Quick question. Just started to get into Oblivion. With tradition RPG games, you can somewhat tell the level of what you are fighting (since most just say - Level X). Is there any way to know before you attack something in Oblivion or is it just a matter of gaming experience knowing that at level 1 I can face a goblin but, face a bandit and I'll probably get killed...

Everything is actually scaled to your level. A feature that I fiound moderately annoying, truth be told.

Same here. It kind of took me out of the game when everything is scaled to me. "Where did all of the wolves go?" It's just...anti-immersive to constantly repopulate areas with different mobs.

Maybe if they could have built a story around it. Like the land was getting overrun by forces of darkness, and it just kept getting worse as time went on (as you leveled), but...oh well.

I think the problem is (and I'm sure this has been touched on in this thread before), is the fact that if you're like me, you do all sorts of side quests / screw around before bothering with the majority of the main plot.

Inevitably, you gain levels. Trouble is, when the daemonic guys scale in level, it seems as if they also expect you to have better equipment than the junk you probably do have (which you of course, couldn't get until you DO go through the main quests). Start on the main quest at about level 6, and at normal difficulty, you're going to get utterly mauled with mediocre equipment.

I don't even think I got to the main quest. I played the game for about 30-40 hours, got my money's worth out of it, but it was all side quests and general exploring.

That was the most annoying feature to me. I want the challenge of being weak at the start of the game and having to build up my character. This feature takes that away to a large extent. I don't mind upper end scaling where they make things harder to always provide more of a challenge at high levels, but I don't like scaling mobs down to the character's level.

I know I read about a mod that removes that scaling.

Come to think of it.. I wonder if I installed one of those. I thought everything was scaled to your level but, sure didn't seem like that when I was playing. I have the OOO mod and Francescos Mods installed. I'll have to revisit those... Then I guess it is just a matter of knowing who you can take on and who you can't. Even bandits are beating the crap out of me right now.

Yeah, I think there's a few, but I never tried them and don't know how well they work.

Yeah, I posted it earlier in this thread:
http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...&postcount=496

Yep, I did that mod...

No wonder my ass was getting kicked. Entirely different game with it.

I like the "mobs" being scaled over Gothic's approach of not letting you know until what you attack completely rips you apart.

My problem with the auto-levelling is you are turning into a high-level character able to take on some mean demons, yet have trouble getting to the next city because the bears are kicking your butt...

I am thinking to give Oblivion another shot, and read that Francesco's Mod is even better than the Oscuro mod.

Linkie: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.co....Detail&id=268

The description on the link page explains it all, but basically it fixes all the things that people disliked with leveling creatures, treasure, armor, etc. Looks awesome.

Just getting back into the game, having a blast just walking around checking things out. In my opinion it is close to one of the best "sandbox" RPG's out there, if not the best. This is coming from someone who has never been able to get into RPG's much except for the RPG-lite WoW and for Knights of the Old Republic for it's movie-esque approach.

I've been tempted to get back into WoW with the new expansion out, but I'm know there is no way I can play WoW casually. It nearly ruined my life last time. I've got to stay far far away.

Instead, I'm going to upgrade my video card and go back to Oblivion (modded) and perhaps Morrowind as well. Even if I go nuts with those two games the total time spent will be a fraction of what it would be if I were to go back to WoW.

The first time I played Oblivion, the leveled monsters/loot took quite a bit of the fun out of the game as my character progressed through the mid-game. It sounds like the mods address this issue pretty well, so I'm excited to get back into it.

One big question, though, is whether to wait for the expansion! I think it's called Shivering Isles, and I believe it's due out this month. Normally I'd wait for its release before I started playing Oblivion again, but I have a feeling it's going to take the mods a long time to catch up.

any movement on this?

Any movement on what?

The rediscovery of Oblivion.

I'm getting a new PC soon, and am thinking about getting it.

Specifically, I'm wondering about that mod GB posted a link to.

Haven't played around with any of the mods, but Oblivion is one of the best games I have ever played. If you enjoy RPGs, buy it.

I just restarted Oblivion with Francesco's mod. I've just picked my class and entering the sewers, so I don't think I've run into any of his modded bits just yet.

The boys and I have played Gothic 3 twice through and we're waiting for the expansion pack to play again. In the meantime, I picked this game up since we like exploring 3D worlds. We'll probably start playing soon so not wanting to read through all of this, anything major we need to know about?

If you're playing the computer version, I'd seriously consider one of the level-scaling mods that help give the game a greater balance and longevity. I think Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is considered the best still (but you may want to do some research just incase). It adds alot, not just fixing the issue with monsters scaling directly to your level but fixing issues with items becoming too easy to get and many other things.

