*official* Oblivion Thread, opinions?

[apoppin]

i have 80 hours into this wonderful game . . . and just now attained Level 9
[23 Quests completed/18 Active . . . 56 places found and explored, 6 O gates shut and well along in the Main Quest] . . . so i guess i have around 150 hours left
:thumbsup:

This is the FIRST game [ever] that has effectively shut down my forum posting. . . . for days at a time!
:Q

and i am SO glad it is NOT like Morrowind . . . the world doesn't have enough Gold to entice me to play it.

However, i can see what you hard-core Fantasy RPGers are complaining about . . . Oblivion plays much like a FPS with RPG elements . . .

it is a Hybred Game much like DeusEX . . . and i found such an easy strategy . . . work on the Minor Skills and enter the Oblivion Gates just before you level up . . . ALL of my battles have been easy and i have been tempted to move the slider to "more difficult'.

Basically it's get the quest, assemble the weapons and spells you think you need; charge and repair the items [leave the stuff home you don't need and sell the extra junk for gold] and head for battle . . . rinse and repeat. . . . fortunately the Story and the Quests are interesting to hold MY interest.

. . . and someone mentioned - maybe 10 pages back - i can't find it - that you can't drop spells and potions . . . You Can - you can leave almost ANYthing in a chest. . . . my WaterFront Home's chests are stuffed to the gills with possibly useful stuff.

O yeah, can a thief break into YOUR house and steal your goods?
curious?

See you in a few days.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: AdamSnow
Okay, so I've been in the theives guild and fenced over 200g or whatever the limit is... (I've actually fenced over 1000g, but that's not part of the quest)

I've now been told that I can use the fence that is located in Layawen (spelling, sorry) but when I go there, and make that my active quest it takes me to some lizzard guy who is not who it says I need to talk to for my quest... When I talk to him, he's a member of the guild... and says that he buy's stolen property... but I can't sell anything to him... there's no icon to sell at all...

Any tips? Any tips on getting another thieves guild quest? do I need to be there at midnight or something?

Probably because it wasn't the right time of day for him to sell. Just like all other NPCs in the game, they have schedules in which they'll sell/train/give you tasks, etc. Fences usually only sell at night, or at a specific location.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Basic healing spells use waaaay too much mana or magicka or whatever.

Not really. Once you get the spell, they do, but as you progress, their magicka requirements significantly reduces. I remember first getting Superior Healing or whatever, and it cost like 110 magicka... and now if i was to cast it, it only takes 75magicka.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: apoppin
i have 80 hours into this wonderful game . . . and just now attained Level 9
[23 Quests completed/18 Active . . . 56 places found and explored, 6 O gates shut and well along in the Main Quest] . . . so i guess i have around 150 hours left
:thumbsup:

This is the FIRST game [ever] that has effectively shut down my forum posting. . . . for days at a time!
:Q

and i am SO glad it is NOT like Morrowind . . . the world doesn't have enough Gold to entice me to play it.

However, i can see what you hard-core Fantasy RPGers are complaining about . . . Oblivion plays much like a FPS with RPG elements . . .

it is a Hybred Game much like DeusEX . . . and i found such an easy strategy . . . work on the Minor Skills and enter the Oblivion Gates just before you level up . . . ALL of my battles have been easy and i have been tempted to move the slider to "more difficult'.

Basically it's get the quest, assemble the weapons and spells you think you need; charge and repair the items [leave the stuff home you don't need and sell the extra junk for gold] and head for battle . . . rinse and repeat. . . . fortunately the Story and the Quests are interesting to hold MY interest.

. . . and someone mentioned - maybe 10 pages back - i can't find it - that you can't drop spells and potions . . . You Can - you can leave almost ANYthing in a chest. . . . my WaterFront Home's chests are stuffed to the gills with possibly useful stuff.

O yeah, can a thief break into YOUR house and steal your goods?
curious?

See you in a few days.

