It actually isn't. My anecdotes had nothing to do with HP washing, which is why I started with "outside of whether HP washing is a good or bad mechanic." Instead, my anecdotes were regarding a tangential point offering an alternative solution. Based on the comments in this thread, it seems like a big problem people are struggling with is not being accepted to runs due to lack of HP. I was merely commenting that they could easily create their own runs, using my anecdotes as simple examples of people who have done it before. Ultimately, I don't think that the HP washing as a mechanic is unfair, mostly because I don't think it's intended for newcomers. Maple was designed as a social game, and the differences (such as in HP and buffing skills) between classes are essentially a mechanism for forced party play. I don't think it's lying to tell newcomers that HP washing isn't necessary because it really is a nice thing to have, but you can still play without it. Things might be more difficult, as people have mentioned, but in my mind, the ability to do something more easily vs. at all is the difference between luxury vs a need. For example, it is difficult to walk around without using a mount or scrolls or TP rocks or etc. Perhaps even impossible if you are low leveled (have you ever accidentally gotten into sleepy wood as a level 10-20 and tried to get out? scary stuff). But using those assistive items is a luxury, not a need. And in terms of having honest information available about HP washing — a brief perusal of the forums gives more than enough information for new people interested in playing the meta game to do their research. I think by definition, the desire to "future proof" your character means that you should have the self-awareness to do the research that is involved in that. To be fair, Neo Tokyo wasn't around when I was playing so I'm not sure how those bosses or mobs or whatever have altered the validity of my statement. And lol I don't know if Pink Bean will ever come out in the server lifespan of most of the players playing even today. I have seen entire generations of players with Pink Bean dreams come and go. I agree with @Kaeru that good game mechanics should reward players for excelling at the game, but I don't think that applies in this situation because HP washing is inherently working outside of the established game system. As you said, it involves calculations/mathematics that players shouldn't normally have access to. If you want to be super hardcore and beat the game, then yeah you can go for it and dive into a ton of prior research about the game, but it should be exorbitantly difficult. But that doesn't mean that A) the mechanism allowing you to go around the game is inherently wrong or that B) that mechanism should be available to everyone. Which appears to put us at an impasse because we seem to disagree pretty fundamentally on all of these points. That being said, I don't think Royals is particularly concerned on the HP washing point about whether players will continue to play here, and I generally feel like a hint should be taken from the fact that discussions about HP washing have literally been occurring here for more than half a decade with pretty much the same result.
Just my opinion on the matter based on my experience: I have a lvl 135 Corsair that I will eventually delete because I did not HP Wash it, so now playing from that point forward is a complete waste of time. If I started playing Royals again my strategy to play the game, AND EVERYONE SHOULD DO because of how the game works is: Create a Mage (I/L or F/P) and a lvl 80 priest for HS mule. -> I/L and F/P becuase of ele wands do a lot more dmg and can sell leech at a lower lvl at Petri. -> Once you got the money for equips, HP washing, and the strength to leech your attacker you can begin your real character, the one you were really gonna play from the beggining, but hey you can't play him yet cause it must have all AP on INT until lvl 135. SO ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE LVLed A MAGE TO 150-160, A PRIEST TO LVL 80 AND YOUR REAL CHARACTER TO 135-140, YOU CAN START PLAYING THE GAME. That's the con. The pro is that leeching, ap resets and washing are a GREAT part of Royals economy which is obviously important. My suggestion is to create something to replace the economy hole created by deleteing HP washing and create an amazing, long and fun quest for people to get their HP capped.
