Oblivion gone gold [Archive]

Xiahou

03-22-2006, 10:28

screwtype

03-22-2006, 10:47

I dunno, I like the game, but I think Im just a little disappointed. The game is a system hog (no one should be suprised by that though), and it seems more like an Xbox360 game that's been ported to the PC than an actual PC game. The menus are clunky and all seem to be setup like they're designed for a controller. The mini-games are just annoying- especially the persuasion one, which imo does far more to damage immersion than help it. Also, while I can understand the desire for map travel, I dont really like how it's implemented- I think I'd like it better if you were forced to walk to and discover all locations the first time and then able to map to them subsequent times.

Its not that it's bad, it's just that for supposedly being so cutting edge- there are so many other games that have done it better. Obviously, Mount&Blade blows it away combat-wise and while playing, I find I keep drawing unfavorable comparisons between Oblivion and games like Gothic2. :shrug:

I simply can't understand all the fuss about this game. The Elder Scrolls series has no combat worth the name and the interface is terribly clunky and old-fashioned. Even the fonts they use look like something out of 1989.

Apart from the pretty graphics (which aren't that good, especially after you have to turn the gamma way up just to see what you're doing) there really isn't a lot to recommend it, except perhaps for the fact that the game world is so big. But IMO, big is not necessarily beautiful anyhow.

TinCow

03-22-2006, 12:55

I would have agreed with you on the combat for Morrowind, but Oblivion is much different. Combat can be very tactical if you plan it that way. You can still charge in and bash on each other with no tactics or blocking, but you'll get seriously hurt and your armor will break fast when you have low skill levels. I personally have gotten the most fun out of doing stealth kills. Ranged weapons work fabulously if you can get a stealth hit on your enemy.

The graphics are far better than any other RPG ever made. They're slightly lower than Doom 3/Quake 4 but the huge open nature of the world more than makes up for that. I can't count the number of times I stopped just to enjoy the view during my play last night. While I'm sure it is a spec hog, the game runs flawlessly with no bugs or slowdowns at all on my machine in 1024x768 with all effects on except AA (though I may try it with some low AA, since it needs it). I've even bumped the draw distance of everything up to the max and still experienced no slowdowns outdoors on those grand vistas. For reference, I'm running a p4 3.0ghz, 1gb ram, GF 6800 256mb.

Yes, both my wife and I considered calling in sick today.

TB666

03-22-2006, 16:32

Well managed to play it on 800x600 and medium settings.
I got 2.3 ghz Celeron
512 MB RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 mb
It runs pretty smooth(around 15-10 fps).

Created a nice Nord warrior..

https://img66.imageshack.us/img66/1308/oblivion20060322153727105yd.jpg
^Yeah I look cool
https://img70.imageshack.us/img70/3138/oblivion20060322153927810ly.jpg
^Damn goblins
https://img70.imageshack.us/img70/623/oblivion20060322154009207de.jpg
^nice
https://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7503/oblivion20060322154022262ys.jpg
^Very nice
https://img70.imageshack.us/img70/8445/oblivion20060322154214328kr.jpg
^Nice and very easy to lockpick now
https://img299.imageshack.us/img299/706/oblivion20060322154526481mm.jpg
^Going shield to shield with a goblin
https://img299.imageshack.us/img299/2677/oblivion20060322160346758ex.jpg
^Finally out in the open air

Ja'chyra

03-22-2006, 18:20

Please stop with the screenshots, I'm skint and now I really want to buy it :no: :laugh4:

Xiahou

03-22-2006, 19:11

The graphics are far better than any other RPG ever made. They're slightly lower than Doom 3/Quake 4 but the huge open nature of the world more than makes up for that. I can't count the number of times I stopped just to enjoy the view during my play last night. While I'm sure it is a spec hog, the game runs flawlessly with no bugs or slowdowns at all on my machine in 1024x768 with all effects on except AA (though I may try it with some low AA, since it needs it). I've even bumped the draw distance of everything up to the max and still experienced no slowdowns outdoors on those grand vistas. For reference, I'm running a p4 3.0ghz, 1gb ram, GF 6800 256mb.

Yes, both my wife and I considered calling in sick today.My system is similar to yours AMD64 3200, 1gb ram, ati800xl(overclocked). It runs acceptably(Ive been checking my FPS with fraps), but generally under 30fps. When I turned on 2xAA it would run ok- except it turned into a total slideshow whenever the assassins died and exploded (or whatever they do) in the sewers. That was totally unacceptable to me, so I decided I was better off with no AA.

My draw distances arent maxxed on everything either, maybe I'll turn em up and see what impact it has, if any. I'd sure love the grass draw distance to be longer- it looks like it's growing before my eyes as I walk along currently.:inquisitive:

TB666

03-22-2006, 20:24

More screenshots.

https://img59.imageshack.us/img59/2940/oblivion20060322174644351ce.jpg
^Man I want his helmet.

https://img59.imageshack.us/img59/9723/oblivion20060322174753768kk.jpg
^The Imperial city looking gloomy

https://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7461/oblivion20060322180656454em.jpg
^nice

https://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3713/oblivion20060322181049541ah.jpg
^A bandit that ambushed me

https://img480.imageshack.us/img480/8323/oblivion20060322181615096ui.jpg
^Well a pretty night sky

https://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5783/oblivion20060322182223849ao.jpg
^A nice view from a church tower

https://img480.imageshack.us/img480/9882/oblivion20060322185202325ks.jpg
^A nice statue and my newly purchased claymore.

Lemur

03-22-2006, 21:32

Only two and a half hours 'till work is over ...

And then only three hours until the baby lemur is in bed, asleep ...

Then I shall get my one or two glorious hours with Oblivion. Then I have to start all over again. Yowza. I hear people complaining about their framerate -- hey, mine just dropped below 30 frames per hour. It sucks to be a grownup.

Geoffrey S

03-22-2006, 21:51

Xiahou

03-22-2006, 22:09

Please stop with the screenshots, I'm skint and now I really want to buy it :no: :laugh4:
Here's one of my Redguard as dawn breaks high in the Jarrell Mountains (maybe the one's TB666 sees from his tower screenie?:idea2: )

https://img374.imageshack.us/img374/6172/oblivion20060322160254439qq.th.jpg (https://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oblivion20060322160254439qq.jpg)
click for full size

Of course, I wont say what I found up there. :no:

TB666

03-22-2006, 22:41

(maybe the one's TB666 sees from his tower screenie?:idea2: )

Yes it is :2thumbsup: .
You can see the great tower in Imperial city to the left. The tower I was on should be somewhere in the direction you are looking at.

TinCow

03-22-2006, 23:38

Would Oblivion run decently on a computer with 3 GHz, 1024 Ram and a GeForce FX 5200? Not that I've got any time to play for some time yet, but it'd be nice to know if I have to upgrade at some point; I've heard the game is pretty scaleable.

No, people with GF 5XXX series cards have reported at best running on the lowest possible settings while many get 5FPS even then. However, the rest of that looks fine. You can get a decent card that will allow you to run Oblivion on high settings for under $200 now.

Proletariat

03-22-2006, 23:43

No, people with GF 5XXX series cards have reported at best running on the lowest possible settings while many get 5FPS even then. However, the rest of that looks fine. You can get a decent card that will allow you to run Oblivion on high settings for under $200 now.

Hrm. Heard anything about the 6600gt folks? I get the feeling I'm right where 'it would be stupid to upgrade, but the graphics will still suffer.'

Edit: Reading on the elderscrolls.com forums that folks with 7xxx cards are getting 8fps outdoors. :sweatdrop:

Edit: Fantastic link for folks who have system requirement questions.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=270923&st=0

Xiahou

03-23-2006, 03:45

Alot of it probably depends on how much you knock down the graphics. My wife's computer only has an ati 9600pro- the Oblivion auto-detect knocked everything way down but, to me, it still didnt look that bad. According to her, performance was within acceptable limits, but she didnt play long enough to get outside. :shrug:

Geoffrey S

03-23-2006, 08:10

Crazed Rabbit

03-23-2006, 08:24

So what I'm hearing is that 1.3 Ghz P4 and Geforce 2 won't cut it?

Crazed Rabbit

Sjakihata

03-23-2006, 09:23

What are the PC system requirements?

Recommended:

* 3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card

Minimum System Requirements: New!

* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card
* and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

Husar

03-23-2006, 10:31

Hrm. Heard anything about the 6600gt folks? I get the feeling I'm right where 'it would be stupid to upgrade, but the graphics will still suffer.'
My favorite games magazine says it ran well on their testsystem with medium settings.
Testsystem:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
512MB RAM
Radeon 9600XT(256MB I think)

now, I got:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
1GB RAM
GeForce 6600GT with 128MB

I think a 6600GT is faster than a 9600XT.

Concerning performance, I think you have to adjust it to your settings, which can sometimes help a lot.
For me the problem are high res textures and Antialiasing which is probably because of my 128MB graphicscard.
Also my processor is somewhat slow for highest settings in most modern games, which makes for an overall performance problem.

TinCow

03-23-2006, 13:14

I've seen some reports of a 6600 which report having to dial back the graphics somewhat, but still getting very good results at medium-high settings. Check the elder scrolls official forums... if you can sort through all the junk in there.

Krusader

03-24-2006, 02:55

I dunno, I like the game, but I think Im just a little disappointed. The game is a system hog (no one should be suprised by that though), and it seems more like an Xbox360 game that's been ported to the PC than an actual PC game. The menus are clunky and all seem to be setup like they're designed for a controller. The mini-games are just annoying- especially the persuasion one, which imo does far more to damage immersion than help it. Also, while I can understand the desire for map travel, I dont really like how it's implemented- I think I'd like it better if you were forced to walk to and discover all locations the first time and then able to map to them subsequent times.

Its not that it's bad, it's just that for supposedly being so cutting edge- there are so many other games that have done it better. Obviously, Mount&Blade blows it away combat-wise and while playing, I find I keep drawing unfavorable comparisons between Oblivion and games like Gothic2. :shrug:

I agree with your points. The graphics were good and I loved how the cities were with townspeople talking to eachother and you can eavesdrop on the rumours as well as locked shops at night.
Although there are some quirks that irritate me. The Inventory interface and buy/sell system made a damper on my enjoyment as I found it cluttered and consolish. I don't want the Morrowind interface back, because that wasnt good either, but I would want something else than what PC users currently get.

The minigames were also a tad annoying and the lockpicking thing was to me hell to do with a mouse and clearly designed for a controller.

All in all, I'm actually excited and also a bit disappointed. Maybe I'm picky, but having a game with console elements which in my eyes hampers the gameplay a bit and makes it a bit harder for me to keep my inventory organized. Still, I bet Im going to play this baby a lot tomorrow.

Xiahou

03-24-2006, 03:23

All in all, I'm actually excited and also a bit disappointed. Maybe I'm picky, but having a game with console elements which in my eyes hampers the gameplay a bit and makes it a bit harder for me to keep my inventory organized. Still, I bet Im going to play this baby a lot tomorrow.
Im definitely enjoying the game, but my nit-picks do still stand. The persuasion mini-game is fantastically stupid. It's ok as a puzzle, but as far as trying to make me believe my character is winning someone over based on his personality? No. It makes no sense that every attempt to persuade requires you to brag, admire, joke with and threaten them- it's just dumb. Further, the mini-game is very easy to master regardless of your speechcraft skills.

Samurai Waki

03-25-2006, 09:15

I need to restart my character, Three Hours into playing...I was wondering around outside Cyrodiil City at night, next thing I know my character becomes a vampire, now I can only use my character at night, which gives me a whole 7 hours of time per day to get my activities done, if I go outside when it is light, I die.

lars573

03-25-2006, 17:54

Im definitely enjoying the game, but my nit-picks do still stand. The persuasion mini-game is fantastically stupid. It's ok as a puzzle, but as far as trying to make me believe my character is winning someone over based on his personality? No. It makes no sense that every attempt to persuade requires you to brag, admire, joke with and threaten them- it's just dumb. Further, the mini-game is very easy to master regardless of your speechcraft skills.
So I take it that you aren't paying attention to the guy's face when you joke/admire/threaten/brag? They all have one they hate a lot, one they don't like, one they love, and one that is meh to them. The trick is too always get the big pie piece on the one they love. Not that it's that hard to master if it was persuading would get old quick.

