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DFO Biggest Problem
Wall of text INC...
Background: I'm a DFO subscriber and player. I was in late beta and, except a break for about 6 weeks last summer, I've played 2-6 hours almost every day.
Cheating: in the widest sense of the word i.e. not just playing the game. Including obvious things like bugging mobs, glitching into terrain and mount kicking mobs, using various dupe exploits etc. ALSO including all types of AFK skilling up (macros, swimming, sprinting, bloodwalls etc) as there is no in built mechanism in the game for these and they for the most part use 3rd party software.
Aventuring has never, to date, reversed the action of these cheats on a broad scale. It only slams the door on anyone trying to follow behind to keep up.
This has created a situation where:
- Cheaters generally win 1 v 1 fights as they have higher skilled characters.
You can outplay a cheater - hitting them way more than they hit you - but when you check health, they'll be on 50%+ and you'll be nearly dead. Player skill is SO much less important than stats, character skills & gear it's painful. This can be very demotivating and is generally met with "QQ moar l2playnoob" when really it should be "Sploit moar - I'm actually not that good".
- Clans with lots of cheaters get rich from both exploiting and all the battles they win
- Cheaters then gain a city with the best resources e.g. a mine, which in turn gives them access to the best items in the game.
- Cheaters then head out with superman characters and the best equipment which means they just keep winning and getting more rich and powerful.
- Legit players cannot get on an even playing field as the 'cap' in DFO is incredibly high. However much they grind the game the cheaters can keep moving forward too.
- Access to rarer items is fundamentally more difficult as they cannot take and hold a regular source like a city mine. Legit players are usually therefore less well equipped, which means the playing field remains uneven in this area too.
- The political landscape is shaped almost exclusively by cheating.
The most powerful are the best/biggest cheaters. The only way to make a real mark is to either be a cheating clan or ally them and hide behind them, hopefully leeching some rare ore as you go.
- BIGGEST CONSEQUENCE: People quit the game because they are fighting people they CANNOT get on even terms with. Even getting close to them is a grind which would make a Korean developer blush.
One saving grace is that DFO is, in essence, a group PvP game not an arena. BUT needing greater numbers to win all the time brings with it far greater coordination issues and player retention issues.
What AV has done/is going to do:
- They've increased skill gains whilst fighting PvE
But this helps the cheaters too. They can maintain their unassailable lead by even quicker grinding.
- They've plugged most dupes, shorcuts & exploits. They also instruct their GMs to monitor AFK skilling up and getting caught results in a ban, bank wipe or account deletion.
As I said, slamming the door behind the people who have used this progression method meaning, yes, they can maintain their unassailable lead.
- They're redoing the health point calculation so there is less of a health gap between newer and veteran players.
Good move. But when someone is so maxxed out and in top tier gear this is only a step in the right direction, not a proper solution.
- They're looking into spreading rare ore access across a wider player range.
Good move but no news as to how or when this is going to happen as yet. It also gives the cheaters 18 months+ head start on gearing up and levelling crafting skills to use these resources.
What should be done:
You know, I'm not sure that this isn't just one huge hole that it isn't possible to dig the game out of. IMO any real solution would involve losing players to make sure the game flourishes in future. I just don't think any band aids can work now. AV have to make the call to see if they can financially survive a cull on the cheaters and make the game fundamentally different.
The bottom line is: The gap between the vet and the noob, the gap between the haves and the have-nots needs to be controlled and not insurmountable.
- Something has to be done about previous cheaters.
Slamming the door behind them has been done several times now. This has NOT helped, it just sweeps the problem under the rug until newer players come across it and then, generally, quit. Normalisation of their stats & skills? Normalisation of their bank balance? I just have no idea how you'd work this out so late in the day. This needed to be done after each cheat was plugged, but wasn't. This WILL lose the game players, but will it help the game's image and retention of newer players? Thankfully it's not my call to make.
- Character progression needs to be redesigned
The gap between a vet and a newb has to be calculated PROPERLY this time so as not to be game-killing. Macroing should not be prevented by GMs, it should be both unecessary and impossible due to game design (EVE anyone?Skill cap? Exhaustion system? New idea?)
- Access to or the effects of rare ore needs to be reassessed.
