Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Sculli said:
Oh man Rones ..., just go buy the game, it's worth it no matter how you look at it (i.e. price per hour of entertainment, or contribution to the people who developed it).
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Yeah, I'm seriously considering picking it up with a strat guide. I was lerely because I disliked 3 after a couple hours of play. Although, this would be a very good teaching aide for Spanish classes. Even with only 2years of Spanish, I'm reading a little of the text. Kind of odd when the town guards say "Hello, how are you?" in English voice over, but the subtitle says "What's up?" in Spanish. :biggrin:
 
Can anyone explain to me why this game has 100,000 worthless items (ingredients?) that don't do anything and sell for 0-2 coins? I ran into this in the first one too, and it was a big turn off. Empty crates I can live with, but having all these odd little thing scattered everywhere is annoying. I know there is supposed to be a crafting system some place, but geeze there are so many different items you would never find what you are looking for.
 
Major thread necro, but still, how are those who play the game are doing?
I sadly didn't have any time to play it at all, will try to squeeze in a couple hours next week sometime.

How's regular random levelling vs. "forced leveling" going, if anyone attempted the forced method?
 
I'll force leveling by turning down the difficulty and pissing off about 10 guards or so and let them beat on me for a while until my block and armor skills have increased. It's a fun game, but eventually it just gets really repetitve. If you have it on PC, I HIGHLY recommend some of the mods they have, as it vastly improves gameplay(Keychain ftw). I haven't played in about a month because I just got bored with it; but then I'm not really big on games without some kind of defined goal, be it story or some gameplay aspect or something.
 
Brynne at GameFAQs came up with a Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Balanced Character Creation Guide where she talks about how tricky it was to clear some of the early dungeons because of "wrong" character development choices early on in the game.

She then goes on to explain "Random Skilling and Forced Skilling"

Byrnne said:
There's a lot to be said for the random skillup. Diving into a
dungeon, sword drawn, armor clanking, magic blazing at your
fingertips, you really have to love the thrill of the entire
environment in Oblivion. If you know that you won't get skills in
your major skills unless you so desire, then go ahead. Get some extra
Blade or Athletics points. It shouldn't hurt you in the long run and
will definitely help ensure that your character can meet any challenge
they face.

On the other hand, forced skilling allows you to control every aspect
of your character, getting the skills that you planned for. It sounds
a bit impossible, considering that you probably can't see how to force
Blade, Light Armor and other fighting skills without being in a
dungeon. There is, however, a way. A way without cheating, even.
It's called Conjuration.
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Yeah, I took acrobatics and aerobics out of my major skill lists early on, because they were such a pain to level. For major skills on my main character I've got stealth, blades, light armor, restoration, security, block and I think hand to hand skill. Mages can level insanely easy, just spam your magics and you're leveling up.
 
There really is no reason to force level in this game. Their whole design was around leveling naturally as you play. If you find a skill is too low and need it higher there are commands you can type in the console to just up it right away. Typing in a command > 5 hours of running in a corner or 5 hours of letting your pet beat on you. You play to have fun, not watch the game play itself.

I also recommend downloading the +5stat leveler. You'll always get +5 in the stat as long as you lvled at least one skill in that attribute. This prevents the need to tediously level only the skills in the attributes you want for those 10 lvls. This lets you focus on playing instead.
 
Rones said:
There really is no reason to force level in this game. Their whole design was around leveling naturally as you play. If you find a skill is too low and need it higher there are commands you can type in the console to just up it right away. Typing in a command > 5 hours of running in a corner or 5 hours of letting your pet beat on you. You play to have fun, not watch the game play itself.

I also recommend downloading the +5stat leveler. You'll always get +5 in the stat as long as you lvled at least one skill in that attribute. This prevents the need to tediously level only the skills in the attributes you want for those 10 lvls. This lets you focus on playing instead.
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Which is a huge improvement over Morrowind. Enemies change in the area based off your level in Oblivion. First time I got to Kvatch, Scamps came out of the gate and were around the Cathedral Martin was held up in. Second time(Game crashed during loading an area, ruining the autosave,) I did some of the side quests, and got to Kvatch with more levels on me, and instead of scamps, there were flame atronarchs.

Morrowind, monsters were static, regardless of your level, resulting in the final boss to be super easy if you did side quests and guild jobs.

