Hey! I have grandchildren and I understand both chess and Oblivion. Perhaps when you have grandchildren you will too!

The "grandma test" is a fallacy. It assumes that a game must be simple to be good, which as has been demonstrated with a board game, is a false premise. Complexity is good, if done right it adds depth and re-playability to a game. Chess is a great example of this, once again. The only reason simple games are considered good games nowadays is because this generation of gaming has been more about money than anything else. Put out a flashy title with barely any substance (read: Call of Duty) and people will still lap it up.

It took a bit of time for me to get to know Oblivion, my first ever character ended up in a rut with me asking "what the heck am I supposed to be doing?" I was just too used to the hand-holding nature of modern FPSes, and it wasn't until I built a new character and just cut loose that I came to grips with what this game was about: this is YOUR game, it is what you want it to be. It drove me to switch to the PC version so I could expand on that, and now here I am, a heavy mod user who does his best to assist the makers and now I have an up-and-coming fanfic, all because of this game. Call of Duty could never even hope to capture my soul the way The Elders Scrolls series has.

This game is not grandma friendly. This game is also one of the best modern games ever made. It doesn't matter if grandma can or cannot understand it, the point is I do. For a Bethesda title, that's all that matters. Look at this game through your own eyes and draw your own conclusions, as one person's understanding of the game is not the same as yours. Your interpretation is what matters most, find it, and you will find your missing puzzle piece.

Well said, agreed. Though I love COD.

Well I'm going to mostly disregard the whole leveling system argument and give the only advice I can think of:
1) If you post your character's class people can probably give you tips like good spells and stuff to make your life easier
2) If you have the Shivering Isles DLC then you can get http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Amber_Armor pretty easily
3) If you have the Knights of the Nine DLC then the crusader relics are pretty powerful
4) The Dark Brotherhood will provide you with good light armor
5) Hircine's shrine quest gives a pretty nice light armor cuirass
6) The http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Deepscorn_Hollow_Items#Raiment_of_the_Crimson_Scar is a great piece of light armor found in the Vile Lair DLC
7) Spoiler thing just to be safe

You said you played a few years ago so sorry if you already knew this stuff, and btw I think the leveling system is pretty bad and annoying. Once you get some really good equipment you'll conquer the leveling creatures, so I would say don't delete your character.

Hear hear thomas! No doubt the system will be even more watered down in the next game, due to some idiot who can't add-up...

While I do appreciate the approval, I think I may have lost the topic.... (warning, long, anolytical post follows)

Bethesda is surely not going to water it down again, Oblivion was about as watered down as you can get. By watered down I mean "lacking human ingenuity." They tried to see just how much automation they could get away with in this game (tree placement, level scaling, fast travel, etc.) and we ended up with a game that feels more like it was computer-generated rather than constructed by an impassioned design team. Granted, I'll give them leeway on the trees (why don't you try placing all those things by hand?), but there was just no excuse for everything else, particularly the level scaling.

That was just pure console-catering, thinking the average player would be too dumb to be able to tell the difference between weak and strong, so they did away with the concept completely for the sake of "balance." Reality check, Bethesda, RPGs are the one game that you are supposed to creatively UNbalance. Too much balancing stagnates the gameplay and makes every encounter feel like "more of the same." Did Oblivion have too much balancing? Yes, but it wouldn't have been too bad if the balancing was based off of a system that worked well.

Instead, the balancing took place based on an arbitrary number that really has no place in an RPG like this in the first place. Like I said before, this game has too many ways of playing it for your character's level to be in any way useful to the player or the game. It's just that, a stupid number that adds a false sense of achievement. Achievement is when you best that dragon in that cave over there and win his horde of fine treasures. Achievement is rising to the top of a social hierarchy, gaining benefits and potential riches most could only dream of. Achievement is NOT "ooh, look I'm level 20 now!" Who cares about that stupid number? Well the game does, and it based the entire scaling and balancing system off of it. The result of this is a pointless and broken attempt at balancing every encounter to maintain the challenge.

I don't want to be challenged all the time! There should come a point when the emperor himself would quake in his boots at the mention of my name. There should also be times when I find myself completely out of my depth, having bit off more than I can chew, and leaving me no choice but to hightail it out of that dungeon praying to Akatosh that I might live a day longer. Unfortunately, in Oblivion you have neither, you just have the middleground. I see high mountains and low valleys in the landscaping, but I sure don't see any in the gameplay, it's just a flat plane there. That feeling of progression is what makes your character in an RPG feel unique and alive. It gives you purpose, motivation, and desire to continue playing.

