●Resurrection item (The Wheel of Destiny) —Due to the lack of Resurrection item in cash shop, BS become very important in this server. (I like this design) Although since I joined I have only seen the Dumpling update and the BPQ update, I still look forward to the release of new areas (including regions that the GM says have technical issues, yet are available on many other servers and, for unknown reasons, have still not been opened—such as Taipei / Golden Temple). Back to the main point, Below are some ideas I’ve been considering—existing mechanics that could be integrated into a new boss to make it more challenging. (This is because introducing mechanics that did not exist in old Maple is more likely to be quietly dismissed due to technical difficulties.) ●Potion-restricted maps (Dojo-like) — This would keep the challenging even if the boss’s attack power is relatively low(3000~8000). — paired with supply boxes that drop limited recovery items (cpq1/cpq2/Dojo potion). — 1/1 will become fetal in these new bosses. ●critical-hit shield — non-critical-hit dmg will reduce to 1 ●Boss-fight-exclusive revival items (The Wheel of Destiny) — Get 1~5 when entering and removed when leaving the boss maps.
If only I had the privilege of having this to be honest in that boss run though, it's a big bummer for me to be honest. You can find the epic clip in video section and know what I really mean for real...
Auf is not a mechanically difficult boss. Your video simply shows a common and predictable mistake, which I believe is not relevant to the main topic of this discussion. If this item were added to Auf run, I believe the rewards would need to be adjusted accordingly—perhaps reducing the drop rate to around half.
This was tried in VL and it doesn't make bosses mechanically harder, just makes NLs better This would kill the whole purpose of bringing bishops along, making them useless at endgame once again. I strongly disagree with adding it.
The only actual skill or challenge in this game is anything movement related like Jump Quests. This is also why VL is the only engaging boss because of jail and rocks. I guess there's also manual potting but at the moment, that's more self inflicted than anything (unless you're playing a DK I think). Potion restricted would probably only work if the boss had telegraphed, dodge-able attacks. Considering 99% of boss attacks are massive rectangles the size of your screen, I'd guess this wouldn't go too well especially for melees. I'm sure the devs already know, but just following relatively close to the current VL formula would work very well for making challenging new bosses.
First, I want to clarify that I believe the mechanics of the existing old bosses are already quite mature and do not need to be changed. What I’m mainly referring to are potential designs for future bosses. (1) NL and Critical-Hit Shield Applying this to existing bosses might be questionable, but I’m considering it specifically for new boss designs. This would likely require complementary mechanics. For example： The critical-hit shield could be located in another class’s “jail”, requiring players to obtain SE before entering. In VL, melee classes are particularly strong during the golem event. If a new boss includes a VL-golem-like event but the mobs have a critical-hit shield, NL’s importance might increase, yet not to the point of complete dominance. (2) The Wheel of Destiny and the Importance of BS I do not believe that adding The Wheel of Destiny would “lock out” all other design possibilities. For example: Rewards could scale based on the number of the remaining Wheels of Destiny. In this case, effective use of BS skills would meaningfully increase rewards. This would allow less mechanically skilled players some margin for error, while also giving teams the strategic choice between consuming a Wheel of Destiny or relying on BS's resurrection. In a VL-gargo-like event, BS remains the only existing solution. As long as such a mechanic exists, it would almost force non-top-attacker teams that cannot quickly eliminate gargo to bring at least one BS per party. That said, I would personally like to see possibilities where BS and F/P can coexist more meaningfully. In a VL-golem-like event, BS’s (Gene) is still stronger than that of a typical attacker. Even if this item exists, Set-more 1-hit-event on new Boss run will increase the necessity of having a BS in the party.
This is exactly how it was implemented in VL, and it made NLs by far one of the best classes. Looking back it it, putting an SE in each party (which is what we did) honestly wasn't really worth it and it would have been better to just take more NLs, because 15% crit rate isn't enough to matter. It was very good to get rid of, honestly. Changing rewards based on how many wheels are left is definitely interesting. Some other servers do a communal full-party ress pool instead of individual, which would probably be what's best if done like this, and would open things up to have mechanically difficult bosses with smaller parties (for now, you pretty much have to have 2 bishops because otherwise the single bish has to be perfect, which is not a great situation for people trying to get good - it only works with experienced runners) People would not be bringing bishops just for garg/golem clear. HSH is definitely useful but I could see it being skipped, especially in shad parties.
