I don't really know yet. If it does, it's not like Oblivion. I've been able to kill some things real easy and some take a lot more to kill. One person said that it does something like the level you enter a dungeon at is set at that level. So like you go in a place at level 2 the bad guys will be at like level 2-4 and then if you go back at level 15 those bad guys will still be at that level but I'm not quite sure if that's true or not.

Edit: oh well, I guess Frosstbyte corrected me. :)

Well, if this game has level scaling I'm not buying it no matter what. If it does not have it, I WILL be buying it no matter what. I hated Oblivion because of the scaling and didn't purchase it due to this single fact. Scaling ruins RPGs in my opinion.
-----Added 29/10/2008 at 03 : 23 : 40-----
*EDIT*

I just did a quick search and it sounds like the main questline is somewhat level scaled though not like Oblivion. Also, none of the optional areas/quests are scaled. Once you set foot in them, the level is locked in that area so you can still "do the game" in the order you want without scaled enemies.

I'd rather none of the game at all be scaled but this seems like it won't ruin the experience to me.

I didn't actually play oblivion. How did level scaling work in that and why was it so bad?

Oblivion had enemy scaling that was horrendous. If you went through the main quest without allocating your skill points you could beat the game at level 1 because every single enemy, dungeon, quest, and boss in the game were the same level as you. If you leveled up to level 20, the rats in the starting village were level 20. If you gained powerful armor at a higher level, the plainsmen at the starting village had the same armor. No matter where you went or what you did, every enemy was the same level as you, even the bosses. You changed the difficulty of the game using the option screen (easy, medium, hard, etc.).

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind had traditional leveling, as in if you get slaughtered in a dungeon and then come back in 10 levels, you will own the dungeon and get revenge. That is what makes RPGs fun: seeing your character progress and get more powerful and then going back and seeing how those previous enemies who killed you now get slaughtered themselves.

Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion did away with this and put in level scaling that made every enemy your level and power level regardless of what happened. There was no revenge. There was no true character progression because as you gained levels, so did the entire world around you. The developers wanted gamers to be able to do any quest, fight any enemy, go anywhere they wanted, anytime they wanted in Oblivion. You could due to the level scaling but that also took away from the best part of RPGs...making your character stronger!! It ruined the game for me.

Thankfully it sounds like Fallout 3 isn't based on this system which is very good.

Ctrl-Alt-Del author said that there IS auto scaling. Enemies level up with you. I'll test it out myself when I play the game.

I've read two reviews that specifically said there isn't. I wonder if people are getting confused with it, maybe? Guess I'll wait on the gamers here to figure it out for us.

Edit: He updated his post and said:

So I guess enemies do scale, but in a limited capacity. They scale to your level when you enter a new area, but then that area is locked to that level... so if you go back later, you're stronger than those guys. That sounds just fine to me.

That sounds good to me as well. I hate auto leveling.

Laz Laz Laz, that's such a lie. You have formed this complete fabrication of what the scaling in Oblivion was like - it's nothing like that. The low level enemies were replaced by higher level enemies, you didn't have level 20 mud crabs chasing you around. The only things that stayed the same were the humanoids, except they got better weapons and armor (which were matched to your level, -not- to the armor you were wearing.)

um were you playing with mods? I distinctly remember rats beating the shit out of me at high levels. Like it would seriously take 5-10 minutes to kill a single rat and I did allocate my skill points well. If another would join in the fight my only option was to run.

Anyway, Fallout 3 is nothing like that.

The really crappy thing about TES IV:Oblivion was not just enemy level scaling but equipment scaling. I don't mean you can only find glass armor on enemies till higher levels, I mean quest rewards equipment. Example: if you did quest at level four your new armor would have 12 defense, but if you had waited to do the quest at level ten the armor would have had 20 defense.




