Skyrim's level scaling.. hmmm.

[MiracleOfSound]

Has anyone else found that the level scaling gets a little annoying around level 48/49?

My first 40 or so levels on Skyrim the combat felt perfect to me, enemies died fast but I still had to be careful as I could be ass whooped by the odd tough one. Nicely balanced for the most part with the odd challenging 'boss' guy thrown in.

But right now I am getting my game sabotaged by seemingly endless Ancient Dragon attacks which aren't all that hard but quite a boring grind as the damage sponging assholes take forever to kill. They seem to be spawning more frequently than ever too, almost every time I fast travel to a town or near a mountain.

Also, the Draugr dungeons seem to be populated almost exclusively by Deathlords and Overlords now, which again makes the game less enjoyable as too much time is spent whacking endlessly away on 1300HP tanks. Last night, for the first time in my 120+ hours I actually rage quit Skyrim, (all though it was more of a 'eh can't be bothered' quit than a rage quit) due to it spawning 5 deathlords and an overlord on me all at once. I love the game but sometimes I just don't have the patience for yet another fight like that

It's nowhere near as bad as Oblivion but still... does anyone else think the enemy scaling could use just a teeny tiny bit of toning down, to make higher levels less of a drag?

 

[Jake Lewis Clayton]

I dislike the stronger and stronger daugr I keep having to come up against, especially if I have to venture into a new dungeon for a misc quest, which would only net me 500 gold.

To then come up against enemies with ebony and glass weapons, bit of an annoying fight to be honest.

 

[DustyDrB]

Yeah, that's about when I quit. I wish they made the enemies more dangerous rather than just give them a ton of health. And I was just bored of Draugr (and bandits) in general. Though I can still take the Deathlords down in 2 or 3 stealth shots, it just gets dull.

But still, it was 120 hours of fun. I think I was level 48 when I stopped. I'll probably come back after some major patches. I really want to get the last Daedric artifact, but Meridia's quest bugged out on me so I can't find her beacon.

 

[VincentR]

Maybe I just did my character wrong (huh?), but as a sword and shield guy, I've felt the game to be FAIRLY well balanced in terms of level scaling for most enemies. However, the dragons.. not so much in my opinion. I can barely do anything to them - and that's IF they decide to grace my presence with a landing and don't decide to just endlessly strafe me with fire/cold/what have you breath attacks.

Additionally, I ran into an ancient dragon for the first time. I was like - oh god, I'm screwed. So I'm running away - and then the second dragon appears. I swear to god; Skyrim was out for blood for a grand total of about 90 seconds. Then it had the mercy to simply crash my PS3 before I could die like a milk-drinking baby.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Maybe I just did my character wrong (huh?), but as a sword and shield guy, I've felt the game to be FAIRLY well balanced in terms of level scaling for most enemies. However, the dragons.. not so much in my opinion. I can barely do anything to them - and that's IF they decide to grace my presence with a landing and don't decide to just endlessly strafe me with fire/cold/what have you breath attacks.

Do the main quest, you get a shout that forces them to land. makes them a little bit less annoying

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Meh, I feel it is just perfect. Having that many strong Draugr and glass armored thugs is a perfect balance for my 2 swords that does 300 damage each, 80% damage reduction and no-mana cost spells.

How predictable.

I actually expected at least one person would come onto it just to brag about their ultra-powerful character...

 

[menhir]

Meh, I feel it is just perfect. Having that many strong Draugr and glass armored thugs is a perfect balance for my 2 swords that does 300 damage each, 80% damage reduction and no-mana cost spells.

How predictable.

I actually expected at least one person would come onto it just to brag about their ultra-powerful character...

It's not even that he has an ultra-powerful character. He obviously did some recursive alchemy/enchanting exploiting, but even just the baseline enchanting/smithing combo brings the difficulty down to zero. With a two-hander nothing in the game takes more than three hits except dragons, which take seven or less. I finished the game at level 52, and I may as well have been playing Saints Row 3 by the way I just dick slapped everything out of my way.

I think it's less that level scaling is off and more that the game is just not balanced and was never intended to be. If you're having a hard time, minmax to whatever level you feel comfortable. If it's too easy, punch dragons to death.

 

[Phishfood]

I feel the scaling difficulty needs more variance, and perhaps to add difficulty with numbers rather than HP.

For example:
Double the number of enemies in a zone but leave HP as they are.
Have the odd area be easy.
Have the odd area be too hard.

The thing that kills me is that its not really making the game "harder" the fights are still the same, just longer.