I need to restart my character, Three Hours into playing...I was wondering around outside Cyrodiil City at night, next thing I know my character becomes a vampire, now I can only use my character at night, which gives me a whole 7 hours of time per day to get my activities done, if I go outside when it is light, I die.
So you didn't notice when you got infected with something or other anemia? That's what causes you to turn into a vampire.

TB666

03-25-2006, 20:03

How do you become a vampire ??

Sjakihata

03-25-2006, 20:29

The game is just morrowind with bad menus

Xiahou

03-25-2006, 21:25

So I take it that you aren't paying attention to the guy's face when you joke/admire/threaten/brag? They all have one they hate a lot, one they don't like, one they love, and one that is meh to them. The trick is too always get the big pie piece on the one they love. Not that it's that hard to master if it was persuading would get old quick.I know, the mini-game is cakey. I was griping about how it's stupid for role-play purposes... You have to amdire, boast, joke and coerce the person once in every round of persuasion- it just seems silly.

Lockpicking is at least a little more challenging, but with a keen ear and quick mouse button you can still pick any lock, regardless of you characters security skill.

lars573

03-26-2006, 00:21

How do you become a vampire ??
Since it appears that being a Vampire in Oblivion is the same as being a Vampire in Morrowind you have to contract a disease called Porphyric Hemophilia. The best way is a hand to hand attack from a Vampire. If you don't get it cured after 3 days you turn into a vampire. Before you actually turn curing Porphyric Hemophilia is as easy as a cure disease potion or spell. Or going to a temple and praying at the shrine (which removes any debuffs or disease you might have). But after the 3 days you need to go on the de-vamping quest. I've no idea about the Oblivion version but the Morrowind version is very long. Plus all normal people flee in terror at the sight of you and guards/legionaries attack on site. In all likely hood only the Mages guild and the dark brotherhood will have anything to do with you. As in Morrowind only the Mages guild and great house Telvanni would have anything to do with a Vampire character.

In morrowind a Vampire character gets these buffs and de-buffs
2.1.+20 to Strength, Willpower, and Speed
3.+30 to Sneak, Athletics, Acrobatics, Hand-to-Hand, Unarmored, Mysticism, 3.Illusion, and Destruction
4.Immune to Paralysis and Common Disease
5.+50% Resistance to Normal Weapons
6.Vampire Touch spell, absorb health
7.Damage to sunlight
8.Levitate spell, long lasting, low cost

You'd probably get similar powers in Oblivion. Also I did the mission where Wakizashi probably caught Porphyric Hemophilia. So if you play the main quest you have the option of being a vampire for a bit.

sapi

03-26-2006, 02:56

I know, the mini-game is cakey. I was griping about how it's stupid for role-play purposes... You have to amdire, boast, joke and coerce the person once in every round of persuasion- it just seems silly.

Lockpicking is at least a little more challenging, but with a keen ear and quick mouse button you can still pick any lock, regardless of you characters security skill.
Agreed - i really don't like the persuasion minigame - i find having the skill gives no benifit :(

doc_bean

03-27-2006, 16:20

Well, this thread has made lose my interest in oblivion for a while (at least buying a new PC doesn't seem so urgent anymore).

But this is still pretty funny:

Ctr+alt+del (http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060327)

BDC

03-27-2006, 20:10

Works fine on my x700 with a 2ghz P4 and 1gb ram. Works better outside than in. Jumping about beats walking too, less emmersion but not everyone has 6 hours to spend walking across a mountain.

Xiahou

03-27-2006, 22:07

Jumping about beats walking too, less emmersion but not everyone has 6 hours to spend walking across a mountain.
I've adopted the self-imposed restriction of walking to a new location for at least the first time. Then, for subsequent trips to the same locale, I'll use the map travel if I want to.

This way, I still get to do a good bit of exploring and find lots of ruins, ect and (for RP purposes) I also get the feeling of forging a new path to a location- after which, retracing it should be relatively uneventful. But, to each their own. :shrug:

Lemur

03-27-2006, 22:16

It's sort-of-running with a 9700 pro, 800 x 600 with a fair number of effects turned on, 2x aa. It's not great, and I'm not as happy as I could be, but there it is. For some reason certain spell effects turn it into a slideshow.

Great game, though. Once I've upgraded my machine it should be mezzo-spiffy. I've been thumping around as a sort of stealth archer-mage dude. A Breton with a bow, and he's not afraid to use it. Slapping down the really long shots is way more fun than it should be.

Now I just have to find four more hours in the day so's I can play as much as I want ...

Sjakihata

03-27-2006, 22:21

I've adopted the self-imposed restriction of walking to a new location for at least the first time. Then, for subsequent trips to the same locale, I'll use the map travel if I want to.

Well, you can only travel to known locations (whenever you come to a new place, it says Blah blah found) then you can use the map travel.

econ21

03-27-2006, 22:34

Well, this thread has made lose my interest in oblivion for a while ...

Then we are obviously not doing our job properly.

I think it is a very good game. gamespot gave it 96%, which does not seem unreasonable. Oblivion is very like Morrowind. IMO, it stands in relation to Morrowind like Civ4 does to Civ2. Very similar concept and mechanics, but better done and crucially more fun.

Some initial impressions (based on only 10 hours of play, minus reloads):

What's similar:
- Character creation - the system seems almost identical (skills, races etc). But this is good, as the Morrowind system was very good for a single player game (I like the freedom to mix skills & stats).
- Levelling system is almost identical - less good, IMO. I hated trying to optimise my levelling in Morrowind. So far in Oblivion it is less of a pain - no standing forever being chewed on by Mudcrabs - but that's probably just me: the system and hence incentives to do that are still there. You still have to find a bed to level, totally breaking the immersion ("I'm in hell, but I've just gone up a level. Better get back home for bed").
- Graphics - very nice, as before. Actually, I find it lacks something of the "wow" factor Morrowind's graphics had on me. I think the time and graphical standards have moved on (Morrowind was in the era of MTW; Oblivion in the era of RTW). But it is still very nice.
- Open-ended questing system - mages guilds, fighters guilds, massive world, go anywhere etc. etc.
- Combat - still madly clicking and then dying quickly if outmatched. Nowhere near as good as Mount and Blade for some reason, despite being very similar on paper.
- Bestiary - many of the old monsters are recycled. But thankfully no kwama stuff, nixhounds or flying racer things so far.
- Even the music sounds like a Morrowind remix.

What's changed:
- There's a plot this time - well, one right that grabs you right from the start and which can maintain that tension if you choose to follow it. The premise - the gates of hell are opened - is an oldie but a goldie for a CRPG (echoes of Might and Magic VI): at least you have something to care about. Somehow I ended up trying to close the doors of hell at level 1 and its heart-stopping, gripping stuff. It reminded me a little of System Shock 2 and there is no higher praise for a first person action RPG.
- All NPC speech is voiced - some nice voice work (esp. Sean Bean), but more generally things feel a little more alive than the "dead" text spouting NPCs of Morrowind. For example, there's a drunken armourer in one town who has something approaching a personality. No NPC did in Morrowind, IMO.
- The map has a directional indicator based on the current quest. :2thumbsup:
- Travel is much easier, with automated moving to a desired location (no need to rely on mark and recall). Inventory management (getting full) is still a pain though.
- Dumb persuasion and lockpicking mini-games.
- Stealth and magic are more powerful this time round. Mana regenerates quickly. Stealth gives DnD backstab type multipliers to damage.
- Probably more autolevelling of encounters and opponents to match your level (even the treasure autolevels, so you don't get good drops until you are high level). This means you are less likely to be outmatched, but many people on the official site are criticising the system as it means you don't really feel more powerful as you level.

All in all, it's still probably not quite my cup of tea. I think KOTOR2 and Vampires are better CRPGs for my tilt. But, like Civ4, Oblivion is still good enough to suck up your weekends and give you a migraine from playing it too constantly.

...(at least buying a new PC doesn't seem so urgent anymore).

Fair enough. I agree with that. I bought a new graphics card for Morrowind and although I did not really like the game that much, I was satisfied just to experience the amazing world. It was a sort of "see Venice and die" kind of thing. While Oblivion is the better game, I don't think it is quite the gaming experience that Morrowind was for its time.

Lemur

03-27-2006, 22:47

Xiahou

03-28-2006, 04:24

It's sort-of-running with a 9700 pro, 800 x 600 with a fair number of effects turned on, 2x aa. It's not great, and I'm not as happy as I could be, but there it is. For some reason certain spell effects turn it into a slideshowThat's probably because of your 2xAA. I bet if you turned that off you'd see much better performance. I have an x800xl and even I cant run any AA without certain effects turning it into a slideshow.

Sasaki Kojiro

03-28-2006, 04:53

I remember Morrowind being really boring and really addictive. In Oblivion can you move along continously on the main quest or do you have to do a bunch of "optional" side quests in order to get your character up to the required level?

Also how does the archery compare to M&B?

I may want to get it in 3-4 years...

BDC

03-28-2006, 07:48

Combat is not so good really. Looks pretty and dramatic though. M&B has better, smoother combat.

Bartix

03-28-2006, 08:29

Jumping about beats walking too, less emmersion but not everyone has 6 hours to spend walking across a mountain.
In Morrowind I was always jumping. Very silly. Getting stats up.

I remember Morrowind being really boring and really addictive.:laugh4:
That is summing it up! Same thing is WoW, may be?

Lemur

03-28-2006, 15:26

That's probably because of your 2xAA. I bet if you turned that off you'd see much better performance.
Actually, I'd classify it as a "who knows" kind of situation. Over on the Oblivion boards they're trading .ini files like baseball cards. Apparently you can fine-tune the video settings like a madman. So yeah, turning off the AA would probably fix the problem, but there might be a much more elegant way. I'm gonna go ask for a file ...

Sjakihata

03-28-2006, 15:44

Anyone remember that little graphic tool that came to morrowind? Made it a lot smoother and increased the view distance with 200% (if you scaled it max) - Im hoping for such a thing for Oblivion as well - another good reason to go PC you get access to mods and small neat programs.

Lemur

03-28-2006, 18:15

Here's a decent primer on tweaking your settings. (http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=301118) There may be a better one, but this is the best I've found. Sorry to say it's PC-only.

Sjakihata

03-28-2006, 18:37

Sorry to say it's PC-only.

Oh no, don't you dare to be sorry, that'll teach them those consolers, hah!

ps, thank's for the link

lars573

03-28-2006, 20:50

It's worth noting that mods are popping up that address the inventory control problem. And therein lies the real reason to get Oblivion for the PC -- mods. Lots and lots of tweaks and fixes that the poor Xbox360 users shall never see.

I'm looking forward to trying out some of the UI modifications tonight ...
As a perfectly satisfied 360 Oblivion user I'll say this.
1.I like the new inventory menu system.
2.85% of te user mods for Morrowind sucked, plain and simple.

Oh no, don't you dare to be sorry, that'll teach them those consolers, hah!
Teach us that we were wise to invest in a platform where Oblivion will always work and almost never crashes (I've had one issue of it crashing when I f\go into one specific smith) and has very few frame rate drops. Yeah I'm real sorry for you PC users who have to sort through shovel ware mods and an unstable game. :laugh4:

Sjakihata

03-28-2006, 21:04

Teach us that we were wise to invest in a platform where Oblivion will always work and almost never crashes (I've had one issue of it crashing when I f\go into one specific smith) and has very few frame rate drops. Yeah I'm real sorry for you PC users who have to sort through shovel ware mods and an unstable game. :laugh4:

I dont really want to start an argument about what is better xbox or pc, all I will do is defend these points you made.

1. invest in a platform, well, I saved those money playing it on my PC, so I dont have an investment to make in the first place.

