RoMe

that doesnt sound right... like a reward for cheating... eh w/e. It is annoying to have all those numbers popping up all over the place, and it does create A LOT of lag. I Like the Toggle Damage idea, just make a command so people with slower connections dont lag out.

I think it would be... interesting if we had a pvp room that disabled use of most items (yggs, pots, other support items) kind of like how WoE is in most servers where you can pretty much use herbs and cursed water. I would like to see how well everyone can function w/o using yggdrasil berries.

First off, as of this moment there are only 10 guilds yes. MORE will form if they have an opportunity of getting a castle. It will not stay at 10 guilds for the rest of the time this server is up. You are thinking in terms of NOW, and trying to apply them to the future. Second, you are contradicting yourself. You say that with 20 castles everyone will get their own pick, then you say that larger guilds will attack smaller ones for a castle. If there are more than enough castles to go around, then they wont have to attack smaller guilds, unless they wanted to, but if they did, they leave their other castle open to attack. I used duping items as an example of a causality chain. It was one of the easier to explain (hence I chose it so you could understand it) how events unravel. WoE is a bit more complicated than duping items and would have required a larger explanation, of which Im sure you wouldnt want me to make. You accuse me of being close-minded, which I am not, and then you tell me to close my mind to everything but THIS server. To ignore everything ive seen in near 10 years of RO game play, to focus on this server. So do you want me to be as close-minded as you? I cannot provide an example of my idea that can be seen in this server unless you actually DO what I suggest. Until that happens, I must be open-minded (of which I have been nothing but) and use my experience and examples obtained from other servers in similar situations. 500 population isnt an excuse to have 3 castles. Ive been on servers where the population was 300-400 at best, all castles were open and there were 30+ WoE capable (and active) guilds fighting for castles. That alone proves that more castles leads to the development of more guilds in WoE. More guilds induces more competition between them. Ive also had this argument on another server of 500 players. They did what I said, and their population doubled in 4-6 months. They have, last I checked, 100+ WoE active guilds with 3-4 guilds fighting over a castle. That is a competition, not this chaos you strive to prove is orderly. Its not that I want a 1v1 situation in WoE so much as I dont want the current 1v11 situation. I would prefer 2 or 3 on 1, personally. Of course, im sure you dont want anything like that in WoE because it would take SKILL for you to get what you want, instead of crossing your fingers that you are the last one to hit before time runs out for WoE. to quote you "my guild doesn't have the castle, we only got it ONCE. I got my gear by not donating. and I disagree with you. You wanted to get a castle so fast dude. I really suggest you make yourself stronger first. You say you had a hard time getting a castle in this server than others right? that means whatever tactic or strategy you used before cannot work in a competitive woe like here." The tactic I used before is the one you are so fond of suggesting. It started off with me breaking emp last-second so I got my guild name broadcast through the server. That got me more members. With more members I was able to attack smaller, similar guilds head on and take their castle from them. With a reputation for consistency in getting a castle for WoE I was able to gather even more members to my guild. Eventually I was able to defend against nearly any guild in the server, even when they combined forces. Secondly in this part of the argument YOU DO NOT HAVE A COMPETITIVE WOE in this server. You have a chaotic scramble of people trying to get a castle, with 2 lucky guilds who manage to get one at the end. Chaos isnt competition, luck isnt competition, lack of skill isnt competition. That is what WoE is here, not competition. The only thing you are competing against in WoE is the odds of you even getting a castle, let alone ending up with one. There, I made this short. Just for you. I agree with you that skill matters. But once again, crossing your fingers and hoping you are the one to hit and break the emp, out of 10 other people is not skill, but luck. Numbers increase your luck in getting the castle. And yes, without the proper gear, you dont stand a chance. But once again, I ask, why should I wait around 8 months to get the gear I need when I can join another server and do it in a few weeks at the least? As for my SinX, it is fully geared, I dont need anything else. Gear is not the issue I have. My issue is the lack of skill needed to get a castle. I never suggested you open a castle that does not drop anything. I said if you are worried about your economy when you open these castles, you can make a chest cap so that no matter how long you hold a castle, you can only get a certain number of chests per day; and to lower the drop rate to something feasible.

