Why the hate on customs?

[Kreustoo]

A lot of player (including me) are still there by nostalgia, but, I saw there a lot of people not liking "custom content" in servers, and I'm wondering why. I understand that some custom are extreme/changing the gameplay of the game or just "too op" (like custom stuff surpassing everything).
I did, years ago, made a server with custom jobs (like mining ect) and I wanted to make the game "something else", it didn't work and I thought it was mainly due to being "too custom" or not having the "ragnarok feeling". Because, back them, a lot of players told me it was too much.
But recently Asgard legends popped out (and I'm really happy for insomnia that it works, good luck !), and it seems I was totally wrong and that kind of server can work!

Excluding example like that, why people don't like custom? Shouldn't it enhance the game? Like making new area to visit? New things to discover?

No trust in those admin that just made server for money grab?
Unbalanced things everytime?
Simply because you want to play as vanilla as possible?
No game design behind it and boring as f***?
Never knowning where it will stop and fearing that it'll become too much?

[yC]

No direct answer to your question.  I'll just say that it might have something to do with targeting the (right) market.  The most often case I saw was the developer think something is cool and spend a ton of resource into making the dream come true just to find out users don't appreciate the effort or it is something they can do with or without. So in the end it fail to attract the expected attention.

[Kreustoo]

Yeah maybe a lot of project are made without thinking about what the market is. Like, it's not because the admin/the team like something, it'll please everyone/a lot of players.
But I saw a lot of time (here/on reddit), players  not wanting custom on server/wanting vanilla server.

Maybe I focused too much on those posts, maybe that's not the majority of players, but I'd like to understand those players. Maybe it's just as simple as: because it's the real Ragnarök.

[Orange]

Mostly a balance thing, a lot of people like the balance of RO and 99% of customs are going to be best in slot. I've never seen a server do custom maps well, they're always just the absolute best place to level

I still play on servers with customs but the more there are the less balanced things generally are

[Naruto]

No direct answer to your question.  I'll just say that it might have something to do with targeting the (right) market.  The most often case I saw was the developer think something is cool and spend a ton of resource into making the dream come true just to find out users don't appreciate the effort or it is something they can do with or without. So in the end it fail to attract the expected attention.

chances are you arent gonna be making the next final fantasy

+

emulator is alot of work, depending on how far you wanna go... adding hats . . . to adding new waters/textures/reskinning models/adding new models/spriting ...

no one bothers with ro skins really cause you can just re color every job using a pallete and trying to actually make anything that would look good in the RO world (job sprite) is hard as hell 8 directions...at least custom mobs only use 4 directions.... thats what pokerag did

i wonder what the real limit to these emulators are though

we should honestly just be working together lmao

[Naruto]

so ive been trying to find ways to mix long animations and skills...
for example i gave my girl here a rolling cutter, same rolling cutter with no counter
she sticks her arms out and spins
my hats will be auras and digital effects obviously that i can add to spins to make whatever 



and i did the same for mobs, i just gave it a spinning aoe custom skill similar to desperado
then i extended the attack animations and lined up cooldowns/delays
now it spins its blade around and it deals damage to everyone around him without using any effects or whatever

my only concern is the "hitboxes" as they are defined by the size of your images used in the act editor

also example of what you can do with water

this isnt MY IDEA, but i just wanted to see what i could do so i copied megaman lmao

[Insomnia2000]

I think that it comes down to "why are you adding customs?" The further you go down the spectrum, the more people dislike the customs on your server.

1. Quality of Life customs

• Generally accepted by most.
• However, more and more QoL customs can get you into trouble as QoL can be subjective. Some view a Warper NPC with all towns as QoL, but warping to all dungeons and fields as taking it too far.

2. Balancing customs

• A little more 50/50 with regards to general acceptance than QoL changes.
• This depends on what exactly you're trying to balance, how far you go with it, and if what you're balancing is generally regarded as broken
• Example: Reducing drop rates on high-value items like Mavka/Sleeper loot is generally acceptable whereas attempting to balance a skill by altering it's damage can be more risky.

3. "Just trying to be unique" customs

• Not very much acceptance here.
• Things that clash with the core of the game: wings, weird maps, out of place mob sprites and NPCs, etc.
• Things that target a very niche group: people wanting a game that doesn't play like RO at all, PokemonRO, NarutoRO, etc.

That 3rd point is generally where you see the hate for customs people talk about. This is also what a lot of servers with customs tend to do and why the word "custom" has such a negative connotation. Servers will add a customs just to have another bullet point on their features list without regard to how it affects the game overall. There are a lot of intricacies between various items, skills, etc. and I think even Gravity overlooks that stuff on occasion when adding new content. Server owners want people to make use of their customs so they end up being imbalanced and overshadow the core of the game.

It all leaves a bad taste in RO player's mouths and makes them rather just have a vanilla server than risk joining a server with customs because it's very likely that those customs are made haphazardly and take away from the core of the game. And at the end of the day, most players are there for the core of RO, right?

