OriginsRO - Another Review

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

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Jinbou

Hey there. I've been playing OriginsRO since early 2018, although there have been many 5-6 months-long breaks so my total play time is not very high. I was extremely happy with the server when I first started it, but I did have an increasing number of problems lately that bothered me more and more, so for the first time I'm writing a not-positive review for it - which ended up too long so I decided to make it even longer and post here. This will contain all of my impressions with the server over a very long time, and it'll be very long, so feel free to skip some sections and check out only what you're curious about.

tl;dr

  • + No Cashshop/Donations
  • + No bots
  • + Good economy, most gears are cheap, making it easy for beginners
  • + Good QoL updates, the control panel and master account system are very nice
  • + The nostalgic classic RO experience

  • - Dead pvp, no battlegrounds, mediocre woe
  • - People either play solo with multi-clients or make boring 12-people standing parties, it's very hard to find a normal party
  • - There is no end-game objectives, you run out of stuff to do pretty fast
  • - Mediocre class balance, not bad, not great. It won't ever be improved as there are no class balance updates
  • - Some awkward movement mechanics


About the Server
Spoiler
Origins is a 5x pre-renewal server. It is completely free with no cash shop or donations, which is its main charm point. The owner seems to be paying for the server costs out of his own pocket, which is very respectable. It's a very old server, probably 6-7 years old, but it only started getting crowded recently after iRO kicked all their EU players, so it still feels fresh with many new players, and the economy is pretty good. There is no full stat/skill reset or other custom NPCs like healers/warpers/job changer.
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Leveling
Spoiler
While the server has 5x exp rates, there is a 'Floating Rates' event that raises this to 5.1x~8.0x that is active for 2 days once every ~2 weeks, and a 'Monster of the day' event that doubles a mob's exp, giving the player up to 16x exp. Overall it's quite easy to level once you get your basic gears, I got from level 1 to 99 on my WS in less than a week with a lucky motd, and it wouldn't take that much longer even without it/with other classes.
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Economy
Spoiler
Origins tries to deal with inflation by nerfing most of the good zeny-making mobs' drop rates. It seems to work for the most part, as most gears are quite cheap and it's easy for newcomers to reach the point where they can buy all the important gears.

I'd say the only gear that is expensive and can change the gameplay in a significant way (make a new build possible) is ice pick, which is ~170m right now, and all the other important cards/gears are below 20m.
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Multi-clienting
Spoiler
Multi-clienting is the norm in the server, and the comfortable master account system makes it easier than ever to manage your clients. Most people use 3-4 clients at the same time, with the number going up to 10+ for some players. The meta is mostly around farming like:

Make your 1 DPS char uber strong with all the possible buffs > warp to a spot > spam fly wing and kill the mob on your screen > butterfly wing to inn > rebuff and repeat.

Pretty much everyone farms solo like this, which can be positive or negative depending on your point of view.
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Parties
Spoiler
This is the first and the biggest issue I have with the server, and since I consider parties an important aspect of an MMORPG it is a deal breaker for me. I haven't seen a single other server where the parties were this one-dimensional and boring.

99% of the parties you'll find in Origins are 12-people standing parties. These parties always take place in the same maps (stalacs, magma2, niff), where the party stands in the same specific spot and spams the same skill over and over like a bot. A few mobbers bring all the mobs in the map to that spot, and the mobs melt as soon as they arrive. Rinse and repeat.

If you're a wiz, you'll use storm gust on the same spot as soon as it's off cooldown forever, and that's it. For sages it's heaven's drive, blitz beat for hunters, and sharpshooting when you become a sniper. Bards/Dancers are usually afk as they only need to press one button every 3 minutes. I've seen a good number of them and wizards use macro to automate this process, as their job is simply too boring. If you're a class like a knight/blacksmith, then congrats, you're a mobber which is the only class that remembers how to move their character in the server. Unfortunately, you won't kill a single monster yourself as long as you're in a party. Is that why you made that class, so that you can walk around dragging the slow stalactic golems behind you to the same spot - and never fight them yourself?

Long story short, 12-people static parties are incredibly boring, and unfortunately that's the only type of party you will find in Origins. The smaller, fun parties where you team up with a few people and walk around killing monsters are mostly forgotten. At least there were GC crusaders partying with priests last year, but that class completely died after the rebirth patch.

If 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.

The Underlying Problem Behind This:
Basically the issue is that both multi-clienting solo players and the 12-people parties farm infinitely faster than small parties in terms of exp, zeny, and kill speed (yeah 1 solo farming char has much better farm speed than a party since they have more buffs and can use fly wing), making small parties completely obsolete.

