Greetings, Maple Community!
We’d like to give our sincerest thanks to all 1603 of you who participated in our MapleStory Community Survey. Additionally, we’d like to share the results of the survey to you along with our plans. The results of this survey had confirmed many of the content and planning we had already prepared to improve our transparency and communication to the community. Our ultimate goal is to establish greater communication from us to you and provide more ways for you to communicate to us.
Here are the results of the survey:
We started the survey with an open question on how we can be more transparent and many of the answers we received reflected the statistics shown above. A very large portion of the collected responses requested that we provided more transparency in regards to hackers and bans.
Maplers provided feedback such as:
- “Full disclosure of evidence and procedures during ban appeals.”
- “Provide information as to how hackers and botters are being handled.”
- "Give more information with how evidence is gathered."
However, we withhold information related to ban evidence because it can be used by hackers to avoid future detection. Additionally, an official post was made with further reasons as to why we cannot disclose the evidence:
As players have mentioned in this thread, there are various reasons as to why we do not publicly share the evidence:
- We wish to ensure fair treatment for all players whether they're vocal or nonvocal. Presenting an individual case to the public doesn't give the case entitlement over others. For a widespread issue such as this, we gave equal attention for all accounts banned from the Arcane Umbra exploit.
- We don't promote public defamation. Making an example out of a player is not a method we endorse to deter players to follow the rules. By presenting the evidence of banned individuals publicly, we'd be encouraging peers to attack and harass individuals found guilty.
- Bans and ban appeals are between the investigations team and the individual that was banned. The community at large is not the jury that decides whether the banned are innocent or guilty. The reason for this is because evidence presented by the appealing player will always be skewed towards their favor. Due to this, the community team would need the evidence and proof acquired by our investigations team and that evidence cannot be made public for the reasons stated above.
In our efforts to provide more transparency with the banning process, we have plans to set up a Q&A session with our Customer Support (CS) and Investigations team.
Another large portion of the responses in regards to transparency voiced feedback such as:
“Being more involved in the community and listening to the suggestions made.”
“More transparency regarding bugs and what issues are known.”
“Providing more information on concerns reported by the community.”
Listening to community feedback, suggestions, and responding to them has always been the Maple team’s priority and this hasn’t changed. Communication is a two way street and the sentiment from our community is one of our indicators for the direction to take.
It’s through clear communication not only from our team, but from the community as well, that allows us to relay feedback and act upon them with the rest of the team. For example in the past few weeks, Maplers provided constructive criticism and helped bring to our attention various topics, such as:
- Introduce Buff Freezers into Reboot
- Making it so skills hits could register 1 damage onto Frankenbalrog
- Ensuring Maplers entered on the left side in the Maple Leaf High rooms
- Adding the Shop function on Lotusroid
- Reducing the drop rate of Easter event related consumables
- Increasing the carry limit for each Easter event consumable
- Reducing the Golden Rocker Rider Animations
The list above is only a
handful of examples of how the community assisted our team and this isn’t including even more suggestions that are being worked on.
According to the survey results, over 50% of those who participated in the survey wished to see Developers Notes and more presence on fan sites.
Our aim is to provide answers on various concerns within the community through more communication from our producer and developers.
Fan sites are a great resource to gauge the sentiment of our Maplers that we’ve been using, and we will continue to grow our presence on various fan sites. Currently, the bulk of our presence is on our official platforms, but interacting and responding to more Maplers on more channels is within our plans. We’ll be sure to swing by fan sites often, but please visit our official platforms for important notices and information.
We’ve also noticed that the majority of the respondents do not visit the official forum as seen from the results:
Many Maplers have expressed that they don’t visit the forum for a wide array of reasons
Comments from Maplers consisted of:
- “It’s faster to obtain an answer in chat rooms than to wait for someone to post.”
- “Not a fan of forum and prefer quicker responses.”
- “There’s not a lot of activity on the forum”
Due to the lack of interest, it’s clear to us that the forum is not serving its purpose as an official platform where Maplers can interact with both fellow Maplers and staff as much as they had hoped.
Much of the feedback emphasized that responses are scarce due to the low activity, and that many prefer instant means of communication such as chat-rooms.
From the responses we gathered, we decided that we’d plan to put together a platform which could:
- Allow for more open and faster conversations between staff to Maplers on an official platform.
- Foster a helpful and friendly community to assist Maplers with questions and concerns in real time.
- Keep Maplers well informed and updated in real time.
