Soldato
PeterNem's Elder Scrolls Oblivion Hints and Tips
WARNING: Contains Minor Spoilers - I'd recommend you only read what you have to.
Initially created: 27th March 2006 1:30pm
Last updated: 29th March 2006 6:55pm
Thanks to:
nero120
Weebull
nikebee
Meridian
Jokester
-Tauren-
I don't intend to turn this into a particularly detailed walkthrough, but rather to answer some common questions/difficulties that people seem to be having initially getting into the game. Once you get the feel for how things work, future tasks should be a bit easier.
It'd also be nice to collect some of the frequenty used console commands and ini file settings that people are changing.
If people want to add to this, or point out anything that is incorrect, please post below and I'll update the opening post.
Hopefully this should help keep answers to common questions in one place, and be a lot faster for us that going over to the official forums which at times are painfuly slow.
To save reading anything which may spoil parts of the game you have not attempted, I'd recommend searching the page rather than reading it all.
Main Quest
Free Horse and other bits
After speaking with the monk about the necklace you get from the emperor, speak to the monk downstairs about assistance for a free horse.
Also speak to all the other monks about assistance and you'll get given extra items and can help yourself to the locked chests etc.
Guilds
Fighter's Guild
Q: How do I join?
A: - The Fighter's guild can be joined in the cities of Anvil or Chorrol
(are these the only two locations?)
Mage's Guild
Q: How do I join?
A: The Mage's Guild headquarters is the Arcane University at the Imperial City. However, you cannot use this facility until you have become a full member of the guild. To do this you will need to visit one of the Mage's Guild branches which can be found in the other major settlements. Speak to the leader of the particular branch you go to and one of the conversation options will lead him to tell you about the procedure you must go through to sign up. You will need to complete a series of tasks, one for each guild branch, which can be initiated by speaking to each respective guild master and asking about "recommendation"
Theives Guild
Q: How do I join?
A: There seems to be two ways fo doing this. Either by stealing stuff and getting caught (I haven't done it this way), or, by looking at one of the posters of the Grey Fox. Once you have looked at a poster (there is one in the Imperial City Waterfront), go and speak to a beggar. Get the beggar to like you (disposition above 70 I think) and then you can ask them about the Gray Fox. If you then tell them you'd like to join the thieves guild they'll ask you to head to a garden in the Imperial City Waterfront at midnight.
You'll meet a Thieves Guild representative and He'll ask you to perform a task - to steal someone's diary. You need to do this quickly otherwise one of the other thieves also up for initiation will beat you to it, and it becomes a bit more tricky as you have to steal it back.
The easiest way to do this is to speak to a beggar and get their disposition high (a few coins can help). They will tell you the location of the house you need to steal the diary from. If you fast travel to the right area of the city *should* get there before the other thieves, or at worse at the same time. Use the compass to go right over to a desk and remove the diary before you are beaten to it, and return the next night to the garden at the Waterfront.
I tried the above but was too slow and the diary was already gone
If one of the other theives gets the book first I beleive they go back to their house and you can steal it back from them while they sleep. Ask one of the beggars again (being sure to get their dispositon quite high with the speechcraft mini game... a little coin usually helps too!)
Dark Brotherhood
Q: How do I join?
A: Kill someone outside of a quest in cold blood. When you next sleep (in a proper bed), when you awake you will be greeted by a Dark Brotherhood speaker.
Alternatively, The Dark Brotherhood also visit you when you become Grand Champion of the Arena.
Free Horse
If you want a free cool horse. Join the DB, you get one called shadowmere (eventually).
Other Joinable Factions
Blades
Q: How do I join?
A: During the siege of Kvatch you should bump into Priest Martin as you enter the chapel. Tell him to wait for you. Once you have secured Kvatch, return to the chapel and ask him to follow you back to Weyroon (sp?) Priory. You'll meet with Brother Jeffrye and then have to travel to a new location which is revealed to you (trying not to give too much away, it will become obvious). Once here you will be recruited into the blades (I cannot remember if this happens automatically or if you need to speak to someone).
Knights of the White Stallion
Q: How do I join?
A: There is an Orc loitering in the entrance to the County hall/castle at Leyawiin. Speak with her and then the count to be given a quest to see off a group of bandits. When you return to the count you will be given a further quest, and told he will pay you (200 gold) for every black bow you bring him. This is a nice little earner early on in the game before you start finding expensive items. I believe you find 4 bows as part of the task he gives you.
