999int(1.1) + 170 + 20 + 8 = 1297 magic from base int, MW20, 170 magic wand, meditation, and wiseman medal..... So, you would still be extremely capable of 1hitting petris and Oblivion 4. I think nerfing Archmage's 1H magic numbers would benefit people with end game Archmages, A LOT. Then, there would be less Archmages capable of 1hitting petris/Obv 4, meaning the price goes up. Additionally, though this a psychological benefit, Archmages would go back to being a niche class so people playing it would feel more unique. Whether you would decide to take advantage of it with your I/L or keep it in retirement is up to you. But I think my point still stands, that the fact that most people pushing for Archmages nerfs are people who already have high level Archmages, who would as I described benefit quite significantly from Archmage nerfs, is pretty suspect. But, my attempt to expose the unconscious motives of this thread, though fun, is really just off topic and might come off as too personal. So, I don't think there's really a point in continuing the discussion, and I'm sorry if I come across as arrogant but I'm just pointing out my observations. Back to my original point, I think Bishops should be nerfed further down relative to Archmages if this Archmage nerf is put through. The reason is, ele wands are supposed to reduce damage by -25% for off-elemental users. While this exists in the game, Bishops are wayyyy stronger than they should be, and any argument for nerfing Archmages is just kicking them down to practically obscurity.
@FireHeart While I can accpet a parallel nerf of both AM and Bish, as it will at least make bish less unfair in comparison to AM and maintain the [imo] healthy balance between the two mages. -25% is seriously brutal, as any bish would need to first either use aprs or lvl up a bit to migrate from lukless to luk mage builds, and also discard any highly scrolled wand 6 they own as it's pretty much useless crap after said change. This could cause some serious chaos for the next few months after the ordeal in luk based wands and staffs, and scrolls. (though seeing luk mages and staffs again would be super refreshing <3) If bish needs a parallel nerf to stay in the same balance of difficulty with AM, then it should just lose some of its base magic on gen as well. Afterall, what I care about in the end of the game, is not how far i am from the 1hit goal, it's how far im in comparison to the competition. Skele 1h should be very hard because bishs have so much more to do in the game in comparison to an AM. They are not suppose to be top tier leechers with avarage effort. Skele hitting should be their end game like oblivion 4 is for ILs, 1300 magic is about how much it takes to 1h skele for bish and obv4 for IL right now as well. If now we need to work so hard to reach our end grinding goal, then bishes that can do so many things like bossing and low lvl leeching should work as hard to reach that end goal as well. Btw, ill say this as someone that doesn't own an FP, but i think that having IL and FP have the same magic after nerf is simply sad for that job, as they honestly only have petri to look forward to, but they need to work as hard as an IL, which pretty much means they are the wrong choice when it comes to making a mage (unless prices of IL stuff skyrocket, which im not seeing happening after the nerf).
Speaking for myself, if you consider a level 14x FP Archmage who doesn't even 1hko Petrifighters yet and a 10x soon to be IL Archmage endgame then yes, I am. Pretty ignorant lmao, I even posted a short video of my Archmage earlier in this thread. I'm far from a high level super endgame AM main. I have a level 200 underfunded bishop and I only sold leech near the beginning of my character's life. Near the end of my bishop's run (190-200) I didn't even NPC my equip inventory more than 10 times when I was duoing O2 to reach level 200. I was never in it for the money. I have nothing to gain from any of this. Edit: I liked a post that mentioned a bishop nerf, though I'm not going to actively support it.
I would approve of a parallel nerf, but yeah the whole LUK thing would cause giant upheavals and even if they gave 1 time used AP reset to mages, wand 6 would be useless which would be another big problem. I don't think it's really feasible to revert such a big change on this server, though I wish they would have kept the damage penalty to begin with. I agree, nerfing AM to the same magic would make FP completely useless compared to IL, lol. FP being cheaper doesn't make it balanced, it just supports the idea that it's worse because the demand is lower. But ultimately, I think the best thing to do at this point is not make any change. There is no need to nerf AM, when if anything, Bishop is the one who should have the nerf because of the ele wand thing. But, I think it's pretty fair to not do anything because any kind of nerfs would cause upheavel.