I'll give Bethesda credit, they at least tried to get the motivation part down. The higher you go, the better the equipment you can find becomes. Problem is, what's the friggin point of having glass armor when everyone else does, too? Oblivion butchered progression in favor of balance, and the result was a game where it was literally pointless to progress at all. It should've been the other way around, in moderation, of course. No need for god items.

The level scaling was also means of instant gratification to add a false sense of accomplishment to the people who were too impatient to just sit back and enjoy the show (again, see the console crowd and their million-and-a-half online FPSes.) It was a remarkably short-sighted attempt, as well, it gives the impression that they were thinking along these lines:

New player steps out of tutorial dungeon. He decides to check out ruin across the water.
He wanders in, discovers several skeletal warriors. He starts hacking away, barely making a dent in their hitpoints. They then proceed to ruthlessly crush him.
Instead of thinking "OK, how about I try that one again later," he instead says "WTF?! Stupid game!" and starts whining about it all over the place.

In conclusion, the level scaling in this game was a half-baked attempt at balancing to try to make it more appealing to the crowd who don't understand that the reason we play RPGs is to progress and earn our power. I hope I made my point clear enough.

The leveling system makes it so that it gets harder as you level up.. remember back when that was expected... I think 1988? lol.

Seriously though the games leveling system doesnt screw you. If you have illusion and conjuration or just alchemy you can compensate for anything. I know this to be true because Ive proven it about 6million times.

Your problem is probably a lack of kill power, as you say things takes forever to kill.

Better weapon is primary objective, get daeric weapons, next you need some enchantments; do you have any fire or shock damage 25 sigil stones for your bow and sword, perhaps a absorb health for your sword.
If you don't have access to sigil stones or want some real serious damage soult trap 2 seconds, shock damage x, weakness to shock 100 for 2-3 seconds, weakness to magic 100 for 2-3 seconds. Use 3 seconds for longswords or bows, 2 for shortswords.

Armor is less a problem it only reduced how much damage you take, if your agility is low you might want to fortify it, else a fire shield from a sigil stone solves most problems.

And to the levelling system it works well enough, clunky you will become weaker having many non combat skills as major, alchemy is worst easy to level, yes it helps but only then you use buffs or poisons, security and the social skills is also dangerous as this skills level you up without making you a better killer, dividing atention between two weapon types is also a problem but is it in any rpg.
Easy to run into problems in games if you are clueless, like don't understanding the importance of repair in fallout 3.

RPGs are supposed to get easier as you level up, not harder. It's been that way since Ultima.

RPGs function at the core on a risk-reward system. The objective of effectively balancing an RPG (which I argued above Oblivion does not do at all) is simply requiring greater risk for greater reward. Not the shortsighted balance of keeping everything at a predetermined constant (which is what Oblivion does), but but through the use of radicals. A good RPG is like a good story, it fluctuates constantly. It consistently challenges the player to push himself further, offering the promise of even greater power for greater risk. As you take more risks and gain more rewards, the greater risks become less risky, and you may strive for even greater rewards than you were previously capable of, while at the same time eliminating the risk of the previous low-level encounters and therefore nullifying their reward. The game just became easier, you have outclassed a set of risks.

If the game consistently gets harder as you get stronger, the feeling of progression is ruined, and you have stripped the RPG of the charm that kept the genre alive for so long. By eliminating the point of leveling, which is to decrease the risk for increased rewards, and instead offer it on a straight, scaled line, the game has lost substance. There is no longer a dynamic sense of progression, but rather the game is telling you what you can and cannot do. This is a growing bad habit in the video game industry.

Alchemy wins the game no matter how you build. :banghead:

True, chess is not a game that grandma can easily understand. It's also not a mainstream game for players that are serious about it.

I play chess. I'm rated at around 1600. A little higher. I rarely play though, and it's hard to find people to play with. I end up playing people way below my skill level unless I specifically seek them out. That's the nature of chess and I accept that.

Is that the nature we as gamers and Bethesda as a company want to have for TES?

Probably not.

Gamers are notorious for building things that intentionally make themselves niche, despite that it's not in their best interests. Companies that make games however, especially recently, have seen the profitability and value of making games accessible to average Joe.

If TES wants to be a niche game, so be it. But it has an awful lot of potential to become a mainstream icon as well. I guess it's up to Bethesda which way they want to go.

Chess isn't a complicated game. It's complex. The basic moves are all fairly simple and not that hard to learn (pawns move 1 square forward, bishops move diagonally as far as you want, the queen can move in whatever straight line she wants, ...). The complexity then arises from the various startegies for victory.

"Complicated" to me means that the complications in the game are unnecessary and take away from my enjoyment. "Complex" is when a game presents me with a lot of interesting options that make it less simple.


