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I think that message was about seeing human, or humanoid, footprints that looked like people were running and jumping at the raised area in the center of the room.

If you managed to beat that dungeon without running into any Barbarians, you really were lucky!

Yesterday I was in a house so I could camp for 10 days while waiting for my gear to be repaired. I still had some gear on me, but I always unequip everything before talking to the blacksmith-- to avoid accidentally triggering the bug caused by getting gear repaired without unequipping it first-- and I've taken to running around unarmored and weaponless while my gear is in for repairs. My Armor Rating is pretty good without any armor on because I've got 4 ebony items (Bracelet, Belt, Torc, and Amulet), an artifact (Ring of Phynaster) that adds -6 to my AR, plus a fairly decent Agility level. And my hand-to-hand attacks are pretty strong because my Strength is maxed out, plus my Agility level increases my chance of scoring hits.

Anyway, I ran into an Iron Golem and started punching away. I had to cast Light Heal once or twice, but was able to destroy it. I just might try my luck at questing in a random dungeon with no armor and no weapon!

Speaking of Light Heal, I've purchased the other healing spells from the Mages Guild, but Light Heal works so well for me that I've never needed to use the "stronger" healing spells. That might be because my character is a Healer, although I thought that simply affected the casting cost of healing spells, not their effectiveness.

This morning I got an impossible quest from the queen of Hegathe to go retrieve some gold for her from Stonedale, which is on the other side of Hammerfell, and return it to her by a date that the game just would not let me meet. I kept reloading and retrying, but I always ended up 5 days past her stipulated date. Normally I have no trouble completing a quest within the required timeframe, so it actually made me angry with the queen that she would stipulate an impossible date!

Last week I was in Lainebon Place, which I decided is pronounced "Lain Ebon Place"-- or is it? The town itself seemed very boring, until I ventured outside of the city walls and found several dungeons nearby. It's interesting how different towns have different places to see in their surrounding wilderness areas, such as lots of farms and taverns but not much else, or several crypts, or a lot of towers and keeps. The towns themselves can be so similar to other towns that they lack much personality, yet the differences in their wilderness areas can give them more distinction. I didn't try to explore all of the dungeons around Lainebon Place, but I decided I'll have to remember to go back there whenever I feel like exploring some dungeons.

I know at one point they had trouble with fast-travel times not being consistent with the "stated" times and mentioned fixing that which seems to work normal. It seemed it was also related to quest times. I'm sure it's not "supposed" to give you impossible time-frames, so that's interesting.

I wouldn't have noticed the "ebon" in that name. Makes sense to me. I would have pronounced it like Autobahn, for the German highway system - but when I looked up how to spell it, I realized it was because I was mixing it up with Audubon, the bird protection society. None of that's important. It just shows how easily distracted I ...Squirrel

I finally took some time to test the information learned about the fuzzy map issue during saving and loading and it worked great. Both the Hex edit and your non-invasive technique. I found one issue though and was wondering if you ran into it? For multi-level dungeons. Halls of Colossus specifically. you go down a level and then come back up to finish exploring the first. Even though "I" wasn't saving and and re-loading the maps...the game was. At least it seemed like it. Meaning that when I came back up from level 2, my first level map was fuzzy. I may have made some mistake, but was just wondering if you noticed?

I let my lower nature creep in and cheated. I didn't know anything about the Halls of Colossus going in and started finding keys. (Did you know it's possible to miss the note at the beginning that explains your looking for keys? I discovered it right before my final exit after finishing.) I knew I previously carried 2 keys at once, but now 4....now 6. "Is my game going to break". I open two magically locked doors and the 3rd door says "hmm, looks like you don't have a Ruby key". "Are you kidding me!!! I've mapped every inch of this dungeon." While technically true, the area was mapped, I neglected to actually go "in" one tiny room. I got distracted because a ghost kept preventing my progress by hovering over an entrance. I ended up getting a clean map of the area, but didn't realize I missed a room. I choose to look it up rather than go through all the rooms again.

Well, obviously I found more hidden doors (mentioned disappointed I hadn't found more), so now I'm disappointed I haven't found a magic staff. Really!??

Apparently it isn't a notice for the most difficult, but it's currently my favorite. "It'd be a miracle if you pick this lock."

I recently found out I can be attacked in an inn, what I didn't realize was that the time I selected for camping..."seemed"...to pass during the fight. I don't know if that was normal, a fluke, or it was already close to morning and I just forgot.

Tested and added a bunch of info on blessings. Basically it's buggy and quirky and difficult to find "positive" uses and outcomes for it.

Regarding Halls of Colossus, I hadn't noticed that the map was fuzzy upon changing levels, but then that was before I heard about the cause and figured out a workaround. What might work for multilevel dungeons is to save a nonfuzzy map and then reload it-- so it's fuzzy-- just before you switch levels. If the game is automatically saving and loading the automap when you switch levels (which makes sense), then hopefully that will cause it to autosave a fuzzy map and autoload a nonfuzzy map.

Regarding being woken from sleep and attacked in a tavern, I've also noticed that you can be attacked just as your selected period of rest is ending-- and it seems to prevent you from getting the full benefit of that rest. (You might remember that I once mentioned how you get some health/stamina/magica recovery during your rest, and another little bit upon waking up.) Also, having your sleep interrupted usually changes the minutes of the current in-game time. For instance, if it's 10:20 at night and you decide to rest for 8 hours, you should wake up at 6:20 in the morning-- but if you're attacked just before you wake up, you might find that it's 6:10 in the morning.

