Dungeon Fighter versions differences?

[Cla]

This is bugging me that I can't find a good answer to how exactly the original Korean version (Dungeon & Fighter, or DnF*) is supposed to be blatantly better than the US version. (Dungeon Fighter Online, or DFO)

*Sometime KDnF to refer specifically to Korean version since China and Taiwan also call it Dungeon & Fighter.

I know the US version is supposedly behind by a year or 2. But I can't find an actual list that shows what exactly the Korean version has that the US doesn't have. I've seen OLD lists back from before the US version got Priest and Theif. But I can't find anything that compares the versions NOW.

Also, does anyone know what differs in the Xbox Live version that comes out next week. I know the game will have HD widescreen graphics and offline 4-player. But I mean differences as far as actual game content goes. Are all areas and classes in? I know the Xbox version is NOT free ($10), so does that suggest you can collect Avatar items through normal gameplay instead of having to pay extra for them?

[Akaimizu]

The Xbox version is different than the PC version in the idea of how the game is delivered.

The XBox version comes with 3 classes, and there will be new gear and outfitting to earn in the game. It doesn't follow the development of the PC version but will likely get new stuff to play as and with, for future chapter releases.

So in a way, I think it balances out without angering the PC players. There's obviously not as much content in the Xbox version, but it is cheaper, and it costs less than half the cost of a complete Avatar set in the PC version. I would say, it's nice to get new looks without paying the pretty coin for it, but it would seem to be a shorter game experience a bit closer to the *arcade* aspect of its gameplay than a full blown MMO with a long journey to the end game.

[Kent]

I'm still curious as to why they aren't going with all five of the original classes for Dungeon Fighter Live. It doesn't make sense, unless they're planning a big DLC expansion that contains both of them (and possibly others) and more chapters.

DFO was one of the few games to do free-to-play right (or closest to right) - where players who don't pay money aren't automatically second-class citizens, and leveling up isn't really a grindfest that necessitates playing. Yet, if you're so inclined, you can pay for cosmetics and boosters, but neither one is necessary to advancement (well, there was one point where Nexon had the EXP tables set up in a stupidly-steep curve, but surprisingly enough, they toned it back down when people complained).

It's also fun because it's not an MMO - I can only imagine what kind of trouble would come into play if they tried to make DFO an actual massively-multiplayer brawler. That would probably suck pretty badly, so I'm really glad that they decided not to do the massively-multiplayer thing and stuck to the standard four-player game.

It doesn't necessarily dictate that Dungeon Fighter Live will be short or have little in the way of content just because it's not set up as an online-only title like the PC game, but there are obviously restrictions on exactly how much content they can put into the base game. Considering how long DFO has been on the market though, I doubt we're getting "all" of its content, or even most of it, but I also doubt it'd be getting just a small sampling. I'm expecting DLC down the road.

[Akaimizu]

Same here. Definitely either DLC, or future releases with additional classes. Nexon is taking a F2P model game (with loads of in-game purchases) and working it into a one-time you purchase content model (perhaps a little like Guild Wars). So they probably had to deal with how much content were they willing to put in for the money.

They did something similar in the mobile market, and if it is the same, the idea was that they gave you the amount of character classes they thought justified the current cost, but gave you a large and expansive game to play them in. They also gave you the ability to earn or find new gear you'd typically have to pay for in the F2P model.

We'll see if it is similar here. Since they were adamant to put a sub-title to it, as a chapter, I wouldn't be surprised that followups are coming based on sales. Heck, I'll buy it just to have a great Capcom's Dungeons and Dragons Arcade experience on XBLA.

Still some thoughts:
In the gameplay portions of their released videos, they showed what looked like the Slayer using one of his summons. Slayers don't have them before their first class change so it will bring two possible things to speculation if that video coverage was true.

EDIT: I was told that Slayer gets Kazan at around level 7, so these questions may not be prudent. (That's what I get for not playing a Slayer in PC DFO)

1. Do the classes have at least their level 18 advanced class changes?
2. Or did they redo the skill selection for the characters to be unlike the PC version, but allow them access to some of their altered-class abilities?

