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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion |OT|

kaizoku

I'm not as deluded as I make myself out to be
I didn't save it before I did it, i just assumed the quest was designed in a way which would mean plenty of spells/assistance would be available. Apparently not >.> and the 2 people in the ruin with me are bloody useless.

Yeahyou can cast the spells from anywhere, at first I tried casting the spells into the 4 quadrant things, hence the spell wastage lol. Now I need a way to get fortify/damage magicka spells/scrolls - anyone?? :(

How can I make these spells? Do I need to have one of the spells first?

I have an earlier save but going back an hour is not an option, (I did a lot of boring minor skill levelling in that hour!!)
 

Mashing

Member
urk said:
I ran into a tomb filled with Wraiths. Any tips? Level 24 Expert Marksman, Full Glass Armor, Enchanted Bow with 14 damage rating and 50 point drain Magika, Elven and Silver Arrows.

I have to pump at least two dozen arrows into each wrait to bring them down. After each battle, the arrows disappear. I went halfway in with over 300 arrows and now I'm down to less than 100. Ridiculous. The tomb is crawling with these bastards too.

I don't have any problems staying alive, but I'm going to run out of arrows fast and the idea of taking on two wraiths at once seems a touch dangerous.

I'm playing the PC version I bumped down the difficulty (quite far actually) because I was sick and tired of having to waste that many arrows. Wraiths are probably somewhat resistant to arrows (being ethereal and all), but every goddamn thing was taking that much. I ended up moding my bow damage. (which basically doubled my damage output). If I leave the difficulty slider where it's at now I can kill storm atronach's, xivali's, spider daedra's with one sneak attack now. Time to bump up that slider some.
 

kaizoku

I'm not as deluded as I make myself out to be
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Kaizoku: Go back to the Arcane University and simply make two simple spells to enhance and damage magicka. Problem solved.

Dont think I can.... o_0
 
Rhindle said:
So has anyone here "completed" the game yet (in the sense of completing main quest + all guild questlines)?

I'm 5 achievements away. It's turning out quite a bit shorter than Morrowind, but a bit more fun along the way.


I haven't finished yet but I agree that the game does seem to be shorter than Morrowind. The addition of fast travel and the lack of any faction quests really shortens the experience (at least when compared to Morrowind).
 

IJoel

Member
Rhindle said:
So has anyone here "completed" the game yet (in the sense of completing main quest + all guild questlines)?

I'm 5 achievements away. It's turning out quite a bit shorter than Morrowind, but a bit more fun along the way.

I DID! :D

My gameplay time was around 95 hours. Obviously this included much more than the achievement related quests. I think the number of completed quests by the end of the game was 128. The number of discovered areas, I think, was over 150.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I am so happy we non-english Oblivion Xbox 360 copy holders were spared the temptation of the horse armor download.

It is still not out yet :(.

I hope not all future expansions will take such a long time to come out outside the U.S. and the U.K....
 
There is no way in hell that Oblivion is shorter than Morrowind. Morrowind had more faction/house/guild options to choose from, but each guild that you do have in Oblivion has more quests. Also, Oblivion has about 2-3 times as many miscellaneous side quests as Morrowind and a longer main story. The only thing that extended Morrowind's play time was the random wondering around looking for shit that you don't have to do in Oblivion.

To put it into perspective, I played through Morrowind twice in about the same amount of time that it will take me to go through Oblivion once.

According to this link there are 185 quests in Oblivion.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
mmlemay said:
There is no way in hell that Oblivion is shorter than Morrowind. Morrowind had more faction/house/guild options to choose from, but each guild that you do have in Oblivion has more quests. Also, Oblivion has about 2-3 times as many miscellaneous side quests as Morrowind and a longer main story. The only thing that extended Morrowind's play time was the random wondering around looking for shit that you don't have to do in Oblivion.

To put it into perspective, I played through Morrowind twice in about the same amount of time that it will take me to go through Oblivion once.

According to this link there are 185 quests in Oblivion.


Uhh, you're wrong on all counts actually. Morrowind has more quests per faction, MANY more factions, and over 500 quests total.

The main difference is that oblivion's quests often contain more scripting, special areas, etc. Morrowind's quests are usually much simpler, and rely more on the adventure of the journey, with your often vague directions/goals and lack of hand-holding compass etc.
 

Pellham

Banned
And because of the lack of hand holding, most people playing Morrowind resorted to using FAQs to guide them or simply never got very far (Todd Howard went on record to say that the majority of people who played Morrowind never found Caius Cosades).

