My views on Oblivion improvements.

[Maquissar]

FOREWORD

 

In this thread, I will make a list of my current gripes with Oblivion, which I have never extensively played, but which I'd love to play as soon as I manage to fix the few aspects of the game which annoy me. What I ask of you is that you take a look at this list, comment on it, and if you are an aspiring modder who currently has no ideas for the game, feel free to use any of my ideas! If, of course, you find that some of the issues I've listed have been fixed in already existant mods, please direct me to them :)

 

A few words on myself... I got myself Oblivion as soon as it was out, played for it a bit, then decided it could use a few improvements and so I started modding it... I've even 'released' a few amateurish mods (anything starting with "Maquissar's" is mine) but then I got bored and abandoned Oblivion, even because I had other things to take care of. Now I've picked it up again, but my gripes still remain... so here's the list of what I think could use improvements!

 

 

CHAPTER 1: ITEMS

 

This has always been, at least in my humble opinion, a really annoying aspect of Vanilla Oblivion. Weights and prices of most items are completely unbalanced and unrealistic, so that a dagger may weigh more than a huge oar, and a flawless diamond isn't considerable 'good loot'. Let's start with weight.

 

In my opinion, 'weight' shouldn't just reflect how much an item weighs, but also how easily it is carried. I agree that, after all, a feather mattress isn't THAT heavy if compared with items in cast iron, but no one would ever be able to carry TWO of them. Vanilla Oblivion basically handles weights in this way: weapons and armor have weights more or less according to their power, quest items have no weight so that you can carry six thousand of them if needs be, items you can use have a little weight but not too much, and anything else you can't use but which is only there to be sold as loot has basically no weight, and does not encumber you.

 

Weights should be tweaked so that the PC has to CHOOSE which items he needs to carry and which ones he should leave at home before adventuring; no player should EVER be able to carry a 'spare' set of armour or more than one backup weapon. Items such as books, vases, alchemical apparatus and so forth should have increased weight - while it may be acceptable for an adventurer to enter a dark and dangerous cave with a mortar and pestle, one shouldn't be able to go and slay Goblins with mortar and pestle, alembic, calcinator and retort.

Potions should be brewed AT HOME before adventuring then, but potions should have increased weight too - you may handle three or four bottles attached to your belt, maybe a few more too, but adventuring with a grand total of ninetyseven bottles on you is a bit... unrealistic. Keys should have a small symbolic weight, say 0.2, so that while you may carry 10 or 15 keys if you NEED to, carrying more would take its toll, and you'd need to find a place to drop those you don't currently need. Arrows should also have a weight, say 0.5... archers usually carried twenty-four arrows with them (a.k.a. a 'sheaf' of arrows.) One may carry two sheaves, i.e. 48 arrows if needs be, but in no case should one ever carry 200 arrows with him if he seeks a realistic game. Same goes for lockpicks and torches - increase weight of everything, and lower the maximum carrying capacity! Who cares if you break a lockpick or if your torch goes out, if you have 30 spare of each? who cares if your armorer's hammer just broke if you have 49 more? Play the game more realistically, and:

1. you won't need to turn up the difficulty slider to make it harder, and

2. you will have more immersion.

 

Of course, giving more realistic weights to items and lowering the carrying capacity it becomes obvious that:

1. There should be no more Quest Items - everything should be droppable. If the Quest Item has a common name, like "Silver Longsword", make it obvious to the player that he should keep it somewhere safe by changing its name to, say, "Strange Silver Longsword" or something like that.

2. There should be more places where it's safe to drop your stuff, and which don't get respawned. Also, finding a house as soon as possible becomes vital.

3. Being able to use your horse as a beast of burden would also come in very handy.

4. To make money, one should resort more to 'common' SMALL loot such as silverware and jewels, rather than daedric claymores or magical staves.

5. Your Armorer skill becomes really important, because you can carry a limited amount of hammers, your spare weapon is a small weapon, and you don't have a backup set of armor.

 

NOW, the part about PRICES. Prices, needless to say, are unbalanced too; again, weapons and items that the PC is likely to need have high prices, while loot such as gems, silverware, expensive clothing or rare books come relatively cheap. Prices should be set considering the world Oblivion is set in, which is a halfway between Medieval and Roman, and NOT considering whether the item is useful to the player or not. So, prices should be raised: low-class clutter and clothing should have prices ranging from 1 to 20, middle class clutter should go, say, from 20 to 50, and high class (silverware, exquisite robes) should go from 50 to 250 or so. Books should get the same treatment - cheap books should cost up to 10 gp, an average price should be 25 to 45, quality books maybe from 45 to 80, whereas rare books could cost as much as 350/500 gp. Weapons should always be expensive unless they're clubs or rusty daggers, because even an iron longsword is a 'luxury' item. The simpler the weapon, the less it costs - maces and axes are cheaper, blades are expensive, 'specialist' weapons such as bows are even more expensive. Heavy armour is a luxury, so few people could afford a full set of steel armour, whereas low-end light armour such as leather or fur should be more affordable. Prices for high-end weapons and armor such as ebony and daedric should not be increased, though, and could maybe even be tweaked down a bit.

