This post is from my view as new player (played until lv 140) regarding the state of the server. It will consist of four parts: How I got here What I like The reason I leave TLDR How I got here: Corona and its restrictions gave me much time, so I thought about coming back to an old game. I found this server on GTop100 and choose it because of the old school tag, low rates & active player base. The main point was the old-school part for the nostalgia. What I like: - Nostalgia feeling until early 12x. - all those PQ able to play - many guides for people like me who forgot many things - "random" boss spawn +- 20% so everybody has a chance to find them - most of the class balancing seems well reasonable - huge standard inventory <3 - GM Events The reason I leave: - HP Washing is regarded as standard, and you won't be able to finance (or do that since you learn about it too late) that unless your first created class is a Bishop. This creates an imbalance regarding DK and other tanky classes since their utility is not needed anymore. Resulting in all DPS parties. - "Activity" the server has at most times about ~2500 players online, but as it seems 3/4 of them are mules (therefore kinda AFK) if not more. This is an MMORPG and talking to a wall is not what I am looking for. - ~mapowner @ field bosses, I understand why it is needed and what it is for BUT the fact of mules and multiclient allows people hugging them without actively clearing them. Changing the map owner mechanic at field boss maps to "you can only hold the map if you're actively attacking the boss every x seconds " would solve this problem in a not harmful way. Whoever can do 2 bosses at the same time on two clients deserves the map owner. - Market of this server is broken. Every Item except godly rolled or chaosed is losing value and acquiring those is impossible if you don't already own a fortune. The only way to earn decent money is you have to make a bishop, which enforces an unhealthy game balance. - Mentality of the community. There are many kind people no doubt, this is not regarding them. There are people acting like "there are no new players shut up", "having elitism between old & new players is a needed evil, there is no need to solve that". - Patches, it is nice that they exist, but from my view and what I heard in the game, they seem 1. random, 2. not exactly well thought, 3. completely black box. Add a short sentence about why you do that and what problem it solves and many players would be happier with them. Maybe take a peek at the page notes of LoL or other bigger games. - Balancing, don't balance all classes through DPS if you do that, there will only be the best class played. Why should you play a BM with the same DPS as a paladin but much bigger survivability problems. It removes the uniqueness for classes, make them exceed in a specific field and not like Paladin group buffing. Combining with the mules -> Why should I play anything but the best class and mule each other buff. In this game, it is NL. - Leech, the higher I got with the levels the more I realized, nobody grinds anymore because selling & buying leech is more effective and the only real option if you HP wash your characters. Which is completely impossible as new player. - Feedback, it is hard to get good feedback and work with it, most of the time it is strongly subjective and not objective. Personally, I know this from work. Due to the fact that most feedback comes from active veterans, new players and casuals mostly get forgotten in games. Therefore I created this thread in the hope to improve the game for future new players. TLDR: I like the basic game of MapleStory and Royals did well in many parts. There are three major flaws regarding the late game: 1. The market is broken, there is no real way to close the gap between a new player and a veteran. (no catch-up mechanic) 2. HP Washing is only accessible for veterans but expected if you want to join boss runs. Yes, there is a daily quest for 10-20 HP which takes about 45 minutes. But calculate yourself how many of them you need to do until you get 5k more max HP to survive a Shao hit. 3. The way this server gets balanced & the fact of multi clients automatically results in NL/Mulestory or whatever will be the strongest and destroys the uniqueness of classes that were given by the original. Balance seemed to majorly be focused on getting the same boss DPS as other classes and not exceeding other classes in certain scenarios. I'm out of this server but will stay active in the forum for a few more days for a possible and reasonable discussion. English is not my native language, so mention if something seems unclear. GL & HF
I agree with almost everything (I've basically quit due to HP washing and being fed up with the costs associated with creating a new character), but I disagree with your stance specifically on class balancing. The problem with Maplestory, and as a result Royals is that, with the exception of Mages, all classes are DPS classes with varying levels of supportive capabilities. This is exacerbated by how bosses are designed, and HP washing, there's no need for frontline in a lot of the end game content due to most bosses being big unmovable walls that hit the whole map making a "frontline" useless. There's no real synergistic party play as there is in typical MMOs, it's all just about maximizing your own damage while providing your support skill as needed. HP washing makes this even worse by eliminating the danger of most bosses turning them into a glorified DPS check where you hold a button down for 50 minutes. So it's not really a problem with Royals, but with Maplestory's design as a whole & I don't think it's fair to say balancing classes around dps is bad, since all classes fill the same role of DPS with varying levels of support, and you can't really change that without fundamentally changing Maplestory.
You're right, there is no frontline needed anymore and most bosses don't have any dangers in that sense. But what I kinda wanted to say this DPS based balancing, disregards all the hardships you have until you get to that late game point. Which wouldn't be a problem if everybody could finance leech, HP wash and godly gear. The point is if you can't finance that, there are huge QoL differences between the classes. As an example why play a class that is bad at grinding even tho you like it. If in the end, the point where it should outshine others, doesn't exist anymore. This DPS balancing creates no reward to play for those "harder" classes.
first of all, I'm glad a new player speaks up in the forum. we need more of you my good sir. thank you. sadly, you're exactly right on just about everything you touched on. You joined in quite a rough time for royals, and that's not your fault. I pretty much quit for similar reasons but as a veteran, slightly more complex ones. I feel that there might be good horizons for royals. I think the staff is aware of these issues and is actively trying to fix them, even if they make mistakes in their implementation at times. Currently, larger issues are consuming players' and staff's time. Autoban is a major priority, as well as endgame content/balance. I understand how a new player feels neglected and the current state of the game feels pointless to play. Take a break and keep voting. I feel that once those major issues are resolved, player retention will be the main priority of the staff and player base. I am excited to see how much Royals changes for the better in the next few months. We are on the cusp of something great. I have faith in staff, as long as they hear us, talk to us, and change some bad habits.
Thoughts and prayers to the homie who was let down.. rest in peace god love you willing. Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows, only time..
I understand your points and agree with most of them. Unfortunately, this is how it is at most servers I've tried out, and I've tried out a dozen of them, both pre-big bang and post big bang. You need to grind and make mesos in all of them to get anything other than basic gear (and anything other than the godly stuff have almost no value like you mentioned), which more often than not means making a character that's easy to farm with to start off. In most cases, in my experience, you won't have many people to hang out with until you get to a high level and can be with the elitist gang of the server and do daily bossing. Until then you are mostly on your own. The difference between royals and some other servers I've tried out is: - I get more HP naturally by leveling on some other servers - Royals have, let's say, 2o people at henesys, 18 of them afk/mules. On other servers that don't allow multi-clienting, there are 2 people at henesys instead, sometimes not even that Maple is really old at this point and finding a server that isn't elitist/meta based is next to impossible. The best thing for you, if you want to play on a maple server and have the best possible time is to look around, try out different ones and see which one suits you the best, just keep in mind you're never going to get away from everything you mentioned as bad.
