12 replies to this topic

[Chocola]

Proposal: Please stop blacksmith rank resetting.

 

I'm not sure how many times the blacksmith rank was reset after the merge, but since I've returned to iRO in November 2013, there're 2 resets; September 2014 and March 2015. I believe that the next reset will be in September, which I think really unnecessary. The blacksmith rank shouldn't be reset at the same time as alchemist rank, if at all.

 

I understand the need to reset alchemist rank on regular basis since the points gain from potting are huge. I agree that the BS rank must be reset when the servers merged. However, right now you plan to reset the BS rank every 6 months?? It's way too soon!

 

As a forging smith myself, here are some reason I can think of about why you shouldn't reset BS rank:

 

1) Unlike potion, VVS weapons are not consumable, they last. You bought one at a certain price, sometimes a bit higher because it's raked, then you have it for... how ever long you will have it. VVS weapons are still have a tiny niche in the market, some players are still using them nowadays, many of them are new players with tight budget. They deserve to get what they paid for, if they bought a ranked VVS, no matter how little the bonus is... they should get a ranked weapon. As for the forgers, no matter if they're still active or not, if he/she had once tried hard enough to be on the rank, they should have the reward for their hardship, and their buyers should benefit from the ranked weapons.

 

2) It's hard to earn BS points. Usually a forger get 10 points for every lv 3 VVS elemental made. Plus, a blacksmith only can forge one weapon at a time... and the success rate at best is pretty low (about 40%). So the BS points build up very slowly compare to alchemist points. Before the previous reset, the top BS has just made it to 80k but the 10th only has 1.4k, so what's the need to reset then? Why reset at all? I don' see the purpose of the previous reset, to clear away the oh-so-little BS points? Why?

 

3) I once saw someone said the reset is to make chance for a new player to get on the rank. I'm not sure about alchemist, but for blacksmith rank, it isn't impossible to be on the rank, easiest now than ever.... Before the reset in September 2014, the 10th ranker had about 13k points, then before the previous reset, it become only 1.4k. The hardest part is to be on the TOP, that would take a lot of work and dedication, but if you really want to be the top blacksmith then you should try hard. What kind of a ranker you are if you need to wait for the reset to clean the slate for you?

 

 

Now for the emotional aspect:

 

You may wonder why I care so much about BS rank. True, BS ranking is really worthless for most people, and the forging smith is a forgotten class. But for those who still actively forging, especially me, it means a lot.... Friends used to ask me why I forge, I don't get much profit from selling the weapons and not many people use VVS anyway so why? and I just tell them "I'm a blacksmith, of course I love forging. I'll be the top bs someday!". 

 

I've first played RO 12-13 years ago (and married my hubby in Prontera church 7 years before I married him IRL!) Since then I'm on and off RO and been on several server, both official and privates. All those time my main char is always a forging smith. 

 

like many other people. I just returned to iRO when it went on steam on November, 2013. I started from scratch again since my old ID has only a lv 10 novice with nothing left in kafra. I made new friends, grind, vend, buildup my own resources, and after about 6-7 months I was ready to forge again.

 

I'm just an ordinary player who play and socialize in RO on my free time, a rather classic, aka outdated/old style gamer. So I forge VVS 1 by 1 the traditional way. I got heaps of help from friends and family in gathering the forging materials, which I'm really grateful. Slowly I'm building up my points and reach the top 10 ranking. 

 

Forging has changed a lot during these years, but something never change. I still love to forge very very strong elemental weapons. I love to hear the sound effect when I successfully created one, and I laugh & /swt & awww with my friends when i fail (more often than not). I love to see the points adding up 10 by painfully 10 points for each weapon I created and know that I'm another step closer to the top ranking. I love making decent weapons for my family, friends, and guildmates. I forge for free for newbies with too low budget to buy good weapons or elemental converters. I teach new players how to get free gears from eden equipment quest, and if they still insist they need my VVS, I'll sell to them at super uber extra special discounted rate. I buy back my VVS when my customers don't need them anymore and offer to exchange the weapon to another element if they don't have enough zeny to buy a new one. Once in a while I'll type /blacksmith and think "Ah! look at my points! It's still xxxx behind the no.1, but wow... I've made so many weapons!" ... and I'm happy.

 

it's fun competing with other forgers to be the top BS, aka the dumbest player in this server. (We forgers are dumb, yes, since forging is only a waste of time & zeny and smart people should already give up ). I have no complaint about fighting with other forgers to keep my rank, I struggle to top them, it's part of the fun. It took me a few months of forging to reach the 10th rank the first time, and right now after a year and 2 resets I'm still fighting my way up to the top, unsuccessfully still... since the no.1 is so damn good (and rich). Every time I'm getting closer to him, he'll just whack something up and gain a few thousand points and I'm falling so far behind again, still, it's fun in trying so....

