Feelings about Renewal

People QQ everywhere for changes that are supposed to prepare the game for future patches, of course you will cast slower, heal less, do less damage and whatnot, it was supposed to be like that from the beginning! everyone is toned down so 3rd classes can get better gear and the new level cap to compensate that.

Monsters aren't that equal there's still elemental factors, defense even if it isnt so importantt, size penalties, etc. They have more or less the same HP and that's good so they all die at the same time and don't make you waste extra sp. In some aspects it feels like we went back to 2004 where mob training was the most efficient technique rather than killing high exp single targets, that's the first impresion though, no one has tested NI, Bio3, Thors, AL, etc where you most likely need a party and probably won't be able to solo.

Drop penalties I believe they want to enforce the creation of new caracters, remember this update hits all the old servers where everyone and their moms is 99 trans or so and there is no level restart for 3rd classes since you just continue from 99 to 150 so without that the low level maps would go desert because most people would be in the 99~150 range. Stuff like poison spores are easily killed by lv60 2nd jobs and you dont get any penalty.

Oh well changes are always like this, that's typical to the human race but you have to deal with it, just don't freak out and get used to it because this prepares us for future changes and there is no turn back.

Edited by Wanderer, 13 September 2010 - 05:43 AM.

It seems almost every player comes to the same conclusion...

The drop rates suck, so does the leveling caps, and all the monsters feel the same.

It's actually true though, with these new mechanics I feel like I'm playing a crappy WoW. I've been leveling a rogue this entire time and didn't even bother with any skills until base level 60. All the monsters were just point and kill. I just slapped on a dagger with zipper bear cards and went to work. Honestly, why change the cards if they only modify the weapon now, and if that's the case, the zipper bear card will end up beating any race/element card. With all the monsters being so generic it makes a lot of drops worthless now. Why hunt goblin, strouf, or peco peco egg cards when they're really not needed? I haven't thoroughly tested this theory, as I don't feel like grinding for zeny, and levels, to test all the cards and weapons I originally planned to.

I understand that we want new players, however aside from the first 7 levels in training grounds this game is WORSE for new players. I tested this theory as to do small power leveling for beginners. I would always guide new players to hunt popos until level 30ish, but with the new exp system there's no point considering they give garbage exp. It also made me look, why do we care so much to cater to these mid-levels being fun, when they aren't. No player, new or old, wants to go "Oooh I can't wait to be a Knight, screw Lord Knight or Rune Knight!" As soon as a new player sees that character, they want the best. Mid-levels suck, they have once trans. came out, and with the third class they suck even harder. You should in fact, make the leveling easier to make the new players enjoy the actual fun content of the game.

Not only does this leveling system screw with the veterans, it really messes up brand new players. If a new person runs around pront asking for help, no one will be able to tell them where to go for leveling(since the veterans won't step foot in the lower level places)and they can't tank them, because there really is no point.

Please give me my unique monsters back. I was horribly disappointed when I was able to kill a strouf, merman, ninetails, gajomart, matyr, GG, and random other monsters with the same stats and dagger(yes that's right, from a level 49-58 rogue I didn't even change my stats. Even if I did, I just increased my agi for flee and dex for hit considering Str didn't really do much).

The sad thing is, I really was looking forward to renewal and only had good things to say about it....until I tested it. Renewal is not new player friendly, and plays like a worse version of any popular MMO out now. A couple of thoughts, is to leave a lot of the things in iRO currently. If we need quest ideas, I honestly believe you can ask your fan base to write quests. A lot of people here, especially, would go as far as to pick items and maps for these quests, just to see them in the game. I could probably say more, but I'm tired from reading a lot of the same problems, and trying to find the good things of grinding for these levels. No matter how much of the mechanics you try to change, if the core of the game is not fun, then the game won't be fun...

Read my previous post again =)

I am all for change wanderer i have never been afraid of renewal until i heard about the drop nerf. That is what scares me. The economy of a game is VERY important (in my opinion one of THE most important aspects of a game). Any change to the economy can be scary but that is not to say they are all bad.

This change however is just insane (it reminds me of Runescape where they took away ALL player trading and you had to trade in this grand arena thing where you could never know who you were trading with...to stop gold selling) this issue there is THEY set the prices so there was no more buy low and sell high aspect to the economy. If you could get someone to buy your item for a higher price you should be able to do it!

The same type of issues are going to happen with this drop nerf. Why should i have to delete one of my characters i worked hard on to get where they are just so they can have normal drops...then watch them level again just to delete them again?!?! No that is not why i play MMORPGs. I play them so i can KEEP getting my characters stronger and better decked out in cool gear etc etc. Not to start over and over again. If the idea behind this is to make you start over and over again then i might as well just pay for a console game once and play that over and over again and save myself a ton of money...

