Hey guys. I had an idea that might be good. Problem: As many know, there's a giant gap between old and new players in terms of gear, hp washing, mules, and other resources. One problem that exacerbates the issue is that if a veteran player wants to help these new players catch up, there's almost no way to do so that doesn't significantly hurt the experienced player economically. If I wanted to engage with new players by PQing, selling low level leech, helping them grind, or even bossing, all of these options are much worse for me than if I just stick to playing with veteran players who have gears, levels, and mules. Example 1: For example, I just did a quad CWK where everyone was level 200 and had mules. I could have chosen to CWK with lvl 14x or 15x players instead, but chose not to because it would take more time and mesos. The problem is, the best option for me often conflicts with the best option for the server. It's not good for the server for veteran players to hoard their resources and not engage with new players. Example 2: To expand more on why it's important for old and new players to interact: When I first started this server, I met a player who was a top 5 NL named Lumbo. She helped me do my first Zakum ever, among many other things like leeching me at gobies and giving me guidance. If I hadn't met her, I wouldn't have been inspired to play this server and probably would have quit. This is an example of the butterfly effect of player interaction and why it's healthy for old players to engage with new players. The Bottom Line: The prosperity of the server depends a lot on the community. The more dedicated players there are, and the more healthy social interactions there are, the longevity and experience of the server will be enhanced. So, it's important to find a way for new and old players to interact more. Possible Solutions: There are many possible ways this could happen, but one idea I had is implementing more economic incentive for high level players to participate in PQs. For example, before Spec Goggles were released, it was somewhat valuable for high lvl players to LPQ for Broken Glasses. This gave high level players a chance to interact with newer players and creative positive interactions. Thus, I think balance changes should be made to PQs or other content to give more incentive for veterans to collaborate and socialize with new players, which will in the long run lead to a more prosperous server. Thanks for reading!
Having a high lvl player in your pq also highly trivialize the run, and technically denies your interaction with the game. In LPQ there are a lot of parts that involve climbing, jumping around, and interacting with an npc, which make even high lvl players similar to low lvl ones im terms of time to preform. But pqs like PPQ for example, that are mostly just a glorified kill quest, would be a cake walk with a 4th job on board. There's a fine line to walk when introducing endgame value to lower lvl pqs, and i honestly don't see it as the way to bridge that gap. A thing that already do bridge that gap right now tho is events. Any event where a normal and veteran players get the same reward regardless of their level (ex. Cake boss), and that reward can be sold (ex. Event scroll), lets veterans and new players breach that gap. For a veteran, it might be smarter to boss or sell leech instead of killing cake (which is a risk of wasting time entirely), but he wants the items it gives, therefore he'll be willing to pay for low lvl players for that service. Its not as tight as interaction as pqing together, but it 100% bridged the gap. I believe every event needs something like this (tradeable rare chairs, rare items/scrolls, etc etc) to help feed some meso to the lower lvl players
Thanks for the feedback. I agree 100% with your point about LPQ vs PPQ as being good examples of how the integrity of the experience for new players could be challenged. However, I think the oldschool PQing experience is already very distorted in this server by things such as base int characters freeloading in parties, CPQ mules, bishops in PQs, leeching, etc. Many PQs are also quite dead. Thus, I think adding carefully designed subtle incentives that could encourage healthy interaction wouldn't distort the experience more than it already is. It's a question of marginal distortion, which I think would be pretty negligible and the pros outweigh the cons. E.g. an attacker class killing Alistair in LPQ fast wouldn't be worse than people using Bishops for rush LPQ or using CPQ mules. It's like a drop in an ocean comparatively. So, I respectfully disagree and think PQs or other content still have a good chance as a way to bridge the gap as long as it's considered carefully but it's subjective of course. This is a good point too. I think events do a decent job of giving people a chance to brush shoulders when the rewards are quite good like Summer Anniversary or Red Sock from Christmas Event. However, this isn't really allowing veteran players to interact or help new players directly to result in building friendships and I'd argue it's more of a solo content thing. As you stated, it's not really a tight interaction. Also, a key thing to