88 replies to this topic

[Carp]

Training grounds teaches you how cool botting is. It opens your eyes how many bots are there in the server.

[Luckywhiterabbit]

that's because you're not SUPPOSED to have an 'ultimate goal' in an MMO, jeez. That defeats the whole purpose of it being an MMO.

The ultimate goal is of course to get to lv 150 and then use your power however you want however you're allowed.

Edited by Luckywhiterabbit, 02 November 2011 - 07:38 PM.

[llzarrockll]

*bites your face off and leaves claw marks on your chest* "wut?"

[Okii]

that's because you're not SUPPOSED to have an 'ultimate goal' in an MMO, jeez. That defeats the whole purpose of it being an MMO.

The ultimate goal is of course to get to lv 150 and then use your power however you want however you're allowed.

If an MMO doesn't have a main quest storyline,
The good and the evil,
and some amazing super boss,
then it's just a game where you run around and level up without cause.

No backbone!!
Not interesting!
If RO had some HUGE underlying quest with tons of MVP instances (EVERY MVP)
up to a final MVP (Satan Morroc on steroids or something)... well then I'd have something to look forward to.
And 150's would have something to look forward to and work with for a long time if Gravity takes their time making the quest enjoyable, rewardable, and fun.

I'm gonna bring up another game like I always do for examples:
Dofus. This game has an amazingly huge quest called Eternal Harvest.
You go around and capture the souls of every single monster in the game and for each set you turn in, you get experience based on the level range of the monsters.
In the end, after turning in all souls, you have earned a total of 261,489,240 experience and an item that gives you more "action points" which is vital in this game.

Very rewarding and very extensive.
You have to capture the souls of every boss and monster which means you really learn about the game.
Very simple as well.
I mean you just go catch all the monsters and that's it.
Not hard to come up with a story for that at all xD.

Edited by Okii, 02 November 2011 - 09:18 PM.

[Rutana]

If an MMO doesn't have a main quest storyline,
The good and the evil,
and some amazing super boss,
then it's just a game where you run around and level up without cause.

Welcome to RO o.O

This game is SUPPOSED to have no goal, and it's awesome this way.
It's about getting your own personal goal, this gives you FREEDOM in playing.

For some these goals are WoE and PvP
For other these goals are MvP's
For some others it's just the fun while leveling and collecting anything small.

Everyone in RO has an own, personal goal.

Stop trying to change the game in something else.

Deleting the Training Ground is the dumbest thing you could do, and the thread starter knew this - his post was an ironic statement to the idea posted with this Megaman Video in the other thread.
This isn't a simple sidescroller, or a simple linear Video Game.
This is not a game where you can save and try out and if you make something wrong, just load the game again.

You could go out and find out all purposes of these games 9 years ago. Today this isn't good anymore, since it makes it harder for new player to get into the game which consists of long-time players. There's the need to improve the Training Ground, to explain other stuff too, like Cards and playing advice, help on how to get Zeny and where you should concentrate on.

Take the Training Ground away and most of the new players, who don't have any friends on the server, will quit after a few days.

[Abhi]

Most Of Them Still Do

Edited by Abhi, 03 November 2011 - 08:10 AM.

[TheUraharaShop]

This game is SUPPOSED to have no goal, and it's awesome this way.
It's about getting your own personal goal, this gives you FREEDOM in playing.

For some these goals are WoE and PvP
For other these goals are MvP's
For some others it's just the fun while leveling and collecting anything small.

Everyone in RO has an own, personal goal.

CONVEYANCE: a means of transporting. With no destination in mind the game servers no purpose. Think of it as you getting in your car to go for a drive, are you really going to waste all that gas just driving around...? That's a waste of about $40 bucks, you have a destination in mind; even the most convoluted destination: the store can be better defined as you travel along. What kind of store are you going to? Food? Sex? Auto? Gaming? Home Depot? Saying that there is no destination in mind for iRO doesn't make players want to play, just as you wouldn't want to drive around with no where to go. But saying there personal goals set by a player, you must be quite not in touch with why players quit; literally the lack of the freedom to progress the game with out the need to worry about DPS.

