What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

[Jackal]

We could use player feedback on a feature we’re investigating for the next expansion. We won’t go into much detail so as to not influence the discussion. The topic: Consider armors and clothing working to enhance certain specific abilities like for example magic, melee, archery vs. hindering or even blocking others during their use. We’re very interested in the discussion, and the relevant comments will be delivered to the developers.

New Darkfall Blog

My Feedback:

I understand Tasos said that that he wanted: "player feedback on a feature we’re investigating for the next expansion". However, isn't this a waste of time right now? Isn't this just another useless feature that will be hard to balance while only annoying the majority of the playerbase?

I would like to see DF more polished, not completely changed. For a casual gamer the grind is far too great for both gear and character progression. Adding another way to "upgrade" your armor just seems like more work to me. Making me change the gear sets I've already created also seems like more work to me. That's more time I have to spend doing something I don't enjoy.

The silent majority play this game to compete. Any change that doesn't polish mechanics, gameplay, character ownership, or end game PvP is a waste of time until those things are fully addressed.

Please understand your playerbase.

DF Forum Thread

Darkfall is the end game for anyone who enjoys MMO's. It fosters extreme competition through a player skill driven system. The Devs need to understand that this is now WoW so their playerbase is not interested in WoW style "features". This is the same road that UO and SB went down. Those games died and they weren't even competing with WoW at the time. This road is a one way dead end for DF. This is why I'm making this post now at the first hint of the dreaded "shiny". DF staff: YOU CAN NO COMPETE WITH WOW SO DON'T TRY, BE UNIQUE!

Here are some basic ideas that will make your playerbase happy:
1. More events: I'm generally happy with the support staff and enjoy the events that they put on. However, you can tell that these people don't play the game or if they do they don't play like the rest of us do. Using player feedback to create a "weekly" or "monthly" DF sponsored event on each server would go far in the "giving back to your playerbase" field. To be clear, I'm not talking about trolls attacking an NPC town that no one lives at or cares about, I'm talking about player driven events.

2. Fix the GUI. Fixing the GUI would be my top priority if I was on the DF staff. It's the first thing new players see and it sucks. If you need inspiration, look at the GUI SB used.

3. Put people on gameplay mechanics permanently. I don't know if this is already done, but I hope so. Every patch should have minor tweaks to improve FPS, Ping, and load times. There needs to be more focus on improving performance at sieges.

4. Build character ownership through logical means. This is a HUGE one for me and pretty much everyone I talk to. PvP MMOs have fallen flat on their face when it comes to character loyalty. Every person playing any MMO wants to look different than anyone else. Dev houses keep trying to do this via the character creation screen...FAIL! Here's a news flash: characters wear armor in these games.
-Make a helmet toggle and add a few more options to head graphics along with restyle deeds
-Make armor and weapons dyable
-Make crafter's skill determine the power of the mount, weapon, or armor rather than this being dictated by the type. There's lot of cool models in the game that no one can use because everyone has to wear the same armor and weapons. As far as mounts go, the battlehorn nerf and then the addition of the bluetail patched the rest of the mounts out of the game. Dumb idea.

Character loyalty isn't based on your stupid grind. It's based on a player having the ability to have a truly cool looking character that they can be proud of. For example, a friend comes to my house and wants to see DF. I log in and show him my character in the same armor and on the same mount as everyone else OR I log in and show him a totally unique character with unique armor, weapons, and my choice of mounts. Yoohoooo Devs, people don't care about the textures on a tree, they care about the way their character looks.
-Always talked about but never been done before: Make guild objects that have a guild crest on them and allow guilds to upload a crest once every (insert time) and start off by allowing (insert amount) per week or day based on a priority of holdings/active playerbase so they can be reviewed and added. Once added these can be put on city towers, flags, or crafted objects. One ideal object would be a newbie robe that had base protections and a guild crest that every guildie could have.

5. Focus on adding more ways to encounter meaningful PvP. Village control points and sea towers are attempts that need to be polished. Upgrade them and fix trade routes (waste of time). Pick some that you want to be epic and some for casual gamers and then make them meaningful or more lucrative. DF needs to provide more reasons for players to leave their holding.

6. Address travel time. With everyone huddling up in their holdings for protection a casual PK run is limited to running all over the world to find a fight or hitting a highly populated city where there's an 80% chance you won't survive. There's lots of options here that have been done before with success. Travel "mode" from SB, Moongates from UO, and reuseable runes from UO are just a few. There's 100's of ways to address this that I could get into. This is a top complaint I hear from friends that have quit.

[Xaj]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

Amen to this ^

I just see DF devs adding skills and shinys to the game as a way to make players continue to put money in their pockets. It's not about how indepth the game is but the fun factor, how easy it is to find/get to the fun, and making something that is truly your own. Way too many useless skills that have to be leveled up and even more time is spent doing un-fun tasks just to be able to PVP.

The ROI of DF is in the negative. Look how many skills you could have in UO - 7, yes, 7 and that game was fun as hell and had a lot of skill to it. You could hop around the entire world in a matter of seconds just by clicking a few runes - if your friends were already logged in and in a fight you could easily get there within seconds rather than running 15- 20 minutes.

