Increased Rates

[GM-Ciar]

Personally, I feel that the base and job exp rates are fine as is with the amount of questing, events, and customs we have that boost the average exp flow. I also don't see a major problem with the item rates currently, as we've increased the drop rates of specific individual items with our Low Drop Rates Retouch, and newer items and monsters implemented aren't as grindful as what Gravity/Officials tend to go with.

Card rates on the other hand, are extremely tedious to obtain, and often require several of the same one to be hunted, to be used with different chars. The GM team is discussing increasing the base rates of cards, but nothing is set in stone yet. However, don't expect MVPs to be affected by this, or a sudden spike to 0.20% for cards either. :P

[The Roger]

Guys you dont need increased rates, all you have to do is accept RNGod in your life and praise it thoroughly <3

Praise RNGod <3

[Plant]

I'll take the first bite and give a non-meme reply then. Reminder that what I write below is a suggestion and therefore up for debate.

I think a base card rate of 0.1% is a good start. I'm not sure if my maths is right but this should mean an average of 1 card for every 1000 kill or about 33% chance to get exactly 1 card out of 1000 kills.

No card should drop at a lower rate than this base card rate.

The way I word the above sentence is because not all cards are equal. Some other cards should be higher instead due to possibility of needing more than one, or being less useful when compared to other cards. Maybe a maximum of 0.25%-0.5% rate in normal, non-holiday seasons?

About 1,000 kills for the lowest rate cards that you'll probably only need one of shouldn't be too grindy I hope, and we should definitely move away from the way-too-grindy gameplay as our population is decreasing and our economy becoming arguably stagnant.

This suggestion might surprise people but I think MVP cards should be affected by this rate increase as well. I believe that the largest factor of why MVP cards are 'OP' is because of their low availability when combined with their 'imbalance'. If we think MVP cards are OP and we don't want to have to deal with it, then 0.03% isn't the right solution because some lucky person can still get the card and be 'OP'; 0% chance and removal from all players is the better solution. Being 'imbalanced' combined with low availability, in my opinion, is what makes this imbalance a much bigger problem than just being imbalanced while having high availability.

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Counterarguments in case someone bring up these topics:

1. But increasing card rates will hurt the economy!

Not necessarily. Having high amount of cards in the market doesn't mean it's bad. I mean look at how much cards that OCA/DCA pump into the market, but still almost no one buys them because of their stagnant pricing due to their poor availability. I bet a lot of people aren't even confident in selling good cards, with the fear that it'll be impossible to get the card back in the future. More cards resulting in lower prices for cards doesn't mean hurting economy. Hell, it might even improve the economy, because then people can afford to sell their cards and be more competitive about the price, without worrying that they'll never get the card again if they don't spend days hunting in this game.

Even if this, by some chance, "hurts the economy", I'd say increasing the card rate to make the gameplay (which has been hurt for so long) hurts less is still a higher priority. If we ever come to a situation where we have to choose one over the other then:

Gameplay > economy.


2. This will open the flood gate to hatter hats and mids[1]!

Yes. But in my opinion, this is also a non-issue. This change might actually make hunting monsters for hatter cards viable. Giving chances for the community to finally be able to try some Hatter quest while they are naturally progressing levels and gears through hunting or partying is actually good, especially when the 'reliable' alternative is to join events spammed by people with event bags.

As for having more mids[1] circulating the server, wouldn't that be a good thing since a lot of parties rely on heavily geared champs? Almost no one new these days will stay in this server long enough to see their champ gears complete.


3. People will have too many cards!

I fail to see how this would not be a better alternative to spending months and still not being able to complete your 4-carded weapon. This might even promote parties as well because now people can finally gain quicker access to cards that are crucial for certain places such as Pasana, Bathory, etc.

Only concern for people having too many cards is whether or not they're actually spending healthy amount of gameplay hours in RO. If it ever comes to the point that even casual players who spend 1 hour per week in this game have 'too many cards', then we can still adjust the card rates.


4. The server have survived 12 years with 3x card rate. It doesn't need a rate increase.

And it most likely won't survive for another 12 years.

heRO hasn't aged well at all. heRO didn't survive 12 years unscathed. And it is sure not a 2002 game like most people like to imply. It is a current year game due to its online service and continued patching. With no enhancements in even its engine and having almost no core changes to gameplay in the past few years, heRO will continue to age much worse.

heRO isn't just competing with other better servers right now. It is competing with the snowballing game industry as well. With the wake of much better MMORPGs and fun genres like the Battle Royale and MOBA, heRO will continue to lose players. No one these days quit gaming just because they quit heRO; they will most likely quit heRO and play other games that provide better player experience.

