How to deal with leveling

[ddampac]

Hello all. First of all, I want to say that Oblivion is one of my favorite games ever. I started playing it on PS3 but never got very far with it. I had a great difficult to understand the leveling system. I've read the UESP thread about it countless times, but never got around putting it into pratice.
So, do I need to do a perfect leveling in order to survive in this game? I remember spending a long time farming skills fighting against mudcrabs, and honestly that's not fun at all.
I feel there's so much do discover, but I feel kind a powerless in the face of it.
Anyway, I don't even have my PS3 anymore (nor my PS4!), but I still own a PC and wanted to try one more time. I didn't want to give up on this one.

[Minari99]

I remember someone saying once that advice to power level is not actually needed. I believe you just should plan your character well. I never aimed for 5 skill ups thing to playing but just added major skills I actually will use and don't have any problems with the game. I also focus on guilds and sidequests before I touch main story (I just don't like those oblivion gates popping up until I start main quest)

I'd say just create a character you want with good idea in mind before starting and enjoy the game! If you happen to have hard fights turn the difficult down a little until you can survive fights but don't feel overpowered

[CHASE6]

No. You don’t need efficient leveling. Even if you do that, combat at high levels is a slog since enemies are damage sponges. By the time you reach max level, 52-54, you will be at 100 in most attributes. Select the skills you want to use and have fun playing. If you find things difficult just use the difficulty slider.

[Wai]

First of all, Vanilla and playing with certain mods are not the same and the advice may be very, very different. I am currently playing pure vanilla.

You certainly do not need to make a rod for your back with levelling, but, in my opinion, you do need to pay some attention to getting a strong character early in the game. For this reason, I would say that "select the skills you want to use", if for major skills, is erroneous advice. I went with this advice when I came back to this game after 16+ years. It lead to a completely wasted and frustrating first attempt to play through and I very nearly did not bother again. However, eventually, I did a lot of reading, particularly the Unofficial Pages, and a bit of experimenting.

My character is a custom Breton/Mage. My majors are:- Armourer, Block, Hand to Hand, Light Armour, Mercantile, Sneak and Speechcraft. The reason for this is simple, I use my mage skills a lot, so they progress quite quickly anyway, and, I can easily control all of my major skills. (Certainly, I will, if I ever play from the start again, make one change, maybe a couple, but, I am pretty happy with this. My magic will remain strictly minor though.) I have used spam only once to pull my mysticism up from the start level of 15 to the useful level of 25. And, I used trainers a few times to round off my Armourer skill as I concentrated, early on, in making +5 to Endurance on every level until maximised. I also, during this early play made +5 to strength on most levels. It most definitely did not take boring repetition to do this. I simply visited and fought my way through lots of ruins and caves collecting some quite interesting bits of equipment along the way. I also visited the Heaven stones and did the Daedra quests as they became available. With Endurance, and soon after Strength, out of the way, casual levelling but at the same time getting good levels is extremely laid back.

I used the console Debug Text page 10 to keep an occasional eye on my progress. I did not make a big thing of getting exactly the right number of points, I am far too lazy and disorganised for that, but, I did ensure, this way that I got 5+5+x regularly early in the game. There is one very good reason for making sure to maximise your Endurance early. Endurance influences how much improvement you get in Health and in Fatigue each time you level. The effect of this is cumulative not linear.

Using the debug 10 page also made it extremely easy to really understand how the levelling works (in the vanilla game). For that it is invaluable. If you ignore the rest, use this at least a couple of times. SDT 10 to make it available TDT to toggle it on and off.

[ddampac]

Thank you CHASE6 and Minari99!

[ddampac]

Thanks a lot, Wai

[Thermal Lance]

Sincerely. I'm about 40 hours in and I dont feel like "min maxing" is ever needed. And im saying that playing as a pure thief. No magic training. An actual thief.

But, there is times I had to drop a quest line and do some other things for a bit to level up and get better gear.

[ddampac]

Thank you, TL.

[CHASE6]

Right on

[solidap]

All the difference in damage is in your gear, plain and simple. If you're not hurting enemies fast enough then you need better weapons or better magic. If you find you're lacking in health or stamina or magicka, then boost it with spells or enchantments. And none of that is predicated on how perfect you made your level bonuses.

The only thing that could potentially mess you up is the leveled nature of most of the powerful items in the game. If you don't like that, just get a mod to disable it. I don't think leveled artifacts is a good design decision. But at the very least, if you don't want to disable it, the Knights of the Nine gear can be leveled up to your current level by putting it back on the armor rack. Or just rely on enchanting your own weapons. The only thing required for that is just a lot of gold

[theo]

You're gonna have to "race" with enemies as they will grow with your main character level, so make sure you upgrade your gear regularly and don't do completely dumb things like fast forward levelups by grinding skills you don't use in combat. Basically avoid raising your level without becoming stronger.
Efficient levelling and perfect +5 attribute gain is not needed. Attributes don't have much impact on your characters power

[Wai]

Originally posted by solidap:

All the difference in damage is in your gear, plain and simple. If you're not hurting enemies fast enough then you need better weapons or better magic. If you find you're lacking in health or stamina or magicka, then boost it with spells or enchantments. And none of that is predicated on how perfect you made your level bonuses.

