Lol, the difficulty slider is the basic! Even OOO is a piece of cake if you don't bump up the slider! I don't think there's a mod to lower your companion's level, I've never seen that before. I'm interested in such a mod too.

Personally, I don't think there's much you can do about it once the char has access to AR 85 and Resist Magic 100 or equivalent. Playing at max difficulty is just annoying IMO. The only way around it is giving enemies ridiculous health or high reflect etc. - which also is annoying IMO. In short, game over. The trick is rather to prolong this process as much as possible with slow leveling rate and using nGCD/Realistic Leveling etc.

hey guys i got a OOO related question for ya. does killing voice of nature the boss amazon stop all amazons from spawning in the world completely? that message after killing the voice of nature goes like "it should stop the amazons from rampaging through the world" or soemthing like that

Hey guy, you already have this question in a separate thread - so don't double post it.

I agree totally with Arkngt. The game just becomes boring and annoying if you play with the highest difficulty. IMHO, these features should not exist at all. Remember old school Diablo 2? Even if you bumped up your resistances over 120, it would still show up as if you had 75/85, never 100. And still monsters could pawn you. Having an absolute magic resistance, such as the one we can achieve in Oblivion, is like putting a stop to all motion in game. Yes, monsters will have a lot of life, but damage won't matter, it'll just take a long time to kill them, nothing more. I, like Duvas, like to play a character for a looong time without starting again. But this is an RPG! We don't HAVE to have max resistance. I use a custom race, and I always remove any kind of natural magic resistance, melee resistance, etc. at the beginning. And I never, NEVER try to get max resistance, max I would go would be around 80. I really think there should be a way to lower your resistances temporarily by a spell or something. I sometimes give my custom race 20 or 30 magic resistance, and then just get the ring that grants +50 magic resistance and I never bother trying to get more.

But anyways, if you don't want to get bored and still have challenges and stuff, don't go for these resistances at max. I don't, since I find it silly to have 100 monsters attacking me with magic for example and doing nothing to my health. Also, reflect dmg "could" be a solution but as Arkngt said it is still annoying and I use Duke's Combat Magic (I think it's this mod) that removes the reflect spells. As I've said before, and Arkngt also mentioned it, go for leveling mods such as nGCD, Realistic Leveling, or Oblivion XP. If you want to roleplay forever like you mentioned before, don't bother trying to max out your resistances, they are nothing but a STOP sign in your gameplay .

Sorry, guys, but I haven't understood what the problem is.

It seems you are complicating things!

Why is Oblivion annoying with an increase of the difficulty?

I have obtained an improvement of my game experience just by moving the slider a bit. It means that, even when your character has every parameter at max, you can still set monsters so that they are stronger than you. I am sure about that. Obviously, you want your character to be the best warrior in all Tamriel at level 50... ok.... but you have the possibility to be the worst level 50 hero, if you like. I have modified the difficulty in order to be the best only at level 30-36, but, if I liked, I could decide to be weak and stupid at level 100!

I personally find this way very balanced. I don't know why you say that battles would be too long or something like that: they are too long when you are weak, and this is true for all forms of Oblivion (vanilla, Oscuro, and so on). It is as simple as that. Do you like short battles? Ok, become stronger. And becoming stronger is the objective that every player has in an RPG, isn't it?

Really, I don't understand the problem. With this solution, you would have:

1) The same game, and I underline, the same game, with the only difference that you need to become stronger even when you are at level 26 (and what's wrong with this neccessity?);
2) The possibility to have more strategic battles, because you would have two elements together: a) a character who is so mature that he can fight with almost all skills (evocation, use of swords, alteration, and so on); b ) monsters that are so difficult that you need a lot of skills to beat them (from evocation to alteration... from swords to bows). So, imagine how many battle options you would have!

Using a mod that makes level ups slower or having a game where you need to reach higher levels is the same: the only difference is that the first way is more innatural, because alters game dynamics.

