Just had an idea to share, which I believe would give a lot of players an incentive to use the ship to Orbis and back to Ellinia like the good old days. It also extends the end game as well. Buff both Crimson Balrog to 700m HP, Increased damage and possibly add new debuffs. Put Chaos Scroll or White scroll and other desired items in the drop table as the main incentive. Thought it was interesting concept since you basically need to kill the Crimson Balrogs in time before arriving to destination, so it encourage players to party up and try to kill it in time.
Good idea for a buff, but a slight buff is enough ... I think new players would love to experience killing barlogs too, so make it slightly more difficult but not impossible for them to do it ...
Yeah I agreed, the boat with balrogs is one of the most memorial thing back in the old maple when people actually used it. It’s a shame nobody cares for it out of inconvenience
I think if they had that much HP they'd be quite tough tedious to kill since they fly around. Also with their 4k magic attack already it'd make it tough for the squishier classes. I don't buy fast travel tickets very often so I kill them whenever they spawn but at the moment none of their drops can really be split so it's better to solo them.
Good idea, but the downside comes to those that wish to skip the ship out of convenience. This would mean that they would be missing out on a money worthy content. Teleport rocks spoiled a lot of people and thus prevent some of the features in the game to be overlooked. Pretty unfortunate if you ask me.
700m HP is too much for a boss on a 10 minute boat ride, and it takes 1-2 minutes for them to spawn. Just increase the chance they spawn per ship or buff the drops if you want to give an incentive to kill them. As it is, the Orbis-Ellinia ship only leaves every 15 minutes, with a 4 minute window to board. If you try to board at 10:29, you have to wait until 10:40 until you can board again, 10:45 until it departs, and then at about 10:46 you have a chance to fight crogs. If they don't show up, you have to board the boat again at 10:55 for another chance. Rinse & repeat. Otherwise, a small reward for taking the ship instead of fast-traveling could work, but I'm not sure what would be good. (Even if it's just something aimed at new players who can't afford fast travel yet.) Maybe remove the ticket price at least? The fast-travel tickets and TP rocks are already a bigger meso sink.
I do agree that the rewards need to be tweaked, but I think the general idea itself is good. Those that miss out miss out. Those that wish to choose convenience can keep their convenience, but those that wish to use a feature that is in the game should be rewarded. Perhaps 25~30 mil per run would be a good amount? Balrogs also do not summon every time, so maybe make it a guaranteed probability for the balrog to appear.
Yeah I agree, the 700m hp is just a random large number I just put in order to coincide with the idea of a buffed balrog. It'll be nice if they can make it at least challenging and rewarding, but not impossible lol
I take boats already cause i cant afford fast travel on all chars. I would like at least some part of royals to be nostalgic. this would just feel like a bigbang style change.
I believe you're taking the boat as you said, because you can not afford fast travel rather than the reason of nostalgia. I don't really think the current situation with the ship has much nostalgic value to it, otherwise it wouldn't be so dead. Aesthetically nothing will really change, aside from the C.Balrogs being buffed, so the visual nostalgia will still be there. I also would like to argue that this buff is the opposite of a bigbang style change, as powerful equipment is more accessible and affordable, also with leveling being 3.2x faster, one-hitting C.balrogs is now the norm - or at least killing it within seconds. Point is, one hitting bosses or killing bosses within seconds corresponds very closely with post-bigbang gameplay.
I believe that if you want to buff his HP, it should be in the range where a single character can kill it in the time they have on the ship. Splitting drops between a group of individuals that boarded the same ship is very hard considering ANYONE can just come on the ship and decide to attack the boss. This is not a raid like krex where a party comes together and agree to kill a boss and split, it's a public place with no map ownership. Also I fear that if the rewards will get buffed, in any case where two people who want to kill balrog board the same ship, drama can become an issue. Just look at lyka, not too long ago they removed CS from it because of how much drama was caused from lyka campers and their interactions with random people who wanted to hunt lyka. Map ownership cannot even play a role in helping to decide who gets to kill the boss, as its the first one who hits the boss, not the first person to go aboard the ship. Imagine just two people standing on the wing, waiting for the moment the boss spawns, hitting it then spamming ~mapowner and "CC PLZ"... With all these issues, I'm unsure if making balrog vastly more interesting and threatning is worth the risks that may follow from trying to make him a serious area boss fight with crazy rewards. I believe that even a little increase like 10 times the HP, and higher chance for 5k nx will be enough to see people riding the boats just to find him.
