The Entire Story of The Arena - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion EXPLAINED

[@TheLastFighter]

My most favorite faction, because you get to silence that arrogant Yellow Team Champion with the help of Pork-Chop.

[@Matt-md5yt]

Pork-Chop is awesome

[@TheLastFighter]

Let's get some "Rips" in here for Pork-Chop, because he disappears from the game after the last fight. 😢

[@ABardsBallad]

That’s was definitely the most satisfying moment 😂 pork chop was GOATed and I was sad to see him go after we became the grand champ!

[@skylarjon3464]

Yes! Porkchop actually took her out on his own on my most recent playthrough! It was so satisfying turning around after dealing with the mage and seeing Porkchop deliver the final blow 😂

[@XSilver_WaterX]

I was agast when joining a friend's world to see them having the AE mod of Porkchop as one of his characters battle pets. Porkchop scales with the same stats a Chorus Reaper!

[@Warpded]

Imagine fighting for your life, expecting to clash with foes around the same level as yourself, and then your next opponent rolls up with a blade he received from an actual god. All that training just to get incinerated in like 10 seconds

[@westernsavage2313]

Honestly enchantments of any type of Daedra artifacts should be banned from the arena.

[@SpazzMaticu3]

As a child i tried doing the entire questline lvl 1....after i did it and slept for my argoniens first time since getting out of jail, Lucien scared the shit out of me. During the Arena quest i never left the city. I had no gold because arena even on higher ranks does not pay well, i had to kill and rob almost half of the non essential npcs but never got caught by guards so when Lucien told me i sleep rather soundly for a murderer; my 10 year old brain was very scared.

[@ABardsBallad]

😂 that’s amazing, yeah I can only imagine the shock you got from that

[@pewp_tickalar]

Tremendous voice acting on the part of Owyn's VA

[@ABardsBallad]

He nailed it!

[@wungadunga5099]

Too bad the npc doesn't follow it. My man will be acting his lungs out while Owyn looks at you exactly like this: 🤨 I know about the limitations and everything but I just think the mismatch is funny. lol

[@elgatofish]

18:38 Yellow Team Pit Dog: Finally my big break! I've got this blue guy on the ropes! Bard: *pulls out legendary daedric katana*

[@ABardsBallad]

😂 yeah the poor pit dog probably wasn’t expecting that lol

[@elden_lord22]

The arena is special with me it taught me how to fight in oblivion gave me my first solid goal and i had to run around the city to get supplies and coin which made the world slowly open up and made me confident enough to explore the rest of the game i just wish it had more content and was longer because i adore the place

[@ABardsBallad]

Very well put! Perfect faction for just starting the game, I agree, I wish there was a bit more to it!

[@elden_lord22]

​@@ABardsBallad there is skyblivion maybe they've expanded it a bit there's hope until we're told or shown otherwise I just want more characters and interactions with those characters my biggest example let us use speechcraft to comfort the grey prince or to persuade him to fight us in earnest because he didn't know he was half vampire and even still is a symbol of the imperial city i hate revealing the truth to him because it's so disrespectful to kill him without the fight but he deserves to know the truth

[@Warpded]

I've never thought of the Arena as a faction, but I guess it makes sense

[@slendrrr]

I had this exact same experience as a kid playing for the first time. The Arena made me into the Hero of Kvatch. 😂

[@graysonparks6696]

18:55 oblivion ragdolls still make me chuckle

[@UnassumingVirgo]

There's something incredibly satisfying about seeing this character become a master of blade, considering I've watched most of their journey since the Fighter's Guild video. Great video as always Bard, awesome seeing how far you've come!

[@ABardsBallad]

That’s awesome to hear you’ve been around for that long! It’s really cool to think about how far they’ve come, to be honest this might be the first character I’ve ever gotten a skill to master level without cheats lol, I really appreciate the continued support! :)

[@RDA000]

Hundolin talking to the grand champion:"I don't believe I've ever seen you here before. I know all the regulars, believe me".

