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To avoid the risk of necro-posting the main discussion thread, I've decided to start this to voice my opinions on my first real playthrough of Daggerfall.

I won The Elder Scrolls: Arena around six months ago with a Breton Sorcerer, and I finally started my official playthrough of Daggerfall yesterday.

I've started the game many times in the last year, but I've never actually gotten any further than talking to Lady Brisienna about my main mission. This is mainly because I have three computers, and I've been unsure on which computer I want to host my main game. Furthermore, once I start a game, I inevitably ignore it for a bit, than when I return, in the middle of a dungeon, I have absolutely no clue on my mission progress (if I retrieved what I'm there for), or even if I'm on the right save (as even when I try to name them well, and number them like I did in Arena, it still seems like I have no clue what I'm doing).

All of that is the past, and I've started my official game yesterday, answering the questions at the beginning (I always insist on doing that instead of just picking a class; it seems to be the right thing to do, at least the first time playing). In the past, I got a Sorcerer class, but this time around I ended up with a Rogue, and I'm a Nord (I think that the combination isn't the worst it could be). The first dungeon, Privateer's Hold, was, if not easy, than something I could do fairly well, having played it multiple times in the past, and I have met up with Lady Brisienna, and even received a letter from a princess of Wayrest to discuss the lost letter the Emperor sent years before, which I'd never gotten in the past.

Basically, this is an introduction to me playing this game, and hopefully I could have some expert players advise me on some things.

One, what is the best way to deal with dungeons? They are probably why I keep starting and stopping the game, having easily spent two whole hours in separate dungeons in the past, and in fact, just did that earlier this morning.

I just looked up what the quest is so I could give you context, and it turns out I found what I needed to in the first bloody room I searched. So, question two, do I reload my save right after finding the item and return it to get the quest done in time (I've already been expelled from the Temple of Kynareth once), or risk quest failure and keep the experience I've gained from the awful trek?

Finally, my character currently doesn't use magic (though one reason I'm doing a Temple of Kynareth quest is to get access to potion makers). What are some of the most needed spells/potions in the game in your estimate? I know I already plan on buying some potions of Free Action (or their equivalent in this game), and I also mean to look in for either a Slowfall or Levitation spell. Anyway, any help on any of this would be appreciated.

Sorry for this ramble; I hope I didn't break any forum rules with this (re-read them just in case, but you never know), and I look forward to continuing with this game. I liked Arena once I really got into it, have loved Skyrim for years, and I hope I can also grow to like this, mile-long dungeon torture included. Cheers!

You need to search the UESP wiki for quests so you can recognize them from a giver message, since all of them have a different time limit and effort required; save before asking for a quest, never pick any quests that are impossible for you to finish in time to avoid large reputation losses that throw you out of the guilds. Normally there is enough time for a reckless travel in and out with a couple days to plunder the place. Remember that turning down the quest offer doesn't give you any penalty unless it's a main questline. Thief Guild and Dark Brotherhood are impossible to rejoin once you're out (be careful of becoming a vampire or a werething, though you get back when you're cured).
Buy wagon ASAP for all the junk to sell, rack up cash and buy a ship. Cheaper ship is just as good as the more expensive one. Allows you quicker travel too.

The most important spells are Anchor (Recall spell), Levitation and Slowfalling. You really need those, you might use potions, or, much easier, magic items (though I recommend Anchor to have as a spell). Open spell is also required to open magic locks. Magic items are aplenty in loot and quality stores, and one of the temples (Julianos, I think) provides access to itemmaker you would otherwise only get at Mages Guild, which is really hard to join for you because of the skill prerequisites, which you need to train, for which you need some kind of a cheap spell to cast over and over.
Paralyze is a pain in the ass and is encountered rather often, so it's great to sport a free action of a kind - potion, magic item. Same with diseases - Cure Disease is important, but don't bother with the spell since if you wanted to use magic, you should have picked more than stock 0.5x INT spellpoints at the start, so forget about your own spells except for the three I listed unless you plan on maxing out magic skills just to make yourself able to cast something helpful. Vampires get cheap levitation, by the way.
But you're okay on just magic items (they're plentiful) and potions instead of spells. Make sure to up Climbing and Acrobatics as alternatives for Levitation and Slowfalling for the more common cases.

