Peanutz is the one saying to remove multi client, and again, I agree with it. But for now, not allowing SE mules is a must because that gives a huge advantage to some people and make it unfair to archer mains. And honestly it just ruins the whole point of old maple. as for the other part of your comment, I'm against leeching too, but, being reasonable, once more, for now I would just ask for a grinding spot. Those pure int characters can still get leeched because I'm pretty sure the server wont just remove leech system.
...Like I said, it's a bit of sacrifice that makes them valuable in the long run. I would make an archer if they abolished SE mules. I wouldn't care not being able to get into the zak with other character of mine to get a zhelm... If I knew I would be precious and wanted in party's later. The whole problem is solved with removing multi-client as a whole. But removing SE mules... it's a must
The whole "how will I wash my character without a mule to carry me to 135" is other problem. Multiclienting is a must if you want to wash your character otherwise you would just third party your multiclient to a guy selling you leech. In the end the mule is yourself. Multiclient atleast for me is nostalgic(lmao and it was against the TOS I think idk). I used to use multiple windows profiles to open a second character so I could sell stuff on FM while grinding(AFK shops were too expensive compared to the 90 day ones). However that was the extent I used the multiclient. Since I had to change windows profiles every time I needed to change chars it would not be reliable to use it as a buff mule. The thing is: even if the multiclient gets prohibited people will still do it with a second PC or some 3rd party software. I don't think the GMs can catch or ban this people. This would break a lot of things on this server, mainly bossing trios and Arch mage leech. Remembering that the server nerfed AFK looting. I don't know how that worked but maybe implement something among those lines?(Like, if the character does not act in X amount of time it gets disconnected idk)
I mained a Bowmaster back in the day, also create one here. In my opinion, Bowmaster is quite strong when there is no HP washing involved and multi-client wasn't a thing, due to their amazing pinning and 1v1 skill Hurricane, a wide variety of mobbings skills. high accuracy, useful summon and the ability to lure dangerous bosses away using Puppet. However, with those two features (HP washing, multi-client) being a heavy staple and core identity of this server. Archers have been left in the dust, which is great for classes such as Night Lord, who supposed to be a glass cannon class but thanks to HP washing, Shadow Shifter and to a certain extent Drain, they have been really strong. Even though, disabling multi-client might make archers valuable again, I am strongly against it as this will destroy already long time established playstyles, like Arch Mages + Priest, Bucc + Warrior, Heartstopper farming, client to client transfer for example. I rather help them in other ways such as... Adjusting HP formula/ Archer exclusive equips For me, when it comes to choosing an attacker to play in this server was cost and playstyle. Night Lord edges out for me due to the cost. For the equivalent sum to wash a NL, I would have gain more HP and have better damage than an archer (with the same buffs). I suggest making adjustments to the formula like allowing archer to take advantage of extra HP gain from using fresh level up AP or exclusive gear like a 2000 HP archer glove to reduce the burden of washing one. Adjusting skills Increase avoidability given by Focus and allow the skill Concentrate to be stackable with attack potion. For now, I am not a really a big supporter of buffing unnecessarily classes or attacks, as I fear it might lead to an arms race. Maybe more players who regularly plays archer can give their input in this.
Again, and again, and again, just remove the possibility to have SE mules, and only SE mules. At least, into a bossing map. thats it
And hp wash should not be allowed at all. Now that is, for a long time, ap resets should cost more nx, or, should at least, be a minimum hp cap that you can wash. That would be able to balance DrK on the meta. I personally love the fact that to be able to CWKPQ you need 1 each job. I know some people find it boring, and if the majority of the server thinks that way, keep things the way it is I guess... But I find it unfortunate and pity. The perfect party at HT is one bish washed NL's and a washed hero. right? or any kind of boss run. Should be 1 archer 1 thief (1 pirate) 1 warrior 1 mage. Nl's should need to be in a party with HB and SE and a bish to be able to deal their damage. The way it is makes NL to overpowered, and unbalances the rest of the jobs. Every job should complete each other, every job is good at their own way, remember this. The way it is, sucks
