Hi there. I was wondering if there is anything I should know about playing OB the first time, or some crucial mods perhaps. I have all DLCs and expansions and I'm planning to install only the official patch and the unofficial patch for Shivering Isles

I don't want to skew the vanilla experience, so I'm not gonna go texture mods or UI mods etc. But maybe I'm missing something that could save me a lot of effort as I remember there were loot scaling issues in OB

If you haven't read it yet, and are coming from another TES game, this page may help to orient you a bit: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Differences_Between_Morrowind,_Oblivion,_and_Skyrim

Oblivion's world scaling/levelling is pretty aggressive but it is still recommended to play the game vanilla before overhauling it so you know whether you like it and what it is that you are changing.

As far as UI, I am not sure you need to struggle through the game with a UI designed for consoles. Darnified UI is the most popular. I prefer BtMod because the darn font is too small for me and BtMod seems closer to the vanilla UI, which I am used to from playing for years on consoles. If you are looking for a vanilla experience, I might suggest BtMod. You can configure it to be pretty much identical to vanilla but with a longer list of viewable items in your inventory, which makes finding things easier.

Hi,

It's a good idea to just go for the vanilla experience first. As far as loot scaling issues you will eventually need an overhaul to correct the appearance of extremely well equipped bandits and such. There is a comparison somewhere. I found you http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=4zscalingcomparison but it doesn't mention Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul which is a new very good overhaul.

The only 'critical' mod I can think of is the UOP, or http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5296/?. It fixes a lot of things in the vanilla game that Beth didn't get around to fixing. I'm not sure if this is the Official Patch you mention or not. Anyways, the most famous fix the UOP addresses is Callindil's shop in the Imperial City. It's called Mystic Emporium. Even though it's a shop, its doors remained locked at all times (I think) unless you pick the lock. And then, you'll get a guard yelling in your face! This is not supposed to happen, matter of fact it doesn't happen on PS3 at all, but on Xbox (and the vanilla PC game) it does. The UOP will fix this, though, among with dozens (hundreds?) of other things.

Every thing else is opinion. Other than the UOP, it's all opinion what is critical and what isn't. Everybody's got their own style.

And when modding, GO SLOW. Don't add a slew of mods (like 30 at once) and then try to play your game. If something is screwy (and chances are it will be) you won't know what is doing what. I literally add one mod at a time. I spent 5 solid years with the vanilla game, so by the time I started modding, I knew exactly what I wanted and what I didn't.

And by all means, If you have any questions, ask here, or PM one of us.

If you only want to correct the loot problem, the mod I use is called http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/3321/? It does away with Bandit-in-Glass-Armor syndrome and gives me a chance to find really good loot now and then. And it does not affect vanilla enemy leveling or scaling, which I actually like.

I wonder if this mod makes loot rarer, too? I found a plug-in called Rare Potion Looting or Less Potion Looting. Something like this. Got all excited. It makes potions rare in dungeons, or it's supposed to. But the mod didn't work at all. Crashed my game to desktop on start up.

I'll have a look at G's Unscaled.

Enhanced Economy has all sorts of ini settings to make different types of loot rarer. It does it by rolling percentage dice to "remove" different types of loot from the game if the percentage minimum is not met by the virtual dice roll. You can set the percentage chance for different categories of loot (including things like potions, scrolls, weapons, rings, etc.) to whatever percentage you want. So, for example, if you wanted an 80% reduction in the amount of potions you found in loot, it would be easy to edit the Enhanced Economy ini to achieve that.

Oh wow, I already have EE. Cool. I didn't know it affects loot. I remember loading it up though, and the Omod asked question after question after question. I think I probably skipped some of them, but I'll have to go back through the inis and have a look, then.

Hi, I have unofficial patches for Shivering Isles and DLCs too, in what order do I install them?

install oblivion > install shivering isles > shivering isles official > oblivion unofficial > shivering unofficial > DLC unofficial

will this work

I"m not sure about the DLC unofficial because I don't have any DLC in my PC games, but everything else is the way I'd do it.

Just a heads-up: One of the very few bugs in EE has to do with this item removal feature. Specifically if you tell it not to remove, say, weapons or armor, but you do remove potions, it will still occasionally remove weapons or armor. If you tell it not to touch potions, it works as intended afaik. And, you can always shift-click on a corpse or container to get to the full, untouched inventory.