History YMMV / RealmOfTheMadGod

* MisaimedMarketing: Some of the promotional trailers and ads made for the game are...questionable at best. Not only do some of them use the overly-simplistic block artstyle found in the original artwork, and often fail to convey what the game is actually about (or just showing incredibly misleading gameplay), certain others have also fallen to scorn by means of being overly dramatized and low quality (read: the infamous Vindication trailer that received ''such backlash'' that the trailer was outright removed from the channel for some time).

* MisaimedMarketing: Some of the promotional trailers and ads made for the game are...questionable at best. Not only do some of them use the overly-simplistic block artstyle found in the original artwork, and often fail to convey what the game is actually about (or just showing incredibly misleading gameplay), certain others have also fallen to scorn by means of being overly dramatized and low quality (read: the infamous Vindication trailer that recieved ''such backlash'' that the trailer was outright removed from the channel for some time).

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Necromancer was historically considered a subpar pick due to being a MasterOfNone hybrid between the Wizard and Priest, but with fewer capabilities than either - his damage was lower than a Wizard, his healing couldn't surpass a Priest, and his lifesteal being reliant on multiple clumped enemies gimped him even more. However, he eventually recieved a series of buffs which increased his ATT to be on par with the Wizard and, most notably, gave his Skulls a passive HP bonus which made him incredibly tanky for a robe class, giving him his own niche as a ranged DPS class who sacrifices only some offense for bulk rivalling that of leather or heavy classes despite his lower DEF.

* CreatorsPet: Many have accused the Summoner of being this for DECA, especially relative to the Sorcerer. Not only does the Summoner essentially PowerCreep the Sorcerer in nearly every single regard, she was released with ''7'' UT/ST Maces ''on her release'', [[note]]Not counting the joke Machine UTs or reskins[[/note]] which is not only far more than the 2 classes that released before her, but the same amount of UT/ST items that Sorcerer has recieved over its entire ''11-year lifetime''. Not helping is that one of said maces is the Incubation Mace (mentioned below under GameBreaker), which combined with the safety of the Maces made Summoner into a far better long-ranged DPS class than nearly every other class in the game. This saw a resurgence with the Shatters rework, where there was outcry upon the discovery that the leaked Scepter in the files (which would have given Sorcerer his first endgame UT ability) had been DummiedOut...and replaced with an ''eigth'' Mace, and the second endgame UT for Summoner.

** The first increase in difficulty comes when you reach the Highlands- where before most enemies were relatively sedate, the Highlands can and will see you swarmed under with minions if you aren't prepared, and each of them will be considerably stronger than anything you've seen before. You'll also start seeing StatusEffects quite commonly.

** "Shotgun" for a wave of projectiles that spread out, owning to their similarity to pellets being fired out of a shotgun. Getting "shotgunned" is when you get hit by one of these, which of course usually results in you dying. The most iconic is perhaps Oryx 2's massive spray of colorful stars that inflicts various status effects, as it was the single most dangerous attack in the game for much of its older days, and remains a looming threat even now.

*** As a direct result of pets, sword classes (Particularly the Warrior and Knight) have become this. Their dangerously low range in exchange for incredible offensive ability previously made them a high-risk high-reward class, with their high defense only allowing them to spend a short time within effective sword range. With pets healing them and refilling their magic, this changed; Knights can now permanently lock enemies in the Stunned status rendering them unable to fight back the second they close to melee range, made easier by the constant healing, and Warriors can permanently buff themselves with the Armoured status by using the untiered Helm of the Juggernaut, skyrocketing their Defense to levels that, augmented by the high Heal power of pets, allow them to simply ignore every single shot that comes their way unless it's an ArmorPiercingAttack. Almost all endgame dungeons now have to be made with pets in mind, and the Pet Stasis debuff is specifically designed to suppress them.

** Before the Vital Combat update that nerfed it, the Tome of Purification was one of the most overpowered items in the entire game due to its hefty heal and unique ability to cleanse debuffs on ''everyone in range.'' With a decent Magic Heal pet, a Priest with the tome (or better yet, multiple) could essentially render a group of players nearly immortal ''and'' totally immune to status effects, making endgame bosses like Chancellor Dammah or the Marble Colossus into jokes. However, Vital Combat quickly spelt an end for its reuptation, as it was nerfed so that the purification only affects the user, in addition to the overall nerf of Tome healing in large groups.

** Formerly, Constructs in the Godlands. They lack the firepower to be a serious threat against most reasonably maxed players, but are nearly impossible to kill thanks to the fact that each of them heals one of its companions to full HP every second or so (Rock healed Steel, which healed Wood, which healed Rock). While this was meant to [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman be a showcase of Mystic's potential]] - and Mystics ''can'' handily dispatch Constructs - they're a Godlands-cluttering nuisance for everyone else, and can generally only be killed via [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming firepower]]. However, as of a patch, the constructs became able to be eliminated easily without special abilities or ridiculous firepower, as the Rock Construct no longer heals the Steel one - provided that they are eliminated in the order of wood, then stone, then steel, Constructs can now be easily killed by any class.

** The majority of InterfaceScrew debuffs. The most hated one is probably Confusion (rotates your controls 90 degrees), due to its ability to almost instantly screw you over in any fight and the fact that getting around it specifically needs you to memorize the confuse controls to avoid running headlong into danger.