As for blessings, I always assumed they were supposed to be for removing curses, although I've never bothered to get blessed because curses and poisonings always wear off on their own after a short period of time-- unlike diseases, which must be cured.

Addendum: If I arrive in town after dark and decide to rest at an inn so I can turn in my quest first thing in the morning, and if I'm expecting to be attacked by agents of the Underking, or the Thieves Guild, or the Wharf Rats, or Princess Whats-her-face who always seems to be kidnapping everyone else's parents and heir apparents, I like to go back to the inn's exit after renting a room for the night so I can rest there, because if you're attacked while sleeping you'll wake up where you were when you started to rest, rather than waking up in bed-- and if you're being attacked by really tough enemies, it can be easier to just dash outside of the inn to escape them. Even if you fight and kill them, it can be a good idea to dash outside afterward so you can do a quick save before going back inside to get some more sleep.

That's a good plan about being next to the door. I was doing that when I was testing the blessings, because I had to wait a few days to see when it would ware off, but couldn't save in the inn. I hadn't thought of using it as an in game strategy. I also liked "Princess Whats-her face". I'll have to keep an eye out for her and her family-napping urges.

I met my first Vampire. The sounds were great, it was creepy. I finally managed to kill it (I think), but I first subdued it with a recently acquired silver blade. Which was convenient in terms of my health, but really sucky in terms of timing. Wait 6 minutes..."roar"...{fireball]..wait another 6 minutes. I think the shortest time was two minutes and it felt like it took an hour to finish off. But now that I know where it is, I'll probably go back and run some tests with it sometime. It ended up giving me Wound Rot, but luckily I was able to make a full recovery. You mentioned something about "Permanent" stat reduction; is that like they say on the wiki, meaning they don't wear off like curses, or that you weren't able to recover your stat points at all. The wiki also has a comment saying they can give you vampire diseases, "But oddly they don't damage you." That doesn't sound right, unless they mean the disease didn't affect health. Cuz this guy definitely damaged me and the disease took a huge chunk out of my stats.

The wiki has a note on Ghosts and Wraiths "running away". Now I know the Wraiths and Hell-hounds cast fire-balls and I think they end up killing themselves, but then that wouldn't apply to ghosts. What do you think? I'll have to run some tests, to see if I get XP when they vanish on their own.

For some reason I hadn't seen it before, or didn't register until now. I like speaking to a few people in the inn just to see if I get anything new. Usually lots of dialogue...and then today; "Go Away". Well...that was...very....to the point.

On the wiki the image of a ghost has YELLOW eyes. All the ghosts in my 1.07 game have RED eyes. Are they YELLOW in yours?

Is it just me, or is it harder to pick locks after you get a disease? I may have mentioned that before, but it happened again today. It seems like I'm picking locks too easily...and then...I can't open it to save my life and it seems just after something diseased me and I cured it.

Okay...I found a magic staff. Nothing to be disappointed about now.

I have a habit of checking the map as soon as I enter a dungeon or change floors. So, it works out for me to just check for a fuzzy map while I'm at it. If fuzzy - save and reload. Works for me.

I finally ticked off the blacksmith. I kept haggling and finally he gave up; "I hope you don't think you can get a better price, but your welcome to look someplace else." Luckily, he let me try again.

Yes, I meant that the stat reductions don't wear off over time, but would need to be reacquired by leveling up. I'm not sure if using a Cure Disease potion or spell as soon as you get diseased will mitigate or maybe even prevent the stat reductions, but I assume that the reductions are immediate and might get worse as time passes unless you get cured. I'm not sure what the wiki means about "vampire diseases."



I'm not sure, but I think I've gotten XP from at least a few Wraiths when they disappeared, but that was when I was whacking at them with an ebony weapon. I'm guessing you probably won't get XP if they just disappear on their own before you can attack them-- unless perhaps they kill themselves with a spell. That isn't normal; I think it only happens if your stats are good enough for you to get a "saving throw" when the game rolls the results of their attack on you, or if you have some kind of protection like Spell Reflection.



I'm pretty sure they're red, but I'd have to check to be certain. I'm 99.9% certain that Wraiths have red eyes, but I'm not certain about Ghosts.



Success at picking locks is definitely a combination of the lock's difficulty, stats, RNG, and possibly class. I know some classes are said to be better or worse at picking locks, but I never had much trouble picking locks as a Knight, so I'm not sure if the class is actually part of the game's logic for calculating the RNG, or if it's just that certain classes tend to start the game with higher or lower Intelligence. So if you catch a disease that lowers your Intelligence, it seems likely that it might have a noticeable effect on your success at picking locks. I do know that I'll often be able to pick locks that say "It'd be a miracle if you pick this lock," but then I might come across one that says "This lock is an insult to your intelligence" yet I can't seem to pick it. I just use an Open spell if I can't pick the lock myself.



Wait until you tick off the mage in the Mages Guild; his dialog is even more amusing!

Haggling can be rewarding and fun, but it can also become tedious after a while, plus you'll eventually have so much gold that you might not care about haggling anymore. But if you're experienced at haggling, you can get to where you know how much to ask for certain things.

