Now we descend into Oblivion ... (pt 3)

[Quillan]

It gets even easier, later, once those marauders start dropping Ebony and Daedric stuff. My first character, just to see how much money you could make, made a run through one of the marauder held forts when he was level 22. I made 3 trips back to town hauling every single thing they dropped to the merchants and selling it off. I made nineteen thousand gold from one fort.

[ZargonX]

Has anyone done the Sheogorath Shrine quest? I think it may be broken...

[Solver]

There are many awesome mods out now .

The one downside I see to Oblivion now is that a bit of immersion is lost when you get to a higher level. I like the level scaling system, but at a higher level, just about every random bandit wears a suit of Ebony armor, which is supposed to be exclusive/rare/amazing, etc. Why go rob some travellers on the road if you could sell your armor and live in luxury ?

[Spaced Cowboy]

Also invisibility seems to be a bit overpowered. My buddy says that all he does now is go invisible (via spell), backstab for 6X damage, step back and go invisible, rinse and repeat.

I don't have that spell yet so it is hard to say for sure.

I agree with solver and others....some monsters should just not scale with you.

I mean instead of buffed out highwaymen; just throw out a frost anatoch, or some other non-loot carrying creature, that be dangerous.

[asleepathewheel]

I think its especially weird to find an npc in full daedric armor. At least take the helmet off when you are at the in, buddy, tough to pick up winches like that.

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by yin26
El_Cid: Great post. Thank you!

You welcome

I found a great link on the elderscrolls site(shudder) with alot of info and links for many many mods/fixes to the game.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=25&t=383569

Its a good bookmark

I've added 'Realistic Persuasion 1.7' to my list of mods to try, as this is seriously un-balanced in the vanilla game,like does your speechcraft even matter anymore with the mini-game thing? I like what they are trying to do with the system(compared to morrowind) but imho its too easy to make speechcraft all but pointless - hopefuly this Mod will address this.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=382186&st=0

I've also got interested in 'Survival Suite 2.2' - for the effects of sleep/hunger/thirst! lol i'm hard core with my realism

http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=2436

and like the sound of a 'bed roll' mod, not sure which of these i'll try, and might wait abit until they are more advanced/easy to set up.here they are: (fixed bad link!)

1.http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=1805

2.http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=2524

I did decide to get rid of the 'Deadlier sneaking' mod - it felt a little too powerfull for my char, still if your an uber stealth type, and weak at hand-hand(magic users?) then it might be for you.

All in all i'm running or looking at running about a dozen mods to get the right Oblivion experience. Its going to help Oblivion earn a place in my top ten of all time games - its been along time since any game has got close

And i agree with the folks commenting on the loot leveling problem. I dont have a problem with the combat/power of the monsters leveling with me as much as i will do finding super 'rare' items on any common criminal i kill at level 15+. I'm sure this can be fixed with a Mod.........maybe it has already? Its difficult keeping up with anything to do with Oblivion modding etc.

Happy Oblivioning! and i hope we get a patch soon, even before the Mods i would still get the odd crash to desktop. Luckily with the autosave thing its never been a big blow.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
what I do is just pick up 100 picks at chorrol every time I swing through

Where in Chorrol do you get lockpicks? Do you have to be in the theives guild? I havn't come accross anyone there that sells more then one or two of them but the town/game is rather large.

[asleepathewheel]

whoops, I meant bruma. that's what I get when I'm posting away from my main pc. sorry

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Silver14


Where in Chorrol do you get lockpicks? Do you have to be in the theives guild? I havn't come accross anyone there that sells more then one or two of them but the town/game is rather large.

Finding lots of lockpicks isn't easy - i've tried to preserve as many of the ones i left the starter dungeon with. But just outside Chorral, on the rough ground between the Monastry and the town wall is an abandoned mine. I found half a dozen lockpicks in there after i cleared it out. In general once you've bought all the ones the merchants sell, you have to wait a few days before they get re-stocked.

MOD UPDATE:

Well I'm very impressed with the 'Realistic Persuasion 1.7' Mod - with my Persuasion stat of 40 and speachcraft as a minor skill(17 i think), its no longer possible for me to 'cheat' on the persuasion mini game. Now both those skills really do have an understandable effect, and i've been forced to bribe people when needing that important info(like the beggars in Imperial City). I'm so happy this Mod fixes that broken bit of the game.

And same with 'Survival Suite 2.2', it all makes more sense now(actualy bothering to eat the 'free' food when getting a room in an inn for example), and has helped me get into my char much more. I've even gone back to my earliest save to start over and see how these work. Its good - it makes money much more important now.

I've been too skint to afford an inn due to having to spend more on food(and bribes!) and was forced to sleep out in a ruin. Also now when i see the deer running around my Archer hand twitches, thinking of the venison! The balance is good - not extreme, but just enough to make all that food worth the computer modelling!

I think if a decent 'bed roll' mod is completed, this will make a perfect companion to the Survival Suite

I should also add that i think its probably important to use a slow levelling mod in conjunction with the Survival Suite mod(i'm using 'Level Rates Modified' x5 version) as now you really do have to sleep, which of course in the unbalanced vanilla Oblivion(way to easy/fast to level on combat skills) meant leveling very quickly.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think this weekend I'll taking on some shrine quests (Azura and Noctural). Maybe do some Guild quests, and sleep so I can get some Dark Brotherhood quests .