I personally beat Morrowind by playing through a guide, I will admit that. However I have not had to use a FAQ for Oblivion and the only amount of help i've gotten was from this thread. I would imagine that's an improvement, at least for the non-hardcores like myself.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Pellham said:
(Todd Howard went on record to say that the majority of people who played Morrowind never found Caius Cosades).

:lol

I used a guide in some part but I personally made it a point to try and do the quests myself. Although, there are some parts that are like...wtf are you supposed to do type of situations.
 
EviLore said:
Uhh, you're wrong on all counts actually. Morrowind has more quests per faction, MANY more factions, and over 500 quests total.

The main difference is that oblivion's quests often contain more scripting, special areas, etc. Morrowind's quests are usually much simpler, and rely more on the adventure of the journey, with your often vague directions/goals and lack of hand-holding compass etc.

I don't remember having 500 quests, but I'll take your word for it. However, there is this:

Fighter's Guild
Morrowind - 13 quests
Oblivion - 20 quests

Assassin/Dark Brotherhood
Morrowind - 12 quests
Oblivion - 21 quests

Most of the other comparisons I found were roughly a wash. The big difference is the house quests. I still don't remember as many long, involved random sidequests in Morrowind...
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
mmlemay said:
I still don't remember as many long, involved random sidequests in Morrowind...

Oh..there was ALOT of random quests in Morrowind

1. You've got random quests by regular townspeople and people wandering on pathways

2. Fighters Guild

3. Mages Guild

4. Thieves Guild

5. Morag Tong

6. Great Houses (Redoran, Hlallu, and forgot the other..you can only join one though)

7. Main Quest (The Blades)

8. Temple Guards (theres another name for it)

9. Some type of Imperial Guards

All of them could have upwards of 10+ quests each. I know the main guilds have much more than that.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
You have to either be an idiot or just disinterested/distracted to never find caius. I mean, come on, the game makes it plenty obvious. You get a note with directions, it's in your (albeit poorly organized) journal, and IIRC it's a standard topic in the infodex NPCs. Then you get enough money starting out to take the silt strider right to balmora, and even if you go off and do your own thing, a quick map reference is all you need to get back on track.

I don't think it's indicative of poor game design at all. There are a few quests that are pretty much "WTF" in terms of destination locs, but they're usually in the rare/powerful reward category, like one of those two items ajira has you hunt for later on in the mages guild line. I had a hell of a time finding the cave that held that staff, but it ended up being a really useful/powerful item and I think I ran circles around the damn entrance without realizing.
 

Speevy

Banned
The point you guys keep skipping over is that the townsperson/farmer/inn resident of interest quests FAR outnumber those in Morrowind. It's not even close.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
mmlemay said:
I don't remember having 500 quests, but I'll take your word for it. However, there is this:

Fighter's Guild
Morrowind - 13 quests
Oblivion - 20 quests

Assassin/Dark Brotherhood
Morrowind - 12 quests
Oblivion - 21 quests

Most of the other comparisons I found were roughly a wash. The big difference is the house quests. I still don't remember as many long, involved random sidequests in Morrowind...

Where did you get these numbers?

Morrowind:

fighters guild - 31 quests.

morag tong (assassins) - 23 quests, and most of these single quests involve assassination orders for two totally separate people in different locations, so it's effectively higher.
 
BlueTsunami said:
Oh..there was ALOT of random quests in Morrowind

1. You've got random quests by regular townspeople and people wandering on pathways

2. Fighters Guild

3. Mages Guild

4. Thieves Guild

5. Morag Tong

6. Great Houses (Redoran, Hlallu, and forgot the other..you can only join one though)

7. Main Quest (The Blades)

8. Temple Guards (theres another name for it)

9. Some type of Imperial Guards

All of them could have upwards of 10+ quests each. I know the main guilds have much more than that.

I think part of the thing about Morrowind that was different was that doing some quests precluded you from doing others, so for any given playthrough, you could not even come close to playing every quest in the game, unlike Oblivion. I think you had to play through Morrowind 3 times to be able to play all of the quests, whereas in Oblivion you can play through them all on one playthrough, which is exactly what I'm doing so it makes Oblivion "feel" bigger to me. Also, I think the quests in Oblivion are generally more involving, although I wouldn't necessarily say they take a lot longer because you spend so much time in Morrowind (EDIT) wandering around, looking for caves :)

Well, I didn't thanks to the ESSENTIAL strategy guide, but you could have.
 

jet1911

Member
Is it normal when a guard kill a civilian for him to go near his body, say something like "Hmmm the body is still warm there must be a killer around here" and start searching?:lol

And I just did the Sheogorath's Shrine quest.
dogs on fire raining from the sky? Awesome! :D
 
As much as I love Oblivion and the Guild Quests I've done so far, I do miss the depth and complexity of the House Quests and House Interaction from Morrowind.
 

