Oblivion talk:Efficient Leveling

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Contents 1 What is Efficient? 2 Splitting Out Skill Boosting 3 Discussions Needed 4 Article finally fixed! 5 Efficient Leveling experiment 6 Somethings I don't Quite Understand... 7 Max. Level 53--Max. Luck 100 8 A fast way of leveling for 'pure' characters (10,10,10, / 10,10,1x2)

[edit] What is Efficient?

Given the way levelling works in Oblivion, I have adopted a personal definition of "efficiency" that is based on making my characters as strong as possible at a given level. This leads to gameplay that in some respects agrees with this page, but in other respects noticeably differs.

I agree with this page in that I'm pretty obsessive about getting 5/5/5 bonuses (or 5/5/1 once I start boosting luck) and reaching 100 in attributes as quickly as possible: the only character improvement that happens when you level up is the attribute bonuses, so I think it's critical to get maximum attribute bonuses to stay competitive with the NPCs.

But, I don't believe in not "wasting" skill points. Instead I intentionally "waste" alot of skill points at early levels. So, for example, at level 1, I will increase both alchemy and conjuration from 5 to at least 25 to get them to apprentice level right away, essentially wasting 30 skill points. I want to have as many high skills at possible at low levels (especially so I can survive with the difficulty slider pushed to the left).

This strategy adds its own challenges. You need to be sure to not waste too many skill points, i.e. not delay or prevent reaching 100 in any attributes. You need to accept that increasing skills rapidly early on will require some painful skill training later in the game, since getting a skill from 95 to 100 is so much more difficult than getting it from, say, 65 to 70.

So in reading this page I'm led to wonder what does not wasting skill points buy you? How does that make characters stronger? Or is it primarily an aesthetic preference? And would those who've contributed to the page so far be open to introducing some changes, e.g., modifying the definition of "efficient" and trying to present a couple different philosophies related to skill increases?

--Nephele 23:59, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

I think it all comes down to balance and personal prefernce. Sure, not wasting any skills and doing the 5/5/1 thing every level will get you a more powerful character more quickly, but for the most part, this process can be tedious and just not very fun to play. (Being careful to walk everywhere instead of running so as to not accidentally train your Athletics, selling 100 potions one at a time to train Mercantile, constantly summoning creatures and attacking them just to raise your combat skills, just seems like busy-work when you could be having fun playing the quests and exploring the world instead. I think you need to balance out how much patience you have for repetitive tasks vs. how much you'd rather just enjoy the game and not worry about that stuff. Sure, it's good to keep it in mind, but I'd say don't go crazy over it. But hey, whatever floats your boat. You could instead do the level-as-fast-as-you-can thing and not worry about multipliers at all, if you really like a challenge. Or you could train like a machine so as to be sure that every fight later in the game will be a piece of cake. But I suspect most people will do something somewhere in the middle of this range instead. -- TheRealLurlock 00:59, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

The myth of over leveling I started leveling character totally "efficiently" and found that he was far from powerful because he was only increasing skills he needed to level up. When I started "wasting" skills increases I found I had a much more powerful and well rounded character. For example those levels where I was only trying to level up Strength, Intelligence and Endurance I couldn't use Destruction, Stealth, Security etc. So even though I had a high Magicka I couldn't cast anything because my skill wasn't high enough. When I started using all my skills but focusing on three primary skills so that when I leveled up I would have +5,+2,+2,+2,+1,+5,+5,+2,+1, I found my character more powerful as he could conjure a creature, shoot a fireball and strike with a sword. I think the magical skills can become very limited by low skills as you can't cast anything decent even though you may have high attributes. I mean there is still a lot of room for "wasted" points and you can always go to prison. Grandmaster z0b 02:59, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm not really much of a believer in the 5-5-5 or the 5-5-1 character development approach. I personally prefer a hybrid approach. I select Endurance and Luck as the favored Attributes for my custom character class, because of the immediate health and skill bonuses (as well as other luck-related bonuses). These are the only two attributes which have a permanent affect on the character. The health, or hit-points, earned by Endurance bonuses are cumulative between levels, so that one is fairly obvious.

Luck has an immediate effect on all skills, but that effect becomes diminished over time because the skills themselves increase faster than luck. Each skill has a cap of 100, at which point Luck has no effect whatsoever on that particular skill (with the exceptions of Athletics and Acrobatics). Choosing Luck as a favored attribute is one of the only ways you can boost it faster than one point at a time, so it has a fairly large impact on a Level 1 character. More importantly, it allows a low-level character to use the 5-5-5 approach for a longer period of time before switching to the 5-5-1 approach.

For instance, I calculate in advance the maximum level my character can attain (including factors like Hermaeus Mora, etc.), then I use a 5-5-5 approach until he reaches a level where he must begin incrementing his Luck in order to achieve the maximum of 100 by the time he reaches his maximum attainable level.

