86 replies to this topic

[Kadelia]

Let me just preface this by saying, I enjoy that there is some dialogue about adding content players will enjoy to the game, but this is the wrong direction. Polishing the game-- making it shine-- is more preferable than adding broken toys and holes in the floor for people to toss money into. I'd really rather love to see a compiled list of everything that should be fixed in this game (weapon sprites, piece skill, skills without animation, ugly 3rd job sprites, incentives for partying, etc).

What follows is my rationale as to why Heimdallr's idea is less a "how can we make RO more memorable and enjoyable of an experience," and more a "how can we frustrate as many casual players as possible while milking money from the hyper-competitive ones we still have left".

This whole topic is lame and I can't bear that our own game management is pushing for this. I can believe it (easily) but can't stand it. It's really disheartening now, even with Gravity's horribad track record which should keep me from being surprised at such things.

Gravity USA's staff appears to be a very young/immature one. I sometimes feel like the only reason they have any degree of professionalism is what they say is monitored by an older gent a few levels of management above them.

Their ideas for game incentive all revolve around instant gratification and zero insight toward consequence. They also have an extremely steep leaning curve. Seriously? We'e done this several times. We've tried a WoE where everyone could 1 shot each other or become invulnerable gods. It was called Sakris and then Ymir. We lost hundreds upon hundreds of players. God items have proven time and time again to be destructive toward the game because the game's general mechanics are not balanced around them. They are in and of themselves meant to be the exceptions to the norm-- a rare chance for a single person to step above and beyond the normal limits. Over the past 7 years our GMs have done every damn thing they could to unnaturally spawn more and more of these items to the point where it seemed that like 1 in 3 or more people on Ymir had god items and MVP cards. What was supposed to be the exception to the norm became the norm. Arguably, God items should never have been added to the game in the fashion they were-- they don't even function as a woe mechanic. People use them to MVP/PVM more advantageously than people who do not woe, and share them with people who didn't even earn them (or worse, SELL them!).

Now they want people like me who can throw tons of money at the game invest an infinite stock of this high tier mechanics in every aspect of the game? Are you trying to drive off more players? I'd say you were crazy & shortsighted but I think we already know you are. Have for a long time. This even goes beyond god items and MVP cards. People just plain do not like "pay to win" aspects of the game, such as selling items in the kafra shop that are superior to items earned in game, or become far more accessible through the kafra shop than in game.

Something you need to keep in mind is to look at kRO or jRO, see what sort of things they are tossing out, and look at a private server. Now ask yourself which player base pays money. you're trying to make the game like a private server but expecting money. You are setting yourselves up for extreme failure.

Improving RO and gaining new players needs to be about making the overall experience of RO more memorable and enjoyable. That means no bugs, no rushed, ugly sprites, more immersable storyline content, less weighty feeling that your progress in the game is measured by how hyper-competitive you are and how heavy your coin-purse is.

[Fureedo]

Let me just preface this by saying, I enjoy that there is some dialogue about adding content players will enjoy to the game, but this is the wrong direction. Polishing the game-- making it shine-- is more preferable than adding broken toys and holes in the floor for people to toss money into. I'd really rather love to see a compiled list of everything that should be fixed in this game (weapon sprites, piece skill, skills without animation, ugly 3rd job sprites, incentives for partying, etc).

What follows is my rationale as to why Heimdallr's idea is less a "how can we make RO more memorable and enjoyable of an experience," and more a "how can we frustrate as many casual players as possible while milking money from the hyper-competitive ones we still have left".

This whole topic is lame and I can't bear that our own game management is pushing for this. I can believe it (easily) but can't stand it. It's really disheartening now, even with Gravity's horribad track record which should keep me from being surprised at such things.

Gravity USA's staff appears to be a very young/immature one. I sometimes feel like the only reason they have any degree of professionalism is what they say is monitored by an older gent a few levels of management above them.