So what you just seem to suggest is that no matter how good, or logical, an idea someone has it doesnt mean anything to the staff because they havent been playing for a long time. Talk about ignorance. So if I played for a year, and then started this topic, everyone would just gain half a brain and agree with me? I assume that is what you are saying (mostly because that IS what you are saying). And once again, this you give another reply with NOTHING to say against my arguments. NO evidence, facts, or ideas. All you try to do is insult me, and try to discredit me. Both of which arent working too well. Yes I noticed that only the people who have castles, have the gears, and the grip on who gets the gears are the ones disagreeing with me. But they, like you, tend to offer NO SUPPORT to their argument. They just say "what you say wont happen" and leave it at that. Devotion did have that story to back up their claims, but my last post already dealt with that, and I dislike repeating myself. And just so you can have your facts straight, I dont play on low rates. Well ive played on 2. iRO and gotRagnarokOnline. Other than that this is probably one of the lowest rate servers I have played. As for the rest of your post, it isnt very clear, so i wont try to respond to until you clarify.

If you would do that, it would be awesome. Yes, most people are saying that they like the castles how they are. NOBODY, though, has really given much evidence as to why my idea is wrong. They are just saying, I like it this way, therefore it should stay this way. Or I want, so I should have. I have given so much in the way of evidence that its quite ridiculous. I back up everything i say with facts and evidence and experience. How are my arguments back and forth? They have been the same since I started this. The larger guilds wont target the smaller guilds because they will be too busy defending from other guilds trying to take their castle. If they do try to take a smaller guilds castle they will only be able to send a couple of people at most to take it. One will be a SinX which is easily countered (either strip and sacrifice, or wait for them to attack emp and turn their dmg to holy) and another class (judging from this server most likely a Gunslinger which can be countered with a HW). If a guild cannot defend against two people, then they deserve to loose the castle, its that simple. For the sake of argument, lets say that the two people won, getting the castle for a large guild. You then have 2 people defending a castle from which any other guild could take it. As I continuously state, even a guild that has 50+ ppl on for WoE can only effectively defend 2 castles at a time with the spark of hope of keeping them. if they try to branch any farther than that, they stand the large risk of loosing 2 castles. Simply put, it would take a guild family of 3-4 guilds with full members on for WoE to make an actual monopoly (by monopoly I mean hold on to 4+ castles w/o loosing them for weeks on end, to the point where nobody bothers to attack you anymore). There are 20 castles (30 with WoE 2.0) in the game, there are maybe 3 guilds (as of now) with the possible ability to end up with 2 castles. Once again for the sake of argument, lets say that those three guilds do end up with 2 castles at the end of WoE. 2 x 3=6, 20 - 6=14. Thats 14 castles left for smaller guilds. I would also like to point out to you that the probability of any of those guilds ending up with 2 castles is between 25-30%. A monopoly cannot happen this way. Out of 10 years of RO gameplay experience, I have only seen monopolies on servers with castle restrictions. From devotion's story about a guild that had a monopoly on whatever castle they happened to take, it seems to me that only having 2 or 3 castle actually helped contribute to the problem. If you had 20 castles open, you could just go pick another one to take. More castles will contribute to more drops, and with more guilds with more castles, there will be no monopoly on drops. The economy might suffer from an influx of WoE drops, but you could lower the drop rate. Most other servers who have super equips from WoE drops have the drop rate at like 3%, and make a max of 15 chests in a castle. That takes care of the imbalance caused by everyone selling rare items like auras. Most server's share a causality chain. So I HAVE to compare this server to others that are similar to it. The same chain reactions will nearly always happen when you start them on any server. For example: if I were able to create a program that would allow me to clone MVP cards and donation items as much as I want, I could sell them for whatever price I wanted. If I got 5 people to do this with me, I could completely ruin the game's economy in a month or so. By cloning MVP cards and items such as fset and other items that are very good, and nearly everyone has there would be no way to root out who bought items from me and my cronies, and who earned their items in a benign manner. From that point, there are three options that the GMs can take 2 of which will most likely lead to closing the server, and one which will result in the loss of 75% of the player base. Option 1: Leave everything alone, and ban the players who are illegally making items. My actions, though, have caused a positive chain reaction and does not require my presence or influence in any way to continue destroying the server economy. People leave the server because everything is in such disarray, and the server closes. Option 2: Close the server. Option 3: Wipe the server. No refunds for anyone. Lots of people will leave (usually 60-75% from what I have always seen when this happens) because they put so much money into the server (or time) and they arent getting reimbursed for it at all. The server will survive, but it will be on hard times for a very long time. This is all an example of common causality between servers, no matter what server, or who is in charge, or who plays it, or how it is run. What I am trying to point out by all of this is that "if 'A' happens, then 'B' 'C' and/or 'D' WILL happen". If you open castles the economy will fluctuate a little bit, you can let it work itself out or you can balance it by making a chest cap and lowering drop rates. If you open more castles, other guilds will have a better chance of getting castles, that alone will help them get more members (even if the drops are lowered). If you open up more castles, there will NOT be a monopoly for many reasons: 1) a normal WoE time participation for the large guilds in this server is 25. 