By removing the LUK requirement on items, you're effectively removing LUK mages from the game entirely. I can definitely understand why you don't consider it an option but this isn't the right approach. Instead, LUK mages need to be a thing by massively buffing their gear. In my opinion, going pure INT should be something only very rich players can do effectively. This makes a lot more sense because then the majority of mages would be able to play them the way they were originally intended. I doubt whoever was responsible for making the mage gear knew that it would eventually be completely worthless and no one would ever use it (thanks to ele wands). So what am I suggesting? Basically, all high level mage gear should have M.ATK on it. Their overall, gloves, hat, shoes -- everything. If they want to put even more effort in, balance the lower level items too. For example, the White Guiltian (level 40 mage hat) is really the only one worth using as it can roll up to 4 M.ATK on it. The dark version gives worse stats (1 ~ 3 LUK) which I find odd since dark versions of items are usually the most powerful. I would make the Dark Guiltian roll with M.ATK as well, massively increase the HP/MP that the red/blue versions come with (respectively) and put LUK on them as a second stat. The Brown Guiltian is fine since it comes with INT on it already. This gives players many more options without taking any existing options away. I also think the elemental staves need a buff if LUK mage is ever to compete with pure INT, but I think buffing their gear first is the way to go. Players that can't afford godly scrolled bathrobes and elemental wands now have a way to play mage and have fun and players that are super hardcore and have billions of mesos can chaos scroll mage gear to the point where it's potentially better than playing a pure INT. Now there's three options, and all in about an hour or so worth of effort (it might take longer to decide exactly which items to change and by how much, but the point is that it's very doable). Best of all though, this doesn't hurt existing players in any way. Putting a LUK requirement on elemental wands would mean that anyone with a pure INT mage wouldn't be able to play their character. Players that are already pure INT can add enough LUK to use mage gear if they decide to switch over. Also, this isn't about buffing mages. The whole point is that mages have gear they can't even use. Simply removing LUK requirements on items will do pretty much nothing to affect how powerful they are (they will get a few more points in INT here and there, and that's it). Buffing their gear without removing the requirements also does not make them any more powerful if it's done correctly. If they turn out to be too strong with the changes, simply increase the amount of LUK they need to use their gear. It would take some effort to balance them but there is absolutely no reason not to.
I never suggested a buff. The classes aren't balanced as they are now but that's another discussion. I'm simply suggesting that they improve mage gear with a LUK requirement so that players have an option to not be pure INT. That's kind of the whole point of the thread. It's not a buff because all it does is make LUK mages viable without making them stronger than pure INT mages. If they want to actually balance the classes themselves, the way to do that would be by modifying the damage of their primary skills (which they are very easily capable of). This thread is just about how mage gear is useless and it's a shame because it's something that's completely possible to balance with the rest of the game.
I don't understand why someone is upset about the ease of going pure-int.... ? Every other class has to work harder to get their secondary stat from equips just to go without that stat in their base AP. Such as dex-less warriors and thieves, str-less archers, etc. 90% of every class has gear that is worthless aside from NPC value. Who uses a casters as a claw? Or kandine daggers? Etc. Mages aren't special in that their luk gear is worthless, because it's the same. The difference being that mages have it easy, actually, because their end game weapon is secondary stat-less. Lukless. You could choose to go lukless, or you can choose to go luk mage. Some people went luk mage anyway - Robb is the first person to come to mind, and then Sami (Nefarious/...whatever his bishop's name was). And now with the 999 cap, by 200 you have to have some points into base Luk at least anyway. (Or pump it into HP/MP...but still). I'd rather we keep things as true to the original game as possible, really. Removing stat requirements of an item, changing the stats of a pre-existing item... It makes things far too customized, and we're already striving to be as true to original maple as possible. ((Hence why the removal of most player commands, warp to fm button, boat rides...)). Maybe I just don't get it. It's fully possible to wear luk robes and such with HTP/Zhelm/Ring/belts... Ask @Yuame , he's in the process of doing it with his mage. and I think @Shiyui was working on it with her bishop as well.