HP washing is not intended for new players yet it needs to be done early or permanently be unable to later. Luxury or need, the decision needs to be made early or remake. Look on the forums and all that stuffs about HP washing and having to remake their character, it baffles me how anyone think it’s good and fair mechanics that they remake and create the exact same character just to not be locked from certain content or experience convenience even if they are now high lvl and have mesos. So what if this server has higher rates than official, this whole idea is just bad and a huge waste of time. I can agree with you that some prior research is necessary for future proofing but not everyone dives into the forums and read guides the very moment they play. Especially not for a game as old as Maplestory that we played as a kid. The sheer amount of hp washing threads should tell us enough. It’s convenient to blame new players on their lack of self-awareness but seriously who thought they would be counting their excess mp and base INT and wear INT gear early in this game where you kill snails and mushrooms? Cut them some slack, the least we could do is paint them a realistic picture of the pros and cons of Washing instead of constantly instilling the idea that HP washing is not necessary. Let them decide what is necessary to their enjoyment (content, convenience, hp goals). I don’t agree with the whole “HP washing exist outside of the game system and thus don’t need to be good game design” argument. Back in the official servers perhaps, since it was an exploit the great company Nexon decided to keep for profits but we are now playing royals, a private server that decided to make HP washing a huge part of its game system. APRs are a big part of the market now, many people are washed and went through that shitty process, I dare say a huge part of forum activity is about HP washing. I don’t see any reason why it should be free from scrutiny here in royals. There were some changes to allow players to gain HP like dojo belt, MoN, Hp quest, GPQ medal, etc which I think is a great step forward, it shows that there is a possibility at least. My final point, is that constantly promoting the idea of HP washing being unnecessary, suggests that HP washing is not that important to the enjoyment of this game. It creates this impression that most of the players even veterans don’t think washing is that big of a deal. Let me ask then, how many of you would create your next character unwashed? Tbh I can already tell that most if not all avid supporters of “hp washing unnecessary” here have strong washed characters, so perhaps it is quite a rhetorical question. I myself would wash too. Suffer first and enjoy permanently later. Or perhaps if we introduce more hp gain methods at the later stage of the game (which is why we are here discussing).. If the benefits of washing is worth the cost and effort for most of us, why wouldn’t a new player who wants to play long term think the same? Not every new player wants to be an Ironman, R>HB, and have their eyes glued to the HP bar. Promoting a way of playing most of us don’t actually subscribe to is a huge cause for concern.
Assuming you're talking about old source maple (since you said you posted the same in 2017), it isn't a fair comparsion because: 1) it was easier to make friends, the game had more socalizing/grinding and the population was higher (had times with 2000+ on). You could also have 250 friends in bl and I had times when I had more than 30-40 online friends at that time. Now with less people and a 100 bl limit it's harder to organize runs with friends. Also after you quit for a while and come back a lot of your friends will quit already. Ht was also easier with no cancel or defense up, easier sed etc. You could beat it in 2 hours even with a party of new players at level 160. Now a party like this could take like 3 hours and will probably fail the run 2)Bosses needed a lot less HP. My BM with 7.5k could do daily Ht and tank all parts, and I could kill pretty much every boss without Hb except the boss in himes. Now with Ht hitting higher and a lot of new high damage content (shaolin, ninja castle, neo tokyo, scarlion etc) washing is a lot more important and common . In old source people usually washed to like 9-10k and nowadays most people are above 15k
Sorry, but that’s an incorrect assumption! I was actually part of one of the squads that helped figure out the newly active HT that does the things you describe, and I continued to HT’d 2x a day until like late 2018. But as I said, I admit I don’t know about Neo Tokyo since that’s the only new thing that came out after I quit. My comments are made from bossing extensively in both old and new source.
So did you HT with your washed or unwashed character? And did you recruit any unwashed people in your party?