I've found that a good rule of thumb is that you can often buy things for about 0.72 (or 72%) of the initial asking price, and sell things for about 1.28 (or 128%) of the initial offer, but the exact amounts can vary. My usual process is to divide the initial amount by 3, then either add or subtract the result to the initial amount-- that is, about 67% if buying or 133% if selling. The merchant will refuse that amount, but just raise or lower it depending on the situation (buying or selling) until you find the highest or lowest amount that he doesn't reject outright.

However, you'll only get 6 or 7 chances-- usually 6, but occasionally 7-- before the merchant calls off the deal in frustration, so if that happens then you should start over with the same price you'd just countered with, because if the deal got called off due to it taking too long then he'll reject the countered amount even if he would normally have accepted it.

Once you find a price that successfully triggers a counter offer from the merchant, stick with your price because he'll keep meeting you half way, but rounded down. Again, you'll get 6 or 7 chances, so either accept his 6th counter offer or try for a 7th time to see if you're lucky. If the deal falls through, just start over with whatever price you'd determined to be the highest or lowest reasonable offer.

For example, let's say you want to sell something and his initial offer is 18 gold. Divide 18 by 3 to get 6, and add 6 to 18 to get 24. But if you counter with 24, he'll refuse, so you'll have to go down to 23. He might respond to 23 with a counter offer rather than rejecting it, in which case you should stick with 23. But if he rejects 23, go down to 22 and he'll almost certainly respond with a counter offer, in which case you should stick with 22. So the haggling might go as follows:

Merchant: 18
You: 24 (1st attempt)
Merchant: No way!
You: 23 (2nd attempt)
Merchant: 20 (halfway between 18 and 23, rounded down)
You: 23 (3rd attempt)
Merchant: 21 (halfway between 20 and 23, rounded down)
You: 23 (4th attempt)
Merchant: 22 (halfway between 21 and 23, rounded down)
You: 23 (5th attempt)
Merchant: 22 (halfway between 22 and 23, rounded down)
You: 23 (6th attempt)
Merchant: 22
You: 23 (7th attempt)
Merchant: Sod off!

You'll need to start over with 23 and accept his counter to your 6th attempt, if not sooner.

If the initial price is quite large, you might want to go up or down from your initial counter in steps of 5, 10, or even 50 or 100, to find a price that doesn't get rejected outright. Then you can start going back in the other direction to find the cutoff price. For example, suppose you're selling a magical item and the initial offer is 6000. The haggling might go as follows:

Merchant: 6000
You: 8000 (#1)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7900 (#2)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7800 (#3)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7700 (#4)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7600 (#5)
Merchant: 6800
You: 7650 (#6)
Merchant: 7225
You: 7660 (#7)
Merchant: Sod off!

Start over.
Merchant: 6000
You: 7660 (#1)
Merchant: 6830
You: 7670 (#2)
Merchant: 7250
You: 7680 (#3)
Merchant: 7465
You: 7690 (#4)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7685 (#5)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7684 (#6)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7683 (#7)
Merchant: Sod off!

Start over.
Merchant: 6000
You: 7683 (#1)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7682 (#2)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7681 (#3)
Merchant: No way!
You: 7680 (#4)
Merchant: 6840
You: Reject, because you found the best price and should start over to get 6 attempts.

Start over.
Merchant: 6000
You: 7680 (#1)
Merchant: 6840
You: 7680 (#2)
Merchant: 7260
You: 7680 (#3)
Merchant: 7470
You: 7680 (#4)
Merchant: 7575
You: 7680 (#5)
Merchant: 7627
You: 7680 (#6)
Merchant: 7653
You: Accept, unless you want to try a 7th time and risk having to start over again.

Once you find the best price, you can divide it by the original offer to get a rate:
7680 / 6000 = 1.28

Then you can use that rate for any additional transactions, although you might need to go up or down a bit depending on how accurate the division was. For instance, if the initial offer was 11 and the best price was 14, the calculated rate will be 1.272727, but that might not be entirely accurate due to the numbers used.

In any case, the rate can fluctuate, so the next time you go to the merchant he might give you a slightly better or worse rate, or he might give you 7 chances instead of just 6 chances. So you can either spend more time playing the haggling game to find the absolute best price each time you visit a merchant, or speed things up by sticking with a rate you know is likely to be accepted, or just take the initial offer and not bother with haggling at all if you don't want to spend any time at all on it.

The buying rate usually seems to be 2.00 minus the selling rate, but that might need to be adjusted:
2.00 - 1.28 = 0.72
2.00 - 1.27 = 0.73
2.00 - 1.26 = 0.74
etc.

By the way, going back to the question of finding work in towns, my current character is Level 19 and was able to find some odd jobs by asking around. However, this was after a lengthy period of not being able to find any work except from the towns' rulers, and when I went to the ruler to introduce myself he dismissed me without asking for help with anything, so it seems like you might not find any odd jobs if the ruler is needing help, or you're more likely to find odd jobs if the ruler doesn't need any help, or something along those lines. In any case, you can definitely still find odd jobs at higher character levels, although it might be much rarer to find them at higher levels.

Wow, that's some good information...and very thorough. My haggling kind of mirrors my real life haggling skills. I hate to go to a car dealership that doesn't have a price on the window. Give me a price and I'll either take it or go somewhere else. I probably over pay....a lot. My late father-in-law could haggle for anything. He spent $20 at a yard sale for the same camera my dad paid $400 new. He got them to knock off like 100-200 on a van we bought because the stereo was broken....it was just a standard fuse blown.

