Ragnarok requirement level

[Malong]

52. A post stating the intention of Ragnarok and Hard can be found here:

Spoiler

To introduce a challenge for the already established house/players while still allowing for reasonably sane progression for newer players, the current hard mode will be renamed "Ragnarok Mode", and a third mode will take its place in allowing progression between level 32-52 with barebones equipment, and 52 with reasonably high end craftable equipment. This new middle difficulty will hopefully give the middle ranked houses and players a more even progression.

I and others have interpreted this that you are to use Hard to progress in levels (from 32 to 52), and gear ("reasonably high end craftable equipment") to Ragnarok. Also, it mentions middle ranked houses using this for progression, implying that the highest ranked houses were the target of Ragnarok, not everyone in the game. If either interpretation is incorrect, then please let us know.

But right now, people play the very short interval of 32-39 in Hard and then look for any public Ragnarok server where, while they contribute by playing actively, their contributions are entirely enabled by the rest of the people in the server. How far would a 39-51 DPS, Healer, or Juggler get without the Shielders, Engineers bringing in SHCs and Barrels, Medics with Tomes and Boxes? This also doesn't touch on the weapons being dropped by the well-geared players on respawn or tome waves. To be clear, I do not fault players for doing this: by nature, people will follow the path of least resistance, and getting the best experience, gold, and drops while the rest of the server provides the required classes/gear/support items is the easiest way to progress.

As for responses to other posters:

• Im level 48 on my commando and Im always in the top 5. Even when I was just commando I ended up shielding multiple times as a base commando.

  I imagine you mean top 5 kills. But to echo previous statement: How many of those kills would you have gotten on a Ragnarok server with no Shielders, SHCs, Tomes, good slashing weapons, other DPS classes killing important bots quickly before they reach the shield wall, etc. And while being a shielder with 6 Shielding is admirable, its value depends on the map, the position in the shield wall (not all sides get hit by bots equally), the quality of the DPS to kill bots before or as they reach the shield wall, whether or not you barrel in a speed run, and other factors that make shielding as a Commando (with no subclasses) possible.
  

• The whole idea of having better gear by then is a ridiculous concept as the only way to get better gear is to find lots of valuable mats and build your character slowly or have stuff given to you. Your expecting people who are forced to play Hard-mode for another 18 - 20 levels to have barrels and legendarys ?

  It's an extra 11-13 levels (50-39 and 52-39). Anyway...people are not asking for new Ragnarok players to have barrels and legendaries, but there are plenty of alternative armor and support items (weapons can be dropped by others at least) that are only a few hundred thousand gold each that are necessary for Ragnarok, the most obvious being SHCs which are sorely lacking in public runs. Players can play Hard mode and get the "valuable mats" there. Lumps, water, glasir, bear fur, scales, arrowheads, and so on all drop in Hard mode, are valuable, and are used in many high end crafting goals, and you can easily accumulate them to acquire or craft gear that is serviceable to endgame.
  

• This is just the best equipped people in the game complaining that they have to share with those less fortunate.

  The sharing has, for the most part, ended. The system has already driven the group that can consistently succeed in public rag runs to create coordinated runs (basically unofficial events) where people all join a server comprising only that group. Compare this to just two or three months ago when people would not feel this coordination was necessary. Hopefully upcoming changes would repair the schism in this relationship.
  
  

• This has been debated for too long and people need to understand that a lvl 39 on Ragnarok isn't a complete idiot & noob who isn't capable of playing with you, but someone to be encouraged and helped. If you teach a New ragnarok player how to play properly he wont be a hindrance.

  The few players with the initiative and drive to learn have done quite well. There's a big difference between players that are willing to learn independently and those that get spoon fed information after a problem arises. There are great and readily-available resources (e.g. Sphinx's the beginners guide, and Dan's Introduction to Hard Mode, apply concepts to Ragnarok). It would mean a lot if these new-to-Ragnarok players made some effort in learning and assimilating from the established players.
  

• And thus all level 39 characters should be unable to join?...It's an overreaction to a problem that isn't all that big, and it affects way more people than just the ones causing trouble...While it is true that most players at that point do not have high-end gear, if we're talking about people who just got their first character up to 39, those same people will not have gotten much better gear at level 50, simply because of the investment required for it.

  The part after the ellipsis supports the fact that an increased level requirement would only negatively affect the non-twinked level 39s, which is the minority. This contradicts the idea that "it affects way more people than just the ones causing trouble."
  

• Not to mention the fact that most transitions between tiers of weapons and armor aren't all that big.

  It's not the marginal upgrades in weapons and armor as much as it the support items. You see the mentality of players in public servers completely ignoring the goals of support items. Acquiring (for example) an SHC will help the team's survivability far more than spending 4 or 5 times the cost of an SHC to get an extra 2 body and leg armor for only yourself. Yet this is the common mentality amongst players.
  

• And finally, how many people with top tier equipment are required to get far in ragnarok? You need one or two shielders, preferably two or three people bringing in short heavy's, someone with a tome, two or three decent slashing weapons, and some decent shooters. If we combine all of that, you end up with 7-8 people. It's not like you instantly wipe when you do not get 16 people bringing in blue weapons and armor.

  Using Town as an example, the optimized is: three shielders, four slashers/pokers, three peeking ranged, and for support items, two tomes, four SHCs, one medic kit, and one barrel. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that the people bringing in the necessary classes and items should just shrug off the rest and say "well, we can do all the work, so we welcome the others."