Ideas for a "Renewal 2"

[Tiomasta]

With talks of modern RO hopefully progressing with certain revamps to old systems instead of simply stacking next-step linear endgame progression tables with increasing numbers as they have been doing, I wanted to make this thread for open discussion on what would be a good "Renewal 2" for the game. Hopefully we get something that would make people say "this is what Renewal 1 should have been."

I'm opening with some ideas, let's not say that all of the things have to be good or have to be done together.

 

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Visual update

• Maps use skyboxes to enable more complex and animated skies/backgrounds and cave ceilings, and the game uses more complex weather system visual effects.
• Sunny can be well-lit with buildings casting shadows but also unseen moving clouds casting moving shadows across the floor and on top of buildings like in Ragnarok Lost Memories, with client visual weather effects played occasionally which can be 3D effects on the map or also effects that stay relative to the camera angle, like the Ragnarok Lost Memories 2D doves when outdoors, and making various foreground effects like dust clouds inside old buildings, birds and insects and leaves in forests, bubbles and a small fish appearing and disappearing in Byalan Island, etc.

 

• Footprint system data installed in maps
• Certain tiles are programmed to temporarily enchant the player. Stepping in or out of certain tiles in maps will temporarily leave subtle visual effect footprints in 2D and 3D, like dust occasionally blowing off the floor in old indoor areas, small leaves floating away fading in and out inside forests, temporary footprint dents inside sand, and a drenched lower body and a temporary wet trail after walking in water.

 

• Animated hairstyles like in the alpha
• Originally it was only for walking and attacking, but there could also be an idle animation playing at random when standing still that slightly blows your hair from a breeze, which would make city streets a bit more lively. Certain hats are programmed to disable hair animations.

 

• Costume headgear slot
• The equipment screen gets a new slot to put headgear in, which will appear as your costume headgear regardless of any other equipped headgear and shadow headgear. It will give no stats from itself or its enchantments and won't count for sets. Any type of headgear can freely be inserted and removed from this slot without requirement.

 

• More weapon and shield combat sprites
• Not EVERY different item needs a distinguishable look like the overly-detailed Bloody Knight shield (and more mundane low level items can intentionally look more mundane compared to more notable items), and having some recolors is fine, but if I see one more mace inappropriately using the spiked wood club sprite I will deep-fry a peco peco.
• For example, weapon sets like high-level token trade quests and such can all have unique and matching sprites (so a Crimson sword and Crimson spear resemble each other, but OS or Safety weapons have their own unique sprite sets too, etc) and Eden Paradise Group weapons of course look like LV3 NPC shop weapons. Certain weapons upgradeable from illusions can get a new sprite (shared between their normal and upgrade version) if their old sprite was a copy-paste of something else.

 

• Maybe not possible in the current engine: some field maps merge together into one giant super field map without loading screens between them until you enter a city or cave, with monsters being locked out of walking away from their normal zone and from spawning outside of it.

 

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Party rework

• Party: "Close Sharing" option
• This will share both experience and loot, to only other party members within 35x35 cells of the player. Each player within the area of the player that just killed the monster receives 100% of the original monster experience yield (instead of each player only receiving 60%-27% of the original monster experience yield).
• Monsters killed this way will not drop normal loot, instead they may drop bags that don't reveal their items when looked at on the floor. Picking this up will result in loot rolls for that player and every other party member within 35x35 range to get auto-looted to their inventories (or instead the item dropped is bags of lower weight which are picked up by that player and every other party member in the area, that are opened for multiple drop rolls of that monster by right-clicking the bag later whenever you want). When the game checks for how many people the loot went to at once, it scales down the loot quantity/luck depending on the receiving player amount to then be rolled for each person separately, so that you don't get 5 monsters worth of drops from 1 kill with 5 members. With no other party member nearby, monsters will drop normal loot on the ground like usual.
• This can incentivate parties to be active and move forward as one group, instead of always only taking the same rewards as from AFK leeching in a corner, while also not penalizing players who temporarily split off as they then would receive the same rewards as if they were soloing.

