Oblivion: Mods to make it more reasonable?

harvest

I really liked playing Oblivion for the exploration when it came out. What I didn't like was that my characters always got their faces smashed in because I picked the wrong skills to focus on. I also didn't like how Bandits were wearing Daedric/Glass armor and my mages' spells were too shitty to kill things.

I'm having a hard time just browsing mod sites, there are a ton of mods and no way to tell if any are actually good or do what I want.

So, G&T, I need your help. I'm going to play Oblivion again but not until I get some mods that balance out this stuff so I can enjoy it my way. If there are mods that make leveling up a good thing instead of something to be avoided, show me please. Also, if random bandits and other enemies can be made to dress more realistically, and if there are mods that make magic less of a boondoggle I'd like to know.

Oh and the interface is totally crappy, what can be done about that?

Der Waffle Mous

You could just... you know, fiddle with the slider that says "difficulty".

But there are a good few interface mods. I cannot recall any of the names right now, though.

MechMantis

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.

Kobu's Character Advancement System.


Those two should make you pretty happy. Oscuro's makes the game a bit more difficult, however, so be careful at lower levels.


EDIT: Difficulty doesn't change the "Oh, I played a Mage. I am level 30 and have no hitpoints." problem.

Der Waffle Mous

MechMantis wrote: »

EDIT: Difficulty doesn't change the "Oh, I played a Mage. I am level 30 and have no hitpoints." problem.

Considering the long history of RPG mages, I'm pretty darned sure that's a feature.

Edit: Oscuros is one of those cases where for each thing it does that I like, it does about two other things that are utterly infuriating.

Spoit

It's been a while, but when I remember installing OOO, I could have sworn that it came in like 20 different modules, and that you could choose to disable different parts of it, like the extra sidequests and stuff

harvest

Downloading Oscuro's now, big file wow.

Looking about it seems like Qarl's Texture Pack is rated pretty high on most sites, but it's like a gig. Does it really add that much to the game to be worth the download?

LewieP

I got linked to this by someone else here, and am in the process of adding a bunch of cool sounding mods.

MechMantis

Der Waffle Mous wrote: »

MechMantis wrote: »

EDIT: Difficulty doesn't change the "Oh, I played a Mage. I am level 30 and have no hitpoints." problem.

Considering the long history of RPG mages, I'm pretty darned sure that's a feature.

Edit: Oscuros is one of those cases where for each thing it does that I like, it does about two other things that are utterly infuriating.

Good point. However, it would be nice to be able to take more than two hits from Mr. Random Bandit.

Shogun

The difficulty slider is your direct ticket to fun.

MechMantis

That doesn't help with the aforementioned Mr. Random Bandit wielding DAEDRIC CLAYMORE and wearing FULL GLASS ARMOR.

citizen059

Throw me in with those who use the difficulty slider.

edit: In regards to the above, yes...that's true...random street thugs will still have equipment that they should not have. But with the lower difficulty, it won't hurt you as much when they hit you with it, and you'll survive long enough to put up a fight.

Spoit

harvest wrote: »

Downloading Oscuro's now, big file wow.

Looking about it seems like Qarl's Texture Pack is rated pretty high on most sites, but it's like a gig. Does it really add that much to the game to be worth the download?

It just makes everything look nicer, if you have a very powerful video card, with a lot of video ram, it might be worth a shot, but it brings my 8800GTS 320 to it's knees

Der Waffle Mous

Honestly, I've been wanting to find a nice mod that just caps loot on certain enemies, like the aforementioned glass bandits down to more common stuff.

Most of the time, though, it tends to be packaged in with some other mod that adds uber half-naked amazon warriors or a new type of elf.


That said, about OOO's modularity, it tends to be really wierd. For example, it includes some really kickin' rad new weapon and armor models.

However, said weapon and armor models are part of the same module that adds ridiculously powerful wood elf rebels, and turns Vilverin (the first dungeon) into a horrendously overpowered death-trap.

Lord Yod

The difficulty slider modifies damage dealt by you and by all creatures. Higher difficulty = more damage from them, less damage from you, and vice versa.

You could try not focusing in any of the following: sneak, alchemy, athletics, acrobatics, speechcraft, mercantile, or conjuration. Usually if you don't have any of those, you'll level fairly slowly.

Also, a lot of those problems can be solved by getting some nice gear of your own - make sure you do the Mages Guild quests to unlock the custom spell/enchantment altars, and then just go crazy with them.

jothki

Lord Yod wrote: »

The difficulty slider modifies damage dealt by you and by all creatures. Higher difficulty = more damage from them, less damage from you, and vice versa.

You could try not focusing in any of the following: sneak, alchemy, athletics, acrobatics, speechcraft, mercantile, or conjuration. Usually if you don't have any of those, you'll level fairly slowly.

Also, a lot of those problems can be solved by getting some nice gear of your own - make sure you do the Mages Guild quests to unlock the custom spell/enchantment altars, and then just go crazy with them.

They seemed worthless to me, at least while using OOO. Perhaps that's because I was playing somebody sneaky, but quest armor and random chest items seemed far superior.

Lord Yod

There are a few quest items worth having, but they tend to depend on your level and thus aren't worth using for long.

Custom spells are definitely the way to go, you can totally break the game open if you want.

Spoilered for twinkism.

Custom spell breakage:

Prep A:
Fire Damage 1 point /1 second
Weakness to Fire 100% for 20 seconds
Weakness to Magicka 100% for 20 seconds

Prep B:
Fire Damage 1 point /1 second
Weakness to Fire 100% for 20 seconds
Weakness to Magicka 100% for 20 seconds

Fire:
Fire damage 50 points for 1 second

Cast Prep A, then Prep B, then Prep A, then Prep B, etc on the target, alternating them. Then cast Fire on them for fucktons of damage.

Spoit

Lord Yod wrote: »

There are a few quest items worth having, but they tend to depend on your level and thus aren't worth using for long.

Custom spells are definitely the way to go, you can totally break the game open if you want.

Spoilered for twinkism.

Custom spell breakage:

Prep A:
Fire Damage 1 point /1 second
Weakness to Fire 100% for 20 seconds
Weakness to Magicka 100% for 20 seconds

Prep B:
Fire Damage 1 point /1 second
Weakness to Fire 100% for 20 seconds
Weakness to Magicka 100% for 20 seconds

Fire:
Fire damage 50 points for 1 second

Cast Prep A, then Prep B, then Prep A, then Prep B, etc on the target, alternating them. Then cast Fire on them for fucktons of damage.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what's the difference between preps A and B?

Lord Yod

Only the name. Spell effects don't stack if they have the same name, but if they are named differently, they stack.

So Prep A gives a 100% weakness to fire/magicka, Prep B makes it 200%, Prep A again makes it 400%, and so on.