Oblivion [warning: contains some spoilers]

[Tupac Amaru]

Hmm, if the Spider Daedra are better at knocking down than other opponents there must be something they have or do that the other NPCs/Creatures don't. Perhaps worth investigating further.

They spawn little spiderlings that have a paralysis attack. It was probably just that. My character would simply fall over to the side which is not typical for a knockdown by a weapon.

 

My character usually uses Longswords, though since their weight varies a lot between the different types (Silver, Glass, Ebony Daedric etc) I was curious if the weight of the weapon had some practical use, besides encumbering you more to balance against the power of the weapon?

The attacks of heavier weapons take longer to execute which gives the enemy more time to hit you between blocks. Though, that could be related to weapon types as well rather than weight itself.

 

Anyway, is there some way to perform the backwards power attack, which I think is the only way to knock enemies down, without your character actually moving backwards? My character has maxed speed and athletics so she has trouble to actually hit the enemy before they get too far away, even when in walk-mode. I guess it's an advantage to be slow if you want to use that particular attack.

The attack move contains a slight movement back during the spin and one backwards step after the spin is finished. That is unavoidable. In case you press the back key before the mouse button, though, you move back even further which is pretty annoying. It is best to press the mouse button first and then quickly the back key after it.

 

Hmm, I cant seem to get those changes to show on the inventory screen when testing to modify my ability scores with the ModPCAttribute. It seems to be stuck at the value seen in the TES:CS, plus the 25% bonus for "repairing" the weapon up to 125% durability.

That's weird. What attribute have you tried to change? If it was luck it could be your blade skill mastery. With blade 100/strength 100, luck seems to have little effect on damage value shown in the inventory screen. I had to decrease my luck to 30 just to get one measly damage point less on a daedric shortsword, but it did change eventually. Taking a blunt weapon with skill 40, effects of luck were much more drastic. The bonus/malus was even higher than that of strength. If your blunt skill is still low, try that weapon type.

 

Also, the numbers on the inventory screen don't update immediately after a modpca/modpcs command unlike those on the attribute screen. Close the inventory or switch to the attribute screen and then reopen the inventory.

 

Speaking of displaying damage:

..Checking his health with the console before and after the attack it seems like I did roughly 55 damage to him, while the damage display of the claymore says it deals 29 damage.

How can you display real damage output with the console?

 

Is the damage value set for the weapon in the TES:CS the maximum possible damage a weapon can do with optimal strength and luck? Or is it the base damage of the weapon at Blade/Blunt skill level 100, to which Strength and Luck bonuses are added on top?

The maximum number on the inventory screen is slightly higher then what TES:CS says. I get the damage value from the TES:CS templates if strength and luck are 100 and the weapon skills only at 75. I didn't repair the weapons above 100%.

 

It's especially noticable around those bandit camps out in the wilderness. Any time I try to sneak up on them I never get any closer to the camp than 10 meters or so before they unfailingly detect me.

If you can't get close how about a bow?

[Aash Li]

I guess I cant play this game...

 

I have the game set to lowest settings possible, and the mouse is really sluggish. >_> The starting video is skips too.

 

Ive got a geforce fx 5200... but thats two versions out of date... Id so love to have a new card, but cant afford to get one. T_T

[stingerhs]

^^^^

yeah, i would at least recommend a GF 6600 or a Radeon x600 as the lowest possible cards to play this game. any of the FX cards are going to have serious problems just trying to run the game.

 

if can spend up to $175, you can get any of these cards. and there are quite a few very good cards to choose from. from a brief glance, i noticed a Radeon X800 GTO and an GeForce 6800, so there are a couple of good cards available at a fairly reasonable price.

[stoffe]

They spawn little spiderlings that have a paralysis attack. It was probably just that. My character would simply fall over to the side which is not typical for a knockdown by a weapon.

 

You are probably correct about that, paralysis tends to make the character just collapse, while knockdown makes them fly back violently and land on their back. I do vaguely remember seeing those Spiderlings before modding out the Spider Daedra from the game (which had the pleasant side effect of freeing up two summon effects for my own use. )

 

The attacks of heavier weapons take longer to execute which gives the enemy more time to hit you between blocks. Though, that could be related to weapon types as well rather than weight itself.

