Increase in demand for "low-level leech" since New Source

In old source, to my knowledge, the lowest level people would leech was in late 6x at GS2. And even so, it was relatively uncommon and was generally not worth it. I for one never used it. Then there was Wolf Spiders which was much more common to buy leech at, and due to the nature of this map grinding in large parties was very viable (IMO the most enjoyable levels to grind out, large parties, big map, good drops, just starting to get those new 3rd job skills, everyone was welcome).

Now, as soon as I log in every day at like half the smegas are "B>low level leech" or something of that nature. I just reached level 65 on the lonely solo wind raiders grind and even I'm tempted, even the drops here are awful. Almost feels like I'm playing the offline mobile maplestory game.

Now, people can do whatever they want, if they want to buy low leech thats up to them, its not against the rules or anything. But, I do believe the huge increase in demand for low level leech says something about the viability of grinding locations in the New Source.

I logged in today and this was the first thing i see:


Again, I'm not trying to shame anyone for buying leech at low levels, we're all products of our environment. Previously, buying leech at low levels wasn't really necessary, or at least most people didn't feel it was necessary or more efficient than just playing the training themselves. And all this sort of just feeds back in to what I like to call the "Bishop-Industrial Complex" of mapleroyals (and no, I'm not just salty that I gotta pay a bishop 5m to door me to the only decent grinding map lol) in which everything sort of revolves around relying on bishops to level/make money, which encourages people to make more of them, and the cycle continues. I legit just saw a bishop leeching 2 priests at WR.

A suggestion I can think of is:
Buff the EXP of some PQs. I understand old source LMPQ was broken and quite OP, but now its completely useless, from the run I did I seemed to get 1/10th the exp compared to old Source. I think OPQ wouldn't even need that much of a buff to be viable. Herb Town Pirate PQ isn't working at the moment, but I remember how much fun I had doing it back in the day, exp could be buffed their as well. I'm no programmer, but I feel like increasing exp given from PQs wouldn't be all that time consuming or difficult.

Thoughts?

 

I agree. Ive actually seen people looking to buy leech as low as level 30. This is not the route we wanna go on Royals. Its not healthy for the mindset of players to start leeching that early, and only causes leveling fatigue sooner once you actually get higher leveled causing players to eventually grow bored and quit. I have no real issue with leeching. To each their own. Ive bought leech a few times myself, but never really felt like selling it. Leeching is something many players want to have available to them, and i wouldnt feel right removing that ability.

I believe buffing the xp you gain from PQ's would be a great start. The second thing i REALLY want to suggest is buffing lower level maps spawn rates. BUT the overarching problem we have then, is the better the map spawn the more likely people are to just buy leech on them. The maps we buffed would have to be bad for mages, like many of the Ludi Tower maps for example, but would be still be beneficial for lower levels to train. Which maps exactly this would apply to, i dont know. Would require players feedback to which maps they think would work

 

Tbh, what I think they may try to work on eventually, is some type of party play or high hp high exp map that's best partied in. IIRC the suggestion wasn't locked, or maybe I have bad memory. But in the future this will be looked at I believe. Coz it's true, the state at which things are right now, is bad.

 

The main reason for low lvl leech is that people are HP washing. Leeching at lower lvls isn't faster than leeching in the new source ( i know, i did both).

The real solution would be removing the need to HP wash. But this won't happen.

 

The HP washing is definitely part of it, but it doesn't make sense to me that HP washing would become more popular now than before. The end game is still HT. I'd love for HP washing to be abolished but that won't happen and I'd rather this thread didn't go into that discussion cause yeah, that won't happen.

The argument that leech isn't "faster" than grinding yourself is sort of moot since you don't have to actually do anything if you're getting leech. You can go make dinner and have a wank or two while you get your leech, can't do that if you're doing the grinding yourself (well, maybe you can now that theres a guide to playing with one hand lmao)

Exactly, getting rid of leech/hp wash isn't going to happen but what CAN happen is facilitate more party play grinding. I get it some people want to play alone, but its an MMO and if party play isn't going to be the main focus it should be at least a very viable option.

 

Well, that argument still stands even with pqs buffed or a map for grinding in parties. Hell, if you really are HP washing with base int, the party grinding isn't viable since you barely do damage.

 

It's not exactly low-level, but it's very difficult to find a Wolfspider party now too. The few players who make their way to WS do so in order to leech. It used to be (even during times where plenty of people leeched) you could find 3-4 man parties on nigh every Wolfspider channel. It really does seem as if nearly everyone levels up by leech now.

 

No one has to buy leech.

 

People asking for leeching spots might not necessarily purchase leech. Seems like post new source, a lot of people are back, and from latest events experience, most of the people in the server tend to have more than 1 character. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that people might just leech their other character because it's more comfortable than training(holding a key > actually grinding), and maybe they are just looking for a location. On a side note, they could've just whispered the person above them rather than wasting a smega.

