1. I know there's an issue with leveling of monsters in the game where they can get insanely inappropriately hard in locations where they shouldn't.
Does the Unofficial Oblivion Patch fix this?
2. If the Unofficial Oblivion Patch doesn't do the job, what is the best patch to fix the leveling issue?
Playing old school this weekend--a couple of Oblivion questions
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Darkstar One
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Blackhawk
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Re: Playing old school this weekend--a couple of Oblivion questions
It's been at least a decade since I've played Oblivion.
The larger issue with the balance scaling was that, since everything was tied to your level, you'd often level past certain content and literally never see it, both enemies and gear (go into complex dungeon early on and come out several levels higher, then go into a second big dungeon before you go back into the world at large and you might go from 9 to 20, completely missing the stuff that only appears from 10-18.)
Another scaling problem comes if you use non-combat skills a lot. Level-ups are based on how many times you skills increase. Imagine you're playing a thief. You spend some time robbing houses, building up your Stealth and Security skills, stopping in between houses to sell your loot - building up your Speechcraft and Mercantile, while making potions to boost those skills, leveling up alchemy. It's easy to play that way for a while and gain eight or ten levels while not increasing your combat skills at all. Now the enemies are balanced for your level - say, 15, while your combat skills are those of a level 5 character.
Without spending hours digging into it, I'd suggest that the unofficial patch does not alter this unless it was a bug. The unofficial patches are only to fix bugs and optimize, never to change how the game itself works.
For that stuff, you want some combination of an overhaul and/or a leveling mod (sort by downloads or endorsements, not date published.)
I haven't kept up on these things in many, many years, but I do know that I'd previously used Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.
As always in these modding threads, I'll give my warning: Be prepared to learn. Installing a mod or two is simple, but actually creating a fully patched, modded install is more complex, so make sure you're reading each mod's page thoroughly. And never remove mods once you've started playing. It can be done (and feel free to post if you decide it's necessary to remove one), but it's risky.
If you're the type that prefers not to mess with it, consider a Wabbajack install, like this one, which sets up a collection of basic mods to act as a 'baseline' for other mods that you can choose.
The larger issue with the balance scaling was that, since everything was tied to your level, you'd often level past certain content and literally never see it, both enemies and gear (go into complex dungeon early on and come out several levels higher, then go into a second big dungeon before you go back into the world at large and you might go from 9 to 20, completely missing the stuff that only appears from 10-18.)
Another scaling problem comes if you use non-combat skills a lot. Level-ups are based on how many times you skills increase. Imagine you're playing a thief. You spend some time robbing houses, building up your Stealth and Security skills, stopping in between houses to sell your loot - building up your Speechcraft and Mercantile, while making potions to boost those skills, leveling up alchemy. It's easy to play that way for a while and gain eight or ten levels while not increasing your combat skills at all. Now the enemies are balanced for your level - say, 15, while your combat skills are those of a level 5 character.
Without spending hours digging into it, I'd suggest that the unofficial patch does not alter this unless it was a bug. The unofficial patches are only to fix bugs and optimize, never to change how the game itself works.
For that stuff, you want some combination of an overhaul and/or a leveling mod (sort by downloads or endorsements, not date published.)
I haven't kept up on these things in many, many years, but I do know that I'd previously used Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.
As always in these modding threads, I'll give my warning: Be prepared to learn. Installing a mod or two is simple, but actually creating a fully patched, modded install is more complex, so make sure you're reading each mod's page thoroughly. And never remove mods once you've started playing. It can be done (and feel free to post if you decide it's necessary to remove one), but it's risky.
If you're the type that prefers not to mess with it, consider a Wabbajack install, like this one, which sets up a collection of basic mods to act as a 'baseline' for other mods that you can choose.
(˙pǝsɹǝʌǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʎʇıʌɐɹƃ ʃɐuosɹǝd ʎW)