Hi, I got a couple of questions.

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Roy Revant
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Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by Roy Revant »

Hello everyone, I am a player that have been across many servers, in search of that special and good one, but eventually I run into something broken such as corruption, wipes, contradictions in rulings and GM statements and the such, so, after reading some reviews and been here and there, I read the review by Annihilate, on the RMS forums, it sounded very good and your server seems to be very promising, but the review itself is old so I wanted to ask what you think of the server today?

Before actually joining, I would like to know if this server has done any modification to the RO system, by this I mean change in skills, cards, equipment, also, are the rates the same for everyone and everything? Or there are exceptions? You got a card remover? Have you buffed/nerfed any monster/MVP from its original content? You got custom drops for WoE, if so, what are the custom/special drops?

Now, excuse me if I sound arrogant, I in reality am not, I try to keep things friendly and such, but I still consider myself someone knowledgeable about the RO mechanics and how to do this and that, I plan to main a HP for all aspects of the game, so if I really end up joining here I am looking forward to play with all of you!
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Koma
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by Koma »

Welcome!

Don't worry about sounding arrogant. In all honesty, your post is very reasonable, and really does represent what every player wants to know when looking for a server.

For quick reference and to answer any specific questions you may have about the server, there are a number of other resources that can help with this besides any answers that I may provide here -- since I may overlook a lot of things. Wool is a "test server" in that it allows players to experience the real server's settings and configurations (Fleece) in an open setting. So if you'd like to see how it would be like leveling a level 98 sinx with a Knife, you can go at it (with the available atcommands) anywhere you want to and it would be equivalent to how it would be on the live server. You can see how the NPCs work, how any monsters are, and whether any skills have any bugs of changes unique to Amistr. In addition, the Questions forum and Comments and Suggestions forums are also strong resources for this kind of information. I may miss a lot and my apologies for any that I do, but we've been running for quite some time and according to our internal SVN, we're up to revision 997 since I re-merged the settings from Crescendo's SVN -- meaning we've had quite a number of updates over the months/years.

As far as Item Modifications go:
Elemental Converters have a minor cosmetic modification to show the buff duration and on the buff list.
Dead Branches are modified so you can only spam them on Dead Branch Arena maps (otherwise they have a delay).
Frigg and Magni Combos are modified to support the synthesis system.
Poison Bottles are not usable on event maps.
And custom headgears are statless -- whereas any official but unobtainable officially headgears have their stats (Bulb Hairband for example).
As far as Monster Modifications go:
Baphomet Jr, Stem Worm, Alligator, Whikebain Tres, Mavka, and Satan Morroc (1916) are adjusted in terms of Ygg items, Witherless Roses, or real official drops -- @mobinfo should help when comparing to RMS or eA databases).
Barricades for WoE:SE are reduced in HP to 200k as per a suggestion by players awhile back.
Treasure Box drops for WoE:FE are also modified as per a suggestion. Details can be found in a thread on the forum.
Various bug fixes were done for a few monsters as eA has things preventing Banshees from seeing hidden players and Tatachos from being aggressive.
Other than mostly bug fixes, we're following a fairly standard configuration.

Some other things that come to mind though are..
Monsters scattering upon hide (which some players dislike).
Teleport Level 1 has no menu to work like a Fly Wing for Creamy Card usage (also level-selectable for aco-classes to use similarly with their skill).
Zoom allowable indoors.
Job Researcher for job changing/baby changing, resetting SG feel, resetting stats/skills, Platinum Skills, rentals.
General Kafras which allow passworded personal storage and passworded guild storage access (don't require a castle).
Tuning Specialist to auto-enable @commands or features of NPCs.
One-click healer (no buffer).
Item Merchies for quick buying and selling of items in central town locations.
Warp Manager for quick access to dungeon entrances, towns, various arenas and minigames.
Rate increase for loyalty of mercenaries and other pets (10x).
Blocking Ice Wall on outer Guild Castle maps (so players can't ice wall their castle entrances after taking a castle..).
Idling (not moving from a cell) for a set durations will disable party exp share, experience gain, autoloot, and such.
Gift Drop that occurs randomly at a low rate for any monster kills done -- providing normally unobtainable hats or Enriched Elu/Ori or a Bloody Branch.
Anything else that's listed at http://info.amistr.net/ since we try to keep that updated.
Some third-party application logging/flagging (anti-macro and anti-botting and such).
Anything listed in the update logs since those are kept as detailed, accurate, and up-to-date as soon as possible.
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Haelstrom
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by Haelstrom »

Hey.

