BalanceRO

Started by Myrishe, Sep 18, 2017, 03:54 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Myrishe

Greetings!  /ho

I don't really write a review for a server and it's my first time doing so. This is just my token of appreciation for the staff of BalanceRO for creating a magnificent server. From here on, I'll be writing an honest review.
I'm new to the game RO itself, played less than a year. I started with private servers and never tried official ones because I don't really like grinding for so long.  After jumping and testing out other pre-renewal 99/70 private server for some time, I luckily found BalanceRO on RMS which just opened recently September 9, 2017.

Website/Forums/Discord
At first, what made me attracted into it is their website. It's so beautiful with exciting contents suited for every players- either they are PvP or PvE focused.
Not only website, they have forums and a discord channel. I joined their forums and discord after that. When someone has a problem or a bug has been reported, they immediately take action for it to be fixed. Friendly and approachable staffs. I'm one of the players who constantly bugs a GM with lots of suggestions and they still bear with me after all these time. I salute the staff! Patience is a must, indeed. They're really professional even though they're new to the ragnarok private servers scene.  /no1

Community
The community is superb. This is the first time I experienced such RO experience with the community helping each other since when I join some private servers, it's always just about flaming in #main channel and just hate, boasting, etc. Although, you'll see occasional flaming in main by the trolls who join the server just for the lulz of trolling. Every server have people like them..
Parties are also welcomed whole heartedly in here. When you join the server, you'll see players recruiting for a Magma Dungeon run or Ice Dungeon Run (just those first since it's a new server and people are busy grinding for equips before leveling haha). It also depends on the timezone you're in. If you're lucky maybe spotting a leveling party or two. Me, I play from SEA but it's not a problem. I enjoy my stay here even if I grind and level alone some times  /ok

In-game Events by Game Master
About in-game events, even though I rarely participate in there because of the difference in time zone. I think there's about 1-2 events the GM do per day and I suspect there'll be more when the population's reached a certain peak.
Events as of now :
*Lucky Teleport
*Disguise Event
*Hide and Seek
And a special event Trivia by GM Onigiri just recently
Join our community and share your ideas 😀

Leveling
There are some players who get irritated cus of slow leveling but well, everyone will reach trans 99/70 someday. I say slow, because I came from a high rate server and just not used to it.  /sob

There are freebies given on newly created accounts like Field Manual and 100 Novice Potions. The server also have a unique Novice Training Ground. Rather than killing the usual Porings or Lunatics, the training ground features Biolabs/Lighthalzen 1 mobs with the same stats as those of poring. For example, I chose to be an Archer class, the Archer Job Master will give me a quest to kill 10 Kavacs before proceeding to job change (Yes, this server have Job Changer NPC). Those Kavacs which I kill also drops useful equips at 5% drop rate that I can use in the future.
After finishing the quest, you'll be redirected to an npc that will give you a skill "Equipment Change" which can be found in the last section of the skill tab. It's the server's  unique system and is still in the process of development.

Donations
There are headgears available through donation (cosmetics and some 'gears')but they're all available in Quest and Battleground Box which you can purchase for around 1,500 badges.

Quest NPC
All donation items are available thru quests and battleground boxes. The quests are not easy, well it depends. They used MVP drops as quest materials so PvM is so active nowadays. Just some quest material are hard to get considering it's 1% drop rate.  /wah

Zeny
The server have many counter for zeny inflation. In fact, they nerfed the prices for some loots (including Stilleto and Witherless Rose) and Brasilis Dungeon is not available.

Hourly Reward NPC
There's also an Hourly Reward Npc that gives you tickets every hour after claiming it in the NPC. If you choose to use it, you can have a +4 stats of your choice for 5 minutes. Tho I heard they'll change that due to player's demands.

Battlegrounds
BG is not active "for now". If you'll read the contents of BalanceRO in their website, it has promising features about BG, like honor system, lots of battleground mode and many more. And in the Training Grounds, after doing the quests, the NPC gives you a limited time BG Armor Box for your character which you can open anytime. Btw, there's no glorious set here, so all in all, it's balanced!

This server even have King of Emperium!

