Level scaling, the necessary evil

[Koki]

Isn't summing up your point in a thread title like shooting yourself in the foot?

I've read more than I ever wanted to about Skyrim's level scaling on official forums recently but they're very much like an imageboard. They move so fast and have so many users that it's counterproductive to write any large amount of text there; it will be swept off the (several) front page(s) in matter of hours. That's where the good old half-dead TTLG shines.

Let's set up some things straight here:

1. Skyrim is an extremely open game. Compared to Skyrim, most "open" RPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 or Arcanum are CoD clones. In both Fallouts, the difficulty clearly scales along the path of the main quest, which is roughly north-south line. In Fallout 2, same thing - game gets progressively harder as you travel clockwise around the worldmap. Arcanum went as far as dividing the world into two with a mountain range that is impassable without metagaming before main quest deems it necessary.

Forthermore, both Fallouts and Arcanum rely heavily on the main quest to tell you where to go. Fallout even has a time limit to not allow player to doddle too much. Fallout 2 pretends it has a time limit. Bottom line is, a clearly defined main quest line gives the devs a clear indication where the player will go and when(at which level) so they can adjust the locations accordingly difficulty-wise.

No brainer how it relates to Skyrim. After you end up with Helgen, which is a tutorial, all you have is a passing comment of your war buddy to visit Riverwood. Sure, it's obvious that this is the main quest line(because it says so in the quest log) and you should go there if you want to finish the game - but there is no real obligation or even motivation to do it. At this point all you know that you got lucky and avoided an execution. Ancient doom is not really looming about, you are not the Chosen One(at least you don't know it yet) - all is right with the world.

And it's not just the case of player being an "asshole" and wandering in the opposite direction the compass tells him to - if you're a mage you're directed to Winterhold Academy; if you take part in a drinking game with a seemingly random guy in a local tavern you end up in Markarth, which is at the other end of the worldmap from Winterhold. It's impossible to predict where the player will go, so it's impossible to scale enemies accordingly.

2. Most of Skyrim is filler. Nothing else remains to be said here, really. 90%, if not more, dungeons in the game are optional. I don't even think you're required to visit half the main cities as part of the main quest. In other words, if you only follow the main quest, you'll never see significant majority of the game. So, again, scaling it along the player's path is impossible.

But there's more to it than that. If most of the game is filler, what makes said filler worth visiting? Well, XP and phat lewt of course. People often said that some areas of the game should be just more dangerous than others and you should not have a snowball's chance in hell to do them on low levels(but the same people still yearn for going there and obtaining super phat lewt super early). Yeah, but level scaling works both ways. It means wherever you go, it will be worth it. If you're level 30 and see a wolf's cave, you can still find something valuable inside. And face enemies that do not disintegrate when you as much as look in their direction.

Let's put it this way. Imagine Skyrim is not level scaled and 1/3 dungeons are low-level, 1/3 are mid-level, and 1/3 are high level. Since you need only to visit several of low-level dungeons to get to mid-level ones(you can't expect the player to run through 30 or so dungeons just to get to mid-levels, as it would turn the game into a singleplayer MMORPG; also you can gain levels without even stepping outside city gates, but more on that later), it would mean that all the remaining low-level dungeons are now worthless. Enemies inside are nothing but a nuisance, and loot is nothing but garbage.

Furthermore, to avoid "zoning" like Fallouts and Arcanum do and because you can't really tell where the player will end up and when, low, mid and high level dungeons should be mixed and spread more or less evenly across the entire game. tl;dr: it's a fucking disaster.

Unfortunately, Bethesda is still ran by this guy:



So Bethesda fucked it up generally.

Therefore let's put up some ideas about how you could make level scaling ten times better without putting much effort into it(a month of development time, tops):

1. The non-combat skills. God. Fucking. Dammit. Admittely, Smith/Enchant is actually the strongest combo available in the game, but there are others - like Pickpocket, Speech, Alchemy, Lockpick, Sneak, etc. Just... don't fucking scale by those. For fuck's sake.