30 at best. the most they could hope to defend is 2 castles. By splitting their forces they decrease their chances of keeping both castles, not by 50% as seems logical, but closer to 75%. 1 B) 2 castles is not a monopoly. 2) Instead of the top 5 guilds fighting over three castles (do NOT confuse fighting with competition), they will each have one for themselves and will be trying to take one from one of the other 4 "good" guilds. While this is happening smaller guilds can either a)attack while they are split and confused b)if that fails, go take another castle and safeguard it 3) Opening more castles will also make larger guilds (and unfortunately smaller ones) loose some of their members. most of the deserters are dissatisfied members, or people who feel they dont belong. These members will create their own guilds, and join up with their friends. Larger guilds get weaker, while smaller guilds gain members (more than they loose) and power. Eventually the small guilds of today are the big guilds of tomorrow. And im sorry to spoil your happy bubble of sunshine and flowers, but breaking on this server is mostly luck when it comes down to it. Once again I will point out that when your posibilty percentage of breaking an emp is anything other than 50-50, skill mostly goes out the window. When it is below 25% nothing matters, the last person who hits is the lucky person who breaks it. With the way WoE on this server is right now, there are 10 SinX (im just counting the SinX, NOT everyone attacking, so my numbers are going to be LOWER than the actuality) at any given moment attacking the emperium. You have a 10% chance of being the last person to hit. In your eyes you have a 90% chance to loose. So yes, breaking on here is luck for the vast majority of the issue. You have people who continuously break emp. I have noticed that. I have also noticed that most guilds have 2 breakers on an emp. Breaking down the numbers you get: 50% chance you will be the one to break it between you and your partner, somewhere around a 25% chance that your guild will get the castle, and of course factored in there is the 10% chance of you being the last hitter (and 10% also for your partner). So when a particular guild gets a castle, there is only 1 in 2 people who's name will show up as breaker. That gives only the illusion of consistency in breaking. The less breakers in a guild, the more chance you will be the one to break the emp when it is your guild that gets a castle. Thats luck, not skill. And as for the guilds that have one breaker, then every time they get a castle, guess who will be the one to break the emp? The fact that 1 in 2 people break the emp shows they have a consistency in their guild for breaking. But for them getting the castle, it is luck (although they have a higher chance if there are mre than one breaker for their guild hitting the emp). As for you thinking I said I wanted an easy way to break the emp, that is not true. You are either twisting words or misinterpreting. I was merely stating that, as the saying goes, "easier said than done". Its easy to say "be the last person to hit the emp". It is harder to ACTUALLY BE the last person to hit the emperium. As for the answer to your oft posted, and oft ignored question. This is the only server (out of the 80+ I have ever played on) that I have ever had any trouble using a small population of people to gain a castle. When it is one guild attacking another, you stand a better chance of winning the fight than when you have 1 guild (yours) vs. 9 enemy guilds (everyone else) vs. 1-2 defending guilds. then break that all down into an FFA. Simply put one on one, I can compete with many guilds. One on eleven is much more impossible odds. Someone ( I think devotion) asked to come up with "FRO" solutions to WoE. If you read carefully, I have addressed nearly all problems (all of the ones that can actually be controlled, I have given a proven solution for) that have been stated. The answers are in there. If there are still some things unanswered tell me, and I will find you a solution. I was a GM on quite a few of the servers that I played on. I know a thing or two. Dude, learn to spell. You are only looking at one facet of of a multi-sided dice. Your... equation, if you can call it that, is flawed in a few critical ways. First of all, you are assuming too much. You assume that there is just going to be some random breaker who will break the emp and then nobody will attack the castle for an hour, and if your guild cant handle one SinX, then you dont deserve the castle. Item prices will drop (if you dont implement chest caps and reduced drop rates), but they will stable out and they wont drop all that much. Everyone keeps saying "it usually takes about a year for you to be adequately geared". I ask you, how many people actually want to be semi-bored and useless for a whole year when you can go to nearly any other server and reach the same level in a few weeks? As for another thing, you contradict yourself in your goals (and inadvertently, I assume, prove me right... or atleast disprove yourself, which helps me anyways). You say that you dont want WoE drops to increase. To quote you "More castle = more random breakers getting castle = more woe drops = item prices dropping = noty" and then you say you want to increase woe drops by removing a castle from WoE. So what do you want? do you want drops to decrease? do you want there to be less castles, which by your logic will increase drops? Or do you want a balance. A way for guilds to get what they want, improve competition between guilds of similar skill level, improve player interest in the server, and server population. If you want that, my idea is a way to achieve it.

