Pragmatic Daopilled How to Survive MuhRO Guide by Sophie/Joan

Enlightenment before Understanding
Understanding before Enlightenment

Introduction

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Hello I'm Sophie/Joan (Guide Date: 7/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 experienced in MuhRO and what I understand after playing for a mere 1 year's time as of when this guide is written. I do not claim my method to be the best nor the insight or knowledge to be the most accurate; not even close, in fact there are many other players, who are simply technically and knowledge-wise better, who is growing stronger faster and more efficiently, who make more friends, and who contributed more for MuhRO community (also feel free to dm me on discord/In-game for whatever reason I'll talk to you whenever my time/energy allows it). I just simply tried to write it out, because frequently I saw that there are people who simply wants to know what's others are doing and/or simply wants to know what's the benchmark, people who get into trouble and don't know what part they're doing wrong, or someone's who is feeling that they are not progressing, etc. While it is hard to give convincing or objective opinion on these issues without offending or sounding like a gossiper or condescending because, frankly, it is simply hard to explain things without a standardized unified perception of reality or an official authority. To be honest, I am not that sure that discussion demands regarding these matters from either new or old players are high even (as of 7/Sep/2025) because I think most people are casual about these matters. Though I think it will be somehow beneficial in the very long run for specific type of people with unique fate who is destined to read this compendium insights and stratagems of mine, and also for other people that randomly came across this writing and read it while they are bored and too tired to actively do anything meaningful in-game but still want to feel as if they are progressing the game somehow.

Lastly and most importantly, I have to state here: there's no Guide of Guide, for a Guide that can be written is not the True Guide, so much so that that you should always strive to find and create the better routine/pattern of action and decision making, and to endlessly experiment about and to try to know more about how the little world of this MuhRO server truly works. This Daoist Guide of subjective reality is just here to help you to craft your own unique cosmology/world view, that in the end you are able to be the living guide for yourself. All in all, after reading this guide it is my greatest wish that people would be inspired somehow and hopefully with their own strength could escape their own individual prisoner's dilemma (classic scenario in game theory that shows why two rational individuals might not cooperate, even if cooperation would benefit them both) and by so eventually and by compounding create a nicer time for everyone in the MuhRO community.

Scope/For whom this guide is intended for

Early, mid, to end game decision-making guide or a manual of some sort of eliminating not nice to be around people and not beneficial to do things for those players whom have reached the beginning of realization that this server is a marathon game not a sprint, that this server is here to stay and will outlast many if most official servers out there, and that the server is the best. And because of all these things, you realized that being good and smart by aligning yourself with the raison d'etre of this server will have better payoff than short term predatory behaviors and cheap thrills. As Sun Tzu once said, "Those who plan extensively before a battle are likely to win; those who plan only a little are likely to lose." and such I hope with this guide it would be easier to sort out what behaviors and what kind of people that you interact with will or will not help you reaching your long term goals and to avoid the trap of: Everyone else is doing it = Good. It is simply not, because everyone has different goals in mind and most of the top affluent people of the server hides what exactly their cashflow producing methods are. What matters the most is your own situational awareness, adaptability, and integrated understanding about all these to plan ahead and ultimately benefits just by positional advantage and having the correct latent capability.

Utilizing the major principles of plausible deniability, this guide is purposely made to be vague, intuitive/generalizing, and not-offending-as-possible as I do not provide exact namedrop and detailed plans/routine/action/judgment of which why some people or decision might or might not work as well for mine or your in-game goals and interests may it be socially, financially, or of any other aspects, and for that case you should not find me or anyone else to gossip about the types of people mentioned within this guide, and there is no exception to this; just keep things to yourself and be non-toxic and be as introspective as possible and think of these all as educational/fictional parables and of self improvement focused.

You are to be conditioned into a state akin to freely swimming in the blue ocean, and is not trapped as a turtle in a well. For this guide to work, you are assumed to have already know and/or at some point at least once have a quality interaction with everyone that often shows up on #trade channel, every GM except Muh (because he is busy don't disturb him), every EM and Mods, every major Guild Leaders, top 20 zeny rankers, top contributors and build/item testers, and guide writers of the past, present, and the future. If you cannot do those all yet because you are very new or having shy personality like me, at least try to be familiar with their names and roughly try to remember or record what they said to understand them better even without so much active interactions from your side. Other important thing is that you have traded quite often (around 20 trades a week with different people or 50 buyings from vending and/or successful vending sells) of important commodities/current meta related items and interacted with people on #global, #trade, and various jobs #channels in MuhRO discord, and at one point have checked prices of commodities and valuable end game equips and MVP cards on your handphone when you were away touching grass far from your computer (because those crazy good deals could just pop out of nowhere amirite).