So my game haggling goes something like this. Is it under 90? Just end it. Is it near 100? Try to get 100. Is it over 500? Try to get a couple more. But with all of these I usually take the first offer after my counter. If it's over 1000, then I usually try to counter higher and haggle more. Especially if it is 2-4 thousand. I started with my secondary counters dropping by 100's, but moved to 50's, 20's, 5's. I started noticing that the higher I kept it..."it seemed" the higher his counter. (which seems to match what you just told me) I never thought to counter with the same price.

Lock picking: My intelligence is my lowest stat, and as a Nord Knight I haven't really had too much trouble with locks once I started picking them. When that gives me too much trouble, I can usually bash my way in fairly quickly. But yeah; every once in a while it seem like I can't get in - But I keep changing equipment, and playing with blessings and luck items. I don't think Luck interacts with thieving, but don't know about blessing. It could be something indirectly like a combo of blessing and disease not playing well together, but probably just RNG.

Found a level in the Crystal Tower that has areas you can't get to without passwall. I've never used the one for trenches. Apparently there's also a spell to build walls. Something about building walls in the wilderness and it becomes a dungeon. That'd be cool. - But anyway, while I don't like having the temptation to be able to just run through a dungeon with a passwall spell, I've pretty much decided that you really need to have one....and just resist the urge to abuse it.

I've also finally gotten a few riddles correct on my first try. Yeah! But, now I'll always wonder if it's really because I happened to glance at the riddles at different times and it's really just part of my subconscious.

Regarding Luck, presumably it does influence random results such as picking locks, picking pockets, stealing from stores, sneaking into inn rooms, etc. But I don't know to what extent Luck is a factor.

Regarding Passwall and Pitfalls, they can be "essential" if you really want to gain access to some closed-off area, but the devs took precautions against players abusing them too much by placing impregnable walls around certain rooms that require a key or solving a riddle to enter. But as long as you don't feel like it's "cheating," you can use them for convenience.

Levitation and Light might be viewed the same way, since it's potentially "cheating" to be able to glide over a pit that's too wide to jump across, or check a large room for treasure without having to actually venture all the way inside when there are no braziers in the room, etc. Personally, I like to use Levitation to float across large lakes so I can explore a dungeon on an island in the center of the lake without having to swim-- assuming there's no boat nearby. And one wilderness dungeon has a room you can't get inside unless you use Levitation, Passwall, or Pitfalls, because the door to the room has water in front of it. Supposedly you can open doors which are fronted by water or a pit by jumping at them and opening them before you fall into the water or pit, but I've never been able to do that.

Regarding riddles, I think at least two of the riddles are "classics" in the sense that I've seen them in books or movies-- in particular, in The Hobbit, in a scene with Gollum and Bilbo. But I don't know if all of them are "classics." And there's one particular riddle where you must do math to figure out the answer, which I tend to have trouble with because the clues that are intended to help you seem pretty obscure, and the solution seems to rely on some familiarity with numerology. I think I could solve it myself now, after having played through the game twice before, but on my second playthrough I ended up having to look up the answer because I couldn't remember all the details I needed to know to do the math myself.

Although I have a general policy of not using Passwall to create a shortcut through a dungeon, but only when there's no other way to access a closed-off area, there's one situation where I won't hesitate to use it to create a shortcut.

When I hear the sound of a Fire Daemon, Iron Golem, or Stone Golem, but can't see one anywhere around, I'll check the map to see if I'm next to a room where it might be. Since moving too far away from it will cause it to despawn, and since I don't want to lose it-- because, ya know, I gotta get that XP-- I'll save the game before moving, then walk around looking for it. If I can't reach it without causing it to despawn, I'll restore to before it despawned and use Passwall to access any nearby rooms where it might be, until I find it.

I actually have been using passwall more and more. You make a good point about levitation and light (which I always use) and how you could make a case for many of these items to be cheating, if you were trying to be stiff about it. My point wasn't really about "cheating", but about the lack of a desire to explore. It seems like most of our information about Arena was written by those who played after it was released for free. I watch the people making "speed runs" and use the 1.07 glitch because it's fair game...(It is a speed run and not a walk-thru) - I see all the comments about "memory bugs plague the system"; and comments about "here's the quickest way to get to the end" because "there's nothing else to see anyway".

Maybe I've invested enough time in the game I'm becoming defensive for it.

....Maybe I'm getting old and becoming defensive of criticisms of things that are .."older".

I definitely feel like Arena tends to get short-changed by streamers who play it, but that isn't always the case.

It seems like many of the streamers I've watched play Arena were playing it only because they said they were going to play through every Elder Scrolls game-- or the five in the main series, anyway-- hence their goal was essentially to "beat" each game as quickly as possible so they could move on to the next one. That's fair, especially if their plans for their channels are to play a variety of games and game series, not just the Elder Scrolls games.

But it can leave viewers with a skewed view of how much there is to do in a game, not to mention how a game's difficulty can be affected by how much time you spend on leveling up you character's stats and acquiring the best gear and spells that your character can use. Arena can be brutal and unmerciful in its difficulty, and I've seen streamers give up in frustration because they went rushing into Stonekeep with no preparation. I myself quit on Arena after perhaps 30 minutes or less the very first time I tried to play it, because I couldn't get very far from the door to my cell in the Imperial Dungeons before getting killed, and it was years before I decided to give Arena another try.

