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  1. Orbital Bee Cannon
    IGN: SaptaZapta
    Server: Kradia
    Level: 275
    Job: Hero
    Guild: Matriarchy
    Alliance: Peaceful

    Default Monster Life commentary


    These are my comments about this recent addition to MapleStory, after 2.5 weeks of working on leveling my farm (21 now). I have not been breeding combining monsters except for quests, so I will not comment much on that.

    Also, keep in mind that I have never played Farmville, or any clone thereof, so I have no preconceptions on how such a game is supposed to be. I'm looking at it from a pure Mapler's viewpoint.

    The good stuff:
    - Once past the horrible lag of the first week and Hot Time, and disregarding the tendency to disconnect after exiting ML (same as any channel change), the game seems stable. Even lags don't make it glitch and do things twice or not at all.
    - While meant to be addictive, it's not punitive. Unlike Maple's item pot organisms, the monsters on the farm do not suffer if you don't nurture them, nor do the buildings deteriorate for lack of harvesting.
    - The graphics are mostly pretty.
    - Quests take you smoothly to level 16, no need to do any "grinding".

    The criticism. Hopefully constructive. By caterogies:

    UI:
    Farm doesn't fit in the window. Not even the basic 15x15 farm. It gets worse the more you upgrade. So the more NX you spend on your farm, the harder it is to navigate... We should be able to zoom in and out, or, failing that (since ML, like all of Maple, uses fixed-size sprites), the sprites should have been made smaller.
    Alternatively, we could have a schematic "view from above" for farm management. The isometric view is very pretty, but also inconvenient, especially when the farm gets crowded with buildings and decorations.
    Speaking of inconvenient, the auto-panning is very much so. Especially when the sides of the screen are cluttered with other controls, so I need to place my mouse cursor just so if I want to move. And yet, if I don't want to move, it seems to fly around at random when I'm just trying to access those controls or reposition the window (my physical display is a tad too small for Maple's "high resolution"...). I would much, much prefer traditional scrollbars.

    Functionality:
    - Story quests cease rather abruptly, and quite a few people said they thought there was a bug, because they completed the quest and didn't get a new one right away. Probably would be nice to have an NPC tell you "time to let you run your own show for a while. I'll talk to you again when you reach level 18."
    - I really wish we could trade monsters.
    - When breeding monsters, the result should have an equal chance to be like either parent. Or maybe the chance should depend on the relative levels of the parents. The way it is now, that it's far more likely to be similar to the monster you already have, is simply mean.
    - Speaking of breeding, would be nice to be able to say "release result" right there in the combine window, instead of having to go back to your farm to do it. For extra credit: make it automatically credit you with three nourishings before the release.
    - Would be nice to have a "harvest all" functionality. Yes, I know Nexon wants us clicking a lot, but seriously, what do they get from it?
    - A propos clicking: keyboard shortcuts. Arrow keys. It's a PC game, not a phone game.
    - Achievements don't seem to do anything. Other people can't even see them. Would be nice to have your "trophy room" in your farm's home page.
    - Speaking of the home page: this is probably a bug, but it takes a really long time for (existing) messages to appear.
    - A propos not seeing things: would be nice if I could see who my followers are. Also, would be nice if we had actual numbers displayed for monster experience, rather than just the bar.
    - I'd like to be able to move the farmhouse around.
    - The monsters' roaming seems uneven. They tend to congregate at the bottom of the map (or as close to it as the area left open for them allows).

