Morrowind (note the 'o') didn't have level-scaling, at least not to the same extent as Oblivion or even Fallout 3. (Did it have any at all? I'm not sure that it did.)

But yes, like most everyone else I think too much level-scaling is a bad thing. There should be areas it's too dangerous for me to visit at a low level, so I can feel like a badass when I return later to wreak bloody vengeance.

That's how borderlands is.

I like knowing I could get owned at any time. No level scaling gives a REAL sense of growth and development with the character. A sense of accomplishing something. Level scaling IMO deadens that. I Vote No level scaling ftw.

IIRC the scaled areas in Fallout 3 were tethered to a range of levels, so a given area might scale to level 10-18 depending on your level when you first go there, but would never go below 10 or above 18. Once you went to an area for the first time and it scaled it would lock at that level, so if you went back later it would still be the same so you could feel like you got more powerful. This works in theory, but I never felt I was out of my league in the way that I have in New Vegas. I wouldn't mind the FO3 method (which was much, much better than Oblivion) if the tether ranges were restricted a little so I things felt a little more dangerous. Fallout 3 still had its own form of loot scaling in the form of leveling weapon condition...I'm not a huge fan of that either, but again, it was better than Oblivion.

Still, though, I don't like the concept of artificially scaling things. Some enemies should simply be out of your reach at certain levels, and if I'm clever enough to sneak past some tough enemies at a low level and get an overpowered (for my level) weapon or reach an area that's meant for later in the game then so be it.

Level scaling makes the game boring. You never ever encounter anything you honestly can not handle. It feels too much like playing with God mode on because there isn't a challenge you have to build up for and come back to.

Scaling is nannyism, which saps the excitement out of any game. Good riddance to it.

Which isn't entirely true. The map designer had the option in Fallout 3 of choosing to not level scale the area and making it so that only the higher level enemies would spawn.

Case in point - Hallowed Moors Cemetary. If you go there at level 15 or less, you get a "CrSuperMutant2MinigunA/B/C" if you go there at level 16 or higher you get a CrSuperMutant3MinigunA/B variant. The first is a level 9 super mutant w/ minigun, the second is level 12 super mutant w/ minigun. Either way, you always get a super mutant with a minigun. In addition that spawn point is flagged to spawn a "boss" variant. Go to Hallowed Moors at level 3... you'll find that things are rather nasty. Go there again at level 18 and you'll find that you've pretty much out-leveled it. (Without the BoS expansion installed or active.)

Dig through "Actors / Leveled Creatures" in the Fallout 3 GECK to see all the gory details.

I like the fact that there are areas that I have to prepare to go into. I want to have my butt handed to me by this, or any game, if I go into an area that I am not equipped for, or skilled enough or at a high enough level. Makes being there that much more satisfying as I deserve to be there.

I played a lot of Borderlands (a LOT) and agree with you but I don't know if I'd call it "perfect". Go into an area too soon and you leave with your butt in a sling. But there weren't too many places to have that happen. Borderlands' mission scheme tended to be pretty linear despite the semi-open world feel. You only unlock higher level areas by completing lower level challenges/missions and by the time you were done with those you had levelled up to the point where the new area was much more do-able (though still deadly in some spots... for a while). The obvious exception being Crawmerax. OM*G!

Fallout is closer to my ideal. From level 1 to the mid 20s you can certainly die around any corner. Even if only because this time you ran into 4 deathclaws instead of only 1 or 2. I like that. No challenge = no fun. If all I wanted to do is explore with no danger I'd play one of the Carmen Sandiego games.

I would still like to see a few more "you have got to be f-ing kidding me" areas way out in the corners where even a level 30 character needs to pack heavy and bring a rabbit's foot. I'm currently level 25 and just spent a while in a heavily poplulated Deathclaw area and took out several large groups of Deathclaws (6 or 7 strong) and never died (companions did though... a lot). This is the toughest fighting I've seen other than the final battle and the only fear I had was that if I did manage to get killed it would be a long walk back to this location. I'm still looking for the Legendary Deathclaw and hoping that it will scratch my itch to get my butt kicked.

I think this is a great change.

One problem with level scaling was that in Oblivion, some people claimed that they could finish the game at level 1. Bandits could scale with you and have those daedric weapons. How can bandits get access to such gear, and if they did, why in the world did they remain as lowly bandits and not go conquer a town? It was unrealistic and broke immersion of the game.

I got owned early on by Deathclaws. I was glad. Of course I returned the favor once I was at a higher level.

But limited or no level scaling is a great change.

I love being able to be level 5 or so and taking on a deathclaw or something with a higher level because win or lose it makes you feel badass just getting in a few good blows. Gives more to go for.

But this brings up a good question whats the point of the difficulty settings now?

FO3 if you want a challenge play the game on the highest setting

NV you want less of a challenge put the game on the lowest setting but oh wait it make very little difference

Making level difficulty settings nearly pointless

Without level scaling some enemies actually are scary.

Level scaling = bad idea.

Let me see how far my character has developed by giving me areas and tasks which are too difficult to get to or be involved with. It's so much more rewarding to level up and go back and say "Oh heck yeah! How you like me now?"

Level scalin uis absurd, all agems i asw level scaling i did not like it.ff8,oblivion,falllout 3...

You must have the feeling to progress, level scaling kills that.

I'm of two minds about this.

