Elder Scrolls Oblivion review

[FSTargetDrone]

Here are some tweaks I found which should make a difference for the PC version;

Some tweaks which get the game to use more memory to cache areas rather than limiting itself to ~512mb.

In the MyDocs there will be a "My Games\Oblivion" folder. Open the Oblivion.ini file & search for "[OPENMP]" then add the line
"iPreloadSizeLimit=<number>"

<number> is the number of bytes of ram to use to cache area data in. About 80% of your physical ram should be a good bet

Sorry, where exactly is the "iPreloadSizeLimit=<number>" added? On the same line as "[OPENMP]" or below it?

[Stark]

I know.. it's still *stupid*. Yeah, glass isn't heavy, or noisy, and doesn't require the training rigid armours do.

OH WAIT.

It's actually kinda funny to realise the Elder Scrolls 'system' of skills, armours, levelling etc is still totally broken. I've got a character to level 20, and I just don't want to play anymore - the idea of random bandits with daedric equipment is just *that* stupid. I remember Daggerfall, where the scaling was so bad eventually the random-spawning town guards had full daedric plate. It never seemed to bad in Morrowind, but in Oblivion I find the game actually gets *harder* as you get better.

Cute when developers don't notice the most popular mods for their games are a) fixing their stupid system or b) making up for their terrible art/models/objects. I mean, Oblivion coins look like shit. What's up with that?

[Stark]

I think I ended up with a /mygames folder due to network thingies. Because the game uses my home directory, it had a problem when the network traffic was high (nothing else does, bah) so maybe it created those files since it couldn't access /mydocs/user/etc anymore.

[Vympel]

I know.. it's still *stupid*. Yeah, glass isn't heavy, or noisy, and doesn't require the training rigid armours do.

OH WAIT.

I never understood the "glass" concept in the first place. I mean, you look at it, and it's clearly not what we'd understand to be glass. I just let it slide, to be honest. Chainmail as light armor though? Please.

It's actually kinda funny to realise the Elder Scrolls 'system' of skills, armours, levelling etc is still totally broken. I've got a character to level 20, and I just don't want to play anymore - the idea of random bandits with daedric equipment is just *that* stupid.

That is retarded. That never happened in Morrowind.

I remember Daggerfall, where the scaling was so bad eventually the random-spawning town guards had full daedric plate. It never seemed to bad in Morrowind, but in Oblivion I find the game actually gets *harder* as you get better.

Morrowind on the other hand was incredibly easy as you got better- you could wipe out any enemy with a few strikes, no effort. Really, they should just make the bandits harder by measures that don't include giving them ridiciulous equipment.

Cute when developers don't notice the most popular mods for their games are a) fixing their stupid system or b) making up for their terrible art/models/objects. I mean, Oblivion coins look like shit. What's up with that?

So what are the recommended mods for fixing their system so far? I might give some a whirl.

[GuppyShark]

There is a viable-looking scaling mod out there. It caps the scaling monsters at a level appropriate to their intended difficulty in the game, so that yes, you end up well above bandit level, without arbitrarily setting levels.

[Mr Bean]

There is a viable-looking scaling mod out there. It caps the scaling monsters at a level appropriate to their intended difficulty in the game, so that yes, you end up well above bandit level, without arbitrarily setting levels.

How about a "smart bandit" mod, Gee do I mug the little old lady? Or the fellow in Full Daedric with the giant flamming sword surronded by a etheral glow and leaping fifty feet in each bound(Thanks to 100 Acrobatics )

Or prehaps like Morrowind the bandits start appearing in you know.. BANDS of bandits? Sure a smuck in Leather armor with an Ax won't do much to me, but how about four bandits, two hammer Nord's and two archers, heck toss a mage in there! Bandit, BANDS.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Or prehaps like Morrowind the bandits start appearing in you know.. BANDS of bandits? Sure a smuck in Leather armor with an Ax won't do much to me, but how about four bandits, two hammer Nord's and two archers, heck toss a mage in there! Bandit, BANDS.

No one understood how banding worked. That's why no one uses it.

Wait, this is a M:TG thread, right?