Prices for gems should be tweaked UP. A flawless diamond shouldn't be 'alright', it should be the ultimate loot - easy to carry, and incredibly valuable. So, while a flawed pearl might cost as little as 20 gp, a flawless diamons shouldn't cost less than 800 or 1000 gp. Needless to say, flawless diamonds are very rare and shouldn' t be found in crates on the street!

When deciding how to set prices, keep in mind the following:

 

1. The minimum possible price is 1gp, and should be reserved for loaves of bread, flour, or low-end food in general.

2. Look at the prices of the different houses for sale to choose an upper limit.

3. Ask yourself how much people would be willing to pay for that item.

4. Ask yourself whether the item would be sellable at all - I'd set prices for rat meat to zero, for instance, cause no one would ever buy it, and even alchemists who might need it would just go in a sewer and kill a couple of rats for themselves.

 

Ok, this is the first part of my rant... wait for Chapter 2 about weapons and armor stats :)

[Sypron]

I like the idea of size based inventories, but if those are going to pop up it'll have to be in a new game, because its near impossible to try and change a game to it. More here.

[Switch]

Moving this to File Requests/Suggestions.

[Maquissar]

As promised, here is the second part, which will discuss...

 

CHAPTER 2: COMBAT! (and weapons)

 

As much as I love the new mods which make weapons more deadly and go as far as implementing new combat moves and horse combat (e.g. Deadly Reflex) I think that there's still work to be done in this field by those with the time and will to do it!

First of all, to improve realism a bit, I would - as I've already stated in the previous post - decrease the maximum carrying capacity of PC, and increase the weight of several weapons and armor sets. The goal would be to make it possible for a playing character to only carry ONE armor set at a time, and limit himself to a main weapon and a backup weapon, i.e. bow and shortsword, or claymore and dagger. Of course he would still need to have enough carrying capacity to carry some loot, and some basic equipment... but he shouldn't be able to carry 8 weapons in addition to tons of loot, for instance. An interesting byproduct of this idea is that, in this way, only decently strong warriors will be able to effectively wield claymores or heavy armor... a strength-30 character trying to wield a claymore would find room for little more in his inventory.

 

An interesting touch would be to add more variety to weapons, not just by introducing new weaponry (by the way, are there any mods who add more weapons which are not "cool" or exotic but just more weapons? For instance, flamberges, poignards, knives, hatchets, sabres, and other NORMAL weapons who fit well with the game world?) but also by changing stats of existing weaponry. I have done that in a past mod, and I tried to give every weapon a distinct "feel"; for instance, elvish weapons were a bit faster but less durable, while dwarven weapons were heavier and slower, but more durable and dealt more damage. Dwarven axes and elvish bows were particularly good; glass is not very durable but it's light, fast and deadly, and ebony is slow and heavy but deals great damage. Silver weapons are less durable and deal less damage, but apart from being more expensive, have also the advantage of being among the few weapons capable of harming the undead.

 

This way you wouldn't just switch to a better weapon as soon as it becomes available, e.g. switch from elven to glass, but you would have more factors to take into account - while a glass dagger might be perfect for a quick assassination due to its high damage, it wouldn't be good for extended adventuring because of its low durability.

 

Tweaks relative to the type of weapon should be made, too... blades, in general, should have less durability than maces or warhammers, because while a blunt blade makes little damage, a warhammer that is slightly rusty is still deadly. Bows should have little durability, because 1) they need more maintenance than other weapons, and 2) they should never be used to parry. All weapons should be made deadlier, so that an unarmored person is killed in a few hits; armor ratings for heavy armor should be higher though, so that a battle between two fully armored opponents would last much longer than that between two unarmored opponents. Unarmored and light armored combatants should be much faster, though - an unarmored character should focus on avoiding enemy hits knowing that he will be dead very soon if he lets his opponent hit him, while an armored character would be able to take much more punishment, but wouldn't be able to dodge very effectively, being much slower and less agile.

 

Arrows, as I've said, should have higher weight, because on average an archer only carried about 24 of them. This said, they should deal more damage, because usually one or two arrows were enough to kill or incapacitate a foe who was not wearing a full set of heavy armor. And then again, longbows and bodkin arrows were able to pierce heavy armor. Also, a glass arrow would not be as heavy as an ebony arrow, and would be faster. And if you like traditional fantasy, elven bows and arrows should get a bonus, but this is optional, because after all this is not necessarily "traditional" fantasy :)

 

Ok, enough for now, I'll write more about armor in the next chapter :)

[Sypron]

Yeah, and arrows should be able to be recovered as long as you can see them in a corpse, but to use them again you need a fletching kit for some quick repairs. If you want some nice looking unique weapons check out realswords (search).