TES4 Oblivion Deconstructed - The Long Cut

Today, 3/20/2021 Oblivion turned 15 years old, and the channel just crossed 15 subscribers. Pretty serendipitous if you ask me.

It may sound weird, but I want to be able to CLIMB. Not being able to ascend a slope in game that I could clear IRL is so annoying.

Private Sessions' Life of the Party spell should be canon

Rly love the working in of ck2 music ❤

Oblivion NPCs > Starfield NPCs

I will never forgive Oblivion for giving Emil fucking Pagriarulo a career

This man fucking gets it. Great video and a hell of a first vid to see from your channel. You got my sub man. Can't wait for this ES5 vid next...

Just realized you finished the dark brotherhood purge with Rufio's ghost 😂

iv always had the music playing in any Elder Scrolls game its like an early warning system because as soon as an enemy is alert to the player the music changes on a dime to combat music.

Conjuration and illusion are the most useful combat spells. Essentially, you can summon a monster to tank and use invisibility to position yourself for a pointblank strikes.

Fewer subgroups of weapons (short and long blades have merged, axes were absorbed by blunt weapons, and spears seem to be missing altogether.) and the medium and unamored skills are gone.

Destruction has a more restricted area of effect making it easy to miss targets. Conjuring is more restricted in terms of summoning as you can summon one creature at a time.

Knights of the Nine was actually really well done. It didnt make a new map or anything, but did a lot for what it was.

I dont understand how you seem to think most of it was dungeon quests. The first act has you finding the Wayshrines in the Overworld. One or two of the next quests have you in fairly creative dungeons. All of which have cool puzzles and lore attached.

And if you really RP with it, you can get into whatever character you want. Most people in Tamriel worship one or more version of gods. Its very easy for one of our characters to get attached to the divines after the chapel of Anvil is attacked. So its easy to RP. Whether as a redemption arc, or as a religous zealot, or even just a hero of justice. Hell, I did a character with it that wanted the relics to sell, as he came to Cyrodil as a trader...only to believe in the myth and become Pelinal reincarnate.

I really think you missed how much was in the quest. And you overlooked a lot of the best lore. You should have read the Song of Pelinal volumes and really get into the character of the quest.

It wasnt the best for unique mechanics or quest objectives, but it was the best to roleplay in. Which is important in a roleplaying game. The immersion was top notch, and the rewards, in terms of permanent new powers, companions, weapons, armor, house, blessings, etc...was well worth it.

Really dont know what the fuck you expected with a DLC. Shivering Isles definitely tops it in terms of added content, but Knights of the Nine in no way should be considered off-side content like the other microtransaction DLCS.

I honestly wonder if you just had gotten burnt out during this piece of it, and just didnt take in the DLC the way you were supposed to. Really hope you revisit the DLC with a new mindset, because I cannot, for the life of me, wonder why you can recommend skipping it. Its far better than you believe. I just finished it myself, but with a character that was focused around it, and it was awesome. I took my time with it, and got immersed in it. You should have done the same.

I really think because you left it last, and didnt walk away for a bit, was a downfall to your experience of it. I didnt do it til now though I did most else. I came back for it because my past characters didnt make sense for it by the time i was done doing all else.

Its a great low-mid level questline, and has to be done with some intent involved to really get immersed.

Loved the video either way. Agree with most of your points, but I really think you should give Knights Of The Nine another chance. Read all the lore around Pelinal, and get immersed in to the character, rather than just rush through objective points like you did.

Bro if you haven't tried a hand-to-hand playthrough TRY IT at level 50 you can punch Ghosts!!!

