The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Originally Posted by Grawl

What an original and unique usertitle you have there >.>

Aha... ha. Thank you. <.<

Originally Posted by Dark Nation

Well I don't know about the 360 Version, but on the PC your eyes turn a light red hue, along with the obvious skin changes. I'll post a screencap once I can make sure its screencaping correctly.

I know that. I just mean, maybe a usermod can change it so your face doesn't completely change. JUST have your eyes change and maybe complexion change. I'm not one to complain about vampires looking creepy; but the way it happens in this game it basically says "fuck all the time you spent in the character creator... use the default, ugly face, to make you wish you never became a vampire". Eheh.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Besides that, Morrowind had a whole slew of issues all on it's own. Oblivion, thus far, doesn't seem to have any game destroying bugs. Morrowind on the other hand was a glitch-fest when it was first released. Lot of people don't realize that, though, 'cause they didn't get into the game until the GOTY edition came out.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I don't see why you'd want to level slower... some quests don't activate until higher levels and equipment is also level based. I kept the slider at default and am not having too much trouble against most enemies thanks to the great items I keep finding from all the dungeons and bodies I keep looting.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Just came across a Daedra Lord quest that requires you to be at least level 17. Pretty glad I didn't wind up using the slow leveling mod now, especially if there are quests which require your level to be past 20. <.<

I was speaking idiomatically.

Move the mouse left and right to select a tumber, move it upward to push the tumbler into the slot. Push your attack/activation/whatever click to lock it into place. The tumblers make a small double click sound when they are going to fall slow so that's the best time to do it. Basically, you could do it with your eyes closed listening for the click-click when you push them up.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm pretty curious what Bethesda did to their screenshots on the site, since they claimed they weren't doctored or artwork yet look nothing like my game at *max* settings.

Can see a SS below of everything jacked up. The only thing you can't see in the shot is AA for some reason. No shots I ever take seem to include it despite it being on.

FELIPE NO

The main quest was a little shorter than I expected. It's a good thing the only factions I bothered with before beating it was the Arena so at least I know I still have a lot to do.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

It would have taken Bethesda another twelve years to write all the possible scenarios if they had based everything on how much time it takes someone to do something. It's your own fault if it doesn't seem realistic. Take breaks from the main quest at times where it seems appropriate (aka; nothing that needs serious attention) and stop complaining. You are seriously asking for too much to expect them to hand write scenarios for every single quest to accommodate your sense of "realism". Plus, all you would do is complain if it winded up screwing you out of a quest or a great reward so, really, they would lose either way.

People just love to complain.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My post wasn't directed entirely at you. It was directed at everyone who said that time was unrealistic in the game. No shit it is; It's a game. Some people really act like this game should be the second coming of Jesus or something based on their unrealistically high expectations for everything related to it.

I happen to agree with you anyway, which is why I suggested taking breaks at points where the game seems to slow down. When Martin needs you to collect items for him, for example, seems a decent time to break into some sidequests.

Personally, I waited to do most of the sidequests after I beat the main quest. That way the sense of urgency is gone and based on the way the main quest ended it would be perfectly viable that you could lose your mind and go evil (if you wanted to join the dark brotherhood) or continue to do good, etc, blah, avoiding main plot spoilers, blah, blah...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, it's called roleplaying. From a "realistic" point of view the main quest should be beaten quickly so I did just that. I didn't sit here and whine about how unrealistic the whole thing is, cause, you know, it's a fucking game.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

This game doesn't seem very similar to Morrowind at all IMO. It has a similar sense of exploration (which daggerfall had as well...) but everything else has been rewritten entirely from scratch. Morrowind had a very, very restrictive engine that was poorly designed and poorly optimized. Oblivion's is much better even if it seems to look the same from first glance.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

It's the low click you hear. It's a low, slight double clink, and it implies the tumbler is going to stay up for maybe a full second instead of instantly dropping down.

I was speaking idiomatically.

This one works, but I did change some stuff via the tweaking. You may want to search "unloadcells" and change that back to a 0 if you aren't getting slightly lower performance playing over time. I changed that and it unloads a screen every two or three loads to keep my memory from being gobbled up and slowly killing my FPS. Not everyone seems to have this problem, and it causes more loading time because you have to reload everything so I figured I should mention it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I don't see why. Some people feel like Morrowind is the best PC-RPG ever and IMO this game improves on it 100 fold. You are also totally forgetting user mods which will enhance the game quite a bit too the more they flood in. In a year or so there could be some pretty amazing mods or maybe even an impressive expansion or two. You're really selling the game short.

FELIPE NO

I'm pretty sure he is just talking about the slower leveling mod. 'Sides that, it's totally up to you rather you abuse the leveling or not. Pretty much every RPG has some glitch or easy money/level exploit so that whole point is moot.

Also, user mods do add plenty of 'merit'; that's the whole reason the construction set is there, afterall. Most people aren't going to tell you they like the barebones Morrowind experience very much but with the right mods and user-made expansions the game can be a much more impressive experience. The same can and will be said about Oblivion later on down the line. I can assure you of that.