** Although Chancellor Dammah's knife walls are notorious for being a run ender for inexperienced players, his "miasma" phase is considered the real kicker of the fight, forcing players to rotate with a spinning cross of portals while navigating through the storm of Sickening shots they create. Having your healing shut down can spell a swift death due to how many bullets you can be hit with at once, and the other shots in the phase will also inflict Pet Stasis and Silence to further neuter your recovery and damage. Speaking of damage, you may be tempted to just focus on dodging, but you'll also ''need'' to focus fire on Dammah to actually end the phase faster.

** The Abyss of Demons. Compared to the other Godlands dungeons, it's [[MarathonLevel way longer]], borderline mazelike in how convoluted the map generation is, claustrophobic due to the tight corridors and lava flooding most of the map, and filled with enemies that [[GlassCannon die quickly but do insane amounts of damage as well]]; dying from struggling through lava and getting jumped from around a corner by a squad of demons isn't uncommon. Navigating the dungeon can easily wear out your HP from dealing with the demonic hordes and constant lava damage, and it's painfully easy to hit dead ends, forcing you to backtrack through the lava-filled corridors and try another path. Ironically, the actual boss battle against Archdemon Malphas is generally agreed to be easier than getting to him in the first place.
** The Toxic Sewers for a similar reason. While there's no lava and it's less claustrophobic, most of the dungeon is filled with poisonous sludge that slows you, nullifies healing and sometimes pushes you with the flow, forcing you to the sides of the corridors or the metal bridges provided. The enemies in the sewers have more health than those in the Abyss while dealing similar amounts of damage, and unlike the Abyss demons they love abusing StatusEffects, which can easily lead to sticky situations combined with the anti-heal of the sewer sludge. And while the dungeon layout is often less confusing than the aforementioned Abyss, it's still very lengthy. Like Malphas, Gulpord isn't considered as hard as the path to his chamber.

*** The Crawling Depths, being a Spider Den remake, is much more linear, but is infested with an absurd amount of spider enemies that will gleefully dogpile you when you disturb their eggs. Most of them have rather low health, but inflict massive damage along with multiple debuffs, and the large spiders do away with the health weakness at the cost of being solitary. Not helping are the webbed tiles that make up most of the map, slowing your movement if you try to walk through it. The Son of Arachna at the end is also a tough boss whose strength, defense, surprising speed, and ability to summon large spiders can only be removed one at a time due to its PuzzleBoss mechanics, during which you'll be restricted by a slowing (and later damaging) web like the one from the original Arachna fight and constantly at risk of being sat on by the boss, especially once it starts switching up its movement patterns.

** The limited Belladonna's Garden has a rather difficult boss and infamous insta-kill flowers that are hard to spot...but the rewards are only T9 weapon reskins, with a minuscule chance of getting a skin.

** Dungeons also suffer from a similar problem. Most dungeons were meant to be run with reasonably-sized groups of people, but a lot of the game's best loot is locked behind endgame dungeons that ''can'' be beaten with small groups or even solo, yet require enough skill to bar beginner players from their content. As a result, using platforms like Discord to stage large-scale raids has become common. While endgame dungeon bosses don't exactly roll over and die as easily as Realm bosses, to quote a DECA Q&A session: ''no content in the game'' can be designed to handle a mob of 85+ max-level players. With just a bit of coordination, endgame dungeons like Abandoned Mineshaft, Shatters, and The Nest become total jokes, because it's a lot harder to mess up in a massive murderball of players that instakill nearly everything and heal off all damage dealt. It's gotten to the point where [[BrutalBonusLevel the Lost Halls]] of all things has gained a reputation as a "braindead Discord farming dungeon" that allows even lower-skill players to tag along with a group and nab themselves some top-tier loot and potions. The economy has also suffered as a result, particularly since constant Lost Halls and Sanctuary runs (and chest events) have hyper-deflated the price of Life Potions. On top of all of that, the high-skill aspect of the dungeons has suffered too, since organized runs are considered by most to be the safest (read: only) way to run these dungeons nowadays, and fewer players are actually taking the time to learn how the dungeon works or improve their skills; this also leads to a severe drop in players running dungeons in the actual Realm, as not only does the efficiency of organized runs blow public ones out of the water, most public groups are unable to even beat most harder dungeons. Nowadays, well-organized dungeon raids have a nigh-nonexistent failure rate (although individual failure is another story entirely), with even the hardest dungeons like the Shatters and Oryx's Sanctuary having been subjected to heavy optimization.

** [[http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/sfx/loot_appears.mp3 The sound of a bag dropping.]] Especially when said bag is a White one.

** Played with when concerning the exploding barrels in the Parasite Chambers. Most think that it's a unique and interesting mechanic that makes the dungeon (especially the boss) much more fun. However, it's almost unanimously agreed that the barrels are immensely annoying in the hands of trolls or clueless players. The former because they will abuse the barrels to Armor-Break[[note]]Reduce their DEF to 0 for a few seconds[[/note]] their allies to get them killed, the latter because mishandling the barrels will extend the boss fight by an unnecessarily long time.

** The Sulfurous Wetlands was made to stand beside the Epic Dungeons in difficulty, and certainly lives up to the intention. It's one of the most rusher-unfriendly dungeons in the game - take the general structure of the Deadwater Docks, fill all the platforms with holes exposing the hazardous slowing water, and stuff every platform to the brim with enemies that are almost all capable of a near instakill if you try to run past them, as well as some that intentionally blend in with the background or straight up don't reveal themselves until it's too late. All the enemies are either stationary turrets that can't be kited and force you to fight on their terms, aggressive chasers that ''can'' be kited but will gleefully run you through an obstacle course of Acidic Swamp Water, or enemies that only start fighting back once you're in kill range, but ''can't be hurt at all'' until you're in that range. Not helping is that on top of the slowing water, almost every enemy abuses liberal debuff spam, the movement-impairing ones of which can lead to a swift death if you're being chased or in a bad spot. Although the dungeon will ease up a little bit once you make it to the boss, underestimating the Heart of the Wetlands is still a bad idea, as its bullet patterns are a step above even Jon Bilgewater and in particular are extremely hard to counter if you haven't seen them before.

