Starting Out in Obilvion

[lessien881]

Ive tried really hard to get into Skyrim, but there are just some major flaws that I cant work around and Im hoping that Oblivion is more so what I am looking for. I found skyrim to be way to easy and yet clunky. With combat mods, they seem to increase difficulty by making everything one shot you and you one shot everything else and thats not what I want. Playing any sort of hybrid in skyrim is clunky due to the nature of the game and I noticed that previous TES games had a casting hot key you assigned a spell to so even while using a shield or 2h it felt more natural.

 

Ive tried doing my own searches for what Im looking for but a lot of times Its hard to filter through the crap to find what you are looking for so i figured it was easier to just come here and ask some questions and get them directly answered.

 

The Game:

 

1. Is the combat less clunky than skyrim when it comes to playing hybrid classes?

2. Is there a place I can go to learn about the leveling system and skills so Im not going in blind?

3. Is illusion magic actually useful unlike most the spells in skyrim?

4. is the stealth game play fun?

5. is there an actual difference between light and heavy armor unlike skyrim?

 

MODS:

 

Im starting with the unofficial patchs and Darnified UI.

 

1. What are some of the "must have" to make the game look better and preform better?

2. Are combat mods needed to make the game fun? If so do they use a better philosophy than "things hit harder so its more challenging!"

3. Lighting is a huge part of my gaming experience. A lot of times the 'dark" areas in these games are so easy to see in you barely know its dark. Is there a good mod to make nights and dungeons darker?

 

 

 

[Lanceor]

1. I do find hybrids easier to use in Oblivion. You're right about the spell casting key - you don't have to constantly swap equipment like in Skyrim. Magic is generally more powerful in Oblivion and most warriors will supplement their melee with a few well placed spells. Armor does give you spellcasting penalties though it is not particularly steep. End-game characters generally all end up as hybrid masters as unlike in Skyrim, you don't have limited perks with which to customise your character.

 

2. You can read all about the levelling system at UESP. IMO, the levelling system was a disaster in Oblivion and unless you carefully track skill gains with a pen and paper, your character could end up getting weaker and weaker relative to the encounters as s/he levels up. I downloaded a levelling mod within an hour of installing the game.

 

3. There is an Illusion spell in Oblivion called Chameleon. At low levels, it improves your stealth, but at high levels, you can become completely undetectable to the point of invincibility. This makes Illusion the most powerful spell school in Oblivion (and is why they nerfed it for Skyrim).

 

4. Stealth is fairly similar to Skyrim, though the stealth "eye" is more of a detected/not detected gauge than an awareness gauge. If you liked stealth in Skyrim, you'll probably like it in Oblivion too.

 

5. Not really. :P

 

The Unofficial Patches and DarnUI are a great start with your mod list. :smile:

 

There are bazillions of mods that change the appearance of the game. Personally, I use Qarl's Texture Pack Redimized (roughly analogous to Skyrim's HRDLC). Oblivion Graphics Extender (OBGE) lets you add a variety of visual effects. It's a prerequisite for OBGE Liquid Water that makes the transparency and reflectiveness of water amazing (better than Skyrim IMHO). Finally, Really Almost Everything Visible When Distant (RAEVWD) will render trees, rocks and buildings from miles away - good if you have a late model, high end computer. Others will surely come along with their recommendations.

 

I haven't tried any combat or lighting mods so I'll let others make suggestions. :smile:

[lessien881]

what leveling mod do you use so i can compare it to the wiki?

[Lanceor]

Copied/pasted from one of my standard responses. :wink:

• All +5 Attribute Modifier or Attribute Plus X lets you use the default system without worrying about how many attribute points you'll get on level-up.
• Realistic Leveling lets you simply play and your attributes increase automatically based on skills leveled.
• Oblivion XP gives a classic CRPG style leveling system: earn enough experience points to level up and spend your attributes as you see fit.

