Coming from skyrim i didn't realize you were supposed to (or can) rest between fights, since you simply regen health in skyrim. This is the biggest thing that made oblivion a lot easier for me, I couldn't be bothered to efficiently level anyways.
Honestly, you've inspired me to make a leveled character. I'm currently level 12, sometimes I get 5, sometimes I get +2 or +3, but it really is the skills that matter more. I will say making a warrior, I definitely feel my weapon damage hasn't scaled accordingly to the Clanmfears running around, but my use of potions and destruction magic helps a lot with that.
to be fair that's just a problem with weapons in this game period, but they're handy to have against enemies like liches or xivliai, or even summons that do physical damage you can pretty easily fold a lot of even higher level enemies with just 2 full weakness stacks
The thing that annoys me the most about Oblivion haters is that they focus SO much on the endgame stats that they forget to actually play the game. What's the point in even playing the game if the first 40 levels are about getting to level 40? Just play the damn game!
I've watched almost all of your videos so far and I got inspired to finally play the Mages Guild and main quest. I made a Breton Sorcerer (pre-made class)because it looks like a long-time investment. I'm planning to only strive for +5s in Endurance, which I'll get by spamming repair hammers (after spending my early-game gold on an Armorer trainer) and blocking mudcrabs once in a while (which also trains my Heavy Armor and Restoration). The only thing I have to be careful about is leveling Alchemy too quickly, since it's one of the Sorcerer's major skills.
Marksman is one of those skills that should be a major skill if you're going to use it at all. Heavy armor, though, leveled just fine as a non-specialized minor skill.
If you want to be able to cast any efficent spells (protip: you do) or have a hope of ever seeing that level 100 perk you really want it to be at least a major.
@@Mr.ToadJanfu It certainly wouldn't be a mistake to have armor as a major skill, but it hit 100 for me by level 27 or so, playing a battlemage. It never felt like the skill wasn't leveling fast enough.
@@PrayForRagnorok Heavy armor base is 8,174 hits to 100. Spec: 6,131 , major: 4,905 , maj+spec: 3,679. My Lvl 22 battlemage with HA as a major (non spec) has 79 Heavy armor. Since some of my other majors are very slow like blade (maj: 12,261!!!!!) I MAY hit 100 HA by 27 but suffice to say I think our playstyles must be pretty different if you're getting those kind of results with just specialization and WILDLY different if you're seeing that with no major and no spec.
Look, I'm not a person who hyper-efficiently levels, but the point of not selecting generally used skills as majors is so you can use them without pushing your level. People figured out long ago that skills way outpace stats, meaning the 'optimal' way to play is as someone who never sleeps so you get all the bonus of high skill levels without the increased enemy capabilities. Optimal is already sacrificed the moment you level up. The idea is to get the most out of it, so you don't have massive drop-offs in capability when you do. It feels really bad when you go from one-shotting enemies with a Steel Longsword sneak attack to requiring a sneak attack and multiple extra hits with a Daedric Claymore. And yeah, actually getting to Marksman 100 is rough when it's a minor skill. But the point is to be able to push whatever extra Marksman you want to without forcing enemies to a higher level. This is why I always have Block as a minor skill: it's easy enough to train and contributes to Endurance maxing (and doesn't have very important breakpoints like Armorer). I will 100% make a stand on the hill that Oblivion's leveling system, at its core, is actually bad. A leveling system is bad when natural choices hinder, rather than help. I should not be able to make a better warrior by making a class that looks like a pure mage (turns out that having 100 Blade against scamps is a little game breaking). While Morrowind shares the same problem, it has both very limited enemy scaling (at least for the main game) and much more capability to push above suboptimal leveling (not that it can't be done in Oblivion, just that its easier in Morrowind). This is one of the reasons I like how Skyrim handles leveling. And I like Oblivion, warts and all. I wouldn't have over 500 hours in if I didn't. But there are problems.
Are you saying scaling is the problem in this game? I would make a point/agree that the scaling can be a bit rough. Just from what you said, it seems you're saying that the true optimal way to play is to never level as to avoid scaling, while also being able to level up skills and what not. Is that not technically true for any game that has scaling based on character level though? (I know skyrim isn't as difficult as oblivion) But in skyrim, enemies also scale based on player level so you could apply the same logic that "skyrim's leveling system is broken because if you never level up, things stop scaling and you can hypothetically be the most powerful at a low level with high skills. I get your point that natural choices/playing "hurting" your potential is kind of weird, but I feel like this video showcases that it is mostly negligible unless you have very poorly leveled attributes (which can be mostly negated with enchantments, spells, potions, etc). Touching on that, especially with skyrim or oblivion, end game quickly becomes utilizing things that are either very powerful or straight up broken. There are tons of spells in oblivion I feel like are not very cheesy but make huge differences in combat and gameplay. Skyrim you can easily make armor that makes you invincible and weapons that one shot everything. IMO, the potential for such high damage across many similar games gets to the point that skills are seemingly unimportant as you'd be one shotting everything anyways. (I know that takes a load of setup, some level ups with skills to make certain spells, etc etc.) My point is that despite scaling and a natural way of playing technically hurting your character, it is negligible and eventually are meaningless if you're using enchants, pots, and spells. Just my 2 cents as I agree with your points to a degree
oblivion is supposed to be a roleplaying game. not all roles are equal. some builds are just bad. "full warrior" is one of those builds. you like skyrim because it's not actually a roleplaying game.
@@EA_SP0RTCENTER You are deliberately missing my point, which I will reiterate for the benefit of others here: I don't care if 'swing sword' is weaker than 'cast spells'. What I care about is that the way to make a character good at what you want to do are the exact opposite of what the natural choices are. The best mage picks no magic skills, the best warrior picks no combat skills and the best thief picks no stealth skills. That is bad game design. A character should not be worse at their chosen role for specializing in that role. And before you twist it, I have zero issue with hybrid classes outperforming full classes. What I have an issue with is a Nightblade is a worse Nightblade for having Nightblade skills as majors. And, just some advice, next time you want to accuse someone of not liking RPGs, try it on someone without over 500 hours into Tales of Maj'Eyal (a full roguelike), went out of their way to get Might&Magic 1-9 and grew up on strategy RPGs.
Been binging your videos recently, and have decided to start another Oblivion playthrough. Installed some stability mods and one or two content mods (not messing with difficulty or levelling) and got quickly bored trying to figure out what was wrong with my load order etc. Oh well, that's this weekend sorted.
