>>4002288
>Level scaling sucks
This is what midwits would have you believe

>>4002297
It's makes leveling pointless, especially if it's linear scaling.

>>4002303
See?

Is there a single person on this board who is not a midwit at their best?

>>4002297
>>4002315
Great arguments, retard.

>>4002288
Level scaling sucks but I like damage floors for both the player and the enemy. Being able to tank damage should be build specific and not just based on level and progression.

>>4002288
Level scaling is fine if there's a limit per certain region/groups of enemies like in AC Odyssey. The starting area goes up to level 15 and never beyond, later regions have a higher limit etc. Unlimited level scaling like in Oblivion just stinks and punishes the player for playing the game.

>>4002303
It depends on what leveling gives you. If levels represent horizontal expansion of your toolkit, not just your vertical power, then no it doesn't make leveling pointless. You still prefer having more tools, even if the challenges you face remain challenging.
There aren't many games which involve explicit levels that don't match challenges to your level either implicitly (by simply staging your progress through the game's content such that you enter higher level areas as you gain levels) or explicitly (by hard coding enemies and challenges so that they dynamically match your level no matter where you are).
In fact, Owlcat has gotten a lot of flak for how easy their games become by the time you reach the end game. That's the actual result of level scaling of content not keeping up with the player's power growth: you trivialize the game and end up bored because there's no challenge left.
And something similar happens in Oblivion and Skyrim, too, you know. There's "level scaling" but it just flat out does not keep up with you for very long. Which is why the end game in those games is so boring: everything is trivialized because you've outscaled it.

morrowind is the only good elder scrolls game.

So just disable it? I haven't played a single playthrough with levelscaling in both games since like 2019 or something

Level scaling is fundamentally flawed and a failure on the part of game designers. Tailoring the challenge to the player should be done through world design and quest design, not by a clumsy algorithm. It has never felt good and has always been immersion-breaking, silly, and gamey. It violates the games own internal rules.

>>4002385
morrowind also has level scaling

>>4002410
>morrowind also has level scaling
Morrowind has more leveled lists than Morrowind fanboys think it does but less than Morrowind haters think in does. There are a few creature types spawned from leveled lists (Daedra, undead) but every single humanoid NPC in the game has a fixed level, stat and skill block, and inventory, so no it does not have “level scaling” in the sense that Oblivion, or a lesser extent Skyrim, do.

>>4002297
nah its a lazy mechanic for shit devs who don't want to balance their game and want to baby players in open worlds

>>4002410
Yes, but not universally, and not to the degree of the two following games.

>oh you've settled into a character build that kills monsters good? Well fuck you, here's a new stat block for every trash mob in the game, we put a thousand game hours into hardening everything against your idea of fun AND WE'LL FUCKING DO IT AGAIN

Skyrim had good level scaling where the higher up in elevation you went, the higher the floor would be. Oblivion's was lazy and bad sure, which is why they never did it like that again.

>be 8 in unscaled cyrodiil
>agree to kill some west weald bears that have been bothering some poor fellow's sheep
>first bear is no problem
>second bear looks lazily up at you from the dead xivilai it had just 1-shotted
>lure to imperial city
>depopulate the docks, talos, gardens
>finally goes down under heavy fire after eating half the university
>time for 3rd bear

>>4002445
>Skyrim had good level scaling where the higher up in elevation you went, the higher the floor would be.
It’s an okay idea in principle, but in practice it did very little because of how low the floors and ceilings are, and how narrow the ranges are. You will generally never notice it except for a handful of “late game” areas entered at a very low level. I’ve manually modded all the encounter zones before and it’s very tedious.

>>4002288
yeah

>>4002416
It also has a LOT of pre-placed loot and monsters. Plus, I don't think many people have a problem with monsters being replaced by explicitly stronger versions. The problem with level scaling comes in when you face identical-looking enemies that are stronger for no reason. Like a rat having 15 HP at level 3 suddenly has 250 HP at level 15 for no reason other than your character got stronger, and now those weak-looking rats are more powerful in absolute terms than mountain bears were at level 3.
Skyrim and Oblivion both scale like that. Morrowind doesn't.

>>4002742
>Like a rat having 15 HP at level 3 suddenly has 250 HP at level 15 for no reason other than your character got stronger
>Skyrim and Oblivion both scale like that. Morrowind doesn't.
..Morrowind is the one that has level scaled rats, you doofus.