   

I used All +5 Attribute Modifier to stay as close to the vanilla game as possible.

[Nephenee13]

3. Is illusion magic actually useful unlike most the spells in skyrim?

4. is the stealth game play fun?

5. is there an actual difference between light and heavy armor unlike skyrim?

 

I'm currently playing a pure stealth archer with a dash of illusion, and its really fantastic.

 

I highly suggest installing Sneaking Detection Recalibrated, an amazing mod by Saebel which completely yanks out the vanilla Oblivion detection system and replaces it with a far more intelligent, immersive and challenging version.

 

 

 

1. What are some of the "must have" to make the game look better and preform better?

 

This is going to be largely to your own taste. I recommend Better Cities and the entire Unique Landscapes series. But in terms of texture replacers, body replacers and everything else, you will just have to decide what you prefer.

 

2. Are combat mods needed to make the game fun? If so do they use a better philosophy than "things hit harder so its more challenging!"

 

I use Duke Patrick's Combat Archery for my Stealth Archer, he also has a Melee Combat overhaul that is highly recommended, though I do not use it. Both make archery and hand to hand combat far more realistic and immersive.

 

 

3. Lighting is a huge part of my gaming experience. A lot of times the 'dark" areas in these games are so easy to see in you barely know its dark. Is there a good mod to make nights and dungeons darker?

 

I suggest using All Natural. It overhauls the eterior weather effects, makes nights darker and also makes it so weather can be heard and seen from interior cells. Additionally it changes how lighting is handled in interiors, with its "real lights" component.

 

As for dungeons, All Natural does not affect dungeion ambient light. There are a number of mods that do that, but for that I am going to suggest my personally recommended Overhaul mod. Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul. As a fully scripted overhaul it is far easier to install and configure than the generally recommended FCOM components, and is compatible with almost any set of mods you can imagine. It can darken dungeons for you, makes spawns more varied, makes enemies more challenging and adds a whole host of new, lore-friendly creatures to the game.

 

All of the mods I have recommended require OBSE in order to function.

[lessien881]

Thanks guys for the help! Ill look into them. Modding in Oblivion is a bit harder than skyrim but shouldnt be to difficult to figure it all out!

[Nephenee13]

Thanks guys for the help! Ill look into them. Modding in Oblivion is a bit harder than skyrim but shouldnt be to difficult to figure it all out!

 

oh no, its far, far easier. Sure, you don't have Steamworks or NMM as crutches, but there is so much more freedom with Oblivion. Especially with scripted mods. In Skyrim scripts "bake into" your save, while in Oblivion, deactivating an esp completely removes the scripts from the game.

 

Oblivion is probably the most forgiving of all these games in terms of installing and removing mods. There are very, very few mods that can't be completely removed just by deactivating the ESP file.

[lessien881]

Im a bit worried about messing up this installation. So far I installed the unofficial patches, Darnified UI, Let there be darkness, and the sneak detection re-calibrated. I was going through the readme for the the Duke Patrick Archery mod and it says "OBSE 19 or better needed BUT NO BETAs!". Well I installed the latest version of SDR which required the OBSE 21 v2 beta. Does that mean I cant use the archery mod?

[Lanceor]

Don't worry about the Beta flag on OBSE - they put it there just to cover their backsides in case anything goes wrong. Typically, the beta version is renamed to non-beta after a few months after thousands of people have used it without problems. Unlike mods, OBSE isn't something that's prone to bugs. :wink:

[Nephenee13]

Im a bit worried about messing up this installation. So far I installed the unofficial patches, Darnified UI, Let there be darkness, and the sneak detection re-calibrated. I was going through the readme for the the Duke Patrick Archery mod and it says "OBSE 19 or better needed BUT NO BETAs!". Well I installed the latest version of SDR which required the OBSE 21 v2 beta. Does that mean I cant use the archery mod?

 

I can confirm that Duke Patrick's Combat Archery works perfectly fine with OBSE 21beta2.