I'm not sure what the OP thinks but my views on the topic are not at all about the "ease of going pure int". This is my thought process: 1. There's a ton of mage equips with a LUK requirement. 2. A lot of these mentioned items look pretty neat and are nostalgic to me because I wore them when I played GMS. 3. LUK is vastly inferior to INT and therefore I can never wear these items without completely nerfing my damage, regardless of how much I want to use them. That third point is not nostalgic to me because when I played the game, these items were fully usable. Even if that wasn't the case, what's the point of having them in the game if they are completely useless? I believe this game is small enough in terms of content that it would be silly not to utilize all the preexisting content to its full potential. If I developed for a server, one of my duties would be to make sure that everything in the game is relevant. There is absolutely nothing relevant about items that nobody can use, you might as well just make the monsters that drop these items drop more mesos instead. Basically what I'm getting at is that I'm looking at the situation from the perspective of a new player who wants to have a fun experience. It is not fun in any way to create a character only to find out that if you chose to wear equipment on that character, you have to delete it and make a new one because you're not supposed to do that. There is absolutely nothing fun about having to start your character over because you decided to add LUK. Instead, the player should have the option to add LUK and wear mage equipment as a low-budget solution or as a means to have more fun at the expense of missing out on some more damage they would have by going pure INT. To completely deny the player that option is absurd, however. I know I don't speak for everyone, but that's the point I've been trying to make and I think it's a shame that there are so many cool things in this game that just go completely unnoticed because they are just not viable. Have you ever been to a map with horrible spawn, the monsters give barely any experience and drop almost nothing and you just ask yourself "why would anyone train here?". I know I have, and I see it as potential content that's just wasted because of balance issues. There are many instances of this in Maplestory, this is just the very tip of the iceberg, but I don't see any reason to justify the fact that mages have this issue simply because other classes in the game have the same problems. It would be ideal to fix all the classes and optimize the game to have the most possible unique paths for players to journey on and ultimately improve the overall fun and longevity of the game by doing so.
This is where you are wrong though. While difficult and very expensive, you can wear these items while still being lukless. I agree with you that it is a shame that some items are just useless (literally every class hat), but mage equips are not the best example of this since you can wear them using luk from other equips.
For all of you who don't like walls of text, read the last two paragraphs for my overarching points. I highly doubt Royals would ever drop secondary stat requirements on equipment. Ever. Since new source was released, the server changed to replicate old GMS more closely. But, for the sake of discussion, I'll entertain the possibility that secondary stat requirements, magician gear in particular, would be dropped here. The total luk of a level 200 mage with minimal base luk is 88. This means 23 base luk (assuming all AP after reaching 999 base int is put into luk). MW 20 adds 2 luk because 23*0.10=2. All gear for the natural total luk is assumed as the normal max, not the godly max, for that item. Zakum Helmet gives 17, Horntail Necklace gives 23, Dark Enigma gives 3, Crimsonheart Cloak gives 5, Black Belt gives 5, Almighty Ring gives 3, Pumpkin Pie Ring gives 1, 2 Carat Lovebirds Wedding Ring gives 3, Zombie Army Ring gives 1, and Gold Lapiz Sandals and Dark Enigma Shoes give 2. Current luk requirements on gear are met with the total luk, adding base luk with luk from equipped gear. Maker skill is still unavailable here, and the Blue Elemental line of gear is rarely ever seen since it only comes from the Ellinia Gachapon that virtually no one does, so I defined the best in slot gear (regardless of luk requirement) according to the viability of them being in the market, dropping from easily farmable mobs, which means