My guess is that it will be just like Oblivion. There will be one more patch a long time from now that fixes a ton of stuff, but breaks others in myriad ways.
Alas, now that I’m really addicted to Fallout 3 (though I agree with those who say that without VATS the gunplay would be unbearable) my GPU is dying. So, a couple of weeks without Fallout 3 :/
If I’m into Fallout 3 would I enjoy Oblivion, or does the liking of one not guarrantee the liking of the other. I must admit, the fantasy penchant for close combat, the world levelling around you… these are things that make me think I wouldn’t like it, but still…
You might like Oblivion, but you have to be careful. Oblivion allows you to build characters that are not suited for combat in any way, yet expects you to be able to fight through story sections. Have an idea in mind in advance on what you want to play. :)
Well, I think he’s playing it on PC, so there’s mods to fix that and a host of other problems.
I’d try it if you like FO3 that much (I can’t imagine it costs much anymore). Just be sure to hunt for some good mods.
Gary?
The best part about Oblivion is that if you build characters that are “suited” to combat, by selecting major skills like Blade, Heavy Armor, Destruction, Restoration, Conjuration, etc. you’ll actually be weaker with every passing level.
You’ve got it backwards. Oblivion’s golden path assumes you picked combat skills as major, so when the monsters level up with you, you can handle it.
Woe betide the player who picks the non-combat skills as major and levels up quickly because of those. That bandit in glass armor doesn’t care that you’re level 12 because you grinded your athleticism and lockpick skills, he only cares that you’re level 12.
Again, if you mod it, that won’t be an issue either.
Nope, you’ve got it backwards.
If you pick skills you can control, like acrobatics, mercantile, alchemy, and so on, as your major skills, you can avoid leveling up until you choose. Meanwhile, your combat skills are going up and up the whole time. The moment people typically choose to level up is when they have gained enough skills in their minors, to make sure that the core attribute that governs that skill, will be increased by +5 instead of +2 or +3.
What mod?
Funny, I beat Oblivion as a combat monstar without levelling mods or worrying about +5’ing my attributes. We’re talking blade, the armors, marksmanship etc. with alchemy in there as well so I could poison everything in sight.
Jakub: What you describe does work, yes, but it’s much, much, much more tedious than the method scharmers describes. Believe me, I’ve tried both. If you level up your combat skills but don’t pick them as major skills, they take FOREVER to level up. Given infinite time playing the game, sure, that works great, but it also gets very tedious. However, if you pick the major skills as combat skills that you use all the time, then the game also stays balanced and you kick increasingly powerful monsters’ asses. For me, despite monsters leveling up all the time as I did, I still got more powerful faster than they did. And it’s a much less tedious way to play. The way you describe is just a very boring way to get around the system so that you can be uber-powerful, but it takes forever (relatively speaking) and it’s not as fun.
I beat it that way too, though it started getting somewhat difficult once my combat skills were topped out.
Then I decided to min-max it. Way easier.
Between all the quests you do, and regular random encounters, I think I hit around level 11-12 with this method and was stomping everything in sight, all without particularly trying to level any certain skills (except binging on the major skills as soon as I knew I’d get a +5). It really wasn’t difficult.
My third or fourth play-through I decided to be as completist as I could, with the normal skill setup, but I found the game got increasingly more difficult.
There’s a plethora of mods to fix oblivion’s levelling issues. Hit up TESnexus.com and search for ‘levelling’. I don’t have a favorite one, but there’s ones that stop the enemies from levelling with you, one that stop ridiculous ‘bandits-in-daedric-armor’ situations, ones that give you max attribute points on each levelup, ones that entirely rework the system - there’s one for each permutation you could want.
In terms of the world though, how interesting is Oblivion compared to Fallout 3?
Not very. It’s a very generic western fantasy, with none of the interesting creatures or environments of Morrowind. That does change in Shivering Isles, though.
I love fantasy games. But Oblivion (outside of a very cool few areas) was to dull for me. Fallout 3 is brilliant in that department and sets such a high bar its almost impossible not to be dissappointed if you play Oblivion afterwards.
Oblivion is worth playing, if only for the Dark Brotherhood quest line and the Shivering Isles expansion. The leveling system is crap and the world is as generic as it comes outside of the Isles but it’s still interesting to explore.
This. Fallout3 fixes most of the problems with oblivion, including the oh so annoying “hellgate every 10 feet” problem. Oblivion’s world is nothing we haven’t seen in a hundred games and is done much better by the gothic series. I am probably baised though as i love the post apocalyptic setting.
p.s. and the only thing more annoying than seeing hellgates every 5 minutes while traveling is having to go in to them to repeat the same hellgate level constantly. I hate those damn hellgates.