Poll: Leveled Enemies and Oblivion

[NezumiiroKitsune]

I hate them I hate them I hate them I hate them. Ive only just got Shivering Isles and have turned it off because leveled enemies were ruining any kind of fun I could get from it. Stupidly over powered monsters that obliterated a character with full stats in everything and the best armour and weapons. Leveled enemies are so close to to ruining Oblivion a game I love and hate in almost equal measure. Its the perfect fantasy game but the mechanics are so horribly broken. Did Bethesda test the game? Or just shrug and assume it'll do? Especially with the barrage of glitches. Almost every mission has a game ending glitch that can happen some more than others, the models allow dropped items to fall through them, enemies can become verticle-ised after death, npcs can glitch and do amazing things like jump all the way to you, or appear behind you when they were in front.

A little self indulgent, Im just furious at Bethesda. Is Oblivion actually a good game? Or is it the only choice? If their was much in the way of competition would they try harder to release games without such huge oversights? Leveled enemies should be outlawed in gaming forever, punishable by some kind of very painful slow torture. Whats the point in leveling when everyone else gets stronger too? Is there anyone who likes leveled enemies?!

 

[Dommyboy]

Leveling systems are good but Oblivion's enemies eventually became overpowered.

 

[Zephirius]

What needs to die is leveling your character to whatever top leet level and one shotting the shit out of everything. That's retarded and not challenging.

Technically that's the reward of leveling to top leet level.

I installed a mod for Oblivion that removed leveled enemies and made everything basically a set strength and I never had as much fun. It was hilarious summoning ridiculously weak zombies to distract the bear while I ran for my life.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

I really enjoyed the concept of NPC's that Baldur's Gate II had. If you went blundering into one of the city's secret societies or waltzing into the home of a powerful mage at lv. 9, you were going to get your ass put in its place. Only by watching your step and THINKING about what you were about to do could you navigate the whole of Athkatla. And placing encounters that you needed to come back later to complete added to the whole RPG element of the game.

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

Well, leveled enemies do keep the game slightly challenging... and in my opinion, it's not NEARLY a flaw in Oblivion. I hate the game for reasons other then somewhat challenging monsters.

What needs to die is leveling your character to whatever top leet level and one shotting the shit out of everything. That's retarded and not challenging.

I agree, but that can be avoided by making enemies that are still challenging at top level in the game, without compremising the point of leveling. I may be making an assumption here, but doesnt it feel good to know your character is powerful and those challenges before you can now shred without a care. It gives you some measure of progress, and lets you feel good about your achievments. All they had to do was make some enemies close to the top level you can achieve, and put them in areas that would therfore be otherwise inaccesible to lower levels?

 

[cuddly_tomato]

What is the point of spending your time leveling up your character if all that is going to happen is the enemies are going to get stronger too? It defeats the entire purpose of leveling and (typically for Bethesda) was an utterly stupid gameplay decision.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I like leveled enemies.....

I mean if you take in the amount of paths to follow, lets say going to Mages guild or Fighters guide, after completing one and starting on another made make the game way to easy just blasting your way through the rest of the "paths" after completing one. This also applies to the many oblivion gates and dungeons.

The only problem I had was the amount of health they gave the leveled NPCs, counting upwards of 50 hits and 6 hits to kill you.

Bethesda made it especially hard for characters who leveled to quickly with the combined affects of low level on a number of different skills and stats caused "waiting" or having other unkillable NPCs to tag along to be their only solution.

Oh and keep in mind that not all NPCs leveled with you so you could go around town Tbagging everyone.

But in Oblivion is was probably better to stay low level until you got a well rounded Character.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

I hate the leveling idea. It doesn't make any sense and it takes the FUN out of adventuring! What's the point if all you're going to find is exactly as powerful as what you have already? Or if you come across an extreme badass in a tomb you're exploring and you can beat him just as easily NOW as you could at level 1? If you find a "legendary" item (like the Umbra sword) at level 1, it'll be junk by level 5.

Horrible, horrible, horrible!

Consider, instead, you're roaming that same tomb and you come across a badass who completely thwomps you and you barely escape with your life. You decide to train and level until you can go back and actually have an epic battle with him. Or perhaps you get lucky and you beat the guy even though he vastly over-powered you.

Which one is more rewarding? Which one gives you a better sense of accomplishment? Which one is more FUN: bland sameness or overcoming a challenge?

 

[Squarewave]

I hated the leveled npc's at first but after playing the game for a while I started to like it. As long as you keep getting better equipment you still become more powerful then npc's but also prevents the game from become so easy that you can kill off a city in a few seconds like in morrowind. Leveled npc do have the problem if you try to do much of the game as a stealth or non-combatant

What I hate is the leveled loot system, that basically if you want the good items you have to wait until you get to level 24ish before doing most of the quests

 

[NXMT]

Balance in an open world. The level system ensures that you can travel anywhere at any time.

 

[KaZZaP]

I loved the leveling system and never had any problems with it in Oblivion. I hear alot of people complain about it and I just don't understand why. Most commonly is they got too hard too fast and their character sucked it up. Never once happened to me so I just assume its people with retarded character builds which have their major skills as like athletics, acrobatics, and mercantile.

 

[SimuLord]

What needs to die is leveling your character to whatever top leet level and one shotting the shit out of everything. That's retarded and not challenging.

