The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

[GRT]

I remember my first game being morrowind and playing through it all. Now that Oblivion is out i wanted to know what everyones thoughts on it was.

Hows it play? Hows it look? Is it worth getting it?

Hows the feeling while playing?

[NightCrawler]

It's Morrowind on steroids!

I would highly suggest it to anyone that likes RPG gaming. It's not perfect but it's perfect for me.

[CrowmanUK]

Definitely a game to suck up all your free time, you can spend ages just robbing all the houses and sellling the stuff off at your fence

[Zantar45]

It's Morrowind on steroids!

I would highly suggest it to anyone that likes RPG gaming. It's not perfect but it's perfect for me.

←

QFT

[budgie]

Well it's been a year and I've spent the last few months stuck in STALKER's irradiatedd fantasy world and now have just come back to Oblivion.

For those of you who haven't tried it, OB is big, big RPG with a dedicated and experienced modder community. There are gameplay and graphics enhancements up the wazoo over at www.tessource.net and even some user made quests and items to rival the official content. Now that the ga,,me has matured thus it's fulfilled the promise of my original review - the community has madde it even better than it was.

I've installed the Main Quest Delayer modd and Kvatch rebuilt and got a fresh start in a world where the Emperor is alive and well and those tiresome Oblivion gates aren't open on every forest path and outside every city wall. In fact you don't even need these mods: you can simply ignore the plight of the empty throne and use the tumultuous iterregnum to go off and do your own thing - just the sort of environment for a lucky scoundrel to get rich in...

Since I didn't enjoy the main quest (in fact it bored me off the game for a while) I've started as a free roaming rogue out to seek my fortune. Saving the empire is for saps.

For those of you who haven't tried there are two expansions (Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles) both better than the main quest and you will still be hard put to do all the subquests and fedex jobs in a year of playing - the world is that big.

I'm still in love with this massive free roaming RPG and I'm glad to finally be back home.

[CrowmanUK]

Try Obscuros Oblivion Overhaul or Martigens Monster Mod, they add a fair bit to the variety of the game, you can find them all and more here

http://elderscrolls.filefront.com/

[Hockeystick]

I like the game, but it's not perfect. For example, I don't like that the monsters level up with me. If I meet a monster in a cave that I can't beat, then I want to beat him some other time when I've leveled up. I never feel powerful because I always meat new monsters who's just as strong as me. I only feel powerful against rats and humans.

I think Obscuros Oblivion Overhaul-mod changes the level system to the better. I remember a human enemy in a cave that I had to be level 30 to beat. It was fun and it really felt like I had accomplished something because he was so much stronger than me and I had to level up to beat him.

So... I strongly recommend the Obscuros Oblivion Overhaul-mod

[budgie]

Yeah Obscuro's was the one of the first mods out and the first one I installed like a year ago

[Foxtrot360]

It is a pretty good game, I kinda got bored of it after playing for like somewhere around three days almost straight though.

Then I took a break to play the other games I have.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Foxtrot360

[krise madsen]

I played through Oblivion. I cheated (I paid by the hour and was pressed for time), mainly with the repetitive Oblivion gates and when I was short on cash. Just so you don't think me a better gamer than I am.

As Budgie said, the "save the empire" main quest is not the best part of the game. But the thief and assassin quests were quite good, not the least because they often gave you more freedom to complete the quests as you saw fit.

One word of advice: Don't finish the main quest before you do the thief and assassin quests! It rather ruined the illusion for me when I entered the main city as a stealthy thief or killer, only to be greeted "Hail Champion" by everyone, not the least the imperial guards!

IMO, a lot depends on you being able immerse yourself in the game, as the game is essentially a series of scripted quests. I'm very hard to please in that regard, but I have to say that Oblivion did a much better job than most other games I've played. And despite the pompous "epic" nature of the plots, the authors still left room for humour (I still chuckle over the Orc nobleman desperately trying to appear educated and sophisticated, and failing badly! ).

