In a matter of fact. The original leveling system is fine. Most (casual) Oblivion players who are not that deep with YouTube or online communities, never cared about that efficient leveling bullshit. I had a fresh discussion about the leveling system, just a few weeks ago on reddit.
And in my personal, subjective opinion. You can say that the so called "efficient leveling cultists" are a vocal minority.
Mostly powergamers who love to abuse and min/max in every single RPG. And of course everyone can play as he want. But this players have to get rid of their mindset, that their powergaming way to play is the most common or only way.
Because this is far from the true. And Oblivion was definetily not original developed with "you must do efficient leveling" in mind.

As long as someone level in a natural way and do not spam or abuse skills, to "level as fast as possible and like a maniac."
You will be fine, with a + 2 to +3 bonus in your important attributes. When you play on the normal, middle difficult level, for that the game is balanced around.
It's just also important to keep your equipment up to date, with every new level and you will still end overpowered in the end.
This has been tested multiple times by me and others, as you can read in multiple threads on reddit.

The truth is that Oblivion's leveling is just not very friendly to that modern mindset: "I want to level up and min/max as fast as possible."

Well, speaking as a "efficient leveling cultist", the old system is better if you want to maximize gains - I could have +5 in 3 attributes or 2 +5 attributes and +1 Luck; while I believe modern system limits me to 2 +5-s and 1 +4, or 2 +4 and +1 Luck while leveling up. Also having only Major Skills affecting leveling was much more efficient way to control power growth of the world. But I am not sure that "efficient leveling cultists" are problem, because they never cared about system being unintuitive to optimize, they just adapted to it, it seems to me that problem is your average Joe who doesn't know how the system works, or how to use the most broken things such as spells and spellmaking.

Or that "Average Joe" just want to muck areound in an expensive game world, and have fun playing a game the way they want to.

Wouldn't that simply be solved by moving difficulty slider all the way down?

And i am fine with your opinion and your way to play.
I have no problem with "Major Skill min/maxing."
My only problem with that so called cultists is.
They repeat simply someone said once, in a over an hour long video on YouTube. Someone who thinks his opinion is the ultima - omega. And this person said "Oblivion's Leveling System is so broken."
But me and many other players never saw it that way.
If you take your time to understand the system, than you will see that it works fine and as intended.
Your glass canon wizard don't need to max his health out. You have so much tools/spells to protect you from damage.
Many players ignore poisons or don't use them. But there is a reason why the game is throwing them at you.

My problem is.
A new Oblivion player is asking a few casual questions and want some small hints.
But the first answer he get, if he is asking the wrong person.
"Never level up your major skills, the leveling system is so broken."
If this person is simply in search of a RPG experience to enjoy. The experience would be instantly tainted.
To be honest. If someone would have gave me such tips for my first time playing Oblivion, i would never have played that game.

That just makes it a bit boring, mucking about does not mean you do not want a little bit challange as well.

I could also say "could you not just slide the diffculty slide all the way to max?" and that would solve all your problems!

Fair point, it's really about finding that sweet spot where the game feels fun and challenging for your own style.

Looking back, I shouldn't have said "all way", in my previous statement.

Well, if playing the way you want isn't efficient enough to overcome the game's challenges, only options I see are either to play the game efficiently (and thus not play the game exactly the way you want) or to lower the difficulty to manageable level.

And I do think more games should aim for customizing difficulty in games w/ sliders, percentages, enabled/disable, etc for:
1. Doing damage to enemies.
2. Damage done to the player.
3. Is Friendly Fire going to do damage (or not)?
4. How much Friendly Fire damage can be done.
5. How smart (or dumb) is enemy AI?
6. One-shot stealth takedowns - enabled? disabled?
7. Anything else you can think of here that can be done here.

You know, stuff of that sort. We all play differently and are good/bad/okay at certain things.

Namely, think games like OwlCast's Pathfinder: KingMaker and Thief 2014 had these kind of ideas for Custom Difficulty stuff.