I disregarded items that drop from area bosses. I also assumed that all gear was max godly in int and magic attack. The point is to identify the best possible gear you could make as a mage with the minimum base luk and as a mage with additional base luk (compromising on AP in int). To illustrate my point that additional luk gear isn't worth it still, I assumed that the luk gear had max godly luk as well. If luk requirements were dropped, I don't think it would have a significant impact on the server unless the luk requirement drop also applied to the Elemental Staffs. Luk requirement dropping on armors only affects overalls for mage best in slot gear. (Brown Work Gloves with 7 slots and a perfected 42 TMA are still better than the Blue Ciara with 10 int godly max and 5 slots, which would be 40 TMA perfected). The best in slot overall goes from the Dark Enigma to the Blue Bazura. Perfected, the Dark Enigma is 62 TMA and the Blue Bazura is 63 TMA. Shoes are equal. Blue Varr Shoes are 10 int and Dark Enigma Shoe are 10 int. If you're going to chaos shoes, it's still not worth adding more luk than necessary. Even without the godly system on either int or luk, Gold Lapiz Sandals have 4 int and 2 magic attack normal max. Clean Gold Lapiz Sandals without the godly system applying are only 4 TMA less than Blue Varr Shoes with the godly system applying. And chaosing, the scroll affects both int and magic attack independently, so you only need a net 4 TMA gain with chaos to equal Blue Varr Shoes. And no mage would chaos Blue Varr Shoes. It's far better to chaos the shoe that has two stats that determine TMA, rather than a shoe with just int. So if you remove the luk requirements from mage armors, people would only end up having 1 more TMA for equipping Bazuras/Varunas instead of Requierres/Requiems. You can get almost the exact same TMA right now with minimal base luk and normal max luk stats on your standard gear. All this discussion up until this point has been about best in slot mage gear. But honestly, very few people care about mage gear, much less going through the work to perfect items and compete for the highest magic on the server. Once a mage 1 hits skeles/petris, there's no point to getting stronger with a mage unless you really, really enjoy playing a mage. The fact is that the vast majority of players on the server aren't going to scroll magician gear in the first place if the slot has a common item that can double as int gear for HP washing an attacker. The whole point about overalls doesn't really matter because a perfect Bazura/Varuna with 63 int isn't worth it to most people when they'd rather have a 50 int bathrobe. In fact, the only two 50 int bathrobes on the server ended up being used more for int gear washing attackers rather than being used on the mages. Once a mage hits 200, which both owners of those bathrobes did, you simply don't need that good of gear to 1 hit endgame leech mobs. Furthermore, common class items with int have far more resale value. People will bid billions for a 50 int bathrobe but probably wouldn't touch a 63 int Bazura/Varuna. It's not worth putting in the billions of meso on WS to perfect a mage only equip unless you do it for your own sake. This applies to normal scrolling too, of course. It makes far more sense to scroll a common class equip for int than a magician class equip. The same points stand: common class equips double as mage gear and int gear for HP washing attackers, thus they are more valuable in both utility and resale value. The fact is, even by removing the luk requirements from mage armors, people aren't going to use and scroll and equip mage armors because there's an economy of int gear and HP washing on this server. There's an established marketplace of 20 int to 30 int to 50 int bathrobes. Hardly anyone would want to spend expensive int scrolls on class locked items when the class itself does its purpose (1 hitting leech mobs) just fine with the common class items in the first place. But now let's turn to if the luk requirements were dropped from mage weapons. Specifically the Elemental Staff 5. At present, it requires 165 luk. Assuming max godly luk on every equip, you'd have 131 luk naturally as a level 200 mage with 23 minimal base luk. So you need to put in 31 more AP that would've gone into int into luk instead in order to meet the Elemental Staffs luk requirements. You gain 49 more TMA going with an Elemental Staff 5 rather than an Elemental Wand 5/6 which naturally has no luk requirement. You also gain 1 more TMA with the Blue Bazura/Varuna rather than the Dark Enigma/Enigmatic. So by diverting AP from int to luk to meet the Elemental Staffs requirements, you gain 50 TMA. You lose 31 TMA from diverting int, and 3 TMA more from the MW 20 loss by having 31 less base int, so you have a total loss of 34 TMA. This means your net gain by going with luk gear is 16 TMA. 16 TMA gained that assumes every single equip with int and luk on it have their godly max values. 