Misc Quests
Nirnroot
Upon finding a Nirnroot for the first time you will get a message to take it to an alchemist. You can take it to just about anyone (try an alchemy shop) and they will ask you to take it to a particular person. you will then get a quest to take him 10 more (and then 20 more, and then 30 more....). Each time you will then gain access to a more potent elixir of exploration, which you can also then purchase from him.
The Nirnroot is fairly unique in that unlike other plants it does not regenerate once picked, so it will only be harvestable from each location once. A lot of people seem to struggle to track them down, but here are a few suggestions for locations:
Generally anywhere fairly near water, but specifically in areas with a reasonable amount of vegetation.
The coast of lake Rumare (near Imperial City).
The coast (both directions, and around the lighthouse) at Anvil.
They can sometimes be found around fountains in cities.
There are 3 around the lake at the location you are told to look for them.
There are also a lot along the river and shore east and south east of Leyawiin
I've found 25 so far just by wondering about the above locations. I will update this if I find any specific places with an abundant supply"
General Tips
How do I kill ghosts/will 'o' wisps - my weapon seems useless
These enemies will only take damage from silver weapons, Daedric weapons, or those enchanted with magic. Silver weapons can often be found by looting rich people's houses.
They will also take damage from destruction magic, so charging in with fully charged magika is a good idea.
Enchanted weapons will do damage even if they are out of charge as they are still classed as magic items. One particularly handy item I have found is an enchanted bow, which means with a large stock of arrows I can stand well back and kill them fairly easily even though my marksmanship skill isn't too great.
I can't find any spells to use to practice certain schools of Magika while I'm at a low level in them
There is a bargain spells store in the market district of the Imperial city. The shopkeeping has spells such as light for x seconds (Illusion) and bind dagger (conjuration) and other low level spells from the other schools of magic. At a low level you only need to cast each a couple of times to level up.
How do I drop an item/use a poison? (Inventory)
Use left-click to equip an item
Use shift + left-click to drop an item
ctrl+left-click on a poison will apply it to your current weapon
Leveling
To increase by 1 level, you must increase any assortment of major skills 10 times.
Whilst you are at any particular level, every skill you increase (both minor and major) will influence the multipliers you get when you increase to the next level. It is therefore a good idea to make sure you are also making regular use of your minor skills between levels as this really helps keep your multipliers up.
The reasoning is if you increase a given skill 10 times before you level up you get a 5x multiplier on its controlling attribute. Leveling a given skill 5 times gives (I think) a 3x multiplier.
So.....
Take the following scenario. Character A has Blade (strength) and Destruction (Intelligence) as Major skills.
Character B has Blade as a Major skill, but Destruction as a Minor.
Character A gains a level by increasing 5 skill levels each at Blade and Destruction. He therefore gets a 3x multiplier for strength and intelligence.
Character B on the other hand used a lot of Destruction and increases that skill by 10, and then levels up by increasing blade by 10 - when his main level goes up by 1 he will get multipliers of 5x for both strength and intelligence.
In other words, leveling up will take longer this way, but will make sure you use a wider variety of skills within each level, and increase more of them at each level, meaning higher leveling multipliers for your main attributes.
This in the long run means a rounder and more powerful character.
At Level 10 character B would be considerable stronger and more intelligent than Character A would be at level 10.
I don't play the stats too much (only really thought about it a couple of levels ago, thankfully I regularly make use of a few of my minor skills), I don't go to the extreme of trying to get 5x multipliers all the time, but if you play with this is mind it will happen more often than someone who doesn't.
Technical
A more comprehensive list of console commands and ini file changes can be seen at http://elderscrolls.blogspot.com/2005/06/cheats-tweaks.html
Ini file settings
The ini file to edit can be found at my documents/my games/oblivion/oblivion.ini
I STRONGLY ADVISE MAKING A BACKUP BEFORE MAKING CHANGES
Where the variable can be either on or off, a 1 is used for on, a 0 for off.
A semi-colon (
can be used to comment out lines, which is useful for remembering your original settings.
Enable Screenshots
bAllowScreenShot=1
Note: You can't take screenshots using the game engine if FSAA is enabled
Make water reflect more objects
By default, the water only reflects the land
Changing these variables from 0 to 1 will make the water reflect Actors/Trees etc. Remeber this will no doubt incur a performance hit (I don't have a figure, sorry!)
bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=1
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=1
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=1
Grass draw distace
It seems to be the grass draw distance that really hammers performance when outdoors.