I'm not even going to pretend this is "the best rpg ever" or any nonsense like that but it is probably my favorite PC RPG to date. Generally the only PC rpgs I absolutely love are this, Baldur's Gate 2 and Morrowind to an extent, anyway, though. Others are just serviceable to me.

I usually prefer JRPGs, too, but Oblivion is more entertaining than a good deal of them IMO because it's a game I can see myself constantly going back to due to the open-endedness and because it will have tons of interesting mods made for it throughout the years. I still play the original Thief games because people still come out with pretty good user made missions, so yeah. JRPGs don't get any such treatment. I'll usually beat them once and never touch them again. Sometimes in a rare exception the game might have been good enough to warrant a replay a few years down the line but not usually.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

That's a good point, too. I do enjoy playing a lot of PC games in general because of the easiness of saving. I play a lot of GBA/DS games for the same reason because some weeks my workload is just too much to really sit back and enjoy a typical console game. I've been struggling and trying to beat Suikoden V but my game clock is ridiculously high because there are days I just have to leave the game on due to not being able to reach a save at a convenient time before work. Argh.

On an above note, I never bothered to micro-manage much of anything and I didn't have a hard time. I guess some people are just more obsessive about stats than others. That or I have gotten lazier. Whichever.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, you don't even need to get X5 every level to be a competent character. If you get X5 every level from the start you will have capped every stat but luck WAY, WAY too early.

I mean, it was the same in Morrowind and if you did it right you could have a totally capped out character even before 20 (or right around) by being so anal about level up bonuses. It just isn't necessary, especially when the whole point of the system is to specialize in a few areas over the others to "roleplay" the character class you make. They don't really want you to do every guild in the same playthrough, that's just silly.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Spike

So now you're saying that people shouldn't play to maximize their character stats? It's actually not advantageous to ignore the +5 multipliers especially in key attributes such as Endurance (which directly influence your health gain at level up). If your endurance is only being leveled up +1 or +2 each level, your Health will not increase by that much and when you're capped, then you have no way of increasing your Health. A lot of players in the official forums are complaining about this because the level system is producing a lot of crippled players because they weren't aware of how leveling up works.

Yes of course you don't need to get +5 every level, but a lot of people want to optimize their character and a lot of people play this way. Are you saying that they shouldn't play that way? I'm pointing out a flaw in the leveling system of the game and you refute it by saying, "well, don't play that way and it won't be a problem." The thing is, a lot of people play that way so IT IS a problem.

And who said anything about guilds? I didn't say anything about doing all the guild questlines in the same playthrough.

I'm saying it isn't NEEDED to do so, so yes. If you want to do it that's fine but there is no reason to complain that it is difficult to maximize stats. That's like saying, "oh noes, it's so hard to reach level 99 in "x" rpg! what a glaring and most heinous crime this is!"

There is just no logical reason other than because you want to, to maximize your stats. It is not something that has to be done to enjoy the game. The only broken part of the system IMO is how it penalizes non fighters for leveling up. Leveling too many times in, say, alchemy might wind up making the game too hard; but this is a problem with the system in general not with "maximizing stats" as you like to put it.

Also, I mentioned the guild thing because it is related to leveling up. If you really played the game the way they wanted you to you really should never end up level 52 (the standard max for this game unless you lower stats via prison) because there aren't enough quests to warrant so much leveling up. I'm not even trying to advocate that this is how I feel it should be played but from a obvious role playing perspective it probably should be. Still, it relates because should you do certain guilds, you will more than likely be wanting to raise certain stats more than others. Playing the game normally as such you will almost always cap the stats these guilds rely on unless you are trying to tackle every single guild in the game and spread yourself thin.

Either way, if you don't like that then just download a mod like Mucknuggle did. He didn't enjoy the game the way they made it, that's fine. To be perfectly honest I didn't like plenty of aspects either so I either edited them myself with the construction set or downloaded mods to make the experience more enjoyable.

Blah, either way I agree that the system needs some work but not because it's difficult to maximize stats but because it is difficult to specialize in non combat skills without it making the game ridiculously difficult.

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

Well, let's take my character - I was just playing and was getting like +2 added to my stats every level. By level 4 I had to spend like 2 minutes taking out a single enemy. The first oblivion gate involved me running away from enemies constantly waiting for my mana to regen because I did like no damage with my melee. Hence, the system obviously worked against me and forced me to micromanage my skills in order to gain more stats and become effective.

I was level 5 in the first gate and didn't really have much trouble. Maybe you had crappy gear or maybe you had crappy gear AND it was in bad condition making it even crappier. Or maybe you didn't want to specialize in combat as I went a little into in the above section of my post, in which case I feel for you. Really, I dunno. Maybe your reflexes aren't good when it comes to blocking or maybe you personally felt you didn't want to (or need to) block. I'm not you and I wasn't there to watch how you play so I can really only speculate, heh. All I can say is that blocking plays a very vital role to melee combat in this game so if you were being very gun-ho then that was your problem. Otherwise, I dunno. If you needed a mod to enjoy the combat/leveling progression that's fine, though. Lord knows I've already haxxed my game up with several mods to spice things up to my liking.