The caves and dungeons are quite linear and do get a bit repetitive IMO. But in many cases, the level designers included a "back door" so that when you've completed the map, there is a passage that leads you to a point very close to the exit door (rather than having to run back though the entire map). A nice touch IMO. I found the Oblivion gate maps to be extremely repetitive (and I cheated quite a lot on those) but again, the main quest isn't the best part of the game.

The friendly AI was a major weakness of Oblivion, IMHO. Quests where you had AI companions soon became somewhat of a pain: They either ran head first into battle and got themselves killed, or managed to get in the way whenever I entered the fray. If their death (or even worse, death by my hand) hadn't adversely affected the quest success criteria, I'd probably have killed them off myself and be done with it.

The combat system was a bit too simple for my taste. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic did a better job of this, without getting overly complicated (though as a whole, the game doesn't hold a candle to Oblivion). I was particularly annoyed by the fact that I couldn't fight from horseback. Every time I ran into one of those pesky highway robbers, I had to dismount and fight him (I flatly refuse to pay some lowlife for "safe passage"), rather than just charge him and lob off his head as I pass.

The level system, that has the bad guys leveling up with you, was undoubtedly included in order to let you go through quests in any order. But it was also self-defeating: What's the point of leveling up when your enemes just get stronger? The fact that spells and whatnot did not level up with you was a major flaw, IMO. As I understand, the mods do take care of this.

All in all, Obivion isn't quite my idea of the perfect single player RPG. I would have liked it to be more of a sandbox game, where you would improve your standing through trade, learning crafts and skills and various other forms of "employment" rather than just plow through one quest after another. I would also like to see more of the "social mechanics" between the different races, their cultures and their common past. But Oblivion is obviously a game that the developers have spent an awful lot of time on quality and polish. And it shows. I give it two thumbs up.

Respectfully

krise madsen

[firefly2442]

I just picked up the game of the year edition of Oblivion (includes the two expansion packs). So far it's a fun game. I played a lot of the previous version so this is pretty much the same to me. I still think Elder Scrolls 3 had more interesting environments. The sandstorms and environmental effects in 3 seemed better than this one. The only downside so far is the game constantly crashes on me. I might try reinstalling if it continues like this.

[WytchDokta]

I know this is an old thread but I didn't want to started a new ES4: Oblivion thread. I'm posting because I'd like advice on a character build.

I currently have three characters:

- level 16 male Khajiit master ranged assassin/thief/stealth. I'm getting on really well this build. I did custom class and set Luck as a favoured attribute. I chose the Thief birthsign to further increase the luck attribute (and other attributes.) For the seven apprentice level starting attributes, I chose all the [male] Khajiit race attribute bonuses. Now I'm finding enchanted/legendary items everywhere and have mostly enchanted/legendary stuff in my inventory including Ring of Khajiiti, Skeleton key and the mighty Umbra sword - the most powerful sword in the game AND it soul traps on every strike. Also, I don't know if it's a glitch/bug, but the sword is weightless, it weighs nothing. If it is a glitch/bug it has never been fixed. You can get one too, from Umbra in the Vindasel (Vin Diesel play on words? Being that he's from Bethesda (the place not the company)) Ayleid ruin. Easier said than done, she is nigh on impossible to kill. I got lucky and found a Bow of Embers befoer taking her on. This bow does additional fire damage on strike no matter what arrows you use. Six arrows in the face later and she actually went down in less than a minute. But with my other builds it took a long time and around 20 healing potions aswell every bit of my armour broken and every one of my weapons broken to kill her. Sneak attacks granting a 3x damage multiplier do not give 3x damage against Umbra and normal weapons are all but ineffect, normal weapons will not even scratch her. Yet the hilarious thing is, I nailed the end boss with a single, that right ONE SHOT, sneak attack from a normal bow. And he's supposed to be stronger than Umbra, Umbra isn't even a boss. I was like WTH? I thought it was a glitch so I re-loaded my save several times and did ythe same thing each time - the same thing happened every time.

