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RateMyServer.Net => Server Discussion => Topic started by: horo on Apr 01, 2009, 10:11 AM

Title: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 01, 2009, 10:11 AM
Having played a bunch of "classic" servers, ranging from all maps having old spawns and MVP lacking their 9999 heal to updated spawns but simply all maps past Yuno being removed, the common problem seems to be the lack of challenging maps (pretty much only castle 2) and variety in places worth leveling at (c2, turtle island).

The problem I perceive with advanced classes is their soloing ability, as you can pretty much solo every place except for the likes of Thanatos and Bio 3, and most MVP except for Valk/Beelze/Ifrit/Bio's.

So my idea would be a server with up-to-date maps and MVP, but without advanced classes, forcing the players to party in a lot of the dungeons past Yuno, and against most MVP. There would be a bunch of party bonuses provided to encourage this style of play further, and incentives to play maps 'inferior' to the typical spots nowadays.

Do you think players would accept the challenge, and most importantly the lack of advanced classes? Obviously a bunch of equip dropped by later mobs would not be wearable, and while a lot of it is overpowered in my book, this is still an issue. Some pieces might be made available to 2nd classes to resolve this issue.

Can you point out flaws basic and particular with this concept? What do you think of it overall? Thank you in advance for your opinions!
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Descent on Apr 01, 2009, 12:29 PM
Well, the only flaw I can find is having the newer equipment being "unavailable" would just make you another "KRO-like/Classic iRO-like" server clone.

I love the idea of adding the new maps whilst avoiding the Advanced Classes, that's definitely something that hasn't been done to death.

I look forward to hearing about it, might even try it out.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Aaronock on Apr 01, 2009, 03:36 PM
There definentely would be some need for some of the equips to be wearable by non trans that normally are not *staff of piercing being a big one I can think of off hand.*

The idea sounds interesting, I wonder if you or anyone else would do it, I'd possibly try such a server out even myself.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 01, 2009, 05:46 PM
The equip is definitely an issue, so I spent an hour or two going through all equipment available and sorting out those unavailable to 2nd classes, and then those I'm on the fence about allowing. Opinions on this would be highly valued:

Item ID# 13027 (Scalpel) â€" Mes. Even without WS upgrading, it would be the only dagger worth carding.
Item ID# 1624 (Lich_Bone_Wand) â€" overpowered in my book.
Item ID# 1626 (Piercing_Staff) - might be alright without WS upgrading, but still damn good.

Valkyrie Set - great, but in proportion to how hard Randgris is without advanced classes I think...
Ifrit Rings - I consider these broken, and I'd rather not have them at any cost.
Vesper Cores - I really can't decide about these.

Item ID# 2366 (Divine_Cloth) â€" 6 def, 5% resist to the good status effects, which puts it over so many of the standard armors usually used by 2nd classes...
Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) - the best heavy armor, and even as a rare drop by Salamander, it's not harder to get than Fullplate[1], which pales in comparison.
Item ID# 2367 (Sniping_Suit) - I think being a Bow Guardian rare drop makes this fine to keep.

Item ID# 2114 (Stone_Buckler) â€" I quite dislike this, as it's too easy to get for how good it is.
Item ID# 2115 (Valkyrja's_Shield) - way too easy to get eliminating all other shields in the game, so either going to nerf it, or do away with it altogether.

Item ID# 2528 (Wool_Scarf) + Item ID# 2424 (Tidal_Shoes) â€" absolutely hate these two as they eliminate all other options.

Item ID# 2434 (Black_Leather_Boots_) - maybe too good with crest of the rider compared to Boots[1].
Item ID# 2422 (High_Fashion_Sandals) - invalidate Crystal Pumps and Boots[1]
Item ID# 2426 (Shadow_Walk) - invalidate Crystal Pumps, might be too good in WoE especially.

Item ID# 2703 (Expert_Ring) - after-cast reduction might be too good.
Item ID# 2701 (Orleans_Glove) â€" best accessory, but Bow Guardian drop.


So, would you prefer equips be balanced, or be fine with a lot of the classic equips being invalidated? Should I adjust droprates of the classic equip to make them easier to get than their advanced counterparts?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Descent on Apr 01, 2009, 06:23 PM
Quote from: horo on Apr 01, 2009, 05:46 PM
The equip is definitely an issue, so I spent an hour or two going through all equipment available and sorting out those unavailable to 2nd classes, and then those I'm on the fence about allowing. Opinions on this would be highly valued:

Item ID# 13027 (Scalpel) â€" Mes. Even without WS upgrading, it would be the only dagger worth carding.
Item ID# 1624 (Lich_Bone_Wand) â€" overpowered in my book.
Item ID# 1626 (Piercing_Staff) - might be alright without WS upgrading, but still damn good.

Valkyrie Set - great, but in proportion to how hard Randgris is without advanced classes I think...
Ifrit Rings - I consider these broken, and I'd rather not have them at any cost.
Vesper Cores - I really can't decide about these.

Item ID# 2366 (Divine_Cloth) â€" 6 def, 5% resist to the good status effects, which puts it over so many of the standard armors usually used by 2nd classes...
Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) - the best heavy armor, and even as a rare drop by Salamander, it's not harder to get than Fullplate[1], which pales in comparison.
Item ID# 2367 (Sniping_Suit) - I think being a Bow Guardian rare drop makes this fine to keep.

Item ID# 2114 (Stone_Buckler) â€" I quite dislike this, as it's too easy to get for how good it is.
Item ID# 2115 (Valkyrja's_Shield) - way too easy to get eliminating all other shields in the game, so either going to nerf it, or do away with it altogether.

Item ID# 2528 (Wool_Scarf) + Item ID# 2424 (Tidal_Shoes) â€" absolutely hate these two as they eliminate all other options.

Item ID# 2434 (Black_Leather_Boots_) - maybe too good with crest of the rider compared to Boots[1].
Item ID# 2422 (High_Fashion_Sandals) - invalidate Crystal Pumps and Boots[1]
Item ID# 2426 (Shadow_Walk) - invalidate Crystal Pumps, might be too good in WoE especially.

Item ID# 2703 (Expert_Ring) - after-cast reduction might be too good.
Item ID# 2701 (Orleans_Glove) â€" best accessory, but Bow Guardian drop.


So, would you prefer equips be balanced, or be fine with a lot of the classic equips being invalidated? Should I adjust droprates of the classic equip to make them easier to get than their advanced counterparts?

You do realize that tweaking a few small numbers on these, you can tailor them to non-advanced class players.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 01, 2009, 06:42 PM
Quote from: Descent on Apr 01, 2009, 06:23 PM
You do realize that tweaking a few small numbers on these, you can tailor them to non-advanced class players.
I'm a little worried about customizing (nerfing) existing equip too much, as it might turn players that expect to be able to use the RMS database and stat calculators off... trying to achieve balance is always such a mammoth of a project, so it's hard to decide which solution is the best ultimately.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 01, 2009, 06:57 PM
I vote for tweaks, considering it give bigger motivation to kill stronger mobs. Lower their drop rate.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Pandora on Apr 01, 2009, 07:24 PM
The idea in general doesn't sound bad on paper, pretty good actually, but in practice there are not that many players that want to play without trans and those who do usually want as close to the first days of RO as possible, nonetheless good luck if you decide to try something like this.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: bleu on Apr 01, 2009, 11:24 PM
Me like  /ok


Some matters to consider.

1. When you "custom RO" and if you don't have clear guidelines on what can or should be custom, and what is or should be left alone in its original state; and especially if there is inconsistent treatment - it will inevitably create confusion and raise questions on fairness or biasness towards a certain class. For example:

How do you decide if a item such as "Tidal Shoe[1]" is not acceptable, while "Shadow Walk" is ok?

How will you incentive players to explore some of these "newer dungeon" if you remove all the "good drops"?

Consider the amount of time you spent on that short list of items - which you are still deciding, what should be allowed (i.e. custom) or what should not be allowed - and what about future patches? with every new episode, more gears/cards/items/etc will be released and you will need to spent more and more time; trying to re-balance things every time - which ultimately slows down the updates on your server.

It's easier for non-custom server. If it's on RO official, it will be on here. It's faster for them and easier to upload new episodes. And much less controversial when it comes to items/gears/etc... they will normally give a blanket answer. "No. Coz it's like that on official RO." While, in your case... you will be tinkering... errr... "always in the Grey area"... and your decision will be always open to questioning. Why No? or Why Yes? How do you justify your decision?


2. I have always wondered about servers which are non-Trans exclusive. What do the players do after they reached 99? Well - WOE/PVP/MVP are common... how long would you be able to keep them interested in the game? I know of old servers like - 4 years old and they have many old veterans with a string of lvl99s Trans - and what do they do most of their time? Sit and just chill and AFK mostly. Some PVPs and some WOE. They eventually quit (coz it's obviously boring)... or move to another server and start a fresh with something "to do". Ah.. I will level up... and make a Warlock. Let's test out what is this Tetraxxx. I just feel without "Trans" or the complete RO, it will severely "shorten the life expectancy of the game play".


3. Encourage party. Very nice. However, there seems to be an overwhelming trend towards Leeching - either self-leech or buying leech. In a server where leeching is popular; there will be a lesser partying atmosphere. And you need a decent size population to be able to encourage partying- enough Full Support Priests; if not ... you will end up with a lot of unhappy players in Prontera seeking for parties and complaining that they cannot level because all the Priest are soloing at Anubis - Turn Undead; or ME Priest at Nameless Island/Niffhelm.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 02, 2009, 03:27 AM
Alot of content after transclass are pretty much supposed to be trans-only, you should nerf the expierience rate and stats of some post-trans mobs (Thors and Bio and etc) due to being target to transclasses' experience required, also, side note: Some areas are literally Trans-Only, you can't enter them if you are trans, Thantos 7+ is one
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 02, 2009, 04:34 AM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 01, 2009, 06:57 PM
I vote for tweaks, considering it give bigger motivation to kill stronger mobs. Lower their drop rate.
I will probably go with this, maybe add some negative effects to gears that overshadow classic ones.

Quote from: Pandora on Apr 01, 2009, 07:24 PM
The idea in general doesn't sound bad on paper, pretty good actually, but in practice there are not that many players that want to play without trans and those who do usually want as close to the first days of RO as possible, nonetheless good luck if you decide to try something like this.
I hope there are enough players sick of icepick edp sb sinx, ct ws, instant-cast hw and so on to appreciate a challenge and what will hopefully restore some of the balance of the game before advanced classes came around, which many feel ruined WoE, not only by themselves, but also because 2nd classes couldn't compete anymore.

Quote from: bleu on Apr 01, 2009, 11:24 PM
Me like  /ok


Some matters to consider.

1. When you "custom RO" and if you don't have clear guidelines on what can or should be custom, and what is or should be left alone in its original state; and especially if there is inconsistent treatment - it will inevitably create confusion and raise questions on fairness or biasness towards a certain class. For example:

How do you decide if a item such as "Tidal Shoe[1]" is not acceptable, while "Shadow Walk" is ok?

How will you incentive players to explore some of these "newer dungeon" if you remove all the "good drops"?

Consider the amount of time you spent on that short list of items - which you are still deciding, what should be allowed (i.e. custom) or what should not be allowed - and what about future patches? with every new episode, more gears/cards/items/etc will be released and you will need to spent more and more time; trying to re-balance things every time - which ultimately slows down the updates on your server.

It's easier for non-custom server. If it's on RO official, it will be on here. It's faster for them and easier to upload new episodes. And much less controversial when it comes to items/gears/etc... they will normally give a blanket answer. "No. Coz it's like that on official RO." While, in your case... you will be tinkering... errr... "always in the Grey area"... and your decision will be always open to questioning. Why No? or Why Yes? How do you justify your decision?


2. I have always wondered about servers which are non-Trans exclusive. What do the players do after they reached 99? Well - WOE/PVP/MVP are common... how long would you be able to keep them interested in the game? I know of old servers like - 4 years old and they have many old veterans with a string of lvl99s Trans - and what do they do most of their time? Sit and just chill and AFK mostly. Some PVPs and some WOE. They eventually quit (coz it's obviously boring)... or move to another server and start a fresh with something "to do". Ah.. I will level up... and make a Warlock. Let's test out what is this Tetraxxx. I just feel without "Trans" or the complete RO, it will severely "shorten the life expectancy of the game play".


3. Encourage party. Very nice. However, there seems to be an overwhelming trend towards Leeching - either self-leech or buying leech. In a server where leeching is popular; there will be a lesser partying atmosphere. And you need a decent size population to be able to encourage partying- enough Full Support Priests; if not ... you will end up with a lot of unhappy players in Prontera seeking for parties and complaining that they cannot level because all the Priest are soloing at Anubis - Turn Undead; or ME Priest at Nameless Island/Niffhelm.
Thank you for the long post!

1. Right now I'm basing my decisions on the classic equip available in game. I don't want, say, Boots[1] to be overshadowed completely like Vanberk Card overshadowed Deviruchi Card. Every piece should have its worth somehow. I understand now that removing equipment altogether takes the incentive out of more difficult dungeons, but its addition didn't add variety rather than replace old equips. Hardly anyone deviates from Tidal+Wool nowadays at all, and I'd like to offer them other options.

While it takes a lot more time to customize things in an (often futile) attempt to achieve balance, the difference to original RO is that these new drops were introduced when most players had already gotten a full set of their classic equip, so it's not like they had the choice towards these newer equips back in the day. Future patches (and equip! Moskovia doesn't really have much for example) come so rarely that I don't consider it much of an issue right now.

Besides extensive testing, should players really be unhappy with certain item customizations, they can be put up to vote. An Admin's vision is worthless without players to live it after all. If people are interested, I might post modifications made here, as I really value the opinions of so many veteran players.


2. RO endgame is pretty much the same regardless if you have advanced classes or not. I'm thinking about having 2x exp, which in my experience should will take at least a month of dedicated playing to reach 99 (depending on class obviously), but then I hope to provide players enough to do other than grind away all day.


3. Double-client will be disallowed (we do however have a system that replaces @at without allowing doubleclient at all, which is unique as far as I know), and TU/ME priests will end up with quite a bad build considering there is no stat-reset by rebirth. Probably going to nerf Anubis somehow regardless, as they are universally considered too weak for their experience. I'll have to make partying enough of an incentive for people to want to play FS priests.

Quote from: LiteX on Apr 02, 2009, 03:27 AM
Alot of content after transclass are pretty much supposed to be trans-only, you should nerf the expierience rate and stats of some post-trans mobs (Thors and Bio and etc) due to being target to transclasses' experience required, also, side note: Some areas are literally Trans-Only, you can't enter them if you are trans, Thantos 7+ is one
Do you think 2nd classes won't have much more of a problem effectively leveling in these places? Thors is a place I think people would want to party at (until they run into Bow/Sword guardian), and I don't consider it too hard since already Hunters can solo there relatively easy. Bio 3 and upper Thanatos tower, on the other hand, will definitely wreck people, and I will have to find a solution for this. Can you think of other areas accessible only by advanced classes? Changing that shouldn't be an issue.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Jirinal on Apr 02, 2009, 06:20 AM
Dont forget about the woe balance while doing thís...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Descent on Apr 02, 2009, 07:30 AM
Quote from: Jirinal on Apr 02, 2009, 06:20 AM
Dont forget about the woe balance while doing thís...

Lack of Advanced Classes = A starting step towards Balance.

What are you getting at?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 02, 2009, 07:58 AM
Quote from: horo on Apr 02, 2009, 04:34 AM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 01, 2009, 06:57 PM
I vote for tweaks, considering it give bigger motivation to kill stronger mobs. Lower their drop rate.
I will probably go with this, maybe add some negative effects to gears that overshadow classic ones.