Take note, this is a $10 title, and it costs less than half what it costs to buy a full set of gear in the PC version. It also may only go up to level 20 for this release. Obviously, there will be some limitations in order to not stir up ire from the PC crowd. My initial thoughts are that there will be limited classes, but a good fair share of content to feel like a big game, just not as big as the PC version. Of course, some of my feelings are influenced by what was done with the Mobile versions of Maple Story and the like. Given those games were much cheaper (around $0.99-$1.99) and they would have 1 or 2 of the classes in game, but a pretty large world and many missions to complete. They also (all but their first release) contained the bulletin boards and trade boards which were linked to their own servers.

[Akaimizu]

Update: Some game site put up some gameplay video of the game. They don't go too far with it, but you can see the early game stuff. They also go through the in-game manual pages, and if you can read it, it tells you about gameplay features to give you a sense of how much is in the game itself. Maybe they were afraid of spoilers or something.

http://www.twitch.tv/xboxlivearcade/b/324477876

Anyway, they didn't capture the movie at a good enough resolution, so it definitely suffers in the ability to read the text. It's a bit hard to make out due to the low capture.

Some features found in this video.


- About 5 character slots for created characters. For each account.
- Avatar Rewards (First one is Goblin Mask)
- Looks like the Dungeon list will house alot of dungeons lol
- Download Content was available during in-game options
- It still has the sort of gamble selection (select the card) aspect of end level extra loot find as in the PC version.
- Level Rankings are still in, but they don't show a tally of the count during the level like the PC version...probably done to keep up a large screen real-estate. It still counts in the background and is tallied at the level's end.
- The 20 combo achievement is one of the easiest and fastest to get, though it took the player a bit longer to achieve it. (Anybody that has played DFO knows a 20 combo is ridiculously easy to get (with a starting mage even)).
- Talking to NPCs and travel is done quickly via a cursor selection. No walking to each part. This is actually useful since the walking is kind of pointless in this version of the game given there are no MMO lobbies.
- You still see different places you go to in town, in a building, and such, just that you don't manually walk your avatar through them.
- Leaderboard and Rankings for levels done are nicely included, as with the PC version, it's nice to see a tally of your dungeon rankings.
- Looks like every active thing can be hot keyed. They still have special directional (guardian-hero SF-style) commands to activate various equipped skills, which have the advantages of lesser cool down and less MP cost if used that way. (Promotes use of abilities with the D-pad and action button commands instead of just hot keying their activation). This is gathered from the in-game instructions.
- There's new motion-comic style cutscenes in this game to tell the story.
- Killing the last monster in a room full of monsters usually is done dramatically and also shows a closeup portrait of the character like some sort of Super-move in a classic Capcom VS series game. The game instructs that if you don't see this, it's another way to tell that you're missing a monster hiding somewhere.
- The game has a new tutorial section where you play a specific character through a level, to teach you the basics first time. Then you start play as your current character.
- The first main goal is still to rescue Seria. Done a bit more briefly this time, I guess in order to keep it short. After the tutorial you played through, I guess they wanted to make it so you can get on with the game without yet another time-taking full level to play through.

[Akaimizu]

Game is out. Have fun. Take note, the game does have microtransations for the impatient, but they are completely optional since the Premium currency can be bought with in-game earnings making everything accessible for those who don't want to pay another cent but the admission price.

Though that does not rule out actual game expansions that might have a small cost to them.

[Akaimizu]

Got to play this game a good bit, last night. Very fine port, and I appreciate the fact they actually cleaned up the graphics to look quite sharp and pretty in 720p.

Netcode is very well done with a four player online match feeling like a local game. Unless you have a person suffering from a bad connection, you'd hardly notice the difference. But if any individual lag happens, they do it very well. Not sacrificing your movement, and controls at all, the worst I've seen is perhaps the offending user's character sprite would not face the right way or be exactly represented in their facing and action when running, but the overall position of them, all monster skill abilities and reactions, plus you and all the non-lagging players are perfectly intact and full speed. Nice Netcode job.

