[Non-Renewal] A question about EXP tap mechanic.

[Kiaracondong]

So, i'm playing on this Indonesian server :
Website : https://www.eroreturn.com/home
RMS page : https://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=detailedlistserver&serid=21561&itv=6&url_sname=RETURN%20RO

A month ago (31 August 2021), at the same time with transcendent class updates, they decided to suddenly remove exp tap mechanic from the server. (https://i.imgur.com/IQOSypy.png)
Yes, i know, some changes from that screenshot are very f*** stupid and 'p2w', especially when they deliberately introduced a HE BM which increase your exp gain by 100% for 15 minutes.
But i'm not really here to debate about that.

When i pressed the GM and developer about the reasoning behind removing exp tap mechanic, their answer is that the exp tapping introduced in Renewal and never been in any part of pre-renewal updates.
I showed them iRO wiki page about this https://irowiki.org/classic/Experience and they showed me this table (https://i.imgur.com/AImcEM6.png) referring to point number 1 which doesn't makes any f*** sense and didn't really answer the question in the first place.
They keep refusing to elaborate and discuss about this, and said that their decision is fixed and there won't be any debate about this topic anymore.

So this is the question that i wanna ask to you guys, especially for experienced GM or developer who can really confirm about this.
Does exp tap mechanic exist in Pre-Renewal? Is it always been there since the beginning of Ragnarok?
If it's not there from the start, do you know when / which episode they add this mechanic to RO?

I play a lot of RO, especially a pre-renewal based server, and as far as i remember this tapping mechanic is always been there, even before they introduced Renewal.
Please help me to confirm about this. The GM and developer keep refusing to address the issue, claiming that i don't have any valid source except from my personal experience.

It would be great for us the server players that if this is confirmed true exist in pre-renewal, so we have a chance to revert back the updates to the original by showing the factual source.

Thank you!

[neethree]

Though I don't know exactly what patch it came in I can provide anecdotal evidence that it was around in 2007 era on iRO, I remember going down to Kiel and having 12 guildmates tap it before we killed it to get the most exp, lol.
Something a bit more concrete you can use is this snapshot of iROwiki from 2008, that's as far back as it goes but it does mention EXP tap here, and renewal didn't release until 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20080907183355/http://irowiki.org/wiki/EXP

You could try trawling GameFAQs or something for comments, I think that is one of the oldest RO forums that still exists and has posts from people playing back in beta days. I think some people used to call it a KS bonus when they didn't quite know what it was, because in early days remember there was not really third party programs floating around that let you see exp gain.

[Kiaracondong]

Though I don't know exactly what patch it came in I can provide anecdotal evidence that it was around in 2007 era on iRO, I remember going down to Kiel and having 12 guildmates tap it before we killed it to get the most exp, lol.
Something a bit more concrete you can use is this snapshot of iROwiki from 2008, that's as far back as it goes but it does mention EXP tap here, and renewal didn't release until 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20080907183355/http://irowiki.org/wiki/EXP

You could try trawling GameFAQs or something for comments, I think that is one of the oldest RO forums that still exists and has posts from people playing back in beta days. I think some people used to call it a KS bonus when they didn't quite know what it was, because in early days remember there was not really third party programs floating around that let you see exp gain.

Thank you for your reply!

https://web.archive.org/web/20080907183355/http://irowiki.org/wiki/EXP

This is actually a very solid evidence! Thanks, it didn't come to my mind to use a wayback machine for this.

Anyway, in a past few days, i talked about this issue with a lot of people. From players that played their local official server (iRO, euRO and bRO), staffs and gms from classic / ancient private server and even some devs who contribute to popular RO emulator. They all agreed that tapping has been part of pre-renewal mechanic since the early days of RO if not from the start.

Luckily, one of the people that i talked to show me this changelog for Comodo patch in kRO page : https://ro.gnjoy.com/news/notice/View.asp?BBSMode=10001&seq=360&curpage=644

기타 밸런스 관련 변경 사항입니다.
1. VIT 역시 AGI처럼 3마리 이상의 몬스터가 나를 공격하게 되면 방어력이 감소하도록 되었습니다.
2. AGI에 적용되던 여러마리의 몬스터 공격시 회피율 감소량을 3마리부터 해당되게 변경 하였습니다.
3. 파티시 , 균등 가능 제한 레벨을 5 에서 10 으로 변경 하였습니다.
4. 파티 1인 증가당 균등시 총 경험치 증가량을 10% → 25% 로 변경 하였습니다.
.....

Even though Google machine translations is a little bit wonky, it's so obvious that it show changes of exp tap value from 10% to 25% per party member who tapped the monster.

I showed this to one of the GM and sadly that they are using Google not so accurate translation as a defence that the changes is not about exp tap. It's really baffling to me that they are refusing to admit that they're wrong. It's a general consensus that tap mechanic is a always a part of RO, you can even hop to any pre-renewal official / private server and you will find that the tap mechanic is there.

I think i should realize that they just want to nerf the exp gain in the first place to sell their newly introduced HE BM / VIP buffs, and using this 'exp tap is a renewal mechanic' bull$hit as an excuse to do it.