Running into an enemy that's far too strong for you to defeat kind of defeats the purpose of "go anywhere, do anything", imo.

NO. The auto leveling enemies in oblivion were one of the worst things in the game and rendered you leveling up your character almost completely pointless.

Dont know how to say this... wait yes I do, you are wrong sir

I disagree. It's nice to be able to find an actual challenge, or go to a place where you are not strong enough to clear out yet. Then, come back when you've leveled up a bit more. The scaling sucked in Oblivion. Skyrim can be a challenge but will also have parts where you can breeze through and feel really powerful. With the scaling all you could do was change the difficulty, then everything would either be easy or hard.

No. Please, just no. Stop.

Autoscaling enemies ruined oblivion for me. Im also one of those people that like to overlevel because i dislike dying during the mainline quest.

Scaling is still there, only done right this time. I think they nailed it.

@SlashDance said:

Appropriate linkage, Oblivion scaling was lame.

The level scaling in Oblivion was terrible. There was no point to leveling because everything just powered up with you, and in the most ridiculous ways possible.

Oh yeah, because you should obviously be able to go anywhere and kill anything right from the beginning.

Well I am sure someone feels the same as you and will make a mod for it on the PC. Except I have a funny feeling that you are a console player.

if you go way off the beaten path at level 2 or 3 you should get your shit ganked.

I didn't mind the scaling enemies in Oblivion. That said I like what they did in this game as well. And outside of Mammoths and Giants I haven't encountered anything I can't kill with at least some good strategy.

While I find the level scaling to be overall better than it was in Oblivion, I do find that running into enemies/quests/dungeons that are too difficult to be extremely frustrating, and I think it could have been handled better.

Stop right there, criminal scum!

You do know that even though Oblivion level scaling made the start of the game easier, by the time you hit level 20+, and every bandit and their mother had full Daedric, the game ended up HARDER then just having a powerful boss level mob at the end of a bunch of weaklings.

In both Oblivion and Skyrim, enemies can be beat with a little attack-retreat/heal-attack strategy. It may not always be full frontal assault but it can be done. By the way, I noticed that dragons are much easier to defeat than mammoths and giants. Anyone else get that?

So far nothing has really murdered me apart from Giant's and Deathlords, and even those are nothing now.
I won't say the enemies are perfectly done in this game, but they feel a lot better then Oblivion's.

I won't say I miss it, but I'm not with these other folks that hated it. I knocked the difficulty in Oblivion up to 3/4 the slider, and I absolutely loved having a challenge through the entire game. I don't want to go through the game wrecking fools, I want encounters to matter and make me think on my feet. Skyrim so far has been 90% one-shotting fools, 5% dragons, and 5% nearly impossible fights. The balance there seems WAY off. I went through a den of vampires killing each one in one or two hits, then died 10 times on the last guy. That makes no sense to me. In Oblivion, those "minions" would have been at an appropriate level, I would have gained more experience from them, and I would have been more prepared for the Master due to having at least a couple of challenging fights along the way.

@imsh_pl said:

Oh yeah, because you should obviously be able to go anywhere and kill anything right from the beginning.

Well it is called open world. I hate scaling in linear RPG's, but it makes sense in an open world so that you can go where you want. It kind of defeats the open world point if certain quests and areas are late game areas. Sure you could head there in theory, but if you just die then the area is cut off just as effectively as if there was some sort of physical barrier.

High Risks, High Rewards.

I don't miss it at all, and I've not found it a problem if I'm smart about how I'm fighting something.

I can understand how one might think that this ruins the "go anywhere, do anything" part of the game, but I have to disagree. The game is much more fun when there are portions inaccessible to you due to level. The other day, I stumbled upon some chest with this crazy ghost inside that tore me to shreds. I didn't make the mistake of trying a rematch immediately, but you can bet I'll be back when I'm bigger and stronger. Part of the fun is stumbling upon something you can't handle, then coming back when you're older, wiser, and beefier. That will be satisfying.

No

One of the best things about the current scaling system is that it still allows underleveled characters to survive, if you take advantage of the game mechanics, are skilled, and are patient. So you can sit back for an hour or so to kill a mammoth when you're level 10. If that's the kind of thing you want to do. But no, the experience of getting completely jacked by wandering into the wrong neighborhood is great. I came across a single frost troll and thought, hell, I can take this guy. I'd already beaten the one on the 7000 steps, and figured I could do it again. Then another one popped out. And then a third. And that was the end of me.

Epic battle, and one I lost horribly. But I'm so looking forward to going back there and stomping them into oblivion later on. And that's why this scaling system works.

It's much more satisfying for me to build my character up so that they are walking death. Scaling enemies doesn't allow for that and doesn't mesh with the idea of building your character. Knowing that there are areas that just aren't a good idea to venture too makes a much more dynamic world than just being able to go anywhere without fear

And for those that say it goes against the "go anywhere" concept, does it not make sense that in this open world that there are also things that can stomp the shit out of you? You are totally free to go wherever you want, but the world should be harsh because there is real danger out there, not just because the game jacks up the stats whenever you happen to gain some experience

dragons are too easy which is a shame

Can honestly say the only time I felt ripped off in Skyrim was when three snow bears attacked me, I can take one easily, fend off two if I summon a Dremora demon or Storm Atronach and heal like a mofo, but three? Come on Skyrim! Never had any trouble with Frost Trolls either.