[InnocentBystander]

I'm more than a little upset I can no longer summon up armies of daedra at my command, and the 100 rank conjuration guys aren't terribly powerful (or rather they are, but seem to act very stupid, still haven't found Storm Atronach, or any terribly advanced summons besides what's sold at the university and Chorral).
I feel that they sorta dumbed down enchanting, but I think it's beneficial, in morrowind I had shitloads of magical items which *could* have been useful, but honestly I never used most of them. Now I've got cloths for when I got shopping, gear for when I'm fighting, and some utility (water walking shoes; water breathing necklace, etc.) stuff.
Alchemy - Love it, huge improvement.
Gems - What do they do? I've got scores of gems of all qualities and types, but I've got no idea what they're for. Anyone got any ideas?
Spells - Generally good, other than my caveat with conjuration, spells are pretty great, I especially like the long duration feather spells, which I have on almost constantly
My one chief issue with the game is scale. I love the fact that I can look out and see the Imperial City and the vast landscape of Cyrodill, but what I don't like is how small it makes the world feel. Travel, even on foot, gets you very far very fast. Now granted it's cool, because it means that fun and adventure is always nearby, but it kinda feels like the world is a little small. They've got this wonderful fast travel system which allows you to instantly travel to places you visited in the past; I love it. But with that in mind (and also the horses which I suppose take the place of boots of blinding speed, heh) I think the world should have been made a bit more expansive, more space in between dungeons, caves, mines etc. The area south of Chorral, I feel, is especially full of stuff, and while it's definatly nice I get the feeling it's a little crowded.
Other than that (and it is really only a minor concern) the game is great. It feels very much like what I suspect a medivhal country should be like. There are a inns every now and then along the road, small villages and such out in the forest here and there, bandit camps and highwaymen.
One thing I've noticed too is how the game really does a good job of scaling the difficutly, I'm currently level 23 or 24 and recently more dangerous critters have begun appearing along the roadside; bears (which I find to be amazingly tough, tougher than many Deadra I met in oblivion during my teen levels). It's good that things still remain a challenge, though I continue searching for Levitate and Jump spells (though I'm beginning to suspect that they do not exist )

On a side note, I've been getting this annoying bug where the world turns black; I've still got a HUD, mouse, inventory screen etc, but until I restart the game, black. Even the save games show up as black, though after restarting the game they aren't black. Also I've noticed that it pretty much always crashes when I exit.

I think of all the things they did in Oblivion it was the NPCs that they did the best. They seem far more real, they move, they sleep, they interact with each other, they eat. They chat about the news... it's great! The world feels alive, cities bustle, at night the streets are empty, it's wonderful. I've noticed that a lot of the characters sound similar to one another, but it's not a big deal. Sometimes the faces don't always match the tone of the voice, but it's still excellent.

Gota say, I'm lovin' this game.

[Stark]

The Alchemy interface is flawed: you can't remove ingredients without opening the list, pressing remove, pressing exit. If you've got one ingredient left, it's annoying as piss not being able to just click 'x' next to it's name to remove it. I have a character that makes money with alchemy, so this is pretty annoying.

Course, thieves must hate not being able to tab/space/esc out of the lockpick window either. You've got to wave your mouse around until they give the pointer back, then hit exit.

[FSTargetDrone]

Is there any way to interrupt using a bow after you have an arrow strung? In Thief you'd eventually tire and lower the bow, or you could cancel the pull without firing the arrow.

[Ace Pace]

Hmn, seems I've found an actully effective no psychic guards mod.

Mod here

No Psychic Guards v1.1
No Psychic Guards Harder v1.1
***Updated Changes***

V1.1 (both plugins) changes the crime sound alarm to a longer distance. There were some reported problems with quests in the previous release. This *should* fix the quest problems. Remember that your crime will not be reported (and no bounty will be placed on your head) unless a guard is within the sound crime zone when the crime is taking place. You might still be detected inside a house if a guard is passing by when you commit a crime. But I feel the sound distance is reasonable. Guards can hear the crime alarm at the same distance whether you are inside or outside. Check around first before commiting a crime in front of an NPC to make sure there are no guards nearby.

