Getting to 200 is too easy now, and there's nothing special about being level 200 anymore. So Nexon needs to raise the level cap to 250, then MapleStory will be more challenging. Screw MapleStory 2!!!
Printable View
Getting to 200 is too easy now, and there's nothing special about being level 200 anymore. So Nexon needs to raise the level cap to 250, then MapleStory will be more challenging. Screw MapleStory 2!!!
Or they could add more end-game content so there are more things to do once you hit level 200.
Like this idea much better. In terms of damage, there's like no ceiling left if you're lvl 200 and do insane damage, what's the point of raising lvl cap when damage would hardly rise? And how many more overpowered-and-need-to-be-nerfed-soon skills would be released?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazz
Guess I'm just a pessimist.
i thought the card system where u needed 6 level 200's to get the best stats was pretty much a, "there you go getting 1 200 is easy 2 is medium 3 is hard .... well get 6... "
type of deal.
then you have aswan which basically you have to keep doing to get good potential stats on your inner ability, so basically they are adding stuff that all level 200s can do to improve their level 200 charecters without the need to raise the cap.
if they keep adding stuff like that all level 200's will have stuff to do for years to come.
I wouldn't be against a level cap raise and a 5th job advance, but there would have to be an entire revamp of the gameplay for it to work.
After what? Almost 9 years now? I think it's a bit late to raise the level cap.
As Mazz said, it would be a much better idea for actual end-game content. However, I can't think of a damn thing that will make Maple worth playing after hitting 200, except maybe making a new character and trying again, if you're still craving more.
Plus, with the current damage cap and the ease of hitting it, there's REALLY no point in a higher level cap.
Nexon don’t want you sticking to one character. They give you free character slots and keeping making new classes. They want you to make lots of level 200’s each with their own individual cash shop.
If they create high end level content for 200s, the only way to stop it from being too easy is to modify player damage ranges when they enter e.g. balrog
I'd like to see something similar to cwkpq in how people have to work together to defeat a boss but with potentials. Only way that's happening is if potentials are nullified in the boss room and/or they do something similar to balrog pq.
Or you could make it so that you can only do damage after a certain setup. Kind of like how Legend of Zelda games are. You play with the environment to make the boss vulnerable and then you can do damage to it. But having bosses like that defeats the purpose of potential. So I dunno.
Or they can make new skills that are mobility or defense but action ones. So you press it and you Guard or teleport(but like able to dodge stuff and what not easier) and make the boss have physicaly aviodable attacks. Pretty much make boss battles less stat dependent.
Like how it is now with what matters is how much %aviod/%guard/%damage.... just percents everywhere!! :f5:
I'd prefer make the damn game challenging again, properly distribute content, challenge, skills, and experience, add in more content to fill gaps (yes they've done better than when we just had Leafre, but they still need a lot more).
In an ideal game they'd have several areas that look and feel different with mobs that have approximately the same hp:xp ratio but are better suited for different party paradigms to encourage true diversity.
Some crude examples being different layouts for different skill's AoE ranges and mobility patterns, different elemental affinities. Obviously making the monsters stronger so they're more inconvenient to solo if you're not godly would help too.
Throwing more levels up there won't do any good if you don't have any way to get them but grinding the same old crap. They need a massive overhaul of a sort they're not willing or capable of doing.
> level 200
> 997 or more primary stat
???
profits?
Yeah! Let's raise the level cap to 400! That'll solve ALL MAPLES F`UCKING PROBLEMS.
Basilmarket-esque "5th job ideas" thread?
Basilmarket-esque "5th job ideas" thread.
They should have never changed the EXP curve in the first place
I would enjoy a complete overhaul of the game, as Eos said. Make the gameplay less repetitive, put cooldown on every skills and potions, change everything the game knows in a similar way than big bang. And, most importantly, remove the hurricane-like skills. Seriously, holding a button for 30 mins to kill a boss is NOT how you want to play a game.
After all of this is done, we can think of raising the level caps and getting a 5th job.
My idea would be to have a system of Dual-Jobbing. After you hit 200 in one job, you convert your character to another job. There would be rules on how it could happen, like how your stats transfer over, but in the end you could make a warrior/magician or thief/Pirate. UA on steroids, basically. It can be done in a balanced way if enoug thought is put into it.
JMS tried rebirthing in their version of Tespia. They scrapped it because it is a terrible idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorr
Quote:
Originally Posted by TristannxNL
^This sums it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirov
Instead of raising the level cap for existing characters, they would just release new classes who are
capable of reaching 250 since it means more money for them.
A similar concept to cygnus knights who are capped at 120.
Maple Story has never had challenge.
Getting to level 200 is a matter of time investment, not skill.
Beating Cygnus, soloing Pink Bean, etc. is a matter of money investment, not skill.
Reducing the EXP tables didn't make the game easier, it made it less tedious. Very much so. (People think being able to hit Fourth Job in less than a year is a BAD thing?!)
This may be only because I don't have a 200, and leveled the old fashioned way of solo.
>Raise the level cap of 200 to something more ridiculously higher.
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...53/884/b47.png
I think WoW did it best, where they were able to raise the level cap a little bit (only 10 levels per expansion, and now they're extending the cap by 5 levels at a time) but make those few levels give exponentially higher stats. Then constantly release stronger tiers of bosses that drop gear that would obsolete the player's current gear. However, that's going to be very hard for Maple to do to due thanks to potential and scrolling in general. When you can already hit damage cap, how the hell do you go beyond THAT without making players ragequit by cutting back on the gains from potential and scrolling? Or worse, make average geared players feel like absolute crap if they gotta release bosses with such insanely high PDR just so the god tier players don't downright murder them so fast? And no, gimmicks to artificially extend a boss fight such as damage reflect or super defense up (to me anyways) doesn't count.
