Notice GM Blog: January 2021

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Hello everyone.

This first GM Blog of the new year is intended to shed light on some things the community has been requesting. In general, we think, we all need something to cheer us up--perhaps more than ever.

Let's start with a bit of good news: the updated Terms and Conditions document is slated for release soon, and shortly after that, an official update on the status of hiring of new Staff members, and the process involved.

Before we run through the list of content we prepared for you, we wanted to share that the format of this blog will change moving forward. In addition to including the answers to our monthly Q&A sessions (though not this month), the information in the blogs will generally be kept shorter. We predicted in the first GM Blog that the amount of juicy news we could deliver each month would vary, which would result in a varying level of satisfaction in you, the reader. At the same time, we wanted to convey our presence, and felt that writing short GM Blogs might communicate a lack of interest. Nevertheless, in an attempt to increase transparency, we will keep future GM Blogs less wordy and more to the point. You deserve to be informed, even if being informed means being aware of the reality of things. More on this below.

Now onto the juicy stuff!

Improved Stability
We have good news for Royallers all around, but particularly our avid bossers and event-goers. New client modifications allow the client to run with exceptional stability; take a look at the attached video and see for yourself (left screen is using the old setup, right screen is running on the new setup, both clients are running side-by-side on the same computer).

In Update 65, we solved a major stability issue which plagued every private server, but another core issue remained. The latter has now been resolved. Even if this change is not guaranteed to solve every individual quirk that might cause a user to crash, we look forward to rolling out this change with the next patch for large-scale testing!

On The Horizon
In the near future, you can expect many exciting new things:

• New RP and NX: Yes, you heard us right. Our creative department has been hard at work picking out popular NX item requests and working day and night to have them in working order! This time, we've made an effort to squeeze in a bit more NX!
• Seasonal events: You guessed it! The time to welcome the new lunar year is soon upon us, and shortly after that, a day of love awaits. In general, Staff has made efforts to try to ensure that seasonal don't overlap in the future! Stay tuned!
• Bug fixes: Some nasty bugs that have been reported several times, particularly concerning disconnecting in Zakum after having died, crashing from having too many Cash items in inventory, issues related to Wulin Yaoseng, and the Party EXP system, will be fixed soon.
• Gameplay changes: Neo Tokyo is slated to receive a considerable dose of TLC, and we hope you will all like what we've got in store.
• Quality of life improvements: The Cash Shop receives a facelift?! Potions purchasable in large stacks?! Favorable tweaks to Castellan Toad and Pianus?! That's right, ladies and gentlemen; this, and much more.
• New content: As was teased previously, new content is on its way, and we're working to ensure that all is in working order upon arrival! The current ETA is sometime next month!

State of Staff
In light of recent events, we will now touch on a popular point in the forums: the MapleRoyals Staff.

It should come as no surprise that the MapleRoyals Staff is entirely made up of volunteers, with a variety of personal situations and backgrounds. Additionally, the server itself is a private server, not a corporation. The gravity of these two points cannot be understated, for they bring with them several implications which are fundamental to understanding the operation of the server and the limitations involved.

The structure of Staff is very much open in terms of communication, and relies on active participation of all members. At the same time, the Staff is equally divided in terms of tasks performed. The latter means that Staff members entirely rely on each other in order to create or make progress on various matters. This is not an unusual team structure in any way, but it may give rise to a less-than-ideal situation when the persons involved are not employees, and can only devote so much of their free time to their craft.

A possible solution to this is of course an expansion of Staff itself, at which attempts have been made in the past year. But as is evident, this only works if there are no bottlenecks within Staff, which has been the primary issue. As such, the hiring process needs to change, which is a sentiment echoed both inside and outside of the Staff.

Before this could be done, a revamp of the permission system for GMs had to be put in place, as well as a restructuring of our internal ways of working. Both of which are now finished. However, past experiences with Staff members' power abuse have left scars on the Administration. This is especially relevant to the hiring of developers, whose powers to disrupt and cause damage far exceed those of regular GMs. And yet the development department is, and has been, the aforementioned bottleneck.

Nevertheless, it is clear that we have no alternative but to brave this uncertainty, and expand Staff in new areas which will help offload the development team in crucial ways. You can expect more news on the Staff Applications, and their updated format soon. But remember: we are all in this together, dedicating time to a passion project. If you think you can bring something of value, and you wish to help the server grow and prosper, consider applying for Staff!

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That's all for now, folks. We hope you look forward to the introduction of all these things as much as we do. As usual, thanks for choosing to be a part of our MapleRoyals family! Happy New Year!

- The MapleRoyals Staff

 

autoban?

 

Finally I'll be able to actually particibate on RR o-o

 

Are you guys finished taking feedback or still taking feedback to make changes for Neo Tokyo? I know @Donn1e was expecting me to write something about Neo Tokyo and I was too but... I honestly questioned whether giving feedback on Neo Tokyo is even beneficial at all. There was no post from any Staff members on the (recent) Neo Tokyo feedback thread which seems to be a constant problem for Staff.

