Are the higher levels worth it?

weka · Post by **weka** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:52 am

Sorry if this has been thrashed out before, but I haven't seen anything that is exactly what I'm wondering.....

Is it worth leveling past level 25? Level 25 is where you seem to get the best rewards for most quests (if not earlier). By now you are getting Transcendent Sigil Stones.

I am currently on level 24, but by level 25 my stats will be:

Strength 100
Intelligence: 95
Willpower: 55
Agility: 95
Speed: 99
Endurance: 100
Personality: 65
Luck: 68

I had originally assumed that I would level as far as I could, but from other discussions on this forum, it now seems to me that that would be a bad idea.

I don't have any probs with needing my Magika restoring any faster (use potions or wells if needed). I had added to Personality and Luck more from completeness than any other reason.

It just seems from what people have been saying, that from now on, since I can't really increase any relevant Attributes any more, that the "monsters" (that presumably don't try to maximise their level-ups) will just be catching me up, and passing me.

So it looks like the game won't get any easier if I continue to level up, and possibly will get harder?

The other issue is that I realise that there are some quests that require you to sleep. When you do sleep, if you haven't leveled up for some time, does each sleep only require you to level up once? Or for one sleep, do you have to catch up on all the level-ups that you've missed to that point?

I would v. much appreciate anyone’s views on this, partics those of you that have reached the higher levels. And sorry if I'm being repetitive with this post.

Gruntler · Post by **Gruntler** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 6:48 am

I definately think its worth it to keep leveling up.

For one, if you stop using major skills and hence stop leveling, the game will turn into candyland and get way too easy.

Also obtaining master level in each of the skills ends up a whole "game in itself"... Each skill, though they can be maxed out to 100 on your own, comes with its own "quest" through the trainers to reach the Master Trainer for each skill. The Master Trainer "miniquests" though quite short can be fun.

Once reaching Master (100) in skills brings HUGE bonuses. For example. in armorer, you NEVER have to buy a repair hammer ever again... For Marksman and Hand to Hand, you get a chance to Paralize... One of my favorite things to do with master destruction is to create a fireball that gives 25 points of damage in a 100 foot radius... it fills whole aleid ruins with fire... Mastering all skills can bring the game to a new level of fun.

SupidSeep · Post by **SupidSeep** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:06 am

Ha! Another one of those "Efficent-Leveling" guys!

I can tell cos I level normally and I only maxed out my Strength/Agility/Speed/Endurance on my favourite char in the mid-30s while the rest are at mid-levels. I maxed out my Armour Major Skill first (and celebrated by throwing away my 15+ extra hammers) followed by my Blade Skill (dang, the Paralysis only works very rarely, but so satisfying to stab a Xivilai and watch it kneel over and collapse in slow-mo fashion). At level 40, my Block is at the higher 90s (I was on the receiving end of Umbra's Shield Disarm once, so am looking forward to Shield Disarm some other guy), Destruction in the 80s, Marksman and Sneak in the higher 70s and Restoration the lowest at 60s. All the above are my majors.

Lemme think: Ah, well I believe at the highest levels you face Xivilai, Liches, Gloom Wraiths and Goblin War Chiefs (dang, harder to kill than any Dremona and often you face a small gaggle of them!) as some of the high-end monsters. If you can handle these guys without much problems, no worries - level on! Actually, after a while it gets easier since the monsters reached their peaks while YOU have not.

weka · Post by **weka** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:10 pm

SupidSeep wrote:Ha! Another one of those "Efficent-Leveling" guys!

Guilty!! I initially started "efficient leveling" because I wanted to be able to carry a lot more loot, and wanted lots of hit points to at least give me a chance to survive. (Met Umbra w/o knowing who she was while I was still at a fairly low level, and kept getting wiped out in 1 or 2 blows!)

I dumped my first two chars due to leveling probs. Another thing I wasn’t aware of until well into this char is the issue with the monsters leveling as well! That’s just cheating on the monster’s side!! I expected to find stronger monsters as I went out into the wilds further etc, or as the hordes of Ob. started to pour into Tamriel.

At my current level, the game has finally got to the point where I know that I can survive nearly every encounter, even if only just. I got fed up with dieing and having to reload! Don’t want to change the “difficulty” slider though. (It would prob help if I remembered to drink those “restore health” potions more frequently instead of just always lugging them around!)

