Koki on 30/11/2011 at 07:06
Quote Posted by wonderfield
All of those skills factor, however.
Yes, I even wanted to add a comment about it but the factor is so little that I decided to fuck it.
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You'd get pretty sick of killing Draugrs, trolls and werewolfs after a while, just as you get tired of killing Ultimegamatron Bandits. I don't think that's a valid approach.
Because you missed the point. It's not about keeping things "interesting", it's about making mob scaling that is not retarded and doesn't break suspension of disbelief just by existing.
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How exactly would that fly with your typical casual console gamer? Not well, I'd imagine.
I don't give a flying fuck.
PigLick on 30/11/2011 at 07:35
Yeh remember in Morrowind, when you reached certain levels, harder monsters would start appearing in the wilderness like golden saints and atronachs.
wonderfield on 30/11/2011 at 09:04
Quote Posted by Koki
I don't give a flying fuck.
I don't imagine you do. Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax Media do, however. They want console gamers to have a great experience — as that's where the majority of their sales come from — so concessions are going to be made during development to ensure they get the very best experience possible (hardcore PC gamers will get only as much attention as the size of our user base realistically deserves, and no more). Console gamers aren't going to tolerate having to level themselves up to a certain threshold just to fumble through the main quest. Some would, but most simply won't.
Let's not act as if Howard made the decisions he made during development for no good reason. The motivation for many of those decisions is obvious, regardless of whether you admire the outcome of it or not. Did Bethesda "fuck it up", as you stated? In some respects, absolutely. In others, no. Skyrim is the way it is not so much because Howard is an idiot but because Howard knows who's buying the products and what those people want.
Koki on 30/11/2011 at 10:16
Oh drop the bullshit. People and especially console gamers are morons, they buy games first, play them later and rarely return them because it's too much hassle. Hype is the only important factor in game sales, and Skyrim had more than enough of it. It could've shipped as Oblivion without stats and it would sold the same.
wonderfield on 1/12/2011 at 16:25
Quote Posted by Koki
Hype is the only important factor in game sales, and Skyrim had more than enough of it. It could've shipped as Oblivion without stats and it would sold the same.
Skyrim will not be the last Elder Scrolls game. The series would not continue to sell at the volume Skyrim has if they had simply abandoned any notion of providing a good experience for their most important (in terms of sales potential) user base.
fett on 1/12/2011 at 17:10
Then there's people like me who have a console because it's great for kid's games, Netflix, etc. My PC is old and impractical to replace at this point. I'm basically a PC gamer resigned to playing on a console. That in mind, I don't have a problem with the scaling. I didn't buy the game for challenging combat. I hate combat, no matter how well it's done. If I'd wanted a game that did combat really well, I would have bought Batman or something. I'm a fan of Thief and Deus Ex and I'm more interested in the Thief abilities, and they seem to work just fine and scale proportionately to the game experience I hoped for when I shelled out my $50. I avoid combat as much as possible but when I do fight, I find that I kill skeevers and bandits pretty easily, but often get my ass handed to me by giants and trolls. Not sure if I just suck, or the rest of you are making much ado about nothing. I had a similar experience with Oblivion (at least until I was more familiar with it and realized how easy it was). I guess it depends on how you play the game and what you want from it. Personally, I'm more than happy with the variety of items, skills, locales, enemies, and especially the story/quest lines. There's lots to do and see, and the voice acting is great. I haven't even noticed problems with the scaling. I just avoid combat about 90% of the time.
Koki on 1/12/2011 at 18:02
Quote Posted by wonderfield
Skyrim will not be the last Elder Scrolls game. The series would not continue to sell at the volume Skyrim has if they had simply abandoned any notion of providing a good experience for their most important (in terms of sales potential) user base.
You mean just like Oblivion did?
scottyd on 8/12/2011 at 02:18
Quote Posted by Briareos H
Great post. Generally, my idea is to bring back all the attributes plus map annotation, an enhanced version of Mark/Recall and to completely rework / de-linearise larger dungeons. But that would require Bethesda to be a "GOOD COMPANY".
As you said, the character level used for scaling should only be related to combat skills. No way around this: all other skills serve the purpose to get around combat situations. As a counterpart, dungeons should be designed with multiple paths in mind. Make sneaking a viable option and put enemies of varying levels within the same dungeon: have the part/path of a cave leading to the phattest lewt populated by stronger enemies, allowing to be bypassed only if you use high level non-combat skills: acrobatics, levitation, illusion, speechcraft (talk your way through a bandit blockade, WHY THE HELL NOT), sneaking and lockpicking, also why not add a skill to find secret passages.
That way if you're specialised enough you can still get the loot and that great feeling of circumventing enemies which are way stronger than you, through clever use of skills you raised otherwise. But that won't make you gain a level and become magically stronger. If you can't get through, you can still get as far as you can (usually, get to the intermediary and quest-related loot) and then when you're getting your ass handed back to you, just register the dungeon (annotation + fast travel back without breaking the lore through the use of that little thing called 'mark/recall') and come back later to get the high level loot.
