General General Feedback and Longevity of the Server

well, now that the hp quest level was lowered to 120, and the change that made it repeatable with no time restrictions until hitting the cap, i doubt i would've put as much base int on that MM, and instead just played normally with maybe a minimal amount of int.
people are just really lazy about playing the early game with their characters, i've grinded to 4th job without leeching on 5 characters already (4 of which were ironman, and 3 of them having high base int while lvling) to say that this is not an impossibly slow task like some players on this server may believe, especially that players that are less sadistic than me have access for far better items, and pqs/party grinding/mules.

This mentality is why so many people skip to 4th, and make this part of the game so deserted...

 

This "Ironman Marksman", was your first character? Were you aware of how the HP wash process works (so you didn't end messing up like me)? Did someone else help you with your wash during the way?

I'm pretty much overdoing it except I'm not doing Ironman. I'll do 300 base INT by Level 18x-19x. Tbh, leveling up isn't that hard you just need an active guild who can boss daily and you'll pretty much level up everyday or so. Besides the fact I messed up really bad my late wash, while it's doable it does take a long amount of time and resources. Are you really expecting that beginners and (most) unfunded players are willing to do this sacrifice to gain some extra MP? (in order to wash)
Most will say, "hell no, I just want to play the fucking game". HP washing isn't needed. It may be nostalgic and all, but it's a really bullshit mechanic that's more difficult than it should be. Why there is even a daily limit on the HP Quest? What justification is there to delay the HP gaining process (which is actually slow IMO) once per 24 hours? Also the location doesn't really help and why the rewards are randomized?

IMO, either buff the HP Quest (with a better HP reward vs time invested), remove the 24hr limit (indirect buff), or add another sidequest that rewards players with extraMP, so they can have more choices to wash, all of those unoptimal time-wise. But still better than what there is currently implemented.

 

I understand ur point, agree with it. Just to mention about farm, lv 2x have raged cape quest that can be sold for 20Mish, there are alot of maps/quest easy to farm that new player don't do and is easy to earn mesos

 

I think I stopped reading a few days back when feedback discussion de-railed to weird GM drama stuff - but I'd like to come back as a veteran who's been playing since the super early days of the server and say my piece.

I'm like a lot of others on MapleRoyals; what started as a dozen friends getting together and leveling into the 100's, grinding out content and aiming to fight bosses together had come to a sudden halt when they had learned that they had made their characters all wrong. You see, we had one friend who was a bishop who ended up fine but the rest of us? We had come to a roadblock in a lack of HP and damage. Almost none of us bar me and my brother were familiar with HP washing and were unaware at how important it would be. While my brother and I would continue playing and grinding several characters into the level 150~ range, the rest of us had dropped from Royals.

Our guild died, the meta had begun to change, and soon, the economy would begin to inflate in such a way that there was seemingly only ONE right way to fund your favorite classes - Being a bishop or selling AP Resets, meanwhile needing so many ourselves when we returned at level 100+

Because our original group had become so fragmented, my brother and I played on and off with only really each other. Unlike other old school servers, we found it very difficult to make friends in Royals in comparison. It was unlikely to organically meet anybody for PQ's as nobody did any, and attempting to grind exp with people was tough too. People were uninterested in grinding in parties as the only time you'd find people training is via leech, and when it came to bossing, there was such an emphasis on HP and damage that we begun understanding that even having access to the social content in the game came with a HP/meso paywall, as you wouldn't get recruited without being optimized to the meta. I literally did not find a new guild in this server until like, a month ago. (And I've been playing for a really long time!!)

While I was able to spend about a years worth of NX on making up for my missed HP washing on my main and favorite DrK, I'm still so behind on equips that I find myself asking nearly 7 years later "Why didn't I just start a bishop"

Seven years later I still don't want to have to create a bishop just to play the game.

Anyways, I've seen so many creative ways new servers have been bringing in new players; from progressive exp, no hp washing, bish rebuilding, ect. And it's clear that innovation is popular.

