gpstr1

Sorry - just got back to this. I don't know exactly, but there are 2200 files total in there, so making allowance for .obse and .bak files, I'd guess maybe 1000 or so at most, and likely less than that. For context, I have almost 40 different characters, each with their own set of 12 rotating autosaves (Simple Saves), so that's maybe a dozen or so hard saves per character.

This is one I've never seen or heard of before. I'm not sure if it's really an issue, but it's at least a bit disconcerting. I recently upgraded my PC and along the way, reinstalled Win7 x64. So as a part of that process, as I've always done in the past, I reinstalled Oblivion, then copied my existing game folder and MyGames/Oblivion folders over the new installation, so I kept my heavily modded game the way it was. Everything works fine, BUT - my last save on my old install was save number 34428. All the times I've done this before, the game just continued on assigning save numbers in order, so I would've expected the next save to be number 34429. Instead, the first save I made on the new install was assigned the number 1030798206. Just to make sure that it wasn't a one-off thing, I played for a while and let my game autosave (Simple Saves) twice, which (though the autosaves don't display the number) should've been save numbers ...207 and ...208, then I did another manual save, and sure enough, it was number 1030798209. So the numbering seems to be working as expected - it's just, for whatever reason, spontaneously jumped up to a gigantic number, then continued on from there. Again, I'm not sure if this is even a problem (except that the number now takes up so much space on the main screen that it expanded each entry out to three lines, so they overlap each other and are sort of hard to read), but it is definitely strange, and I have no idea how to go about changing it, since the save count seems to be entirely internal - I see nothing in the ini that addresses it. Anyone else seen something like this before? Is there any reason (other than the convenience of smaller numbers) to bother with fixing it? Any ideas how to go about that?

This is from the images for Moraelin's Weapons of the Shogunate. I've spent the last couple of days looking for the armor, to no avail. I hope this is the right place to maybe ask if someone could point me to it? Thanks... http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/images/39834-4-1312715629.jpg More images here if you need.

In point of fact (as I addressed in my next post after that one) we don't know what the difference is between the rate of skill increase between lower and higher leveled skills. All we know is that lower level skills will nominally count for less - we have absolutely no idea how much less, or if it will be enough less for a character who's invested a bit too much into non-combat skills to ever be able to catch up. It's certainly possible, but we have absolutely no way of knowing if it will actually work or not. All we can do is hope that Bethesda has balanced it well, but not to put too fine a point on it - their record in that department is not very good. Since we don't have the game in hand, we actually have no idea at all what it will reward or punish or encourage or discourage or how any of a range of builds might or might not work, so that's all pure speculation. It's also beside the point. Again - my concern is that the leveling system MIGHT be broken. The system might well end up working as well as they claim, but it might just as easily NOT end up doing so, and to be blunt - if the system fails to live up to their hype, it certainly wouldn't be the first time. And again, my concern is that IF the leveling system is indeed broken, then with everything dependent on skills, attributes eliminated entirely and with no minor skills to increase freely, we're going to have that many fewer ways to compensate for it and are going to end up that much more at its mercy. I'm not saying (or more accurately, speculating, since that's all any of us can do now) that the system will be broken, so counter-speculation that it won't be is entirely beside the point. I'm merely pointing out that IF it's broken, it's going to be that much harder to get around it. And stating, sincerely, that that concerns me.

