So, I've notice that 90% of the royals population either have a mule of some sort when going for boss run esp keep/zak etc etc and I don't think this is a healthy for the server itself. I might be high, or smoking smt, but hear me out and I think my solution is actually quite reasonable. In order to reduce the need of building a mules and bring them into boss fight, why don't we just implemented a 'link skill' system into the game like how the live server has? It might be too over-powered at first glance, so we can actually just limit it to only 1 link skill / character. For example you're a NL and you need SE to function properly. You can level up either a BM / MM to a certain level where they can unlock their link skill ( for example lvl 135 etc etc) and then you can just link it to your NL and you can save the hassle of always needing a MM/BM in pt for the SE buff Link skill for each class example : ( common) Paladin = Crash Bishop = Holy Symbol BM/MM = Sharp Eye Bucc = Speed Infusion At lvl 135 we can made player to go through a series of quest for them to complete in order to unlock the link skill ( just like zak JQ alternative quest but less painful) so that player actually feel sense if accomplishments after unlock the link skill Feel free to list other skill that could add into the list. PS smoke screen from shadower is too broken to include into the list as it would completely break the game balance system
wouldn't it make mm/bm useless tho ? mm/bm already seem like a very weak class to me and I think this will nerf them even more.
As much as i hate mulestory, i dont think link skills are way to go. Would IMO feel out of place. What i would love to see is some sort of more in depth crafting (maker skill maybe) and the possibility to craft weaker versions of said buffs as potions/flasks.
Not mine, because I made my BM on the same account as my NL. It started as a storage mule, but now I've leveled and geared it up and can't use it as an SE mule for myself. Don't call it a mistake; call it my personal rebellion against MuleStory. Anyway, with skill link, it means I would never need to recruit SE into a boss run because I could skill link it from my existing BM. This greatly devalues BM/MM as a class worth playing. Right now, your options are to either recruit someone with SE or bring it yourself. Recruiting another human means you don't have to deal with moving a mule, so it's beneficial as you don't have to spend time and attention attending to that mule. They also bring their own damage (but if that extra damage were desired, mules wouldn't be used so much, so it seems to be an unimportant factor). Using skill link negates the benefit of bringing another person to manage SE as it becomes just another buff AND you don't have to worry about splits or anything else that comes with recruiting another human. If this system were added, every NL with two braincells would immediately make a BM/MM, leech it to 135, then skill link SE and never log into that BM/MM ever again. BM/MM would still have a role in places like CWKPQ due to necessity, but probably nowhere else. Those are my immediate thoughts. Maybe they're wrong. While I'm at it, I might as well think about the other examples in the first post. Crash: I think this would depend on whether or not a linked skill acts exactly like the normal one. Does it affect only the user or the whole party? If it acts like a party skill, paladins could become less popular. Holy Symbol: Bishops are desired for more than holy symbol, so this probably wouldn't affect much. It could be fairly useless depending on when you are able to unlock skill link. Really late-game training with HS without a bishop sucking up your XP? Speed Infusion: I've never played a warrior but I see this as a prime skill for them to link. Buccs would still have TL and are powerful on their own, so they probably wouldn't drop much in popularity. Jack's craftable potion idea is interesting, but I have to wonder if people would highly prefer a potion over another person or mule. A potion, while weaker, does not need to be moved on a second client, does not have to be healed, does not have to be reminded to use its buff, and does not take splits. It takes resources and potentially mesos to craft, but so what? No hassle because you don't have to waste time dealing with another person or client. Humans always tend to pick the option with the most convenience despite the drawbacks almost every single time. Just look at how many people use voice assistants (Siri, Alexa, Google) despite how bad they can be. All because they don't want to flip a switch themselves or navigate to a website on their own.
