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For the last few months we’ve been discussing DF’s turn away from competition toward carebear land. I’ve compared their mistakes to the same mistakes made in UO and SB. This has been a stark directional change from development, beta, and a launch that focused almost entirely on the competitive nature of the game. Today Tasos Posted this. I’m chopping up some of the paragraphs to cut out the BS, so please read the original post first if you want to read the fluff. Here is my breakdown of the post.
If you played DF 24/7 and bought gold your character would not be viable to do anything other than die after two months. It takes about 3-6 months to become viable if you buy gold and macro 24/7 (buying gold and macroing are both illegal). At regular character progression (2-4 hours a day) it would take over a year to build your character to a “viable” level. How do I have a better idea about this than the devs? I know dozens of people that have done it in the most efficient means possible. I’m talking about buying the game and doing nothing but macro it 24/7 with bought gold on a second PC.
Lala land examples:
So he’s saying that a new character is viable because it’s possible to kill an AFK if they don’t come back for a few minutes while being beat to death? Ok…
And then they will still die with it and lose it. This game is full loot, remember? A fully geared newbie can’t beat a new res vet.
I could think of anything to say to this other than…and…? I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to do these things.
What in the world? No they can’t. Maybe he means that a group of 10-20 new players could kill one vet? Maybe, but then reality comes crashing down. The average PK group is between 3-10 fully equipped veteran players. When was the last time you saw 30+ fully geared newbies ready to engage a PK group…and we’re not even talking about the player skill advantage a veteran has.
The fact that they can do these things doesn’t mean any guild would want them doing them. Reality would dictate the exact opposite. Does he really think that a guild that can afford a 250,000gp warhulk is going to give it to a newbie? WTF?
Wrong. A new character has two uses:
-Take a couple hits
-Pick up horses
A year for a casual gamer to build a viable character is a “grind-free philosophy”? Comparing WoW to DF is “not trying to compare apples and oranges”? But since he wanted to compare them, let’s do it. It takes about three months to casually build a level 80 char IWOW. Mind you, this is a game where the entire purpose of the game is to grind. It takes upwards of a year to build a “viable” character IDF in a game that’s player base choose not to play WOW because they’re looking for something less grind intensive and more competitive with higher risk vs. reward. To get the equivalent of a level 80 IDF you would have to casually play for something like 2 years? So yah, lets not compare apples and oranges. DF gives “the grind” a whole new meaning.
This is simply inaccurate. A casual player would have moderate weapon skills, low magic, and 30-40 in the main stats. Keep in mind that you can’t even get the basic PvP skills until you have 50+ and need 75 for some of the required advanced PvP skills. They would have to spend all their gold on skills and regs and wouldn’t have any PvP worthy gear. See my first response regarding time frames.
These things are pretty much all common sense and belonged in the game from day one. These changes shouldn’t be viewed as improvements, rather fixes for not meeting the basic industry standard at launch. So way to go on adding the same things every other MMO on the market had. *pat on the back*
Let’s just be clear. An advanced character would normally be considered a finished or near finished character. Or is there another category that we’re not discussing here? Tripling your starting stats makes you half done. Half done isn’t even “viable” unless the player behind the character is badass. Again, both his example and timelines are way off. Out of touch?
Good. Now do that with all skill and stats rewards.
In closing I want to be clear that OPP will continue to play DF because it’s the best PvP based MMO on the market. However, I want to be clear that this game is going in the wrong direction. The grind, the mobs, the quests, etc can not be the focus on the DF staff. WoW does it better, YOU CAN’T COMPETE!!! Focus on making the reasons people play DF better:
-Open PvP
-Full loot system
-Skill based system
-Competitive FPS style
-Naval and Mounted combat
A good start would be reducing the grind down to the levels you discussed:
-2-3mo to be viable (60+ stats)
-4-6mo to advanced (100+ stats)
Oh yah:
Why not just start over and make DF a class based game then? One of the reasons that players are deathly loyal to UO even 10+ years after launch is the lack of a class based system. Think about it…
In a nutshell: Our first goal was to give you a starting character which was useful on day one, and after a couple of months of having fun and learning to play the game, your character would become “viable”
Lala land examples:
In Darkfall a starting character can attack and hit a veteran character and inflict enough damage to kill him after a few minutes if not challenged. In almost any other MMO this is impossible even for players that have played for a couple of months.
In Darkfall a starting character can use any item in the game without restrictions. No level, ability, or quest restrictions.
A starting character can access any area on the map, join a clan, group with any player he wants without penalties, participate in group PvE against any MOB in the game.
A group of starting characters could fend off or even bring down a veteran character.
A character straight out of the box can man a cannon, a warhulk, sail a ship, ride a mount, rez, loot, harvest, craft, destroy and repair buildings, capture a village, capture a city, capture a sea tower, can own a house – among many other things.
A starting character can participate in all activities the game has to offer and he can be useful in many supporting roles.
-Take a couple hits
-Pick up horses
Which brings us to why we’re mentioning all this again: We start out with a grind-free philosophy. Everything we mention above, any other game would make you grind, claw, and fight for. Just the privilege of using various weapons could lead to months of effort. We could have easily done the same thing. We’re not trying to compare apples and oranges, but the point we’re trying to make here is that in Darkfall we can take these freedoms for granted, and they do carry over throughout your character’s lifespan.
Let’s define what we mean by “viable” today: Timeframe: Approximately two months of a moderate time invested playing the game. Your character has most of the skills required for basic PvP combat, a decent supply of equipment in your bank, and you have approximately doubled your starting stats.
After launch we identified several problems early on, on the way to becoming “viable” which we addressed by dramatically raising the gains while fighting monsters in both magic and melee, introducing changes in PvE, introducing auto-harvesting, added the Industry skill which reduces crafting time across the board, skill books and scrolls, attribute consumables, and last but not least we added newbie protection. We also added various time-saving measures including bag naming, auto stacking of items, and increasing ship speed. We feel that all these together help significantly improve the transition from starting to viable. There are several other things we’re working on which will help this even further. It made sense to us to focus on this first, it being the starting experience.
Another concern for us is the transition from “viable” to “advanced”. By “advanced” we mean a character with high skills necessary for his preferred style of combat, a large supply of basic and intermediate gear, a fair amount of high end gear, and about triple his starting stats. Timeframe: 4-6 months of a moderate time invested playing the game. We believe that this is also a very important stage for a player. Most of the changes we implemented mentioned above during the starting to viable character transition also apply in this stage.
One of our next measures will be implemented in our next patch: We are significantly changing the progression of hitpoints in a diminishing returns fashion. This is done to improve a character’s viability in PvP situations and to make players of all levels more competitive.
In closing I want to be clear that OPP will continue to play DF because it’s the best PvP based MMO on the market. However, I want to be clear that this game is going in the wrong direction. The grind, the mobs, the quests, etc can not be the focus on the DF staff. WoW does it better, YOU CAN’T COMPETE!!! Focus on making the reasons people play DF better:
-Open PvP
-Full loot system
-Skill based system
-Competitive FPS style
-Naval and Mounted combat
A good start would be reducing the grind down to the levels you discussed:
-2-3mo to be viable (60+ stats)
-4-6mo to advanced (100+ stats)
Oh yah:
A major feature on the way are the Prestige Classes. This is not a minor change, it will actually change the way Darkfall is played. They will take your preferred play-style to a new level and set you apart. These have been a long-term project that we’ve been working on for a while now. They will be a part of Darkfall 2010 launching sometime during Q4 2010.
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