Tbh im starting to feel like the GMs are doing this to fight back the crazy inflation rates leechers have brought to the forefront ever since the mage update. If people will stop using their mages to make money out of thin air, then money prices will slow down a notch. If that's their goal, then it's a temporary fix for a growing problem of inflation that is only battled with the trade tax (that people avoid with scrolls and some times aprs). If supply of high lvl leech drops, and the demand stays, 2 things will happen, imidiate price increase for all the ones that can still sell, and a gradual increase of supplyers that can sell skele leech because it's worth it now, followed by a rebalance of prices that might just land where we are today. Still a lot of mages making money out of thin air, but now the mage is a bish instead of an AM. Nothing changed on that front. Either decrease the demand for leech (gl with that), or lower the amount of money people generate from NPC sales (which will create a mild deflation and every person that kept some money suddenly became a bit richer in terms of buying power). I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to solve this sort of problem without creating a 100 more, we need someone with a degree of ecconomics to give us a lecture on game currency.
also @FireHeart I don't think people here are trying to game the system to get crazy advantage, i think it's more of our idioligies of how to make the game enjoyable simply clash. And tbh even though I have a side, I really can't just write off most of the good points coming from the other side. If AMs deserve a nerf, i think it should be done asap. But I have a serious problem with how it's implimented as of right now, a full revert holds so many problems and is honestly feels slightly lazy to just say "lets revert because it wasn't that bad back then". Sure some things must have worked in the balance of back then, but at the same time, it doesn't mean it's ideal, we can learn from past mistakes and choose a far more logical middleground
Yeah...agree that solving 1 problem can easily create 100 more. Maybe I'll reread some arguments on the this thread, but Archmages are not the source of leeching. Nerfing archmages under this pretext just seems like it's using AM's as a scapegoat for the bigger problem which is inflation and leeching. Meanwhile, Bishops will get away scot-free and high level archmages might be even happier. Though it's probably not their true motives, at least subconciously it's impossible to deny people's opinions on a proposed nerf might be influenced by how it will affect their characters. As I've said before, Bishops, not AM's, should be the ones getting nerfs if anyone. Bishops are living the good life with no dmg penalty on ele wands while having a ton of other perks making them OP as other users such as Ayane have already mentioned in this thread. Making any change in this server is going to have problems. There are two things to balance: 1. Will it make the game better? 2. Will it make the server more popular? The problem is these two things often conflict, while the first one is highly subjective and the second one is hard to predict. 1. Even if people can agree on making the game better, any changes to the balance comes at the cost of degrading past achievements. 2. In terms of popularity, Royals differentiates itself from other private servers due to the long server uptime and oldschool. Players have a feeling of security that their hard work will be maintained because the server will stay vanilla and stay online. That's what's made it successful. Making changes could jeopardize the core value the server offers to players.
Ah very defensive post I see. If you read my post more calmly, I said "not to call them out, but aren't all three players end game Archmages?" Question mark. I wasn't sure. I got 2 of them right, but apparently not you as you actually have an end game Bishop and two future end game AMs with mad funding since you are a former GM and have multiple level 200s. Pretty close to an end game archmage in my opinion but yes... technically wrong. I'm pretty ignorant though, ok.... that was necessary. And, based off your situation, I'm going to disagree completely with you.. I think you have a lot to gain off of nerfing archmages, and here are a few reasons to back it up. Not only will this fight inflation, raise the value of your level 200 Bishops, but it will also reinforce the psychological value of your two AM characters. If you aren't in it for the money, at least you may feel more unique. As a veteran player it's very possible your position is weakened by the influx of wealth new players can gain from selling leech as AM. Raising the bar helps fight inflation and keep your status as a veteran player. As a level 200 Bishop, your character will become even more valuable if AM's are nerfed because Bishops will once again reign supreme, especially if Skele spawn is buffed. Though you are not currently an end game Archmage, you very soon could be as you have the money and I assume time based off your several levels 200s. You would benefit from AMs 1h magic nerfs for the reasons I previously mentioned--a feeling of being more unique and being able to charge higher prices for Petris But again, these are quite personal assumptions and it's arrogant of me for assume this is why you are acting. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying these might be influencing you subconsciously. Additionally in my post I say, "they have a lot to gain from nerfing Archmages 1H numbers, whether they have thought about it themselves or not".You may not think or realize you have something to gain from this, but I really think you do. But anyway, I think if anyone should get nerfed, it should be Bishops not Archmages. Bishops have much more utility, can actually participate in bosses, and most egregiously of all in the context of this disussion, don't get -25% damage penalties from Ele Wands as they should. I think you are using AM's as a scapegoat for current problems in the game. The leech meta you say you hate is only like this now because the game has been around for longer so the HP washing meta is more concrete.