Quote from: Pandora on Apr 01, 2009, 07:24 PM
The idea in general doesn't sound bad on paper, pretty good actually, but in practice there are not that many players that want to play without trans and those who do usually want as close to the first days of RO as possible, nonetheless good luck if you decide to try something like this.
I hope there are enough players sick of icepick edp sb sinx, ct ws, instant-cast hw and so on to appreciate a challenge and what will hopefully restore some of the balance of the game before advanced classes came around, which many feel ruined WoE, not only by themselves, but also because 2nd classes couldn't compete anymore.

Quote from: bleu on Apr 01, 2009, 11:24 PM
Me like  /ok


Some matters to consider.

1. When you "custom RO" and if you don't have clear guidelines on what can or should be custom, and what is or should be left alone in its original state; and especially if there is inconsistent treatment - it will inevitably create confusion and raise questions on fairness or biasness towards a certain class. For example:

How do you decide if a item such as "Tidal Shoe[1]" is not acceptable, while "Shadow Walk" is ok?

How will you incentive players to explore some of these "newer dungeon" if you remove all the "good drops"?

Consider the amount of time you spent on that short list of items - which you are still deciding, what should be allowed (i.e. custom) or what should not be allowed - and what about future patches? with every new episode, more gears/cards/items/etc will be released and you will need to spent more and more time; trying to re-balance things every time - which ultimately slows down the updates on your server.

It's easier for non-custom server. If it's on RO official, it will be on here. It's faster for them and easier to upload new episodes. And much less controversial when it comes to items/gears/etc... they will normally give a blanket answer. "No. Coz it's like that on official RO." While, in your case... you will be tinkering... errr... "always in the Grey area"... and your decision will be always open to questioning. Why No? or Why Yes? How do you justify your decision?


2. I have always wondered about servers which are non-Trans exclusive. What do the players do after they reached 99? Well - WOE/PVP/MVP are common... how long would you be able to keep them interested in the game? I know of old servers like - 4 years old and they have many old veterans with a string of lvl99s Trans - and what do they do most of their time? Sit and just chill and AFK mostly. Some PVPs and some WOE. They eventually quit (coz it's obviously boring)... or move to another server and start a fresh with something "to do". Ah.. I will level up... and make a Warlock. Let's test out what is this Tetraxxx. I just feel without "Trans" or the complete RO, it will severely "shorten the life expectancy of the game play".


3. Encourage party. Very nice. However, there seems to be an overwhelming trend towards Leeching - either self-leech or buying leech. In a server where leeching is popular; there will be a lesser partying atmosphere. And you need a decent size population to be able to encourage partying- enough Full Support Priests; if not ... you will end up with a lot of unhappy players in Prontera seeking for parties and complaining that they cannot level because all the Priest are soloing at Anubis - Turn Undead; or ME Priest at Nameless Island/Niffhelm.
Thank you for the long post!

1. Right now I'm basing my decisions on the classic equip available in game. I don't want, say, Boots[1] to be overshadowed completely like Vanberk Card overshadowed Deviruchi Card. Every piece should have its worth somehow. I understand now that removing equipment altogether takes the incentive out of more difficult dungeons, but its addition didn't add variety rather than replace old equips. Hardly anyone deviates from Tidal+Wool nowadays at all, and I'd like to offer them other options.

While it takes a lot more time to customize things in an (often futile) attempt to achieve balance, the difference to original RO is that these new drops were introduced when most players had already gotten a full set of their classic equip, so it's not like they had the choice towards these newer equips back in the day. Future patches (and equip! Moskovia doesn't really have much for example) come so rarely that I don't consider it much of an issue right now.

Besides extensive testing, should players really be unhappy with certain item customizations, they can be put up to vote. An Admin's vision is worthless without players to live it after all. If people are interested, I might post modifications made here, as I really value the opinions of so many veteran players.


2. RO endgame is pretty much the same regardless if you have advanced classes or not. I'm thinking about having 2x exp, which in my experience should will take at least a month of dedicated playing to reach 99 (depending on class obviously), but then I hope to provide players enough to do other than grind away all day.


3. Double-client will be disallowed (we do however have a system that replaces @at without allowing doubleclient at all, which is unique as far as I know), and TU/ME priests will end up with quite a bad build considering there is no stat-reset by rebirth. Probably going to nerf Anubis somehow regardless, as they are universally considered too weak for their experience. I'll have to make partying enough of an incentive for people to want to play FS priests.

Quote from: LiteX on Apr 02, 2009, 03:27 AM
Alot of content after transclass are pretty much supposed to be trans-only, you should nerf the expierience rate and stats of some post-trans mobs (Thors and Bio and etc) due to being target to transclasses' experience required, also, side note: Some areas are literally Trans-Only, you can't enter them if you are trans, Thantos 7+ is one
Do you think 2nd classes won't have much more of a problem effectively leveling in these places? Thors is a place I think people would want to party at (until they run into Bow/Sword guardian), and I don't consider it too hard since already Hunters can solo there relatively easy. Bio 3 and upper Thanatos tower, on the other hand, will definitely wreck people, and I will have to find a solution for this. Can you think of other areas accessible only by advanced classes? Changing that shouldn't be an issue.

Well...when I meant of being "too hard", i meant mainly about the MvPs, party play will be more encouraged without uber attack enchantments like EDP or uber defence enchantments like Assumptio, but some of the MvPs are not very non-trans friendly, i mean, try Ifrit,Valk,Belze, Morroc or Naght Sieger, they are extremely hard MvPs to kill, without transclass skills i think they can be quite difficult, I don't know if it's impossible, i am just pointing something out, and about the advance only areas, i can only think of Thanatos 7+, I think some quests maybe Trans only also, Bio3's level requirement is either 95+ NonAdvanced or 90+ Advanced, you could also try to create the server then read what are the player's thoughts on it, the only thing that i can pretty much remember correctly about Trans-Only was that gravity went on a mass Trans-Only Items fetish around Ep11.3 and after, heck, IIRC 50+ Trans only items where made in Ep11.3, there are also some item special effects that only activate in Jlvl70, i think that is all i can remember...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 02, 2009, 10:36 AM
Quote from: Descent on Apr 02, 2009, 07:30 AM
Lack of Advanced Classes = A starting step towards Balance.

What are you getting at?
Some classes will certainly dominate, while others will be next to useless (alchemist comes to mind). 2nd class with up-to-date equip isn't a scenario I've played WoE in, but I will certainly try my best to make every class worthwhile.

Quote from: LiteX on Apr 02, 2009, 07:58 AM

Well...when I meant of being "too hard", i meant mainly about the MvPs, party play will be more encouraged without uber attack enchantments like EDP or uber defence enchantments like Assumptio, but some of the MvPs are not very non-trans friendly, i mean, try Ifrit,Valk,Belze, Morroc or Naght Sieger, they are extremely hard MvPs to kill, without transclass skills i think they can be quite difficult, I don't know if it's impossible, i am just pointing something out, and about the advance only areas, i can only think of Thanatos 7+, I think some quests maybe Trans only also, Bio3's level requirement is either 95+ NonAdvanced or 90+ Advanced, you could also try to create the server then read what are the player's thoughts on it, the only thing that i can pretty much remember correctly about Trans-Only was that gravity went on a mass Trans-Only Items fetish around Ep11.3 and after, heck, IIRC 50+ Trans only items where made in Ep11.3, there are also some item special effects that only activate in Jlvl70, i think that is all i can remember...
I consider Beelze, Morroc and Naught Seiger the hardest MVP definitely, and they might simply be impossible. Considering this will be a very low rate server, they won't exactly be challenged in the first month (or two), so I'll hopefully find some sort of solution until then. I want to get as many aspects of the server sorted out as possible before starting it, as the first wave of players determines a good amount of its future I think, and I don't want to give the impression of a half-finished setup that keeps players waiting for updates.
I frankly cannot think of items restricted to advanced classes, so I will have a lookout while browsing the consumables list.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 02, 2009, 02:43 PM
Hard to speak about no trans=balance. IMO, it's not so much about that...I believe it's more about people gradually learning and getting better at RO. Back at those times I started, people playing RO were totally different...and by today's standards, quite noobish.

If you're thinking about rebalance, you might as well do it a bit bigger. I've put some ideas in other thread you posted...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 02, 2009, 03:33 PM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 02, 2009, 02:43 PM
Hard to speak about no trans=balance. IMO, it's not so much about that...I believe it's more about people gradually learning and getting better at RO. Back at those times I started, people playing RO were totally different...and by today's standards, quite noobish.

If you're thinking about rebalance, you might as well do it a bit bigger. I've put some ideas in other thread you posted...
Haha, I remember people being quite noobish still around the time the first of us hit 99 on iRO, so you're right about that. I doubt anyone was reading scripts yet at that time.

I've a lot more ideas regarding rebalance in the bag, but I want to post them one by one to keep discussion focused. Definitely not in a rush to get this running before everything is resolved!
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Dean Stark on Apr 02, 2009, 03:50 PM
Since you're avoiding advanced classes, are you also gonna avoid extended classes? As in... Oh, I don't know... Gunslingers?? ;D
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 02, 2009, 04:17 PM
Quote from: Dean Stark on Apr 02, 2009, 03:50 PM
Since you're avoiding advanced classes, are you also gonna avoid extended classes? As in... Oh, I don't know... Gunslingers?? ;D
Oh absolutely, they would wreck 2nd classes :-\
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Johnny Dangerously on Apr 04, 2009, 11:58 PM
trans classes are actually quite balanced, these days.  it took kRO a little bit to fix it but they've done a pretty good job, in WoE anyways.  PVP is absolutely ludicrous, SinXes get ridiculous buffs to SB and the only way to tank lex SB is safety wall, parry, or guard...

but in WoE everything works out pretty well, although it is very burst damage heavy in comparison to old RO.  if you'd like a more "classic style" RO you should consider giving WoE attacks more damage reductions than normal instead of outright removing classes, as that never tends to fare well
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Littlechan on Apr 05, 2009, 02:44 AM
Quote from: Johnny Dangerously on Apr 04, 2009, 11:58 PM
trans classes are actually quite balanced, these days.  it took kRO a little bit to fix it but they've done a pretty good job, in WoE anyways.  PVP is absolutely ludicrous, SinXes get ridiculous buffs to SB and the only way to tank lex SB is safety wall, parry, or guard...

but in WoE everything works out pretty well, although it is very burst damage heavy in comparison to old RO.  if you'd like a more "classic style" RO you should consider giving WoE attacks more damage reductions than normal instead of outright removing classes, as that never tends to fare well

wait, don't forget reflect shield ;D

well, how about giving more HP to emperium? ;D ;D
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 05, 2009, 08:02 AM
Quote from: Johnny Dangerously on Apr 04, 2009, 11:58 PM
trans classes are actually quite balanced, these days.  it took kRO a little bit to fix it but they've done a pretty good job, in WoE anyways.  PVP is absolutely ludicrous, SinXes get ridiculous buffs to SB and the only way to tank lex SB is safety wall, parry, or guard...

but in WoE everything works out pretty well, although it is very burst damage heavy in comparison to old RO.  if you'd like a more "classic style" RO you should consider giving WoE attacks more damage reductions than normal instead of outright removing classes, as that never tends to fare well
You have to consider that WoE is played on a much smaller scale on most private servers, which changes things up a bit. My goal is definitely to have only 2nd classes, so far I've come up with the following ideas to rebalance these in regards to each other, and make every class being worthwhile to play:

Rogue: gets Preserve.
Dancer/Bard: Can use Ensemble songs on their own, at a considerably increased SP cost.
Alchemist: Fire and Poison Bottle creation will be easened considerably.
Crit builds: Enemy luck will negatively affect player crit by 1 every 10 luck, instead of 5 luck. You can view the discussion about this >here< (http://www.ratemyserver.net/forum/gamemaster-talk//crit-builds-in-todays-ro/0/).

All those headgears in the database but currently unavailable to players will be rebalanced and added to the game to give further opportunity and variance to unorthodox character builds.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 08:08 AM
gotta say NO to ensembles. Especially on notrans server, they are far too powerful. Blasting out Loki will be impossible at low-pop server when you can't use Frenzy or EDP to boost your normal attack to outdamage potspamming vit/dex bard.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 05, 2009, 08:39 AM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 08:08 AM
gotta say NO to ensembles. Especially on notrans server, they are far too powerful. Blasting out Loki will be impossible at low-pop server when you can't use Frenzy or EDP to boost your normal attack to outdamage potspamming vit/dex bard.

Agreed, everyone wants a server that everything is balanced, not that an underrate class becomes the most broken one, I do recommend a asura nerf on MvPs as asura is the most broken skill on a no-tras server
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 09:40 AM
MvP wise, I agree. PvP, not so sure as monk can't reach so high dex so it's easier dodgeable/interruptible.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 05, 2009, 12:45 PM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 08:08 AM
gotta say NO to ensembles. Especially on notrans server, they are far too powerful. Blasting out Loki will be impossible at low-pop server when you can't use Frenzy or EDP to boost your normal attack to outdamage potspamming vit/dex bard.
I was thinking more about PvM for now... I simply cannot think of a way to make Dancer especially any useful whatsoever otherwise. Maybe just allow certain ensemble skills to be cast solo, or nerf ensemble dances when cast solo? There will be a pot delay, so pot-spamming won't be so viable anymore.

Asura requires great equip to do a good amount of damage for monks, so for now that isn't a big deal. Couldn't take down a Salamander in one shot solo, and Morpheus Set + Abysmal Knight cards are pretty hard to get on a non-trans server to begin with.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 03:22 PM
Actually...I might start dancer on such server. Stats 140 dex, 110 agi, rest vit and maybe a bit luk, and she becomes great mix of support, ranged and melee damager and empbreaker.
You might laugh now, but I actually played gypsy with similar build, and scored quite a few kills and empbreaks with melee attack. Trust me, when done properly, it hurts.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 05, 2009, 04:11 PM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 03:22 PM
Actually...I might start dancer on such server. Stats 140 dex, 110 agi, rest vit and maybe a bit luk, and she becomes great mix of support, ranged and melee damager and empbreaker.
You might laugh now, but I actually played gypsy with similar build, and scored quite a few kills and empbreaks with melee attack. Trust me, when done properly, it hurts.
I'm a big fan of the class also, especially of Arrow Vulcan Gypsies which can hit about 25k damage max solo iirc. They have a few interesting whips, too.

Another question that I'd rather have in its own thread, but it might get enough responses here: So I went through all of the advanced class only equips and ok'ed most of them (some on the basis that they won't drop, like beelze/satan morroc drops), but I'm left with a few:

Item ID# 2528 (Wool_Scarf) â€" 0.1% banshee drop
Item ID# 2424 (Tidal_Shoes) â€" 0.15% ragged zombie drop
Set Bonus: hp rec +5%, max hp +10%.
Should I lower the drop`chance on this, take away the setbonus, or reduce it to +5% max hp? It’s just far too good a combo on its own, invalidating all other equip choices.

Item ID# 2115 (Valkyrja's_Shield) â€" 5% valkyrie drop
Even without advanced classes, these are a pushover and the shield is just so damn good that noone will wear anything else. People will have +7 valk shields in no time…should I lower the drop on this, or reduce the resistances, I’m not sure.

Item ID# 2114 (Stone_Buckler) â€" 0.5% acidus drop
The set this is part of is just too good for Knights to wear anything else ever, taking away a lot of variety.

Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) â€" 0.2% salamander drop
Same defense as slotted full plate but considerably easier to get, equipable by merchants classes also and with great resists on top â€" should I lower the droprate, or the base defense?

Item ID# 1626 (Piercing_Staff) â€" 0.1% kasa drop
Item ID# 1624 (Lich_Bone_Wand) â€" 0.2% necromancer drop
By far the best staffs in game: Ridiculous matk, making carded rods, arc wands, and bone wand look like crap. Lich’s bone wand especially might be the most overpowered weapon besides ice pick in the game. I really don’t know what to do with the latter especially, as even at 0.01% dropchance it seems too good.


Any ideas for these would be highly appreciated!

Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 04:29 PM
Wools+tidals. I wouldn't include these at all. This is meant for trans classes, to counter the massive DPS increase they get.
Valk Shield. Possible to get even without trans, but much harder. I'd reduce def to 0 so people will have to choose between elemental and physical protection.
Stone Buck. I actually haven't seen this combo much in action lately. People more prefer F.Beret as top headgear. And such server is gonna be alot about reductions cause of pot delay.
Meteor. Good luck getting enough to match +7 full plate. Possible, but I doubt there will be enough for quarter of server pop, making +7 full plate more used for swordsman classes.
Staff of piercing. Well well...this is yet again counter to people getting high mdef stuff and making special mdef sets. Is is possible to get stuff like Frigg's circlet? Then allow people to use it.
Lich wand: whew. That is indeed overpowered for nontrans chars.

I'll go through some advanced stuff myself when I have time and post my opinions. Your server concept seems...interesting, and might be worth checking out.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 05, 2009, 05:01 PM
Emsembles should be modified, specially the strong ones, of course, making them solo means a bigger SP needed (Like of both, 10 SP per sec?), and a nerf, like, Loki Emsemble should instead of removing the cast of spells, give a slow cast effect along with higher sp cost, only, so people can still survive the precast.

Oh, also, a question that might make me want to join your server, will the WoE SE Castles be open?!
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 05:10 PM
That is interesting question...WoE SE would have to be greatly modified. They are made for big guilds of trans classes, and server will have neither.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 05, 2009, 05:35 PM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 04:29 PM
Wools+tidals. I wouldn't include these at all. This is meant for trans classes, to counter the massive DPS increase they get.
Valk Shield. Possible to get even without trans, but much harder. I'd reduce def to 0 so people will have to choose between elemental and physical protection.
Stone Buck. I actually haven't seen this combo much in action lately. People more prefer F.Beret as top headgear. And such server is gonna be alot about reductions cause of pot delay.
Meteor. Good luck getting enough to match +7 full plate. Possible, but I doubt there will be enough for quarter of server pop, making +7 full plate more used for swordsman classes.
Staff of piercing. Well well...this is yet again counter to people getting high mdef stuff and making special mdef sets. Is is possible to get stuff like Frigg's circlet? Then allow people to use it.
Lich wand: whew. That is indeed overpowered for nontrans chars.

I'll go through some advanced stuff myself when I have time and post my opinions. Your server concept seems...interesting, and might be worth checking out.
I don't want to throw items out unless necessary, but tidals+wool definitely can't remain as is, because as you say, defense capabilities would overpower offensive capabilities even with pot delay. That valk shield suggestions sounds good, I'll consider it. Stone Buckler is mostly for PvM/tanking, as it adds 5% reduction vs large and an easy 11 def on Knights with the set, but that might be necessary considering the later dungeons that need to be tanked. +7 Full Plate is still harder to get than +7 Meteor Plate if I'm not mistaken, as noone really drops slotted FP at an appreciable rate. I think I'll take 1 or 2 def from it, as the resists are amazing in WoE. Friggs will be available probably, I haven't considered it an issue. Do you think it's too good a headgear/set? Thank you for taking your time to help! Here is a list of all advanced equip (sans headgears) (http://ribbon.blahsoft.com/ro/advanced%20equip.doc).

Quote from: Parameters on Apr 05, 2009, 05:01 PM
Emsembles should be modified, specially the strong ones, of course, making them solo means a bigger SP needed (Like of both, 10 SP per sec?), and a nerf, like, Loki Emsemble should instead of removing the cast of spells, give a slow cast effect along with higher sp cost, only, so people can still survive the precast.

Oh, also, a question that might make me want to join your server, will the WoE SE Castles be open?!
Do you think Loki's Veil is the only spell that requires a nerf? I personally worry a bit about Drums of the Battlefield, too. I'll take those changes into consideration. WoE SE will be available as soon as the playerbase has grown sufficiently, possibly with modifications, as Sarin mentioned.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 05:48 PM
Well, there has to be modifications. You know, guardians for WoE SE are made to be able to defend places against small guilds on their own. And that is with trans classes. Without them...guild that takes castle would be able to defend it against rest of server with ease.

Full plate, well that depends if your server will have warp to Geffenia, as Sign quest is one of longest out there. Makes me think about slotter, it might be an issue.
And I wouldn't underestimate people when it comes to MvPing, it still will be, while tough and needing big party, possible to kill Satan Morroc, Ifrit or Beelzebub...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 05, 2009, 06:16 PM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 05:48 PM
Well, there has to be modifications. You know, guardians for WoE SE are made to be able to defend places against small guilds on their own. And that is with trans classes. Without them...guild that takes castle would be able to defend it against rest of server with ease.

Full plate, well that depends if your server will have warp to Geffenia, as Sign quest is one of longest out there. Makes me think about slotter, it might be an issue.
And I wouldn't underestimate people when it comes to MvPing, it still will be, while tough and needing big party, possible to kill Satan Morroc, Ifrit or Beelzebub...
Good to know, I obviously wouldn't implement anything, much less something as big as WoE SE, without lots of testing (we have 2 servers, one for testing only). I've actually just been thinking about dungeon warps, and I feel that they, together with job changer/platinum skill NPC, don't belong on a low rate server (probably settling on 2/2/10). Having done the Sign quest twice, it certainly is really long, but more bearable when done with other people.
The slotter is an issue insofar as I plan to implement all those headgears in the database but not in-game currently, and many of them are as good as MVP headgears, sometimes even slotted ones, so making them just as difficult to obtain isn't an easy task. Altogether there are over 100 headgears that need to be balanced against the existing ones, which is giving me quite a headache.
What do you think of Satan Morroc, Ifrit and Beelzebub's drops in context of this server? They've obviously a few ridiculous items each.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 07:21 PM
About warps, you might implement custom way. For example, each warp has to be activated, so you have to go there by foot at least first time. Of course, I assume warps would be to enterances only, especially in case of quest ones...but Geffenia is a little bit issue as if I recall correctly some parts can be done only at certain times...and for some people it might be a problem. Jobchanger and Platinum NPC's are a midratish feature IMO, so if you don't include it's ok. Resetter should be there but costly, I don't like when update screws my build.
Hm...2x exp rates? Damn. That would be a problem for me, as I won't have time for that.
These super-MvP drops...well, I wouldn't underestimate people and just remove them to be on a safe side.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 06, 2009, 05:15 AM
Quote from: Sarin on Apr 05, 2009, 07:21 PM
About warps, you might implement custom way. For example, each warp has to be activated, so you have to go there by foot at least first time. Of course, I assume warps would be to enterances only, especially in case of quest ones...but Geffenia is a little bit issue as if I recall correctly some parts can be done only at certain times...and for some people it might be a problem. Jobchanger and Platinum NPC's are a midratish feature IMO, so if you don't include it's ok. Resetter should be there but costly, I don't like when update screws my build.
Hm...2x exp rates? Damn. That would be a problem for me, as I won't have time for that.
These super-MvP drops...well, I wouldn't underestimate people and just remove them to be on a safe side.
I've seen that way on a server lately, although it was for town warps... I don't like it so much for dungeon warps, because even if it's only to entrances, it encourages MVP checklist play... I don't mind placing a Kafra in front of certain dungeons though (GH) so people can at least save there and don't have to walk back all the way upon dying.
The Sign quest was like that, but ultimately you just need one or two people from your guild to do it, since it opens the portal for anyone, so it's fine I hope.
Updates that screw builds are so very rare in RO, and there hasn't really been one in years.. starting off with the server including Moskovia, I don't see much on the horizon. I personally hate resetters because it allows you to reset easily leveled characters (TU priest, BattleBS etc.) to builds only decent at 90+ (ME priest, Pure Forger etc.), so noone would have to do any of the work, joy and pain of their build.
I've previously played on a server without advanced classes with 3/3/3, and hitting 99 took about 3 weeks, so with these new maps and equips, it should be that fast with 2/2/10 easily... I've even thought about 1/1/ exp rates instead, but that might genuinely scare players away.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Guest on Apr 06, 2009, 09:12 AM
why do i get the feeling that the a lot of people don't like the trans classes is because of the assassin cross?.....
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 06, 2009, 09:35 AM
Quote from: JJJ on Apr 06, 2009, 09:12 AM
why do i get the feeling that the a lot of people don't like the trans classes is because of the assassin cross?.....

Way too fast, slowpoke. The major reason is that gravity can't seem to check assassin cross damaging power, since he have infil, edp, edp, sl, sb, accel, zherl mask and much more they use to deal instant death. While other classes that can't go invis behind, will need to get equips to survive and can't focus into one hitting everything around, and get nothing but some weird mob killing weapons and skills.

In other words, trans are trash. More rates please, around 10/10 QQ, or make a test server with double the normal rates that is totally testing so people don't keep on it. Most game have those, they add on the test server, check people opinion, then release on normal server.

Also, will it have ALL new things? Eg: Okolnir Quest, End Tower and Battlefield?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 06, 2009, 12:55 PM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 06, 2009, 09:35 AM
In other words, trans are trash. More rates please, around 10/10 QQ, or make a test server with double the normal rates that is totally testing so people don't keep on it. Most game have those, they add on the test server, check people opinion, then release on normal server.

Also, will it have ALL new things? Eg: Okolnir Quest, End Tower and Battlefield?
Are you asking for a test server with higher rates to complement the one I'm planning so people can test out builds in this environment? Endless Tower we will get eventually, but I'm not sure about Battlefield, and iirc Okolnir is related to those new godlikes, when I'm not even sure if we should have the original godlikes to start with.

I'd rather not discuss why advanced classes are supposedly bad, as there are many threads regarding the subject, and I'd hate to have this one derailed. Let's just assume this a foregone conclusion for now.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 06, 2009, 01:03 PM
Quote from: horo on Apr 06, 2009, 12:55 PM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 06, 2009, 09:35 AM
In other words, trans are trash. More rates please, around 10/10 QQ, or make a test server with double the normal rates that is totally testing so people don't keep on it. Most game have those, they add on the test server, check people opinion, then release on normal server.

Also, will it have ALL new things? Eg: Okolnir Quest, End Tower and Battlefield?
Are you asking for a test server with higher rates to complement the one I'm planning so people can test out builds in this environment? Endless Tower we will get eventually, but I'm not sure about Battlefield, and iirc Okolnir is related to those new godlikes, when I'm not even sure if we should have the original godlikes to start with.

I'd rather not discuss why advanced classes are supposedly bad, as there are many threads regarding the subject, and I'd hate to have this one derailed. Let's just assume this a foregone conclusion for now.

The whole system would be a server with almost the same characteristics, raised rate, a weaker computer and being highly unstable because you would be testing things around and making updates on it, testing and when the update is fully balanced and bugless, update the original. Hmmm, you could still keep the quest but add other rewards?

Sorry about the small derail.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 06, 2009, 01:59 PM
I don't see why this type of server cant have battlefield with your own choice of prizes instead of battlefield rewards right now. It's a great addition to PvP.

Rather than trying to plan out everything on paper, you may want to consider just going on with it and take out all of the "questionable" items first. Afterward, slowly release them one by one instead of releasing them all at once. That way if a nerf is found to be too much/little, or if a removal is found to be a dying necessity/uncalled for, it's in control and only affects a few items at a time. The damage/affect on the economy is minimized then. Right now it seems like you're trying to decide on everything at once.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 06, 2009, 02:21 PM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 06, 2009, 01:59 PM
I don't see why this type of server cant have battlefield with your own choice of prizes instead of battlefield rewards right now. It's a great addition to PvP.

Rather than trying to plan out everything on paper, you may want to consider just going on with it and take out all of the "questionable" items first. Afterward, slowly release them one by one instead of releasing them all at once. That way if a nerf is found to be too much/little, or if a removal is found to be a dying necessity/uncalled for, it's in control and only affects a few items at a time. The damage/affect on the economy is minimized then. Right now it seems like you're trying to decide on everything at once.

This, also, releasing a episode per time might make your server a lot more interesting and generally adding a little content each two week keep the players interested  and busy, so they don't leave after a week.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 06, 2009, 06:05 PM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 06, 2009, 01:03 PM
The whole system would be a server with almost the same characteristics, raised rate, a weaker computer and being highly unstable because you would be testing things around and making updates on it, testing and when the update is fully balanced and bugless, update the original. Hmmm, you could still keep the quest but add other rewards?

Sorry about the small derail.
Not sure about opening the test server to the public, although that would certainly be an option if players expressed such an interest. Once everything is set up, stable and running, looking at editing such quests to suit the server is definitely an option.

Quote from: Ayu on Apr 06, 2009, 01:59 PM
I don't see why this type of server cant have battlefield with your own choice of prizes instead of battlefield rewards right now. It's a great addition to PvP.

Rather than trying to plan out everything on paper, you may want to consider just going on with it and take out all of the "questionable" items first. Afterward, slowly release them one by one instead of releasing them all at once. That way if a nerf is found to be too much/little, or if a removal is found to be a dying necessity/uncalled for, it's in control and only affects a few items at a time. The damage/affect on the economy is minimized then. Right now it seems like you're trying to decide on everything at once.
Going to admit now that I've not yet played battlegrounds, just seen a few videos and heard of the concept and equips, but it certainly looks like something we could have eventually. The addition of episodes like that is a remarkably good idea, but newer episodes not only come with a lot of newbie equip/enemies that I don't want to forcibly keep from players starting out, but with equipment that might significantly change how one would build their character, and I don't want to have to provide stat resets to everyone later on.
Making all the decisions right now is giving me quite a headache indeed, but I hope players will discuss them on the forums, and should they be unsatisfied with certain edits I made, they may be changed.

There'll be a lot of custom content/events that'll hopefully keep players interested for longe than a week anyway :(
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 06, 2009, 07:22 PM
Quote from: horo on Apr 06, 2009, 06:05 PM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 06, 2009, 01:03 PM
The whole system would be a server with almost the same characteristics, raised rate, a weaker computer and being highly unstable because you would be testing things around and making updates on it, testing and when the update is fully balanced and bugless, update the original. Hmmm, you could still keep the quest but add other rewards?

Sorry about the small derail.
Not sure about opening the test server to the public, although that would certainly be an option if players expressed such an interest. Once everything is set up, stable and running, looking at editing such quests to suit the server is definitely an option.

I take my suggestion back,I've seen some official server games having this system and it just make people spam threads such as "OMGF IF DIS UPDATE HAPPEN I QUIT" and other petitions to remove the update and things like that.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 06, 2009, 08:38 PM
Quote from: horo on Apr 06, 2009, 06:05 PM
The addition of episodes like that is a remarkably good idea, but newer episodes not only come with a lot of newbie equip/enemies that I don't want to forcibly keep from players starting out, but with equipment that might significantly change how one would build their character, and I don't want to have to provide stat resets to everyone later on.
Making all the decisions right now is giving me quite a headache indeed, but I hope players will discuss them on the forums, and should they be unsatisfied with certain edits I made, they may be changed.

There'll be a lot of custom content/events that'll hopefully keep players interested for longer than a week anyway :(

I don't think most of the equipment really change how you build a character that significantly as most items don't have that severe +stat type of bonus except valk set so I don't think stat reset is much of a problem. Also, from a GM perspective instead of balance/player perspective, the act of gathering information and is on the initiative to discuss with the players first showers you in a greater light and earns authority/trust from your player base for what type of an admin you are.

Gravity releases new gears and they never provided reset even if that means they may have "oh no now I got 1 str too many!" Just live with it like any other regular server doing an update. No need the spoon feeding on that, imho.

Personally I still think that releasing items bit by bit (or episodes by episodes) make it easiest to balance, and ensure that the server got plenty of "new content" to look forward to.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Rudolph Zyaber on Apr 06, 2009, 09:40 PM
This would be the most boring piece of crap server in the world.  While I'm sure there are a few limited population of players that enjoy the classic pre-trans RO environment, there are way more people like me who look forward to the advancement and the pace of Transcendant class gameplay and the frequent and exciting updates that Gravity makes to the game.  I personally can't wait till all the 3-1 and 3-2 classes are complete and the renewal system is fully finished in its entirety. 

