Rohan origin comeback thread.

[soulholder]

... a day in and we're back to this, lol. Things never change.

I think your dates are just way off. And I've been at or near the tops: in beta in the 60's/70's, and built a reputation as a skilled ranger despite being under-leveled thereafter. I also ran with NW fighting Forever and hit full glacial and the likes before calling it quits in 2012, and literally let other people take Bez/Rulers while I was in NW pre-walter's/twins. My friend/prior commander in Deceit who moved to NW with me ended up with what was supposed to be my set of the drops because I just stopped caring enough to keep putting in the effort; I'd done my share of "PvP" in the game, and things were starting to spiral even beyond hope of control with how much RNG and cost kept getting put in. I've never been at the true pinnacle since post-beta, because I never cared enough to spend that much cash to max out in order to make myself the best. You've seen what some people charge to leverage themselves into power. I'm not one to care that much about e-peen over budget. I'd rather win an intellectual argument.

The reason I think your dates are messed up is because R5, and subsequently feathers, didn't even exist in 2008. Nobody had T5 exotics/ancients then, either, because the last > level 100 items per weapon type weren't even in the game until then in order to do the forging. R5 and the surrounding gear was post-release content that came out in 2009, and the 100+ gear content patch didn't come out until a number of months later. The giant for CtB didn't even come out until winter 2009/2010. The absolute best thing one could get at the time was R4 rings, which are marginally better than Wings and the likes, which I had even before level 60 because there were guilds on Ahkma literally giving them away to random people, myself included, in order to fend off their opponent guilds.

A lot of people from '08 Ahkma will reference a few rangers who were particularly good at the game: Zukii, Rod before transferring to Syrephis, the GM from Element whose name escapes me, and myself. Frankly, I taught Rod and some of his high-ranks of his guild (Vic and Tae) how to play and beat ranger as dhans, because they were my guild officers before they moved off the server.

Epics/upgrades "balanced" PvP by devaluing stats and build choices and the variance between builds. Everyone ran the same gear stats in the competitive scene, and thus the game became mostly a proof-of-concept about whether or not the classes were numerically okay. And they were in the context of the meta; that's it. That doesn't mean anything for the general game-state. All they did was make WFFS/DFFS less-potent after the Hero patch due to differences in relative health. Most 2008-era players didn't stay here post-epics. I've seen the metrics; 70% player reduction in less than a week to never return. A majority of the rest either burnt out sooner from crafting or other reasons, or they lost interested with the blatant cash-grab. So anyone you ask is probably likely going to be inherently biased because statistically they weren't likely to have actually been here at release.

I didn't partake in the serious post-epic PvP because I just didn't care at that point to. The damage had been done. The forum PvP was more fun than it was in-game, especially given the number of users here.

You compare skills to how they were in '08 vs post-'09 reworks vs whatever reworks have happened since I last played, and 7's were hardly necessary in '08 for most skills. Some of the essentials, absolutely they were huge helps. But many skills didn't improve past level 6, or were barely improvements to a point where even at endgame it didn't actually matter. In fact, in '08, some skills actually saw tradeoffs going from 6-7 which carried potential negative utility. One of these which is lingering now is the duration on Piercing Root in Origins. What it doesn't mention is the hidden 50% cooldown cut which *used* to exist at 7 (I haven't tested it for Origins and don't care to), despite losing 70% of its duration. Early MB worked on the same principle: higher shield, lower duration.

And you should know full well that templars only had insane magic attack because the values got inflated so much. You know the math behind how blunt mastery worked. In 2008, those values weren't achievable enough to make them worthwhile. Tell me the name of a templar in T4 gear that's ever out-damaged an agi dhan, guardian, defender, ranger, wizard, or dekan at those same levels/gear. There wasn't one, because that's just how the game worked at that time. Templars were a mix of priest and defender, as they were to be. The 2009/2010-era of the game was horribly imbalanced, yes. But to say that 2008 wasn't balanced is just negligent of the game's history, because at release, it pretty much was very well-balanced, the only questionable builds being dex guard and agi dhan if they were very well-geared and well-built. If anything, things didn't die fast enough, because wizards with Psy shield could keep whole parties up with everyone dealing such relatively low damage.

[RememberMyName]

I'm still salty that I missed the 2nd day Epic Meister's sale because of work, and my roommate (who played Rohan) forgot to log on my EM account and buy it :|

As bad as the decision to release epics/upgrades was, I'd have to agree that the post-epic pvp was the most balanced this game ever was - everyone who wasn't in a guild that contended boss fights could buy their way into contention and the playing field was way more even instantly.

Then the giant stat inflation garbage came along and ruined the game.

[soulholder]

I'm still salty that I missed the 2nd day Epic Meister's sale because of work, and my roommate (who played Rohan) forgot to log on my EM account and buy it :|

As bad as the decision to release epics/upgrades was, I'd have to agree that the post-epic pvp was the most balanced this game ever was - everyone who wasn't in a guild that contended boss fights could buy their way into contention and the playing field was way more even instantly.

Then the giant stat inflation garbage came along and ruined the game.

And maybe that's just the critical distinction: It was the most-balanced under the assumption those involved in the PvP had them.

Which yes, if we leveled the playing field perfectly and curbed stat inflation, it naturally would be. It's that reason why temps weren't OP at launch and why the game in 2008 was in fact excellent-balanced; there were no stats to inflate blunt/str dhans with into insanity. It's why I also only chose to partake in the low-level PvP tournaments after the sale; the 6x fights were just better because things were more normalized and aligned with the core game.