Their ideas for game incentive all revolve around instant gratification and zero insight toward consequence. They also have an extremely steep leaning curve. Seriously? We'e done this several times. We've tried a WoE where everyone could 1 shot each other or become invulnerable gods. It was called Sakris and then Ymir. We lost hundreds upon hundreds of players. God items have proven time and time again to be destructive toward the game because the game's general mechanics are not balanced around them. They are in and of themselves meant to be the exceptions to the norm-- a rare chance for a single person to step above and beyond the normal limits. Over the past 7 years our GMs have done every damn thing they could to unnaturally spawn more and more of these items to the point where it seemed that like 1 in 3 or more people on Ymir had god items and MVP cards. What was supposed to be the exception to the norm became the norm. Arguably, God items should never have been added to the game in the fashion they were-- they don't even function as a woe mechanic. People use them to MVP/PVM more advantageously than people who do not woe, and share them with people who didn't even earn them (or worse, SELL them!).

Now they want people like me who can throw tons of money at the game invest an infinite stock of this high tier mechanics in every aspect of the game? Are you trying to drive off more players? I'd say you were crazy & shortsighted but I think we already know you are. Have for a long time. This even goes beyond god items and MVP cards. People just plain do not like "pay to win" aspects of the game, such as selling items in the kafra shop that are superior to items earned in game, or become far more accessible through the kafra shop than in game.

Something you need to keep in mind is to look at kRO or jRO, see what sort of things they are tossing out, and look at a private server. Now ask yourself which player base pays money. you're trying to make the game like a private server but expecting money. You are setting yourselves up for extreme failure.

Improving RO and gaining new players needs to be about making the overall experience of RO more memorable and enjoyable. That means no bugs, no rushed, ugly sprites, more immersable storyline content, less weighty feeling that your progress in the game is measured by how hyper-competitive you are and how heavy your coin-purse is.

Sadly, most of your argument is invalid since the scrolls wouldn't be obtained with real money.

It's true that the sprites and countless bugs would be a nice things to be fixed, mostly the bugs, but it's probably a cost-benefit thing.

What will bring the most players? A cool epic quests system? or sprites for every weapons?
Now, consider the first one takes a few weeks to develop, while the other takes months, which is worth more?

Now, i'm not against everything. I'm guessing that they're dividing their efforts actually. iRO can't develop that many things, it seems they can only use the ressources included in ro to make npcs. That means reusing npc sprites, item sprites, and the only thing they can create are quests and npcs. Simple quests too, nothing that would need a variable or something that doesn't exist in the server's software yet.

Everything ELSE ( that is, sprites, 3rd job sprites, anything sprite and map related, anything system related) is handled by HQ, and then probably sent to iro in a neat little .exe which they can't modify. Which means they can't modify the party exp withouth poking HQ, which they did. (KRO fixed manymanymany things recently, we should see those soon...hopefully)

Now, what heim is asking is more like "Oh hey, we asked stuff to HQ, now we're forced to wait for them to give us cool stuff. What can WE, with the ressources iro have, do to make cool things that would keep you interested in the game? I had that one cool idea that sounds great, what do you think?"

Keep in mind that the only thing they can do is create NPCs with recycled sprites, and items with, once again, recycled sprites.

Inb4 someone quote me and says I don't know anything since I don,t work for gravity..../sigh

Edited by Fureedo, 20 April 2011 - 06:14 AM.

[Kadelia]

I don't even believe iRO Gravity can't even make new items like the ones mentioned here without getting it approved by kRO. Much like the other stuff it's wait & see.

Also none of my post is invalidated. Try diffusing my logic (good luck) rather than making sweeping assumptions about iRO's intentions.

An example of Heim's idea of something that can be obtained in game (and thus, in his opinion avoiding the 'pay2win' argument) is to make something available 1 time per character on a quest that takes an hour or two, and then to make it available in infinite quantities with 0 effort from the kafra shop. In which case, as usual, people can pay to get ahead. Sure, you can make a +7 st. patrick's hat in game by doing the quest on about 6 characters and breaking 5 hats before making the +7, or you can buy the hat from the cash shop, use enriched ori to get it made in about 3 attempts, and get it to +9 in 1/50th the time the other player took, and get to reap the benefits longer. The game doesn't reward merit now. And it sounds like he wants to give the scrolls out as rewards for competitions. The same types of competitions hyper-competitive people loaded with god items win-- not the casual players who are supposed to be experiencing the God items they never get to have access to as he claimed before. Nothing makes sense about his proposal and it is not very well thought out. Nothing is changed here from what I said above.