[@cyqry]

Hundoliin praising you for being a betting man, as if you haven't bet your life in every match.

[@cyqry]

I always found it kind of weird that the commentator doesn't say anything about the Grey Prince just casually standing in the middle of the Arena and accepting death. "The impossible has happened! The Grey Prince has chosen suicide by champion!"

[@vecremser2226]

You let Porkchop die, to the ressurected yellow team champion no less. Betrayal.

[@themount6549]

I had hoped that the first fight would have been against Owyn's grandma 😐

[@ABardsBallad]

That fight would’ve been legendary

[@highlordlaughterofcanada8685]

Yeah but she's already dead

[@herewardthewake13]

Broo, fallen in love with your content, literally your videos have become my go to thing to help me relax and sleep, had some mad elder scrolls dreams

[@ABardsBallad]

I’m really glad to hear it! I hear you sometimes I dream about weird oblivion related things to after making these vids lol

[@rosesky6595]

I feel so spoiled idk how you are churning these out so often but thank you for another wonderful video!

[@cerillant2797]

The arena will always hold a special place in my heart for being the first questline I played in the TES series

[@ABardsBallad]

It’s a perfect beginners spot and definitely one I’ll always play through!

[@NegativeDumpster]

Fun fact: The promotional posters showing off the Arena's combatants are actually slightly-edited pictures of the front cover for The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first game in the entire Elder Scrolls franchise; Arena's original artwork depicted a scantily-clad woman, as opposed to the stalwart knight we see in Oblivion. I think Bethesda ultimately decided to cut the dungeon-crawling aspects of the Arena's questline, out of fear of making either it or the Fighter's Guild redundant. If the Arena also featured dungeon crawls, we'd then have _two_ separate playable factions that featured good-old-fashioned fighting, and trekking through dungeons. I once saw someone say that, since Agronak was a Gladiator and all, someone was bound to kill him sooner or later; so, the Dunmer Gladiator should've seen this coming. Someone else then pointed out that it was likely the overwhelming shock of his friend suddenly dying. Furthermore, the Imperial City's Gladiators aren't slaves being forced to fight (like with the ancient Roman gladiators), they're people who are essentially volunteering to fight someone to the death, in exchange for money (if they win). This, combined with the fact that the majority of the Gray Prince's fights were basically show battles against animals (much like your Arena battles after becoming Grand Champion), meant that it was assumed that at some point, he'd simply retire and buy a nice house somewhere. There's also something I think is pretty amusing about the Arena's logic. Seeing as you need to kill three opponents to advance in rank, and there are seven ranks (Not counting the Champion, or Grand Champion), that means you need to kill 21 opponents (again, not counting the fight against the Gray Prince). This makes the body count somewhat ridiculous, as your opponents are always of the same rank as you. When you're a Pit Dog, you only fight other Pit Dogs, when you're a Brawler, you only fight other Brawlers, when you're a Bloodletter, you only fight other Bloodletters, and so on. If we assume your opponents _also_ had to kill the same requisite number of opponents you did, then, well... The three Yellow Team Brawlers you fight would've had to kill at least three people each, meaning that between all three of them, they've killed at least nine people. The Bloodletters are even more absurd, as they've killed at least six people each, meaning all three of them put together have killed at least 18 people. When you take it all the way up to the three Yellow Team Heroes you face, they've killed at least 18 people each, meaning that all three of them in total have killed at least 54 people. And keep in mind, this presumably stacks with all of the other ranks, meaning that all 21 of the Yellow Team's combatants combined have killed at least _189 people_ (If I'm doing the math right). And keep in mind, this is the _bare minimum_ of kills they'd need for all of your opponents. That's not even counting people who've killed more than the minimum amount, but not enough to advance (For example, if a Brawler's killed 5 people, that's still not quite enough to bump them up to Bloodletter). When you take into account variables like that, the body count could easily balloon to being well over 200. And on top of _that,_ this is only counting the Yellow Team guys you face down yourself; there's still the other combatants to account for (such as the ones you see when you bet on a match). P.S: i didn't count the Pit Dogs when I was calculating the kill count; you don't need to kill anyone to become a Pit Dog, as that's the rank you start out with. So, the only requisite to being a Pit Dog is being brave and/or stupid enough to become a combatant.