I really don't understand how you could say magic characters fall in the middle they are by far and a landslide the best builds for literally everything, magic was gutted somewhat from morrowind but illusion still allows you to be better at stealth than stealth builds because 100% chameleon is literally the most op thing in the game as well as alteration and restoration allowing you to basically fortify your way into being better warriors than actual warriors plus with spell absorb and atronach you can glitch yourself to millions of magicka and literally become a god basically as well as telekinesis allowing you to do the daggerfall spell absorb exploit where your own spells restore your magic

Honestly I think the levelled system is awesome (in Oblivion and Skyrim atleast) but it definitely needed major tweaking to be more liable. For instance, capping out most bandits to almost never have higher tier items would help alot, and make alot more sense. How does a bandit get daedric armor in the first place? Its just not believable and allows you to harvest expensive items with lesser challenge so to speak. But if you capped most bandits to have the highest tier items being say Elven or something more realistic considering lore, geography and such, it suddenly makes the game alot different. Small tweaks like that can make a huge difference throughout gameplay. Oblivion has alot of issues but I do think its a fair trade off, especially when mods and personal tweaks can mitigate or fix alot of these subtle issues that stack to break the game. But I mean its player to player, if someone enjoys the Oblivion levelling, great, enjoy the game. If a player doesnt, get some mods to change what you want changed, or change it yourself until you are satisfied with how it changes the game, and enjoy.

I both enjoy and dont enjoy the levelling stuff. In some aspects I feel it makes perfect sense, and in other circumstances I think it makes no sense. Its a hard thing to perfectly balance especially when everyone has a certain preference of playing the game and how they want the gameplay to behave. Ive always considered the game itself as more of the "platform" or "base foundation", with mods and personal hand tweaks being the overwhelming majority of "character" the game has while playing. But thats coming from me who probably mods my Skyrim more than I play it some of the time. Ultimately while obviously flawed and far from perfect or realistically logical, I think the levelling systems has its place, and in other places should not be in place. Your right though, its a trade off. Which is why I enjoy modding my games so much. It allows me to change the game in deep and fundamental ways to fine tune it to make the world behave how I feel like it should. Its awesome that I can do that, because I grew up on Gameboys, Super Nintendo, PS1 and such, where modding was basically non-existant unless you throw in the Gameshark or something, but I consider that closer to the PC console commands rather than modding. So I have a great appreciation for the ability to mod a game to such a deep degree, and I fully take advantage of this ability. Which is why I also love watching videos of people do this kind of stuff, digging in to the mechanics and number play and just really isolating and analyzing smaller things about a game. Thanks for the video, I am enjoying it greatly 👍

Dagon couldnt initially break through. The assassinations of the septim line and the extinguished dragonfites weakened the barriers so the gates could open. But the barriers werent ripped enough for dagon to come through. Thats why the mythic dawn kept opening gates, the more gates that opened the larger the tear became. It is convenient that right when we were about to win the tear was large enough for Dagon, but thats why he didnt come through right when the fires went out. Otherwise he would have

Always nice to see how it started and how far you have come by now.

Oblivion

Jayred needs to calm the fuck down. You obviously are unaware that every time you put your crusader armour onto its armour stand, it rises to your level and it can always be on par with any other armour in the game. Knights of the nine is the best quest in the game because it's short and gives you access to the best armour in the game from the start if you know what you are doing in the game.

you underestimate how good bound equipment spells are.

The discussion of the NPCs in the Imperial City, and how artificial they are, reminded me of something. After I had joined and completed the Dark Brotherhood quests, I used an item duplication glitch to get like 300 poisoned apples and basically killed everyone in Anvil who would actually die, because their behavior was so artificial-feeling that I had become completely disconnected.

It also wound up being rather darkly humorous just sitting in the guard quarters, invisible, watching them all eat apples and just suddenly die in a chair to literally no reaction.

i always hope that someone at bethesda is watching these

Thanks for the great video. Oblivion has been a favorite since I first played it in 2007, and I recently tried a new playthrough and it just didn’t feel like it had the magic it once did. You and PatricianTV have both put my feelings to words and have helped me say goodbye to a game I’ve fondly played every few years since I was a kid, and you did so in a way that didn’t feel snarky or unfair

Maybe someday I'll put some effort into my own critique of games I love. Really enjoyed this retrospective and a lot of the sentiment (especially the end comments) are how I feel with this game. At one point in time I considered it one of my favorites but this was before I played some of the earlier titles and many other games since.

Oblivion does have that charm and vibe that simply no other game matches. It's a weird crossroads of old and new game design and Bethesda creates these worlds that no other developer matches even if they are deeply flawed and often shallow and disappointing.

I've started to realize with Bethesdas titles that every game is a foundation and the sequels never build on them only create their own. Great for modding but little else. They're simulations that don't simulate, RPGs where role-playing doesn't matter, and action games with weak game play.

