Arena is a strange game - a fun game disguised as a very tedious, un-fun game. This guide contains a few tips for how to not only play the game, but actually enjoy doing it - or at least not-enjoy it slightly less.

Update: Ignore this entire section! Bethesda has kindly upgraded the game to the CD version themselves. Thank you, Bethesda. You've actually managed to do something right for once.

Yes, that's right. In order to enjoy Arena, you have to prepare things before you even start playing it.

You see, the version of Arena on Steam is the floppy version. The floppy version sucks. The music is terrible, it has no voiced dialogue, and it has that god-awful copy protection quiz. In order to fix all that and make the game something you might actually want to play, you first need to download and install the patch here.[theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net]

I would tell you how to install it, but it's pretty straightforward and also someone else has already made a guide on that, so if you're having trouble, please check out their guide here. Be sure to give it a like.

Creating your character is a mess of confusing message and horrible faux ye-olde English. Understanding what you are doing here is crucial to enjoying the game. Here are a few tips for creating your character:

• The game will start by asking you you want to choose a class, or "generate class." Do not pick "generate class." This will give you basically no control over what class you end up as, and some are vastly better than others.
  
  
• Ok, maybe do pick generate class once as a joke, because some of the questions are quite funny. (this is where the infamous "someone stole your sweetroll" line originates from.) Then make a serious character that's not stuck with a useless class like burglar or bard.
  
  
• When choosing a class consider the following:
  
  
• Unlike later Elder Scrolls games, your equipment is restricted based on which class you pick. Generally only warrior classes can wear plate mail, for example. Additionally, most non-mage classes cannot cast spells at all.
  
  
• Thief classes suck. They cannot do anything a warrior or mage can't do better, and their "thief abilities" are useless.
  
  Thief classes are: Acrobat, Assassin, Bard, Burglar, Rogue, and of course Thief.
  
  
• Warrior classes are decent, but have to rely on enchanted items and potions for magical effects - and believe me, you will want access to magic. That said, do not play a knight, because they cannot perform the glitch to gain multiple artifacts (see the "NPCs" section), and do not play a monk, because they suck. Any other warrior class is fair game. The ranger is particularly good, because you get free bonus damage equal to your level on hit.
  
  Warrior classes are: Archer, Barbarian, Knight, Monk, Ranger, and Warrior.
  
  
  
• Mage classes mostly play the same, differing only in equipment restrictions and spell costs. All mage classes are solid picks, and out perform any other class except at very low levels. More on that in the magic section below. That said, there is one exception: do not play as a sorcerer. Their gimmick is they have more MP, spell absorption, but cannot regain it through resting, similar to the Atronach sign from later Elder Scrolls games. However, unlike later games, MP restoring potions and items are much harder to come by. You will be constantly out of mp if you choose to play as a sorcerer.
  
  Mage classes are: Battle Mage, Healer, Mage, Nightblade, Sorcerer, and Spellsword.
  
  
• If you want a more in-depth description of each class and what it does, look here.[en.uesp.net]

• You will next be asked which province you're from. This will determine your race, and which province you start in.
  
  
• Each race affects your starting stats slightly, and each race has a passive bonus. Those bonuses, and their usefulness, are as follows:
  
  
• Argonian: Swim fast, and lose less fatigue while swimming. Not very useful.
  
  
• Breton: Take half damage from all magic attacks. Very useful.
  
  
• Dark Elf: Small bonus to hit and damage with all weapons. Moderately useful. Note that they have no fire resistance unlike later games.
  
  
• High Elf: Immune to paralysis. Moderately useful. Note that they don't gain bonus MP unlike later games.
  
  
• Khajiit: Climb walls faster. Totally useless. There will be exactly 0 times when you'll find yourself saying "boy, I wish I could climb that wall faster."
  
  
• Nord: Half damage from cold attacks. Not very useful. Enemies with cold attacks are rare.
  
  
• Redguard: Small Bonus to hit and damage with daggers and bows. Not very useful.
  
  
• Wood Elf: Small Bonus to damage, but not hit, with melee weapons. Not very useful. Why not bows? Their bonus got switched with the Redguard's, above. Oops!

Finally, you will be asked to choose your attributes, name, and appearance. Your attributes don't matter as much as you might expect, but in general, keep the following in mind:

• Your starting stat values for each stat is a base value of 30, 40, or 50 points, depending on your race, plus a random roll of between 1 and 21 for each stat. You also get between 4 and 24 "bonus" points to distribute how you see fit.
  
  
• Keep rerolling your starting attributes until you get a set of values you like. But not too much - good enough will do.
  
  
• You gain between 1 and 6 additional attributes when you level up. If you get a low roll, just reload.
  
  
• Strength increases melee damage and fatigue. It is important for warrior classes. It is less useful for thieves, and not useful at all for mages, who can increase their strength magically on the rare cases when they need it. It also increases your jump height and carry weight.
  
