I think we need to have a talk

Unironic self plug for those feeling disenfranchised

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/hpw...unwashed-the-no-hp-washing-experience.113736/

 

Respectfully, I wouldn't consider my comment a "rage comment". :3

Using strong emotions in your informal writing does not automatically equal rage.

 

Mapleroyals economy is almost entirely based on botters and mages ulting at ulu maps. Nerf these two and most of the problems you raise become solved.

 

Personally I am feel Muling is fine, because I do it to min-max my boss runs, if I want a fun boss run with many people, I do it with my guild.

I think while having a large diverse bossing party sounds good in theory, in practice I feel it would get pretty stale quite quickly. It’s reduces your exp and slows down your run, how is that fun?

Although I completely agree that HP washing kills the early game in Royals, having 250INT just kills any alternative to leech.

 

If for whatever reason leeching was removed, you could just make it near impossible to leech without actually participating (i.e; exp disappearing after x-amount of inactivity).
No need to wipe the server. Obviously it differs from individual to individual but I think wiping/restarting the server would make a huge chunk of the population quit, myself included and probably a lot of the people I know that don't even use the forum, but spent tons of time acquiring Quest Specialist medals and donated for outfits and perks on the way.

There are ways to reduce both HP washing and leech, if it ever came to that without taking such a russian roulette step as wiping the servers. Which at best is what that would be, a high stakes gamble of russian roulette with 3 bullets instead of 1.

I play a Beginner and do all I can to avoid leeching, I grind hard for my levels and it annoys me a bit when I see other Beginners just hang on a rope and grind their way to 150+ and show off being a "high" level Beginner, but not really knowing anything about it if asked for help.
But I wouldn't want the server wiped for that reason. Because it would affect me just as much as them, and a lot of people have spent years on their characters, collecting untradeable items, anniversary items, what have you.

I think the rampant leeching ruins some of the atmosphere in the game, especially stuff like PQs, etc. But I'd much rather keep it around than having to start all over, which I personally wouldn't do.

edit: if they add rankings back at some point I wouldn’t mind seeing an alternate ranking option for non-leechers.

 

Ive also heard from a lot of people who dont wanna play on any other servers and wanna stay here on Royals but wouldnt mind a fresh start. I feel this way as well. Ive made attempts to bump old threads that discussed this idea of the addition of a 2nd world.

The last thing i would ever want to do is force people to take part in something as massive as a full wipe. I wouldnt want to ruin someone elses fun for my or friends self interests. We are a big enough community that I could see us being able to support 2 worlds of communities. One that is what we currently have without any changes, and a 2nd with a lot of QoL changes put into place to counteract leech, economy bloat, meso inflation and power item power creep. Maybe tweaked rates, some additional class changes? Basically it can be a server that all of the good ideas that have been floated around the staff and players but never could find a comfortable fit in a server long into its life.

 

I have been summoned.

Woo buddy, that is an oldie but goodie.

Its important to understand the context of that post, and while I don't completely disagree with my thoughts at that time now, Royals was VASTLY different then. The highest content was Zakum. Endgame was Zak, Bigfoot, Anego if you could survive, and Skele. That's literally it. Bishops were massively overpowered and HP washing was trivial when NX and APR dropped from mobs. I think the leeching rates were lowered with new source to my original suggestion of 60/40 from v83, but I could be wrong.

Things have changed dramatically since then, yet we still see the same issues coming up after 7 years; leeching, HP washing, and muling. It is certainly a monumental task to significantly alter the meta while preserving the value of accounts created and invested in that system while allowing for alternative but effective methods of reaching the same end. I quit for quite some time due to the bishop centric, HP washing+leech meta, yet came back and committed to it myself, so I have a perspective from both sides of the argument, and I think washing, leeching, and muling can exist in tandem with more traditional MapleStory play, assuming real alternatives are implemented. That being said, I don't think we need to eliminate the big 3 issues, but instead give viable paths to achieve the same goal by different means.

