What are the essential mods for Oblivion?

[Moronic__Dog]

I am wondering if there are any mods that are pretty much a requirement for playing the game, such as an unofficial bug fix, UI overhauls, etc? Outside of bug fix mods, what do you all recommend? This will be my first time playing Oblivion, so I apologize if this is a dumb question.

[Wai]

At the risk of being controversial - None.

I am playing mod free. No significant problems. However, others may not have the same experience. I am still using Windows 7, but cannot say if this is significant.

I have experienced two bugs, one is regular, but, insignificant as it just drops me out of the loading screen occasionally. The other was with a quest sequence and I had to restart the quest from an earlier save. I make sure I save regularly and I do a console save at least every couple of hours or so, just in case. The console save allows players to name the file which makes it more easily recognisable. (save "file name")

One other minor annoyance, I crash out every so often when exiting the game. (perhaps 1 exit in 20, maybe less.)

Good luck, I hope you enjoy the game.

[CHASE6]

Originally posted by Wai:

At the risk of being controversial - None.

I am playing mod free. No significant problems. However, others may not have the same experience. I am still using Windows 7, but cannot say if this is significant.

I have experienced two bugs, one is regular, but, insignificant as it just drops me out of the loading screen occasionally. The other was with a quest sequence and I had to restart the quest from an earlier save. I make sure I save regularly and I do a console save at least every couple of hours or so, just in case. The console save allows players to name the file which makes it more easily recognisable. (save "file name")

One other minor annoyance, I crash out every so often when exiting the game. (perhaps 1 exit in 20, maybe less.)

Good luck, I hope you enjoy the game.

I agree with this. No need for anything, unless you go with unofficial patches and 4GB patch, for your first time.

[CullinB]

4GByte patch, OBSE and EngineBugFix OSR( stutter Remover)

[lonetrav]

While I generally agree with playing Oblivion without mods and / or unofficial patches in the beginning, I think it's fair to say that this may lead to a number of issues (annoying and confusing, or even favourable :-), rather than game-breaking), many of which are fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (UOP). You can find a (possibly incomplete) list in the Oblivion Quests section of uesp.
An example is the Skingrad Recommendation Quest for the Mages Guild: You're tasked to bring back a mage and his notes from a zombie-ridden cave. Once you've done it, the guy is supposed to leave you, but it is possible (and a bug) that he stays with you. The OUP fixes this issue.
By the way: Players may even prefer to keep him as a companion (at least for a while), because he is a good mage and can't be killed (because he's an essential quest person). Installing the UOP removes this exploit. But I can't say what triggers the bug or how likely it happens.

My advice is to start playing Oblivion without mods (except possibly the UOP). If you find something you don't like or which doesn't work, or you miss something, go looking for a mod which fixes the issue or gives you what you want. Be aware that some mods are buggy, too, and that two or more mods may not work well together and lead to so-called mod conflicts. There is also the issue that savegames may not work after you add mods or take mods away.

PS: The question is not dumb at all.

[theo]

The question was about mods required to play the game and the only objective answer is none

[WhateverWorks]

If nothing else, a UI mod is necessary on PC. Graphical overhauls like QTP3 are also nice but by no means necessary. But a UI mod like Darn? It will GREATLY improve your enjoyment.

[lonetrav]

Originally posted by WhateverWorks:

... a UI mod is necessary on PC. ... a UI mod like Darn ...

Nice - but necessary? It's a matter of personal attitude, isn't it? At least I have managed to play Oblivion a couple of 100 hours without ever using that mod.

With that said, I agree that Darnified UI is better than the game's own UI. I do recommend to have a look at the mod, and then to decide to use it or not. But be aware that it requires either a not quite easy installation procedure, or the installation of yet another tool, the Oblivion Mod Manager, and to configure it. It doesn't just work "out of the box".

[psychotron666]

Oblivion ui is obviously made for consoles, but in no means is it necessary to change it , it functions perfectly with no bugs in the UI itself

[WhateverWorks]

Well necessary is going to vary a bit from person to person. Strictly speaking, the number of mods needed to play it is zero. But I'd say most Oblivion fans would pick a UI mod if they could only use one mod. At least that's the one thing I personally just cannot play without anymore.

[Wai]

Originally posted by WhateverWorks:

If nothing else, a UI mod is necessary on PC. Graphical overhauls like QTP3 are also nice but by no means necessary. But a UI mod like Darn? It will GREATLY improve your enjoyment.

Then, how have I managed over 400 hours, of very satisfying play on PC without using any mods?

My game runs well, my graphics are beautiful - after a few minutes of fiddling with the graphics settings. I have had just one incident where I needed to revert to a previous save because I had a minor glitch in a quest and lost about 15 minutes of play time. Ouch! (I could just as easily have cured this glitch with a console command.)

No mods are essential. Some may be nice to have. Some bring their own problems if you read the appropriate forum posts. So, mods for this game, on PC are, as they should be, a matter of choice only not of necessity.

[emmietiie]

The alternative start mods are good if you want to skip the tutorial, or don't want to feel like the main character.

I started as a house owner in Cheydinhal, and then another character as a beggar in the mouth of a bandit cave. Or was it vampires?

[parogen]

Oblivion Display Tweaks for the FOV adjustment. This is the only one that I know of that also fixes a hardcoded value related to dialogue as well. (And if you don't want dialogue to zoom, set fDlgFocus=15.1 or so. Anything past that should not have any more effect. Lower and there is some zoom depending on how far you are from npc.)

Non essential that I have to mention is Really Textured Normal Maps - Updated, which is a normal map update while textures are still vanilla. Vanilla normal maps are pretty flat and lead to too much light on certain surfaces and dull on others (on HDR at least, which is what I'm familiar of). The best way I can describe is that when you're in the city, you notice when there's is/isn't sunlight. The floor always seems to be shiny at a certain angle that I don't think can be modified.

And with the mention of HDR, if you find it too bright set the fBrightScale=1 for both HDR sections in Oblivion.ini. I have no idea why the default is around 2 and I have done this in Fallout 3 as well.

[lonetrav]

... always interesting to read what people find "essential" ...

[theo]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Oblivion ui is obviously made for consoles, but in no means is it necessary to change it , it functions perfectly with no bugs in the UI itself

Yeah but it's not like mods can actually transform vanilla UI into a non-console one. Functionally they barely change anything.
Much like Skyui for Skyrim, Darnified is the exact same UI but with more information available on the screen, some of which is totally uncalled for, as it can be considered meta knowledge

[WhateverWorks]

Like what? You don't sound like you've actually played with Darn installed much? Of the many ways you can give yourself an unfair advantage in Oblivion (in just Vanilla you can have infinite money and items) fitting more items and spells on your UI definitely doesn't give any kind of gameplay advantage. It's a QoL mod, and there's a reason it's one of the most endorsed and downloaded on the nexus.