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

[Minatoaquades]

The Good

Unique experience - Everything is new! Its like playing a new game. You have to rediscover everything

Multiple Classes - Every class is unique! Different experience, although this also has downsides

Zero pay to win - donations are for costumes only and the costumes on donate shop are not really better than the farmable ones


Helpful Community - Everyone is helpful on the server except when it comes to MVP camping, people who joined the server earlier than you pretty much owns the MVPs with the best drops. You dont stand a chance against their gears, aside from that though, when you have questions everyone is willing to help and guide you

Game experience - Game experience is pretty enjoyable when you are playing meta jobs.


The Bad

Class balance - (you can play any classes but dont expect to beat NR and Legends on any content), The owner keeps saying he has a vision for each classes but couldnt even tell discord what his vision is, he likes to run around in circles when it comes to class balancing. Main problem is that he himself doesnt know the full mechanics of each class but still refuses to listen to those who actually plays the classes. His ego is what is holding back proper balancing.


Game experience - Game experience is horrible if youre playing classes that is undertuned, a lot of the classes are undertuned. The game is all about being able to farm high level mobs and MVPs and sadly, not every class has the tools to do it. Either play meta or just be stuck farming 130 areas, dont bother doing 145 above MVPs as it is impossible to solo.

Patch or development - We all know private servers are always evolving and changing. Being able to deliver good changes is part of what makes a private server good. Unfortunately, this is where this server needs a lot of improvement.

Lately, there was a patch that nerfed a lot of classes across the board, owner stated that in order to make up for the nerf, certain mechanics will be added TOGETHER with the nerfs. (Emphasis on TOGETHER), patch day, nerfs has been implemented which incapacitated a lot of classes, the mechanics that are supposed to go TOGETHER with the nerfs, 3 weeks later, still not added. (Technically, its only 2weeks but i am 100% certain he will extend it by another week or two because of his inability to accept that he need help fixing the issue)


Owner keeps insisting hes just a newbie dev and is trying his best, like trying your best is good, but if you already know youre new and incompetent on this whole server thing, then you should have the initiative to at least listen to other players who are offering their help when it comes to class balance or patch implementation.


Overall, the server is more bad experience than good for me, I know this is very subjective though so I want you guys to still try the server if you think its fun.

[ADM Ornstein]

Thanks for the review, regardless of agreeing or not with your points.

With that said:

Class Balance - work is being done to improve it. This is valid to all games ever. Improvements will be made but it's a given that everyone will always say that another job is better or something needs nerfs/changes. these changes are being made.

As a side note, I made all the classes myself, your opinion on how good they are or not don't indicate if I know or not how their mechanics work.


Game Experience - "The Game is all about being able to farm high level mobs and MVPs" this is actually very wrong, yes, you can solo the entire game, with varying degrees of success and efficiency, this will change depending on jobs, builds and the like. You WILL struggle in some cases, but it's doable. As a side note, it's been mentioned multiple times that Lv130 is the expected soft cap for most players and 130+ content are an exception, and not everyone will thrive on it. This one is specially puzzling to me as It's mentioned everywhere, including our wiki that "PRM is about the journey and exploration since lv1, the game doesn't start at end game.".

They can also be soloed, and have been soloed by players multiple times.


Patch or Development - The patch was the first (and only) major roadbump in the server since it started being developed. It had issues that didn't show up on test server and are being handled by yours truly at full priority. The game is far from unplayable (In fact, since NONE of the changes were applied on formulas/mechanics, the only thing that change was the addition of the new items). Help to fix this issue is both not necessary and won't be helpful. at all.



And while I'm 100% a newbie, I'm 100% happy that I got what I could, and am still doing my best at everything.

And for as "incompetent" as I'm being, seems like I got plenty of stuff done, with ONE major issue that is being worked on.

You're free to DM me about it on discord if you wanna discuss it. But given the scope of PRM, having ONE delay on a patch (partial delay that is, as the CONTENT was added, and the balances/nerfs that you complain about are mostly untouched) is very funny.

Regards,

Ornstein.

[Minatoaquades]

Leveling and exploration is indeed part of the game, but so is end game farming and min maxing. Being focused on leveling and exploration doesnt justify why only few classes can do higher than 130+ content. Every class should be able to. Why make 130+ content if not everyone will thrive on it? Game content should be consumed as a whole and not just part of it. Also some MVPs that gives good card drops are from 130+ content.

If you go to NR section of discord, more than half of us are not happy with the changes. Why nerf the damage too much instead of actually working on the other classes and bring them up to par with top tier classes. I already brought up multiple suggestions, not just me but a lot of people on how to make the class better, and as far as I remember, nobody suggested nerfs. Yet your ego consumed you and instead of listening to the people who actually PLAYS the class, you stick to your own decision without even knowing the ins and outs. People wanted buffs to underwhelming classes and not nerfs to the classes that are actually in a great place. 

