2012-11-05, 11:50 AM
@KhainiWest: Yikes, the market at GMS is that bad? I may have a lot of complaints about MSEA but we can at least still survive by selling regular equips.
Now, on to my thoughts on what needs to be revised:
EXP modifiers: The EXP given is fine, the stackable modifiers are not. I think the most anyone should be able to get should be HS + Elven Blessing + Maxed Pendant and no other 2x should work. Better yet, just remove 2x cards.
Drop rates and items: I'm basing this on GMS since MSEA's rates are nerfed to all hell because we're apparently too efficient. Number one, it shouldn't take days or even weeks to hunt a single item, one day sounds about fair. Number two: Mobs need to drop better equipments as we now have a crafting system that makes hunting for most equips silly to say the least.
My suggestion for this: Introduce sets that can be crafted by Smithing/Jewel Crafting, of which the items required only drop when hunting in parties. Make it so that the crafter needs to be the right kind for the job too (I.e. Only Archers can craft the Archer set and so on). The items should look good enough when worn to interest people but as a catch the equips would not be near end-game material (But you can still use it if bossing isn't your thing), so this gives players an incentive to Anvil them if they want it.
It honestly bothers me to see only discussions about Cygnus equips as I'm deliberately limiting myself by crafting my own equips and trading expensive items whenever needed. I do not intend to buy equips using real money as that makes Maple Story even cheaper feeling than water, not that it isn't already.
Cubes: I like @KhainiWest's suggestion that there should be a minimum of one useful line per cube used. Cubes are extremely expensive at my region (Up to 5 bucks for the normal ones!) so you can imagine my extreme displeasure at the thought of getting useless things. I don't mind it when I'm crafting since I can fuse away.
Suggestion: To balance out cubes and spending, let's make it so that bosses can drop a few but not enough that you can farm (1 per character per week?). My reasoning is that you can't get people to cube without giving them a taste of how it could be so you need to give out some incentives.
As for the cubes, remove all the useless lines, make it so that you can only get your desired stat line on class-specific armour. Unique is also a good enough tier to stop at and dump the rest.
Partying utility: This one is difficult to solve as I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both having been an extreme PQer in my past and getting stuck for hours finding the right character. Same goes for bossing.
Suggestion: Make some PQs easier with a specific class but not so badly that disconnection completely fails the PQ. Same thing for bosses except that I would suggest something like an object that a specific class could attack to give some breathing space, though this also means boss fights would have to be more intense. I actually do think Magnus was a step towards the right direction, it just needs to be adjusted a bit more to suit party play and not Angelic Burster play.
In terms of skills and differentiating classes something really needs to be done for Archmages. They should at least be able to provide some kind of bossing support in heavy DoT perhaps so as to not be refused by most bossing parties. I think most classes are actually fine as they are but this stands out like a sore thumb to me because Nexon has arguably tried but except for the god-tier A/Ms it hasn't made an ounce of difference from what I can see.
Partying/bossing: Those parameters have to go for one. See below for the rest.
Suggestion: After dropping potentials down so no one can get too OP even with tons of cash most of the high-level bosses should be good fights again so here goes. I like two ideas from Sword Art Online and Mana Khemia known as Switch and A-Support/D-Support respectively and this is how it'd work:
Pots and healing would be severely nerfed and if you die that's it, no more WoFs (Phantoms, Evans and Bishops still get their buffs though). You'd have to make it so that bosses have more unique attacking style than the stupid DDDR combo and that would serve as a warning sign that they'd either have to eat the blow and risk most of the party dying or switch out. While the party is on standby they'll recover HP and MP and depending on your mode set-up (Offensive/Defensive) they could be switched in and provide a buff to the party or a debuff towards the boss. There's also a cooldown on the switch to prevent abuse so the active party must be able to survive. Oh, and to prevent hackers from busting this up there should be at least one other registered person even for the solo mode that I'll detail below.
For the ones more interested in finding challenges there could be a solo mode. The boss would be adjusted so that it wouldn't be impossible but the player could be given several kinds of options to avoid a total wipeout while the obvious reward would be satisfaction because even with cubing you could not legitimately hope to tackle bosses alone without having good knowledge of how your character works.
As for cash, cubes would still be a good source but with more involvement of players, new classes and more things to do expenditures should even out as I do not forsee Nexon changing cash shop inventories. And while we're here I would like toask for a pony say that the Cash Shop equips need to be adjusted to have less modern equips and more RPG-esque equips for people like me who like to keep things realistic in a 2D game. 
