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Check out the v.256 - The Dark Ride: Limbo Patch Notes
here!
Please Fix and Improve the Early Game Leveling!
To be clear, the early game leveling is from levels 1 through 200, but 1 through 210 should be included here to really get a character started.
Old Reboot days was so much more fun and enjoyable with leveling where the monsters had significantly more HP and gave a lot more EXP to compensate, but you had to fight monsters near your level.
This was fantastic as it made every map before Arcane River viable to train on which let the player to explore and create their own journey (story) and made the game way more fun baseline. Where players can come and level a character at any point of the year - not needing to wait for an event to instantly get to 200 - and instead had a slower experience to really appreciate the job that they are playing and take everything in without it being too slow or have any awkward moments of not having any good training maps to go to at a certain level point since you were not locked to starforce maps.
I tried playing a Corsair again over at Hyperion for fun and it was not an enjoyable experience since the efficient EXP is done in such an unintuitive way where you need to fight monsters way above your level instead of the common sense way of fighting monsters near your level. This was something that Old Reboot fixed (and is now broken), with just fighting monsters near your level to get the most efficient EXP which GREATLY improves the new player experience.
Two options to fix the issue:
1. You can make the before Arcane River maps, every single one of them between levels 1 through 200 (and little bit above this because of Dark World Tree and Scrapyard and the like), reverted to the Old Reboot HP and EXP values - either for only Heroic or for both Interactive and Heroic - while making the final damage formula from character level to monster level the same as it used to be for Old Reboot if the character is level 1 through 199 (levels 200 and above would be the level final damage formula it is currently).
OR
2. This one would be more effort, but can be improved for both Interactive and Heroic Worlds.
~ The total EXP required to go from levels 1 to 100 is reduced by 50% or greater of an EXP reduction.
~ The total EXP required to go from levels 100 to 200 is reduced by roughly 20%.
~ The total EXP required to go from levels 200 to 210 is reduced by roughly 40%.
~ All monster maps from levels 100 and above that are not Arcane River maps or higher will become Starforce Maps, greatly increasing the HP and EXP the monsters give. Emphasis on ALL monster maps below Arcane River and above level 100 (when you acquire 4th job power, the extra power helps you kill these stronger monsters).
- This will serve as a natural tutorial to teach new players about the importance of Starforcing and getting used to hitting minimum map requirements for hunting maps for when they reach level 200 for 5th job advancement and Arcane Power requirements, rather than learning all of this at level 200 and being overwhelmed.
~ The final damage formula from character level to monster level will become the same as how Old Reboot had it since they made character fight monsters near your level rather than way above your level, for characters that are levels 1 through 199. Character levels 200 and above will receive no changes to the formula as it currently is.
I really want the early game leveling experience to go back to how it was for years since this was so much fun to create and level up a brand new character! As long as the early game experience provides an enjoyable and good experience, then the game will continue to grow, if this experience is not enjoyable then it will turn off new players from sticking around.
Comments
It becomes so monotonous and boring. I'm not engaged at all in the game, I'm just jumping around clicking a button to clear the map, while having a video playing in the background that I can fully focus on.
Maplestory should be challenging to level, but not challenging in the sense of number of mobs to kill/map clears needed. If it is not engaging and is repetitive, a lot of players would get burnt out, which is strange to say about a game since a game is supposed to be enjoyable. Reaching 260+ is impossible to level up through grinding without putting hours into the game.
I remember when Maplestory was more about discovery and challenges back in the day. There used to be a mob map in Henesys where golems resided, and if you didn't use dark sight to turn invisible, you would get one shot if touched.
Nowadays it's just a challenge of fighting bosses, which adds to the end game, but does not add to the journey to get there.
I was a Cleric back in the day, but that golem you needed to avoid or you get one shot because he was like level 60-70 or something where snails and mushroom spores resided.
