For a while now, I've been a strong believer of "every class should have pros and cons". And I believe a well made end-game boss is a great way to highlight this. With Von Leon under development, I wanted to know what the community believes should go into this boss fight. For me personally, I believe the boss fight should: be engaging, something that requires effort and multiple attempts before the first clear happens. Something that isn't just a dps check, there has to be other factors involved in order to clear the boss. require a diverse group to be successful I would love to hear some solutions that the community has for the points above. Some examples I had include: Banish maps with pot CD (you can only use a pot once every X seconds, requiring active bishops for banish parties) Flying mobs with weapon cancel, or something similar that would include i/l, f/p mages in the boss fight Some form of position control - e.g. you have to keep Von Leon in certain positions at certain stages of the fight (rather than pin one side to win) My sincere hope for this boss is that it isn't rushed just to be released. That it is well thought out and will give our community (especially our end game community) something they need to solve. To that note, I hope the implementation and solution to beating this boss remain a secret when released. Please share any and all thoughts, even bad ideas can be building blocks for great ones. On a side note, if this boss gives a lot of exp, I hope that exp is based on completion of expedition rather than mob exp (if the boss clear isn't mostly reliant on dps, then exp should be distributed more evenly for contribution).
When I did Von Leon on MapleSEA 11-12 years ago, the most frustrating obstacle for a bowmaster was the small brick mobs that it constantly summoned, as they were insanely tanky and they always crowded around the boss itself. This made it incredibly hard for single target DPS classes to solo it and even if I partied with 2-3 friends who were.. at the time, a bishop, a mercedes and myself (bowmaster), we were barely able to down it and we were using very late game equips (Cygnus with %potential) I hope to see this when Von Leon is released because I want warriors to be in my party rather than just Nightlords. I would also like to suggest a special kind of cancel, where only a specific class can do damage to the boss, with a certain of amount of damage needed to be done to dispel that cancel before it rotates to the next class. Eg: A cwa where only one class can attack it when it has that cancel, and it rotates such that it would have a permanent cancel and each class has a turn to shine whilst the other classes in the party would focus on things like clearing the mobs etc. This way a party would have no choice but to have a diverse group. Also, I hope the Dev Team would consider not letting Von Leon be another "Why we need to wash" boss and let it hit as hard as bosses like Auf. 8k-9k dmg like horntail is fine thank you.
I didn't get to do Von Leon boss since I didn't play Post-BB. I watched some videos on YT (link) and based on the video it is comparable to Panda from Dojo, just scaled up, reskinned, and more difficult summons. After watching slightly more recent videos (uploaded 8-9 years ago) it looks like, after the initial release, it was toned down in difficulty. That's pretty sad. I may be wrong but it went from whole parties getting wiped and barely surviving to just a year later, a Mercedes solo-ing it because Von Leon get's stun locked for some odd reason. some other ideas for general boss stuff I would like to see are: 1. Dodging. An attack that MUST be dodged, no matter the class. Evading this attack can include using Smoke Screen, moving a certain distance, being in a certain spot, or moving to a different map. 2. Boss targeting. A boss will target a player with certain attacks, and these attacks are more dangerous than others. it's up to the players to control which player that is and protect that player, like a tank mechanic, similar to how we control who is seduced in HT. But instead of using avoid to survive to seduce, you need HP, Weapon Defense, a Shield, etc. Not just any washed NL can be the Tank. 3. Boss Sequences. At a given amount of HP or time, the boss changes. These changes can include the DPS stage (dump damage), Hidden stage (the boss is invisible), Puzzle stage (a puzzle must be solved while doing the boss), or Frightening stage (the boss flees). For example, Like Papulatus. But imagine if instead of flying towards you, he constantly ran away. You would need mechanics like Monster Magnet or Snatch to bring him in to conduct DPS. There are many examples of such stages and others in MMORPGs throughout history that Maplestory pre-bb never tried to implement.
Tbh, I think we should get chaos zak before we get von Leon (unless royals does something to customize it) we still have the Auf helm which is better than chaos zak helm (for the extreme “try hards”), and at chaos zak melee classes excel while giving a new fresh challenging boss, but just my 2 cents.
Would be cool if the specific loot the boss drops could be discussed here as well as ultimately, the rewards determine the boss replayability.
