its po(o)ll time!
dont be shy and vote guys!
what kind of a project would you like to see?
let us take for granted that the server files are good quality and just discuss the chronicle and setup preferences

Where is the Hellbound option! God what I would give for a low rate fully function HB server!

i love it too but it makes archers waaaaay too op:D
and unfortunately there's no good HB files around, which is understandable

True but it is probably all in all, one of the most balanced chronicles out there. What ever happened to Citadel, they had some-what working HB files?

No-box servers seem to be in fashion still, personally I would like Dawn 2.0 to be launched! Or something that promises Chronicle progression (for example what Anima did going from c1-c2-c3 but starting on Interlude - Hellbound - Gracias. Around x4 rates is my personal preference.

More inclined towards Interlude (dropped one for midrate)... I mean IL is oldschool, but with Gracia Final I often find myself missing the features from H5... I know there're people who enjoy it more than HF but for me it's the 'neither warm neither cold' stuff in between

interesting point of view
which features do u miss from h5 in gf?

I don't know, it's kind of hard to pinpoint specific things since I don't have much playtime on Gracia Final, but when I do play there it's the little things missing that annoy you... It's not only major stuff like lack of mail system (added on GE I believe, it's borderline impossible to enjoy the game once you're used to that system ) but also smaller things like having to run to NPCs to enchant your skills and even smallest stuff like e.g. not being able to target players/NPCs by writing only part of the name or clicking on a name in chat to PM someone (not sure about these last two, maybe it works on both of them or on none of them idk but you know what I mean, little things).

It's kind of hard to explain, like... I lived just fine without it, but once I was spoiled by it, it's hard to come back. When I'm playing on Interlude I know I'm playing oldschool and don't expect anything but but on Gracia Final I feel like I'm constantly torn between 'old school' and 'comfy new gameplay'. But maybe it's just me, I don't know

Oh yeah and even the PvP just feels odd... I main healer so playing on a chronicle with the 'new UI' without Chain Heal just inevitably feels just not right after so many hours on H5. I've googled a bit and found that e.g. para skills got changed on H5 so that they're shorter but have lower reuse, I mean if I got paralysis on GF I'd immediately think something is off just because I don't have experience with it

yeah i can understand you
i guess interlude fanatics feel the same when they have to look at h5

whats interesting - pvp servers got 0 love

why tho?

Well can't speak for everyone, but... I'm struggling to remember the last time I played on a good PvP server... Usually when I hear 'PvP server' I immediately remember those really hastily quickly made serbidors from 2009 with wings and dusk shields with PvP zone on Primeval Isle Wharf and Farming Zone in wherever with spawned custom mobs. Oh yeah and a million trees spawned in Giran... Nostalgic yes, enjoyable no

But perhaps the PvP servers these days are better, maybe I'd give some a try if it was actually good

none are good
they are all way too far awya from the idea of a pvp server
tested a few that claimed to have l2off files but meh...
custom currencies, custom farm zones, star wars enchants like wtf.. they are like the quote from rick and morty "but thats just slavery with additional steps"

Yup... Best quote from Rick and Morty to explain these kind of servers is "in and out, 20 minute adventure"

btw. I've had this idea for a PvP server that I've been carrying in my head for a while, and I'd like to hear what others would think about it (feel free to say it's bullsh*t as I have no plans on doing it anyway, just an idea )

Ok so it would be a 'clean' PvP server, i.e. there would be NO custom textures or NPCs whatsoever - e.g. instead of those "all in one" GM shops there'd be armors and weapons in official armor and weapon shops/luxury shop, shots/potions in grocery, buffs from adventure guide etc.

Everything from shops would be bought for adena, which would be the only game's currency. There'd be even premium items like blessed enchants or top life stones in luxury store for real high ammount of adena so it doesn't lose value. The adena drop rate would be VERY low so it stays alive for as long as possible.

All zones would have official mobs, with only altered stats (there could be rotating "zone of the week" for certain high level locations or something where mobs would have e.g. 2.5x usual adena drop rate to bring more people = more PvP).

All chars would have official skills (no custom skills), but those official skills could be altered for the PvP settings (for example Silence would have much higher landrate but much lower duration so landing it wouldn't automatically mean won fight, or that the Aqua Squirl /600 range pre-40 SPS skill/ would have higher power than Hydro Screw /900 range post-40 SPS skill/, so that people would have to differentiate between using weaker long range nuke or stronger mid range nuke... Stuff like that)

The main difference from normal "1 week adventure" PvP servers would be that there'd be plenty of ways to "slightly" improve your gear, e.g. you could have multiple Tiers of Arcana Mace, which would work in a way that if you bring 2x Arcana Mace lv 1 to Blacksmith and combine them, you could have a certain chance to make Arcana Mace lv 2 if the combining succeeds. The chance would be low (lets say 20% for Tier 2, 7% for Tier 3) and the bonus would be small enough to not make you one man army but considerable enough to make you interested. It would also obviously cost plenty of Adena so the currency stays alive and well. Anyway stats could be smth like:

Arcana Mace lv. 1 (base) - 175 m.atk, +15% cast. speed with Acumen SA
Arcana Mace lv. 2 - 185 m.atk, +15% cast. speed with Acumen SA
Arcana Mace lv. 3 - 205 m.atk, +17% cast. speed with Acumen SA
...
(but it should be really hard to push it to higher Tiers, so much that most people would be fine with getting just Tier 2 or 3 and enchant that one instead... Only hardcore players would aim at higher tier gear)

