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I've been following Darkfall Online for a long time. I have a forum account from 2002 on their boards, and I heard about it back when I was playing Asheron's Call on the Darktide server from the Black Rose Noble clan's website. I played in beta, and I played for about 2 - 3 months at release of the EU1 server. During beta I couldn't help but notice how empty the world was and how boring travel was, but I purchased the game anyway because I was pretty enthralled with it, it was something fresh that I hadn't seen before.
I joined Awful Company immediately after buying my account and ran straight to their city in Mar Shral. Most of our time was spent killing Hill Giants at a nearby spawn to get the gold to build up our city, but we did go PvPing a lot too, I'm sure you guys saw the videos of murder herd's city getting hammered. The only grind was getting gold to build up the clan city, we could PvP just fine without skilling up for the first month or two. Soon exploits started popping up though, such as the acid pits that people ran through to raise rigor quickly, kicking monsters through walls with mounts, and of course the numerous hackers who managed to catch up to you within seconds from far away. I quit because of the rampant exploiting and hacking.
Now I've returned for the "Conquer the Seas" expansion. I imagine a lot of players are attracted to Darkfall simply because of the naval warfare aspect of it. I had sold my old account, so I started with a new character. When I logged into the game the starting area I was in, Heart of Eanna, had a few people, maybe 5 to 10, nothing like the EU1 launch numbers though. Took some of the crappy newbie quests that told me to kill goblins, it showed me how boring it was to solo in Darkfall, so I joined a clan that was recruiting in Race Alliance pretty quickly. I ran to their city with pretty low skills and bound there. The first thing I did with my new clan was hit up a dungeon to farm some gold. The monsters drop quite a lot more than before. I did this quite a lot with my clan, and had gotten my skills to what seemed to be reasonable levels, about 40 weapon skill and my lesser magic was up to around 50 or 60, my bow around 40. Funny enough I did the same damage from 1 - 75 weapon skill. Nothing changed. A clanmate asked me if I wanted to go PvPing with him one day, I died in 5 hits to the first guys we encountered. After this another clanmate showed me how to bug out mobs with loads of health to get skillups quickly, so I used it to get to 75 weapon skill where I bought mastery (which finally made my damage change).
I figured I might be able to PvP at this point with weapon mastery and 50 or so bow skill, I mean hell I PvPed back at EU1 launch with much lower skills and was able to win fights with guys in superior gear. I was proved wrong every day when players raided our clan city shooting AOE fire magic that had no chance of missing that did 50 damage. When I would run up to them and hit them with my rank 40 weapon they would take 10 - 20 damage in bone armor. They'd pull out their polearm with 100 mastery and hit me for 50 in scale. It was so bad that we'd have 1 or 2 guys raiding us, and about 10 people who were geared up but didn't have any weapon mastery skills yet would try to kill them, but not be able to do enough damage to actually kill them. They would outheal our damage running in straight lines with 7 guys shooting them in the back with arrows. It didn't help that they took so little damage. They were so terrible, they didn't even attempt to dodge, but they survived because they had 100 in most skills, and because they could heal for so much health with witches brew. In Darkfall you are unable to actually defend yourself unless you have a character that's macroed way up.
It took me about 35 hours to get from 40 to 75 great axe. 5 days of hitting a monster that wasn't moving. I feel bad for the casual player, they will never experience Darkfall PvP and they will definitely never be able to defend themselves unless they play for years. At about 30 great axe mastery I'm starting to do reasonable melee damage, but that's after 3 weeks of playing Darkfall. Melee is not viable in PvP against players with high magic or bow skill. I still have to get my bow skill to 75 and get sharpshooter up to 50 or higher to do reasonable bow damage, once I do this I'll be viable in PvP with groups of players with higher skills, but I still need to get my magic up so I have nukes that are impossible to miss with that do insane damage in order to kill players solo. I figure it'll take about a month or two for me to get PvP ready, and that's playing for 5 - 10 hours per day. For the average player who doesn't have that much time to piss away more than 3 hours a day on games, you're going to be playing for at least half a year before you're PvP ready, if not more.
