Notice Staff Blog: September 2022

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Hello Royallers!

Our first GM Blog was released two years ago. After changing the frequency from monthly to quarterly, it’s finally time to rename them as well.

We are happy to publish our first Staff Blog!

Official MapleRoyals Discord
With joy we have already welcomed over 1.000 of you to our officially reopened MapleRoyals discord channel. If you didn’t join already take the chance here now! There might be more interactive tasks there like the expansion of the Summer Exp-losion Event some weeks ago.
So stay tuned over there!

Godly Item Roll Clarification
In the act of revisiting parts of our source code, we came across a contradiction to information that has been out since 2013 concerning the Godly Item Roll Chance.

One of the core mechanics in Maple Story is that most equipment come with varied stats. Whether via item drop or crafting with a stimulator, each stat of a piece of equipment varies within a calculated range. This range is calculated using the base stat (the 'average' stat), and a modifier M, and given by (base stat - M) ~ (base stat + M). The modifier M is either

• 10% of the base stat rounded up,
• or a predefined hard cap (+5 or +10 depending on the stat),

whichever is smaller. For example, weapon attack has a predefined hard cap of +5. Suppose you obtain a Triangular Zamadar from a Stump. This dagger has a base attack of 27, and so 10% of 27, rounded up is 3. Since this value is smaller than the predefined hard cap, the range of attack a Triangular Zamadar can obtain is 24 ~ 30, or 27 plus/minus 3. An example of when the predefined hard cap would be used is with a Dragon Kanzir, with a base attack of 100, but a range of 95 ~ 105. Note that we have not considered the godly system yet, at all.

Now for the mechanic unique to MapleRoyals, the godly system. Every piece of equipment that can be obtained with varied stats has a chance to invoke this godly system. In (hopefully) simple terms, a godly roll takes the maximum possible value for a range and increases the range by +5. Notice that it does not guarantee a higher stat for the item, it only opens the door for the possibility. With our previous two examples, if we are lucky enough to land a godly roll, the new ranges would be

• Triangular Zamadar: 24 ~ 35
• Dragon Kanzir: 95 ~ 110

Again, one may land the godly roll, but the resulting stat may still end up in the normal range. In this example, one may still get a 30 attack Triangular Zamadar or a 95 attack Dragon Kanzir with both having landed on the godly chance. This is what makes it nearly impossible for a player to accurately verify godly chances. Here is Blue Dragon Armor as a final example:

Base Stat	Normal Range	Godly Range
STR +8	7~9	7~14
DEX +6	5~7	5~12
Accuracy +3	2~4	2~9
Weapon Def +180	170~190	170~195

​

It was advertised that equips that come with varied stats have a 10% chance to invoke a godly roll. While going through the source code for this update, we have discovered that the actual chance to invoke a godly roll on an item rolling is 5%. In the previously linked thread outlining the godly system, there was a mix-up with the 10% and 5% figures; there was a plus/minus 5% calculation and advertised 10% godly chance when it should have been the other way around. This has since been corrected.

Of course, we discussed changing the rate to 10% as advertised. Ultimately, we decided against such a change, because as brutal as RNG can be, we are all used to this rate for almost 10 years now. Raising the rate to 10%, or in other words, doubling it, to make up for an unfortunate oversight would not be good for the game and the economy. We apologize for the inconvenience caused, but we hope you understand!

New Staff Role: Game Balancer
We are expanding Staff further with the addition of Game Balancers. This role will not include any form of moderation, so the members can fully focus on the game itself.
Here are some notes about a Game Balancers tasks:

• Monitor the Forum‘s feedback section to see what the community wants and bring it to the attention of the rest of the Staff
• Assist in giving direction regarding the development and balancing of new and existing content
• Provide essential feedback directly to the rest of the Staff on gameplay matters
  
• Test content for defects or issues, including:
  • New content - Areas, Quests, NPCs, Cash Shop updates, etc.
  • Existing content - Check and confirm existing and newly reported bugs and their fixes.

If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to send us an application here or reach out to any of us if you have further questions.

While each staff member has a say on game matters, members with this role are expected to exhibit initiative and leadership in addition to providing input during discussions.