** A step up from the former are the majority of the Exaltation dungeons (The Nest, Fungal Cavern, Crystal Cavern, Kogbold Steamworks, and Lost Halls). Unless you're getting hard carried by other players, the dungeons demand a level of skill and understanding beyond anything before, and if you don't know what to expect, you're probably going to die.

** The first increase in difficulty comes when you reach the Highlands- where before most enemies were relatively sedate, the Highlands can and will see you swarmed under with minions if you aren't prepared. You'll also start seeing StatusEffects quite commonly.
** The Godlands and basic dungeons are more difficult than preceding areas. Surviving in the Godlands isn't easy for a newbie, as the enemies all do ridiculous amounts of damage in a single bullet, and getting swarmed under is easy. Basic stat potion dungeons such as the Snake Pit and Sprite World are also about this difficulty, and either the enemies or the boss will kill you easily if you aren't prepared.
** The higher-difficulty common dungeons mark an increase in difficulty. The Abyss of Demons, the Mad Lab, the Puppet Master's Theater, and the Manor of the Immortals are all very nasty dungeons for the unprepared, and all of them are capable of ripping careless maxed characters to shreds in seconds.

** A step up from the former are the majority of the Exaltation Dungeons (The Nest, Abandoned Mineshaft, Kogbold Steamworks, and Lost Halls). Unless you're getting hard carried by other players, the dungeons demand a level of skill and understanding beyond anything before, and if you don't know what to expect, you're probably going to die.
** The final and most severe increase in difficulty is the step up to the truly endgame content, namely the last of the Exaltation Dungeons (Moonlight Village, The Shatters, and Oryx's Sanctuary). Intuition and skill alone won't necessarily cut it, nor will a cracked team to carry you - expect to chew through maxed characters just trying to learn them, and only through a lot of patience and practice will you be able to consistently claim their spoils. Only a well practiced, well geared character will even have a chance to survive, especially in smaller groups.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The pre-rework Shatters bosses (sans the Twilight Archmage) had incredibly high stats and lethal attacks, but were all prone to GoodBadBugs that made their fights cakewalks. The Forgotten Sentinel has a glaring safe spot beside it that spares players from the brunt of its firepower, and the Forgotten King's last and hardest phase can be completely bypassed just by standing far enough away from it; on the contrary, trying ''not'' to exploit them would make the bosses nearly impossible in turn.

** The final and most severe increase in difficulty is the step up to the truly endgame content; the Exaltation Dungeons (The Nest, Abandoned Mineshaft, Lost Halls, Kogbold Steamworks, Moonlight Village, The Shatters, and Oryx's Sanctuary). If it's your first time in one of these dungeons and you don't know what to expect, you're probably going to die.

** While the Lair of Draconis' rework made it fairer yet more innovative, with more challenging and far more creative boss battles, they didn't change the Lair's already infamously low drop rates. Doing it solo is almost unheard of, not because it's impossible (it's actually not too bad on a reasonably strong character), but because the dragons don't even guarantee ''potion drops'', much less the sought-after UT/ST gear. This has been made better since, with the addition of guaranteed Greater potion drops and several updates that streamlined the fights even more to the point where even a public group can slay each dragon very quickly if they know what they're doing.
** The Lair of Shaitan turned Shaitan from a relatively easily cheesed boss to arguably [[ThatOneBoss the hardest of all the Court bosses]], with a creative but extremely oppressive fight that pushes most players to their limits. However, while the difficulty was turned up to eleven, the drops were not - the only change from his old ones were the addition of Vitality Potions to his existing Attack Potion drops, both of which are more easily obtained from other sources. To make matters worse, the same update changed the Skull of Endless Torment, making it considerably more niche than it already was. Chances are, the only reason people will do Shaitans now is if they're hunting for some of the exclusive UT or ST items - and even then, that's pushing it considering that none of them are considered particularly good. Several updates buffed this ratio significantly, such as guaranteeing attack potions to everyone, nerfing the boss, and adding life potions to the drop pool, but it remains unlikely that Shaitan will become a viably run dungeon any time soon, particularly since it's part of the relatively unpopular Court of Oryx.

** "Shotgun" for a wave of projectiles that spread out, owning to their similarity to pellets being fired out of a shotgun. Getting "shotgunned" is when you get hit by one of these, which of course usually results in you dying. The most iconic is perhaps Oryx 2's massive spray of colorful stars that inflicts various status effects, as it was the single most dangerous attack in the game during the old days of the game.

*** Vital Combat somewhat subverted this, severely lowering the rate at which Pets restore HP/MP at if players play too recklessly and take too much damage without trying to avoid it. While a sufficiently high-level pet will still give you an enormous edge over most content in the game, it often won't be enough to give you an easy win as it used to.

