Why Is Oblivion's Leveling System So Broken?

Leveling up in Oblivion makes you stronger, right? Unfortunately there isn't a simple answer to that question. Buckle up, this is going to be a wild ride.
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[@Prengle]

Oblivion's leveling isn't broken by modern standards. It's broken by any standard.

[@СтепанХудяков-у1д]

Yeah, the oblivion leveling system was greatly criticized and mocked back in the day as well. It's not some modern recognition of it's flaws,

[@shadowmystery5613]

@@СтепанХудяков-у1д Plot Twist: It's just a recycle of Morrowind Leveling hahaha

[@donutismz6760]

@@shadowmystery5613 Except Morrowind doesnt have level scaling, and as a result any character can recover and will become powerful. In Oblivion, basically any character not efficient leveling will get shat on

[@diddlenfiddle7311]

@@donutismz6760 Exactly. It amazes me that people like the idea of everything levelling up with the player. Take an rpg like mm6. When you've put a few hours in you go back to the starting area and just rip through everything, it really makes you feel your progress.

[@bohanxu6125]

​@@donutismz6760 level scaling is not fundamentally the problem... the problem is maximizing those +5 while minimizing the leveling of other skill not contributing those +5.

[@jennahinckley8216]

level 50 dragonborn: [kills alduin in 2 hits] level 50 hero of kvatch: [gets their ass beat by a skeleton]

[@hecc7906]

Skeletons are no joke bro

[@supergenius6256]

ever heard of them daggerfall skeletons? annoying and hardhitting

[@PotatoeGamerLP]

@@supergenius6256 I still have nightmares of those fuckers

[@supergenius6256]

@@PotatoeGamerLP lol

[@aagh8714]

@@supergenius6256 daggerfall skeletons arent that bad, the worst things were those fucking imps

[@Ronin11111111]

My end-game Oblivion character was nearly unkillable and by sheer miracle I managed to mostly stay on top of the damage curve, but every now and then I'd run into a goblin with like 10 billion health.

[@OneTrueNobody]

I fuckin' backpedeled across half of Cyrodiil trying to kill a goblin that was attacking a farm or some shit, because MY dumb ass leveled up too much by spamming Restoration magic and as a result the rest of the game had gotten disproportionately stronger as I gained no combat ability at all. >_>;;

[@AnimeVampire234]

currently on my first ever playthrough of oblivion and i accidently made my character into a wobbuffet, can just stand there and get slapped around as the enemies kill themselves because i was like... "ima stack all the spell reflect and damage reflect items i can get" and honestly... i don't regret it, it's absolutely hilarious.

[@stechuskaktus3577]

I didnt to Kvatch until i was lvl 30+ it was such a drag to clear the city everything had su much health....

[@theobell2002]

Goblin Warlords are the bane of my existence.

[@sergeyshablenko2393]

I used to summon skeleton and kill it with preffered weapon or magic near the exit from sewer, wait an hour if mp is out and repeat. Takes some time, but when I lvl up enough, I then go to Proxy Inn which is nearby (up the road) and kill everyone in it and take their equipment, usually it is an elven armour set or even glass, one guy has chameleon enchanted parts, and third one was mage or something like that

[@josephthomas8318]

Oblivion is the reason I still jump everywhere in modern open world games

[@ninjawafflezz5356]

The power of nostalgia grips us all somewhere along the line. I mean, who hasn't at least dozed off a little bit in their seat to that sweet series of serenades from Soule his self. Gah I've been feeling a play through coming on for some time now

[@HumanityAsCode]

Valheim has brought back my jumping habits

[@suzuhare3541]

Same but Skyrim

[@artemislogic5252]

hahahahaha

[@artemislogic5252]

@Focken Kiwi same for both

[@paulanderson3772]

I remember grinding dungeons before starting the main quest. The first oblivion gate looked like Doom Eternal.

[@jacobfreeman5444]

As maybe it should. Instead of happy fun land with imps and bipedal dinosaurs.

[@antiamenaza7372]

That ocassion when you look for the count of kvatch and you find a fucking draedroth or a thunder attronacht in his bedroom 😩

[@Tantrumsofha5bara]

A good way around this was to have conjuration in minor skills with one of those birth signs that give you decent magicka Or just have quest bound characters run around with you on separate quests Ally units levelled up just as much as the enemies and took the edge away from the broken stat differences

[@supergenius6256]

I knew a really good dungeon for healing and magicka potions in my playthrough

[@danielblakeley9110]

Brah I was in that shit on lol 1 sitting my pants like wtf why is this so hard

[@AndrewMyYouTubeThingsAndStuff]

I had played Morrowind before so when I first played Oblivion I did treadmill leveling stuff like running up to the top of the wall at the Blades HQ and jumping off and healing and repeating it over and over while watching tv and such. So then when I started traveling around eventually, oblivion gates were spawning all over the place but even worse were the constant bear attacks and eventually I saw a gate spawn and a bear started fighting the demons and won. You don't need to defend Cyrodil from the daedric invasion, bears will handle it.

[@Soundsofthewood]

The bears had one cheat attack that they would use in a rapid span. It was that lounge attack where it would also daze you at the same time. I died many times from that because they could keep doing it till you died. You had to either attack them from a distance or try to stay behind them. Trolls were another issue because they were like the fastest enemy in the game. You couldn't really outrun them.

[@nightterror6727]

Being a high level in Skyrim: I am a god, nobody can touch me. Being a high level in Oblivion: Mom come pick me up I'm scared.

[@acedarkblade1552]

Just be a battle mage or paladin 😎 Drain Health is the ultimate cheese

[@BlackRabbit223]

Oh no a game that was actually challenging....

[@moch.farisdzulfiqar6123]

High level in WoW: back to retail, noob! High level in KoA Reckoning: Why won't you die, damage sponge? High level in Gothic: pull a bully Maguaire moves. High level in VTMB: still stuntlocking every enemy.

[@dillonthevillon3719]

@@BlackRabbit223 oblivion challenging??? Lmao are we playing the same game

[@andrewgilbertson6534]

@@BlackRabbit223 There's a difference between challenging and bullshit. Dark Souls is challenging. Oblivion is bullshit.

[@bartudundar3193]

Enemy scaling in Oblivion is an absolute nightmare. I get that they did it so the challenge doesn't disappear but you barely feel like you're more powerful unless you use cheats or exploits, in which case you are the one god above all. I am walking around and this highwayman in part glass part daedra armor is trying to shake me down for a bunch of gold. Bruh, your equipment is expensive enough to buy a house wym you want 100 gold?

[@amd1273]

Lol

[@windebiesteultima3317]

That reminds me of when I reached a certain level (25 or 30 I think) and suddenly almost every bandit was clad in daedric armor or glass. It was ridiculous

[@VeeTwoPointOh]

Boots alone worth more than that 😂

[@nonamex6536]

Sounds like someone is jealous that those bandits have that Sheogorath drip.

[@contramachina354]

download my mod 'goons without glass'

[@HPD1171]

7:20 Wow, I actually remember playing this game back in the day with a spreadsheet where I kept track of every skill and planned on what skills to level up and in what sequence. Every time I leveled I would go back to the spreadsheet and compare and plan on the next level and repeat over and over and over and over.

[@Bronzescorpion]

Did the same. It was bonkers how much thought you could put into planing. Even such things as your potential max level. Luckily I am that type of gamer that likes planing, so it didn't take the fun out of the game for me.

[@cashewnuttel9054]

Are you an engineer now?

[@HPD1171]

@@Bronzescorpion yeah you should see how long it takes me to play a game of civilization.

[@peger]

hahahaha i do the same

[@_Dovar_]

It sounds really tedious, but knowing how good RPGs can be, especially those from the 2000s, the golden age of games, I assume the experience and the memories are worth it. As a kid, I had the luck of playing both KotOR games and the Gothic series, which are much easier in regard of leveling and character building.

[@kjifg34]

Oblivion was the reason I learned excell spreadsheets!

