Avoiding advanced classes to balance a server.

Started by horo, Apr 01, 2009, 10:11 AM

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horo

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!

Descent

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.

Aaronock

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.

horo

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?

Descent

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.

horo

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.

A92FL0163

I vote for tweaks, considering it give bigger motivation to kill stronger mobs. Lower their drop rate.

Pandora

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.
[color=darkblue]heRO is a great friendly, pre-renweal, unique and fun server with a great community, give it a try![/color]



[color=darkblue]Click here to find out more about heRO![/color]

bleu

#8
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.

LiteX

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
ライテ‐エクス

horo

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.

Jirinal

Dont forget about the woe balance while doing thís...

Descent

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?

LiteX

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...
ライテ‐エクス

horo

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.