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Character Progression Discussion - From official forums
Originally posted by Tasos on official forums:
This topic is so vast and it touches on so many related topics that we cannot possibly cover all bases in just one post. What we’re attempting here is to get the discussion started by giving some background, explaining our intentions, what we’ve identified as problems, what we’ve been doing to date, and what we intend to do short and long-term.
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”. After that, more character development, specialization, and high level content, but please allow us to save most of this last part for a subsequent discussion.
The starting character: These are things we have talked about time and time again but they’re extremely important in order to understand the big picture, so please bear with us one more time:
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.
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.
Besides the hitpoint progression measure, we have been studying many other aspects of character development in our ongoing effort to address possible imbalances. We should also mention that we have decided to introduce temporary stat potion boosts in our next expansion scheduled for June 2010.
While we’ve been addressing the starting and intermediate experience, we didn’t want to neglect the veteran players. We’ve been adding a lot of end-game content and a lot of new features in both our expansions and various patches in between. This is a topic for another discussion coming soon, during which you will discover that nothing is being done in a random fashion, and that everything we’ve been adding makes up a platform on which to build and improve on. We have been doing a lot of work on revamping many of these features and systems so that they can begin reaching their potential.
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.
We are aware that there are many things to be said about the topic at hand and many arguments that can be raised. We do not pretend to have addressed the issue fully but we have the best intentions to do so over time. We are processing player feedback on this at a very high priority, and you deserve a lot of credit for it. It has taken over a year for us to get a handle on this massive system and during this time we have adjusted our thinking considerably. It's not our intention to sell you anything here, rather to give you a glimpse at the big picture as we see it. Our hope is that this can become the start of an on-going discussion on character progression issues. It may take a little time to process but we expect that we will come back with more food for thought based on the feedback we receive. In order for us to do this effectively, we will kindly ask you to please approach this subject with a spirit of good-will and cooperation, as we hope we have.
Thank you
Comments
Personally I think this is a good start. I don't think it will solve the whole problem, but I am glad to see that AV is at least in agreement that there IS a problem.
June for the next expansion and Q4 for DF2010? Ugh...really?! They will def. need to do minors upgrades along the way. That simply takes too long.
You are wrong, its the only problem that exist. Everything in the game can be maxed out in 3 weeks tops, besides stats which are suppose to take a long time and already give min gains.
Edit: You have to read what I said in context. The only problem that exist between new players and advance players is the HP. Everything else is a justified advantage that is surmountable through player skill. There are other problems with DFO, but this one is the one that most people care about.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
They should have kept in the skill point caps, with the system they have now they will only make it easier and easier as time goes on to attract new players. If they announced a skill cap system similar to UO or SWG then fine you can make grinding the sp as fast or slow as you want. However this way you're just starting the ball rolling for an NGE.
This time next year there will be next to no progression, it'll be like Shadow Bane. So easy no one gives a shit and full of tumbleweed and crickets. Without the skill point cap system this is what happens and is happening in DF, whiners gonna whine and Vets gonna quit.
I guess no one at AV has ever played SB!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Skill caps "blocks" users from the freedom of being what you want, when you want, which is what Aventurine is aiming for.
That said, I look forward to Prestige Classes. If you remember the information regarding Prestige Classes that could be found on the previous version of the website, it really seems promising.
Skill cap makes game easier. In "golden age", between UO:SE and UO:AOS and UO become "easy mode", thanks to crafting alts. 2 weeks of char development - and you've reached "cap". 2h of farming and you were ready to PvP for 8h in absolute top gear.
That's not the case in DF. Grind is still there. It will take exactly as long as before to get to 110/100 in everything as before. One member of other clan was given a task to get to 100 enchanting. He had quit - before even supported by whole clan it was sooo hard to get there, that he didn't had any fun doing it. If it would be easy (with skill cap) - every clan would have "enchanting" alt - and having 100 enchanting wouldn't be anything special.
12 months of character development should be enough to satisfy those who want "hard MMO". I play for more than year - so I'm "vet". I have 59 str, 60 vit, 43 dex, 68 quickness, 49 int, 74 wis. Most people in my clan, playing as long as I did, have similar stats. Those using magic are pretty close to 75 int, and in a month will get "Archmage".
However - Tasos announcement had one instant effect: For first time since launch I've met people playing at 7:30 AM - usually that early in the morning I would just meet AFK swimmers
It's not that easy to steal rare ore from clan mines anymore 
There probably should have been caps on abilities at the launch of this game. As it stands the grind to become a badass mrfr is out of this world. When I see things like ''HP is th eonly problem in the game'' I laugh.
When I started Darkfall just under 3 month's ago I was struck by how awesome the huge open world is. They really did a good job with what they had to work with. Now the only thing I'm struck by is the insane grind the game has to become ''competitive''. Competitive equals better have a veteran friend with you when you see a red or you get killed no matter how much player skill you have.
I guess I'm slow because it took me 3 month's to realize this game isn't for me. Today's little blog from Tasos sealed the deal. Yay a bump to health and that is that, all is better now huh, heh..
This game is going to remain as it is now. Barely a blip on the radar.
