Bugs and Errors in Daggerfall

Created Tuesday 25 November 2011

If you'd like to get hacking on Daggerfall, here are some suggestions for things you could fix.

This is a rough list of bugs and errors in Daggerfall that I've compiled from various sources. Most of the text of this list is ripped from other sites, with my comments highlighted. I'll try to clean it up later and add some more detail -- ideas on how to make the fixes, what I'm working on, etc.

Knight Order fake iron free armor bug (see uesp.net for more info)

→ if the Knight Orders can give a specific material to player, then perhaps this could be used to make artifacts be the specific/correct material.

Character Generation difficulty dagger bug

%> Having just rediscovered the difficulty dagger bug in the character
%> generator, (touch the red and it forgets how to count right) I'm
%> off to see what mayhem I've wrought with the main quest :-)
%>
%Have fun.

If he seems to be leveling too quickly, you may have invoked a
character generator bug: If you apply a (dis)advantage that
moves the dagger into the red zone, the effective difficulty
is not figured correctly when you move it back out of the red.
The more times you touch red, the more unpredictable the final
difficulty setting becomes, no matter what the dagger shows.
In extreme cases, the game engine goes completely insane and
*every* skill increases every time the PC rests.

Is possibly related to this fixsave fix:

There is a bug in the game that will invalidate your starting skill

sum used for determining your user level. Fixsave will 'repair' this
in the sense that it will pick a new reasonable starting sum for you.
But it won't be what you initially had. Your level will return back
to something close to what you had before, if not the exact level.

vamp quest patches

The questfiles of this quest are misnamed, the binary file is named P0B1XL08.QBN and the text-file P0B10L08.QRC. Hence you can never get this quest unless you change the name of one file so that it matches the name of the other. This may have already been fixed in one of the quest fix packs.

Magical locking spells working globally

I have had no such troubles with lock picking, but even without
it you are likely to find more magickally locks at higher levels. And
if you ever, anywhere, cast a lock or "door jam" spell, you've done
it. It is a global enchantment, and it grows stronger for each level.
I gave up a character after having accidentally used a "sealed door"
item while at a low level. The effect was strikingly similar to what
other players claim to experience with lockpicking. :)
-- as reported by Magnus Itland.

Fix the "Residence" labelled TG to correct "Thieves Guild"

eg, Residence in Grayidge, Tulune.

Human mobs sounds

there are sound files for human mobs that go unused.

Areas of Hammerfell with Breton commoners walking around

vast areas of Hammerfell have this problem, CLIMATE.PAK defines which texture sets to use, the climate type that includes all or part of the provinces of dragontail, abibon-gora, kairou, pothago, myrkwasa, ephesus, sentinel(!), tigonus etc have Breton commoenrs.

spell Magicka Leech

does Damage SP, should really be Drain SP to be consistent with other "Leech" spells, however no Drain SP spell effect for me to patch it.

Durability of Artifacts

As it was already mentioned, all artifacts have a starting health of 1500, regardless whether they are also weapons or armors. This is the reason why some of the artifacts for example the Ebony Blade get worn out extremely fast. Although the may have powerful enchantments, they only have a very limited durability. This must be considered an oversight made by the developers. give ebony blade / other weapons / armor more health: get them all, test in game to see which break to fast, then add more health

Knights of the Hawk

Although this is the Knight Order of Santaki, all its garrisons are located in Antiphyllos. Could this be a faction.txt error? --> they are correctly listed in Santaki. *** Could fix this by ret-conning the lore to make them the order of Antiphyllos → ddouble check in-game lore

Disappearing NPCs

eg fix that bare breasted lady from vanishing in MG, maybe move her away from the walls a bit?

Montalion vampire clan

The Montalion receive the spell Free Action (useless to vampires) but should receive Teleport. From in-game book Vampires of the Iliac Bay, Chapter II: "Montalion alone have the gift for teleportation, but the other eight have powers of their own."

Glenumbra Moors vampires

In Glenumbra Moors the transition from living to undead will crash the game. The region has a vamp clan tagged to it in faction.txt so that's not the problem.

Dak'Fron Daedra Summoning Bug

As the province of Dak'fron has no libraries, and Daedra Prince quest involving one as a quest location causes the game to crash. This could be fixed by editing the quest files, I think this has already been done, but there is a building set up to be a library that is not tagged as a such in blocks.bsa that should be fixed anyway, which would also fix this bug.

Muted NPCs

Many NPCs will not talk to the player except to offer their parts of the main quest, eg Helseth, Morgiah, Lhotun. They may be muted by a scheduler s****.qrc quest running in the background, or it may be a tag in blocks.bsa, haven't looked at either yet.