If memory servers me right when I played private servers back in the day, it would always end up who can Sonic Blow/Double Strafe the fastest anyway in PVP and WoE was just the same as it is now. It's probably better in a post-trans environment anyway because all the new magic defense and elemental resistance gears give you more of an edge against precast defenses in castles.

Feel free to make this server if you want but you've really gotta think back to when you first played RO for the first time.  Was it really all that balanced in the first place?  I'd personally say no.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 06, 2009, 11:59 PM
Quote from: Rudolph Zyaber on Apr 06, 2009, 09:40 PM
This would be the most boring piece of crap server in the world.  While I'm sure there are a few limited population of players that enjoy the classic pre-trans RO environment, there are way more people like me who look forward to the advancement and the pace of Transcendant class gameplay and the frequent and exciting updates that Gravity makes to the game.  I personally can't wait till all the 3-1 and 3-2 classes are complete and the renewal system is fully finished in its entirety. 

If memory servers me right when I played private servers back in the day, it would always end up who can Sonic Blow/Double Strafe the fastest anyway in PVP and WoE was just the same as it is now. It's probably better in a post-trans environment anyway because all the new magic defense and elemental resistance gears give you more of an edge against precast defenses in castles.

Feel free to make this server if you want but you've really gotta think back to when you first played RO for the first time.  Was it really all that balanced in the first place?  I'd personally say no.

Atleast back then we did not have skills that could double, triple and even quadruple our normal attack power...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Poki on Apr 07, 2009, 12:06 AM
The word "Balance" shouldn't coexist with RO, ever.  There's always something wrong.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 07, 2009, 02:45 AM
Quote from: Poki on Apr 07, 2009, 12:06 AM
The word "Balance" shouldn't coexist with RO, ever.  There's always something wrong.

Balance exist. It's just subjective, that's all.

Some thinks that SinX is perfectly fine. Some thinks that it's not. If you think that they are fine, you don't need to find this server. If you think that they aren't, then you will look forward to try out this potential server without it and all the other variations of retro feel. I'm personally somewhat interested to see what it'll be like even though I don't pvp. The new mvp environment sounds interesting enough to me.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 03:41 AM
Quote from: Rudolph Zyaber on Apr 06, 2009, 09:40 PM
This would be the most boring piece of crap server in the world.  While I'm sure there are a few limited population of players that enjoy the classic pre-trans RO environment, there are way more people like me who look forward to the advancement and the pace of Transcendant class gameplay and the frequent and exciting updates that Gravity makes to the game.  I personally can't wait till all the 3-1 and 3-2 classes are complete and the renewal system is fully finished in its entirety. 

If memory servers me right when I played private servers back in the day, it would always end up who can Sonic Blow/Double Strafe the fastest anyway in PVP and WoE was just the same as it is now. It's probably better in a post-trans environment anyway because all the new magic defense and elemental resistance gears give you more of an edge against precast defenses in castles.

Feel free to make this server if you want but you've really gotta think back to when you first played RO for the first time.  Was it really all that balanced in the first place?  I'd personally say no.

Had you read this thread, you would've noticed that it's not about debating whether advanced classes are better to have or not. You would've also read that we will have most of the gear available, and that RO was never balanced, and I don't intend to recreate the original RO, but to try and balance it somewhat to which one step is doing away with advanced classes.

Please make yet another thread about why advanced classes are amazing/horrible if you care to argue but don't derail this one about it, thanks!

Quote from: Ayu on Apr 06, 2009, 08:38 PM
I don't think most of the equipment really change how you build a character that significantly as most items don't have that severe +stat type of bonus except valk set so I don't think stat reset is much of a problem. Also, from a GM perspective instead of balance/player perspective, the act of gathering information and is on the initiative to discuss with the players first showers you in a greater light and earns authority/trust from your player base for what type of an admin you are.

Gravity releases new gears and they never provided reset even if that means they may have "oh no now I got 1 str too many!" Just live with it like any other regular server doing an update. No need the spoon feeding on that, imho.

Personally I still think that releasing items bit by bit (or episodes by episodes) make it easiest to balance, and ensure that the server got plenty of "new content" to look forward to.

Let's take for example Rachel, the two 2-H Axes that came with it changed WS' possibilities significantly, and moved him up a good deal on the damage ladder. Depending on your gear, WS can now lay down Atroce in 15-30 seconds (with priest), and outdamage almost any class at a bunch of MVP, whereas before you wouldn't even build your WS towards that. While no items ruined builds absolutely iirc, lots of equips and cards made a big difference, and I can't justify keeping it from players as they might grow tired of waiting for the update to be implemented so they can finally continue collecting their gear. Gravity did actually provide stat resets from time to time, and I don't want to have either a stat resetter, or card unslotter.

The server population you get at the very start is just too important to risk it by such a move, even if it has the chance to pay off.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Rudolph Zyaber on Apr 07, 2009, 10:45 AM
Quote from: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 03:41 AM
Quote from: Rudolph Zyaber on Apr 06, 2009, 09:40 PM
This would be the most boring piece of crap server in the world.  While I'm sure there are a few limited population of players that enjoy the classic pre-trans RO environment, there are way more people like me who look forward to the advancement and the pace of Transcendant class gameplay and the frequent and exciting updates that Gravity makes to the game.  I personally can't wait till all the 3-1 and 3-2 classes are complete and the renewal system is fully finished in its entirety. 

If memory servers me right when I played private servers back in the day, it would always end up who can Sonic Blow/Double Strafe the fastest anyway in PVP and WoE was just the same as it is now. It's probably better in a post-trans environment anyway because all the new magic defense and elemental resistance gears give you more of an edge against precast defenses in castles.

Feel free to make this server if you want but you've really gotta think back to when you first played RO for the first time.  Was it really all that balanced in the first place?  I'd personally say no.

Had you read this thread, you would've noticed that it's not about debating whether advanced classes are better to have or not. You would've also read that we will have most of the gear available, and that RO was never balanced, and I don't intend to recreate the original RO, but to try and balance it somewhat to which one step is doing away with advanced classes.

Please make yet another thread about why advanced classes are amazing/horrible if you care to argue but don't derail this one about it, thanks!

I apologize, I had assumed this was one of those threads reminiscing about the old days of RO and seeking to balance a server by denying players content and new classes to play.  Still, I can't imagine an RO server anymore without the use of the Transcendant classes.  Sorry about nearly derailing the thread.


Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Descent on Apr 07, 2009, 10:50 AM
In a sea full of "Classic" style servers, this one seems to have a shot. I say go for it.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 04:50 PM
To come back to balancing advanced equips, do tell me what you think about these changes please (the servers droprate will be x10):

Item ID# 2000 (Destruction_Rod) â€" change droprate to 4%
Item ID# 2423 (Variant_Shoes) â€" change to 15% hp/sp and to 1% drop instead of 20%
Tidal + Wool - Reduce set bonus to max hp 5%
Item ID# 2115 (Valkyrja's_Shield) â€" change droprate to 2.5%, change defense to 1.
Item ID# 2114 (Stone_Buckler) â€" change droprate to 0.3%
Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) - change defense to 8 instead of 10.
Item ID# 1626 (Piercing_Staff) â€" change droprate to 0.05%
Item ID# 1624 (Lich_Bone_Wand) â€" take out completely.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Pandora on Apr 07, 2009, 05:03 PM
Do you really think non-trans can kill beelz? I'm honestly not convinced although it's not impossible.

Your change seem ok, but one thing you should know is that not all your players will think so, if you do start this server with lots of personally made modifications expect a LOT of whining, b****-ing and arguing from your player base, for each change you make some will like it, some will hate it. You'll hear them argue about such and such being balanced or unbalanced compared to X other item for Y class, I'm just saying be ready for it.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 05:09 PM
Quote from: Pandora on Apr 07, 2009, 05:03 PM
Do you really think non-trans can kill beelz? I'm honestly not convinced although it's not impossible.

Your change seem ok, but one thing you should know is that not all your players will think so, if you do start this server with lots of personally made modifications expect a LOT of whining, b****-ing and arguing from your player base, for each change you make some will like it, some will hate it. You'll hear them argue about such and such being balanced or unbalanced compared to X other item for Y class, I'm just saying be ready for it.
Running one of the greatest (in both applications of the word) custom servers, few people probably know this better than you  :-\. Should players overwhelmingly feel I screwed up an item and make a good argument for it, I'm not opposed to changing it...here's two I forgot:

Item ID# 2678 (Ring_of_Flame_Lord) â€" take out chance to cast random skill for both rings, and change the setbonus to something else.
Item ID# 2679 (Ring_of_Resonance) â€" Add: Increase resistance to Water property by 10%

plus I'll adjust Satan Morroc and Valkyrie drops slightly so they won't drop all their stuff 100%. To be fair I'd be surprised if 2nd classes could outdamage Beelzebub's heal especially considering his element, but rather be safe than sorry.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 07, 2009, 07:32 PM
Quote from: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 03:41 AM
Let's take for example Rachel, the two 2-H Axes that came with it changed WS' possibilities significantly, and moved him up a good deal on the damage ladder. Depending on your gear, WS can now lay down Atroce in 15-30 seconds (with priest), and outdamage almost any class at a bunch of MVP, whereas before you wouldn't even build your WS towards that. While no items ruined builds absolutely iirc, lots of equips and cards made a big difference, and I can't justify keeping it from players as they might grow tired of waiting for the update to be implemented so they can finally continue collecting their gear. Gravity did actually provide stat resets from time to time, and I don't want to have either a stat resetter, or card unslotter.


Made a difference? Yes.
Need to change build/re-stat to use it or fight against it? I doubt that re-stat is necessary to use Bardiche or Hurricane Fury.
(Plus both are inferior to orcish axe[4] because losing a shield is tremendous loss for a whitesmith. I honestly wonder even with HP how does the WS survive Atroce for 30 sec using a 2h axe.)


Like what Descent said, this server seems interesting that you don't finish all that you can do within 2 weeks. And I really don't see why Beelzebub won't go down here... maybe nowhere close to first month, but it'll happen (that's the point of this server right?)

Be sure to make a clear accessible list for players to check on the change logs, but I really encourage you not to do all the changes at once. Give time for players to digest and adapt to the server's custom atmosphere due to the changes, or else you may sort of suffer from a MouRO type of shock where you lose potential player base because there's just so many customization, they won't bother reading it all or feel "it's too different for this to be RO." You aren't the only one who need time to think of the customs. Your players need time to learn and adapt (and think of their builds) on how to utilize these changes.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 08:11 PM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 07, 2009, 07:32 PM
Made a difference? Yes.
Need to change build/re-stat to use it or fight against it? I doubt that re-stat is necessary to use Bardiche or Hurricane Fury.
(Plus both are inferior to orcish axe[4] because losing a shield is tremendous loss for a whitesmith. I honestly wonder even with HP how does the WS survive Atroce for 30 sec using a 2h axe.)


Like what Descent said, this server seems interesting that you don't finish all that you can do within 2 weeks. And I really don't see why Beelzebub won't go down here... maybe nowhere close to first month, but it'll happen (that's the point of this server right?)

Be sure to make a clear accessible list for players to check on the change logs, but I really encourage you not to do all the changes at once. Give time for players to digest and adapt to the server's custom atmosphere due to the changes, or else you may sort of suffer from a MouRO type of shock where you lose potential player base because there's just so many customization, they won't bother reading it all or feel "it's too different for this to be RO." You aren't the only one who need time to think of the customs. Your players need time to learn and adapt (and think of their builds) on how to utilize these changes.

Before Hurricane's Fury, WS just wouldn't do sufficient damage to warrant a 90+ str/80+ agi/rest dex build, whereas now it makes them somewhat fragile, but able to dish out probably the highest consistent DPS in the game, especially coupled with SW tanking. I remember getting 13-14k CT's at 184 aspd vs Atroce without any fancy equipment.
Well, my point is, releasing the server up-to-date episode wise is far less of a risk than doing it your way, though I still like it.
I do hope that the overall increased difficulty of this server setup will challenge players more than just mowing everything down checklist-play style, and thus keep them interested for longer.

I do understand about weirding players out by a large amount of customization, and will do my very best to relay these in the utmost clarity, but I just feel like betraying players if I let them spend time collecting items inferior to some I could have released from the beginning and spared them from hunting for what is ultimately worthless compared to the new equip.
In related news, balancing out the 120+ or so headgears in the database both to each other, and the existing headgears, and then finding ways for them to be implemented in the game as to not be significantly harder or easier to obtain than comparable headgears is the most complicated thing  :(
I'm scared of overlooking, or making an adjustment that might end up unbalancing the server majorly, and keeping track of everything is certainly daunting, but I'm in no rush to get things right before I open the server.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: bleu on Apr 07, 2009, 08:38 PM
Quote from: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 04:50 PM
To come back to balancing advanced equips, do tell me what you think about these changes please (the servers droprate will be x10):

Item ID# 2000 (Destruction_Rod) â€" change droprate to 4%
Item ID# 2423 (Variant_Shoes) â€" change to 15% hp/sp and to 1% drop instead of 20%
Tidal + Wool - Reduce set bonus to max hp 5%
Item ID# 2115 (Valkyrja's_Shield) â€" change droprate to 2.5%, change defense to 1.
Item ID# 2114 (Stone_Buckler) â€" change droprate to 0.3%
Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) - change defense to 8 instead of 10.
Item ID# 1626 (Piercing_Staff) â€" change droprate to 0.05%
Item ID# 1624 (Lich_Bone_Wand) â€" take out completely.


The information provided is incomplete. So, does this means Bleezebub will only drop two items- only being Destruction Rod at 4% and the other being Variant Shoes at 1%. If that is the case, it's very discouraging to even attempt a Bleezebub MVP Party. As a player, I want to be rewarded for my efforts (or team efforts). It's hard enough that they don't have any Trans/Extended class skills like Assumptio, Kahii, etc... and yet you want to further discourage any Bleezebub MVP attempts by further reducing the drop rate in the name of "balance". Even on normal servers, it takes many long hours of careful planning and attempts to successfully kill a Bleezebub and there's no guarantee of any nice drop; even if there are good drops; it will most likely need to be split up and shared among the party members of 12-20+ members. Not to mention the countless of deaths and supplies used. Are there any discussion in tonning down Bleezebub and other high level MVPs; which were designed for Trans classes?


I am quite curious, why did you choose X2 X2 X10. It's quite unusual for a server to have a higher drop rates compared to experience rates.


Yes, you have to be "very prepared" to justify your changes to your players/potential players. For instance: Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) - change defense to 8 instead of 10? how much difference will a -2DEF do? How do you justify a -2DEF will upset the balance? Other people might not agree with your notion of what constitute balance.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 07, 2009, 09:29 PM
Quote from: bleu on Apr 07, 2009, 08:38 PM
The information provided is incomplete. So, does this means Bleezebub will only drop two items- only being Destruction Rod at 4% and the other being Variant Shoes at 1%. If that is the case, it's very discouraging to even attempt a Bleezebub MVP Party. As a player, I want to be rewarded for my efforts (or team efforts). It's hard enough that they don't have any Trans/Extended class skills like Assumptio, Kahii, etc... and yet you want to further discourage any Bleezebub MVP attempts by further reducing the drop rate in the name of "balance". Even on normal servers, it takes many long hours of careful planning and attempts to successfully kill a Bleezebub and there's no guarantee of any nice drop; even if there are good drops; it will most likely need to be split up and shared among the party members of 12-20+ members. Not to mention the countless of deaths and supplies used. Are there any discussion in tonning down Bleezebub and other high level MVPs; which were designed for Trans classes?


I am quite curious, why did you choose X2 X2 X10. It's quite unusual for a server to have a higher drop rates compared to experience rates.


Yes, you have to be "very prepared" to justify your changes to your players/potential players. For instance: Item ID# 2364 (Meteo_Plate_Armor) - change defense to 8 instead of 10? how much difference will a -2DEF do? How do you justify a -2DEF will upset the balance? Other people might not agree with your notion of what constitute balance.

