Oblivion Game Balance

[diggystyon]

Peregrine:

Diablo and leveling up types of games bore me. What I meant was that having a wrold level up with your character seems totally unrealistic. Where is the danger? Where is the fear of getting in over your head and having to run away? I remember one of my favorite moments in Morrowind was when I was wandering around and came upon a single warrior with no weapons and an awesome suit of armor. After the first punch I knew I was in trouble. I ran away and kept coming back to hunt him down and fight him. I had to really plan my attacks out and many of them involved running away at top speed and healing myself franticaly. That was a great fight! It took a long time to kill that guy and it was rewarding at the end.

 

If this new system is relaly "the world levels with your character" then that would mean that the danger and uncertainty is gone and that a fight like I describe above would never happen, becuase the guy would be the same level as me.

 

That was my point. You can still have plenty of "role-playing" but it would sure seem like a mindless arcade game - just like Diablo did. :-)

[Peregrine]

Uh, no it doesn't. It just means that the guy will level up with you, so even at higher levels, you'll have a challenge. Without level-scaling, with a bit different timing, you'd have completely missed that story. You'd have killed him in one effortless swing, and not even bothered looting his worthless armor.

[diggystyon]

Go back and read the oginal quote from the review. This means that a new character can go ANYWHERE and kill ANYTHING. Note the example about the dungeon.

 

Seems like a pretty boring game at that point - for me. This is becuase I actually LIKE not being powerful enough to kill certain creatures or to go into certain places. That is half the fun for me.

 

Now, I would certainly enjoy areas where creatures start out at, say, Level 20, then level up with the player form there - so that when you go to those places you are guaranteed a real tough fight! That would be great.

 

I just don't like the idea of a newbie LEvel 1 character going around killing fearsome looking creatures that have been "leveled down" to accomodate the LEvel 1 player. that is just silly to me. very arcade-like.

[diggystyon]

Hey I posted over at the Bethesda forum. The guys there explained it much more claerly than Peregrine is attempting to. Go check it out here:

 

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...howtopic=109580

 

This new system actually sounds pretty cool!!! I am no longer worried about it.

[Switch]

Hmm, thanks for that. ^^ That does make it much clearer. As someone said there, the article could have been written a little bit better.

 

Of course, it's possible some of them are wrong, but it does put up a number of possible interpretations... however it still sounds like there will be some dungeons where no matter what it's still difficult regardless of level. I still don't like the sound of that. I want to be able to level and eventually overcome a dungeon with reasonable success as a reward, not be constantly frustrated by repeated defeat at a dungeon due to a constant +25 offset or something. What's the point of getting stronger if that happens?

 

Still, that analogy could be wrong too. Either way it sounds like that video interview will alleviate a bit the fears of people thinking the game will be too easy. I guess we'll have to wait until a little more clear info is let out before we truly know. :P

[blackmage256]

but think of it this way...lets say I am a magic type... and I go in to a +25 difficulty area...at level 1. I have a very hard time of it and I die 2 maybe three times...in under five minutes, so I decide it is to hard, so I leave. I go do some quests and levelup 5 levels. So I now have a spell database 10 times the size and have spells suited to the area Im going into...I also have more magicka and Health. I go back to that +25 cave prepared with AR boosting Items Int boosting Items ect... suddenly though it still has leveled up with me so the enemies have more hp and mp and mabee some new spells or abillities, I can go several areas before I have to heal...I have the advantage because I have thought out the area and am prepared... sure it is scaled but because the creatures have not been abroad and collected Items or made spells designed specificly to kill you, You are the victor and because of the levels you have gained you get not jsut a mudane longsword that you would have gotten if you had completed the cave before, you now get a ring of invisibility, and a gauntlet of sanctuary... and the difference would be bigger yet if you were a higher level... by thier discription creature leveling is lenear while I know that the value of a char is quadratic in the least....sorta like a collection of Magic the Gathering cards really...the more Cards (levels) you have doesnt mean you are more powerful it just gives you more choices ...some choices which can be used to your advantage against certain enemies...

whew... havent posted like that in a while...

-B *going to go study for finals*

[Ceranex]

I agree with blackmage on this. Though, Peregrine, the one hit kill if taken in the right way is cool. I mean if your fighting a guy in full armor, but no helmet, you could just take his head of instead of bashing through his armor first. So in a way its kinda realistic.

[hooray4morrowind]

Well, I see many replies, and my thought is this: The areas could be spread in a way, so that you couldn't really jump to the bigger zones too early. It may be like Guild Wars, road, mini quest, town, quest, town, quest.....so that you couldn't advance too fast. There is gates, so there may be keys you need to get before you can advance too much further than the designer wanted you to. I mean, it would just be dumb to go to the high levels that early and ruin it for yourself anyways, but some people are like that....some people will try to skip, and I don't see a reason why they should, or why it would be allowed. I hope it is kind of "barred off" a bit so that you aren't able to advance so fast, because I enjoy questing and getting the lower level stuff done instead of rushing through the game like a maniac :)

Also, if it does turn out like this, the "leveling area" system would work out great, because as you go, you will level, and if you level, they will level too [the monsters, or NPC's]. At towns, if you ARE able to skip further, maybe they will balance it so that there will not be a reward for 'rushers'. If NPCs are on a leveling scale, as are the monsters, then that would mean the shops will not have the 'uber loot'. As it seems, you would probably have to hunt a lot on higher level monsters or do the right quests to even get enough money to shop at the vendors, if they do have big loot. How I see it: It will probably turn out OK, if you have patience, and good old common sense. ;)

[blackmage256]

Ummm....horray4morrowind... they told us that we will be able to go anywhere no matter the level... have you even read the thread yet...

[hooray4morrowind]

Oh I read it...it said that you should be able to,....should....they didn't say if there was a catch....like if you were ABLE to go to the places, but there's some tricky puzzle or whatever....but I think that we will remain pretty unsure about this yet...

Here, I'll shut up, how about that, I'll just wait till the game really comes out :)

I don't like fighting over something I don't know!!