Is banning a multi-client stupid?

Started by OldPoring, Jun 20, 2022, 01:43 PM

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LumpiaWrapper

Quote from: OldPoring on Jun 24, 2022, 06:23 PM
If you're talking about OriginsRO, then it was the most lively server I knew. in addition, it was is European, for me ping from the USA is a little frustrating. About 800 players were displayed on the server, so about 400-500 real persons, I usually played no more than 3 chars at the same time, in auto follow with priest and hunter or priest only for warp and buff/heal, sage waited in place for endow,
and it died only because of the Gravity attack (or by another decision of their administration), but definitely not because it was unpopular!
You can even say the opposite - OriginsRO could never have become so popular if it had forbidden a multi client ))
I almost suggested it. Two windows without any restrictions on one IP. This is convenient at least for transferring money and things between merchants without mail. Yes, if there is no NPC healer on the server, it's just stupid to forbid multi client, anyway, ro nerds will make themselves a priest and you will not be able to do anything about it. Make an automatic temporary ban of the character when opening the third window. And programmatically disable auto-following, if possible - then it will be an equivalent position for everyone on the server and the cheaters will not have an advantage over "honest fools".
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English is not my language, when I created this, it was more correct not "to ban", but not "to forbid".
Maybe the moderator can replace the "ban" in the topic name with a "forbid"?
it is impossible to forbid what can be used easy. Old ro players know all the tricks.
damn origins have 400-500 real players? wow i very doubt that since i always seen a train of slave following one dude and sometimes 2-3 slaves endowing and buffing one person.
the only time i seen a single client player is 3 times.

Styx

#31
Origins was up from 2013 till lately. I was there from almost scratch. I am pretty sure they always did have a decent active and unique playerbase present. Something I never saw on any English language based pserver for that period of time. Don't underestimate me, I have played more then 160 servers including and officials as well. Where I do have many disagreements with Xellie, though we don't know each other at all and we have completely different approaches, my agreements with Xellie are more. This player can't be ignored so easy.
Any way, most important detail form Origins regarding direct gameplay: They did use pre-renewal mechanics where most servers will use Renewal mechanics and that doesn't work out very well on a pre-renewal based server and Irvine is gone so far I know. Maybe he wasn't the best around, maybe he was just in for the money but he did own a smooth running pre-renewal client and for my experience only Origins came close to such an achievement.

The issue of multiclient is a never ending discussion. However, if it is a server rule you take it or leave it. It makes no sense to argue about it. Maybe it will work out for this server to get and mantain a decent playerbase with such an approach.
I wouldn't even think about joining such a server for several reasons not even mentioned in this topic. It is very easy to accomplish several accounts on different IP's, it's 2022 meanwhile. Then even if they could detect and ban it succesfull. It still would mean one or two very good organized groups will own the server completely. There is no way a single player can beat such a group ever with multiclient. Sure, some efforts can be reached and that is exactly where the fun is for lone wolfs. Though without multiclient they are doomed and it would be stupid to waste your time on such a server. Partyplay you can encourage because it will bring fun to play it like that but I doubt you can make this entertaiment happen by force. Many players couldn't even effort depend on partyplay because they are limited in time and don't want to be a depending 24/7 slave for partyplay. Most just want to have fun playing a game. That's what it is, just a game to have fun, not religion or something like that.

Then again, this server does give it a try in this one client only direction, so give them a shot. If it will work for a majority, that will be oke for me.