I remember making a Khajiit spellcaster a couple of years ago. I only focused on my major skills, used only daggers for melee when magicka was spent and sort of guessed willpower skills were more important to me (for the regen). I had a blast, didn't efficiently level, and I also didn't have to touch the difficulty slider once. I think this story supports your analysis.
I was doing this yesterday with my character. I levelled armourer once and thought, oh I’ll just block a lot get more endurance because I had a powerful ring of shield to help me….. stupid me. I only needed two endurance to reach 100. *Edit* And that endurance level was just from natural game play too.
Oblivion isn't a hard game. I don't know why so many are acting like this is some hardcore game where you need to squeeze out every advantage you can. The only reason I care at all about level scaling is bandits having glass and Daedric looks silly and enemies take a little too long to kill sometimes at high level. Probably just fix that and make the battle against the greater oblivion gate have a slightly higher minimum level enemies and I'd he happy.
Because the longer you play the more ineffective you become and there is a ceiling before you can no longer get stronger than the enemies. You have a power ceiling the enemies don't. So if you level improperly you'll make the game much harder on yourself but even if you were as efficient as possible and max out your stats the enemies would absolutely ecplise you in power. It's a backwards leveling system that should not exist.
You're right, but you gotta admit it's not satisfying when your actual attack does next to nothing and your damage all comes from a summoned dinosaur and an enchant on your dagger
@stevengull6703 The game does not become "Much harder" on yourself if you don't level efficiently. It barely makes a difference, and the game is easy in either case. Level poorly? The game is easy. Level effectively? The game is **SLIGHTLY**, barely noticably, easier. It is true that around the very, very highest levels the scale starts to outpace the player, although at that point the player has a shit ton of enchanted and overpowered gear, abilities, potions, ect. So the game remains easy. It's not perfect, I did suggest a tiny adjustment, but it mostly works just fine.
I agree that the leveling really isnt nearly as bad as people make it out to be and efficient leveling is NOT necessary. That said, im still going to use the "Ultimate Leveling" mod so I dont have to think about leveling at all.
lol you don't have to think about it at all.... just use some of your minor skills as well as major skills, thats all you have to do. Just don't spam your major skills ALL the time.
@MannElite I know how the leveling works. And that exactly what I normally do when I play it on my Xbox. But when I'm playing on PC I'm just going to use the Ultimate Leveling mod. It is objectively better than the vanilla leveling system.
Another great video from Oblivion Dad. I'm excited to see your next video you might try, i'd love to see the math and reasoning for how to hypothetically build a very strong character. I agree I like the leveling system, I think skyrim's approach is totally fine, nothing wrong with it in any way, but I think it's fun that Oblivion is just a bit more intentional with the way it works (and that is 100% okay). It also feels more fun to roleplay into my character. Skyrim you can (and will) always be a jack of all trades to some degree, oblivion is virtually impossible to do so. I also really really love your points in other videos where in oblivion, you are ALWAYS leveling up from doing everything, running, swimming, jumping, fighting, talking...
When I first played Oblivion when the game was new, by the time I realized you level up by sleeping, I advanced from level 1 to something around level 10. There must've been way more players who didn't put any thought into how leveling works. This video is an advanced course - when you list all the sources of player power, the percentage of players who actually used all of them is very small. The good news is - if you play on the easiest difficulty setting, Oblivion is so easy that any build will be fine.
The issue with amount of level scalling in Oblivion is in my opinion not so much with difficulty per se, but it becoming almost immersion breaking with how strong regular enemies become in the late game. It is not difficult to fight off high level NPC's while your characters is also highly leveled, but it is deffinitely noticeable that they are very strong, unnaturally so, compared to earlier in the game. It makes it seem like some random bandit that you fight late game while trying to finish off some random quests is stronger than demons from another realm that you fought in mid game while following main story line, especially with how relatively early you become the hero of Kvatch. It would be easy to solve with capping most enemy levels, especially in the overworld. It is one of those areas where Skyrim probably did it best - you still have scaling but it is not as aggressive, except for specific enemies (like dragons) which leads to almost boss like encounters
Bethesda games have a "sweet spot" that they allow you to blow right passed. (The price of too much freedom I guess.) It's a bit counterintuitive but I always lvl cap my own character to prevent the world from becoming unbalanced with itself. (Oblivion < lvl 25) (Skyrm, about lvl 60, but only cause I want more perks) This is easy to do in Skyrim and Oblivion, but not easy (or even possible) in Fallout, where you auto level up. At some point, the game runs out of bigger baddies and better loot. I'd stop leveling there.
This makes the game more fun in the late game, not less fun. Watch his Skyrim video for a direct example. Its very boring to run around late game and be able to kill everything in one shot and take no damage and not have to even try. Its more fun in Oblivion that the game is constantly challenging you with harder enemies. Imagine running into a cave late game in oblivion, and half the enemies are rats and crabs, and only have maybe 1 vampire or troll at the end, that would be boring. Its definitely more fun that every enemy you encounter is challenging for your level.
@ thats the whole point, the fun is subjective. I totally get what you are saying that challenging late game is more fun than walk in the park that some games become, but in my opinion, in Oblivion they went to far, to the point of immersion breaking. When I see late game Oblivion enemies i just want to roll my eyes. To me the Skyrim approach is more fun, where most encounters become easier and easier the higher level you get, but you still have strong enemies from time to time (not to mention games that dont use level scaling at all, but they are entirely different beasts with different design priorities)
@ Its subjective... but its easily demonstrable. Try watching old knight play skyrim in the recent upload, he runs around basically one shots everything with minimal for like 10 minutes and doesn't have to use a potion or even block or avoid attacks or anything. It clearly would be more fun if a hard enemy were to jump out at him every 1 minute than every 10 minutes.
One important point I think you missed here is the strength of equipment and enchantments. I feel like I don’t need efficient levelling to avoid falling behind because my armor is getting way better and with the reverse diminishing returns of armor rating I am taking way less damage, plus I am getting stronger souls and better sigil stones for Shield, Fortify [Attack Skill], Fortify Fatigue, elemental damage, and Resist/Absorb/Reflect Magicka enchantments. Tbf this probably doesn’t hold in very high levels when equipment and enchantments stop scaling, but I personally am usually ready to start a new character by that point anyway.
