Major changes annouced for next patch

https://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?403595-Next-Patch-Announcement

Greetings,

There has been already a discussion in forum regarding next patch and upcoming updates.
We are in position to verify these implementations to Darkfall, coming last week of February and we hope you will love them as much as we do.


Clan Perks

We will be introducing a clan perks system based on our original player perks. These perks will be distributed to Hamlets all around Agon. Thus, clans will be able to invest dominion, a much underused currency to enable their clannies to take advantage of said perks.


Each holding will unlock a unique perk, and multiple perks can be used at the same time by the owning clan. We expect holding value to increase after this change, which in turn will drive more conflict especially around the holdings that unlock the most valuable perks.

There will be some overlap with the relics system and as such clans will be able to offset some of their disadvantage of not owing a specific holding with a relic.


Instant Travel

Instant travel makes the world feel less populated since players can and will avoid to their advantage other encounters, or congregate massively and instantly to places of action.
Removing the easily available Summon Friend capacity, as well as rune stones, will increase player movement out in the world, and give more meaning to travelling-faster-on-roads, risk-reward mechanism.

In the same vein, teleportation will become more expensive and only possible via the stationary portals scattered around the world.

Note that "Summon Apprentice" will still be available.

The existing materials used in teleportation (portal shards, rune stones) will now become ingredients in a recipe for a “Teleportation Rune” to be used as the necessary material to activate the portal.

We will also incur a 30 min teleportation sickness buff so as players cannot abuse portals hoping around Agon if rich enough to do so.


Mount Changes

Mounts currently have no variation, serve the same purpose, and cost the same. We will differentiate existing mounts by introducing different advantages and disadvantages, different costs, different recipes and different mount tiers for each of the mount types.

Attributes that will be changed include health, attack damage, speed and carrying capacity.
Note that for higher mount tiers, for every attribute with increased value, there will be an attribute that will have a lower than average value.


Dynamic Events

The Christmas event was a glimpse of what would follow regarding dynamic events. With this addition, random events will happen 24/7 in the world of Agon. Random tiered monster will be buffed with loot while the event is running. Once a number of these monster is killed, bosses will be spawned and markers will be placed in the map so players can track them. Rest assured this is only the beginning and we are going to build up more on this.
We will be in position to elaborate more on this in the following days.


Leaderboards

We've have informed you previous weeks regarding the addition of a Leaderboard system. You can read more about the design of the system here.


Combat

We constantly monitor skills and their impact in-game. We are going to focus tweaking some abilities, fixing some exploits and bring some new gameplay elements into the game. Specifics will follow the closer we get to patch day.

MAJOR COMBAT CHANGES

https://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?403652-Suggested-Combat-changes

This is the list of combat changes that we would like to present you for our next patch. Note that nothing is finalized yet and some functionality changes are pending programmer feedback. Your feedback is appreciated:


Ultimate skills:

Spirit Bond : Healing Reduced. Cooldown increased.

Heart of Stone: Reflects Bludgeoning damage instead of Impact. - in order to 'break' the infinite damage loop.

Static Field: AoE size reduced 1 tier. You will need to be very close to the target.

Barrage: Duration reduced.


Player Movement

All movement and CC abilities are getting removed/nerfed, in order to make positioning more important. Also adding more skillful movement in game:

Dash - Removed, and replaced with Begone skill. For those who are not familiar, Begone is a physics spell that pushes your opponents or yourself forward and can be used for creative play.

Attunement to Air: Movement speed bonus removed. Magnitude increased.

Heightened reflexes: Movement speed bonus removed. Longer Duration, Faster CD, Stamina bonus added, Spell casting speed bonus added.

Pulverize: Blind duration reduced. Knockback force reduced. Cooldown increased. Damage increased.

Stampede: Movement speed bonus halved. Duration reduced. Cooldown increased. Alternative: Speed bonus removed + All your attacks pre-disable the target.

Frostbite: Movement slow debuff removed.

Tornado: Knockback force greatly reduced.

Watery Grave: Physics pull removed. While inside WG, your breath bar becomes 0 and you take breathing damage. Alternative: Pushes targets outwards of pulling them inwards.

Seizure: Tweaked so it resembles more the old "Come Hither" spell (more potent).

Repel: Knockback force reduced. Now a cone instead of 360 aoe.

Horizontal damage slightly increased.

Other skills:

Attunement to earth: Duration halved.

Lunge: No longer instant spell - Small casting time added.

Vampiric Strike: Cooldown increased.

Maelstrom: Faster animation (similar to Pulverize). Damage increased.

Roar: Also silences target for few seconds.

Thunderbolt: Damage slightly increased.

Caustic bolt: Damage slightly increased. Duration slightly increased (so it's easier to stack its effect)

Fireball: Damage slightly increased.

Attunement to Fire: Duration moderately reduced.

Soul Flay: Secondary "link" effect removed. Casting time reduced. Debuff timer reduced (ganks faster)

Rescuscitate: Casting time reduced. Debuff timer reduced (revives faster)

Invigoration: Mana net gain greatly increased.

Performance

Wall of Righteous Force and Tectonic Shift removed (and possibly replaced with new skills)


Armor
Metal armor Bludgeoning Protections reduced by about 2 at dread level.

Movement and archery:
Player acceleration is much faster and more responsive (movement changes introduced several patches ago)
In order to counter-balance for this change, archery missile speed will be increased. This will also allow to shoot more accurately targets at slightly longer distance.

Hitboxes:
Slight tweaks to hitboxes for when player is on the move in order to lessen the 'missed when it should have hit' moments.
Tweaks to Shoulder camera targetting in order to make it more accurate.

Common skills:
Added Levitate skill (the old Telekenesis spell). Summons a column of air that pushes any characters inside, upwards.

Mounted Combat:
Lean attack damage greatly increased.
Can now attack forward while moving.

(Under)Water combat:
All role/common skills now allowed underwater or while swimming on the surface.

Regeneration
Player Regeneration very slightly reduced - To address TTK

Changing Roles
Cooldown for changing role removed. (In anticipation for our new UI/Skill selection that will have skills instantly "activated" when you drag them on your hotbars.)

Guard Tower damage will be reduced by about ~5 damage, until a more complex and interesting mechanic is implemented.