But yeah, Mages had it easy in Oblivion, since skills just went up as you cast, you didn't necessarily need to hit anything with offensive stuff, or actually cure any HP for restoration. Same thing with aerobics and athletics. While going place to place just jump alot, or swim through a lake instead of going around. Do the same with magic while traveling. Instant travels fine and all, but the big part about Oblivion for me was the environment and exploration.

I just wish the wait slider went in to days/weeks. Waiting the two weeks for the game completion armor set was horrible, having to wait 24 hours 14 times.

The only problem I had through out the game was that one crash, and the main quest ending movie stuttered horribly :( And a personal problem was I prefered light armor, yet couldn't find Glass Armor for the life of me. Glass weapons, Daedric Weapons and Daedric Armor, but no Glass armor, I really liked how glass looked in Morrowind, and was hoping it looked pretty slick in Oblivion. I ended the main quest with Mithril Helm, Mail, and Gloves, Elven Greaves, Boots, and Shield. Needless to say, I looked like big bird running around in chainmail.

Might start killing people to see if I can join the Dark Brotherhood now. Or just start again and cheat my way to a Skull of Corruption and make an evil clone of Martin. heh.
 
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After installing it on my laptop, it didn't run too well. In fact, it had problems going past the opening cut scene while selecting 'new game'. After waiting until I got all moved into my apartment and built my new PC, I installed it. So far, I love it! Absolutely gorgeous effects! Of course, I was even more amazed when after installing, "Video settings set for high quality." appeared on the screen. After some tweaking to see how it would perform with everything turned up to the max... I was even more surprised to see it run flawlessly. This just makes the game even more enjoyable, as the shading, texturing, and graphics rendering totally just blows my mind away.

Anyways, I haven't had a lot of time to play it, but have made some good progress so far. I have downloaded some of the mods, but haven't had a chance to try and implement them into the game, although they do look very nice. One skill I noticed was very difficult to level was Marksmanship. It takes forever in a day to level marksman. I incorporated Sneak into my major skills, and it is by far the easiest thing to level out of any other. Acrobatics comes in second (Just jump everyhwhere you go!). I also thought traveling by horse was incredibly cool! One thing, though. I have very hard times collecting gold in this game. Not sure if I'm just not to a stage where it's possible to obtain decent amounts, but I find myself spending most of what I have on spells, repair hammers, and lockpicks. Oh, and arrows. I did something rather funny early on, that slightly amused me. I saw those katana's the monks were wielding, and wanting one, I waited until no one was looking, and killed the lowest health monk I could see (after the battle at the prior's place) and stole his katana, and gold. Later on, had I realized, you join the faction and can obtain any item within the Blade's faction as your own, including full sets of the blade's armor, lol. Rather funny if you ask me. Also, the first Oblivian gate was insanely hard, and incredibly well detailed. Can't say I've ever seen a creepier place in a video game.
 
You only need to kill one person to join the dark brotherhood. Also, don't miss any of the bonuses, as you get some great armor.
 
One of the best mods is a mod that auto-scales your gear. When you finish quests, the stats on the item is tied to your level, even the sigil stones from oblivion gates. If you get the item at level 5, it will be weaker than if you got it at level 10. What this mod does is when you have an item that scales with your level, when you reach a level that the item would be better, the mod removes it from your inventory and replaces it with the upgraded form.

Another mod I have is for gathering plants for alchemy(useless other than building up intelligence), it removes the model of the plant that you have picked until the plant has regrown. Very useful for when you're just running along and there's a big patch of plants to get samples from.
 
How do you join "the blades?"
 
Claxton said:
How do you join "the blades?"
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That's the main quest/story line. I've barely started it because I was more interested in the guilds, but I'm already a member after maybe 2 hours of actual questing.

Minor spoilers below this:










When you leave the dungeon, you're told to go to a monk off to the west. I forget the name of the city, but he says the son is in kvatch, you head there and find there's an oblivion gate there. You go inside, shut it down, then start to retake the city. You'll go inside and stop inside a church and use it as a base. At this point you meet the bastard son, and you can take him to the priest.

At this point in the main story line, oblivion gates will start appearing all over the country, so you can go inside and shut them all down. The higher level you are, the higher level the sigil stones when you close the gates, so waiting before you start venturing into oblivion might be a good idea.

