Oblivion tips and tricks (possible spoilers)

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  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited May 2006
    If you get your mercantile skill up merchants have more money. The most any of them will ever have is 1800 though so don't expect to be a millionaire any time soon.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    You get the Hackdirt quest from Chorrol's "north west trade goods" (or something like that) store. It's called "The Missing Daughter" quest.. I can't think of their names, but the Argonian owner's daughter went missing on a trip to Hackdirt. You have to go there and rescue her and bring her (and her horse) back to Chorrol.

    Okay, so I'm level 31, haven't started the main quest yet, and now even bandits and other "low level" characters are dropping daedric weapons and armor. Problem is, I can't find a merchant with more than 1200 septims available, so I'm losing a lot on the potential value of these items when I sell them. Anybody know where I can find a merchant with some actual money? :D

    As far as I know, the only way to get a merchant with more than 1200 septims in the game is to mod one in. There might be a guy out there with 1800 septims, but I'm not completely sure. I've been selling a lot of glass and ebony stuff for a loss at the merchants' max lately, but I'm still sitting pretty with about 140K septims. Unless I need to do something like, oh, pay for the rebuilding of Kvatch out of my own pocket, I think I'm good with gold for a while. ;)
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    I went through the tweak guide that Keebs posted in the news section:
    http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45211

    It was very helpful, and the game looks twice as good on my notebook now. I highly recommend going through the guide. Make a backup of your Oblivion.ini first, though. ;)

    One change that particularly helped was the section on making bloom lighting look more "HDR-like" - I found that by splitting the difference between the suggested values in the guide and the values that were already set on my installation, that it made a lot of difference without becoming oversaturated.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Here is a recipe that I made up for a great potion I like to call Mage Poison:

    Harrada
    Daedra Venin
    Clouded Funnel Cap
    White Seed Pod

    Coat an arrow with this, sneak close to a magic user (such as Necromancers) and let fly with a sneak attack. This will drop the mage, drain their health and magicka, AND silence them. Very effective :ninja:


    Now a question:

    I am a master alchemist but I possess Expert-level equipment. Is there such a thing as a Master Alembic or Master Mortar and Pestle? If so, I would love to find them!
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Oblivion runs really quite badly on my machine. The game recommends Ultra High settings but when I'm playing it runs really badly outdoors (inside is fine) and I get say 10-40fps with horrific mouse lag, consequently it makes it damn hard to fight properly. The only setting I noticed that seems to make any difference at all is the grass distance, setting that to minimum moves it to around 20-50. I tried that guide that was posted and that just seemed to make things worse. Any ideas? Could it be my Intel Extreme! Graphics controler? (jk ;p)
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited May 2006
    I am a master alchemist but I possess Expert-level equipment. Is there such a thing as a Master Alembic or Master Mortar and Pestle? If so, I would love to find them!

    Yes there is. I found one master piece of alchemy kit (think it was the alembic) during the Mages guild quests so I'm assuming there's matching mortar & pestle etc.. too.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Here's a tip:

    Finishing the mages guild quests before the thieve's guild quests makes some of the later thieve's guild quests a lot easier :)
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    No ideas about low framerate then?
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Enverex wrote:
    No ideas about low framerate then?

    The thing that made the biggest impact for me was the Specular Distance setting. Turning it down to zero cancelled my specular effects completely, but made a huge impact on playability.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    I changed that from full to nothing and it made no difference at all, odd.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Enverex wrote:
    I changed that from full to nothing and it made no difference at all, odd.

    It could be your card supports it better than mine does (if your card is newer - and I'm betting it is), and that's why it has a different effect.

    Unfortunately that doesn't help you. I'll poke around and see what else makes a difference.

    Have you played with the shadow settings to see if that makes a difference for you?
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Yup, shadows also make very little difference. Hell, setting EVERYTHING (other than texture size) to minimum doesn't make it run fluid, still very rough. I should run FRAPS or something to get an exact count. Card is a GF 7800GT (PCI-X16) with an Athlon64 3800+ X2 and 2GB RAM.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited May 2006
    Enverex wrote:
    Yup, shadows also make very little difference. Hell, setting EVERYTHING (other than texture size) to minimum doesn't make it run fluid, still very rough. I should run FRAPS or something to get an exact count. Card is a GF 7800GT (PCI-X16) with an Athlon64 3800+ X2 and 2GB RAM.

    Wow, I'm surprised it's running that slowly with specs like that. What resolution are you playing at? Its pretty smooth with my X850 unless I get 4+ characters on screen at once.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    1280x1024 (native for my LCD).
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Enverex wrote:
    Yup, shadows also make very little difference. Hell, setting EVERYTHING (other than texture size) to minimum doesn't make it run fluid, still very rough. I should run FRAPS or something to get an exact count. Card is a GF 7800GT (PCI-X16) with an Athlon64 3800+ X2 and 2GB RAM.

    You can get the framerate reported through the game without running FRAPS. Here's how:

    Bring up the console (press ~)
    type TDT and press Enter
    The framerate will display in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and updates realtime as you play. I usually had that running the whole time I was tweaking.
  • edited May 2006
    Its pretty smooth with my X850 unless I get 4+ characters on screen at once.
    Would that be without HDR? After looking at the benchmarks Anandtech did I'm not suprised to see any current machine struggling with this game.

    http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited May 2006
    rapture-IC wrote:
    Would that be without HDR? After looking at the benchmarks Anandtech did I'm not suprised to see any current machine struggling with this game.

    http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746

    Yep, X850 does not support HDR. (No SM3 support)
  • edited May 2006
    The requirements for this game are really upsetting. I want to upgrade so I can play as a crazy barbarian type who charges at everything with a claymore but the slideshow I get just makes it impossible.

