Content Low level content: Balrog Expedition

This server tends to have a lack of low level oriented content, one I'd like to see, specific for levels 50-70, is Balrog PQ.

Balrog PQ is intended to be a player's first look at end game bossing, in a less pressuring, but still difficult fight. In Original maple, this boss could be run endlessly and gave a great 520,000 experience upon completion, being a great source of leveling and fun in such boring levels. Originally the PQ required 6 people to initiate, however due to Nexon's spaghetti code it was actually extremely easy to initiate the PQ with only 4 members in the party, and thus that's where I'd set the ideal number of players, though the amount is up for change to anything. If prequests are wanted, there's already a questline in the game fully dedicated to this boss that actually provided you with a nice little bonus if you completed it, having the Heroes Gladius in your inventory during the fight gave you a free +30 atk/matk buff, this could be altered to be a prequest for the boss if wanted.


The Boss itself
The Balrog boss itself is split into three(technically two) separate phases:
Phase 1: In this phase, Balrog basically doesn't take you seriously, fighting you with only one hand. The fight doesn't even begin until you deal 50,000 damage to him, which if you fail to do that amount in 2 minutes, you immediately fail the PQ.

Phase 2: At this point, Balrog starts actively attacking you, summoning weaker Balrog & Crimson Balrogs to his aide. Both hands become unsealed and the head can start casting spells. Originally you can ignore the hands and start attacking the head immediately, but I'd suggest changes to incentives focusing the hands first, like adding debuffs onto their attacks so that they become a priority target, only finally being sealed after their 4,293,000 HP is exhausted.

Phase 3: Once the hands are down, you move onto the main body, the earlier linked Boss of Balrog. He boasts an impressive for his level, 3,210,000 HP on the main body, and many attacks, including but not limited to: Damage reflect, Zombify, Darkness, and Seal.

In total, this boss has a combined HP of 7,503,000, and this version can only be fought by characters levels 50-70, making it quite the challenge.

The Rewards
Aside from the immense amount of experience this boss gives, there are also some unique drops specific to Balrog, namely the Bain Series of weapons.


These items boast stats surpassing level 70 weapons, but 12 levels earlier, and with added
benefits of special bonuses and typically higher attack speeds. The other core items that come from this boss are Chaos Scrolls, White scrolls, Balrog Shoes, Leather Balrog Shoes, and Balrog's Twilight Scroll 5%, and Balrog Leather. Balrog's Fur Leather Shoes in particular provide a pretty decent shoewear for newer players with its self leveling effects, in addition the Twilight Scroll isn't overpowered(unlike a similar scroll for a similar item) due to the slot it takes up being shoes, which are inevitably replaced by W.atk shoes for everyone but mages, in fact it'd be safe to even increase the success rate of the Twilight scroll to something closer to 20%. For obvious reasons I'd suggest the boss to not drop Chaos scroll and White scrolls, but that leaves the drop pool pretty shallow on universal things, which is why I suggest that Balrog Leather is made the big take-away from this boss, and completely revamp the Suspicious Man's Shop (1) (2). These scrolls are all pretty bad considering they only work on Balrog shoes, which is why I suggest the shop is overhauled in its entirety to provide more useful things to buy, and have that be the main appeal of Balrog PQ's rewards(I'll leave the brainstorming of these potential rewards to people in the comments). As a result, I would suggest the Balrog Leather be an instanced drop, meaning everyone in the party gets a fair share.


For the higher level players
Balrog PQ actually comes with two difficulties, Normal and Hard mode. Now originally, there wasn't much of a difference between the two, however here we can tweak the hard mode of the boss to fit any number of niches, whether that be another irritating set of levels (80-130), or go full end game (160+) the choice is up to you, the mechanics are already set to make the boss pretty varied in what he does, so it's just a matter of tweaking numbers and rewards. If adjusted for a much higher difficulty, you could get rid of the restrictions on skills of higher jobs, or keep them if you think that'd add an interesting new challenge.


One final thing of note, this content was introduced in the same update that Scarlion & Targa were released, so it's not a matter of not fitting in with the version.

