Skyrim's level scaling.. hmmm.

[predatorpulse7]

What difficulty are you playing on? On master, there's this stupid discrepancy between early/ mid game, and late game. Early on, it's retardedly hard. Archers 3/4 hit you, and two-handers two-shot you. On top of that, almost everyone has insane amounts of health. However, once you get to late game, the game becomes broken.

I currently have an armor rating of 640, a set of Daedric Armor enchanted with a 72 health enhancement, and advanced health regeneration. I also have around 650 health, and two legendary daedric swords that virtually one-shot everything in the game, and on top of that, I have two accessories that enhance my one-handed damage even further, and fortify one-handed potions.

Oh, and if I really wanted to, I could use some of my saved perks to get the x15 sneak attack multiplier for daggers, and do even more damage.

So yeah. For master, it seems to be the opposite of what you describe.

Yes, I have to second this. I played master from the beginning and I actually had to dial down to expert for a couple encounters early on(f**king archers). I am now level 55 and almost all challenge has exited the game.

The balancing is messed up from a realistic POV, why are giants and some trolls harder than DRAGONS? At low level I had more problems with 2-3 bears in the same area than I did with my second dragon.

And I saw one of the funniest thing ever in Skyrim, 2-3 mudcrabs taking on a bandit(?) mage that was shocking them like hell yet the mudcrabs did not give a f**k. It was pretty hilarious.

 

[superdevildude85]

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

Why do I feel like it's going to be the Summerset Isles next? I just have this hunch, I dunno. Could be wrong.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Dominion.

Apparently there will be a revisit to morrowind in a skyrim DLC. I don't know if that's true, but a very trusted friend told me about that.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I guess it just depends on your play style. I put 100 hours into my Stealth Archer, throughout the entire game i could 1 shot almost anything, there was absolutely no challenge, even when there were 5-6 Draugr Overlords i could still kill them all before taking a hit, i think i used maybe 1 health potion in the entire game.

Ive restarted as a Mage and now even fights with regular draugr are a life or death battle because they can kill me in 2 hits.

 

[Handbag1992]

IF they decide to grace my presence with a landing and don't decide to just endlessly strafe me with fire/cold/what have you breath attacks..

You haven't done much in the main quest-line have you? It's a spoiler so I'll put it in a box, but it does make dragons easier.

Spoiler

Dragonrend, the shout that forces dragons to land

 

[michiehoward]

snip

Yeah, my husband and I had a glaringly obvious scaling issue. I did a particular Dragon Claw Dungeon around level 25 or 30 it had two D DeathLords at the end plus the Boss.

My husband comes across the Dungeon last night at level 46, every Dragur was a DL and above.

He had a rage quit last night. LMAO

 

[Duffeknol]

Just switch the difficulty level down a notch. I think you've earned that much after reaching a level that high anyway.

 

[WolfThomas]

Playing Skyrim today I realised it's very much like Morrowind, in that you shouldn't do everything as one character. Oh sure you can finished all the guilds and quests. But you hit around level 40, you've really maxed out whatever build you were playing with and every thing gets too easy. One my last character I finished the game with absolutely no threat to myself.

But what I'm really enjoying is replaying new builds, two handed warrior in light armour, full destruction mage, bow assasin, etc. That's where the fun is trying it again and again. Iwill do all the guilds, the shrines, the non dynamic quests. But over a dozen characters not one guy like I did in Oblivion.

 

[Livinitlargeinabin]

ahem???

http://www.sega-world.com/PSO-WORLD_DE/xbox360/picture/The-Elder-Scrolls4-XBOX360/World-Maps/tamriel_world_map002.jpg

are you sure about that?

Hmm, Solitude has moved.

 

[Mr Companion]

In future enemies in Bethesda games should do more damage as they level up not more health, that way combat feels more realistic not simply two guys hitting eachother in the face with what would otherwise be terminal velocity for whole minutes at a time.

On the hardest difficulty it gets stupid using fear on a boss character and having to put 5 icicles through his face, electrocute the icicles in his face with lightning, then set him on fire, use fear again, and finally slash him with a flaming sword for thirty seconds just to take off HALF his HP. And the boss is wearing a robe and no helmet, and has an infinite pool of mana and has spells that kill you instantly. I beat him, but only by summoning a storm antronach to pound of him for ages.