The main problem is, that Oblivion allows you to get too much magic and melee resistance, basically 100% and that equals, well... tgm. Try http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35675 to prevent this. With my settings I only ignore about 30% of magic damage with a Magic Resist value of 100. Much more balanced.

Sorry, but I don't understand the problem: even if you had all parameters = 100, you could still increase the difficulty slider till the point that enemies are dangerous. Ok, from that moment my character won't level up any more.... but every RPG has a moment like that and I just want my character to have other ten useful level ups. Stop.

Because upping the difficulty slider doesn't solve the issue with god-like characters on higher levels. The char is still god-like - fights just takes a bit longer = annoying IMO. So you basically only get more prolonged fights - but not more challenging ones. Also, I find it slightly immersion breaking as well with enemies doing much more damage than the player char (and the opposite for that matter). Plus a bonus annoyance - with high difficulty Reflect Damage gets absurd. Without high Alchemy skill and strong restore health potions it's basically impossible to stay alive.

If, like you say, it is almost impossible to stay alive, this fact means more challenge, doesn't it? And suppose you encounter an enemy who kills you with 4 hits: if you level up, probably the same monster will kill you in 6 hits: that is an improvement, isn't it?

But maybe I have understood what you mean: for example, if your character is a god with the blade and can paralyze the enemy with a hit, this fact remains even if the monster is powered by the difficulty slider.
Yes, but that character can still have benefits from the level up: infact level up permits to increase the value, for example, of the parameter strenght.

Did you even read my post? Heightened difficulty doesn't equal more challenge for high-level chars IMO. The one exception is reflect damage - which is just ridiculous as you can get one hit killed by your own damage. Anyway, I think I've made my points so won't repeat them.

It seems that you don't read mine.
:-)

Duvas, the point is, if you have 100 magic resistance, it doesn't matter where you move the difficulty slider, you will still not get any damage from any magic attack. Reflect damage is just a pain and boring and annoying, it takes away immersion and realism, since you can only be killed by reflection. How is it fun to play a game where you can only be killed by reflect damage? You can have a hundred mages with max difficulty throwing any kind of magic (as an example) at you, if you have 100 magic resistance, it would just take more time to kill them, there's no risk, there's no challenge. Reflect damage is not challenging, if you don't have high attack output, you'll not get killed in one shot. People seeking high difficulty kinda always start with the difficulty slider set to max. Then you'll have a better time leveling up. The best bet here is using mods.

The thing I do is pretty simple, I just don't go for max resistances. I don't like to have monsters not dealing any damage at me. If your damage is godly, reflect damage will not be challenging, you'll just get your butt kicked by your own damage. Or you can just stand there and see your enemies die (that is if you have reflect damage also and high melee resistance) Basically, 100% reflect damage makes you immune to melee damage. The point that Arkngt is trying to make is that increasing the difficulty (using the difficulty slider) will not give you more challenge if you are a high level well geared character(and I agree). Immunity to magic, melee, etc is immunity no matter what difficulty you are in. If you feel comfortable playing with only reflect damage as a threat (keep in mind that, there is magic and melee reflect, so if a monster has melee reflect, use magic and that's all) then you are fine.

Ah, now I understand. Thanks.

There are a lot of things to discuss:

1) Before reaching this 100 (and other 100s), are the game dynamics (level ups, relationship monsters-your level ups, other strategical elements) balanced like in case of not increasing the slider? With "balanced" I mean "not distant from the normal Oblivion", "not full of bugs".

2) 100 Magic resistance means 100 at the parameter intelligence... Right?

3) I know that the slider on the right just makes character's damage /n and monsters' damage Xn. If this is true, and if I found the game very hard with only a little increase of the difficulty, it should be possible that even with a 100, you would have a magic damage. 100 at the parameter intelligence is just a number and, for this reason, it should be treated like any other number: that /n calculation shouldn't be stopped by a 100. So I think that you could be easily killed with magic and normal attacks even with 100 in all parameters.