As I said in my original post, I only HT'd with friends, some of whom had substantially lower HP than what's been mentioned in this thread. It's been a while, so I'm sorry that I can't give their exact HP. Depending on which friend it was and their HP level, usually that entailed their needing to stay up by head until legs/tail/wings were down and my needing to make sure their HB was in place at all times. It also meant coordinating such that Head B didn't fall below dispel percent until wings were down. Without BossHP, it was a little more difficult, but still more than doable. That being said, I also had friends on those same runs who washed to 30K and FJ'd through the head for fun. It was a mix. I HT'd on my Dark Knight, so the washing question isn't really applicable (my other attackers were all <155 at the time, and I was racing to 200 on my DrK at the time). While I'm writing this, it is occurring to me that perhaps my views on HP are different because of the fact that my main is a Dark Knight. Anyway, regarding recruitment of strangers... to be quite honest, we never recruited via smega, so I'm not quite sure how to answer that question. We almost always had enough people in our guild/friend groups who wanted to run both runs, especially because we ran with literally the same people every day. When we didn't, we just didn't run. Though, I guess an equivalent of recruiting would be pulling in a friend with just-survivable HP when we were down one of our usual participants, which we often did. In fact, knowing that one of those friends was really busy and usually didn't have time to boss, we actively went out of our way to leave space for them just in case they could run and would ask them nearly every day. As long as they had enough HP with HB (like could actually theoretically survive), either knew or was willing to learn how to survive, and was willing to apple & stopper like everyone else, they were more than welcome on any runs that I hosted.
y'all get hella deja vu seeing hp washing threads on the front of the feedback section all the time too or is that just me
Exactly my point. I've leveled an outlaw to 9X with base INT of 50 and items with 50+ INT and that's not enough! Training becomes pain because I can barely K/B HH with stopper. If I don't leech, I'll be leveling him up to 135 in a year and even so, I'll barely have 9k HP @135. Even if someone is in favour of washing, bear in mind that the money you've spent on resets does not get refunded in any way. If you buy equips, you can always sell them back but spending 10b on washing does not give you anything back besides being able to survive high damage. Keep in mind that people do need to buy equipment to be able to boss efficiently which also costs quite a lot. So creating a character requires 20b+? That's actually insane...
Why are u complaining just create a mage and do 8 hour shifts of leech 5 days a week and you are good. Spoiler I'm being sarcastic please don't take this seriously
Nahhh how dare you try to wash your first attacker, hp washing is a luxury not something noobs are allowed to even think about or plan ahead of time. Training is a pain but why did you capitalise on an exploit every other veteran is doing? Did you know HP wAshInG is n0T coMpulsORy in this server? You should be content your unwashed attacker is non-meta cause at least you can do Zakum (oh yeah check out those solid 8 arms..oh wait now you’re dead cuz who said you could take your eyes off the HP bar), and keep playing it till the point of regret and no return, that’s how the server orientates new players. Lastly, it will be hard to miss but try to ignore all the Hp washing threads on Help section saying their character is screwed and they need to remake. Don’t let these sheeps tell you what to do, have pride in being unwashed, bosses are overrated anyways /s
I haven't read through everything in this thread because well, too long. That said, why not just add max HP as a reward to already existing quests? Pros: Don't need to delete / can play your first character (doesn't have to be a mage!) Removes the necessity of having to leech lvl 1-135 Leech will still be relevant for lazy people during the later levels Make quests great again, Maplestory is all about adventure and making quests worth it would bring that back Isn't abuse-able by cheaters because unlike the HP quest items, this solution is not farm-able. Cons: I don't see any. Present some cons and I will update this post. This is a simple solution that would not only remove a toxic game mechanic, but it would also make this game much more enjoyable.
I'm sad that no one proposed to rework Hyper Body in a way that it will be helpful to the party #DKMattersToo
If you are afraid that hackers can abuse the HP quests to gain HP, then make the Level requirement high, like 135+, because only high level unwashed players have demands for gaining HP at late game.
Hackers gaining more HP doesn't matter cause they can already abuse the game to no end. What's important is that the items won't be farmable and tradeable, cause then hackers can sell these items as well
Yea something like that Example of buffing HB - Immune to Dispel - More HP MP % boost - Wider buff range Cause I feel adding more HP is just making Dark Knight less needed Hyper Body is a great skill but isn't valued much
More hp mp % boost is the only change I really like out of these. In particular, I really dislike dispel immunity. That said, I think that a very expensive nx item (so costs same resource as apr and priced as such to be more expensive than standard washing in almost all situations) which adds max hp is the simplest solution.
