Oblivion first time modded or vanilla

[Funposter]

I'm using Oblivion EGL - and it had not crashed on me once in last 40 hours - while basically every other solution sooner or later started crashing. EGL is combination of Vulkan renderer, ReShade, ENB, OBSE, OSR, EAX emulator - compiled into single alternative EXE.

I'm using MOO + OOO + WAC + OCOv2 - so it is not exactly light setup. Previously I was always blaming one mod or the other - but with EGL they all magically became stable. I had only one issue with ENB frame limiter cutting my framerate to 30 FPS - but after disabling it I get 60 fps everywhere.

Modded Oblivion is much better 3d fantasy roguelike than Morrowind or Skyrim - as 'generic' art style allows to seamlessly blend creatures and items from various mods with vanilla content. In other games you cannot get the same experience where you're never quite sure what you will find in the dungeon or in the wilderness.

Maybe one day Beyond Skyrim + Requiem / Wildlander will one day offer something even better - but most Beyond Skyrim provinces are years from completion.

I looked into EGL but I must admit that I simply enjoy the graphical effects from Reloaded too much. ORE3's 12 light points seriously improves the visuals of the game, to the point where memory management probably isn't even needed. I don't think there's much point in stuffing the game full of 2K textures if the lighting isn't up to scratch, and conversely, ORE3's improved lighting means that high-res textures aren't strictly necessary to make the game look much better. I actually don't remember the last time that I got a crash now and I'm a little over 30 hours into the playthrough. It's all working remarkably well for what I would seem a heavily modded setup, although I certainly have scrapped things which were too taxing like a lot of the UL modules.

 

[curds]

Anyone got a recommendation for a mod that prevents the spamming of healing potions from the inventory screen (i.e. while the game is paused) during combat?

Preferably by having a drinking animation play out in real time before being healed. Something like in Gothic or Dark Souls.

 

[Funposter]

Anyone got a recommendation for a mod that prevents the spamming of healing potions from the inventory screen (i.e. while the game is paused) during combat?

Preferably by having a drinking animation play out in real time before being healed. Something like in Gothic or Dark Souls.

You want Interact Animations, which is by the same author as Combat Additions. Combine the two together for Souls-y type gameplay. This also makes it so that NPC need to actually drink their potions too, giving you the opportunity to punish them.

 

[curds]

You want Interact Animations, which is by the same author as Combat Additions. Combine the two together for Souls-y type gameplay. This also makes it so that NPC need to actually drink their potions too, giving you the opportunity to punish them.

So does interact animations actually prevent the player from restoring health while still in the inventory screen? The mod page doesn't seem to mention anything about that. Also no first person

I guess I'll install oblivion now and test.

FWIW, while it's cool that that other mod exists, I'm not looking to replicate souls gameplay in oblivion. I just want to not be able to chug 4 restore health potions for the inventory screen, mid-combat.

Cheers for the recommendations.

 

[MWaser]

I actually played Oblivion fairly recently with a bunch of mods, a few visuals mostly, removing level scaling, a bunch of fixes and convenience scripts thanks to OBSE without changing the basic mechanics too much.

It's still shit. But I still find it more tolerable than Skyrim, at least at baseline. Maybe Skyrim starts getting fun after the 50 hour modding experience turns it into an anime fairy dragon riding simulator with detailed action-magical combat and removes all vanilla quests and dialogue from the game, but I couldn't swear to it. I have, after all, never tried doing that. My patience for modding runs out after at most 3-4 hours.

If I am to be perfectly honest, just removing level-scaling from Oblivion makes it already borderline tolerable. The fact that levelling up no longer ruins your characters and doing quests early doesn't give you some memetically-underpowered unique item improves the experience significantly. But even the significantly improved experience is still a really janky game. The part about Oblivion that functions somewhat well is the magic system, with the convenient quick casting and ability to chain various spells for applying weaknesses etc. Either that, or enchant your weapon with a combination of [element damage] + [weakness to element] + [weakness to magicka] and with each hit having exponential damage amplification due to weakness to magicka constantly stacking with itself, you'll kill basically every lategame enemy in 3-4 hits. The fact the game allows you to do such a dumb thing is respectable enough, at least. Nothing else in the game really is worthy of praising it for allowing any "freedom" because the game has very little of that. Your skills and attributes don't even scale above 100, so if you ever considered you might be able to deal damage to enemies with normal attacks? Forget about it. If you ain't using magic stacking, you're just wasting your time. Aside from that I respect the possibility of reaching ridiculous permanent values from constant enchantments, like walking around with 100% spell absorption or 100% reflect damage. It is for this reason that in the vanilla game, exploring random dungeons suddenly could become interesting above level 20 because you might accidentally stumble onto a ridiculous generic magic item that happens to be more powerful than most of the world's known artifacts: like a ring that grants 25% spell absorption and a magicka bonus, or a ring that grants 50% magic resistance and 35% reflect. With level-descaling mods you could find those even at the very start of the game. Fun. Although you'll get smashed by ogres in whatever dungeon you would try to enter to try and loot.

