If I had to put my frustrations with Daggerfall into words (compared to other TES games), it’s that I can’t "play how I want to play." I WANT to dive into the main story and experience the hand-crafted content the game has to offer, but time and time again, I’m told to "come back later." Take Morrowind as a comparison-it has a similar progression of difficulty, but instead of outright telling you that you’re not ready, it shows you. It places you against powerful enemies that beat your cheeks, encouraging you to come back stronger-or, if you’re feeling it, to attempt it right then and there. Rule #1 of immersive storytelling: show, don’t tell, right? If Daggerfall HAD been my first TES game, I think it would’ve been difficult for me to feel immersed in the world of Nirn/Tamriel. As I mentioned, the hand-crafted worldbuilding is locked behind the main quest, and Daggerfall EXPECTS you to invest copious amounts of time and effort into a world you’re not yet sure you like yet. To me (coming from the newer TES games), that philosophy feels outdated and is something rarely seen in modern games-and for good reason. Of course, this is just one man’s opinion; everyone is entitled to their own. As I mention in the video, I actually REALLY liked Daggerfall (sometimes even more than Morrowind). With a few overhauls, this could easily be a game I’d spend a lot of time in. Just... not like this.
I'm glad you tried it at least. Better to genuinely try something out and see if you like it, rather than brushing it to the side. On another note, I completed the Necrom main story, which I mentioned last time I commented. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but I will say it felt like a right call for me to play as an Arcanist class for it all on my first time. If you aren't interested at all in it, I'll happily share spoiler stuff of what I liked and didn't. If you are, I'll keep quiet and let you experience it for yourself :).
It's completely fair that you want to drop this game. It's rooted in ideas from early D&D campaign writing and design that don't translate well to modern sensibilities and is in many ways a product of its time. Seeing as both the original and Unity remake are free to access it's one of those games I'd recommend someone who enjoys Morrowind try out, but Morrowind is where the series really got into its flow. Oblivion is an interesting middle step between Morrowind and Skyrim, with a similar leveling system and (albeit pared down) spell making system to the one in Morrowind, but a combat system and presentation similar to Skyrim. To be honest, Daggerfall also isn't really a game I like playing all that much, since I value the intentionality of dungeon and quest design in the later titles, and the mechanics can fall on the less enjoyable side of the bank spectrum for me.
I played daggerfall a ton when it came out in 96, I was 13 at the time. Loved all the freedom it gave for that time and the mystery of the thief's guild and dark brotherhood. But if I hadn't played it back then and would play it like you for the first time in 2024 I would probably get to the same conclusion. But in '96 it was amazing. ;-)
Yeah, this game is a love hate relationship. For softlocked quests you can always use the console btw. Saved me a lot of nerves when dealing with buggy quests.
It’s true that modern games have made things a lot more accessible, with smoother progression and less of that old-school "come back later" approach. But I think there’s a lot more depth to Daggerfall’s design that might not be immediately obvious if you’re used to the more streamlined experiences in later Elder Scrolls games. First off, I get the feeling of being blocked in Daggerfall-it’s frustrating when you want to dive into the main story but can’t because your character isn’t strong enough. But if you think about it, Morrowind does pretty much the same thing, just in a more subtle way. You might not get outright told "come back later," but there are plenty of quests in Morrowind where you’re up against enemies who absolutely demolish you if you’re not at the right level. The game sort of nudges you in the same direction, telling you through difficulty rather than a warning. I think the difference is more about the way the game communicates that to you. Daggerfall, for better or worse, is more upfront about it, and while it may seem frustrating, I think it’s actually pretty honest about the reality of your progression. Now, speaking from experience, I actually beat Morrowind when I was around 14 or 15, back in 2004/2005, and it was hard. My friend and I spent so many hours grinding, trying to figure out the right builds and strategies to progress, because the game doesn't hold your hand in terms of difficulty. Sure, the world is amazing, and the hand-crafted content is incredible, but Morrowind doesn’t exactly have a "show, don’t tell" method all the time. It does let you know through the challenge, and sometimes that means failing and coming back stronger. And look, I get that Daggerfall is harder to navigate, especially when you’re not used to that older style of game design, but I don’t think it’s fair to say the game doesn’t allow you to play how you want. Sure, you’ll need to spend some time grinding and leveling up, but that’s part of the experience-it’s a challenge, not a roadblock. The world Daggerfall offers is massive, and yeah, you might not be able to rush through the main quests immediately, but that’s kind of the point. It wants you to explore, develop your character, and really get to know the world before you can tackle the biggest challenges. You said that if Daggerfall had been your first Elder Scrolls game, it would’ve been tough to feel immersed in Nirn/Tamriel, and I get that-Daggerfall isn’t as polished as Morrowind, or the newer Elder Scrolls titles. But that challenge is part of what makes it rewarding. It’s not just about the main quest; it’s about the journey, the exploration, and figuring out what works for you. It’s like a puzzle, and sure, you might not be able to get the whole picture right away, but that’s what makes the eventual success feel earned. I’ve never personally played Daggerfall all the way through, but I’m confident I could finish it because, honestly, the way it’s designed requires patience and persistence, two things I’ve learned to appreciate in RPGs. The game’s difficulty is part of its charm. You can't just blast through everything like in some of the more recent Elder Scrolls games. If you want to go deep into the main story, you’ll need to take your time, build your character, and explore. It might take longer, sure, but that’s the whole experience. I’m not trying to bash your opinion at all. I totally understand the frustration you’re feeling. It’s just that, in a way, both Morrowind and Daggerfall have the same kind of progression-they just handle it differently. In Morrowind, you might feel forced to level up to take on certain enemies or quests, just like in Daggerfall. It’s just that Daggerfall is a bit more upfront about it. With a few tweaks or mods, the experience could be much more enjoyable, and I think, at least personally, Daggerfall could be one of those games that would click once you get past that initial grind. I’ve spent a lot of time with these games, and while they’re not perfect, they have a certain kind of depth that I think modern games have lost a little bit of. So while I totally get why you’d be frustrated, I don’t think the experience is as outdated or frustrating as it seems. Once you get in the rhythm, you realize it’s all about the journey and how you choose to play, and sometimes that means grinding it out a bit before the fun really starts.
King of Worms is Mannimarco. Also, the Direnni Tower (the dungeon that broke you) is the Adamantine Tower. The oldest structure on Nirn. The place where gods decided to kill Lorkhan after the world was created. The White-Gold Tower in the Imperial City was built in it's image. It's funny how mundane and normal it looks in Daggerfall lol
Maybe in later games ehen they retcon it, but when Daggerfall was made, Mannimarco was another nectomancer long in the past. There is no connection in the game between KoW and Mannimarco.
for real though the reason why mannimarco is different from the oblivion ver is because this mannimarco im pretty sure is the ascended version while the oblivion is the version where he failed ascenscion
With a name like "Mannimarco" I'm just picturing some middle aged guy from New Jersey, thick local accent, bald, always has a can of cheap beer with him, calls himself "Ya boy", apparently used to be called the "King of Worms" back in highschool but you've never seen anyone call him that.
Daggerfall is what Skyrim players think Morrowind is. Also, in ESO, you do have the choice to release Mannimarco from captivity in Coldharbor at the end of the base story. Most people won't, but I felt like upsetting the rest of the party.
Isn't he free by the first game anyhow? I clearly remember him wanting revenge and goes after the king like 5 seconds after being freed. Didn't play ESO so I'm not sure.
@@d3tuned378 to quote Raiden, from metal gear: "I'll take that as a compliment" Plus, unpopular opinion: Daggerfall is kinda better than Morrowind. Sure, the latter has a better ambience and a better magic system, a better story and better lore, but Daggerfall is just so big you can actually get lost in it, and that's better imo
My most memorable Daggerfall experience was getting sent to a ruined castle to kill a mummy and retrieve his wrappings as reagents for the Mages' Guild. I entered the spooky old ruin though the front door, and proceeded to meticulously work my way through the entirety of the enormous dungeon, carefully eliminating every enemy, checking every room... but when the dungeon was empty, I hadn't been able to locate the mummy in question. Puzzled, I wandered the halls of the castle for a while, before finally giving up. On my way out, on a whim I decided to circle around the perimeter of the structure and there it was: a partially obscured back entrance to the castle... I stepped inside and was transported to an entirely new instance of the same dungeon I had just agonizingly fought through, exact in every detail, with all the same monsters, save that in this instance in one of the rooms there was a mummy I could kill to get the reagent I needed. Awesome. I quit the game later when I encountered a game-breaking bug where a letter vital to the plot containing time-sensitive information was "delivered" to me but never actually materialized in my inventory, soft-locking the main questline. Thanks Bethesda!
@@MGrey-qb5xz people with any sense of game design... Daggerfall released with an idiotic amount of stupid bugs that are noticeable within the first hour of gameplay. Not receiving letters for the main quest and being locked out of progression is egregious.
@@Nikarus2370 bro who tf are you trying to pretend you were part of the fanbase? no shit there were bugs for games this size, the difference is this isn't your nomie console games
Play for enough years and it will happen. This is why I actually like autosaves. I normally abhor automated anything in my games, but I've done this too many times over the years to not appreciate the lifeline.
As a woman with a job and a solid sleep schedule, I unashamedly use console commands to hop to exit doors and quest targets in this game when necessary. I love spending hours playing it, the story is great and a lot of the quests are funny, but I have to be in bed by ten and I don’t get home till 6. Next time you get the daggerfall itch, I really recommend trying that way!
Dope, I didn't think to do this. I have had to do this in Morrowind and Oblivion for accidental things that ended up being game locking bugs. Good idea, same here, I barely have time. Would love to play but to abuse the idea of borrowing money across continents.
I do this for all Bethesda games lmao. Anytime a quest has me backtracking multiple times I teleport around with commands. Don’t care if I’m missing out on exploration or immersion, I got limited time in this world and I ain’t wasting it on tedium.
I understand your decision, Daggerfall is extremely hard to get into and enjoy for modern gamers, but at least you tried it and gave it a chance, which is more than most people.
@@DarukiNeo-il2jt It's more we just didn't know any better. It's like how we used to use arrow keys. It's obviously worse than wasd in hindsight, but you don't see that until you've become habituated to wasd. There were no better RPGs at the time... well, not on PC at least. You could definitely say a bunch of console RPGs were, at least by many criteria, better, but not in others. What were you going to do instead? Go watch cable TV? Watch a VHS? lol
@@seigeengine It's more like modern gamers have vastly reduced attention spans and are too used to modern vidya holding their hands too much. I'm not gonna say Daggerfall is a masterpiece, but there haven't been that many better rpgs released since then (mostly because most of them are just exploration games with a very thin coat of rpg).