Staying at 0.03% is, in my honest opinion, not an option for the longevity of this server. It is definitely in no way healthy nor rewarding for anyone to spend a gargantuan amount of gameplay time in the purest, most despicable tedium in order to obtain just a piece of card.

However, I'm not saying increasing card rate will solve the issue entirely but it is definitely a good step in a hopefully right direction.


5. Varying rates depending on each individual card is just too much unnecessary developer work!

I can't say for sure but I honestly think it's unfair and awkward for a Wootan Shooter card to drop at the same rate of something like an Imp card. Since chances are no one wants a Wootan Shooter card for gearing purposes and people may want more Imp cards than Wootan Shooter cards.

If the concern is on the amount of developer work then maybe I suggest that the base card rate is released first, followed by each individual card being tweaked depending on area on a timely basis. This follows almost the same practice as a previous trend that heRO server introduced called the Low Drop Rate Retouch. I think this can even be integrated into that same series.

Should there be no choice but to accept a same rate for all cards, then I think it's fair to suggest a much higher base rate than the 0.1% chance that I've suggested.

[Kiwis]

Adding on,
With the increase in overall flow of cards (particularly useless ones), if this so-needed update were to happen,
I think it would be a good idea to update hatter as well, seeing as hatter is our server's primary card sink:

1. ALL cards become hatter-tradeable - Increases the sink for excess cards
2. Hatter implements recycling of unused hatter hats - Helps counteract any excess increase of sinking of cards.


I would go more in-depth, however this thread is reserved for the discussion of increased rates.


EDIT:

Additionally,
from a marketing perspective, we need to have rates that are VISIBLE by interested players, when reading basic server description, to attract people in.

What I mean by this is, if item rates display x3, people will assume items and cards drop at x3 throughout the entire server, regardless of whether we have implemented the Low-drop rate retouch. There has to be an indication that the rates are not that low, just from reading the server's basic description (without having to explain in more than 1 line how the server rates' are flexible).

First step to increasing population is attracting players THEN keeping them in. i.e. marketing -> gameplay And, right now I don't see much attempt at increasing server's face value. Although, admittedly I don't see much in the variety of ways we could

[The Roger]

sorry for the messy reply


1) MVP cards arent OP. Those are items that unlocks to the player higher tiers of possibilities.

2) higher rate WILL DEFINETELY HURT ECONOMY, and also kill all the interactions.
"More cards resulting in lower prices for cards doesn't mean hurting economy. Hell, it might even improve the economy" Sorry not sorry, but here you're wrong; Like money, high inflation is bad. Putting on the market a huge supply of a certain good, will make its value drop. And if that good doesnt value anything anymore, whats the point of spending effort to market it? Nobody will ever interact with any other because rates are so high they can get anything ultrafast alone.

3) 0.1% is A LOT. I mean, its REALLY HIGH. ALready 0.05% its high, its on the verge of being "just lower than the TOO HIGH" mark.

4) It wont promote parties. If one can already solo a place, it will still solo it even with higher rates.

5) OCA here OCA there: maybe its not clear a thing: in the main album there are 700+ unique cards and many of them appear in multiples (to make them more common to come out of it). All the good cards appear once in the list.
Do you know how many Porcellio cards i got opening 400+ OCA? 1.
And how many G.Ferus? None. Those are examples of "you can open 1000 oca and never get the card you're looking for".
Also, did you account the effort and the time and the strategies and the techniques and the gears prepared for it, necessary to hunt a big amount of OCAs?
If you guys think at OCA as free cards 0 effort, you're 1000 miles wrong.

6) The point of rarity in stuff is also exactly the one of grouping players; Guilds are born around well geared players and slowly all the members will increase they gears thanks to that. And party, thanks to that. And reach even higher peaks of gameplay, thanks to that.

7) As you well know, im running the current biggest prontera's clustershop on the server, providing a wide arrangement of cool/useful/good gears & cards. And i can say that economy isnt stagnating but rather good/stable. Probably what you're feeling is that the market its a bit "centered", but i can assure you that players are farming zeny and spending zeny. Yes, there are periods of high and periods of low, but averagely i can say there is at least a movement of 100M++ each month.


I think part of the issue is that if a player plays less its normal that he starts feeling "the rates are too low!" only because he can put so much time at it.
Imagine if that player has 0 time to put in it: how fast then should he acquire the items? The answer is: Instantly.
And you can already see thats absurd. We're not a highrate with instant full accounts and classes creation ready for pvp or whatever.


Another side of the subject is: players which already have this or that item, wont probably hunt/buy another copy of that item (or, "when they reach the desired amount").

