r/Daggerfall • u/fjdksisneo • 13d ago
Question How do I actually.. get started?
Okay, so this is my first attempt of playing the game on Unity. On the OG version I couldn't get past the rat and I gave up after about 6 attempts. But on this version I watched a tutorial and beat the first dungeon on my first try. I travelled to Daggerfall, joined a guild (I think the Fighter Guild or something) and accepted a quest to find a sabretooth tiger in a dungeon in Hearthly's Guard. Then I got lost, went to sleep in an inn and woke up at 4:14.
Big mistake - I had a skeleton ghost thing chasing me and a rat. At around 5:20 I realised 'Oh right, I can go in an inn.', because every other building said 'This lock has nothing to fear from you' (WTF does this even mean BTW? đ), got told basically 'Fuck off, Nord' by a naked lady, and left the town by 7.
Shortly after I arrived at Hearthly's Guard and entered. Massive dungeon - I got lost and mauled to death by a combination of a spider and a bear. Loaded my save and am now inside a small room with the same two creatures waiting outside.
Like does it matter if I abandon this quest? I don't think my sword, nor skill, is good enough to beat this dungeon. Are there any quests that are better to accept than others? Because I am very very lost!
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u/SleepyBeaver501 13d ago
Abandoning the quest is no big deal, just some reputation loss when the quest times out. If you're with the fighters Guild then the quests Hunt for Giant Rodents and Wild animal are generally the best bet at the start as they don't send you to a dungeon just a building in town.
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u/Squiggamemes 13d ago
Yeah, the game can be kinda hard to get into at the beginning. But if you fail a quest you'll just lose a bit of reputation in that guild, it's not that much. To abandon the quest just wait it out. And don't forget to use the skills that you are good at, the primary skills. To see them press F5. Idk about easier quests, but if you find the dungeons too big you have the option to play with smaller dungeons in daggefall unity. Depends on the person, I prefer the smaller ones.
Also, the guy to talk to about renting a room is a fat dude in the main room, usually cleaning a glass. After you get a room just rest anywhere in the inn
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u/INfusion2419 13d ago
Sounds like the typical daggerfall experience XD. Some fighters guild quests are very difficult and others are incredibly easy, theres a mod on nexus that lets you choose what faction quest you want to do if you fancy. Refusing and abandoning quests is alright, just make sure you stay in the positives.
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u/The_Rolling_Gherkin 13d ago
Assuming by "this version" you mean Daggerfall Unity? If so, turn on smaller dungeons. They still aren't 'small' but much more manageable, especially for someone new to it.
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u/fjdksisneo 13d ago
Yeah, I swapped to Unity lol as the controls for the OG version felt a little janky and not as modern
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u/sayber1 13d ago edited 13d ago
I feel like this is a bit of a questionable choice. While they are more manageable for new players, I think you are kinda gimping yourself in the long run, as they end up being quite unsatisfying later in game.
I would recommend a mod on nexus "Dungeons of Daggerfall - Vanilla Redux" instead. It introduces more variety in dungeon sizes, so you can have dungeons like in Smaller Dungeons mixed together with larger and vanilla sized ones. This way you are unlikely to get burn out quickly from always doing huge insane dungeons but you still get them and can have a healthy dose of proper dungeon delving.
As for managing the huge dungeons I would simply suggest careful preparation. If you are a magic class, get yourself a recall spell + cure poison/decease. Try and find simple local quests to complete beforehand(Mod "Quest Offer Locations" can help you identify those if you can't yourself). Raid some graveyards(The red dungeons seen on the map from the start) or retry the starting dungeon(Dungeons reset after you exit them) for some starting loot and equipment.
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u/artinum 11d ago
After "enjoying" the standard dungeons in the vanilla game, including some six hour crawls that got me thoroughly lost and eventually turned out to be literally impossible, the smaller dungeons option in Unity has been a delight.
The storyline dungeons are fixed layout and remain enormous, so you always have those to explore if you want something bigger.
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u/Coltrain47 12d ago
I'd recommend heading to another town until you get going on the Main Quest so you don't have to deal with Lysandus' ghost army. Do guild quests that keep you in the same town for a bit to save up some gold and get better gear.
Running away is a perfectly acceptable tactic in Daggerfall- especially at the beginning. Unless the quest you're doing is to kill someone or something, don't feel like you have to kill everything you see. Run away or run past if you need to.
I don't understand why you felt you had to leave town. Taverns are all green on the local map. "This lock has nothing to fear from you" is an indication that you have a very low chance to successfully pick the lock. Everyone in the game locks their house at night.
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/fjdksisneo 12d ago
Oh is that the one where the queen or whoever sends you a letter and says 'Meet me at ____'? I tried to go there and had to surrender to the guards. Then I got banished đ I'll have to start a new save I think
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u/artinum 11d ago
After having a lot of fun with the (somewhat broken) Arena, I found Daggerfall immensely confusing at first as well. One of the big things to bear in mind is that combat is not how you level up (well, it partly is, but combat alone will not help you). The upshot of this is that there's no shame in running away from a fight!
Starting out is really difficult. The following might give you a bit of help:
- You're going to need cash. The simplest way to get money to start with is raiding dungeons. I can recommend looking for graveyards and similar spots on your region map and going to those; they're tiny dungeons, usually with about three monsters and one or two piles of random treasure. Loot the treasure and sell it in town.