@@DominatorLegend I don't think that's entirely wrong, as a broader criticism, but the specific complaints in this video are mostly just about improving quality standards in game design, like having quest level requirements that aren't clearly communicated and you don't find out until you've already spent a ton of time in a dungeon. That is straight up just a worse way to design gameplay. Similarly, Skyrim is a great comparison in how, in Skyrim, there's almost always a quick exit to any dungeon of any size. That's not realistic in most cases, but it's a compromise to avoid players having to tediously backtrack through dungeons. Once you get used to just being able to quickly get out of dungeons you've already gone through, it feels really rough to go back to large dungeons where you do have to just backtrack through it all to leave. It's just worse. It makes the experience of the game worse for no substantive gain. But even the hand-holding is often nice. Like, I like being able to just be told where to go to progress a quest. I prefer when I can toggle that so I can problem solve it myself, but sometimes the answer just isn't clear to me. Often in RPGs the thing to do to progress a quest is just unintuitive. There's a quest in Skyrim that annoyed me in Winterhold where the inn-keeper wants you to figure out what happened to the woman a drunkard was crushing on disappeared and he's been a blight ever since. Okay, so I should probably either look around the town to see if there's anything in the town or it's surroundings, and maybe try to talk to townspeople to see if anybody knows anything, right? No. I had to ask the inn-keeper's wife, who was standing next to him while he asked me to do this. I spent a good amount of time running around town talking to every other NPC I could and roaming around the nearby area to look for clues before I ultimately gave up and looked up what I was supposed to do. I even talked to the inn-keeper's wife! Guess what though? I can't get that dialogue option with her until I talk to the drunkard himself about the missing woman he was crushing on, something I wouldn't do because I wouldn't want to upset him pointlessly. How was I supposed to discern that was the right course of action? Just try everything and brute force it? "Fun." Just give me a quest marker and let me be done with your nonsense quest. Sure, you might say the problem is with the quest design not the lack of quest markers, but that's the thing: quests are going to be badly designed. Would you rather be sat there for hours trying every possible answer you can think of, or looking up an external walkthrough, or would you rather be able to just see where to go and be done with it?
@@karfumble i feel like being outright told you aren't high enough level to proceed (even though you just beat a difficult dungeon to prove you ARE capable) would break immersion more than anything
I think it might be time for a change of scenery. There were many things I genuinely enjoyed about Daggerfall but it wasn't worth the tilt. Oblivion is something I would also like to try, along with my first ever fallout game (idk which ones are good so I'll put out a poll or something). Who knows... maybe even Bloodmoon...
Oblivion you'll enjoy a lot more but the OG fallout games yeah you'll probably get mad since they're pretty hard, especially the 2nd one with the last boss you have to fight in the game which he is insanely hard to kill.
I don't mind difficult combat whatsoever (almost all of my favourite RPGs are known for hard combat). I just prefer encounters that take skill over luck is all.
@@FrostbreakYTyeah I think the early fallouts are a bit easier to enjoy than early Elder Scrolls in my opinion. Naturally Id suggest New Vegas but all of them up to 4 are pretty solid I think, although 3 to 4 are definitely Bethesda games 😂😂
I watched you click "save" at 2:05 and started screaming at the screen. My wife came to ask me if I was OK, and got here at the frame where you had the caption up on the screen "I say no for a full minute" and she saw that, stopped mid-sentence, and left
Yeah the best approach to Daggerfall is to play it like an RPG, a life sim, like a combat oriented Sims game. Like Project Zomboid, but with an optional main quest. Get into a guild, do quests for it, level up, get stronger, do dungeons, etc. Take a bank loan, buy a house, buy a ship. Explore the game mechanics. NOT rush through it.
exactly. especiallly daggerfalll. I dont know what his aim is, speed run the main story? the main story is only a fraction of why people love daggerfall.
@@peacefusion I guess he was just expecting it to play like Morrowind, which is silly seeing as the progression of the series is very obviously from TTRPG to ARPG, and I myself also played backwards from Skyrim to Arena, so when I got to Daggerfall I had an open mind for even more in-depth RPG mechanics and even less action RPG/handholding/linearity. Idk why he didn't share that mindset, possibly because of him being a content creator and wanting to be done with the game ASAP rather than going through it casually from time to time. Who knows.
@@AlphaGarg This is super interesting. You went backwards and I started with these games, and prefer later games in this franchise. But then again I can't stand any TTRPG other than Cyberpunk and that's mostly for the lore reasons. I tried D&D a while back and was bored out of my mind with my group.
@@peacefusion Because he wanted to interact with the hand crafted content, and not the procedurally generated content. That hand crafted content is the main quest, and everything else is procedurally generated. Basically it’s the starfield problem, but even worse. Starfield has a good chunk of handcrafted content which is good, but if you step off the beaten path you’ll enter procedurally generated content which for a lot of the modern gaming audience is a slog, and not wanted. You can spend thousands of hours in this game yes, but 90% of that will be entirely non handcrafted content. It will be radiant quest after radiant quest, going into procedurally generated dungeon after procedurally generated dungeon, and getting randomized loot after randomized loot. Like I said before a lot of the modern gaming audience hates this style of gameplay now, and to make it force you into doing radiant quests is an utter failing of that game. A main quest should be playable if you can do it, and shouldn’t halt you because of an arbitrary number you need to meet. Especially after running through the dungeon, and proving you can deal with the challenge.
Its ironic that your pain of this game and your livestream is actually what convinced me to pick the game up, and I am having a blast! Its definitely a game of vibes, and if you are just rushing the main quest, its easy to see the frustration. I do hope you come back though. Thanks for getting me into it!
@@peacefusion i don't necessarily think its comparable to Elden Ring, more so due to the fact that a lot of the game is proc gen, He saw a lot of what the game was in the moment to moment. All that was really left was the handmade content that was blocked. Especially when trying to make a video for content, he pretty much nailed a lot of what DG has to offer. Ironically, treating it like a CoD or Madden type game may be in its benefit. Like you log in, play a couple matches, and you are done for the day. You log into tamriel, do a dungeon or two, and you are done for the day. Probably how a lot of people played it in the 90's. Though I do say it makes a great streaming game. Lots of time for Chat while still being entertaining.
Rushing to do the main quest = the wrong way to play the game. That's what I did on my first playthrough and it was horrible. But then I did a more "enlightened" playthrough, where I took my time and built up thoroughly. The main quest was a piece of cake.
You play Daggerfall to chill in dungeons where tou get lost for 3 hours. You DON'T play Daggerfall for story or smooth experience. Story is buried deep and needs lots of digging and several replays, smooth experience in Buggerfall is a priori impossible
@@Scar8307 Gives you more room to craft your own story your way, and you will have a unique experience to basically anyone who has completed the game in the end.
Everything I've seen of this game so far tells me that, yes, it's huge... it's absolutely enormous... but that's mostly empty space. Most of that hugeness is pointless, and not only would the game not suffer by reducing the size of the map and the size of the dungeons, but the game would more than likely be vastly improved if it were the case. I saw a video that showed how large the map is - a person sped up time of them travelling on foot from one town to another going on about the vastness of it all... but all that travelling, all that time spent wandering - the same tree sprites and rock sprites in an otherwise completely empty world the whole way. Easy to make a big game when the "bigness" is empty space. Easy to make big dungeons when it's just a confusing labyrinth that serves no purpose other than to chew away at time. A while ago I was thinking of getting Daggerfall to play it, so I looked up gameplay, but even the gameplay that PRAISES the game shows me that it's not something worth trying.
See here's the thing. I told people in my friend group for years why I prefered Morrowind up over the first 2 ES games. Yes I'm old enough to have played both Arena and Daggerfall, anyhow, I told them at one point I'd take 10 Skyrims over Daggerfall anyday, and they acted like I murdered their whole family. Is Skyrim, Or Oblivion perfect? No. Are they better? I'd, without a doubt, say hell yes! Sidenote: Morrowind is my favorite of the 3, but I still have more time on Skyrim than any other of the 3: Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim. And that's Vanilla Skyrim, before I built a new PC after years of not owning a gaming one.
I played quite possibly a hundred games over the last 25 years. And I can say with full confidence that Daggergfall is by far the worst experience with any game I ever had.
@@smokeyhoodoo I don't know if you're making an excuse for Daggerfall being bad or what, but there are games that came out in 1996 that still hold up today. Even games that came out before 96 like Ocarina of Time have extremely small maps but feel massive because Nintendo is actually _good_ at making games.
I completed the original DOS version of Daggerfall many years ago. Unity with mods looks good. One of these days, I might have to get into it again. Daggerfall and Morrowind may be frustrating at times, but they offer depth and complexity that is lacking in later Elder Scrolls games.
When you want a story, they lack any real depth at all. But they were old-school RPGs set to imitate the tabletop RPG experience, so they have a sort of freedom that appeals to a lot of players tired of modern games handholding them the whole way through. Personally, I don't think Daggerfall offers much in the modern era. It has all the things I hated about Skyrim, the constant radiant quests that don't interest me, but very little of the enjoyable handcrafted content that Bethesda is slowly moving away from and as a result ruining their games. Daggerfall gets away with it because it was older. It was essentially the start of the franchise, where the lore actually started to be canon (Arena is a jumbled mess and most of it is not at all canon), and it was in an era where that kind of freedom was appreciated. It's just that nowadays it doesn't really compare to a tailored RPG experience. It's no Oblivion, but I think it's a pretty cool game if you don't compare it too heavily to other games and just appreciate it for what it is.
@@Lucifronz Daggerfall was an impressive experiment for its time, but it has its problems. Writing has never been a great strength for Bethesda, and this goes all the way back. Daggerfall is great for RPG math nerds and those who like to dig into a systemically complex game, figure out how it operates under the hood, and over the course of game play, develop an absurdly broken character. Since I'm a 1980s nerd who used to sector edit floppy disks in an effort to understand and modify games, this is right up my alley. Still, I think Morrowind is a far more satisfying experience overall, and Oblivion is also quite strong.
Manniamrco actually escape Coldharbour at one point so no, him being in Daggerfall is totally plausible The "you drop exhausted" is your stamina being depleted (its a exhaustion bar in Daggerfall) you should never enter dungeon while its low and never progress below 1/4, find some place to rest
That stream was a good time! (And thanks for the shoutout!) The pain of wiping a save, though... I know that misery well. I think that enjoyment you described during your summary is what people love about Daggerfall. You've seen it, you've felt it. There's something beautiful in there, and at least you got to enjoy that side of Daggerfall. It's unfortunate that you struggled with the main quest the way you did and it was ultimately too much to bear, but I respect the conclusion you came to after all that. Also, I tried looking for a mod that removes the level restrictions on the main quest, but I can't find one, and I'm surprised by that. I did find one that totally removes it and gives you updates on an unseen NPC that's doing the main quest, though lol
I loved Daggerfall for the things mentioned by both of you. I originally played it a year after it came out (and used arrow keys to get around). My time with Daggerfall was originally very short due to the huge dungeons that might not have the item you were sent to find or you fall through the walls and died somewhere in the abyss. I was in my 30s at the time and had a full time job and family to care for. So my playtime was limited. The game came with a couple of booklets and I thought one of them mentioned that you should spend time in a guild or guilds to get your levels up (I also had - STILL HAVE - The Daggerfall Chronicles so that might have mentioned it). The reason for leveling is as far as I can remember, the creatures did not level with you. Therefore it was necessary to be a higher level character before you tackled the end game main quest. As mentioned in this video, Unity does indeed fix a lot of bugs that were in the original game. It also has some great settings such as "smaller dungeons" which greatly reduces the size of non-main story line dungeons. When I tipped my toe back into Daggerfall, I opted to use a few mods to modernize the graphics a bit. I didn't want to turn it into Oblivion which I love. But I had a hard time reading the old text. Having said all of that, this video had me laughing so hard I woke up my cat. Great job on the entertainment value and perhaps getting more of your generation to give this very difficult game a try. You can get all of that frustration and adventure for free!
