State of the Game Part 1: Zeny vs. Mats Farm

Suggestions
1

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: Anon (Flarum #833)

Zeny vs Mats Farm

Endgame for most users (pre-minmax enchants) is becoming too stale as a lot of players are just Zeny farming in Geffenia, waiting to buy the game’s most desirable materials, equipment (and MVP cards). Although I do understand that Zeny is important to the economy, there seems to be a strong mentality of ‘why should I farm x materials when I can just buy them off with the money I farmed from Geffenia as it less time consuming to do so.’ The same kind of mentality is being passed down to newer players, which in a sense is quite reasonable as it saves a newbie from experiencing long tedious grinds.

Now I do understand the sentiments that the game should not be rushed and could be enjoyed through grinding. There are players (especially those who play solo and/or play the game for nostalgia purposes) who enjoy the grind and the satisfaction of personally farming your own gear. Though as a practical and sensible person, I honestly question the need to farm materials when others can do it for me, and I can buy them even at an absurd 150% market value considering that the ratio of Zeny to time I spent at Geffenia over farming materials at Dungeon X/Y/Z is 1:3 (not accurate, but you get what I mean).

Take Gray Wolf Armor for example. Gray Wolf Armor with full enchants costs around 450 ~Amethyst Fragments~(previously 5500 I think). When I was starting out, I could easily one-shot mobs found in Oz_dun02. With that said, average Amethyst Fragments I would earn with 30mins bubblegum would range from 350-500. Time being put into the equation, one person would need to farm said dungeon for 8-10 hours, depending on how lucky they are with the amount fragments they receive. Based on experience, raw zeny you would get ranges from 10-15m per BBG alongside 200+ ores.

Farming Geffenia as a starter with Biolo, I would earn around a realistic 35-40m per BBG with factors, such as number of players farming in the same map and which map you’re currently farming, taken into account.

A visual is provided below containing the figures between the farming methods. Take note that the Biolo farming here would be a starter. Do take note that as a starter, it is almost impossible to one-shot an Inucbus (this is our ceiling as killing Abysmal Knights actually do result in diminishing returns) without a transformation scroll and/or The One potion and possibly even without the help of a Red Herb Activator.

As stated, the Biolo farmer that earns 35-40m is only a starter one. I personally could farm 70-80+m per BBG with my gear (will not state for obvious reasons). I also have personally farmed 1.5B in less than 12 hours which is quite crazy considering the best armors in game that are +12A are near that value. As the Biolo farming method scales, the mats farming does not. Do also take note that this applies to multiple dungeons with mats that are valuable to game progression such as Nif_Dun02, CBD and JorDun.

And with this, I ask, why do I need to farm mats when I can literally buy them even at overpriced amounts?

With everything said, I would like to propose some solutions to combat Geffenia farming:

  1. Decrease droprate in Geffenia / remove raw zeny in Geffenia / Remove droprate effect in Geffenia
  2. Increase droprate in valuable mats map such as OzDun, Jordun (excluding CBD because mat prices here are very volatile)
  3. Incentivize doing dailies and events better
  4. Dilute farmers in maps through improvement of Happy Hours
  5. Nerf Doping

I did not specify my take on the proposed solutions as I’m currently farming Geffenia.

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Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: frost (Flarum #834)

just nerf doping this skill for farming is just bullshit

3

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: CongaLyne (Flarum #748)

I think Illusion doping builds definitely have had a big impact on zeny/hr on Geffenia.
I remember in previous versions of RO, you’d only be able to get 30m/hr at best, then it turned into 50m/hr, now you can get 100m+/hr at Gef with the right illusion doping setup.

It’s doesn’t make sense to farm a different dungeon than gef for mats you can sell, if you can get the same zeny at geffenia but without waiting for the middle man of someone buying your items.
I don’t think it’s healthy for Geffenia to make more zeny/hr than player-tradable farming methods since it invites a lot of inflation to the value of zeny if everyone’s farming raw zeny but not burning it anywhere in items shops..

