I've been looking for a good high rate PvP server (Epilogue - Freya) for a while now, but lately I haven't found anything worth playing. All I find on these new high rates is super low population, bad design, or people getting their equipment maxed so fast there's not a point for them to farm anything anymore. Beyond balanced classes, a decent population and fair donations, these are a few things I would love to see on a high rate server.
-Max enchant: +20 - When enchanting an item never breaks. It either stays the same or succeeds so people will not be angry and quit. Make it easy to get +15 equips. Chance to succeed 90% or so but make it very difficult to get to +20 so people continue to farm.
-Skill Enchants: Kind of the same idea as the item enchant. Easy to get +20 skills but after 20 the % to succeed decreases dramatically. Make it very difficult to get +30.
-Raid Boss Jewels: Always on high rate servers there is disagreement whether or not to put raid boss jewels in the GM Shop. The loners want a chance to have epics and the clans want to raid them. I think it should be fair for both. I think +0 epics should be easily bought from the GM shop and an average player can get it to +15 without difficulty like discussed above, but the actual raid itself should drop a +20 jewel so it is very beneficial to kill.
Farm Zone: Take time setting up a farm zone. Don't do it in 10 minutes and don't make a lot of farm zones. Make sure the classes kill the mobs at basically the same rate and make sure they take a bit of time to kill. Try to use a unique place that people don't see all the time. A large place that encourages PvP. Have champion mobs that give a nice reward.
NPCs and Menus: I hate when I log into a server, find a GK and I see Newbie Towns or something similar at the top. It looks horrible. Like the person that made the server cannot even guide me to the main town and I have to search through the menus to find stuff. Have clean menus showing clearly where the farm zones and main town are and a clear scheme buffer. It really makes a nice impression to new players.
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This last bit isn't as necessary, but I'd like to see this in a server too.
-Instant 85: It's so useless to make people go level on a super high rate server.
-No Sub Class Certs: Just my opinion, but I like playing subs and with sub certs I'm at a disadvantage if I go on my subclass. I also don't think sub certs add a lot to this game. I think it's better without them. That being said subclass max level 85.
-Auto Events with a decent reward.
-Weekly Olympiad: More competition.
-Cancellation/Buff stealing: Only in Olympiad. (It would be very cool if for example cancel removed 3 buffs but only for 30 seconds or so then the buffs came back to the player.. but I don't think that would be easy to do.. :( )
Well those are just my thoughts on what would make a decent server that would last some time and would also welcome new players even after the server has aged. Hope I can find something like this sometime... or at least something worth playing >.< Thanks for reading.