When Insanity Meets Actuality, What Ensues?

[selvo]

Slayton Marx

When Insanity Meets Actuality, What Ensues?

 

Introduction.

Hi, my name as stated above is Slayton Marx. My life as a gamer began with Morrowind. I personally believe it was an excellent game; however I must admit I will always be favorable to its mechanics and style over others. For this reason I was rather disappointed with the release state of Oblivion. If not for its incredible modding community, revitalizing the UI, adding new quests, revolutionizing combat and immersion I doubt I would still be playing it. Still because of its relationship to Morrowind I’ll always be reminded of the disparities between the two. With this thread I seek to reach out to the modders and help lessen the gap between these two games just a little more.

 

My Intent

In all honesty I’m no modder, however I’d like to make a request to all those modders out there. Simply stated I desire the end and complete elimination of the leveling system within Oblivion. For me it completely ripped asunder the immersion of the game. In Morrowind the Immersion hung thick in the simulated air. Entering a new cave felt life threatening and I remember the first time I encountered a bone lord the shock shuck me in my seat. Not to mention its shock spell quickly had my character on the ground twitching. In Oblivion I’m lucky to feel even the slightest note of fear when starring down the king of worms because I know that, a god he may be, I’m still just around his level. Those of you who prefer immersion, interesting themes and interesting settings and characters know what I mean. Half of the fun of an RPG is role-playing, hence the word taking up half of the name of the genre. How can I roleplay a thief when all the chests, no matter where I go, rich or poor contain the same leveled items. What’s my incentive for robbing a more secure house? Not to mention many times the leveling system simply doesn’t make sense. How many times do you recall asking, when a highway man pulled you over wearing full glass armor “why doesn’t he just sell the damn armor?!” Honestly for me it was far too many.

 

The Request

Someone, anyone please, I know it’s a massive undertaking, and I know Oblivion is so old now it seems pointless but please, please fix the atrocity against role-playing committed, if nothing else in the memory of Morrowind. Eliminating the leveling system would add realism, add immersion, give the player a sense that the world doesn’t revolve around them, encourage preparation (as one cannot simply blindly delve into a nest of the undead at level 1) and improve game play.

If you have any suggestions as to what would be in said mod or if you are thinking of actually making it please post below. I’m not sure if I’m the only voice saying this. I hope not.

[ipwnnn00bs4life]

There is a mod that disables the leveling and makes the game more realistic, however I don't remember the name of it. I'll try to find it for you.

 

EDIT: I believe it's called OOO ( Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul )

[selvo]

Really? Thank you. I'm surprised someone listened to my rant. So thanks for that too.

[David Brasher]

I have been doing some work in the Morrowind CS lately, and you would be surprised to see how heavily leveled Morrowind really is. But somehow Bethesda managed to strike the perfect balance. The game is heavily leveled and you don't even notice because it just feels so right. Oblivion is really heavily leveled and it does not feel right.

[Megatarius]

Don't just get OOO, get FCOM. It's a pain to install, but it's worth it. I've installed it twice. Both times I've gotten it to work exactly as intended (at least I think I did :teehee: ). I can help you if you run into problems. So can a lot of other people.

[Ferryt]

Simply stated I desire the end and complete elimination of the leveling system within Oblivion.

 

First of all, as wrongly stated, above, OOO does not eliminate levels in Oblivion. Indeed, much of it is about re-leveling opponents. To my knowledge (and if I'm wrong about this somebody correct me because I'd LOVE to be wrong on this point) most of the leveling features of this game are hard-coded into the game engine. Nobody would like more than I for a mod to come out that virtually eliminates any level effects in Oblivion. I never liked levels in the game that started it all (thanks a bunch Gary Gygax, but there's something about the sun not shining that describes my feelings about the whole level fetish you introduced into gaming). I didn't like it in any subsequent games. I'll never like it in any games to come. You can simulate character development with a purely skill-based system. The best known example of this is GURPS, and it works like a charm.

 

There is at least one mod that has disconnected leveling from sleeping, though (in that one you level up instantly, as soon as you've had the requisite number of skill increases), rather than it being tied to you snoozing for an hour or more. That means at least some part of the leveling system can be modded. Even this, though, doesn't do anything to help the way that "leveling" just destroys immersion for me, as well as having sent me on several false starts in this game, trying to figure out the best way to "level up", and really losing track of the reason I got Oblivion in the first place.