To me, it depends on what you mean by "viable." I think h2h is actually balanced fairly well and works fine, so it's definitely viable in that sense. From what I've read from other people over the years, the problem seems to be that they try to use h2h the same way they would a melee weapon - just stand there and swing away. In the first place, unless you have good armor skill, a shield and preferably an uber weapon that'll make fights short, just standing there and swinging away is almost always a bad strategy. And that's doubly true with h2h, just because the fights last so much longer, so you're going to get hit more often and take more damage. The first step to using h2h effectively is to keep moving. You're better off stepping in, getting off a shot or two, then stepping back out again than you are just standing there hitting and getting hit, and that because your opponent will almost certainly have a melee weapon and will potentially be doing more damage to you per hit than you're doing to him. So you want to avoid being hit as much as possible. But that's where one of the advantages to h2h comes into play - not carrying a weapon, you're going to almost certainly move faster, so it's going to be easier to step in and out of range. As the fight progresses, you'll be doing fatigue damage as well as HP damage, and that's the other advantage to h2h. Once you get their fatigue whittled down far enough, they'll be doing quite a bit less weapon damage, and you'll be able to spend more time in close. And once you get them down to zero, you'll knock them down, and from there on out, it's a cakewalk. They might, barely, be able to get a hit in on you (which won't do much damage anyway) but mostly you'll just be hitting them a few times, then they'll get up, then you hit them once and they go down again. Just repeat until they're dead. But that, to me, is where the biggest problem with h2h comes in. Particularly later in the game, that whole process takes a tedious amount of time. You're doing so little damage that it takes forever to kill something. Yes - they're spending most of their time on the ground and if they do manage to hit you, they're not going to do hardly any damage anyway, but still, you just hit them and hit them and hit them and hit them and hit them and......

The only thing I knew for certain when I wrote that post is that somebody who, like me, hasn't in fact played the game, would nevertheless try to tell me I was wrong. ;) Of course I don't "expect" that - that's not the point. Past games were set up such that if you happened to use a few of your non-combat major skills a bit too much at any given time, you'd level up, like it or not. It's not that people set out with the goal in mind of doing that - it just happened. In Skyrim, since major skills are gone, now if you use a few of ANY of your non-combat skills a bit too much, you'll level up. You don't even have the chance of safely using them if they're minors - ALL of them will count toward level up. If it's balanced well, it could work - if it's not, it won't - it'll result in the exact same problem that happened in past games. Not that people set out to end up leveled up too far with too many non-combat skills to show for it, but that they just end up that way because that's the way the leveling works. How much is "that much?" We (and that includes you) don't know how much that is. Yes - Beth has said that lower leveled skills affect leveling less, but they still affect leveling. You WILL still level up while you're trying to catch your combat skills up. Will you level up slowly enough that you can succeed at that? We in fact don't know. And my point is that IF that's the case, then both of the standard ways that people dealt with that very problem in Oblivion - efficient leveling and most-use-skills as minors - will be impossible to do in Skyrim. I'm not saying that anything is going to be any particular way - we don't have the game - we don't know. I'm saying that IF the leveling system is broken, then, since it depends on all skills rather than just majors and since attributes are gone so skills are the only things that count, we're going to have that many fewer ways to compensate for it. We're going to be that much more likely to be wholly at its mercy. And that concerns me.

