394 replies to this topic

[Xellie]

We had no gtb champs woe - all of our gtbs were on chems (3)

 

The megs last woe from us - 2 for me/regret on sinx and 1 each for jerome (fish champ) and 1 for kevin (ecall champ)

 

Don't really care about last WoE, even without attending I know that every time you "win" it's because of mass GD pallys and you think that tarot is a way to some how survive it.

 

No matter how you slice it, it's easy to drop ME for a fraction of a second to get a few of those 7~12k hibram SG ticks off. That will wipe a lot of pally since it's not the only damage source. And yeah, 190 aspd scholar with 149-instant cast. It does not matter.

 

Taking more damage from fist (gtbed or not) is silly. Especially with retarded SP gear/mental pots on classic (and infinity ygg). So honestly, immune seems more wiser.

There is so much gvg talk, but you're missing the times it really does matter. Like when a small guild is prepping to push on an emp room and hibram wiz gets instant cast and drops and sg on them at random, or flags in and picks them off one at a time with JT, or when 3 of them are nestled behind 3 CPs, sac'd and cosy and behind 7 champs.

 

These are scenarios that Valhalla deals with, via throwing numbers/GRs/GTBs at the problem. We go in calculating that we will lose almost everyone to the precast because there is little that can be done. If we were so inclined to bore ourselves/make people ragequit, we would set this up and make the point. Unfortunately for me, everyone in my guild has the attention span of a goldfish that needs Ritalin. So we won't be making any bs precasts any time soon. 

 

The people we want to stay/grow/join the server do not have the options to deal with it like I do.

[Xellie]

If you now want to talk about vh v sgn, vh has tao devo paladins so they can live a fist. And your chems have gtbs so fbh is meaning less to them.

 

even less reason for us to wear noxious, but champ fishing is super real.

Is Zinnia gonna nerf fbh?

 

Ok lets get back on topic.

[needmorezleep]

#pretransfewoe

#thedream

#ezprecasts

[Godly1]

From the builds I've calced you can survive hibram sg on all of your support classes by changing up 2 pieces of gear that wouldn't effect the overall gameplay at all.

 

To put it in perspective your HPs / Linkers & Gypsys shouldn't be taking more than 3k dmg from a tick of SG, and if your prof can't recast LP by the time the 3rd tick has come down then there is a huge issue.

 

[Xellie]

ok that's it I'm camping hibram

 

 

[Godly1]

Not to throw anything more off topic but the question of FBH and this discussion isn't the damage output it brings its peoples willingness to adapt to the situation.

 

There are extremely easy ways to survive SG in woe - when pom starting using Kevin lu's fbh back on ymir sgn had to adapt after the famous "pomgust" in brit 2 where 90 % of our guild wiped because we didn't have ME. After that we never got wiped by it again because we were able to adapt to the situation.

 

There are only a few classes that can survive fist as is, even fewer when you add megs to the champ so the discussion between nox/ray and thara/horn is void.

 

 

 

 

 

[Xellie]

solution : Tao scrolls so the newbie guild pallies can play on equal ground

 

anyway, think about this: If they dial back some mvp cards, that actually adds room for expansion to the game without too much powercreep... which... is something we REALLY need to think about.

Edited by Xellie, 26 November 2015 - 04:10 AM.

[Hrishi]

Nerfing one MvP card leads to a domino effect which means nerfing multiple MvP cards.

 

Frankly, I do not trust the WP staff to have the competence to know how to balance them. It's easier to leave them as they are.

[Xellie]

Nerfing one MvP card leads to a domino effect which means nerfing multiple MvP cards.

 

Frankly, I do not trust the WP staff to have the competence to know how to balance them. It's easier to leave them as they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you're probably right in that regard, but like I said before... it's about players who would come to the server, not those of us who are condensing into smaller and smaller groups with more and more potent gear.

[Nathy]

 

[Hrishi]

Let's be honest here, from my last conversation with Heim, he did not even know Biochems could get stun immune with 1 VIT. It was a huge revelation to him when I told him the gear that let's you do it. Do you really want people at that level of understanding of this game to start meddling with things?

 

I don't.

[AlmrOfAtlas]

Frankly, I do not trust the WP staff to have the competence to know how to balance them. It's easier to leave them as they are.

The WP staff agree with you on that sentiment, hence this thread designed to allow the community to collaborate and brainstorm ways to improve the toxic meatgrinder that is WoE and give new players an easier time on entry into the scene. Stifling discussion by saying "everything is fine as-is" when that clearly isn't the case is just a selfish way to retain a status quo that benefits you.

