Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

[Werewolf]

Say what you will, but Daggerfall has the best damn cover art in the entire franchise.
(sorry for the large image size)
tes_covers.jpg


Additional thoughts: Dark and gritty has always been good for advertising, they knew what they were doing with this cover. Regardless, to me the cover represents Daggerfall just fine. Daggerfall is probably the darkest tone and most visually violent game of the franchise, the second is Skyrim. There’s a fair amount of dark-fantasy, reminiscent of some old horror games, combined with the high-fantasy in this game. DF has gory dead enemy flats, many dungeon flats are grotesque and disgusting, zombies, skeletons, lamias, etc. are actually scary compared enemies in later games, creepy random sounds in dungeons and outside at night, eerie music themes for dungeons and night, vampire faces albeit cliché are a bit disturbing, vampire/werewolf cutscenes are a bit morbid but still tame in comparison to the rest of the game, daedra princes you summon appear dark, sinister and intimidating, etc. This stuff used to frighten me as a kid, we’ve become used to it over the years and many hours of gameplay we barely give it a thought. Sure, Arena has some dark tones to it, but not to this extent. In my opinion, the Daggerfall cover art fits pretty well with the main quest and overall dark tones of the game.

I wish that the newer games had actual art and scenes on the cover rather than just the logo. Arena had a neat cover art and Daggerfall’s gave off a mysterious, epic, dark vibe

[11th_defender]

The stated goal of Daggerfall was for the game to simulate the tabletop experience with the computer becoming the DM.

Makes perfect sense though even vanilla Daggerfall doesn’t reach those heights but it comes far closer than most RPGs. In the future when AI for games becomes a thing it would be fascinating to see another game with Daggerfall’s premise. Imagine a dynamic fantasy RPG with a Daggerfall-sized world but far more detailed with AI-powered generation of towns, history/lore, countryside, NPCs, and dungeons.

Basically, imagine an AI that can procedurally generate content, as the DM. In fact come to think of it it’s probably already possible to make an AI that could be a DM for tabletop games, like you type what your party is and where you are and such and it would generate events, dungeons, plots, conversations, etc. It’s just nobody’s made that but it is possible

Well, Julian and the original gang are making a new game called the wayward realms which has this idea being revisited in greater detail, the VGM(video game master) as they call it.

[Werewolf]

The stated goal of Daggerfall was for the game to simulate the tabletop experience with the computer becoming the DM.

Makes perfect sense though even vanilla Daggerfall doesn’t reach those heights but it comes far closer than most RPGs. In the future when AI for games becomes a thing it would be fascinating to see another game with Daggerfall’s premise. Imagine a dynamic fantasy RPG with a Daggerfall-sized world but far more detailed with AI-powered generation of towns, history/lore, countryside, NPCs, and dungeons.

Basically, imagine an AI that can procedurally generate content, as the DM. In fact come to think of it it’s probably already possible to make an AI that could be a DM for tabletop games, like you type what your party is and where you are and such and it would generate events, dungeons, plots, conversations, etc. It’s just nobody’s made that but it is possible

Well, Julian and the original gang are making a new game called the wayward realms which has this idea being revisited in greater detail, the VGM(video game master) as they call it.

I have heard of their proposed new game. I hope it happens, Daggerfall needs a spiritual successor

[L57]

I'm surprised so many people are unhappy with the implementation of alchemy (and magic in general) in Daggerfall. I actually like older TES games for their more low-magic approach in some sense. Not that the world is low-fantasy, but magic isn't mundane. It is an art of a special caste of people. In later TES games it feels like magic is available to anyone and just as everyday as working with a plow in a field.

Not in Daggerfall. You even need to identify magic in enchanted items here. I actually like that they decided to make potions less available, than in Arena (Arena seems quite satisfying for me too, but I have very limited experience with this game). Magic is not for peasants, but is for mages who jealously keep their secrets in their guild, as befits a guild as a medieval institution.