For some these goals are WoE and PvP: WoE is the only reason why most log on
For other these goals are MvP's: MVP's are camped by older players, so the new players never get a chance to really MVP until far down the line
For some others it's just the fun while leveling and collecting anything small: Yeah... must have been easy since you have the experience and resources to do so.

However, you really need to realize, that you're an older player, this game makes sense to you. To prove a point

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Myde 1


Yeah thats just the first level, now you're watching the first level, but actually play it, you'll see how frustrating it is; that's how the new players feel like.

THERE IS NO CLEAR OBJECTIVE WHAT TO DO, WHO TO AVOID AND WHO'S ASS YOU'RE SUPPOSE TO BE KICKING.

As a player who's played this (for what 5+ years?) it all makes sense to you. Just be a bit more considerate to the players who haven't.

[Okii]

Welcome to RO o.O

This game is SUPPOSED to have no goal, and it's awesome this way.
It's about getting your own personal goal, this gives you FREEDOM in playing.

For some these goals are WoE and PvP
For other these goals are MvP's
For some others it's just the fun while leveling and collecting anything small.

Everyone in RO has an own, personal goal.

Stop trying to change the game in something else.

Deleting the Training Ground is the dumbest thing you could do, and the thread starter knew this - his post was an ironic statement to the idea posted with this Megaman Video in the other thread.
This isn't a simple sidescroller, or a simple linear Video Game.
This is not a game where you can save and try out and if you make something wrong, just load the game again.

You could go out and find out all purposes of these games 9 years ago. Today this isn't good anymore, since it makes it harder for new player to get into the game which consists of long-time players. There's the need to improve the Training Ground, to explain other stuff too, like Cards and playing advice, help on how to get Zeny and where you should concentrate on.

Take the Training Ground away and most of the new players, who don't have any friends on the server, will quit after a few days.

Rutana, I figured he was talking about Urahara's video. I watched it too (the whole thing).
I just wasn't sure because training grounds really does need work but I can't post a single suggestion without someone calling it game-breaking or something..

And there are tons of MMO's with an underlying quest that make the game worthwhile to play.
If RO isn't one of them, then I guess that explains why it's so hard to follow.

[TheUraharaShop]

I just wasn't sure because training grounds really does need work but I can't post a single suggestion without someone calling it game-breaking or something..

Biggest issue I'm having trying to cover what a player needs to know and while still offering insight to guide them towards what they want to know.

[Rutana]

Uruhara - I am a long time player, yes. I'm playing since 2004.
But I'm a rather new player on iRO. Yes, I have a lot experience in this game. Sure, I know how it's going.
But that's exactly what I'm talking about here. I know how this game is and how it was and how it should be to stay the game it is.

RO isn't like the other games out there, it's not like WoW, Requiem, etc. It's special in many ways.
RO lives from self motivation, from the wish of getting stronger or getting 3rd Class for other reasons ^^
It lives from the players making "their own legends", their own stories. This is also a reason why there's only a few other games out there that spawn THAT much of creativity inside the community - talking from procentage of course, since there are other games with far more players.
This spirit RO creates results in players who didn't even play RO anymore still thinking back of RO, feeling nostalgic about the game and continue to do FanArt and other creative stuff. And that's only one of many parts.

RO gives you your own, personal goals. Goals that you decide, noone else. And with this, it defines your personal Story of Ragnarok.
Everyone has it's noob stories, the Storys how you learned to play the game and which mistakes you did as Novice. This worked in the past, where most of the community still were noobs too ;D
Today this would lead to a quick frustration. "Why don't I do the same damage as the player next to me?" "Where are the differences?" "Who can I ask my questions?"
There are just not enough new players so that you can find someone else who's also in a learning stage and where you can discover things together anymore. Hell, on Valk or Ygg you have to assume that the first Job next to you isn't even a player but a bot. All this changed from the good old times where you didn't really needed a training ground. This don't work anymore.