People QQ everywhere for changes that are supposed to prepare the game for future patches, of course you will cast slower, heal less, do less damage and whatnot, it was supposed to be like that from the beginning! everyone is toned down so 3rd classes can get better gear and the new level cap to compensate that.

Heal was already underpowered compared to pots in preRenewal. There's definitely no need to nerf Heal any further when it was weak to begin with. . .

Edited by Prodigy, 13 September 2010 - 07:17 AM.

You don't need to delete anything, on kRO the range at which the drops get slightly lower is higher so you are going to reach the exp reduction range before that, killing a monster that already gives low exp and receiving 1/10 of that exp is going to stop you from getting more levels so you dont reach higher drop penalty.

Heal is initially toned down, you have gears, you also have highness heal, coluceo heal, get more bishops and you have 2x, 3x the healing power, no need to panic.

Edited by Wanderer, 13 September 2010 - 07:25 AM.

Oh so the xp drop from a monster comes before you get the item drop issue? So if you get to the point where you get next to nothing from a monster xp wise in theory could you just keep hunting that monster for drops because you won't hit the item drop issue? I guess i am juts fuzzy on the drop issue because i have not seen any hard data on what % drop you lose and what lvl difference you have to be to get said drop issue...

I just really hate the idea of having to have a lvl 10 char just for hunting blue herbs etc?!

Heal is initially toned down, you have gears, you also have highness heal, coluceo heal, get more bishops and you have 2x, 3x the healing power, no need to panic.

I've already seen bishops in Pront do some reaaaaally high number heals, so I actually had no idea that Heal was, in fact, toned down at all. I can't imagine how much higher the numbers would go if this nerf gets removed. @@; Which makes me wonder whether some of these nerfs were implemented just because some of those 3rd class skills are so overpowered... I haven't tested any 3rd classes yet myself, nor do I know much about them, so someone else may have a better feel for this.

I guess i am juts fuzzy on the drop issue because i have not seen any hard data on what % drop you lose and what lvl difference you have to be to get said drop issue...

I would really love to see hard data on this as well.
From my experience so far, I can remember at least 2 occasions where I noticed a huge difference in the rate I was finding the drops I was looking for between when the lvl difference was 2 to when the lvl difference was 1 or 0. In both these cases, I started hunting when I was 2 lvls below the monster's lvl, and noticed I seemed to get more of what I was looking for as I got closer to the monster's lvl. Of course, this could just purely be my own rotten luck, and there may be no drop penalty at all for just a 2 lvl difference, which is why I'm even more curious to see hard data on this.



As for the EXP rate, I've actually been leveling through the Eden Group quests to test the leveling curve and haven't done a single Helpful Henry quest yet (yeah... I'm an odd one... /swt ). And so far, I actually think the EXP is rather fair, considering there were absolutely no mercenaries, battle manuals, and the repeatable EXP turn-ins we have on our main servers right now. I was honestly reminded of my 2004 iRO days as I visited old, currently deserted maps (one reason why I love the missions system and the new map features, they actually make you try to visit different maps, and thanks to that, I actually visited a couple maps that I've never visited pre-Renewal myself) but compared to back then, I noticed the leveling went by much much faster - job 50 took weeks and months for me back then, when I reached it in a matter of days with this test. What I don't know is how much of this ease is actually due to the gears I have... probably a lot. New players will probably have to rely on the Eden Group equips more, but I'm wondering up to what point these equips will remain helpful. With the way the economy is on Ymir and Valk right now, new players are going to have a very hard time getting equips better than their Eden gear (not to mention that the drop nerf will probably make gear and card prices even higher x_x). Then again, maybe this is where partying is supposed to come into play to help facilitate leveling. I didn't get a chance to test how partying or party share works during these low/mid-levels, and I don't think anyone will be able to (or are willing to) test this until Renewal actually hits the mains.

Now let's see if I'll still feel the same about the EXP in the higher levels, and maybe trans if there's still time.

I enjoy renewal a lot, I don't think I need to say it any more! But if I do have some misgivings.

Issues I have some issue with:

1) Magic attack nerf.
2) Skill balancing, some 3rd job skills are in desperate need of adjustment.
3) Ill mannered behavior: Same as number 2 really, there's not enough done in renewal to prevent using the new skills for nasty purposes.