Those are just the items equippable by advanced classes only that I consider too good to leave in their original state, so Beelze will still drop the rest of his things at original rates x 10. I honestly can't envision how hard exactly Beelze will be on this server, so either the item droprates will be restored to their original values, which would make them 100% drops, or, and that I consider the preferable solution, Beelze will be nerfed appropiately. I'm definitely considering toning down the latter MVP, but it's a delicate issue and has to be coordinated with their drops.

I chose 2/2/10 as leveling 2nd classes to 99 with up-to-date maps is quite fast, but farming items hasn't become any easier really since the beginning of RO. I want players to be able to get good equipment along the way, and not have to tend to that only after hitting 90+, or 99. I'd prefer 1/1/10 actually, but that would probably deter too many players. Had the server advanced classes, and their heightened exp requirements, I would've certainly gone with higher exp rates to account for that.

My justification for Meteor Plate is as follows: It originally has the same defense as a slotted Full Plate, with 30% resistance to stun and freeze, which are two of the best status effects in game really, and on top of that it's equippable not only by swordsman classes, but merchant classes too, so carding it is less of a 'waste'. Definitely easier to obtain than a sl. Full Plate, it outclasses any other armor (including sl. Legion Plate), making them worthless. By reducing its def I restore value to Full Plate and Legion Plate as PvM armors at least, when in the original game, they have been made absolutely obsolete and worthless. Even with 8 def (or less), it would be the best reasonably obtainable WoE armor no question because of its resistances.

In kRo, these gears were justified by 'being for advanced classes only', (which is a cheat really since 2nd classes have become just as worthless as their gears with the advent of advanced classes), but I won't have advanced classes meaning no two classes of equip either, so they must all be somewhat balanced out.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 08, 2009, 12:32 PM
Hm decide on one thing first:

What do you think about equipments that can "replace" an existing item?

For example, for slotted garments, in the beginning we just have hood, muffler and manteau. Then Pauldron started coming in, followed by valkyrie manteau. Wool Scarf and Dragon's Breath joined, and now we have satan morroc dropping the newest available slotted garment.

If I recall what you mentioned before, you said that you don't want players to waste time hunting an "inferior" garment. So does that mean you want all garments to be usable on the same extent, or are you keeping some of the garments only as "stepping stones" to use before you reach the 'best equipment' stage?

Sorry if this post is confusing. Hope that you understand what I meant.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 09, 2009, 10:43 AM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 08, 2009, 12:32 PM
Hm decide on one thing first:

What do you think about equipments that can "replace" an existing item?

For example, for slotted garments, in the beginning we just have hood, muffler and manteau. Then Pauldron started coming in, followed by valkyrie manteau. Wool Scarf and Dragon's Breath joined, and now we have satan morroc dropping the newest available slotted garment.

If I recall what you mentioned before, you said that you don't want players to waste time hunting an "inferior" garment. So does that mean you want all garments to be usable on the same extent, or are you keeping some of the garments only as "stepping stones" to use before you reach the 'best equipment' stage?

Sorry if this post is confusing. Hope that you understand what I meant.

I think I understand. Using your example of garments, I'd like each one, coupled with their droprate, to serve a purpose. Hoods for example are light, good for switching, and overupgrading to get certain card bonuses, but Muffler, Manteau and Pauldron are made almost obsolete by Wool Scarf, which is often chosen even over Valk Manteau. Ridiculous, considering the difficulty of obtaining it compared to those it surpasses. Stepping stones are usually stepped over depending on the card droprate (unless there's a card remover), and while I'm not trying to make all equipment remotely equal, I want to restore a variety of choice in equipment to the player. There'll certainly still be 'best' equipment (Satan Morroc, Randgris stuff), but that's nothing you can obtain without having great stuff to begin with, unlike a lot of the equipment I've decided to make changes to.
Posted on: Apr 08, 2009, 04:48 am
I've decided on skill changes I'd like to implement, and would love to hear your opinions on them!

Rogue: Get preserve.
Alchemist:
Change Alchol recipe to require 1 x Stem and 1 x Poison Spore instead of 5 x of each
Change Acid Bottle recipe to require 1 x Venom Canine instead of 1 x Immortal Heart

Dancer/Bard:
Ensemble songs to be made single:

Lullaby: 35 sp per cast, 1sp / second upkeep
Eternal chaos: 35 sp per cast, 1sp / second upkeep
Battlefield drums: 70 sp per cast, 3sp / second upkeep
Ring of Nibelungen: 70 sp per cast, 3sp /second upkeep
Into the Abyss: 35 sp per cast, 1sp / second upkeep

Loki’s Veil and Invulnerable Siegfried stay ensemble songs. If I figure out how to make Mr. Kim not be abusable in solo play by using it on last hits on high exp enemies with sling arrow, it might be changed to non-ensemble also, otherwise it stays as is.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 09, 2009, 07:20 PM
I dunno... I prefer ensembles to be dual. Dancer is horribly useless in relative contrast to bard if its not for ensemble to keep them "necessary" in those cases ._x; Plus once you change a skill, you are more likely to receive some complaints one way or another so do keep that in mind.

Another suggestion of a type of approach you can take while deciding on normally trans item. Once you lower an equipment's value, you sort of get "congested" with a lot of equipment being relatively the same without being all that different from each other... for example, meteor plate armor compare to full plate, legion plate and chain mail are all grouped together and their only difference is just def number change and meteor being the only unique one with status resistance. One approach is that instead of nerfing/lowering the numbers, you can add some more drawback so that they become "high risk-high return" type of approach.

Just for example, you can say keep tidal combo as is, but lower the effectiveness of potions by 20%. You start off with a higher max hp, but potion is weakened as an exchange.


I personally prefer equipments to be more distant and unique from one another, instead of relatively the same except number changes. It's another possibility that you can take.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 09, 2009, 08:34 PM
Dancers aren't useless, but they have to be played right. But most people dunno what does it take so they tend to think so...but when used correctly, Slow Grace can deal debuff about as strong as Bragi's buff is, if you get what I mean. Bards are definitely better support...but dancers have their place, and are very underestimated in their abilities.

You get the point in equip. Seems like reasonable approach, if used correctly. I support that.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 09, 2009, 09:34 PM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 09, 2009, 07:20 PM
I dunno... I prefer ensembles to be dual. Dancer is horribly useless in relative contrast to bard if its not for ensemble to keep them "necessary" in those cases ._x; Plus once you change a skill, you are more likely to receive some complaints one way or another so do keep that in mind.

Another suggestion of a type of approach you can take while deciding on normally trans item. Once you lower an equipment's value, you sort of get "congested" with a lot of equipment being relatively the same without being all that different from each other... for example, meteor plate armor compare to full plate, legion plate and chain mail are all grouped together and their only difference is just def number change and meteor being the only unique one with status resistance. One approach is that instead of nerfing/lowering the numbers, you can add some more drawback so that they become "high risk-high return" type of approach.

Just for example, you can say keep tidal combo as is, but lower the effectiveness of potions by 20%. You start off with a higher max hp, but potion is weakened as an exchange.


I personally prefer equipments to be more distant and unique from one another, instead of relatively the same except number changes. It's another possibility that you can take.

I like Dancers too, but my experience with the classic servers I've played in the past is that the average player (or guild) doesn't recognize their worth, so they're the class played least, and I doubt many guilds would nurse an aspiring WoE Dancer up, so I'm trying to make them, and Bards, although they're more common because of Bragi, obviously appealing to anyone. Most ensemble skills besides Exp song aren't used much in PvM either. Do you think the changes I do suggest for these classes are alright either way? The SP requirement is way high, so I'm not too sure how that will work out.

I understand the suggestions about equips becoming too similar, but there are still loads of set pieces, and ones with special effects like that. I don't want to weird players out by making changes anymore drastic than necessary to achieve the sort of balance I mentioned earlier, although I'll probably use that kind of approach with all the "new" headgears, as there are definitely a bunch far too similar to each other. The higher the amount of customization introduced, the higher the risk of screwing something up, too.

I'm not yet sure what to do with godlikes either, as those are items genuinely not supposed to be balanced, considering they were introduced way before advanced classes.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: fluidin on Apr 10, 2009, 02:41 AM
All good guilds do recognise the worth of Dazzler spam, Slow Grace and At Your Service at least. And I mean all.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 10, 2009, 03:38 AM
Quote from: fluidin on Apr 10, 2009, 02:41 AM
All good guilds do recognise the worth of Dazzler spam, Slow Grace and At Your Service at least. And I mean all.

Vit Knights are not affected by Dazzler spam
Slow Grace is required to be near the target, while Quagmire can be cast from cliffs, so=Dead Dancer
Service For You is a very good skill for pre-trans, without Soul Exale, Wizzies will need more SP, GFist gains more damage w/ it
You will need atleast one Bragi Bard and one Service for You Dancer for your wizard line and your precast will be stronger than average, and I approve of the high-risk stuff.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 10, 2009, 06:48 AM
So you'd say they don't need to be buffed up, and are fine as is?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 10, 2009, 08:35 AM
Quote from: horo on Apr 10, 2009, 06:48 AM
So you'd say they don't need to be buffed up, and are fine as is?

In a way, yes, ensambles are one of the things that make bards and dancers both useful, the only thing that needed to be buffed up desperatly pre-trans, were alchemists, but w/ homunculus and no AD they are already balanced, I wouldn't advise buffing up assasins, their link already can make them quite powerful
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 10, 2009, 09:00 AM
About godlys...they are balanced, if like 1-2% of population reaching several thousands have them, like on kRO/iRO. Otherwise, they're kind of too much.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 10, 2009, 11:24 AM
Quote from: LiteX on Apr 10, 2009, 08:35 AM
In a way, yes, ensambles are one of the things that make bards and dancers both useful, the only thing that needed to be buffed up desperatly pre-trans, were alchemists, but w/ homunculus and no AD they are already balanced, I wouldn't advise buffing up assasins, their link already can make them quite powerful
Alchemist, Rogue and Dancer/Bard were the only ones I considered buffing up as they are seriously underplayed. I consider changing the games crit like I mentioned earlier a buff to assassins mainly. TK, SL, GS, Ninja are all out, as they are too strong, so I won't have to deal with soullink luckily.

Quote from: Sarin on Apr 10, 2009, 09:00 AM
About godlys...they are balanced, if like 1-2% of population reaching several thousands have them, like on kRO/iRO. Otherwise, they're kind of too much.

Balancing WoE rewards between worthwhile and overpowered is a challenge for private servers always I feel. I don't want to nerf the godlikes themselves, but rather make the difficulty of their acquiration inversely proportional to that of getting castles.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 10, 2009, 09:30 PM
In a no advanced class environment, demonstration has its place as a member of the pre-cast team. With homunculus to help out pvm, I think that alchemist should be just fine.


As for handling god items, I don't have much experience but to share what heRO server chose to do. Instead of each castle having a fixed set of unique chests, we changed it so any open castles have a chance to take a shot at any of the 40+ treasure chests and all castles can access the other guild dungeons. You can say that it eliminates some strategic value to get a particular castle, but then when the server just starts, you'll just have one castle open anyway. Also, since chests are randomized, you can't just go invade a particular castle to aim straight for the missing pieces of the god items. A good econ with solid defense to boost the number of chests you get in a castle is all you can do to try to speed up the process. So far, heRO server is open for three and a half years, and currently with 3 castles open, we still haven't seen a single god item created yet (people got pretty close but still not there yet.) It's an approach that's worth considering. You get less whining if you decide to fidget with how to get the god items, rather than play with the god items themselves.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 13, 2009, 02:07 PM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 10, 2009, 09:30 PM
As for handling god items, I don't have much experience but to share what heRO server chose to do. Instead of each castle having a fixed set of unique chests, we changed it so any open castles have a chance to take a shot at any of the 40+ treasure chests and all castles can access the other guild dungeons. You can say that it eliminates some strategic value to get a particular castle, but then when the server just starts, you'll just have one castle open anyway. Also, since chests are randomized, you can't just go invade a particular castle to aim straight for the missing pieces of the god items. A good econ with solid defense to boost the number of chests you get in a castle is all you can do to try to speed up the process. So far, heRO server is open for three and a half years, and currently with 3 castles open, we still haven't seen a single god item created yet (people got pretty close but still not there yet.) It's an approach that's worth considering. You get less whining if you decide to fidget with how to get the god items, rather than play with the god items themselves.

I'd love to go with this, can you elaborate a bit on its setup? I assume you have all 20 castles' treasure boxes set to spawn in a treasure room at the same rate? Are they affected by the servers 3x droprate, or did you leave it at 1x? Did you leave the drops the same as they've been since the beginning of WoE, or did you replace them with more up-to-date things? I really appreciate your posts!
Posted on: Apr 10, 2009, 10:17 pm
In light of the forums rollback, you don't have to repost your explanation to this once again =3
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 13, 2009, 04:55 PM
Out of 40 castle chests in woe1, 20 of them are identical and 20 of them are unique, each unique chest containing 1 god item ingredient. This is because official server each castle only spawns 2 chests- 1 generic and 1 unique one. In heRO, each castle has a chance to spawn any of the 40 chests, so you still have 50% of a generic and 50% of the god item pieces. However, you can't pinpoint which castle to go for in order to speed up the rate of collecting god item pieces because all castles got the same chance of getting you the god item piece that you want.

So the chance of 1 particular chest dropping the god item ingredient that you specifically want in heRO is equal 1/40*0.024 (in heRO the 3x drop rate applies to chests as well) which is around 0.06%. We never changed the chests since the beginning, and we never had any wipe so in 3 years, our system allows people to get really close to the god items but no one has completed any yet.

Pros and cons to this system... pros of course is that god item ingredient is sort of diffused and all castles are now equal in value if it's not for the castle floor layout if it's easier to defend or not. The same pros to some players is a con, so it's up to you to decide if it works for your future server. It certain works pretty well for us.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 13, 2009, 07:27 PM
I'll definitely go with that, except maybe replace things like chainmail[1], shoes[1] with more worthwhile stuff. thanks a lot for your help! I'll also illustrate the zeny inflation problems 10x droprates brings with it:

Mineral: 3k @ 50%
Myst Case: 1.5k @ 80%, 3k @ 15%
Venatu: 2.5k @ 35-50%,
Dark Frame: 1.5k @ 100%
Stalatic Golem: 800 @ 100%, 2.2k @ 25%, Elunium @ 12%
Sleeper: 1.5k @ 100%
Peach Tree: 3.5k @ 100%
Skogul: 5k @ 50%, 1.2k @ 100%, 5k @ 10%
Zombie, Skel Prisoner: ~800 @ 100%
Mavka: 27.5k @ 30%, 7.5k @ 100%, Blue Herb @ 100%
Wild Rose: 27.5k @ 5%
Vanberk, Isilla: 1.5k @ 100%
Echio: 1.6k @ 100%, 15k @ 5%
Agav: 1.6k @ 100%
Seeker, Hodremlin: 2k @ 100%
Succubus: 10k @ 50%, 2.5k @ 100%, 4.2k @ 100%, 22.5k @ 15%
Incubus: 4.2k @ 100%, 15k @ 50%, 22.5k @ 15%

so many adjustments to make  :(
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 13, 2009, 08:06 PM
Rather than "adjusting" every single mob which is too much work, I think almost all pservers prefer to use zeny drainage system of some sort for the monsters to combat zeny inflation problem. In a sense, knowing what monster gives good OC loot or valuable drops consistently is part of their advantage as an experienced player to know where to go for these goodies. Instead, it's better if the server has features that suck zeny out of the economy. Afterall, I thought that you prefer less adjustments the better.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 13, 2009, 08:14 PM
Server is not going to have repeatable quests right?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 03:29 AM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 13, 2009, 08:06 PM
Rather than "adjusting" every single mob which is too much work, I think almost all pservers prefer to use zeny drainage system of some sort for the monsters to combat zeny inflation problem. In a sense, knowing what monster gives good OC loot or valuable drops consistently is part of their advantage as an experienced player to know where to go for these goodies. Instead, it's better if the server has features that suck zeny out of the economy. Afterall, I thought that you prefer less adjustments the better.