Oblivion's chaarcter leveling is fairly simple. Scaling too is fairly simple. Designing the most effective possible class is complicated.

Lots of old AD&D based computer games get harder and harder, often with an extremely hard boss battle in the end. And yes a bad setup of you team could easy make the game extremely hard long before the end.
However XP based linear games are pretty easy to balance, you just add more powerful enemies along the path. Now add optional quests or even battles the player can fight if the main path is to hard so he can level up.

Now a totally open game is far harder to balance, you need zones with different difficulty without making the game to linear because anyplace outside the default path will kill you,
You also want to provide fun play for high level players. Easiest solution is some sort of level scaling, onw mistake in Oblivion was not to have a larger spread in enemy level,

Fallout 3 solved this pretty well, lock enemy level then you enter so you feel stronger then you come back and use item quality as part of the level scaling.
Still to easy and the albino radscorpions was pretty level scaled

Then we'll have to agree to disagree. Knowing the basic moves of chess (how the pieces move - much like a two year-old "drives" a car by turning the steering wheel, mimicking what they saw someone else do before) doesn't mean one understands chess, nor does it make it fun for the person to play.

I disagree that this leveling system is simple. I think it's complicated. "Earn a level by getting X number of primary skills - Not just any skill mind you, but primaries. PS: The amount that any bonus will go up is based on how many minor skills you also level up. They have to be from one of 7 different areas though, depending on where you want your bonus to be. Oh, and also, doing too many wastes them. By the way, level luck every time. Endurance too. Make sure you use those minor skills so you get the max bonus on those. Oh, yeah, and don't forget to know which skills are minors, which are majors, and how many times you've leveled each on this level."

Easy peasy, right?

Come now.


I think that often, those of us who are familiar with RPG systems - especially a wide variety of systems, or those that are specifically knowledgeable about Oblivion fail to realize how alien and strange the terms, systems and process can be to those who are casual gamers.

I think it's a matter of perspective that our particular familiarity causes us to believe was easy the first time around and that others understand it at face value, when the reality is that they don't.

Really, the number of threads and questions asked about how to level the characters effectively speaks for itself, and those are the threads and posts from people that are RPG and Internet savvy enough to know how to find this message board and use it.

Bad news: That's NOT average Joe.

Leveling up is easy. Efficient leveling or power leveling can be a chore. I have given up on that idea a while back. The game is still a lot of fun. I have only ran into your kind of problem just a couple times, usually with either goblins or high level ghosts. I came up with some new strategies like using weakness spells, and turn undead with fire damage over time.

Maybe I am of odd thinking, but I like the way the skill system is. Maybe it is odd thinking on my part. A Knight should always have high strength, low intelligence. The opposite for mages. I don't like the "jack of all Trades, master of all" There should be some advantages/disadvantages. Thats just my opinion.

I really want to mod out may game with some good overhauls and change up some things. To me, that's COMPLICATED, and I'm a PC Tech. More of a hardware guy to be honest. Must be a 50% weakness to software handicap I inherited or something.

Anyhow, to get back on topic, I say screw it and keep playing. Just do your thing. Levitation may be banned, but there is no law that says I have put attribute bonus in a certin order. The points I will miss out will be negligable once I reach 100 in my major skills In my opinion. Having fun trumps my need to be OCD about getting +5 everytime.

True.



That's unfortunate. It's also what makes this system "an issue."



Yes, it is. It's also frustrating at times though, and not for reasons that should be included in the context of a game.




That's the plan. Still, we'd like to bring attention to the issue and express our hopes that a better system is in place for Skyrim.

Thanks for your input, and I hope you continue to enjoy the game. For the record, we enjoy the game too. It's just that it would be very possible for us to enjoy it significantly more if a better system were in place.

I never made such claims. I was just saying that chess is complex instead of being needlesly complicated. Complex vs. complicated.



There is a diference between explaining someone how to level up (increase your 7 major skills) and teaching them how to do so effectively (everything else you wrote). That's really what I've been trying to tell now for a while. When I say that the leveling system is simple to explain I mean it's easy to teach people how to level up. I was not saying that it's easy to teach them how to level up effectively. That's a whole new issue.

And I do agree that effective leveling actually is needlesly complicated so apparently our disagreement came from different understanding of the phrase "leveling system".




In Skyrim there will be no classes and it looks like there might be no attributes either (no class is officially confirmed, no attributes isn't). All your skills will contribute to leveleling, but higher skills will contribute more (if you want to level up faster, work on your highest skills). When you level up you'll automatically get some Health and then you'll be able to choose to increase Magicka or Stamina or to get even more Health.

