Poll: Leveled Enemies and Oblivion

[willard3]

Well then mix it up a little. At mid levels, scamps basically disappear off the face of the earth (and Oblivion) and are replaced with clannfear.

During the battle at the Great Gate, I saw maybe 2 scamps...the rest were spider daedra, daedroth, and high-level chieftains.

 

[1st Sgt. Pete]

The leveling enemies where probably the worst thing in oblivion, the morrowind system of easy enemies in one location and badass enemies in another was perfectly fine, I dont know why they messed with a near perfect formula, all they really needed to do was Morrowind with fancy grafix, and you would have the perfect game, unfortunatly oblivion though good, was still no where near as good as morrowind.

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

The whole concept of levels is outdated.

 

[willard3]

all they really needed to do was Morrowind with fancy grafix, and you would have the perfect game

Except for the dice-based hit detection. I could be right in front of somebody, swinging my sword frantically, and never hit. That alone makes Oblivion better by default. There ARE a lot of things better about Morrowind, but I still think Oblivion is better overall.

 

[The Shade]

Today something pretty annoying happened in Oblivion. While infiltrating the Imperial Prison for the Dark Brotherhood, my cover got blown while trying to sneak past the guards because suddenly a pick-pocket appeared out of nowhere. In the super-secret sewers crawling with Imperial Guards where no else should be, I might add. That bastard destroyed my sneakiness by - somehow - alerting every guard within Experimental MIRV range of my presence.

So I just hauled ass up through the sewers, smoked that Dark Elf prisoner with a well-placed Dwarven Longsword to the face, and hauled ass back the way I'd come without so much as pausing to look at the thirty-seven guards on my heels.

 

[Ursus Astrorum]

All I have to say on the matter is this:

Bandits should not be wearing mastercrafted glass armor.

 

[TheBlueRabbit]

all they really needed to do was Morrowind with fancy grafix, and you would have the perfect game

Except for the dice-based hit detection. I could be right in front of somebody, swinging my sword frantically, and never hit. That alone makes Oblivion better by default. There ARE a lot of things better about Morrowind, but I still think Oblivion is better overall.

*emphasis mine


Agreed.
The leveled enemies don't really BOTHER me, but I miss being able to wander into the wrong place too soon and have my ass handed to me on a platter with bacon bits. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Oblivion.
I am INFINITELY gland they changed the control interface from Morrowind, though.

And a good invisibility spell makes the Daedroth spread over the countryside a lot less intimidating.

 

[Dorian]

Without NPC leveling, you'll have such an easy time going through the game it won't be fun. Or the baddies will be so tough in the beginning you'll quit because you'll die if they merely breath within 50 ft of you.

 

[Deathbird]

I actually waited until about 20-25 to start the main questline and i never ended up finishing it by that time i thought the idea of wasting all my time 'closing x number of gates' to be a really bland thing to have in the quest at all.

The kvatch fight was insane, i never saw a single scamp.
I had made a Ranged/stealth fighter and the single quest never really allows you to stealth as soon as you zone in everyone rushes you.
The fight consisted of hardcore elementals and daedroth and scores of life ending monsters, my npcs died due to heart attacks i think.

I prefered to just wander around and kill and explore but the single play campaign i found just didnt work with the leveling system.
Later i did it with a character straight away and it was too easy.
/shrug

Still a good game just could have been better.

 

[DalekJaas]

MODS!!! just download mods, its all you need to fix any problem in the game. www.tesnexus.com

 

[Lord_Of_Plum]

It really depends on your playing style. If you want the entire map open to you at level one, then leveled enemies are the way to go. However, as some have previously stated, I think that waltzing into Mancar Cameron's Paradise and killing him because he doesn't want to go too hard on you kind of defeats the purpose of getting stronger/leveling up. I enjoy having to really work to be able to go to a certain area or defeat a certain enemy.

 

[Knight Templar]

It would be nice if not everything was scaled but i didn't even notice my first playthrough that it did it.

 

[insectoid]

I don't like leveled enemies.

I'm in favour of have areas/regions with tougher enemies, so when you level up you actually get a sense of accomplishment at finally being able to enter a certain place/do certain quests.

The whole point of leveling is so that after a while you start feeling like the most powerful badass in the entire game world. If everything is leveling with you, it doesn't really satisfy as much.

 

[gamegod25]

I just hate the leveling system. It sucks haveing to find a place to sleep before you can level up.

 

[Iampringles]

I really dislike the Oblivion levelling system.

There isn't really any sense of progression.

 

[Johnny Xtreme]

IF you don't like the leveling system in oblivion, and the npc's are hammering away at you... just drop the difficulty. You can at any moment at in the options.

 

[DeadMG]

IMO the idea of levelling is outdated and something more smooth and gradual should be implemented. E.G. in World of Warcraft, you don't get level 1 alchemy, level 2, etc. It's out of 450 these days, which is much smoother. I think that enemies should be molded to have similar stats, not some generic "level" the same as you.

 

[Jandau]

First of all, simply saying that there's no point in leveling up since your enemies level up with you is plain stupid (sorry guys). In a linear game, as you level up you encounter more and more challenging enemies so the difficulty stays (in theory) the same or increases.

Oblivion (and Fallout 3) are open world games and the player dictates in which order to attempt the content. Granted, there could have been no quest/mob leveling and they could just force the player to reach a certain level before he can stand a chance at some quests and be able to roll right over other quests that he's outleveled. Does that sound fun to you? Having the majority of quests impossibly hard or boringly easy?

HOWEVER while I defend enemy scaling in principle when it comes to open world games, the implementation as seen in Oblivion could use a lot of work. So please, read on before you go off to crucify me for the first two paragraphs

First of all, there should be some caps on certain enemies. Having highway bandits in full Deadric armour around every corner is ridiculous. Also, having my lvl 40 one-man-army realistically challenged by a Wolf is also a bit too much. Low level quests should also be capped at certain points (early guild quests for instance). This would make leveling up feel more meaningful since your character would become a force that not everyone can stand up to.

On the other hand, some quests should have a minimum difficulty. For instance, final guild quests should be about lvl 15-20 minimum and not scale bellow that. You can attempt them before that point, but expect to be outleveled and summarily destroyed. Again, some enemies should have a minimum level bellow which they are not scaled. This would provide the game world with places that are accessible only as you get stronger.

Furthermore, the player should be able to stay ahead of the leveling curve by smart building. In linear games the player is rewarded for good choices in character development by being able to beat content with less trouble. Oblivion only marginally allows this, but this is more a consequence of the terrible character development system, but that's a matter for another time...

 

[wordsmith]

1) Stronger enemies in different areas. "Don't go into the mountain pass, I hear the bandits out there are stronger than anyone around here". You go into the mountains, you get your ass handed to you. Conversely, "Travel to *town* and get me this item" is simple, as you just stick to main pathways (with lower level enemies). The challenge would be that you could either take the long, easy way, or take a shortcut through the mountain pass. (think pokemon)

2) YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PLAY THE MAIN QUEST. It's actually (I feel) not one of the better storylines in the game.

3) I can't be bothered to quote, but someone said something like "Oh, but if I want use alchemy, acrobatics, athletics, merchantile and speechcraft as majors it gimps the game". No? Really? You mean if you spend your days mixing potions/jumping/running/spending money/talking to people and NOT waving a weapon, you won't be able to fight as effectively? If you want a combat character... roll one. If you want a millionaire ingame, use the non combat skills. I think there's mercenary mods for people like you out there...