I have seen many suggestions on making the party system better, and made some myself, with some examples being tweaking the custom oRO party exp, nerfing fly wing (RO:Zero style), making some mobs exhaust, giant fly wings, linker buff scrolls (so that chars in small parties will have the same buffs too without losing the custom party exp), adjusting the spawns of some maps, implementing some group-based pvm dungeons like endless tower earlier with limitations...

Now I'm not a balancing expert, some of these suggestions may not work, or have some bad side-effects. Balancing the party system is obviously not an easy task, and it may take many tries before they get it right. But I'd have wanted the developers to try something, anything, to improve this system. As far as I know the last small tweak that was related to parties was like 2 years ago, and at this pace it'll take another 20 years before partying in Origins becomes fun again.
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PvP
Spoiler
PvP is completely dead. And no battlegrounds.
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WoE
Spoiler
(Disclaimer: I didn't play WoE in this server, so my knowledge is limited and mostly based on my dialogues with a few friends playing it. Apologies if there are any inaccuracies)

- Creators rule, all the melee classes are dead, it's mostly a spam of skills like Acid/Tarot/FAS. It's like a very organized gvg, with the guilds staying as a group and throwing ranged skills at each other until one of them shatters
- There are no godlike items, it's just for "fun"
- It's quite crowded and alive
- Despite the population, there are only 2 castles
- I have seen many people asking for more castles (or a separate pre-trans woe), but it hasn't happened yet
- The GMs clearly said that this is a PvM server, and that they don't care about WoE. It's not unlikely for WoE-related improvement suggestions to be rejected for this reason alone
- To me this everlasting trans woe meta looks extremely boring, but see it and decide for yourself. Search OriginsRO woe and look for a video with recent dates
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Events
Spoiler
Nothing special, there are small annual events like Easter, Christmas etc. which are OK, and some rare ones like screenshot contests.
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Bots/Cheaters
Spoiler
- There are close to no bots, the GMs are very good at dealing with that.
- There are some macro users or multi-master account cheaters in parties, I've reported many people even though I don't even join parties that often. It's mostly wizards/bards/dancers that want to automate the boring 1-click job they have in parties and go afk, and although I appreciate the GMs taking care of these cases quickly, I'd prefer it if they fixed the root cause people are feeling the need to do this in the first place
- I haven't heard of any serious GM corruption drama, they seem to be handling things fairly
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MVP
Spoiler
Bosses in classic are just mobs that happen to have a little more HP/damage, they don't do anything if you know what you're doing. All of them are killed seconds after spawning, usually with acid bombs or asura. There is always competition and it'll usually die before you can see it, the only challenge in getting the MVP is having the fly wing luck to find it earlier. Then you wait ~2 hours for it to spawn again. I think this applies to pretty much all the bosses except the ones on bio3.

Overall I don't find it fun, but that's how MVPing has always been in classic, there are no customizations.
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Class Balance
Spoiler
People often play classic servers because they think the balance of renewal is garbage, and while I don't completely disagree, I think the good thing about the other private servers is that they make balance patches and try to improve it. Obviously it's not easy to balance a game, some of them end up better, some end up worse than before. But at least there is a chance for it to become something good if the developers have a good vision, and there is always changes that keep things fresh.

I won't go into detail about all the problems of pre-renewal balance since these issues are not specific to Origins server, but the balance of pre-renewal is certainly not that great once you take off your nostalgia glasses. Some classes are simply better than the others in almost all aspects, especially after rebirth, woe is broken because of creators, and most of the skills are completely useless resulting in one-dimensional characters. And the bad part of playing in a server like Origins is that you are stuck in this "not bad, but not great" state of the game. There are no balance changes, so the server will forever be stuck in this mediocre state, which can get frustrating if you want to see improvements.

There are some small customizations they make, but these are never related to class balance, it's always made with quality of life or server economy in mind. And they can result in the power gap between classes to increase even more, although it's by a very small amount.

For example:
Spoiler
Most of the mobs that have very high value loots have their drop rates nerfed, which makes sense from an economy standpoint in order to prevent inflation. But since whitesmith spends 1.5k zeny per cart termination they have to farm those expensive mobs, so it affects them more, and limits the number of maps they can farm without losing money even more. On the other hand, a class like stalker doesn't care since they don't spend anything and can still steal these loots at the same rate.

