Hey all. I'm sure I need no further introduction of who I am, and today I intend to address a somewhat controversial topic in royals; its end game content. Background Ask anyone what their goal is in royals, and chances are they'd reply you something along the line of this: I'm making a nightlord with 400 int and I intend to wash it to 1xk-2xk hp to go bossing, like Horntail! The Situation Now, we know norms exist, and the norm now for a standard Horntail expedition consists of one main 6-man party. Yes there are exceptions, quads, trios, duos(?), heck even solos. And now, a breakdown of the party: A bishop mandatory due to the seduce mechanic in horntail, unless your dedicated seduce target is an extremely washed shadower, it is still safest to bring a bishop ensure the survival of it. That and getting more exp via Holy symbol is nice too. Ress is a get-out-of-jail card for any unfortunate soul who reached 0hp too. A dedicated seduce target. The norm is to get a melee class for this position, as they naturally have the highest hp growths in royals, making them innately tanky and able to survive the brutal seducing of horntail. Bonus points for utility skills which aid in the survival in ht, such as stance, Achilles, shadow shifter, meso guard. So who are we looking at here? All three of the warrior classes, buccaneers and shadowers! But Sean! Didn't you say that classes which have said utility skills make viable seduce targets, why weren't nightlords mentioned? Yes, nightlords can act as a seduce target, however... That would trade off losing valuable damage from a class which is known to do (arguably) the most single target damage. This leaves us with 4 more open slots in the party, for the attackers. The natural inclination is to pick classes which are able to: -Do the most damage consistently -Hit the various parts of horntail effectively. And what other class fits the bill the best, (in terms of sheer damage only),none other than nightlords! And let's not forget, nightlords need sharpeyes, so the last attacker slot would normally go to a BM/MM! Also, sairs belong in this category too but lets face it noone plays them kappa In summary, we have the party set! But let's look at the ratio of the party: 3 nls/sairs (ranged attackers) 1 SE class 1 sed 1 bishop Notice something here? Potentially half of the party is made of Nightlords. But more on that later. So why do people want to optimize bossing parties? It saves time. Horntail on its own is an extremely time demanding boss. Preheads can last from 15-30minutes, and the main body 40minutes-2hours+ if things start to go wrong (people die or disconnect). We are looking at a good 1 and a half hours just for an optimal good run, and that's excluding the time needed to gather attackers, make sure everyone is prepared, etc. All for a SINGLE run. So naturally with such a time demanding boss, people would cherry pick and be more selective in who they take to the run. With that being said, time to revisit the seduce target role... The Problem Remember when I said that people generally want an optimized bossing party? This involves having the melee class to be able to hit multiple targets in Horntail to gain the most efficiency. This means that out of the three warriors, only two; Dark knights and Heroes fall under this category, and most likely be picked over Pallies. The same can be said for Buccs and shads too. So where do they end up? Depending on the leader of the party, they might substitute one of the ranged attacker slots for them but at the end of the day, some efficiency will be lost. This is where the issue lies, that the melee slot for a 6-man party is so highly contested. Also, there is a second issue where NLs are always the highest in demand, making potentially half of a party. This puts a heavier emphasis on them. The Implications So people have complained that certain classes need buffs. Said class recently DID get buffs; But as long as other classes do not do as much/close to the damage of a Nightlord, chances are they will STILL be in the minority of a standard 6-man party. This is why Nightlords are currently the meta, they deal heavy damage, and the rest of the classes have been shoehorned into somewhat specific niches. So what does this mean? Noticed that everything mentioned here is only about one thing so far; Bossing, and specifically, Horntail. How can this Meta be adjusted? What can Royals do to help fix this NL-centric meta that we see today? How can people gain (decent) EXP at higher levels and be included in the endgame as well? The solution Royals needs more higher level maps for (party) grinding. This may involve bonus exp per party member added, but at the end of the day people need a way to get a gain a constant flow of experience in the higher levels, not just at Krex or Horntail. Now I believe more grind-centric maps have been proposed for future implementation, and this needs to happen in order to allow other multi target class to be able to gain a steady flow of exp, similar to Horntail. What royals needs is to move it's bossing-centred meta into a more diversed one, training included. This is how other classes can be more integrated and not be viewed as simple "mules". But Sean, people Horntail to earn mesos reee!1! No, they don't. Drop rate