I never played the original Daggerfall, but I started Unity last night and I’m… trying to figure out if I like it. I was going to go find a beginner’s guide before playing more to figure out if I’m doing something wrong!
Yes, but only after hitting a bunch of random keys to see if they did anything and the ‘rest’ menu came up. I’ve definitely gone into the controls menu a few times now to learn new things.
I made it out of the starting dungeon, and then had no idea what to do/where to go. Nothing on the map, nothing indicated in my journals, and no tutorial (which had said it would continue once I got out of the dungeon). I finally found a town, at night because I could see what maybe looked like lights way off in the distance, after going a long way and then turning around. Then I got there, went to a tavern, and people were giving me the cold shoulder. One person even mentioned my poor “reputation.” I’m like, am I not completely new here?
All-in-all, I found the beginning:
very punishing (I died a lot, why put a creature that two shots me and I literally cannot injure as the second thing I encounter?)
buggy (there were lots of bugs, especially around save/load, I’m pretty sure if you aggro creatures or piss people off and then reload to a save just before you did that, they don’t reset unless you restart the game.)
janky (“click to swing” is on by default and I wonder if that is making the fighting really shitty. Certainly the weapon swing animations are pretty terrible.)
confusing (what is my goal? Where am I supposed to go? Why did a bunch of my stats suddenly appear red and drop 10 or so points?)
dumb (there are 5 stores in the town I found and none of them will buy/sell armour, but will buy/sell weapons)
has a shitty tutorial (it’s time based rather than progressing based on your actions, and doesn’t teach some pretty basic things/doesn’t match the key bindings)
I should add that I’m using the GOG version which comes with a bunch of mods preinstalled/enabled. That could be changing my perception, because some stuff seems super smooth and clean (fire, for example) and other stuff seems not so great (fight animations, for example).
That might be your problem. For one thing, the tutorial indeed continues after you escape Privateer’s Hold, and among other things, tells you how to fast travel. You are absolutely not intended to walk places on the world map, even though it is technically possible.
“If you play using the “GOG Cut” release of Daggerfall Unity, please consider this version is now almost two years out of date and comes preloaded with dozens of mods. It’s buggy, slow, and completely changes how the game looks and plays. The Daggerfall Unity development team did not assemble the “GOG Cut” release and in no way recommend it to play Daggerfall Unity.”
For reference, the GOG Cut uses version 0.13.5, and you can see on that page that DFU recently released version 1.0.
Playing unmodded DFU, I do agree with many of your criticisms. The game is very punishing, the full tutorial still doesn’t explain many important game mechanics (like the need to rest regularly, or that you really ought to buy a cart asap), character creation is extremely obtuse, and the amount of freedom at the beginning of the game is a bit overwhelming. Still, I found that after I got to a big city, joined a guild, and started doing quests the game starts coming together. I’m still not sure how much I like it, myself, but there’s clearly a ton of depth here, if you’re willing to take the time to learn the systems.
Woooow, thank you! Glad I mentioned I was on the GOG version.
Away from my computer right now but I think it is 0.16.something
I watched a beginner’s guide (well a few, one of which went immediately into story spoilers for some reason) and realized I need to get into a guild. Maybe the tutorial would have mentioned this if it worked? In any case I have a better idea of how the beginning of the game will progress now and that for now I’m meant to just work my way into the world and wait for contact from someone.
I’ll get a better version and give it another shot.
I never played the original Daggerfall, but I started Unity last night and I’m… trying to figure out if I like it. I was going to go find a beginner’s guide before playing more to figure out if I’m doing something wrong!
Did you figure out that you’re intended to rest in dungeons to refill your resource pools? That was something of a revelation for me.
Yes, but only after hitting a bunch of random keys to see if they did anything and the ‘rest’ menu came up. I’ve definitely gone into the controls menu a few times now to learn new things.
I made it out of the starting dungeon, and then had no idea what to do/where to go. Nothing on the map, nothing indicated in my journals, and no tutorial (which had said it would continue once I got out of the dungeon). I finally found a town, at night because I could see what maybe looked like lights way off in the distance, after going a long way and then turning around. Then I got there, went to a tavern, and people were giving me the cold shoulder. One person even mentioned my poor “reputation.” I’m like, am I not completely new here?
All-in-all, I found the beginning:
I should add that I’m using the GOG version which comes with a bunch of mods preinstalled/enabled. That could be changing my perception, because some stuff seems super smooth and clean (fire, for example) and other stuff seems not so great (fight animations, for example).
So, I’m underwhelmed so far.
That might be your problem. For one thing, the tutorial indeed continues after you escape Privateer’s Hold, and among other things, tells you how to fast travel. You are absolutely not intended to walk places on the world map, even though it is technically possible.
https://www.dfworkshop.net/migrating-away-from-gog-cut/
“If you play using the “GOG Cut” release of Daggerfall Unity, please consider this version is now almost two years out of date and comes preloaded with dozens of mods. It’s buggy, slow, and completely changes how the game looks and plays. The Daggerfall Unity development team did not assemble the “GOG Cut” release and in no way recommend it to play Daggerfall Unity.”
For reference, the GOG Cut uses version 0.13.5, and you can see on that page that DFU recently released version 1.0.
Playing unmodded DFU, I do agree with many of your criticisms. The game is very punishing, the full tutorial still doesn’t explain many important game mechanics (like the need to rest regularly, or that you really ought to buy a cart asap), character creation is extremely obtuse, and the amount of freedom at the beginning of the game is a bit overwhelming. Still, I found that after I got to a big city, joined a guild, and started doing quests the game starts coming together. I’m still not sure how much I like it, myself, but there’s clearly a ton of depth here, if you’re willing to take the time to learn the systems.
Woooow, thank you! Glad I mentioned I was on the GOG version.
Away from my computer right now but I think it is 0.16.something
I watched a beginner’s guide (well a few, one of which went immediately into story spoilers for some reason) and realized I need to get into a guild. Maybe the tutorial would have mentioned this if it worked? In any case I have a better idea of how the beginning of the game will progress now and that for now I’m meant to just work my way into the world and wait for contact from someone.
I’ll get a better version and give it another shot.
Welcome to Daggerfall and games of that period!