I currently have a good handful of mods, including fcom, working together without a single problem. It's beautiful. This is my first fcom game, and so far I like it a lot. However, it is much more challenging, and I find things very slow going right now. I am ten hours in, and only level 2. I'm just curious how people "play" an fcom game, meaning, what do you do? How do you treat your character during the early levels before he/she has a foothold on the game and can really start dungeon delving and maybe trying Oblivion gates? I'm a longtime veteran of Morrowind, so the gameplay is similar and familiar, but still much more unpredictable.

What I do is level up my character to at least 6 before I really start exploring. I don't pick any armor as major skills, they are easiest things to skill up. I focus on getting max endurance, until its at a respectable level. That way I can actually take some hits.

Finding a rat or a skeleton is an easy way to train your blocking and armor skills. Also exploring some of the weaker dungeons while working on those skills. (Basically any dungeon near a city tends to hold weaker critters)

Before high levels, chop rat carry vegetable; after high levels, chop rat carry vegetable.

Well, not really. But the general gist of it all is: Fear. For your life.

Check out http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1088301-beginners-tips-for-ooo/. It's newly started as the earlier thread was purged, but it has some good tips already.

This is bad advice. Make sure you're using some sort of immersive leveling mod, such as Realistic Leveling or nGCD, make the character you want to play, and just play the game. If you're worry about training skills you're doing it wrong.

Your not going to last too long in this mod....... :hubbahubba:

Hey now, I know nGCD is super-fantastic and whoever wrote it must be a sixy stud, but "doing it wrong" is a little harsh. It's definitely helpful to make sure people know about alternatives; but you'll make more headway if you don't berate them for choosing a different one for their personal entertainment. Some people really do enjoy playing the numbers, it's all good.

(If this were posted on the nGCD thread, of course, I'd take a different tone; but "this mod is wrong for you" isn't the same as "you are wrong.")

Anyway. To answer the main question: Breton Paladin has it pretty much spot-on. The design of OOO, which FCOM is built around, is that at the beginning of the game you are not a hero. You might become one, but destiny isn't gonna grease the wheels for you. You're just some schmuck who got tossed in prison for who knows what; not important enough for anyone to know your name yet, or possibly you've been rotting there so long everyone's forgotten. You've got potential but you lack skill (or at least, you're very rusty), and it will take some real effort to overcome that. And once you've got a handle on mudcrabs and feel ready to break out into the wider world... well, you'll find that there's a reason for all the heavily-armed city militia. Stuff gets nasty fast.

Greater variety aside, the biggest thing OOO changes is that the world does not level with you: stuff very close to the city is not very hard, and stuff just a little ways from the city is much, much harder, but the difficulty of any given location does not change. So once you've gained a few levels, you can safely go places that would have killed you before. Since the world isn't leveling up with you, your progress feels genuine. You pay for this sense of actual accomplishment at the other end, with a world full of places that will quickly and efficiently kill you if you're not ready for them. It can be shocking, but most people who give it some time find the trade-off entirely worth it.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26012...

I agree with tejon. It's not such a good idea to use the "majors as minors" route with OOO, though. MadCat221's http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/ooospoilers.html is a good read.



Ouch.

Never did I think I'd see it tejon, but does this mean your an OOO convert? bliviongate:

It actually happened my last time through. If I recall correctly, that switch was the inspiration for creating Got No Class... OOO allows it to be a tough start, not a permanent handicap. I still maintain that it's dreadfully monolithic, and with the advent of such tools as OBSE and Bash, has no remaining need to be; a deconstruction pass would do it a load of good and prevent it from conflicting or at least interacting poorly with newer implementations of things such as lock bashing (:ninja:). But I've also preferred the base philosophy of OOO from the very beginning, and having finally nailed down most of my core projects, I felt ready to tackle the transition and any necessary re-tooling. And yeah, it's worth it.

Starting out....10 hours till level 2 ...Good going!!

I can say ...Always leave yourself a way out...Know your surroundings...Know where that Guard is..

I have had FCOM from the Start and even tho I am NOW at level 14 @110 hours in I STILL have to Run for my life in certain Places. Caution is my middle name but when you turn a corner in a Fort and there 15 Baddys ranging from level 10-20 RUN!! I love FCOM ,nGCD combo. Sometimes i go up a level and don't notice for 2-3 saves...lol. So Just another that is saying just Play..take it slow, Find Places to explore Near Cities, there the Safest!

Have Fun and Enjoy.

My newest character started out fairly weak, since I was aiming toward archery as my main skill.

So, no immediate dungeon diving, a lot of watching my surroundings, and when travelling, I tended to tag along with a guard patrol.

I'll often give a young character a companion--makes Tamriel not so lonely, and helps keep them alive longer especially if they are the ranged or magic type. I mostly use them to add roleplay value to the game--have to be careful though, not to pick a companion that's uber--otherwise, they'll kill everything and your character will never get any experience. One of the very best is Villja (by Emma) ... she's the same level you are so not overpowered, and her quest sends you wandering from city to city to find stuff for her ... others I've used are Lobo the Wolf (only a baby when you start), and Shadow Steed (standalone part of the excellent Shadow Ranger mod) gives you a horse that you can call into battle if you get in over your head out in the wilds. For dungeons, don't forget about Companion Share and Recruit (Talkie Toaster) ... if you get run out of a cave, you can recruit practically anyone to return and help you kick some back.

This is all great advice, thank you! I've been pretty much just "playing" without worrying too much about skills and levelling, but I do not that if I don't attempt to make progress, I won't. I'm also using Vim and Vigor advanced, so it's nice to just wander out in the woods like an explorer, and set up camp and worry if "the wolves come" so to speak. I just downloaded nGCD to give a whirl. I did use realistic levelling, but had a very hard time determining what constitued a level. I'm not trying to game the system, but at least understand how my character is growing.

Actually it worked out very well. My armor skill is around 60 now. I just had to be careful to only do the lower level dungeons until it skilled up enough