Can anyone answer a simple, simple question?

How in the holy-f***-holes do I even START?

This goes for BOTH versions of "Daggerfall" (classic and "Unity") AND "Arena".

It's simply impossible. You have run out of HPs even by the time you get to the second creature (a mere bat) in the tutorial dungeon at the start - with no way to restore them, or to rest ("monsters are near" no matter where you try to rest).
Physical strikes just miss, miss and miss again, and so do spells, and you don't have even 5% enough SP to fuel spells enough to deal with even these first few enemies anyway.
Then in behind the first door you come across is this imp like creature that is INVULNERABLE!!!!!!!! It's obviously a high level enemy thrown at you when you are still at level 1 with ZERO xp! WTF?!
You can select "start outside dungeon" but then I'm still lost, wondering what the heck is next! And anyway, if you can't even beat bats and rats, what hope is there for doing any quests?
Add to this very slow, laggy frame rates and unresponsive controls. I'm using a bit of a potato PC at the moment, but I hear these problems persist even on fast PCs.

I've heard there's a good, complex and involved game beyond these impossible, stupid, piss taking starts.

But how? How do I get there?

Difficult to say anything based on insufficient information and without being able to watch you play.
If it were only DFU GOG Cut, I'd suggest to try DF without Unity and Gold Cut, or at least play without DFU mods. But you say that the problem is the same when you play Arena. On the other hand I know that many players (among them myself) don't have any problems with fighting in Arena and DF / DFU (I don't play the GOG Cut), andf that some of the players who reported problems with killing the first rat in DF didn't know how to fight efficiently.
Regarding the latter: I suppose your weapon is equipped and drawn (visible on the screen when fighting), you know how to swing it (and that you have to swing it constantly, not just once), and that you have to be close enough to and look directly at your enemy (which means to look down when you fight the first rat and probably up when you fight the bat). This leaves your character setup. If you attack well and still don't hit, then the reason may be that your weapon skills aren't high enough. Perhaps you tell us which class you're playing, and what the attribute (mainly strength) and skill values are for the weapon you're using. Your defense values might matter, too, but the rat and the bat are hardly able to reduce your health greatly before you've managed to kill them. And once you've done that, chances are that you can rest safely at the place where you started.

Keep trying and don't blame the game for things you can influence!

You might find some helpful hints in these guides:
- The Elder Scrolls: Arena (character creation, general hints, escape from prison);
- The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (beginner's guide, character creation, hints, Privateer's Hold);
- The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall Unity (character creation).

Not much point to any of that really, when you are at level 1 your stats are low across the board! Simple as!
Of course I had my weapon drawn! What do you take me for?! I was using the "one click strike" option, so all I needed do was mash the mouse button. The weapon was swinging, and missing, at point blank. Ok, Morrowind did this, but you still had a fighting chance of getting somewhere slowly, and building up your character. Morrowind worked. This PoS does not.
As for class, I was a "spellsword". I was using axes which was the highest of my weapon skills. Which was also still quite low (about 36).
The low level enemies such as bats and rats were bad enough, but if was just those in the start dungeon, it would be doable, with a bit of save scumming, maybe allowing you to get to lvl 2 or 3 yourself and at least get some scruff under your chin!
What ruined it were the higher level enemies also thrown at you. The "impossible imps" that seems immune to all physical attacks and magic is not really an option when you have so few SPs. Another was the skeleton warrior in what looked like some kind of throne room. I switched to a battle hammer weapon for that skeleton too (after all aren't they vulnerable to heavy, blunt weapons?) but no avail. I'm not the only one looking at the reviews neither. It's not just "a few players who don't know how to fight efficiently". And just for the sake of my own mental health, and my PC's physical health, I'm afraid I just cannot "keep on trying"! Maybe, but if you HAVE to use a certain class, what's the point of having so much choice in building your character in the first place?
Edit: Looked at the Dagger Unity one, not much there of any help really, certainly nothing I don't already know or would have thought common sense.
Ah, but the advice about "stutter stepping" and "corner combat" looks useful - may be seen as "exploiting" by some but hey. But I still have the very sluggish response and low frame rates to contend with, those are not helping. If I can get this to run smooth, I may think differently about the game.
And just how do you defeat those "imps"? Physical attacks are useless, so it has to be spells...... but those seem useless as well, and you have barely enough SP for two or three castings.