Anyway, back to Fallout 3. The limited level scaling in Fallout III works like this:

Misc Quest A can be started at any time. If you start the quest at level 1 you fight low level Ants named Workers and some Soldiers. If you start the quest at level 20 you fight Soldiers and Warriors. However, this scaling isn't done for every quest in game. As far as I can tell it's only done for certain quests, perhaps for story reasons? Though like Las said, they lock the level of the mobs once you enter a place. Other good news, I haven't seen reward scaling yet.

No, I was playing on the 360. Maybe you had the slider too high? Heaven forbid you have to nudge it slightly to the left ;)

Fallout 3 is quite possibly the best single-player PC game this decade. I have no idea what it's like on console.

--jaded

love the lunch box!

Agreed.

Oblivion's level scaling sucked, but the difficulty slider counteracted it... I felt no shame in taking the difficulty down a notch or two (there are LOTS of notches) if the monsters started getting too hard. The scaling was broken, if you leveled off of non-combat skills, all of the monsters leveled up as well, with combat skills.

So far, Fallout 3 is amazing. There's really no question, F3 totally surpasses Oblivion in my eyes.

Can I rave somemore?

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a game this much. Potal maybe, but it was so short. I've played for about 24 hours and I've barely even started. I usually wake up an hour early and play before getting ready for work. When I'm at work, I'm thinking about what I'm going to work on in the game when i get home that night.

So glad the game is equal to it's lineage.

VATS is the greatest invention since the wheel. This game had me from the first head shot induced decapitation.

For those who are worried, just pick up the game. You won't be disappointed.

With the VATS system the game plays like Elder Scrolls meets Mass Effect. If you don't want to use the VATS you can just FPS the game, tho there are obvious advantages to the VATS.
If you're in a crazy situation pause with VATS and check out your options. Shoot a gun out of someone's hand, take out their leg.. the arm they're swinging that bat with.. etc. Of course you have to be careful with it too cuz if you're standing there shooting with VATS you're standing there getting shot at while the action plays out.

Be sure to take your time and do the side quests and explore. Shit is hidden in every nook and cranny and lots of goodies can be easy to miss (hard to notice safes, stuff shoved into crates that are shoved into shelves, garbage cans, mailboxes, PET DOG!, etc.) You can EASY milk 100+ hours out of this game without even realizing. With other games these days you're lucky if you get 6.

I bought it for PC. It runs at 60 FPS on my PC with high settings but the game feels choppy for some reason. I turned Vsync off but it's still happening. Anyone else getting a choppiness like this? I have an FPS counter on so I know it's always at 55-60 FPS so the actual framerate is good. I'm still only 10 minutes into it but so far the atmosphere is really cool (and that is very important to me in a videogame).

The only time I had any lag or chop was when I tried it on Ultra, and then it was only in large outdoor environments. I have a mid grade setup.

Las I read about a fix for conditions for that:

Hit up your My Games\Fallout 3\Fallout.ini

iFPSClamp=0 ------> iFPSClamp=60

Give it a try, suppose to fix that issue.

I'm playing as a good guy (and looking forward to beating the game and starting over as a bad guy), so I've got Talon Co. Mercs after me all the time.

Last night I popped out of a metro station and got swarmed by supermutants. Got killed and respawned at the metro entrance. This time though... no super mutants. I started hearing gunfire around a corner and snuck a quick look.

The game had randomly thrown the Talon mercs at me, but now they were fighting the super mutants! It came down to one Talon guy with a sniper rifle taking out the last of the mutants. I almost felt bad about popping him in the head... almost.

All that was left was to walk around and pick up the stuff I wanted off the corpses. Pretty sweet.

Thanks I will try that after work.

I love this game. I've Role Played more with this game than any before.

Essentially I'm a "Good" guy in that I save the weak, punish the bad, and more or less leave alone those in the middle. However... I'm a Klepto. I MUST steal stuff if I can get away with it. I don't necessarily want the stuff, and certainly don't need the plates/cups... I just have to steal it.

Makes it interesting when you save the caravan-er from a bunch of raiders, only to pickpocket him and his ox of anything valuable the second he turns around. Only to drop 80% of the useless stuff because I can't carry it.