The fact is that a bulk majority of the players didn't have them, and crafted accessories, powercreeped costume items, scrolls, pets, etc. giving so many extra stat points were the beginning of a lot of the problems. So while there was potential for massive upset in 2008 because of gear disparity, it was never really there as part of a paywall so much as people having the right guilds/friends/methods to acquire said gear to create the disparity, which isn't really a balance issue in it of itself, but rather how R:BF was based in its entirety. But that's an equally-early criticism of mine; the notion of weapons having aggregating socket numbers for stacking small, cheap bonuses sold at NPC's would have made gear easier to acquire, easier to max, and generally-speaking, have made the game easier to manage. If anything, this is a big failing in Origins: We're arguably going to be worse off than before, since the number of sockets doesn't seem to increase or enable stacking as I initially suspected.

P.S. Ohai stimpz

[sunnyangel]

Like I said confirmation bias. You still think just because you got away with it that it was balanced. You didnt have skills, nobody had skills it was a bunch of noobs getting punished with death at the slightest mistake. The real quality pvp happens when prime targets cant be killed in a few hits, its no longer about the math the numbers dont matter if you are an unskilled ape that doesnt know how to work together.

Was it fair from an economic standpoint? no and we did complain about it for years. Having said that I was there I can tell you I had the most fun fighting over ruler/bez before +18s came out.

[RememberMyName]

Hai ^^

I did say the most balanced, but it wasn't the most fun for me either - pre-epics was definitely more fun with different gear for everyone, and yeah people might have been blocked out of content (bosses) but that's the nature of an open pvp game.

[bloodybladez3]

THH you never actually played this game so I can chalk your thoughts up to just being a casual. I have been around the endgame pvp scene since the start and I can tell you that balance during the 08 days was just an illusion. You are a victim to confirmation bias which is when you think its fair because you managed to get away with it when in reality at the top tier that never happens. Templars with feathers that had a decent defender on their back did not die to anyone not within 30% of them gear wise. Dekans with 4x hearts were 1 hitting anyone who didnt have at least 19k hp and good luck killing a 1 vit per lvl priest with 4x amulets it wasnt gonna happen.


Getting that full buff empower dark eyes ctb people had 25k+ melee fighting ppl with at most 8k. Night and day difference and lol plz lvl 7s were always important again thats confirmation bias. You got away with having lvl 6s and you think that you would be able to get away with it in real pvp? plz



The epic-upg pre +18 days was THE BEST MOST BALANCED time in rohan. Ask anybody who was around at that time and they will tell you.

lmao, nobody in 08 or 09 was doing 19k FFS. I can show you a vid on xor of a 125k hp dekan doing 12k FFS. Who in 2008 or more 2009 over here could get 125k HP?

2008-2009, with all of its flaws, was the most balanced period. Ever.

[sunnyangel]

Hai ^^

I did say the most balanced, but it wasn't the most fun for me either - pre-epics was definitely more fun with different gear for everyone, and yeah people might have been blocked out of content (bosses) but that's the nature of an open pvp game.

I think having a unique weapon like having a 50% dd mace or dank +14 buff staff or having a nice collection of weaps like phi and his 5x melee 180 vit mace and the 5x melee 25 ish magic mace was the only thing from pre epic that I missed. That and mages having relevant dps in pvp.


@Bloodybladez: My numbers might be off but at the end of the day confirmation bias still fits. Balanced isnt because people could get away with having garbage gear with their imaginary "skillz".

[soulholder]

lmao, nobody in 08 or 09 was doing 19k FFS. I can show you a vid on xor of a 125k hp dekan doing 12k FFS. Who in 2008 or more 2009 over here could get 125k HP?

2008-2009, with all of its flaws, was the most balanced period. Ever.

The slight irony here being that vit dekan, aside from post-hero-patch pre-nerfed WFFS/DFFS, was probably at its strongest at this time given its relative health advantage via scaling gear. Even still, the build was kind of a pushover since it rarely truly one-shotted people, and so many people were running dhans with mana burn/silence/pouch to lock them out of combat and the old HP/MP switcheroo. And a lack of vit power creep kept them killable while not doing insane amounts of damage (coming close to 700 vit was insane).

Int Sage hit way harder with breath and was similarly-tanky given Blue Defense absorbing a ton of damage. But still, was pretty easy to lock down and out in bigger PvP environments.

It's really just the case that everything else was way more balanced in general and the game inherently more fun because of it. I think the only class that suffered was the dex scout, and that could have easily been improved by reducing its AoE cooldowns, for they already hit pretty hard when combined together.

Ultimately, though, I apparently have no idea what I'm talking about, despite being a major build contributor across most of the classes over the years, and being one of the most senior players in this game, because I decided being a nonfactor was a better decision in life than going all-in and hating myself and the communities I was part of.

@Strellan: Your "numbers" are off because you're not looking at the actual numbers from content that was around in exclusively 2008. 2009 was bad and I don't deny that. But that's also why I explicitly, like many others, reference 2008. You're assuming things existed back then that didn't, and those were heavy contributors to making the state of the game worse.
As far as "bad gear" and "skillz" goes: I don't even know what you're arguing... Honestly, now just laying claims about people being unskilled prior to epics with no reason is more supporting of you having an inherent confirmation bias than anything.

But whatever, it's pretty much apparent at this point you're not entirely sure how things went down in 2008.

[sunnyangel]

He said she said I was talking in general about lvl 99 like I said I played over 20 99 pservers as well as being around in 08. In all cases it ends the same people think its balanced but it wasnt and still isnt.

[RBNXD]

Ew a new Rohan selvel -_-
So how "gud" is it?
Or are they still scamming you people like always?
xD