    Integration with MapleStory:
    - It really sucks that while you're on your farm you can't see MapleStory chat. It's rather ridiculous that if I were to play a browser game (such as the original Farmville) I could do so while having Maple in Windowed mode, so I could see Maple chat - but Monster Life that is in Maple cuts me off from the main game. I can't even see the chat I missed when I get back to it.
    - It would be nice if we could get farm alerts in the main game, similar to the item pot notices. Let me know when my buildings are at max waru (for bonus points: let me know when they're at a user-defined threshold, like we can set for HP/MP bar flashing), when my monsters want nurturing, or when I can get new repeatable quests. On the other hand, get that big ugly "Monster Life: go to farm" thing off my Maple window. I really hope it's temporary, and will go away next patch. We can still reach our farms through the menu at the bottom of the screen, like Clara teaches.
    - Would be neat to see my MapleStory character, dressed as a farmer (alternate outfits available for NX?), walking around the farm.
    - UI principles are not the same as Maple's. For example, in Maple you double-click on items, in Monster Life it's single click. For another example, the way quest dialogs look and behave (especially the way they have keyboard shortcuts in Maple but not ML).
    - The released monsters showing up in-game is cute. Their text is too long to comfortably read, though. Consider giving them chat text, like some boss monsters get.

    I might add more if I think of anything.

    Spoiler
    Last edited by SaptaZapta; 2013-06-09 at 05:13 AM.

  2. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    ^All good points

    Monster life is amazingly bug-free. Hard to believe it is a Nexon product. (Maybe it isn't) Sometimes I have to click something twice, but that could just be my lousy internet.

    Having to scroll around doesn't bother me too much, its mainly necessary when harvesting warus.

    I haven't really had much trouble with the quests, but I agree it would be better if when combining different types the result had equal chance being the same type of either parent, not the 60% yours / 20% theirs / 20% random or whatever it seems like now.

    A way to trade or sell monsters -yes that would be very nice. Harvest all button - definitely.

    My main beefs which I don't think were mentioned:
    I find it rather mean and pointless that the monsters not only lose the game benefits but also become unbreedable after one month. It kind of ruins the entire thing for me. Once sterile, playing, nurturing and levelling become pointless. You may as well release them to make room for fresh monsters. Nexon is actually hurting themselves by doing this, because if there is little reason to keep old monsters, there is less incentive to buy more slots.

    The benefits (potentials) to the main game are rather small compared to the effort (or expense) required to gain them, for the higher ranks anyway. +14 stat for rank SS, ewww. Plus it only lasts a month. Awfully stingy of you Nexon. As usual, completely useless bonuses like defence or accuracy are given equal prominence to useful ones.

    Also the monsters that are released into the game proper: Aren't they supposed to be clickable or something to take you into the releaser's farm? Doesn't seem to work for me, though maybe I'm missing something. Tried clicking, double-clicking on monster and on its label, but nothing happens.

  3. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    Well, you can use arrow keys to move around. You just need to hold them for at least half a second or so and diagonal movement isn't supported.


    I don't think I want this. This will most likely make it so you will have to watch your character walk around and touch every building to harvest from them...


    You kill it, loot the invitation that it drops and use it from your inventory.

  4. Donator Straight Male
    IGN: ShinkuDragon HoukaPhoenix BoshokuRaven
    Server: Scania
    Level: 152
    Job: Batman
    Guild: IDissOrtis
    panama

    Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    my opinion on your opinions: after some practice, i got used to the auto-scroll of the farm, only part that really bugs me is when it starts to scroll and then a pop up comes, and because of it the farm keeps scrolling way past what i wanted

    monster levels seem to affect rank you get, seeing that, i prefer monsters like that, since you can just breed for the monsters you want to achieve. rather than have too much chance of getting something else. on the release part, while i'd like the free three nourishings, i understand why they wouldn't, that's kind of being lazy.

    "harvest all" costs money in farmville, i can see it happening in this game -_-

    i do NOT want farm alerts while playing the game, my left screen is cluttered enough with random events already, i find it easier to simply see which time i need to go back into the farm and just look at the clock to see if it's that time yet.

    no thanks for farmer costumes, i'd probably lose all interest in monster life right there

    everything else, i agree with.

  5. Orbital Bee Cannon
    IGN: SaptaZapta
    Server: Kradia
    Level: 275
    Job: Hero
    Guild: Matriarchy
    Alliance: Peaceful

    Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    On one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand, I am still trying to understand what this completely different game is doing in my MapleStory. If all I wanted was those little buffs the monsters can give, I'd do better spending my time raising a character-card mule to 120 or to 200. At least those don't expire and involve no frustrating gambling. So, having my character walking around the farm (as an option, I guess, since you object so vehemently) would help make a connection. Also having the Maple chat visible in ML (which you didn't object to).