I don’t really think there’s a need to single out anyone in this thread for the suggestions that they are making. Most suggestions here will benefit a particular group of players at the expense of others. In the end, the feedback section is really on suggesting changes that we think will really improve the experience of most players in the server. I’m confident that the admins have the server’s best interest in mind when making any changes. I am mostly on my bishop and AM, but I really feel that the server as a whole will benefit if less people rely on leeching to level up. At the moment, I still believe that a nerf on AM will not significantly improve the leehing situation, especially with that buff in skele spawns. Other initiatives such as reducing the need to hp wash, coming out with more training maps, or even adjusting party exp distribution will likely discourage leeching alot more effectively with or without the damage nerf on AMs. I like the idea of nerfing bishops over or together with AMs, if any. I may be wrong, but I think, a significant part of leeching is still sold by bishops as they are able to cover alot more levels in general. I agree that it is more obvious to nerf bishops than AMs in general. However, the damage nerf suggested will probably not stop bishops from selling leech too much since it won’t take much to 1hit anything up til wind raiders. Even with the damage penalty on wands and/or reduction of gene base atk, they will most likely be able to continue selling low level leech. Also even if bishops do not have enough damage to sell leeches, I foresee that AMs or other classes will be able to take over with a hs mule that CCs in between HS. Yes, it will make leeching more inefficient, but are there really better choices for leveling from lvl 75-135? All we are left with is just slower/more expensive (exp per mesos) in general.
Have they talked about the specific choice of why a full revert over a claculated nerf on the staff chat? Because right now, its the one thing im the most confused of. Im coming around to understand some of the reasons for why we should slow down AMs after many hours of thinking about it properly, but i still cannot see a blatent revert achieving any sort of balance. I think that in terms of a popularity contest right now, all mages have their strong points to fawn about. Bish has a pretty wide range of things to do, FP has the ability to kill petris before IL, and IL gets obv4 and an ok single target spell. While IL getting nerfed does make it less lucrative of a mage (more effort for the same benefits), FP is literally left with nothing to set himself apart from an IL, so either we keep the base magic differance of 20 to let them still be the petri kings, or find them another niche by buffing or changing one of their spells. Bish as things stand, will not be impacted (heck they get an indirect buff with skele), so its only natural that the only logical choice a person has while making a mage is a cleric. This class is overpopulated as is, as some people mentioned, the competition inside the bish community is big when it comes to bossing, and now this compitition will leak into the high lvl leech zone. Unless the bishes will get hit with a nerf as well i highly doubt we will see a balanced server in the upcoming months (i say that while having a bish). Choosing to revert instead of properly debating what kind of nerf we want is going to lead to many problems in the future
I agree with you. I'm guessing the main purpose is crippling leech as it stands. If you nerf AMs and buff skeles: - Bishops will prioritize selling skele/ulu leech over level 30-75 leech. - AMs will be very niche. The remaining AMs would likely focus on Petri and Ulu2. If this is about inflation, then this update is insignificant. Doesn't matter who provides it, leech creates inflation and if I'm being honest Petris is a lousy map if you're looking to farm npcables. If anything, when the nerf takes place and bishops are back at it again (them being a much larger proportion than mages) you'll probably see even more leech in a neverending cycle of new bishops resorting to provide leeching services in order to purchase they ever-price-increasing mastery books... Just to leech more efficiently. So yep, just as yuval stated. Decreasing the demand of leech in the early levels is easy: Buff PQs. However, demand