In Discussion Content Rose Garden Nerf/Adjustments

This makes more sense given I had no context of the value of the Totem's value.

That being said I would push that there is a lot of consideration outside the theoretical perfect play. I've seen players who are tired of Reuel's gameplay and to even have a daily they can login and do. Even if the value isn't optimal that at least varies things up a little and could be a win. I admit I'm grasping at straws here, but to have a brainless character that I can go on a half-hiatus and just vote and RG and come back with way more HP than when I started does have a small appeal.

As for my other straw I'm grasping for.... APRs are in super high demand that they are climbing higher and if the pots were boosted in some capacity.

Or to throw a curveball out there....imagine if they were tradable xD

 

I do think the vials should give more hp, espescially considering the high level requirement of this content. And correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't Totems estimated to be worth about 700-800k? Thus this change still results in about 20-30% less income than before.

Factoring in the cost of attack pots and melting cheeses, I could probably make a similar amount or more per hour simply by farming Gold teeth at miner zombies, an activity with a far lower level and power requirement relative to RG.

 

I have not commented on this thread before, even tho I read it almost entirely.
Opinions about the problems that rose garden was carrying were brought to surface at the very early stages of this thread so I did not see the necessity of adding more salt to an open wound, and figured it would only be a matter of time until we get the changes, that turned out to come much later then I expected, indeed very long overdue, BUT the staff delivered very well.
While I think the changes are absolutely amazing on surface, from top to bottom, I will use this opportunity to add my opinion, looking at both sides of the coins for each change:

1. a new and very viable source of totems income to ease the process for VL belt grinders - big problem solved, this also has a downside, it does devalue alot of the hard work of players who grinded and finisehd their vl belt before this change because the only viable way to get totems before was LHC parties which are way more tedious and time consuming, from setting the party and the use of potions and attack potions, but considering the positives this change brings for the majority of the players, better later then never.

2. remove pure mesos as an option AND instead give items via LHC gacha system, which will in turn(hopefully with time) balance market prices for all the items that the LHC gachapon offers, WS/CS Totems BWG and more - beautiful, stop the production of liquid AND supply the market with popular valuable items to eventually balance the market.

3. easier to get ifias ring by buffing the drop rate and decreasing it's price in the exchange, while also giving a much cheaper CS for specifically the ring which in result will make it cheaper, easier and faster to get a decent or very good ring - this has the same downside I was talking about in point one, I personally think the buffs to the ring are a little bit on the too much side, but as someone that was trying to get a good ring for along time I can not complain, I am very biased as I am sure many of us are, it certainly needed a buff the only question for me is, was it too much? maybe buffing the drop rate and adding a cheaper CS as an easier way to scroll without decreasing the ring box price, would have been enough, that's my two cents about this one.

4. adding another way to incrase hp/mp is amazing, especially the MP part because that was not available anywhere in the game, mages that already got to 200 and do not have more AP will be able to now slowly but surely get to their goals without burning obscene amounts of mesos - while this is a great addition and idea overall, I would have liked it to be a little more rewarding, either decrease level requirement for rose garden or buff it to 2hp/mp per bee, while it's an extra new way to increase HP/MP that was not there before and we should welcome it, which I do, I still can't help it and compare it to reuel, from there you can get an average of 35hp for an investment of about 30 minutes, which is much higher ratio then 20 hp for 40 minutes + level reuirement of 170 + attack potions spent in each and every RG by the majority of players, especially by those that are on the grind to getting their hp/mp goals, bottom line, genius move, that helps fix some problems that were probably not even talked about in this thread, all it needs in my opinions is adjustments.

5. small point to most but annoying to some - why were the attack potions removed as an exchange? I think most believed it was priced well and was a fair way to farm a gelt alternative to those that do not cwk, all I can think of is that the staff wanted there to be less exchange options in order to keep it more focused on totems/ifia ring? even then, for me that change is abit odd considering it was the only viable ish alternative to farming gelts.

