Following changes have been made:
- ASPD formula reverted to pre-Renewal. kRO is the only server using the formula that was previously in place, all other servers use a modified version of the pre-Renewal ASPD formula. While not correct, it puts us closer to iRO, which is our current target for parity.
- XP penality for killing monsters below your character's level removed. The penalty for killing monsters way over your level (+15 or more) is still in place. This effectively "unnerfs" mobbing levelling builds while still giving incentives to kill monsters within your range. Leech levelling is still heavily penalized.
The latter change I can sort of see where kRO was going with this. They wanted to stop high level players from mobbing low level areas and farming all the monsters and preventing low level players from using them, while at the same time giving low level players a bit of the action when it comes to the economy. Same with the drop penalty, although no server other than kRO implements it. But at the same it artifically makes the game slower and longer to play. Agi/mobbing builds were some of the fastest levellers in the game, same with leeching off of super high level creatures. I kept the leech penalty in because the early levels are already effectively trivialized as it is, and I liked the fact by having the leech penalty it encourages you to spread out more for levelling rather than just sitting in the same two maps until 99 (I'm looking at you Sphinx).
The XP penalty against mobbing just makes the game unfun tho, not as much because it slows the game down XP wise, but it gets expensive. On my knight, in order to mob things effectively in my "level range", I was barely breaking even on potion costs. One bad run, one mess up, and I lost money. I was literally broke so I figured I'd go mob skeleton workers or something else I didn't need to pot through. When I saw I was only getting 200 xp a kill, that was kind of absurd. I'm already getting penalized for a non-efficient monster via the levelling bonus. I'd be 99 already had I had the funds to continue mobbing what I was, but since I was broke my game came to a screeching halt until I could get the funds again.
The ASPD nerf, that was purely for cash shop reasons. kRO has not one, not two, but
three consumable +% ASPD items in the cash shop, along with +% ASPD gear, and conveniently they all stack. This was purely to promote cash shop sales by heavily heavily nerfing autoattack damage. No other server implements it, which should give you a good idea how "good" of an idea it is.
Basically, both concepts were simply
unfun and I removed them. As much as I'd like parity with kRO, tbh there is no "gold" standard for official RO. All the servers do things differently, and the "gold standard", kRO, is effectively a private server anyways since you need a KSSN to play. jRO, the biggest RO server still running, does things drastically different than kRO. iRO, the "official" international server, is closer to kRO but still has made some changes. Then there are servers like the Philippines or Indonesia server that puts in crazy stuff like drop items on death to artifically make the game hard. So to try to chase parity with kRO makes as much sense as chasing parity with iRO or jRO or whatever. AKA I'm just going to go with whatever's the most fun, and if there are renewal mechanics that aren't fun I'm not against removing them or modifying them.
Now when I say "Fun" I mean in the sense of things added in as artifical time sinks, not difficulty. I like hard stuff, I don't like repetitive annoying just for the sake of pedaling cash shop stuff. Things like bowling bash builds are not click to win builds. There's still skill involved. There is no skill involved in buying ASPD candy with mommy's credit card, or using ygg leaves on Anubises all day :b