I just picked up this game on the PC version (can't decide between and Breton spellcaster or Dark Elf for both combat and spells). Of stupid question, but I have spent a while and can't figure it out.

I'm still in the sewer, I have a spell active and also a short sword. I have pressed the f key to activate the sword, but every time a left-click, I throw a fireball. I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I would like to try combat to see if I like it and it seems that a Dark Elf might be fun playing both.

Can anyone help???

You sound like exactly where I was at the weekend before last. Played about 7 hours that weekend before giving up because the game, I thought, was really stupid. The things that I didn't like included the stupid persuasion thing with NPC and again, a nearly empty land. I hated Morrowind because it was a very ugly, empty land but Oblivion is far better looking but still empty. The only places where there are things to do (re: kill) are in the tombs and caverns and most of them look exactly alike, not to mention that there were only 2-3 'creatures' in most of them. Is the engine incapable of populating a world with a bunch of stuff (ala Gothic) and are the designers so unimaginative that they had to make most of the tombs alike??

Anyway, so we tried it again this past weekend and got much further - only this time really concentrating on being a mage (as well as changing my race to High Elf) and doing the Mage Quests. The quests are insipidly easy - mainly go get something but nothing will ever stop you or make it hard to get that something. At least we got in a groove and will play it out, whatever the entails to become a really good made and finish the main quests.

To answer your question, look at your controls. The only way I throw a fireball is using one of the Ctrl keys that I mapped to (I forget what it was originally). To ready a sword, use the Space and swing away mashing the left button. I think F is to sheath the weapon, not activate it.

It's been a LONG time since I played the game, but it sounds like you are "stuck" in magic-casting mode. Like Bucc said, check out the keymap. Maybe you are not really "activating" the sword with the F key. I can't remember how the controls went.

To be clear, you CAN see the sword on the screen when you are trying to use it, right? (If you can't, then the sword is sheathed). And you do have the weapon equipped, right?

I also find the HotKeys useful.

I can see the weapon on the screen in my left hand or I can see the bow if I equip it. Although I have not tried the space key. After playing WoW for so long, this game's interface doesn't seem anywhere near intuitive.

However, in a sick way, the sewer level was somewhat fun.

I felt the same way when going from WoW to NWN2. :)

Not sure about your problem. My memory might be off (it is sometimes :) ), but I thought you couldn't use magic when you had your weapon out in Oblivian.

I have NWN2 and put the game on the shelf after a short period of time. Maybe I'll dig it out again sometime.

Maybe I am in some "auto cast" mode but I can't figure out how to get out of. I have my sword drawn and as soon as I hit the left click, I throw a fireball. I have given up on playing the Dark Elf so I'm now playing a caster, but it is something that is just sticking in the back of my mind.

Thinking about picking this up. Anyone who played thiis for Xbox 360 know if a patch ever came out that changed the scaled enemies? Not that it is a flaw, mind you. I just don't like the sound of it.

I'm kinda thinking of getting this one too. Anyone know the answer to Ironhead's scaling question?

Quick question. Big fan of Morrowind and Daggerfell. Likely looking to get back into a good RPG now that I have upgraded my computer again to new excellent levels. Is this a game you would recommend?

I don't believe scaling was fixed on the 360, as I'm pretty sure it was working as they intended it to, they never said it was something that was broken. (I can't say for sure though).

As far as getting it for the PC, if you're into RPGs or open ended games I don't think you can go wrong with Oblivion, anything you don't like on the PC version you can pretty much fix and mod to your liking. The vanilla game is great on it's own, but there are also several mods to fix the scaling issues mentioned above too.

This is hilarious:

I played Oblivion blacked-out drunk and here's what happened (via picture story) - Facepunch Studios

LOL

WOW That is hilarious!

YOU'RE ALIVE!!! YAY!

just noticed this is up on steam for 29.99. never picked it up when it came out.

is it pretty much a "must buy??"

absolutely

If you enjoyed Morrowind and Fallout 3 then you'll probably enjoy Oblivion. If you haven't played Morrowind then you should know that combat in the elder scrolls series is not very engaging. They have an insane amount of content. Easily over 100 hours of gameplay if you do everything. I've found the main storylines to be rather bland, but some of the sidequests in Oblivion more than make up for it.

It's not a game for everyone, but if you like open ended RPGs with huge worlds and you aren't too picky about your combat then it's a game worth grabbing.

combat isn't too engaging in what way?

i've never been a huge RPG guy honestly (played one one-time an had a good time, but it wasn't amazing or anything), but i'm entranced by the huge open world

It's definitely a must buy for the 360 so I have to think (absent anything I can recall reading to make me think differently) that it's a must for the PC as well.