In any case, I'm rambling. The game remains trashy, maybe with some more rebalances you could make stuff like melee combat feel less awful and pointless, but I haven't found any. Animation mods / combat rehauls basically never really work like you'd imagine them to and you'll be better off just playing a game with actual good combat. If you like walking around repetitive dungeons in hopes of finding potentially op shit or you like to use the same spell over and over because it's the one OP formula in the game, then congratulations, Oblivion is for you. (Still wouldn't actually recommend it)

 

[Late Bloomer]

I actually played Oblivion fairly recently with a bunch of mods, a few visuals mostly, removing level scaling, a bunch of fixes and convenience scripts thanks to OBSE without changing the basic mechanics too much.

It's still shit. But I still find it more tolerable than Skyrim

I make it a habit to stop reading any thoughts on Oblivion or Morrowind as soon as Skyrim is mentioned. Sadly, I don't get to read much about those two games.

 

[MWaser]

I actually played Oblivion fairly recently with a bunch of mods, a few visuals mostly, removing level scaling, a bunch of fixes and convenience scripts thanks to OBSE without changing the basic mechanics too much.

It's still shit. But I still find it more tolerable than Skyrim

I make it a habit to stop reading any thoughts on Oblivion or Morrowind as soon as Skyrim is mentioned. Sadly, I don't get to read much about those two games.

I'm sure you considered this to be very insightful commentary at the moment it was written. I regret to inform you that it isn't.

 

[tindrli]

hi to all. i wonder whats a current consensus about oblivion mods? does anyone knows if there are some MOD PACKS to play oblivion. I would like to avoid installing bunch of mods one by one
FIXES, UI and QOL UPDATES, bunch of acepted equipment updates and on the end a little bit of graphics if any since im playing on older r5 m330 graphic laptop with 8gb ram


thanx in advance

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Honestly the Oblivion modding scene seems to smaller than both Morrowind's and Skyrim's
I don't know much either, so I would say look for guides and use the one that seems most suited to your tastes

First result of google search - "oblivion modding guide" :
https://www.sinitargaming.com/oblivion_gameplay.html

I would say that perhaps Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is imo overrated and just bloated, at least that was my experience from way back when I tried it in 2013 maybe?
But then again the original mod isn't updated in decades and I am sure there's new versions of it made by other, more competent moders...

 

[Funposter]

An update from MOO land. I finally found an Ebony Mace that I could use after running into a Bone Knight in Vilverin, of all places. I really didn't expect to find such good loot given how close it is to the Imperial City, but the spawns around the IC seem to be a bit screwy. It's like anything on the Imperial Isle is (rightly) considered low level, but as soon as you get to the other side of Lake Rumare, all bets are off. Shock Damage + Ebony Weapon is a hilarious combo for running Oblivion Gates, since Slayer damage combines with most Daedra's inherent Shock weakness to just make the whole experience ridiculously easy. Daedroth are going down in four hits. I also started doing Knights of the Nine, and decided that I would do the entire Pilgrimage quest without fast-travelling, and only stopping off at inns in order to sleep. No stops in town to re-stock on potions or hammers. That took about five in-game days, went across three play sessions, and ended up with about 30,000 gold worth of loot sitting in my horse's saddlebags from various overworld encounters, running a couple of dungeons and closing a few Oblivion Gates I came across. Alchemy + Armorer is a great combo for being totally self-sufficient for long periods, so combined with Simple Horse Utilities you can spend more time dungeon crawling (maybe three at a time) and less time going back and forth between town.

Below is a rough map of my route, starting at Anvil and going along the road past Kvatch, resting the night at Gottshaw Inn. The next day I continued to Skingrad, and then took the wilderness track up along the River Ethe Unique Landscapes module, before ducking into Weynon Priory to rest for the night and to start the KOTN-related quest mod, A Posthumous Request. The next day was just picking mushrooms along the picturesque Orange Road, closing an Oblivion Gate and then resting at the Roxey Inn. The next leg of the trip was the long one, and the part that I knew would be most difficult, since the Nibenay Basin and Blackwood are generally one of the areas where you can reliably find difficult overworld encounters. The trip along the shores of Lake Rumare was uneventful, but shortly after the Wayshrine of Kynareth a pack of five Dire Wolves attempted to gang rape me, and I was really only saved by the fact that I'd managed to acquire two Reflect Damage items, so I could heal through the damage as they continually staggered me and basically let them kill themselves. I also got diseased. Twice. I stayed at the Imperial Bridge Inn before attempting to fight the Necromancers in Cadlew Chapel and traverse the mod-added caverns below, and after emerging, continued down the Yellow Road into Blackwood. It was getting dark, had begun running and I encountered a Baleful Spirit on the road. So far, this has been the only encounter that I have really just had to give up against. It damaged me too quickly most of the time, and on the off-chance that I did manage to kill it, it was only because it had been distracted by my horse, which always resulted in my horse being killed (usually by an AOE blast that took off half of my health) and 30,000 gold worth of loot now being stranded in the wilderness. I opted to run, and I have to tell you, running away from a pissed off cloud that you can barely see, in a swamp, during a pitch-black, rainy night is a surprisingly fun experience. I managed to lose the Baleful Spirit after crossing the rope bridge across the Niben River, and made it to the Wayshrine of Stendarr without further incident. There wasn't too much issue on this side of Blackwood apart from the occasional bandit or roaming Daedra, and I completed the rest of the pilgrimage without incident, coming across Sir Roderic and his squire just before I made it to the Wayshrine of Talos.

