Search For Articles

Darkfall Beginners Guide

Keep in mind, Darkfall is a MMORPG the likes you've never seen before, the closest thing that comes close to it is Ultima Online.

It's a hardcore world, mostly about Player versus Player combat, although there are players who focus only on Player versus Environment. The reason why I say it's mainly about PvP is because anywhere in the world you may be attacked and killed by anyone.
Because this is such an important thing to know, I'll repeat it. In every location, even inside cities you may be killed by anyone, including blue members of your own race, and you even from the first day are allowed to attack and kill any player anywhere in game.

When you die, you drop every single item in your inventory and every item you have equipped. So remember, bank often!

Everything you have on you and is not in your bank is not yours, because anyone can at any time kill you and take it from your corpse.

The learning curve in Darkfall is very steep, anyone who plays the game for more than a week will realise that. Even though it's a player skill based game, it takes character stats and player skill to beat an opponent.

It is entirely possible to kill a completely maxed out character even as a 2-3 day old newbie if your player skill is that much better than your opponent. But this isn't something you should count on. Most players will kill you within 3-4 seconds without you even having a chance to hit back (For the first week or two).

***It takes months even years to completely max out your character. And that's why most players decide to macro or skill up while Away From Keyboard. Macroing in Darkfall is very different to macroing in other mmorpg's.

A lot of people who concider macroing cheating still AFK swim, which is basically swimming into a wall for stat gain.

This is a sad aspect of the game, but it can save you a lot of mind numbing hours. Macroing is allowed by TOS, as long as it's not AFK macroing, keep in mind that killing mobs gives you 6x the amount of experience as does hitting players.***

Landscape

The land in game is divided into 5 islands:

-Agon, biggest island with all the race lands and starter cities, this is where you'll start playing. The island is divided into 6 parts. Mahirim(Wolf) lands, Dwarf lands, Ork lands, Mercian (Human) lands, Alfar lands and Mirdain(Elf) lands.

Then there are four islands that surround Agon

-Rubiyat
-Niflheim
-Yssam
-Cairn

Each of these islands holds it's own creatures / mobs.



Logging in for the first time - controls

As soon as you log into Darkfall, you'll notice that there is no auto targeting system as found in countless others MMORPG's.

Movement keys; WASD
Attack key; Left Mouse Button
Menu key/ GUI key; Right Mouse Button
Use key; F
Advance Use; G
Jump; Spacebar
Sprint; Shift
Switching Hotbars; Shift + 1-0 **You need to change this as soon as you log in, as it makes swaping hotbars while sprinting impossible




Unsheath weapon; R
Revive skill; Y
Gank skill; X
Parry (block); V




After adjusting controls to your own preferences, you should probably fix your graphics settings as to provide the best gameplay experience, which is far more important than any visual candy.

You'll find these options under Video Options when you Right click.


Some of the things that help improve performance are;

-Turning off Auto Optimisation
-Turning off Shadows
-Selecting Shader version PS1_1

You might also want to turn off the unnecessary GUI windows and popups. You'll find these options under GUI Options when you Right click. Things to turn off:

-Turn off confirm item drops
-Turn off confirm purchases
-Turn off confirm key rebindings
-Turn off show compass window
-Turn off show tutorial next time

After doing all this you'll truly be ready to test out Darkfall's unique combat system.


Your first quest

If you haven't moved much after you spawned for the first time, you will be next to a bind stone in the city you chose as your starting city. Around the bind stone you'll find an NPC called Councilor. Walk up to him and press the use key to talk.
After the window is open, click the Quests tab and accept both quests he offers. If you now open your map (m key) you will see marks on your map close to your city where these goblins are, do as the quest asks you and kill 4 goblins, and collect 2 of their axes!

After you finish the first two quests, just keep accepting them at the councilor, shortly after he will send you on a quest to discover your starting city and the basics of Darkfall by talking to other NPC's and doing their quests.

At this time you should pick what weapon you would like to use and level. I suggest you decide between Great Axes and Great Swords, with latter being the better (easier) choice.
All other weapons are currently not as good to use as these, Daggers are another excellent choice for PvE, but are simply horrible for use in PvP.

Buy a skinning knife and skin every every mob you kill, on some occasions skins from a mob are worth more than it's entire loot table

When you finished these quests, or feel comfortable with your current progress or knowledge of the game, I advise you to move into your race capital.