The only thing that could potentially mess you up is the leveled nature of most of the powerful items in the game. If you don't like that, just get a mod to disable it. I don't think leveled artifacts is a good design decision. But at the very least, if you don't want to disable it, the Knights of the Nine gear can be leveled up to your current level by putting it back on the armor rack. Or just rely on enchanting your own weapons. The only thing required for that is just a lot of gold

Sorry, but that is absolute, uninformed nonsense if you are talking, in general terms about the vanilla game. If you are not, then, you should state what mods you are using.

It is extremely easy to prove the value of increased abilities such as strength, if you do not already understand physics which this game takes into account. As I have encountered this claim before, I have spent some time experimenting with the effects of increases in strength, speed and agility (using enchanted zero weight apparel and a couple of battle situation saves) when used against the same enemies in combination with the same weapon. Your abilities most certainly do affect how effectively you hit. Yes, sure you can use magic to boost if needed, but, oh boy, is that a bore in the middle of a fight if you have to do it continuously!

Maybe what you say is true if you play a heavy armoured character as the differences may be less obvious. I can't comment as I play a no armour, magic and fist character. The only time I use armour, for very short periods, it is a basic iron or leather helmet to boost endurance or speed not as protection, if I feel it necessary to make a good level on these two abilities.

[Wai]

Originally posted by theo:

You're gonna have to "race" with enemies as they will grow with your main character level, so make sure you upgrade your gear regularly and don't do completely dumb things like fast forward levelups by grinding skills you don't use in combat. Basically avoid raising your level without becoming stronger.
Efficient levelling and perfect +5 attribute gain is not needed. Attributes don't have much impact on your characters power

Umm; Isn't Strength an attribute?

[theo]

Originally posted by Wai:

Originally posted by theo:

You're gonna have to "race" with enemies as they will grow with your main character level, so make sure you upgrade your gear regularly and don't do completely dumb things like fast forward levelups by grinding skills you don't use in combat. Basically avoid raising your level without becoming stronger.
Efficient levelling and perfect +5 attribute gain is not needed. Attributes don't have much impact on your characters power

Umm; Isn't Strength an attribute?

Yes. It barely gives anything in terms of damage. If you ever drank skooma which gives a +60 strength buff, it only increases melee damage by 1 or 2. Weapon skill is much more impactful.
Just google the formulas, attributes are pretty much useless. Except maybe for endurance if you're gonna tank.
Armor is kind of useless as well btw, elemental shield enchants/sigil stones give more armor than any gear, for less

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by theo:

Originally posted by Wai:

Umm; Isn't Strength an attribute?

Yes. It barely gives anything in terms of damage. If you ever drank skooma which gives a +60 strength buff, it only increases melee damage by 1 or 2. Weapon skill is much more impactful.
Just google the formulas, attributes are pretty much useless. Except maybe for endurance if you're gonna tank.
Armor is kind of useless as well btw, elemental shield enchants/sigil stones give more armor than any gear, for less

Yeah he's already been thoroughly dunked on when it's come to attributes, especially strength. I showed him the formulas and compared the damages with weapons on either end of the scale and he just ignored it.

It's probably because he doesn't want to come to the realization that all that playing the game like he's doing chores, grinding unnecessary skills, and picking ass backwards skills as his majors all means absolutely nothing in the vanilla game. It would mean all that work was meaningless, and instead of coming to that realization, he can encourage others to play the game the same way so he doesn't feel like a complete fool.

[Wai]

Originally posted by theo:

Originally posted by Wai:

Umm; Isn't Strength an attribute?

Yes. It barely gives anything in terms of damage. If you ever drank skooma which gives a +60 strength buff, it only increases melee damage by 1 or 2. Weapon skill is much more impactful.
Just google the formulas, attributes are pretty much useless. Except maybe for endurance if you're gonna tank.
Armor is kind of useless as well btw, elemental shield enchants/sigil stones give more armor than any gear, for less

One point of increase on the base weapon damage sounds rather paltry until you express that as a percentage of the base weapon damage. I have not worked out for multiple weapons and levels, but + <1% to + >18% is a conservative figure. I suppose that 18% may still seem low to some, but, consider this. If you are driving your car at 30 mph and hit a pedestrian he will almost always survive - if you hit that same pedestrian at 40 mph he will probably die.

What those formulae do not include should also be taken into consideration. Maximum Armour Rating; Damage To Weapon Percentage; Damage To Armour Percentage; Knockdown Damage Multiplier; Difficulty Damage Multiplier; Hand Reach Multiplier. (I am not sure if there are others.)

Then, of course, how much health, endurance and energy you have to absorb damage and your ability to avoid damage are also important, but un-quantifiable in the given equations.

Finally, if/how these calculations are affected by whatever mods you are using, assuming you are using mods, will affect the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness of Attribute gains.

Ergo; Although the formulae are a reasonable guide the only way to evaluate the effects of increased abilities is by practical experimentation. (And, if mods are being used then it is necessary to qualify your results.)

No, I have not used skooma, but, I have used zero weight apparel and enchanted it using sigil stones then observed the difference between fighting the same sequence, several times each with and without the enchantment. I'll take the extra attributes over none every time my fights are shorter and damage taken is less.

However, as I said much earlier, I don't see any point in taking the fun out of the game by "perfect" levelling. Just make sure your character is right for you and that you keep an eye on progress in order to use controllable skills to level when you can make the most gains and not over-level by significant amounts too often.

Each time you level the enemy also levels. You need to level well or you simply become weaker and weaker in comparison to the enemy. That is really not fun.