3/22/06 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, X360)

[Morfiend]

I have run into a problem.

My character is a Stealth/Melee Hybrid, and I didnt know that you skills are capped by the attribute that effects them. My strength is like 54, so my Blade skill got capped at 64. So if I want to get any decent sort of multiplyer on next level I have to constantly use Blunt or Hand to Hand before I level.

I really really really hate their level system. Its constantly getting on my nerves. My character is level 9, Im not sure if thats very high or not, but Im pretty far in to the game. But due to a few of my major skills being capped by my low abilities, I am having to force level myself with skills I normally dont usually use. Its a stupid Catch-22. Cant level from Blade cause its capped by my str, but I cant get str until I level.

Other than the stupid as all hell leveling system, I love the game. I am considering starting over, again, not that I understand more about how the leveling system works.

How would you guys spec a Mage character? I heard some people saying that mage is the easiest character to gimp if you dont make him correctly.

[MrHat]

84.21 right?

I'm playing 1280x1024 with bloom on a 6600 GT, but it's not smooth at all.  Wondering what that FPS command is too.

[Riggswolfe]

You know, interestingly Schild's review is how I felt about Morrowind. I'm not having the "I wish there were other people around" feelings in Oblivion.

[Murgos]

By the way, what is the goddamn advantage to light armor beyond being.. well.. less heavy?

Lets you sneak better.  Also, less heavy can be pretty usefull, a full set of light armor wieghs in at something like 30 and a full set of heavy weighs in at around 130.  Better than being on the border of encumbered all the time.

[Yoru]

I played more over the weekend, including a marathon Saturday with short breaks for food, water and Eve. Made it up to level 6 late last night, Journeyman of the Fighter's Guild and Apprentice of the Mages' Guild. I'm playing very light-side for my first run through. My main MO is sneaky-sneaky, cast shield spell, hidden-tiger-crouching-arrow, pull out the steel and whup away until it falls over dead, repeat. Those times I've skipped the arrow bit (and gotten the 6x damage) have been pretty sweet though, so I might have to swap off of Heavy Armor for a while and start making with the backstabbity.

Has anyone messed around with enchanting much? I can't really tell if the effects that are available are restricted to the spells I already know. Only reason I did the mages' guild was for the enchanting altar and so far a "steel helm of 14ft detect life" isn't going to be all that handy. 

Also, question for mages - how on earth do you get enough mana? I've taken 10 points into my intelligence stat so far, and all it's gotten me is 20 mana points. I see spells that require hundreds of mana in the trainers' lists.

I've not touched the difficulty slider at all and I've had some hard fights; multi-person fights with battlemages using a speedy dagger suck ass for me, since I basically stagger around getting hit a lot until I can get in enough power swings or fireballs to down the bastards. Poison helps. I probably need to focus my training more since my blade is around 30, my marksman is around 30 and my destruction is.. uh.. 12. I kinda wish I could train marksman/blade by using the training targets and dummies.

I knew about the silliness that is their level system, but I didn't know about the skillcaps Morphiend mentioned; those will suck hard when I start hitting them.

Very few technical issues, aside from exceptions when closing the game. I had one bug so far (an NPC disappearing when I was asked to lead her somewhere), which was fixable by walking to the destination, standing next to it and then quicktravelling there - the NPC warped over after the quicktravel and all was well.

Started looking over the TESCS. Looks like that will be many more hours of fun in there.

[Sky]

What are you guys running the bells & whistles at to get such video problems? As I've said, it's running suprisingly great on my 2yr old pc with a 9800 pro @ 1280x720.

