[Scotty]

this game is ****ing awesome, and I totally bought it with low expectations

Me thinks there might be a connection there that you do not quite realize.

---------

bad guys level up with you

A-a-a-an-nd OFF of my "will spend more than $20.00 on this" list.

It's the same kind of level scaling in FO3 and New Vegas.  You know, the not the kind where that random bandit will have daedric armor and an enchanted battleaxe.

[Mongoose]

I have to wonder why that's a bad mechanic in principle, too.  You'd think you'd want the game to actually make you work to play it, instead of having to slaughter a thousand Level 1 Slimes or whatever if you happen to wander back to where you started.

[Scooby_Doo]

No custom spells??? WTF!?!

[NGTM-1R]

instead of having to slaughter a thousand Level 1 Slimes or whatever if you happen to wander back to where you started.

So let me get this straight: you don't want to experience godlike power when you have godlike power?

[Mikes]

instead of having to slaughter a thousand Level 1 Slimes or whatever if you happen to wander back to where you started.

So let me get this straight: you don't want to experience godlike power when you have godlike power?

To the point where it destroys immersion and any kind of suspense of disbelief ?

:shrugs: maybe that's just me... but I always thought the RPGs where you can come back at lvl, say 60 or whatever, and slaughter lvl 1 Orcs, Bandits or whatever, with a single hit while they can't even move your healthbar visibly at all, even if you just stand there... rather... idiotic. (especially when at the same time you have lvl 65 orcs with the same model that will easily kill you durr durr LOL) I.e.: ... when RPG elements result in power differences that are so overpowering that player agency in combat becomes almost optional or even meaningless in several situations then I can't see how I can still immerse myself in the experience...       ... if a game to a large extent has to rely on making the player kill bigger rats with bigger swords then at least cover that fact up a little please lol

[Flipside]

My problem with the Oblivion-based levelling system is that, as my brother once put it, "What's the point of levelling up your strength when the enemies get extra hitpoints at the same time?" It just turns levels into more of an indication of how long you have been playing than any real indication of your 'skill' compared to those around you.

[JCDNWarrior]

As far as I saw enemies do not really level up with you, it's pretty randomized over the areas I visited (not complete zones of, say, level 5 enemies) The game also works best with Master difficulty level, very tough but very rewarding. I love it so far, over 30 hours in it now and I have (purposefully) avoided the main quest completely. May start on it soon though, it sounds like it'll be really good.

In general, Skyrim is like a really good evolution of Oblivion, mixed with Morrowind and a few elements lended from FO3/FONV. I suggest getting it now, one of those games that are just really worth the money spent.

With mods, this game will turn out to become even more amazing. Will be hard to imagine what it'll look like in a year or two on my screen, but i'll definitely record it like i did with Oblivion mods.

Lastly, the music, is really great. Surprised how long the score is now compared to that of Morrowind and Oblivion.

[Cyborg17]

I was watching a Let's play and I thought I heard a Morrowind track.  Did they port one over, or is it a similar song with some changes?

[BloodEagle]

I have to wonder why that's a bad mechanic in principle, too.  You'd think you'd want the game to actually make you work to play it, instead of having to slaughter a thousand Level 1 Slimes or whatever if you happen to wander back to where you started.

I consider it to be an inherently bad mechanic, in part, because it has never been done correctly, and I have no hopes of it ever being so.

E.g., In FFVIII (ugh), Leveling up actually made the game much harder. It was not out of the question to, after power-leveling near the end of them game, run into an early mob that had well over one million hitpoints!  At a maximum damage of 9999 per hit, guess how long it takes to beat one of those.

E.g., In TES IV (vanilla), equipment and quest rewards scaled with your level, meaning that it was more beneficial to grind your way up to the maximum level (ugh) before doing any quests.  That's not even taking into consideration the fact that your level had no purpose, because you could kill ANYTHING at ANY LEVEL, especially if you were prepared for the fight.

