dk2th is a hack-and-slash game, which requires the players to kill hordes of monsters in order to make their character progress. This character progression varies according to the different races with slayers only having to attack a monster/player to gain experience points whereas vampires need to kill the monster/player and drink its blood to gain the full extent of the experience points available while ousters just have to kill to gain these points. For the same monster, ousters gain more experience points out of them than vampires do even when drinking their blood. This is an aspect of the balanced system present in the game between the races having each a special advantage: the slayers sell the heads and skulls of monsters (one of the ways to make money in the game) at the highest prices to npc, the vampires drop the best items out of the 3 races, and the ousters get experience points the quickest.
The Powerlvling(Plvling) relationship is also present in the game but only concerns vampires and ousters. It is frequent that a low level player (leecher) is power-leveled by a high level player who kills monsters the low level would be incapable of alone and thus make him/her progress way quicker than s/he would have alone in another place. The experience points are divided between the members of a party for ousters and vampires wheareas slayers get a percentage increase. However, as far as slayers are concerned, only their attributes (strength, dexterity and intelligence) rise since they need to use their skills to gain experience points for their level. This explains why power-leveling on the slayer side is more unusual especially if the low level player is of the melee type. Nevertheless, this system of shared experience points within the party shows its limit when high level players are concerned although high level players tend to play alone rather than in groups as they often get more benefits from that (in the case of slayers they can hit the monsters longer and walk less and keeping the loot for themselves as the loot is simply dropped on the ground and anyone can pick it).
Unlike other MMO's, Dk2th doesn't compel the players to form groups to be able to survive in dungeons or hostile maps or to do quests that don't really work properly. Indeed, any player at some point or another is able to go on every map available and to survive the legions of monsters there on one's own. All the monsters and bosses present in the game can be killed by a single player with perhaps the exception of Gilles de Rais and Mikklizz. The quests are also essentially single player oriented such as killing a certain number of monsters under a certain time to get a special item. The only quest that compelled players to form groups was the family coins quest in which players had to form a team of 6 to be able to loot coins from monsters which would give them a possible good item once they trade 9 to an npc. Nevertheless, Race Wars, Castle Wars and Caligo Wars are events that pit players together (gathered either by race or by clan/guild) against others in massive PvE battles.
Dk2th is oriented toward PvP and offers it in its most brutal form. Except for few safe zones (green areas on the mini map), mainly the main camps/castles, players can be attacked without any restriction at any moment by other players. As a consequence nothing prevents a player having reached the last level of the game from attacking a player that has just started playing the game. It is also frequent to witness sieges and enemy players "camping" every now and then outside the safe zones. Nevertheless, in order to protect low level players from that kind of abuse, the Korean and Japanese version offers a non-PK server for the player to level without any risk of being attacked by another player and this until around the level 80 of the character when s/he'll be forced to come back in the midst of the pvp field.
One of the main characteristics in the play of Dk2th is the use of time. There exists three different time periods that regulate the battles in Helea. The first period takes place between 9h and 16h59 which is called day time or full day. During that period, vampires are at their weakest and slayers and ousters have the upper hand on them. The second time period happens between 21h and 4h59 which is night time or full night. It is during that lapse of time that vampires are the most efficient and cause the most damage to their preys. Finally, the periods comprised between 5h - 8h59 and 17h - 20h59 are the transition time during which slayers, ousters and vampires fight on the same ground. This system offers a very balanced game-play as a vampire can be completely annihilated by day time by a said slayer while when night time comes, this same vampire could dispose of him or her pretty easily (granted they are in the same range of levels). This time effect doesn't concern ousters vs slayers fights but it does with monsters who are considered "vampires".