Xellie

Quote from: distilled1 on Jun 20, 2022, 11:55 PM
Wow. Time to rip into Xellie I guess. What a load of crap.
No one said you had to socialize 24/7. Just when you want the most efficient party you should have to because it's a MMORPG and meant to be a social genre.
You mean the way the game was meant to be originally? Wow. You realize that if a group of individuals is required to make the best potions, because people can't multi-client, everyone is still on the same playing field, right? There's nothing wrong with the best potions being more difficult to make than they would be from a spoiled multi-clienter's perspective. Just means they'll be used more sparingly by everyone.
Sure you do. The reality is that players who have lost that much interest in RO aren't going to jump on at a moment's notice, every 30 minutes, to warp or endow others. They'll be playing something or doing another hobby they are actually interested in. Nice bad faith argument.
Besides, can still do that without multi-clienting by switching to your priest/sage, or having a friend switch to their priest/sage for you. This issue has absolutely nothing to do with multi-clienting. If you're against people abusing that aspect of the game, you should be advocating for literally one character per IP address (I'd be down with that personally).
Not the case. I've seen plenty of older players prefer partying when they don't feel the need to multi-clienting just to be on par. It's very liberating and fun.
Only when you can multi-client. No one is soloing endless tower and sealed shrine. No one is hunting any MVP that can use Earthquake to 1 shot them except maybe an Asura spamming monk, but that's actually a map/class design issue allowing them to portal in, spam the skill, then tp away. Not a multi-client issue.
So only priests should be able to experience fun parties? A social game mechanic the game was built around? Oh yeah cool multi-player game philosophy. "Hey let's play some D&D but every class has to solo except if you duo with a Cleric." Another bad faith argument from a priest no less.
Well again, there's your problem. You're playing the wrong game genre then aren't you? You don't have to socialize "24/7". You can go chill, craft, quest, spam dead branches, etc, do your own thing while in the game but doing the more difficult content and leveling to 99 should require partying in a good MMORPG.
Oh right cause the internet isn't yet tired of hearing Xellie fluff up her "mad priesting skills". I think you should go make another obvious priest guide to show us all the things we totally wouldn't have been able to figure out.
It's definitely one of the major flaws. The original game had a subscription fee per account for a good reason.
It's a good idea to limit party exp boosts to unique players, yes, but it doesn't need to completely replace multi-clienting, because many other problems arise when people can multi-client. The exp boosts work great alongside banning multi-clienting.
Yeah partying has some issues in RO, but banning multi-clienting helps to encourage people to play together, literally alleviating one of the most prominent issues in most RO servers where people don't play together because it's more efficient to solo with yourself. What is "lazy and narrowminded" about that? Do you not understand this very basic player psychology?
You probably should. You're an anti-social person playing a social video game genre and saying you don't enjoy socializing, and assuming no one else wants to.
You couldn't be more wrong about many of your bad faith arguments.

You're wrong, I'm lazy. Your post is riddled with personal attacks over facts. There will be no response.


Quote from: Aurus on Feb 13, 2024, 07:44 PMp.s. you are such a bad and toxic player I hope to never see you or your guild again


Xellie

#33
    Quote from: Insomnia2000 on Jun 21, 2022, 09:17 AM
    [/list]

    Why are these things things to begin with? Is it really socializing/partying if a sage is active in your party performing a singular endow on you once every 30 minutes? No, it isn't. It's no wonder endows are multi-cliented.

    Instead of saying "Endows are okay as long as you have a legitimate sage that comes into contact with you once every 30 minutes, but not okay if you're logging on a second character once every 30 minutes." We should be saying "something is not correct with the way endows work, what can we do to address it?"

    Either you dislike the way that the above functions and put some effort and thought into fixing it or you are okay with the above and leave it alone. Banning multi-client is the worst of both worlds: leaving a broken mechanic in place and banning players who try to make the broken mechanic not so crappy to deal with.

    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.
    Quote from: Aurus on Feb 13, 2024, 07:44 PMp.s. you are such a bad and toxic player I hope to never see you or your guild again


    Sairek Ceareste

    Quote from: Xellie on Jun 27, 2022, 01:19 AM

      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]

    Xellie

    #35
    I'm not gonna say it to be mean, but there's a reason I don't play Oath.

    And that is because I hate being forced into social interaction

    "But why are you playing an MMO then?"

    I didn't say no interaction!

