Anybody here turn the difficulty up?

[BFG99]

I turned it up the other day to see how hard it can get with a extended FCOM setup. It wasn't that it was harder, it just took forever to kill things... so yeah I think 50% is a good balance, at least for me.

 

The key to killing things at max difficulty is to have the right equipment and spells. :)

Here's a few tips.

Tip 1:

 

Remember that any creatures you Conjure are at the same strength as your enemies, so Conjurations are much more important on higher difficulties. They frequently can deal more damage than you.

 

 

Tip 2:

 

It is possible to build a weapon that is absolutely devastating to any enemy, other than those with high Magic Resistance. Here's the weapon I use--

 

Perfect Durable Madness Longsword (from a mod I'm working on :) ) enchanted with:

Storm Damage 3 pts in 1 sec

Fire Damage 3 pts in 1 sec

Frost Damage 3 pts in 1 sec

Soul Trap for 1 sec

Weakness to Shock 100% for 1 sec

Weakenss to Fire 100% for 1 sec

Weakness to Frost 100% for 1 sec

Weakness to Magic 100% for 1 sec

(the order of enchantments is important!)

 

As long as you keep hitting your enemy within 1 second of the previous hit, your damage will double with each hit. For example, hit #1 does 9 points Elemental Damage, #2 does 18 points, #3 does 36 points...by the 8th hit you're doing over 1000 damage per strike! Not bad for a weapon that can get 51 strikes on a single Grand Soul Gem. And, because of the Weakness to Magic, Soul Trap ends up lasting a lot longer than 1 second.

 

 

[iamsaige]

Those are very interesting points BFG99. I once tried a magic user only character. Didn't last, Too boring for my tastes. Still I think 50% is works for me as it's a balance of before I get bored vs I am entertained :D

[HarryM1986]

I tend to play at about 75% difficulty with vanilla but when playing an FCOM build i tend to find battles harder so keep it at or slightly above 50%

 

something i REALLY didn't like about vanilla oblivion is if you play a stealth character and get alchemy maxed and do allot of research into making 5+ effect poisons e.t.c. even at 80/90% difficulty the game tends to be way to easy. Its a shame how its almost as though the game engine was designed to not be understood properly as once you do and strategize your PCs progression towards a specific aim, if you keep it focused then you steadily become more powerfull than your environment. I remember once by level 13 i had 100 speed/agility and really high alteration to burden the hell outa enemies nothing could catch up with me. yay for FCOMS slow backwards moving aspect. I MUCH prefer FCOM as the alteredt mechanics really make you have to think more tactically.

 

meh, 2 cents/

[iamsaige]

I agree Harry, Vanilla is way too easy. FCOM is a lot better in that regard. Though it can't fix game limitations. If you still play a stealth marksman and have the correct skills maxed you basically one shot your way to victory most of the time.

[Chappi55]

Great idea with that sword enchantment man!

As for the difficulty, I find it too hard at 100% because I basically die by blocking a powerattack of NPC.

Maybe it's easier for higher levelled characters, but as I've said before when I'm playing just for the fun of it, I do the 25%, and when I feel strong I'm going for 50-75% max.

 

 

But the sword enchantment is really a great idea, now that I have learned how to endlessly duplicate any item in-game this can work :)

[HarryM1986]

I agree Harry, Vanilla is way too easy. FCOM is a lot better in that regard. Though it can't fix game limitations. If you still play a stealth marksman and have the correct skills maxed you basically one shot your way to victory most of the time.

 

 

I suppose exploitations are impossible to truly code out of such a massive game. There are to many variables to truly balance everything, indeed, once you have high alchemy, all you need are enough 0.1 health potions / invis/charm potions / 5+ Poisons a strong enough enchanted bow and you're one shotting your way to victory everytime.... "loop-holes in the engine" The equipment available to you, if used intelligently seems to always out-weigh the level of danger and threat in the enviroment.

 

I wish the game's difficulty setting, instead of a static increase in difficulty based on level, actually dynamically changed depending on the sum total of your level/stats/equipment and 'skill' within each battle (dmg dealt Vs damage taken e.t.c.) so the better you play, the harder it got, untill you reached your 'true skill' as it were and the game threw challenges at you in reference to your trueskill statistic relative to the intended difficulty of the area.

 

Oh to wish lol, that though, would be truly epic.

[Deleted1848331User]

the last time i maxed out the difficulty an imp one shotted me with fireball.

 

so that didnt last long.

Gotta love imps...

 

I play with difficulty all the way up. No matter what. If I'm about to die I go into the console and type either 'killall' or click on myself and type 'resethealth'. LOL.

[BFG99]

I wish the game's difficulty setting, instead of a static increase in difficulty based on level, actually dynamically changed depending on the sum total of your level/stats/equipment and 'skill' within each battle (dmg dealt Vs damage taken e.t.c.) so the better you play, the harder it got, untill you reached your 'true skill' as it were and the game threw challenges at you in reference to your trueskill statistic relative to the intended difficulty of the area.

 

Oh to wish lol, that though, would be truly epic.

 

That's why I bump the difficulty up one notch each time I level - it kinda does the same thing. :) And, it means turning up the difficulty is actually fun, instead of annoying.

[iamsaige]

Ha, I can see how that works.

 

I just had an epic fight of me vs about 10+ baddies bashing my face in, it's amazing how everything in the place suddenly wanted to eat me. I had to use invisible spells and run away so many times to heal and regenerate fatigue it wasn't funny. har.

 

The only thing I have to say I truly hate in this game is being disarmed. I've lost my weapon in the chaos of big fights so many times, or it "fell" through the world so to speak, that I had no option but to reload.

[BFG99]

Ha, I can see how that works.

 

I just had an epic fight of me vs about 10+ baddies bashing my face in, it's amazing how everything in the place suddenly wanted to eat me. I had to use invisible spells and run away so many times to heal and regenerate fatigue it wasn't funny. har.

 

The only thing I have to say I truly hate in this game is being disarmed. I've lost my weapon in the chaos of big fights so many times, or it "fell" through the world so to speak, that I had no option but to reload.

 

 

That's part of the reason I built my mod that allows for auto-reequipping of weapons. :)