>>4003290
they all do

>>4002382
Self explanatory. Every point you make. Most games have like 1-100 and most skills are learned around 30 to 50. Having level 100 when starting around is stupid. In part 2 you start again at level 2, lol.

>>4003299
Oblivion and Skyrim do not have level scaled rats, unless there's some quest specific variants I don't remember.

>>4003319
level scaling applies to everything in Oblivion and Skyrim

>>4002288
It's fine, but it needs to be used carefully. Some enemies can scale, some shouldn't, depends on the area, quest. Equipment might scale, but it might not. Bandits might get better gear, with or without scaling, but not all of them, for example.

>>4002288
at least you were able to realize skyrim ALSO has the exact same problem true CHIM comes when you realize the remaining 3 games all have it too, they just did it better lol.
idk if its just me playing mage/mage variations too much, or everyone else NOT playing mage ENOUGH, but the same issue is very apparent in (vanilla) skyrim for a pure magic-user. the scaling itself might be slightly toned down, but the tools you have left to fight back with are severely kneecapped. to the point where it feels a LOT worse
in oblivion its basically the opposite. pure physical characters just dont have the tools they need to keep up with max END critters scaling directly with their PCs lvl. everything ends up a sponge.

thankfully the quick and dirty fix is pretty easy. just lower the bottom bracket for scaling so that weak enemies dont disappear, and so every bandit isnt at whatever absurd PC lvl youre at. then just add lvl caps depending on which enemies, could be at different lvls. for wolf, 10. for a bandit it might be >20, etc on enemies so they stop scaling to infinity
boom, it just works™
ill take my gorillion dollhairs todd kthx

>>4002288
Yes.
>>4002297
>lets be contrarian for no reason
You are a retard.

>>4003319
Oblivion and Skyrim don't have variants. They invisibly gain HP and damage as you level. Morrowind has Diseased and Blighted rats which are stronger than regular, but all three variants' stats are fixed regardless of whether you encounter them at level 1 or level 30.

>>4003373
>Oblivion and Skyrim don't have variants. They invisibly gain HP and damage as you level.
False.

>>4003382
he's right tho

>>4002410
It's basically non existent and only effects random overworld spawns iirc

>>4003388
>It's basically non existent and only effects random overworld spawns iirc
False.

>>4003388
>only effects random overworld spawns
and about half of all the dungeon ones too. basically anything that isnt a named NPC. its the VAST majority of all enemies youll fight in the game
same thing with the loot. the stuff placed in the world is all static, and a few important chests are similarly static, but nearly every other container is randomly generated based on your lvl when you open it.
MW just balances it better by blending some statics in with the procgen mush, leading ppl to praise its "totally handcrafted world" its dont. they just procgenned it better lol.

>>4003383
diff fag, but he isnt
oblivion DOES have variants, but due to how the scaling/encounter tables works, some of them wont rly show up, particularly the lower variants. for ex, if you go do that anvil fighters guild quest with pinarus when youre low lvl, you wont be fighting actual mt lions like youd be fighting out in the wilds at like lvl 15. theyll be "starving mt lions", and much much weaker and with way worse stats

then theres all the obvious ones
off the top of my head
>wolves/timber wolves
>stunted scamps/scamps
>clannfear runts/clannfears
>various dremora (both the melee and mage types have several variations each)
>xivilai (same as above)
>faded wraiths/wraiths/gloom wraiths
>liches/ancient lichs
etc
theres a lot more tho. and all of them not only have different stats, and scale differently, but they have diff spells, diff constant effects, different loot tables etc.
again the issue is that due to the way the scaling works. youll generally see one variation over and over, till the next lvl scale, when theyll be gone forever and be replaced by the new variation
you gotta look at it chronologically. MW was pissbabby ez. that was a problem a lot of ppl had. so they overcorrected, making EVERYTHING scale to PC lvl. then everyone complained again, so they "widened the bracket" for what can show up at what lvl, and applied caps to non-unique enemies in skyrim. still pretty much the same system tho, they just took out attributes entirely rather than trying to just fix shit lol how about just not making it so every mob gets max HP/lvl? just a thought lol

>>4002288
I have never had a problem with it, outside the funny situation where someone in ebony armour is trying to rob me. Like, just go sell your armour bro. You can live the rest of your life on the gold from that.