Leveling Problem sounds like peak white room thinking. Doesnt seem to tske into account at all thst as you get more and more increasingly powerful items.
Old knight I love so much how you’re helping me defend why oblivion is so much fun to everyone I talk to that wants to drag it in favor of Morrowind or Skyrim. Like sometimes I can’t explain exactly why it is that I like what I like but your videos make it so much easier for me to explain myself. 😊
To me at least, trying to get all your attributes to 100 is like trying to get all your skills to 100 in Besthesda’s Fallout games. Like it’s nice to have but it’s absolutely not needed to enjoy the game or even make a strong character build
What if they made some or all skills governed by multiple attributes? Like Blade levels STR and AGI, while Blunt levels STR and END. This seems like it would allow players to hit more +5s without having to think about it as much
Honestly you should rewrite the ‘levelling problem’ page on the wiki, starting with renaming it ‘the levelling solution’ and then breaking down everything you’ve covered in this area in all your videos. The fortify fatigue trick alone is more powerful than an efficiently levelled character who is unaware of it.
I like getting +5's, but I'm not crazy about it, +3's and 4s are acceptable. The easy way of accomplishing this is passively focus on mostly using minor skills at the beginning of a level, and then after you notice you've gotten a few level ups in minor skills, switch to using major skills and finish leveling up. You'll get more attribute points and you won't have to track on a spreadsheet. Its better than ONLY using major skills. Getting +5 strength for 2 levels in a row is a BIG difference from getting +3 strength two levels in a row, especially for a warrior, you need the early +5s to be able to carry around a set of heavy armor and have a respectable amount of inventory space.
Why can you only train 5 times per level? Why are you locked out of points after you hit your 10/10 main skills? Your “fun” system was done miles better in MW
@@max7971 training more than 5 times per level is exactly why morrowind leveling was bad, it’s just a gold game. As for being locked out of more points, they just go to the next level. Idk each system there is a little different but the difference is very minor in that specific respect
Oblivion’s levelling system is fine - it’s effectively the same as Morrowind, just the number of skills total and the number of skills in your class are different - it’s the scaling that is the issue. Morrowind primarily only scaled enemies on the overworld of Vvardenfell - dungeons and quest specific encounters were generally consistent, regardless of player level. This means that levelling up is actually making the player more powerful relative the majority of challenges they will face in the world. In Oblivion, because almost everything is scaled, and scaled quite aggressively, it is common for characters to fall behind the power curve of the world, which turns combat into a slog of hitting enemies a couple dozen times to defeat them using equipment that is ostensibly stronger than the equipment you were using at level 1. Pervasive level scaling was added to the game, likely as a band aid to let Bethesda avoid the problem of having to design a progression through the world, but I suspect given how close the development of Oblivion was to the wire of its release date, the scaling wasn’t tested thoroughly and Bethesda wasn’t aware of how egregious it gets at endgame levels.
I've never felt like I fell behind and I've been playing since I was 9. People can turn the difficulty down if they somehow can't manage to make decent characters.
The bandaid analogy is just wrong, the game does have progression through the world, more so than skyrim. Many different types of enemies as you level, having different abilities you have to look out for, different resistances, and different gear....
@@MannElite I'm talking about a geographic progression based on a world that is consistently dangerous to the player. In Morrowind there are locations which are intended for more powerful characters and locations that are clearly intended for lower level characters. Daedric Shrines for instance tend to have more powerful enemies, which an early game player may struggle with. In Oblivion the geographic spread of difficulty was largely removed, and replaced with pervasive level scaling. It was a band aid to avoid having to cultivate player progress geographically - when everything scales to the player's level, it doesn't matter where the player goes because the game should always (in theory) be at the right difficulty. As for enemy variety, it's fairly limited. NPC enemies don't change tactics as they level. Fighting a Bandit in glass armor is simply more tedious (and immersion breaking) than fighting a bandit in fur. Enemy mages also use a disappointing variety of spells, meaning fighting them is a similar experience across all levels - elemental damage, healing, summoning and maybe reflect spell but they rarely seem to use it. Monsters vary more meaningfully, but the vast majority are simply big damage sponges that hit hard in melee. Resistances vary, but few enemies actually have enough of a given resistance to actually force a meaningful change of tactics. Skeletons being immune to paralysis comes to mind, and Minotaur Lords have beefy magic resistance, but you rarely have to think about those resistances and adjust tactics in the majority of the game's combat encounters.
@@teapotcrunch It's not a bandaid but a deliberate design choice to reinforce the "go anywhere, do anything" open world. It works incredibly well most quests and areas can be completed at any time and will provide a fair challenge and a reward that is good but not overpowered for where you are. Daedric quests are then all level locked to give consistent rewards that are reliable across playthroughs. If you really think theres no difference in the tactics required between popping into an early level undead dungeon and a later one with skeleton champions summoning in their guardians and liches running about then I don't know what to say to that.
TBH the main flaw is how endurance works. It wouldn't be bad otherwise since you could still get max stats eventually but HP is tied to getting endurance to 100 as early as possible. Want to be a thief etc? Boy you gonna train armorer and wear heavy armor for a good chunk of early game.
Hmm, All that Rant could be simplified into this one Thanks! Remarkable points But even though if skills were predefined by auto-class Potions, magic items etc. - won't be a deadend
I always considered the Oblivion leveling system needlessly convoluted and this video didn't change that, but I will say people have really overblown how bad the system is in the past 20 years. The proof is in the pudding that this kind of leveling lived and died in one game and nobody missed it, but there are way worse boobytraps in other RPGs than suboptimal Oblivion leveling.
If you're not opposed to cheating, you can loadwarp out of the sewers (before you select finish and exit) and return as often as you like to reconfigure all of your options, from race, birthsign, attributes, major/minor skills, name, etc.., I've invested the time to power level all (but speech & merchant) skills to 100 at character lvl 1. My emperor is still alive, and I've done 0 quests. Make this Save file, never grind again. (Not a true RPG fan I know, but this allows me to forever customize my character) I typically I play with a 0 Endurance character (54 hp at lvl 19) by use of "poitions", and increase my damage output by use of fortify fatigue enchantments. This way, the gameplay feels more like a Rainbow Six game, where all attacks, by everyone, are deadly. It's more of a developer tool as opposed to an RPG mechanic, but it's how I like to play all my Bethesda RPS's. And, if I miss the mark reguarding gameplay balance, there's always the difficulty slider. No shame in that, just fun.