On the plus side, it only took about 1.5k regs to get to 50 greater magic, compared to the 5k and a week of macroing all night back at launch, which allows me to get elemental magic.
Also, in the 3 weeks I've been playing I've not seen a single boat, I do a lot of exploration. Conquer the Seas is for the few elite super grind clans that were exploiting devils for weeks on end and have maxed out characters. They still only whip out the boats to cap the sea towers.
Comments
I like what you posted but it was rather limited to focusing on people who macro / been playing for many many months and how hard it is for new players to compete.
I think this is well known and many people would love to see skill degeneration to help level the playing field. I also think the grind could be lessened slightly to 75 and then be the same to 100.
However I want to point something out that I keep seeing. When you bring up being PvP viable it is with regards to fighting maxed out people. So in the end, getting your character to "endgame".
This is a MMO people...and it does not try to be like say...WoW where you can be endgame ultra fast and easy, it is like say...EQ where you will need to invest a good amount of time.
I mean 3 weeks is nothing really, less then a month your nearing endgame? That is fast. Even if it took someone more casual 3 months...that is nothing for a mmo you are meant to play for years if you like it. The problem is we went from risk and reward and enjoying the journey to instant gratification, your the hero and now chase these raid carrots!
If this back when games like EQ were popular, no one would comment on any kind of grind in darkfall or having to take a month to be endgame pvp worthy, now though, people want it all yesterday.
I wonder if the makers of Darkfall could just, wipe all acounts clean of characters, if they created their character before exploitation bans. Sure it'd piss some off, but it'd get rid of a lot of exploiters, don't ya think?
Playing - Champions Online
Unsure Of - Darkfall, Star Trek Online
Waiting For - Star Wars: The Old Republic, All Points Bulletin
Played - Age Of Conan, Everquest II, Mabinogi, Tabula Rasa, Star Wars Galaxies, World Of Warcraft
I agree with this. Some of the things I like to add to this point.
1. there is something to be said for someone who quits a game and then comes back and complains about the people who stayed being stronger than they are....hmmmm
2. What about the people who actually put in the hours and time to get their skills up on the old system and then new players come along and do about 1 months worth of work in one day? That is what happend to EQ2. Thing is people who stayed with the game didnt complain that much about these changes becuase they like the game and was not focused on endgame status.
3. Putting time and effort into a game SHOULD give you more power and options that not doing so and with that it will ALWAYS be out of balance becuase unless you are retired and have someone to take care of all your chores you are not going to have the time that some hard core players have. This is...err..should...be true for any and all games, including I might add real life sports like golf.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I completely agree with the OP, the changes have been great, but not enough. AV always stated 5 new characters could take on 1 vet, yet even with my none maxed character I can take out 8+ easily.
Might want to check Mortal Online out man, it has promise from what I've seen.
Full Sail University - Game Design
The difference is that in DF you have to GRIND, or repeatedly do the same thing over and over for those 3 weeks to 3 months, to get to endgame, where any other mmo you can do different things to get to endgame that make the trip a little more bearable.
DF need to put in their skills decay system that they primised to us for a long time. Just like in UO, they said that there wear suppose to be a system where we could toggle raise, decay or pause on each skills if you know what i mean. They said that if we had too much skill, some skills would auto start to decay meaning that even the best grinder in darkfall wont be able to get to the maximum skill or have too much. At the end, it would be like a kind of cap that would made grinders and casual having fun without whining because too much grind or nnot enough grind.
Curretly, even the specialisation system dont work a lot since you can switch quick. So again, a player capped out in DF can have all the role in a fight. They need to fix that by adding decay system like UO did or i might play MO instead.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
I think maybe the problem is the endgame mentality. If you remove the endgame thinking and try to enjoy the game itself it might be a better experience.
I know of a player who has TONS of hours behind him in the game and he hasnt even yet been to some of the major race areas other than his local. So of course its a grind for him.
Endgame is a trap by the way. MMO's just increase the bar by adding new skills or increasing skill limits after N% of players are maxed. You know why? becuase endgame actually means game is over.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I think maybe the problem is the endgame mentality. If you remove the endgame thinking and try to enjoy the game itself it might be a better experience.