If you want to make a custom server, I think you have to ask yourself "why am I adding customs in the first place?" and "How does this affect the core of game that players are actually here for?" Ragnarok Online is a fantastic game and if you're adding a custom that makes some large portion of it obsolete, you're bound to run into issues.

[Naruto]

I just wanna add :

No one is trying to scare you away, You just dont wanna be wasting your time 

[Terpsichore]

Ragnarok Online is a fantastic game and if you're adding a custom that makes some large portion of it obsolete, you're bound to run into issues.

My own struggle has been trying to do the exact opposite; bringing the game back. Renewal turned obsolete most of the content, skills, mechanics and items in favor of something narrow and mindless, so it's been a a constant struggle.

I myself wouldn't play on a renewal server that hasn't at least tackled the basic issues. Pre-renewal is a different beast though, but there are still a few rough edges which many complain about, yet apparently nobody has been bold enough to polish.

At the end of the day though, there isn't a single server out there which doesn't have a bunch of custom features, and the definition of what's custom is rather hazy. kRO, jRO, iRO and all the license holders have something of their own going on, so there isn't a clear definition of what's "official".
It is also rather common for players to think than some decade old emulator bugs are the proper behavior, or that fixes of official bugs (which might have been fixed on Aegis years ago) are horrible custom changes. It usually boils down to what benefits them and what doesn't.

Private server owners have the benefit of being able to improve the game in many ways, so I find it foolish to waste that ability. More so when you consider that the game is now a dying cash cow which Gravity still attempts to milk.
In my eyes, the direction they took for the game isn't something worth pursuing.

I do believe that custom changes shouldn't stand out too much, they must feel right, fitting the game's general setting and "feeling". Successful changes are those which players assume to be the norm.
This is harder to do with custom content though, unless you recycle resources in a clever way or have a really talented artist in your team.

[Naruto]

My own struggle has been trying to do the exact opposite; bringing the game back. Renewal turned obsolete most of the content, skills, mechanics and items in favor of something narrow and mindless, so it's been a a constant struggle.

I myself wouldn't play on a renewal server that hasn't at least tackled the basic issues. Pre-renewal is a different beast though, but there are still a few rough edges which many complain about, yet apparently nobody has been bold enough to polish.

At the end of the day though, there isn't a single server out there which doesn't have a bunch of custom features, and the definition of what's custom is rather hazy. kRO, jRO, iRO and all the license holders have something of their own going on, so there isn't a clear definition of what's "official".
It is also rather common for players to think than some decade old emulator bugs are the proper behavior, or that fixes of official bugs (which might have been fixed on Aegis years ago) are horrible custom changes. It usually boils down to what benefits them and what doesn't.

Private server owners have the benefit of being able to improve the game in many ways, so I find it foolish to waste that ability. More so when you consider that the game is now a dying cash cow which Gravity still attempts to milk.
In my eyes, the direction they took for the game isn't something worth pursuing.

I do believe that custom changes shouldn't stand out too much, they must feel right, fitting the game's general setting and "feeling". Successful changes are those which players assume to be the norm.
This is harder to do with custom content though, unless you recycle resources in a clever way or have a really talented artist in your team.

I agree to most that i red,

I really wanted to turn all the renwal skills/mechanics into a pre renewal setting, making things more pvm, not just giving everybody a mobbing skill just so they can get into WoE

but then i just ended up having to actually use 2 HOTBARS.... I mean, i designed it of course i can play it but then i realized that maybe only pros would be able to handle my system so i just quit.... just let ragnarok die...add hats if you want and try and make idle time fun.... too many servers around, "derp go to iro" ... no thanks i like my 12x rates

[Jasc]

I personally love customs... shows creativity if done properly and adds new elements to the game

[Playtester]

So I'm one of the people who hate any customs, in fact I haven't played RO ever since Rise of Midgard closed simply because I don't find any server that is close enough to official for my taste.

I grew up with Ragnarok Online and the first 3 months (open beta on euRO) were just an amazing experience and I keep not only wanting to relive it, but also want my friends to experience what I had experienced back then so they understand my fascination.

That doesn't work when the server has customs. It already starts with things that almost every single server has these days like "autoloot". I think autoloot completely changes the gameplay experience already. Looter monsters become pointless for example. Balance is ruined. And so on.

Then there are those server owners that think they got an idea on how to "balance" the game, but opinions vary and you will never get everyone to agree on that one particular change is perfect. So for me the only common ground you can agree on is "like official". For any so called "balance update" I've ever seen I could at least point out one situation where the change actually makes balance worse.

Also RO has many cool fans that made cool websites with all kinds of data. Skill explanations, build guides, even database of all monsters stats with great ways to filter and sort. If a server customizes any of these, these websites can no longer be relied on, which is a major loss too in my opinion.

[Ataktos]

 I dont like wings.