I for one would like to see more new people in WoE so that it isn't just dominated by 1 large guild and 1 large alliance throwing everyone less established and experienced to the wayside. The best way to do that would be to remove or revise toxic elements of the game that these new players are unable to overcome. Overpowered MVP cards such as FBH that cannot be reliably played around in a GvG situation and create an insurmountable power divide are at the top of that list.

Edited by AlmrOfAtlas, 26 November 2015 - 04:35 AM.

[needmorezleep]

Let's be honest here, from my last conversation with Heim, he did not even know Biochems could get stun immune with 1 VIT. It was a huge revelation to him when I told him the gear that let's you do it. Do you really want people at that level of understanding of this game to start meddling with things?

 

I don't.

when did this happen? if recent thats hilarious

[Hrishi]

 Stifling discussion by saying "everything is fine as-is" when that clearly isn't the case is just a selfish way to retain a status quo that benefits you.

 

None of this benefits me as I do not own any of the items in question. If the aim is encouraging new players to WoE, MvP cards being rebalanced is the not the way to go.

 

when did this happen? if recent thats hilarious

 

Last month.

Edited by Hrishi, 26 November 2015 - 04:37 AM.

[Xellie]

Let's be honest here, from my last conversation with Heim, he did not even know Biochems could get stun immune with 1 VIT. It was a huge revelation to him when I told him the gear that let's you do it. Do you really want people at that level of understanding of this game to start meddling with things?

 

I don't.

 

That's why we need to keep it factual with calcs and real scenarios 

 

Classic isn't like other servers were. We have different equip. We have no future gear that won't be OP as hell. We have a faction split that is going to condense the server into two groups who have nothing to do but spite each other and make it impossible for entry level play.

 

Then what?

 

 

edit: pls don't tell heim about our unfrozen ghost shenanigans afaik he's not involved with RO anymore anyway but still

 

 

 

 If the aim is encouraging new players to WoE, MvP cards being rebalanced is the not the way to go.

 

why not o.o
 

Edited by Xellie, 26 November 2015 - 04:39 AM.

[Godly1]

I'm all for removing/rebalancing certain mvp cards & god items in woe but as previously stated that would hinder some guilds that currently have heavy reliance on them to stay even.

 

 

[Hrishi]

@Xellie : People don't WoE for a number of reasons. Either it's because it's unfair, it's boring or it's unrewarding. From my own experience, I believe reasons 2 and 3 are a bigger hurdle to new players joining classic. Does WoE even have an aim or is it just meaningless e-peen fights? Hibram is simply another card to play around, much like GTB is. Stu mentioned how it's done in posts above better than I did.

 

Does that make it unfair? Of course! However, without permanent character development in an MMORPG, RO might as well be a MOBA. MMORPGs are, by virtue of it's genre, going to have unfair fights. It's a big reason players today are more attracted to things like MOBAs rather than long term RPGs. If you think more people are turned off from RO because of MvP cards, I must say you are wrong. Look instead at the reliance of the cash shop, the meaningless WoEs and the overall awful decisions which impact the rest of the game. If the rest of the game is active, WoE is automatically active. If the rest of the game is dead, well...

 

@AlmrOfAtlas : Are you a league of legends player? You use the word "toxic" an awful lot.

Edited by Hrishi, 26 November 2015 - 04:54 AM.

[Xellie]

@Hrishi

1,2,3 are all valid, so is #4 - unpleasant community (this is pretty huge too)

 

But you have got to understand that It's not going to be 1 or 2 hibrams. There's like 6~ish that I know of (1 is unconfirmed) and whilst this stuff is fine on a large server with a population, in small numbers, when its small numbers with large amounts of op items it gets ridic. And there is just going to be more and more and more, centralized into the same groups.

 

I used the same argument for god items FYI. It still applies, but god items are kind of less bad since they require melee range to be nasty... minus bris but its a bris so w/e and hammer dps is achievable without hammer just go glass cannon.

 

I cannot think of a single item that achieves such insane AoE pvp dps as a hibram. Nothing. More defensive gear is good because it makes more of a fight, more offensive gear just leads to boring oneshottyness that people associate with "trans being bad" and "renewal being bad"

 

The cash shop is dumb, but we can fix that.

 

But item saturation is something that is GOING to happen and is the game going to be fun when everyone has all this stuff?

 

No.

 

As far as e-peen woe shiz go, I only play for my guild. I don't really care about the upside/downside of losing as there's no "goals" left on Classic. The GM team made sure that WoE was kept invaluable and rewardless at the cry of the community. I just like to pick a task and we work toward it as a team. It's nice. I wish there was a real reward, but you know, meh.