I agree with what you said, but I would like to further analyze the details. In older boss designs—such as Zak, Krex, and HT—full-screen hitbox mechanics were frequently used. In the original version’s later updates, however, this design became less common. For example, bosses like VL and Dojo Floor 37 completely abandoned full-screen hitboxes and instead shifted to fully avoidable attacks. So I’ve tried to outline the pros and cons of these two design approaches: (1) Full-Screen Hitbox Advantages: Can function as a forced event (e.g., seduce, seal, 1/1, dizzy, knockback). Can serve as an HP-checking mechanic. Disadvantages: Reduces player agency since attacks are unavoidable. May overly favor raw survivability and buff support over mechanical skill. (2) Avoidable Attacks Advantages: Encourages skill expression and positioning. Allows for high-risk, high-reward mechanics (e.g., 1-hit attacks).
What I mean is [new bosses(pink bean/ Cygnus...) don't have Critical-Hit Shield, but the small mobs in the 15-mob-like event or gargo-like-event have.]
Yes, that's how VL worked. Gargoyles could cast hardskin. And people complained because it made it far too NL-centric
ok, it seems hardskin in Gargo is not a good design. How do u think about hardskin in 15-golem / other job's jail event / high-speed-mob event?
Probably not good design either, it would just be NL story again. If you want NLs to be good just make it a single target boss? The whole point of mobs is to make it a mobbing based boss. And for jail that's just a party requirement restriction, which is not great and worse solution than just making archers a better class to play. It also doesn't work well with dispel and makes DCs much more heavily impact groups
I don’t like the idea of making ress accessible to every other class. Each class has its own unique skill set that fits its lore, and ress should remain exclusive to Bishops by that logic. Introducing a cash shop ress item might not completely lock Bishops out of VL, but it would reduce their significance and discourage class diversity. If we decide to make ress a cash shop item, what’s stopping us from introducing a Wheel of Sharp Eyes, a Wheel of Smokescreen, a Wheel of Time Leap, a Wheel of Speed Infusion, and so on? Regarding the Hard Skin mechanic, I want to point out that Hard Skin was introduced post-Big Bang, where every class had already gained access to crit chance through gear. It feels unreasonable to include this mechanic in our current version of the game, where the only reliable way to counter it is by forcing an archer in every party. I don’t dislike the mechanic itself, but perhaps we need significant adjustments or alternative solutions to make it fit properly within the current version of the game.
Your response makes me feel that there is some difficulty in our communication. So first, I would like to clarify the parts that I believe were misunderstood. Any conclusions based on incorrect assumptions will not effectively move the discussion forward: The [The Wheel of Destiny] I am referring to is intended as a boss-entry item that is distributed upon entering the boss fight and reclaimed upon leaving. It is not a cash shop item. ──This means there's nothing change on all old-bosses run (include VL/Auf/HT) My discussion is focused specifically on the design possibilities of non-existing (future) bosses. I believe all current bosses are already well-designed—including VL as you mentioned—and do not require changes. Now, returning to the discussion itself: What I am discussing is the expansion of boss design possibilities. For example, in a solo-instance content like Rose Garden, I believe it would be possible to include items such as The wheel of SE / resurrection / haste / smoke, provided that—again—they are distributed upon entry and removed upon exit, rather than being cash shop items. ── Consider a possible update: in a 3–4 player PQ, the boss room has a 60-min time limit. All classes except Shad receive one personal-use Smoke opportunity. Meanwhile, the boss possesses five different avoidable 1-hit-kill skills with varying patterns. The design of HardSkin becomes difficult when both conditions exist simultaneously: Critical hits are generally uncommon in the meta, and NL is a dominant class. We need more idea to HardSkin design. Additionally, I believe adding [The Wheel of Destiny] to new content is not inherently problematic if accompanied by proper balancing measures, such as: ── A reward-scaling mechanism based on the number of remaining Wheels. ── A single boss having multiple 1-hit-kill skills. This would create a meaningful sense of choice—whether to consume a revival or rely on personal tools and execution. I also think a team death counter could be an interesting design direction. I am not sure a team-based death counter is technically feasible in old Maple, but at the very least, the [The Wheel of Destiny] system is technically achievable. It may even be possible to combine both systems—team death counting alongside limited Wheels—for a hybrid design approach.
