I'm going to make a vanilla-friendly leveling tweak plugin for Oblivion whose objective is to remain strictly within vanilla limits but fix some arguably bad design decisions that lead vanilla players to frustration.

Now, I am going to state in advance that my knowledge of the technical workings of Oblivion are very limited so you'll have to pardon me if some of the things I talk about here aren't possible within vanilla technicalities.

The first step is identifying the problems with vanilla. Here's what I think is wrong with vanilla:

The problem: Bandits in Glass/Daedric armour

This is one of the most obvious problems and is easiest to fix (editing leveled lists). I think Skyrim got this right by not introducing godly equipment to the bandits. Should bandit bosses have a small chance to carry some high-level equipment?

The problem: Quest reward items that become obsolete the more you level up

This one is something I have a little trouble with because I'm not sure I fully understand the mechanics of how Skyrim got this aspect right. For example, at high levels, my Dragonbane sword still remained useful. I haven't been really paying attention to the numbers (sorry I'm enjoying the game) but I think crafting did help improve the Dragonbane's longetivity. Unfortunately there is no such crafting mechanism in Oblivion so I don't know... perhaps the items should scale up in level automatically? Not sure if that is possible technically with the Construction Set?

The problem: "Just play" characters (meaning, no min/maxing or powergaming) almost always end up becoming very, very weak in higher levels

Oh man. This one is possibly one of the biggest reasons I keep trashing and restarting characters. I don't even know where to begin to approach this problem, so I was hoping to get some input on what the community thinks is a solution to this issue. I guess the first step is to identify why this problem exists: enemies are getting HP and damage boosts but your weapons aren't doing much damage. Perhaps tweak the way damage scaling is done for weapons? Tell me what you think.

The problem: NPCs and followers also become weak at higher levels (try doing the Kvatch siege at level 15...)

I think this is related to the above issue and if the above issue can be solved, it shouldn't be hard to apply the same concept to this issue.

Other thoughts:

• I like the whole "you get better at what you do" idea (so a character who uses blades a lot really should be awesome at blades) but I feel that the way the game scales things is unbalanced. For example, if I spent the majority of my first 3 levels leveling up my combat skills and mainly with blades, I really should be seeing some improvement with my swords by level 3. Instead, with vanilla, playing this kind of character; you can clearly tell you're gettiing weaker.
• I haven't touched on attributes in my research because I'd like to hear what are other peoples' take on this.

I'd appreciate any kind of feedback the community has to offer. I want to make sure I have this all properly figured out before I do anything with the Construction Set.

I find the bandits fine with having powerful items, seems right to me.

The weakness of your character generally becomes the players problem, you need to find what works for you and build your character right. (They shouldn't be rushed, take time)

I play on the xbox so my input really doesn't mean much but I do see where you're coming from, we all have different views and the things you're doing will help people, from what I've read, it looks good!

Maybe add a cap to leveled enemies' max level? It makes no sense that at level 35 a [insert leveled creature] now has 1,000 health points when at level 20 it had 500 health.

Ogres and Minotaur Lords come to mind at first thought and memory. There are others as well.

Is it possible to make it so lesser enemies can still appear? For example: once you reach level 20: Flame Atronachs and Scamps are virtually non-existent. At level 25 the game literally SPAMS Spider Daedra, Storm Atronachs, and Xivilai at you. Literally spams. It would be nice if you could make it so Boss enemies remain boss enemies instead of becoming cannon fodder? I like diversity, not bullet sponges.

It was always because of this I never ever leveled my character past level 24. Otherwise undead dungeons would have multiple Liches instead of just one Lich as a boss.