Oblivion, how is it even playable???

[reg42]

weird, I never had any problems with difficulty like ever. It's always been a a very easy game for me.

 

[Altorin]

You gotta level PROPERLY. Don't just raise ANY skill to level up. Level your offensive skills, so that you can hold your own with current enemies.

if you want to get into how to level up properly, that's not the way to do it.

How you level up properly is raise your skills based on the attributes they're tied to. Raise endurance first.. Every level, you gain 10% of your endurance in health... No other facet of your character levels up this way.. everything else, including your mana, level at a static rate, if they level at all.

so level your endurance first, and the best way to do this is make sure that you've levelled either your Armorer, Block or Heavy Armor by 10 before you get your 10th major skill up, so that you can put +5 into your endurance every level.

Every other skill and every other attribute in the game is less important then endurance.

 

[Ryuk2]

I don't understand why gaining level is just a bad thing. I had the same problem and left that game pretty quick. I want my level to help me, not to help the enemy's.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

You gotta level PROPERLY. Don't just raise ANY skill to level up. Level your offensive skills, so that you can hold your own with current enemies.

if you want to get into how to level up properly, that's not the way to do it.

How you level up properly is raise your skills based on the attributes they're tied to. Raise endurance first.. Every level, you gain 10% of your endurance in health... No other facet of your character levels up this way.. everything else, including your mana, level at a static rate, if they level at all.

so level your endurance first, and the best way to do this is make sure that you've levelled either your Armorer, Block or Heavy Armor by 10 before you get your 10th major skill up, so that you can put +5 into your endurance every level.

Every other skill and every other attribute in the game is less important then endurance.

If you want to be OPTIMAL about it sure, but it you want to level without counting every skill up to get +5 multipliers, just worry about the skills. A good mage needs INT, WILL, and SPEED. All of which level naturally on a mage, from spellcasting and running/jumping. Yes, speed. So that you can dodge everything, and cast a touch spell and backpedal. Endurance is great, but as a mage, you shouldn't take the hits in the first place. My most recent mage has an END of 35ish at level 30 and still is fine.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Now before you are mislead by the title, let me state that this is not to bash Oblivion in any way, I freaking love it, I bought it along with MW 2, GTA IV, and The Orange Box, and yet for the past week I've been mostly playing Oblivion like 3-6 hours a day. However I really need to speak out on this grave problem that ruined my first time playing Oblivion back then when I had it on the PS3, and right now it is starting to fuck me over again.

Of course I'm talking about the unbalanced leveling system. Back then I was playing a mage class and got it up to lv 22, and what I did was level up every chance I got, and later I found out that this levels up the enemies you encounter, and this is what fucked me over. Despite being lv 22 I got my ass kicked by every enemy I met in caves and ruins.

Later on I expressed this problem in some thread involving Oblivion asking how to get started. Many people pointed out that you must level hold for a while and let bonus points build up so your main attributes gain more points when you level up.

Ok then I thought, this time for my first profile I made this past saturday I was an Orc who specialized in blunt weapons and heavy armor, pretty damn simple right? Well the major skills I picked were Blunt, Armorer, Block, Mercantile, Athletics, Heavy Armor, and Speechcraft, and my birthsign was the Warrior. After doing a couple quests for the Fighters Guild and following the main storyline for a bit I remained at level 1, and everything was going smoothly. Eventually I leveled up to 2, and nothing really changed. I actually killed many rats and wolves quite easily, so everything was just fine. I stayed at level 2 for a long time and everything stayed safe. Eventually I felt that I finally needed to level up some more, I couldn't keep playing at level 2 only, and I read that the higher your level the better things you find in caves and other places, you could potentially earn more gold. Ok so yesterday I finaly went up 2 levels to level 4. I thought to myself "Nothing is going to change dramatically from just two levels right?"

WRONG. The first quest I did at level 4 was for the Fighters Guild to take the Guildmaster's son to a cave and find out what happened to a fellow Fighters guild member. And OMFG the new enemies I immediately encountered were those swamp trolls and big ogres, they fucking ganged up on us in twos and gave us a hard time. Later on in the cave even minotaurs joined in. The trolls weren't that hard but the damn ogres kept killing me. I was shocked over how gaining just two fucking levels changed the bestiary this much.