You could do similar with armors by always enhancing the original "purpose" of the items, i.e. Dark Crystal heavy would dramatically enchance the defense attributes of the set while enhancing the offensive attributes very little or none at all, while e.g. Tallum Plate armor would be more oriented at increasing the official +8% atk. speed / STR while also further decreasing the official -2 CON (up to lets say +15% atk. speed, +5 STR -5 CON), making it solid option for "berserk" type of gameplay... The lower grade of armor the easier it would be to Tier up, e.g. you could make Chain Set (C grade, +6 p. def against daggers originally) into really hard dagger-counter armor set at e.g. Tier 5 (+15% p.def against daggers + some specifically anti-melee passive like "20% chance to inflict Weakness on target when attacked by short range physical critical attack"

Also augments could be reworked a bit so that those "chance" skills are actually useful... Also you could have some unused official jewels that would be extremelly hard to get and they'd give some nice bonuses according to their name, e.g. Earring of Aid (official name, official icon) would give some +% bonus when healing or recharging or Earring of Solar Eclipse (again, official icon + name) would give you e.g. +5 speed/+1WIT/+1DEX when it's night time ingame (similar to that dark elves passive) and stuff like that. They'd be obtainable by various ways, some could be bought for lets say limited time in Luxury Shop for INSANE ammount of adena, some could drop with very little chance from some bosses, some would be rewarded with very extremelly chance from some quests (like Zigg's jewel from A Game of Cards), some would be rare event drops, some you could craft at Blacksmith (or other NPC) with insane ammount of material like 57 200 Synthetic Cokes + 25 700 Varnish of Purity + 7 200 Elven Ring Piece + 5 700 Elven Earring Beads + 2 700 Elven Necklace Beads = some ring that gives bonuses to Elves... stuff like that, the options are limitless

Just ideas about the items but the general idea is that there'd be a LOT of stuff to do and ways to improve so that people don't get bored after a week when they get their DC set +6 and AM+12.

Ok that was a bit more wall of text than I wanted so big thanks if anyone made it here, would really like to hear some opinions on this

gj on writing that wall of text bro
the main problem i see is you indeed have to learn the gameplay of the server from scratch
if the adena drop rate is low it will be the same grindfest as any pvp server would offer just without the need of grinding different currencies but just 1

furthermore there might indeed be some minor changes applied to the skill mechanics however another thing i hate in those server is the following scenarion:
- u wanna have some chill fun and pvp with ur favorite class or maybe a new class
- log in create account spend a few days to find out shits custom AF and half of the skills dont work as expected so ---> reroll

the whole idea of a pvp server as i see it is avoiding the grind work for standard equipment and focus the gameplay around the endgame activities that require teamplay, coordination and even diplomacy

ofcourse lone-wolfs or small duo/trio pts should definitely be able to have fun but the core activities of l2 that make it so nice like epics, forts, castles, etc shouldnt be left behind and straight the opposite - should be utilized in the best possible way

last but not least who the hell thinks +20 enchants are fun? all those high oe-s actually make the game pretty imba for some classes and all those enchants are designed to take money from donations and give out enchanted weapons to RMTers

so to sum it up the pvp server that many of my friends and I would enjoy would look like this:
no custom farming grounds, no custom mobs, no custom items, no custom currencies

+6 max enchant cuz everything on top of that is pretty much an overkill

all epic jewels obtainable only via raids or potentially via holding castles or forts(one of the few customizations that seem sound to me)

finally killing a player should be more rewarding than killing an NPC, most of the l2 community has been killing mobs 15+ years... the GVE style of acquiring money by fighting other players has always been the most appealing economy mehcanics to me
so i would definitely add custom loots for pvp kills or potentially make some of the features like top grade augments available only via pvp

all this farm for 1 month and then go 2shot people who still havent done the 1 month farming is pretty dumb gameplay which i have never understood and never appreciated. if i wanted that i would just go play a reputable low rate server...

making farm hard to benefit longevity of the server is illiusion! if low rate servers wipe out or remain with 500 ppl population after only 3-4 months why would someone think that making farm hard on a pvp server will do better?

Lol thx for reading my wall

I see your points there but I still have the similar issues with those, i.e.



I mean it's good and fair gameplay-wise but how do you prevent such server from being the mentioned "20 minute adventure?"

I think that regardless there needs to be at least something to keep players interested. If you let them gear up everything within 1 week then you keep them playing for another 1, after that there really isn't a whole too much to do. On other hand though you give them way too much space to improve you end up with what you mentioned:



It's about finding a balance. If I had to pinpoint just one single idea from my post I'd say it's this:

Giving players a lot of small ways to improve.

Don't let them get those +20 weapons. Instead of that, let them get maybe +7 guns and give them other ways to improve that aren't as drastic as those crazy enchants, but interesting to aim for instead. It'd obviously be for much longer discussion just exactly how those "little improvements" should look like, but the point would be that the path from the start to late game would be very long but the actual gap between the newb and old player wouldn't be that huge.

Perhaps you're right that changing the skills would be a bit too drastic for people to digest, but I really think adding e.g. that "improving armors" system would be too confusing to handle... As I mentioned before, there always has to be some sacrifices, if the only goal is to not present players any new content, there really isn't a whole too much you can do to prevent the server from being a 1 month recycler.

btw. there's always option to introduce new mechanics (i.e. ways to improve) with regular updates which I personally find extremelly useful to keep players invested in a longrun - works in every game, I mean "oh I left the server but they're adding new improvement options for the armor that I have, I should check out how it performs" could work the same way as "oh I quit this game but they buffed my favorite champion, I guess I'll try it one more time"