In regards to what I think of the server - it's ran straight-laced as it gets, stable, and is more regularly updated & maintained than virtually any other server I've ran across. That right there keeps me coming.

The economy's actually pretty decent, you'll just run into absurd price vendors pretty often because the decent priced ones get sold out and thus, logged out of @at.

Regretfully, the only real issue with the server is that it suffers from "Competition Syndrome," where one guild feels they're the king of the crop and no one can attest them, so they leave due to this. Then another guild crops up 1 day after this, and repeats the cycle; if they'd just stay put and stop being pansies, there'd be 17+ fairly large guilds duking it out, a self-created problem.

Of course, this also means given quite a few guilds upcoming are in a "build-up" phase, now is a great time to join in for potential guild-masters. I'd say give it a few weeks to a month and you'll see all the upstarts become at least mild powerhouses, which should alleviate the problem. Especially since I'm playing my own hand..

Events are regular, and excluding the fact the staff are RACIST AGAINST MERCHANTS - they're professional. No signs of corruption that I've seen, and having played/administrated at a few servers in my past that ended up corrupt to the bone, I know the signs. No wipes, heavy stance against them actually. Overall, you should enjoy the server - its only real problem is the "one guild comes, one guild leaves" complex, which I feel will change overtime.
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GDRAGON
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by GDRAGON »

Haelstrom wrote:Regretfully, the only real issue with the server is that it suffers from "Competition Syndrome," where one guild feels they're the king of the crop and no one can attest them, so they leave due to this. Then another guild crops up 1 day after this, and repeats the cycle; if they'd just stay put and stop being pansies, there'd be 17+ fairly large guilds duking it out, a self-created problem.
I was told by someone who still plays here, about this post and decided to log in and reply to this comment. If guilds didn't leave, there won't be 17+ guilds duking it out. I know it was an exaggerated, and completely random number, but you get the point. When we first started here, yes, even with Celestial Being around, I'd have to say the competition was somewhat below standards for me (i.e. I was never forced to use any sort of yggdrasil item, or even speed pots for WoE, and I wont even start talking about PvP, which was nonexistent, never had to hotkey more than 1 healing item on my skill bar, never had to use bm). Anyway, getting to the point... after Celestial Being left, Tempest had no competition whatsoever until Sacred Legion came along. Other guilds (ShowTime) started leaving and had less members online for WoE. As for Carnage/First Blood, their leader ragequitted over main chat that Saturday night after Nighttime WoE because I wouldn't hand over the castle with cookies and cake. So what do we have? An empty Sunday WoE. A total of three people showed up by the entrance. Some stalker, a high wiz, and a champion. After literally sitting for the first 40 mins into Sunday WoE, we actually LEFT our guilds, and tried to break our own castle. Yes, thats how sad it was. Later that night, we left. All in all, if we stayed any longer, smaller guilds would give up, or some might not even try at all. Do we plan on coming back? Yes, I actually did quite like this server. But not if guilds dont either start expanding, or less QQ. Don't get me wrong, Sacred Legion are good competition, but we come from places where the rest of the server is against us, hate us for "hacking" or "cheating" when they're the ones who dont play their classes efficiently. And thats one of the reasons why we dont interact with the rest of the server, had some bad experiences with others.

@topic: The only change, I'd say would be the mobbing. I've personally came from many other servers, but have never seen this change. I think you would find it under Questions section.. thread name is like mobbing something. Other than that, the server has a lot of updates, and new hats every week. The only thing that I disliked were the events. They were either too repetitive, too ridiculous(which btw resulted my laptop blowing steam caused by a certain GM who I wont mention), or again, lack of competition. Why isn't there PvP events? Why isnt there CvC (Class vs Class)? Last I heard, the PvP thing was still in development. Actually, there was a PvP event held, except it wasnt by a GM, but instead hosted by a player from Carnage LOL. Anyway, try the server out. Bring your friends.

