Greetings citizens of Agon.
The following update is probably the largest in scope and importance to ever hit the Darkfall servers and addresses many of its current issues.
The first and foremost is that it provides reasons for players to go out in the world and play the game actively in order to obtain upgraded items that will give them an edge in combat as well as character progression.
The second, and equally important, is to give meaning to *Full loot* again. Yielding a high level item should make you tremble in excitement when you use it, hurt you when you lose it, and exhilarate you when you find it on someone's dead body.
- It addresses the issue of people having “full banks” filled with either resources, gear, or both.
- It levels the playing field between old characters and newer characters, especially between those who managed to accumulate wealth from frowned-upon methods, and the hard-working “savers”. Older characters will still have a small starting advantage but those who start playing the game more actively can catch up within days. From a game economy’s perspective, there cannot be a greater time to return to Darkfall than this *economy restart/gold rush* update.
- It addresses localization to a great extent. Rare materials will no longer be gained from anywhere in the world but from specific locations that are expected to beheavily contested and fought over. We are trying to achieve conflict through resource inequality. Player Holdings will play a huge role in this and the value of owning one or more will become crucial. Player House value has also increased.
- It addresses the complicated recipes required to craft everything.
- It makes the environment more dangerous and the PvE encounters quicker but much harder.
- It speeds up instant travel which will result in finding fights faster.
- It introduces the new inventory system, aimed to improve the QoL of all players, and makes inventory operations faster and more intuitive.
- It addresses character advancement through prowess as well as the acquisition of Dominion required by clans to have fun.
Essentially we are introducing a new layer of economy above the existing one, i.e. a ‘soft wipe’
Gear Changes
All current weapons and armor are now called “Aged”. All aged armors have 4 less in protections compared to how they were before. All aged weapons also do 4 less damage than before.
Any new armor that is crafted (or dropped) now has +3 in each protection. New weapons also do +3 damage than before.
Example: A player using ‘new’ leenspar armor and weapons vs a player using aged leenspar armor and weapons, will do 7 more damage to him, while receiving 7 less damage than before.(e.g Inflict 30 damage, receive 16 damage)
The point is to give players who use the new items a definite, yet not too overpowering, advantage.
Resources
- Similar to gear, all current rare materials, as well as base materials are now called ‘Aged’. Ages resources cannot be used in any new crafting recipe, however they can be converted. Most of the Aged materials can be converted at a ratio of 100:1 (100 aged materials + Gold, for 1 new material).
- The environment will now only produce ‘new’ resources. New resources are used in the new crafting recipes for gear.
Rare resources
Essences no longer drop from the environment, and are no longer used in crafting recipes. The main rare resource needed to craft high end gear, is now rare ores. Rare ores can be found in selected locations in the world. The ‘best’ place to find one, will be from a Clan City node. Note that all clan city nodes including farm/grove now also have a chance to drop a rare ore.
Only 2 cities in the world will have a chance to produce Theyril Ore: Angfrost and Apautan. The reason for this is that they are probably the least fortified cities which will invite even more city raiding and conflict.
Only 4 cities in the world will have a chance to produce Leenspar Ore: Izkand, Calfardar, Ul Hamra, Elharrat.
You will generally find that Theyril can be found in the North only, and Leenspar can only be found in the “South”.
Only 8 cities in the world will have a chance to produce Neithal Ore: Sweetwater, Alberworth, Caxtla, Tiquiya, Long March, Aradoth, Kvitstain, Andruk.
The remaining cities will produce Veilron/Selentine Ore. Note that the cities that drop Theyril Ore, will also drop the other rare materials. Same goes for Leenspar cities, etc.
We expect this change to increase the value of cities dramatically, and promote conflict, drama, and many dead bodies.
The 2nd best place to get rare ores is by killing the corresponding Golems, that also follow the localization theme of cities (Theyril in the north, Leenspar in the South).
The 3rd best place to get rare ores is by harvesting Supernodes, that follow the same localization theme of Cities and Golems.
Rare ores can also be found in very small quantities in player houses’ deployed gardens/trees, village rewards, and top treasure map/chests.
Gear/Crafting Changes
- A new level of armor has been added below the Theyril Rank.
- Special materials are now needed for the top 3 armor ranks. These can be found by killing the toughest monsters in the game.
- Simplified all crafting recipes, so there are less “steps” involved (no more conversion materials), and the materials needed are not scattered around the world. For example Rank8 metal armor requires Leenspar ingots - Not Leenspar andVeilron.
- Inferior materials, as well as refined rare materials no longer drop from the environment, and are not used for any new recipe. (they can be converted)
- Reagents now can be crafted in bigger bulks (25 up from 4), making it faster for someone to get to action.
- Changed recipes to have their cost better distributed across ranks.
- Protections across pieces now more properly reflect their crafting cost.
- Secondary attributes across pieces now more properly reflect their crafting cost. (Helmet will no longer give more secondary attribute than chest piece etc)
- Leather recipes will now need slightly less leather than before, cotton recipes will require slightly more cotton than before.
