Daggerfall, fucking Daggerfall

[Sceptic]

This game was not meant to be finished by non-magic characters.

It's very possible and I've done it. The MQ is carefully designed to not require you to cast any spells, though dungeoneering will obviously be harder. You never have to cast levitate - Mantellan Crux requires you to levitate, but there are multiple triggers everywhere that will cast free Levitate on you. Besides it is possible to get/buy/steal some very nice enchanted items, not to mention you WANT the daedric artifacts no matter what, some of them are awesome.

That said, the game is easier and a lot more fun as a spellcaster, and why anyone would want to miss out on Spellmaker and Item Maker is beyond me. It's not as stupidly balanced in favour of magic users as Arena was, but it still carries over some of this design.

 

[abnaxus]

I seem to recall there's a room in a main quest dungeon where ten or so Ancient Vampires spawn.

I think Arena was more friendly for non-magic users, especially considering some of the ridiculous bonuses you could get depending on class/race. Like Redguard Ranger.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I seem to recall there's a room in a main quest dungeon where ten or so Ancient Vampires spawn.

I think Arena was more friendly for non-magic users, especially considering some of the ridiculous bonuses you could get depending on class/race. Like Redguard Ranger.

I first played Arena as a Redguard Ranger who used the item repair exploit to get all the daedric artifacts.

He also had a full body of ebony armour.

 

[baturinsky]

Arena was very unfriendly to non-casters either. I remember one of Arena designers admitting that finishing game with warrior is just barely possible.
In Arena non-casters class can't even dabble in magic, unlike later games. They can use magic items and artefacts, though.

 

[Stella Brando]

Fucking mages.

How about checking your privilege once in a while?

 

[Lemming42]

Last time I played Arena, I decided to be a Spellsword and thought I was incredibly hot shit. Turns out it means you're average at melee and completely shit at magic, and everything in sight owns you. Not sure how Spellswords work in Daggerfall.

 

[markec]

Well you can be "creative" on character creation and create a pure fighter, give yourself immunity on pretty much everything and handicaps on things fighter dont need like mana regeneration. Makes the game very easy but wheres the fun in that.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Sometimes Random the Almighty gets really crazy in that game.

You think so, huh.

I've crawled through Shedungent at level 3 yesterday. It was filled with nothing but very low level mages and battlemages, but then the random dungeon refiller kicked in, and while in a few places it would spawn an imp... one of the main dungeon junctions spawned a lich

And now I go to Castle Wossname to look for the queen's letters. Itz full of skellingtons, spiders and the occasional werewolf.

AND THEN SUDDENLY, A VAMPIRE ANCIENT

guess i should stop resting in dungeons

take that sawyer this is how you prevent rest spamming

 

[Grimwulf]

Sometimes Random the Almighty gets really crazy in that game.

You think so, huh.

I've crawled through Shedungent at level 3 yesterday. It was filled with nothing but very low level mages and battlemages, but then the random dungeon refiller kicked in, and while in a few places it would spawn an imp... one of the main dungeon junctions spawned a lich

And now I go to Castle Wossname to look for the queen's letters. Itz full of skellingtons, spiders and the occasional werewolf.

AND THEN SUDDENLY, A VAMPIRE ANCIENT

guess i should stop resting in dungeons

take that sawyer this is how you prevent rest spamming

Resting in dungeons can be hilarious sometimes. I can definetely remember at least one time when I was forced to leave and reenter dungeon after resting because of spawned vamp ancient blocking my only way further. I didn't save often at that particular dungeon, coz it was a cakewalk. Sleeping in this game is too hardcore.

 

[baturinsky]

Last time I played Arena, I decided to be a Spellsword and thought I was incredibly hot shit. Turns out it means you're average at melee and completely shit at magic, and everything in sight owns you. Not sure how Spellswords work in Daggerfall.

Little magic is still more than no magic. And Spellsword has only 25% less SP than mage. It is not particularly interesting class, though.