 

I think this is affected by the Speed property of the weapon. The heavier weapons like axes, claymores and hammers tend to have this set lower, while lighter weapons like daggers have a higher value. The heavy weapons also seem to have a slower swing animation that takes longer to complete than the lighter ones. I don't think the Weight field has any effect on this though, since a Bound Daedric Claymore swings just as slowly as a normal one, and it has no weight at all.

 

The attack move contains a slight movement back during the spin and one backwards step after the spin is finished. That is unavoidable. In case you press the back key before the mouse button, though, you move back even further which is pretty annoying. It is best to press the mouse button first and then quickly the back key after it.

 

The problem is that, unless I'm standing with my back against a solid object I move too far back no matter how I time the movement and clicking. I guess you aren't meant to do knockdown attacks if you have 122 Speed and 112 Athletics.

 

I wonder if there is a way to mod how the power attacks work, and flip the effect of the backward and forward power attacks? The charging forward stab of the latter seems more suited, movementwise, to send the opponent flying on their back anyway, while the fancy spin move of the former might paralyse them instead (occasionally).

 

 

That's weird. What attribute have you tried to change? If it was luck it could be your blade skill mastery. Taking a blunt weapon with skill 40, effects of luck were much more drastic.

 

That seems to be the case. I have a level 12 Blunt skill, and the damage readout of blunt weapons in my inventory change visibly when i boost up my Strength and Luck. The readout of the Blade weapons remain unchanged though. Seems like those attributes produce no visible change in the readout while you have a Blade skill of 100.

 

Don't know if they add nothing at all though, or if it only affects the damage display on the inventory screen. There's still loads of unaccounted for damage being dealt.

 

 

Speaking of displaying damage:

How can you display real damage output with the console?

 

I don't know if you can, I did it the hard way. Before attacking, open the console, click on the opponent and type GetActorValue Health. Then close the console, strike the opponent once with the weapon, immediately re-open the console and run that command again. Then subtract the second returned value from the first one, and you should reasonably get the amount of damage you just dealt.

 

Doing so indicates that my character actually does 20+ more damage than listed at the inventory screen when attacking undetected from Sneak-mode with a Bound Claymore (which won't give you any Sneak Attack damage bonus, and prevent any power attack from being performed).

 

If you can't get close how about a bow?

 

Then they will probably get close instead, mosty unharmed, despite the ungodly amount damage you seem to be able to do with good bows and arrows in this game. My Marksman skill is only around 20 or so, so I'm not exactly able to exploit that too effectively. My character is focused on sneak melee action and offensive spell casting. But it's usually more satisfying to sneak up on the enemy undetected and whack them, than it is to fry them from afar with a lightning bolt.

 

There's also a greater sense of accomplishment to get close enough undetected to sneak attack them, instead of just sniping at them from a safe distance with a bow.

[stingerhs]

^^^^

if you can get the draw distance high enough, i've often felt just as accomplished sniping out a character from quite a distance as i do when i sneak up behind them and whack 'em.

 

even with that zoom ability, hitting somebody over a sizeable distance (especially if you compensate for movement) can be a bit difficult. besides, the time it takes to redraw the bow after the first shot is usually long enough for the character you just attacked to start closing the distance fairly rapidly. well, assuming that they're still alive, that is.

[Tupac Amaru]

That seems to be the case. I have a level 12 Blunt skill, and the damage readout of blunt weapons in my inventory change visibly when i boost up my Strength and Luck. The readout of the Blade weapons remain unchanged though. Seems like those attributes produce no visible change in the readout while you have a Blade skill of 100.

There should be a visible change at blade 100 when changing strength. After some testing, it seems that a strength bonus is always applied while luck works like additional weapon skill levels for damage output. A luck of 75 will increase damage like 10 more skill levels. Since skills above 100 don't deal any more damage, luck has no effect at blade mastery. Lowering luck well below 50 will work like a penalty, though.

