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Tactical Event made me think a lot
Hi,
I play on reboot which I love most of the time. I think reboot was something Nexon made a good choice on.
I have a 252 Pathfinder (that I ground after burning to 200. I have 41 other characters ranging from 120 to 220 and I have been playing MS since at least 2010. Maplestory has lost a lot of the lore and charm in some ways. There are so many dead maps and content that is gone. I really liked Silent Crusade because of the way it tied a lot of your journey together.
The Tactical event is really only for very high level players and maybe some lower level players willing to put in the effort to get meh growth potions to grow their legions. The symbol selectors have the most value for people past Arcane River. I am in Labyrinth of Suffering and they are not that valuable for me.
I went on Reddit and saw people claiming to finish the event daily in 20-30 minutes. That makes no sense to me - even switching through 9 characters takes time. But the maps have been full - tbf these might be the people that just bulldoze past anyone on a map and get their stuff done regardless. Each day has taken me at least 4 (sometimes a lot more) hours of constant effort - 5 days in I am pretty burnt out on the event.
The rune and three elite boss events unless you are phenomenally lucky take more time than that. The only day I didn't finish the event it was because I went to 5 different maps that generally have runes - rotated through all the channels couldn't get a rune of darkness then spent over an hour grinding to get three elites (the people who say elites pop up every three minutes - that has not been my experience - the shortest time I have gotten three elites when grinding during this event has been over a half hour). One time when I was grinding - was partway into the rune cooldown someone came on the map and asked if they could use the rune on it. That was polite, kind, and generally not the way most people have been. On two separate occasions, I was trying to do the VJ quest and was under arcane-forced because that is how Nexon sets up the quest - and someone came in - popped the rune of darkness (which I can never find when I need it but happened to be on these maps that was over-leveled for me) and left me with three elite monsters (and no ability to change maps since the Arcane River maps have been pretty busy during the event). In going to different maps to try to find runes, I came across so many maps that used to have good content and that was sad too.
Right now, I feel there is very little content that can be played with friends - I like having the option to play solo or together - the only thing we can really do together are bosses (mostly weekly so that doesn't take a lot of time) or arcane river party quests. No one loves the VJ one - chu chu is fun but you can only do it so many times. I have actually started a character a few times with a friend who made one at the same time - you can't really level together much.
A lot of the separate stories and maps are gone because the maps are not balanced (some make no sense - you have very spread out mobs in weirdly designed areas that are hard to grind - and other maps which are perfect for grinding - so people don't bother following the quests - they just go to the best training maps). If you name an area, most players can probably name the 2-3 good maps in the area - so people don't use the others unless they have to because of a mandatory quest. The distractions and diversions used to be somewhat fun but their XP is terrible and now the rewards tend to be something like a single cube which drop so frequently that they just are inventory clutter.
Trying to keep track of Fairy Bros Golden Gift and Daily, dailies on my two mains, the 6th star event and the rotating tactical event was more than I could manage (even writing the rotation on notepad. I have been going back on some of the characters I hadn't been on in years and updating their keyboards, link skills, equipment (some weren't wearing anything after event fafnir expired), trying to get crusader coins turned in for money pouches, seeing if I could skip VJ on them or if they were doomed (I think I have 16 characters between 200 and 210. I was really bummed to find out that at least 5 are partway through Vanishing Journey (which means I have to do the awful slog and can't skip because I started them prior to the skip being available if I want to continue on them - which is enough to make me stop grinding them) and 4 or 5 I have not checked yet but have a sinking feeling about.)... Anyway, that did add to my time (NOTE: I didn't count the time for cleaning up characters in my estimate of time for the event) for the tactical event for me but that part I didn't mind (other than the depressing part about VJ and that pretty much equipment is only through bossing but if you don't have event gear (and some of my characters I actually ground outside of any events) you can't really boss (and in reboot you can't get gear any other way) since it actually was kind of good to have a reason to check out some of the classes again (especially since many had been reworked).
Anyway, playing feels like work. I just realized yesterday that since I was trying to go through the 200-210 characters in the tactical rotation, I left out my main (which adds 50 points/day) - so lost the chance (after 5 days of effort) to hit 12k. I think I am done. This is just too much effort and not enough fun and the margins are too tight. BTW, the 5 people I regularly boss with who have also been playing for over 10 years mostly didn't even try the Tactical relay - they have smaller legions and didn't even have the chance of getting over 12k. Not a very inclusive event.
BTW, I know this is my opinion and people will come on here and flex and say this was trivial for them or fun. But I am giving feedback because I am hoping Nexon pays some attention. I think Maplestory has a lot of potential and would love to see it be more about the fun and inclusion. Maybe instead of one grand goal that you are trying to keep too many players from reaching - include some fun, smaller reachable goals (and honestly xp coupons which I have so many of they are expiring unused and meh growth potions (I took a level 141 char for highest rate - so far have mostly gained two levels and I don't really care about that char - would be better off burning) are not fun) and DON'T do things like 3 elites unless you significantly increase the rate of their occurrence (and/or the rate of runes of darkness).
Comments
If the map is within 20 levels and an elite hasn't spawned recently then you should be able to get one within a few minutes, once you get one then switch maps.
I have to say the event doesn't take that long, but the constant character switching I do find slightly annoying. (More so with character already logged in)
I would prefer Tactical relay not take place during 6th star as that already takes up a good chunk of my maple time, two weeks is possibly too long for tactical as well, given how tight the requirements are for the majority of accounts.
Edit: Basically Tactical either should be longer with the same point requirement, or shorter with far less.