22 int, 22 luk Zhelms, 28 int, 28 luk HTPs, 8 int, 8 luk Krex rings. And that's only the beginning. You also need perfect int/luk rolls on the Crimsonheart Cloak, Black Belt (which probably wouldn't be affected by the godly system anyway, but I assumed it to give 5 extra luk for the luk mage scenario), Elemental Staff 5 itself, and Blue Varr Shoes, and yes, you need the Blue Varr Shoes this time. So seeing how Elemental Staffs are nearly impossible to make viable over Elemental Wands, you could say that removing the luk requirement on them entirely would make them viable, a true endgame weapon for mages that have a use other than being NPCed because no one uses them now. But Elemental Staffs have an entire 49 TMA over Elemental Wands. Clean. That's almost 10 levels worth of magic. With an Elemental Staff rather than an Elemental Wand, level 165 mages would be hitting damages they would currently have to hit 175 to do. Elemental Staffs make reaching required magic for 1 hitting leech mobs far easier. I believe it's the norm now that bishops/AMs can 1 hit skeles/petris at 180, maybe 175 with MW 20 and echo and Wizard Elixirs/Meditation. So Elemental Staffs would make it such that mages can 1 hit their endgame leech mobs at 170. That'd be the new normal. That's with the current average int gear remaining the same. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate. More 1 hit leech selling, more map competition if mini dungeons remain nonfunctional, more mage character mules for selling leech, abandoned at 17x rather than 18x after achieving that 100% 1 hit rate. The irony is that because Elemental Staffs make it so much easier to reach those magics, common class int gear becomes much more viable. You'll need magician class equips even less because their inherent int and magic attack, the only merit they have over common class equips, are irrelevant because of the 49 TMA Elemental Staffs give over the current endgame weapon of Elemental Wands. The disparity between equip TMAs and 1 hit magic for leech mobs is vastly bridged over if Elemental Staffs didn't have the prohibitive luk requirement on them. So dropping the luk requirement on magician equips doesn't change the best in slot armors much nor is it at all likely to change the meta on what armors most mages wear normally. Dropping the luk requirement on magician weapons makes reaching 1 hit magics almost 10 levels sooner and enables the standard of using common class equips as both mage gear and int gear for HP washing attackers. Mage gear with luk requirements are virtually obsolete with and without their luk requirements. It's only whether you want the weapon to have no luk requirement that would impact the server and its playstyle. If you want mage gear to have a purpose, with mages actually wearing magician class equips, you have to disable HP washing. Make it impossible to do. Then there's no point in making int gear with common class items because no other classes would want to use them in the first place. The only common class equip item that is actually better than any magician class equip in that category is the Brown Work Glove. But every other category of mage equip, the overall and shoe, are certainly better as magician class items rather than commons. It just ended up differently because mages are a means to an end here. Farm and sell leech. That's what most do. Fund and level attackers. To the point that even mage equips have been dual purposed. Spoiler @Sila I ended up calcing and writing this until 4 AM hahaha! Thanks for letting me know about this discussion! It was fun! Edit: Recalced values, fixed a few mistakes. You have 88 luk with minimal base luk and best in slot gear requiring less than 88 luk. You have 131 luk with minimal base luk and best in slot gear regardless of luk requirement. You would need 31 additional AP in luk to equip Elemental Staffs (factoring in the 3 luk you get with MW 20). You still gain 50 TMA from