Mastery Books: Seriously, just nix them. My recommendation's simple, let us do epic-level (By epic I mean chain quests that have lore and quest bosses) quests to get them and make it so that it's easier to do by partying so that everyone can share in the joy of mastering a skill.
Now, on to my thoughts on what needs to be revised:
EXP modifiers: The EXP given is fine, the stackable modifiers are not. I think the most anyone should be able to get should be HS + Elven Blessing + Maxed Pendant and no other 2x should work. Better yet, just remove 2x cards.
Drop rates and items: I'm basing this on GMS since MSEA's rates are nerfed to all hell because we're apparently too efficient. Number one, it shouldn't take days or even weeks to hunt a single item, one day sounds about fair. Number two: Mobs need to drop better equipments as we now have a crafting system that makes hunting for most equips silly to say the least.
My suggestion for this: Introduce sets that can be crafted by Smithing/Jewel Crafting, of which the items required only drop when hunting in parties. Make it so that the crafter needs to be the right kind for the job too (I.e. Only Archers can craft the Archer set and so on). The items should look good enough when worn to interest people but as a catch the equips would not be near end-game material (But you can still use it if bossing isn't your thing), so this gives players an incentive to Anvil them if they want it.
It honestly bothers me to see only discussions about Cygnus equips as I'm deliberately limiting myself by crafting my own equips and trading expensive items whenever needed. I do not intend to buy equips using real money as that makes Maple Story even cheaper feeling than water, not that it isn't already.
Cubes: I like @KhainiWest's suggestion that there should be a minimum of one useful line per cube used. Cubes are extremely expensive at my region (Up to 5 bucks for the normal ones!) so you can imagine my extreme displeasure at the thought of getting useless things. I don't mind it when I'm crafting since I can fuse away.
Suggestion: To balance out cubes and spending, let's make it so that bosses can drop a few but not enough that you can farm (1 per character per week?). My reasoning is that you can't get people to cube without giving them a taste of how it could be so you need to give out some incentives.
As for the cubes, remove all the useless lines, make it so that you can only get your desired stat line on class-specific armour. Unique is also a good enough tier to stop at and dump the rest.
Partying utility: This one is difficult to solve as I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both having been an extreme PQer in my past and getting stuck for hours finding the right character. Same goes for bossing.
Suggestion: Make some PQs easier with a specific class but not so badly that disconnection completely fails the PQ. Same thing for bosses except that I would suggest something like an object that a specific class could attack to give some breathing space, though this also means boss fights would have to be more intense. I actually do think Magnus was a step towards the right direction, it just needs to be adjusted a bit more to suit party play and not Angelic Burster play.
In terms of skills and differentiating classes something really needs to be done for Archmages. They should at least be able to provide some kind of bossing support in heavy DoT perhaps so as to not be refused by most bossing parties. I think most classes are actually fine as they are but this stands out like a sore thumb to me because Nexon has arguably tried but except for the god-tier A/Ms it hasn't made an ounce of difference from what I can see.
Partying/bossing: Those parameters have to go for one. See below for the rest.
Suggestion: After dropping potentials down so no one can get too OP even with tons of cash most of the high-level bosses should be good fights again so here goes. I like two ideas from Sword Art Online and Mana Khemia known as Switch and A-Support/D-Support respectively and this is how it'd work:
Pots and healing would be severely nerfed and if you die that's it, no more WoFs (Phantoms, Evans and Bishops still get their buffs though). You'd have to make it so that bosses have more unique attacking style than the stupid DDDR combo and that would serve as a warning sign that they'd either have to eat the blow and risk most of the party dying or switch out. While the party is on standby they'll recover HP and MP and depending on your mode set-up (Offensive/Defensive) they could be switched in and provide a buff to the party or a debuff towards the boss. There's also a cooldown on the switch to prevent abuse so the active party must be able to survive. Oh, and to prevent hackers from busting this up there should be at least one other registered person even for the solo mode that I'll detail below.
For the ones more interested in finding challenges there could be a solo mode. The boss would be adjusted so that it wouldn't be impossible but the player could be given several kinds of options to avoid a total wipeout while the obvious reward would be satisfaction because even with cubing you could not legitimately hope to tackle bosses alone without having good knowledge of how your character works.
As for cash, cubes would still be a good source but with more involvement of players, new classes and more things to do expenditures should even out as I do not forsee Nexon changing cash shop inventories. And while we're here I would like to
Mastery Books: Seriously, just nix them. My recommendation's simple, let us do epic-level (By epic I mean chain quests that have lore and quest bosses) quests to get them and make it so that it's easier to do by partying so that everyone can share in the joy of mastering a skill.