True End Game Secret Guide by Sophie/Joan


Proportions
Practical Mixing Ratios

Introduction

<page under construction>

Hello I'm Sophie/Joan (Guide Date: 4/Sep/2025). You would see me often AFK in the center of Prontera/Gonryun/Garden of Time with my Soul Ascetic (SA) char R.ClickToRename254519 or other characters. This guide is merely what I do with my characters and I do not claim to be the best at this, in fact there are many other people better at this who, for time to time, posted in MuhRO discord, showing myriads of previously unexplored combinations and elegant theming born from boundless creativity and refined taste (also feel free to dm me on discord/In-game if you can improve upon mine we can talk about this all day lol). I just simply tried to write it out, because I think frequently there are people asking which combination is better? A or B combinations etc, while it is hard to give convincing or objective opinion on this without offending or sounding like a snob because it is simply hard to explain things without a common ground. Also that I am sure discussion demands regarding this matter from both new and old players are as high as ever (as of 4/Sep/2025) and also that I saw many new previously unavailable and previously exclusive costumes rapidly being added and made available within the last 3-4 months, in fact there is so many of them after the costume revamp just around the earlier part of this Year of the Lord 2025.

Lastly and most importantly, I have to state that here: there's not a single Holy Grail of the best or universally perfect costume, so much so that that you should always strive to find and create the better combination design and to endlessly experiment while talking it out with your fellow AFK friends and fellow enthusiasts. To help with the said communication attempt/discussion, I would hope that the guide would provide a common ground of at least one conceptual framework (while there are many other more avantgarde frameworks/practical methods developed within the last 20-30 years alone in the field of Visual Design and Communication, in fact the methodology I wrote in this guide is considered the most basic and old one) or for personal betterment, to offer a school of thought to make it possible for oneself to silently be able to adore and appreciate character designs that others have been meticulously worked on. And allow one to confidently jump in any of related topics and hopefully not to be looked down as a mere simpleton but as fellow people of culture. All in all, after reading this guide it is my greatest wish that the communication (as someone said "DM is the Key") between fellow enthusiasts and appreciators would hopefully be more smooth and structuralized and also for everyone to stay cute and handsome. The exception might be if you want to flex your rare expensive costumes and wouldn't mind looking overall tasteless or looking jagged or overwhelming for other purposes (and one of the purpose might be making other people lag on your farming maps).

Scope/For whom this guide is intended for

End game utilization guide of nice to have and fun to wear things for those players whom have reached the true end game, whom have collected most, if not all the server's best costumes that came with various rarities (and even some server-wide unique by-request ones) and of unbelievable amount whose collections fills up an entire storage or maybe even more. But well as Sun Tzu once said, "It is useless to have a large army, without knowing how to command them" and such I hope with this guide it would be easier to sort out what items will or will not work within your arsenal and avoid the trap of: Expensive = Good. This guide is very subjective and intuitive as I do not provide exact judgement and detailed appreciation of which some costumes or stones might or might not work as well for your in-game character's designs, but for that case you can find me to test out or experiment with any costumes/effect stone that are listed/mentioned within this guide, unless I specifically stated to not have them. In this guide you are assumed to have already bought Alternate Costume Coupon (for some jobs with not too well made 4th job's skin) or is in progress to do so and don't mind spending on this matter (or is saving up), have bought Pet Disguise Coins whenever it suits the entire palette combination, and/or at one point have accumulated and cashed out thousands of FP (Fashion Points) for effect stones via slot machine NPC on the @go main second floor (because those effect stones are more important than jobs stones amirite).

While hopefully able to simplify and covers the most basics of basics conceptually speaking, one thing to state about the scope of this guide is its limitation: that there are certainly better methods for designing and conceptualizing more complex schemes (e.g. animated costumes/animated stone effect as the highlight) and so this guide will not cover those more advanced field of practical applications, because it will require far more complex fundamentals and practical experiences, of which I don't think I have enough. And it would be night impossible to make myself able to accurately write something that complex, while trying to keep guide fun and lightweight, at least for the state that I am now. Also lastly you are required to have the drive and tenacity to spend hours at a time just to find the perfect cloth colour on Dr. Style NPC (this is a warning).