-Mahirim; Red Moon
-Dwarf; Ymir's Tear
-Ork; Flaming Skull
-Mercian; Sanguine
-Alfar; Shoal
-Mirdain; Charybdis

You can also find these on your map in game, if you completely zoom out, and search for a red dot on map.

Once inside your race's capital, talk with all the NPC's and accept their Title quests.
At this point I advise you to use your Race Alliance or Race chat to find yourself a newbie friendly clan. A clan can provide you with helpful tips and gear and also the chance to live in a clan city.

You can send a private message to any player by typing /tell NAME SURNAME TEXT, or by simply clicking on their name in the chat.


Assuming you joined a clan and received some gear you will be able to level up a lot faster. At this point most new players would like to own a ship and a lot of them embark on a quest to gather all the resources to build one. Games are meant to be enjoyed, but this is the most inefficient way of getting the resources required. It will take weeks maybe even months to have enough materials. I strongly advise you not to embark on such a journey.

I advise against any crafting at all for newbies as crafting does not pay off, even at latter (end game) parts of the game. But as a newbie it is even more inefficient as simply gathering mats takes too much time.

It is OK for skill gain, but combat is even better. For a break from combat you should gather herbs and mine iron (not stone!).

As this tutorial is about efficiency and quickly leveling I will not spend my time writing a crafting tutorial, I will assume at this point that you've done the right thing of not choosing to craft (and definitely did NOT pick enchanting).

Open up your journal and search for the title quest that gives you +2 vitality, and finish it.
Try and use lesser magic spells as much as possible(both heal self and mana missle) to raise the spell school to 60.

Kill the Kobolds that you need for the title quest, mainly with melee but use lesser magic spells aswell. If your lesser magic isn't 75 after you've done the 1. title quest find a spawn of Trolls closest to you and use mana missle to kill them, pickup all the reagents that they drop and save them, you'll use them later on.

Magic

Buy all three transfers spells;

-Health to Mana - level 25
-Mana to Stamina - level 30
-Stamina to Health - level 60

These are the single most useful 3 spells in the game.

As soon as you get 75 lesser magic, go to the mage NPC and buy Greater Magic. Remember to buy Lesser Magic spell school skills every 25 levels!
25 - Durable spells
50 - Mana efficiency
75 - Quicken spell
100 - Intensify

Buy these skills in every spell school at the appropriate levels.

You can buy the next spell school called Greater Magic once you reach level 50 in Lesser Magic.

You will be then able to accept the second quest for +4 vitality and then the last one for +6 vitality.
Finish all these quests for a big boost of heath and skills. While doing these quests, keep using the spell Rend from Greater Magic, use the bones you collected from Trolls to cast it. If you run low, just go back to Trolls.

You should now aim to get your Greater Magic spell school to 80 and lesser magic to 100 (surging).

If you have a veteran friend that's willing to heal and buff you while you kill mobs, forget about the title quest and go kill the mobs that your friend advises you to hunt with him. You get a lot more skills by teaming up with someone prepared to heal and buff you while you PvE.

Spells and skills

Lesser Magic;
The most important spell school in game. The spells you should focus on leveling as high as possible;

-Health to Mana
-Stamina to Health
-Mana to Stamina
-Heal self

other noteworthy spells:

-Launch, level it to 50 as it throws you higher.
-Lay on Hands, as your first heal other spell, higher level heals for more.
-Heal Mount, a spell that heals mounts, higher level heals for more.


Greater Magic;
Another important spell school, mainly because it offers access to bunny-hopping spells as well as your first blind.

Noteworthy spells:

-20 Heal Other, higher levels heals for more
-25 Unburden
-50 Telekenisis
-75 Insight, Wisdom buff
-80 Begone (level it to 50 and not higher than this), this is one of the best spells for so called bunny hopping, higher level offers stronger effect

-100 Confusion, first blind you will have access to, works like a flashbang, higher level gives a longer duration of the blind

-70 Shrapnel, another spell used for bunny hopping, but do NOT level this spell!


As soon as you have Lesser Magic at level 50 and Greater Magic at level 25, you can buy 2 more Spell Schools;

-Witchcraft, a Spell School of debuffs and another extremely important self heal
--75 Witches Brew

-Spell Chanting, a Spell School of buffs, arguably one of the worst grinds in game.
--30 Sacrefice, best heal other spell ingame




Getting these two spell schools to 75 opens up 2 more spell schools, which you should unlock but should not level right after getting them.

