When I first joined the server around a month ago, I heard about that thing called HP washing and that I must do it (I started a sin). After hearing and reading more about it, it felt really wrong, like a stupid weakness in the game that people exploit for something that should be obviously implemented in to the game. I get it, this is a nostalgic server and you want to do thing like the good ol' days.. But some things from those days were bad, wrong, naive, easily abused, and in my opinion should be improved. I mean, why would I want to ruin my gameplay early game by being weak in a huge part of the game because of my base int, which will force me to buy leeches till high level, which to me, equals letting someone else playing the game for you. Or being forced to fund myself with a bish first before even thinking to start play what I want.. It just feels extremely wrong.. this is not the maple I wanted to play. Every time I asked someone: "Well how the hell did they do Horntail or Pink bean without washing in GMS?", they had no idea. I couldn't really put all my thoughts into words so I found an amazing thread about this topic: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Problem Description For those who don't know, one of the concepts pre-big bang MapleStory had was called HP Washing. This was a method designed to raise your character's maximum HP to have an easier time surviving bosses. Later on, it became necessary for some classes to survive bosses at all. Personally, I dislike this as a mechanic to begin with, but it gets worse than that. In order to HP wash, what you need to do is convert your extra MP to HP. Naturally, everyone gets a little bit above their minimum MP amount, so everyone gets a few free washes. However, you can get even more by having extra points in INT. For every 10 INT, you gain + 1 MP per level. Early on, we won't have to worry about this, as extra HP is really not needed for anything, and would purely be a luxury. However, after 4th job, HP washing becomes much more valuable. Different classes have different uses for it. Magicians are exempt from washing concerns, as well as Heroes (Fighters), Paladins (Pages), and Shadowers (Bandits). This is because these classes all have enough base HP, combined with skills, to survive any monsters or bosses in the game, within reason. The first problem exists uniquely to the Dark Knight class. Dark Knights' primary skill, Berserk, activates when the Dark Knight is below 40% HP (later changed to 50% HP) to increase their damage significantly. Safe to say, this is the most important part of becoming stronger as a Dark Knight. To get the maximum advantage from this skill, regardless of which version we use, the incentive is to have as much HP as possible. Therefore it only makes sense for a Dark Knight to go for the maximum amount of HP, 30k (translating to a base max HP of 18750 before Hyper Body is applied). For Dark Knights, this issue is actually not too big of a deal. In order to reach 18750 HP by level 200, you would only need 10 base INT while leveling up. Ergo, if you don't bother doing this, and just use your natural extra MP, you will still get pretty close. The second problem applies to ranged DPS classes: Bowmasters (Hunters), Marksmen (Crossbowmen), and Night Lords (Assassins). Later on, it applies to Corsairs (Gunslingers) as well, with the same general concept. All of these classes follow a similar HP/MP gaining pattern, and the result leaves them with very low maximum HP values. There is some randomness in the gains, but by level 200, they will all end up with around 5.5k HP before any washing. They can get even more through washing with their natural MP gains. Two essential bosses will cause problems for these classes. Horntail and Pink Bean. Horntail Horntail is a much more reasonable and minor problem for the squishy classes. To be safe, it is recommended to have around 5.5k HP. This is because Horntail can hit around 5k damage after the legs and tail are killed, unless he buffs with his wings, in which case it goes up to around 8-9k. With Hyper Body, 5.5k translates to a maximum HP of 8.8k HP, just enough to survive the buffed damage, and only giving you a bit more to survive unbuffed damage if you lose Hyper Body. Horntail does cast dispel, so it is possible to lose it and die. There are some ways around this, such as using the falling rocks to take damage while fighting the legs and tail of Horntail. Because of these reasons and Horntail's general viability, I'm not too bothered by his affect on the game. That being said, you won't reach that 5.5k "minimum" HP until around level 180 as these classes if you wash only your natural MP, when Horntail is normally able to be fought by most classes around level 150+. In order for these classes to reach the 5.5k HP threshold by level 150, they would need to wash, on average, about 50 times, and level up with 10~20 base INT. Again, not too unreasonable and mostly manageable for now. Pink Bean This boss is the killer and what breaks the game in terms of HP washing. The highest hitting unavoidable damage for this boss comes from the statue Ariel. She will hit you for around 14k damage with her laser beams. Nexon designed this boss in a way that looks like she was intended to be dodged, since the laser beams fire vertically and have a visual cue. However, they built it to fire randomly, and she can randomly just fire 7 lasers side by side, dooming you to death even if your reactions are perfect. Unlike with Horntail, there is no