Review of Return to Morroc (Sadly, more bad than good)

[Minatoaquades]

The admin of this server custom created every class and playtested every one of them and their skills extensively. While you might be able to argue he does not understand good principles of game design, writes poorly, or is egotistical, it is objectively false to say that he doesn't know anything about the classes that he literally created.

Funny how those who claim the admin "doesn't listen to anyone" rudely write off those who remain patient and positive as "admin fanboys". Maybe it's you who is not listening to others. It is a common ploy of the outspoken to think that only their opinions matter and only they are right, and to smear the credibility of those who disagree with them with silly ad hominem attacks (ex "admin fanboy"). Did you ever consider that maybe the admin does listen to people, but maybe the problem is that your ideas lack insight and impartiality?

As a wise fortune cookie once told me: It is far easier to be critical than it is to be correct.

I never attacked nor called out anyone who backed up admin's decision.


He created the class, but i will 100% always take the opinions of the players who actually leveled and went through progression with the class and plays the class every single day as more credible than someone who created the class and made dumb changes to them making the class feels horrible to play.


AM for example, patch 1.0 - great class not top tier but great , patch 1.1 - playable class, bottom tier, patch 1.1.1 - destroyed the class, changed their gameplay, atrociois to play now


Illusionist - patch 1.0 - low tier class, patch 1.1 - added an item Unknown gloves, became a good class, patch 1.1.1 - destroyed the class by nerfing its single damage spam move instead of nerfing the gloves ( this is a very dumb decision as it affected everyone thats not high enough level to equip the gloves)


There was a voting : players want him to take his time implementing patches.

Monday, he dropped a patch and told everyone, goodluck! If something breaks, you will have to deal with it until the end of week. Of course, because of his incompetency ( he himself admitted hes not an experienced dev), as expected, few things broke. Now judges and seers are stuck with broken mechanics for a week. No scaling, no cast ready.


Does that sound smart to you? If you know youre bad at implementing patches, why would you implement a patch and not have time to fix it after it breaks something? A week is a long time to wait with a broken job lol.


Everyone wanted him to take his time, he shouldve implemented that patch when he has the time to fix it if it breaks something. What kind of genius thinks its a good idea to drop a patch, breaks other classes, and leave it like that to fix in the weekend? Why not drop the patch on the weekend and have time to fix it after?

Is he so eager on nerfing AM, illusionist and sinners that it doesnt matter if it breaks other classes along with it? As long as they stop having fun immediately instead of letting them have more fun until weekend when he has time?

[admornstein]

I said I wouldn't answer anymore on this post. but this is getting out of hand.

Monday, he dropped a patch and told everyone, goodluck! If something breaks, you will have to deal with it until the end of week. Of course, because of his incompetency ( he himself admitted hes not an experienced dev), as expected, few things broke. Now judges and seers are stuck with broken mechanics for a week. No scaling, no cast ready.

-The issues have been fixed within 8 hours of the patch being added. On a weekday. After I slept for 4 hours and got to work.

Patch 1.0 AM was beyond overpowered, and now it's in a good spot power wise. Players from the jobs are being consulted and checked for data, and apart from some specific cases, improvements will be made.

Illusionist had a BUG FIX that put their damage potential back where it should be, withing reasonable parameters. Sinners also had a change that was fully understood by their players after updates.

PRM, contrary to "some people", is in a very good spot, far from perfect, but meta-chasers will always complain when a strong item/build is nerfed and adjusted to be in line with the rest of the game.

While you, or anyone, can claim that stuff happens or is bad, the least you can do is BE HONEST about it.

Feedback is constantly requested on discord. Ideas are discussed, votings are held with the apropriate job channels about specific changes. While some don't understand/won't accept change (and would rather be broken OP to the detriment of the entire game and community.), and I don't do a perfect job. Work is being done fast, and well.

No stuff is "being left broken and I'll fix over the weekend". This is blatantly false and anyone who takes a few minutes to visit our discord will see plenty of notes and announcements about it.

