Preface:
I prefer to stay anonymous but I’m a veteran end game player who has spent 5 figures obtaining a Frenzy Totem. I’m in a unique position to have observed the game’s health and economy throughout the years. I have benefited enormously due to this item and my own suggestions will actually end up hurting myself in some ways. I understand this will be a very unpopular opinion among Interactive players because who doesn’t like to gamble for a chance to win big in Marvel?
In this article I will give fair and objective reasoning on why re-release Frenzy Totem is bad for the game's health and my prediction of what's likely going to happen based on facts and track records.
In this article I may use reg & interactive, Frenzy & FZ, reboot & Heroic interchangeably. Nexon refers to NexonNA, unless otherwise specified.
Problems Nexon is currently trying to solve in Interactive (stated in Inkwell’s note)
--Game balance
--Gap between players - totem owners vs not having totems
--Player’s reliance to obtain Frenzy service through another player in order to be on even footing to progress vs Frenzy totem owners. This also contributes to above point
--New player retention
Other serious problems Nexon is also trying to solve (NOT stated in Inkwell’s note), but closely related to FZ
--Bot problems
For simplicity's sake, I will call both illegal program bots and Spanish gold farmers as “bots”. Nexon has been combating bots but they keep coming back faster than Nexon can ban them. There are already bots that operate with FZ totems in each reg server.
--Economy problem
a. Sol Janus - this skill was designed by KMS dev without Frenzy in mind. So far this skill has proven to be overpowered in GMS in the past short month of its inception in GMS. Improving mobbing efficiency by as much as 50% or more for some classes.
b. Meso value tanked roughly 15% as soon as this skill was released according to Meso Market in game (850MP -> 750MP or below per 100m Mesos). Makes sense because Janus greatly boosts supply of mesos for both human players and bots
c. Bots are contributing to oversupply. Take a peek at your server’s market discord, in the meso section and you will see proofs. Should these bad players obtain cheap Frenzy totems the economy will likely sink further.
--Progression is too fast with Frenzy
This is what “Game balance” refers to - GMS Interactive players will finish 6th job quickly and eventually reach the end of game before KMS can come up with newer contents, and no, Go WEST movement is not going to remedy this by creating unique end game contents just because more players in GMS reach the end quicker.
Arguments to not re-release FZ
--re-release FZ does not solve any of the problems listed above whatsoever. It would only further exacerbate all the problems listed
--This preserves the item value and does not screw over current Totem owners who spent thousands on this item, or chose not to sell it when obtained early. Admittedly a motive for me to write this article.
--Spawn boosters in general are unhealthy for the overall game health. Nexon demonstrated this point by discontinuing Kishin/Frenzy/Fury/Wild totem in both interactive and Heroic. The only reason Frenzy Totem is still around is because it was first introduced as a permanent item into the game before 5th job was even released and it could cause all sorts of problems in game / legal problems should Frenzy Totem’s functionality be modified or removed without a proper follow up plan. The “server load” problem Nexon likes to talk about, while true, is likely just a shining distraction point to avoid discussing other bigger problems hidden under the rug.
Server merges (things Nexon also needs to consider to plan ahead)
--Merge Auction House - they already said this isn’t happening per Inkwell’s note, IFF they are going to do a merge of any kind, they will merge servers. I’ve seen misinformed people talking about this so I wanted to clarify.
--Server merge of interactives - In an ideal world, Nexon should be hoping to create new servers, that’s a sign of a flourishing game and a proof that the game is adding more players (e.g., Hyperion). Merging servers would mean Nexon waving the white flag and admitting the game is dying (for interactive at least) and this should be their absolute last resort as a merge is irreversible once complete. Nexon also has to consider the potential of Reg servers gaining popularity, a premature merge would be bad for this.
Should the 4 interactive servers be merged into 1~2 mega servers, there will be another problem that players can face: not enough good maps for everyone. This may also give Nexon a reason / excuse to re-introduce instanced Gandis maps. Will talk more about this later.
--Server merge heroic x interactive - This is extremely unlikely going to happen given the Go West direction, but worth bringing up for 2 reasons, which I will also debunk myself:
a. It’s happening in KMS, a newly developed situation between today and Inkwell note.
b. All of the core game balance & contents moving forward will only have interactive server in mind, in addition, Nexon has NEVER re-balanced the core contents from KMS (e.g., HP of a given boss, job re-balance due to us having AS0, etc.)