To hit all these points, we will be introducing the Official MapleStory Discord server this month. There’s still much planning to do with the server, but ultimately, we would like to bring our Maple team under one roof with you. This doesn’t mean we’re dropping the forum or planning to pay any less attention to fan sites as well. We value all the suggestions, feedback, and even the constructive criticism posted onto the forum and it will remain as valuable platform for:
- Events and contests
- Updates and special announcements
- Documenting Feedback, Suggestions, and Bugs
- Guides and fan creations
We asked the community where many of you would like to see the most improvement in regards to the game and over 40% of the responses wished to see improvements to the overall sever stability.
We have and will continue to do our best when tackling server stability and content that Maplers cannot access due to disconnections.
We have addressed a number of stability related topics and we’re currently working to resolve existing ones. Here are some of the topics we’ve fixed in the past few weeks and ongoing topics we’re working to fix:
- Dragon Rider Party Quest and the Soaring skill causing disconnects.
- Reducing the lag Maplers have reported to experience during 2x EXP events.
- Created a buffer time between double miracle cube time and cube sales.
- Investigating all possible causes for the Event Hall lag and applying multiple changes to mitigate the lag.
Again, these are ongoing cases that we are working to address.
We’d like to thank you again for providing us with your feedback on how you wish to see MapleStory improve. We will continue to do our part and listen to the feedback provided by the community and provide even greater transparency through our plans we have shared with you.
- Arwoo
Comments
Every single ticket I see regarding ban appeal receives a response along the line of "After reviewing the evidence, we've come to the same conclusion". With false/bad premises/evidence, ANY conclusion can be drawn. Here's a classic case:
Assume these premises are true:
Q
~Q
Therefore, X
(Q or X) is always true because Q is already true
Because ~Q is true and (Q or X) is true, X must be true.
Therefore, we've proven that X is true.
X can be anything and anything can be proven when the evidence are gathered incorrectly or misinterpreted.
This thing about the ban isn't just about ingame activities--this can be applied to Aggraphine's ban as well. We , as the community, have all the evidence regarding this matter and yet there has been no further actions taken regarding it, despite overwhelmingly negative response. How do we trust your decision making when you'd rather be "right"/not admit fault than reasonable. What happens behind the scenes when we DON'T see the evidence and Nexon employees ban people out of emotion.
You guys could've easily said something like "We messed up and acted out of emotions, apologies to all those affected." Unban Aggraphine THEN change the rules. Let's be honest, what did banning Aggraphine and keeping him banned do for Nexon? Same thing for the people falsely banned during the December Cube exploit, and people like Clanta from the Arcane wep exploit. All the exploited items are gone/irrelevant--they have no impact on the game economy. Even if you assume they exploited to some extent, none of them used hacking tools because this was a bug being exploited. So what exactly did Nexon gain from these bans? These players are obviously not habitual exploiters/hackers--they made it through many years with a clean record. So where's the logic?
I'd also like to point out, the people banned for the December Cube exploit were banned on 1/6/2016. The investigation started after 12/23/2015 (blanket tradeblock). There are 5 business days between those 2 dates and according to your careers website, you guys get "Week-long year end break". It's kinda hard to believe a very thorough investigation for every single affected account was done that quickly.
Leaves the forum mods to deal with any negative responses on their own until Monday, at risk of things spiralling into thread closure.
I just woke up so I'll make a longer response later, but for now I'll just ask: what about Aggraphine's ban?
There's a few issues with this and I'll try to keep it brief:
1. Withholding information because it could aid hackers in avoiding detection is a pretty shallow excuse when there's already DOZENS of hackers avoiding detection. In the last 3 weeks, 4 botters have hit lv250 in Broa alone. Dozens more bot openly and for extended periods of time in any map they please.
2. Bans and ban appeals are btwn the investigations team and the individual, but the vast majority of the time there is no actual process here. The overwhelming majority of appeals follow a very simple and very frustrating pattern: Appeal the ban -> GM says you were banned for "x" and wont be unbanned -> player seeks evidence from GM that they actually did "x" -> GM refuses and tells them to stop sending tickets.
3. Transparency isn't the only issue in the bans process, there's several issues inherent in just the reporting process. Despite reporting several people with video evidence of them hacking on several different occasions, none of them were ever investigated. Many of the players who hacked and gave themselves dozens of skills in their beginner tab back in February are still playing right now as if they never did anything wrong, still with the same skills they hacked into their character. The fact that for 3 months absolutely nothing is done about something like this, and then you refuse to even acknowledge that you're aware it's going on or that you're working on SOMETHING is what players hate the most about this system.