I have noticed the same effect with luck for armour ratings and magicka costs for casting spell.s

 

Doing so indicates that my character actually does 20+ more damage than listed at the inventory screen when attacking undetected from Sneak-mode with a Bound Claymore (which won't give you any Sneak Attack damage bonus, and prevent any power attack from being performed).

I have tried to duplicate this with Rasheda (a lonely, non-hostile human with no armour). Set strength and blade to 100, dropped all my equipment. A Bound Claymore repaired to 125% showed 35 damage on the inventory screen. Tapping the mouse button once to get a single, standard attack, did 34.61 damage just like the inventory said. Doing a sneak attack or assaulting her with a standard deadric weapon didn't change that either. The only difference I can see is the target. Since I can't find any Minotaur Lords anywhere right now I can't check that.

 

Then they will probably get close instead, mosty unharmed, despite the ungodly amount damage you seem to be able to do with good bows and arrows in this game. My Marksman skill is only around 20 or so, so I'm not exactly able to exploit that too effectively.

Ah, well, at that level bows probably hardly cause a scratch, but they can do good damage at high skill/agility. I like to snipe from a distance and finish them off with a blade if they get close enough. Maybe you can sneak better outside with the Ring of Khajiiti and other chameleon effects?

[stoffe]

Since skills above 100 don't deal any more damage, luck has no effect at blade mastery.

 

So, there's no room for luck when you are a master at something. Too bad, though it's probably one of the most useful attributes anyway since it affects so many other things as well.

 

 

I have tried to duplicate this with Rasheda (a lonely, non-hostile human with no armour). Set strength and blade to 100, dropped all my equipment. A Bound Claymore repaired to 125% showed 35 damage on the inventory screen. Tapping the mouse button once to get a single, standard attack, did 34.61 damage just like the inventory said.

 

Hmm, strange. I tried to test it again but couldn't quickly find a Minotaur Lord either, so I used a Goblin Warlord instead. There was still a difference, but nowhere as large as I remember seeing last time I tried it. Don't remember exactly what I did then either, and I didn't think of taking any screenshots at the time.

 

Anyway, I used a weapon with damage like this to strike the Goblin from sneak mode, resulting in this health difference. As seen the weapon at the inventory screen says it deals 35 damage, but the Goblin took 39 damage.

 

Ah, well, at that level bows probably hardly cause a scratch, but they can do good damage at high skill/agility. I like to snipe from a distance and finish them off with a blade if they get close enough. Maybe you can sneak better outside with the Ring of Khajiiti and other chameleon effects?

 

Since my character is turning into a Jill of All Trades, Master of All, I started playing a bit with bows as well yesterday. I still manage to do a decent amount of damage with good agility and an enchanted Daedric Bow even with my low Marksman skill, even though of course they still do less than with a blade and spells since she's Master of those skills already. Against opponents with insane health values like Ogres, Goblin Warlords and Minotaur Lords a bow still won't work too well unless you manage to find some high place to climb up where they cant reach, and snipe from there. (Though I have noticed a very annoying tendency for creatures to mysteriously "teleport" up to such locations they can't reach on foot.) Having a summoned creature like a Gloom Wraith or Dremora Markyaz tank for you makes archery a bit easier as well.

 

Is the effective range with a bow increasing with the marksman skill? I've noticed that I can't seem to hit enemies that are far away, the arrows always lands short of reaching them. Also, does the weight of an arrow have any effect on its flight path?

 

As for the sneaking, I have a good chameleon spell I tend to use in tight spots, which usually causes them not to detect me. But when your sneak skill is over 100 you should be able to sneak up on someone with their back turned on a dark night without being detected, and without using arcane aid, don't you think? In particular since that is very possible to do while indoors, which should logically have less distractions in the form of ambient sound, plants swaying in the wind, animals moving about etc.

 

Edit:

yeah, you'll have to 'lob' the arrows a bit as the arrow's flightpath is influenced by the physics engine (ie, the arrow's flightpath has a parobolic arc to it). its nothing too difficult to handle once you get the hang of it, though.

