Pre-Big Bang Maplers, how do you feel about Maplestory now?

[ElectricSix]

Eh I've played since Bera was released, and I greatly appreciate most of the changes.

About the only content I ever both loved and hated was potential. I loved having damage increases, but it did screw over all your old equipment. And in my case, since I spent very little on the game, my gear remains mostly event and what I can find. So getting even a +3% stat on something was pretty good for me, and epic tier is a rarity. Thus I rarely ever even have the temptation to spend money on cubing or maxing my damage range. I mean, if I had maxed out on levels like some people did, perhaps I'd have been more inclined to stat out my main character, but I rarely play any one class for too long. The highest I've gotten with a character in one go was a Luminous to 120, everyone else seems to languish in the late 70s to early 80s unless I get the urge to play them again and then they languish in the late 90s and low 100s. I think that if I was the average player, I would have left MS long ago, but I still enjoy playing it occasionally. The new classes are usually somewhat fun, and the revamped ones are usually a decent update worth playing around with.

I think probably the biggest change for me was that pre-big bang I did spend some small amounts of money on NX. I liked gaching for fun and buying a few nx covers seemed a worthwhile way to support a game I enjoyed playing and cover my horribly ugly Ice/Lighting mage. However, at a certain point, things got pretty terrible both content wise and hacking wise, and I stopped spending money on it. And I never really came back from that. I still play it, but even post big bang has never gotten me feeling the urge to support the game. I think overall, that potential and some of the class changes killed any real reason I had to gach, and while nx covers are still much more appealing that most of the equips I have, I'm not invested in just one character enough to justify it. In addition, I've never really played the FM game, or even just tried to farm event equips for money, so I'm relatively broke compared to most average Maplers. I still consider 100 mil to be a lot of money after all, and I know that's not much when I see most things in the FM going for billions.

So yeah, the changes, while they made MS more fun for me and generally have improved the game, they have actually had a negative impact on my desire to spend money on it. It's a bit odd, as you'd think I'd want to spend more money on the new version of MS, but the combination of little mesos, lots of characters, and potential making all plain equips essentially worthless, means there is very little reason for me to ever buy nx to gach again. And nx covers only ever really applied to me when leveling was so slow I was stuck at pre 3rd job for ages and couldn't stand the terrible clothes any longer. I suppose when they came out with the permanent versions of clothes, I might have been tempted, but by then it was too late. I wasn't spending any on Nx at all then. I wonder if they ever did any research on that fact. I think in the long run, the big bang update may have killed far more nx buying than any other individual decision Nexon has made. Minus perhaps how they decided to deal with hackers for a time. That may have killed more nx sources, hard to say.

[Dredragon]

The only thing I can say I missed about old maple was CPQ. I would make a pirate, get it to 30, cpq to 50, then restart and do it again, since I was too pomegranate to level past 50.

I enjoy maple a bit more now, because it's easier to level, but I mostly enjoy the new quest lines. Quest lines in maplestory were always what drew me in. The new things like the adventurer story line that involved the seal stones, and the cwk quest chain that had you saving demons were some of the things I found myself enjoying now. Even though the first part of the cwk quest line was just kill these monsters then do this mini game, then kill these etc, I enjoy having quests that can sorta mask my grinding, as well as being able to explore new areas as you go along. Plus, maplestory has come a long way with their quest dialogue, and it's usually a good read.

But because damage is so hard to achieve other than by buying nx or stumbling into a large sum of money, I use my current amount of mesos on perm nx gears, just to make my questing more enjoyable. I'm really out of the loop on how to do damages now, which is my main problem with the game. That could just be me not trying hard enough for it, but honestly don't know.

[Jazeon]

Love the game as it is now, and i'm loving updates as it goes on too. Somethings may be frustrating as first like losing that daily krexel money, but now i'm making even more money using my phantom skills. Life doesn't stay one way it changes, you adapt to survive and become stronger, same principle works with my mapling and it's getting better and better.

[Typhoon]

another one of these threads?

[KhainiWest]

Love the game as it is now, and i'm loving updates as it goes on too. Somethings may be frustrating as first like losing that daily krexel money, but now i'm making even more money using my phantom skills. Life doesn't stay one way it changes, you adapt to survive and become stronger, same principle works with my mapling and it's getting better and better.

I lol'd.

[Marksman Bryan]

I still haven't figured out if pre-potential/big-bang was more challenging/fun/hard because it actually was or if it was because I was so much younger.

I only enjoy Maple now because I'm in the top 1% that can do high end bosses. Otherwise I doubt I'd have fun.

[Dark Link]

Unlimited killed what enjoyment I had left in the game. RED was tempting to return, but the recent dupes / exploits reminded me of how bad the current state of the game is. Nevermind that some of the hackers that abused said exploits actually got UNBANNED by Nexon yesterday.

The only thing I liked about Pre-potential maple was both my two sisters and myself enjoyed playing together and having fun. After potential came out they pretty much quit.

[Takebacker]

I only enjoy Maple now because I'm in the top 1% that can do high end bosses. Otherwise I doubt I'd have fun.

Pretty much this. Gollux was amazing just because he was slightly outside my damage level but still possible to solo hard mode. If i were only strong enough to barely do normal i think it wouldn't have grabbed my attention nearly as much.

[emailbox]

I like it.

Pre-BB I think I had 1 level 120, and that was a Dual Blade, which were ridiculously easy to grind (just sit at Himes on 4x/8x from like level 75-120), and now I have 3 level 200+s and a bunch of level 170+ characters sitting around. Definitely have been enjoying the game more post-BB than pre-BB.