[@TheotherTempestfox]

Yeah, my first character got to level 50ish but was super weak because I didn't really understand the leveling system all that well which made the game annoyingly hard the first time around. Second time around was a lot better. I built a spreadsheet for the task and kept track of all my minor skill leveling so I always got the +5 attributes for the stats I wanted as well as selecting major skills that were easy to control (not things like acrobatics or Athletics that would passively level all the time). Also found some really good items on the second run which allowed me to stack reflect damage to 100% so I only had to worry about spell damage from that point, being atronach birth sign helped there.

[@Glassandcandy]

Wait, you didn’t learn it in school? I thought everyone was forced to learn excel that way. Most boring class I’ve ever taken

[@mikester4896]

@@TheotherTempestfox I remember playing it on the PS3 when I was a kid and struggling even though I was doing everything I thought the game wanted to me do with the leveling up. Wonder why it was so hard haha.

[@BestKCL]

@@Glassandcandy They tried to teach us a few times in different classes, but I failed miserably because I couldn't even give half-effort into trying to understand it.

[@erickolb8581]

XD

[@tijuanajoe8445]

I didn't even know that +5 was a thing...

[@spensershort5200]

Same

[@ieuanhunt552]

I knew about powerleveling basically since I first played. Don't even know what I learned it from. Probably my brother

[@therobotFrom94]

I thought the max was +3 for years

[@TheIrishRushin]

how? I level my bladed skill enough in the right order then strength is +5 at level 2.

[@nastrael]

You never tied a rubberband to your thumbstick and sneaked into a wall in town for 3 hours?

[@ashleyneku5432]

The saddest part about Oblivion's leveling system is that even though I know it's awful and unbalanced, my brain still tricks me into thinking if I jump back into Oblivion and make a new character with the correct (class-wise) major skills, somehow I can outpace the NPCs and still be an effective force in combat, and it works...until like, level 8 or 9, and then reality sets in and I realize Oblivion is best played with a calculator and not a dreamcatcher.

[@pinnacleexpress420]

pen and paper, not a calculator.

[@abhabh6896]

Play a summoner.

[@heloxiii8894]

Come on oblivion is not that hard

[@Quintin4407]

@@heloxiii8894reading these comments blows my mind, I beat this game back in 2006 without fully understanding the systems on my first play through. Now as an adult I can 2-3 shot everything (100% weakness to magic/shock, then a shock attack or enchanted weapon)

[@TheShark447]

You forgot to mention the fact that monster health pools become absolutely rediculous at higher levels too (although your clips showcased this issue quite well). Even as a properly leveled character, all enemies are extremely tedious to kill unless you use other exploits like enchanting

[@christopherhall5361]

poisons and spellcrafting, make a poison that does damage AND gives weakness to poison. same with spells, the least encountered magic resistance is shock, so make a spell that does shock damage and weakness to shock 100% for the same duration.

[@creativename6126]

Everything has a million health from the beginning of the game

[@MaMastoast]

@@creativename6126 It does get a lot worse as you level up though. End game monsters take lie 100 regular attacks where as early monsters take maybe 5-10

[@Travybear1989]

@@MaMastoast The only way to really combat this issue is to efficiently level or install a leveling mod as well as one that removes leveled gear from bandits and in-turn buffs them +10 plvl balancing everything out.

[@MaMastoast]

@@Travybear1989 Absolutely. I'd never play Oblivion without a leveling overhaul mod.

[@darkeninjx5619]

I hate how every single bandit shows up with glass armor and daedric weapons when you're high level, like wtf? Isn't that supposed to be extremely expensive? Why are you even a bandit? I made a small mod that removes anything better than steel and leather armors and silver weapons from bandits and marauder's leveled lists.

[@arnox4554]

If you're gonna do that, you might as well just download Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to delevel this shite.

[@darkeninjx5619]

@@arnox4554 I tried it and I didn't like it, that's why I just made a few changes myself.

[@arnox4554]

@@darkeninjx5619 Why didn't you like it?

[@nikolasferreira3247]

@@darkeninjx5619 try maskar's oblivion overhaul + dinamic combat

[@darkeninjx5619]

@@nikolasferreira3247 I'll keep it in mind for when I start a new playthrough, just really burned out on Elder Scrolls right now.

[@nowhereweareagain]

Another fun fact about the leveling in this game is that skills like armor and blunt don't scale with difficulty. That is, the amount of hits needed to level up is the same no matter what difficulty you're on. This means that on low difficulties your armor stat levels up faster than your other combat stats becuase you can take more hits. Turn up the difficulty and you'll have to hit more to kill things, which will cause that stat to level up faster. It's a truly bonkers system.

[@anonymousbloke1]

Had an aneurysm reading that. I may be slightly tipsy but it was still extremely hard to get the gist of it. May I ask for a tl;dr for square brain lads such as yours truly?

[@anonymousbloke1]

Oh nevermind I think I got it.

[@nowhereweareagain]

@Cyberkot basically the system levels up the skill based on number of hits, so doing/taking more damage actually means you level up slower.

[@EphiTV]

Attack/defense skills give flat exp per hit, damage doesn't matter. Since you attack more/less on different difficulties, the skill levels get imbalanced easily.

[@fulvio3211]

So that's why they changed it in Skyrim so it's based of how much damage you do. Example: an enemy has 100 hp, in novice mode you oneshot it, on legendary you require 10 hits. In both difficulties you get the same exp because you did 100 damage in both cases.

[@boiledelephant]

The real evil of it was that this problem only becomes evident after about 50-80 hours of play, and most journalists played it for about 8 hours to review it.

[@jimbo8581]

For me it becomes evident after like 10-20 hours

[@cangrejopendejo4909]

@@jimbo8581 Same. I got to level 18, and it took me 20 of the best fireball spell I could throw to kill a bandit archer. Haven't played since.

[@firehedgehog1446]

You're implying that journalists even bother to play it for more than a 5 minutes which is entirely unrealistic Everyone knows journalists will give up after 5 minutes due to their own incompetence at the most basic of aspects before giving the game a negative review & saying it's "too hard" or "It's the Dark Souls of (Insert game genre here)"

[@theirishviking9278]

@@firehedgehog1446 difference is this is back in 2006 when they were still game journalists, not just journalists

[@erisesoteric7571]

@@firehedgehog1446 Do you have an example of that happening?

[@brandonfrancis1941]

"How the game plays is central to the experience and everything else is just icing." Too many people seem to forget this. I see soo many praises for the graphics or the shiny new systems at play in new games meanwhile it's all so boring to interact with. Go ahead make a game. Make a bad game even. Make a fucking terrible one. Just don't make it boring. Don't get me wrong. Innovation is not bad. It should continue. It must continue. Just don't forget it needs to be fun.

[@NightwinSeraph]

Considering I can still play GBA graphic level titles and utterly love them. IMO.. Graphics are generally the least important aspect XD

[@stug6974]

@@NightwinSeraph tbf it's an art style that aged really well. I'll take GBA era sprite work over early 3D models any day of the week.

[@mrlightningbolt887]

And not only is Oblivion itself a fun game, it’s brokenness actually makes it better in my opinion. I always have a good laugh when some random npc gets stuck walking in a wall.

[@rmbwemanplays5567]

@@mrlightningbolt887 yeah until you need them for a quest and can’t talk to them lol

[@neoqwerty]

@@rmbwemanplays5567 that's what the console is for (and if you play on anything but PC your game will die at 100 hours/200 hours/400 hours anyway thanks to the a-bomb bug bethesda never fixed, just delayed, so PC or not getting attached to your saves it is)

[@IAmMadMattDog]

loved how Endurance isnt retroactive so if you didnt max it out early you missed out on a big chunk of hp depending how long you waited to max it, none of the other attributes act like this either

[@EphiTV]

It's interesting cause this is based on old D&D rules, but even much older D&D games (like Planescape) retroactively give you the missing hp.

[@mumblerogre2455]

You know you love a game when you can identify holes in its quality and still enjoy it for years and years

[@thatsneakyneenja2595]

_"You sleep rather soundly for a murderer"_ - Lucian Lachance in literally every single playthrough.