Autoloot is another example of customization that sacrifices class balance for QoL, even if its common in all private servers - together with it's less broken alternative Arealoot. It makes the WS skill Greed completely useless, gives a big advantage to ranged classes like sniper, and makes the solo fly wing farming even more powerful. No wonder there are 4-5 times more snipers than melee classes like WS in the server.
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Custom, Awkward Movement Mechanics
Spoiler
The movement of characters in oRO is... slightly off. It's hard to describe, but basically you can't animation cancel, skill/animation delays are weird, sometimes the character gets stuck in their spot for an unusually long time after getting hit/using a skill (proportional to their aspd, maybe?), and sometimes the hits seem to cancel the commands you input...

It's not very noticeable and somewhat random, the character will do what you want 99% of the time, but when it doesn't it feels really frustrating. For me the hitlock/input issues are more easily noticeable in maps like geffenia/bio3/stalactic golems (mobbing, when megaliths hit) where it's critical for me to move somewhere quickly and I'm receiving occasional ranged hits, as it can cause deaths. It's been a while, but from what I remember the official was definitely not like this. As for animation cancelling, it's probably easier if you see it yourself in this video.

Unfortunately the developers seem to be convinced that the server's mechanics are correct and it's the official that was bugged, so these will never be fixed. I find that pretty silly since animation cancelling is an important and definitely intentional feature of many games I played, and a google search easily shows how many popular games have this mechanic.
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Special Mention: Homunculus System
Spoiler
This is somewhat too specific, but I wanted to mention it since it has a combination of everything I dislike about the server at once, and is a good example of what can frustrate you playing in a server with not-many-updates like this.

- The intimacy rates are still 1x, which I would consider a custom change considering everything else in the server has higher rates (exp/loot 5x, quests 2.5x...). This means it takes over 300 hours for the homunculus to learn their ultimate skill even if you feed them optimally. I find it pretty funny that you can make a 99/70 character in a week, but it takes months to make a functional homunculus.

- As you may know lifs and amistr badly need their ultimates to level, whereas vanil and filir don't need it at all. Without their ultimate lifs are pretty much useless, and can't kill anything but super-weak mobs like wolves.

- Vanils are already ridiculously strong and popular, and this 300-hours wait time for ultimate makes the homunculus choice a no-brainer for everyone, and completely destroys their balance. Almost all the homunculus I've seen in the server are vanils, the other ones are incredibly niche. Imagine if 90% of the server was made of knight players. This is a similar case of extremely bad balance.

- This wait time basically forces you to keep a multi-client of origins open in background all day and sit somewhere for weeks/months if you want a lif, instead of being able to play the game and level with your companion.

- As if Amistr wasn't a bad choice already, their signature skill, Castling, is nerfed so that it has a 2.5min cooldown instead of 0. Apparently they're planning to revert this change, but it's baffling that something like this was implemented (and stayed all this time) in the first place.

- Despite many people making various suggestions on how to improve it, the developers clearly said that they have no intention of making any changes on the homunculus system - without giving any reasoning for it.

So yeah, an already badly balanced mechanic of classic RO that's made even worse in Origins, forcing players to multi-client and stay afk somewhere, with anti-fun mechanics, completely disregarding balance. And - same as many other issues of the server - it'll always stay like this, never improving.
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End-Game Content
Spoiler
People invest very high amount of hours in MMORPGs, and all the MMORPGs have some kind of content to keep the players entertained in the long run. For classic official servers, the exp gain was extremely low, and simply leveling your character and making small parties with people for this purpose kept you busy for months/years (as well as pvp/woe/godlike items...). For other games/servers, there are either some party content, frequent events, dungeons with good random rewards, pvp, or other stuff.

Let's look at what origins has to keep you busy after some time:


  • Reaching max level is quite easy once you get some gears with 5x rates that can increase up to 16x during events
  • Same goes for making money. I got all my +7 gears quite fast, and now have another 200m cash and 100m+ worth of loot/cards (that I'm too lazy to sell just because there is nothing I want to buy with that money). And I don't think I farmed in this server for that long of a time
  • Parties are dead except for standing 12-people ones
  • Dead pvp, no battlegrounds
  • No godlike items
  • There IS woe, although I think there are better woe-oriented servers if that's what you want
  • MVPing gets boring really fast in classic
  • No balance changes to keep things fresh, one content update (a new dungeon) every ~6 months
  • No group-based pvm content like endless tower, nothing like instances or monster hunt

In short... Pretty much nothing. You can make 10-20 different chars and try out all kinds of builds, but that'll get boring after the 21th one too, and you still end up doing the same kind of grind with all the chars. I simply couldn't find anything to do after some time, and I don't know of a single other server/other MMORPG where I ran out of things to do this quickly. Right now I only log in when a friend invites me to party on discord, and even that is super rare since they ran out of things to do and started playing less and less too.
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Final Thoughts
Spoiler
What is the most important thing you look for in a server? That it's not pay-to-win? If so, Origins is for you, you should play it. And I think everyone who has a nostalgia for the old classic RO will enjoy it in their first few months.