of books have been low as of recent times, AND there is a huge supply of the books from HT due to the fact many players can and frequently HT. Infact, I've heard people say they LOSE mesos due to Horntail. If you really want to earn mesos, you FARM at ulu/Hunt mini bosses for their loot or sell leech. Counterarguments Including new grinding maps won't make the other grindable classes more viable. Honestly I cannot guarantee that people will be into grinding. At the end of the day with Royals being such an old server, it has such a developed such a strong sense of culture, both good and bad. People just want to boss in the end. What I suggest just is an alternative to ensure the other classes have viability and still can maintain their niches and not be 1v1 DPS kings. Including Bonus EXP per party maps allows people will use their mules to fill the slots of the party. This could be circumvented by preventing any character which is NOT attacking to simply be unable to leech or considered in the party. (requires input on the devs from the game if this is possible) Closing thoughts and disclaimers I don't know how this feedback will be viewed, and whether people will agree with me, or this thread is going to derail and end in a pointless mess.(I hope it doesn't) I simply want to express what has been on my mind regarding recent events. I constantly see people asking for buffs for their classes which I feel is not the right direction for the server at all, what SHOULD be done is to potentially increase viability of all classes, which in return opens up diversity and a less "nl-centric" meta. Also, I did not involve any form of calculations for the initial Horntail party formation, as I truly believe that theoretical calculations and stats NEVER equate to reality, and I speak SOLELY base on experience and runs. I might be wrong and things might be inaccurate. With that being said, thank you for taking the time to read this whole chunk of text and PLEASE discuss in a civil way of what you think of what I have to say. TLDR In order to reduce the NL-centric meta, include other endgame grind maps to reduce the impact of endgame bosses, and to make other classes more viable. Cheers!
Many of the players in the community have tried to present these ideas in countless ways (including your exact suggestion), but the admins never showed more than a passing interest. While I do support your ideas, I'm generally pessimistic that this thread would make a change considering the countless feedback suggestions that came before you.
As I am aware. I'd like to first clarify that royals is in no way an unplayable state, so in the end the decision call has to be made by the higher ups whether they choose to implement end game grind maps. It's not like there's no way to gain experience as a non-meta class, this is simply an alleviation of it. Also, it cost's nothing to create good, proper feedback backed up with sensible reasoning. I did not come here to demand buffs or changes, but rather I'm here to propose improvements! (Which are fine if they are not implemented)
Nice thread. It's normal to want efficiency but this suggestion you're giving really does not fix the core problem - NL-centric meta. To fix the NL-centric problem, the game has to come to a point where the character creator has to make certain decisions that forces them to weigh and evaluate their choices rather than simply - I want the highest damage output. The decisions made by funded and non-funded players are likely to be different. Funded just wants the highest damage output, with little regard to the mesos that he/she needs to expend in order to achieve that goal. The less funded probably includes time and mesos in obtaining the same output. So since eventually a non-funded player will become funded, they'll likely create a night lord anyways. That's the problem right here. The NL-centric meta is caused by players not needing to think much about what is best in the long run. The fact that Night Lords have the HIGHEST damage to meso-spent ratio makes night lords a very favourable choice. I won't bother giving numbers here cuz it's obvious. I like your suggestion a lot. I do miss those days where I grinded hours with buddies in high level maps (even after big-bang, I grinded at oblivion road and LHC). But for your suggestion of diversification of gaining exp to actually work, the game needs to balance Night Lord specifically to a point where it does not, at one look, appeal to majority of the players out there. I gave suggestions of nerfing alchemist in order to decrease the damage/meso ratio but seems like the community of night lords are against my idea, although not by a landslide (it was roughly 45/55 ratio). I acknowledge that it IS a problem but I have no idea how to fix the NL-centric meta other than nerfing alchemist (or decreasing TT damage or SE effect which people will hate even more than nerfing alchemist). We just have to git gud mate. T-T To add on: Bringing in high level maps favour the multi target classes. In that sense, horntail will be even more bm/mm/NL centric. Just trying to look at things at the macro level
You're right. I suggested something equivalent to this about a year ago. I wholeheartedly agree to Shnang but I doubt anything like this will change. Ever.
