Skyrim's level scaling.. hmmm.

[Jandau]

There are several problems here.

First, there is the inconsistancy in player character scaling, with some builds scaling insanely good and others not quite so well. Every time someone mentions this there is a horde of people claiming that balance doesn't matter in a single player game, but when you have one player who is breezing through the game with hardly any challenge in sight and another who is experiencing tedium over the whole affair, then something is wrong. I got my Fighter/Assassin to level 50 and then stopped playing him. Dual Legendary Deadric Longswords and a full Legendary Dragonscale set with nearly maxed out Sneak, One Handed, Light Armor and maxed out Smithing and Enchanting makes for a VERY boring game (Ancient Dragons die in 2 power attacks). I'm currently working on my Mage, hoping for a better paced experience.

Secondly, populating dungeons with only high level versions of enemies cheapens the effect. When you find one Deathlord guarded by a bunch of regular and Restless Draugr, then that's awesome. When you find nothing but Deathlords, it kinda reduces them from "OMG A BOSS!!!" to "Oh, yet another trash mob".

While I acknowledge the need for scaling enemies in a game like Skyrim, I still maintain that Bethesda is doing it all wrong. There need to be strict caps on the levels of enemies. Each dungeon should have a level range and mobs should never leave that range. So a started dungeon shouldn't scale beyond level 10 or 15, no matter if you miss it until you are level 55. Likewise, the lair of, say, a Dragon Priest shouldn't scale bellow 20 or 30, even if your wimpy level 5 noob runs into it by accident.

Bethesda claimed they got this, that they are doing it that way, but I'm not seeing it. Any dungeon that my level 50 Warrior enters is populated by the highest level of enemy available. Every. Damn. One.

One solution would be to try to limit your leveling by not using any XP boosting Signs and focusing on as few skills as possible, but then you lose on the fun of building your character...

The other solution is to live with it and wait for the modding community to fix the whole thing. Oscuro's Skyrim Overhaul can't come soon enough...

 

[Arkley]

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?

I actually found this thread quite interesting to read, because it goes no small distance towards proving how truly different Skyrim experiences can be between players. I'm currently level 44 Nord, dual axe/light armour, with level 100 smithing. enchanting & alchemy, each with a ton of perks. 100 one-handed weapons with full perks (aside from sword/mace perks) and 95ish light armour, also full perks.

Anyway, those are my stats to give a little context. I'm actually disappointed with how easy the game is post-35. I killed the final main story boss in about 5 blows and standard dungeon filler enemies aren't even obstacles any more. Hell, with that one perk that lets you do a double damage critical sprinting heavy attack, I don't even have to stop running to kill, enemies just die as I pass.

I think this may have something to do with the way I went about crafting my equipment. I disenchanted the alchemy, smithing and enchanting equipment I found. I made enchanting bonus potions, chugged them and enchanted a full set of alchemy bonus gear, and then I made more alchemy bonus potions, then I used those made more (better) enchanting bonus potions, and made more alchemy gear, and used that to make more (better) enchanting bonus potions, then more alchemy gear, and repeated until I was making literally the best possible enchanting bonus potions/gear. Then I used those to enchant smithing bonus gear & potions. Then I made/upgraded my combat weapons/armour/amulets/rings, and then enchanted them using my enchanting equipment/potions, resulting in double enchantments on each piece with massive amounts of +% one handed damage, stamina, health & light armour skill, and double fire/frost damage on one axe and fire damage/health drain on the other.

If you're having a lot of trouble getting things done, perhaps you could replicate this process for yourself. Although, if you find and/or buy a lot of smithing/enchanting elixirs (the ones with +40% bonus) you can cut out the whole alchemy section. Your results won't be quite as good, but they'll still be damn powerful, and you won't have to take alchemy to 100.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Yes its a bit silly when dungeons get populated with stupid amounts of overlords and dreadlords or whatever they're called but the alternative is killing everything in one hit.

 

[lacktheknack]

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.

Someone's not up on their lore.

The Sumerset Isles are three times the size of the Iliac Bay and surrounding countries from Daggerfall, which holds a world record for "Largest Standard Game Map" at double the size of Great Britain.

For less insane reference, it's twice the size of Vvardenfell. Assuming they keep a steady world-size ratio, you may want to rethink that stance.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Meh, I'm at Level 61 and everything but dragons die when I stab them with a sneak attack, Jester's Gloves, and my trusty Glass Dagger (Going to upgrade Daedra for the heck of it though). Dragons are super annoying though, but I can just sneak past them. They do seem to spawn super often now though, but that may just be because I travel more since I don't have to worry about Bears or Trolls mauling me every ten seconds...