You keep saying that everything can be soloed, i have yet to see a dracomancer, illusionist, satsujin, unchained and other low tier classes solo actual end game maps. The players you mentioned who soloed MVP bosses are decked out with MVPs and all belong to top tier classes.

NR was in a good place, it was efficient, its a simple playstyle but at the cost of not being top DPS. When you drop the nerf bomb, people complained, but you are too full of ego and refuse to actually listen.

Legend, GK were also in a good place, they can perform well and can do higher level contents, yet you trash them by making katar x1.5 crit and crit modifiers as a whole weaker.

Instead of pulling everything down to the bottom, isnt it better to pull up the underwhelming classes? That way, none of the good classes will suffer and at the same time, the bottom performers will be improved.


3weeks is not a SHORT delay btw. The partial patch you applied have nerfs, insta cast nerf, raven step nerf, dk nerf, sonic blow nerf. The break points that should make the nerf more tolerable is not implemented. 


You wanted to make everything soloable and fair for everyone, but the thing you refuse to see is that you instead pulled down the classes that can solo everything instead of bringing up the classes that couldnt.


That is very bad when it comes to balancing the game, you should make bad classes good so every class is good, instead of nerfing good class and make it bad. Sure both achieving balance in a way since if all class is bad, then its balance, but that is only when you compare it to other classes. Balance means every class can do ALL (not just up to soft cap) content solo comfortably.

You did great with NR, Legend, DK, AM all are able to solo comfortably, all you have to do is buff the rest, which the community always mentions, but youre too prideful to listen to others who plays the class and want to insist that youre better than everyone so you ignore them.

In the end, its your server, just want to let others know what they are getting into when they want to try playing. Not like were paying for it or anything, so if you want every class to be equally bad than equally good then thats fine, but the server wont thrive that way.

[Slap]

Totally agree with Minato on this one. Everything mentioned was spot on.


Also i would like to state how you want people to ALWAYS approach you first on discord but you never even listen to what they say or to take it in consideration just like Minato say about you, being egotistic.


Then you have these bunch of nerds trying to sxck ya dxck on discord who are not in any ways helpful. They're just there defending every single sht you do, praising you. God i hate these mfs. I would name every single one of them here but I don't wanna sound too petty. (Looking at you. The animal avatar on discord) Then there's this useless "Smug" it/her/she/him/they/them/their/that whatever it/her/she/him/they/them/their/that pronoun is. 


This server is more like, BETA AFTER MONTHS OF BETA. You build your character for it to get nerfed and wait for another patch. Game needs a better structure

[ADM Ornstein]

Return to Morroc will continue being updated as necessary, regardless of personal opinions on nerfs and buffs being necessary.

Nobody was tricked and everyone is well aware that changes will be made.

Contrary to popular belief, yes, every job can play endgame, night raven was indeed nerfed (fairly) and stills among the best and easiest jobs to play overall. There are indeed the usual "too many people camping mvps" issue like every other server, and this issue is being worked on using the Relics, so everyone can do it (reminder that MVP cards in PRM have a high drop rate and are also balanced)

3 weeks(actually 2 weeks) is a short delay when you consider what is being done for the server and the scope being aimed for. Regardless of however many more changes or issues arise, the server is always online, people can play and work is always being done.


Regardless of different opinions for design or ideas, changes will be made to acomodate everyone the best way possible.

The renewal critical damage formula is bad, its scaling and weight on damage is above any alternative and thats why it was changed to be more in line with the rest of the game.

As a side note, and as I already mentioned before, I have no plans to kill any classes, I spent actual months of my time working on doing what I believe is the best for them, and will continue doing so.

Everyone always calls out how RO is unbalanced or unfair, I'll move as many pieces as necessary to make it as fair as possible, and when a job can ignore the mechanics of a fight, move around the entire map faster than any other and still be top tier, changes will happen. Thats the idea behind the server and me.

If you're unhappy with the changes and improvements, they will continue, you can either consider them part of the progression or leave. I never claim to always do the best, but what you can be 100% sure is that I will always try my best.


Finally, respect in our discord is paramount, the way you address people of our community is not welcome and its a shame that such behavior is proudly exposed in RateMyServer. Everyone is welcome, until they arent.

While I usually thank people regardless of their stance, the way you address the people is not welcome and you KNOW this wouldn't fly there.

The nerfs and buffs will continue as necessary, and the game will improve as needed.

Ornstein.

Edit: took the time to check your post history. What a ride.

I won't be answering this clearly insane post anymore.

[Katakato]

I'll just throw in my 2cents here regarding the comments here.

