Hey folks,
I had been playing maple for like 6-7 years (2005-2012) and as a returning mapler I have some notes.
1. The game is CLUTTERED -
a. Classes: a complete mess. There are too many classes that basically ruined the magical balance in the game.
And the lame thing about it - all classes are basically the same. They all have Flash Jump, a combo skill, buffs.
No balance - more people playing on their own, without needing any help.
Back then you couldn't kill a boss without the heal of a cleric, the hyper body of a dark knight and haste of a hermit -> people play together in parties.
My suggestion -
1. remove most of the classes (keeping original chars of course), create 1-3 new worlds without those classes.
2. make Explorers great again! Nobody plays an explorer even though those were the real interesting classes! And they were all so balanced!
3. Nerf those fancy effects, make it more simple and not so obvious that all classes are basically the same.
b. Servers: in a game that is already suffering decreasing amount of players, why do we need SO MANY servers? Why isn't Scania, Bera, Windia and Broa enough to fit the whole community? Or maybe a couple more servers. But why sparse the already sparsely populated game? Stick more players together!
c. Quests - there's gazillion quests EVERYWHERE. And the worse part about it - some are full of huge pictures and fancy tutorial cuts, and tons tons tons of TEXT that nobody bothers reading or watching. Why do we really need so many quests when we can reach level 100 in a day (i will talk about that as well)?
Back then I could spend days just to do quests so I can clear my quest log. Some people even finished all of the quests and it was a great achievement.
It was nice exp, you could get nice items, and the storyline wasn't too cluttered.
There were well known MUST DO quests, like in Ludi and NLC. Nowadays you don't even know what to do. You're nudged with pop ups of 200 low level quests waiting for you and you can never get rid of it.
My suggestion -
1. completely revamp the quest system, remove like 90% of the quests and keep a cohesive, interesting and rewarding quest system that fits the game.
2. make party quests great again!
d. Maps - god. There are so so many maps and the navigation is terribly inconvenient. I don't have too much to add, just do something about it.
e. Upgrades - imo there's too many upgrade options. As a returning gamer, I have no idea how to improve my items.
You have normal scrolls, potential, crafting, spell traces (????) and I saw that another upgrade option is on the way. WHY? Why do we need SO MANY ways to upgrade an equip?
Why can't we just have scrolls and potential? It really is simple and fun this way, you don't need to expertise on it!
2. The game is TOO EASY -
Adding more levels (200->250) won't make the game more challenging. Leveling up is so boring and unexciting. I used to screenshot every single level up since 1 to 188 and now I don't screenshot anything because basically NOTHING feels like an achievement anymore!
Make the game challenging again. Yes, make it hard to reach level 70, 100, 120, hell, 200. We don't need 250 levels and extra jobs. We need a storyline to our character, let us put our heart into it. I'm already level 121 in like 3 days and I don't even know my own character. BORING!
3. The economy is DEAD -
The economy (especially in Luna) is completely controlled by the hackers. Not blocking them is one problem but blocking them won't solve the real problem.
People don't bother trading or earning money because no one is buying. There's lack of players, lack of community and lack of challenge.
Why would anyone bother spending his time on merching when you can buy 1b mesos for 2$?
Unifying servers and revamping maps, quests and classes should solve this problem. Everything is connected together.
4. No community whatsoever!
This one is basically the result of all the notes above - the community does not exist in an individualist, extremely huge and easy environment.
everyone is on his own. you level so fast that you are already bored after a week (probably at level 150 already) and start a new class.
I am level 121 in 3 days and I barely made 2 "friends" and those are the only people I actually saw and tried talking to.
When the community is dead there are no PQs, no boss killings, no free market, no communication during the gameplay.
When there is no community the game is stale and boring. People prefer being on Facebook or going out than actually staying in the game.
Back in my days maple was really an escape of all the social problems I had in middle school. Now no one will escape the real world for a world that is maple story, which is socially worse than real life.
I really feel like NEXON completely gave up on the game and the strategy. You can't just release a new class every few months and earn money from it forever.
People can't stick to the game, it's not as addictive as before. The new class gimick doesn't really excite anyone anymore, they just want a reason to stay.
Balancing the game shouldn't be hard at all. Everyone will appreciate a thriving community and challenging, balanced gameplay, like it used to be.
There are thousands of people who wish they could play again like the old times and feel like it's impossible to feel the same experience.
But it's actually very possible. A new direction needs to be taken. This is not a freemium iOS game. In an already decreasing PC gamers you can't just bore them like that.
Just fix this mess. The game has become so awkward and so impossible to manage that it really hurts me. Focus on few important things and you will see how more new and returning players will come.
I'm pretty sure you already know about all those problems and you know you can fix it but you choose not to, maybe due to fear or courage. But brave actions NEED to be taken ASAP.
With all regards,
Naor.
Comments
Party Quests.