[11th_defender]

I'm surprised so many people are unhappy with the implementation of alchemy (and magic in general) in Daggerfall. I actually like older TES games for their more low-magic approach in some sense. Not that the world is low-fantasy, but magic isn't mundane. It is an art of a special caste of people. In later TES games it feels like magic is available to anyone and just as everyday as working with a plow in a field.

Not in Daggerfall. You even need to identify magic in enchanted items here. I actually like that they decided to make potions less available, than in Arena (Arena seems quite satisfying for me too, but I have very limited experience with this game). Magic is not for peasants, but is for mages who jealously keep their secrets in their guild, as befits a guild as a medieval institution.

It's still quite mundane though, even if less so than in later elder scrolls games. Almost every city and a lot of towns have mages guilds. It's not that special if magic can easily be seen. Also anyone can buy spells at a mages guild, you don't even need to be a member. Alchemical ingredients and potions are available in every basically every single city, and as easy to get as just buying them off the shelves. Going outside at night could easily end with a magical or supernatural creature attacking you. Magic ultimately is pretty mundane in daggerfall.

[L57]

I'm surprised so many people are unhappy with the implementation of alchemy (and magic in general) in Daggerfall. I actually like older TES games for their more low-magic approach in some sense. Not that the world is low-fantasy, but magic isn't mundane. It is an art of a special caste of people. In later TES games it feels like magic is available to anyone and just as everyday as working with a plow in a field.

Not in Daggerfall. You even need to identify magic in enchanted items here. I actually like that they decided to make potions less available, than in Arena (Arena seems quite satisfying for me too, but I have very limited experience with this game). Magic is not for peasants, but is for mages who jealously keep their secrets in their guild, as befits a guild as a medieval institution.

It's still quite mundane though, even if less so than in later elder scrolls games. Almost every city and a lot of towns have mages guilds. It's not that special if magic can easily be seen. Also anyone can buy spells at a mages guild, you don't even need to be a member. Alchemical ingredients and potions are available in every basically every single city, and as easy to get as just buying them off the shelves. Going outside at night could easily end with a magical or supernatural creature attacking you. Magic ultimately is pretty mundane in daggerfall.

I agree if you define 'mundane' as being fully integrated into society and generally known phenomenon. However, it is heavily implied that magic is a very special field, and majority of population have neither skill/natural ability, nor social access to it. Keep in mind that PC is not an average citizen, yet it is still not easy for him to get such access.

Actually, it is still implied this way even in Skyrim. There is one encounter in game at least, where wanna-be-mage fails at magic, since he lacks natural inclination for magic: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Aspiring_Mage ("The magic is in the staff, not in me they said.") Also, Farengar tells that he is the only official mage in Whiterun. In lore, magic is dangerous and many students burned themselves alive conducting experiments (there were such encounters in Skyrim). And so on.

My problem with later games is that you just can't feel this lore in actual gameplay at all anymore, unless you listen carefully to the dialogues or read in-game books. In lore there are battlemages who are considered a form of heavy artillery. In gameplay destruction magic is just a plain analogue of melee weapons. Indeed, you could say it is still so in Daggerfall in fact. But in Daggerfall you see clearly the majority of people being peasants, the majority of non-peasants being merchants, artisans, nobles and guards, and only then you have some mages, intellectual elite similar to priests. An access to magic is clearly difficult, especially against the background of modern TES games (which is unexpected and understandably annoying for many).

My point is that this is a feature, not a disadvantage. And this is perfectly compatible with the fact that TES is and always has been a high-fantasy RPG.

Last but not least, Daggerfall pretty much mimicks late-medieval Western European civilization in many ways. It perfectly makes sense that mage guild holds a monopoly on magical services. All in all, Daggerfall looks to me the most consistent gameplay-wise TES game with lore in this regard. And gameplay elements such as identify item services, potion making services in temples and others are key to it.

[MrFlibble]

I'd say that magic gets rather lopsided in Daggerfall. For example, any character can buy Buoyancy and cast it a few times when having full magicka reserves, even if not a caster character type. It's pretty much obligatory to have it if you want to survive underwater sections in dungeons and don't have potions of waterwalking. No amount of practicing swimming will give you just the same benefit as this spell and/or having potions of waterwalking and water breathing.