2. so far I have had no crashes, I had some when I alt tabbed to windows, but then again, you cant play oblivion and checking your email on an xbox. solution: DONT GO TO WINDOWS.

3. My fps are stable, I have no drops - why? Because I can tweak both my PC vid driver AND the oblivion ini file. Enhances the graphic enourmeously.

4. oh no, it isnt wading, it's a simple search and you can find what you are looking for (at least it was for morrowind), or look in the pinned topic #20 best mods. Speaking of mods, not even 15% of them were good, more like 2% but that was still something like 300+ mods that REALLY increased the gameplay of morrowind (live npcs, realism mod, no CLIFF RAZOR MOD!!!!! and tonnes of things that both increased the RPG atmosphere and took away the bad elements that the xbox users just have to accept, mods = freedom! and they are easy to make yourself.

all in all I would never ever dream of playing other games on a xbox than fighting games or racing games.

as I said I dont want an argument, just want to point out that on a pc you have your freedom, while an xbox is suitable for young kids, I dont want that restricted freedom - cant wait for a mod to come that deals that whole scaling issue.

Big_John

03-28-2006, 22:00

morrowind was made by the mods. the un-modded game was basically an empty shell compared to what the modders did with it, it was really amazing.

this is why i'm in no hurry to get oblivion. at some point i'll upgrade my system and by then, hopefully, the modding community will have made oblivion into a great game, just like they did with morrowind.

lars573

03-29-2006, 00:03

I dont really want to start an argument about what is better xbox or pc, all I will do is defend these points you made.

1. invest in a platform, well, I saved those money playing it on my PC, so I dont have an investment to make in the first place.
I refuse to limit my gamming experience to one platfrom.

2. so far I have had no crashes, I had some when I alt tabbed to windows, but then again, you cant play oblivion and checking your email on an xbox. solution: DONT GO TO WINDOWS.
You can to the 360 version of windows (a better description would be tabs) by prssing the connect button on the fly with no lock-ups while playing. I usually do this by accident while saving.

3. My fps are stable, I have no drops - why? Because I can tweak both my PC vid driver AND the oblivion ini file. Enhances the graphic enourmeously.
I always expect FPS drops. They don't not happen, I accpeted that and moved on.

4. oh no, it isnt wading, it's a simple search and you can find what you are looking for (at least it was for morrowind), or look in the pinned topic #20 best mods. Speaking of mods, not even 15% of them were good, more like 2% but that was still something like 300+ mods that REALLY increased the gameplay of morrowind (live npcs, realism mod, no CLIFF RAZOR MOD!!!!! and tonnes of things that both increased the RPG atmosphere and took away the bad elements that the xbox users just have to accept, mods = freedom! and they are easy to make yourself.

all in all I would never ever dream of playing other games on a xbox than fighting games or racing games.
I do better with console FPS games. And RPG games are impossible to control with a keyboard/mouse.

as I said I dont want an argument, just want to point out that on a pc you have your freedom, while an xbox is suitable for young kids, I dont want that restricted freedom - cant wait for a mod to come that deals that whole scaling issue.
1.Xbox is NOT! for little kids alone. It's for at 20-30 yearolds who want PC graphics but are technophobes. Always has been. Gamecube is a little kids system.
2.Mods are not freedom.

Ja'chyra

03-29-2006, 09:00

I had to go buy it yesterday, and I must say it looks very good so far and I've only just left Jauffre. Performance is fine on my

2.5Gb
1Gb RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro

but I did have to adjust down the distance and turn AA off, but hey I knew that before I bought the game and hopefully I will be getting a new system this year.

I like the new inventory system, I wasn't too sure of it when I first started but I quickly became used to it and now I like it.

Combat, like has been said, is not as good as M&B but is still an improvement on TES 3. Archery is good, but I'll need to find a way to make the crosshairs more opaque, so that I can still see my target if it's quite far away

Other things I'd like to see is a hotbar, or better yet 2 or 3, as I can never remember what I assigned to what button but I'm sure this will appear as a mod, if it hasn't already.

I would also like a better way to equip items, something ala EQ? so that you can see more easily what you're wearing.

I'm thinking that I'll need to reroll my character though as I foolishly didn't assign any of my major skill as a strength skill so I quickly become encumbered.

econ21

03-29-2006, 09:33

I'm thinking that I'll need to reroll my character though as I foolishly didn't assign any of my major skill as a strength skill so I quickly become encumbered.

I feel your pain - in Morrowind, I created a pretty female Bretonnian and found I could barely wear heavy armour, let along carry any loot. I had to restart as a gruff, ugly male Dark Elf just so I could carry anything. And no matter how much I prioritised strength, inventory limits were always binding (I wish inferior loot could just be automatically converted into money or we at least had a Dungeon Siege style donkey to carry stuff).

[Warning: power-gaming talk ahead.]

But if you are going to restart, assigning a strength skill as a major skill won't really help with encumberance. Encumberance depends on your initial strength, which in turn depends on other aspects of character creation (race/sex/star sign/favoured attribute) and on how much you raise your strength during level ups.

If you can raise strength related skills (major or minor) by 10 points between levels, then you can raise strength by 5 points at each level up. Major skills do rise a bit faster, it is true. However, it is actually easier to get the 5 point boost if your strength skills are minor, as raising them won't level you up before you have got the 10 point total increase in strength related skills. Once you have raised major skills by 10 points, then any further skill increases don't count towards the attribute boost. So, for example, if all your strength skills were major, you would have to not raise any other major skills between levels to get the full 5 point boost.

In my case with Oblivion, I got a decent starting strength (50) from my female nord. I did not want to use the sign (Warrior) to further raise it - I went for the Thief (in future, I might prefer the Mage). For my two favored attributes, instead of strength, I chose luck (as it is harder to increase in game) and endurance (because it pays off more if you raise it early). I did make blade a major skill, but not because it was strength related. Instead, I wanted to be rewarded for fighting. However, I have blunt and hand-to-hand as minor skills, so I can easily raise them (by training or by fighting without my sword) between levels to make sure I get the full +5 attribute rise on level up. I also try to get the full +5 endurance and raise luck by 1 per level. When I max out strength and endurance, I may switch to intelligence and personality as my mana is very limited. Speed and agility seem to matter less than in Morrowind (where slow characters crawled), while personality seems the least important (unless you like illusion).

Bottomline: if you are going to restart, make sure you fully understand the way stats and levelling work. Depending on your initial build, you may not need to restart after all. (In Oblivion, regardless of your initial build, you should be able to get most stats to near 100 if you play long enough.)

lars573

03-29-2006, 15:54

Bethesda added pack rats with Tribunal. You could buy rats that carried stuff in Mournhold. The district with the theatre I think.

Sjakihata

03-29-2006, 23:07

Or just make your own mod, a ring that gives 1000000 points featherweight constant effect and dump it in the first village

Dorkus

03-30-2006, 04:06

Coming from a Wiz8, Gothic 2 style RPG fan, oblivion just is not much fun.

There is one massive problem with it: level scaling. Every item, enemy, npc, quest reward, dungeon, dungeon boss, etc will scale to your level. When you walk across the world map at level 1, you face all level 1 enemies. When you walk across the world map at level 10, all level 10. Nothing particularly strong. Nothing particularly weak. Smooth and consistent like a rocking chair.

This makes for an incredibly dull world. You rarely feel any fear or anticipation, and every location feels like a carbon copy of the last one. If you attack a powerful vampire lord at level 1, he will be as weak as the rat you beat up outside of his castle. WHen you hit level 20 or so, the ordinary bandits who carried rusty knifes and fur armor will suddenly have elite glass armor and enchanted blades. It really destroys any sesnse of immersion or adventure, and defeats the point of character development.

There were a flood of complaints about this on the official boards until the moderators locked all threads invovling scaling. They also have been locking all threads questioning why scaling threads (and scaling threads alone) should be locked.

In any event, people should be aware of this before you buy the game. If you're the adventure rpg type, then oblivion might be a fun game. The sidequests are reasonably interesting (the main quest is a dud, in my opinion), and the graphics are simply amazing.

But if you're a role-player, or a stat hound, or a strategy/tactical gamer, the game, I think, is extremely vanilla and disappointing. I've never seen a world so big that had so few interesting things to do.

econ21

03-30-2006, 09:18

Yes, I saw the many and massive threads on scaling on the official forums (including one from you, Dorkus, if I am not mistaken). I can understand the moderators trying to channel the discussion into one official thread, if that is what they are doing, as it was getting incredibly fragmented and repetitious.

I'm still very early in the game (about 16 hours of play, still at level 3) but I think I rather like the scaling so far. There are fewer insta-death reloads of the kind I encountered in Morrowind from stumbling into situations where I was wildly outmatched. I understand the arguments of the anti-scalers, but reloading kills immersion for me even more than killing a vampire lord at level 1. Oblivion so far reminds me a little of KOTOR [1] in how they have dealt with the difficulty and challenge levels.

I was rather shocked to enter Oblivion at level 1 - I assumed that there would be an army of rats and goblins I had to kill first. But it was an amazing experience - made more vivid by the fragility and inexperience of my level 1 character. Contrary to what some folk have experienced, for my character, the first Oblivion gate and Kvatch were hard at level 1 & 2. Many reloads and some cunning were necessary. But it felt well-earned. It was tough enough that I am reluctant to enter the other gates that are spawning.

Where large RPGs have stories that lead to a clear area progression (directing you to easier areas first, like the Fallouts and BGs), I can see that Oblivion type scaling is unnecessary and might be a bad thing. But in very free form games like MW and Oblivion, I rather like the results so far. They've probably taken it too far (becoming Arena champion at low level is silly). But I don't yet see it as a fatal negative with the game.

Some people say the scaling issues arise more at higher level, so I probably should suspend judgement. But with Morrowind, I got bored and gave up around level 9. I suspect with Oblivion, I see it through the main quest at least. It's much more involving and I doubt scaling will be enough to negate that.

[1]: EDIT - just noticed you mention Wiz8 as a model of your kind of RPG, Dorkus. I think we probably are just talking apples and oranges - the Wiz8 paradigm vs the KOTOR one. Personality, I found Wiz8 as immersive as an episode of Power Rangers while the levelling/combat was both tedious and annoyingly hard. For me, the KOTORs were more satisfying cinematic experiences than any of the Star Wars films and had enjoyable levelling/combat. But I recognise people's mileage will differ.

Ja'chyra

03-30-2006, 10:15

Well I re-rolled, but after some thought I didn't concentrate on the build of my new toon, A Dark Elf called Aeil, instead I just added major skills and a birthsign that I thought would help, for instance I took The Warrior for the +10 Strength and Endurance, I have went for the gameplay rather than the ultimate build after all it's supposed to be fun :laugh4:

As for scaling, like Simon, I haven't encountered it yet as I have just levelled to level 3 and am just about to enter Kvatch after doing the Oblivion Gate outside and killing a couple of bandits. I really have no problem with the principle though although I think the main problem is with the weapons and armour scaling along with the NPC's, I really don't want everyone wearing uber gear and neither do I want to be finding Glass armour almost everytime I kill a bandit. I mean let's face it, if a bandit had a glass longsword he would sell it and spend the next 3 months in taverns and brothels :idea2: . But, then again, I do want there to be a tiny chance that I can find some good stuff right off the bat, so to speak.

I also like the idea that there are area's that you just can't do until you are a well trained, well equipped killer of big beasties, an idea may be leaving certain NPC's or dungeons/areas off of the scaling list or having certain groups of fighters in the arena start at different levels. It seems that I'm not the only one to be having these thoughts as Plasticfoamman (or something like that) is trying to put together a mod that covers some of these issues for weapons and armour and someone else is doing the same for NPC's.