[@oathkeeperofoblivion972]

It isnt so much a slight edit as it is a mockup with the class images from oblivion

[@kingcharlesparody]

Actually some of the Arena combatants are forced to fight - look at the Argonian prisoners you have to fight later

[@biancarossa9728]

​@kingcharlesparody the prisoners weren't forced to fight, they're offered freedom if they win the match

[@hitomisalazar4073]

What I had heard (From Emil himself, though he didn't state it in that interview he was the Arena faction lead dev), was that it was less a case of the Arena potentially stepping on the FIghter's Guilds toes, but more that they were making cuts to fit on the disk. Meaning he had a voice line budget (and with it potential quest/content budget). And he slashed the Arena hard (fewest lines of every faction in the game) in order to save the one he actually cared about (the Dark Brotherhood).

[@philcassidy3823]

Have you seen the unreal engine "imperial city real size" video? The imperial city is so big, it would not be a wonder that there are hundreds of fighters. But you are right, it's still a lot of dead fighters unlike the Gladiators that rarely ever died

[@nicklaus9003]

So stoked to see this upload along with all the other videos you've been making. Super calming to watch and revisit one of my favorite games from childhood! Keep making content, you're awesome at it!

[@ABardsBallad]

I really appreciate it! It’s still amazing to come back to this game even after all these years! Cheers!

[@MephistonCalistarius]

Thank you for posting! I'm currently in hospital after a biopt and this will definitely keep me sane❤

[@ABardsBallad]

I hope these brought lots of entertainment and distractions for you my friend!

[@MadMamluk88]

19:40 ah, I see you are a man of culture as well, utilizing the hollowed stump for mass storage

[@ABardsBallad]

😂 yes! Needed a quick grab and go stash!

[@EthanHyland]

Especially with killing Agronak with completing his personal quest, the end of the main Arena questline is so bittersweet, speaking that you have to kill a depressed half-orc and hear your blue team gladiator friend despise you afterwards. You do get a +3 to a few different skills this way, though.

[@ABardsBallad]

Yeah it’s a tricky decision to make, I’m a believer in just going through with the side quest but it does feel bad afterwards lol

[@EthanHyland]

@@ABardsBallad I'm a completionist person, so I'd do it anyway. Plus, like I said, you get permanent bonuses to 3 of your skills. My character would probably feel bad, speaking that if I get the chance to play Oblivion, I'd make a morally good character that explores everything for knowledge like doing the Daedric quests.

[@katiemckinney9456]

@@EthanHyland I wish we could have tried to talk to Agronak and tell him that he isn't an evil monster like he thinks he is. He managed to reach the status of Grand Champion through his own skill and efforts. Isn't that something he should be proud of? It doesn't matter whether he's half vampire or not, that doesn't take away from what Agronak has accomplished.

[@EthanHyland]

@@katiemckinney9456 Yeah. He held the title for a decade and should be proud of his accomplishments.

[@andyparkinson1996]

Eyyy just got home from work and seen this notification! Getting on the sofa to watch this on the telly !!

[@ABardsBallad]

I’m glad to hear it! I hope you enjoy it! :) it was a nice change of pace to go through this faction!

[@austinrobinson5612]

I really liked Oblivion had a mechanic to allow the character to watch npc's train and receive free skills from watching others train. I never seen anything like that in Skyrim.

[@SquirrelNuggets]

Fun fact: the arena posters are an Easter egg, being very heavily based on the cover art for the very first TES game, The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The first elder scrolls game was meant to be a fighting game, where the gameplay is almost exactly what the arena quest line is (was supposed to be). You and a team of fighters would travel to multiple arenas and fight to become the grand champion in the imperial city. They decided to make it a full blown rpg, but had already had the marketing material produced, hence the title and cover art.