  6. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    They added in the chat function later on, as well as an 'auto-harvest' so I think those two things will be fixed for you guys soon :)

  7. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    THANK YOU BASED MUSHROOM!

  8. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    My main wish is that the optimal farm was not "building on every single square the game will let you fill". An aesthetic score that's not based on having the maximum number of buildings and random items, perhaps.
    Minor gripe is that you can way easily make a bunch of the same monster (all cats, etc.) but it's pointless because you only get the potential bonus from one of them. Having 10 grade C cattle with +2 str each would not have unbalanced the main game in any form. And grade A+/S/SS mobs are hard enough to get that I think allowing their higher bonuses to stack would just be a fair compensation for all the work that goes into a high level farm.


    Aside from that, I agree with all your points. Lots of little ways the game could have been better.

    Oh, one minor thing. If you combine higher ranked creatures (above B) you're more likely to get the other type of creature. I think it's only C-grade and B-grade combinations that have an awful chance of getting the other type. When I combined 2 A+ creatures it was 50-50 whether I got an A rank of my kind, or a B rank of their kind.

  9. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    There are a lot of things that could be better, mainly the fusion system.

    This monster life thing does give me another excuse to log onto my shop and storage mule accounts every once in a while though. Would be too lazy to restock my shops if that wasn't the case.

  10. Orbital Bee Cannon
    IGN: SaptaZapta
    Server: Kradia
    Level: 275
    Job: Hero
    Guild: Matriarchy
    Alliance: Peaceful

    Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    That's a choice you can make. Same as choosing to spend NX on your character's appearance, or foregoing equipment that looks ugly, even if it has better stats.
    If your farm does not produce as many waru as it could, you'd just have to go slower with your breeding. Although, the 30-day expiration does punish you heavily for taking the scenic route.

    I think there should be some kind of "fame" mechanism, that lets users judge the aesthetics of farms. Obviously this could be abused so it has to be carefully designed. Still, letting the machine decide your farm is most "beautiful" if you pave it with cannons is ridiculous.

    Agreed. Having the bonus both expire and not stack really kills the motivation to put any work into it.

  11. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    Yeah, it's just the way you wring more waru out of it that annoys me.

    If for exponential price increases, you could upgrade your buildings - but only ever own one of each - that would work for me. Like, say, Ariant Fabrics costs 2000 waru and produces 12 waru every 10 min. Then for 4000 Waru, you can upgrade it to produce 24, for 8000 you can make it produce 36, for 16000 you can get 48 waru per 10 min (and likewise upgrades to aesthetic+storage scores). But having 69 Ariant Fabrics on my farm is a bit silly. I only did it cause it's the most effective way to up my Waru intake, which makes future upgrades easier in turn. Like upgrading from B rank to A rank mobs costs 10-20k waru in failed attempts, which is only a couple hours of generating waru on my farm, instead of a couple days.

  12. Donator Straight Male
    IGN: ShinkuDragon HoukaPhoenix BoshokuRaven
    Server: Scania
    Level: 152
    Job: Batman
    Guild: IDissOrtis
    panama

    Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    i object vehemently to the farm gear, i wouldn't mind my character roaming around, however since you can go on mules, i'd rather have it all be optional, yes. the buddy/guild chat is one thing i REALLY want, and thanks to based mushroom for the info that it will get added later.
    you forget that you can buy these monsters for NX, which, if people can spend thousands in cubes every other month, they can do so with monster life (arguably with more random results however)
    but if i for example got my farm to 40, i'd be able to generate in a month enough to buy a good 7 or more luminous, meaning +7 targets on my mobbing skills, now on my DrK that might not be the best upgrade, but some other classes or situations, it's quite the obscene upgrade.

  13. Default Re: Monster Life commentary


    I suppose unique monster potentials should only give their bonuses once. And they would need to cap shop discounts (20 grade A+ Mushrooms = 100% discount)

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