The Oblivion Thread

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
In theory, couldn't you just keep increasing skills without levelling? You would still get the majority of benefits from levelling (better skills) only instead of everyone increasing with you, just you would increase.

Ahh, it feels like Morrowind already!

You'd definitely suck. Your major skills increase faster; it would take you forever if the only skills you used were nonmajor skills.

That, and what exactly are you going to put in major skills, that won't nearly ever be used? Only 21 skills in this game, so unless you play a pure fighter, you're probably using 15 of them

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think he was saying to increase skills, but never sleep (instead hit 'wait').

[FrostyBoy]

Travelling direclty from Chorrol (sp?) to Kvatch (South, South West) on a horse is just plain awesome.

As I rode up a hill and reached the top, I could see both Kvatch and the other city (I forget its name) in the distance. There was true sense of scale at the moment.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
Skanky, your stats would suck though. I want more intelligence so I can cast the beefier spells! (Of course the suckitude of stats would be unimportant since your skills would be so high... hmm)

Ahh, of course. I forgot about the attributes.

[bonscott]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Btw, what is your program that displays the frame rates? I have fraps, but I dislike the yellow numbers in the corner of my game.

Actually it's built into the game.

Pull up the console command line with the tilde - ~
Then type "tdt" (no quotes) and hit enter.
Then hit tilde again to get out of the console.

Then you'll see the debug data up there in the upper right and the frame rates are included.

[bonscott]

RE: Atronach

I definately wouldn't like it for that reason. The mage would be better.

Personally my character is a "Blade Mage" as I like to call her. High Elf which give 200 magika to start. I could have chosen the mage sign but instead went with the warrior for the extra endurance and strength. Magic is my specialty and my majors are in blade, armorer (I love fixing my own stuff), light armor and the rest in magic schools.

So far this is giving me the character I wanted: Someone that can stand toe to toe in combat with most creatures without magic and the same with just magic. Best way to play though is to soften up with magic and finish off with your sword. Just the way I like it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by bonscott
Actually it's built into the game.

Pull up the console command line with the tilde - ~
Then type "tdt" (no quotes) and hit enter.
Then hit tilde again to get out of the console.

Then you'll see the debug data up there in the upper right and the frame rates are included.

Wow! That's great . Good job Bethesda!

[yin26]

I just had a great time re-starting as a thief. One major element I missed in the manual is that poisons are applied to the readied weapon (I had wondered how in the heck I would ever get an NPC to drink one of those...or would I lob it at him?). So I mixed up a poison of damage fatigue and applied it to my arrow. I then shot a goblin, who started running at me but then seemed to barely be able to walk, making him easy pickings. I then did this with damage health, and the next goblin (after being hit with my 3x damage from my arrow because I was hidden) turned, took a few steps toward me, and a puff of poison wafted up from the arrow wound as he fell flat dead.

Later on, I was in a kind of valley area of a cave with a few bandits high above me. One came to edge unaware I was below, and I shot him dead. His partner came by, and I shot her, too, but she had enough life left to run across a little wood bridge, which made for some fun moving target practice. Still, she started to hide and wouldn't come to the edge. Well, it must have been a rat behind her or something, because something then attacked her, draining her of her last hit points, and her body ragdolled all the way down to the body 15 feet from where I was hiding. It was glorious. The most fun I've had in an RPG in years. I still don't know why a rat would attack an NPC unless one of my arrows I shot trying to get her accidentally hit the rat and it went berserk?

I've also paid a lot of attention to what attributes, etc., I gave my character. I created a custom class called "Shadower" who had beefed up blade and block in addition to the usual thief stuff (sneak, security) and alchemy.

Those are the ways that a thief can do well in the game. Yes, it's very time intensive, but I gotta say it's a heck of a lot of fun. Oh, and even though I could level up at this point, I'm saving that for AFTER the 5 points of training!

[Imran Siddiqui]

One major element I missed in the manual is that poisons are applied to the readied weapon

Me too... I was wonder what the Hell I was going to do with all those green potions.

[Fve Crathva]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
Skanky, your stats would suck though. I want more intelligence so I can cast the beefier spells! (Of course the suckitude of stats would be unimportant since your skills would be so high... hmm)

If I remember correctly, in Morrowind you couldn't raise your skills higher than the score for the governing stat. Is that the same in Oblivion?

SP

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Solver
Hm. As far as balance goes, I'm now having a bit of trouble with my Atronach mage.

In Oblivion magicka regenerates automatically, but not for the Atronach, of course. Yet, I go into a dungeon and have enough magicka to kill maybe a third of the monsters inside, and after that I have potions for the second third, but for the third third, I'm pretty much stuck.

Maybe Atronach went from the best mage sign to the worst. Auto regenerating magicka sounds easy.

I created an atronach mage as secondary character (first is a steed assassin), thought long at the sewers gate and remade her as mage mage . Probably the best decision I could make.