Old Victoria Island was designed a lot better - From Maple Island you land in Lith Harbour, from Lith Harbour you will eventually reach a fork in the road, you decide to go left for Kerning City or right to Henesys, and the entire island was one big circle for the main road with branching paths to explore.
This was brilliant game design as it was choice, but very limited choice, and it was a guided experience while feeling like a free to explore open world game - and guided without the need for arrows pointing you in the right direction.
Old Reboot was a significantly better leveling experience to 200 and they need to return this experience back, at the very least for Heroic since we are now 100% independent from KMS. Interactive Worlds receiving a better pre-200 be nice too, but might be too hard to do since they get more direct KMS changes.
Either revert the pre-200 leveling experience entirely back to how Old Reboot had it (post-200 experience will remain as is since this is a linear experience anyways) including the character to monster level final damage modifier wanting you to fight monsters near your level, punishing you if you try to fight monsters way above your level and then changes over when the character is level 200 and above.
OR
Have the old reboot damage formula and do the exp curve changes and starforce maps for level 100+ maps and below arcane river, but this would have to be done by KMS since it would be weird if only Heroic worlds had an exp curve change.
GMS can at the very least implement a partial monster HP and EXP revert to how Reboot used to be since this was way more fun and enjoyable to play.
If they want to put more effort into things, can curve the HP and EXP of the monsters from 200 to 260 to be a half-way of old Reboot and current arcane river monsters so that players have a better leveling experience to 260 without the need to hyper burn the character.
[Curve in this way would mean 200-210 would be very similar to old reboot for HP and EXP of the monsters and gradually declines as you approach 260, with 255-260 area monsters barely having an increase to HP and EXP than they currently have.]
I've heard news that they're gonna not quite fix your problem by making a continuous questline from (I assume) 60-200. So between character quests, gold beach, riena strait, fairy academy, and this new stuff, you'll get booted straight to 200 fast so long as you follow the questline. Here's someone giving the highlights on the new "milestone update":
Makes the problem worse. Let the player freely explore and create their own journey to 200 with a better progression path, not just sky rocket them to 200 and then overwhelm the player a bunch of systems and skills that they never properly learned along the way.
Plus I like to see all of the areas pre-200 be relevant with every location being equally viable to train on.
Main quest to level 30ish is fine to get the player started, but all the way to 200 is too much.
Maple world already has star force mobs 100 to finishing 200 and starting 5th Job and Arcane River content. Changing everything between 100-200 to starforce maps only would make mobbing impossible unless you have premade gear already or are loaded on meso.
The starforce fields are:
This list is already fine as they are optional so star forcing early isn't mandatory. Making starforce mandatory for training 100+ to 200 just makes you stuck at 4th job unless you pay for starforcing. And no, the game shouldn't include an unskippable tutorial on potentials, starforcing and bonus stats just to make sure players know how to use them. Nexon should implement a better to understand guide in their or sites, or maplers should take it upon themselves to Google it themselves. If they have access to Maplestory which is an online game, they could search up a guide.
Do I really want to get into why there are so many things wrong here?
1. In order to play the game, everything needs to be self contained within the game itself.
2. Tutorials and guides are bad since people do not read, will not read, and want to be able to do things on their own. A natural tutorial is setting up a scenario where the player has to figure out how to progress forward without being told what to do directly.
3. You can give essentially a tutorial ring which is a ring that go to 17 stars, every starforce attempt costs 0 mesos, and this also provides starting starforce for free. Can even include a scripted boom for the first attempt you try to starforce without safeguarding and for an attempt that can boom, when this occurs you will get another of that same ring to repair the broken item, the second ring is made to be impossible to boom (hard locked at 17 stars, similar to how genesis weapon is hard locked at 22 stars).
4. Make use of every map so the player can explore and make their own story. Being forced into a few amount of maps is such a terrible play experience.
Currently Maple is allowed to set the hook and then reel players in once they've finished the sort of "tutorial" section of the game, up to 200.