 

We are never done receiving feedback on any particular thing. If you have ideas you wish to share, fire away!

 

DID I HEAR NEO TOKYO CHANGES?!?!

 

Expanding staff numbers on its own is unlikely to fix problems themselves but I can see that other changes are being explored, which is always a positive thing. I hope the upcoming update to staff applications will at least be more clear on what the expectation of their work entails, and if there will be more specific delegation involved. As it stands, there are 15 members on the staff roster which, in all honesty, is already quite a big team when there are "currently not much deadweight going on within staff".

A few things I might suggest in light of the communication challenges that you've outlined:
- real time meetings on a regular basis with a preset agenda for items to discuss
- documentation of meeting minutes and subsequent distribution to allow for input from Staff who cannot attend for various reasons (timezone, work and personal circumstances)
- clear written delegation of tasks with preset deadlines agreed to by the delegate

There are many organisations of varying descriptions across the world that are run off volunteers. The aspects which make teamwork successful are, understandably, often applied to corporates but this does not mean that extrapolating concepts which work is comparing MapleRoyals to a corporation. Two-way, closed-loop communication is one such concept that is essential in trying to avoid the "no conclusion is met, and issues are left hanging" concern that current and ex-staff alike have voiced.

Best wishes.

 

Why did you do that? How is Joong supposed to read the post?

 

While this is reassuring but... I think I'll repeat what I said before in the Staff team change thread which is: "Participate in discussions. Don't get defensive. Ask questions. Be interested in what your fellow players have to say. Analyze the discussions/feedback." While it's fine to lurk and just gather feedback as it comes, it's highly imperative to ask questions to exponentially increase the amount of feedback one can get as well as fostering motivation/curiosity from the community.

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Spoiler

With that said I guess I'll put in something... Not sure if @Donn1e or anyone else will agree but here it goes:

[-] Neo Tokyo

I think it should be very obvious to the Staff and everyone else but there's still a lack of participation in the Neo Tokyo area. While there's people that are readily doing Auf Haven runs, for mid-tier players, I think there's just not enough incentive to go to Neo Tokyo in favor of just the staple bosses (i.e. Zak/Krex/Pap/HT). We know Dunas v1 is ran daily and Auf Haven runs are frequent but... The Auf Helm is just untouchable in my opinion and Dunas v1 is kind of a drag for people who don't have the 15k hp to stand tall over it. Unless one is trying to craft stars, there's no reason to waste your time with this area.

I feel you guys shot yourselves in the foot by not introducing Neo Tokyo weapons like the Judgement gun and taking my suggestion to heart before in using the Visitor's Event/Alien Invader weapon models (VIP weapons) to replace the Flairgrave/Speargrave weapons since its highly unlikely you guys will use Alien Invader weapons (and you Pink Bean is on the horizon). If you guys could make the Crimson Arclancer an interesting weapon to craft and use, how is it not possible to have Neo Tokyo weapons to craft/use? I feel you guys need to drop your fears and grievances and just interact with the community on ideas to make Neo Tokyo a better place. If things aren't able to be learned from Neo Tokyo, I fear that Pink Bean will be highly underwhelming given the treatment Neo Tokyo has received so far.

[-] Mobs

[Protolord]
- Please for the love of god... switch the Card Effects of Protolord and Overlord. There's really no need to make this area of prequests highly frustrating to interact with for players just trying to make it to the bosses to play with other people! If the card effects are switched, it'll allow people coming through to not have be totally irritated the whole time doing the prequest and grinding in this area is actually possible.

Copypasta from old post (may be parts people disagree with in comparison to now):

[Afterlord & Overlord]
- Overlord pathing is very bad/annoying. They tend to fly around the very top of the map so you're have to constantly climb up to aggro them to the floor. I recommend, if possible, to force them to fly around the middle part of the map. One idea could be to make Overlords be auto-aggro to players on the map.

[Eruwater]
- The maps for Eruwater aren't really ideal for grinding, most notably Akihabara Rofftops. You can't [Down]+[Jump] on that map for some odd reason and the spawns are very low for such a big map. I recommend enabling [Down]+[Jump] on the map and increasing Eruwater spawn.

[Maverick A Y V]
- Old Flagship Bow is a terrible map to grind since it feels like there's only a small spawn of Maverick V on the map. On Old Fox Flagship, respawn of the Mavericks can be too slow if you have a party to kill the Mavericks fast. Maverick Y's scrolls are a little disappointing too. I recommend increasing Maverick V spawns on Old Fox Flagship Bow and increase respawn (and possibly increase spawn) of Mavericks in Old Fox Flagship.