Also, Novi Ground also teaches you other valuable lessons. From simple stuff how you equip your equipment (this was a point I was lost as I played RO the first time btw - I was a noob back than too ) to more important stuff like "Don't attack monsters to "help" other players - that's Killstealing."

Mr Jekyll and Mr Hide (NES) is a baaaad example.
This game wasn't bad because you didn't know your goal, it was bad because of it's awefull controlls, unfair mechanism and, mostly, because you couldn't even tell what's hurting you and what not.
There are a lot other, classing Games that also don't have a real goal and that now are defined as Game Classics. Starting from Puzzle Games like Tetris (If you define High Score a goal, just playing would be a goal in RO too...) to games like Ice Climber, where your only goal is to climb a mountain. yeah...
These games had only one goal: bringing the player fun while playing it. And it's the same with RO.
Hell, most of the games didn't even had a story, and if they had, mostly it was put into the manual that nobody readed... I'm asking myself how many players of the first Mario did knew why Mario has to jump on turtles, mushrooms and such till they defeated Bowser the first time and read "Thank you, but our Princess is in another Castle."

[asayuu]

Actually.

The problem is not the game has no goals. They are so undefinite.

Actually, the problem on the training grounds is the lack of goals in the game showed INSIDE the game. If you want to find some goal, you need to search it OUTSIDE the game, or ask other players for it.

[Edit]

Oh look, did not noticed Rutana's post above. All those games you said had a box. And the box shows features of the game. The training grounds should be a mix between showing features and a tutorial.

[Suggestion about Training Grounds]

I believe the training grounds is too small. I even think the TG battle maps could be based on fields of the game. And FULL of NPCs explaining the basic things. Cards, upgrades, and more in-depth info about the classes (Even second and info about how to transcend)

The monsters on the training grounds should have halved EXP, to make the questing [therefore the introduction to the game] more rewarding.

The maps should have at least one monster with boss protocol, which would also need to be explained, and then an introduction to the MVP system and even showing some of the bosses on the map.

Some of the "end goals" can be explained. May it be MVP, may it be WOE, may it be collecting headgears... [OH SPECIAL NOVICE HEADGEARS JUST TO SHOW CUTENESS]

Edited by asayuu, 03 November 2011 - 10:54 AM.

[TheUraharaShop]

Spoiler

Uruhara - I am a long time player, yes. I'm playing since 2004.
But I'm a rather new player on iRO. Yes, I have a lot experience in this game. Sure, I know how it's going.
But that's exactly what I'm talking about here. I know how this game is and how it was and how it should be to stay the game it is.

RO isn't like the other games out there, it's not like WoW, Requiem, etc. It's special in many ways.
RO lives from self motivation, from the wish of getting stronger or getting 3rd Class for other reasons ^^
It lives from the players making "their own legends", their own stories. This is also a reason why there's only a few other games out there that spawn THAT much of creativity inside the community - talking from procentage of course, since there are other games with far more players.
This spirit RO creates results in players who didn't even play RO anymore still thinking back of RO, feeling nostalgic about the game and continue to do FanArt and other creative stuff. And that's only one of many parts.

RO gives you your own, personal goals. Goals that you decide, noone else. And with this, it defines your personal Story of Ragnarok.
Everyone has it's noob stories, the Storys how you learned to play the game and which mistakes you did as Novice. This worked in the past, where most of the community still were noobs too ;D
Today this would lead to a quick frustration. "Why don't I do the same damage as the player next to me?" "Where are the differences?" "Who can I ask my questions?"
There are just not enough new players so that you can find someone else who's also in a learning stage and where you can discover things together anymore. Hell, on Valk or Ygg you have to assume that the first Job next to you isn't even a player but a bot. All this changed from the good old times where you didn't really needed a training ground. This don't work anymore.

Also, Novi Ground also teaches you other valuable lessons. From simple stuff how you equip your equipment (this was a point I was lost as I played RO the first time btw - I was a noob back than too ) to more important stuff like "Don't attack monsters to "help" other players - that's Killstealing."

