OriginsRO - Another Review

Started by Jinbou, Jun 25, 2020, 06:44 PM

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Styx

Yes, I can't know exactly because there is nothing about a whitelist in the TOS. The TOS does however very clear say this:

Master Accounts are individual and must not be shared, under any conditions. In order to share characters, players shall use the Guest Account system. Multiple players in the same household are to create different Master Accounts.

Practice is that a single player plays at 5x rate, a self leeching player at 2,5x rate. The only reasonable map at end stage for leeching is nerfed to 3x rate. There is no way, you ever will get that extra party bonus which makes it possible to reach 20x rate.
Therefore you either participate or pay for a leech. So, I adapt to that system and did pay so far over 70 mil for a leech to get the thing done.

The casual player I see every day wandering around, asking where to level or what  weapon to use will get frustrated on the long run when they discover they are walking round in circles not making sufficient progress enough to keep up.

Jinbou

#16
Quote from: Imperial Regalia on Aug 19, 2020, 10:45 PM
This is a fallacy. Servers that allow multi-clienting effectively force everyone to start multi-clienting (even if they don't want to), because there will be no other way to keep up with those who are doing it. Multi-clienting is a HUGE advantage to the point that it (in the right hands) effectively gives a 1.5-3x multiplier to whatever the base rates are.

This is why I avoid servers that allow it. Multi-clienting also drastically impacts game balance for several classes. It's all around terrible for the game.
Thanks for commenting. Unfortunately it is closer to 3x, and MUCH more when it comes to drop multiplier. If it was between 1.1~1.4x exp/drop advantage it wouldn't be that bad - since I think I'd see normal parties more often in the server.

I don't know how your experience with multiclienting was since every server is different and I didn't try that many of them. But in my experience, it was still "possible" to find normal parties with randoms in other multiclienting servers I had tried, which is why I didn't mind it much. Even though I didn't like it and I'd prefer if it wasn't allowed, it was something I could live with. But Origins is simply on another level, I haven't seen any other big server where normal parties are this dead.

And yeah I agree with the balance concerns.

Quote from: Zulf on Aug 19, 2020, 01:03 PM
Some of the points in the original post are true, but some of the complains are totally biased based on certain gameplays.

- Some of us don't multiclient at all. Some guilds out there regularly parties and do random, casual fun activities. The multiclient option is there, but you aren't forced to use it. Whether they allow it or not, people would still try to circumvent it (using more than one machine, using VMs, etc).

My main complaint is that those certain playstyles are just too good compared to others. Like this example (which is not very accurate, but gets the point across):

Spoiler
QuoteLets make an example based on rates like you mentioned. It's impossible to give a specific 'x rate' based on how efficiently people are playing, so let's just give relative numbers to compare how different playstyles compare in Origins approximately.

If, in a standing party, a players gets 20x exp and 2x drops (just random numbers to compare, not server rates)
Then a multiclienting solo player with a dps class and decent gears would get between 19-24x exp and 20x drops
Whereas a player who makes a small party with friends not multiclienting would get 7x exp and 3x drops
[close]

The problem is that when a certain playstyle is this bad compared to others, almost everyone will avoid doing it, which is exactly what happened in Origins. You mention guilds, but I was part of two international pvm/fun guilds and didn't see many normal parties. Yeah there was like 1 activity per week, another party once in a while, and that was it. Which was my basis for saying:

Spoiler
QuoteIf you have friends/a PVM guild, you may find some small parties here and there - but from my experience it still ends up being pretty rare, people get bored and stop playing, and the activities of these guilds become more and more rare after every week. Eventually you end up playing a single player game with multiple clients like everyone else on the server.
[close]

Now, maybe there is a guild I don't know that's actually really good about this. I doubt it but let's say there is.

It's a major problem that you need to join a guild just to find a normal party in the first place. In most other big servers (and every other MMORPG) you can just write in #party chat and find a normal party with random people fairly easily.

What you said just shows how few people are interested in normal parties in Origins (how many people could be in a guild like that in the first place, and how many of them are active... compared to the server population that's nothing)

I discussed this many times in discord with you Zulf, so I don't think we'll find a common ground (but thanks for giving your opinion here). I think we actually both enjoy similar kinds of gameplay. But you're saying just try to find a few like-minded people and enjoy the game with them and ignore what everyone else is doing - which is a fair point, and a good suggestion for people who wants to play there.

