I think we need to have a talk

Good day. Some of you may recognize my name. I was part a vocal group of players from a few years back that included many former GM's and well known members within the community. Michael, auntjaemima, Martin, Chris, Jeen, Alyo all to name a few who all felt that the server was in more than one way headed in a direction that would begin to risk the health of the server. While in the years since there have been some advice that we gave that has been implemented and we've seen positive reactions from the community. Not all of the changes that have been made were from us, many other players and staff have had great ideas that have moved Royals in a positive direction. But the main issue that we've been facing for a long long time is a more difficult one to address. I apologize if any of my thoughts appear to ramble, or become repetitive, I'm very passionate about this place and I can often rush out my thoughts to text to quickly.

Leeching

Would you believe me if i told you that Royals once wiped way back in early 2013 before we got what we now know as Royals, the server we love? And one of the reasons why they wiped was how out of control leeching was. Instead of addressing it directly, the server was wiped, rates were adjusted and we started over. Here we are 7 years later and the issue of leeching has more or less remained an issue. When players are as likely to pay money to leech Teddies at level 30 as they are at Skeles, something has gone significantly wrong. The main cause of this I believe is part due to people having way more disposable income than we did back in the day, and way more people HP washing (Ill touch on this later). When our 2x drop rate was higher than 2x, and it was that way for a long time, and certain areas like Ulu dumped countless billions of quickly obtained meso into the market, it took almost no time at all to have way more money than you should have ever had in a healthy economy. Adjusting drop rates server wide, and targeting places like Ulu many years later while a good move, was way way to late. The damage was already done.

HP Washing

This may be one of the most controversial topics of all time on Royals. Should we have it or shouldnt we have it. Should it be easy to HP wash or should it be hard. Is it mandatory or isnt it. Its been common knowledge all the way back to when v83 was current content on the live GMS servers that most classes struggled to do any bossing due to HP limitations. Its way too obvious once you come to a Maplestory private server these same players are still aware of this and will want to generally aim to choose the route that promises the most success for the time they've invested. Who wants to level a character and find out you don't have enough HP to survive end game content forcing you to choose to not boss, or start over. The fact is, while you aren't psychically forced to HP wash, HP washing is mandatory if you have any illusion to best experience the content we have to offer. Id like to talk about an old GM and player named Christopher Chance. Chance was one of the first players to wash a NL to 30k HP. He did it simply because the man was a machine cosplaying as a human. Ive never seen someone as dedicated to the game, the community and setting out to accomplish the most insane goals and complete them. I mention him and the fact he washed to 30k HP because it was insane to wash that much. When he washed to 30k, the idea of washing past even 7.6k was seen as merely a luxury. You didn't need anymore than 7.6k hp to survive Horntail as a few of its damaging mechanics were bugged then so that's all you needed to survive with HB. With that much HP you could continue to play your character just fine even if you had minimal amounts of INT placed in instead of other primary stats. Drks were still one of the most popular classes on the server at the time, so it was pretty easy to find and bring HB to your bosses. This was the meta of the server. 30k while still crazy to obtain is way more common today. What was once done by 1 has been done by numerous since. Many people who wash shoot for 15-20k. Its all about surviving everything the game has to offer with as little reliance on others as possible.

Once we fixed HT's damage issues and it forced people to wash more to 9.8k to survive with HB, things began to change. Gradually more and more emphasis was placed on the idea of washing as you either had to wait later into your leveling before you got the HP to HT, or start to wash with more INT. And this is where dumping points straight into INT became part of the meta of attacker progression. Leveling with more INT became more of the norm for attackers, and today peoples characters are basically unplayable at level 30 as they've dumped all or most of their points into INT and continue to do so long into their late 3rd job/ 4th job levels. This basically forces them to leech from the earliest levels way into 4th job. This is one of the causes of lower level leeching market to arise. Now that we have Neo Tokyo, China and other zones with Bosses that hit for significantly higher than the 9.8k that HT used to hit for, its merely fast forwarded the meta of HP washing being mandatory if you have any desire to do those newer areas. As more and more players have planned characters around HP washing, Drks have gradually begun to see a significant drop off in play as HB is less desired, and their one squishiest classes in the game despite having naturally high HP due to Beserk. Any Drk who thinks they can take 20k touch from any of the end game bosses and still do good DEEPS will be sadly disappointed.

