Oblivion tips and tricks (possible spoilers)
Just thought we could have a little thread detailing tips and tricks for oblivion, since everyone I know is loving this game.
First off, a good guide to tweaking the graphics:
Graphics tweaks
The official forums also have a few threads about tweaking the ini files, with some sample ones for download:
Elder Scrolls forums
There's a fantastic list of 'essential' mods here:
atomicpc.com.au
The unofficial elder scrolls wiki contains lots of information about...well, pretty much everything Elder scrolls related (good if you get stuck on any quests)
Uesp.net
And theres a really good interactive map which shows the location of everything in the game here:
The Avid Alchemist's obliv-o-map
and here's my little tip (this is where the spoiler comes in)
At the end of each section of oblivion, you take a sigil stone from the tower to close the gate. This Sigil stone can be used for enchanting weapons or armor. Hover over the stone and it shows you what attributes it has. What you might not know is those attributes are generated randomly when you first grab the stone. If you save just before grabbing it you can keep reloading and the stone will have different attributes, so just keep doing it til you find something you like. To enchant a weapon / piece of armor with the stone, just click the stone in your inventory.
First off, a good guide to tweaking the graphics:
Graphics tweaks
The official forums also have a few threads about tweaking the ini files, with some sample ones for download:
Elder Scrolls forums
There's a fantastic list of 'essential' mods here:
atomicpc.com.au
The unofficial elder scrolls wiki contains lots of information about...well, pretty much everything Elder scrolls related (good if you get stuck on any quests)
Uesp.net
And theres a really good interactive map which shows the location of everything in the game here:
The Avid Alchemist's obliv-o-map
and here's my little tip (this is where the spoiler comes in)
At the end of each section of oblivion, you take a sigil stone from the tower to close the gate. This Sigil stone can be used for enchanting weapons or armor. Hover over the stone and it shows you what attributes it has. What you might not know is those attributes are generated randomly when you first grab the stone. If you save just before grabbing it you can keep reloading and the stone will have different attributes, so just keep doing it til you find something you like. To enchant a weapon / piece of armor with the stone, just click the stone in your inventory.
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Umbra, the kickass sword from Morrowind, has found it's way to one of the ruins near the imperial city
There's several large standing stones scattered around the place, if you activate them they give you one of the abilities granted to the 'star signs'. for example I found the tower stone, activating it gave me one of the abilities you get when born under the sign of the star.
Varla stones charge all the enchanted items in your inventory.
Found this out with my pal when he was playing it on the 360 tonight (3/29/06) -- just read this thread today, now that I've started playing it.
Sell all the armor and weapons you can. I take it your below level 10? If thats so then you wont really start making good money till your lvl 10-12. Dwarven armor sells at around 200 per chest and 150 per grieves, and orcish armor is double that. You should be coming into those two armors on bandits very soon. If you clean out a dungeon, go back and sell everything you can loot off enemies and out of chests. At lvl 12 I bought Barius manor with 5k in Anvil (and I did the quest to clean it up =D) and I just spent 5k on a black horse in Cheydenhal and still have 15k to my name at lvl 18. Ebony Armor and Glass/Ebony weapons sell really well for me from 15-18.
Something I find interesting about the game also is the fact that when you get expert mercentile (which only takes about 100000 years from the speed its moving for me using haggle) then you can invest money in stores. It really makes the game feel long term when you think about it. I kinda hope they release some kind of expansion pack for this game so that it doesn't have to end after the main quest.
Here's what I do for money: pick up absolutely everything of value when I'm dungeon-crawling. When I'm over-encumbered, I ditch the things that have the worst value-to-weight ratio. I'm usually left with a bunch of relatively high-value weapons and armor, along with a bunch of reagents. With those, I sell the more valuable ones whole, and for the ones with little value, I make them into potions. Then I sell the potions, which for cheap reagents are usually worth more than the reagents were worth. I have no idea how many cheap Restore Fatigue potions I've made so far (all the food in crates around town is usually free for the taking, and I think it respawns every few days).
A good item to pick up for me has been arrows. Iron arrows, even though they're only worth 1 septim each, have a value-to-weight ratio of 10-to-1. I pick up every single arrow I find. Then, when I visit a shop, I sell all of them except for what I need to carry. Even for a shopkeeper with a relatively low disposition and a haggle bar that says the shopkeeper is buying around 38% of item's value, an arrow that is worth 1 septim will still sell for 1 septim, because 1 is the floor. So if you've got 250 arrows in your inventory, they only weigh 25, and you can sell them for a full 250 septims no matter what.
Also, as the shopkeeper's disposition toward me goes up, I slowly raise the haggle bar for that shopkeeper, until I'm getting the absolute most I can for each item that I sell. If you do enough business with the same shopkeepers, their disposition will hit 100 toward you.
So far, I haven't paid for any training. Skills like Athletics, Sneak, and Acrobatics raise pretty quickly just by walking, sneaking, and jumping around in a variety of situations. I also go up in Restoration and Destruction pretty fast during fights. Blade and Light Armor goes up slowly during fighting, and Armorer goes up pretty quickly afterward.
