For gear that's received through quests with lore significance (e.g. as a reward from Thieves Guild questline), the item should really scale up as you level. Currently, if I completed a quest at a lower level, I get a gimp version of the reward, even though I might still want to use the weapon or armor later on. Sure, the direct stats such as dmg can be upgraded, but effects can't.

For example, compare these two Nightingale Blade, one obtained when I was level 30+(?) and another generated from the console and notice the different magnitude of effects on it.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/nbPMO.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/W60Yc.jpg[/img]

I agree. This is one reason why I've slowed down on the main requests and have ignored others. I dont' want to get all the cool weapons now and have them turn to [censored] later.

BTW, whats a good level to start getting these? 50?

There's about four versions of each item that's scaled differently (from least powerful to most powerful). I'm not sure how are they are distributed over the levels.

At least on the PC I can use the console to give myself the best version even though I've done the quest early without feeling that I'm cheating so I've earned the rewards rightfully. Kinda sol if you're on console I guess.

INstead of doing the quest so early, just wait until 30+ then do it, youll get the best version's

The worst aspect of scaling is this. It encourages linear game play by punishing you for doing quests early on. You get gimped loot. They need the artifact/unique/named items to either be static high level OR failing that, yes, it should scale with you.

I never understood why an artifact is an artifact if it is stuck with stats that are weaker than trash Riften vendors can sell in a stall.

If you got the best version of the items regardless of level, then you'd get all the best gear at the beginning of the game and wouldn't have anything worth receiving as a reward later. IMHO, that'd be boring and poor game design.

I try not to min/max so much and just try to enjoy myself. It seems silly to me to wait to do a quest simply because of leveled rewards, when you will probably be getting comparable or better equipment later on anyways.

However you gotta play how you gotta play

OR, you could make sure they are the same quality (one of them is epic) before you post this.

That's why it's so immersion breaking to have artifacts guarded by monsters that scale to your level. And why people hate scaling in general. If you have artifacts guarded by appropriately powerful monsters, you don't get them until you're strong nor their rewards. Or if you're especially good at sneaking or using potions or what have you. This is preferable to me than the poor game design of an artifact that is permanently gimped and lower value than vendor trash, just because you found it at level 5 instead of level 35. Immersion breaking problems are more of a deal breaker than being overpowered early on because I did something awesome/hard as a low level adventurer. This used to be what made RPGs and sandbox RPGs so fun. But to each his own.

OR it makes non-linear gameplay because you can do early parts of all the quests, and it encourages you not to be the best in the world at something and a random initiate at some other guild.

some of them make sense, Like I was the leader of the dark brotherhood, but I wasn't an exceptionally good thief so it made sense that I had to work my way up, AND it made sense that they had to keep telling me not to kill people.... sometimes I did anyway, just cause.

I do wish there were guild quartermasters that would trade your pieces out for the higherlevel versions. Or guild blacksmith's that will upgrade your gear or something like that. You could go to Nocturnal and have her imbue your armor with greater powers, ya know, random stuff like that.

This is true. After my first couple of hundred hours on morrowind any new characters ended up with full daedric or glass armor very very early because I knew the sites where it was lying around (much like the potential for abusing smithing now, although it is a bit tougher to get the raw materials).

But people are right, the quest gear should scale. The morrowind issue tended to be that you could get it too early and negate too much of the difficulty. Skyrim has gone too far the other way and hopefully they will fix it in a patch and have the quest rewards scale with you.

Scaling up with you seems to be the only thing that will placate all of us scalers and non-scalers alike. I can role-play it that an artifact senses it is being held by a weakling if I find it early and won't unleash it's full potential until I'm stronger higher level etc. Why Bethesda didn't do this is beyond me (I say this a lot), but I'm sure mods will fix it.

Level doesn't effect the base damage. That is determined by skill level and whether or not it's been upgraded. We are looking at the ENCHANTMENT on the item, not base damage. You'll see that the item received at the higher level has a significantly better enchantment.