The one thing that has always bothered me about Elder Scrolls games: Variable level encounters. This is one of the tenants of the series - it's there so that you can have a smooth and not-so-jagged experience playing the game. Because the game is a "sandbox", the thought is that all of your quests and encounters must be adapted to your current level - that way the game is not too hard and not too easy. The developers can't predict where you're going to go, or what you're going to want to do, so they just have to make the enemies you fight generated based on your character level. I have a serious problem with this philosophy, and it's simple: It lacks verisimilitude. You can click the word if you don't know what it means, but it's the perception of plausibility, reality, and realistic probability. Superman is not a human that flies, he's an alien that defies Earth's gravity. There's an explanation that can fit relatively well (if not perfectly) with the rest of reality. The problem with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, is that these level generated encounters end up out shining the major story arcs and characters in the game - I had more trouble killing the Blood Horker's battlemage than I did Alduin - that should NOT happen. The fact that the game is OBVIOUSLY generating harder monsters for me to kill when i'm clearing out a Draugr dungeon is hard to ignore. Is my character, just by chance, suddenly finding all of the really hard dungeons that would have owned me when I was level 5? No. No way. The real issue here is that it minimizes my sense of accomplishment. I slew dragons left and right, killed Alduin himself - twice - and I'm having trouble with a bandit orc winging a two-handed axe around like he's trying to hit a piniata. Are you trying to tell me the bandit orc could have slain Alduin, Skyrim? Part of the fun of leveling up in a game is going back to that dungeon that beat your ass when you were level 2 and blowing everything in it up. Clear challenge, accompanied with the sense of accomplishment that comes with overcoming it. The problem with Skyrim is that this sense of accomplishment is diminished by the fact that you realize you're not actually accomplishing anything within the game world, you're just fighting enemies that are generated for your level. You never get the feeling that something is above you, because it never is. You can do the entire game at level 5. Anyway - the whole reason I'm posting here, is because there are mods for Morrowind (and I assume Oblivion) that correct this - they go through the game, make some areas hard, and others easy. The world is static, and does not change just because you're walking around in it - if you show up in a camp of vampires at level 5, they're going to pwn your sorry little ass. If you walk through some level 1 bandits at level 48, you're going to melt their faces off just looking at them. This is much easier to believe - it supports verisimilitude, and makes your accomplishments in the game that much sweeter. Killing Alduin should REQUIRE you to be really high level - he should be a flying badass of destruction, more powerful than any of the things you faced back on the mortal plane. I'm putting the request out there to modders - fix Skyrim so that it doesn't feel hollow and empty from the lack of plausibility. Being constantly reminded that the game is catering to me by generating like-leveled mobs is demoralizing. --Locane
