Recommended mods or tips for newbies....

[Mycaelis1]

Howdy Folks,

 

Just bought Oblivion off steam and after talking to a few friends, they have said that there are some issues with leveling a primary skill, that later on in the game, you can get ridiculously powerful enemies towards after playing for a while...

Since I don't know anything about the game, can people here recommend some mods or tips that can help me get the best game play out of Oblivion...

 

Essentially I'm just looking for things which add to the quality of the game, and remove any bugs / problems like that which my friends mentioned...

 

Thanks in advance..

[BigRedNole]

I am new again after playing 2.5 years ago. Figured I would try it again now that Skyrim is 6 months out.

 

If you have never played, you should only be playing the base, Shivering Isles (SI), the DLCs, Official patch, Unofficial Patch. Anything else out there would be too difficult to advise for someone new. For me, I spent 8 hours setting up my new Oblivion install (FCOM and a bunch of other mods). Mainly because remnants of my old install screwed up the new one.

[runforitkyle]

Play through the whole game with out mods first then diecied what you need. Check out nexus top 100, USEP recommend mods wiki and Arwens oblivion mods index.

[suzypike]

I posted a thread similar to this a few weeks ago. I, personally, don't think you have to play through the entire game to pick your mods but you do need a test start or two to figure out what you might want to change and what you don't want to change. Everyone is different. The top 100 is a great place to browse. Also, you can browse by category and then sort by # of endorsements.

I had a lot of good advice about where to start. There is a ruin right across the river from the sewers. You can kill some bandits, work on your skills, and get some pretty good starting loot there. Also, the beginning quests for mages guild are pretty easy and take you to each city, which is kind of nice.

My particular mod that I can't live without is a house with fast travel. This is probably because I was a big Morrowind player and was spoiled by the recall spell. You can buy houses in Oblivion, but unless I haven't figured out how, you can't fast travel to them. There are a ton of good house mods. Assassin's Abode is in the Imperial City, very simple. It's not one of those huge house mods. Just a place to rest and stash your stuff.

But I agree with above post. You have to play a while to have an idea of what you would like to change or add. Just adding a bunch of random stuff will not enhance your game.

Have fun!

suzy

[GingerTom]

My suggestions for someone starting new (Subject to change as updates come along):

 

4 unofficial patches: unofficial oblivion patch v32, unofficial oblivion patch update v324, unofficial Shivering patch v140, unofficial Official mods patch v15

 

BOSS, OBMM (self installer) plus upgrade over it with OBMMex, obse20 or higher, Archive Invalidation, Wrye Base v291 (beta stand a lone version), Tweak Oblivion exe (this removes borders, music, waving grass and kitchen sinks etc)

 

And, to stop all those crashes: Oblivion Crash Prevention System for OBSE (weOCPS), Fast Exit, Oblivion Stutter Remover,

 

For 'saves': StreamLined.

 

And 'Silent Voice' if you're a slow reader.

 

TES4LODGen so you can see things in the distance.

 

There's a few things for you to look up--mostly under 'utilities'.

 

Should you do them all right now? Sooner or later you'll need them or most of them--but I slowly added them over the years :wallbash: as I figured out why my game wouldn't play.

 

I also hear that checkers can be a lot of fun to play...hope that helps.

 

PS: Some things don't work with Steam I've heard--have the disks myself. (Someone else might be able to add to that point to save you a headache.)

 

Most of all--just have fun. :thumbsup:

Edited May 22, 2011 by GingerTom

[Balakirev]

In my opinion (and for what little it's worth), vanilla Oblivion has some pretty dull gameplay with a lot of handholding. Modded Oblivion can add a ton of interesting quests, as well as a lot of additional content that adds much to the value of the game (such as the ability to keep and update a journal, companions with a ton of character and quest content, all new shops and items, all new enemies and magic systems, etc). So I'm with Suzypike that there's no reason to avoid mods even for a new player, but every reason to try a test character to two just to check out the waters.

 

Fortunately, Nexus has a very robust mod search system: just put in the category you want to look at, perhaps a date range (I'd suggest sticking with stuff made over the last 2-3 years, just to avoid out of date content, but that's pretty much arbitrary), and look in leisurely fashion at what's there. Be sure to read the comments section of the mods. True, there are some remarks that look like they were placed by people who only want new features or have no idea what the mod even does, but there are also some very knowledgeable posters who have a lot to say that's worth reading.

 

And of course, you can always ask for opinions, here. :)

[zetenrisiel]

I would definitely pick up a levelling modifier, to answer your previous point. the whole reason I found this site was because I was frustrated that by level 10 I could hardly survive. the combat system and skills can be fun but out of the box they are not very intuitive. Who knew that all that blocking and dodging I did would gimp me as a warrior later because I wasn't building up my "endurance" stats.

 

I agree though, you should just play and when something seems a bit off, just come onto the nexus and there is probably a mod that fixes it and three mods that make it even cooler than you thought it could be. :) I'ts kinda like rule 34, but with mods. I would also recommend grabbing the Construction Set and Poking through it, it saved me a lot of headaches when I wanted to make custom enchants, but Advanced Magecraft made my game way too unstable.