While I agree with the direction the server is going in, I disagree with some of the methods it is using for applying these changes. In particular I will talk about MvP buffs/skills, specifically Lost Dragons Kaupe and Evil Land, which I'm told it now has. I did read this http://leika-ro.net/...-mvps-strength/ but wanted to make a new topic as a suggestion.
Bear in mind I am really posting this thread on behalf of a few quite a lot of players who have brought these changes to my attention, such as Hammer and Zandak among others. I didn't see a real suggestion to change this so I thought I would post it. I do feel that this is the opinion of quite a few players now but I'm told I'm known for being diplomatic so I thought I would represent these players by vocalizing this. Also feel free to correct any errors I have made, because I am going by what I'm told by those who surpass me in PvM endeavours so I don't necessarily have first hand experiences in the examples like fighting Lost Dragon.
The direction of the server:
The idea to make things more challenging, balance rangers back down to the level of other classes so that they can't solo things so easily, in effect prolonging the economy and reducing saturation of gears, is something I wholeheartedly agree with. I am on board.
The methodology of achieving this:
So far we have seen some instances where radical changes have been applied without prior public knowledge or discussion. Most recently Lost Dragon has been given skills which nobody imagined it would have, such as the linkers skill Kaupe, and it spams it quite alot from what I hear. We also had other changes such as Stonehard which took place in the sudden radical manner which thankfully is now removed from most MvPs that had it. To summarize, there are two parts of the recent mentality of server changes which I disagree with:
1: Lack of prior discussion or warning with the public about upcoming changes,
2: The degree of extremity and radical nature of these changes
My proposed solution:
Open discussions about changes that happen like these, prior to releasing them. This doesn't need to apply to every change to the server, but only the radical ones such as changing the skills of monsters and MvPs. The other thing to do would be to achieve a similar balance by changing MvPs in a different way, such as by changing their stats rather than skills. Remember Rangers are already getting hit fairly hard (arguably not hard enough yet, that's a different discussion, but still), so when changing MvPs you can change them universally, by increasing their HP (I hear this has happened already for some, which is a change I agree with). Changes in stats like this I wouldn't expect you to notify us of first tbh.
My suggestion is not to squarely prevent any new skills added to MvPs or monsters atall, but it is to give us a chance to discuss these changes first. The main reason for this, and this is a very big and important reason imo, is there should be a very real discussion on whether these changes will make the server feel too "custom". I understand things need to be changed and different from official in order to balance; like I said I agree with the direction the server is going in. But the changes that are too radical at least warrants some discussion with the public first. At the moment, I wouldn't say Lost Dragon encourages teamwork, as much as it completely changes the strategy of attacking it. I believe there are better ways to encourage teamwork, without changing the meta of the game to the point where it arguably feels so "custom" that you are constantly aware that this is nothing like the Ragnarok you know, compared to previous renewal servers (that were actually decent) let alone official servers.
Applying radical changes without any warning or discussion, could in rare cases hurt the economy, but more than this, could hurt the player experience, for example if people bought Mora gear for 20 coins, they would probably be disappointed now. "Test driving on the public" is going to be inevitable to a certain extent, but it can be minimized by considering some different opinions prior to applying changes.