  
• Intelligence increases spell points. It is vital for mages, and somewhat useful for thieves. Warriors don't have spell points, so can ignore it. It also influences your barter prices, for some reason.
  
  
• Willpower: increases your resistance to enemy spells. Moderately useful to all classes. Also influences barter prices, for some reason.
  
  
• Agility: Increases chance to hit, chance to dodge, damage resistance, and thief skills. Vital for thieves and warriors, still moderately useful for mages.
  
  
• Endurance: Max health, max fatigue, health gained from resting, poison resistance. Very useful for thieves and warriors. Less useful for mages, who can use shield spells to become basically invincible anyway. Best to raise this early, as it influences health gained when you level up, also.
  
  
• Personality: Influences barter prices, and nothing else. Absolutely useless for all classes, especially because Int and Wil already do this.
  
  
• Luck: Inflences gold found in treasure, chance to hit and dodge, and chance to succeed when bartering, all very slightly. Useful, but not essential, for all classes.
  
  
• The "base" stat values of each race and gender are as follows, courtesy of UESP:
  
  
• Remember that these "base" values will be increased by between 1 and 21 points at character creation, depending on your random stat rolls.

Magic in Arena is pretty overpowered - bordering on broken. However, in order to use it "properly", we first have to understand how it works.

You see, all spells in arena have two parts, a "base" part, and a "leveled" part. The base part never changes , but the leveled part is multiplied by your level every time you cast the spell. For example, if you had a spell with 10-20 damage base, and 5-10 damage leveled, it would do 15-30 damage at level 1 (10-20+5-10), while it would do 35-70 damage at level 5 (10-20+(5-10 x 5).

Now, I know that's a bit complicated, but you might already be able to see the problem here: as you level up, your spells become insanely, ridiculously powerful.

You see, even as a spells power increases thanks to the scaling component, its cost stays the same. essentially, your spells just get more and more cost efficient as you level, as well as more powerful. The trick, then, is to never buy premade spells, but instead to craft custom spells with pitiful base values but a massive scaling component. These spells will therefore have reasonable prices, but deal insane damage as you level up. For example:

Consider the same spell as before. Now, say we made a custom spell which had a base value of 1-1, but a scaling value of 20-30. These two spells would have similar costs, and at level 1, the damage would be 15-30 vs 21-31, about the same. However at level 5, the values would instead be 35-70 vs 101-151! As you continue to level, the difference would only get larger.

All that being said, your starting spells will suck as a mage, and getting out of the first dungeon will be a slog. The first thing to do after leaving the starting dungeon as a mage should be to get some gold (I suggest using the house trick, see the "town buildings and services" section below,) And getting some custom spells made at the nearest mages guild.

The following spell effects are particularly noteworthy:

Create: Shield: Arguably the most useful spell effect. This gives you a shield which essentially acts as bonus hit points, absorbing damage until it breaks, with no time limit. A high level mage with a well-scaled shield spell is essentially invincible. And if it does break... you can just recast it!

Damage: Health: this is your main method for dealing damage as a mage. Unlike later games you cannot make custom fire/frost/shock spells.

Note also that the two most useful damage spell types are single target at range, and explosion centered on self. Explosion on target is rarely useful because it's more expensive than single target at range, and there are rarely many enemies close enough for the explosion to matter. Single target on touch is not useful because explosion on self is strictly better than it - not because of its aoe, but because it casts instantly removing the chance that a melee enemy will hit you and interrupt the casting animation.

Create: Wall: This literally and permanently creates a dungeon wall tile in front of you. That doesn't sound very useful, but if you cast Destroy: Floor, and then cast Create: Wall on top of the destroyed floor, you can mysteriously create a new dungeon out of thin air! Spooky.

Destroy: Wall & Destroy: Floor: Destroy: Wall destroys the dungeon wall tile in front of you, which can be used to bypass large parts of dungeons - and believe me, you want to do that. Destroy: Floor is less useful, but see Create: Wall above.

Heal: Its use is obvious, but notably at high levels you can create spells which heal huge amounts for trivial costs, even for free if you play your cards right.

Spell Reflection: Can easily reach 100% chance thanks to the scaling component, allowing you to stand there and laugh as all spell casting enemies in the game kill themselves while being unable to harm you in any way.

Fortify: Attribute: Particularly noteworthy are Fortify: Strength and Fortify: Endurance. Strength is useful because your encumbrance is only checked when you first try to pick up an item, so you can make a short duration but high value fortify strength spell and carry loads of items without fear of becoming over-encumbered. Endurance on the other hand can be cast immediately before leveling up to ensure you get the maximum amount of bonus hp from leveling. Unlike later games, fortified endurance does count toward your level up bonus.