...That's it. The rest of this is stuff I don't agree with. Pre-BB is not coming back, and from what I have heard about it, I would quit the game out of sheer boredom. I disagree with the community sentiment the most. Playing on Reboot...I have a nice active guild where almost everyone knows my name. We do bosses together. We hang out in Henesys. Heck, we partied when a guildmate hit 20 recently. and just for the record...Mains of some of my friends: Bishop, Bowmaster, Night Lord, Bowmaster, Dark Knight, and various other classes. If you want something simpler with no economy, and less upgrade options, play Reboot. The rest of this...I don't want to comment on.
I live in Israel so I'm not sure Reboot would be easy for me (NA servers are laggy and the server is loaded). I might try it out.
But I don't think one cash free server that is destroying other servers is a good solution.
Aside from Reboot everything is dead and it shouldn't be this way. I need to enjoy playing Luna like I would enjoy playing Reboot.
By the way do you mean you didn't play before BB? well maybe that's why it's hard for you to understand what the game has come to.
The game wasn't boring and in fact was one of the most popular MMORPG back then... All servers were loaded and people were EVERYWHERE.
The game was more fun.
Explorers are some of the most popular classes in the game.
Some of their skills are not particularly flashy compared to other classes, but flashy doesn't necessarily indicate powerful (nor vice versa). In addition, quite a few Explorer 5th job skills are quite flashy, such as the new World Reaver skill for Hero, or the current Ice Age skill for Ice/Lightning mages.
Typically people play what they find fun, and playing what you find fun is what people (myself included) recommend. Since the removal of the damage cap as well as the rebalancing done throughout the V update, there isn't any particular "strongest" class. People do tend to make new classes when they get buffs (such as the upcoming Jett buff), and with the new Nova thief class Cadena you'll probably see an influx of players trying her out, but they don't necessarily overshadow Explorer classes when it boils down to actual gameplay and not many users may switch mains over the changes.
I do believe though that the amount of worlds out there are too many. 8 worlds is a bit much considering the current state of the game.
In terms of Quests and Party Quest I seriously believe that they still need a desperate revamp even though they have undergone some changes. The fact that everyone trains and only does Party Quests for an item or event is extremely sad. Quests themselves most the time are not even that rewarding so a huge chunk of them can be avoided by today's game play. That sounds wrong and a waste of content.
I agree that the navigation is messy and there's a lot of maps. There's a lot of ways to get around though so I'm not entirely sure on ideas how to improve that. I'm not into removal of maps though.
In terms of upgrading and leveling system it is completely stupid. There may be a heck of a lot of different upgrading systems, and leveling may be easy from Level 1 to 200. The problem isn't that it's "too easy", but the fact that the difficulty of each part of the game is stupidly imbalanced. The jump between starting the game versus end-game is just absurd. At one point there goes a huge spike in what's expected in order to clear said content. I don't believe in removal and reverting back to the older leveling state and older upgrading systems, but I do believe that they definitely need to be looked into. Something is clearly wrong with that.
The economy is dead and dry not because of the lack of players. It's due to the massive amount of hacking going on for the past few years if not a century that has turned the value of mesos to be dead. I believe in order for the health of the economy of the game to recover is not only by getting rid of hackers, but enabling more accessibility or balance towards supply and demand. A healthy economy would have a large amount of exchange within the community no matter how much each player earns in the game whether it is millions of mesos or billions of mesos. The fact that a majority of items are either hacked or obtained through NX shows that the supply will always be low and possibly monopolized while the demand may be high for wants, but there will be very few buyers due to the costs being way too dam high. That definitely needs to be changed.
I'll agree with you that MapleStory isn't exactly in it's golden times anymore, but I see the source of the problems and resolution through a different lenses than yours.
I also agree that practically 4/5ths of the "game" is too easy, ie. leveling from 1 to 200, and having 250 be like leveling from 1-200 at least 100 times, and content isn't where it should be. If someone can get to 150 from 1/10 in practically hours, whats the point in putting DAYS worth of content in between that level range when we need it where the game gets boring; 200+. I don't like killing faceless balls for days (arcane river) I want to have fun and enjoy "retirement"
See, that's where you've got it wrong.
200 isn't "retirement age". It's "the end of childhood". Welcome to the real world of 9-5 grind just to put food on the table.
And yeah, when you're a kid, you grow up way too fast, and never have time for all the cool stuff that's out there for people your age.
It feels like something Donald Trump would write and reading it makes me feel dumber.
I guess the majority of players nowadays weren't even born when Maple Story came out.
When this is all you know since birth you won't have anything to compare it to.
I feel dumber when I read pointless comments like yours.
I don't think it lacks balance and challenge, but even more so, I don't like individualist gaming.
I started playing maplestory, and stop playing it aswell before the pirate class was even a thing. I returned to the game a few years ago, but unlike you I came in with an open mind instead of those rose tinted glasses that you appearently wear.