[-] Bosses

[Vergamot]
- I want to suggest making the top of the ship crane be a safe spot for an HS mule. In Dunas v1/2, Nibergen, and NMM, you can reasonably have HS mule for exp without it dying but for Vergamot, it can be a hassle unless your Bishop is HP washed. By making the crane spot be safe, it'll encourage people to run Vergamot more since you'll actually be able to get more consistent HS for exp since BS wont be dead. There would need to be an adjustment so that ranged attackers (more specifically, NLs) can't attack on the top of the crane.


[Dunas v1]
- From an old post:
"I know a lot of people will disagree but I think the Dunas v1's Attack UP buff should be removed. Is the point of Damage Reflect to be a HP barrier or a game mechanic that punishes inattentiveness? We know from Mu Lung Dojo's boss, Mu Gong (Panda), that Damage Reflect can be a sound mechanic in party play. Currently, on Dunas v1, the Damage Reflect with the Attack UP buff acts as a HP barrier rather than a sound game mechanic due to the fact that you're, face it or not, required to have a hefty amount of HP to "stand tall" over the boss. You're forced to have a present Drk or HB mule that can bring you over the boosted Damage Reflect damage rather than having a Drk/HBmule being a good aid akin to Paladins & Crash for Zakum...

So if you're a bit lacking on HP that you require HB in addition to finding attackers, it makes the boss that much harder and more intimidating. And if attackers are intimidated by the boss due to having bad runs with no HB (i.e. I had a run without HB with 4 people, including myself, and 2 of the attackers died since they couldn't survive 1 damage reflect), that means less overall interest in the area and a drop in participants.

Removing the Attack UP buff from Dunas will allow the boss to be more approachable if the party can't recruit a Drk/Atker w/ HB mule. Damage Reflect should punish you for being inattentive rather punishing you for not having enough HP due to Attack UP."

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While I still do agree with what I posted in the past, I think there'll be people who have HP washed or have their own HB mule that solos Dunas v1 be annoyed with what I wrote. If Dunas v1's reflect damage did 25k damage with Attack Up on, they'd have a change of mind in my opinion. I think that the damage reflect mechanic needs to give a better indication that it's up and when its gone. Some ideas:

• Have a notification 3-5 seconds before the boss activates Damage reflect that 'the boss is readying damage reflect' and a notification that it lowered the reflect/disappeared
• Better visibility of Damage reflect symbol
• Have Damage reflect activate after the boss cast animation ends rather than the start of the cast animation

[Nibergen]
- From an old post:
"Please... for the love of God... reduce the amount of Weapon Cancel this boss has! I thought it was learned that heavy amounts of Weapon Cancel is frustrating with pre-patch Scarlion & Targa. This boss isn't particularly difficult but exceedingly aggravating to fight due to the fact that Onyx Apples/Heartstoppers can be made redundant due to the amount of time spent not attacking the boss due to knock back, stuns, and/or melee'ing air due to the laser balls in addition to the excessive weapon cancels. So attackers feel inclined to use a Energizer/Witch Stew Pot which in turn makes fighting this boss even longer..."

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That post still applies today. I don't understand how Nibergen is still the way it is now when Scarga was changed with its weapon cancel a longtime back. When even Paladins are fairly useless in this boss, you know it's really bad.

[Nameless Magic Monster]
- The HP:EXP ratio of Nameless Magic Monster is too high and is reflected in a dragged out boss fight. Here is the HP:EXP of Neo Tokyo bosses:

Vergamot: [7.44] 300,000,000 HP : 40,320,000 EXP
Dunas V1: [7.81] 230,000,000 HP : 29,440,000 EXP
Nibergen: [8.65] 349,000,000 HP : 40,320,000 EXP
NMM: [13.04] 430,000,000 HP : 32,960,000 EXP
Dunas V2: [9.11] 350,000,000 HP : 38,400,000 EXP
Royal Guard: [8.06] 400,000,000 HP : 49,600,000 EXP
Core Blaze: [7.81] 450,000,000 HP : 57,600,000 EXP
Auf Haven: [13.04] 430,000,000 HP : 32,960,000 EXP
Auf Haven Expedition (Full): [9.13] 1,280,000,000 HP : 140,160,000 EXP

HP:EXP of other bosses to give comparison:
Papulatus: [8.03:1] 23,000,000 HP : 2,860,800 EXP
Zakum: [9.54:1] 482,100,000 HP : 50,498,560 EXP (may not be right exp/ratio)
Krex: [8.68:1] 500,000,000 HP : 57,600,000 EXP (taken from Joong)
Scarlion/Targa: [15.5:1] 300,000,000 HP : 19,353,600 EXP
Scarlion+Targa (both in corner): [~7.75-11.62:1] ~300,000,000-450,000,000 HP : 37,707,200 EXP
Horntail: [7.93:1] 2,730,000,000 HP : 344,146,432 EXP (not sure on this so I pulled from ilyssia's chart)
Toad: [6.98:1] 1,070,000,000 HP : 153,120,000 EXP
The Boss (total): [7.84:1] 1,050,000,000 HP : 133,760,000 EXP (may not be right exp/ratio)
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Shao: [1.95:1] 100,000,000 HP : 51,200,000 EXP

