Can someone explain to me why the level scaling is a bad thing?

>>385835454
Removes the feeling of progression or the fear of enemys that are too strong. Static or level scale static is the best way.

>>385835454

Have you played the game? Like, for long?

>>385835627
I liked it staying challenging

>>385835629
Yeah, 130 hours on the Xbox and I've matched that on pc

>>385835454
it makes the entire game feel the same. it is a legit design decision for games like this. it's better than dark souls where you have to bang your head against it to figure out where to go. in oblivion you can just go anywhere and not have to deal with trial and error game design.

>>385835854
It will stay challanging. Having a hard time at lvl 20 with bandits you killed at level 1 is retarted.

Seeing common bandits wearing glass and daedric armor was just silly.

At higher levels, the deck starts stacking against you and enemy will get absurdly high healthpools - Like the game just takes your HP, multiplies it X amount of times depending on your level, and then lazily applies it to the NPCs.

This resulted in you beating on something for a solid two minutes with max stats and the strongest weapon in the game. Not exactly brilliant.

File: XFZezTS.jpg (432KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

432KB, 1920x1080px

it makes the world feel completely fake. It's utterly immersion breaking knowing that the world is revolving around you.

Having basic bandits starting to appear decked out in glass armour just because you reached a certain level is retarded.

A static world with SUBTLE level scaling is the way to go, both morrowind & skyrim did it better than Oblivion.

>>385836414
>immersion breaking knowing that the world is revolving around you.

Because it means levelling up is a bad thing. No feeling of progression when the game is not about slowly standing a chance against things that used to crush you but instead about changing the colour of your sword and clothes so that you dont get 1shot by mudcrabs

>>385835454
Easy to gimp your character into becoming useless in combat.
Enemies becomes damage sponges quickly.
Bandits with daedric armor.
Why do you think people play the game at level 1/2 and find ways to trigger sleeping events without leveling up, OP?

>>385835454
i just love how endgame melee is nothing but fighting random bulletsponge bandits in full endgame armour and how you have to prevent yourself from getting some scaled named items because getting them early makes them too weak for endgame

>>385836978
But I like adapting to how you have to fight rather than a feeling of progression. If each dungeon crawl is all about preparation with potions I bring, the way I build, or the enchantments on my armor then it's more satisfying to complete than being a power gamer that can be stronger than everything else and run and attack everything to death with ease.

Are there any mods that remove the level scaling?

>>385835454
if you only choose one combat skill and level it quickly you shouldn't have much of a problem. but by level 4 if you don't have a combat skill in the 60s at least, you're going to get absolutely destroyed. unless you lower the difficulty.

File: 1500975262864.png (2MB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1024x768px

>>385837223
Just started the first oblivion gate at level 17
Have to wait an hour after every fight and if there's more than one enemy I have to jump on a rock and shoot 100 arrows, can't win.

>people complaining about level scaling
>not just downloading a mod that nerfs or removes it

hmm...

File: 45749-2-1466152976.jpg (2MB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1920x1080px

>>385837545
multiple.

OOO is a total overhaul that for the most part does away with level scaling. It just leaves some subtle scaling in places, but massively reduced.

A proper sense of progression is the most important aspect of an RPG.

Why do you think that there are people dumb enough to criticize action games that haven't been infected with rpg elements for not having a sense of progression? It's because they're casuals that don't realize that the sense of progression in a normal game comes from the player improving, not the character.
RPGs simulate this in their significantly less interesting systems by making the character rather than the player improve at the tasks assigned to them. The feeling of overcoming challenges and acquiring mastery over various disciplines doesn't exist in a game like Final Fantasy 6 or whatever if you remove levels.
The idea is you go up against things, see how strong they are, see how strong you are, and take steps to improve your own position and/or lessen theirs. This is literally the definition of strategy, according to sun tzus' art of war. The quality of any strategy game is determined by how interesting this battle for positioning is. This is why chess is so interesting, because it's literally a battle for positioning and almost nothing else. When you have a game with level scaling, there's no artificial overcoming of challenges leading to a satisfying sense of progression, and there's no strategy to uncover and make use of, all there is left is ATTACK, HEAL, ATTACK, HEAL, and you very quickly realize how boring that is on its own. You don't even get rewarded for this repetition, unless you count being exposed to new and exciting potato faces and bad writing that you've never seen before as a reward. Not even getting a new weapon is satisfying, because the weapon is level scaled too.

Oblivion's scaling is so harsh that it actually punishes you for levelling up. Unless you flawlessly get 5/5/5 every level and don't waste a single increase, you're going to start really hitting the shit past Lv30.

>>385837615
I don't like mods that change gameplay. I like to overcome challenges, just have no fucking clue how to go about it

>>385835454
Everything just becomes a damage sponge. The best thing to do is to just never level up. Your stats inflate but levels don't scale with you, so everything remains a cakewalk.

>>385837675

I'm gonna start the game tonight so ill check it out. Any other recommended quality of life fixes?

>>385835454
It usually hurts progression and option balance.

If you don't care about the former then that part is no problem, and sometimes increasing the range of options is enough to keep a feeling of progression even when enemies still take as long to kill. The real problem a lot of people overlook is that when a game has scaling, it means that there's a set power level through every range. Even the best developers rarely get balance right because there're so many more gamers than testers finding how to play a game, so what I see in a few games including Oblivion is that you end up with wildly disparate competence in builds due to some being way above what the game is scaled at and others being way below.

