Daggerfall talk:Leveling and Skills

The Tags

do the tags after each hint still need to be there? This is from the old site, but I'm not sure if I should delete these. --Werdnanoslen 08:00, 10 September 2006 (EDT)

Spelling

UESPWiki:Spelling says we ought to be using the US version of "leveling," so can we move this page to a properly-titled article? I mean, leve a redirect here, but.. .Somercy 12:53, 8 March 2007 (EST)

FYI, anyone can rename a page. Just click on the "move" tab at the top of the page. It automatically creates a redirect page at the old page name. It took me a few months to figure out how to rename pages, too ;) --Nephele 15:46, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Advancement Pitfalls

I'd just edit this in directly somewhere, but don't have a Daggerfall install handy for fact-checking, and it has been a while since I've played. I don't see any reference in the unofficial or official FAQs on the wiki.

I'm fairly certain that mastery actually happens when you'd hit 101% of a skill. You can sit on 100% all day with relative safety, but when you use it enough to trigger another point of advancement, you'll get the mastery message next time instead.

Second, since advancement includes both skill and level advancement, it should be made clearer exactly what mastery caps.

Also, as can be the case even under Oblivion, it's not wise to level up with maxed-out stats, as it creates a situation where you can't exit a screen without applying all your stat boosts and find yourself unable to apply them.

This alt.games.daggerfall discussion hints at a number of things, including, apparently, circumventing the mastery-imposed cap via enchantments.

70.41.36.44 18:57, 16 December 2007 (EST)

To quote from patch 212:

You can now exit the level advancement screen when all of your attributes are at 100.

--Uniblab 20:22, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

I didnt want to edit the info page about levelling myself bcos im new to wiki, but you CAN make practise spells that train 3 schools at once. I used to do it all the time. — Unsigned comment by 79.67.123.0 (talk) at 13:13 on 21 May 2008 UTC

If you have the data, then we do invite you to edit the page content. It would be preferable if you were to create a login in this august forum (did you know the plural of "forum" is "fora", not "forums"?), but we would appreciate an accurate edit by anyone, anonymous or named. Don't worry if you think you might lack the elegance of a skilled writer; we have a man who knows his grammer so just the facts and figures will suffice. --Uniblab 01:04, 24 May 2008 (EDT)

Note: Playing Daggerfall patched to version 213, the level-advancement-relevant skills (three primary, highest two major, highest minor) should mention that this is not highest in placement on the list but the skills with the highest value, this is an important point for someone trying to avoid advancing the difficulty to a point they get smashed by critters they are unequipped for. ---Anon — Unsigned comment by 76.67.52.44 (talk) at 23:47 on 27 September 2009 UTC

Mastering a skill

What is the point of this paragraph? All it says is something along the line of "you may or not get following message". That's a little scarce. What is the result of this little message "Master of skill X"? Do you get a title? Do people recognize you as a Master? Anything? Does anyone know something more concrete about it, otherwise it just seems like another buggy feature... -85.179.216.102 20:53, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

Leveling in General

I added a new section, called "Leveling in General" to the top of the main page. It details what a player needs to do to level, but doesn't give the equations. I did this after my own confusion regarding the wonky leveling system used by Daggerfall. I thought my version was broken because of how unlcear it is. Since Daggerfall was released for free, I'm pretty sure I won't be the only one with this issue. — Unsigned comment by 98.233.180.143 (talk) at 23:37 on 9 November 2012 UTC

Well, here is my piece of mind regarding this topic. I've followed the discussion on the BS-Forums regarding this topic for the last days and a couple of people who seem to know the game quite well have already given hints how leveling in Daggerfall works.

1. ALL informations you deemed as important to mention were already there, just one section below, what shall I say?
2. The use of the three primary, two secondary and highest minor skills is mentioned in both FAQs that are updated regularly and pretty much everywhere else where skills are mentioned.
3. It seems to be self-explanatory that the values of secondary and minor skills may change during the course of the game, the FAQs even say, the two highest secondary skills and the highest minor skill.
4. The leveling system s not that much different from MW or OB, the only difference is you won't get an in-game message saying you should rest and reflect on what you have just learned. Resting is also required in these games to level up.

That is one of the major differences in DF, you don't have some fancy features telling you you have this and that disease or suffer from this and that spell and it decreases your strength by this value etc. This is way more realistic than in the later games, and games back then were this way. They didn't give away every and all informations or told you step by step what you had to do. People had to use their own brains from time to time, which is a rather rare praxis nowadays. not just when it comes to computer games. Everything regarding computers, and the like, be it hardware and especially software requires less brains than it required just 15-20 years ago.--PLRDLF (talk) 19:55, 10 November 2012 (GMT)

So, you're saying that because someone drastically simplified a poorly written section that should be providing ADVANCED information rather than generalized information, you don't like what he did? Typical really. 173.168.16.66 00:30, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I've restored this section. The entire section in the leveling equation is little more than a nod to an old report written (11 February 1997) and was never intended to be presented as generalized information. Much of it contained unneeded references "The 28 points is a quasi-gift from the development team." that could easily be simplified with a single statement "A new character only needs two skill increases to reach level 2."