Resting in dungeons can be hilarious sometimes. I can definetely remember at least one time when I was forced to leave and reenter dungeon after resting because of spawned vamp ancient blocking my only way further. I didn't save often at that particular dungeon, coz it was a cakewalk. Sleeping in this game is too hardcore.

Not as hardcore as Arena, though. It is common to be woken several times a "night" there. Have you played it, btw? It's not as deep as Daggerfall, but way more balanced and mazes are more sane.

 

[Grimwulf]

Not as hardcore as Arena, though. It is common to be woken several times a "night" there. Have you played it, btw? It's not as deep as Daggerfall, but way more balanced and mazes are more sane.

Nah, I missed them both. You're from Russia, right? It's the fucking articles in "Igromania" that made me suspicious about early TES games. Or some other bullshit magazines, can't remember clearly now.

Arena is next on my list, right after Daggerfall. And I'm also playing The Guild 2 in between dungeon crawls. I'm one of those slow-ass gamers.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Darth Roxor
Yeah, the way level scaling works in this game is that it doesn't produce a specific level creature, but creatures from a range of levels, and that range gets higher as your levels gets higher.

So you can still face high level enemies at low levels. (And vice versa)

What is funny for me is to see human style enemies still spawn past level 15 to 20. I am like, "Are you guys serious? There is no place for you here!" Because you are at a point in the game where it is exclusively Daedroth, Vampires, and Liches.

 

[Grimwulf]

The glorious Spider King blesses this thread!

Spoiler

When I entered the room, the poor guy was stucked on the thrones and couldn't move an inch. With no animation it seemed like he jes didn't give a fuck about me. "Yah, what is it?", "Oh, I'm sorry for this intrusion, your Majesty, I'll take my leave now". Kinda looks like Balgruuf tho.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Here is a horrible thing done by the makers of the game.

They have enemy sorcerers who never cast spells. The purpose of a Sorcerer is to absorb the magic from your offensive spells and use it to cast their own spells back at you. However, they never do this. They seem to absorb spells, but never fight back. So what you have is super weak enemies with near zero fighting abilities whose sole ability is to absorb your spells partially.

Had this game had enemies with spell absorption and spell reflection that was fully utilized by them, it would have been one of the most nightmarishly difficult RPGs ever made. Sorcerers on whom you cast an Ice Storm, only to find it fly back at you and kill you, or sorcerers who are harmless when engaged in meelee combat but get more and more magically powerful as you cast more and more spells on them. There was a potential for epic magical duels where two powerful mages use Spell Absorption and Spell Reflection near infinity against one another, destroying all other enemies surrounding them, until one of them fails to absorb or reflect a spell and gets killed.

 

[thesheeep]

So, magical ping pong. Nice.

 

[Stella Brando]

I always treated these games as wish fulfilment. When I was a kid Daggerfall let me live out my twin desires to live in a fantasy world, and to be a psychopath who sneaks into peoples houses and commits crimes with impunity.

I never really wanted to be a wizard like Sam from Game of Thrones so I just never played with it much.

Although playing with the item maker is fun. Alchemy is also very good for an outdoorsy character but Skyrim doesn't let you brew potions in the wild.

 

[abnaxus]

Had this game had enemies with spell absorption and spell reflection that was fully utilized by them, it would have been one of the most nightmarishly difficult RPGs ever made. Sorcerers on whom you cast an Ice Storm, only to find it fly back at you and kill you, or sorcerers who are harmless when engaged in meelee combat but get more and more magically powerful as you cast more and more spells on them. There was a potential for epic magical duels where two powerful mages use Spell Absorption and Spell Reflection near infinity against one another, destroying all other enemies surrounding them, until one of them fails to absorb or reflect a spell and gets killed.

Both Morrowind and Oblivion have enemies with innate spell absorption and spell reflection. It's still very easy to beat them with Wabbajack or Sanguine Rose.

