Friday, March 22, 2013

Ragnarok Online 2 (Part Six)

Khara System
RO2 - Khara System
The Khara System is just a simple challenge type system that is available in Ragnarok Online 2. It basically rewards you with either Khara Points, Class Experience Points, Profession Experience Points, Zeny and Rupees and/or Titles (which is the most important part of it in my opinion) when you complete the challenge given.

Usually, to attempt a particular challenge, you will most often only need to be at a certain level. But sometimes, some of these challenges might require that you spend some Khara Points too.
RO2 - Card Collection ChallengeRO2 - Hunting Challenge
And as you can see, most of these so called challenges merely requires you to perform some simple tasks such as collect some specific cards, hunt a certain number of some specific group of monsters, reach a certain level, drink X amount of potions or craft a certain number of times (just to name a few), so I really wouldn't say that this system is anything special that you should look forward to.

Anyway, what you need to remember with regards to this Khara System is that there is no limit to the number of challenges that you can take concurrently, so just accept each and every one of them once you've cleared its challenge conditions.

Blood Points, Victor's Points & Trophies
RO2 - PVP ColosseumRO2 - Prontera Arena
Have you ever tried participating in the Colosseum? Or perhaps got to level 50 and tried out those special dungeons which required a ten-member-strong party to clear? If you have, then I suppose you would have come across these so-called "Blood Points", "Victor's Points" and "Trophies" and then wondered what they are for right?

Basically, what I've found out about them is that they are used as some sort of an exchange currency and can be used to acquire special purple-colored level 50 equipments from a handful of NPCs (at designated locations in Prontera and/or Alberta).
RO2 - Knightage Reward OfficersRO2 - Honor Knightage Rush Suit Jacket
For example, the "Blood Points" you've gained by participating in the Colosseum can be used at the Knightage Reward Officers located at the middle-west end of Prontera.


These officers sell a variety of items ranging from purple-colored armors, weapons and accessories to even some useful consumables. And though expensive to acquire (requiring tens of thousands to even a hundred thousand blood points each), if you managed to get a complete set of these special equipment, you would likely prove to be a formidable opponent in PVP instances due to the fact that these equips specialize in boosting and reducing PVP damage (in percentages).
RO2 - Loot Merchant n Dungeon Graders
And if you take some time to run around exploring either Prontera or Alberta, you will likely find yourself in front of such an NPC labelled "Loot Merchant" or "Dungeon Grader".
RO2 - Noblesse Suit HelmRO2 - Wailing Chain Gauntlets
These are the NPCs that you would need to approach to exchange the various trophies (like Threatening Oppressor Weapon, Threatening Conqueror Helm, etc) or Victor's Points (I, II or III) that you've gotten in Raid Dungeons into useful purple-colored armors and weapons.

Though they are unfortunately also level 50 equips, what sets these apart from those obtained through blood points is that the items acquired here are mostly set items or items with empty rune-hole slots so they should likely be pretty useful as well (at least in PVE situations if not PVP too).

With that, I have basically summed up as much as I could find regarding this game called Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second. And frankly speaking, the game at its present stage, appears to be somewhat lacking and is "just another" generic and ordinary MMO (with few places and dungeons to explore plus the hint of dangerous adventuring is gone, almost zero interesting storyline or plot, boring/silent background music for the maps and little variability/variety for their characters in terms of job classes and skill specs). So if you asked me, I reckon you might have a more enjoyable time playing something like Dragon Nest instead of this.


Previous: RO2 (Part Five)

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Ragnarok Online 2 (Part Five)

Crafting System
RO2 - Craft Window
Crafting in Ragnarok Online 2 is actually made pretty simple and dummy-proof. All you have to do is open up the craft window by pressing "J" and make your desired item, once you've gathered the necessary materials of course.

Essentially, regardless of your crafting profession, most of the ingredients you need to make an item can be broken up into a few parts, stuff you gather from the environment, stuff you loot from monster kills and stuff you simply purchase from the corresponding profession NPC.
RO2 - Artisan Craft MaterialsRO2 - Blacksmith Craft Materials
Regarding stuff gathered from the environment, it actually varies slightly according to your profession. If you are an Artisan or Chef, your source of gathered materials would come from the bodies of monsters you kill, like skinning a dead animal for its leather or collecting parts of a dead monster as cooking ingredients. If you are a Blacksmith or Alchemist, then your source of gathered materials would come from your natural surroundings, like mining a rock formation for ores or harvesting herbs from plants.

