3 replies to this topic

[Mwrip]

Renewal did some things good, some things bad. By far the most damaging though has been the death of the party game. We've lost about 2/3 of our playerbase to it, and pretty much every non-WoE guild I know of is now either dead, or still together, but only because they also (or only) play other games. This in turn drops newbie retention to near 0, since even people planning on mainly pvping start in these guilds.

That's not to say iRO staff hasn't tried their best. They gave TIs to force parties to work *somewhere*. They made Overlook as the first of a series of "elite" dungeons to bring the challenge back (although almost no one parties it due to class setup). They demanded better xp share rules, and actually got kRO to deliver them... probably the only thing they've ever agreed to do for a version that wasn't kRO or jRO. They went out of their way to collect feedback as to exactly what was broken and why. All of these are positive steps that clearly show they're trying as hard as they can, and that's great to see. I have a great deal of respect for iRO's staff and their dedication to this game.

Unfortunately, while iRO can take - and is taking - steps to limit the damage, they can't fix this fundamental gaping hole in the game. kRO has to do that, and looking at what we're finally getting for changes after 13 months, it doesn't look like they have any plans to bring back the fun, challenging party game that used to be the core of RO. The majority of the changes seem to be WoE-oriented,

Renewal is heavily rigged to be a solo-only game - easy monsters, severe xp penalties for fighting over your level, classes that can do everything, and classes that useless in parties because they can't justify their exp share (and even if they could, would be rejected anyway since no one would take them over vastly stronger classes). All of this combines to form a system where no one will touch the party system unless it's a TI, or they've decided that they're going to party *in spite* of the system instead of because of it. Class roles used to actually mean something, and I really don't see anything in this upcoming balance patch causing them to do so once again.

Has kRO agreed to do anything at all to address any of these problems? If not, is there anything iRO can do to force things to work again? I've stayed this long (and even continued to pay into the game) in the hopes that this would finally happen, but well... I just don't see it at this point. Is there an actual plan that kRO has signed off on, and we're just not seeing the results yet because it all depends on 14.1 being live, or have they still not agreed to really do anything yet after all this time?

[ZeoKenX]

Renewal did some things good, some things bad. By far the most damaging though has been the death of the party game. We've lost about 2/3 of our playerbase to it, and pretty much every non-WoE guild I know of is now either dead, or still together, but only because they also (or only) play other games. This in turn drops newbie retention to near 0, since even people planning on mainly pvping start in these guilds.

That's not to say iRO staff hasn't tried their best. They gave TIs to force parties to work *somewhere*. They made Overlook as the first of a series of "elite" dungeons to bring the challenge back (although almost no one parties it due to class setup). They demanded better xp share rules, and actually got kRO to deliver them... probably the only thing they've ever agreed to do for a version that wasn't kRO or jRO. They went out of their way to collect feedback as to exactly what was broken and why. All of these are positive steps that clearly show they're trying as hard as they can, and that's great to see. I have a great deal of respect for iRO's staff and their dedication to this game.

Unfortunately, while iRO can take - and is taking - steps to limit the damage, they can't fix this fundamental gaping hole in the game. kRO has to do that, and looking at what we're finally getting for changes after 13 months, it doesn't look like they have any plans to bring back the fun, challenging party game that used to be the core of RO. The majority of the changes seem to be WoE-oriented,

Renewal is heavily rigged to be a solo-only game - easy monsters, severe xp penalties for fighting over your level, classes that can do everything, and classes that useless in parties because they can't justify their exp share (and even if they could, would be rejected anyway since no one would take them over vastly stronger classes). All of this combines to form a system where no one will touch the party system unless it's a TI, or they've decided that they're going to party *in spite* of the system instead of because of it. Class roles used to actually mean something, and I really don't see anything in this upcoming balance patch causing them to do so once again.

Has kRO agreed to do anything at all to address any of these problems? If not, is there anything iRO can do to force things to work again? I've stayed this long (and even continued to pay into the game) in the hopes that this would finally happen, but well... I just don't see it at this point. Is there an actual plan that kRO has signed off on, and we're just not seeing the results yet because it all depends on 14.1 being live, or have they still not agreed to really do anything yet after all this time?

The same 2/3rds of the user base that left are the same ones that had 6-8 clients running at once leeching each character they had ignoring party invites too.In turn,Renewal imo simplified what wasnt really intended for people to do in the 1st place if you ask me.Now pretty much every class (aside from ABs) can kill on their own + level up fast since the hardcore players would do that in Pre Renewal anyways in that "usual" style.I think thats why party exp was nerfed.

[Mwrip]

The game wasn't free to play before Renewal. If you seriously think that 2/3 of Ymir's players were paying the subscription fee 6-8 times, I don't think we're playing the same game. I don't understand why hardcore WoE players can't understand that people play RO for reasons besides WoE. I know that to a hardcore WoEr, PvM content was nothing but an obstacle to joining WoE, so you'd use every trick in the book you could to streamline it. I can also understand how this new system benefits that style of player - and how it was designed to stop most of those tricks.

However, what they've done in the process is give those who played the game FOR its PvM absolutely nothing to do, and that's where our populace went. I highly doubt more than 5% self-leeched. The only people I knew who ever multiaccounted on Ymir were either vending on one account and playing on another, or had a link/buff/endow/whatever slave parked on a map. I do not know a single player who actually leveled something with a self-leech.

Believe it or not, entire guilds of non-WoE players once existed, and they focused on challenging party play, something the game used to have tons of, and it was adding even more in that direction with instances. Then they completely discarded that idea and those guilds all collapsed.

If you're worried about leechers, add a rule that your monster xp gain is shut off if you haven't attacked or used a skill in the last 5 minutes, and remains off until you act again. Bam, no more leeching, without kicking the entire PvM community out of the game.

[TheSquishy]

Well we are fortunate that the iRO team implemented weekly turn-ins as a temp patch until the party
situation is fixed by kRO. Before that, it was pretty much Kaahi slaving yourself to 150 or not level at all.

KRO has been dragging its feet about rescaling monster XP and difficulty.


I hate how kRO makes rather small issues into monumental task. A systematic rescaling of monster XP and stats
needs to be done. At a minimum they could start with mob density and xp reward. This could be done by dungeon, then fix the more numerous over world maps later. One dungeon every 2 weeks being tweaked and tested.

For instance Ice Cave 3 is now mostly uninhabited. It has monsters with stats and elements that are perfect prey for magicians. However, because the presence of Gazeti, most magicians do not want to solo here and the XP is so low you can't entice a priest to accompany you. Doubling the XP of titans would make Ice cave attractive to small parties of 2-3. Or Geffen dungeon, a fairly difficult dungeon for its level range and the types of mobs make it very attractive for specific types of killers, but the xp given for the difficulty of the mobs is terrible. Why expend so many resources to level there when you could just ctrl+ click stapos for better XP and little chance of death? A higher spawn could at least attract ME priest.

I know our iRO GMs are bogged down with the balance patch, but I hope afterwards they could re-examine certain
under used dungeons.