Another thing some streamers like to do is play a game "blind," without looking at the manual to learn about the controls, and without looking at any guides for help. Some of them will even get angry with you if you try to give them help with the controls-- although most will be grateful if you tell them how to do something they're struggling to figure out, as long as you don't give them "spoilers." This was one of the reasons I quit on Arena the first time, because I didn't read the manual to learn the most basic things, like how to attack the goblins that kept killing me.

Also, most streamers who don't give up on Arena in complete frustration (which I can sympathize with because it mirrors my own first attempt to play the game) are completely focused on completing the Main Quest, so they generally avoid doing any other content in the game which would "distract" them from that goal. Oddly, they'll usually make it a point to play the other questlines in the other Elder Scrolls games, such as the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild questlines. While Arena has no such secondary questlines, there are still other things you can do-- exploring the houses in the cities, exploring in the wilderness, doing quests for the city rulers, etc. Those types of activities are always crucial in an Elder Scrolls game for gaining XP and leveling up, finding the best gear, etc.

There are streamers who are exceptions, but they're few and far between.

Even streamers who are playing the game quickly just to move on to the next one can be educational to watch. I didn't know I could read the names of inns and other buildings and add them to my map by right-clicking on their doors until I saw a streamer do it. And I never tried to get the hang of haggling until I watched a streamer doing it.

Aside from things like that, it can be enlightening to watch other people play a game because their playstyles and preferred character classes might be totally different than yours, which can help nudge you out of your own ruts.

That's true. Even though there are many with play styles that I don't like...It's not that I mind if they have their own style, it's when they do a review and it's critiqued with only their style in mind, or when it feels like they are criticizing "my" style. But I can definately learn things I wouldn't have even thought about, by watching or talking with different people with different styles.

My style's always changing though. I want to be a completionist, but sometimes I get board or it's too difficult for me and I give up. Especially with big games like the Elder Scrolls series, I have a tendency to play for a very long time, but then never finish anything. So for Arena, right now, I am playing it mostly just so I can say I played it; so my main goal is "finishing". I'm trying to play for fun and realism; putting my imagination to work and putting myself in the game; but more than any other game I've played, I've got this technical mindset that's always right there in the forefront. So it's not exactly how I would normally play the game. I have a specific goal for 1.07 of playing through the main story, but I do a ruler quest every staff piece, and volunteer for every mission that happens to find me. I plan to play again using more of a magic user with 1.06 and the primary plan is to go after every artifact. Doing more side missions since I'll probably be avoiding the main ones. The idea is that I'll still have an element of exploration that will give me drive to keep playing while I'm really dragging my analytical side all over Tamriel. We'll see. (I said it's not how I would normally play the game.....well, now that I think about it...my normal way to play was ...I gave up.)

My main reason for writing right now was to say this:

<CTRL>+<F9> is really, really close to <CTRL>+<F10> ....and that sucks.

What do Ctrl-F9 and Ctrl-F10 do?

One thing I'd noticed before, but hadn't really appreciated until now, is that you can interact with the mage in the Mages Guild and the blacksmith in an equipment store from across the room-- you don't need to be close to them, as long as you can see them and click on them.

What I just realized is that this can be useful if you want to try stealing from them, because if you're able to stay near the door then it's easier to escape if your attempt fails and the guards appear.

I haven't tried doing that yet, because I've got so much gold and such good gear that I don't need to steal from them, but it could be useful for players who are still trying to acquire more gold and better gear.

I've only accidentally clicked the 'steal' button a couple of times, but I noticed that too. (easy escape) As long as you don't get trapped, it's safer to try and rob a store than it is to break into a house; because using the door ends the fight. Though I didn't know you could be that far away from them. I'm usually looking at the blacksmiths belly button he's so big on my screen cuz I'm so close.

I went to speak to a mage to buy something, but my inventory was full. I noticed I had some junk, so I thought I'd try and just drop some right there in the building. I must have crushed the mage. My pile of junk appeared where the mage was standing and he was gone. I had to leave and come back in.

CTRL+F10 unlocks the mouse from the game screen. You can change the "autolock=" to "false" in the DosBox config file, but that makes the mouse jumpy on my computer. With "true", my mouse is stuck on the Arena game until I exit out of it. So I use CTRL+F10 when I'm playing and want to check something on the net or write a note in my Excel file. Then I click on the game and my mouse locks in again.

CTRL+F9 is the default Kill DosBox combo. Kinda like ALT+F4 for most windows programs. I had a disease that I hadn't caught before and I wanted to write a note and killed DosBox instead of releasing the mouse.

Today I was reminded of the importance of saving frequently. I was exploring in Labyrinthian, and had just about finished mapping the eastern half of the second floor when suddenly our power went out. Naturally, I hadn't saved in about half an hour.

I thought, hey, maybe I can salvage my progress by copying the *.64 files to the save game files in that slot number? But when I looked, only the AUTOMAP.64 file was current, along with SCREENSV.$$2 file (whatever that is). I guess the *.64 files only get updated when they need to be, but I was expecting to see more files than just that one. So I'll play it safe and just restore from my last save, then redo all of the exploration that I lost.

