Greetings, Adventurers! 

 

This is Jong Min Park, the Live Director of DFO.

It's been about a month since I first greeted you on our 8th Anniversary stream, and I’m back today with some brief news to keep our promise of making DFO a more enjoyable game, and to strengthen communications with our Adventurers.

 

I hope you have all been enjoying the Anniversary events and Bakal Raid content that have been updated since. I was able to clear Bakal Raid on my Summoner last week, and get my hands on the ‘Otherworldly Name Engraver’ and special Title. Since it was only the first week since release, many Adventurers still seemed flustered about the Raid mechanics and strategies. But the tension, comradeship and support I saw on the battlefield gave me joy. I was also reminded of the importance of long-forgotten items such as Immortality Formulas, Sacred Blessings, and other buff potion items.   Although I can't reveal my character, I would still like to give a shout out and thank my party members who challenged Bakal with me last Saturday. (Especially the red party’s ace player and our Buffer. You guys were the real MVPs!)   On a side note, I’d been gunning to become the first person on our development team to clear Bakal Raid, but I ended up placing third- turns out there were devs who were more dedicated than me on that mission. I consider myself a hardcore DFO player, so it was reassuring to see that our devs share the same passion as I do. I am committed to directing DFO through firsthand experience of our service, data analysis, and close monitoring of the community’s voice.   Upon looking into the data regarding Bakal Raid, we found clear rates were particularly low for Skasa out of the three dragons (17.7%), and for Éclair (54.4%) and Steitze (54.6%) out of the named monsters. If you feel like you’re having trouble with clearing Bakal Raid, it may be a good idea to take another look into these monster’s patterns!     However, the purpose of this ‘DIRECTOR’S NOTE’ isn’t solely for small talk. While playing, I did come across some disappointing aspects of DFO, which, I will elaborate with our measures to improve.

 

Latency (Ping) Monitoring Feature

In DFO, Adventurers can use the “//monitor” command to check the ping of party members after entering dungeons. This proved to be somewhat inefficient in Bakal Raid- the process of having to check ping issues after entering the dungeon proved to be tedious as party compositions had to be rearranged once the raid had started.

 

Consequently, we are looking into ways that would allow party members’ ping to be checked before entering dungeons. Internal testing for this feature will begin straightaway on April 18th, and we will be implementing it early May should we find no issues.

 

 

 

“Red Computer” Connection

In relation to this is the “Red Computer” latency marker. The “Red Computer” serves to alert users of high ping rate among party members. However, the ping rates are currently based on Korean standards, which means that most of our global Adventurers who party up across countries will find that the icon appears more frequently than not. 

 

We will be changing the conditions of activation for the marker to fit global standards. This will also be applied on April 18th and hopefully our Adventurers will see less “Red Computers” among their party members. Taking it one step further, we are looking to provide ping status in more detail that would give users a better sense of connection such as differentiating icons for “Smooth Connection / Compatible / Incompatible” in the future.

 

Of course, the best solution would be to have no connection issue, but the difficulty and restraints imposed by actual physical distance and technical factors is high. However, we haven’t given up, and we will continue to research ways for improvements.

Hope to see less of you, Red Computer!

 

 

 

Fame Support for Buffers

As we know that Buffer shortage is a constant worry for our Adventurers, we have been looking for solutions from multiple angles. We can confirm from our data that the percentage of Buffers eligible to enter Bakal Raid (40K Fame and higher) has increased by 115% after the Bakal Raid update on April 4th thanks to the "Calling All Buffers for Bakal!" event.

 

We’ve also confirmed that there is a concentration of Buffers just under the 30K Fame mark. Thus, we are looking for a way to provide support for these Buffers as well. On April 18th, a Buffer-exclusive leveling event will be added, which any new or existing Buffer character (even 110 Lv. characters of course!) can partake in. Additionally, we will be looking into gameplay improvements for DPS characters and more casual players that are experiencing trouble under 35K Fame.

 

 

 

Restrictions

We’ve noticed an increase in complaints regarding seemingly arbitrary bans, so we have started reexamining our restriction policies. No ban is unsystematic. However, we will be examining in detail whether the current standards in place are compatible with our global environment, to make sure there are no situations where Adventurers are unfairly restricted. 