Your observation about mules (and to a bigger extent multi clienting) being extremely common and the negative impact its had on the server is something i agree with. Your solution to fixing it is however, is not one that i agree with. You want more people playing different classes not less. Link skills only further remove the need for certain classes to even be actively created and played, further stagnating the class variety more than it already is. I know the server has a very vocal group of people who will not under any circumstance hear a discussion on any change to mules or multi clienting. But this is a topic were gonna have to have at some point. Preferably soon, rather than later. With the current meta of Bucc/Shadower/NL dominating all levels of content, classes like warriors and archers have become significantly less desirable. Then you add on top, how common muling is, these classes have for the most part become easy targets as buff mules. They do less damaged, are more annoying to play due to lacking iframes and get hit more due to low avoid. Being able to bring as many buffs to content as one wants is a huge convenience and i realized many years later why nexon only allowed one client to run at a time. I dont blame people who wont discuss any changes to multi clienting. Why fix something thats not broken to them. Any change would be directly hurting their fun. Im sorry but i dont have a good response to that. It sucks to have something you enjoy, nerfed or changed. I dont claim to have a specific idea that would "fix" any of the things i or others have an issue with. However, i believe talking about it, should be the first step taken to get the ball rolling towards meaningful feedback and discussion on the topic. Because you play a class that has a defined roll with strengths and weaknesses, in order to maximize your play experience you have to reach out to someone else in order to over come whatever obsticales you have in front of you. Be it bossing, grinding or pqing. Why bother reaching out to a stranger you dont know anything about to get a buff for a pq of boss that you might need and risk getting someone thats bad at their role, or just a crappy person. Thats why theres a lot of unknowns to playing with strangers and thats why multi clienting and muling limits ones exposure to that unknown, giving a person more influence over their gameplay. Im not saying this is a bad thing to have on its own but what we give up to achieve it IS bad. In my opinion multi clienting goes against the entire design philosophy of Maplestory. Muling and multi clienting is anti social, and cheapens the game by allowing you to bypass that one remaining barrier the mmo genre has built at its core and that being ones reliance on other people. Mmos are a type of game thats intended to force social interactions with people you wouldnt generally go out of your way to socialize with. Those socializations can be good and bad. But theyre important to experience both types as those are exactly what youll deal with outside of video games. Some of my greastest memories are from forced socializing through maplestory. Experienced that changed my life forever. Had i had less of a reason to go outside of my comfort zone i may not have ever been able to say that. Even bad experiences are also learning experiences and can be important to teaching people valuable leasons no matter your age. I feel like as we go further along, Royals has become more anti social. I once had several dozen people who i kept in touch with within the game and outside of it. Over time ive noticed people gradually being less open to new people, that can be literal and figuratively. New people that join have a harder time fitting in and older players like myself finding it harder to make friends. I havent changed, i still enjoy the company of new people. My line of work forces me into talking to new people, and when i come onto royals i try to keep that same mind set. But the last few years its become so much more difficult to create new friendships with people on the server. I feel like thats because there being less reasons to do so. Im sorry if my wall of text goes off the rails at points. I wrote it, sitting in my work vehicle during lunch that ended up taking an hour for me to type out through my phone. I love this place and want nothing but the best for it.
This is sooo true Mulestory all day. I made a bishop first character and have never gotten into any boss runs because everyone has a bishop mule or hs mule. Paladin same thing i made paladin second everyone has crash mule. Btw i do smega, and still 0 whispers to get into runs. The only runs i got into is because my guild took me in while having mules and just being nice. I think mules kill the game the only classes which are immune to this i would say is NLs because if you have 1 trillion mesos you dont need any mules to be viable. maybe se. It seems to me classes like NL, Hero and Corsair are best if you want to be included in bossing and not considered a crush mule or a se mule etc. I hope they remove multi client or mules all together until server has bigger population at the very least. I hope one day not be a mule and a real boy like Pinocchio
Honestly, despite that I might not fully agree with everything said in this thread, I think everyone here has a fairly compelling argument; However, here's the problem that I have noticed across this game since I started back in GMS 2007 : Maplestory, as a video game itself, is an inherently impossible to balance and broken mess (ESPECIALLY pre-BB like this server is). Nexon compellingly designed it that way, which is why they got rid of a lot of OG features and mechanics in later official patches. The reason is actually very simple, yet borderline offensive while being true; Nexon, as a game company, have an atrocious sense of game balance and class equation. This is the reason servers like this one have to pick up the slack and try and pick up the shattered pieces to make classes and gameplayitself actually almost viable, balanced, not exceedingly OP, etc. You are either allowed muling through seperate PCs/IPs, multi-clienting and that's basically it. In OG MS, you