Well if it still sounds confusing, then I guess you can just look for things that glow and sparkle while your running around the game world. And once you hover your mouse over them, your cursor would change to the appropriate tool icon (pickaxe for Blacksmith, seedling for Alchemist and knife with a sack for Artisan and Chef), indicating that they are stuff you would need to gather for your crafting profession.

As for stuff you would need to loot from monster kills, they basically comprise of the following.
RO2 - Earthly TraceEarthly TraceRO2 - Firmament EssenceFirmament EssenceRO2 - Monster FragmentMonster Fragment
RO2 - Root of LifeRoot of LifeRO2- Spirit of RuinSpirit of Ruin
However, these said items are the more general looted ingredients that you use for crafting and can be obtained randomly from monster kills. If you were to be crafting rarer and more valuable items, then you may be required to acquire some additional "more exotic" stuff as well (which can come from the bosses of dungeons).

Since I reckon that stuff you simply purchase from the corresponding profession NPC would require no further explanation, I shall therefore skip it and instead offer up an example to make crafting things clearer.
RO2 - Blue Equip Ingredients
The above screenshot shows the ingredients required to craft a blue equip, Dense Virus Suit Pants. And in the list of ingredients needed,
  • Natural Patterned Leather
    RO2 - Natural Patterned Leather
    Comes from refining the hides skinned off animal monsters of the appropriate level.
  • Mystical Fragment Crystal
    RO2 - Mystical Fragment Crystal
    Is obtained from refining Monster Fragments.
  • Dim Crystal
    Is obtained from disassembling equipments.
  • Bell Collar Ornament
    Is looted off the Moonlight Flower, Level 32 Boss of Payon's Secret Forest Tomb Dungeon.
  • Golden Yarn
    Can be bought from the Artisan Expert.
With the process of crafting out of the way, the final thing you need to know would be the learning of new crafting recipes.
RO2 - Learning Crafting Recipes
Plainly put, the source of most of your new recipes actually comes from the crafting expert of your chosen profession. If your an Artisan, your new recipes can be learnt from the Artisan Expert. If your a Blacksmith, then yours would be learnt from the Blacksmith Expert and so on and so forth. But, in order to learn these new recipes, you would need to pay a certain amount of zeny and rupees (in-game coins) and be of the appropriate profession level...which shouldn't be too much trouble if you were diligent in the gathering and processing of your crafting ingredients.
RO2 - Crafting DesignsRO2 - Selecting Dungeon Difficulty
The other source of crafting recipes would be from doing raid dungeons and hard mode dungeons at level 50 according to what I've heard. And if you were lucky enough to loot one for your crafting profession, all you have to do is right click on it to learn the recipe and then you can craft them as per normal after gathering the necessary ingredients.

Vending System
The vending system in RO2 only becomes available to players once their character becomes level 10 and above (regardless of their class and profession). And upon gaining access, you can simply bring up the vending window by pressing "Y" while standing still.
RO2 - Vending ItemsRO2 - Vending Craft Skills
As you can see, the vending system consists of a naming section and two tabs, "Vendor" and "Craft Item". Putting the naming aside (cause its a no-brainer), the "Vendor" tab allows you to place items you have in your inventory up for sale (as long as they are not bound to you), while the "Craft Item" tab allows you to offer specific recipes you've learnt so that other players can craft that item through you.

How It Works
To put an item in your inventory up for sale, all you have to do is right click on the item (in your inventory) while your vending window is open and then set your desired price for selling that item. If the item your selling is a stackable, do remember to set your price accordingly as it will be sold as a stack altogether because the buyer cannot choose the quantity he wishes to buy. So if you wish to sell something in smaller quantities, you will have to split them up into individual stacks first (via shift + left click) and then price them separately.