While hopefully able to simplify and covers the most basics of basics of strategic planning, one thing to state about the scope of this Pragmatic Guide is its limitation: that we are not putting fun any weight as factor in our decision making and so this guide will disregard those funsies in the planning, because it will require far more complex calculations and considerations, of which I think is pointless to ponder upon (just do it when u want to have fun and ditch the plans). Also lastly you are required to have the drive and tenacity to farm/grind and work hard and honest, and not making predatory behavior your main modus operandi (this is a warning).

Long-term Planning optimization problem is that for some people strategically, some behaviour/routine suit them better as it simply matching their personal energy-mental balance and currently owned assets (e.g. you will like to farm instances more as crit DK and/or that you kinda hate field farming), so we will not assume a narrow-minded stance on this issue and would tolerate a bit lesser realized/unrealized zeny per hour potentials ratios and whatnots as long as things work well.

Strata of purpose: General Objectives vs Specific Objectives

Long-term Goals

A priori reasoning would define our Long-term Goals (listed here by priority of importance) and permanent/temporary condition of losing would simply be defined by its a posteriori :

1. Ability to keep playing: this covers both non-physical aspects (e.g. master account integrity, social integrity, etc) and physical aspects (e.g. mood, attention, etc). And therefore losing conditions would be if you cannot play anymore (e.g. banned/jailed/muted, bad mood, deteriorating sanity).
2. Gaining strength in-game: this covers strength defined loosely (e.g. economic strength, network strength). And therefore losing conditions would be if you cannot make progress (e.g. you got enslaved by a bad guild/bad actor-> real case but I will not namedrop but it did happen).

General Objectives

Objectives are determined by Long-term Goals and would be split into 2 components namely the General Objectives and the Specific Objectives. As this is a Pragmatic Guide above being Daoist Guide, General Objectives will take precedes above Specific Objectives. The general objectives directly relates to securing specific conditions (e.g. account integrity) and specific IRL resources (time, energy, mood) behaviors traditionally known as 保精 (Jing Preservation), that function as key requirements that allow you to keep pursuing the 2 aforementioned long-term goals. Specific objectives are those related to the Daoist elements (e.g. objectives listed in Earth (地/Dì), Men (人, Rén), and Heaven (天, Tiān) parts) and its larger interaction with these deductives will later elaborated on their parts of this guide.

The General Objectives (listed by priority of importance):

1. Securing your account/Avoiding behavioral risks that potentially compromises your account: Most easily achieved by reading, memorizing, and understanding the Server Rules and Best Practices (e.g. Norms, Mores, etc)
2. Securing and protecting your specific IRL resources (time, energy, mood, mental wellbeing, attention): This part is more complex and for different levels of realities (Earth (地/Dì), Men (人, Rén), and Heaven (天, Tiān)) there are different treatments that could be applied but not limited to only what are listed on this guide.

First Level of Reality: Earth (地/Dì)

It's all about you and the land that you cultivate

If you want to exclusively operating on this level of reality, it is viable by treating the game as a strictly single player game: No interaction with other players, no interaction outside the game on discord, no buying and selling, just farm strictly by yourself and progress everything by yourself. Just saying these so you will get the idea.

What to do generally to help progress this realm (the alternative is solo farming and solo crafting everything):

