Darkness Rises: What To Expect

Last night, Sunday, October 30th, our good friend Owen did a stream on Twitch that was aimed at looking at some key issues, bugs, and skill scaling that will be addressed in Darkness Rises. It turned out very well, and him, I, and the chat had a really great conversation about a lot of different topics. If you weren't able to check it out, here's a video! It's a little long, so in case you don't want to watch it, I've gone ahead and made a list of items that were discussed. Happy Halloween everyone!

**Werewolf Discussion:**

Werewolf Forms Pre-60 will be addressed, and scaled properly. You will be able to use them from lvl 2! Berzerk may not be needed for wolves anymore, as this may have been a band-aid for forms not working properly in the first place.

**Abused Bugs in DFC:**

Inherent problems from DFC will not carry over to Darkness Rises, as Darkness Rises houses its own code.

Examples: Duping Items Guard Bug Overall Account Security Multi-Clienting Poofing / Teleporting to other realms "Ghosting" Spell Effects

and more.

Cheaters and Hackers will be dealt with and taken more seriously than in DFC. No longer will there be 5 staffers on, and none of them unable to help, or help very little.

**Skills and Scaling:**

The solution with skill scaling in Darkness Rises is inherent in the new code: skills will scale properly and not fall off the deep end, such as Martial Arts, Hide, Sneak, Backstab, Drain. The goal is to have a point as to how your character operates. When you choose to pick a race/class you're choosing to take on their flaws and strengths. This includes scaling from lvl 50-75. They want there to still be a desire to play your class after what the soft cap was in DFC and feel like there is a reason to push for Elder.

**Main Focus of Darkness Rises:** Test and tweak until all skills and their respective classes feel as they should.

**Craftsman Discussion: CoX, Goblin, Craftsman**

Role: Technically non-combative classes, they fix, they create, and are a big help for realm defense. Should be the way they are to provide a different experience.

Common Opinions: Underwhelming, not powerful enough, couldn't PvP as well as other classes, couldn't hunt as well.

What Darkness Rises will address: Nothing major will change (preserving the class), but help crafty's out a little bit with what they're already capable of: fixing, repairing (may give them a little bit of an experience boost, so that they can level up on par with other classes who are constantly hunting), and incentives to reach a higher lvl (50-60+) such as new item lists, beefier walls. Goblins will most likely keep bombs, but they're not quite sold on the idea of providing Craftsman and Demons similar abilities quite yet.

**Buffs and Shields:** Shields and buffs will be re-examined. The basic proposal is that anything that increases or decreases a statistic on your character will scale with your level. Also allows the acquisition of armor and weapons that have buffs on them to be that much more powerful. They do not want us to rely on shields and buffs to be able to hunt effectively. This will likely include Sigils and Enchants

**Light and Dark:** Light and Dark will most likely be completely removed or revamped entirely. There may be a way to salvage this, but that is to be determined.

**Other Discussions briefly mentioned:**

XP Gains for Healers Healing / Rezzing being buffed will be looked at according to their respective classes.

Storms and Rifts were a bit of a mystery. Will be looked at.

Multiple Accounts are still being debated between Owen and Kroze.

Plate Rogues: For some, it seems like a silly idea that a plate wearing class can sneak around, however in order to train plate, Rogues had to sacrifice quite a bit, and were gimped in a few different ways. As of right now, Plate Rogues are in for the game.

Wards: Wards were only briefly talked about -- they essentially helped Ogres with their power regeneration, and the opinion from many people in other realms is that they were overpowered, but there has been no real factual discussion on them. Wards will stay as is for now.

Counter: Counter was overpowered. Counter will not be in the game. If there is a way that they can implement counter and for it to be balanced, then they will think about using it.

Zombie Pummel: There was a concern that Zombie Pummel, back in the day, did not do enough damage. There's a possibility that the developers of DFC felt that it was too powerful, since it would hit you for both fatigue and damage, and needed to make it slightly weaker. Pummel will be looked at, tested, and changed according to the data.

New Player Experience: I brought this topic up because I have a strong opinion that while all of us know what's going on with the game (for the most part), the newer people that will be joining us will not and that there needs to be some kind of new player experience implemented. Not necessarily hand holding, but a basic how-to guide through dialogue or a tutorial area. It is confirmed that there will be help for newer players.

PvE Content: Darkness Rises is a continuation of Darkness Falls: The Crusade and will include brand new quests and pretty much go from there as to how much or what kind of PvE content will be added. Owen and Kroze have a large stockpile of old quests that were in DFC, and if it will work within Darkness Rises, they will consider putting those into the game.

Evil Volley: Approximately 55% of people who took the Curse Poll on allowing Evil to have volley said that they would like Evil to have Volley. This topic is still up for debate and will need to be tested thoroughly.

Skill Caps: For some skills, it's okay to have a cap, but a denotation saying, "This skill caps at XXX%" would be helpful.

Realm Imbalance: With all the new changes, new code, balance will easily be created. Number imbalances are an issue that they are aware of, and can easily be dealt with through small, temporary boosts in things like Realm Points if absolutely necessary, without changing the core game.

HP/Fat/Power caps: The idea is to either remove the caps, or raise them. This topic is very game changing, so it's not easily implemented. This will need to be tested thoroughly.

NPC Invasion Loot Rules: Many people have complained that a lot of players would not participate and that they would take loot that belonged to players who contributed. No drop items would usually go to stabbers and tappers. The belief is that the GM should make loot rules for these NPC Invasions and enforce them. They are going to look into how to implement these.

The client and menu are pretty much completed now. The next step is going to be finalizing the character creation process, which includes creating your character, stats, saving your characters location within the game world, inventory, and more. Once that is done, they will be working on getting the official website worked on and at that point we can expect our first Alpha, which will be character creation. Still a few months away, most likely.

That pretty much covers it, guys. Again, this was a great discussion and Q&A on a really meaty part of the game. Thanks again for stopping by!