Obviously I would never recommend doing this in a vanilla playthrough. You'd spend the entire time fighting Ogres and Minotaur Lords and at no point would any of it feel interesting or eventful in any particular way. But with MOO, the overworld encounters are so much more varied and the feeling of danger as you get further away from civilization is genuine. I've mentioned in this thread that MOO's "encounter zones" can be a little bit wonky, but I think this was the most fun that I've had with Oblivion since I first played it fifteen years ago. In a game where you spend most of your time fast-travelling between towns and trying to avoid spending time in the overworld as much as possible, grabbing a horse and just going out to experience it is actually worthwhile as a change of pace and an experience in and of itself. Obligatory pretty screenshots below for all hiking simulator fans (warning, there's A LOT).

Spoiler

So, I picked this playthrough back up. Progressing through the Main Quest atm and doing Allies for Bruma, and Oblivion Gates really aren't so bad when MOO's more random spawns means that you aren't just fighting a constant string of Xivilai and high level Dremora. Clearing out the ground-level areas outside of the Sigil Tower is usually pretty quick thanks to a combination of sprinting from Basic Physical Activities and Feather+Restore Fatigue spells, and then the towers themselves will usually have a couple of tough fights. I had an amusing encounter with two Dremora Valkynaz, where one was using a Warhammer and the other a Bow. The Warhammer Dremora charged at me, only for his friend to accidentally shoot him and proc the Expert level Marksman perk, knocking him down. An easy kill, and then I was able to quickly close the distance and murder the bow user.

I think I mentioned a page or two ago that I'd made it to Underpall Cave, and that's where I actually stopped, so it's been just over 11 months since I last played this game. I've put in another seven hours or so over the last few days, since I've been off work with the flu, and it really is a good modlist. What I often find when I play Morrowind is that I can't go back and pick up a playthrough that's even a month old, because too many mods will have been updated or a cool new mod will have been released. That also means that just spending a couple of days putting together a modlist can get dragged out, as core mods (like BCOM) get updated right as your list is looking complete, or when you're like five hours into a playthrough. After 11 months, I think the only things that have seen genuine updates are Mixxa's Radiant AI mod, and Maskar looks like he's testing the next big update to MOO which has been in the works for several years now, finally adding Werewolves. There's a brand new little Weye mod which is probably a good alternative to Lake Rumare Region Revival (which has also received an update, although purely in the form of bugfixes), especially if you like the Imperial Isle UL module.

The core of a modded playthrough is still just dungeon crawling, so go into it with that mindset. Oblivion can never really be a good game, but a small amount of work can at least make it enjoyable. The core gameplay improvements listed a few pages back (MOO, Av Latta Magicka etc.) and then a few things to improve the experience in town can make a big difference compared to vanilla.

Edit: A couple of things to note, too, with the benefit of 11 months hindsight. The Morphoid Daedra and Herne mods aren't really worth it. Ignoring the fact that the assets themselves are vanilla quality, they don't really add to the enemy variety all that much. They're pretty lazy add-ons to the Scamp skeleton and just have a high Speed stat, essentially filling the same niche that Clannfears already exist in. MOO adds Hungers to vanilla lists too, so the existence of these guys really just doesn't fit - they're superfluous. Arthmoor's Gottshaw mod is the only one of his additions that didn't feel out of place to me, and I liked having somewhere in between Anvil and Skingrad where I could sell my loot. Unfortunately, the quest content actually relies on you having another mod of his, Vergayun, and not having it installed simply leads to a dead-end. Due to this, it's another mod which I wouldn't advise installing. I always liked Arthmoor's tiny town mods for Skyrim, so I'm surprised at how irritating and low quality the Oblivion mods turned out to be. Constant crashes with Faregyl, quests that need other mods, towns with bad landscaping placed right next to dungeons, etc. They're just a total disaster. Some other minor balance and landscape mods (DTS, Set Bonuses, Cheydinhal Garden and the like) could all be removed to to clean up the modlist. I think you could get it down to 60 active plugins and not even notice that anything changed.

 

[Funposter]

BIG SNIP about Oblivion Reloaded

The latest release of Oblivion Reloaded E3 seems to have greatly improved performance, to the point where I'll need to turn V-Sync back on in order to not go above 60fps in interiors and mess with the game logic. I'll need to play around a little bit with the shadow settings, because maybe they're just not as aggressive by default, but the recommended loadout in the downloads section has me running at 10-20 fps more in most areas. It should also include support for DXVK, meaning it's now available for Linux users and that Windows users can take advantage of what Vulkan provides. This is a pretty massive step in terms of COOL GRAFIX modding for Oblivion, and is something you can install even with an otherwise vanilla playthrough to greatly improve the experience, imo.