Oblivion: The whiners were right

[Rob Beschizza]

About the stupid levelled monsters stuff.

My character is a fairly straight up direction-of-least-resistance character, using the tools for the job: big swords and heavy armor, Blade at 85, supplmeneted by magic for healing and cool tricks. About as hardened a warrior as you're going to get at this level, unless you completely avoid doing anything levelworthy except hit things.

But of course I left the main quest until reaching level 20, and it's obviously completely impossible. I get to the part where you have to hack your way through Kvatch. I can't deal with the 8 clannfears and 4(?) atronachs simultanously, even with potions. It's a constant clanging of hits striking me from every angle, until I am dead, and they deal me out in a matter of seconds. I've even nudged the difficultly left an inch, but can't yet bring myself to go further with that business.

So, am I basically doomed without leaving my difficultly level permanently at "diddums"? Gimped, was the phrase. And to think I thought you were all being whinging pussies. But seriously, if a warrior with heavy armor and near-maxed relevant skills gets pissed on like this, what the hell are you supposed to do?

[Funkman]

Man, you guys are getting me nervous. I'm closing in on 20 hours played and have barely touched the main quest (mostly because I keep getting distracted by other things), but I don't want it to turn into some sort of impossible gauntlet.

[Rob Beschizza]

Originally Posted by Funkman

Man, you guys are getting me nervous. I'm closing in on 20 hours played and have barely touched the main quest (mostly because I keep getting distracted by other things), but I don't want it to turn into some sort of impossible gauntlet.

Toodling around the world rescuing lost kittens and doing guild quests is a blast, and it all seems pitched perfectly to my character's skills. I need my potions and I need to keep myself rested, but I make it through each dungeon without too much aggravation.

But the main quest is a serious drag. So far, it's a sagging, sapping, grind that's necessitated reload after reload, and now I'm completely stuck!

[Charles]

It's painfully obvious for someone trying to enjoy the game's good side that Bethesda truly failed (and indeed, doesn't seem to have even attempted) to balance the game.

It's like they wrote everything out on paper, assumed it was all good, implemented it, and then didn't do any test passes to see if it worked or not.

[Gordon Cameron]

a) get to work leveling your conjuration until you can summon Daedroths

b) Do the Mages' Guild line of quests, get access to an enchanting altar, and make yourself a suit of +100 chameleon (aka "suit of invincibility") armor.

Neither is particularly in line with the sort of character you have rolled, but they should help...

[Rob Beschizza]

Why is the solution to Bethsoft's unique approach to game balance always "exploit Bethsoft's unique approach to game balance"?

Of all games, this is the one where I expect to be permitted to play it my way - and it's not as if "standard warrior build" is a particularly exotic roll. I'm not one of those people complaining about having no chance to progress with their diplomat build whose primary attribute is +2 to insults.

I don't want to have to soul trap an Ascended Sleeper and create a ring of permanent godhood, rendering the entire game system a statistical field of roses to look down on as I kill everything in one hit, to have a chance if I should choose to actually explore a little before playing the main quest.

[Funkman]

Before this thread gets out of control, just curious, is there a particularly good way to get health/mana potions? Right now, alchemy doesn't seem to be cutting it. So, am I left with just buying them by the truckload or what?

And yeah, I think the next time I play, I'll get to Kvatch and get the main story moving along.

[Aszurom]

It didn't take me until lvl 20. I was lvl 6 and never did anything BUT the main quest line. I didn't finish Kvatch, but as soon as I could get Martin to leave I left and got the main quest up to Blood of Daedra. Well, now they want me to talk to someone who's in the castle in Kvatch so I *must* clean that out. I'm in a hallway with like 5 of the fire Daedra and a bunch of clannfears and scamps too. Not a chance I can take them. No way. Level 6 and I'm p0rked.

So, I re-rolled as a mage and I've been completely ignoring the main quest with this character. Having a lot more fun.

[mono]

I beat Kvatch at around level 6 using sneak, Moonshadow (invisibility) and running my ass off to retrieve the quest item that completes the castle siege.

Since Kvatch, as I have leveled, I did in fact knock the difficulty slider way down, because, y'know, I actually like to enjoy my games.

[Lunch of Kong]

Use the difficulty slider, Luke. That's what it's there for.