Until then though Aeil will be sneaking up on things and shooting them in the head with his bow then running in and chopping them to bits, with maybe just a touch of magic thrown in, and who said video games make you more violent? :laugh4: :laugh4:

TinCow

03-30-2006, 13:10

Other than the lack of unique weapons, armor, etc. scattered around, I like the scaling system. I loved Morrowind, but it was way too easy. There was pretty much no challenge at all after level 15 or so. Certainly Oblivion's system is not perfect, but at least it's a constant challenge. I far prefer that. I didn't go to Kvatch until level 17 and it was ridiculously hard, but I had fun. I didn't do the Arena until about 15 and it felt right as well. Why do I want to have to fight the lowest rank of goblin all the time when those fights are pointless and boring? I agree that some 'off limits except to high levels' areas would be nice, but I simply don't understand the people who actively want lots of creatures weaker than them.

English assassin

03-30-2006, 13:41

On the whole, I agree, or anyway it seems a small price to pay for having a much more free form game.

Unloading a massive fireball that toasts half a dozen hapless goblins on the spot does have a certain short term appeal though. If the whole game became like that it would be boring, sure enough, but you do want to feel that level progression means something other than all the numbers scaling up together.

Otherwise, controversial thought, why not do away with leveling altogether.

My copy is on order though so I can't comment from experience yet.

Vladimir

03-30-2006, 14:22

Any word on an official mod that will bring back the excluded weapons?

Lemur

03-30-2006, 15:13

Otherwise, controversial thought, why not do away with leveling altogether.
I'd like that. The whole concept of levels has bugged me ever since the days of D&D. It makes absolutely no sense. Take a highly-trained Navy Seal and compare him to an office worker. The Seal is in better shape, yes. He is more skilled at physical tasks, yes. But he doesn't have more freakin' HIT POINTS. There's no such thing. Either the Seal or the office worker will die if you stick a knife in his head. They don't have a magical system that allows them to accept blades in their guts without difficulty.

Levels. I never liked 'em. Characters should develop skills, gain better gear, spread their fame or infamy, etc. They shouldn't gain levels, and they certainly shouldn't gain magical hit points.

English assassin

03-30-2006, 15:23

And the SEAL doesn't get ten times as tough as he was to start with in the course of a week long mission. That really annoys me. I played AD+D a bit as a kid in the steam ages, and we must have gone up about four levels a year (me and my mates probably managed about that many campaigns a year because we did actually have lives as well). I don't think we ever got any character beyond about 8th level. I still think of getting to fifth level (fireball for my MU, woot), as being pretty powerful. Well, when I think about it at all that is. All this leveling up is just porn for people with short attention spans.

To be fair I guess HP are pretty abstract, if you thought they were something like, I don't know, a measure of how tired you had to get before you would no longer block/dodge the knife they sort of, but only sort of, make sense. Or a level of pain that would cause the office worker to give up might not bother the SEAL so much. I seem to remember that was EGG's (remember him) excuse anyway.

But basically, yeah, I'd be willing to give a non-leveling world a go.

Dorkus

03-30-2006, 16:12

I largely agree with the spirit of the comments in this thread. It's important that players who take different routes feel challenged in the main quest, for example. And constant death of course can be an extreme immersion breaker (though I ahve to admit, for me, immersion was never an issue... in all of these games, I always head straight for the msot dangerous dungeon, die 1000 times trying to kill the first enemy, then move on to the next most dangerous dungeon, and die 1000 times... :o).

But I think there are better ways to solve this problem than pure scaling. For example, I (and I think most others) would have no issue if SOME areas of the game were "scaled" with min/max levels. (Though I don't think this is really scaling, since there will be a large range of low levels where the dungeons will not scale) And if death is an immersion breaker, it's not clear the the scaling system helps -- players who spend a lot of time on non-combat major skills will see the enemies get more and more powerful as they mix potions, or chat with npcs. And they will have no good way of training to get more powerful because any training they do will simply cause the game to spawn even higher-level creatures.

Fixed levels with an explicit (suggested levels in quest text) or implicit (npcs who refuse to give you quests until you reach a certain level of fame and power) challenge rating system, or a min/max system hinted at earlier, are both far superior options. They make the world seem less contrived (why would all the wolves disapper to be replaced by lions, the moment your level changes? Why would bandits suddenly all be stronger, with more powerful items?), and it would give players the FREEDOM to take on harder challenges, or easier challenges, depending on play-style.

Forcing EVERYONE to take on the same level challenge, by removing weak and powerful monsters entirely, is a short-cut for world-balancing and play-testing, in my opinion.

As to moderation, if the problem were that people were asking the same question over and over again, I can see why a consolidated thread (which, incidentally, does not even DESCRIBE the problem in the title or first few posts; rather, it assumes someone already knows waht the problem is) makes sense. THat is exactly not what was happening, however. Many many people were posting to describe their personal experiences and frustration with the scaling system. And these many people made new threads exactly because one long thread would leave their complaints completely ignored. No one wades through a 500+ post.

Indeed, until the subject of slcaing came up, the mods had an explicit policy to LOCK all threads that hit 200 posts because, quoting from the board rules, the discussion "meanders", becomes unfocused, and will be ignored by individuals who are not already part of the discussion. When it comes to scaling (and other criticism of the game that even briefly touches on scaling), they suddenly reversed positions and decided that 1 thread would be optimal (recognizing, of course, that that one thread would quickly get pushed back 5 pages).

It smacks of trying to distort public reaction to the game. I recall a massive number of old-school TW players angry about RTW. And while I (and, I am sure, many moderators on the tw forums, and this one, for that matter) did not agree with them. I did not mind one bit seeing their posts. And the moderators CERTAINLy did not lock them.

Because even if the factors *I* thought were important to a TW game were not the same as theirs, it was important for the critics to get the opportunity to explain their problems and frustration. That is the point of a forum, after all.

Vladimir

03-30-2006, 16:52

Well I'm definitely not a coward but on many occasions I have died 1,000 deaths (to paraphrase and combine your comment and Shakespeare’s). Scaling, when used selectively and not universally, is a good idea. When used wholesale, scaling = vanilla. I enjoy the 1,000 deaths because I like to exhaust every possible opportunity to take down the baddie (sort of like a science experiment). I find that challenge more interesting than what was implemented.

BDC

03-30-2006, 18:21

I enjoy the scaling. I can get straight into the game rather than avoid 2/3 of the map until I have played for a 100+ hours. It's great. Be better if the equipment didn't scale in the same way, but it's still a huge improvement over Morrowind.

Talking of realism, I'm not going to double my sword skills in 2 days even with lots of practice am I? :p

Sjakihata

03-30-2006, 18:33

It depends, are you talking ingame days or real days? Ingames, no, not double, real days oh yes

[DnC]

03-30-2006, 22:16

(why would all the wolves disapper to be replaced by lions, the moment your level changes? Why would bandits suddenly all be stronger, with more powerful items?)

I'm level 25 at the moment. I still have wolves as well as lions. I have easy to hit skeletons, goblins etc as well as the tougher ones. Personally I think the scaling works really good. Don't think the lowlevel level creatures are completely erased from the face of Cyrodiil though.

It would be nice however if there were some creatures or persons that are always the same level and really strong no matter what yours is. The only gripe I have now is the bandits and other npc's with very excotic loot due to scaling. Now I don't mind if certain npc's gain excotic weaponry, armour etc, as long as they are tough! Bandits and such should become stronger, but due to more hitpoints, damage bonus etc instead of all the excotic items. One good thing however. Unlike Morrowind loot isn't so profitable and that slightly makes up for it.

I've finished the mainquest and it is a very enjoyable game and I think Bethesda did a really great job (including so many very fun to do quests. really fun!). Sooo many things that are really good about this game, it definitely was worth the money! Morrowind is bland in comparison for the most part, Oblivion is largely a step up.

econ21

03-30-2006, 22:39

On a sidenote, I just got the official strategy guide and it is the best guide I've bought in some time. The advice on strategy is not so hot (the character creation tips seem garbage, although those on wikipedia are not much better). But as a compilation of all the quests, plus maps and lists etc, it is very nice. The Morrowind Prophecies strategy guide was also good as a reference too, but this one is much better laid out, more attractive and more digestible.

Normally most RPG strategy guides are not worth it - the internet is better - but Morrowind was so vast, I valued the maps and annotations. Oblivion seems significantly smaller and this, plus the compass to the active quest, makes a strategy guide less essential. But still, it's nicely done. By contrast, getting information from the official forums is daunting, as the turnover in posts is so rapid.

Dorkus

03-31-2006, 02:06

']I'm level 25 at the moment. I still have wolves as well as lions. I have easy to hit skeletons, goblins etc as well as the tougher ones. Personally I think the scaling works really good. Don't think the lowlevel level creatures are completely erased from the face of Cyrodiil though.

My understanding is that the system works like this. The game spawns creatures at your level, or slightly lower. If a creature spawns when you are at a low level (e.g. you pass a loading zone in the world map), it will stay in the game. So if you are level 20, there are no new wolves (who are level 1 or level 6 creatures), or at least there will be an extremely low probability of spawning, but existing wolves will not be "removed."

What is absolutely true, however, is that you will never see a mountain lion or bear at level 5, but suddenly at around levels 15 and 20, you will see them constantly. Why? Because they are "too dangerous" for the character until he reaches that level. That, in my mind, is completely ridiculous. The entire point of an rpg is to: 1) be a model of a real world, which will include some things that are stronger than you, when you are an inexperienced adventurer; 2) create interest and excitment, as well as challenging goals to achieve (all of which will be precluded when you know everything you fight will be exactly manageable).

Different people have different views, however. Obviously, if you are not the type that likes dying and reloading, you will not care at all if there are powerful creatures in the world for the simple reason that you will never seek them out or engage them. But for a large contingent of players, I think, an "on-level" world is just extremely dull. It does not seem "realistic" for the entire world to adapt to your level.

[DnC]

03-31-2006, 07:40

My understanding is that the system works like this. The game spawns creatures at your level, or slightly lower. If a creature spawns when you are at a low level (e.g. you pass a loading zone in the world map), it will stay in the game. So if you are level 20, there are no new wolves (who are level 1 or level 6 creatures), or at least there will be an extremely low probability of spawning, but existing wolves will not be "removed."

What is absolutely true, however, is that you will never see a mountain lion or bear at level 5, but suddenly at around levels 15 and 20, you will see them constantly. Why? Because they are "too dangerous" for the character until he reaches that level. That, in my mind, is completely ridiculous. The entire point of an rpg is to: 1) be a model of a real world, which will include some things that are stronger than you, when you are an inexperienced adventurer; 2) create interest and excitment, as well as challenging goals to achieve (all of which will be precluded when you know everything you fight will be exactly manageable).

Different people have different views, however. Obviously, if you are not the type that likes dying and reloading, you will not care at all if there are powerful creatures in the world for the simple reason that you will never seek them out or engage them. But for a large contingent of players, I think, an "on-level" world is just extremely dull. It does not seem "realistic" for the entire world to adapt to your level.

That could indeed also explain it.

That does indeed give more of a real adventurer feel to it. However there should always be a challenge and not occasionally, but quite frequently. Morrowind was far to easy after a while and eventually became boring because of it. Sure there are enhancement mods, but it usually takes quite a while for such a mod to come out and to make one yourself seems a daunting task, especially if you are quite new to the TES editor as I am. Haven't really tried much of it in Morrowind. If Bethesda (and other gamedeveloper companies as well) were to give the option to create your own custom difficulty settings it would really add a whole new flavour to the game. One of the limitations games shouldn't have in my opinion. If having to change something in order to make a game harder while breaking something else, than that isn't exactly my idea of a good way to enhance a game.

I'm kinda stuck in the middle. Just as long as it isn't like Morrowind, but more in between and challenging throughout the game, but slowly it becomes easier and easier, than that might be something.

TinCow

03-31-2006, 13:08

Lemur

03-31-2006, 15:24

I just found an in-depth Oblivion optimising guide (http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/article.asp?SCID=27&CIID=36222). Lots of detail about which .ini files affect what, and what combinations you should modify.

Also, a Radeon 9700/Athlon owner posted his .ini file last night, so I was finally able to copy and paste the settings from someone with a rig close to mine. Thank goodness -- I don't have the time to sit and experiment for ten hours. I need someone else to do the hard work!