I will say, I don’t think it’s a bad system, but I feel like things like athletics and acrobatics that are passively leveled by moment kinda mess with anyone keeping track of their levels All the others, you level based on how you play and it feels organic, but those two you aren’t given much choice about. Maybe acrobatics a little, but athletics is a given, you can’t really grind it and can’t avoid it either
My most recent playthrough has Athletics as a major (albeit not a specialization). By the level numbers you already will have selecting athletics as a major it will level so slowly it will essentially never cause you to get a level you didn't want.
Personally, I subscribe to a 4/3 major skill split. Rather than picking all powerful and useful/important major skills, or no powerful skills at all, pick 4 skills you'll focus on, and 3 skills you can completely and easily ignore if you wish, let's call those 3 filler skills. The reasoning? Level 30. That's the magic number, where new leveled content stops appearing, and the only difference from thence on is just the hp bloat. Thus, if you can max out the important parts of your build by level 30, you can decide at your own pace going forward whether to keep leveling or not, if you need to use trainers to max out any important minor skills you haven't yet, or just for fun Let's assume your specialization covers 2 of the important major skills of your build, and you have no other racial bonuses for either of the 4. This means that they start at 30, 30, 25, and 25, meaning, you need 290 skill levels to max them out. meaning, 29 level ups, from level 1 to level 30. So, by picking Magic Specialization, Destruction or Restoration, Mysticism or Illusion, your weapon skill of choice, and either Block, Armorer, Heavy, Light, Acrobatics, Sneak, or Athletics, as your important major skills, you can then pick Speechcraft, another weapon skill you don't care about, and either a second weapon skill or an armor skill you don't care about(or block if you're an archer, i guess), you can now focus on the first four important skills, plus any other skill that gives you power, and basically max out your build by level 30. Even if you only get +3s, you'll have earned 261 attribute points by then, which will be enough for your 5 most important attributes (and if there's still a deficit, you can just enchant some armor to make up the difference, or you can start leveling your filler skills and use trainers to max out your anything that still needs maxing out)
This is similar to how i play. I max maybe two maybe three attributes and 3 or 4 skills. I Try to get to level 30(sometimes below that) then finish the main quests and shivering isles main quest. Next character lol
My problem with oblivion's levelling isn't really being too weak at high levels. It's being too strong at low levels. If you just ignore your major skills you'll be comparatively stronger than if you do use them (e.g. summoning daedroths and dremora lords at level 1 is quick to set up, game-ruiningly strong, and is unnaffected by difficulty). Does that make Oblivion a bad game? Of course not. Does it make oblivion's leveling system bad? Not necessarily. But is it a problem with oblivion's leveling system? Absolutely. You really shouldn't be able to completely skip the entire scaling system by doing something that blatantly isn't a bug with so few repercussions. It makes cool high effort builds feel like a joke when you could have just walked in as a peon and summoned goddamn King K. Rool to accomplish what you did in half the time.
Yep, magicka is too useful and too powerful. Even if you don't want to play a mage, you're funneled toward magic skills. Magic in Oblivion is the stealth archery of Skyrim. Then again, mages were the best way to get through Daggerfall & Morrowind as well. Even though I enjoy it, Oblivion has massive problems. Making a more nimble fighter penalizes you. That's not just counter-intuitive, that's bad design. 50 pound swords. Bad design, but I chalk it up to game devs who have never swung a 10-20 pound sledge in their lives and have probably never touched a real sword to know how light they are. Mostly, the leveling system is fine. The level scaling of monsters is ridiculous. If you put off doing fighter's guild quests in favor of other things & then get around to it, best of luck keeping non-essential NPCs alive in a mission. The same can be said for The Killing Fields quest. You want to be level 25 or so to get the best Chillrend, but those leveled goblins make it more of a pain than it really needs to be. I shrug most of those problems off, but the quests with only one dialogue option (aka no option whatsoever) irk me. Hi Bethesda. Is it possible for you to leave some room for roleplay in your roleplaying game?
5:00 while I agree that you dont need to fully min max, I disagree that the complains are due to the difficulty itself. The problem is the difficult spikes because its very easy for level ups to make you weaker. One memory of a long time ago was me at lv 20 or ao not veing able to win against a zombie because since the level up my damage was not enough anymore. Now in my opinion the biggest problem is that its a noob trap. The logic for games in general when creating a character is to focus on the things you want to be good at and Oblivion is the opposite - if you plan to use a sword better make it a minor skill. As I said above you dont need to fully min max and get all 5s, but the problem still exist that you cant fuck yourself during character creation due to it not being intuitive
No, you are exactly backwards, if you want w use a sword you should use it as a major or you will be much weaker. Zombies are damage sponges without fire damage
Leveling system that forces you to trick it to have fun is not what I call a good design. Level gain system should’ve been a background thing, nit something you have to watch out for to avoid unpleasant difficulty spiking lol. It’s a staple thing for Bethesda to fk something to the degree it becomes liked by some but it doesn’t mean it’s a proper thing to do.
@@SonySteals it does not force you to “trick it.” I disagree that level gain should be a background thing you ignore. What a boring leveling system that you can just ignore, that would mean by definition it is meaningless
Saved to watch later. This will be my pre-bedtime video.
I'm back
Nice profile picture lol @@thesusimposter3
This was my wake-up video today.
just found your channel this is fucking Awesome it’s like a college lecture on oblivion
ok but maybe watch my older videos before watching the one after this
Coming from skyrim i didn't realize you were supposed to (or can) rest between fights, since you simply regen health in skyrim. This is the biggest thing that made oblivion a lot easier for me, I couldn't be bothered to efficiently level anyways.
Honestly, you've inspired me to make a leveled character. I'm currently level 12, sometimes I get 5, sometimes I get +2 or +3, but it really is the skills that matter more. I will say making a warrior, I definitely feel my weapon damage hasn't scaled accordingly to the Clanmfears running around, but my use of potions and destruction magic helps a lot with that.
Find a shock damage sigil stone to put on a good melee weapon, pair it with a basic soul trap spell and Azuras star
to be fair that's just a problem with weapons in this game period, but they're handy to have against enemies like liches or xivliai, or even summons that do physical damage
you can pretty easily fold a lot of even higher level enemies with just 2 full weakness stacks
The thing that annoys me the most about Oblivion haters is that they focus SO much on the endgame stats that they forget to actually play the game. What's the point in even playing the game if the first 40 levels are about getting to level 40? Just play the damn game!