If heim really wanted to give underpriviledged people an opportunity to 'taste' god items in a non-destructive way we'd see something like kRO's idea for training grounds (tasting the jobs). Where you'd have a cool/engaging instance quest where you'd be called upon to be a hero solo and given a bunch of gifts from the norse gods (i.e. megingjard, mjolnir, etc) that are char bound and weigh 0, and during the instance you used them. Exisitng the instance you're unequipped and they're deleted (just like with the swordie manual, etc).

Edited by Jaye, 20 April 2011 - 06:37 AM.

[Fibrizzo]

Yay, alice shield and gtb scroll!!! Who's gonna be affraid of MvPs now? xD

[GuardianTK]

Heim, you're the one that's not making any sense in terms of the test server's use. Its main use is to test builds for players and for players to test quests to look out for bugs to report. It allows players to know what to expect out of their build rather than worrying about it later and having to force themselves to reset. It provides them with anticipation.

Why not do a test server wipe every so often to prevent players from directly trying to populate it? It's for tests after all. And if they get bored of the content that would be on the test server, they'll get bored of the real server content eventually as well. This last statement is the flaw in your logic. And if they want a social environment, they would play the official servers. A test server will also allow a player to try out the effects of god items as well, before trying to get one on the main servers.

Edited by GuardianTK, 20 April 2011 - 07:03 AM.

[Xellie]

It's really sad how many people here didn't actually read the topic.

The way I envision it would be a buff that lasts no more than 10 seconds, has a 1 hour reuse delay and has an expiry date (1 week and all scrolls are wiped at maint) and are char bound at a limit of 10 per char - just for a little fun. As a GTB user now and someone who didn't have access to a GTB for 7+ years, I think it'd be amusing, smart people would save them for mvps, not for WoE, those worried about people having comp with those buffs, hi, they probably have them anyway, have a little fun!

I love the quest idea. When you do the AB quest you get given a freaking VALK MERC scroll. Some quests that give you god like item scrolls or buffs would be pretty fun and a nice change. I can see them having somme lore such as reliving the lives of old heroes yadda yadda and it wouldn't affect ANYTHING outside of that quest. Not WoE , not PVM , not MVP.

Lighten up guys.

And to whoever said Heim only talks to greedy Elitists, Eh, If I was one of those I'd say NO YOU CANT BE AS AWESOME AS I AM!

[Puppet]

stop trying to turn the server into a pserver......

[brokenguy]

imo fix the bugs first... You know.. VIP extra drop rate.. gum drop rate.. BB, KVM.. etc...

[Kadelia]

I love the quest idea. When you do the AB quest you get given a freaking VALK MERC scroll. Some quests that give you god like item scrolls or buffs would be pretty fun and a nice change. I can see them having somme lore such as reliving the lives of old heroes yadda yadda and it wouldn't affect ANYTHING outside of that quest. Not WoE , not PVM , not MVP.

not coincidentally this is similar to my suggestion, so I agree. the AB jobchange gives that valk to you temporarily and you don't really get the opportunity to use it in woe/pvp/mvp or anything outside of the instance it was designed for. I would not mind seeing any number of fantastic buffs or gear if they were limited to private instances and had zero impact on leveling, mvp, woe, pvp, whatnot, and were clearly there for fun purposes. People would probably like that too, and as long as they're not abuseable, exp or items could come from the instance as long as they were balanced for the public game.

[Beata]

How about this, while you are planning the perm turn ins.. why don't you create special zones for them and provide the super buffs within such areas only? I don't see the harm in that I guess. You could also make the buff scrolls bought with zeny after doing a little quest.. again only within these special zones. Could always make the scrolls none usable if the zone was changed for a reason or another.