After that is where Nexon forces players to take it a bit more serious and start using their systems more.
This is how it should be. Players should be allowed to explore and go around at their own pace before being railroaded into the linear content past 200.
SF is a bad system in general. Why would you want it to be one of the first things to show to new players?
For god sake, do not make mandatory tutorials. An interactive tutorial that forces you to understand and do it correctly before it allows you to resume normal gameplay would be the absolute worse. This will just annoy the hell out of well seasoned players who know how the game operates and has a progression route designed. Google already exists. If players cannot search a beginners guide, that's on them. Don't slow down the experience of players who know how to play already just to hope the newbies are covered.
It would had been a lot better if they introduced more starforce maps or alter the terrain on the existing ones. We choose a small handful of maps because we favor speed and efficiency. Even if all maps became starfoce, we would still be selective and choose the map with the highest mob count for that level or choose a map layout that is efficient. If you want to address overcrowding starforce maps, request for more starforce maps to be added or beg Nexon for more channels. All this does is force players to suffer the
early gametutorial by making them have to deal with a meso sink very early on by making you need mesos to train. Even a free 17 star ring wouldn't allow you grind at anything beyond 120 as they would start demanding 20+ stars. When you are 190 closing in to 200 and finishing this hellish tutorial, you would need roughly 160 stars to deal with those mobs. To realistically get to that point, you would need to 12 star almost all your gear. THAT IS EXPENSIVE. The accessories will be very hard to deal with since you would need to kill bosses for accessories just to reach 160 stars.You were the one that brought up and wanted the mandatory tutorial, don't gaslight me.
I said the opposite, no tutorial. A natural tutorial is one that the player figures out what to do, there is nothing being forced on the player to do anything, this way they can actually learn what to do because they figured out how to overcome the problem on their own by putting in a hurdle that they need to get over in their path.
You can also still brute force your way into killing the monsters, it just be harder without figuring out the solution first, so nothing is forced on the player.
Make everything below 10 stars free mesos cost then per attempt, not like pre 10 stars is not super cheap already.
Starforce system is actually a good system that can be improved.
Everything below 15 stars is not a problem, the problem is when you encounter drop on failed attempts. They can also make pre-10 stars and pre-15 stars cheaper too to further help out new and returning players.
Nothing is forced on the player, it is still optional and the player can brute force their way to killing monsters still, it just be harder not figuring out the solution first. Setting it up where players learn about starforcing at 100+ is better than 200+ where you also need to learn about arcane force and 5th job at the same time, information overload much.
What are suggesting removes it as an option and 100% forces it onto the player.
Any player who attempts to "brute force" it will hit a brick wall where they only do 1 damage per line.
That is literally forcing them to interact with SF if they want to progress. That is literally a mandatory tutorial.
Please think long and hard about your suggestions before you make them as many ideas you suggest are half-baked and do not cover all the bases.
Rather than make every map SF, they could just include more SF map options (Post 200 maps as well)
You need 100 starforce for 5th job currently, what is your point?
By level 100+, why would you not starforce by then anyways? This is a core upgrading system that is better for the player to learn sooner than later, and no one reads, so you need a natural tutorial by placing the hurdle in their path.
More options does nothing, it still will lead to dead maps, you need ALL maps to be starforce to work to teach the player about starforce existing and allow the player to train on ANY map that they desire. Some and some more = some. All maps need starforce hp and exp to function properly and make the entire pre-200 world relevant.
OR just revert Heroic normal monsters to how Reboot used to have it.
You don't need 100 star force. I took many low star characters to 5th job and the quests never had any starforce requirement. Get your facts straight.