On the other hand, the only way to illuminate a dark dungeon is to cast the light spell (or have an item with that spell), while torches do absolutely nothing. I know they probably had problems coding in the torches properly, but the effect is that magic feels somewhat mundane, even if this was not intended by the developers.

There is also an obvious potential for using (abusing) magic for illegal activities. If we assume that the player character is not somehow privileged when joining a temple, it necessarily follows that anyone can join a temple, rise in rank and buy potions, including potions of invisibility. Which may then be used to run around a city and pickpocket passers-by with impunity, for example. Yet, in the game world, there seems to be no attempt to take any counter-measures to this, like guards on patrol duty having combat spellcasters, e.g. spellswords, in their ranks to be able to dispel invisibility. It can almost feel that magic is there, it is known and certainly available to a good deal of people, but somehow ignored to an extent in areas where it could play a critical role.

[L57]

I agree Daggerfall isn't perfect, but it was not finished after all, and at least there is some room to make magic less lopsided, thanks to DFU and all the mods now. What makes me sad is that people almost never think to make magic unavailability more consistent. Instead of this, they wish to make Daggerfall magic more similar to later TES games, which is of course more convinient but is a downgrade in terms of game immersion, in my opinion.

Many other games are much worse in respect to that 'lopsideness'. It is often incomprehensible to me why in general many fantasy games need technologies that are not based on magic, given magic prevalence in the world and magic regen after sleep (judging from purely gameplay perspective without taking lore, etc into account). In Skyrim there are sick people in temple in Whiterun and soldiers in military camps who are injured. "Somehow" they are not capable to instantly heal themselves, even though there is a health restoration potion on the table in front of them, which works on the PC instantly.

PC isn't mere mortal, after all, and apparently very privileged indeed. Perhaps, in Daggerfall PC is the only one who is capable to achieve higher ranks within months, not decades? A talented one and a very valuable employee. Other games go much further than that, these tacit privileges are much more critical in later TES games than in Daggerfall. In Skyrim, Dragonborn is the only human being in game who restores health automatically in real time without any magic, potions, treatment and even rest. Unlike PC, NPCs still rarely carry more than 1-2 healing potions with them, and so on.

I like that in Arena there were classes who cannot cast spells at all, and I regret that already in Daggerfall they started to abandon this rigid approach.

I don't fully agree with your point about underwater though. Just think about it from a different perspective: it is not really that obligatory to complete any quest in game. Magic provides unique advantages and if you don't invest in magic, it is not at all necessary that there should be guarantees to compensate for this somehow (and even then, you still can buy a potion, as you said, it is perfectly legitimate to use them for a non-mage). Different classes should be viable and viable enough to complete the main quest, but not universally effective under any circumstances.

[MrFlibble]

Just as an aside, I re-read your previous comments about magic being limited to the select few in the earlier games, and I'm not really sure if this was actually what the developers intended to convey, and not what the player might infer from how the game mechanics are designed.

If you look into the various in-game books, there are examples which contradict the notion of magic being limited, arcane knowledge. In The Real Barenziah, the future queen is taught some magic, including an invisibility spell, by a smith's wife who has no social standing and certainly not a member of the Mages Guild. She "had a gift for certain kinds of magic", and that is assumed to be enough to not only use it herself, but to teach it to others who are also magically inclined. I can't think of other prominent examples from books at this moment, but I can look up when I have the time.

[nicksta1310]

The biography of the Mages Guild founder, Galerion the Mystic (yes, you can read this book in Daggerfall), makes it abundantly clear that the developers intended for magic knowledge to be widely available.

You don't even have to be a member to buy spells that intentionally set people on fire. Peasants don't do that, because daggers are cheaper and they don't need high spell points or Destruction skill to keep using them.

I dare say that potions would have also been available in the Mages Guild if the developers had more time, unless they changed their minds halfway through development and never got around to changing the promotion messages from the temple factions that clearly imply the Mages Guild provides potions.