 

However, it's another matter fighting to gain points after each repeating reset. That's when I feel dishearten. It reduces all my effort to zero, all hard earn zeny & resources lost, with no trace left for all the hard work, nothing to look back and feel content with. 

 

I don't know, The game system should encourage competition, not to disrupt it every few months and set everything back to nothing. Previously there're only 3-4 ranked forgers who sell their weapons, after the previous reset, one put his VVS weapons on sale at about 80% off, I'm not sure why but he never get back on the rank.

 

So, please take this into consideration, what was done previously isn't the reason it should be done again. The policy that does affect badly on players should be changed to make it better. If nothing, I'm still thinking that if BS rank resetting benefit no one while it's a huge lost for a few players who tried so very hard, then you shouldn't reset it at all. 

 

So please reconsider the blacksmith rank reset. Please.

 

 

Links concerning BS rank reset:

 

Here are some discussion I found in the forum concerning BS rank reset. I think it's brought up once in a while, so I'll put them all here as additional opinions.

 

Jul, 2011 (7/5 Maintenance)  http://forums.warppo...e-8#entry471388

Aug, 2011 (Rank Decay)  http://forums.warppo...594-rank-decay/

Mar, 2014 (Blacksmith rank reset) http://forums.warppo...ith-rank-reset/

 

Edited by Chocola, 25 March 2015 - 08:51 AM.

[Necrohealiac]

My question is this:

if you were the only person actively ranking then you would be #1 on the list no matter how many times the list is reset. that doesn't appear to be the case, or you wouldn't have brought this up. why are the other top rankers not bothered by the reset in the same way that you are?

[kest21]

My question is this:

if you were the only person actively ranking then you would be #1 on the list no matter how many times the list is reset. that doesn't appear to be the case, or you wouldn't have brought this up. why are the other top rankers not bothered by the reset in the same way that you are?

 

I think high ranking forger mastersmiths have the resources to overupgrade their own lv3 VVS weapons successfully to +10 with upgrade weapon skill, thus increasing their points to 1,000 with each success.

 

OP you should try this once in a while, test your luck. adds fun and frustration though. Good luck!

[Chocola]

My question is this:

if you were the only person actively ranking then you would be #1 on the list no matter how many times the list is reset. that doesn't appear to be the case, or you wouldn't have brought this up. why are the other top rankers not bothered by the reset in the same way that you are?

 

Hmm....  I don't know fore sure if they are bothered or not.

 

Since there're only 5-6 active smiths around and I don't know how many of them visit the forum on regular basis, so it's a low chance to see their opinions here?

 

Maybe they don't care since they're so rich and use certs to +9 their VVS then +10 them to gain 1k points easily, or maybe they're very upset with the reset but they're just inactive in the forum, or they have language barrier, or they think it's useless fighting with the system and already gave up?

 

I only know from my previous posts that there's at least one smith who's so disheartened with one of the reset so he gave up forging. With this latest reset I saw one of the previous ranker made 80% clearance sale to get rid of his VVS and haven't seen his name on the rank since. I haven't had a chance to ask another ranker yet why don't he get back on the rank after this reset (we are in different timezone and he usually /exall because of the spam pm).

 

Well.... so...   

[AlmrOfAtlas]

The reset system encourages competition by ensuring that complacency doesn't set in. It certainly doesn't stifle it, unless you consider zeroing out point tallies to make sure newer forgers are able to compete with established ones as stifling.

 

Forgers on Classic, the one place where forging is still relevant, have no problem with rank resets. They spend their time forging regardless of what happens, because they enjoy it. If you were truly just in it for the love of creating weapons you'd think the same way.

[Chocola]

@kest21

 

I did +10 sometimes when I have enough ori to spare. Since I'm actually a... vintage forger, as one of my friends call me, so the zeny is hard to gain, the materials are valuable and each VVS is dear to me. I think I kinda.... too stingy to +10 too often... it need too large resource, lol

 

Plus with another reset looming, I've lost my enthusiastic to fight for the top position, I just forge enough to get by...  ._.

 

 

@AlmrOfAtlas

 

I don't see how zeroing out points encourages competition here in renewal. Not many ppl use VVS here and the number of active smiths are tiny. We're in a class that almost extinct. With each reset, the lowest score to the #10 is getting lower and lower, even before this previous reset, there's plenty of room for new comers (if any) to get in the rank, why, half of the list has only 4 digits points!

 

And for me, the points is part of the fun, they are hard to gain, so each point is important. The rank is my hall of fame (is't it true for any ranker?), the score is something to look back and be proud of. Call it complacency if you like, I look at it as a prove/reward for my hardship and dedication.

