I am the hero of Kvatch

[Kurt]

I first played Oblivion in 2006 on my Xbox 360. A friend from school had told me he had discovered a game even cooler than Runescape, and it was called Oblivion. I had my reservations about Oblivion because upon being asked to list the armour types in the game, my friend started with fur and leather before adding Mithril, which was probably what prompted me to at least go to the games shop and look at the front cover and pictures on the back.

The front cover left a lot to be desired. No fire, no shiny swords, no attractive women. The Imperial armour on the back looked cool though, so I decided to give it a try.

I booted the game up. Character customisation? Nice. Can't have a beard without looking like you've drowned? Doesn't matter it's 2006 and no one cares about beards (unless you want to play as Aragorn, of course). Conversation options? Very nice. Dungeon crawling? What the f**k, Glenn? I, like a lot of impatient kids I'm sure, did not enjoy escaping from the Imperial Prison the first time around. I wanted freedom in a fantasy game, to go where I wanted to do what I wanted whenever I wanted to do it. But here I was cutting down rats and goblins, stuck in a seemingly never ending series of caves and tunnels.

Of course, the torture of the Imperial dungeons, cave & sewer system was worth it for that euphoric moment when you first exit the sewers. Words can't do justice for the awestruck feeling I felt when I first experienced it, and I'm sure many others feel the same.

So, fast forward more than 10 years and I'm booting Oblivion up again, this time on Steam. My major skills are something like Blade, Light Armour, Illusion, Destruction, Conjuration Sneak, Marksman. I'm travelling from town-to-town, doing side-quests, finding alchemical ingredients (and stealing them from town houses), looting caves.

So, I hit level 11 and I'm starting to find the enemies are getting a lot tougher. I remember the basics of how the levelling system works, and then I remember how during my '06 playthrough I encountered my very first Daedroth in the Count of Kvatch's chambers, and then I remember a lot of fire, health potions, right-trigger mashing. Something in my head was telling me I was level 13 when I ran into that Daedroth, so I figured since I was already struggling with Berserker Goblins I had better break the siege of Kvatch sooner rather than later.

I make the long journey from the outskirts of the Imperial City to Kvatch (I always walk to a location first time, allowing myself to fast travel afterwards), resisting the temptation to complete side quests in Skingrad as I pass through. I encounter some Will-o'-the-wisps along the way which absolutely kick my ass because my destruction and mana pool is too low to do any significant damage to them, and my only silver weapon is a dagger which isn't powerful enough to win a slobber knocker against them. So, I am literally sent scurrying away from an orb of light, leaving the loot of my defeated companion behind, and it makes me worried about the types of enemies I might encounter in the coming battles for Kvatch.

I arrive at Kvatch. Yes, Captiain Matius, I will close that Oblivion gate for you. As I arrive on the plains of Oblivion I see plenty of alchemical ingredients I can take, a few scamps and a Flame Atronach. No sign of Mr Daedroth. So far so good, nothing I can't handle. I even tell the Kvatch soldier he can make his way back to the line, me and my companion will take care of this. Unfortunately, that proves to be an unwise decision because within 30 seconds my companion has death marched like an Emperor Penguin into a pool of lava. I can't even loot the selfish bastard's corpse.

The Oblivion gate is straightforward enough. Still no sign of Lord Daedroth, I rarely have to fight more than one enemy at a time. One of the few times I do I turn and run from from two Dremora (in my defence one had summoned a scamp) to heal at a blood bank (?). My sigil stone is something crappy like detect life and 15% fire resistance. On the bright side, once I am kicked out of the gate my dead companion's body is too, so I am able to scavenge his dead body after all.

Now the real battle begins. Me and the surviving soldiers of Kvatch charge through the gates and encounter more Dremora, Scamps, Flame Atronachs AND Clannfears (tough bastards but Monsieur Daedroth has called in sick so I shouldn't complain). We take a few casualties but win the battle. I help myself to the dead soldiers' cuirass. Yes, it represents the city they died to defend, but they don't need it anymore and it's valued at 90 gold.

Next we retake part of the courtyard with no casualties. I say we, but my most significant contribution was shooting one of our soldiers in the back. Captain Matius then tasks me with opening the gate which will allow us to take back the castle. I'm worried about this because my memory tells me this is a solo mission, but I'm pleasantly surprised when some Imperial soldiers meet me in the church and join myself and an old soldier from Kvatch who, despite being offended by my lack of respect for his position, has agreed to lead the way. The journey through the undercroft is a tough one, but we make it through with only one or two Imperial soldier casualties. I can't loot them because their armour is too heavy and this is a disappointment.