1. Know what you want vs what you need: buying wrong item at right price or right item at wrong price are both bad, but not equally bad (the former is generally worse than the latter). More on this, people have desire sensor so if you want something you should not show it too much because people will exploit it. Better to offer to buy both the thing you want and their materials so that it shows people you can't be fooled and that you know your stuff and able to make one if someone try to offer you some bulls*** price and that there are alternatives and there is more potential seller than sole buyer(you). On the side note don't offer too low too often because you will be blacklisted by people (it will affect your interactions in the next level of reality on Men (人) Realm) and it is bad unless you are already of higher strength classification (people will need you more than you need them).
2. Be as efficient (farm with better zeny per hour) and effective (farm at better maps) as possible: easier to do than said but it is the classic advice.
3. Knows your classification of strength and your relative positional advantage/disadvantage against the other party: Be aware that higher strength classification people (level 4 and 5) tends to be more unmovable like a mountain precisely because they are very self sufficient. They can wait out for weeks if not months until the market situations turns in their favor, even some are selling or buying just for the sake of it(they don't really need your zeny). But surprisingly, they could also be unpredictably offer the top money for the stuff they like; when they cough billions move. It is generally useless to haggle against them and it is them who shape the environment around them to their liking. The contrast is, if you are facing people of weaker classification, they tend to be more flimsy and will generally need your stuff better than you need their zeny relatively speaking. Even if you want to be ruthless they will most likely bend their knee to your demand (because at weaker progression even with buying overpriced stuff is generally still profitable to people, e.g. sub 50-100m items could triple someone's damage so they will farm x5 their farming speed) while the alternative is for them to wait a day or two or a week farming with sub-optimal gears waiting for the right price (it is making them lose potential profit), but don't do this too often though because people will remember you and possibly will have a grudge (it will affect your interactions on Men (人) Realm).

Strength Classification

知彼知己，百戰不殆 If you know the other party(ies) and know yourself, in a hundred battles you will not be in danger.

不知彼而知己，一勝一負 If you know yourself but not the other party(ies), for every victory you will also suffer a defeat.

不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆 If you know neither the other party(ies) nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every battle.

-Sun Tzu-

Bi (彼) as interpreted here, it is not "enemy (敌, di)" as commonly written on more popular quotations and westernized interpretations. It simply means the other party. It also capture the essence of flexibility of interests and fluidity of the situations: one moment a friend beating a hard instance together and at the same time they could be your competitor aiming to buy the same set of materials for some end game stuff. The paradoxical situation doesn't matter, they could be both at the same time as you would be to them.

For this realm, to classify yourself is just to measure how materially self sufficient you are, while you should also actively try to measure the strength of the other party which is useful thing to do in many scenarios (trade, forum, even socially in general) that is how do make use of the informations you know. Doing it right it would limit your exposure to unnecessary risks and help curtain expectations (you can be seen as toxic if you demand too much from other parties without knowing their capabilities). Anyway the strength classification for this realm are:

1. Level 1 Earth; Not Self-Sufficient, Not Efficient, Not Effective / Void Stage (虚, Xū): Slow progress and will need to buy everything from other players or slowly farm it themselves. Most new players are here unless you donate the first thing you do after registering and get to sell muh vouchers for a lump sum.
2. Level 2 Earth; Not Self-Sufficient but Efficient / Flowing Stage (流, Liú): Obtained their first TDRC + Dimensions weapon combo. Able to start farming some of the most profitable maps (e.g. nif2). Still need to buy a lot of stuff from other players because it will still be slower if they farm those materials themselves.
3. Level 3 Earth; Self-Sufficient and Baseline Efficiency / Rooted Stage (根, Gēn): Able to farm on all the harder farming maps (Biosphere B for Zelunium/BSB, D2 for TDMR runes) and some solo instances (e.g. LoF). Will still be able to progress and gain strength even if the market supply is empty. Will still need to buy some stuff from the hardest contents or farm it slowly with/without help. Most players are here.
4. Level 4 Earth; True Self-Sufficiency / Harmonized Stage (和, Hé): Able to farm all farming maps and all solo instances. Still dependent on pub runs for some of the hardest group instance (e.g. HoL, ToT, Alice Hard). Most older players/veterans are here.
5. Level 5 Earth; Beyond Self-Sufficient with Surplus and Abundance/ Overflowing Stage (盛, Shèng): Able to farm all farming maps and all solo instances efficiently and some even able to solo farm group instance by themselves/with small group of 2-3 people. Very resourceful and have their own specialized networks for beating the hardest instances (e.g. ToT, HoL, Alice Hard).

Comfortable Farming

On Earth (地/Dì), Objectives are (by priority):

1. Integrity (don't do stupid stuff like botting, afk farming, putting stones on your keys etc)
2. IRL resources (energy, mood, etc)

Table Talk

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Second Level of Reality: Men (人, Rén)

It's about you and fellow players whom you interact with

If you want to exclusively operating on this level of reality, it is viable by treating the game as a strictly social and aesthetic game, maybe something like VRChat: No farming, no instance, only afk in towns, be pretty, and socialize with other players in full and entirety. Just saying these so you will get the idea.