2. Bandit, Strong Bandit, Stronger Bandit, Strongest Bandit, Strongestest Bandit. How about limit bandits to I don't know, level 30 and then replace them with complately different enemies instead of just Bandits on Steroids? How fucking hard would that be? Bandits up to level 30, then Draugr, then shit, ghosts or Trolls or werewolves or whatever. And if Beth was actually a GOOD COMPANY they would also make dungeons out of pre-made chunks in several varietes and change them as they change the enemies. So layout would remain the same, but at level 19 you would fight Frost Spiders in a cave, and at level 33 Draugr in Nordic Ruins, in the same location.

3. End-game stuff: Just because you scale UP to the player doesn't mean you should scale DOWN too. Leave a dozen "end-game" dungeons with "fuck your shit up" variety of enemies. Granted, it creates a risk of the player exploiting the game(mostly AI) and getting super phat lewt early but honestly, that's a little price to pay for having some locations to remind the player that it's not ALL ABOUT YOUR ASS. Similarly, all bosses on the main quest shouldn't scale either. None of the "Killing the last boss at level 1" Oblivion bullshit again.

[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."

Leave a dozen "end-game" dungeons with "fuck your shit up" variety of enemies.

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.

[Koki]

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.

Just introduce additional, separate leveling system that is hidden from the players and which works only off of combat skills. And use the hidden level to determine mob/loot level.

[Avalon]

Yep, the game should scale off of your skill levels, not just your overall level. I'd say it would be a million times better even if they just balanced it off your single highest offense skill (one handed, two handed, destruction, archery, etc).

Furthermore, it should be a dynamic sliding scale, rather than just replacing lower level creature with higher level creature. Gradually nudge up the stat values of a creature without necessitating a huge leap from "dragon" to "elder dragon" to "ancient dragon," to name an example. This could then scale with the ridiculousness of the alchemy/enchanting/smithing shenanigans, so that I'm not killing the strongest, highest leveled creature in the game with a single power attack.

[Sulphur]

I don't see anything inherently wrong with zoning.

Yes, it's a free-roaming open-world RPG, but populating portions of the environment with enemies at different levels to funnel you along certain paths until you're ready to breach the borders is a good way to show that the world operates on a level separate from you, and that it's dangerous out there; come back when you're ready.

In a way, zones make for your easy/medium/hard dungeons simply by virtue of their enforcing a semi-linear progression, and they eliminate the worthless loot issue.

The levelling system needs to be based on combat-related skills, yeah. If they want to keep their unique mechanics and not plump for the ubiquitous XP harvesting system that every RPG goes for, it works well enough with zoning as long as skill counts go up with enemy deaths, and not just running at the enemy and swinging at/casting at/backstabbing them and then running away, ad infinitum.

[wonderfield]

1. The non-combat skills. God. Fucking. Dammit. Admittely, Smith/Enchant is actually the strongest combo available in the game, but there are others - like Pickpocket, Speech, Alchemy, Lockpick, Sneak, etc. Just... don't fucking scale by those. For fuck's sake.

All of those skills factor, however. A high sneak skill makes it significantly easier to avoid dangerous combat encounters and allows you to take down enemies that you couldn't possibly handle in a straight-up fight. A high speech skill gets you lower prices for the tools you'll need to get an edge over adversaries. Alchemy gives you powerful options to craft your own potions and poisons to give you a leg up in combat scenarios. Lockpick gets you into high-level chests and rooms with high-level equipment which'll give you an edge against your adversaries. Pickpocket, again, lets you get gold and equipment that...well, you know the rest.

All of the skills are relevant to combat, even if not directly relevant. A player with alchemy and sneak skills at 100 is, potentially, an impressive force to be reckoned in combat, even with fairly low combat skills. If the player simply jacks up the skills that aren't directly relevant to combat and is constantly dealing with level 1, unscaled foes, the game's going to end up being a cakewalk. It opens the door to 'powergaming', an issue Morrowind was heavily criticized for.