I was excited about experiencing all the new things that the game had recieved during my absence, and despite its flaws I loved most of it.
But I guess that you went for an explorer, just grinded your way up to the point that you are at right now, ignoring the new content like the 2 Blockbuster storylines: Black Heaven and Heroes of Maple, never set your foot in Friendstory, then proceeded to whine like the spoiled brat that you are about the game that is not how you remember it, thus it has to change according to your own preferences.
All I can read in your post is how you don't bother experiencing and learning the new things, so they are too "complicated" and should be reverted back to how you remember them being.
And perhaps worst of all, you use words like "NO-ONE cares" and "It doesn't excite ANYONE anymore", when this is infact not true. You are not talking for the masses here, you are only talking for YOURSELF.
If you gave any actual arguments as to why you think it is how it is, I might have taken you a bit more serious, but you just went on a Nostalgia blinded rant, and I can't take you serious.
Dude. All servers except for Reboot are basically DEAD. NEXON is still making money out of this but I don't see a bright future for such game.
Posting it in an official NEXON forum is not really a place to get fully objective views on this subject. But numbers speak for themselves.
Almost all servers of Maple Story shut down and only a few still survive. Maple Story used to be huge and now it's basically irrelevant.
Calling me a spoiled brat for looking at things differently is so immature.
I don't even know what "friend story" is because there is TOO MUCH content and everything is one big mess.
I'm 22 now, I don't play 10 hours a day like I used to. I'm not against complexity or challenge, I just don't like this clutter and mess.
Can you even argue with some of my points? Why are there gazillion quests when leveling is too too too fast? Why are there so many servers? Why is the community and economy dead?
Since you're knowledgeable and aware of it, I'll ask you the very same question:
Why haven't you posted elsewhere besides the official Nexon forums if it's not really a place to get fully objective views on this subject?
/r/MapleStory most likely has a bigger community than the official forums and there's a much less burden of restrictions for expressing opinions on the current situation for MapleStory.
If numbers do speak for themselves the best piece of advice I'll give you is this: don't wait for someone else to act on behalf of whatever you're hoping for. If you want the best results you have to take matters into your own hands. I have doubts that Nexon will act on this despite anything being posted. I can tell you this with confidence after posting dozens of threads within the past years.
FriendStory is what KMS called the "first spinoff", and was the first questline in the game to involve our world (Earth), separate from Maple World (the primary world) and Grandis (the home of the Novas such as Angelic Buster and Kaiser).
Earth is a parallel world to Maple World. As such, you can find characters from Maple World living very different lives. Empress Cygnus and her knights are all students, Orchid is an idol, Magnus is a gym teacher, Hilla is a nurse, and so on.
The dungeon itself is a scaling theme dungeon with a focus on cutscenes and storyline. Rewards are (scaled) EXP and a selection of outfits, chairs, and medals. The storyline is considered quite good, and it provides a nice break from grinding.
this is mostly due to the P2W nature of the normal servers, and to an extent, nexons lack of communication and not to do with wanting to relive the old days gone way by.
and before you or anyone else trys to say "but you're a new age mapler, you wouldnt understand" I will say I played this game in beta and well into the time just before there was a cohesive storyline being made.
the old times of slow slow progression that made the game dull and that I have no time for now are over.
I enjoyed the community aspect of the game back then but tbh that was mostly due to the way the community was back then and how people in general were back then, it still wasnt as great as most people make it out to be.
if anything Reboot is showing how much people would play the game as it is, if there was a less P2W factor in normal servers and less blunders by Nexon.
I agree that there's loads of content in certain areas that you level right past but that just means more options for what you can do if you havnt experienced it before, and if you have, it means that you don't have to do it every time you play a different character. The amount of content starts to narrow out the higher lvl you get but I also believe that certain content should be moved around to different levels that need variety outside grinding as-well. You do not have to play in a linear way, and that's something that I like.
That's because you conditioned yourself to only absorb the myopic, biased accounts of people on a single side of the issue - like a conservative who actively watches Fox News or liberal whose favorite media outlet is CNN.
You actually wouldn't know whether those opinions were biased or not due to the lack of context.
Instead of trying to frame what you think they are, why not ask questions such as "what part did you not like about Pre-Big Bang?".
From your actions, you're the one that sounds more biased due to the fact that explains a favoring of the modern MapleStory which is indicted in Petalmagic post which you have left out.
The game is fine currently.
I needs some improvements but its fine.
The explorer classes arent left out, I mean they are still pretty strong.
Removing most of the classes will cause a backlash, most of maples community would be gone foreva.
If the servers are so-called "dead" than why does the game exist for over fabulous 12 or 13 years.
Leveling is also fine. More theme dungeons for lvl160-190 though.
And what I don't agree most with you is that there is "too much content".
A game is build upon content, no content= no players.
You seem like you never tried the theme dungeons or blockbusters.
They really have the feels.