in higher levels will not be reduced easily. Also, if you mess with it too much you'll find a lot of people quitting the server as manually grinding a bowmaster, night lord, sair or anything would take forever until 135. --------- What we NEED is some good, structured analysis every time they decide to change something. There has to be a purpose for any proposed changes and the impact it'll take on the player base, the economy, leeching, bossing, class balancing, QoL, etc. I don't mean to bash on @Eli but this thread doesn't take into consideration anything other than tma/leech requirements. I don't think she's wrong though, AMs can achieve endgame REALLY early and I also believe there's a negative impact in the economy and on Bishops. However, we're ignoring the endless potential a bishop has in every other aspect of the game vs. AMs so we can't just nerf the latter back to "wow, you're playing a il/fp mage...why tho? that's a waste of time' comments like I had in old source. Now... if this is about crippling leeching as I said earlier: - Nerf both or nerf HS and introduce viable methods of levelling up in the so called 'hell levels'. If this is about meso inflation: - Make equip drops really rare in commonly leeched high level maps. Force people go kill noob monsters for cravens, nisrocks and other level 100 items. Create a choice between money and exp.
That kind of future is super scary in my eyes, as its really easy to see it happening. If we'll look at the biggest flow of money in the market so far [excluding pure marketing] is the ebb and flow of leechers and attackers. While there's a lot of money movement inside the bubble of attackers (attack equips and weapons swap hands in exchange for scrolls and hard cash), money goes in a sort of an indirect cycle when it comes to bishs. They sell leech, that money comes from either an attacker that sells his drops, or someone that earns money from higher lvl leech. Then that money that reaches the bish's hands is added up together with the leech money to buy SBs or some other segnificant upgrade they can do to their build like an HTP and zhelm. In a world where the tax of exchang was equal or at least sightly close to inflation (i heard 3% is a magical number), then we'd be all good. But on our server we have 2 big problems: The rate at which a leecher earns money from NPC sales is crazy high, give me 10 good hours on ulu and i can earn a sizeable amount that would cause the people from the old GMS to instantly faint we made the loophole of being able to trade with items instead of getting taxed, and that item drops randomly from gachapon, both scrolls are the reason its so hard to drain the money away, imagine trying to trade on bitcoin in a world where mining never got more difficult with the time o-o.... so if leeching as it is goes on, money will naturally get out of hand. Not because leeching is cancer, but because everything related to handling currency in games is cancer... [P.S. i highly suggest watching a video called: "MMO Economies - Hyperinflation, Reserve Currencies & You! - Extra Credits", its one of a few episodes on the economics of games, and it's facinating how much of a pain it is to design such a thing, im not jealous of our GM team You can pretty much ignore the second half of the video though as it's impossible to pull off on our server, this server NEEDS donations, and buying NX when we can also print 8k NX daily and gain 5k tickets from bosses mean we have no alt. currency to lean on to]
A case for the Arch Mages I think it helps to understand Eli’s intention and reasoning by breaking down the original post. Eli’s reasons to remove the AM buff. The AMs' switch from being a niche class to being money-making class due to the ease of one hitting with minimum funding. Closing the gap for funding required by both mage classes to 1 hit prime leeching spots. Making it fairer for bishops who needs more magic and funding in order to one hit prime leeching spots. Increasing the requirement for AM to one hit Petris. Eli’s goals Restoring training maps to pre-buff status. Restoring as Arch Mages as a niche class. Reduce the amount of leech in the server by reducing the number of AMs capable of selling Petris by reversing the buff. Eli’s proposed solution Reverting AMs to pre-buff status. I believe the original intent behind the Arch Mages buff was to make