Bloodeyes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2007
- Messages
- 2,946
This is a thread for mod recommendations separate from the main Daggerfall Unity thread. I'll post my mod list below and I encourage others to make recommendations about Daggerfall Unity mods and settings tweaks. What's YOUR ideal setup of Daggerfall Unity? Do you like it oldschool with retro rendering and crunchy pixels like the original? Or are you more of a Dream guy who likes seeing an old game made new again?
- If you've yet to play DFU start here to install the game. It's free. Then read the manual. You may also be interested in this google drive link to the game's official strategy guide. It's not necessary to read that to play though.
- If you're using mods you're better off doing manual installs than using the Nexus mod manager. Just follow the instructions on the DL page or in the included .txt. It's usually just extracting a single file to your mods folder. DFU even auto resolves load order issues in its inbuilt mod manager. It's a game made by modders so is very mod friendly!
- If you're feeling especially manly you could just try the original game using Daggerfall Setup but I'd suggest starting with Unity. If you do want to play it though, there's an excellent guide to dungeoneering on Reddit which I think is required knowledge to even attempt a playthrough of classic Daggerfall.
My current old school graphics setup:
You need to get reshade and install it. From there use the "levels" shader to adjust the black point to 18 and put the white point to max. Then use the "tonemap" shader to adjust the saturation to 700 and the exposure to 075. This isn't hard to do and is an absolutely crucial step in improving the look of retro rendering mode. You need to turn night ambient light and dungeon ambient light back to their default values once you do this (trust me nights will be dark enough).
If for whatever reason you run into trouble doing that...
- Here's how to install Reshade and add presets
- Here's my preset
- You don't actually need my preset. It's just installing a program and moving sliders so you can do it. The above settings would be a good start though.
- DFU is 0.11.1 as of writing. Later releases may have fixed the color palette issues. The devs are aware of them and plan to have it sorted before 1.0 at the latest. If they're fixed you don't need Reshade (and most of this information will probably be out of date by then also as all these mods are WIP).
The settings I use for a retro look
Mods used:
The end result:
Stunning modern graphics setup:
My former mod list, now sitting in a folder because I like retro rendering better. This list gives a totally different and beautiful look to the game and runs well together. I'd say give it a try even if you prefer the old graphics (as I do) because an entire mod list can be dragged and dropped into DFU or just disabled/enabled with one click, and seeing Daggerfall look like this is really something else. This mod list is awesome, I just got bored and wanted something different.
Better Ambience:Adds sounds and some fog effects to dungeons and the world as well as a few other subtle changes that do indeed improve the ambience of the game.
Birds in Daggerfall: Adds birds. You can customize how many birds but the default is fine. It looks really nice.
Dream:Better graphics. Covers a bunch of things like menus, NPCs, enemies and of course textures in the world. It's by far the most dramatic change of all these mods. A must have unless you prefer the original graphics (some do).
Convenient Clock:Ace little mod. Adds a clock to the game so you don't have to press "I" to know what time it is. Customisable. I set it to day, date, time in 24h time but you can set it to whatever and change the size.
Distant Terrain:Looks nice. Looks really nice.
Handpainted Models:Replaces some of the 2D objects (things like treasure piles) with 3D ones. Looks really good.
Loading Screen:With all these graphical mods the game does have (relatively short) load times and if you don't have the loading screen it's just a black screen. So it's a must.
NPC Health Indicators:Customizable health bars for enemies. Set them to only appear when they take damage or it looks stupid. This mod is a must have. I like them percentage based for simplicity.
Enhanced Sky: Replaces the sky. Really impressive mod and a necessity when using dream.
Post Processing:Adds some post processing effects to the game. When they're all turned on they're a bit over the top. Tinker with them to your liking and they do make the game look nicer.
Real Grass: Nice grass mod. Really improves the look of the wild areas in summer. Can make it a bit harder to see dungeon entrances but that's what levitation is for. Turn insects off because they still appear in winter which looks wrong. I installed the optional vibrant wind mod too but I can't tell if it actually does anything.
Splat Terrain Texturing:Makes water look nicer. I'm sure it does other things too. Edit: Yes it does. Just use this mod.
Taverns Redone (+ dream patch):Taverns are still as insane as every other randomly generated building in this game but now they look nicer.
Improved Interior Lighting:A must have. Changes the color of light to look warmer and more like firelight. Now only magical light looks like artificial white light. A small change with a big effect. Love it.
Torch Taker:My favorite kind of mod, a single, useful change. Lets you take torches from dungeon walls.