True End Game optimization problem is that for some people culturally, some costumes/effect stones setups suit them better as it simply satisfy the specifics of their personal styles and currently owned assets (e.g. you don't know what will you win from your 41010.png Costume Reward Box Summer (41010) ), so we will not assume a narrow-minded stance on this issue and would tolerate a bit lesser mismatch and whatnots as long as things work well (shout out to get the costume envy immunity people!).

 

Important Jargons (just go back here again whenever you forgor)

  • The 3 roles (of Tricolor system among any other names):
  1. Hero Colour (Base colour): your main / most dominant choice (the foundation of the scheme).
  2. Supporting colour: the secondary element that works alongside the base.
  3. Accent colour: the adjuster or highlighter (tertiary, neutral, or pop of contrast).

General Overview of Very Practical Mixing Ratios

It is recommended to at least google once about static theory (wheel divisions) just to see the overall wheel of colour (not gonna post it here nor writing about the details), but I will try to make things to be as concrete as possible within this guide and applicable for our RO related purposes.

Contrast vs Harmony

To simplify the case, we will only consider mainly the interactions between Hero Colour and Supporting Colour and such will hopefully simplify the case (e.g. we are not actively considering the contrast/harmony between Hero and Accent, or Supporting and Accent), although you can always do it yourself as in more advanced design processes (not gonna be fully covered here).

Our eyes seek visual balance between similarity (harmony) and difference (contrast). Therefore our Objectives will be (by priority):

  1. When harmony dominates (between hero colour and supporting colour), you must “open up” space.
  2. When contrast dominates, you need less adjustment, since balance is naturally present.

Proportions

As previously mentioned, on this guide we will heavily deal with the tricolor system and the terms born from it namely Hero Colour, Supporting Colour, and Accent Colour (later will be shortened as Hero, Supporting, and Accent). It is often easy to spot in nature and also probably reason of why the flags of many countries consist of three colours. And in general the only hard rule we will strongly follow is that it has to look good/cute/handsome, a very aesthetical centered view and that the end justifies the means.

 

In the picture of big cat above as example we can say the Hero is light brown, the Supporting is White, and the Accent is black. Simple right?

The general rule of thumb is 60:30:10 ratio for Hero:Supporting:Accent colours for them to look good. And in application, back again to our Objectives practically it simply means:

  1. When harmony dominates, increase proportions of the Accent (or use stronger colours as the Accent)
  2. When contrast dominates, lower proportions of the Accent (or use weaker colours as the Accent)

So as we evaluate the Hero colour and the Supporting colour, which are the harmony of light brown and white because they are neighboring colour in the wheel of colour (not really so much difference between them right?), the big cat still looks good. The reason might be because the strong colour of black is used and the proportion is more than 10%, that in a way everything follows our previous logic in a circular way.

Very Practical Steps

The actual application of the practical steps are more loosely defined depending on your own unique situations (as one step may be swapped with other step), but I will simply provide these example step-by-step as a whole with commentary, as some sort of backbone or as the line of thoughts to simplify the whole matter (and to avoid confusion):

