Is Oblivion's Skill System Unbalanced?

[odark]

The reason I pose this question is because of the following scenario.

 

I made this character today, and only then did I realize his capacity.

Breton - Male

BS: Mage

COMBAT

Strength

Endurance

Alteration

Conjuration

Restoration

Destruction

Mysticism

Illusion

Sneak

 

I wear heavy armor, use a shield, and use a blade. But in doing so I realized by level 2 of normal play I could easily get heavy armor, block, and blade to atleast 25 without that incurring my level. Instead I chose magic skills because they level slow and are very useful. So now I have 59 blade 44 block and 39 heavy armor at level 3. Is this the way to go, or is there something terribly wrong, that is the question I pose.

 

In morrowind you could attempt the same thing, but seriously fail. If I made a breton in the same manner even with his armor, blade and block set in his minor skills still affecting his level he'd still suck. I get the feeling this game was catered to the powergamer. Made to be shorter, because it'd take me 10 minutes to level my blade 3 times in morrowind as I could level 3 times in 10 minutes in oblivion if I so dared.

[Malchik]

it'd take me 10 minutes to level my blade 3 times in morrowind as I could level 3 times in 10 minutes in oblivion if I so dared.

 

I assume you mean 10 times in 3 minutes in Oblivion? If not I am missing the point. It is harder to level up as the game proceeds and much harder to try to catch up as you level as the monsters become too difficult to practice on.

 

My biggest complaint is that you don't need specific skills and levels in the factions. My character did all factions by level 4, and the main quest and most miscellaneous quests too. I am levelling up now (at 10) to do the daedric quests. 6 to go.

[odark]

I assume you mean 10 times in 3 minutes in Oblivion? If not I am missing the point. It is harder to level up as the game proceeds and much harder to try to catch up as you level as the monsters become too difficult to practice on.

 

My biggest complaint is that you don't need specific skills and levels in the factions. My character did all factions by level 4, and the main quest and most miscellaneous quests too. I am levelling up now (at 10) to do the daedric quests. 6 to go.

 

Yeah, that is what I meant. I know what you mean with the monsters leveled lists being impossible to catch up with. The only character that I've made capable of keeping up was my Redguard blade master, reason being is that he only used sword so it was really high. Even still, sometimes it'd throw two mountain lions or brown bears at me that'd be it. With this technique though, it is entirely possibly to have 100 in a skill and still be level 1 or two if your really careful. That and I get mostly 3s 4s and 5s on levels. So by the time your level 5 you might have an attribute very close to 100. I guess you pose an interesting counter point, as-where I asked "Do you think this could break the game?" where you jest "maybe it was already broken enough." I'm beginning to change my approach to this, i think "hell with it" make a redguard with mostly side skills, LEVEL REALLY SLOW but reap those benefits of not leveling from combat skill-ups.

 

Hell, even a Orc because they can still do magicka while keeping a high combat prowless. Morrowind had this down pat, there were somethings you could do and somethings you most certainly couldn't. I don't see that line in oblivion... I don't want to use a modded leveled list, but I think I may. Out of sheer anger, due to my constant deaths i incur just traveling (mountain lions, bears, spriggans, trolls, will-o-the-wisps.) I can deal with caves, forts, and ruins any day just not the crap that spawns by the side of the road as much. Maybe this is there way of saying ride that horse, or make that fast travel, I sure hope not because that is boring.

[modernlegend]

I thought about taking this apprach as well, thing is though, by playing a character in the way you describe, surely you forego the attribute increases that you gain through leveling up, also u have to be a certain level to gain access to Items, so the best armour for the class, in your case havy would be unavailable to you? Not entirely sure on everything there but theres my 2 cents in the box.

[Malchik]

I agree with odark that it is the ordinary travelling that is the irritation. It is not how difficult the creatures are but how many. Viewing the scenery becomes boringly hack and slash at higher levels. (Which must appeal to hack and slash players of whom I am not one.)

 

It is perfectly feasible to have all skills at 100 without levelling at all if you can be bothered to spend the time doing it. However this makes the dungeons far too easy - and the Oblivion gates too and you don't get very good loot.

 

I think up to about level 7 or so it is fine, so explore the countryside when you are at lower levels gaining skills and then begin to level faster. If you have seen most of what there is, the fast travel option becomes very attractive.

 

The five point multiplier I believe applies to ANY skill increased five times. So as long as you have skills to increase you can get them even after your major skills are maxed.