People don't realize that a melee HT run is viable if you do it right. Im a Shadower myself, and we do hit multiple targets with high dmg, so the AoE at HT isn't an issue. This is a topic i discussed with a friend recently and he sent me this: So a 40-50 Minute main body run with 6 melee Attacker. Now add 10 Minutes because you'd usually have a bishop instead of a 6th attackers. That makes a 50-60minute run with a full melee party. A NL run takes the same time or more. Send the Buccs to kill the Legs / Tail. Once those are dead the melees split up: Single target DPS such as paladins and buccs go to head A AoE such as DrK's, Hero's and Shadowers to to the right side of HT. Now there are a few essential convieniences that lie in melee runs. 1. Easy to organize as you have a wide variety of classes available 2. No need for a BM/MM 3. If you decide to take a BM/MM with you and he or she dc's/dies it doesn't doom your run as it would in a NL run. 4. It's more fun i'd say What i also discussed with my friend that if he had more Paladins in this run they'd be way faster. So a party could potentially look like this: 1 Hero 1 Bishop 3 Paladins 1 Buccaneer Or 1 Shadower 2 Buccaneers 1 Paladin 1 Dark Knight 1 Bishop Or 1 Dark Knight 1 Hero 1 Paladin 1 BM/MM 1 Buccaneer 1 Bishop Feels refreshing and it's absolutely viable. So for those saying that melee runs aren't any good, i'd reply that they just just haven't seen or been to a good one yet. Rise up my paladin friends, you're the true HT kings lol.
+1 I wish everyone would stop complaining about an NL centric meta and instead play what they want and they will see they are still viable. refer to the above post. I also would like for end game grinding maps that generate exp, but also reward grinding w/ income at these maps as well.
The issue seems that people *think* NL is the only option so then it really becomes the only options because everyone is looking for and creating NLs. So we ban NLs for a month to make people notice that they are not staple in anything *its a joke* And honestly I think the biggest problem is that nobody is playing 10-120 since they are leeching because they don't have the patience or have 400int and cant hit for shit.
I feel like with update #59 it brought a hot fix to your "six man party syndrome" because Buccaneers, Shadowers and Paladins are viable enough and can replace Night Lords as "attackers". It's really how you work around and recruit for your party tbh. If you have a Buccaneer in your party, you'd probably want to pair up with a Paladin or any other class that benefits from Speed Infusion. I've been maining my Buccaneer the last ~3 months and majority of my parties did not consist of majority of Night Lords. I actually did a HT run the other day consisting of: Hero Buccaneer Shadower Night Lord Bow Master (disconnected at the start of main body) Bishop killing leg to finishing head A took around ~14minutes and we still managed to finish the main body in about ~50 minutes
Hey John, I really appreciate your input of your run, and this really helps! Yes bottom line at the end of the day, this line is the one which needs to be answered. It seems like if configured correctly, a party can do well with minimal NLs. I guess the mindset of people can be changed too (myself included).
excellent thread! I agree to the above and I think that simply changing the meta ourselves is the most realistic way. As you guys already pointed out, its most of the time that people think they have to do something aka picking NLs - just because its the way you should do it, not because it really actually makes more sense. So if everyone would start to pick more classes for boss parties then the meta will change by itself. While I would highly appreciate more high lvl grinding maps, I doubt that this would change anything for 2 reasons. a) I think most people do not like grinding. Maybe if there is a map, where monsters give you like 100k xp, this might change. But nevertheless I almost never see any significant amounts of people at normal maps, where people were grinding back in the days. People rather go to an incredibly boring krex run and fall asleep 4 times instead of grinding at different high lvl maps such as ToT or dragon valley and so on. Well , in return, those people tell me that they also fall asleep at those maps cause its just too boring for them. However, I agree that this might be biased since the amounts of xp gained from grinding in the same time is a lot lower. b) the optimization madness. People seem to be crazy to optimize every single aspect of the game instead of simply having fun (ok i admit it was always about godly gear somehow). Anyway, I doubt that giving more diversity will help here since people tend to choose the most op option in any online game you might think of. People just always want to be the strongest char in a game, just look at any other game, not only maple You could, implement "new" maps such as maybe lion castle or what not and make it equally good to content such as HT but this will make it even more boring, because then everything feels the same and this is what kills mmorpgs. ... I personally would love more diversity though, I think it would be wonderful to have more high lvl grinding, but I strongly doubt that we ever will see diverse bossing parties, including mages for example just for the luls. That just wont happen, because most people are rushing to lvl 200 as fast as possible. However, if we, ourselves start to change this by picking more diverse parties and not being so crazy about optimization (its a non PVP game in the end isnt it?), then maybe this changes by itself. In the end having more siverse parties will be more fun for everybody.