This game was made by like 12 people They physically sent me a copy of a 3.5” floppy disk to patch the game because it had some major bugs (you could only be a wereboar and not a werewolf , major crashes etc) But it was such a cool game to play as a teenager in winter it 96 - titties everywhere , massive open world Skyrim is my favorite but I loved how the original games felt like an actual huge world with millions of people in it Whatever you were up to was just a small part if the big world
"It makes no sense that a woman locked in a tower, who sees her first visitor in God knows how long, just tells them to fuck off." - I guess you don't have much experience dealing with introverts?
Daggerfalls biggest problem is that it's from a time when people played games just to play them, no achievements, no speedrunners, no completionist, no balancing, just games with little to no standardization. If you want to just wander around and do some of the stuff you come across, Daggerfall is nice. Just lacking by todays standards.
@@xenopsychologist4943 And too hard. The reason I stand by Skyrim being one of the best games... is because it is easy and still fun to play. Tons of games become pretty boring if you make them easy be it with cheats, with an easy mode or with a mod, but Skyrim is easy even in the hardest difficulty and is freaking fun. I have psychomotor problems that prevent me from building up dexterity skills in my hands, this means I quite literally can't "get good" at games unless they are something like turn based games, so games either become impossible or I have to cheat or I have to select a level of difficulty that takes away the fun from the game. Skyrim is great because it manages to be somewhat fun and addicting without having one shred of difficulty.
@@diablo.the.cheater got to where you said youre a cripple. so your opinion isnt really useful. skyrim is the least played elder scrolls for me explicitly because it does indeed stop being fun. no amount of being infantile makes it keep being fun after it wears out its welcome. being easy is even the last thing on the list of reasons its boring and, after going through it once, theres no need to touch it again. its just one of the problems with it. i dont know why you brought your weakness before me as though it makes something terrible into the best thing ever.
@@xenopsychologist4943 Got to the part where you were an asshole, so your opinion isn’t really useful. Just because you don’t like something that someone else does doesn’t magically mean you’re right you know? As if you are superior in some way for liking the antiquated game. And you’re allowed to like Daggerfall, but just because you like something doesn’t mean it’s “good”. Good means different things for different people
I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get into this game. Doing procedurally-generated dungeon after procedurally-generated dungeon to complete very simple procedurally-generated quests over and over again just isn’t very fun, regardless of how deep the roleplaying is (and yes, it’s very deep). There’s a certain quality of immersion that comes from this, but I’d rather take Morrowind’s roleplaying immersion with genuinely hand-crafted content or Skyrim’s “world interactivity” immersion (I don’t know how to describe it), and regardless, I’d just have more fun actually _playing_ those games. Daggerfall’s main story is actually really neat on paper, but playing through it is not. I see why a lot of people love this game, and maybe I’ll come around to it one day. For now, though, I’m fine sticking with the last three mainline games. And it’s not because they’re “simpler” or “baby-brained” (as people like to say about Skyrim), it’s because they’re actually fun to play. I’d rather take a “simple” game that’s fun and full of hand-crafted content over a “complex” game that’s tedious and almost entirely procedurally-generated. Anyway, I salute you for giving it a thorough try. I know you said something about doing Oblivion next, but hopefully you do Bloodmoon at some point as well (trust me, it’s much, much better than Tribunal).
This is how i look at it, and the reason I REALLY enjoy games like Oblivion, Fallout NV and Fallout 4, even Skyrim as long as it's modded with more depth to the skill system. The world matters more then "Omg they took away my nUmBeRs!"
For me this is literally the only TES game that got me somewhat hooked. Neither Oblivion nor Skyrim kept me interested for more than 2 hours. In general I can't stand modern bethesda games. This one is different tho.
@@Waskomsause Also if the world matter more to you, then why does every single modern Bethesda game's world not make believable sense even on the surface level if you spend more than 3 seconds turning on your brain and actually observing and thinking about your surroundings while playing? Daggerfall actually requires LESS suspension of belief to be a believable world than any bethesda title to release after it.
I found you through Daggerfall content, I grew up watching my dad play it and sometimes we’ll go and play the unity version even then it’s kind of an acquired taste so definitely get credit for trying. Can’t wait to see what content you post next.
Welcome to the Club! You now understand the games pains a little bit...many of us played for years and even with a game guide it left us forever in game anxiety of needing extra saves, many saves, creating the "right" build first time, and never making a bad decision (even if its just walking through the wrong door)....this has haunted us for years, now you too can enjoy/reminisce this anxiety a bit with us :)
Simply put - dungeons in Daggerfall are the worst. If you go in blind, you might go: wow, SO MANY DUNGEONS. But the split second you hit a big one, you realize what's in store. Good luck if you don't have the Recall spell or have poor orientation.
14:33 wish id see this video when it was released so i could say this then, but just found your channel, and have to say you did not fail as a content creator, i hope you no longer feel that way bro for me at least, thanks to this video you saved god knows how many hours of my time spared this crap game, thank you.
Thousands of people online who have watched a youtube essay or two and played a handful of hours of Daggerfall Unity will SWEAR UP AND DOWN that it's the ultimate RPG and a genuine gaming masterpiece, but as someone who literally grew up playing this game with my dad, absolute maxed out nostalgia goggles PLUS a decent playthrough of Unity, the game fucking sucks dude. It's a miracle of game design for 1996 and it has some truly groundbreaking ideas about what a CRPG could be, as well as maybe being the first authentic example of an "open world" game as we think of it today. It has the beginning of every cool idea you've ever had about an open world RPG, but it doesn't go farther than that, because there wasn't a history of open world and CRPG design to pull from, they didn't have 200 employees working around the clock for years, and they didn't have the limitless budgets of games today, this is a niche product made for enthusiasts by enthusiasts. You can specialize in any number of languages, but all it does is give you another option to avoid specific combat encounters with generic NPCs. You could take climbing and be a burglar, but it doesn't have Thief to use as an example for what really great stealth gameplay looks like, so it just ends up being pretty useless. You could spec into specific schools of magic, but the practical use cases within the game world are fireballs and teleporting, everything else is just fluff. The real disappointment is that there's this awesome template, all these systems that aren't utilized by the game world itself due to time and financial constraints, and instead of building total world conversions and adding genuine depth to the sandbox of Daggerfall, people are concerned with polishing up the textures and making it more user friendly. Daggerfall is the epitome of "I watched a youtube video about a game and it made me feel smart so I'm gonna say that's my favorite game without bothering to play it", which you'd think is a pretty small sample size but is like half of the online gaming discourse now.
Funny thing is, a good chunk of the mods that "improve" the graphics is either half done, or uses an ai tool that makes so everything looks like melted clay and acts like it actually looks good, people really should focus on modding the systems and exploration instead of trying to fool themselves with the idea that upscaled and barely photoshopped textures look good 💀
No, there are practical uses for every spell in the game, and all of the spells have implemented mechanics. There are no fluff spells. People don't like it because of videos, they like it because it's fun.
@@HiAgainTheNameIsStillAyle The AI upscaling really isn't great and it is starting to take over some stuff in DFUnity's modding scene sadly (like the literal hentai skin mod is egregious and divisive in the community itself, I just have to hope most people enjoy it ironically more than anything). The best mods for the game are ones that keep Daggerfall's original cozy 90's RPG aesthetic, because that's the game's natural inclination and best suit for it. Stuff like DREAM is very nice to see and took a lot of effort, but it really is a different vibe from base Daggerfall because it really does warp the art style and feel into something new, and ultimately it will clash with the more limited graphical aspects of the game.
@@mrosskne If you're actually someone who's played and enjoyed Daggerfall I'd urge you to go play a levels of Ultima Underworld to see what I'm talking about, particularly as a caster. It's got a tight little skill and magic system where everything you can do serves a significant gameplay purpose. We both know that you're not going to do that, because you didn't actually play Daggerfall, you watched that Jwlar video and just adopted his opinions.
The issue with Daggerfall is that, like Arena, it's a Dungeon Crawler, it's NOT a Roleplaying game with engaging choices and consequences, if you don't like dungeon crawling niche genre, you won't enjoy Daggerfall, that's why I'm hesitant to play Daggerfall after Arena since Daggerfall looks pretty much like same gameplay formula but slightly better quests and map
You gave it your best shot. For the record, I'm with you man. There's times I really enjoyed Daggerfall also but it was hard for me to stay engaged and I hate the way the main quest progresses. Would be interested in seeing you return to Morrowind and try out Tamriel Rebuilt
I only ever got into the habit of going "Yeah, yeah, whatever, skip" to the event news popups in Destiny 2 back when I was still playing. Everything else in game I read unless I accidentally press a button because I'm focused and my finger ends up putting too much pressure on the controller or keyboard. This is the legit the first time I've seen another person, apparently, gloss over a field of important text in a video game and just click without thinking.
That save thing is like... you just inadvertantly clicked on the wrong button by not reading what was on screen, and then you immediately go and do it again T.T
Bro I really like your Daggerfall video! I appreciate you taking the time to attempt this game because it took far too much patience for myself. It was really fun to watch and you’re very funny. I will absolutely watch more Daggerfall videos if you make them even though it might not happen. I hope you find those mods that fix the annoyances because this was a very entertaining video!
Yeah, I think playing the game in order to get to the hand-crafted content is the wrong approach. This game is all about procedural generation and if you don't care about that, you won't care about Daggerfall. The story is neat, but it shouldn't be the main draw.
Daggerfall ASKS the player character what you want to do, every other Elder Scrolls game basically instructs the player on what they should do. Daggerfall and especially DFUnity allows you to make your own story your own way with more player control than any other Elder Scrolls title and it stands out among the best examples of actual role playing in the genre's history. One of my most unique playthroughs didn't even center around combat, but the horrors of _finance_ . I became a literal real estate mogul by investing ownership in shops and buying and selling property in an attempt to pay off loans.
@@LilyMoonWitch The main quest having a level cap is more of a precaution, and a suggestion from the game that you get stronger and engage with its other content/systems before taking it on. It is the only hard restriction in the entire game. Even so, you still have the option to straight up not do it. In literally every other TES game, the quest stays there forever indefinitely, it does not respond to your deliberate act to ignore or not do it. The game asks you, and responds accordingly. It does not just force an unchanging option onto you.
I don't like it either. The only build I kinda liked was a warewolf. Totally overpowered. But I don't like the crime and punishment system, I don't like how half the NPCs are animated signs with no purpose that you cannot even attack. I don't like shops. I don't like how stealth doesn't work. I don't like the dialog system which is overly complex for what it is really doing. The world is too big and samey to be immersed in. I never "learned" the layout of something or felt at home in a location. The way magic items work is not fun. I'm sorry fanboys but it's a shit game that was simply very advanced and ambitious for its era. But I have tons of games from that era that I still play. Daggerfall has simply aged horribly. I have not played Arena but I suspect I'll like it better. And don't get me wrong Daggerfall is VERY impressive. It's insane that something of this scale (in terms of mechanics) was made back then and I'm thankful it was made even if only for what it led to.
@@MGrey-qb5xz I play tabletop RPGs and like them. I do not think that they translate well into video games. But in any case which parts of what I dislike about Daggerfall are an emulation of tabletop RPGs?