Muling

Multi client opens up a lot of possibilities that wouldn't normally exist. Self leeching, AM having HS, characters that would normally need the aid of a party for essential buffs being able to bring it themselves, etc. The natural progression of getting stronger allows players to down bosses with less people, and therefore reap better rewards since they are split between less people. Muling is typically used when the required buff class isn't available, or simply to get better splits. In my eyes, we should be giving these buff classes additional utility that requires an active player to give an incentive to do so. No class should be simply a "buff class" in my opinion, and should be given more active support elements to make them more useful in boss runs. I myself main such a class (Buccaneer), yet also participate in the mule meta. I don't think eliminating mules is going to open up any new doors for new support class players; people who are going to invest the time and money into making a mule are likely not going to accept your lvl 155 BM with 20 att gear regardless. A few things to consider when discussing limiting muling and multi client in general;

1. Archmage becomes completely obsolete without the slight edge of being able to provide the highest tiers of leech. This could be mended with a special farming area locked behind elemental weaknesses to allow Archmages to still be the grind masters and income machines they currently are.

2. Boss runs become much more expensive. Zhelm, HTP, Krex, etc will all be much more expensive if mules are no longer allowed, as parties will need to recruit more people to run. This raises the barrier of entry for newer players to acquire these items and lowers the rewards of bossing in the first place. One solution I could think of is continuing to add and tune higher level content such as Neo Tokyo so that, without mules, higher level players like myself have worthwhile bosses to keep doing for income and EXP. Right now, Zakum is barely worth duoing, despite the fact me and a single person as strong as me can do so with our mules. I would want to see additional tiers of content added if muling was outlawed so that I don't have to do a boss 50 lvls below me in a duo with 4 mules to make it worth my time, and I think Royals is at least taking a step in that direction with Neo Tokyo.

3. Starting a boss run becomes much more tedious. Anybody who has ran a noob 10 man CWKPQ can tell you the struggles of trying to get all the required pieces together to even start a run. A lot of us are adults with limited game time and increasing the time commitment required, in a game that already is very demanding in terms of time required to achieve high results, could be a huge turnoff for a lot of us. Making the party finder functional could work wonders here.

I would still play Royals without mules, but not in its current state. When you take something away, especially something so ingrained in the meta of the server for years, there will need to be something to take its place and support the no mule play style the server wants to promote.

HP Washing

I think this, above all else, is THE single biggest issue in the server since its inception. Back in the day, when endgame was simply Zakum, HP washing was truly only a luxury. As new content has been released, a growing emphasis on HP washing has been created, and the greatest cop out of all that is spouted constantly on threads like this to dampen discussion and potential alternatives is "HP Washing is optional, just get HB". That is plain and simple bad game design. There is NO other buff in the game that is 100% REQUIRED by certain classes to even ATTEMPT content. You can run without SE, SI, HS, the run just won't be as efficient time or reward wise. Singling out HB as a necessary buff for OVER HALF THE CLASSES IN THE GAME is ridiculous. HB should be, as all the other buffs, something that increase a party's efficiency, not a wall to playing the game. DKs total value shouldn't be defined by "without my buff, you can't even try." Over reliance on HB most definitely was a factor in the development of the HP washing meta. Why wouldn't people circumvent this system if they can? That has then lead to a much lower population of DKs, making HB less prevalent, and further perpetuating the HP wash meta. Why is someone gonna sweat managing their HP constantly, to have less effective HP than a washed NL, deal low damage for high effort, and bring nothing else to the table but a buff that was used as a lazy way of making the class valuable that is now obsolete? I have made a suggestion regarding this on the HP washing megathread, using special boss drops as a currency to trade in for more base HP, similar to how the HP quest currently works. Feel free to check that out if anybody wants to see my take on a real alternative to HP washing.

This sort of thing right here is the lock on opening the door to real discussion on solutions to HP washing. I already touched on over reliance on HB above. The last point I'd like to make about HP washing is that none of the alternatives provided thus far allow players to reach any meaningful HP breakpoints that would otherwise require washing. Half the items you listed are not even endgame items, and I've said it more than a few times; players are not going to sacrifice damage stats for HP. Its simply not going to happen when there is HP washing, especially considering that, even if one were to do as you say and use all those sub-optimal items, they would still have to HP wash. Accounting for HP quest, the average attacker can expect at most ~1.5k HP from endgame gear, which just flat out isn't good enough.

