How can you play on harder difficulties?

[LordStuff]

I'm level 22 now and totally rely on Conjuration.

It's not like it's a challenge, it's just that every fight takes forever, and my Dremora Lord does all the work.

Even trying to deal damage myself seems senseless.. Melee is completely useless (might be because of my low Blade level, but I don't think it would have a big enough effect to render it useful)..

Damage dealing spells seem pretty useless too.. they're, in fact, the only reason I'm dying once in a while, because I get bored during a fight and start casting (which doesn't deal real damage) use up all my magicka and end up not having enough to re-summon my Dremora..

All I have to do during fights is keeping my Dremora up and avoiding every hit possible.

I read that spell and weakness stacking as well as drinking a ♥♥♥♥ ton of potions helps, but actually.. that doesn't sound fun.

In the end it's no challenge, it's just boringly tedious. Unless anyone has actually found out how to have fun at high difficulty and decides to enlighten me :P

[CullinB]

There is a good Guide for Max Difficulty on Steam,

[The Flying Rodent]

Like this! :)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873311868

tl;dr Illusion, Destruction, Conjuration and Poisoned arrows. Melee is next to useless, and custom spells are the ♥♥♥♥. Final stats are at the end!

[LordStuff]

Thanks for your answers!

But as I said, it's not actually a challnge, it's just not fun, every enemy takes forever to kill, it's like playing boss fights all the time, but without getting loot.

[CullinB]

Ah yeah so try some mods with more modrate difficulty settings,
I usually set difficulty +5 (150% from enemy) and Use VCE(Vanilla combat enhanced) plus MOO.

[76561198034396398]

get yourself some decent reflect damage gear (if you haven't done so ) Ring of the iron Fist Amulet of Axes,Escutcheon of Chorrol (i'd leave that till you a higher lvl) Alchemy in this game is very overpowered don't be afraid to use it,enchant your sword with shock damage or absorb health

[MissingNo]

I will share with you the secret to immortality in Oblivion,
After finding this trick out I NEVER die

Join the Mages Guild, OR have the Frostcrag Spire DLC

Level Alteration up to 100 -> Make a shield 85% for 60 seconds spell (If you find yourself needing more mana, Oblivion gates after level 26 can drop sigil stones that enchant equipment with +50 magicka), 85% is the maximum shield you can get, anything higher is a waste of magicka as it hard caps. Then, around level 15-20 I believe you start getting a random chance for enemies to drop Mundane Rings which give 50% magic resistance, if you're the Breton race you only need 1 to boost yourself to 100% magic resistance, 2 if you're a non-breton. Then to top it off make yourself any good restoration spell, as you won't take any magic damage but can still take physical damage with the game's cap.

[76561198034396398]

get your Athletics up to around 70.....so you can run away from the West Weald Bears :)

[Damon Malkowski]

options

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by LordStuff:

Thanks for your answers!

But as I said, it's not actually a challnge, it's just not fun, every enemy takes forever to kill, it's like playing boss fights all the time, but without getting loot.

That's unfortunately Oblivion sometimes. There are some enemies with HP that is proportionate to the character's level [e.g. Goblins, Ogres, Xivilai] that are tedious to deal with at pretty much any difficulty. On High Difficulty this is exacerbated, and yeah I can imagine you're finding it tedious if you're just dancing around waiting for your Summon to do all the work.

Weakness to Magicka stacked + Destruction spells are the easiest way to make fights quicker. You could argue that this removes a lot of the challenge, but again this isnt exclusive to Oblivion. Morrowind and Skyrim similarly end in having an all-powerful character at high levels, where I suppose one could argue it makes it easier to explore everything. More info here: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making#Spell_Stacking

Aside from this: Illusion supports Conjuration very well [Paralysis or Calm lock + Summon melee is hilarious] and if the caster has enough magicka, you can even create your own small army for a short period of time [Command Creature], or remove just about all the challenge from the game with 100% Chameleon. Alchemy is great for making custom poisons that do a ton of damage [and ignore the difficulty slider], but they take a while to produce so they're more for special occasions.

If you would like to make the game less tedious: There are millions of mods for Oblivion, and one of the more popular ones gets rid of the ridiculous levelled health bars . I'm not a mod fan myself, but if you're after less tedium I'd start there.