- level 4 female Imperial. Female because of the personality boost, perfect for their Voice of the Emperor ability and Personality governs Illusion, which governs Chameleon. Also, female Imperials do not recieve penalties to Strength or Endurance, but the females of most of the other races do (then again, female Imperial do not receive bonuses to Stength or Endurance either.) I'm going down the stealth route with this character too, but to a greater extent - Chameleon isn't a very useful ability for Khajiit, because they have a lower personality and receive no bonus to Illusion or Personality. Birth sign: The Thief. Again set up in stealth role, but more combat/melee orientated. Again, custom class with Luck as favoured attribute along with Personality. Also, set up specifically to embrace the Imperial race specific attribute boosts, with the exception of Heavy Armour - I choose Illusion instead.

- level 2 Dark Elf with The Lady birth sign to boost Endurance and Willpower.

I'm looking at trying out another route for another character. I have 3 (well, 2 and half) stealth based characters, so this time I want a heavy combat based character. I had one in fact, a Nord. But I did not get on very well with this build, he was so slow (heavy armour) and thus vulnerable to ranged attacks. I can easily counter ranged attacks/archers with my stealth base characters. I'm looking specifically for a build that will allow an even balance between heavy hitter, tank and movement, IF this can be achieved with one of the races that are primarily warriors. I'm thinking about starting an Orc build specifically. And I know they receive a race bonus to Blunt weapons skill, which is ideal - 2 handed blunt weapons have a longer range than normal weapons and knock enemies down. But Orcs already receive movement speed penalty. I actually prefer to be way out in front getting stuck in, smashing up enemies with heavy hitting melee weapons (in Lost Planet 2, I'm the one at the vanguard - way ahead of the other players who are staying back sniping to try and avoid getting hit by the melee-centric Akrid - and I'm running headlong into infinite danger, doing all the high risk stuff (so that no-one else has to), getting stuck in with with melee attacks from the GunSword, while utilising some Anchor trickery to avoid being hit. Wouldn't have it any other way. )

Edited October 18, 2010 by WytchDokta

[WytchDokta]

Anyone? (refer to above post re: character build advice)

Got my Imperial to level 10 now, the Sigil Stone I got from closing the Oblivion Gate at Kvatch was an awesome one, didn't get one this good with my Khajiit yet the Luck attribute is at 65 for BOTH characters - this Sigil Stone grants 25% resistance to disease if applied to armour, or some weapon effect (I forget which) when applied to weapons), so I applied it to armour. Plus I have an enchanted ring that gives 15% resistance to disease, so a total of 40% already. I like it. I joined the Thieves Guild with this character too. Now just doing some recon around the shops, seeing when the propietors close up and go to bed and figuring out the paths the Guards take - so I can get in clean, get my raid on, then get out clean. Then of course walk away as if nothing happened, as you do.

[WytchDokta]

I've done a slight rebuild on the Dark Elf. You see, I took the initiative to make a save just before exiting the prison sewers, so then when I go to exit, I have the three options in front of me: change race, change birth sign, change class. That means I haven't got to go through the whole intro/escape starting 'mission' with each new character.

For the Dark Elf rebuild I've reset the whole clas on custom class and chose Willpower and Intelligence as my favoured attributes. That will boost magicka recharge times aswell as boosting total magicka. Also, Intelligence governs the Mysticism skill and Willpower governs the Destruction skill - two skills essential for any Dark Elf.

Now, some tips for anyone going up against suicidal odds Umbra:

- Take as many health potions as you can carry. You WILL need them.

- Try to take a spare set of armour and/or weapons. If you find yourself taking on Umbra in melee, you will come out will all the armour you're wearing broken along with your current set of weapons being broken (still usable, but at 0% condition you just aswell be hitting Umbra with a wooden spoon)

- Keep you distance and try to circle her - try to fight her ONLY in the room she's in - If you fight her out in the corridor you enetered the room by, then good luck with that.