[chet]

I didn't find Kvatch overwhelming, but after that I took Martin and Jauffre with me and stopped doing the main quest. They make a pretty good duo to complete the side quests with. They can't die, and will even go after big monsters with their fists if it comes to it. I tried some other characters this way, but most of them spent more time passed out than awake and were a pain to herd around so I stuck with these two.

Chet

[HRose]

So, Morrowind was too easy and this one is too hard?

;)

[MattKeil]

I retook Kvatch at level 17 (full warrior with healing magic and alchemy), and while it was pretty fucking hard, it was certainly doable. The one open area with 7 Clannfears, 2 Flame Atronachs, 3 Daedroths and 2 Frost Atronachs was a bit of a bitch, but I pulled it off. It's worth noting that of those monsters, only the Flame Atronachs can open doors. And yes, enchanting your stuff with badass effects makes a HUGE difference. I hadn't done it yet at the time, but if you can imbue your primary weapon with a nice Restore Health With Each Hit enchant, you're golden.

My primary complaint about that part was that they don't even give your allies a fucking shot at competing. The poor bastards went down in the first minute of the first fight, smacked around like ragdolls by the Daedroths. The quest-critical guy just gets knocked unconscious, but he spent the WHOLE TIME flat on his back while I did all the work. If the enemies are going to get nutso tough, the good guys could at least try to stand toe-to-toe with them.

[Dhruin]

Screw the main quest. It sucks anyway.

[WarrenM]

For my part, I'm level 10 and have completely ignored the main quest. I've become a Silencer in the Dark Brotherhood and now work directly for the Black Hand. Shadowmere and I run back and forth across the land, killing those who we are contracted to silence. I love this game.

In fairness, I did see the leveling kick in once I hit level 10. Suddenly the wolves outside become mountain lions and my character gets hurt pretty quick against them - but it's not insurmountable. Just takes some stealth and a little cunning.

I fear the Kvatch mission though since everything I've heard about it makes it sound like the fucking devil.

[Equisilus]

Great. I'm a level 20 warrior now, after 73 hours or so of playing, and I've only done the second stage of the MQ (finished the initial Kvatch quest and brought Martin out Bruma way). I keep finding new things to do so I don't continue the MQ. The problem is I always feel that if I finish the MQ the game is 'over' and I'll want to start a new character (it's probably a symptom of having so many games designed this way, specifically).

If I need to do it, I'll drop that slider down to the easiest difficulty possible to complete the MQ when I continue it. I like enjoying my games and don't really care about a game being too easy; I just don't want it frustrating.

[Jim Preston]

Yeah, I hope I'm not piling on, but I just finished the MQ yesterday, the last of my quests and I ended up as a lvl 31 ranger/thief (or assassin thanks to the dark brotherhood.) By the end yesterday I was into my 90th hour of this game, and while still loving it, I was beyond opening chests, killing daedra, using my potions, etc. I simply ran past everything in the final stages, grabbed the quest items, and took off.

It became somewhat comical in fact. Closing Oblivion gates is simply a timed run with me, and closing the last one as part of the main quest was especially comic as they game said something like "12 minutes left!" just as I grabbed the sigil with a shrug of my shoulders.

This advice isn't going to help you with quests where you have to kill all the monsters, but for everything else, I simply didn't really stop to kill them.

[Sam Jones]

This is why I use a mod that reworks the levelled lists for mobs. It increases the chance that you will see beasts/daedra/dremora from lower down the list as well as the harder ones as you level. It feels a lot more natural than suddenly seeing all brown bears and daedroth everywhere. I use the equivalent mod for the loot lists too, so no more bandits wearing full daedric or glass. Together they made a huge improvement to my game.

[instant0]

Anyone had these issues on the 360 version?

[Warning]

Originally Posted by Gordon Cameron

b) Do the Mages' Guild line of quests, get access to an enchanting altar, and make yourself a suit of +100 chameleon (aka "suit of invincibility") armor.

How do you do that? According to the strategy guide the strongest chameleon effect you can enchant is 20. If you enchant 5 different things do the effects stack to make 100?

[Ephraim]

Originally Posted by instant0

Anyone had these issues on the 360 version?

I play the 360 version and I attempted to clear Kvatch at level 13 or so, as a pretty straight up Fafhrd style Fighter with Sneak. It was impossible until I turned down the difficulty slider by one notch. Then I was able to do it through judicious potion and scoll usage, and a TON of fleeing while casting heal spells on myself.