    Anyway, I like that you're solving some of the things - but I'd like to know how me, someone who likes to play assassin, is going to be wanted in parties without playing a mobber that any class can do that. Some classes are just literally designed to play alone. They get hit by a huge disparity or left behind in comparison to groups (that's the choice of playing alone, but takes the class out of being wanted).

    There's also... what do you do when new/low level players/new char players dry up? People who are stuck without parties in the "unfun" section of the game (I don't find much below around level 85 to be fun because of burnout I guess).

    There are a lot of things that multiclienting solve that I just wanna see answers to.

    Also I'm 100% accepting that it's a playstyle people might like or prefer. I don't really nostalgia seek for that era, I've done kicking rocks so I can kick bigger rocks to death, multiple times, on 1x without multi. I've never made a b**** slave priest. I just level things solo until I reach engaging party level (thana/bio/nid/thor) but anything before that (to party) is boring af to me.  (Fyi soloing to me really is just running my HP in town for warps and endowing myself, I never do the autofollow train because walking is frustrating and boring to me. Idk how the multi client train people do it. I'd be bored in 3 mins and I find it... inefficient.)

    tbh, it gets dull after a while - hence each to their own. That is the point, right?

    But I'll full stand my ground against anyone who says multiclient is the reason partying dies. Cuz it's not. There's a plethora of issues that cause that to happen and blaming multiclients is lazy and poorly thought out.

    (btw honest opinion on the alchemist plat skill - that's great but people who play other classes need to take them materials to get their items made too. So unless they make an alche (time drain) they will drain time on mats. Just a thought. It's a good direction you're going in tho :) )
    Quote from: Aurus on Feb 13, 2024, 07:44 PMp.s. you are such a bad and toxic player I hope to never see you or your guild again


    Playtester

    Xellie, I want to point out that on official servers no multi-clienting was mostly enforced by the game being P2P. Not many people could afford to pay more than $15 a month to play a game, and thus most people didn't multiclient and there were many many people looking for priests to party with.

    Assassin are good mobbers in parties because they have high flee and thus are not stopped when attacked most of the time. They can also take the role of tank in most regions.

    Also a server with mostly party-loving players usually wouldn't mind even partying up with new players. If there's no multiclienting, you can also remove some restrictions such as Exp share limit which makes it even easier to party (this is what I'd do if I made a server, keep the rates at 1x but Exp Share without limit, but admittedly I didn't see any other server do that yet).

    But as said this does not depend so much on if multi-clienting is allowed or not, but rather on how competitive a server is. No competition means that all players just play for fun.

    And it can be fun to party up with a new player and show him around. Or just go to some easier regions where you need the drops in (such as hunting Stems as you mentioned).

    I feel like many RO players are just purely competitive and never really experience how it is like to just party for fun.

    Styx

    Quote from: Playtester on Jun 27, 2022, 01:34 PM
    Xellie, I want to point out that on official servers no multi-clienting was mostly enforced by the game being P2P. Not many people could afford to pay more than $15 a month to play a game, and thus most people didn't multiclient and there were many many people looking for priests to party with.

    Well, you are completely wrong here Playtester, there was only a short delay in offering multiclient from Gravity and that was only because they had problems in that time to secure the connection to do so. Internet wasn't quite stable as it is today. There wasn't much of payment required either by that time. Actually, Gravity learned in time from pservers how to collect the money for this game.
    So, the game was designed on purpose for multiclient and if you pay attention to follow the thoughts from Minsoo Lee, head designer from gravity in the early days. He would never choose a direction to exclude players for any reason. His approach was entertainment and bend anything in that direction. This even might going beyond what you could imagine but give it some attention. You have skills enough, eliminate the decision, free your mind. Minsoo left somewhere after 10.2 and the game slowly degraded afterwards and when finally Renewal came it was all a different game at once. So, seek out history, it is there just to retrieve and find out what the designers had in mind. Then again, it is free for everyone to seek a different direction to make this game work and maybe it will work today with just one client only, I doubt it will work because the game was never designed for that purpose and you probably have to tweak it sooner or later heavily getting it working in that direction, even Origins did so. That doesn't mean a new idea couldn't work out well. It's their call. Then don't try to humiliate Xellie, with fake facts. Do your research seriously.