[@mumblerogre2455]

@@thatsneakyneenja2595 Me: Makes a warrior Water’s Edge: *Sweats nervously*

[@Queue3612]

well i mean with elder scrolls sometimes the holes make the quality

[@yimello6267]

@@Queue3612 they at least add a certain charm for sure

[@horserage]

If modded*

[@lendrigangames]

My experience with Oblivion goes hand-in-hand with the Leveling Problem. - Play mage - Specialize in conjuring - Slowly climb skills - Finally become master conjurer - Learn Summon Dremora Lord - Sic dremora lord on bandits - Dremora lord gets wrecked by 2 basic bandits - Uninstalled game then and there and have not played since

[@wade2112]

My dad got screwed. He followed the efficient leveling guide and once he had 96-100 in all but 2 skills, he couldn't level up at all. Punished for playing the intentional way

[@JesusCheeseburger]

@@wade2112 If you go to jail, your skills decrease and let you keep leveling

[@wade2112]

@@JesusCheeseburger yes but you can't level up if you don't have 3 attributes to increase

[@Chareidos]

Oblivion is actually not a good game. Between Morrowind and Skyrim it fails at both things, in which both games had been better, by watering down the complexity and details of Morrowind and not reaching decent grafic or animations like in Skyrim.

[@wade2112]

@@Chareidos idk, I prefer oblivion to skyrim in some ways. Mostly cuz spells in skyrim are dogshit compared to oblivion

[@patrickholston7090]

Oblivion having a broken leveling system is one of the things it’s most famous for, and understanding exactly how that works is really interesting! I always tried to make custom classes to suit my play style more and then ended up making the game basically unplayable. Great video!

[@frokopop]

What I love about Oblivion is that for every broken system that stacks the difficulty against the player, there's another broken system that works in the player's favour. When I was a kid playing for the first time, I remember getting pretty frustrated with how hard the combat started to get in the later parts of the game. Then I figured out that you can enchant 5 pieces of apparel with 20% chameleon each. Enemies can never detect you, plus you get the sneak attack multiplier on every hit. I never ended up adjusting the difficulty, I just went invisible and cheesed everything whenever things got too hard.

[@SwanTeeth]

I got super lucky and got the mundane ring on a Breton character, and and several pieces of equipment with reflect damage. So my character is essentially unkillable

[@Sanguivore]

I did the exact same thing. xD

[@robertharris6092]

Morrowind is literaly this dialed up too 11. Everything is broken and is meant to be. You can literaly jump from one side of the map to the other in one jump if you want.

[@Daedric16]

@Synth Oriole yeah. Just maxing to 100 won’t do this. The broken thing in morrowind comes from the fact you can use potions to fortify your alchemy, then make more potions to increase it further on loop to relatively unlimited before crashing the game. At this point you can create a potion to fortify enchanting and then make a completely ludicrous enchantment to speed, strength, etc. so you get ridiculous permanent enchants or temporary fortifications via potions.

[@ckopen7192]

@@robertharris6092 that just sounds like an average oblivion playthrough after unlocking spellcrafting alter

[@georgefabars7218]

I recently discovered the Oblivion XP mod and I'd totally recommend it. Though it does *COMPLETELY* change how leveling works so it may not be everyone's cup of tea. Basically, it makes the leveling system more like that of Fallout 3. You gain xp through discovering locations, completing quests, killing enemies, etc. Once you have enough xp to level up, you're given a set amount of points that you then add to your attributes and skills. It's super customizable and it has made leveling actually something I look forward to.

[@EphiTV]

Yeah, Oblivion XP and Realistic Leveling are both pretty good overhauls for the leveling system. +5 mods are a little closer to vanilla but not quite as streamlined. I tend to recommend the overhauls for anyone who's played the game previously though.

[@darienb1127]

If I ever play Oblivion, i'll have to use it. Because my god does this look like a headache. There's making level ups need more thought... and then there's pulling a Shadowrun. Also, do you have the name of the mod you use?

[@kristijanceple6026]

Ive played both skyrim, fo3. fonv, and morrowind, and enjoyed the games. Started playing oblivion to fill in the hole, and oh boy it is fucked. I will be using the XP mod for sure, fighting daedric goblins and bandits just doesnt make sense... I understand they want to keep some challenge, but that should've been done in a balanced manner, their idea and way of execution is just ridiculous

[@JakeKoenig]

Instructions unclear. Turned my PS3 into a toaster oven

[@Emoconnors]

As an aside: Morrowind has literally the exact same system of levelling, but since Morrowind is way more sparing with using scaled monsters the potential of falling behind scaled enemies is way less debilitating

[@seawind930]

Plus you can exploit things to the point you can go god mode. Stacking effects and enchanting becomes ridiculous.

[@frogradar]

​@@seawind930 but it's funny in terms of Morrowind because it works for a lore sense. Becoming the Neravarine and challenging the 4 people who scrwed you over by 3rd eye'ing nirn itself

[@Mateumt]

@person person There are a few enemies that don't spawn in the wilderness until you are a certain level eg. Golden saints, but most locations and dungeons are static.

[@rustyjones7908]

Also more skills made it harder to lock yourself out of +5 stat gains

[@GayLPer]

@@rustyjones7908 And also the fact that your bonuses aren't locked in the moment you get your 10th major skill gain.

[@microsoul669]

I did the efficient leveling all the way through once and it was tedious as hell.

[@Koalavater]

I made it to level 10 and had to stop playing for a year because I was so annoyed with the process.

[@larrydavinci2844]

You legend!

[@slayking2378]

I only ever noticed it after my 3rd play through I noticed by waiting to go to kvatch late in the game it makes the spider deadra common when saving kvatch. And all my friendly kvatch guards couldn’t survive lol. It really isn’t a big deal. I noticed it as a 8th grader and never touched the difficulty slider just buy more potions if you made a shiter character

[@alw2839]

Doing the same now, took a break ofc.

[@stonefight6771]

@Charles Pendragon Morrowind is at least tolerable since areas are designated by level instead of scaling and also you can intentionally go to prison to lower stats in order to squeeze in more levels to compensate for inefficient leveling.

[@LordTyrus]

Oblivion did indeed have a huge influence on all the singleplayer-rpgs to come. What i find interresting is that the lord of the rings movies had a huge influence on the looks of oblivion: Elven architecture on the ayleid ruins, mordor on the planes of oblivion etc.

[@JGCO115]

Pretty sure it was the opposite oblivion was inspired by The LOTR movies aesthetically since the movies came before and oblivion came out in 2006

[@cookieface80]

@@JGCO115 That's what he said.

[@alexsampsonite2176]

the way that skill leveling affects the stat leveling is the one thing that really puts me off returning to this game

[@Bourikii2992]

That's literally the best part. Stop trying to be an everybody God in a RPG.

[@wade2112]

@@Bourikii2992 You don't even understand. My dad efficiently leveled until he was maxed (96-100) in all attributes except 2. The game just stopped letting him level up LOL. Don't even try to defend this shitter game, sure it's better than Skyrim but you literally can't level up after leveling efficiently

[@Bourikii2992]

@@wade2112 That's a lie. You don't stop leveling till all attributes are at 100. Efficiently leveling only gives you the max bonus to attributes when leveling.

[@wade2112]

@@Bourikii2992 well I might have been wrong about 96-100 but you still hit a wall with leveling

[@sertdemir7138]

@@wade2112 yes there is level cap but it's all about (again) how we built our character. It is originally not possible to level up if your all majors 100 level. The only thing you can do is go jail and decrease your major skills. It is another thing breaks gameplay.

[@UmamiPapi]

To efficiently level I would first have to understand the leveling system. This video is the closest I have ever come to that.

[@FelixRaycher]

Mortismal Gaming also covered it up in his review.

[@GrimGalore]

I wanna play Oblivion... But I never went to college.

[@radicalcentrist4990]

Have you at least been in the chess club?

[@Virtualnerd101]

@@radicalcentrist4990 ;)

[@Virtualnerd101]

Lol, that's how I feel about Grand Strategy games.

[@thecteam4395]

My biggest problem with Oblivion was I never felt like I was getting stronger. Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Skyrim got that right. It's remarkable how goblins become damage sponges, worse than ogres.