 

To clear up some speculations, running other programs and games along with DFO does not necessitate restrictions. However, some programs that could affect DFO without your knowledge or intention may result in restrictions- for example, macro features embedded into mobile game emulators. Additionally, cheat engines used to play classic/retro games as well as mod/utility programs for other PC games can also result in restrictions.

 

We believe that ambiguous policies can lead to inconveniences for non-exploitative Adventurers. As such, we will reapproach the matter from a viewpoint of “creating the least inconveniences for normal players” rather than “maximum regulation of abnormal accounts”. 

 

 

 

Gameplay Experience Improvements

It saddens me to say that we’ve also received increased complaints regarding inappropriate IGNs and abusive chat, along with Gold RMT spamming. On this note, I would like to emphasize that we do not, and will not tolerate any harassment, abuse, or racism in DFO. We are currently monitoring such issues around the clock, but the occurrence of these issues is more numerous than our actions against them.

 

Consequently, we are examining the introduction of the “Report” function which is currently absent from DFO. This function will allow Adventurers to report issues more conveniently, while also providing us with multiple angles to respond to these matters. We will also be looking into a more fundamental fix regarding RMT spamming to improve our Adventurer’s overall gameplay environment.

The "Report" function will be added to DFO too!
(Left: DFO Global, Right: Korea DNF)

 

 

 

Guide Improvements for New and Returning Players

The number of new and returning Adventurers has been rising these days, but we’ve noticed that many of these Adventurers were having difficulty grasping the current meta of DFO. To remedy this, we’ve created a Lv. 110 Recommended Equipment and Buffer Guide, which have been updated on the Basic Guide menu of our Home Page. 

 

Additionally, we will soon be posting guides regarding Ispins Fusion Equipment, Advanced Equipment Settings, Fame System, Advanced Dungeons, and more. The first reforms will be added sequentially starting mid-April. The Basic Guide and Adventurer Academics menu is a great place to get information, so I hope you continue to keep an eye on our updates.

 

 

 

Gamepad/Controller Support

Adventurers who opt to use controllers to play DFO have to configure settings for their devices themselves as this is not a feature that is supported officially, and this would sometimes lead to gameplay that was not fully compatible. Currently, we are developing official support for controller configuration to provide a compatibility across controller devices. Below is a sneak peak into the progress of this development.

 

Controller support is planned to be added in the second half of this year. We ask for your patience as further details will be provided in our next Dev Notes!

 

 

 

Korea’s DNF D-Talks and DFO’s API

A lot of DFO-related information was revealed through Korea’s DNF D-Talks stream on April 7th, and so we are closely watching our Adventurers’ reactions and opinions. We know that you are extremely keen on knowing how and when the content will be added to our service. With that said, I ask for your understanding that information regarding this cannot be followed up with right away, as time for careful consideration is needed to assess how it can be implemented to the global version of DFO. 

 

I will make sure to present details and dates personally on our DFO ExStream as soon as possible, so please stay tuned (I anticipate sometime during this summer)! I believe that I will be able to share details regarding progress on our API system then as well.

 

 

 

Last, but not Least...

It’s been a while since I’ve greeted you all, and so I have prepared a small token of appreciation.

The following rewards will be available for 10 Gold each in Seria’s Shop after the maintenance on April 18th next week.

• Master Contract Package (15 Days) (Account-bound)
• Storm's Wrath Bonus Entry Ticket x 3 (Account-bound)
• Item Option Complete Growth Ticket x 5 (Account-bound)

 

 

 

That about concludes the end of our Notes for April! I hope we have offered you some insight into what lies ahead for DFO. Thank you for continuing to enjoy our game and for all the constructive feedback we’ve received. I look forward to seeing you all again very soon!

 

 

 

PPS. This week we had a DFO Adventurer visit Neople, and I was told that this was our first visitor since five years. It was a meaningful time for us to directly talk with an Adventurer, and hear their feedback in person. I know for our global users that Korea is a very far country, and Jeju Island is even more difficult to come to. But if there are any DFO Adventurers out there who plan to come to Jeju Island, our arms remain open for you at Neople!

 

 

Sincerely,

DFO Live Director Jong