Darkfall: Unholy Wars is a massively multiplayer online role-palying game that focuses more on player vs player combat (PvP). The game encourages players to form clans and battle for dominance in the fantasy world Agon.
Character Creation
Like many MMO's the first thing you will need to do is create a character. The first thing you will need to do is select your gender and race. There are a total of six races, each with their own backstory and look.
After selecting a race you can change various other features, such as Skin Color, Hair Color, Face Type (for a large selection of presets), and so on. Once you create the physical appearance of your character, you will then have to choose a Role.
Roles
The role system is designed to be flexible and allow you to change you play style at any time to suit the situation. There are four different roles, each with four different schools available to them, allowing you to have a primary school and secondary school. Each character will have access to 5 abilities from his primary school and 4 from their secondary school, provided you have purchased all available abilities.
For example, you can be playing Warrior with the schools Baresark and Battle Brand schools equipped and then open the Roles Management window and switch to an Elementalist with the Fire and Air schools equipped
Elementalist
The Elementalist is an elemental magic user. The Elementalist is solely there to deal damage. With the highest base damage and the lowest Health Points (HP) it makes the Elementalist a glass cannon. The Elementalist is allowed to have two non-opposing schools.
Available Schools:
- Air
- Earth
- Fire
- Water
Primalist
Primalist are the support role. They use buffs and debuffs to tip the battle in your favor. The use healing abilities to help your clan and draining abilities to hinder enemy clans. They are key to surviving and group fighting. Primalist are allowed two non-opposing schools.
Available Schools:
- Life
- Law
- Pain
- Chaos
Skrimisher
Skrimishers are a versatile hybrid role. They are able to use both ranged and melee weapons. Because Skirmishers do not have many area of effect (AoE) skills they use the First Person Shooter (FPS) view more than any other role.
Available Schools:
- Duelist
- Blackguard
- Deadeye
- Brawler
Warrior
The Warrior is the main melee fighter. The Warrior uses gap-closing abilities and has high defensive capabilities. The Warrior is able to be a heavy damage dealing role but is better equipped to act as the group tank.
Available Schools:
- Champion
- Slayer
- Battle Brand
- Bareserk
Character Prowess, Attributes & Skills
Prowess is a representation of your accumulated experiences, victories and achievements throughout the world of Agon. They are used as currency to purchase new skills, boosters, and attributes. You receive Prowess from almost all interactions in the game, from killing monster to crafting items to harvesting goods.
There are a total of 4 attributes in the game:
- Strength
- Dexterity
- Intelligence
- Wisdom
Each comes with several levels of Booster that can be purchased to further augment your specialties by spending Prowess.
Skills are split into various categories in Darkfall: Unholy Wars:
Harvesting Skills- Crafting Skills
- Combat Skills
- Common Skills
- and 4 role specific categories.
Harvesting and Crafting skills are general skills that all characters, no matter their role, have access to. Combat skills contain all the basic attacks that can be executed by equipping the appropriate weapon and clicking either mouse button. Common Skills contain eleven utility skills that are shared by all roles, without limitation, while the Role Specific categories contain skills only available for each role.
The World
The world of Agon is a harsh, lawless land that houses many vile creatures and plenty of enemy players. The world is split into five continents with one main one in the center and one at each corner of the map. The main city of each of the six races is located on the main continent.
Combat
Combat is played primarily in third-person and is real time, fast paced, manually aimed and largely dependent on player skill. As a general rule, where you aim is where you hit but there are some exceptions to this.
Like all role-playing games, you have a pool of HP, MP, and Stamina. When your HP reaches zero you are defeated and will have to be revived by someone else or wait until you recover (hoping that your opponent does not finish you off).
If you defeat an enemy by depleting their HP, they will lie helplessly at your feet until you deliver the final blow or they recover. To finish them off, approach them and hold down F and select Gank from the radial menu.
The Radial Menu
The Radial Menu is basically a shortcut menu that allows you to hotkey skills and quickly access them in combat. Each role has its own radial menu, allowing you to access a new role without having to delete all your previous radial menu hotkeys.
To create hotkeys, hit Tab to bring up the radial menu. The two radial menus correspond to your left and right mouse buttons. By selecting a role from the top and drag and dropping the desired skills into either wheel you can set hotkeys to both the left and right mouse. Once you are finished, hit Tab or Esc.
Now you are ready to access these skills in combat by holding Alt and the correct mouse button to bring up the wheel and select the skill.