You should get the saddlebag mod... i didn't use too many mods in the game, but that's been a great one. Instead of going home each time you need to change equipment, i just put everything on my horse... so if i'm going into a dungeon, and then find out it's entirely full of melee, i just go back out and change gear so i have damage reflection rather than resists. And all my potions and scrolls are on my horse as well. There's 2 versions, one that is unlimited, and the other is limited based on your horses strength. I used the limited one just so that it's not too unbalancing, and i only had one occasion when my horse was overburden, and that was when i first entered an Oblivion gate with ebony/daedric drops... i had well over 20 warhammers on my horse because i kept going back out to drop the loot on it.

 

[BenSkywalker]

But I now have 98 quests completed, 24 active, guild master of thief guild, mage guild, fighter guild, and arena champion and I'm only level 16. So I think those that power leveled destroyed some of the game for themselves.

My first character in the game I power leveled, made it to level 27 before my HD crapped out(360) in a relatively very short period of time.

My rerolled character I aimed at making him level up slowly- and that he does- and it destroys quite a bit of the game. First off- the game gets significantly easier the slower you level up. As of now I'm a weakly level 18 and kill almost anything very quickly(final arena fight against the Gray Prince took two hits- and I didn't do his side quest). Not only that, but you don't see the most powerful creatures in the game at all until you get to a decent level(no Minotaur Lords, no Xivolvi, no Lich)- there really is very little challenge. As an example, one of the Ayelid ruins that I cleared in the final chamber my higher level character had to deal with four Lich plus all of the creatures they summoned- I was getting hammered from four directions by Lichs with their ranged attacks and rushed by all of the melee characters they had summoned- I got smacked around silly the first few times and when I did make it through it took me about twenty minutes or so to clear them all out(take out the characters rushing you and the Lich just summon more....). Going through the same ruin with my low level character it was a breeze, a couple of skeleton champions and a couple of wraiths. Blew through them hardly losing any HP at all.

Now my character is level 18, I'm Arch Mage, Grand Champion, Master and blowing through the main quest without so much as a pause required for a battle. Everything dies, quickly and easily- and I still haven't been able to face any of the really strong enemies in the game due to my level being so low(Xivolvi and Lich don't show up until 20+ I know, I thought I ran into Minotaur Lords at level 18 in my previous game but perhaps I was wrong). I also don't like that I can't get any of the good weapons or armor in the game due to the way I rolled this character. It wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of difficulty- there isn't any now, but I like the Deadric and Glass choices a lot better then the Ebony/Elven(some of the Glass and Daedric are showing up now that I'm level 18, but so far only weapons- no armor)- they look cooler.

Really, if you want to make this game as easy as possible, roll a character whose main skills you have no intention of using. You will coast through this game very easily. Conversely, if you make honest selections about how you want your character from the outset, selecting major skills that you use all the time, it will significantly increase the difficulty of the game.

 

[skace]

Interesting, as an archer my experience has been vastly different. My point, I suppose was that a lot of the content scales so should remain difficult. But there is static content, like the Unicorn, that 'stops leveling' at level 15, so the encounter is insanely difficult at low levels but at high levels it becomes weaker than a goblin. You can deffinitely outlevel these set encounters, while the random dungeons I suppose may get more difficult.

Also, I kind of like the fact that I'm not decked out in glass or daedric yet, It gives me something to work towards and hope for. I'm still wearing orcish armor so I'm always looking for improvements, if I powerleveled to 30, I'm sure I'd cap gear and get bored really quickly.

 

[Nebor]

I'm a super fast, agile archer type who sneaks about. Archery is woefully underpowered. It takes 15 arrows to kill everything.

 

[rsd]

Originally posted by: Nebor
I'm a super fast, agile archer type who sneaks about. Archery is woefully underpowered. It takes 15 arrows to kill everything.

Hmm not my impression at all actually

I'm level 19 now as an assassin, but use archery mostly. With sneak and 3x damage, I use this 90% of the time to deal damage and it works quite well if anything.

 

[amish]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Archery is woefully underpowered. It takes 15 arrows to kill everything.

ughhh. i know what you mean. i had to turn the difficulty slider down because f'n scamps were kicking my ass in kvatch.

but it is oh so cool to tag something in the head with an arrow and see it almost do a flip.