    Sairek Ceareste

    #38
    Quote from: Xellie on Jun 27, 2022, 01:00 PM
    I'm not gonna say it to be mean, but there's a reason I don't play Oath.

    And that is because I hate being forced into social interaction

    "But why are you playing an MMO then?"

    I didn't say no interaction!

    Anyway, I like that you're solving some of the things - but I'd like to know how me, someone who likes to play assassin, is going to be wanted in parties without playing a mobber that any class can do that. Some classes are just literally designed to play alone. They get hit by a huge disparity or left behind in comparison to groups (that's the choice of playing alone, but takes the class out of being wanted).

    There's also... what do you do when new/low level players/new char players dry up? People who are stuck without parties in the "unfun" section of the game (I don't find much below around level 85 to be fun because of burnout I guess).

    There are a lot of things that multiclienting solve that I just wanna see answers to.

    Also I'm 100% accepting that it's a playstyle people might like or prefer. I don't really nostalgia seek for that era, I've done kicking rocks so I can kick bigger rocks to death, multiple times, on 1x without multi. I've never made a b**** slave priest. I just level things solo until I reach engaging party level (thana/bio/nid/thor) but anything before that (to party) is boring af to me.  (Fyi soloing to me really is just running my HP in town for warps and endowing myself, I never do the autofollow train because walking is frustrating and boring to me. Idk how the multi client train people do it. I'd be bored in 3 mins and I find it... inefficient.)

    tbh, it gets dull after a while - hence each to their own. That is the point, right?

    But I'll full stand my ground against anyone who says multiclient is the reason partying dies. Cuz it's not. There's a plethora of issues that cause that to happen and blaming multiclients is lazy and poorly thought out.

    (btw honest opinion on the alchemist plat skill - that's great but people who play other classes need to take them materials to get their items made too. So unless they make an alche (time drain) they will drain time on mats. Just a thought. It's a good direction you're going in tho :) )


    On official servers, being able to multi-client back in the subscription model was basically pay to win. The more money you had to spend, the more advantage you had. If the game was designed for that, well, that kinda sucks, because not everyone can afford that. Kind of like why current official RO is garbage. You aren't able to get the full experience if you're not ripping out your credit card; and just being able to brute force your way through everything isn't very rewarding in my opinion, either.

    But either way, you are not being forced into social interaction on OathRO. You can play solo just fine -- I do it; I'm a mostly solo player. I'm probably far more behind than other people, but I only play a few hours of RO a week except for that time I pushed for level 99 baby mage in 16 days. Now I play even less than before since I had a tornado roll through my city last month; understandably, that has caused my life priorities to shift a fair bit. We've made dungeons and custom mobs and dungeons to cater to solo/small parties, and I believe the Payon Catacombs that will be coming very soon will also cater towards that too, for players in the mid-game range. There's plenty of solo players on the server who are actually more ahead in a lot of things than even the people who live in parties; probably because they are getting several times more loot for only a smaller portion of less EXP.

    That said, I still want to focus on the solo/small party experience even more as well, but on a more grander, adventure-esque scale, which isn't really in RO (from my experience anyway).



    I've been personally drafting up a huge self-contained quest line that probably won't see the light of day for a long time where the player goes to investigate a city that had been destroyed by a plague; but now, despite the city being quarantined and its destruction, is having the plague that once destroyed it, somehow transcending through time itself into the present day.
    To stop the plague, the player will need to travel back through the city's history in its final year through the four seasons back and forth, as well as investigate its ruins in the present day, in an attempt to investigate how the plague happened, what the cause is, and find out how to stop it before it wreaks havoc both in the past as well as the present.