The best zeny drain is usually slot enchantment, followed by Kafra warps, but even so some of these monsters, especially Myst Case, Sleeper, Peach Tree, Mavka and Incubus/Succubus will result in up to tens of millions a day if farmed, so I really worry about it. Being able to afford whitepotting your way through anything is no good I think. As for custom zeny drains, I can think of one or two things only, but nothing that would eat up more than a negligible amount. While less adjustments are preferred from the work side, too, I feel that keeping a servers economy in check is really important, well demonstrated by midrate servers where you can farm Gokurin for money.

Quote from: Parameters on Apr 13, 2009, 08:14 PM
Server is not going to have repeatable quests right?

I'm not sure, do you consider these overpowered? http://irowiki.org/wiki/Repeatable_EXP_Quests (http://irowiki.org/wiki/Repeatable_EXP_Quests), second table.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 14, 2009, 04:08 AM
Quote from: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 03:29 AM
Quote from: Ayu on Apr 13, 2009, 08:06 PM
Rather than "adjusting" every single mob which is too much work, I think almost all pservers prefer to use zeny drainage system of some sort for the monsters to combat zeny inflation problem. In a sense, knowing what monster gives good OC loot or valuable drops consistently is part of their advantage as an experienced player to know where to go for these goodies. Instead, it's better if the server has features that suck zeny out of the economy. Afterall, I thought that you prefer less adjustments the better.

The best zeny drain is usually slot enchantment, followed by Kafra warps, but even so some of these monsters, especially Myst Case, Sleeper, Peach Tree, Mavka and Incubus/Succubus will result in up to tens of millions a day if farmed, so I really worry about it. Being able to afford whitepotting your way through anything is no good I think. As for custom zeny drains, I can think of one or two things only, but nothing that would eat up more than a negligible amount. While less adjustments are preferred from the work side, too, I feel that keeping a servers economy in check is really important, well demonstrated by midrate servers where you can farm Gokurin for money.

Quote from: Parameters on Apr 13, 2009, 08:14 PM
Server is not going to have repeatable quests right?

I'm not sure, do you consider these overpowered? http://irowiki.org/wiki/Repeatable_EXP_Quests (http://irowiki.org/wiki/Repeatable_EXP_Quests), second table.

IIRC kRO once added a tax system for NPC'ed items (it was like -10% zeny by selling them), putting low taxes on things is a good way to prevent zeny inflation, having a good GM team that bans bots on sight is also a good way to prevent inflations (Rogues can make about 1.5mZeny/Hour with Peach Trees on certain rates, if you have 8 Rogue bots going on 24/7 when your GM team is away can have a major impact on the economy), watching out for bugs is a good way to prevent zeny duping, and becareful of what items GMs give away, as event, or corruption (If the server is x5/x5/x5 and just started with about 25 people and a GM gives an item that drops from a high-tier MvP on the second day, that item will cost will affect the server's future economy), if you have played Low/Mid rates for a good amount of years i think you can know what will happen to the server's economy and prevent that it will turn like the real world's economy, another tip is that if you see an item's price skyrocketing out of nowhere, it is a good idea to make the item more accesible to players, another idea is to decrease the drop chance of items that can be bought on the npc or buff the potions and make them more expensive, but i reccomend these "Pots on 'roids" for leveling only, otherwise it will turn into a potspamfest in woe,

My comment on those quests... the experience isn't much if its not multiplied, if you meant by the rewards then i guess 5 Goats is okay for a 1 White Pot

Even though they are not do-able if you are 85+ soo...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 04:34 AM
I'll be the only GM with @item for a good while, so that's nothing I worry about. Neither are bots, as we've quite a good .exe that doesn't even allow for doubleclienting.

Well it'll be 2x exp rates so that's not the biggest of multipliers, but it'll certainly advocate farming items on one character to level difficult builds like forger, potter etc., and might also be preferable to partying up with other people, which is something I really want to avoid. Do LR servers mostly have these quests, or are they disabled?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on Apr 14, 2009, 05:26 AM
Quote from: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 04:34 AM
I'll be the only GM with @item for a good while, so that's nothing I worry about. Neither are bots, as we've quite a good .exe that doesn't even allow for doubleclienting.

Well it'll be 2x exp rates so that's not the biggest of multipliers, but it'll certainly advocate farming items on one character to level difficult builds like forger, potter etc., and might also be preferable to partying up with other people, which is something I really want to avoid. Do LR servers mostly have these quests, or are they disabled?

These quests do kind of help the server's economy, I don't think it will hurt much, since you have to obtain 25-50 of a kind of item to do it, not very abusable
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 14, 2009, 06:09 AM
Remember that the best economy fix is still to increase server population so there's actually people to hunt items. In the beginning when you start the server, "absurd price" is unavoidable. When there's like 50 people around (or even less) and that 1 bathory card pop up, that thing is going to cost you 10 mil+ at an item rate of 10x at least. So to immediately add in supply through the GM team just because there is an "absurd price," I recommend against that. It's especially true for armor elemental cards. Without assumptio, it's even more necessary to have the proper elemental armor on at all times against the MvPs as you can't tank them with brute force alone anymore. Pasana, swordfish and bathory's prices will fly through the roof with the nature of this server.

Custom zeny sink doesn't have to be neglectible amount or only stuck on taxes, which your player base will quickly whine about. It's much better to have them willingly spend zeny than forcibly take it away. Cosmetic improvements are always an easy one and definitely won't imbalance a server. There's bound to be players out there going "KAWAII~~ <3 <3" and dump a mil or two on the latest palette/hairstyle (especially if you purposely release them slowly one at a time.) Again using heRO server as the example for where I GM at, there's the Great Fairy Auction and one of the item we sold off in the past is an unique new female hairstyle not yet released to public, and it comes with a guarantee that the hairstyle will not be accessible to the public for a whole half year. At that time heRO server has maybe 150 players on at a time, and it sold for 12 mil zeny, which I would classify as a significant amount for a 5/5/3 server.

Battling inflation isn't always about taking zeny directly out of the economy. Ultimately you are only trying to stop players from stockpiling zeny to the point where they have so much zeny, it is useless to get more because zeny can't help them with getting more items. Another plan that heRO server chose to do to battle server inflation is an economic shift to change zeny from the hands of established player to new players (who can really use the zeny for basically anything, and thus an indirect "drain"). Through a repeatable custom feature which I won't go into details about, players are asked to get 5 "common cards" in order to start the quest. We set these common cards to be places where low-mid level players tend to train and the cards are widely considered useless, such as poring card, lunatic, wolf, ant eggs and etc (in addition, we customized poring to drop its card at 0.6% instead to further strengthen the deal. All other cards remain at 0.03%) High end players are often too lazy to go hunt it in person, yet they need endless amount of it to do the quest time after time. What it results is a net transfer of zeny from high end players to new players who are almost bound to run into one or two of these cards. Again for comparison value, in the beginning when this is just implemented, Poring Card and these other 'common cards' rose to 500k. Needing 5 of these cards to try the quest each time resulted in an estimate of 2.5mil transfer from high end players to newer players. Of course after nearly a year of this implemented, these card prices dropped, but that's mostly due to increase in population so there's more people who may run into these cards now.


Really there's lots of ways to approach a problem. Being creative in solving common server problems will help your server stand out among all the rest, and this uniqueness will be an important key to help your server grow.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 07:10 AM
@LiteX: I have been browsing iRo/euRo forums a lot in the past days to look for what pro-players do, and basically it's nothing but repeatable exp quests to level up to 86, where they do Biolab and Rachel quest, or hunt these enemies to sell exp items (Anolian skin sell for 5k+ iirc). I did some calculations with 2/2/10 rates:

Frilldora have ~2000 hp and give 1000 base exp, with exp quest 3400.
Anopheles have 100 hp and give 200 base exp, with exp quest 5200.
Alligator have ~7000 hp and give 2800 base exp, with exp quest 9600.
Levaska have ~3100 hp and give 3000 base exp, with exp quest 12400.
Goat have ~11000 hp and give 6700 base exp, with exp quest 17100.

This would basically make any other leveling spot useless and you could pull any build up easily by quests, so I'm leaning heavily towards taking them out.


@Ayu:

I've (at least for now) settled on 10x droprates exactly because as you say, equip is far more important in an environment without Assumptio and whatnot. After looking at Ifrit, Beelze and Valk being killed in a few minutes each on iRo by a single DD, I do think anything is better than that though. I would go mad as a hatter trying to fix advanced classes.

Auctioning off unique items and such sounds like a great idea, and I definitely want to use some of the equipment in the database but not available in game in such a way. I've made lots of low level drops mixing ingredients for headgears already, so hopefully that will help. Unfortunately we don't have scripters as godly as yours, so options are more limited  :(


This thread is really a tremendous aid in ironing out a lot of problems and uncertainties for me, so thanks again to everyone that's posting.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 14, 2009, 12:04 PM
Make other repeatable quests with mobs that aren't really a option to level? Making people go to more place than "If you're level 80, you MUST go to Ice Cave" and make it more "You can either level in Ice or at X mob, get it drop and trade it with the Y quest".
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 14, 2009, 01:27 PM
To be honest, I only find a few of the repeatable exp quest to be truly that attractive, mostly the two goat quests just because it also drops empty bottles with herbs all at the same time, making it an ideal quest to get brewing alchemists up. Moscovia itself is easy and is part of repeatable quests, but if you're starting with the most updated svn, then that means there is a huge series of extremely annoying quests to go through. By the time you unlock it, you're probably over lv 60 to do the quest >_<; For example, Frilldora looks nice on paper but with only 20 of them on a map and 10 of them are probably using cloak, and when you're low level without the sight clip, hunting them is not practical compare to good old muscipular for an easy 2000 exp or mobbing wolves who drop healing items for you as well (at 10x, you almost always get meat to restore your hp afterward.) Anopheles is also a royal pain because there is just no good map to find them on to begin with, and their flee makes it difficult for most characters. But not a life/death situation to me if you take them out. If it isn't for no reset and we are thinking about the poor forgers/brewers, I'll say take them out. As much as grinding may be "boring," this server is a lot easier to hit the 'top' because there is no trans so you are 'done' once you get lv 99. Making it too easier to get there may make it difficult for you to retain the players. At the same time, the brewers/forgers there is no way to train them except leech if there is no repeatable exp quests, and without dual client (which is a good thing that I personally support) it's almost impossible to train them since the population is too low for leeching party when the server starts. You may see little to no brewers/forgers for quite awhile until population reaches a point where it can support leeching.


Not sure how does iRO really have a single DD handle beelzebub... don't always base your observations on youtube videos, as most of the time those things have unrealistic equipments that private servers without donations will probably never get.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 01:46 PM
@Parameter:

Maybe. As Ayu mentions, they are the only alternative to straight leeching when it comes to leveling forgers/brewers, just a little too good as of now in my book.

@Ayu:

There's a field with 45 frilldora, but you obviously need to be an Archer or Mage to really take advantage of them. I think the field surrounding AL dungeon is nice for Anopheles, but their flee definitely screws most classes.
A lack of brewers/forgers at the start is definitely an issue as availability of elemental weapons is quite important for some classes. I hope guilds will take it upon them to leech these up.
Players hitting 99 too easily is a big concern, but I feel like I couldn't successfully market 1x exp rates or increased exp per level to a potential playerbase  :(

As for the Beelze thing, it doesn't require any outrageous equip but taking advantage of Clashing Spiral's stunlock, since a MVP's mob is always in the same state as the MVP (idle when stunlocked): Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cYUGatziDM&feature=channel_page). As for Valkyrie, she's simply killed with Crusader stacking reflect damage equip on top of Reflect Shield and equipping gear that heightens Randgris' Sonic Blow damage: Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDOEvB_Unpg).
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on Apr 14, 2009, 01:59 PM
Clashing spiral (aka spiral pierce) is trans skill....but you made the point I said before, never underestimate the resourcefulness of players...
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 14, 2009, 07:25 PM
Reflect by design is a problem for any servers. iRO Sealed Shrine Baphomet is killed in the same manner. You'll need to tinker with the natural skills of MvPs to fight off some of these problems. *However* is this something to "fix" or is this a proper reward for players who know these 'tricks?' You'll have to decide as the admin. If you really want to mess that trick over, just give MvPs the ability to use ganbantein 5 often in idle mode so they will break the ice wall to smack the wizard and the priest who is ressing the suiciding-sader. But then again, to me it sounds as valid as luring valk to be right on the portal, and then asura-cide her off abusing the 1 second of immunity due to walking out of a warp (only more setup and luring required than reflect.)

As an admin, you will have to decide what is "intended" and what is "a bug." However I don't think that this is an immediate problem for your server. Deciding on the "trans equipment"'s fate is still your primary concern, as that is one of the two main defining characteristic that separates you from all the other retro-feeling servers.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 08:36 PM
So I hear in regards to Sealed Shrine Baphomet, but I'll leave it alone for now since there are many tricks like it in game, and once you start nerfing the first skill, it'd open the gates for all kinds of trouble.

After watching MVP being done 'properly', I've decided to leave Beelzebub and Valk drops as is, and only take out the curse wands. What I can't decide on are Ifrit's rings as Concentration, Asura Strike and Pressure are entirely too good, but removing them means removing Ifrit's only unique drops, and thus his worth as a MVP, so I might have to replace these skills.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on Apr 14, 2009, 09:15 PM
Aren't the 'hard' mvp already getting it's drops raped? Also, that I recall, The Great Evil Baphomet only drops Tengron as a good loot?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 09:50 PM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 14, 2009, 09:15 PM
Aren't the 'hard' mvp already getting it's drops raped?
Can you clarify?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on Apr 15, 2009, 04:37 AM
Quote from: horo on Apr 14, 2009, 09:50 PM
Quote from: Parameters on Apr 14, 2009, 09:15 PM
Aren't the 'hard' mvp already getting it's drops raped?
Can you clarify?

For example, valk shield.

50% drop assuming 10x rate, but I recall that it has 0 def so it is only about the resistances. Now without trans classes, killing it isn't impossible as you really just go with SW anyway. However, using non-trans is horribly SP draining, yet there is no prof, so we have to dump a lot of blue potion to get the job done. Compare to 'normal servers,' the cost to get it done is a lot higher, yet the item payout is 'worse' than before. Not saying that the shield is now useless, but Valkyrie is just a good example of how nothing seems to have changed, but lack of efficiency due to no trans sends the cost to MvP to skyrocket.

So besides the challenge, the extra cost factor needs to be considered too when you are doing tweaks to mvp drops.

(I don't remember if there's still SG around in your server or not... if they are still around, well Valkyrie is a bad example then but hope you get my point.)
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on Apr 15, 2009, 10:13 AM
Besides Beelze's curse wand and the Ifrit's rings, the only MVP drop I might end up touching after taking in everyone's opinion into consideration is Ice Pick's droprate as I consider it a horrible thing to exist.

As for little Valkyrie, you do have a point. I gave it a go and it takes a good while longer with Hunter than Sniper behind a SW'ing Priest, although SP items will be much easier to come by with 10x droprate, too, but if you're stingy on them, it'll probably take 10 minutes to take her down at least. There's always the unheard option of taking more than 1 DD along to kill her, but I'll reconsider giving the shield 1 more def or so  :(. I still think they're one of the most disproportionally good items in the game in relation to how easy they are to farm.

Definitely not having any advanced classes, as each is superior to 2nd classes in their own way. I can't imagine the carnage if one of the 10 people in existence that knows how to play GS would step into a WoE  :-[
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Xeche on May 10, 2009, 07:47 PM
I think it's a good idea but one problem im seeing is the fact that taking out the trans classes will prevent them from also getting to the newer trans classes (Gullotine Cross, Arch Bishop, etc.) and i know when that comes out alot of people will want to try them out so they'll be going for high rate servers with the trans classes.

why not just make the monsters 200% stronger?
that way it takes a team of novices to kill 1 poring xD thatd be epic haha
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on May 10, 2009, 09:16 PM
It actually does not mean that 3rd classes will be taken out. As far as I know, it will be possible to change to 3rd class even from nontrans, at the penalty of not having trans skills. Yet, it will have to be rebalanced ofcourse.