I know of a player who has TONS of hours behind him in the game and he hasnt even yet been to some of the major race areas other than his local. So of course its a grind for him.
Endgame is a trap by the way. MMO's just increase the bar by adding new skills or increasing skill limits after N% of players are maxed. You know why? becuase endgame actually means game is over.
The problem is the fact without that mentality (which I had for a really long time) new players and vets like myself that choose not to have that mindset get trampled by people not by their skill in pvp, but by their skill levels in game. This game wasn't meant to be about skill levels.. and right now all that matters for pvp is having witches brew to insta heal yourself to full health.
Full Sail University - Game Design
/signed
This is very much needed. It would also bring a lot of variety to the gameplay that currently doesn't exist since everyone is a jack of all trades.
I think maybe the problem is the endgame mentality. If you remove the endgame thinking and try to enjoy the game itself it might be a better experience.
I know of a player who has TONS of hours behind him in the game and he hasnt even yet been to some of the major race areas other than his local. So of course its a grind for him.
Endgame is a trap by the way. MMO's just increase the bar by adding new skills or increasing skill limits after N% of players are maxed. You know why? becuase endgame actually means game is over.
There's no mentality problem this is non level game so "everything is available" from the start but you won't be able to compete in pvp battles unless you grind the stats.
The op said they were a party fighting others and he still was getting smashed like a critter, that's a problem with the game because casual players will have a very hard time on improving in pvp experience if they can't compete from the beginning.
I agree with this. Some of the things I like to add to this point.
1. there is something to be said for someone who quits a game and then comes back and complains about the people who stayed being stronger than they are....hmmmm
2. What about the people who actually put in the hours and time to get their skills up on the old system and then new players come along and do about 1 months worth of work in one day? That is what happend to EQ2. Thing is people who stayed with the game didnt complain that much about these changes becuase they like the game and was not focused on endgame status.
3. Putting time and effort into a game SHOULD give you more power and options that not doing so and with that it will ALWAYS be out of balance becuase unless you are retired and have someone to take care of all your chores you are not going to have the time that some hard core players have. This is...err..should...be true for any and all games, including I might add real life sports like golf.
I'm complaining about the fact that they are still gods even though I've spent 3 weeks skilling up. Darkfall wasn't supposed to be that kind of game where you could become a god by spending loads of time building your character. The fact that 10 skillful players without masteries can't take down one skilled up player who runs in a straight line shows that the game is broken. I don't disagree that players who've been around longer should be stronger, but they shouldn't be gods to anyone who hasn't spent as much time playing as themselves.
3 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF! you wanted to get to same level as people with several hunderd hours of play in 3 weeks? I must be missing something.
Anyway, regardless of what AV said having an empire based game without length of time in play making a measure positive impact on your empires strength is flat out retarded and a game I would not play much anyway.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I think maybe the problem is the endgame mentality. If you remove the endgame thinking and try to enjoy the game itself it might be a better experience.
I know of a player who has TONS of hours behind him in the game and he hasnt even yet been to some of the major race areas other than his local. So of course its a grind for him.
Endgame is a trap by the way. MMO's just increase the bar by adding new skills or increasing skill limits after N% of players are maxed. You know why? becuase endgame actually means game is over.
Whenever a game has an "end game", it means the game has a grind. The grind exists to create an emotional attachment due to the time investment the player has in the game. Nobody wants to give something up that they put so much time into. It's a cop out for introducing actual interesting content. I think a game can still have character development without forcing players to grind up their skills to get involved in the content, just the effects of character development should be diminished enough so a player who has played a long time can't instantly destroy new players without a thought but actually has to use strategy and skill to do it.
3 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF! you wanted to get to same level as people with several hunderd hours of play in 3 weeks? I must be missing something.
Anyway, regardless of what AV said having an empire based game without length of time in play making a measure positive impact on your empires strength is flat out retarded and a game I would not play much anyway.
