Oblivion designer admits level scaling “was a mistake” despite remaining in Remaster

For the most part, the Oblivion Remaster took the original adventure and ramped up the graphics, only altering key features that felt lacking, like the combat. However, one feature hasn’t been altered, and even the original designer admits it was a “mistake.”

While it’s not exactly a surprise, the not-so-shadow-dropped release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has been a huge success. Over a million players have dived back into the popular adventure, reigniting their love for the storyline and gameplay.

However, as it goes with most games, there are always a few parts of the gameplay that you’d rather change. Luckily, Bethesda altered some of these features, changing the combat style and the attributes when levelling up, to make it more like Skyrim. However, a key leveling feature hasn’t been altered.

Level scaling branded as “mistake” by original Oblivion designer

Back when Oblivion was first released, it used a version of level scaling in which if you completed one quest at level five, you’d receive a level five weapon, which is capped at that level. But, if you completed that same quest at level 25 instead, you’d get a level 25 weapon.

While this is ideal to keep the world leveling with you, it meant players would constantly have to change out their items as they progressed, and key deadly weapons were ignored after a few hours, as they no longer did enough damage.

Bethesda

Naturally, the feature was pretty frustrating when the game first released, being branded as “a mistake” by the original designer, Bruce Nesmith, as reported by VideoGamer.

“I think the world levelling with you was a mistake and that’s proven by the fact it did not happen the same way in Skryim,” explained Nesmith. “We came up with a much, much better way to continue to provide the player challenge without making it feel like ‘oh, it doesn’t matter that I went up in levels, the dungeon went up in levels with me.”

However, this feature still remains in Oblivion, meaning that the mistake and level scaling system is still frustrating players, whether they’re diving in for the first time or the 20th.

In fact, some are convinced “the Remaster made level scaling worse” after sharing their frustrations on social media.

Of course, whether you love or hate level scaling is entirely personal, but given that the original designer brands it as a “mistake,” it’s clear that the Remasters is implementing some long-lasting frustration among its playerbase.