World Tooltips:This one is a must have. Like the clock, the loading screen and enemy health bars this mod adds an essential feature to the game that you'll never play without once you use it. Honestly these three mods should just be incorporated as options in Daggerfall unity's enhancements.
Start Saver:Creates a save immediately after character creation in case you forget to save in between creating your character and dying to the first rat/bat you encounter. I've never actually been that retarded but I'd be super pissed if that ever did happen. Hence this mod.
Readied Spellcasting Hands:Show's your PC's hands at the ready when you've got a spell ready to go. A small tweak. Not essential but nice and it helps with aiming if you don't use a crosshair.
Drafty secret doors: Plays a sound effect of blowing wind when you're near a secret door. Handy. I wouldn't call it a cheat because it's less cheaty than how I usually find secret doors (looking at the automap).
Some settings changes I made in the above mods:
The end result:
Good mods I don't use:
Realtime reflections: Recommended with some reservations. This is an astonishingly beautiful graphical mod. Don't use it unless your computer is decent because it will break your heart to have to disable it when your framerate drops. Edit: Actually there is an issue with this one. Currently when an NPC or grass is near water a transparent black box appears around them. It's still a gorgeous mod but this issue made it no longer worth the performance hit for me.
Roleplay and realism (+ roleplay and realism items): Makes the game a little harder in quite a few subtle ways. Turn off the NPC and enemy replacers if using dream and turn off the horse riding changes because they are annoying. Edit: Just use the items mod alone. It's the best (only?) custom items mod for DFU. It's really, really cool. The main Roleplay and Realism mod is unnecessary and a bit intrusive. All the good stuff is in the items mod and it functions alone. You get more from it without D.R.E.A.M.
Quest pack 1: It's good. Adds quests that are good enough that a new player like me can't tell them from the vanilla ones except a couple where the quest dialogue box tells you to use console cheats. They should cut that shit, it breaks the 4th wall. Would be universally recommended if not for those quests, and there's only a couple of them. Edit: I've removed all modded quest/faction content from my game. There's nothing wrong with QP1, I just don't use it.
Sneak and crouch combined: Does what it says on the tin. A solid mod and a sensible change. Edit: I deleted it. Nothing wrong with this one, just found it unnecessary and nuked it.
Pilgrimages/archeologists: Have installed but haven't encountered the content yet. It doesn't break anything. Same goes for decorator as I haven't got a house in game yet. Will update when I actually play the content of these mods. Edit: Nuked these before I ever played the content. Still have them in a folder for a future playthrough.
Races redone: Adjusts starting stats after character creation based on race and gives some racial bonuses. A bit of a cheat as it gives one free advantage. Not game breaking but not necessary either and a cheat is a cheat.
Basic magic regen: Makes mana regen like in later Elder Scrolls games. Not totally OP if you use restraint with the settings but it's still cheating. Edit: RPG Codex member Ramnozack has edited this mod to allow you to set a cap for how much of your total SP you can regen without resting. This sounds a lot more balanced. He uploaded it here.
Levelup adjuster: Lets you set your attribute and HP gains to a static value if you're someone who is tempted to reload when they get a shit roll. It also lets you get the max every time if you're a milksop and Daggerfall is too hard for you. I don't use this one anymore but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it so long as you use the median HP setting and 5 attribute points per level. Or you could just not use it.
Honorable mention: Ironman and ironman game systems. Adds some amazing features and an ironman mode but is currently non functional until another version comes out. One to watch. I hope a working version releases soon because the next one is going to include a nerf for lycanthropy.
Mods I don't care for:
Trees of Daggerfall: The trees look cool but they are constantly shaking. I think they're supposed to be moving in the wind but it looks weird as hell and they would look better just being still. Tried disabling vibrant wind but no change. Also this is incomplete so you have the 2D trees in winter and the 3D trees in summer at present which is just odd.
Travel options: Weird, janky way of replacing fast travel (which I don't think you need to do). Lots of people use this but I hate it. Autopathing across the map at 50x speed is not the more immersive option IMO. This wouldn't be a problem except other mods require it like...
Climate and calories: Requires travel options. Would be an ok mod otherwise for people who like survival mechanics in their RPGs but it's not my thing. The survival takes center stage instead of being a low key flavor thing as I would prefer. Daggerfall is a dungeon crawler first and foremost so the survival elements shouldn't dominate as they do in this mod.
Realistic wagon: Requires travel options so didn't keep it installed long enough to try driving the wagon. My gut tells me I don't really want a realistic wagon anyway.