[@SquirrelNuggets]

As I’m writing this, an arena spinoff game would actually be pretty sick

[@inquisitorhoennheim5389]

Maybe I missed something, but lovidicus sounds like a normal noble with vampirism and fell in love with an ork servant, and the second he tells her what he is she traps him in his room and makes a run for it. Unless he killed an entire village of innocent people to become a vampire or killed people he feed on he seems normal for a vampire. He did show a mean streak after he got stabbed in the back. Honestly I feel bad for him Unless he did something awful to deserve that.

[@lmno567]

Remember that vampirism isn't seen in a good light no matter what they do. They originated from the twisted, unfortunate spawn of Molag Bal. There is a reason the count of Cheydinhal hides from the people.

[@johannesseyfried7933]

I mean, Vampires aren't well liked by people, unless they're part of the Dark Brotherhood.

[@HermSezPlayToWin]

You didn't make Owyn say "I heard a rumor that you're an idiot. Any truth to that?" 🤣

[@Immer_erst_entschuldigung]

Classic :D

[@The56567878]

The arena faction might not be the most complex questline, but it has a special place in my heart since it was one of the first things I ever did when I played oblivion for the first time as a kid!

[@ABardsBallad]

It will always be an amazing and super chill faction to come back to! :)

[@spiritonpaws]

fun fact if you look on the floor by next to the cabinet where you grab your arena armor that's by owen then you can find a piece of paper on the floor that talks about how owens daughter had challenged to be in the arena and that is why owen is so rude to you at first amazing video btw.

[@IOA21]

Imagine being a dedicated patron of the arena, loving the clash of steel, bone, and blood as your favorite champion the Grey Prince makes dog meat out of his opponents. News spreads of the big match, the most prominent champion challenging the grand champion, you put everything on hold to witness this spectacle only for the prince to just... stand there and take it, falling without struggle.

[@imverygerby]

Not jumping and hitting the lamp after a victory is sacrilegious, points for throwing the opponent’s weapon though

[@arbalest747]

Lord Lovidicus deadass dying into a JoJo pose smh

[@ABardsBallad]

Lord Love trying to tug on some heart strings in death

[@Chris-tp1ls]

I remember getting so tired of hearing the yellow team champion put me down that i decided porkchop could have the honour of whooping her ass solo for extra disrespect. I set porkchops health up to 100k and turned to the gate that im usually attacking with my sword for some reason until it goes down, attacked it a few times and realised very quickly that id accidentally hit porkchop instead of the gate. The super pig i just created helped the yellow team champion whoop my ass immediately 😂

[@thebigdork8030]

R.I.P Porkchop

[@ABardsBallad]

Truly one of the greats

[@josepartida1711]

you named your items "Arnold" and "Ronnie" what's the significance? or is it just for shits and giggles? lol

[@ABardsBallad]

I’m glad you caught that 😂 they were enchanted to enhance our strength and they’re named after the 2 famous bodybuilders!

[@billbillson3129]

Wow! After all these hours of play and watching others play I never knew there was a boar in there! Thank you for making and sharing your videos with us!!

[@ABardsBallad]

I appreciate the support! I often forget pork chop is in there too lol

[@drewgoin8849]

43:07 Haha! I love how you tossed aside the defeated fighter's weapon at the end of the match.

[@ThatOneBadMuslim]

Lord Lavidicus actually can't give you Vampirism for some reason. It's not in his script

[@Warpded]

Yet another piece of quality content. Brace yourself. I think you'll blow up, and you deserve it!

[@ABardsBallad]

I really appreciate it! It would be cool to see for sure, for now I’m just enjoying the little moments on here! :)

[@solaurelian7638]

Great video man. Some of the game audio was overpowering your voice at certain points though just a heads up! 😊

[@Matt-md5yt]

Awesome, glad you covered this faction again. :)

[@ABardsBallad]

Me too! I decided to just give it a standalone video instead of multiple parts, felt more appropriate!