That's a shame. I was kinda banking on that being a thing I might need and be able to do sometime. (restore using the *.64 files, so I don't lose as much.)

I finally started my new job. It's primarily physical labor and I am so seriously out of shape. Starting right in with 50 hr work weeks. (I've worked longer, but I was at a computer half the time.) I basically come home, eat, and go to bed.

It seems like my monsters are spawning in slower than they are supposed to. I'll go in a room, circle the perimeter, check the loot pile; and just as I'm about to leave, the monster appears and starts to attack. It may just be mostly the Mines of Khuras, but in some tiny areas it seems like they spawn where I'm standing. So they look invisible, but I'm still being attacked. Now that I think about it, that might be where a monster can attack through a corner block. I had an invisible monster attack me early in this map, that I later determined this must be what was happening. You probably get what I'm talking about and it's kind of hard to describe without an image. But if you have a square made up of four blocks, and the NW and SE are solid, and the NE and SW are empty; the two empty spaces can't see each other, but apparently they can attack each other at the corner where they meet at the center.

Some of these maps seem like they were designed to be explored in a certain order.....and I'm always exploring in the wrong order. : "Here's the body of the person you are looking for....and here is the message that says you're probably close to the person you just found....oh, and here's a scrawled note that tells you where to look for the person you found 15 minutes ago." To be fair; if this were real life, would I spend another half-day exploring a dangerous dungeon after I already found what I was looking for? ...maybe

I found an interesting thing looking through old posts. I haven't really looked closely at it, but it sounded reasonable - that while certain classes level faster or slower, it doesn't really make that much difference. https://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25356

It is a correct spelling, and it's not a word I ever use, but it just feels wrong in the game. Accouterments - rather than accoutrements. The americanized spelling in the game makes me think of the best friend of the Dukes of Hazzard; Cooter Davenport.

I think you can, but I was hesitant to do so because I didn't want to mess anything up.

When you save a game, I'm pretty sure all of the *.64 files get copied and given an extension that matches the save game slot number.

When you load a game, I'm pretty sure the reverse occurs-- the files with the chosen numbered extensions get copied back to the *.64 files.

Then, as you play, the game doesn't update each of the *.64 files until it needs to, so you end up with *.64 files that have different timestamps on them.

I should back up my saved games and experiment with "recovering" unsaved games, so I can make sure it works as I expect. Then it should be simple to write a batch file for recovering an unsaved game.



I've had both of those situations occur in the random wilderness dungeons.

If the enemy spawns in the same cell that you're in, not only will they be "invisible," but sometimes you won't be able to move until you kill them. If you can manage to move away while they're still alive, you can turn around and see them.



That spelling has bugged me ever since I began playing Arena in earnest. I didn't even realize that it's a valid spelling until I finally decided to look it up a month or two ago.

Today I killed two vampires and a lich with my bare fists, while wearing no armor.

I'm seriously thinking of selling off my armor so I'll be able to pick up more loot. It's only chain armor, so I can always buy another full set if I decide I need armor after all.

I'll likely keep my ebony round shield, ebony mace, and ebony flail, even if I decide not to use them, since they'd be harder to replace if I decide I need them.

It helps that I'm a Healer and can cast healing, defensive, and offensive spells. But I seldom cast offensive spells except in certain situations, because I prefer to use physical attacks. My most frequently used spells are Light, Light Heal, and Shield, although I also use Free Action, Levitate, Passwall, and Shalidor's Mirror from time to time.

Last night I bit the bullet and sold off my chain armor so I'll be able to pick up more loot. I've also decided to stop using my shield and mace, and fight with just my fists, to see how well that works out. So far, so good. It takes a little longer to kill certain enemies, but I haven't run into anything yet that I haven't been able to punch out.

[EDIT -- And this evening I ended up selling my Ebony Round Shield and Ebony Mace of Frost Resistance as well, although I'm saving my Ebony Flail of Luck "just in case." I'm able to slay liches with my fists, so I'm not sure if I'll ever need to actually use my flail, but it's just too nice to part with!]

But my real reason for writing is to say that I was doing a random wilderness dungeon and had a couple of glitches pop up in them, which happens from time to time-- cells that have the wrong texture graphics, or that look like a partial opening, etc.

One in particular was something I'd never seen before-- a cell that showed up as a red dot or door on the map, jutting out into the room. It was next to another glitched cell that was supposed to be a wall cell but which was an overhang or partial opening, so I could approach the red door cell from 4 directions, one of them being from "the room next door" by going under the overhang cell.

The red door cell was drawn as a cube with the same graphics on all 4 sides (as is the case with any cell), and the graphics almost looked like a trap door, but the best way I can describe it was a demon face with a brass ring at the bottom. Given that it showed up as a red door, I went under the overhang (as I was in "the room next door" when I first noticed it), clicked on it, and it looked like it split in two and the two halves slid into the surrounding wall to the left and right! I went through it into the other room, and after I went far enough away for the "door" to close it reverted to a cube shape. When I clicked on it from the other 3 directions, it looked like it slid into the cell with the overhang graphics and disappeared.

I also managed to complete a couple of quests where the city ruler neglected to give me the name of the dungeon-- just the general direction from the city-- with the map of the province already being maxed out with random dungeons. I saved the game from right after getting the quest, then kept trying different dungeons (and restoring if it wasn't the right one) until I finally found the dungeon containing the lich I was supposed to kill.