- Fire seems to do considerable damage to her. Hit her with your Flare ability (all races/classes have this) as much as possible. Alternatively, Druja in the Skingrad Mage's Guild sells a Flash Bolt ability which deals over 3 times the damage of a single Flare bolt. However, Flash Bolt also drains considerably more magicka. There is also a Flash Bolt single use spell lootable from the first Goblin Shaman (the dead one right at the start of the game, the same one you get the key to the door off.) With base magicka, you will only be able to cast the Flash Bolt ability once, then you won't have enough magicka left to use it again. This isn't a problem for Bretons or Altmer (High Elves)

- Take companions with you. If you have the Fighter's Stronghold DLC, take one of the soldiers with you. Chances are this soldier will get killed in the fight with Umbra, but when you go back to the Fighter's Stronhold, he will respawn there. However, if you take with you the Captain of the watch from the Fighters Stronghold he will not respawn unless you 'purchase' another captain from the guy selling the catsle upgrades. I recommend to take Jauffre(?) and Martin with you too, after you've closed the first Oblivion gate and returned to the Priory to find it under attack you're supposed to escort them to Cloud Ruler Temple. But you don't have to, there is no time limit on that quest. Plus the fact, they both will never die, they are essential to the quest line and so will become 'unconscious' instead of dying (although Jauffre can and likely will die later in the questline at the part when you got like 20 soldiers with you defending Bruma at the Battle of the Great Gate/Battle for Bruma (three Oblivion gates - 2 'normal', one huge - to contend with, continually spawning Daedra.)

- Word of advice: Umbra is seemingly ALWAYS as fast as the player, despite the fact she is wearing heavy armour. I have yet to be able to outrun her with any of my fast stealth characters. I even lured her back to the spike pit before the room she's in once - she must have hit me ten times or more while I was retreating (yet I had very light leather armour and she still managed to keep pace even with her heavy ebony armour) - then, boom headshot, got the ######, she walked right onto the section of the floor that lowers onto the spikes.... to no avail. As the floor rose back up she was not peppered with holes and in a mangled heap, she was still running at me at full speed, with very little health being take out by the spikes.

- There is a glitch too, but we won't go there....

[krise madsen]

I have no idea on what makes a good character build, sorry. I just cobbled something together semi-randomly and then bumbled my way though the game. A beautiful game for sure, but once I tried Mount & Blade I never looked back.

[WytchDokta]

I have no idea on what makes a good character build, sorry. I just cobbled something together semi-randomly and then bumbled my way though the game. A beautiful game for sure, but once I tried Mount & Blade I never looked back.

Well, I might have figured it. The thing that concerns me is Orcs get a penalty to movement speed, this coupled with all haeavy armour will result in movement at the speed of snail. Sure, I can put a heavy armour cuirass on the Orc, along with no armour greaves, but ultimately Orcs are still slow. That is, slow but fun. To an extent they're the toughest out of all the warrior races and are ideal [slow] shocktroops. But I've gone for a Redguard for now. I chose The Atronach birthsign too, which is normally more suited to mages. But see what I see, Redguards already have a very high resistance to poison and disease, and The Atronach grants a 50% magicka absorption from hostile spells/magic attacks, aswells as boosting initial magicka by 150 points. However, the trade off is no magicka regeneration - magicka is recharged when absorbed though (proportionate to the amount of damage done by the spell cast on the player.) See what I've done there? Now my Red' is highly resistant to disease, poison AND hostile spells. The same can be done with Argonians, as they also have high resistances to poison/disease.

Going to test out the race exclusive Adrenaline Rush ability with my Red' when I go to face Umbra. Should work a treat, that ability is mental - increases Agility, Speed, Health, Endurance and Strength by 50 points for 60 seconds (whereas, the Orc Berserk ability is similar but also incurs a massive [-100 points] penalty to Agility. Then again, they get a massive [+200 points!] boost to Fatigue from their Berserk ability.) I'll activate Adrenaline Rush then pull a Leeroy Jenkins in Umbra's Lair.