Suppose that I've determined the maximum level my character will attain is 54. If his Luck Attribute starts at 55 when he is a Level 1 character, then he must begin incrementing the Luck Attribute at Level 9, in order to achieve a final score of 100 when he reaches Level 54. So for the first eight levels I use the 5-5-5 approach, then I switch to the 5-5-1 approach. Choosing Luck as a favored attribute not only acts as a modifier on all of his skills (as well as numerous other computations), but it also delays the time that I need to switch from the 5-5-5 approach to the 5-5-1 approach by five character levels. If I choose any other Attribute as a favored Attribute for the five point bonus, that's the only five point bonus that my character will receive. However, if I choose the Luck Attribute, he not only gets a five point bonus for Luck from the outset of the game, when it has the most impact as an Attribute, but he also has five additional levels during which he can augment OTHER Attributes by five points each -- for a total of 30 Attribute bonus points, rather than a mere five.

I always focus on Endurance as the first Attribute to develop, simply because it maximizes potential hit points -- which is necessary for the survival of any character. Then I select any other two Attributes EXCEPT Personality to develop. The Personality Attribute, Mercantile Skill, and Speechcraft Skill have very little effect on combat. In noncombat situations, they can always be artificially elevated with enchanted items, spells, or potions. When all Attributes other than Personality and Luck have reached a score of 100, I then switch to a 5-1 approach, wherein I raise Personality by 5 points and Luck by 1 point for each level attained.

I'll let you meet my friend Galadril, and he can probably show you better than I can. Please note that the following example occurs within actual game play -- that the character is not being artificially trained through repetitive actions outside of the normal course of the plot of the game.

GALADRIL IN THE SEWERS

Galadril has just been freed from prison and needs to make his way back to civilization through the sewers. There are a lot of rats down there, and he's a little out of shape because of his time in prison. The rats aren't really much of a match for him, so he decides to use them for blocking practice as much as possible before he kills them. Even though the Block skill is one of his Minor Skills, he finds that there are enough rats down there to easily raise it to 25 (Apprentice Level) by the time he exits the sewers. It's probably a good thing that he selected more difficult skills as Major Skills, since the Block skill is sort of a "gimme."

He also chooses to wear only the heavy armor that he finds in the sewers, opting to carry the light armor on his back, because he's strictly focusing on skills related to the Endurance Attribute. He realizes, of course, that by achieving a +5 Endurance bonus as a low-level character, he will maximize his potential for health (hit points) when he is a higher-level character. He figures that no matter which character class he decides to play when he exits the sewers, this is going to be a critical survival factor for him. He can save the light armor for later, when he decides to work on his Speed Attribute.

Because he's so out of shape, he's also worried about encumbrance. So he decides to focus on his Blade, Blunt, and/or Hand-to-Hand skills. He tries to avoid using any skills other than those which are governed by Endurance or Strength, even though a little birdie in his head is telling him to do silly things like Sneak up on a goblin. He'd rather just fight the ugly thing, to develop a +5 bonus toward his Strength and Endurance Attributes. No matter which character class he ultimately decides to become when he exits the sewers, these two attributes are going to be of critical importance. He might be forced to use a little Restoration occasionally, sparingly, in emergencies, but he'd rather just take a nap for an hour when the action is over.

The only exception is that he might want to pick a lock or two, so that he can get a little loot for startup capital when he exits the sewers. But as soon as he sees all of the alchemy ingredients in the sewers, he makes his first career choice: the other skill he's going to develop is alchemy. No matter which character class he decides to become when he leaves the sewers, he's going to need some easy money. The ingredients are lightweight, and once they've been converted to potions they can be sold for a tremendous profit. It's almost like a license to print money. He also figures that it won't be long before he can make better potions for his own use, almost for free, than anything he might be able to purchase. So he gathers all of the alchemy ingredients he can find, opting to leave heavier, less valuable loot behind.

Galadril is also a strong believer in education, so he decides not to develop any of his Major Skills, thereby remaining a Level 1 character when he exits the sewers. As a result, when he starts using alchemy to finance his new career, he can simultaneously earn a +5 bonus toward his Intelligence Attribute before elevating to Level 2, which will have the byproduct of substantially increasing his Magicka.

GALADRIL IN THE FREE WORLD

After being liberated from prison, Galadril travels as fast as he can to Weynon Priory. When he arrives, Jauffre offers him a position as Assistant Kingmaker. It's not really a bad job, especially considering the benefits package -- a free storage chest, some heavy armor, some light armor, some weapons, a free horse, a repair hammer, some miscellaneous salable items, and an advanced book on blocking which he decides to store in his chest and read later when it is a little harder to learn on his own. After accepting the position, he sells all of his loot from the sewers and all of the weapons Jauffre had given him, keeping only the choicest heavy and light armor for himself, as well as his alchemy ingredients.

