Is the game really that hard?

[NightLizard]

Genuine question i keep seeing people complaining of it in other forums with expert difficulty, i finished the game in master, vampire, stage 4 of vampirism... i was literally jumping the fire lakes of oblivion to skip the bridges granted i was drinking health potions every so often, but my point is, my biggest issue was keeping npcs alive such was martin, thus i create a spell for that.


So what do you guys think is hard in the game exactly? You can have immunity to any element/magic/reflect all spells/damage or even absord 100% of spell attacks from enemies... so i'm curious exactly what made the game hard for other users.

[fox]

Now try playing without custom spells.

[NightLizard]

Originally posted by fox:

Now try playing without custom spells.

And why i would do that?
Is like play skyrim without shouts.

What makes the biggest of my dps is alchemy, i use custom spells to keep npcs alive, not myself like i wrote above.

Also, not just alive, i literally have a spell which make npcs move fast, i mean, this is peak gaming roleplay thus i can't understand what exactly is hard for people for this one.

[Cattastrafy]

It's hard when you don't cheese mechanics, such as being in god mode with properly stacked damage resistances, 100% chameleon etc.

[NightLizard]

Originally posted by Cattastrafy:

It's hard when you don't cheese mechanics, such as being in god mode with properly stacked damage resistances, 100% chameleon etc.

But that's my point invisibility in this game costs 30 mana points, vampire with 130 willpower get those points really fast, and then you use 30 damage health poison for 10s. None of those is cheesing, but i wrote the above with a warrior in mind, i switched for awhile and i had 50% reflect damage and spell using ingame daedric artifacts and only focused in casting flame ward to avoid getting one shot due to fire weakness.

My point is, morrowind is a lot more unfair, and they fixed the lvling issues we had in OG oblivion, i ended up having spare lvl points after lvl 35 or 36 i think. Nowadays is better getting a stone which doesn't increase attributes... they also fixed the low endurance, so if you level it up later, the scaling of health is also backwards, OG oblivion for me was indeed hard, but the remaster i didnt had any issues.

[Delphinus]

Try playing in master difficulty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT13kk8HDDo

[Nite69]

You can't even pass the rats at the beginning of the tutorial cause you cant get your hands on a weapon in time when playing on master, in Expert I was able to

[Urm the Mad]

Coming back to break the siege of Kvatch at level 18 and the castle courtyard being flooded with so many Daedroth and Spider Daedra that it was completely impossible to clear by myself, let alone the few guards that were left. I was shocked by just how many were there.

[NightLizard]

Originally posted by Delphinus:

Try playing in master difficulty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT13kk8HDDo

Try reading what i wrote

[NightLizard]

Originally posted by Urm the Mad:

Coming back to break the siege of Kvatch at level 18 and the castle courtyard being flooded with so many Daedroth and Spider Daedra that it was completely impossible to clear by myself, let alone the few guards that were left. I was shocked by just how many were there.

Poison my friend, but yes, doing kvatch at higher lvl is highly unwise due to the small area and big mob

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

Alchemy doesn't get downscaled by difficulty so using alchemy for poisons is like playing on adept, on a similiar vein weakness stacking stacks so quickly that again it brings enemies down to worse than adept level pretty fast. people say its hard because just using a sword is pretty weak in this game. you aren't actually "using" the sword you are either using its enchantment + weakness stacking or just using it as a really long syringe to poison people with your 100 doses of cyanide brew.

[Sgt. Flaw]

It's tough..in that it's restrictive. I see no point in mind maxing a build on my revisit to Cyrodiil..I'm checking out all the mechanics and spreading my character thin. Which means going Bowman lol

I've got a mean bow rn

[NightLizard]

Originally posted by Archaon The Never-Chosen:

Alchemy doesn't get downscaled by difficulty so using alchemy for poisons is like playing on adept, on a similiar vein weakness stacking stacks so quickly that again it brings enemies down to worse than adept level pretty fast. people say its hard because just using a sword is pretty weak in this game. you aren't actually "using" the sword you are either using its enchantment + weakness stacking or just using it as a really long syringe to poison people with your 100 doses of cyanide brew.

Therefore using ingame mechanics which automatically doesnt make the game hard.

Sneak at 100 bypass armor. I dont remember which of the schools of magicka is paralyze, but you can also use that to cheese enemies, blades at lvl 75 have bleeding stacks and weakness to normal weapon. Yet all of those loose to the alteration gimmick of reflect spell/reflect damage which is also alchemy or custom spell.

So all in all we have 4 different approaches to endgame not being hard.

Best example i can think of is, Sekiro you can literally destroy any boss after you learn the parry mechanic, so using the ingame mechanic and game design to your build roleplay shouldnt void the issue/topic.

Ican also think of races advantages such as Breton and mundane ring make you immune to any magic spell the enemy will throw at you, both the ring and breton are default & always drop in mainquest at lvl 22, somewhat Orc is strong too and argonian too(immunity to poison).