** Dungeons also suffer from a similar problem. Most dungeons were meant to be run with reasonably-sized groups of people, but a lot of the game's best loot is locked behind endgame dungeons that ''can'' be beaten with small groups or even solo, yet require enough skill to bar beginner players from their content. As a result, using platforms like Discord to stage large-scale raids has become common. While endgame dungeon bosses don't exactly roll over and die as easily as Realm bosses, to quote a DECA Q&A session: ''no content in the game'' can be designed to handle a mob of 85+ max-level players. With just a bit of coordination, endgame dungeons like Abandoned Mineshaft, Shatters, and The Nest become total jokes, because it's a lot harder to mess up in a massive murderball of players that instakill nearly everything and heal off all damage dealt. It's gotten to the point where [[BrutalBonusLevel the Lost Halls]] of all things has gained a reputation as a "braindead Discord farming dungeon" that allows even lower-skill players to tag along with a group and nab themselves some top-tier loot and potions. The economy has also suffered as a result, particularly since constant Lost Halls and Sanctuary runs (and chest events) have hyper-deflated the price of Life Potion. On top of all of that, the high-skill aspect of the dungeons has suffered too, since organized runs are considered by most to be the safest (read: only) way to run these dungeons nowadays, and fewer players are actually taking the time to learn how the dungeon works or improve their skills. Nowadays, well-organized dungeon raids have a nigh-nonexistent failure rate (although individual failure is another story entirely), with even the hardest dungeons like the Shatters and Oryx's Sanctuary having been subjected to heavy optimization.

** Formerly, Constructs in the Godlands. They lack the firepower to be a serious threat against most reasonably maxed players, but are nearly impossible to kill thanks to the fact that each of them heals one of its companions to full HP every second or so (Rock healed Steel, which healed Wood, which healed Rock). While this was meant to [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman be a showcase of Mystic's potential]] - and Mystics ''can'' handily dispatch Constructs - they're a Godlands-cluttering nuisance for everyone else, and can generally only be killed via [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming firepower]]. However, as of a patch, the constructs became able to be eliminated easily without special abilities or overwhelming firepower, as the Rock Construct no longer heals the Steel one - provided that they are eliminated in the order of wood, then stone, then steel, Constructs can now be easily killed by any class.

** Lel xD. [[note]]The fanmade CatchPhrase of the Knight, due to the community deeming him such a low-risk high-reward class that all Knight players are now labelled as immature numbskulls. Made popular by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH8ewmEsjs4 this video]][[/note]]
** ppe btw [[note]]Doing a "Pet Player Experience" (PPE) is a popular SelfImposedChallenge where a player starts with a new character (and a pet) and gets stronger without accepting any items from others. Since it often instills pride and boasting in players, PPE players have since been stereotyped as feeling a need to constantly announce that they are, indeed, PPE. Bonus points if it's a Knight, upon which this phrase will be combined with the above to form "ppe btw lel xd" (which has been ascended by the devs a few times as well).[[/note]]

*** Has since moved on to the Dirk of Cronus (Cdirk). Any underpowered item in general is subjected to this meme relentlessly.

** Starism[[labelnote:Explanation]]Earning fame on characters earns stars, and each player is assigned a star color depending on how many stars they've collected. Much like racism, stereotyping for each star color and outright discrimination between star colors is commonplace within the community; hence the now commonly-used term "Starism".[[/labelnote]]

** Oryx 3's celestial phase/desperation attack, which has been single-handedly responsible for mass graveyards of players and remains one of the most common sources of death in his battle. He's guaranteed to use it at least once during his fight, but can start pulling it out as a normal attack later on. To put it simply, Oryx will be circling the room and flooding the place with incredibly lethal armor-piercing bullets, while four portals will fire inward spirals of shots to cause further damage and limit movement, all while barrages of holy beams constantly strike the arena for massive area damage. Not only does this leave virtually no safe space in the arena, every single attack here deals absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage, to the point where taking more than one hit in the span of a few seconds will often lead to a rapid death. And to make it worse, healing isn't even an option outside of the limited supply of consumables you might have brought - it ''permanently Silences'' all players for its duration, and the portal shots inflict Pet Stasis to render your pet useless if you take one too many hits. While there ''are'' gaps in the portal bullets' spiral to dodge through, they just make it easier, not harmless - and the number of people that can consistently rotate through those gaps are less than the people who don't, to put it simply. On the bright side, he'll always leave himself wide open for a while if you survive the attack, making it a great damage opportunity for those skilled enough to dodge it.

** Bes, Nut, and Geb in the Tomb of the Ancients. Each of them brings something different to the table, Bes being the MightyGlacier with high HP/DEF and attacks that can stun and break armor, Nut being the SupportPartyMember who can heal the others and fire countless status-inflicting shots, and Geb being the LongRangeFighter with rapid, wide-area barrages of extremely dangerous shots and bombs designed to shred players instantly. They each provide a unique role in the battle and strategy is key to defeating them, especially due to the presence of Quicksand which slows you down and makes dodging much harder if you don't have a keen awareness of your positioning. Unfortunately, in a "public" tomb, coordination is almost nonexistent and 99 times out of 100, the plan for killing them goes out the window and turns into "shoot anything that moves". If this happens, unless you have players with high-level pets permanently locking the Tomb gods in the Stunned and Paralyzed status, prepare for a chaotic mess of a boss battle that is a lot harder than it should be, which is especially alarming considering each of the bosses were already hard to begin with. Their Ice Tomb Variants (Frimar, Polaris and Glacius) are even worse, considering that they have all of their strengths ''while'' packing higher HP and the advantage of being fought in a slippery arena that impedes movement.