Finally, low importance dungeons/camps should level otherwise normally if they
"limit bandits to I don't know, level 30 and then replace them with complately different enemies instead of just Bandits on Steroids."Yes.
In summary:
- Separate "combat level" leveling and skill levels, more varied skills.
- Filler dungeons or camps, scaling with the current player combat level with a few possible pre-configured difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard).
- Larger dungeons, scaling with the current player combat level with a few possible pre-configured difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard) and a path leading to high-level/unique loot with fixed-level enemies and ways to circumvent through skill use.
- Special dungeons with fixed-level only enemies and ways to circumvent through skill use.
This poses the problem of raising skills, which should probably be a mix of the skill-specific XP and a cap tied to the combat level and other skills.
As for the easy/medium/hard setting for difficulty scaling, find a way to communicate it to the player beforehand through hearsay or geography. A super secret hive lost in the mountains should be more difficult than a bandit camp in the open.
I also noticed by level 25 or so common bandits one shot killed me easy. Playing on master made it hard, esp never ajusting the setting or using cheat, but I exploited the game...
Got my one handed up to 100, heavy armor 100, bow 199.. and made daedric legendary swords n armor, still one or two shots.. robed enemy mages lightning bolted me one shot.. using my brenton, I found the lord stone that gave me another 25% resist magic, and then enchanted some of my items to resist magic, fire or frost.
I then used conjuration to help me fight along with a companion, but it was still hard.
What I wanted to do is somehow have a chance on master dif..
Then I got the Smithing, alchemy and enchant to 100, and potion stack to encant alchemy to make items to smith.. 6 items for alchemy and 4 items for smithing.
wearing 4 x 29% increase smithing, whi;le drinking a 147% smith potion yields me some nice weapon and armor... Daedric 1H sword iw 191 damage, daedric bow 206 damage, enchanting armor, ring and necklace with 48% bow and sword damage, my bow does 601 damage and my daedric sword 557 damage, armor is 1740. along with Brenton 25% resist magic, lord stone 25% resist magic and shield 23% gives me 73% out of a possible 85% resist magic damage, helps a TON on master difficulty.
I have some rings and amulets I have with 48% 1H sowrd + 48% bow, and others have 48% 1H sword + 44% shcok resistance.
I'm at level 73.. nothing in this game I can't kill in 1-5 hits.. I can still be killed IF I am not careful but even Elder dragons don't hurt me much, I can sneak attack bow them 1 shot if I use a bow 147& damage potion, without sneak and using potion, about 5 shots, or 5 pr 6 sword slashes.. using elemental fury, they go down quick..
I am with you that the game is broke some.
Still not as broke as Morrowind where you can be god like stacking potions or stacking spells getting you strenth up to 5000, speed to 1200, magic at 10,000 etc. health to 10,000. nd fly everywhere like a jet.
Same with Oblivion, using the echelon of Choroll shield 35% reflect damage, the ring of iron fist with 33% reflect damage, and Amulet of Axes with 33% reflect damage (or necklace of swords 33%) along with a 2nd ring you could wear with 50% magic resistance, using a Brenton with 50% magic resistance, your character was almost invincible with 101 reflect damage and 100% magic resistance, only arrows or being stepped on would hurt you.
or you could just wear 5 items of 20% chameleon, and nothing would fight you.
Skyrim you don't become god, like the others, but you can relax level 50 and up on master dif if you play smith/alchemy/enchant right. on master with 557 dmg sword (1350 with potion) 601 dmg bow, 1750 armor, 73% resist magic, 65% resist fire.. I can still be killed if I don't catch that mage bolting me quick 5-6 hits and she has killed me, but one hit and she's done, dragons flame, front and bite... 1 time out of 8 I gt killed for being careless.. using no conjure or companion.
ES 3, 4, and 5 are easy!
Kuuso on 8/12/2011 at 17:51
Your post is a bit null, because only someone committed on becoming godmode does that stuff. It's only a problem, if things are OP/UP only matter in relations to "normal play", in other words, if you dump hours and hours in power-leveling smithing enchanting et al (instead of, well, "playing the game"), you end up being a demigod, no doubt about it.
scottyd on 15/12/2011 at 01:56
Quote Posted by Kuuso
Your post is a bit null, because only someone committed on becoming godmode does that stuff. It's only a problem, if things are OP/UP only matter in relations to "normal play", in other words, if you dump hours and hours in power-leveling smithing enchanting et al (instead of, well, "playing the game"), you end up being a demigod, no doubt about it.
Not really because This is not baby levels, but on master difficulty.
Try surviving on master at lev 30 without some sorts of power weapon armor.. even common bandits one shot kill you.. even with arrows and a common bow.
You may still survive if you reload a million times to get through a tough part.
