One of the most common complaints about Oblivion is the fact that the world scales to your level; as you level up, the enemies get stronger, and so does the treasure you obtain from said enemies.

It turns out that Daggerfall does the *exact same thing*; as you level up, you face stronger enemies and find more powerful treasure, yet I haven't seen anyone complain about this.

My question is, why not? Are the first two Elder Scrolls games so obscure nowadays that people haven't played them? Or is it that people played Morrowind first, which is essentially the black sheep of the series in this respect (in the sense that enemies and treasure *don't* scale, though even there, higher levels make stronger enemies appear in some areas), and are disappointed when Oblivion isn't the same, whereas people usually don't play Morrowind before Daggerfall (and Arena was rather simple and even more obscure to the point where it isn't even considered in most TES discussions)?

I think because people never played Daggerfall for real. When it was released, it had too much bugs for serious playing. Now when all bugs are fixed, people think that Morrowind is some ancient game, and you speak about Daggerfall?))

Personally, I somewhat liked Daggerfall as maze-simulator (I love overly convoluted mazes), I didn't count it as proper RPG game. I try to do the same with Oblivion (though I realize it is going to be totally different experience), just not enough free time (and not a good mood) for games now sadly :(

I can speak only for myself.
I don't COMPLAIN about Oblivion's level-scaling, I simply say I don't like it. The main reason is that it's immersion-breaking. You walk around, fighting rats, you level up, and bang, the rats have turned minotaurs! Hard to accept for a role-player. Daggerfall's level-scaling is less "offensive" - or Daggerfall is less immersive, I'm not sure.
I have played Oblivion for almost as many hours as Morrowind (including mods like OOO and total conversions), both with the main goal of trying out different roles (fighters, mages, rogues, pacifists, good guys, bad guys, etc.) and personal rules (no melee, no armour, bare hands only, conjuration only, no fighting at all, etc.) and goals (role-dependant, not necessarily completing the main quest). And I have always enjoyed both games. You could also argue that Oblivion's level-scaling is done really well and innovative, as each monster generation stays for several levels, and is replaced by a new one as soon as you are getting too strong for them (I'm over-simplifying).
My personal bottomline, however, is that I don't like the Oblivion method, but this is a comparaively minor issue and doesn't kill my interest in Oblivion. I wished other games gave me the degree of diverse role-playing, freedom and immersion Morrowind and Oblivion do.
Daggerfall is also a great game. Its main issue are the huge 3d dungeons, all built from the same limited set of components, so that it is very difficult not to get lost. Innovative at the time, but although it's possible to develop a working orientation system, dungeon crawling in Daggerfall takes too much time and is too repetitive to be exciting. Again, this is my personal view. Since I'm using the cheat which takes you to interesting places in a dungeon (more to find the exit than to find said places), Daggerfall has become a lot more interesting for me. And you are right: monsters do scale, but they do it in a more "natural" way, more adapted to the nature of the game - don't ask me what I mean by "nature" in this context :-).

Never played Daggerfall and it's likely that most people who complained about Oblivion's leveling never did too. I remember when Oblivion was released a lot of old Daggerfall fans loved it but mostly Morrowind fans complained.

I started playing open world RPGs with Morrowind so that set the standard for me on how things should be done. Then later on I enjoyed Gothic 1/2 and learned that you can build fun and rewarding games without any kind of auto-leveling if you want to (Morrowind had some things auto-leveled, I think).

I was extremely hyped about Oblivion before its released, the first time I got hyped about a new upcoming game (you know what they say about the first time...) and when it was released I played it nonstop until I finished the main story and a bunch of side quests and then put it away. I found at the time that the game was very fun in the early levels (<10 or so) but as you leveled up, because of the everyone starting wearing daedric/glass armor completely ruined the experience for me. The more I played the harder it was to ignore all sorts of little things breaking the experience. Towards the end when I stopped I felt burned out and empty and completely dissapointed. I made sure to never be hyped about an upcoming game ever again because I think that contributed to it, I had unrealistic expectations (tho I guess if you can call a better Morrowind unrealistic).

So, if you are able to play Oblivion past level 20 and still have a ton of fun playing it then kudos to you, for me it's the late game that becomes unpleasant and it's weird because in RPGs it's the early game that usually sucks.

I played Daggerfall seriously (and as an RPG) when it came out in 1996. A few bugs were really annoying (like occasionally corrupted save games and the "Void" bug), but I myself struggled more with dungeon orientation than with those bugs, to be honest. Bethesda released a number of patches during 1996-98 the last one being 2.13 in 1998 (4 years before the release of Morrowind). Since then, Daggerfall is as playable as it will ever get.
I did play it for real, but I admit I never completed the main quest (I think I got through about half-way), largely due to being frustrated with the dungeons, despite using the cheat I mentioned in my previous post. When Morrowind came out, I lost all interest in Daggerfall for many years, but during the last couple of years I have returned to Daggerfall regularly - not with the goal to complete the main quest, but to role-play it and to understand the society of Daggerfall and the surrounding provinces better, with its political factions, guilds, temples, etc.