    There is no single upgrade I can do which is gonna make that possible so what do I do? Wait for the next generation of videocards? I wonder if many (or even any) other games are going to be like this in the next year or so.
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited May 2006
    Anybody know of some wealthy merchants? Ive got 10-15 items worth about 5000 gold each, but all the merchants I can find only have about 1200 gold. Do I need to wait till a certain level when all ther merchants get more money? Im level 25.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    See post 91..

    A short answer: no. :(
  • edited June 2006
    K, here's a good one: How can I not die while fighting anything more ferocious than a wolf? I've killed everything with a sword from the beginning but still, at my level, I can't kill anything more than a wolf without running around for 10 minutes healing myself. I don't know how I'm making it through the storyline as far as I am but I get slaughtered by pretty much everything. My blocking tactics are fine and I continually cast the healing spell (a good five cast for what seems like no help) but I'm still dead most of the time. Why is it so hard just to kill a mountain lion at level 12?
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Turn down the difficulty level, that's what I had to do to make the game actually playable.
  • edited June 2006
    Took that advice and found that just moving it down four clicks (what seems like the 45% mark of the bar) put it at the level that just felt right. It seems, with what I've read from everyone here and elsewhere, that the scaling system wasn't tweaked right from development so I'm good this tool is here to allow you to make it right itself.

    I've read that your health heals on it's own. Is that true? I don't see it.

    Does swinging your sword at the dummy in the fighter's guilds increase your skill? I didn't see it move with a good 30 swings but maybe I just didn't wait long enough.

    Is there a limit to the number of stones you can collect from the Oblivion gates? If they continually respawn do they continually genrate random stones or are there 16/32/whatever number of specific stones that are created?

    Is there a way to raise the roof to your leveling? I'm a 360 user by the way and I'm looking for an already in-game solution to this, no modding. Also, Are the counters there for your skills just to signal getting to apprentice/journeyman/expert/master or do they actually make you better at that act? I can only notice a difference with agility and I may have just not noticed that it came with getting one of those ranks.
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited June 2006
    Djinon wrote:
    I've read that your health heals on it's own. Is that true? I don't see it.

    You only heal when you rest, while wandering round or 'waiting' you don't heal.
    Does swinging your sword at the dummy in the fighter's guilds increase your skill? I didn't see it move with a good 30 swings but maybe I just didn't wait long enough.

    I was wondering about this, and the training areas in the mages guild. As far as I can tell there's no effect from using these training dummies / areas.
    Is there a limit to the number of stones you can collect from the Oblivion gates? If they continually respawn do they continually genrate random stones or are there 16/32/whatever number of specific stones that are created?

    There's a set number of types of sigil stones. I don't know what the number is or what the types are but there's definitely a set number. From my experience I reckon there's 8 or so in each 'class' of sigil stone but that's just a guess really.
    Is there a way to raise the roof to your leveling? I'm a 360 user by the way and I'm looking for an already in-game solution to this, no modding.

    I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this.
    Also, Are the counters there for your skills just to signal getting to apprentice/journeyman/expert/master or do they actually make you better at that act? I can only notice a difference with agility and I may have just not noticed that it came with getting one of those ranks.

    They do make you better at doing...well whatever the skill is. For example if your destruction skill is 3 and you cast a fireball at someone (max damage 25) you'll probably do very little damage. Cast the same spell at someone when your destruction skill is 20 and you'll do a lot more damage.
  • edited June 2006
    I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this.

    You level up when you've increased your main stats 10 times. This leaves only so much room for growth, leveling out in the 40s I think. Is ther a way to keep going, to continue to gain levels? Or is that enough to increase all your stats to 100 anyway so you don't have to?
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    If you manage your multipliers decently, you can hit 100 in your stats by then. I haven't been paying too much attention to maxing multipliers (since I'm just playing the game) but I'm level 28 and I have 2 stats that have hit 100 by now. You can also buff your stats with enchanted items that allow you to go over 100 (my speed, for example, is 102 right now).
  • edited June 2006
    They do make you better at doing...well whatever the skill is. For example if your destruction skill is 3 and you cast a fireball at someone (max damage 25) you'll probably do very little damage. Cast the same spell at someone when your destruction skill is 20 and you'll do a lot more damage.

    I've not noticed it work like that. If you are casting the same low level spells the damage stays the same no matter what your level is. Energy costs do seem to become slightly lower as you level though.

    Leveling on combat and other none magical skills seem to have the most obvious changes.

    Master armourer, blade and shield are fun to have.

    One more thing, you don't have to increase your level to increase your skills. I had a level 10 character (got tired of the leveling system) with several skills at 90-100.
  • edited June 2006
    Forgot about that. I was mainly going after the governing attributes however. Yes, I can increase the skills continuously, but the attributes make more of a difference when it comes to certain things, at least to me. For example, I'm tired of being over-encumbered when I dungeon crawl, and having more life wouldn't hurt either, something else that goes up only when you level.
  • edited June 2006
    lemonlime wrote:
    Wow, I'm surprised it's running that slowly with specs like that. What resolution are you playing at? Its pretty smooth with my X850 unless I get 4+ characters on screen at once.

    I have an ATI Radeon R600 and full graphics runs fine for me, except it got a bit laggy in kvatch.
  • edited June 2006
    lemonlime wrote:
    Wow, I'm surprised it's running that slowly with specs like that. What resolution are you playing at? Its pretty smooth with my X850 unless I get 4+ characters on screen at once.

    I have an ATI Radeon R600 and full graphics runs fine for me, except it got a bit laggy in kvatch.
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