Not everyone has mesos to begin starforcing once they hit 4th job advancement. If starforcing is mandatory, you would need to find a few hundred million mesos before you reach 200 and have 160+ starfoce. No one starting the game has hundreds of millions lying around to get themselves out of 4th job to 5th job. All this does is bring the midgame farming and bossing to the tutorial and slowing the game further. Starforce maps are meant for players to spend a bit extra on starforcing to blaze there way to 200 and shouldn't be a requirement to learn so early. Players are already dealing CP/Hexa requirements for bosses, Arcane Force requirement for Arcane River and Sacred Force for Grandis training/bosses. Bringing this kind of hell to players who just hit 4th job is going to make them miserable.
What does that even mean? Maple World loses relevance as soon you reach 200 as you it doesn't offer anything meaningful to us once we unlock Arcane River.
Honestly, that is the better idea.
No you don't. That is old and outdated information.
The natural hurdle used to be the 100 SF for 5th job, which they could have kept part of to make sure the player understands the system but it was removed due to it being a mandatory tutorial for the vast majority of players not needing it.
Just because YOU don't do something doesn't mean other people don't. The entire pre-200 world is relevant, just not to you.
Just because YOU don't like exploring maple world anymore doesn't mean other people don't.
This is the only thing that is actually required.
Before you submit stuff like this, look it over first and then highlight it and press DELETE, and realize this is not appropriate to post to anyone.
You are just attacking me at this point and no longer talking about the main talking point of the post.
No one did anything to do. Take a moment to go outside and breath fresh air, if you are in a big city then go for a drive to a nice little forested area and just detox from screens for a day or two.
Come back when you are less heated.
For Heroic Worlds, between the mesos multiplier and heroic 5 hours active time snail, you will have enough mesos to starforce enough to go from level 100 to 200, I know this from experience. And especially for the very first character you make which gets significantly more mesos as first time bonuses.
For Interactive Worlds, a little more improvements can be made to the starforcing system to help first characters out. All other characters can use the same, or mostly the same, equipment that you can keep in your storage so you only need to spend the mesos once, a little more for all 5 class types to have their own equipment already starforced for pre-200 gameplay.
Because of Interactive Worlds, to improve new player experience they should reduce pre-10 stars mesos cost by 90% (10% of the current cost) and even 10-15 stars by something like 20-40% less mesos cost, somewhere within this range.
Pre-10 stars is the most important as this is the most relevant pre-200 which is the brand new player experience.
Separate Interactive Worlds starforce improvement should allow the option to discount the mesos cost with something else, I am thinking Spell Traces is the best to use, unless there is something better I am not aware of.
Basically you would check a box, and depending what level the equipment is and what starforce attempt it is, will reduce the mesos cost by 50% to consume a certain amount of Spell Traces.
This way Interactive Worlds is less reliant on needing billions of mesos to upgrade their stuff while Heroic Worlds will be the mesos only and for everything world type.
Take your own advice and get away for awhile if you're viewing forum posts that validate a different way of playing as an attack on yourself.
Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean they are attacking you.
As for the main talking point of the post I agreed with the final bit, just revert reboot back to the old HP/EXP values.
Pre 200 has tons of exploration and locations available to explore. There are reasons to explore this content in multiple ways.
Quests/Lore, Achievements, Legion Artifact, For exploration's sake, etc.
"YOU!"
There is only one way to take this.
They can revert Heroic monsters to how it used to be, but that only fixes Heroic. If we want Interactive to be fixed then both worlds pre-200 experience needs to be improved.
Currently, the pre-200 "exploration" content you are referring to is irrelevant, and you know that it is irrelevant so don't play dumb, this is something you do out of boredom and not something a new player would ever interact with.
A new player is going to be play completely blind, so the game needs to be set up to reward that blind playthrough first time discovery to create a good experience on the player. If they happen to stumble into starforce maps, they have a good leveling process to 200, if they don't then the experience is painfully slow without either every map being a starforce map or all of the non-starforce maps being the same to how Reboot used to be.
I like exploring, that is why I am mad at how they ruined the pre-200 experience in its current state.
The only system that can be better than the current Star Force system is one that is 100% passive.