Leeching

I believe leeching is mostly a byproduct of HP washing. Giving viable ways to achieve enough HP without the need to dump AP into INT and leech to 135 while dumping billions into APR would make leeching what it should be imo; a luxury for rich players, instead of a requirement to be able to enjoy endgame. Allowing players the freedom of just literally playing the class they want to main revives lower level content, making a great population to do PQs or party grind. Adding additional incentives to PQ or lower lvl party grinding would close the gap with leeching and give a lot of dead content life it has been lacking for some time.

 

Is it possible to add a poll to a thread after it's already been created? I'm interested to see what the community (as it stands today) thinks about a potential wipe or a new world, and how they would personally react to it. And maybe that data can guide our decisions moving forward. Not that a forum poll would necessarily represent the most accurate sample size--I would assume that the forum draws more dedicated members of the community. But hey, information is always good.

I will say that I am personally not a fan of a new world. It's hard enough as is for casual players to find party quest groups even despite the current population peak. And I joined Royals all those years ago specifically because it was the largest MapleStory private server available at the time, and I feel that a second world would only serve to fragment that sense of a cohesive community.

But most importantly, I also want to point out a bit of the naivety behind the belief that all of the core issues in this server can be permanently solved without the need for a wipe. Because while these issues are certainly solvable (and in my years having been here I sincerely believe we are approaching the cusp of solving them!), the fact of the matter is, to quote @Enticing: "the damage was already done." Because all of these issues, even if they are to be fixed, they have already constructed a particular status quo in this community throughout the years that simply cannot be toppled without a wipe.

I mean, what are we going to do after we fix leeching when so many players have already amassed billions of mesos from it? We nerf leech exp, we nerf meso rates, and we nerf item drop rates. Now veterans have easily managed to amass vast sums of wealth throughout the years into creating ultra powerful characters. But new players have even less of an avenue to generating the capital needed to reach the end game status required to participate in bosses. All of these mesos being poured into the economy has raised the price of WS/CS to 500M+ now. How the hell are new players ever going to reach end game gear now that they can't farm on an AM? And sucks to be that player who temporarily put their NL dreams on hold and finally suffered through to make an AM (+HS mule) to sell leech and farm on Ulu II so that they can actually get recruited to bossing parties. How will they obtain gear now when prices on everything have become so inflated due to AMs, but can no longer generate wealth with their own AM?

And what are we going to do after we fix HP washing when so many players have already invested billions of mesos into it? When the community basically went on riot two years ago over the toxic metagame caused by the necessity to HP wash, AP resets at the time were around 9M. The most popular suggestion at the time were to introduce them at a fixed price to Albert, so that players could reach the HP needed for bosses without having to claw out their eyeballs and sell it on the black market. Prices for AP resets have more than doubled since then. While I appreciate the introduction of job advancement HP buffs and the HP quests by staff, they are ultimately a drop in the bucket when we consider the total amount of HP that is currently considered to be needed. Realistically speaking, there are only two solutions to HP wash: either disable it completely or make it much more accessible. And in either case, you either screw those who invested their entire net worths into HP washing, or you screw those who now would no longer be able to participate in the HP wash process.

And then of course, there are the biggest elephants in the room: hacking, vote abusing, and RWT. If you haven't noticed, hacking is currently rampant throughout this server. It is actually physically impossible to peacefully play this game without running into a hacker. Even I can tell that item prices and the economy as a whole are completely shot as a result. And we all see those vote abuse ban appeals that have pumped all those gachapon tickets and AP resets into the economy. And of course, let's not forget those spicy RWT ban appeals. Even some of the most well-known and respected members of the community had been revealed to participate in these nefarious activities. And how many of those well-known and respected members (as well as those lurking in the shadows) do you figure have done the same, but have simply gotten away with it?

