So new patch has gone up on PTS for testing. There's a few good things in there that will mean some changes for everyone. Starting with removing skills that are granted automatically from vendors, this change will make the game make a little more sense to newer players who could still see spells they couldn't buy. Equipping armor will be a little quicker with an option to simply "Equip Armor" in the drop-down menu on bags (right click). Definitely simplifies the process of getting geared up from pre-made gear bags! The removal of Ingenious, Clever, Nimble, Fleet and Sturdy has caused everyone to get a slight reduction in HP, stam and mana. I personally lost about 38 hp. which is 1 extra hit to the back or 1-2 extra hits to the face depending on what's hitting me and my armor. The end result of this will be that people will be a little squishier, especially those in lower protection armors. However, we now have room to utilise vitality enchants (Lifeforce, Greenleaf, Darktaint, Numen) and Health Bonus Enchants (Nith, Lifeforce, Horn, Heart) where we didn't before, and Bloodcrafted armors will now be an actual option at end-game. With a Q3 vit, Q3 health bonus, and bloodcrafted chest and helm, most people will still easily hit that 450 cap BEFORE people buff them. With this change we might actually see some differentiation between gear bags at sieges as people specialise into more specific roles. Changes to stamina will now mean that our food buff is taken into account whilst we're sprinting. Now better stamina food will be an advantage all of the time, instead of just when you're not sprinting. Yet to be seen whether we can actually regenerate stamina whilst sprinting. I didn't manage to test this whilst on PTS before it came down. Weapons are also getting a change, with the gap between ranks being more consistent across all ranks. R40's will now only be marginally worse than R50's, which is more in line with the 'declining marginal benefit for increasing marginal cost' for most things in Darkfall. Newer players will definitely have the odds slightly increased in their favour, and putting together a respectable set of gear will now take even less time. The ability to remotely craft has also been added. I personally don't know how I feel about that, but at the very least it'll be handy if you ever, for example, forget a bow. I don't know how I feel about being able to randomly craft a sword in the middle of no where. If you own a player vendor, you will probably be happy that brand new pieces of armor can now stack with each other, with the introduction of a grading system much like the mob drop weapons. Now instead of every piece of crafted armor taking 1 slot on the vendors, you can have a stack of pieces of armor in one slot! This is a great change for all of us as it will allow people to buy far superior, player crafted armors from player vendors, as house owners can now list multiple full sets whilst using a tenth of the space they used to. Plenty of other stuff has been changed. Check out the patch notes here.
I like the summary. I'm excited to see people running around in expendable r40s and still being able to compete. That's gonna be huge for getting people into the fight
I think it's a great change. I think the R40/R50 gap was ill conceived and created a significant barrier to entry. Combined with the gathering patch and skill gains people should be able to get into PvP and enjoy it literally within 15-20 hours of starting the game, so long as they focus on melee/archery first.
Even magic at level 3.0 with 75 int, bolts nukes and rays hurt like hell Everything is "viable" now and level 3.0 skills takes almost no time.
I'm personally looking forward to handing out gear bags. I'll be like Oprah going "You get a gear bag! And you get a gear bag! Everyone gets a gear bag!"
AND YOU GET A BAG. Welcome to Darkfall. AND YOU GET A BAG. Welcome to Darkfall. AND YOU GET A BAG. Welcome to Darkfall. XD love it
I'm not a big fan. The r40/50 weapon gap was already easily crossed, and if the perception was that it was too hard, the answer was to put more selentine golems in the world, not to make getting pvp-worthy gear a matter of simply banging on rocks for 10 minutes.
It's still easy to get a selentine ingot and you will still get a little bonus for using a rank 50, just not as big of one.
Yeah... Add some faction wars and we're good to go. Or any reasonably reliable event PvP. Leaderboards are gonna be great i think... Just hope they come with rewards and get reset each month.
We were discussing this today actually. I think the first iteration will be more like an overview type of killboards and we will add weekly/daily (whatever we need) boards that have rewards for things like Clans and players with most capped villages, players with most unique kills, players with most pve kills. That sort of thing.
Did they get updated to more than 6 points? Lowering the cap to 100 is a big slap in the face to a destro, especially if they can't get at least quickness to 110+. Meanwhile, as a mage, all of my stats will still buff to 120 with the exception of strength/vit? Maybe the numbers don't look like it's a big deal, but the difference between 100 and 120 in a stat is massive. If this isn't the case and buffs no longer push you over 100 then they're essentially all dead spells at end game.
We are doing a couple different things. The title quests I believe we'll set them with 5-10-20 points. We're introducing a new stat pool where players can collect items from things like the champions to add points to that pool. The player can then put those points in the stats they choose, but if they want to change their selection they will have to remove the points and collect more items to "respec". We are also going to adjust the calculations for the stats so they affect the player in a more linear fashion. That way 109 quickness would be nearly as good as 110 rather than having a jump.
That sounds interesting, but are any of these things going to be in when the stat cap gets reduced? If not this is another instance of a system being partially implemented when it shouldn't be. I'd hate to see another situation like durability where the final product sounds fine, but the initial incomplete implementation leaves everyone annoyed.
We haven't patched yet and I'm still plugging away at stuff. I'll get the title changes for sure, that's very easy. The stat pool I'll look into shortly.
Sounds good, only other concern that comes to mind is it's going to suck for people who haven't done the title quests and are red. Not sure if it would be easy/possible to put these in chaos cities for people, or if you have some other solution planned/in the works, but that's probably something that should be addressed as well.