I grow tired of your retardation. No, what I want is for them to not have godmode against 8 players who don't have maxed out characters.
No it willnot change anything ,everyday someone will come and whine " because could not compete with old players , it is hard /grind to reach cap " .Problem is newcomers mind ,dont come to a skill based game with class/level based games cliches .Darkfall is a skill based game accept it dont try change it with your class/level based mentality.
OP even i dont play DF i know your damage increase at 25/50/75 etc ,you just could incdease them to 50.
"It took me about 35 hours to get from 40 to 75 great axe. 5 days of hitting a monster that wasn't moving." What is that mean ?Looks exploit to me
No it willnot change anything ,everyday someone will come and whine " because could not compete with old players , it is hard /grind to reach cap " .Problem is newcomers mind ,dont come to a skill based game with class/level based games cliches .Darkfall is a skill based game accept it dont try change it with your class/level based mentality.
OP even i dont play DF i know your damage increase at 25/50/75 etc ,you just could incdease them to 50.
"It took me about 35 hours to get from 40 to 75 great axe. 5 days of hitting a monster that wasn't moving." What is that mean ?Looks exploit to me
I hope english isn't your first language. Yes it was an exploit, and getting to 50 mastery takes a lot of grind.
3 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF! you wanted to get to same level as people with several hunderd hours of play in 3 weeks? I must be missing something.
Anyway, regardless of what AV said having an empire based game without length of time in play making a measure positive impact on your empires strength is flat out retarded and a game I would not play much anyway.
I grow tired of your retardation. No, what I want is for them to not have godmode against 8 players who don't have maxed out characters.
Thing is OP, it is not god mode...that guy could be a 6 month old hardcore player and your group is less then 3 weeks old...I mean....what do you want man? Have you win simply because you can zerg him?
Then within 3 weeks time you say you are viable....that is very little invested. I am sorry you had no fun getting there by choosing to use exploits to rush your skill.
It was your mentality and way of playing though, any game, if you go into it feeling desperate for endgame, wanting to be like all the top players and then you play hardcore, use exploits and do the same thing over n over, you will burn out.
You forgot to enjoy the journey and there is plenty of it to be had. You could have simply played the game, enjoyed your friends and clan and still become competitive in a months time and not had to resort to exploits and using the most boring means of skilling up.
Not limited to DFO, a lot of people play poorly and burn out, and I feel like you did similar to rush the game and be able to fight people who have been playing for multiple months.
Anyways 3 weeks, a month, 3 months, is a small amount of time to spend to be considered at the top.
I think maybe the problem is the endgame mentality. If you remove the endgame thinking and try to enjoy the game itself it might be a better experience.
I know of a player who has TONS of hours behind him in the game and he hasnt even yet been to some of the major race areas other than his local. So of course its a grind for him.
Endgame is a trap by the way. MMO's just increase the bar by adding new skills or increasing skill limits after N% of players are maxed. You know why? becuase endgame actually means game is over.
There's no mentality problem this is non level game so "everything is available" from the start but you won't be able to compete in pvp battles unless you grind the stats.
The op said they were a party fighting others and he still was getting smashed like a critter, that's a problem with the game because casual players will have a very hard time on improving in pvp experience if they can't compete from the beginning.
You can compete though, just need to fight people your skill level. This is not always easy because you can mouse over someone and see a number telling you their power level. I have had fights against people around my skill level a few times, it was good fun.
Sure you cant go 1v1 someone who has played months...but nor should you be able to do so and win, that would be lame. A new player will not have a very hard time, you play the game and you skill up, it is that easy. You will be ganked, but whatever. Just play, and it all comes.
I would like to see a better new player experience, but that is not in the form of new players being able to whoop on vets.
Here is what I think. I think if you do not enjoy the process of getting your your skills up then you should not play the game in the first place.
I like going out and killing some zombies as well as some harder stuff etc.
The only thing I consider to be a "grind" really is mining and that can be done afk easily which I usually do during the week.
Maybe I can just simply say if you do not like the physcial activity of playing the game you should look into something else
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Darkfall is not an arena. It is a sandbox MMORPG. Make note of the guys name and avoid him in the future at all costs. You do not need to fight him.