In my major skills I have both Heavy and Light Armour, and they will keep going up depending on what I’m wearing in battle anyhow (though I have tended towards Heavy and that is at 94). The only other major skill that I use regularly is Security. I was just intending on not sleeping anymore (other than where unavoidable).

I agree with Gruntler on wanting to get my skills up to Master, and yep I do do all of the “Master Trainer” quests, even if I have no intention of using that trainer. Blade and Alchemy are the two that I use most for battle now, and they are both at 100. And yipeeeeeeeeeee, got Armourer to 100 today too!! bl*@#* repair hammers!!

So since my relevant battle skills are already maxed, I think that I’m going to miss out on candyland however I play it. (… images of battling red and white candycanes while surrounded by lollipop trees!!

)

My main concern is that if I keep leveling, sooner or later the game is going to get really difficult again, and at that point I won’t have any relevant sills or attributes left to increase to help me get back to a reasonable survival rate. I’m even wondering if I’ll survive if I get as high as late 30’s/early 40’s.

I would def pref to max out eventually, it really doesn’t seem like playing the game properly if I don’t. But then I do also want to make sure that if I’m at level 45 etc, that I can still play the game, and not just constantly get killed off!!

SupidSeep · Post by **SupidSeep** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:35 pm

weka wrote:I dumped my first two chars due to leveling probs. Another thing I wasn’t aware of until well into this char is the issue with the monsters leveling as well! That’s just cheating on the monster’s side!! I expected to find stronger monsters as I went out into the wilds further etc, or as the hordes of Ob. started to pour into Tamriel.

At my current level, the game has finally got to the point where I know that I can survive nearly every encounter, even if only just. I got fed up with dieing and having to reload! Don’t want to change the “difficulty” slider though. (It would prob help if I remembered to drink those “restore health” potions more frequently instead of just always lugging them around!)

Is it that bad? Are you playing on maximum difficulty? If you are, I can understand why the desire for efficent leveling since there is so much stacked against you ...

... but if you are playing on default difficulty, I can not understand your problems with survival, especially since you are efficent leveling. At around level 20 may be the worst in Oblivion, when Xivlai and high-level Dremona wielding Daedric Two-handers who can knockdown and disarm start showing up. Getting ganged up by 3 of those guys in melee is not fun, but I have survived those situations (run to string them out, block like a machine, watch for openings, and aim to kill off the weakest first to reduce the odds) since it is at that level that I start raiding Oblivion Gates for Transcendent Sigil Stones to enchant my Elven Armour with (I prefer light since you move faster in it and running for favourable battle conditions is a habit of mine).

weka · Post by **weka** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 6:49 pm

Are you saying I'm being a whoose??!!

Maybe I'm still suffering from "terrible teens" fatigue. In my 20's so far I haven't done as much fighting as normal, have been spending more time taking care of various Guild duties etc that I'd been putting off.

Fighting-wise I've mostly just done two Ob. runs, neither of which were any prob (well apart from when I was so busy collecting plants that I walked straight into a Daedra Spider, Daedroth and Xivilai all tog and still had my sword sheathed).

Poss spoilers.

The first of those two Ob. gates was Kvatch, and I did the Castle Kvatch quest straight afterwards. Didn't manage to keep any of the guards at all alive (apart from the Captain who can't die) during the courtyard fight. It was abit of a slaughter house!

That certainly left me feeling pretty inadequate! That was level 21.

OK, I'm convinced, I'll keep leveling. But if it starts getting impossibly difficult I'll expect both of you to come round and fight my battles for me!!!!

SupidSeep · Post by **SupidSeep** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:28 am

weka wrote:Are you saying I'm being a whoose??!!

Maybe I'm still suffering from "terrible teens" fatigue. In my 20's so far I haven't done as much fighting as normal, have been spending more time taking care of various Guild duties etc that I'd been putting off.

Fighting-wise I've mostly just done two Ob. runs, neither of which were any prob (well apart from when I was so busy collecting plants that I walked straight into a Daedra Spider, Daedroth and Xivilai all tog and still had my sword sheathed).

Maybe it is just that you don't take well to the fighting mechanics in Oblivion. I picked up melee fighting from multiple reruns of the Arena. People have different biases (just like some people are good FPSers, some RTS and so forth).