Mr Jekyll and Mr Hide (NES) is a baaaad example.
This game wasn't bad because you didn't know your goal, it was bad because of it's awefull controlls, unfair mechanism and, mostly, because you couldn't even tell what's hurting you and what not.
There are a lot other, classing Games that also don't have a real goal and that now are defined as Game Classics. Starting from Puzzle Games like Tetris (If you define High Score a goal, just playing would be a goal in RO too...) to games like Ice Climber, where your only goal is to climb a mountain. yeah...
These games had only one goal: bringing the player fun while playing it. And it's the same with RO.
Hell, most of the games didn't even had a story, and if they had, mostly it was put into the manual that nobody readed... I'm asking myself how many players of the first Mario did knew why Mario has to jump on turtles, mushrooms and such till they defeated Bowser the first time and read "Thank you, but our Princess is in another Castle."

Some very good points made. But you some up how most players feel when they play iRO:

I'm asking myself how many players of the first Mario did knew why Mario has to jump on turtles, mushrooms and such till they defeated Bowser the first time and read "Thank you, but our Princess is in another Castle.

If you saw "oh snap Bowser kid napped the princess! I should go save her so I can have the sexy's with her!" You have a much better straight forward objective. Most players feel when they're dropped in, isn't that the game is open ended, which isn't the argument, but there isn't anything to guide a player towards the simplified objective in Early Game Stages.

But yeah:
This game wasn't bad because you didn't know your goal, it was bad because of it's awefull controlls, unfair mechanism and, mostly, because you couldn't even tell what's hurting you and what not.

That's the way most players in iRO feel like; just like the guy who was playing, he's played that first like a few hundred times and knows when to jump, when to duck, when to attack ect. For iRO, there is a LONG- A VERY LONG- Learning curve, because it's lack of CONVEYANCE. If it told you "Hey watch out for the dude in the purple pimp suit" You'd dodge it, but it's at a point where you saw him taking damage from things... that made no -_-ing sense... and new players to iRO have no clue where to go, what to do, who to speak too as they start off; again there is nothing guiding towards the End Stages of the game; where that is open ended WHICH IS VERY GOOD FOR A MMO!!

BTW: Did you figure what the objective of Mr Jekyll and Mr Hide (NES)? Turned out it was a fantastic example if you still have no idea, most players still have no idea what the story and objective of iRO is. What ever your response is to that, I'll just toss WoE as a rebuttal and see how that has nothing to do with the Patch Releases majority of the time @_@. And keep in mind that in order to WoE correctly, you need what again...?

But to make sure its clarified, removing the training grounds, out of the question. But re-designing the training grounds so that a player in the Early Game Stages gets better feel for the game and knows what to work towards in the Early Stages is what the Training Grounds are for.

Edited by TheUraharaShop, 03 November 2011 - 11:00 AM.

[IronPlushy]

Rutana you are so out of touch that it makes me want to stop playing this game. If most players are like you then this game is already dead. What you love so much about this game is the reason it's dying. The vast MINORITY of players want to play a game with no objective. These end game "objectives" may be super fun and everything, I have no doubt they are, but when was the last time a new player stuck with this broken game long enough to reach that goal. It is all but impossible for a new player to start this game. I have played through this game with all but a complete lack of objective, but you can't even reach the objectives you mentioned earlier.

End game content is unreachable.

First you can't even survive long enough to come into your own as a second job. The lack of HP support makes it impossible to enjoy the game. New players do not have the gear to keep them safe, they don't have any means of obtaining zenny, they don't have the friends to party with, they do not want to get knee deep in a merchant just to make their other character playable. Someone posted they made 233K as a monk going from 1-60. 233k is equal to 11 trips with 100 orange pots each. You are not going to get to 60 as a non healing class with 11 trips, especially a new player who is unfamiliar with good leveling spots.

Second, new players are reluctant to ask for help. I'm fairly sure the majority of players don't contribute to the forums. New players are reluctant to ask for help in game, if their past experiences with MMOs like WoW or MapleStory. And even if they do ask for help, there's a good chance they will encounter bot after bot after bot. Last night Rukario and I encountered over 40 different bots on the same map. Imagine a new player asking 10 players for help, and they all ignore him. The new player might not even realize they're bots.

