Elder Scrolls TES Arena or TES Daggerfall ??

[ColossusCimmerian]

Out of curiosity, which of these two games is the better? And Why?

 

[Eisen]

dargefal

 

[Lemming42]

They're not really comparable; Daggerfall is much bigger in scope and design philosophy. Arena's a dungeon crawler with some beautiful dungeons and absolutely no balance. I think they're both a lot of fun, but head to head Daggerfall's obviously going to win.

 

[Losus4]

Daggerfall is pretty much better than Arena in every way.

 

[Ryzer]

Daggerfall is pretty much better than Arena in every way.

Nah, Level design is better in Arena.

 

[Butter]

This discussion often leads to variations of "Just skip Arena and play Daggerall. It's the best." and that's not fair. Arena is still a soli game; it just has less of everything.

 

[notpl]

This discussion often leads to variations of "Just skip Arena and play Daggerall. It's the best." and that's not fair. Arena is still a soli game; it just has less of everything.

Not true: it has more hand-made dungeons, and those are one of the more important things in a dungeon crawler.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Arena has the Destroy Wall spell. I miss this shit. Otherwise, Daggerfall is a greater game.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I think they're both a lot of fun, but head to head Daggerfall's obviously going to win.

This.

 

[deuxhero]

Daggerfall may have more features, but Arena is, by far, the more fully realized game. Most of Daggerfall's new features are half assed and don't really do anything (or literally don't do anything). Faction reputation is a good example of this: There's loads of factions that you can gain or lose rep with, but the only ones that actually do anything are guilds, regional, and quest giving nobles, and of those the only one having a reputation above 0 actually does anything meaningful is the guilds (nobles can give different quests at higher reputation, but they're just window dressing: You go to the same generic random dungeons to get an objective and get the same random amount of gold that's pathetic compared to the loot you found in Privateers Hold). Several of the characters and groups you gain reputation with literally don't exist in game or whoses only purpose is to spew the same generic info you can get out of any NPC (and thus aside from a few main quest ones the only negative effect of poor rep with them is you have to ask another identical generic noble for a quest).

Daggerfall's main quest is also shit. You go around killing innocent guards (who don't count because they're in a dungeon!) for random nobles in a contradictory manner till you can actually progress.

 

[Cryomancer]

Daggerfall is Arena + Harder dungeons + More classes and abilities to create strange new classes with advantage/disadvantage system + Vampirism + Werewolves + Wereboar + lots of factions + better MQ.

 

[JarlFrank]

Arena actually has a good number of hand-made dungeons that play differently, instead of the dungeon-vu inducing Daggerfall dungeons that are just algorithm-made recombinations of the same 5 rooms over and over.

That said Daggerfall has much better systems.

 

[Ryzer]

I don't know why but I liked Arena better, the game is less bugged overall, cities are more cohesive as a whole, dungeons feel cramped with better level design (underlayer section of dungeons , more hidden treasures with hidden keys). Out of the TES games, difficulty is the best in this game, it never feels too easy or too hard, also better enemy variety. Mandatory classes is a good thing over allowing too much in Daggerfall.

 

[Jvegi]

Neither.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

dargefal

Drunk night?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I like both and played them for what they were. I finished arena several times but never once did I finish Daggerfall.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

I don't know why but I liked Arena better, the game is less bugged overall .....

Even if Daggerfall has the latest official update with unofficial fixes?

Neither.

I can't modify the thread to add neither of them as an option.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Really? I found you can always ADD poll option but can't take or edit old poll options.

 

[ShiningSoldier]

Daggerfall fans usually say something like "our game is better because it has 100000 square meters of random generated landscapes and dungeons"

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

Really? I found you can always ADD poll option but can't take or edit old poll options.

I don't see an option to edit, like any other post.

Daggerfall fans usually say something like "our game is better because it has 100000 square meters of random generated landscapes and dungeons"

Haha yes, I have read that phrase many times.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

Really? I found you can always ADD poll option but can't take or edit old poll options.

Is there a moderator available to lend us a hand? It would be helpful to know how many people don't want either option.

 

[Lemming42]

Daggerfall's main quest is also shit. You go around killing innocent guards

Not with ETIQUETTE 100.

 

[dutchwench]

People praise Daggerfall for being open-world but don't really notice how fucking creepy Arena is in a way unique to games of that time. I swear turning around and seeing hounds jump at my face in the mine level gave me some sort of phobia of turning around in real life.

 

[Lemming42]

Since the thread has a surprising amount of enthusiasm for Arena - Arena has my favourite plot in the TES games. It's incredibly basic and not very well told, and has so much less going on than Daggerfall's post-war political intrigue or Morrowind's quasi-metaphysical stuff, but it's such a good setup for a dark fantasy adventure story - the ghost of a murdered woman entrusts you with the secret that the Imperial Battlemage has sent the Emperor off to some hell dimension and taken his place, and she only kind of vaguely knows how to stop him. Plus some sources say your character is meant to be the Imperial Guard captain, which makes it even better - you're completely dishonored having been presumably framed by Tharn, you can't show your face anywhere in Tamriel (which is why Ria magically gives you a false appearance for the whole game), and literally nobody except you and a dead woman know the truth.

Already it's a really unnerving setup but then each individual dungeon you go to is scary as fuck as well - a long-ruined mine that allegedly has a giant wyrm in it, a forest that perpetually moves on its own to make navigation impossible and which also has screaming ghosts flying at you out of the fog, a grove with a sentient tree that deliberately traps you in its root system, a colossal long-abandoned hall built by a race of extinct giants that's so tall you can't even see the ceiling, a vast labyrith built centuries ago that now has two tortured wraiths locked in it forever. Even the side dungeons are conceptually cool as fuck - Selene's Web, Black Gate, that sunken temple I forgot the name of.

The whole time you're going through all these surreal nightmarish locations, Ria Silmane's power is fading to the point where she could just end up vanishing and leaving you alone and guideless any second, and Tharn is slowly divining your location and identity to tighten the noose around you. It's tense as fuck for Ria as well because she doesn't know if you're still alive half the time, and if you die, it's all over since she can't do anything herself as a ghost. Plus when you finally enter the Imperial Palace, seeing the halls in total pitch blackness and filled with demons and twisted creatures is so compelling that it's stayed with me for years. It's genuinely as good as when you reach Citadel's bridge at the end of System Shock and see that it's been turned into a hideous fleshy command centre.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

To contribute to the discussion, if anyone is interested.

TES 1: Arena



TES 2: Daggerfall