List from Patched.txt

Enemies fragging themselves

Eg. liches. Fix by editing the spells they use in monsters.bsa? or giving them resistance/immunity to existing spell effects

Items that cast spells no longer get recorded as the last spell you

cast. This would cause you to cast a different spell when you hit
the recast spell.
---> this probably introduced the bug that restores the spell points for the last spell cast when aborting the spell from using a magical item

Pickpocketing monsters has been fixed. It is more consistent now.

→ I think still broken, 1-5 gold is miniscule, really not worth having pickpocket. Increase the rewards.

You will no longer start the game with negative spell points after

you created your character. The problem with the negative hit points still exists however.
Sometimes if you creat a custom character, the game starts you out with around -1000 hp. you have to rest for several weeks to get full hp sometimes, and one hit from a monster kills you (all versions).

A dungeon block was found to not have put an exit next to

where you entered. This has been fixed. Because of the way
dungeons are built, it may be placed behind an opened door.
If you do not see the exit and a door is nearby, close the door
and it should be there.

Potions made in the potion maker with recipes should now be

properly labeled in the use item list.
→ but those without recipe all 'unknown'. does identify item work on these?

Illegally bashing down doors no longer gives you a revered legal

reputation when you are caught.

You bash open doors in towns and the guards attack. When you agree to surrender they keep on attacking you and they never kill you, also you get a revered reputation (v2.13).
→ some people seem to think this still happens in 213
→ for me, when yielding to arrest instead of the court screen coming up, hit points are set to 0 and reputation drops to 'hated'.

Patch Fixes, version 1.05.195
=============================

You can now train at temples that you are not a member of.

→ shouldn't be able to do that? can't at other guilds.

Randomly created monsters in quests now always have their

items equipped. They should be more challenging now.
→ is it possible to give quest foes good items to make them harder?

KNOWN BUGS:

Although the problems with the game losing attribute/skill points

when you exceed the 100 limit through magic has been fixed, you
can still lose them when magic drains them below 0.

Patch Fixes, version 1.04.191
=============================

FIXED:

Vampire cult quests and the cure quest are now given more often.

→ Try to increase frequency of vampire quests. Not cure/hunter quest, too repetitive/annoying.

Arrows no longer wrap around to 0 when you get more than 200 of them.

→ Increase amount of arrows allowed in inventory. 200 is not that many with low skill. Unrealistic carrying capacity in game anyway.

KNOWN BUGS:

You can not bind dragonling souls in the item maker.

Item weights in the wagon are incorrectly marked as 0 kg.

Patch Fixes, version 1.01.175
=============================

The consequences of defaulting on a bank loan are now more severe.

→ AFAIK they're still pretty weak, maybe up them a lot.

Magical item effects can no longer be recast with the spell recasting key.

→ tied to the abort spell get SP back bug, perhaps not allowing PC to 'abort/cancel' use of magic items is the best fix?

Confirmed

Important

cheat keys also interpreted as non-mod keypresses, eg control F1 map cheat interpreted as both the cheat code and steal mode
Mages guild teleport dialog but cancel, PC is placed on exterior map at same coords.
sleeping on your second floor porch or roof is treated as just a part of the town and the normal vagrancy rules apply.
After the store closes, save the game and reload. The shopkeeper will be gone but you can still take the goods from the shelves. Each save and reload should restock the shelves.

PCs should be evicted from store at closing time, or have stores stay open until PC leaves

If you press to abort after activating a magic item with a combat spell, it will give you back as much magicka as the last spell you cast cost you.
Occasionally some gem stores are not displayed on the town maps in the normal orange colour. They are usually next door to another marked gem store and appear on the map as a small square south of the orange store. however, when seen in town these buildings appear to be butted together like a pair of Siamese twins.
There are 2 ways of gaining access to your wagon while in the depths of a dungeon. The first involves visiting a shop before leaving for the dungeon. Select the sell option to open your inventory and then select wagon. Exit your inventory and continue to the dungeon and everything you pick up should go straight into the wagon. This situation will continue until you select a different section of your inventory or until you reload the game, so ensure you have all your preferred items equipped beforehand. A second variation available to magic users is to create a cheap identify spell. Cast the spell, select the wagon from your inventory screen and then exit. This works in the same way as visiting a store except it can be more convenient to cast an identify. Unfortunately this still won't work inside the dungeon.
Casting any open spell will always open a store door (all versions)
Arrows travel through walls, doors.
That annoying buzz you get near lights in dungeons sometimes.
The BLANK bug still exists in v2.13
Sometimes after you practice you 'drop to the ground exhausted', even though you had full hitpoints (v2.13).
The 'drop to the ground exhausted' is displayed whenever you load up a game. Bethesda says that this is due to a corrupt savegame (v???).
Most of the various racial bonuses are missing

