The burning event sucks, actually. Always has.

LegionPothIX

The burning event is bad for players. It's FOMO cranked up to 11. The temporary CRA gear was not enough to get this done, and I had to use a tremendous amount of game knowledge to always be out-playing the terrible gear options I was stuck with. Gear wall at 160? Power through by carefully selecting maps your class can 100% cheese. Content drought at 180? Suck down literally four thousand potions to power through with your bad gear on maps enemies can 2 shot you from across the stage in.

That's ****. It feels miserable, and making that the primary focus of the summer is a cancer surgically designed to get players to quit.

Every time burning event happens I do it, and every time it's an unmitigated disaster. I busted my ass to get a link-skill job, that I hated every minute of playing, up to 200. I'm not even going to 5th job it. Too much work to get it caught up to the standard of gear that Arcane River demands. It'll straight up be faster to go to somewhere like Twisted Aqua Road (I know it's removed but there are still similar areas) and catch combo orbs until I want to kill myself. Bad game design that's toxic to the players is bad for the game and needs to go.


Edit: all my Hyper Stats were in EXP Gain with the left over stats saved for Arcane Force that I'm not going to even bother with now.

Image added to prove that I didn't just quit half way through to wine it was too hard. I did it and it legitimately sucked ass.

Old leveling events had the good sense to stop before the gear wall they absolutely were not going to prepare you for. Not this one. New players who don't have the game knowledge required to power through are going to hit that gear wall like a train going 3x faster than normal. I literally ran into a half-dozen players who didn't even have accessories trying to do Cygnus pre-quests (because they came up in journal for their level range). Three of them stopped to ask me why my damage was 2x theirs. Damage that was still pitiful. I had to tell them I was wearing twice the gear they were and how they could catch up.

The players who didn't really know what they were doing cited the expedited leveling process, saying that so many new quests and notifications were coming at them, so fast that there was no way to know what was important and what wasn't. It's not like the silent crusade in any way telegraphs that it's got gear for players. Except the shop button, which doesn't become available until after starting the quests, and players don't know to look for in the UI as a new key that's not assigned when granted. It's just at the bottom with all the other 'useless keys'.

One player I talked to in-depth about it said they knew they didn't know what they were doing, but didn't know how to get the info required to figure out what to do. They said they felt the game should have better explained what it wants from them but it never did. Making an event that speed-runs the first half of the game tells the new players that nothing important happens in that part of the game. That the game starts at end game like every other MMO. But maplestory never prepares players to start the end game after speed-running through everything else.

Krimlock

Maplestory explains (almost) everything in detail about how to do just about everything from the nice lil light bulb to the left of the screen, and also the maple npc admin will literally pop out to the right of the screen early game to explain some other mechanics or things about the game.

Maple has a literal in game built in quest/mob/item guide that tells you what you "can" and "should" be getting at certain lvls as a GUIDE should do just cause you blaze past those lvl don't mean you are instantly ready for your current lvl content that's just (sorry to say) noob thinking, as far as the silent crusade goes if you follow along read and DONT SKIP will give you a letter that teleports you to the secret hide out WITH the shop to the right keep going through the quests and it explains about the UI button to open the crusader quest line AND shop.

As far as the quests coming in and not knowing what's important or not is questionable at BEST cause all the quests now have a lvl to the left of them and then there is a button at the bottom that will let you only see your current lvl quests, technically speaking all quests are good for something minus a few lower lvl quests around 55 (not zakum) that are there to help you lvl as if you was on 1x lvl and not 3xlvl and half of the quest do scale with your character as well like the mini instanced dungeons example riena strait scales all the way up to freaking 75! and its a lvl 30 quest!

As far as the game speed running a player past the first half of the game...this is an event period there is no fault in this system its a literal event period, again that is the players own fault they don't have to go into the next content for the current lvl i cant stress this enough the maple guide has been updated so much so that it in fact lets you see the equips/mobs/content that is relevant to getting stronger at those lvls if you cant handle the lvls you are currently at well then go back a few and gear up from the previous lvl content, hell it even has tabs to guide you, the maple guide UI is a newbies best friend in this game and then there is youtube as well with creators explaining the systems and guides and whatever else there is in maple.

As far as your picture with your stats and hyper stats that is borderline nuts to complain about not being strong cause you did not distribute your stats correctly for your class, im looking at this and seeing a person who just speed ran a legion mule PERIOD greater power quest only asks you to kill 1 happy erda...thats it and before that the goddess asks you to 1 kill a very very very VERY VERY nerfed magnus and an other goddess asks you to kill some stupidly weak world tree mobs that die to basically 1hit (3-4 if you have like 1-2k legion) when it used to make you hunt for a portal while taking literal heavy dmg....the last one just talks to you....i cant fathom how anyone would think that this is to hard...

In conclusion i think all the "players" you have talked to are either way WAY to lazy and are the type that love extreme hand holding guidance in games with flashing beacons pointing them in every direction, (hell maple even has that as a navigation function -_-) lack common sense or this a helluva elaborate S post...

The Blue Corsair

One player I talked to in-depth about it said they knew they didn't know what they were doing, but didn't know how to get the info required to figure out what to do. They said they felt the game should have better explained what it wants from them but it never did. Making an event that speed-runs the first half of the game tells the new players that nothing important happens in that part of the game. That the game starts at end game like every other MMO. But MapleStory never prepares players to start the end game after speed-running through everything else.

While I think this is a very valid frustration, having played many a modern MMO including other genres, I believe this is just an issue with all games nowadays, less so just MapleStory. When in doubt, there are often dozens (if not hundreds) of different guides or tips available via YouTube videos, and when you don't understand a certain functionality of any game, I've always found "[name of feature/quest] guide" would give me good results.

This isn't by any means as elegant as having all that information easily discoverable in-game, and I agree that more effort could be made, but I think they do a solid job thus far. Many basic functionalities, such as job advancements, the guide system (and thus ideal mobs/bosses), elite mobs/bosses, familiars, hyper stats/skills, certain bosses, return scrolls, potential, pets, and much more, are explained over time, and several I'm missing.

Burning events are a great opportunity for new and old players to make good leveling progress on a character. It's expected that some catch-up is required due to this glossing over of typical "struggle" points from 1-200. A glance at an equipment window shows many slots missing, which should pique interest in "where do I get these"? Then, a subsequent clicking over bosses to see, "Oh! This one drops one."

happycows

i don't think the issue really is burning events, so much as overcoming the general barrier of familiarity with the game's progression system.

A new player would run into similar walls on a fresh, non-burning character too. The in-game guides are decent, but coming in blind to maple can still be overwhelming. Hell, i returned to this game after 8 years and it literally took me months to feel "caught up" and understand my "priorities". So, i would agree the in game guides could use some more work.

However, I think in general, burning events are still pretty good - Experienced players can take advantage and speed run some legion and links, and new players who are motivated to learn the game can take the plunge and get their legion started quicker and earn decent in game rewards to help them out even more. Yes, they will have to put in some work and look up guides, or specific answers to questions they have along the way, but IMO that's just part of the experience of playing a new game.

PS: i would have gone for more boss acc. pieces, and pump hyper stat into dmg, crit rate, crit dmg to make mobbing feel more bearable. Also, at the end of the day, some classes are just weaker and squishier than others before 5th job