I just got the 3rd piece of the staff from Elden Root, and saw the texture used there for trap doors, so that is indeed what it's officially used for in the game.

The reason I was confused about it was because I looked around for trap doors in the random wilderness dungeon to verify that that's what the "door" glitch was drawn with, but the trap doors in that dungeon looked different-- like trap doors made of wooden planks.

I want a video! That sounds interesting.

So why do ?Liches? say they are "regenerating"? (What's plural for Lich?) I thought regeneration had to do with monsters that get subdued (and you can't attack them for awhile) and then get up later and start attacking again (i.e. Trolls and Vampires) But according to the UESP wiki, Liches have "self-healing", Vampires have "fast healing" and Trolls have "regeneration" listed as part of their abilities. Perhaps "regeneration" has more to do with "self-healing" and isn't related to the subduing mechanism? I'm a little confused. Liches can be killed with both magic and high-end weapons (at least I know ebony works). It also kind of seems that the only time I see "(monster) regenerating" is when that monster spawns in. When doing testing on Blessings, I devised a way to make me only able to deal "1" damage. I could then give creatures a specific number of Hit-Points and it worked out that the number of "registered" hits was equal to their hit-points that it took to kill them. Maybe someday I'll be able to test it on these three to test their healing ability. Liches are making me rethink what I thought I understood about "regeneration".

Trolls, vampires, and liches can regenerate health (hit points) while they're alive.

Magic users can cast the "Troll's Blood" spell to regenerate, or use the Spellmaker to create their own customized version of a regeneration spell.

And classes that can't cast spells on their own can use an item "of Regeneration" (such as a Mark of Regeneration, Crystal of Regeneration, Longsword of Regeneration, etc.) to cast a regeneration spell.

By itself, regeneration doesn't prevent an enemy from being killed, it just increases the enemy's rate of healing-- at least, that's pretty much how it works on player characters who cast it, and the details of the spell will obviously affect how strong the extra healing is.

But for a player character, the effect seems to be turn-based, and maybe not even that frequent-- like maybe once an hour; I'd have to check the spell description to be sure. For instance, if I cast Troll's Blood I'll occasionally see my health bar go up a little bit-- and if I rest, it will go up even more. That means I can rest for 1 hour and have my health bar go up as though I'd rested for 2 or more hours, and if I rest "until fully healed" it will take half or less as long as it would otherwise take.

Note that Endurance also affects how much health you regain for each hour of rest (in addition to how many hit points you gain when you level up)-- at least, I'm pretty sure it does, but I'm not certain of the formula used to calculate that.

Anyway, I don't know the specifics of each enemy's regenerative abilities, and it's possible that trolls, vampires, and liches have different degrees of regenerative power, similar to how you can use the Spellmaker to create multiple regeneration spells with different regenerative rates if you want to.

But as I was saying, regeneration doesn't prevent enemies from being killed, it just makes them harder to kill due to their ability to regain some of their lost hit points while you're fighting them.

Liches will basically disappear if you beat them, the way a Fire Daemon or Homonculus does, and I'm pretty sure you get XP when that happens.

I'm just guessing here, and I might be wrong, but Trolls and Vampires seem to be coded to collapse as though dead if their hit points drop to a certain level; they're "dead" in the sense that their corpses are on the ground and cannot take further damage from your physical or magical attacks, but they're still "barely alive" and can eventually recover enough hit points through regeneration to pop back up and resume attacking you. The only way to "truly kill" them is to damage them enough to lower their hit points to 0 or less while they've still got enough hit points to be up and about, because if you only damage them enough to make them collapse then you won't be able to keep damaging them while they're down.

At least, I've never been able to damage a collapsed vampire or troll with a targeted spell, because the spell always just sails right over them and hits the wall without affecting them in the slightest. An "area of effect" spell (as it's called in ESO) that damages everything within a certain distance of its point of detonation might do the trick, but I've never tried that.

I should stress, everything I said above is based solely on my own experiences playing the game, not on any technical information I've read, so I might be off on some details.

Thanks. I haven't seen any technical info on monster healing or regeneration or the subdued mechanism, so most of my information is mostly theory. You've pretty much described what I have seen also, but reminded me to keep my mind open, because I don't really know many facts on this one. I also have "0" experience with regeneration spells and haven't even seen any of those types of items, so thanks for that. I've only played with Life Steal on an item. I don't know if there is any ratio connection between how much damage it does to how much you heal, but I know it will continue to damage, even if I'm at full health. I had the Ebony Blade for a while during some testing and I liked how that worked much better. It says it has the Life Steal enchantment, but you don't have to cast it like the other items with Life Steal. You simply heal when doing damage.

In my mind I'm wanting to make Life Steal = to healing like a healing potion, and connecting regeneration to the "rate" of healing like in the other games. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is your example of seeing your health go up a little bit with Trolls Blood spell. -----paused to go read about Trolls Blood. Okay; so reworking that a little bit. In game you don't (normally) heal over time. You have to "rest" in order to heal. However (it seems to me now) regeneration is the exception. If I'm reading this correctly the higher your level the longer the effect lasts. (Not necessarily faster healing, but you won't have to cast it as often.) So if I'm reading your information correctly and tying the rest together, then "Regeneration" is exactly what it is in most of the games; a "rate" of healing.