[@Forold]

It would be interesting if the blue team gladiator became a champion and challenged you to try and avenge agronak.

[@CarputingYT]

Great video rare high effort long videos nowadays respect

[@EdwardCook-xq7jo]

I wish this was on the PS4 console. I can imagine how nice the graphics would look like.

[@StudioUAC]

I wish they made you wait a day for each fight. Maybe have a quest line to uncover corruption and match fixing like they would want you to throw. If you dont theyll send hitmen after or something idk. Fight for better pay or to unionize. Anything!

[@ABardsBallad]

There’s definitely a lot of possibility left out here! I know that there’s cut content as well as an unfinished quest with Owyn and his estranged daughter!

[@opheliamoonrose4316]

Love your Oblivion videos! 👍

[@ABardsBallad]

I really appreciate the support! :)

[@mattk3926]

Love these videos!!!

[@padma_masha]

I watch this reviews as my daily Netflix dose

[@JesusLovesYou-nd1rz]

I know a lot of people hate him, but my personal favourite is the Adoring Fan.

[@John_Conner_]

Fun fact if you save this quest for late game when you have 100% reflect damage and 100% spell absorb its not as epic lol, great vid man keep it up

[@thrillvilled111]

Highly recommend playing as a conjurer with this one!

[@AbdullahQecibegCH]

Nice, just finished my Arena gameplay

[@ABardsBallad]

How’d you find it?

[@AbdullahQecibegCH]

@@ABardsBallad quite amusing

[@imngaming8147]

Ronnie and Arnold? 😂 Definitely make you stronger and things lightweighttt babbyy

[@ABardsBallad]

They gave us the power to defeat a pit dog in 200 punches 😎😂

[@Xarxes81]

Ahhhh Goldbrand! Haven't found it yet. Also, How can you get to Champion at lvl 3 ?

[@KusuKusuu]

1:06:27 I mean vampires have detect life right? Wouldn't be hard to look at a dude and go "yeah you have no food for me"

[@RDA000]

How did you avoid Hundolin attacking you on sight...?

[@kingcharlesparody]

Because he’s not a thief like you 😂

[@supertna9154]

Just like there was supposed to be an elder scrolls game solely based on going to different arenas across Tamriel which was eventually scrapped but the name was kept though which was the first Elder Scrolls game released in 1994. I’m surprised no one has ever attempted to remake the first elder scrolls game on the Skyrim engine or any other engine.

[@johntee2012]

💯❣ Great video

[@ABardsBallad]

I really appreciate it!

[@TheBoneRanger]

23:22 some might call you a tree climber, OWYN!

[@nickwilliamson6726]

It's not the fastest way but it is the easiest to bring your armor skills up. Go to the arena in the very beginning, keep your weapon sheathed and just let any blade or blunt wielders wallop you till their weapons break and keep your heals up. No good for archers though. Just charge in and take down immediately.

[@Trepanist]

One of the best parts of Oblivion, wish they would have kept for Skyrim.

[@kgc0609]

Opponents: fighting with basic weapons and armory Me: Finally, an worthy opponent to test the capabilities of my newest collection of daedric artifacts!

[@cannon-kp1tr]

you got porkchop killed 😭😭😭 that boar killed the champion in my run and gored the hell out of the other two how dare you

[@narosedraconis2424]

Me Playing this has a teenager: Yes Ysabel, keep telling me what I can't do... Foolish hag. Me Playing has an adult: Ah. Ever the loyal fan to the prince... Aren't you, Ysabel. Quite the difference hey. XD

[@auratheva]

Nothing funnier than an NPC laughing at their own non-joke followed by a calm "We end the conversation"

[@carpentersamuel1391]

Do you think the Argonian Citizens are proto-An-Xhaleel? Like kinda like how the dissidents in Sommerset Isles npc's talk about later become the Thalmor of Skyrim? The book Infernal city has the Argonians overthrow the Empire shortly after the oblivion crisis.