Xiahou

03-31-2006, 21:02

Also, a Radeon 9700/Athlon owner posted his .ini file last night, so I was finally able to copy and paste the settings from someone with a rig close to mine. Thank goodness -- I don't have the time to sit and experiment for ten hours. I need someone else to do the hard work!
So did it actually help noticeably?

Lemur

03-31-2006, 21:44

I'll be able to answer after this weekend. I was only able to cram in an hour of play in the last two days. It sucks when a great CRPG comes out and you have a life.

Slyspy

04-01-2006, 13:33

One thing really breaks the game for me - the auto-levelling of NPCs and loot as your character levels up. This was introduced to stop the sense of invincibility which high level fighter felt in Morrowind. It does this well, but makes Oblivion extremely dull.

You see the same monsters and loot in each dungeon until you hit a level switch, then you see the same upgraded stuff for a while etc. You can't go slaughtering smugglers for kicks (beat me up when I was level 1 eh? eat daedric katana). You can't risk a daedra filled ruin in search of powerful magics because the reward just isn't there. You never feel like a hero because everyone else is roughly as tough as you at any one time, and even bandits are wandering around in "rare" glass armour etc. You can't wonder the wildness naked with just a dagger because the levelled NPC will own you, because you are never tough enough to risk it.

Essentially the leveling system removes the sense freedom you had in Morrowind - you can still go anywhere and do anything, its just that it is all the same and so feels artificially restricted. Not to mention that the levelling system is so narrowly applied. You get fed up being abushed by bandits using supposedly rare equipment merely because there is no level cap on them. Improving your character and gaining new equipment seems pointless when you never get any real advantage over the enemy.

The system also assumes a fighting character because the NPCs level according to your level, not your combat skills. So some sneaky characters like agents can be left at a disadvantage because they level up using non-combat skills. You can, of course, cheat this by never sleeping! Smooth!

Interesting fact - many quests and the realm of Oblivion are actually easier for non-combat classes at level one than at, say, level fifteen. Tell me that is right.

econ21

04-01-2006, 13:54

Interesting fact - many quests and the realm of Oblivion are actually easier for non-combat classes at level one than at, say, level fifteen. Tell me that is right.

Well, if I were designing a game, I would make the level 1 gameplay easier than the level 15 gameplay. At level 1, the players in real life are learning the ropes. At level 15, they should have worked out lots of tactics and tricks that give them an edge over the AI. And the more casual gamers will probably have given up, leaving the hardcore.

And is it right to play a non-combat class in what is essentially a hack and slash game? You need to be good at fighting. The game is not designed for sweet talking your way out of trouble or for playing a "no-kill" Deus Ex style strategy. I guess by non-combat you mean stealth or magic-based? Those skills seem much more powerful in Oblivion than they were in Morrowind. Without regenerating mana, mages were very limited in Morrowind. The sneak attack bonuses in Oblivion give a big boost to stealth gameplay.

Last night, I did the first Vampire hunting quest (for Seridur in the Imperial City) at level 5. It was great fun. Scaling encounters meant that I was able to go in there and do it, whereas in Morrowind, I suspect it would have been frustrating insta-death/come back later experience (and in my case, meaning I'd never come back). I haven't used offensive magic much, but I tried stealth+marksmanship in that quest (I was terrified) and it was very effective.

I'm still liking this game a lot (24+ hours into it). The fact that the encounters seem at just about the right difficulty for my character is probably a big contributor to my enjoyment.

Slyspy

04-01-2006, 14:18

So the fact that you can go into Hell and kill the demons there having just started the game but at later levels you find it harder doesn't bother you? Doesn't ruin the immersion, the suspension of disbelief. Hey, I'm Joe Bloggs. I suck with a bow and arrow but killed the hellspawn anyway while the town guard, twenty levels above me (they are not levelled) cowered. Or: Hey I'm Joe Bloggs. I still suck with a bow and arrow, but reached level nine primarily through my non-combat skills. Now the hellspawn own me, but I can make a mean night-eye potion!

The levelling is a good idea, but badly implemented.

I could accept the NPC levelling if only they did away with the loot and equipment levelling. Well-armed bandits and poor rewards ruin part of the RPG fun for me - do I take the easy dungeon for ordinary loot or risk the tough one for the money. Oh, and try being a low level thief. Break into a shop storeroom and realise all they have down there are sandals and linen trousers. Why try to steal wealth when there is none to steal?

Somebody on the offical forums likened Oblivion's system to a socialist utopia: no matter how much you strive, everyone is forced into equality.

Why play an RPG if improving your character achieves nothing? Why clear a dungeon if the reward is negligible and the baddies essentially the same? With the scaling system as it is Oblivion plays like and FPS with axes and the worst grinding elements of a bad MMORPG. Which is a shame because the presentation is so good.

screwtype

04-01-2006, 14:41

Why play an RPG if improving your character achieves nothing?

For that matter, why have a levelling system at all if levelling up doesn't help your character?

Might as well just give the character fixed stats at the outset and be done with it.

Husar

04-01-2006, 16:08

I think that makes it easier for me not to buy the game.
Now I´m going to wait and save the money for Gothic 3.
I really like the rather beliveable world the Gothic series represented so far.
This scaling thing sounds really bad to me, like levelling doesn´t really make sense, really owning someone sometimes can be fun and hordes of Orks were usually different in Gothic 2 even without scaling.
Most of my arguments have already been posted here, like no sense clearing a dungeon, you never feel like a hero etc.
If one wanted to have no leveling for realism(SEAL-comparison) then I´d also want no magic, no monsters and a completely realistic world, which would also be fun in it´s own way, but I think I will get Armed Assault for that.

BDC

04-01-2006, 16:32

I love the scaling. I can play straight away without being killed by a giant rat or whatever.

Slyspy

04-01-2006, 17:17

For that matter, why have a levelling system at all if levelling up doesn't help your character?

Might as well just give the character fixed stats at the outset and be done with it.

Precisely. Why have the role-playing elements at all if they are so constrained by the game mechanics. Why not just make a mission based FPS?

BDC - that is what I thought at first. But then I realised that every opponent was that giant rat, just in a different guise. No real variety. I shall try some mods.

econ21

04-01-2006, 18:01

For that matter, why have a levelling system at all if levelling up doesn't help your character?

Might as well just give the character fixed stats at the outset and be done with it.

In Oblivion, levelling helps you in several ways: levelling per se enables you to:
(a) to boost your attributes: these can make your character much more able (more mana, more damage per attack, better speed) etc.
(b) gives you more hit points
(c) opens up better loot.
But in MW/Oblivion, levelling per se is less important than say in DnD, because your skills rise incrementally between levels. This in turn allows you to do a lot more - cast more spells, fight better etc. To say you have fixed stats is just wrong. There are lots of interesting choices to make - whether to boost combat, magic or stealth skills, with lots of variations within each category and a really nice freedom to effectively multi-class.

All the scaling does is mean that you fight appropriate enemies, so the challenge and rewards are appropriate. Enemies not too hard/easy and rewards not too pitiful or too uber.

I'm not sure I am getting all these complaints. In DnD, enemies are also scaled - there are tables of random monsters for your level and you enter dungeons designed for your level. In wargames, when your panzer is upgraded from a PzIII to a Panther, you don't expect to still face BT-7s.

No doubt it could be better implemented, but for me so far, it not the killer flaw other people find it to be.

So the fact that you can go into Hell and kill the demons there having just started the game but at later levels you find it harder doesn't bother you? Doesn't ruin the immersion, the suspension of disbelief.

Well, if it does get so much harder that it is not doable, then it would definitely bother me. Oblivion and Kvatch at level 1 were hard enough for me. But as regards immersion, no. That a level one character could beat stunted skamps is fine (it's not particularly easy). That more powerful demons start to appear later in the game could just be seen as an escalating threat. It's harder to rationalise the bandits and animals getting more powerful, but who cares? Who wants to bother to fight a wolf or solitary bandit in leather armour when you are level 20? The premise of the main plot and the sidequests are so much more immersive, engaging and interesting than Morrowind ever was.

Husar

04-01-2006, 18:18

Who wants to bother to fight a wolf or solitary bandit in leather armour when you are level 20?
I do.~;)

Just a pity, because I´d like to play an adventure again, just don´t want to spend 40€ for an adventure that has an unbelievable world(IMO).
A demo may help, but I guess there will never be one.

BDC

04-01-2006, 19:23

I do.~;)

Just a pity, because I´d like to play an adventure again, just don´t want to spend 40€ for an adventure that has an unbelievable world(IMO).
A demo may help, but I guess there will never be one.
You know it has magic in it? :p

Not to mention anyone going so rapidly (in game time even) from nothing to supergod is hardly believeable anyway is it?

Husar

04-02-2006, 00:11

You know it has magic in it? :p

Not to mention anyone going so rapidly (in game time even) from nothing to supergod is hardly believeable anyway is it?
That´s not really what I meant, Gothic has magic too, but the whole world has a much better feel it seems.
They´re both fantasy games, but if you compare character development/leveling to the difference between a Navy SEAL and an office worker and state that leveling should be removed for realism, then I say why not get Armed Assault, because it has a lot more realism than any fantasy game.

Slyspy

04-02-2006, 01:18

Steppe Merc

04-02-2006, 02:09

Yeah, I just got it, and it took me a good... at least 4 hours of tweaking and searching on the main forums to get my... well I'm not sure what graphics card it is, it used to say GeForce 5600 FX, but after I updated the drivers, it now says Geforce 5200 FX... Anyway, it runs well, though I do have some difficulty when outside, especially when on horse back.

Xiahou

04-02-2006, 03:21

I don't care if the guy I'm fighting is 20 levels above or below me - let me find out by myself, let me the player judge whether or not to tackle him. Don't do a Windows and assume that you know best. When you can clear out a nest of supposedly fearsome baddies like daedra or vampires at an early level then IMO there is something wrong with the game. I should think "uh-oh, vampires eek" at level three, not "vampires, this could take a while to clear out". Why are the populace so scared if a bunch of fishwives could tackle the spawn of Hell?There's already a mod out that randomizes creature/loot levels instead of scaling- sounds like you might want to check it out. Im not sure how elegant it is (havent tried it), but Im sure they'll only get better over time. I guess I like having some things scaled, but others I dont so much. The only time it really annoys me is with woodland creatures/bandits. No matter what, it seems, a riff-raff bandit is always going to give me a fight. Once at a higher level, I think it'd be fun just to be able to devestate weak bandits who dont know who they're messing with. :skull:

For anyone who doesnt have it already- I think the UI Mod (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=25) is pretty much a must have. You can see 2-3x as much of your inventory without having to scroll through it, and you can see more than double the amount of the world map without having to scroll it- awesome. Also, it has options to turn off compass/pointer functionality for those that dont like it. Also, (while its technically cheating I guess) I like the mod that lightens the weight of alchemy ingredients. It's so easy to get loaded down with them, and you need so many to try to raise your alchemy skill via practicing- so Im glad to be able to carry more of them.

Of course, if you got the Xbox360 version- no mods for you. ~;p

Zenicetus

04-02-2006, 09:01

I wish you guys would stop posting about this game because it sounds interesting, and I have ZERO gaming hours available to check it out right now... between real life, GalCiv2, and my social gaming with the S.O. in WoW.

Anyway, this debate about the leveling system is interesting. I think I would miss the fear factor of being too lowbie to tackle something. That can keep a game interesting. The WoW MMOG steers players to areas with mobs and quests that are generally suited to your level, but there are a few places where they toss in wandering high-level mobs that are way, way above the "right" level for the area, just to keep things interesting. For example, the roaming Alliance NPC horsemen in the southern Barrens, or that Son of Arugal (sp?) werewolf thing in Silverpine. I'll never forget the first time I got killed by him. The immediate reaction was "WTF, that's not fair!! He's WAY over my level!" But then I learned to keep an eye out and avoid him, and it made that area a lot more exciting to travel around in. I also had the pleasure of going back at a higher level and killing him, for pure revenge, and outside of any official quest line in the game.