GD
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Koma
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by Koma »

Part of the reason why PvP events weren't really held much is due to disagreement on what the rules were and such. If you think the complaints about unfairness during Dice or Hocus Pocus events are bad, the complaints were worse back when I held the King of the Hill event and such. We decided to slow down with the PvP events because people were upset with the standards of them in regards to:
  • Items being used (even though healing items were disabled)
  • Buffs/Skills (also disabled to an extent)
  • Certain classes (although its a known fact that classes are unbalanced) in a 1v1 or 2v2 setting
  • Teaming/partying (either official or unofficial -- as in /party or just agreeing to)
  • AoE skills in a Versus All setting
  • Hiding skills in a survival setting(one player lasted close to a whole thirty minutes because players wouldn't use Ruwach/Sight and go looking..)
  • Dualclient "boosting"
  • Prizes (alot of players disliked a ton of rare hats, and alot disliked just OPBs -- remember, events can't be done without prizes, just like WoE, otherwise people won't come -- since this magical, imaginary thing called fun is not an option)
Instead, we began going the route of implementing mini-games which were then used for a few events. I believe Jekyll used the Protect the V.I.P. mini-game a few times early on -- but no one seemed content with that either. Other things such as the Kafra Napping, branch events, race events, novice zombie events, and so forth have been floated with limited mileage. Even the original Mini WoE failed -- but more because people viewed it as a "WoE" and not an event. We could actually revive the Mini WoE system as a true FFA (non-guild) event though..In addition, the idea to have specific times for certain events (such as increased Battlegrounds times) began floating around as well but then there were issues with time zones and various regions -- hence why the Baby WoE was forced to open up two locations afterall too.

Our main problem from a staff perspective (and yes, I'm admitting we have this shortcoming and agreeing with you) about operating any PvP events would be a lack of understanding and transparency of how players would like a PvP event run. It should be clear and concise -- because past instances were very lacking and the complaint/unfairness messages would flood in. There was a topic before but a complete agreement wasn't met (viewtopic.php?f=63&t=88). OR we could just use the Dota System that no one has commented on yet which is also the reason why I haven't put more development time into expanding it -- even though it could be used as a base for any PvP events.
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Dowe
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by Dowe »

On a seemingly unrelated matter:

Welcome to the server :)
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Knightmare
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by Knightmare »

Come back GDRAGON. /com
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Re: Hi, I got a couple of questions.

Post by GDRAGON »

Koma wrote:
  • Items being used (even though healing items were disabled)
  • Buffs/Skills (also disabled to an extent)
  • Certain classes (although its a known fact that classes are unbalanced) in a 1v1 or 2v2 setting
  • Teaming/partying (either official or unofficial -- as in /party or just agreeing to)
  • AoE skills in a Versus All setting
  • Hiding skills in a survival setting(one player lasted close to a whole thirty minutes because players wouldn't use Ruwach/Sight and go looking..)
  • Dualclient "boosting"
  • Prizes (alot of players disliked a ton of rare hats, and alot disliked just OPBs -- remember, events can't be done without prizes, just like WoE, otherwise people won't come -- since this magical, imaginary thing called fun is not an option)
1. Allow items, I don't see a reason to disable them in the first place(unless for CvC), unless it becomes a tournament sorta thing. Without healing items, it would pretty much overpower creators, and parties with a priest compared to parties that dont.
2. Have it done in a separate map. @doommap, @raisemap, do your usual check for double clients like in dice events.
3. If its ever 1v1, it should be of the same class, AKA CvC (i.e. Assassin vs Assassin, and have a winner from each class). 3v3 would be the ideal group number for Team PvP. I wouldn't say some classes are unbalanced compared to others, you just have to figure out a way to beat them. It's very possible for any class to take out any other class, given that they are of the same level (trans, extended, non-trans). But even then, it all depends on skill.
4. Just have them make a party themselves. Anyone left over should party each other. Give everyone who participates a coin (I heard thats going to be the new award system), and winners enough coins to get a hat of their choice or something. That way, people would actually want to participate and not be like "Oh, I dont have any pvp gear, so I'm not going since I'd lose and get nothing anyway".
5. There's a map I've used before, that has two different sections (one for observers, and one for the actual fight). Or... Dowe can make a map like that easily, seeing how he's experienced with making unique maps. Three sections: observers, next contestants, current contestants.
6. Have a rule where you can only hide/cloak/chasewalk for 5-10 seconds. Each match should take no longer than 5 minutes, unless you're doing CvC with Paladins or Priests.
7. I'm not sure what you meant by boosting... but I assume it has something to do with dual clienting a buffer of some sort to give themselves an advantage. Like I've said in point 2, you could always do your MC check at the start of the event, and make sure there are no dual clients. Dispelling contestants at the start of each match also works.
8. Coins, if you are planning to use that sort of award system is fine. PvP isn't supposed to be about rewards. That's what WoE/GvG is for. PvP is all for bragging rights since each team is fighting at the same level, same number of members, and all have to follow the same rules (such as hiding limit).
Knightmare wrote:Come back GDRAGON. /com
We'll see.

GD
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