Midgard Tales: Wasted Potential by Incompetent People and Poor Management

[Ravenvoxx]

(this post mainly about the beginning of the downward of Midgard Tales)

So, I tried another mid-rate server before, but didn't really get into it. So, I checked out the High Rate List on ratemyserver.net and found Midgard Tales. It's at 200x EXP, which seemed moderate compared to other high-rate servers. They advertise themselves as the most updated server, specifically highlighting their 4th classes.

At first, it was good
You get introductory quests once you log in with your first novice (I don't know if this introductory quest is also available in the current version of Ragnarok Online). This quest will introduce you to several custom NPCs available later in the game. Trivial, but very important for a private server, given how many customizations can be made for their server.
The drop rates are fine, the community respond very quickly and very helpful. No drama on the server!
They have Ready 2 Play feature where a character can fast-track to level 200 to try the 4th Class.
The 4th Classes itself are fun to play with!
I thought i might be able to stay longer here.

i was wrong.

The Beginning of a Downward Spiral
Let's just get to the point.

So, they have this Genie NPC that will suddenly appears in the middle of your farming session from time to time; asking you a very simple question to check if you're a real player or a bot.
You will be invisible to monsters around you, so you are safe by getting mobbed and you only given 60 seconds to answer the question.
Those who answers correctly will be rewarded with small amount of Event Coin and those who don't... well, i don't know personally, since i play manually 100% and always got a correct answer. but, i do read a post in the Discord where their character being kicked out of server and cannot login after that because they answers incorrectly.

"this is a good prevention. nice!", i thought.

They plan to remove it in the December update.


Before they go ahead with the plan, we, the community, started a thread discussing the December update. We shared our disagreements and concerns about the upcoming changes. They aimed to remove the Genie due to numerous complaints about the NPC. However, they also couldn't allow bots to roam freely. That's why they intended to increase the weight of the Fly Wing. At the time, the new weight for this item hadn't been finalized yet.
I suggested an alternative to outright removing the Genie NPC. Instead, I recommended exploring different options and investigating the root cause of the complaints: was it the severity of the punishment or something else?
I pitched ideas for more forgiving penalties. Also, I raised concerns about how increasing the Fly Wing weight could adversely affect non-STR build classes, like the Magician class (I'm an Arch Mage myself).

The community had already provided insights into potential outcomes of these changes. We emphasized that the upcoming update would likely impact manual players more than bot or macro users.

They ignored it.....
They made it clear: the Genie NPC is getting axed in the next update, end of story. They pretty much shut down any player input by ignoring and opposing every suggestion.

It happened.
December update arrives. Genie vanished. Bot and macro users are on the loose. Magic builds take a hit due to Fly Wing weight.
that's all?
NOPE!

Here's another twist: any teleport skills are disabled in a map where the MVP is still alive.
(please take a moment before you continue. imagine the situation where you just wanna casually farm in a dungeon and suddenly cannot use a Fly Wing because APPARENTLY an MVP is currently respawn SOMEWHERE and now you have to search for it and spend your precious free time to kill it to be able to teleport freely!)

Wait, there's more........
You can't use your Body Relocation (if you are Monk branch), but you can use Cart Boost (if you are Alchemist branch)!
Oh well, good luck for Mage class, who don't have any travel skills, searching the MVP..........

Expectedly, the community reacted strongly! Discord was abuzz with arguments, all trying to reverse the changes. Eventually, after several hours, they rolled back the adjustments:
The teleport ability was restored. Additionally, they introduced a rental item at the Rental NPC: the Speed Potion (1 day) to assist characters in traveling faster.

But here's the kicker! Along with the revert, there's another change: MVP Tier 1 and 2 now have a measly 50 or 100 HP, but they also take only 1 damage. Saga –who's the representative of the Midgard Tales, claimed this tweak would encourage more players to join the MVP hunt and give newcomers a shot at taking down the MVPs.

So you'd think, "This isn't too bad", right? Wrong! Once again, Mage class takes a hit.
If they can't take down the MVP quickly and it enters a recovery state, guess what? You're forced to spend another precious minute hunting it down...

