Hey all, I've been wanting to play through Oblivion again (Xbox 360) but I can't ever get much further than finishing the tutorial without asking myself what the heck I'm doing.
I love this game, played it for a good 300+ hours, maybe closer to 400.
What can I do to enjoy playing through again?
Also if someone can give me an example character to use (race, skills, Everything) because I've done them all and it's so tiresome figuring out which one to choose

One problem I have is the leveling in Oblivion is so brutal. I find quests that I want to do but can't until I level up further, since I'm on Xbox I can't just change that, it's no fun!

Any suggestions or comments are welcomed!

I was at a similar stage as you when I owned it on the ps3, I kept wondering why bother I have done it all sooooo many times. The answer I found was to just bite the bullet buy it on pc and mod the hell out of it, it has given the game a serious boost in playability and now back to playing the game quite a lot (also maybe experiment with modding the game yourself, nothing is as satisfying as playing with something you have created).

If pc is not an option then try creating something obscure, sure we have all done the brutal warrior or crafty spellcaster so why not try playing a relatively normal person a merchant perhaps. Or you could give your character some interesting character quirks -maybe a slight mental condition like ocd or paranoia- role-playing was the only way I could keep the game sort of fresh when vanilla had been done done and done again.

I'm in the same situation as The Unknown Chemist. Oblivion was my first game on the PS3 and I absolutely loved it. A while later I got Fallout 3 and while I still loved both of them, I got insanely jealous of all the PC gamers on the forums bragging about what mods they have, I mean come on we have a whole section about it!!!

On a slightly more helpful note, perhaps try what I did on around my 5th playthrough.
A Dark Elf Battlemage. Make your Major Skills Heavy Armour, Blade, Armourer, Destruction, Restoration, Mysticism and Alteration. Since Illusion is the easiest to build up, just get a cheap "light" spell. At some point make sure you get your hands on some Imperial Guard Armour and don the Mage Hood...also making sure you join the Mages Guild. Also make sure you make some pretty powerful enchanted items, fortifying your magicka as much as you can, but also adding a shield enchantment to make sure that you have the highest defence possible.

Try to use just a sword rather than a shield, so that like in real life, you actually have a hand that you can cast spells out of. Then make sure you make a living off of alchemy, starting off (as I have with my most recent warrior character) making weak potions (as Alteration won't be a major skill of yours, then make sure that you keep making potions and taking "lessons" to improve this skill). Eventually you'll be making quite a bit of gold out of this method.

My God! This has made me realise how much I miss playing a Battlemage...Maybe I can start to train my Nord Warrior up to become a BattleMage

Have you tried roleplaying? It greatly increases playability for me.

Wait... You use a sword and fling magic spells around in real life?

Still, the point about "realism" is valid. One of my favorite characters is an "ordinary person in Cyrodiil." She's an Altmer with the beginning back-story of being an Alchemy apprentice to Sinderion of Skingrad. She was sent to the Imperial City to sell rare potions to the alchemy shops there, but was waylaid by bandits on the road, robbed, and left for dead. She was picked up dazed and disoriented by the Legion, taken to the Imperial City, where she was being held in an unused cell pending a check of her story.

Her major skills were Alchemy, Mercantile, Speechcraft, Acrobatics, Athletics, Security, and Armorer. No fighting skills at all. And, to make matters worse, she was born under the Apprentice sign, which made her very vulnerable to magic.

The character was great fun to play, because nearly everything was a challenge. She eventually became Arch-Mage of the Mages Guild, and a master of Conjuration and Illusion.

See my signature for all kinds of help, as well as my very powerful character. Secondly ... ALCHEMY!

I second Glargg. Playing an "ordinary" person is very fun. My favourite ever character in Oblivion is my current main, Helena Aurelie, a young Breton girl training to become a Healer.