Towns in Arena are a confusing mess. Unfortunately, they are also a vital part of the game.

There are two reasons to go into towns: NPCs, and various buildings which offer services for money. This section covers the NPCs. The buildings and their services are further down.

• You can talk to any wandering NPC you come across. If you do so, you can ask them for directions, or about rumors.
  
  
• ASK FOR DIRECTIONS OFTEN. This is basically the only way to find the type of store you're looking for in a timely manner. Trust me, you don't want to try to find e.g. a blacksmith on your own, because all the buildings look identical and the only way you can spot the one you're looking for otherwise is a tiny little sign hanging on the front door.
  
  
• If you ask for directions, and the NPC says some variant of "I don't know," keep asking. It's based on random chance, and they may eventually give you an answer. If not, try another NPC.
  
  
• Asking about rumors may start an artifact quest - the only purpose of rumors. This is the only way to get artifacts in Arena - including some Elder Scrolls favorites like Volendrung and Oghma Infinium. The artifacts you can get from rumors vary based on which province you're currently in. The following artifacts can be found in the following provinces:
  
  Auriel's Shield: High Rock, Skyrim, Summurset Isle, Elsweyr
  Ebony Mail: Black Marsh
  Lord's Mail: Black Marsh, Skyrim, Summurset Isle, Valenwood
  Spell Breaker: Hammerfell, Valenwood
  Auriel's Bow: Elsweyr, Skyrim, Valenwood
  Chrysamere: Elsweyr, Morrowind
  Ebony Blade: Skyrim, Valenwood
  Staff of Magnus: Elsweyr, Valenwood
  Volendrung: Hammerfell, Morrowind
  King Orgnum's Coffer: High Rock, Summurset Isle
  Necromancer's Amulet: High Rock, Summurset Isle
  Oghma Infinium: Black Marsh, Elsweyr, Morrowind, Skyrim
  Ring of Khajiit: Hammerfell, High Rock, Valenwood
  Ring of Phynaster: Black Marsh, Elsweyr, Skyrim, Summurset Isle
  Skeleton Key: Summurset Isle, Valenwood
  Warlock's Ring: Elsweyr, Morrowind
  
  
• Like directions, getting an artifact quest from a rumor is a random chance. The most efficient way to get an artifact is to click "rumors" then immediately click out of the rumor dialogue until you get an artifact rumor. You will be able to tell an artifact rumor from a normal rumor because the dialogue box will be MUCH longer than a normal rumor.
  
  
• You are normally supposed to be able to have only one artifact at a time. If you have one in your inventory, you will not get artifact rumors from NPCs. However, there is a way around this: take your artifact to be repaired at a blacksmith, and you will once again be able to get artifact rumors, because the artifact is not technically "in your inventory." You can get as many artifacts as you want this way - even multiple copies of the same one. Mmm, multiple Oghma Infiniums.
  
  
• You can also kill NPCs, but don't actually do it. There's no reward for doing so - no xp, and you can't even loot the bodies. All it does is spawn hostile guards, who are equally useless.

Every town is composed of randomly generated buildings. Each building can be either a house (the most common), a store, an inn, a mage's guild, or a temple. Each one offers different services. Remember to ASK FOR DIRECTIONS when you are trying to find a specific building. I cannot state this enough.

• Houses:
  
  Houses are the most common type of building. Strangely, no one actually lives in houses. They are essentially tiny dungeons, with randomly generated monsters and loot. They are, in fact, the best way to get loot in the game. Read on.
  
  Most houses are locked, and will probably be beyond your ability to pick unless you're playing a thief character. But don't worry, getting into houses is in fact trivially easy: just pull out your weapon and attack the door with it until it opens. This is known as "lock bashing." If you fail enough times, it may summon guards, but they are little threat, just kill them or run off to find a different door to bash.
  
  Once inside a house, check if it has two things: At least one pile of treasure, preferably two or more, and a staircase. If it's missing either, move on until you find one that has both. Once you find a house with both, you can now begin ruthlessly exploiting a bug to get treasure quickly and easily.
  
  You see, for mysterious reasons, every time you go up and back down a staircase in Arena, more treasure gets added to all the treasure piles in the room. Why? Who cares? Free treasure! Just go up and down the staircase a few times until there's enough treasure for your liking, then loot everything you want from the pile(s). Remember to leave at least one item in every pile, so that you can come back and dupe more treasure later if you want. You can get almost any kind of item this way: gold, weapons, potions, magic items, you name it.
  
  
• Inns:
  
  Inns are arguably the least useful building type. There are only three things you can do here: sleep, drink, and talk to the innkeeper. All of these services are accessed from the innkeeper, everyone else in the inn is useless to you.
  
  Renting a bed from the innkeeper is the only way you can sleep without being attacked by monsters. Remember that the cost of the room does not matter, you can sleep anywhere in the whole inn so long as you pay the fee first. So, you should buy the cheapest room every time.
  