It was painful, and I easily died 40+ times before dipping down the difficulty slider, but I finally caved and pussied out. As soon as Kvatch was clear, I returned the slider to normal.

I've been playing it clean. No min/maxing. I took the major skills I expected to use as majors, and the minors as minors. I typically get a +2 or +3 to the attributes I value. I built a real hitpoint monster, and it still didn't help.

Yeah, something's wrong with Kvatch.

[gnmarsh]

Interesting that your allies don't level with you. The way I beat that area was by kiting the bad guys back to the quest guy and letting him kill them.

[JeffL]

Originally Posted by Sam Jones

This is why I use a mod that reworks the levelled lists for mobs. It increases the chance that you will see beasts/daedra/dremora from lower down the list as well as the harder ones as you level. It feels a lot more natural than suddenly seeing all brown bears and daedroth everywhere. I use the equivalent mod for the loot lists too, so no more bandits wearing full daedric or glass. Together they made a huge improvement to my game.

Which specific mods are you using for this? I was a bit worried that it would make the lower levels (where I am) unplayable due to very powerful enemies showing up too early.

[forgeforsaken]

I would recomend doing Kvatch as soon as possible. I think it is the hardest part of the game due to it's layout and the number of guys you have to fight at once. I also did this around 20 and found it very very hard. However, once I got past that I didn't have too much difficulty. In fact at level 32 and being done with the main quest I now find the game mostly too easy at default difficulty level. Kvatch constantly comes up when people are complaining about the scaling, but in reality it's just Kvatch being bitch hard more than the scaling being out of contorl for the rest of the game.

[Talorc]

So when is "too late" to start on the Main Quest line and go to Kvatch?

It just feels wrong to me to go straight to Kvatch from the Sewers. I was figuring on getting a full set of armour, some nice weapons, a loot depot (house) and be say around Level 5 for Kvatch.

Is level 5 too late?

[forgeforsaken]

Originally Posted by Talorc

So when is "too late" to start on the Main Quest line and go to Kvatch?

It just feels wrong to me to go straight to Kvatch from the Sewers. I was figuring on getting a full set of armour, some nice weapons, a loot depot (house) and be say around Level 5 for Kvatch.

Is level 5 too late?

I would do it now before the Clanfears show up, should still be mostly scamps I think at level 5.

[Xemu]

I did Kvatch at around level 13 or so, without touching difficulty or mobs. My solution? Potions + kiting. Restore Health / Magica while backpedaling around in circles and casting fireballs. Poisons are great too against non-Daedric foes.

I've been using all my enchantable equipment slots for +magica... but stackable stuff sounds interesting too. I wonder whether +fire shield or +reflect damage on all my gear would let me just get crazy... I haven't found too much screw stuff I can do with the spell creator though maybe I'm just not used to exploiting Bethesda's balance enough. :)

[Dave Markell]

Originally Posted by Rob Beschizza

So, am I basically doomed without leaving my difficultly level permanently at "diddums"? Gimped, was the phrase. And to think I thought you were all being whinging p*@#$%s.

As one of the leaders of the whinging brigade, here's my obligatory "told you so." :-P

Now that that's out of the way, I'll chime in with those who advised you to boost your conjuration to either 75 or 100, and to enchant yourself some truly uber gear. At this stage, it's pretty much your only hope. Otherwise, you'll probably need to reroll. Kvatch is crazy hard with leveled foes and worthless allies.

[Sam Jones]

Originally Posted by jeff lackey

Which specific mods are you using for this? I was a bit worried that it would make the lower levels (where I am) unplayable due to very powerful enemies showing up too early.

Jeff, I'm using this one (both esps) by PlasticFoamMan. It's one of the more popular of its type:

http://www.tescreens.be/oblivionmodw...t_Rarity_Patch

No problems or conflicts with anything else I'm using.

[Sam Jones]

Originally Posted by Dave Markell

Kvatch is crazy hard with leveled foes and worthless allies.

Definitely the hardest part of the game for me. I did it at lvl 16 and was getting daedroths and clannfears, and I dropped the difficulty down a couple of notches for that quest only. The rest of the game was done on the default diff setting. Those full-grown clannfears pack a hell of a wallop. Even outside Kvatch, and later on they were a pain.