The Cliff Racer is the all-time most annoying creature ever, but in Oblivion it's not one creature but the fact that going from one town to another gets you into battles with like, 30 creatures on the way there. I'm traveling on the road in the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and I get attacked by minotaurs at every turn. Jeeze.
true, but if i remember right Morrowind was more annoying, in Oblivion the roads are *more or less* safe. Traveling system in Oblivion is worse than Morrowind in my opinion, Morrowind had this marvelous beasts that i don't recall the name where you could travel, a cool move would be making this animated beasts like buses in Oblivion.
But the Cliff Racer, specially when you are already high leveled, keep annoying you like hell, specially when you're running fast and 3 come right after you (more than 1 factor), i hope that someday they invent some scripting to make NPCs too low in level to be afraid of high leveled players, and the same for too high NPC to not bother with low level players unless they 'trespass'.
Now that you mention Oblivion, where I love the environment, going for a hunt with bow and arrow in some forest is amasing. Maybe the answer would be to make less enemy NPCs, or to limit them in an area.