Of course we voiced our opinion regarding this.
and Saga's answer was, "build ASPD char".
(alright i'll give you a moment to react to this before i continue)

like.... "Why do I need to create an ASPD character just to kill an MVP?",
"Why can't Mage class have the same chance as ASPD-built characters against Tier 1 and 2 MVPs?"
At this point, it seems like Saga and the dev team favor ASPD-built classes and are inclined to phase out the Mage class altogether.

And it's not just a one-time thing.
Every time we raised concerns about the MVP reaching the recovery state, his/her response remained the same!
You think it's done? nope!
there's more...

Furthermore, in an effort to encourage more MVP hunt participation, they introduced an NPC where you can exchange an item dropped by the MVP with items from the Item Mall. These malls are significant as they offer numerous valuable items, one being the Armor Refine Ticket—a crucial item allowing safe armor refinement to +7. For seasoned players with established characters, this might not mean much. However, for those in the process of building their character, this is a game-changer.

But to 'buy' this item, you have to take down MVP Tier 3 at least 10 times (or Tier 1 and 2 more than 30 times). In this server, MVP Tier 3 respawns every three hours.
However, since the update, everyone's rushing to eliminate these MVPs, making them practically non-existent.
So, if you're currently in the process of building your character and find yourself in need of this item, well, good luck spending your precious time grinding the MVP Tier 1 and 2.

there's more, tho...
To stabilize the market, they opted to reduce the drop rate of Zelunium, Shadowdecon, and Gelstar—items serving as alternative currency for premium-ish items.
But, at the same time, they limited where these items can drop in dungeons or maps.
In the other words, you have to grind moaaaarrr!

Until now, I'm certain I'm not the only one whose hope has dissipated into nothingness.

But!
another update released: now you can't buy Fly Wing in the Tool Dealer.
Now, it's exclusively purchasable with Eden Coin at Eden.
Its weight has increased to 10 from the initial raise to 8 (yes, the weight was initially increased from 5 to 8 in the December update).
You can't dropped it, stored it, nor sell it "in an effort to combat the macro", Saga said.
And this is where I call it quits.
I believe it's time to take a break from this server for a while.
None of those updates have been favorable to magic classes. None of us wanted more grinding, but the updates compelled us to do just that.
The way Saga and the team handled the complaints wasn't helpful in the least

That's the end of my tale in Midgard Tales (for now).
update:
[2023/12/12]: i revisit RMS after awhile and found out that my review responded by the GM (maybe Saga) with: "Bye bye macro farmer."
..which i'm not.
i'm just a Ragnarok Online player of 10+ years ago who wants to reminisce playing the game. i can say i'm a casual player; not a hardcore one who pursue lots of Zeny or endgame equipment. so i played 100% manually and don't even know what software to use for auto.

this kinda response shows you how they managed people and expectations

[ForgotMyOldAccount]

Reading your post was a wild ride. GETTING RID OF FLYWINGS as a way to counter bots? What a weird way to go about it. What about Gepard Shield or some kind of packet encryption? 

[Ravenvoxx]

Reading your post was a wild ride. GETTING RID OF FLYWINGS as a way to counter bots? What a weird way to go about it. What about Gepard Shield or some kind of packet encryption? 

ikr!

they already have Gepard Shield for bot protection.
but, they also want to get rid the macro/auto user. that's why they make it harder to get Fly Wings

[LuffySab]

So...basically don't join if you are a Bot, Macro or AFK Farmer?

And for those who likes to play normally, it's a heaven, due that nobody will be able to deflate your hard earned items by "botting, macro or afk farming".

Pretty decent approach if you ask me.

Now adays, many passionated players are getting killed off, because of "bots, macro and afk players"...kudos to their dev team for taking a stance.

 

[Metan]

I'm kind of confused. Did they also disable Creamy Card? As otherwise nerfing/removing FW doesn't seem like a big deal at all.

The Genie NPC is kind of cute, though. Botters figured out how to solve such queries over a decade ago (and that's why reCAPTCHA has been so damn annoying for years now), but they thought this old practice would stop bots nowadays...

[LuffySab]

I'm kind of confused. Did they also disable Creamy Card? As otherwise nerfing/removing FW doesn't seem like a big deal at all.

The Genie NPC is kind of cute, though. Botters figured out how to solve such queries over a decade ago (and that's why reCAPTCHA has been so damn annoying for years now), but they thought this old practice would stop bots nowadays...

Right they did, it was so easy to bypass, and to creamy card it now gives Warp Level 1 instead.

Overpowered server of 4th Job can easily sarifice a card slot to setup macro/afk farm with range of AoE skills some jobs offers.

Maps were full of ArchMages just "teleport/aoe skill" with autoloot or autolootid, this could go for a full day...

You can see the hate the server is taking, after their approach and the final update they made 2 days ago really cracked this down...the GM showed many proof of active players in dungeons and fields since then....guess what? There were many different jobs other than previously 99% Arch Mages...
and all of them played normally, even responded quickly when GM unhided herself. (unlike before, the GM had to recall the macro farmers and gave them up to 20 seconds to respond, in order to evade a ban.)


Kudos again, to this server for taking actions against Macro/AFK/Bot.

Now those who actually enjoy RO, and plays it won't have their honest farmed materials being deflated by "macro, bots or afk farmers". It is why we are seeing a increase of material value, to the right price and stopped deflation.

[Thanit]

Kudos again, to this server for taking actions against Macro/AFK/Bot.

You are server owner
Don't try to act like player who's playing in the server. That make you look stupid. ok?

You can see the hate the server is taking, after their approach and the final update they made 2 days ago really cracked this down...the GM showed many proof of active players in dungeons and fields since then....guess what? There were many different jobs other than previously 99% Arch Mages...
and all of them played normally, even responded quickly when GM unhided herself. (unlike before, the GM had to recall the macro farmers and gave them up to 20 seconds to respond, in order to evade a ban.)

Then why don't you and all GM team do you job rather than get rid of Flywing ?
if you not okay with macro player then go cacthing them! send him to jail or ban, Is it hard? Since you have a time to stalker around "manually player" and capture your stupid screenshot to show us "whithout flywing they can play" 

[Metan]

Right they did, it was so easy to bypass, and to creamy card it now gives Warp Level 1 instead.

Overpowered server of 4th Job can easily sarifice a card slot to setup macro/afk farm with range of AoE skills some jobs offers.

Maps were full of ArchMages just "teleport/aoe skill" with autoloot or autolootid, this could go for a full day...

You can see the hate the server is taking, after their approach and the final update they made 2 days ago really cracked this down...the GM showed many proof of active players in dungeons and fields since then....guess what? There were many different jobs other than previously 99% Arch Mages...
and all of them played normally, even responded quickly when GM unhided herself. (unlike before, the GM had to recall the macro farmers and gave them up to 20 seconds to respond, in order to evade a ban.)


Kudos again, to this server for taking actions against Macro/AFK/Bot.

Now those who actually enjoy RO, and plays it won't have their honest farmed materials being deflated by "macro, bots or afk farmers". It is why we are seeing a increase of material value, to the right price and stopped deflation.

Removing Fly Wings does not hinder botters, just like nerfing item prices does not hinder them either (of course it brakes inflation and it's a very legitimate issue, but it doesn't make botters think twice). Rather, I would argue that it does the exact opposite: people resort to botting when farming things becomes a bother. Eventually, this change may make a lot of people bot.

Also, you have advertised your server yourself in this very forum more than once. Referring to your own team as "they" and using neutral terms like "this server" just makes it look like you're avoiding responsibility.

[LuffySab]

It is honor that i personally receive attention, thought it was about server. But as a loyal player who played beta in Midgard Tales and help them with topic here before, i could argue that only thing server suffered from was this macro/afk farming, made everything so worthless over time...

I don't think botting is even possible, because i am in a guild that some members have tried various bot systems which all failed. In result those members i play with uses macro/afk farming method which is keybind with Logitech or Razersynaps....

Some simple ones are: repeat 2 keys + autolootid

I have followed all server updates, with previous Dev team, they added AFK Checker, which isn't effective over time...and it also made a lot of players annoyed, including myself, because it often shows up middle of my farming session.
I myself is a passionated manual player, so for me to be here to protect server that i love from misleading narratives ...

GM herself showed this in discord earlier today showing how manual players likes this


the new dev team did a great job, i personally plays now without ever being bothered by this afk checker, and i am certain that those who plays aren't macro/farmers
also the fact that my hard farmed items can be sold for more zeny than before, I sold few Shadowdecons today for 160k, when before update it went as low as 30k...

gm even shows evidence of her checkups and shares in discord how all her encounters of active grinding players are not bots/macro/afk farming

[Thanit]

It is honor that i personally receive attention, thought it was about server. But as a loyal player who played beta in Midgard Tales and help them with topic here before, i could argue that only thing server suffered from was this macro/afk farming, made everything so worthless over time...

I don't think botting is even possible, because i am in a guild that some members have tried various bot systems which all failed. In result those members i play with uses macro/afk farming method which is keybind with Logitech or Razersynaps....

Some simple ones are: repeat 2 keys + autolootid

I have followed all server updates, with previous Dev team, they added AFK Checker, which isn't effective over time...and it also made a lot of players annoyed, including myself, because it often shows up middle of my farming session.
I myself is a passionated manual player, so for me to be here to protect server that i love from misleading narratives ...

GM herself showed this in discord earlier today showing how manual players likes this

YOU ARE SERVER OWNER AND ONE OF GM TEAM (oh! i forget you demote yourself to mod many day ago)
https://forum.ratemyserver.net/high-rate/midgard-tales-episode-20-the-immortal-200x200x20x-4th-job-renewal/

Can you Stop being so fake please? 





Do you need more prove that you are not Saga from Midgard Tales ? 

the new dev team did a great job, i personally plays now without ever being bothered by this afk checker, and i am certain that those who plays aren't macro/farmers
also the fact that my hard farmed items can be sold for more zeny than before, I sold few Shadowdecons today for 160k, when before update it went as low as 30k...

gm even shows evidence of her checkups and shares in discord how all her encounters of active grinding players are not bots/macro/afk farming

Are you got Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Stop praise yourself! it's make me feel disgusting. 

[LuffySab]

Once again, you bring me to the spotlight, any counter points to this actual topic or is personal attacking or "doxxing" your escape goat?

That post you showed was me helping our ex-GM out, I suggested that server needs more advertise, because they never make...and she wrote the text for me to post.

But hey, maybe your fantasy is beyond and can't accept simple truth, your "dark imagination" thinks there's some "mastermind"...but reality sometimes is just very simple.

  we should praise the new Dev teams for standing up against Bots/Macros/AFK farmers, I really don't see why so much hate...were you affected by this?

 

[Kaleidor]

What a damn shame. Here I was gonna try out a latest renewal server and I see this is how the GM/Developer acts :/

[ednis]

LONG POST AHEAD, PLEASE READ.

Alright! I didn't realize the forums have a different account than RMS itself so I had to register as a starter. I'm putting my reaction here because first this thread was posted in our guild server discord. I wanted to agree with the outcry above but realized it was too soon to reply to this post.

There were a lot of changes over the past 30 days which favored a lot of players (this is in my opinion) first was the removal of pay to win as they call it, VIP system was removed which I don't see any difference between regular players and VIP donators, tbh, this server has been taking a hit all the time. People suggest changes that they think would be best for the community's interest, however, not all of these suggestions can be made overnight and the developer and the owner would still consider what they think is best for their server.

The person who started this thread probably hated the update not because he is a macro farmer but because he might be frustrated with the changes that make it harder for him to farm. (This is so understandable). Who can think of an RO server with no fly wings available to be purchased, hence an NPC was created that will give a random amount of fly wings between 100~200 pcs every hour. Note, that this fly wing is not stackable, you have to maximize the supplied fly wing before claiming another one.

The changes in MVP hunting made it fun and challenging at the same time. I don't find it negative as I've seen these MVP tier 1 and tier 2 not being killed for as long as I've stayed in the server, only those who have valuable cards are being killed, other than that probably 5% of the MVPs are just being killed on both tiers.

