Leveled Monsters=ridiculous

[Dark0ne]

I agree there are quite a few balancing issues in Oblivion that make me wonder who was playtesting this game.

 

Bows, for instance, are pathetic unless you use a stealth attack. It took over 20 steel arrows to take out a mountain lion the other day, and that's when I'm at level 17, 60+ Marksman skill. Thats just poo. There's a mod that changes the potency of Archers in the game but I'm reserved to try it just yet, since on the plus side more hits = faster levelling on fewer enemies...

 

Next comes the daft strength of wilderness creatures like boars, mountain lions and bears -- I can take boars and mountain lions on face-to-face if I have full health and get a stealth hit in but can't touch the bear. In order to kill them I need to find a high rock they can't get on to and pummel them with arrows. This is at level 17.

 

What I *DO* like is Bethesda making you think more about the fights you enter and the tactics you use. It's no longer a matter of running into the centre of a room full of cultists with your sword held-high laughing as your armour rating is so high the poor peasants can't even hit you, ala Morrowind. Often your best tactic is to sneak in, divide and conquer making sure they don't run off for help when they get low on health. That's cool, that's clever, makes you think more.

 

In Morrowind you were setup to become the super-hero, in Oblivion you're not the super-hero with divine purpose, you're a normal person.

[Switch]

The game is certainly too difficult at times, but generally I find when I'm getting my ass handed to me it's because I'm in a dungeon or area that's too high level. If I leave and go elsewhere I can usually get by. I get the impression I will have to turn the difficulty down long before I get to level 20, though. :P The wild animals do seem quite overpowered, although I don't seem to have too many problems with my class. However I can imagine they'd tear right through you in anything below heavy armour. ^^;

 

One thing that does seem unbalanced is how expensive healing potions are. It's ridiculous. Especially considering I have to gulp down 5-10 or more of the things per expedition... it often makes dungeon crawling a case of breaking even, rather than making a profit early on. It is becoming less common now I'm nearing level 10 and enemies are starting to carry better equipment at least.

 

Anywho, methinks this would probably be better off in Spoilers. Moving...

[CaptainPuffy]

What Difficulty level are you guys playing at? Mine is set to slightly above default.

 

Next comes the daft strength of wilderness creatures like boars, mountain lions and bears -- I can take boars and mountain lions on face-to-face if I have full health and get a stealth hit in but can't touch the bear. In order to kill them I need to find a high rock they can't get on to and pummel them with arrows. This is at level 17.

 

I'm a Level 30 Mage, who traded Alchemy and Mysticism For Blade and Light Armor. I havent noticed anything along those lines. Sure enemies such as Minotaur lords and Wraiths slap me around once in a while, and they even can kill me if I'm not paying attention, but I have found that every enemy has a weakness, and every weakness can be exploited, directly and in directly.

 

What I *DO* like is Bethesda making you think more about the fights you enter and the tactics you use. It's no longer a matter of running into the centre of a room full of cultists with your sword held-high laughing as your armour rating is so high the poor peasants can't even hit you, ala Morrowind. Often your best tactic is to sneak in, divide and conquer making sure they don't run off for help when they get low on health. That's cool, that's clever, makes you think more.

 

This is what I feel is Oblivion's Strength, it forces you to think things through. My Wife was having a problem dealing with a House full or Wraiths at Level 10-20. They were constantly ganging up on her sometimes 5 at a time, draining her Strength and Endurance while silencing her and melee attacking. After putting our heads together we decided to play "Hide and Seek" With the Wraiths. We'd pop in and out of invisibility taking them out one by one. There are so many ways you can go about facing the challenges of this game, try to remember that if one method doesn't work, that maybe another will. Storming a room and hacking at anything that moves isn't always the best option.

[frostryder]

This is what I feel is Oblivion's Strength, it forces you to think things through. My Wife was having a problem dealing with a House full or Wraiths at Level 10-20. They were constantly ganging up on her sometimes 5 at a time, draining her Strength and Endurance while silencing her and melee attacking. After putting our heads together we decided to play "Hide and Seek" With the Wraiths. We'd pop in and out of invisibility taking them out one by one. There are so many ways you can go about facing the challenges of this game, try to remember that if one method doesn't work, that maybe another will. Storming a room and hacking at anything that moves isn't always the best option.

 

I agree, you have to change tactics now and then, and learn enemy's weaknesses! This is truly awesome, as you're not just hitting the lever for the XP pellet! :P

 

And the earlier comment about marksmanship being too weak, I was 'startng' to run into this, until I started getting magical bow drops. Now, same as early game, a stealth shot takes most health away, and I can dance around pickin off melee guys with arrows... If you're using a steel bow and steel arrows forever, you're never going to be able to kill anything :)

 

Wheeee! stealth archer :ph34r:

 

edit: put knot yore trussed inn spell checquers

[Dark0ne]

Until a "Recharge Enchantments By Time" mod comes out I find enchantments extremely nurfed. If I have a bow with 25 uses of +30 fire or frost damage it runs out after about 5 or 6 kills. Not really too useful if you're trying to take an Oblivion gate down.