Staff Changes
At this point let me pass the mic to @Tim for the Staff changes section.


"As an ever evolving and forward moving MMO players come and go over time. The same goes for our Staff members that make the continuation of MapleRoyals possible so we would like to thank the Staff members that left, the ones that took on different hats, and welcome the new recruits!

Staff leaving
@Yan had rejoined us for another few months after he took a break from the game but has decided to leave Staff once again. Thank you for jumping in and giving us more support when we needed it.

@Muff has been with us for a long time supporting Staff with his dad-energy and GM duties and we'd like to thank him for his help all these years and wish him and his family the best!

@PaddysPub (Known to us as Shane) has also served as a GM multiple times and we were happy to have him on board in various phases of MapleRoyals, Thanks Shane!

@Dasha had to be let go due to a clouded GM integrity incident where she was selective in which cheaters she banned and allowed to play, but we'd still like to thank her for her other GM duties and artistic contributions that made MapleRoyals information and event posters next-level.

Staff role changes
Some of you might be wondering what happened to @Gert and we're happy to share to you that he's still very much part of the team. He's been focusing on the voting for nx whitelist applications so you may not see him in game as frequent.

@nut has swapped out the megaphone for a GM hat and took on a role as GM instead of Community Manager. We're happy to have him take on different staff duties that he's more interested in contributing to and you might catch him in game hosting an event!

@Zancks has taken the first seat at our new role Game Balancer. Together with other Game balancers and the rest of Staff he will focus on your feedback as a player, combine it with the expertise of the Staff members and spearhead gameplay related ideas, reworks and updates!

New Staff hires
The keen eyed forum-goers have already noticed that the following community members have now joined as Staff:
@Rielle Has taken on a role as Game Balancer to join Zancks and make MapleRoyals updates interesting, fair, entertaining and great again!

@Pure (formerly: xSaturn) has taken on a role as GM Intern to make sure everyone plays by the rules.

@Bacon (formerly: BaconLord47) has joined the ranks as a GM Intern to lay down the Bacon on evil doers in game!

@Dong (formerly: Officially) joined as a GM Intern to sniff out the sneakiest rule breakers and bring them to justice.

@Ravir entered the ranks as a GM Intern to help the game and its players stay fair and square.

A sincere thank you to our former Staff members to make MapleRoyals what it is today and a warm welcome to the new hires and role changers to keep MapleRoyals the game we want to continue playing!"

Update 81
Alright now, let’s take a closer look at the latest Patch, Update 81. We appreciate your patience and all of your reports regarding any bugs that potentially came with this update, leading to the fixes in Update 81.1.

Eye and Face Accessories
The most impactful change of our latest patch is probably the rework of Eye and Face Scrolls.

We‘ve analyzed the current situation and decided it’s time to mix things up a little. Prior to Update 81, Eye Accessories, for example, could only be scrolled for the main stats INT and DEX, or be Chaos scrolled. Furthermore, some scroll values didn‘t really make sense regarding their risk-reward relation. For example, the Scroll for Eye Accessory for INT 100% gave +1 INT while the 60% variant gave +1 INT & +1 Magic Defense. Hence the 60% Eye Accessory for INT was mostly unused. From now on, the 100% Eye Accessory for INT will give +1 Magic Attack, to keep the same TMA, and the 60% variant will give +1 INT & +1 Magic Attack, so they are worth the risk of failing. Apart from the already existing Eye Accessory for INT scrolls, we also added STR, DEX & LUK variants and changed the Accuracy one to HP.

With the same goal in mind, we touched the Face Accessory Scroll - renaming the Face for Avoidability Scroll to DEX and adding STR, INT, and LUK variants, while keeping the HP one.

The next question we were facing was - Where do we want these scrolls to drop? Castellan Toad and the Ninja Castle Area itself already offered many Scrolls for Eye & Face Accessory. Since Castellan Toad‘s unique drop - Ninja Toad Headband - is an Eye Accessory we decided to implement the dark and 100% variants of Eye Accessory Scrolls in that area. Simultaneously, we took all Scrolls for Face Accessories away from it and gave those dark and 100% variants to The Boss and the Showa Area. The 10% variants of both types of scrolls will come from Targa and Scarlion while the 60% ones are spread among some Neo Tokyo bosses.