An area-based leveling system like WoW also makes you feel special and important when you level up, and then have a reason to re-visit lower level areas (there are several quests that require this). In WoW the aggro radius is reduced as you level, so you can run right past mobs that are vastly lower level than you are. Even if you do trigger one, a swipe or two of your axe will take it out. It makes you feel like you've accomplished something, when these are the same mobs you had a hard time dealing with at lower levels.

I remember some of the quests in other non-auto-scaling RPG's too, like Baldur's Gate and NWN, where I'd discover some uber bad guy and realize I wasn't really ready yet. There was a strong sense of accomplishment when I finally did level up enough to defeat him (or her).

On the other hand.... area-based leveling does lock you out of large parts of the game world (or quest lines), when you first start out. In a game where the goal is to let the player roam around and discover encounters anywhere, I guess it might make sense. I'd have to play the game to see whether I really liked this idea.

Husar

04-02-2006, 12:55

Husar perhaps means a world which is internally consistent, which helps the suspension of disbelief which is so important to so many rpg players. You can include as much magic as you like so long as the world seems logical and plausible in other respects. For Simon dying and reloading kills this immersion. For myself the scaled NPCs so the same. Not to mention that I loved the variety of Morrowind and am disappointed that Bethseda have returned to their older level scaling system.

I don't care if the guy I'm fighting is 20 levels above or below me - let me find out by myself, let me the player judge whether or not to tackle him. Don't do a Windows and assume that you know best. When you can clear out a nest of supposedly fearsome baddies like daedra or vampires at an early level then IMO there is something wrong with the game. I should think "uh-oh, vampires eek" at level three, not "vampires, this could take a while to clear out". Why are the populace so scared if a bunch of fishwives could tackle the spawn of Hell?
That´s exactly what I meant.:2thumbsup:

Anyway, this debate about the leveling system is interesting. I think I would miss the fear factor of being too lowbie to tackle something. That can keep a game interesting. The WoW MMOG steers players to areas with mobs and quests that are generally suited to your level, but there are a few places where they toss in wandering high-level mobs that are way, way above the "right" level for the area, just to keep things interesting. For example, the roaming Alliance NPC horsemen in the southern Barrens, or that Son of Arugal (sp?) werewolf thing in Silverpine. I'll never forget the first time I got killed by him. The immediate reaction was "WTF, that's not fair!! He's WAY over my level!" But then I learned to keep an eye out and avoid him, and it made that area a lot more exciting to travel around in. I also had the pleasure of going back at a higher level and killing him, for pure revenge, and outside of any official quest line in the game.
This also.

On the other hand.... area-based leveling does lock you out of large parts of the game world (or quest lines), when you first start out. In a game where the goal is to let the player roam around and discover encounters anywhere, I guess it might make sense. I'd have to play the game to see whether I really liked this idea.
In Gothic 2(I have to admit the Gothic series is about the only RPG I really invested some time into) you have to get to a castle that is besieged by Orcs which are way too strong for you to beat at that time and it adds some thrill to run past them and try to evade them until you finally reach the safe castle.

Dorkus

04-02-2006, 17:52

I tried oblivion again this weekend, and really tried to get my money's worth.

Just isn't going to happen. THere's obviously a lot of time put into voice acting, quest background story, dialog, etc. But the quests themselves are incredibly dull. You run into some dungeon and just hack things. I've never once bothered to look at the "active effects" screen. And the enemies are all carbon copies of either: 1. melee attacker; 2. ranged attacker. If former, hack, block, hack. If latter, strafe, shoot, strafe. Even the supposed "boss" monsters (of which there are very few, and invariably unimpressive) fall into category 1 or 2. No interesting abilties; no interesting attacks; no interesting battles. Never had to carefully consider what my enemy was doing before deciding on a course of action. Never really had to think, period.

The one nice thing I discovered is that the main quest is considerably shorter than I first thought -- probably <10 hours if you go straight through. (It's a little sad that I was happy when I realized this) THe not so nice thing is that it's still pretty boring and repetitive.

The two final battles are illustrative. (perhaps minor spoilers ahead, but I will be speaking in complete generalities)

There is literally nothing new in the second to last battle. I didn't even pay any attention to waht the "boss" was doing. Just pounded him to death. (and I don't have particularly good gear -- though the concept of "good gear" is made moot by the leveling system, I suppose) The last battle is even more sad. There is a vast amount of stuff going around you, but all you have to do is walk into a certain building, then WATCH SOMEONE ELSE beat up the final bad guy. THe rest is just eye-candy. Yikes, I thought *I* was the hero? And my last task is about as interesting as going to a bad movie?

I'm genuinely puzzled as to how this game got such good reviews. I have no doubt there's a contingent that enjoys this sort of game as kind of an "adventure-game+" But as a crpg, the gameplay deficiencies, to me, are incredibly obvious and fun-killing. That gothic 2 gets an average 78% rating while obvliion hovers around 95% is a travesty.

Dorkus

04-02-2006, 18:11

That´s exactly what I meant.:2thumbsup:

This also.

In Gothic 2(I have to admit the Gothic series is about the only RPG I really invested some time into) you have to get to a castle that is besieged by Orcs which are way too strong for you to beat at that time and it adds some thrill to run past them and try to evade them until you finally reach the safe castle.

See, tahts' the nice thing about it. You COULD have gone that route (sneaking around and hiding to gain access to the castle).

Or, if you were like me, you could have explored the rest of the world, acquired experience and powerful items, and smashed a route through the orc army en route to the castle. The point is you had real choices, insofar as character development was concerned, and those choices had an impact on the game.

That is startlingly missing in oblivion.

BDC

04-02-2006, 20:35

What is really missing is impressive loot, epic weapons and a sense of challenge....

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

04-02-2006, 21:50

Dorkus, I'd have to dissagree, the enemies are quite varried. I went up against an Orc with a warhammer in the Arena and the first time I used my Dai-Katana she smashed me up, so I went back in with Katana and shield.

The combat system and the power attacks, especially the disarming one, are great. Whats missing is the basic directional attacks from Morrowind, especially the stab for getting around shields.

As to the menus, well you can use the F keys to access the different screens, it pays to read the readme.

Slyspy

04-02-2006, 22:13

Wigferth - Yes the enemies are varied in appearance. But not in function, which I think is what Dorkus is getting at. Having to try two weapon combos before downing an enemy is not an example of varied enemies.

Quite agree with the fighting - it is well done, but a little over engineered in some instances.

BDC - Loot, weapons, challenge, variety, sense of purpose, character and a sense of the heroic are all missing. What I mean is, IMO of course, the gameplay is poor. The quality engine, though badly optimised just like Morrowind, can be built on no doubt.

Xiahou - There are a number of mods to fix NPC and loot scaling already out. Trouble is that they are not unified and not necessarily complete or compatible with each other. They are also rather clunky. But it is a start and eventually Oblivion will be the thoroughly modded and customisable joy that Morrowind is. Bethseda have at least done that part well!

Edit:
Anyone who tried vanilla unpatched, unmodded Morrowind on the typical computer of 2003 (or was it 2002?) will know that it too was sadly lacking in gameplay with an engine more sluggish than its use of resources suggested.

Xiahou

04-02-2006, 22:23

Xiahou - There are a number of mods to fix NPC and loot scaling already out. Trouble is that they are not unified and not necessarily complete or compatible with each other. They are also rather clunky. But it is a start and eventually Oblivion will be the thoroughly modded and customisable joy that Morrowind is. Bethseda have at least done that part well!If they ever make one that sets some creatures/areas/loot at static levels while still allowing for some scaling- it'd definitely get my interest. I just dont know how long that'd take to create- if ever.

I'd like to see some remote areas of wilderness or dungeons that are just too tough for low level characters, while areas right around the Imperial city, for example, should be relatively safe for low levels (I mean, there's patrols everywhere near the capitol right?). But, it'd also be nice to see some randomization and scaling too- Just so things dont get too predictable and monotonous.

In the mean time though, Im still having fun with the vanilla scaling despite its shortcomings. :bow:

econ21

04-03-2006, 00:56

In the mean time though, Im still having fun with the vanilla scaling despite its shortcomings. :bow:

Yes, Oblivion is really growing on me. Some of the sidequests are excellent - "Shadow over Hackdirt" (from Chorroll) really got to me. After I resolved the quest the stealthy way, I decided to come back and get medieval.~:angry:

And Bethesda really have come on in leaps and bounds in terms of making the NPCs seem more believable. There are a lot of nice little details in the dialogue and "radiant AI". For example, after rescuing 3 fighters I'd helped out for the Fighters Guild, I later bumped into them in a place far away. In another case, I was bemused to get the Thieves Guild parting farewell ("May the shadow hide you") from a mage in the Bravil Mage Guild but the recommendation quest soon made sense of that. The game is full of little details like that - they don't affect the gameplay, but they do make the whole experience more immersive.

But the really big improvement for me is that there is very little boring "make work" kind of stuff which made up 90% of my time in Morrowind. Nearly all the time spent in the game is talking (which is surprisingly enjoyable) and fighting. The insta-travel means you only walk if you want to explore and have encounters. The question directions on your map mean there is less wandering around getting lost. Even micro-managing my levelling up (to always get +5 attribute) seems much less effort this time round - although maybe that's me, not the game. In these respects, it's one of the most well designed and polished CRPGs I've played.

Dorkus

04-03-2006, 01:24

And Bethesda really have come on in leaps and bounds in terms of making the NPCs seem more believable. There are a lot of nice little details in the dialogue and "radiant AI". For example, after rescuing 3 fighters I'd helped out for the Fighters Guild, I later bumped into them in a place far away. In another case, I was bemused to get the Thieves Guild parting farewell ("May the shadow hide you") from a mage in the Bravil Mage Guild but the recommendation quest soon made sense of that. The game is full of little details like that - they don't affect the gameplay, but they do make the whole experience more immersive.

There are no doubt a lot of nice elements such as this. But for every nice element, there are also utterly ridiculous ones

Example (possibly minor spoilers): after the final and most important battle in oblivion (the dimension, not the game), I triumphantly returned to my home dimension to be serenaded by the emperor, and called the greatest hero in cyrodil's forces, etc. We returned to the imperial city for a final ceremony.... and I was confronted by a guardsmen who accused me of breaking the law!! Apparently, in the battle my summon accidentally killed one of the imperial militia, and I was being charged with murder on my triumphant return! Since I didn't have the 1k gold to pay in fines, and since I knew I was no match for the guard (who are always 10 levels above the player character), despite having just saved my entire dimension, I was forced to go to jail!! The greatest hero of the empire, the man who single-handedly destroyed all of the oblivion gates, was being bullied and sent to jail by an ordinary town guard!!!

Of course, the emperor and the triumphant returning army completely ignored this. Apparently, they were all too scared of the guardsmen as well, since they (unlike the guards) were not 10 levels above me, but rather approximately my level.

There are countless other examples similar to this one. A deeper character interaction system is not necessarily a better one, as complexity increases the number of possible "absurd" results. I would much prefer a simple system that does not make you curse or laugh out loud, to a complex one that does.

Slyspy

04-03-2006, 01:35

Dorkus

04-03-2006, 01:50

Dorkus - please be a mate to anyone reading this who hasn't progressed that far and keep spoilers to a minimum.

1. I wrote that there might be spoilers prior to any point where I discuss the game in specifics.

2. Having said that, I don't think anything I wrote was a spoiler. It's all made abundantly apparent early on in the game, (e.g. that you will be destroying oblivion gates)

3. If it was a minor spoiler, it was necessary for making my point. Simply saying "the battles in this game stink" is contentless.

screwtype

04-03-2006, 07:17

Xiahou - That is exactly what I want. If the idea of scaling is to maintain a challenge then why not start NPCs with a base level and only scale if the NPC is tougher than that? Your vampires could be, say, level 15 right from the word go, thus making their lairs extremely difficult for newer characters. Then once the PC reaches level 15 the vampires begin to scale, to maintain a challenge at these higher levels. As it is have frightening vampires being slaughtered by a greenhorn is not very convincing.

