To those who've quit: What would make you come back?

[FrozNlite]

Spoiler

1. Get rid of potential OR use 1line potential only OR use the Nebulite system exclusively.
2. Revamp existing classes to have a purpose other than just different variations of dealing damage.
3. Give us the option of Permanent NX.
4. Allow NX to be put into the storage OR get rid of exclusive cash shop inventories.
5. Change bosses so that they are difficult rather than annoying (no "fake-difficulty" gimmicks like damage reflect or super weapon/magic defense).
6. Allow no instanced boss to be soloable (statistically or coded-limitation).
7. Bring back the story book quests for getting 4th job skills and get rid of Mystery Mastery books (and allow us to continue the story book quests to bring master levels from 10 to 20 and 20 to 30).
8. Add a variety to monsters rather than just normal mob and party play (plentiful but low exp per mob VS scarce but super powerful and lots of exp VS super boss monsters that take 10 minutes to kill with a full party but give 30mins worth of exp).
9. Change Monster Park into PQs with something to do other than "kill, move to next map, kill, move to next map, kill" (an idea would be to make them into 10-20 map dungeons or mazes and wander around until you find keys/items to move to different areas you couldn't pass through before).
10. Add more guild PQs / bring back Sharenian + new ones. Give us a way to increase GP.

A lot of these, but the biggest being:

1. Eliminating potential/Nebulite systems.
2. Revamping pretty much the entire game so it's not a grind fest but something with multiple options of enjoyable content for ANY level (big focus on end-game Lv. 200 content).

Obviously there are a million specific things that together would satisfy that second, but I think it's important to highlight just how horrendous the potential systems have been for the game. The fundamental ideas were neat and a welcome return to actually using level gear instead of everyone vying for BWGs, FS, etc., but the financial requirements to even use it, in addition to how wildly out of control the bonuses have gotten, have rendered it game breaking.

In short, I want the game we had back in 2007-2008. There was something more brilliantly fun in the simpler systems of those years. However, there have definitely been a few changes since that were necessary and should remain, such as the ATT/MATK formula overhauls putting every class on the same formula, and various little things like Elemental Reset for Magicians.

All that being said, however, it's been two years since I quit and I would never come back, even with all the aforementioned changes, because I just don't have the time for it anymore.

[Throes]

1. A guarantee that my account information is truly secure and there is no possibility of my account being compromised whatsoever.

1a.Restoration of items, mesos, exp, etc. to those whose accounts were/are compromised by means beyond the account owner's control (i.e. database breach), and a new policy to do the same to individuals in the future who have their accounts compromised in such a manner.

In short, better account security.

Really, this is the primary thing keeping me away from the game right now (besides League of Legends.) I do not want to be anxious every time I log into my account worrying that some random meso seller overseas has obtained my information through some internet hocus-pocus and cleaned my account of everything I have worked for. Until Nexon can promise this, I will continue to stay away from MapleStory and every other game they manage.

[Onion Knight]

Things that'd definitely make me log on more often (probably have already been mentioned but...):

- More meaningful things to do for all level ranges. Everything bar quests and traits can be done by an NX buyer quicker, and some of the benefits of maxed traits which take a minimum of 6 months for the non-exploitable ones are ploughed over with money too (Insight's free mags for instance).

- Account security. I don't want to lose my hard earned progress out of the blue through no fault of my own, why bother continuing to upgrade if it can just be taken away from me.

- A revamped or improved FM system. I don't want to have to pit myself against the entire server in an easily manipulated and unmoderated archaic FM system where hackers rule supreme and can inflate or deflate commodities on a whim, just to scrape by on upgrades and still be considered weak.

- A community at large that wasn't so...I don't know, distant. In parties I don't feel like a member, but an easily replaceable tool to other people's ends.

Random asides:

- There's an odd "middle-class" effect going on in Maple due to the lack of content, where you're either too powerful to party with the majority of people without making them feel bad about their equips (this bothers me okay) or stealing "their" EXP making them less likely to party with you, or too weak to be taken seriously by the "elites" who ultimately run the show at end-game bosses and already have an overflowing number of kids who bought all their perfect equips or something likely desperate for runs. There's very little you can actually do at this level of power in-game in terms of meaningful stuff.