Next he travels to nearby Chorrol and joins the Mages Guild. As a member, he's entitled to use a full set of novice alchemy equipment to create his potions with. In fact, he can take ALL of their alchemy equipment, presumably polishing and cleaning it for them, and then sell it back to the guild, keeping only one complete set for himself! With his initial startup capital -- from loot, gifts, and refurbished alchemy equipment -- he buys all of the ingredients available in the city of Chorrol, creates as many potions as he can, then sells them to the Mages Guild. He stores all of the leftover ingredients, his alchemy equipment, and his spare armor in his chest at Weynon Priory. He's just been released from prison, and he's already on his way to being a wealthy man!

He's managed to keep all of the free heavy and light armor that he wanted, but he's sold ALL of his weapons, so his next priority is to outfit himself with some decent weapons. He figures the easiest way to accomplish that is to join the Fighter's Guild, right next door. They have a lot of old-fashioned iron weapons, free for the taking, but he figures that he'll be provided with some better weapons if he starts working for them. So, after joining the guild, he rides his new horse to Cheydinhal where he's provided with a weapons cache -- a STEEL bladed weapon, blunt weapon, and bow. And, By George! All of them are weightless, as light as a Feather. He figures that the more experienced guild fighters can hold off the goblins for a while and that it's more important to use these things to save the heir to the throne.

The only weapons he decides to buy (unless he can find them for free) are an iron dagger, an iron war axe, and a silver dagger (for emergency use in case he runs into any undead creatures). His high-tech weapons are entirely weightless, so he can easily afford to carry these relatively light-weight weapons throughout his adventures.

See, Galadril figures that since Endurance and Strength are so important to a low-level character, of any given profession, that he should continue developing them for a while. He can always use his high-tech, weightless weapons in a pinch, but if he uses some low-tech practice weapons for most of his fighting, he'll have to take a lot more swings at his opponents, which will increase his Blade or Blunt skills much more rapidly. Not only that, it will allow the opponent to strike his heavy armor a lot more times, increasing his Heavy Armor skill and his Armorer Skill. (What the heck? He's already rich enough to buy as many repair hammers as he needs, and he hasn't even really started his first quest yet!) Because of his proficiency with alchemy, he can use potions to restore health during combat rather than Restoration spells. Alchemy is fairly representative of all of the other magical disciplines, so it is extremely versatile. He can always study Restoration later, when he's decided to focus on his Willpower Attribute.

He's still a Level 1 character, outfitted with some of the best weapons and armor available during these early, primitive days of his freedom. He decides that he might as well continue buying alchemy ingredients until his alchemy rating is 25 (Apprentice Level) before advancing to Level 2. He can always study Conjuration or Mysticism later to boost his Intelligence Attribute. Not only that, he's well aware that when he becomes a Master Alchemist that it will more than double his profit potential for each ingredient he collects! And, of course, the potions that he keeps for himself will be more potent. He spends some of the cash on five points of training in one of his more difficult Major Skills, and banks the rest of it for later.

If you want to hear more about the life of Galadril, just let me know! (By the way, Nephele, I agree with your post 100%.)

Bbrass10 17:44, 15 December 2007 (EST)

[edit] Splitting Out Skill Boosting

How about splitting out the section on boosting skills on to a new page? It could also use some better formatting and some editing. Plus the content needs some work. Anyone mind if I take a first pass at this on an unlinked page? Tikiman 17:05, 7 July 2006 (EDT)

I think that would be great! I don't think that info should be buried on the Efficient Leveling page: even if you're not trying to play efficiently, you're likely to occasionally want to enhance certain skills (i.e., you're desperate for that next skill perk). I think a separate page ("Skill Training"?) could be linked to from some of the top-level pages.--Nephele 17:47, 7 July 2006 (EDT)

I created a page Skill Boosting to distinguish manual leveling from going to trainers Tikiman 12:46, 8 July 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Discussions Needed

Before unilaterally reversing changes just made by another contributor, I'd like to suggest that the people editing this page discuss what should be on this page. There are two issues that seem contentious, and keep getting added/deleted from this page:

• Do attribute raising tips belong here?
• Does under leveling belong here?

I think there needs to be a consensus reached on these questions before any more changes related to them are made.

My two cents are that:

• the attribute raising tips do not belong here. It is information useful in circumstances other than just efficient leveling. There is no reason why the efficient leveling page can't just link to the page on Oblivion:Increasing Skills.
• under leveling doesn't belong here either; I think it's a different style of play than efficient leveling. There may be overlap, but there's enough about them to have them on separate pages that just cross-reference each other.

--Nephele 16:33, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

I think what you have just suggested is the way to go.