By the way, the German translation really sucks . For the atronach it says you don't regenerate magicka while sleeping. It does not say, that you don't regenerate magicka at all.

I made peace somewhat with the interface. It's still dull, but playable. No reason to ditch an otherwise pretty good game.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, a LOT of complaints about the German translation. The people who did that should be fired.

[Harovan]

True dat.

Spoiler:

Yesterday I broke into the captain's room of the ship "Maria Elena" (or so), slaughtered him, looted all and after running away from his deckmates I found a key of "Hauptmann" (= military captain) in my inventory. It should read key of the "Kapitän" (= ship captain).

To hell with those babelfish using translators!

By the way, Yin, I share your fun with thieves. My primary character is a stock assassin under sign "The Steed". And Alchemy really shines. Not only that some potions are extremely useful (instant heal and heal over time, poisons), you can also make good money with it. Usually, when you break into a citizen's house, all you can steal (without being in the thieves guild) is maybe 3 gold and a torch. This is especially sad if you broke 5 or more lockpicks to get in. With Alchemy you can steal everything edible, no matter if bread, cheese, meat or vegetables, and make potions of it, which sell for 200 gold or more per house.

I didn't find the thieves guild yet. But I'm in the Dark Brotherhood, which is nice and rewarding so far.

[BustaMike]

Wow, you guys totally missed the point, especially you Imran. Let me explain it in a different way.

The levelling system removes any sense of believability in the game world. At level one you can defeat the champion of the arena. This is the guy who's the strongest fighter in the whole city if not the country, but because the game revolves around you the level 1 noob straight out of prison the champion will be nicely scaled down for you to beat.

This isn't a powergamer issue. This is a roleplaying issue. One day you'll level up and everyone around you suddenly has brand new armor, all at the same time. Where did all the NPC get their shiny new ebony and glass armors when yesterday they were in iron and leather? It makes no sense and destroys the immersion.

It also destroys any sense of danger. In every other game including Morrowind there's always that badass dungeon that you just know is waiting to tear you a new one if you're stupid enough to venture inside. You know you'll need to practice your skills, upgrade your armor, etc to even have a chance and you know that if by some miracle you do manage to beat it the rewards will be awesome. Well not in this game. That dungeon doesn't exist. You can be sure that every dungeon you set foot in will have monsters that are just at your level, not too hard and not too easy. You also know that the spoils will be equally as bland: nothing spectacular but nothing bad either. Everything will be mediocre and just about right for your level.

Am I the only one who sees the problem here? How can you roleplay your guy when the world isn't believable? There's no incentive to get stronger, not that you can anyway relative to anyone or anything else. Where's the challenge? Where's the sense of accomplishment? I would choose godmode in Morrowind every single time over this.

As I said, I plan on finishing the game. I'm sure the story will be great and the side quests will be entertaining. From what I've seen so far, Oblivion has improved on every aspect of Morrowind except one and that one blemish is so huge that I doubt I'll ever play the game a 2nd time unless they completely revamp the system, which I'm sure they won't.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by BustaMike
Wow, you guys totally missed the point, especially you Imran. Let me explain it in a different way.

The levelling system removes any sense of believability in the game world. At level one you can defeat the champion of the arena. This is the guy who's the strongest fighter in the whole city if not the country, but because the game revolves around you the level 1 noob straight out of prison the champion will be nicely scaled down for you to beat.

This isn't a powergamer issue. This is a roleplaying issue. One day you'll level up and everyone around you suddenly has brand new armor, all at the same time. Where did all the NPC get their shiny new ebony and glass armors when yesterday they were in iron and leather? It makes no sense and destroys the immersion.

It also destroys any sense of danger. In every other game including Morrowind there's always that badass dungeon that you just know is waiting to tear you a new one if you're stupid enough to venture inside. You know you'll need to practice your skills, upgrade your armor, etc to even have a chance and you know that if by some miracle you do manage to beat it the rewards will be awesome. Well not in this game. That dungeon doesn't exist. You can be sure that every dungeon you set foot in will have monsters that are just at your level, not too hard and not too easy. You also know that the spoils will be equally as bland: nothing spectacular but nothing bad either. Everything will be mediocre and just about right for your level.

Am I the only one who sees the problem here? How can you roleplay your guy when the world isn't believable? There's no incentive to get stronger, not that you can anyway relative to anyone or anything else. Where's the challenge? Where's the sense of accomplishment? I would choose godmode in Morrowind every single time over this.

I see the problem. It sounds horrific.

I know many here will (and it's their prerogative) will say that the goal is non-linearity and the levelling issues are a price worth paying to retain that, and keep the big world where the immersion factor comes from being able to do anything at any time.

Personally I'm old fashioned, and in RPGs like to have dungeons of set difficulty, that you fight in when you are ready. But that's just me.