But most of the time, the four of us were doing quite well with our connections, and it acted like it was a local game. Never did it seem to have any measurable input delay.

BIG NOTE: However, there is one main glitch to make sure you know about. And it's completely to do with those who play the trial game and then unlock the full game while playing. The demo deactivates autosave since you can only save in the full. If you play the demo and unlock the full, exit the game immediately and then restart the game. Apparently, the game *only* activates autosave from the time you launch the game while it is already the full version. It fails to turn on autosave if you're in the trial and unlock the full until you exit the game and restart. That's the bug. Take note, you can't manually save, since they don't want people to abuse manual save exploits.

The only other one I've encountered is a rare bug in which a Taur might get stuck in the air, making him impossible to destroy and you have to exit out the level to continue playing since the exits won't open. Not sure what caused this, but in our entire long session of play, it's happened only once.

Autosave generally happens in town, so it pays to exit to town often enough, when playing. Your progress isn't saved during dungeon play, but it does after pretty much every action you do in town. Exiting the game after the autosave icon finishes up, after you last town action, is the best way to go.

As for the real money purchases, already mentioned they are optional. For the impatient in getting Legacy items from the Premium markets, you can buy resurrection stones to quickly grab them. You start with 10 resurrection stones at the beginning. Those stones are account bound not character bound, so you can share across characters. Of course, for those who hate paying more money than the price of admission, you don't have to. I certainly won't spend a cent to speed up my access to Premium store sold Legacy items.

Legacy items can be found in-game, and also found enough in the various pots you collect and break for random equipment. Selling these particular items actually give you res stones instead of gold. So yes, res stones are in-game currency affecting those lines of items for which you completely earn and spend in-game without paying a physical cent. Think of it as two different in-game currencies. One used for Legacy items and perhaps above, and the gold used for all the other stuff.

Take note, there are rarities better than Legacy.

[Kent]

I'm still curious about how much actual content it is. The download is, after all, only like 354MB (I'm not sure how big the PC version is, but due to the palletized, low-resolution graphics they used, the game wasn't very large in the first place). Considering that there's more data for given content (given the resolution boost and all), it really leaves it up in the air.

If it's decently-meaty, I'll look into getting it, but it seems like nobody is actually playing this game enough to give a verdict yet, which either speaks for a dramatic lack of popularity or a massive amount of content... Or content that just gets endlessly repeated before any actual progress is made.

That said, there's nothing inherently wrong with letting players repeat content as long as the gameplay is interesting and the rewards are good. My unholy amount of time spent willingly playing and enjoying Castlevania HD is a testament to that.

Which brings up another thing. In the trial version at least, there's a "Recommendations" option on the main menu. Selecting it shows you a series of other XBLA games - for me, it showed Castle Crashers, Torchlight and Crimson Alliance. This struck me as incredibly odd, because if it's trying to recommend similar games, I would think that Guardian Heroes and Castlevania HD would be more appropriate than Torchlight and Crimson Alliance, by far.

[Akaimizu]

Well. if you play it you'll understand. Sure it does have some guardian heroes aspects, but it's arguable that the Loot-based game is the bigger aspect of the game, in the long run. It plays kind of like a best-em-up, but the real meat is in the loot and farm aspects.

And this game doesn't use a lot of size to be quite sizable. The PC version, while bigger, isn't all that big either. It's not filled with voice acting, but in the lines of 2d brawl gaming. It seems sizable so far, but it takes a good amount of hours to get to the end game. We played like all last night and some of us were just getting to level 5 with our primary characters.

[Kent]

Er... I'm very familiar with the game. I played the PC version quite a bit.

But farming != content. Even if the "content" being "farmed" is fun and varied enough, with enough of a rewarding experience, to actually encourage continued play... It's still a limited amount of content, it's just highly-replayable if designed right. This is kind of the appeal of loot-centric games. It's also not what I was curious about.