Console commands, I bleed for you (god the official forums are garbage right now)

If you dont know the object number open the console and then left click the item it will automatically designate that the target (IE open console left click door then just enter in unlock and it will work) also it will give the item/object number at the top of the screen

kill <name> = kill person
player.setav (ability/skill) (#) = sets the chosen ability/skill to a certain number
lock (object #)
unlock (object #)
player.additem (item #) (# of items) = gives you a certain item
Items you might want...
0000000f gold
0000000a lockpicks
Player.SetCrimeGold (#) = set bounty
resurrect = brings an NPC back to life!
SaveGame <filename> = saves game
showracemenu = lets you edit race (and most importantly how you look)
timescale (#) = (0 to pause 30 to go to normal)
tcl = toggle clipping (lets you fly through anything) good if your stuck
tdt = show your frames per second (FPS)
tfc = Lets you move the camera around without moving body
tgm = god mode

[Furiously]

Is there a console command to make the characters not look like they are fetal alcohol syndrome babies?

I swear every character I make looks like Corky from Life Goes On.

[Bunk]

84.21 right?

I'm playing 1280x1024 with bloom on a 6600 GT, but it's not smooth at all.  Wondering what that FPS command is too.

This is what I'm using on my 6600GT:

New drivers

Upgraded to 84.25 Drivers
 

and coolbits to modify the setting in this link

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=282064
 

1. Download CoolBits
2. Go to DISPLAY PROPERTIES -> ADVANCED
3. Go to Additional Direct3D Settings
4. Change "Max frames to render ahead" from 1 to 0.

 

If you have audio issues ( stuttering or sound lag )

 
Use Software audio: Go to My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\ and open Oblivion.ini. Scroll down to the Audio section and change these two lines to:

bDSoundHWAcceleration=0
bUseSoftwareAudio3D=1

 
If you have dual core or Hyper Threading change this in .ini

 
[OPENMP]
iThreads=10
iOpenMPLevel=10

iPreloadSizeLimit=1000000000


Ini is in Documents and setting / my games / oblivion

 

[Bunk]

As to Enchanting:

It seems to be limited not only to spells you know, but spells you can cast. I have a chameleon spell, but my Illusion skill isn't 50 yet so I can't cast it. The enchant interface will not give me the option to use chameleon.

[Murgos]

Is there a console command to make the characters not look like they are fetal alcohol syndrome babies?

I swear every character I make looks like Corky from Life Goes On.

Its called time and effort.  There are some threads on the official boards that people have been putting screenies in, some of them look very good.  I was toyuing with the facegen demo and got a very good render of Natalie Portman so I know the engine is capable of that.  Actually getting that face into the game is another matter.  Its been suggested that you could screenshot all of the sliders in facegen and then set the ones in Oblivion to match, the problem is that there isn't every slider available in Oblivion that there is in facegen.

There is no doubt in my mind that the values for every single one of those facegen sliders is somewhere in your Oblivion savegame file.  I've been toying with the thought of using a hex editor and making very careful changes to map addresses to sliders.  Two things are keeping me from that, first is that it is a huge time investment for something I can live without and the second is that some other nerd will do it eventually if I wait long enough.

What are you guys running the bells & whistles at to get such video problems? As I've said, it's running suprisingly great on my 2yr old pc with a 9800 pro @ 1280x720.

With my 9800 SE I am running 1024x768 with most settings at medium, bloom on, and draw distant objects off.  If I turn on 2xAA I need to drop to 800x600 to maintain good frame rates.

[Miasma]

Other than the stupid as all hell leveling system, I love the game. I am considering starting over, again, not that I understand more about how the leveling system works.

How would you guys spec a Mage character? I heard some people saying that mage is the easiest character to gimp if you dont make him correctly.

Playing a pure mage character (as in not a battlemage but just a robe and maybe a dagger) would be the equivalent of a "Very Hard" mode, enemies will tear through you and your resources are limited because your mana pool won't be large enough.

If you do the filthy min/max stuff by the later levels you can play melee or mage or stealth and you will be very good at all of them.  I intend on playing a mage later with my current character, after I max out melee.  I chose major skills whose skill-ups I could control, one from each primary attribute. 

