![]() Conversely, mage dungeons could have enemies that cannot be hit by physical weapons, so you have to use magic on them, and whose attacks ignore armour so you need magical defences too. The denizens of warrior-focused dungeons would cut through unarmoured mages so that’s easy enough. That way, you only have to level-scale to a subset of skills, which would mean you can set the level scaling up against those relevant stats and skills instead of your character’s overall level. Have traditional dungeons full of enemies for warriors have dungeons to sneak through for stealthy characters and have perhaps more puzzle-focused places for mages. My current thinking would be that the game should acknowledge this three-archetype system and double down on it, by creating dungones tailored to each archetype to the exclusion of the others. And before you say it, neither is relying on modders to fill in the gaps!) So you got the brain, but have you got the touch? Don’t get me wrong, yeah I think you’re alright, but that won’t keep me warm in the middle of the night. (The “legendary” system that resets skills, so you can relearn them, is weird - I don’t feel that asking the player to handicap themselves for no real reason is a good solution to balancing problems. They have a been scaled to challenge a high level warrior, not a low level mage. Having said that, I think the problem of level scaling is most obvious in Skyrim because of the three major character archetypes.Ĭonsider that a character may reach level 20 through honing their skills at lockpicking and talking to people and sneaking around - so should they face the same enemies as a level 20 character who has sunk all their energy into swords and armour? In my current game, I’ve reached the peak of melee combat skills, so I’m trying to use magic instead to eke out a few more levels - but while the enemies may be felled in two or three strokes of my greatsword, it takes ages to whittle them down with my crappy spells. (And if you’re sneaky or clever enough to outwit a vastly superior foe, isn’t that something that makes you feel really good?) Dragons are scaled… and also their power levels are adjusted to match yours! You might go in anyway, and be forced to turn back when faced with something that is too powerful.Īfter all, an open world game may let you push your way anywhere - but there’s no rule that says the world shouldn’t push back. A few cheap skeletons you can easily bash aside - or a legion of Bonelords who will rend you limb from limb with dark magic? Immediately, there is trepidation on whether or not you should tackle a place now or later. You encounter a tomb and you have no idea what might be inside. My point still stands in general.)Ĭonsider, instead, the approach of Morrowind, where everything is hand-built and fixed. Yes, there are also some odd spikes, particularly Volkihar Vampire Masters in my experience. (Yes, in Skyrim there are bounds on the scaling of some enemies, so that they will become easier after a certain maximum power point. ![]() Every cave has a set of enemies of just the right strength to battle you fairly, only escalating gently from the entrance to its convenient second exit or looped passageway. As your character grows stronger and stronger, so too does the world around them so each fight is effectively of static difficulty, getting neither easier nor harder despite your burgeoning power. I dislike the notion that encountering something means you should be immediately be able to complete it, because this creates a very flat path through the game. Even mining seems to be scaled - you’ll find more flawless gems amongst the ore the more advance you are! Since you can be distracted at any time throughout the game - from levels 1 to 60 focused on stealth, magic or melee combat armed and armoured in a thousand different ways - in order to ensure that any character can clear the cave immediately upon encountering it for the first time, the power of its denizens has to be adjusted to match the power of that character. This places a curious limitation on how that cave can be structured. The design philosophy that Skyrim seems to embrace is that, if you can see it, you can go into it - and if you can go into it, you can clear it. You can walk over that hill and into that cave and see what’s there. Once you’ve got through the intro, you can go anywhere you like. I have to begin by saying that I don’t really like level scaling as a concept at all, or at least, definitely not as something universally applied. I’ve been thinking about level scaling - the way the game adjusts the power of enemies to match your own, so no matter where in the world you go, you’ll get an appropriate level of challenge. I’ve been replaying The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
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