For a first time playthrough, what style of combat, stealth, melee, or magic would be most fun to watch?

[Sightless17]

The reason I'm asking is because I would like to share this experience with people by streaming. But I would like to play a role people might actually have fun watching.

[Johnny Casey]

Choose combat and stealth if you want to torture yourself and be miserable, and eventually makes you wish you'd be playing Skyrim instead.

Choose magic otherwise.

[Lobo de hielo]

I love playing mage types.
So apart from that I think people would love seeing the effects and different types of magic.

[Fe0xaech]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Choose combat and stealth if you want to torture yourself and be miserable, and eventually makes you wish you'd be playing Skyrim instead.

Choose magic otherwise.

Why everyone talks like the only good combat style is magic? I heard in skyrim you can deal 30x more damage with backstabs, but it doesnt make oblivion's too bad?

[ayrtep]

I consider the strongest type is a archer based character; but the OP asked for the most exciting to watch not stongest. I think a sneaky archer might be too slow for kibitzes, so maybe something faster like a 2-handed fighter, or a mage due to all the different colours and interesting spell effects.

[Fe0xaech]

Originally posted by Sightless17:

The reason I'm asking is because I would like to share this experience with people by streaming. But I would like to play a role people might actually have fun watching.

Attronach birth sign is pretty hard, and messed up. But can make the game so fun!

[HoBoMiKe]

Originally posted by Testere:

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Choose combat and stealth if you want to torture yourself and be miserable, and eventually makes you wish you'd be playing Skyrim instead.

Choose magic otherwise.

Why everyone talks like the only good combat style is magic? I heard in skyrim you can deal 30x more damage with backstabs, but it doesnt make oblivion's too bad?

because it's simply awful. unless you use magic, it takes half an hour to defeat mountain lions and bears, regardless of the difficulty slider. you can set it to minimum for 1-shot kills, but anything near or past halfway makes them unkillable.

the way the melee weapons work, you can't upgrade them, you can only find (up to a daedric) one that is your max damage, and the damage you deal with melees or archery only decreases as it's durability drains (you can't repair items during combat either, so just use conjuration "bound weapons" and "bound armor") as your fatigue drains (again, you'd better use magic to keep that fatigue high cause you can only drink 4 potions at a time) or if you contract diseases/get your attack skill drained by an enemy such as a ghost.


in addition, if you set the difficulty to minimum to make enemies tolerable, it decreases your ability to level the skill (and leveling is critical to this game to ensure your character doesn't become even weaker.)

it also makes you feel like you're terrible at the game for having to play on easy, and just wish you can go back to skyrim.

[Fe0xaech]

Originally posted by HoBoMiKe:

Originally posted by Testere:

Why everyone talks like the only good combat style is magic? I heard in skyrim you can deal 30x more damage with backstabs, but it doesnt make oblivion's too bad?

because it's simply awful. unless you use magic, it takes half an hour to defeat mountain lions and bears, regardless of the difficulty slider. you can set it to minimum for 1-shot kills, but anything near or past halfway makes them unkillable.

the way the melee weapons work, you can't upgrade them, you can only find (up to a daedric) one that is your max damage, and the damage you deal with melees or archery only decreases as it's durability drains (you can't repair items during combat either, so just use conjuration "bound weapons" and "bound armor") as your fatigue drains (again, you'd better use magic to keep that fatigue high cause you can only drink 4 potions at a time) or if you contract diseases/get your attack skill drained by an enemy such as a ghost.


in addition, if you set the difficulty to minimum to make enemies tolerable, it decreases your ability to level the skill (and leveling is critical to this game to ensure your character doesn't become even weaker.)

it also makes you feel like you're terrible at the game for having to play on easy, and just wish you can go back to skyrim.

First, even the most "warrior" character needs to use magic. You just need to use that. It cant be wasted.

Orcs, and nords have resist to magic, Argonians have resist to disease.

You can (and mostly should) carry 3 different weapons of the same type. Thus, they dont get damaged too fast.

Melee weapons are too fast, and bows damage is calculated like:
ArrowDMG + BowDMG. Making iron bow and iron arrow together dealing 8 damage.

About sneak, 8*3=24. And a knife dealing 4 would give: 4*6=24. At the start of the game it is half of the enemies' HP.
Two handed weapons give 6 damage, so 4 hits also deal 24 damage.

