Dragon's Dogma

That's great 8D I'm getting the game today or tomorrow. I seriously can't wait, the game looks amazing. I'll be sure to add you on PSN and hire your pawn :v

But that's the point of having enemies with set levels, to make you come back to that cave you died in several times later one. Level scaling is a bad system because it holds your hand throughout the game. It destroys any sort of challenge the game has to offer. I mean yeah, I get that it makes the game more accessible and doesn't punish casuals for being careless, but I just find it ******ed that at level 30 a common thief boss can totally destroy you because you kept leveling up Lockpicking, sneak and speech (Oblivion). To me, the concept of level scaling just makes the entire notion of progress meaningless. There is no better feeling than going back to a highly populated area of the game world that used to give you incredible amounts of grief and just wreck everyone there.
I will say that Skyrim did do it a lot better just because of the level lock, but I still dislike the system. It's the reason why I quickly got bored of Skyrim. There was just no challenge in the game >_> If I wanted to play a game just for exploration, I would have gone to a nearby forest next to my house. Problem is, I probably wouldn't run into dragons there.

 

Hey, I could beat somebody 20 levels higher than me. :v

Seriously though, proper application of the system can make exploration more engaging, because it's almost like giving the player living, breathing walls. Instead of obstacles you simply cannot cross, like, say, tiny shrubs in Pokemon, you get barriers that can be fought (if you're insane) and even crossed early (if you're that good). Dark Souls is actually a good example: there is less of an emphasis on levels and more of an emphasis on hard damage/health limits and the exact maneuvers bosses employ, such that the entire game can feasibly be beaten at Lv1 if you practice enough. I would not, however, call Fallout a good example, for the reason you mentioned: indicators aren't clear enough, and there are few reliable ways to defeat higher-level enemies.

The only problem with level scaling is that it gives you a little too much freedom. Let the player go anywhere and they'll probably either go everywhere, get all the best gear early and cruise through the rest of the game; or go nowhere due to indecision and indifference and just kinda ignore the exploration aspect.

I like the idea of mixing and matching, making certain monsters scale within a certain margin so as to provide a buffer against powergrinding players. Of course it depends on the experience you want to deliver. There are also games like Disgaea, which set hard limits that are meant to be too powerful for you, as a challenge for you to either grind your bones 'til they crackle or find one of the myriad ways to break the game.

As for DD, I'm ok with no level scaling as long as they didn't do the Fallout thing.