Spoiler: A good idea solves multiple issues at once and that is what we got here - click for off topic

Another great idea that solved multiple problems at once, off topic but ill mention it to give some extra credit where its due, the changes to toad, 2 bands meaning band loot can be split hence more interest of parties duoing or trioing, double the guaranteed nx to 10k, staff 5-8 and sky skis which is great incentive to increase the pupolarity and on top of all that, balance sky ski market prices(hopefully with time).

Long overdue it's true, but all I can do is focus on what we got right now, appreciate it and admit that the changes are generally fantastic.

 

Pretty sure most people thought the apples were absurdly overpriced and pretty much never worth buying, especially considering the price of demon elixirs/vl pots.

I believe staff said in shoutbox that they were removed with the intent to add them to some other future content.

 

Alright, so I tested running Rose Garden on a Lvl 178 Drk vs farming Gold Teeth for 40 minutes on an I/L mage. The results may surprise you.

Spoiler

Rose Garden (Lvl 178 Drk)
Gains: 19 bees, 1k nx, 23 totems, 5 burning energy, and 1,010,556 in pure meso from monster drops + NPCing rose earrings.
Despite my best efforts, I was only able to capture 19 bees (my pb so far) despite Appling for KCG and spamming stoppers for the last 7 minutes. I also got a throwaway Ifia’s ring (0/1/2/2), yay.
19 bees @ 5 totems per bee = 95 totems, so 117 totems total.
According to this thread by Noobgamer97, the average value per totem from a 2575 totem run ending up being around ~815k. Let's assume that we're slightly less lucky than him and we get 800k per totem.
117 * 800,000 = 93,600,000
1k nx (at the rate of 11m per ap reset) would be equivalent to 3,548,387.
Total gains: 93,600,000 + 3,548,387 + 1,010,556 = 98,158,943

Expenses: 12 Heartstoppers, 1 Onyx apple, 1 Energizer, 986 melting cheeses, 37 sorcerer elixirs, and 19 bug catching nets (lol)
12 stoppers = 12*400k = 4.8m
1 apple = 8.5m
1 energizer = 1m
986 melting cheeses * 4500 = 4.437m
37 sorcerer elixirs * 1500 = 55.5k
19 bug catching nets * 30k = 570k
Total expenses: 19,362,500

98,158,943 - 19,362,500 = 78,796,443 total profit in 40 minutes.
Assuming I have multiple 170+ characters that could achieve a similar result (which I don't) this would amount to 118,194,665 mesos per hour. Pre-nerf this would have been 147,894,665. Ok, let's go farm some gold teeth now!

Dead Mine II (Lvl 121 I/L mage)
Gains: In 40 minutes, I managed to farm 23 gold teeth, 8 steel ores, 3 dex crystal ores, and 925 orbis etc. I also gained 783,243 in meso drops, and 6,520,741 from NPCing equipment drops.
23 gold teeth * 2.5m = 57.5m
8 steel ores * 300k = 2.4m
3 dex crystal ore * 800k = 2.4m
925 orbis etc * 3500 = 3,237,500
Total gains: 57.5m + 2.4m + 2.4m + 3,237,500 + 800,183 + 6,503,801 = 72,841,484

Expenses: Pot usage was 9 unagis and 17 sorcerer elixirs (compare that to Rose Garden's expenses lol). I also used 4 speed pills. (9*1100) + (17*1500) + (4*500) = 37,400.
I guess I could factor in the cost of a TP rock, but I didn't count that for Rose Garden either. Also, I can use a Bishop mule to door me to and from El Nath.

Total profit: 72,841,484 - 35,400 = 72,806,084 in 40 minutes, or 109,209,126 mesos per hour.

Tl/dr: Running Rose Garden results in a ~6.84% increase in meso income compared to farming gold teeth. Pre-nerf this would have been around 35.42%.

