Considering getting Oblivion

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:29 am

I only played it only cousin's Xbox, and didn't like it at all.
However, now that you can find it cheap, and with plenty of mods, I'm considering it.
Third questions:

a) Is it worth the time? I really liked Morrowind.

b) Which mods do you recommend? I definitely want to get rid of the level scaling. I also liked things such as Morrowind's regenerating magicka, more useful alchemy,... But nothing game-changing.

c) Is every weapon and armour type more or less equally represented, or are some choices obviously better?

Thanks in advance!

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:34 am

a) Modded it can be a fun game, but it's not Morrowind.

b) There are so many mods, some of them change the game completely, like OOO for example. If you want to get rid of level scaling, without changing the main game too much, I'd recommend Francescos mod (just search for it on Planet Elder Scrolls). It removes level scaling, and adds new creatures and items to the game, without changing much in terms of quests and storylines. That's the big mod that I play with, and I'm happy with it. I'm sure there are mods for alchemy and magicka that do what you want, but I'm not familiar with them so can't suggest any. EDIT: Forgot to add, I would suggest getting the Unofficial Official Patch mods. There is one for the base game and also another one for Shivering Isle expansion. Get them both. Although I beleive some of the big conversion mods may include those changes, so again check the read me files for the mods you want before installing any mods.

c) Well in the unmodded version, the items scale with your level. So once you get really high, you'll end up finding Deadric (most powerful) weapons a lot, but at low levels you'll not likely find any. Even many of the unique named weapons and items will scale in power as you level up. So you end up wanting to leave the quests to get them till you're much higher level so that you can get the most powerful version. If you add mods, then obviously things will change, and you should read the readme file for whatever mods you choose.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:19 am

a) I'm aware, but I've played all the RPGs I wanted to play, so I'm scraping the fringe. My expectations aren't high.

b) Got it, I'll search for that.

c) So, overall, whichever you choose, you'll find useful stuff? IIRC, in Morrowind, Medium Armour got the short end of the stick.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:48 pm

I prefer Francesoco's mod, but OOO does add a fair bit more content. They don't actually get rid of level scaling, just alter it, which does make the early going much more challenging, sometimes too much so.

Other mods I usually use:

DEJ Harvest + WD's Auto Harvest, - makes collecting ingredients much more user friendly

Expanded Hotkeys and Spell delete - you can't delete spells in vanilla without an awful lot of hassle

Galerion Unarmored Acrobatics - a noble attempt at making unarmored viable, very useful for role playing a mage (mages rule OK!)

Marker Explore -gets rid of a lot of hand holding so you have to find places before they appear on the map.

Toaster's Brutal Strength - allows backstabbing with two handed weapons, still not as good as a single handed weapon though.

Bag of Holding

Grandmaster Alchemy - a bit of a game killer in some ways, but OK if you can police yourself

Kvatch rebuilt

Enchanting skill - also can be a bit overpowered without self control

Legendary abilities - needed to get the best out of Grandmaster Alchemy. Allows attributes and skills to surpass 100

Quest Award levelling - makes it worthwhile to take on quests at a low level, otherwise the rewards are pretty useless

1414=Empty Soul Gems - TES source

Midas Spells - makes playing a mage much more fun in my opinion - very good mod

The Lost Spires - one of the best content/quest mods I've ever come across

BoneGrind - a mod that enables you to extract the bonemeal ingredient from bones you find

If you should want to have an 'evil# ending to the game another excellent mod is Servants of the Dawn, but be warned this is incompatible with Knights of the Nine. However, the two should be incompatible logically.

Official Mods:

I also use Shivering Isles (there are quest award levelling mods for this as well I believe, but I use one I created myself)

Knights of the Nine - no a bad mod, not too overpowered either

Frostcrag - not a brilliant mod, useful if for some reason you don't want to join the Mages Guild. There's also an expansion mod out there, which is well done, but somewhat over cheesed.

The Thieves Den - An OK mod, especially if you want a fence but don't want to join the Thieve's Guild

The Orrery - a mini quest mod, not brilliant, but does give you the chance to access a very powerful, once per day spell

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:51 pm

PS

Medium Armour gets even more of the short end, as it doesn't exist; just heavy and light.

Personally I think it is worth it, especially with Shivering Isles added. The vanilla game was very disappointing, even more so than vanilla Morrowind; but once again enthusiastic modders have saved the day.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:05 pm

Ok, thanks, Galraen, if you speak up for the game, it will have some merrit at the very least. I'll go hunt down the best deal then, including Shivering Isles.

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:56 pm

galraen wrote:Midas Spells - makes playing a mage much more fun in my opinion - very good mod

You know, I tried Midas and I just thought that while the mod is great, it introduced some way overpowered spells.

I'm currently using L.A.M.E. which I am totally in love with. It adds new spells too, but it also rebalances a lot of vanilla spells to make them more useful, and no more annoying recasting every 15 seconds to rebuff yourselfs.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:41 pm

Ares2382 wrote:You know, I tried Midas and I just thought that while the mod is great, it introduced some way overpowered spells.

Fair point, although you have to work to get most of the more powerful ones, and you have to be a fairly high level mage to use them. Also if you follow the quest line of Midas, the Lost Spires and OOO you'll likely need them.