No, it won't. It'll just be more tedious. There's nothing challenging about Maple - it is and always has been "hold down skill button to whittle away monster/boss HP, buff every few minutes." But a level cap raise would be nice for all the people stuck at 200 with nothing to do. Before that, though, they need to actually make GEAR for all those empty levels.Quote:
Originally Posted by TristannxNL
If every map turned into party play and monsters did normal touch damage but 2x-3x damage on their "attack" or "spells" and give them all a different debuff AND have multiple mobs in the same room and not just a single mob... And of course, pot cooldown always makes things interesting.
Actually, grinding would still be boring but at least it'll be interesting. However, the area mobs really need to be buffed to the point where they become un-soloable and there needs to be more bosses (that work).
But as I'm writing this, I realize that potential is what made this game easy and what made it go to hell...
How about no.
oh you mean too easy in the sense that you can train at glitched maps for ridiculous amounts of EXP compared to what we had before? And that will change how if Nexon has a higher level cap? If they open up the levels post 200, it basically means that people are going to be at the same training spots for a hand full more levels. It'll be akin to Z4 maps being the highest level, fastest spawn maps in the entire maple world where everyone post level 80 solo trained there for hours, days even, to get to the next level. If that's what you love, then yay for you, but there is much more to the game (I hope) than soloing chaos horntail in 10 minutes and OHKOing the highest level mobs in existence. People can do consistent 1 million damage per hit and the AP levels are capped, meaning damage wouldn't go up very much with a handful of levels. There's too many things to worry about when it comes to raising the cap. Nexon is better off forcing you to make more level 200s, which they are doing now.
Nexon should just remove LHC's party play. It brings too many problems.
No, they should just make more party play zones with no safe spots so that people are actively training. And as a tradeoff, give more exp per mob than LHC can ever hope for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raph589
Oh wait, I'm describing Stronghold... Nexon needs to make more maps like Stronghold...
I was talking about how "glitched" maps make it ridiculously easy to level, therefore making 200 a breeze.
I would love this, but that would work against their current profit cash cow, Potential Cubes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaasoljoyyx
Right now 200 level content is making the Range on your stat screen go up while you sit and look pretty in the FM.
Without glitched LHC, broken party play, 2x cards and 2x events ALL THE TIME, duped 1.5x cards getting to level 200 wouldn't be such a joke. I know it isn't for me, I've never bought a 2x card, I hardly play on 2x events and I've never trained at LHC at all.
ITT: We repeat the same thing we've been saying for a while.
Also, remove potential.
Yup, Basil actually discuss Maple, doesn't it? Not just OMG Nexon epic fail!Quote:
Originally Posted by Zelkova
-Quote:
Originally Posted by Coogi
Oh just got what you were trying to say. Basil discuss' maple not just about how nexon sucks
When it first came out, I thought it was really stupid. People called me crazy. A lot of my friends already quit just because it got hella boring when they hit 200 on multiple accounts when Demon Slayer came out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raph589
This. I hate hearing my guildies complain about Stronghold because "there are no afk spots".Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephie
OT: Some people made the argument that they (Nexon) just wants everyone to keep making level 200s so they have separate cash shops. Which is partly true, but I think if they really want to make more money, they should just release more content for 190+ or even players that reach level 200. Less people that quit = more people that could potentially buy NX.
Yeah but people quit because its the same repetitive stuff and to make it not repetitive you would have to use game play in which potential wouldn't highly effect the out come. which defeats the purpose of people buying more NX.Quote:
Originally Posted by DRK
Getting to level 200 has never been a challenge.
That's the dumb thing about grinding.
Unless there's more things to do as a result of being able to get to a higher level, all a raise would do is perpetuate the grind.
I should have read through the thread first, because you've managed to echo my feelings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Endgame
Wanted to point out this particular bit though since I never understand when people moan about leveling being "easy".
Anyone who thinks that taking longer to level is a good thing deserves to be punched in the face for being so stupid.
They need to restart everything, levels and economy. while taking cubes out. That way they can bring all the challenge and the fun of competitivity back to the game, which they wont do anyway.
"Restart everything" is never, ever, ever a viable option in an MMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by byakugan
That method wipes out most of the motivation that keeps people playing in spite of the pomegranatetyness.
The real problem is that it's so easy to get to 200 (2x + 1.5x + hacked LHC), that all the other actual challenges in the game are too tough for the people hitting 200. When you've been getting a level every couple hours, who wants to spend a month getting a single Rising Sun item?
There are things to do at 200, they're just not easy in the way 200 is. Collecting familiars? Not easy. Getting all your traits maxed? Also not easy.
Requoting because this is the only worthwhile solution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eos
My personal answer to OP is the same as Green4Ever's: how about no. I quit this game years ago and have been satisfied ever since that one of my biggest accomplishments was reaching 200 when it was actually a challenge. Raising the cap to 250 or whatever would ruin all that, and not just for myself but the thousands of other players who've since quit under similar circumstances.
The bottom line though, in the end, is everything Eos and others have been saying: the particulars of leveling up are so polarizingly different from the rest of the game in terms of "challenge" or "commitment" that things just need to be overhauled and a balance restored. GMS had a time when it truly was an amazingly fun, challenging game, a golden age that ended in the latter part of 2009. At this point, either fix the gross imbalances or screw it.
Maybe people would start doing those things more if there was a way to get recognized for it. All people want is fame (or a column on the highly prestigious maplestory rankings)Quote:
Originally Posted by Stereo
The potential system doesn't ruin every aspect of game play, and it actually is probably the main source of NX spending other than MTS in Maple right now. Don't quote me on that, but if it's not where most of the money goes, it would be where a large portion of it does.Quote:
Originally Posted by valhala556
It may seen easy for old players and people that frequent fan pages like this one, but I'm pretty sure those don't represent most of the maplestory population, for everyone else level 200 is still tedious and time consuming, and don't seem like a good business strategy if they want to keep attracting new players.