So as of now, I think a big change to the HP system is needed. I've seen so many creative ways to implement changes to divert away from such a centralized and linear meta on this thread and it's really made me hopeful. Most recently I saw a cool idea regarding making defense a useful stat on equipment to help as well. With so many passionate players and so many smart and inspiring ideas coming from the community I'm left wondering when a big solution will finally arrive, cause the current work-arounds to circumvent the HP crises has been negligible.

I think after this is worked on and AP resets stop becoming currency, looking at the over-inflated market might be worth a look too. Maybe with people being able to make DPS characters again, we'll see an increased price in 60% scrolls/skill books and other items, cause rn, nothing is worth anything except perfect items/end game items and cs/ws lol

 

From my point of view, what nobody says but we all deeply know that should happen in order to fix the game is a server wipe.

A new, better and stronger beginning that is supported in what experience tell us not to do/allow and what can be done a little bit better.

 

I see stories like these are very common when it comes to new players and this server. I strongly feel that gaining hp should be integrated more into the natural flow of the game such as through party quests, normal quests, and monster card drops and sets. Gear can be obtained over time by playing only one character but you can't really fix HP on a lot of classes if you don't know to HP wash from the beginning and that's a lot of traps that beginners fall into which is just really sad for the server.

 

Almost 2 months later, owner nor Admin hasn't responded LOL feels bad for the current players

 

Just curious about this question, what year you begin maple story?

 

I started playing Maplestory shortly before Ludibrium got released, I was eight or nine

 

just to know xD I begin in 2005 too, and wash was very used by my rich friend and most common after market update

 

yeah i was like, in elementary->middle school so nx gamecards were christmas gifts lmao

 

i never donated since i was a poor child, and i grew with hate with p2w games xD

 

I think most of the staff are in agreement with this to an extent and are gradually moving towards creating a set of gameplay content that would hopefully, in some unknown future, make the lack of HP washing a viable alternative. Aside from my qualms with how said content is implemented and integrated into the vanilla game, I see two issues with the current method.

The first is that over the past couple of years royals has inadvertently (intentionally?) filtered its own playerbase for only the most hardcore of players. By this I mean the changes (and lack of changes) are geared mostly towards keeping the hardcore players sated with changes that incentivize players to be more, invested, in the game they're playing. This.. plays... right into the many issues that plague the server as mentioned in the OP and by others due to the royals' newfound competitive nature, and influences how certain decisions are made, as discussed further below. Nothing personal to those who enjoy the grind and challenge, but royals was never made for the level of sweat gameplay we see today.

I dislike giving specific examples because they take away from the abstract point and make it seem like the listed examples are all there is to be fixed regarding a given issue, but as for how this came to be, aside from the obvious HP washing requirement, there's also the tiny things like smega drops, FM warps and money sinks to well-discussed issues like community gatekeeping, the extreme multiclient meta and widespread leeching. And of course, it's not like the hardcore players aren't regularly shafted by game changes themselves either, but that's not as relevant to the issue of HP washing. At least in theory anyway, because somehow it feels like the need to appease old-timers who have invested greatly into washing their characters vastly overshadows the desire to entertain the slient majority of new players who leave before they get their voices heard. Which leads me to my next point:

Too slow. From what little snippets we get to see of the staff's process however outdated it may be, let alone the very blatant fact that practically, HP washing is still not as "optional" as it has been advertised, regardless of whether things are heading in the right direction or not, you can tell that they have not been taking the issue as seriously as they should. That is not to say that they have not been spending possibly obscene amounts of time and effort into solving this issue, just that they aren't taking it as seriously as they should. It almost seems like the bait of extra HP is being used to push and dictate to the player how the game *should* be played, by the staff under the advice of "the community", than it is as a desperate attempt at close the wounds. As an aside, it's ironic how the suggestions meant to provide an alternative to hardcore minmaxing instead perverts the mechanic itself into yet another soulless minmaxing strategy. Though I do not see a way to escape this feedback loop myself.