[DrAzzy]

How'd I miss the old post on this?

A few quick thoughts...

I like the concept. I feel like this idea could be applied to things much weaker than the godly ones you're mentioning - with correspondingly longer durations/lower cost/more ease of obtaining. Raydric and Thara Frog potions in the kafra shop?


Also, a temporary GTB that even had the full power of the original wouldn't be as broken as it was pre-renewal.
One that just did super-mdef though, would be nearly useless, at least in woe/pvp - What matters about GTB in woe/pvp is the things it lets you ignore entirely, and the flinches it gets rid of. Everyone can already outpot the magic damage it prevents. But the ability to walk through magic without flinching, and not get stuck by manholes and vacuums , etc - that's what the use of the GTB is.
Whereas in pvm, the negation of magic damage is relevant against MVPs, and a simple "super mdef" effect would do the trick.
It almost seems like in order to be useful, while also being balanced, a temporary GTB would need to have different effects in pvp/woe vs pvm. Also, for balancing this theoretical GTB potion, don't forget that a GTB replaces a shield card - the GTB potion should mimic this tradeoff if it's to be balanced. Then again, if it was just super-mdef (and hence, only useful in pvm), that wouldn't be an issue.

On balance....

Items take up equipment slots. Make sure that one can't stack the item-mimicing-consumable with the item itself (i'm thinking of Meginjard here, but it would also be very important with any of these. Certainly for the raydric and t-frog mimicing consumables i suggested above) and get an unbalanced result.

Unless it's really hard to get, and available only in limited quantities, or mimics an item that's easy to get, it should always be inferior to the item it's made in the image of.
An item-mimicing-potion that mimic'ed the effects of a common item, on the other hand, could be made more easily available, or even sold in the kafra shop.

So a "GTB potion" would be less powerful than a GTB card, unless it required a really epic quest to get a small sample of.
A "Meginjard belt polish" item that was obtainable through a difficult, but not really epic, means might add less strength than the original. Ya know, there's an idea - When you finish a seal quest, you could get an item-mimicing consumable that offers a (somewhat weaker) approximation of the effects of the item.

[Viri]

Why not let them stack?! The cranial valk armor that was floating around for a bit was epic. lol

[Xellie]

not coincidentally this is similar to my suggestion, so I agree. the AB jobchange gives that valk to you temporarily and you don't really get the opportunity to use it in woe/pvp/mvp or anything outside of the instance it was designed for. I would not mind seeing any number of fantastic buffs or gear if they were limited to private instances and had zero impact on leveling, mvp, woe, pvp, whatnot, and were clearly there for fun purposes. People would probably like that too, and as long as they're not abuseable, exp or items could come from the instance as long as they were balanced for the public game.

I assure you it is a coincidence, your posts are too long for me to read and my ideas are based purely from bantering with Heim on MSN!


I really think if anything like this found a way into mainstream game, it would have to have an expiry date.

[Mwrip]

The rental god item / boss card thing is a problem, because the items in question are HORRIBLY unbalanced. For instance, the ultimate nuker cards are the Fallen Bishop (+50% damage vs. humanoid and +10% matk) and the High Wizard (Ignore MDEF completely, but raise cast times). The ultimate anti-nuker card is "Complete and utter unnegatable immunity to all magic, period". Casters already suck in Renewal, but if we need to assume that half of our opponents will be GTBed, then we basically don't exist.

If we tone the cards down, it actually breaks in the other direction. If we give all the casters 80% MDEF pierce with +40% damage, and give everyone resisting them 80% MDEF (which is then pierced), you can see the problem here.

There's a similar issue with the god items. Asp and Bryn are pretty well-balanced regardless of what you're playing, but look at the WoE 1 items.
Melee can get +80 str using just accessories. Melee classes that can equip maces can also get 40 dex on a weapon with impossibly high ATK.
Casters can get +25 int... which is actually weaker than +25 str for a melee.
Ranged? Uhhh... you can run faster. That's about it.