IJoel

Member
The one thing I kinda hate about Oblivion is the magically know-it-all guards and people. This wasn't the case in Morrowind. Killing people in one blow is hard. Though I slaughtered all the guards at Chorrol once, just for the sake of it... it was hilarious... corpses everywhere.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
I just hated the Main Quest in Morrowind where you had to go to each Tribe Encampment and Each Great House to be name Neravator and Horator. I'm just happy I found the Boots of Blinding Speed before I got to that point :D
 

LakeEarth

Member
Speaking of blinding speed, my eyes are starting to water when playing the game I move so fast now. I have a spell that causes me to walk twice as fast but I just can't use it anymore. I move too damn fast since I've gained 150 feather on my equipment :lol
 

Speevy

Banned
Yeah, Morrowind's main quest was awful.

By the time you reached
Dagoth Ur, you didn't really care. I was just numbed from all the running around they made me do.
 

Pellham

Banned
I was a bit disappointed that the city factions you can join in Oblivion only offer 1 or 2 quests before you become a member. Maybe an official expansion pack down the road will offer more indepth quests and storylines for these cities.
 

raYne

Member
Rhindle said:
So has anyone here "completed" the game yet (in the sense of completing main quest + all guild questlines)?
I know people who have finished the main and guild quests (ie "beat" the game) weeks ago. I just finished it up recently as well.. though I did a lot of sidequests.

We're all still playing though. :D
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
For the record, morrowind had:

Fighters Guild - 31 quests
Mages Guild - 32 Quests
Thieves Guild - 30 quests

Morag Tong - 23 quests
Imperial Cult - 24 quests
Imperial Legion - 19 quests
Temple - 21 quests

House Hllalu - 33 quests
House Telvanni - 30 quests
House Redoran - 37 quests

Vampire (3 clans + general) - 18 quests

That's ~300 right there.

+ of course all the misc quests and the main quest line. I went through quickly so the numbers might be +/- 1 or so, and there's also the issue of all the faqs on gamefaqs seeming to be incomplete on their own.

Despite any flaws certain people are quick to point out any time morrowind is mentioned here, it does have content.
 

Ecrofirt

Member
To anyone who is a warrior/primarily uses swords and blunt objects:

How many weapons do you carry around? I always find myself with only 50 lbs or so of weight I can play around with, and I'm beginning to sonder if it's because I just have too many weapons in my inventory.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Ecrofirt said:
To anyone who is a warrior/primarily uses swords and blunt objects:

How many weapons do you carry around? I always find myself with only 50 lbs or so of weight I can play around with, and I'm beginning to sonder if it's because I just have too many weapons in my inventory.

I just carry Three Weapons....A Regular Long Sword, An Enchanted Longsword and a Bow

The Sword because my Main Skill is with Blades and a Bow so I can bait out certain Enemies when I need too.

I just found some Ebony Armor so my Inventory is becoming a little harder to manage now. So I had to cut back on what I carry around (thus carrying what i'm carrying above)
 

Speevy

Banned
Both of these games have content. It's like comparing the biggest game ever to the second biggest game ever, whichever way you look at it.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Speevy said:
Both of these games have content. It's like comparing the biggest game ever to the second biggest game ever, whichever way you look at it.

Baldur's Gate 2 has something to say about that ;b (not in terms of land mass of course, but in the amount of stuff to do)
 
EviLore said:
For the record, morrowind had:

Fighters Guild - 31 quests
Mages Guild - 32 Quests
Thieves Guild - 30 quests

Morag Tong - 23 quests
Imperial Cult - 24 quests
Imperial Legion - 19 quests
Temple - 21 quests

House Hllalu - 33 quests
House Telvanni - 30 quests
House Redoran - 37 quests

Vampire (3 clans + general) - 18 quests

That's ~300 right there.

+ of course all the misc quests and the main quest line. I went through quickly so the numbers might be +/- 1 or so, and there's also the issue of all the faqs on gamefaqs seeming to be incomplete on their own.

Despite any flaws certain people are quick to point out any time morrowind is mentioned here, it does have content.

Wow! The FAQs that we looked at had completely different numbers!