[LordStuff]

Originally posted by MissingNo:

I will share with you the secret to immortality in Oblivion,
After finding this trick out I NEVER die

Join the Mages Guild, OR have the Frostcrag Spire DLC

Level Alteration up to 100 -> Make a shield 85% for 60 seconds spell (If you find yourself needing more mana, Oblivion gates after level 26 can drop sigil stones that enchant equipment with +50 magicka), 85% is the maximum shield you can get, anything higher is a waste of magicka as it hard caps. Then, around level 15-20 I believe you start getting a random chance for enemies to drop Mundane Rings which give 50% magic resistance, if you're the Breton race you only need 1 to boost yourself to 100% magic resistance, 2 if you're a non-breton. Then to top it off make yourself any good restoration spell, as you won't take any magic damage but can still take physical damage with the game's cap.

As I said, I'm not dying, as long as I don't get too bored... I only die when I start using Magicka on useless Destruction spells...

[LordStuff]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Originally posted by LordStuff:

Thanks for your answers!

But as I said, it's not actually a challnge, it's just not fun, every enemy takes forever to kill, it's like playing boss fights all the time, but without getting loot.

That's unfortunately Oblivion sometimes. There are some enemies with HP that is proportionate to the character's level [e.g. Goblins, Ogres, Xivilai] that are tedious to deal with at pretty much any difficulty. On High Difficulty this is exacerbated, and yeah I can imagine you're finding it tedious if you're just dancing around waiting for your Summon to do all the work.

Weakness to Magicka stacked + Destruction spells are the easiest way to make fights quicker. You could argue that this removes a lot of the challenge, but again this isnt exclusive to Oblivion. Morrowind and Skyrim similarly end in having an all-powerful character at high levels, where I suppose one could argue it makes it easier to explore everything. More info here: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making#Spell_Stacking

Aside from this: Illusion supports Conjuration very well [Paralysis or Calm lock + Summon melee is hilarious] and if the caster has enough magicka, you can even create your own small army for a short period of time [Command Creature], or remove just about all the challenge from the game with 100% Chameleon. Alchemy is great for making custom poisons that do a ton of damage [and ignore the difficulty slider], but they take a while to produce so they're more for special occasions.

If you would like to make the game less tedious: There are millions of mods for Oblivion, and one of the more popular ones gets rid of the ridiculous levelled health bars . I'm not a mod fan myself, but if you're after less tedium I'd start there. [/quote]

I've already read all that, I just think it somehow takes the fun out of it really... I think I prefer playing on lower "difficulty"... where I can enjoy a good fight, but not an endless fight for survival..

[Strolok]

You've gotta play with a mix-max mentality at the start of the playthrough and choose skills you never use as your majors in order to get +5 to attributes in order to keep up with enemy level increases. Or you can mod.

[LordStuff]

Originally posted by Strolok:

You've gotta play with a mix-max mentality at the start of the playthrough and choose skills you never use as your majors in order to get +5 to attributes in order to keep up with enemy level increases. Or you can mod.

Modding is like cheating somehow.. Although I got to the point where I don't care if I cheat.. because honestly, constantly casting cheap and weak spells at myself just to train a certain magic skill.. is not fun, is not difficult, just a waste of time.. I could just cheat it up.. Would have the same effect, but doesn't soak up all my time..

Of course the leveling system is supposed to be learning by doing, but it just takes forever to train some skills if you don't have the money for a trainer..

I like your profile pic btw. FOR THE EMPEROR!

[BananaSplit]

My humble answer here is, don't. Just play on 50% difficulty, even then on lvl 10+ you'll be lmbing the sh*t out of enemies and tougher enemies might even kill you. I personally keep it at around 40% difficulty, it's about right for me, don't have to click lmb 100 times and the enemies are still somewhat decent so they actually make me use potions and stuff like that, really don't recommend playing on 50% or above, especially on higher levels, if you don't have the urge to spam lmb or c, if using spells.

[LordStuff]

It's not like I can spam anything or something.. I just watch my summon do all the work and re summon him when necessary.. also run in circles when there are enemies that focus on me..
I'll try playing on something like 55-60%

Somehow the leveled list of TES bugs me out sometimes too.. at some point, the world just seems full of Ether Lich, Deadroths, Xivilai and Storm Antronach.. can't there be any bandits without friggin Glass armor? Same thing in Skyrim though..