest, which is where the enemies were still challenging but your character had advanced noticeably. So to expand on this portion, as well preserve it, they put the enemies on par with the player. It was like being Vegeta in a world of Kakarots that never trained. This wasn't necessarily an evil but how it was implemented I think proved Cyrodiil's downfall, specifically how higher enemies had too much health, something that is still prevailent in Skyrim. Level scaling in this sense - I don't know if there is any other 'sense' - brings in some inconsistencies when one is facing Dragon Priests more difficult than some of the Dragons they had served.


But here is modest proposal: Why not simply give all enemies a similar amount of stat points per level and restrict the power gains of the player? Why should Neravar, the Champion, and Dovakiin become five or ten or even 20 times more powerful than how they started over a course of several in-game days when, still being mindful we are playing a fantasy game, such a thing is humanly/aldmerily/beastly improbable? But if such players had advanced in a miniscule fasion - realisticly - then there is no need for a sandbox world to compensate. There would be no need for higher ranks of the same enemy or significant NPCs that had ballooning statistics so as not to appear weak at the side of the hero.

Moreover, what is it that makes a weapon more powerful than another without the hero to wield it? And even if it is obeying the laws of conservation of mass an energy, that a heavier weapon swung at the same speed as a lighter should yield considerably more force, it is not questionable that the latter force would be multiple times greater than the former?

A miniscule approach does what the devs had hoped for and more. It allows for player advancement, preserves challenge, and decrease a need for creature ranks. A Draugr is a Draugr is a Draugr as it would be. The level 20 has to be just as careful against them as the level one, but the level 20 has it a bit easier and, being a bit less afraid, knows it.

I believe an open world that can give so much immersion deserves something far greater than the vices of traditional RPGs even if that means eliminating its status as an RPG all together. Afterall, FPS worlds are best-sellers too.

Not to mention when one level player and world at the same time, it will create a locked challenge, game plays like a FPS already then. It is a fake RPG at this point, I would prefer it to be FPS instead myself. Ranges can still be done, with some care. 3 wolves might kill a diseased lion. Some overlaps might occur in real life too, it is just that it won't happen because of my level but because of some logical reason.

I think the level dependency is the biggest issue. I don't really need to write books about this.

Game scales to your level.

That should be enough.