One Quick Skyrim Question

[Another_Poet]

Hey all. Who's played Elder Scrolls: Skyrim yet?

I have a question. In the last ES game, Oblivion, enemies across the world became more powerful as your character leveled. Instead of having set levels of their own, they were tied to your own current level.

Has this mechanic been used again in Skyrim?

[Siosilvar]

A quick Google search leads me to a post by a Bethesda employee:

Original Post (http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1156332-is-level-scaling-backnoooooooooooo/page__st__40__p__16933097#entry16933097)


...All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level. Skyrim's is similar to Fallout 3's, not Oblivion's.

So yes, there's level scaling, but it's not as drastic as it was in Oblivion.

[ShadowySilence]

Warning: This may or may not be true, but I think it came off of the Skyrim wiki if my memory serves me.

I think I heard somewhere that the level of an area becomes stuck around the level you were when you first went there (so theoretically visiting everywhere at level 1 would drastically decrease difficulty).

[Soniku]

It's been used to a degree. The system works like this:

Every area in the game has a set scale. For example, a dungeon may be level 10-20. What this means is that when you first enter the dungeon, all enemies in the dungeon will be set to your level, but a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20. This way, things that are supposed to be around your level will be scaled to you, but zones that are supposed to be very dangerous or very easy will still be limited to a maximum and minimum level of challenge so you can blow through them/get slaughtered by them if you come there when you're too strong/weak.

So yes, they may get different equipment, but bandits who would be wearing iron will only be scaled up to steel equipment, and you can still beat them up with relative ease using your level 50 uber wizard, and demons will still be scary if you come across them at low level.

[Another_Poet]

That's actually a pretty decent system. Definitely an improvement from Oblivion.

[ShadowySilence]

From what I have experienced so far it works well both in theory and practice, I am glad to see something balanced after some of the crazy things in prior games. (finding bandits wearing glass and elven armor in oblivion always bothered me)

[BladeofObliviom]

From what I have experienced so far it works well both in theory and practice, I am glad to see something balanced after some of the crazy things in prior games. (finding bandits wearing glass and elven armor in oblivion always bothered me)

Let's not even discuss the silliness that happens when you hit REALLY high levels. Bandits wearing full Daedric Armor always seemed a bit suspicious, considering that a bandit of that power should be able to knock a town off the map if it wanted to... :smalleek:

[Muz]

It works pretty well so far, too. I wandered up to a giant thinking maybe I could talk to him. He turned around and clocked me with his club. Instant death. :smallbiggrin:

I was...level 6?

[ShadowySilence]

My first encounter with a giant was hilarious, I had the same sort of thought but the minute I approached it he/she smashed the ground and my character flew up into the clouds! :smallbiggrin: (I did it a second time just to see the view)

Supposedly you can insta-kill them or something by jumping at their heads from above (causing a finishing move), a friend of mine claimed to have done this. (whether it was true or not I am unsure...)

[Parra]

[QUOTE=ShadowySilence;12214578]My first encounter with a giant was hilarious, I had the same sort of thought but the minute I approached it he/she smashed the ground and my character flew up into the clouds! :smallbiggrin:[QUOTE]

Same exact thing happened on my first encounter with a Giant. Was hit so hard, and flew so high that the ground graphics started to fade into the distance.

A quick reload and I discovered that big creatures cant fit inside small doorways, obvious I know but I've rarely seen it in games they usually bug out.
I soon had a nice big pile of Giants and Mammoths :smallbiggrin:

[factotum]

Every area in the game has a set scale. For example, a dungeon may be level 10-20.

This sounds oddly familiar to the system they used in Morrowind, and if so, I'm all for it! Sounds like Skyrim may go onto my buy list sooner rather than later...

[Person_Man]

Unless you're trying for a specific achievement, you can change the difficulty of the game in the settings. So any advice on optimization/difficulty is basically just a self imposed challenge.