I must confess. When I first time played Daggerfall around 20 years ago, I could never find entrances to other dungeons, and those I found, there were only like 1-2 rooms in them, seems it wasn't real dungeons but rather tombs or crypts. So I got bored and quitted (and Internet wasn't a thing back in the day). I discovered the dungeon glory of Daggerfall only recently, but I have too much games on my hands to be finished before going back to Daggerfall.

The easiest way to find entrances to other big dungeons is to do quests that take you to them. I like doing Mage's Guild quests since each quest puts me a bit closer to being able to access the Item Maker, which allows for making powerful (but expensive enough to act as a money sink) items.

Also, there's an entrance to the final dungeon northwest of your ship, but it's not particularly useful because you can't leave the dungeon (unless you already set a mark somewhere) or complete the game if you enter this way.

Yes, I have a lot of fun playing Oblivion at all levels - it comes probably down to why and how you play it.
My personal acquaintance with Oblivion began with two disappointments: Only the German version was released in Germany (Morrowind came out in English and was translated much later), and it was the worst translation I have ever seen. And secondly, with Morrowind in mind, Oblivion looked beautiful but boring, and the gameplay had been simplified a great deal (balancing, mana regeneration, ...). I was close to un-installing Oblivion after one hour, but then I gave it some more time - and it was worth it. A German modder created a decent translation, and I found out that Oblivion had a huge number of really creative and fantastic quests (take the painted trolls as an example). Later I discovered that it offered great opportunities for role-playing (you can play ten different roles or more in ten totally different games). After Oblivion's and Martigan's mods were released, Oblivion became even a challenging game.
I found out that the role I enjoyed most is that of a Conjurer, as it lets me discover, explore and watch Oblivion without being overly bothered by monsters (I don't like constant fighting very much - which isn't saying that I don't like a challenging fight with powerful opponents now and then). The highest level I have reached until now is somewhere in the thirties (compared with Morrrowind, where I have a character in the forties, which is currently stuck somewhere in Tribunal fighting a mage who regenerates faster than my character can hit him - a nice challenge). But then levelling up is not one of my main goals. I still enjoy travelling across the Oblivion world, seeing odd places and meeting odd people, living and doing quests according to the role I'm playing - which hasn't really anything to with my level.

Agreed, some of the Oblivion quests are very fun. I liked how they made fun of themselves with the rat quest in Anvil (a reference to the rat quest in Balmora), I COMPLETELY LOVED the Dark Brotherhood line of quests (too bad that any way you look at it you have to be roleplaying a psychopath to actually go through that) and many other jewes like the painting quest.

It's as you said, it depends on why you enjoy playing these games. Some of the reasons why I enjoyed Morrowind and couldn't enjoy the same in Oblivion:
- lack of progression feeling, the more I leveled the harder the game got, not easier as you'd expect; thus it removed the pleasure of being a "god" at the end of an RPG (not that EVERY RPG has to have that but I enjoy it when done well, example Gothic games)
- the lack of progression also reflected in the items, in Morrowind you play a lot or beat some tough enemies in order to get access to the very rare glass and daedric armor, in Oblivion every bandit on the road sports full sets once you reach level 20; take Gothic again as an example here, armors are very rare and you really feel it when you get the next level of them, I'm not saying TES games should emply the Gothic-style armor rarity but doing what Morrowind did was more than fine for me
- while just "walking around" in Oblivion was satisfying in itself (mostly because of an AMAZING musical score from Jeremy Soule, I still maintain that while Morrowind had the best theme song, Oblivion had the best ambient songs), there wasn't much satisfaction when I did stumble on something while traveling, like a dungeon, tower or camp, because whatever I found there wasn't in any significant way different from what I could find in any other similar location because all the loot and NPCs were the same, and that made exporation be much less rewarding for me

And by removing those things it means that in Oblivion once I'm done with the quests (which like you said are fun) and walking around most of the areas of the game world, I'm done with the game, because there isn't anything interesting left to do. There is no more "pull" like I had in Morrowind, to try to go into every dungeon just to see what interesting stuff I could find in there.

PS: it's kinda strange how this thread title names Daggerfall but then we're mostly talking about Oblivion :)

In Daggerfall, you mostly encounter enemies in the dungeon, and you mostly go to dungeons when you take a guild quest to do so; so it makes sense that as you become more important in your guild, you get sent on tougher and tougher quests, which means tougher and tougher enemies. :)

Also, Daggerfall has the only dungeon map in the series I *like*. It's 3D, just like the dungeon. And once you understand the minimap blob in the upper-left, it's fairly easy to navigate.