- In the FM, regular non-NX players who don't play the grubby merchant game must pit themselves against each other to scrounge leftover mesos from the professions system, Nebulite boxes or some other means of making money. They may make 1 billion mesos in a month if they're good. 1 billion mesos can be bought with less than 2 hours of minimum wage labour (as you are so kindly reminded every 5 minutes), and you spent a month getting it. This discrepancy is ridiculous.

All a pipedream of course.

[Onion Knight]

Double post.

[byakugan]

tl;dr

It's been like 2 months since I quit. I gotta say that, despite it feeling good having more free time to do other stuff without MS, I actually miss it. but after I got hacked I found myself in a pit too deep for it to be worth climbing back out. Problem is, I don't have hundreds to spend on NX, and despite it not being necessary to spend NX and it being more healthy not to mind whatever other players do, I'm the kind of person that likes to set goals, work hard, achieve them and feel good. I like to tune up my char and make it stronger, but in today's game conditions, that would take either hacking or spending NX, and I'm willing to do neither of them.

For me to come back 2 things should be ensured:

1 - The economy has to be fixed or highly restored. Maybe to a proportion of 1/10 of what it is right now, but since I know it is actually benefical to Nexon business strategy, I doubt this will ever happen (for their own demise)

2 - Nexon has to keep a close eye over the game so that they can fix bugs and loopholes before they can get abused, aswell as keep hackers in as low of number as possible. This can be achieved hiring more manpower.

As simple as this.

[Mandalay]

I haven't quit but still...

The biggest thing that would make me come back if I quit is events that don't give out expiring, untradeable pomegranate. No, I don't want to collect 20 of each item to get an expiring chair, belt, face accessory, whatever. pineapple you. Give me events actually worth doing with items worth keeping that don't require kill x mobs and get y items everyday! pineapple you.

More expedition bosses. Why is there such a huge gap between VL/PB and Empress anyway?

An incentive for level 200 such as a level 200 exclusive boss or a PQ. I got incredibly bored of being 200 less than half a week later...I still do the same crap (boss, sell drops, afk) I did at 170 that I do at 200.

Their piece of pomegranate account security. The website isn't even https ffs. I used to wake up each morning wondering if that was the day I get hacked.

GM's who actually play the game and patrol it.

[Spoon]

Make cubes drop. All that I want to see happening.

[Stereo]

Either make all classes share the same cash shop inventory, or at the least, let us buy permanent items again.

All having separate inventories does, is discourage me from ever buying NX equips.

[Balrog]

Nothing, because Nexon can't fix the damage that's been done.

They've tried so many times, and while it isn't beyond fixable, it would take years for them to reverse all of the damage they've done while making the game good again.

I'll stick with RuneScape and World of Warcraft from now on.

Edit: In fact, I like to look at all the new updates and laugh at how broken/pathetic they are.

[bast963]

Nothing, because Nexon can't fix the damage that's been done.

They've tried so many times, and while it isn't beyond fixable, it would take years for them to reverse all of the damage they've done while making the game good again.

I'll stick with RuneScape and World of Warcraft from now on.

Edit: In fact, I like to look at all the new updates and laugh at how broken/pathetic they are.

I'm in the same boat.
Except I can't afford WoW yet.

[Bremze]

I wouldn't care that without sinking tons of money or devoting my life to the game my characters will maybe reach a fraction of the power compared to those who do, if the base game itself would be fun instead of a progress quest. The PvP content is so minor that I don't mind selling power when I can play at my own pace. But when the game comes down to increasing numbers, selling power crushes the whole illusion of fun.

Give pots around a 1min cooldown, remove all hitscan(I'm not sure that's the right term) attacks from monsters, add several more attacks to every monster that have differing properties and either remove touch damage or give every class utility skills to avoid touch damage.
Give all classes more active skills at every job especially ones that have utility instead of straight damage, make utility skills worth using. And make the different classes have distinct mechanics instead of just being nearly palette swaps.
Make all boss fights dynamic and interesting instead of standing in place spamming skills and pots with brief interruptions. Damage zones, movement etc. in combination with pot cooldowns would make low level boss fights actually interesting.
Award the majority of exp to level for quests and instances instead of grind. Or even better: steal dynamic quests from GW2.

