Three weeks ago as I was searching on ToSbase for some nice hat to get for my character I stumbled upon the rare, hard-to-get white ribbon decoration boater. After some investigation I found that it has been to a certain degree confirmed that infrorocktors from West Siaulai woods dropped the rare hat. The really off-turning fact about it is that, at the very least, you need like 50,000 infrorocktor kills to have a real chance to get the hat.
It has been higly speculated that the hidden Drop-per-kill mechanic ToS has has the elusive boater locked behind a 90,000 Infrorocktors… that means that once in a single channel 90,000 infrorocktors have been killed, then the hat has a relatively good chance of being dropped.
Ninety friggin thousand… when it comes to grinding that is not a usual number to say, but, hey, I am a Ragnarok Online veteran, I loved low-rate servers and grinding hours to get my 10 pvp cards or other highly rare drops.
So, I came mentally prepared for the challenge I was about to endure. I made a plan to tackle this huge hurdle… even made a excel sheet to keep steady track of my advancement in order to provide with better data future brave grinders who could want this hat.
First day I grinded about 7000 infrorocktors. Second day I gave up completelly. Was the hurdle too big? no… I´ve spent days farming the same monster just to get 1 single drop out of 4 copies I need in other MMO´s. Did I realize maybe the hat was not worth the ordeal of the first day? Not really, I still like the hat and think it looks cute and fancy.
What could have happened then?
Dozens of bots happened.
Bots with no intention to hide they were bots, with AoE “Melee” attacks that could hit and kill enemies as if they were archers. Bots with levels high enough to one-shot mobs before I could react to them spawning. All the bots bearing unbearable random names with looks that perfectly mirrored the one next to it.
I couldnt bear seeing all those mobs getting killed as soon as they touched the floor by mindless codes doing the job of lazy men. I decided to report these vermins to the GMs here, in the forums. Usually their replies where fast, giving me hope yet it was different what I saw in the forums from what I saw in the game. I reported them but hours passed by as I waited for them to dissapear… for hours the only thing that dissapeared where countless more mobs that I needed accounted for.
And this was only when I was connected, when I was looking… What about when I am not around to see if they kill twofold the ammount they do when I am?
It was discouraging beyond belief. Should I spend 30 planned hours of my time still trying to fight the bots and the odds and get the hat? Was it worth the uncertainity? The thought sure wasnt appealing.
In the end I couldnt bear it. The simple idea of bots harvesting my work for their hollow purpouse made me too sad to continue farming and far more, it makes me consider if this server is really worth it. Yes, this server, IMC Steam server. At this point I´m inclined to wait for private servers to be made. I preffer to play with only 50 people than with a 1000 bots who do nothing but hurt the economy, the morale and the health of the game.
I really like Tree of Savior. It really wakes in me that old RO nostalgia I for so long craved… but trully, it is beyond disheartening the state of the game. I believe it has true potential and thats why I want to play it again on full force once it hits the private, more familiar medium. As it is right now, the moderating and dev team of the game feel to distant to the comunity and the issues that truly plague the game.
I kinda make this in hopes someone in the dev, mod or GM team sees it and says “damn…” but I cant really force me to believe it. Maybe someone will, maybe they wont. Alas, at this point, does someone care?