To the OP - no - you're not the only one who's worried. In virtually every thread I've seen on this topic, one of the most common statements I see is people who say that theyr'e glad attributes are gone, because that means no more grinding for +5s. Let's look at that grinding for +5s thing. First - aside from the most obsessive of powergamers, nobody had to grind for +5s simply because attributes were there, so removing them really does nothing to address why people DID have to do so. It wasn't just because they were there - it was because of a combination of Oblvion's broken leveling system and level scaling. Between those two things, if anyone made the "mistake" of using a build with a few too many non-combat skills, and the further "mistake" of actually using those skills, he was going to end up leveling up before he'd even had a chance to increase his combat skills. Next thing he knows, he's facing a troll or a mountain lion, armed with nothing more than speechcraft and security. THAT is why it's beneficial to grind for +5s - not simply because the attributes are there, but because, if one simply levels up at the game's pace, one runs a very real risk of leveling up without sufficient combat skills and getting killed. Repeatedly. There were and are two primary ways to deal with that (setting aside leveling mods) - to efficiently level (grind for +5s) or to use a most-used skills as minors build. The benefit of both of those approaches is ultimately the same - to put off leveling long enough to be sure to gain sufficient skill and attribute increases to deal with the leveled opponents one was sure to face. Now - skip ahead to Skyrim. Yes - no more attributes means no more grinding for +5s, simply because they won't be there to grind for. But it doesn't mean that the fundamental reason that people did it won't be there. Level scaling has been altered, but it has no been eliminated, so it's still possible that one could level up too quickly and end up facing opponents that are exaggeratedly powerful. Majors and minors have been eliminated, but what that means is that a most-used-skills as minors build is now impossible. Instead, all skill use will count toward level-up. Without minors, that means that there will no longer be skills that are "safe" to use - that is, that won't lead to a level up. Use ANY skill - any at all - and it will contribute to a level up. Now - suppose, just for the moment, that Skyrim's leveling system is also broken - that the game ends up set up in such a way that if you play a thief for instance, and spend a bit too much time at a given level picking locks and sneaking, you'll get a level up from those skills, and before you've even had a chance to increase your weapon skills. And imagine that the level scaling that will still be in the game ends up doing the same thing that Oblivion's did - you find yourself facing much more powerful creatures equipped with nothing more than lockpicking skill and sneaking skill. What are you going to do then? You won't be able to grind for +5s, because they won't be there. You won't be able to slow your leveling speed, since it's fixed - all skill use counts towards leveling. You won't be able to focus on minor skills because there are no minor skills. ALL you'll be able to do is keep leveling up at the game's pace and keep getting your ass handed to you by the increasingly more powerful opponents. That's why I'm worried.

HGEC nude/C-cup/medium with Ozmo's textures. I used Robert's for a long time, but I switched to HGEC just because there seem to be more mods available for it. Now I've got so many HGEC armor and clothing mods that I don't think I could switch again even if I wanted to.....

Pretty much evenly split at this point. I used to play nothing but male characters (since I'm male) and I'd end up basically projecting an idealized version of myself into the game. And not just with this game, but with all RPGs. But it was with Oblivion that I finally got past that. I actually discovered it after the fact, but playing a female character made it so that I couldn't just cruise through the game, just doing whatever I wanted to do next. That's not why I did it originally-- I did it originally because I had an armor mod that included some female-only pieces and I wanted to play a character who could wear them, and because I just wanted to see what it was like. But the thing I discovered playing a female character is that I had to actually create a personality for her and figure out what she wanted to do next. She couldn't just be "me in the game" but had to be an entirely separate person, which relegated me pretty much to the role of observer. I couldn't just do what I'd do, but instead had to figure out and understand who she was so that she would end up doing what she would do. That really opened things up for me, since I was no longer just slogging through the game, making the same old choices and doing the same old things, but was instead creating new and interesting characters, then just sort of standing back and watching while they did whatever they did. For a while there, I played pretty much nothing but female characters, but then, once I started getting the hang of just letting them do their own thing rather than imposing my choices on them, I started creating some male characters again. But characters who were completely unlike me, and again, who simply did whatever they did, rather than whatever I would do if it was me. At this point, I don't really have a preference. It's just whatever's appropriate for the character.

Lots of them..... Delphine Jend -- she seems so bland and normal, 'til you find out just how much she loves her work. Owyn -- it doesn't matter what your rank is in the Arena, you're still some inconsequential slug that's crawled into HIS bloodworks. Bugak gro-Bol -- he has such a knack for customer service. Captain Burd -- anyone who can survive a battle with a horde of Daedra while wearing a green brocade doublet is okay by me. Dervera Romalen -- she's just so smiley. Trenus Duronius -- "Shoo-shoo!" Jeanne Frasoric -- I can't help but have a soft spot for a mage's guild leader whose summoned scamp only lasts for 3 seconds. Modryn Oreyn -- he's just a decent, honorable guy, even if I'm certain his breath reeks. And he's quite the artist too..... Dar-ma -- She's just so sweet. I really want to teach her to read. I think she'd appreciate that. Oh, and Haskill -- I just love that he's completely unimpressed by everything.

This. Highly educated specialists around the world can't come to any firm conclusions on the issue, but every schmoe with internet access knows EXACTLY what the world's climate is doing and why.