This is pure nonsense and a waste of my time, but since you're so invested in spreading lies, the best I can do is make sure the truth is told.

And for anyone who doubts it, just need a minute to check our discord.

[Minatoaquades]

I said I wouldn't answer anymore on this post. but this is getting out of hand.

Monday, he dropped a patch and told everyone, goodluck! If something breaks, you will have to deal with it until the end of week. Of course, because of his incompetency ( he himself admitted hes not an experienced dev), as expected, few things broke. Now judges and seers are stuck with broken mechanics for a week. No scaling, no cast ready.

-The issues have been fixed within 8 hours of the patch being added. On a weekday. After I slept for 4 hours and got to work.

Patch 1.0 AM was beyond overpowered, and now it's in a good spot power wise. Players from the jobs are being consulted and checked for data, and apart from some specific cases, improvements will be made.

Illusionist had a BUG FIX that put their damage potential back where it should be, withing reasonable parameters. Sinners also had a change that was fully understood by their players after updates.

PRM, contrary to "some people", is in a very good spot, far from perfect, but meta-chasers will always complain when a strong item/build is nerfed and adjusted to be in line with the rest of the game.

While you, or anyone, can claim that stuff happens or is bad, the least you can do is BE HONEST about it.

Feedback is constantly requested on discord. Ideas are discussed, votings are held with the apropriate job channels about specific changes. While some don't understand/won't accept change (and would rather be broken OP to the detriment of the entire game and community.), and I don't do a perfect job. Work is being done fast, and well.

No stuff is "being left broken and I'll fix over the weekend". This is blatantly false and anyone who takes a few minutes to visit our discord will see plenty of notes and announcements about it.

This is pure nonsense and a waste of my time, but since you're so invested in spreading lies, the best I can do is make sure the truth is told.

And for anyone who doubts it, just need a minute to check our discord.

Oh really? Everything is fixed? Thats amazing to hear! Sorry i might have been on a different discord because in the server discord im in, DK and Judges are still not scaling properly, AM are still nerfed to the ground, and the high level sinnere are still unhappy with the changes that some even decided to just quit.

Maybe theres a super secret discord group out there where everyone is happy with the changes that i am not a part of.


You ask for feedback, people give them, you reject the feedback, and instead of compromise you make your own changes that nobody whos playing the class likes. Whats the point of targeting unpopular classes and nerfing them more? They are already unpopular to begin with.

You want this server to be just full of NR and legends? Thats where this is headed lol. Population is almost heavily majority are NR and Lgd. Man if you nerf those classes too, server will be dead.



Speaking of inviting everyone on discord. Those who decide to do so, pls check how the discord interactions are during 1.0, when patch 1.1 dropped and patch 1.1.1


Patch 1.0 - everyone happy, some underpowered jobs (but all admin had to do is buff them)

Patch 1.1 - majority are okay, some are not happy, some jobs died

Patch 1.1.1 - you can see how general chat became less active, lots of people quit the game ( these are high level ones btw, people who invested hours alrdy but just gave up). Made one job go back to mediocre status and destroyed 2 jobs (one is being looked at)


So its not that difficult to see the direction of the server.


For me, patches are meant to improve the game, improve classes and overall experience. Maybe your definition of patch is different.



Anyway patch 1.1.1 made a lot of people quit, its the straw that broke the camel's back, so I think if you a voting poll right now, those who stayed are the happy ones. Which is good for you! Youre one step closer to your projected goal of having 20 happy players 

[Minatoaquades]

Quick addition:


I just revisited the discord it seems that admim is legitimately changing his ways. Some of the atrocious nerfs he did was tuned back a little, I saw his discussion in sinner channel with the members there and ask for some feedbacks, i saw some votings and I saw like majority voted for their only happy with 50% of the changes and honestly i really hope this is a wake up call for him going forward.


I guess he just genuinely believed that his massive changes are great ideas and when the mass exodus and massive amount of complaints he got from patch 1.1.1 opened his eyes and maybe gave him a change of heart.