Extremely underrated comment
I've watched almost all of your videos so far and I got inspired to finally play the Mages Guild and main quest. I made a Breton Sorcerer (pre-made class)because it looks like a long-time investment. I'm planning to only strive for +5s in Endurance, which I'll get by spamming repair hammers (after spending my early-game gold on an Armorer trainer) and blocking mudcrabs once in a while (which also trains my Heavy Armor and Restoration). The only thing I have to be careful about is leveling Alchemy too quickly, since it's one of the Sorcerer's major skills.
Marksman is one of those skills that should be a major skill if you're going to use it at all. Heavy armor, though, leveled just fine as a non-specialized minor skill.
I agree armor skills should be minor in every class
If you want to be able to cast any efficent spells (protip: you do) or have a hope of ever seeing that level 100 perk you really want it to be at least a major.
@@Mr.ToadJanfu It certainly wouldn't be a mistake to have armor as a major skill, but it hit 100 for me by level 27 or so, playing a battlemage. It never felt like the skill wasn't leveling fast enough.
@@PrayForRagnorok Heavy armor base is 8,174 hits to 100. Spec: 6,131 , major: 4,905 , maj+spec: 3,679. My Lvl 22 battlemage with HA as a major (non spec) has 79 Heavy armor. Since some of my other majors are very slow like blade (maj: 12,261!!!!!) I MAY hit 100 HA by 27 but suffice to say I think our playstyles must be pretty different if you're getting those kind of results with just specialization and WILDLY different if you're seeing that with no major and no spec.
Look, I'm not a person who hyper-efficiently levels, but the point of not selecting generally used skills as majors is so you can use them without pushing your level. People figured out long ago that skills way outpace stats, meaning the 'optimal' way to play is as someone who never sleeps so you get all the bonus of high skill levels without the increased enemy capabilities. Optimal is already sacrificed the moment you level up. The idea is to get the most out of it, so you don't have massive drop-offs in capability when you do. It feels really bad when you go from one-shotting enemies with a Steel Longsword sneak attack to requiring a sneak attack and multiple extra hits with a Daedric Claymore. And yeah, actually getting to Marksman 100 is rough when it's a minor skill. But the point is to be able to push whatever extra Marksman you want to without forcing enemies to a higher level. This is why I always have Block as a minor skill: it's easy enough to train and contributes to Endurance maxing (and doesn't have very important breakpoints like Armorer).
I will 100% make a stand on the hill that Oblivion's leveling system, at its core, is actually bad. A leveling system is bad when natural choices hinder, rather than help. I should not be able to make a better warrior by making a class that looks like a pure mage (turns out that having 100 Blade against scamps is a little game breaking). While Morrowind shares the same problem, it has both very limited enemy scaling (at least for the main game) and much more capability to push above suboptimal leveling (not that it can't be done in Oblivion, just that its easier in Morrowind). This is one of the reasons I like how Skyrim handles leveling.
And I like Oblivion, warts and all. I wouldn't have over 500 hours in if I didn't. But there are problems.
Just turn the difficulty down
Are you saying scaling is the problem in this game? I would make a point/agree that the scaling can be a bit rough. Just from what you said, it seems you're saying that the true optimal way to play is to never level as to avoid scaling, while also being able to level up skills and what not. Is that not technically true for any game that has scaling based on character level though? (I know skyrim isn't as difficult as oblivion) But in skyrim, enemies also scale based on player level so you could apply the same logic that "skyrim's leveling system is broken because if you never level up, things stop scaling and you can hypothetically be the most powerful at a low level with high skills. I get your point that natural choices/playing "hurting" your potential is kind of weird, but I feel like this video showcases that it is mostly negligible unless you have very poorly leveled attributes (which can be mostly negated with enchantments, spells, potions, etc). Touching on that, especially with skyrim or oblivion, end game quickly becomes utilizing things that are either very powerful or straight up broken. There are tons of spells in oblivion I feel like are not very cheesy but make huge differences in combat and gameplay. Skyrim you can easily make armor that makes you invincible and weapons that one shot everything. IMO, the potential for such high damage across many similar games gets to the point that skills are seemingly unimportant as you'd be one shotting everything anyways. (I know that takes a load of setup, some level ups with skills to make certain spells, etc etc.) My point is that despite scaling and a natural way of playing technically hurting your character, it is negligible and eventually are meaningless if you're using enchants, pots, and spells. Just my 2 cents as I agree with your points to a degree
oblivion is supposed to be a roleplaying game. not all roles are equal. some builds are just bad. "full warrior" is one of those builds.
you like skyrim because it's not actually a roleplaying game.
@EA_SP0RTCENTER someone gets it, thank you.
@@EA_SP0RTCENTER You are deliberately missing my point, which I will reiterate for the benefit of others here: I don't care if 'swing sword' is weaker than 'cast spells'. What I care about is that the way to make a character good at what you want to do are the exact opposite of what the natural choices are. The best mage picks no magic skills, the best warrior picks no combat skills and the best thief picks no stealth skills. That is bad game design. A character should not be worse at their chosen role for specializing in that role. And before you twist it, I have zero issue with hybrid classes outperforming full classes. What I have an issue with is a Nightblade is a worse Nightblade for having Nightblade skills as majors.
And, just some advice, next time you want to accuse someone of not liking RPGs, try it on someone without over 500 hours into Tales of Maj'Eyal (a full roguelike), went out of their way to get Might&Magic 1-9 and grew up on strategy RPGs.
Been binging your videos recently, and have decided to start another Oblivion playthrough. Installed some stability mods and one or two content mods (not messing with difficulty or levelling) and got quickly bored trying to figure out what was wrong with my load order etc. Oh well, that's this weekend sorted.
I remember making a Khajiit spellcaster a couple of years ago. I only focused on my major skills, used only daggers for melee when magicka was spent and sort of guessed willpower skills were more important to me (for the regen). I had a blast, didn't efficiently level, and I also didn't have to touch the difficulty slider once. I think this story supports your analysis.
I was doing this yesterday with my character. I levelled armourer once and thought, oh I’ll just block a lot get more endurance because I had a powerful ring of shield to help me….. stupid me. I only needed two endurance to reach 100. *Edit* And that endurance level was just from natural game play too.