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

Originally posted by NightLizard:

Originally posted by Archaon The Never-Chosen:

Alchemy doesn't get downscaled by difficulty so using alchemy for poisons is like playing on adept, on a similiar vein weakness stacking stacks so quickly that again it brings enemies down to worse than adept level pretty fast. people say its hard because just using a sword is pretty weak in this game. you aren't actually "using" the sword you are either using its enchantment + weakness stacking or just using it as a really long syringe to poison people with your 100 doses of cyanide brew.

Therefore using ingame mechanics which automatically doesnt make the game hard.

Sneak at 100 bypass armor. I dont remember which of the schools of magicka is paralyze, but you can also use that to cheese enemies, blades at lvl 75 have bleeding stacks and weakness to normal weapon. Yet all of those loose to the alteration gimmick of reflect spell/reflect damage which is also alchemy or custom spell.

So all in all we have 4 different approaches to endgame not being hard.

Best example i can think of is, Sekiro you can literally destroy any boss after you learn the parry mechanic, so using the ingame mechanic and game design to your build roleplay shouldnt void the issue/topic.

Ican also think of races advantages such as Breton and mundane ring make you immune to any magic spell the enemy will throw at you, both the ring and breton are default & always drop in mainquest at lvl 22, somewhat Orc is strong too and argonian too(immunity to poison).

depends on what you mean by hard, the game does have some unlimited stacking issues or none issues depending on who you ask. but essentially the way to play game on harder difficulties comfortably is literally to make yourself 100% immune to damage or simply one shot people with math or mechanics you wouldn't understand unless you deep dived into it. people wouldn't understand weakness stacking without looking into game code,having prior knowledge or using the internet. it's not particular intuitive that having custom spells one with the exact same effects as another but a slightly different name would allow them to stack but the same spell wouldn't. it's also not intuitive to think that in the same game where physical resistance stops stacking at 85% elemental resistance or magic resistance does not. these aren't skill checks they are knowledge checks. you can't really enjoy the harder difficulties organically from the start, and adept is god awfully easy.

in a slightly different note, its worth noting that in Owlcat games (kingmaker,Wotr ect) their puzzles are considered difficult and none intuitive, and well they are right but the internet would still solve that problem instantly wouldn't it?.

you are a vet considering you mentioned morrowind, most people who complain about difficulty wouldn't of already mastered OG oblivion difficulty they will be newcomers or from skyrim. Skyrim a game where resistances also can't hit 100% and the stat stacking doesn't even go remotely as high and its easier to play master difficulty somewhat organically.

this aside i personally wish the player damage malus was toned down a bit maybe 0.7 damage dealt instead of 0.28 on expert, and leave master the way it is( for those hardcore OG fans and as a option to make boss fights very difficult). this would open up more strategies while not even necessarily making meta strategies weaker since they go through loopholes to avoid the damage malus. I personally like being threatened by enemy damage but not feel like hitting with a wet noodle because my 20 damage sword now does nearly 4 damage. it would also tone down the huge jump between adept and expert. a different part of this difficulty problem is a lot of these strategies to trivilize the game simply make it unfun, plenty of people grow bored after using 100% chamelion for example. it isn't interactive, it isn't interesting it isn't a way to design your difficulty. balancing.

[NightLizard]

Originally posted by Archaon The Never-Chosen:

Originally posted by NightLizard:

Therefore using ingame mechanics which automatically doesnt make the game hard.

Sneak at 100 bypass armor. I dont remember which of the schools of magicka is paralyze, but you can also use that to cheese enemies, blades at lvl 75 have bleeding stacks and weakness to normal weapon. Yet all of those loose to the alteration gimmick of reflect spell/reflect damage which is also alchemy or custom spell.

So all in all we have 4 different approaches to endgame not being hard.

Best example i can think of is, Sekiro you can literally destroy any boss after you learn the parry mechanic, so using the ingame mechanic and game design to your build roleplay shouldnt void the issue/topic.

Ican also think of races advantages such as Breton and mundane ring make you immune to any magic spell the enemy will throw at you, both the ring and breton are default & always drop in mainquest at lvl 22, somewhat Orc is strong too and argonian too(immunity to poison).

depends on what you mean by hard, the game does have some unlimited stacking issues or none issues depending on who you ask. but essentially the way to play game on harder difficulties comfortably is literally to make yourself 100% immune to damage or simply one shot people with math or mechanics you wouldn't understand unless you deep dived into it. people wouldn't understand weakness stacking without looking into game code,having prior knowledge or using the internet. it's not particular intuitive that having custom spells one with the exact same effects as another but a slightly different name would allow them to stack but the same spell wouldn't. it's also not intuitive to think that in the same game where physical resistance stops stacking at 85% elemental resistance or magic resistance does not. these aren't skill checks they are knowledge checks. you can't really enjoy the harder difficulties organically from the start, and adept is god awfully easy.