This left us with one more question - How will it impact the current equips out there? We came to the conclusion that Face Accessories didn’t need to be touched. Rudolph‘s Shiny Nose comes with good stats clean and obtaining a godly Maple Leaf is not easy at all. For the Eye Accessories on the other side, we agreed that some balancing should be done with those new scrolls available. The Raccoon Masks are rather easily obtainable from Gachapon and have 7 slots while other Eye Accessories only have 3 slots. Some of them would even require a godly roll to compete with the Raccoon Mask's viability. Hence we decided to increase their slots from 3 to 5.
This includes the following Eye Accessories:

• Spectrum Goggles
• Ninja Toad Headband
• Broken Glasses
• all Archeologist Glasses

To get a full impression of all changes regarding Eye and Face Accessories and their scrolls, you can take a look at the Update 81 patch notes.

Other Boss Balancing
We found that players hunting White Scroll Fragments, first introduced in Update 70, fight the Neo Tokyo bosses in a specific order. That was caused by some of the bosses' Monster Cards effects increasing drop rates in Neo Tokyo. We decided it would be better if the Monster Cards for the Nameless Magic Monster and Dunas B's (often called Dunas v2) would also get the effect. Furthermore, going to the Mushroom Shrine town map will no longer cancel the effect of the Neo Tokyo Monster Cards, giving players the opportunity to use the vendors there without losing the card bonus. Additionally, we have increased the duration of the monster card effects from 20 to 30 minutes across the board, while simultaneously disabling its synergy with the Hermit’s Alchemist skill, which is only meant for potions.

We also compared all the bosses in the game and found some of them were lacking compared to the others. That leads us to decide on the following changes:

• Adding some new equip drops to The Boss, most significantly the Brown Work Glove as a jackpot item.
• Horntail now drops batches of Dragon Spirits and Dragon Scales, similar to how Auf Haven and other Neo Tokyo bosses drop batches of Silver Coins.
  
• Scarlion and Targa have had an increase in drop rates across the board for equips, mastery books, and scrolls, as those rates were unusually low when compared to other bosses around the game.
  
• We scattered the ring and belt scroll drops in Neo Tokyo to have a more even distribution of scrolls among those bosses.
  
• We decreased the destruction rate of the Scroll for Auf Haven Circlet 60% from 30% to 5% in hopes that the Auf Haven Circlet becomes more appealing to people who do not plan on perfecting the item with only the 10% Miracle Scrolls.
  
• Finally, Nameless Magic Monster, Scarlion, and Targa have gotten their EXP increased to be more in tune with the other bosses in terms of the EXP to HP ratio.

Ultimate Attack Nerf Changes
Since 2021, we have had a system in place that reduced the drop rate of event items from a mob by 50% if that mob was killed by one of the following four skills:

• Genesis
• Blizzard
• Meteor
• Dragon Roar

From now on, this change will only be triggered if 80% or more of a monster's HP is reduced by the skills above. Furthermore, this system was changed to apply to Purification Totems in Lion Heart Castle. We‘ve noticed people started solo-grinding in Lionheart Castle with up to 6 Mages simultaneously. As our goal with Lionheart Castle was to create an area where party play is key, we tried looking for a solution that would have the least impact on the regular Lionheart Castle runs. Simply disabling multi-clienting in Lionheart Castle would’ve been easy to bypass and labor-intensive to monitor.

Class and Skill Changes
As a first step toward a skill changes patch, @Stephen checked each and every skill in the game's Skill Book and removed any errors, and updated many of their descriptions. Simultaneously, we compiled a big list of changes to discuss, test, and develop from your input in our Class and Skill Changes Feedback Request.
Do note that nothing on this list is guaranteed to go live. With the new staff members on board, it’s time to take on this big task.

