Back-to-back skill change updates in KMS that drastically alter the KMS jobs that makes classes worse to play, something players did not sign up for, ruins the reason players chose their class in the first place, and worst of all removes class uniqueness to make every KMS job play the same to each other, but with different ability skins (for now...).
I can no longer support MapleStory if GMS gets these terrible playstyle altering and alienating skill changes, and there will be other people that feel the same way.
For me personally, if you can address my gameplay concerns with Sia, then I would have at least 1 job to play. Yet why would I, or anyone else, want to continue playing on a KMS class that got ruined with these latest KMS skill changes? Their very soul and identity just being stripped away from them and the gameplay that we loved being deleted...
Ideally, if GMS can not do these skill changes for the KMS jobs and instead going forward we do our own skill changes completely independent of KMS that properly respects the original designs of these classes would be fantastic at this point.
One Example: Take Blaze Wizard and revert literally ALL of the changes that took place after the Ignition Update, because the Ignition Update was amazing for Blaze Wizard and they were 80% of the way towards perfection and only needed 20% some more skill changes and adjustments to get them to being a perfect class.
Destiny and Ignition Updates were amazing because they respected the original vision and playstyle to the classes and just expanded on that and made the correct skill improvements for the Explorers Mages + Demon Avenger, and for the Cygnus Knights!
This KMS Director is doing the exact opposite of this, and when players get a hold of their class being thrashed in its gameplay, they will find the game no longer being fun and end up quitting, which should not be the goal for the game. The goal is make the players happy and respecting the choice they made to main each job to both keep players around and give meaningful choice and options for new players to choose from to connect to this fun and very unique playstyle - even if a particular class appeals to a niche audience.
So skill changes should keep the job's core identity and gameplay, but just improve upon the skills to make that particular playstyle more enjoyable to play.
If you want an entirely new job, then make a new job, but stop changing the existing jobs into something unrecognizable!
Getting back.
GMS should make their own skill changes independent of KMS for the KMS jobs moving forward.
This time being more conservative with the changes and making one-off remakes to a skill or two on very rare occasions, and be a very good reason for it.
Things like lower action delay, more damage, more damage reduction for defensive skills, more healing for healing skills, etc. are always safe to do because they are straight buffs.
- But things that drastically change on a class plays like the complete deletion of Lara's Dragon Veins and removing her vertical jump and how it gets used is a massive no-no as this drastically alters her core gameplay identity, and changes her movement skills and players that main Lara like how she moves otherwise they would have not mained her in the first place (though remaking the river manifestation into something usable would be nice since this skill is unusable while bossing and not very useful while mobbing either in its current form).
Broad scale direction for classes to respect:
~ Sustain damage heavy classes with weak burst. (They are always dealing good damage, but low big moments of power.)
~ Burst damage heavy classes with weak sustain damage. (Their moments of power is very high and really see the boss HP get chunked, but they really only damage every 2 or 3 mins and gently tickle the boss outside of these windows.)
~ Hybrid damage, classes with a good mix of sustain and burst damage, but don't accel at neither.
~ Supports where their goal is to help others make the boss fights easier with meaningfully strong utility, healing, and/or defensive skills that has true impact by the player to keep their party alive in a long boss fight.
- Lynn is like 80-90% of the power of where she should be, she just needs that 20-10% more to her supportive skills (and I am not referring to damage-giving buffs to be clear) to fully be where a support should be at. The other supports need to be brought up massively to this level of support, more supports at this level the better as it both offers more choices for players to choose from for differing job playstyles and helps non-support players find a support to party with if they so desire.
- Bishop needs work and so does Battle Mage and Kanna, Bishop being about 40% of the power or very graciously at 50% power, Battle Mage maybe a gracious 25% and Kanna at like a gracious 15%, and everyone else with support skills is even weaker than this - like Illium is a gracious 10% support power and Paladin like 2% or very graciously at 5%.
(With supports themselves can have sustain damage, burst damage, or hybrid damage among themselves after factoring in their party usefulness.)
Meaning these classes are no where near at the level to fulfill a support fantasy, but the damage dealing classes can live out their damage fantasy, how is this fair for support players? The best we got is Lynn, except if you don't like how Lynn plays, then I guess the support players are not allowed to have fun or play a non-support class, because there 2 other classes which are very underpowered with Bishop and Battle Mage (Bishop's issue comes more in the form of support skill usability issues for modern MapleStory than the level of power her support skills provide, so she might heal faster and way strong than Lynn, but Lynn has her healing in the form of healing buffs and has her dispel buff which are far more usable than Bishop's reactive healing and dispel [can do something similar, yet unique for Bishop]).
If GMS can do their own skill changes for KMS jobs going forward and not do these awful skill change updates that KMS is doing would be fantastic at this point.