Nooo-hohohooo. I don't think "open world" has to be a synonym for "go wherever, nothing will kill ya." That kind of thinking ruins the whole world. Why are there these bandits in glass armor here? Why's this mudcrab tougher than the monsters in Oblivion? I don't think it was good at all. Also, the leveling and the loot were pointless. So no, in retrospect, that was the worst thing in that game. The whole character progression didn't matter.

I agree with the OP to some extent. It forced you to be smart about your leveling...you could make the game pretty easy by the mid-teens with smart focused leveling, and the challenge was back in the higher levels - you had to really manage your leveling to play well at level 30. Kind of like PVP in Dark Souls - you could do well with tight controlled leveling and you'd get slaughtered if you were just leveling all over the place without a plan.

Anyway, it can be fun either way, but it was nice in Oblivion that the enemies that were supposed to be hard were always hard. I agree with everyone else that it's fun to go somewhere you shouldn't go and try to figure out a way to come out on top, but Oblivion always had a few areas like that no matter your level. The problem was that the casual, no-plan-player could inadvertently find mud crabs kicking his ass, and the way to overcome that wasn't obvious without a little research into the leveling system.

The problem Oblivion's system fixed was the one where you over-level with side questing to the point that the game is boring and you are just wading through everything with no challenge (see Borderlands). That had to be fixed in a go anywhere do anything world to prevent the game from becoming totally boring, and they honestly did a great job fixing it.

I'll have to get higher level in Skyrim to see how I feel about the refinements to the system. The system should just make sense - mud crabs and wolves should not scale. The City-Guard and boss-type characters should.

@MackGyver: You're not alone. I'm level 29 and can take a Blood Dragon/Frost Dragon almost with ease, but giant camps? Check my potions, powers aso. You can look forward to some "kill Giant" quests, they are close to dragon priest brutal.

@plaintomato: Do the City-Guard scale? I managed to kill everyone in solitude by myself, so I'm not sure if they scale with you.

Sword and board with heavy armor and restoration if you're curious.

I have no problem with it. I don't wanna be able to take on anything, everywhere, kinda kills the sense of progression from a nobody to super badassery.

@Animasta said:

if you go way off the beaten path at level 2 or 3 you should get your shit ganked.

Being creative with your approach helps too. The only things that just totally stomp my ass that I'm running in to on a regular basis at level 23 are Deathlords. However, if I avoid a full confrontation and just backstab them when the moment is right, BAM, one hit kill. A lot of the time, playing to the strengths of your character circumvents a bit of the difficulty curve.

Level scaling was the one thing that drove me away from Oblivion in the end, I just felt like I was grinding my way through everywhere I went. Nothing changed.

Level scaling in Oblivion basically completely ruined the point of any sort of leveling system at all, and either made the entire game a slog, or the entire game a breeze. What exactly is an "open world" where everything is piss easy? I love that Skyrim not only forces you to explore on foot to every new area you're going to, (as opposed to Oblivion allowing you to fast travel to every major city right out of the gate), but also encourages you to be more skilled and be more careful in certain encounters. You're not supposed to be able to take on anything right out of the gate.

I hated the level scaling in Oblivion. Oblivion was a good game, but the level scaling really irked me. Good riddance IMO.

The game isn't "go anywhere, do anything." I can't go 1000 miles above the ground and instantly become the Arch Mage of the Mages' Guild as soon as I get out of the introductory mission.

@smokeyd123 said:

@plaintomato: Do the City-Guard scale? I managed to kill everyone in solitude by myself, so I'm not sure if they scale with you.

Sword and board with heavy armor and restoration if you're curious.

Don't know yet, not far enough, I'm just saying scaling makes sense in some circumstances...certain battles should never be easy and when a whole game becomes too easy it's a problem, and I enjoyed Oblivion's solution. The other end of this conversation is a game like Borderlands - an excellent game that became incredibly dull if you side-quested enough just to be only a couple levels over the recommended level for story missions; suddenly the game became super easy and you were just going through the motions. If you ask me, that's more broken than scaling enemies that keep the challenge consistent. Admittedly, I'm one of those OCD types that loves a leveling system that requires planning, and I thought it was a blast to have to maintain tight control over when and what was leveled in Oblivion. If you didn't like careful planning, Oblivion could get too hard if you went for a high level out of the gate, so I get that some people hated that.

Balancing a leveling system and a challenging game is hard - there is no game that has that balance perfect. Well, Dark Souls, but it relies on player skill enough to allow wiggle room and still feel balanced (and you can always summon help if you're stuck). Skyrim's early challenge is more about clever tactics in the world than enemy patterns and such.

@sirdesmond said:

The game isn't "go anywhere, do anything." I can't go 1000 miles above the ground and instantly become the Arch Mage of the Mages' Guild as soon as I get out of the introductory mission.

That is a really insightful and astute observation. Truly, 1000 miles above the ground is somewhere.

All this bitching about Oblivion's leveling system... If you play stealth you can eventually crawl around in daylight and get 6x backstabs rendering any scaling invalid.

Oh yeah, because you should obviously be able to go anywhere and kill anything right from the beginning.

I'm not one of these people that screams troll every time someone disagrees with me but, in this case, obvious troll is obvious.

At the time I didn't realize it but Oblivion was too comforting. Pretty much it was at the point that seeing enemies meant nothing. But in Skyrim I find myself running away like crazy. Sometimes it looks like a plain bandit, I hit them with some heavy duty attack and they barely take any damage. It's refreshing and adds much more drama.

By the way, anyone know a good attack to take down Ice Wraiths? They have been giving me problems.

I didn't even know anyone preferred Oblivion's scaling system, I assumed everyone just installed the mod that took that shit out.

That was the worst part of the game, easily.