The problem is not that reaching level 200 is too "easy".
The problem is that there's no actual content for higher level players except bosses that you have to throw money at the game in order to be able to do enough damage to kill before the time limit. There's no real reason to hit 200 unless you have good enough gear to fight Cygnus to get 140 equipment, so you can fight the next artificially difficult boss they come up with for the 150 equipment, and so on until they finally give us the Black Mage and decide to stop supporting Maple Story in favor of MS2.
We need more and better level 160+ content. Content that gives better EXP than LHC.
More party quests, more theme dungeons, quests actually worth doing, you know, SOMETHING that's just not more grinding.
Wait, leveling was challenging? You can't be serious...Quote:
Originally Posted by TristannxNL
Believe it or not, some people who don't spend hours every day playing think getting to 200 is kind of difficult. Those of us who've been here and played before big bang think it's easy as pie but any time I try to introduce a friend to maplestory now they think it's pretty ridiculous, boring, or both (at how much grinding there is).
It's not HARD. It's TIME-CONSUMING.
There's a critical difference.
For most people, hard/challenging = time consuming/difficult to achieve
If only there were a way to make your way to 200 and complete those challenges at the same time...Quote:
Originally Posted by Stereo
OH WAIT, PEOPLE CAN TOTALLY ALREADY DO THAT!
It was never a challenge. Ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
And Nexon, as well as those still playing, wouldn't give a single shit since, by quitting, your wants and needs became irrelevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
Nope.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
There was never a golden age.
Maplestory has continuously gotten better (if your mind is able to ignore Potential).
Content-wise, there's much more to do now than there was even a year ago.
It's still not enough, but it's definitely not worse.
It's not difficult. You just don't have the time to do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andross
If that's true, then most people are morons.Quote:
Originally Posted by happylight
I theorize that they've done this:
>Things that are challenging tend to take a lot of time.
>Grinding takes a lot of time, therefore, grinding must be challenging.
This logical leap is a fallacious one because the inverse of the first statement is not correct.
Leveling in Maplestory requires absolutely no skill whatsoever.
There's absolutely nothing to practice, nothing to master, and that means there's no challenge.
The only thing I'd disagree with is this, the community has definitely changed for the worse - from late 2007 through to around the middle of 2009 I'd say was Maple's 'golden age' in terms of player, there wasn't much to do aside from train and quest then, which pretty much forced people to talk to each other rather than being able to raise traits, collecting familiars/cards/medals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viaje
The vast majority of the people that I've encountered since coming back to Maple have been very different in their approach to the game, they want to log on, kill everything at hacked LHC until they level 8 times, solo Horntail, set up a few hundred ores to mine for Willpower while they AFK and then log out. Of course there are still people that play the game as I/we used to, but I think they're outnumbered now. The new content is great, I love having more things to do in-game, there's a lot more variety now and it keeps the game from getting completely dry, but it pains me to think that if we'd had all this content back in 2008 or so the game would be in a much better state than it currently is.
It simply requires an ability to commit and keep going mindlessly, which many people lack.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viaje
Your first statement is incorrect. Things that take a lot of time are generally challenging because they lack conviction and/or an ability to focus on a goal regardless of the innumerable other things that they could be doing.
There was once a conference where MapleStory users were invited.
It was a conference where users were able to speak about topics such as new updates, problems in the game etc.
New ideas for content were presented and I remember ''Max Lv. dungeon'' and ''Guild Faction Wars'' were in the presentation.
I do want something new for guilds. Sharenian is gone now.
@Viaje, you're completely wrong about GMS not having a golden age if all you're looking at is content. Like Mazz said, the community changed drastically with massive game-breaking changes, which is what ultimately ruined it for me and many playing at that time. A lot of us playing back in 2006-2008 didn't need crazy ass loads of new content. I still remember how amazing it was when we got Himes, and people would go crazy there for hours on end with friends, for months until the next update.
My point is, the community back then had nothing insane like the community does now, and thus, while everything was still technically easy, it wasn't in terms of time and effort. Therefore, the people who played back then tended to be older, mature types who had already developed a sense of patience and a worldly understanding that rewards are given to those who work hard. That community was fun because they were intelligent, chill, amicable people who you could easily become great friends with and enjoyed spending time with, no matter what you were doing. Henceforth why people didn't need game-breaking changes every month - we were fine playing around in Henesys for a few hours or grinding on Sharks. In other words, we were easily satisfied, unlike today's masses.
And to everyone else: stop judging something's level of "challenge" or degree of "difficulty" based on how technically involved it is. Hard, physical farm labor, while maybe not as technically involved as biomedical engineering, is still a challenge to complete to make a profit, given you need to expend a lot of time and effort maintaining your products in order to have them produced on time. MapleStory was the same, back in the day. It was and never will be a technically challenging game compared to others out on the market, but if you snub the true difficulty in the amount of time and effort it took to accomplish something back in the day before everyone else, you don't know what a hard day's work is like.
Spoiler
That doesn't make the goal challenging.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raul
Having only enough room in your stomach for a burger, a slice of cake, or a pineapple doesn't make any of them more challenging to eat.
Also, careful with your pronouns.
"They" seems to describe "things" in your sentence.
That's wonderfully subjective as well as irrelevant to the conversation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazz
Rest of post ignored.
The discussion was and is about content.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
Rest of post ignored.
Yes but if one of them is a 15 pound burrito, most people will choose to sample the assortment of other things rather than focus ONLY on the one big thing. It requires a lot more conviction to stay on the one path when all the other things smell and look so appetizing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viaje
This food metaphor is a bit odd.
