Oblivion:Gold Farming

Throughout the process of getting to 100% Completion, we need Gold very frequently and in large quantities, so it is very important to optimize Gold farming as much as possible.

Overview

The mechanics of acquiring gold are very simple. There are only a few ways to obtain gold in the game:

• Selling items
• Quest rewards
• Pickpocketing NPCs
• Looting containers/enemies
• Duping Gold (via the Gold Dropping Glitch)

There are three main aspects of optimizing Gold farming:

1. Since Gold is required constantly throughout the run, the goal is to find a farming method that can be performed as early as possible.
2. We also need to minimize the Gold cost of acquiring the items/spells needed for the setup.
3. Additionally, the amount of Gold being farmed needs to be minimized.

Previous Methods

Version 1 and 2

In Version 1 and 2, we optimized the process of selling items. This setup required the Spelldrinker Amulet quest reward from Ulterior Motives, a spell to fortify Mercantile to 75 (which was custom made in the Arcane University), and scrolls for duplicating the amulet. The setup was to use the spell to be able to invest in Palonirya, giving her a gold limit per transaction of 1700 Gold, the highest you can achieve early in the game. Next, scrolls were used to duplicate the Spelldrinker Amulet, which has a value of 3650 Gold. Finally, the amulets were sold one at a time for 1700 Gold each until we reached 847,000 Gold, a value that was estimated by adding up the cost of horses, houses, investing, and adding a buffer amount. This method was extremely tedious since it required several manual mouse inputs per transaction, including manipulating the item stack slider. The process took about 20 minutes to complete.

Version 3

Version 3 took advantage of the Dorian Glitch for the first time, as well as Fiscal Responsibility to avoid wasting time farming too much gold. The following setup was used:

1. The Mage's Staff of Paralysis from the A Mage's Staff quest.
2. A custom Command Humanoid (On Touch, 4 magnitude, 0 area, 1 second) spell, which requires Arcane University access first.
3. At least 1,000 Gold for bribing Dorian.

This setup requires you to inflate Dorian's Gold by giving it to him repeatedly via bribes. The process is to drain his disposition to 0 instantly by using the custom Command Humanoid spell and then bribe him back up to max disposition repeatedly. The amount of Gold you bribe him each time goes into his inventory, increasing the amount of Gold you will get per click when you pickpocket him. After reaching 1,000 total Gold bribed, the glitch was set up by paralyzing Dorian and immediately pickpocketing him, getting 1,000 Gold per click each time. This strategy in combination with the new Fiscal Responsibility data was significantly faster than the previous method, taking only about 2-3 minutes compared to the amulet method's 20+ minutes.

Current Method

Fiscal Responsibility

An excerpt from the Fiscal Responsibility chart, showing a chronological list of transactions for each section of the run.

Our initial farming strategy had a very rough approximation of how much Gold was needed. A glaring issue with this approximation was that it didn't account for how much Gold we earned throughout the run, making the final total much higher than necessary. For Version 3, we created the Fiscal Responsibility Chart, which tracks every single transaction in the run. In cases where an amount of Gold given/taken was random, the worst case was always assumed. A small buffer amount of Gold was added to the final total to account for random events like getting arrested.

With this chart, we learned that the original Gold estimate of 847,000 was significantly higher than it needed to be. The chart revealed that with only 425,000 Gold we can easily afford all purchases as they occur with some extra Gold to spare. It is worth noting that for each revision of the route, this chart should be recalculated, although the sheer speed of the current farming strategy means getting an excessive amount of gold only costs a matter of seconds.

Dorian Glitch

Using the Negative Inventory Glitch, the NPC Dorian can be infinitely pickpocketed for Gold as long as he is paralyzed and has a large enough stack of Gold. The setup requires several things:

1. A method of Paralyzing Dorian. We currently use Debilitate, an Illusion spell was a Paralysis effect that requires level 50 Illusion to cast. This is purchased from Ita Rienus at the Bravil Mages Guild.
2. A starting amount of gold to bribe Dorian with and pay the gold fine afterwards. Gold used in bribes is added to an NPC's inventory.
3. Optionally, a way to repeatedly lower Dorian's disposition quickly. This is no longer needed as of Version 4. See the V3 method above for details.

The new setup improves upon V3 by no longer needing to inflate Dorian's Gold more than once. Since the player is a higher level (24 as of V4) near the beginning of the run now, each bribe gives Dorian a much more significant amount of Gold than before. Additionally, no custom spells are needed, so the Arcane University does not need to be unlocked beforehand. The total bribe setup is as follows:

With your fists lowered, bribe Dorian to max disposition. Then raise your fists and talk to him again, bribing him until full disposition again.

Having a weapon or fists out when talking to an NPC will lower their disposition towards you, so by first maxing Dorian's disposition and then raising a weapon, Dorian's disposition drops enough to bribe him a few more times. The end result is that Dorian has well over 2,000 Gold, making this setup twice as fast to farm off of and much easier to set up in the first place compared V3.

The glitch is then set up by casting Debilitate on Dorian and immediately pickpocketing him. This allows you to click the Gold in his inventory repeatedly, getting 2,000+ Gold per click each time. If you timed the pickpocket correctly, you will get no bounty for the theft, and only have to pay a 40 Gold fine for assault.

It has been mathematically proven that the optimal grind time will evenly split the time spent bribing Dorian and the time spent actually pickpocketing the Gold. This information is now slightly unnecessary since the setup and farming are both now mere seconds of time in the run.

Potential Improvements

Unless we discover massive game breaking glitches relating to the player's inventory, there doesn't currently seem to be any way to improve the Gold farming split in a significant way. It could be very slightly optimized if our player was an even higher level to skip the fist raising half of the setup, but player level has further route logic implications that make it not worth doing just for a faster Gold farming strategy.