ScytheRO Review

[Flip]

I'm about to sleep by the time I read this, and I felt in a writing mood before I slept.

Anyway, couple of facts.

Server: ScytheRO
Server Type: Super High Rate (20k/20k)
Average Number of Online Players: 500 - 100 autovend = 400 (appx)
WoE: 3 times per week, 3 castles, 1 town
Max Levels: 999/150
My length of Play: 2 months

What can I say about Scythe in one word? = Unexpected

ScytheRO is an SHR that apparently has been around the block for a long time. It has accumulated a good number of people, runs on a fairly lagless server and has a good system going. I'll tackle each part of the system one by one to illustrate the good and the not-so-good about them.

GM's. Might as well tackle this one first because its the 500 lb elephant in the room. Overall, the GM choosing is quite organized. They have a certain hierarchy in hiring GM's, and the ones on the lower part of this hierarchy are put under a trial period. Once they pass this trial period, they become fully fledged GM's. I am not sure if they ascend the ranks any higher than that, or if there are ranks after becoming a GM that are attainable. Nevertheless, this simple yet effective system has produced fairly decent GM's. There has been no issues of corruption (at least major ones that even a casual would know), and thus have to say that is impressive for an SHR.

Events. This is where Scythe feels disappointingly short. Agreed, they have events quite frequently. However, their events are only done by mainly ONE GM, and these events are limited to a few repeating luck events for the most part. Admittedly, there may be issues if you bring pvp type events in especially in an SHR, but the uniqueness outside of pvp and luck events remain virtually untapped. There are more events out there; players constantly chime in their ideas in the forums, but I have not seen even one of these events enacted during my stay. In other words, the events are bountiful, but just feels tacked on.

Donations/Economy. These two are linked closely together in virtually most servers, and here is where I am pleasantly surprised. Economy-wise, Scythe is VERY stable compared to other SHR's. Any item, I repeat, ANY item can be bought with zeny if the price is right. Moreover, these prices are hardly unreachable; I amassed 1 billion zeny in about 4 days (5-7 hrs each day) worth of hunting, and this is starting from scratch. The most expensive item is about 4 billion zeny, and these are usually the donation items. However, these donation items are not unbalanced; they have a slot and give +20 armor defense, regardless of the item. I know what you're thinking, but +20 armor defense is hardly as good as it sounds in PvP/WoE. Because of the high level limit, everyone bypasses armor defense either by crit or skills. Moreover, this bonus is attainable by the ingame custom items which are also easy to obtain. Overall, the only potential problem in economy that I see is that the normal items are way too easy to obtain (services such as the slotter are a joke to pay for, de-slotter means nothing, etc). Zeny matters only between players, not so much as between the player and the game.

Balance. Contrary to popular trends, this server does not feature the almighty Assassin Cross as an imbalanced favorite. They remain popular, but are hardly the unstoppable threat they are in other servers. If anything, the class closest to being imbalanced are Soul Linkers; I'll explain why in a second.

ScytheRO features the ability to get 1000 stat points in each stat. Therefore, attack numbers really go high, and the hit points even higher. Naturally, with attack points this high, modifiers are they way to go instead of absolute number additions (20% over +200 attack). Probability usefulness goes through the roof as well; 1% matters a lot. Therefore, this is where the Linker shines. ALL their defensive skills have a 100% chance of triggerring, thus 100% chance protection. Therefore, their Ka-skills are virtually necessary to survive a player or monster bombardment. Moreover, their Es- skill modifiers are insanely high that even level 999 mvp's are cake for Soul Linkers: they do over 999k damage regularly even without decent equipment. Coupled with High Jump and running, and you pretty much have yourself a crit/spell raping beast.

Soul Linkers aside, pretty much almost any class can kill any other class. The only exception however is the merchant classes. Whitesmiths are pretty much at the bottom of the pvp chain. Not only are they melee only, but they cannot take any advantage from modifiers (Cart Termination cannot be modified by cards like Hydra, Turtle General, etc). Elements and Weapon Breaking are their only advantage, albeit not a considerable one.

Alchemists would be worse if not for their range. Their support skills are laughable to say the best (no one strips due to the outrageous flee, thus FCP is nearly useless. Potion pitcher even by ranked alchemists are about 1/100 of the average player's total HP). Their only purpose is to break armor and weapons afar; NOT by acid demonstration, but rather with acid bomb. Acid Demonstration is sadly glitched due to the high amount of Vit any player would feasibly have, and thus, misses the player entirely. (I still don't get why this is not nerfed, along with the Whitesmith's CT).

In short, Scythe is good in creating an equal playing ground, but the diversity as well as strategy building as far as jobs, builds and skills go is HIGHLY dampened and needs a twist to it.