Comments
Infinity and all other buffs affected by Buff duration, do NOT turn them into passive..it would kill the purpose of Buff Duration
Warrior Up Jump do NOT change it for a regular jump....it give warrior a unique style of up jump.....meanwhile i hate how Corsair, Blaster and Night Lord up jump work, but i dont think they should be change for those enjoying it......although here a better idea......why not give player a toggle that let them choose between the class special up jump and the common up jump that all classes have ?
Khali Flower Skill: give it a second mod that deal less dmg but have the same duration and damage as current (its currently a very solid skill for mobbing too), so i would not like to see it ruin just to accomodate bossing......arrow up + skill = summon a flower for mobbing purpose......arrow less or left/right/down + skill = bossing version of it(short and high damage)
.....i'am NOT in agreement with Stacona second half of their post btw(the support class stuff).....only the first half
but i decided to post here as its related to recent changes
supports need to happen, you will like it once implemented, support players will be happy, and if you really don't like it then don't party with supports or solo everything.
class uniqueness needs to be embraced and none of the kms changes should be implemented.
GMS should do our own skill changes that are conservative and don't thrash class gameplay, trying to make everyone play the same class with a different skin ain't it, and support players should be catered too - especially since strong supports will increase player engagement and get more people into bossing.
there could be a solution to this but...with che current system of blue dot or no loot you can't make support class that weak
otherwise they could of given them a special skill such as "if your in a party of 2 or less, increase your damage by 500%" while making them super weak in a party of 3 or more.....by giving them a 500% damage skills, that mean ALL of their 1-6 job skills have to do really low % dmg
for example lets say the Bishop Skill "Big Bang"..currently at lvl 30, this is the stats
480%, Number of Attacks: 4, Max Enemies Hit: 10
Damage Against Normal Enemies: +50%
if they would give support class a skill that boost the Bishop Damage by 500% for being partyless or in a party of 2 or less members...then Big Bang would have
to be reduce to like 80% Damage, Number of Attacks 3(500% less damage from their skills, meanwhile the new skill would scale on number of pt members)
basicly.....make ALL support class dps skills super weak(except their support ones), but give them single skill that scale their dmg proportionnate to party size
so like...i suggested 500% dmg above(just as an example, a proper amount would need play test if the min dps req is removed)
but lets say 500% for now
if party of 1 or 2 dmg +500%
if party of 3, dmg = +380%
if party of 4, dmg = +250%
if party of 5, dmg = +120%
if party of 6 = dmg = 0% increase
THAT would be a true support...so in a big party they would deal significantly less damage but would grant other a huge dps increase
thats the basic idea btw....the real thing would have to be much more complex with maths
well anyway this is simply not happening so long as the min dps% req is there unless they rework it to treat support class dmg output differently
if thats not what you seek from support class, then i take it you want broken dmg output which is a big no no....there a reason they nerfed FD stacking to the ground
the Seren Video on youtube from 1+ year ago showcase exactly the problem that support class were creating a while back
while a bit of cheesing is okay, too much of it is not good for the game health
I specified and clarified had nothing to do with damage buffing skills.
And no, a true support is not dealing zero damage. You also overthink things way to much.
Also, who cares, let players have fun and play how they want to play. If someone wants to challenge themselves, then they will. If someone wants to nuke the boss as quickly as possible, then they will. Forcing only one way to play is terrible for the game.
And in this case, it is presenting a third option which is allowing the boss fight to be easier without nuking the boss fight because the utility lets players not good enough and never will be good enough to do these boss fights.
This approach only benefits the current sweats because there are more people to appreciate their challenge runs because those people were able to clear the boss fight because we introduced strong supports into the game. So the achievement of a boss solo becomes greater because people go "wow, this guy was able to do a 29 minutes seren solo without the existence of a support!"
Plus supports promote more party play and longer boss fights, both of which increases player engagement with the social aspect keeping players in the game for longer and they are in the game longer because they are now willing to do longer boss fights because the support's utility / healing / defensive skills are making it easier and more enjoyable to do.
Plus there is a lot more new and fun content you can introduce that is not boss related with supports.
Imagine difficult and very durable regular monsters again that encourages party play, similar to von leon castle way back in the day, but on significantly bigger maps and max party size of 4, but can be entered of parties 1-4 so solo is doable, just not recommended.
Strong supports that are meaningful and deliver on the support fantasy are needed for something like this or only sweaty players will ever do it and then it is impossible to find people to party with.
The idea would be you just enter the map and auto make a party / auto add a party if someone was on the map already on that channel. Only people in the party of 1-4 can see and attack the monsters, the 5th+ player on the map sees nothing like Grandis maps, but this is a party play zone instead of a solo-only zone. And the entire party sees the same monsters.
This would be fun and when it is done right to not replace solo, lazy mobbing.
Just one example that can be branched off from supports.