Whereas I'm saying, there are other servers where parties are in a much better state, why shouldn't we want Origins to be like them? This is an online game, it is much more fun to play with other people, it's only obvious to expect GMs to make updates that incentivizes party play in a situation like this.

Somewhere along the way Origins ended up becoming worse than everywhere else in this regard. Maybe it's because the master account system of Origins encourages multiclienting too much and makes it too convenient. Maybe it's the standing parties being too good with custom exp bonus for 12 people. Maybe it's the lack of group-based dungeons. Maybe the awkward movement mechanics make people not want to walk and prefer fly wing farming by themselves instead. I don't know the reason, it may be a combination of all of these things. But my point is that this is not normal, it is not good, and it's not an unavoidable result caused "only" by multiclienting, even if it's one of the factors (because as far as I know other servers where multiclienting is allowed are not this bad).

I think this is something that could be improved with some changes (not a drastic one like forbidding multiclienting, smaller changes), my frequent complaints in discord was because I used to love this server and still had hopes I'd see an attempt to make things better one day. But eventually I had to accept that this server doesn't seem to want to improve at anything (except for QoL changes, which are good but not as important as the other issues it is facing).

Lace

Quote from: Styx on Aug 20, 2020, 12:51 AM
Yes, I can't know exactly because there is nothing about a whitelist in the TOS. The TOS does however very clear say this:

Master Accounts are individual and must not be shared, under any conditions. In order to share characters, players shall use the Guest Account system. Multiple players in the same household are to create different Master Accounts.

I'm glad we're on the same page, then. In the case of multiple accounts under the same IP, they must be different people with different master accounts. A single person is not allowed to have multiple master accounts under any circumstance.

Imperial Regalia

#18
Edit: Not relevant. Sentence char limit.

Amellyn

As someone who also made a review a few months ago I'd like to at least react to this :

Quote from: Zulf on Aug 19, 2020, 01:03 PM
Some of the points in the original post are true, but some of the complains are totally biased based on certain gameplays.

- Some of us don't multiclient at all. Some guilds out there regularly parties and do random, casual fun activities. The multiclient option is there, but you aren't forced to use it. Whether they allow it or not, people would still try to circumvent it (using more than one machine, using VMs, etc).
As it was already said, this is close to a fallacy, and I say that as a player that exclusively play single client regardless of the online game because I, too, believe that multi-client completely defeats the purpose of playing online.

Let's also be honest since it's part of a review discussion, any player like me who even tries to bring single-client in there just instantly gets called an idiot. And to be honest, partially for good reasons sadly. When you have a look at what people do in the server, and how multi-clienting is completely favored over anything else you'd be a "masochist", as I was called, for even trying to level anything without it.
Also, as part of the GM being active and not doing any favoritisms this is also completely wrong. I still have to this day in my folder a few screenshots of guilded players abusing DB and killing others at spawn by redirecting them, which is supposedly against the rules. I brought the subject numerous times in the main channel and it got completely ignored or laughed at even when a GM was here. And I am completely confident that if I were to log in and see if the players are still here, they probably would be.

Anyway sure, take it or leave it, I agree. This is why I left. But it's just spreading misinformation when the same people keep on reacting on any review mentioning the multi-client aspect of the server.
In fact, I suggest to be more explicit about muti-clienting in the server page presentation. If I, and probably others, knew beforehand that it was that bad I'm sure we wouldn't have tried the server to begin with.

Jinbou

#20
Look at that, Origins just launched a patch that nerfs standing parties a little, which could be the first step in the right direction—out of many necessary steps—to bring normal parties back and make the server fun again. If only it didn't take two frustrating years with a complete lack of communication to have this first small change, maybe I would still have some trust left for the GMs there to believe they are capable of eventually making a good server.




Jokes and my extreme saltiness aside, this really is very good news for people planning to play there, it at least shows that they still have some desire to improve party play too. I didn't have any expectations to see a change like this for another year or two. Maybe my estimation in the Parties section of the review was wrong, and this server could be fun again in 5 years instead of 20.