Theoretically the price of items should even out to always be better than gef, but from what I can see on my own, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

4

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: Sagii (Flarum #369)

freedom where?

5

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: yami (Flarum #828)

I did not specify my take on the proposed solutions as I’m currently farming Geffenia.

???

6

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: jinbou (Flarum #618)

First of all I’ll say that, if the zeny/hour of geffenia mentioned in discussions/guides are correct, then I don’t believe the zeny/hour there is that OP, some other maps have better ceiling. That’s why I don’t believe this is as big of a problem as people are making it out to be.

Despite that, there are 2 reasons for why the geffenia may still be considered problematic:

  • It’s likely true that geffenia causes inflation due to how the entirety of the income there is “raw zeny”, as opposed to other farm maps where the majority of the income is from other materials. And due to its ease-of-access. I assume high inflation is not something that is good for the server.
  • Generally in game design, doing more challenging tasks tend to be more rewarding, for a good reason. It doesn’t make much sense how one of the easiest maps in the entire game that is just a remnant from pre-renewal times is one of the best places to farm, better than most of the newer maps that require way more effort to farm.

With that said, I think making custom nerfs to illusion doping would be unfair, and is not a good solution. I don’t like that idea even though I personally hate that skill. Specifically nerfing only geffenia mobs is also not a very good solution imo.

If GMs consider the current state of geffenia a problem, then a better way to go about it would be to simply tweak the formula of zeny dropped from the monsters. Currently this feature probably gives more zeny than they intended there since biolos one-shot an entire screen of mobs every second. Since this is a custom feature specific to MuhRO, GMs have every right to modify it as they see necessary anyway.

IIRC the zeny-per-mob formula already scales based on monster level. It could be slightly tweaked so that it gives less zeny for very low level monsters, but goes back to the current values after around lvl120 or 130-ish.

(Geffenia mobs are between lvl100~120, old thanatos mobs are around lvl120~130 , and all the other important mobs that people tend to farm have way higher levels)

7

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: MadMonkey (Flarum #165)

@jinbou I think making custom nerfs to illusion doping would be unfair, and is not a good solution

I think reducing its ridiculous AoE to something more contained (let’s say 13x13) could very well help.

Aside of that, I’m not too sure of what exactly would be a good solution.
This is RO, give the players an option to finance their gearing/whatever else and of course they gonna capitalize on it.

8

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: jinbou (Flarum #618)

@MadMonkey That would straight up make that skill completely useless, both in geffenia and outside of it.

With what I suggested I’m hoping geffenia farm with doping would remain as a viable strat, it’d just be a slight nerf to the zeny/hour, making the strat less bonkers. And it wouldn’t hurt doping’s utility outside of geffenia, which is no longer a problem thanks to the recent change to how @noks works.

Also I’m not a fan of major custom changes to class skills anyway.

9

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: MadMonkey (Flarum #165)

@jinbou The way I see it, it’s a niche (PvP?) debuff and was never meant as a farming tool.
It likely wasn’t intended as a viable skill for easy mass kills in any capacity.
So I got no prob with killing it altogether.

It’s not like Biolos ever needed it to be efficient farmers.

@jinbou I’m not a fan of major custom changes to class skills

I somewhat agree, except when we’re talking about balancing.
Leaving Doping as is is enabling bullshit strats.
The server doesn’t need anymore way to generate zenys than there is already.

10

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: EvilLumi (Flarum #372)

I’m glad we’re having this discussion, but this wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t nerf all the other areas of the game that used to be more profitable. If you want people to farm in different locations, make them more appealing, instead of killing off a choice a player has made on their own, to benefit from what systems are available.

If Geffenia nets 100m per hour, then make all those other places more enticing. Problem solved. I really don’t see a reason why we punished new players by nerfing illusion drops. That was someone’s grand idea, and it caused this. You pushed people in this direction.