Let me play devil’s advocate here and let’s pretend if this were to happen, there will be a huge shortage of Frenzy Totems for everyone to benefit from, conflicting with the problem they are trying to solve. However, this could be an alternative for rogue Nexon to not merge reg servers. The ongoing KMS Reboot merge situation is likely on Nexon NA’s radar, they might even want to think twice about prematurely merging Interactive now for future game balance reasons.
While the whole “KMS Reboot can’t kill H-Limbo and future bosses” argument made by KMS Dev was manufactured in bad faith, it’s now a valid one nonetheless and a reality that can quickly start to cause problems for GMS Heroic down the line. This goes back to the point of GMS not re-balance difficulty of bosses.
Again very unlikely going to happen in GMS but I don’t doubt the future direction is now a bit muddled for the GMS dev team regarding this topic.
Proposed Solution
--Fury/Wild totem on subscription in Interactive ($30~50/month) - Minimal effort for Nexon to add this into the Cash Shop.
a. “30 days fury totem coupon” is an item that already exists in the game, it’s a reward from previous Black Friday boxes. Its effect dies as soon as the caster leaves the map and will be hard to be abused by bots with many characters.
b. To combat bots, Nexon may also want to consider making this NX only (meaning no Maple Points) purphase. This increases the barrier to entry of spawn booster for bots
c. This will benefit and close the gap between 99.9% of the players with the top 0.1%. Lowering barrier to entry for new players to obtain spawn boosters at a relatively affordable price.
d. By making this item a permanent addition to the Cash Shop, this is reminiscent of the week long 2x exp Cash coupon back in Pre-BB days.
-- Re-introduce instanced Grandis maps to Interactive - If this happens, this needs to be implemented in conjunction with Fury Totem subscription plan.
a. Instanced Grandis maps happened at first when 6th job was newly released but it absolutely demolished the game’s active population for interactive servers, many people without a FZ totem simply lost motivation to play at all. Nexon likely did this by accident because it was simply ported over from KMS intended to be a QOL change. I believe Nexon knew this could have a negative impact on Interactive worlds ahead of time but decided to test the water anyway, which they soon realized was a huge mistake and hotfixed removed instanced maps.
b. This would effectively render FZ useless except for the item holder. Hurting bots by taking the easy source of spawn boosters away from them.
c. Nexon could choose to not go with this route so that players have the options to pay for FZ service from another player, continuing the “interactive” theme or buy a Wild subscription. But this could also hurt Nexon’s subscription revenue. Would Nexon want to give players more freedom or choose more profit while combating bots? I’m 50/50 on this.
What should Nexon do?
It is really up to NexonNA at the end of the day. Remember, Nexon is a for profit company. In the business world, ARR (annual recurring revenue) is a sexy dragon just about every company wants to chase in order to show their investors that the company is growing year over year. This is the same reason we see new cars and home appliances adding subscription service. NexonKR has been practicing exactly this monetization strategy by adding more “Pass-like” items such as bonus reward pass for Fairy Bro, express pass to Dailies/Epic Dungeon, bonus reward pass for Epic Dungeon, Artifact bonus EXP pass, Premium Water of Life (reboot vac pet), etc.
My proposed solution would allow NexonNA to gain another stream of growing ARR. IMO, This could be the “alternative to re-release Frenzy” they talked about in the Inkwell note. This also addresses all the problems in and outside of Inkwell’s Note. Re-release Frenzy Totem would certainly boost short term profit but at the cost of detriment of the game balance & economy long term. Nexon has proven itself to be a long term game player. And just because players demand something over and over, it does not mean Nexon will cave to the demand of a loud playerbase; Nexon has shown principle to take game balancing rather seriously rather than chasing short term profits.
Case and point: Potable badges & No more spawn booster in Heroic even at a fee
Lastly, ever since Covid, NexonNA’s profit has been in the green for the first time and on the rise consistently at record-breaking rate so I personally do not believe they are in dire need of boosting short term profits. Re-release Frenzy Totem could be their last resort to boost company profit. Same argument could be made for Spawn boosters for a fee in Heroic servers. Balancing the game as a whole and promoting Maple’s longevity should be and seems to be their top priority right now.
Comments
If your plan is to curb FZ service to botters or just the meso economy, a better solution would be to implemented TMS's Frenzy Totem which is identical to ours except the spawn leaves if the caster leaves (like Wild and Fury Totems.) This would kill service and promote players into getting their own. Hopefully the odds still make them reasonably obtainable. Nexon hopefully wouldn't do something rash and keep Frenzy Totem inclusive just for the sake of balance and keeping whales happy with their purchase and them having a higher meso/frag rate in their server. Also the idea of making the subscription model for inferior totems is gross since it only accepts NX and not Maple Points makes it impossible for F2P to get the effects. This suggestion seems to hurt players more than bots while FZ owners seem untouched.
