god items discussion

[Kiaro]

I couldn't help but notice that it's taboo to talk about the current policy on god items, and whenever something is taboo, that means there's probably a big problem with how the taboo is. When people have really good reasons for something, it's not a taboo.

So, I'd like to talk about god items and their impact on the server. Let's talk honestly about them on either side, and see how they impact the server. If you dislike this topic because you think the current policy is fair, then you are misunderstanding the points. If it is a good idea to keep god items as is, then that should be discovered. If not, then not. If it's a good idea, no amount of prodding should be unwelcome. Someone can question me on why I do not keep slaves for as long as they like, because I have excellent reasons. Same should apply here.

So, current policy as I understand it, but I can be corrected:

God item quest is out, but if you get the god components you may simply hand the items to a GM and make the item. Policy was established years ago.

Okay so let's look at the good and bad stuff here:

Gives people a reason to play woe. Without god items, what's the point? This is the absolute strongest reason I can think of for god items. If you flatly removed the items, people could quit on the basis that there is literally no point to playing anymore (besides fun).

God items would make a huge difference, but the difference would not be big enough to warrant removing them, let people have their fun. (I could be conceivably convinced of this, but am not at the moment).

The policy is old and somehow good as a result/we can't change old policies (<anyone seriously forwarding this argument should be ashamed, though).

It doesn't seem to ruin any main server, why is hero any different? (<Hugely fallacious argument though)

So, now that every good reason I could think of is out of the way, how about the bad?

Current system bypasses a huge annoying difficult quest that also forces people to engage in mass pvp in guild dungeons if they want to get rights to the single god item created, making the effort/reward significantly easier. Simply put, there's no competition.

Allowing god items at all allows for serious perversions of game balance. 210 str sinxs spring readily to mind, but less obviously hax brew rates (mjolnir) crazy builds in general (brigs) are also right on the surface. Hero does not have the ability to gank people using god items (who will be pretty famous) with 20 people at a time to bring them down before they've caused too much destruction. The server is so small that one single player can swing the whole difference in woe - one GTB card can guarantee success in breaking a precast, for example. To put it another way, there is not enough players for god items to be 'diluted' enough amongst the population.

Establishes older guilds in ways that new guilds cannot catch up to ever. 99/70 is a pretty easy limitation to catch up on, as is getting some good +7 carded gear, but if 30 players joined hero to make a guild today, and say, behe DD and LW each had one god item, that'd be a restriction and disadvantage they could not overcome in the same way as levels/farmable gear. This repels new players who want to be able to earn an even playing field this side of 2010.

So, I've given what I feel is a decent introduction to god items as I understand them. What I'm interested in hearing isn't two word 'no keep them' or summaries of counter arguments 'they're fair, they don't unbalance'. I'd like a discussion about the why's. Why do we have this policy, why would players play without god items, is there any item so broken people would not accept it as a god item? If admin rings are too good, then where is the line drawn that makes a meg okay? etc etc, there's a lot to talk about here.

I am not blindly following anti-god items camp as some motivation to help my guild, nor am I doing it regardless of evidence, and can be convinced easily by good arguments. So let's discuss two things:

merits of current god item policy
god items and their impact on hero's balance.

Edit: as to avoid stupid petty back and forth arguments with lots of quoting back and forth, I'll be responding every bunch of posts rather than to each individual like a nit picking argument, so sorry if my reply doesn't come for a long while on stuff. I'm genuinely interested on the server's take on these.

Edit edit: My predictions for this topic: the more established a player is, the more pro god items they will be. I predict a lot of people will say the equivalent of 'god items are bad but you can't change the policy because you can't' and the people who are anti-god items will mostly not understand them very well or have very bad knee jerk reasons for doing so.

[Général_Argos]

The simpliest way to express my opinion on this matter is : I 100% agree with Kiaro's post.

I started, I think, a topic about this, a long ago. The idea is pretty much the same, but I have to tell that kiaro did a really better job describing the issue.

[Aaronock]

Coming from a midrate server where God Item were duped...my opinion of God Items being beneficial for gameplay is quite low.

Yes I may have been here on heRO for over a year now but that matters little to me because God Items and their problems they cause are the reason I left my midrate in the first place.

My experiences with God Items has always been they are too much for the balance of the game overall, and on an even smaller server such as this, it will be even more painful for us all. I would suggest banning the items all together but of course it is always up to the GM team in the end. If I think of more to say I'll edit this post or make another one.

[Général_Argos]

Problems:

The problem with banning those items is that the gms do not want to send to trash the efforts made by people who played for long and who aimed their efforts on getting those god items someday.