Power Creep and mules

Theres a thread from almost 5 years ago discussing power creep and the difference between Chaos'd items and non chaos'd and how the economy shouldnt be solely based around the price of those items.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/price-disparity-between-chaosed-norma

In that thread the examples of high end gear would be considered mid to low mid tier these days. Everything is 15+ atk capes, 15+ atk gloves 10+ shoes, with perfect or near perfect weapons and 50+ stat combo tops and bottoms. Bosses that once required 1-2 full parties of attackers and support are now done by single parties with 1-3 attackers. With the power creep, people can down bosses just as fast, or maybe slightly slower than when they had full parties a few years back. The fact you can keep splits and drops within smaller numbers just incentivizes things more. This has also lead to boss parties requiring players to bring a long mules for buffs or debuffs instead of looking to bring along someone whose actually playing that class. Bossing feels and looks like its become more and more solo/duo content instead of an opportunity for groups of players to work together to down a boss. The mentality on the server is so far removed from the days of bringing along people for fun, and how to min max everything. Its so massively unhealthy for the relationship between each other in the community IMO.

Honestly I have so many other things Id like to talk about but its getting late as hell here for me, and i just think ill stick to these 3 main things as they're the most concerning issues for me. I want us as a community to have a real discussion about ways we can fix some of the above. I want to focus on the health of the server long term. As much as I might complain about things at time, i truly love it here. I want nothing but the best. I hope nobody takes this as me being ungrateful for what ive been allowed to enjoy for 5 years, if anything im so grateful i wanna enjoy it for atleast another 5 and more.

Edit: Id like to add that many of these thoughts are not just shared by me, but generally spoken about and discussed heavily within game. The current Guild and Alliance im in have all in one way or another mentioned each of the above issues as major problems they can see. Some of them are much more doom and gloom than others but the general feeling is shared within the Alliance.

-Jason

Edit. @William was ALSO one of the people who was outspoken and gave very good feedback

 

remove mules and leech
i would legit be in for a wipe if after it they nerfed or removed leech and mules.

 

unironic WIPE HYPE

 

I swear i read a thread where either John or Matt himself mentioned leech being an issue on the old Royals. Ill keep looking hahaha


Its funny you mention Urbanjuggernaut cause its a thread from him that interested me in the thought process of the og royalers who wanted leech changed before the wipe.

 

Yup thats actually the exact thread. Rereading johns response i seem to have remembered what he said a little differently, but it still more or less tells me there was atleast somewhat of a concern from players then about its impact

 

I really agree with Becca that this progression isn't the result of specific policies but is just inherent to mmos. For what it's worth, I have really enjoyed Royals and the stability it has offered. I think one of the only good ways to prevent people from soloing / duoing bosses is having a time limit on the boss (such as with pink bean) and making it hard for mules to live on the boss map. If we do ever get pink bean, I will be very excited for these aspects.

 

as much as we enjoy multiclient and mules there is also extreme use of it that breaks the game content for all other ( because we share same market and same "eco system")
unlimited multiclient-mules it's not we "put hard work and you don't"
is just exploit we all take big advantage of just to get quick rewards and to rush thro content solo
instead of actual hard "solo" work or team work like the game was designed originally

like how tree,cake is limited and just like how voteing is limited for a reason and kept in a way that only once can be voted a day per user despite having multiple accounts or how funded they are and who you are....


when i started royals extreme mutliclient alt tab summon click farming was thing at stopers that was massively exploited where only your computer power was the limit (there was few maplers that were going as far as takeing almost all ch's by themself and made bilions of meso that is not possible by traditional intended 1user1client hard work farming )

Spoiler: for me this is not hardwork bossing&farming this is exploiting

is private server so i don't mind as you guys want i will continue play as much as possible untill last true PQ,team boss is around but am not going to make extreme (more then 2 multiclient mules )just to pq,boss or farm at fair rate just to enjoy a bit of content even if i have no choice but quit

 

I was wondering when another post like this would show up again - not in a bad way.