I just recently came back after ~5 years, so my opinion may not hold as much weight since a LOT of things have changed, but I have combed the forums extensively since my return to learn every little bit and piece of how this server has progressed. I also played a Marksman to 14x in 2014, before HT was barely a thing, and was one of the original advocates of the skill table upgrade to buff underused jobs back in the day. That being said, overbalancing causes homogenization of the classes. Each class should have valuable strengths and weaknesses that give them advantages/disadvantages in different situations. The keyword here being valuable. From what I can tell from reading and having played some endgame content, there are a few things that shake up the original "balance" of the classes here that must be taken into account when talking about custom buffs/nerfs to certain jobs. In my opinion, the top 3 are... HP Washing Leeching Mules Now barring something like a server wipe and large overhaul of the metagame of MapleRoyals, these 3 things are here to stay. They are available to everyone, efficient, and intertwined with one another, and have been so for too long to simply get rid of without a very large outcry from people who have invested heavily into this play style, and for good reason; they have put in the time and effort to achieve the luxury of playing as such. At the same time, people who do not invest in this style of play shouldn't feel worthless either; they're here for nostalgia, and for most people, none of this was prevalent back in the day for anybody but the top 10%. People don't want their entire class reduced to a naked alt that sat on a rope until it got its party buff and sits in the corner during boss fights. How do we combat this? I believe that all ranged classes should have higher DPS than all melee classes, due to their single target attacking nature and relative expense compared to melee when it comes to washing and end game gear. We're left with Bowmasters, Marksmen, Corsairs, and Night Lords. Nobody seems to be complaining about Corsairs since they must manage ship well to deal high DPS, pay much more attention in a fight and rely on a CD for maximum effectiveness, so we will leave them out of this discussion. The real debate seems to be "Why would I main an Archer when I could just main a Night Lord for cheaper cost, have better damage, and simultaneously get the benefit of having an Archer?" due to the above 3 bullets making all that feasible. Any balance changes made should be based on these 3 pillars of the meta and how we can equalize the power of that play style with the power of nostalgic gameplay. How do we accomplish this? HP Washing This is a pretty easy one to fix. Simply give Archers more HP on job advancement like we have implemented in the past so that they have comparable washing costs to a Night Lord for comparable levels of HP. Washing for ranged SHOULD be difficult for the luxury of having a high HP ranged class, but these costs shouldn't be higher for an Archer over a Night Lord for no good reason. Leeching Leeching is available to everyone who wishes to use it, whether by making an alt or having previous funds to buy it, and there is no advantage to leeching a Night Lord vs an Archer as they level up at the same rate and leeching costs are exactly the same. What leeching does do though is make it FAR easier to level an Archer to 4th job in order to make SE mules, which ties into my 3rd bullet. Leeching is not going anywhere anytime soon, and since there there is no direct advantage for either side, we will gloss over this for now and attack the problem at its source. Mules This problem is 2 fold; Archers have the lowest ranged DPS, with Marksman even having lower DPS than a couple melee classes. They also have arguably the most sought after buff in the game, Sharp Eyes, which leads people to simply leech mules to have access to the buff since bringing an Archer to attack is seen as a loss in overall party DPS. I think this is where MapleRoyals can get creative in balancing by doing more than just simply increasing percentages and causing classes to lose their sense of individuality. There are a lot of ways to do this and it really comes down to what is realistically possible and also respectful of nostalgia by keeping things as close to old MapleStory as possible. I think Archers SHOULD be the 3rd(BM)/4th(MM) highest DPS in the game, and I think Night Lords should still remain the top DPS. It (should) be balanced by Archers having an amazing party buff unlike the other ranged but also not the large gap we have currently that makes SE mules better in every way. Here are some ideas off the top of my head. Most of them revolve around small direct buffs and rewarding parties for bringing attacking Archers. Staff would have to pick which ones to implement and how, and I'm sure others have great ideas as well. Increase passive weapon attack gained from Bow Expert/Marksman Boost - More weapon attack means more damage. A background buff that doesn't change class mechanics in any way. Easy to implement. Short, sweet, simple. Increase power of Hurricane/Strafe - More damage on main attack means higher DPS. Same as above. Make Sharp Eyes give a monster debuff - SE now makes Archers put a debuff on the monster when attacking, making it more susceptible to critical strikes and increasing critical damage from all party members possessing the SE buff, equivalent to the current strength of SE. Lasts 10 seconds. Now if parties with mules want to keep their SE up, they will have to attack with AND hit the boss with their Archer every 10 sec. This also has the dual effects of making clearing mobs more important to overall party DPS as well as giving MM a slight buff at bosses like Zak/HT as they can use their superior mobbing ability to keep SE up more consistently on the boss when there are mobs blocking it. Give Sharp Eyes diminishing returns for the party based on the time since the last attack - This one is pretty spicy but hear me out. Each time an Archer casts SE, reduce the effectiveness of the buff on party members in correlation to how often the Archer is attacking. Using an example of 10 seconds, if the Archer hasn't attacked for 10 