The Oblivion Thread vol. II

[snoopy369]

Hmmm... just found out yesterday that I hadn't finished Kvatch yet. Thought I had, but apparently closing the gate isn't the end of it

Wow, was it hard ... I definitely am playing a very "powerful" build, especially once I upped blade a lot. I probably should start wearing actual armor - still using the Robe of the Conjuror - but I've got 100 conjuration skill, 75 alteration, 50 destruction, 50 blade, 75 light armor, and basically just conjure nasty monsters and let them do the fighting in large rooms like this ... but still had quite a hard time with this battle.

I did it at level 18, or maybe 17. Spider daedra in the last battle, the big hard one before the last one was three storm atronachs and some clannfears.

Xivlai btw I've not encountered yet ... but I can summon one. I think the Daedroth is a more effective summon though even though it's a lot cheaper (50% the cost in MP) ... but I haven't found anything better than the Daedroth in terms of damage dealing OR damage absorbing (the latter is really what I want it for anyway). Conjuring is definitely the "Easy" way to survive hard battles ...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
[q=Sir Ralph]Meaning, over the same level range my opponents gained much more power than myself.[/q]

Or rather, your fellow soldiers at Kvatch didn't level up with you or the opponents. At earlier levels, they can help clear out monsters. At higher levels, they die very quickly. That's the main problem, the fellow soldiers are static level.

There were fellow soldiers in the battle of Kvatch? Never saw any. Oh, now that you mention it, yep, there were some, who however didn't even last over the first battle, except that one dude, who can't die, but "falls unconscious" and gets back up after each battle, only to be one-hit in the next.

[Harovan]

By the way, I always giggle when I read or hear the word Kvatch, because it is homophone to the German word Quatsch, which means something along the lines of hogwash or nonsense. Quite appropriate, I have to admit.

[Solver]

Kvatch wasn't there by accident as a name I'm sure .

Now if Oblivion could have less Latvian sounding names...

[Quillan]

I'm going to spoiler what I encountered during the Battle, since some of you may not have played it yet.

Spoiler:

The captain and 2-3 of his soldiers went out of the chapel into the city with me. Out there, we found a few daedra. I recall one Xivilai, 2 Daedroths and a storm atronach. Lost one soldier (the archer) but that was it. Then he discovered the gate was closed, and sent me back in to the chapel to get the key from another guard, and make my way through the tunnel to open it.

I got the key from that guard, and he and one other Kvatch guard headed down to the tunnels. Also at this time (might have been random), but 2-3 Imperial Guards showed up asking to help. So we all went down into the chapel undercroft. BIG fight. 2 Xivilai, at least 4 daedroths, and I think a storm atronach. End result, nobody lived but me, but then a couple more Imperial Guard show up. We all go out the opposite end of the undercroft into another blocked off area of the city. Now, here's 2 storm atronachs, 2 spider daedra, a daedroth and a xivilai, all at once. Again, nobody lives but me. So I have to solo the rest of it. Fortunately I didn't have to fight more than 2 at a time until I got to the tunnel.

Once I got out of the tunnel and opened the gate, along comes the captain and his two surviving companions. Inside the gate are FOUR storm atronachs, 3 spider daedra, a daedroth and 2 xivilai. This is not counting anything the Xivilai might have summoned. Everything dies but me. The captain went down 3 times in that fight.

The castle interior was a cakewalk compared to the courtyard.

I have a suggestion for you guys. If you find a light weapon with a damage enchantment on it, carry it with you all the time. Use it when you get gang tackled. You tend to get knocked around a lot when multiple mobs are beating on you, which can prevent you from making power attacks. I had enchanted a daedric dagger with 20 points of fire damage on strike, and used it a lot against those storm atronachs. Just spam click the left mouse button, and let the fire damage do the work. I had a really nice staff that I used to finish off the rest (30 points shock damage in a 10 ft radius for 2 seconds on target, 100% weakness to shock in a 10 ft radius for 2 seconds on target), but storm atronachs are immune to shock damage, so I had to finish them another way.

[Fve Crathva]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
A pretty easy solution would be to make the scaling not depend on your level, but on your combat abilities - either the strongest or an average.

Let's see if there's enough brains in the developers to do this.