Others

My only other observation of Scythe that is worth noting is that it is NOT updated. I do not know Zairik's vision for the server, or even whether this fact is a part of it. Nevertheless, Scythe is one of the few big servers who does not advertise being constantly up-to-date. Their current update goes as far as Rachel. This could be intertwined with balance issues, or other internal issues that I do not know about, but what I do know is that post Rachel updates bring a LOT of new ways strengthen your character and high quantities of various equipment one can use. In addition, these also include the two arguably strongest MVP's around, Beezlebub and Ifrit. 999 chars going head to head with a 999 Ifrit sounds really good, and I wonder to this day why no hint of updating has been released.

Community is great. Most of these guys, unexpectedly, know their Ragnarok. I was expecting very... hmm... young and newbie behavior, but these guys KNOW how to use their characters. Asura spamming will not work here, since it along with many other skills have been nerfed for balance sake (Asura has a cast time regardless of dex, Phen and Bloody Butterfly are disabled, combos are hard to pull off, you get the drift). People know how to build characters without Ghostring cards, and be decent at them too. WoE is FAST and FURIOUS (think WoE on steroids). No matter how strong you are, you will die at least once (Potting is virtually non-existent because of its inefficiency or the complete lack of it (yggs are disabled)). Therefore, group strategy takes the helm in winning these all out battles.

Most Unique in this Server

Almost forgot to mention. The MUS in Scythe goes to its drop rate. You read that right. This is an ingenious plan to say the least. After the drop rate modifier has kicked in, anything with a 100% drop rate retains that drop rate. However, any items below that will be "standardized" for the most part to a 5% drop rate.

For example.

Clock: Clock Hands (100%) Elunium (5%) Clock Card (5%).

Since Elunium did not reach 100%, it was brought down to 5%. Clock cards however, are also 5%. They have the same drop rate, and in theory, you would get as much cards as you would get eluniums.

Here however, is the kicker. Having more than one Clock Card would not necessarily be beneficial to yourself, however, having a good quantity of eluniums is highly beneficial in upgrading your armor. THEREFORE, Elunium suddenly becomes expensive while Cards become relatively cheaper. Given that Zeny will always have value, this abundance in cards is not necessarily an economy threat (5% still consumes a considerable amount of time in average and relatively; moreover, there is no MvP arena and thus everyone is subject to long waiting). Eluniums however, become a good easy way to earn money due to its unlimited demand. I don't know the economical analysis of it per se, but it does work. MvP cards are still high priced and are not flooding the market (or at least the effects of it aren't necessarily imbalancing.)

Overall Assessment

Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised with Scythe as an SHR. Personal effects aside, anyone looking into an SHR should give Scythe at least a test-run. They have ways to go in terms of improvement, but they are strikingly efficient in what they have to offer. The community is the prime thing that can lead Scythe forward at this point, and hopefully they can take this good server into a positive direction soon.
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Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite critiques on not only the server, but also the review form itself. I tried to not include too many vague and subjective terms such as "sucks" or "easy". My pet project for RMS right now is to construct at LEAST a review form for people to use as a guideline in posting reviews. If it works out, I'll try my hand in going to other servers for the sake of reviewing them using said guidelines. Thanks for reading!

[Zone]

Here is the thing with soul linkers. I could stand in the same exact place and solo Randgris with my soul linker, only because it was geared right. What I liked also, that you did not add in, was the mithril coin quest. That is one of the funnest things there is, going in with 2 friends and staying there all day farming mithril coins. Kinda makes me miss the server ; - ;
On with my review of your review. The elunium, you can get that from an npc, russian roulette styled npc in comodo.
Soul linkers are used to farm the MvP gears and drops, but other classes have out done me in damage against such mvps like turtle general, even when I do well over 6m an esma on Randgris.

[MrrgleCaek]

Feh, I never really liked WoE on Scythe, the last time I tried when I was on that server as a priest, my role in it was basically useless, safety wall couldn't keep up with the high agi, nor pneuma, couldn't heal characters effeciently since they died in one hit, basically almost all the priest skills became useless for WoE due to the insanly high damage multiplier, that was one of the things I disliked alot about Scythe out of everything. Than again, none of the Super High Rates around have done any better for WoE anyway ~~;.
Quests like the mith coin had too much 1 hit killing, and running...alot, there wasn't as much difficulty, and also the part about the farming good lord >,>;, my mind sure got numb from farming a whole fracking lot of items...I don't think ScytheRO was my cup of tea I suppose, and the community...good god....95% of the community I wondered if they were even human or automated machines repeating the same thing over.