The problem with the promise that the former gm team made, that they would give the item to people bringing the materials; is that it cut a big slice of the work required to get the items, and another one is that 85% of the people who made that promise are not longer part of hero at all.

Why are we stuck with god items in the ragnarok online game:

The devellopers wanted to give "long run team-acheivements" the prize it deserve. I think that collecting the materials and doing the quest is a work that deserve the kind of prize, of reward, that the god items are. But lets face it, that was 3 years ago. Now ragnarok online is much more richer in terms of "long run team-acheivements". We have big donjons with big monster who drop big items, we have thor, odin temple, biolab, thanathos tower, and we are getting soon endless tower and some other cool stuff. We now have big, teamwork necessity, hard, and challenges, their goals and their prizes. I really don't think god items are a necessity for the game these days.

Suggestion:

Give an equivalent and balanced prize to people who bring god item's materials, and I think that the new good-but-not-overpowered equipements from the new donjons we got, and from the new we are getting could be a good compromise wich would satisfy the balance of the server and the expectations of owners of god items materials.

[JJJ]

mmm no real comment here.... but i think an alternative item instead of the god items would be nice =3


either way it matters very little to me...

[Kiaro]

I must say I am very pleasantly surprised. I thought a lot of people who had worked very hard would be vehemetly opposed, as is perhaps obvious in how I posted. Not a slight at anyone, it's just hard to part with a lot of invested time/effort.

I agree that a long term interest needs to exist, and it seems that god items may not be a sufficiently balanced answer. I had not even considered things like endless tower, which especially on a server like this will pose a near infinite challenge since it's unlikely we'll see someone beat the top mvp any time soon.

I do think people should be rewarded for holding woe castles, holding castles long and effectively enough to get god item components. Sadly there's no 'trying to get certain castles for certain god items' thing like if we had all castles open (population issue, lesser of two evils, etc etc) but it's still a lot of work. I think if a lot of thought was put into how to reward players, we could come up with something that wouldn't put a looming shadow on a server like two megengards would.

Off the top of my head, has anyone heard of mystical card albums? They contain a lot of miniboss cards. angeling, deviling, ghostring, gemini but also a much higher chance to get rocker, vocal, mastering etc. These were handed out to guilds for getting high points with the scoring system iRO introduced to woe (among other things I think.). Some system of trading X god components for X mystcal card albums is just an example off the top of my head - not seriously proposing it, but showing how things could conceivably be changed up and be rewarding while still not forever alienating the server. Afterall, angeling/ghostring/deviling and the likes all have glaring big weaknesses along with their wonderful strengths in a woe environment and some superb pvm applications. This does not create a gap anything like god items would, when even the newest player can use 1 bait, get an OCA, open it and get a ghostring (unlikely, but possible).

A solution like that would be nice, I think it's worth talking about.

It's also worth talking about god items if anyone feels they are not broken, or would benefit the server. I understand it's not a complete open and shut case, so I don't want to seem dismissive and automatically pushing aside the idea of god items, I think I do it for good reasons and a discussion about it would help show that (and if I'm wrong, I'll find out! And god items would be allowable, and that'd be a fine outcome too.)

[teOx]

but dont be fooled theres alot of support for god items too, just that none have posted. anyway here are my thoughts:

1. hero has been here for almost 3 years? 0 god items. it takes a ridiculously huge amount of time and even more effort to make 1 (proven by the fact that there are still none today aside from the lame sungod hat). does the guild that one day might succeed in making a god item (if it EVER happens) deserve improved brewing rates and the like? i sure hope so.

stuff like 210 str sinx is still ridiculously far off, 2 megingjards? another 6 years at LEAST if we continue with the current trend.

2. you mentioned it already but god items have always been a huge part of guild competition. i know we all love guild competition, or else you wouldnt be posting here.

3. the mention of older guilds getting too strong for new players to compete in is always a problem in RO. probably even more so in official servers. i cant imagine how hard it is to start fresh n iRO these days. it would take years just to create a decently geared character without help. the solution has always been to just join a guild. when heRO gains a greater population, there will be more opportunity for newer guilds to rise. this problem isnt only heRO.

4. there are reasons set forth by the original GMs for removing the quest. if i recall correctly, allowing the god item quest to be activated would unbalance a small server like heRO even more. you may think that taking the god item quests out makes it easier, but the GMs knew what they were doing, its actually more limiting on the guild thats attempting to make a god item, not making it easier (ice picks anyone?)