Orc with Mage Sign, Mage Spec, and All Magic as Major Skills is pretty sweeeet
You mean my knight could have leveled up to a Lusty Argonian Maid?!?!
Gotta reinstall oblivion
Oblivion's leveling system is interesting and fun.
People who feel cheated by it and get stressed out just need to grow up for 10 or 20 more years.
Being smug only works when you are correct.
Being correct only works when we aren't talking about preferences. Catch me again in 20 years.
Oblivion isn't a hard game. I don't know why so many are acting like this is some hardcore game where you need to squeeze out every advantage you can.
The only reason I care at all about level scaling is bandits having glass and Daedric looks silly and enemies take a little too long to kill sometimes at high level.
Probably just fix that and make the battle against the greater oblivion gate have a slightly higher minimum level enemies and I'd he happy.
Because the longer you play the more ineffective you become and there is a ceiling before you can no longer get stronger than the enemies. You have a power ceiling the enemies don't. So if you level improperly you'll make the game much harder on yourself but even if you were as efficient as possible and max out your stats the enemies would absolutely ecplise you in power. It's a backwards leveling system that should not exist.
That being said I played this as a kid and I was fine. But as an adult I just understand the mechanics better to know how flawed it is.
You're right, but you gotta admit it's not satisfying when your actual attack does next to nothing and your damage all comes from a summoned dinosaur and an enchant on your dagger
@stevengull6703 The game does not become "Much harder" on yourself if you don't level efficiently. It barely makes a difference, and the game is easy in either case.
Level poorly? The game is easy.
Level effectively? The game is **SLIGHTLY**, barely noticably, easier.
It is true that around the very, very highest levels the scale starts to outpace the player, although at that point the player has a shit ton of enchanted and overpowered gear, abilities, potions, ect. So the game remains easy.
It's not perfect, I did suggest a tiny adjustment, but it mostly works just fine.
@stoneharvey1017 yes it does become much harder. You must be playing with the difficulty at bare minimum. I don't blame you the game is broken.
I agree that the leveling really isnt nearly as bad as people make it out to be and efficient leveling is NOT necessary. That said, im still going to use the "Ultimate Leveling" mod so I dont have to think about leveling at all.
lol you don't have to think about it at all.... just use some of your minor skills as well as major skills, thats all you have to do. Just don't spam your major skills ALL the time.
@MannElite I know how the leveling works. And that exactly what I normally do when I play it on my Xbox. But when I'm playing on PC I'm just going to use the Ultimate Leveling mod. It is objectively better than the vanilla leveling system.
Another great video from Oblivion Dad. I'm excited to see your next video you might try, i'd love to see the math and reasoning for how to hypothetically build a very strong character. I agree I like the leveling system, I think skyrim's approach is totally fine, nothing wrong with it in any way, but I think it's fun that Oblivion is just a bit more intentional with the way it works (and that is 100% okay). It also feels more fun to roleplay into my character. Skyrim you can (and will) always be a jack of all trades to some degree, oblivion is virtually impossible to do so. I also really really love your points in other videos where in oblivion, you are ALWAYS leveling up from doing everything, running, swimming, jumping, fighting, talking...
ok but maybe don't watch the next one. Or at least take it with a big grain of salt
When I first played Oblivion when the game was new, by the time I realized you level up by sleeping, I advanced from level 1 to something around level 10. There must've been way more players who didn't put any thought into how leveling works. This video is an advanced course - when you list all the sources of player power, the percentage of players who actually used all of them is very small. The good news is - if you play on the easiest difficulty setting, Oblivion is so easy that any build will be fine.
The issue with amount of level scalling in Oblivion is in my opinion not so much with difficulty per se, but it becoming almost immersion breaking with how strong regular enemies become in the late game. It is not difficult to fight off high level NPC's while your characters is also highly leveled, but it is deffinitely noticeable that they are very strong, unnaturally so, compared to earlier in the game. It makes it seem like some random bandit that you fight late game while trying to finish off some random quests is stronger than demons from another realm that you fought in mid game while following main story line, especially with how relatively early you become the hero of Kvatch.
It would be easy to solve with capping most enemy levels, especially in the overworld. It is one of those areas where Skyrim probably did it best - you still have scaling but it is not as aggressive, except for specific enemies (like dragons) which leads to almost boss like encounters
Bethesda games have a "sweet spot" that they allow you to blow right passed. (The price of too much freedom I guess.)
It's a bit counterintuitive but I always lvl cap my own character to prevent the world from becoming unbalanced with itself.
(Oblivion < lvl 25)
(Skyrm, about lvl 60, but only cause I want more perks)
This is easy to do in Skyrim and Oblivion, but not easy (or even possible) in Fallout, where you auto level up.
At some point, the game runs out of bigger baddies and better loot. I'd stop leveling there.
This makes the game more fun in the late game, not less fun. Watch his Skyrim video for a direct example. Its very boring to run around late game and be able to kill everything in one shot and take no damage and not have to even try. Its more fun in Oblivion that the game is constantly challenging you with harder enemies. Imagine running into a cave late game in oblivion, and half the enemies are rats and crabs, and only have maybe 1 vampire or troll at the end, that would be boring. Its definitely more fun that every enemy you encounter is challenging for your level.
@ thats the whole point, the fun is subjective. I totally get what you are saying that challenging late game is more fun than walk in the park that some games become, but in my opinion, in Oblivion they went to far, to the point of immersion breaking. When I see late game Oblivion enemies i just want to roll my eyes.
To me the Skyrim approach is more fun, where most encounters become easier and easier the higher level you get, but you still have strong enemies from time to time (not to mention games that dont use level scaling at all, but they are entirely different beasts with different design priorities)
@ Its subjective... but its easily demonstrable. Try watching old knight play skyrim in the recent upload, he runs around basically one shots everything with minimal for like 10 minutes and doesn't have to use a potion or even block or avoid attacks or anything. It clearly would be more fun if a hard enemy were to jump out at him every 1 minute than every 10 minutes.
One important point I think you missed here is the strength of equipment and enchantments. I feel like I don’t need efficient levelling to avoid falling behind because my armor is getting way better and with the reverse diminishing returns of armor rating I am taking way less damage, plus I am getting stronger souls and better sigil stones for Shield, Fortify [Attack Skill], Fortify Fatigue, elemental damage, and Resist/Absorb/Reflect Magicka enchantments. Tbf this probably doesn’t hold in very high levels when equipment and enchantments stop scaling, but I personally am usually ready to start a new character by that point anyway.