I also have some concerns with the way renewal will hit iRO. Mainly, I'm concerned about players 'storing up' levels and using them to power level past the new content. Medals to exp is a valid concern (although I think the exp is reduced enough that it's not too viable to use them past 99), but bloody branches I think are way worse. MVPs give so much experience in renewal compared to normal monsters, that leveling via MVP is actually quite viable. My concern is that I imagine that some players may have enough bloody branches to literally max level on opening day. That would spoil the fun considerably.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this and

my other concern is things like exp turn in for items/kill count at various maps. These things would also need to be exp/jexp readjusted.

and i agree @ matk nerf is pretty bad -- although while i do have a hwiz, i dont use her nearly as much so please take into consideration what other true players of the magic class have to say on it cuz the nerf does feel bad

Edited by Cubical, 13 September 2010 - 10:23 AM.

Stuff

Way to go testing on 1x rates up to that level, that's impressive. I did it up to around 25 then started using the NPC. But I felt the same way you do up to that point atleast. The lower levels are actually fun now because you....you know play, instead of being power leveled. The EXP curve is also a lot more friendly than back in the day.

Heal did seem to get toned down pretty hard core. I was asking some priests to give me their heals with buffs. Even with 120+ total int, many heal lvl 10s were only giving about 1700-1800HP. A Bishop with over 130 int total, and a matk wand, was still only doing about 2kish heals with 4ksh highheals. Not entirely sure what the rest of their gear looked like, but you definitely need to go for specific gear to get big numbers flying.

Edited by Pepperoncini, 13 September 2010 - 01:37 PM.

Power leveling is not for noobs though.

Power leveling is for players who should already know how to play their characters and don't need to sit through the tutorials on how to move and attack things.

Well, I've only played for a couple hrs, but here's my observations so far.

Leveling early on feels real slow, but it feels like being low level isn't a determent anymore. Right now, there isn't any low level play. Most people just find the quickest way to power to 70's or so. Now you're actually required to play the lower levels.

I don't play a wizard or Sage, but from what I'm hearing their skills need to be more powerful. They should up their power, but keep the fixed cast times! Though, some tweaking of those times could be done.

The training grounds is great, but there's too much of a gap between them and the Eden quests. So, maybe we could bring back a few iRO specific reqs for that gap, but make them kill count only, no items.
The Eden gear is awesome for new players and gives them something good to use while them build up zeny. Their quests could definitely use a boost in their rewards and could maybe give items and some zeny also.
Now, since Eden quests end at 85, iRO should implement some new reqs for 85+ Once again, just killcount, no items.

I originally thought the drop penalty wouldn't be an issue, but now, it appears to be. If iRO had a steady influx of players to hunt and sell to higher level players, it wouldn't be an issue. But, since Gravity refuses to at least try advertising in gaming and anime magazines, we'll never see a mass influx of players.

Until I get a chance to try some higher level play, I wont have much more of a opinion.

I just want to test the third class... Can I just do that?

man so much goin on in iro,that what happens when ur gone for a while i guess, happy to hear bout renewal meaby i can come back to play iro, at the same time reading what you guys are writting bout it makes me feel like renewal is gonna be a huge dissapoitment. got my finger cross hopin im wrong good luck to the testing 1+ for renewal

Ranger sprite is ugly

Every level range monster you fight is basically the same thing. There is no reason to fight any particular monster at all to level anymore. Infact it promotes everybody to be an agi melee build including priests because there is absolutely no incentive to party at all.

The drops system is completely .

The restricted level range of things you can level on is also . You spend more time walking to a map of your level range because of how they are arranged there is no reason to it. All it has you do is travel back and forth across the world trying to find monsters that are your level to fight and being annoyed in the process.

Cast times. Attack/Matk formulas. Horrible. Playing as a sura seems they want them all to be agi combo builds, and more then half the time you're unable to use your combo skills because of how laggy it is. If you go the other route your cast time and skills' damage are so horrible it makes you want to stab yourself repeatedly with a spork.

Every monster is basically a carbon copy of the others with how hard they are to kill once you hit the correct level range.

Weapons are generic, once you hit the level requirement to equip a certain item that's basically all you need until you change class. There is no point in using other weapons generally.

Seems to be almost no reason to get strength at all.

The only good things I experienced was the class manuals in the training grounds... and... suras are the only decent looking new class sprite.

Every level range monster you fight is basically the same thing. There is no reason to fight any particular monster at all to level anymore. Infact it promotes everybody to be an agi melee build including priests because there is absolutely no incentive to party at all.

I figure I should single this part out specifically. If you actually leveled normally you would understand that monsters vary quite a bit. And, while monsters of a same level have roughly similar difficulty, one can level faster by going to harder maps with higher spawns. This is where party play comes in. Large stationary parties with pullers works quite well post renewal, some maps are incredibly fast for such groups, such as Magma Dungeon 2f, Juperos, and the top 4 Thanatos Tower floors.

