Is it just me, or does 'level scaling' make Oblivion pointless?

CodeMonkey

RopeDrink wrote:

Not correct.
Granted, you could enter new area's where you'd come across similar beasties you used to meet at lower levels but if you returned to the areas that contained the variations that slapped you in the chops at lower levels, you'd annihilate them in one hit.

Actually regarding ff8, the enemies do scale but they only gain level and thus more hp and maybe deal more damage. I think some enemies gain new abilities but I can't really remember. You will still kill them in 1 hit though because your attack power from your new weapon or your new powerful spells scales differently and will deal more damange than the HP they would've gained. Plus access to much better item would've increased your hp to a silly level compared to the enemies who only scale due to levels.

And that's kinda the point of level scaling. If the developers have done their job right, the enemies you encounter should still be easier to kill than before because of the better weapons, spells and stats you have. The level scaling just means that after playing for a while you can't just annihilate creatures by merely touching them. Leveling scaling is a good thing.

saado

Basically, if you were having trouble with random encounters, you weren't junctioning right, i never had a single problem with any boss or random encounter, including the Islands closest to heaven/hell.
Regarding Oblivion, if you've been having trouble with the scaling, your build isn't suited to the system, though that's more the fault of Bethesda than anything, but then you could say that they intended it to be that way so that certain classes and builds offered more of a challenge.
I've had very few problems with the level scaling, and as many people have said, only certain enemies scale fully, I can kill most wolves and enemies that i encounter on the roads in one hit quite easily, the gates are more of a challenge, but with some tactics and strategising I get through with few problems, the system mightn't always work, but I find that it works perfectly for me, so the game always provides a good challenge. If you can't hack it there's always the difficulty slider, or you could reroll.

quarryman

Matt Simis wrote:

As I stated above only some mobs actually level with you:

Xivalli (sp)
Lich
Goblin Warlords
Goblin Shaman
Demora/Daedra lords
Quest Specific named NPCs
Minotaurs Lords (not standard or other variants)

Things that dont level at all:
Rats, Bears, Lions, Most Ghosts, Zomibies under Dread Zombie, Guards (seemingly), most Vampires etc etc.

More things dont level than do, I would prefer if a ratio system was in place for nearly all mobs, the idea of capping the level system frankly leads me to believe you grossly mis-spec'ed your character for your play style. The game gets easier the longer you play, the mobs dont get decked out in magic armour, weapons and Master Skills as you do.


Matt

This is important. So most creatures DON'T scale?!!

It seems further down in this thread that the low level rats and wolves are just replaced by bears and zombies though?

Which is it?

koneko

Depends on where you are, really. In some areas creatures/mobs are replaced. I was in the sewers for a quest the other day and there were rats and crabs everywhere (one hit kills). Bears don't level either, they were hard before but easy now.

Pugsley

One thing worth noting in Oblivion, is that if you take only skills you WONT use as major skills, you wont level up, by level, but you will level up in skills, you can have 100 blade skill, and be doing 20 odd damage with a sword, and still be level one and kill everything you meet in 2 or 3 swings with your rusty iron shortsword, and your suit of chainmail can give you upwards of 40 armour when mixed with your rusty iron shield so nothing does any damage to you either. You will still be level 1, your gear will suck, you will have very little health or mana, but you will wipe out everything in cyrodiil because their only level 1 too.

The levelling system is flawed at best (and the arena is indeed a joke), however it doesnt take all that much from gameplay until about level 30+ where you have your full daedric/glass armour, your capped 85 armour, your 100% magic resist, you 40% or more damage return, your minute long dremora lord summon, your daedric long sword with 25 shock damage, or your glass bow with 8 second paralyse, and simply nothing can even look at you sideways without spontaniously combusting out of pure fear, even enemy dremora lords, or storm atronoch's, or Xivi's, or Vampire patriarch's just dont cut it anymore, the game is far too easy in the late game, and a walkover early game if you play your card right (making your weapon of choice a minor skill and training it every level helps a LOT, you will be master by level 10 or so).

Koneko wrote:

Depends on where you are, really. In some areas creatures/mobs are replaced. I was in the sewers for a quest the other day and there were rats and crabs everywhere (one hit kills). Bears don't level either, they were hard before but easy now.

Was in the sewers under the imperial city with my 2nd charecter (level 27 at the time), and I met a bandit in a mixtue of glass and elven armour, with a glass longsword, which didnt really make much sense.

Vegeta

My main complaint is that bad guys get better and better armor as the game goes on, the stuff doesn't even exist in the early levels then all of a sudden bandits start wearing glass armor and orcish armor, its completely stupid, its like all of a sudden expensive armor comes into fashion and there are little kids in sweat shops making expensive equipment for enemies.

I can see what they were going for but messed it up with the equipment they gave common as muck enemies. Only very difficult quest enemies should be wearing that sort of stuff.

garrethg

quarryman wrote:

This is important. So most creatures DON'T scale?!!