** Both bosses of the Abandoned Mineshaft:
*** The Crystal Worm Mother is [[LightningBruiser gigantic, fast as hell, reasonably bulky, and hits like a freight train with its constant barrages of attacks]]. Players are forced to chase down the worm and take out its segments one by one to expose the head to damage for periods of time, which is a perilous task that often puts the player at risk of being sat on. But the worst part of the fight is when she summons the Crystal Worm Father and Child, both of which can flood the screen with complex barrages of lethal projectiles, ''all while'' the invincible Worm Mother continues circling and taking potshots at players. And as you damage it, the arena will gradually shrink to further accentuate the Worm Mother's increasing speed - good luck dodging its barrages once you bring it to its last legs.
*** While the Crystal Entity has a habit of getting rolled over in large groups, fighting it with a smaller group (or alone) is a different story. First of all, at specific points in the fight, players have to contend with three of the five Crystal Guardians, powerful minibosses that more often than not flood the screen with complex patterns of deadly bullets. Woe betide the player if they get the Crystallised Scorpion as one of their three bosses - it hits extremely hard (its shard attacks hitting for 225 a bullet) and packs a DoppelgangerSpin phase where the fakes [[ActionBomb explode]] for potentially instakill damage. Regardless of which Guardians you face, the Entity itself is going to be using an array of deadly, screen-filling attacks - including a telegraphed [[RecursiveAmmo fractal bomb]] that fills the whole screen with bullets and incurs absolutely massive damage if it catches the player in it. And whenever the Guardians are slain and the Entity is exposed, players find out the hard way that the Crystal Entity embodies BulletHell with a passion, filling the screen with red crystals that launch themselves at players to cause even more mayhem, with the barrage only getting faster on it's last legs.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The pre-rework Shatters bosses (sans the Twilight Archmage) had incredibly high stats and lethal attacks, but were all prone to GoodBadBugs that made their fights cakewalks. The Forgotten Sentinel has a glaring safe spot beside it that spares players from the brunt of its firepower, and the Forgotten King's last and hardest phase can be completely bypassed just by standing far enough away from it; on the contrary, trying ''not'' to exploit them would make the bosses nearly impossible in turn. Completely averted in the 2021 rework, which completely overhauled their fights and made them worthy of their endgame status.

** The limited Belladonna's Garden has a rather difficult boss and infamous insta-kill flowers that are hard to spot...but the rewards are only T9 weapon reskins, with a minuscule chance of getting a skin. Averted nowadays with Bella's rework - she can now drop Potions and two fairly strong UT items, but her fight is made harder, if not a little less cheap.

** Similarly, some tiered reskin items such as the Belladonna's Garden reskins or the Halloween reskins. No difference from regular tiered weapons save what they look like. {{Averted}} by the Winter reskins, due to dropping continuously for over a year.

** The Dwarf Miner event that sometimes shows up in the Realm. Instead of a single boss, the event pits you against a legion of Fungal Cavern enemies that swarm you in waves that gradually increase in difficulty. The dungeon being a BrutalBonusLevel as it is, the hordes of enemies are ungodly bulky and deal immense amounts of damage, often filling the screen with bullets in the process. Since all of the enemies have HP scaling, killing them becomes an arduous task if you don't have a large enough group - and even then, the danger of being swiftly killed still stands. Ironically enough, when the boss itself shows up, it's less of a threat than the minions that came before it - but it still threatens with massively damaging storms of bullets and lethal armor-piercing mushroom turrets, the latter of which have an annoying tendency to spawn on top of you. Averted a bit with the nerfs to the event, which made the mushroom hordes far less tedious while the boss itself became a bit harder.

*** The Derelict Village has you hunt down 8 switches which are not only invisible on the minimap, but are placed in completely randomized positions and cannot be harmed unless you're near them, possibly putting you in harm's way as you try to hunt htem down. Said village consists of obstacle-laden forests stuffed with enemies waiting to jump you and buildings with even more enemies. Of particular note are the Stone branch of enemies, which have ridiculously high defense which can be bolstered even more if a Stone Monolith is present, and the Stone Idol, a totally invincible threat that stalks the village and will mercilessly hunt you down if you bump into it.

** Compared to the other bosses in the Lost Halls, the fight with Malus and his cult is considered to be ''far'' easier. They're still plenty powerful, but not only do they have lower stats than the Marble Colossus or Void Entity, their battles are generally more straightforward and don't amp the BulletHell up to the extreme, allowing most players to avoid their attacks with relative ease, even when Malus TurnsRed. Arguably the hardest part of the fight is juggling Malus and his minions rather than actually dealing with Malus himself.
** Within Oryx's Sanctuary, while they're not easy by any definition, Treasurer Gemsbok and Chief Beisa are generally considered to be easier than their cohorts. The former fires his projectiles in very predictable patterns which are relatively easy to avoid, circumventing his enormous damage output and status spam; he can also have most of his fight outright skipped by staggering him in his coin shuffle minigame. The latter has a lot less BulletHell than his peers and moves in predictable movement patterns that can be exploited, relying on his organized minion formations that can also be predicted; most of the difficulty of the fight instead comes from the Oryx Elite Falcons which are small and can explode for a OneHitKill if you're not careful. This is in contrast with Dammah and Leucoryx, who dial the bullet hell up to eleven while using StatusEffects and a devastating CounterAttack respectively.

** The final and most severe increase in difficulty is the step up to the truly endgame content; the Exaltation Dungeons (The Nest, Abandoned Mineshaft, Lost Halls, The Shatters, and Oryx's Sanctuary). If it's your first time in one of these dungeons and you don't know what to expect, you're probably going to die.