I heard a youtuber telling whenever he plays he finds himself running with a shield and a sword (LOL). I only heard the opness of critical hits, but dunno the combat system. Can you also explain that if you can?

[Fe0xaech]

I dont hate magic but, everyone moves like its the best way of playing the game.

[Sightless17]

I almost always do magic in the other elder scrolls, but I guess from what I'm reading from you it's really just a matter of preference. Do what you think would be cool and then others may watch.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Testere:

First, even the most "warrior" character needs to use magic. You just need to use that. It cant be wasted.

Wearing any piece of armor will reduce your spell effectiveness, making pure warrior build with occasional spell casting ineffective at casting spell. If you in need of casting spell, it's best not to wear any armor at all.

Originally posted by Testere:

Orcs, and nords have resist to magic, Argonians have resist to disease.

You do realize most humanoid enemies are wearing armor to protect themselves, right? And unlike weapons, magic has access to variety of weakness spells to amplify its effect. One of the big reasons why you should go for magic over weapon.

And no, Nords don't have any resistance to magic. They have resistance to frost.

Originally posted by Testere:

You can (and mostly should) carry 3 different weapons of the same type. Thus, they dont get damaged too fast.

Prior to Skyrim, weapons in TES games weigh a ton. Carrying 3 different weapons to switch around in case any of it gets damaged will encumber you a lot, and encumbrance effects your speed in general, even if you're not yet over-encumbered. You will move slow if you intend to carry that sorts of gear.

Originally posted by Testere:

Melee weapons are too fast, and bows damage is calculated like:
ArrowDMG + BowDMG. Making iron bow and iron arrow together dealing 8 damage.

About sneak, 8*3=24. And a knife dealing 4 would give: 4*6=24. At the start of the game it is half of the enemies' HP.
Two handed weapons give 6 damage, so 4 hits also deal 24 damage.

Aside from the fact you're comparing the damage you could do at litterally the starting point of the game, - where anything will die in two or three hits regardless - weapons in general have their own flaws.

As for melee weapons, to put it bluntly, you can't just mash attack button to win like you do in Skyrim. Unlike in Skyrim where you can literally bash someone's shield to death without any drawbacks, if your attack ever gets blocked, *YOU* get staggered back, giving the enemy plenty of chance to strike back, which can result even more staggering. This, combined with enemy AI's amazing skill of blocking any incoming attack just in the nick of time, with the addition of blinding speed of engaging follow-up attacks after you've been staggered, makes melee combat into the classic block someone's attack, slash two times, block again, repeat kind of combat. This is what makes melee combat so boring and taking too long to kill something.

As for ranged combat, arrows fly slow and they have small hit box, making any sort of predictive shots nearly impossible. You can only hit what's coming straight towards you. It's at least better than melees, but still not viable for your main source of damage. Ranged weapons are best to be used as your secondary attack for mages, or to apply poison and negative magic effect on your enemy.

Weapon oriented combat style *can* be good, but it's a big hassle to go through to reach that point. (which still debates whether if it's really good) It's not really worth doing it, but if you insist, go right ahead. Most people ended up on complaining the game's level scailing in the forum.

[Hugh G Rection]

I've played this game like ten times and I always gravitate toward a sneaky archer with healing spells. Despite what people seem to think, you can play the game withe melee or ranged. You just have to not suck .

[Fe0xaech]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Testere:

First, even the most "warrior" character needs to use magic. You just need to use that. It cant be wasted.

Wearing any piece of armor will reduce your spell effectiveness, making pure warrior build with occasional spell casting ineffective at casting spell. If you in need of casting spell, it's best not to wear any armor at all.

Originally posted by Testere:

Orcs, and nords have resist to magic, Argonians have resist to disease.

You do realize most humanoid enemies are wearing armor to protect themselves, right? And unlike weapons, magic has access to variety of weakness spells to amplify its effect. One of the big reasons why you should go for magic over weapon.

And no, Nords don't have any resistance to magic. They have resistance to frost.

Originally posted by Testere:

You can (and mostly should) carry 3 different weapons of the same type. Thus, they dont get damaged too fast.

Prior to Skyrim, weapons in TES games weigh a ton. Carrying 3 different weapons to switch around in case any of it gets damaged will encumber you a lot, and encumbrance effects your speed in general, even if you're not yet over-encumbered. You will move slow if you intend to carry that sorts of gear.

