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Forums - Gaming - The Elder Scrolls Skyrim VS Oblivion - Visual Evolution of Character Models

rocketpig on 19 April 2011
Slimebeast said:
rocketpig said:

I understand level scaling but there should be limitations and creatures should have a ceiling and floor to their abilities (eg. wolves are level 1-5, cat-things are 10-15, giant rats are 7-12, etc). That way you can heavily dissuade people from entering certain areas but you don't make it impossible if they're REALLY adventurous. You also avoid letting high level characters get their ass kicked by a pack of wolves when they're not a full strength.

Some areas should be easier than others. It doesn't make sense for it to be otherwise and I found Oblivion's "regress to the mean" approach to creatures to be VERY off-putting. It took a lot away from the game and adventuring.

Actually that's exactly how Oblivion's level scaling worked but when simple bandits wore elite gear like glass and daedra armor on top of that people felt like the primitive enemies were too powerful anyway.

But if you're putting elite gear on bandits, they're didn't really use the system I just explained. Bandits shouldn't be a challenge at all once you're a few levels into the game and they should only wear/drop the most basic of gear.

Because they're, well, bandits.




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Slimebeast on 19 April 2011
rocketpig said:
Slimebeast said:
rocketpig said:

I understand level scaling but there should be limitations and creatures should have a ceiling and floor to their abilities (eg. wolves are level 1-5, cat-things are 10-15, giant rats are 7-12, etc). That way you can heavily dissuade people from entering certain areas but you don't make it impossible if they're REALLY adventurous. You also avoid letting high level characters get their ass kicked by a pack of wolves when they're not a full strength.

Some areas should be easier than others. It doesn't make sense for it to be otherwise and I found Oblivion's "regress to the mean" approach to creatures to be VERY off-putting. It took a lot away from the game and adventuring.

Actually that's exactly how Oblivion's level scaling worked but when simple bandits wore elite gear like glass and daedra armor on top of that people felt like the primitive enemies were too powerful anyway.

But if you're putting elite gear on bandits, they're didn't really use the system I just explained. Bandits shouldn't be a challenge at all once you're a few levels into the game and they should only wear/drop the most basic of gear.

Because they're, well, bandits.

I agree with you 100%. Thats the mistake I think Bethesda made with Oblivion, they made bandits and other creatures appear even more leveled than they actually were by equipping them with elite gear. Actually the bandits didn't get that much stronger with daedra, ebony and glass armor but they appeared ridiculously overpowered and unrealistic. Because fact is that almost no creature in Oblivion did level just as fast as the player character, they always lagged behind you more or less (except for a couple of important bosses that they tried to keep very hard regardless of your level).

Their basic level scaling was smart and well balanced, since it was exactly balanced like your example. So conclusion is, which many people now don't want to realize is that level scaling is still a good and in fact essential thing for overall game balance in an open world, it was just a bit poorly managed (and presented) in Oblivion.



rocketpig on 19 April 2011
Slimebeast said:
rocketpig said:
Slimebeast said:
rocketpig said:

I understand level scaling but there should be limitations and creatures should have a ceiling and floor to their abilities (eg. wolves are level 1-5, cat-things are 10-15, giant rats are 7-12, etc). That way you can heavily dissuade people from entering certain areas but you don't make it impossible if they're REALLY adventurous. You also avoid letting high level characters get their ass kicked by a pack of wolves when they're not a full strength.

Some areas should be easier than others. It doesn't make sense for it to be otherwise and I found Oblivion's "regress to the mean" approach to creatures to be VERY off-putting. It took a lot away from the game and adventuring.

Actually that's exactly how Oblivion's level scaling worked but when simple bandits wore elite gear like glass and daedra armor on top of that people felt like the primitive enemies were too powerful anyway.

But if you're putting elite gear on bandits, they're didn't really use the system I just explained. Bandits shouldn't be a challenge at all once you're a few levels into the game and they should only wear/drop the most basic of gear.

Because they're, well, bandits.

I agree with you 100%. Thats the mistake I think Bethesda made with Oblivion, they made bandits and other creatures appear even more leveled than they actually were by equipping them with elite gear. Because almost no creature in Oblivion did level just as fast as the player character, they always lagged behind you more or less (except for a couple of important bosses that they tried to keep very hard regardless of your level).