The following two variables can be tweaked in the ini file:
fGrassEndDistance=3000.0000
fGrassStartFadeDistance=2000.0000
Detail at distance
This setting determines the number of exterior cells to load and display at high quality. Setting this value higher has an impact on performance, but increases texture and object quality over when viewing over long distances.
The default value is 5, and I have seen others using 7 or 9. If you set this too high there can be a problem with water reflections.
uGridsToLoad=5
Possible speed increase for nVidia graphics cards
A lot of people are reporting speed increases by doing the following:
Install coolbits (this gives a few extra options in the display control panel)
Upgraded to 84.25 Drivers
Change "Max frames to render ahead" from 3 to 0 (in Additional Direct3D Settings) in the nVidia driver control panel. Note this will only help if you play with vSync disabled.
Console commands
The console can be viewed by pressing the key below escape (`)
show FPS
"tdt" (without quotes).
The console command "TDT" enables a load of stuff. If you only want the framerate, type "setdebugtext 12" (no quotes) + <enter> first.
As an alternative, a program called FRAPS can be used.
No clipping mode
"tcl" (without quotes).
Could be handy if you get stuck somewhere
God mode
"tgm" (without quotes).
Unlock door/chest
After pressing ` to bring up the console
click on a door/chest
type "unlock" (without quotes)
this will open any locked object
Teleport to testing area
If you're bored with the game then open up the console and type this little gem:
player.coc testinghall
It will instantly teleport you to a large hall with a heck of a lot of doors.
Most are for testing purposes (like testing AI, walking, lighting etc...)
but there are a few doors which give you instant access to nearly every weapon/armor/book in the game.
Look out for the doors say "Wooden Door To Armor Warehouse", "Wooden Door To Weapons Warehouse" etc...
To teleport back out of the warehouse bring up the console again and type
player.coc icarenabloodworks
This will transport you to the Imperial City's Arena Bloodworks.
UI tweak mod (PC version)
This mod alters the fond and line size of items displayed in your inventory, increasing the number shown on screen at once from 6 to 12 - pretty handy.
It also makes the map larger and scales entries for quests.
Download from the following source and follow the instructions in the archive.
http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=1825
System Requirements
(copied from www.elderscrolls.com)
Recommended:
* 3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card
Minimum System Requirements:
* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card
* and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse
Supported Video Card Chipsets:
* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series
WARNING: Contains Minor Spoilers - I'd recommend you only read what you have to.
Initially created: 27th March 2006 1:30pm
Last updated: 29th March 2006 6:55pm
Thanks to:
nero120
Weebull
nikebee
Meridian
Jokester
-Tauren-
I don't intend to turn this into a particularly detailed walkthrough, but rather to answer some common questions/difficulties that people seem to be having initially getting into the game. Once you get the feel for how things work, future tasks should be a bit easier.
It'd also be nice to collect some of the frequenty used console commands and ini file settings that people are changing.
If people want to add to this, or point out anything that is incorrect, please post below and I'll update the opening post.
Hopefully this should help keep answers to common questions in one place, and be a lot faster for us that going over to the official forums which at times are painfuly slow.
To save reading anything which may spoil parts of the game you have not attempted, I'd recommend searching the page rather than reading it all.
Main Quest
Free Horse and other bits
After speaking with the monk about the necklace you get from the emperor, speak to the monk downstairs about assistance for a free horse.
Also speak to all the other monks about assistance and you'll get given extra items and can help yourself to the locked chests etc.
Guilds
Fighter's Guild
Q: How do I join?
A: - The Fighter's guild can be joined in the cities of Anvil or Chorrol
(are these the only two locations?)
Mage's Guild
Q: How do I join?
A: The Mage's Guild headquarters is the Arcane University at the Imperial City. However, you cannot use this facility until you have become a full member of the guild. To do this you will need to visit one of the Mage's Guild branches which can be found in the other major settlements. Speak to the leader of the particular branch you go to and one of the conversation options will lead him to tell you about the procedure you must go through to sign up. You will need to complete a series of tasks, one for each guild branch, which can be initiated by speaking to each respective guild master and asking about "recommendation"
Theives Guild
Q: How do I join?
A: There seems to be two ways fo doing this. Either by stealing stuff and getting caught (I haven't done it this way), or, by looking at one of the posters of the Grey Fox. Once you have looked at a poster (there is one in the Imperial City Waterfront), go and speak to a beggar. Get the beggar to like you (disposition above 70 I think) and then you can ask them about the Gray Fox. If you then tell them you'd like to join the thieves guild they'll ask you to head to a garden in the Imperial City Waterfront at midnight.