If you want FZ to be no longer obtainable to players due to spawn enhancers being unhealthy, want to lose yours so we are all on the same boat?
What they need is come up with something that boosts the interactive aspect to the world, spawn enhancements as we know them boosts solo play.
Do you really think Nexon wants more players to have access to Frenzy? did they discountinue the item just so more people can have access to it?
My hope is that both the spoken problem and unspoken problem be addressed at the same time. Bots will certainly destory the economy if Frenzy gets re-released without much thought put into it. I feel like Nexon already knows this problem and is partly why they discoutinue Frenzy AND Kishin. Remember the pre-covid days when meso was like 1:0.6? (1B = 600 MP equivalent). Do you think game will thrive under this kind of economy?
Modifying current Frenzy to TMS style while I would like the idea and considered this option (for selfish reason too), It does not solve the problem of bridging the gap between totem owners and none-totem owners at all. It would make things worse. Because signifincally less people will have access to Frenzy spawn if this was implemented. And everyone will be fighting for the newer totem that get released, and guess what will happen to the totem price when there is suddenly a huge surge of desperate hungry whales? Even if they both re-release totems and nerf FZ to TMS style, there will only be so few totems available in circulation due to how likely it will be rare to obtain them through Marvel. Even in TMS they are a very rare item. Not to mention the same problem of few people benefit from spwan booster persists.
Another thing is that I don't want to compare TMS with GMS. They are completely different animal and ran by differnet publisher than Nexon. Balance is not their concern given how they can have FD familiar cards, +20 atk scrolls, 24 star scrolls. GMS while powercrept, stays somewhat aligned with the KMS experience, TMS is too far gone beyond repair.
Would this idea be terrible from Nexon's buesiness perspective? Remember they also mentioned how little the item is utilized. So what's to stop them from doubling down and keep the utilization low to a select few who holds legacy item, but push out alternatives to help the remaining population and also keep them happy?
Look at Sengoku badge, misty island totem, lab server block, have you noticed a pattern of Nexon rewarding players holding legacy items?
I think making it NX only purchase would be extreme. A problem about bot is that they can sell illegally farmed mesos thru in game Meso Market to exchange to MP, then purchase the proposed Fury subscription to farm even more. And that could menifest the bot problem further because they will become self sufficient..
Also from the business perspective, why should Nexon encourage players to be F2P in order to gain in game privilege?
in all honesty i wouldn't mind it if no one else has access to Frenzy, so everyone is on equal footing. I'm already at end game to the point of maxed hexa, it really doesnt matter to me anymore. Of course, I'm an extreme outlier and no other Frenzy owner would agree this to sentiment.
If this were to happen, there will for sure be legal problem Nexon will face. One controversial content creator mentioned this point in one of his videos and said it could realistically happen, and IF they do chooses to do so, it would just be part of doing business to lose money in settlement as part of business expenses.
But I don't forsee this happen at all due to what's said in the Inkwell note, and the total chaos it would bring to both the whales and the other 99%. People who buys Frenzy service will be angry at it too.
just dont add it to Hyperion server..or at least release a refined version for hyperion so all players have equal gains
here my idea were they to release it on hyperion(on top of a refined version)
they could make it so that players have to kill Normal Lotus/Damien at least 12 time each b4 they're rewarded the thing
why those 2 ? well they're more friendly for players with lower skills ceiling than bosses beyond that so it would be more fair to all players
that way and not make it an impossible reach..and it would require a bit of diligence playing too
maybe even some high mountain clears as well
then once at least 1000 players have acquired it on hyperion, they can release a gamble version
for impatient players with minimum a lvl 250 char for a chance to gamble it
implementing the gamble later mean that at least a lot of players gets it trough diligence and not just
handed to them to gain an immediate advantage
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personnaly though its wtv...i'am way too many years behind veterans....no way in hell i'am i ever catching up to any players
at most the item would allow me to experience newer bosses quicker than without it... so honestly....they can rly re-add that
in(with modification to the re-release and the ones acquired back then so that it can't be abuse by rmt/bots) and no one would
complain as the harm already been done year+ ago....the only serv that may not want it is hyperion
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so....calm yourselve down Jamie, instead offer solutions to the re-release for some of the issues you have with it
that way it may come back sort of balanced
if you still dont agree then maybe you just want to be among the few with said advantage and dont like the idea that
more players gets on even footing...no offense but thats how your gonna look to everyone eyes if you keep that stance
about the totem..so look for better solutions than simply saying "i dont want it back"