5. being an RO noob with years less experience than everyone else in this post, i have never seen a server with god items before. but from knowing the stats i dont think any 1 item would make any one player unstoppable. a sinx with crazy strength already had EDP all along, he will still die the same way he always did. a creator with improved dex can brew very well, but i dont think thats a great reason to remove the mjolnir. etc

[exwing]

I would just like to Point out that the Megingjard Does Have the Draw back of 800 weight that can really put a player who takes a Large Toll in having to take front role in fighting the disadvantage of potions or other asorment of gears or supplys.

As an Example Avg Fighter would Carry at least 2-4 armors, 2-6 weapons, 1-3 shields that in itself is a heavy load adding 800 weight really Drags a Player down, as for the other God Items, they are fair also having a heavy weight toll or not being as over whelming but also taking into account that it takes a Long time to First Establish a Guild, Gear them and Then Fight with them to where you can hold a castle Succesfully and even with that being done you still have to Pay for the Castle Eco either as a Group or Single person and have Recuring attendance for WoE and EVEN with all that you still have a Small Chance to get a Part to a God item that may not even want, Add onto that it is even harder to get because it has Every Single chest randomized putting the chance to get that god item part to not even show up. To this Point Not one Singel Player has Ever Made a god item ( other then the sun god helmet ) and to take that chance away from players who have worked hard to achive that goal investing so much time into Fighting War After War with a Goal of Getting a God item as there reward for Taking Personal Days off from a social event or some other thing to attend a Fight with there guildmates.

In the way of Balance of the God Items, First off it Has it's Extreamly Heavy weight and If you Work For Something with your freinds and allys making effort after effort and manage to hold a Castle with high Eco, i dont really think it will make that big a diffrance that one single person that has a "God Item" because there is a hell of alot more then just one Person Coming at you to Kill You if they Have worked that Hard to EARN that Gear, No One is Invincable and everyone can die, it just depends on how you Deal with that fight.

Feel Free to say i'm wrong, just correct me and tell me where it is "wrong" and Why.

[Kiaro]

Quote:1. hero has been here for almost 3 years? 0 god items. it takes a ridiculously huge amount of time and even more effort to make 1 (proven by the fact that there are still none today aside from the lame sungod hat). does the guild that one day might succeed in making a god item (if it EVER happens) deserve improved brewing rates and the like? i sure hope so.

This is very important, and I think this kind of thought is thought of a lot. I think the reasoning isn't fair. I mean, if we accept for a moment that effort does deserve god items, we have the problem of population. There are so few guilds that pretty if we projected the current way guilds hold castles, it's a simply inevitable matter of time until each guild gets a god item. There's no fierce competition. There's no needing to pump up different castles in each of 4 zones against a large amount of competiting guilds. There's no full 70 person 3 guild alliance per guild likely to ever see a god item between them. There's a ragtag bunch of maybe 20 people per guild, each almost guaranteed a castle, watching the clock tick as god items practically form themselves in the guild's hands.

However, all that is irrelevant: I suggest that no amount of time to get an item makes it fair. This is why even mvp cards are extremely limited and come with weakness along with their strengths. GTB is the most accessible powerful mvp card, and you could farm it for months without getting it. Then you get it, and it's obscenely good but still the equivlant of "+30% physical damage received" in woe. As an example, if there was a system that let you make admin rings (+3000 all stats? I think? or +300? either way.) would any length of time justify it? I would argue that even if it took a decade to make one, this would not be a good idea for the server. The items

Quote:themselves

must be balanced. Time to get them is simply a measure to dilute their numeracy in the population.

Quote:3. the mention of older guilds getting too strong for new players to compete in is always a problem in RO. probably even more so in official servers. i cant imagine how hard it is to start fresh n iRO these days. it would take years just to create a decently geared character without help. the solution has always been to just join a guild. when heRO gains a greater population, there will be more opportunity for newer guilds to rise. this problem isnt only heRO.

This is kind of a side venture, but it's important because I don't think you understood my point. The kind of effort it takes to get 99/70 and good gear is a different sort of difficulty from getting god items, and one that can't be bridged outside woe. 99/70 and good gear you can do just by fighting pvm, which is always stable. Getting god items takes beating established guilds. Given that, as time ticks on, each guild will inevitably get god items (the competition only influences the time it takes), this means eventually each guild can shell out for double megs. How does this new influx of players get megs? By taking castles. But now they have to beat guilds that have an advantage you can only get by winning at woe... this specifically shuts them out.