Their basic level scaling was smart and well balanced, since it was exactly balanced like your example. So conclusion is, which many people now don't want to realize is that level scaling is still a good and in fact essential thing for overall game balance in an open world, it was just a bit poorly managed (and presented) in Oblivion.

Ah, I didn't realize that's the reason Oblivion was so annoying. The creature might be a lower level but they've decked them out with weapons and armor to adapt to the player level.

That's just dumb and I really wonder how the fuck that got through play testing.

I'm not against level scaling in open worlds at all, I just saw Oblivion's example of it and hated it. Nothing is too hard and nothing is too easy. That's a bad game formula because you end up just coasting along with no peaks and valleys (and therefore, suspense).




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Slimebeast on 19 April 2011
rocketpig said:
Slimebeast said:
rocketpig said:
Slimebeast said:
rocketpig said:

I understand level scaling but there should be limitations and creatures should have a ceiling and floor to their abilities (eg. wolves are level 1-5, cat-things are 10-15, giant rats are 7-12, etc). That way you can heavily dissuade people from entering certain areas but you don't make it impossible if they're REALLY adventurous. You also avoid letting high level characters get their ass kicked by a pack of wolves when they're not a full strength.

Some areas should be easier than others. It doesn't make sense for it to be otherwise and I found Oblivion's "regress to the mean" approach to creatures to be VERY off-putting. It took a lot away from the game and adventuring.

Actually that's exactly how Oblivion's level scaling worked but when simple bandits wore elite gear like glass and daedra armor on top of that people felt like the primitive enemies were too powerful anyway.

But if you're putting elite gear on bandits, they're didn't really use the system I just explained. Bandits shouldn't be a challenge at all once you're a few levels into the game and they should only wear/drop the most basic of gear.

Because they're, well, bandits.

I agree with you 100%. Thats the mistake I think Bethesda made with Oblivion, they made bandits and other creatures appear even more leveled than they actually were by equipping them with elite gear. Because almost no creature in Oblivion did level just as fast as the player character, they always lagged behind you more or less (except for a couple of important bosses that they tried to keep very hard regardless of your level).

Their basic level scaling was smart and well balanced, since it was exactly balanced like your example. So conclusion is, which many people now don't want to realize is that level scaling is still a good and in fact essential thing for overall game balance in an open world, it was just a bit poorly managed (and presented) in Oblivion.

Ah, I didn't realize that's the reason Oblivion was so annoying. The creature might be a lower level but they've decked them out with weapons and armor to adapt to the player level.

That's just dumb and I really wonder how the fuck that got through play testing.

I'm not against level scaling in open worlds at all, I just saw Oblivion's example of it and hated it. Nothing is too hard and nothing is too easy. That's a bad game formula because you end up just coasting along with no peaks and valleys (and therefore, suspense).

Right.

It'll be exciting to see if the system for Skyrim works (much) better.



zarx on 19 April 2011
Scoobes said:
zarx said:
Slimebeast said:
Kantor said:
Scoobes said:
Kantor said:
rocketpig said:
Chroniczaaa said:

As long as it isn't more fucking dumbed down like oblivion was to morrowind, Fast travel and magic compass and quests that don't require reading period YAY! FTW@!@POIMCDANAF:O*Wtf ragequits*

Fast travel was a god-send. I like difficult games but I don't like having to spend half an hour traversing terrain I've covered six times already.

I think there's a middle ground. Fast travel should only be possible between cities.

But then even that is too much when every city is open at the beginning of the game. That's the main problem I had with Oblivion - it was too open. You emerge from the sewers ready to raid any dungeon, visit any city, join any organisation. There's no sense of mystery or exploration, which was made even worse by the lack of fast travel.

Come to think of it, without Touch of Rage and the massive civil wars which ensued, and the Adoring Fan running off mountains, and the Dark Brotherhood, Oblivion would have been pretty dull. In retrospect, most of the enjoyment I got from the game stemmed from the fact that it was absolute crap.

Hopefully, Skyrim will be different in that regard.

Isn't that like the one defining feature for a Elder Scrolls design brief?

From what I hear, Morrowind wasn't like that, and Arena and Daggerfall were randomised, so they certainly weren't.

