Notice GM Blog: November 2020

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"Consistency is key!" - Grendel the Really Old, probably.

Hey everyone!

Thank you for tuning in to the third GM Blog. We have some things we'd like to share with you about changes recently made, what lies in the near future, and various other bits and bobs! As usual, we invite you all to share your feedback and ideas with us, whether they pertain to the topics listed below, or something completely different! Your input truly helps us navigate the path moving forward!

Now, the Halloween Events are in full swing, and we hope you are all thoroughly enjoying the spooky towns and activities! Still, as per Royal tradition, we have some seasonal classics ahead!

Upcoming Events
Grandma Benson's stocks of flour, sugar and pumpkin have already begun to dwindle to dangerously low levels. She's written strongly worded letters of complaint every Thursday for the past 3 weeks to the GM department, in which she repeatedly expresses that she simply cannot sate her desire for producing industrial amounts of Pumpkin Pie anymore. One dares not think about what will happen when Benson's stores run completely dry. Expect Benson to call for your aid in the near future!

And yet further down the road, one of the Maple Year's grandest (and coldest!) festivities lies! Stay tuned!

Balance Change Feedback
In the last patch, Update 68, we made some changes to Dark Knights and Marksmen. After lengthy internal discussions, and weighing pros and cons with respects to various player types, we arrived at tweaks which we hope will benefit all, and not only a small subset of players.

Concerning Dark Knights, we ultimately found that specific opinions varied greatly, yet a common pattern could be discerned. The fact that Dark Knights require more focus and care to play effectively at a high level, combined with the fact that their attack capabilities were already impressive, if not overpowered, put them in an awkward spot. It was hard to argue that the cold, hard damage numbers of Dark Knight, when viewed on their own, were really out of league with the competition. However, when put into a broader context, and considering the limitations and difficulties that come with Berserk, we concluded that the experienced Risk vs. Reward aspect was underwhelming. Concretely, the extra hassle did not yield sufficient rewards. After considering various ways to tweak the relevant factors, we arrived at some modest, but noticeable, changes. Berserk still triggers at 50% HP - something which we did not wish to touch as it would effectively exclude Dark Knights from situations which we did intend - but deals slightly more damage. Ultimately, due to client limitations on the functionality of the Berserk skill, our range of options was limited. The new buff will scale with the individual's personal power, and thus we hope that it will be a nice bonus for all. Additionally, Dark Knight's Achilles skill received a slight advantage over its competitors' Achilles skill. This allows the Dark Knight to tank extra damage - a welcome bonus - at any level of MaxHP. The latter should work well in conjunction with Berserk, and we hope that it can further improve the ratio of Risk vs. Reward for our Dark Knights. As always, we are open to receiving further feedback on this.

Moving on to Marksmen, we found ourselves more limited in what we could comfortably do, whilst staying true to the core of the class. (Partly due to client limitations, and partly due to the skill distribution amongst the four job advancements.) Marksmen are a class which, thanks to the Snipe skill, are strong in the early 4th Job, but even out and fall behind later in the game. As such, we were primarily focused on helping our endgame Marksmen. As you can imagine, this put some restrictions on our range of options, as we did not seek to impact gameplay for the Sniper class, for example. So for now, we looked back, and resonated with the concerns raised when the bug fix was implemented into the game in Update 62, which rectified the bug that made Snipe (incorrectly) able to damage Bosses through Weapon Cancels. We felt that, despite technically being a bug fix, this unnecessarily hurt Marksmen, and took away something that had been a unique selling point prior. We hope that, while not a massive buff, this extra damage output over the course of long Boss battles, will restore some glory to the unique Marksman class. Here too, it goes without saying that we are open to further feedback.


Autoban Progress
While we, for reasons which we mentioned in the last GM Blog, are not keen on sharing any intricate details of this matter, we would like to briefly mention that significant progress has been made on the Autobanner, and that the results are, to say the least, very satisfactory. The autobanner will continue to be developed and improved, and the road ahead is clear. We know what needs to be done, and how to do it; it's only a matter of time... all of which segways neatly into the next point...

...A hot topic since the last patch: the bug fix which made Bosses reduce both HP and MP to 1, when using certain attacks. Below is an explanation from our Head Source Code Developer, Karven, on the matter:

Recent Fix To Bosses' 1/1 Attacks
: "Recently, we corrected a long-standing bug that deals with a monster's "1/1" attack - referenced as "deadly attacks" from here on. The bug made it so MP would not be affected when a monster performed this kind of attack. This bug was introduced as part of the release of our new server source code back in 2017.