Although we haven't been looking too much into adding new high-level grinding maps, we have been trying to figure out ways to encourage party grinding and make it more rewarding. However, finding a solution that can work isn't very easy, especially finding one that doesn't indrectly make leeching even better. Here's an example of a possible solution we've been toying with, where essentially you'd gain extra EXP from other party member mob kills, if you are actively attacking and killing mobs yourself. - it's not been balanced nor properly tested for loopholes... but the idea itself seems to like it could work: Again, this is just an example of an idea, the EXP %'s have not been properly balanced. Additionally if anything like the above were to be implemented, it would likely be for a trial period just to see how it does, as there's always going to be things that we cannot really predict once it's in the hands of thousands of players. Figured I'd share the idea though, as I feel it relates to the issues mentioned in the thread and would be interested to know what people think.
I'd love an addition that would encourage party grinding in some way but keeps leeching where it is now. Today i grinded for about 2 hours with a friend of mine at Temple of Time: Oblivion 4. We spoke about various topics and didn't even realize how fast time passed by. It was refreshing to the alternative boss routines and also offered something valueable in return: EXP & Fun. I'd say that's what keeps one going after all. What im trying to say is that i really like the idea of a party grinding buff as people still would have time to speak and talk to each other both over voice chat or ingame chat and basically socialize at the same time while grinding their beloved characters. It's like you're sitting at a bar with your best friends talking about god and the world, or just fooling around. Even on trial, it would be a great to see this to happen. I support the idea of some kind of balanced EXP Boost. I don't support the idea of getting too 200 easily. It should still be an honorable and grindy task. I did some rough calculations today and got to the conclusion that level 1- to level 188 needs about the same EXP as level 188 to level 200. So basically once somebody hits lvl 188 his EXP Bar is at 50%~ towards level 200. I found that pretty amazing, i wonder if there is a exponential formula behind the EXP per level needed or if someone just thought of numbers each level. Anyways, please implement this on a trial!
Hi Matt, just would like to share some things that I have thought of so far: In order to combat leeching from mages, the monsters will need to have a considerable amount of HP so they cannot simply one shot, allowing the other classes to chip away and kill the monsters. Think about it as like mini bosses which grant exp. I don't think having bonus exp is necessarily a must, but a we can start off with a map with higher level monsters (like road to oblivion 4). Of course it is a must to have a level requirement before the map can be entered as well. Players seem to point their request to implementing Neo Tokyo. Perhaps this is a good chance to explore these maps and implement the endgame training maps here?
You could always make the mobs immune to all the elements. That way they dont have to over buff the health Neo City or the much better version Neo Tokoyo which only Japan got, were staple zones during this period of Maple. The high level zones were fantastic zones to compliment end game party grinding. Most of the mobs had enough health or immunities to most of the elements that the zones were strictly zones non mages had to train at. The zones in Neo Tokoyo included a area boss in each of the sub zone that were perfect compliments for Bowmasters or any Melee class to farm. I know Neo Tokoyo was suggest a long long time ago, and the general reception to it was extremely positive by all sorts of Royals players.
Except that would gimp pallies to oblivion I was thinking if you could possibly just disable the mage ultis in the map too
Honestly think the best solution is just large HP/Large EXP mobs, like LHC. Doesn't matter if you can hit 15 things if it takes 4-6 people a good amount of time to knock down each mob.
Going off of this idea, why not just buff individual kill EXP a certain % for each active (attacking every X seconds) party member. This removes any benefit/change to leeching but still gives incentive to party train in large groups (and not only that, but actively participate to earn the most exp for oneself rather than relying entirely on the mage(s) ultimate to provide the bulk of the EXP). Also reduces the desire to use things like a HS mule (bishop instead) because it'll remove 1 potential member worth of EXP boost.