Strength: Blunt - I don't like blunt weapons and will primarily use a blade so when I want to level up I switch.  Note that for some odd reason axes are considered blunt.
Endurance: Heavy Armor - I do wear heavy armor so this is the only skill I use that I let increase naturally.  If I am too close to level and don't have my multipliers ready I just switch to light armor while I get my other stats up.  Another good option is to take armorer and let monsters attack you so that you can repair more.
Intelligence:  Mysticism - I'm not using these spells so they won't accidentally level me.  Once strength/endurance are maxed I will pop a mysticism spell into my slot and just keep casting it as I run around.
Willpower:  Alteration - Same premise as Intelligence.
Agility:  Sneak - This only makes sense because I don't sneak, I just charge in.  Later when I want to increase this skill it will be pretty easy because all I have to do is crouch and walk slowly.
Speed:  Acrobatics - Only pick this if you don't intend to bunny hop.  I jump around a regular amount and only get the odd skill up, it's not like I have any jumping attacks yet.  So when I want to work on speed I will just jump as I run around.  And I do mean when I run around, there is no need to stand in the city doing jumping jacks, I'll just do them as I explore.

So when I get about 7/10 major skill ups I go to a trainer for whatever I'm working on and buy three trainings and see how I'm doing for multipliers.  Then I reload from my last save and work on the skills I need to get 5x.  You have to be careful to get a couple skill ups in the major attributes you want to level though.  If you are really hardcore you could write down all your skills each level and do some math to figure out what your multipliers are.  Always max endurance first as you get a fixed number of hitpoints from it each level.  Increasing your endurace at level 40 won't get you many hp.

The system seems crazy but if you pick the skills you actually use all the time you should do just fine, but you will be a specialist at the endgame.  If you choose block, heavy armor, blade, acrobatics and athletics you would level quickly and be a good fighter but you would be useless as a mage at the end.  Only do the min/max if you want to be everything.  I'm going to take my time and min/max because I want to try magic later and more importantly I want to be able to play future expansions however I like.  I don't want to run through the whole game again just to build a good mage or thief.

[Morfiend]

First, that is plain stupid that they designed the levels/multiplayers like that. Gah.

Second, how do I check what my multiplyers are at?

[schild]

Re schild's review and the note about Dark Brotherhood not being evil enough...

Someone didn't get to PURIFICATION.

(Plus, even before that. Come on. The orc freakin brags about choking six year old girls. I'm not sure I'd WANT more evil in my NPCs, thanks...)

He's an orc. They should've had the white girl say it. The Dark Brotherhood isn't evil anyway, they've just got a crazy moral compass and are very opportunistic.

[Miasma]

First, that is plain stupid that they designed the levels/multiplayers like that. Gah.

Second, how do I check what my multiplyers are at?

There is some math you can do by adding up you minor/major skill ups since last level but I don't know the specifics.  I just wait until I'm near leveling, save the game, then either use a trainer to get one more skill up or practice.  Since I have acrobatics I usually just jump up and down for a minute and get my last skill up, then I rest to see what my multipiers are.  If the ones I want aren't 5x I load the last save from before I leveled and work on the appropriate minors.

This really is one of those situations where ignorance is bliss though, the system works fine so long as you don't know how it works and don't want to max out all attributes.  You would just need three characters to play a fighter, mage and thief.

[Sky]

I had a real rough time with the character editor the first time, I got what I can only call a dunmer wino. I found it best to not touch the coloring sliders except for the main dark/pale slider or you're in for some very funky shizzy. The second time I really took my time and came up with a decent version of myself to be my gallant knight, though I almost blew everything when I made the mistake of trying the coloring sliders and ended up with a pale face with red and blue splotches all over (used the aging slider to get rid of the worst of it, though I do look a bit queasy yet).

Re: the min/max methods: Bah :) Roleplayah for LIFE, yo! I get upset if I have to pick a lock, I'm trying to play as close to a goodly Knight as possible. I fully intend on playing through again later as both a pure mage and a pure thief, the only casting I'm doing is some Paladinly restoration stuff.

[Signe]

Hah!  I just received a freebie copy in the mail.  Now I have 3 copies of a game that annoys me.  Nice.  I was hoping it was the incense I ordered but NOOOO... it's Oblivion knocking at my door.   

At least Righ was able to play for almost an hour an a half at a time with no crashing.  I can't be bothered until they patch the thing.