Thiefs guild: Look at one of the many posters scattered around the imperial city about the 'Grey fox'. Talk to a beggar (any beggar) and bribe them / use the face game to raise their disposition. Once their disposition reaches a certain level if you ask about the gray fox they'll say something like 'You want to find the gray fox?'. Say 'yes I want to work with him' and they'll tell you how to meet him...and thus begins your life of crime
Fighters Guild: Join at any of the fighters guild chapters. There's one in Anvil, one in Bruma and another two (not sure of the locations atm). You advance through the fighters guild in the traditional manner (ie: do various quests and advance through ranks). I'm not 100% sure of the benefits being in the fighters guild gets you, other than money from the quests. I'm guessing you can get cheaper weapon / armor repairs from guild members though.
Mages guild: As with the fighters guild, you can join at any chapter. To advance through the mages guild you need a recommendation from each chapter house. You get the recommendation by doing a task for each chapter house leader. Once you have all 4 recommendations you gain access to the arcane university where you can enchant weapons and recharge previously enchanted weapons (for a price).
note: In oblivion (unlike morrowind) you can join both the fighters guild and the mages guild with no problems. Well, none that I've noticed so far.
Other factions:
Dark brotherhood: Kill someone in cold blood (ie: attack them first) and next time you rest a dark brotherhood member will approach you with a task... I've not done these missions yet, but according to a friend they're very good, and yeild some excellent items (armor etc..)
Knights of the white pennant: Go see the Duke of Anvil, he'll give you the first task in this series. Once you are a knight, you can cash in 'black bows' taken from bandits for 100 gold each. I've not got very far with this line of quests, so there's probably other benefits too.
The arena: Probably the most straightforward set of missions. Just go to the Arena and sign up with the blademaster. Once you've reached grand champion status (see my earlier post about fighting the gray prince) you can do weekly fights against various monsters for quite a lot of cash. For example I just fought 2 ogres and a land dreugh for 2000+ gold. Easy money
I joined up with the order.. made a ton of gold on vampire dust
LMAO!
Good tips Merlyn.. I noticed my alchemy skill rising very quickly when making potions.. seems to go up when you eat a bunch of ingredients too!
Welcome to Short-Media!
RTFM I suppose, but I never do, so this was immensely helpful to me when I figured it out
Also, here's a semi-spoiler on lockpicking:
I didn't test this much, but I don't think stolen gold is taken off you when you're arrested. So if you pickpocket someone who has a lot of gold, you only pay the fine and get to keep the gold you stole. For example, the guy wandering round the imperial city market district with a warhammer on his back (can't remember his name). I pickpocketed him, got 690ish gold then paid 25 gold on arrest... well worth it
I have heavy armor as a major skill, so thievery is sometimes difficult. All I do when I decide to sneak around is get totally naked - just unequip all your heavy armor and then sneaking gets a LOT easier. If things heat up (guard dog for example), quickly equip all your armor and voila - you are an ass kicker.
This way you can play sort of a Heavy Armor Thief
I think the ability to sneak in armor is mostly based on the shoes you're wearing. If you take off your boots only, it *might* have the same effect.
Everything (near enough) in the game is levelled based on your current level.
What does this mean? well...for example, in an earlier post I mentioned that the grey prince (arena grand champion) has an elven longsword that you can get by defeating him. He only has that elven longsword if your level is above a certain number. So if you defeat him when you're a level 4 character you'll only get steel (or something) sword. The same goes for pretty much every item in game. NPCs (bandits, marauders, dremora, everyone else) have their equipment and their stats based on your current level so don't be suprised if you see a bandit with a steel longsword early in the game suddenly upgrade to a dwarven longsword when you're a bit further into the game.
Actually, that will only get harder as you level up. I started the Kvatch missions when I was level 2 or 3, and we only had to face a few scamps in the church courtyard. I came back to finish it at level 15 and the place was crawling with Daedroths, Clannfear, and Spider Daedra. Basically, I had to notch the difficulty slider back to about 1/4 of the way up the bar in order to beat that section, then return it to its default setting afterward.
You might find if you level up it gets harder, since the quality and number of your enemies will increase to match your level. I've heard of people leaving the Kvatch battle until level 10+ and getting swamped by demonic legions. There's probably a 'sweet spot' where your skills and stats give you an edge, but I couldn't tell you where it is. Also remember that the levelling doesn't take your equipment into account so you could leave the main quest for a bit and go find some sweet weapons / armour before coming back to it.
1) Always, always try to get the bonus. There's one available for most of the quests, and they're well worth the extra effort. You'll usually be told how to get the bonus at the start of the mission and, although it can seem incredibly hard, there will always be a logical and easy once you know how way to do them.
2) Don't rush in. The dark brotherhood is all about skulking in shadows and striking when the enemy least expects it. The dark brotherhood quests are structured accordingly. You'll find the quests much easier if you take your time and learn NPC's routes and building layouts before blindly rushing in and killing everyone.
3) Since you're taking your time anyway make sure you have a look around. In one mission which involves killing 5 people, each person had around 600 gold on them, and the chests in the building the quest took place in were fairly full of nice items.