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If you’ve never played the original version, thenOblivion Remastered’sPersuasion system may come as something of a surprise. It’s bizarre, it’s ridiculous, and it’s somehow perfectly at home with this broadly brilliant, inarguably eccentric, role-playing game.
Things are a bit easier to parse in The Elder Scrolls 4’s remaster. But they’re still rather… obtuse. You’ll get the hang of it, we promise. But it’s not a bad idea to give this guide a read in order to get the fundamentals down before you start throwing away your gold en masse just to please every person you bump into in Cyrodiil.
Initiating The Persuasion Minigame
Most NPCs you can speak with throughout Oblivion Remastered will havea clickable button at the bottom of the interaction UI with a face on it. If you click on it, you’ll not inquire about a subject - as is the case with the dialogue options above the icon - but instead, you’llenter the Persuasion minigame.
This is where the “fun” begins. Notice thewheel. At first, it’ll be blank, although you’ll seethe NPC’s current disposition toward youas well.
Disposition ranges from1 to 100. At 100, they’re essentially enamored with you; at 1, they’re liable to strike you. Characters begin at different numbers, so there’s no universal set point, but it’s70 or higherthat is often (though not always) the sweet spot ifa quest requires the character in question to like you enough to give you information.
The Persuasion Circle
Once you click start,you’ll see that the circle hasfour one-word choicesat different angles:
to end the minigame, you’ll need to haveselected all four of these. you’re able to only choose each once, andevery character will like one, love one, dislike one, and hate one.
The mixtures arewhat you need to determine, because the ideal play involvesselecting the like and (especially) love options when the most bars fill its quadrant on the circle, whilstselecting the dislike and (especially) hate options when there are the least bars visible.
The Circle’s Rotations
Thecircle rotates clockwiseeach time you make a selection. This means thatthe quadrants (choices) will have differing amounts of bars filling their sectionas the wheel rotates.
To illustrate an example, let’s say that Coerce has just one bar at first. Once you’ve made your first choice, whether it be Coerce (at which point it’s greyed out) or something else, the bar amounts will have shifted clockwise, and so that part of the circle will have a different amount.
Each time you choose the option which the NPClikes, you’ll gain a bit ofdisposition. Thelovechoice gains a bit more than that.Dislikecauses you to lose a little bit, andhate, of course, causes you to lose a bit more thanthat.
Your aim, then, is totry to pick the dislike and hate options only when there are the fewest bars, leaving the bigger parts for your gains.The Persuasion circle will always award disposition, and it will always decrease it; your job is to find the right times to act.
There’s another thing.Idling on the Persuasion circle causes your disposition with the NPC to slowly but surely tick downward; thus, you don’t want to waste time. While the whole process is quite odd, we suppose this much, at least, makes sense; staring at somebody for long periods of time does tend to make them anxious.
Learning Each Character’s Likes And Dislikes
Youwillneed to “idle” a little bit, however. Before you start clicking all willy-nilly,hover over each of the four choices across the circle. Pay attention tothe character’s facial expression.
This will shift happily or negatively, either slightly or exuberantly, to denote their feelings on each category.If they’re grinning when you’re hovering over Boast, thenyou’ll want to pick Boast when it’s got many bars filled. if they’re grimacing at you hard, you want to pick it when it has the fewest.
In the original Oblivion, this wasn’t always as easy (well, “easy”) as it sounds. Orcs, for instances, made similar enough facial expressions that we frequently chose the wrong stuff. It was a matter of picking up on some real, and potentially entirely unintended, subtleties. Since characters are capable of far more expressiveness in the remaster, you’re in for a better time.
In Oblivion Remastered, the process is a bit easierfrom the second time you initiate the Persuasion minigame with a character onward. At this point,the choices are also colour-coded.
You will still see the facial expressions, too, but this is sure to help out on repeats.
Bribery And Speechcraft
Bribery
If you’ve got thegoldfor it, you can bypass this procedure byselecting Bribeinstead once the circle is up.The game will display how much disposition is gainedeach time you do this, as well asthe gold cost for doing so.
Needless to say, this is a far moreexpensiveproposition. We don’t recommend doing it much unless you’re loaded, but you might want toBribe someoneonce or twice for nice gains, and then use the minigame for the rest, if you may afford it.
Speechcraft
TheSpeechcraftskill affects this process with some niceperksat set skill levels. These can be quite handy, so practice Persuasion frequently in order to level up your Speechcraft for the long haul.
One last thing. Remember,you only need to hit 70 or sofor a lot of quest objectives. If you need information on something, for instance, butthe character says they can’t trust you, a 70+ will commonly be high enough that you cango back and try that conversation option again.
If it still isn’t enough, you’ll need to go higher, but again, always check at that point!
