What I meant was : the game is 2 years old, there are tons of mods who fix the level scaling (starting with Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul who’s probably the best), and there have been practically since day one. It’s a non issue, that’s why I’m surprised it’s still being discussed.
Yeah, the beauty of Oblivion is not where it started but what it has become. You can set up the world pretty much however you like with all the mods, and hopefully our POOP project can help you do that more easily.
The open world thing does require a bit of an adjustment in your gaming expectations. Once I had a great set of mods up and running and did away with the stupid default leveling system, I no longer had trouble embracing the “choose your own adventure” aspect of the experience.
The bulk of the main plot line just has you going to each city to take care of miscellaneous quests and close the Oblivion gates so it’s really not all that different from carving your own path from random quests you pick up along the way. More so than any game I can think of, the pleasure of Oblivion is in the journey, not the destination. It also richly rewards whatever creativity and imagination you can bring to it.
P.S. I also recommend to the original poster that you get the hell out of the Imperial City and head into the wilderness. The city can be overwhelming and somewhat annoying, especially right at the outset.
Man, I tried to min/max, and it sucked. I don’t need a bunch of ridiculous limits on my actions. Aftewr trying it, I stopped playing Oblivion for like a year. My advice: Pick a class with skills you want to use and just play like a normal RPG. Min/maxing is an exploit that is totally not necesary, it’s just for people who want to be super gods by the end of the game. I’ve played an assassin/thief, an poison archer, a pure mage, and a heavy fighter quite extensively, and while the game does get more challenging as you level, I enjoyed rising to the challenge, and was never actually intimidated or bothered by the levelling system.
I didn’t know about any of these mods, which is why I was asking if they existed. Now that I know they do, the discussion is pretty much done from my perspective. ;)
Now there is some other, more general discussion going on in this thread about the different ways to enjoy a game, but this is starting to get into the differences between us as players; some of us like to level our characters into God-like beings in pretty much any game we play, others of us… not so much.
To give you an idea where I’m coming from, in the LEGO Star Wars game, I bought and activated most of the power brick abilities as soon as I got them. :) Perfect Deflect, so good.
To me, especially when it comes to RPGs, a game boils down to two things: A great, well-written, interesting plot that gets me invested in the character(s), and a well-designed, thoroughly-developed combat system that tweaks my love of numbers that get higher. My brother once said that you can boil (most, if not all) video games down to this simple truth: There are numbers, you do stuff, the numbers go up.
So anyway, a great game has both a good plot and a good “game system” under the hood. Some games only have one or the other. Sometimes when one is awful, but the other is spectacular, the game turns out good anyway. Sometimes one is so terrible that there’s no chance for the other to make up for it. It just depends on the game.
There are numbers, you do stuff, the numbers go up.
You can boil life down to a simple truth too:
You do stuff.
Sorry, couldn’t resist! :P
As for Oblivion, at least out of the box, I wouldn’t say the main plot is one of its strengths. But it has some well written sidequests, including one of my all time favorites (the Ayleid ruin/collector arc). I also keep hearing how awesome the Dark Brotherhood chain is… which reminds me I need to go play my thiefy/assassin character some more.
If you’re going to avoid mods (which are an entire life’s pursuit unto themselves), I’d highly recommend dropping the difficulty slider a notch or two and going and finding something that interests you, like a Dark Brotherhood quest. That way you’re reliably SOMEWHAT badass, will still find a fair amount of challenge in the world, but won’t be stuck with the occasionally game-breaking consequences of the leveling system that makes min-maxing seem necessary.
Mmh, sounds like Dark Messiah of Might & Magic could fit the bill nicely.
By the way I never had any problem getting “lost” in Oblivion, unlike in Morrowind.
aint that the truth. still. sometimes its the little things that tip the balance. imo oblivions writing and game balance are not much above mediocre, but i am absolutely in love with the long woodland walks you can make in it. there’s birds singing, herbs to be picked and sometimes a deer to throw fireballs at. i love it despite its mediocrity as a game and my hate of its boring fantasy setting.
My partner plays the game entirely to pick flowers. She finished the mages guild quest, but realised she was only really enjoying the game when she was searching for Nirnroots.
That’s interesting about the mods and the Dark Brotherhood side quest. Thanks for letting me know. I’m set up currently as a mage, but the thief/assassin route sounds fun. I usually don’t mod a game the first time I run through it, but maybe I’ll make an exception here.
You know what’s weird? I played Daggerfall for hundreds of hours, and revisit it repeatedly. Morrowind or Oblivion I just…couldn’t get into. Haven’t a clue why…
Great! Now, if you use ANY MOD AT ALL, use this one, and realize how the damn game is SUPPOSED to look.
http://darnified.net/forums/index.php?topic=14.0
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND using OBMM.
