85 replies to this topic

[Hrishi]

I would prefer it if the box did not give gear that trumped every ingame equivalent (think dress hats when they were first released for example). Rideword hats are a very good choice as it is useful, yet only in specific situations.

Edited by Hrishi, 16 August 2012 - 11:37 PM.

[trahsc]

This new box idea is extremely similar to the box system that was used in SEGA/Three Rings Design's Spiral Knights circa 2011.

That game had an Iron Lockbox / Silver Key / Shadow Key system that is remarkably similar to Heimdallr's proposed idea.

It was mildly successful, but extremely unpopular, as the boxes themselves diminished in value extremely quickly relative to keys, to the point where boxes were nearly worthless due to overfarming, and suffered from the same pseudo-gambling issues of many other F2P game 'lucky box' systems.

Major differences between that system and this proposed system:

-Heimdallr's system would require wearing a specific headgear to farm boxes(significant only for mechanics reasons)
-The ability to 'force-open' the box for a small chance at a silver key(inefficient, exploitable)

From my experiences with that game, I feel like this new proposed system would not be particularly different in effectiveness from the old Lucky Box system. Sure, there will be a brief feeling of gimmicky 'new-ness' when a system like this is launched, but once that new feeling wears off, it will simply be a more complicated, more frustrating, and more exploitable version of the old Lucky Box system.

This new proposed system does not solve any of the inherent problems of a Lucky Box system; it simply allows for a different delivery mechanic.

I personally feel that if you must include Lucky Boxes, use the old system, and do not waste time with this new proposed system. That time could be better spent on promoting a positive, bug-free game world with a simple, bug-free cash shop-- veteran players of RO need little else.

[Tsuka]

Killing monsters, I'd say no.

A repeatable quest would be much better, I'd say. Bots have a lot harder time doing quests, especially ones that require some effort, than just farming monsters.

WIN...
But i think here it should be items turning in, only changing the items that we need to give for the NPC, [and some items could stay that way]
And max level to level 75 instead 86.

Edited by Tsuka, 17 August 2012 - 04:15 AM.

[Xystrian]

I think the unopenable box isn't a bad idea, but I think what needs to be considered is what is available in them. It wasn't the boxes that people hated, but the items you could get in them, MCAs especially. Boxes were double-edged swords. On the one hand, newer and less privelaged players could actually had a chance of getting things like a Ghostring or Deviling card, but on the other hand the value, both monetary and personal, dropped. Perhaps that was intentional, perhaps not, but I know that's what made a lot of people unhappy. And of course there's the whole "pay to win" that a lot of people don't feel is fair. Some people can drop a hundred or two hundred bucks a month into kafra items, use what they want then sell the rest and make a few hundred million zeny in a weekend without doing anything to earn it.

I would say simply don't allow anything tradeable, but I know that's not going to happen, so the only thing that I can suggest is to simply not include anything that's going to be game-breaking. No MCAs, no ridiculously powerful headgears or other equipment that outclass high tier in-game equips, stuff like that. As long as you do that you won't put players not spending a ton of money on boxes at a huge disadvantage.

The argument that boxes don't have anything that doesn't have a similar in-game equivilent is invalid. First, when the Zodiacs first came out there was no headgear that was stronger, and second the availability of the item is more of a concern. Yeah, you could get a GR card without having to buy MCAs, but consider that you have to hunt something with only 3 spawns worldwide, and about an hour cool down for each one, and the competition of everyone else on the server who also wants to get one. And of course there will always be people who already have everything, but continue to hunt things like GR and GTB cards just so they can control as many of them as they can. Most of these people are the ones who accumulated their wealth and power through Kafra Shop items and boxes, which is just adding insult to injury. First you hunt items instead of just buying them, while everyone else buys them surpasses you, then those same people prevent you from being able to acquire the items your way. The bottom line is boxes need tighter regulations. Although that may be pointless now that people have collectively already gathered countless millions selling rental and headgear boxes. I was really disappointed with that. When the kafra shop first opened nothing was tradeable or vendable. Everyong just grabbed what they needed and played on. Now it's all about exploiting to make as much zeny as you can as fast as you can. Nobody earns anything anymore.

