Some prophetic feedback?

[Vile]

So, call it intuition or suspicion, but I have some feedback to hopefully curb some problems before they occur, mitigation if you would. I'll try to only talk about the ones I feel can severely hinder or damage the game for all involved.

1: Books vs Tomes:
In NA the delineation between "book" and "tome" was that books were a one time use, and tomes were unlimited use.
We've already seen a spike in complaints about using the unique resets, and losing their books [the ones they lost when they consumed them to learn a spell, not lost when they used the reset]. This problem is about to explode ten fold when people start buying and consuming Valor & Honor books. Binding up precious SP in spells they may frequently be unable to use due to no longer meeting the requirement post reset. This will be compounded once GA opens up and the final books are dropped from there.

Solution: Turn all "books" into tomes. The dropped ones, Honor, Valor, and GA.
Limitation: Blue-rarity books [the ones dropped from mobs/dungeons] are account locked on use.
Honor & Valor changed to account* locked on acquisition. [currently character locked].
This will alleviate this problem and head it off before it can become a toxic problem within the community. HIGHLY recommend this be addressed IMMEDIATELY.

2: Game Arena:
I shouldn't really have to explain this one, but the core of NA end-game loop was Game Arena. It being down is a massive detriment to this versions longevity and replay-ability. I fully understand that the reported reason for it being down was due to one or two of the PvP modes being a culprit of the server DC's. However, I fail to see why the 3rd Arena, and all 4 Dungeons, as well as the level tier dungeons needed to be disabled. Outside of some massive over-haul, which in my opinion should have been done before EA and on a private internal testing server without bringing down the live versions dungeons, these modes need to be brought up ASAP. Grinding levels is not content.

3: Honor and Valor Conversion rates:
Currently as it is, the only way to get Honor Gear is to convert Valor to Honor. The current rate is 5 Valor = 1 Honor. Now, you'll have to take it on my word, that a 5 to 1 exchange rate is immensely disrespectful to players time. Honor to Valor conversion however is 2 Honor = 1 Valor. In my opinion, Valor to Honor should be 3 Valor = 2 Honor, and Likewise the same for Honor to Valor. If that's not possible, then a 2 to 1 ratio both ways is fine. As it is now, it's insulting and incredibly unappreciative of the farming it takes to accrue these currencies.

4: Instances:
A major problem is bottle-necking at certain maps. While anyone can argue the problem is these maps are too good, I'm not going to bother entertaining the line of thought as there will always be "the best" spot to level, no matter how small the difference. ROSE was however not designed to host hundreds of players on a map.
Specific map instances are beneficial as you can target the specific maps that bottle-neck and funnel the community into a single space.
Maps I suggest have instances:
Kenjii Beach. Mana Snowfields. Xita Refuge. Fossil Sanctuary [needs 3-4 due to bad map design induced lag].
Others may need to be added as well, however for now that is where the majority of the community levels, and thus steps on each others toes.

5: Item Mall:
I understand your unwillingness to be seen as over-reaching for profits, and that probably limited your initial offerings on the costumes.... But please add more variety. The selection on offer is almost embarrassingly sparse and despite not wanting to look greedy, it comes off as not having anything to offer when your shop is as bare bones as it currently is [cosmetically speaking].

6: Scrolls?:
This is dependent upon if the Zulie amounts from quests are going to continue to be the target of nerfs and removal. If that is the philosophy at play, then please remove the planet restriction from NPC teleport scrolls. Currently you cannot use a Luna scroll on Junon for example. This request is being made as it is currently 30k to round trip Luna from Junon, and from Junon it is 40k round trip to Eldeon and 60k to Orlo. These are not trivial numbers. So if nerfs are still on the menu, consider that small QoL change. Refining and Reinforcing are already going to drain the market of both zulie and catalysts.

Edited January 2, 2023 by OwlchemistVile

[Vile]

Also, this was supposed to go in the Feedback section, if any mods wanted to move it? My B.

[DoubleRose]

16 hours ago, OwlchemistVile said:

6: Scrolls?:
This is dependent upon if the Zulie amounts from quests are going to continue to be the target of nerfs and removal. If that is the philosophy at play, then please remove the planet restriction from NPC teleport scrolls.