One qick fix to make leveling a little harder would be to fix LHC hacking.
One quick fix would be to go the route of KMS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonlapse
Nerf LHC and nerf Stronghold again.
gotta agree with Viaje here content wise yes this game is much better then the so called golden age. Community wise it's gotten worse but thats not what were talking about.
Getting to 200 was never hard it just took longer a few years ago nothing more nothing less.
I know difficult and tedious can be two very different things, but if someone's playing a game where they grind for 20 minutes and level as compared to a game where they grind for 2 hours and level, if you ask them about it they'll usually say "yeah game A is a lot easier to level in than game B". Yes, there's other stuff that goes into it but if someone says "yes, Maplestory is a lot easier now than it was before Big Bang" it's pretty much generally understood what they mean, which is that it takes less time. If you really want to be asinine about it then yes, it takes less time to accomplish things. To most people though, how much time it takes to do something usually translates into something being harder to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
So...basically what this guy said, but in a much better way than I'm doing.
I thought there was a rumor about placing a cap on potential around the time that removing 4th tier potential was rumored, before it was implemented. Something like nexon would cap each person's total potential at 120% or something. Whatever happened to that?
I do feel that potential is the only thing that ruined maple. All the ideals that potential instilled in the players seems corrupt to me. It's taken away from what maple truly is. A game to have fun playing. Raising the level cap won't fix that. I've always felt like Maple was about leveling your character while still trying to experience everything that Maple has to offer at the same time. Most of the new content seems to go to waste, 75% of it goes unnoticed by the entire population. Everyone is too damage crazy, too money hungry. Players need to take a step back and see all of what Maple has to offer, more than just damage. Potential has made that impossible...
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
I call this "Maplestory Stockholm syndrome". No, the community hasn't gotten less mature. It never has been particularly mature in the first place, seems like you judge the whole community by just a small sampling of friends and acquaintances. You also manage to completely ignoring the rampart hacking that has been going on since day 1 almost. Remember how the devs said that they would be withholding Ossyria if people continue to hack so much? Remember how there where months, when you couldn't find an empty channel because they all where taken by vac hackers who would just come up to you and start up their hacks in your face?
While I'm sure you've had good times playing this game, it doesn't absolve it from being a thinly veiled progress quest. That you used "working hard" as a way to describe Maplestory just seals it.
EDIT:You're asking people to respect you because you've sunk immense amounts of time into a videogame. Think about that.
It must have been oh so hard standing in one spot and spamming 1 button for hours on end.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
I have no idea how you can call it "Challenging" when you played one of the most faceroll jobs at the time.
But he had to buy that auto-pot and three auto-buffs!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Link
Yeah maple story is just not challenging in any way to me. Time consuming yes, but challenging, no way.
- How to $: Sit in FM for hours spamming "S>X" and buying whatever you can flip. Lack of a proper market system means you can basically flip any item without much trouble.
- How to fix: Auction House. No the mts does not count, it is :pineapple:
- How to EXP: autopot, autobuff, stand in place, hold down attack key. move once every couple minutes to refresh that "stop actually using skills" thing
- How to fix: Pots on a global cooldown (not separate per pot, you know, what most other MMO's do), remove lolpotentiallol's ridiculous effect on damage output, actually balance stuff
- How to boss: Read: How to EXP
- How to fix: Above plus building bosses to actually work with the combat system for MS, movesets that aren't "#1: Global Damage #2: Summon adds #3: Global Debuff #4: Doesn't exist (Whoops Magic Crash lol)"
@srevwetv the answer you're looking for is nexon made bank. $ happened.
But, auto-buff didn't exist pre-BB during the "Ultimate Spam" era :(Quote:
Originally Posted by lorx
I'd prefer that they just scrapped everything, slavishly copied the combat system from Ragnarok Battle Offline and slapped an overworld on top of dungeons/stages.Quote:
Originally Posted by lorx
Wow, someone else who knows about RBO!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
Although, the combat system for RBO isn't really that much better. Would be cool to have "Skill inputs" for all skills instead of just Aran.
Sure, I was one of the fastest levelers back in 2009.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Link
Key words: back in 2009. The EXP/hr rates I pulled back then are a pittance compared to what any class is capable of now.
So don't give me any of that bullpomegranate. The game was challenging for me because I balanced it in with a real life, as best as I could. And I didn't do the best job of it - my high school grades dropped for three years, my core group of friends since forever stopped calling to hang out, I never initiated anything because I was too busy trying to deal with dramatic e-peen queens and get into Zakum/HT runs on Friday/Saturday nights. Then there was that summer where I was so entrenched in playing I skipped everything to play 12-16 hours a day so I could do 170-200 in 3 months. Now will I openly proclaim that my grinding was literally jumping down a platform, climbing up a rope, and hitting Meteor Shower twice per cycle? Yes. It was super easy. But maintaining that maximum output from 2 am - 6 am every morning, going to sleep for four hours at most, then getting up and doing it all over again, while trying to "find a job" and dissuade parents from thinking you're ruining your life?
This isn't about me, though - this is about so many others out there with similar stories. I'm thankful many of you can reach the level cap now with barely any time or effort because it allows you to avoid such detrimental life choices many of us made back then.
Now yes, you had it much harder than I did as a Paladin playing for as long, if not longer, than myself. But you and anyone else with such condescending attitudes towards my story must not have a life outside of the internet, given your apparent lack of understanding at the real world sacrifices you make to achieve things online. That, or if you've experienced anything I've listed above due to your internet addiction, and still make such comments, you're completely delusional as to how real life works. None of this is normal, or healthy, and thus nothing to be proud of.
Good luck and grow up, kids.