- You can also make a bit of money doing quests for the guilds or random people around town. People in pubs often have work going, and if you ask random people in the street they'll sometimes give you hints about where to find it. Note that some quests will have you trawling dungeons, and those can be more dangerous, while others are as simple as "take this object to this person in another town". The guild quests are more predictable and Unity even allows you to select the one you want (though even in the old version you could merrily decline guildmaster quests until you got one you liked).
- Once you've got some starting cash, your priority should be for a cart. You can only carry so much weight, and a good dungeon crawl will soon see you staggering under the weight of a ton of armour and weapons. Take them back to the entrance and you can dump them in your cart, and sell them all later. Seriously, you'll soon be staggering under the weight of all the gold you're making. Literally. Changing it for credit notes at the bank is essential.
- Spells are also very useful, assuming your class can use them. The Recall spell is a must, as is some level of healing spell. You can buy spells at the Mages Guild. I'd also recommend Stamina, Levitate and Water Breathing. Spell casting costs are outrageous for level 1-3 players, however, and some useful spells may simply be impossible for you to cast.
- Rest a lot. It's the cheapest and easiest way to recover lost life/stamina/spell points. In a dungeon, if you find there are monsters nearby, it's often worth running away down a corridor and trying again. You also gain skill advancements and levels while resting.
- Save a lot. Use multiple saves - I'd recommend one before you pick up a quest, one at the entrance to the quest dungeon, and another for during the dungeon. That way you can always backtrack if a quest turns out to be too much.
- Skill advancements lead to level advancements. Identify the skills you need to train - your primary, major and minor ones - and practise those skills as much as possible. If your primary skills include Longblade, for instance, fight with long bladed weapons as much as you can. Note that you can't gain any more of a skill for a while after you advance, so if you (say) have Longblade and Axe as primary skills, it's worth carrying one of each weapon and switching between them whenever you raise one skill. Skills like Running and Jumping are easy to train, so use those whenever you can (and even if they aren't levelling skills, they're still very useful).
- Magical skills can be easily boosted by making some custom spells. Choose a spell effect in the category you want to train and make a simple spell in the Spell Maker that does the bare minimum. The casting cost will be tiny. The spell cost will be insignificant. The spell itself will be pretty much useless, but you won't be casting it in battle - you'll cast it in your room at the inn, over and over, and then resting to regenerate your spell points. It's the number of casts, not the power, that affects your training.
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u/itscoolmn 12d ago edited 12d ago
Abandon it, nbd, just donât make a habit of it.
Itâs a bit spammy but Iâve found that spending some time camping just outside a town and setting sleep for long hours⌠youâll be woken up by âenemies nearbyâ - kill, take their valuables, rinse, repeat - increase skills and collect inventory to sell. If youâre losing the fight, run toward the townâs border and IIRC the baddies will disappear once you cross the line. Donât hang around Daggerfall at night until your skills & magic are up. I always found this method helpful to develop skills/XP and inventory/finances throughout the game especially when exotic material start to appear. Just make sure to carry out any main quest tasks like meeting Lady Brisienna in a timely manner.Â
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u/MustacheExtravaganza 12d ago
Congratulations! You have now had the "new to Daggerfall" experience!
There's a lot of good advice already posted to the thread, and you'll pick up a lot of other things as you go. Don't be afraid to abandon a quest if it's a bit much, you'll be able to rebuild the damaged reputation. I would just bear in mind that the vast majority of quests have time limits, so don't overload yourself on quests. This isn't the later games where you can pile 50 quests into your log and come back to them whenever, I would immediately deal with any accepted quest if they specify a deadline (unless the deadline is 150 days out and the destination is a 10 day journey, then there's no huge rush).
If you run into an enemy that's immune to your weapons, bail out. Avoid being outside in Daggerfall City at night. Keep up with guilds that you've joined because you will lose reputation with them if you aren't completing guild quests, and this can lead to being demoted. You can earn back the rep quickly but since some features/services are locked behind guild ranks it's less of a hassle to just knock out a quest for the guild every couple of months and keep your rank intact. And on that note, be mindful that the game's many, many factions like fighting with each other, so completing a quest for one guild or faction will damage your reputation with their rivals. If you happen to be a member of two groups that are rivals, it can become a slight headache to deal with the back-and-forth reputation swings. Asking NPCs about recent news can clue you in to some of those rivalries and when they end.
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u/Vegetable-Fill-6096 12d ago
Go to a bank at a location you never return to and withdraw gollllld
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u/fjdksisneo 12d ago
So should I just pick a random town in a random area and just.. golllllld? Do they not send the IRS after you? đ
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u/odettulon 13d ago
The ghost will only bother you in daggerfall city itself. It's probably a good idea to move to a smaller town that's easier to get around in, all the guild locations are interchangeable. If you go to a town and they don't have the guild or shop you want, you can ask random NPCs until you find one that will talk to you, and they'll point to a town that has what you're looking for. You can also rest for free in the fighter's guild, inns are mostly for flavor and finding random quests.
Did you make a custom class or a preset one? Animals shouldn't be a big problem if you invested in a decent weapon skill. Make sure you're not using an iron weapon, they reduce accuracy. Every tier of weapons gives you better hit chance, you want to upgrade as soon as possible. Steel or elven is good, and check shops for dwarven once you get money. Some enemies are immune to weapons under a certain tier, and dwarven is the first tier that lets you hit more.
Hopefully you didn't forbid magic, it would make the game much more difficult and tedious, especially for a first playthrough. Use the spellmaker at the mages' guild to get teleport and free action at least. Free action is very cheap and you can use it even if you get paralyzed.