[@goranpersson7726]

ngl I have only played morrowind,skyrim and oblivion. I can safely say that the only game I felt that I was getting stronger in was morrowind, that I leveled up got better gear and the same enemies didnt just somehow become millionaires and kick my ass. in oblivion I felt like I was getting smarter about it, I was pretty young and didnt really have internet so I played thought it was a bit too easy and raised the difficulity and went on to continue the game and when i inevitably started to have some issues with the enemies becoming to strong because I probably had a slightly less than optimal leveling strat I started to find other ways around how to fight and utilized sneak attacks, poison timing the blocks better conserving potions for more optimal amount of health regain n stuff like that. didnt really have any issue with the game. skyrim however that I had issues with and still do. I never felt like I was getting stronger at all mainly because while the gear enemies used got better and they were of slightly better variants it was still too easy. played it through on legendary a few times and the difficulity of quests never felt higher than the starting tutorial, there was next to no reason to play it again because with one character you could do everything in the game (minor exceptions like the dark brotherhood alternative). slight tangent but yeah I had some issue with how I never felt like i was getting stronger in skyrim because you start out pretty damn strong already, the most useful shouts you were pretty much handed on a silver plater right at the start of the game,you werent really gonna meet some enemy that was too high level for you at any point because they are scaled towards you so if you were weaker they were weaker and depending on playstyle you could pretty much craft the best gear in the game way too early

[@LtCommanderTato]

​@@goranpersson7726 The soultion for Skyrim is stay at adept. But you have to take other choices with it. The game was meant to be played at adept, higher difficulties make the game a chore instead of more difficult also it breaks the pacing of npc battles because the reduced damage gets across the entire world instead of just you. Well the solution: - Adept. - No grindstone improvement of weapon-armor, enemies never get improved gear so you shouldnt have access to that. - Bare minimum perks on onehaded, twohanded, marksman to access some special abilities (behead, bow zoom, etc), only one point for example on armsman to access the perk tree, going over 1/5 character does too much damage for that difficulty. - Armor same logic, bare minimum and i would recommend skipping custom fit so you dont get armor rating that high. 200-250 AR is more than enough for endgame armor types. For lore and inmersion i would also skip the perk who make you weight zero and remove the movement penalty. - limit your healthpool depending of the class you plan to build: if you plan to be a barbarian you go 500hp, knight 450hp, paladin 400hp, assasin-hunter 250hp, mage 200hp, necromancer 100hp. - equipment health boost enchants are banned, the only exception are unique items like Amulet of Arkay, etc. - destruction tree have some limits, you are allowed to only boost ocnce the element if you plan to get the turn to ash perk, etc. - chaos enchanted weapon from the regular pool are forbidden. If you wanna use chaos enchant you have to make one with a max magnitude of 15 so instead of doing 30/30/30=90, you roll instead for a max of 45 damage if 3 activate. - for regular elements if you wanna use dual enchant the magnitude gets halved so insead of only one fire doing 30 damage now it becomes 15 and the other 15 can be anything minus chaos of course. - shield charge is ridiculous and is banned, fun at first but breaks the game. - if you go nercromage perk route, never get the dual wielding boosting perks. It gets ridiculous. I would save that necromage perk for actual necromages, so you can go in sunlight to even lower health than 100. - Take the roles somewhat serious, if you go necro you go alone and your only company are most the time strong summons, if you make a death knight you are physically strong so you dont need endgame summons, some mid level or low level are more than enough. If you are assasin you go alone, if you are barbarian you can go with some follower, recommender archer. same as knight. If you are a mage is recommended to have a tanky follower or rely on strong atronachs. This paragraph is more personal but keeping it balanced avoid spoiling the experience. - with these limits imposed before now food, potions become very useful and is nice to run aroud with a decent stock of them for difficult times. If you are paladin you dont need pots.

[@thesuperginge1348]

On my very first playthrough, I left the difficulty as default straight in the middle, and I mostly levelled due to jumping around, sneaking and healing, so I quickly fell victim to the rising difficulty! And I never adjusted the slider so just had to cheese combat by backpedaling with a bow and jumping on top of high rocks (as my jump was so ridiculously high!)

[@valdurion6779]

Same. Also kept restarting the game around 30-40% because the hp sponge enemies was a joke and impossible.

[@flahautjj]

If you're trying to do efficient leveling the "tdt" console command is a lifesaver, shows you how many skillups you had for a certain attribute so that you don't have to keep track of it in your head

[@YTaddict1234567890]

Duuuuude, now all makes sense. This is exactly why I stopped playing Oblivion. I was tired of getting killed all the time because of overpower enemies and I felt like leveling up wasn't helping at all. Saddly I never could end this game. Thanks for explaining this huge problem.

[@ryouskye]

I barely beat the game, but I chose the strategy of just running past everything in the portals because it got so boring and grindy to fight them, especially since there were so many gates. I liked skyrims dragons more

[@MaMastoast]

Only proper way to play oblviion is by removing the level scaling entirely with a mod ^^..

[@ultraexcalibur1728]

Tbh I had it on the lowest difficulty that's how I beat the Main Quest.

[@smtandearthboundsuck8400]

You could have just swallowed your pride and lowered the difficulty lol. Bethesda games are not played for their difficulty anyways, they’re all horribly balanced and Oblivion is the worst at it.

[@ayrtonjoga]

@@smtandearthboundsuck8400 Call me blind, but I didn't even knew that difficulty bar existed and played a big roll Also, Oblivion is often called one of the best RPGs ever, so how could I guess it had a broken leveling system like this?

[@pluhformybruh]

The reason I kept decreasing my difficulty, especially in oblivion gates, is because of staggering. It's so broken in this game and you can't do anything other than punch once and step back, which takes ages for enemies that have a lot of health.

[@TheRealZuia]

Agility decreases staggering chance, the higher your Agility the lower chance you'll stagger.

[@Mikhail404]

Same man I broke when I took 5 hits without being able to move

[@Ghost-gp6ct]

My main issue with oblivion gates is that it can get quite boring, since most of it are all just the same.

[@jimithi5543]

I recommended my friend notch the difficulty down 1 tick every time he leveled. Seemed like a simple solution.

[@Maxxon89]

Or just decrease it by 10-15 times when you encounter some tough slaughterfishes.

[@Bourikii2992]

Or level your character properly and take advantage of enchants/tower orbs.

[@Maxxon89]

@@Bourikii2992 You mean, constant melee combat with increasing strength and endurance? Not an option, if someone prefer to play stealthy. Enchanting items is always useful, though, i agree.

[@Bourikii2992]

@@Maxxon89 My very first oblivion character was a stealthy character. I don't recall turning the game down from normal difficulty once. I was 12 at the time. Stealth is probably the best ways to play in the game. Even with only 15 damage your stealth hits with a dagger so 6x I'm pretty sure.

[@VasiliyOgniov]

@@Bourikii2992 dude "normal" is not highest difficulty, you know?

[@GriffinatorOriginal]

Know what’s awesome? I got every achievement in oblivion when I was 16. Never broke level 13. Now I’m replaying it at level 20 and im seeing equipment and quests I never knew existed 14 years later. I’m 30 now and finding new things in an old game I played half my life ago. Kinda cool.

[@FirstLast-gk6lg]

Yes! I am 33 and just the last time I played found all sort so new things. Did you know there is a secret vendor hiding outside the imperial city wall who sells poisons and such? God I love Oblivion

[@glowcloudwheatproducts495]

The fact he didn't even mention the glacial pace at which skills like restoration, destruction, and mercantile level tho. I remember back in the day trying to play tanky heavy armor restoration build and I literally couldn't get restoration past level 30 without cheesing the game.

[@houjouin8819]

For me marksmanship was the worst, by far. It took me something like 20k arrow into shadowmare's butt to get it to level 100

[@glowcloudwheatproducts495]

@@houjouin8819 lol I've never done a marksman build. I guess you can't even tape down the button for that, which is worse in its own way

[@houjouin8819]

@@glowcloudwheatproducts495 yeah, i just connected my Xbox controller to pc and watched some movie. Worst things with oblivion was that it didn't count how much damage you death with weapon, just repetition lol

[@houjouin8819]

@DekkyTheAwesome holy fuck, that is rough xD

[@glowcloudwheatproducts495]

@DekkyTheAwesome i think you only need like 2 -3 hours to level up a magic skill. Its prob best to just leave it on while you eat or something. I also like only doing it in chunks (maybe like 20 levels at a time) to make my progression seem a bit more natural.