The item glitch struck again to remove my weapon. Used up the last of my measly pile of zulie to repair it a replacement drop from its garbage starting durability, but figured it'd be ok because the turtle soup quest (non-repetable) is the single good luna quest to get zulie. Guess which quest no longer gives zulie...

So now I have a crappy unrefined weapon and straight up no money because the devs think the only way zulie should enter this game is through two repeatable quests on kenji beach that can be spammed by higher lv players. My patience is shot.

 

[Vile]

3 minutes ago, DoubleRose said:

The item glitch struck again to remove my weapon. Used up the last of my measly pile of zulie to repair it a replacement drop from its garbage starting durability, but figured it'd be ok because the turtle soup quest (non-repetable) is the single good luna quest to get zulie. Guess which quest no longer gives zulie...

So now I have a crappy unrefined weapon and straight up no money because the devs think the only way zulie should enter this game is through two repeatable quests on kenji beach that can be spammed by higher lv players. My patience is shot.

 

A story I'm beginning to hear regularly, you're not alone. It doesn't make it ok though either

[Sneaux]

34 minutes ago, DoubleRose said:

The item glitch struck again to remove my weapon. Used up the last of my measly pile of zulie to repair it a replacement drop from its garbage starting durability, but figured it'd be ok because the turtle soup quest (non-repetable) is the single good luna quest to get zulie. Guess which quest no longer gives zulie...

So now I have a crappy unrefined weapon and straight up no money because the devs think the only way zulie should enter this game is through two repeatable quests on kenji beach that can be spammed by higher lv players. My patience is shot.

 

For what it's worth, the devs don't think that the only way to make zulie should be two quests in Kenji. It's broken, it's not good game design, and I'd put money on it changing. I just don't think there's been a lot of spare time the last few weeks to put into content and balance changes, most of the effort from devs has been stability fixes. But as a community we definitely have enough feedback at this point to show how messed up the quest situation in Kenji is. I just hope we start to get more content and balance updates in the next few weeks since the servers are significantly more stable now.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Sneaux

[Invinciblez]

1. I disagree that “grinding levels is not content”. The generation of this game basically did not have anything else. They had grinding levels and they had field bosses, world bosses. We didn’t really have raids. We kind of “create our own raid” by leveling. For example if you’re at eldeon sikuku ruins, the amount of spiders (or whatever) you pull has to be controlled, or you’ll kill the entire party. If you pull too much that’s one thing your party has to fix, whoever has aggro can run away from the fire/party and start running the spiders around, allowing the party to fight the remaining, or to aoe the ones chasing them. MMOs lost that entire “player driven” experience in dungeons when they made leveling done through quests and made it so players would get max level and sit around and wait for the game devs to “release more content”. If you look at Lost Ark it’s a very clear example. I played lost ark, cleared argos, valtan, vykas, clown (up to g3 bingo), now there’s brelshaza. Brelshaza was released roughly the same time Rose was rereleased. People progged it and have cleared it. The next piece of content is Akkan, which will probably be in 5-7 months. Players who’ve cleared brelshaza are doing nothing else but “waiting for more content”. This is the same with every other current MMO. If you compare this to a game like Tibia for example, there is no level cap. Players are never waiting for more content, they just keep leveling and getting better at the spawns that are available. Ie pulling 3, then 4, then 5, then killing faster, then pulling 6, 7, then running them around instead of tanking so you can pull 10, 12, 14. Eventually you level enough you can go somewhere else and do something similar. Then you throw in some strong single target monsters for any level range to break the monotony. I had a teacher once who told us if we can figure out a way to create infrastructure for USERS to create content, we would be successful. This is the same premise as Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube etc. They create the infrastructure, players fill it with to their own content. I think the same exists for the MMO leveling/grinding experience. And I think that’s why the MMO market is so bad and everyone is itching for something new and better. 
 

2. I agree the item mall needs more stuff. 
 

Good notes on all the technical stuff, I don’t really know about it so I’ll leave it to you. 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Invinciblez

[Vile]

I have to disagree. Leveling to level so you can level because you're leveling to level so you can level to level... you get the point? It's a redundant loop that exists only to continue it's own existence and that's not good content design.