Melee combat is really just swing a sword or stab with a dagger. There really aren't any combos or anything fancy. Ranged combat is point at target and fire your arrow or cast your spell.

The huge open world is fantastic. There's some incredible questlines involving vampires and the thieves guild. The game is about as open ended as you can get. You're pretty much free to do anything you want from killing everyone in sight to simply doing sidequests and completely ignoring the main storyline.

that doesn't sound bad to me for combat honestly. means you don't have to be a joystick-jockey to succeed in combat.

i'll have to grab this then

I love the 360 version as well, but I wish my archaic PC could run Oblivion effectively because there's so many free user-created mods and add-ons. It's definitely worth the risk of your gaming dollar IMO, even if you typically don't like RPGs, as if you DO end up enjoying it, it can give you hundreds of hours of playtime.


It plays a lot differently than most RPGs, because of it's real-time first-person perspective, which offers a much more immediate and immersive experience than the typical RPG, but as noted this also takes it's toll on combat, which is more of a first-person slap-fest than the usual strategic RPG battles. Basically combat is just like melee combat in most first person shooters or stealth games, a little expanded, but still relatively uninspiring. You run up to someone and mash buttons until they're dead. That said, if you don't consider yourself an 'RPG guy', the lite combat and 1st person perspective might actually make it even more attractive to you. In Oblivion (and all of the Elder Scrolls games pretty much) the mechanics of combat plays second fiddle to creating as much of an immersive environment as possible. You can pick up every single plate, fork and knife in the world, let alone herbs, clothes, food, treasure and equipment. Everybody in the world has a voice (or at least damn close to it), a daily schedule, a home of some sort, and maybe even a job or a spouse...and usually a role in at least one quest. Beyond that, it actually does a pretty good job of satisfying even some of the hardcore RPG fans' typical wishes, with deep character creation and skill management, deep magic system, a pantheon of gods, tons of equipment, and the ability to create spells and artifacts of your own design.

If that even sounds semi-interesting, I'd say it was well worth the $30 risk.

thanks sloppy - yeah that definately sounds interesting!

while the other RPG I played (can't remember the name for the life of me right now at work) had more of a "traditional" combat system and that was okay too, the "melee combat" style of this doesn't seem like it would bother me at all, and I'd be more excited to interact with the environment and such.

plus, on a PC it's been modded the hell up hmm? So I imagine that must be fun

i didn't buy last night cuz of the time and the need to DL, but I will tonight!

be aware that you can get the game itself for cheaper. GoGamer has it for $15 and I'm pretty sure I got it for even less during one of their 48-hour madness deals (I think I got the game and one expansion for under $20). The Steam version has the 2 expansions (and I think the horse armor), but you will get a LOT of gameplay out of just the main game if you'd rather just toe the water - you can always pick up the expansions later

valid point. yeah, the steam version has the two expansions on it.

i don't know...i suppose i could find the game and expansions for cheaper. but $29.99 isn't a bad price if I get half as much gameplay out of it as people are saying, and it's also somewhat of a convienence thing, rather than ordering and having to wait.

thanks for the tip though, i'll at least run a froogle-search or something and make sure i'm not missing a great deal

@DaddyTorgo

You can actually pick up the Oblivion GOTY edition at Walmart for $19.99. Not sure if you shop at Walmart, but they usually have decent prices for PC games.

I have never played this one, but I did play Morrowind and I must say, that was an awesome game. I beat the main quest and many of the side quests while playing it on the original Xbox. I later bought it for the PC, but never really did much with it, as the mods didn't work right and kept crashing the game.

In any case, Elder Scrolls is a fantastic set of games that are well worth the money. I may still try Oblivion out. :)

we have a Walmart, and a Best Buy (where it also looks like it's around the same price). Maybe I'll bounce out to there tonight and try Best Buy first (since Walmart is sort of a "destination of last resort" in our family as far as shopping goes, due to their labor practices and such).

Saving $10 wouldn't be bad.

Forgot about Best Buy. Yeah, the GOTY edition comes packaged with the main game and both expansions. Good deal IMO.

yeah. maybe i'll bounce out to best buy after work and see. for fuck's sake though, i was just there on sunday (eyeing a PS3)

$19.99 just now at GameStop for base game + both expansions.

it's sitting in my bag waiting to be taken home and installed

Nice. Let us know what you think of it.

installed last night and fired it up to the somber voice of Patrick Stewart as Emperor Uriel (YAY!). And then the fuckers killed him!!! Now I'm fucking pissed!!

Figured the easiest way to play at least initially was as a warrior, so i went that route.

Played from like 9-12. Poked around a little bit, but delivered the Amulet and now figure I'll go off and do a couple of the side quests from that first town.