 

[40Hands]

I just became a master archer...archery rocks. Especially when you get the knockdown and paralyze chances. You also need to get some night eye equipment/potions for dungeons and keep as far back as possible when firing your first shot. I can take out guys without them even seeing me. Remember to arc your far shots...

I also have about 116 agility...

 

[skace]

Paralyze rocks! Especially when they fall over on the side of a cliff and keep rolling. Hahaha

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: skace
Paralyze rocks! Especially when they fall over on the side of a cliff and keep rolling. Hahaha

Knocking daedra off of high platforms has been my MO in the oblivion gates. Just keep pushing them til they fall with a splat

 

[Nebor]

Anyone playing a monk\unarmed combat kinda guy? How's it going?

 

[Looney]

No, the fact that there's no hand-to-hand weapons killed the idea for me. Although i did level up hand-to-hand for awhile, but then gave up... i figured it would be helpful if i ever got disarmed, but in all my time in the game, i was never disarmed. I was only knocked on my ass twice throughout the entire game too. I guess i'm just a good melee fighter... after awhile, you learn to block and take advantage of the stun that a block can do.

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: rsd

Originally posted by: Nebor
I'm a super fast, agile archer type who sneaks about. Archery is woefully underpowered. It takes 15 arrows to kill everything.

Hmm not my impression at all actually

I'm level 19 now as an assassin, but use archery mostly. With sneak and 3x damage, I use this 90% of the time to deal damage and it works quite well if anything.

Join the mage guild so you can enchant your bow. Right now, I have 31 fire damage on my Elven bow along with 1 second soul capture. A 3x sneak attack will kill mages in 1 hit, while heavily armored fighters take a second shot or sometimes third. I was able to do 4 arena matches in a row without healing, while taking down each opponent with around 4-5 shots.

Once I find another Elven Bow, I'm going to enchant it with Absorb Health.

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: Looney
No, the fact that there's no hand-to-hand weapons killed the idea for me. Although i did level up hand-to-hand for awhile, but then gave up... i figured it would be helpful if i ever got disarmed, but in all my time in the game, i was never disarmed. I was only knocked on my ass twice throughout the entire game too. I guess i'm just a good melee fighter... after awhile, you learn to block and take advantage of the stun that a block can do.

Yeah. I don't really see the point of going hand to hand. Enchanted weapons can do massive amounts of health and status damage, plus all of the perks that you get from Expert and Master levels.

 

[Painman]

I hear people talking about archery being underpowered. My character who now has > 100 Agility, 60-something Marksmanship, 80-something Sneak and a Daedric Bow of Inferno isn't paying much attention. She's too busy setting baddies on fire...

 

[Powermoloch]

I killed all the palace gaurds and imperial gaurds in the temple district pretty funny

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

But I now have 98 quests completed, 24 active, guild master of thief guild, mage guild, fighter guild, and arena champion and I'm only level 16. So I think those that power leveled destroyed some of the game for themselves.

My first character in the game I power leveled, made it to level 27 before my HD crapped out(360) in a relatively very short period of time.

My rerolled character I aimed at making him level up slowly- and that he does- and it destroys quite a bit of the game. First off- the game gets significantly easier the slower you level up. As of now I'm a weakly level 18 and kill almost anything very quickly(final arena fight against the Gray Prince took two hits- and I didn't do his side quest). Not only that, but you don't see the most powerful creatures in the game at all until you get to a decent level(no Minotaur Lords, no Xivolvi, no Lich)- there really is very little challenge. As an example, one of the Ayelid ruins that I cleared in the final chamber my higher level character had to deal with four Lich plus all of the creatures they summoned- I was getting hammered from four directions by Lichs with their ranged attacks and rushed by all of the melee characters they had summoned- I got smacked around silly the first few times and when I did make it through it took me about twenty minutes or so to clear them all out(take out the characters rushing you and the Lich just summon more....). Going through the same ruin with my low level character it was a breeze, a couple of skeleton champions and a couple of wraiths. Blew through them hardly losing any HP at all.

