Oblivion gone gold

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..

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

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..

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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.

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

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..

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Slyspy

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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.
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Where is a good place to get Oblivion mods including the leveling one you mention?

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Originally Posted by Slyspy

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.

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This mod seems like it'd do everything I want:

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***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

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Unfortunately, it does alot of other stuff too that I wish it didnt. :embarassed: (see link for full list of changes)

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.

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Originally Posted by orangat

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.

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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.

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.

$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.

@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.

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Originally Posted by econ21

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by BDC

$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.

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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.

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!

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Originally Posted by Slyspy

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.

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Howabout this one- seems to be getting closer. Here's the rundown:

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- 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

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 ...

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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:

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Originally Posted by Murmandamus

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).
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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.

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Originally Posted by orangat

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.

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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).

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.

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Originally Posted by orangat

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

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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).

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.