The idea of "bringing every class up to top tier" could be considered balance, sure. But then what would the admin have to do in order to make future content more difficult and not just a cakewalk? They'll have to make fights even more tedious either through making a more annoying to fight AI, or just simply inflating HP and DEF numbers to absurd levels, or even possibly both. And then what does the admin have to give players in order to combat those? Even stronger weapons. Powercreep is born, and the server would basically become Renewal gameplay with a bunch of customs, with my basic understanding.

That being said, powercreep is ultimately unavoidable. It's just a matter of introducing as the powercreep in as minor of an increment as possible while making sure that future content is designed to be challenging and engaging for the player without it requiring ridiculous gear, which is easier said than done.

If certain classes are truly performing below expectations, it might help to gather some video/photo proof of them underperforming in particular contexts and maybe it'd make the admin more convinced that they could have overlooked something. Sometimes simply listening to suggestions on how to make a class better isn't enough for an admin to make a decision to buff a class. If they have video proof of a particular class being relatively geared and still not being able to tackle whatever is considered the true lategame content in any feasible manner that's probably your best way of backing up your claims.

Also, it's not really an admin's responsibility to listen to a player regarding whether or not they should accept outside help. Sure, you could probably mention it but they have every right to say "No, I don't want to do that". There's probably more reasons than simply being stubborn that go into that decision. Who are you to go and complain about that decision?

The admin seems to be passionate about their project. I would think trying to make a REALLY custom server is difficult given the circumstances of the admin and the work he's trying to do. As someone that's played RO on and off for a good 15 years of my life, I can appreciate that there's someone out there truly trying to deliver a unique RO experience. I think that's enough reason to relax and wait out the rocky waters. The reason you don't see that kind of massive outrage in other servers is because they ultimately don't try to change anything about RO or add a whole lot of new stuff.

They play it safe and don't make any massive changes or additions because they're too worried about people doing the exact same thing that's happening here.

Either way, it doesn't really have anything to do with me at this point. I just did whatever intrigued party would do and participated in a discussion by offering my view. I hope that if you do choose to stick with that server that things work out in the end. Have a good one 

[Minatoaquades]

Actually its more of pride than passion at this point. There are multiple videos, multiple suggestions with numbers, gears, stats etc comparing each classes and how they are doing. Just go to each class section on discord. Its not just random people who posted those too. Its the people who leveled the class, theory crafted the class and played the class intensively. Compared to how admin tests the class sets, he just use GM commands to adjust his stats level and skills. He didnt progress normally. For someone who preaches about how the server focuses on the journey and not the destination, its hypocritical.

Also how will there be a power creep when all he has to do is bump the numbers of already underperforming classes to equalize with those who are in a good place? Its not like people are asking to be buffed stronger than the current top performers lol.


In regards to NR, you are saying it has too much mobility for the damage it does, Okay thats fair, the correct thing though is to either nerf the damage or nerf the mobility not both. Now its just become part of the bottom performers that you have to once again change in the future. See how wasteful of time that was? Instead of just nerfing one aspect.

Same with DK, too tanky for the damage they are doing? Your vision is dk to be high risk high reward, yet you nerf damage and not the tankyness. Thats exactly what i mean why its vague and doesnt make sense. Any competent person would not contradict their actions with what they are preaching.


But like I said, its your server so you can do whatever you want with it. If you prefer every class to underperform and call it equal than buffing underperforming classes thats up to you.

Im just here to let people know what they are actually getting into and which direction this server is heading. With this in mind, its up to them if they still want to try or not. The pros and cons are there.

I for one think that player feedback and suggestion is important on every server. Owner and devs do not play all the classes and cannot play all the classes as intensive as each person who actually plays them exclusively. They are more experienced on the class, they went through the progression, so its makes more sense to listen to them than be prideful and dont admit that they know better.

[helkai]

Totally disagree with Minato on this one. Everything mentioned was 1st person view.


Also I would like to state how these people want the admin to ALWAYS pay attention to each and everyone of them on discord but the never stop talkin or take consideration the views of the solo admin/dev.


Then they turn their eyes on people on discord who are always helpful but they never appreciate it. They're just there attacking every single sht they see, insult everyone. God i hate these dcks. I wouldn't name every single one of them here coz I don't wanna sound stpd. Then there's this shaming "Smug" like they really know the person but not.


This server is more like, to continue for MONTHS or YEARS and You're still not contented.

[Minatoaquades]

Totally disagree with Minato on this one. Everything mentioned was 1st person view.


Also I would like to state how these people want the admin to ALWAYS pay attention to each and everyone of them on discord but the never stop talkin or take consideration the views of the solo admin/dev.


Then they turn their eyes on people on discord who are always helpful but they never appreciate it. They're just there attacking every single sht they see, insult everyone. God i hate these dcks. I wouldn't name every single one of them here coz I don't wanna sound stpd. Then there's this shaming "Smug" like they really know the person but not.