** While the Lair of Draconis' rework made it fairer yet more innovative, with more challenging and far more creative boss battles, they didn't change the Lair's already infamously low drop rates. Doing it solo is almost unheard of, not because it's impossible (it's actually not too bad on a reasonably strong character), but because the dragons don't even guarantee ''potion drops'', much less the sought-after UT/ST gear. This has been made better since, with the addition of guaranteed Greater potion drops and several updates that streamlined the fights.
** The Lair of Shaitan turned Shaitan from a relatively easily cheesed boss to arguably [[ThatOneBoss the hardest of all the Court bosses]], with a creative but extremely oppressive fight that pushes most players to their limits. However, while the difficulty was turned up to eleven, the drops were not - the only change from his old ones were the addition of Vitality Potions to his existing Attack Potion drops, both of which are more easily obtained from other sources. To make matters worse, the same update changed the Skull of Endless Torment, making it considerably more niche than it already was. Chances are, the only reason people will do Shaitans now is if they're hunting for the UT Waki or Skull - and even then, that's pushing it. Several updates buffed this ratio significantly, such as guaranteeing attack potions to everyone, nerfing the boss, and adding life potions to the drop pool, but only time will tell if it becomes a viably run dungeon.

** Dungeons also suffer from a similar problem. Most dungeons were meant to be run with reasonably-sized groups of people, but a lot of the game's best loot is locked behind endgame dungeons that ''can'' be beaten with small groups or even solo, yet require enough skill to bar beginner players from their content. As a result, using platforms like Discord to stage large-scale raids has become common. While endgame dungeon bosses don't exactly roll over and die as easily as Realm bosses, to quote a DECA Q&A session: ''no content in the game'' can be designed to handle a mob of 85+ max-level players. With just a bit of coordination, endgame dungeons like Abandoned Mineshaft, Shatters, and The Nest become total jokes, because it's a lot harder to mess up in a massive murderball of players that instakill nearly everything and heal off all damage dealt. It's gotten to the point where [[BrutalBonusLevel the Lost Halls]] of all things has gained a reputation as a "braindead Discord farming dungeon" that allows even lower-skill players to tag along with a group and nab themselves some top-tier loot and potions. The economy has also suffered as a result, particularly since constant Lost Halls runs (and chest events) have hyper-deflated the price of Life Potion. On top of all of that, the high-skill aspect of the dungeons has suffered too, since organized runs are considered by most to be the safest (read: only) way to run these dungeons nowadays, and fewer players are actually taking the time to learn how the dungeon works or improve their skills. Nowadays, the only dungeon that an organized group ''isn't'' guaranteed to complete is [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Oryx's Sanctuary]], as even the most skilled and geared players can instantly fall from a single misstep - but even then, people have found ways to optimize it.
** The testing server, usually only meant for hosting certain events or testing specific changes such as dungeon adjustments and new items, is more often used by players as an "arcade" mode to play any endgame dungeon ([[BreadEggsBreadedEggs often with any new items being tested]]) without fear of losing everything upon death whenever it is active. DECA is vocally against the use of testing for this, as it causes server instability, but players continue to haggle UGC members (who also have admin powers) for keys and spawns during sessions regardless, assuming Guill isn't already serving up portals automatically.

** Constructs in the Godlands. They lack the firepower to be a serious threat against most reasonably maxed players, but are nearly impossible to kill thanks to the fact that each of them heals one of its companions to full HP every second or so (Rock heals Steel, which heals Wood, which heals Rock). While this was meant to [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman be a showcase of Mystic's potential]] - and Mystics ''can'' handily dispatch Constructs - they're a Godlands-cluttering nuisance for everyone else, and can generally only be killed via [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming firepower]].
*** As of a recent patch, however, the constructs can now be eliminated easily without special abilities or overwhelming firepower. While they can still be a hassle to eliminate, provided that they are eliminated in the order of wood, then stone, then steel, Constructs can now be easily killed by any class.

* MemeticMutation: Just about everything related to the MookMaker-spawning MookMaker [[OddJobGods CUBE GOD]].

* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: [[http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/sfx/loot_appears.mp3 The sound of a bag dropping.]] Especially when said bag is a White one.

** The Avatar of the Forgotten King. It has extremely dangerous attacks which make it hard to approach, deadly firebombs thrown to mess with ranged classes, and several phases filled with lethal minions, which already surpass those of all other Event bosses. However, the thing has a massive 150,000 HP on top of the Scaling that Realm bosses get (10% per player), pumping its HP through the roof, along with an effective 135 base DEF which heavily reduces the damage you can do. Combine the three and you have a solid reason to why this is the game's resident MarathonBoss. Unless someone has the Shield of Ogmur, expect to take a lot of time trying to kill it.

** The Killer Bee Queen. She has a lot of HP, a solid 55 DEF, and a brutal, [[MarathonBoss seven-phase-long]], BulletHell laced fight that will make short work of anybody who enters unprepared. She takes a while to whittle down, possesses incredibly dense and dangerous shot patterns that deal huge damage (often bypassing your armor as well), spawns [[FlunkyBoss tons of minions]] to assist her, and can hammer you with ''nearly every status effect in the entire game.'' To make matters worse, the arena is very small and filled with Killer Honey to greatly limit your space, in a fight where mobility is possibly your best hope of survival.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: Every single top pet will have Heal and Magic Heal as their first two abilities, and most of the time Electric as a third (although Decoy is often used as a substitute). The former two are absolutely indispensable to improve survivability, and at high levels heal enormous chunks of health and magic every second or so. Electric is used for crowd control, burst DPS, and to escape high-speed chasing enemies better.

