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Darkfall is a pretty impressive game, but there is just sooo much that doesn't make sense and needs improvement.
I re-subbed to the game about a month ago for the first time since the launch and it is running better and smoother for sure. Fighting using actual skill is addicting and so much more fun and engaging than in other mmo's. The graphics are very nice on a good computer with a good graphics card. The world feels colorful and alive, a very impressive land layout and design by the development team! There is enough monster and animal life in the world (unlike Mortal Online for example). And things like ship travel is insanely fun and can be an exhilarating experience! But all that doesn't take away from many glaring faults that still exist with Darkfall....
1) No balance caused by no limits to any character. With only one character allowed per account, it's understandable why Aventurine wants to give endless skill limits to every character to eliminate players desires for multiple alts and accounts. However, this greatly hurts player trade and interaction, leaving global chat and trade channels mostly filled with 'who's e-peen is bigger' chat wars instead of what they were intended for. They desperately need to limit every character to say 1,000 skill points to add a balance and actual planning process to the game, making it more enjoyable and more strategic for all players, new and old.
2) Some kind of trade system needs to be added desperately. With the trade channel filled with players trying to buy and sell resources and goods, too often two would-be traders are simply too far apart in the HUGE world of Agon. Who is really going to travel for an hour through such dangerous lands to make a simple trade? My idea/suggestion would be to add localized trade vendors (almost like an auction house) but split into 5 or 6 local areas of the map for the selling of goods and resources much more efficiently.
3) Griefing exploits left with no consequences and allowed within the flawed rule set. Too many to mention here, but one such exploit allows a red character (pk) to simply park himself in a town where he binds. Sure, the towers will zap him constantly killing him over and over, but this allows any blue character the luxury of killing any other blue and then just ganking that red standing there a few times to max their alignment back out, then rinse and repeat. Often this blue killer will have a friend or even an alt account character run over and loot the victim of all their goods since the tower will kill them for killing the victim in the town. A simple fix to this would be to not allow alignment increases off of the exact same red player until a sufficient amount of time has passed (say one hour). So this would make this exploit not worthy since it would take like a minimum of 10 hours to re-gain alignment lost in killing the innocent player in town as described above.
4) Not enough monitoring for players using hacks and macros. Use of macros while AFK should not be allowed to gain unfair advantages in any mmo, period. But this problem runs rampant in Darkfall and the results are that players who play legally can't even scratch a player who cheats. So the cheaters are rewarded, not penalized. Enough said there. If you can't see a problem with this, then nothing I can say would ever change your mind.
5) New player experience is too harsh and drives incoming potential players away. Would it really be too much to add a safe island for new players to develop their skills and gather a few resources in relative peace without the high risk of being blown to smithereens by a two year nearly-maxed-in-every-skill-because-he-has-macro'ed-for-two-years veteran? Or maybe just add a 12 hour timer where new players lose no loot upon death. I don't know, but I honestly think that the average new player is turned off from the griefers and high level pks long before they even have a chance to see the positive aspects of Darkfall that might otherwise keep them around.
That's five very big flaws that come to the top of my head only from playing about a week. I know that there are many, many more. But fixing these five would be a great starting point and I have not only targeted these problems, but offered my suggestions on fixes, most fixes which would be very easy to implement. (It's not like I'm asking for a complete engine overhaul here).
- Zaxx
Comments
1) I completely agree with the idea that there needs to be some sort of limitation. Even a simple GUI limit that only allows 10 active skills and a few passives would be ideal. Throw in a stat limit and DF can call itself an RPG finally.
2) I definitely agree with some sort of improved trade system. There is supposed to be some sort improvement coming with a patch that has been advertised on the forums for the last 6 months, but I don't understand why the devs are implementing it that way.
3) There will be a new "honor system" that limits a players ability to gain back alignment. I think it will add consequence to a players actions if the cost is high enough.
4) If #1 was implemented the macros wouldn't matter so much, but I haven't read to much about hacking on the forums. It could be that I just missed the threads/posts.
5) Hopefully their new alignment mechanic will improve a new players experience.
There does seem to be a glimmer of hope for DF, but with the devs track record I would just wait and see exactly how they implement those upcoming changes.
1.) I agree currently there is little balance and they don't plan on balancing it currently because everyone can have every ability. Huge flaw.
But the fix is already on the way in, specilisation armours. They're dividing the armour sets into robe, light, medium, heavy, each will give advantages to their encourged play style but will put blocking limitations and disadvantages to other play styles. Mixing armour types only gives you the disadvantages of both.
2.) Serious traders are capable of using runes or portal shards to access most of the world but you're right I'd rather suggest they filled NPC cities with player vendors and combined with the new map inferface coming players will be able to check whats available for what price anywhere they are.
3.) The entire alignment system has been redone, it's implemented next week or a couple of weeks after.
With the new system you won't be able to gain alignment off players AT ALL. You will have to visit chaos churches within chaos cities and pay a fee to regain some alignment and then you'll only be able to do this ONCE PER DAY.