I take it you didn't realize that problem is in PvP balance, not PvM?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 10, 2009, 09:28 PM
I'd like you to not continue this discussion on 3rd classes initiated by an unnecessary bump. I'm not having rebirth classes, and certainly none beyond that.

I'm pretty pleased with how this topic went, so lets leave it at that :)
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on May 11, 2009, 03:21 AM
Quote from: Xeche on May 10, 2009, 07:47 PM
I think it's a good idea but one problem im seeing is the fact that taking out the trans classes will prevent them from also getting to the newer trans classes (Gullotine Cross, Arch Bishop, etc.) and i know when that comes out alot of people will want to try them out so they'll be going for high rate servers with the trans classes.

why not just make the monsters 200% stronger?
that way it takes a team of novices to kill 1 poring xD thatd be epic haha

You do realize most people that liked a transless RO would hate to have 3rd classes, and you really don't need to trans to go 3rd-Class.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 15, 2009, 03:07 PM
i'm not sure if it already has been mentioned but would it be too overpower
to add "Full Protection" to Alchemist? Instead of them using all 4 skills to
fully protect someone and it'll be less expensive it'll be nice to have that
skill as a regular Alchemist
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on May 15, 2009, 03:14 PM
You would have to add Full Divest to make it fair, and people would want their trans skill too and yada yada yada yada.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 15, 2009, 03:19 PM
I think people tend to forget there was a time before rebirth classes, when there only were single strip/protection skills and people dealt with those fine. Besides, making a strip rogue with only 50 job points to distribute is a far bigger commitment than getting FS on a stalker: No Intimidate, no max double strafe + stalk.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 15, 2009, 11:15 PM
Quote from: Parameters on May 15, 2009, 03:14 PM
You would have to add Full Divest to make it fair, and people would want their trans skill too and yada yada yada yada.

obviously those people don't see the difference between a rogue and an alchemist

alchemist is part support class specially during PVM/MVP would you want
use Helm, Shield, Armor, and Weapon Protection to party made of 2-20people?
that's 8-80 glistening coat per party that's if they don't die and if they keep
dying that's another bunch of glistening..

if you still disagree i suggest you go to BioLab w/ an alchemist and a party
and see how many times you and your party get their equips broken and
how many glistening coat you'll end up using

and for the record alchemist is one of the least played character in ragnarok
before the transcendant class and homunculus came out you hardly see
those character in any party the only reason people actually play them is
for pure brewing that's about it or if someone wants to get Protection before
MVPing any MVP that breaks equipments.. sadly but true..

so there's a HUGE difference between putting FullProtection and adding
FullDivest.. and for the record horo is already adding Preserve (a stalker skill)

Edit: If the server only have less than 50population yes it's fine to have single
protection for WOEing but you guys do realize that before the transcendant/bio lab was
implemented there was barely any monster that has the ability to break equips
that's why veteran(those who played earlier iRO) player manage just fine with
single protection because it was rarely even used at all but considering the fact
that horo plan to implement all maps and mobs (up to date) that will change drastically
including the fact that most mobs/mvp were buffed up by gravity and added few skill
that breaks and even strip player equips
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 16, 2009, 03:26 AM
My changes to Alchemist class so far are:

# changed Acid Bottle to use Venom Canine instead of  Immortal Heart (skill description update required)
# changed Alcohol creation to use 1 Poison Spore and 1 Stem (skill description update required)

which I worry might make obtaining glistening coats too easy and thus strip rogues not good enough when they're far more difficult to level than alchemists. Making alchemist a worthwhile class is pretty difficult (and Gravity sure messed it up with AD, and subsequently had to change all MVP vit values to fix it at least somewhat), so I welcome any suggestions. They'll obviously have homunculus, but few people see those as an incentive to play the class I feel.

Giving preserve to rogues doesn't affect their relationship with alchemists since if you go the intimidate tree, you've no skillpoints for the strip tree and the other way around.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on May 16, 2009, 09:16 AM
Giving FCP to Alchies will make no sense, in the end, there will be mass nagging on why the server isn't equal and start suggestion to give trans skills to their nontrans counterparts
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 16, 2009, 09:39 AM
I agree, the only rebirth skill I will be giving to 2nd classes is preserve for reasons hopefully everyone will understand (like disallowing double client making it impossible to give a skill to yourself).
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on May 16, 2009, 09:57 AM
Quote from: horo on May 16, 2009, 09:39 AM
I agree, the only rebirth skill I will be giving to 2nd classes is preserve for reasons hopefully everyone will understand (like disallowing double client making it impossible to give a skill to yourself).

Preserveless Plagiarism is a pain in the donkey, but won't this skew up the skilltree build for lots of players? Are you going to put this in as a quest skill or just an ordinary skill?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 16, 2009, 10:05 AM
Ordinary, same place as stalker skilltree, so requiring intimidate 10. >Here's an example (http://web.hc.keio.ac.jp/~fk061999/himeyasha/skill3/rog.html?10GAJkoehNbrqnbn1cK) of what you could get, still less restricting than going for strip weapon with job level 50~ the one additional skillpoint won't make or break any rogue builds.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 16, 2009, 11:49 AM
well i was only referring to PVM specially when you MVP a monster capable
of breaking all your equips or even strip them well i suppose you can forget about
the rest of the party and just use Chemical Protection to the tanker

but regarding WOE then yes i agree that it'll make a rogue's skill complete useless
(well which ever make the server balance or close to it)

yea defenitely make Duel Clienting illegal or just turn it off it makes partying
a little useless if you can have a priest or other support class follow you
around..

hmm how about @at? is it possible to turn them off too? you wouldn't want
an entire server full of @at's just like FeelRO... well having @at doesn't sound
too bad either so hmm i don't know >_<

i also agree w/ preserver i wouldn't want to be a rogue if my plagirism skill
changes all the time during WOE
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 16, 2009, 11:56 AM
we made a custom autovending system that'll limit each account to one autotrader only. took a while to get it working as intended but ghost towns full of merchants are an ugly sight!
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 16, 2009, 12:00 PM
yea that's nice i was going to suggest something like the vending engine
runescape and FFXI(i saw my friend played it and there's something like that)
had where you just put your item to an npc and they
sell it for you but i kinna figured it's too much of a hassle and making
the script for it and such.... yea i also hate those ghost town full of
venders.....
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 16, 2009, 12:05 PM
something like that would be really cool to have, I wonder if any servers have scripted that. the way merchants work in RO is kind of outdated compared to other mmorpg vending systems.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on May 16, 2009, 01:13 PM
Dofus also have a system like that, around the town there is a bunch of NPCs on the workshops (You make equips there) and you can put them there and set it to a price, when it sells, it goes to your bank.Of course, there is a set time and cost a bit to put an object (For example, a 50z would cost 1z, but a 500.000 would cost 4k~5k).

Isn't there a Auction System like that on RO?
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on May 16, 2009, 01:28 PM
Quote from: Parameters on May 16, 2009, 01:13 PM
Dofus also have a system like that, around the town there is a bunch of NPCs on the workshops (You make equips there) and you can put them there and set it to a price, when it sells, it goes to your bank.Of course, there is a set time and cost a bit to put an object (For example, a 50z would cost 1z, but a 500.000 would cost 4k~5k).

Isn't there a Auction System like that on RO?

Yeah, I think but it is quite underrated on private servers
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: DragonHero on May 18, 2009, 04:48 PM
balancing the server without removing the advanced classes:

Add in custom monsters that can kill them!
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 18, 2009, 04:51 PM
Alright I'll have to ask you to just not post in any of my threads anymore, thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: DragonHero on May 18, 2009, 04:56 PM
we are all entitled to our point of views. but yes removing the advanced classes can balance the server at its current state but if you custom a server and you dont want the advanced classes removed you can always make customs that can kill them and they will need help from other people to kill.

Get what i mean? It was no disrespect to your post horo but its also another perspective
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on May 18, 2009, 07:25 PM
There's many different ways to "balance" a server if you think that the current default state of RO is imbalanced. Adding some custom monsters to kill them is a potential one (though your post really lacks details to how to get it done). You can be like mouRO as well and restructure RO until it is fitting is another method. I believe that horo made it pretty clear that his/her path that he/she chose to take is to remove the advanced classes, so really comments on game balance are grounded within this approach due to the specification of the first post.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on May 19, 2009, 03:22 AM
Quote from: Ayu on May 18, 2009, 07:25 PM
There's many different ways to "balance" a server if you think that the current default state of RO is imbalanced. Adding some custom monsters to kill them is a potential one (though your post really lacks details to how to get it done). You can be like mouRO as well and restructure RO until it is fitting is another method. I believe that horo made it pretty clear that his/her path that he/she chose to take is to remove the advanced classes, so really comments on game balance are grounded within this approach due to the specification of the first post.

I really don't see a reason for custom mobs on a server like horo's, except for events of course
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 20, 2009, 12:01 PM
Rather than opening a new topic (and possibly get more attention), I'll give asking here a try first. This is quite an important question to me, so intelligent input is really honestly appreciated.

WoE reduction adjustment to accomodate changed offensive and defensive capabilites causes by 2nd classes being able to wear rebirth equip

Current reductions:

1. Damage to guardians - 100%: I'm thinking of changing this to 85% to accomodate the rise in attack power across the board.

2. Melee attack - 80%: The only classes this affects are Assassin and Blacksmith I think, especially if they are crit builds. Assassin's best weapon is still the boned infiltrator, which, with 130 str and WoE reductions (as all numbers cited from hereon), does 400 mainhand crits at ~173 aspd versus a 100 vit Priest wearing beret and cranial. Blacksmith using a bloody Hurricane's Fury does 330 normal hits at ~183 aspd. I'm considering raising this to at least 90% (increasing Emperium HP by 20% or more to accomodate to this change of course), if not 100% to make Assassins a truly viable class in WoE even without EDP/Link.

3. Ranged attack - 80%: Since ranged means more than 3 cells distance/blockable by pneuma, this affects Hunters only. Dex Hunters normal attacks do 190 (400 crit with sniping suit) versus aforementioned Priest at 183 aspd, while Luck Hunters do 230 crits very slowly. Considering raising this to 100%.

4. Weapon skills damage - 60%: Double strafe does a miserable 700 versus full reduction including ranged; the big damage dealers here are earth Bowling Bash (1600 @ 179 aspd) and Mammonite (1300 @ 183 aspd). Rebirth equip gives quite a bit more defense and HP, so I'm considering 70% at least.

5. Magic skills damage - 60%: SG with +9 dbl ignore Lich's/Piercing is doing about 450-630 per SG hit on the priest wearing unfrozen glittering jacket for armor and 21mdef total, while JT clocks in at ~1300 total. Considering to raise this to 70% damage at least.

6. Misc skills damage - 60%: Short list without rebirth skills! Traps, Falcon, Stone Fling, Homunculus Explosion. Considering setting this to 100% for our dear useless Hunters, and the occasional half-year alternate version formless Vanil explosion wiping out an entire guild including the theoretical Tao Gunka Knight.

7. Flee Penalty - 20%: Better flee equip and better hit equip, I think it's fine as is.


What I'm worried about currently is the survivability of Knights; 19-20k hp (100 vit) coupled with 60 dex and 130 str is not unrealistic and might make them profit too much from the rebirth equip, and too strong overall.

Once again thanks for reading and taking the time to think about it.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on May 20, 2009, 12:52 PM
Quote from: horo on May 20, 2009, 12:01 PM
3. Ranged attack - 80%: Since ranged means more than 3 cells distance/blockable by pneuma, this affects Hunters only. Dex Hunters normal attacks do 190 (400 crit with sniping suit) versus aforementioned Priest at 183 aspd, while Luck Hunters do 230 crits very slowly. Considering raising this to 100%.

Doesn't Spears fall under ranged weapons category too? Or was it only the Spiral Pierce skill? Guardian Reduction... I don't know, I think guardians are already way too ignored in actual WoE, at least in my opinion (Hey look, that guardian, bye guardian!), they are even Demi Human, thus affected by Thara and Hydra. Everything else sounds fine.

Thinking about 100Vit knights instantly brings to mind Occult Impact effects, but you said somewhere you were going to remove it effects from IP and Tana Card, I'd say reduce a bit the tidal bonus?

lolwut?
The main problem is that Tidal Combo give a huge %HP Bonus, Knights already having a somewhat big HP any % is a lot already, nerfing only on Knights will probably hurt more the mid vit knight than the high vit ones. Even being a horrid idea, you could also remove the %HP bonus and add a fixed HP bonus to it.
[close]

Quote6. Misc skills damage - 60%:Stone Fling reduction removed
You just had to make Rogues and Assassins OP again.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 20, 2009, 01:07 PM
It's only spiral pierce. I'm actually making guardians stronger by making them harder to kill (they take 85% instead of 100% damage), not the other way around. Unless I horribly misread something.

Not going to remove OI effects, what I said was probably along the lines of 'I hate IP QQ'. I nerfed its droprate a little because I really do think its overpowered. The problem with nerfing item effects is that I have to keep PvM in mind, and there players will need absolutely any advantage they can get because rebirth maps without rebirth characters are pretty tough. I definitely wanted to take this approach at the beginning, but have since changed my mind for a bunch of reasons.

The fixed HP bonus is a great idea by the way, I'll definitely keep that in mind.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on May 20, 2009, 01:14 PM
Oh, I have readen "Damage of Guardians", my bad.

Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on May 20, 2009, 07:59 PM
I honestly think, smith/knight will always overshadow assassin except for emp breaking really... you just can't compare to spammonite/bowling bash in the melee damage department (though i wouldn't use hurricane fury, losing the thara shield is too great of a loss for smith. Orcish axe would still be my choice even if damage is lower and there's no CT). If you do buff melee damage output to help out assassin, you probably end up buffing the smith/knight even more. Assassin's other option is really just grim, which isn't a source of damage but more like status inducer in our scenario.

Not sure about changing the stone fling and if it really helps or hinders things... My WoE experience is extremely limiting and can only comment on the usually spammed skills.


Hm what about changing guardians back to not demihuman? If standard WoE weapons/armors no longer works on them, I think that it'll give them a much needed boost so that they are less of a joke.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 20, 2009, 10:27 PM
Quote6. Misc skills damage - 60%:Stone Fling reduction removed"
You just had to make Rogues and Assassins OP again.
how would removing Stone Fling dmg reduction make Rogue and Assassins OP(if it means OverPower)
i highly doubt it give more than 100dmg other than it's stun effect it's damage output is quite
pathetic compare to other quest skills... (outside WOE SF already does a whooping 50 dmg to porings
unless gravity changed them again)

brief question is these the official (iRO) reduction? since 2003?
basically i'm asking if it's the original reduction during the classic RO before trans
Quote
Current reductions:

1. Damage to guardians - 100%:
2. Melee attack - 80%:
3. Ranged attack - 80%:
4. Weapon skills damage - 60%:
5. Magic skills damage - 60%:
6. Misc skills damage - 60%:
7. Flee Penalty - 20%:
if it is i personally think it's fine the way it is but if it's still need some work then

1. Yea reducing damage guardians take is not a bad idea making them a little hard
to kill and maybe giving Guardings 10%more dmg so players actually bother killing
them other than ignoring it and making investment on them actually worth it

2. Is either fine they way it is or 90-100% is nice as long as it doesn't get any lower but
if you're going to add % to range then it's a must to make 100% dmg to melee attck

3. I honestly think adding damage to Range Damage will make things a little imballance because
of the new Trans Equips that gives more dmg to range and cards as well and you have
add that fact Agi-99 Hunters can easily dodge Melee Attcks(not Skills but some they can) and
their main role is to Trap people in Woe and beside that also adds %dmg to DS back in
the old iRO it doesn't take more than 5-8 DS to kill a wizzy or agi characters. So it shouldn't
be touched at all Archer Class' role should remain as semi support (traps / songs) and semi
killer. Well maybe making adding an extra 10% won't hurt but 20% is too much
(Note: Hunter's were NEVER useless in the old school iRO most if not all are capable of
dropping most class other than Priest and Crusader b**** to kill no actually their not even
possible to kill w/ Archers)

4. Not Sure

5. With the new Trans Equips raising Magic Dmg will be a b**** to handle specially while entering
pre-cast even w/ a Sinx/Paly/and/LK some of them drop like crazy w/ only 60% i can't imagine how
bad it'll be w/ another % rise to magic dmg

6. 60% to 100%? DAMN isn't that 40% higher damage way too much? i think 20% damage is okay
a smart trapper will definetely abuse that %. unless you would put a limit on how many traps
a hunter can lay down... that's overpower... And also i believe it's best to lower(maybe 1/2) Homunculus' damage
during Woe if you're not going to disable them.