 

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World/progression changes

• Certain consumables that you can farm from monsters like Aloe Leaflet and Strawberry can be obtained in large amounts from scattered cooldown-repeatable quests directly or rather from token trades from them, so that players can collect them from manually playing the game regularly on various quest hubs around the world instead of focusing on only one farming activity for hours and hours, also indirectly lowering a necessity for botting.
• Thinking more about the western servers, an update to the "F2P with cash shop" monetization system: make cash shop items also obtainable in-game, not by adding new quests for them but by seamlessly adding them onto LV100+ quest hubs trade rewards, and MVP material drop crafting.

 

• Damage squish
• Massively rebalance the skill damage of most 3rd/4th job skills (and a smaller amount of 2nd/T skills) to bring them all down and closer together for a less extreme world-breaking disparancy between each stage of player power, while also rebalancing the skills with lategame PvP in mind too for that to become appropriate like it used to be, with damage numbers in both PvE and PvP being smaller in the end. High-level-monster stats broadly tweaked accordingly.

 

• World revamp
• Many old areas in Rune-Midgard/Schwartzvald/Arunafeltz reworked into more exciting content (even if to the point of making some ones harder or more complicated than before) with enhanced/more rewards than before and added dedicated repeatable quest hubs, resembling post-New-World reward system styles and adding 3 general coin reward systems for the 3 countries shared by many hubs within them, so you can do timed-repeatable quests on multiple places around your level and buy some rewards with tokens (including consumable items) not specific to that one quest hub. And with the damage squish it won't be as easy to stomp over old content with character power that was only invented after this place was originally released.
• Adventurer's handbook
• Key item obtained from Eden/Paradise Group, with a hotkey shows a new menu that displays all repeatable quests/instances you can do up to your own level, including showing whether their limit and their quests are available or on cooldown, so they don't even have to stay registered as quests in the quest log anymore after finishing them. Also says with which NPC to start them with a screenshot of them.
• While most instances would be LV100+ New World places or illusion dungeons to not have many at the lower levels, this handbook also incorporates all normal Eden/Paradise Group quests into it too (these might even be able to be started and finished from this menu without having to walk there) and any new Rune-Midgard/Schwartzvald/Arunafeltz quest hubs made from this.
• Quests you aren't high enough level to use may be replaced by a grayed-out "???" instead, or completely hidden except the first next available one which shows only the level it will reveal at.

 

• New common item blacksmith enchanting
• NPC shop equipment and their dropped versions can be enchanted with blacksmith NPCs, like Zero effects but not necessarily the same ones. The effects have no randomization, you choose them from a list but each one costs different materials (like 100 of this mid-level monster drop and 10 wolf claw, one red gem, one normal refining ore, and some zeny). There are multiple enchant slots with each slot having its own list of possible effects, and effects can always be switched for another effect of the same slot if paying the new costs.
• Other unique monster drop equipment can have some effects enchanted onto them from the blacksmith too, not necessarily the same effects. So after obtaining an item you still might have something else to fill it up with.
• Blacksmith job players can also apply these effect themselves instead of the blacksmith NPC, with no zeny cost and with a smaller amount of materials needed.
• Defensive items have 3 slots, weapons have 4 slots where the first can be enchanted for Fire/Water/Wind/Earth element costing the elemental essence or a Star Crumb for +10 bonus. Also, blacksmith NPCs can now combine the ores for these 5 items for you (at a zeny fee, and chances not as high as blacksmith players can get at max).

