As one of the most popular installments in The Elder Scrolls, many fans of Oblivion have been eagerly awaiting more news about a possible remake or remaster. And, finally, Oblivion Remastered has seemingly been confirmed by a leak after months of rumors. Developed by Virtuos Studios, Oblivion will be a remaster rather than a full remake. Despite being a remaster, rumors have said that some of its systems, such as combat and stealth, have been redesigned.
While the original Oblivion was a hit on release, it had some systems that have either aged badly or weren’t well-implemented even at the time. An example is Oblivion‘s leveling system, which is unbalanced and difficult to master. One of the biggest problems with Oblivion‘s leveling is enemy scaling, while its Skills system essentially makes the player character weaker as they level. Fixing this would require a few tweaks to some systems, and major overhauls to others.
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The Problem with Oblivion’s Level System
Oblivion‘s leveling system is notoriously technical and unbalanced. Players choose a premade or custom class at the start of the game, which gives seven Major skills, with the rest as Minor skills. Major skills count towards leveling, with Minor skills only affecting Attribute point modifiers.
Skills determine how good a character is at something, such as Destruction, Conjuration, Restoration, Heavy Armor, Blocking, Blade, and Blunt. There are 21 skills in total, all of which can be raised to a maximum of 100. There are also non-combat skills, such as Alchemy, Sneak, Athletics, Mercantile, and Speechcraft. Because the non-combat skills can be Major skills, it’s possible for the Hero of Kvatch to better those skills and level-up without improving their combat skills. As enemies level alongside the player, this can create unbalanced gameplay where enemies become far more powerful than the player, also resulting in ridiculous scenarios such as random bandits wearing glass armor.
The result is a system where it’s possible to complete the main quest while still at level 1 or 2. Oblivion doesn’t reward players when they become stronger, and instead all enemies become damage sponges rather than a threat. Another issue is that specializing in a certain build can cause a discrepancy between Attribute point gain and leveling. For example, playing a destruction mage and allocating the Destruction skill as a Major skill results in leveling that skill too quickly, resulting in losing out on Attribute points and creating an unbalanced character that struggles at higher difficulties.
Fixing Oblivion’s Leveling System
Players work around this by min/maxing and knowing about the issues with leveling beforehand, but this doesn’t help new players that are unaware of the system. Oblivion‘s leveling system essentially makes the Hero of Kvatch weaker as they level, and there’s no respeccing mechanic, which punishes any player unaware of how the leveling system works.
Oblivion Remastered is rumored to have implemented changes to some of the original’s mechanics. It can improve Oblivion‘s leveling in several ways, including a pivot to XP-based leveling, decoupling enemy scaling from character progression, and implementing a respeccing system. Enemy levels could be in ranges in certain areas, like in modern RPGs, where underleveled characters could leave and return later once they’re more powerful. Enemies could also have loot scaling, so bandits and goblins don’t carry some of the best gear in the game at higher levels.
Skills could still increase with experience, but players wouldn’t be locked into concentrating on certain ones, or defaulting to odd behavior like jumping on the spot to improve Acrobatics. Attributes also need to be overhauled, and can be fixed by including multipliers or an averaged number. Respeccing is also essential, so that players aren’t punished for not min/maxing.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Released
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March 20, 2006
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Engine
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havok, speedtree, gamebryo
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