What are your problems with RotMG as of current?

#181

I can’t really remember when it was the last time that happened.

Such as normal Vaults, potion storage and character slots? Key?

TBF, I’m on the same page, except I have never heard any big-name companies that successfully tackled such issues effectively.

Sorry for the necro-bump. To make it worse, even Oryx Runes themselves are not entirely free. Most of the time, someone has to spend 2 USD for an Exaltation dungeon key (a major money-maker but also P2W) and walks out with an un-guaranteed chance of getting a Rune. Or am I wrong?

#182

I’m gonna rant a little bit, because I think a lot of people are tunnel-visioned.
Personally, I don’t think the game is headed in a bad direction. Rotmg is an old ass game and it has a decent playerbase, even outside of events.

Everyone complains about the difficulty and lengthiness of endgame dungeons, which started the discord meta, to complete them somewhat easily and effectively. While I do agree that this might deter new players, I believe that this is bound to happen at some point. Many other mmorpgs have discord reqs to run difficult raids, because hard raids in any game usually require coordination, while dealing heavy damage.
Honestly, I already find Rotmg mechs to be pretty easy. Although a large majority of the experienced player base memes it. most of it really is just dodging.
I’m one of the few NA players still playing Lost Ark and there is a recently introduced raid called Brelshaza, which requires far more coordination than anything Rotmg offers, blind runs almost always fail on the later gates.

Deca’s main goal is player retention, and exalts keep players in the game for a long time even after completion of most dungeons. I would even dare say that Rotmg is new player and F2P friendly. The game is fairly easy to pick up, and even regular t11 old tops can run most early dungeons in the game. People always argue about pets, but that is not a linear curve. Pet progress slows down the higher level you go, hitting a 70/70 pet, which is good enough, doesn’t take too long.
I think people look see 4/4 reqs and are like “wow, so not F2P friendly, toxic discord meta”, which is true up to a certain degree, but is to be expected. End game dungeons want experienced players with good gear, something that comes with time. If you don’t like this, than no form of mmorpg is fit for you style of gameplay.

On the other hand, I do have complaints about the state of Rotmg.
The 2 main things being:

  • Rapid increase in ST sets
  • Stale gameplay

Like I mentioned before, even O3 and hardmode Shatters, arguably the 2 hardest dungeons in the game, are just dodging and shooting. There are no real “mechanics”, which is something that I would like to see. The godlands dungeons get boring after a while, and soloing endgame dungeons is difficult and time-consuming. I’ve always thought that a campaign mode would be super cool, but idk how feasible that is.
I believe that Deca knows this, and that’s why they pump out so many ST sets and reworks. Some are good of course, but a lot of them feel forced. New ST sets encourage different playstyles of each class, but that doesn’t add much to the game itself, and is sometimes paywall locked.

Overall, I just wish that they could add something new and fresh, like a campaign mode, but not only limited to that.
That’s all I have to say, have a nice day!

#183

I somewhat agree with this. The name of the game is “bullet-hell” after all, so I can understand if dungeons become stale when they don’t do anything new with the mechanic. Maybe they do have new ideas but can’t implement them due to technical limitations or they just don’t have any. I’m still not entirely on your side however because the whole point of the game is to dodge and shoot. The best way to refresh that mechanic is to make it harder to dodge, harder to shoot, add in extra mechanics that make said dodging and/or shooting more interesting. If you can’t change anything new to something that’s always worked, the logical step is to just add it again, but make it even harder and flashier. I’m really attracted to the Twilight Archmage boss fight for how flashy some of its attacks are, such as Fire Walls, which look really cool and add in extra attacks that simultaneously keep the players in certain areas and make the fight feel more like a fight. Opposing this are hard but boring looking bosses, like the Tomb of the Ancients. Yes, they have hard hitting attacks with Armor Break and the sand can slow you, but they’re disorganized and are just thrown out from three big hitboxes at the same time with no rhyme or reason.

Sorry if this derailed a bit, but my point is that bullet-hell mechanics have been a long-standing in the game, and changing that formula can be hard to even harmful if it doesn’t work out. However, I have noticed a few mechanics that somewhat change this up a bit. My first and strongest example is for a dungeon that isn’t even out yet: Moonlight Village. Some of the phases are normal shooty and get looty phases, but some of them require you to sit on these lanterns in order to progress the phase. Instead of firing a hitbox to move the fight, you sit on the hitbox to move the fight. It’s no longer “shoot more to end faster” but rather “dodge better to end faster.” Some other examples I have are dungeons like Davy Jones’ Locker and Oryx’s Sanctuary. They’re more dependent on shooting enemies to win, but my focus is on the “hit other things before you hit boss” mechanic. In Davy Jones’ fight, you have to activate this group of lanterns at the same time in order to make him vulnerable. They’re on a time limit too, so you have to be fast and/or have high damage output. Similar idea with Oryx’s final boss fight, where you have to damage towers in order to make him vulnerable. You don’t even need to hit all the towers to make him vulnerable enough for people to do decent damage in a pub for the majority of the fight. Plus, the towers themselves attack and have an, albeit much longer, time limit.