 

• MVP rework
• MVP aura is updated to make the 90% damage reduction work from 0% reduction to 90% reduction depending on the attacking player's current base level, so characters of different levels can all get a fair shot if they happen to see the MVP instead of practically scaling the MVP to only be fought by mid 3rd jobs and above with higher-level players making any other player pointless.
• Monsters use a different version of the Earthquake skill, maybe doing unresistible damage equal to a certain percentage of the MaxHP of the target (killing the player if they didn't heal back enough and doing considerable damage after that) instead of the damage that instantly kills any player unless you had so many players hit by it that the damage divided between them low enough.
• Certain monster skills get their visual effect remade like with the 3rd job skill visual effect remake. Skills like wide freeze/wide silence have a visual effect of 1 or 2 seconds long easily hinting at their actual effect and it properly reflects the affected area. Earthquake has new visuals properly reflecting the area per level.
• The monster skill for elemental hit gets new visual effects, all starting with the same strike visual + noise then playing another visual + noise depending on the element so you can tell which element it was.
• Certain monsters can have new sprite animations to play when using a certain grand skill instead of treating every cast the same, so it can be distinguished during cast time.
• MVP gravestone text now displays the party size of the killer at the time.

 

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Other QOL

• Rested EXP: you may choose to log out your character from an NPC in inns, then the longer you stayed off the more Rested EXP your character accumulates, which is automatically given as bonus base+job EXP from killing any monsters, until Rested EXP runs out.
• HP recovery items get a bonus for not having used any of them recently: they will get a percentage raise as well as a bonus +X% of MaxHP the less you have recently used HP recovery items. So they still can be spammed exactly like before for the same effect, but now you can heal more in the first few uses every so often, even if it's only one dropped HP recovery item from a monster.
• The low-level Eden/Paradise hats have changed effects: instead it's a small +MaxHP and +MaxSP that only helps low-level characters, and gives a low chance on physical and magical hit to instantly refill a set (non-percentage) amount of HP&SP.
• Merchant vending reworked: starting a shop with the merchant skill can leave a clone of your character on that spot for X hours. It will stay there regardless of your activity. You can only have 1 selling shop and 1 buying shop per character.
• Merchants get a new quest skill which lets them transform various monster drops into coins similar to how archers can craft arrows from vendor trash. Any time Mammonite is used it will spend one of this coin instead of costing zeny. Cheaper materials make a copper coin which lowers the damage, medium materials make a silver coin with no penalty, and premium materials make a gold coin which raises the damage. Has a second set of coins from different materials which is for Cart Termination/High Speed Cart Ram instead.
• Alchemist material rework: every time you produce skill catalysts it comes in multiples at randomized amounts, their weight value per item is reduced. Skills now cost different amounts of the same material depending on the strength of the skill: for example, Demonstration and Acid Terror cost only 1 of their material, but Demonic Fire costs 3 instead and Acid Demonstration costs 6 of each, making it easier to farm for them while also adding value to the weaker skills by making them cost less overall than their alternatives.

 

• Visual feedback
• A new option for damage numbers: damage you do or take will be painted green or red depending on elemental property weakness and resistance to it, with the shade of the color depending on how extreme the weakness/resistance is. The recoloring only happens on damage dealt by you or damage dealt to you.
• Another option for damage numbers: shrink/de-accentuate all damage numbers that are not from yourself or against yourself (so other players hitting monsters make smaller damage numbers than yours when you hit them).
• In the case of elemental property immunity to an attack, the game now displays "IMMUNE" or "ABSORB"  or a zero in the strongest red, instead of "MISS" as if it was a Flee problem.
• Whenever a switches-aggro monster suddenly changes aggro from one player to another, it displays a short visual effect above its head, like when a monster is taunted in Ragnarok Lost Memories.
• A unique sound plays when you attempt to cast a skill but it fails because your SP is too low.
• Skill descriptions are updated to include Cast Time, Cast Delay, and if it has any, Cooldown.