 

I thought I was aiming high, but apparently not high enough then. Is this the same for all arrows, or do heavier arrows get dragged more quickly to the ground? Unless I remember incorrectly different types of arrows had different velocity and different firing arcs in Morrowind. Have they simplified that in Oblivion, or is this still the case?

[stingerhs]

yeah, you'll have to 'lob' the arrows a bit as the arrow's flightpath is influenced by the physics engine (ie, the arrow's flightpath has a parobolic arc to it). its nothing too difficult to handle once you get the hang of it, though.

[Tupac Amaru]

Hmm, strange. I tried to test it again but couldn't quickly find a Minotaur Lord either, so I used a Goblin Warlord instead. There was still a difference, but nowhere as large as I remember seeing last time I tried it. Don't remember exactly what I did then either, and I didn't think of taking any screenshots at the time.

It is possible to spawn a Minotaur Lord with 'player.placeatme 001E648'. The damage was still 34.66 damage for me. A Goblin Warlord also suffered that amount of damage.

 

Is the effective range with a bow increasing with the marksman skill? I've noticed that I can't seem to hit enemies that are far away, the arrows always lands short of reaching them.

They don't fly as far with lower skills. You will have to aim higher to compensate for the different flying arc. Never noticed there was such a difference before as I already started with marksman 40.

 

Also, does the weight of an arrow have any effect on its flight path?

No, the flying arc is the same for all arrows.

[ChAiNz.2da]

I guess I cant play this game...

 

I have the game set to lowest settings possible, and the mouse is really sluggish. >_> The starting video is skips too.

 

Ive got a geforce fx 5200... but thats two versions out of date... Id so love to have a new card, but cant afford to get one. T_T

Hey Aash Li, have you looked into the new beta patch they released? They have included a new "Ultra Low" setting that might help you out. Yeah, I'm sure the name of the setting is a real clincher , but still.. the game in itself can make up for a such a crappy name.. hehehe

 

New Ultra Low Quality graphic setting available under Launcher options with improved support for low end FX cards (5700 and lower). To use this setting, go to the Launcher, select Options and click Reset to Defaults to allow the auto detect to check your system.

Info of Patch here:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_patchnotes5.htm

 

Download Patch here:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_patches.htm

[stoffe]

It is possible to spawn a Minotaur Lord with 'player.placeatme 001E648'. The damage was still 34.66 damage for me. A Goblin Warlord also suffered that amount of damage.

 

Tried it and got roughly the same result, more damage dealt than shown at the inventory screen. Strange. I guess I'll have to do some further experimentation to find out where my extra damage comes from, if it's not normal for that to happen.

 

 

They don't fly as far with lower skills. You will have to aim higher to compensate for the different flying arc. Never noticed there was such a difference before as I already started with marksman 40.

 

I'm currently at Marksman skill level 30. Seems like you have to aim a bit higher even at fairly close range. If I aim for the head of a rat 5 meters away the arrow tends to strike the ground in front of it. It also seems like some enemies have a smaller hit area than their physical appearance, judging by how proficient my character is at shooting past hulking, attacking enemies at pointblank range.

 

Unfortunately it seems like the enemies in the game all suffer from the Deus Ex syndrome, which makes bow Sneak sniping a fair bit less enjoyable. That is, it doesn't matter if you snipe in Sneak mode, with Chameleon active, from from behind cover a hundred meters away in an area with no lights. The second you hit them they immediately know where the shot came from and run towards you.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Unfortunately it seems like the enemies in the game all suffer from the Deus Ex syndrome, which makes bow Sneak sniping a fair bit less enjoyable. That is, it doesn't matter if you snipe in Sneak mode, with Chameleon active, from from behind cover a hundred meters away in an area with no lights. The second you hit them they immediately know where the shot came from and run towards you.

aha! Finally found the mod I was trying to think of..

 

Attack & Hide:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=305

 

Although it might not be exactly what you're looking for.. I'd almost bet s/he adjusts some value we've been searching high & low for

 

I'm going to check it out after work today to see what exactly they fiddled with.. but if you get a chance beforehand, please share your results

[stoffe]

aha! Finally found the mod I was trying to think of..