There is this desire to connect with the playerbase and cause minimal controversy with a now justifiably passionate (read: tense and temperamental) community all with front row seats to this trainwreck we're about to be in, and seems to be the cause of all the bureaucracy that seems to surround every change the server makes, which themselves in theory should significantly reduce the risks and consequences of an action, but in practice completely ineffective, as you can't reasonably expect a handful of ivory tower GMs to recognize and fully or adequately comprehend the intricacies, dynamics and subtle complexities of every niche and mechanic involved in all aspects of the game. Also, like with infectious diseases, indicators such as market activity, daily votes or player count can be misleading in terms of the trends they imply. There's no guarantee that any changes made today or yesterday can even make a dent in the final outcome any longer, and this alone should be raising alarm bells, without considering the various other issues that threaten to doom royals to a death of a thousand cuts.

As for the brand of chemotherapy I recommend for this one issue, integrate more tightly the maxHP grind into the low-level grind itself, to the point that completing level-gated PQs or even killing mobs with >90% participation directly grants you extra HP based on an exponential backoff.
The base HP gain per action is greater at lower levels but the maxHP limit is also much lower. This makes continuous low level grinding more effective (and equips more viable) than just leeching until you get damage/mobbing skills then farming for all that maxHP at once.
Also take into account the player's job, current maxHP PLUS maxMP and base INT as a HP gain multiplier, such that HP/MP washing are not buffed by accident. Base INT wouldn't be needed here if only self kills give HP and not PQs.
The maxHP limit is controlled by the gain backoff, so the closer you are to it the lower the gain multiplier is. The limit is global and has no level-x cut-off, so unlike HP washing if you missed out on the mechanic for any reason you can still make use of it in later levels, as long as your maxHP is still considered low for a given level.
I might have missed some details such as for the max[HM]P increase skills, and there might be room for further simplification. Some other servers doing similar things bring mesos into the equation too. Overall, this lets new players gain the maxHP they need by just playing the damn game and discourages the leech meta for casuals without affecting the HP washers' playstyles in any significant way. "Nostalgia" is not impacted as everything involved is done automatically and behind the scenes, and still wouldn't be as game changing as event-only items or an all-original questline. Of course, this would go against this strange fascination the staff have with drip feeding HP to unwashed noobs (then turning around and talking about how they don't at all cater only to the hardcore players, of course)

Or trash the above and just buff the existing methods. Regardless of whether it is decided that maxHP must come from items and quests or otherwise, something needs to be done with practical HP farming methods to finally cross the critical threshold for viable bossing, not soon, but now.

tl;dr admins are dragging their asses with the implementation. everyone continues to hp wash.

 

hello from the other side.

ANY GM GONNA REPLY I'M CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT ADMIN/OWNER WOULD LIKE TO SAY HAHAHHAHHA

 

I tried to draw attention by quoting in shoutbox the last quote wast made by the last user at that time, only to my quote to be considered vulgar and rude and anyways it seems they don't have time to read or already did but don't care anyways.

 

Why y'all pretending like Staff haven't been actively participating in this discussion, starting with literally the first response of this thread lmao

 

In my view, here are the factors affecting longevity, at least for me:

1. HP Washing - I need not explain this issue as others have done it better than I can. This is the biggest challenge to new players who often learn around lv 90-110 that their NL/BM/MM are useless at bosses. The HP grinding quests get repetitive fast. I got 500 hp from daily grinds. It was brutal.

2. End of Fun Endgame Content - I was so burnt out from daily krex/zakum/pap/HT/Shao

3. Lack of Classes Variety - This is to remain competitive to other private servers. Look at the recent server that popped up and how many went over. We don't need Mercedes etc. I don't think Cyngus Knights/Aran would break the game. It would even stimulate the economy when some gears become more in demand.

4. Inexplicable Nerfs to Classic Content - MoN, Ellin Forest Ring/Earring - What is nostalgic about this? What is wrong with having stronger characters? What is wrong with having shorter boss runs?

5. High cost of CS/WS scrolls - If these are made more plentiful, the cost of gearing end-game characters would not be prohibitive! If these were more easily obtainable, it is likely that RWT would drop too as people no longer need to spend months and months saving NX to gear that perfect endgame +7 x 10% weapon/fs/bfc.

I am a cyclical player, I remember New Source breaking the game and made everything unplayable. Each time I left, it was mostly because of boredom and burnout from lack of new end-game content.