A surpsing result, considering that one can easily farm gold teeth at a significantly lower level than required to access Rose Garden, and without needing to complete a lengthy prequest to do so. My mage was lvl 121 but all I really needed was enough points in Ice Strike to 1-shot Miner Zombies and lvl 11 Booster, attainable by ~lvl 80, less than half the level requirement of RG. Additionally, one can continue farming Miner Zombies indefinitely, unlike RG where you’re limited to 40 minutes each day per Lvl 170+ character.

Maybe the result could have been better for RG if I had a stronger/more funded character, but again, that requires even more investment. Also, RNG certainly plays a role in the outcome so I may need to test this again a few more times to average out the results.

 

Funding (and class, but I've heard DK is very good for RG) makes a HUGE difference in RG. My pally can usually cap bees with ~5 mins left on gizer, for example. That's 4m more from bees than you got, 5min faster, and ~13m less in expenses, which significantly increases the meso/hr from your results. Note that levels will still do a lot for you too, you're still missing almost 10% of your total str from levels.

My bishop usually caps with ~10 minutes left (gizer again), for even more profit/hr.

As for RNG, pre-change it was guaranteed 1k and 50% chance at 5k, and ~25 totems from boss which I doubt has changed, so you are missing out on 2.5k nx and 2 totems in your results. Other boss drops (earrings, ring 30%s) are rare enough I wouldn't bother - ring 30%s seem to be ~1% drop chance each (at 10m/ea that's... 100k/run. Yay.), and earring ~2% (slightly better, maybe as high as 1m/run. Still not great.)

 

Yes, but I am speaking from the perspective of someone who does not have multiple high-level funded characters to farm RG with. Just because there are players out there that can easily cap bees before the time limit does not invalidate the experience of those who do not, or can not do so. And yes, RNG does play a role in the results as one run I've gotten 19 bees/6k nx with 10 minutes remaining, while in my most recent run I only managed 18 bees/1k nx despite using an apple + 11 stoppers. However, even if I finished before the time limit this does not necessarily increase my earnings/hr as that requires having additional 170+ characters to run RG with, and reaching that stage of the game requires significantly more investment than something like gold tooth farming or selling low-level leech. My point is that RG is indeed better than those options, but not significantly better, especially considering the difference in terms of investment required. The fact that I am playing a class considered one of the stronger ones for RG further demonstrates that RG is not quite the 'ez meso factory' for everybody that some have portrayed it as. Also, changing the reward from a static meso amount to gachapon tickets further increases the dependence on RNG, which is why I wish that there were better/more stable alternative rewards available.

 

A monthly income of 3b isn't a game-changer for anyone, really. Particularly because you dedicate effort and time to it, similar to a job. (Eg. Leech) The core issue lied with players exploiting multiple characters. If we could revert the change and enforce a one-character limit per day, perhaps by linking accounts and treating those who bypass this rule like vote abusers/real-world traders, then maybe we could address the problem. Otherwise, the content remains dead for me, personally. Spending 40 minutes on content that relies entirely on RNG, is challenging, and simply isn't enjoyable is not my idea of fun. Running the same dungeon solo for that long in an online game feels more like torture. Yet, players opted to run it on multiple characters because the rewards were too good to pass up. While it's their issue for having excessive time and characters, it's been affecting the entire community—especially new players, single-character players, and the economy.

 

Even if one player gets 3b per month, 500 players will inject 1500b per month, or 50b per day into the game. It’s a lesson that pure meso reward should never be a thing and I also feel bad that this change came so late. I’m just glad it’s finally implemented

 