Rare gear should either be:
i. Much less availble - meaning even the super rich & powerful would use it with caution; or
ii. Much more available - meaning that the rich would wear it regularly and the average would have to weigh the risk of using/losing it; or
iii. Less effective - let rare gear give and edge in combat but not be a deciding factor.
- Total rework of the race and alignment system
DFO was meant to be a race war. It is not a race war. Not a blue v red war. It's not even a clan v clan war. It's huge alliances fighting over trifles.
New players are fair game to anyone and everyone. I carried on playing through this, some others too - but possibly tens of thousands haven't. Niche game, sure, but come on! How few players do you actually want to appeal to?
Either scrap the races and/or the alignment system or make them mean something.
DFO is such an excellent idea. Such an excellent game. However, the results of cheating need to be addressed as urgently as the source of the cheating. If a system can be cheated you need to rework the system and undo the negative results of the previous system.
More appealing to me than new armour, prestige classes, sea towers or really anything, would be that the fundamental problems which have been apparent in the game since early on are dealt with and the results of those problems are cleaned up. THIS is what Dev time and focus should be on.
Comments
The problem is that most of player who left playing DFO are so "called cheaters" who exlpoited, macroed and other stuff. They should have done such thing before but now its kinda too late. If they would now what you suggest it would be kinda "harakiri" suicide.
They messed it up.
And now after 1 1/2 year start to realise it. Pathetic.
EvE doors
See the best doors on EvE-on!
well, if the situation is that badly out of hand, why dont they just do a complete wipe, make everyone start from scratch again, but this time, have tools in place that will prevent the afk macro'ing and other exploits.. may seem a little extreme perhaps but if the situation is really as bad as you say it is.. then what other choice could there be?
because if they did that, 80% of there player base would probably just leave after having 1 years worth of play removed, which means less income, which means less resources which leads to less employee's which leads to well i hope you get the picture, IMO the only way is to change the mechanics to bridge the gap between all players, strong/weak new or old, and it needs to be done a piece at a time, slowly.
welcome to real life
Take a step back in time and relive the original Lineage II experience as it was in the beginning. Create a classic hero from the original 5 races and 31 class options and jump into the nostalgic hardcore level grind where the rewards can outweigh the risks. It's your chance to experience the game the way it was when "hardcore" meant something!
I am legit player and i feel AV is doing great against hackers / cheater with the tools in their disposal.
They perma banned a lot of hacker / cheater folks and wiped banks etc... Their stance is strong on this and i like their way of handling these. Stay out of hacking and cheating and report suspicious behaviour and you good to go.
The fight against cheaters and hackers is an ongoing one , or is war against terror won already ? does computer virus and malware stoped to being produced ?
Have proof about hacks make the evidence public and report, instead of just claim "there is hacks and cheats everywhere"..
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
The political landscape is ruled by cheaters? What game are you playing, honestly?
The clan I'm in does not cheat nor hack and the clans we are allied with don't do that as well. Macroing is a different story, but, frankly no one considers it cheating at this point in the game.
Also, have you fought a player who was good at melee? We just don't sit there and whack back and forth. People miss a lot and there is a skill to it. I've seen those with more health get beat by those with less simply because those lesser chars had more skill.
@Xianthos - yes, it probably would be suicide for them, but perhaps NOT doing something will be suicide too.
@Phry - A wipe would hit the legit players too. Some kind of normalisation would be great though...if possible to work out at this late stage.
@Aramanu - yes, that seems to be the way AV are heading. What kills me about this is that it involves dealing with only one of the problems once or twice a year. It's too slow and I have fears for there being anyone left by the time they have it 'fixed'.
@Trix - Welcome to poorly thought through game systems.
@DarthRaiden - I agree that AV have done a great job of removing hacks & cheats but they seem to never undo the mess the hacks & cheats create. The biggest 'cheat' of all being macroing which is the basis of so much that is wrong with the game today.
@xanphia - "Macroing is a different story, but, frankly no one considers it cheating at this point in the game" And this is what I'm talking about. Using 3rd party autoclickers while (basically) afk is the only way anyone could hope to catch up in the game now and yet it's basically cheating. My definition of cheating, as I explained, is broad. It involves doing something that is not in the game client/mechanics to gain an advantage. It is SO sad that macroing is considered a main method of progression in a modern MMORPG. It is souless and no fun.
