Reinventing Ragnarok - by a Game Designer

[Blinzer]

Hello guys,

I am an aspiring game programmer and designer (Electrical & Computer Engineer Degree w/ minor in Computer Science specializing in game design) who loves MMORPGs. As someone who grew up with games like Ragnarok, Maple Story and World of Warcraft, I always dream to have a game of my own but I believe that I need more experience developing it first. But developing my own game is very costly. So here I am, my first few steps towards that dream. I truly believe that I could make a successful private server, one day I would be able to start developing my own game.

I've been playing and experimenting on RO servers for almost 10 years now (man I'm getting old). I have experience as both server Admin/GM as well as developer (for server w/ more than 300 players at peak times). Some of you may know my from my previous private server idea: http://forum.ratemyserver.net/server-discussion/private-server-moving-forward/

In case you're wondering, I did release a BETA version of the server and guess what? Players loved it! [Check the preview changelog at the end of this post!]

To summarize, here are a few server features that was tested and appreciated during the server BETA (yeap, this has already been implemented and tested):

• Point System: You will obtain points from killing Paragon (Custom Minibosses), MvPs or players. These points is shared among party members and can be used to buy equipments.
• Paragon Monsters: In every map, there will be 1 Paragon-type Monster for every 10 monster in the map. These monster are stronger and almost impossible to take on alone but contains an enormous amount of EXP and higher drops than the normal monsters. This encourages players to work together in order to defeat them and share the rewards!
• Skill buffs: There has been minor changes to many skills that introduces new way of playing a class. These changes gave birth to Soul Mages, Fistfury Monks, Lightburn Priests and many many more~!
• Spa Healing System: Unlike most servers, players will need to go to Spa in order to heal up. Players are rewarded with EXP boost upon leaving the Spa. Players actually loved this system, it allows players to take a break and socialize before going back to their adventure in Rune-Midgard.
• Upgraded Airship System: Players were able to travel from a city to another via Airship. This allows players to travel without losing the travel experience (and meet new people)!

I opened the server on BETA for about two months to get reviews and opinions. And I have to say, most of them (about 15 players) truly enjoyed the server! They had a blast working together to defeat paragons and MvPs obtain points and gears! The only things missing is the common "Not enough players!" problem. To be fair, most players tend to stay away from BETA servers. 

What I always dream of having in a game are these:

• Reintroduce social aspects of MMORPGs: No, I don't mean facebook games. I'm talking about games that rewards players for working together! So far, the Spa, Paragon Monsters, Airship and MvP Points did exactly this. These systems were designed to introduce social aesthetic on the server.
• Boost flexibility in combat: The custom skill design was introduce to add in more combat styles in the game. In addition to healer priest, other variation of healing were added to classes such as Paladin and Bard/Dancer. They are now more capable to heal but they way they do so is totally different from each other. This adds flexibility for players to play based on what they like/what their style is.
• Add in sense of adventure: This is a long-shot, but one of my initial work on this is the Custom Airship system. Players are able to feel as if they are on an adventure - not just getting level and kill monsters for no reason. I'm hoping to add in new content and questline to add in the wonderful fantasy world of Ragnarok Online. Adventure shouldn't stop just because you reach max level, it should be even better when you maxed out!

Sorry for the extremely long post! I can go on and on about this but I'll stop here before I scare away forumers. Let me know what you think!

Short video on class changes (this video is old so it only highlight about 30% of my changes - link is also old - DO NOT USE):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0NLoCxrnkk
PS by Triper - Allowing the video to let people know about your ideas and stuff. Let's call it "borderline".

I need to know if you guys are interested before I release the official version of the server. I will be doing head-counts on my forum and announce if the server is ready to be released based on it.

Here's a preview changelog (not including all changes):

Spoiler

THE REVIVAL UPDATE

1.00 CHANGE LOG



GENERAL

Starting job changed to High Novice from Novice Class.
HP regeneration rate has been increased to 3 seconds up from 6 seconds.
SP regeneration rate has been increased to 4 seconds up from 8 seconds.
Teleport level 1 (from both skill and items) will now skip menu.
Removing poison status will cause the player to take damage depending on the remaining duration of the status.