Now my character is level 18, I'm Arch Mage, Grand Champion, Master and blowing through the main quest without so much as a pause required for a battle. Everything dies, quickly and easily- and I still haven't been able to face any of the really strong enemies in the game due to my level being so low(Xivolvi and Lich don't show up until 20+ I know, I thought I ran into Minotaur Lords at level 18 in my previous game but perhaps I was wrong). I also don't like that I can't get any of the good weapons or armor in the game due to the way I rolled this character. It wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of difficulty- there isn't any now, but I like the Deadric and Glass choices a lot better then the Ebony/Elven(some of the Glass and Daedric are showing up now that I'm level 18, but so far only weapons- no armor)- they look cooler.

Really, if you want to make this game as easy as possible, roll a character whose main skills you have no intention of using. You will coast through this game very easily. Conversely, if you make honest selections about how you want your character from the outset, selecting major skills that you use all the time, it will significantly increase the difficulty of the game.

i DID make honest selections . . . i just didn't know what to expect from this game.
:Q

it's really weird . . . . i approached this game exactly as i would a FPS-hybred [it playes very much like the DE series; especially IW] and choose to work on my minor skills [which i came to like] instead of my major ones [which i found i didn't like or use very much]. . . .

So . . . and i finally moved the diffculty slider to harder 'cause there was NO challenge . . . fortunately there is a difficulty slider.
:roll:


thanks Looney, but i am choosing to use NO mods . . . i haven't had to "go home" for anything i missed yet . . . what you need is pretty basic to all quests [so far].

[ps - the Waterfront is going to be a 'hot' market . . . eventually]

i'm down to less than 2 posts here a day . . . from 10 . . .
. . . you could say i'm oblivious to much else.
:shocked:

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: igowerf

Originally posted by: rsd

Originally posted by: Nebor
I'm a super fast, agile archer type who sneaks about. Archery is woefully underpowered. It takes 15 arrows to kill everything.

Hmm not my impression at all actually

I'm level 19 now as an assassin, but use archery mostly. With sneak and 3x damage, I use this 90% of the time to deal damage and it works quite well if anything.

Join the mage guild so you can enchant your bow. Right now, I have 31 fire damage on my Elven bow along with 1 second soul capture. A 3x sneak attack will kill mages in 1 hit, while heavily armored fighters take a second shot or sometimes third. I was able to do 4 arena matches in a row without healing, while taking down each opponent with around 4-5 shots.

Once I find another Elven Bow, I'm going to enchant it with Absorb Health.

I don't think you even have to join the mages guild. At night, when the archmage goes to sleep, sneak into his tower and use his enchantment thing in there.

 

[nyker96]

 

[nyker96]

Just saw the making of video, looks pretty cool. They really sunk a ton of man hour into this one. 3.5years//50+ people.

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: igowerf

Originally posted by: rsd

Originally posted by: Nebor
I'm a super fast, agile archer type who sneaks about. Archery is woefully underpowered. It takes 15 arrows to kill everything.

Hmm not my impression at all actually

I'm level 19 now as an assassin, but use archery mostly. With sneak and 3x damage, I use this 90% of the time to deal damage and it works quite well if anything.

Join the mage guild so you can enchant your bow. Right now, I have 31 fire damage on my Elven bow along with 1 second soul capture. A 3x sneak attack will kill mages in 1 hit, while heavily armored fighters take a second shot or sometimes third. I was able to do 4 arena matches in a row without healing, while taking down each opponent with around 4-5 shots.

Once I find another Elven Bow, I'm going to enchant it with Absorb Health.

I don't think you even have to join the mages guild. At night, when the archmage goes to sleep, sneak into his tower and use his enchantment thing in there.

That's a good idea, but joining the mages guild also gives you access to merchants who can sell you spells and soul gems for enchantment. I'm a thief so I've pretty much stolen every soul gem that I could find, and now I pretty much need to buy them in order to keep up with how fast I'm using them. Some of them even come with grand and greater souls already in them.

