I'll stand by the meat of what I was pointing out. RO is designed in ways that it blows multiclienting into being almost necessary, and if you don't, it moves into unfun mechanics. Linkers, sage endows, there's some other class that usually comes to mind, I can't think what it oh yeah marionette control good fun gameplay amazingly engaging much button pressing wow.
Speaking of brewing, material requirements being almost doubled by not using MC (anyone wanna MC for me overnight?) + lack of buffs pulls players into hunting over creation or hunting over partying. Because playing without materials isn't actually that fun. Nobody is gonna party to hunt... stems? It's the consumption of time into grinding things on non viable party maps that are the biggest killer IMO.
Multiclienting, for the information of those that don't know, was made legal very, very early on in the game's life. I can remember the exact patch, because I had lobbied the iRO produce the week before to allow it, because not multiclienting was leading to people editing their clients and finding worse things like... true sight edits. It was before trans. (I'm here with my laptop dual clienting, these people are finding cheats, this is dumb, please end it)
Regardless of the reasoning of them not being able to prevent cheats (and a valid reason since private servers can) the point here is purely that:
- it was allowed VERY early on
- and then a lot of the later game was either built to use that fact (paying for 2 subs for more $$$)
- or issues that should have been fixed in a single player environment were not fixed.
Unless these things are addressed in concerns about multiclient, there's no reason to regard it as a good thing to ban them. People can't talk about Gravity's intentions unless having actually sat around a table with them (I have - yes this is a weird flex - and sometimes they were clueless about how the game is played anyway) and even then, some skills and classes make you question the very concept of single client play anyway.
I'd love to see the game altered to provide a solo client experience that is enjoyable, and viable. But I never see mention of any fixes to any of the things raised - and perhaps at that point the game would be altered so far, it wouldn't be the vanilla experience people think early RO was.
Plenty people have succeeded here so far without it being necessary, though. So is it necessary?
I guess multiclient can make some grind less laborious sure, but fun is subjective, so I don't feel that argument holds water.
For me for example, I got a baby mage (not wizard) to level 99. The first person to not only get a first-class to 99, but the first person to get a baby to level 99 at the same time. Some people don't find locking yourself to a baby first class fun, but I do, because I like that challenge, even if it is hell of a grind.
Some people are doing "hardcore baby novice perma death" runs. Where they can't trade, buy from NPCs, or use storage, and if they die, they delete the character. I don't find that fun. Those people do.
I don't find WoE fun. Some people do.
In other words, the argument really shouldn't be if banning multi-client makes the game impossible to play, because well, people are playing on OathRO without it just fine (granted the server has some changes for quality of life that makes one-client play less annoying, like reducing resting down time). The argument is does banning multi-client make the game not fun.
That answer is subjective, because fun is subjective, and so the answer will change based on a person-by-person basis. I personally say it's not bad, considering I like actually being able to interact with people and I like chilling on just on one toon without having to spam the alt-tab button constantly, and like actually having to play some classes instead of just leeching them up levels. Some people don't like that sort of thing, and that's okay too, but then OathRO probably isn't the server for them, and that's completely fine. The glory of private servers is that if one option doesn't fit you, there's a hundred other options that might.
The ultimate goal of a game existing isn't if it's possible to easily reach maxed out everything efficiently. The goal of a game should be that you can have fun with it, first and foremost before anything else. A game that can be played, but isn't fun, is not a good game that holds much value in my opinion. If the goal is to reach maxed out everything super easily, then you may as well play a super highrate, in my opinion.
Our goal with the server is to keep it somewhat nostalgic, but also fresh and new. Through this, we hope to try and re-live that fresh RO feel people first had 20 years ago, before the game was "solved". People can theory-craft builds again, go on new adventures they haven't seen before, and they can experience that with the rest of the community. We're trying to craft a journey, because to us, that is fun and that is our goal. It would not be much of a journey or experience if people just multi-cliented and powered through everything and quests via sheer number of toons instead of experiencing them with other people, and it's very hard to balance gameplay to someone who multi-clients two accounts, versus someone who decides to multi-client a dozen toons for a full party. You can't really balance for that. At that point, people who don't have the best hardware or internet, or simply don't want to do that are going to fall behind extremely hard and have difficulty playing. But again, some people will value that and have fun with it, and some won't, and they should probably find a different server if it's not what they're looking for. But I would definitely argue it's not "wrong".
Ultimately, if something is unfun and balanced badly, then our goal is to make it less bad and more fun, but super rewarding things should still be hard so they still have that high value to them. Getting card drops after all would be far less exciting if they just dropped like nothing, but there is also a thing as "too rare". The stress of farming things like stems can easily be fixed by just giving more mobs, even in later content, stem drops, so you're gaining stems whilst doing something else that isn't just killing low level mobs for hours on end all day. We've already done this for witch star sand by expanding the drop to other mobs (some mobs being custom) as just one example.
We've also given alchemists a new platinum skill that allows mobs they defeat to have a chance to drop an alchemy materials, just for them being them, so they're rewarded by just playing, no matter where they are. It isn't much, but it alleviates that frustration a little bit.
Stuff like this helps chip away the grind to feel more manageable, but doesn't invalidate the value and reward of someone who goes hard into it. Releasing the tension at certain frustration points the original game has without outright removing the challenge helps keep the game from becoming annoying and keeps it being fun as the player feels like their time is being rewarded for the amount of work they are putting in.
Again, needing to rest is fine, but having to rest for 3+ minutes straight without HP/SP items or a support duo isn't difficult or challenging; it's just annoying, especially when you're just starting out fresh. However, having moments of downtime and having to resource manage your HP/SP is still an extremely important game element to have, so removing it entirely is out of the question.
Reducing the HP/SP wait time reduces the frustration and the "requirement" of multi-clienting with an acolyte auto following you, or even having a duo in the first place.
These are the kind of changes we're making on the server, aside from the custom content, of course.[/list]