[@VeeTwoPointOh]

Staying level one is a hilarious idea for a play through

[@capuchinhelper]

The biggest problem is Endurance determines your health increase every level, anyone playing a non-warrior build or one of the physically weaker races is at a massive disadvantage.

[@SuperFunkmachine]

And it not retrospective so you must max Endurance as soon as you can.

[@larrydavinci2844]

I mean, it makes sense that a mage or a thief would be more squishy than a warrior

[@DigitalApex]

@@larrydavinci2844 It wouldn't be so bad if most enemies didn't stun lock your character, especially if you're fighting multiple. Mages, thiefs, and the like will consistently get 3 shot by a troll or a clanfear anything past level 20 unless you're using health enchantments on gear. God forbid that you run into bandits with Daedric gear and enchanted weapons. The game almost requires you to efficiently level or basically abuse game mechanics.

[@HallyVee]

Not even close. The idea is that you play to your strengths. Didn't level HP? Maybe use Shield or don't get hit. Kinda how it's supposed to work?

[@coriandercastor9453]

This is one of the things I don't like about Skyrim. In every other main title, your character always increases in health, but in Skyrim, it's a choice. Of course, in Arena and Daggerfall, the effects of endurance are relatively minor.

[@frihff]

I remember way back being too caught up on efficient leveling - and back then I also couldn't do mods as well because I was on console. I basically came to the result of ''The only thing i'm going to perfect level in endurance to 100 first to make the most out of health gains in the early levels, i'll get 100 in the other skills I want later'' Saved me many headaches

[@ajlaguna7880]

I remember cheesing skellys , SKELLYS. I fought literal demons with ease, why bones so. stronk

[@gumball1872354345]

milk

[@ventexovakon2178]

Because in skyrim they all drink nasty shit. In cyrodill, they drink milk and such for cow's are more plentiful and mill is accepted. Thus, strong bones.

[@IAmCaligvla]

... Knowing about the whole 15 points thing at level up sure would've helped me enjoy the game way more back in the day.

[@EphiTV]

It is pretty odd that it affects so much of the game but is never explained to the player.

[@IAmCaligvla]

@@EphiTV That's Bethesda game design for you.

[@KpK1Cioby]

@@EphiTV I think I recall even in Oblivion cause in Morrowind it was even less explained cause back then we weren't all morons, it was slightly explained that every skill is governed by an attribute and to level up you need to level those skills you chose. It doesn't take 1+1 = 2 to realize that it does in fact affect your number of points for each level. But hey if most of us realized how to do this in Morrowind back when I had to download from school, pages from the wiki so I can search for legendary and unique items, I'm sure all you brainy skilled players could figure it out now that the whole game is explained online.

[@superubergoober]

@@KpK1Cioby you couldve just wrote one sentence saying you were a dick

[@ChompDude]

As someone who likes keeping as many NPCs alive as possible, Kvatch was an absolute nightmare because of the leveling system. Literally had to delevel my character at that point.

[@KitsuneYojimbo]

For me it was the battle of Bruma. Considering how many times my character nearly died in the Great Gate because I was more busy trying to rush through it because I only had 15 minutes to get to the Sigil Stone, I was like "fuck it, I'll only fight what I have to."

[@yobro6053]

That kvatch level felt so lonely when they (npc) start dying

[@forestfrog141]

Lol same here. I still insist on playing the Kvatch mission first as that is when I'm strongest relative to the enemies.

[@Ninjasfollowingme]

Efficiently levelling isn't too bad once you have enough money to start aggressively seeking the help of trainers.

[@EpicPrawn]

Yeah it's like the first 5-10 levels while you're struggling to not get too many levels in athletics, then you get a decent amount of gold to blow on skill trainers.

[@buca9696]

Glitches man, otherwise it's garbage.

[@lordvenusianbroon]

@@EpicPrawn Exactly. But then I efficient levelled to max stats and 100% completion of the game - and friggin' enjoyed most of the process! As you said, once you've got past the initial levels it becomes much, much easier to control your levelling, assuming you've made the correct choices for major skills. (Memories of not running or jumping at level 2 to avoid getting levels in acrobatics or athletics ;-) ) My worst memory of completing was finishing off the final oblivion gates - 60 of them in total, but at level 45 or so I was at 100% chameleon so it just became a bit of a chore sneaking up dozens of very similar towers and being invincible. Anyway, I've done it now and I've just got the good memories left.

[@theturts9626]

As someone who’s put hours into oblivion and is thinking about replaying it, I think I speak for everyone when I ask: what the fuck

[@mrchrome3476]

Speak for your self.

[@StarshadowMelody]

yeah try that same comment but days.

[@maltheri9833]

@@mrchrome3476 You understood this when you first realized there's a huge knowledge gap on how to level?

[@mrchrome3476]

@@maltheri9833 I think your a bit late to this thread.

[@travisclark7286]

@@mrchrome3476 w H aT a b o u t m e? ?

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

I remember hitting someone who casted a "reflect" spell and watching my health meter reach zero - it took a while, my health was crazy high.

[@romajimamulo]

3:00 Okay so... They have a whole system built around increasing difficulty when you get stronger, but instead of using that with the difficulty slider, they... Modify damage only

[@Jazzcat135]

A solution I can't believe they never used was to allow excess attribute points to carry over levels. That means you could level minor skills guilt free as you would have those attributes in the bank waiting for your next level up. Another problem I had was that artifacts would stay under levelled if you got them too early. So if you got the Escutcheon of Chorrol at level 10 you were stuck with an above average Dwarven shield that would have been the best shield in the game if you just waited till level 25. The artifact system actively discouraged players from doing quests untill level 25.

[@HeroSword_P]

There's a mod to fix that too lol

[@Jazzcat135]

@@HeroSword_P I found those two mods essential for any replay!

[@HallyVee]

Sure... unless you value artifacts when you get them instead of some theoretical final form? How is that an issue except for extremely rare max playthroughs?

[@tadferd4340]

@@HallyVee Because you very quickly replace this item given to you by a god.

[@HallyVee]

@@tadferd4340 oh boy. If that bothers you don't investigate the rest of the game!

[@Lin117]

I remember playing Oblivion as a teenager way back when the game first came out, and it was the game singularly responsible for introducing me to the modding community. All of Bethesda's games can be significantly improved with the use of mods, but Oblivion was the only game ever in the series I considered "unplayable" without modding, and its horrific leveling system was the sole reason.

[@zachabel805]

My solution to the level scaling system problem when I first played as a mage: Level your alteration skills , spellcraft the most broken paralyze spell and speedrun most of the dungeons (if the quest doesn't envolve killing anyone of course). Unrelated but I'm rlly curious if you can do a max difficult run in Oblivion

[@captainnyet9855]

consider fatigue spells.

[@Awesomeisme7000]

Oblivion's leveling is exactly why I feel need to use Oscuros leveling mod every playthrough.

[@actionbash2]

I played this game when I was 8 years old and completed the game, all of it's side content including the unmarked quests, and dlc with no issues whatsoever. This is the game where you can literally enchant your equipment to make you permanently invisible, create a spell that shoots an instant kill cloud of death the width of your mom (*licks finger and puts on ass while hissing tsss*), or jump high enough to scale the imperial city walls. There is no reason anyone should struggle with leveling difficulty barring someone playing a challenge run where they can't do X.

[@123UlquiorraIsMe1]

8 years old? Press X to doubt lmao

[@actionbash2]

@@123UlquiorraIsMe1 Was born 1998 champ. You should check the release date.

[@noneofyourbuisness2539]

@@123UlquiorraIsMe1 the game is really not that hard. People are making it out to be a much bigger problem than it really is.

[@Poldovico]

I used to use natural leveling. Leveling skills just increased your attributes, and the level was calculated from the attribute increases. No faffing around with menus, you just got better at the things you were doing.

[@Forlorn-kg7zm]

It's weird because the SAME system worked just fine in Morrowind because they'd let you train indefinitely if you had the gold.