We have a lot of newish players and its all new and exciting for them. It's kind of rewarding to bring them through it and listen to them get all excited and hyped and stuff from winning the game or discovering things like we all did years ago. Really. That's just it. I think I play for other players!

Edited by Xellie, 26 November 2015 - 05:02 AM.

[ShinRyoma]

Big post warning. tl;dr : new server/full restart

 

I'll state my opinion as a member and part of the leadership of one of the "small guilds", "new guilds" or whatever you people like so much to talk about.

 

We live in a time where pretty much everyone wants to run away from any kind of commitment. If they can play a godamn moba, where after 40 mins of play or so you're done, absolutely no bounds left with the game unless you want to play another round, why'd they commit to a game that requires an absurd level of grinding just to find out they have no strenght to fight people who play for longer?

It's complicated to motivate guildmates, y'know.

 

I've been playing for 5 months, and over a hundred players have started to play in my guild(s). I'm not even kidding.

 

We helped them, we showed them all we could and knew about the server. We tried to make it attactive for them. How many of them still play? 2.

 

TWO.

 

Here are some of the most popular reasons I heard from them.

 

>the server is empty

>it's too hard to level

 

about woe/bg (since there's almost no pvp)

>too many scrubs

>too many mvp/gods/cash items

 

 

Ok, nothing new to you guys I assume. But I'll share some of my insights:

 

>the server is empty

 

Alex is godamn right. Server has potential. There's absolutely no marketing. Not in my country,a t least. If we players don't tell people about server, they never even hear about it.

 

WP should be able to sell the game as interesting, and in that matter I agree that nerfing mvp cards and gods won't help.

 

I understand we need to balance WoE, but we actually need people to play WoE before balancing it. Or solving both issues at the same time, but I don't have a solution for this.0

 

>its too hard to level/find a party

 

Somewhat BS, IMHO. It's a freaking pserver already. Janeway, turnins, the new warpers, whatever.

 

But what makes them feel this way is that Janeway leaves you at level 70 with almost no gear, and most importantly, no preparation. They can't quite yet play their class as they should. They didn't use skills enough to know how they work. It's complicated. Parties are rare and somewhat elitist (very few people want to level their precious alts - that will do nothing but sit wearing cute hats - while helping a newbie get to know the game - they rather do it fast with other alts). Solo leveling is retardly boring. You can solo level a physical dps'er at level 70. But without buffs from a priest and/or endow, it just makes you want to kill yourself and a bunch of puppies because it's so damn boring. 

Then they go get their loot, sell to NPC, prolly just to buy a few more potions and find out shops in prt selling the items they need for a couple millions of zeny.

No wonder they don't want to play anymore, lol.

 

>too many scrubs

 

I could type at least 4 hours of this. But I'll stick to one single story.

Story time: Last week an former member (guess what? he no longer plays) was complaining at TS that he couldn't properly play BG's and get his first set. I told him that was normal, he'd be playing against more geared players and all. Then I went in to see what was happening.

There were 13 afk players (mostly were probably bots), me, him, and this female champ who used to play on a poring-ish named guild and GOD KNOWS WHY went to a big guild some time ago. We'll call him Mr Scrub.

So my friend (a level 80 hunter) gets randomized to Croix (not sure how bg matchmaking really works. But it seems to suck.). Me and Mr Scrub went to Guilaume. We are the only ones playing, as all the others are afk/bots. Mr Scrubs pots like 6 secnds of consumables. Mr Scrub finds my friend and fists him. Then Mr Scrub goes to the boat, finds my friend, and fists him repeatedly. He also fists the other AFK'ers. All this while potting seeds/berries, probably. I couldn't tell, I would never try and use them in bg anyways.

Next BG me and my friend are on Croix, Mr Scrub on Guillaume. I outplay and kill Mr Scrub despite his ferocious attempts to freeze me while fisting (and potting berries/seeds, it seems). Mr Scrub call us "bunch of trash". Next BG, Mr Scrub comes back with a pair of belts from his guild and zergfist me and my gr card. I stop playing and go watch some netflix. Tell my friend he should go play something else.

 

Protip: Mr Scrub does this every single day.

Protip²: How many Mr Scrubs you guys think we have?

Protip³: lots of em.

 

BG is pretty much our only alternative to pvp. I remember both Meliodas and rojo-ky, two other champs, asking me to go to pvp to 1vs1 them because they just don't find anyone to play against. They don't need badges anymore, but just as me, they were there looking for some pvp fun. Let's jsut make clear that we are on similar levels. None of us enjoy fisting level 80 hunters.