In order to enchant an item with a spell, you need to have that spell AND be able to cast it. It doesn't matter what strength the spell is though. For example, as long as you have a fire spell, no matter how weak, you will be able to enchant your weapons with as much fire damage as the soul gems will allow.

The mages guild entrance quests aren't too hard and a couple of them are doable without actually using any skills (sneak and athletics aside).

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I'm on the fence with the whole scale-leveling thing. I realize that it was incredibly easy to exploit Morrowind in the first few minutes of the game and become godlike. I think Bethesda overcompensated for that by using the scaling. Granted, I'm not saying I know what the right answer is. I just know that this isn't it.

It's great fun and I'm enjoying it. But like Ben said, you can exploit Oblivion too by choosing unused skills as majors. I hadn't thought about that. So you can slow your leveling down with mods or by choosing unused majors... but that really doesn't fix the problem.

I haven't tried any of the no-scaling mods yet. I do want something that is random, but with some order. No skeleton hero with ebony armor guarding a weak goblin. The rarity mod sounds nice, but I would rather see good equipment fall early (though rarely) but have a character unable to use it if it is beyond his level-- i.e. elven armor requires light armor skill of 65 or whatever. Or maybe you can equip it but it takes a % effectiveness hit until the character's skill improves.

Again, I don't know how to get it to where I want it to be. But I have an idea of what I do want for this game to be perfect. I want to be able to enter any cave, dungeon, or forest and face any foe from level 1-50 somewhat randomly with loot/items that fit their level. That way, if I got lucky enough to nab a lvl30 vampire at my lvl10 by running away and peppering with poison arrows, it'd be hard as hell and I would get appropriately rewarded for it... and not "oh we'll drop you an iron sword since you're only lvl10". I may not be able to use that mithril sword he does drop fully, but I would still be able to either pack it away for when I can, or sell it and buy something I *can* use.

Again, I dunno. Just rambling. Love the game, though. Seriously. My gripes are just being critical about something in which I can see a lot of further potential.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel
Again, I don't know how to get it to where I want it to be. But I have an idea of what I do want for this game to be perfect. I want to be able to enter any cave, dungeon, or forest and face any foe from level 1-50 somewhat randomly with loot/items that fit their level. That way, if I got lucky enough to nab a lvl30 vampire at my lvl10 by running away and peppering with poison arrows, it'd be hard as hell and I would get appropriately rewarded for it... and not "oh we'll drop you an iron sword since you're only lvl10". I may not be able to use that mithril sword he does drop fully, but I would still be able to either pack it away for when I can, or sell it and buy something I *can* use.

So for that once in a game item you get by killing a mob 20 level higher than you... you're going to have lots of dungeons you missed and aren't going to go back because the rewards will be crap for your level. And you'll do lots of hunting around finding the right dungeon and areas with the right level.

And i don't know what's the appeal in having a godlike item at lower level, you're going to trivialize the game. Hell, when i discovered i had the 100% magic resist shield, and how it actually works (it provides 100% resist all the time, not just when you're blocking a shot), it pretty much trivialized the game for me. And if you're just going to sell it, then what's the point? Money was one thing i wasn't lacking in the game. When i completed the main quest, i had like 80k in gold, and that's after buying and completely furnishing the skingard house, and i stopped looting when i banked about 100 ebony warhammers and daedric armor.

Personally, i think the leveling scaling is one of the best idea for an open RPG like this. I remember in previous games like Baulder's Gate, where there were dungeons and areas i hated going to because i was killing things with one swipe, and not getting any decent reward or experience.

The main problem i had with Oblivion were the magical drops. There just wasn't that many variety, and the ones that they did have, some were just overpowering. I didn't do blunt weapons, but i imagine if i did, and i got the Hatred Heart, that would have completely trivialized the game for me. They could have just had a couple of content designer do nothing but create new equipment for an entire day... they didn't even have to create new models/textures, just reuse them. Goldbrand is the only model using that sword in the game. The Akiviri katanas... i don't think there was a single magical version of them at all. Ebony blades... again, i didn't see too many magical versions, if any.