I'll probably come back once a while after the Justice patch comes out because juggling 4-5 attack skills on my shadower is actually kinda fun, it's that grinding for hours to progress on to grinding different things for hours just doesn't get me particularly excited.

[Dystopiq]

I'm just going to quote Eos:

I play an MMO to play with other people. If I wanted to play alone /* And if you're not as strong as the cheaters, you are alone unless you have something truly awesome you can bring to a party or the time and patience to try to find the 2% of the population that are intelligent, mature and friendly. It's all about what you can do for other players, not about who you are or how nice you are, or anything else, just greed greed greed. */ , I'd play one of my single player games. What was fun for me is doing all the stuff that no longer exists.

I don't like the people Maple currently attracts and caters to. It's too much time and effort to find the people who are decent human beings just to play a game that has nothing worth re-doing. The game isn't fun, both due to lack of content, lack of play diversity, and lack of people worth knowing. Therefore I don't play.

Fix this. Either remove Pay to Win items or make them available in game as drops or quest/raid/PQ rewards, then I'll come back.

[Five Second Pose]

I sense sheer hopelessness, and I'm near that point myself. Only things keeping me attached are good memories, but they are fading fast.

Rick hasn't played in a while.

As for me it would probably be a complete restoration of every single item and meso I lost, all the NX the hacker spent, and compensation for being autobanned for a month prior to being hacked. Oh, and compensation for pomegranatety Nexon security.

[Dystopiq]

Rick hasn't played in a while.

As for me it would probably be a complete restoration of every single item I lost, all the NX the hacker spent, and compensation for being autobanned for a month prior to being hacked. Oh, and compensation for pomegranatety Nexon security.

I cried manly tears, Ray!

[Chew]

2. Revamp existing classes to have a purpose other than just different variations of dealing damage.

I believe everything comes down to this.
Now is all about the freaking damage, there's no fun in this.
There's no a "real" interaction between people now. The only way people get together is just to kill a major boss or PPZ (Party Play Zone), other than that... nothing.

[KhainiWest]

Now that I'm more awake I can elaborate.

1) The game cannot be fixed even with combing through every exploit/exploiter. It's become such a standard of gameplay it's unreasonable to ban everyone that has touched the wrong white scroll. It's too complicated to sort it, give amnesty to specific circumstances and isn't worth the time. It's better to just completely wipe every goddamn player that exists.

2) Take away the cube function unless there is a reasonable way to get them by in game means. This system is utterly destroying any balance towards any character. I can tolerate things like pam songs every few months, or even protection scrolls, but cubes is just a necessity and that's wrong.

3) Security is one thing no company can gurrantee, but they all can gurrantee action and compensation. I want to see results that are quick, reasonable, and fair. Restoring a character is anything but unreasonable.

4) Actually do maitenance. Bosses fixed, glitched quests, retarded crashes and unnecessary lag gone. A game of this simplicity should not take more than twice what skyrim does.

5) Permanent NX varients. I don't care if I pay triple the price.

6) When I start seeing content outside of revamping the same classes to compensate the last broken one released, and the next one coming up shortly.

7) Proper GM presense. I don't care if they don't talk and hide in a tree for the rest of their lives. We need someone to regulate the game with power beyond words or exiling someone. Even if he just warns player that would have a great impact on the community.

I know I won't be coming back because none of this will happen.

[Seanny]

Give pots around a 1min cooldown, remove all hitscan(I'm not sure that's the right term) attacks from monsters, add several more attacks to every monster that have differing properties and either remove touch damage or give every class utility skills to avoid touch damage.
Give all classes more active skills at every job especially ones that have utility instead of straight damage, make utility skills worth using. And make the different classes have distinct mechanics instead of just being nearly palette swaps.
Make all boss fights dynamic and interesting instead of standing in place spamming skills and pots with brief interruptions. Damage zones, movement etc. in combination with pot cooldowns would make low level boss fights actually interesting.

All of this. Maple's active gameplay was unique for a MMO back when it released in a market full of point-and clickers. But now there's a lot more games simply outdoing its simplistic gameplay and doing it much better. Tera, DFO, Elsword, Grand Chase, LaTale, Lunia, Dragonica and so on.

do you mean auto-aim/no miss attacks btw? @ hitscan

Touch damage is dead. Give me gameplay that makes me appreciate good party members, not just for their attack stat. I want to have a warrior rush mobs into a corner, then appreciate a Thief's smokescreen right as we start attacking so that the mob doesn't wipe us out from attacking us all at once.