 

[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.

Someone's not up on their lore.

The Sumerset Isles are three times the size of the Iliac Bay and surrounding countries from Daggerfall, which holds a world record for "Largest Standard Game Map" at double the size of Great Britain.

For less insane reference, it's twice the size of Vvardenfell. Assuming they keep a steady world-size ratio, you may want to rethink that stance.

I'm going on the official maps. Using those it's not much bigger than Vvardenfell. Probably the smallest province in Tamriel.

 

[Wolfram23]

Eh, I just bought my Ice Spike, Incinerate, and Thunderbolt spells. With 0% mana cost. So it's pretty easy even on Master. I hope it gets significantly harder. Although honestly I think the stupidest thing about being a mage is that with Impact, no enemy can even touch me. They just get stun locked. Lvl 41.

The last time I died was a trap, one of those big spiked cages that swings around 90 degrees lol. 1 shot.

 

[Master Kuja]

I'm not all that bothered by it if I'm honest.

But then, rolling a stealthy, dick ass thief makes the game ridiculously easy.

 

[godofallu]

The level scaling seems to be 1hit everything for 2 hours, find a boss that is hard. Repeat.

I did the Imperial questline at 35ish, the entire thing was just a long boring grind where you 1 hit kill people as fast as possible until the fort is won. Then repeat over and over.

At least in Oblivion enemies were always leveled to you, so that you were never bored out of your mind for hours on end of 1 hit kills.

And for stealth characters, you again 1 hit kill over and over until a dragon comes flying by and sees you. Then you can't stealth hit it so you have to whittle it down with actual combat.

And for mage characters you don't get better/stronger spells so as you level you just have to stun lock people for longer and longer. What kind of mid-end gameplay is that?

 

[NightHawk21]

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.

That's my thought too. I haven't done the civil war quest line yet so I don't know if anything else about the Thalmor gets revealed, but the main quest just sort of forgets about them. Hoping they wrap it up nicely and let me kill some more of those bastards. Yesterday I spent nearly 15 min running around and fighting these bastards cause a dragon chased me into an execution party and I had no way of breaking combat for my sneak bonuses to kick in.

 

[TPiddy]

I love that people complain about getting too good... Skyrim is entirely under your control... STOP using the legendary daedric weapons! STOP using nothing but sneak... create your own damn challenge... maybe start a new character? Like seriously.... people get too good at the game and then complain it wasn't hard enough...

 

[TPiddy]

If you want to play it differently , make yourself a heavy armor boxer with a heavy specialization in restoration magic. Unkillable Dwemer centurion duo ftw (Me and lydia).
Your damage is kinda good, and you can heal yourself, but not using weapons opens up a whole lot of new perks you wouldn't use with your typical warrior.

This! Everyone seems disappointed that they managed to find combinations that break the game's difficulty.... but why not try something else? Illusion? Alteration? Try poisoning everyone?

You don't HAVE to use the overpowered stuff... the only one you're competing against is yourself...

 

[4RM3D]

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.

ahem???

http://www.sega-world.com/PSO-WORLD_DE/xbox360/picture/The-Elder-Scrolls4-XBOX360/World-Maps/tamriel_world_map002.jpg

are you sure about that?

Bethesda is gonna run out of countries for sequels pretty soon... What then?

OT: level scaling is bad in Morrowind, absolutely horrendous in Oblivion and well, in Skyrim it is actually not so bad, compared to the previous installments. Incidentally, both Morrowind and Oblivion were piss easy. No challenge whatsoever. But Skyrim actually has a little challenge (on the highest difficulty setting). Sure, you can still insta-kill everything with a dagger backstab. But it ain't as bad as the other games.

 

[Zenn3k]

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?

If its too hard for you, turn down the difficulty.

Thats what its there for. Nobody on the internet is gonna care that you beat a single player game on "Master".

 

[JET1971]

I am more of a fan of set levels for dungeons and different enemy types as the dungeons get harder. if you go into the lowest level dungeon at a high level then you could really just ignore everything because they wont do any real damage but on the same token if you wander into a high level dungeon at a very low level then you better be prepared to be one hit killed by the lowest level enemy in it. by having the dungeons setup that way it saves many dungeons and ruins for later exploring. Also the weapons/armor could be leveled in them as well, say you want full ebony at level 10 you could try to get through a top level dungeon and loot as much as you can while running away from everything.

as it was on my first playthrough I had explored every ruin, fort, and cave that was not quest locked before I was level 15. after all thats done then there is no real reason to not use fast travel, you did everything between the 2 locations and the random attacking mob becomes tedium.