escape: no rocks to hit to receive damage from something else, nowhere on the map to hide. At any point, if you're unlucky and don't meet the HP requirement, you simply die. I feel Nexon did this intentionally to sell their "Wheel of Destiny" cash shop item as well as promote the HP washing mechanic out of greed. I will have to research the damage done by the other statues to find out the other HP requirements, but if I recall correctly, they will hit you for around 8-9k damage, the same as buffed Horntail. So, with a 14k maximum HP requirement, this translates to a base maximum HP of 8750. In order for the squishy classes to achieve this amount by level 200, on average, they will need to wash 150 times with 80 base INT. This leads me to the crux of the problem. If we end up on a version which requires a damage class to have leveled up with 80 base INT from the beginning, we are effectively punishing any user who didn't plan a bunch of versions in advance. I don't feel this is right, and is an undesirable and not fun part of late pre big bang MapleStory. I believe it is also necessary to consider this in advance because it will shape how knowledgeable players would choose to build their character, if they know Pink Bean could potentially come. Solutions As such, I propose one of two solutions. 1) Increase the HP gained per level after level 120. With the end goal of having all classes be able to reach around 9000 HP at level 200 in mind, increase the HP gains of all, or at least squishy classes, for every level past 120. This will leave the early game unaffected, so one cannot take a high HP Hunter to a place he does not belong, and leaves the challenge in tact. After 4th job, you largely won't care about HP much anyway. By the time this change creates a meaningful difference from the base game, you won't hardly have cared about the improvement except for the noted bosses above. Training at Skeles or Newts is still going to be hard in early 4th job. 2) Implement a custom way to gain additional max HP, such as a custom quest. Another notable pre big bang server went this route so that players can reasonably get to Pink Bean (and reach the cap if they wish). TLDR In the end, it's only a minor problem if Pink Bean isn't going to be released. The only thing I would ask is that even if we don't come to a solution for the problem now, that we be aware this problem will exist in the future, and have a way of addressing it that won't punish the v02 players who didn't start their Hunter/Crossbowman/Assassin with 80+ base INT. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, what are your thoughts guys? to me washing feels stupid and shouldn't be as it is now. Why would you want to be forced to play in a certain way just to be able to do some bosses in your end game? It's like you have to choose between fun till lvl 155 or Fun from lvl 155.. 2019 Edit: I really like the HP quest solution from the article. HP quests will allow people to start what ever character they want, not dealing with AP resets and INT. People will just play the game normally until bossing levels, then dealing with HP for bossing. The situation right now is making people remake characters to be able to play the end game. Usually starting bishops to make enough money to wash (which is a lot of money for a decent attacker). You might say you can play the game without washing, but we all know it's bullshit. Almost everyone washes, and no one accepts unwashed characters for bosses. I know a lot of us wasted a ton of Mesos on washes, including me, and it feels unfair to make these changes. BUT, I personally still remember when I join this server. Started a NL and realized too late that I need to wash in order to enjoy the end game. It really annoyed me that I have a character and I can't enjoy the game. I wanna enjoy ALL OF IT, bossing included. I too gave up to the current system and mostly voted to win to make money for a decent character (as you can see, this post is 3 years old, and I only came back few months ago). Adding the HP quests will not make the game easier. It will make the server more approachable. New players will have a blast because they won't need to deal with end game stuff from level 10. HP quests will still be tough, the idea does have to be developed to be perfected and balanced. It is possible. In addition to the article: maybe Pink Bean is not in Royals right now. but Neo Tokyo? haven't gone into it too much yet, but no one will probably survive it unwashed. I see it as a MAJOR problem, not being able to play the game since you didn't exploit a bad game mechanic. Even if you are against it, please, state your arguments down at the comments, because further developing this topic will only make for better solutions. And please vote! With enough support something will probably have to change! Thank you! Edit 2019 2: We have really developed some idea around this topic in the comments, I really recommend checking them out. Adds a lot of value to this post (2019 comments start mid page 2).
HB won't be enough when pb hits 14k.. And about HP gears.. you will just lose important damage that you will need for the boss.. and those who HP washed won't.
I fully agree with you Mimsy HP washing is total bullsh**... you cant play the Char you want to because you will be useless in lategame without washing... wow that is just stupid.. and since every NL/BM/MM/Corsair have to wash they could just increase the hp gain of this chars or something like that... but this will sadly never happen i guess..