 

• Story quest rework
• NPCs that are offering repeatable quests will ALWAYS show a "Repeat Quest" speech balloon in blue, while "real story" story quests use a brown "Quest" or "Story Quest" speech balloon to separate the two. So that spotting a story quest somewhere (that may unlock other quests and sometimes is needed to open areas) actually has inherent value and the game always tells you upfront if this quest is something that you would do just for the sake of exp or for the sake of story, so that you know which ones you want to skip right now.
• Certain NPC/quest interactions can do in-game cutscenes like FF14 or ToS, now hiding monsters and other players inside the player's screen, while also preventing monsters from attacking the player during that. Certain scenes can also be scripted to make the player's camera walk to other characters to help signify who is speaking or where a noise is coming from.

 

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Other gameplay changes

• Mercenary rework
• The city buyable mercenaries are sold as a single non-consumable item instead of different consumable scrolls, use it anytime to freely summon or de-summon a mercenary from a list, and you repeatedly buy from the NPC faction reputation points with zeny, and the mercenaries cost these faction points over time as long as activated, higher-level ones costing points at a higher rate.
• Maybe rework the stats/skills and level options of the city mercenaries so that they are a stronger and more reliable option than before but also limiting them to only be usable when you're not inside any party (unsummoning them if you enter a party), so mercenaries are always a considerable option when playing alone, but flat-out don't work if actually playing with other living people instead of allowing every player to bring their own mercenary if that would help and therefore needing mercenaries to only be so good.

 

• Character balance changes
• All physicals can crit: all physical skills (non-magical) can crit. Crit chance may be usually lower for skills than normal attack, with the skills that already crit at the normal rate staying that way and the ones that don't maybe can't crit inside PvP/WoE. (skills with normal crit can say that it "has full critical capabilities")
• Crusaders changed into real tanks like Monk and Doram: Crusader's Defending Aura, outside of PvP/WoE, reduces any damage taken instead of only ranged physical, but when activated has a penalty to ATK&MATK.
• Ranged rod: Stave Crasher reworked into a toggle passive that changes normal attack into a ranged magical ATK+MATK hit as long as a rod is equipped. Moved to the skill tree of base Mage, Soul Linker, and base Super Novice. At least prevents the character from running into melee range by accident.

 

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And now some ideas that are more experimental:

• One character all jobs
• What if RO had the FF14 job system where one character can have all jobs and level them up separately, for example having to be inside cities to change between them? Changing to a new job slot resets you to 1/1 novice then you do the job change quest you want this slot to be.
• So you could farm an item as a DPS job, then return and go back to leveling up another job, then when your acquaintances appear you swap to a certain support job to complete their party or they change to fit yours, partially circumventing the need of multi-clienting by making multiplayer naturally more able to shift into certain exact jobs as needed instead of separating by characters created which are left in different places. And you can use crafting jobs yourself too if you simply invest the effort, and you don't have to switch characters to use a vendor, and don't need to learn the name of the alts of someone else (because even if you already friended one of them you still can't see any alts they might have), and you don't need to do quests to open places with more than one character anymore.
• A doable way of monetizing this system would be the character starting with only one or two job slots, then unlocking more maximum job slots only as you progress into the game with that same character like at certain total level checkpoints, where there is no limit but a cash shop purchase can instantly unlock more slots earlier.

 

• Account skill tree
• Doing various achievement-like milestones (maybe renewable ones) will add points to an account-wide skill tree, found in another tab in the character skill tree. It gives permanent passive bonuses to all characters in the account, like sub-stats different than just ATK or Flee. More points in the same skill will enhance the effect.
• HP/SP recovery rates are largely buffed by this, supporting the base system for the faster pace that the game now has compared to when Izlude was new, helping you but needing effort to get instead of existing in full strength even for a new player. You can have passives that boost HP/SP recovery after sitting for enough time, passively give HP/SP recovery chance on hit to not always need Succubus/Incubus, normal attack restores an amount of SP (max 2 times per second), one skill that makes certain singletarget 1st job skills able to restore HP on hit.
• Increased softDEF (to make it easier to level up a melee character), enables the "HP Recovery While Moving" passive to all characters (Swordsmen with it will stack to recover at a faster rate).
• Walking speed when unboosted (no mount, no buff) is raised to between base and mount.
• Raises the 50% overweight limit to higher than 50%.