But it just got worse. The imps now cast deadly lightning bolts and fireballs that dealt massive damage at me and forced me to use up lots of healing potions. However the thing that truly frustrated me was that while I was traveling somewhere with my horse a minotaur came out of nowhere and ambushed us. It wasn't a big problem, but what truly fucked me over is that all of a sudden out of nowhere a fucking unicorn came out. A UNICORN!!!! That stupid thing led my horse away and later killed it. Next thing that happened the unicorn started chasing me down to kill me, and apparently blunt attacks had no effect on it, so I had no choice but to fireball it, but the thing had MASSIVE health. And to truly put me in hell I encountered some imps that were near caves I found kept hitting me with spells WHILE I was running for my life away from the unicorn. I nearly died. I had to use up all my healing items and get the unicorn stuck in a elven ruin entrance to finally lose the damn thing.

So yeah, I went through hell and barely survived. But I still ended up getting my ass kicked. Before I leveled up to 4 I could kill those damn camp thieves who attack you on sight when you approach their camp with ease, but then once I encountered some more those fuckers dealt lots of damage to me, and every time I tried attacking them I kept getting staggered and blocked. I got angry, how can a strength-based character like me be getting staggered by these stupid enemies!?

Enough rambling, I'll show my current stats just so you wonder if I am underpowered or something.

STR: 66
INT: 30
WILL: 50
AGL: 37
SPD: 30
END: 72
PER: 34
LCK: 50

Armorer: 45
Athletics: 46
Block: 45
Blunt: 57
Heavy Armor: 55
Mercantile: 35
Speechcraft: 28

So my question is, how the hell is this game even playable then if this can happen? I just leveled up twice and the game is already becoming too diffucult, what will happen if I level up some more? For those who have played this game and mastered it, did this happen to you?? Were you ever aware this could happen? How do you enjoy the game and avoid this? I would really like some opinions or explanations because now I'm not sure if I can keep enjoying Oblivion if this is going to continue occuring every time I make a new character.

EDIT: For those asking, I'm playing it on the 360.

For starters block if you aren't already.

Don't bite off more than you can chew bring potions and rest often.

Also Mercantile and Speechcraft are useless never use them again ever.

Get some support maigc like Alteration or Restoration.

Also if you don't like every fight being EPIC turn down the difficulty about half way.

 

[Thyunda]

I've come to realise that my melee attacks suck, and I'm too lazy to pay for arrows. So, what do I do?
Be a mage. Honestly. Become a Breton mage, and do the Mage's Guild quests until you get the spell, Fingers of the Mountain. In fact, screw weapons altogether. I forced my way through the arena by frying them with lightning, then giving them a good hiding with my fists.

Magic is the way forward, I tell you.

 

[Altorin]

I've come to realise that my melee attacks suck, and I'm too lazy to pay for arrows. So, what do I do?
Be a mage. Honestly. Become a Breton mage, and do the Mage's Guild quests until you get the spell, Fingers of the Mountain. In fact, screw weapons altogether. I forced my way through the arena by frying them with lightning, then giving them a good hiding with my fists.

Magic is the way forward, I tell you.

Lol, Fingers of the Mountain is broken if you level too much before you get it.

It changes depending on the level you get it, and at even a medium level, it's impossible to cast it, even with 100 intelligence, and every piece of equipment having fortify magicka on it.

 

[Acidwell]

You dont have to turn down the difficulty and you dont have to go on holding at levels, just make sure only one of the skills you use the most is a major skill, that way you level minor skills that dont affect your level also the major skills are easier to level so stuff you wouldnt normally use levels at a faster rate even if you use it less. Do that and it should be easier.

First time i played oblivion i put stealth and destruction as part of my major skills and used them all the time, i got to the planes of oblivion and could kill stuff no problem but if they saw me or there was more then one i got raped.

