Is Darkfall’s learning curve really that steep?
October 07, 2010 
Laenih 
Darkfall made it to Rank 2 on mmorpg.com’s list the top 5 MMOs with steep learning curves.
We do believe that a challenge presents opportunities but there is obviously a thin line between challenge and chore.
Do you think that lack of hand-holding every step of the way is a good or bad thing? Does added exploration and struggling to learn the ropes give you a feeling of achievement or dread? Is it possible that it might encourage more player interaction?
Posted in: 
PvP
PvP 
The time it takes to become PvP viable definitely needs looking at, as it deters many new players.
I love how he got the r80 mace and a troll staff. And both yes and no to the question. I personally liked the steep learning curve, but none of my friends did so they left. Some people are just tougher then others.
Steep learning curve is good as long as the process of learning in the game is fun and exciting, and with the vastness and dangerousness of Darkfall’s world it is. However the steep grind is not so great but waaaaaay better then it used to be.
It’s not so much the learning curve is steep… It’s just not the MMO that most WoW players are familiar with. Those who played old MMOs will find much the same here as with the old days. So for core/real MMO gamers its not too bad.
Back in the Golden Age of MMOs, each MMO had its own individual learning curve, and you’d have to adjust from one to the other. Now, almost all MMORPGs function in the exact same fashion, and have long, excruciatingly boring tutorials. These forced tutorials/scaling of content has caused me to quit most MMOs before I even leave the starter zone. No accomplishment. Quest NPCs glow, give you a magical dotted line to the objective, and just in case you miss it, they make it glow and sparkle.
So all those random non MMO gamers that pick up Darkfall will be confused because the objectives aren’t identical to all the others, but they’ll pick it up fast enough.
The “grind” is a whole other ballgame. That’s not a learning curve, that’s a skill gap. The gap is nowhere near as bad as other games, but so long as there is any gap at all, people will whine about it.
I see a lot of long time players saying the game shouldn’t be dumbed down for newbies because ‘if we had to learn the hard way, so should they.’ ‘Darkfall is supposed to be harsh and unforgiving’, and so on. The problem is, Darkfall is actually more difficult to get into now than it was at release. Back then everyone was equal in terms of character development, everyone was new, and there were no highly developed, hardened Darkfall PvPers roaming the world.
I started playing at release with one of the first clans to claim a city and build it up. We were very naive, didn’t play the political game very well, and we had very few members who were even interested in PvP. We could explore freely, farm mobs without being massacred by highly developed characters. Our biggest threat was naked wannabe greifers who provided comic relief more than anything else. Nowadays, if a clan like that tried to make a start in Darkfall, they wouldn’t even make it out of the starter cities before being griefed out of the game.
In terms of politics, character development, knowledge and experience, a group of new players simply cannot compete. The stage has been set for Darkfall, and any clan wanting to switch over from another game really has their work cut out.
Player freedom can be a double-edged sword, you heard it here first.
Well Said.
/signed
The curve is just fine its the players, people have been dumb down from previous mmo’s… I’m just saying
I think it’s the fact you have to grind so many magic skills up to be viable in pvp. That’s a big deterrent from what I’ve seen. When you’ve been playing constantly for months and you STILL feel you can’t kill much. It’s disheartening.
Me on the other hand like the curve, but that’s just me. I just wish people weren’t allowed to macro so much =/ I do everything myself.
Again, I think people are confusing learning curve, with skill gap..