 

What I noticed dramatically coming back from quitting the day new source got out, is how the spawn is nerfed ALOT on all the usual maps, (gs2, ulu1&2, etc.)

This personally made me buy leech instead of grinding myself (which I have done with 5+ lvl 120+ chars), since grinding is ridiculously slower now than compared to old source.

 

Forest of golems used to be my home or anyone's

 

This really isn't much of an argument, you don't HAVE to do anything, there are endless analogies lol. There could be a button in the FM that magically boosts you to lvl 200 for free, but you don't HAVE to push it, so its ok, doesn't matter what other people around you do, you make your own decisions, right?

Even so, this all is less about whether we should/should not leech, its more about a discussion of why leech has crept into even early 2nd job; leeching has become much more appealing as other ways of leveling become less appealing, more time consuming and boring. It doesn't seem "healthy" to me that the most popular (for many reasons discussed here) way to level in a game is to pay other people to do it for you.

 

Imagine my surprise when I log in after years of inactivity and find out that split leech is actually a thing now. Lmao.

I may not be one to talk since I self-leeched my alt to 170, but I never actually sold it.

 

It's valid though. As I've said a million times. The leeching mechanics here are as old as the game itself. People didn't on GMS (as much), because the game was still new by the time a lot of people left. (Same deal with HP washing, not to mention it cost real money...). What is happening here is not a result of personalized coding. You could leech on GMS, you can leech here. Just, we've had 10+ years to learn some of the more intricate details.

At the end of the day it does boil down to no one makes you leech. You can toss or turn all you want on that, but it's true. Nothing short of wiping the memory of every maple player to when we were all innocent and stupid first time maplers will undo it. It's also VERY hard to mechanically stop leeching as it would completely destroy all party training.

 

Im glad you made this thread post because I want to do a thread about the EXP rates for the mid lvl party quests and how some pqs can be "rushed" though that part is a bit off topic, party EXP has been nerfed pretty bad in my opinion. The EXP is 1/3rd aprox of what it was before via party questing, which doesnt actually make sense. It is now alot slower to level up doing PQs such as OPQ and LMPQ. I am very grateful for the hard work put into the party quests and other things, but it was very disappointing to see a huge EXP dive like that. I do hope they see how slow it is, and decide to change it. Grinding it out takes sadly a really long time as well at those levels, so having those PQs nerfed just makes it hellish.

 

As I've said, I'm not trying to stop people from leeching nor am I telling people not to leech. I've bought leech myself many times, especially those last couple levels before 4th job.

What I am saying is that some of the changes between old source and new have strongly encouraged leeching over other methods of leveling. Myself and others in this thread have put forth ways to encourage other methods of leveling like buffing PQs, buffing spawn on maps that would be good for big party grinding, etc.

 

So it seems like the main issue isn't the fact that a bunch of people are low-level leeching. The main issue is the fact that the new source unintentionally nerfed the spawn rates for many popular low-level training areas, and low-level leeching is just one of the by-products. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That being said, I'm definitely in favor of buffing exp gained from party quests:

1. Makes it way easier to find parties
2. Encourages a big nostalgia factor for a lot of players
3. Gives more recognition to the devs since I'm sure coding them was a bitch

 

Yes, thank you for putting it more concisely!

If I were to go a bit further, I'd really like see PQs like the Herb Town Pirate PQ buffed rather than something like LMPQ (I think we can all agree LMPQ is a bit dry and was only good because it was cheese EXP in old source). As well, the Herb Town Pirate PQ has an interesting level range of 55-100. I think it would be really cool seeing a wide variety of levels in parties as well as attracting more people to the PQ due to the larger range.

As well, it would be nice to see the spawn rate on the maps we used to love buffed so they're just as viable again. I think balance is key and having the option to grind, leech, or PQ in order to level (without one always being the definite obvious choice) would be really good for the server.

 

You could buff the party quest exp overall, to be greater than what they gave in old source, but make it so you will receive a lump sum of exp AFTER completing the entire PQ. For PQs with more stages they could even do a lump sum at the middle stage. It eliminates the rushing 1 stage leech strategy, and gives a greater reward for those low levels who actually WANT to PQ for their exp.

 

Suffering the same problem when i try to lvl up my new character recently, there is literally nothing to do after lvl 50 out from Ludi PQ other then killing golems, it gets bored real quick and end up spending mesos for leech.

I know OPQ and LMPQ is fixed now but the length and reward of the PQs is not tally to the time and effort spent on waiting to get a party.

So to sum it up, i'm totally agree to increase exp gain from PQ, add more variety of PQs to prevent content drought after certain lvls like Pirate PQ (51-70), Romeo and Juliet PQ (71-90) and Lefre PQ with flying dragons and stuff that i've never tried, and also buff the rewards from PQs like Slime shoes from Kpq, Broken Glasses from Lpq to convince players to participate in them.