Gotta love the physics in this game. Like when you hit anyone with a single arrow from any bow, they get thrown a considerable distance. By 'considerable' we're talking like how far enemies 'fly' on video games these days when you blow them up.

Also, I was exploring one cave complex, I forget where, and inside where two non-joinable factions fighting it out - so I left them to it and looted that place while they were all fighting each other. And it was every 'room' in that complex.

Edited October 21, 2010 by WytchDokta

[WytchDokta]

I forgot to mention that if you kill Umbra while you have companions with you and they witness you kill her, you will get a bounty on your head for 1 count of murder. If your companion(s) die(s) while fighting Umbra, there is no-one to witness the 'murder' so you get a bounty on your head. Also, seemingly, neither Jauffre or Martin will attack her if you have them with you. Yet, the Battlehorn Men-At-Arms (from Fighters Stronghold DLC) will attack her. Also, one thing about the Atronach spell absorption, it also absorbs a portion of attacks from enchanted weapons.

Also, a quick, legit way to heal yourself and your companion(s) at the same time without using any healing potions or 'Heal Other' spells is this: press the wait key/button, select one hour. When the wait process is completed, all of you will be back at full health/magicka/fatigue. However, this only works if there are no enemies in the vicinity.

[WytchDokta]

Anyone else purchased the mansion in Anvil?

So I go and purchase it.... I thought it was a bargain - it comes fully furnished so you don't have to spend extra money on furninshings, unlike the other properties. Then after some serious troll/minotaur slaying, I decided to go sleep in the mansion. Nobody forwarned me on here what would happen next!!

Bloody place is haunted! That's why it's one of the cheapest properties, ###### that sold it to me conned me. I wakes up in the mansion halfway through the length of time I choose to sleep and there's Ghosts and Wraiths everywhere. Cleared them out and the spirit in the basement though. So the mansion is back under control now.

There's some crazy messed up Mages Guild missions too, where you enter the dreamworld of one of the mages trapped in an eternal dreaming state. Crazy ###### in there, you spawn stripped of ALL of your possessions and clothing, and have to face several tests - mainly puzzles, there's one that pits you against enemies but there only two enemies. Fortunately, the map that get before one of the puzzle has a certain pattern within the three patterns on the map. If you can work it out, you can make it through those pressure activated floor tile mazes without a scratch (one wrong move will result in darts being fired at you from the devices on the pillars)

Well, must get back to finishing the Fighters Guild missions, almost done now - at Defender rank. Four more ranks until Master and the respective loots.

Edited November 3, 2010 by WytchDokta

[krise madsen]

Just in case anyone still wants to keep surprises:

If you buy the mansion in Skingrad, you can hire a maid. She's voiced by Lynda Carter, better known as Wonder Woman. So if you throw silly money at the Skingrad crib, you get to have Wonder Woman call you "Mylord"...

[WytchDokta]

What is is with trader in the Merchant Arms once you install the Fighter Stronghold DLC? With my male Khajiit, I can sell something worth hardly anything, then turn up the haggle/disposition by 2 each time I sell something, and he never refuses and offer. Khajiit are a non-human race and therefore, traders distrust them so normally, traders would refuse offers if you push the haggle/disposition bar too high. Yet, I also have a female Dark Elf, and females in the game generally have better personaility than the males, making them better barterers and allowing them to get better deals from traders. The current haggle/disposition status between this character and the trader is low and even I up it by one, the trader always refuses the offer. Again, non-human race so traders are distrusting of them, however, this trader is a Dark Elf himself!!

Well, I still have all of the Shivering Isles to do (I must have explored less than 2% of that area alone) aswell as The Knights of The Nine. And the Thieves Guild questline....

