Is this game leveled or not?

[Sarpedon]

I can't figure out how the difficulty in this game is set. Is it like Morrowind where only random wilderness encounters are levelled, and Dungeons each have a set difficulty? Or is everything levelled, like in Oblivion, with some foes just have a higher level add on? Or what?

 

Consider the following two incidents:

 

So I retrieve the horn for the Greybeards, and it was a cakewalk. Then I ask them where the next THUM can be learned, and they tell me, and off I go. Not very far into the cave, I encounter a Draugr Dreadlord who THUMs my weapons away and then kills me in two blows! When I reloaded, I just turned around and left. Are the Greybeards trying to kill me?

 

Then I went on the 'test' for the companions, and there's one battle with three of the Silver dudes that I had to retry like six times and burn through all my potions to win, even with the Companion guy helping me. Then I went on the next Companion mission, going to fight a monster I hadn't encountered before, which had taken over some guy's house. I expected the worst, given the last mission, but it turned out to be a small blue chinese dragon like thing that I dispatched with 4 blows.

 

Does anyone have any insight into this? Please, keep in mind that I haven't played through all the way, so refrain from spoiling things. Thanks.

[elvinkun]

Well, it seems to be less visually drastic than in the previous games. You will still see wolves, but you'll also encounter Ice wraiths more often, you will always see Draurg..gr..r (never get that one right) in the normal, weak shape, but then also the Overlords on any level... It just seems that some encounters are always there, no matter the level, but the "trash" mobs get stronger with your level and also the stronger versions appear more often.

 

But yes, also managed to meet Overlord at lvl 9, and let me tell you, it was rather extreme since he could one hit me with both shout and weapon.

 

Well, basically, you can find anything at any level, but the stronger versions often. Like at the start, Restless Dreurg is rare, but later on you meet scourges and wighs all the time. In thw wild, it seems to be less visible tho.

 

Well, I'm not sure what I said just now made any sense at all, but point is, there are even things that seem to be given, not leveld, expecially in some dungeons the bosses seem to be fixed and some enemies are always stronger than others, even if they have the same name. Like the Silver hand you mentioned, one can be killed with one shot from Longbow, other takes 15 fireballs to the face and still is at 50% :biggrin:

Edited December 16, 2011 by elvinkun

[Roltak]

Well as far as I understood from interviews and everything, both.

 

The basic mechanic is about the same as in Oblivion, Leveled Groups of enemies, that level as you level, although they jump a bit (level up every few levels) but the level isn't solely dependant on the players level, but on encounter zones.

As soon as you enter one of the cells of an encounter zone that encounter zone gets a fixed level, based on your level and some math(player level +10%, +2 level, -3 level or something like that) I think. And after that, that level stays, so if you enter a dungeon at level 1 and return at level 20 you should encounter the same enemies. Most likely some of the quest dungeons, some of the special dungeons and some bosses in generic dungeons have fixed levels and some dungeons go from level 10-30(or other ranges) instead of 1-30 so you will still be ripped apart if you go in too early. Don't know if after a dungeon resets if the encounter zone gets reseted too or not, although I think not.

 

The overworld is think it completely leveled, so the overworld enemies may be stronger then those you encounter in dungeons ... or not, I haven't really payed that much attention and done that much dungeon crawling, so I might be wrong about all of it, that is only what I heard from some interviews, so it might have changed or I simply missinterpreted it.

[Sarpedon]

So if I go back to that dungeon where I got my ass kicked after a few levels, the enemies won't have changed? Thats good news.

 

Its not that I mind having things I have to run away from and come back later, that's better than oblivion. What bothered me was the unevenness between two quests that are adjacent in the narrative, and that there was no warning before tough quests, like Morrowind had.

[MagusShade]

what i hate the most is scaling on equipment. If im totally awesome and manage to do the entire Dark Brotherhood questline before leveling all that much, then why do I get a weaker blade of woe than other people?

 

This also kindof breaks the "meant to be played" way of doing things.

Lets say 2 people start the Dark Brotherhood questline at the same level

 

The sneaky guy sneaks around, avoiding enemies and kills his target, then leaves - This is what assassins are supposed to be, yet this guy would only level stealth and maybe 1handed

 

Meanwhile a guy barges in, is noisy, kills everyone including the target - This guy would NOT make a very good assassin, yet he lvls 1handed, block, restoration, heavy/light armor (because he is getting hit). So he levels more categories, AND there is no consequence for not being a good assassin.

 

So in short, the warrior would level more categories, levelling himself more levels than the stealthy guy in the same amount of quests. This allows him to recieve a better blade of woe, which he probably wont even use!(because warriors don't generally use daggers) THIS is the real problem with things scaling to your level >.<

Edited December 16, 2011 by MagusShade

[xlr8films]

A pretty good rule of thumb that I've been following: If the dungeon I enter has potions of minor health scattered all over tables and cupboards, yet the chests and containers I open have magic Orcish warhammers and +60 gold .... I've leveled up a little too much for the interior. I know I'll be facing tougher and tougher opponents as I progress through it.