Attack & Hide

 

I'm going to check it out after work today to see what exactly they fiddled with.. but if you get a chance beforehand, please share your results

 

Thanks. I had a look at it, and all that mod does is tweak the value of the iAICombatMinDetection setting. But the easiest solutions are usually the best ones.

 

I'll play around with it a bit and see what results I get.

[TheOssusKeeper]

I guess I cant play this game...

 

I have the game set to lowest settings possible, and the mouse is really sluggish. >_> The starting video is skips too.

 

Ive got a geforce fx 5200... but thats two versions out of date... Id so love to have a new card, but cant afford to get one. T_T

 

my bro. has a fx 5500 and we installed the patch and set the 'very low' settings... it's not the best, but the game is playable with some really good performance (not graphiclly, of course) but you should be able to turn on AA up to 4x, if you turn down all your fade options to half or less... and turning off grass helps to... the only problem with the textures I've seen on the very low settings, is that there are no roads/paths that you can follow, you'll have to do a lot of exploring blindly or use the quick trans. (tmm 1 = all map markers, comes in handy for this), and the landscape textures don't blend, they have the square/blocky look where they meet each other... other then that it's playable with little or no herky jerkiness (depending on the options settings)... just play around with the settings to find whats comfortable for you...

 

 

Thanks. I had a look at it, and all that mod does is tweak the value of the iAICombatMinDetection setting. But the easiest solutions are usually the best ones.

 

I'll play around with it a bit and see what results I get.

 

Here's a 2.1 version of the mod, not sure if it changes much tho....

 

http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/2443.html

 

 

Edit: @ Stoffe, a question for ya'... under globels, the timescale setting... does changing the number to a lower count make the game go slower or faster?

the deff. is 30... and does it just slow down the passage of time or will it make everyone and everything move in slow motion?

[Darth333]

Edit: @ Stoffe, a question for ya'... under globels, the timescale setting... does changing the number to a lower count make the game go slower or faster?

the deff. is 30... and does it just slow down the passage of time or will it make everyone and everything move in slow motion?

This has been answered in this post: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?p=2078722

 

===========================

 

BTW, you may have heard about them but here are a few practical mods/tools I came across. I believe they could interest several people:

 

 

- Wrye Bash - This is a mod/savegame management utility that allows you to organize your mods and saves, change the load order of different plug-ins, import/export faces between saves/mods/esp, unlevel npcs so you can install a new npc levelling mod, quickly add/replace/remove textures, xml, etc.

 

http://wrye.ufrealms.net/#Oblivion

 

 

- keychain - Tired of all those keys that clutter your inventory? Use a keychain! This is a practical mod. I was getting really tired to have to scroll down through the list of keys to access the useful stuff at the bottom of the inventory.

 

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=400592

 

 

- Fewer Oblivion Gates - Morrowind had the Cliff racers, Oblivion has the Oblivion Gates...they're both fun at the beginning but there are just too many. This mod gives you the option to either close all the random Oblivion Gates or reduce the amount of random gates (two possible options: medium and very few gates)

 

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=415074

[stoffe]

BTW, you may have heard about them but here are a few practical mods/tools I came across. I believe they could interest several people:

(snip)

- Fewer Oblivion Gates - Morrowind had the Cliff racers, Oblivion has the Oblivion Gates...they're both fun at the beginning but there are just too many.

 

I guess that's the charm of having the choice to decide yourself. I rather liked the massive amount of Gates. It gave the game a sense of urgency that otherwise I felt was missing... that for every gate you closed, two more seemed to open, so you'd have to fix the problem through some other means (i.e. the Main Quest). I'm actually missing the gates now that they no longer appear.

 

The sigil stones were handy, and since you got 1 Fame point for every gate you closed it was a quick way to get famous (which seems to add a bonus to the Disposition of NPCs you talk to, among other things).