Why yes, yes I do

Your comment actually made my day

Anyway, I meant so that you'd have a free hand, cause I can't imagine how hard it'd be to cast a spell while holding something in both hands

It's 360, so no mods for you...so the only advice I can give is...roleplay as well as you can

I'd suggest a Khajiit vampire under the sign of the Lord. Specifics are up to you, but vampires get 7 skills boosted as you may know so you could just pick those, versatile enough with H2H and destruction. Should make for an interesting play.

roleplaying is where its at.

ive probably done about one official quest in the last 300 hours of play.

make your own quests, make your own story.

Hmm. Days Passed: 109, Active Quests: 5, Quests Completed: 26.

Seems like a heck of a lot of quests completed; all my character has done is deliver the amulet to Jauffre, 3 quests for the Fighters Guild, 8 or so quests for the Mages Guild (she entered the AU and completed her Mages Staff, but no further, so far). She bought a single house. She completed some DLCs. She entered the Shivering Isles, made her way beyond The Fringe, but that's it, so far. She's on her way to New Sheoth, and hoping that indulging the individual to be found there for a short while will abolish the infernal red pointy thingy on her compass.

Blackwyn
Blackwyn is an Argonian assassin from Black Marsh. He was getting paid tons of money to kill people. He killed Khajiit for free because a group of Khajiit thugs took over his village and beat his girlfriend Annaig to death. They knew that he was an assassin so he had to flee the country and try to restart. He went to Cyrodiil hoping his Black Marsh won’t go looking for him there.
Starting over in Cyrodill was hard for him because the Guard system is way more advanced than The Black Marsh. He couldn’t find a break. Then one day he saw the Khajiit who killed his girlfriend alone with none of his other thugs. Blackwyn took the opportunity to kill him. The guards saw it happen and then threw him in jail.
Then once the emperor was assassinated and Blackwyn escaped form the sewers he wanted to just lay low and hide until he was trained up enough and skilled enough to make his Assassin fame in Cyrodill. He crossed the river and decided to hide out at Vilverin. But after killing two people who occupied it, someone came with a not and gave it to him. When he read it explained his whole past about his ancestor Greywyn and how he is an exact descendent of him, And how Greywyn left him a lair called Deepscorn Hallow.
Blackwyn decided to go there and check it out. After he got it refurnished he found the gear that Greywyn was talking about. Blackwyn vowed to worship Sithis and the Crimson Brotherhood and take down
Dark Brotherhood. Blackwyn is fond of Sheogorath and he is on his way to A Strange Door.

I make lots of new characters. Some of them don't get much past the face-making process. Some of them go a few days and get dropped, because I don't find them interesting. Some of them seem not to be interested in doing anything that interests me...

Once in a while, a character hits the mark, and is my daily companion for a few hundred hours. Sometimes we have a new arch-mage, or a new Champion of Cyrodiil. Once in a great while, we come up with a character who does many great things. Characters grow and change as the game goes along, and they tell me when it's time to retire them.

Restarting is not a problem. It's a series of opportunities. The idea is to listen to the character, and not be afraid of going down a different route than one has taken before. You never know where you might end up.

Pretty true.

I've done nothing than helping Vilja collecting ingredients and going by foot everywhere (last time all the way from Anvil to Leyawiin in order to recover some lost swords as part of a personal quest), and I'm already at lvl 7. Next stop will be Cheydinhal (from Skingrad), in order both to continue helping her, and to get some basic Alteration spells I need, in order to become a better battlemage (as my char feels there's a storm coming....and he's right, but not the MQ precisely ).

And all of that without touching any Vanilla quest/questline (which I plan to do some of them), and without touching the GOOD stuff... (some new questmods and landmasses). And I still don't plan to touch either of them in a pretty long time.

So yes, still after playing Oblivion practically non-stop since it's release, it's still extremely fun. Mods, roleplay and tons of imagination offers you literally endless possibilities.

Nail hit very thoroughly on the head.

I've been in and out of Oblivion for years now and it was tough to keep my interest until I opened my mind to characters with more depth than swinging a sword. I rolled a modified battlemage and I've been having the time of my life, questing as much as I can and have not cheated/duped/otherwise once. We all get the intro dungeon blues so I've set aside three save slots (in case myself or my wife accidentally delete or save over them) so I can set up a character and leave the sewers right out of the gate.