For me it's different. Even though I hate cash shops too, I can live with them as long as everything in them is also acquirable with zeny, and it doesn't take a very unreasonable amount of time to obtain it. RO is a grindy game anyway, and I don't mind grinding more than other people. I believe it's possible to find a good balance so that the free players don't feel too disadvantaged, while devs still make some money and keep the server going, even if it's a hard balance that most servers aren't be able to find.

For me the most important thing in an MMORPG is having fun parties, having some end-game content and objectives to strive for so that I will have a reason to log in after the first few months, and having occasional updates to keep things fresh and balanced. Unfortunately OriginsRO fails to deliver in these aspects.
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distilled1

Quote from: Jinbou on Jun 25, 2020, 06:44 PM
Multi-clienting
Spoiler
Multi-clienting is the norm in the server, and the comfortable master account system makes it easier than ever to manage your clients. Most people use 3-4 clients at the same time, with the number going up to 10+ for some players. The meta is mostly around farming like:

Make your 1 DPS char uber strong with all the possible buffs > warp to a spot > spam fly wing and kill the mob on your screen > butterfly wing to inn > rebuff and repeat.

Pretty much everyone farms solo like this, which can be positive or negative depending on your point of view.
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HUGE negative for me personally, and the very reason I stopped playing Ragnarok Online, and World of Warcraft Classic, to play games that actually require both role-playing and social interaction in order to get anywhere.
I don't care how many lame-donkey, know-it-all, social rejects tell me "Well it's not against the rules so there's nothing wrong with multi-clienting".
I will argue, until the day I die, that there very much is an inherent problem with multi-clienting in any game that attempts to identify itself as a multiplayer, role-playing game.
It always has the effect of encouraging solo-play.

So while I still care about and respect Ragnarok Online for what it tried to be and what it still could be, and while I'll still post on the OriginsRO forums from time to time, and hope things will change for the MMORPG genre in the future, I'm no longer holding my breathe.
I'll play some Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds or something where you're forced to role-play and work with others.

That's my two-cents anyway.
Thanks for the honest review, Jinbou.
DOWN WITH MULTI-CLIENTING!

Jinbou

Yeah, I do it, but I dislike it too. Multi-clienting, together with the standing parties, seem to have killed the normal parties here sadly.

I wouldn't mind it if it could coexist with normal parties, but it'll probably be hard to catch that balance (not that the devs are trying)

Styx

#3
This is in repeat the next multiclient review. Where multiclient was official possible all the time, just except  some part where they had trouble to configure their network being ready for it.
This shouldn't be an issue for a server review, they always were clear about it, take it or leave it.
Also it is just from the view of an very easy to level battlesmith, who will not have a hard time to level itself but it could be very different for other chars.
There is much to say about the custome part of this server for instance that special party bonus making it more midr as lowrate. If you meet the conditions or have permission for it. I know they consider themself as being superior decoders but how fair is it after 18 years programming knowledge? That lack of respect tells something about them. The original team of developers in those days was mainly busy offering entertainment for all players and Originsro doesn't reach that same level or approach as Minsoo Lee. The real sad thing is that Originalsro is one of the best Pservers around. The real game and attraction is gone for many years already, it will never come back. Only a few have a copy from the real eAthena Server back to those days. Majority will not be aware of it, they just don't know how it really was in those days. But can't they abuse that version? Yes they can and they will and for that reason it is lost forever. Only virtual developed laws, (all laws are virtual) are trying to give an answer to come close as possible whetever you agree or not.
But to my opion Originsro isn't a good and proper name it is too far away from original.  A better review would say something about all the nerfs they made and where it is different and not just one leading to multiclient.

Styx

So, let's take your points one at a time, if I have time to react on it. I will take the first one now.

Origins is a 5x pre-renewal server. It is completely free with no cash shop or donations, which is its main charm point. The owner seems to be paying for the server costs out of his own pocket, which is very respectable. It's a very old server, probably 6-7 years old, but it only started getting crowded recently after iRO kicked all their EU players, so it still feels fresh with many new players, and the economy is pretty good. There is no full stat/skill reset or other custom NPCs like healers/warpers/job changer.

It's not 5x, it's around 20X if you know how to exploit their unique party bonus based on master accounts. If you have permit, which you can request, once you get it you are free to go 20x rate all the way, all the time.
You don't have to cheat with VPN and IP changers, a permit is secure enough and you will get it if requested proper.
Nothing is for free but that is another issue, indeed there is no such thing here as cash shop or donations. Economy is always a principle on offer and demand, it's not realy specific server related, it seems not different from average here. No instant healers or job change present but there are custom warpers.

