Darkfall has come a long way since launch in almost all areas. The PvE is much better (and in sync!), PvP balance is at a good level (it’s never going to be perfect, but can always improve), server and client stability are solid (and again, always room for improvement), and perhaps most importantly, the population is on the rise and overall sentiment towards the game by both new and veteran players is positive.

And yet the ‘grind’ remains.

I still very firmly believe a long character development path is one of many aspects needed to capture what it really means to be an MMO (or even better, a practically infinite one like in EVE), but that belief does not also mean that all paths are created equally, and its here that I find Darkfall still presents the biggest hurdle to new and old players alike.

Simply put, there are just far too many skills/spells/stats ‘required’ by a new player to really feel on-par with a veteran. Yes, there are a TON of things someone can do to contribute without access to all of that, and that is a major strength, but for those who wish to reach a somewhat level playing field (not 100% equal, mind you), the path is both long and, well, grindy.

For instance, there is simply no reason NOT to have access to every worthwhile buff spell in the game, but to reach this point, and to have those buffs at 75+, requires a silly amount of time and gold, and by far the absolute best (and some would argue only) way to reach that point is to afk macro. Again, as a new character, you don’t NEED these spells all at 75+ to jump into PvP with your clan, or to engage in all forms of PvE, or to experience many of the games sub-systems (villages, sea fortresses, sieges, etc), but if you want to be part of a 3-4 man group that goes out to PvP against ‘veterans’, well, yes, you basically DO need them, or you accept that you will simply be weaker than those who have them by a considerable margin.

This differs rather dramatically from say, having 90 strength (a very high number) compared to someone who has 110 (the max), as the difference in both damage and HP is very minimal, while the time to close that gap is immense (which is fine). The buff spells simply offer too great a power swing, as do other utility spells such as Begone, Wall of Force, Confusion, and others. Same goes for those with 100 quickness and those under. Again, you can still play without this stuff, but if you go out into small-scale PvP, and certainly a 1v1 situation, the lack of these things will be very noticeable.

The solution however is not to make acquiring all of this easier, as this just cuts down on overall development time but still leaves the have/have not gap intact. If people complain about a 200 hour (random number here) grind, they will still complain about it if you cut it down to 100 hours. No, the solution is to cut down the overall number of ‘required’ things, and turn most of them into options and choices.

Early in its life, Darkfall limited what schools of magic a character could learn, so for instance if you selected fire, water spells would be blocked. This limitation was removed shortly before launch, and I can’t help but look at this and see it as a mistake. And it’s not just that limiting characters to one or two schools at a time would reduce the overall grind (it would do that as well), but more so that it would open magic up and force players to make choices. Do you go with fire for the strength buff, or earth for stone skin? Currently, the answer is both, to 75+, asap. That’s not only grindy, but boring. Watch any top-tier PvPers video and you will see the same dozen or so buffs up at all times, and the same six or eight ‘utility’ spells used in key situations. A spell selection from basically every school of magic, meaning if you want it all, you need to grind it all out. The actual choice of damage spells is, sadly, almost an afterthought by comparison.

100 quickness is a similar problem, in that those who have it are noticeable better (faster swing speed) than those without. It’s also problematic that the only really viable way to reach 100 quickness is to afk swim every night for a good three months straight. Its EVE’s Learning skills issue all over again, but in many ways far worse. I’ve never been one to cheat in games, as I feel it usually cheapens the experience, but you really are hurting yourself badly if you don’t do some afk stuff in Darkfall, and that’s just straight up bad design.

I think the worst part about all of this is that, in most cases, the ‘why’ behind the problem is very weak. Why, for instance, does swimming give skill gains after you have reach 100 swim skill? Actually, why does it give skill gains at all? Did Aventurine really think players would naturally gain a large amount of their stats from naturally swimming around Agon? Or for that matter, how exactly is ANYONE supposed to reach 100 packmule without macroing? The skill only goes up, very slowly, when you walk around overburdened. Now does Aventurine really think players are naturally going to spends, literally, DAYS of in-game time walking around overburdened? Ever?

Now sure, packmule is a rather minor skill and by no means ‘required’, but so what? Any intelligent gamer coming into Darkfall is going to look at that skill, see how it goes up, and shortly come to the conclusion that the only way they are going to increase this skill is to get naked, grab 80 stones, and hit auto-walk into a wall for a few nights. Is that really the message you want to be sending here? I’m not talking about something like rigor pyramids here, where players really went out of there way to get skills unnaturally fast, I’m talking about something that most, if not all players are eventually going to come across and figure out. Either you macro it, or you abandon the skill and let it linger in the low teens.

I think (and hope) Prestige classes solve some of these issues, especially in terms of character diversity and the whole “choices” thing, but there is simply no way, even in a best-case scenario, that they will fix all the existing skill-related issues. Same goes for off-line skilling, which, really, should have been in the game day-one as the primary advancement method. Frequent readers here know I’m not a huge fan of copy/paste design, but when it comes to skill-based, sandbox character progression, EVE’s system stands head and shoulders above everything else, and it’s really silly not to emulate them here. I’m looking forward to seeing what Aventurine has planned for their system, but I fear it will be a small band-aid over the overall much greater wound.

And I bring all of this up not as someone who has a weak character (I don’t), or someone who hates to ‘grind’ (I like MMOs after all), but as someone how has seen countless potential players turned away from this game simply for this reason. Someone who has seen, time and time again, veterans struggle to get their friends into the game because they themselves know what lies ahead for the new player, especially if they really want to jump into the daily PvP scene (which, after all, should be the main draw here).

In EVE, the perception that a ‘noob’ will never catch a ‘vet’ is laughed at by anyone who actually knows the game, and the entire concept of a ‘grind’ is in many ways non-existent. In Darkfall, the perception that a ‘noob’ will have to (shadily) grind to join the ‘vets’ on their level is, sadly, an accepted truth, one that turns players away daily. For a game closing in on it’s second Anniversary (February), that’s simply far too long for such a core issue to exist, especially for a game that does so many other things so well.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)