 

So, as someone already said, bg also needs to be looked at. It's ridiculous as it is. Farmfest/Mr Scrubs everywhere. 

 

>too many gods/mvps/cash items

 

This is more about people that start but already have some experience. Most common question: Is there many gods mvps around?

Second most common question, after knowing the answer to the previous one is "a ton, concentrated on one or two groups/guilds": Why do you play here?

 

Guys, you have no idea of how hard it is to convince people to play knowing that we won't likely EVER be able to stand up and fight the big guilds as equals.

While I can understand that and would be ok with it if we had at least some low-end competition to have fun with, that's unfortunately not true. 

 

No guilds seem to take gvg seriously enough. Why would they, if by the end of war it's just a breakers race to get as many castles as you can, minus the meg ones who are occupied by the strongest guilds anyway?

 

I think before we discuss and fight over what mvp cards/god items do on calcs, we should focus on some more urgent measures to make people stop leaving the freaking woe/server!

Reduce/rotate the godamn castles! Change the rewards so that the winner doesn't get to make the gap between them and the losers even bigger!

Disable the freaking gods/mvps if that's what it takes! And if you can't have any good ideas to do so... Restart the damn server. Make a new one. Whatever it takes to make people stop quitting! 

 

What makes people stay and strive to get better is the chance to be the best. Or one of them. Even if they never actually become the best, they have to believe they can. If they're damn sure they can't possibly reach the top, either they'll quit or they'll join the best guild.

 

That's why our leader made an alliance. Can you blame him? I can't. Even tho I don't agree and refuse to play under their flag. He's trying to improve our member's chances to get some items and play competitively. What else could he do?

 

 

 

I'll edit this as I have the time to. If anything I wrote seems offensive, I'll be happy to elaborate it in a different way. I do'nt always agree with all of you, but I certainly respect people that use their precious time to at least discuss about making the game enjoyable for every one.

 

 

Peace,

 

 

ry.

Edited by ShinRyoma, 26 November 2015 - 08:19 AM.

[Hrishi]

I have suggested many times that the best way to fix the problems of this server is to restart fresh without the original problems that plagued classic. After running classic all these years one would hope WP has learned something and the next one could be better.

 

One can dream...

[rojoky113]

Honestly, a server restart might actually galvanize a lot of activity and bring a lot of players back because a new server is very exciting to some people and the competition to establish yourself is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it may also alienate a lot of players who play on officials partly because they expect their characters, items and achievements to not be wiped and it's likely WP will respect that. In addition, a server restart MAY in the short term promote activity, but it will end up in the exact same horrible condition that classic is in unless the problems that caused them are fixed. Many of these problems are with the core game, many of them I do not expect WP to be competent enough to be able to fix even if anybody in this divided argumentative community can ever agree on anything at all, and some of them are directly related to the community itself in the end. So it's almost certainly not gonna happen, and discussing it right now is probably not productive.

 

Part of the problem shinryoma is talking about is that RO is a korean grindfest, and an old one. Few people enjoy putting effort into the grind nowadays with instant gratification MOBAs and streamlined MMOs everywhere, and the ones that might (young players with tons of free time usually) aren't gonna search out a decade and a half old game like ragnarok and put their effort into that. A lot of things have been done to try and mitigate that like janeway and TIs and GSBs and IMO that is a good direction to take, but it hasn't been enough. Woe is unmotivating, unbalanced, and a ghost town outside 3 large groups of players banded together. Non-woe activities like BG are boring, afk'd and botted. Leveling is a grindfest, established players do it in thors, everyone else in the same handful of boring turn-ins that never change (ID3, AL). 5x drop rates have led to a large amount of top tier gear concentrated in a handful of dedicated players, while low motivation, low server population and daunting barriers to entry leave new players feeling hopeless in ever catching up.

 

All of these issues need to be addressed. And I'm tired of the bickering and the arguing that always deteriorates into petty squabbles, thinly veiled personal attacks, immature e-peen BS or unproductive finger pointing. I'm also tired of the limited knowledge and effort the staff can put forward into making things happen. But at least they sometimes accomplish small things like the BG shouter, and I want to believe if we can put together some reasonable changes they can slowly actually happen. I want to sit down, compile a list of problem areas in the game (as in all of them: woe, pvp/bgs, mvping, leveling, gods and mvp cards), discuss what exactly the underlying problem is that is causing them to be unfun, unmotivating and alienating to new players, and then propose realistic changes that can be made to try and right the course. Even if it were the solution and I'm not convinced it is, a server reset appears unlikely and WP does not have any reason or resources to attempt to do something like open a second server to try the idea out, so for now the focus probably needs to be what we can do to change classic for the better.