In games without scaling players might be able to grind at their own leisure but they can't just have their power levels completely escape their hands, ruining runs by trivializing them or making them literally impossible to complete.

File: 45749-0-1466152977.jpg (1MB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1920x1080px

>>385837732
level scaling is the worst kind of challenge. It feels so... fake. All it does it give enemies better gear and increased stats based on the players stats. That's BS.

A proper challenge is encountering enemies that are far more powerful than you and get your ass whooped, then working on your character, making yourself stronger and gaining better gear to the point where you can defeat them.

>>385835454
It's not inherently bad, it just comes with trade offs and needs to be implemented thoughtfully. Oblivion didn't do this very well for reasons already brought up in the thread, but Skyrim did a better job of it by having a more sensible mix of scaling and fixed enemies. Going too far in the opposite direction by removing scaling entirely is just as bad and simply wouldn't work in an open world game without severely restricting player freedom. Morrowind having a high level Dark Brotherhood assassin attack you at low levels is an example of a lack of scaling gone wrong.

>>385837587
magic's the way to go in oblivion. make some silly spell that does 10dmg on touch of each types and reduces all resistances by 100% for 2secs and youre in business. the only annoyances then are high reflect critters like xivelai

>>385838025
Sure but after you've become the most powerful to where no enemy is more than a gnat, what's the point?

>>385835454
Because it literally made no sense. Goblins I would kill in the very beginning of the game with 2 arrows, were starting to take 5 a couple of hours later. Figured out the game was leveling against me and just stopped playing. Stupidest shit I've ever heard of in an RPG.

File: maxresdefault (1).jpg (197KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

197KB, 1920x1080px

>>385837795
pick up MMM, personaly I used the lore friendly, OOO compatible version.

OOO+MMM creates a FAR more interactive experience, you'll see NPCs & creatures interacting more.

I'd recommend your choice of city expansion/additional NPCs mods, adventurers & travelers etc - they add more NPCs to the world going about their business so it feels alive.

Also
-oblivion reloaded (visuals)
-real time lockpicking
-no psychic guards

>>385835454
I think it's just implemented horribly but the idea general idea behind level-scaling is okay. In Oblivion, the enemies' health and damage just jumps up to an obscene level, such that every single enemy you face becomes a lengthy struggle for survival. Worse still, even after you've maxed out your own health and strength, the enemies just keep getting stronger and spongier.

I think they should have tweaked the scaling so that the game still had a mix of easily killed enemies, along with challenging boss-types and an upper limit to their combat capabilities to match the character's own limits.

The main problem in TES is that a lot of your opponents are always going to be humanoid characters. Because of this, you either reach a point where every single humanoid is a trivial pushover or they scale up and pose a challenge which breaks your immersion. There's really no good middle ground on that curve, someone's going to be disappointed no matter what. That's why Skyrim took the endless draugr approach, because inhuman and inherently magical creatures can come in all sorts of power levels without ruining your sense of belief.

>>385837684
This guy gets it

>>385835454
Because seeing every shitty generic bandit who still dies in one hit run around with full glass armor doesn't feel right.

File: Chorrol_De_Dia.jpg (631KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

631KB, 1920x1080px

>>385838326
A good game will make sure that doesn't happen until the very end-game.

OOO for oblivion did away with level scaling while making sure there was challenging enemies all the way through even LONG after you've finished the main quest

>>385836089
At least bandits don't become pathetic after level 10 or so like they do in Skyrim

>>385837684
Do you think TES moving away from RPG elements by removing things like attributes and simplifying the skill system is a step in the right direction, then?

In TES games, I personally get a sense of progression from filling out the map. Right from the start, my goal is to finish as much content as possible, doing every quest and clearing out every dungeon. Leveling up is a secondary thing to me, and the "you get better at stuff by actually doing stuff" system is more interesting than traditional stats. I even like the perk system, although it would be better if they were more about unlocking abilities and such rather than simple stat gains. Bethesda hasn't found a good balance yet, but I personally think they're moving in the right direction.

>>385838913
Skyrim stinks oblivion at least had me sucked in till I figured out the leveling. Fucking kvatch ended up having fucking ice demons and a million enemies the ps3 was at 10fps

>>385837545
Oblivion Scaling Unclusterfucked

>>385839647
I'm skeptical of mods since the Floris mod for mount&blade turned out to be a complete waste of time. I bet the mod will just make it worse
Video games were a mistake

>>385839921
I found Floris to be fantastic desu.

>>385838570
Thanks dude.
>>385839571
No. TES is an RPG series. Every single game in the series is 100% RPG,or ARPG anyway, even Skyrim, and I'm talking about the way their combat and character building works. Moving towards being simplistic action games isn't helping them to be anything but another generic open world game. Let me know when they add attack specific movement and movement specific attack like any competent japanese action game or ARPG, then I might consider the possibility that todd isn't a complete fuckup. If TES becomes an exploration heavy action game without updating the action mechanics it will never even be as good a game as Hexen.

The perks would be pretty cool, even in an action game, if they were more like the unlockable abilities in Tactics Ogre. If you haven't played it, a good example is the knight, a tank class, can unlock and equip an ability that causes him to project an aura around him to limit enemy movement, slowing them down so that they can't reach glass cannon classes as easily.

>>385836573
Yes, that is what he said. Were you trying to make a point?