One of the things I've seen RPG games go back and forth over is the difficulty of the monsters. Some RPG's make the monsters scale with your level. For example, in a dungeon if you encounter monster A, that monster might only damage 10 health on each hit. If you level up later and come back, that monster will hit maybe 30 health with each hit. Is that good or bad?

I think it is bad. Why? Because it is not realistic. Monsters should either always stay at the same in their combat abilities, or can increase in ability separate from your own leveling. So a monster in a dungeon may only hit 10 health for the whole of the game, or it levels up 1 each year. How does this solve the problem of the player not being able to enter a dungeon and exit alive, or entering a dungeon feeling non-challenged? Well, you can make some loot only usable with abilities that the person has. For example, max strength is needed for some weapons. You can make the entrance covered in lava, so only people with fire-resistance can go through. You scatter awesome and lowsome things in dungeons. Some useable right away, some maybe later in the game. But they will keep them around until they can use it. You can even litter the dungeons with low and high level characters. The player can avoid some areas. This is common sense in real life, it should be common sense in games too. For example, if you are walking home as a kid you may remember an aggressive dog on certain areas, and you remember to avoid that route. When you grow up, you can go past it, because maybe you have a car (armor). Or maybe in class there is a bully you avoid, but when you are older and stronger, you may challenge the bully. Similar experiences should be natural in an RPG. Don't make areas only one type (weak level or high level NPC, or low only or high only items). Mix it up, so players can experience and choose what to do.

I didn't mind the scaling enemies in Oblivion, other than seeing ogres and minotaur lords everywhere.

While I like to always max out my characters in my rpgs, I hate that doing so also means that enemies are push-overs at higher levels, and many targets die in one or two hits. When the game starts to lack challenge, it becomes somewhat boring, and makes my character becoming more powerful feel anti-climatic. It's the abilities and equipment that become accessible at higher levels which make the game more fun, along with the added survivability. It's just unfortunate that my character is the only one getting stronger as the game progresses, in most cases.

I like the system in Skyrim, just slight levelling, with more powerful enemies appearing, however, it doesn't work too well with say a Destruction mage. I would personally prefer slightly less scaling, but the current system is still good.

i completely agree, but i think the dlc should include some more difficult enemies in new territories so you can also receive a challenge IF you wish too.

In a prefect world in all games enemies would scale with your character.it is what made The Diablo series good from a combat stand point.Have them scale and add more on harder settings=a good thing.

Well, if you have it that way, a rat or skeever will hit 1000 health points when you level up. Its just not realistic. You probably don't even need to make any other monsters for challenge. Just keep hitting the rat. Stay in one area, keep killing that same npc. Having lots of different levels, and letting you choose which to avoid and which to engage is a good thing.

I don't really like scaling unless it makes sense, or can be thematically justified. I prefer tiered locations/enemies, with major bosses and characters being the only things scaled.

what they should have is more even leveling between the boss and the peons, ive ran through 100s of crypts where all the small people just blow over if a walk to fast then the boss smacks my for 90% of my health

I agree as well. I think Skyrim's leveling system is an improvement over Oblivion's. At higher levels though it becomes too easy, so I turn it on master difficulty. Which makes the game average difficulty for me.

i think this just makes sense.

as well, there should absolutely be MORE unique enemies. there should be tons of DIFFERENT enemies.

and, the difficulty slider bar OPTION should be mandatory.

edit- the skeever example: at higher levels there should different tiers of a different type of skeever. can still kick the skeevers butt, but, a new type can pose difficulty

Creatures should scale to your character to a certain degree, but not to the point that there's no sense of progression. The more you play, the more powerful you should feel, and it shouldn't be too slow of a process.

no one is saying make everything equal power you silly goose. They are saying that as a whole they get individually stronger with noticible differences in thier strength. Also when i start destroying ancient dragons w/out super buffed up enchanted/smithed weapons and armor something should challenge me a bit without needing to run around naked like i many times resort to.

Yes, I believe they should. They game world is too small to be divided into MMO-style 'zones.'

slider bar takes care of your issues AND still has zone-like areas.

no actually they don't really do, but i personally don't really like mob spawns and will seem wierd in Skyrim, but even on master difficulty buddy and without steroid injected enchanted/smithed equipment i can flex my mighty god-like buttocks to teach an ancient dragon who his daddy is...Spoiler its this guy

No.

Scaling should stop. It makes no sense. Instead quests, guilds, certain events should only happen when somebody meets the minimal requirements. I always like the feeling returning to an area after being destroyed the first time I entered where now I'm able to kill them.

I hate the feeling of being either level 1 or 10 and entering the same dungeon and having the same amount of difficulty. Makes no sense.

There were complaints that New Vegas railroaded you. So while scaling is in essence nonsensical, it seems to be what a lot of people want. You have to have in a degree if your company's philosophy is 'true open world' and that is what your customers expect. Skyrim seems ok, you can go to any area, but some locations will eat your face. Fallout 3 did ok, until they added ghoul reavers and albino scorpions everywhere, but only if you were high level. It wasn't broken, and they tried to fix it.

Exactly.

And what I hate the most is that you can actually start and complete the main quest with level 1 or level 50 character having about the same amount of difficulty (Well, not exactly, but almost) .

IF i put master difficult , i want have a master difficult for all game, not for only a part of game, with skyrim bethesda made alot of stupid decision for make game more adapt for casual this is the true.

Enemy reach max level of 32 with draugr, only vampires or warlock can go above

• Master Vampire (Level: 14-42)(Level 42 is encountered when the player is level 31-38)
  
• Volkihar Master Vampire (Level: 53)(Encountered when player is level 39+)
  
• 36 Pyromancer Cryomancer Electromancer Master Conjurer Master Necromancer 46 Arch Pyromancer Arch Cryomancer Arch Electromancer Arch Conjurer Arch Necromanc

Totally ridicoulous if you think you can reach normally around 50

The scaleing is fine... with the way the radiand quest system is set up I dont see it really working well any other way and to be honest sceled enimies tont really prevent you from feeling powerfull... you show me a level 71 enimie with 70 perk points who's using alchemy, enchanting and smithing... actually the added power of perk points makes the game a cake walk even on master difficulty.

The max level of common enemy are 36, and max level is 53, you never see a powerful enemy.

I would really love to have some radiant quests so difficult that they would be next to impossible to complete with lower level (say <40) character. That would make you feel powerful when you reach a level high enough to complete random fedex jobs.

I think Skyrim achieved this at most parts. Still there are some dumb scaling like the thief bosses and some of the random encounters in the wild. Some random orc should not be as tough as you.

Starting level 30, I want bunnies to be like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg