NOVARO - Mastercard game

Started by thebowgal, Feb 27, 2022, 04:20 PM

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thebowgal

Hello everyone, I usually keep my opinions on things to myself, but this one I have to get out of my chest. Forgive any grammatical mistakes, english is not my main language.

I have played Nova for a couple of years, took a big break and now decided to get back into it... only to leave sad and frustrated.
Before anything else, I have no ties to this or any other servers and wasn't banned or anything.

So like I said, I played Nova for a few years and made some of my best friends there that I still have today and made a lot of good wonderful memories. Eventually we all ended up taking breaks and moving on with life, coming back from time to time. I got that itch again and without second thoughts came back to the server I considered the best.
... only to feel like I walked in a room that is on fire and the extinguisers were available for a mastercard payment. Oooor you could walk to the next state on foot and get one for free. (You all got that analogy, I hope...)

The server itself is full of quality indeed and on that aspect is probably the best one out there. No crashes, hardly ever any bugs, very stable and professionally kept. It has a good introduction mini quest to the game and their website, wiki and market page are really well made and helpful.
And that is the end of the qualitites.

When you look beyond the pretty façade, you can see the rotten core that it has developed underneath the "number one" title it got along the years. And I believe the server's administration keep things the way they are based on the belief that they will never be replaced (they really need to get off that high horse of theirs...)

The bad things that I gathered on the past month I have been trying to get back into the game:

-Absurd P2W: this is the part where Nova's defenders grab their pitchforks and attack whoever dares to say it. The truth is you can't do much without paying... People argue that you can easy farm and buy everything, but the only ones that actually manage to do that are either really old players that already have end game things and can solo and sell their profits or farm braindead 24/7 on geffenia. You wanna level up and go do some fun instances? Tough luck, you either find good, bored people that will carry you while you do a bunch of nothing or you can (guess what?!) pay them to carry you!! Which is what happens most of the time. You can level up until max level on gramps and farm specific maps, and that's it. That is all you can do being new/F2P.
If you want mid/end game gears you need to pay up and get carried.
One of the most absurd justifications I heard from players about this was "you get carried in those stuff, get your gear and in turn -later- you carry other people as well. Or you can buy Nova Points and sell them to players and buy your gear". Does that sounds fun to you? Because to me that is a really big pile of crap. And the meaning of P2W.
Sure, if you are going to specifics, their cash shop doesn't have exclusive gear or extremely op items, but that is because what you do is buy gatcha eggs (with the smallest chance in the world to actually get something worth it) or straight up buy the cash coupons and sell them to players.

-Rarity of items that should not be that rare: most of the gears nowadays require high refining to be usable, and while that is not enterely new on Ragnarok, what is more recent is that pesky little thing called Blacksmith's Blessing (BSB). That could be a blessing and a way to get all players up to date to the newer stuff in the game. But guess what, they are locked behind the cash shop or the weeklies. Weeklies are something that you cannot do with the gear you very likely have at the moment, and again, you either find good people to carry you while do nothing or straight up pay them to carry you. Either way that makes those BSB stay on the hands of the elite (or whales). The same goes for the ores required to refine the good gears.
Sure, one could argue that back in the day, these things like BSB didn't exist and refines were still made, but the point is: they exist now. You can still ride a horse to get to places like people did 200 years ago, but we have cars nowadays, so who on their right mind would pick a horse over a car living in the current society? That's the same thing, back then a Guard[1] was the hottest thing you could get. Now we have items with absurd enchants and combos and stats that requires a gear to be +12 to not be total crap.

-Costumes: Let's be real here a second, costumes have been keeping the game alive for a looong time. When a costume costs up to 900kk just because the cash shop egg it can drop from has a super low chance, it makes it ridiculous. It's not the same as having a super rare item because you managed to kill that sweet MVP and got lucky. This time, it means you swept you credit card and spent a LOT of money to eventually get it. And then maybe sell it for zenys. AKA P2W.

-High population: While Nova still has the highest population that any other private server, don't believe it 100%. Those 2000 ~ 2500 people online that you can see on their website also includes autotraders and they make up more than half of those numbers. And honestly I kept seeing a lot of the same chars on the exact same spot for days (so most likely people dont even turn off their games and just afk 90% of the time, contributing to those numbers).
One detail here: you can find parties for gramps most of the time (some late nights are harder, but that is understandable). And there are ALWAYS parties selling their services for weeklies or instances.
So while the numbers aren't that big on actual players, it's still higher than most servers, I guess.

-Farming and zeny making: this is a very delicate subject to discuss ingame. The elites have figured it out ways to make tons and tons of money and they absolutely refuse to share it. And they get very angry when someone mentions it, like it's a big secret or something. Instead of helping each other, what you hear is: "go far geffenia or mag_dun". You know what happens because of that? Some items on the market are worth up to billions and the people making 10kk on an entire hour farming geffenia will likely never get their hands on, feeding on that cycle of having to get carried and the richer getting richer... and inflation sky rockets.

-Updates and the future: now this is something that personally pissed me off. Some people may be okay with it, but I am not. Sure, Nova has a high quality on their releases, and while it's not bad to deliver something complete and stable instead of rushing making it buggy, you cannot complain when your player base starts asking about it. I have seen Nova rage about this on the game chat and tell people to stop asking him/her when x, y, z are gonna get released because he/she has other things to do. And some of their systems are not getting updated anytime soon, because they can profit a lot from it (I am looking at you, refining system). And that makes me believe that for them: money > principles.

I do understand that the server can't run on itself and these things generate costs, but there are ways of making that money without completely exploiting your players. Ragnarok private servers are made for people that played it on that beautiful golden age and now are left with the nostalgia and bad decisions of the official developers and administrators. We play it because it's asomething that we all love, and when you run a private server for a game this old, you do it out of love, not greed. I think that initially that may have been Nova's intention, but not anymore. Unless you spend money on their servers, you won't have fun (unless you consider that nonstop hardcore grinding fun).

-Final considerations: I know that are people out there that defend this server with a passion, and if you asked me about it 4 years ago, I would have agreed 100%, but now the train went off the rail, and profit and the idea of being unbeatable went up to their heads. Why care when your name shows up on top everytime? They build their reputation, now it doesn't matter anymore.


*If it's so bad, why do people still stay on this server? The answer is simple: most Ragnarok players are playing it for a looong time, and made roots on this server, be it with friends or good memories or even money invested and are afraid to try something else because "Nova is the best one for renewal, right?!?!". And I don't say this to promote other servers, because at the moment I don't even have another server. I am saying it because it is wrong and it got to a point where old players are selective blinds, seeing only what they want to see.

Ragnarok should be about having fun with friends and a high risk/high reward type of game with a side of grinding. It's 2022, nobody likes to grind nonstop to have the bare minimum. And I know there are high rates servers where things just fall into your lap, and I know that Nova is NOT meant to be one of these servers, but there is clear limit between a harder server worth playing and a straight up money grab. When it starts feeling like a chore/job, it's the moment it stops being a game that is supposed to be a hobby, and turns into a obsession that you feed like a drug.

All this loooong text was made because I actually love the game and specially this server, where I hoped that I could get back to and have that same feeling I had a few years ago. I have 3 chars full geared on end game (even that bs shadow gear that you only get on monster hunting) that I made the last time I played, so know that this isn't coming from someone that just started and felt frustrated towards other players having things that I don't.

Even that old early 2000's Ragnarok that I remember (that was really punishing on those x1 rates) didn't take almost a year of daily grinding and at least 100kk on each piece of gear to be able to do certain contents. People can say that the points I am complaining about are 'end game' that shouldn't be touched in months after you start, but cmon! Leveling up takes less than a week, then you are stuck farming forever and ever on the same maps for months before you can do anything else. I am not saying it should take you 3 days to gear up, but making things less P2W would certainly help on that matter.

TL;DR : NovaRO was the best server, now it's a P2W nightmare and the people in too deep won't admit it. Please wake up GMs, I would love nothing more than to be speak proudly about Nova again. If not, it was good while it lasted, at least for me... but I won't waste myself into this current brainwashed mastercard version.

vohoangquan1996

#1
It sad to witness the downfall of such a giant. Personally, I really love how NovaRO polish their contents i have tried to comeback here and then but all I can do is do gramps .... There is no much to do unless you actually  have group of friends / players that are willing to do all the instance to get gears. Heck they don't even have the revamped MVPs system, MVP just got one shot left and right. Also that system allows players to get them all cash shop item.

Time to abandon the ship and jump to ShiningMoon. Their updates are not as polished but come out pretty fast ( with bug and will be fixed after 2 - 3 after patch date ). However unless you trying to get those kiel cards the game is absolute bearable with minimal p2w aspect ( cash point can be turned into special currency and sell to other player, its like 1.2m  zeny for 1$ though and the server is playing on 40x drop rate soooo ). That being said, zeny is no worthless as all since there is heavy zeny sink feature in smRO. On top of that, every single item in cash shop is available through gameplay and NO they are no time gated by weekly quest. You can even get your hand on MVPs card even if u just start the game. In fact if u know what you are doing and put in some good effort (40 - 60 hours top per month), its a guarantee MVP card each month (non tradable of course). Despite of having lower population but players here don't sell carry service. Lower level instances are run daily and hosted publicly so that everyone can join and earn their share of instance coins and goodies. On top of that, the new Eden gear is completely free and quite strong to begin with. Combine with the power of 4th classes. its really easy for new comers to clear contents. They don't sell gacha egg in the cash shopop. the only gacha stuffs are world boss boxes ( which can be obtained by participating in world boss, 1 damage will do the trick ) and kachua keys ( which is given via completing enough instances run both daily and weekly, also at a 3% chance when completing instances) and world drop (random drop when killing monsters). They have built in and working anti BOT which rewards non BOT player everytimes it triggers so no worry about botting there.

Naruto

lol i played on this one server that had 2 copies of all the maps and would randomly generate spawns and gear enchants

3rd job but i played for 2-3 weeks since day 1 and i NEVER FOUND ANYTHING that i could use and i was wearing carded gear the entire time , managed to solo the field mobs but they would never drop anything i could use but made enough cash shop currency to buy anything i wanted but, it was all worthless

anyways

one day the world notifications were going off the chain for drops and curious me went and joined their party, these rangers were 1 shotting mvp spawns and totally just through the market out of loop ... almost made a ranger to join them

wouldnt be surprised if someone else had that experiance lol

...................

thebowgal

Quote from: vohoangquan1996 on Feb 27, 2022, 10:46 PM
It sad to witness the downfall of such a giant. Personally, I really love how NovaRO polish their contents i have tried to comeback here and then but all I can do is do gramps .... There is no much to do unless you actually  have group of friends / players that are willing to do all the instance to get gears. Heck they don't even have the revamped MVPs system, MVP just got one shot left and right. Also that system allows players to get them all cash shop

Yep my feelings exactly. I am glad to see I am not the only one that notices that.
I hear that Shinning Moon is a bit buggy, but I personally don't know much about it since rumors aren't always true and it's refreshing to hear about those features! I quite like the idea of getting boxes with possible goodies by ACTUALLY PLAYING the game when you kill the world boss.
Might be worth to check it :)

thebowgal

Quote from: Naruto on Feb 27, 2022, 11:38 PM
lol i played on this one server that had 2 copies of all the maps and would randomly generate spawns and gear enchants

Are you talking about Nova? I am not sure I ever came across 2 copies of the same map there.

Naruto

just some dutch server, nah not related just talking

...................

Ariasqt

You raise some fair points. However, why would you discredit your own thread by making up some stuff?

Quote from: thebowgal on Feb 27, 2022, 04:20 PM
what is more recent is that pesky little thing called Blacksmith's Blessing (BSB). That could be a blessing and a way to get all players up to date to the newer stuff in the game. But guess what, they are locked behind the cash shop or the weeklies.

Last I checked BSBs were in no way obtainable through cash shop. The "only" p2w aspect the cash shop on novaRO has are the ores? Though I'll be honest, I haven't been very active in the past year.


thebowgal

Quote from: Ariasqt on Mar 04, 2022, 04:36 AM
You raise some fair points. However, why would you discredit your own thread by making up some stuff?

Last I checked BSBs were in no way obtainable through cash shop. The "only" p2w aspect the cash shop on novaRO has are the ores? Though I'll be honest, I haven't been very active in the past year.

I didn't make anything up. If you read this part right here you will see what I mean:

Quote from: thebowgal on Feb 27, 2022, 04:20 PM
Sure, if you are going to specifics, their cash shop doesn't have exclusive gear or extremely op items, but that is because what you do is buy gatcha eggs (with the smallest chance in the world to actually get something worth it) or straight up buy the cash coupons and sell them to players.

So nowadays you can get them pretty much by two ways: do the weeklies and get them as reward or buy cash and sell it, then get it from a player's shop since they are expensive as hell (around 9kk for ONE). Which is also the way to get most things from mid game and up...
Like I said, their P2W is very sneaky, the cash shop seems fair at first glance, but when you understand the inner way of how things work there, you see that everything is pretty much obtainable thru the cash shop, because how in the world are you expected to make millions to buy better things to be able to participate in the game contents when you can't progress because you don't good enough gear. It's just a never ending cicle in my opinion.

Also, if you check their discord on the past few days you can get a general idea of how things are... the latest patch is just a mess with that absurd farming for costume stones (and that pitiful excuse of a pity system...).
It makes me really sad to see how it's going. I don't enjoy bashing and bad mouthing on anything and I would much rather be talking good things about it, but there is no good alternative server at the moment and this feels like a sinking ship that could be fixed if if they actually looked down to see it sinking in the first place. But from the way some GMs/developers/whatever talks on their discord, to me it just looks like excuses... "look, we are humans and we are trying to make it better". (but spoiler: they aren't doing anything if they can make money out of it somehow).

Fu Wind

NovaRO has many flaws, but being P2W is definitively not one of those.  /swt

First, there's a lot of relevant account-bound gear that is locked behind intense and hardcore grinding, so it's impossible to get it by paying. Examples of those are: PKS and it's respective enchants, all of the Shadow gears, and more recently: Costume stones.

This is a flaw that over 90% of playerbase hates, because it forces you to farm specific content as slave (like it or not). But is also a reason why it's literally impossible to P2W in Nova.



And second, there isn't anything you can get by Novashop that you cannot get by farming normally. Gold Coins from dailies can be converted into Nova Points, so you can literally get any cash shop item by logging in 1 hour/day. You can also just normally farm and buy Nova Point Vouchers to get everything from the Cash Shop.
Check my awesome Youtube Channel for Rune Knight content, AB content and others:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxj_I417ixk1Qny8WZGJXBg

thebowgal

Quote from: Fu Wind on Mar 06, 2022, 07:37 PM
NovaRO has many flaws, but being P2W is definitively not one of those.  /swt

First, there's a lot of relevant account-bound gear that is locked behind intense and hardcore grinding, so it's impossible to get it by paying. Examples of those are: PKS and it's respective enchants, all of the Shadow gears, and more recently: Costume stones.

This is a flaw that over 90% of playerbase hates, because it forces you to farm specific content as slave (like it or not). But is also a reason why it's literally impossible to P2W in Nova.



And second, there isn't anything you can get by Novashop that you cannot get by farming normally. Gold Coins from dailies can be converted into Nova Points, so you can literally get any cash shop item by logging in 1 hour/day. You can also just normally farm and buy Nova Point Vouchers to get everything from the Cash Shop.


Er.. let's look at some gears: GX is one the meta nowadays and (please do correct me if I am wrong) the recommended weapon is "Bolt Crusher", which is not account-bound and as I am writing this the average price this month is 277,962,503z going as high as 900kk on a +15. The armor most classes are using is "Automatic Armor" with the B-type on an average 603,067,299z and A-type on 497,133,978z..... the only account-bound things that I know of are these new silly costume stones and shadow gear (yey monster hunting! /s)
I don't think you got my analogy at the start of the thread. Yes, you can buy anything farming normally, but how long does it take for an average player to get almost 300kk for a single weapon farming on geffenia (the main farming place everyone tells you to go) for 10kk/hour? And why would you do that if you could swipe your credit card, buy and sell nova points in minutes for almost the same ammount you get on one hour of farming (NP is currently ~9kk). Thats is seducing the player to spend money on the game in my point of view...