I played back in 2004 and earlier, and if I had the choice of playing the game loop as it was back then, or nothing at all, I'd rather not play. Most people I ask have agreed. If it doesn't change, they're not interested. You can't rest on the laurels of the rose-tinted past and expect to succeed and grow. That formula already existed and failed. No matter the justifications, history and time has shown us where that goes.... and it's not up. That isn't because of some singular fact, but it's because me, and many other people have come to the same conclusion as I have. Leveling isn't content, it's a means to an end to get to the content they care about. Housing, Story, Raids, Dungeons, Arenas, Battlegrounds, Farming, Economy, Roleplaying, Lifeskills or Professions, Achievements, Collections and Fashion, plus so much more. Leveling is a time-gate to get to the rewards, the content. Very few games have a system that reward you as you progress, like FFXIV with their story. An exception to the massive ocean of examples.

So, to firmly reiterate. You may hold an opinion that leveling is fun, or interesting, even consider it to be "content" when optimized for efficiency. But most modern players don't.

Edited January 2, 2023 by OwlchemistVile

[Invinciblez]

I made another post that said I think this is a “enjoy the process” game. Compare it to a lost ark where the process is miserable, but the end game experience (legion raids) is fun so it’d be a “enjoy the rewards” game. 
 

There is a lot of satisfaction that comes with seeing progression. I started farming orlo dinosaurs and chewed bones 3-4 days ago solo with no party. I saw maybe 2 others doing it back then. Now there’s 5, 6 people at any given time. It’s important to note it’s not grinding for the sake of grinding. It’s grinding for progression. If you’ve ever played a game you had a lot of fun but then you just beat it and it was over and you wish it was longer, the same concept applies. You enjoyed the process of playing that game, there wasn’t an incredible reward at the end, but you were just chilling and enjoying the game. “Content” as players complain they have a lack of is not necessarily different from grinding levels. You’re grinding levels because you want to get stronger. You’re doing “content” like a dungeon because you want to loot better gear because you want to get stronger. In fact, the two are very similar, but when you grind levels sometimes you can turn your brain off and just chill. When you “do content” like dungeons and everything, you cannot turn your brain off because they’re designed to be an “epic challenge”. But people don’t always want an epic challenge, every single night. And if the answer is that they don’t have to do an epic challenge every single night, then how do they play the game close to every single night (as most gamers usually do with their games). Many people (myself included) don’t like horizontal content. I’ll give another example from lost ark. There was horizontal content where you’d go around and collect Mokoko seeds. There were something like 1000 mokoko seeds to collect. You’d get various rewards, many of which did not matter. Wall papers, rare items (when epics existed), etc. There were a few things people actually wanted, like permanent skill potions. So you’d have more skill points than you “should have” for your level. 
 

Now imagine going through every single area in Rose Online to collect things, so you can be a level 200 with 5 extra skill points then another level 200. It seems like a waste of time to me, that’s why I dislike horizontal content. Games like this give you more incentive to do horizontal content with crafting and what not, so that’s cool, but they locked it to artisan and other class. That’s fine, in ragnarok online everyone needed a merchant to put a vend shop up. Difference is in ragnarok you only needed a level 15 or 20 merchant. In this game you need a level 200 artisan to get more CON and SEN so you can craft 160 accessories and gems. 
 

And I’m well aware that no MMOs have a system that “rewards you while you go to the content”. I went through FFXIV, WOW, Lost Ark. They all have the same thing which is leveling is done through quests. 
 

It’s important to note that the MMORPG market is far weaker than it once was. The golden age of MMORPGs was 2003-2012. There are many reasons for the MMORPG market declining. MOBAs being released is an important factor. Everyone who agrees with you (and I was one of them I’m very good at MOBAs) and says “why should I level? I can just go play dota/league, and get right to the good stuff- the PvP”. Yet some people stayed behind in MMORPGs. And that’s for a reason. Perhaps the remaining people in MMORPGS did not have that mind set. I was not one of them, I left MMOs in 2010 and never looked back until 2020, never thought about them again. 
 