Pre-BB pservers were a lot more fun though :>

[Worthyness]

I appreciat the easier leveing. I just made a corsair in 2 days where, in that time during Pre-BB/potential era, would have given me like 1-3 levels.

If they made potential accessible to non-cash people, the game would be MUCH better. They gave us cube crafting, but to even make one takes like seventy billion hours and basically makes it not-worth the time or effort. If I want to craft something that difficult, I'm making a dominator pendant or something similar, not that one pineappleing cube that could ruin all the potential that already exists on my equipment.

I'm still playing like I did in the old days- save all my drops and money in hopes that I can eventually buy myself my mastery books and potions. Then saving all the decent potential drops and taking advantage of all the free things that I get from events. MY main is LOADED with free gear and perma NX. And all of the cubes I do buy are from free maplepoints. It's easier now and still enjoyable, but the "end game" content is still out of reach because I just don't do enough damage to do anything (to kill empress you need to do something like BILLIONS of damage in a minute, but even with my main 1v1 skill, I can only hit 400k*9, which doesn't yield that much damage at all)

[Takebacker]

They gave us cube crafting, but to even make one takes like seventy billion hours and basically makes it not-worth the time or effort. If I want to craft something that difficult, I'm making a dominator pendant or something similar, not that one pineappleing cube that could ruin all the potential that already exists on my equipment.

I wish they could have given us the ability to craft unique potential scrolls. That would have been worth the effort to make for sure.

[Dusk]

I quit a few months after Big Bang, but I still skim the update threads on occasion. It's better looking and flashier now, but it doesn't seem to have changed all that much. Still just a chatroom with a monotonous activity to do to burn time. Doing loops around a map killing respawning monsters for hours on end stopped being fun for me years and years ago.

[IllegallySane]

I miss the community, but on the other hand I don't miss the incredibly grindy nature of the game (obviously being more grindy that it is now. ~1-2%/hour at Temple of Time before Big Bang arrived? F'uck that shi't. I know it was even worse before then). I sometimes think back and wonder how the hell I was able to sit on my ass for 4 hours or longer and just stare at my EXP bar slowly piddle up.

I don't like how painfully pay-to-win the game has gotten, but as long as I play only with a casual mindset (leveling, experiencing the class, probably doing easy mode bosses), I won't be that disappointed.

I like how much faster it is to level to 200, and that each class more or less don't have to endure the torture of traveling at 100% walking speed anymore. There was a reason I was more drawn to classes with natural mobility. As much as I enjoy playing tanky classes, pre-Flash Jump Warriors were plain torture.

Kind of a personal taste, but permanent pets and permanent gear made play Explorers so much more fun when you don't have to throw money every single time you make a new character. I only wish Nexon America eventually makes the Cash Shop items shareable with ALL classes; that's all ever wanted out of the Cash Shop. The convenience of a pet is not to be underrated.

[Takebacker]

I miss the community, but on the other hand I don't miss the incredibly grindy nature of the game (obviously being more grindy that it is now. ~1-2%/hour at Temple of Time? F'uck that shi't. I know it was even worse before then). I sometimes think back and wonder how the hell I was able to sit on my ass for 4 hours or longer and just stare at my EXP bar slowly piddle up.

I don't know about 120-19x but i don't think it's currently so bad that you'd get less than 20%-30% an hour anywhere you go that's mainstream. o.o

[Daakun]

Mostly I can only enjoy it by pretending the "endgame" doesn't exist.
New class, have fun with some new skills, quit. Rinse and repeat for the next class.

Kind of a vicious cycle, that. High levels are boring so I wait for a new class, I get that class to a high level and now there's nothing else to do, etc.

Hoping Zero breaks the mold, since apparently they get a quest line that carries all the way to 180.

[LegendGospel]

What has really changed, is that today Maple Story has a feeling of urgency.

Pretty much, urgency.

In the past leveling was hard enough, so first job and second job were a long trip. Some didn't reach third job. And even less players were fourth jobbers, and fourth jobbers were amazing to look at. It was a long road. A grindfest, most of all. You could take months and months to grow your character. That's why people hanged out at Henesys or HHG1, that's why people did quests, jumping quests, party quests, and whatnot. Things took time. And patience. That's also why people grouped, for things like Zakum, Horntail, Targar/Scarlion, etc.

Now, everything has a feeling of urgency.

Just yesterday, I completed an event (for the 15% critical ring), which asks you to create a new character and level it to 130. You have a few days to do it, go! How can I even care? That's how we roll now. If you're not a big NX spender, the one way to get nice stuff is doing attendance events, level up events, and things like that... which if you ask more people now, they will say it's no fun. And it's not.

[IllegallySane]

I don't know about 120-19x but i don't think it's currently so bad that you'd get less than 20%-30% an hour anywhere you go that's mainstream. o.o

I is dumb, forgot to clarify that the 1-2%/hour was before Big Bang happened. O4 training 4ever. Uggggghhhhh. The money was great when Pieces of Time were still worth something, but my god the grinding speed was terrible even at the best spot possible at the time. Obviously I can't say the same for 200+ training, but at least you have all your skills maxed out and most likely great gear.

[Seanny]

tbh i really feel like the game has more than ever to offer.

Its a better game its just they destroyed the social aspect so badly with the dumbing down of certain PQs power creep and other features.

Aside from that. There really is so much more to do and work on in the game. But with traditionally single player games getting better online features than they did 6 years ago, MMORPGs need to do more than become more solo friendly, while being grindy to stand out.

[Words]

I feel ashamed of myself for playing for so long pre BB and even worse for playing for a couple months last year or so.

[fodjgngf]

I miss the life or death game of Anego and Royal Guard Type S.