I suggest to use the anti-hack that was used back in EMS, this was a way more intrusive anti-hack which was able to make it so we practically didn't see any hackers in EMS.
ZomgNit has hit the nail on the head so well, it's scary. This is exactly why the players distrust Nexon's ban appeals process. The overwhelming number of people who openly hack and say "Nexon doesn't ban" and still continues to play just deepens that divide. We're not just talking about lv30 recreatable characters, but lv220+ people hacking in Arcane River for weeks on end.
In addition, the ban appeals process is so one-sided and non-communicative that "withholding evidence" from the public is only the last straw. We don't want you to share all the evidence with everyone, but to share the evidence with the people involved! Whether they individually choose to share is up to them, but so far, Nexon employees haven't even given the banned players the evidence they deserve to be able to contest.
I don't use the forums because they are difficult to use and/or to find any information on. For information I just go to the main site page otherwise I never find it.
I feel a large problem that has gone unresolved is pet loot lag and active quest/kill quest/event quest lag. I do have an active ticket that may get this issue more attention.
I am behind the idea to add better communication tools but I disagree with the use of Discord. While I understand that there are many users of the Discord service I am not one of them. This would further disconnect myself from the community. I know I may be alone but I am not going to use Discord.
I also want to put into perspective that, although the intent is positive, using a 3rd party program to "unify" maplers and staff can result in more problems than solutions. The server on this program has limitations since another company owns the service. There are things that are uncontrollable by Nexon staff i.e usernames, defamation/impersonation of maplers, lack of linking a user to an account, inability to track users, preventing hacking of users, etc.. Preferably I urge an integrated solution with the site/forums, to build a system from the Nexon launcher, or find a better means of communication overall that has Nexon in control.
I do agree steps are being made to fix things and hope for this continued effort on all parts.
I would like to comment on some of these results and your responses to them.
Transparency regarding bans.
Over 40% of players are telling you that this is the area they are least satisfied with, and your response is "we won't change a thing." That certainly shows a willingness to listen.
Here's the thing: your reasons for revealing nothing might be acceptable if we trusted Nexon. And we'd trust Nexon if we could see that cheaters get banned and innocents don't. But the sad fact is, we see that we report cheaters and they keep botting/hacking/RMT'ing for days and weeks and months, unimpeded; and we see innocents banned and then stonewalled by customer support when they try to appeal their ban.
You might claim that no innocents get banned and their appeals denied, but that is simply not the case. While KThxBaiNao was CM, people reached out to him after CS rejected their appeals out of hand, and he asked CS to look at those cases again. Sometimes, evidence was found that convinced him the player really was lying. But sometimes, evidence was found that the banning GM had made a mistake, and the ban was lifted. I will not speculate as to why the first appeal investigation, in each case, failed to turn up this evidence. I'll just stress that these innocent players would have remained permanently banned if CS were not pressured to re-investigate.
You already shame a person by banning them and removing them from rankings. I feel that if someone posts a public ban appeal, they give up their right to privacy. Show us the evidence, get us to trust your ban and appeal process, because right now, as the survey shows, we don't.
I can predict right now that the Q&A with Customer Support will be equally unsatisfactory, as they will reiterate the same reasons you already quoted yourself as giving (regarding ban appeals for innocents), plus "we have GMs patrolling 24/7" and "every report is looked into" (regarding cheaters not being banned).
Communication regarding bugs and suggestions.
Observing the things happening in the forums lately, I do see an effort being made to communicate more, and I applaud it. I see game issues being reported and addressed, which is very welcome (although it does make one wonder how issues that are so easy to detect, reproduce, and fix, ever made it to the live servers to begin with), and suggestions commented on when they are forwarded (although sometimes the phrasing of the comment leads me to doubt whether the suggestion was correctly understood). This is a very good development and I hope it can continue and be expanded.
The problem is, we know you sometimes hear us, but not all the time. And you rarely inform us of what's going to happen before it does.
Yes, those seven issues were addressed, which is nice, but in that same timeframe, at least ten times as many new bug reports and suggestion threads received no official response whatsoever, adding to the pile of hundreds of dust-collecting threads in those sections. We don't know what you saw, we only know some of what you decided to forward, and we don't know what the team plans to fix/implement. We are in the dark, until we see the update notes. At best, you inform us a day or two before the patch that "this will be fixed this week".
That is where we'd like to see more communication. For example, a Known Issue List, which we used to have but don't anymore. CS supposedly does, because when we talk to them they say "the team is aware of this issue". Why not save their time by posting the list publicly?
Presence on fan sites.
