I don't mind some leveling. The way it works in this game is pretty decent. The Dungeon Level Offset is set when you first discover the dungeon. Whether that means the enemies are at your level, below your level or above your level is based on the dungeon. At least that is how it works in most places.

I don't want to have to deal with enemies all the time that result in a long protracted battle, at the same time, I relish the occasional long protracted fights. This game gives me a good balance.

That being said, I think a number of dungeons should have static levels. Some low level, some mid level and some high level. If I am not up to the place, I need to come back.

As for the world, give me a mixture too, but at least put a mechanism in where enemies that are much lower than my character would not attack at first sight. Unless I call them a mild drinker.

They actually have something in place ,sorta, that would work in dungeons at least and may still in other areas. Certain dungeons you can't go past a certain point til you are doing that quest.

Instead Put a specific lvl "enemy" guarding the "pass point" you can't beat him you can't go past. no sneaking, no go around, beat him or don't go past. Then put harder enemies, traps and puzzles along the way. Would work in the "outside" world also if the pass point was a pass or arch. Gaint's are a good example you know when you could probably defeat a gaint and til then you are a baseball. make the loot at the end worth the trouble to get their.

Make those ememies set but each at certain lvl's 1-100.

I've backed out of a couple dungeons because the "boss" was waaaaaaay to strong for my char at the time. If it was done this way their would still be a challenge at every lvl.....and be able to keep a completely open world. JMO

1.) Dungeons that have quests in them you are able to receive - these will scale to your level. Random Open World Encounters are this way.
2.) Dungeons that you do not currently have quests in them - these are leveled. Enemies in here are a "set level". Enemies however will always scale with you so that they are never trivial. Open World Encounters are this way.
3.) At no time will enemies ever STOP scaling. Enemies will continue to scale post 50.
4.) New "tiers" of enemies will have the chance of appearing throughout your progression. These enemies will not only have higher stats, but more skills/spells and tactics at their disposal being more formidable opponents.

Skyrim does not effectively do any of this currently.

I was hoping the Radiant quest system would allow for Higher level char to be sent to locations with more of Oblivions type scaling.If you replay a lot this is not as useful but if you keep a main pickings are slim at the high end.

^{I prefer it to be more static. Similar to OOO for Oblivion. If a creature is too tough, I will try to stay away or figure out a way to beat it. This also gives me more reason to level up.}

They should be doing this constantly so I am constantly under pressure and facing a challenge.

Skyrim doesn't even use rue scaling. I like the form it used, which is EXACTLY what Morrowind used.

Dynamic scaling aplied to very enemy shouldn't be used in any game unless it is literally required (Diablo, and even then the enemies don't actually have dynamic scaling)
Edit: If I can't become a god without resorting to spamming enchants or suing broken exploits it's not really an RPG. There's a reason people hated Oblivion. YUou on the hardest difficulty? Have fun spending the next 40 minutes to kill this one Xivilai unless you're packing a couple thousand brokenly OP poisons. And theres 20 more where he came from. It wasn't even a challenge, it was just TEDIOUS

I find it somewhat interesting, the number of people on the forum of a famous "open/non-linear" game series, who seem to want a non-open, linear game. (i.e, defined level areas, proscribed progression from area 1 to area 2 to area 3, etc).

There's plenty of linear RPGs out there. It's nice having some that aren't, so that you can have a variety of game styles to try.

(That said, there are better and worse scaling systems. Oblivion's.... not so good. Fallout 3 did it quite well, NV not so much. Skyrim's isn't bad, it just has some minor logic issues, frequently based around game design decisions - like, the fact that you HAVE to be able to fight dragons from the beginning means that they're more heavily scaled and can be weaker than some less-scaled "weaker" enemies.)

I like the open world, go where ever I want to. That's why I suggested what I did, you can still get into "incert name of dungeon etc" Your just incapable of passing the "door keeper" until you get near a certain lvl. Then the door is free to pass.

I guess that IS a teired system. But it's kinda already in place anyway. Not the "door keeper" part, just a door not opening til your IN the specific quest. I went through a system like that, til I got the quest, I didn't know you could go past that point.

I mean how many times would you need to get one shoted til you figured out that that lvl 80 deathlord was just to much for your lvl 20 char?

You can do the same thing without a physical door guardian or not being able to enter somewhere unless you have a quest. Dungeons that you have quests in would scale to your level. Dungeons you do not have quests in would be tiered. Dungeons will never be outleveled, instead dungeons will continue to scale with you. This means it is possible to enter into a dungeon with enemies much higher level than you are and TRY to complete it (or fail miserably) but you will never enter into a dungeon that is trivial.

And therefore never feel the EFFECTS of having your amazing gear. If there's no such thing as a trivial encounter here's no feeling of progression.

What's the point of an RPG game if you never actually get any better?

You don't have to have encounters be trivialized to feel progression. You just need to have it feel easier, which it will. Even with enemies always scaling with your level as level does not dictate strength. Itemization and Perk selection largely does.

Trivialized means you run absolutely no risk of dying and everything dies in a hit. Things should be EASIER, but never trivial.

What's the point of a game without any sort of challenge? How would Chess be if you could move an unlimited amount of times before your opponent could? You knew you would win every game? That gets old REAL fast.

open and non-linear should never come at the expense of gameplay.

however, better gameplay mechanics, rules, limitations and restrictions do not need to impact the "open and non-linear" aspect of TES. open and non-linear in this sense merely means being able to go wherever you want whenever you want and become whoever you want.

proper scaling and balancing doesn't effect that, at all. or, shouldn't.

But scaling places you've been/enemies you've fought in the past to keep them relevant to your current level should trivialize at least the weakest enemies/places.