E.g., In Fallout 3, I would routinely encounter Super Mutants (including giants) before I reached level 4, and wiped the map with them, but the same exact enemy would give me more trouble 3 levels later, regardless of where the encounter took place.  THIS MAKES NO SENSE.

I have never seen level scaling handled in such a way that it did not destroy either my willing suspension of disbelief or my enjoyment of the game mechanics, and I consider it to be an inherently bad game mechanic.

[Dark RevenantX]

The levels scale, but not by a whole lot.  Unless you are properly prepared, some areas are VERY hard without being overleveled, even on low difficulty settings.  Next time you try to fight a Dwarven Centurion (that has mage backup) at level 9 you'll know what I mean.  Levelling up causes previously weaker monsters to get a boost, causing them to be more dangerous than before, but this doubles as a way of forcing the player to get better gear.

The game actually encourages you to go through the storyline slowly, because fast travel is GONE until you find a place (there are NO preset spots - you eventually WILL walk/ride to every city/dungeon in the map), and in order to get phat loot to fuel your leveling, you take on any of the dozen or so sidequests you might stumble on in a given city.  The system is much, much better overall.  (The quests are also written somewhat better, but we're not talking about Witcher or Bioware (their good side, at least) quality in a game as large as Skyrim (save for SOME of the quests/stories, which are surprisingly excellent).

[NGTM-1R]

The game actually encourages you to go through the storyline slowly, because fast travel is GONE until you find a place (there are NO preset spots - you eventually WILL walk/ride to every city/dungeon in the map), and in order to get phat loot to fuel your leveling, you take on any of the dozen or so sidequests you might stumble on in a given city. The system is much, much better overall.

It...does not sound any different.

(Glad to hear Dwarven Centurions and possibly ruins are back.)

[Fury]

Level up system is inherently flawed. The two base leveling systems have already been described in this topic, so I won't bother with that.

Instead I'd just like to point out that there is third kind of level up system that has been proven to work much better. Namely one that is entirely ability/skill/talent based. In this system your own health does not increase unless you invest in physical characteristics or abilities increasing it. Likewise for melee damage, accuracy and so on. Point is, this system should in theory never allow your character to become so powerful you simply tear up early opponents without any regards to your own safety. But of course it rewards you by giving you additional tools to inflict the pain.

And not every ability/skill/talent necessarily needs to be about combat prowess. Depending on what kind game it is, there are plenty of other ways to improve the character that has directly nothing to do with combat.

This also avoids the flawed pitfall of each game zone having certain level opponents or opponents leveling up with you. Of course some effort must be spent to keep the game challenging at all times as your character develops. But this is much easier to do within suspension of disbelief because in the end your character still dies after just as many hits unless you specialize him into some kind of muscle man tank, but doing so you will definitely give up on many other skills and abilities.

[Scotty]

And not every ability/skill/talent necessarily needs to be about combat prowess. Depending on what kind game it is, there are plenty of other ways to improve the character that has directly nothing to do with combat.

Are you even talking about Skyrim at all?  This is present in spades.

[Scooby_Doo]

The game actually encourages you to go through the storyline slowly, because fast travel is GONE until you find a place (there are NO preset spots - you eventually WILL walk/ride to every city/dungeon in the map), and in order to get phat loot to fuel your leveling, you take on any of the dozen or so sidequests you might stumble on in a given city. The system is much, much better overall.

It...does not sound any different.

(Glad to hear Dwarven Centurions and possibly ruins are back.)

Sweet!  Dwemer!

[TrashMan]

instead of having to slaughter a thousand Level 1 Slimes or whatever if you happen to wander back to where you started.

So let me get this straight: you don't want to experience godlike power when you have godlike power?

To the point where it destroys immersion and any kind of suspense of disbelief ?

:shrugs: maybe that's just me... but I always thought the RPGs where you can come back at lvl, say 60 or whatever, and slaughter lvl 1 Orcs, Bandits or whatever, with a single hit while they can't even move your healthbar visibly at all, even if you just stand there... rather... idiotic. (especially when at the same time you have lvl 65 orcs with the same model that will easily kill you durr durr LOL) I.e.: ... when RPG elements result in power differences that are so overpowering that player agency in combat becomes almost optional or even meaningless in several situations then I can't see how I can still immerse myself in the experience...       ... if a game to a large extent has to rely on making the player kill bigger rats with bigger swords then at least cover that fact up a little please lol

QFT.