There definitely should be the usual Story Mode, Easy, Normal, Hard - and those presets...but also Custom should be an option, too.

I disagree. I'm of the opinion that a leveling system should still be well-behaved, even when the player is trying to min/max.

Basically, the problem, for my perspective, is not that many people don't care about "efficient leveling", but more the fact that, if you don't do that, you end up with permanently missing stat gains, and the solution to that ("efficient leveling") involves a playstyle that just isn't fun. The game should not encourage unfun playstyles while punishing the player for wanting to have fun.

There's also the fact that a player who chooses not to prioritize Endurance early is permanently penalized when it comes to health. Come on, it's 2006 and you're *still* using that non-retroactive HP growth BS?

(The missable stats issue is also why I don't like random stat growth in conventional leveling systems. If you want random stat growth, don't use conventional leveling; use something like SaGa style stat growth instead, but even then watch out for issues where a character gets screwed in some important stat like HP.)

It's not so much that, but more the fact that, by not following the "efficient leveling" approach, you end up with worse stats in the long run, in a way you can't make up later.

It's more that I want to be able to play in a way that feel natural, and not be punished for it. Related, with the non-retroactive Endurance issue, I want to be able to prioritize what I want to and not be punished with lower health just because I waited until later to raise Endurance. (Raising Endurance early would still have its advantages, like easier suitability at low levels, but you wouldn't *have* to do that to have high health long term.)

The fact that you need that "as long as" criteria is the problem there. The game should be balanced so that it doesn't get too easy if you "level efficiently", and so that it doesn't get too difficult if you level in a way that happens to work especially poorly.

(Also the case where a character's important attributes happen to not correspond to the character's main skills.)

Totally agree, a good system shouldn't punish you for just playing how you want. It should adapt, not demand.

And, importantly, not be penalized for doing so, which is how the Morrowind/Oblivion leveling system feels.

No.

If you take your time to understand the system, then you will see all of the issues that are inherently present in the system.

From a game design perspective, the original Morrowind/Oblivion system is terrible, and I'd even argue it's one of the worst I've seen, in *any* game with a growth system I've played.
The issue, and this comes to the secondary issue of Endurance not being retroactive, is this:
* Suppose I've been playing this glass cannon wizard, and have decided that I'm dying too much. At this point, it would be helpful to gain some extra health. So, I go ahead and raise my Endurance a bit, only to not get as many hit points as a character who has gained that Endurance earlier.

And the game should make it easy to do that.

Also, if applicable to the game:
* Option to make you immune to instant death, or at least mitigate the effect.
* If the game has permadeath or corpse runs, an option to disable those mechanics. (Disabling permadeath should be like restarting the level or from a save, not like the "explore mode" of sine traditional roguelikes that just cancels the death.)

One more thing to say:

I'm of the opinion that Final Fantasy 2's growth system, with all its issues, is better than the original Morrowind/Oblivion leveling system.

Or, and this is the main point, you do not need to play the game "efficiently". You need to play the game "fun".

I play games to have fun, min/maxing always felt more like work to me than fun. I like a game that gives me a challange, but also do not force me into playing it a specific way. Min/maxing is play by numbers, it has no interest to me. I do not need to "break" a game to enjoy it, rather often it is the oposite.


Not to me

Well, to be precise, you don't need to play games at all.
Of course we are all playing the game for the broader term "fun", nobody's denying that. When I was speaking of playing game efficiently I was not talking of absolute 100% minmaxing, I meant in the sense that you don't play the game like a complete idiot. Overcoming certain level of in game challenge requires a certain degree of player skill, with higher difficulties requiring higher skill. You can't have challenge without testing player skill, and testing the player skill is in lesser or greater degree the opposite of playing the way the player want (in most cases).

So I don't understand your original comment about "average Joe enjoying mucking around the gaming world", that doesn't seem to imply any desire for any great challenge or test of skill mastery.