going with a luk build. You have a net gain of 16 TMA by going luk rather than full int. Does not assume chaos on any gear, does not assume donor medals. Assumes normal max int, magic attack, and luk stats on best in slot gear requiring less than 88 luk. Assumes godly max int, magic attack, and luk stats on best in slot gear regardless of luk requirement. Spoiler: For the curious: (int/luk) except for gloves which are (int/luk/slots) and weapon and shoes which are (int and magic/luk) Hat: Zakum Helmet (17/22) Face Accessory: Maple Leaf Eye Accessory: White Racoon Mask Earring: Crystal Leaf Earrings Pendant: Horntail Necklace (23/28) Medal: Wiseman Medal Overall: Blue Bazura (13/9) vs Dark Enigma (12/3) (1 more TMA with luk) Cape: Crimsonheart Cloak (5/10) Belt: Black Belt (5/10) Gloves: Blue Ciara (10/9/5) vs Brown Work Glove (0/0/7) (2 less TMA with luk) Weapon: Elemental Staff 5 (8 int and 188 magic/7) vs Elemental Wand 5/6 (8 int and 155 magic/0) (49 more TMA with luk) Shield: Maple Magician Shield Ring: Almighty Ring (3/8) Ring: Pumpkin Pie Ring (1/1) Ring: 2 Carat Lovebirds Wedding Ring (3/3) Ring: Zombie Army Ring (1/1) Shoes: Blue Varr Shoes (10/9) vs Gold Lapiz Sandals ((4 int and 1 magic)/2) (6 more TMA with luk) vs Dark Enigma Shoes (10/2) (0 more TMA with luk) 3 TMA less with luk due to 31 AP diverted from int into luk 23 luk base (999 AP in int cap) 165 luk required for Elemental Staffs Elemental Staff 5 is best in slot. Elemental Staff 6 has only 1 more int and Elemental Staff 5 has 7 more luk. 88 luk with minimal base luk and best in slot gear requiring less than 88 luk 131 luk with minimal base luk and best in slot gear regardless of luk requirement 31 additional AP in luk required to equip Elemental Staffs (3 luk from MW 20) 50 TMA gain from best in slot gear regardless of luk requirement 16 TMA net gain by going with luk build Assumed with normal max luk stats on best in slot gear requiring less than 88 luk. Assumed with godly max luk stats on best in slot gear regardless of luk requirement. Requires godly max int, magic attack, and luk stats on hat, pendant, overall, cape, belt, weapon, ring, and shoes. (Zakum Helmet, Horntail Necklace, Blue Bazura/Varuna, Crimsonheart Cloak, Black Belt, Elemental Staff 5, Almighty Ring, and Blue Varr Shoes). Does not assume chaos on any gear, does not assume donor medals. Does not assume the New Beginnings Ring as a best in slot item because it's now unobtainable. All gear above is or will be obtainable through yearly events at the time of this post. Checked all item stat values using the Royals library here: https://royals.ms/library/?page=items&search=.
In all honesty, LUK equips should be directed at bishops because they aren't meant to be using ele wands and still get the benefits. Even in GMS there is a penalty. It was removed here for god knows what reason. Now the only reason it isn't staying removed is because it would screw up a lot of existing player's bishop characters. Bishops are supposed to survive more but do less damage to support attackers, while Arch mages are supposed to do damage but be fragile. At least thats how I see it.
Arch mages already do more damage. Since def and magic def barely affect inflicted damage, dropping the luk requirement on equips wouldn't make bishops more tanky. 32 AP, since you get another 3 luk from MW, but your point remains.
This is because Royals players has more knowledge about their class when they start out, thus its easier to go the right path. We have tons of guides and threads telling us pure int is way better, Also we all probably met this one pure int mage that out damaged us at x level in retail server. In short we have better understanding about how int works thus we see way more pure int mages than normal. This is a bad idea, in my opinion. When I farm mesos I look for equips drops, they are worth A LOT more than a bag of mesos drop. I do not understand how you came to the conclusion of deleting a character. Ap resets are very easy to get a hold off. You just have to invest some mesos/nx to be pure int again... Seems like we are following EMS not GMS. (from the way I see it)
There was a point where the penalty didn't exist in GMS. And when the penalty came around, there were already alternative options, such as reverse and timeless equipment, so although it was frustrating for bishops at the time, at least they could change weapons. If we do implement the penalty in royals, what weapon would bishops use?