[Riggswolfe]

 Note that for some odd reason axes are considered blunt.

A friend and I talked about this. The best explanation we could come up with is that axes are swung like maces, while swords and daggers are more stabby.

[El Gallo]

Second, how do I check what my multiplyers are at?

I just keep track of my skillups manually with tallymarks on a piece of paper.  I don't think there is a way you can tell from the character sheet.  I try to max END and INT every level (only lvl 4, those seem like the most important ones to level early), so I make sure I have at least 10 skillups in each before I let myself level up. 

You could just write down your skill levels for the attributes you want to increase when you level up.

The system is mindbogglingly stupid, but I've heard enough stories about people who can't kill crap at higher levels without long, tedious kiting sessions even after jacking the difficulty slider all the way down to "daddy, can I play" not to be anal about it.  I spend all my money on repair hammers :)

[Bunk]

Hah!  I just received a freebie copy in the mail.  Now I have 3 copies of a game that annoys me.  Nice.  I was hoping it was the incense I ordered but NOOOO... it's Oblivion knocking at my door.   

At least Righ was able to play for almost an hour an a half at a time with no crashing.  I can't be bothered until they patch the thing.

What vid card are you using Signe? If its a 6600/6800 you may want to try the beta driver I mention a few posts back. I was crashing every hour or two until I made that update.

[Stormwaltz]

Seems like a fair review Schild. Of course, I say that because you're saying what I felt I could reasonably expect from Oblivion. I was on the fence about the game, neither a fanboi nor full of t3h h8. If it can be compelling despite many flaws (both accidental and "by design"), I'll probably end up getting it.

[Miasma]

I only just now saw my first bit of political commentary in the game, and only because it was so overt.  There is a flyer in a mages guild talking about how a bunch of mercenaries called the Blackwood company is taking on work that the honorable fighters guild should be doing and how they are willing to fight dirty and do illegal tasks for money.

A jab at that Blackwater company contracted out for private security in Iraq.  I'll have to keep a closer watch for stuff like that, I tend to miss subtle references if I'm properly immersed.

[Signe]

Hah!  I just received a freebie copy in the mail.  Now I have 3 copies of a game that annoys me.  Nice.  I was hoping it was the incense I ordered but NOOOO... it's Oblivion knocking at my door.   

At least Righ was able to play for almost an hour an a half at a time with no crashing.  I can't be bothered until they patch the thing.

What vid card are you using Signe? If its a 6600/6800 you may want to try the beta driver I mention a few posts back. I was crashing every hour or two until I made that update.

I have a GF7800 GT.  I tried the 84.25 version that were alledgedly optimised for Oblivion but my crashing became even worse so I went back to the latest regular drivers.  The beta driver before the 84.25 made no difference.  I'm also using Coolbits 2.

[Shockeye]

This multiplier bullshit is exactly that, bullshit. Tally marks on a piece of paper? Please. This is a game and games are supposed to be fun. Spreadsheets are not fun. New levelling system, please.

[El Gallo]

Amen.  Supposedly, there was a good, widely-used mod for morrowind's level-up system.  Hopefully, something similar will be released for Oblivion soon.

Or, you could just use the console to give yourself 555's or 551's every level.  I can't let myself do that, because I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to godmode.  Forgive me.

[Rasix]

I'm just playing, trying not to sweat the details.  I'm with Sky, my thief is thiefy: he steals shit, sneaks around and kills when necessary.  Sure, some fights have been difficult to say the least, but in the end, playing what I've built has worked. Ohh noes, my int won't hit 100. 

I'm sure I may get fucked in the end, but I'm still on the journey.

Edit: This isn't an edorsement of the leveling system, I have chosen to not really pay attention to it yet.

[Tebonas]

Got it yesterday and had a blast. No bugs whatsoever. But the leveling system sucks beyond words. I refuse to minmax my character in a roleplaying game I want to be immersed in and thus I feel like getting weaker with every level.

But I'll ignore that and see how long I can last. I only could raise End once, and that with a x2 multipicator. I fear the worst.