11

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: toadspaz (Flarum #762)

Going by iro wiki and other material like that isnt illusion dopping supposed to be melee? Being able to cast on this server from far away is what breaks it for farming

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Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: frost (Flarum #834)

@toadspaz cast target is melee, but the skill stills hits the whole screen

13

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: toadspaz (Flarum #762)

@frost nvm it is ranged on kro

14

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: brozenwall (Flarum #614)

This problem is created by combination of varios custom stuff that the server have.

  • Zeny from Mobs
  • Easy access to Warp to Dungeons
  • Autoloot

I don’t think that Warper or Autoloot should be touched. If the problem is the zeny from mobs and since is a custom stuff from the server it should be adjusted based on what the server needs.

Zeny from mobs can be disable on Geffenia maps and buff on high end maps that way people will move to those maps. That way more endgame mats will be available and still be a source of zeny.

15

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: Sagii (Flarum #369)

zeny per mob alr scales with mob lv tho

16

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: dadalin212 (Flarum #801)

Well, on one hand we have unlimited cheap Eden vend machine items (bbg/scroll/pots) and on the other a 8.5m soft cap on bsb which is directly linked to heirloom/mat farming, it doesn’t take a scientist to see why players have been transitioning to doping since it’s more profitable, less hassle, less restrictive, and only require minimal investment in gears. If the server intend to keep the price of bsb low, then a nerf to this type of raw zeny farming is unavoidable. While I don’t main a biolo, I’m not a fan of nerfing a official skill’s mechanics, so my suggestion is to adjust the prices of Eden vend machine items to make raw zeny farming less profitable. Bbg at 30 coins and buff scroll/pots at 3 coins are way too generous when Eden coins are easy to earn and the items can still be used in endgame content. While doing this would also cause the price of bb and other items to rise as ppl are force to choose between doing more Eden quests or purchase Muh voucher/coins to buy buff items from the donation shop, but the market would readjust itself similarly to how we’re experiencing a price spike for most items due to the recent increase of doping farmers. And if that’s not enough to detract ppl from raw zeny farming in Geffenia, reduce the mob count or increase the respawn time are simple and less disruptive options to consider.

After submitting the above response another idea came to mind.

Why not simply reduce the drop rate of alcohol from red lantern? Afaik the server’s bonus drop rate also applies to item dropping card/gears giving biolos near unlimited amount of alcohols to spam the skill in Geffenia. Take that away then ppl will have to think twice when considering to farm there.

17

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: netheril_ (Flarum #836)

The whole problem is just how the server is, a kinda low population, private server, the market is not “sensible”, there is just not enough population to establish a healthy market. Also, item progression is kinda just in a weird state, guess due to the mid rate nature of the server, so there’s no point in investing at wolf gear or ice gear for example. So most people just farm raw zeny and rush to endgame items. Also:
(copying from my discord comment) “Sadly right now, Gefenia doping is the only reliable way for new players to get established on the server. Before the guide, it wasn’t even that popular. On top of that, nerfing it now would create a divide between low geared players and long time players. I also dislike the fact that 15 years later, we are still farming gefenia for raw zeny, just with different methods, but nerfing it right now would create more problems instead of solving the main one.”
There is just no incentive to farm good places like Bioshperes, because you will need to sell the mats, which you probably won’t be able to, since the market is saturated with good, cheap gear, which people can’t sell.
Therefore as a new player, farming raw zeny is the best. Nerfing raw zeny farming would result in a progression where players would need to do everything themselves, and the game’s current itemization (like depth 2) is not designed for that.

18

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: EvilLumi (Flarum #372)

@dadalin212 Everything you typed only hurts new players.

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Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: EvilLumi (Flarum #372)

@netheril_ New players can’t farm geffenia, until they properly gear for geffenia. These are not new players. New players are the ones farming geffenia using mayhemic thorns. (in regards to the qoute)

20

Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: netheril_ (Flarum #836)

@EvilLumi You are wrong, because i was new 2 months ago, and doping was exactly what i was doing to get 50-60 mil an hour. I may had to fire 2 illusion dopings to kill everything, but it worked and gave me a headstart to purchase gear, that enabled me to farm better places like biosphere. I was also buying alcohol from paramk.