 

Good luck, hope you dont get slapped with "theres enough for low levels to do as is".

 

I hope so too, the levels this boss occupies are probably the least interesting levels in the entire game

 

I think there's more than enough early game content. Balrog pq should either be refit somewhere between 90-130 (great time to learn boss party dynamics, and desperately needs content to contend with leeching, and those are the doldrums for sure) or be refit to be a very late game boss, which people also want. Something like 180+.

He could drop a 100% chaos scroll (always works but stats are still randomized), or 100% chaos scroll fragments, or invisible guild, invisible medal, invisible pet nx, crimson balrog ship mount cover, godly affected Bosshunter gear, shoulder pad equip?

there really is tho

About the bain weapons, I think they would make great NX weapons instead of actual weapons. They all look great and they could drop from balrog as untradeable nx covers, I think that would be rad.
Or have them be upgraded, untradeable late/end game contender weapons but only chaos scrolls work on them

 

It's a good content but I afraid some of the high att player would start making more unwashed attacking mules just to participate balrog if the rewards were really worth a shot to run. Anyway making a 50-70 mule just a 1-2 days thing for a funded Player. But anyways I like the idea for new Player to get more contents to lvling during 50-70 becuz it is hell asfk to get exp from other content like mcpq2, opq, maze and ludipq cuz it's very difficult to get Player to join. Maybe a new content like balrog expedition can really bring the attention for Player to rush to sleepywood and experience the nostalgic.

 

yes
just if is true PQ without mules option (1user-1 char at balrog)

 

I just want LPQ/LMPQ community back lol I feel lvl 50-70 isn't missing content it's just optimized. People like to min max everything for profit. Before cpq lpq/LMPQ were FULL all the time. Balrog does sound cool and I love PQs so I'd be interested but I really just want more low level community interaction.

 

Ideally the rewards for the 50-70 version wouldn't be so good that they'd be the focus, but instead the EXP & party aspect, the higher leveled version could have a larger focus on rewards. I agree with making it so there shouldn't be many mules, but I feel like it wouldn't become a tremendous problem because more players attacking speeds up the PQ without any real impact on exp, people might make level 70 mules to be strong attackers in the map, but it won't detract from new players joining in on the boss unless the party leader is an ass

 

How am I gonna kill it with 300 Int?

On a more serious note: Sounds cool!

 

CPQ is alive just have to find the right time due to timezones etc. saw a smega for LMPQ today. Usually lpq is being run just need to either smega for it or wait to see a smega.

 

Still plenty of content though. People participating in it, and being active in the server is a different issue though. If this is a 50-70 pq it will just take away further from the other pqs you mentioned. Mid game, 90-130 is the best target for this pq, or any new pqs, imo

 

I'll be honest here, I don't think people likes doing Lmpq much. When the Staff had decided to remove the pq cap level off of Lmpq/Opq, people went to OPQ for the alternative pq to CPQ2, not LMPQ. I haven't seen anyone attempt to LMPQ since the first day of the level cap change, though not to anyone's surprise, OPQ is still done here and there.

 

I've seen one lmpq party. But I think the lack of lmpq players is because of cpq. Opq Trump's lmpq because of reward eq but cpq beats lmpq for fast experience assuming you can get a 2v2 going

 

That's why this should totally not be a low level content addition. You have ariant pq/kpq/cpq/cpq2/lpq/lmpq/apq/opq/ppq/r&jpq(mpq) all competing for people almost all at the same time. Throw the flashy balrog boss with fat exp and op weapons, those pqs will stay dead. And people will STILL ask for mushroom kingdom lol.
It's why staff raised ellin pq levels, it would divest even more from the current content. There needs to be either more mid or end game content at the moment, not low level, doesn't matter if there's an easy or hard mode, easy will still steal people from those pqs

I'm super for this pq and content, and it is pre-BB, but not for low level, and not for easy/hard mode. Just one mode for mid, or chaos for end game content. I would love to see lots of high levels in sleepywood. And speaking of mushroom kingdom, it's literally right outside hennesys, where tons of people already are. It would also be nice refit is a mid/late game, or possibly replacing shao