Khinaya

There are bots on the server. Not trying to defame the staff, but once again their favoritism method is heavily backfired on the people they trust. Time and time again, before and after the Council Member flop, the people they listen to the most and the loudest members of the communities, are bots or knows a bot one way or another. They back each other up so that they will not be banned or caught. One of the current active GM's even knows one of these and actively covers for the macro brewer bot.

They will not take it seriously unless they see "proof", which creates a chain of confusion of "We won't do anything to prevent anti corruption unless you prove solidified proof of this" this is understandable since it's a mouth vs mouth action, but again they refuse to check or do anything and even deny things from happening unless the proof is right there. Even then they are lenient and will most likely not ban. It really depends on if the person is liked or not. If disliked or unknown, instant ban. If liked, a "warning" takes place. It's there in plain sight.

I know two of them will come here and say "this is not true blahblahblah all lies and ur a badmouthing our server" but to that I say, maybe you should start checking on those people. Swaying that under the rug doesn't solve your issues.

The whole paying from pocket is old. Plenty of Privates already did that before Origins was a thing. The difference is that they didn't stay long. There's even another active 1x/1x/1x that does the same thing, but takes their time to thoroughly check for issues despite having a busy life.

Origins is my ideal server but it has way too many issues for me to enjoy playing on it.


Styx

While the server has 5x exp rates, there is a 'Floating Rates' event that raises this to 5.1x~8.0x that is active for 2 days once every ~2 weeks, and a 'Monster of the day' event that doubles a mob's exp, giving the player up to 16x exp. Overall it's quite easy to level once you get your basic gears, I got from level 1 to 99 on my WS in less than a week with a lucky motd, and it wouldn't take that much longer even without it/with other classes.

The MOTD does have a black list, so not all monsters can be MOTD, there are just a few good ones left and most of it is crap. The floating rates is nice but it doesn't have an impact that it would change the grind for a casual player much.
Some important monsters are nerfed in EXP, like Anubis which is just 3x EXP and not 5x in conjunction with official rates. They don't have a good answer why they did this, actually they rather never answer much at all. Forum post are rather closed quickly, issues on gitlab are rotting away forever. It makes  not much sense to bring up a bug or issue at all, they simply will not respond or close it. The quest rate is a real joke with just 2,5x EXP. There are no repeatable quests present on this server. The server does have a lvl cap, it's impossible to get more then 1 level at a time. Quests only have an RPG meaning on this server and they are not a way to lvl up, for that matter they are just a waste of time. In the end you find yourself participating in or buying a leech in an Bio3 party since it is only decent way to level up in reasonable time compared to the possible 20x rate on this server. For that matter gathering zeny is the centre of the gameplay on this server. Beside some easy to lvl chars, most players don't get 99 trans in a week. In fact most players aren't even close to this after almost a year.

Jinbou

#7
It's good to see there are still new comments here giving different views about the server - although I disagree with some of the points, so let me answer them.

Quote from: Styx on Aug 05, 2020, 07:14 PM
This is in repeat the next multiclient review. Where multiclient was official possible all the time, just except  some part where they had trouble to configure their network being ready for it.
This shouldn't be an issue for a server review, they always were clear about it, take it or leave it.

I don't understand how you think this is a repeat of that review when I didn't complain about multiclienting in my review at all. All I said was explain how it works, and say:
QuotePretty much everyone farms solo like this, which can be positive or negative depending on your point of view.

As I said in my latter comment, I wouldn't mind multiclienting if the normal parties coexisted with them. My complaint is that the non-standing/non-multiclient parties (which I'll refer to as normal parties) are dead. I think they needed to buff/promote normal parties and/or nerf multiclienting/standing party methods a little until we reached the point where normal parties were at least somewhat viable, which I discussed in more detail in 'Party' section of my review.

QuoteIt's not 5x, it's around 20X if you know how to exploit their unique party bonus based on master accounts. If you have permit, which you can request, once you get it you are free to go 20x rate all the way, all the time.
You don't have to cheat with VPN and IP changers, a permit is secure enough and you will get it if requested proper.

I'm not sure what you mean by "permit." The only way you'd always have a unique party bonus is if you lie to the GMs and say that there are other people playing in your multiple accounts, which is still cheating. There is no way of getting party bonus while playing by yourself without cheating. And I don't care about what the rates are for cheaters, the game doesn't need to be balanced around them.