7. Agree

Note: Actually most of these will depend on your server's Rate if most equips are easy to
acquire then most of those reduction and adding damage need to be implemented but
if you're going to have less than 5x drop rate i think WOE's system is fine the way it is
it might even be better to just Nerf some items and if you are worried that it'll be harder to
lvl in a Trans Lvlving Map (ex. Abyss) then Nerfing the monsters equal to the amount you
Nerfed the Equips is a lot better then again that's a whole lot of Nerfing to do..

EDIT: Regarding the KNIGHT's HP you can always have the server have a MAX HP like other
pServer so you put a limit hp modifier or such for that problem.

And also making your WOE 2hrs long will be good if you have decent amount of population

EDIT: IF IT'S POSSIBLE TO CHANGE HOW THE WOE SYSTEM WORKS LATER ON IN THE
GAME/SERVER I HIGHLY SUGGEST DOING SO IF AND ONLY IF ITEMS/EQUIPS ARE HARD
TO OBTAIN I THINK ONCE EVERYONE OR HALF OF THE POPULATION START HAVING
ALL TRANS EQUIPS THEN THAT WOULD BE THE TIME TO IMPLEMENT THOSE CHANGES
SO EVERYTHING WILL DEPEND ON YOUR RATES


Edit: in your old topic i think you highgly encourage partying right? maybe it's possible to
buff up most soloable MVPs and change their Summons to something stronger?

EDIT: Also there are pServer out there that disable certain items during WOE much like
how nonPOT pvp map works you can disable any equipments from Transcendant for those maps
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 21, 2009, 03:36 AM
Quote from: Ayu on May 20, 2009, 07:59 PM
I honestly think, smith/knight will always overshadow assassin except for emp breaking really... you just can't compare to spammonite/bowling bash in the melee damage department (though i wouldn't use hurricane fury, losing the thara shield is too great of a loss for smith. Orcish axe would still be my choice even if damage is lower and there's no CT). If you do buff melee damage output to help out assassin, you probably end up buffing the smith/knight even more. Assassin's other option is really just grim, which isn't a source of damage but more like status inducer in our scenario.

Not sure about changing the stone fling and if it really helps or hinders things... My WoE experience is extremely limiting and can only comment on the usually spammed skills.


Hm what about changing guardians back to not demihuman? If standard WoE weapons/armors no longer works on them, I think that it'll give them a much needed boost so that they are less of a joke.

Hurricane's Fury is a bit risky, but I wanted to see what damage output was possible with the new equips classes gain access to. Why do you think buffing melee (meaning non-skill) damage helps Knights, who have crappy attack/weapons (the 1000% from BB is what makes them hurt) or BS, who won't have meltdown? I think comparing Crit Builds, Assassin have slightly higher damage outputs than BS. I agree about the overshadowing, it's unfortunate. What I disagree with is Gravity's solution to the problem :P

The stone fling comment was a joke, as it's the weakest damage skill in the game at a set 50 damage, so it being affected by a damage change to other things won't make a difference.

The idea to change guardians (probably to formless) is a great idea and I'll take it. I don't think you've ever made a post in one of my threads that didn't contain a great idea I accepted no questions asked, thanks a lot  :)


@soki: I appreciate your long post!

1. I think those reductions have been in game eversince, but there's a lot of misinformation around about them. I do remember playing when WoE was first introduced on iRO servers.

2. Ranged attack is far easier to reduce than melee because of Alligator, Noxious and stuff, and actually, there isn't much new equip giving more damage to range except for Sniping Suit, which is really rare (droprate is 10x) and hard to get without rebirth classes. Also you mistake that this is ranged non-skill damage, DS falls under category 4 with melee skills unless I'm horribly mistaken about something.

3. There's certainly a lot of good new matk equip, but then there's a lot of new mdef equip also. I'm going to be cautious raising this certainly.

4. Trappers have become so absolutely utterly useless now that you cannot stack traps or push them with arrow shower anymore that I honestly don't mind. It's not like you can lay them under people anymore.

5. Regarding the rest of your post, my strategy is to touch as few items, equips and enemies as possible since I want players to be able to use common databases. I'll obviously have to change some MVP eventually, but certainly not by making them even stronger.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Sarin on May 21, 2009, 11:37 AM
I dunno if it is possible, but one way how to make guards more worth killing is altering their AI to prioritize cloaked/hiiden chars. As far as I remember, they were always mostly used for that.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: A92FL0163 on May 21, 2009, 12:44 PM
Quote from: soki on May 20, 2009, 10:27 PM
Quote6. Misc skills damage - 60%:Stone Fling reduction removed"
You just had to make Rogues and Assassins OP again.
how would removing Stone Fling dmg reduction make Rogue and Assassins OP(if it means OverPower)
i highly doubt it give more than 100dmg other than it's stun effect it's damage output is quite
pathetic compare to other quest skills... (outside WOE SF already does a whooping 50 dmg to porings
unless gravity changed them again)


I was being sarcastic about the fact it is one of the skills don't really change (Fact it is used only for stun).
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 21, 2009, 02:28 PM
@parameters lol it's hard to tell if someone is being sarcastic online hehe ok i hope you didn't get offended i was just asking question
i haven't used STone Fling in a while so i thought maybe gravity changed it

@horo
Quote2. Also you mistake that this is ranged non-skill damage, DS falls under category 4 with melee skills unless I'm horribly mistaken about something.
yea i've mistaken it for Skill Dmg XD
Quote4. Trappers have become so absolutely utterly useless now that you cannot stack traps or push them with arrow shower anymore that I honestly don't mind. It's not like you can lay them under people anymore.
hmm isn't the only reason Trappers became useless was because of the recent updates such as trans because of their ability to pretty much
walk pass them and since you're trying to make pretty much the classic iRO WOE wouldn't that bring back their usefullness?
Quote5. Regarding the rest of your post, my strategy is to touch as few items, equips and enemies as possible since I want players to be able to use common databases. I'll obviously have to change some MVP eventually, but certainly not by making them even stronger.
if things gets too hard on trying to balance things out you can always restrict some cards and equips in WOE castle
just a thought it makes things a lot easier but in the same time it won't nerf/make other equips useless outside WOE
i've seen it done before and by restricting it there will be no reason to tweak those equips less scripting? maybe...?

Restricting equipments/cards on WOE castle will definetely bring back the old classic iRO WOE
before the Lighthalzen Update but everything is up to you man

Edit: well that's just my opinion is kinna hard to imagine having the new equips for any non-trans class for WOE and
how it'll effect it hopefully they won't be dropping like flies

Edit: hmm just thought about it if you're trying to bring back the Classic WOE then item restriction is your best if not only option
but if you're just trying to have a server w/ balance class and balance WOE w/out bringing back the old school
feel to it then changing some of the WOE system is your best option.. so it depends on what you really want it the end
either way i'll probably try it out when it gets decent amount of players i do miss playing 2nd jobs
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Ayu on May 22, 2009, 10:55 PM
I don't think the point of horo's future server is to bring back anything classic. Rather, it is to enjoy the new content without the trans/extended classes. If it's a server that's going back to the classics, i don't think horo would've spent the extra effort to re-balance all the new items instead of just taking them out.

As for the emperium change, somehow i'm a bit hesistant on that. If the emp's hp went higher, but there is also an increase in how easy it is to kill other players, it helps the defense team quite a bit. We don't know if the other changes will make it too easy or too hard to kill players yet. If it's too easy to kill players, then together with emp hp increase, it'll be a great advantage for the defending team to the point that you need a zerg rush to break the emp. I personally say, just keep the emp as it is for now.

I'm also against restricting certain equips in WoE... why hunt for it at all if you can only use it half the time? >>; The equips ought to be balanced enough for using in both pvm and pvp.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 23, 2009, 02:05 AM
Quote from: Ayu on May 22, 2009, 10:55 PM
I don't think the point of horo's future server is to bring back anything classic. Rather, it is to enjoy the new content without the trans/extended classes. If it's a server that's going back to the classics, i don't think horo would've spent the extra effort to re-balance all the new items instead of just taking them out.

As for the emperium change, somehow i'm a bit hesistant on that. If the emp's hp went higher, but there is also an increase in how easy it is to kill other players, it helps the defense team quite a bit. We don't know if the other changes will make it too easy or too hard to kill players yet. If it's too easy to kill players, then together with emp hp increase, it'll be a great advantage for the defending team to the point that you need a zerg rush to break the emp. I personally say, just keep the emp as it is for now.

I'm also against restricting certain equips in WoE... why hunt for it at all if you can only use it half the time? >>; The equips ought to be balanced enough for using in both pvm and pvp.

You speak for me so well that I'd just be repeating your words if I responded to soki.

Regarding the the emperium, on rebirth servers it's like this: The emp can be broken very fast by the empbreaker (Sinx), but he can also be killed equally fast by the defense since rebirth classes have very high damage output, including a few 1-2 shot skills. Once 2-3 Sinx reach the emp, it'll pretty much game over (on official servers it's called a bytchtake: rushing the emp without cleaning out the defending guild).

As for my WoE setup, breaking should still be possible in about under a minute (I've yet to test this thoroughly) but I want to emulate the breaking times as if original melee-damage reductions were in place because I'm changing them for pvp damage only. Eathena working in such a way that the emperium is affected by the change in damage reduction isn't actually what I wanted. I don't intend to make the strong skills stronger in WoE, I'm simply adjusting them to keep damage (in percentage of health) received as it would be without the rebirth equips that give a greater boost to defense than offense across the board. I hope I'm making sense!

I agree with restricting items specifically in WoE. I was just reading your godlike discussion thread yesterday about what to do with these items, it's good exercise for an aspiring GM also  ;)
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 23, 2009, 03:28 PM
Quote from: Ayu on May 22, 2009, 10:55 PM
I don't think the point of horo's future server is to bring back anything classic. Rather, it is to enjoy the new content without the trans/extended classes. If it's a server that's going back to the classics, i don't think horo would've spent the extra effort to re-balance all the new items instead of just taking them out.

I'm also against restricting certain equips in WoE... why hunt for it at all if you can only use it half the time? >>; The equips ought to be balanced enough for using in both pvm and pvp.

Ahh ok that's why i said "if" at the end

Quote from: soki on May 21, 2009, 02:28 PM
Edit: hmm just thought about it if you're trying to bring back the Classic WOE then item restriction is your best if not only option
but if you're just trying to have a server w/ balance class and balance WOE w/out bringing back the old school
feel to it then changing some of the WOE system is your best option.. so it depends on what you really want it the end
either way i'll probably try it out when it gets decent amount of players i do miss playing 2nd jobs

there was 2 options there hmm regarding the emp actually a regular DD sin w/ IcePick can kill the emp(HP-68430) in less than 25 second
w/ Magni's (str+2), thiefcloth (agi +1), 2x Ring(mantis),= str - 99+16 agi 79+11 w/out buff so if it's raise
to 80k then that will still be less than a minute it's abit harder but able to pull off but w/out the IcePick lol it'll take a long time

EDIT: ohh horo btw since Sinx in Lighthalzen drops DeadlyPoison are you going to keep those drops in game? w/out the skill EDP it's
only main purpose is to add extra ASPD just like Awakes and Berserk(and poison them in the same time) tho it'll probably kill the sin
once they drink it (double click it) LOL
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 23, 2009, 03:45 PM
Pretty sure with those stats and gears you won't last 25 seconds in the emp room, let alone at the emp ;)
I'll have to do proper testing over the next week and see where I'll end up.

Deadly Poisn Bottle isn't the only problem with Biolabs 3, as the only way that MVP will die to 2nd classes is by ledging, and the level doesn't really offer much to them otherwise. Definitely going to place a quest NPC somewhere in there though  :-[

Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: soki on May 23, 2009, 03:54 PM
ohh no i mean the EREMES once that drops DeadlyPotions not the MVP lol it's a b**** to kill those
i mean the regular Sinx in BioLab they drops DeadlyPotion will you keep them? as an ASPD booster
since Assassin doesn't have EnchantDeadly then those pretty much play as a aspd potion

LOL yea they wont survive lol SG hurts for any Agi characters but yea unless you manage
to have your guild take out the PreCast then perhaps you'll survive w/ spaming slim whites but
when ever we play in a guild we usually keep the breakers at the end of the line up so they have
better chance of surviving
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: LiteX on May 23, 2009, 10:58 PM
Quote from: soki on May 23, 2009, 03:54 PM
ohh no i mean the EREMES once that drops DeadlyPotions not the MVP lol it's a b**** to kill those
i mean the regular Sinx in BioLab they drops DeadlyPotion will you keep them? as an ASPD booster
since Assassin doesn't have EnchantDeadly then those pretty much play as a aspd potion

LOL yea they wont survive lol SG hurts for any Agi characters but yea unless you manage
to have your guild take out the PreCast then perhaps you'll survive w/ spaming slim whites but
when ever we play in a guild we usually keep the breakers at the end of the line up so they have
better chance of surviving

I'm pretty sure other mobs like kikimora drops EDP bottles, and I guess the emp could also get a small HP boost to provide less bytchtaking
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 25, 2009, 04:55 AM
Welp, just found out WoE reductions stack after all, so I cannot boost any of these separately. Changing ranged damage reduction affects all ranged skills including magic also, so in order to boost non-skill damage only I would have to lessen the reductions on melee and range, and heighten the reductions on skill and magic damage  :-\
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: Skotlex on May 25, 2009, 04:44 PM
Quote from: horo on May 25, 2009, 04:55 AM
Welp, just found out WoE reductions stack after all, so I cannot boost any of these separately. Changing ranged damage reduction affects all ranged skills including magic also, so in order to boost non-skill damage only I would have to lessen the reductions on melee and range, and heighten the reductions on skill and magic damage  :-\

That shouldn't be true... current eA trunk has this:
Quote
//battle_calc_gvg_damage():
      if (flag & BF_SKILL) { //Skills get a different reduction than non-skills. [Skotlex]
         if (flag&BF_WEAPON)
            damage = damage * battle_config.gvg_weapon_damage_rate/100;
         if (flag&BF_MAGIC)
            damage = damage * battle_config.gvg_magic_damage_rate/100;
         if (flag&BF_MISC)
            damage = damage * battle_config.gvg_misc_damage_rate/100;
      } else { //Normal attacks get reductions based on range.
         if (flag & BF_SHORT)
            damage = damage * battle_config.gvg_short_damage_rate/100;
         if (flag & BF_LONG)
            damage = damage * battle_config.gvg_long_damage_rate/100;
      }
I don't know what you are doing, but it should behave as you expected earlier.
Title: Re: Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.
Post by: horo on May 25, 2009, 04:51 PM
Oh I see, I posted a thread on the eathena forums (http://www.eathena.ws/board/WoE-damage-reductions-on-eathena-t219703.html) and got a contrary response. The test server is down again, so I cannot test right now, however accurate those results would be. I sincerely hope you're correct.