Summary :

-Website : 11/10. YEP 11/10  /lv
-Community : 10/10
-In-game Events : 9/10
-Donation : 9/10
-Battleground : No comment for now, peepz busy grinding/leveling  /heh

This server has great potential, imo. It have a population of 130 now (vendors not included) since the release date.
Give the server a try and maybe this will be your new "home". See you guys ingame!  /ok

BalanceRO

Thanks for such incredibly and nicely review Myrishe!  /lv

Voxz, in name of BalanceRO Team.

Prism~

#2
I'd have to say the review is very kind, but, it fails to mention a few key issues that the server has.

1. Donations, they may be available in-game but, they are insanely difficult to obtain and, well, just look at the prices for yourselves:

Spoiler
Normally the most expensive item on a mid-rate's donation list is $25 USD. You can sugar coat it any way you'd like but, $50 donations is disgusting, and I fail to see how it isn't "Not P2W."

2. The reviewer failed to mention server availability, which I personally would give a 5/10. The server has had a lot of latency issues, lots of issues with the proxies and lag.

3. I have rarely seen a GM actually active in-game, whether it be my timezone or some other factor, GM availability in-game is pretty cruddy, same with Discord. I have yet to participate in a gm-held event. Only props I can give them in this area is they are pretty decent at responding to the forum, and pms.

4. There is a large lack of custom and end-game content. The only thing that makes the server special is the safe-refine system, which could be damaging to the economy in the long-run. There has also been no plans released for custom and end-game content.


In my honest opinion, I would say this server is sub-par, possibly (probably) a cash grab scheme, and deserves an overall 5/10.


SyntheticSymphony

Quote from: Prism~ on Sep 19, 2017, 05:21 PM
I'd have to say the review is very kind, but, it fails to mention a few key issues that the server has.

1. Donations, they may be available in-game but, they are insanely difficult to obtain and, well, just look at the prices for yourselves:

Spoiler
[close]
Normally the most expensive item on a mid-rate's donation list is $25 USD. Theirs is $50, which is, in my opinion, disgusting, and anything but "Not P2W."

2. The reviewer failed to mention server availability, which I personally would give a 5/10. The server has had a lot of latency issues, lots of issues with the proxies and lag.

3. I have rarely seen a GM actually active in-game, whether it be my timezone or some other factor, GM availability in-game is pretty cruddy, same with Discord. I have yet to participate in a gm-held event. Only props I can give them in this area is they are pretty decent at responding to the forum, and pms.

4. There is a large lack of custom and end-game content. The only thing that makes the server special is the safe-refine system, which could be damaging to the economy in the long-run.


In my honest opinion, I would say this server is sub-par, possibly (probably) a cash grab scheme, and deserves an overall 5/10.

1. Donation/Quest Headgears:
I think they are meant to be difficult to obtain to give more value to the MvP drops. The server is still young, and as more players hunt MvPs, the cheaper those drops will become. Same with the prices on the headgears, more zeny will be obtained throughout the server and 10~20m won't seem as much as you continue playing. As for the actual donation price in real money, the hosting isn't free, and I don't think they expect everyone to just donate out of the goodness of their hearts. The headgears are simply compensation for their contribution to the server, you just have to have the right mentality about it. If it was a cash-grab server, they wouldn't even include the quests. I've already seen several players creating quest hats already, as well as myself. Difficult to make? Yes. It's meant to be that way. Please refer to this post on their mentality involving donations: http://forum.balance-ro.com/index.php?/topic/3-detailed-server-information/

2. Server Availability:
Since the host change, I personally haven't had any disconnections, and little to no lag. Generally in RO, everyone is quick to blame the host, rather than their own net. I'd suggest running a tracert to find out exactly whose end it is rather than jumping to conclusions and placing blame where it may in fact, not be due. You can run a tracert by opening the Start menu, clicking on "Run", typing "cmd" and then press the OK button to open a command prompt. At the prompt, type tracert s1.balance-ro.com (For general connection), or tracert s2.balance-ro.com (for EU proxy) and press the Enter key. It will show your route to the host and see where the problem lies. As for the map server crashing bugs regarding BG, those are currently being looked into by the developers. In the meantime, it's disabled. (Hardly a big deal due to the server being new and most people are still leveling)

3. They were hiring staff recently and just hired 2 more teammates to cover the hours the original staff were unavailable. It might be your timezone, but I've seen daily events (at different hours each day) and have met all of the staff on several occasions.

4. Lacking custom end-game content you say? On a week old server? People are just beginning to regularly hunt MvPs, WoE isn't active yet, and a large portion of the community is still leveling and gearing with their basic gears. Why would they release all of the goodies in the first week? Leave some room for updates lol..