Nop--lets say you have 1000 points to spend..capped..if you wanna be something else let it decay and put the pints in other talents. that needs skill decay also...cap, decay working together..and a way to decay faster to change the points.
Changes incoming in "next few weeks" (vitality dimnishing returns) don't go that far, but are still resisted by some vets:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/276400/Whiners-win-long-term-progression-is-dead.html
Sooner or later Mortal Online will get to "playable" state - so we'll be able to check how skill cap impacts gameplay in long term, if it promotes character variety, or urge to follow FOTM is too strong. And if there will be more dedicated crafters than "crafting alts".
I'd like to see how it plays out - before I'll support adding skill cap to DF.
I don't have a problem with being what you want it's just with the UO/SWG system you could only be one thing at a time or a couple of things but only master one thing at a time. The problem with the DF system is like my char I'm a shitload of things at the same time and can be master of all, the negative effects are that there is no economy and no devouted crafters in DFO.
Making progression faster or easier will only exacerbate this in my opinion. It sounds like they're removing the stat grind a bit but it's just the begining, they'll never go back to it being more difficult and progressivly make the grind go away. SB had no grind but DF is ending up just like SB did before it closed down.
In my opinion a skill system like this needs caps to work but it's just too extreme for AV to take the plunge, instead they're just making it easier to get a maxed out char in small incriments. Also they need to officialy allow AFK swimming since it's unofficialy allowed right now, if AV wanted to stop AFK swimming today they'd make it so it gave no stat gains and have GMs go around the edge off the map at night banning people or atleast kicking them.
DFO needs more players, two new mounts and an easier stat grind just ain't gonna cut it in my opinion.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
You are wrong, its the only problem that exist. Everything in the game can be maxed out in 3 weeks tops, besides stats which are suppose to take a long time and already give min gains.
Edit: You have to read what I said in context. The only problem that exist between new players and advance players is the HP. Everything else is a justified advantage that is surmountable through player skill. There are other problems with DFO, but this one is the one that most people care about.
nah, the only problem in the game is the difference in skill between different players. Some like Funny Kichu can kill almost every guy having 350 hp w/o buffs. And some like (insert any average Doe) can't kill a flying freak having 450 hp. They should ban all skilfull players first of all, or whiners will never stop whining...
AFK swimmers won't go away completely - but once they'll give newbies 100 HP for few hours of mining (newbies need ore anyway), and veterans additional 1 HP for every 10 nights of swimming, it won't be too unbalancing.
Those wanting to get high vitality using every possible shortcut, will quit anyway, sooner or later. They'll reach the point where they don't get anything for just playing the game as intended. It's like buying WoW lvl 80 char with Tier 11 gear for $$$ - congratulations, you've won the game - there is nothing else to do for you, wait a year till we'll add Tier 12.
I think some of you are massively overreacting to this change. This is nothing even remotely comparable to the NGE in SWG. They are not completely re-working the way the entire combat system works or removing skill-based progression. In fact they aren't even reducing the time required to grind stats.
This does ONLY one thing - It reduces the gap between veterans and newer players by minimizing the HP advantage. All of you who profess to love competitive PvP should be happy about this. You will inevitably encounter more quality opponents and the whole game world should benefit as a result. I seriously don't understand how some of you could be so upset about this... unless you really are just scared that you might actually lose sometimes against newer players now. If that is the case, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. I truly hope you enjoy having to earn your victories and feeling the sting of defeat more frequently.
Aventurine chose the path of Specialization rather than Skill Cap. Though when I look at DarkFall, I wonder if a skill cap might not make Craftors more "important", in other words, instead of everyone being a part-time craftor, we'd see dedicated craftors.
But that said, a lot of things would need to be changed (stats-wise and also weapon stats) for it to actually work out in DarkFall. And it's a bit late to make such major changes so I really can't say a Skill Cap would work in DarkFall. We'll see how Prestige Class goes, might be just what I was waiting for to re-sub, who knows.
This is good. I might finally get back to DF, but i still have one problem. There will be prestige class finally. Good sign, but if there is prestige class and no skill cap or stats cap plus decay, raise or pause option like UO had, it will be ridiculous later on on the way to change play style afterward.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
Lack of Skill caps aren't the reason: Imabalances, lack of open economy, or anything else you guys are bitching about. I don't know how many times I have to say this but diversity is only achieved through balance and the economy is "broken" because all demand is being met through guilds/alliance, or in house and therefore the market is closed. Look outside your box for a change please
Also, prestigue classes will probably work like specializations since there is only 1 character. We likely won't get a "set skill to X" command, but a buy this class option from trainers. It could be "set your skill to x" command to unlock the class, but I doubt it since it would be harder to balance that way and is even more restrictive. Its less restrictive to buy a class that says, you can only use debuffs, but all debuffs now have these affects/effects.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Wow..just wow. please stop trolling. If you could max out in 3 weeks do you really think there would be such an outcry against the grind? HAHA man you have to be blind not to see that, please...come on. seriously. troll
My Darkfall character was stuck in RED alignment until I killed enough people AFK hitting trees and rocks. Darkfall is hardcore
Read things in context FFS. Every magic school can be leveled from 1-50 intensify in 3 weeks with all the needed skills leveled to a level that they become useful (around 50). The expection currently is melee mastery (which takes about a month), buffs, debuffs (useless anyways), and heals which should take longer. You can have a viable character RIGHT NOW, in 1-2 months or appox 50-80hrs depending on how good you are at the game. That has been the case since GCD was added. The expection was HP, now it won't be anymore.