For vending craft skills, it works somewhat in the same way as well. Just click on the "Craft Item" tab, right click on the specific recipe(s) you wish to offer up for crafting and set your desired crafting fee. Sounds simple enough? But here's the problem...
RO2 - No Concentrated Yggdrasil ExtractRO2 - Using Craft Service
Apparently, to use this crafting service, one must first have all the materials needed to craft the item...in their own inventory...before they can approach the vendor to request for his service and ultimately also get charged for using the crafting service (the crafting fee that's set by the vendor). Still don't see the problem? (^_^)

Well, the actual dilemma here isn't in collecting materials that we can easily acquire from hunting monsters or buying off NPC merchants but rather those profession specific ingredients. And since these ingredients are not on us (but on the vendor) and we cannot acquire these ingredients ourselves as its not our profession (and if it is, we wouldn't even need to use their service), so there is no way we can use the crafting service offered as it is now.

So, to circumvent this problem, please remember to put these profession specific ingredients up for sale together with the crafting service your offering. Else no one would be able to use your service easily. But then again...perhaps it might be easier to just craft the darn thing and sell it.
RO2 - Open Vendor
Anyway, once your done setting up your wares and naming your shop, just click on "Open Vendor" to open the shop and start selling.


Previous: RO2 (Part Four)Next: RO2 (Part Six)

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Ragnarok Online 2 (Part Four)

Upgrading & Disassembling
RO2 - Disassembling Expert
After fooling around quite a bit in Ragnarok Online 2, I've found out that this fella called the Disassembling Expert appears to play a central part in improving and upgrading your equipment. However, I do have to warn you that upgrading can only be performed upon equipments of level 25 and above. Furthermore, you would need to know that although the process is simple and easy to understand, the actual carrying out of this task can be quite tedious and risky.
RO2 - Armor UpgradingRO2 - Weapon Upgrading
Equipment upgrading (a.k.a. refining) is generally divided into two types, Armor Upgrading and Weapon Upgrading. Each of these types would require a different ingredient for refinement, Ernium and Oridecon. And as the level of refinement increases, the quantity of ingredient needed would increase as well. For example, upgrading an armor from 0 to +1 requires 1 Ernium, while upgrading the same armor from +1 to +2 would require 2 Erniums.
RO2 - Ernium CrystalRO2 - Oridecon Powder
Next, Ernium and Oridecon each have three forms, powder, crystal and piece.
  • In powder form, they are used to upgrade equipments from level 25 to 39.
  • In crystal form, they are used to upgrade equipments between level 40 to 49.
  • In piece form, they are used to improve level 50 equipments.
RO2 - Karnium
As far as I know, there are no "safe upgrade zones" in RO2. Each and every time you perform an equipment upgrade, you will carry the risks of failing. And upon failure, your item will either drop in upgrade levels or break and be gone forever so the general rule of thumb is to use Karniums to upgrade stuff that you cannot afford to lose. This is because upgrading equipments using Karniums not only prevents the item from breaking but also raises the success rate by 10%. Be warned though that Karniums are very expensive and hard to obtain so most people only use them to upgrade max level or rare items.
RO2 - Disassembling A WeaponRO2 - Making Ernium Crystal
Now if you were wondering, Ernium and Oridecon (in powder form) are both obtained from disassembling armors and weapons (of level 25 and above) respectively. And depending upon the rarity of the item being broken down, the chance of obtaining more Ernium/Oridecon and useful ingredients will increase (as shown in the screenshot). However, as I've only tested low level green rarity items, I'm not sure how the higher level and rarer items perform. Perhaps they may give crystal and piece forms instead?


Anyway, what I do know is that from there onwards, the Ernium and Oridecon in powder form can be made into crystal and piece form through the help of a high profession level Alchemist. And as far as it goes, you would need 4 powders to make 1 crystal and 4 crystals to make 1 piece.

As for Karniums, I have basically only encountered it once during the CNY event where we traded in special drops for red packets and in turn, those red packets could be exchanged for a Karnium if you had enough of them. Apart from that, I heard that there is a tiny chance of obtaining Karniums at random from opening "Munil's Treasure Chest" (not sure if its the yellow one or beige or both as they're both worded the same in their descriptions). However, these are sold in the RO2 Cash Shop and apparently the word is that someone opened 50 of these boxes only to get 4 Karniums.