them a more popular and viable class to play, as you can see here from a census from 2015 and 2017, f/p are one least played classes and i/l just slightly edging out shadowers in popularity. According to the census, the combined figure of AMs only makes out of 30% of the total number of mages in the server. With the buff, the number of players playing AMs has risen as seen in prices for elemental wand 5 has soared and demand for Meteor have increased. Genesis 20 books have dropped from 1.4b to 800m. I do understand some of the points with Eli’s brought up but I do not support the proposed debuff in order to reduce leeching, due to the following reasons. Not tackling the root cause of leeching Leeching existed in the official game, but not as prominently here. Due to the server’s 3.2x rate and ease of earning mesos from voting daily for nx, is not difficult for a new player to earn the funds to purchase leeching service here. Many training and class guide have a dedicated section for leeching training or a link to Plenty's leeching guide [1][2][3] (especially WS leech) as a viable training route. As many have said it in this thread, this debuff will not create any significant change in the status quo, as this mainly target the AM sellers who is within the affected range than the buyers. As long there is a steady supply of buyers is not affected, leeching will not go away. Revenue/Funding Eli’s has mentioned the higher funding and levels needed by bishop in order 1 hit prime and endgame leeching spots. As discussed in this thread, bishops already have an unchallenged monopoly over low and middle-level leeching spots. The going rate for most of them is currently 40/80m, which is the same rate as ulu 2. Unless funded, AMs can only stay in ulu 2 till they can achieve that magic number at 16x. So during times of low demand, it takes them as long as half an hour to find a buyer and just to attract buyers rates can go as low as 35/60m where else bishops can just move to another location. You may argue archmages can sell low-level leech too, however inviting and kicking your HS mule or changing channel or leave the map every 2 mins ruins your tempo. You don't see many bishop advertising telecasting, max speed/jump and mw10/20 at low-level spots when as compare to AMs at ulu 2. Furthermore, keeping the buff arguably brought the price of Genesis skill books down and bishops are not restricted to wand types. Lastly, bishop are the only mage class are that wanted in boss runs, not only they get to loot equips (Zak helm, almighty ring) for free but also get earnings from the sales of skill books and HTP/Helm/Ring services. Discrimination against AMs The proposed solution to reduce leeching only targets AMs who are within the range 1195 ~ 1220 magic range to 1 hit Petris. While at the same time buffing bishop endgame leech spots. Since demand was not affected at all by the proposed change, players will just look for skeles leech or pay a higher rate for Petris leech due to reducing the number of sellers. Alternatives In its current form, leeching is largely present in this range, 30 ~ 119/135. I feel there are more effective ways to reduce the amount of leeching in this server than a class debuff. Here are some solutions already proposed by the community. Buffing and improving current pq rewards, experience, and increasing/removing level cap. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Fixing CPQ. Introducing Lion Heart Castle or introducing a similar party based experience system. (Some have suggested applying this for Time of Temple quests) [1][2] Introduction of high-level party quest (Rex PQ, Dragon Rider PQ, Romeo and Juliet PQ and Nett's Pyramid) [1] An AFK timer, if a player is not attacking for more than 3 mins, the exp gain from party members will be reduced. [1][2] Restoring/buffing training maps. These solutions are more targeted to the buyers than the sellers, yes I know are some of these solutions are not very viable. However... I can't ignore there are players who support the proposed debuff but do not use the reason “to reducing leeching” in the server as the reason for it. If the majority of the community insist there needs to be a better balance between the mage classes and the only way to do it be a de-powering an AM’s ultimates, I am fine with it, however, if the latter then you are barking at the wrong tree.