1 min cooldown seems a bit long, unless damage was being scaled down to suit so squishier players could take more.

Aside from that MAJOR change (which i admit would never happen because a lot of people like MS cause others are just too hard for them). I'd definitely be more willing to come back if meso exploits were better controlled. the inflation is so bad the only way to get anywhere is to sell already highly demanded items... anything the average F2P player can loot is crap by comparison, its not just 'a challenge' its just plain NOT FUN. Merchanting is crock: how bad is your game balanced when you don't hunt drops from MOBS, but you do so in FM just because the odds are better? That's pathetic.

I also need to see lower prices on utility items such as pets/shops and auto-looting. Too many other games offer the same for much less. This game is too expensive for the dumbest crap.

[Chew]

I also need to see lower prices on utility items such as pets/shops and auto-looting. Too many other games offer the same for much less. This game is too expensive for the dumbest crap.

The fact that you must pay Nx to get a "shop" so you can sell your things, I guess that's the pinaccle of stupidity. No other game do that, right?



After thinking for a while (15 minutes).
What would really makes me come back and play the same way I did 4 years ago would be:

- No more exploits (duping, vaccing etc). I don't know how, I don't care how but they should guarantee there won't be this kind of stuff. I mean is the integrity of the game we are talking about.
- I know they won't delete the duped/hacked items. But after finding the way there won't be no more exploits, it would be nice if they create a new server fully paralel to all the other ones. What do I mean with this? No existing character can transfer there, no items can be transfered via MTS or any other way. I think this would secure that there won't be any of those items. Let the other worlds rot and die. But it would be nice if we had an all-free-of-hacked-items world.

[Ryosuke]

Nothing really. Worst part is, I don't even miss MS..especially with the state it is currently in.

I guess I would come back for a while if..

1. Clean wipe..everything reset.
2. Potential System 100% removed.
3. Perm NX available again.
4. Real GMs and actual punishments for hackers/dupers.

[The Great One]

Now that I'm more awake I can elaborate.

1) The game cannot be fixed even with combing through every exploit/exploiter. It's become such a standard of gameplay it's unreasonable to ban everyone that has touched the wrong white scroll. It's too complicated to sort it, give amnesty to specific circumstances and isn't worth the time. It's better to just completely wipe every goddamn player that exists. Unless they hellban everyone and force them to either drop the exploited equips or sell them to an npc and perma ban anyone that doesn't comply

2) Take away the cube function unless there is a reasonable way to get them by in game means. This system is utterly destroying any balance towards any character. I can tolerate things like pam songs every few months, or even protection scrolls, but cubes is just a necessity and that's wrong.Either make bosses drop em or something they just aren't going to remove cubes

3) Security is one thing no company can gurrantee, but they all can gurrantee action and compensation. I want to see results that are quick, reasonable, and fair. Restoring a character is anything but unreasonable. From at least what i've heard you cant resotre a single character without doing a rollback for everyone. What they can and have done is simply recreate the lost equips. Something as simple as having us keep up to date screenshots of all of our equips. Then they can just remake our equips for us on the spot.

4) Actually do maitenance. Bosses fixed, glitched quests, retarded crashes and unnecessary lag gone. A game of this simplicity should not take more than twice what skyrim does. [B]has more to do with they have to send everything to Korea for a fix so it takes longer[. Either tell some of em to learn English and come work over here to fix whatever issues that appear in this version./B]

5) Permanent NX varients. I don't care if I pay triple the price.They used to have this but chnaged it to new nx items are perma when they first appear. don't know why they changed it

6) When I start seeing content outside of revamping the same classes to compensate the last broken one released, and the next one coming up shortly.Koreans like the grind and they like the new classes so this probably wont change

7) Proper GM presense. I don't care if they don't talk and hide in a tree for the rest of their lives. We need someone to regulate the game with power beyond words or exiling someone. Even if he just warns player that would have a great impact on the community.Simply bring back the Friday evening bans of people and were good I loved seeing people I reported on that blue notice every week.

I know I won't be coming back because none of this will happen.

Responses in bold