Mapleroyals - Meta and Future

Lately I've been a bit bored of Royals because it's been mostly just a daily boss/gear treadmill simulator, for me at least. What originally hooked me on Royals was the passion displayed by the community on the forums as well as the in-depth discussions + theory crafting. I think that's been lacking lately. With the new September GM blog, I became a bit excited about what could be added to Royals. I thought I'd make a thread to try to keep track of the meta and discuss the future of Royals.


Here is a brief timeline of Royals as far as I know. If anything is wrong or missing I can update it:

The Past:
2014-2016:
Old Source. SI worked on Mage ults, HT no weapon cancels, ~boss hp command, FM button, good times

2017:
January: New Source 24 hours patch fiasco.
May: Cash Shop, party exp share, and Zak/Krex start working again.
September: Big changes in staff members resulting from internal arguments including about FM button removal, boss hp removal, etc.

2018:
January: Horntail starts working again.
May: HP Washing Quests added. Shao added. Toad added.
October: CWKPQ added. Dojo added.
December: Summon farming nerfed.

2019:
February: Major class rebalancing and buffs.
June: Neo Tokyo added.

2020:
March: 1024x768 client size added. GFX bugs during bosses fixed.
NLC potion costs increased. Ulu nerf leeched. NL utility nerfed.


The Future:
Future?:

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/gm-blog-september-2020.172556/

Seems unique ways to gain HP will be added. Possibly a method taking inspiration from other servers' attempts? Also directly stated new scrolls for pet HP and more HP to Medal Quests. Maybe this will encourage a more nostalgic like playstyle where questing and no hp washing is viable? Also, a new PQ is coming (my guess is Romeo & Juliet PQ).

Only major things not mentioned are Pink Bean and auto-ban system. On a side note, I wonder what other pre-big bang content could even be added besides Pink Bean? Seems maybe the direction now is instead of adding major expansions, instead focusing development on refining the current experience to give players more nostalgic gameplay options besides the hp wash + leech meta that has dominated for years.

 

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on Royals atm.

Imo, it'd be cool if maybe a new world could be added that added Knights of Cygnus, and the Heroes expansion (Dual Blade, Aran, and Evan [sorry archers are left out lol).

The new world could maybe experiment with new ideas like Lionheart Castle, revised HP washing, CPQ 3, custom high level PQ, to offer a Maplestory 2.0 experience. Would be a pretty lofty idea though, would require a ton of coding.

 

As a new player, I actually think that tides are changing since the staff has been expanded with some more gm's, forum moderators and a new developers.

But we shouldnt forget that being a moderator demands a lot of effort in order to Just keep up with the daily tasks. (Appeals, issues, bans, events)

I think we have to empathize the newly assigned staff members and give them some time for those Qol / content updates.

 

Off the top of my headish:

2013: I believe the wipe happened around October and the server moved from 10x exp to 4x. There was also an incarnation of royals awhile before this with 250x exp but idk much about that version.
2014: Ulu and temple of time released ~July
2015: Beta testing for new source started around May

 

What I would like to see on Royals is changes that will revive mob parties in our community.

They're nostalgic, bonding and hella fun. Bit of TLC from the staff and ToT can be our version of LHC.

IMO training parties are truly golden memorable times in a maplers life. It's like the heart of the game.

 

The issue with ToT grinding now is that oftentimes it’s not worth it. In the old source, you could solo o4 without leaving the top half of the map since the top/bot spawns we’re independent. You could also buff from the fm. Now, if you want to solo then you need to walk all your chars/mules there (in addition to completing the quest chain) which is a huge waste of time. Duo is nice, but you’re not always going to find a partner.

There’s also a lot of alternatives now for gaining exp. There used to be way less channels which meant less bf/anego, and samourai didn’t exist. We also didn’t have shao and toad which are way more efficient in terms of exp/time.

Grinding at ToT is pretty much for exp only, and there’s better options. Why would I grind there if I can get 600m+ exp daily from krex/shao/ht/toad?

 

Actually, last night i was farmin dragon skins with my bucc bish and drk, and i noticed it...the exp is quite good when theres 3+ ppl, i think no one mentioned it yet because there's a lack of new players, and them dont post much on Forums...to busy training now
The vereran players wont talk much about it bcs, even if leech were not the best/fastest way to train(maybe it isnt alrdy) the main advantage of leech is that u can do something else meanwhile. Even if training were faster, leech is more confortable...i mean why would i use time trianing my new char ,saving 60-80 an hour, if i can make over 200?(not my case, but theres plenty of players in this range)
Whoever think in that method to reinforce grinding , did a great job if u ask me, and deserve some recognition. Also ToT is not the most benefited of this, and those lvls u can boss alrdy wich is highly better

 

I’m not sure you quite understood the point of my post. I’m listing reasons why it’s not worth it to grind at ToT. Telling me that I should just not do it if I don’t want to and not really digesting my feedback is quite frankly pretty deconstructive towards a good discussion.

I’ve spent a good deal of time grinding at ToT in old source and new, and with a couple of different jobs. I’d like to see it be a viable way to spend my time but sadly it currently isn’t as worth it as other options.

 

Truthfully, most people are reliant on Holy Symbol and for good reason: party exp is terrible. I think party exp should be similar to having Holy Symbol at around levels 1-10. This way, Holy Symbol would only be sought to maximize exp, instead of it being used to negate terrible exp. I wouldn't mind grinding or doing boss runs without a priest if the exp wasn't so bad.

 

i would recomend to not continue with this, i have read it both coments and i can understand what ure both saying...ure just not understanding each other point of view, none of u are wrong btw

 

It's great to see such changes being made. For a long time, I thought it won't be possible due to client restrictions.

If bonus exp can be given for active party members, how about giving a slight nerf to inactive party members to discourage the leech meta? Mages won't suddenly lose their job as leechers because heavy hp washing won't disappear in royals and there's no other way to lvl up the characters with heavy int load. Who knows, a new meta might begin where characters with bad mobbing abilities still buy leech from mages for speedy lvl up but they also participate in killing for maximum pt exp benefit. This change may make the whole server more active than before.

 

idk, i feel like if you want people to go back to party play, u have to make it as viable as other content, which it isn't these days. the 5% buff is nice, but it wont make ToT viable again like it used to be. sadge

 

Despite i actually think ToT was a bad example..im wondering hows himes and maps like that going..maybe theyre comparable to their respective leech map..

 

I'd really like to get a good party of 3 and try grinding at Neo Tokyo. Those mobs already have very high HP and EXP similar to LHC, the drops are quite good (coins, Face Avoid 60, Bottom DEX 60, lvl 100 weapons), and the maps are rather large and linear. I think this area could be our pseudo-LHC. Shame that mages are forced out, though I suppose they still excel at ToT.

 

Rationally i'd agree that the 5%-25% buff is nice, especially when leveling on low levels with other players. but i think that this buff doesn't bring in enough to make some higher level grinding area's relevant again.
On the other side, just increasing this buff doesn't face the issue because this is creating some form of power creep which i consider as undesireable.

Ultimately i would like to see an rewarding high-level envoirement to grind in with multiple classes as the way to go and as alternative to bossing areas.

 

I miss grinding mobs as opposed to constant bossing, it would be nice to see ToT become more popular