@@1NSHAME that and the unawareness of using console commands and mods to smoothen the experince. it's a game just made for nerds, playing it like a normie will just put you off
You may not go back to daggerfall but I’ll be going back to your channel for every upload great commentary and editing looking forward to what you do next
It's literally not i never save in Skyrim until I stop playing that session so I go hours never auto saving I don't need to because I never get soft locked I just deal with the regular consequences of screwing up
@The_MEMEphis Glitches, crashes, NPC's blocking the doorway, accidentally picking up a plant and getting kicked from a guild and having 20 angry NPC's charging at you, a roommate requesting you help them with something. All of these are worth backup saves.
Morrowind oblivion and Skyrim have never had that issue because you only needed the manual save on one slot, he just fucked up and over saved the wrong slot He’s lucky he had that second save slot at all
Few things I wanted to say: I got recommended your morrowind videos which actually got me to finally play it (I bought it over a decade ago, but didn’t know it had 3rd person so never finished making a character. I’ve got 1000’s of hours in oblivion and skyrim, and this almost tempted me to try daggerfall, but man, there’s so many other games on my backlog that I think I’d be better of playing right now, I can just tell, it’s a game that needs so many mods like the level req one to actually not be awful to my time limitations, props to you for putting in the effort you did, going in as blind as almost a new player when it launched had I to guess.
The game did warn you, by placing endgame enemies in the dungeon on the path to medora. Daggerfall does not expect players to throw themselves at the mq asap.
Oh well, you tried. I am currently playing a heavily modded game of Daggerfall, but it has a little bit of a crusader kings 3 effect on me being willing to try the same thing & learning to get better each try even in failure.
bro ive been so interested in daggerfall for so long but never bothered to look into it further. i watched other people play short clips of it but this series has been such a ride if you ever continued to play the game i will watch every minute of it like i did the rest was so funny to watch in some bits.
This has been an entertaining series, I really enjoyed seeing your perspective! I felt that you gave the whole experience a genuinely good attempt, trying your best to enjoy the game, but coming to some valid criticisms and problems. I can't wait to see you try arena. I've been playing through it lately for the first time, and have actually been enjoying it. It has its own problems (the dungeons can feel a bit long at times), but the handcrafted-ness is much more apparent in the main quest. don't go into it expecting an open world experience, it is a 90's dungeon crawler with a few overworld elements. Also, read the manual... it is a game that expects you to have read the manual before you play. If you don't you're gonna have a bad time.
I've tried to play Daggerfall whole last week. And i just loved it! Well, first 20 hours. But then my amount of anger and ragequitting was insane. There was so many bugged quests and dungeons just wasted my time, i was constantly reloading my previous saves all the time because of quests just did not work. After Lord K'avar quest bugged to softlock (with me fighting with endless pack of enemies after rest) i just quit the game. But i still feel that urge to come back. God damnit i hate it
Take a habit of the old neckbeards with savegames, make a plethora of different saves and name them depending on your goal. "save early, save often" - Al Lowe
This makes me glad that Oblivion was my first real foray into the Elder Scrolls series. Even though I technically tried Morrowind for 10 minutes on a friend's Xbox. Daggerfall would have fallen into the stack of PC games I couldn't figure what I was supposed to do and then sat unplayed for years until we got rid of them, like Myst and one of the King's Quest games. But I was probably just too young for them. Also, it's an Elder Scrolls game, how do you not have a chain of 8 or so saves you rotate between in case something bugs out and you need to go back and try again?
I gave up on this game a while back and recently decided to give it another chance with mods. I found out if you try to play it like Skyrim, you'll have a bad time
I definitely don’t think it’s healthy for you to continue. If you want to see what you’d be getting yourself into at a higher level, I STRONGLY advise just watching someone going through the final dungeon. No spoilers required or anything, just watch them traverse the absolute nightmare that is the last dungeon of the game. It’s garbage. And it’s that way because main story dungeon generate large no matter what settings you have on to reduce dungeon size. And on top of that, you can literally soft lock yourself out of the ending in the literal last dungeon, by simply walking through the wrong door and getting trapped in a cage. Daggerfall lowkey has some of the most abysmal game design I’ve ever seen.
The most frustrating thing too is when people cope with "it's just bad because it's old" this was the same time period that ultima, theog baldurs gates and actually good 90s RPGs were being made
Your video: Properly saying "No thanks" to a game revered as good by many, with proper examples and feedback. That's what I wanted to see in this video. That's why I initially recommended that you react to another video review of the game, instead of playing it too much. Especially if you ended up losing your mind trying to adapt to the game. I have about 12 hours of gameplay. They were not all pleasant. I'm not counting the "setup" and "looking for other mods" part. Now, I'm okay with only watching others play the game.
It’s not recommended to play the main story just go into town buy stuff, stay at inns, and get quests. That’s pretty Mitch the gameplay loop and later on you can do things like summon the daedric gods and create your own spells
haha great video, and you've even made it slightly further than me. I think there's something missing from your experience; 1) this game would have been mind blowing (but bad original controls) 2) you'd often only have 1 game for the year, maybe even a few years, so padding out a game was common. Not to mention that side quests weren't a thing for most people, so encouraging people to do that kind of stuff was kind of important... but yeah, there was better ways to do it now XD love your videos on this, I've not played heavily modified versions, maybe one last video with as much as possible?
I'm pretty sure I'm old enough to be your father and even I understand where you're coming from in not wanting to keep going with Daggerfall. It's... rough.
I've been in that situation before where you overwrite a save and lose so much progress you want to cry. Thankfully in my case (a different game) I was able to recover it from a system folder at the last minute. I have been very careful about saving since.
Man I was waiting for the day he’d play Daggerfall long term. It’s so fun and it isn’t just luck. You gotta build a good character, get timing right. I’m disappointed you couldn’t enjoy the same game as me
i get the frustration... but isn't daggerfall just a dungeon crawler? the main story is just there to facilitate the dungeon crawling right? even if you hadn't spent that time in the dungeon and been told to come back... wouldn't you just have been in another dungeon? genuinely just asking XD
@Cjak001 I'm kinda curious on these mods as like, that's the entire point of the game and perhaps what keeps it not boring. Love to see how they are implemented.
@@Cjak001 that's interesting actually since he said he's annoyed with the level restriction because the game has so little content that isn't procedurally generated, having mods that add more actual quests would probably be a good idea for him, since the game is so old just running it requires mods he may as well, better to experience the game at its best than force himself to try and have the authentic experience XD
I will say, hearing your constant groaning about overwriting your save you needed to load filled me with some satisfaction. It is so relateable. I am glad you got to share it with us and not be as alone.
You didn't waste your time. You were grinding to the level the quest needs you to. Think of that hour and half being an hour and half closer to the next quest line.
If I had to put my frustrations with Daggerfall into words (compared to other TES games), it’s that I can’t "play how I want to play." I WANT to dive into the main story and experience the hand-crafted content the game has to offer, but time and time again, I’m told to "come back later." Take Morrowind as a comparison-it has a similar progression of difficulty, but instead of outright telling you that you’re not ready, it shows you. It places you against powerful enemies that beat your cheeks, encouraging you to come back stronger-or, if you’re feeling it, to attempt it right then and there. Rule #1 of immersive storytelling: show, don’t tell, right?
If Daggerfall HAD been my first TES game, I think it would’ve been difficult for me to feel immersed in the world of Nirn/Tamriel. As I mentioned, the hand-crafted worldbuilding is locked behind the main quest, and Daggerfall EXPECTS you to invest copious amounts of time and effort into a world you’re not yet sure you like yet. To me (coming from the newer TES games), that philosophy feels outdated and is something rarely seen in modern games-and for good reason.
Of course, this is just one man’s opinion; everyone is entitled to their own. As I mention in the video, I actually REALLY liked Daggerfall (sometimes even more than Morrowind). With a few overhauls, this could easily be a game I’d spend a lot of time in. Just... not like this.
I'm glad you tried it at least. Better to genuinely try something out and see if you like it, rather than brushing it to the side.
On another note, I completed the Necrom main story, which I mentioned last time I commented. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but I will say it felt like a right call for me to play as an Arcanist class for it all on my first time.
If you aren't interested at all in it, I'll happily share spoiler stuff of what I liked and didn't.
If you are, I'll keep quiet and let you experience it for yourself :).
It's completely fair that you want to drop this game. It's rooted in ideas from early D&D campaign writing and design that don't translate well to modern sensibilities and is in many ways a product of its time. Seeing as both the original and Unity remake are free to access it's one of those games I'd recommend someone who enjoys Morrowind try out, but Morrowind is where the series really got into its flow. Oblivion is an interesting middle step between Morrowind and Skyrim, with a similar leveling system and (albeit pared down) spell making system to the one in Morrowind, but a combat system and presentation similar to Skyrim.
To be honest, Daggerfall also isn't really a game I like playing all that much, since I value the intentionality of dungeon and quest design in the later titles, and the mechanics can fall on the less enjoyable side of the bank spectrum for me.
I played daggerfall a ton when it came out in 96, I was 13 at the time. Loved all the freedom it gave for that time and the mystery of the thief's guild and dark brotherhood. But if I hadn't played it back then and would play it like you for the first time in 2024 I would probably get to the same conclusion. But in '96 it was amazing. ;-)
Yeah, this game is a love hate relationship. For softlocked quests you can always use the console btw. Saved me a lot of nerves when dealing with buggy quests.
It’s true that modern games have made things a lot more accessible, with smoother progression and less of that old-school "come back later" approach. But I think there’s a lot more depth to Daggerfall’s design that might not be immediately obvious if you’re used to the more streamlined experiences in later Elder Scrolls games.
First off, I get the feeling of being blocked in Daggerfall-it’s frustrating when you want to dive into the main story but can’t because your character isn’t strong enough. But if you think about it, Morrowind does pretty much the same thing, just in a more subtle way. You might not get outright told "come back later," but there are plenty of quests in Morrowind where you’re up against enemies who absolutely demolish you if you’re not at the right level. The game sort of nudges you in the same direction, telling you through difficulty rather than a warning. I think the difference is more about the way the game communicates that to you. Daggerfall, for better or worse, is more upfront about it, and while it may seem frustrating, I think it’s actually pretty honest about the reality of your progression.
Now, speaking from experience, I actually beat Morrowind when I was around 14 or 15, back in 2004/2005, and it was hard. My friend and I spent so many hours grinding, trying to figure out the right builds and strategies to progress, because the game doesn't hold your hand in terms of difficulty. Sure, the world is amazing, and the hand-crafted content is incredible, but Morrowind doesn’t exactly have a "show, don’t tell" method all the time. It does let you know through the challenge, and sometimes that means failing and coming back stronger.
And look, I get that Daggerfall is harder to navigate, especially when you’re not used to that older style of game design, but I don’t think it’s fair to say the game doesn’t allow you to play how you want. Sure, you’ll need to spend some time grinding and leveling up, but that’s part of the experience-it’s a challenge, not a roadblock. The world Daggerfall offers is massive, and yeah, you might not be able to rush through the main quests immediately, but that’s kind of the point. It wants you to explore, develop your character, and really get to know the world before you can tackle the biggest challenges.
You said that if Daggerfall had been your first Elder Scrolls game, it would’ve been tough to feel immersed in Nirn/Tamriel, and I get that-Daggerfall isn’t as polished as Morrowind, or the newer Elder Scrolls titles. But that challenge is part of what makes it rewarding. It’s not just about the main quest; it’s about the journey, the exploration, and figuring out what works for you. It’s like a puzzle, and sure, you might not be able to get the whole picture right away, but that’s what makes the eventual success feel earned.
