Just an idea I had for a map that would take advantage of today's maple classes' power and mobility.
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Recommended Level ]: 200+
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Classes Designed for ]: Any high HP/DEF class, mobility class
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Single or Party Focused ]: Both, leaning more towards party-use. Map is gigantic, monsters have high HP/DEF, spawn is relatively high. Party-Play Zone in effect.
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Access ]: Unteleportable. Must access through quest completion or through combination of hidden streets, or jump quest, can't decide.
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Map Theme/Mechanics ]: Lava will periodically spawn upwards, up to a significant amount above the second platform area. Lava deals flat damage, which can be reduced with a combination of HP/DEF. Flat damage is high (not sure on the number, maybe 65k). 3 totems exist in the map. All the monsters in said map drop etc items that simultaneously stop lava and act as a summoning for Boss. All the player(s) have to do is collect the drops and just pass through the totems.
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Map Layout Design ]: Flash Jumps and Ropelift, freedom of movement.
Highest plat is safe from lava, however there is little reduction in mob spawn/respawn compared to the other plats. Also, platform is very wide.
2nd platform area better spawn and mobs are more clustered together. However, have to move around more, more special mobs, and have to watch out for lava periodically. When bottom plat is submerged in lava, lava will jump above second platforms every 5 seconds for 25 seconds. Can wait it out, train through it, or use etc drops.
3rd platform is the best place to train, with all the monsters being in 1 platform and only 1 special mob. Spawn/respawn should then be the same as 2nd platform, as it is already good enough. Boss spawns here. However, lava will completely engulf area from time-to-time. Every 310 seconds, lasting 25 seconds.
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Monster Mobs ]: All Fire/Undead based, which means increased damage to Ice/Holy attacks and additionally will stun them. Invincibility or attacks that cause accuracy loss effective here as well. All mobs have high HP/DEF. One special mob in each plat has an attack that does super knockback. That special mob's respawn timer is every 30 seconds after it is killed.
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Boss ]: Spawns only in the bottom plat and only if summoning requisite is met. Has high flat damage attack that spans a long horizontal direction that lasts a while. Can jump to mini platforms or descend to bottom platform to dodge and have time to unleash a good amount of DPS. Also has lesser attacks that can be dodged by jumping/flash jumping/crouching. Has simple attack patterns/strings. Contributing any more etc drops will weaken Boss while it is still active. 10 second slow/skill lock/etc for every additional x amount of etc drops. Has hidden stun value whenever certain damage threshold is met, stunning boss for 5 seconds, and resets after (no need for a bind, although is still useful on hand).
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Rewards ]: Whatever's meta :^) (also odd stuff not found anywhere else. Chance to drop bone helms, Terminus?) High XP/Meso rate than similarly leveled maps. Defeating Boss should reward large experience or through loot. Players should feel that they would want to fight the boss in most cases.
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Abusablity Countermeasures ] If anyone in the map does not collect certain etc drops in a certain period of time, will be sent back to town. Similar to collecting papulatus timers, players will have have to collect these etc drops and just have to pass any of the three totems (?). *Would rather not implement and let players relax and chill with other players training if they so wish* Perhaps significantly increase etc drops for boss to spawn for every player in the map...?
It really is a lot of stuff going on for one map. A more elegant design that I appreciate that's not too out there are the Chu Chu maps with the river you can swim to any of the little platforms. Made for a sleek grinding experience. I wonder if they could do anything interesting with maps filled with water again?
My next idea is with a long bridge and having to balance out monster spawns by using any knockback skill. Or plats only reachable for the classes that have a glide or other skills.
Comments
Also, I would avoid having the monsters drop anything that could clutter your inventory, I would go with a different system to manage the lava and boss. We already have some existing mechanics that could work, like rune-esque key inputs, or you could come up with an entirely new one. It could even be something that requires a bit of coordination and communication between people in the map, regardless of whether or not they were in the same party, something like Fleet Signals from Moonbridge in the Black Mage event. That was also a good example of incentivizing working together, rather than punishing playing alone. Nothing bad happened if you failed to activate the fleet signals (while I would guess you'd get overrun by lava if you didn't do totems together or something?), while you got a buff depending on what level the lowest fleet signal was at if the people in the map did manage to do it. I think the Black Mage event did a lot of things right for cooperative play, short of actually letting you party together, which admittedly might not have been a bad thing.
Speaking of lava, 65k damage seems like way too much. I'm not sure what the defense formula is like currently, but I don't think anything short of max defense would reduce that to a reasonable level. For example, in the old days, right after Big Bang, the maximum DEF you could have was 30k, and the % damage reduction that would take off was sqrt(DEF * .25), so even at max DEF, the most you could reduce would've been 86%. HP values are way higher now, but not enough so that 65k damage wouldn't be a significant threat, depending on how frequently it would damage you. I would try to figure out what a reasonable amount of DEF would be for a high DEF character, if that's your target audience, and then figure out how much damage they would take from a base of 65k damage and figure out if that's reasonable.
I don't want every map be so specific, but I do would want a map designed for certain classes in mind, if possible. Yes, that would limit who can properly train there, but then all that'd be needed to fix this inequality is to make other maps for those classes. I want players to feel like the class they're playing has a noticeable effect on what they can do and where, and not be a one-size fit all, THE best map, no question situation - I don't want people fighting over CLP maps (too much). As far as using a JQ to access this map, if people were willing to do it when they were training with Windraiders and Stormbreakers, as long as power creep allows it, I think players would go through the hassle. Or lets say even collecting droplets. Any steep cost or inconvenience is tolerable if the rewards are good enough.
As with the elemental advantage/disadvantages, since the map is geared towards high hp/high mobility, I intended it to be a small lee way for those with Ice/Holy attacks. I know the elemental system has not been implemented for a while, but I think re-introducing it with knowledge of what has been done and what can still be done can open up avenues of interest. Same goes for status effects. Just have to build it up bit by bit.
Hmm, maybe different colored etc items that would automatically accrue based on pick ups? I just wanted something a little more interactive without breaking gameplay flow. I was thinking pets would pick up the etc items, and all you have to do is pass through any of the totems but having inventory clutter does sound annoying. I don't want any punishment for using this mechanic, but instead reward those that do; making the map less chaotic and more rewarding if done, and just minor inconvenience if not.
Maybe have buffs that decrease lava damage based on amount of monsters killed... And increased damage to the monsters (for classes that aren't suited for this map)?
Yea, I didn't do the math, but the gist of it is that this map is something you have to keep your wits about you. Not too much, but something a little more engaging than sweeping the entire map and waiting for respawns. My reasoning was to give more value to classes that have high HP/DEF, or skills that accounted for more survivability than DPS.
You only needed to do the Crimsonwood JQ like twice, and then you could get the item that let you skip the JQ, so I don't know how many people were doing the JQ every time they wanted to train up there, but I imagine very few. The last part is exactly what I'm saying, people will only jump through the hoops if it's good enough, like how Arcane equips are just the very best thing you can have, so people are willing to farm droplets for them.
Yeah, I think something like the first determination event for Black Mage, or the fruit collecting event for Utah's Farm would be a good way to do it. You pick up stuff, but there's a counter for them on screen, rather than actually adding them to your inventory.