Lousy lycans: Provides a much needed nerf to lycanthropy but requires realistic wagon (which requires travel options). Also sounds a bit extreme as it makes you drop all your items when you transform.
Scars: Randomly kills you every so often by spawning high level creatures next to you. Nice ideas here and very ambitious mod but needs level scaling badly to be less of a Russian roulette experience.
Unlevelled loot: It's exactly as OP as it sounds. One for people who value "realism" over balance and progression.
General advice for gameplay
For game settings
Those are just cheats and ruin game balance. Even if you're a new player you should have these off.
I also suggest:
In the settings.ini
- If you've yet to play DFU start here to install the game. It's free. Then read the manual. You may also be interested in this google drive link to the game's official strategy guide. It's not necessary to read that to play though.
- If you're using mods you're better off doing manual installs than using the Nexus mod manager. Just follow the instructions on the DL page or in the included .txt. It's usually just extracting a single file to your mods folder. DFU even auto resolves load order issues in its inbuilt mod manager. It's a game made by modders so is very mod friendly!
- If you're feeling especially manly you could just try the original game using Daggerfall Setup but I'd suggest starting with Unity. If you do want to play it though, there's an excellent guide to dungeoneering on Reddit which I think is required knowledge to even attempt a playthrough of classic Daggerfall.
My current old school graphics setup:
You need to get reshade and install it. From there use the "levels" shader to adjust the black point to 18 and put the white point to max. Then use the "tonemap" shader to adjust the saturation to 700 and the exposure to 075. This isn't hard to do and is an absolutely crucial step in improving the look of retro rendering mode. You need to turn night ambient light and dungeon ambient light back to their default values once you do this (trust me nights will be dark enough).
If for whatever reason you run into trouble doing that...
- Here's how to install Reshade and add presets
- Here's my preset
- You don't actually need my preset. It's just installing a program and moving sliders so you can do it. The above settings would be a good start though.
- DFU is 0.11.1 as of writing. Later releases may have fixed the color palette issues. The devs are aware of them and plan to have it sorted before 1.0 at the latest. If they're fixed you don't need Reshade (and most of this information will probably be out of date by then also as all these mods are WIP).
The settings I use for a retro look
Mods used:
- Villager Immersion Overhaul (Need to enable classic spawn or you get Redguards in loincloths wandering around in the snow). I tried becoming a lycan with this mod enabled and it seems to make killing villagers impossible. So disable it if you're going full munchkin and making a werewolf build.
- World Tooltips
- NPC Health Indicators
- Torch Taker
- Drafty Secret Doors
- Convenient Clock
- Birds in Daggerfall
- Windmills of Daggerfall
- Start Saver
- Roleplay and Realism - Items (This mod is really good. I like it so much more without Roleplay and Realism)
- Vampiric Options (Sounds good but I'm not a vampire so can't confirm)
- Taverns Redone
- Location Loader
- New Canon Locations
- Docks of Daggerfall
- Decorator
- Readied Spellcasting Hands
- Inventory Filter
The end result:
The lake by Privateers' Hold
Daytime in Daggerfall
Winter night in Wickham Hall
Dungeon exterior on a dark, clear night
Rainy day in Tunbeth Hamlet
PC wearing modded armor pieces (Roleplay and Realism - Items)
Daytime in Daggerfall
Winter night in Wickham Hall
Dungeon exterior on a dark, clear night
Rainy day in Tunbeth Hamlet
PC wearing modded armor pieces (Roleplay and Realism - Items)
Stunning modern graphics setup:
My former mod list, now sitting in a folder because I like retro rendering better. This list gives a totally different and beautiful look to the game and runs well together. I'd say give it a try even if you prefer the old graphics (as I do) because an entire mod list can be dragged and dropped into DFU or just disabled/enabled with one click, and seeing Daggerfall look like this is really something else. This mod list is awesome, I just got bored and wanted something different.
Better Ambience:Adds sounds and some fog effects to dungeons and the world as well as a few other subtle changes that do indeed improve the ambience of the game.
Birds in Daggerfall: Adds birds. You can customize how many birds but the default is fine. It looks really nice.
Dream:Better graphics. Covers a bunch of things like menus, NPCs, enemies and of course textures in the world. It's by far the most dramatic change of all these mods. A must have unless you prefer the original graphics (some do).
Convenient Clock:Ace little mod. Adds a clock to the game so you don't have to press "I" to know what time it is. Customisable. I set it to day, date, time in 24h time but you can set it to whatever and change the size.