Yeah, that sounds like a more sensible sort of scaling system.

Another way to make this kind of game a bit more interesting might be to have a bit of variation in the levels of given monsters. So, say, a giant rat might vary between level 10 and level 15. It would mean you could never be quite sure just how difficult it will be to polish off the critter this time around.

Dorkus - please be a mate to anyone reading this who hasn't progressed that far and keep spoilers to a minimum.

He's warned about possible spoilers and nothing he's said has bothered me anyway.

frogbeastegg

04-03-2006, 09:14

At this point it seems useful to drop a reminder of our spoiler tags; then everyone is happy.

An example:
Darth Vader is Luke's father![/spoil ]
Just remove the spaces before the last brackets.

And in practice:
[spoil]I'm waiting until the game has been patched at least once before I take much notice of it. I had Morrowind at release, and while I enjoyed it I still cringe to remember the bugs and constant crashes, and the lousy performance. In this version I don't like the idea of enemy levelling applied so totally, and the persuasion and lock picking mini games are a big frog turn off.

Besides, I'm still playing GalCiv 2 and have no time to play that much, let alone time for another.

econ21

04-03-2006, 09:18

Apparently, in the battle my summon accidentally killed one of the imperial militia, and I was being charged with murder on my triumphant return!

Well, I can see that being annoying. [Although it does remind me of a lot of real life cases where "heroes" are brought down to the ground. In the contemporary UK army and police force, for example, outstanding figures often seem to be later dragged into the dirt by dubious charges and allegations.] In Morrowind, I've been charged for some dubious crimes I'm not even aware of committing at the time - I really think they need a "no friendly fire" mechanic for melee combat, like Mount and Blade has, as I find it impossible to help allies without sometimes accidently whacking them.

Loot, weapons, challenge, variety, sense of purpose, character and a sense of the heroic are all missing.

It sounds like we are playing a different game, as I find all 7 present in abundance. Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Quid

04-03-2006, 10:20

I am enjyoing this game immensely!!! :2thumbsup:

Quid

Xiahou

04-03-2006, 10:59

...and the persuasion and lock picking mini games are a big frog turn off. Well, at least the lock picking game is mildly fun to me, even if totally unbalanced. The persuasion mini-game is still both stupid and annoying though- I groan every time I need to persuade someone.

Slyspy

04-03-2006, 11:43

I still maintain that a system in which the hero never becomes more powerful than the enemies he fights is broken. A system in which a low level player can slay beasties which are supposed to be terrifying is broken. A system in which petty thieves can be routinely armed with equipment of the rarest, most expensive kind, is broken. A system which, for some character types especially, works better if you never level up is broken.

Thank goodness TES is highly moddable, and people are at work already.

x-dANGEr

04-03-2006, 13:18

I only read the first page.. So this post is according to it.

I'm acutally surprised that many people liked the game.. It seems that most of those were looking for more eye candy than gameplay. The leveling system seems rather bad, the world feels 'dead', the interface is really not user-friendly..

1) Leveling System: You may wonder why this system is bad.. It's basicly so because you can't get high level tools till you get to their level. Wherever you go, you can't be scared, because basicly, the monster will be the same as your level. In other RPGs, if you manage to take out a high leveled monster with your low level character, you'd have some nice tools around it, not things you already have (Obivilion). Let's say you just got some very nice armor, you're happy about it and you wander a little.. A couple of minutes later, you see a group of bandits with the same armor, "Oh.. Where did they get that from?! I worked really hard for it.." Oh.. I forgot to tell you, whatever you get they get too..

2) The world feels dead because basicly wherever you go their is the same tools, monster levels and donguens. Just play TES II and you'll know what I mean.

3) Interface.. Well, one of the complaints about the PC version interface is because if its size, that's surely not compatible with the 19 inch PC monitor (It was made for the normal TVs <--- XboX then ported to PC, though, some things have slipped through the devs hands such as the size).. And also, the icons aren't as clear as in Morrowind, I for one would take a couple of minutes to understand what each icon means..

econ21

04-03-2006, 14:00

I'm acutally surprised that many people liked the game.. It seems that most of those were looking for more eye candy than gameplay.

The leveling system seems rather bad, the world feels 'dead', the interface is really not user-friendly..

Tastes differ. I found Morrowind more visually impressive, but Oblivion a much more involving game.

I can't remember one memorable sidequest in Morrowind, nor anything about the plot except that it involved chasing around for an inexplicably half-naked dude with no discernible personality called Caius.

By contrast, the premise of the Oblivion mainplot - gates of hell opening everywhere - is excellent, I get to work for someone acted with the voice talent of Sean Bean and the development of the story arc hasn't disappointed so far. Some of the sidequests - Hackdirt, Seridur and the vampire hunt, the magic paintbrush, the unfair competition - have been as much fun as any I've experienced in an RPG.

And certainly the Oblivion world feels much more alive than Morrowind's, where the only speech I remember was running past NPCs who would mutter creepy sounding random lines like "What do you want, Dunmer?". Shudder.

lars573

04-03-2006, 14:21

I only read the first page.. So this post is according to it.

I'm acutally surprised that many people liked the game.. It seems that most of those were looking for more eye candy than gameplay. The leveling system seems rather bad, the world feels 'dead', the interface is really not user-friendly..
I rather consider Oblivion to be a vast improvement over Morrowinds short comings. Sure the world has less fauna and more flora but there is enough life in those forrests to make them seem real. And the fact the every NPC speaks all there dialouge is a good thing. For immersion sepaking>text baloons. Also the levelling system is indentical in Morrowind and Oblivion.

On the totally level keyed world I've mixed feelings. On the down side you won't get keen high level loot for fun and profit until your higher up in the game. On the plus side there is no "You can't do this mission till your level 10 bitch!" breaks in any factions story. I found the main quest in Oblivion much more engrossing than Morrowinds simply because you only had to gain 1 or 2 levels to finish it (in fact I stopped playing Morrowind allthogether for 6 months because of that). In fact I finished it in a week of play. And you won't come across an enemy who'll kill your level 5 character with his level 38 breath. Some masocists like getting killed over and over in an RPG until they luck out and kill an enemy waaay above there level. I hate it, I want to track down a foe and kill him the first time out.

Also if you think that the interface is designed for the Xbox your sadly mistaken. It's as tricky for me on the X360 ot navigate as it is for you on the PC. It was designed to work as best as it could for both.

orangat

04-03-2006, 15:27

I dislike the auto-leveling in Oblivion. The designers should've locked the levels/weapons/loot at a certain point as a compromise between balancing challenge and playability.

I totally disagree with the notion that the scaling will ensure balanced gameplay when it in fact will lock the challenge at one level. Scaling should not allow players to simply plow ahead and take every challenge head-on.

So the biggest downside to auto-levelling as is implemented in Oblivion is that going up in levels and amassing dangerous weapons and spells does not feel rewarding.

Edit:
And I disappointed with gamespot for saying "Growing more powerful in this game feels suitably rewarding.....". Gamespot seems to fib alot when it comes to reviewing highly hyped titles from big well regarded publishers. Other highly rated turkey titles from gs imo was Republic Commando, Battlefront.

x-dANGEr

04-03-2006, 15:59

Oh guys.. You got me wrong, I'm not a fan of Morrowind either ;). I'm a fan of the Gothics :)

I don't judge wheather the world is alive or not looking at how many monsters it has. I judge it by how many monsters have something unique in their case. I'd like to go out in the wood and find a pack of monsters that guard something different from the thing the other pack guards. I want some variation. I think the levelling system really killed a whole part of this game, along with the UI interface. They both are just really bad, at least for me.

Slyspy

04-03-2006, 20:59

I fail to see how the fact that everyone speaks their lines increases immersion. For me immersion takes a serious hit when people suddenly change voice or accent in the middle of a conversation because one line is a stock NPC response and another a quest specfic response. Sloppy.

The few lines in M0rrowind were supposed to be creepy. In fact the whole game world did a good job of feeling weird and alien, of being a frontier land. The setting for Oblivion is more of a stock fantasy setting, which many feel more comfortable with but which I feel is rather soulless in comparison to many other rpgs.

The interface can be improved on the PC through mods, and already has been as recommended earlier in the thread. The high level street-scum with daedric armour thing has been fixed in any number of mods, though annoyingly they all seem to fiddle with other things too.

Eventually the modders will make up for most of Oblivion's short-comings, and add further quality quests. In the mean time I'm not sure that I can recommed the game whole-heartedly.

orangat

04-03-2006, 21:19

Xiahou

04-04-2006, 00:22

The interface can be improved on the PC through mods, and already has been as recommended earlier in the thread. The high level street-scum with daedric armour thing has been fixed in any number of mods, though annoyingly they all seem to fiddle with other things too.

Eventually the modders will make up for most of Oblivion's short-comings, and add further quality quests. In the mean time I'm not sure that I can recommed the game whole-heartedly.This (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=183) mod seems like it'd do everything I want:
***I like the idea of leveled items and enemies, but I would like to see more 'surprises', especially in the more dangerous areas
- more difficult enemies can be found from the start in 'difficult' areas, like near Oblivion and certain shrines (The leveled creature lists for those areas have a small chance of spawning a more powerful creature right from level 1, and the odds go up from there)

***There is too much fantastic loot at higher levels:
- The most powerful armors and weapons are now harder to find. Normal enemies like bandits for example will mostly wear chain and maybe some Mithril at higher levels but not more than a third of the time evn at level 50.
- Boss characters are more likely to have rare items (to use against you of course).

***I want a better selection of stuff from the start:
- shopkeepers randomly carry better stuff from the start, and better stuff becomes available at lower levels Unfortunately, it does alot of other stuff too that I wish it didnt. :embarassed: (see link for full list of changes)

Slyspy

04-04-2006, 00:58

Orangat - Try http://www.tessource.net/files/ It may need you to register, I cannot remember. Also check http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/ and http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

Xiahou - Exactly. I looked at that one too, but the modder has included too many other changes for me. It is annoying but I have found that with many of these mods. No doubt that will change in time as people grow in experience.

econ21

04-04-2006, 01:29

One way of working the auto scaling system which I came across in a faq is to choose major skills which are not directly useful to the character (use minor skills instead) to control the speed of leveling. Eg. Athletics - just walk everywhere until its time to run to level up.

Just out of curiosity, what do you want to achieve by working the system? You want to make the game easier? Or harder? Or what?

I read the advice to pick useless majors in Wikipedia and was shocked at how joyless and out of character it seemed. It seems a recipe for masochism. Especially if you were to choose athletics as a major and then have to walk e...v...e...r...y...w...h....e....r....e for fear of levelling. I'm sure there are easier ways of getting what you want.

If you just want to control the rate of levelling so that you can get the 5x attribute bonuses, it's easier just to work up some relevant minor skills between levels. Make sure you leave some minors associated with the attributes you want to raise and put them to use, including putting your 5 points of training into them.

If you want to survive the tougher monsters as the game auto-scales, make sure you get the 5x attribute bonuses and are working up skills that will help you beat the bad guys.

Ja'chyra

04-04-2006, 08:55

The idea of controlling your levelling kills the fun in the game for me. It's not as if this is a multiplayer game where having a gimped character would mean that you are an easy target for others, the way I see it if you get a x5 at level time then it's a Brucie bonus but it's not the be all and end all.

I've also seen lots of people complain about the UI, what exactly is wrong with it? Sure, it takes a bit of getting used to but do you honestly think anyone could design a UI that everyone likes? Saying that it's always worth a look at other people's idea to see if they suit you better, I have heard it mentioned though that a lot of things are hard coded and can't be changed e.g. Can't add more hotbars or can't sort you gear by what you are wearing, but maybe someone wiull figure it out.

Some of the mods out are pretty good, and like Morrowind, really help the game. I've only got one installed so far but I'm thinking about some others, the one that's installed is the saddlebags one, means you can carry 500 weight worth of gear on your horse, really useful and a great, common sense, idea.