>>4002288
Level scaling keeps the whole world relevant.
Without scaling, you either need to make the difference in power from one level to another be negligible, or you have to just accept that the player is only going to be viable in a small section of the world at any given time, and once they grow out of it, they become railroaded to the next.
You no longer have the choice of which direction to go, and what to do because the vast majority of them are going to be too low level or too high level.

>>4002288
Yes it is, and everyone disagreeing is an obvious retard.
The solution is to abolish levels. They were a fucking stupid idea back in the 1970s, and they're beyond retarded now.

>>4003557
>They were a fucking stupid idea back in the 1970s, and they're beyond retarded now.
Don’t sign you are posts, nonbinary-kun

>>4003569
wow nice hypocrisy

>>4002476
That's the point of the design, to let people set off in any direction they want and have a mostly frictionless experience. By contrast, New Vegas had it set up so that to have a frictionless experience you had to take the long way around to New Vegas and it made a lot of Bethesda game fans angry.

>>4003501
Have you considered not having entire regions stuck at one level set? NPCs and sublocations in a region can be different level than the norm of that region, anon. Morrowind did that easily.

>>4002742
It's most apparent with mages in Skyrim, they all wear the same dark robe that protects absolutely nothing, but the master mages can tank 20 axe hits to the face for some reason. Mods improve Skyrim so much, shame nexus has become such garbage, modding is so daunting these days, especially with the anniversary edition fiasco with so much stuff that is so fucking bad I wouldn't want it in my game even for free, the very presence of the "content" is a downgrade.

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>>4002288
>Every area has its own level
WAAAAAHHH I'M BEING RAILROADED
>Enemies scale to level
WAAAAHHHH MY BUILD CAN'T HURT THEM
>Levels are capped at a low number
WAAAAHHHH MY POWER FANTASY

What do you fucking WANT?

>>4008036
>What do you fucking WANT?
Skyrim was the best compromise for me.

>>4008036
Quote one (1) post espousing all of these viewpoints simultaneously.

I thought in Skyrim, the level of an area was locked to whatever level you are when you first enter it? Seems like a pretty good system. Although I guess that would be cheesable if you just travelled everywhere and locked it to a low level. I think the best system in an open world game would be to have levels of areas increase the further they are from your starting point. Or just have every successive area you enter increase in level.

The worst system is levelling up the ENTIRE WORLD as you level. That just makes having levels pointless. What's the point of leveling up, if you can't go back to a previous area and kick the arse of enemies you previously had trouble with?

On the subject of difficulty stuff I hate, I really hate super customizable difficulty settings. I like games that simply set a challenge that's either easy or hard and simply force you to deal with it instead of having 20 sliding bars of optional settings
>>4008776
Skyrim doesn't work like that. Certain enemies are more dangerous with how they scale, but that's about it. Amalur did something like that, but combined with other aspects of the game it was mostly just annoying since it made large portions of a massive map trivially easy with little reward for exploring

>>4008776
>go back to a previous area and kick the arse of enemies
Does someone here actually do this in RPGs? IMO it gets boring and pointless in about.. 5 minutes. Not worth expiring the content.

>>4008797
Skyrim has radiant quests, so you're bound to backtrack eventually if you keep playing, but would you even want enemies to be weaker in that case? Milage may vary a lot on if those are ever worth it really, but that's a different conversation
Otherwise the only reason I'm doing something like that in a game is because I forgot to do a quest that leads to something bigger down the road, so it's busywork either way

>>4008802
It can happen in Skyrim, whole dungeon or area being stuck on low level when revisiting. It's like playing on easy mode suddenly, which doesn't make for engaging combat. I wouldn't want to discover a new location only to find low level enemies that offer no gameplay beyond oneshotting them.

Skyrim does a fine job having occasional weak enemies in the world.

>>4002288
These games weren't good without level-scaling either.