Even though it's already been said, I just feel the need to reiterate-- which self-appointed busybody reported this thread and why? There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and since it's a poll regarding, among other things, current events, it could well lead to a DEBATE, meaning that the DEBATES forum is exactly the right place for it. That off my chest-- I voted Economic and Work Things. I'm an American, and a construction worker, and that should pretty well explain that. :confused:

Well-- as I've just been piecing together elsewhere, disabling all your mods doesn't necessarily make any difference, or at least not an immediate one. From a response that Maigrets posted on a separate thread: So you not only have to disable all the mods, but disable all the mods, make a new save with them disabled, reload the game, then wait until everything respawns (three days by default, so four days just to make sure), and only then is the save as clean as it can get. And even then you can't be sure that the problem isn't something that a mod altered. I've yet to find out how it is that one goes about finding what's been altered and by what mod, if that is the case, so hopefully we can both learn something here from one of the more knowledgeable posters.......

The creatures will level with you-- anything that levels at all is set to level relative to player level-- player level -1 or player level +1 or that sort of thing. Another thing you might try (rather than altering the way the creatures level) is Kobu's Character Advancement System (LINK) It allows you to control virtually everything about your own leveling and has a number of predefined setups that will cover about every option you might want. One of them is called "The Void" and it sets it so that, so long as you have it active, you'll never level up, no matter how much you increase your skills and attributes. That's probably the easiest way to keep playing an existing game-- as you play, your skills will increase as normal and your attributes will increase as if you were leveling up, but your level won't change. Once you feel comfortable, you can switch back to one of the normal systems and start leveling up again.

you know, just the way you said that puts an image into a person's head... Guess that'd have to be classed as a two-handed blunt weapon...... :D

Ah.... thanks Maigrets-- you're a class act. I did indeed use my existing saves after the reinstall, though after making what I believed to be clean saves from them. Now I see that they weren't so clean anyway. As of late last night though, none of it really matters any more (unless the same problem crops up again) because I gave in, uninstalled, wiped everything Oblvion related from my system (including all mods, saves, registry entries-- EVERYTHING) and reinstalled from scratch. I'm reasonably certain that, whatever it was, the problem was in a script or something of that nature-- that's the only explanation I can come up with for it only crashing sometimes. It seems to me that if it was a problem with a texture or mesh or something of that nature, it would've crashed every time. And I figured I had even less hope of tracking such an obscure problem down than I might've had tracking a more obvious problem down, and I still didn't have the faintest idea where to even start in either case, so I really couldn't seen any other option. So I played through to the sewer gate with nothing other than UOP installed and then saved there before I added any other mods or did anything else (which should provide me with a handy spot for future clean saves, if necessary), and I'm now slowly installing things and working back through. I haven't tried going to Lord R's yet-- I'm still in the Market District selling the loot from the sewers and building up the dispositions of all the locals. I honestly haven't been in much of a hurry to try to go there-- if all of this has failed to solve the problem, I'd almost rather not know anyway. Though now that I'm thinking about it, I'm curious, and it'd be good to assure myself that the problem isn't in one of the ten mods I've so far reinstalled (though among the basic requirements for reinstalling them is that I trust them). In any event-- thanks for the answer. I really wanted to understand what a truly clean save requires, and now I do. And by the bye-- your Maple Leaf Cottage is the only house I've got installed, since it's my favorite by far. So thanks for that too.... :thanks:

And still more (sorry for the self-bump, but I didn't want to edit the last post yet again, especially since it doesn't read as a new post, and I'd rather this one doesn't lemming off of the first page quite yet)..... Just did a full reinstall a little while ago, but that didn't seem to do the trick either. Even with all mods disabled and a clean save, I still get the CTD. Most of the time. It's centered around Lord Rugdumph's but somehow not limited to it. I can't fast travel to LR's, but I also can't fast travel to Azura's Shrine, but I can hike there from Lake Arrius Caverns. And when I came back down from Azura's Shrine, by way of LR's, with everything enabled and my companion with me, I walked right up to the door with no crash. Then I restarted it again, fast traveled to Lake Arrius Caverns again and hiked from there to Lord Rugdumph's, and it crashed at the exact same point, in front of the gate. I felt more confident about figuring it out when it seemed it was crashing every time. Now that it's only crashing part of the time, I just have no idea.