Spoiler: Player Class & Skill Ideas

Spoiler: Warriors

Hero

• Rage: stacking with attack potions
  
• Enrage:
  • have it stack with attack potions
    
  • give it an STR Bonus
    
  • cancel damage reflect
    
  • ignore the weapon def of the target
    
  • make it undispellable
• Brandish:
  • Increase damage by 20% to 40% when attacking a single unit
    
  • Increase vertical attack range so Heroes can consistently hit HT head A and B
• Advanced combo attack: buff its % damage increase
  
• Panic: darkness debuffs bosses
  
• Power Guard: also reduce the incoming Magic damage
  
• Power Stance: buff from 90% to 95% at max level

Paladin

• 2h Blunt Weapons: increase base atk by 10-20
  
• Blast: allow it to exceed the current 199,999 damage cap
  
• Guardian:
  • Keep the block chance active at all times, but the push effect becomes toggleable
  • Both the block chance and push effect are toggled together
  • Remove the stun and knockback
• Fix Threaten
  
• Power Guard: reduce the incoming Magic damage
  
• Power Stance: buff from 90% to 95%
  
• Total Crash: Revert it back to an active skill and not a buff
  
• Fire/Lightning/Ice/Holy charge: reduce the skill delay
  
• Ice Charge: increase the freeze duration
  
• Heaven’s Hammer: Reduce its skill delay
  
• Advance Combo Blow:
  • increase its range
    
  • fix its stun
  • fix success rate bug/change success rate to 100% at level 1

Dark Knight

• Crimson Arcglaives:
  • buff its speed to fast and increase its attack
  • give it a spear variant
• Polearm Crusher:
  • increase range horizontally in the direction your character faces and vertically below your character
    
  • buff its attack
• Spear Crusher:
  • increase range horizontally in the direction your character faces and vertically below your character
  • buff its attack
• Achilles: Buff the damage reduction from 20% to 25%
• Berserk:
  • Buff its damage
  • Let it activate below 60% HP instead of 50% HP
    
  • Add brackets for 40-100% Hp with less hp and more damage (scaling)
  • Cap Cleric‘s Heal effect at 50% of Dark Knight's HP
• Power Stance: buff from 90% to 95%
• Sacrifice: Make it a 100% slash skill
• Aura of the Beholder: Give it a self-res with a 1-2h cooldown on max level
• Dragon's Blood: stack with Atk potions
• Cap Cleric‘s heal effect at 50% of Dark Knight's HP
• Combine Hex of the Beholder all into one buff

Spoiler: Archers

Bowmaster

• Arrows: Implement a new rechargeable set of arrows (craftable)
  
• Dragons Breath:
  • enable it in LHC
    
  • allow it to work close range
    
  • allow it to work mid-air
    
  • increase its vertical range
• Power Knockback:
  • enable it in LHC
• Concentrate:
  • give it a temporary stance rate
    
  • give it an increased crit rate
    
  • let it stack with atk potions
• Phoenix:
  • increase its damage
    
  • give it fire damage over time
    
  • let it be summonable simultaneously with Silver Hawk
    
  • Give it a buff icon that you can cancel
• Focus: increase its avoidability
  
• Puppet: Give it a buff icon that you can cancel

Marksman

• Bolts: Implement a new rechargeable set of bolts (craftable)
• Raven's Eye: buff it
• Wide array of feedback - from the Improved MM Feedback Thread
• Power Knockback:
  • enable it in LHC
  Dragons Breath:
  • enable it in LHC
  • allow it to work in mid-air
  • allow it to work at a close range
  • increase its vertical range
• Frostprey:
  • buff its damage
    
  • Let it be summonable simultaneously with Golden Eagle
    
  • Give it a buff icon that you can cancel
• Strafe: Increase number of arrows shot from 4 to 5 on Strafe lv30
  
• Snipe: Reduce end lag
  
• Piercing Arrow: Reduce its charge-up time by 25%
  
• Focus: increase its avoidability
  
• Blizzard: Buff its damage
  
• Blind: reduce mobs accuracy further
• Puppet: Give it a buff icon that you can cancel

Spoiler: Thieves

Night Lord

• Stars:
  • Add flame throwing star (29 Atk, 1,5k per set)
    