Anyone how to tell if an NPC is a member of the Thieves Guild before I loot their belongings? Apparently, I've stolen from Thieves Guild members twice now (going back to earlier saves for the win, free reinstatement, hehehe) and thus been expelled from the Thieves Guild. All I did was went in some random house when no-one was looking, looted belonging when they were asleep and they didn't detect me, then I get back outside only to be told I been caught steal from Thieves Guild members. WTH? No-one even saw me. And besides where's the sign saying that NPC is a member of the Thieves Guild?

Edited December 2, 2010 by WytchDokta

[WytchDokta]

Cool. Just found a Vest of Warding legendary item. This is essentially a Huntsman Vest that grants 12% damage resistance. Now, even though it is not armour per se, it's just a regular vest (and regular items of clothing CANNOT be damaged), it actually provides greater protection than even the Imperial Dragon armour. This along with various other items I currently have stacks and currently grants me +38% damage total resistance (along with other item bonuses including +14% spell resistance, +20% fire, shock and cold resistance...). Wearing the vest along with regular gauntlets, boots and greaves also gives my Khajiit the barbarian look.

Well, still got atleast half the map to explore (and I've already completed the main campaign).

[WytchDokta]

Completed the Dark Brotherhood questline now too. You get some awesome rewards from those missions, including:

- A legendary, aggressive horse who attacks nearby enemies by herself without being provoked by the enemy (and she's flagged as an essential NPC, so she can't be killed), essentially acting as an additional companion in the general game world - but she can not follow you inside caves or Ayleid ruins etc.

- A personal bodyguard from a choice of three (who can actually be given [basic] orders not like regular companions)

Just started an Argonian assassin/Shadowscale build too. Going for melee assassin this time though, whereas my Khajiit makes for a far more superior ranged assassin. I chose The Atronach birthsign for this build too, giving it the most resistances out of all races - racial bonus as default: resist poison 100%, resist disease 75%, unlimited breathing underwater. With The Atronach birthsign: resist magic 50%. The downside is that this birthsign negates magicka regeneration, however, magic cast at you that hits you recharges a portion of your magicka bar.

[WytchDokta]

I encountered a serious glitch with one of the Daedric Shrine quests, and I'm surprised Bethesda never fixed this. It was the quest for Sanguine. You're supposed to go to castle Leyawiin and use Sanguine's spell on the Countess and the VIP guests at her party. Therein lay the problem - no matter how I went about it, I would get a bounty of 240GP for assault on the guests. The guards would rush me and give me the "You have broken the law" speech. Then they would say, "you DO NOT have enough to pay the bounty" - WTH? I had over 10,000GP! I was NOT given the option to pay the bounty. The ONLY options I was given were 'Go to Jail' or 'Resist Arrest.' Reload save an infinite number of times DID NOT fix this.

However, there is a way around this, in which you get no bounty at all and the guards seemingly don't notice. All I'll say is, invisibility potion (NOT invisibility spell) for the win. Timing is crucial. Think about it. Drinking the potion then casting Sanguine spell with negate the invisibility.

[WytchDokta]

Having a lot of fun here with the Argonian build. Except for talking to people that is. Personality 30. But with the Spell Tomes DLC (chance to find random spell in chest loot, even less of chance to find a spell tome on an enemy (but I have)) I found a good charm spell.

Also, either the physics are now broken in my game (due to excessive playing this game) or it's meant to be like this: I found a legendary Glass Bow that deals +15 Shock Damage and Soul Capture on strike. Whenever I get a x3 critical damage kill on an enemy with that bow, they quite literally go flying.... UPWARDS.

[WytchDokta]

Just started on the Shivering Isles. That Dawnfang/Duskfang blade is awesome, they've definitely done something unique with the weapons in this DLC. Dawn and Dusk are clues as to how the blade changes. Then of course, it changes again if you sustain it's bloodthirst.... Just finished both quests in Fort Xedilian, I think I have long way to go before I finish the Shivering Isles questline.