I reread the thread again today, and I want to address some points. 1. @Enticing Dropping the luk requirement on mage gear doesn't change how people will gear a mage. Very few people care enough about playing mages to optimize their damage. The only ones I am aware of are me, Wolf, Robb, Plenty, Lightzz, Chrizz, Yuame, EndOfDays, LeonEuler, and Aaron. And over half of us don't even really play Royals anymore. In fact, some of them switched from gearing mages to gearing attackers. And only five of them ever perfected a mage gear item. Mostly people just had/have really above average mage items which are often, of course, common class equips. The vast majority of the playerbase gear a mage for one reason: 1 hitting endgame leech mobs. For bishops, that's skeles and for AMs, that's petris. Some bishops gear further to 1 hit petris and Dark Wyverns in HT. Higher still to do it without echo. Some AMs will gear further to 1 hit O2/O4. But the people who want to do this are very, very few. Most people are going to stop gearing their bishop when they hit 1295 magic (1 hit skele magic). You can easily get to 1295 magic with common items for glove, overall, and shoe, which make three categories of magician class gear obsolete. Most people want to main an attacker character. Very few main mages. So it makes far more sense to spend money on common items that can be used as int gear for HP washing that attacker. Hardly anyone wants to fund a mage, much less think about optimizing their damage. Their purpose by and large is to 1 hit mobs with their ultimate skills. Going past that point is only for personal enjoyment. Mages are not attackers. They hardly ever get chosen to go on boss runs. They're simply too low on the DPS rankings to be taken on boss runs. The only mages who go HT are bishops and AMs who have friends at that bossing level. Or they solo a boss themselves, @Yuame, because, again, personal enjoyment. Mage damage scales badly. Really badly. The impact of 5 magic attack is abysmal on damage compared to if an attacker gained 5 attack. I believe I reached about 1800 magic at my prime. That was with multiple perfect mage gear items, MW 20, echo, and Ssiws Cheese. I was dealing consistent 100ks with Genesis on HT's main body. And even back in old source when SI worked with Gen, I'd STILL get outdamaged by an above average attacker. Now my ability to DPS is even lower because SI doesn't work with Gen, so slower attacker speed, and I'm forced to put 19 AP into luk because as a level 200 bishop, my int already caps at 999. So I lose 20 magic there. The buffs to Blizzard and Meteor Shower base damage don't make AMs viable to boss still. The only notable thing I calced was that it's much more feasible for an IL AM to 1 hit O2/O4. But even that isn't a reason to gear to such high levels. You can't sell O2/O4 leech. You need a bishop, not an HS mule priest, to provide HS. Which means you have to micromanage HSing your leecher every 3 minutes, somehow coming into the map with your bishop, HSing your leecher, and having your bishop leave the map again so it doesn't steal exp. It's simply not worth it when you can quickly tab over and HS and tab over again when selling leech as petris. So yes, there are reasons to care about what magic you have on your mage beyond the 1 hit magic for skeles/petris. But that's only if you actually enjoy mages enough to care. Most don't. Because most people would rather spend all that time and money on playing something they enjoy more, which usually ends up being an attacker class. 2. The current stats on mage gear, irrespective of them having luk requirements on them or not, hardly impact best in slot items. I demonstrated above that the people who care about mage damage would only gain 1 TMA from a Bazura/Varuna, and 49 TMA from an Elemental Staff 5/6. Which means a net 16 TMA gain. Under the most ideal circumstances (not factoring in chaos or donor medals). If you removed the luk requirements on mage gear, you'd effectively give people access to a free 50 TMA. And honestly, no one is going to care about Blue Bazuras/Varunas and Blue Varr Shoes because they'd rather get bathrobes and YSS. Elemental Staffs 5/6 would be a game changer, since that's a free 49 TMA we could access simply my meeting the level requirement. Which ends up with people using the same old gear they always have been using, just upgrading from the Elemental Wands to the Elemental Staffs. 49 TMA, about 10 levels of damage. 3. @danman So removing the luk requirements on gear doesn't benefit the vast majority of mages at all. Except with the weapon. The problem isn't with mage gear stats, really. The problem is HP washing. And how easy it is to hit 1 hit magics for leech mobs with common class int gear used for that HP washing. The issue is entirely on how people don't want to play mages. Their playstyle is spam ults to make money, either by farming gobies or selling leech. Or they turn into summon farm mules for stoppers, charms, and rags. Changing gameplay (e.g. buffing luk requiring gear, putting luk requirements on the Elemental Wands, changing how int and magic attack work, changing how luk works by increasing survivability, and, ultimately, eliminating HP washing) is the only way you would get people to use mage gear. Buffing luk requiring