 

[Eliandarion]

I wrote this super awesome long reply about how much I like the game and what I played it as and all that, which was sadly lost to the interwebz because I pressed Ctrl-V instead of Ctrl-C, and then the page crashed. My point was - get it on the PC, get mods, but if you stick to the console, try to find your own fun within the game, like running through caves looting everything but not harming anyone, fireballing heaps of people with a single spell, stashing so much loot in a pile on the floor that the game lags, or try to collect all books in the game. For me, that's what it's all about, the freedom of choice and the exploration, but it's of course always nice to be able not to die from a single wolf attack.

 

[Tadrith]

As I recall from my time with Oblivion, survivability required an understanding of the map, the skill/level system and knowing how to access the right things relatively early.

Proper planning so that you get the maximum +5 bonus to three stats each level keeps you competitive with enemies or allows you to outclass them. Unfortunately, this means ignoring the game itself and grinding specific skills. It's tedious, but an unfortunate necessity of EVERY game ever made that uses a use-based levelling system, (and also one of the reason's why I HATE them) so, just switch your mind over into MMO mode...

Avoiding the equipment-reward heavy side-stories such as the Assassin's guild and Warrior's guild until you get to a relatively high level ensures that your equipment is good when you DO get it.

The Mage's guild, on the other hand should be completed ASAP. Spell creation and enchantment give you a HUGE edge both in skill grinding (horay for spells that cause temporary penalties to skills reducing the cost to train and the level of trainer needed) and as an added bonus, as a prospective guild member, you can pick up all the decorations in the guild halls to sell for cash early in the game.

However, if your question is, how do you pick up the game and "legitimately" play through, then yeah, listen to all those lovely folks who posted before me and adjust the difficulty to its easiest setting, 'cause with a character that wasn't built for twinking purposes, your primary skills are going to be about the only ones you ever level, resulting in minimal stat increases and an exponentially increasing difficulty curve....much like what you encountered.

 

[Thyunda]

I've come to realise that my melee attacks suck, and I'm too lazy to pay for arrows. So, what do I do?
Be a mage. Honestly. Become a Breton mage, and do the Mage's Guild quests until you get the spell, Fingers of the Mountain. In fact, screw weapons altogether. I forced my way through the arena by frying them with lightning, then giving them a good hiding with my fists.

Magic is the way forward, I tell you.

Lol, Fingers of the Mountain is broken if you level too much before you get it.

It changes depending on the level you get it, and at even a medium level, it's impossible to cast it, even with 100 intelligence, and every piece of equipment having fortify magicka on it.

I never levelled, since I was a vampire and got scared of sleeping.

 

[spikeyjoey]

I never had trouble with it tbh, even with my first (and only ) characteur.. then again i was a mage, so by using the nifty weakness to magice, fire, ice, and lightning 100% spell, followed by a fire, ice, and lightning spell (thank god for the spell shrine ) pretty much all enemies die after that combo attack...

 

[Spitfire175]

Borderlands has the same problem. Try and kill anything over 2 levels higher than you and you die.

Odd, never encountered this problem.

OT: Hmm, how to put enough emphasis on this one... GET IT ON PC AND GET MODS THAT REMOVE THE THINGS THAT ANNOY YOU! Alright?

 

[Nevyrmoore]

You know what was fun?

Playing as an assassin to about level 20, finally getting round to doing the main quest, then OH SHIT, SPIDER DAEDRA IN KVATCH?!

Don't think I've touched that save since...

 

[ChaotixxofWar]

Strategy one: Never ever pure melee enemies, it only work with large weps, enchanted heavy armor, high agility strength and endurance.

Two: Never purely be one class, except mage with powerful as touch spells, if ur pure melee they can farcast you, if pure range it hard to shoot when they up in your face.

Three: have medium high restoration level or alchemy, this stops the "omg i got no potions".

Four: unless you have 250+ health, 75 restoration and an armor rating of 60+ get some kind of distraction i.e. companion or summon something.

Five: get it on pc, the modding is not bad, i use cosmetic mods and quest series mods primarily.

Six: Touch spells, get them. I have a touch spell thats deals about 150 damage over 5 seconds so 30 each second, i can cast this 3 times in a row without any magicka boosts, i have a spell that does 90 over 3 seconds which costs the same. I am lvl 8

 

[brodie21]

you CAN decrease the difficulty

 

[A.A.K]

wait 2000 years. survive some wars and a nuclear fallout, pick up an assault rifle and youll be fine