I don't really have much to say about leeching and HP washing. The one thing I would say though, as bad as people make HP washing out to be, I feel that it has significantly delayed the power creep of the server. The server would have aged a lot faster and be in the current state it is much earlier if it were not for HP washing. Right now, new players are gated behind pesky leeching and fund collection to wash their attackers, buy attack gears etc. Once that long, arduous process is complete, they can essentially just boss daily all the way until lv200 and never look back (until they make a new char, that is). Without it, more people would have been bossing a lot sooner and for much longer, and we have more people trying to sell boss services and skill books than there are people needing to buy them - as it is in today's climate.

When I bought my first vip htp service in 2018 it was 800m. A full party of 6 with no mules present. It felt like it was just the same few groups of people running HT back then. As the server progressed - more content released, attack gears became more available, more people joining the bossing scene and hosting runs, it became so competitive that fast forward to 2020, not only are we selling vip htp for 200m (hello petard), we also have 3 cr mules, unlimited ress and a beautiful lady to massage buyers' buttocks.

Motivated players want something to work for, but there is only so much a player can achieve in gear upgrades in this server. Muling is this rampant today as a direct result of how fierce competition is. When your next upgrade of 1wa costs upwards of 10b, it is only natural for players in that situation to want to mix/max their runs. And with the server going for this long. we can only expect the number of players in this pool to grow.

That said, is muling actually good for the server? No.

Am I guilty of bringing mules to runs myself? Yes.

I think this comment by sparky in another post explains why well enough.
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/limiting-the-amount-of-mules-allowed-in-boss-runs.160406/

Spoiler

In terms of how to limit mules in boss runs, it could be something like not allowing more than 1 client enter a boss map from the same MAC address, that way people in the same household can still join on a different PC. It is still open to loopholes like people resorting to buying sign-ins, or people with multiple devices still being able to do so, but well, people will do what they want to do I guess.

IMO limiting the number of clients for a boss run is as close as it gets to Royals getting a wipe. #WIPEHYPE

 

HP Washing is definitely mandatory if you want to enjoy bossing content. It's always being said that bosses can be run w/ HB but what happens when HB isn't reliable. My corsair was made in old source when only 7.8k was needed. With all the new methods to add HP I still don't have the necessary 9.8k. I always try to run HT with a DK but it sucks when the DK disconnects on Pre-heads and can't get warped back into the run or you just simply can't find a DK to run with.

Give as more options to add HP.

 

Hard work get pays off, simple as that.

 

HP washing is optional but reliance on HB is mandatory. And I think people do not have any problem with HP washing, they just want to have more alternative ways to gain HP.

 

Autoban will relieve a lot of stress on HP washing since hackers fund the insane HP washing of their newbie characters that are not meant to have such high HP.

Leeching can be countered by nerfing the pt exp ratio to something like 9:1. It will make leeching very inefficient to a degree people will prefer to grind on their own.

 

You mention stability and i have to agree completely. That may be Royals most defining feature. And thats why i dont think its too late to have an honest discussion in methods we can take to battle age. Like i said i want to be able to continue playing here for atleast another 5 years and beyond. We should have begun to discuss methods to help with age years ago but we didnt. Now we should.

 

I vote all the people who think we should wipe just delete all their characters and start over from scratch. Obviously, I'm being mostly hyperbolic with this statement, but I'm also (a little) serious.

Also, the leeching situation can only be changed if people come together and make a concerted effort to get back to a more social style of play. Partying up and sharing maps more. Instead of making a mule to use for HS or HB or whatever...find a new friend who can fill that role.

I think the biggest problem is that people want to be too self-sufficient in a multiplayer game.

Oh I need HS...I'll just level up a priest to give myself HS.

I don't want to have to rely on another player for HB so I can boss...I'll just HP wash TO THE FRICKING MOON.

Make sure you bring plenty of pots and all cures to zakum cause we don't have a bishop for heals or dispel. Also you can't come if you need HB, because we don't have that either. Get good.

We're meant to party up and work together as a team with other players. It's that second M in the MMORPG. We need to need others for things...otherwise what's the point? Go play a singleplayer game if you don't like teaming up with other people.

If you're just going to make a mule for everything, and party mostly only with yourself or with one or two other people, then what is even the point at that point? Like...it's just a fashion show chatroom math class with extra steps when you get to that being all you do.
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Edit: Also, I'm ngl...it is really actually infuriating to see people reply in annoyance to those saying they think it's BS that they are expected to HP wash enough that they don't need HB for things--because HOW DARE THEY expect another player to be responsible for making sure they stay alive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are glass cannons not glass cannons for a reason? They pump out top of the line damage, but need support from others to stay alive because they are squishy to balance out how FREAKING POWERFUL they are.

