Oblivion: A new approach

[Spongiform]

I think Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is pretty well known by now (kicking a skull down the stairs, etc). I was getting tired of it and almost stopped bothering with it entirely until I tried out Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul last week.

Basically, in the regular game, nearly all the enemies are automatically leveled to you. They will range from a few levels above to a few levels below, dynamically being updated or replaced as you progress through the game. That was a really dumb idea. It means that all your fights and dungeon raids are basically the same difficulty, and you are actually punished for leveling up.

This Oscuro guy essentially rebalanced everything, so that Oblivion's gameplay closely resembles that of Morrowind. The vast majority of enemies are now at a static level, and distributed throughout the game world so that stronger enemies will be in the more remote areas away from cities. He also adds a ton of new content that makes use of a lot of features of the game's code that weren't really taken advantage of. For example, different types of animals now belong to factions that you can increase your standing with by doing certain quests. This means that you can, later in the game, have a group of mountain lions that follow you around and help you fight.

In my opinion this makes the game much more challenging and fun. When you're looking for Nirnroot in the back-ass-end of nowhere swamp area, you actually have to watch out for stuff that's stronger than you. I've had a lot of narrow escapes, like when I was getting the book from the mountaintop for the Mages Guild guy and narrowly avoided getting owned by a random minotaur that could have killed me in one hit. This is when I am still level 1. You really have to watch your back when traveling, too, because when you are still low level the bandits can be really dangerous, but fortunately not dangerous enough that you can't get past them with a little skill and improvisation. There is still high level loot, of course, but you have to really beat the odds to get it. So even if your character isn't that powerful yet, there are rewards for being a better player.

Has anyone else tried this? Does anyone here still play Oblivion? Do you think it gets repetitive after a while?

[Mista]

This seems like a really cool mod. Sadly, I have the 360 version since my comp is shit. It always reminded me of FF8... the whole everything is the same level. My friends would brag about being awesome at FF8 and I'd go "You're an idiot!"

There might be some other people here who play it though. Oblivion I mean.

[Arc Orion]

I just reinstalled Oblivion recently. Indeed, OOO is pretty awesome, and I will be using it on this install. I'm also looking to install Martigen's Monster Mod as well, as it should make some big changes to the various NPCs and creatures, varying them more and altering the AI. It's also designed to work with OOO via a component, so I'm hoping it'll be a pretty good combo.

[Arres]

I loved Oblivion but when I figured out the monster scaling I was no longer willing to play. That added to the difficulties inherent in the way they did offensive magic and the fact that player created magic items were GUARANTEED to suck, and player created spells were usually junk was too much for me to put up with. I may attempt another try with this mod someday. As a warrior of course. They hate mages

[ampersand]

They lost me at Oblivion when I died during the introduction phase of the game. Twice. And yeah, the automatic leveling of opponents is exceptionally lame.

[Arc Orion]

You died twice during the intro? Wow, you suck.

[Mista]

How did you manage that?

[ampersand]

Trying to play a magic user, and two mice attack me from behind and by the time I figure out how to use the buttons to fight, I died. Reload, and died the very same way. And yes, I do suck at this game.

[Spongiform]

I loved Oblivion but when I figured out the monster scaling I was no longer willing to play. That added to the difficulties inherent in the way they did offensive magic and the fact that player created magic items were GUARANTEED to suck, and player created spells were usually junk was too much for me to put up with. I may attempt another try with this mod someday. As a warrior of course. They hate mages

Actually, the player created spells tend to be more energy-efficient than the premade ones, and have the added benefit that you can make them exactly the strength that you want.

They did completely nerf enchantment compared to Morrowind, though. In Morrowind you were basically only limited by your spells and your intelligence stat (and ingenuity). In Oblivion you are only allowed to enchant after you do all the errands, and it's ridiculously expensive, and there's no way to make it profitable. Plus they took out a lot of options of the way the enchantments worked, and restricted you from using certain effects.

I got a mod that adds spellmaking and enchanting altars to all the mages guilds, though, so that makes it a little better.

[Arc Orion]

Well, it seems that the newest version of Martigen's Monster Mod isn't compatible with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. I've played around with them a bit and can't get them to work well at all. From what I can tell, I think the current MMM compatibility plugin was designed for an older version of OOO. Thus, I am going to try using Francesco's Leveled Creatures/Items. It isn't as wide in scope as OOO, but it changes quite a few things (including, of course, fixed levels for creatures), and I've read that it works well with MMM.

Also, to those who like installing Oblivion mods, get Timeslip's Oblivion Mod Manager. One can use it to create omod packages from existing mods. These packages can be used to easily install/uninstall mods. It also includes a compatibility report, which checks for any conflicts between mods, and allows the changing of load order for mods, which can help resolve some conflicts.

[AzraeL]

All this talk has made me want to put Oblivion back onto my computer, with some mods..

That and I won a copy of Two Worlds and have played through a bit of it.

[Arc Orion]

I just ran into a mod that might make magic users a bit more usable. Supreme Magicka is a mod that overhauls the magic system in Oblivion to make magic users more powerful. It introduces improved enchantments, as well as altering various spells, and reorganizing the spellcasting schools somewhat. Certain spells (e.g., Chameleon) have been weakened slightly to reduce their abuse. It also introduces "circle" spells, which damage opponents around the player. The mod requires the Oblivion Script Extender.

A similar mod is Mighty Magick, which also increases the strength of various spells in order to make them more viable. It also introduces "sustained spells", which cost very little to cast, but rather than having an instant effect, remains active constantly, incurring a magicka cost while active. Sustained spells are designed to work for Conjuration spells, as well as some Alteration and Restoration spells.

[Spongiform]

Those sound pretty cool, maybe I will check them out. I don't know if magic needs to be made stronger necessarily, just smarter. I like that constant effect thing a lot.

Lose 100 points for linking to Planet Elder Scrolls, though.

[Jedi_Vader20]

After playing oblivion (and its expansions!) since it came out, a couple of months ago I got bored with it, ramped my stats, and replaced the battle music with the benny hill theme.

The result: hilarity!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wXvDpdd8aZc

[Dreamer]

I still play Oblivion regularly. In fact, I've never beaten in. Never. I could, but I enjoy it too much, I just keep going back and starting over.

I think I'll stick with my character this time and actually beat the game. Simple Redguard fighter.

But to whomever things player created weapons and spells suck... There's no better spell or weapon in the game than the player created ones. Nothing better. Not Umbra, not Goldbrand.

If you take a simple iron dagger and enchant it with drain health 100 and weakness to magicka 100% for 3 seconds you get a weapon that does 300 dmg in 2 hits. one hit kills for pretty much any enemy. Mubra's enchantment sucks. who needs 120 seconds of soultrap? You can enchant soultrap on ANY weaon for 1 second and it recharges it self if you have Azura's star.

I have a series of spells I use regularly too. Assassin's Breach and Assassin's touch.

Breach is a weakness to magicka for 5 seconds spell combined with invisibility for 10 seconds. Then the touch was soul trap 1 second, drain health 100 pts for 1 second and invisibility for another 5-10 seconds. Using this it's possible to clear a dungeon without once being detected.

You're only limited by your creativity with spells and weapons. But the most powerful weapon or spell in Oblivion is always the one you create.