Technically that's the reward of leveling to top leet level.

I installed a mod for Oblivion that removed leveled enemies and made everything basically a set strength and I never had as much fun. It was hilarious summoning ridiculously weak zombies to distract the bear while I ran for my life.

You talking about Fran's mod? Or one of the other leveled lists?

 

[willard3]

I loved the leveling system and never had any problems with it in Oblivion. I hear alot of people complain about it and I just don't understand why. Most commonly is they got too hard too fast and their character sucked it up. Never once happened to me so I just assume its people with retarded character builds which have their major skills as like athletics, acrobatics, and mercantile.

Why shouldn't we be allowed to have Athletics, Acrobatics, and Mercantile as major skills? The game gets ass-hard for people with not strictly combat-based characters. If you make a character with no combat skills whatsoever, you're an idiot, but some people like doing other things.

For instance, on my first playthrough, I barely touched the main quest until I was at level 13-16 or something. By the time I got to finding the mayor of Kvatch, the town was stuffed with clannfears, and the castle itself was filled with daedroth. Literally...every enemy in the city was either a clannfear or a daedroth. That's plain unfair.

 

[Vlane]

The idea isn't bad and I like it a lot but games like Oblivion does level scaling wrong.

In Oblivion leveling is a bad thing because it means that enemies can become stronger than you.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Leveled creatures + random encounters = crapola.

The leveled stuff would have been acceptable to me if they'd gotten rid of the random monster pop every fifteen freakin' feet while you're trying to make your way across the world. It makes wandering around at high levels painfully annoying to the point where you just fast-travel everywhere.

 

[Rednog]

I loved the leveling system and never had any problems with it in Oblivion. I hear alot of people complain about it and I just don't understand why. Most commonly is they got too hard too fast and their character sucked it up. Never once happened to me so I just assume its people with retarded character builds which have their major skills as like athletics, acrobatics, and mercantile.

Try coming back to the main quest after you've done like 80% of the rest of the game and leveled up significantly, monsters 1 shot all the friendly NPCs and the gates take forever to clear. It changes things alot because there are a handful of NPCs that if you managed to keep them alive during certain quests they reward you or have unique dialogue later in the game but if you try the quests at a high level good luck not seeing their body get tossed across the area in an instant.

 

[Graham]

Balance in an open world. The level system ensures that you can travel anywhere at any time.

Exactly. Bethesda valued the open world exploration since it's kind of the kernel of the Elder Scrolls franchise. Leveled characters made the world accessible, if they were to make certain dungeons fixed levels then it would be very difficult to maintain that open world feel. This is also exacerbated by the fact that even how easily your character levels is customizable.

I think leveled characters was a gutsy move on Bethesda's part that worked out pretty well once you look at the possible alternatives. Also, with how ambitious that game is I don't see why people say "Oblivion = bad design" because of a couple bugs and glitches.

I loved the leveling system and never had any problems with it in Oblivion. I hear alot of people complain about it and I just don't understand why. Most commonly is they got too hard too fast and their character sucked it up. Never once happened to me so I just assume its people with retarded character builds which have their major skills as like athletics, acrobatics, and mercantile.

Yeah, I never had any major problems with it either and I rolled as both a stealth character and melee fighter. I can imagine people who aren't familiar with the Elder Scrolls games might have trouble building a good character at first, which might account for a good majority of these complaints, but the system itself works fine. That learning curve is something they might want to address for future games.

 

[KaZZaP]

Try coming back to the main quest after you've done like 80% of the rest of the game and leveled up significantly, monsters 1 shot all the friendly NPCs and the gates take forever to clear. It changes things alot because there are a handful of NPCs that if you managed to keep them alive during certain quests they reward you or have unique dialogue later in the game but if you try the quests at a high level good luck not seeing their body get tossed across the area in an instant.

Ya I've played threw that game a few times and I remember that shit. That's something I never understood, the enemy's level but friendlies don't. But to be fair if you've done 80% of the game your guy should be a boarder-line god.

Here's my advise if your having problems with the leveling control you leveling. For one of my characters I made sure I got +5's every time. Just make your majors controllable ones like Alchemy or ones you don't plan on using right away. I used hand to hand as a major but then just used swords or w/e and whenever I wanted a +5 to strength I'd go around punching all the enemies. This way you can make sure you get more then the 10 skill ups needed for the bonus.

 

[Useful Dave]

I loved the leveling system and never had any problems with it in Oblivion. I hear alot of people complain about it and I just don't understand why. Most commonly is they got too hard too fast and their character sucked it up. Never once happened to me so I just assume its people with retarded character builds which have their major skills as like athletics, acrobatics, and mercantile.

Why shouldn't we be allowed to have Athletics, Acrobatics, and Mercantile as major skills? The game gets ass-hard for people with not strictly combat-based characters. If you make a character with no combat skills whatsoever, you're an idiot, but some people like doing other things.

For instance, on my first playthrough, I barely touched the main quest until I was at level 13-16 or something. By the time I got to finding the mayor of Kvatch, the town was stuffed with clannfears, and the castle itself was filled with daedroth. Literally...every enemy in the city was either a clannfear or a daedroth. That's plain unfair.

But on the other end, you have this horrible invasion turning out to be nothing more than STUNTED SCAMPS. Considering how quickly the game rushes you into it, doesn't that make the entire thing a huge let down?