The fact of the matter is, any progression that you feel that you have honorably poured your blood, sweat, and tears into has already been sullied. I understand that something as drastic as a wipe can feel like a direct slap in the face to all of your progress. But if you truly believe that your input into the game reflects an equivalent output, you're either simply unaware of the realities of this server's state or are in denial of it. The point is, any permanent solution to the issues brought up in this thread will inevitably result in a huge "fuck you" to significant portions of the community. But believe it or not, and whether you like it or not, you've already been fucked throughout your time here. As such, it's not actually all that unreasonable to suggest a universal "fuck you" to literally everyone along with those solutions in the form of a wipe while we're at it, so that everyone has an equal chance to step forward with a fresh foot. And of course, not all problems are permanently solvable. People will continue on with their hacking, vote abusing, and RWT shenanigans regardless of whether we wipe or not. But with the introduction of autoban and maybe some other novel solutions (ex. I still strongly believe that the whitelist is utter nonsense) that can only be incorporated with a clean slate, it may just be as good of a time as any for WIPE HYPE.

And all my wipe hype spams aside, I actually don't really care what the admins ultimately decide to do with the server. In all honesty, I'm just glad to see the level of staff involvement in this discussion. Regardless of the direction this game takes, I will probably just be spending most of my time dicking around in the shoutbox as always. But I did feel it important to point out the fact that while a wipe may feel like a drastic solution, it is a response to immensely drastic problems that have plagued this server for eternity. And ultimately, I'm posting this wall of text to simply ask you guys to put aside your visceral reactions to the word "wipe" for just a moment and consider whether the current status quo in this server can truly be toppled without one.

I also just find the idea of some smug idiot thinking they managed to fly under the radar with spending $1000 to obtain perfect NL gear only to find out that everything they bought has simply been wiped really amusing.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

 

Yes

 

It's hard to take anyone seriously if they're not joking when saying to wipe the server.

 

I added a poll. I think its what @iEatEmoKids is looking for

 

Theres a reason why i titled the thread the way i did. I think we need to start having an important and honest discussion about all possibilites up to and including a wipe even if its never done. If anything the potential discussion can help one another get a greater understanding of what we can do to fix certain things.


On the topic of wipes i know of Some of the most popular private servers out there for countless games that have wiped multiple times over the years. Some wipes are small ie economy wipes where half of all currency players posses is wiped or certain items are wiped and then others are complete wipes. Royals while it was unbelievable small when they did it survived and even flourished after the first wipe 7 years ago. We survived new source where basic functions of the game were broken for many weeks/months and were all the better for it now. New servers always have large booms of players at the start as you get a huge influx of people interested in getting to certain categories first. The race for max is also a very strong draw for players. There are certainly benefits inherent to a fresh start on a server and even more so one with the name power and general internal stability as Royals. Im simply saying again that i love this place and i wanna have the tough talk with the community and staff now before we keep going down a path that i personally see us going down and want to see us work towards any possible fixes.

I love this place and i love the players here. Yall are why i care enough about some 15 year old game about killing sentient mushrooms, green slimes and giant murderous rock statues that likes to play in lava

 

Part of the reason leeching is so popular is that the alternatives aren't very attractive. Finding people to grind mobs with is probably difficult, and current PQs are comparatively inefficient or dead. However, rather than nerfing leeching via party xp ratio, I'd prefer to see certain PQs such as LPQ and OPQ receive buffed exp (as opposed to ones like CPQ where you can afk easily). This way, there is incentive to actively participate in social, nostalgic content without gutting leeching, which is a significant part of the economy, for the better or worse.

Buffing the quest exp for Temple of Time could be interesting as well. For a place with some of the nicest maps and best music, it's rather deserted aside from miniboss/card hunters. Since the questline ranges from 90-135, maybe scaling the buffed quest exp or buffing just the oblivion map quests (121-135) would make sense, which would provide a viable alternative BUT NOT a replacement for skele/petri leeching.

As far as methods of obtaining more HP, I like the previously mentioned suggestions of converting special boss drops into HP and of a daily quest via killing bosses (with a cap on total reward). Not a fan of etc hunting unless it's 200 broken wings. Something like completing a rotating PQ of the day/month or something would promote social/active gameplay and breathe life into some neglected content.