Please don't try to defend this is as a good thing, it is not.

The players complaining about the hardcore farming for the stones are very likely playing for a long time and forgot about this, and are now getting a taste again of how awful that farming is for new players to not only get the stones, but everything else.
But of course, the people on top would never want to make things more accessible to the ones on the bottom...

aerisdies


I've been a player since...

And I can say that I was also part of the glorious days of Nova.

I'm still playing today but only whenever I have spare time.
(Outdated Ranger with Illusion, Sharp shooting set)
Once, I am done with gramps and @dailies, I log out because I don't have friends to play with.

It's a suicide being a solo player.

Also, P2W? /hmm I don't know but, I think, it's because of the luxuries of those rich players out there, buying super expensive costumes and buying those enriched ori/elu things?
What I like from those costumes are that they don't have stat effects unlike the server where I came from, Limit RO /heh

It's a bit stale right now. It got boring.

My nephew is a power gamer and I got some high-end items from him before he left for Shining RO (I detest what he did because I don't like custom servers but oh well... I'm also the one who introduced NovaRO to him).
I sold those items and went on the Illu Sharp shooting ranger set, that's why I stayed, for now.


Thanos Friend of Thor

Quote from: Fu Wind on Mar 06, 2022, 07:37 PM
NovaRO has many flaws, but being P2W is definitively not one of those.
Nah, baby, you're wrong. Buy nova points, convert them into zeny and buy leech for shadow gear plus the remaining gear that you need.
The only thing that you can't buy are the costume enchant stones and Purified Knight Shield but if you play meta both are whatever since GX and Ranger are fine without them. Genetic doesn't care about them. WL is also fine without them, you can use bypass shadow gears and show the middle finger to them.

Money > Slavery

Necoco

Quote from: thebowgal on Feb 27, 2022, 04:20 PM
-Costumes: Let's be real here a second, costumes have been keeping the game alive for a looong time. When a costume costs up to 900kk just because the cash shop egg it can drop from has a super low chance, it makes it ridiculous. It's not the same as having a super rare item because you managed to kill that sweet MVP and got lucky. This time, it means you swept you credit card and spent a LOT of money to eventually get it. And then maybe sell it for zenys. AKA P2W.

Dang, that sucks... imagine playing a private server that has gachapon gambling. >.< That's the #1 reason I play private servers to begin with, to avoid paying real money for things like costumes. I have had a bad history with gambling in gachapon when I was still a minor too, so I am very much against it, and hate how exploitative it is of the human psychology and of people who have the brain disease of addiction. Sad to see it come to RO now... I'll be staying away from this one, thanks for the warning.

Aloe

They have this $9.95 "30 day pack" subscription type package that gives you extra cash points per day for 30 days which can be p2w. They also just launched a server's store with expensive server-logo related merchandise.
This just screams to "gotta maximize profits no matter what" at every opportunity to me.  /hmm

They are constantly thinking of ways to make money off their playerbase. Personally, I haven't heard of them donating to charity at least once either.

thebowgal

Quote from: Aloe on Mar 29, 2022, 07:40 AM
They have this $9.95 "30 day pack" subscription type package that gives you extra cash points per day for 30 days which can be p2w. They also just launched a server's store with expensive server-logo related merchandise.
This just screams to "gotta maximize profits no matter what" at every opportunity to me.  /hmm

They are constantly thinking of ways to make money off their playerbase. Personally, I haven't heard of them donating to charity at least once either.

Merchandise with their server logo? This is crazy, it's not even an official server or an original game of their own... Why would anyone buy it is beyond me...
At this point the guy is probably living with the server's money alone  /wah

I am glad I enjoyed the server when it was still decent. Probably never getting back to it again.