For your 'caught with your sword sheathed' encounter, I hope your first action was to run away, if only to buy time to draw your sword and starting thinking of how to turn the situation around ... that is what I would do if I am surprised, unless I got surprised by a Rat/Mudcrab/Dog (then I would curse myself for being a wuss before slapping my favourite custom touch spell Drain Health 100 pts / 1 second on the annoying bugger).

weka wrote:The first of those two Ob. gates was Kvatch, and I did the Castle Kvatch quest straight afterwards. Didn't manage to keep any of the guards at all alive (apart from the Captain who can't die) during the courtyard fight. It was abit of a slaughter house!

Don't feel bad, I was fighting and hiding to survive when I tried that at level 11, a coupla of guards + captain barely made it to outside Castle Kvatch but were eaten by Daedroth inside the castle and I couldn't handle 3 Daedroth simultaneously on my own; the problem is the NPCs guards probably didn't power up to match the levelled monsters and hence got slaughtered to a man. You are much more likely to keep the guards alive if you do the Save Kvatch quest at very low levels, which is what I have been doing since cos I hate watching the guards die like flies ...

weka · Post by **weka** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 1:18 am

SupidSeep wrote:Maybe it is just that you don't take well to the fighting mechanics in Oblivion.

That's v. true. I do pref the other aspects of the game and do tend to treat the battles v. much as just hack'n'slash.

SupidSeep wrote:For your 'caught with your sword sheathed' encounter, I hope your first action was to run away, if only to buy time to draw your sword and starting thinking of how to turn the situation around ...

Unfortunately my first action was to fall down paralysed!!!

I have to confess, they did manage to kill me that time, but I had a v. recent save.

SupidSeep wrote:unless I got surprised by a Rat/Mudcrab/Dog (then I would curse myself for being a wuss before slapping my favourite custom touch spell Drain Health 100 pts / 1 second on the annoying bugger).

Overkill much??!!!!

SupidSeep wrote:Don't feel bad, I was fighting and hiding to survive when I tried that at level 11, a coupla of guards + captain barely made it to outside Castle Kvatch but were eaten by Daedroth inside the castle and I couldn't handle 3 Daedroth simultaneously on my own

Hmmm..... does that mean that the numbers increase at higher levels as well as the types of creature?? Or do you mean that at one point you were left facing 3 Daedroth?? I had at least 7 creatures in the courtyard along with their spawn.

I tried shooting through the portcullis before opening it, but it seemed to have an invisible barrier. Tried it from all sorts of positions, but couldn't manage to get any arrows through. I do seem to have a later version of the game that has had hardly any bugs.

SupidSeep wrote:You are much more likely to keep the guards alive if you do the Save Kvatch quest at very low levels, which is what I have been doing since cos I hate watching the guards die like flies ...

I used to (naively!) think that the random Guards were unkillable. Kvatch set me straight on that score!!

The main reason that I put of Kvatch so long was because the random Ob. gates that open really do look like industrialisation of the landscape to me, and I like it pristine! That, and if I was going to put up with Ob. gates, I was going to make sure I was at least getting Transcendent Sigil Stones in return!

Wouldntyouliketoknow · Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:28 am

its all personal preference really, the mobs are sooooo much harder at higher levels though, so turn the difficulty down or something but i believe its VERY worth leveling up because you can cast more spells, attack more(more fatigue+mp), and carry more stuff. along with the fact that many of the daedric quests require levels 20+ and some 25+ so its gonna be very worth it in the end

SupidSeep · Post by **SupidSeep** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 8:14 am

weka wrote:
SupidSeep wrote:unless I got surprised by a Rat/Mudcrab/Dog (then I would curse myself for being a wuss before slapping my favourite custom touch spell Drain Health 100 pts / 1 second on the annoying bugger).
Overkill much??!!!!

Nope, normally because I have my sword sheathed or am carrying my bow; it is a lot faster to just hit the hotkey for the spell and slap it on them.

It is my favourite spell; you may be surprised at how insanely cheap it is compared to what you can kill with it. I added the spell in the UESPwiki Spell Making Page and named it Death Knell (after a D&D 3rd Edition Cleric Domain Power for Clerics with the Death Domain). I kept it as touch spell for my level 40 char because I normally weaken tough targets with melee/bow/other spells first before using it as the finisher.

My favourite use of the touch version is to get rid of the Spider Daedra's summoned Spiderlings; the Spider Daedra will keep resummoning ...