But it does need to be balanced around the players playing efficiently while following the ToS. They shouldn't say "you don't have to follow those efficient methods or multiclient if you don't want to so its fine," which is unfortunately an argument I heard very often while playing there. Any argument for balance goes out the window with a thought process like that. No the players shouldn't feel forced to "nerf themselves" to make the game look balanced, most will try to follow the best methods and the game should still be functional (have normal parties) and be somewhat balanced after taking them into account.

Lets 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

That's how bad normal parties are, and that's why there are close to no normal parties in this server. I fully disagree with this line from your first post:
QuoteThis shouldn't be an issue for a server review, they always were clear about it, take it or leave it.

I tried many popular servers that allowed multi-clienting and none of them were this bad in terms of party play. In other servers I could still find normal parties with randoms even though multiclienting was allowed.

Also this is just one of the many things I criticized about the server, but it is the most important one considering this is supposed to be an MMORPG.

Other small points I'd like to comment on:
QuoteSome important monsters are nerfed in EXP, like Anubis which is just 3x EXP and not 5x in conjunction with official rates. They don't have a good answer why they did this, actually they rather never answer much at all. Forum post are rather closed quickly, issues on gitlab are rotting away forever. It makes  not much sense to bring up a bug or issue at all, they simply will not respond or close it.

There is no mob other than Anubis with modified exp rate, so I don't think it matters much, it's just a small tweak. But I can agree with the other points, there are some communication issues and many of the important issues discussed on gitlab are closed without any reasoning given.

QuoteThe quest rate is a real joke with just 2,5x EXP.

Definitely agree, it's a terrible decision considering there are no repeatable quests anyway. They don't give much exp anyway, the game should reward people for trying to learn Ragnarok lore and explore the world, not do the opposite by cutting the default server exp rate by half.

QuoteBeside some easy to lvl chars, most players don't get 99 trans in a week. In fact most players aren't even close to this after almost a year.

What I said I did was going from lvl1 trans to lvl99 trans in a week, which required a lucky motd (goats). Even without that, you can definitely do it in 1~3 weeks with any dps char, you just join a bio3 party and go from 90>99 in a flash anyway. There is no way it takes a year or anything close to that if you're actually playing the character efficiently. Obviously some builds like support scholar/ad biochemist can't farm well by themselves and needs party or leech to level, that's just how RO is.

Styx

#8
You ended with stating you don't like multiclient, which isn't specific for this server nor official. They were always clear multiclient was allowed so it can't be part of a review since it is an multiclient server as official was and is.

Yes, the normal party's are dead, and special the small or hybride self leeching party's combined with multiclient. You get the wrong idea, multiclient on this server is only good for gathering things not for leveling, not by far even.

If you get a permit to play from same IP then you are settled to play with more master accounts, there is no official document required, if you have it, you are free to go.

A multiclient player, with 2 chars even with an easy to lvl DPS class will not ever get more as 2,5x rate + eventually tap bonus, not to mention it is a hard to level char you have to leech. In fact this is discouraging because two players with unique master accounts will get 15% EXP bonus for each unique member. So, a full party with unique members will outplay any solo player by 2x or 4x rate and multiclienting leeching party from 1 player by 4x to 8x rate, don't you understand how it works on Origins? Don't be stuck in the normal multiclient crap, it doesn't work here like that at all. With other words if you don't level with unique party members, you accept the consequenses not doing so, or you don't understand the server specific settings.

Let's say you are correct and it is only Anubis nerfed, remember Anubis map is the most social map present on Origins because the casual players are there. And you are ignoring them heavily with this review.

Yes, you can rebirth any cheap to lvl dps char fairly easy to 99 and that is where your review is about only. Which is still a good point of view but it doesn't cover up for the casual player, not at all. Therefore, you see numbers are decreasing heavily on the server, though a second survival of Covid might be another survival in numbers for this server. It will continue anyway even with just 5 active players, that is the good thing.

Though if you challenge me more I will calculate exactly how many goats you have to kill to get 99/70 on this server, even if it is MOTD for 24 hours with 24/7 max rate Brave Warrior on.

Jinbou

Quote from: Styx on Aug 13, 2020, 06:11 PM
You ended with stating you don't like multiclient, which isn't specific for this server nor official. They were always clear multiclient was allowed so it can't be part of a review since it is an multiclient server as official was and is.

That wasn't even part of my review, and it wasn't the point of my comment at all. Please don't derail the topic.

QuoteIf you get a permit to play from same IP then you are settled to play with more master accounts, there is no official document required, if you have it, you are free to go.