gear would make the mage mains happy, but the mage mule players wouldn't care much. Putting luk requirements on the Elemental Wands would make a lot of people angry since we'd have to rework our character AP builds and equips to meet those new luk requirements or else downgrade to a weaker wand with more reasonable luk requirements (Doomsday Staffs, Maple Wisdom Staffs, Maple Shine Wands). Changing how int and magic attack work could make people want to play mages if they were viable attackers, but really, this isn't going to happen. Changing how luk works by things like increasing survivability in terms of HP/MP could make people want to play mages, but this again just isn't going to happen. The whole problem about mages not using magician class gear can be solved is you just eliminate HP washing, as in, make AP Resets unable to interact with HP and MP so it's legitimately impossible to do. But this isn't going to happen. Too many people have HP washed. 30k NLs, BMs, heroes, DrKs. If you eliminate HP washing now, either those people are way overpowered and no one can reach that level of survivability after the change, or you change those HP washed characters to have the HP/MP of unwashed characters. Which means you erase all the time and money they put into achieving those abnormally high HP/MP levels in the first place. You'd also have to implement a system of natural HP/MP gain to boss. At least with HB. It's just a fantasy though, this isn't going to happen. 4. @rennac Removing the luk requirement as being part of a slippery slope is an assumption, and although I see your point with how MapleStory turned out, it doens't follow that MapleRoyals will go down the same path. Decreasing the chances to get int scrolls makes int scrolls more expensive which makes it even more the norm to use int scrolls to scroll common class equips. Because by and large, int items are used as int gear for HP washing attackers, not for mages. And you actually can expect to go lukless and get all the benefits of luk mages. The hypothetical advantage of going with additional base luk is only 16 TMA, and that's with perfectly ideal circumstances which are ultimately unrealistic. 5. @Kaeru You have a good point with reworking mage gear, but sadly, it just doesn't impact how people are going to gear mages. The issue is HP washing and how viability it is to use common class equips as mage gear as well. It would be nice if more items had both int and magic attack on them, but only mage mains would really care. We'd chaos more stuff, try and vie for the highest magic on the server and all that, but most people wouldn't care because they don't want to play a mage in the first place. The great irony is how iIronically, removing luk requirements on mage gear affects endgame magic by only 50 TMA, and that's with two items. 1 TMA from overall. 49 TMA from weapon. And with those luk requirements in place, under the absolute best circumstances, going for a build with additional base luk is only 16 TMA stronger. You could buff gear, change luk requirements to balance it, and all of that. But that only affects mage mains. Most people are still going to use their bathrobes, YSS, Red Markers, and such. It'd be interesting if endgame leech mobs got a buff to HP or the base power of ultimate skills was lowered so the magic to 1 hit them would be higher.If common class items were no longer viable as endgame mage gear, then maybe people would actually consider using magician class gear for mages with their clean int and magic attack stats. Also, you did suggest a buff to mage gear, and buffing mage gear does make luk mages stronger than pure int mages. But I agree that's not a suggestion for a buff to mages as a class. But anyway, changing mage gear stats affects very little. The only impact removing luk requirements on mage gear items would have is if Elemental Staffs had no luk requirement on them. Then everyone just uses Elemental Staffs instead of Elemental Wands. Overalls, gloves, and shoes remain irrelevant because common items of those categories remain just as viable. 6. @Sila I think people are upset because hardly any mages have magician class gear for overall, gloves, and shoes. The vast majority of magician class items are irrelevant and therefore NPC fodder because it's standard to use bathrobes/doroness/doros, Red Markers/Noels/Artens, and YSS/Moon Shoes to gear mages. What magician class items mages actually use are low level because they have low luk requirements that are easily met with minimal base luk and luk from equips like Zhelms, HTPs, and Krex rings. So I think people want it to be standard that mages equip Bazuras/Varunas like NLs equip Red Pirate Tops and Bottoms. Higher level gear to suit a higher level character. I agree that going pure int isn't bad though. They're technically weaker than a luk mage, even if by only very little, and removing luk requirements just makes it easier for people to 1 hit mobs earlier. It eliminates any purpose for having luk at all (unless you want the minute increase in avoid and less exp lost upon death), so it'd end up with people have 999 int at level 200 with 23 AP in HP or MP. It makes lukless standard while giving mages all the benefits of gear that previously required luk, even though very few people would even care to consider those levels of mage gear anyway. 