The battle for the right to enter the castle is a disaster. We are stuck in a congested archway, headbutted to death by Clannfears and picked off at range by a small army of Scamps and Flame Atronachs. Everyone but myself and Captain Matius dies, I expend all of my health potions, and I haven't even got enough room to loot the bodies properly.

Captain Matius and I make our way into the castle and I know this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is only going to have my back during the great hall battle, and even then he's probably going to spend much of it unconscious. The only thing I'm feeling optimistic about is that there probably won't be as many enemies in this comparatively smaller battleground.

What do we encounter in the great hall after our forces have been decimated? TWO Daedroths. Fortunately, the second one doesn't seem to have us in his line of sight, and he just saunters around while Matius gets his ass whooped immediately. I can't take him in a slap down drag out fight, but I can jump from one side of the entrance steps to the other, simultaneously sinking arrow after arrow into the Daedroth who is surprisingly quick and hits hard until he succumbs. I take the other Daedroth down using a potion I brewed which paralyses my target for 5 seconds. He stiffens up and falls over like a plank of wood while I maniacally slash at him with my Dwarven longsword, killing him just as he is making his way to his feet.

I can scarcely believe I have managed to kill not one but two Daedroths on my own after previously struggling with a horde of Scamps and Flame Atronachs. Perhaps this goes to my head as I get greedy and decide to ignore my objective, instead hunting for food I can convert into gold via potions. I am rewarded for this with no food and a further 2 tussles with Daedroths, which I am able to dispatch with my paralyse and death of a thousand cuts strategy.

Sheepishly, I open the door to the Count of Kvatch's chambers. I wonder what awaits me behind the door. I have battled Scamps, Dremora, Flame Atronachs, Clannfears and Clannfear. I was hoping to avoid a Daedroth. Instead I went to war with 4. My chances against a 5th don't look too good in this tiny room as I don't have much room to keep distance between us, no health potions, an apprentice level health restoration spell, no paralyse potions, and not enough ingredients to brew up any more. But, I have come this far, so I have to try.

It was a lone Flame Atronach. I easily killed her, picked up each one of my steel arrows, helped myself to the Count's strawberries and the ring from his finger.

Having finally completed this arduous quest, I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment which I hadn't gotten from a game in a long time. The quest was a long slog, but not a grind. I was worried about dying before, during and after each battle. Each battle seemed like it was a bridge too far, yet I managed to come out on top thanks to the many tools at my disposal.

With the heart of Rocky Balboa, the skill of a below average player, a lack of intelligence resulting in a crap build and underleveled character, I was able to truly feel like the hero of Kvatch.

[Essedus]

Oblivion was the first elder scrolls game I had ever played and the only reason I had tried it was because I rented it one day for my old ps3. I'm sure I might have heard of elder scrolls prior to that but I never had a computer good enough to play the older games back when they were relevant.

I remember stepping out of the sewers and looking around in utter amazement, I had never seen anything like oblivion at that time and I was absolutely enthralled by every aspect of the game. I also had a terrible first build because I didn't fully understand how the leveling system worked.

Oblivion is a game I'll always consider very special to me because it opened the door to a series I had never previously known of and might never have known of otherwise. Even today something about oblivion scratches an itch that skyrim could never hope to.

[////]

congrats.

if you will run into truly tiersome situation, just click difficulty slider to the left side few times. people tend to forget and start blaming bad leveling system... but you are your own dungeon master in this game.

[Kurt]

Thank you.

I know that option is always there; however, I find it more rewarding to play at a consistent difficulty setting. On my save right now I've encountered one such tiresome situation, so I've left that situation to pursue easier ones until I feel more ready to attempt it again. So you're definitely right that people shouldn't complain about difficulty when they can just lower the difficulty slider.

I don't mind the levelling system too much, but I don't like when it "forces me" to make a decision about what I can and can't train. For exmaple, right now I have quite a lot destruction level when compared to the rest of my majors. My spells don't deal a lot of damage, and my mana pool isn't very large, so it's difficult to train it during a natural battle situation. Now, I could grind it to level it. But, that would mean my total level would increase whilst my other skills stagnate and perhaps fall behind the required levels to remain effective at higher levels.