As a side note, and less important, I take issue with the needing a guild thing. I've went to servers with just 10x rates on exp/items and in 2 months had a 9X sinx with slotted infil, some decent +7 woe gears and I was all on my own. Joining a guild is only necessary if you don't know what you're doing - it helps when there's a vibrant always selling everything that you can earn zeny and make your way of course, which is not as much the case on hero with our very limited selection of vends.

On point 4, I totally agree. The god item quest does release crazy influxes of ice picks! I don't think that makes things any more balanced by removing all the work the quest entails (including the part where you have to GvG in guild dungeons to get to the blacksmith before another guild leader makes an item and you have to re-open the seals to even get a SHOT at making god items again). The difficulty of the god quest cannot be overstated due to the competition involved. While removing the 'several hundred icepicks' aspects is certainly good, I don't know if just dishing out competition-free god items is a balanced conclusion.

5. I think you are hugely understating the value of megs, especially double megs. I remind everyone not to say 'double megs? Don't be ridiculous!', because as I've said, it is a mere ticking of the clock until every guild has double megs - you have to think about the server's long term life, not just what will happen soon. So double megs then. Just to give you an idea, they basically create a character that can oneshot any non-swordsman even if they are specifically geared to survive EDP SB from an optimally geared sinx. They go over the top of the options you reasonably have with 90% of characters and simply oneshot you no matter what - as opposed to 130 str EDP SB which is survivable by properly geared wizards, albeit not easily. Don't forget the impact it has on grimtooth, emp breaking, etc. This is just to take the easy example of sinxs. My hallmark of balance is that there's no option that everyone would take if they could. There is no person that would not use double meg sinx, it eclipses most damage classes and leaves room just for a few niche things like support roles. No one would ever make, for example, a sacrifice paladin to kill people when double meg sinx was an option. This is in stark contrast to right now where you can make either because they have different roles and values, and do well vs different kind of characters. Double megs throw that out the window. I could go on and on, and start on other str classes, but I'd reccomend go to a test server and go SEE what double megs can do.

The sinx wont just die in the same way, because half of killing a sinx is being alive around it. And about mjolnir, bre rates were just one thing, there's a whole host of terrifying builds around it, and try testing a well build whitesmith using one as a weapon - terrifying. Now mix it with double megs and... etc

I'm sorry for the overly long examples, it's just how it goes. If I came off as having a go too, then sorry, just trying to illuminate what megs are like since I've seen them first hand, used them first hand, and don't see how hero can contain them reasonably.

To ex, I will take your post in reverse order:

Quote:Feel Free to say i'm wrong, just correct me and tell me where it is "wrong" and Why.

And vice versa! That's the point. Come to some sort of conclusion over this.

Now on the matter of megs weighing a lot, this is true. It's less of an issue to the classes that will use it, mind, as they will automatically be packing 99 str. Use of efficient weight:hp/sp ratio items largely minimises that. Also note that hero's battles are very short and fast paced. I used to try to carry almost 200 c.whites on my hwiz, then I realised the most I'd get a chance to use before either an emp was broken or I was killed by a large team gank was hardly enough to warrant taking more than 50. There's no toiling through super long battles/seiges, so resupplies are common.

So, onto the other stuff: A large part of your post says that people put a lot of effort into god items. I wouldn't dispute that, it's true. I'm not sure that's a reason to hand them out though, so we can safely ignore that. Even if you put hundreds of hours specifically into god items, is no reason to keep them - the god items themselves must be balanced. If this is hard to understand, imagine that if you got so and so number of god items, you could trade for an admin ring. Everyone would be trying hard to get them, but I think the GMs would be right to rescind the policy - the rings just aren't fair. So there's some line between 'Admin ring' and 'skeleton ring' where we draw the line of 'fair WoE gear', and we need to find out what it is, not just say that it's hard work (since, as we've established, it's a ticking clock until EVERY guild gets god items because there is very little competition on hero. The only difference is how FAST you get them, based on econ. There's no question that behe/DD/LW will just accumulate god items as time goes on, bit by bit, just by virtue of holding *a* castle.)

Quote:In the way of Balance of the God Items, First off it Has it's Extreamly Heavy weight and If you Work For Something with your freinds and allys making effort after effort and manage to hold a Castle with high Eco, i dont really think it will make that big a diffrance that one single person that has a "God Item" because there is a hell of alot more then just one Person Coming at you to Kill You if they Have worked that Hard to EARN that Gear, No One is Invincable and everyone can die, it just depends on how you Deal with that fight.