From a player's perspective they would gain a "heal over time" which they don't normally have without resting; however if they rest, then they should (theoretically at least) receive the healing in a lump sum because of the time skip. Now I'm curious if it would make a healing potion more affective or as you were speaking about how endurance..and I think some classes or races... effectively give a higher healing rate....if it increases any other healing abilities. From the description it could just simply be handled as it's own separate thing.
From a monster perspective whenever I see "(monster) regenerating)", I'm seeing that the monster has (essentially) cast a regeneration spell on themselves (like you said) making them harder to kill. The longer the battle lasts, the more healing-over-time they will receive. As I said earlier, I've only seen this occur when the monster spawns in. I've been paralyzing them and killing them as fast as I can, so I'm not really sure if the message would occur again. (Would it be recast if the time runs out? Does the time run out, like Trolls blood? And considering it is "troll's blood" would Trolls really be casting a spell? It seems to me that this is not a message of a spell being cast, but more of a scare-warning. I have had to fight three trolls at once and before I killed the final one, I saw the message again and they started re-spawning. It took that long to kill them all. (You might be tempted to think I must not have killed them the first time, but I think it was a random encounter and enough time had passed and I had moved far enough to trigger another encounter.
)

A lot of the above is just some train of thought. Repeating some of what you said and some of what I have been thinking, trying to piece it together in my mind. If it is treated on monsters like a spell, then the higher the level, it's possible that they would have more (faster) healing for a longer time. If it is a "natural" ability. It could be set the same, or have some specific setting that (may) cause it to have better effects with a higher level monster. ( that's a very subtle difference, but I guess I stated it in case I find some technical info.) My opinion is that it probably doesn't have a time limit like "Troll's Blood" spell. I would be surprised if at some point they stop recovering, but who knows.

Regarding a weapon of Life Steal, I'm under the impression that you must actually "use" the weapon to cast the spell in order to steal any life from an enemy, although I might be mistaken. I think my previous character had a weapon of Life Steal, so I'll have to load his saved games to see.

As far as items of Regeneration, I've looked through most (but not all) of the lists of different marks, crystals, bracers, rings, broadswords, daggers, katanas, etc., which are contained in the Arena section of the UESPWiki, but I don't see any that are enchanted with that effect. But they do exist in the game-- they just aren't sold in equipment stores or Mages Guild. It's my experience that the best items in the game tend to be like that-- found only "in the wild" by looting the corpses of enemies, or by looting piles of treasure in a home, keep, crypt, dungeon, etc. I'll have to check my Knight to see what item he'd found that can cast Regeneration, but it could have been almost anything. Once I see what it is, I'll check the UESPWiki to see if it's available in a store, but I assume he acquired it as loot.

I haven't checked the Spellmaker to see what customizable options are available for the Regeneration effect, but some spell effects let you specify an increase in spell strength or spell chance based on your level, such as X-Y points of damage plus Z points per level, or X percent chance of success plus Y percent per level. The Regeneration effect might not have an option to make it stronger per level, just stronger overall with the option to make it last longer or shorter per level, or vary the number of rounds per increase so you can heal quicker as well as longer, etc. The Spellmaker is pretty interesting in just how much it lets you customize the chosen spell effects, and I haven't really explored its full capabilities yet. So far I've just purchased the premade spells, with the exception of making my own Cure Disease spell because there doesn't seem to be a premade one-- unless the wizard just isn't listing it for me for some reason.

As far as the monsters, I assume their regeneration is from a natural ability that's always in effect, rather than from casting a spell, although I don't know how the game code works.

And to change the subject, I'd meant to comment about how different one's perception of specific enemies can be depending on one's character class. Playing as a Healer, rather than as my usual choice of Knight, has given me a completely different view of spiders, medusas, and ghosts. My Knights can easily face off with spiders and medusas because Knights are immune to Paralyzation, whereas my Healer is constantly being paralyzed by them-- sometimes while she's in the water, which leads to instant and unavoidable death by drowning. And ghosts can take away all of a spellcaster's magical energy, which I never even realized as a Knight, but as a Healer it's a real hassle to run into a ghost for that reason. Aside from that, ghosts are pushovers compared to wraiths, but I don't think wraiths steal your magical energy-- they "just" one-shot you from afar.

And character race can also affect your perception of enemies. My Knights are usually Bretons, and IIRC Bretons naturally have a higher resistance to magical attacks. On the other hand, my Healer is a Nord, so IIRC she naturally has a higher frost resistance but is more susceptible to fire damage. I'll have to verify those things later-- it's awkward enough to post from my iPad even without trying to jump around between different tabs-- so I might be wrong about Nords in Arena, but IIRC from other games they're resistant to frost damage, and I'm really just assuming that they'd be more sensitive to fire damage because fire melts ice!

EDIT -- Okay, I checked after posting, and Nords are not more susceptible to fire damage. It probably jyst seems like my Nord Healer is more susceptible to the attacks of Hell Hounds than my Breton Knights were because Bretons are just naturally resistant to all magical attacks. So I'm not wrong that Nords are more threatened by Hell Hounds than Bretons are, but they aren't any more threatened by Hell Hounds than are the other races (besides Bretons).

Anyway, it's really interesting how different your experiences in Arena can be depending on your choice of class and race.