2. Bandit, Strong Bandit, Stronger Bandit, Strongest Bandit, Strongestest Bandit. How about limit bandits to I don't know, level 30 and then replace them with complately different enemies instead of just Bandits on Steroids?

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.

Similarly, all bosses on the main quest shouldn't scale either. None of the "Killing the last boss at level 1" Oblivion bullshit again.

How exactly would that fly with your typical casual console gamer? Not well, I'd imagine.

[Phatose]

I'd personally like to see many of the non-combat skills removed from the skill system entirely, and replaced by stand alone systems. A mixture of quest, component gathering and maybe a mingame with some randomization to keep things interesting.

Blacksmith & Enchantment are the worst offenders here. Certainly it's a crazy powerful combination at high levels - but if you're not actively grinding them, you'll never see those higher levels. And since blacksmith is so simple to grind, it makes little sense not to do so for the power it grants.

But that's not really much fun, nor is it adding much to the actual game. You could do a hell of a lot if you make it quest based - but that's obviously the equivalent of an entire guild quest series, and thus a lot of work.

[smallfry]

Level scaling is my biggest beef with skyrim. Here are my thoughts ramblings:

1. The difference in strength between a level 1 character and a high level character is too much. This means that the difference in difficulty between a fight with some rats and a fight with a troll is enormous. Part of what they'd like to achieve through level scaling (I think) is that every fight is not too strong, but still a fun challenge, which is about what it should be in my opinion. I think it would help a lot if the power difference between low level characters and high level characters (as well as low level items and high level items) is lessened.

2. The "difficulty" is only related to the difficulty of a "battle" instead of the "area." Basically, for every battle, you either get creamed and have no chance of killing the enemy, you use some potions and have a good, challenging fight, or cream the enemy and end up healing your wounds with auto heal. Then, you repeat for every battle in the cave. Remember games way back? Think about Baldur's Gate, for example, where when you enter a new area you'd have some fights and come out alive, but you would've used some precious spells, potions, or abilities that you won't have access to for the rest of the area until you leave and rest. The difficulty of the game is not JUST related to each individual battle, but instead ALL of the battles combined over time. I like what Drakensang does for this and think something like it would work for Skyrim: you receive "wounds" that are harder to heal and reduce your combat effectiveness. If you receive more than 3 wounds, you die. I would love to see something like this in Skyrim.

[Sulphur]

Aw fuck, Drakensang. Yet another game in the pile of games I bought on impulse and should be adding to my To Play list. (As in, on Impulse, the platform, and on impulse, in a sale.)

[Briareos H]

I don't see anything inherently wrong with zoning.

It's very difficult to zone an open-ended RPG properly if you don't want to end up with the one-hit killer bees of Gothic and hurting suspension of disbelief too much. Plus, at this point, unbridled open-endedness has become emblematic of the Elder Scrolls games. Most reviews of Skyrim start with a variation on "the elder scrolls games are made for ignoring the main quest and going wherever you feel like", zoning would kill the popular opinion.

[Koki]

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.

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.

How exactly would that fly with your typical casual console gamer? Not well, I'd imagine.

I don't give a flying fuck.

[PigLick]

Yeh remember in Morrowind, when you reached certain levels, harder monsters would start appearing in the wilderness like golden saints and atronachs.

[wonderfield]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Ombrenuit]

I just don't get it. Fallout 3 did it right imho. The world was dangerous and that made it exciting. A new character couldn't venture off too far without encountering superbeasts. There were plenty of dungeons way above your level starting out. The further away from the spawn point the more dangerous it was generally. But there was still level scaling too that made sure there was still freedom in whatever direction you chose to go.

And there were still places where you could find a giant scorpian guarding a cave and be like, "Wow I wonder what's in there? I'll have to come back when I'm more powerful."

SKYRIM Y U NO DO THIS?!