LEVELING SYSTEM

Reworked experience required to level up.
Killing a monster while in a party will grant you extra EXP.
Experience calculation is set to calculate damaged done over maximum HP.
Kafra Employees offers job-changing and reset service.


ENVIRONMENT

Day and night cycle is set to 60 minutes.


NEW SYSTEMS

Card Removing Service
Inn Service
Innkeepers now offers teleport to Spa Service. The spa area will boost the player's regeneration rate and grant 50% extra EXP upon leaving the room.


CLASS CHANGES

Swordsman
Knights
Auto Counter stance will no longer break when attacked. The player will keep on blocking and counterattack for its duration. It now has a fixed 12 seconds cooldown.
Crusaders
Pressure deals damage depending on target's health. For each 1% lost, Pressure will deal 10/20/30/40/50 damage. It now has a fixed 10 seconds cooldown.
Devotion will now only share 50% of the damage received from the devoted player. If the Crusader casts "Heal" skill, the devoted player will also receive 50% of the heal regardless of the Crusader's target.
Thief
Detoxify can only be casted on yourself.
Assassin
Create Deadly Poison now has 100% success rate.
Deadly Poison will only increase your damage against poisoned targets.
Venom Splasher will now spread its effect when it deals damage to another player. Venom Splasher timer fixed to 2 seconds.
Rogue
Intimidate will now teleport you and the target 10 cells behind you.
All strip skills has 100% success rate. It will now last up to 7 seconds and has a fixed 20 seconds cooldown (40 seconds for Full Strip)
Archer
Hunter
Each level of Attention Concentrate reduces the cast time of Sharpshooting by 10%. It now has a 5 seconds cooldown.
Bard/Dancer
Frost Joker/Scream change increased to 100%/95%/90%/85%/80%. The chance is reduced depending on the range of the enemy. For each cell apart, the chance is reduced by 12%.
Apple of Idun's heal now depends on the caster's base level and INT.
Using Encore now leaves a copy of the song's ground effect on the player's current position for 10 seconds.
Acolyte
Priest
When casting Turn Undead to non-undead target, their property will change to Undead for 10 seconds.
Monk
Every combo will temporarily increase your movement speed and attack speed (up to 50% movement speed and 150% attack). The effect lasts 15 seconds.
Magician
Wizard
Each spirit from Soul Strike will cause the target to take extra damage from consecutive Soul Strike (up to 150% extra damage). This effect will also increase damage of your Napalm Beat (up to 1500%) but it also resets the damage boost.
Gravitation Field is now a channeling spell and last up to 6 seconds.
Sage
Soul Burn will no longer fail and will burn 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% of the target's SP and deal twice the SP burned.
Spells cast by Auto Spell no longer cost any SP
Successful Magic Rod will make the Sage cast the spell back to the user.
Merchant
Vending skill has been replaced with "Merchant's Burden": For every 1% unused weight you have, your maxHP is increased (up to 50%).
Alchemist
Bio Cannibalize will now summon only one plant each level and will only require 1 plant bottle. The plant will last for 2 minutes.
Plant cultivation will allow players to duplicate their summoned plants. Duplicated plants share the same duration as the original one.


PLAYER-VERSUS-PLAYER

Killing a player in PvP will grant you 10 Prestige Points.
Points will be divided equally among party members in the same map.


PLAYER-VERSUS-ENVIRONMENT

Paragon Monsters: Each monster (excluding MvPs and Mini-bosses) will now have a stronger version called Paragon. These monsters may appear in any map and grants huge EXP and item drops.
Killing MvP will grant you Sentinel Points.
Points will be divided equally among party members in the same map.
Killing Paragon will grant you Aegis Points
Points will be divided equally among party members in the same map.


ITEM

NEW ITEM: Letter of Recommendation: An accessory that grants you extra experience based on your Veteran Points. Every player will receive the scroll after reaching max level for the first time. This item is account-bound and can be transferred to another character.
Delay between item use increased to 0.5 seconds up from 0.1 seconds.


UI

Monster's level will now be displayed beside their name.
Notification such as gaining or losing points and unread mail will be shown in the chat-box upon login.
Players can now view other player's equipment with no restrictions.