I see the benefit of changing this method because they had to put in some end-game PVP gears toward MVP hunting, killing them is still easy, the GM team also has removed the heal or recovery switch skills of those MVPs that heal. The said item used to be an RNG item that had a 1% chance of getting and would cost $1 (1000 cash points) to get, now you can get this by killing MVPs.

I've been promoting this server on all platforms that I know might benefit the server, I even created guides and streamed for the server for free promotions. The thing is, we tend to react negatively to changes that don't favor us and we fail to see the life ahead as this frustration is putting a wall between understanding and accepting the changes.

I always believed that change is constant, regardless if it benefits us players or not. The basic rule in all private servers is if you don't like it here, then leave.

Now, if you look at the bigger picture as to how the server is battling macro and AFK farmers, I find it really good, the number of online players has not changed, probably reduced by those macro farmers but you will see different classes farming now and to make sure that it will not affect the manual players, item drops were doubled. Note: The item itself is doubled and not just the drop rate in all materials across all maps. Rates of other items were increased to in maps that don't drop double items. This benefits all manual players. Yes, it might be probably hard without teleporting from one area to another but again, you can use the free fly wings supplied.

I am not negating the TS, it is his opinion and how he sees it but I just want to share some positive insights that in my opinion, it humbly serves more players than a single player that can macro 3 characters at the same time. Ragnarok low-mid rate server is supposed to be a server that you will grind on, the sense of doing macro farming is a lazy thing to do hence it destroys the economy of a server as items become oversupplied and lowballers sell at a very low price to monetize on those farmed items causing deflation. I still think it is leading us to a more positive economy and for as long as the community keeps up then I would still rock on this server until it closes.

The behavior of allowing macro farmers to begin with was the fault of the GM team, at first, it was beneficial but when 80% of the population is already macro farming it tends to lead the server to its downfall, if you truly understand the battle for macro farm is useless, you should look at market prices right now.

It might have been a negative update to others, but positive to some, we really cannot say since the majority of the community is not speaking up, but by the looks of it, almost every map has different classes (based on the screenshots shared in the discord channel) it's fun to see more active players.

Lastly, if I am given a chance to battle macro farmers, I would kill @autoloot and bring back infinite fly wings or put the fly wings back to the NPC, this would make it harder for manual players but for sure it will kill macro farmers as it will not be beneficial to macro farm if you cannot loot anything without this command. -- This is just my opinion  I bet people will outraged if this happens.

[Metan]

I won't comment much on the MVP/FW changes because I'm not a player, so I can only offer some early perceptions of it (MVP changes shouldn't hinder magic classes all that much due to multi-hits, and restricted FWs might actually be a good change for gameplay, overall). But what I wanted to comment on is this:

Lastly, if I am given a chance to battle macro farmers, I would kill @autoloot and bring back infinite fly wings or put the fly wings back to the NPC, this would make it harder for manual players but for sure it will kill macro farmers as it will not be beneficial to macro farm if you cannot loot anything without this command. -- This is just my opinion  I bet people will outraged if this happens.

Not sure why you think removing autoloot would kill botters... anyone who's ever played iRO for at least 5 minutes will disagree with you, lul. That would just make real players feel miserable.

[ednis]

Not sure why you think removing autoloot would kill botters... anyone who's ever played iRO for at least 5 minutes will disagree with you, lul. That would just make real players feel miserable.

I don't think the server has a bot that picks up loot after killing the monster, that is as far as I am aware. The macro farmers just go auto loot, fly wing, skill, fly wing, skill - 90% of the maps that drop upgrade and refine materials have macro farmers and all are archmages. Yet again the decision to kill @autoloot is not for me to decide, if they want manual grinding and farming there are alternatives such as greed enchanting on costumes and it does already exist in the server.

I don't see magic types having a disadvantage on MVP hunting. Last bloody branch event held by the GM, almost 60% of the MVPs were killed by an archmage that can spam multiple skills. Not just that, even on tier 3~5 MVPs, AM does a decent amount of damage due to their AOE skills that greatly reduce the spawn of minions of each MVP, With the right gears, they can be tanky without risking the overall damage since it is just 1 dmg per hit. - Hope this clarifies the MVP