As for dungeons, from your explanation you seem to get lost a lot. Get Anchor so you can navigate yourself back to the dungeon exit or even to the questgiver (saves a day or two of travel). There are many techniques to explore the place, but usually it's up to your memory. Leaving piles of certain trash as markers can help. You can also mark fragments at the map - click them and write a note. Once you get a general idea of dungeon blocks you'll know what to expect from certain turns, levers and doors. There are also killer traps for you to be afraid of - save often. Quest items never spawn at the border blocks, so you know where to not look for them. Finally, if you're really desperate, you can use levitation to enter the void and fly around there to find some room or an exit, but that's exploiting.

I remember once I've had a quest for an Orc's Blood and it turned out to be in the same room as one of the rats I killed. I've searched the entire dungeon for hours just to find out the blood was under that rat's corpse, mixing in with the blood of its sprite. I was enraged)

P.S. All dungeons are the same over all installed games as they were generated by devs before the game release. So if you write down the name of the dungeon I would be able to look for its layout. The location of the quest item, loot and monsters is still random, over the available positions in given blocks.

Yeah, I learned this lesson when some shopkeeper sent me to destroy a Harpy den, and I was unable to do anything due to my non-Dwarven or above weapon. Heck, just today the Temple of Kynareth decided to send me to a place infested with Liches. They didn't warn me beforehand, of course, and I can't be more than level six currently, and I don't even have a Mithril weapon yet. A good ol' save stopped that nonsense in its tracks. And I got a wagon a couple days ago and ransacked all the graveyards in Menevia, making a pretty penny along the way.



Okay, that's good to note. I'm mainly doing quests for my Temple right now (I believe they just named me an Acolyte), mainly so I have more access to things I'll need later. While my character is obviously not very magical, I have a small quantity of magic available, so with potions and items, I'm sure I'll be able to get it to work. Considering I was a Sorcerer in Arena (though granted, I didn't use offensive magic), it's quite fun to try out this game with almost no magical ability.



Yeah, I just had 'fun' with some Giant Scorpions in a dungeon earlier, actually, and didn't have Potions of Free Action on me. I'll see if I can finish the dungeon, but I have a notion that I might reload before I accepted this quest.



Personally, I don't think it's getting lost as much as it is just being frustrated with the size of many of the dungeons, and the annoying inverted mapmechanics. I'm slowly getting the hang of it, but I've put my game on hold for the next two days or so, as I've started a Stormhold game, and am fascinated with how it plays.

Thank you for your advice on Daggerfall, and I'll be sure to take it into consideration once I get out of my Stormhold mood, lol. Cheers.

Just as an addition: necroposting doesn't apply to general discussion threads.

Okay, thank you for clarifying, MARS. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

Oh, and one note about the diseases - they kill you when you don't expect them to appear. As I can remember, getting hit by most monsters can infect you with a certain chance that can be modified by resistance or vulnerability to diseases; and getting hit by werethings/vampires has a constant, non-modified chance of 0.6% to infect you with thing-anthropy/vampirism (while it can infect you with a disease at the same time as well). In both cases you should always carry a potion or a magic item that cures disease on your person - in the first case you have a choice between curing it quickly or dying.

I'll look into that, Kiri. Thanks for the forewarning. I've known diseases and poisons are really annoying in this game.

So, another quick question. I'm not level 11, and one, when I level up, the character screen doesn't pop up for me to distribute the attribute points. I have to manually go to my character sheet. It doesn't really matter to me, but I was curious on if this was how it was suppose to work when leveling up.

Onto a more important matter, I see from the Leveling Up guide on the main wiki that it takes into account the three Primary skill, highest two Major skills, and highest Minor skill (and any Miscellaneous skill that's higher can replace one of them). My question is that my highest Minor skill, Running, is now at 100%. Does this mean the next highest skill (Minor or Miscellaneous) determines when I level up? I was just curious, because the guide didn't make it quite clear to me, though I may have missed something.

Anyway, I've been enjoying the game, finally have some enjoyment of dungeon crawling (mostly to when I can get high cost things to sell), and I've mostly been questing for both The Order of the Candle and the Temple of Kynareth, putting the main quests on hold while I do so (that creepy King of Worms guy can wait). Any help with that leveling question would be welcome, and cheers!

As far as I can remember, char sheet pops up automatically after resting when your improved skills trigger a special formula which determines your level.
The formula takes all those skills into the account at all times. It simply uses skill values to fill variables in the formula which determines your level when compared to its initial value.
Also, as your Running is 100, this means all of your other skills are capped at 95. You'll have to make it differ from 100 (buff or debuff it) in order to improve those.