Oblivion Remastered reworks annoying leveling system, going for proven solutions
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has changed one of the most annoying elements of the original. The leveling system has become friendlier and draws solutions from Skyrim.
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Even though The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is a faithful refresh of the original from 2006, it's not just about the visual upgrades. The developers got rid of, among other things, the annoying necessity of planning the best way of leveling by introducing changes partially borrowed from the fifth installment of the series.
Annoying leveling system
In the old Oblivion, it was easy to level up ineffectively, gaining fewer upgrades than the game expected. As a result, at some point, it might have turned out that our character was too weak to defeat random bandits due to the quite aggressive scaling of enemy levels.
To advance in the original game, you had to get 10 points in the main skills, chosen during character creation. The remaining abilities didn't influence our level at that time. With each level up, we gained points that we could allocate to three chosen attributes, however, their quantity depended on the skills developed before reaching a higher level.
This meant having to grind through less important skills to get a decent number of points. The result was often an unnatural playstyle, where, for instance, a character that, according to the player's vision, was supposed to be a rogue was forced to wear heavy armor.
What has been changed in the Remastered version?
The devs responsible for the remaster were well aware of how annoying this system was, so they introduced a few changes. During a stream revealing Oblivion Remastered, Dan Lee from Bethesda described the new system with the following words:
It's inspired by the leveling systems of both Oblivion and Skyrim, so it's the best of both worlds.
First and foremost, in the updated version, both primary and secondary skills contribute to leveling up your character. However, thanks to primary skills, this happens much faster (via GameStar).
After getting into bed, we'll see the level-up menu in front of us, where we'll notice the second important change right away. From now on, we will always receive 12 points that we can distribute among attributes. However, there is a limit: a maximum of 5 points per attribute.
Their effects have also been slightly modified; for instance, agility now improves damage dealt with short swords, daggers, and bows. The health boost was also improved, where originally the increase was 10% of the stamina value. In the new version, we don't have to focus so much on increasing it, because even if we do it later, we will still receive the appropriate bonus.
Thanks to these changes, the creators have eliminated the annoying requirement of planning the progression path as efficiently as possible. Instead, players can focus on exploration.