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/hp-washing-and-leeching.85016/#post-445468 https://royals.ms/forum/threads/hp-washing-leeching.77230/#post-453103
No one says you can't play the game without washing. No one says you have to wash either. You can play the game without washing, do bosses without washing, and alot of things. It is simply harder to play a unwashed character than a washed one. You don't have to fund yourself with a bishop to play any character. The game had hp washing back in v62, so regardless if you feel its nostalgic or not, it is part of the game back then, so it should be part of the game now. You won't be able to HT at lvl 155 like most classes, it would take you extra levels and require HB, and you might still die. You probably can zak but run the risk of dying. Complaining about not being able to enjoy late game without washing is just pretty silly, since you totally can. You just will have a harder time and most likely have to create your own runs for bosses. You'd have to definitely be higher lvl than the minimum a HP washed character would have.
From what I've heard its just impossible without washing.. Well let's hope you're right.. I'm already seeing a scenario where I get there and see that it's impossible and then frustratingly quitting the game.. lol
I think you can have both, and here is my reasoning. Even with an expensive washing character like a night lord. I didn't start adding base int, or leveling with int at all until level 75 on mine. For the record I did have an ice lighting as my first 4th job character but I honestly didn't even plan to leech with it at the time. Also I was never "rich" by any means. I leeched my night lord from 75-135 not because I had too, simply because it was more convenient in my case. Like I had said it was a normal build up until 75 and I only added 130 base int I think it was. That being said my Nl was perfectly capable of grinding if I had chose to do so. Now my NL has 16k hp potential by 200 which is far over what you need to do any current boss. Just my input :3
its not impossible and its also not impossible to wash without making a bishop or dumping 100 ap into int you can wash at a slower rate and still have enough hp to make end game bossing easier.
Don't you think it's just a stupid mechanic that was created from bad game design? why not fix the wrong parts of those early maplestory patches? not everything was perfect back then.. (btw hp washing was fixed at some point, they changed INT in a way that it wont give extra mana to other jobs but mages..)
erm... I suppose it depends on what you mean by funded? I consider myself to be fairly casual. I just saved all the money I made. I don't think i had enough to wash it all out till 160. I consider there be a difference between funded and not blowing all the money I get.
its not about that, i have more than enough to wash perfectly.. its just seems stupid.. why would i do it? to get a thing that i should have gotten without doing anything (the ability to play the end game)?
Actually you don't really have to, as a new player trust me on this one. 126 AP resets cost 1.3 Billion. I've been on this server for about 3 weeks actively playing and not really trying to make money. At this point in time I have about 300 million mesos in cash, and another 300 million in items easily. Mind you this is from casual questing and gambling my NX at the Maple Shrine gachapon, didn't get a red sock, chaos scroll or any other very expensive item. Some of my friends that started at the same time got much luckier and are sitting on 2 - 3 billion worth of items and gear in less than a month. Those AP resets are easily affordable. By the time you're ready to reset those points in INT you will have way more money than that, unless you blow it all on chairs. Not saying I entirely agree with the whole HP washing and leeching being vital parts of the server, but both have their uses and I don't think they harm the server. HP washing even gives new players a very steady and controlled income, and is a pillar of the current economy.
I mean yeah it sucks, but it makes a challenge, keeps things interesting, and helps a balance in the economy. I like the fact that everything isn't handed out. But that's just my point of view.
I see what you mean and I agree.. I don't really care if HP washing will still be. but at least make it possible to enjoy all the game features without it. Don't make it a must. because from what I've read I won't be able to HT even with HB.. and only because I won't do something that is litteraly exploiting a bug. As a developer it sickens me Didn't really reach those levels yet but I'm preparing for the worst.
I have more than enough to wash perfectly in only 1 month I play. It's not about that. And I can't see why its being the "pillar of economy", selling ap resets is not the only thing that keep newbies going.
As long as you have HB you should need to wash at all. My 140 BM has 5k hp and I havnt washed it yet. That +40% hp from HB putting me at slightly more then 7k and still needing 15 levels before I get to 155. It's edgy but still wouldn't require washing, only teamwork! And it's a "pillar of economy" because although it's not the main source of income for lots of people, it's a steady, reliable source for whoever chooses to do so.
well idk where you've read but that doesn't sound accurate to me, 5.6k hp was needed to survive ht before new source (idk if it will be the same). So basically you need 3.5k hp to be able to horntail which is very very low, granted you will have a much harder time trying to survive and if you fall of your platform during the first 10-15min of main body or if your hyperbody runs out during any part of the run you're likely to get 1 shot. No i dont think its a stupid mechanic, you work extra hard to make your character better making end game easier for yourself everyone can do it if they want. I think work for reward is healthy. I don't really care much about what nexon did or didn't do to this game I'm sure they found a more lucrative way of getting people to waste money at that point.
Well I hope you're right, some people are saying the complete opposite. Because what you said is exactly what I'm looking for! Whats the difference between that and selling scroll from shrine gach? or APQing? or even farming zombie teeth? to me it seems like just another way to make money..