Distant Terrain:Looks nice. Looks really nice.
Handpainted Models:Replaces some of the 2D objects (things like treasure piles) with 3D ones. Looks really good.
Loading Screen:With all these graphical mods the game does have (relatively short) load times and if you don't have the loading screen it's just a black screen. So it's a must.
NPC Health Indicators:Customizable health bars for enemies. Set them to only appear when they take damage or it looks stupid. This mod is a must have. I like them percentage based for simplicity.
Enhanced Sky: Replaces the sky. Really impressive mod and a necessity when using dream.
Post Processing:Adds some post processing effects to the game. When they're all turned on they're a bit over the top. Tinker with them to your liking and they do make the game look nicer.
Real Grass: Nice grass mod. Really improves the look of the wild areas in summer. Can make it a bit harder to see dungeon entrances but that's what levitation is for. Turn insects off because they still appear in winter which looks wrong. I installed the optional vibrant wind mod too but I can't tell if it actually does anything.
Splat Terrain Texturing:Makes water look nicer. I'm sure it does other things too. Edit: Yes it does. Just use this mod.
Taverns Redone (+ dream patch):Taverns are still as insane as every other randomly generated building in this game but now they look nicer.
Improved Interior Lighting:A must have. Changes the color of light to look warmer and more like firelight. Now only magical light looks like artificial white light. A small change with a big effect. Love it.
Torch Taker:My favorite kind of mod, a single, useful change. Lets you take torches from dungeon walls.
World Tooltips:This one is a must have. Like the clock, the loading screen and enemy health bars this mod adds an essential feature to the game that you'll never play without once you use it. Honestly these three mods should just be incorporated as options in Daggerfall unity's enhancements.
Start Saver:Creates a save immediately after character creation in case you forget to save in between creating your character and dying to the first rat/bat you encounter. I've never actually been that retarded but I'd be super pissed if that ever did happen. Hence this mod.
Readied Spellcasting Hands:Show's your PC's hands at the ready when you've got a spell ready to go. A small tweak. Not essential but nice and it helps with aiming if you don't use a crosshair.
Drafty secret doors: Plays a sound effect of blowing wind when you're near a secret door. Handy. I wouldn't call it a cheat because it's less cheaty than how I usually find secret doors (looking at the automap).
Some settings changes I made in the above mods:
- Turned motion blur way down in the post processing mod as the default settings were OTT
- Turned eye adaptation off in the same mod as everything was too dark
- Turned down the dungeon darkness in better ambience (counter intuitively this makes dungeons darker)
- Disabled flying insects in real grass (the butterflies look nice but are a bit incongruous in snowy weather)
- Set terrain distance to 2 in game settings because distant terrain causes lag during loading and the further your terrain distance the longer the lag takes to subside
- Mucked with post processing a lot. Can't remember all the changes just play with it and see what looks good. Bloom looks absolutely ridiculous. I have no idea why they included that.
- Changed convenient clock to a text box with date and time and scaling it down to .7 (default height) to work with Dream
- I also ran the reshade thing that comes bundled with dream and it sharpened everything up a little.
- You should read KingOfWorms in depth settings guide on the Dream nexus page if you're using it. He tells you how to set it up right. Then change stuff to taste.
The end result:
Combat
A tomb in the wilderness of Daggerfall
Tunbeth Hamlet Fighter's guild
A tomb in the wilderness of Daggerfall
Tunbeth Hamlet Fighter's guild
Good mods I don't use:
Realtime reflections: Recommended with some reservations. This is an astonishingly beautiful graphical mod. Don't use it unless your computer is decent because it will break your heart to have to disable it when your framerate drops. Edit: Actually there is an issue with this one. Currently when an NPC or grass is near water a transparent black box appears around them. It's still a gorgeous mod but this issue made it no longer worth the performance hit for me.
Roleplay and realism (+ roleplay and realism items): Makes the game a little harder in quite a few subtle ways. Turn off the NPC and enemy replacers if using dream and turn off the horse riding changes because they are annoying. Edit: Just use the items mod alone. It's the best (only?) custom items mod for DFU. It's really, really cool. The main Roleplay and Realism mod is unnecessary and a bit intrusive. All the good stuff is in the items mod and it functions alone. You get more from it without D.R.E.A.M.
Quest pack 1: It's good. Adds quests that are good enough that a new player like me can't tell them from the vanilla ones except a couple where the quest dialogue box tells you to use console cheats. They should cut that shit, it breaks the 4th wall. Would be universally recommended if not for those quests, and there's only a couple of them. Edit: I've removed all modded quest/faction content from my game. There's nothing wrong with QP1, I just don't use it.
