Found the problem with Oblivion CS/Oscuro

Difficulty of fights in OOO is not merely a factor of more health, hence more blows/spells required for a kill. In fact, OOO uses several aspects of the engine to make combat more interesting, much faster and deadlier.

First, it re-works all weapons, armors and spells in the game to make them many times more deadly than in the original game. Thus, fights are actually faster and require much more tactical thinking, rather than the plain button-smashing of the original game.

Oh yes, I know there's a lot of work on the variables and fight styles. But I was saying that the most noticeable aspect is the health boost. That's the very first thing that people notice when they try your mod. That's the difference that stands out the most and makes your mod feel different. That's the most significant and well perceived change.

Francesco's mod on the difficulty does similar things (variables, weapons and fighting styles) but the difference between vanilla and the mod is less significant exactly because there aren't those health boosts.

Fifth, spell-based HP boost is only one of the dozens of new spells I created to give extra abilities and powers to enemies, both individually and collectivelly.

Of course. I would never deny the impressive amount of work you put in the mod.

It's not a personal vendetta. This is my sandbox and I try to delve a bit into things. I'm not giving your mod bad reputation, I'm just digging into it to see how things work.

The repeated "fuck" were there only because I wasted a lot of time with the CS trying to figure out how HPs worked before I noticed the "magic" buffs.

I'm also commenting some particular aspects, not reviewing your mod as a whole. While I STILL criticize and dislike many design decisions I still think it's the most impressive in scope and well executed mod out there. Or I wouldn't spend time digging into it and tweaking it for my own use.

The sloppy analysis is because I'm not an expert of the CS, nor I have spent in Oblivion as much time as you may think. So I go and notice first what is more apparent.

The "personal quest" is because I was working on your mod as a base. And wrote here what I was working about. It's not "personal" in the sense I have something against you. It's just in the sense I was working on *your* stuff.

Btw, glad to see you around. I thought you had disappeared.

Since your reply alias is not the same as the main poster's alias I had confused before with another person--my apologies on that. Also, I do not mean to sound overly judgmental on you--I do think that your choice of words can be acerbic, and thus the intended point you want to bring can get a bit lost. The reply above is a perfect example. You recognize that there are many variables responsible for combat-behavior and "feel" in OOO, but in your first post you seem to imply that all there is reduces to "more health, a cheap-trick". Hence, the nature of my reply.

About your point. It is true. It is a perception issue. Enemies in Oblivion had very low HP compared to the PC. Even more so during the first few levels. Thus, it was extremely easy to defeat all sorts of foes from the get-go. In OOO I wanted to change that. Since I lowered, in the Full version, the player's health pool, plus I gave small boosts to regular foes like bandits, plus I made weapons more deadly, plus I allowed for a +/- 8 level difference in regular encounters (to give a sense of difference among enemies that was utterly lacking in the Stock version) players can easily have the sensation that NPCs have too high health compared to their own pool. I think this perception recedes as soon as the players equip themselves with better weapons and armor--which is very easy to do in OOO--and when they gain a few levels (thus opening up the possibility that regular encounters can be much lower than themselves--unfortunately, bandits can't be lvl -8, but start at 1) That is, I think, a true assesment. Francesco's mod is more lenient with the beginner players, indeed.

About your second section of your reply. I am glad to hear that it is not a "personal" issue in the manner you described. I was beginning to think so, if anything because I was surprised to see OOO simplified, apparently, in such a way in your posts while you offer very good thoughts, blurbs and info on many other games out there. As I mention in my reply above, I am now a reader of this fine site.

Also, I am glad to hear that the reason your thoughts about Oblivion and OOO are plentiful and intertwined derive from the fact that you use them both to do Game Design analysis and for your own enjoyment. Thus, that this is partly the reason why you zero-on them for criticism (which, as I mentioned many times, I welcome and cherish and hope to receive so as to better myself and my work) I regret that I may have taken it as a different issue and so have replied more harshly than I should (again, however, your sometimes corrosive tone, such as having said that OOO was pure randomness with no design whatsoever, led me to believe otherwise and reply in the same tone) So, my apologies if I sounded offensive as well. I'll be sure to review my posts so as not to overstate my concerns.