No, whether they scale or not depends on parameters set by Bethesda's world designers but the vast majority of creatures are set to scale via one or more of these systems:

A Leveled Creature list, which generates a particular category of creature based on the player's level.

The creature's PC Level Offset, which sets the minimum and maximum strength range of that creature instance.

And, in the case of creatures that carry equipment, the Leveled Item list, which calculates (wildly in)appropriate kit for the creature based on the player level.

Pugsley wrote:

One thing worth noting in Oblivion, is that if you take only skills you WONT use as major skills... you can have 100 blade skill, and be doing 20 odd damage with a sword, and still be level one and kill everything you meet in 2 or 3 swings with your rusty iron shortsword

Yup, thanks to Bethesda’s hamfisted implementation of levelling Oblivion has the ‘honour’ of being the only RPG in existence where levelling up makes the game more difficult.

steviec

garrethg wrote:

Yup, thanks to Bethesda’s hamfisted implementation of levelling Oblivion has the ‘honour’ of being the only RPG in existence where levelling up makes the game more difficult.

I'm still the only one who thinks thats a good thing? I want my games to get more challenging as they go on.

There are some issues making it exploitable but no more exploitable than Morrowind was.

Personally I'm still loving the game, although I am still fairly low level since I don't get that much free time at home and I spend 90% of my time in towns rather than dungeons when I do play.

Zillah

steviec wrote:

I'm still the only one who thinks thats a good thing? I want my games to get more challenging as they go on.

Of course the game should stay/get more challenging. Thats doesn't mean that everything shoudl be challenging though. Goblins should fall in their dozens by the end, but there should be new and bigger opponents that make it scary, rather than simply having endless lines of increasingly powerful goblins (or something like that).

Captain Trips

Karl Hungus wrote:

No matter what level you are, every encounter is the same.
No matter how many different beasts are in the game, every encounter is the same.
No matter what equipment you've got, every encounter is the same.
No matter what variables there are, it all adds up to total and all-encompassing tedium.

You're post just put me off getting a 360 and Oblivion! I had no idea that was there as it's the first time I've seen someone describe it in Oblivion.

Maybe though it's a technique to reduce the levelling up tedium that can be introduced in RPGs after a while when you get good at the game, and so you concentrate on the story/plot? (I haven't played it so I am just guessing). So in a way, maybe that's a good thing?

Ri_Nollaig

Captain Trips wrote:

Maybe though it's a technique to reduce the levelling up tedium that can be introduced in RPGs after a while when you get good at the game, and so you concentrate on the story/plot? (I haven't played it so I am just guessing). So in a way, maybe that's a good thing?

thats basicly why it was used... however by fixing this "problem" it just caused others.

Vegeta

Zillah wrote:

Of course the game should stay/get more challenging. Thats doesn't mean that everything shoudl be challenging though. Goblins should fall in their dozens by the end, but there should be new and bigger opponents that make it scary, rather than simply having endless lines of increasingly powerful goblins (or something like that).

Couldn't agree more, I have no problem with a game getting tougher as it progresses but some enemies should still be one hit kills, I know rats and mud crabs are but eventually goblins, bandits and your average vampire should be blade fodder.

Also if you don't like spending over an hour in an oblivion gate, make like a runner and just run around everywhere, i saw my friend doing it (he was level 27) and it worked no hassle, he literally just ran through the whole place killing nothing and was done in about 10-11 mins.

Vegeta

Captain Trips wrote:

You're post just put me off getting a 360 and Oblivion! I had no idea that was there as it's the first time I've seen someone describe it in Oblivion.

Maybe though it's a technique to reduce the levelling up tedium that can be introduced in RPGs after a while when you get good at the game, and so you concentrate on the story/plot? (I haven't played it so I am just guessing). So in a way, maybe that's a good thing?

Buy them both even with this annoyance it is still a very enjoyable experience, one of the best gaming experience in the last 5 years for me anyway

garrethg

steviec wrote:

I'm still the only one who thinks thats a good thing? I want my games to get more challenging as they go on.

Absolutely, it's great thing when achieved by competent design and play balancing while set in a meaningful context. Oblivion on the other hand features none of those attributes. Its progress system is like training day after day to become a better sprinter only to arrive at the big race and have a sack of concrete strapped to your back. Oblivion's implementation of level scaling completely destroys the fundamental trial->reward enables greaterTrial->greaterReward dynamic all RPGs have been based upon since Dungeons & Dragons was a twinkle in Gary Gygax's eye.

steviec wrote:

Personally I'm still loving the game, although I am still fairly low level

There's your lack of problem With the exception of theft and lock picking it all works ok for the early creature types and loot, but wait until level 20 when it ceases to be an RPG and becomes a poorly paced FPS.

Jumpy

Vegeta wrote:

Couldn't agree more, I have no problem with a game getting tougher as it progresses but some enemies should still be one hit kills, I know rats and mud crabs are but eventually goblins, bandits and your average vampire should be blade fodder.