[Godamus]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

Every person playing any MMO wants to look different than anyone else. Dev houses keep trying to do this via the character creation screen...FAIL! Here's a news flash: characters wear armor in these games.
-Make a helmet toggle and add a few more options to head graphics along with restyle deeds
-Make armor and weapons dyable
-Make crafter's skill determine the power of the mount, weapon, or armor rather than this being dictated by the type. There's lot of cool models in the game that no one can use because everyone has to wear the same armor and weapons. As far as mounts go, the battlehorn nerf and then the addition of the bluetail patched the rest of the mounts out of the game. Dumb idea.

Character loyalty isn't based on your stupid grind. It's based on a player having the ability to have a truly cool looking character that they can be proud of. For example, a friend comes to my house and wants to see DF. I log in and show him my character in the same armor and on the same mount as everyone else OR I log in and show him a totally unique character with unique armor, weapons, and my choice of mounts. Yoohoooo Devs, people don't care about the textures on a tree, they care about the way their character looks.

I'm wondering how you would differentiate this desire for "character ownership/pride" vs. desire for shinies. It seems to me, at least in the way you've described it here, shinies is nothing more than an extension of this concept. Unique, time immersive ways to customize your character and give it pseudo-unique power boosts.

It's a thin line between character customization and a development focus that veers too much towards WoW.

I kind of sympathize with PvP MMO developers. On the one hand people want them to focus on PvP, on the other hand, at the end of the day, it is still a game and visual appeal, etc. (stuff with little to no relevance with PvP) matters towards marketability and player retention.

And yes, you can say "make shinies with no impact on PvP balance" ... but then you face the palpable reality that you waste time developing stuff that offers little to no incentive for the player base to get/use.

Everyone has a bit of a Trammy in them. UO probably understood this best but implemented it the worst.

[Fats]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

That's a valid point, but you already mentioned the distinction between cosmetic character customization and item collecting in most MMOs. Ie. the practical game play effect of those items versus pure visuals.

As for burning resources building those item models, game companies already do this but attach power related qualities that render them useless outside isolated circumstances. For example think of how many people rocked non magic knives or pitchforks in UO. Or how many sub 100 skill weapons/armor sets went unused in Shadowbane, despite some of the models having visual appeal. In fact Shadowbane in particular had far more item models that weren't used than those that were simply because of the power difference.

Now if the differences were purely cosmetic (and perhaps some stats moved around here and there, but overall equivalent), players would have more options for personal customization and developmental resources would not need to be any further devoted to creating more item models than already has been.

For me, it's important to have options, not requirements.

[Jackal]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

The point is that Devs often use new items or items that have been changed to try to bring people back to the game or get new subscribers. That doesn't work and also can negatively impact existing subs. Focusing on something like what I suggested makes the game a lot more interesting perminently and doesn't negatively impact anyone.

Character ownership is a big topic with devs and publishers because it's how they beleive they can keep subs. Their model is based around making someone not want to quit instead of making people want to play. WoW has the market share on people that want to have a second or third job. Games like DF should focus on fun.

[Endure]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

WoW has the market share on people that want to have a second or third job. Games like DF should focus on fun.

Sad thing is that WoW made the game easy for dumb people. Easy mode for everything (from classes to leveling) so that there is relatively no grinding. Sounds like you can do in a day what used to take a week or two. Say what you want about how elementary the game is and the lack of real pvp, at least they listened to the customer on this one (even though it took them six years). Hopefully it doesn't take DF that long to understand that people want to play for pvp and not the grind.

I miss DF, but I don't have as much time as I did last summer. And when I remember how much grinding it took just to be competitive in pvp, it really bums me out and want to wait for the next big thing. Certainly doesn't offer incentive to pay $15 a month to grind or get ores at server up.

Last semester of undergrad and New Vegas should last me until the end of it.

[Jackal]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

There isn't anything to wait for.

[Caramon]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

Sad thing is that WoW made the game easy for dumb people. Easy mode for everything (from classes to leveling) so that there is relatively no grinding. Sounds like you can do in a day what used to take a week or two. Say what you want about how elementary the game is and the lack of real pvp, at least they listened to the customer on this one (even though it took them six years). Hopefully it doesn't take DF that long to understand that people want to play for pvp and not the grind.

[/quote]

My WoW knowledge is a little outdated, but last time I played they had merely shifted the leveling grind to gear grind.

In order to compete in high-end arena in WoW, you have to have a full set of current season arena gear -- and they cap you on points per week so that it takes like 10-15 weeks or whatever to get the full set. They then make the arena season like 20 weeks long so you spend 15 weeks getting gear and then 5 weeks really competing.

More of a 'grind shift' than a reduction of grind :) gotta love WoW hamster wheel!

[Endure]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

My WoW knowledge is a little outdated, but last time I played they had merely shifted the leveling grind to gear grind.

Bone armor and r5s used to be the shiz. So yarrrr, the gear grind exists for DF as well. And if WoW capped points or whatever, then everyone would have the same gear per week. Just like in DF, everyone could have the same gear if the player decides to make it.

If I get time to play MMOs again, I'll have to pay for gold in order to buy gearsss. Not a bad thing, but I just don't like doing it.

And Greg is right, there isn't anything in terms of MMOs on the table. So DF must make it right. Greg hit a lot of the main points.

Maybe D3 will be worth messing around on but... meh, not even worth holding my breath.

[Delinquent]

Re: What Darkfall Needs, NOW!

WoW put in a Point cap for Arena and took out the " arena rating " to use specific items Basically, you win 5 games and you are point capped for the week, but the higher your rating the more points you can earn each week.... it still sucks..

As for Darkfall for a skill cap in and a stat cap.. I would come back in a heartbeat,