Level Scaling Disabler - ESPless

Level Scaling Sucks

Level scaling is pretty much objectively bad design, especially in RPGs. One of the most enjoyable aspects of RPGs is choosing how you progress. Be it following the intended path at a steady pace, grinding levels and heading back to earlier areas to crush everything, or challenging yourself to face higher level content when you're not ready. And it's this delicate little dance that makes the genre infinitely replayable. Having level scaling lessens the joy of progression and sometimes, it just makes it feel like nothing matters anymore, because it's the same note from beginning to finish.

Now, level scaling in New Vegas is nowhere near as awful as Oblivion, but it's still there enough that you feel its presence. In the code, the game is fully entrenched in level scaling, and nothing short of a full redesign of every spawn list and encounter is going to remove it completely and maintain a cohesive game at the same time. But, a lot can still be done to minimize the worst of the mechanic and accentuate the good.

This mod was originally a part of a bigger gameplay mod but I think it's also good on its own. It should fit in just about any setup.

Level Scaling Disabler - Leveled Lists

There are two types of leveled objects in the game:

• []Random Leveled Lists - All objects with levels below or at the player level will have an equal chance of spawning.

  []Closest Leveled Lists - The object with the level closest to the player level will spawn. Multiple objects with the same level are chosen to spawn randomly.

  LSD offers 5 different options to modify/disable the level scaling of leveled lists:

  • []Unleveled - All objects will have an equal chance of spawning regardless of player level.

    []Max Leveled - Only the highest level objects will spawn.

    []Thresholded Unleveled - Same as Unleveled, but the objects with levels lower than (player level - MinThreshold) or higher than (player level + MaxThreshold) will not spawn, as long as they are not the only spawnable ones left. Player level is modified by LevelOffset.

    []Chanced Max Leveled - Same as Max Leveled, but instead of lower level objects being removed altogether, they will have a lower chance of spawning. The lower level the object is relative to the highest level one, the less likely it will spawn.

  • Chanced Unleveled - Same as Unleveled, but the objects that are further away from the player level will have a lesser chance of spawning. Player level is modified by LevelOffset.

    Let's look at an example to see how these options work.

    EncFeralGhoul - A Random Leveled List