I think the server has a lot of potential to grow, no need to jump the gun so soon  /hmm

BalanceRO

We appreciate your opinion Prism~

Like SyntheticSymphony said.

About Pay2Win:
"Donations items should be available to everyone. Even though they are chosen by the server admins, they are usually the strongest items. We are not a Pay-2-Win at all, and our objective with this server is not profit. Obviously we will always appreciate donates that help us paying the server costs. Our profit will be invested in you. Therefore, you can choose how to acquire the strongest items in-game. You can donate and help us paying the costs of the server, or you can do quests. There is a quest for EVERY donation item, from the weakest to the strongest. These quests are not easy, not because we don't want you to do them, but because we believe it's essential that they are hard to stimulate that old RO feeling that we feel it's been missing, of guild gathering up to kill an hard MVP, and long hunting parties. Also, they can't be that fast, we don't want you to run out of things to do! Again, these quests obviously can be changed/tuned, depending on player feedback. Also, donation items can be obtained through Battlegrounds, which we will present further ahead."

About Host: We had some problems with our 1st host but everything is great know.

GM activity: Well, you must play during our sleeping schedule :( But now we have more staff members to make sure that there is always a active GM 24/7. You still can join our discord channel where we are always online too ^^

Lack of custom high-end game: We are 10 days old, of course we won't implement the high end game features now. Stay tuned and you will love what we gonna bring to you :)

See you in game :D

Myrishe

#5
Hey, Prism. I actually forgot to mention the server availability since I had no issues when connecting to the server. I heard there are some down time in the server when I'm not around. I see it's just a little down time and the admin's are quick to fix it. Just be patient.  /no1
About donation items, it's clear it's not a cash grabbing server like others. It's fair in all aspects and they are not forcing us to donate. That's how I see it.
Btw, the donation items are available through Battleground Box and Quest NPC. You can even get RWC from battleground box which most servers don't do c: You just need to invest some time playing the game and you get nice rewards for doing so. (depends on your luck)
I haven't been around for some time now 'cus of some error since I'm using old data.grf. I wish to play too but my net sucks so  /sob rip me  /heh

Panzer

Just to keep everyone up to date:
The Admins just abandoned the server, the GMs resigned and every player left the server.

Myrishe

#7
Quote from: Panzer on Oct 18, 2017, 12:24 PM
The Admins just abandoned the server, the GMs resigned and every player left the server.
Yes, sadly. And here I thought I found a half decent server to play on.  /...
Though, the server is still up and running but with tons of bugs it's not really playable atm. There are like 1~3 player online and the rest are vendors. Discord channel became a mess too, everyone advertising other servers. Support GMs quitted AFTER the main GMs abandoned the server and can't be contacted after a week (take note: the bugs are recurring, they say it's a memory problem).
Well, that's the state of the server now.  /swt

Yuzo

im reading their forums right now. sick stuff. what makes it worse is the admin isnt even there to try to cover it up lol.

Panzer

I guess they dont give a fck.
Some of the admins even were online after GMs left, people started posting **** or promoting other servers. They just didnt do anything against that.
The server and forum will probably be online for some weeks now until the hosting expires and thats it.

Nutty

BalanceRO = Hall of Shame.

Featuring Green, Jelly and Voxz.

Prism~

Are you people actually surprised? I saw this coming from the first week of opening. The staff didn't really care about the server, and it was obvious. They just wanted the cash, $50 donations? Blatantly obvious. Should have known that when a newer, better server opened, BalanceRO would slump, there were just no better options at their time of opening.

Kris

Quote from: Yuzo on Oct 19, 2017, 12:00 AM
im reading their forums right now. sick stuff. what makes it worse is the admin isnt even there to try to cover it up lol.

$5 says the admin was Yrvine
2k21 Return

Develon

Actually not Yrvine for once.
The Admins/Main GM's are all portuguese, not sure how many of them. They have been talking of making a server for ages, I have no idea what happened to be honest.
Servers die, come and go, but cutting off completely like this is actually really s*** towards what is already a small community, oh well.

SukiChii

How weird. I remember when I saw this server being advertised and it seemed like it was gonna be very good. The staff was engaging and active. I was actually hyped for the release, but couldn't play. Welp, I'm glad I didn't invest any time in it.