HuskyDM

AKradian wrote: »

HuskyDM wrote: »

Sure there are ways to avoid verification in the West but they haven't even tried it at all. Have captchas, or phone verification that require a password to be added, or an app that constantly updates a security password like Steam Guard. You'll see that once an extra step has to be taken to keep hacking most people will stop, because most people don't want to take the extra step to do their stuff, and it doesn't matter if these people leave the game, chances are they didn't even wanted to play.

You're right that they didn't want to play.
They wanted to make money, though.
The vast majority of bots in GMS are operated by people looking to make real-world money off the game, by selling meso or items.
They will go through whatever extra steps are needed, because it's their livelihood at stake.

All the more reason to make it incredibly hard to hack the game. That way a lot of those people will go and take real jobs instead of making cash by scamming people on an online game aimed at children. I'm pretty sure there is legal action that can be taken here against those sites and hack software providers, Nintendo has done a lot of it in recent times (albeit it a little to extremely) to a degree of success.

AKradian wrote: »

The Black Mage content was available to all characters of level 200 and higher, over the winter (December-January).
If you missed that, then yes, you're going to have to grind to 245 and above to see the story to its completion.
I think it's only fitting that in order to defeat the ultimate boss of the game for the past ten years, you need to get nearly to max level.

I don't think it is fair to say "you snooze you lose" to something as big as the Black Mage, and I wouldn't find it surprising if a lot of people who played MapleStory in their childhood came back to play when they heard the Black Mage is finally available only to find it behind layers upon layers of tedious grinding. Perhaps at this very moment a Blockbuster might not be the best thing to do as its still very fresh, but a year or so down the line making a Blockbuster so people are able to experience the story without having to spend months of Arcane Symbol and level grinding might be a good solution.

The issue has a lot of layers and I believe a lot of it has to do with the very poor management the GMS team has given to the game and the community

Let's take one thing out of the way first, MapleStory and pretty much any MMO is not going to be near as popular in the West as they are in Asian countries, much less Korea where their mobile and online gaming market are some of the most profitable, if not the most profitable gaming market of the entire planet. GMS will never be able to compete with KMS in terms of population, and it doesn't have to.

Now that doesn't mean that there aren't issues which do affect the population of GMS, because there are a lot. First off the fractured servers and their communities. You could see the servers of GMS as islands, some of which have a bigger population. Scania, Bera and Reboot of course are the biggest. Then you see the difference in population of those three compared to Windia, GRAZED, MYBKCN and Broa-Khaini and you see the issue. Those servers are empty. As a long time GRAZED player I can testify on the changes my servers has suffered across the years I've played. At this point there is no reason not to merge those servers into a single unified server in order to unify the severed population and make options for new players far more appealing, because who wants to play an MMO in an empty server anyway.

Then there is the hacker issue and GMS' neglect to even talk about it at any length. I'll be blunt and say the “Both” rank discussion that is taking place right now is a stupid waste of time when the game is falling apart because of way more important aspects. You can have that discussion when the game is working properly and right now it isn't. Hackers and bots are one important aspect of it. The usual answer is “its an issue to big to solve” and yes it is, specially in the West, but it is one thing to try to solve it an another very different one to try to mitigate it, and GMS hasn't even tried to mitigate it. Autobans and potion-blocking mobs are not enough. Sure there are ways to avoid verification in the West but they haven't even tried it at all. Have captchas, or phone verification that require a password to be added, or an app that constantly updates a security password like Steam Guard. You'll see that once an extra step has to be taken to keep hacking most people will stop, because most people don't want to take the extra step to do their stuff, and it doesn't matter if these people leave the game, chances are they didn't even wanted to play.

All of this culminates into what I think is the biggest problem that is harming GMS at the moment. The absolutely all time low morale of the playerbase. Who wants to keep on grinding on a game when the amount of work it takes is unbearable, the rewards negligible, and the fun non existing? There is no people to play with most of the time, you either have hackers taking the good spots to train or living on a desolate server that lacks any incentive to keep on going. Then you have useless discussions about frivolous aspects of the game and people at least once a week making a new thread on how the game is dead, there is no point, the service support is awful, hackers everywhere and not a single bit of care is given by whoever is managing the game at this point. Until a lot of this issues are at least talked about and players are given a sign that there is hope for the future of this game then our servers will keep getting empty.

