I have played Arena and Daggerfall (not much though), Morrowind (my favourite game, or at least top 3) and Skyrim (really like this one, top 10 definitely). I've enjoyed them all. But I can't say this about Oblivion. I've started the game, played for 4 hours, saved, closed, and never loaded. That was more than 4 years ago. It makes big gap in my TES adventures and I really want to play this game! So there are some questions:

1) Should I play without any mods, or try something removing fabled level-scalling?

2) What type of character do you recommend to easiest getting into the game?

3) If I'm struggling at first or getting bored by long fights, should I start with the lowest possible difficulty?

4) What UI mod do you recommend? I hate vanilla one, it's so unintuitive and irrational.

5) Any graphic mod disabling "everything is glowing" and "i'm constantly talking with potatoes"?

6) Speechcraft mini-game. I don't get it.

You'll get all kinds of answers for this thread, but I honestly don't think you should force yourself to play TES4. It just sounds like you're not into.

I don't have much experience with mods but lots of folks seem to like some of the overhaul mods that change the world leveling like OOO and Maskars.

If you want to stick with vanilla, there are character builds you can use that will slow down leveling a bit. You just pick a few major skills that you won't use too often that level slowly. And plan to use a couple minor skills.

As far at as build type, that really depends on you play style. What type of build did you enjoy in Morrowind?

I'd start with the difficulty on normal and adjust as necessary as you play the game. I usually play on normal, although I have increased it with certin high level characters.

If you don't like the speechcraft mini game you can pretty much ignore it. Just use bribes or charm spells or fortify personality to increase disposition.

Hope that helps!

1. Try a character without heavy mods first, so you'll know what (and why) you're modding. Some people choose to change the scaling world (with OOO for example), while some people just use a mod that adjusts the way skills affect leveling (like Realistic Leveling.) Until you know what you like, and what you don't, you won't know what to change (if anything.)

2. You can make a character similar to what you liked to play in Morrowind. The difference with Oblivion is to not load all of your desired skills in as Majors. You should have at least one offensive major skill and one defensive major skill, just to start those off at a good level. I would avoid making Alchemy, Sneak, or Conjuration major skills until you know what you're doing, because they tend to level too fast.

3. As mentioned above, I would start in the middle and adjust from there. Oblivion is a bit opposite to Morrowind in this regard; it was often recommended to start Morrowind at easy difficulty and then slowly raise it, but you might find that Oblivion is easier at the start, and gets harder as you go along. Fights will not be long and boring unless you set the difficulty too far right.

4. I use Darnified UI, which allows quite a bit of tweaking.

5. Don't know quite what to say about this. Some of this is the game's art style, and you might find you get used to it. Or at least get past it.

6. Don't bother with the speechcraft minigame unless you like it. There is nowhere in the game that it has any significant use, and bribery is a lot easier. In other words, it's purely a roleplay device, and optional.