Are some of the classes still broken and unplayable when it comes to 130+ content? Yes definitely.

Do some classes still overperform than the rest? YES. Definitely

Are some MVP cards still "must haves and build enabler" ? Yes.


But these are all normal for a new server and as long as the admin is willing to ask community, listens to them and actually inputs their good ideas going forward then eventually it might become a good server.

Some nerfs are still out there like the AM nerf which i believe to be excessive but maybe in time he will also fix that.

Now I just hope this isnt just a 1 time thing from the admin because of the mass exit that happened, and that he will continue doing this with future changes he may do with the classes.

Overall, future seem a little bit brighter but only time can tell if this behavior continues going forward.

[Blinzer]

don't you think your incessant jabbering is somewhat unjustified, considering you are dealing with living and breathing server modifications? you seem extremely unfamiliar with the process of improvement.

[osolor]

I for one think that nerfing the top classes is a good way to go, anyone who saw what the "Race to the top" of daRO made out of the game (you can check it now, pretty much dead for new players). But nerfing classes/builds that already where low tier was sad to say the least.

[Playtester]

In game design you learn that players are really good at telling you what's fun and what isn't fun, but they suck at telling you what to change. This feels a bit like such a situation.

I can only advice players to focus more on explaining what they didn't like rather than giving specific changes and almost demand them to be done like this. This will often not lead to good results.

I for one think that nerfing the top classes is a good way to go, anyone who saw what the "Race to the top" of daRO made out of the game (you can check it now, pretty much dead for new players). But nerfing classes/builds that already where low tier was sad to say the least.

DaRO is actually closed.

[chimaeragryph]

I just revisited the discord it seems that admim is legitimately changing his ways. Some of the atrocious nerfs he did was tuned back a little, I saw his discussion in sinner channel with the members there and ask for some feedbacks, i saw some votings and I saw like majority voted for their only happy with 50% of the changes and honestly i really hope this is a wake up call for him going forward.

This is actually the way Ornstein has worked for the entire time that I've watched him. He's always been responsive to feedback but still acts on what he believes to be best for the server (so voting doesn't always mean he'll do what was voted for, it's to gauge opinions). Nothing here is new, he always listens to the community but sticks to his own vision, he makes mistakes then fixes them.

Source: Been watching development in that Discord for 11 months.

[Minatoaquades]

This is actually the way Ornstein has worked for the entire time that I've watched him. He's always been responsive to feedback but still acts on what he believes to be best for the server (so voting doesn't always mean he'll do what was voted for, it's to gauge opinions). Nothing here is new, he always listens to the community but sticks to his own vision, he makes mistakes then fixes them.

Source: Been watching development in that Discord for 11 months.

I think thats pretty dumb though. If he knows he will make mistakes and then fixes them, when he couldve just listened in the first place and avoid mistake altogether.


Anyway youre right, thats why i am still not too keen on the server improving. If he just responds but do not take action / follow what the community wants then its the just lead to server dying or becoming just a niche server. 



In terms of not knowing what to change, that is not the situation of rtm. Tons of experienced players in their respective classes already told orn what to change and how to change and to just compromise but he wouldnt listen.

Example of this is illusionist one of the bottom dwellers in terms of class dps, he added unknown gloves and made them become mid tier, decided they should stay bottom dwellers so he nerfed the whole class instead of just the gloves.

[Brokenbad312]

For Lv130+, using dummy as baseline.

overall, 30k sustained DPS is considered good for PRM

25k  is considered very playable.

40k is considered excelent

45k+ is considered to be overperforming a bit.

70k+ is broken (unless legend)

for anyone who want to pick a class - this is from admin. Guess which class super popular 

[Minatoaquades]

Update

Admin went full R. Lol. He is no longer accepting feedbacks from the community and given how atrocious he is from his past fixes, I am sure balance on this server will forever be garbage. He doesnt play the class, he have 0 experience on progression of classes. He only test classes via gm command.

Goodluck to all of you!