The reviews for it are a disgrace as well. Well, ok, fair enough, not so much the reviews as the discrageful posrepping of all 4 and 5 star reviews, even if they are just "one line" garbage saying "iz gud gaem" or "tank u gog"! One absolute TW@ put "anyone giving this less than 5 stars is mentally ill"! Yet detailed, and truthful 1 star reviews are negrepped to shit.

Ok, this "curse" is upon most GOG reviews for most games, but "Daggerfall Unity" is a particularly bad example.

GOG have removed the rep system from forum posts, so I think they should now do the same with the reviews.

Looks like we're getting somewhere :-). You're first post was about Arena, DF and DFU, and you said it's impossible to start these games. As an example you mentioned that you run out of hitpoints by the time you get to the first bat in Daggerfall. I was replying to these statements, mostly.
This forum contains several threads discussing issues with fighting the first rat (or the imp), and these threads contain many useful tips how to win these fights (or, more generally, how to survive the starter dungeon). Reading these threads might have saved you a lot of frustration.

For example, the imp resists iron weapons. Solution: Don't try to fight it, unless you have a steel or better weapon (some characters start with an ebony dagger which is perfect for this job). You can also avoid it completely, or run away from it (it's not required to kill it to get to the exit of the starter dungeon, or to get to level 2 or 3 before leaving it).
And, by the way, Spellsword is a nice class for playing Daggerfall (with more experience you might want to create your own class), but I'm pretty sure you can complete the main quest with all standard classes (of course, you would have to play very diffeently, based on the class you choose). 36 for the weapon you're using is a decent skill in the first dungeon, you can survive it with much less. I just started a new game in DFU, equipped a dagger (skill 15), and defeated the rat with two hits (3 or 4 swings), without being hit even once, then the bat and the imp with one hit (2 or 3 swings) each, both hit me once without causing damage.
Similarly, you can defeat the skeleton with every weapon, but possibly not simply by wildly clicking, but by using position changes during the fight, too.
Finally, once you've defeated the first enemies (imp not required), you can always find places to rest - just not everywhere.

Back to the topic. It looks like starting Daggerfall is not so impossible after all. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. And there are no enemies you can't defeat in the starter dungeon. You may not be able to defeat them immediately, when you meet them for the first time, but there is nothing wrong with running away, getting stronger, getting better weapons, and then trying again. Let me repeat my final comment: Don't blame the game for things you can influence. "Keep trying" doesn't mean make the same mistakes over and over again, but try again in a different way.
Further, you complain about "very slow, laggy frame rates and unresponsive controls", which may very well be caused by your weak PC (like you admit) - no reason to blame the game for it (even when "others" have complained about it, too). With that said: Does it apply equally to all three games, Arena, DF and DFU?

Regarding reviews: Well, there are reviews and reviews. I haven't written one myself (because I couldn't add anything new to the ones available in many places already), but I'd give Daggerfall a high rating - it's actually one of my favourite games, and not for nostalgic reasons, but because of its role-playing mechanics and flexibility (you can assume any role you want to play in such a fantasy setting, and even enjoy it without touching the main quest at all). Daggerfall Unity is NOT available on GOG, only the GOG Cut is (which is DF+DFU+several DFU mods, some like them, others don't, with unclear update mechanics). I'd rate DFU similarly high as Classic DF, because it faithfully captures the strengths of Daggerfall, improves on it in some ways and has only very few disadvantages compared with the original. I had a quick look at the DF GOG Cut and decided not to touch it a second time, for various reasons explained by many people in several threads of this forum. I install DFU and the mods I want to use (which are different from the ones of the GOG CUT) myself and manage them in the way I want.
By the way, have you ever tried to play DFU without any mods? Some of the DFU mods contained in the GOG Cut are resource-hungry and may contribute to the bad performance you noticed.

If it hasn't been mentioned before: The best source of information about Daggerfall is contained in uesp.net. You'll probably find information and hints you've been looking for there.

Here are some tips to help you:
For Arena:
-A large number of classes, more specifically all warrior and thief classes except for bards, are unable to use spells, and Spellswords are the only mage class that can equip chain armor and kite shields, which are only below plate armor, the only one that can be made of different materials and the best in the game. I would recommend choosing the previously mentioned spellsword as your class, so you don't have much trouble with things like healing and protection, and can use all weapons in the game.