If the boss cards and god items were actually balanced against each other, I would have no problem with everyone being able to enter uber mode 2-3 times per WoE (there definitely needs to be a long cooldown on this stuff, even then). The problem is that the boss cards and god items are horribly unbalanced in a melee direction, and Renewal itself has the same problem. Renewal is already massively skewed in a melee direction to the point that people play little else, but this update would utterly, irrevocably ensure that the few remaining non-melee players are gone for good.

On the other hand, these could be fine in an instance scenario, where you get temporary super powers for the sake of a quest instance, which poof when you leave said instance. That would actually be an interesting way to get players to experience stuff that 99% of us won't ever acquire for real. There is still the balance issue though, as again, what melee can get out of this is miles ahead of what everyone else can.

Edited by Mwrip, 20 April 2011 - 11:49 AM.

[Kadelia]

I can agree to what you said about the God items and MVP cards themselves being poorly balanced against one another. It is true archer-types get almost no use out of god items in siege, and magic-users benefit somewhat less than offensively oriented melee characters. Pretty much just Rune Knights and Royal Guards (maybe some Guillotine Crosses) will be making the best of such items.

If instead the items were like, for example, with the megingjard polish, instead of +20 STR (which is a lame buff... you can do this with genetic food), it could be +25% ATK. Two of these and any physical job works well. Brisingammen can be like +25% MATK and +10% heal, so that in the instance, priests and mage-types can be getting crazy heals and magic damage for fun.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

I feel this is a bad idea overall.

When I play ro I can accept the cash shop, because that is integrated into the game in a powerful way, kind of like the East-India Trading company did in the Caribbean.



The only way I would accept that these items were put into the game, by some means gift or whatever is this:


Don't make them stand alone items. Make them redeemable ingame. Like the Bijofnil.
If they are items is says "gotten from GM team for winning contest" and are mailed ingame by a gm that is seriously something bad.

Make the world more believable. If there are "god-item pots", then have some npc ingame that has gotten fame for going great lengths of study, hardship and endurance to learn of the true god items and have lived in Okolnir for twenty years just to be able to create these amazing pots.



I like the history in RO, it's not perfect and has many flaws but overall it is very enjoyable and rich. Epic tales of Mjolnir, Megjingard and Brynhildr are told in the world of Rune-Midgard. The GM's are supposed to be Demi-Gods themselves, why not grab a hold of the rpg elements?

It's turning more and more into a private server with "put your cash to use" as a slogan. This may seem like a very diffuse post, but while it is important to balance the power of items, it is also important to think about the core of it all. This is supposed to be a mmoRPG, I'm seeing less and less of that.

[Heimdallr]

Since the topic seems to have steered into a "kafra shop" direction rather than just the idea of buff scrolls in general, lets derail and talk about the kafra shop.

What CONSUMABLE reusable types of buffs are of interest to you? Things I'm not talking about are things like, perma buffs (weight up scrolls), hats of anykind, pets, clothing dye, upgrade items, or equipment.

I am interested in getting feadback on what types of buffs are even interesting, I know renewal changed the physics of Midgard a lot, and many buffs like blessings, foods etc were relegated to less powerful than before, so what types of things are now of interest since straight up stat increases aren't really that powerful of an effect?

And yes I'll be honest, I will be seeing what we can do with the likes to improve the kafra shop so it is useful to more players, while still not giving uber upgrades that bend the game over backwards.

The perma buff stuff are a different subject entirely and many of the things in there are under work orders already.

[Xellie]

Soul linker and endow buffs, because nobody plays those classes in a normal way anyway X_X

[ensignfluke]

Soul linker and endow buffs, because nobody plays those classes in a normal way anyway X_X

I play my soul linker in a normal way, but until soul linkers get their 3rd class and can participate in high end content again, might as well add their buffs through scrolls or something.