Anyway, don't think that I am hating on Morrowind. I really loved that game and it was the first 3D "western" RPG that I played (I was a huge fan of Baldur's Gate and a few others on the PC, though). Even though my first playthrough was marred by a game-breaking glitch that prevented me from completing the main quest, I played through it again with a second character taking a completely different path so I could see most of the content in the game. I absolutely loved it and will forever preach my love of Morrowind.
 

Meier

Member
I made a custom class with Mercantile as one of my main attributes and boy do I regret it. It goes up slow as balls even if I've haggled to the point I cant get it any higher. I cant imagine how I'll ever get to Expert to invest money.

It isnt dependent on my personality score, is it? (learning it, not necessarily its effectiveness)

re ecro: In Morrowind I used to carry around a shitload of weapons, but blade is my only major skill so I just carry around an Elven Longsword I enchanted and another enchanted weapon just in case. I also have an enchanted bow and some arrows, but that's it.
 
I'm playing a Battlemage and I use three weapons regularly: Sword of Frost, Bow of Burning, and my personalized staff that you get when you join the Mage Guild. Of course, I also carry a lot of arrows around as well.
 
Ecrofirt said:
To anyone who is a warrior/primarily uses swords and blunt objects:

How many weapons do you carry around? I always find myself with only 50 lbs or so of weight I can play around with, and I'm beginning to sonder if it's because I just have too many weapons in my inventory.

I carry around 3, but Umbra doesn't have any weight so it's really only two. Blunt weapons can really weight you down, so be careful and don't carry those around unless you are really going to use them.
 

raYne

Member
Ecrofirt said:
To anyone who is a warrior/primarily uses swords and blunt objects:

How many weapons do you carry around? I always find myself with only 50 lbs or so of weight I can play around with, and I'm beginning to sonder if it's because I just have too many weapons in my inventory.
You really only "need" two, but I carry around three in my inventory.

-Daedric Shortsword: More overkill with 100 blade, 80ish strength and x6 sneak attack. Plus the sword itself is like 19.
-Daedric Claymore: I used to use it when fighting multiple baddies at once since it had a slightly higher attack point rating than my shortsword as well as longer reach. It became pretty useless after while though since you can only get x1 for sneak attacks with it and that's how I kill most enemies. Plus with my other stats and Destruction Magic (& the right spells) it really doesn't make sense to even carry it around.
-Enchanted Daedric Bow: Which is overkill to the max with 100 sneak, 90+ marksman, ebony arrows etc. Hell I don't even bother recharging it anymore. :lol I picked up some Daedric arrows recently on the Oblivion Plane as well, but I don't have enough of them to warrant primary useage.

..and yes, I realise that the Bow doesn't really count as part of the question. But I really don't see a need for carrying around a blunt object to begin with.
 
Meier said:
I made a custom class with Mercantile as one of my main attributes and boy do I regret it. It goes up slow as balls even if I've haggled to the point I cant get it any higher. I cant imagine how I'll ever get to Expert to invest money.

It isnt dependent on my personality score, is it? (learning it, not necessarily its effectiveness)

re ecro: In Morrowind I used to carry around a shitload of weapons, but blade is my only major skill so I just carry around an Elven Longsword I enchanted and another enchanted weapon just in case. I also have an enchanted bow and some arrows, but that's it.

That's actually a good thing, because you don't want skills that level up too quickly as major skills or you will level too fast and not be prepared for the tougher enemies. With that being said, the two best ways to level up mercantile are:

1. Join a guild, take everything that you can in the house, and sell it all - in every town

2. Train the hell out of it (although I am partial to training Armorer first and foremost until you hit level 50 and can repair magical items)
 

Nerevar

they call me "Man Gravy".
EviLore said:
For the record, morrowind had:

Fighters Guild - 31 quests
Mages Guild - 32 Quests
Thieves Guild - 30 quests

Morag Tong - 23 quests
Imperial Cult - 24 quests
Imperial Legion - 19 quests
Temple - 21 quests

House Hllalu - 33 quests
House Telvanni - 30 quests
House Redoran - 37 quests

Vampire (3 clans + general) - 18 quests

That's ~300 right there.

+ of course all the misc quests and the main quest line. I went through quickly so the numbers might be +/- 1 or so, and there's also the issue of all the faqs on gamefaqs seeming to be incomplete on their own.

Despite any flaws certain people are quick to point out any time morrowind is mentioned here, it does have content.

yeah, the big difference is a lot of those quests were mutually exclusive. For example, IIRC you couldn't go far in the thieves guild AND the fighters guild because both of them had early quests to retrieve a specific item from an NPC (well, you could, but it required exploiting the game). Also, you couldn't join multiple great houses, so those quests couldn't all be completed in the same playthrough. I personally really liked that setup as it encouraged you to replay the game as different characters with different strengths, but there's something to be said for being able to do everything in one play through (like in Oblivion) as well.
 