were technically not allowed either unless you has enough cyber security knowledge to get away with doing one or the other. Also, I'ma be honest AF when I say that link skills will NOT help. If anything, they will make the game worse. If you try and remove HP/Blood washing entirely, many classes cannot late game boss. If you give everyone massive HP, the differentiation of classes are rendered moot, so it's just DPS is king and nothing else mattered.... Granted, it's already like that now but it would be even worse than it already is. If you try and remove multi-clienting, then the integrity of the server itself dies. Many people have the consensus that playing MS in 1 single window is bland and boring. As much as I hate to admit, as someone who has put well over 7000+ hours into this game across 16 years (both GMS and over 10 different private servers) I hate that I kinda agree with this. I've been hearing this "opinion" since 2008, and I cannot blame people for feeling that way anymore. This isn't as much of a "skill-based game" as it is an "attention and grinding based game." if you can divide attention and grinding equally, then fuck it dawg do it. I dislike it too, GREATLY, but I also view it as a necessary evil. It sucks.... really bad. But hey, this is Maplestory. Game sucks. I genuinely love this game, but I'm also willing to admit that this game is not well made, balanced or designed... AT ALL. I would love to see changes happen, but I doubt they will. This game is the literal embodiment of the phrase 'slippery slope.' No one entity has the answer to this game, because that 'one answer' does not exist. Edit: I was so drunk yesterday that I don't even remember making this comment, but it all tracks lmaooooo
Well regarding the issue of not Requiring other class, you can actually code the linked skill 10/20% less superior or it comes with a penalty ( for example a 10sec stun if you used a linked holy symbol etc etc)than the original one, so if you have someone who could provide the original buff, then you have no reason to use the linked skill. This is what I have in mind In order to unlock the link skill you have to go through a series of quest ( like the zak JQ alternative quest) which will be painful and rewarding after you unlocked it. And we can limit the link skill buff to only one and a time for 1 character so you won't have situation such a NL having HS+HB+SE and what do ever. In the other hand we can actually give arch mage Shadow partner ( that doesn't affect Genesis/metro/blizzard) so that they can be viable in boss run other than just being a leech bot
So a post like this is being made several times per year. tl;dr of this rant below I am sorry to say - If you are not able to find boss-runs - its because of you, not your class. Its a social game. People want to play with friends. Stop trying to rely on random-runs. At least half of all content is being done without a single smega used in advance. Spoiler Sure, muling gatekeeps newer players from joining content. However, its not much different from WoW. If you want to go raiding, you need a guild that goes raiding. If you want to boss in Royals you need friends or a guild that goes bossing. Once my first (non-mage) char reached level 150-something, Ever since, I have basically never joined any content that had a single smega used to find more people. If you have friends, you can go bossing on your perma-beginner every day. I am sorry to say - If you are not able to find boss-runs - its mostly because of you, not your class. Its an old school mmo, start making friends. Also, would you rather go bossing with a HS mule, or without HS? Do you want SE mule or no SE? I have a choice to go Zak now with a HS mule. Or spend 12m on smega's and wait 30-45 minutes before some random bishop shows up. Then my friends wife returned home and he needs another 30 mins and now my other friend cant make it. For a MS private server, Royals is very succesful. For MMO standards, Royals has very low server population. People need to stop comparing themself to the top-end of the playerbase when they are not. If you are new and want to play a MM or Hero, do it. If you had 2b to spend on a MM, Axe Hero or NL, MM and Hero out-dps that NL by a mile. The game balancing is the best it has every been and all classes are viable. Especcially if you're not the top-end of the player base. And if you are, you have 4 level 200 character anyway. It'll be quite the same as claiming we need to ban tp-rocks so that we have to travel by boat again. Itll bring people together! No, people will just stop playing. Anyway. I am low-key very fond of the Link-Skills. From my 3-day mind-fuck of seeing shit die in Reboot when I pressed 1 button. (lmao burning event also idk?) I did fancy the Link-Skills quite a lot. I really like the idea of some kind of progress beyond level 200 - or value of having characters of level 200. However I am 69420% certain its far more in favour of muling-story than the game currently is. Its much easier to level another character to 200 when you have 60 cgs and when a 6b leech and 6b wash is just spare change to you. Now we have not only an SE and HS mule, but also another reason to make a CR and SI mule. The rich get richer, gatekeeping new players even harder than mulestory currently does. I really dont care about how low the value would be. +1% crit chance for +1% damage is already more value than people spend billions for. Give us DK's +5% w.def so we make about 5% less posts per day about how we are too lazy to zerk bosses ! (I am 10000% too lazy to even go Shao) Regardless, Link-Skill are also quite out of place in what this nostalgia server tries to stand for. I dont give a fuck - I would be very happy to see.
Link skill simply do not fit MapleRoyals. It would be really bad to turn Royals into a rebirth-like server. We generally strive for an oldschool-ish experience with a modern touch not the other way round. Nevertheless thanks for your feedback!
I've said it back in 2018 and I still hold to my word. Game would be better if multi-client was limited to 2. One guy brings HS, one brings SE, one brings CR and so on. Allowing people to mule 6 clients is beyond crazy. Thx