I’ve never personally played Daggerfall all the way through, but I’m confident I could finish it because, honestly, the way it’s designed requires patience and persistence, two things I’ve learned to appreciate in RPGs. The game’s difficulty is part of its charm. You can't just blast through everything like in some of the more recent Elder Scrolls games. If you want to go deep into the main story, you’ll need to take your time, build your character, and explore. It might take longer, sure, but that’s the whole experience.
I’m not trying to bash your opinion at all. I totally understand the frustration you’re feeling. It’s just that, in a way, both Morrowind and Daggerfall have the same kind of progression-they just handle it differently. In Morrowind, you might feel forced to level up to take on certain enemies or quests, just like in Daggerfall. It’s just that Daggerfall is a bit more upfront about it. With a few tweaks or mods, the experience could be much more enjoyable, and I think, at least personally, Daggerfall could be one of those games that would click once you get past that initial grind.
I’ve spent a lot of time with these games, and while they’re not perfect, they have a certain kind of depth that I think modern games have lost a little bit of. So while I totally get why you’d be frustrated, I don’t think the experience is as outdated or frustrating as it seems. Once you get in the rhythm, you realize it’s all about the journey and how you choose to play, and sometimes that means grinding it out a bit before the fun really starts.
daggerfall, where a dungeon is bigger than the entirety of skyrim and oblivion combined.
Daggerfall dungeons are less handcrafted than caves in minecraft.
imagine if you could build a tent or a little shack down in the dungeons.
Morrowind is the best.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516Painfully accurate
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516is that a bad thing?
King of Worms is Mannimarco.
Also, the Direnni Tower (the dungeon that broke you) is the Adamantine Tower. The oldest structure on Nirn. The place where gods decided to kill Lorkhan after the world was created. The White-Gold Tower in the Imperial City was built in it's image.
It's funny how mundane and normal it looks in Daggerfall lol
Maybe in later games ehen they retcon it, but when Daggerfall was made, Mannimarco was another nectomancer long in the past. There is no connection in the game between KoW and Mannimarco.
@@Ralzar Doesn't he give you the necromancer's amulet for helping him?
@@Ralzar Nuh uh Dragon break thats the answer for anything broken it doesnt make sense boom dragon break
for real though the reason why mannimarco is different from the oblivion ver is because this mannimarco im pretty sure is the ascended version while the oblivion is the version where he failed ascenscion
With a name like "Mannimarco" I'm just picturing some middle aged guy from New Jersey, thick local accent, bald, always has a can of cheap beer with him, calls himself "Ya boy", apparently used to be called the "King of Worms" back in highschool but you've never seen anyone call him that.
Daggerfall is what Skyrim players think Morrowind is.
Also, in ESO, you do have the choice to release Mannimarco from captivity in Coldharbor at the end of the base story. Most people won't, but I felt like upsetting the rest of the party.
Isn't he free by the first game anyhow? I clearly remember him wanting revenge and goes after the king like 5 seconds after being freed. Didn't play ESO so I'm not sure.
Why can't we all, morroboomers, skybabies, Obliviontards and the three Arena and Daggerfall fans agree collectively that ESO isn't canon ffs
@@kingcaesar3693 He's also in Oblivion. Mannimarco isn't easy to keep down.
Morrowind isn't much better than daggerfall.
@@d3tuned378 to quote Raiden, from metal gear: "I'll take that as a compliment"
Plus, unpopular opinion: Daggerfall is kinda better than Morrowind. Sure, the latter has a better ambience and a better magic system, a better story and better lore, but Daggerfall is just so big you can actually get lost in it, and that's better imo
My most memorable Daggerfall experience was getting sent to a ruined castle to kill a mummy and retrieve his wrappings as reagents for the Mages' Guild. I entered the spooky old ruin though the front door, and proceeded to meticulously work my way through the entirety of the enormous dungeon, carefully eliminating every enemy, checking every room... but when the dungeon was empty, I hadn't been able to locate the mummy in question. Puzzled, I wandered the halls of the castle for a while, before finally giving up. On my way out, on a whim I decided to circle around the perimeter of the structure and there it was: a partially obscured back entrance to the castle... I stepped inside and was transported to an entirely new instance of the same dungeon I had just agonizingly fought through, exact in every detail, with all the same monsters, save that in this instance in one of the rooms there was a mummy I could kill to get the reagent I needed. Awesome. I quit the game later when I encountered a game-breaking bug where a letter vital to the plot containing time-sensitive information was "delivered" to me but never actually materialized in my inventory, soft-locking the main questline. Thanks Bethesda!
Should have used console commands then
@@MGrey-qb5xzand you shouldn’t *need* to use console commands just to play the game’s main story
@@NicholasSeemann47 says who? The normies like you around which games are catered too now?
@@MGrey-qb5xz people with any sense of game design... Daggerfall released with an idiotic amount of stupid bugs that are noticeable within the first hour of gameplay. Not receiving letters for the main quest and being locked out of progression is egregious.
@@Nikarus2370 bro who tf are you trying to pretend you were part of the fanbase? no shit there were bugs for games this size, the difference is this isn't your nomie console games
LOL THE SAVE FAIL
I cry everytime :,(
@@FrostbreakYT I’ve done that so many times in Skyrim and Oblivion. 😢
We've all been there lol.
I've done this, it sucks. This is why I now have hundreds of manual saves haha
Play for enough years and it will happen. This is why I actually like autosaves. I normally abhor automated anything in my games, but I've done this too many times over the years to not appreciate the lifeline.
who doesn't save for 3 full hours?....dude!
People who grew up with autosaves and repeatable quest triggers.
@@KaftanIt shouldn't be that bad though and he should remember to save, I think his brain is just really smooth
Honestly if a game sucks you in and you're having fun it just kinda happens.
@@thesovietduck2121 he *did* save... the issue was he was continually saving over the same file so he didn't have a more recent backup.
@@1I1-III1so he didnt save.
Valiant effort Nerevar, now get back to the safe embrace of daddy dagoth
be silent n'wah
Don't need to tell me twice
you'll come back...they alwayys come back..
edit: this might be your best edit yet, im dying lol
Thanks
@@FrostbreakYT So many good mods. Check out the daggerfall modding scene and youll be back.
There is actually an enhanced main story mod out there already. I personally haven't tried it out but it might be worth a look. @FrostbreakYT
There is an enhanced main quest mod available. I personally haven't tried it myself, but it is out there.@FrostbreakYT
bethesda's games have trained me to compulsively save every like 6mins due to either softlocks or crashes.
As a woman with a job and a solid sleep schedule, I unashamedly use console commands to hop to exit doors and quest targets in this game when necessary. I love spending hours playing it, the story is great and a lot of the quests are funny, but I have to be in bed by ten and I don’t get home till 6. Next time you get the daggerfall itch, I really recommend trying that way!
Dope, I didn't think to do this. I have had to do this in Morrowind and Oblivion for accidental things that ended up being game locking bugs.
Good idea, same here, I barely have time. Would love to play but to abuse the idea of borrowing money across continents.
I do this for all Bethesda games lmao. Anytime a quest has me backtracking multiple times I teleport around with commands. Don’t care if I’m missing out on exploration or immersion, I got limited time in this world and I ain’t wasting it on tedium.
Saved my next playthrough I will remember to do this.
Basically, you Achieved CHIM. That fraud Vivec could never.
@@samuelbanya Do people seriously still play vanilla elderscrolls games? i cant play any without mods to fix everything
10:36 Oh...even if you had the right level, you'd have to come back anyway. Several times. It's actually pretty quick once you know the exact path.
btw recall spell there is not a good idea because the puzzle levers that unlock the door are on the outside, so you would get stuck there
Heeey it's Mr Just Background Noise from the hit channel JustBackgroundNoise
@@folgado7424 LOL
I understand your decision, Daggerfall is extremely hard to get into and enjoy for modern gamers, but at least you tried it and gave it a chance, which is more than most people.
people back then had way too much free time
@@DarukiNeo-il2jt It's more we just didn't know any better. It's like how we used to use arrow keys. It's obviously worse than wasd in hindsight, but you don't see that until you've become habituated to wasd.
There were no better RPGs at the time... well, not on PC at least. You could definitely say a bunch of console RPGs were, at least by many criteria, better, but not in others.
What were you going to do instead? Go watch cable TV? Watch a VHS? lol
@@seigeengine It's more like modern gamers have vastly reduced attention spans and are too used to modern vidya holding their hands too much.
I'm not gonna say Daggerfall is a masterpiece, but there haven't been that many better rpgs released since then (mostly because most of them are just exploration games with a very thin coat of rpg).
@@DominatorLegend I don't think that's entirely wrong, as a broader criticism, but the specific complaints in this video are mostly just about improving quality standards in game design, like having quest level requirements that aren't clearly communicated and you don't find out until you've already spent a ton of time in a dungeon. That is straight up just a worse way to design gameplay. Similarly, Skyrim is a great comparison in how, in Skyrim, there's almost always a quick exit to any dungeon of any size. That's not realistic in most cases, but it's a compromise to avoid players having to tediously backtrack through dungeons. Once you get used to just being able to quickly get out of dungeons you've already gone through, it feels really rough to go back to large dungeons where you do have to just backtrack through it all to leave. It's just worse. It makes the experience of the game worse for no substantive gain.
But even the hand-holding is often nice. Like, I like being able to just be told where to go to progress a quest. I prefer when I can toggle that so I can problem solve it myself, but sometimes the answer just isn't clear to me. Often in RPGs the thing to do to progress a quest is just unintuitive. There's a quest in Skyrim that annoyed me in Winterhold where the inn-keeper wants you to figure out what happened to the woman a drunkard was crushing on disappeared and he's been a blight ever since. Okay, so I should probably either look around the town to see if there's anything in the town or it's surroundings, and maybe try to talk to townspeople to see if anybody knows anything, right? No. I had to ask the inn-keeper's wife, who was standing next to him while he asked me to do this. I spent a good amount of time running around town talking to every other NPC I could and roaming around the nearby area to look for clues before I ultimately gave up and looked up what I was supposed to do. I even talked to the inn-keeper's wife! Guess what though? I can't get that dialogue option with her until I talk to the drunkard himself about the missing woman he was crushing on, something I wouldn't do because I wouldn't want to upset him pointlessly.
How was I supposed to discern that was the right course of action? Just try everything and brute force it? "Fun." Just give me a quest marker and let me be done with your nonsense quest.
Sure, you might say the problem is with the quest design not the lack of quest markers, but that's the thing: quests are going to be badly designed. Would you rather be sat there for hours trying every possible answer you can think of, or looking up an external walkthrough, or would you rather be able to just see where to go and be done with it?
@@seigeengineDiablo
I think every reason you dislike Daggerfall is a reason people like Daggerfall.
for the most part, yeah. I find it very immersive how the game doesn't hold your hand.
Agreed.
Agreed 👍
@@karfumble i feel like being outright told you aren't high enough level to proceed (even though you just beat a difficult dungeon to prove you ARE capable) would break immersion more than anything
I mean, you can't even pet the cat :(
I think it might be time for a change of scenery. There were many things I genuinely enjoyed about Daggerfall but it wasn't worth the tilt. Oblivion is something I would also like to try, along with my first ever fallout game (idk which ones are good so I'll put out a poll or something). Who knows... maybe even Bloodmoon...
