Community Q&A #3

Community Q&A #3
Answered on 18/12/2021

We'd like to thank everyone who participated, and hope to hold many more sessions in the future! Without further ado, here are the answers to some of your questions:

Will Arch Mages ever get another buff? Especially through their single target damage or something else to make them more viable during bosses? They are currently really useless except for leeching, so is there a way to make this class better?
We have in the recent past looked into the possibility of buffing Arch Mage single target attacks, and implemented minor buffs to Paralyze and Chain Lightning. We tried various further damage buffs internally, and found that reasonable or small buffs did almost nothing for their damage output. We also found that the damage buff required to even make them somewhat viable in single target scenarios would need to be so large it would at that point feel broken to play a character with such a strong single target attack as well as one of the best multi target skills. And then there's the issue of Chain Lightning, which in itself is a mobbing skill and would be difficult to balance alongside Paralyze and Angel Ray. Ultimately, it feels that if we want to make Mages viable in single target situations, then this would need to come along with a nerf to their multi target skills which would likely be a very controversial change. Finding a middle ground for single target damage output would also be a pointless change, as it seems to be an all-or-nothing situation if we want to make the single target skills useful. Therefore, we currently have no plans to buff their single target skills at this point in time.

Any upcoming daily/weekly events or activities for all time zones? (e.g. GM events that will get an announcement in advance allowing more players to participate)
We do have regular forum events which players can participate from all time zones. As for in-game events, we do try to mix up the times when these are done. However, we have no plans to announce in-game events outside of the game as we want to reward our active players.

What is the Staff's opinion on a high level (e.g. 175) quest or task to get extra MP, similar to the Water from the Spring of Youth Quest? It can help to "fix" characters while still maintaining the iconic MapleRoyals APR vibe.
The purpose of Reuel's Elixir of Life quest is to help "fix" characters with a low amount of HP without the need for HP washing. Having a task which rewards MP would ultimately achieve the same outcome but with the added step of needing to use AP resets which seems unnecessary. We are happy with the positive feedback to the recent buffs made to this quest, and are still looking into possible additional ways of gaining extra HP. However, we have not decided on anything yet.

What is the Staff's opinion on players holding a map with 40% of the channels using multiple clients? Is this something you would be willing to figure out a system for better balance?
We haven't had much internal discussion about this topic. At a glance, this practice does sound somewhat problematic. However, many players are also supportive of the clarity of the map owner rule that allows for such practices. After all, these players holding multiple channels of a map using multiple clients are actively making use of these maps. If players have any suggestions or feedback on how to specifically tackle this issue, we would love to hear your ideas in the Feedback section on the forums. A dedicated thread for this has been created here.

Any updates on improving Archers' gameplay? (e.g. Avoidability, buffs to Marksmen, recent changes to Soul Arrow)
We feel that some good changes have been made towards Archer classes in recent updates, most notably the change to arrow weapon attack values and stack size, as well as Marksman's Piercing Arrow. However, it's possible that some tweaks could still be warranted for Archers' avoidability which we may try to look into in the future.

How's the discussion on Token of Teamwork? What will be added or introduced, such as megaphones, consumables, or throwing stars? When will the Developers take action to add more NX and stuff in Cody to exchange Tokens of Teamwork? Do you plan to increase the limit for each party quest by 5 instead of 3?
We acknowledge that the Token of Teamwork rewards could do with some new additions, and will look into this for a future update. We haven't decided on what the new rewards will be yet, but we will try to make them as enticing as possible to help bring a bit more life back to PQs!

Are there plans to bring back the MMO part back to life, like challenging boss raids and party quests without mules? Looking forward to Von Leon raids with at least two full and diverse parties.
We hope that the upcoming Von Leon boss will be able to tick all these boxes. This is something we are currently still working on and don't want to rush out, so we don't have an estimated date for release just yet.

Is it possible to change the NX items that currently can only be dropped or traded, to be able to be added to stores as well? (https://royals.ms/forum/threads/enable-cash-items-sell-in-fm-stores.186625/)
This is possible, and with enough support for the idea is something we will work towards implementing. I suggest that anyone who would like to see this feature, or those that oppose the idea please make their voice heard in the above linked thread.

What is the Staff's opinion on CWKPQ and the discussion about reducing its barrier of entry to 1 character of each job? It is commonly run with only 3-5 individual players with mules nowadays anyways.
Admittedly, it does seem silly that most parties run with 3-5 active players, so there's not much of a compelling argument to keep the requirement at 2 of each class. Changing it to 1 of each class would make it easier to gather up parties to do the PQ, but we are unsure if we should be making it easier than it already is. Instead, a possible solution could be to look into making the PQ harder to require more active players, while simultaneously buffing the rewards a bit. We would like to hear more thoughts from players on the matter, and a dedicated thread has been created in the feedback section on the forum here.

What is the Staff's opinion on HP wash? Is it a bug or a built-in mechanism? Is it really good to keep this on MapleRoyals for so many years which possibly expels new players? Nexon blocked the main stats, so you can't transfer extra HP or MP to attack. Do you think it really reasonable to transfer HP or MP as much as you want?
HP washing is an unintended method of obtaining extra HP for your character, which was copied over exactly from how it used to work in official servers. HP washing is loved by some, and hated by others, but at this point in the server's life it's not feasible to make a drastic change to HP washing. It may be that the server might have been better off with HP washing removed at the beginning, but it's impossible to know for sure since there are varied opinions about it. The best we can do is try to offer alternative methods to gain HP for those that do not wish to take part in HP washing.

And that wraps it up as far as the Q&A is concerned. Thank you again for all of your questions! Remember that if we did not get around to answering your question, you are free to post it again in the next one!

Spoiler: Original Post

Hi Royallers,

It's been some time (more than 6 months, in fact!) since our last Q&A session, and in that time, a lot of things have happened! If you have any questions you wish to ask us, you are free to post them in this thread!

The only stipulations are that the questions must concern the game in some way; whether that be related to its content, bugs, development, community feedback, forum, website, or community as a whole, and that they must abide by the forum rules and guidelines. The questions should not be aimed at specific individuals, as we the Staff will decide on replies through cooperation and by majority vote.

We will select up to 10 questions (if they are not duplicates of previously asked questions, and we deem them to be of high enough quality), at our discretion, but also with respect to the interest shown by the members for different questions.

We also remind everyone that you may only post questions in this thread; not replies to other people's comments. We will be taking questions for two weeks after posting!

Please see the previous two Q&A threads to avoid repeat questions:
Community Q&A #1 | Community Q&A #2

Have a great day, everyone!

 

Answers have now been given to 10 of the questions from this thread. The first post has been updated with our responses! Thank you for taking time to post questions, and we look forward to answering more in the next Q&A session.