  1. First step is to decide the main theme/highlight item. For example you want something in your costume garment slot as the highlight.
  2. And from that you can start to decide or construct what theme or message you will try to communicate: is it playful, projection of power, simply to look cool/cute, elegance with frills, etc (this is more of abstract part and there is no right or wrong here, only that the theme/message will be strong/weak/mixed)
  3. Then you have to decide or in other cases to identify, your choice of Hero colour and Supporting colour based on the colour of that one piece of highlight costume, precisely the garment costume in this case. This is where the usual colour symbolism fits in (e.g. blue for calm and stability, red for fiery spirits or anger, green for health and longevity, etc). The more the Hero colour and to the limited amount the Supporting colour matches the same theme/message, the stronger the theme/message will be (but being overly strong may or may not always be preferable).
  4. After that you may decide the rest of the 3 pieces of the costumes, precisely the top, mid, and low costumes to build around the overall theme (e.g. put guitar costume on rocker theme, choose the frilly umbrella for your elegant and cute frilly cardinal, etc). You can test the water in the case if there is recolor available and that it should match the Hero colour, the Supporting colour, and/or the Accent colour as much as possible (could match more than one).
  5. Start finding the best looking alternate costume and the cloth colour number that matches the chosen Hero-Supporting-Accent colours and the overall theme. You should readjust here either the choice of the Supporting colour and subsequently the Accent colour or the choice of the top/mid/low costume if it doesn't look good or if feels a bit odd. Taste and experience matter the most here. Also outsiders inputs are actually most valuable around this step as to avoid self justification fallacy.
  6. Adjust the effect stones. Sync them with the theme. Some stone with blurring effects (for example various stone costume with lights effect e.g. 70016.png Blessing Effect Stone (70016) ) might be used to mask either the hero colour or the Supporting colour in the case there are 2 close looking colours but are not exactly the same but you still want to group them together.
  7. The effect stones are also able to be worked in as the Accent, in the case the rest of the costumes namely the top/mid/low choices are only falls to Hero/Supporting colour category. Otherwise it should be worked into applying the 60:30:10 ratio or the subsequent rebalanced ratio (e.g. 60:35:5 if too contrasting/ 55:30:15 if too harmonious)

Very Concrete Review and Evaluation

About the Review of Practical Cases

The general aim of the review and evaluation (as of Date: 5/Sep/2025) is to elaborate the concept behind the apparent design and offer to dig up the whole processes behind that, as transparent as possible, in other words to somewhat provide a possible reference of how the whole things works (limited to my way, and that you should eventually develop your own unique methods if you haven't already). Also do not consider my interpretations as the correct one above yours, as I am merely doing my best at the moment (as if in performance arts) and so your judgement might be more accurate than mine and you should be confident about it. We can just leave it here, hanging and inconclusive and that will be perfectly fine.

Other note is that you should be aware that good conceptualization does not equal good execution. The material reason of this might be that the more matching costume is not made available yet to the server, or that it is still expensive or rare that it is simply unobtainable on personal level for the time being. However one should not despair, because as far as I know, in this server the policy regarding exclusive costumes are that they will be made available to the public eventually (the timings may vary). One of the best example is the once notoriously hard to get 480437.png C. Himmelmez's Sword (480437) now is available to be crafted easily.

Sophie's Talk

These are some of my characters that I finished dressing up, of which I meant good enough at least for the time being.

Theme/Message Visuals Ratio Notes
Monkey Girl/Energetic  

Highlight Item: 40134.png [1] (40134) because of some nostalgia and also that it looks cool.

  • Hero: Yellow/Gold (60%), bright, active, uplifting.
  • Supporting: Green(30%), calm, stabilizing, nature-grounded.
  • Accent: White (5-10%)/Red (1%)
  • Type: Overall Harmony (Yellow are next to Green in colour wheel so it harmonizes, but Gold are actually mix of Yellow and Red and actually partially contrasting)
  • Treatment: Adding White to break the harmony. Because White is strong colour in this palette (It has maximum value contrast against both Gold and Green), it doesn't need that much (from the front-side, only source is from 60949.png C. Flame Wings (white) (60949) and partially from cloth colour)

Fox Mage Girl/Playful  

Highlight Item: 61505.png C. Cat Witch Hat (red) (61505) because I thought the moving ears looks cute.

