Help me Improve my Playthrough : IV

» Sun Oct 10, 2010 7:44 am

Dear Oblivioners,

i recently purchased TES 4: Oblivion through Steam, i believe it came with the Shivering Isles expansion and The Knights of the nine DLC.
now i was wodnering about several things:
the unofficial patches... i downloaded the first one, should i now download and install the supplemental one, and then the shivering isles patch or the other way around?

secondly, so far of all the characters i have tested (inefficiently tho

) i like using Bows alot, now heres my plea:
Help me create a Bow using Magic flinging character thats effective at higher difficulty setting...
im getting a bit tired that everything dies in one shot >_>

also, is it reccomended to get OOO on your first playthrough, or should i wait until i finished the game at least once?

oh, one last thing, i noticed on my bow user that i cant really carry much [censored] around... if i join the mages guild and start enchanting crap... i can put a feather spell on a piece of armor right?
currently working on the reccommendations... but im gettin a bit tired of this character and how frekin easy 80% of the enemies die... the other 20% take like... massive running back shooting arrows like a madman...

Yours truly
-Road

» Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:21 pm

Dear Oblivioners,

i recently purchased TES 4: Oblivion through Steam, i believe it came with the Shivering Isles expansion and The Knights of the nine DLC.
now i was wondering about several things:
the unofficial patches... i downloaded the first one, should i now download and install the supplemental one, and then the shivering isles patch or the other way around?
First off, it sounds like you bought the Game of the Year edition (GOTY)??? If so, then you DON'T need any of the official patches, since a fully installed GOTY already includes those. As to unofficial patches, you need both UOP 3.2.0 (install it first) and the latest UOPS (install it second, letting it overwrite UOP as needed). You also need UnofficialModsPatch and UnofficialShiveringIslePatch. The latest releases of UOPS also include supplements to the ModsPatch. As to install order for all that, check the official Unofficial Oblivion Patch thread in the mods sub-forum. Not the brand new current thread but the one before it. There, Arthmoor (who produces the supplementals) spells out which should be installed when. For load order (which can be different from install order), just get BOSS (Better Oblivion Sorting Software), which handles it automatically for you.

UPDATE: Here's Arthmoor's recommended install order of the various unofficial patches. Note that the SI patch is not included here, likely because Arthmoor hasn't worked on it. Ignore those mods you do not run.

...QTP3
...[Optimized QTP3 meshes here]
...UOP 3.2.0
...QTP3 + UOP 3.2.0 patch
...UOMP v15
...UOPS 3.3.x and any UOMPS updates you need.
...AWLS
...RAEVWD

also, is it recommended to get OOO on your first playthrough, or should i wait until i finished the game at least once?
This is purely personal preference. Many say to give Oblivion a go either un-modded (with the needed unofficial patches added of course) or only lightly modded till you get a feel for it and learn what, if anything, annoys you or could stand improvement. In my case it was the evening game. I felt the nighttime sky was way too light from the get-go, so one of my first mods was a night-sky darkener. The lack of building and other lights at night bugged me too, so I installed AWLS early on. Yet I've not felt an overbearing need to install any of the major overhauls, tempting though several are.

oh, one last thing, i noticed on my bow user that i cant really carry much [censored] around... if i join the mages guild and start enchanting crap... i can put a feather spell on a piece of armor right?
Aye, you can enchant with feather to help. Some say enchanting with Strength is better, since it increases your weight limit and of course provides the added benefits of higher STR.

Yours truly
-Road

I recommend using one of the two major mod installation programs, OBMM (Oblivion Mod Manager) or Wrye Bash. OBMM is the easier to master, and does a fine job of handling basic installs. Wrye Bash is a bit trickier to install and harder to master, but in the end better since it takes install order into account (OBMM does not). But a lengthy discussion on the merits of these two utilities is better saved for the mods sub-forum.

-Decrepit-

» Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:16 pm

Do not use OOO on your first playthrough, you will be destroyed repeatedly. OOO significantly increases the difficulty. Play the game unmodded, then use mods to change the things you want to change.

» Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:35 pm

Awesome guys Thank you for the replys

ill follow Arthmoors order, and star downloading and installing immediatly ^^

» Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:39 pm

Awesome guys Thank you for the replys

ill follow Arthmoors order, and star downloading and installing immediatly ^^

Depending on your PC, you may find some of the stuff in the above list -- RAEVWD in particular -- will slow it down to the point of unplayability. If you have a high-end video card, go for it.

» Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:10 pm

Do not use OOO on your first playthrough, you will be destroyed repeatedly. OOO significantly increases the difficulty. Play the game unmodded, then use mods to change the things you want to change.

Amen to that. Also you should just play through the game the way Bethesda intended it to be played in my opinion before installing any mods that would change it at all. Nothing wrong with UOP's though they just fix stuff that the official patches don't obviously which is always a good thing.

» Sat Oct 09, 2010 10:35 pm

Some mods that you should focus on for a first playthrough are stuff like new armor and such that add, without changing.
Save OOO and MMM until you got a good grasp of the game, adding smaller tweak mods as needed.

» Sun Oct 10, 2010 7:35 am

Some mods that you should focus on for a first playthrough are stuff like new armor and such that add, without changing.
Save OOO and MMM until you got a good grasp of the game, adding smaller tweak mods as needed.

Exactly. If I had done my first time with OOO I would have stopped playing after getting owned repeatedly and not knowing what I was doing.