 

The posts by themes and undying, that listed actual issues constructively and in a condensed, presentable and organized form struck me as the most helpful in trying to organize and clarify things. I'm going to try and sit back and start from something like that as a starting point, and hopefully get more positive discussion and feedback about different ideas even if there is disagreement, and maybe we can start building a better gameplan and road map for improving classic. Cause right now this crap ain't going anywhere, at least not anywhere productive. FBH may or may not be an issue, but the problems of classic are so much greater than FBH right now.

 

As for the FBH topic, it is definitely one of the most powerful and difficult to counter mvp cards. IMO the problem is that card then combined with everything else available that makes magic deadly already (classic matck gears, mindbreak) that are already kind of borderline ridiculous or exploitative. My personal beef is that the other large part of the combo, mindbreak, feels like it should never have been intended to be so easily useable as a "buff" like it is now. Both of these effects are so massive (FBH as a ridiculously powerful card, and mindbreak as a ridiculous doubling of matck) I feel something needs to be toned down so the end result of combining all of them isn't quite as powerful, because the nature of the wizard class and the power of this card means that it's area of effect can literally be massive. Entire guilds can fall to an optimized SG, precast or JT spam. Maybe VH has the capabilities to counter it, but it's pretty obvious that unlike say a gtb double-megged gr/dr sinx that is one character that has a mundane counter (frost joke) that has a powerful but limited impact against anybody else, a hibram wizard or two can make many situations completely unwinnable by any other less geared guild on (or starting on/joining) the server. That's a much bigger problem with it than whether or not VH should be able to counter it effectively IMO.

Edited by rojoky113, 26 November 2015 - 09:41 AM.

[Jolen]

I dont know if there was something said regarding what im about to say because i just scimmed through but why dont WP just do like "other" servers do(the ones that actually allow mvp's) and just disable certain mvp cards in woe? that would completely eliminate the issue with no risk of WP screwing up their "nerfs"...imho if an item is that much of a gamebreaking issue i think its better off just being disabled completely in woe than nerfed...as hrishi said nerfing items is not a good idea it will cause a domino effect that most likely wont end anytime soon and just completely -_- everything up in the long run(like league of legends)...now i personally dont think hibrams are the problem at all here but i dont rely on mvps/gods or even use them much so i could care less what happens with them

 

Regarding woe the truth is theres plenty of alternatives  to steamrolling a guild than just hibram SG if done properly...so what will happen next? nerf gd? nerf ad? nerf GT? the list can go on...there has never been anything that has been thrown our way that we havent adapted to so i dont know why everyone else cant...but as for it not being easy for new players specifically on this note i competely agree...which is why i would be all for disabling all mvp's and god's in woe entirely if it were a possible option

 

 

 

On a much more serious note....this server is very fixable but there has to be a sit down among the leaders/head figures of this server and figure it out ourselves...we have been waiting for the GMs to fix things that should have been taken care of years ago and personally i have lost all faith in their ability to do so..mostly due to their lack of knowledge/understanding of the game and other things i wont bother to get into...if we want to fix this server it has to be done by us the players...we can fix this problem ourselves without GM's..we the players are the ones that know the real issues and can fix them we play this game not the GM's so how could they possibly know what to do to fix things....this just requires certain parties to come to terms and agreements on things with an open mind and start a new chapter on classic without any previous drama/animosity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nathy]

Should pool everyone on the server that woes and have a massive draft. And let that be for a couple of woes, mix things up. That would be pretty fun. Tbh besides the alliance. Most just play for fun/compete rather than any kind of reward.

[rojoky113]

I feel the issue is that disabling particular cards opens the same can of worms that nerfing does, in that you then have to pick and choose what to disable same as nerfing. I'm sure proponents of FBH would rather it just be toned down rather than disabled if it came to that. I want to put together an organized post of all the problems and possible solutions as I see them, but the training edition woe with no gods and mvps helps solve a few at once, with some being: small/starting guilds can't compete with large guilds with gods/mvps, some players want these items around and some want to woe without them in a more even/capped environment, many players cannot woe during current woe times, and this server desperately needs more action outside of the current 4 hours on the weekend.

Edited by rojoky113, 26 November 2015 - 10:32 AM.

[Xeio]

Platinum Shield completely invalidates magic users in a woe scene, since there is no counter to wearing one(outside of taking slightly more damage).

 

Either nerf FBH and remove plat. Or leave Plat and make it easily accessible for all those "new" guilds.