[Morfiend]

I'm just playing, trying not to sweat the details.  I'm with Sky, my thief is thiefy: he steals shit, sneaks around and kills when necessary.  Sure, some fights have been difficult to say the least, but in the end, playing what I've built has worked. Ohh noes, my int won't hit 100. 

I'm sure I may get fucked in the end, but I'm still on the journey.

Edit: This isn't an edorsement of the leveling system, I have chosen to not really pay attention to it yet.

The problem seems to be two fold. One, that the leveling is counter intuitive, and if you plan your character the way it wants you to plan it, you end up with a gimped character at later stages. And two due to the scaling levels of dungeons, it came become near impossible to complete some of them if you level up in the wrong way.

The www.elderscrolls.com forums are awash in people screaming that at higher levels they are unable to finish key quests, due to the monsters just being way way to hard for their characters ability. I would be really pissed if I invested a ton of time, and had to reroll to some wierd build just to complete the games main quest line.

I mean, if you take alchemy as one of your main skills. Every 10 skill points your gona level up, and all the mobs level up, but you dont really get much better at killing them.  Not to mention that you could very easilly cap your character at a fairly low level if you create it wrong. I am honestly astounded that they even thought this was an ok leveling system. It boggles the mind.

[schild]

Now I see why I didn't really notice this problem (hence the lack of any real mention in my review). I focused on combat combat combat. I didn't make a single potion or cast anything other than the starting spells for 25 hours. For my last 7 hours I still didn't make a potion.

So, really you can either be gimped or godlike. There's no real inbetween, even though vampiric gods still have a weakness. FIRE. roar.

[Sairon]

I'm gimped with both my lvl 17 chars :(

I think I'm going to calculate what my char would look like stats wise if he were level 17 and I had given a shit about the multipliers, and then simply input those numbers through console commands and call it fair game.

It's things like these that makes me wonder what the fuck gamedevs are doing with their test department. Either testers generaly suck or the higher ups simply refuse to listen.

[schild]

QA in the games industry is possibly the worst throughout the entire software industries. Designers have a vision, QA members have to meet that vision and I'd be shocked if anyone ever listens to their suggestions more than 10% of the time. By launch, odds are QA members know more about a game than anyone else on staff, having played it day in and day out for a good couple years.

[Ironwood]

Couple of things More :

1 - My horse just tripped on a stone and died.  What.  the.  fuck.
2 - I have become a vampire for no reason whatsoever.  It came to me in a dream.  I have checked my previous save which has no disease or anything like that.  I have no idea what's going on, but apparently I must now track down five Grand Soul Gems to cure myself.  FFS.

Yeah, I'm still playing it.  Yeah, it's kinda enjoyable.  But Good God Martha, it needed more work to make it a proper PC game.

Oh and it crashes every time I exit the game.  Not a huge problem, but annoying.

[Trippy]

1 - My horse just tripped on a stone and died.  What.  the.  fuck.

That's quote material right there.

[Dren]

When it says you can level can you just continue to use other skills to even things out before you actually level?  I was thinking maybe you can get a level just doing alchemy, but ignore the message to go rest and work on other stuff.  Perhaps you just have to keep watch on your skills to determine if you are actually ready to level or not.  Especially now that we know that if you level too fast, certain quests are going to eat you alive if your skills are lacking.

I'm only lvl 3 on my highest character, so I'll probably start trying to work it this way.  That is if I can ever find an hour to actually play again.  Real life...such a bother.

[Riggswolfe]

Dren,

I think, if you keep working on major skills they actually count towards your next level up. I'm not sure about Minor skills.

[Murgos]

I have a GF7800 GT.  I tried the 84.25 version that were alledgedly optimised for Oblivion but my crashing became even worse so I went back to the latest regular drivers.  The beta driver before the 84.25 made no difference.  I'm also using Coolbits 2.

Apparently that card is giving a lot of people problems in Oblivion, I've come across a couple of threads on the official boards with much gnashing of teeth and rage by the posters.  Everything from very slow frame rates, to frequent crashes to tearing and missing textures.