Ive noticed sometimes that enemies spawn with incorrectly leveled equipment.

E.G. Level 15, most of the enemies you fight are wearing high level armor...then suddenly theres one guy in the same dungeon with iron armor....

I imagine that iron armor still shows up occasionally at lvl 15.

Also, levels of things are set when you first enter a cell. Could this be a survivor of a previous visit?

I think someone has dug too deep into the wiki. I say enjoy the game until something goes seriously wrong

First time entering the cell.

Also even at level 20+ most chests/ayleid containers contain nothing but junk...whats with that?

Welcome to the world of zero-value random clutter!

Hey now, some of that stuff looks good in my house.

Probably one of my few dislikes of Oblivion.
I could understand it in Dungeons and Forts but Ayleid Ruins?

Bethesda should have at least made it so it had Ayleid releated Items.

Maybe the rats and zombies are hiding the stuff in there.

The other adventurers are probably doing just what you would. "Oooh! Shiny. But I can't carry any more, I'll dump this iron dagger to make room". You just came along after the place had one of Gortwog's people do a quick once-over.

Are there any container types that will consistently carry good loot? It seems some have enchanted items, but most are just junk.

Ive also managed to find enchanted items VERY rarely off enemies. Which kind of enemies carry them? High level dremoras carry enchanted weapons....but armor and jewellery is much rarer.

Good stuff is supposed to be rare. Is a guy hiding in a cave likely to be carrying a fortune in enchanted jewelry?

The game would get boring in a hurry if riches simply fell in your lap.

As would life?

I'm not gonna go that far. Every day, when I go out to get the mail, I cross my fingers that today's the day there will be a check for a million dollars.

No. The contents of virtually every container in the game is controlled by leveled lists. Which means that what you find depends on the level of your character at the moment your character opens the container. The game will select items from leveled lists that are "appropriate" to your character's level. In addition, most containers reset after a period of time. If you open that container later in the game and at a higher level you will likely find items that are also higher level inside.

This is actually my biggest gripe with the vanilla game. I can't bear it that practically every item in practically every container (NPC inventories are, as far as the game engine is concerned, containers also) is tied to my character's level. That just ruined much of the excitement of exploration for me back when the game was first released.

On the other hand, you can't find the uber-weapon that gives you one-hit kills from here on, and makes combat boring. It's hard to imagine how they could give you a "wow" reward without creating some kind of imbalance that will spoil things going forward.

But even at level 30+ most containers contain nothing but junk and most enemies never carry any enchanted items at all.

That's true. But I don't see that as a good thing. Do we want a game that babysits us, that prevents us, like an over-protective parent, from doing something that might cause some kind of problem? Or do we want to be allowed to game like advlts, to exert a bit of self-control?

Roleplaying is the art of creative self-limitation. As far as I'm concerned, "game balance" is only a concern for those who power game.

I loved knowing that there were unique, hand-placed items scattered across the game world in Morrowind. I didn't care if I never collected any of the stuff, I just loved knowing it was there. There's nothing to be found in Oblivion that isn't dictated by my character's level. There's no surprise, it's stultifying. It's the item equivalent of the enemy level scaling that everybody professes to hate so much.

I like place-centric enemies and I like place-centric items. I do not like player-centric leveling and I do not like player-centric items.

>Level 30+
>Open a hard locked chest in a newly entered cell
>20 gold

Why?

It seems that once you hit level 10 or so you have unlimited gold. Shops never sell anything good except for soul gems, so theres no reason to spend gold at all...

bump

TBH - I think you're making too much of it.

There are more than enough mods out there that facilitate the locating of high-level kit and stuff like that if you want it.
Use a mod if it's that important to you, mate, otherwise just enjoy the game - if you give it a chance it's easy enough to rationalise.

Does anyone here use one of these mods then?

One that makes gold useful would be a good thing...

I don't use it but I'm aware of it being very good: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25078

Ha ha ha! I just broke 10 picks getting into a very hard chest only to find.... a lockpick. Sigh.
Ways I control my money:

I can carry a max (beyond my traveling kit) of 70 pounds, without feather spells. Which means I'm pretty choosy about what I pick up. The weight to value ratio must be 1:10 at least, for me to pick it up. Sure, I'd love to carry out that Ebony Cuirass, but I can't carry it. So I leave it. Less grabbing-everything-in-sight, more selective. As a result my gold increases slower than normal.
When I purchase a house, I pay taxes on it. Which involves me selling my beloved Apotheosis, at a loss, then buying it back a couple of times, at crazy high prices. I don't fast travel, and will spend coin at nearly every tavern. And I use no cheap spamming techniques, such as the restore fatigue alchemy grind. I make what I need, not what I can.

I kind of love it when this happens, there's a poetry to it.