I paid for a PvP game that advertises itself as a PvP game, I did not pay to beat on monsters for 3 months before I can even consider defending myself. You're an idiot, go play WoW. You're the kind of player that's ruining Darkfall. People burn out because they can't do what they bought the game to do without months of time wasting.
By the way, you keep mentioning "being on the top", which amuses me because "top players" seem to raid clan cities full of people who don't have maxed out skills and win by running around whirlwinding and swinging their polearm which hits multiple people. No amount of strategy can beat these players aside from wasting all of your time macroing and grinding. This is not a strategy that can be actively employed, it requires a major time investment.
So much to comment on here...
What is the big difference?? Oh you mean the mask games use called quests so people can be fooled into thinking they are not grinding...lol. ok.
In Darkfall if I want to make armor, I harvest and craft to get better, this is the same as most mmos out there. Using WoW since most people know of it...in WoW...I run all over harvesting and then put stuff into a que to make it and skill up.
In darkfall if i want to improve archery I use my bow and shoot mobs...in WoW if i want to be lvl 50 I take some quests, kill some mobs until my yellow bar is full and then I do it again for 51.
There is no difference except in Darkfall I decide what I want to kill, where I want to kill and what I want to skill up. In WoW I am told what to kill, told where to kill and they decide for me what will skill up...oh and I get filler text with numbers to help me forget im grinding...
"Bring me 10 wolf claws for your reward" 1000xp 50gold and a lame shield.
"Kill 5 night elf spies and 3 dwarven assassins"
I mean come on...so sick of people throwing the word grind about like it is exclusive to Darkfall, are people so mentally inept that they do not get there is no difference between questing and just going out and killing what you want? Do people have to be lead around or given trivial little rewards every few minutes to feel progress? bleh
In fact I created a new character lately and I am going to check out how friendly the character progression is. I think about myself as one of few main people beyond the campaign to lower the grind and it is time to judge the progress.
It is pvp centric game and all other featers: pve, crafting, gathering, exploring, socializing, politics you name it is influenced by it. People don't like to be defencless targets and being denied the game content because of the grind. Meaning if the character progression is too slow DF will struggle to maintain and gain population, that's a fact proven by the history of this game.
I don't get it. My DF experience has been the polar opposite of a some people's including the OP's. I'm rarely PKed. The only content I'm unable to experience is the content I haven't seen yet because I haven't been that way while exploring. I'm in a clan. We've been invaded by some really good players, but managed to kill them. I've been able to do damage to and defend myself from better geared/skilled players and not die with a group of newbs (as recently as last night). I'm slowly but surely leveling my skills (51 lesser magic, 2 greater, 42 archery and 40 greataxe) over the last 6 weeks. I'm able to beat up on several different kinds of mobs at my lowly level. I'm still enjoying the game a lot.
I haven't been paying attention to the exact amount of damage I've been doing over time, but I'm definitely cutting down easy mobs faster than when I started. And that's using mob drops, not crafted gear. My archery especially is noticeable. I can take down gob scouts in 3 shots using the bow they drop. When I started it took at least double that with the same bow.
I'm not doubting that others struggle and/or get frustrated, I'm just surprised at how much different their experience is from mine. I think part of it is this desire to pwn all ASAP, and when they can't frustration sets in. While for me, I've accepted I'm going to get rolled by better players for a while until I eventually max certain skills. However long it takes me to get there doesn't really matter to me. I'm playing at my own pace and enjoying what the game has to offer.
I'm not turning a blind eye to the weaknesses of the game (which it certainly has), but I'm not trying to hold it to some imaginary measuring stick of what I think the game should be either.
To the OP, I'm sorry the game didn't work out for you. I'm glad you gave it another shot though. Hopefully more who have left before try it out again.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
Why don't you point out what this game has to offer. I really am curious. A shallow crafting system? Ridiculously slow skill gain? PvE that's all cracked out? I don't believe that you're able to defend yourself without any masteries, or you're getting attacked by players who farm goblins.