Daggerfall Unity Combat Tutorial

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
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Jay_H
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Daggerfall Unity Combat Tutorial

Post by Jay_H »

I made a video to showcase some of the skills a person can use to fight more effectively in Daggerfall Unity. I didn't do any voice-overs and the editing is primitive, so most of the information is down in the description. Still, it may be useful to teach people how to get better at Daggerfall combat. No game from Arena to Skyrim gives you so much ability to determine how your fights will end as Daggerfall does. I'm looking forward to seeing some more Ironman players improve and go farther!


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bearhead
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Re: Daggerfall Unity Combat Tutorial

Post by bearhead »

Yeah Daggerfall Unity definitely has better combat than Morrowind and probably also Skyrim (I haven't played Arena or Oblivion). I was actually pretty surprised how much more finesse it takes compared to those other two games where you basically slug it out toe-to-toe and hope to win (unless you're abusing stealth perks in Skyrim)

Its pretty cool how you can feint and then lunge in for an attack (or two if your character is fast enough). The attack patterns also keeps things interesting - especially when a nightblade catches you with their 3-strike combo and poisons you!

Regnier
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Re: Daggerfall Unity Combat Tutorial

Post by Regnier »

This is something ive thought about a bit, the way combat is actually supposed to work.
Ive played a tiny bit with the original control scheme of moving the mouse around the screen.
With this, movement during combat becomes more difficult, making the dodging skill actually useful.
Right now a character with enough speed can just...move.
Is the modern and tight control system taking away from some of the game systems?
The stick and move style is fun until you very soon start 2 or 3 shotting most things and barely getting hit.
It would be cool if there was a noticable gameplay difference between a warrior and a thief (backstabbing, critical striking and dodging). The armor would hinder the agile thief who doesnt intend on getting hit whereas the warrior needs the armor to be the tank.

For instance climbing should be very difficult for someone without the skill selected and/or wearing heavy armor.

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Jay_H
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Re: Daggerfall Unity Combat Tutorial

Post by Jay_H »

Daggerfall Unity definitely has better combat than Morrowind and probably also Skyrim (I haven't played Arena or Oblivion).
I've played every mainline TES game, and Oblivion is the one that I think has the best combat after Daggerfall (combat staggering aside). It gives you a few options to avoid damage and take the advantage in combat. I still think Daggerfall's combat is the most varied, though.
Right now a character with enough speed can just...move.
Is the modern and tight control system taking away from some of the game systems?
Combat in Daggerfall was actually much easier than in DFU. In Daggerfall the enemies had specific "ready" frames, usually about a third of a second, before they attack. Once you knew they were getting ready, you could dodge it easily. DFU sometimes omits the ready frames; in the video you can see the Orc put his weapon up before swinging, but that's the only example I have in the video that they exist.

I think there will be mods that add more variety to the combat system; for example, making movement while shooting a bow impossible, heavy armor weighing you down, being able to block directly with a shield, implementing sidestep dodges, and so on.

But I think Daggerfall's combat works the way they intended it to. Without the ability to move in and out of combat, the game becomes a Morrowind-esque dice roll, and that's a much more limited system IMO.

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