[sate]

Such toxicity is unwarranted no matter how unbalanced a server is IMO, as clearly works are being done to remedy the unbalance. Did he do something nasty to you to warrant those insults? 

To be honest, with all the drama, I'm now intrigued to at least try Return to Morocc, lol.

[Leonheart]

Play into a fully customized server need maturity. If you are not ready, better not jump into such server. You need to understand that the owner has his own goal and vision. And how to get there is up to the owner. If you dont want things go wrong or sudden change destroy your main classes for quite some times, well its not for you then. Start the classic or else. I played some fully customized server like AL and PRM, the ego of the owner is the fuel of the thrilling new concept. They will occasionally listen to community tho.

[Minatoaquades]

Play into a fully customized server need maturity. If you are not ready, better not jump into such server. You need to understand that the owner has his own goal and vision. And how to get there is up to the owner. If you dont want things go wrong or sudden change destroy your main classes for quite some times, well its not for you then. Start the classic or else. I played some fully customized server like AL and PRM, the ego of the owner is the fuel of the thrilling new concept. They will occasionally listen to community tho.

That is true on most cases not on this server lol.


The owner kept on tooting his own horn on how he thinks he has done wonderful job on the server despite balance still practically non existent. Its one thing to work on things and improve it and its another thing to keep on destroying classes without improving other aspects.

Hes basically all talk, no work. He keeps saying that he wants ALL CONTENT on RTM to be soloable by everyone, he wants every mob to be "souls like" which means mechanic heavy and fun experience to fight.

What we actually get is only 3 or 4 classes can solo end game dungeons 2 of those requires ultra expensive gears, we have mobs that are basically just pure stat sticks no mechanics.

Some of the classes are still broken up to this day, but hey! Who cares? 3 more new classes are coming so amazing job for the owner! He is so amazing he considers releasing new classes should be prioritized than balancing the existing ones!

I also like the fact that he kept on insisting how some classes are in a goodspot but without proofs lol.

Kinda like a salesman saying check out this bmx bike it runs faster than a ferrari but you just need to trust me on that one.


I did give it a chance, sadly, with the way things are going, The server will never achieve the good vision the owner has all because he doesnt want to put in the work to achieve it.

He definitely will become a good politician in some third world country though, with all his promises for a great future and zero work.

[baphomet123]

That is true on most cases not on this server lol.


The owner kept on tooting his own horn on how he thinks he has done wonderful job on the server despite balance still practically non existent. Its one thing to work on things and improve it and its another thing to keep on destroying classes without improving other aspects.

Hes basically all talk, no work. He keeps saying that he wants ALL CONTENT on RTM to be soloable by everyone, he wants every mob to be "souls like" which means mechanic heavy and fun experience to fight.

What we actually get is only 3 or 4 classes can solo end game dungeons 2 of those requires ultra expensive gears, we have mobs that are basically just pure stat sticks no mechanics.

Some of the classes are still broken up to this day, but hey! Who cares? 3 more new classes are coming so amazing job for the owner! He is so amazing he considers releasing new classes should be prioritized than balancing the existing ones!

I also like the fact that he kept on insisting how some classes are in a goodspot but without proofs lol.

Kinda like a salesman saying check out this bmx bike it runs faster than a ferrari but you just need to trust me on that one.


I did give it a chance, sadly, with the way things are going, The server will never achieve the good vision the owner has all because he doesnt want to put in the work to achieve it.

He definitely will become a good politician in some third world country though, with all his promises for a great future and zero work.

I don't know your background or experience regardling to the server but some of your statement is im moderately agreeing. The admin is doing his best but not all best is going for good result, some updates are really bad and vice versa.

The word soloable by every class for is not really true sadly because of the called "Class Identity" this server is not regular RO that every class is DPS battle (Even HP/Support can deal billions of damage lol).

I'm solo player and my class is really tanky and can do some End-game content and im still on mid-end game items, I can see some underwhelming class doing end-game content for sure it has the most expensive gears and that's the perks of it I guess.