    I want the max party size to be only 2~3 people because investigating an entire quest line with up to 12 people seems weird and the entire premise is to do the investigation but incognito style anyways. Solo or a small group could get away with it, but not a dozen adventurers suddenly popping up out of the blue. Also, there will be an NPC that will be helping them (ideally through mercenary AI) that will be supporting them through some combat sections, so that will help make it easier to balance, even if a player goes in solo (assuming I can get it all to work together).

    Basically, I want to make solo(ish) content that feels and plays like small party content, with dialogue choices so it makes it feel like the NPCs you are with are genuine people, and have it be very roleplay heavy where your choices can affect details of how things play out. I want it to be more than just sending you on an errand to do something alone, as the main NPCs will genuinely accompany you since you are all invested into this thing together.
    That isn't going to be very easy to make of course. However, I'll also be able to make the same maps and basically recycle them five-ish times with changing things here and there, with the seasons and time change helping differentiate them all cosmetically, so it's not totally out of impossibility. I'm even making some custom music for this thing that hopefully sound good to people.


    That said, I have still yet to learn how to make maps for RO (one of the staff is able to teach me if I ask), but I'd rather make the story first and then plot out mapping ideas afterwards, because from my time of making maps in Mirror's Edge, and even in writing itself, I've learned that making something can be like laying down cement, and it's very hard to remove or change something after you've already built the world around without affecting the entire thing. It can be very easy to make the mistake of just making something, have a better idea days or weeks later after you've already built everything else around that initial idea, and then get stuck in a loop where you're constantly changing things to accommodate and making no progress; potentially making everything worse than if you had just let the cement settle instead of ripping it apart.

    Xellie

    Quote from: Playtester on Jun 27, 2022, 01:34 PM
    Xellie, I want to point out that on official servers no multi-clienting was mostly enforced by the game being P2P. Not many people could afford to pay more than $15 a month to play a game, and thus most people didn't multiclient and there were many many people looking for priests to party with.

    Assassin are good mobbers in parties because they have high flee and thus are not stopped when attacked most of the time. They can also take the role of tank in most regions.

    Also a server with mostly party-loving players usually wouldn't mind even partying up with new players. If there's no multiclienting, you can also remove some restrictions such as Exp share limit which makes it even easier to party (this is what I'd do if I made a server, keep the rates at 1x but Exp Share without limit, but admittedly I didn't see any other server do that yet).

    But as said this does not depend so much on if multi-clienting is allowed or not, but rather on how competitive a server is. No competition means that all players just play for fun.

    And it can be fun to party up with a new player and show him around. Or just go to some easier regions where you need the drops in (such as hunting Stems as you mentioned).

    I feel like many RO players are just purely competitive and never really experience how it is like to just party for fun.

    mobbing is boring. Exclusively mobbing is boring. Any class can mob if they have good ping. Walking isn't fun gameplay. It might be fun once or twice, or trying to mow your friends down while laughing at them on voice (until they get mad) - but you can't seriously tell me that making class just to mob is fun and not dumb minmaxery.

    Wanting to do gameplay that is more than walk in circles for 3 hours, or just clicking one skill isn't about not playing for fun... it's about being over that repetitiveness.

    There is nothing more boring for a priest (IMO) than just following around an assassin and healing and buffing them occasionally - the only good priest + thing parties are with wizards (no bragi), sometimes hunters. Everything else is buffbot roleplay, until you reach levels like bio3.

    It's not about wanting to level fast... I'd do thana/thor/bio even if the exp was nuked to 0.5% of normal, it's about changing up the gameplay from the norm, and using all your hotkeys, or at least half your keyboard. Fun doesn't have to be epic levels of casual.

    Try playing league of legends or dota for "fun" the same way people talk about "fun" in RO and see what happens.