Oblivion you'll enjoy a lot more but the OG fallout games yeah you'll probably get mad since they're pretty hard, especially the 2nd one with the last boss you have to fight in the game which he is insanely hard to kill.
I don't mind difficult combat whatsoever (almost all of my favourite RPGs are known for hard combat). I just prefer encounters that take skill over luck is all.
OBLIVION!!
Soon... Soon...
@@FrostbreakYTyeah I think the early fallouts are a bit easier to enjoy than early Elder Scrolls in my opinion. Naturally Id suggest New Vegas but all of them up to 4 are pretty solid I think, although 3 to 4 are definitely Bethesda games 😂😂
I watched you click "save" at 2:05 and started screaming at the screen. My wife came to ask me if I was OK, and got here at the frame where you had the caption up on the screen "I say no for a full minute" and she saw that, stopped mid-sentence, and left
Everyone watching was re-enacting that Punisher meme: "NO NO NO WAIT WAIT WAIT!"
It’s incredible how a lack of patience or inability to read lead to him blaming the game, game still sucks tho
Typical Skyrim player. This guy can vote btw.
@@fishmasterdan-x1qhe literally said it was his fault?
@@TheBayzentWhy are you so pressed over him overwriting his save lol.
Playing an a rpg in a hurry is a sure fire way to have a bad time, so focused on the destination you resent the journey
Yeah the best approach to Daggerfall is to play it like an RPG, a life sim, like a combat oriented Sims game. Like Project Zomboid, but with an optional main quest. Get into a guild, do quests for it, level up, get stronger, do dungeons, etc. Take a bank loan, buy a house, buy a ship. Explore the game mechanics. NOT rush through it.
exactly. especiallly daggerfalll. I dont know what his aim is, speed run the main story? the main story is only a fraction of why people love daggerfall.
@@peacefusion I guess he was just expecting it to play like Morrowind, which is silly seeing as the progression of the series is very obviously from TTRPG to ARPG, and I myself also played backwards from Skyrim to Arena, so when I got to Daggerfall I had an open mind for even more in-depth RPG mechanics and even less action RPG/handholding/linearity. Idk why he didn't share that mindset, possibly because of him being a content creator and wanting to be done with the game ASAP rather than going through it casually from time to time. Who knows.
@@AlphaGarg This is super interesting. You went backwards and I started with these games, and prefer later games in this franchise. But then again I can't stand any TTRPG other than Cyberpunk and that's mostly for the lore reasons. I tried D&D a while back and was bored out of my mind with my group.
@@peacefusion Because he wanted to interact with the hand crafted content, and not the procedurally generated content. That hand crafted content is the main quest, and everything else is procedurally generated. Basically it’s the starfield problem, but even worse. Starfield has a good chunk of handcrafted content which is good, but if you step off the beaten path you’ll enter procedurally generated content which for a lot of the modern gaming audience is a slog, and not wanted.
You can spend thousands of hours in this game yes, but 90% of that will be entirely non handcrafted content. It will be radiant quest after radiant quest, going into procedurally generated dungeon after procedurally generated dungeon, and getting randomized loot after randomized loot. Like I said before a lot of the modern gaming audience hates this style of gameplay now, and to make it force you into doing radiant quests is an utter failing of that game. A main quest should be playable if you can do it, and shouldn’t halt you because of an arbitrary number you need to meet. Especially after running through the dungeon, and proving you can deal with the challenge.
Man this is one of the funniest sagas I’ve seen on UA-cam in a while. RIP Daggerfall.
Its ironic that your pain of this game and your livestream is actually what convinced me to pick the game up, and I am having a blast!
Its definitely a game of vibes, and if you are just rushing the main quest, its easy to see the frustration. I do hope you come back though. Thanks for getting me into it!
i wish i could see the livestream
100% mad because hes rushing DAGGERFALL. Elden Ring humbled a lot of new gamers not to rush main story. theres a life lesson here.
@@peacefusion i don't necessarily think its comparable to Elden Ring, more so due to the fact that a lot of the game is proc gen, He saw a lot of what the game was in the moment to moment. All that was really left was the handmade content that was blocked. Especially when trying to make a video for content, he pretty much nailed a lot of what DG has to offer. Ironically, treating it like a CoD or Madden type game may be in its benefit. Like you log in, play a couple matches, and you are done for the day. You log into tamriel, do a dungeon or two, and you are done for the day. Probably how a lot of people played it in the 90's. Though I do say it makes a great streaming game. Lots of time for Chat while still being entertaining.
Rushing to do the main quest = the wrong way to play the game. That's what I did on my first playthrough and it was horrible. But then I did a more "enlightened" playthrough, where I took my time and built up thoroughly. The main quest was a piece of cake.
You play Daggerfall to chill in dungeons where tou get lost for 3 hours. You DON'T play Daggerfall for story or smooth experience. Story is buried deep and needs lots of digging and several replays, smooth experience in Buggerfall is a priori impossible
yeah sounds awful lol
@@Scar8307 Gives you more room to craft your own story your way, and you will have a unique experience to basically anyone who has completed the game in the end.
I play Daggerfall to steal a bunch of books and horses from stores while a ghost screams "VENGENCE!" in my ear.
@@AeridisArt least based daggerfall enjoyer
@@queuedjar4578 what? Too scared to commit felonies while being chased by a violent ghost?
Everything I've seen of this game so far tells me that, yes, it's huge... it's absolutely enormous... but that's mostly empty space. Most of that hugeness is pointless, and not only would the game not suffer by reducing the size of the map and the size of the dungeons, but the game would more than likely be vastly improved if it were the case.
I saw a video that showed how large the map is - a person sped up time of them travelling on foot from one town to another going on about the vastness of it all... but all that travelling, all that time spent wandering - the same tree sprites and rock sprites in an otherwise completely empty world the whole way.
Easy to make a big game when the "bigness" is empty space. Easy to make big dungeons when it's just a confusing labyrinth that serves no purpose other than to chew away at time.
A while ago I was thinking of getting Daggerfall to play it, so I looked up gameplay, but even the gameplay that PRAISES the game shows me that it's not something worth trying.
Daggerfall is the very definition of "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle."
And this puddle has stagnated for three decades as well.
See here's the thing. I told people in my friend group for years why I prefered Morrowind up over the first 2 ES games. Yes I'm old enough to have played both Arena and Daggerfall, anyhow, I told them at one point I'd take 10 Skyrims over Daggerfall anyday, and they acted like I murdered their whole family. Is Skyrim, Or Oblivion perfect? No. Are they better? I'd, without a doubt, say hell yes!
Sidenote: Morrowind is my favorite of the 3, but I still have more time on Skyrim than any other of the 3: Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim. And that's Vanilla Skyrim, before I built a new PC after years of not owning a gaming one.
I played quite possibly a hundred games over the last 25 years.
And I can say with full confidence that Daggergfall is by far the worst experience with any game I ever had.
Yea easy now when you can tell chatgpt to make it for you.
1996 bud
@@smokeyhoodoo I don't know if you're making an excuse for Daggerfall being bad or what, but there are games that came out in 1996 that still hold up today. Even games that came out before 96 like Ocarina of Time have extremely small maps but feel massive because Nintendo is actually _good_ at making games.
I completed the original DOS version of Daggerfall many years ago. Unity with mods looks good. One of these days, I might have to get into it again. Daggerfall and Morrowind may be frustrating at times, but they offer depth and complexity that is lacking in later Elder Scrolls games.
Unity is always a couple of button presses away from downloading it
When you want a story, they lack any real depth at all.
But they were old-school RPGs set to imitate the tabletop RPG experience, so they have a sort of freedom that appeals to a lot of players tired of modern games handholding them the whole way through.
Personally, I don't think Daggerfall offers much in the modern era. It has all the things I hated about Skyrim, the constant radiant quests that don't interest me, but very little of the enjoyable handcrafted content that Bethesda is slowly moving away from and as a result ruining their games.
Daggerfall gets away with it because it was older. It was essentially the start of the franchise, where the lore actually started to be canon (Arena is a jumbled mess and most of it is not at all canon), and it was in an era where that kind of freedom was appreciated. It's just that nowadays it doesn't really compare to a tailored RPG experience. It's no Oblivion, but I think it's a pretty cool game if you don't compare it too heavily to other games and just appreciate it for what it is.
Morrowind is peak elders Scrolls imo
@@Lucifronz Daggerfall was an impressive experiment for its time, but it has its problems. Writing has never been a great strength for Bethesda, and this goes all the way back. Daggerfall is great for RPG math nerds and those who like to dig into a systemically complex game, figure out how it operates under the hood, and over the course of game play, develop an absurdly broken character. Since I'm a 1980s nerd who used to sector edit floppy disks in an effort to understand and modify games, this is right up my alley. Still, I think Morrowind is a far more satisfying experience overall, and Oblivion is also quite strong.
@@lorvaton I agree, though Oblivion has its strong points too.
Manniamrco actually escape Coldharbour at one point so no, him being in Daggerfall is totally plausible
The "you drop exhausted" is your stamina being depleted (its a exhaustion bar in Daggerfall) you should never enter dungeon while its low and never progress below 1/4, find some place to rest
That stream was a good time! (And thanks for the shoutout!)
The pain of wiping a save, though... I know that misery well.
I think that enjoyment you described during your summary is what people love about Daggerfall. You've seen it, you've felt it. There's something beautiful in there, and at least you got to enjoy that side of Daggerfall. It's unfortunate that you struggled with the main quest the way you did and it was ultimately too much to bear, but I respect the conclusion you came to after all that.
Also, I tried looking for a mod that removes the level restrictions on the main quest, but I can't find one, and I'm surprised by that. I did find one that totally removes it and gives you updates on an unseen NPC that's doing the main quest, though lol
I loved Daggerfall for the things mentioned by both of you. I originally played it a year after it came out (and used arrow keys to get around). My time with Daggerfall was originally very short due to the huge dungeons that might not have the item you were sent to find or you fall through the walls and died somewhere in the abyss. I was in my 30s at the time and had a full time job and family to care for. So my playtime was limited. The game came with a couple of booklets and I thought one of them mentioned that you should spend time in a guild or guilds to get your levels up (I also had - STILL HAVE - The Daggerfall Chronicles so that might have mentioned it). The reason for leveling is as far as I can remember, the creatures did not level with you. Therefore it was necessary to be a higher level character before you tackled the end game main quest. As mentioned in this video, Unity does indeed fix a lot of bugs that were in the original game. It also has some great settings such as "smaller dungeons" which greatly reduces the size of non-main story line dungeons. When I tipped my toe back into Daggerfall, I opted to use a few mods to modernize the graphics a bit. I didn't want to turn it into Oblivion which I love. But I had a hard time reading the old text.
Having said all of that, this video had me laughing so hard I woke up my cat. Great job on the entertainment value and perhaps getting more of your generation to give this very difficult game a try. You can get all of that frustration and adventure for free!