Morrowind was exactly like that! Exactly the same as Oblivion. Do what you want, go whereever you want (it was actually even more open than Oblivion which in a few instances locked dungeons that you couldn't enter before ypu activated a certain quest line). That's the very soul of Elder Scrolls, including Arena and Daggerfall. It's the mystery and excitement of exploration in a totally free and open world Bethesda seeked to achieve even with the huge randomly generated worlds of Arena and Daggergall as well, but the complains there were that if something is purely random it actually takes away mystery - they realized (rightfully) that it's not very exciting to play a game that is only based on a huge algorithm that determines all the geography. That's why they decided to handplace as much stuff as possible.


WHAT! what idiot told them that? randomness improves the sense of discovery ten fold especially when you play the game more than once. Take minecraft for example the randomness of the world in the fact that your world is unique to you and that you know for certan that you are the first and only person that will ever see and experiance the the terrian and world makes the adventures so much more personal (yes I know you can use seeds now). There is nothing like playing a randomised game multiple times and having a very different experiance. I wish that more developers would use procedural content in games.

I will agree that early TES games handled it pretty poorly in the scheme of things and led to drab repetative worlds, but procedural generation and randomness has increadable potential if handled correctly. 

That's the issue though, especially in the current era of graphics. Having procedural generation can be cool, but it's very difficult to pull it off without feeling repetitive and having areas of near identical artwork.

That may be true for old techniques but there is no reason in this day and age that they couldn't implement rules in the algerithem to prevent repeats and add more details while maintaining a certan element of randomness. I mean it's not like they arn't using some procedural/random stuff in Skyrim it's been confirmed that some dungeons and quests are going to be randomised. But I would love if some towns and terrain were randomised to a certain extent to help make multiple run thoughs more interesting.

I would also love some of the features detailed in the scceond half of this article http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=127490&page=1 to be implemented.



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KhinRunite on 19 April 2011

I didn't want to quote the long exchange before me but I just want to chime in and add that I had no problems with Oblivion's fast travel and Level scaling.

For fast travel, it just came off as a little "immersion-breaking" for me, because you're allowed to just JUMP to a PREVIOUSLY VISITED location as if fast-forwarding the game. I was expecting some sort of paid transportation for this like in Morrowind, but it's not enough to make me harbor "hate" for the game. It's not like I could just jump anywhere right off the bat. I have to walk to it at least 1 time.

For level scaling, I actually liked it because it eliminates the possibility for me to just shrug off my shoulder when I am sent to a "low-level area" for some quests. Because enemies scale with me I never felt an area is obsolete. If I find the game starting to get harder I simply adjust the Difficulty slider.



mundus6 on 23 April 2011
Kantor said:
rocketpig said:
Chroniczaaa said:

As long as it isn't more fucking dumbed down like oblivion was to morrowind, Fast travel and magic compass and quests that don't require reading period YAY! FTW@!@POIMCDANAF:O*Wtf ragequits*

Fast travel was a god-send. I like difficult games but I don't like having to spend half an hour traversing terrain I've covered six times already.

I think there's a middle ground. Fast travel should only be possible between cities.

But then even that is too much when every city is open at the beginning of the game. That's the main problem I had with Oblivion - it was too open. You emerge from the sewers ready to raid any dungeon, visit any city, join any organisation. There's no sense of mystery or exploration, which was made even worse by the lack of fast travel.

Come to think of it, without Touch of Rage and the massive civil wars which ensued, and the Adoring Fan running off mountains, and the Dark Brotherhood, Oblivion would have been pretty dull. In retrospect, most of the enjoyment I got from the game stemmed from the fact that it was absolute crap.

Hopefully, Skyrim will be different in that regard.

Fallout 3? Explored locations should be the only ones you can fast travel to.



leslie2233 on 01 May 2011

It makes sense that the graphics will look this good since Oblivion came out in 2006 & Skyrim 2011



ishiki on 01 May 2011

well, slimebeast is excited it seems.

me too. looks fun. I was one of the ones that liked morrowind more. But I still thought oblivion rocked particularly with mods later.

I didn't really mind fast travelling, cause I didn't have to use it. Though it was probably wasn't necessarily the best design choice. And The Level-Scaling, but mods fixed that.