Thank you OP. I read your post and realized I forgot to turn on Darkfall. Now I am window swimming. I call it window swimming because I let darkfall play itself in windowed mode while I play a different game that is fun, also in a window, so that i can respond to GM's (who are also the only people i interact with in this game). My characters face will be imprinted onto the wall that i am swimming against eventually LOL!
My Darkfall character was stuck in RED alignment until I killed enough people AFK hitting trees and rocks. Darkfall is hardcore
Yikes!
I hope you are joking...
Unfortunately your post is an almost carbon copy of dozens of posts on the the official forums as well. Perhaps they are all joking as well?
I'm hoping that the discussion that the Devs are planning on having with the community about this stuff comes up with some solutions.
Otherwise...
No i am not joking. I know it sounds bad, because it is. The only thing that motivates me to continue swimming like this is the damage numbers i see when i fight other players. I tried to PvP today and i got killed by the first player i saw, he was naked i was in bone and scale with r40 weapons. I barely even damaged him at all. I thought to myself, WOW that guy swam a LOT! So, in order to be able to kill that guy i have to swim. Actually, i know i dont have to swim but im going to be honest i hate PvE and this game feels so empty its like im playing a single-player game. I know it is slow, but swimming against a wall just means that i can have fun playing another game (Battlefield Bad Company 2!!
) while my character gets stronger.
My Darkfall character was stuck in RED alignment until I killed enough people AFK hitting trees and rocks. Darkfall is hardcore
There are HUGE penalties to both being naked and using starter sword. Sorry, but I found it improbable that naked can kill you, even assuming that he has 450 HP (health cap), and you're first day noob.
Could you give some damage numbers from system log ?
I cant give you numbers because it was a while ago and i have logged out and back in since. All i can tell you is that it was a naked player at a goblin camp, dwarf lands. When i say naked i mean naked armor-wise. His weapon was NOT starter, that is for sure. I would agree with you that it would be hard to lose to someone who is naked with a starter weapon. I went to goblin camp because i figure it would be my greatest chance to find a player to test out my damage. I wish i could pvp, and I am sad that this happened but i have confined myself to my swimming hole for at least a 2 week windowed-swimming session in hopes of being able to kill the naked player one day.
My Darkfall character was stuck in RED alignment until I killed enough people AFK hitting trees and rocks. Darkfall is hardcore
If the naked noob at goblin spot can kill you then it should ring an alarm for you that you doing something wrong.
If you take hints, i would afk swim less and pvp a lot more preferably against people in your clan first where it isn't that painfull to loose some matches for you to gain some real skill in fighting players. Whoever said to you it is necessary for you to afk swim to become better in PvP was wrong as you are now yourself the best example for it (afk swimming creates PvP noobs).
Best is you do PvE for Paperskill and PvP for player killing skill.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Sorry, I think you misunderstood what I am trying to say. What i am discussing has nothing to do with player skill, you should read my post again because i state that what keeps me swimming is the numbers. My melee weapon hits less on a naked player than he hits me for while wearing bone and scale armor. Yes, that is alarming and immediately tells me that i either need to get a more expensive weapon or I need to swim more because swimming raises strength. I realize that my stats are much lower than whoever it was that i died to, and he probably had a crazy sword that costs like 50k gold. I said that i know i dont need to swim so i dont know where you got the idea that someone told me i have to swim. What really bothers me is people saying that there is skill involved when pvp in this game seems to be almost entirely based off stats, levels and how much you spend on equipment.
My Darkfall character was stuck in RED alignment until I killed enough people AFK hitting trees and rocks. Darkfall is hardcore
I've just re-entered the water on my 49th consecutive 12+ hour day of swimming and I have about 50 days left. I have swum closing in on 600 hours after tonight and I have to say that it has been a lot of hardwork and dedication. I play another game while my character swims aswell and look forward to being able to play Darkfall full-time. So, if you are only 2 weeks into your swim I will tell you that it begins to wear you down but keep going it should be worth it about 90 days from now. Please save yourself the trouble and stop trying to PVP until your swim time is completed, it's a waste of valuable swim time in the end and may cause you to quit.