This game was made by like 12 people
They physically sent me a copy of a 3.5” floppy disk to patch the game because it had some major bugs (you could only be a wereboar and not a werewolf , major crashes etc)
But it was such a cool game to play as a teenager in winter it 96 - titties everywhere , massive open world
Skyrim is my favorite but I loved how the original games felt like an actual huge world with millions of people in it
Whatever you were up to was just a small part if the big world
Ive loved watching your channel grow! The editing and narrating is getting better and better
Thank you Xyphryi! I spent quite a bit longer making this one than my other two. But I didn't want to skimp on the finale :)
"It makes no sense that a woman locked in a tower, who sees her first visitor in God knows how long, just tells them to fuck off." - I guess you don't have much experience dealing with introverts?
Especially introverts with immense magical powers
schizoid sorceress
@@H41030v3rki110ny0u Stop it, I'm already in love
@@Ryu1ify The fact she locks the doors again after you leave should also be a sign she doesn't want to be bothered.
There's introvert, and then there's Stockholm syndrome.
Daggerfalls biggest problem is that it's from a time when people played games just to play them, no achievements, no speedrunners, no completionist, no balancing, just games with little to no standardization. If you want to just wander around and do some of the stuff you come across, Daggerfall is nice. Just lacking by todays standards.
not enough dopamine hits for the younger generation.
@@xenopsychologist4943 And too hard. The reason I stand by Skyrim being one of the best games... is because it is easy and still fun to play. Tons of games become pretty boring if you make them easy be it with cheats, with an easy mode or with a mod, but Skyrim is easy even in the hardest difficulty and is freaking fun. I have psychomotor problems that prevent me from building up dexterity skills in my hands, this means I quite literally can't "get good" at games unless they are something like turn based games, so games either become impossible or I have to cheat or I have to select a level of difficulty that takes away the fun from the game. Skyrim is great because it manages to be somewhat fun and addicting without having one shred of difficulty.
@@diablo.the.cheater got to where you said youre a cripple. so your opinion isnt really useful.
skyrim is the least played elder scrolls for me explicitly because it does indeed stop being fun. no amount of being infantile makes it keep being fun after it wears out its welcome.
being easy is even the last thing on the list of reasons its boring and, after going through it once, theres no need to touch it again. its just one of the problems with it.
i dont know why you brought your weakness before me as though it makes something terrible into the best thing ever.
@@xenopsychologist4943 Got to the part where you were an asshole, so your opinion isn’t really useful.
Just because you don’t like something that someone else does doesn’t magically mean you’re right you know? As if you are superior in some way for liking the antiquated game. And you’re allowed to like Daggerfall, but just because you like something doesn’t mean it’s “good”. Good means different things for different people
@@xenopsychologist4943 got to the point where you said you're an ableist. so your opinion isn't really useful.
I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get into this game. Doing procedurally-generated dungeon after procedurally-generated dungeon to complete very simple procedurally-generated quests over and over again just isn’t very fun, regardless of how deep the roleplaying is (and yes, it’s very deep). There’s a certain quality of immersion that comes from this, but I’d rather take Morrowind’s roleplaying immersion with genuinely hand-crafted content or Skyrim’s “world interactivity” immersion (I don’t know how to describe it), and regardless, I’d just have more fun actually _playing_ those games. Daggerfall’s main story is actually really neat on paper, but playing through it is not.
I see why a lot of people love this game, and maybe I’ll come around to it one day. For now, though, I’m fine sticking with the last three mainline games. And it’s not because they’re “simpler” or “baby-brained” (as people like to say about Skyrim), it’s because they’re actually fun to play. I’d rather take a “simple” game that’s fun and full of hand-crafted content over a “complex” game that’s tedious and almost entirely procedurally-generated.
Anyway, I salute you for giving it a thorough try. I know you said something about doing Oblivion next, but hopefully you do Bloodmoon at some point as well (trust me, it’s much, much better than Tribunal).
This is how i look at it, and the reason I REALLY enjoy games like Oblivion, Fallout NV and Fallout 4, even Skyrim as long as it's modded with more depth to the skill system. The world matters more then "Omg they took away my nUmBeRs!"
For me this is literally the only TES game that got me somewhat hooked. Neither Oblivion nor Skyrim kept me interested for more than 2 hours. In general I can't stand modern bethesda games. This one is different tho.
@@Waskomsause Also if the world matter more to you, then why does every single modern Bethesda game's world not make believable sense even on the surface level if you spend more than 3 seconds turning on your brain and actually observing and thinking about your surroundings while playing? Daggerfall actually requires LESS suspension of belief to be a believable world than any bethesda title to release after it.
What a weird, completely bizarre take 😂 @@queuedjar4578
I found you through Daggerfall content, I grew up watching my dad play it and sometimes we’ll go and play the unity version even then it’s kind of an acquired taste so definitely get credit for trying. Can’t wait to see what content you post next.
Welcome to the Club!
You now understand the games pains a little bit...many of us played for years and even with a game guide it left us forever in game anxiety of needing extra saves, many saves, creating the "right" build first time, and never making a bad decision (even if its just walking through the wrong door)....this has haunted us for years, now you too can enjoy/reminisce this anxiety a bit with us :)
Watching videos of you suffering is enough for me to want more Daggerfall content
Simply put - dungeons in Daggerfall are the worst. If you go in blind, you might go: wow, SO MANY DUNGEONS.
But the split second you hit a big one, you realize what's in store. Good luck if you don't have the Recall spell or have poor orientation.
Ah yes Daggerfall. The game where you can beat a dungeon, and at the end, be told you're too weak to beat the dungeon 😅
14:33 wish id see this video when it was released so i could say this then, but just found your channel, and have to say you did not fail as a content creator, i hope you no longer feel that way bro for me at least, thanks to this video you saved god knows how many hours of my time spared this crap game, thank you.
4:40 that's the content i'm always waiting for
12:19 nah, that actually makes perfect sense man. But this was a good bit and I enjoyed your acting. Well done.
Thousands of people online who have watched a youtube essay or two and played a handful of hours of Daggerfall Unity will SWEAR UP AND DOWN that it's the ultimate RPG and a genuine gaming masterpiece, but as someone who literally grew up playing this game with my dad, absolute maxed out nostalgia goggles PLUS a decent playthrough of Unity, the game fucking sucks dude. It's a miracle of game design for 1996 and it has some truly groundbreaking ideas about what a CRPG could be, as well as maybe being the first authentic example of an "open world" game as we think of it today.
It has the beginning of every cool idea you've ever had about an open world RPG, but it doesn't go farther than that, because there wasn't a history of open world and CRPG design to pull from, they didn't have 200 employees working around the clock for years, and they didn't have the limitless budgets of games today, this is a niche product made for enthusiasts by enthusiasts. You can specialize in any number of languages, but all it does is give you another option to avoid specific combat encounters with generic NPCs. You could take climbing and be a burglar, but it doesn't have Thief to use as an example for what really great stealth gameplay looks like, so it just ends up being pretty useless. You could spec into specific schools of magic, but the practical use cases within the game world are fireballs and teleporting, everything else is just fluff.
The real disappointment is that there's this awesome template, all these systems that aren't utilized by the game world itself due to time and financial constraints, and instead of building total world conversions and adding genuine depth to the sandbox of Daggerfall, people are concerned with polishing up the textures and making it more user friendly.
Daggerfall is the epitome of "I watched a youtube video about a game and it made me feel smart so I'm gonna say that's my favorite game without bothering to play it", which you'd think is a pretty small sample size but is like half of the online gaming discourse now.
Funny thing is, a good chunk of the mods that "improve" the graphics is either half done, or uses an ai tool that makes so everything looks like melted clay and acts like it actually looks good, people really should focus on modding the systems and exploration instead of trying to fool themselves with the idea that upscaled and barely photoshopped textures look good 💀
No, there are practical uses for every spell in the game, and all of the spells have implemented mechanics. There are no fluff spells. People don't like it because of videos, they like it because it's fun.
you right but im excited for the wayward realms dude i think they're gonna nail it this time
@@HiAgainTheNameIsStillAyle The AI upscaling really isn't great and it is starting to take over some stuff in DFUnity's modding scene sadly (like the literal hentai skin mod is egregious and divisive in the community itself, I just have to hope most people enjoy it ironically more than anything). The best mods for the game are ones that keep Daggerfall's original cozy 90's RPG aesthetic, because that's the game's natural inclination and best suit for it. Stuff like DREAM is very nice to see and took a lot of effort, but it really is a different vibe from base Daggerfall because it really does warp the art style and feel into something new, and ultimately it will clash with the more limited graphical aspects of the game.
@@mrosskne If you're actually someone who's played and enjoyed Daggerfall I'd urge you to go play a levels of Ultima Underworld to see what I'm talking about, particularly as a caster. It's got a tight little skill and magic system where everything you can do serves a significant gameplay purpose. We both know that you're not going to do that, because you didn't actually play Daggerfall, you watched that Jwlar video and just adopted his opinions.
bro who save whole playthruogh in a quicksave?
skyrim and it's consequences have been a disaster for the RPG race.
5:56 "... she doth suspect you cuckold her ..." 💀
The issue with Daggerfall is that, like Arena, it's a Dungeon Crawler, it's NOT a Roleplaying game with engaging choices and consequences, if you don't like dungeon crawling niche genre, you won't enjoy Daggerfall, that's why I'm hesitant to play Daggerfall after Arena since Daggerfall looks pretty much like same gameplay formula but slightly better quests and map
You gave it your best shot. For the record, I'm with you man. There's times I really enjoyed Daggerfall also but it was hard for me to stay engaged and I hate the way the main quest progresses.
Would be interested in seeing you return to Morrowind and try out Tamriel Rebuilt
Love the videos. Great stuff. Keep it up
The save fail lol but also read the dialogue before you say yes or no bro 😂
I only ever got into the habit of going "Yeah, yeah, whatever, skip" to the event news popups in Destiny 2 back when I was still playing. Everything else in game I read unless I accidentally press a button because I'm focused and my finger ends up putting too much pressure on the controller or keyboard.
This is the legit the first time I've seen another person, apparently, gloss over a field of important text in a video game and just click without thinking.
10:18 the cat in the corner staring directly at you while you have a breakdown makes this so much better
That save thing is like... you just inadvertantly clicked on the wrong button by not reading what was on screen, and then you immediately go and do it again T.T
Dude, awesome videos. Keep it up. Love your style😊
good video, nice content, seethin daggerboomers
Bro I really like your Daggerfall video! I appreciate you taking the time to attempt this game because it took far too much patience for myself. It was really fun to watch and you’re very funny. I will absolutely watch more Daggerfall videos if you make them even though it might not happen. I hope you find those mods that fix the annoyances because this was a very entertaining video!
Yeah, I think playing the game in order to get to the hand-crafted content is the wrong approach. This game is all about procedural generation and if you don't care about that, you won't care about Daggerfall. The story is neat, but it shouldn't be the main draw.
Exactly. Daggerfall is an amazing dungeon craweler.
Daggerfall ASKS the player character what you want to do, every other Elder Scrolls game basically instructs the player on what they should do. Daggerfall and especially DFUnity allows you to make your own story your own way with more player control than any other Elder Scrolls title and it stands out among the best examples of actual role playing in the genre's history. One of my most unique playthroughs didn't even center around combat, but the horrors of _finance_ . I became a literal real estate mogul by investing ownership in shops and buying and selling property in an attempt to pay off loans.
@@queuedjar4578 "Daggerfall ASKS the player character what you want to do"
Ok, i want to play the main quest.
Daggerfall - "TOO BAD".