Actually, I was just looking for some pointers to try to track this down on my own, and I honestly don't believe that any of my installed mods are the problem (since, as I said, starting from a clean save with all mods disabled didn't help), but anyway: CM Partners.esm Oblivion.esm Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp 77_Umpa_Animation.esp hilarity_121.esp Maigrets House Cats.esp BanditHelmets.esp VendorAmmoLL.esp 1DeadlyShadows.esp Adonnays Elven Weaponry.esp Andragorn_Weapons_Armors.esp DBShadowSet.esp HB Ayelid Longsword.esp HB Elven Sunbreaker Shortsword.esp Shdw_weapon pack01.esp Shdw_Armor pack01.esp Shdw_Armor pack02.esp Shdw_Armor Set_Sotonhorian.esp Woodsman Armor.esp HognutsHaven.esp Lakeview2.esp Maple Leaf Cottage.esp Tobes_house.esp VineViewCottage.esp Expensive pelts.esp MarkerExplore.esp Kobu's Character Advancement System.esp Kobu's 2x Slower Jack-of-All-Trades Mod.esp Kobu's Health Modifier Mod.esp Kobu's Cure for Fatigue Mod.esp Kobu's Skip Intro Mod.esp Smarter Mercantile Leveling - Multi.esp Quest Award Leveling.esp Unlimited Rings 2.0 -auto.esp dangerous wilderness.esp ScriptIcon_Replacer.esp EnchantmentRestore.esp EnchantmentRestore_Wells.esp CM Partners.esp CM Partners NPC NE.esp CM Partners More NPCs NE.esp CM Partner Sara.esp Nec-Character_Sonnet_Sweet.esp Nec-Character_Sonnet_Spoiled.esp Nec-Character_Sonnet_Mature.esp DANECSSONNET.esp Female Bosmer Resize.esp Kit Rae Weaponry.esp And that's it....... Funny thing I've discovered just now though. I've always been perplexed by CM Partners.esm loading before Oblivion.esm, but have always assumed that that was just some quirk and that the game knew better than I did, so I let it go. I just now tried moving Oblivion.esm back to the top and that got rid of the CTDs sometimes, but not all of the time. I haven't yet pinned down exactly when it still CTDs and when it doesn't, but there are at least some times when it doesn't, which is an improvement. Right ATM though, I've got something I need to do in the real world, so I'll have to get back to this later. Thanks for getting me pointed in the right direction, if only obliquely..... *And edited to add* I still can't figure it out. Running with the idea that it might have something to do with the Partners mod and/or with my partner, I tried a variety of combinations there, but with no concrete results-- with just the esp for my partner disabled, with all of the partner esps and the esm disabled, with everything enabled and my companion in game, but just left behind at Walker camp and with her with me. Sometimes it crashed and sometimes it didn't. At least that means that if I join the fighters guild and end up having to go to the estate, I can apparently sooner or later do it, but that's not really a solution-- it's just a workaround. I'm still wondering about clean saves, and at this point, that's the thing I most need to know in order to work on this some more. If I disable all of my mods, then go into the game and save with the mods disabled, then exit the game, then restart it with the new save, WILL that eliminate any possibility of a mod related crash (excepting possibly mods that have overwritten files that Oblivion uses no matter what)? That was my understanding, but I'm not so convinced now, since in every experiment I've done so far, including disabling all mods, I've done a clean save before I did anything else, but it hasn't seemed to make much difference.