  • Hero: Red (60%), bold, energetic, passionate.
  • Supporting: Light Brown (30%), warm undertones, stabilizing.
  • Accent: White (5-10%)/Rainbow (1-5%)

  • Type: Harmony (Brown are next to Red in colour wheel so it harmonizes)
  • Treatment: Adding White to break the harmony. Uplifting the entire palette so it wouldn't feel heavy and the end result will be a combination of feeling warm, bold, and grounded. While feeling approachable as a character. 70072.png Magic Circle (rainbow) Effect Stone (70072) was added for the feeling of festivity compounding on the playfulness from 61289.png C. Deviruchi Party (red) (61289) .
Ghost Girl/Introverted  

Highlight Item: 40152.png C. Blue Moon Loli Ruri (40152) because the blue moon looks cool.

  • Hero: Pale White (60%-70%), purity, formality, “otherworldly/ghastly” vibe.
  • Supporting: Blue (20-30%), seriousness, calmness.
  • Accent: Gold (1-5%)/Black(1-3%)

  • Type: Harmony (Blue and Pale white harmonizes because both are low energy, and also white does not create real contrast because it is neutral/achromatic colour).
  • Treatment: Adding Gold/Black ensures the design doesn’t feel flat or too restrained. The only source for Gold is 410049.png C. Blinking Golden Eyes (410049) and the hair colour, while Black is only from 61564.png C. Cat on Shoulder (black) (61564) just for matching theme (ghost + black cat).
Demon Girl/Aloof  

Highlight Item: 90181.png C. Mischief Wing (golden) (90181) because this item feels complex and robust like a deep roasted coffee (usually I don't like wings type garments because they feels too fluffy for my taste).

  • Hero: Gold(60-70%), radiant, commanding, luxurious.
  • Supporting: Deep Purple (30%), depth, mystery, regality.
  • Accent: Light Blue(1-3%) / Red(1%)

  • Type: Contrast (Gold and Deep Purple sit opposite each other on the color wheel, Purple is a mix of Red + Blue, which directly complements Gold/Yellow. This creates strong visual tension and energy.
  • Treatment: While the type of interaction is already a Contrast(we don't really have do to anything more), in order to bring it up a new level the Accent (1–3%) becomes critical. Light Blue (1–3%) from 70738.png Particles (blue) Stone (70738) with animation introduces a cool spark, preventing the palette from becoming too heavy or solemn. Red (1%) from one of 410320.png C. Demi-Freya's Twinkling Eyes (410320) eyes, compounding the boldness of Gold while the other eye, while the lighter Purple eye echoes Deep Purple’s mystery. The end result is a character who feels majestic, authoritative, and unforgettable.
Fire Girl/Fiery  

Fire Girl ratio

  • Hero:
  • Supporting:
  • Accent:

Fire notes

Rock'n'Roll Girl/Excess  

Rock'n'Roll Girl ratio

  • Hero:
  • Supporting:
  • Accent:

Rocker notes

(your) Theme/Message File:Xxxxxx.jpg

(your) Theme ratio

  • Hero:
  • Supporting:
  • Accent:

(your) Theme notes

  • P.S.: Anyone here knows how to easily make .gif of these like they occasionaly have in #fashion channel?
  • P.S.: Everyone is welcome to add their own characters so that we will have wider range of references.

Miscellaneous and Hot Tips (for RO character design in general)

  • Go donate so you will have a lot of 50003.png Muh Voucher (50003) thanks

Acknowledgements

  • Special Thanks to Tmisn for editing and proofreading.
  • Showcases and demonstrations from Various Master Artists and Designers (ain't namedropping y'all but you know who you are) mostly but not limited to seasonal Fashion Show events, #Fashion, and #Screenshoot of MuhRo Discord and my own interactions with various other very beautiful/cute/handsome GMs, EMs, and Mods that have educated and enriched my taste on so many things regarding RO fashion design beyond personal trial and error.
  • Hurt Locker's Wind Hawk Guide character picture format was used for picture formatting of this guide.