  • Add infinite throwing knifes (29 Atk, 2k per set)
• Ninja Storm: Enable it in LHC
  
• Venomous Star:
  • enable it in LHC
    
  • make it toggleable
• Taunt: change it to do only 1 damage

Shadower

• Dark Sight:
  • Let pressing Dark Sight again cancel it
    
  • Let any attack cancel it
    
  • Allow Heroes Will to be used while in dark sight
• Assassinate:
  • Add iFrames to its 4th hit
    
  • Remove dark sight as a requirement
    
  • Fix damage bug: 3rd person point of view shows critical hits with sharp eyes, while 1st person does not.
• Assaulter: Reduce its animation time by 50%, and increase the draw distance
  
• Venomous Stab:
  • enable it in LHC
    
  • make it toggleable
• Taunt: change it to do only 1 damage
  
• Other: Dark Sight -> Boomerang Step -> Assassinate. Requires low ping and is claimed to be much higher DPS than Dark Sight -> Assassinate -> Boomerang Step. Can that be eliminated?

Spoiler: Magician

Bishop

• Dispel: change it to no longer affect mob buffs
  
• Angel Ray: buff its damage
  
• Holy Symbol: Reduce movement penalty after casting it
  
• Bless: increase its duration
  
• Mystic Door: Give it a buff icon that you can cancel
  
• Bahamut:
  • Let it be summonable simultaneously with Dragon
    
  • Give it a buff icon that you can cancel

Fire/Poison

• Fire Demon:
  • let it work on bosses
    
  • fix its effect
    
  • let Speed Infusion affect its casting time
• Paralyze:
  • increase its dmg
    
  • let Speed infusion affect its casting time
• Seal:
  • buff it from 95 to 100%
    
  • give it a low chance to work on bosses
• Elquines:
  • increase its attack range
    
  • Give it a buff icon that you can cancel
• Meditation: make it stackable with m.atk pots
  
• Elemental Composition: Let it give mobs/bosses a poison weakness

Ice/Lightning

• Ice Demon:
  • let it work on bosses
    
  • fix its effect
    
  • let Speed Infusion affect its casting time
• Chain Lightning:
  • increase its dmg
    
  • remove the decreasing damage per mob mechanic
    
  • let Speed Infusion affect its casting time
• Seal:
  • buff it from 95 to 100%
    
  • give it a low chance to work on bosses
• Ifrit:
  • increase its attack range
    
  • Give it a buff icon that you can cancel
• Meditation: make it stackable with m.atk pots

Spoiler: Pirate

Buccaneer

• Transformation: Allow mount use while being transformed
  
• Super Transformation:
  • Allow mount use while being super transformed
    
  • increase its duration to 180s
    
  • Let the duration scale from lvl 1 to 20
• Barrage: allow it to exceed the current 199,999 damage cap
  
• Energy Charge:
  • remove the monster knockback ability from it
    
  • remove the damage-dealing ability from it
    
  • make it charge quicker
    
  • make it last longer
• Backspin Blow:
  • let it hit 6 monsters instead of 3
    
  • Reduce its delay when used with Corkscrew blow
• Corkscrew Blow:
  • let it hit 6 monsters instead of 3
    
  • Reduce its delay when used with Backspin blow
• Energy Blast: let it hit 6 monsters instead of 4
  
• Dragon Strike: Decrease its delay when used again

Corsair

• Burst Fire: Separate it from Double Shot and make it an active skill
  
• Adjust the Avoid Formula from DEX * 0.125 + LUK * 0.5 to DEX * 0.25 + LUK * 0.5 (other classes, but Bucc use it too)
• Battleship:
  • HP rework regarding 1/1 attacks
    
  • HP Rework from (4,000*Skill level)+ (2,000* [Character level -120]) to (8,000*Skill level) + (1,500*[Character level-120])
    
  • Disable skill delay after mounting onto battleship after using homing beacon or octopus
    
  • Enable casting Echo on the battleship
• Aerial Strike:
  • Reduce its animation time by 50%
    
  • Enable casting it while on the battleship
    
  • Enable casting it while moving and jumping
• Hypnotize: Increase the number of tameable monsters with Hypnotize from 1 to 5.
  
• Recoil Shot: Decrease its cooldown by 33%.
  
• Wrath of Octopi: increase range vertically and horizontally
  
• Elemental Boost: increase the damage over time effect by 2-5 seconds
  
• Gaviota:
  • Make it a summon like Phoenix/Frostprey/Bahamut/Ifrit/Elquines
    
  • Give it a buff icon that you can cancel
• Rapid Fire: make it castable midair and while using wings
  
• Other: Reduce or remove corsairs melee range
  
• Other: Rework some of the Master Level requirements of the 3rd job Outlaw skills to 4th job skills. Using ice/fire splitters in the 4th job is still relevant from elemental boost. One really should be able to max Ice splitter, but you can't due to the requirements for Aerial Strike, Homing Beacon, and Wrath of Octopi.
  
• Other: Make pets follow char speed, not ship speed (when pet quest is done)

Spoiler: General & Content

General

• Heroes Will
  • No mana cost
    
  • Cure more types of abnormal status

Content

• Add pet equip for accuracy scrolls

Map Edits
Up next @Becca is going to give us some insights on her recent Map Edits:


"Map editing has been a small side project I’ll dedicate some time to here and there. One of the miscellaneous things that bugged me when I joined this Server eons ago as a player were the poorly sized interiors most maps have with the 1200 client, as well as background misalignments, tile discrepancies, and the infamous broken ropes that plagued Perion and Leafre since early 2000. There’s a huge list of maps that need a bit of tweaking so I don’t expect this kind of project to be done within some months, but it is something that will eventually get done."

Spoiler: Sneak Peaks

Hair Salon Showa


Ludibrium Pharmacy


White Wedding Altar


Castle Garden

Client Edits
For this update, we edited the client in four ways:

• The first is an improvement to the client loading speed, which you probably noticed if you started the game already.
  
• The second is the addition of a new UI element - the toggleable server clock, that you can freely move around your screen. This server clock will greatly improve the accuracy of reporting, where players do not need to remember to use the ~servertime command when necessary. This client edit will have two main purposes. For one it will make it easier for you to grab bulletproof evidence in case you need to submit a report, as you don’t need to include ~servertime if you have the server clock enabled. Therefore we recommend having it enabled at all times. The other way it can be used is for timing boss mechanics like Horntail's or Auf Haven's seduce skills.
  
• Thirdly, Party HP UI has been turned off by default, however, we are working to provide a system option to control this behavior.

I’ll leave the explanation of the last client edit for this patch to @yeepog.


"During the development of Von Leon, we have had to make a major change to some monsters and bosses. Specifically, any monster and boss that has an attack with type 3 has been affected. Before this change, these monsters and bosses were not able to use attacks with type 3 if they were facing to the right, but with this update, they now can. So watch out on your upcoming battles."

Lionheart Castle Chapter 2 - Von Leon
With the just presented client edit, we have made a big step toward Von Leon’s release. Leading us to...




"With the release of Von Leon, the Lionheart Castle questline has been extended, telling the story about the King and Queen of the castle. Once the questline is completed and you are ready to fight the boss, you'll want to ensure you've brought along enough friends, as this fight is like nothing seen before on MapleRoyals. Some brand new boss mechanics have been added which will be sure to keep the fight engaging, as well as require your utmost attention if you wish to be successful. Designed with replayability in mind, the new rewards from the boss will keep you coming back for more."

Community Q&A #4
Last but not least, we would like to invite you to the 4th round of our Community Q&A sessions. If you have any questions about MapleRoyals - whatever they may be - you can leave them in the comments below.
As usual, we will pick some up and answer them in a separate thread. In the spoiler below, you will find links to the previous Community Q&A sessions. Please check if your question was already answered before submitting it.

Spoiler: Community Q&A sessions #1-3

Q&A # 1
Q&A # 2
Q&A # 3

Alright, that’s it for the first Staff Blog of MapleRoyals! Hope you enjoyed reading those insights, and as always, feel free to leave us some feedback in the comments!

 

Monsters in general are not affected