 

In my current game I cleared Kvatch at level 10 and found it relatively easy because my magic and blade skills were high. But then I did everything I could except the main quest (which I had done recently in a different game) at levels 2-4.

 

It showed me that you must improve skills before levelling up. The hint sites suggest not putting the skills you will use most as major skills at all so you can delay levelling up until you are really ready.

 

I think I might manage one more game to test that out but I can't say it will keep drawing me back like MW until there are some good mods. I just need to play those last six daedric quests.

[thanateros]

I thought about taking this apprach as well, thing is though, by playing a character in the way you describe, surely you forego the attribute increases that you gain through leveling up, also u have to be a certain level to gain access to Items, so the best armour for the class, in your case havy would be unavailable to you? Not entirely sure on everything there but theres my 2 cents in the box.

 

That's the beauty of this leveling method, you actaully do accrue those stat bonuses on non-major skills as they level. So if you're a fighter, choose all magic skills as your major skills, then increase block, blade, heavy armor etc by 10 pts each, then level with the magic major skills and end up getting +5 in str, endur, and willpower (from magic) each level. My wood elf is only level 5 and her agility and speed are both at 85. The only way to really curb the flaws in the leveling system are to get one of the mods that make the attributes increase with leveling its related skill by a certain % each level. That system is more fluid and overall makes gameplay more fun, since you just play and your character naturally gets attribute increases as your skills increase. Then after a certain number of attribute raises, you gain a level. It's a much better system IMO. Although having a level 5 with an expert in marksman and alchemy is good times all around. The only drawback is that leveling is much slower under that system, since the ones I've seen on this site don't modify the attributes normally (+1 every 2 levels, most of them are more like 30%-40%, but they do branch over several skills, so marksman might see an increase in both agility and speed for each skill level).

 

@ Malchik: The game does get extrememly repetitive over time. There's only so much to do, and not enough of it. I feel like in the effort for a more open ended game they relied too much on players loading the game and finding their own sources of entertainment. Nothing like getting the Unicorn to kill Kvatch survivorts for some amusement ;D I started playing a wood elf with no real associations. Instead of the managed leveling system I went for the major skills, which was a big mistake considering all she wants to do is run around collecting ingreedients and killing people in their sleep. It was fun for the first couple of hours, but I finally caved and started the Dark Brothood quests. I went and reloaded Morrowind, just to get that old school feeling again. The pacing is much different; a lot more laid back, but always you have the sense that there's something to do no matter where you are. Unfortunately in Oblivion, it feels like there's nothing to do unless you're questing; I don't know why that feeling exists or how it happened from MW to OB, but it's there, and I really have to want to play the game. OB feels more MMO than MW, minus the mindless experience hauling and item questing, although at times, it feels like that's all I'm doing.

[batesmotel34]

I thought about taking this apprach as well, thing is though, by playing a character in the way you describe, surely you forego the attribute increases that you gain through leveling up, also u have to be a certain level to gain access to Items, so the best armour for the class, in your case havy would be unavailable to you? Not entirely sure on everything there but theres my 2 cents in the box.

 

That's the beauty of this leveling method, you actaully do accrue those stat bonuses on non-major skills as they level. So if you're a fighter, choose all magic skills as your major skills, then increase block, blade, heavy armor etc by 10 pts each, then level with the magic major skills and end up getting +5 in str, endur, and willpower (from magic) each level. My wood elf is only level 5 and her agility and speed are both at 85. The only way to really curb the flaws in the leveling system are to get one of the mods that make the attributes increase with leveling its related skill by a certain % each level. That system is more fluid and overall makes gameplay more fun, since you just play and your character naturally gets attribute increases as your skills increase. Then after a certain number of attribute raises, you gain a level. It's a much better system IMO. Although having a level 5 with an expert in marksman and alchemy is good times all around. The only drawback is that leveling is much slower under that system, since the ones I've seen on this site don't modify the attributes normally (+1 every 2 levels, most of them are more like 30%-40%, but they do branch over several skills, so marksman might see an increase in both agility and speed for each skill level).