I liked in fallout how I could walk to one area and go "hmm, bandits...I'll use the 9mm for this" then another area "hmm, super mutants - plasma rifle time" and then another "haw, ants. HAND TO HAND!!"

 

[Hippobatman]

Maybe I just did my character wrong (huh?), but as a sword and shield guy, I've felt the game to be FAIRLY well balanced in terms of level scaling for most enemies. However, the dragons.. not so much in my opinion. I can barely do anything to them - and that's IF they decide to grace my presence with a landing and don't decide to just endlessly strafe me with fire/cold/what have you breath attacks.

Additionally, I ran into an ancient dragon for the first time. I was like - oh god, I'm screwed. So I'm running away - and then the second dragon appears. I swear to god; Skyrim was out for blood for a grand total of about 90 seconds. Then it had the mercy to simply crash my PS3 before I could die like a milk-drinking baby.

I've had three dragons come at me at once. One good ol' regular dragon and two frost dragons, which are annoying as hell. On top of that there was a bandit pack and a frost troll. This was around level 30ish, I think. Quick wits and potion chugging made me come out on top. Barely.

Anyways, I see your point about the enemies with stupid amounts of health, Miracle. They can be annoying, I'll admit, but I'm still sailing on the good improvement over Oblivion that I don't care much about it yet. Maybe on the third or fourth character.

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

Why do I feel like it's going to be the Summerset Isles next? I just have this hunch, I dunno. Could be wrong.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Dominion.

 

[Hippobatman]

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

Why do I feel like it's going to be the Summerset Isles next? I just have this hunch, I dunno. Could be wrong.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Dominion.

Well, the two options popping up in my head is either Summerset or High Rock. I wouldn't mind any of those, really.

Oh well, we'll just have to wait half a decade and we'll know for sure.

 

[Sandernista]

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

Why do I feel like it's going to be the Summerset Isles next? I just have this hunch, I dunno. Could be wrong.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Dominion.

I think their going to put Summerset in as DLC, it's a fairly small island.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I actually havent got to that point yet, although at the moment Deathlords go down fairly quickly thanks to my sneak attack. I also discovered a way to trivialize everything in the game if you have 100 sneak

Spoiler: Not a spoiler, but just in case someone doesnt want to know another way to break the game

Get the last sneak perk. When you get into a fight with something crouch and immediately attack, you'll get a critical every single time if you time it right, using daggers along with the 15x critical perk(30x with Dark Brotherhood gloves), there shouldnt be anything that can take more than one hit

 

[predatorpulse7]

I wonder why the hell we need level scaling in these games?

Certain areas should be off limits until you reach a certain level and period.

Gothic and its sequel did this perfectly. Pick a fight with a ONE orc at low level and you could win, but it would have been hard,you would need to time swings perfectly(tough to do with Gothic's combat). Come later however, maybe with a better sword(that you need x points in strength to use) and a bigger healthbar and they become way more manageable, though still hard. And I won't even talk about shadowbeasts, when you take one out for the first time, you'll definitely remember it.

Level scaling breaks immersion in a big big way. Why is it that in a place that spawned common draugrs now has only the highest level creatures of its kind? Because I gained a couple of levels in the meantime?

Seems like handholding to me.

 

[Jaeke]

I haven't seen or found any problems with level scaling at all... in fact a get my ass whooped a lot of the time if i don't plan thing's out against larger groups (especially when engaging Forsworn). Actually i've had a problem with fighting enemies that are too tough, Frost trolls at lvl 5 and Ancient Dragons (nuff said). I love the balancing in Skyrim, its too perfect.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I wonder why the hell we need level scaling in these games?

Certain areas should be off limits until you reach a certain level and period.

Gothic and its sequel did this perfectly. Pick a fight with a orc at low level and you could win, but it would have been hard,you would need to time swings perfectly(tough to do with Gothic's combat). Come later however, maybe with a better sword(that you need x points in strength to use) and a bigger healthbar and they become way more manageable, though still hard. And I won't even talk about shadowbeasts, when you take one out for the first time, you'll definitely remember it.

Level scaling breaks immersion in a big big way. Why is it that in a place that spawned common draugrs now has only the highest level creatures of its kind? Because I gained a couple of levels in the meantime?

Seems like handholding to me.

There are places that arent meant to be accessed by low level players, Dwarven ruins and certain Draugr barrows for example, the thing is that The Elder Scrolls series has a heavy focus on exploration and character building, they arent meant to be hard, but they do pose a challenge at times, something that level scaling can work quite well at