    New players can't depend on the off-chance of someone being bored enough to search newbie maps to find someone to help. idk about anyone else, I used to do that a lot, and most the time you spend more time looking for a newbie!  When the population is 90% over 90, the older players and the newbies (as few and far between as they come) have a hard time crossing paths. It's for that reason you need to send veterans to newb maps to hunt materials. I can't stress how important the cross interaction of veterans and new players is.

    re: multiclient and the fee; no, a LOT of people I knew had hexed their client to run a second one. Especially for shenanigans like farming LoD. And if you balance the game around college student age spending, I'm not sure that's a good plan for anyone, even gravity.



    If I dare mention my proposed solution to the actual problems I see caused by multiclient, it basically involves limiting clients on specific maps. Any map with an MVP or next to an MVP should be limited to no more than 2 clients. Same for dungeons. Have w/e you like in town or on maps like goats. There are half way solutions to everything, but if this was a problem I was addressing, it would be focused purely on partying, because I feel that multiclient prevalence is a symptom, not a cause. 

    Quote from: Aurus on Feb 13, 2024, 07:44 PMp.s. you are such a bad and toxic player I hope to never see you or your guild again


    Styx

    #40
    Quote from: Sairek Ceareste on Jun 27, 2022, 04:18 PM

    On official servers, being able to multi-client back in the subscription model was basically pay to win. The more money you had to spend, the more advantage you had. If the game was designed for that, well, that kinda sucks, because not everyone can afford that. Kind of like why current official RO is garbage. You aren't able to get the full experience if you're not ripping out your credit card; and just being able to brute force your way through everything isn't very rewarding in my opinion, either.

    You should do serious research also. When exactly did Gravity start to ask a payment to play this game in a way it really made a difference direction P2P or P2W? You will learn it was quite possible to have mutliple accounts for free for many, many years. Then developpers were just busy just programming and offering services to attract players. Here is the problem, they never designed it in a way for just using a single account. That would even be ridiculous seen the differences and ability's certain classes have. That was also a major concern from developpers, they monitored how many players did choose a certain main class and they tried to put influence on those numbers getting it more equal by programming the game.

    The money machine came much, much later.

    So, whatever the reason to force using just one account, which is just an idea to try, maybe brilliant, maybe not but no way the source for it can be that Gravity did have P2P or P2W system from scratch. They didn't and that happened many, many years later.
    For instance. as an investor I wouldn't even consider to invest a dime in such an idea, because it is excluding potential players and the idea is to attract players, any player. Not all investors want to be super rich in no time at all, in fact most will like a more steady idea with a long future and keeping options open as much as possible.

    Having said that, the official Ragnarok is currently based in Russia these days? How long will that sustain?

    Maybe it is time to put pressure and crowd funding could very well make it possible to snatch that license, and meanwhile secure a license for a spin-off project that offers pre-renewal, even for free. Why not? Young players now eventually will in majority earn enough money for official Renewal and maybe it even could learn Gravity to drop the agressive P2W model.

    If you would think I am supporting Xellie, I am not! In fact I do believe we don't even like each other that much because of the different approaches we have but we do share a very vital thing. We both like this game. Over the decades, I am pretty sure we did manage to team up in some sort of party on occasion and beat the s*** out of most. Because there is no discussion about what would be efficient, just do your job in that situation. Then I have more eye for the players fooling around in circles and somehow still like to play the game. Even on Origins, such players were massive around 2021. Most were playing with max 3 accounts but there was no real future for them in development, outplayed by organized groups and the Origins system but still they never did give up anyway because they just liked the game but with just one account  possible, I doubt they will ever join such a server.

    If you have a headache, shoot your head off, problem solved. It's just a tunnel vision, showing the lack of imagination and ability for solutions, to my opinion.



    Sairek Ceareste

    Quote from: Styx on Jun 28, 2022, 03:39 PM
    You should do serious research also. When exactly did Gravity start to ask a payment to play this game in a way it really made a difference direction P2P or P2W? You will learn it was quite possible to have mutliple accounts for free for many, many years. Then developpers were just busy just programming and offering services to attract players. Here is the problem, they never designed it in a way for just using a single account. That would even be ridiculous seen the differences and ability's certain classes have. That was also a major concern from developpers, they monitored how many players did choose a certain main class and they tried to put influence on those numbers getting it more equal by programming the game.