[Codface]

How about doing it the other way round.

Lucky box drops 'blue prints of xxx headgear'

Blue prints are gear that allows drop of 'xxx thread' from mobs

xxx thread
blue print of xxx headgear
plus
random monster drop x50
Can be traded in for the hat

Thus have the interactive part plus buy and sell part.

[Nymmastal]

What if the keys were tied into mini-games? I've never actually done the Izlude Arena but I'm reading about it here and it seems to reward party play while still having the option to solo. it's repeatable and the framework is already there. In the reward list, just erase 5 Honey and put X Silver Key.

It may require a little bit of testing to weed out past bugs that were never fixed. If everybody solos the arena, we have failed. Play through all the different modes and gauge their difficulty and time spent. Then adjust the spawns so that all the solo modes are roughly the same reward/time. Then adjust the spawns of the party modes to be significantly better reward/time than the solo modes. Players calculate everything they do in reward and time.

If things are too easy, throw in some lootless MVPs or something. Get creative.

Edited by Nymmastal, 17 August 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Viri]

Spawn exploits would be so ugly with something like this...

[Xellie]

^I just thought about that, inbefore AA farming, drac farming, hell even amon ra.. (worst)

[jas8907]

What if the keys were tied into mini-games? I've never actually done the Izlude Arena but I'm reading about it here and it seems to reward party play while still having the option to solo. it's repeatable and the framework is already there. In the reward list, just erase 5 Honey and put X Silver Key.

It may require a little bit of testing to weed out past bugs that were never fixed. If everybody solos the arena, we have failed. Play through all the different modes and gauge their difficulty and time spent. Then adjust the spawns so that all the solo modes are roughly the same reward/time. Then adjust the spawns of the party modes to be significantly better reward/time than the solo modes. Players calculate everything they do in reward and time.

If things are too easy, throw in some lootless MVPs or something. Get creative.

Alde Monster races are also trash. Reinventing these types of things would help out, too. Or even say...you could get an ingredient for a headgear only from points from mini-games or you could flat out buy it in the kafra shop. Some people are diligent enough to farm mini-games, while others would rather just pay $ to buy something. Using Kafra shop as the only means to obtain certain headgears kind of ruins the fun in the game. And things like the Evolved Pipe should be able to get the +1 vit enchant somehow besides the kafra shop. Even if some are untradable-that's fine.

[heyxsean]

Boxes should just be for kawaii headgears...

[Pres]

Boxes should just be for kawaii headgears...

[KiaMalificent]

Referring to kill X monsters talk to npc kill x more monsters gather items npc again kinda thing? Something like what I posted in my first post here. x;

This sounds like a fair less botable option, as well as creat vending ops for the item parts. I don't remeber too much QQing from the masses when the pirate quest ran, maybe something like that with a box as a reward?

[DrAzzy]

I think the central concept - giving people a way to grind for boxes, instead of only buy them, is a great idea.

I think the issues other people raised about exploitative farming are the main issue - I don't think you want every single wizard on the server in OD2 spamming (or macroing) SG for boxes - and if you make the rate low enough that mob killing weak monsters isn't unreasonable, then using them to kill monsters normally won't be rewarded adequately.
Doing some sort of custom quest, I think, would be a viable idea. Making only a certain subset of monsters drop the boxen would also work (pick a few that were known to not be mobbable)

The other big issue is what items it should drop. I think a big part of the appeal of classic is that it doesn't have tons of lucky-box-type items floating around. I almost wonder whether it should give rental boxes instead of permanent items (at least as far as gears are concerned)... Because one of the things that I think a lot of people didn't like about the lucky box events is how they absolutely destroyed player interest in vanity headgear.