Anyways so now MOBA players are getting to a point where the allure of “hardcore PvP MOBAs and outplaying your opponents” is getting old. They’ve played for years. 5 or more. They know how good they are, where they rank against the competition. The novelty of those MOBAs starts to decline. One of the issues of MOBAs is that playing less than 100% feels kind of wrong. Because the game gets more interesting when you (and everyone else) plays their best. In MOBAs sometimes people who are up by a lot will purposely allow the other team to catch up. Ill give a quick example: you’re playing a hero that is very strong late game, you’ve been farming all game for the past 28 minutes. Your team is up. You’ve had free farm all game. You can join your team now and end the game. If you do that, you’re involved in one (easy) fight before the game ends. So some people will literally continue farming even though they know they could end the game if they join their team, force their team to fight 4v5, lose a few battles, then it’s a super competitive game, and the guy who did that gets to see the real beauty of his hero. He gets to fight multiple fights where he kills 3 hero’s, some being their strongest ones etc. 

ok so MOBAs are better when it’s super competitive and everyone is playing at their best. Kind of like NBA when it’s the final 2 minutes and the score is tied. However: do moba players always want to be playing at 100%? There’s a difference between playing at 100% and farming the most efficient way you can, then choosing to not be in the fight so the other team can catch up, and straight up playing at 60% where you’re not farming as efficiently as you can. You’re not stacking camps, not animation cancelling auto attacks, not thinking about your farm pattern, etc. Its like driving a car at half the speed limit. Forget the other cars, even for yourself it just feels wrong, even if you are in a chill, relaxed mood. It doesn’t feel right.

So MOBA players also get to a point where they know where they’re at, the novelty of the game has decreased. 
 

So personally I think MOBA players are at a point now where some of them just want to chill and relax. It’s similar to MMOs if some players see “hardcore gamers” who go and get max level, best substats, best gems etc. Some people just say “alright bud u got it” and they just progress at their own pace. MOBA players are at a point now where they’re looking at everyone who’s above them (or below them), 5 years have passed since they started playing, and they’re just saying “alright bud, you got it). They don’t wanna bother learning the technicalities that make the other player better than them (like being a mid player who goes 1v1 and knowing exactly the mana cost of the other persons combo, in various iterations because mana costs increase with level of the skill). Some are getting to a point where they say “alright bud you got it, I won’t do that”. 
 

So where do those guys go? Well, they either quit and start killing it in real life, or they play another game. 
 

And that’s where the idea of “chill farm in a chill world” comes in. And no MMOs have that. FFXIV and WOW are both too easy to have that. If those old MOBA players get the itch to play “content” or something competitive again, they play a few games of MOBAs again. 
 

So that’s the market opportunity for MMORPGs right now. Same with valorant and fps players. FPS have always been kinda “meh”. They may be wanting something different from an FPS but the ceiling of a MOBA is just way too high. 
 

Anyways to prevent from going off topic, for the MMORPG guys, I think it’s important to realize that an MMORPG raid cannot last 4 hours, every night, for months. That’s how people play MMORPGs. And that’s why the leveling and gearing process can’t be too fast. Or else the entire cities start emptying because hardcore players are simply finished the game and won’t bother “waiting for content to be released”. It’s like getting new content for Pokémon, which you beat and quit years ago. They simply decide they’re done with the game because all it is now is “upkeep” rather than “progression”. All they do now is use their bis gear to do new dungeons so they can remain bis. 
 

So yeah, I agree that 30 year olds might not want to grind the way they did when they were 15 in an MMO, I’m also aware that this game is probably filled with 28-50 year olds. I’m curious why rednim even bought this game, because if you go with the “everyone is at end game wearing bis and we provide content” route, this game is far inferior to FFXIV, WoW, Lost Ark, and pretty much everything on the market. However as I said I think this game is a “enjoy the process” game. I’ve been enjoying solo farming chewed bones at orlo and talking to other solo farmers. And if you go with the data, on both polls the winning option was 400+ hours. So there’s merit to the idea that people don’t want to snap their fingers and have full BIS. The important thing is that no other game on the market has a bright environment and music and simple min-maxing like ROSE has. 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Invinciblez

[Vile]

Gonna be honest... that is too long to reply to without losing a lot of context.*shrug*