Even in Darkfall.
The Conquer the Seas free expansion was released last night on to the European servers (NA servers to get it today) and with them come a long, long list of patch notes. There are some very cool features added; wildlife, new melee abilities, new ships and siege system but all anyone is talking about on the Darkfall forums are the nerf to magic.
A little background for those of you who do not play Darkfall, magic was horribly, horribly overpowered. Melee and archery use was a rarity because you could destroy targets at range with magic. AoE magic was completely overpowered. Players would eschew archery at ranged because magic did not require the same steady aim that archery does. Archery required a dead on hit to do damage, while many magic spells had “splash” damage, which allowed for damage even if the target was not directly hit. This turned Darkfall into a magic heavy game, in which melee was reserved for finishing off opponents.
They fixed this in the expansion. Melee can now use abilities that give them bonuses when fighting magic users, many magic abilities were given a cooldown, LoS now affects magic and even heavy armor give anti-magic resistances. Magic is finally where it needed to be, with AoEs being effective only in large-scale combat. Melee players and archers now have a fighting chance.
Of course, the forums are now full of whiners who can not believe that their precious magic is now not an instant I-win button. They claim fervently that magic was over-nerfed and is useless now. Are they correct?
I don’t know and neither do they. The patch came out late last night and no one has been able to test it yet. They may be correct but at this time no one knows for sure, yet they still make ultimatums demanding changes. Can we not get a chance to test the changes before everyone loses their ever-loving mind? This reminds me of the WoW forums everytime a change is announced to a class.
Calm down people. Test the changes and then give constructive feedback to Aventurine. Quit going bananas before we see what effect the change truly have in PvE and small and large scale PvP. Take a deep breath, load up Darkfall and test.
This is the biggest reason why players make horrible beta testers. We are simply too invested in our characters. Every nerf or change to our class or play style is viewed as an affront to our dignity. We can’t understand why it has to be our class or play style that needs to be nerfed, when obviously that other class or play style is much more powerful…at least in our eyes.
As far as balance within the game, I really think that the less the developers listen to our rabid ramblings the better. We simply have no ability for rational thought when it comes to balance. Whine first, test later.
(The link above will allow you to purchase Darkfall, in addition I will get paid 20% of the purchase price. This does not and will not taint my views of the game. If I don’t like something about Darkfall, I have no compunctions about saying something about it.)
haha nice to see Darkfall has its share of whiners
I see it in fallen earth where melee players are complaining that ranged have an unfair advantage….. I mean come on, seriously?!
Every MMO has it’s share of whiners. I try to avoid the official game forums just for that reason but there is such a lack of good Darkfall info out there that I have to read the forums. I hold my nose everytime I jump in.
Hi there. Found your blog through KillThat Cheerleader.
This was an interesting post, though I’m amazed that even a supposedly hardcore (my word for it is “non-newb-friendly”) MMO like Darkfall would have whiners who haven’t even seen the changes made to the game.
Reminds me of the thing about The Old Republic’s Companions where people were going all nuts on it without even seeing the game yet.
Heh, I think the hardcore folks whine even more than the casuals. For hardcore players it’s “life or death” whereas for the casuals it’s just something they will have to overcome until the pendulum swings the other way.
Thanks for stopping by Stillwater, I love your blog, especially as LotRO is my second MMO of choice right now.