 

[Furioso]

Get high enchantment, get high armorer, enchant some random stuff so that it has +smithing, then drink a blacksmith elixer or w/e they're called, create your intended armor(s) and then upgrade them as fast as you can (elixer doesn't last long, and obviously make sure you have the materials before hand) congrats, you are now a badass, don't forget to enchant that stuff on the way out too!

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

Has anyone else found that the level scaling gets a little annoying around level 48/49?

Hi Gavin,
I presume you use somekind of warrior class.
My mage had a couple of problems before he could enchant the right amount of "make Destruction Magic cheaper"
Now I find that some guys (Especially the Stormcloaks from the Empire Mission) are one hit kills while others (those mecenarcies from the beehiveburning thief quest) need more (magic) hits to go down than some Draugr Deathlord.

I'm on level 63 now and every fifth draugr is a Deathlord wearing nice and shiny ebony weapons which will make me even more ridiculously richer than I am already.

So I suggest you try to experiment with differnt followers, my Orc-lady shoots deadric arrows that really seem to hurt people. I think the game can't adapt to the class you play (obviously because there are no classes and you are free to do whatever you like) and maybe with more magic, arrows, sneakysneaky or brute force you might solve that rage quitting problem.
While I agree that the game is unable to adapt to your progess I am quite annoyed that most Bandits on the road are much tougher than those of the quests.
Other than that, my advice would be to either change your strategy how to fight these Draugr. adjust the difficulty or spend more time with your girlfriend and leave Skyrim alone for a bit! ;-)

 

[EHKOS]

I'm actually enjoying them. The fights are long enough now. Before I was way too powerful and just killed everything really fast. Now it's more fun.

 

[darth.pixie]

Level Scaling sucks everywhere. It's not as obvious but being attacked by two draugr overlords and a wraith one just gets annoying. More so because I was a squishy mage. And having companions isn't that good for the build either since they can only take so many fireballs.

I'm waiting for the creation kit or a mod to fix the level scale.

 

[Kyle1527]

I'm level 66 and I can one shot(one power attack) everything in the game (except Blood - Ancient Dragons). Draugr Deathlords die pretty fast aswell - mages are quite annoying and are the only enemies that can conceivably kill me(Apart from Ancient Dragons).

 

[Jandau]

There are several problems here.

First, there is the inconsistancy in player character scaling, with some builds scaling insanely good and others not quite so well. Every time someone mentions this there is a horde of people claiming that balance doesn't matter in a single player game, but when you have one player who is breezing through the game with hardly any challenge in sight and another who is experiencing tedium over the whole affair, then something is wrong. I got my Fighter/Assassin to level 50 and then stopped playing him. Dual Legendary Deadric Longswords and a full Legendary Dragonscale set with nearly maxed out Sneak, One Handed, Light Armor and maxed out Smithing and Enchanting makes for a VERY boring game (Ancient Dragons die in 2 power attacks). I'm currently working on my Mage, hoping for a better paced experience.

Secondly, populating dungeons with only high level versions of enemies cheapens the effect. When you find one Deathlord guarded by a bunch of regular and Restless Draugr, then that's awesome. When you find nothing but Deathlords, it kinda reduces them from "OMG A BOSS!!!" to "Oh, yet another trash mob".

While I acknowledge the need for scaling enemies in a game like Skyrim, I still maintain that Bethesda is doing it all wrong. There need to be strict caps on the levels of enemies. Each dungeon should have a level range and mobs should never leave that range. So a started dungeon shouldn't scale beyond level 10 or 15, no matter if you miss it until you are level 55. Likewise, the lair of, say, a Dragon Priest shouldn't scale bellow 20 or 30, even if your wimpy level 5 noob runs into it by accident.

Bethesda claimed they got this, that they are doing it that way, but I'm not seeing it. Any dungeon that my level 50 Warrior enters is populated by the highest level of enemy available. Every. Damn. One.

One solution would be to try to limit your leveling by not using any XP boosting Signs and focusing on as few skills as possible, but then you lose on the fun of building your character...

The other solution is to live with it and wait for the modding community to fix the whole thing. Oscuro's Skyrim Overhaul can't come soon enough...

 

[Arkley]

Has anyone else found that the level scaling gets a little annoying around level 48/49?

My first 40 or so levels on Skyrim the combat felt perfect to me, enemies died fast but I still had to be careful as I could be ass whooped by the odd tough one. Nicely balanced for the most part with the odd challenging 'boss' guy thrown in.