And, finally, glad to be around. I've had to disappear for a while, not just from here but also from the ESF boards. The luxury I had of free time to work on the mod, update the threads in the boards and all that jazz is no longer available--though I am still dedicating time to improve that work and delve into new ones! So, hopefully next time you get a chance to review them you'll notice small nuggets of your ramblings implemented in there.

Oscuro

You recognize that there are many variables responsible for combat-behavior and "feel" in OOO, but in your first post you seem to imply that all there is reduces to "more health, a cheap-trick". Hence, the nature of my reply.

Yes, but that is TRUE.

If I remove the health boosts without touching anything else the combat becomes already much more accessible. So while other changes surely have an impact, this impact pales compared to health boosts and some (imho) overpowered spells.

Enemies in Oblivion had very low HP compared to the PC. Even more so during the first few levels.

Yes, but this is reverted then. The point is the feel of the combat. If a swing does 7 damage and the NPC has 160 HPs then the combat just doesn't feel right. It's endless.

I honestly haven't experienced your mod at the high levels, so I don't know if the problems at low levels are there to rebalance then the rest.

I also noticed this is a limit of the CS. If you give an NPC fixed stats, then you cannot give it variable levels, while if you use variable levels then you cannot modify stats as they are given by the system.

As I mention in my reply above, I am now a reader of this fine site.

You are late, I'm closing down and mostly dealing with MMOs anyway ;)

And, finally, glad to be around. I've had to disappear for a while, not just from here but also from the ESF boards.

I don't expect you to be HERE. But I do have bookmarked your ESF profile to check for updates about your work. That's why I thought you had disappeared.

So, hopefully next time you get a chance to review them you'll notice small nuggets of your ramblings implemented in there.

I could tell you what I would do.

Take the full map of the game. Divide it into zones based on the main and side quests to use them as the "intended progression". Then give each of these zones an ideal level range and rebalance the spawn points and types of creatures so that they fit in narrower level offsets (and geography and realism).

For example I'd take the bandit types and "chunk" them further into three groups. So that you can redistribute the spawn points using the three groups and make them more location-dependent and well scaled.

First off I would like to say that I have been playing Oblivion since it first came out (off and on of course) and absolutely LOVE the ideas behind OOO. Many of them are amazing, and make the game MUCH more interesting than Bethesda had originally designed (more weapons/armo, better treasure, more diverse creatures, more abilities, etc). However, as with any mod, there are a few things I disagree with.

First and foremost, the difficulty of having a new character. I'm the type of person who will constantly make new characters to tweak certain aspects of my class in an attempt to find one that is suitable for me. Your mod makes this alot harder, because no matter what abilities I choose, I still constantly find myself being overwhelmed by simple bandits and wildlife. I would love to have the ability to tone down the difficulty, if only for the first few levels, so I may progress through the game to a point where I feel comfortable with the level of difficulty you had intended in your mod. I, like any other, find dying constantly to be rather annoying, and get frustrated when it happens with lowly enemies that are found most often in the game anyway.

Second, I would love some kind of list of areas which are extremely high level, so I do not venture into these areas and end up dying left and right. It could be argued that this would make the game a bit less realistic, and my rebuttal to that would be that were this to be a real situation, the person in question would certainly hear about areas that are overly dangerous, and would be warned to stay away from these areas until he or she feels they could handle it.

I have a few more small issues with the mod, however those that I have stated above are, in my opinion, take more precedence over anything else. Overall, OOO is a very well designed mod, and I would not play Oblivion without it, even with the aforementioned annoyances. Keep modding, and someday, move to make your own full game, as I for one would gladly check it out.

-PhoenixKsE

Oops, sorry for the double post. I kept getting an error from the site, and didn't realize it was actually posting.

Thanks, I didn't even know of that problem.

Should be fixed now.