Third, new players have zero patience. They have no vested interest in this game, they have no emotional attachment. They will not ENDURE an MMO. You can keep saying that the lack of concrete objectives and the lack of conveyance make this game unique and awesome, but the majority people who play MMOs will disagree.

You can keep saying this game is fine the way it is, but it is not. New players are mostly unaware of the greatness of endgame content, have no way to reach it without HP support, and do not have the tolerance of a game that refuses to explain itself. It's why I quit the first 2 times. I came back, but I'm just as close to leaving as the 4th time I played.

Changes have to be made, the current state of Ragnarok is why it is in such bad shape.

[Rutana]

The Training Ground basically has more than enough space, since there are unsused rooms. Like the room right of the main room or the final room of pre-Renewal Training Ground, where the old Job Tester was in.
Also, the lessons shouldn't contain too much text and also including examples (I remember that the fRO Training Ground gaves you a 4sl Sword and four Lunatic Cards. After the Training this weapon was taken out of the player's inventory.), so that people actually pay attention. I knew a lot of new players back in the old days who capitulated about the huge amount of text and just skipped important lessons, not reading at all.


Edit:
Since Uruhara and IronPlushy posted while I was typing:

Rutana you are so out of touch that it makes me want to stop playing this game. If most players are like you then this game is already dead. What you love so much about this game is the reason it's dying. The vast MINORITY of players want to play a game with no objective. These end game "objectives" may be super fun and everything, I have no doubt they are, but when was the last time a new player stuck with this broken game long enough to reach that goal. It is all but impossible for a new player to start this game. I have played through this game with all but a complete lack of objective, but you can't even reach the objectives you mentioned earlier.

This... isn't true. It's simply false. I would use another word here, but it would only show up as "" so... yeah xD

It's not impossible to start RO fresh and work your way up so you can participate in the "end content", meaning WoE and MvP. This is simply wrong.
As I allready said, I'm a rather new player on iRO. 90% of my guild started iRO with nothing than Cotton Shirt and Knife During the last year. Some of them (who're going straight to other goals) allready are in a higher tier and could easily jump into a WoE Guild or participating in MvP - and I'm not talking about summoner here.
The only difference between us and a completly new player was the experience and knowledge we took with us from our old, closed server (who never had Renewal by the way).
This is why the Training Ground has to stay and has to improved instead of deleting it (I remember: this is what this topic was about, DELETING Training Ground, not improving it). This knowledge that helps an old player to start new in a short time is what new players need. And that's all I'm talking about. Tell the players what they can do, how they can do it, what they can achieve, how they can achieve it and what they could aim for. This is not "setting a goal", that's simply showing the ways.
It's not about "leaving the new players all alone", but more about "let them find their way to play but teach them how they can do it best".
RO isn't a game without objective, it's full of objectives. But the players have to find and choose theirs on their own. You can't just go to them and say "this is what you have to reach". That's what I'm talking about ^^


And just for information:
I'm neither a WoE nor a PvP player, I don't like both for myself and am a purely PvM player

Edited by Rutana, 03 November 2011 - 11:14 AM.

[TheUraharaShop]

The Training Ground basically has more than enough space, since there are unsused rooms. Like the room right of the main room or the final room of pre-Renewal Training Ground, where the old Job Tester was in.
Also, the lessons shouldn't contain too much text and also including examples (I remember that the fRO Training Ground gaves you a 4sl Sword and four Lunatic Cards. After the Training this weapon was taken out of the player's inventory.), so that people actually pay attention. I knew a lot of new players back in the old days who capitulated about the huge amount of text and just skipped important lessons, not reading at all.

Yeah we're working on it... Trying to thing of new ways to inform while not bore

But please keep in mind everything that you said above, is IMPORTANT.