There are already examples of gears that are literally thrown away because everybody hase already it: example? Bazerald.
Its more than half year that im trashing to the npc all the bazeralds im getting, along to solar swords, various Cloaks... etc.
Some of those items are good, yes. BUT THERE ARE SOOO MANY AND ITS SO EASY TO GET THEM THAT THEY HAVE NO MORE VALUE AND ARE THROWN AWAY.
SO ITS POINTLESS TO GET THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE AT THIS POINT.
I hope its clear what im saying.

Even at 3%, the cloaks, thats too high. 1% was more than enough, and im not talking from the side of the mvp camper, im looking at it from the normal player, because from my side instead you can see im getting soooo many im just throwing them away at npc to 12z each.

Thats whats high inflation is. Useless stuff.

Keep the rates for cards at 0.03%, or 0.04% but PLEASE for the sake of EVERYTHING dont go over 0.05%, even if i would be happy to get more mvps, keep them rare.
And gears, keep them "low".

[Kiwis]

Let's just keep the rates the way they are. Everything is fine.

[Plant]

=1) MVP cards arent OP. Those are items that unlocks to the player higher tiers of possibilities.

They most certainly aren't. The only reason I called them 'OP' with the apostrophes is because the GM's prefer sticking them to 0.03% and hope to not see it dropped in any near future. If someone manages to drop a Leak card, I can assume someone in the dev team will go "wow no one has that yet" as if they didn't plan it to drop.

3) 0.1% is A LOT. I mean, its REALLY HIGH. ALready 0.05% its high, its on the verge of being "just lower than the TOO HIGH" mark.

If there are players quitting or silently disappearing to play other games, you know there's an issue. Reminder that the current drop rate is still 0.05% and yet we already have a player temporary quitting just because they are burnt out because they are playing the best way of hunting zeny to hopefully get their gears/cards from the market - grinding for hours.

If you prefer to keep losing players this way, then be my guest.

Yes, there are periods of high and periods of low, but averagely i can say there is at least a movement of 100M++ each month.

How many of these million of these zeny do you bet are moved towards to? I apologize for my mistake on saying it's stagnant economy. How about stagnant card prices? There's someone out there today who's bound to sell Imp or Evil Druid card at the same price as when heRO was at its peak years ago.

Even at 3%, the cloaks, thats too high.

Cards don't drop at 3%. How many of the 0.1% do you even throw out? I mean do you even want to throw away an Orleans Glove which drops at a HIGH RATE of 0.2%? The problem with 0.03% or even current 0.05% is that you still need hours/days/weeks of grinding. Same with Orleans Glove. I am merely suggesting that these hours are dropped to healthy levels of grinding but still require some effort.

Let's be real: 10 Zeroms is simple. 500 is somewhat 'challenging'. 10000 is just plain stupid.

And how well do you think the economy will be when you finally start quitting? There won't be much (or any) player who can fill up the void you leave once you quit. This game shouldn't be balanced around the minority of hardcore players.

I'd agree with you about 0.05% if heRO even has the players to constantly supply cards into the market.

=4) It wont promote parties. If one can already solo a place, it will still solo it even with higher rates.

Yea cause right now it dissuades parties from newer players because no one has, for example, extra Pasana to lend lol. At its current state, a lot of new players require help to even gear themselves.

Even right now the server can't even make a Mystic Tower party without needing to PM the entire server + Discord servers, with the newbies joining in on non-core roles.

The only people capable of soloing places that requires partying definitely have years of luck and grinding -- and I still think taking years of hardcore gameplay to do that is too long.

How about you prove that players can solo Nydhoggur with the increased drop rates which provide just about the same thing as current drop rates but higher?
Discard statement above because I misread. Reading comprehension xd

This doesn't help solo places, yea. Party places will definitely get boosted with people being able to replace champs/dps classes that we are losing slowly but surely.

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I think we both agree on few things here: there's lots of stuff that you deem toss-able in the market. Why do you think that is, other than the stuff I've already stated in my first counterargument? Is it because the good items take way too much effort to even bother?

0.1% is still considered low rate by RMS definitions.

We agree that maybe 0.1% is too high for hardcore players like you and maybe will pump more valuables into your inventory, but that will be because you deserve it for the effort you put in. Casual players who play like 3 hours a day with current rates are even lucky to get one random card per month with the current rate, if they're not even focused on grinding.

Maybe we can go 0.05% but I don't agree that this insanely low rate applies for all cards, and certainly not be too balanced around veterans who themselves look like they're about to quit anytime soon from doing nothing in Pront.

edit: phrasing and grammar

[The Roger]

another messy reply

Imp or Evil Druid cards, for example, have a price still comparable, or almost the same, as 5 years ago i think because of the actual low demand. Prices today should be higher for some stuff, because we had recent times being of a easy zeny farming... but its counterbalanced by that low demand. Much other stuff lowered in price. A lot of stuff.