Witches Brew will help you PvE, but before focusing on leveling other spell schools, you should reach at least 50 melee mastery. And maxed or nearly maxed all archery skills. The most expensive grind in the game is the magic grind, and you should not just focus on it, as it will drain your money extremely quickly.


-75 Witchcraft opens Necromancy

-75 Spell Chanting opens Arcane Magic


Noteworthy spells from Necromancy;

-40 Slashing debuff
-40 Piercing debuff
-50 Vampiric Touch
-90 Eye rot
-100 Unholy Flames

Noteworthy spells from Arcane Magic;

-1 Hasten spells
-50 Wall of Force
-90 Virtous Wrath
-100 Spell Reflect


75 Lesser Magic and 50 Greater Magic gives you access to all other spell schools, so called elemental spell schools.

-Fire Magic, best damage (PvP) spell school in game, mainly because of the "knock up" effect.
--1 Impetus, quickness buff
--25 Melee Haste, increases speed with which your target hits.
--50 Fireball, good PvP spell, with good knock up effect.
--60 Range Haste, increases speed with which your target shoots.
--75 Magma Storm, good PvP spell, with extremely good knock up effect.
--90 Inferno, an OK damage nuke with a good knock up effect.
--100 Volcano, a good AoE damage spell

-Air Magic, Great spell school for PvE and for utility spells.
--1 Agility, dexterity buff.
--1 Arrow shield, grants extra protection against arrows.
--30 Guiding Wind, removes arrow protection, generally only used against mobs.
--60 Come Hither, sends the target flying towards you.
--70 Stormblast, sends anyone in the target area flying away from the center point, great spell for bunny hopping.
--100 Exploding Charge, an excellent rank 100 nuke.

-Earth Magic, Great Spell School for 2 rays and buffs.
--1 Brawn, strength buff.
--30 Impale, instant ray damage spell, excellent for PvP and PvE.
--50 Stone skin, grants extra piercing, slashing and bludgeoning protection to the caster.
--60 Stamina Leech, leeches stamina from target.
--70 Pungent Mist, instant ray damage spell, blinds and does Damage over Time.
--80 Iron Skin, grants extra piercing, slashing and bludgeoning protection to the target.

-Water Magic, end game debuffs, buffs and AoE spells.
--1 Range Slow, Target shoots arrows slower
--60 Slow, Target hits slower with a melee weapon
--70 Clear Thoughts, intelligence buff
--75 Ice Storm, at level 75 it becomes a good area blind
--90 Toxic Rain, end game AoE damage spell that ignores nearly all protections.


You should focus on leveling the important spells noted here to at least level 75. Buffs and other buffs are good enough at 50.

First off you should get yourself Witches Brew, by getting Witchcraft to level 75.
Then you should unlock Sacrefice by getting Spell Chanting to 30.

Now you can start focusing on other spell schools. Pick a spell school that will help you achieve your goals in the area you live in. If you're surrounded by fire mobs, use water magic to take them down. If you'd like to focus on PvP, train Fire Magic.

Only after you've achieved most of the elemental spell schools should you go on to Necromancy and Arcane Magic. (Though the level 1 buff in Arcane Magic, Hasten Spells, will help you a lot).


While leveling those Spell Schools keep in mind that you should hunt stronger and better mobs when you are able to.

It is also far more efficient to hunt mobs with melee and archery for cash, and then level spells on a mob that's easy to hit / doesn't move much.

Meditation

Meditation is a feature that lets you skill up while offline. It costs gold to buy the points, which you can buy through the Journal. But efficiency wise, it is not worth it. It costs more than double of what it costs to cast spells in game and it also takes a lot longer. While at the same time you're not skilling up the spells, just the Spell School. It is, however worth to meditate your attributes (stats), and the first one you should focus on is vitality, to increase your hitpoints dramatically.

Alignment
At the start of the game all players start with 10 positive alignment, dropping below 0 (-1) will turn you red, and you can go as low as -100 alignment. For each player you kill you loose 8 alignment and for each gank you loose a further 4

if you're a blue player and you hit another blue player you will turn "rogue" or "gray" for 10 seconds, if you hit him again you will turn rogue for 2 minutes. If the other blue player kills you while you're gray he won't get an alignment penalty.


The only way to restore your alignment is by praying at chaos churches found in all Chaos Cities, you can only restore 2 alignment per day at the cost of 2.000 gold, so keep in mind, you might not want to turn red until you're able to fully support yourself.


No comments: