Recently, it really feels that the royals staff is trying to really test the boundaries of changes they can make without overstepping player expectations. I can't speak for the majority of players, but I personally find the new direction staff is taking Royals quite disappointing. Take the BM/MM change. If the goal was to nerf SE mules and buffer SE attackers, it would be much better to give a flat attack boost to bow/xbow expert, or tweak the hurricane/strafe skill %. Instead, we now have +10 atk diamond arrows, +6 atk steel arrows, and a complete revamp of how soul arrow works. If I were a new player first logging in and saw this, I'd probably be weirded out tbh. Just like if steelies are suddenly +26 atk and white potions now heal 350 hp, this would have almost no effect on the gameplay, but it would certainly tick many people off. And once you remove enough of these "ground truths", the game would no longer be pre-bb maplestory, but rather some custom game living in a maplestory shell with pre-bb maplestory graphics and mechanics. For me that would be a disaster, but I'm curious whether most players are for or against that. (As far as I can tell, there's a small but vocal part of the community that proposes crazy skill changes all the time, but I don't think it has gained much traction outside of its echo chamber.) To some extent, I almost regret not picking an NL as my main, seeing NLs as the only class that can generate enough backlash for staff to revert a change. The avoid nerf in Update 71 hurt shadowers much more than NLs because they fall off platforms in HT on the right side, but I honestly doubt that staff would've reconsidered if not for the large population of NL players roasting/meming them about it. It almost feels as though all other classes must accept whatever playstyle and identity that royals staff forces on them, or else spend a long time making feedback posts that gain little traction just because of their smaller player base. I feel quite powerless even typing all this tbh, but at least I tried to voice my opinion. Spoiler: on update 73.3 I'm personally happy that BM/MM's got a dmg buff, alt-tab hurricane is patched, and sed mules are nerfed, but I really dislike the soul arrow and meso guard changes. But there are already feedback thread on these specific changes so I won't dwell on them. Otherwise, the warrior and bm/mm debuff changes seem promising, the piercing arrow buff is well deserved, and the final attack changes feels pretty irrelevant. Not a big fan of the doom change, for the same reason that +10 atk diamond arrows just feels weird (or say, if shadow partner did not require a summoning rock). Spoiler: on nostalgia Copying over my reply from the comment section below, to clarify what I mean by "nostalgia": """ There are two layers to nostalgia here. Is the mapleroyals gameplay nostalgic? No, not really. Is the mapleroyals world building nostalgic? Yes, very much so. What I mean by this is: There are a set of elements and rules to the game that we find makes maplestory maplestory, for example, genesis being a full map attack. And then there are consequences derived from this, e.g. quad mage ulu farm. Is the latter nostalgic? Not at all, but I guess it makes sense given the mechanics of the game. If staff wanted to patch quad mage ulu farm because they believe it is unhealthy for the game, will I be sad? No. But if staff decided to patch quad mage ulu farm by changing genesis to a single target attack, will I be sad? Yes, because everyone expects genesis to be a full map attack, plus there are much less intrusive ways to achieve the same effect. Put to an extreme, if for balance/design reasons, mages now have flash jump, orange mushrooms fly, zakum has 12 arms, and Ellinia BGM plays in Kerning city, will I still want to play this game? Probably not. Obviously this example is absurd, but things like paladin’s total crash are really not that far from this. All I’m saying is that once staff makes enough changes like this, the game would no longer have the same charm as it used to. Put another way, I think staff should really consider such changes as a precious resource, at least more than how staff is currently treating them. Lastly, I want to clarify that I think most of the changes in Update 73.3 are in a good direction. It’s just the more game-altering and controversial ones that I find unappealing, because they try to directly challenge certain core expectations one may have about how the maplestory world should work. """
I'm very surprised that the soul arrow change has so many people crying about class identity and acting like it's the end of the world/server. At the end of the day the average player in Royals is very different from the average pre-bb GMS player and I think it probably requires a different approach when it comes to balancing ( and let's be honest Nexon never balanced shit). Maybe we are already a custom game in a pre-bb maplestory shell. We have diverged quite a bit already. Overall I've been happy with most of the balancing the royals team has done( maybe I am biased since I would have never played Paladin if not for the changes they made to the class) although I am confused at the inconsistency when it comes to the meso guard nerf, but I'm sure the Achilles nerf is coming soon. Edit: I would like to add one thing though, for major changes that could completely change a characters role maybe they should receive a full ap/sp reset to give the players an option to take a new path. Any blood washed sed mules or even blood washed crash mules prior to that change could be reformed into viable attackers. It does suck to lose out on the time investment to make these types of mules in the first place.
At this point in Royals' lifespan, after being online for 8 years, I'm completely fine with the server being more experimental with it's changes and taking on its own identity. There's too much content in Royals that isn't reflective of the pre-bb experience - and that's fine. If you think about it, Ulu City was added to pre-bb Maple much later on, yet has had a huge impact on the server's meta, for better or for worse. If Royals just stayed stagnant, without additional content or new stuff to do, it would honestly be pretty boring. As far as the nostalgic identity goes, it's still there for me, although I could see how other people would see differently - everybody has their own interpretation of what feels nostalgic. As far as the recent balance changes go, I'm happy with most of them. I only have a Hero main, so from my perspective, the Combo Attack changes aren't necessary but are welcome nonetheless, and final attack having some utility for pre 4th job is fine. The Pally changes are good, I welcome the Threaten changes and I think it's a good option for promoting "active play" as far as party benefits go. The Marksmen changes are okay with me too, I'm not a Marksman main but Piercing Arrow charge changes seem to be a good quality of life update, and Blind will probably be very strong in Bosses. I think @Jooon did some theorycrafting, and Marksmen may or may not be meta SE class in PB and Von Leon, depending on if/how those bosses are implemented. Would I go so far as to say that they are overtuned now? Maybe, I don't know. However, I think many classes are overtuned in Royals as is, but it's not a big deal to me. The Shadower 1/1 changes I'm not too familiar with. From what Shadower mains say, it seems that it's not good if you're caught in dark sight after being 1/1, and the Meso Guard change negatively affects the gameplay. I think the Shadower community dislikes this change, and I would agree with the community on this front. As far as the Bowmaster changes go, I would say that the "active play" changes are fine, I agree that alt-tab hurricane being patched is a good thing. If you want to multiclient still, you'd have to get crafty with multiple computers or virtual machines. The +6 attack buff(if you were using diamond arrows before) is fine, and Hamstring having some extra utility is okay - I'm not sure what situations it would be used in though. Maybe it's helpful in Scarlion/Targa and CWKPQ for crowd control on the bosses? Not too sure. Now the Soul arrow changes? I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I get that not having to carry arrows before the patch was nice thing to have. Maybe there could be some fix or cleaner implementation for this; many ideas are already being thrown around. But for the rest of the BM mains that already carried Diamond Arrows/Red Arrows before the patch, it's just a net buff. Overall, the BM changes literally just means that BM mains have to sacrifice 4-8 item slots for arrow stacks, which is like 2 - 4 hours of gameplay worth of arrows, which you restock when you recharge on potions. Soul arrow is now a 3min 20 second buff that can be cast with your other buff timings. To some BM mains, that's bad. To other BM mains, this is a nonfactor. Overall, I can see your perspective on how Royals' changes may diverge from the nostalgic identity. However, I agree with the direction that the developers are taking the server(in the context of these class changes only, there are many other things I disagree with). I would say that autoban still not being implemented is a big issue, and hackers are very negatively affecting the server, but that's a whole other conversation that's beat to death at this point.
I'll quote myself from a year ago regarding a comment I made on a similar topic that involved this server's nostalgia factor: For me, MapleRoyals stopped feeling nostalgic for me literally the first day I started playing--when I entered KPQ to watch a Bishop spam Genesis in the first stage and breeze through the entire PQ. I completely empathize with players who are reluctant to introduce such customized changes, especially considering that much more simple (and therefore much more elegant) solutions are often available for a lot of issues. That said, I personally also fail to understand viewpoints that certain changes break the core nostalgic identity of this server. I think the very concept of nostalgia is a bit of a red herring when it comes to discussing the identity of this server. While fundamentally MapleRoyals is about reliving the lingering experiences of our bygone youth, it is also about implementing and adopting changes that serve to enhance our overall gameplay experience as it suits us today--the fact that this server has higher rates being the most clear example. I mean, did MapleRoyals ever feel particularly nostalgic for y'all? Because not for me.
I personally like this update and the direction the server is moving. Thumbs up to 73.3 , what is needed to be fixed is finally fixed. Other then horntail. That thing is monkaS
It's only been a few days since this update; it isn't fair to make this claim imo. Having been here for 3~4 years and seeing the balance patches go live, I trust the staff will listen to the community though time will be needed.
Well, I can't say I had that experience with Genesis and KPQ, but I think doing Royals CPQ(before it was removed and then added back to Royals) back in the day was nostalgic at the time. Of course, the situation with CPQ these days is much different - the meta now is people making CPQ leech characters. I think there are elements of the server that definitely are still nostalgic- Zakum Jump Quest, training at MP3, etc. I think a careful balance needs to be had between making changes to make the server better gameplay wise and preserving these small elements of nostalgia. However, I don't think nostalgia is automatically a "gotcha" argument for not making gameplay changes. "Change made by staff or suggested by player? Nope, can't do it because nostalgia" is what should be avoided. Or, like you put it, nostalgia is a red herring.
Idk. I like most of the changes but I think changing Soul Arrow how they did by requiring item slots for arrows, or other changes they did to nerf summon farming, duku, trio genesis, etc can be annoying because they hurt some aspects people liked or invested time into before.
Indeed, it's not a 1:1 nostalgic experience, but I can provide my experience. When I first joined, my brother (Fighter) and I (Cleric) knew next to nothing about the custom changes and features in Royals. We just played the server blindly, mostly doing quests together for fun. He would also PQ a lot, which was nostalgic for him (like LPQ), while I chose more of a solo route. We both got randomly added to the same guild which was super fun (shoutout to Cubes) and helpful. The more features we learned about Royals, the more convenient our journey was (Fast travel, motivation for Quest Specialist), but it wasn't nostalgia breaking. (Also, I remember guiding him on video call through the Zak JQ, which was kind of funny ) Looking back from where I'm at now, I definitely fulfilled the desire of nostalgia, and it's still there as an option for the most part. I will say, without custom content and changes, the server would most certainly die (and not in the meme way.) My go to "experimental evidence" is Old School RuneScape (the reboot of RuneScape from 2007), which saw a big boom early on, but then began to bleed players and die once the nostalgia wore off. While they still have problems now, through massive content expansions and changes to the core gameplay, it's one of the most popular MMOs to date. I'm not straight comparing the two (OSRS and Royals) for several reasons, but I think it's similar enough that we can take some lessons from it. I voted mixed feelings since I think the changes were in the right direction, but as a shadower main I will have to play with the changes a bit before fully formulating my opinion. I personally think the BM changes were also nice (albeit, I wish it was a possibility to keep soul arrow's previous convenience factor), but that is a conversation I can't be part of as I do not play BM/MM. It's been only 2 days since the changes. I think players should take some time to digest the changes and verify their feelings in totality before going all out in the feedback section (this is not an attack or attempt at invalidating any players who've posted so far.)
One question i'm having since I started playing is why there always has to be a nerf with a buff? Like, why cant marksman just be a bit stronger and bm just have a buff without sacrificing something? or why does TOAD exp has to be less in exchange of a 100% drop rate headband? I mean, it is a level 180 boss which deals 16k damage and takes almost 1 hour to finish it on a quad party (3 attackers and a bish) to get around 20% exp each member, which isn't that much considering you could duo krex in that time with less effort and no wash needed, I'm assuming they just take into consideration super end game people who go duo/trio bosses muling all buff, because a full party of mid game players wont have any reasons to go there for 5k nx, an untradeable headband for super late game thief and 10% exp each, instead of nerfing things I think they should focus on buffing and reward active party play and full party bossing, with bonus exp, drops, etc this nerf will just lead to more muling and smaller parties to get the full exp and properly share the 2 only drops (leave the chair aside, I haven't seen a single one yet on 10-12 runs since the update) This has always been like this since I joined the server around 6 years ago, we always get a buff on hand with a nerf and while I get most of the reasoning behind every change, still it is sad to see how a lot of people are just switching to other servers that allow them to play the game in a more casual and friendly way because "royals is just for elite and hardcore players with a lot of free time who sees the game as if it was a part-time job" (this is what a good friend I made in game said to me before switching to another private server)
I really liked this update and finally after years BM got a significant buff, I can use hamstring on bosses again like 2016, tbh soul arrow didn't change a lot for me cause I always use more than 70k arrows in inventory, but I still prefer the old soul arrow cause if my arrows run out I can just use soul arrow and all good, about puppet HP look good because I can make big foot stay in corner during 15s+ now till it kill puppet while I rebuff (same thing for other bosses) and buff from another jobs I loved threaten
TLDR all of the comments, as a BM & MM main, my comments are: It is a good intention to stop BM atk mule/hurricane Alt Tab, as a BM main myself I would accept this change. The arrow buff is good to encourage more bowman atk roles but I think the soul arrow nerf is just taking the piss. Why is this needed? Have they not realise there is only one place in the world you can buy fire/ice arrow? Even if they wanna implement this, at least make arrow rechargable or fire/ice arrow purchasable in every town. Bowman have way lesser mobility than NL, but our recharge process is way more tedious than theirs. If the intention of the soul arrow nerf is just to offset the OP-ness of the arrow atk buff (net effect is +6 atk, not +10 btw), I would rather them just put a lower atk increase on the arrow rather than killing off bowmen like that. If the intention is to increase the population of MM, there is a very established discussion on what changes could be done on MM. Why not visiting that thread? In a way I agree. Although most BM/MM mains are not happy about this, but looks like the backlash isn't big enough because we are the minority. Though this update is only 3 days old as of today, and the admins have a more important issue to deal with now: consistent DDoS attacks (the main reason that made me quit now). But I hope there is someone else in the team that thinks about what they did to BM/MM.
There are two layers to nostalgia here. Is the mapleroyals gameplay nostalgic? No, not really. Is the mapleroyals world building nostalgic? Yes, very much so. What I mean by this is: There are a set of elements and rules to the game that we find makes maplestory maplestory, for example, genesis being a full map attack. And then there are consequences derived from this, e.g. quad mage ulu farm. Is the latter nostalgic? Not at all, but I guess it makes sense given the mechanics of the game. If staff wanted to patch quad mage ulu farm because they believe it is unhealthy for the game, will I be sad? No. But if staff decided to patch quad mage ulu farm by changing genesis to a single target attack, will I be sad? Yes, because everyone expects genesis to be a full map attack, plus there are much less intrusive ways to achieve the same effect. Put to an extreme, if for balance/design reasons, mages now have flash jump, orange mushrooms fly, zakum has 12 arms, and Ellinia BGM plays in Kerning city, will I still want to play this game? Probably not. Obviously this example is absurd, but things like paladin’s total crash are really not that far from this. All I’m saying is that once staff makes enough changes like this, the game would no longer have the same charm as it used to. Put another way, I think staff should really consider such changes as a precious resource, at least more than how staff is currently treating them. Lastly, I want to clarify that I think most of the changes in Update 73.3 are in a good direction. It’s just the more game-altering and controversial ones that I find unappealing, because they try to directly challenge certain core expectations one may have about how the maplestory world should work.
My two tiny cents are that we shouldn't appeal to nostalgia if you also want to improve, or grow the server, because many skills and functions were never fully formed, or initially balanced, neglected, abandoned, nor given a chance to grow along with the meta, before they were all table flipped after BB. Many roles for classes never fully developed either because of the BB cutoff, and many wonderful concepts were lost. Here, nostalgia to me means the maps, the music, and classes and their skills. That's the nostalgia for me. There was a lot of love and care and original rpg class concepts and great 2d pixel art in the game BBB. But it was scrapped. But imagine if it wasn't? The same skills and classes would still have to be balanced quite a bit overtime. Useless skills are the same as dead content. Everything would constantly be scrutinized and reexamined, because it would have to. A changing, developing meta with bosses that challenge each class differently is also important to keep class identity and party dynamism in progressive balance too. If this didn't happen, people would complain about something being off or imbalanced, and it would be tested and it would be bridged in a healthier way. Ultimately I think the changes brought up here in 73.3 (and other recent ones) are healthier for the server overall, and likely the kind of changes we would have seen if these nostalgic classes had not been totally wiped. Despite some things literally not being nostalgic, the unhealthy, broken, exploitable, abandoned, or imbalanced things need to be examined and improved if possible, it's just better for everyone.
At this point, talking about nostalgia in royals is a meme. Royals exists for about as long as maplestory existed up until the 0.83 update. there are people being more nostalgic to royals than prebb maple in this community LOL. I'm very happy over-all for this update. Yes, there are a few questionable choices here and there, but i very much respect their direction in redesigning the game as of late. This is no longer a prebb server as far as im concerned, its different, and i was a part of the community with this growth period, so i didn't really feel as if it was an abrupt change. but yea, if someone completely new to royals would see the game in its current form, he won't recognize half of it.
This argument doesn't make sense. Just because you find no nostalgic value in royals, doesn't mean no one else is allowed to find nostalgic value in royals. I'm sure many players share your view, but I'm also sure many others still find and share a nostalgic attachment to the game.
Honestly, after trying out the latest update, I like the changes. Yea, soul arrow expiring too quickly can be annoying, and I sincerely hope the devs will let us fire arrows even without physical arrows, that's the least they should do. Also, I noticed dispel is very deadly and can consume arrows like crazy (such as when I was battling right pianus). And I don't think the server is THAT nostalgic based anymore. A lot of things have been customized since the introduction of nerf on NLs, potion price increased, CWK pendant changes, Ellin forest map re-creation, special events, so on and so on. But, still, everything so far is still enjoyable for me as a nostalgic based player. The only thing that ticks me off is how SLOW the devs are fixing bugs and how SLOW it is for them to implement the rest of the content I've suggested for years, like the library and the Duey package delivery thing.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about skill changes. As a BM main, yeah, we got a buff in exchange of a big QoL removing. I can't agree with this, I think they should do something else than doing Soul Arrow consuming arrows. Actually, it just shouldn't consume anything to me. But in parallel, yup, I totally agree the hamstring buff, or the infinite hurricane bug by switching client. Those are welcome changes. Also with shadower, I ain't maining one, but I get it when shad community says that Meso Guard nerf is taking them down making them in danger when they're stuck in DS mode with 1/1. Changes wouldn't be so hard to fix though, I think allowing shad to pot while in DS should be an option, or also getting automatically DS off when 1/1 hits. About BM, changes could be multiple too. For example, allowing BM to choose if they want to consume arrows in exchange of a WA boost, or if they prefer not to consume anything without any buff. In another way, they could permit BM's and MM's to use Soul Arrow without any arrows equiped, because when you are running a boss, what are your option if you run out of arrows ? You just become a SE mule, and your squad loose an attacker. Or eventually, putting SA back to how it was, which means lasting for 10 minutes, consuming arrows, and improving stacks quantity, from 2000 to 5000 arrows. I don't know what to think yet. There are some good points, while the others are quite bad to me. But yep, I'm not 100% satisfied with this patch. Our staff is trying things, sometimes it works, but sometimes we have to admit that it may fails too. Glad to see they take consideration of our feedbacks though.
If Royals was truly heading in the right direction, we wouldn't have a tied poll with people either agreeing or half-agreeing/disagreeing with the changes. Some changes were good, yes I recognize most changes in the Archer line were actually good, but yet some changes are still controversial, if you ask me, Soul Arrow losing it's original function and behaving like a cheap copy of Shadow Stars is as controversial as allowing BM's to hurricane jump, yet there was consensus within staff that the former fits within Bowmaster's identity while the latter isn't When both changes could be equally controversial in their own ways. And I second what my amigo says here. If there is something I noticed in my short living playing this server, is that Staff is pretty inconsistent when talking about changes, buff, nerf, etc. It's clearly obvious the reason Soul Arrow was modified was to improve it's usefulness as a skill, at the expense of discarding the old effect which represented part of the nostalgic Archer's gameplay. But this new effect doesn't represent what is meant to play as an Archer, from this nostalgic point of view, it's just Shadow Stars but you shoot arrows instead of throwing stars, and you use a bow instead of a claw. Thematically, it doesn't make sense to change the effect of a skill and literally replace it with another class skill, this is no longer nostalgic, and this skill no longer represents what means to play as an archer. Following this logic, we might as well consider erasing Thrust effect which gives +30 Speed on Level 20 and rather replace it with either Hermit's Flash Jump or Gunslinger's Recoil Shot. I don't see the difference between this and SA/SS or if we go even farther, allowing Hurricane Jump, those no longer would be nostalgic, the class would be no longer recognizable by new/returning players but it's the same thing, you or the DPS min-maxing meta elitists could argue that those would be "QoL" improvements for the sake of the class own good and there is no turning back because it would be like "back to the nerf". Aren't these changes cherrypicked arbitrarily based on what staffs considers "nostalgic" or "unfitting for the role of the class"? I don't even remember if Inferno originally had DoT in pre-bb GMS, but I would dare to say it never was part of pre-bb core GMS because other servers lack this feature on this skill. Therefore, for the same reasons, shouldn't we just go with the other suggestions and make hurricane jumpable? Or implement whatever Cooler suggested in his MM super mega long thread to buff/improve the Marksmen skillset? I'm not saying we should all implement every crazy change that me or Cooler could ever think of, but rather, ask Staff to be more consistent on what they say and consider "nostalgic", what skill/function "fits the role of a class", how they implement them and which of those could be improved for QoL reasons without erasing the previous identity of the class that is part of the reason we play them in the first place.