[@n1kl051]

Morrowind has 2 very big advantages in this regard. Firstly a lot of things were of set level, not scaling with you, and if they did you'd be generally much stronger later on. And secondly you can "overtrain" (have e.g. 15/10 in level up progress tab) but you could go ahead and train any skill to get +5-5-5/1 (1 if luck) for that level

[@lunar_proxy]

when you start, have high difficulty. go down as you level up. morrowinds leveling system achieved.

[@xShadowbane451]

This is so true! Unless you cheese it from the start like some people. lol

[@Auron3991]

There is another way to slightly mitigate leveling pain: lean extremely hard into major skills at character creation. It actually reduces max level to a point where things can still be managed while still reaching 100 in your most relevant stats. But Oblivion had other interesting design choices. For example, the fact that boosting stamina directly increased damage, and was the only way to increase weapon damage after you reach 100 in the relevant attribute and skill.

[@peterrabb7288]

And vampirism. Never forget vampirism. IIRC in vanilla, it was the only way to raise stats above 100.

[@Izthefaithful]

Could you elaborate a lil more I’m interested about power leveling the major skills ?

[@Auron3991]

@@Izthefaithful Assuming no other boosts from character creation (and ignoring certain gameplay events), maximum character is 53, well beyond where gear is maxed out and far past the point where boosts from stats and skills matter. However, class specialization and race choice both give skill bonuses at character creation, which can drop this into the forties. For examples, a Nord warrior maxes at 46, Altmer mages max at 45, and Bosmer theives can max as low as 43 (assuming the Skeleton key is obtained). Since gear maxes out at 35, and most characters have a major skill or two they don't really use (I know I always have at least one), it brings the finishing character level well within reasonable range for endgame scaling. Combine with the right mixture of signs and favored attributes, and your important attributes may only need 35-40 points to max out (easily obtained over 35 levels). It doesn't completely remove the problem, but it does mitigate the worst part of it. I ran a Nord warrior to about level 18 before I began feeling the level drag, and I wasn't taking full advantage of the magic stones.

[@Izthefaithful]

@@Auron3991 thanks for the reply! You never know if anyone will get back to you or not! Have a great weekend 😀

[@lemeres2478]

0:05 I dunno. Modern standards include massive day one patches. Even by bethesda standards, this is fairing better than fallout 76.

[@spinnyboi6700]

i never even knew a problem with the leveling system like this even existed until now because i always thought i would eventually hit a level cap where i would max out all my major skills and be left unable to level up without maxing out all my attributes, so on every serious playthrough i would use the trainer in battlehorn castle to level up minor skills whos attributes overlapped with those of my major skills as well as those that didnt so i could level up as efficiently as possible each level so i unknowingly circumvented the level scaling problem while worried about a completely different issue

[@HallyVee]

In other words you used obvious in your face game mechanics to play normally and everything worked? Almost as if that was intentional...

[@Glare108]

Excellent video, I never understood why it was so damn difficult playing on normal all those years ago, but now I do, and I will definitely download that mod for a more enjoyable experience! Thank you!

[@jackyson9923]

When I first started playing oblivion, I had no idea the difficulty slider was there and left the game on the middle normal difficulty all the way through. I learned over my first 10 levels how leveling seemed to work and started a new character while somewhat tracking my stat ups.

[@silverwolf1983]

My other issue is that adventuring was too expensive: repairing my equipment and buying hammers were more expensive than what I got from selling dungeon loots. I had a similar money problem in other games

[@amd1273]

Making money should be easy in oblivion. I'd make a fortune going into oblivion gates and looting corpses, tons of daedra equipment. Just carry what you can before your over encumbered, leave the gates, go to a vendor with Max never ending money, usually 1200 was the max. Then go back into the gates and keep doing that until the gates is closed. It's tedious but you shouldn't have any problems with money

[@GaymerTran]

"the best solution is to just download a mod" Me, a console player: [cries in the corner]

[@dansharp2860]

You just gave me shivers remembering that I had to switch the language of my PS3 to German just to cure my vampirism. For some reason the quest wouldn’t work in English and I spent ages trying to figure out how to do it. From then on I always carried a boat load of cure potions so I never became a vampire again.

[@SwordWieldingDuck]

You deserved it for playing on console.

[@PoopyDoopyFloop]

@@SwordWieldingDuck stfu

[@wofuljac]

@@dansharp2860 IS THAT WHAT I HAD TO DO?!!?!? ALL THESE YEARS I HAVE NEVER FINISHED THAT QUEST!

[@dansharp2860]

@@wofuljac If I remember rightly it was only the 1st conversation with the witch that needed to be in another language. Once you got the quest started you could save and switch back to English. It wasn't a bad quest and certainly better than the one in Skyrim but I've never really enjoyed being a vampire in TES. Too many drawbacks to make it worthwhile.

[@froterons]

I level up normally with my chosen major skills, and use spell making and enchantment to gain an edge. No matter how high I level I can still dispatch enemies fairly quickly this way, and it allows me to experience all that oblivion has to offer. When enemies start getting tougher, or I suddenly start to die often, I just up the enchantments and power of the spells.

[@Froggy711]

Playing a pure wizard is a trap in normal oblivion. You figure, "Hey, I want all the magic, so I will pick all the magic skills + Alchemy as my class skills" Obviously when you level you want +5 INT and +5 WIS because those are your spellcasting stats. However, because you picked ALL of the INT skills and ALL of the WIS skills as class skills, there is no way to get a +5/+5 to INT and WIS when levelling up, because there are no minor skills for those stats.

[@HallyVee]

And that matters because?

[@nispelsm]

@@HallyVee It means that you will only get +2 or +3 in your primary stats on leveling, but the enemy progression is based on the assumption that you will be getting +5 gains in your primary stats. Or to put it another way, the game assumes you will have maxed at least one of your primary stats by level 20, when in fact you wont be ale to max them until at least level 30-40

[@HallyVee]

@@nispelsm could be, could be, but I will point out that I closed multiple gates without running into any of the issues mentioned here, and I only ever rarely got + 5. And I don't use any of the crazy weird tricks. Just normal stuff like hitting for optimal damage type and whatnot.

[@bighatbondquo863]

I still remember my first time playing Oblivion. I went to the capital city and took a quest to investigate a haunted pirate ship. Assuming this would be an easy enough quest given that I could pick it up at such a low level I went inside the ship to look around. Then I encountered the pirate ghosts. Which could only be killed with magic or an enchanted weapon. Safe to say I spent the next several hours hiding in corners and shooting very weak firebolts at ghosts. Great game.

[@nathanitet]

Funny how even though the enemies are levelled to keep up with you, as you level the game gets significantly harder if you aren’t “efficiently” levelling

[@JustinK0]

its not that you arent leveling "efficiently" but you're leveling "poorly"

[@HallyVee]

Is that funny? Can you name a game that DOESNT increase difficulty over time? Remember all those broken spell combos? There was a reason for those...

[@ivoivic2448]

"it just works" probably has way earlier origins than 76 stage.

[@royalswordsman4523]

"Use a mod" Cries in console

[@hermonymusofsparta]

Lol me too

[@ChronoSquare]

I wish I could remember more of high school when a friend would show off Xbox Morrowind

[@seawind930]

@@ChronoSquare At least on Morrowind you could still exploit the hell out of things. I mean going god mode took a little work but killing anything in one hit was possible.

[@StarshadowMelody]

**Giggles nervously in awareness of homebrew**

[@yoface2537]

The adoring fan is actually quite useful because he distracts enemies for you by talking to them helping in stealth

[@funkiboi7807]

I have never met a person who played oblivion and didn't end up decreasing the difficulty from whatever they started on.

[@_Sinduss]

I am that person but that is because I generally get bored by level 25 and want to play a different character. The problem only really gets bad at level 30. System still fucked though. Funny fact It wasn't until last year that I learned how leveling worked and shortly after I learned there was a difficulty slider.

[@Justanotherconsumer]

I didn’t, but I very carefully managed level gains to the point of keeping detailed notes. Breaking the spell making system helps, of course.

[@generatoralignmentdevalue]

Literally never touched the slider, but the implications of the leveling system were obvious to me so I never accidentally nerfed a character.