I can understand the sentiment of stale gameplay since the main mechanics of the game are just dodging and shooting, and the later content mostly just turns that dial more and more. However, DECA and even the game’s own players have shown to have some ideas for more unique mechanics. I’m actually gaining more hope for the game because of this post.

#184

That being said this game can be played F2P - it’s just that paid has a much higher advantage through predatory gatelocks.

Yep! If you are looking to play RotMG seriously, well, best of luck min-maxing your storage and prioritizing certain loots over others. (Not saying it’s impossible, there’s a breaking point of being drip-fed storage unlocks over the course of several months.) I also want to clarify on the “predatory” behavior, which largely includes the loot boxes. I absolutely despise loot boxes in games, they prey on addictions and certain mental blocks that make players that try them out dig deep holes for them that are really hard to get out of, call it whatever, I’m labelling it as predatory. That being said, RotMG is not the only game with this “luck boxes” problem.

That’s the thing! There realistically is no way to tackle this without killing the game. It’s essentially a symbiotic / parasitic relationship, the websites and such bring traffic to the game, and the game is still alive with the few new players coming in. It’s already much too deep integrated into the game that any change would leave things severely damaged.

That being said, I guess on the topic of O3, I have an issue other than the rune system, the dungeon itself.

It does all the right things as a piece of endgame content in this game - challenging content and rewarding loot. Overall, good dungeon design. The problem is that it is not team based at all, in the slightest. It essentially becomes a disgusting free for all, with 2 sides. The people trying to get through, and the people trying to get top damage. The system for top damage is ridiculous and encourages PvP-like behavior in order to “parse” others. All leads to a toxic relationship between the dungeon and the player, which takes all the fun out of it. I don’t know why DECA thought it would be a great addition. The fragile egos of all elitists are at stake! kekw.

tldr. yeah, some stuff is just better left the same. Realm in general has a really nice framework for a permadeath mmorpg, I don’t think any other game could ever do it as well as it started out. But the choices made by the developers have really set it in the wrong motion, that said the community is not entirely innocent either. Also, gameplay loop gets really stale fast, but that’s not something I have the energy to write about.

#185

shit game, simple as.
miss the old, slower, clumsier, community based feel.
i’m also not 16 anymore and I have adult fears and responsibilities.
stuffed animals don’t hit the same once you grow up, especially if you start to notice the stuffed animals you used to love with yer whole heart are slowly but ruthlessly monetized.

#186

10 years in this game - still thinking it’s shit, still playing it because it’s good. good shit.

#187

There’s something strange I find about people liking objectively bad parts of something nostalgic. You would rather take your stuffed bear with tears in its fluff even though it’s actually harmful to the toy rather than get the newer one with no tear. I know the thing about accepting things for what they are, but look at what happened to Darza. People called it the old RotMG and only a couple days later it died. Then again, it’s hard to argue with buying a new stuffed bear with a hundred dollar price tag for each new accessory and its own issues. Also, I can understand the feeling of growing up and simply not having the same interests as before.

#188

I have to argue against that. Darza has not died it seems but the hype around it has.
They are working with a small core community that still plays as you would expect and working on making their game better as well as more unique to shake off the its just old RotMG stigma.

I think realm is very lucky that the dev teams around Darza and BTN are so small as that means their development is a lot slower and can hinder their growth short-term. But if those games started to take off with frequent updates, more frequent than the amount realm has rn, then realm might have a serious issue at hand with people switching over.

Adding the fact that Darzas devs rn are a lot more transparent than Deca ever was, showing what they are working on, responding to feedback and presenting clear goals. All these are things I dont see with realm which is a big issue for me.

#189

Where? I check into their Steam forums occasionally and it’s dead with a post a week, all complaints. Their web site is even more dead, hasn’t been updated, still had dead links to ‘Apple’ and ‘Android’ versions which it’s had for years. Their reddit forum has been similarly dead for years, closed until there’s a mobile version.

I seem to remember the intent was to make it a mobile game primarily. That would explain why they’re ignoring Steam, but they need to actually ship a game on mobile for that to make sense.