    The money machine came much, much later.

    So, whatever the reason to force using just one account, which is just an idea to try, maybe brilliant, maybe not but no way the source for it can be that Gravity did have P2P or P2W system from scratch. They didn't and that happened many, many years later.
    For instance. as an investor I wouldn't even consider to invest a dime in such an idea, because it is excluding potential players and the idea is to attract players, any player. Not all investors want to be super rich in no time at all, in fact most will like a more steady idea with a long future and keeping options open as much as possible.

    Having said that, the official Ragnarok is currently based in Russia these days? How long will that sustain?

    Maybe it is time to put pressure and crowd funding could very well make it possible to snatch that license, and meanwhile secure a license for a spin-off project that offers pre-renewal, even for free. Why not? Young players now eventually will in majority earn enough money for official Renewal and maybe it even could learn Gravity to drop the agressive P2W model.

    If you would think I am supporting Xellie, I am not! In fact I do believe we don't even like each other that much because of the different approaches we have but we do share a very vital thing. We both like this game. Over the decades, I am pretty sure we did manage to team up in some sort of party on occasion and beat the s*** out of most. Because there is no discussion about what would be efficient, just do your job in that situation. Then I have more eye for the players fooling around in circles and somehow still like to play the game. Even on Origins, such players were massive around 2021. Most were playing with max 3 accounts but there was no real future for them in development, outplayed by organized groups and the Origins system but still they never did give up anyway because they just liked the game but with just one account  possible, I doubt they will ever join such a server.

    If you have a headache, shoot your head off, problem solved. It's just a tunnel vision, showing the lack of imagination and ability for solutions, to my opinion.

    Back then if you had low end hardware that couldn't run more client at once, and someone else did, and had multiple computers, therefore, they could run more clients then you, then is that not having an advantage? Doesn't matter if the company is receiving the money or not.

    Why should someone be able to farm six times better than someone else just because they have multiple computers who can run the game? Back in 2007, I could run two instances of the game at a good choppy 20 FPS -- sometimes. Any more than two and it was pretty much unplayable. This meant any server that allowed multi-clienting put me at a huge disadvantage.

    Now, this isn't usually an issue now because the game is 20 years old, but while it is more rare, people still have weaker hardware that can't run multiple instances of the game well, whether they are only able to afford work laptops or what-have-you. Someone's potential in game shouldn't be limited by their financial situation in my opinion; or hell, just doesn't want to run as many characters physically possible, because the less you use, the more of a disadvantage you are putting yourself in. I don't want to farm on two or three characters in separate parties at once whilst juggling a dozen clients for the maximum gains to be "competitive". That sounds far more stressful than just... y'know, finding a party to me.


    Again though, it's kind of moot. There's plenty of servers that allow multi-clienting. Some people like that, some people don't. Arguing semantics about it is like arguing which color is the best, or what type of music genre is the best, or what is the best Final Fantasy.

    Xellie

    Quote from: Sairek Ceareste on Jun 28, 2022, 04:53 PM
    Back then if you had low end hardware that couldn't run more client at once, and someone else did, and had multiple computers, therefore, they could run more clients then you, then is that not having an advantage? Doesn't matter if the company is receiving the money or not.

    Why should someone be able to farm six times better than someone else just because they have multiple computers who can run the game? Back in 2007, I could run two instances of the game at a good choppy 20 FPS -- sometimes. Any more than two and it was pretty much unplayable. This meant any server that allowed multi-clienting put me at a huge disadvantage.