[@Carewolf]

I figure out how the levelling worked, and drew the conclusion: The only winning move was not to play, so I never adjusted the difficulty, I just toshed the trash out.

[@TheRenofox]

I didn't change the difficulty, just assumed that you were meant to corner enemies one by one and wail at them like you were chopping firewood. Gradually switching from melee to stealth archery made things easier, and once I got 100% chameleon I had already won.

[@FeinryelRavenclaw]

I was an under leveled sneaky archer. Somehow, on that playthrough I managed to get a daedric bow, and I went through most of the game fairly smoothly.

[@DBArtsCreators]

It sounds like something that would work alright for Borderlands "Badass Ranks" or "Weapon Proficiency" systems. Something that wouldn't affect your regular leveling up, but would give you buffs to your more basic abilities over time.

[@maverickloggins5470]

I can deal with overpowered enemies, I usually like making stealth builds so in open combat I’m usually at a strong disadvantage until at least mid game. What really annoys me is the insane health pools these damn things have. Like one shot me idc I’ll just keep jumping around and dodging but don’t make me hit something with like 40 arrows just to end a random encounter lol. Oblivion basically needs mods to be fun imo, or else it runs out once you reach the bottom of the difficulty slider, which is usually somewhere around lvl 20 I think, if you drop it a tick every couple levels especially after 10

[@jellovendigar]

God, I hated this system so much. You basically had to keep an excel sheet to optimally level up, just so that you can keep up with the monsters.

[@christianalexandermarion]

Thanks for sustaining the childhood obsessions. May the Night Mother wrap you in her cold, loving embrace.

[@kairensintal]

My experience was exactly as you described: Somewhere around level 6 I touched the difficulty slider just a liiiiitle bit and suddendly it was totally managable. I didn't realise that the game was too hard because I was underleveled, I thought i was just too bad. But around level 20 the oblivion gate loot got ridiculous and I started one-shotting everything, so I put the slider just back to the middle. But the acually important part: I really really enjoyed the game!

[@LevantineR1]

My friend lent Oblivion to me. I had no knowledge of Elder Scrolls and almost no familiarity with free-form character development. I made a custom class with Speech as a core skill, because I talk to NPCs often, and the idea of interacting with people as a primary talent that empowers me seemed really interesting. I spent a couple of hours in the first town talking to people, discovering that picking up items in a store means I STEAL them, and gaining a few levels from the chatting minigame. I leave town and everything is murdering me. After I tell my friend this, he explains the leveling problem to me, and I never gave the game, or series, a second chance. I insist on playing games blind, so my friend did nothing wrong.

[@garrettchandler1948]

I think the devs having played the game so much and knowing everything about it from the start just figured by level 10 everyone would have busted magic abilities or enchanted equipment that makes you impossible to kill. Taking advantage of those systems in the game is actually important. If you expect to just put points in strength and have ebony armor and a Warhammer at level 15 most encounters are going to be very hard.

[@littlemoth4956]

So a game about freedom and exploration punishes you for progressing a certain way? Weird

[@garrettchandler1948]

That's probably why they put in the difficulty slider. Crank it down a few notches and it normally fixes the issue. Of course this is more of a band-aid than a solution. Making a game where you can do anything and the game is supposed to have scaling difficulty tied to character progression has to be very difficult I'd imagine.

[@alexebat9754]

Oblivion is by far my favorite game. I just put the difficulty slider right in the middle and never change it. How I prefer to play is; pick major skills according to the play style of that character, Force the minor skills for the attributes I want for the next level, enjoy the game till I level up, then back to step two. It allows for efficient leveling without any stress or tracking and I don't have to force my level ups. Thanks for the video. It was quite entertaining!

[@BrunoCanales]

That's genius

[@HallyVee]

Seems like how it was intended to work and did for most folks? Gaming the system is the weird approach.

[@smaller_cathedrals]

@@HallyVee Absolutely agree. Oblivion was my first entry in the Elder Scrolls series. Played it on Xbox 360, just to give you an idea of how scuffed my playthrough was. I chose my main attributes according to the style I wanted to play and sank literally hundreds of hours in the game without hitting any gamebreaking walls. Never cared about min/maxing or anything, just enjoyed the game.

[@HallyVee]

@@smaller_cathedrals same, I closed several gates without noticing any difficulty issue. Same with Morrowind on Xbox. Wonder if the slider is the biggest factor.

[@Izthefaithful]

That seems super smart to level that way but I’m not sure I understand what your saying

[@jayday3818]

I think this is a great pre-watch video to "Why did Skyrim remove all the stats?" If you never saw this leveling system, it's hard to appreciate how this complex monstrosity impacted Skyrim. Now, whether they over-corrected or not is a different topic altogether... BTW Efficient Levelor for lyfe. I still have notebooks filled with tallies keeping track of my level ups in this game.

[@blib3786]

The problem wasn't the stats or even really the leveling system, but the fact that enemy scaling was so broken and unfair. They got it right with Morrowind, where enemies aren't scaled and have fixed levels.

[@MahDryBread]

I love Oblivion but that leveling system was a nightmare. I always care about trying to maximise my attributes on the first few levels, then just get frustrated with it and play the game normally

[@suena7288]

am i the only one who has played oblivion and has never had this problem? I literally re started this game last week and i dont see any problems with my character

[@larrydavinci2844]

I managed to complete a playthrough on PS3

[@robertharris6092]

I was playing this when I was like 12 and was able to beat the game just fine. So idk why they have such difficulty.

[@xSwordLilyx]

You're probably being efficient on accident

[@noneofyourbuisness2539]

@@xSwordLilyx *by accident.

[@kalwinters442]

I played oblivion again about a year ago and had a whole damn spreadsheet to keep track of my leveling...

[@thorin5591]

Level 100 Nerevarine and Dragonborn: One shots Karstaag with god gear. Level 100 Hero of Kvatch: HELP I CAN'T BEAT THE GOBLIN WARLORD!!!

[@liamblack4044]

This is such a surprising thing to hear. Last time I played oblivion I got all my stats (except luck) maxed without really changing anything about how I played. Granted that could simply be because I played as sort of a Jack of all trades with my majors being blade, sneak, heavy armor, acrobatics, persuasion and armoring..and then spam leveling spells every once in awhile

[@HallyVee]

Happens without spamming anything, too. All this min maxing can be fun but most folks just played normally and it works fine.

[@MizterMoonshine]

You know this is probably what made Bethesda gut the entire system for Skyrim. They have a really bad design ethos of straight up removing things that don't work instead of fixing them.

[@EphiTV]

Yeah for sure. Skyrim's system is just alright, but it's definitely functional and the difficulty curve works a whole lot better.

[@theghostofthomasjenkins9643]

i'd argue skyrim has the only decent combat in all the games. morrowind and earlier had the awful dice rolls that have no place outside of an isometric game. oblivion had this abomination. skyrim's combat is the only one that even half-way works.

[@johannesnylund8985]

I wish they would atleast overhaul the perk system, if they use it in tes6. Like make them actually powerful and change the way you play the game. I dont mind skilltrees in rpgs if they are well done.

[@theghostofthomasjenkins9643]

@@johannesnylund8985 that's probably skyrim's biggest flaw. the perk trees are great, but the perks they put in it are mostly awful.

[@richardkenan2891]

Sadly, they also gutted the leveling in the Fallout games, which was never broken and didn't need such a fix. A high price to pay for fixing the Elder Scrolls.

[@MatsJPB]

It was a pretty strange system even when new =). I remember a popular approach was to just pick skills you'd never use and play through the whole game on level one.

[@wicky7591]

I played on 100% Chameleon difficulty.

[@richardkenan2891]

Morrowind had essentially the same system, but was so full of ludicrous exploits that it didn't really matter how poorly you leveled. Oblivion closed the most blatant exploits from morrowind but left the fundamentally broken leveling system in place.

[@runakovacs4759]

Morrowind also had no level scaling (to the degree Oblivion had), so you didn't end up being overwhelmed by enemies as you got stronger. Simply, you took longer to be able handle certain content.