You'll meet a Thieves Guild representative and He'll ask you to perform a task - to steal someone's diary. You need to do this quickly otherwise one of the other thieves also up for initiation will beat you to it, and it becomes a bit more tricky as you have to steal it back.
The easiest way to do this is to speak to a beggar and get their disposition high (a few coins can help). They will tell you the location of the house you need to steal the diary from. If you fast travel to the right area of the city *should* get there before the other thieves, or at worse at the same time. Use the compass to go right over to a desk and remove the diary before you are beaten to it, and return the next night to the garden at the Waterfront.
I tried the above but was too slow and the diary was already gone
If one of the other theives gets the book first I beleive they go back to their house and you can steal it back from them while they sleep. Ask one of the beggars again (being sure to get their dispositon quite high with the speechcraft mini game... a little coin usually helps too!)
Dark Brotherhood
Q: How do I join?
A: Kill someone outside of a quest in cold blood. When you next sleep (in a proper bed), when you awake you will be greeted by a Dark Brotherhood speaker.
Alternatively, The Dark Brotherhood also visit you when you become Grand Champion of the Arena.
Free Horse
If you want a free cool horse. Join the DB, you get one called shadowmere (eventually).
Other Joinable Factions
Blades
Q: How do I join?
A: During the siege of Kvatch you should bump into Priest Martin as you enter the chapel. Tell him to wait for you. Once you have secured Kvatch, return to the chapel and ask him to follow you back to Weyroon (sp?) Priory. You'll meet with Brother Jeffrye and then have to travel to a new location which is revealed to you (trying not to give too much away, it will become obvious). Once here you will be recruited into the blades (I cannot remember if this happens automatically or if you need to speak to someone).
Knights of the White Stallion
Q: How do I join?
A: There is an Orc loitering in the entrance to the County hall/castle at Leyawiin. Speak with her and then the count to be given a quest to see off a group of bandits. When you return to the count you will be given a further quest, and told he will pay you (200 gold) for every black bow you bring him. This is a nice little earner early on in the game before you start finding expensive items. I believe you find 4 bows as part of the task he gives you.
Misc Quests
Nirnroot
Upon finding a Nirnroot for the first time you will get a message to take it to an alchemist. You can take it to just about anyone (try an alchemy shop) and they will ask you to take it to a particular person. you will then get a quest to take him 10 more (and then 20 more, and then 30 more....). Each time you will then gain access to a more potent elixir of exploration, which you can also then purchase from him.
The Nirnroot is fairly unique in that unlike other plants it does not regenerate once picked, so it will only be harvestable from each location once. A lot of people seem to struggle to track them down, but here are a few suggestions for locations:
Generally anywhere fairly near water, but specifically in areas with a reasonable amount of vegetation.
The coast of lake Rumare (near Imperial City).
The coast (both directions, and around the lighthouse) at Anvil.
They can sometimes be found around fountains in cities.
There are 3 around the lake at the location you are told to look for them.
There are also a lot along the river and shore east and south east of Leyawiin
I've found 25 so far just by wondering about the above locations. I will update this if I find any specific places with an abundant supply"
General Tips
How do I kill ghosts/will 'o' wisps - my weapon seems useless
These enemies will only take damage from silver weapons, Daedric weapons, or those enchanted with magic. Silver weapons can often be found by looting rich people's houses.
They will also take damage from destruction magic, so charging in with fully charged magika is a good idea.
Enchanted weapons will do damage even if they are out of charge as they are still classed as magic items. One particularly handy item I have found is an enchanted bow, which means with a large stock of arrows I can stand well back and kill them fairly easily even though my marksmanship skill isn't too great.
I can't find any spells to use to practice certain schools of Magika while I'm at a low level in them
There is a bargain spells store in the market district of the Imperial city. The shopkeeping has spells such as light for x seconds (Illusion) and bind dagger (conjuration) and other low level spells from the other schools of magic. At a low level you only need to cast each a couple of times to level up.
How do I drop an item/use a poison? (Inventory)
Use left-click to equip an item
Use shift + left-click to drop an item
ctrl+left-click on a poison will apply it to your current weapon
Leveling
To increase by 1 level, you must increase any assortment of major skills 10 times.
Whilst you are at any particular level, every skill you increase (both minor and major) will influence the multipliers you get when you increase to the next level. It is therefore a good idea to make sure you are also making regular use of your minor skills between levels as this really helps keep your multipliers up.
