Since the launch of Darkfall Online one of the most anticipated features, even before the news of the first Darkfall expansion, was the soft cap for skills. It was very evident right from the beginning that some kind of skill cap was going to be needed as players quickly (lol) leveled up their skills in every class and have now become a jack-of-all-trades class. Currently in-game, every character who has invested the time and gold can master magic, melee and archery skills as well as every crafting and gathering profession in the game.
This, to me and probably to you, is a bad thing. Profession diversity in a sandbox style game is essential to the game’s economy and lifespan. For some time now we’ve been expecting a patch introducing the long awaited soft cap for skills. After reading the notes on the first Darkfall expansion, I don’t believe a skill cap is coming. Here’s why:
Existing Players
This is probably one of Aventurine’s biggest obstacles to adding a soft cap to Darkfall, the players. While most of the vocal Darkfall players seem to want it, AV has to be worried about throwing the cold shoulder to some of it’s more hardcore player base whom have invested countless hours into developing their characters. A soft cap would essentially erase much of their efforts and force them into a much narrower skill set. Personally I don’t see this as a major problem for me, I’m not very highly trained in magic skills and only moderately so in melee and archery. I stand to lose nothing. The only way to conquer this hurdle is to just do it. Their will be an outcry from the players who have spent every waking moment in the game and probably some canceled subscriptions before the end, but it is necessary I believe. Still, probably not going to happen – the proof:
Character Specialization System
“…The first stage of the character specialization system allows you to choose add-ons for many of your spells. Currently there are four customizations you can choose from: You may increase the damage your spell inflicts, its velocity (so it travels faster to the target), the range of the spell, or you can choose to be able to jump while casting it. You can choose one of the four options for each spell.”
To give some form of diversity to the game, AV has went with the path of ‘jack-of-all-trades’ with some slight modifications. You can still learn and master every profession in the game and on top of that, enhance your abilities on a per skill/spell basis. These could be a good thing to further diversify the game population if a real skill cap were also put in place, but if the system stays the way it is – you will probably see cookie cutter builds. Why do I think the system is going to stay the way it is?
Skill & Spell Books - That’s why.
This is at it’s core is an attempt to bring lower level, non-macro players like myself up to par with the big boys. Instead of grinding out every magic school to unlock those devastating spells, AV has given us away to skip the grind and just unlock these abilities straight away – if you’re lucky enough to find one of these beauties. If AV intended to introduce a soft cap for skills down the road, why would they give us the ability to gain skills and spells that are currently already out of our skill range? Seems counter-productive to me.
All that said, with the loss of our beloved soft cap – it seems there are some bright points to the expansion that add to diversity in the game, besides what we’ve already mentioned here. For example, Title Quests will allow you to gain titles that enhance a certain attribute. You apparently can gain the enhancements for all the attributes but luckily, can not have them all active at the same time and can only switch between them once a day. That, along with the character specialization will at least aid in having character’s that lean more toward one form of combat or another.
Time will tell if this is enough – I’m hoping AV will see the light and introduce the cap, what about you? Are you for or against a soft skill cap? Why?
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5 comments so far
Mortal online has skill cap, for this reason and for the horrible grind they never cut-off this month is probably the last one for me in Darkfall. Hope MO will be my saviour.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
If you truly feel that way, take my advice and stay away from MO for the first few months after it launches, lest you suffer the same kind of disappointment you experienced with Darkfall. It will probably suffer the same kind of problematic launch that Darkfall and most other MMO’s out there experience – granted DF’s was pretty bad, but it’s making up ground.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I disagree with the softcap is good mentality. However, Im also an avid eve player, so Im coming from a game were anyone can do everything.
As long as there are penalties such as casting with heavy armor lowers damage/casting speed for casters, and light armor makes you easily killed in melee… then I dont see to much of a draw back.
If they had wanted a softcap, it needed to be in at launch, at the current time implementing it would most likely anger more than it would make happy.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
@Blackwings
Probably you are right but i don’t have any games to play in the meantime and i’m bored of DF. I really hate the grind so maybe DF is not the game for a casual player like me and MO with hard cap is the best choice.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I feel that letting DF stay the way it is should be fine. In all reality, whether someone has all the skills or not is irrelevant in a game like this, a player could focus on just one skill set and dominate as easily as using 10 different sets. Just because you spent the time to raise them doesn’t guarantee invincibility, this game is about your ability to utilize those skills learned. True, some people may just be gifted and manage to use EVERY skill flawlessly, but very few ever manage to do that in an MMO environment. As for knowing all the crafting/gathering skills…well, lucky them, they’ll monopolize the market for, what, 2 months? Don’t panic, things take time to stabilize in this type of game, but it should balance out.
February 14th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
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