All of this income will eventually be taxed by either the seller or the buyer. RG was a disaster when people were exploiting multiple characters because the 50 billion a day you mentioned could easily double, triple, quadruple, or even more. Now, we have no source of income at all. Why are we improving our gear if not to run content? How long are we going to run HT for? Besides RG, the rest of the content we have is very toxic because people are soloing it with mules. The majority of players who run NT solo it, and some even solo Auf in the current state. APQ can also generate around 50 billion a day, but apples are taxed upon selling. If you revert the changes and tax 3% upon selling the powders, it is no different than APQ. But what do gear upgrades give us then? To show off our damage at APQ? To kill HT slightly faster? Not all of us are lucky enough or well-connected to find successful VL parties. So now single or new players are screwed, after RG gave them the slight hope of making some progress. Once again, 3 billion a month is not game-changing. Multi-mage farming also generates an excessive, toxic and pure amount of mesos. Why aren't we addressing this? It will soon become the norm. Kenny, your example of 500 players generating 50 billion a day is no different than a city of 500 people generating X amount of money per day. You need to find the sweet spot but also give them something. There are many ways to combat this: you can accept inflation, increase potion prices, lower elixir and power elixir drop rates to combat multi-mages, and increase their prices. You can tax RG income, even if it means taxing it twice (once for powders, and once for buying whatever with coins).
The next step is to create new content that appeals to the entire community, ideally content that is more social and encourages teamwork without any possibility of using mules. I believe that without opportunities for the rest of the community to generate income, the game is essentially stalled, allowing only the elites to make progress, and enjoying the game seems out of reach.
I gotta say, looking at things now after being here for two years, I get why GMS ended up like this. It's just that they took it too far.

 

You'd probably do what everyone did before RG was released (yes, a lot of it was HT/auf/APQ), or still RG and just deal with getting items instead of pure meso.

APQ generates apples, not mesos. That's a very important difference because even though for an individual player it might not matter, it has significant implications for inflation in the game as a whole. No matter how many apples APQ gives, it can't cause inflation and will only ruin the apple market (which we saw during the bugged drop rates) (and linked markets like stoppers/gizers/peppermints)

Significantly fewer people mage farm than RG. Even before RG not that many people mage farmed, so I doubt the amount will increase too much with this change. Yes, it generates a lot of pure meso which isn't always ideal but also a lot fewer people do it so less total meso is generated from it than RG.

Cities do not generate money. Governments can print money but that can lead to issues if they print too much. Cities can generate value but usually not pure money. Also, game economies work very differently than irl economies, so comparisons can be flawed.

Accepting inflation is not a good solution. It was quite plainly out of control and just getting worse every day. Your other proposed meso sinks wouldn't do much.

This also wouldn't do much, just decrease the inflation by a tiny bit. No real difference between this and changing bee cap to 19 or something - it's still generating pure meso, just at a different rate. Taxes work on trades because trades don't generate meso, so they actually end up removing meso from the game.

This of course would always be welcome. We've got some content in this vein in the game already but yes more!!!

LHC runs are a great example of this. Horntail is also pretty solid at this. Yes you usually do bring some mules but it's still often 4-5 actual people running together.
Von Leon of course is also social non-muled content although it's a bit more endgame so not accessible to everyone.

 

Sylafia, it seems we're not on the same page when it comes to our approach to the game. While you've reached elite status, capping weekly VL across all your characters, others, like myself, haven't achieved as much and find it difficult to do so. The limited options available often rely heavily on challenging, time-consuming, and RNG-based tasks. Recently, a guildmate quit due to the RG nerf, feeling that the main content driving their daily play was removed, leaving only RNG-based activities. Another guild member mentioned spending 8 hours collecting totems only to end up empty-handed, highlighting the frustration of relying on luck. Previously, investing time in RG yielded rewards, but now, with its nerf, it feels like we're back to playing a game of chance. I disagree with the notion that pure mesos are inherently toxic; rather, it's the current abundance of pure mesos that may pose an issue, especially for those who run multiple characters. The emerging meta of multi-mage farming for mesos further exacerbates this situation. As for the difference between mesos and apples, while APQ offers a source of income for players below level 170, holding a stack of apples guarantees pure mesos once sold, albeit with a 3% tax deduction.

 

What exactly are you arguing here?
If you disagree with the notion that pure mesos are inherently toxic, yet consider multi-mage farming (which for the record is not "emerging meta") for mesos to be exacerbating this situation (presumably, the rampant inflation), are you proposing that we remove meso injection or not?
Further, every content in Royals involves RNG based rewards system, and the notion that removing this element from a single content will lead to mass quitting is just flagrant alarmism and blackmail on false premises.