Leveling Problem sounds like peak white room thinking. Doesnt seem to tske into account at all thst as you get more and more increasingly powerful items.
Old knight I love so much how you’re helping me defend why oblivion is so much fun to everyone I talk to that wants to drag it in favor of Morrowind or Skyrim. Like sometimes I can’t explain exactly why it is that I like what I like but your videos make it so much easier for me to explain myself. 😊
To me at least, trying to get all your attributes to 100 is like trying to get all your skills to 100 in Besthesda’s Fallout games. Like it’s nice to have but it’s absolutely not needed to enjoy the game or even make a strong character build
Oh dear. Did my video cause this? ;)
I'll watch when I can!
👍
What if they made some or all skills governed by multiple attributes? Like Blade levels STR and AGI, while Blunt levels STR and END. This seems like it would allow players to hit more +5s without having to think about it as much
Honestly you should rewrite the ‘levelling problem’ page on the wiki, starting with renaming it ‘the levelling solution’ and then breaking down everything you’ve covered in this area in all your videos. The fortify fatigue trick alone is more powerful than an efficiently levelled character who is unaware of it.
I like getting +5's, but I'm not crazy about it, +3's and 4s are acceptable. The easy way of accomplishing this is passively focus on mostly using minor skills at the beginning of a level, and then after you notice you've gotten a few level ups in minor skills, switch to using major skills and finish leveling up. You'll get more attribute points and you won't have to track on a spreadsheet. Its better than ONLY using major skills. Getting +5 strength for 2 levels in a row is a BIG difference from getting +3 strength two levels in a row, especially for a warrior, you need the early +5s to be able to carry around a set of heavy armor and have a respectable amount of inventory space.
Why can you only train 5 times per level? Why are you locked out of points after you hit your 10/10 main skills?
Your “fun” system was done miles better in MW
@@max7971 training more than 5 times per level is exactly why morrowind leveling was bad, it’s just a gold game.
As for being locked out of more points, they just go to the next level. Idk each system there is a little different but the difference is very minor in that specific respect
you remind me of the centipede from "james and the giant peach"
Oblivion’s levelling system is fine - it’s effectively the same as Morrowind, just the number of skills total and the number of skills in your class are different - it’s the scaling that is the issue.
Morrowind primarily only scaled enemies on the overworld of Vvardenfell - dungeons and quest specific encounters were generally consistent, regardless of player level.
This means that levelling up is actually making the player more powerful relative the majority of challenges they will face in the world.
In Oblivion, because almost everything is scaled, and scaled quite aggressively, it is common for characters to fall behind the power curve of the world, which turns combat into a slog of hitting enemies a couple dozen times to defeat them using equipment that is ostensibly stronger than the equipment you were using at level 1.
Pervasive level scaling was added to the game, likely as a band aid to let Bethesda avoid the problem of having to design a progression through the world, but I suspect given how close the development of Oblivion was to the wire of its release date, the scaling wasn’t tested thoroughly and Bethesda wasn’t aware of how egregious it gets at endgame levels.
I've never felt like I fell behind and I've been playing since I was 9. People can turn the difficulty down if they somehow can't manage to make decent characters.
Yeah, I agree that the issue is with scaling. The Oblivion leveling system IMHO is better than Morrowinds, because of skill perks
The bandaid analogy is just wrong, the game does have progression through the world, more so than skyrim. Many different types of enemies as you level, having different abilities you have to look out for, different resistances, and different gear....
@@MannElite I'm talking about a geographic progression based on a world that is consistently dangerous to the player. In Morrowind there are locations which are intended for more powerful characters and locations that are clearly intended for lower level characters. Daedric Shrines for instance tend to have more powerful enemies, which an early game player may struggle with. In Oblivion the geographic spread of difficulty was largely removed, and replaced with pervasive level scaling. It was a band aid to avoid having to cultivate player progress geographically - when everything scales to the player's level, it doesn't matter where the player goes because the game should always (in theory) be at the right difficulty.
As for enemy variety, it's fairly limited. NPC enemies don't change tactics as they level. Fighting a Bandit in glass armor is simply more tedious (and immersion breaking) than fighting a bandit in fur. Enemy mages also use a disappointing variety of spells, meaning fighting them is a similar experience across all levels - elemental damage, healing, summoning and maybe reflect spell but they rarely seem to use it. Monsters vary more meaningfully, but the vast majority are simply big damage sponges that hit hard in melee. Resistances vary, but few enemies actually have enough of a given resistance to actually force a meaningful change of tactics. Skeletons being immune to paralysis comes to mind, and Minotaur Lords have beefy magic resistance, but you rarely have to think about those resistances and adjust tactics in the majority of the game's combat encounters.
@@teapotcrunch It's not a bandaid but a deliberate design choice to reinforce the "go anywhere, do anything" open world. It works incredibly well most quests and areas can be completed at any time and will provide a fair challenge and a reward that is good but not overpowered for where you are. Daedric quests are then all level locked to give consistent rewards that are reliable across playthroughs. If you really think theres no difference in the tactics required between popping into an early level undead dungeon and a later one with skeleton champions summoning in their guardians and liches running about then I don't know what to say to that.
TBH the main flaw is how endurance works. It wouldn't be bad otherwise since you could still get max stats eventually but HP is tied to getting endurance to 100 as early as possible. Want to be a thief etc? Boy you gonna train armorer and wear heavy armor for a good chunk of early game.
Hmm,
All that Rant could be simplified into this one
Thanks!
Remarkable points
But even though if skills were predefined by auto-class
Potions, magic items etc. - won't be a deadend
I always considered the Oblivion leveling system needlessly convoluted and this video didn't change that, but I will say people have really overblown how bad the system is in the past 20 years. The proof is in the pudding that this kind of leveling lived and died in one game and nobody missed it, but there are way worse boobytraps in other RPGs than suboptimal Oblivion leveling.
imo it's only Endurance that is worth minmaxing and going +5 each lvl
If you're not opposed to cheating, you can loadwarp out of the sewers (before you select finish and exit) and return as often as you like to reconfigure all of your options, from race, birthsign, attributes, major/minor skills, name, etc..,
I've invested the time to power level all (but speech & merchant) skills to 100 at character lvl 1. My emperor is still alive, and I've done 0 quests.
