There are so many differences with the complexity of spells, effectiveness of shields, combat tempos, and I'm not sure if I need to do a bunch of side quests before I get too far into the main quest.

Coming from Skyrim, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the differences

I've played around 15 hours with a melee build. However I've run into a problem. My eyes are red and the sunlight kills me. The potion of cure disease didn't do the trick. I recognized I might have a problem after some nightmares, but the potion didn't work as it would in skyrim. (I don't have internet at home to troubleshoot through searches and the prima guide svcks in comparison with skyrim's.)

So, I decided to try a mage build and sunk a good 10 hours into it. I went straight through the main story as with the first character.

This time I was doing really bad when I went through my first gate to Oblivion though. I think I needed to upgrade my spells, the default ones were crap and my blade skills weren't helping. The shield sure doesn't work as in skyrim either.

If anyone has advice on how to get the most out of oblivion, how to get into it, or links that might be helpful. I sure would appreciate it.

Oblivion looks like a really good game, a bit unforgiving though. I think that once I learn more about it I might grow to love it. Thanks.