Everytime I play an ES game I'm both saddened and disappointed that the potential of each title is never realized or built upon. Hopefully you get around to Daggerfall as that's where I saw the best potential for this series and something I hope another developer (maybe wayward realms) builds upon.

Anyway, really love the analyses from both you and Patrician and the duo you've since created has been great to watch. Can't wait to see more!

Just started a play through and I definitely wish these games communicated more information to you, like how leveling up works and maybe a system that keeps track of your skill increases instead of having to keep my own tally to make sure I’m ranking up three different attributes 10 times. I end up just leveling up when it feels right just so I can move on with it which maybe isn’t what they intended but when I don’t know how much I’m leveling up certain skills, or how the game is going to react to this particular level up, it hardly feels worth it to actually try and min/max your character

Wish the entire game took place on the 9 islands of the Imperial City.

You start right off by shitting on this fantastic game. Maybe you should try something else. Analysis is not for everyone.

Are you using music from paradox games in this analysis?

id love one of theese for dragon age orgins

Did this guy just says telekinesis a.k.a my favourite pastime of oblivion, is utterly useless? My ears must have played up

My favorite elder scrolls!

I just sat through the whole thing in one go. Congrats

"I hate doing things over and over" says he came to this game off RUnescape and tried to play it as such at first. Bro what the fuck, how often are you gonna contradict yourself? You gotta remake this garbage video

It perplexes me why you talk about being glad you didn't over level when before that you describe how shit and unfun the combat is in this game for like 20 minutes, something overleveling fixes...... ??????

Armor repair is definitely a holdover from earlier TES games, and it has been increasingly sidelined since Daggerfall.

Daggerfall: Armor Repairing wasn't even possible by the player iirc, and repairing of your gear could take several days. It freed up the player from endless dungeon crawls, allowing them to spend time and money on training sessions, miscellaneous quests that didn't require you to step out of the city walls and managing your bank account (yes, for real).

Morrowind: Armorer skill was introduced. Most likely reason is Bethesda did away with convenient fast travel for that game, so you couldn't always just get to your destination. When you are forced to walk, random encounters and dungeons you explore on the way naturally degrade your gear, necessitating a way for the player to mend the items on the fly.

Oblivion: I don't have as much experience as with the previous two, but armorer skill on Oblivion really seems like a holdover to me. It was a series staple by that point, so that's why it survived, even if in such a vestigial form. As much as I'm a Morrowind shill, I think that Skyrim's decision to remove durability was ultimately a correct one.

Me walking into a 7 hour Oblivion review as if the 12 hour one didn't cover everything in enough depth.

this game will hold a special place in my heart. i played it through somehow in german, because i bought it when it was released in germany while visiting the country. the trip back to my homeland was spent playing the hell out of this game on my laptop. i understood nothing, but the graphics sort of blew my mind. i just enjoyed the vibe, killed stuff.
these days i do realize the issues but... it just feels good to play oblivion. and i enjoy long videos about it. so, thanks Private Sessions for this video!

and as sidenote, immediately one of favorite 'analysis' channels, not surprising you are friends with patricianTV. both bring enjoyable videos to the table ^-^

Lol go to arena for money? I get infinite coins from Dorian and wait for magika? I just dupe hundreds of potions carry them with feather enchants on clothes

Well I’m a racist I hate beastfolk they should be working my fields and in my mines not having “rights” yes I’m a dunmer how did you know

Capital B O N E S

You can jump out of water in Skyrim as well, but it's also much harder to do.

that moment when you have been playing oblivion for 9 years and after being everywhere and doing literally everything... the game is not fun anymore
and then you take a second and realize that 80% of main quest is stupid crap pahhening because some character did something stupid
like hiding the amulet of kings in NOT SO HIDDEN underwear drawer
or that time in kvatch "normally i would request a legion of imperial soldiers" - THEN DO IT DUMBASS
i know
i know
it's a game
more than that it's a bethesda game and being the ultimate important head honcho of everything is part of the experience
but maybe when literal hell invades give me a better excuse than "BUT THESE AREN'T NORMAL TIMES"