Again, this works off the assumption that hard work justifies any end. What I'm proposing is that the item themselves are unbalanced. But let's go to the second half of your point - that one person will have the god item, and they will be fighting more than one person. Now, I touched on this in the first post: Are god items 'diluted' enough amongst the population? Like, if one out of two players had god items, that'd be crazy. If 1:10,000 has it, that one person probably wont swing the difference. Between those two numbers somewhere lies the magic balance number where it's fair.

So, this is hard to do as an exact science but we can certainly talk about hero's average population: 170 in woe, with maybe 30 merchants? I'd say I think 120 people is roughly right. What I will say is that at a high population you would be right: There would be too many people for the god item player to break things, they'd just have a good advantage. But what about here? Well:

Machivaeli (sp?) would often break the LW + Behemoth precast by virtue of having GTB and ghost valk armour. One player making a huge difference and tanking through a precast! I often make a game winning difference, and I'm sure most well geared 95+ chars have seen many situations where one player decides the outcome.

So when you say that no one is invincible, you have to stop and consider I didn't SAY anyone was invincible. My claim was that god items my make one character so disproportionately strong as to ruin the game balance - when you say that people will die anyway, you are basically saying that the impact of the god item will be insigificant in the larger picture due to everything else going on.

Okay, I feel I am getting abstract and mathematical without showing anything. Imagine a bar graph where the Y axis is 'guild's overall power' and the on the X axis we have each guild. So let's say each guild has 1 person in it. The one guild with god items will have a HUGE bar compared to the rest, because that one person is so so much better than the rest. Then we have 2 people per guild, and the power is averaged out a little, but not much. We keep adding people, and eventually at say an alliance of 280 people you can hardly see the impact any more (but it's still there!).

What I'm worried about is that if you had this graph with hero servers, that the guild with god items would get an unfairly large boost that would make the server worse off overall.

My evidence comes from the max 20 people per guild on, max battle size being about 40 people in a room. That makes 2.5% of the total players god equipped, which is crazy lots and I predict would swing battles in the same way as players with less powerful than god items but still good gear can sway battles (one person with a GTB, which is worse than a god item, turning the tide of a whole battle, or one instacast wizard making the difference in a precast break, etc etc which I've seen happen a few times each.).

So to those reading, maybe I look full of it and pretentious - Ex and teox made relatively short posts, why do I have to waffle on and on? Well I apologise, but I am trying to convey very difficult value claims about god items and explain what is BEHIND the arguments. Ex said, essentially "God items are hard work and don't make a big enough difference to matter". I'm trying to explain the issue BEHIND that claim, because I doubt he'd be satisfied by "They're not hard work and do make a big enough difference to matter". I ask that people pro god items could please explain the reasons behind their argument, and not just restate the positions I already went over in the first post.

I hope people can see what I'm getting at, I worry I'm bad at explaining these things.

Edit: I would like to clarify very briefly my points in the post:

"God items are an inevitability due to lack of server competition, getting them is nothing more than a waiting game, this is blatantly true. Single players can swing the whole tide of battle with items worse than god items already, or even just by being a very good player. When ONE very good player can swing a large difference in the outcome of a fight, then one very good player with a pair of megs will swing a difference that will be dtrimental to the game's balance."

And my extension would be

"And as god items trickle into the game, slowly, inevitably, due to lack of competition, players will be winning advantages that must be earned by playing WoE ONLY. Then, if one day, 500 people joined and castles were highly contested, these new players would need to fight against an advantage that they can't overcome in a way every other obstacle in the game can be overcome (by pvming). This would feel radically unfair and possibly drive people away, because it's an advantage they can't simply pvm their way to equalisation".

[teOx]

with your rebuttals its basically coming down to opinion on the balance issue.

i dont feel god items are unbeatable, not even close. i think GTB card is better than most (alot better than most) and there are a few of the on the server.

scaling out the analogy to crazy admin items doesnt say anything. once again it comes down to you feeling that they are overpowered, and me saying its not overpowered. admin items are for SURE overpowered, and they were intended to be as such. god items are not overpowered, no more so than some mvp cards of which there are quite a few on this server.

if each guild will indeed get a god item, i still dont see the problem. good guild competitions and more woe incentives. you cant rely only on a god item to win, you still need the exact same amount of team work to perform well in woe.

you stated that one person can easily sway the outcome of woe. this is very true. however, it is FAR FAR less true today than it was when i started on hero (which hasnt been that long, about a year). as heRO grows, this will become even less true and it will rely more on teamwork. one sinx with a megingjard can help more than his fair share, probably, but that amount will slowly diminish as time goes on and the server grows. (in this aspect hero took a large hit when loa quit. but that hit will be recovered before long)

and the server WILL grow. it has grown at a very nice pace (by all standards) since i have joined.