A more accurate description for your number 3 would be increasing the barrier to get into high level grinding, making them more of a challenge again. The side effect being that it can slow down the frequency of top tier leech. My main goal in this isn't to reduce leeching as a whole. Unless my math is wrong, I believe that Archmages as a whole were more popular in 2015 than after their buffs in 2017 when looking at just the numbers of mage players (Bishops included). In 2015, 46% of all active mage players were Archmages and by 2017, this number had been reduced to 36%. It would be interesting to see the DB stats for all classes again now like how Kat showed us in 2015 but it's not really an accurate representation of current active players. Since my focus in this thread is on higher level training, I never really went into what I think is the most toxic form of leeching for the server. I personally believe that it's all leeching prior to Skeles/Petrifighters (Though that's not to say that I believe that everyone leeching at 105+ is healthiest option either) but I did say this in my first post: My suggestion is something to take in while also considering that we should expect that non leeching maps as a whole will get buffed and become better overall since it's pretty common knowledge that they're mostly complete crap right now. This thread was never meant to be taken as the end all solution for all of the grinding/leeching problems in MapleRoyals. It was meant to be a very specific suggestion to increase the barrier to get into endgame grinding while also acknowledging the fact that other things need to be done as well even though they're not this specific thread's focus. There is something that I failed to explicitly mention in my first post because I admittedly don't know how much of an impact that it has, but I didn't mean to suggest to revert the buff to Elemental Amplification that Archmages received along with their ultimate buffs. Hopefully this post can help to make clearer what my intentions in making this thread were.
Can somebody explain to me why it's fair to nerf AM's and not Bishops when Bishops are not properly receiving a -25% damage penalty on ele wands? Not to mention Bishops are still the most popular class in the game (as represented by skill book costs), have by far the best utility of any class in the game, and can boss while AM cannot? Bishop's HS is so good that for AM to be efficient, they have to make a priest mule and constantly multiclient which is an extra inconvenience. I understand not liking how fast AM can reach end game, but nerfing AM will kill the class for most players except those who already have high level AMs. Also, are you not considering Obv 4 to be part of end game? That comes pretty late. The real problem here is the progression of an AM seems too front loaded. Rather than nerf AMs into irrelevance, I think it'd be better to buff an aspect of AM's end game such as buffing ToT in a creative way or buffing Ele Staffs. As it stands, leveling an AM too much is actually detrimental because party exp share becomes worse for your leecher. Nerfing AM will make Bishop BY FAR the better option again. Additionally, if you equalize Blizzard and Meteor, then IL will be hands down better than FP due to freeze effect and Obv 4. Overall, a giant slap in the face to AMs, especially F/Ps.
I have a lvl 148 AM and i never sold/bought leech and i will never do it. FOR ME, it just makes no sense and who does it clearly misses the point of the game, also the fun factor. I think Bishops need to get the elemental wand 25% penalty, because they make AM redundant, and if it is not enough, getting Genesis nerfed too. They should have never had an AOE which can compared in terms of damage to the AM AOEs. Would be nice if AM could have a buff in the sinlge target attacks, so that they could be considered in boss runs, since there isn´t anything relevant to do in game for those classes.
I think it's about time we face the fact that not all classes can be equally good or balanced in a game that follows the direction of a common meta. If we had to talk about fairness in maplestory, it'd be a endless debate on almost every aspect of classes we have here. One major example is that shadowers can complain that their fellow thief class NL is "too good" in almost every situation, even mobbing while majority of shadowers are crippled in comparison, unable to be effective in HT although they are att class. But Nexon didn't do anything about it when they introduced these classes and nor can royals really change it. Nexon did change stuff in the end but that screwed up the game because everything became too powerful and easy. It would be fantastic if a balance can be found inbetween without ruining the game or the "nostalgia" that royals is trying to maintain which I dunno exactly what, but we both know that's not realistic at this point. If I had to choose between the 2, I'd choose the option that's less harmful to the server which is reverting archmages and making BS more powerful as the AM's blitz toward end game is having worse effects than what Bishop dominance in old source did. Although unfairness was clearly present between BS and AM in old source, I don't remember that causing much havoc.