[@timothyhales7104]

@38:23 lord frieza, is that you?!? 🤣

[@ryszakowy]

my only problem with arena is that you can only enter blue team bloodworks are mixed for some reason so you not only have to tolerate yellow team asshole but also don't have to show any initiative outside coming up and talking to gray prince and there are never any contenders for your title it seems when you bet arena has unlimited amount of fighters for both teams but when you fight there's less then 30 of them it would be awesome to actually go from city to city starting in run down excuse for an arena only to end up in imperial city winning the title of the cyrodill champion or some such and as it is you advance far too quickly and your only reward is adoring fan who you can use to easily start dark brotherhood without getting a bounty

[@FraldinhoBJJ]

“Both teams are evenly matched “ *one combatant has a two handed axe and the other is unarmed * SHEEEEEEEEEEIT

[@oldmate9580]

1:18:50 - WE ASK ABOUT POTENTIAL MATCHES

[@Burger-s8z]

I’d give anything to go back to being 13 playing oblivion for the first time

[@SmearyBridges]

It always bothered me we couldn't be the yellow team. Blue is so vanilla

[@Amerwiccan]

At the e.o.d choosing your color would have been an illusion. The enemies would have been identical I'm sure just blue team instead

[@James.chalmers]

The people in the arena still treat you like dirt even when you become grand champion 😂

[@Souless6X]

55:35 Alexa play Toyko ghoul op 1 full volume

[@ABardsBallad]

😂 you love to see it

[@yeetosis9097]

1:18:50 scared the fuck out of me lmfao

[@lmno567]

31:47 Its funny how they hype up the dagger, but its enchantment a low amount of frost damage, light sticks to you, and thats it. How anti-climatic.

[@MisterMcVoodoo]

almost better to not tell the grey prince about everything. more of an honorable fight lol

[@romesux]

sleeping good tonight zzz

[@jnelson4611]

.

[@teeess1909]

1:02:18 based

[@hitomisalazar4073]

While I can understand people saying the Arena didn't make for good story and such... I kind of like that it did. Out of the two factions Emil worked on (the Dark Brotherhood as he constantly crows about, and the Arena, which is tries to cover up), the Arena was my favorite. Mostly because it didn't try for a "good story". The Arena advertises itself as one might expect as "Fight to get coin and fame". And it does exactly that. At a decent pace. The fights are generally interesting (to the limits Oblivion allows). The Atmosphere between the announcer or just the walk up from the Red Room is great. It has a few bits of characterization like Owyn's abandoned daughter hoping to get his attention, or Owyn himself trying to have an elderly romance with the Battle Matron were welcome without being intrusive. The one "Quest" in the line was probably kept, I always felt by Emil when Cuts were asked to be made so he could have a way to nudge people into the Dark Brotherhood that he wanted (since it does count as a murder for that if you do the quest). But you get basically the one follower in the game that sticks with you permanently from it. You get a unique armor that feels flavorful rather than trying to be powerful (The Arena Raiment/Raiment of Valor if I remember is worse than Iron/Leather armor all told, and the enchantments on it are minor, but fitting for someone who's basically a famous gladiator). You can get a few free skill bonuses from it (Hand to Hand from watching the monk hopefuls outside and the Grey Prince's bonus for his quest). To me the Arena faction is the equivalent of someone making a solid line drive into left field (to use a Baseball analogy). Is it going to win the game/be everyone's favorite? No. Is it going to be the highlight everyone calls out? Almost assuredly not. Is it solid fundamentals that does what it is supposed to do? Oh heck yes. Kind of why I have a soft spot for it compared to other factions that just swing for the fences at the beginning and end of their lines... and then flub their way through the majority as they strike out. Heck I even like that "luck" actually matters for the Arena Gambling. Based on your luck the odds are actually kind of against/with you despite what he says about the teams being "Evenly matched". If you have say, 70 luck then your pick will have +20% Health and the opponent -20% or so, if I remember. Nice, simple touches. You're lucky so you have a luckier chance with the Gambling.