    Now, this isn't usually an issue now because the game is 20 years old, but while it is more rare, people still have weaker hardware that can't run multiple instances of the game well, whether they are only able to afford work laptops or what-have-you. Someone's potential in game shouldn't be limited by their financial situation in my opinion; or hell, just doesn't want to run as many characters physically possible, because the less you use, the more of a disadvantage you are putting yourself in. I don't want to farm on two or three characters in separate parties at once whilst juggling a dozen clients for the maximum gains to be "competitive". That sounds far more stressful than just... y'know, finding a party to me.


    Again though, it's kind of moot. There's plenty of servers that allow multi-clienting. Some people like that, some people don't. Arguing semantics about it is like arguing which color is the best, or what type of music genre is the best, or what is the best Final Fantasy.

    Despite being who/what I am, I've never used multi clients to farm outside of having a warp slave/endow because it's highly inefficient and slow. I laugh my donkey off at the people who do it on origins too since flying around even without buffs yields more. I literally tested it against myself and then competed against a guildmember who swore by it. It's not good.

    It doesn't put you at a disadvantage at all! The real party will beat the guy multiclienting at an MVP. Multiclient farming unless you're a pure warp slave multiclient literally slows you down. Link slaves? Just get a friend who is playing XIV or something to log a linker and hit you with it every 5 mins. People constantly talk about these advantages but I'm yet to have them spelled out to me. Just vague examples of "farming with more clients" - when my own experience tells me multiclient trains are bad, slow and frustrating.

    The only issue I have ever considered with it, is the one guy who runs a bard/dancer in 6 parties at once. That's pretty stupid. Actually it is very stupid.

    The rest of the time I just use it as a workaround for odd timezone shenanigans (hence the preference for warp fly spam farming). It's hard to find consistent parties if you don't have a consistent schedule.

    So, in good faith, (aside of the bard/dancer in 67 parties) what is the advantage? Give me examples, do you have comparisons? Have you done the science?
    Quote from: Aurus on Feb 13, 2024, 07:44 PMp.s. you are such a bad and toxic player I hope to never see you or your guild again


    MaybeImWrong

    Quote from: Sairek Ceareste on Jun 28, 2022, 04:53 PM
    Back then if you had low end hardware that couldn't run more client at once, and someone else did, and had multiple computers, therefore, they could run more clients then you, then is that not having an advantage? Doesn't matter if the company is receiving the money or not.

    Why should someone be able to farm six times better than someone else just because they have multiple computers who can run the game? Back in 2007, I could run two instances of the game at a good choppy 20 FPS -- sometimes. Any more than two and it was pretty much unplayable. This meant any server that allowed multi-clienting put me at a huge disadvantage.

    Now, this isn't usually an issue now because the game is 20 years old, but while it is more rare, people still have weaker hardware that can't run multiple instances of the game well, whether they are only able to afford work laptops or what-have-you. Someone's potential in game shouldn't be limited by their financial situation in my opinion; or hell, just doesn't want to run as many characters physically possible, because the less you use, the more of a disadvantage you are putting yourself in. I don't want to farm on two or three characters in separate parties at once whilst juggling a dozen clients for the maximum gains to be "competitive". That sounds far more stressful than just... y'know, finding a party to me.


    Again though, it's kind of moot. There's plenty of servers that allow multi-clienting. Some people like that, some people don't. Arguing semantics about it is like arguing which color is the best, or what type of music genre is the best, or what is the best Final Fantasy.


    In 2003 we ran 4 clients on our PCs, with accelerated graphics cards and it worked just fine. Granted you might have not had the hardware, but some of us did and we paid for multiple accounts. I am talking about iRO here I don't really know what region you played but it was a huge thing for WoE. Gravity gladly took our money and let us do it. Just saying. I played iRO from 2002 till 2009ish before renewal on the chaos server. We had a team of 10 people, and probably around 30+ accounts.

    asmrislife

    its good but its stupid when its not enforced or it doesnt cover multi device
    and i remember i was playing this server with that rule and one of their official server streamer accidentally streamed himself multi clienting and got banned lol