Sneak and crouch combined: Does what it says on the tin. A solid mod and a sensible change. Edit: I deleted it. Nothing wrong with this one, just found it unnecessary and nuked it.
Pilgrimages/archeologists: Have installed but haven't encountered the content yet. It doesn't break anything. Same goes for decorator as I haven't got a house in game yet. Will update when I actually play the content of these mods. Edit: Nuked these before I ever played the content. Still have them in a folder for a future playthrough.
Races redone: Adjusts starting stats after character creation based on race and gives some racial bonuses. A bit of a cheat as it gives one free advantage. Not game breaking but not necessary either and a cheat is a cheat.
Basic magic regen: Makes mana regen like in later Elder Scrolls games. Not totally OP if you use restraint with the settings but it's still cheating. Edit: RPG Codex member Ramnozack has edited this mod to allow you to set a cap for how much of your total SP you can regen without resting. This sounds a lot more balanced. He uploaded it here.
Levelup adjuster: Lets you set your attribute and HP gains to a static value if you're someone who is tempted to reload when they get a shit roll. It also lets you get the max every time if you're a milksop and Daggerfall is too hard for you. I don't use this one anymore but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it so long as you use the median HP setting and 5 attribute points per level. Or you could just not use it.
Honorable mention: Ironman and ironman game systems. Adds some amazing features and an ironman mode but is currently non functional until another version comes out. One to watch. I hope a working version releases soon because the next one is going to include a nerf for lycanthropy.
Mods I don't care for:
Trees of Daggerfall: The trees look cool but they are constantly shaking. I think they're supposed to be moving in the wind but it looks weird as hell and they would look better just being still. Tried disabling vibrant wind but no change. Also this is incomplete so you have the 2D trees in winter and the 3D trees in summer at present which is just odd.
Travel options: Weird, janky way of replacing fast travel (which I don't think you need to do). Lots of people use this but I hate it. Autopathing across the map at 50x speed is not the more immersive option IMO. This wouldn't be a problem except other mods require it like...
Climate and calories: Requires travel options. Would be an ok mod otherwise for people who like survival mechanics in their RPGs but it's not my thing. The survival takes center stage instead of being a low key flavor thing as I would prefer. Daggerfall is a dungeon crawler first and foremost so the survival elements shouldn't dominate as they do in this mod.
Realistic wagon: Requires travel options so didn't keep it installed long enough to try driving the wagon. My gut tells me I don't really want a realistic wagon anyway.
Lousy lycans: Provides a much needed nerf to lycanthropy but requires realistic wagon (which requires travel options). Also sounds a bit extreme as it makes you drop all your items when you transform.
Scars: Randomly kills you every so often by spawning high level creatures next to you. Nice ideas here and very ambitious mod but needs level scaling badly to be less of a Russian roulette experience.
Unlevelled loot: It's exactly as OP as it sounds. One for people who value "realism" over balance and progression.
General advice for gameplay
For game settings
- Disable allow guild quest selection
- Disable allow magic item repair
- Disable instant repairs
- Disable enemy infighting
- Disable advanced climbing
Those are just cheats and ruin game balance. Even if you're a new player you should have these off.
I also suggest:
- Turn off the archery changes (they make bows unusably slow)
- Remap attack to left click and interact to right click. Feels more natural that way. Remap cast spell to E or something else convenient. Just spend some time sorting out the controls before you start.
- In general look over the settings carefully. Many of the enhancements are cheats.
- Ambient dungeon lighting, player torch light and nighttime ambient light can all be decreased and should be (unless you're using Reshade to increase the black point).
- The item based player torch is a great addition made in DFU. Leave it on.
In the settings.ini
- Change the zoom distance of the map and make the dungeon map always solid. There's a guide for how to do it on the nexus (just don't set the zoom as far as he says unless you have really good eyes or a massive monitor).
- You can turn on smaller dungeons in the .ini if you want to. I'd say don't because Daggerfall is a dungeon crawler and you're reducing the primary challenge element in the game.
- To get to the settings.ini it's C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\LocalLow\Daggerfall Workshop\Daggerfall Unity
- You need to show hidden files to see appdata.
Last edited:
I set up DFU during the last covid lockdown but never got around to playing it, it's handy to have this list around if I do.
. Did the drag-n-drop thing as well but just those listed show up. I'll try again later, thanks.