 

I'm 100% in lock-step with you on this issue. I just think that if leveling is as closely tied to the game engine as I suspect it is, that we will never be free from the annoying and stupid legacy with which Dungeons and Dragons left us, and I really doubt that you'll see Bethesda do anything different in future games, either.

[HarryM1986]

Just throwing it out there, just a theory...

 

I believe making a truly static oblivion is theoretically possible, not by getting rid of the leveling but to *cough* go through every relevant item in game and script its level to alter in relevance to your characters level, so the enviroment's leveling is actually working in an inversed, balanced manner relative to your PCs leveling, creating a 'synthetic' stasis. "X creature spawn point set to spawn X creature at X level thats script dictated it (for example spawns an Ogre) spawns a strong version relative to your weak character and hence forth will spawn a slightly weaker creature relative (inversely) to your characters forward progression if that creature spawn is ever triggered by your character.

 

The same could work for chests, spawning a relatively weaker or stronger item relative to your characters level at the time the spawn is triggered, in such a manner that said chest will spawn what 'appears' to be the same quality/powered item.

 

you could set this up geographically in the game world so 'those' chests you find after you press a hidden button in an aleyid ruin will spawn an item much stronger than your character if your character is in a much harder area than his level should dictate, OR if your character is in that same area later at a much higher level, the chest will spawn something much closer in match to the characters level, mimicking a static spawn.

 

I feel a balance can be achieved via some form of CRAAAZY scripting skills wherin the environments leveling is tweaked to 'the magic point' where this inversed relation to your characters progression appears 'from the perspective of your progression as the character, as a static environment'

 

Its kind of a hard thing to explain but it makes perfect sense in my head. Wish i could think of a clear way of explaining it. :pinch:

 

 

Oh, FCOM is a must IMO too :) I swear by it. makes the games engine much more similar to Morrowinds and does exactly what i said to some extent

[Ferryt]

There are already "re-balancing" mods that do just this, although not really on a global level like that, and you can't effectively mash them together to get a bigger effect because there's so much overlap between them. This still leads to one of the most vexing problems that relate to immersion and realism, though. Why is it that a bandit, confronting my first level character will be wearing fur armor, but later in the game he'll have glass armor -- basically same bandit, same place, since it's the same spawning point? The issue is that levels make the game unrealistic on a number of ... erm ... levels.

 

This is just my own opinion, of course, but I don't want to see leveled lists. When I clear out a cave with goblins early in the game and I revisit the game I expect to see goblins like I did, before -- not ginormous goblins-on-steroids that were never in the game until then. Where did they come from, anyway? Give me a range of challenges from trivial (right out of the prison) to very difficult. If I see a minotaur three days after escaping I'm going to run. Rats? OK, I'll be cautious, but I know I can beat them. It's all about skill level when you do it this way, and not about character level. Everything is in-place in the game and is static with reference to how difficult it's going to be, and you, the player, will have to rely upon common sense regarding whether or not to take on that challenge. Of course, Oblivion was probably created with the nine-year-old gaming mentality in mind, so Bethesda really didn't expect the players to be adults who can think things through -- one of the differences, I understand, between Oblivion and Morrowind.

 

Yes your idea, and it would be a tremendous challenge that would conflict with every single mod out there that messes with the leveled lists, would work. It would be a kludge, at best, but better than nothing and I'd be willing to give such a mod a try if anyone is feeling adventurous enough to try to dynamically level every single leveled (and unleveled) item, creature, NPC, and list of same in Oblivion.

[HarryM1986]

I'm honestly no modder. Just a theorist lol. But really, it simply sprung to mind when reading the posts on this thread. I have no idea how to implement it atall. Although i agree it is theoretically possible, as you stated it appears there will be to many conflicts with other mods and probably would entail every other modder out there to develop a patch, not to mention the work involved in the actual mod, not even starting on all the work involved figuring out a way for it to communicate with items placed in the world via other mods. The sheer work involved would be immense and unparalleled, and i presume would literally tower over any other mod in size and work involved, yes, even FCOM.

 

The idea is there, though.

[documn]

Frans is another option to try if for some reason you don't want to use OOO (or OOO-centric overhauls like FCOM, ROM, etc.).