Heroic Final Damage passive is great for this, getting damage as you level up, but how can you do something like this for equipment?
If you can figure out a good passive replacement for the Star Force system, then shoot. The current system is as simple as you can make it, spend mesos to get an upgrade to your equipment, without being some kind of passive system.
Pre-10 stars can be made significantly cheaper so that all equipment at any equipment level can be mindlessly star forced with practically no consequences. This will just make it where new players are not punished for star forcing super early game equipment.
I have seen plenty of new players who just run around different areas because they don't know where to go. If they look up a grind guide sure they might only follow a certain path, but the ones that don't will explore around, use the maple guide, lightbulb menu, just go wherever looks cool, etc.
I am not "playing dumb" I am simply disagreeing with you, something that you seem to have trouble accepting.
Not everyone plays like YOU, OTHER PEOPLE also exist and have their own OPINIONS, please learn to accept that.
You are turning a casual conversation into a heated one because you take things the wrong way and assume the worst.
You are your own enemy when you do this. Seriously, as you said, take a break from the internet if you're getting heated over small matters of opinion.
No I am not attacking you, no I am not heated, I simply don't want drama started when there was none to being with.
I won't respond to this thread again.
Yes, I know how emphasis works. When you emphasize "YOU" like that you are directly implying you are going after someone, this can also be referred to going on the offense or going on the attack, pointing the finger at someone or pointing a sword at someone.
If I emphasized that I want to create a better play experience for NEW PLAYERS to help the game grow and succeed, I am saying that the aim of my goal is in the benefit of new players. To be frank, this is a bad case still because I am emphasizing other players and it is better to emphasize an action, thing, or system and through italics, bold, or underline as all capitals means you are yelling and screaming usually and only in a few cases it will mean different or it is an acronym for something.
Now, when you are hearing people vocal online, the majourity will naturally be people on the left. This is a saying referring to the left brain which handles the vocal and emotional parts of your system, writing or speech, while the right brain handles your motor systems of your body and logical and practical thinking and is known for being silent.
You are functioning properly when your left brain and right brain work together, where your left brain can properly relay what your right brain is doing in speech, and your emotions are in line to the rational ways of what your right brain is doing.
You are a left leaning thinker, so you are more emotionally driven and less rational, this is only a problem when someone is extreme left or extreme right as they have no balance to them. Going back to my point, you will naturally see more people you agree with and who agree with you as things online are going to be vocal, left thinkers are vocal, and a few right thinkers will be vocal so there is an imbalance of opinions you see on matters to what people say and what people do.
What is important is not to trap yourself in an echo chamber and go "Lalala, I cannot hear you!" when you see or hear something you disagree with and tell them they are wrong, or my favourite term "giving misinformation" (that bit was sarcasm, it is a terrible term that I am not going to get into).
Rather what is important is the right and left actually start working together, the right should have final say on matters for a bright future, while listening to the emotions of the people and taking it into consideration before making decisions. Being emotionally driven will create reckless choices without thinking things through, and being too rational removes the caring humanity aspect to decisions and progress; this is also why the left are naturally liberal, freedom and loose with decision making, and the right is naturally conservative, or upholding traditions and traditional values.
I always hear out and listen to what people are saying, and adjust ideas in accordance. Listening is not just blindly going with what everyone says to do or to think, but to consider what they are saying, and then responding based on the things people are saying.
Nexon and Nintendo historically has been conservative companies, they are also the two I feel listens to their customers the best out of everyone else in the industry, it just not exactly the ways the left (which is the majourity of the vocal minourity) said to do things because there is the vast silent majourity to consider and assume half the population is also right thinkers as well.
There have been way too many things people say that would have been really dumb to implement or would ruin the game long term if things were done rashly (or emotionally) without thought put into it. Conservatism still progresses, it just does it in a thought out and safer approach and tries to consider multiple ideas first, then lay out the pros and cons of the ideas, and tries to go with the best plan.