seconds, the strength of the SE it casts will be reduced by 1 level per 10 second increment. So after not attacking for 10 seconds, casting SE30 will buff the same as SE29, after 20 seconds SE28, after 30 seconds SE27, so on and so forth. Furthermore, the Archer must attack for the equivalent amount of time to return their SE to maximum level. Using the above example, if my Archer hasn't attacked for 50 seconds, his party SE is now at SE25 strength. If I attack for 10 seconds and recast SE, it will now be up to SE26, if I attack for 20 seconds and recast, it will be up to SE27, if I attack for 30 seconds and recast, SE28, so on and so forth. This system resets after every 2 minutes, so that the first SE cast on party is max. This means that Night Lords with mules will either have to play without max SE or deal with the unwieldy requirements to keep up max SE for themselves. Note that this would ONLY affect party members. Self cast SE would remain exactly the same and not affect the actual Archer player negatively. These are just some ideas that I think are a good equilibrium of nerfing mules, making Archers feel valuable, while not totally changing the current meta. I like that MapleRoyals goes out of its way to not only provide us the nostalgic experience, but also improve upon it, and I'd like to see where it goes. The last thing I want, however, is this:
Another reason why HP washing is a broken outdated game mechanic I've argued against time and time again
Yeah, but unrelated to the topic. The whole problem is the existence of multiclienting allow people to substituta a 4thArcher for a mule with SE and get more xp/money, making the search for MM/BM for bossing very small when you can log in to your personal SE any time.
Yes, I agree with your point above. Muling and HP washing are the bane of what makes Royals worse. However, admins will never prohibit multi-clienting since hundreds of players have invested time, money and RP into their mules, it would receive major flak. There are a ton of great things Royals could do better like other private servers, however people will not migrate simply because of their time spent here and the population. Balance-wise, I think MM/BM are in a "okay" spot, they need to tone Bucc numbers down a bit; but yeah, multi-clienting sucks balls.
If multi-client is really that bad, why are majority of the players using it? What's the point of enforcing this when majority of the players wants multi-client?
That's exactly our point. Since multi clienting is allowed every one and their mother will do it. Therefore, allowing the commodity of having a SE mule and removing the need to main an Archer class.
If the Admins somehow gonna disable SE mules for bossing maps, they have to do it for other mules as well - HS, HB, SI And what condition would you use to determine a mule? Inactive duration?
Supposed if we did implement this - only 1 client Are the bossers ready for no-mules at all? I feel the player population might drop cause of this, cause it would be more difficult to start boss runs
I speak for the generic population of my age. Adulting can be stressful. Finding a job is a must. To play is a privilege. Remove multi clienting and the whole server slows down...A LOT. Players WILL easily get bored watching their characters leeching lv1-120 without having the ability to multi task on another client. There's more obvious reasons why multi clienting will not and should not be removed. Back on topic, as for Archers in general, I do agree that their damage is low. But that doesn't mean archers should be buffed. I hate, absolutely hate the word 'buff'. Royals is much easier compared to the real thing. One should propose a nerf to other classes instead in order to balance things out properly. Every little buff we have is slowly creeping towards Big Bang - and that is a direction all of us who play this game wish not to be heading.
The only change I want for Archers is that they have equal or better HP washing and therefore equal or higher HP than Thieves. Unless it was changed, Archers should gain 16-20 per HP wash regardless of whether you put fresh AP into it or use AP resets to take from MP into HP. Thieves can gain 20-24 HP through every fresh AP and 16-20 HP using resets. Since Thieves have higher avoid from LUK and Shadow Shifter, I think it's only fair that Archers have their HP slightly buffed.
I did told you a lot of alternatives, like grinding spots. but yeah, I was hoping this would be pointless for some people. 'watching their characters leeching lv 1-200' yiiikes. Go read my shit bro... Also if you do think not allowing just only SE mules to get into boss maps solves this problem, you really dont care about it or you're happy about the current status. Probably you do play nightlord and you have your sharp eyes mule Because you really dont tell us nothing at all with your comment besides saying multi client makes the game easier. Lol. Have fun
With that attitude of yours, I don't feel like reading what you claim as 'my shit' anymore. Anyways, I hope you're able to suggest a decent code to the developers on how you differentiate an se mule and an actual BM. Indeed, you are right about 1 thing. I have zero inputs. I don't intend to say much with my comment other than to let everyone know that rebalancing can be done on a macro level rather than giving 1 specific class all the attention. Bro. Really...git gud.
It'll be nice to see more opinions and inputs from archer mains. So far, I personally haven't encountered any archer mains who complained about their position in the game.