On balance: I agree it would be fantastic if a balance between the fun of the game and nostalgia can be found. However, this is quite impossible because fun and nostalgia are subjective and qualitative. I think it's not fair for the staff to make large game balance changes without releasing a detailed analysis of what problems the change seek to address and fix, and why the change is important enough to compromise nostalgia. If staff are making changes while not at least putting as much time as players in analyzing the game, it really sucks for the players. Additionally, while we all may not agree, if they could at least make an effort to communicate their thought process between changes maybe we could have an easier time respecting their decision. On AM nerfs: I think Bishops completely dominating is more harmful than AM having a fast end game. This is because without AM leeching strength, there is absolutely no reason to pick AM resulting in less class diversity and ultimately less fun. From a nostalgia standpoint, Bishop's not receiving damage penalties on ele wands is not nostalgic nor is low level leeching (Bishops), so the V83 AM buffs should stay as a means of compensation for AM to keep the balance in check. Conclusion: Additionally, the only reason stated for nerfing AMs is simply to discourage leeching. If you ask me, it's better to tackle the source of the problem directly, leeching, rather than using AM nerfs as a scapegoat for growing weariness with the server and as a byproduct, killing the AM class completely. An example of tackling the problem, leeching, directly would be nerfing the source of leeching - HP washing. As you can see from the thread below, there is currently an ongoing discussion about it which has led to great results, as the next update supposedly will include ways for characters to gain a limited amount of max HP without HP washing. https://royals.ms/forum/threads/master-list-hp-washing-ap-reset-feedback.118864/ Overall, I think the nerf on AM is completely misguided and will wrongfully destroy a class while Bishop runs free with no damage penalty on ele wands. If the staff decides to make this change, it would take a well thought out, detailed staff analysis for me to make peace with it. Edit: I understand that Eli is now saying he wants to nerf AM to "add a challenge" rather than to discourage leeching. This is a guy who has like 6 level 200s and now wants more challenge. The flip side of this would be AMs an influx of new source players who made FPs would be hurt by the change and may quit, and Bishops would once again be the only real option for Mages. While I agree AM's end game is too frontloaded, I think a better solution would be buffing AM's end game in some way rather than nerfing them.
ok so there are a few things that bother me with this post... We both know Nexon had no idea how to balance their games, as they had to constantly spew out new content to keep people interested in their game, all they could do is keep moving forward while keeping the past features obsolete. For royals this is different, no "new content" needs to be made from scratch, they just need to impliment game features into the server, and at their own pace as well, leaving a lot of room for tweeks and changes. Just go for a second, and check all the past updates, they have done many changes to the balance of classes before, there is no reason to not attempt at achieving at least something resembling perfect imbalance on (the act of giving each class a niche that allows for a flowing meta, google it if you wanna look into it more) Of course there was no havok, there were no AM players to begin with other than the ones that made the mistake of making one, then reaching late game and realizing they sort of wasted their time on a dead job that can only pointlessly grind (no social or fanantial aspect for the class). The fact that no one was bothered by it was simply because it streamlined the entire mage class to being a bishop class and the rest, similar to how people look at paladins now, any person that doesn't have a paladin wouldn't really care if they aren't viable. The fact that you don't care that shadowers and palandins suck ass doesn't mean others who want to play them and not feel like they are training a begginer for the meme is an invalid feeling. The only thing that made IL super viable back then from the things i heard was that SI affected the casting speed of blizzard, which made them amazing at fast clearing. Now that this sort of edge is no longer a thing, and that bishs will get their maps buffed, AMs will be pushed so far into abscurity that i bet you even blizzard will be a trash SB by the end of this year. Now that you have a far greater group of AMs that are a big part of this server's ecconomy, this nerf will basically kill off hundreds of characters off the bat, it will create as much havoc as nerfing a second grade attacker to the ground, it won't blow up the server, but the ripples of this nerf will be felt long after the nerf will be issued. You are talking about the concept of a calculated nerf as if it's inevitable that whatever they'd do, the server will blow up instantly. They have the ability to reverse any nerf/buff they give in a matter of a day or two if things go out of hand and you know it. There is no crime in trying to find a solution that doesn't completely discriminate against a single group because of "the greater good"
I think it is best to just acknowledge that this nerf on AM and indirect buff on Bishops are inevitable. The page long opinions that pop up every few hours are based on your emotions and predictions. Wait till the update is out then evaluate the full effect of this coming update. The update is huge, other changes may affect leeching who knows? Be patient dudes and dudettes.
