Oblivion

shovah · #1 April 1st, 2006, 05:33 AM

I agree, this game is huge. ive spent about 3 days of playing (i think im up to around 15 hours, maybe a little more) and ive only done the first part of the main quest (go to a monastry and talk to some guy). I would just like to suggest that if you get a chance to join the dark brotherhood take it. it leads to a huge series of side quests along with good rewards, unique items (and an interesting offer from a fellow assasin) and a great plot (really dont wana spoil it on you)

Saber Cherry · #2 April 1st, 2006, 05:49 AM

I have read so many threads about the pros and cons of Oblivion that I dreamt last night I was playing, and I got to level 14 before I even did anything, just from accidentally using really wierd major skills. I was scared to death of going into combat...

Pretty odd dream. I almost never dream about games I haven't played, so I guess my mind modelled it after Morrowind.

shovah · #3 April 1st, 2006, 07:51 AM

the best advice i can give anyone who gets/has it is do not play to level. play to explore/quest. the fact that things levels are dependant on yours means most places you can handle and if theres something you cant handle then go somewhere else. if you decide to just stay in a rather small area repeating the same task you'll get bored fast. just consider leveling up your skills to be a bonus.

Endoperez · #4 April 1st, 2006, 09:10 AM

I have a fabulous time playing Dungeon Crawl. While it does lose a little in the graphics department, and there are very few sub-quests, the main quest is very interesting, and very hard. The main quest is "get to the bottom of this dungeon, grab an Orb, and return". One of the hardest sub-quests is "stay alive". Thus far, I've managed to get farthest with a Spriggan Reaper, surviving mainly on spells but doing a fair bit of melee. Spriggan is the weak, fast, magically tuned race who should stay as far away from melee as possible; Reaper is a hybrid caster/fighter, and I'm probably going to kill some orcs next.

The skill system is just suberb. Skills raise when you use them. You need experience to advance levels, but getting experience also gives you points in your skill pool. You can't get better at skills if your skill pool is empty, and you can't choose to save points in your skill pool for later, so most of the boring optimization is out. The only thing left is to choose what skills you want to use, and what you want to raise faster.

Sometimes I miss the fancy graphics, but the gameplay is so much better that I couldn't possibly choose something mediocre like Oblivion over Crawl.

shovah · #5 April 1st, 2006, 09:20 AM

i find that extemely offensive. while the graphics are one of the things that attracted me to oblivion they are by no means what keeps me in it

Endoperez · #6 April 1st, 2006, 11:48 AM

Are you sure? Remember that the graphics in Dungeon Crawl are very different from the usual...
http://dungeon-crawl.org/site/gfx/ss-dos-lg

It isn't always easy to learn to play a game with graphics like this. Besides, the smiley should have gien away something...

Roguelike games are very different from the rest of the computer RPGs. They have little more than combat. They execute that part very well, but you can hardly imagine yourself to be part of a real world that lives on its own. You'd need one of the Ultima games for that...

shovah · #7 April 1st, 2006, 11:54 AM

i know, im just saying that i prefer to avoid games like that (hurts my eyes you see

)

OG_Gleep · #8 April 2nd, 2006, 01:44 AM

I think I would definatley take different skills as my main one. I took alchemy for instance, and I've raised that so fast that it did have an impact on how I leveled. But normally I don't care about what is raised...the only thing I tried in the game was Armorer, and that was only so I could repair magical items.

VL did you look at the pre-designed characters? Maybe thats why you didn't get what I was saying?

Cainehill · #9 April 2nd, 2006, 03:10 AM

Welp, got it - must say, Bethesda is still as retarded as ever. Don't get me wrong - some things are impressive. But : not being able to go directly to Inventory, or Map, or Skills, etc, is retarded from a user interface design PoV. They don't _use_ 'I' or 'M' for anything! And it has a disturbing tendency to semi-lockup : mind, Alt-Tabbing from a game does tend to cause that, but it's still a sign of sloppy programming. When you can turn and look at different things via the mouse, but the keyboard and mouse clicks are dead, that's a sign they screw up their input queues.

I think (hope!) I'll play it more than Morrowind, but so far I'll agree with Endoperez : mediocre game in nice tech.

OG_Gleep · #10 April 2nd, 2006, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Cainehill said:

Welp, got it - must say, Bethesda is still as retarded as ever. Don't get me wrong - some things are impressive. But : not being able to go directly to Inventory, or Map, or Skills, etc, is retarded from a user interface design PoV. They don't _use_ 'I' or 'M' for anything! And it has a disturbing tendency to semi-lockup : mind, Alt-Tabbing from a game does tend to cause that, but it's still a sign of sloppy programming. When you can turn and look at different things via the mouse, but the keyboard and mouse clicks are dead, that's a sign they screw up their input queues.

I can only comment on your complaints, and your only complaint that you listed that made it a mediocre game is the interface. "Retarded" is not the word I would use to describe them for making this choice. Actually by not developing it for the 360, they would have been retarded. I just think it was just *** out lazy to not spend more time to de-consolize Oblivon, and a big FU to the Fans who have been with this series since day 1.

I was a little pissed as well, and although it takes more clicks to get where you want to go, its not that big of a deal in the overall scheme of things.

If thats your only complaint...

VL: I was responding specifically to the overall thread of the conversation:

SC: Skill system Exploit
Me: Not Intent of developers
VL: I don't know what they intend
Me: Pre-Fab Classes suggests intent

From what I saw of the predesigned characters, they designed them like their title suggests. I didn't see anything that would suggest otherwise. I'll take a look again, but my point was that you can tell they didn't intend for you to play in the manner that SC suggested.

As for under-powered characters, I can only comment on what I have experience with, my one character. I play Heavy armor, Athletic, Blade wielding, low mana Mage that likes to make potions. I think I have half of my skill set magic related, and use magic mainly in a support role...primarily using my sword and shield as my main adventure tools. I have a total mana pool of 123 unbuffed at level 21. I have gotten +5 once, upon leveling and that was for endurance. Am I underpowered compared to a pure warrior who took care to maximize his stat increases? Most definatley. Have I nerfed myself? Most definatley not. I have had many many fights where I had to use all my skills to survive, but have only had one fight that I couldn't beat, and had to come back at a later time. No matter how I tried, the 3 slaves on 1 arena fight was way too tuff for me at low levels. There was a couple of fights pre level 5 that I had to retreat from, but more so because I was new to the game and didn't have the sufficent skills and tools to prevail.

I made a point not to powergame, and am glad for that choice. As I said, because I haven't maxed out my stats, fights are still a matter of using my skill set, instead of my stat lines.

I have heard that playing a pure mage (esp without alchemy) is hard, but playing a pre-uber level mage is typically hard. I have heard that once you crest a certain hill, things get easier.