If you choose to take the son back to the priest(I did), then you'll find those cultists attacking the monestary. Kill them, save the priest, and he says they stole the amulet of kings and sends you and the son to some Blades stronghold. You go there, talk to a couple npc's and boom, you're now a member of the blades. This is where I stopped in the main storyline, so after that I have no clue what happens.
 
And a personal problem was I prefered light armor, yet couldn't find Glass Armor for the life of me.
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Strange. I stumbled upon 5 thieves in a row with full sets of this. However this is well after ebony became common.
 
I've just begun getting into this game, and holy hsdkjglhdfg is it addicting.

Little tip for new players: the Elder Scrolls Wikipedia page suggests that you do everything you can to level your Armorer skill. They suggest buying as many repair hammers as you can, everywhere you go. This is really dumb. Those hammers weigh 1.0 each, so packing around a shitload completely bones your encumbrance.

I realized this when I had 87 repair hammers on me... and picking up a freakin' scroll pushed me over the limit.

Regarding the Restoration skill - if you keep raising that, does it increase the HP recovered per cast of Cure Light / Heavy Wounds? The description of those spells seems to be static, so I don't see much point in working so hard towards levelling Restoration for myself (major in melee and destruction).

Also, I havent gotten that far in the game yet, but regarding enchanting your own items or creating your own spells - what's the procedure, and what do you need? I have a Potion of Feather that would be pretty pimpin to see on some boots or something...
 
Just so you know, when you finish the dark brotherhood story, you get a dark brotherhood murderer to control.
 
does it pick up from 3 or something; you keep talking about vampire I remeber in 3 there was vampire. (got hated in aldirn* [desert city] kinda destroyed the entire city) even lock picked the door to the god temple and killed the head god didnt drop anything and said that I lost game:ph34r:
 
You can get glass armor, but you have to be around level 18 or higher. Everything scales to your level, so as you get stronger so do the enemies you fight, which includes their gear. I think the glass armor looks ugly, but I got some mods to change the graphics on the glass armor. One of the mods(flamegalss) let you buy them from npc's if you wanted.

This is what glass armor looks like, but with a palette swap, the normal glass armor in the game is an ugly dark-green.
Glass armor mod

flameglass armor
 
CmdrFly said:
I've just begun getting into this game, and holy hsdkjglhdfg is it addicting.

Little tip for new players: the Elder Scrolls Wikipedia page suggests that you do everything you can to level your Armorer skill. They suggest buying as many repair hammers as you can, everywhere you go. This is really dumb. Those hammers weigh 1.0 each, so packing around a shitload completely bones your encumbrance.

I realized this when I had 87 repair hammers on me... and picking up a freakin' scroll pushed me over the limit.

Regarding the Restoration skill - if you keep raising that, does it increase the HP recovered per cast of Cure Light / Heavy Wounds? The description of those spells seems to be static, so I don't see much point in working so hard towards levelling Restoration for myself (major in melee and destruction).

Also, I havent gotten that far in the game yet, but regarding enchanting your own items or creating your own spells - what's the procedure, and what do you need? I have a Potion of Feather that would be pretty pimpin to see on some boots or something...
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Armorer skill is a very nice thing to have, especially when you become journeyman and can repair magic equipment. I would usually carry maybe 20 repair hammers with me and would buy more if needed. Also, you can buy training in any skill, up to 5 total trainings per level, so that's another easy way to level your armorer skill. When you're a master of armorer, you only need 1 hammer, since it will never break; something to look foreward to.

As for the magic skills, as far as I have found, the level of your skill has no bearing on the actual effect of the spell at all. The only thing that magic skill effects is what level of spells you can cast/make. If you're a master(100 skill) of restoration, you can make/cast pretty much any spell you want, but not if you're only an apprentice. The spells all have fixed values associated with them, 10 fire damage on target or whatever, so I don't think that increasing your skill does anything but allow access to higher level spells.

For enchanting, you have to join the mages guild and gain entrance to the arcane university. To gain entrance to the university, you have to get recommendations from the mage guild masters in all of the other cities; which means a small quest for each guild hall. Once you've got access to the university in the main city, you can just go up to an alter of enchanting or spellmaking and make whatever you need.
 
Bajaratt said:
Once you've got access to the university in the main city, you can just go up to an alter of enchanting or spellmaking and make whatever you need.
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What kind of ingredients does it take... anything? Or does it have to be a scroll + the item you want to enchant?
 
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