 

@ Malchik: The game does get extrememly repetitive over time. There's only so much to do, and not enough of it. I feel like in the effort for a more open ended game they relied too much on players loading the game and finding their own sources of entertainment. Nothing like getting the Unicorn to kill Kvatch survivorts for some amusement ;D I started playing a wood elf with no real associations. Instead of the managed leveling system I went for the major skills, which was a big mistake considering all she wants to do is run around collecting ingreedients and killing people in their sleep. It was fun for the first couple of hours, but I finally caved and started the Dark Brothood quests. I went and reloaded Morrowind, just to get that old school feeling again. The pacing is much different; a lot more laid back, but always you have the sense that there's something to do no matter where you are. Unfortunately in Oblivion, it feels like there's nothing to do unless you're questing; I don't know why that feeling exists or how it happened from MW to OB, but it's there, and I really have to want to play the game. OB feels more MMO than MW, minus the mindless experience hauling and item questing, although at times, it feels like that's all I'm doing.

 

I think there are two things that make Oblivion seem repetivite compared to Morrowind. The first for me is that the setting in Cyrodil is much less interesting than Vardenfall was for Morrowind. Cyrodil is only a step or two removed from being a totally generic Medieval European fantasy setting while Morrowind seems much more exotic and uniquie. In Morrowind I really feel an interest in exploring the history and legends

behind Dunmer culture whether it be by reading books or by talking with various NPC's in their walking encyclopedia style dialog. Different geographic regions in Morrowind feel more varied than the different areas in Oblivion. I'm not sure to what degree this is due to the different climactic/geographic areas in Morrowind being more extreme in general or if they really are more vareigated. There certianly are different regions in Oblivion, e.g the area north of Bruma versus the Great Forest versus the open areas around Anvil. But overall it doesn't feel really different. Morrrowind has much of the interest value in its background world and history as Tolkien managed to put in the Lord of the Rings and that makes browsing the appendices of LOTR almost as much fun as the strory itself. Oblivion and the older ES titles Daggerfall and Arena don't have this. The general history as described in books and brought out in the storyulines of the various ES games does give the world more depth but onlyu MOrrowind reallly feels like a uniuqe and interesting fantasy world. In Oblivon the details of what happened to the Aeyelid's is intereesting and may pan out more when I do those quests, but it feels no where near as intriguing as what happened to the Dwemer in Morrowind.

 

The second thing that I see as an issue with repetitiveness in Oblivion is the limited number of factions to join explore. After finishing the main quest in Morrowind with my first character, advancing in the variuous Houses plus the Guilds versuss the TRibunal Temple and Imperial Cult provided was often more interesting than the Main Quest and allowed for lots of combinations of choices to pursue even though the competition/contention between the different factions was pretty lame in practice as opposed to how it was described by NPC's. Of course one of my House Hlaalu characters did make it a personal mission to clear out as many rogue Televan settlements as possible to support the Grand Duke's desire that only licensed settlements be allowed. ;-). The total lack of religous factions/quests in Oblivion is especially disappointing compared to Morrowind. Even Daggerfall had each of the Nine Divine's cults as a separate faction with its own advancement and perks such as enchanting and potion making .

 

 

The reason I pose this question is because of the following scenario.

 

I made this character today, and only then did I realize his capacity.

Breton - Male

BS: Mage

COMBAT

Strength

Endurance

Alteration

Conjuration

Restoration

Destruction

Mysticism

Illusion

Sneak

 

I wear heavy armor, use a shield, and use a blade. But in doing so I realized by level 2 of normal play I could easily get heavy armor, block, and blade to atleast 25 without that incurring my level. Instead I chose magic skills because they level slow and are very useful. So now I have 59 blade 44 block and 39 heavy armor at level 3. Is this the way to go, or is there something terribly wrong, that is the question I pose.

 

In morrowind you could attempt the same thing, but seriously fail. If I made a breton in the same manner even with his armor, blade and block set in his minor skills still affecting his level he'd still suck. I get the feeling this game was catered to the powergamer. Made to be shorter, because it'd take me 10 minutes to level my blade 3 times in morrowind as I could level 3 times in 10 minutes in oblivion if I so dared.

It sounds like this poll would be better titled something like "How well does Oblivion's skill system work with its Leveling" than whether the skill system is unbalanaced. When I answered the poll I thought that you were asking whether some skills were much more effective/useful than others rather than how skill improvements affect levelling, e.g. is Blade too strong a skill commpared to Marksman or is Speechcraft a useful skill. I answered that I think it is well balanced (the first option) and might well answer the same when asking how it interacts with the leveling as well. Given the ease with which you could exploit training in Morrowind to level or to insure maximum attribute increases per each level, I certainly don't think that Oblivion is any more exploitable and it may well be less so.