 

* * *

 

Speaking of useful tools, I feel the TES4 Plugin Utility has to be mentioned. It saved me from tossing my computer out the window in sheer frustration when I discovered that (unlike Morrowind) Oblivion is not only unable to handle using resources from one plugin in another, but the CS will severely mess up the plugin you tried to add the references to. The Plugin Utility will let you merge several mods into one and thus bypass that bit of pure genius from Bethesda.

 

* * *

 

Speaking of the Gates... is it impossible to finish the Cure for Vampirism quest if you've already finished the main quest? You'll need to fetch some bloodgrass during the quest, but it seems like just any bloodgrass won't do. At least my quest giver pretends I don't have any, so I suspect you'll actually have to pick it yourself from a plant while the quest is on. Which is somewhat difficult when there are no more gates to access Oblivion through.

 

It's a not a disaster if it is impossible since I've grown rather fond of being immune to paralysis and diseases (two of the most annoying effects in the game), and since first stage vampirism is otherwise so transparent and unintrusive I think my character will stay that way for now. But I'd still like to be able to finish the quest that's taking up room in my journal.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Speaking of the Gates... is it impossible to finish the Cure for Vampirism quest if you've already finished the main quest? You'll need to fetch some bloodgrass during the quest, but it seems like just any bloodgrass won't do.

 

You might want this then:

 

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=274

 

[Darth333]

I guess that's the charm of having the choice to decide yourself. I rather liked the massive amount of Gates. It gave the game a sense of urgency that otherwise I felt was missing... that for every gate you closed, two more seemed to open, so you'd have to fix the problem through some other means (i.e. the Main Quest). I'm actually missing the gates now that they no longer appear.

Yes, it's a matter of preference but those gates were about to affect my sanity I was just rushing to the sigil stone using invisibility: that was no fun to me and I was avoiding to travel by foot. I hate to use the rapid transit system but I made an exception during the MQ.

 

Speaking of useful tools, I feel the TES4 Plugin Utility has to be mentioned. It saved me from tossing my computer out the window in sheer frustration when I discovered that (unlike Morrowind) Oblivion is not only unable to handle using resources from one plugin in another

That is good to know. Thanks for pointing that out!

 

Speaking of the Gates... is it impossible to finish the Cure for Vampirism quest if you've already finished the main quest? You'll need to fetch some bloodgrass during the quest, but it seems like just any bloodgrass won't do. At least my quest giver pretends I don't have any, so I suspect you'll actually have to pick it yourself from a plant while the quest is on. Which is somewhat difficult when there are no more gates to access Oblivion through.

This is a bug. Apparently it got fixed in the beta patch. If you don't want to install the patch yet, I guess it's a simple matter of editing the dialogue and changing the conditions. Edit: ahhh ChAiNz found it! I was sure I saw the mod a while ago but couldn't find it!

 

And for those who finish the MQ before doing this quest, look around the closed OB gates: sometimes there are a few bloodgrass plants nearby

[SpaceAlex]

For bloodgrass you can also use this code to get it: player.additem 00033664. That's cheating though. But hey... if you have to do it you have to do it.

 

For those that don't like the vampires in the "vanillia" version, try this mod: http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/2829.html. I makes being a vampire much more rewarding. I've made some modifications to the mod to suit my personal needs, but the mod is still very good as it is.

[stoffe]

For bloodgrass you can also use this code to get it: player.additem 00033664. That's cheating though. But hey... if you have to do it you have to do it.

 

I had some bloodgrass already, stashed away from my many excursions into Oblivion earlier. Problem was the witch wouldn't take it, or even talk about it. I tried the console command too to spawn some, but she still didn't have a dialog option to give it to her.

 

Since it was a bug I used the console to bypass it. Typing in this did the trick: set ms40.bloodgrassvar to 2. It's what the dialog node where she takes the bloodgrass would do. I just dropped my two bloodgrass on the floor and proceeded with the quest to get the cure. I've got the potion now, but I'm still undecided about if I should use it.

 

 

There seems to be some weird bug with Count Dracula when returning to Castle Skingrad for the promised reward a day later after helping him to help his wife. The steward fetched him, he came, but just walked down the stairs, said "Please, go" (like he did down in the crypt when grieving for his wife), turned around and walked back up again. Had to reload the game 10 times and do all manner of strange things before he finally relented and gave me the proper speech and reward, ending the quest.