Overall, much more stremlined and better than Oblivion, though the loss of Attributes will impose some limitations on modding.

In regard to no attibutes in Skyrim, it's based on the http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/archive/2011/01/28/skyrim-menu-system-overhaul.aspx.

If attributes were in the game it stands to reason that you would be able to view them in one of the menus. We know there will be 4 menus: skills, magic, inventory, and map. Of those 4 the most logical place to view attributes is the skills menu. We have a screenshot of the skills menu and it shows that in addition to skill the menu also displays your character's Health, Magicka, Stamina, name, race, and level but it doesn't show attributes. And the most logical explanation of why the skills menu doesn't display attributes when it displays all other stats is that there simply aren't any attributes in the game.

If you're on the PC, use Francesco's or Oscuro's overhaul. Solves the leveling problem lickety-split. (Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul DOES change a lot of stuff in the game, though.)

Even better: FCOM (Francesco's, WarCry, Oscuro's, Martigen's). Lets you use the "big four" overhauls all at once.

I agree.


I agree here as well. I suppose it was the terminology.

I appreciate the other information you provided as well. You've been very helpful on a number of topics, actually, and I appreciate it.

I'm really looking forward to Skyrim, which may be one of the reasons I'm so concerned about the "let down" if something is still really hokey.

I don't see why efficient leveling should be part of your natural progression. It is probably a sign that you were not supposed to exploit the system given how precise you need to be and how frustrating it is to do effectively. Not only is it a tedious chore, but it completely ruins the spirit of a role playing game. Why should a mage be spamming an out-of-character skill like Armorer and getting 5+ to endurance to get health to match that of a warrior?

It's different from the chess anology someone brought up earlier. Chess is supposed to be a battle of wits. The complex strategies are the main feature of the game. Oblivion is a role playing game based in a fantasy environment. I don't see why using stat-sheets to manage under-the-hood numbers should be part of that. To me the anology would be like taking into consideration the lighting in the room, the age of your opponent and the weight of the pieces during a game of chess, rather than focusing on what's on the board.

I still don't think the system is good (especially combined with the unforgiving enemy scaling), but I think too many people take their knowledge of the inner workings for granted. To me it just seems like a cheesy exploit, like looking up the best weapons online and rushing to those locations at the start of the game.

To answer the OP's concerns more specifically: I recommend a mod or just turning down difficulty because the level scaling in vanilla is horribly unbalanced.

Since that someone is me I will respond.

That has nothing to do with my point, because my chess anology had nothing to do with RPGs. Read my post again and you will see I was responding to this: "...a game shouldn't be that complicated." That is a categorical statement about games in general. And one that is demonstrably untrue.

That's a semantic argument, at best.

The leveling system in oblivion is way more complicated than almost any modern counterparts.

Some games (see chess for details) are very complicated. RPGs can be, but that doesn't mean they should be.

This game's leveling system is overly complex and poorly implemented. Make all the semantic arguments you want about how it was phrased, but that won't make the leveling system suddenly functional.

Nit-pick your heart out, though.

OP i was in the exact same boat as you , coming back to the game . To be honest this game forces you to understand the mechanics to create a character . Brilliant game but a terrible levelling system.

I downloaded a simple tiny mod that when i levelled it let me pick the stats that went up , no more using skills for the sake off it , or worrying about how i play , just play and have fun and still have a decent character . I would highly reccommend this.

Just to clarify OOO, Frans, or FCOM may reduce the effect of level scaling. That is one part of the problem.

The other part is the character leveling system by which skills and attributes increase. None of those mods do anything with that (except maybe slow down the rate at which you gain experience). A mod like nGCD allows for a natural, logical in non-kludgy way of increasing levels and skills. Since this is not addressed at all in OOO/Frans/FCOM, then it is fully compatible with them.

Of course if you're playing on the PC you can't use any mods.

Leveling is the way it is because of the open world and the "any questlines in any order" nature of the game. So let's get back to the original question.

Sneak is high, using bow and light armor, which is not a bad combo. Low endurance/health etc. means avoiding retaliation if the sneak arrow attack fails to kill. So you need to amplify the attack with poison, and preferably also stop the victim from counter-attacking. Enchantments and poisons can do that, as can shooting from a location they can't reach! Silence the mages, and slow or paralyze the melee enemies. Summon allies, create confusion with command/frenzy/demoralize spells according to your other available skills.

An informative question is "Can you beat another Archer?" - if you can just stand and trade arrows with a leveled archer, your character is viable, and can be made into a winner by proper tactics and bow enchantments. If you can take out two of them at once, even better.