 

• Card rework
• All cards are now split between 1 star cards (simpler smaller stat boosts that can be good even if not amazing by themselves), 2 star cards (stronger more complex effects or specific-situation bonuses not meant for every character, or new given skills), and 3 star cards (game-changer or build-defining major effects and bonuses).
• Very old cards gain a balance revision to their stats and effects for what they're meant to help with, primarily to make some too-useless cards more interesting, like some low autocast or status effect cards becoming more worthwhile even if not exactly as useful as whichever the current meta happens to be.
• Cards can be upgraded past their initially-dropped state with costs including zeny plus a new currency, so +0 cards will be commonly traded for cheaper but players can personally develop the card for multiplied effects as they develop the character over time, making cards be more like dynamic long-term items for your specific build instead of being an on-off switch depending only on whether you already dropped it or not.
• You can exchange unwanted cards at an NPC for the new currency, which can help you in upgrading cards, or for buying certain specific cards (being able to craft a card you want along with a ton of materials related to that monster and zeny, as a guaranteed long alternative to luckily dropping the card at random).

 

• Status effect rework
• Some statuses can become more notable, and stat-based status resistance is changed to instead of giving a chance/guarantee to miss the effect, giving only a very small chance to miss the effect while gradually reducing the effect if it did work but still only partially, so they can play a more impactful role in both PvE and PvP and not become immunized across the board at higher levels. Status cures can even be changed to make them more important even if making some cures not work inside PvP/WoE anymore.
• This is to make even the basic statuses more useful, instead of what they did with 4th jobs where they introduced new statuses tied to certain skills with completely separate resistances/cures just because of the problems that current statuses have.

[Tiomasta]

I forgot what is obviously the most important thing ever:

• All Kafras have completely new remade renewal-style character portraits in the corner of the screen when you talk to them, so that they don't look like literally the oldest art asset in the game because those were made in the artstyle they already swapped out of monster cards and item portraits during the alpha, which doesn't fit with the rest anymore now that a lot more story characters use portraits too.
• A new "waitress" character sprite and portrait is made, so that the Comodo Kafra doesn't have to be re-used a dozen times in other places for this. She's the Comodo Kafra, she's one-of-a-kind.

[Toadspaz]

Imo the main thing missing in RO and in need of a renewal 2 is a revamp in how damage/health works, monster and players alike. With the 2b cap gravity keeps giving more and more 90% damage reduction just "resetting" the damage the player does to that kind of monster, they should just accept the power creep and remove all 90% auras and just increase the HP so it is more consistent. If the MVP has 90% reduction just increase its HP by 10x and so on.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Toadspaz

[Tiomasta]

I did mention a damage squish in the third block. Damage squish as in, lowering the damage in the game and changing stats accordingly. I thought it would be the biggest thing to do with a Renewal 2, just not a very flashy one. Reducing a few item/set effects that directly boost specific skills might be in order too (the newest ones have only been around 20%).

Before renewal it might have been hard to hit for 6 digits, now they had the damage cap because enemies had around 10 or 11 digits of HP and people were still managing to one-shot it which the developers disliked, and PvP massively died in part because everyone one-shotted everyone now.

[Tiomasta]

(I don't see where to edit posts, so I'm making another one)

Visibility

• If a player skill cast cannot be interrupted (naturally or because of an item), it fills up with orange instead of green
• New visual option for PvP/Siege: a green outline/blur for allied players, with a red outline/blur for enemy players

Pet and visual pet

• If you have an active pet, you can right-click the egg of a different pet in your inventory to set that egg as the skin for your current pet, so you can choose one pet for the stats you want and another pet for the skin you want, if you obtain both
• The pet will still use the food/hunger of the old pet

Party rework

• Doubled the range in which a monster kill is counted for quests when killed by another party member