You severely underestimate both the scope of effort involved and the time, I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Link
Regardless of what you think it involved, spamming newties was damn hard work, because you had to fund it first and foremost, which meant you couldn't afford to just sit there AFK. You blew a potion every cast. That meant you needed money, and you needed a supply train. You had to rush around, grabbing your drops or spend at least as much time merching as you did killing to try to afford to keep going, or charge for leech to keep it up.
Conveniently I have a nice visual representation of what it took to get to 200.
Spoiler
Note those last two columns are time till next level, in hours and minutes. Of Non Stop Grinding, in the exact conditions currently employed. 56 hours of grinding doesn't sound like much, right? It's just a little over 2 days, except the average play time is supposed to be 4 hours or less. That makes a 56 hour grind the equivalent of 2 weeks worth of gameplay for the average player, a little less if they get more time on weekends. And that's one level.
It wasn't nearly so tape a button down and wander off as some people like to think.
We had streams of people wandering through at all times, cause we didn't have mini dungeons and every AM on the server needed those one maps per channel for the best XP, we had to stand in an area where getting hit was unavoidable in order to get as much of the map as possible, keep magic guard on at all times to stay alive, and note that every hit, which were 2 to 3 per blizzard, was another instant potion loss, circle the entire map if we wanted any loot at all, keep an HSer around just to entice another leecher to be able to afford one more hour, on and on and on.
The push to be in the top 5 was an incredible act of patience, strategy (look at how many ways we tested getting the best XP and tell me there wasn't strategy, or how to get potions with minimal interruption or loss of channel) and a terrific "challenge" of sanity and wits.
And yes I know the XP rates were like 30x worse for any other class, but the fact mages had it better was only by comparison, the effort was still very real, very insane, and the reward was to be told Congrats, there's nothing left for you to do.
Everyone; If it doesn't meet your definition of challenging you either have no idea what was actually involved, or have incredibly lofty standards. Either way, stop denigrating the accomplishments of others unless you've done the same thing in equal or worse conditions.
Like I'm any better? I almost flunked Junior and Senior year of High School. I flat out bombed 3 years of college as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
You believe you have/had it bad? You clearly don't know what I've been through these past 6 years...
You know what I am right now? A jobless college drop out. Am I looking for sympathy? Hell no, it's my fault I've gone down this path and it's my job to fix it.
I was in my mid 180s on my Paladin when Big Bang hit. If I gave two pomegranates about leveling back then, which I never did and I still don't now, I could have hit 200 long ago, yet I didn't, but that doesn't suddenly make my level 200 worth jack pomegranate just because you had it "Harder" with your Meteor spam, which is laughable at best.
@Eos, one of my RL sisters was a Bishop during that time, I know all about the whole shindig you guys had to go through. The only difference was she detested leech by a long shot so she never got involved in that business. Before we got Mini Dungeons, I was stuck at "Peak of the Big Nest", because I didn't have access to a bishop at all times. Any chance I had at the Skelegon and/or Newtie map near instantly became 0-1%, because I didn't have connections.
I don't know about "Funding" though as any bishop who had Gen30 seemed to automatically have the power to start OHKOing Skele regardless of their equips.
This thread got really depressing pretty quickly.
No, I'm pretty sure the community was a lot better back when leveling was harder. When leveling was harder, it acted like a kind of filter: once you got past a certain level you had to be pretty committed to the game to keep going. Let's say back before 4th job came out for example. If you were level 70 it meant that you had spend weeks or months grinding, and in that time you met other people your level because hey, party exp makes it go by a little better and as a bonus you have some people to talk to. Aside from that there were still party quests, you usually met some people there who you'd buddy and meet up later to grind or pq or whatever. As a result, most people were pretty friendly even if they weren't the most talkative people, because grinding by yourself once you got high enough got boring for most people. But let's say you're one of those people that likes going solo, if you were level 70 before 4th job it still meant you'd spent a ton of time in the game. Most people playing would get up to level 20 or 30 and quit because "this game sucks, grinding is boring and it's really slow".Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
Nexon realized that if they made the game more accessible they could attract more players (and make more money), so that was the point of Big Bang. They revamped levels of monsters and some areas to change things up for preexisting players and scaled back the leveling to make it easier for new players to come in. When it became easier to just jump in and start leveling it changed Maple's target audience. Suddenly it's much easier to start up and by the time the grinding really starts you have all these cool flashy moves and a ton of levels so instead of people quitting at level 20 or 30 we have people sticking around until 70 because hey, why stop now?
There was still hacking, but there were also active GMs running around who would make announcements when they banned people. Did that stop all of it? Of course not, but you definitely wouldn't have the kind of situation like we had where hackers went to the christmas event and vac hacked all the items. Granted, this is just one time period in the game, but I'm not really sure what your point is in this. Do you mean that hacking was indicative of the community at large? There are only 20 channels per world, if a map has great drops and it's widely known then are you really saying that those 20 people spread across 1 per channel in those maps represent the thousands that play on that server? Come on, man.
No one's saying it's not a progress quest. You could make that case about pretty much any game because it is literally the point of a video game to make progress towards a goal, whether that goal is defeating the final boss, saving the planet, or in maple's case reaching the max level (or whatever goal you make for it, there isn't so much an end goal as a bunch of goals that you can work towards). You don't think grinding up to 200 is hard? Fine, for you it's the easiest thing and you might love it but for others of us it's not and saying "Heh, you guys are acting like a bunch of manchildren. This isn't work, it was easy for me and so if you think otherwise you're just complaining and looking back through rose-tinted glasses" is insulting as hell to anyone who spent their time getting there. You're being condescending as pineapple, dude.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
Challenging/hard/difficult: You jump quest instead of grind levels. 180-200 in 2008 required 9001 JQs, each one like 5 maps long, and they're randomly generated every time. THAT'S challenging. Big bang version: only 1000 JQs to get 180-200.