Very much enjoying it so far. Very much!

One thing I liked about the opening of Oblivion was that it gave you all the basic tools -- magic, ranged and melee -- and let you decide how to accomplish a set of goals before you choose your class. You discover a lot about yourself as a player. I learned that I am both a coward and a thief, slaying most of my victims from the shadows without them ever knowing that death was coming.

yeah - i think i'll enjoy being a sneaky archer or an assasin/thief type on later play-throughs, but this time around without knowing anything else I wanted to be a bit overpowered and well-armored.

i felt strongly compelled to deliver the amulet ASAP, but now there are some fun little side-quests I can do from that first town so maybe I'll check those out before finding the hidden-heir

:+1:

FWIW ... I'm going to assume (and figure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) that things are generally true on the console are also true on the PC. If that's the case, then remember that the game is leveled to your abilities, i.e. the higher your level the stronger the enemies you'll face at a given point.

Given my lack of experience with combat games in the past decade or so, I had to be very careful about not over leveling. I knew I'd be less capable in combat than a typical Lvl 25 whatever, so I had to manage my leveling to help create that "overpowered and well-armored" situation. Otherwise, it seemed pretty difficult to get ahead of the game in that way if you didn't pay attention to how & when you were leveling. The problem was so pronounced for me that within a very few levels I had to restart because things were pretty much hopeless for the hapless (like me). From there, playing smarter, it's become the game I call the best bang for the buck I've ever gotten.

Yeah, due to Oblivion's weird levelling/no-experience system, and the difficulty scaling, you do have to do some unconventional/unintuitive levellng if you want to be comparatively overpowered.

i thought there was a patch or a mod that fixed that though?

There is a bunch of mods that address the level scaling, but it's definitely not something that necessarily needs fixing. The trade off is that once you apply a mod, and leveling is no longer scaled, you are limited in where you can go, by the strength of your opposition, whereas when everything is scaled you can go pretty much anywhere you want in the entire world because nothing is going to be entirely outside of your capabilities.

For whatever it's worth, since play mostly on the 360, I don't even have the choice of messing with the scaling, and I DO play a character with combat skills as primary skills, and it's not any sort of problem to play the game the way it was intended, and with proper equipment I'm still able to overpower most of my opponents. I don't want to give you the impression that it's any "less fun" to play the vanilla game, it's just harder to make yourself completely overpowered relative to the riff-raff.

I play a combat guy and haven't run into too many issues with the leveling.

sounds good - i think i will prolly start looking at mods and such this weekend and just mess with the vanilla game till then.

You won't lack for mods to alter the game to be however you want it to be. Enough people didn't enjoy the level system that there are mods for increasing levels by spending gold, by XP (to make it more like a traditional RPG), or a number of options if you rather keep the level gain being tied to skill advances but not have to do something counter-intuitive with your major skill choices.

There are a few large mods that change the level scaling system for monsters as well if that's your preference.

i will need to read thru this whole thread of course, but is there like a central repository for mods and such on the interwebs?

Has anyone played with a character that had the Sign of the Atronach whereby they were unable to regenerate magicka but absorbed 50% of all spells cast on them?

I picked that sign and am only level 2 and am thinking of starting over. It's nearly impossible to regenerate magicka because I'm fighting people and creatures that don't use magic.

that's obnoxious sami - seems like it'd be cool later on but difficult early on when you're fighting all sorts of lower-level things

Which sign did you play with?

Planet Elder Scrolls - Maps, News, Oblivion, Cheats, Downloads

Ummm...shit. the warrior-one.

i didn't try to get too cute with my character creation this first time around. wanted to keep it simple.

:thumbsup:

thnx!

In Morrowind I stayed away from the magicka signs, never found them useful in the least.

Yeah, I imagine a person's real-life skill set & gamer style heavily influences how difficult they find certain aspects.

I can't emphasize enough how little time I had spent on shooters/combat/et al games in many years (shit, prior to Fallout 3 and then Oblivion remember the last time I shot/killed anything consistently since Duck Hunt). I just pointed out the leveling thing since he mentioned wanted to be overpowered & overarmored and it made me think about the problems I ran into (or worked pretty hard to avoid running into).

I have tried leveling both ways. And doing the efficient leveling thing is so time consuming tracking my skill gains that I don't enjoy the game as much. So now I just play it like it is and if I run into something that I can't handle I just turn the difficulty down a few notches to get past that part. I've been able to enjoy the story and quests much more without having to worry about raising blunt another level before alchemy because I won't get the optimum skill gain.

My current playthrough is a warrior with the warrior sign and I have made it through all the fighter's guild quests and halfway through the mage guild quests. I haven't even started the main quests except for delivering the amulet.