ADDED @ATCOMMAND

autotrade
autoloottype
alootid
channel
commands
request
autoloot
mobinfo
main
duel
checkpoints
auction
time
showexp
showdrop

[close]

If you are interested in reinventing the game, you may as well join me as I'm already more than half way there. I deal all in game features primarily: skills, monsters, items, refinement, class balance, level up curves, you name it. I don't do much of that weird custom stuff, but if it is a good concept I'm always willing to implement it into the game.


As for your ideas on skill changes, a couple of them(Turn Undead and Strip) are changes very similar to my own, differing only in cooldown and duration. The rest of your skill changes are a step towards the right direction, but rather inconsiderate of the world of Ragnarok as a whole and will probably end up being too strong(in the case of autocounter) or too weak(in the case of deadly poison).

If you're interested in working with me, PM me and I will give you more details about what I've done with the game.

[ShadowLight]

If you are interested in reinventing the game, you may as well join me as I'm already more than half way there. I deal all in game features primarily: skills, monsters, items, refinement, class balance, level up curves, you name it. I don't do much of that weird custom stuff, but if it is a good concept I'm always willing to implement it into the game.


As for your ideas on skill changes, a couple of them(Turn Undead and Strip) are changes very similar to my own, differing only in cooldown and duration. The rest of your skill changes are a step towards the right direction, but rather inconsiderate of the world of Ragnarok as a whole and will probably end up being too strong(in the case of autocounter) or too weak(in the case of deadly poison).

If you're interested in working with me, PM me and I will give you more details about what I've done with the game.

Hi there Blinzer! Thank you for your invitation to collaborate, I knew I'm not the only one out there with these kind of ideas. 

The truth is, these are not just concept, it has already been implemented and tested during BETA testing along with other changes that were not listed. It is now closed in preparation of official release.

When there's ton's of changes, there are ought to be some imbalances. This is the reason why most successful MMORPGs have updates every month or so, most purposely do this to keep the game from stagnating.

As for balance issues, you mentioned auto-counter, players don't see it as overpowered during BETA. This is probably due to other changes (that were not listed) that changes the whole combat dynamic. I will run analysis from time to time to see what need to be tweak or improve upon. But I don't expect the game to be perfectly balanced but close enough that players won't just play one class.

I'm still interested to keep in touch! Although we'll do our own methods of game improvement but we can perhaps learn from each other and grow as private server buddies. Cheers!

[Blinzer]

Hi there Blinzer! Thank you for your invitation to collaborate, I knew I'm not the only one out there with these kind of ideas. 

The truth is, these are not just concept, it has already been implemented and tested during BETA testing along with other changes that were not listed. It is now closed in preparation of official release.

When there's ton's of changes, there are ought to be some imbalances. This is the reason why most successful MMORPGs have updates every month or so, most purposely do this to keep the game from stagnating.

As for balance issues, you mentioned auto-counter, players don't see it as overpowered during BETA. This is probably due to other changes (that were not listed) that changes the whole combat dynamic. I will run analysis from time to time to see what need to be tweak or improve upon. But I don't expect the game to be perfectly balanced but close enough that players won't just play one class.

I'm still interested to keep in touch! Although we'll do our own methods of game improvement but we can perhaps learn from each other and grow as private server buddies. Cheers!

I am always willing to help those who seek knowledge about the game.

On a side note, nobody was talking about concepts. I assumed yours were already implemented before I asked.

[ShadowLight]

I am always willing to help those who seek knowledge about the game.

On a side note, nobody was talking about concepts. I assumed yours were already implemented before I asked.

Sounds great! Feel free to post any questions or new ideas for Ragnarok in this topic. I would definitely love to hear them.

[annaquin]

Changing game concept is a dead end, most project fail that way.

[Tensei]

Those concepts are amazing and to think it's already implemented too.

Impressive work ShadowLight! It makes me want to try it out on release.

[annaquin]

In your changes you overbuffed disruptive skills...

Strip 100% work ?
Gravitation Field has always be a channeling skill ... you can cast while channeling but dmg is null

[ShadowLight]

In your changes you overbuffed disruptive skills...

Strip 100% work ?
Gravitation Field has always be a channeling skill ... you can cast while channeling but dmg is null

I understand your concern. I was too when I implemented the skills at first but I did some testing it turns out "OK". With the high cooldown, it makes combat less "luck-oriented". In other words, less spamming strip skill again and again and more of using strip skill wisely. Also, due to high cooldown, players will use different strip skill and have to choose what to strip. I got feedback of players saying that, they would have to do quick thinking on what to strip - weapon for assassins, armor for priests and shields for paladins.