The reasoning is if you increase a given skill 10 times before you level up you get a 5x multiplier on its controlling attribute. Leveling a given skill 5 times gives (I think) a 3x multiplier.
So.....
Take the following scenario. Character A has Blade (strength) and Destruction (Intelligence) as Major skills.
Character B has Blade as a Major skill, but Destruction as a Minor.
Character A gains a level by increasing 5 skill levels each at Blade and Destruction. He therefore gets a 3x multiplier for strength and intelligence.
Character B on the other hand used a lot of Destruction and increases that skill by 10, and then levels up by increasing blade by 10 - when his main level goes up by 1 he will get multipliers of 5x for both strength and intelligence.
In other words, leveling up will take longer this way, but will make sure you use a wider variety of skills within each level, and increase more of them at each level, meaning higher leveling multipliers for your main attributes.
This in the long run means a rounder and more powerful character.
At Level 10 character B would be considerable stronger and more intelligent than Character A would be at level 10.
I don't play the stats too much (only really thought about it a couple of levels ago, thankfully I regularly make use of a few of my minor skills), I don't go to the extreme of trying to get 5x multipliers all the time, but if you play with this is mind it will happen more often than someone who doesn't.
Technical
A more comprehensive list of console commands and ini file changes can be seen at http://elderscrolls.blogspot.com/2005/06/cheats-tweaks.html
Ini file settings
The ini file to edit can be found at my documents/my games/oblivion/oblivion.ini
I STRONGLY ADVISE MAKING A BACKUP BEFORE MAKING CHANGES
Where the variable can be either on or off, a 1 is used for on, a 0 for off.
A semi-colon (
can be used to comment out lines, which is useful for remembering your original settings.Enable Screenshots
bAllowScreenShot=1
Note: You can't take screenshots using the game engine if FSAA is enabled
Make water reflect more objects
By default, the water only reflects the land
Changing these variables from 0 to 1 will make the water reflect Actors/Trees etc. Remeber this will no doubt incur a performance hit (I don't have a figure, sorry!)
bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=1
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=1
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=1
Grass draw distace
It seems to be the grass draw distance that really hammers performance when outdoors.
The following two variables can be tweaked in the ini file:
fGrassEndDistance=3000.0000
fGrassStartFadeDistance=2000.0000
Detail at distance
This setting determines the number of exterior cells to load and display at high quality. Setting this value higher has an impact on performance, but increases texture and object quality over when viewing over long distances.
The default value is 5, and I have seen others using 7 or 9. If you set this too high there can be a problem with water reflections.
uGridsToLoad=5
Possible speed increase for nVidia graphics cards
A lot of people are reporting speed increases by doing the following:
Install coolbits (this gives a few extra options in the display control panel)
Upgraded to 84.25 Drivers
Change "Max frames to render ahead" from 3 to 0 (in Additional Direct3D Settings) in the nVidia driver control panel. Note this will only help if you play with vSync disabled.
Console commands
The console can be viewed by pressing the key below escape (`)
show FPS
"tdt" (without quotes).
The console command "TDT" enables a load of stuff. If you only want the framerate, type "setdebugtext 12" (no quotes) + <enter> first.
As an alternative, a program called FRAPS can be used.
No clipping mode
"tcl" (without quotes).
Could be handy if you get stuck somewhere
God mode
"tgm" (without quotes).
Unlock door/chest
After pressing ` to bring up the console
click on a door/chest
type "unlock" (without quotes)
this will open any locked object
Teleport to testing area
If you're bored with the game then open up the console and type this little gem:
player.coc testinghall
It will instantly teleport you to a large hall with a heck of a lot of doors.
Most are for testing purposes (like testing AI, walking, lighting etc...)
but there are a few doors which give you instant access to nearly every weapon/armor/book in the game.
Look out for the doors say "Wooden Door To Armor Warehouse", "Wooden Door To Weapons Warehouse" etc...
To teleport back out of the warehouse bring up the console again and type
player.coc icarenabloodworks
This will transport you to the Imperial City's Arena Bloodworks.
UI tweak mod (PC version)
This mod alters the fond and line size of items displayed in your inventory, increasing the number shown on screen at once from 6 to 12 - pretty handy.
It also makes the map larger and scales entries for quests.
Download from the following source and follow the instructions in the archive.
http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=1825
System Requirements
(copied from www.elderscrolls.com)
Recommended:
* 3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card
Minimum System Requirements:
* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card
* and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse
Supported Video Card Chipsets:
* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series
Last edited:
