Ever since announcements detailing the changes in the leveling system of Skyrim (hell, really since the announcement of Skyrim), it seems like the debate over the level scaling system in Oblivion has reopened, with all the usual parties taking their respective stands.
My question to you/2 cents on the level scaling issue:
Anyone ever consider that the fact that you do seem to become weaker in comparison to your opponents if you "just play" in a natural manner makes some sense? Think about it. My interpretation goes something like this: say that you decide to role-play the proper "chosen one": would you really go and dick around in the overworld for 20 plus real time hours(weeks to months in-game) as most of us did, hurling yourself half-cocked into damn near every dungeon and petty side quest you came across if it was your world that was literally merging with Hell itself? Fuck no you wouldn't, you would move as quickly as possible to neutralize the threat, which would mean that you would be very nearly killing yourself, throwing yourself into life-and-death situations with very little rest and preparation time between each one. Which means a very simple thing:
Little to no time to train, let alone rest.
Think about this, you're a relatively average being at the beginning of the game. Skilled at most in the rudiments of a few things. You've been thrown in prison, and suddenly the emperor is in your cell, telling you you're the chosen one. Then he's dead, and you're left on your own to escape and find out just what the hell is going on. Once you do that you're in a whirlwind ride where most of the time you're just blundering sword-first through crazy cultists, demons and all manner of insane shit that is way over your simple prisoner head, and in the end all you really do is enable the OTHER hero of the story (Martin) to defeat the great evil while you stand there, mouth agape going "Well thank God he was here or I'd have been plum fucked by THAT thing."
Honestly, if you just played STRAIGHT through the story missions and treated those with due urgency, how long would the quest take to complete? Perhaps a few in-game weeks? And you spend this whole time, as I said, fighting for your life. So it makes sense that while your skills would obviously sharpen to some degree, if you don't go faffing about through the other stuff because you have an apocalypse to prevent, you are being fatigued rapidly, run down and gradually getting to the point where this stuff is truly beyond your abilities to handle (most of it was to begin with, seriously, this is a guy who barely can swing a sword plunging into Hell 3 or 4 times), culminating in the finale of the game. So, from that standpoint, it makes quite good sense that the enemies do begin to seem frustratingly stronger, because the reality is that they would. This is a Quest of the Ring-level endeavor undertaken by a far less skilled, lone individual. Imagine The Lord of the Rings if the one who had to deal with EVERYTHING was, say, a younger, less experienced Faramir.
Obviously this will do nothing to justify the level scaling frustrations of many, and I don't expect it to, the point of that overly long spiel is to simply present the idea that an average dude who was suddenly handed this epic quest would quickly start to find it getting out of hand. And now I defer to the rest of you for thoughts and very likely confirmation that I'm not the only one who thought of it this way, I simply haven't seen this argument made in the posts I've read recently.
My question to you/2 cents on the level scaling issue:
Anyone ever consider that the fact that you do seem to become weaker in comparison to your opponents if you "just play" in a natural manner makes some sense? Think about it. My interpretation goes something like this: say that you decide to role-play the proper "chosen one": would you really go and dick around in the overworld for 20 plus real time hours(weeks to months in-game) as most of us did, hurling yourself half-cocked into damn near every dungeon and petty side quest you came across if it was your world that was literally merging with Hell itself? Fuck no you wouldn't, you would move as quickly as possible to neutralize the threat, which would mean that you would be very nearly killing yourself, throwing yourself into life-and-death situations with very little rest and preparation time between each one. Which means a very simple thing:
Little to no time to train, let alone rest.
Think about this, you're a relatively average being at the beginning of the game. Skilled at most in the rudiments of a few things. You've been thrown in prison, and suddenly the emperor is in your cell, telling you you're the chosen one. Then he's dead, and you're left on your own to escape and find out just what the hell is going on. Once you do that you're in a whirlwind ride where most of the time you're just blundering sword-first through crazy cultists, demons and all manner of insane shit that is way over your simple prisoner head, and in the end all you really do is enable the OTHER hero of the story (Martin) to defeat the great evil while you stand there, mouth agape going "Well thank God he was here or I'd have been plum fucked by THAT thing."
Honestly, if you just played STRAIGHT through the story missions and treated those with due urgency, how long would the quest take to complete? Perhaps a few in-game weeks? And you spend this whole time, as I said, fighting for your life. So it makes sense that while your skills would obviously sharpen to some degree, if you don't go faffing about through the other stuff because you have an apocalypse to prevent, you are being fatigued rapidly, run down and gradually getting to the point where this stuff is truly beyond your abilities to handle (most of it was to begin with, seriously, this is a guy who barely can swing a sword plunging into Hell 3 or 4 times), culminating in the finale of the game. So, from that standpoint, it makes quite good sense that the enemies do begin to seem frustratingly stronger, because the reality is that they would. This is a Quest of the Ring-level endeavor undertaken by a far less skilled, lone individual. Imagine The Lord of the Rings if the one who had to deal with EVERYTHING was, say, a younger, less experienced Faramir.
Obviously this will do nothing to justify the level scaling frustrations of many, and I don't expect it to, the point of that overly long spiel is to simply present the idea that an average dude who was suddenly handed this epic quest would quickly start to find it getting out of hand. And now I defer to the rest of you for thoughts and very likely confirmation that I'm not the only one who thought of it this way, I simply haven't seen this argument made in the posts I've read recently.