#190

Their discord discord.gg/darza
That is the place they are focusing on right now as it allows them for more direct communication.
Also that’s where the whole core community resides.
Their goal is to make a cross-platform game, but mobile has had a lot of delays and is still being worked on.
Once that is out, they can put out all the updates for both platforms that they have been holding back due to mobile delays.
We will see when that happens and how it plays out but I’m optimistic seeing all the stuff that’s being teased.

#191

Why not on the game’s website, or their company’s one, or Reddit, or Steam? The latter is particularly egregious, it’s the only currently playable version of the game but seems to have been abandoned by them.

Companies that use Discord as their only or primary channel of communication tend to do so as they’ve something to hide. Private Servers e.g. have all migrated to there, a lot of cryptocurrency scams are run from there. It’s a walled garden they can control, one that’s immune to web searches or archives. There’s no good reason to do all your communication there.

There’s nothing wrong with having a presence on Discord. But not your only presence. Especially not when you’re have a website, a sub-Reddit, a Steam community page which are all there to be used but which you’re ignoring.

#192

I guess that is a fair point, they really should open all avenues for communication and update their website.

#193

Hey dude, wanna know something me and a couple of friends are starting to build or try a new comunity to start play like old days, were every one does what ever they want, we mostly frind from realm the exalt dungeons and sometimes we buy keys ourselfs, we do very fast realmclears and actualy this is the reason i started again and have the drive to even start stream, just to show that u all can do it aswell. plz if u ever want to come back and play get here https://discord.gg/fDtknCBq5U and be “kinda” free from all that toxic still of play

hope we can help as much people possible

#194

thanks, but I’ll have to pass. I’ve moved on and only playing games that can be beaten and then stopped has done wonders for my mental state. I don’t want to risk opening myself up to all the other me-specific problems I had with playing rotmg. I wish you and people like you the best of luck, but I have no desire to reopen this chapter on my life.

#195

just checked your discord and it was literally just full of the exact same filth that plagues every other realm discord server.

The creator of said discord is just some twitch streamer who exclusively runs o3 and shitters, and requires players to send in videos of private runs in order to receive verification status. How again is that hearkening to the old days of rotmg?

p.s. got banned because i said dobinhobr is the biggest loser this game has ever seen

#196

I will be blunt and say that this just seems like a way for you to advertise your RotMG Discord Server and you’re just using this thread because it has high activity. Especially considering what @ZenTheFool said, it feels less like you care about helping and more about spreading attention.

#197

They have been waiting for mobile stores to approve their game for literally months, no one has any idea why their app was taking so long to get approved, and in the meantime the desktop game also could not be updated due to the reason that they would need to re-send the mobile app for approval delaying it even more.

Basically that’s the main reason it’s slow and dead at the moment, but I believe they will get past this problem. I’m not sure if it’s approved now, I haven’t checked their discord in 1 or 2 months

#198

I am sure they know: the turnaround for app approval is normally days so if they first submitted it months ago they would have been told months ago what was wrong with it, and what they need to do to fix it and resubmit it. It’s frankly been years though since they first announced a mobile version – there’s far more to these delays than approval issues.

Not updating the PC version is their choice, and an odd one. Better to keep updating the PC version with content updates, optimisations and bug fixes, to maintain interest, prevent the collapse in players they’ve seen. Then roll those updates into the mobile version so when it’s approved it’s the best version of the game, not based on a months old version which they need to quickly update.

#199

It’s called REALM of the Mad God. Not DISCORD of the Mad God. Not KEYS of the Mad God. DECA sees no profit in improving the early and mid game experience. DECA created the discord meta. I don’t know how much it costs to keep the game running… but the entire game being developed around monetization is depressing.

#200

To be fair DECA aren’t the ones to blame for Discord. The game had guilds when DECA bought it and DECA has done some things to improve how they work.

Discord came along and essentially supplanted guilds. No more trying to coordinate when your guild is online just go on Discord and find whoever’s currently there. No need to rely on in-game chat. Perhaps most important you can be part of multiple groups, aren’t limited to just one guild with all its geographical + timezone constraints. Now active guilds seem to be on Discord, at least from the adverts that appear on these forums.

Could DECA have done more to improve guilds? Sure but I doubt it would have made much difference.

As for the ‘discord meta’, that too – the focus on endgame and balancing for large optimised groups – preceded Discords. People have been buying and popping keys for a long time, very often for very large groups, and the game was broken for them, until HP scaling, boss immunities and phases were added to make fights less trivial, and new content was added with groups in mind.