Hell it could be argued that after some arbitrary level every "normal" enemy should be a trivial encounter with maybe one or two standing out as actual challenges. I LIKE the idea that if I'm past about level 30 or so NO bandits pose a credible threat to me. By 50 only the most powerful enemies in game should have any chance of combatting me, after 50 I should eventually be powerful enough to take them easily as well.

I don;t want ridiculous enemies being thrown at me every few minutes because of my level either. Part of what ruined oblivion for me was the act that there was no such thing as trivializing an area. That very first places you went to in game? You come back to that at level 30 and the enemies will be as powerful as you. That's not fun the enemies there shouldn't just get better.

The idea of areas being "zoned" to a level range and enemy types being available only in a certain range of levels (bears to level 20, bandits go to 30, draugr go to like 35 etc) makes the leveling system feel more realistic. There should be some instances of trivialization, but there should also ALWAYS be a non-trivial challenge ahead.

Anyone else remember morrowind and getting to higher levels with great gear? Nothing in that game could realistically stop you but there were a few things no matter your level that you'd be an idiot to mess with (Gaenor anyone?). IT didn't stop the game form being fun.

I think Skyrim got it about as good as you can get:

• Some locations by default are fixed at a level range, some are leveled
  
• Any location you go to gets fixed at that point until you clear it; so if you are overwhelmed you can flee and return when you're more powerful.
  
• Locations that you have already cleared out are eventually moved into by a new group of enemies that are near your current level

I also think that the concept of the mod 'Wars in Skyrim IV' is a wonderful idea: having multiple larger groups of enemies that become temporary allies and work in group formations when in the presence of shared enemies. It adds a lot of flare to wandering.

I also like the idea of much more difficult dragons. I figure that since the player is considered the go-to guy for dragons and dragons should be pretty epic, that the player should have to flee about half the time from dragons and beat them down about half the time; which means most other enemies/allies wouldn't stand much of a chance without large-group support.

"Scaling" as it were, is a very real-life concept, but we've termed it escalation. Kind of like the batman quote: "We start carrying semi automatics, they buy automatics, we start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor piercing rounds, and *you're* wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops."

I like the leveling. Nothing worse to me than waltzing around with no sense of danger or competition.

Just out of curiosity, as I am no role player, how does trivializing an area fit into role playing? Is this a part of standard role playing?

To me it makes little sense. I still want to see the world of Skyrim as wild, and with wild do I mean dangerous, too. Giants and mammoth are tough opponents and they exist near villages. Yet, they are not as aggressive as some others. This is good. Maybe they should become more aggressive as the player advances. I.e. wearing heavy armor and wielding a two-handed battle axe could make a giant more nervous than when one walks around in fur armor or just plain clothing. One could implement the exact opposite behaviour with bandits and let them attack weaker players more often and only throw cowardly insults at you when heavily armed.

What also bothers me is that some opponents pretend it was nothing and return to their old positions when I shot them with an arrow in the head. This, too, is part of the difficulty that makes a game worthwhile and it is not only the amount of their damage and life.

I would like to see less scaling in numbers but more scale within the AI.

I want to be able to walk into a lower level dungeon and just hand them their asses with no threat to me. Because I'm playing a blackguard who delights in blood and death.

From a relistic point of view basic enemies should be trivialized through progression. It makes the world feel more REAL to me. There was nothing worse than in Oblivion fighting your thirtieth Xivilai in a row and not so much being challenged as bored by the fact that they were just big sacks of HP with no real CHALLENGE to them. Oblivion didn't have scaling challenge, it had scaling tedium. Skyrim has degrees of scaling challenges, while also reaching a point where you're simply so legendarily badass that nothing can stop you... Well no single enemy.

If the game is about being a badass legendary hero (dovahkiin) why should your enemies stay as legendary as you? That's narrative RP right there.

Everyone play's different and everyone want's slightly different thing's. I think it's hard to make everyone happy.


I agree with a lot of points everyone has made. I just don't think the open world should be limited.

I want good fight's at higher lvl's, I know some ppl like to walk around like gods. Difference in veiw point's.

I think for the most part Skyrim is much better than Oblivion was at scaleing. That said, I want some new and different baddies at higher lvl's not just more of one kind or the same one's on steriods.

@Autocthon
There are several locations that are level-locked where you can run through and lay waste to everyone in seconds flat if that is your thing. From your post, though, I can't tell if you _want_ more challenging enemies or loath the idea. You might try browsing some of the available mods to see if you can find one that meets your criteria, though I don't recall any AI overhauls yet.

autocthon-

having read your posts it seems you are missing the point entirely. i don't see anyone advocating that the character should not be able to dominate certain creatures as they level.

in fact, i don't think i've read it even once, unless, i missed/skipped it.

you make many good points, but, they don't really apply to those you are opposing, since, said points apply to another point of view entirely: those who want scaled enemies EXCLUSIVELY. (a slider bar takes care of that, btw.)

I'm for graduated enemy advancement with no scaling on stats. IE no Dynamic Scaling.

I play XBox sadly.

@Osheao: I don;t think any enemy (excepting I guess dragons and bosses) should scale from their base set level. That's the crux of my poingt of view. If you need a new level make a new enemy with a new name. Dynamic Scaling in general is bad because it usually sues linear scaling as in oblivion making some enemies get actually HARDER the higher your level goes as you scale asymptotically.

Hate Scaling in games. A lot.

I like that monsters scale with you.

autocthon-

then, actually i think you agree with most of us. like i said, i think most want an intelligent and limited form of enemy scaling.

i agree and have said that there should be MANY more types of enemies at ALL character levels with some enemies only appearing at certain character levels.

an optional slider bar for the masochists.

and, better a.i. (i don't count on it.)