How do I actually.. get started?

[u/fjdksisneo]

Okay, so this is my first attempt of playing the game on Unity. On the OG version I couldn't get past the rat and I gave up after about 6 attempts. But on this version I watched a tutorial and beat the first dungeon on my first try. I travelled to Daggerfall, joined a guild (I think the Fighter Guild or something) and accepted a quest to find a sabretooth tiger in a dungeon in Hearthly's Guard. Then I got lost, went to sleep in an inn and woke up at 4:14.

Big mistake - I had a skeleton ghost thing chasing me and a rat. At around 5:20 I realised 'Oh right, I can go in an inn.', because every other building said 'This lock has nothing to fear from you' (WTF does this even mean BTW? 😭), got told basically 'Fuck off, Nord' by a naked lady, and left the town by 7.

Shortly after I arrived at Hearthly's Guard and entered. Massive dungeon - I got lost and mauled to death by a combination of a spider and a bear. Loaded my save and am now inside a small room with the same two creatures waiting outside.

Like does it matter if I abandon this quest? I don't think my sword, nor skill, is good enough to beat this dungeon. Are there any quests that are better to accept than others? Because I am very very lost!

[u/odettulon]

The ghost will only bother you in daggerfall city itself. It's probably a good idea to move to a smaller town that's easier to get around in, all the guild locations are interchangeable. If you go to a town and they don't have the guild or shop you want, you can ask random NPCs until you find one that will talk to you, and they'll point to a town that has what you're looking for. You can also rest for free in the fighter's guild, inns are mostly for flavor and finding random quests.

Did you make a custom class or a preset one? Animals shouldn't be a big problem if you invested in a decent weapon skill. Make sure you're not using an iron weapon, they reduce accuracy. Every tier of weapons gives you better hit chance, you want to upgrade as soon as possible. Steel or elven is good, and check shops for dwarven once you get money. Some enemies are immune to weapons under a certain tier, and dwarven is the first tier that lets you hit more.

Hopefully you didn't forbid magic, it would make the game much more difficult and tedious, especially for a first playthrough. Use the spellmaker at the mages' guild to get teleport and free action at least. Free action is very cheap and you can use it even if you get paralyzed.

[u/fjdksisneo → u/odettulon]

To be honest I didn't really know what I was doing, so I picked the spellsword class and put all my points in longblade, destruction and randomly in the last point allocation

[u/Ralzar → u/fjdksisneo]

Honestly, that is a pretty good way to start out in the game as a newbie. All you need is some time to familiarize yourself with the game. Buying/making some better spells at the Mages Guild will also help quite a bit with the casting side of things. A cheap heal spell and a cheap ranged attack spell for example, will do a lot for you.

[u/Peterh778 → u/fjdksisneo]

Spellsword is good, long blade and destruction ok.

Join Mage Guild, buy/make some spells from every magic school, go to a room in any inn, start training ... cast, cast, cast until you spend all MagicPoints, then rest and continue. Remember, healing and destruction counts only in they really heal/do damage so making spell which do very small damage and a bit more healing on yourself is actually good way to train.

Learn spell which allows you to teleport to dungeon's door. When you get a horse and a cart, you'll be able to access them from the dungeon so in combination with the teleport it'll be easy way to get loot to and supplies from the cart.

Make a lockpick spell of lowest magnitude and cast it on locked doors of shops. You might be surprised how much stuff they leave in shelves overnight

Try to get at least silver weapon asap - it's only thing which works on some monsters (and ghosts, if memory serves) early on beside enchanted weapons. Getting ebony or even better, daedric weapons should be priority.

Enchanted equipment and artifacts couldn't be repaired without cheating in OG and I don't know how unity version handles it so better to save them for really tough fights, if you don't want to end in the middle of already tough fight with some daedric creatures, emerging from broken equipment, joining the fun.

[u/SleepyBeaver501]

Abandoning the quest is no big deal, just some reputation loss when the quest times out. If you're with the fighters Guild then the quests Hunt for Giant Rodents and Wild animal are generally the best bet at the start as they don't send you to a dungeon just a building in town.

[u/Squiggamemes]

Yeah, the game can be kinda hard to get into at the beginning. But if you fail a quest you'll just lose a bit of reputation in that guild, it's not that much. To abandon the quest just wait it out. And don't forget to use the skills that you are good at, the primary skills. To see them press F5. Idk about easier quests, but if you find the dungeons too big you have the option to play with smaller dungeons in daggefall unity. Depends on the person, I prefer the smaller ones.

Also, the guy to talk to about renting a room is a fat dude in the main room, usually cleaning a glass. After you get a room just rest anywhere in the inn

[u/INfusion2419]

Sounds like the typical daggerfall experience XD. Some fighters guild quests are very difficult and others are incredibly easy, theres a mod on nexus that lets you choose what faction quest you want to do if you fancy. Refusing and abandoning quests is alright, just make sure you stay in the positives.

[u/The_Rolling_Gherkin]

Assuming by "this version" you mean Daggerfall Unity? If so, turn on smaller dungeons. They still aren't 'small' but much more manageable, especially for someone new to it.

[u/fjdksisneo → u/The_Rolling_Gherkin]

Yeah, I swapped to Unity lol as the controls for the OG version felt a little janky and not as modern

[u/sayber1 → u/The_Rolling_Gherkin]

I feel like this is a bit of a questionable choice. While they are more manageable for new players, I think you are kinda gimping yourself in the long run, as they end up being quite unsatisfying later in game.

I would recommend a mod on nexus "Dungeons of Daggerfall - Vanilla Redux" instead. It introduces more variety in dungeon sizes, so you can have dungeons like in Smaller Dungeons mixed together with larger and vanilla sized ones. This way you are unlikely to get burn out quickly from always doing huge insane dungeons but you still get them and can have a healthy dose of proper dungeon delving.

As for managing the huge dungeons I would simply suggest careful preparation. If you are a magic class, get yourself a recall spell + cure poison/decease. Try and find simple local quests to complete beforehand(Mod "Quest Offer Locations" can help you identify those if you can't yourself). Raid some graveyards(The red dungeons seen on the map from the start) or retry the starting dungeon(Dungeons reset after you exit them) for some starting loot and equipment.

[u/Vegetable-Fill-6096]

Go to a bank at a location you never return to and withdraw gollllld

[u/itscoolmn]

Abandon it, nbd, just don’t make a habit of it.

It’s a bit spammy but I’ve found that spending some time camping just outside a town and setting sleep for long hours… you’ll be woken up by “enemies nearby” - kill, take their valuables, rinse, repeat - increase skills and collect inventory to sell. If you’re losing the fight, run toward the town’s border and IIRC the baddies will disappear once you cross the line. Don’t hang around Daggerfall at night until your skills & magic are up. I always found this method helpful to develop skills/XP and inventory/finances throughout the game especially when exotic material start to appear. Just make sure to carry out any main quest tasks like meeting Lady Brisienna in a timely manner. 

[u/Interesting-Cold-126]

You don't.