That was the impression I'd gotten, but I can't be sure that that's actually the truth. Oh well-- for the time being at least, I stumbled on another I'd forgotten about-- Borba. I like that she's so matter of fact about being a "retired adventurer myself" and about "cleaning out" Quickwater Cave. And Volanaro-- the practical joker in the Bruma Mages guild. Shame that he...... but never mind, this isn't the spoilers forum. And thinking of Altmer mages-- I've liked Calindil at the Mystic Emporium in IC ever since I started a riot in the Market District and he was the only survivor (other than me). All the guards were dead, so was Maro and Rohssan and a couple of Verus brothers and all the pedestrian NPCs, and there's Calindil, stalking around with a bound helmet on his head, just looking for another fight. Didn't know he had it in him........

So far as I know, I've neither installed nor disabled any mods that affect that area at all. I had one weapon mod installed that had quite a few conflicts (sloppy bit of work, really) but the only worldspace it altered (or so it said) was at the opposite end of the map. I deleted everything having to do with it. Other than UOP, I've never had any mods installed that make any fundamental changes-- just weapons and armor, a couple of houses (none of which are even close to that end of the map), one custom race (Corean), CMCompanions and a few gameplay alterations-- Kobu's leveling mod and quick start mod, unlimited rings, enchantment restore, dangerous wilderness, quest award leveling-- that sort of thing. And none of those alter any cells at all. I'm still not clear on how a disabled mod could do anythng anyway though-- at least if I'm working from a clean save. I would think that, without the esp enabled to tell the game to look for something, it just wouldn't look for it. But maybe I'm missing something there. Am I right on that? If I disable all the mods, start the game from an existing save, then make a new save from that one, exit the game and restart it with that clean save, haven't I sidestepped any possible effects from old mods? Presuming at least that they didn't alter any common files?

I'm getting an inevitable CTD whenver I go anywhere near Lord Rugdumph's estate. It happens fairly close to the gate in front of the estate, but seems to extend for quite a way behind it-- if I try to walk (or fast travel) to anywhere in that area, it CTDs, every time. So-- I searched through the wikis and such for mentions of this problem and didn't find anything. I tried disabling all mods-- same problem. I tried disabling all mods and making a clean save-- same problem. I tried past saves, set up through OBMM with only their mods active-- same problem. I tried past saves with all mods disabled-- same problem. I tried past saves, mods disabled, made into new clean saves-- same problem. I ran through all the bsas with OBMM's uncorrupter-- it shows no problems. And I'm just not quite sure what to try next. Is a reinstall the only other option? Is there something else to check first? I've been sort of sloppy about removing texture files and such left behind by disabled mods-- can they cause a problem even if the mod isn't active? Could it be linked to UOP? That's the only mod I've installed that actually makes fundamental changes to the basic game. If so, how would I know if that's the problem and how could I avoid it next time? Or do I just grit my teeth and reinstall and hope?

Sorry-- I haven't seen such a thread and very deliberately didn't go searching for one specifically because I was under the impression that thread necromancy was discouraged here. Anyone with the power to do so is more than welcome to delete this thread-- it matters not to me. But some clarification would be nice-- is thread necromancy okay here? Expected? Am I better off bumping a year old thread on a subject than starting a new one? Thanks and sorry.

The Blackluster armor set is the only one of those I'm familiar with, but it's a mildly confusing installation, just because it comes with an optional esp in a folder named "HideAmulet.esp" The other folder though is named 'Data" and that's the one to deal with as Ringwall says-- open it up and move everything in it into your own Data folder. Don't even bother with the other esp unless you want an equipped amulet to not be visible with that armor, in which case use the esp in the "HideAmulet.esp" folder INSTEAD OF the original one. They have the same name, so it should be impossible to have them both installed, but still.....

Yikes! You're right. Maybe they're not really "headless" zombies, but maybe "invisible-headed" zombies? Or maybe their eyes and mouths and such have just migrated downward? I guess they've got lots of convenient open spots on their bodies that they could look and moan out of.....

Yeah-- Owyn's great. And I love that the only person he seems to like at all is Ysabel, the Battle Matron. Probably because she's even meaner than he is.