I tried to take all the information on raising skills / attributes and combine them to make the Increasing Skills page. The old information was scattered around on pages like this efficient leveling page, and therefore hard to find. Now it can be linked from the skills page also, where there are probably just as many people looking for this kind of info.

The under leveling section was also put in here by me, but I can see why its somewhat different than efficient leveling. Probably better to let it have its own page.

-- Dieter 07:56, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

In the absence of any arguments at all in favour of keeping the attribute-raising tips here, I've deleted those sections from this page, and instead added a few links to Increasing Skills. --Nephele 19:40, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Article finally fixed!

This now appropriately talks about attributes rather than stupid "stats" or even worse: abilities, which are an entirely different thing (related to races or starsigns). How anyone could have written such a poorly worded article is beyond me.

Still, it says: "If you gain more than 10 skill points related to one attribute you have "wasted" the opportunity to use those to raise attributes" - why? aren't they used on the next level increase just like this? please check and fix this if needed. --FMan 08:32, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

Nope, attribute bonuses do not roll over from one level to the next. See question/response at User talk:Truffle. As for whether or not it's a waste, that's another question: you have enough skill increases to increase your each attribute to 150 or more, so the skill points end up being wasted anyway. Why not use them early on and take advantage of having a more powerful character? But that's a different argument (which I brought up earlier on this page). --Nephele 14:27, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Efficient Leveling experiment

I just started a new character and thought I could make a new section called "Efficient Leveling Example from lvl 1 to 10 (+5/+5/+1)" or similar. I could update the page as my character grows in levels and gains skills and attributes. Adding comments, tips and the ways how I leveled up different skills in different situations. So this could work as a "real life example" of Efficient Leveling for the first, say, 10 levels. I'll set up a page when I'm ready. - - Teknikaali

[edit] Somethings I don't Quite Understand...

I really thought this guide was helpful, mainly because I've been tyring to understand exactly how to get the +5 to an attributes when you level, but not really understanding it totally. This guide helped clear it up alot, but there are still some things I'm wondering. I mean, I know as soon as you get 100 in all major skills or attributes will make it so you can't level anymore, but not having 100s in all your skills seems like a much worse option than having not all 100s in your attributes... Is there some way to get both 100 in all your skills AND 100 in all your atributes? I think the idea is cool, but, I think a much better way to do this that lets you get your skills much higher could be done.... This is going to take alot of thought and math (Uck.), but I really want to explore on this. Thanks for writing the guide by the way, it really cleared alot of things up for me!

....Unfortuanatly, after reading this, I realize I'm gona have to start a new character....

I'll post my findings later somewere. --MrTaco122 16:46, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Even if you get 100s in all your attributes (which is very difficult to do, since you can only ever get +1 for luck), you can still continue to increase your skills. You can keep increasing any skill after you've maxed out the governing attribute. You just don't receive any level-ups if the skills are major skills, but at that point all it means is that you don't get any health increases. So there's no fundamental problem with getting 100s in all attributes and all skills. --Nephele 02:23, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Max. Level 53--Max. Luck 100

I'm not sure if any of these numbers would be helpful to anyone else or where(if anywhere)they belong. I barely managed to pull myself away from my Efficient Leveling experiments to do a bit of simple math. Apologies in advance if this is the wrong page or unimportant information.

Level 1--52 to Max. & Luck 50--50 to Max.

Level 3--50 to Max. & Luck 50--50 to Max.

Level 1--52 to Max. & Luck 55--45 to Max.

Level 8--45 to Max. & Luck 55--45 to Max.

This is mainly intended for those concerned with the attribute cap prematurely limiting the level max(before the Shivering Isles "Addiction" quest)seeing that Luck can be tricky.

[edit] A fast way of leveling for 'pure' characters (10,10,10, / 10,10,1x2)

I thought you guys might be interested in a leveling method I'm using (I've not seen it mentioned or used anywhere else, so it might make a good addition to the forum).

It's the opposite of efficient leveling.

The idea is to skill-up three major skills ten times without sleeping. Providing you split the thirty skill-ups equally between the skills, without sleeping, you can basically average a +5 modifier for each of those skills' attributes when you eventually come to sleep, regardless of the order in which you skill-up each skill. (you have to sleep multiple times (once for each ten skill-ups)).

Or you can skill-up two major skills ten points each without sleeping and when you come to sleep, sleep twice and add the extra point to luck to effectively double the speed at which your luck attribute raises.

It's based on the idea that the best way to play is to create a focused, 'pure' character.

Here's more info on it (my post to the bethsoft.com forum).

It also includes some of my basic reasoning for the method

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=766542&st=0#

Hope you find it interesting.

--Hatesink 13:50, 18 October 2007 (EDT)--Hatesink 13:49, 18 October 2007 (EDT)