This server is more like, to continue for MONTHS or YEARS and You're still not contented.

Never have I once shamed other people on my post other than the admin and thats because its justified. Its his server and its his decision. Its in your post that he is the solo dev, so it wouldnt make sense for me to complain about others. I never interacted with Smug so I never mentioned him.

Also you mentioned that my post is on 1st person view meaning only from my point of view, and then you followed up by the word "them" meaning its not just me that is very much not contented with how things are and that there are more who share the same opinion. Contradicting your statements proves how incohesive your views are and just shows youre here to do damage control which I wont wrong you for. 


As for not seeing his views, are we really to be blamed? He keeps saying he has his vision but is pretty vague about it. Are we suppose to just read his mind? Also his actions proves more than any word that comes out from his mouth.


Take the latest patch for example, he nerfed an already nerfed class and made it garbage. For a class that is supposed to do DPS (which btw is not even top dps job atm), nerfing its buff uptime to just 50% uptime without PROPER COMPENSATION. I say proper compensation because the simpleton of an admin thinks that if he takes away a burger and give back a single strand of string bean is called compensation already. Thats what he did to the class, took their 50% of their dps, added 1% back as compensation.

Another example is DK, he took away the x2 damage hotfix he added because he destroyed the class back in 1.1, now its safe to assume that since he pulled out the bandaid, the problem should be fixed right? Nope! It went back to EXACTLY how it was, complete garbage. Wheres the fix? We will never know, only he knows because thats how he roll, he just say theres a fix but nobody actually sees it.

Then when he applied 1.1.1 he heavily implied that it will fix a lot of things. NOPE! Again, it removed cast ready from shadowseers, combo ready from Judges. Thats 2 more classes ruined by his so called "Fixes". Incompetency at its finest.

Then, he has the audacity to demand appreciation and gratitued from everyone posting saying that he worked on these "FIXES" at 4am in the morning and we have no rights to complain because he sacrificed sleep for us. If thats not ego talking idk what that is. NOBODY asked for him to work on his fixes that makes some classes garbage, why would he demand appreciation from everyone that he worked on something nobody asked for at 4am? Is that why he thought that nerfing an already nerfed class more is a smart move? And to expect no complaints after that? Because no sleep means his brain is not working at full capacity.


Dont get me wrong, he did fix some of the descriptions like he is supposed to so thats great! But if he just sticks to what the community actually wants instead of insisting what he wants to the community, then maybe there wouldnt be too much complain and maybe he would get that appreciation he so eagerly desire.


This is not a rant of 1 person btw because 1 person cannot burn a discord channel, he made the post because discord chat was literally on fire after his "Fix" was implemented. That means a lot of people are not happy with his decision.


Its a no brainer expected outcome to be honest. You push stupid fixes, you get complaints, you push actually fixes to make classes better, then you get gratitude.

[Herpderp]

I have no clue about this server but I just want to say that the so-called "admin fanboys" are definitely a phenomenon I see on almost every server.  I always wonder what drives these "creatures" to behave like they do. They never make arguments, it's just forced positivity. 

[Inspector Clouseau]

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.

[Slap]

@Inspector Clouseau Your first paragraph didn't make sense at all considering the amount of going back and forth patches that's happening.


As a discord bot once told me: Go back to the #general chat in discord and attack people who disagree with the admin and his fanboys

[2k2]

I have no clue about this server but I just want to say that the so-called "admin fanboys" are definitely a phenomenon I see on almost every server.  I always wonder what drives these "creatures" to behave like they do. They never make arguments, it's just forced positivity. 

Seems to be a trend in a while in the private server circle these days. Probably attach on the admins tits with expectation of being noticed/receiving something in return, and sadly, this is what ends up happening many times.

Noticed this trend become more blatant back in 2018 on a (pretty cool-, on paper-) server named Asgard Legend, which died soon after its opening because of such players, that pretty much forced every other potential player leave. Ever since that bad experience, every server I gave a shot, with the exception being Origins, had this kind of circlejerk and most of those ultimately ended up dying and closing because of these bad apples.

(...) it is objectively false to say that he doesn't know anything about the classes that he literally created.

I don't think anyone said he doesn't know? At least as far as I read, they were saying the Admin is not experienced enough and should primarily consider taking feedback from the people actually experienced with the classes and providing enough material/proof to back their claims, instead of being a meathead and too proud to admit they didn't do a perfect job balancing it.

Just because they created the classes doesn't mean they know how they (classes) perform in actual situations. Game devs are all the time rebalancing classes they create in games because they're not more experienced than the players playing their games.

If what people here are claiming is true, then the Admin is on the wrong for being blind about feedback they receive from passionate players extensively testing and providing proof something is wrong with the classes he/she created.

[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?

[ADM Ornstein]

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.