[batesmotel34]

Until a "Recharge Enchantments By Time" mod comes out I find enchantments extremely nurfed. If I have a bow with 25 uses of +30 fire or frost damage it runs out after about 5 or 6 kills. Not really too useful if you're trying to take an Oblivion gate down.

Coming equipped with charged soul gems helps a lot with that. And unlike Morrowind, recharging the item from a gem does seem to be a sure thing. My worry when I'm using a charged item particularly a bow is that my Repair skill isn't up to Journeyman level so I can't repair them when they get worn. My character currently carries both an unenchanted Dwarven bow and a Dwarven Bow of Burning with the latter usually the first choice unless I want the extra oomph. Especially with poisoning with potions the unenchanted bow does ok. I need to get better about carrying a better selection of poitions for t his purpose as one way to make my archery more effective. I think I noticed a post in one of the forums that listed alchemy ingredients and that should simplify building an effective poison chest.

 

My mage/archer has conjuration as one of her highest skills so summoning stuff to trap in soul gems comes in handy. Scamps are easy and I think are 150 points each as far as recharging goes.

[CaptainPuffy]

I just tried the Main Quest through the First Oblivion Gate at LVL 33 with the difficulty slider at default. It was difficult, but it wasn't too bad. I did have to reload the game once and make a few enchanted items as well as a few spells. Here is my character at current (As I can recall from memory)

 

Breton Lvl 33

Maximum Magicka 423 **

Strength: 65

Intellegence:102**

Willpower:103 **

Speed:67

Agility:61

Endurance:61

Luck:51

 

Blade: 100**

Light Armor: 60

Alteration:100

Restoration:76

Destruction:84

Conjuration:100

Illusion:100

**(With enchanted items)

 

What I carry:

Daedric Long Sword (Enchanted with absorb 3pts of health on strike)

Full Set of Glass Armor Except for the boots (Each piece Enchanted with Fortify Magicka with either a Grand level or Greater soul in it)

Spell Drinker Amulet (20 pts of Spell Absorption)

Ring of Fire (Resist fire 100%)

Ring of the Blade (Fortify blade 10 points)

Boots of Grounding (Resist Shock 20%)

Staff of Paralysis

Staff of Silence

[edstamos1]

In contrast, I just did the first Oblivion gate with a level 2 High Elf fighter-type (Paladin) with about 30 blade/heavy armor skill, usinga 'heal major wounds' spell for healing, carrying 10 armorer hammers, and the following equipment:

fine steel long sword

steel cuirass

iron shield

steel bow

30 steel arrows

 

and I didn't use a single healing potion.

 

level scaling seems weird, but it allows the player to play through any point in the game at any time (for the most part). there's a lack of realism there, but it's better than having to grind for an hour or two just to make sure you're strong enough to tackle the next gate.

 

a mixture of both would be nice i suppose - like creature X can only be between levels 1-5, but can be encountered anytime. Perhaps create pack spawn points that generate only 1 or 2 of the creature when you're low level, and a pack of 6 or 7 if you're high level - just to make it interesting.

 

but whatever - back to Kvatch.

[loveme4whoiam]

I find that the basic creatures - rats, mudcrabs (which are no longer the cute things of MW, they are vicious devils) stunted scamps- easy to despatch, and that is how it should be. But at the moment I'm a lvl 3 Ranger and I get my backside kicked up and down a corridor by a single Mythic Dawn guy! In the Sewers quest for the Main Quest, I actually had to hang back and cowardly hack at the attackers from behind while Baurus took the majority of the blows. I've yet to really level up (hence the lvl3) so I haven't taken on the hard guys, but if this is anything to go by I'm going to have to get really good at Restoration.

 

My difficulty slider at the moment is dead in the middle, where the game starts off with it at. I might reload that save-game with the slider down a bit and replay, see what its like then.

[DEZLOC]

I absolutely agree, as well. I've played up to level 20 twice, once with a pure mage and once with an assassin-y custom class, and neither character could survive Kvatch. I can't even get into the chapel, because the two spider daedra, two daedroths, and three storm atronachs outside kill me almost immediately (not to mention the way they one-shot my NPC cohorts.) It's unbelievable, and I literally cannot advance past this point without cheating like a mad-woman. I'd really much rather have the game work the way Morrowind did in this respect, honestly.

 

I too have noticed that I seem to be much more easily and more severely staggered by enemy power attacks and blocks. What's going on, Bethesda? Why did you make your game un-fun?

 

 

I ended up having to drag them into the chapel where the last remaining static guard remained to help me dispatch the numerous fire daedra, and also resting inbetween all fights(cheap but it works)