You don't know the difference between competitive and viable. This change is the only thing that was needed to allow you to be competitive and viable in 2months time with the current system. There are still balance issues, but grind is no longer one of those. Any skill, execpt melee mastery, can be leveled to advanced status (75+) in a week.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Apparently nobody know's anything about Darkfall like you do becaus eyou pop up here and on Darkfalls forums anytime anyone says anything, and I do mean anything. You have over 12,000 posts on Darkfall forums so it is obvious you know all about what we wanna know all about.
Some of us play games for fun and to be competitive, and for a lot of people fighting competitively is done on equal grounds. The fact that you have to use third party programs to bot for you 23/7 for well over 6 month's and still will not be on equal grounds with the so called veterans is not my idea of fun.
Sadly there is no catching up so to speak and for me it is a deal breaker and that is that.
OMG, there is catching up.
Right now: As soon as you have 350 hp, 2 r50 nukes to 75, 1 r90 50+, 2 melee mastery 50+, wb 50+, tranfers 50+ Getting this takes about 3-4 months
After balance: 350 HP (which will happen much quicker and assuming AV changes how HP is calculated correctly), 1 r50 75+, 1 bolt 75+, 1 magic school 50 intese getting this will take about 2months
You don't need everythign under the sun to compete. People telling you that is what you need are lieing and/or are just bad at the game.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
ROTFL. While reading this I was thinking about the WoW-dorks calculating their chance of survival just before Leeroy Jenkins went running into the room...
Thanks for that. Made my day.
Whytwulf ? Race of Man ? Rohan ? Lore-Master ? Historian ? Master Supreme Scholar
Ovar ¤ Dwarf ¤ Lonely Mountain ¤ Minstrel ¤ Tinker ¤ Master Supreme Jeweller
Grumwald ¤ Race of Man ¤ Rohan ¤ Hunter ¤ Explorer ¤ Master Supreme Tailor
People want to compete, you do need some skills. Right now you need more than you should because of balance issues.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
The fact is that as time goes on AV will make this game easier and easier until at some point you can power grind a new char to max out everything in a month. In short the whiners have won and this is a small step down that path, without skill caps this time next year it'll be ridiculous something like WW2Online. Specialisations? Please don't insult my intelligence we all know that it doesn't work and everyone is using the same templates or you suck.
Without skill caps everyone is going to be maxed out sometime in the future and AV will be handing it on a plate to those that just subscribed. The reason there is no economy? Well I NEVER had to buy from anyone else since it was easy enough to grind it up myself so that I can make R50 weapons and plate armour. Why would I buy it from anyone else?
This time next year a noob that read a guide on a forum will be maxed out in a month, without skill caps it's going to be a joke. The grind is too easy as it is in my opinion and AV won't stop AFK swimming (all they have to do is remove any stat gains from swimming) and making it all easier is just a piss poor attempt to get more subs that won't work.
DFO is a great game but AV have made some critical errors in the handling of it in my opinion, making an NA server was just shooting themselves in the foot. Removing skill caps without testing it out then launching was asking for trouble. Not having a punishment for players being arseholes (going red) is a biggie and now making it easier to become a master at everything in the game. To set things right would take some hard decisions that most developers would not be prepared to make, but in my opinion AV have little option other than to do it or watch DF die.
Just my opinion.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Agricola1,
You seem comfused about what AV want from their game. They have ALWAYS said they wanted a no grind game. The problem is that for whatever reason they didn't understand how players view games.
Look at all the people who refuse to PvP and believe they need to max out every single stat and every single skill before they can go and PvP. I believe AV though skills/stats would be something that would come naturally. People would go out and PvP/PvE/Gather/Craft/Explore and the stats/skills would come over time. If your prefered play style was melee then you would just find your melee skills would rise faster than others, this would create diversity. Things didn't work out like that, people have powerleveled all skills and forced others to do the same to compete.
AV are using prestige classes/specilisation to remove the need to level everything to be competitive but not removing the chance to be everything at once. I think in the future we will see people being able to compete much faster but without needing to level everything.
Let someone pick the Hunter Prestige class. The hunter is an Archer and has a load of skills to make him leathel, he has to give up magic but gains new unique skils. On the battle field he can compete with other prestige classes and players who choose to be jack of all trades. To become a Hunter all you need to do is max out archery. This lets someone be ready for PvP in no time.
Remember Prestige classes have been part of the plan since the start. The only reason they weren't in at launch was a lack of time to do them right. The whole needing to max everything thing is because they needed to cut prestige classes. Once they are back in we are in reality closer than ever to the original vision for the game
That sounds tight! I am so excited!!
This game was funner during launch when no one had magic and then funner again when magic was nerfed imo
I think that this will help people like me who do not grind enjoy themselves more.
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