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I fucking love Gothic's scaling bros

>>4002297
>>4002315
>pretending the real midwits aren't the fat dykes working at bethesda
pathetic. level scaling ruins the feeling of progression that you get from conquering a previously unexpected danger. it is a confession that the bounds of their damage formula are totally unknown - that the hp, attack, risk/reward of a creature can be a simple function of player level instead of an omniscient knowledge of dps, hp, healing rate limitations of gearing and stat progression. this is the dumbest take, and was created so bethesda could hire a thousand retarded niggers to create a progression system. imagine hating how the midgar zolom made you feel.. dying to it and then returning to see it btfo. level scaling is for complete retards

>>4002288
>Level scaling sucks
Educate yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuGcchrWVF0

Level scaling is necessary if you're trying to pursue a certain design philosophy. Ken Rolston (lead designer for Oblivion) has talked about how one of the main principles he wanted to adhere to with Oblivion was freedom. The player should be able to do anything that there is to do in the game right from the very start. When you're done with the tutorial area and pop out the sewer, you are centrally placed on the map and can pretty much head in any direction you want; that's not an accident. Personally, I think it's great. You can head to any city, talk to any NPC, and do any quest they give you.
I fucking hate open world RPGs that cordon off large swaths of the world before you level up enough. It makes me feel stifled and the game linear. The whole appeal of an open world is that you can head off in any directions and find something there.
Without level scaling your "open world" just becomes different linear levels contained within an overworld.

>>4002288
In principle I agree. In Skyrim it's not much of an issue. It's not like engaging combat is the point of that game.

>>4012530
>The player should be able to do anything that there is to do in the game right from the very start
>Level 1 Retard Nigger
>Stumble out of a sewer because of some happenstance
>Stroll into daedra portal
>Kill daedra because there are level 1 shitter daedra thanks to (((level scaling)))
>Stumble out of the portal
>All immersion destroyed immediately because Ken Rolston has 40 IQ and tunnel visions on a chicken soup for the soul word like 'freedom'
nobody cares about freedom, I want a game that doesn't feel like it was made by indians

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>>4012530
by the way if that retard wanted freedom he should've kept the character creation / spell designer from daggerfall. Ken Rolston.. what a RETARD. level scaling should be ILLEGAL

>>4002288
>Levels suck
ftfy
Remove levels, and the problem goes away.
I will never understand why modern-day RPGs feel obliged to use mechanics invented by Gary Gygax in the 1970s.

>>4003422
the real issue with oblivion level scaling is
1. max level enemies that become ungodly damage sponges late game.
2. melee damage being bugged combined with certain level brackets having way too big of stat jumps

there really isn't much issue with scaling until you top out on encounter tables, then you get the stupid goblins with 5k hp that take 10 years to kill unless you use looped weakness to magic cheese. the handful of issues you do hit are shit like clannfear, that roughly double the hp and like triple the dps of the enemy they replace. that's not scaling's issue per se, just atrocious enemy balance on specific enemies

all of this is compounded by weapon damage being literally 1/2 what it should be because the retard that coded the melee damage formula divided by 4 in one spot instead of by 2. some oblivion autismo made a youtube video calculating the maximum non-power attack melee damage you can do (before enemy damage reduction), and its like 65. best weapon, max skill, max attribute, full fatigue, 125% weapon durability, the works.

>thread full of retards trying to equate morrowind's levelled lists to oblivion's explicit
>enemy hp = PC_Level x 25, enemy damage = PC_Level x 6
>bullshit

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>>4002288
True and real. Those games without mods would have flopped hard. Without cheats or exploits most builds are nonviable so people are forced to play only certain builds like stealth archer or have no fun at all. Overall they are filled with bad game design decisions.

>>4012816
>>thread full of retards
Many such cases.

>>4012816
>>thread full of retards trying to equate morrowind's levelled lists to oblivion's explicit
>enemy hp = PC_Level x 25, enemy damage = PC_Level x 6
Quote one example of someone doing this in the thread.

>>4002288
Honestly I was fine with skyrims way of level scaling.
Stuff does scale with you to an extent but some areas are naturally easier/harder at base. Like even at level 1 you're gonna run into stuff like trolls and bears who will fuck you up. Those enemies don't disappear either so once you're stronger you get the satisfaction of fucking them up with ease. Its not like oblivion where everything is stuck at whatever level you are and anything weaker vanishes from the game.
Its not perfect but at least they did improve things between games.

>>4002288
In oblivion? Yes,absolutely.
However skyrim is such an easy game level scaling does nothing.

>>4012823
>Those games without mods would have flopped hard.

They're massive successes on consoles that don't have modding.

>>4012816
yes it challenges the claim that level scaling sucks. it turns out that it only sucks when poorly implemented, like in oblivion

>>4013269
>real level scaling has never been tried