No, if you got permission to play from same IP it's because they thought there were multiple people playing there. One person can only have one master account, and there is no exception to that. If you're playing with more then one then you're a cheater that'll get banned if a GM realizes what you're doing. It is all clearly stated in ToS and anyone will tell you the same thing if you ask the players/GMs on the discord server.

QuoteSo, a full party with unique members will outplay any solo player by 2x or 4x rate and multiclienting leeching party from 1 player by 4x to 8x rate, don't you understand how it works on Origins? Don't be stuck in the normal multiclient crap, it doesn't work here like that at all. With other words if you don't level with unique party members, you accept the consequenses not doing so, or you don't understand the server specific settings.

Not sure if I agree, but I'm not interested in arguing about it at all, please drop it. I want this thread to cover how this server is when the players play fairly only, I'm not interested in farming methods that go against the rules of the server.

QuoteYes, you can rebirth any cheap to lvl dps char fairly easy to 99 and that is where your review is about only. Which is still a good point of view but it doesn't cover up for the casual player, not at all.

Even without MotD or floating, it's still possible to reach 300k/min exp by solo multiclient farming with pretty much any DPS class (ws, lk, pala, sinx, stalker, sniper, gypsy...), even more with some of them. With that it'll take 11-12 hours of straight farming to reach 90 (obviously the lower levels are slower but I can't calculate that much, this is for after you job change and open your main dps skills).

That's why I said it's possible to achieve 99 in 1~3 weeks if they know the efficient farming methods. If it's not a dps class (woe chars, brewers etc.), then duh, those are supposed to be hard to level, but you can still join standing parties and get the same exp, or leech it.

What I did with WS didn't even require gear since I was one-shotting, only a Slaughter weapon is needed which you can make for free with a quest, inn, and a lot of fly wings and fish. The rest is just SP gears that'll let you stay in map longer, pretty much same ones for all classes. Same story for other classes, just something like a santa poring weapon (almost free) is usually enough to get great exp and zeny, and you'll get all the gears you need in no time. Everything I said covers the beginner players too. Those players are struggling only because they don't know/use efficient farming methods (yet), once they start there won't be any struggle with farming in Origins.

QuoteYou get the wrong idea, multiclient on this server is only good for gathering things not for leveling, not by far even.
QuoteA multiclient player, with 2 chars even with an easy to lvl DPS class will not ever get more as 2,5x rate + eventually tap bonus, not to mention it is a hard to level char you have to leech.

Umm sounds like you don't know the efficient (non-cheating) farming methods yourself. Multiclient farming is not walking around with 2 chars, you wouldn't be getting any tap exp if you were farming efficiently. You'd be spamming fly wing with 1 char only, even if you have a leecher it'd be sitting in a safe spot in the map. The multiclients are for buffing/warping the char in the inn only (read Multi-clienting section again).

Please, even though I completely stopped playing in Origins now, I maxed out a dozen chars there before, and made close to 500m while leveling them. I'm pretty sure I know how to farm both exp and zeny in that server.

QuoteThough if you challenge me more I will calculate exactly how many goats you have to kill to get 99/70 on this server, even if it is MOTD for 24 hours with 24/7 max rate Brave Warrior on.

Sigh, this is so out of topic, but let me just do it and get it over with:
Spoiler
Until 90, not 99. After that you just go to bio3.

Exp needed for 90 trans: 210.217.649
Goat exp with MotD: 33.570                           > Kills needed: 6262
Goat exp with MoTD + Max Floating: 53.712  > Kills needed: 3913

So you could even get 90 before you find 2 cards, farming 4k goats is nothing. But I didn't have floating, so lets remove that bonus.

2 screenshots I took that day to see how many goats I kill/how much exp I get with each 'run' (from the time I warp to map, until I run out of SP).
https://i.imgur.com/ngKyMpt.jpg  https://i.imgur.com/rqLrrSw.jpg

It doesn't take into account to time of using inn/rebuff, which takes about 10 seconds, but it's still enough information to find out how many goats you can kill per run, or how much exp you can get per min...

Even after considering the inn time, you'd still get 450k/min exp at the very least, probably much more. I'll just go with that absolute minimum, and it takes 7.8 hours of farm until the char becomes 90. Definitely doable in a day.
[close]

The reason it took me a week to get 99 is because I don't farm that much a day, and I didn't want to lose any zeny so I looked for bio3 parties as a mobber afterwards, which takes some time to find with classes like WS. If I bought leech or leeched myself in bio3 with a sinx, it could even be done in 1-2 days.