Me: (shooting at the Spider Daedra) Eat my elven arrow, oversized bug!
Spiderling: (running up to my foot for a bite) BITE BITE BITE
Me: (reaching down with a reddish glowing hand) Yeah, yeah, bite this!
Spiderling: *whines* (dies and disappears)
Me: (resume shooting at the Spider Daedra) Next!

... and I keep killing them inbetween periods of filling the Spider Daedra with arrows.

I tried using a mage character with the ranged version of Death Knell spell to storm Dagon Shrine at level 8-9. Apart from the villian's daughter (which has too much health), practically every cultist died to this spell alone! It was so much overkill at low levels, I had to refrain from using the spell excessively as my Destruction skill has slowed down in terms of leveling rate (before I used to cast multiple elemental damage spells to get rid of the horse-eating wolf, now I only cast one ranged Death Knell which also cost less magicka than the multiple elemental damage spells)

weka wrote:
SupidSeep wrote:Don't feel bad, I was fighting and hiding to survive when I tried that at level 11, a coupla of guards + captain barely made it to outside Castle Kvatch but were eaten by Daedroth inside the castle and I couldn't handle 3 Daedroth simultaneously on my own
Hmmm..... does that mean that the numbers increase at higher levels as well as the types of creature?? Or do you mean that at one point you were left facing 3 Daedroth?? I had at least 7 creatures in the courtyard along with their spawn.

3 Daedroth, plus a support cast of Fire Elementals and Clannifers. That was inside Castle Kvatch's main hall. The courtyard crew composed of Scamp, Clannifers, Fire Elementals and a mid-level Dremona spellcaster.

weka wrote:
SupidSeep wrote:You are much more likely to keep the guards alive if you do the Save Kvatch quest at very low levels, which is what I have been doing since cos I hate watching the guards die like flies ...
I used to (naively!) think that the random Guards were unkillable. Kvatch set me straight on that score!!

This is what I described as poor scripting: Bethesda probably pumped up the level and quantity of the daedra you face inside Kvatch because you were supposed to have assistance in the form of the Kvatch Guards (and later a trio of Legion Guards); unfortunately, they seem to forget to pump up the guards to match.

weka · Post by **weka** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:09 am

I agree with you Wouldntyouliketoknow, def would get to at least level 25 for all those reasons. I made sure that I put a strong emphasis on increasing Endurance and Strength till they were maxed. It was more the mid 30’s-50 levels I was questioning.

Currently I'm working on a full collection of Feather Transcendent Sigil Stones. Will be able to carry 1625 before any spell or potion boosts!!

SupidSeep wrote:It is my favourite spell; you may be surprised at how insanely cheap it is compared to what you can kill with it. I added the spell in the UESPwiki Spell Making Page and named it Death Knell

I think I might have to make myself one of those, sounds like just the thing I need! Since you've convinced me to keep leveling anyhow, I'm going to have to work more on my Destruction. I had thought that I'd use Destruction more than I have, it's one of my Majors, but it's somehow been left on the back burner. I've had abit of a play with the spell altar, but haven’t actually made any yet.

SupidSeep wrote:My favourite use of the touch version is to get rid of the Spider Daedra's summoned Spiderlings; the Spider Daedra will keep resummoning ...

Me: (shooting at the Spider Daedra) Eat my elven arrow, oversized bug!
Spiderling: (running up to my foot for a bite) BITE BITE BITE
Me: (reaching down with a reddish glowing hand) Yeah, yeah, bite this!
Spiderling: *whines* (dies and disappears)
Me: (resume shooting at the Spider Daedra) Next!

Ha! I just got me a fancy new ring in the last day or two. Can't remember if it was a quest reward, or poss random from Umbra. !00% resist to Poison, Disease and Paralysis. Now I laugh in the face of Spiderlings!! Does feel abit like cheating using it mind you......

SupidSeep wrote:3 Daedroth, plus a support cast of Fire Elementals and Clannifers. That was inside Castle Kvatch's main hall. The courtyard crew composed of Scamp, Clannifers, Fire Elementals and a mid-level Dremona spellcaster.

My main hall was the same, that was the easy part at that level! Courtyard was at least: 2 Storm Atronachs, 2 Spider Daedras (and their brats!) 3 Xivilai, but I had a feeling that there were at least a couple of Daedroths there as well. With so many big creatures in that size space, wasn’t so easy to always see what was going on.

I did have a nice, fairly strong, area-fire staff at the time. I tried starting out with that once, but all the guards keeled over before the first of the monsters!! So that was a def restore to previous save!