Edited by Chocola, 25 March 2015 - 08:45 PM.

[AlmrOfAtlas]

Keep your own tally then. Functional game systems shouldn't change because one person is obsessed with getting their arbitrary numbers as high as possible.

 

You'd be better off petitioning kRO for an update to the forge list to bring relevance back to the forging build. Raise base atk, change the ranking bonus from mastery damage to status atk, boost the elemental property level to 2 in order to provide some kind of incentive to move away from endows and converts, allow forging specialty weapons such as instruments and katars, and implement unique forged weapons (no more NPC derivatives) in the vein of UPG gear, where refines provide additional bonuses.

[Chocola]

Functional game systems shouldn't change <== Uhh.... I agree, but the reset every 6 months is the "change" they've just made. 

 

I just returned in late 2013 so I'm not sure how many resets they've made since the merge, could be none? However, only recently they started the too-frequent-resetting (9/2014 and then 3/2015). Now it isn't "functional" anymore (as your reasons for the reset: encourage competition & help new comers are invalid). That's why I don't understand the need to keep resetting the BS rank?

 

Oh, and what's wrong in obsessing with the points? I think most rankers are obsessed, that's why they fight to get their numbers as high as possible! Obsession is good, it encourage competition, resources used/zeny spent/cash flow.   Before the 9/2014 reset I forged like mad, Materials I spent in forging can fill the whole payon town... but I still only got as far as #3, then after that reset I'm still trying to top the #1, this time I went as far as #2 before the 3/2015 reset strike. Right now I'm just cruising along... 

 

So yes, functional game systems shouldn't change! Do not reset! 

[Necrohealiac]

Hmm....  I don't know fore sure if they are bothered or not.

 

Since there're only 5-6 active smiths around and I don't know how many of them visit the forum on regular basis, so it's a low chance to see their opinions here?

 

Maybe they don't care since they're so rich and use certs to +9 their VVS then +10 them to gain 1k points easily, or maybe they're very upset with the reset but they're just inactive in the forum, or they have language barrier, or they think it's useless fighting with the system and already gave up?

 

I only know from my previous posts that there's at least one smith who's so disheartened with one of the reset so he gave up forging. With this latest reset I saw one of the previous ranker made 80% clearance sale to get rid of his VVS and haven't seen his name on the rank since. I haven't had a chance to ask another ranker yet why don't he get back on the rank after this reset (we are in different timezone and he usually /exall because of the spam pm).

 

Well.... so...  

 

maybe you should reach out to your fellow forgers and have them post here to have their voices heard if they have issues with it too.  otherwise you're the only person who seems to have problems with this system.

[Mvpkiller2015]

@Chocola

 

You will never reach 1st position, you cannot compete against mechanic who just gain point from upgrading to +10 using shortcut methods. And if you get 2 to 3 person of that kind you will never ever able to reach even 3rd position

 

@Oda

I am also forger and I have been forging huge before merger of server. After the merger and resetting of points I was totally disheartened to loose 2nd place

but even after merger I started forging but in few days 2 person forgot the name reached in 10000 + points just by upgrading to +10 and this people was from other server and not from Valkyrie server. Buy seeing this and myself going slow in points I left forging.

I would suggest to get rid of this kind of person who just want rank by just making +10 fist, there should be reset every 3months

 

PLEASE RESET BLACKSMITH RANK EVERY 3 MONTHS

[Necrohealiac]

a mechanic would have a lower success rate upgrading vs a mastersmith. seems highly inefficient to me.

[Chocola]

It sadden me to know that when you're the "only person" who voice out the problems, then it isn't worth it to take into consideration. ._.

 

Still.... I believe what's wrong is still wrong no matter how many people point it out. Actually, if only someone, especially the authority, can give reasonable explanation about the need to reset, I may be able to accept it and move on. However, right now I can't see that said reason so having to bare with the policy is something very depressing.

[CleanWaterDev]

You forge in the Renewal or Classic?

 

I kinda gave up playing in Renewal, Blacksmiths and Super Novices turned to be completely obsolete there. It's impossible to do a MvP with a Super Novice, or even a solo play on a common leveling ground.

 

Forging weapons there is also a waste of time and money... You get Crimson Weapons, Eden gear, and a lot of good stuff, while a forger is bound to a lame elemental NPC Store weapon with no additional effects and high failure chances.

 

Edit: To justify the reset, I think that every weapon made should count at least 1 point in the total score, even Level 1 swords, daggers and maces. The points should be proportional to the failure chances, so 1 point for Level 1 weapons, 2 points for Level 2, 3 points for Level 3 and +1*(Level*Total number of Stones) for every successful elemental/star crumb forged weapon.

Edited by CleanWaterDev, 21 April 2017 - 05:35 AM.