* DudeWheresMyReward: The limited Belladonna's Garden has a rather difficult boss and infamous insta-kill flowers that are hard to spot...but the rewards are only T9 weapon reskins, with a minuscule chance of getting a skin. Averted nowadays with Bella's rework - she can now drop Potions and two fairly strong UT items, but her fight is made harder, if not a little less cheap.
** The Lair of Draconis and Lair of Shaitan post-rework. While it's commonly agreed that the reworks made these two far better as dungeons, the same cannot be said for their risk/reward ratios.
*** While the Lair of Draconis' rework made it fairer yet more innovative, with more challenging and far more creative boss battles, they didn't change the Lair's already infamously low drop rates. Doing it solo is almost unheard of, not because it's impossible (it's actually not too bad on a reasonably strong character), but because the dragons don't even guarantee ''potion drops'', much less the sought-after UT/ST gear. Even after several buffs to its drops, the viability of running the Lair is still dubious.
*** The Lair of Shaitan turned Shaitan from a relatively easily cheesed boss to arguably [[ThatOneBoss the hardest of all the Court bosses]], with a creative but extremely oppressive fight that pushes most players to their limits. However, while the difficulty was turned up to eleven, the drops were not - the only change from his old ones were the addition of Vitality Potions to his existing Attack Potion drops, both of which are more easily obtained from other sources. To make matters worse, the same update changed the Skull of Endless Torment, making it considerably more niche than it already was. Chances are, the only reason people will do Shaitans now is if they're hunting for the UT Waki or Skull - and even then, that's pushing it. Several updates buffed this ratio significantly, such as guaranteeing attack potions to everyone, nerfing the boss, and adding life potions to the drop pool, but only time will tell if it becomes a viably run dungeon.

* GameBreaker: The Spider Den dungeon formerly made it too easy to level up, allowing a player to increase from level 1 to level 10.

*** As of a recent patch, however, it appears that the constructs can now be eliminated easily without special abilities or overwhelming firepower. While they can still be a hassle to eliminate, provided that they are eliminated in the order of wood, then stone, then steel, Constructs can now be easily killed by any class.

** In a similar vein, the Mistake items dropped by the Machine. Some of them, such as the Fools' Prism or Honey Scepter Supreme, can be used for practical jokes or fun effects, but others are so hard to use as to render them useless, like the Helium Trap or Blade of Ages.

** Few items in the game are considered absolutely game-breaking, but Summoner's Incubation Mace is certainly considered one of them. The rabbit minions summed by the Mace have deal absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage (reaching into the ''5-digit'' range each) at only a marginally more expensive MP cost compared to the other high-tier Maces, while also providing passive stat boosts to HP and ATT (two of the most important stats) - all while being able to freely attack anything within the user's line of sight. It's telling that this item is single-handedly capable of turning Summoner from merely a solid option to one of the strongest damage dealers in the entire game, especially when paired with other InfinityPlusOneSword items like Lumiaire.

** The Moonlight Village and its dancers quickly became well liked shortly after its release. Despite the grueling difficulty of the BulletHell and the fact that players must often survive entire phases severely debuffed, the battle with the dancers turned out to be one of the most fair encounters in the game, with the sheer bullet density and lack of recovery being compensated with low damage per hit and a near absence of potential instakills; this allows players ample time to bail out if they think they're about to die, and as a result makes most deaths from the dungeon entirely preventable instead of feeling cheap. The patterns themselves and the boss mechanics are also some of the most complex in the entire game and break the mold like no other boss does, but can be mastered with enough practice, making it a uniquely challenging experience.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q00EA-Rw-E The Shatters]] serves as a DarkReprise of the Sorcerer's Tower that brings to mind the Shatters' long history, fall from grace, and insanely dangerous challenges contained within.

** In contrast to their former reputations as {{Anti Climax Boss}}es, the remastered bosses of the Shatters released for Month of the Mad God 2021 are beloved for their complex mechanics, difficult fights, and incredibly well-done visuals, particularly their large number of [[ArtEvolution extraordinarily smooth and lively animations]] compared to all the bosses that came before them.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The Shatters rework in August 2021, while initially praised for its shaking up the enemy variety, extending and modernizing the layout plus aesthetic of the dungeon, and requiring players to actually put effort into killing the new and exceptional bosses, eventually fell to scorn as it was soon realized that the new sequences and bossfights piled up into an unhealthily long MarathonLevel.[[note]]Complicating issues is the fact that this is also tied to ATK Exaltations, requiring 75 completions ''per character'' for OneHundredPercentCompletion. To say exalting even one character is a ridiculous time investment is a bit of an {{Understatement}}.[[/note]] Not helping matters is the difficulty melee classes have in dealing damage due to the increased emphasis on BulletHell, and the fact that Oryx's Sanctuary is meant to remain harder yet only has to deal with a smaller number of enemies and two bosses of comparable difficulty back to back rather than three separated by long stretches of powerful enemies (while having comparable or better loot), leading to the realization that DECA may have let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. DECA seems to have realized this, as they immediately started pushing a series of balance patches designed to reduce the length of the clear and make it more worthwhile, [[AuthorsSavingThrow including significant nerfs to enemy HP and number and increased loot chances and tiers.]]

* BrokenBase: On many, many ''many'' things. In general, whenever ''any'' update or change comes out, expect [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement a lot of divisiveness and/or arguing]].