Hmm.. for some reason, I am still not comforted by the promise that a typical good day of leveling consists of constantly feeling like you are at an alligator or titans party...

All I want is for the client to remember my settings ><. Where I put the window on my desktop, what my video settings are, what my sound settings are, what messages are shown in the chat window, etc.

Also, add a lock to the chat window so enter will not open chat mode, or change it so only space bar will.

I'll be posting some data on our current settings for the exp and drops, as well as party dynamic.

I know its beyond the scope of what we're testing, but it'd be cool if eden group was introduced in the novice grounds, they could take the north building on the mob maps and have them issue hunt quests from 1-11 there, and possibly educate new players on where to locate eden group in towns (talk to the guards etc).

*snip*
putting drop comments in drop thread

Edited by Hrothmund, 14 September 2010 - 10:21 PM.

Well, I've had a chance to play around with the Ranger class for a little (and I did some real leveling). While there are some interesting things in renewal, I have to say, over all, it sucks.

Some very specific things for Hunters/Snipers/Rangers.
1) Cast times for Focused Arrow Strike and Falcon Assault are ridiculously long. The original cast times were designed around the DEX cast time reduction, but it seems this was completely forgotten about in Renewal. Collecting a mob of monsters and FASing them into oblivion is pretty much impossible without a Phen Card and pots. You will get hit, pretty badly. FAS is relegated to killing mobs on tanks, slowly killing mobs on tanks.

2) The SP cost of Falcon Assault was never fixed. With the changed mechanics, it *can* be more effective per SP than Double Strafe, but only against neutral property monsters. With the increased cast time, for the most part, it is even more pointless than it was before.

3) For falcon builds; do NOT change to Ranger. You will loose out on a considerable chunk of your damage dealing potential, as your auto-Blitz will follow your Ranger job level. Also, unlike job levels for your 2nd class, the job levels for Ranger come slowly, very slowly. You will have to grind in order to get your damage back, and it will take all that much longer because you can't deal it out.

As for my overall take on Renewal... Everything that made RO a unique and interesting game is gone.

You can choose different classes, but they all function more-or-less the same way for hunting monsters, and they all get used in more-or-less the same way. The method for hunting monsters is nearly uniform - bludgeon them to death. The character builds are nearly all identical, AGI, DEX, LUK, only differing a little on the other stats. Character build means almost nothing.

All of the benefits of being an established player are gone. All you get to do as an established player is hunt a different monster. It doesn't matter if you have a lvl 20 character or a level 140 character, the best gears or the worst gears, all you can do is bludgeon monsters within 10 levels of your character. 10 levels too high, you get pwnd, it doesn't matter what gear you have. 10 levels too low, and you get nothing for your trouble. 20 levels too high, and it doesn't even matter who you party with.

The monsters are nearly identical. Sure, some of them have different skills and AI's, but within that 10 level swing, the only thing that really differs is the sprite.

Renewal is simply not ready for prime time. It can be used as a starting point, but the mechanics need to be fixed, the way some 2nd class skills work when changing to 3rd classes needs to be improved, monsters need to be slightly reworked, and the job level curves need to be rethought.

Nice post Babbles, I agree with much of what you wrote. Issues with FAS, auto-blitz, etc seem more like oversights than intentional to me.

I know its beyond the scope of what we're testing, but it'd be cool if eden group was introduced in the novice grounds, they could take the north building on the mob maps and have them issue hunt quests from 1-11 there, and possibly educate new players on where to locate eden group in towns (talk to the guards etc).

*snip*
putting drop comments in drop thread

Introducing Eden Group in the training grounds sounds like a really good idea. Even if it's just an NPC that you can talk to you (or need to talk to) like the Kafra / Cool Event / Soldier that describes the services they do.

Wow at people playing for barely a week and already have judged all the content of the game as no longer interesting

Like do you already know all possible builds for characters post-renewal? I dont think so... more likely people are mainly pvm builds for leveling now and thats another story.

Of course if you just leveled by an NPC and then you are set without party play and such = boring, you havent tried WoE in renewal mechanics = boring, you havent done any high end mvping/instance/dungeon with new mechanics = boring.

I also dont understand what you meant with 'it doesnt matter if you are an established player...' because a large portion of this game is just to fight monsters and that's what you do now, if you meant that you can no longer go power leveling your lv50 archer at thors volcano then you are right the game makes more SENSE now with you fighting monsters near your level