 

BTW, is there a difference in your reward depending on if you are still a vampire or not when speaking to the Count about the reward? He said something like my usual reward would be useless, considering your current state, but I can give you some gold.

 

 

For those that don't like the vampires in the "vanillia" version, try this mod: http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/2829.html. I makes being a vampire much more rewarding. I've made some modifications to the mod to suit my personal needs, but the mod is still very good as it is.

 

I'm mostly satisfied with the current state of vampirism, after having hacked around the character appearance issues. It gives a nice boost without turning you into a god, and you have to remember to feed every now and then to maintain it at the lowest stage. Fortunately there are plenty of fort ruins and caves with hapless bandits and marauders to feed on, so it's not a major problem.

 

(Though I do find the concept of having to feed to remain mostly human a bit odd. It usually tends to be the other way around, with those indulging the darker nature of vampirism being granted power at a cost and becoming more beastlike, while those keeping themselves in check remain weaker. )

[Darth333]

 

BTW, is there a difference in your reward depending on if you are still a vampire or not when speaking to the Count about the reward? He said something like my usual reward would be useless, considering your current state, but I can give you some gold.

I saved just before talking to him and tried both options. I believe the speech was a little different but you get the same reward.

 

I was hoping for something special but no...

 

I'm mostly satisfied with the current state of vampirism, after having hacked around the character appearance issues. It gives a nice boost without turning you into a god, and you have to remember to feed every now and then to maintain it at the lowest stage. Fortunately there are plenty of fort ruins and caves with hapless bandits and marauders to feed on, so it's not a major problem.

I do like Vampirism as it is too apart the "inverted" feeding system and the lack of RP options. Until now, no vampirism mod has catched my attention. I find them rather unbalancing and they add tons of features I don't really like. However, if there was a "vampire embrace" mod like the one for Morrowind, I'd get it as I think it adds to the roleplay experience.

 

The only tweaks I made were apperance tweaks, I inverted the effects of vampirism to get more powerful when feeding and weaker when I don't and I added a water breathing ability (a vampire dying of drowning just seems odd to me).

[stoffe]

I saved just before talking to him and tried both options. I believe the speech was a little different but you get the same reward.

I was hoping for something special but no...

Evil of them to trick the player into replaying when nothing really changes. I was thinking of doing that too, but seeing the huge trouble I had just to get him to say the correct things once to end the quest I wasn't too eager for a re-match.

 

Does the gold you get scale with level? Might be slightly overkill to get 10000 gold as a reward if you do the quest very early in the game.

 

However, if there was a "vampire embrace" mod like the one for Morrowind, I'd get it as I think it adds to the roleplay experience.

Hmm, what does the Morrowind mod add, new quests? Haven't tried it since I found vampirism too annoying in that game to keep it a second longer than it took to complete all the vampire-related quests I could find. Looking hideous, only being able to do anything at night, not being able to speak to anyone normal, and having every other Dunmer attack you on sight wasn't really much fun.

 

And I'm still annoyed at the fact that you take sun damage at Red Mountain (prior to retiring Darth Ur) during the day but not the night, despite the fact that the climate is the same Blight Storm all the time with no sunlight getting through. Takes all the fun out of being immune to disease. (And the fact that you'll get turned into an immortal who's immune to disease without the unpleasant baggage as part of the main quest didn't exactly serve to make being a vampire any more attractive.)

 

 

The only tweaks I made were apperance tweaks, I inverted the effects of vampirism to get more powerful when feeding and weaker when I don't and I added a water breathing ability (a vampire dying of drowning just seems odd to me).

I wonder if that was intentional. Unless TES-vampires differs from the norm they should technically be undead, and thus have no need to either breathe or eat/drink anything else than blood. I already have a ring with Water Breathing on so I hadn't even noticed you don't get it as a vampire. Time to do some more tweaking to the vampire fix mod.