Also, No Psychic Guards Harder v1.1 drops the NPC disposition to 0 if they are the victim of ANY crime. Criminals beware. You might be attacked on sight now.

No Psychic Guards v1.1

Now, when you murder someone out of sight and out of sound range, the guards will not show up out of knowhere now. Voice distance for reporting crimes has been greatly reduced. But a guard walking within the reduced alarm range still might might hear the screams for help. There will be no bounty placed on your head unless the guards hear the original NPC crime victim yelling at the time the crime is commited. You will also be arested if the guards see you chasing or being chased by an attack victim.


No Psychic Guards Harder v1.1

All of the above mentioned is included, but this plugin also greatly changed the dispositions of NPC crime victims (now they lose 100 disposition if they are the victim of a crime). They might attack you on sight now.

[Stark]

It works really well, too, but it can't fix the crazy implementation of bounty. I swear I had to walk across the Imperial Reserve because some guard somewhere was chasing me and I couldn't fast travel.

The no-levelled monsters mod is incredibly hard. It's great: level one characters will get raped by minotaurs, supertrolls and mountainlions right outside Imperial Center.

[Ace Pace]

It works really well, too, but it can't fix the crazy implementation of bounty. I swear I had to walk across the Imperial Reserve because some guard somewhere was chasing me and I couldn't fast travel.

The no-levelled monsters mod is incredibly hard. It's great: level one characters will get raped by minotaurs, supertrolls and mountainlions right outside Imperial Center.

Then I'll get it only when monsters become silly, I have no wish to die.

[GuppyShark]

There is a modified scaling one that doesn't go quite that far, it just caps certain classes of scaled mob appropriately so you don't get level 50 bandits.

[Vympel]

Auto-levelling is crap. I don't know why they engage in it, it's infinitely more satisfying to effortlessly hack through losers who could never stand against you and have important fights with serious bosses fairly often than to have every battle be fucking epic.

Level 50 bandits ...

[The Grim Squeaker]

Auto-levelling is crap. I don't know why they engage in it, it's infinitely more satisfying to effortlessly hack through losers who could never stand against you and have important fights with serious bosses fairly often than to have every battle be fucking epic.

Level 50 bandits ...

Reminds me of HW2, if you had a decent fleet and the end of a mission [or, Heaven help you a Fleet at the build cap] then you would be SCREWED in the next mission .
Considering my tendancy to rebuild at the end of each mission it took me a while to realize why I was being attacked by a massive fleet 10 seconds into the first missions.

Does the game support Henchmen or a party?
That's one thing that's annoyed me over the last few years of RPG's, I have'nt seen a game with a full 6 person party since Baldurs gate 2, even KOTOR had three people total [or Neverwhinter night where you only had one damn npc henchman].

[DPDarkPrimus]

There is a modified scaling one that doesn't go quite that far, it just caps certain classes of scaled mob appropriately so you don't get level 50 bandits.

Link please?

As a Stealth character, 98% of my enemies die before they even know I've seen them. But I'm planning on running a more up-close-and-personal character my second time around, so this would be quite handy.

[Stark]

I'm testing an interesting mod that totally removes character levelling: it simply gives you one attribute point every 5 attached skill levels and one level per four attribute points. No more 'meditating', no more allocation. Course, can't work luck now, but the horrible 'bonus attribute' system the vanilla game has shits me no end. There's another, midway one, that still lets you 'meditate' and apply bonuses, but the main skill/stat bonuses are organic and the applied ones are capped at +2. Anything that removes the min/maxing of the basic system is worth trying, in my opinion.

Does anyone know if the game supports object shadowing? I know players and characters cast shadows, but boxes, apples etc don't seem to. It's a damn shame.

On levelling, I'd much prefer that at high player levels, the player was allowed to simply hack through the plebs and then be faced with powerful bosses, leaders, or otherwise significant people: going through a dungeon and having to 'step in-zap-step back' a thousand times per skeleton is simply lame. Instead of everyone being basically the same power level, you'd get action-movie, Dynasty Warrior-style mass ownage capped off with epic boss fights.

[Stark]

As a Stealth character, 98% of my enemies die before they even know I've seen them. But I'm planning on running a more up-close-and-personal character my second time around, so this would be quite handy.

