Ragnarok being a 20-year old game eventually has to adapt to the current times. With how quickly new games come out with better graphics, gameplay and frankly better management, they end up having to compete with these games the best way they know and its our nostalgia. I guess long time Ragnarok players will always love the game no matter how much we complain and how bad the management is.
It is true that the game is hardly multiplayer nowadays because of OCP's, Kachua and Costume enchants. I do however understand that this is the only way servers can get players to pay to play the game. I started my Ragnarok journey with pRO in 2003 where we had to buy load cards for in-game time. Having no computer at home in a third world country meant I had to play in the shops and I could only afford to get the 8-hour card which lasted me a week (1 hour on weekdays and 3 hours on weekends). Life was simple back then, and kids didn't really have disposable income to spend in the game.
Fast forward to 20-years later where everyone else who played Ragnarok is an adult with a job and has disposable income to spend on the game. I guess the gacha system actually began with jRO where Gravity realized that they made the game free to play but incorporated the gambling system to get more money out of players. Thus, the same method was used on all future servers. Servers had to evolve with the times and seeing that they could get more money for the gacha system meant they had to come up with newer items to entice players to buy them. But of course, you couldn't directly buy the best gear off the cash shop, no, you had to gamble for it. Basically using FOMO as leverage to get players to spend more.
As the years went by and as newer updates came, the content became harder for players. This created the need for better and stronger gear which Gravity continued to formulate. They naturally created a problem for the players and presented a solution which benefited them financially and benefited the player in terms of performance. I guess this is the abomonation of what we have now. Completely overpowered gear you can use to solo dungeons and instances. Instances became a way to run it yourself and keep all the profits rather than a challenge you can do with you friends in game.
OCP's, Kachua Items, Scrolls, whatever it is in any server. Those who have it love it. Those who dont hate those who have it. Its always a constant battle between F2P (Free-to-Play) and P2W (Pay-to-Win). Ragnarok now is a far cry from the Pay-to-play structure they had back then. And because they made more money with how things are currently, they'll keep doing it regardless if the community suffers. We've lost so many players over the years just because of this and I understand those who quit since it wasn't the same nostalgia that they used to experience. We also have to understand that a lot of us have full-time jobs now and can only play in certain hours of the day, sometimes we cant. Some of us have wives, husbands, kids, mistresses, side-dudes or whatever and the only times we can play are sometimes not the same as our friends who we usually party with.
Partying is relatively non-existent in 2023 and its been like that for years, i'd say more than a decade. The way I see it, those who spend money in the game earn the right to do so because they work and have this thing called disposable income. Those who dont spend in the game would rather spend their money elsewhere and thats also fine. Everyone has priorities but we dont really have to judge each other with what choices we make in-game. Yes F2P is hard to do alone but its the persons choice which is why partying is really necessary but isnt always available for you. And P2W players get easily bored because of how easy everything is. Its also hard to party up because its just a neverending battle of who can get to the boss and kill it first. I remember running Endless Tower with my friends who had complete OCPs and I never fired a shot in the entire instance. I was just walking behind them because by the time I get to the room all the mobs are dead and they're already in the next floor.
If you are an F2P player though, hope isn't lost. There's plenty of content for you to do to gear up your toons without spending a dime. Yes it will take 10 times as long compared to just swiping your credit card and spamming buttons, but its free. And occasionally you can find those OCP's you want that are selling cheap and slowly upgrade your gear. There are armor sets per class from Episode 16.1, 16.2 and 17.1 that you can get through farming the daily coins. The Noblesse, Imperial and Grace armor sets are particularly effective. You can also get armor certificates to upgrade them to +9. There's also the Nightmare Biolab Headgears that you can make, even if you buy the materials it wont cost you so much. Be warned though, most of these gears have specific skill synergies and not all of them work well with the current landscape, but you're still better off with comparable dmg.
There's plenty of free content to choose from, all you need is a bit of research and maybe more time than the average P2W player but you'll get there in the end. Once you're geared enough you can start farming better dungeons and better instances and that's when the big bucks come in. All it takes is one good card drop and you can go from free gears to completing all the OCPs you need by buying them from other players. I had a friend who didn't spend a cent in the game and did Geffen Magic Tournament and Faceworm everyday. After a month he got Fenrir Card, sold it for 12B and started to gear his GX. Then again the bane of P2W is that you're spoiled for choice and once you reach endgame, you get bored. He quit the game because there was nothing to do anymore. With how slow the updates come in iRO you'd expect to be waiting a long time before new content is released.
Which brings me back to the whole P2W discussion where those who are buying these OCP's and Kachua's and Costumes are the ones fueling the server to go on. Its that money that pays for iRO employees salaries (even though we don't seem to see where our money is going 99% of the time). It also pays for new content. I wonder how much they had to raise to pay Gravity enough to warrant the 17.2 update but I guarantee you that money came from the number of overpowered gear that players gambled on. There's also the refine system which in itself is a requirement otherwise your gear wont work properly. I personally think that some of the refine options are completely unnecessary yet they exist.
I guess to end this long discussion, the server needs our money to keep going. If the P2W players dont spend money, what are the F2P players gonna play? I guess its an eco-system that Gravity has created and put itself in the middle of.
Do you have to spend in the game? Absolutely not! But between F2P and P2W players, one cannot exist without the other. Such is the cycle Ragnarok has manufactured through the years.
Also, to answer the question. I like playing RO because I love making bad decisions lol!
Edited by therevengeofnico, 15 May 2023 - 02:45 PM.
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