[@acedarkblade1552]

I like the dark souls system of "you chose life? Don't go here dumbass"

[@ogrim0]

It doesn't have nefarious scaling system, and also you can pay trainers almost infinitely (provided they can keep training you, otherwise seek Master Trainers).

[@HighDarkDragon]

Oblivion too can be broken very very easily. Doesn't take long to max your reflect damage of magic resistance to max, rendering you effectively immune to all enemies in the game. Plus you can make some incredibly cheaply broken spells too.

[@user-ms5tq1dh7i]

Morrowind only got level scaling in little things, like loots in caves. Enemies don't scale. Instead, all enemies are available right from the start. At level 1, you can't just go straight to ashlands, because there are diseased creatures that will haunt you constantly while you can't see 10 metres because of the storm. You can't go to sheogorad because you will encounter atronachs ganging you up. You can't do everything all at once.

[@BAIGAMING]

1:20 You know, this reminds me of The Last Remnant's leveling problem in a similar way. On the original Xbox release it was horrible, you had to fight and choose "certain kinds of fights" so that you increase your stats *efficiently* while raising your Battle Rank only slightly, if you fight weak mobs you don't get any stat increase but it still raises your Battle Rank. Battle Rank going up increases the enemy and boss difficulty a lot, so if you mindlessly grinded without grinding your actual stats efficiently you'd actually get unwinnable boss fights, and worse is if you do all side quests in the game you get a super-powered final boss, making the game unbeatable if you didn't make extra saves. Yes you read that right, so doing a "only mandatory encounters" run would actually be easier than grinding and playing normally. 😂Thankfully the issue was mostly fixed in later releases of the game.

[@EphiTV]

Never played it but that does sound pretty annoying. Cool that they fixed it though. Bethesda definitely isn't gonna patch Oblivion now, but I could see them changing things if they make a remaster down the line.

[@eyelikepiano]

I've always burnt out halfway through my Oblivion playthroughs because of this (did finish the game once). Meticulously keeping track of stats and carefully controlling skill raises can lose it's charm pretty quickly... Well, that and backpedaling for 5 minutes while wailing on a tough enemy 200 times with Umbra on default difficulty. Definitely will check out the mods! Maybe this is why I always go back to Morrowind. Even though it's leveling system might be rougher around the edges, you have more tools as a player to overcome it (unlimited training, enemies don't level with you). I actually feel my character is growing more powerful instead of struggling to keep up.

[@EphiTV]

For sure. I love diving in to RPG systems, but when it takes precedence over the entire game it quickly becomes tiring. I do need to give Morrowind a shot at some point.

[@charlesford7887]

Morrowind's leveling system and in general its sense of progression is so masterfully done. I only really began to appreciate it when I moved on to Oblivion lol.

[@darrellparfitt5908]

The best way to deal with it is to carefully construct your base character with some extremely low skill levels in non primary skills you can use to quickly boost stats. It's inane for sure

[@TheotherPoolboy]

I remember sprinting and rolling through all the oblivion gates as a child, not understanding why i got shitstomped every time i tried to fight something

[@chellobalgar9552]

I have learned much from playing oblivion over the course of 10 years. All on a ps3 without mods with goty edition. Locking the guards in summerset manor in skingrad, making spells that can make them attack anyone, etc. Its a fun game to explore both mechanically and in adventure sense.

[@GayLPer]

I prefer Ultimate Leveling myself - it lets you choose between a "gain experience to level up and then pick your attribute and skill increases" system, or a "your attributes will naturally grow as you level your skills" system.

[@5erase]

yeah but that mod adds a HORRIBLE health regen system and there is no way to remove that aspect of the mod, why would I want health regen? makes restoration magic and health potions useless

[@Amber57499]

It doesn't add health regen, just installed it myself.

[@5erase]

@@Amber57499 Oh the mod creator must have listen to all the feedback then lol I might give it a reinstall

[@Amber57499]

Maskar is pretty awesome, and the mod is entirely condigurable. You don't like something? Change the .ini. It makes the game so much more awesome. No more hours spent being beaten by mudcrabs to level armor skills, spamming spells to level magic, sitting in a corner for sneak, etc. Just play the game and you'll get better.

[@RuSosan]

Realistic Leveling, Ultimate Leveling or Oblivion XP with an overhaul mod for rebalancing enemies and the world (OOO, Maskar's, Zensalin's) is a fine thing to have indeed.

[@ZelosSama]

tbh it was not even a good idea at the time. i remember finding the system very dumb , along most people. But it`s bethesda.

[@johannesnylund8985]

Yeah age does not excuse a poor system, there was lots other rpgs at the time that did leveling far better.

[@vengefuldeth]

@@johannesnylund8985 There wasnt anything wrong with Oblivions lvling system if you were smart enough to know when to actually level and how to pick Attributes and build skills, the Leveling System was fine, most people were just idiots and lvled as fast as possible without thinking to wait for better gear or so they could get a +4 or +5 on their attributes instead of picking 1 or 2s, just doing that alone means you will be a lvl 10 that is as strong as their lvl 20-30s, System was fine, players were bad.

[@udozocklein6023]

@@vengefuldeth not everyone had the internet to read all of this info though.

[@udozocklein6023]

@@vengefuldeth and yet, you call them dumb

[@vengefuldeth]

@@udozocklein6023 Neither Did I back in 06 , I just got a guide with the game when it was gifted , read the section wtih stats and leveling , It didnt have info like now though.

[@D34doneTTV]

Videos like this I'm so glad keep coming because man it validates kid me so much 😂 I was SO mad that my high level character felt so weak. I obviously was a kid, didn't understand what was going on, just new that I was leveling up, monsters were leveling up, but that some were now becoming impossible to fight. Now when I play oblivion I actually DO turn the difficulty up a notch. Usually not max though, I tried and just got tired of dying to EVERYTHING.

[@BoredErica]

Another thing I found odd was that the highest level enemies scaled with HP based on player level with no cap IIRC. So if I wanted to make a '100% game save', for my character to be as strong as possible at a max level I should be at the minimum max level.

[@LtCommanderTato]

Yeah try to aim at 40-44 instead of 50. 5-5-1 is the only way to reach lower max level.

[@CaptainShuffles]

Nothing was more satisfying to me growing up then finessing the leveling system in Oblivion. It was so tedious and ruined my first 3 characters when I didn't spec efficiently enough. Ah, the memories.

[@MCCiabattaGrande]

To be fair, you can create magic spells which literally kill any opponent with a single attack. You can even reflect 100% of any physical and/or magical damage if you know how to do it.

[@pulsefel9210]

this alone makes me NOT want to even try to get my oblivion to stop crashing at startup. i always hear how much better it was then skyrim, and i got it as part of the whole collection so pretty much free, but a leveling system that requires mods or bugs to overcome is a pain i dont wanna deal with. i play games to relax and enjoy, not fret and frustrate.

[@jehovasabettor9080]

There are few things I remember about Oblivion difficulty. First, starting from a certain level all bandits suddenly wore the best gear you could ever find, so I farmed the first dungeon I noticed this trend in, until I got me a full armor set and some really good weapons. That kinda killed my interest in exploring other dungeons, since I had all the carrots the game had in, like, 20 minutes or so. Second, when I maxed out all of the enemies everywhere were suddenly having so much HP, each encounter turned into a grind-fest. It was super boring, and resulted in me just restarting the game at the point it happened. That particular problem was never addressed in any subsequent Bethesda game, btw. Lastly, when I finally got into crafting, I ended up making a 100% chameleon armor + a set of jewelry that my breton magic proof. I deleted the game almost immediately afterwards, 'cause, well, boring. I suppose this means the game had issues, even though they were mostly due to that automatic monster scaling and random loot tables all over the place, which in theory should have made the world more open and in practice made it bland and repetitive.

[@kennoth3297]

The way I combat this, is to make sure I get to lvl 100 Endurance as soon as possible. Because it governs how much HP you get per level, hence your maximum potential health. +5 endurance every level. For other stats, I don't end up caring as much, and I end up picking any that are +3 or more.

[@w0rthy_]

Great video! When I played as a kid, I didn't even know you had to sleep to level up. I'm going to go experience what I missed from being level 1 throughout the whole game right now.