You managed to burn yourself pretty badly on the subreddit, but you will have to go back there at some point. It's quite probably the biggest fansite. (Too bad your survey didn't include the question "which maple-related sites do you frequent?").
And while this survey was a nice diversion, it fails to address the issue that triggered it - and the subreddit's rage - at all. Is Aggraphine going to stay banned? Do you still intend to ban forumers for their behavior on other sites? Are any more rules going to be made up on the spot and enforced retroactively?
Official Discord
I notice you did not show us a nice bar chart for the answers to that question. Just how many Maplers want an official Discord server?
Of course people want instant answers. People ask "when's 2x" of their guild in-game instead of looking it up on the website, because people are lazy.
But will a Discord really solve that?
You seem to imagine it as something that will have a near-continuous presence of knowledgeable staff, ready to answer any question.
Really?
Who, exactly, is going to man this?
Who has the knowledge, patience, and most of all, time, to answer the same dumb questions over and over ("How do I start the Re:Zero event?", and no, the people who want instant answers do not want you posting a link to the update notes), to respond to suggestions with the correct level of noncommittal diplomacy, and to take abuse with equanimity?
No, a more realistic scenario is that it will be like the forums: mostly players helping other players, possibly mods more so than others, with the occasional Nexon staff member popping in to say a sentence or two and run off to their million other tasks. In which case, how will it be any different than r/MapleStory's Discord server? Why split the community between two Discords instead of putting your presence on the existing one?
Unlike the forums, where you can catch up on things that were posted while you were away, Discord chat runs so fast that it takes a speed-reader to follow even if their attention is 100% on it. (Assuming you get hundreds of people to join, obviously. But if you don't, there's no point in it at all).
Which means that staff won't see anything posted while they were away, and players won't see any staff answers posted while they were away, and so ask the same questions or push the same issues that were already "addressed" in some way. When staff show up, the chat will explode.
It seems like an incredibly inefficient and ineffective way to communicate anything of substance.
Socializing, sure. And it might be useful for getting players to accept Nexon staff as people, rather than robots. But that's about it.
Game/Server Stability
I do see an improvement in overall performance and stability, and applaud the efforts, although I sometimes don't understand why they are so misdirected (looking at you, Event Hall elephant).
Still a long way to go before the game can be considered reliably stable.
Two huge issues I don't see on your list are:
- Nexon Launcher. It's still buggy. There are workarounds to its various issues ("in game" indication, forcing redownloads, failing to launch the game) posted around the forums/reddit/website, but it really shouldn't be the user's responsibility to terminate processes, move files, and so on, just to convince the launcher to let us play the game. The whole idea with a Launcher is that it would let people, who know nothing about computers, click the "play" button and play.
- UTC. The server clock is still a hot mess, more than half a year after UTC was introduced. Some things happen by UTC, some by PDT, some by PST, some by a mix of two of those, and some, nobody knows how they were coded until things just happen in-game. It's about time Nexon cleaned up that mess.
And there are plenty of others: false hack detection, client crashing when trying to change characters, channel change issues, etc.Direct Launch was a lot more reliable, as well as having features the Nexon Launcher is still missing (primarily the ability to switch accounts without closing the client). It should not have been removed just yet.
I apologize for the very long response. I hope it gets read and provides some insight.
All in all, things in the game and on the forums have been improving lately. I hope the trend continues.
I feel that a commendable effort was made with the survey and the plans you outline.
However, I also feel that none of the real issues of communication and transparency were addressed in your post, including what I understand of the plans for the future.
a'least i won't get banned for [bleep]posting there
This question needs to stop being avoided, and answered directly.
Arwoo, do you or do you not intend to continue to ban forumers for their behaviour on other sites?
It's so sad. Players are noticing that there's no action being taken and more people are hacking and botting than ever. Get your stuff together nexon and fast.
They shouldn't even make it anywhere near 250 to begin with. The fact that they make it to 250 shows you how long they get away with it.
I made this (super basic) Discord months ago. It's by no means official but it's for people that come on the Forums, although our MapleStory conversations are scarce because it's mostly "a group for people who have/had Maplestory in common".
We do have Arwoo, SavageAce and (lol) Bumbetyr in the group but they very rarely talk. Michael is more active than they are!
You're free to join!
Why does everyone else get to be referred to by their username?
If a ban is placed it will only be due to an extreme case.
We want all members of the Maple community to feel welcomed on our forums. This means that if an extreme case occurs, we will take action to prevent individuals from having to endure defamation, harassment, and abuse.
I second this. When's our favorite easily-aggravated guy getting unbanned?
because we love you and you're special