The bullpomegranate you see at LHC and pre-BB newts with ultimate nuking is just time consumption up the ass. This game always sucked because the endgame bosses consisted of a crapload of fake difficulty (weapon/magic cancel? dispel? DAMAGE REFLECT? These aren't difficulties, they're just nuisances), the endgame equips are missing (show me the lvl 200 gear that makes you hit a damage cap of seven 9s (instead of six) without potential), and the rest of the endgame content consists of the same pineappleing maps that you would have 100% accuracy on since late 3rd job.
Oh sure, we have stronghold, but nobody ever goes there. Yeah, we have level 140 gear, but where is the 150/160/170/180/190/200 gear? Calling DR during bosses isn't difficulty, it's an attempt at avoiding an auto-wipe to some pomegranate boss buff WoW will never ever see.
@Eos said it perfectly, with a phenomenal visual for those still judging. Was the method of achieving max EXP/hr gain the most technically challenging in all of video game history for AMs back in 2009 or before? God no, and anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves. But Eos eloquently stated the other very real elements of that type of grinding that made it a true challenge, elements completely beyond the extremely narrowed focus of "technical challenge," such as financially supporting the endeavor, reacting to real-time environmental changes like other people/ksers/hackers coming into your map, figuring out how to perfectly maximize your EXP/hr output. I wish I had the sheets of paper I used to do my EXP/hr calculations on so I could upload them for you all to see. I filled pages of computer paper with tiny handwritten scribbles using Speed Pills as 10 minute timers and a calculator to incessantly ensure I was on track.
Look, I could say a bunch more, but Eos summed it up pretty well. All I'll say is to fully pass some semblance reasonable judgment on another player's experiences, you need to consider every facet of that experience and the relative difficult associated with each - or, as Eos said, "have accomplished the same thing under equal or worse conditions."
I'm honestly sympathetic and sorry for you. I'm not trying to sit behind my computer and demean your life, and I really hope you're not taking it that way. I made the comments I did because I don't want others going down the same, self-destructive path I did, and seeing your current status as such breaks my heart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Link
I never said I had it harder than you; in fact, in the first sentence of the last paragraph of my post you quoted I explicitly acknowledged you had a more difficult experience than I did. I think I knew you back in the day, along with a number of other high level Paladins in Khaini, and I respect you guys because you did have it harder than us, and did constantly experience the same "LOLPALLY" "LOLFP" "LOLIL" pomegranate we did. All I'm trying to argue, like Eos, is that just because, for a limited time, we had it easier than other classes in one very specific aspect of grinding, doesn't mean the overall effort in reaching Lv. 200 was a piece of cake.
Finally, @Andross explained the game very well with regards to the community and various indirect filters. It's difficult to approach the community from that perspective now if you didn't experience it back then (rough time frame, again, of 2006-08/09), because those filters associated with leveling no longer exist.
Sounds like a personal problem. You turned a game, something to enjoy into a job and to hell with everything else still doesn't change the fact that it isn't hard just really really time consuming.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
No one was forcing you to try and be in the top 5 or get to lvl 200 in three months from 170 these are things you decided to do on your own. It wasn't hard it just required time and patience. It's an accomplishment none the less. Just stop going around and saying how hard it was it never was.
Edit: The facts eos pointed out didn't make it harder it just made it so you have to budget time to funding and things of that nature. It required you put more time into the game Again not something hard to do it just requires more patenice and determination.
Here's how "hard" old Maple was: My highest characters ever were a 57 Cleric, then a 64 NW, then a 60 Aran. Then I got hacked because Nexon's PIN system was flawed and they switched to PIC. Back then, I couldn't even get to 3rd job because of how bad this game is. I'm impressed with the great "sit around and not get bored grinding on Maple" skills you and Eos and many others had back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrozNlite
Shortly before BB, like during the Halloween and visitor events, I managed to get to 107 on my Aran through increased patience. Today, my Aran is 171 thanks to the new curve and the return of ridiculous multipliers I had back then during my Aran's third job (welcome back, over 6 times the original exp :f3:). Honestly, I can't reach 200 because my interest and patience with this game ran out a long time ago.
Every point (except one) you're making has been addressed in detail by someone so far but you keep saying the same things. The one thing that hasn't really been touched on is how you're talking about Maple's fake difficulty when dealing with bosses, which is kind of a difficult problem to tackle. Bosses in MMOs have to be difficult enough to challenge players, which can be done in tons of ways like dealing a ton of damage but having little health or dealing little damage but having tons of health or whatever. I know my examples are cliche, but the problem with Maple's bosses is that they ran into a problem once potential came out. If you're making items available that make players significantly stronger then you have to have stronger bosses, right? But potential isn't something that's required in-game. You can rant all you want about it being required because other people having it but if someone were, say, to have amazingly scrolled equips (normal scrolls can all be acquired naturally, and it's certainly possible to have an amazing piece of equipment without using potential or cash items, the chance is just significantly lower and time invested goes way up without the use of items like pam's song) it would be perfectly possible for them to go the entire game, ignoring most "big" bosses like Horntail or Zakum until they were highly leveled enough to take them on. How do you handle those players who choose to not take advantage of the potential system? Nexon can't just ignore them because they'd essentially be forcing players to pay to have enough damage to win. They can't scale bosses back for those players because it would ruin the game, anyone who did take advantage of the system would automatically be ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by bast963
What they did was introduce methods of making players work together during bosses, which was probably also an attempt to bring the community a little closer again. If you're fighting a boss that can cancel weapon attacks, their reasoning was that we'd want a mage along just in case. But what happens if we just buff ourselves to hell and back? The boss can dispel us, keeping us on our toes, which is most likely also the reasoning behind damage reflect. The problem is that while keeping things like these in, they also wanted to provide enough of an incentive for players to buy NX and use the potential system, so they buffed up bosses regardless, which honestly at this point feels a bit overkill depending on what you're doing. It leads to some rather bad situations, like the speculation that Emperess literally couldn't be killed because they coded her that way so when the next tier of potential was released players would buy it. I can't speak for the truth of it, but Nexon's credibility in this particular situation isn't too strong.