SupidSeep wrote:This is what I described as poor scripting: Bethesda probably pumped up the level and quantity of the daedra you face inside Kvatch because you were supposed to have assistance in the form of the Kvatch Guards (and later a trio of Legion Guards); unfortunately, they seem to forget to pump up the guards to match.

Ain't that the truth!! At this level the guards suddenly seem quite easy to kill. Was surprised to see a guard killed by a Will'o'Wisp on the road the other day.

Wouldntyouliketoknow · Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:31 pm

i almost had a problem like yours weka, i woulda been raped, but since it was my second character i had an idea:(i saved at the end of the tunnels so i could change and not go through sewers again) as soon as i walked out with my character i ran to the arena and became champion while casting illusion non-stop(major) until i could be around level 10(just a guess)
but when i got a level up i would NOT rest, so i remained level 1 the entire time, then i went to kvatch, with mabriels horse and it was easy mobs, i went into the chapel and started the next part of the mission, where you follow the capt. into the next section of kvatch, after the citizens left and the guards were all out i rested my 10 levels inside chapel, now i was facing all level 1 guys with a level10(or 7) and it was rape

SupidSeep · Post by **SupidSeep** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:41 pm

weka wrote: Currently I'm working on a full collection of Feather Transcendent Sigil Stones. Will be able to carry 1625 before any spell or potion boosts!!

Hmm, I would not have done that. First sigils stones I go for are the Fire/Frost/Shock Shields to enchant my light armour up to 85% rating plus some elemental resistance. Next on my list are Fortity Magicka to give me more magicka to burn on my my support skills Destruction and Restoration. Since I play on default setting, defence is particularly high on my wanted list (otherwise it would be even harder).

weka wrote: I did have a nice, fairly strong, area-fire staff at the time. I tried starting out with that once, but all the guards keeled over before the first of the monsters!! So that was a def restore to previous save!.

I hope you realise the denizens of Oblivion are mostly resistant to Fire! (Except Frost/Storm Atronaches, of course!) I primarily use Shock spells on Oblivion Gate raids. Keep your fire staff for Alyeid ruins expeditions since they are generally filled with fire-vulnerable undead.

weka · Post by **weka** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:08 pm

SupidSeep wrote:
weka wrote: Currently I'm working on a full collection of Feather Transcendent Sigil Stones. Will be able to carry 1625 before any spell or potion boosts!!
Hmm, I would not have done that. First sigils stones I go for are the Fire/Frost/Shock Shields to enchant my light armour up to 85% rating plus some elemental resistance. Next on my list are Fortity Magicka to give me more magicka to burn on my my support skills Destruction and Restoration. Since I play on default setting, defence is particularly high on my wanted list (otherwise it would be even harder).

Ah, but since I left it so long to get around to allowing Ob. gates into my world I already have so many magical items I don't know what to do with them all! I am currently wearing my Ring of Vitality (I still can't get over how strong it is! Only got it earlier this week but can't remember where, prob Umbra's treasure chest) due to being fed up with being felled by Spiderling brats (don't they know that I have better things to do with my time than keep falling over?!), but apart from that, I don't really want to get tooooo impervious.

Currently, apart from greaves, everything I wear has some sort of enchantment and I carry a range of rings and amulets that allow me to boost various resistances/reflections if I meet a partics nasty beast.

For some reason I just haven't landed up using magic v. much. I thought that I would, but I mostly only use it for Restoration and I'm certainly not currently experiencing any probs with needing more Magicka for that.

Whereas I really hate to keep having to leave so much loot behind! Even though I no longer need the money!!

SupidSeep wrote:I hope you realise the denizens of Oblivion are mostly resistant to Fire! (Except Frost/Storm Atronaches, of course!) I primarily use Shock spells on Oblivion Gate raids. Keep your fire staff for Alyeid ruins expeditions since they are generally filled with fire-vulnerable undead.

Ha! I had wondered about that, it seemed obvious that they would be, but then I don't get any "fire effect resisted" messages from them and they don’t seem to be especially vulnerable to frost, which I thought they might be. The fire staff did actually finish them all off reasonably quickly, just that it finished the guards off even quicker!!

In the end I've found basic hack'n'slash works best, pref soften them up first with a sneaky poisoned arrow from my shock bow.

Thanks for that about the undead, I keep forgetting that they’re vulnerable to fire. The undead are def my least fav monsters!