[Impervious]

Hold your lucky box event like a Valkyrie's gift event.

- Make a bunch of custom monsters that drop the boxes.

- Make some of the monsters plant type for ASPD chars.

- Make some monsters with high DEF and low MDEF for wizards and monks.

- Give the rest of the monsters high MDEF and low DEF for knights, hunters and other melee.

- Make them all boss property to prevent steal abuse.

- Make them all passive and slow to prevent mobbing.

- Spawn the monsters on a chosen map.

Keeping it to one map makes it easier to check for bots and exploits. You can also require the magical stone to warp to the map.

Either keep the map open for a few days with a very low drop rate, or have a high drop rate with limited opportunities to participate (announce them well in advance so people can plan to attend or have a guildmate go in their place).

[Ilex]

Think you'd be able to cannibalize the functionality of the Taekwon Mission skill, and make a lower headgear enable the use of a skill that activates it? Instead of mission points after accomplishing the goal, it could flag the player as eligible to receive a single box from some NPC in whereversville. Of course, I'm sure you'd have to eliminate some of the issues like condensing the monster pool down to things that actually exist, and not mobster.. But I think it would at least go leaps and bounds towards blocking bots, avoiding wizards being the king of the box, as well as imposing a bit of a level restriction in that you have to be prepared to face just about any monster in the game. This also meshes well with the already-being-implemented custom monster spawns favoring maps that actually contain real amounts of individual enemy types.

I have no idea how easy it is to produce a system in Ragnarok Online, so this may be needlessly complicated. I'm just thinking copy/paste edit, instead of having to dive into the ancient runes carved in jade that make this game work.

[Eternal]

You could make it available on like an instance map that requires x amount of players to activate.

[HikariYari]

They could always rehash the talk like a pirate day quests to give out the boxes and be repeatable.

Well seeing as talk like a pirate day is next month.

Edited by HikariYari, 18 August 2012 - 09:58 AM.

[SisterGoat]

I really like the Christmas event where you did a quest to get a hat, once per character, then used it to drop presents, then turned in presents for items.

[ampnket]

I would like it if there was a way to prevent bots from farming them. This will make people with bots highly rich from what im seeing

As completing some type of decent quest would do this^

Edited by ampnket, 20 August 2012 - 06:06 AM.

[Petal1]

+1 to making it a difficult/group requiring activity so that bots can't join in, also would be good if it wasn't drop based so that larger parties and all classes could join in....

I personally think that encouraging group activity would be a big plus at the moment.

[MrTyranitar]

I would like it if there was a way to prevent bots from farming them. This will make people with bots highly rich from what im seeing

As completing some type of decent quest would do this^

Assuming it's some form of item collecting or kill-count quest, what prevents bots from doing it?

[Tsuka]

I have an IDEA, enable PVP in BOT's Maps, and when kill an bot drop an skull, this skull will be changed on those items. [This works with BOT's and non BOT's players.]

Edited by Tsuka, 21 August 2012 - 05:52 AM.

[Shionxoxo]

Whatever you decide on, test the content/event thoroughly before releasing it.

Unless the boxes drop from MvPs, bots will have the upper hand. Requiring a Magic Stone or certain level will limit it, but not by much.

[Shadiah]

I just browsed through this and not sure if anyone mentioned it but!

This box sounds JUST LIKE THE GOCASH COSTUME BOX.

The good things are account bound and say you wanted 1 pencil but instead you get say... 3 account bound rideword hats. Well.... what can you do? I feel like this could lead to a situation similar to where people were stuck with multiples of costume gears they didn't need/want with no way to get rid of them aside from putting them on a char and deleting it. And I'm sure no one really wants to do that with rare box gear but if it's account bound, there will be no equitable way to get rid of excess gear you don't need that's taking up storage space.

[ampnket]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand botters win!