in a slightly different note, its worth noting that in Owlcat games (kingmaker,Wotr ect) their puzzles are considered difficult and none intuitive, and well they are right but the internet would still solve that problem instantly wouldn't it?.

you are a vet considering you mentioned morrowind, most people who complain about difficulty wouldn't of already mastered OG oblivion difficulty they will be newcomers or from skyrim. Skyrim a game where resistances also can't hit 100% and the stat stacking doesn't even go remotely as high and its easier to play master difficulty somewhat organically.

this aside i personally wish the player damage malus was toned down a bit maybe 0.7 damage dealt instead of 0.28 on expert, and leave master the way it is( for those hardcore OG fans and as a option to make boss fights very difficult). this would open up more strategies while not even necessarily making meta strategies weaker since they go through loopholes to avoid the damage malus. I personally like being threatened by enemy damage but not feel like hitting with a wet noodle because my 20 damage sword now does nearly 4 damage. it would also tone down the huge jump between adept and expert. a different part of this difficulty problem is a lot of these strategies to trivilize the game simply make it unfun, plenty of people grow bored after using 100% chamelion for example. it isn't interactive, it isn't interesting it isn't a way to design your difficulty. balancing.

Yeah i would agree with that, i find the skyrim legendary i think its 3-5 enemy vs my 0.5 damage okish, but skyrim i only suffered while i tried to play vampire, there vampire was really hard/bad no mana regen/health/stamina and get damaged. In another hand you have become ethereal which trivializes any poison effect or whatever.

In oblivion i feel an immense pain seeing my followers/companions dying, in my opinion it's worse than my character death for example.

But tbh i think people just dont want to bother themselves to learn a new mechanic and then complain about it. I did 100% of OG oblivion, did remaster today at gamepass, got it to do it again at steam but i'm thinking of another build, maybe a norse? I played with argonian. The poison immunity really shines, because i noticed a lot of enemies i killed used poisons which didnt worked on myself... so i was only really hurt by fire after i choose to become a vampire to spice things.

At the end of the day, the game is supposed to be fun, i think they give resources for you to be OP in a singleplayer game, i feel regretful of custom spells,attributes and etc being removed from elder scrolls to trivialize the experience we got in skyrim. The remaster itself they fixed what i think made the game bad, but they didnt included QoL features which in my opinion would be my first mods to download. Aka. Bulk craft/Fallout 4 loot system and etc etc. In another hand, oblivion is one of the few games i dont enjoy fast travelling.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

Originally posted by NightLizard:

Yeah i would agree with that, i find the skyrim legendary i think its 3-5 enemy vs my 0.5 damage okish, but skyrim i only suffered while i tried to play vampire, there vampire was really hard/bad no mana regen/health/stamina and get damaged. In another hand you have become ethereal which trivializes any poison effect or whatever.

In oblivion i feel an immense pain seeing my followers/companions dying, in my opinion it's worse than my character death for example.

But tbh i think people just dont want to bother themselves to learn a new mechanic and then complain about it. I did 100% of OG oblivion, did remaster today at gamepass, got it to do it again at steam but i'm thinking of another build, maybe a norse? I played with argonian. The poison immunity really shines, because i noticed a lot of enemies i killed used poisons which didnt worked on myself... so i was only really hurt by fire after i choose to become a vampire to spice things.

At the end of the day, the game is supposed to be fun, i think they give resources for you to be OP in a singleplayer game, i feel regretful of custom spells,attributes and etc being removed from elder scrolls to trivialize the experience we got in skyrim. The remaster itself they fixed what i think made the game bad, but they didnt included QoL features which in my opinion would be my first mods to download. Aka. Bulk craft/Fallout 4 loot system and etc etc. In another hand, oblivion is one of the few games i dont enjoy fast travelling.

yeah companions dying in oblivion sucks, esp named ones and i can never keep them alive on harder difficulties since enemies start ignoring you if you are too hard to kill.

in regards to not wanting to learn, I don't necessarily believe thats the issue. from what I gathered by anecdotally talking with people who have complaints is that they don't want to look things up or they don't want to do something that "feels" cheesy even if they understand it presumably to maintain their own enjoyment of the game. Sometimes they want to roleplay as a warrior with a large battle axe and on harder difficulties you get punished for that. hitting fast and poison/magic is really the only way to scale damage into harder difficulties in this game as I stated earlier. Physical damage got left behind because there isn't any scaling for it. even less scaling than before even. In OG oblivion you could increase melee damage by fortifying fatigue enchantments on your equipment and that still preserves the experience. apply constant poisons to your battleaxe can pull you out of it.

currently i've been doing a spellblade, and tbh I was never good at OG oblivion i ended up learning more OG oblivion mechanics researching stuff for the remaster to try to figure out my damage issues, since i wanted to at least swap to expert to have a more enjoyable experience but not doing damage was a issue I was having mechanically. but my build was literally unkillable on adept so i was stuck in a odd middle ground and in the past I used the difficulty slider that was removed to fine tone the experience.