All in all I'm a fan of the game, although not a raving fanboy, I'll keep an eye on the mods that are released and add any that I think will improve the game.

One thing I will say though, the forums over at TES aren't half as friendly as they are here, I think that says a lot about the mods and the community in general.

BDC

04-04-2006, 10:04

$2.50 for some horse armour on the Xbox... Seems like a bit of a waste of money to me.

Well as long as they don't charge for patches I'm happy. Viva la PC version.

x-dANGEr

04-04-2006, 17:40

@SlySpy: Hmm silly me.. And I thought we were discussing Obvilion Vanillia.. According to what you've just said, I think the developers should have only made the engine and left the rest for the 'modders' to fill/complete/fix.

orangat

04-04-2006, 20:03

Just out of curiosity, what do you want to achieve by working the system? You want to make the game easier? Or harder? Or what?

I read the advice to pick useless majors in Wikipedia and was shocked at how joyless and out of character it seemed. It seems a recipe for masochism. Especially if you were to choose athletics as a major and then have to walk e...v...e...r...y...w...h....e....r....e for fear of levelling. I'm sure there are easier ways of getting what you want.

If you just want to control the rate of levelling so that you can get the 5x attribute bonuses, it's easier just to work up some relevant minor skills between levels. Make sure you leave some minors associated with the attributes you want to raise and put them to use, including putting your 5 points of training into them.

If you want to survive the tougher monsters as the game auto-scales, make sure you get the 5x attribute bonuses and are working up skills that will help you beat the bad guys.

Controlled levelling is a tactic to make the game easier to play. I never said I used it since I'd rather move the difficulty slider. No one said you had to walk everywhere, its just one of the many you can choose as a minor skill.

The idea is to not waste time by working up minor skills since those skills are the ones the character is using all the time anyway. The And the player has complete control over levelling instead worrying whether its time to work some minor skills.

Ja'chyra

04-05-2006, 13:28

$2.50 for some horse armour on the Xbox... Seems like a bit of a waste of money to me.

Well as long as they don't charge for patches I'm happy. Viva la PC version.

Seems a lot of people aren't happy about this at all, and who can blame them.

I think charging for these tiny addition mods is disgusting, paying the money for expansion packs that add whole new lands, stories and equipment is one thing, but paying for a couple of skins of horse armour when you can't even fight on horseback is a tad too far in my opinion.

This has also kicked off more than one flaming on the boards over there that the mods seem content to let rage.

Slyspy

04-06-2006, 01:17

Of course no one has to buy them. But they do worry the normal community modding crowd. They fear that their mods may end up having to be tailored to official content which few people have. Some also suspect that these official mods are why not all the editing tools have been released yet, and question whether they ever will be released. Since Morrowind became a cult hit solely because it was so completely moddable (it too was a badly optimised, buggy and flawed product when first released) then restricting the access to Oblivion by community modders would be a mistake by Bethseda IMO.

This particular official mod is laughable, a pointless piece of eye-candy which could so easily have been in the game already. In fact I suspect that it already was, but had been removed at some point in the development. Maybe when they realised that mounted combat was not going to be a feature of the game. Anyone who pays to download it is a fool. Sadly there are already a number of fools complaining that they can't get the mod to work!

Xiahou

04-06-2006, 01:56

Xiahou - Exactly. I looked at that one too, but the modder has included too many other changes for me. It is annoying but I have found that with many of these mods. No doubt that will change in time as people grow in experience.Howabout this (http://www.oblivionsource.com/?page=modforge&op=viewproject&project_id=251) one- seems to be getting closer. Here's the rundown:

- Leveled lists have been altered so that all creatures appear at player level 1. This way every creature has a chance of appearing from the start of the game.

- The chance of more difficult creatures spawning is much more rare than the easy creatures to make up for all of them being
capable of appearing from the start. For example, rats and deer have a much higher chance of spawning than bears and lions, and mythic creatures like imps have an even smaller chance.

- There used to be spots in the game where creatures had a 25%, 50%, or 75% chance of spawning... now they all have a 100% chance
of spawning, which means yay more creatures!

- Many creatures now have chances of spawning in groups (schools of slaughterfish, groups of mudcrabs, packs of wolves, families of rats, etc...) instead of the standard singular spawns. Again, yay more creatures! The amount of creatures per group tend to be random between 1 and 9, and can include a mixture of different
creatures from the same "family".

- Many creatures have had their aggression lowered to compensate for the larger amount of them.

- Changes listed above apply to general Daedra and general wildlife.

- Added a new weak Daedra, the Young Daedroth, to go along with the Stunted Scamps and Clanfear Runts

- New standard wilderness creatures: Young rat, giant rat, young wolf, young timber wolf, fawn, young boar, baby mudcrab, king mudcrab, titan mudcrab, young mountain lion, small laughterfish,
giant slaughterfish, young black bear, young brown bear

- The lists for the Kvatch exterior, and town only include weak Daedra, to make it possible for new players to go there and not die upon arrival, and to go along with the idea that it is a first
assault from Oblivion, so it's only the weakest soldiers.

Murmandamus

04-06-2006, 02:56

The leveled loot sucks, but I like the leveled enemies because the game would be too easy otherwise. Morrowind was a walk in the park once you got up to level 25-30.

I think those who complain that the leveling makes the game too hard at higher levels aren't doing all they can for their character or have gimped it by choosing bad majors. I found the game hard until I discovered the sigil stones. I don't even have them on all the slots available yet (+50 magika, 2x+12 strength, +12 agility, +6 endurance) and I'm able to whip everything at level 25 (Crusader with a mace).

Given that you can use 8 defensive/stat boosting stones + 1 for the weapon, and that you can stack them, I'm sure you could boost any non-combat character enough to be able to fight.

You can make a powerful character, you just need to use all the resources available.

Xiahou

04-07-2006, 03:37

Actually, I'd classify it as a "who knows" kind of situation. Over on the Oblivion boards they're trading .ini files like baseball cards. Apparently you can fine-tune the video settings like a madman. So yeah, turning off the AA would probably fix the problem, but there might be a much more elegant way. I'm gonna go ask for a file ...
Show, did you find a way to get AA to work without the game turning into a slideshow when you cast a summon, ect?

I've tried playing with the AA settings in the ATI tray tools... you dont get the slowdowns, but it doesnt looks as good as when it's set ingame for some reason. :shrug:

orangat

04-07-2006, 15:47

The leveled loot sucks, but I like the leveled enemies because the game would be too easy otherwise. Morrowind was a walk in the park once you got up to level 25-30.

I think those who complain that the leveling makes the game too hard at higher levels aren't doing all they can for their character or have gimped it by choosing bad majors. I found the game hard until I discovered the sigil stones. I don't even have them on all the slots available yet (+50 magika, 2x+12 strength, +12 agility, +6 endurance) and I'm able to whip everything at level 25 (Crusader with a mace).
........

The levelling system is non-intuitive and retarded. For example, my character only got the option of a +2 for both str and will attributes for leveling up. To solve that problem, I have to walk into a forest, hopefully avoid dangerous leveled up brigands and punch a deer or something to bring up my h-h minor skill to get extra str increases.

econ21

04-07-2006, 23:47

The levelling system is non-intuitive and retarded. For example, my character only got the option of a +2 for both str and will attributes for leveling up. To solve that problem, I have to walk into a forest, hopefully avoid dangerous leveled up brigands and punch a deer or something to bring up my h-h minor skill to get extra str increases.

Yes, the system annoyed the heck out of me in Morrowind. It killed the game for me.

In Oblivion, it has not got to me so much. Partly because I always put a point in luck, so I am only shooting for two +5 bonuses on levelling up.

You can get half way to one +5 by using your ration of 5 training points between levels.

Early on, I often used to fail to get the +5 strength - have you chosen both blunt and blade as majors? I just fight with my minor (blunt) until I am have enough strength related skill increases then switch to blade.

Will seems one of the easiest to get the 5 point attribute - just keep casting the spell with the lowest mana cost while travelling. (e.g. I raised alteration from 5 to 25 in two levels by just casting the lowest level protection spell; I didn't really want the will 5 point bonus - although I took it - but needed 25 alteration for a mage guild quest).

orangat

04-08-2006, 00:33

I never played morrowind so I don't know how its like.
Putting blunt and blade as majors will probably just screw things up more since you'll level up even sooner. And it requires keeping track of the stats which is irritating and counter-intuitive. The reasonable thing to do is use blunt weapons but keep it as a minor from the start.

econ21

04-08-2006, 12:02

The reasonable thing to do is use blunt weapons but keep it as a minor from the start.

Sorry, that's what I meant (I was just checking you had blunt or blade as a minor, given your reference to having to work up hand-to-hand).

Phatose

04-14-2006, 06:20

My thoughts on Oblivion:

Unlike Morrowind, they actually tested a few things to see if they worked. Didn't test everything as well as I'd like, but at least you can't alchemize yourself into godhood at level 1.

The Menus are atrocious. Just bad. For one, it doesn't show nearly enough at a time. Modded it to show more, could still make much better use of screen space. There are nowhere near enough sort options to make managing a cluttered inventory something other then a scavenger hunt.

There are no hotkeys to go directly to a subjection of the journal, and no way to bind them. If you want the overworld map, you have to open the journal and switch to the overworld map every time. This should really be a directly bindable key, as should keys for all the other subsections.

There aren't enough hotkeys to make gameplay fluid. A speedbook, instead of single spells bound to a hotkey, would've really helped. So would speed equipment setups, for rapidly changing between equipment sets. I may try to mod these in myself.

WHY IN GODS NAME DO YOU HAVE TO CONFIRM EVERY SINGLE TRADE? Why isn't the shift-click "sell/drop/buy/move all without confirmation" and ctrl-click "1 without confirmation" in there? I don't need to be asked "Are you sure?" 50 times when I'm selling off my potions to pay for a house, thank you very much.

Spellbook management is a major chore - you can't delete spells you have, there are only two sorting options in a catergory, and catergorys are limited to ranged, touch or self. Nowhere near enough to make management easy.

They really should've done a better job de-quest flagging items when the quest is done, too. I've got items I'll never be able to drop, just sitting there because the quest item flag never got turned off, even though I've long since finished the quest.

City guards are all semi-telepathic. Even if there is no one around except you and your victim in the dark basement, and you stab them with a dagger that paralyzes them and silences them, the guards instantly know you've committed an assault. Strangely, however, they will be absolutely clueless about the murder that follows that assault. There is apparently a mod to fix this - I'm trying it out tonight, because this finally managed to tick me off enough.

Leveled loot/Levled enemies: Not graceful as is, but relatively easy to mod to a more reasonable level. It's main problem is that the core leveling system is just plain stupid to begin with, and does not mesh well with leveled loot/enemies. If I've gained 30 hp and 10 points of blade skill, sure, more dangerous enemies might be justified. But I might've gained 5 hps and 10 points of mercantile, in which case sicking demons on me is just going to frustrate me. The game acts as if level was a good indicator of combat potential - when in fact, it's just plain not.

The core 'level' system is dumb. Fortunately, it too, can be modded into a less stupid form, with Auryn's leveling mod. Changes it so stats gain based on skill growth - gain a few points in skills related to a stat, and the stat goes up one. No silly multipliers or anything. Levels still exist, but you choose how they're delimited. Gain a level when you've raised your class skills enough, gain one when your specialization skills have raised enough, or just when you've gained enough stats. It's not perfect, but it is hordes better then the stock system.

Level loot's big problem was quest rewards. Stock, quest reward items are related to the level you get them at. Many quest rewards are very very good items - if you do it at high level. Do it at low level though, and you miss out on it. Fortunately, again, the modders have modded this so that quest items mutate into their stronger forms as you gain levels.

The $1.99 horse armor mod probably would've annoyed me if I didn't think horses were completely useless anyway.

While it's far from without issues though, it is a fantastic game. The dark brotherhood quests alone were more fun then every single quest in morrowind combined. Stealth actually feels stealthy, melee combat feels alive. Beggars on the street don't do wikipedia impressions when you click on them.