Nameless Magic Monster has a whopping 13.04 HP:EXP... The only boss with a similar value is doing only one boss of the Scar/Targa expedition which is 15.5 HP:EXP. Keep in mind that Scar/Targa drops a Best-in-Slot helmet while Nameless Magic Monster drops Belt scrolls for an equip that takes up 1 day~2 weeks to get by doing Mu Lung Dojo. Lowering the HP for the boss would be ideal.

[Dunas v2]
- As @Donn1e already pointed out, make Dunas v2 pinnable and have a high KB so that running with a melee is encouraged. It might be that you guys will lower the expedition time to make it more of time attack boss.

[-] Boss loot

- There needs to be an incentive to do the Neo Tokyo bosses as besides Dunas v1 for Element Pierce earrings, Vergamot/NMM/Dunas v2 is very lackluster. There's also little point to aim for Auf Haven for the circlet since 10% miracle scrolls are too expensive to endeavor and the 60% scrolls have too high of a boom chance to think about using them. Doing Zakum/Scarga is just more efficient than 60%'ing the circlet. Suggestions:

• Increase NX rewards by either introducing 2~4 250nx cards, increasing chances of 5k nx card to drop, or chance of having 2x 5k nx cards drop
• Add Valuable Scrolls to the bosses to make them more worthwhile to farm. Some examples include 30% scrolls, scrolls that are unused, or introducing/creating new types of scrolls.
• Add the Neo Tokyo weapons such as the Judgement gun and new weapons (that replace the Flair/Speargrave models and use VIP weapon models) that are craftable from Boss drops/etc drop and/or rare drop chance from a single boss(i.e. rare chance for Judgement gun to drop from Dunas v2). Make weapon craft require using a dragon weapon in the crafting.
• Make Bosshunter gear get an upgrade from Neo Tokyo
• Make Auf Haven 60% scrolls more worthwhile to use

[-] Suggestion - Daily quest

- I feel that there should be a daily quest in the Neo Tokyo area after you managed to get through the entirety of the areas (or reaching some point). This daily quest should involve grinding the Neo Tokyo mob(s) for a random reward. The HP increase potion could be a chance for reward among other things.

 

It is more practical for documentation and ease-of-access purposes to keep relevant feedback contained in a single, or at most a few, forums. Thanks.

 

Does the improved stability mainly take effect when a lot of people are connected to the same map (e.g. Ola Ola Event) or also at boss runs which have traditionally been unstable for some (e.g. Horntail), or does it affect the stability for both the aformentioned situations?

 

In our testing with bosses, the client remains stable in situations which causes the old client to crash within minutes. As mentioned in the original post, we will consider the release of said setup a large-scale trial, and we don't wish to make absolute promises. We are hopeful, though.

 

Flairgrave weapon set / MW30 from auf hype!?

 

While that's fine, he should have asked me to either make a duplicate post (to place in the Neo Tokyo feedback thread) or copy the portion of the post to add to the thread. Either way, I prefer to have the post in here so that there's visibility that the Staff is actually reading the post(s) and will reply to it. People have said in-game before that they're unsure if you guys are even reading feedback threads which is why I wrote the post the way I did. You guys need to interact with the community even if you don't know if you'll implement it or won't.

I get it, you're a volunteer at the end and you (and most of the staff) don't get paid to interact and have discussions on topics threads. You may not even like doing it. But try to understand that from a Game Dev perspective, this is an important activity. If you guys are only "listening" and not "talking" then it discourages people from making feedback since it can be unclear if there's even a point. For example, some people can endure throwing darts in the dark but that doesn't mean everyone else likes to.

 

Has there been any update to the APQ bug where some members of your party get warped to APQ exit?

 

Library update? Its been 6 years

 

This might be a bit offtopic as i just recently joined this server, but that's what i was talking about in my introduction post.
You folks are really trying to make this server a better place for everyone. And everyone is participating through giving feedback and ideas making changes as a community.
Let's face it, the more brains, the more ideas, be it for worse or better, but those [ideas] that are worse can be tweaked and improved upon.
I really welcome that, it's a huge change compared to the other private server i've been playing on and off..

Thanks :3

 

Thank you for everything you guys are doing. It is kind of mind blowing to me that you are all doing it on a volunteer basis. Somehow I did not even realize that until now. A lot of really valid critiques as of late, but ultimately you are human too and it's reassuring to know you're trying your best with what you have. And all just to help give us the nostalgic experience we all want.... thank you, rooting for you