A better solution would be to ensure that non-combat skills can be used to gain an advantage in combat (e.g. a high mercantile rating is needed to buy the best armour and scrolls, a high speechcraft can be used to gain cohorts, enemies can be snuck past with a high sneak, etc.). Of course, the clear problem with that is that it requires that players not be retarded, so maybe your idea was better.

SP

[Dis]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
Just faced one of the toughest quests so far. The second fighter guild mission in Anvil is wicked. You have to face 3 enemies that are way better than you are (or at least better than I was). The only way I managed to take them out was by running away. They followed me but unfortunately the guards did not seem to like them. I did manage to kill two of them, but the guards polished of the 3rd.

I may end up starting over one more time. I do not think that I quite have my characters skills picked correctly.

It seems that even minor skills can be vastly improved by using them a lot. I picked alchemy as a major skill, and use it more than any other to mix everything that isn't nailed down into a potion to sell back to the shops.

However, that causes me to level prematurely, it should have been a minor skill. I've been sitting in the mages guild casting the light spell and the minor detect life skill to improve my minor skills of illusion and mysticism.

They seemed to increase nicely. Although I don't get the boosts to my stats from them, who cares, as long as I can get them to the levels that I need to cast the good spells.

Now comes the question.

What are the best major skills?

yep, those 3 thieves were tough. I had to take a potion of healing during that battle.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Solver
Kvatch wasn't there by accident as a name I'm sure .

Reminds me of the old Everquest with city names like Qeynos (Sony EQ backwards), Felwithe (White Elf) and many, many others.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Dis


yep, those 3 thieves were tough. I had to take a potion of healing during that battle.

I obviously must have been lucky.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Fve Crathva

A better solution would be to ensure that non-combat skills can be used to gain an advantage in combat (e.g. a high mercantile rating is needed to buy the best armour and scrolls, a high speechcraft can be used to gain cohorts, enemies can be snuck past with a high sneak, etc.). Of course, the clear problem with that is that it requires that players not be retarded, so maybe your idea was better.

SP

Um ... they don't?

Mercantile allows you to sell stuff for more $$, meaning you get better weapons/armor/spells.

Speechcraft allows you to find out more informaion, meaning you can more easily achieve quests.

Sneak allows you to backstab for 6x damage.

Etc...

Perhaps some of the skills should be more powerful, but ... you don't have to take them as major skills Honestly, I'd rather not have most of the combat skills as major skills anyway. Level too fast that way

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy

Now comes the question.

What are the best major skills?

I've posted earlier, but basically, have none of the superfast levelling skills:

Blade, Blunt Weapon, Destruction, Armor (l/h), Athletics, Acrobatics

Avoid these hard to control skills, unless they're needed for your build:
Mercantile, Speechcraft, Security

Skills that are great to have, because they're controllable (you can choose to level them or not very easily):
Illusion, Alteration, Mysticism, Alchemy, Sneak

Block and Conjuration are okay also; Block, if you actually use it, and Conjuration is easily "practicable", though if you use it too much it'll level too fast.

[Dis]

had my first crash to desktop today. I feel special. But it's actually a much more stable game than Morrowind ever was. I got it after closing a second Kvatch gate during the loading screen. I also had a couple freezes in the second oblivion gate. I think it's those towers that shoot fireballs that caused the freezes. Other than that, I've had pretty good framerate.

[FrostyBoy]

The only thing I feel this game is lacking is that there should be a few other people, like me, running around, killing people, training, doing quests.. etc..

I wonder if that would be hard to implement.. ?

[snoopy369]

Probably not too hard, though they're not going to be THAT smart. You could certainly have people dressed up as adventurers going out into the wilderness with waypoints that took them through monster infested areas ... it wouldn't be realistic if you followed them around, but it might add a bit of realism. (Essentially creating an NPC whose "job" is to go out and kill mobs, instead of hoeing grapes...)

[FrostyBoy]

That's cool enough.

What about equipping items, changing clothes, sleeping, eating, some causing havoc like killing random people, or eating ALL the food some place?

Then, on your travels, you would come across this guy, and then maybe a few days later, you would see him again in a completely different place, but he is wearing different clothes and different weapons.
Or you could come up to a small village, and see this guy tearing it up and you can run in and save the day.
Or maybe you will find someone in the caves, taking all your loot, so you have to kill him to get your loot.