Not for the Early Game, but for the Mid Game; which is where most games, turn into a grind or the same repetitive and lack of originality crap every day. Being able to say to a player know RIGHT THEN (at level 40 something) "Hey you dont have to WoE you can DO THIS (fill in the blank)!!! can give the game a new life with out having to add much to it.

Edited by TheUraharaShop, 03 November 2011 - 11:19 AM.

[Kitten]

Arguably, Ragnarok was at it's strongest and most promising point a few years ago. Way back before the community congregated to a forum to complain, way back before we have a neat little ticket system to send our problems to. Back at a point where end game was even weaker than it is now and the story line was all but non-existent. Support? Guides? Ha.

You don't need to have an explanation to all the whys to have a fun game. If you do, you may just well be playing the wrong game and trying to squeeze something out of it that it was never meant to have. If I wanted a neat comprehensive little story I'd read a book. If I wanted simple, "fair" one sided gameplay I'd play a console game.

[IronPlushy]

Arguably, Ragnarok was at it's strongest and most promising point a few years ago. Way back before the community congregated to a forum to complain, way back before we have a neat little ticket system to send our problems to. Back at a point where end game was even weaker than it is now and the story line was all but non-existent. Support? Guides? Ha.

You don't need to have an explanation to all the whys to have a fun game. If you do, you may just well be playing the wrong game and trying to squeeze something out of it that it was never meant to have. If I wanted a neat comprehensive little story I'd read a book. If I wanted simple, "fair" one sided gameplay I'd play a console game.

If I wanted a game to be fair and immersive I wouldn't be playing ragnarok

Edited by IronPlushy, 03 November 2011 - 11:19 AM.

[Rutana]

Yeah we're working on it... Trying to thing of new ways to inform while not bore

But please keep in min everything that you said above, is IMPORTANT.

Not for the Early Game, but for the Mid Game; which is where most games, turn in to a grind or the same repetitive crap every day. Being able to have a player know RIGHT THEN at level 40 something "Hey you dont have to WoE you can DO THIS (fill in the blank)!!! can give the game a new life with out having to add much to it.

I know
And I'll do my best to help you with this, when I have the time for it, too.


@Kitten:
Yeah, I really have to agree with you on this one. Though this is the past (unfortunally) - today it's not working like this anymore.
The Training Ground is getting perfect when all the questions, that are asked over and over again in the forums, aren't showing up anymore because the players understand it while in Training Ground ;3

[asayuu]

@Kitten:
Yeah, I really have to agree with you on this one. Though this is the past (unfortunally) - today it's not working like this anymore.
The Training Ground is getting perfect when all the questions, that are asked over and over again in the forums, aren't showing up anymore because the players understand it while in Training Ground ;3

But when new questions appear, new answers must be made.

[Kitten]

That's my point exactly. I'm trying to illustrate that all these things people think will save the game are things the game didn't have even at it's strongest point.

They won't save it because they're not what made this game fun, and the game isn't losing popularity because it's lacking them. All this fuss and focus seems so unnecessary.

[IronPlushy]

Are you saying there's no reason to fix a game that's already broken?

[Rutana]

But when new questions appear, new answers must be made.

Which may be the reason for perfection mostly can't be reached anyway.
It's still fine if this questions are specific, if they go more in depth.


For example:
It's one thing to give a new player 100k Zeny and another thing to tell him:
"This is a blue plant. It drops Blue Herbs. Kill these plants to gain the Herbs and sell them to players."
Or:
"This is Ragial. Here you can see what people actually want to buy. Here's iRO Wiki Database. Here you can see which monster drop those items and if you are able to kill them. Go out, hunt these items and sell them to the players."

These kind of informations don't even kill the noob fun, since everything stays to be new and there is no tutorial that could spoil you the impression when you're seeing a weird monster for the first time ;D

Just as example.

[Kitten]

What you are choosing to highlight is trivial. That's what I'm saying.

[IronPlushy]

It kills the new player experience to have to create 2 different classes just to have enough money for potions for the non-merchant class.

[IronPlushy]

What you are choosing to highlight is trivial. That's what I'm saying.

Are you saying the horrible new player experience is trivial?