Speevy

Banned
I've been looking for an interview in which a developer says exactly how many quests are in Oblivion. I think there was one on the Elder Scrolls forum, but they took it down.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Nerevar said:
yeah, the big difference is a lot of those quests were mutually exclusive. For example, IIRC you couldn't go far in the thieves guild AND the fighters guild because both of them had early quests to retrieve a specific item from an NPC (well, you could, but it required exploiting the game).

Actually you CAN become a The Master of the Fighters Guild and the Leader of the Theives Guild. It requires you to think about what you do though. For example...theres one time when you have to steal an item for the Fighters Guild from the Theives Guild. Your course of actions would be either to ask for the item, take the item by force or steal it. If you do it covertly, then you'll be able to stay in the theives Guild. Take it by force and you'll be kicked out.

A similar situation is when
When you have to kill the Master of the Fighter Guild, his name was something Hard Heart. What you would do is get to the quest in the Theives Guild that would take you to that point. Then stop. You then finish up the fighters Guild quests and you get to a point when a memember of the Fighters Guild wants you to kill Hard Heart. By doing it in this order, you can become leaders of both guilds.
 

GreekWolf

Member
I don't think you can really compare Morrowind and Oblivion's quest system.... they're almost two completely different animals. Quite a few quests in Oblivion contain multiple sub-quests, which in turn can open up opportunities for additional quests/content/storylines.

"The Collector" actually has ten different sub-quests, which are all a part of the main quest. If you were to complete each and every one and recieve the bonus at the end, then you've spent about 20-30 hours running across the world. About half-way through, you'll be given options to initiate two different ( but related ) quests within the same storyline.

Someone on the elderscrolls forum mentioned that to complete the entire Collector questline from start to finish is as difficult, complex, time-consuming and rewarding as climbing to the top rank in any of the guilds. It probably should have unlocked an achievement. :)
 
Greekwolf: I'm trying to jumpstart The Collector Quest right now. I was invited to his house and told that he would pay for any other artifacts that I found, but after that I was given no direction. Do I basically just raid tombs looking for them? Is their a hint as to which ruins might have them? I know they are all Aleyid (sp) ruins, but is there a way to tell them fron any other? Any help would be appreciated!
 

GreekWolf

Member
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Greekwolf: I'm trying to jumpstart The Collector Quest right now. I was invited to his house and told that he would pay for any other artifacts that I found, but after that I was given no direction. Do I basically just raid tombs looking for them? Is their a hint as to which ruins might have them? I know they are all Aleyid (sp) ruins, but is there a way to tell them fron any other? Any help would be appreciated!
Yeah, it's kind of frustrating at first, because Mr. Hersheykiss head doesn't give you any pointers on where to look. But he WILL add some markers to your map after you
bring him a second statue
.

The easiest one to find is in
Vilverin
... but that's the first ruins you'll see when coming out of the tutorial dungeon, so you've probably already explored it and sold the artifact. The next easiest ruin to find is
Sardavar Leed
, which is located just south of the Red Ring Road, south of the Imperial City and between the forts Homestead and Alessia. Just bring him that second artifact, and it's smooth sailing from there.

One little pro-tip: once you reach the part of the quest where you're given a choice to recover a dangerous artifact by
either talking to a rival scholar or breaking into her house... if you choose to break into her house and recover the "real" artifact, then the end of the quest is much more fun.. and dangerous.
 
GreekWolf said:
Yeah, it's kind of frustrating at first, because Mr. Hersheykiss head doesn't give you any pointers on where to look. But he WILL add some markers to your map after you
bring him a second statue
.

The easiest one to find is in
Vilverin
... but that's the first ruins you'll see when coming out of the tutorial dungeon, so you've probably already explored it and sold the artifact. The next easiest ruin to find is
Sardavar Leed
, which is located just south of the Red Ring Road, south of the Imperial City and between the forts Homestead and Alessia. Just bring him that second artifact, and it's smooth sailing from there.

One little pro-tip: once you reach the part of the quest where you're given a choice to recover a dangerous artifact by
either talking to a rival scholar or breaking into her house... if you choose to break into her house and recover the "real" artifact, then the end of the quest is much more fun.. and dangerous.

Thanks for the tips! I want to do this quest, but wasn't sure where to do next, and yes, I already got the one in
Vilverin{/spoiler] to kick off the whole thing. :)
 
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