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Check out the v.253 - MapleStory x BUGCAT CAPOO Patch Note 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.