@@LilyMoonWitch The main quest having a level cap is more of a precaution, and a suggestion from the game that you get stronger and engage with its other content/systems before taking it on. It is the only hard restriction in the entire game. Even so, you still have the option to straight up not do it. In literally every other TES game, the quest stays there forever indefinitely, it does not respond to your deliberate act to ignore or not do it. The game asks you, and responds accordingly. It does not just force an unchanging option onto you.
You gained a new sub good sir. Also, i demand a uncensored screenshot at 6:53 lol.
10:22 It tried to tell you that you weren't leveled enough for rhat part... That's why everything was beating the brakes off you 😂
Love the content. Play something you enjoy! Happy to see what you do next. Cheers!
I don't like it either. The only build I kinda liked was a warewolf. Totally overpowered. But I don't like the crime and punishment system, I don't like how half the NPCs are animated signs with no purpose that you cannot even attack. I don't like shops. I don't like how stealth doesn't work. I don't like the dialog system which is overly complex for what it is really doing. The world is too big and samey to be immersed in. I never "learned" the layout of something or felt at home in a location. The way magic items work is not fun. I'm sorry fanboys but it's a shit game that was simply very advanced and ambitious for its era. But I have tons of games from that era that I still play. Daggerfall has simply aged horribly. I have not played Arena but I suspect I'll like it better. And don't get me wrong Daggerfall is VERY impressive. It's insane that something of this scale (in terms of mechanics) was made back then and I'm thankful it was made even if only for what it led to.
From what I've heard Arena is both better and worse at the same time
It's supposed to emulate the table top experience of rpgs , what you're describing are action rpgs
@@MGrey-qb5xz I play tabletop RPGs and like them. I do not think that they translate well into video games. But in any case which parts of what I dislike about Daggerfall are an emulation of tabletop RPGs?
@@1NSHAME that and the unawareness of using console commands and mods to smoothen the experince. it's a game just made for nerds, playing it like a normie will just put you off
@@MGrey-qb5xzUsing mods and console commands makes you a normie, kid. You haven't actually beaten the game.
You may not go back to daggerfall but I’ll be going back to your channel for every upload great commentary and editing looking forward to what you do next
Goes to show how used to auto-saving and checkpoints we are
Keep up the good work! The vids are awesome!
skill issue 😂
real talk tho, having two saves separated by a full hour is fucking wild in any Elder Scrolls game.
It's literally not i never save in Skyrim until I stop playing that session so I go hours never auto saving I don't need to because I never get soft locked I just deal with the regular consequences of screwing up
@The_MEMEphis it's more about having played glitchy Bethesda games and always expecting a crash.
@The_MEMEphis Glitches, crashes, NPC's blocking the doorway, accidentally picking up a plant and getting kicked from a guild and having 20 angry NPC's charging at you, a roommate requesting you help them with something.
All of these are worth backup saves.
Morrowind oblivion and Skyrim have never had that issue because you only needed the manual save on one slot, he just fucked up and over saved the wrong slot
He’s lucky he had that second save slot at all
Please power through, loving the videos and love your perspective as someone who has never played the game either
Still better than any Bethesda game of last 13 years.
Few things I wanted to say:
I got recommended your morrowind videos which actually got me to finally play it (I bought it over a decade ago, but didn’t know it had 3rd person so never finished making a character.
I’ve got 1000’s of hours in oblivion and skyrim, and this almost tempted me to try daggerfall, but man, there’s so many other games on my backlog that I think I’d be better of playing right now, I can just tell, it’s a game that needs so many mods like the level req one to actually not be awful to my time limitations, props to you for putting in the effort you did, going in as blind as almost a new player when it launched had I to guess.
The game did warn you, by placing endgame enemies in the dungeon on the path to medora. Daggerfall does not expect players to throw themselves at the mq asap.
That’s bullshit, you’re just supposed to know which enemies are endgame even though you can still fight them?
If you didnt take the hint from dying and reloading against a lich or seducer 50 times thats what we call a skill issue my guy.
As a huge fan of older games, the type of frustration they cause is unlike anything else😂😂😂😂
You had finally met the original Mannimarco... sad...
Don't give up! Keep going!!
Oh well, you tried. I am currently playing a heavily modded game of Daggerfall, but it has a little bit of a crusader kings 3 effect on me being willing to try the same thing & learning to get better each try even in failure.
Thanks for taking us on your ride. I think I'd feel absolutely the same.
Not gonna lie, Daggerfall seems to be compensating for quality with its enormous world size. Kinda bad game design.
This was so funny i subbed tbh please make more
I have never seen "skill issue" of this magnitude in my life.
bro ive been so interested in daggerfall for so long but never bothered to look into it further. i watched other people play short clips of it but this series has been such a ride if you ever continued to play the game i will watch every minute of it like i did the rest was so funny to watch in some bits.
This has been an entertaining series, I really enjoyed seeing your perspective! I felt that you gave the whole experience a genuinely good attempt, trying your best to enjoy the game, but coming to some valid criticisms and problems.
I can't wait to see you try arena. I've been playing through it lately for the first time, and have actually been enjoying it. It has its own problems (the dungeons can feel a bit long at times), but the handcrafted-ness is much more apparent in the main quest. don't go into it expecting an open world experience, it is a 90's dungeon crawler with a few overworld elements. Also, read the manual... it is a game that expects you to have read the manual before you play. If you don't you're gonna have a bad time.
I've tried to play Daggerfall whole last week. And i just loved it! Well, first 20 hours. But then my amount of anger and ragequitting was insane. There was so many bugged quests and dungeons just wasted my time, i was constantly reloading my previous saves all the time because of quests just did not work. After Lord K'avar quest bugged to softlock (with me fighting with endless pack of enemies after rest) i just quit the game.
But i still feel that urge to come back. God damnit i hate it
I was hype when you randomly typed shut into the secret door in Shedungent. Thought we had a real chance of rolling an RNG 'shut up'
We need that bloodmoon dlc and tamriel rebuilt vids before you do oblivion.
7:20 you got real lucky you found Mannimarco early on instead of taking the wrong route and getting lost in the dungeon for 3 hours
as a dungeon crawler fan 3 hours sounds a blast
@@waterboy7985 Same but boy that dungeon is rough when you're just looking for Mannimarco and you clear out the whole dungeon of zombies instead
Take a habit of the old neckbeards with savegames, make a plethora of different saves and name them depending on your goal. "save early, save often" - Al Lowe
safety saves are nowhere near a neckbeard thing.
This makes me glad that Oblivion was my first real foray into the Elder Scrolls series. Even though I technically tried Morrowind for 10 minutes on a friend's Xbox. Daggerfall would have fallen into the stack of PC games I couldn't figure what I was supposed to do and then sat unplayed for years until we got rid of them, like Myst and one of the King's Quest games. But I was probably just too young for them. Also, it's an Elder Scrolls game, how do you not have a chain of 8 or so saves you rotate between in case something bugs out and you need to go back and try again?
I gave up on this game a while back and recently decided to give it another chance with mods. I found out if you try to play it like Skyrim, you'll have a bad time
If only skyrimjob had cool first entries like fallout :(
I definitely don’t think it’s healthy for you to continue. If you want to see what you’d be getting yourself into at a higher level, I STRONGLY advise just watching someone going through the final dungeon. No spoilers required or anything, just watch them traverse the absolute nightmare that is the last dungeon of the game. It’s garbage. And it’s that way because main story dungeon generate large no matter what settings you have on to reduce dungeon size. And on top of that, you can literally soft lock yourself out of the ending in the literal last dungeon, by simply walking through the wrong door and getting trapped in a cage. Daggerfall lowkey has some of the most abysmal game design I’ve ever seen.
The most frustrating thing too is when people cope with "it's just bad because it's old" this was the same time period that ultima, theog baldurs gates and actually good 90s RPGs were being made
Daggerfal is special, but it's also special. No need for excuses. Hopefully mods continue to improve it.
@@Steven-dp1kzAll of those games have aged somewhat but Daggerfall was notably buggy and mechanically wonky on _release_
lol actually dying in a dungeon, like literally dying cause of it's nature seems like the point
welcome to when games kicked you in the teeth and you came back for more
Your video: Properly saying "No thanks" to a game revered as good by many, with proper examples and feedback.
That's what I wanted to see in this video.
That's why I initially recommended that you react to another video review of the game, instead of playing it too much. Especially if you ended up losing your mind trying to adapt to the game.
I have about 12 hours of gameplay. They were not all pleasant.
I'm not counting the "setup" and "looking for other mods" part.
Now, I'm okay with only watching others play the game.
My favorite youtuber back playing my favorite games
It’s not recommended to play the main story just go into town buy stuff, stay at inns, and get quests. That’s pretty Mitch the gameplay loop and later on you can do things like summon the daedric gods and create your own spells
I've become a fucking airship pirate and a real estate mogul before in Daggerfall, all without touching the main quest.
haha great video, and you've even made it slightly further than me. I think there's something missing from your experience;
1) this game would have been mind blowing (but bad original controls)
2) you'd often only have 1 game for the year, maybe even a few years, so padding out a game was common. Not to mention that side quests weren't a thing for most people, so encouraging people to do that kind of stuff was kind of important... but yeah, there was better ways to do it now XD
love your videos on this, I've not played heavily modified versions, maybe one last video with as much as possible?
I'm pretty sure I'm old enough to be your father and even I understand where you're coming from in not wanting to keep going with Daggerfall. It's... rough.
I've been in that situation before where you overwrite a save and lose so much progress you want to cry.
Thankfully in my case (a different game) I was able to recover it from a system folder at the last minute.
I have been very careful about saving since.
Half of daggerfall is stressing over not getting perma locked out of the main quest
The fact you can just say "no" to the main quest is low-key hilarious.
Man I was waiting for the day he’d play Daggerfall long term. It’s so fun and it isn’t just luck. You gotta build a good character, get timing right. I’m disappointed you couldn’t enjoy the same game as me
Yup, don’t blame ya
7:30 King of Worms actually said please XD
as the same skyrim zoomie, your daggerfall, morrowind, oblivion vids are super fun.. and I crave.. more
i get the frustration... but isn't daggerfall just a dungeon crawler? the main story is just there to facilitate the dungeon crawling right? even if you hadn't spent that time in the dungeon and been told to come back... wouldn't you just have been in another dungeon?
genuinely just asking XD
Depends on if you have mods or not. Mods make it so you can do countless quests and make a living without even touching dungeons.
@Cjak001 I'm kinda curious on these mods as like, that's the entire point of the game and perhaps what keeps it not boring. Love to see how they are implemented.
@@Cjak001 that's interesting actually since he said he's annoyed with the level restriction because the game has so little content that isn't procedurally generated, having mods that add more actual quests would probably be a good idea for him, since the game is so old just running it requires mods he may as well, better to experience the game at its best than force himself to try and have the authentic experience XD
I will say, hearing your constant groaning about overwriting your save you needed to load filled me with some satisfaction. It is so relateable. I am glad you got to share it with us and not be as alone.
You didn't waste your time. You were grinding to the level the quest needs you to. Think of that hour and half being an hour and half closer to the next quest line.
You certainly put more effort and time in this game than I ever did and I appreciate that so I could still see more of the game and enjoy it that way
6:43 ermm, actually 🤓, the game set 25 years before Oblivion
Hope you'll be back these videos were great
Bloodmoon is waiting