This sentence doesn't parse. Are you saying rewarding content should be available to lower level players (if so, that exists)? Or that content should offer pure mesos as a reward (if so, APQ does not apply here)? Or that rewards should not be based on RNG (likewise).

 

To be honest with this, the RG was wasted, as with the mesos limit and the low appearance of the bees it feels like a waste of time. It is much better to do APQ than to do RG

 

Exactly this. What is the use of continuing to level and gear up my Drk when I find there is now little use for it outside of maybe running CWK (especially considering the exorbitant price of our end game weapon and high pot costs relative to other classes). The nerf to this content makes it feel that certain classes such as mine feel almost useless in the endgame, especially when it comes to income generation.

While I don't agree that we should go back to pure mesos as a reward, I think that perhaps adjusting the ratio to 1 bee = 6 totems and introducing new rewards with a more stable trading value would still keep it balanced and prevent certain classes from feeling useless in the end game. The beauty of RG was that it provided a stable source of income for many players who previously had few options for generating income. Now it seems that we're back to square one, with the farming/leeching/Magestory meta again in full swing.

I also agree that this change seems to be made with the already established 'elite' players in mind, as opposed to the less established who simply needed a stable source of income to fund their characters.

Some content relies more heavily on RNG than others. For example, mage farming and selling leech result in a relatively stable income compared to activities such as gaching, bossing, and (god forbid) scrolling.

And yes, this change does make me considering quitting my Drk and focus on making more mages (yay), something that I wanted to avoid doing.

 

I'm not advocating for anything. Apples represent mesos, and so do your items. Your character's worth is measured in mesos. Therefore, the concept of "pure mesos" doesn't exist. I'm not opposed to meso injection per se, but rather excessive and exploited practices. I support moderation and equal opportunities for everyone, in moderation. If we eliminate RG for this reason, why is multi mage still an option, yielding about three times the meso income? I see more mages being leeched, why do you think that is? I fail to comprehend how you can accuse me of blackmailing and being an alarmist. This is precisely the kind of behavior you'd anticipate from someone attempting to silence you because it doesn't benefit them or contradicts their agenda.

 

Players saying that this change benefits 'elite' players is just wrong. I'd argue its actually the opposite. Just think about it, pre-nerf, how many characters are these newer players doing RG on? 1-2? And they would prob have to take more time to cap bees on top of that, sometimes not even hitting cap.

Now, compare that to the 'elite' players who do like 10x RG because they have so many characters, and they take way lesser time per RG session because of how easily they can cap bees.

Change is 100% good and in the right direction for a healthier economy but due to how late it is, it really sucks for newer players, so i feel for you guys. Most of the market prices of gears have been inflated thanks to RG and now with the removal of RG, newer players are left in an inflated market without RG as a source of income.

If you are still not convinced that this change is needed and is actually helping new players instead, then look, perf sky ski is now selling for what, 45~50b? Before RG came out, they used to be 25~28b man, if rg was left unchecked for maybe another year, they prob would go up to 80b not even kidding. Which new player is gonna be able to afford a 80b item then?

 

thats over twice the cheese im using in a run on my dk, are you standing on the boss through the whole boss or something?

 

It wasn't solely RG. APQ also had absurdly generous drop rates, alongside dickdann educating the entire server on multi-mage farming.

 

I think the crux of the argument is that while elite players are losing their ability to run their 5+ RG a day which is certainly a hit for them since they clear so fast with their gear, those elite players have significantly more fallback options to make meso with the amount of strong attackers/characters they have available (mage farm, selling leech, NT boss/auf solo) whereas the less advanced player who didn't have multiple characters to clear RG with (or multiple characters at all) anyway is now forced to either play the roulette of getting into competent parties for APQ/CWK/bosses (and also hoping the boss is wet) for their income or the RG totem roulette, which feels terrible. RG was the only stable source of income for those players, especially because aside from APQ, it's not that easy to get accepted into boss parties as a newer player, especially if you play a class that isn't highly desired or is often muled in boss parties.