I've been a BT main since the Black Heaven update, grinded to get the Dark Critical Ring and all so I have plenty of opinions on the matter. Wall of text incoming.

First up: Current problems
Beast Tamer has easily the worst damage output in the game. The problem isn't that Bear mode is unable to do damage, but that the moves Bear mode has to do its damage are terrible. Having to do 3 Paw Swipes (just 1 line of damage for your main move) before getting to Furious Strike is way to slow, and then Furious Strike only does 4 lines of damage and forces you to keep perfectly still to do the damage. Its the same thing with Fishy Slap, you have to keep perfectly still in order to do the attack and it takes a lot of time to cancel the attack and move which sucks in a game where bosses are able to move so much and do their attacks quickly. The other moves that Bear has also have its issues: Majestic Trumpet is bugged and may sometimes not come out, Little Fort forces you to get the enemy close to the minion for it to attack, Table Flip and Group Bear Blaster force you to stay still while the attack does its thing making you completely vulnerable for at least 5 seconds in a game where if you don't move you are getting OHKO.
Other than Bear the animals are useless. Leopard was meant to be a mob killer but barely does any damage late game. Hawk also does no damage whatsoever and its mobility focused, the problem with this is that you have to switch to the animal in order to get its effects which in middle of a Boss Fight is impossible. Cat is only mildly useful for his Card buff which is also the only buff BT can use with any animal, but forces you to get to Cat first in order to use it.
The animal change mechanic is bad. You lose all the passives and buffs from your current animal when you change. Before you say its for balance many other classes have layers upon layers of buffs while BT can only use a few. Changing from Bear to any other animal makes you lose a lot of HP and any stance and defense you had so you are pretty much dead when you switch. Also switching to use the other animals make sense in concept but sucks in execution due to the game forcing you to be fast or die.

Possible solutions

1: The lazy dev way

This would make BT work with little changes to its current state. First and foremost, give more SP to BTs. We already get less SP due to not getting the 4th Job SP bonus (because BTs have no jobs) which means we don't get enough SP to max every animal. Then make all the passives and buff skills you get from every animal available with every animal stance. Make the Cat buffs usable instead of being automatic so that they are always available. Reduce the time it takes for Group Bear Blaster and Table Flip to complete or allow BT to move while the move completes. Make Furious Strike a skill you activate at will and increase the amount of damage lines Paw Swipe does. Allow movement while using Furious Strike and Fishy Slap like Xenon's whip move.

2: The job way

I imagined that BT would be able to use any animals when she wanted. After all aren't they a team? Unless they are a team of college students that leave all the work to a single member I don't see why we shouldn't be able to use every animal whenever we wanted. In this solution the idea is to turn BT into another regular class, with jobs and the like. First remove the animal switching all together. Every job you get some skills all related to a certain animal, getting a Bear and Leopard move and passives at 1st job, getting Bear, Leopard and Hawk moves at 2nd job, all 4 animals at 3rd and 4th job. Like in solution 1 allow passives and buffs from any animal to be always available but now also allow any animal skills to be always available. If the Critter Champs are indeed a team I see no problem in be able to have Bear and Leopard damage skills, Hawk's mobility and Cat buffs all available at the same time. It makes no sense why I cannot have Fly and Hawk's flash jumps only while in Hawk, or Cat's heal and revive only while in Cat.

3. The switching way

In this solution we keep the animal switching mechanic up, and we also keep all buff, passives and skills always available regardless of the current animal. The major change being that if you use a skill of a certain animal while that animal is the one you have currently active that move gets buffed. For example if I'm in Leopard mode and use Fishy Slap, then Fishy Slap happens, but if I'm in Bear mode and I use Fishy Slap then the move gets a buff because I'm using a Bear skill while in Bear mode.

TLDR: Overall I think that either making most of BTs moves always available would be one of the easier and better changes they could do to the class. Animal switching takes way to long and gives no advantages, specially with how fast the current game forces you to be. Beast Tamer would definitely love being more mobile in order to keep up.

Oof, tough to pick but I believe aodbao323i47hjd will beat dsfh23874yaa to the punch. But then again they have to contend against fdfg715nn8008p who has the Kishin advantage.