-Having a high Agility is very important, because it reduces your chance to get hit, and makes your attacks hit more often. Another important attribute is Willpower, as it helps you resist magical attacks, potentially reducing their effects, or completely nullifying them.

-When rolling your stats, make sure none of them have negative modifiers(for example, -2 to spell resistance), as this
would make combat or other activities more difficult. Try to reroll(click on the "done" button and select "reroll stats") until all modifiers are +0 or, if possible, +1 in at least one of them.

-When buying equipment or potions, you can negotiate a price with the vendor that is beneficial for both sides. I would recommend not offering a price with a difference of 5, 10 or more if the item has a value of less than 100, or 50 if the price is around 500 or higher. This can also be done during artifact quests, and a high Personality makes negotiation easier.

-Asking people for rumors is a good way to earn a bit of gold, or a more useful item. General rumors will normally make citizens tell you of random things that have happened, such as a plague, or someone they have heard talking about a powerful artifact, while rumors of work can tell you of where you can begin a small miscelaneous quest to gain some money. These "work" quests are normally a petition to get someone or something from one location to another in the same town, and don't take more than a few hours. There are also other quests you can get from the Palace of a city, for example, going to a dungeon and killing a specific enemy.

-Artifact quests are some of the hardest in the game. They are started by hearing a rumor about the desired artifact, and then speaking to the Innkeeper of the location mentioned during the conversation. in that moment, someone will approach you, offering information on the artifact's location in exchange for a large amount of gold(I believe the price can go from 500 to 900 gold), and after paying, they will give you the location of a dungeon where you can find a map to the legendary object. While starting them is quite expensive, the rewards are very powerful, and can help a lot during your journey.

-When searching for a place, asking the citizens of the city for its location will make them tell you in which direction it can be found, or, if you are close to the place, they will just mark it in the local map.

-There are small niches in dungeons where enemies can't appear, and sometimes can't reach you. Like it is said in a text that appears in the first dungeon, it is safe to rest in these niches, so use them to rest and recover your health and magicka.

-In the Mages Guild buildings, you can buy potions, enchanted items, and spells, learn the effect of an item, or create your own spells. Some spells I recommend having are:
*Levitation, which allows your character to fly over pits without falling inside them. It can be very useful in dungeons filled with lava, or where enemies can be found in large numbers on the islands that are formed over lakes.
*Light: This simply helps with seeing larger distances in dark places, aiding with exploration.
*Cure Poison/Disease: Diseases reduce your attributes over time, eventually killing you. An enemy you can expect to find early in the game and can transmit desease are ghouls, a very annoying type of undead.
*A ranged damage health attack: Mages start with fire blast, but you can create your own in the Mages Guild. A spell design I believe is good is Damage health, 1 - 1 point(s)+ 10 - 10 per level for 1second.
*Health regen spells: This is mostly just like with the health damage spell, although it must be aimed at the caster, and the SP(Spell Points) cost can vary

-Enchanted items are the only way non-magic classes, such as warriors, can cast spells, but using the enchantment damages the item's durability. As far as I know, these can not be created by the player.

-Weapons, torcs, bracelets, bracers, belts, and other equipment can be made of different materials, but the only armor that can be made of another type of material is Plate Armor. These materials modify the item's stat modifiers, with the worst being iron, and the best ebony.

-In the armor screen, the numbers shown are attack modifiers for the enemies. This means having negative numbers is better than having positive numbers.

-There are no skills in this game. Possible equipment and abilities are specific for the class, and you must gain experience from quests or killing enemies to level up.

- You can write notes in the local/auto map. Use this to mark stores, inns, etc. when inside a city, or a room you have already explored when going through a dungeon.


For Daggerfall:
-Just like with Morrowind, your skill with a weapon defines your efficiency with said weapon, which means you will probably not be able to hit anything if your weapon skill is low. I advise placing your preferred weapon type in one of the primary skill slots of your class.

-Create your own class during character creation. Inside of it , you can choose what you can do better, such as climbing, your class' strengths and weaknesses(like being able to absorb spells, but not regenerating SP), and your reputation with some social groups.