note is in events, old and new players are usually gunning for the same tradeable rewards, which ends up coming down to mesos, and the veteran players will end up relegating this task to new players. If anyone can do it then it's not as valuable as perhaps say selling skele leech. That's typically how the pricing of things or services distribute themselves. Another example is APQ. APQ has a low barrier to entry so the pricing of apples and corresponding rate of profit gained from APQing tends to be lower than other things. This is why many veteran players don't APQ because if you do the math it's better to relegate to newer players. Though, it's fun to APQ and many people are more willing to do it because it's fun. In the LPQ example, the unique aspect is that new players just want experience while old players may want a reward like Broken Glasses which are untradeable. Then, I think perhaps then having asymmetric goals for content is the best way and perhaps only way to truly encourage old and new player interaction. ------------------ Let's say some veteran players got bored of the gear treadmill at a certain point and wanted to create a guild to help and interact with new players. Basically, to give back to the server by maximizing their positive impact on the server while taking some sacrifice to their own progress rate. However, currently, doing such a thing is difficult aside from straight up leeching them or carrying new players in bosses which places a large burden on the veteran. So, adding more collaborative content, perhaps with asymmetric goals, seems like a good option to me to lessen that burden a bit. This is just my expanded view on the matter. Maybe we see things a bit different. If you have any more input I'd be happy to read it and rethink things.
I’ve said this in another thread, but a big issue is the so-called “mulestory” with veteran players owning possibly dozens of characters, and going into bosses solo. It really detracts from the community-based aspect of the game. CWK is a major example because Nexon intended it for a group of ten, and I’ve heard of it being cleared by as few as two. Zakum can be soloed; I don’t personally know anyone here who soloed Horntail but I bet it’s possible. Disabling multi-client for bossing would help newer players by given them access to more runs. If a player can’t just bring their mules they will need to rely on live characters for whatever buffs they needed. Many veterans have multiple geared characters at this point, meaning they can still boss multiple times per day as long as they have a squad. I would suggest a trial period for disabling multi-client, which would give time to collect data and feedback. Note that this would only apply to bossing and wouldn’t affect grinding or anywhere else.
I would suggest disabling pet hp/mp alternatively. I seriously dislike the reality of “mule story”, which now sets the game bar way too high for the new player. Of course a new player may join a HT run with friends or such, but I am certain that almost 100% of the time that he/she won’t be able to join any HT smega recruitment. Same thing apply to cwk
Disabling pet hp/mp is a good idea. People that really want to bring in all of their mules on boss runs now have to have more skill/awareness to do so, but still are able to. It's better than simply disabling multi-client.
It is acceptable to discuss old ideas within a new context. For example, in 2017 nobody was running around with 5 crash mules.
By all means! It was just a representative reaction of sair/drk playerbase as we'd face hell without auto pot in boss runs.
The issue with disabling pet HP / MP is it was something that was available in the original GMS, unlike multi-client which was not. I know another server did remove it on the grounds that it detracts from active gameplay but I digress. The HP and MP pouches also cost very little NX and a new player can get them after a couple of days of voting as opposed to spending months-years building up multiple characters.
Disabling pet HP/MP will make some classes unplayable or at least very difficult to play as in some situations, I also don't think multi-client is all that bad. Focusing more on the actual topic, It's not the game or its features that is an issue, it's the people and how they choose to play the game and interact with its content. MapleStory has always been a grindy game, so can you really blame veteran players for choosing to maximize their time and income? It also doesn't really help that some newer players don't go out of their way and socialize or recruit their own runs. Not every veteran player owns an army of mules or solo HT daily, and I met many veteran players who will happily include anyone in their run, despite class level or range. There are two sides to every coin I suppose. The only solution I see fit is for the staff to create more opportunities for the players to socialize and interact with each other like events, as seen this year with Pierre, or promote a new type of content that will include the need for both high-level and low-level players. Even though I can't really think of any and that could potentially create more chances for people to use mules.