I get huge + Karma mixed with huge - Karma, but I love it regardless.

I'm having the same problem. To me it feels like mouse lag or massive mouse acceleration. In cod4 and hl2 based games the mouse feels really natural, in this game I can tweak the mouse by hardware and/or software but it always feels weird and skips.

I ended up changing my desktop refresh rate to 75 Hz in XP and most of the stuttering is gone in Fallout 3. It still feels slightly choppy when strafing but it is definitely playable without being annoyed now. I have to exit the game and reload my save every hour or so when the framerate mysteriously goes from 60 constant to 15 constant though. This game has major memory leaks or something.

The game is definitely fun. I played it for almost 3 hours last night. It's fun just exploring or doing the quests. The combat is fun and the rads implementation makes the game much more challenging and rewarding. The graphics are awesome as well.

Anyone getting the "Fallout3 has encountered a problem and needs to close. " on start up? I read their forum, tried the codex fixes but nothing.

Damn, I wish I had a good PC...

There's new Fallout 3 DLC for the 360 and PC.

I found this on another site.

I would love to try creating some cool new weapons.

Does anyone out there have this for a consol?

I bought it on the ps3 and I absolutely love it! My guy is as evil as they get. I told some kid his mom was a bitch and told him to run away from her, he did it. I slaughter most everyone I see out in the wide world, so far it works pretty good.

Where's the PS3 love? I understand that Valve hates the PS3, but does everyone else as well?

Finally collected all the Bobbleheads and got tired of roaming the wastes yesterday so, after 103 hours of playing, I finished the storyline. Good stuff. Now to play an evil character. :thumbsup:

I just got it for the PS3 but I've only played an hour or so into it. So far it looks pretty good. I can't wait to get home from work to play it some more.

Where do you guys store all your loot? I've been using the house in Arefu, but I wanna move somewhere else. Tenpenny Tower is too fancy, Rivet City takes too long to get to my hotel room.

I use my house in Megaton. Nice simple space and I have plenty of storage.

I just sell the stuff. :)

Need somewhere else besides the house in Megaton. Dragonlich, you sell everything? How many caps do you have? What about if you want to build nuka-grenades or repair stuff and its too heavy to carry all the components?...Im a packrat, I have like 20 assault rifles, shotguns and submachine guns for repairs, plus dozens of miscellaneous components, and a full wet bar hehe, can't carry them all at once. My little room in Arefu used to have 2 dead, blood spattered corpses on the floor, but they were 'cleaned up' after completing a certain quest. Now Im stuck with a roommate and concerned he might steal my stuff.

There are tons of empty houses in Minefield. Another place with a lot of empty homes would be Big Town depending on how you did the quest line. Also lots of homes in Greyditch.

After each save I experiment with different scenerios and save again with an outcome I like. Its a way of playing good and bad at the same time. There is something fun about killing everyone in Megaton.

In my last game, I ended with something like 8000 caps. I also had high strength, and only carried the stuff I really needed. This way I usually didn't have any problems with carying heavy stuff. I didn't need to carry tons of weapons around for repairs; I could easily go to a shop for repairs, or get spares/replacements from dead enemies.

Perhaps in my new game I'll buy a house or something. See how that works out for me. :)

I just got the game last night. It's hard to read the text on my crappy bedroom TV so I'm waiting to move it to my living room after the Christmas mess is cleaned up. I'm probably going to just restart because I'm not happy with the stats and choices that I chose on my first trip through the Vault.

Before you exit the vault, it asks if you want to change appearance/stats one last time.

I bought the scientist theme for my Megaton house, but it's still just so ghetto. Can you use the editor to create a custom house in the game?

Also, do you think this game will be modded as extensively as Morrowind/Oblivion?

I found that the first half of the perks didn't seem very good. Until Finesse. So I kept choosing Intense Training. So I have max Strength, Intelligence, and Luck as well as a 4 or 5 in everything else.