4.) People macro because as they progress they find it's impossible to get a decent character unless you're a hardcore player, AV hopes to reduce this by adding crafting and stats to meditation, making players only need to skill up one play style to be competitive.
Hacking is a different issue, AV bans hackers like flys on a bug zapper. Hacking has NOT been a problem for a long time, this is something players actually applaud AV for.
5.) The new player experience ranges, some get griefed due to the current alignment system and others have an easy ride. Depends. Veterans will most certainly not be ganking new players when they have to pay a fee to regain the alignment and wait 24 hours (unless they specifically play to grief)
I think that the players who cheat and exploit Darkfall are the flaws, not the game itself. In any type of PvP game, especially a FFA full loot mmo like DF, will always have players who will try to take advantage. We can only hope developers can put a stop to this as muc has possible to give everyone the same chance at success in the game.
I played DF a while ago and really enjoyed it. Even the heavy grind and ganks did not turn me off, that is what I expected coming in. I just didn't have a good group of people to run with, and you simply cannot get by in DF by yourself.
I'm keeping a close eye on the game and will return eventually. The game just requires so much time to be successful at anything.
I just started playing DF despite what I'd heard from friends and the general bad rap it gets because I was looking for something different with a more active combat style and open world both of which it definitely has.That said, I agree with points 1 and 2 in particular which are impacting my feelings about sticking with the game.
I have a general concept for the character I'd like to develop but feel that if I don't follow the pack and adopt an all in one playstyle (magic, bow, melee, heavy armor) I'll never really have a chance in PVP. Ironically, in their goal to offer a 'classless' system where your skills aren't predefined, they have created just the opposite scenario where everyone can and must skill up every skill infinitum in order to be competitive resulting in a strange de facto all in one class if you will. I hope the armor restrictions mentioned below have the desired impact and aren't the only adjustment made to the skill system.
While clearly the Trade chat channel isn't a very user-friendly way of conducting 'business,' I've found that there simply isn't much of a market for any of my crafted items . . . why? Well, it's rooted in the same problem mentioned above . . . everyone can do everything so where is the demand for an armorsmith when anyone can skill up that profession along with all the others with the only limitation being time investment and tolerance for the required grind. The only alternative is to dump all the armor I create on NPC vendors for maybe 6 gp per piece and continue to create more the sole purpose of skilling up rather than maybe being able to participate in an active market with somewhat realistic supply and demand.
These two points aside, I do like many things about the game much to my surprise. The combat is very fun (both ranged and melee), the PVE AI is better than in any other game I've played, the world is wide open, large, and intriguing, the graphics are better than i expected (though the character models are subpar and I hope the new ones come soon) and I can play the game on very high settings, the thrill of open world PVP is a welcome new element for me, and crafting is pretty deep though it's value is dimished by the issue I mentioned above imo.
I'm about a month in to my subscription so I suppose I'll be making a decision about whether or not to keep playing soon . . . and at this point, I'm not certain.
It is something that has bothered players quite a bit since Launch and have caused many to leave. To be fair to AV, they've done an amazing job at cracking down hackers, but they left macro'ers roam free. In my opinion, it's futile to blame the players for Macro'ing. They're very common human behaviors and AV should've seen this coming and built system to prevent it, or at least punished players who were caught until changes were made. A lot of players are turned-off when they learn they "must" AFK Swim for exemple, and if you ask for help on the chat or in clans, most players will try to teach you how to macro. It's kind of weird how much the situation in Darkfall has degenerated.
The biggest issue is not having cool people to play with because using the 'racial alliance' chat tab to find them doesn't work and it pretty much requires playing the game and sending tells to people you come across until you find some friends or join a good clan or what not. As far as changes to the game I would definitely like to see more end-game combat builds and I wouuld also like to see some sort of global cooldown for buffs.
Its a great MMORPG though! One of the best.
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There is no demand for your wares partly because most of them are considered useless. No one except a guy with max few days of game play is going to be interested in rank r0 up to r30 weapons or cloth, leather, chain armours. Even r 40 weapons are considered PvE only for newbies.
I personally think they designed the whole item system in ancient way. The gap in damage between different rank weapons is too big, some armours are totally useless and most of them are considered just the only way to grind your crafting skills up.
Shame really, but AV never showed a lot of sights of imagination. If anything the gap in damage should be lowered and durability should take the lead in differences between various ranks of weapons. It would not only close the gap in damage between vets and newbies but made a lot of gear actually useful choice for a poor player.
Yay Zaxx
You where so ferosiously attacking Darkfall for being vaporware back in the days.
Simply relentless with your walls of adventurine bashing text.
"Darkfall: One of the most controversial games in history and it's no wonder being led by Mr Tasos Flambouras with skills maxxed in deciet, dishonesty, and misleading comments about the state of the game."
hehe
Anywho, good to see you playing it now. Me as a defender of the game back then have only been in the free trial. Kind of ironic
If you want to hire Machete to kill the bad guys, you better make damn sure the bad guy isnt you!