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Check out the v.255 - The Dark Ride: Ride or DIe Patch Notes
here!
The Brilliant Design of Old Maple/Victoria Islands
Whether on accident or on purpose, old Maple Island and old Victoria Island was perfectly designed for both long term exploration and getting new players into the game without overwhelming the player and guiding them to their next destination... WITHOUT THE USE OF TEXT!!!
How did old Maple start?
You enter a mysterious dark room with a conveyor belt to take you along in the correct direction. No need for guiding arrows or a wall of text to tell you where to go, and with screens and set pieces showcasing some things that you will encounter in your future journey to give you a small little taste of some stuff the game has to offer.
This is absolutely fantastic as this was a hand holding experience without being a hand holding experience. The player felt like they were in control and starting their own journey while being cleverly designed in such a way where the player has a guided experience from the start and not being bombarded by text of any kind.
Now you get out of the room and are introduced to Maple Island which is a small open world that is still a guided experience, but allows the player to explore branching paths and create their own journey, "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom" also does a small open world at the start of the game(s) to teach the player how the rest of the game will be and not overwhelm a new player.
What is nice about Maple Island is that it also teaches the player to go back and explore the other path as it has two towns to visit in order to get off Maple Island. Then you eventually get on the ship and off to Lith Harbor!
Lith Harbor is important to be the first place to enter old Victoria Island as it remains a linear experience until you meet a crossroads...
Do you go right to travel to Henesys or left to travel to Kerning City?
As old Victoria Island was one big circle, as long as you follow the main road, you will visit every town, but your journey begins with one of two options... and only two options and not give the player more choices than this to avoid decision fatigue.
Along the way you can go off the main road to explore branching paths and thus your journey truly begins with this crossroad decision being only two choices! Now go on and make your MapleSTORY!
Basically, the new player experience needs to be improved and become much better.
Right now the game created a scenario that both offers way too much information to the player and overwhelms them while at the same time not giving them the freedom to freely explore and play the game on their own.
The old Maple gave no information, but at the same time created the best tutorial of all time by naturally designing the game in such a way that it guided the player without the player realizing they were being guided at all. This design aspect is very important to help new players to get into current Maple that needs to be revisited.
Further early game improvements:
Things like Zero to One Hundred, Tera Blink, trying to force players down a "main quest" to 200, etc. might seem great and all, but stuff like this is not very fun whatsoever to do and teaches the player nothing about the game or the class they selected. It will just accelerate the player being overwhelmed and not get new players into the game at all.
The fix:
You simply improve the early game experience from a base level so players can always get the same experience with every new character they create, but create their own story for each character.
1. If the character is level 1-199 then they will have the Final Damage to Monster Level formula that old Reboot used to have as this heavily promoted characters to fight monsters near their level which is significantly easier to understand for a new player and makes sense to a new player to fight monsters that are near your level.
The current Final Damage to Monster Level formula will remain for characters that are level 200+.
2. Levels Pre-210 will be sped up to help new players get into the game faster and make the early game less grindy, while still being slow enough for the player is still slowly learning the game to help prevent being overwhelmed too quickly.
3. All maps above level 100 and below Arcane River will be starforce maps with starforce monsters to really promote exploration and allowing the player to train on any map they desire to level 200 to make the leveling experience far more interesting and fun for the player.
This will also help naturally serve as a tutorial for starforcing accompanied by an extra special ring to starforce that has no mesos cost and is impossible to truly boom, serves as a way to give the player free stars to start training post level 100 and some extra damage.
~ Character EXP reduced by roughly 50% for levels 1-99 to go alongside the damage formula change to fight monsters near your level.
~ Character EXP reduced by roughly 20% for levels 100-199 to go alongside every map is now a starforce map with starforce monsters post level 100.
~ Character EXP reduced by roughly 40% for levels 200-209 to help the player get started sooner in Arcane River and get to Chu Chu faster.
Extra special ring granted at level 100 that has no mesos cost for upgrading.
~ This ring has no base stats, only will get stats after you starforce it.
~ This ring can only go past 15 stars when you Safeguard it and it will be a 25 stars ring, but the first attempt will always be a guaranteed scripted boom when you try to go past 17 stars trying to gain 18 stars. When this happens you will receive a second ring to transfer the destroyed first ring to and the second ring cannot be attempted to starforce past 17 stars.
~ The potential cannot be changed, but you start with a Legendary Potential of 10% All Stat and 20% Mesos, and when you reveal the 3rd line you will gain 20% Item Drop Chance as well. This will help the new player start with a farming ring and showcase what potential lines a level 100+ ring can have at Legendary Rank.
~ This ring is Untradable for all worlds and every character will get this ring upon reaching level 100 through the quest lightbulb.
A big reason for post level 100 maps all being starforce maps is to teach the player about starforcing and get them used to a new kind of stat requirement to train on hunting maps since this occurs when you reach level 200 for the Arcane River hunting maps.