Again, this may not NOT be 100% true as the sample space is low. Changes will happen for sure from time to time to avoid certain class/skill to be overpowered but this cannot be done without having it to be tested. This is why I plan to have tournaments (if the player count is high enough) and see which class is dominating and start sniffing clues on what is causing it and plan on how to improve balance.

I'm a little confused on Gravitation Field has always been channeling but the dmg is null. Probably because I've left RO for too long. But the changes are made so that it will have 0 cast time.

Cheers,
ShadowLight

[Valenhil]

Although I've been done with this game for years, I happened to stumble on this thread. Not everything instantly resonates with me, but this seems rather ambitious. The least I can do is check it out.

Edit: Now that I think about it, communication might be an issue. Due to greater focus on party content, actually finding a party should be made easier. Is a global or regional chat channel possible?

Edit2: Apparently you've got that covered. Promising.

[annaquin]

There is so many version and variation of Gravity Field ...

The first fact common to all version is Dmg bypassing whatever DEF/reduction.. it's flat dmg 1200 dmg / 0.5 sec , deal dmg during 9 sec.

So curse + gravitation field = 2400 x 9 = 21600 flat dmg...

First version was compatible with White Imprison leading to a extremly dangerous and lethal combo WI +GF + lex scroll spam

Depending on which server, WI was fixed to only let ghost dmg bypass the barrier, but Goiard card was added to make Soul Expansion + lex scroll killing better...

It still make Gravitation Field extremly powerfull in WOE ( probably the most powerfull skill against emperium contest )



After that , the channeling ,while doing dmg with GF , warlock were abble to cast Quag, scroll crap and STAVE CRASHER

[ShadowLight]

There is so many version and variation of Gravity Field ...

The first fact common to all version is Dmg bypassing whatever DEF/reduction.. it's flat dmg 1200 dmg / 0.5 sec , deal dmg during 9 sec.

So curse + gravitation field = 2400 x 9 = 21600 flat dmg...

First version was compatible with White Imprison leading to a extremly dangerous and lethal combo WI +GF + lex scroll spam

Depending on which server, WI was fixed to only let ghost dmg bypass the barrier, but Goiard card was added to make Soul Expansion + lex scroll killing better...

It still make Gravitation Field extremly powerfull in WOE ( probably the most powerfull skill against emperium contest )



After that , the channeling ,while doing dmg with GF , warlock were abble to cast Quag, scroll crap and STAVE CRASHER

This is a good feedback. I'm planning on using pre-renewal but I can see where it is a concern.

Although I've been done with this game for years, I happened to stumble on this thread. Not everything instantly resonates with me, but this seems rather ambitious. The least I can do is check it out.

Edit: Now that I think about it, communication might be an issue. Due to greater focus on party content, actually finding a party should be made easier. Is a global or regional chat channel possible?

Edit2: Apparently you've got that covered. Promising.

It is pretty ambitious really. Hopefully by taking one step at a time, I'd be able to move forward with these ideas.

[annaquin]

One thing I don't like in Ragnarok is the complete locked system of dual class or even triple classes.

In DD, you can be dual classes or triple classes...

In Ragnarok you are fcked up and locked into a limited game play.

Most item in database are worthless ... weapon or gear are totally a waste of time to even implement as 99% of players will drop them.

Dirk ? Dagger ? Stilleto ? what the meaning to have those weapon ?
Same goes for shirt ? Panties ?

All in all, gear should grant dual classes and triple classes ( not the crap version of creamy card ... )

It's quite easy to scrip as most of skill can be getrefine()-weapon lvl .

Example :
All spear should grant Spear Stab, Spear Boomberang
But been swordman add Spear Mastery that boost spear attack by a % rather than a flat dmg.

[Nightlinks]

Keeping my eye on this, looking forward to an official release.

[valhallaknight]

Server looks great! Looking forward on the release 

[annaquin]

funny thing , most people use bot or third party , but so far nobody had the idea at server side, to actually run bot on their server as NPC and animated city.