Breton: magic resistance
Argonian: less stamina drain while swimming. In later games immune to poison, resist disease. Only swimming mentioned in DF chargen, check lore for the others and maybe add
Redguards: add expertise in various weapons, or increase their weapon skills if poss
Khajiit: climbing bonus
Wood Elf: expertise missile weapon

Unimportant

When generating a character you can arrange to gain multiple inventory items with which to start. After going through answering questions and selecting the ebony dagger etc, if you choose to restart the character the game seems to remember the items you were allocated the first time and add on the items you get the second time through. This way you can find yourself in Privateer's Hold with 2 or more ebony daggers.
cast levitate, switch transport mode, flying horse/cart
Haggling over nothing (0 gold) with the mage guild identifier still increases your Mercantile skill (same with other vendors?) (versions?)
Having over 100% in a spell school has the result of all spells in the school costing 5 spell points (v2.13 as least I think)
Jumping while running allows one to walk on water (v2.13 at least). Jumping while going up an incline (such as stairs or a roof) lets you jump very high+far (just try it).

→ I love both of these... :>

Jumping while quickly swinging a weapon allows one to fly upwards
The void! (all versions)
When you cast the levitate spell and try to jump around your stamina just shoots down a whole bunch.

Unconfirmed

Some of the Mage's guildhalls have the odd feature of never offering

the GSM.

If you ready a spell and then abort it using the 'E' key, the mana used is returned to your store but it is still counted as a use of the skill. As a result you can 'train' your magic skills by creating cheap to cast, touch range spells in the spellmaker and casting and then aborting them repeatedly. For some reason this does not work with the Alteration skill. For this one you need to create a cheap caster range spell and actually cast it over and over. Slowfalling is a good spell for this.
On the town map, you are supposed to be able to enter your own comments. Sometimes, the editor reacts only to numbers and nothing else. This is not a big problem, but annoying. It happens about one out of four or five times (encountered on the Pentium).
When making a 'create item' spell in the spell maker if you use 'previous' to back up to the messed up icon in the list and assign it to the spell, it seems to allow you to cast the spell again immediately after first casting. Beware, however, as use of this icon can cause game crashes. This technique can be used on other spells too - for instance, on a strength boosting spell casting it again will raise the STR higher instead of extending the duration.
When you backstab mobs with an arrow, the arrow is almost never in the corpse (all versions?, v2.13).
Mobs will freeze if you attack them from a certain distance (all versions?, v2.13).
If you choose any Good Rep option in the item maker, remove it, the 'Good Rep with All' option disappears from the menu.
Items in your wagon may disappear from time to time. This is a bug confirmed by Bethesda who haven't been able to fix it. Avoid this by checking your wagon inventory after loads to ensure nothing is missing at the end of list, selling unused items frequently, and by running the fixsave utility often.
Missing entries as well as repeated entries in the dialogs (v2.13).
Casting Target at Range based spells outside doesn't work that well, especially if you and the target are at different heights (all versions).
When in dungens, When you cast a spell at range it goes through walls, and doors.
The Transfer Magic spell does not appear to work (v2.13).
There's something strange with werewolf characters and the bow. After you turn back into a human using the lycanthropy spell the game wont let you equip the bow it certain situations. Not sure which version this is experienced in.
Sometimes if you try to draw a weapon before it is equiped, your hand will be taken out and you can't use that weapon untill the game has been saved and reloaded several times (you may have to shut down your computer).
Certain magical jewelry that you get in dungeons will turn into diffrent things when equipped (a bracer turned into some sort of moving blob) (DON'T CLICK INFO), latest version.
When you equip a bow, humanoid monsters that are generated suddenly also equip one, but worst of all their bow has the same characteristics as yours. So for example when you find or buy a "death bow" (bow with the death spell on it, having the ability to kill sometimes a monster with a single shot), monsters shooting arrows at you can kill you too with a single shot. That bug exists in all versions.

Incorrectly reported bugs

The Fighters' Guild quest for killing a werebeast sometimes has a normal animal such as a bear as the target.

→ This is a deliberate twist in the quest.

Hermeus Mora WILL NOT talk to a Barbarian. Period. I spent many hours confirming this. Any other stock character or any other daedra lord works normally, but old HM seems to have a quirk. Maybe the patron of knowledge just dislikes ignorant savages? (v2.13).

→ I created a standard Barbarian and successfully summoned Hermaeus Mora on my second attempt, and completed the quest as per normal.

END