  Getting drunk is not very useful, it gives a temporary boost to your STR, WIL, END, and LUC, but reduces INT, AGI, SPD, and PER by an equal amount. The amount of drunkenness you gain is directly proportional to the price of the drink, and more endurance means you have to drink more. You can also drink yourself to death! Fun.
  
  Finally you can ask the innkeeper for a fetch quest, which is totally useless because the amount of effort involved in these far outweighs the rewards. You will also sometimes be directed to speak to a random innkeeper during an artifact quest. This is the only time talking to an innkeeper is useful.
  
  
• Shops:
  
  Shops sell unenchanted weapons and armor. Each one is run by a blacksmith, who looks uncannily like Conan the Barbarian.
  
  Buying items from shops is rarely useful. They sell only unenchanted weapons and armor, and their selection is nothing exceptional, certainly nothing you couldn't find in a random treasure pile. However, you can sell pretty much anything to them, which is marginally more helpful.
  
  Blacksmiths can also repair your items, which is their most useful feature. Normally, repairing high-quality items is very expensive, and takes a very long time. However, there is an exploit which allows you to repair items quickly and cheaply. Select the option to negotiate the cost, and pay the blacksmith exactly 13 gold. Somehow, this will result in a repair time of 1 day most of the time.
  
  
• Mages Guild:
  
  Mages guilds are the most useful type of building. They contain, well, mages, who sell enchanted items, potions, spells, and offer spell crafting services. Magic-using characters will want mages guilds for their spell crafting services, while non-magical characters will want to come here to buy potions and enchanted items. In particular, non-mages will want to stock up on potions of restore health, and mages will want to stock up on potions of restore spell points - especially if you're playing a sorcerer, which of course you shouldn't be.
  
  Unlike later Elder Scrolls games, you cannot join the guild, and they offer their services to everyone. They are also rather pricey, so sell all your junk to the blacksmith, then come and spend it here.
  
  ...Or, if you prefer, you can do the opposite. Unlike all other shops, you can save inside mage's guilds. This means you can save in front of the mage, try to steal from him, and reload until you are successful. Repeat until you have as many magic items as you please. You can either use them, or sell them at a blacksmith for easy money... which you can then use to buy spells from the very mage you stole from. The scam of the century! And finally, an actual use for those thief skills. Thanks to Sigfral for this tip.
  
  For more information on spell crafting, see the magic section above.
  
  
• Temple:
  
  Temples contain priests. They are not very useful. They can cure poison and disease, which is useful if you can managed to make it to one before you keel over dead. They can also heal you, which would be useful if you couldn't do that by just sleeping anywhere.
  
  Finally, in exchange for a donation of gold, they can grant you a blessing. This blessing makes you more likely to hit enemies with your weapons... and also makes your enemies more likely to hit you. Also, it may just bug out and make you less likely to hit enemies. And you thought modern Bethesda games were buggy. Needless to say, do not get a blessing from a priest.
  

Dungeons in Arena are a nightmare - while not nearly as bad as Daggerfall, they are still a randomly generated mess of confusing corridors and other crap. The following are some tips for how to deal with Arena's dungeons.

• First, don't go into dungeons unless you have to. Do you have a quest for this particular dungeon? Is it a main quest, or an artifact quest? If the answer is no, don't go into this dungeon. Entering a dungeon without a reason to do so is a pointless waste of time and sanity.
  
  
• All dungeons involved in the main quest are premade. All others are randomly generated. While providing maps of all the premade dungeons is beyond the scope of this guide, maps of all the dungeons involved in the main quest can be found here.[en.uesp.net] Follow the maps religiously. The main quest dungeons are incredibly long and convoluted, and you'll be in there for hours without a map.
  
  
• If you can use magic, make yourself a Destroy:Wall spell. If you are not a mage, get a magic item enchanted with it. Destroy:Wall, as its name implies, literally removes walls, allowing you to skip large parts of the dungeon. The more of a dungeon you can skip, the better.
  
  
• Sleep frequently to keep your health and fatigue up. Try to sleep on raised platforms, as they reduce the chances of monsters spawning there. Don't wait until your health is low to sleep, or you might die if monsters interrupt it.
  
  
• Never swim if possible. Swimming drains fatigue very quickly, and if it runs out, you die. Also, monsters have a tendency to stand at the exit of the pool, preventing you from climbing up and getting free hits on you.
  
  
• Don't go treasure hunting while in a dungeon. Do what you came there for, and get out. Treasure piles spawn randomly, and aren't worth your time to seek out. Consider them a little bonus if you find one.
  
  
• Each monster in the game makes a specific noise, which you can hear from quite far away. Learn to recognize what noise belongs to what monster, so you can plan.