Perhaps I could have done a better job wording it Disabling pet HP/MP will make some classes unplayable or at least very difficult to play as in some situations. I can't speak for classes I don't play but as sparky mentioned Drk and Sairs. I could also see how it can overwhelm a low HP bishop who just begun learning the ropes in HT or just people with a bad connection/VPN that rely on the auto-heal to an extent as even when running common bosses like Zak. I think all those and more could be affected by removing the auto HP/MP and that's why I don't see it as a relevant or good suggestion, not for the topic of the thread nor as an in-game quality of life improvement. Hope that makes more sense.
I think it really depends on the type of player the group of veteran players are. Some veterans just like to chill and afk at fm and there are those that grind CWK, HT and Auf with x no. Of attackers just to further improve on their gears. The latter type will probably never take newer players along to their runs and set a bench mark of xx range for players to join their runs. Removing multi client will probably never happen as this will piss alot of veterans off who spend days and resources making these mules. Infact any changes that reduces the efficiency of grinding will be frowned upon. Just a suggestion maybe tweaking Cwk or creating a pq with good rewards that does not require mules and where High end gear is negligible would be a start. APQ seems like a good reference.
Maplestory has never been about "higher" players feeling the need or even selling the leech to lower players. Maplestory in general has always been about "YOU", you as an adventurer, this game is ment to be played by doing quests, killing mobs all over the game, exploiting the game to achieve a higher level is completely unecessery and having mules is something that the players started shifting towards, it made you level up faster, but it's not "the right way" of playing this game. I'm not here saying what you can and can not do, I'm just sharing my thoughts on how this game was really ment to be played. The meta right now for higher leveled players / veterans of the game are just to sell skele leech or just do boss runs and thats it, go afk for the rest of the day.
Here are some possibilities I brainstormed to show examples of how things could be improved to promote cooperative & social play. Reduce # of turn ins for Broken Glasses. Current amount is 35 LPQs, which will take probably over 12 hours (35*20mins = 11.6hrs) which is extremely high compared to how easy it is to get spec goggles. If clean specs are worth 250mil, then this comes out to a terrible 20.8mil/hr value rate for doing LPQ, not to mention broken glasses and untradeable and can't be godly. Maybe lower it to a more reasonable value like 15 LPQs? That's all and will make doing LPQ maybe viable to give old players some incentive to spam it if they want while also helping new players. Perhaps add another possible reward to KPQ, LMPQ, OPQ, or RJPQ to add similarly add more value for old players. Some ideas might be like untradeable 1 all stat 5 slot earring, scrolls, PQ points, or anything to just add a bit more incentive. Another idea might be medals for being a PQ master or something similar. Anything could work really the idea is just to give some small incentive for high lvl and new lvl players to work together sometimes. Most ideas would be quite easy to balance as long as the items added are inferior in terms of cost or potential to high level methods and/or untradeable.
I can support this statement, I never recruit runs because it is hard and 3m per smega is not very affordable
I think that the server should look into making boss timers shorter. A 12 hour timer for HT just allows room for people to solo in 5 hours, duo in 2-3. If the timer was shorter, people would need to bring more attackers. Similarly, no timer for zak means that people can just solo/duo regardless of their range.
I don't feel like this one will have much impact. Balanced 6man HT party takes on average 1.5hours - 2hours The only people duoing HT are attacking on multiple clients most times and it is really attempted by only those who are really strong 2.5-3hours So if an average HT party will take 2 hours for the full run (including preheads) the timer would have to be at minimum 3hours and people are still able to duo during this time frame. Solos aren't as common anyway. Same thing for zak . Most funded players easily clear zak in 40min-1 hour not even on apple. However as this is an entry boss, I've personally seen parties of 13x-14x take 45min+. Fast parties take 15-20min. So if the timer were set to 1hour, nothing would be prevented again. TLDR; Unfunded people don't solo/duo lol and timers are awkward bc funded people will still be able to clear in time and if anything only hurts DC's/accidents/weaker parties
Mmmmmm.. probably "low level/new players" can go for "easy mode" and grind while "high level/funded" can go for "hard mode" ?? (If mapleroyals implement this system) SOURCE : MapleStoryM