How did you find the main storyline missions? My stealthy-character friend was pleased to see that the majority of the game allows him to play an almost non-combat character (bar the odd arrow from the shadows), but some missions force you into close combat, particularly the 'meet the Sponsor' mission, where regardless of what you do it always boils down to melee.

[Seggybop]

I'm testing an interesting mod that totally removes character levelling: it simply gives you one attribute point every 5 attached skill levels and one level per four attribute points. No more 'meditating', no more allocation. Course, can't work luck now, but the horrible 'bonus attribute' system the vanilla game has shits me no end. There's another, midway one, that still lets you 'meditate' and apply bonuses, but the main skill/stat bonuses are organic and the applied ones are capped at +2. Anything that removes the min/maxing of the basic system is worth trying, in my opinion.

If it removes levels, how does that affect the level-dependent monsters and loot? Do they stay at lv1-class always?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Auto-levelling is crap. I don't know why they engage in it, it's infinitely more satisfying to effortlessly hack through losers who could never stand against you and have important fights with serious bosses fairly often than to have every battle be fucking epic.

Level 50 bandits ...

Uh-huh.

Since getting Oblivion on Friday and playing it many hours, I have a few isolated observations. I levelled a heavy infantryman Orc to 18--the slow and steady way.

Awesome

Ragdoll physics is super-fun, at least with men- and mer-sized adversaries. Nothing like whomping them with a hard horizontal slash and dashing their corpse across the wall, chuckling as it slides into a heap on the floor. OTOH large enemies (esp Daedroth) have a tendency to clip through themselves in a very ugly way.

I sort of prefer the way the combat system works to the way it was in Morrowind. It's less choppy now, and there's no more inexplicable failures. Blocking with a shield in particular is way, way better. OTOH, it often seems much less lethal. Against enemies of any particular toughness, I need to wail on them forever to have substantial effect.

Atmosphere. In terms of story, pacing, and the world Oblivion is at least as immersive as Morrowind, maybe moreso. The first trip into the Plane of Oblivion was great--it delivered the journey through Hell that DOOM3 should have delivered.

Bleh
As everyone else in the entire world has said, the difficulty scaling is annoying and totally, totally, totally stupid. Gaining levels and skill points in Oblivion is effectively meaningless as a result, excepting only the bonuses you get for going up a class in a given skill. What this means is that you don't see any actual benefit for advancing, J. Random Bandit is as tough to fight at level 18 as he was at level 1. This is asinine. I agree precisely with Vympel's argument--bosses and other important enemies should have dynamic difficulty, random assholes should be meat for you as you advance.

The single worst example of this was in the Arena, which I entered a little late so I had quite a few levels before I got dueling. There's a certain fight in the Arena where you're pitted against three Argonian prisoners. When I played it, one of them had a sword and the other two were barefisted... none had armor of any kind. Easy meat, you'd think... only, no, the two unarmed once turn out to be warrior monks of some kind, and the one with the sword is Inigo Montoya or some shit. And all of them have Speed 100 or something, because they zip in and out of my threat range like rocket-propelled lizards. "Every fight must be challenging!" Fuck you, game developers. It took forever to kill those assholes, and I nearly died.

Another issue I have is highly specific--fuck the Spider Daedra and fuck whatever wanker at Bethesda came up with the idea. The Spider Daedra themselves are pretty mean creatures who can fuck you up at range and up close, but then they are given the ability to spawn, at will, a little spider which can paralize you with a bite. This wouldn't be a problem, except for two things--the little spider can do the paralyze attack as often as it wants, forever (which means that until you kill it, it just chases you around trying to paralyze you and doing fuck-all else), and the mother creature can create as many little daughters as it fucking wants, apparently without any regard to Magicka costs or anything. You just killed the little spider bitch? Too bad, here's another one for you. Oh, you killed that one, and the fifteen that came before it? Fuck you, the Spider Daedra will just keep spawning more of them. At least they only get one at a time. Cold comfort. The strategy I came up with my Orc (who has a high athletics score) is to run around like a fucking nutcase swinging my axe wildly.