What I don't like about level scaling is as others have mentioned, you don't as often run into creatures that are too tough. (Though there are many, many places you could go in FO3 that would get you immediately killed at low level).

What I don't like about set encounters is it hurts replayability. I always have to go counter clockwise around the map no matter what character I play because along with invisible walls, deliberately placed hard monsters are just ways to restrain the player and force them to do things the way the writers wanted. It might be fun to glitch on top of a tent and kill a cazador at level 4 or stand on a cliff while a deathclaw paces back and forth and you shoot it in the head with a varmint rifle for 10 real time minutes, but it's not the type of fun that lasts for me.

Where the set level encounters shines is those "OH CRAP!" moments when something insanely hard rears it's head and you're forced to run like the wind to survive. Sometimes you get really excellent challenges when you try something a little out of your level range and that's a very satisfaying feeling.


Ideally, if they made the placement of some of the impossible creatures in FONV slightly randomized in some areas and less as a deterrent, it would be even better.

Yeah, the scaling in Oblivion is preposterous. It always cracked me up. That highwayman in fur armor that hits you up for 100 gold at first level is wearing glass armor late in the game and still hitting you up for 100 gold. It's like, dude, you've obviously hit up a lot people for 100 gold because your armor and weapon together are worth a small fortune. Maybe it's time to retire.

Level scaling has it's place in an open world game. Granted Oblivion's method was... but Fallout 3 did it much better. The ovepowered enemies added in Broken Steel were another thing it broke, but the basic principle is pretty nice.

I do see the benefits of static systems like New Vegas too, when my sneaky snipy assassin manages to kill a Deathclaw that should rip her apart without breaking a sweat is sweet, and NV's traditional XP system rewards quite nicley for it too, even if it's not guarding a treasure

With TES leveling system which i prefer (no XP, skills improve as you use them, level up with ten skill-ups) there really is no such reward, and thus level scaling would be preferrable. And it needs to be guarding a treasure

As for the poll, yes i like New Vegas' system, but i do like smartly done level scaling too.

Overall i have to agree, 100%.

Bethesda has been doing the level scaling for all the Elder Scrolls series, from the start, which was always one of the things that truly annoyed me with the game.
I recall the first one: Arena.
GODS I loved that game, some of the silliness and over-powered things you could do with just making your own spells!!! I recall one i made called 'nuke'.. 10-100 dam base + 50-100dam /lvl in a 30-meter radius, and it 'lasts' for 5 seconds (ie, repeating that damage).... Even more broken if you did a Dark Elf Battle-Mage!!!! (<---- Edit role-name) :rofl:

But what realllly peeved me about Arena. Was... lvl 1: skeletons, rats, whatever were just all lvl 1... end of game.. same skeletons, rats, bears, whatever. just ALWAYS the exact same level +/- 1 or 2 lvls. I think they had MAYBE 30 total monsters in the game. never changed anything about the graphics with the monsters at all.

But gods... the tricks to get some of the rod parts were amazing!!!..
Default: A riddle... Always a riddle as the main option. actually tested your knowledge (as web-searching really didn't exist back then)
alternate: Varied. One you could jump-in from above... one you could just dig through a wall or three.. Others, I had to delete the floor (water beneath), go under about 10 walls.. then levitate to 'stand' on the water, THEN I could jump up into the rod-vault section.
Another I had to dig (Disintigrate was the spell i think) up through the ceiling and drop down.. I think there were other rare tricks too if you couldn't answer the riddle.

There's as much level scaling in NV as in FO3, NV just places some high level enemies way closer to the starting area, that's all.

Nah set enemies are better for the most part.
But I would like slightly leveled enemy gear and some random encounter locations.
But not full-on leveled enemies everywhere.

I admit that for a JRPG Final Fantasy VIII the level scaling was not that great of an idea

P.S. Awesome game by the way played it over 4 times back in the day （＾?＾）

Dissagree entirely.

go back to goodsprings going for the "find 125 locations" achievement sometime. It's still ants, bark scorpions and the like.

Sure in areas where radscorpions spawn they tend to scale up to giants at level 22 or so, but even still there's plenty of cannon fodder around at high levels.

See here's why it happens. Lists are BIG in Oblivion and moderate-sized in FO3 and TINY in FONV.

In oblivion a theoretical level list might be: baby mook, mook, armored mook, heavily armored mook, spellblade mook, epic legendary spellblade mook, demon summoning epic legendary spellblade mook, godlike mook. For instance ALL animals from wolves all the way to dire bears were on the same level list.


There are a few Level Lists in FONV that scale drastically, as anyone that's found a feral ghoul reaver just outside of Primm can tell you, but Ghouls and radscorpions are the only lists I can think of that scale extremely drastically. Many if not most lists are: Young/advlt, like Cazadores and Deathclaws.

In FO3 it was more like: raider with pistol, raider with shotgun, raider with sniper rifle, raider with rocket launcher.

FONV's radscorpions sums up the level lists well: Small, normal, giant.

i think that the in-game map should display roughly how tough the monsters are in a given area by colouring areas in red, yellow or green to indicate enemy difficulty. you colour in your map by talking to people or reading notes/computers which tell you about the surrounding area and what kind of monsters can be found there. you can switch between the normal map and this colour-coded enemy map with a simple button on the map screen this is my idea anyhow , i think it's good, shame nobody will ever listen lol