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:10 pm

I'm not sure, but it might even be possible to have both Midas and LAME installed at the same time, don't think they have any issues with each other.

cheeneemyrans · Post by **cheeneemyrans** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 5:38 am

No issues. Always been fair.

Nymie_the_Pooh · Post by **Nymie_the_Pooh** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:03 am

a) You can spend a lot of time in Oblivion. Some people spend us much time playing Oblivion as some people who reach the level cap of WoW have put in. It takes a lot of modding in order to put in that kind of time with one character however. Then again, there are people who finish the main storyline in a short enough time there are videos on youtube of them doing it so it's not overwhelming if you start playing and decide you just want to finish it and be done with the game.

The question you should ask yourself is not "Do I like Morrowind?" but, "Do I like Fallout 3 and would I still like it if it were fantasy based?" Personally, I prefer Fallout 3 over vanilla Oblivion and a heavily modded Oblivion over Fallout 3. Oblivion came with a lot more space in the physical world available for modders to slide content in. Oblivion is essentially Fallout 3 with something similar to Morrowind's skill system.

b) My main copy right now is primarily FCOM (it combines the work of OOO, Fran's, Warcry, Mart's, and a bunch of other mods). That can be quite daunting to install however if it's your first time messing around with mods.

Nehrim is a great mod, but it requires having a separate copy of the game so the deciding factor on whether to get it or not is generally going to come down to available space. Nehrim is perhaps the most professional mod available to Oblivion. It even includes a full voice cast that was recorded in a studio. Trouble for me is that while the voice overs sound good, they are in German so I can't help feeling like I am missing out even though the English subtitles are great and easy to understand. I highly recommend taking a look after playing Oblivion for a bit. The only reason I don't recommend it to start with is it won't teach the basics of the game, and it completely replaces the world and storylines of Oblivion so is like playing a different game using the same engine.

I also have a modified "clean" copy that I use in case I want to try something new but not on one of my regular copies. It's essentially the unofficial mods with a couple of little things I know I will want no matter what I am playing. Aside from the unofficial patches it looks like what I currently have installed is Oblivion Mod Manager, Better oblivion Sorting Software, Wrye Bash, Oblivion Script Extender, mTES4, with the only actual mod being A Takes All. They are what I consider essential for pretty much any modding I want to put on top of the game. Well, A Takes All isn't essential to modding, but it's one of those quality of life things I know I am going to want when playing. mTES4 is also not really needed, but it does help with keeping track of multiple copies of the game.

According to mTES4, I have my "clean" copy, a Nehrim copy, FCOM copy, and FCOM Plus copy which is just a copy of the FCOM copy with more mods added on top of that. I do that in case I want to go back to FCOM without the extras I added on top of it or if I want to try a different set of mods on top of FCOM. Between all the downloading and installing FCOM can be an all day ordeal (or longer depending on download speeds) so having that untouched copy of FCOM is just something nice for me to have so I don't have to do it again on this computer. I don't play the Clean Copy at all outside of just starting up a game after everything was installed to make certain the game was working as it is there to remain as uncorrupted as possible so I can use it in the future for more modding if needed.

c) There are really only two armour and three weapon types. Heavy and light armours are fairly evenly represented. Same with Blade, Blunt, and Bows really. The difference early on really comes down to weight. Blunt weapons (including axes) tend to be heavier than bladed weapons. I believe they can do slightly more damage however but I have not played a whole lot with blunt weapons. Weight is a concern in the early game, and by the time I get to where it is not I have already advanced pretty far in blades and light armour so tend to just stick with those. Heavy armour is definitely better protection than light armour, but you are looking between a weight of about two to fifteen for light armour to up around thirty to fifty and more for some heavy armours. Same thing with blade and blunt. There are many blades with weights in the single digits with two handed blade weapons being around twelve or fifteen while a blunt two hander can easily be looking at a weight of thirty.

Later on everything gets a bit weighty, but it's a lot easier to cope with. I've been working on closing Oblivion Gates recently and off the top of my head I see a lot of single handed maces with a weight of forty four and two handed blade weapons and blunt weapons can both be sixty and more. I'm constantly finding magical versions of both bladed and blunt weapons. Most of the armour I find is heavy, but if I go fight bandits I am more likely to find light armour so which weapons and armour you find comes down to both the scaling and what enemies you are fighting. You aren't going to loot weapons and armour that the enemy you took them off of wasn't using so if you want something different than what you are looting then look for something different to fight.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:39 am

Well, I didn't like Fallout 3 in the first place.

You swayed me towards Light Armour and Blades, though.

As for mods, I think I'll stick to a "no scaling" mod, and some of the "utility mods" Galraen mentioned.

Steam offers Oblivion, Kot9 and Shivering Isles for 20€, and if you pay 25€ you get more minimods, like horse armour, wizard's tower,... Are those worth the 5€?

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 10:03 am

I think they're worth it. Even though most are not particularly that great, though some of them have their uses. I like Frostcrag because it gives my non mage guild characters access to spell making and enchanting (she's an assassin with some magic abilities based on a character from Dragonlance novels) and it has a nice large storage area for my stuff. Also has a nice view from the top if you have maximum drawing distance enabled. I like Mehrune's Razor quest. And Spell Tomes are a nice addition to the game for me since I like playing magic users a lot.

Other of the official mods I'm not a big fan of. But for extra $5 I'd get them.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:07 am

Thanks.