I haven't downloaded any mod to change the game (if I ever do, I'll do it after I've beaten the main quest and want to start over). My mods have been to change the look of the game. BTMod 2.2 is NECESSARY (smaller font on UI, bigger map, numbers over health, magic, & fatigue bars)! I also recommend the BT Mod's customization package, which allows you to alter the XML files in detail. I also like the Better Water mod and the LOD mods, allowing distant textures to look nice and the water to look amazingly top notch .

[Quillan]

Originally posted by El_Cid


Finding lots of lockpicks isn't easy

Actually, it is. There are a few sources of them. First is a guy named Shady Sam. He's a vendor outside Imperial City. He's right against wall, just a little past the stables. He's got 30 lockpicks for sale, as well as a bunch of poisons. Anyone can buy from him, but if I remember correctly, persuasion is not an option to raise disposition. I'm not sure how often he restocks.

Second is the Thieves Guild. Each fence has 100 lockpicks, restocked daily. Depending upon your rank in the guild, you may not be able to buy from certain ones. The lowest rank can only buy in Bruma. The second is in Leyawiin, the third is in Bravil, the fourth in Anvil and the final fence is in the Elven Gardens district.

Third is the Dark Brotherhood. Up until the Purification mission, the Khajiit in the sanctuary has got a stock of lockpicks he'll sell. After you become the Listener, the new Speaker will find a new vendor for the sanctuary.

Fourth is any goblin or bandit lair. Just kill them and take what you want.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Btw, I also recommend DarN's tweaks to the BTMod .

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=394428

[yin26]

Thanks, Irman. I just downloaded a bunch of those and love them.

[Traianvs]

The orc merchant selling weapons in the Imperial city (can't remember the name of his shop) also sells lockpicks I think...

[El_Cid]

I should have said finding lockpicks isn't as easy as it was in Morrowind
And if you are not a member of the thieves guild it's very possible to run out of them, even after buying all the ones you can find - At first i thought the lockpick mini game was going to be too easy, but its amazing how you can just watch the lock tumblers go up, stay up a second , come down and NOT click to put it in place - then next go you try to click straight away and 'clink', another broken Lockpick

Ok I've scraped the 'bed roll' Mods(i tried both i linked to above), they are kinda annoying to use and i've only just realised that with the 'Survival Suite 2.0' mod you can also buy a bedroll in shops where you get the water flasks+Iron rations from. A side note on the 'Survival Suite 2.0' - if you want to remove it, make sure your char is first not suffering any effects of the Mod - you need to be at the 'Satiated' level with non of your stats reduced. If not then when you next save that char, it will keep the reduced stat forever!

Normaly i would agree with people about not Modding a game, but its become clear to me that vanilla Oblivion has a few game balance issues especialy associated with the speed of levelling. This in turn 'shortens' what should be the best bit of the game - exploring as many quests as possible before reaching a high level where all your defeated enemies drop ebony+daedric weapons+armour.

And from my point of view, Oblivion is such a great game i just want it to be even better. They have re-introduced aspects of Dagerfall(still maybe my current fav Elder scrolls game - although with the mods i feel Oblivion could take its place) that make the game harder than Morrowind, which i like - its just a shame that they seemed to decide to cop out at the last minute and make Oblivion with its target audience in mind(i guess console gamers?) - thus it tends to favour combat and makes it easy to improve your char down that road of play, in good old FPS style.

In vanilla Oblivion it seems harder to actualy role-play a char(compared to any other TES game) - especialy with the reduced stats/char choices, and even some of them not meaning anything in the game world(like persuasion/speachcraft).

So in this case i've found i've needed Mods to redress those imbalances(or design features?) that make Oblivion an rpg for the many 'leet' FPS console fans thats just how it feels to me. I should add that i own two consoles that i enjoy - so i'm not using that as an insult, more a description of why Oblivion is as it is.

The sad thing is that i'm not sure what will happen when the patches(yep i think we will need more than one!) start to come out in reference to all the fan made mods?

As you can tell i've been trying alot of mods - but i've been keeping away from the ones that change the overall aspect of the game(i think one of the more popualr mods makes Oblivion even more combat orientated with massive respawns of enemies/creatures all the time - so you end up having to fight constantly - sigh! a sign of the times ).

First I wanted to resolve a few game balance issues - to bring more role play to the game, and make it a bit more challanging in some area's.
Second I wanted to have to sleep(like in Dagerfall) and eat as there is lots of food in the game, and brings a level of realism i just like.
Thirdly i wanted to improve the look of the game without hitting the performance too hard.
Last but not least i wanted to improve my immersion in the game world.

My Mod list that seems to help me reach those goals without breaking/overbalancing anything is:

1. No more annoying messages(Lite version) - gets rid of 'loading area' type mesaage.

2. Lod replacement textures - massivly improves the look of the distant landscape(large download though!)

3. Call Steed + the Saddlebags mods, the latest of each - makes a horse a real companion but not uber transport. It would be nice if one of these mods also made a horse less tough than they are in vanilla Oblivion

4. Realistic Persuasion - fixes a big bug in the game imho.

5. Survival suite - adds a level of realism i like, with your char needing sleep/food, also helps you use your money on a day-to-day basis - which adds a certain challange in the early game.

6. Reduced Leveling Mod - i've set this to level at the slowest rate(x5) and it means i'm not now leveling after every quest/dungeon as i used to more or less. the x3 or x4 version are less hardcore though.

7. No psychic gaurds - it balances the game a little better for thief classes.

with these Mods i've found my game becoming more like a roleplaying game and less like an FPS leveling whore wannabe, or should that be 'more like a TES game in the tradition of the early series'?