(By the way, do I hear someone shouting..."All this information is fine, but how the heck do we disassemble an equipment!?")
RO2 - Fairy Stone
Well essentially, to disassemble an item, you would need to approach a "Disassembling Expert" and acquire one of the stones that he is selling. The fairy stone is used to break down level 25 to 39 equipment, spirit stone for level 40 to 49 equipment and magic stone for level 50 equips.

Upon purchasing the appropriate stone, just open your inventory and right click on the stone before selecting the desired equipment to break down. Its as simple as that.

Card Synthesis
Since we just touched upon a risky subject of upgrading equips, I reckon that I might as well introduce to you an equally dangerous one, combining your cards. But before I go into the actual combining procedure, I wish to first touch upon card ranks.
RO2 - Green CardRO2 - Blue CardRO2 - Yellow Card
In Ragnarok Online 2, cards are classified into 3 general ranks, Green (Normal & Normal+), Blue (Silver) and Yellow (Gold). While green cards can be obtained fairly easily by farming the corresponding field monsters for it, getting the blue and yellow cards would prove to be a tougher challenge simply because of either the "lack in quantity" of those kinds of monsters that drop them and/or difficulty in killing them (usually since they are boss type mobs). So in order to obtain these "rare-ranked" cards, we turn to card synthesis or otherwise known as combining cards.
RO2 - Combining CardsRO2 - Card Synthesis Stone
To combine cards, you would first need to gather at least five different cards. And if I'm not wrong, they would also need to be of the same rank as well. Next, find the "Card Master", purchase a Card Synthesis Stone and then open up the card combination window as shown (also done via the Card Master NPC). Finally, together with the Card Synthesis Stone, slot all the five cards into the window, click "Combine" and hope for the best.

There isn't much information with regards to this since the game is still relatively new (OBT released on Jan 2013). So anything below is a mixture of hearsay, facts and guessing. Be Warned.

RO2 - Successful Card Combination
If you fail, all the cards used in the synthesis would be destroyed. But in the event that you do succeed (which is only a 50% chance), then either one of the five Normal ranked (Green) cards you've placed would become a "Normal+" (still Green) at random or you would gain a random Silver ranked (Blue) card.

If the five cards you've placed were Silver ranked cards, then I guess there is a chance that it would still follow the same system as when combining Normal ranked cards, that is that, one of your Silver ranked cards would turn into a "Silver+" at random or you would gain a random Gold ranked (Yellow) card.

Naturally this is all just guessing of course, since due to their rarity and difficulty to obtain (need five), blue cards aren't quite really used in this sort of combining test yet. Furthermore, I still haven't observed any traces of "Silver+" or "Gold" cards being sold on auction either so do take all these with a pinch of salt.
RO2 - Card Designated Synthesis
Finally, I wish to talk about this curious object that I've found sold in the RO2 Cash Shop, the "Card Designated Synthesis". Apparently, from articles I've found on the web, it states that this object when used in the card synthesis would allow you to specify which card you would like to be returned to you upgraded, in the event of a success.

However, the funny thing is that in the item's in-game description it actually states something else instead. And from what I feel after reading the description, I tend to get the idea that this "Card Designated Synthesis" thingy actually serves to just "protect" your chosen card such that it doesn't disappear if the card synthesis fails so do take note of this possibility if you ever do decide to use one of them.

That is all. Good Luck on your card synthesis.
Previous: RO2 (Part Three)Next: RO2 (Part Five)

Friday, March 1, 2013

Ragnarok Online 2 (Part Three)

Stats
If we disregard boost potions, buff potions, buff food and runes, then our character's stat gains will come primarily from these few sources, namely an allocatable stats portion we get from leveling up, a fixed stats portion from our equipment and finally an alterable part that we gain from cards and titles.
  • Allocatable Stats
    As far as these are concerned, they look and work rather similar to the original Ragnarok Online's Stats Allocation System (however, with a few minor changes).
    RO2 - Bonus Stats Distribution 1RO2 - Bonus Stats Distribution 2
    For example, instead of six primary stats to allocate our stat points to, we now have five only (Dex and Luk is removed while Wis is added).
    RO2 - Bonus Stats Distribution 3
    Next, the amount of points needed to improve a particular stat by 1 has been altered in such a way that it now increases faster.