Strength Classification

For this realm, to classify yourself is just to measure how connected and how knowledgeable you are towards the people, both the ones beneficial to you and the ones not so beneficial to you, and best practices:

1. Level 1 Men; Not Connected(孤立無援): Knows noone and is clueless about this server both socially and rules-speaking. Most new players are here unless you are migrating together with some old friends from old server, or able to notice some old names you previously encountered on some other places some other times. If you are here just add the numbers and try to get to know as many people as possible. Honeymoon of post-migration/post-hiatus period.
2. Level 2 Men; Sufficiently Connected (通達有餘): Knows their peers, and some older friendly players. You start to get noticed, and people also actively want to get to know you from their side and to measure you. You start to gain strength and becoming more significant. More sinister force starts to target you as they assume you will have buying power, but not the knowledge to discern the good items vs bad items and good prices vs bad prices nor having the connections that is always available to be consulted about this matter. If you are here I would personally advice you to use #global and #support as much as possible and avoid DM unless it is with someone trustworthy.
3. Level 3 Men; Strategically Connected (謀通天下): Knows at least a guild worth number of people that have mutual/common interest. You have found your comfy zone. Most players are here. You are generally immunized against most common shady practices, and even if u haven't, you always know someone to ask.
4. Level 4 Men; Networked and Perceptive(網通明察): Knows a lot of people to chill with of which is probably one third of the server and have a long list who to avoid or to distance yourself with. People sometimes brand you as elitist at this phase but they don't understand that quality starts to matter more than quantity and that you don't have time for everyone. Knows good deals vs bad deals just by seeing the seller's name. Most veterans are here. Scammers will ignore you.
5. Level 5 Men; Connected with History, Aware of Men(通古知人): Knows a lot of people for years and generally everyone in the server that shared your timezones, at times it seems that there's more people that know you than you know them but then you remember them again after awhile. Probably you also have dirts on a lot of people (but ur not a snitch, you are the cool kids). Scammers will fear you.

Justification of Selfishness vs Social Obligation as Member of the Collective

On this realm it is all mostly about balancing; your interests vs your friend's or other member of the community's interests, having crazy fun vs being strict of the rules and regulations, spending time for your own progress vs helping other people, etc. But all in all I think being selfish to a degree is fine, because above all reasons, it is you that choose to do this activity. The bottom line is everyone is doing this too and so by that awareness, we might guess the possible the limitation of being selfish: You start being a problem when you are disturbing people en masse and/or the greater cosmic order by your action, and by doing so you will start to attract watching eyes from the next level of reality: the Heaven (天, Tiān) realm.

Comfortable Social Distancing

The ideal scenario would be the right people with the right distance; but more often than not, placing the wrong people at the right distance would work well for a pragmatist.

The General Objectives rules still works here:

1. Integrity (matters more than Earth (地) Level of Reality, you are facing against plethora of various other people after all)
2. IRL resources (energy, mood, etc)

Table Talk

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Third Level of Reality: Heaven (天, Tiān)

It's about things that you and any other other players can't control

If you want to exclusively operating on this level of reality, it might be possible by volunteering while at the same time retiring your main game account. Those who are exclusively here would feel like the game (and the online community formed around it) as a project to be worked on: Not interacting with other players as a fellow player; nor treating the in-game environments as a player, but by functioning as code related programmers/developers, social managers, costume/skin workers, etc. Mods/EM/GM/helpers strictly operates on this level of reality if they don't do anything with their player account. Beyond this it would be the game's original directions (e.g. the updates original from kRO). Just saying these so you will get the idea of what this realm consists of.

Comfortable Building

The General Objectives rules still works here:

1. Integrity (matters even more than previous Levels of Reality)
2. IRL resources (energy, mood, etc)

Table Talk

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Acknowledgements

• Special Thanks to whoever wrote Dao De Jing (道德經) and I Ching (易經) among any other books.
• Special Thanks to Prof. Chow-Hou Wee (黃昭虎) who wrote his elegant, clear, and timeless interpretations above and beyond many other scholarly translations of Sun Tzu's Art of War.
• Hurt Locker's Wind Hawk Guide character picture format was used for picture formatting of this guide.