The ONE THING that an Oblivion remake needs to get right.

[Venom Candle]

With talk and rumor of an Oblivion remake in the works, I will take this time to say that there is one thing that absolutely needs to be tweaked. They can leave everything else the same with slightly updated resolution, but if they do not do this one thing, it will be another testament to how out-of-touch gamedevs are nowadays, because this is Oblivion's most infamous issue since its original release.

The devs remaking this game need to address the leveling problem. Specifically, how enemies scale to the player's level.

We all know the issue. Every enemy in the game has their health and damage scaled according to the player's level. Enemies get tougher as you get tougher, making sure the difficulty of fights stays proportionally even and be neither too easy nor too challenging regardless of player level.

That's theoretically what was supposed to happen. What actually happened is that enemy scaling was attuned to the most optimally powered characters on that particular level, and with the way leveling progression works, those high-end chars are not easy to achieve. You have to be deliberate and meta-managing in order to level up optimally.

The end result of this is that if you just play the game normally, you will be punished for it, because enemies will become exponentially stronger instead of proportionally stronger, making you feel weaker and weaker with each level.

This is Oblivion's leveling curve, its biggest problem that permeates through the entire game because of the game's design philosophy of having the entire world develop with the player.

When a modern mainstream audience comes in contact with this game, as it is now, they're going to hit the leveling curve fast. When they do, they're not gonna think, "Oh, let me look up a twelve year old video on YouTube and make a spreadsheet to figure out the pants-on-backwards meta strategy to efficient leveling." They're going to think, "Man, this game sucks. I'm going back to Fortnite."

To be honest, I don't even play with the leveling curve. I have mods installed to disable the level scaling system. But this remake is going to be most likely developed for consoles, so they may not have the option to rectify this issue with mods.

If anyone here feels like there are other big issues that need to be addressed for a remake, feel free to share them. But for me, it's hands down the level scaling in this game. From a marketing perspective, if there's anything that's going to turn away the bulk of the game's potential customers, it's that.

[psychotron666]

Oh man you're gonna be sorely disappointed.

The rumour was an oblivion remaster. Completely different from a remake, a remaster is the exact same game but with higher resolution settings and available on newer consoles. They don't actually rebuild the game.

[Уединение]

Well I'm for a remaster if they fix the engine problems with crashing and so forth. Would be nice to see a new wave of mods too.

[WhateverWorks]

I'd be 100% perfectly fine with a remaster that does absolutely nothing at all other than increase texture resolutions across the board, and adds native controller support for PC. That kind of remaster would likely be compatible with all existing mods, which is the only way I'll even consider giving them money for it. My mod setup > anything they're going to produce themselves.

[Venom Candle]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Oh man you're gonna be sorely disappointed.

The rumour was an oblivion remaster. Completely different from a remake, a remaster is the exact same game but with higher resolution settings and available on newer consoles. They don't actually rebuild the game.

I mean, I can't really be disappointed given that I'm looking forward to Skyblivion anyway. I was just giving my two cents for the one thing that an Oblivion port needs in order to not be a total flop.

[theo]

Originally posted by Venom Candle:

What actually happened is that enemy scaling was attuned to the most optimally powered characters on that particular level

No this isn't what actually happened. They have to be somewhat optimized but that's expected in an RPG. None of the characters I played were the most optimally powered and I never spoiled my game with meta managing.
And any possible issues are already fixed with the invention of difficulty slider

Originally posted by Venom Candle:

they're not gonna think, "Oh, let me look up a twelve year old video on YouTube and make a spreadsheet to figure out the pants-on-backwards meta strategy to efficient leveling.

Don't try to tell me you didn't start playing it around 2018 because of the memes. Yet here you are.
And I bet you made your conclusions from those videos without even playing the game properly.
Modern audience is going to be fine

[Wai]

Originally posted by Venom Candle:

With talk and rumor of an Oblivion remake in the works................................................................

The devs remaking this game need to address the leveling problem. Specifically, how enemies scale to the player's level. ................................................................

That, sir, is just one opinion. It is not everyone's opinion by a very long margin.

If they water down the levelling system, which, in my opinion is not broken, I for one will NOT be buying any remake.