7. @Kaeru The point remains that luk mages are stronger than pure int mages, even though the circumstances for that are extremely unlikely to achieve. Mage gear with luk requirements at present aren't completely useless at all. It's just that a tiny fraction of people are going to get to the point where they use them to their full potential. Those people are generally old and very rich players who main mage characters. Of the above I'm aware of, I think only Chrizz and Yuame still play this server to that competitive level. And of all the perfect mage gear I know of, all of it are common class items except for three 211 TMA Elemental Wand 7s. So my point is, the people who main mages and enjoy the class so much to put tens of billions in their gear simply understand that common class items are vastly superior to magician class items when investing that much time and money. The problem with mages not using magician class gear is because how heavily this server is oriented around HP washing attackers. If your definition of having fun creating a character is optimizing damage, then yes, you actually should make a luk mage. If your definition of having fun creating a character is having a standard level of damage for people your class and level, then yes, you should go full int. You don't have to delete a character at all. You can just as easily buy AP Resets. And you don't HAVE to do anything. Play the game how you personally enjoy it, not what people tell you to do. You said "...the player should have the option to add LUK and wear mage equipment as a low-budget solution or as a means to have more fun at the expense of missing out on some more damage they would have by going pure INT" but that's exactly what's happening here. Exactly. You absolutely can add luk and wear magician class gear as a low budget solution because you can't afford the bathrobes, Red Markers, and YSS. People already wear Brown Doroness/White Doros, Dark Noels, and Dark Moon Shoes. They did in old source and I'm sure they do in new source too. Those low level equips can certainly be your endgame gear because it's so easy to reach 1 hit magic for endgame leech mobs. Which means you can sell leech, make money, and buy the common class int gear to HP wash your attacker and gear your mage at the same time. Sure, that means self-leeching is a hassle, but common class int gears kill two birds with one stone. And you can sell your low level magician class gear for a pretty penny because other people still have to earn the money to make that same transition from magician class to common class gear themselves. 8. @Aven The elemental wand/staff penalty on holy damage attacks wasn't in v62 as far as I know. The developers on Royals didn't intentially remove it from old source; it simply wasn't implemented in that version. They did have to remove the penalty after new source was released to keep the gameplay consistent for the server and the penalty was implemented by v83. It was stated by Katsuraka a while back that the holy damage nerf from Elemental Wands and Staffs wouldn't be implemented in Royals. It changes gameplay and creates chaos for how people would adapt to the change, and potentially makes 1 hitting skeles prohibitively difficult. Most people who have attackers have mage mules that are bishops, not AMs. So it would certainly affect their ability to make money by farming and selling leech, and I daresay affect them to extremes. Bishops don't exactly get the benefits of Elemental Wands/Staffs like AMs do because none of those items increase holy damage like they increase every other elements' damage. But they're certainly viable for bishops just because of their clean TMA, of course. 9. @Chrizz Thank you for correcting me! Corrected all the values in both of my posts so everything should be accurate! Apologies for restating what other people said in my comments above, but I just wrote out my thoughts while reading the thread from top to bottom.
Thats what i mean when i said the change will screw up too many characters. Because if it was from the start, they could use regular luk equipment.
Whilst we are at it remove the requirement of having to need accuracy for warriors it is so redundant why can't we just go all str and scroll everything for str or att and forget dex and acc
Fyi some of the responses here were kinda nasty and were over exaggerating my request to make it like i was trying to ruin the server. That wasnt my intention My goal wasnt one to make mages more broken, or destroy the server by making everything easier. I remember that luk mages were a thing when i played since ele wands were eventually nerfed for bishops. Since we arent nerfing wands for bishops who were the only class that had to use luk as a result i thought it would be nice to see mage equips actually return to being looked at as something worth using again. I didnt think of the long term socio economical impact a mage having an extra 20-25 int would have been It was more that i found a flash stick with all my old maple screenshots. I had a huge over dose of nostalgia when i took a trip into 2008 and began to miss some old friends who were luk mages and i brought it up as feedback. Honestly had no negative reasons to my suggestion