But right now I am getting my game sabotaged by seemingly endless Ancient Dragon attacks which aren't all that hard but quite a boring grind as the damage sponging assholes take forever to kill. They seem to be spawning more frequently than ever too, almost every time I fast travel to a town or near a mountain.

Also, the Draugr dungeons seem to be populated almost exclusively by Deathlords and Overlords now, which again makes the game less enjoyable as too much time is spent whacking endlessly away on 1300HP tanks. Last night, for the first time in my 120+ hours I actually rage quit Skyrim, (all though it was more of a 'eh can't be bothered' quit than a rage quit) due to it spawning 5 deathlords and an overlord on me all at once. I love the game but sometimes I just don't have the patience for yet another fight like that

It's nowhere near as bad as Oblivion but still... does anyone else think the enemy scaling could use just a teeny tiny bit of toning down, to make higher levels less of a drag?

I actually found this thread quite interesting to read, because it goes no small distance towards proving how truly different Skyrim experiences can be between players. I'm currently level 44 Nord, dual axe/light armour, with level 100 smithing. enchanting & alchemy, each with a ton of perks. 100 one-handed weapons with full perks (aside from sword/mace perks) and 95ish light armour, also full perks.

Anyway, those are my stats to give a little context. I'm actually disappointed with how easy the game is post-35. I killed the final main story boss in about 5 blows and standard dungeon filler enemies aren't even obstacles any more. Hell, with that one perk that lets you do a double damage critical sprinting heavy attack, I don't even have to stop running to kill, enemies just die as I pass.

I think this may have something to do with the way I went about crafting my equipment. I disenchanted the alchemy, smithing and enchanting equipment I found. I made enchanting bonus potions, chugged them and enchanted a full set of alchemy bonus gear, and then I made more alchemy bonus potions, then I used those made more (better) enchanting bonus potions, and made more alchemy gear, and used that to make more (better) enchanting bonus potions, then more alchemy gear, and repeated until I was making literally the best possible enchanting bonus potions/gear. Then I used those to enchant smithing bonus gear & potions. Then I made/upgraded my combat weapons/armour/amulets/rings, and then enchanted them using my enchanting equipment/potions, resulting in double enchantments on each piece with massive amounts of +% one handed damage, stamina, health & light armour skill, and double fire/frost damage on one axe and fire damage/health drain on the other.

If you're having a lot of trouble getting things done, perhaps you could replicate this process for yourself. Although, if you find and/or buy a lot of smithing/enchanting elixirs (the ones with +40% bonus) you can cut out the whole alchemy section. Your results won't be quite as good, but they'll still be damn powerful, and you won't have to take alchemy to 100.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Yes its a bit silly when dungeons get populated with stupid amounts of overlords and dreadlords or whatever they're called but the alternative is killing everything in one hit.

 

[lacktheknack]

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

Why do I feel like it's going to be the Summerset Isles next? I just have this hunch, I dunno. Could be wrong.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Dominion.

I think their going to put Summerset in as DLC, it's a fairly small island.

Someone's not up on their lore.

The Sumerset Isles are three times the size of the Iliac Bay and surrounding countries from Daggerfall, which holds a world record for "Largest Standard Game Map" at double the size of Great Britain.

For less insane reference, it's twice the size of Vvardenfell. Assuming they keep a steady world-size ratio, you may want to rethink that stance.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Meh, I'm at Level 61 and everything but dragons die when I stab them with a sneak attack, Jester's Gloves, and my trusty Glass Dagger (Going to upgrade Daedra for the heck of it though). Dragons are super annoying though, but I can just sneak past them. They do seem to spawn super often now though, but that may just be because I travel more since I don't have to worry about Bears or Trolls mauling me every ten seconds...

 

[Sandernista]

And hey, maybe in The Elder Scrolls VI: All of Tamriel/Return to Morrowind (wishful thinking) Bethesda will perfect their scaling formula.

Why do I feel like it's going to be the Summerset Isles next? I just have this hunch, I dunno. Could be wrong.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Dominion.

I think their going to put Summerset in as DLC, it's a fairly small island.

Someone's not up on their lore.

The Sumerset Isles are three times the size of the Iliac Bay and surrounding countries from Daggerfall, which holds a world record for "Largest Standard Game Map" at double the size of Great Britain.

For less insane reference, it's twice the size of Vvardenfell. Assuming they keep a steady world-size ratio, you may want to rethink that stance.

I'm going on the official maps. Using those it's not much bigger than Vvardenfell. Probably the smallest province in Tamriel.