I've heard all the arguments about how painful some of those options can be, (leech can be inconsistent, boss solos are a chore to multiclient, and mage farming is soul sucking) but at the end of the day almost every elite player has at least one of those options as viable fallbacks, whereas newer players do not, and now don't have a clear pathway to get characters ready to do those options either. Mage farm in particular I think is the one that rubs people the wrong way, as it does the very thing that RG was condemned for, with the main arguments that it's okay being that "not that many people do it" (which can change very quickly and is relatively anecdotal unless proven otherwise by admins with clear numbers) "it's soul sucking" (which is very subjective) and "it has high barrier of entry" which I don't think is necessarily true either. Regardless, I don't want to make this another debate about mage farming, so I'll move on.

The biggest disconnect I feel like I see when less experienced players give feedback and elite players respond is how much they underestimate the difficulty of getting mules/multiple characters up to speed when you have very little consistent income. Even specifically in this thread I've seen it thrown around that getting characters RG ready is low investment, which to me couldn't be further from the truth as a new player. Stuff like Goby/Zak/CPQ/Skele/w/e leech is not cheap for new players, and that doesn't even start to factor in weapon/cgs/washing costs/attack pots to get a reasonable amount of bees, which is then even further exacerbated if you made a class that isn't high tier in RG. Sure you don't have to leech a second character, and sure once you get to a certain level you can LHC for some fast levels, but training/questing/pqing multiple characters up to LHC is not a fast process, and LHC also assumes you make a class that gets accepted into LHC parties, and a lot of them expect you to 6 apple over the hour which isn't always cheap for newer players either. You can 100% make the argument that it's their own fault for not making a bishop or mage first to sell leech/self leech/farm to have a stable source of income, or even just make the argument that this late into the server's lifespan that players are expected to invest in multiple characters for a while if they want to have stable income, but I personally feel like that just isn't a very appealing way to play for the majority of players that seek out this server, which is a big reason losing RG/RG getting changed hurts so much.

With all that being said, I 100% agree that the server as a whole is better off with the recent changes to the RG rewards since the negative effect that the meso printing had on the economy has been clear, even for a less engaged player like myself. I think the main concerns that me and a lot of the other players who don't have great fallback options have is that the current state of RG has made it heavily RNG dependent as an income source, a lot of the newer rewards are more endgame focused and not particularly helpful to them, and STILL no concessions have been made for the weaker players who were already at the mercy of bee RNG, but also have to deal with totem gach RNG as well now. All of this is on top of what lxlx stated above about how newer players now don't have consistent RG income anymore, AND have to deal with the inflated market that old RG left behind.

The biggest offender to me ever since the amount of bees you could catch became capped was the time limit. The elite players who cycle 5+ RG runs a day were the biggest problems when it came to injecting meso, and from what I understand the timer is almost never a factor when it comes to their ability to cap on bees, which is why I was confused as to why a 5 to 10 minute increase of the maximum time you could be in RG was not implemented to help out the weaker players who need and are willing to spend that extra time to make sure they cap, or even just get a few extra bees. Other proposed solutions such as increasing drop rate of the stage 1/2 etcs or bee spawns could have the adverse effect of making the players who run multiple RG a day clear even faster, so I get why they were never implemented, but the timer always seemed like a easy win you could give to the weaker players, while having very minimal effect on inflation. (if weaker players are clogging the channels to still not even cap, you could even argue it could have lowered inflation!) Now that RG doesn't give raw meso anymore, I feel like it's even safer of a change to make now than before.

I would complain about how bad ranged attackers are in RG again, but I feel like this post is long enough. (seriously though, an NL with 50b+ worth of gear, triple apple, MW20 + SE/echo prebuff struggles to get 15 bees? cmon man)