-When making your character's background, don't choose to automatically generate it. Some questions can define how hard or easy it will be for you to begin and do things like resisting magic and speaking to people. I know of 2 questions that can give you an ebony dagger and a relatively good armor as soon as you begin the game.

-Some enemies can resist some weapon materials. For example, Imps resist iron weapons(which was probably the problem you had with the first side room in Privateer's Hold), and Werewolves can resist up to Silver.

-You probably know this already, but you can change the movement and interaction style from the mouse based one that is seen in Arena to one where the target must be in the center of the screen to interact with it, and you must move with bound keys, which can be adjusted.

-Beware of Skeletons. They are extremely hard to hit, deal a lot of damage, and have a lot of health. At least they aren't immune to some kind of material.

-When you reach level 2, the game opens up the oportunity for you to become a lycanthrope or vampire. Werewolves and Wereboars can be encountered during a Fighters Guild quest, while a Dark Brotherhood quest will lead to an encounter with a vampire.

-Catching Vampirism causes you to "die" after some time, before being reborn as an undead. This causes your character's reputation to reset, and have your guild rank removed. Since this removes them from the factions they joined before the infection, I recommend not becoming one if you joined the Thieves Guild or the Dark Brotherhood, because you can only be invited once into these factions, so the removal will be permanent, unlike it is with the rest of the guilds.

-Note: There is no difference between the attribute and skill gain of a werewolf and that of a wereboar, so you can just choose whichever you prefer for the purpose of roleplaying.


In both games, magic only regenerates when resting

The best way to play the game is by creating a custom class, the base class all have extreme limitations. You want a battlemage that can wear plate and use weapons, you have to customize it while also trying to not hinder yourself too much growth wise. As the stronger the class is the harder it will be to level it up, it's also the best way to also choose skills you will actually utilize over skills you might rarely use.

And the suggestions M4t1VR posted are worth paying attention to. Daggerfall in general is a game that will beat your ass down if you are not careful, but is also easy to become so overpowered most creatures won't be much of an issue. The beginning is more of a do you understand your classes and your limitations and not everything can be slapped around with a wooden stick. It's why I often arrange to start with an ebony dagger which you can start with.

Old school game with old school problems, just what works for one thing will not for another. Deadric creatures and such will make fun of your Iron weapon.

But generally Elder Scrolls Base classes in original three games tend to be restrictive in play style but tend to be good at what they are focused on. Monsters do have resistances and immunities that will kick you if you just run around flailing about recklessly. And yes the RNG will make it hard at the start, the more you use a weapon type, spell type, skill the more effective and less likely you will miss. So expect your attacks to wiff often and some attacks have higher chances to hit, overhead, side swings, stabs etc all have different chance to hit values and also different damage values and damage types (piercing, slashing, etc).

Vampire will be very risky since you'll be outdoors often, unless you make a custom class that kind of counters it, which you kind of can in a sense. Werewolves, wereboars etc... don't go into cities when its about to become night... if you change you will running around avoiding to fighting off guards non-stop not like they are hard to fight. But it will make it impossible for you to enter the city/village etc until they forget and I don't remember if they forget.

The game is fun, but it's very very easy to become overpowered which makes much of the game trivial. And unity kind of fixes the mapping I think in dungeons. Was extremely simple to lose yourself in Dungeons even with the map in the non-modded game.

[for Arena] In my experience, unless you're a sorcerer, Willpower doesn't do much. The protection it provides is rather minimal, since even a successful save makes you take half damage. The Breton's passive resistance does not appear to protect against elemental attacks.

To deal with enemy spellcasters, you really want to get one of the spell protections (Resistance, Absorption, or Reflection); this may, for some classes, mean getting an artifact with that power. If that's not feasible, or you don't want to do that, you should carry stocks of resist Fire and Electricity potions. (There's only a couple dungeons where cold is a problem.)

On the other hand, it turns out that, for a sorcerer, the chance of absorbing a spell is strongly (and perhaps solely?) dependent on Willpower; therefore, if you're playing that particular class, I'd prioritize that stat. A negative modifier in Willpower (if you're not a sorcerer) or Personality won't hurt you that much.

Intelligence isn't important for non-casters. (It does affect thievery chance, but so does Agility, and Agility is clearly more useful for non-casters.) Note that you can't get an artifact quest if you already have an artifact in your inventory. (Note, however, that if you can somehow temporarily remove an item from your inventory, it's possible to work around this.)