Also if you don't like spending over an hour in an oblivion gate, make like a runner and just run around everywhere, i saw my friend doing it (he was level 27) and it worked no hassle, he literally just ran through the whole place killing nothing and was done in about 10-11 mins.

I tried that and got wasted by the jumping mines.

uberpixie

garrethg wrote:

Absolutely, it's great thing when achieved by competent design and play balancing while set in a meaningful context. Oblivion on the other hand features none of those attributes. Its progress system is like training day after day to become a better sprinter only to arrive at the big race and have a sack of concrete strapped to your back. Oblivion's implementation of level scaling completely destroys the fundamental trial->reward enables greaterTrial->greaterReward dynamic all RPGs have been based upon since Dungeons & Dragons was a twinkle in Gary Gygax's eye.

Yes and no. With some of the creatures, once i got passed level 30, yeah I can kill a lot easier than before, once you get the dadreic armour and weapons.

I can run through the oblivion levels now: all I need is a bag full of armour to repair my gear and i'm set.

Outside of the oblivion levels, in general most stuff has become easier to kill, but the odd time you come across some goblins armed with tooth picks that really start to, magically, kick the hole off ya.

Hate the way stuff gets faster if you start to put your speed up.

What bugs me about the game is that exploration is worthless: the loot in all dungeons is usually uniformly crap. The level of crapness depends on your level (wow the chest had 85 gold and 2 lockpicks, not 50 gold and 1 lock pick like the last time cos I leveled up wow)

You explore only to be attacked by bandits in glass armour yet again. There really is so little variety in the enemies and the dungeons there is not much incentive to explore.

The general missions in the game are ok, some of the guild quests are dacent with good rewards.

But all in all, oblivion and morrowind, have always seemed to be an exercise in quantity over quality.

You certainly get your gaming hours out of the game, it's not some 10 hour sprint, but it does get very boring after a while.

I am having my fun with the game but really it's a case of same ****e different dungeon.

garrethg

uberpixie wrote:

I can run through the oblivion levels now: all I need is a bag full of armour to repair my gear and i'm set.

Outside of the oblivion levels, in general most stuff has become easier to kill, but the odd time you come across some goblins armed with tooth picks that really start to, magically, kick the hole off ya.

In the case of Oblivion gates I think the mobs are capped around lv.25, so that's an instance of the levelling system stopping and the game becoming more like Morrowind. Other mobs have no max level hence the super goblins.

Karl Hungus

uberpixie wrote:

What bugs me about the game is that exploration is worthless: the loot in all dungeons is usually uniformly crap. The level of crapness depends on your level (wow the chest had 85 gold and 2 lockpicks, not 50 gold and 1 lock pick like the last time cos I leveled up wow)

Agreed.

I've pretty much got fed up of it Oblivion at this stage. I might try and play the main quest through, as it could have a decent enough storyline, but a rewarding RPG experience Oblivion is not.

uberpixie

Karl Hungus wrote:

Agreed.

I've pretty much got fed up of it Oblivion at this stage. I might try and play the main quest through, as it could have a decent enough storyline, but a rewarding RPG experience Oblivion is not.

Oblivion/morrowind is what it is, style over substance.

I knew the kind of game it was going to be, so I can't whinge too much!

It's not all negative.

I do like the skills system and the way you level it's just a shame they did not have a much more refined scaling system for the enemies.

Or have a little more randomness to the loot: look at diablo 1, that did a very good job with random loot and that was back in the pentium 1 days!

I am pretty much just going to stick to the main quest and finish off the assassins guilds quests and thats it.

Can't be arsed doing treasure hunts for 2d NPCs or grind my way through the same dungeon with the same enemies a couple of dozen times :-)

As for replayability: not much. The quests are pretty much set in stone and I doubt they change much a 2nd time round.

Zillah

Karl Hungus wrote:

Agreed.

I've pretty much got fed up of it Oblivion at this stage. I might try and play the main quest through, as it could have a decent enough storyline, but a rewarding RPG experience Oblivion is not.

The main quest kick ass. I just finished it.

psychooys

thats a very good point, i didn't know they scaled the enenmies, but i do know in the last morrow wind game i just got to a point where nothing could even lan a hit on me before i had rocked the **** out of its world. so i know why but yes it does need to be thought about more than that.

anonymous_joe

Haven't played much Oblivion as my PC's ****, just done the first bit. But I finsihed Morrowind and one of the Expansion packs.

One problem I had with Morrowind, was that you'd see a dungeon off to your side, on a road in a safe enough area, and you'd go in. Instantly, some bugger in massive armour with a big shiny sword would chop you up in about 3 hits.

However, towards the end, I was incredibly powerful. I'd go into a ruins, and cut Daedra down in seconds. It was easy.

Some scaling then, would be more than welcome. So long as its not detrimental to the game as a whole.