Speaking of rose-tinted glasses, I only remember them doing the ban announcements for about 3-4 weeks. Plus, about 1/10 of the names were legit players they'd accidentally banned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andross
Again, you're judging the whole community from a small clique that you've had. There has always been a ton of high level people posting the regular inanities on Basil, it's just that the high level playerbase was smaller, so it was easier to split the wheat from the chaff and goes right into the rose-tinted glasses department.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andross
Hah, active GM's? There was a time when 17/20 channels of EVERYTHING IMAGINABLE starting from zombies to maladies were hacked. What I was trying to say, is that there hasn't been a time when Maplestory has been without issues. The olden times definitely weren't better.Quote:
There was still hacking, but there were also active GMs running around who would make announcements when they banned people. Did that stop all of it? Of course not, but you definitely wouldn't have the kind of situation like we had where hackers went to the christmas event and vac hacked all the items. Granted, this is just one time period in the game, but I'm not really sure what your point is in this. Do you mean that hacking was indicative of the community at large? There are only 20 channels per world, if a map has great drops and it's widely known then are you really saying that those 20 people spread across 1 per channel in those maps represent the thousands that play on that server? Come on, man.
I thought that games where supposed to be fun? I'm being condescending as pineapple, because you guys sound like people from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.Quote:
No one's saying it's not a progress quest. You could make that case about pretty much any game because it is literally the point of a video game to make progress towards a goal, whether that goal is defeating the final boss, saving the planet, or in maple's case reaching the max level (or whatever goal you make for it, there isn't so much an end goal as a bunch of goals that you can work towards). You don't think grinding up to 200 is hard? Fine, for you it's the easiest thing and you might love it but for others of us it's not and saying "Heh, you guys are acting like a bunch of manchildren. This isn't work, it was easy for me and so if you think otherwise you're just complaining and looking back through rose-tinted glasses" is insulting as hell to anyone who spent their time getting there. You're being condescending as pineapple, dude.
Basically this.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Great One
Well, most of the thread was tl;dr because all the posts were just as long as yours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andross
What I meant was that we get less cancels and reflects, and more "move out of the way of an attack or get hit for 999k" for some real difficulty.
The community was fine in 2006. The reason being was we needed eachother. Our damage was pitiful which was why we had to do viking parties, we could manage small groups but not the entire map. Nowadays with all the new speed skills and potential they stripped that very idea from the game. It's become soloms. Even zombies, the only maps that weren't shared were z2 and thats because z3/z4 could be divided.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
As for the hacked maps you're mentioning, really the only maps hacked were ones that were very underpopulated or quest related ones. I agree MS has always had problems, but manageable ones, what we're dealing with is not manageable. Before botters made faster money than legit's but dc hack didn't exist. They now control every aspect of our gameplay now, before it was a small part of the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
The fun argument is stupid. Of course every game is fun, that's why you keep playing it. But every game also has frustration, and a goal you want to accomplish within it. The point of all these posts is to show the challenge is being able to maintain that time and resources. Maplestory isn't about just pressing one button and leveling. It's discovering your most efficient route, interacting with the community to accelerate and support you, and knowing what skills benefit you the most. There's plenty of difficulty just different types of difficulties. No game is truely difficult besides that Darkness or w/e by your logic and that's simply not true.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
Basically wrongQuote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
The high level community was much smaller back then and as such, there where less bad apples, not that there weren't any at all. You probably remember KS wars and silly things like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by KhainiWest
Hackers didn't need to dc hack, because they could vac mobs right in your face to kill you and would go on unpunished. And that was about 2005/06 or so. If you remember, there was a flash game called Hunter story with Maplestory sprites. Someone made a parody a bit later called Mage story, where a hacker goes into your map and proceeds to vac everything next to him.
The fun argument is very much valid. You really want to say that you find the underlying mechanics fun? I'd give you that it's sandbox, albeit very restricted one, for emergent gameplay, but Nexon have gone out of their way to make that unfeasible. You're saying that the game is theorycrafting, but it's just a drop in the ocean when compared to the time spent pulling the one-armed bandit. Maplestory has never been good at the "game" part, but it has proven to be an amazing time sink. It's just that people(including me) start seeing it as a commitment and play it far after they've stopped having fun.Quote:
The fun argument is stupid. Of course every game is fun, that's why you keep playing it. But every game also has frustration, and a goal you want to accomplish within it. The point of all these posts is to show the challenge is being able to maintain that time and resources. Maplestory isn't about just pressing one button and leveling. It's discovering your most efficient route, interacting with the community to accelerate and support you, and knowing what skills benefit you the most. There's plenty of difficulty just different types of difficulties. No game is truely difficult besides that Darkness or w/e by your logic and that's simply not true.