    In the past, we only needed 4 stat points to raise a particular stat from 21 to 22. Now, we would require 5 stat points instead. And although it is a mere difference of 1 from this example, the underlying mechanics changed seems to be more severe since it was a 10 points per step up (in RO) compared to a 5 points per step up now.

    And in addition to all these, it also appears that the way primary stats affect certain secondary stats, like dodge rate, critical rate and block (parry) rate, are somewhat scaled according to our levels. This is because I've observed my character's secondary stats (those showing in percentages) dropping after I gained a level even though no changes were made to my primary stats.
  • Fixed Stats
    RO2 - Green EquipmentRO2 - Blue Equipment
    The reason why I called them "fixed" is because there is no known way to alter the stats provided by them. And since they come with the equipment that you wear, which has class restrictions, this would mean that your character's general stats distribution (primary) is already "set" the moment it was born. With the exception of some tiny wriggling space from the allocatable stats part of course.
    RO2 - Purple Equipment
    Anyway, regarding stats provided by equipment, there are a few things that you would need to know. Firstly, only equipment of green rarity and above would provide such stat bonuses. Secondly, the better the rarity, the better the stat bonuses it will provide. Thirdly, apart from rarity being a factor, higher level equipments would also provide better stat bonuses compared to lower level ones. Finally, just know that the stat bonuses from these equipment form the majority of your character's primary stat increases. Ignoring them or failure to take advantage of them would result in a seriously gimped character in my opinion.
  • Alterable Stats
    RO2 - Stats from CardRO2 - Stats from Titles
    Basically, you can call these as swappable stats since the cards and titles from which these stats come from can be easily switched in and out as you please. Do note however that they do come with certain restrictions.
    RO2 - Inserting Card into Occupied Slot
    Take the cards for example, although there are five of these slots for you to insert cards with, they would only open up one at a time at intervals of 10 levels. Next, unless the cards are of a "rare" grade (or so I've heard), they would be immediately destroyed upon removal from the slots after equipping them.

    As for titles, the only restriction is that there is a cooldown involved when swapping one title for another. After which you would have to wait for it to expire before you can change again.
Overall, I find that the stats system in RO2 is sort of like a static template where the majority of your stats are being controlled by the system via your equipment, leaving only some room for tweaking.

With this sort of system, I feel that freedom of expression can no longer be found (unlike in RO where you can find various types of "builds" for stats and equipment choices that drastically alters your character's role). For example, in RO, I've seen a certain build for archers that allows them to run around the place, with a shield in one hand and a dagger in the other, "stabbing" creatures instead of using the regular bows and firing from range. And sadly, this sort of creativity seems to be quite impossible in RO2.

Skills
RO2 - Archer Skill TreeRO2 - Ranger Skill Tree
Each character first starts out with three usable skills already learnt in their skill tree at the lowest level and from then onwards, they will gain one skill point every time their character levels up.

The skill point can be used to either improve upon existing skills or learn new ones so long as their prerequisites are satisfied (which can be identified via the arrows between the skills). Alternatively, if you find that there's nothing much to learn for your current class, you may also choose to keep the skill points until you've changed to your next class rather than wasting them now.

As you can see in the second picture above, I had chosen not to use six of the skill points that were gained prior to my class change. And because of that, I could immediately pick up and use quite a few of my ranger class skills right at level 25. And frankly speaking, the ranger skills really helped me kill monsters at a much faster pace so I can imagine the hell waiting for me had I not chosen to keep those skill points.

If you were to ask me about my impression of the current skill system, I would say that the skills that we are familiar with in RO were either tweaked, changed or totally dropped off in order to fit into the current RO2. Not only are there lesser variety of skills now, but they are also more "guided and restricted" so much so that once you've picked a certain set of skills to learn, you would be better off mastering all those skills down that path rather than attempting to learn new skills from a different path.


Previous: RO2 (Part Two)Next: RO2 (Part Four)