** The very concept of organized runs by dedicated groups is quite surprisingly a polarizing topic, given that ''Realm'' is an MMORPG. Some say that it's the only way to reliably do endgame runs due to the low turnout from DropInDropOutMultiplayer and [[SturgeonsLaw the average team quality of a disorganized group]], while others consider the equipment requirements used by the larger groups (which tend to scale ''hard'' with dungeon difficulty and a group's coverage) to be a form of toxic gatekeeping that perpetuates the CycleOfHurting between new players and veterans. DECA's own attempts to nerf the efficiency of organized runs, are likewise, similarly divisive as it typically involves some form of FakeLongevity or an ArbitraryHeadcountLimit.

*** The Lair of Shaitan turned Shaitan from a relatively easily cheesed boss to arguably [[ThatOneBoss the hardest of all the Court bosses]], with a creative but extremely oppressive fight that pushes most players to their limits. However, while the difficulty was turned UpToEleven, the drops were not - the only change from his old ones were the addition of Vitality Potions to his existing Attack Potion drops, both of which are more easily obtained from other sources. To make matters worse, the same update changed the Skull of Endless Torment, making it considerably more niche than it already was. Chances are, the only reason people will do Shaitans now is if they're hunting for the UT Waki or Skull - and even then, that's pushing it. Several updates buffed this ratio significantly, such as guaranteeing attack potions to everyone, nerfing the boss, and adding life potions to the drop pool, but only time will tell if it becomes a viably run dungeon.

** The other is just a simple evolution of the game's playerbase. When the game was in its golden age, the devs were balancing content around the expectations of there only being 4-6 maxed players in a realm at one time, the majority of the players spending time in midlands or highlands levelling up.[[note]]This is, among other reasons, why the Godlands are so small compared to the rest of the realm[[/note]] Now, realms in popular servers are unlikely to dip below a population of 60-70, the majority of which will have at least one stat maxed. This sheer imbalance led to any boss or event that doesn't have HP Scaling or frequent invulnerablity times being steamrolled in a [[CurbStompBattle matter of seconds]] - HP Scaling was introduced to ''just about every boss in the game'' as a result of this. And even ''[[UpToEleven then]]'' in a full realm you likely won't see a lot of bosses live longer than a minute or two, most of which will be because of their invincibility phases.
** Dungeons also suffer from a similar problem. Most dungeons were meant to be run with reasonably-sized groups of people, but a lot of the game's best loot is locked behind endgame dungeons that ''can'' be beaten with small groups or even solo, yet require enough skill to bar beginner players from their content. As a result, using platforms like Discord to stage large-scale raids has become common. While endgame dungeon bosses don't exactly roll over and die as easily as Realm bosses, to quote a DECA Q&A session: ''no content in the game'' can be designed to handle a mob of 85+ max-level players. With just a bit of coordination, endgame dungeons like Abandoned Mineshaft, Shatters, and The Nest become total jokes, because it's a lot harder to mess up in a massive murderball of players that instakill nearly everything and heal off all damage dealt. It's gotten to the point where [[BrutalBonusLevel the Lost Halls]] of all things has gained a reputation as a "braindead Discord farming dungeon" that allows even lower-skill players to tag along with a group and nab themselves some top-tier loot and potions. The economy has also suffered as a result, particularly since constant Lost Halls runs (and chest events) have hyper-deflated the price of Life Potion. On top of all of that, the high-skill aspect of the dungeons has suffered too, since organized runs are considered by most to be the safest (read: only) way to run these dungeons nowadays, and fewer players are actually taking the time to learn how the dungeon works or improve their skills. Nowadays, the only dungeon that an organized group ''isn't'' guaranteed to complete is [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Oryx's Sanctuary]], as even the most skilled and geared players can instantly fall from a single misstep - but [[UpToEleven even then]], people have found ways to optimize it.

* MemeticMutation: Just about everything related to the MookMaker-[[UpToEleven spawning]] MookMaker [[OddJobGods CUBE GOD]].

** The Forgotten King's desperation attack - roughly half a minute of extremely precise micrododging where horizontal and vertical shots slowly flood the arena from all sides, and the King's Shades add additional rings of shots while periodically following you to make you run through the network of bullets. The worst part is that all players are ''permanently Sickened and Silenced'' for the entire duration of the attack - while the damage from the shots is rather low, the damage will start to build up at an alarming pace since you can't heal in any way, making it so that if you're reduced to low health at any point during this attack, your only options are to die or Nexus. Add this to the fact that he'll use this in the tail end of his [[MarathonBoss already lengthy fight]] [[UpToEleven (which is part of an notoriously lengthy dungeon)]], and players whose concentration is waning ''will'' have their runs ended here.

** All of the bosses from the Shatters are this and then some. The Bridge Sentinel is a LightningBruiser with devastating attacks, an enormous amount of bulk, and the ability to gradually spawn in hordes or [[ActionBomb Blobombs]] to swarm players while he attacks. The Twilight Archmage is a StationaryBoss, but pumps out more BulletHell than almost any boss before him [[ThatOneAttack (particularly his infamous Finale attacks)]], and has several PuzzleBoss and ShieldedCoreBoss mechanics that force you to tactically target secondary objectives while still dodging him. However, the Forgotten King takes all of that UpToEleven by combining titanic amounts of health, ridiculously difficult bullet hell, and rapid movement alongside multiple different attacking stances to throw you off - and he has a SuperpoweredEvilSide that makes things even more absurd once he starts cloning himself and launching even deadlier attacks, especially when he launches ThatOneAttack listed above.