Originally posted by Testere:

Melee weapons are too fast, and bows damage is calculated like:
ArrowDMG + BowDMG. Making iron bow and iron arrow together dealing 8 damage.

About sneak, 8*3=24. And a knife dealing 4 would give: 4*6=24. At the start of the game it is half of the enemies' HP.
Two handed weapons give 6 damage, so 4 hits also deal 24 damage.

Aside from the fact you're comparing the damage you could do at litterally the starting point of the game, - where anything will die in two or three hits regardless - weapons in general have their own flaws.

As for melee weapons, to put it bluntly, you can't just mash attack button to win like you do in Skyrim. Unlike in Skyrim where you can literally bash someone's shield to death without any drawbacks, if your attack ever gets blocked, *YOU* get staggered back, giving the enemy plenty of chance to strike back, which can result even more staggering. This, combined with enemy AI's amazing skill of blocking any incoming attack just in the nick of time, with the addition of blinding speed of engaging follow-up attacks after you've been staggered, makes melee combat into the classic block someone's attack, slash two times, block again, repeat kind of combat. This is what makes melee combat so boring and taking too long to kill something.

As for ranged combat, arrows fly slow and they have small hit box, making any sort of predictive shots nearly impossible. You can only hit what's coming straight towards you. It's at least better than melees, but still not viable for your main source of damage. Ranged weapons are best to be used as your secondary attack for mages, or to apply poison and negative magic effect on your enemy.

Spells will just support for a bit, its not the main thing of course.

Forget about the nords, their endurance is higher. Ofc you can do magic with that, but you can just dodge everything after being journeyman at acrobatics. Thus there will be slight changes of gameplay after gaining combat skills more.

Yeah it will be a ton, but why strength is here then. Also making your class combat based makes athletics level up more. Things doesnt slow you down in inventory, things slow down you when you equip them.

That you-block-then-you-attack isnt really boring. You can also just hit-and-run. Thus, please dont make comparisons to skyrim. I never played it.

Bows deal the same damage as melee weapons like i said earlier.
Arrows hitbox is really fine, i didnt saw nor heard mages with bows.

[Plüschtiger]

Ranged attacks have one big problem at Oblivion and Skyrim. The Map. Often attacks miss, bacaus the arrow or magic are stoped by an invisible wall. Aditionaly the problem moving enemies are hard to hit. By the way, it happen often that you have more than one enemy, in that case you have a very big problem even whith melee, axe and other weapons.

A nice way to fight with magic ist not to use magig. Make on youre armor 100% magic resistence an 100% magic reflection. The same you can make with weapon damage.

Nobody need to carry more than one weapon, you find weapons in nearly every fight. The bigest problem is not to find it, a biger problem is to carry and sell all this.

I hope youre can read it.

[BigRowdy]

Originally posted by HoBoMiKe:

Originally posted by Testere:

Why everyone talks like the only good combat style is magic? I heard in skyrim you can deal 30x more damage with backstabs, but it doesnt make oblivion's too bad?

because it's simply awful. unless you use magic, it takes half an hour to defeat mountain lions and bears, regardless of the difficulty slider. you can set it to minimum for 1-shot kills, but anything near or past halfway makes them unkillable.

the way the melee weapons work, you can't upgrade them, you can only find (up to a daedric) one that is your max damage, and the damage you deal with melees or archery only decreases as it's durability drains (you can't repair items during combat either, so just use conjuration "bound weapons" and "bound armor") as your fatigue drains (again, you'd better use magic to keep that fatigue high cause you can only drink 4 potions at a time) or if you contract diseases/get your attack skill drained by an enemy such as a ghost.


in addition, if you set the difficulty to minimum to make enemies tolerable, it decreases your ability to level the skill (and leveling is critical to this game to ensure your character doesn't become even weaker.)

it also makes you feel like you're terrible at the game for having to play on easy, and just wish you can go back to skyrim.

This is simply not true. My slider is at 57% and can take down a ML in less than a 30 seconds. It is a based on your character's skill and type of weapon and material of that weapon. I understand you dont like melee, but it is not nearly an accurate description you give.

[Turtleswatter]

Currently I'm running around with hand to hand and a 100% drain health and 100% drain endurance spell.

It's fun thumping the living daylights out of things before zapping them with instant death.

Thanks Spiffing Brit.