If zeny are too easy to get -> people have alot of money -> high inflation -> money loses buying power -> products see their price increased, sometimes by alot -> it will end up with products having immense prices and your tons of currency worse than trashpaper.

If zeny are too hard to get -> people have not much money -> low inflation -> money is rarer, which makes it acquire value -> products's prices lower as the money you have values alot.

The balance is in the middle. And its not easy or simple at all. Real nations actually struggle on this about every day.

From wikipedia:
Germany (Weimar Republic)
Main article: Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic

5 Million Mark coin would have been worth $714.29 in Jan 1923, about 1 thousandth of one cent by Oct 1923.
By November 1922, the value in gold of money in circulation had fallen from £300 million before World War I to £20 million. The Reichsbank responded by the unlimited printing of notes, thereby accelerating the devaluation of the mark. In his report to London, Lord D'Abernon wrote: "In the whole course of history, no dog has ever run after its own tail with the speed of the Reichsbank." Germany went through its worst inflation in 1923. In 1922, the highest denomination was 50,000 Marks. By 1923, the highest denomination was 100,000,000,000,000 (10^14) Marks. In December 1923 the exchange rate was 4,200,000,000,000 (4.2 × 10^12) Marks to 1 US dollar. In 1923, the rate of inflation hit 3.25 × 10^6 percent per month (prices double every two days). Beginning on 20 November 1923, 1,000,000,000,000 old Marks were exchanged for 1 Rentenmark, so that 4.2 Rentenmarks were worth 1 US dollar, exactly the same rate the Mark had in 1914.

[Kiwis]

While speeding up players' race to the endgame, or "end of the journey", might seem like the easiest solution, shouldn't there be things to do on the way, as well as once you reach the end?

That's a very valid question.

Reiterating from mint:

Make gear progression much more rewarding and noticeable instead of surprise-shitting on players during parties for not having farmed such and such cards when playing such and such classes.

But, the way I see it is more of, "how can we make players' journey there more engaging and rewarding before they just quit halfway?"
And, currently, there isn't much to do on the way there (debatable).

[GM-Ayu]

"Not much to do on the way there (debatable)"

Debatable is right. There's plenty of new dungeons and fields to explore in heRO that is built to be "that thing on the way."


As much as established players find a hard time appreciating it, we are trying to ensure that there's technically a new route to 99 without touching the "old usual" that every server got. For better or worse if you like RO nostalgia, but also wish that there's "something different" then heRO mostly provides it.

Once you're done with poporings and can consider some 4 digit hp creatures, heRO customs kick in already with malangdo as your new option. Once you can take on both monsters there, you can consider moving to [spoiler tag] instead of Toy Factory/moscovia especially if you are melee classes now. Once you job change and got your initial job levels, go west a bit from [that same place as first spoiler tag] for a lv 60-ish map as your new option, which again favors vit build that previously sucks on gravity provided options. Alnoldi is there for ranged. Frostig is another option in case you're bored by moving plants, and prefer dodging the snowy Frostigs in Lutia instead (fast cast to interrupt the earth spike, move physically to dodge the heaven's drive. Both of Frostig's ranged attacks are avoidable with skill and you have 2.5s to do something about either one.) True Poring island shows up whenever you can live few mooring attacks enough to heal up from the moorings or God Poring's sanctuary, even if you can't handle the whisperings. Add applering and green applering

80s before 89 is when it does depend on your gears what you have available to see what options do you got. Casters can stick with alnoldi, or actually consider Scaraba floor 1 as long as you have fire wall, and a bwing button to die in town the moment you got hit by bleeding to prevent exp loss. Quag mobbing may work too but that I haven't tried. Solo-wise, honestly the previous options probably still work but hopefully you got some zeny to make it much more efficient now.

As much as how I want to say that there's lot of possible places for 89 and up: from an efficiency perspective, it's all an illusion of choice. Muspel is the definitive answer. Maybe some day we can rectify this by making other "party to 99" places more attractive in comparison.

If you can't join a Muspel party (so probably melee classes) then them crystal spiders of the new world got you covered. You're probably there to 99, and back there again when you trans and trying for 99 again. If you're agi auto-attack based melee classes and you aren't leveling there when you have to solo, you need to try that place out.


Problem: the info is hard to find, and maintaining guides/wiki has its challenges. The GM team try very hard to pave a brand new way to level differently at almost the entire journey just to answer that very question. If they don't like it, then the traditional gravity stuff is still there as well.


If grinding at new places to see new monsters don't count as something to do part of the way, then you're in this game for the wrong reason for a third of the time then.

PS: Other 2/3 of this game is making hats, and taking turns afking in all the towns.