More available castle does in fact equate to more guild competition. The only people who cant see that are short-sighted. If all areas were opened for WoE, there would be a guild monopoly for a little while. I have never denied that. but what I keep pointing out (and nobody has refuted yet... at least with more of an argument than "im right you're wrong") is that EVENTUALLY more guilds will form. Larger guilds will loose unsatisfied members, members who want drops faster, and members who have some issue with other people in the guild. larger guilds loose some members, making them a small bit weaker, while new guilds get an influx of competent, geared, experienced players to help them. Where you have more guilds forming, you will have more competition. You guys seem to be thinking about this in the wrong way. It seems to me that you think that if you open up all cities and castles for WoE then 200 fully geared, maxed out guilds are going to magically spring up from the ground and start fighting over the Prontera castles (which are historically the home for all guilds people consider "pro"). It wont happen like this. there will be competition between the smaller, newly formed guilds in the places people dont usually care about for WoE (such as the geffen castles). This will be happening while the numerous guilds that are already established fight over the two lesser cities (Payon and Aldebaran). Then the dominating guilds will be fighting over Prontera. By competition, I dont mean every guild fighting over every castle. This will be like a ladder of sorts, where guilds on/around the same rung, will be competing over castles in the same area. There will be competition between guilds with the same experience instead of how it is now, mixing in every guild to fight for one castle. As for the Guild monopoly in the beginning, it wont be so much a dominating force as one guild will probably be able to hold onto 2 castles, maybe 3 at the most. But when they get attacked they will consolidate and abandon, taking the castle they want the most as their base and keep it. Eventually in a few weeks even the top guilds will have one, maybe 2, castles. It will be chaotic for a month, if that long, but it will easily sort itself out. This is how it has happened in the dozens (number is nearing 100 now) of servers I have played over the near decade I have been playing RO. In my eyes My Experience > Your Conjecture. Now onto something I have already stated twice. It stands to reason that guilds get stronger by gaining more members, and experienced players yes? Yes. Ok. Now, as I have shown before, 98-99% of people who WoE want a salary. With the coupon economy, zeny is useless. Not all of us can afford to donate for coupons in the amount that most people want for a salary. That leaves us with castle drops in exchange for participation. If you cant get a castle, you have a harder time recruiting members (who wants to be a member of a guild who cant win?). When you repeatedly cant attain a castle, you loose members. If, like I stated before members=strength, then you are loosing your ability to fight in WoE in any effectual way. When you loose enough of your members, it is pointless to continue with the guild and you usually end up disbanding it. Therefore (to put it in your own terms) no castle = guild disband... although its more like No castle = no drops = no salary = loosing members = guild disbands (theres a nice little flow chart even you should be able to understand). And once again, on the subject of taking a castle using a last hit tactic. It is easy to say "be the last one to hit the emp to break it", but it is infinitely more difficult to actually BE the last one to hit it. Consider the fact that there are usually 10-20 people attacking the emp to break it (in the current conditions of WoE). At best case scenario, I have a 1/10 chance of being the last person to hit when it breaks, at worst it is 1/20. So to give you the range of my possibility of breaking an emp with everyone else attacking it, at any given time I have a 5-10% chance of winning. Not very high. That does not, however take into account, the 20-40 members of various guilds I have to pass (usually just in the emp room alone) to actually get to the Emperium. If I could snap my fingers and make everyone freeze while I break the emp, then it would be as easy as you suggest it is, and I wouldnt have had to make this thread. Unfortunately, I have not yet discovered that magical power. When you have more than 3 people attacking the emperium at once, it is not skill or equips that will get you the castle, it is pure, dumb-luck on who lands the last attack.