I really just don't get it....like....support each other....DO YOUR JOB.

If you roll up a Bishop, you should expect to be expected to heal and dispel and generally support. That's your job. Don't cry. Don't complain. Just do it. Otherwise why did you make that character? Play a different class if that's not what you want to do.

If you have a DrK, you are expected to make sure everybody keeps HB at all times SO THEY DON'T DIE. It's your job. Do your job. It's not your only job, but it's your primary one. Don't get mad that you have the responsibility of watching over your glass cannons so they don't die from a single attack. Just do it.

If you are a NL, your job is to lay down the deeps as hard as you possibly can...that's your job. Make sure you have enough ammo and you recharged it before you go in. Make sure you have your attack pots. Hand out your helpful buffs. Do your job of downing the boss as quickly as possible. Don't get mad that the Bishop isn't dpsing. They are keeping your ass alive and able to use your skills. That's their job. You do yours.
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Edit again: And just as a sidenote, but kind of going along the same line of thought. It breaks my freaking heart that nobody gives two shits about Ludi PQ because it's not the fastest way to level through those levels. I LOVE that PQ, but I'll probably never get to play it here because nobody cares about it. That makes me big sad, especially considering this place is supposed to be about nostalgia and reliving some of our favorite things again years later.

 

These are my personal opinions, and I may also ramble a bit.

This antiquated version of MapleStory is charmingly (and sometimes disappointingly) rudimentary in terms of its functionality and what we can hope to achieve without a custom client.

Classes are more or less variations on eachother, with similar playstyles and roles in battle. We are very limited in the number of ways we can promote each class and its unique strengths. This version of MapleStory doesn't really have much going for it in terms of a tank/support/dpm dynamic. It's primarily just a matter of dpm, and the classes who excel in that category will be the most popular ones, and anyone who does not contribute in this regard will be excluded.

This game is also a prime example of an early-2000s MMORPG, almost solely based around grinding, with a social aspect tacked onto it. The only way you can really progress in these games by dumping hundreds and hundreds of hours into it, and if you care about keeping up, several hours per day is almost certainly required. The gameplay is about time, it's about long hours and distant goals.

The reason I bring this up is...

HP Washing:

This mechanic, intentional or not, harmful or not, is arguably responsible for extending the playtime and road to progress more than anything else. When we're talking about this version of the game, in which any new content patch is devoured and completed by players days after its release, in which new mechanics to spice up the core gameplay can not be implemented due to client limitations, in which the endgame consists of getting a +1 or +2 attack increase on an equipment; a mechanic that prolongs the endgame or at least extends the road to it, is very rare to come by. This is one of the reasons why I'm torn on the issues of HP Washing.

It's one of the few things (perhaps the only one, to be frank) that requires planning ahead in this game. I like that. After 17 years of MapleStory, and 7 years of MapleRoyals, every path has been explored by players, everything is known, and minmaxing is the game. Experienced and devoted players will take anything to its extreme, as long as its possible.

Now, where I see HP Washing being negative is: A new player joins the game, unaware of the harsh meta and attitude that has formed around HP washing. They begin their adventure and invest considerable time in their character, only to find out too late that they are largely unwanted in the endgame. This negative realisation makes the player quit or lose interest.

Personally, I would like the game to allow any player to reach the HP levels that HP washing can get you, in the late game. Perhaps even after reaching level 180/190/200. To clarify, no player should ever invest hundreds of hours into a character, only to realise that the character is trash or to throw away; that they need to start over. There should be the knowledge that they can keep investing time and effort into it, and if they are persistent enough, and willing to play consistently over a long period of time, whether they HP washed or not, they can reach the same power levels as those who HP washed.

The methods to achieve this that come to mind are all variations on the same thing: Repeatable, daily quests that reward a small amount of HP upon completion. The quests may require mobs or bosses to be killed, or items to be fetched, or the Maple World to be travelled. The point is that it should reward long-term play and engagement, just like everything else in the game.

Some might argue that this does not help players who reached 4th job, unwashed, and want to participate in endgame content now. To this I say that offering a way to gain great amounts of HP up front, is an expressway to power creep, and is uncharacteristic of the game in general. HP washing is no quick thing either.