 

[Grimwulf]

Had this game had enemies with spell absorption and spell reflection that was fully utilized by them, it would have been one of the most nightmarishly difficult RPGs ever made. Sorcerers on whom you cast an Ice Storm, only to find it fly back at you and kill you, or sorcerers who are harmless when engaged in meelee combat but get more and more magically powerful as you cast more and more spells on them. There was a potential for epic magical duels where two powerful mages use Spell Absorption and Spell Reflection near infinity against one another, destroying all other enemies surrounding them, until one of them fails to absorb or reflect a spell and gets killed.

Both Morrowind and Oblivion have enemies with innate spell absorption and spell reflection. It's still very easy to beat them with Wabbajack or Sanguine Rose.

These are gifts from daedric princes. It sounds like "It's still very easy to blow 'em with a nuclear warhead".

 

[baturinsky]

These are gifts from daedric princes. It sounds like "It's still very easy to blow 'em with a nuclear warhead".

Or with any non-purely-magical weapon.

 

[Eyeball]

Is it just me or does it suck pretty hard to play a destruction type mage in Daggerfall? I'm trying to use it as my main method of killing but it takes like a third of my mana to kill even a pissant warrior with the starting shock spell and I'm not sure whether the long range spells I have even hit shit. This leads to constant resting which leads to constant monster respawning.

And I simply cannot kill the giant scorpions, they appear completely unimpressed with my spell damage. I rolled an assassin with an ebony dagger instead and now everything dies in 2-3 hits.

Am I doing something very wrong here or is destruction just the gimp of Daggerfall spell schools?

 

[Grimwulf]

Is it just me or does it suck pretty hard to play a destruction type mage in Daggerfall? I'm trying to use it as my main method of killing but it takes like a third of my mana to kill even a pissant warrior with the starting shock spell and I'm not sure whether the long range spells I have even hit shit. This leads to constant resting which leads to constant monster respawning.

And I simply cannot kill the giant scorpions, they appear completely unimpressed with my spell damage. I rolled an assassin with an ebony dagger instead and now everything dies in 2-3 hits.

Am I doing something very wrong here or is destruction just the gimp of Daggerfall spell schools?

Playing pure mage is supposed to be difficult in the beginning and don't even bother cleaning out Privateers Hold. It's not like there's a lot of useful loot and skeletons are pretty damn hard for starter mages. Make your way to the nearest mages guild ASAP.

For destruction I would recommend dmg-over-period type of spells. Make sure it's cheap to cast (coz some enemies are very resistant to magic in general), has high duration/level and high UPPER magnitude/level. Just hit mobs with it ONCE and then combine with melee or run away and wait. This baby can easily kill a daedroth or a vampire without sucking your mana dry.

Scorps may be resistant to magic dmg, just keep some elemental spells on you as well. Fire-based dmg should do the trick, I believe.

As for ranged spells - yeah, it's buggy a bit. Noticed it myself just recently. You need to make ranged AREAL spells to make them connect, ranged single-targeted are just fucking fireworks. But I would advice against using it early game coz of mana costs.

I hope you picked the magic traits from the start? Higher mana, spell absorption, mana regen? It will be painful to play a mage without those.

Spoiler

I never played hardcore destruction, so maybe Daggerfall vets will provide better recommendations

 

[baturinsky]

In Daggerfall mages have cubic growth. Your mana pool scales off int stat, spell cost scales down with skill, and spell's power scales off your level. So, destruction gets more useful later, but below level 10 it's better to reserve casting to healing and logistics.

I also highly recommend getting Spell Absorbtion trait at char making.

 

[cherry blossom]

I swear some people are too damn stupid to even play these games. I am surprised they live and breathe at all.

 

[Stella Brando]

Daggerfall is by far the best Elder Scrolls game.

I made this thread to describe how much I hate it.

 

[baturinsky]

About usefulness of mapping dungeons. If you play in a small province, such as Koegria, you'll have a small set of possible dungeons. Koegria has only 17 (without graveyards). Antiphyllos has three dungeons, as well as two big cities and temples of five deities and a knight order.

So, you can map them all and/or know which dungeon to avoid.