Reduced character details. Only three types of weapons, plus unarmed, and the difference between blade and blunt is purely cosmetic--damage and reach are only minutely different and attacks are exactly the same. Read that again--according to Oblivion, a mace is used pretty much the same way as a longsword. Within classes the weapons are all extremely boring. The blade class consists of daggers, short swords, long swords, and claymores (plus Akaviri Weapons that I don't see any reason to use ever, because they become obsolete very quickly). Within types the weapons are very, very "samey." The steel axe is exactly the same as the iron axe only it does a little more damage, and the silver axe is exactly the same as the steel axe only... you get the idea. I blame people with X-Boxes for this. The absences I miss the most are spears (which were fun as Hell) and crossbows and throwing weapons, which gave some interesting variation to the marksman skill. Similar can be said of armor.

Overall

I'd say it's probably the best RPG I've ever played and probably among the top ten best games I've ever played, generally.

[GuppyShark]

Iyachtu's Level Scaling Mod

Development Thread: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... pic=297892

Download: http://files.filefront.com/NPCSTATICLEV ... einfo.html

Haven't personally tried it but expect I will - maybe when I stop dicking around and actually level.

[Stark]

If it removes levels, how does that affect the level-dependent monsters and loot? Do they stay at lv1-class always?

You still go up in level, but you don't have to stop and rest or allocate stat boosts and what have you. It's all done in realtime. I just started a new character and cleared the ruin across from the sewer exit: I've got heaps of willpower and agi bonuses (from zapping and getting hit) and an endurance (from blocking). I didn't have to stop, and I'm not thinking about 'zomg must powerlevel intelligence' anymore, since once I get time to sit down and alchemise all my stuff, I'll get int points straight away.

I have to say, the RPG-ness on equipment is jarring and uninspired. Iron bows? Glass bows? Why not just rate them by pull or something? Like anything else about a bow even matters. The melee weapons are worse: as Pablo says, there's no pro/con decision about weapontype since they're all the same, right down to the animations.

I feel the loss of 'medium armour' hurts the game, and I wish they'd reimagined the armour skills to be like 'light armour is anything that doesn't penalise stealth/speed etc but has poor defence, and heavy armour has best defence but sacrifices stealth/speed etc'. I think it's stupid that taking light/heavy armour makes basically fuck-all difference, since the high-end light armour isn't 'light' in either weight, material or defence provided. It really comes down to 'do I want to carry the heavy, best armour or the way lighter, *slightly* worse armour'.

EDIT - and since it hasn't been said enough, the clothing slot reduction is stupid. If you wear a robe, you can't wear anything else - not gloves, not pants, nothing. You can't layer clothes anymore. I can't wait for the first clothing mod to come out: it might allow magic users to look different from town guards.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I stopped clearing random dungeons...you never get unique items from them and the best drops for my stealth PC come from bandits.
I hunt the bastards near their tent camps at night which allows me to make long range stealth attacks. They do not even get the chance to engage me.

[Luzifer's right hand]

The quests are much better than in Morrowind but they are still far from perfect. Some of the quests seem to assume that you are a complete moron.

Spoilers for the Dark Brotherhood:
I knew that the "Dead Drops" after the 2nd quests are fake because the look of the orders changed.
I visited the house of the first target and found out that he is a in the brotherhood.
However Lachance was gone from his hideout and I was unable to talk to him about the fake orders.
So I had to finish the quest by killing the other brotherhood members despite the fact that I knew that the traitor was behind the fake orders...that sucks.

The bows are strong enough for my taste, this is an RPG not a simulation after all.
Daggers and shortswords as stealth based weapons with special attacks which only work in connection with backstabbing would rule though.
That they removed medium armor is also annoying, however nothing forces me to use the stupid light armor types like elven and chainmail.
At least the best light armor I found so far is not metal.

strangely enough the bounty system works fine for me. I even killed a guard while she was sleeping without any negative effects. Stealth for teh win.

A few pics:


I found some better armor but elven and glass just seems wrong for a stealth PC.


A nice magical gown which improves my conversation skills.


For silent killing. The items do not have an armor rating though and are useless in battle.