[Koki]

Uh, right. Because Skyrim doesn't do that at all with, say, Giants and Mammoths.

[scumble]

And the Bandit Draugr Restless Death Overlord Marauder Centurion Master of course...

I'm puling this thread up as I've finally got an opinion on it. Here's my experience with it at least, based on my playing preferences.

Initially I started playing on Adept, which is the default, and this seemed to be a little tough for my starting wood elf. Either that or I just wasn't too good at the game yet. Early on I was getting killed by the initial enemies in Helgen keep on the first attempts, so a good enough challenge for the novice I suppose. I went straight for the Bleak Fall Barrows quest and the golden claw, and got wasted by trying to take on two Draugr at the same time. The restless Draugr also took me down on the first couple of tries. At the dragon wall I ended up running away from the Draugr Overlord very fast because it didn't seem like I was able to handle the damage with the potions I had, so I came back later.

This all seemed to be working fairly well, and it made perfect sense to have a "Run away!" moment. I've done this a fair few times in particular areas.

Some of the criticisms are levelled at all areas being possible to handle at low levels. I think this must only apply at Novice difficulty. Early on you can't realistically take on a cave full of Falmer, or even a Sabre Cat. I suppose one could use a small skip full of potions, but that always seems like I'm having a fight with a spreadsheet. "Hang on enemy, I've just got to drink this healing potion before you can hit me again..."

The Sabre Cat made mincemeat of me and my Horse very quickly as I was on my way to Saarthal from the college of Winterhold. I got round it by galloping fast very quickly and hoping it didn't follow me.

Generally speaking this gives one an impression of Skyrim being fairly dangerous for the unhardened adventurer. Frostbite spiders are also pretty tough on a wood elf at Adept, but I persevered through Saarthal for a fair while before coming on a bit of a snag. There is one point where I bumped into a Draugr Scourge for the first time, and I couldn't seem to defeat the bastard after maybe as many as ten tries. In this sort of situation I feel like I just can't be arsed to drag myself out of the dungeon to get a stack full of healing potions and come back, so I felt stuck and slightly annoyed.

At this point I was thankful for being able to adjust the difficulty. The only thing is that switching down to Novice is too easy, so I bumped it to Apprentice and stayed on that. This made things fun again, but not so easy that there wasn't the odd toughie that presented a real danger.

In general I was quite pleased with the way that game was going.

With my Nord I tried turning the difficulty up, but this did not work out too well as I'd done this after some smithing and enchanting that bumped me up a few levels. Initially it was ok, and the Forsworn were just getting a bit more challenging, but manageable.

However, a bit later I passed a bandit fort, and found myself presented with a Bandit Maruader that was quite a bit of work take down, almost at boss level. It seemed I'd crossed some kind of inflection point where the enemies suddenly make a jump. Inside the fort I got killed several times by another seemingly ordinary bandit, and the Bandit Chief seemed to be on steroids or something. She was so fast I barely had time to take one swing before having to heal up. Even at apprentice she was pretty tough (for me). This is obviously where level scaling goes wrong - it's the effect of leveling in smithing and enchantment while armour and offensive skills get missed. At the wrong point the game makes a silly leap in difficulty. Some people like having to use all their potions up to get through a fight, but to me it just interrupts the flow so much that it's just not fun, it's a slog.

So again, the only thing you can do is adjust the difficulty, perhaps temporarily. You could say this a bit of a band-aid, but at least it saves one from outright cheating.

The scaling isn't brilliant, but it seems to work well enough. I think everyone is a bit silly to blame flaws on the console gamers. I know some hark back to the days where games were made for a select few "serious" gamers in a small market, but I think what we get to play now is a lot better apart from some key examples, which are probably just nostalgia-influenced. Many of the things I've thought blew me away in the past are just memories of feelings of a new thing that hadn't been possible before. Going back now reveals a lot of those games will actually seem a bit crap now, because there is so much more you can get into a computer. Well I guess it's that way for me.