Worth noting that, unlike other items, an artifact that breaks will disappear; therefore, remember to repair your artifact before this happens if you want to keep using it.

The knight class automatically repairs all weapons and armor (but not accessories) in your inventory every midnight; this *does* apply to weapon/armor artifacts.


Also worth noting that the artifacts aren't equal; some are clearly more powerful than others. (In particular, Spell Reflection is a very nice spell to get on an artifact if you can't cast it yourself.)

A few points:
* Levitation prevents you from going under walls, which can be a problem in some areas. For this reason, i tend to prefer short duration levitate spells.
* Disease will lower your stats. To restore your stats, you need to rest. (If you're sick, resting is likely safe since you'll probably recover attributes faster than you lose them.) Be aware that leveling up while your Endurance is (temporarily) low will result in fewer hit points at level up. (But if you cast a Fortify Endurance spell before leveling up...)
* You don't want Continuous Damage in arena. The effect is bugged and doesn't work properly. (The effect is really good in Daggerfall, however.)
* Health regen isn't that important in Arena as it's slow, to the point where it's more like passive regen. Much more useful is the Create Shield effect; it gets you temporary HP which will last until you lose it or cast another Create Shield. (In Daggerfall, on the other hand, Regenerate effects are powerful and much cheaper than they ought to be.)
* Spells that weren't mentioned that are good: Spell Reflection/Absorption (spell protections), Destroy Wall (Passwall's effect; removes walls), Open (a powerful Open spell can let you bypass large portions of main quest dungeons), Fortify (boost stats high for long periods of times). But they can be repaired.

I've found that Lifesteal and Firestorm weapons are really good, particular since it takes a very long time of using them (as items) as your primary form of offense for them to break. Even better if you're a knight and don't have to take occasional blacksmith trips to repair your weapons and armor. (Remember, however, that accessories still need to be repaired at a blacksmith, even if you're a knight.)

New/final version is out - https://www.dfworkshop.net/daggerfall-unity-1-0-release/ . Any chance that GOG update to this version?

To avoid misunderstanderstandings:

Until recently all Daggerfall Unity (DFU) releases were beta releases (version numbers 0.xx.x). On December 31 the first full version (version 1.0) of DFU was released - new, but hopefully not the final version. This is DFU only, no mods, and has nothing to do with the Daggerfall (DF) GOG Cut. All mods (including the ones contained in the DF GOG Cut) can be downloaded separately, but most of them habe not (yet) been confirmed to be compatible with the new DFU version (the ones I use are definitely compatible). As DFU 1.0 is more or less identical with DFU Beta 0.16.3 (the last beta version), it's highly unlikely that any mod compatible with DFU 0.16.x is not compatible with DFU 1.0.

The position of the DFU makers concerning the DFU GOG Cut (quote from the DFU site):

"If you play using the “GOG Cut” release of Daggerfall Unity, please consider this version is now almost two years out of date and comes preloaded with dozens of mods. It’s buggy, slow, and completely changes how the game looks and plays. The Daggerfall Unity development team did not assemble the “GOG Cut” release and in no way recommend it to play Daggerfall Unity.
Until GOG update the version of Daggerfall Unity on their store, the best outcome is to migrate away from GOG Cut to a standard and up-to-date release of Daggerfall Unity."

Thank you for clarifying this. I had thought the GOG cut was mostly just DF Unity with the required files already setup, and thus easily updated.

To be fair: If I had played the DF GOG Cut for some time and wanted to continue playing it, I'd consider downloading DFU 1.0 and copying it into my GOG Cut DFU folder, overwriting the old version (backing it up first, and assuming GOG didn't change any DFU files or folders). Perhaps it works. If it doesn't, restore the backup (it's simply copying files and folders, no registry changes involved). Assuming you know how to do this safely.
No guarantee, and I don't play the GOG Cut.

Even better: To follow the advice of the DFU guys (see my previous post). The DFU site contains even a description how to move away safely from the GOG Cut.

Don't just wade in and start flaling, move in, hit, back out of range. Repeat.
You can find a place to rest if yoiu retreat far enough.
Imps and some other enemies are not vulnerable to some kinds of weapons. You throw spells at them though. You can also unequip your weapon and go hand to hand because punching them will work as well.
Save early. Save often.