The levelling is interesting and challenging. Take that away and you have nothing significantly different from all the rest.

If a player does not bother to find out how it works but rather opts for a mod instead, then there is no reason why they should not opt for a levelling mod on any remake and leave the biggest, most challenging and individual aspect of Oblivion to be enjoyed by those who relish the challenge.

Why do I play Oblivion and no other game in this genre? You guessed it, it is because Oblivion forces me to think and to make decisions while playing. Cut and thrust and easy enemies are two a penny if that is what you want from a game.

On the other hand, you can get exactly that, if you so choose, from Oblivion and without using any mods. It is called "The Difficulty Slider".

[mikaeliby]

The difficulty slider. Thread.

[CHASE6]

Originally posted by mikaeliby:

The difficulty slider. Thread.

Ya. If Bethesda had set default difficulty at 10%, there probably never would have even been conversation about level scaling. It’s driven by the default difficulty making the game a slog regardless of level.

[Cacao2Cream]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Oh man you're gonna be sorely disappointed.

The rumour was an oblivion remaster. Completely different from a remake, a remaster is the exact same game but with higher resolution settings and available on newer consoles. They don't actually rebuild the game.

According to a former dev of virtuos (the devs making the remake/remaster), that was confirmed by moderators on the game leaks and rumors reddit, as of 9 months ago they were unsure how many gameplay changes and content additions if any they were going to make so it could be either or, or perhaps a remaster with only a few gameplay changes or content updates.

[War-is-terror]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Oh man you're gonna be sorely disappointed.

The rumour was an oblivion remaster. Completely different from a remake, a remaster is the exact same game but with higher resolution settings and available on newer consoles. They don't actually rebuild the game.

Lmfao how wrong were you

[Praxis]

Originally posted by War-is-terror:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Oh man you're gonna be sorely disappointed.

The rumour was an oblivion remaster. Completely different from a remake, a remaster is the exact same game but with higher resolution settings and available on newer consoles. They don't actually rebuild the game.

Lmfao how wrong were you

? its not a remake, i see many unchanged world and character meshes , gear weapon mesh or up to date animation que's or frames of said animations. its a coat of paint. simply.. a coat of paint. they slid in updated models, but nav mesh of the world is the same no more tri's or verts its literally copy paste, same with weapons. the mesh isnt any more complex or better it just has a nice texture on it now. just oblivion spruced up is all it seems to be. it was not made from the ground up. all upscaled textures many new for new character models. etc it can give the appearance of it being a partial remake or partial remaster. the best thing is to not slide it into any of those categories and add it to the 'they did something to it' category

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by War-is-terror:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Oh man you're gonna be sorely disappointed.

The rumour was an oblivion remaster. Completely different from a remake, a remaster is the exact same game but with higher resolution settings and available on newer consoles. They don't actually rebuild the game.

Lmfao how wrong were you

Completely right actually. Have you played it? It's the same game with updated visuals and slightly tweaked gameplay. It's akin to GTA definitive edition remasters.

[theo]

They actually did fix the leveling system. Now you're leveling as body type 1 or body type 2 instead of male or female

[WhateverWorks]

Originally posted by theo:

They actually did fix the leveling system. Now you're leveling as body type 1 or body type 2 instead of male or female

Ya know theo, you might be one of the only people on this forum enough to appreciate what I went through yesterday. The extreme high and elation initially, then the malaise that has taken over the more I've learned about it. The no official mod support part is the worst offender, and I will probably get a refund today because of it.

All these years, I've never gone more than a month without playing Oblivion for at least a few hours. Truly it's my favorite game. And this whole experience is just...ugh. Why couldn't they have just left everything alone but the visuals?

[Settings]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Originally posted by War-is-terror:

Lmfao how wrong were you

Completely right actually. Have you played it? It's the same game with updated visuals and slightly tweaked gameplay. It's akin to GTA definitive edition remasters.

Literally the only things they changed gameplay wise were adding a Clairvoyence spell, adding sprinting, finally fixing the leveling and scaling that literally every Oblivion player has hated for 20 years, and changing the character creation to give bonus stats based on "Origin" instead of gender.