Time to gear: What is expected is players in a typical gaming session to be able to craft 1 set of gear at Selentine/Veilron level, and have time to spare to test it on some unfortunate victims. If they want to invest more time into their preparing for battle, there are 3 more tiers to do so. The performance of gear is increased linearly, however the price is increased exponentially.
Harvesting
Harvesting has been reverted to a more semi-afk activity. However, node capacity has been reduced to 40 (down from 50). Node refill rate has also been reduced. This change will promote venturing to distant lands and fight its owners to get their resources.
Durability
Durability loss has been doubled (gear breaks twice as fast).
Durability for new gear has been doubled. This will effectively make old gear exit the game faster.
Durability loss from ganking has been removed, in order to increase the importance of “full loot”.
PvE
In order to make the world a more dangerous place to live in, the damage of all monsters has been increased by about 40% (varies depending on armor level/monster). At the same time health of monsters has been reduced from villains level and above: up to 40% health reduction at monstrosities level, and 50% at horror levels.
Teleportation
- Teleportation cost has been changed to gold instead of runes for portal chambers. It now costs 500g per ‘hop’.
- Teleportation sickness has been decreased to 10 minutes.
This change is to help players find fights faster.
AoI
AoI bonuses have been doubled, to further promote kingdom building.
Prowess
- Diminishing returns for prowess gains have been removed. You will now earn full prowess points from killing any monster if you are a high prowess character.
- Prowess gains from crafting and harvesting (feats as well as the action itself) decreased to 1/10.
- Prowess gains from PvE increased to 4 times higher than before.
GUI
- A new inventory system has been added, with vastly superior functionality and user friendliness. A lot of community suggestions were implemented during the making of this feature.
- Vitalstat bars have been removed from the top of the screen, and can be repositioned freely using the “HUD edit mode”.
Map
- Fog of war is now more transparent
- Made the unexplored markers shown below the fog of war with a ‘?’ marker
- Workstations in starting cities now have their own specific icons. This will help locate a desired workstation much faster.
Levy collector
Marker report on tooltip shown at 100% only for non-clan members, otherwise normally when they are updated for clan members
Villages
- Capturable every 4 hours. Rewards have been adjusted accordingly.
- Requisition rewards have been adjusted so villages produce much less rares materials than before.
Skills
- New mining, herb gathering, skinning and logging mastery skills. These are required in order to harvest clan city nodes and use any rare harvesting tool.
- New conversion skill that is used for converting old resources to new resources.
- Ultimate skills now require an extra reagent.
- Reagents have been added to vendors.
- Non-mastery tools (pickaxe, wood-axe, sickle, skinner) are no longer usable on nodes that require mastery tools (clan city nodes).
- Improved the cooking mastery skill advancement rate.
- Digging distance restrictions have been shortened to a few meters from last dig spot.
Housing
- Deeds can only be made by crafting (are no longer random drops).
- Increased tenants to 10/20 from 4/9.
- New painting decorations.
Treasure Maps
Treasure maps can only be found by sea-scrappers.
Feats
Replaced/Removed feats that refer to Aged materials
Selentine shop additions
- Added new head wear and weapon skins (Be sure to check out the new Summer Bundle for a discounted price on all of these items)
- All themed items are now available in store.
- Added dyes.
- Added reagents.
- Added house decoration items.
In more details:
Bundles
- Bundle of Frost Fest Cheer
- Arms collector’s bundle
- Halloween bag o’ tricks.
- NEW: Summer bundle item. Contains: ( Heartbreaker, The Gavel, The Aspect of the Damned, Erodach’s Visage, Minotaur’s Visage and Bonecrew’s Visage)
House decoration items
- Fountain
- Solar Sphere
- Small Golden Spire
- Weather Vane
- Cupboard
- Oak Cupboard
- Assorted Flowers
- Bench with plants
- Flower of arrangement
- Potted Palm
- Bookshelf
- Large Bookshelf
- Dragon Pillar
- Flame Carrier Statue
- Small table and chairs
- Oak table and chairs
- Bar Counter
- Large Bar Counter
- Niflheim Carpet
- Yssam Carpet
- Cairn Carpet
- Rubaiyat Carpet
- Mounted Badger Head
- Mounter Bear Head
- Mounted Deer Head
- Mounted Goat Head
- Mounted Lion Head
- Mounted Minotaur Head
- Mounted Tiger Head
- Mounted Wolf Head
Paintings
- In the eyes of nature
- Niflheim Homestead
- The clearing
- Yssam sunset
- Fly with me
- Lady Grey
- The golden talon
- The wax dragon
- The treeline
- Teleportation
- A supernode
- The salute
- Ships
- The lighthouse
- The earth school
- The cathedral
Tapestry
- Niflheim Tapestry
- Yssam Tapestry
- Cairn Tapestry
- Rubaiyat Tapestry
- Large Niflheim Tapestry
- Large Yssam Tapestry
- Large Cair Tapestry
- Large Rubaiyat Tapestry
Thank you for your continuous support and we're hoping that you will enjoy the patch. This patch is a collective effort from our team, to make the game a more enjoyable place for your endeavors.
We will make sure that this patch will be applied tomorrow by working through the night to ensure its delivery.