I never said that RM offends me. Was just making a point. And this isnt in suggestions for two reasons. First and foremost... I didnt see the suggestions sub-forum until I had already posted this. Second, a suggestion suggests no arguments. Merely speaking your mind w/o reprisal. This is more along the lines of an argument.

I bet it also helps to have Royal Mafia helping you guys take/defend a castle huh?

You could take away WoE drops and I would still be arguing this point. Albeit not to the same degree because then I couldnt make a salary out of castle drops. This is one reason it is so hard for lesser guilds to get started and retain their members. For some reason, people think they deserve zeny/items/etc for WoEing. If they dont get a castle, they dont get drops. They dont get what they want, they leave. Eventually small guilds end up disbanding, leaving you with only the larger, established guilds. In the begining, yes, larger guilds will get drops faster. But more guilds will form, and take castles over, gain more members and become powerful. Even large guilds can only hope to maintain 2 castles at a time with a relative chance of success. They will soon start competing for the more, shall we say, prestigious castles AKA Valkyrie castles. This is how it is in pretty much every other server. What castle you have shows how powerful your guild is. To make another point (one that I am continually making). WoE is a large reason people play RO. It IS THE REASON they stay on a server. If WoE is no fun, they move. 3-5 guilds controlling WoE is no fun (except for those guilds). If you want to retain players, you have to make WoE interesting, or at least fair to all. Oh how original an idea! Ill bet nobody in the HISTORY OF THIS GAME has EVER thought of that [/sarcasm]. Just being able to target the emperium when there are 20 SinX and countless other classes attacking it is a chore in itself. Standing still for that long gets you killed.

What is it going to take for you guys to open more castles?

wow, intelligent post there... @devotion I said that at the moment there are about 15 good sized/large guilds fighting for three castles. There is only this small number because there are so few castles open. You open more, more guilds will form, more people will begin to refer friends, and in turn, competition between guilds will increase. If you guys would like an interesting example of what I mean, then lets look at history. A fortress is built at a key point of interest to a country. Soldiers are stationed at the fortress to defend it. In order to supply the fortress, a road is built to it. Following the road are masters of important trades. After the tradesmen come the entrepreneurs, who build an inn a pub, and a few other luxury good shops. Coming with them are their families. Eventually you have a small city that continues to grow. In a century, you end up with London, the seat of power to one of the most powerful nations in the modern world, and arguably the most powerful in the ancient. Point is, opening up something for people will lead to a cascade of growth. More castles = more fun at WoE for lesser guilds. That leads to more guilds being formed. More guilds will also be a result of more people joining the server. More guilds will also mean more competition. @calintz No, WoE drops are not the only reason people WoE. But I wonder how many people would show up if they were told they wouldnt get their salary, they werent getting any drops, and they had to supply themselves (and that kills didnt count toward PvP ladder standing)? To put it in numbers, I did this on a different server (a few of them actually). I offered no salary for WoE, and did not give out drops (the drops were all DBs, BBs, and Ygg leafs anyways, so nobody wanted them). I had a guild of 70 people, only 13 showed for WoE with consistency. Out of a server with over a steady population 1,000 players, only 13 would WoE for no salary or drops. on another server it was 15 out of 1500+. On the next it was 9 out of 1200 (3 of those chars were controlled by me btw). So to put it bluntly, the numbers show that little more than 1% of people will willingly WoE for no salary or drops. Most other servers dont have PvP ladder items, so that is not a factor. But after you get it, there would be no incentive to WoE for most people. I am one of those people who WoE because I enjoy it. I couldn't care less about the drops. I always let my guild mates have at them (except for those select few servers I experimented on).

lol, im not complaining because they are geared. I can break an emp in 5 secs flat, i have no trouble there. Im merely pointing out something that has been the cause of many servers shutting down, that had likewise restrictions implemented. There is a reason nearly all servers have all castles open. Also, when you have 10 SinX, each from different guilds, all attacking the emperium at the same time, it doesnt take skill to break, it takes luck. Pure luck. All you have to do is hope that your hit is the one that puts it over the edge.

only fun if you can manage to get one. 8 guilds in one castle isnt exactly the funnest thing ever. And as I stated before, it makes it nearly impossible for smaller guilds to attain a castle. All the territory holding guilds are full, small guilds disband, people loose interest in playing after a while.