The reason the bug was fixed was purely a new autoban-related cheat check that is now functioning on the game servers. This new check is meant to help combat godmode types of hacks, and it does so via keeping track of what damage you should be receiving. A part of that consists of keeping track of any damage you receive that is 'abnormal' - anything that differs from the usual "remove X HP" logic that is normally used whenever you're hit by a monster. If it weren't for this fix towards monster's deadly attacks, the new check would incorrectly think that you're using a form of godmode hack, and would want to remove you from the game. Fixing deadly attacks so that they would correctly set your HP *and* MP to 1 was a requirement to be able to accurately detect this form of godmode.

Clearly, a change like this does not come without its changes to the meta, and we were, and are, fully aware that this affects how boss fights are fought, especially for Mages. The change to deadly attacks was not made with a distinct intention to modify the meta, to be clear, but we do understand that changes have come as a result of the fix."

Thank you Karven, for that much-needed clarification on the matter. As most of us know, this bug fix has explicitly brought some other, let's call them "interesting quirks", to the surface. Various users have reported that Pet's Auto HP and MP pouches work seemingly sporadically and unpredictably. While this has been known to have always been the case, it has now become very clear to Mages who partake in Boss fights which contain these "deadly attacks". Be sure that we are working very hard on investigating the complex roots of this problem, and given the necessity of the aforementioned bug fix, it is not an issue we take lightly! As always, with matters pertaining to the client, we can not guarantee that a fix exists, as sometimes things that don't make sense to us, is in fact intended behaviour as far as the client is concerned. But rest assured, that we are doing our best in this matter, so stay tuned.

A Farewell to Josh and Kai
Sadly, we have had to bid farewell (for now, at least) to two of our loyal, and (in the words of Elpam Gorlab) fantabulous GMs. Josh and Kai have both decided to step down from Staff for personal, and varying, reasons. Their contribution to the server has been considerable, and we are incredibly grateful for their tireless and voluntary service! They have both devoted countless hours to keeping MapleRoyals a clean, fair and wholesome place Thank you, truly, Josh and Kai, for your hard work! Without you, Royals would not be what it is today! We wish you all the best going forward!

And in other, more uplifting news...
The Family Grows (Literally)!
One of our dear GMs, Muff, has expanded his responsibilities as he recently came home with another little bundle of joy! We're certain that he will be teaching her the ins and outs of the T&C, and the ways of Ola Ola in no time! Congratulations Muff!


And that about wraps it up for this month's GM Blog, folks! We hoped you enjoyed reading it, and don't hesitate to hit us up with your thoughts, queries, and comments below! Happy Mapling!

-The MapleRoyals Staff

 

Thank you to @Josh who has spent hours upon hours, every single day in his 9 months as GM tirelessly working towards making this game a cleaner place for all the legitimate players here. That's 200+ more HTs we could've done jk don't have the motivation anymore

Spoiler

Rip MM.

Grats Muff.

Thanks Kai.

"I suggested the fix" lol

 

To bandwagon off Traductus' post, @Josh ever since I started in May you were always one of the staff members I could count on to answer my reports quickly.

I have a dream of one day catching your BM in the damage range thread!

You will be dearly missed and I wish you the best.

 

The Family Grows

Psssst

 

Thanks you @Josh .
So they can keep the number of players and hackers online .

 

@Josh
Lol,sir. I finally free from DAMAGE THREAD
Thx ur efforts for catching RWTers and Hackers :3
I know how hard work u are, give up so much time that u can grind mesos or boss .
You did a amazing jobs. Must let ppl know instead of keep silent
No wonder ur NL still 10.1 k only
nice to see u free now.
So we can duo /trio HT again

@Momo NO U

 

@Josh @Johnny ty for ur service

 

Thanks @Kai @Josh for the hard work and contributions to this server! U guys are ROCKS

especially @Kai let’s 857 together once covid is end

 

@Josh @Johnny
Not much comment I can say, cus you all are my numba one gm.
I love you sirs

 

Sounds like you all on the staff are working hard to make the game a better place. That’s good news to hear from you all again. Thanks to @Dave Deviluke for the discord announcement!

Im looking forward to what the future holds!

 

@Josh @Johnny thanks for really hard working , time to relax and have fun , btw why everytime RR I out at 1st run??????

 

Thanks @Kai for your service, you da best love u xoxo <3

 

@Kai WANSUI WANSUI WANWANSUI!
thanks for being one of the most amazing GM :>!

 

Thank you all the gms for all the hardwork, making the server better :3

 

Thanks @Josh and @Johnny for your hard work, special thanks to @Kai not only for your hard work aswell, also for being one of my fav, again sorry for those times when i may exceed..

 

Thank you for the consistent blog posts!

I'm missing josh's last event ss..but thank you guys for your service toward this community. Feels like the end of an era.

 

@Johnny you are leaving us too?