I was disappointed by Morrowind's (and later games) flat dungeon map.

*Shrug*

I enjoy both games (really, I enjoy all the games and it is my favorite series), but Daggerfall has way bigger issues than level scaling and the level scaling (of enemies mostly, but to a lesser extent the loot as well) is one of my biggest gripes with Oblivion.

Level-scaling as a concept isn't a bad thing. There should be some level scaling to some extent. Part of the issue with Morrowind was that the end-game became too easy too quickly because you got to a point where you were just significantly more powerful than the vast majority of enemies by level 20 or so (one notable exception being Gaenor in Tribunal, [censored] that guy) unless you deliberately handicapped yourself. But Oblivion implemented it poorly, I felt. It is the game where many people recommend that you "efficiently level" through the +5/+5/+5 method because of the enemy level-scaling. It isn't a gamebreaker, but it definitely adversely affects gameplay. Goblins, Ogres, and Ghosts, among other creatures, can actually give you a harder or at least more tedious time if you don't level "properly." Skyrim, while not perfect in this regard, implements level-scaling of enemies a lot better, IMO.

Enemies in Daggerfall don't actually level scale. What does happen is you tend to come across the more powerful enemies more often. And here is the UESP page on it: [url=http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Bestiary]http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Bestiary[/url]

Your loot does scale according to your level, though, and I think it is actually done pretty well in Daggerfall. In Oblivion, some artifacts are actually much better to get only at certain levels. Again, not a gamebreaker for me, but it can be pretty annoying.

One thing that is annoying about leveling in Daggerfall, however, is the random amount of points you get to distribute to skills upon level up. You get between 4-6 points, so if you don't get 6 it is best to just reload a save that you hopefully made right before getting the level-up screen.

- Actually, the method gives you 5 difficulty levels (it's up to you at which level you perform your level-up's).

- Not only "more often", but earlier in the game. You may not always be able to complete a quest because you encounter enemies you can't possibly defeat at your level (or you have to find a way around them, or rob them, etc.) - and you have limited time to complete your quest, too. Makes Daggerfall difficult, but interesting, in my mind.

- Bethesda could have implemented the option that you always get maximal points at level-up, you could also level up more often to get your points. It's a matter of personal taste, and whether you want an easier or a more difficult game. In Morrowind, there is the option that your attack always uses the optimal method.

The level scaling in Daggerfall didn't break the game. In Oblivion it did because it was poorly done.

I beat the main quest when I was only level 6. Zero problems. The way things scale in that game makes leveling up completely pointless.

Actually, you would have had a lot more trouble going through some of the main quest forced combat situations if you were higher level. That's one of the hilariously bad things about Oblivion scaling, it made combat at higher levels _harder_ not easier like it would make sense. Thus it served as a strong disincentive to NOT level up, hence why some people install mods that force instant level up otherwise they feel they are tempted (by the bad auto leveling) to never level up which eventually breaks their game experience.

I guess there is no way to make everyone happy. In Morrowind, fights get easier when you level up - and there are some who complain. When the relative fight difficulty level doesn't change much during a game, many find the game boring. In other games, fights get harder over time, and again people complain. My personal biggest complaint is that one set of monsters gets replaced by another one every couple of level-ups - breaks immersion for me.
As an aside: I don't agree that fights get always harder in Oblivion when your level goes up. It's true, however, that you can't simply develop a fighting method / approach during the first couple of levels, and then use it till the end.
I have completed the main quest of Oblivion with 2 different characters so far, once with OOO active, What I did notice was that I had to adjust my way of fighting when the opponents changed. The toughest fight I ever had in Oblivion was that in Kvatch as a level 11 or 12 fighter. In my opinion, to complete this fight victoriously was one of my most rewarding moments in Oblivion - I felt I had achieved something. Later I went to Kvatch with a level 4 or 5 mage, and fighting was easy. This seems to confirm your statement about the increasingly difficult fights - but it doesn't. The explanation is that the fighter went to Kvatch when a new generation of powerful monsters had been introduced, while the mage went there at the end of such a monster cycle, when he had become too powerful for these guys.
And finally (I mentioned it elsewhere), if you want to play Oblivion without exposing yourself to really tough fights, conjure "pets". In the early game, it's Skeletons and the like, later you can use Atronachs and Dremora Lords. You may get some problems occasionally when you use OOO, but most of time you can let your "pet" fight for you - and even develop other (physical or magic) skills by supporting your "pet" occasionally, if you want.
The reason why this works is another design feature (in conjunction with mana regeneration): In most cases, monsters don't go for you but for their immediate attacker. There are one or two exceptions, like trolls, which shows that the AI is capable of using different fighting methods. I should perhaps test this behaviour when playing at highest difficulty - or does anyone know how exactly the difficulty slider affects fights (simply different stats like hit or damage points or probabilities, or are there AI changes, like more intelligent targetting, too?)?