Also there's no bain blunt weapons, dagger, xbow, knuckles, those would need to be custom made, although the style is basically there. But again they're too op for this server, but they'd be great NX covers for weapons as rewards

 

So, to me Balrog is supposed to be the capstone of Victoria island in the same way Zakum is the capstone or Oribis/Elnath, and how Horntail is the captstone of Leafre. It seems odd to me if one of the versions of the boss was more difficult than Zakum which is why I think the intended levels should be lower than 135. If people really want it to be end game content then it could be balanced that way, and the Bain weapons could take on the stats of the Dragon Rider PQ weapons, minus the bonuses (So level 105 weapons with stats inbetween level 100 & 110s). I just feel like it'd become dead content really fast unless there was some insane reward to the boss if it was geared towards endgame. Whereas if it was early/mid game focused and EXP was the driving factor of the boss, then it'd get players so long as that EXP stays competitive with its alternatives. I think 50-70 & 75-105 are fair level ranges for the boss's primary audience.

Also I don't think the Bain weapons are OP in any way, they're strong for their level but are eventually outclassed by level 80 weapons

 

I had an opportunity to try this content almost a decade ago in KMS. The only thing I remember was a system that limited the usage of skills until the 2nd job (similar to what royal's implemented in low PQs recently). Ellin forest provided grinding room for early 4th jobs. If this content can fill in some gaps between 3rd~4th job, it seems like a decent addition.

 

No I understand what you mean completely, but a problem were already having is that folks aren't doing current pqs because they want to get to 135 asap. Adding more content in the levels where it is easiest to level and zoom past will just be a powder keg, a quick spike of interest in new content, but will ultimately not help the other pqs or content. The topic of longevity, coupled with a desire for no leeching, trends towards more available content evenly for all levels, not just more lower levels. I know mkpq is lower, and so is balrog, but both would just peel away even more people from current pqs, when the real problem levels are the most leeched ones (80-135), or lack of engaging end game

As for the bain weapons, I mean, they function like nothing we have in the server. They would have to be nerfed anyway. The whole pq would be somehow changed up, so the weapons likely would not be the primary reward, and they probably shouldn't either, because not even all classes benefit from a weapon reward, lots of weapons are missing. The nx cover is a way to have your cake and eat it too. Superficial nx kinda stuff is highly prized anyway. But they're not at all comparable to zak helmets either (zak helm is a universal eq, these would not be) especially as is, and like I said they would either be totally changed or, being nx would be a perfect alternative. Other rewards would be better, but this way you could still flaunt your bain weapons too. Just thought it was a good middle way since this pq shouldn't really be low level.

I think balrog coming back and being a big threat in end game would be great, especially for those that remember how scary Jr balrog, and crogs were at one time, and would be a nice way to circle high levels back to Victoria

 

100%, (or 90%?) CS scrolls or fragments would be highly rewarding, and if the bain weapons were only scrollable with cs but had a chance to be like 5 att higher than end game, people would spend a lot of resources acquiring them/scrolling/selling them. Maybe they could even have stepping stone synergy with PB, bain weapons ignoring pb damage reduction, or dealing more damage to pb. There's limitless ways to make it work and rewarding, I just don't see why we have to keep everything set in the nostalgia stone. Even if BB never happened, the pre-bb game would have continued to change and rebalance itself endlessly, this server still has to consider and reconsider its own best interest for content and availability against it's meta and population. Adhering strictly to nostalgia would be terrible. Ellin pq was raised in level range (appropriately, imo) with no negative critique appealing to nostalgia. It's worth the time rethinking the best interests before we just say yes and push something through waving the nostalgia flags

EDIT: and sorry if I sound like a curmudgeon, I would love for the grampa balrog pq to be a thing here, I've been suggesting it for a long time, along with dragon rider, but it just doesn't really make sense for 50-70 anyway, even originally, as even crogs are difficult for fresh level 70 chars. I just think this whole pq and vibe would be more appropriate and fun at a much higher level range for repeatability, even if it didn't allow 4th or even 3rd job skills still.