Lace

#10
Quote from: Styx on Aug 09, 2020, 07:04 PM
It's not 5x, it's around 20X if you know how to exploit their unique party bonus based on master accounts. If you have permit, which you can request, once you get it you are free to go 20x rate all the way, all the time
You don't have to cheat with VPN and IP changers, a permit is secure enough and you will get it if requested proper.

I'm sorry, but I'm a GM on Origins and I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. You seem to have misunderstood the whitelist that exists exclusively for multiple people in the same household to participate in War of Emperium. No one is allowed to have more than one Master Account, and we have never given anyone permission to abuse the party bonus via multiple Master Accounts. Anyone abusing the system by pretending to be multiple people gets permanently banned when they are discovered.

I apologize if there has been any confusion on that front.

To clarify: The IP block is only in place for castles, and thus requires a whitelist for each account if more than one person is playing from the same IP and wishes to WoE. If no one in the household is WoEing, there is no need to request permission. I have no clue where this idea of "permits" came from. No one is allowed a second master account.

Zulf

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).
- This server just got rebirths, before that we had our fun trying different builds, and it seems people now rush for the trans job. If you do that it's obvious that you will feel burnt out. Some competitive players will even try to min-max the EXP mechanic. And this is OK, too. That's their way to enjoy the game.
- Player driven content is... obviously up to the players to mold. As a person who always reads oRO Discord: people always prioritize min-maxing than casual fun. Even at the first day of the summer event, people started theorycrafting about fishing and mobbing, even griefing the rest. This is all on the community and they do everything they have in mind to keep the crab-pot-statu-quo intact.

And something that you should know at this point, the staff is always busy and flooded with stuff (remember, adults with works just doing free, voluntereed work). If you follow Gitlab's movements, they started closing/updating old issues. Everything stacks if you have other minor and urgent situations. As a person who is always helping around with the Wiki, I talk to them regurlarly, and the amount of work put into the executable and Hercules code is impressive. I have helped in servers since 2008 (as GM in some of them) and believe me, nobody cared about client-code stuffm they just paid a differ and the usual rAthena pack. But that's other story.

You are right about the lack of communication, and it has to be improved.

I have 2~3 years in this server and I am still testing weird builds and having fun discovering what I couldn't before due to people following cookie cutter builds or relying on custom NPCs. The fun in a server is mostly made by you.

Styx

#12
Yes, Lace you are a GM on Origins but please stay out of this review. I am 7 years on this server and I am trying to give my experience to this review. For that matter I don't care if you don't understand, it's clear to me for many years already you don't understand everything. Though if it bother's you, let me declare this once again to be very clear: Originsro is one of the the best Pservers around ever. Your problem is, that you have a tunnelview on it. I am still standing on the server after 7 years as just a casual solo player but how many can accomplish this? That is a question that should bother you. All this I achieved despite the abuse and macro's present and I don't even care they do this but I have experience enough to be aware some are using macro's. I don't know about bots, never seen them personal but I don't hunt bots either but I know exactly where I could find them. Though macro's, oh yes they are present for sure. My issue where you probably are a bit confused, if I would ask my permission to the team I play with my mother, father, brother, sister, friend or girlfriend on same IP and get permission for it I am free to exploit that very extra party bonus to the bone. What makes you think they will or won't do that? In mirror, they aren't like you or me, not at all.

Lace

#13
Quote from: Styx on Aug 19, 2020, 04:55 PM
My issue where you probably are a bit confused, if I would ask my permission to the team I play with my mother, father, brother, sister, friend or girlfriend on same IP and get permission for it I am free to exploit that very extra party bonus to the bone. What makes you think they will or won't do that?

I don't care about anyone's personal opinions of the server. Everyone is free to share their thoughts about what they like or dislike about Origins, and I am not commenting on the opinions expressed in this thread, as they are all valid and fair in most cases.

However, it is most definitely my place to step in and interject when you are suggesting that we allow people to multi-master if they ask permission first. This is factually incorrect, and you do not have the perspective of a staff member to back up your claim.

Again, you seem to be very confused about how whitelisting works. People who live in the same household do not need to ask permission to play together. The only time people with the same IP need to ask permission, is if they wish to participate in War of Emperium together--which has nothing to do with the party bonus. People are free to play on the same IP (without permission or informing the staff) as long as they are different people. Individuals who think they're clever enough to dupe us by pretending to be their sister, boyfriend, or cat, will eventually be caught and punished. This is not behavior we allow, encourage, or condone.

There aren't enough of us to individually monitor each of our thousands of players at all times, but we can absolutely tell when someone is exploiting our Master Account system in this manner, and those who do are banned without hesitation.

Have a nice day.

Imperial Regalia

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).
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.