[Darth333]

Does the gold you get scale with level? Might be slightly overkill to get 10000 gold as a reward if you do the quest very early in the game.

Yes, the gold is leveld but I got 10k as well.

 

Hmm, what does the Morrowind mod add, new quests? Haven't tried it since I found vampirism too annoying in that game to keep it a second longer than it took to complete all the vampire-related quests I could find. Looking hideous, only being able to do anything at night, not being able to speak to anyone normal, and having every other Dunmer attack you on sight wasn't really much fun.

It was a mod that allowed you to use the persuasion system to get the other npcs to like you enough to talk to you and continue to do the quests. You could also sweet talk npcs (it was easier with opposite sex npcs) and convince them do give you blood and even become vampires (you would then have to feed them as well) . You could also enslave them, turn them into vampires by force or drink them dry. During combat, you could use hand to hand on your opponent and then drink his/her blood. Again you had the same options as above: enslave, let go, embrace or drink dry. You had some commands to make slaves and vampires follow you.

 

With a very high disposition and some luck, you could also convinced the npcs responsible for the Stilt Striders and the boats to transport you in a barel to avoid sun damage.

 

The mod did not add any uber powers....and combined with the better heads mod, my pc was looking quite good (I was using one of Redd's heads)

[TheOssusKeeper]

This has been answered in this post: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?p=2078722

 

thanks for the linky...

 

 

Speaking of useful tools, I feel the TES4 Plugin Utility has to be mentioned. It saved me from tossing my computer out the window in sheer frustration when I discovered that (unlike Morrowind) Oblivion is not only unable to handle using resources from one plugin in another, but the CS will severely mess up the plugin you tried to add the references to. The Plugin Utility will let you merge several mods into one and thus bypass that bit of pure genius from Bethesda.

 

I seem to be having trouble with this tool, when I go to merge several plugins into one, some data seems to be getting lost or not merged... for instance I cannot enter some buildings and some custom items seem to be missing... but everything is unique and don't have dup.'s and are not overwritten... it's wierd

 

also have you had the error that says something like "said mod: Top-Level is not a group" ? I get this on one of my plugins when I try to merge it with others...

[stoffe]

I seem to be having trouble with this tool, when I go to merge several plugins into one, some data seems to be getting lost or not merged... for instance I cannot enter some buildings and some custom items seem to be missing... but everything is unique and don't have dup.'s and are not overwritten... it's wierd

 

Odd, I didn't encounter any major problems with it when I used it. But then I've only used it once, and only with two mods, so I'm hardly an authority on the matter. I used it to merge two of my mods into one. The first mod contained loads of custom items, custom spells, bugfixes, annoyance-fixes, a few new Summons (with their associated Packages and CombatStyles) and some modified NPCs.

 

The Second mod contained a new player-ownable building on the Imperial City Isle with a few staff NPCs inside it. This was supposed to contain some of the gear from the first mod (which the CS let me add, but it didn't work in-game, and on a reload the CS messed things up instead.) The utility managed to merge the two without any visible problems. The CS complained about a couple of ownership issues when I loaded up the merged mod, but after saving and reloading everything seems to work OK.

 

* * *

 

I've gotten some weird graphical glitch recently. I thought it'd go away, but apparently that's not happening. Opening doors or containers (like display cases) have slowed down a lot, and their movement it really jerky. The same goes for other movable world objects like gates, grates, pit traps and elevators. It also seems to happen with visual effects like fire, flames and some magical effects (where the "cloud" sticks around for sometimes up to a minute around the character when you cast a Restoration spell on yourself, for example). Some display cases now take forever to open when I activate them, however if I turn around and face away from it as soon as it's activated it opens at its normal speed. Quite odd.

 

Seems like heavy lag, but the strange thing is that it's only these things that slow down. The FPS is the same values as usual, the movement of NPCs and your own character is as smooth as it usually is and no other objects seem to be affected. It started to happen recently without me having changed any settings or installing any new mods. Never happened before, now it happens constantly.

 

Do anyone know what's causing this and how to get rid of it? It's rather annoying and makes some areas hard to play.