4) I have a 26 level character, with 75 at a lot of parameters. I find ghost warriors very hard. Do you agree with me when I say that, in my case, a level up is welcome for beating that warriors? So, in this example, you have that the growing process is still useful and good working. Right?

5) How can I understand, in game, what a Reflect damage is?

6) You have broken my dreams

1. No matter where you move the difficulty slider, the game is still balanced (only thing that changes is difficulty) and of course, there are no bugs whatsoever. The difficulty slide doesn't alter anything but damage of you and the enemies.
2. No, 100 magic resistance has nothing to do with attributes. 100 magic resistance is obtained by finding gear (armor, rings, amulets, etc. that grant magic resistance)
3. 100 magic resistance will make magic do no damage on you, no matter what difficulty you play on.
4. I don't quite get this question. Leveling up is always welcome. However, leveling is not likely to solve your problem, you are better off training your skills, getting better spells/weapons and armor.
5. Reflect damage reflects a % of damage back to the enemy or to you. So for example, let's say you have 70% reflect melee damage, that means that when an enemy hits you, he'll get 70% of the damage that he inflicted TO YOU. Same way, if an enemy has 50% reflect melee damage, if you attack him, 50% of the damage you did to him will be reflected to you (in simple terms, you do 50 damage to a monster, and if the monster has 50% reflect damage, you will be damaged by 25 ) More info look here http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Reflect_Damage

Ah, like I imagined!

So we can say that you are "fighting" against the difficulty slider solution for a problem that really is not related to it:

if you are talking about objects and similar things that permit the player to be 100% resistant, then these objects and the consequences on playability linked to their use, affect Oblivion from vanilla to FCOM and Oscuro.
So, why are you telling me that I must install mods that change the way the character has his level ups? Even with these mods I would find objects that give me 100% resistance (however, in 250 hours, I have never found items with this kind of power).

Lastly, jcapgamer1394, thank you for the accuracy of your replies. As for my question 4, it was a playful way to express a thing about which you have still given me a reply (with the first reply).

Probably I haven't found a perfect way to express my points. I am Italian... this is the reason.

P.S.: As for Reflect damage, maybe I have understood what you mean: If your character has, for example, a ring that gives him the power of reflecting 100% of the damage, the only thing that happens when a monster attacks him is a damage against the monster itself.

The reason people recommend alternative levelling mods is because the levelling in Oblivion is based on success and failure of an attack, a spell, a block, or the use of Speechcraft and Merchantile. In OOO/MMM/FCOM you will have more opponents to fight which can cause you to level faster. If you are not careful with the Attributes and Skills you will develop an overpowered character. I do not use a levelling mod myself because I have some rules I try to follow when I play. The people who post on this section to answer the questions tend to be more experienced players and have played with level 40+ characters.
An overpowered character will get boring and repetive, just like replaying the starting dungeon. Most people who are Oblivion addicts have a way to keep thier characters from becoming godlike and levelling mods are the easiest way to do it.

Thank you, bradileyh. The positive fact, from my point of view, is that, until you find objects that permit you to be resistant to everything, the game can be enjoyable even for a god character, if you increase the difficulty slider. With Oscuro and a 26 level character I found a ridiculous number of challenging battles. Then I increased the slider and I started to experiment an hard, very strategical game.

The main point is, vanilla Oblivion is nothing compared to modded Oblivion. FCOM, Oblivion XP, nGCD, all those mods will make the game 1000 times better. If you think vanilla Oblivion is a challenge, the other mods will make it so much harder. The game is the best game ever IF and only IF you mod it. Mods add so much content that it is awesome. Sooner or later, if you are a really passionate Oblivion player, you'll end up with a bunch of mods (mods that add new spells, leveling mods, dungeon mods, etc.) If not, you will get bored of Oblivion as all of us have.