I do believe that small steps can and should be taken to allow players to participate in most content without washing, but according to Sparky95's calculations above, that is already the case. As such, I firmly believe that the core issue lies in the inclusivity (or lack thereof) of players, and the minmaxing attitude that a game like MapleStory will always foster.

I think that while HP washing is a big problem, and it should have been done away with in 2013, as the server wiped. Now, it is inescapable. It's not possible to get rid of it, lest you create a major gap between new players and old. At the same time, it does not sit right with me to actively work toward introducing changes to the game that simply help the "minimum desired HP" creep up by a few thousand, especially given that you can in fact kill almost every boss without HP washing.

Leeching:
I think there are two big sides to the coin of leeching; those who leech because they can not be bothered to grind, and those who leech because they are too weak to grind due to HP washing with INT builds.

The former should be moderately combatted, in my opinion. We should at least strive to tune it such that leeching is a major economical sacrifice; an alternative for those who value skipping the early game to such an extent that they are willing to invest heavily in it. The latter is a necessity given the HP washing meta we have. If you make it significantly more difficult for new players to leech, I feel you are simply creating a gap between old and new players.

My proposal is that HP washing, or ways to work and upgrade your character without it, be introduced first. After evaluating the outcome of this, if HP washing and leeching is still the overwhelmingly preferred approach, we can have another look.

Of course, promoting active party play by making changes to the reward associated with it, is also a route to explore.

Power Creep and Mules:
As has already been said, Power Creep is an inevitability of games with long life spans. In fact, MapleRoyals Staff has been very careful with introducing new content that would lead to Power Creep. This is why, after 7 years, you still see people investing hundreds of billions trying to get that +1 or +2 extra attack on their gear. I think this is a necessary evil in a game like this. Since there is no technical difficulty, requiring particular skills like say an FPS or a MOBA does, the primary source of difficulty (as I've mentioned above) is the time investment and RNG. As much as I'm not a particular fan of this myself (I don't have enough time to play hours daily), I believe the most sustainable way to introduce new content whilst limiting power creep is to introduce it in a way that involves grinding and RNG. The level-up mechanic of Timeless equipment is a good example of this. Not only was it ridiculously difficult to get a single piece of Timeless equipment; first you had to hope it dropped, or you had to craft it. Even then, odds are it wouldn't be perfect stats. Even if it turned out with perfect stats, any of the Item level ups could yield a sub-optimal stat increase. Thus getting a perfect-perfect-perfect Timeless item was and would be extremely difficult (hypothetically speaking, were Royals to introduce the items in their original form).

Given that a large part of the success of the server is its longevity and reliable stability, I don't think a wipe would be anything more that a repetition of a cycle, and at the expense of a lot of players' hard work.

About mules, like with HP washing, I think it is both a blessing and a curse. The good thing is that it is another aspect of the game that extends the endgame. It hardly needs to be said that the downside is that it perpetuates the exclusionary atmosphere many seem to experience, and does not chime well with the social aspect of the game.

More concretely, however, I don't see a good way to forbid multi-clienting, without risking to simply punish those who follow the rules, and give an unfair advantage to anyone who would take the extra step to bypass any such restrictions.

Creative solutions for boss runs specifically, that are however not fool-proof, could be:

- Prohibiting the use of pet's Auto HP in instanced boss fights. Mules would likely quickly die as a result.
- Introducing expiring Pet Auto HP, and making keeping pets alive expensive. Given the limited daily income of NX, it would force you to prioritise which character to keep a healthy and decked out pet on.

tl;dr:

- An alternative to HP washing: Noone should invest in a character and realise too late that their character is unwanted or "useless". Thus, repeatable, daily quests that reward a small amount of HP upon completion can be introduced for very high level players. The quests may require mobs or bosses to be killed, or items to be fetched, or the Maple World to be travelled. The goal is to allow people to safely continue playing their original main character, knowing that they will eventually reach the same levels possible through HP washing.

- About mules: Read the two points right above the tl;dr.

 

I was reading your comment and saying to myself "youre absolutely right, but with rage comments they call us haters...pls chill" but this last part actually touched me. I joined this server to experience LPQ once more, and im really happy that i was able to do it b4 cpq was a thing.
I think a few things can be done..i will throw some ideas a bit later.....i hope any of them can be actually useful