Ks wars at maps that were soloable, not maps like Ludi. You can't compare the community like that because the level cap made it a social norm, because it's become so feasible. Level 200 is what level 120 was back in 2006/07. The community was better simply because we had to work together to get better exp and better gear. Today we can solo empress(unglitched), why do I need a guild, a buddy list, I can do everything myself. That's what makes that time different from then. Even in ks wars it was guilds not dc hacks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
Hackers can vac hack now, I assure you if they could dc hack in the past they would have. Controlling a map vs controlling your very gameplay, which ones worse? Common sense says the later. DC hack wasn't discovered until early 07 and it's been abused ever since, you think vac hacking just stopped?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
Yes maplestory's charm and simplicity is what makes it fun. Even for you, it was fun, before it became a job. That's why the fun argument is stupid, you strip the fun out of it because the only form of competitive gameplay is who kills faster. It's your own perspective that kill's it not the game. I assure you if Nexon actually managed the game properly it be one of the most prominent games of our generation. The problem is hackers have destroyed it, to the point where no legitimate player can play it. It wasn't like that in 06-07, hackers took maps, maps are replaceble, they took over quest items, quest rewards you didnt need, but they never took your ability to log on, to market, to train, to boss, and to train all together in a mere 3 second interval.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bremze
I rather they do a revamp on bosses than raise level cap:
Pink Bean
Horntail (regular and chaos)
Zakum (regular and chaos)
Raise the HP on each of those bosses and just make the expedition much more difficult to defeat while also changing the drops with something everyone would want like, high stat Badges, Permanent Android Hearts, Rings, and Medals. Make these new drops potentiable/One of a Kind too.
Kind of a tangent here, but I was checking the first threads I've posted in SP and came around this: http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=7558
I'm amazed at how cheap NX was at the time.
Considering the number of people who no longer play, you should summarize the then vs now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidoshi
Man those were the days. Before gacha came out it was like 1:2 ratio, gach came out it jumped to 3, MTS brought it to 5
@Eos;
like there isn't 80 threads doing that already :f3:
Maybe, but he's complaining about it here :f3:, may as well make the complaint detailed enough for people to follow. Goodness knows this thread is attracting the "back in my day" crowd.Quote:
Originally Posted by KhainiWest
Here Ill summarize;
IM A BETA PLAYER AND LIKE I PLAYED IN 05, BACK THEN NX WAS A LUXERY NOT A NECESSITY. YOU WANTED CLOTHES, YOU GOT F`UCKING CLOTHES, YOU WANTED A PET THAT DIDN'T DO ANYTHING BUT BECOME A MESO SINK FOR PET FOOD, WE WERE THERE. HACKING WASN'T THAT KNOWN BECAUSE NO ONE GAVE A SH`IT ABOUT MAPLESTORY, PEOPLE THINK IT'S WIZET BUT COME TO FIND OUT THEY'VE BEEN BEHIND THE SCENES ALL ALONG. HAHA ISN'T THAT SO FUNNY.
ANYWAY IT TOOK WEEKS TO GET TO 1-70, AS ANYTHING WITH 120 EXP WAS CONSIDERED UNGODLY EXP. YOU MODERN DAY MOFOS CAN'T APPRECIATE A GOOD GRIND WITH YOUR LOLWORTHY 25K PER KILL OR WHATEVER YOUR DUMB ASS MONSTERS. WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ON OUR OWN. PQ'S TRAINING, EVERYTHING WAS MORE EFFICIENT WITH A TEAM. THEN GACHAPON CAME OUT, THINGS WENT TO SHYT REAL QUICK. PEOPLE MADE MESOS LIKE MAD JUST GACHING, THIS WAS AFTER NEXON AMERICA TOOK OVER AND THREW WIZET'S POLICY OUT THE WINDOW. THE CONVERTION HAPPENED IN DECEMBER 2005.
BACK THEN THE WORST YOU DELT WITH WAS KSING/VAC HACKING. I COULD ACTUALLY PLAY BACK THEN.
...I think that covers most of it
Anyone remember how when pet equips came out, if you didn't buy the looting items, the pets would block you from looting anything?
Fun times.
ps. 250,000 Dual Ghost Pirates 87-114
White Knights used to be hardcore
(with the present exp curve it'd take 45,000 on 1x to do the same levels, or 22k on 2x, etc.)
I raged for a solid week at my stupid kitty. :f2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Stereo
There was a White Knight in Windia that used to solo Grims up until about 149 or so, Bavilo68 I think. Pretty sure he was rank 1 Paladin in GMS for a while too, so hardcore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stereo
My most nostalgic memories from old Maple times were training my beginner mage, dealing 1~7 damage and "sniping" orange mushrooms from the ledges by jump-attacking. The quest window didn't exist then.
:p my Paladin is older than quests having completion dates, they added that feature sometime in 2005 and just marked all completed quests as being finished on that date.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidoshi
My Priest is probably similar then, I know he doesn't have Maple Island quests and his lvl 15 Black Bull's quest has a Dec/05 completion date, but I'm not sure when exactly I started playing it. Maybe I've been playing for longer than I thought!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stereo
Dude, hermits solo'd bottom and bishop/dk would ride up and down. Man that was a smooth machine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazz
I actually partied Laid that way for a short time.Quote:
Originally Posted by KhainiWest
DKs did better mob damage on fire-weak than WKs though so it only lasted til his DK came back.
July 12, 2005 is when quests got dated. I can't find any other quests completed before Jan 23 2006 [Orbis released, omfg] though, so it might have been introduced any time between those dates.
http://i.imgur.com/aZmXs.jpg
Geeze I haven't heard that name in a long time, wasn't he really close with banditcomm?
Got banned trying to sell a level 150 hermit anonymously on ebay, lol... when at the time it was #1 or #2 on the server.
I thought it was something like that, I know iliketoks did that, and I thought I was getting them mixed up lol
's how I used to train my DK, I'd cycle top platforms with a Priest and a Hermit would take bottom x)Quote:
Originally Posted by KhainiWest
Forget about the hermit, as a priest I used to solo the bottom while a DK or FP mage did the top, meeting in the middle for HS every 2 minutes. The music there was enough to make your ears bleed after a few hours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazz
I don't think blindly inflating numbers some more would fix this issue. Back when I played right after AfterShock, I either did CWKPQ or grind at LHC, questing and other stuff didn't really help in advancement.
There is a plethora of things to do in the lower levels, What they should focus on is giving players more choice in what they can do while advancing, such as making quests more viable.