Make this Save file, never grind again. (Not a true RPG fan I know, but this allows me to forever customize my character)
I typically I play with a 0 Endurance character (54 hp at lvl 19) by use of "poitions", and increase my damage output by use of fortify fatigue enchantments. This way, the gameplay feels more like a Rainbow Six game, where all attacks, by everyone, are deadly.
It's more of a developer tool as opposed to an RPG mechanic, but it's how I like to play all my Bethesda RPS's.
And, if I miss the mark reguarding gameplay balance, there's always the difficulty slider. No shame in that, just fun.
I will say, I don’t think it’s a bad system, but I feel like things like athletics and acrobatics that are passively leveled by moment kinda mess with anyone keeping track of their levels
All the others, you level based on how you play and it feels organic, but those two you aren’t given much choice about. Maybe acrobatics a little, but athletics is a given, you can’t really grind it and can’t avoid it either
My most recent playthrough has Athletics as a major (albeit not a specialization). By the level numbers you already will have selecting athletics as a major it will level so slowly it will essentially never cause you to get a level you didn't want.
I dont think the design is necessarily awful, but it just kind of feels bad. The attributes dont super matter but it can just feel bad to not get +5s.
i am not inteligente enough to understood these videos. please make them for 5 year olds.
Honestly love this stuff and yeah I know Argonians are trash in this game...but i cant help myself lol
Personally, I subscribe to a 4/3 major skill split. Rather than picking all powerful and useful/important major skills, or no powerful skills at all, pick 4 skills you'll focus on, and 3 skills you can completely and easily ignore if you wish, let's call those 3 filler skills.
The reasoning? Level 30. That's the magic number, where new leveled content stops appearing, and the only difference from thence on is just the hp bloat. Thus, if you can max out the important parts of your build by level 30, you can decide at your own pace going forward whether to keep leveling or not, if you need to use trainers to max out any important minor skills you haven't yet, or just for fun
Let's assume your specialization covers 2 of the important major skills of your build, and you have no other racial bonuses for either of the 4. This means that they start at 30, 30, 25, and 25, meaning, you need 290 skill levels to max them out. meaning, 29 level ups, from level 1 to level 30.
So, by picking Magic Specialization, Destruction or Restoration, Mysticism or Illusion, your weapon skill of choice, and either Block, Armorer, Heavy, Light, Acrobatics, Sneak, or Athletics, as your important major skills, you can then pick Speechcraft, another weapon skill you don't care about, and either a second weapon skill or an armor skill you don't care about(or block if you're an archer, i guess), you can now focus on the first four important skills, plus any other skill that gives you power, and basically max out your build by level 30.
Even if you only get +3s, you'll have earned 261 attribute points by then, which will be enough for your 5 most important attributes (and if there's still a deficit, you can just enchant some armor to make up the difference, or you can start leveling your filler skills and use trainers to max out your anything that still needs maxing out)
This is similar to how i play. I max maybe two maybe three attributes and 3 or 4 skills. I Try to get to level 30(sometimes below that) then finish the main quests and shivering isles main quest. Next character lol
My problem with oblivion's levelling isn't really being too weak at high levels. It's being too strong at low levels. If you just ignore your major skills you'll be comparatively stronger than if you do use them (e.g. summoning daedroths and dremora lords at level 1 is quick to set up, game-ruiningly strong, and is unnaffected by difficulty). Does that make Oblivion a bad game? Of course not. Does it make oblivion's leveling system bad? Not necessarily. But is it a problem with oblivion's leveling system? Absolutely.
You really shouldn't be able to completely skip the entire scaling system by doing something that blatantly isn't a bug with so few repercussions.
It makes cool high effort builds feel like a joke when you could have just walked in as a peon and summoned goddamn King K. Rool to accomplish what you did in half the time.
If I ignore 90% of the game the game will hide 90% of it's content, this must be a bug!
But its still over the top. Even the items scale with your level.
Yep, magicka is too useful and too powerful. Even if you don't want to play a mage, you're funneled toward magic skills. Magic in Oblivion is the stealth archery of Skyrim. Then again, mages were the best way to get through Daggerfall & Morrowind as well.
Even though I enjoy it, Oblivion has massive problems. Making a more nimble fighter penalizes you. That's not just counter-intuitive, that's bad design.
50 pound swords. Bad design, but I chalk it up to game devs who have never swung a 10-20 pound sledge in their lives and have probably never touched a real sword to know how light they are.
Mostly, the leveling system is fine. The level scaling of monsters is ridiculous. If you put off doing fighter's guild quests in favor of other things & then get around to it, best of luck keeping non-essential NPCs alive in a mission. The same can be said for The Killing Fields quest. You want to be level 25 or so to get the best Chillrend, but those leveled goblins make it more of a pain than it really needs to be.
I shrug most of those problems off, but the quests with only one dialogue option (aka no option whatsoever) irk me. Hi Bethesda. Is it possible for you to leave some room for roleplay in your roleplaying game?
5:00 while I agree that you dont need to fully min max, I disagree that the complains are due to the difficulty itself. The problem is the difficult spikes because its very easy for level ups to make you weaker. One memory of a long time ago was me at lv 20 or ao not veing able to win against a zombie because since the level up my damage was not enough anymore.
Now in my opinion the biggest problem is that its a noob trap. The logic for games in general when creating a character is to focus on the things you want to be good at and Oblivion is the opposite - if you plan to use a sword better make it a minor skill. As I said above you dont need to fully min max and get all 5s, but the problem still exist that you cant fuck yourself during character creation due to it not being intuitive
No, you are exactly backwards, if you want w use a sword you should use it as a major or you will be much weaker.
Zombies are damage sponges without fire damage
Leveling system that forces you to trick it to have fun is not what I call a good design. Level gain system should’ve been a background thing, nit something you have to watch out for to avoid unpleasant difficulty spiking lol. It’s a staple thing for Bethesda to fk something to the degree it becomes liked by some but it doesn’t mean it’s a proper thing to do.
@@SonySteals it does not force you to “trick it.” I disagree that level gain should be a background thing you ignore. What a boring leveling system that you can just ignore, that would mean by definition it is meaningless
Shitting on bethesda gets clicks lol thats all it is.