[GuardianTK]

Heim ignored my post about the test server debate. T.T

[futendoji]

A scroll to reset taekwon masters solar, lunar, stelar, map-mob alingment, or at least to increase the chance of the angel apearing when regaining hp/sp while dori dori, that would be sweet, coz after several skill stat resets i couldnt override those mob-map memos, and they now just dont fit in renewal...
Also going back, to your old topic in here, nice idea, if you get those sample item, into instances, say quest who needs a party of at least 6 people, making those instances pvp, getting to more detail, split the quest into 2, first part non pvp whit a boss-mvp sa end, second part pvp instance acces where it also has boss mobs and where you can use those items and only there, so it would be really a sample item, that everione can simply decide for what items theyre gona grind for, coz the ultimate goal of mvp cards and god items is woe, so letting them being tested in pvp enviroment would be nice, also i think the whole thing whit god item probelm would be so easy fixed whit just limitting theyr existance to a 10% of max server population, or 10% max woe population, theyre suposed to be good items, so unique, so that would be logic to asume there cant be more of those than 10& of the population.Going on-topic in your new one again.
its hard to figure out non overpowered buff scrols for item mall, but thats nt such a big problem if you change kafra points into an ingame tradeable currency, if you in gravity us, need to make more mony to maintain services, thats the easiest way, coz it makes mall items accesible to anyone, by encouraging those who have more cash to buy more as an easy whay to make zeny, and those who dont have that many cash encouraged to farm more to aford kafra mall items. But again as i stated on an edit in an other post already, thet would probably make the bot probelm grow bigger, althought the anti bot squad seems to be working nice now, so it maybe wont be such a big problem, also 1 tip, check the training ground maps often or add some kind of npc dialog where you have to write the answer, and having like 10 diferent questions, and if you fail 2 times consecutive give a 30 min ban on that char, after that if it fails to answer again for 2 times, give it a ban till gm team can check on that new char, like sending that char to the prision map or any other map you can provide for that.
What i really would sugest as a kafra mall item is an acount char slot adder, also maybe a new color bwing, to acces moscovia, new world and brazilis, could maybe work.

Well my best wishes, and suport for my long time beloved game, for some reason i still come back again and again to ro, well maybe that all share the same broken base mechanics makes me chose the one whit the best memories in it, i miss all off you old chaos mates from 7-9 years ago ;-).

Again sorry for this long texts, but its the only way i can be 70& sure to not being misinterpreted.
To iro staff, thx for yur work, keep it asss good or better than in the last 6 months, youre definetly heading the correct directions whit renewal, also i really apreciate that the patch notes where already released.

P.D: To the entire comunity, try to be nice, you will get surpriced on how far it can take you, in real life and in-game; a great experience is provided and created by nice people try to avoid ksing and harrasing people, there is no point on it, also is no point in reporting ksers, i think none of us whants to play alone in an mmo, right? Have fun enjoy your shared virtual world ;-)

[Jing]

how bout just have everyone make their god item set, same thing, not give everyone the power if they have not spent time completing sets.

[Alicesaurus]

A scroll to reset taekwon masters solar, lunar, stelar, map-mob alingment, or at least to increase the chance of the angel apearing when regaining hp/sp while dori dori, that would be sweet, coz after several skill stat resets i couldnt override those mob-map memos, and they now just dont fit in renewal...

YES PLEASE, long overdue


I wouldn't mind you selling +30 hit foods in the kafra shop, I think they would be popular.

[IronFist]

I want some ARMOUR ENCHANTMENTS, i soooooo sick of dragon breath slaughtering me even when they have no weapon/Armour!! some elemental armour enchantments like they have for weapons would be SICK!!

[Cubical]

I do not like this at all. It's a bunch of game breaking[GTB effect, god item effects] stuff applied onto scrolls which has the tendency to be abused in too many different ways.

Soul linker and endow buffs, because nobody plays those classes in a normal way anyway X_X

this for kafra stuff i would like very much

also echoing the hit foods i would also buy those for MVPs

Edited by Cubical, 21 April 2011 - 12:58 PM.