[Zone]

Lol, I was surprised there were so many scams.

[Flip]

Indeed there were. Maybe I'm just expecting that already or something, hence the lack of notation.

And yes, next to the merchant classes, I'd say that the Priest class would be the next bottom one in the PvP chain. All they really have is Link + Holy Light.

[Zone]

Lol, I dunno about that, Even on my high wizard, I would get holy lighted to hell.

[Flip]

Lol, I dunno about that, Even on my high wizard, I would get holy lighted to hell.

Exactly.

Agi Up is their only -real- effective buff in WoE due to it increasing walk speed. Otherwise, the +10 bonuses from Bless can be lived without, Angelus is vit def so it isn't that effective either, Imposito adds absolute attack (not ratio)... etc.

You could argue that Kyrie is also efficient, but the mad ASPD really dampens down its overall effectiveness. Even Heal is nerfed so that it is limited to 32k per pop, while the average 999 would have 5m+ HP.

[Zone]

Hmm, well, that server is very 'solo' styled.
Though, in pvp I see a lot of team work
...that being ganging...

[Majora_younglink]

Hmm, well, that server is very 'solo' styled.
Though, in pvp I see a lot of team work
...that being ganging...

PvP on that server is practically champs, sinX, snipers (with soul linkers there just to link them) and groups of friends. I'm not saying it is not possible to kill most of the them with a good strategy but I hate seeing gangs of friends just sitting there waiting for anyone new to come in and attack them at once for a higher pvp rank, ganging isn't what pvp is for. >_>

On another note, theres nothing particularly wrong with the server other than some unnecessary nerfs. Off the top of my head I remember the bloody butterfly card and star gladiator skills. The customs available are okay and the economy is up and running but I kind of think the gold room ruins the economy a little and inflates everything price wise. I don't particularly like it but I'm a traditional RO kind of guy. I don't like extremely high stats.

[Zone]

The gold room may run it up for some, but those who knew how to gear and use their soul linkers like myself just sold valk gears.
As I said earlier, you can solo randgris if you know the right tactics. You could even sit there killing it for half it's hp and then goto comodo and shout the coord, and warp back, then people think they have a chance...That just speeds it up and makes people beg for items saying they helped, when they didn't hunt it themselves cause they are too lazy. Then you got 3 wonderful things, hotkeys, @warp and /exall.
The best way to fend off greedy, lazy bums who just want their share for showing up.
Don't get me wrong, I did share the stuff, but when people start cussing you out for not giving them anything, and even cussing you in a foreign language, then why would you give anyone anything?
Lol, I remember one guy wanted a valk armor and I gave it to him, then he said 'wut abut dem shuz' and I just told him to go find a cliff and called him a greedy prick.
...people these days...

[Ashe]

I remember when ScytheRO first started. There were about 10 people online, me and my friend played for like 20 minutes then got bored. I'm surprised it got to popular.

[Zone]

When dedicated people play, then it gets fun, the competition is what makes it fun.

[Flip]

Hmm, well, that server is very 'solo' styled.
Though, in pvp I see a lot of team work
...that being ganging...

PvP on that server is practically champs, sinX, snipers (with soul linkers there just to link them) and groups of friends. I'm not saying it is not possible to kill most of the them with a good strategy but I hate seeing gangs of friends just sitting there waiting for anyone new to come in and attack them at once for a higher pvp rank, ganging isn't what pvp is for. >_>

On another note, theres nothing particularly wrong with the server other than some unnecessary nerfs. Off the top of my head I remember the bloody butterfly card and star gladiator skills. The customs available are okay and the economy is up and running but I kind of think the gold room ruins the economy a little and inflates everything price wise. I don't particularly like it but I'm a traditional RO kind of guy. I don't like extremely high stats.

You're forgetting professors and paladins, whom I think are as variant as the pvp scene will get.

Hence why I have a prof there. Makes the game not so simple.

[Zone]

Pallies never were an issue for me, but the profs were, they are good for pvp...

[Asura Freak]

I've played ScytheRo and for some reason or another it doesn't seem to keep my appeal, as far as I can tell there's really nothing wrong with it, but every time I work up the nerve to play it I just get board, board of leveling, pvp-ing, woe even the events I find dull. It's a great server I'm not gonna lie about that, but it offers absolutely nothing I haven't seen in countless other servers (having gone through thousands) I guess I just don't see what everyone else sees in it but in spite of that I'd recommend anyone to join this server. I guess what I'm looking for in a private server is something innovative this time around, and ScytheRo in my opinion just seems to be providing just the basics in what a good server should be like and nothing more. OK I'm tired of hearing myself rant so in short I give ScytheRO a 9/10.