Elder Scrolls Oblivion Efficient Leveling Explanation

[completelyrandomname]

I have been reading about this "efficient leveling" in Oblivion for a while now. I am still confused about how it works and stuff. Could someone explain it in simple/simpler terms? Thanks in advance.

 

[DarkSable]

Simple way of explaining it is this:

If you select acrobatics as one of your primary skills, then you level up when it (and the others) level.

As you level, enemies get harder. You want to avoid this so you can level your powerful abilities first.

Efficient leveling means picking skills as your primaries that you ARE NOT going to use often, yet are easy to level, such as acrobatics (jump a lot) or stealth (leave the game on with you in stealth mode).

What that means is you can get your good abilities as powerful as you want, and then level up as you please.

 

[bystander]

Simple way of explaining it is this:

If you select acrobatics as one of your primary skills, then you level up when it (and the others) level.

As you level, enemies get harder. You want to avoid this so you can level your powerful abilities first.

Efficient leveling means picking skills as your primaries that you ARE NOT going to use often, yet are easy to level, such as acrobatics (jump a lot) or stealth (leave the game on with you in stealth mode).

What that means is you can get your good abilities as powerful as you want, and then level up as you please.

It was this level/stat system which I really disliked in Oblivion and previous Elder Scrolls. I tried it a couple times, and it works. In fact it was needed if you wanted to be an illusionist focused on charm spells, because they stopped working past level 25. But the whole concept just seemed wrong.

Another efficient leveling trick is to level 3 skills related to an attribute 10 times, so you can raise those 3 attributes by 5 when you level. (or was it 2 skills, I forget) These skills should not be your primary skills and should be fairly easy to level. This too was a very annoying method of leveling.

I was quite glad that Skyrim eliminated this stuff. Not that you don't have to watch your skill leveling, it is much more reasonable (you just want to avoid leveling too many different skills until you are strong enough to handle higher level mobs).

 

[DarkSable]

It was this level/stat system which I really disliked in Oblivion and previous Elder Scrolls. I tried it a couple times, and it works. In fact it was needed if you wanted to be an illusionist focused on charm spells, because they stopped working past level 25. But the whole concept just seemed wrong.

I agree, Oblivion was borked in a number of ways. But I think the important thing that we can all agree upon...

is that Morrowind is by far the best elder scrolls entry, and always will be. 😉

 

[bystander]

It was this level/stat system which I really disliked in Oblivion and previous Elder Scrolls. I tried it a couple times, and it works. In fact it was needed if you wanted to be an illusionist focused on charm spells, because they stopped working past level 25. But the whole concept just seemed wrong.

I agree, Oblivion was borked in a number of ways. But I think the important thing that we can all agree upon...

is that Morrowind is by far the best elder scrolls entry, and always will be. 😉

While I probably like Morrowind the best when it was released, it still had all the leveling problems that Oblivion has. However, it had a better enchanting system, another very annoying thing about Oblivion (you had to constantly charge weapons with no sharpening.).

Skyrim is still pretty close imo, if not better. Arena had great memories as well, though technically far inferior to to technology.

 

[DarkSable]

See, I never took to Skyrim. It feels too "generic fantasy" to me, as though they're trying to get as many consumers as profitable. (Yes, I know, I'm a gaming hipster... but I've been around since the first quake, so can you blame me for being disillusioned?)

Part of the reason I love Morrowind so much is that you have this eerie feeling of being the "other" in a different world; everything is just strange enough for you to not feel comfortable with it.

 

[bystander]

I've been gaming even longer, so I hit the disenchantment stage before you probably. I still liked Morrowind a lot, but I already saw a ton of flaws in the system at that time, and it grew to be very annoying in Oblivion. Skyrim fixed everything so that Illusion and archery were both functional, and so many things that were previously so exploitable.

I did manage to have fun in Morrowind by forcing myself to play with restrictions. I planned out what skills I'd use, and tried to avoid going outside my class. I forced myself not to be efficient leveling and play the game. It worked well and was easily more fun than being efficient. Oblivion was always getting in the way of me playing that way, as I wanted to use illusion and archery in my builds, and archery required enchanting and mysticism to keep them enchanted. It was also difficult as a mage, until you learned how to make infinite mana potions. Something Oblivion took out, without making magic more cost effective.

I guess I still have issues with the game, after so many years of not playing it. lol

 

[completelyrandomname]

Do you guys think that efficient leveling is worth it?

 

[bystander]

Do you guys think that efficient leveling is worth it?

I think it totally destroys the immersion you get from playing the game. The only thing I'd do is apply it in special cases like Illusion. If you want to make an illusion character, you are forced to, or stop once you reach level 25. Other than that, it totally destroys the enjoyment value of the game, unless your goal is to make the most powerful character you can.

The game, at least from my experience, is most fun when you create an idea of a character, and his primary skills, then stick with it, while staying true to his character type.

 

[completelyrandomname]

Thanks. I guess I'll do it when I play on hard or something. Thank you all for contributing your time to assist me.

 

[jeremyboston]

"Efficient Leveling" is a way of removing most of the fun from what some feel is the best RPG ever. It replaces this fun with accounting!

Oblivion has a difficulty slider -- the slider can be set to 'Fun', for whatever value is fun for you. This is a much better way to have fun than the bureaucratic slog that is 'Efficient Leveling'

If you'd thinking about using 'Efficient Leveling' on your first play-through of Oblivion, don't. It really isn't fun. For certain people, it's worth considering on your third play through.