Dude wait until the NMA and Codex doofs show up.
If you want your hand held throughout the game then perhaps Oblivion isn’t a game for you. Oblivion, like Morrowind before it, puts all the game pieces on the table and it’s up to you to arrange them how you see fit.
I admit that while they included a very wide array of features, it feels like it lacks depth. The lazy Unreal Tournament style snap-together dungeons that all appear the same really got to me.
Other than the minor things, I had a great time playing it. To help you spruce up your game a bit, try RPing a bit more. I was never an RPer but it worked for me. The one thing that really felt missing was the social aspect. I could not marry, have friends, or witness the ever-touted random events based on personalities of each NPC when the game was released.
Couple things to try:
- Do what you’d do in RL. Eat, sleep and rest regularly.
- Cook your food
- Hunt for your food
- sleep only where there is a logical place to sleep.
- Make cheap potions and name them things like juice, water, etc
- find a nice outdoor location for your home.
- as you add your own personal touch to your camp, it will become warm and familiar.
- have a routine such as swimming in the mornings before breakfast then hunt before lunch, and hit the tavern for a night of hard drinking before you stumble home.
Lots of things to do. For me, starting a new game and RPing an outdoorsman added a good 10+ hours to the game. I’m sure you can be creative about it.
Just my advice.
I found the main quest so boring I ended up using cheat codes to blast through the oblivion gates (I was playing at a gaming cafe, paying by the hour so…). Biggest mistake was taking care of the main quest first. Nothing destroys immersion like slipping quietly into the imperial city as an assassin or thief only to be greeted by “Hail Champion!”. In fact, don’t do the main quest at all.
The coolest single part of the game: When Wonder Woman call me “M’Lord”…
Worst single part of the game: Having to get off your horse to fight.
And combat on foot was way better in DMoMM (though that was more of a melee first person shooter than an RPG).
Like others I really most enjoyed just wandering about and enjoying the landscape, both in the cities and the wilderness. Truth be told, I would have preferred Oblivion to be more of a “life simulator” than a “kill-orc-leader-bring-me-his-ring-and-get-magic-stone-and-2000-gold-as-prize” quest generator. Something without a main story where you could learn a trade, maybe run an inn or something, and do a little adventuring on the side to earn some cash. Would have liked that.
Respectfully
krise madsen
PS: The main theme completely blew me a way. Top notch game music.
My question is why you keep trying if you still can’t get into the game two years after it was released. If a game fails to keep my interest after a couple of tries, I shrug my shoulders and move on. Nobody bats a thousand in buying games. If the core game doesn’t work for you, you can download gigs of mods and you still won’t care.
I feel that Morrowind was MUCH more unforgiving in the way of letting you figure out where to go or even what to do next.
It’s not that Oblivion holds your hand so much by limiting your options as by leading you straight to one once you’ve set yourself on it. Need to find a special item? Here, let me mark it on your map. What, it’s too far? Use Fast Travel and skip the boring parts. Afraid of getting lost in the wilderness, even with a compass? We have this handy red arrow to guide you.
Of course there are mods to take care of all this but it’s just how the game was designed. I don’t mind much myself; it makes for more of a pickup and drop game, which I highly appreciate these days.
Overall I find the game very enjoyable but I agree that overall it comes across as a somewhat shallow experience, which might be an unavoidable side effect of its sheer size. My favourite games in the genre, the Gothic series, did not suffer from this but they were admittedly much more limited in scope.
I thought Morrowind was a much better game, and thanks to things like a better introduction. In Morrowind you began in a very small peaceful village, with some people to talk, do 3 or 4 little quests, have the first adventure in a cave, stealing a few things for the first time, the characters have a good amount of dialogue to have a taste of the setting, etc. After that, the main quest gave you a new direction: go to Balmora, a medium sized city, and talk to your new “boss” and he will give you more orders. And in that first city you had the first opportunity to enter in a guild / noble house, and open more quests. It had a certain structure, from small to medium to big locations, and as you follow that ‘path’ you also encounter more quests, from a few to totally new associations.
In Oblivion you begin in the capital totally lost and to advance you have to left the city and wander until a new locations outside the city. You try to talk and search some easy quests but in the city at first it seems empty of that, they only order you to different cities to enter a guild. The effect of “you are alone in the open world” was much abrupt and deep, even if you had a magical compass. :P
That’s an interesting point about Morrowind leading you into the gameworld. It also had a more distinctive geography and more memorable city locations. But, I liked Oblivion’s dungeons and combat system and sidequests better.
They each have their charms, to me, and I played them both extensively.