"A level increase happens after resting. Every time you rest, the game looks at the various counters and decides whether a level increase is appropriate or not." is cyclical. Yes, it it based on the original " The raise occurs (as far as I can tell) after resting (when the program apparently looks at the counters and does its' thing)." but saying "In order to level, you must rest after the above conditions have been met." Is clear and concise, leaving no straggling information for the reader to be confused over.

One final note (on leveling) is the restoration of information from the prior change that was not originally in the article. Namely, that misc skills can count to level up if they surpass the highest minor or major skill. Given the (11 February 1997) post reads like a forum post and PLRDLF's response reads as someone dismissing changes because of elitism, I put it back in to be removed if shown false. We do live in a scientific minded community right? Just because someone says something that disagrees with what people said in the past, doesn't mean that person is wrong (though no effort to confirm was given so, w/e).

Skill information was poorly indicated as such, with the rather random bulleting continuing mid discussion on leveling information (and in a section on the leveling equation). I feel that there could be an expansion discussing the "required skill use" equation or other such complications, but I figure the elitism over some forum post in the past is going to weigh more than making this information presentable for people who actually want to learn something.

(As for the rest, I would split the article into leveling strategies and just information about the leveling system. Strats too often takeover with people wanting their information presented first instead of keeping things simple and introducing complications later on.)

173.168.16.66 03:04, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Cheapest Spells to make - Free Spells

The technique in which your third spell effect is Damage Health, and your first spell effect is one of the school you wish to train, does not seem to work with Alteration spells. I have tried many combinations to no avail. Version 2.13, using the Daggerfall EN automatic installer from the Files section for Daggerfall. Can anybody confirm if there is a working combination for training Alteration using this method? If not, maybe it'd be a good idea to mention in that section that there is no currently known Alteration combination for the technique? 71.94.107.8 20:06, 19 April 2013 (GMT)

Additional notes about training magic skills

To train Destruction skill you should create a spell with area at range effect, and then just cast it into a wall, no target (foe) required. Also it is possible to combine such spell with other spells.

To train Mysticism skill you should create an open spell and just cast it. That's all, no need to find a closed door.

In general, all magic skills are possible to be trained in safe places like toverns or Fighters Guild halls. If these skills are primary or major then this is the simplest way to character leveling.

P.S. With such knowledge Bethesda's notes about "difficulties" of pre-made classes like healer, bard, nightblade becomes into a nonsense. Sad, but true.

P.S.II. Even more sadly to say that Daggerfall Installation package (with CompUSA patch set on the site) by default applies DagSkills patch to increase skill-cap up to 200%, so you may gain 30-40 level in a few days IRL. And there is no other way to disable it except copy fresh fall.exe file from vanilla (perhaps even to start a new game). — Unsigned comment by 78.25.121.98 (talk) at 04:17 on 5 October 2015 UTC

Validity of the Formula

There seems to be an issue here:

If the highest major or minor skill changes since character creation, then we can assume the new skill had an initial value lower than the previous skill.

1) Will the player receive a bonus (The original skill was lower, the formula assumes the highest skill is the same as the one at character creation) and have the potential for multiple level ups?

2) Do you even keep the additional skill increases between level ups, or is efficient leveling implied but not stated?

I suspect that S₀ is suppose to be the values at character creation only (meaning it doesn't matter if a skill becomes the new top skill) but no version says this.

173.168.16.66 01:35, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Maximum level cap math

The section discussion the maximum level cap states "the minimum possible S₀ value [is] 145." Unless my math is incorrect, I believe the minimum value for this would be 144 (assuming the player is ridiculously lucky and rolls all minimum values).

Minimum primary values: 28 * 3 (all three are tallied)

Minimum major values: 18 * 2 (the highest two are tallied)

Minimum minor values: 13 (the highest one is tallied)

Together this adds up to 133.

Then the player is given 6 more points to distribute to each section. Since all primary skills count then those points can be distributed at will, but the other sections should be evenly distributed, 2 for each major skill and 1 for each minor skill.

133 + 6 primary + 4 major + 1 minor = 144 S₀

However, I haven't edited the page yet because I could be missing something and wanted someone else to verify that this calculation is sound. Sporky (talk) 22:44, 15 July 2023 (UTC)