... Way longer than I wanted this to be and I'm sure half of it made no sense because I'm tired as fuck. I hope I was able to at least get some sort of point across with my rambling. :/

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Spike

You don't understand. Enjoyment is subjective. People will enjoy different things. Now I'm not saying I'm a power gamer (I'm very very far from it), but power gamers will want to optimize their character and that's what has brought the slew of complaints in the official forums. You'll find one such thread on every page of the forums.

All I did was give a reason for why I am not enjoying the game as much as I could be. It is a subjective reason. You're telling me that I'm wrong for disliking a part of the game that affects my enjoyment because it doesn't affect yours. The world doesn't think exactly like you do and doesn't have the exact views you have.

I never said you were wrong. I even agreed that there are jarring issues with the leveling system. But the fact is; you don't have to max your stats and like you said, some people will want to. Well, you know what? Some people want to level to 99 in Suikoden games despite the awkward way leveling works (enemies give less and less exp as you get higher leveled to a point where every battle gives five experience) but people still do it because they enjoy doing it. Does that somehow mean the system is poor? Nope. It means you only need to be 60 to comfortably beat the game and anything higher is completely unnecessary. Why should the developers purposely dumb something down to make this easier just because some people like to power game?

No shit everyone has different views. You think I don't know that? Why else would I be sharing my views with you. Seriously. It works both fucking ways, genius. If you are going to argue that something is poor I sure as hell can argue that it's not. Deal with it. I really wasn't irritated before. I figured we were just arguing points. But if you are going to start acting like I am being irrational for not agreeing with you then you can just go "share" your opinions with yourself.

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

What mods do you use Forsety?

Dark nation mentioned a few of them. In addition to those I downloaded the arrow velocity mod because arrow physics were much too slow IMO. I also downloaded the mod that makes it harder for guards to see/hear what you are doing. Psychic guards are not cool and it was killing the buzz I was getting everytime they caught me for something even if they were no where nearby when it happened.

I also downloaded a mod to allow stolen items to be sold anywhere since that's how it worked in morrowind and I personally felt it was far more realistic. Seriously, how is Joe-Nobody going to know this generic tomato is stolen? Makes no sense so I "fixed" it.

I'm certainly in no position to judge people for using mods; I just never had many problems with leveling/combat. This may change, however, once I try to make a non combat/stealth oriented character.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Spike

Dense people are funny.

GFFer: i don't like this game
Foresty: omg wtf?! if you enjoyed the game exactly like i did (which i think everyone in the world does because the world revolves around me), you'd see that the game is awesome!!!
GFFer: uh, i didn't enjoy it. that's it...
Foresty: UH YOUR STANDARDS ARE WRONG! i enjoyed it! so should you!
GFFer: ok. bye.
Foresty: DUDE if you ignore the things that you usually enjoy, you'll find that this system isn't poor! so change your preferences so that it caters to what the game offers instead of criticizing it!! omg!

example: http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/rp...html#post32946 post #17

All you've done is gone and proven my point. I'm not going to bother wasting my time with you any further if you can't at least attempt to understand my point of view. The world doesn't cater to you anymore so than it does to me. Stop making a god damned fool of yourself, man.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zip

i heard the guards will always be stronger then you, truth?

I never had trouble beating guards in the imperial city, so it's doubtful.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Was it even neccesary to clog the thread with that? I mean, you could have just posted a link to the chocojournal entry.

Most amazing jew boots

It wasn't really "member-moderating", it was just a question/remark. Point taken, though, I suppose. Just seemed like an awfully large wall of text and a link might have been easier for people who don't want to wade through it to read newer posts. I didn't mean any offense, really.

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, that was probably 95% of the problem with the game in most people's opinion. You are the first person I have honestly ever seen who thinks it was better off with die rolls. (nothing like starting a non combat oriented character and missing mud crabs and rats at point blank range, eh?) The game has plenty of issues IMO but the overall combat isn't really one of them.

Most of the issues I had with the game have been fixed with mods anyway so I've lost the desire to complain. It was a step up from Morrowind and it was enjoyable. Maybe not the massive step some people figured it would be but a step up nonetheless.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

"It's fine if the developers are lazy, we'll just let the modders pick up the slack for their bullshit and everything is honky dory."

This is the same thing that happened with Neverwinter Nights, and the end result is that what you payed for sucked.

Well, what exactly IS the point of modding then? Lord knows pretty much every game I have ever played for the PC has ended up better with usermods, so why is exactly that you feel the need to single out Oblivion? The bare bones Morrowind experience sucked, without user fixes and mods; vampire masquerades sucked. NWN was never meant to be awesome but without usermods, it of coursed sucked. Really, though, the campaigns were just there to showcase what could be done. It was basically a game meant to "make your own adventure" or what-have-you so I try not to judge it too harshly.

Oblivion is no where near as barren as NWN was of good content, either. It only took a few mods to make the game an enjoyable experience. It could take over 10 or 20 mods for Morrowind to make it even close to bearable. So in that regard, Oblivion was obviously a step up from Morrowind. At the very least it didn't suck complete ass right out of the package.

There's nowhere I can't reach.