but on the same token I dont like it where regions are leveled like almost all MMO's, all the low levels in one region and high levels in another but mixed, this way everytime you head out from any city theres something between you and your destination that was not explored yet becuase you were too squishy to do anything more than walk in the front door and run back out.

advantages to leveled dungeons:

1. Available exploration at all levels.
2a. Intense moments of "Oh Shit! RUNNN!!!!" when you wander into a place thats too high a level for you.
2b. you get one hit killed and its "Oh no way i am going back in there" followed by 10-20 levels later "Revenge! Die scum!!"
3. It's more realistic than walking into a dungeon at low level and low level enemies, then return to it 20 levels later and its full of high level.
4. unique loot found in the dungeons could be at the dungeons level, creating a challenge to attempt to get it while at a lower level.
5. It brings more variety in the encounters some not worth the effort of drawing your weapon to run away as fast as you can with everything inbetween.

*edit
Will you people please use spoiler tags on that map.

 

[Wilf Nelson]

This game is nowhere near as good as Oblivion, granted because I had never played an Elder Scrolls game before Oblivion but I spent all of the Dark Brotherhood quests in Skyrim thinking "you utter bastards I worked my ass off for you in Cyrodill and now you have just bloody well ruined everything". It made me not really care about completing the levels because I know that the next time an Elder Scrolls game comes out I am just going to be doing the same thing again so there is no feeling of accomplishment.

As for levelling up, after that bile explosion, sure it is a bit unintuitive and the fact that Draugr spawn in dungeons like bacteria in a mouldy sandwich does turn the whole thing into a grind quest; not even the sight of flaming, mutilated ancient Nord corpses made the experience of most dungeons fun for me. For the record after anyone ever finishes that sentence from their own lips something has gone seriously wrong in game development.

The dragons even aren't that difficult once you have got past level 30. Here is how you turn the game into a quick session of boredom alley. Look up, see dragon type, equip clothing enchanted with the right resistance magic, equip spell or enchanted weapon they are weak to. Actually no forget that because I spent the whole time doing the bloody opposite because I wanted the game to be more difficult than arguing with my washing machine over the heat setting I want it to go on which is all Skyrim becomes eventually. As long as your inventory screen is working properly the game is no more challenging or rewarding than opening your mail.

As you might have realised by now I loved Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (undecided on Fallout:New Vegas), but Skyrim has ruined it for me. It is the game I dread coming back to while Oblivion I only don't play on the console because if I really wanted to I could close my eyes and run through every dungeon purely by the will of imagination. R.I.P. the Elder Scrolls series you have officially died in my eyes (unless someone kicks Bethesda painfully, redoes the series in Black Marsh with vampires and no werewolves because then I will be in heaven)

p.s. I know this was a general hate rant on Skryim and the game is at its core good but nowhere near other games with the same heritage and the standard for sandboxes built by Bethesda is up their with St Paul's cathedral so i allowed to be picky.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Sadly, that's just the way it is. Good chance your player character runs around in Daedric gear around level 50, so every battle comes down to tank combat. I too was hoping for a bit more challenging enemies, not just more hitpoints. Level 63 now and I don't see a bit of difference with the way it was around 45-50, though I don't get spammed by Ancient Dragons (probably because I rarely fast-travel).

 

[Lawnmooer]

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.

I really dislike the scaling of things in Skyrim...

Only because of crafting though... I don't want to fight really tough things just because I got a few points in some non-combat skills and I also want for it not to be really easy to get stupidly powerful items...

Currently playing a character and since getting all 3 crafting skills to 100 and making some nice things I'm going through Draugr dungeons populated with Overlords, Deathlords, Scourge Lords and Dragon Priests and killing everything in 2-3 hits (Unechanted Legendary Ebony Battleaxe (Doing 300 damage from enchanted gear) + a potion giving 105% more damage (Meaning 677 damage a swing) + Elemental Fury giving 70% faster swing speed = A lot of dead things rather sharpish)

I really would like it not to be able to get ridiculous damages from Smithing (I also have a character with a bow that does over 200 damage...) as it really does trivialise everything.

At least I still have a minimalist character that was focusing on only upping One Handed skill (With a bit of lockpicking to put in the spare perks) and using clothes so as to not level up an armour skill. It keeps the challenge (Due to being very weak against archers and enemies that live long enough to deal a fair few attacks) even though I still only fight Draugr, Restless Draugr and Scourges and the occasional Blood Dragon.

I may have to make another minimalist, though the fact I've tried a minimalist mage (All schools) and both a one and two handed one means that I'm stuck with a sneak character, which is really overpowered... Especially when abusing corners...