"power" is a rather braod term, and there are many ways for the player to become more powerfull, wihout going hte direct "buff HP and attack" route.
After all, there ARE games where you have no levels, no HP boost, yet still feel like a badass at the end of it.


I lothe HP/damage boosting. It's a very cheap way of making the player feel powerfull, and in 99% of cases it goes overboard (I'm looking at you MMO's!)

When a lvl 5 guy has 100 HP and does 10 damage and lvl 50 has 20000 and 1200 damage, then it goes beyond redicolous.

[TrashMan]

Level up system is inherently flawed. The two base leveling systems have already been described in this topic, so I won't bother with that.

Instead I'd just like to point out that there is third kind of level up system that has been proven to work much better. Namely one that is entirely ability/skill/talent based. In this system your own health does not increase unless you invest in physical characteristics or abilities increasing it. Likewise for melee damage, accuracy and so on. Point is, this system should in theory never allow your character to become so powerful you simply tear up early opponents without any regards to your own safety. But of course it rewards you by giving you additional tools to inflict the pain.

And not every ability/skill/talent necessarily needs to be about combat prowess. Depending on what kind game it is, there are plenty of other ways to improve the character that has directly nothing to do with combat.

This also avoids the flawed pitfall of each game zone having certain level opponents or opponents leveling up with you. Of course some effort must be spent to keep the game challenging at all times as your character develops. But this is much easier to do within suspension of disbelief because in the end your character still dies after just as many hits unless you specialize him into some kind of muscle man tank, but doing so you will definitely give up on many other skills and abilities.

THIS x100000000000

[Dark RevenantX]

Max non-buffed health is around 600 (you start at 100) and you have to give up magicka/stamina levels entirely to get there (both remain at 100) at max level.  Basically, at a levelup, you pick a perk and +10 to health, magicka, or stamina.  The weapon skill, perks, and item damage determine the damage you deal, but the range in damage from level 1 to level 50 is not astronomical.  You can still die to early stuff if you are not paying any attention, but if your level is high, base-level stuff will of course be easy.

A lot of your complaints seem to be assumptions made about the game without actually playing it.  Honestly, the leveling/stats/perks system is one of the better changes they've made since the previous games.  It has not bothered me at all.

[TrashMan]

*rant aimed in general, not only Skyrim. Though the MMO thingy made it clear*

[Commander Zane]

I consider it to be an inherently bad mechanic, in part, because it has never been done correctly, and I have no hopes of it ever being so.

Then look at Wizardry 8's level scaling. There are level caps to the encounter tables meaning that enemies won't scale to your party's level and capability to the letter. The encounters at the starting map do get stronger if you go back but the highest they'll be is around level 13, so you can go back with a party of eight level 30+'s just to curbstomp some creatures. Other maps will have encounter tables with a different level cap, Rapax areas have a limit of 18 I believe, Ascension Peak has a limit of 50 which you wouldn't even reach without an expodential amount of time spent grinding.

tl;dr, Wizardry 8 has limited scaling, so there's still easy encounters and hard encounters all around. Win-win.

[NGTM-1R]

"power" is a rather braod term, and there are many ways for the player to become more powerfull, wihout going hte direct "buff HP and attack" route.

The method in operation, however, is ridiculous. Consider, say, Morrowind. I have a full suit of Dwemer armor and Goldbrand.

I am wearing armor crafted by a civilization that reverse-engineered reality. My weapon was granted to me by a being not dissimilar from a god. My impact on the game world is reflective of this, as there are a very few things that stand a chance of hurting me.

Consider the same setup in Oblivion. You have significantly less impact, though equipped with the same armor and weapons. (Which were, admittedly, significantly easier to obtain.)