The difficulty slider is just basic, in the sense that I always start with the slider on max. The game is harder but it is still easy in vanilla Oblivion. Yes, you will always find the objects to make you immune, that is your choice though, if you want to get them and be a god like character. But mods are the way to go, sooner or later.

I've found that provided that I am careful with my stealth character (and use those magic weapons I picked up when I had to massacre the sanctuary), I can kill most mid level enemies in OOO while I'm at level 6 (though I do have darker dungeons running, which helps). I did an amazonian dungeon recently, for instance, easily killed the Jaguars (though I had to careful not to get more than one attacking me at once). The Amazonian's however were a much harder fight, as it could take 10+ arrows to kill them and I would have to drink a number of health to survive during that time, so I generally avoided groups of them as they were much more adept at identifying me when combat was going.

THAT is how I want the game to be, and OOO has delivered big time.

To be sure, I am eventually going to end up outmatching all enemies in Tamriel, but with leveling slowed down to a third by Oblivion XP, I imaging this game it going to keep me going for a long while.

Duvas frustration seems to me inevitable for any and all players eventually, and can only be delayed through the use of mods.

That delay can be a wonderful improvement, however.

I can remember a lengthy thread someone started about 3 years back where I said something like “I want a challenging game with one character who can play the main quest, all the guild quests, Shivering Isles and the other DLCs, every dungeon, and every new mod added quest/dungeon.”

The most helpful advice I got from that thread was given, IIRC, by Shikishima. PROGRESS. Just slow down leveling up. Paired with nGCD, Progress has provided the ongoing challenge I need in a lengthy one character game.

The trick is to match the level speed to your desired game playing length.

There are however two related issues I wish I understood better. Uncapper mods, and the reflect and resist items already mentioned.

If it is true that no new content shows up after level 20, what is the advantage of an uncapper? Are uncappers really related to the issue of maintaining challenge throughout a lengthy game.

As far as the reflect and resist items that destroy the challenge, are there any mods that remove these or modify there use in a beneficial manner? The previous recommendations to just not use these items brings its own kind of frustration to my game.

I fully agree, but personally I would also recommend Phitt's Phighting Phixies and/or my own Level Based Health, to make the challenge last even longer. With Level Based Health, you continue to grow stronger as you level up, but you eventually stop increasing your health, so you stay vulnerable.

The answer to all this, is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34841 by JRoush, combined with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35675 by whitenight770. I haven't got around to actually test this yet myself (since I'm modding and not playing), but AV Uncapper's name is misleading, as it does so much more - it allows you to set how armor and reflect is calculated, so that you can never gain 100 reflect, etc. This OBSE plugin looks like a must for my next (intended) playthrough.

Btw, new content definitely show up after level 20 if using OOO/FCOM.

The main reason for me using an uncapper is the ability of specialization.
So as an warrior I can get 110 Strength or blade skill 120 while ignoring other skills and attributes
that are not necessary. A nice addition for long games is also tejons Skill Decay which I like a lot ( alot).
And with using the combination of nGCD and Progress and AV Uncapper
you are able to control a lot of the game mechanics and can change them to your liking.

Since we're sorta on the topic.. What are the pros/cons of AV Uncapper vs Elys Uncapper? Never could figure that out so sticking to the latter at the moment.

I'd like to say just one thing.

I know that Oblivion is better with mods: infact I have a lot of mods installed (Oscuro is one of them).

My last post tells only this:

jcapgamer1394 and Arkngt, you tried to convince me that increasing the difficulty slider was not a good solution. Maybe, but the reasons you used for expressing this point of view, for example the possibility to find super objects that give 100% resistances, were not related to my solution, so were weak arguments: infact these "super objects" are located in dungeons of all kinds of Oblivion (from vanilla to others). This means that even in your best modded Oblivion finding such objects represent a problem in terms of playability. That's all.