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Check out the v.254 - Midnight Carnival - Ludibrium Patch Notes
here!
A few suggestions for balance and fun.
First off, I'm not sure I can be considered a member of this community, and I know I don't have a lot of clout. My one claim to fame is being Invulgos husband, and thus being forced to play Maple Story a lot more than I would without her influence. It's a fun game, and has recently become more user friendly by, among other things, removing the free market in favour of an auction house and adding high level content for those of us willing to attempt reaching level 250 (my highest character is an Angelic Buster at 204, with a Xenon quickly catching up). In the spirit of these community friendly changes, I have a few further suggestions. I don't expect to have anyone at NEXONs ear on this, and that's cool. I just need a place to voice my thoughts, and maybe someone who does have NEXONs ear will like a few and pass them on.
Recently in the override event there was quite a few that couldn't finish the event challanges that involved the Monster Park because they were too high level for the Monster Park area in question. This was later fixed for those doing the event, but it made me wonder why the restriction was there in the first place. There's no real reward for doing a monster park in a lower level bracket than yourself, except maybe as a really inefficient way of getting monster collection entries (the two free MP passes a day is enough of a restriction) and those willing to take a Monster Park much lower than their own level are likely to do so for silly fun and the heck of it. It's a restriction that isn't needed, and can occasionally be in the way of letting people play content intended for them.
XP loss on death. I admit, I die a lot. I overreach and Matilda the useful item merchant likely knows my name fairly well by now. Frankly, the suggestion I'm going to make concerning this is going to hurt me, a lot. But I'm making it anyway. There's currently a weird moment right in the beginning of every level where dying carries no penalty since you can't go down a level (<1% xp is my "let's go out to do something ridiculously dangerous"-time). Invulgo told me there had been issues with players offing themselves to lose XP and keep their levels low enough to keep fighting Balrog indefinetly. I don't know how much content has an upper level restriction, and I know people have been banned for abusing the xp-loss on death mechanic, but a simpler solution (aside from resticting access to Balrog the same way as any other boss-battle, anyway) might be to get rid of XP-loss altogether. Add a timed (-25%? -50%? I don't know) XP-reduction buff that can only be removed by paying a significant amount to an NPC or by waiting it out. Matildas shop items will of course still protect against it, so it's not like she'll see any less of me.
That's all I have for now. I'll try to add more in this thread if I find or recall any more.
Comments
The Free Market still exists and the level restriction to enter Balrog has been removed.
I don't really see a reason why players shouldn't be able to enter the lower level Monster Park maps if they want.
I don't think EXP loss on death is tempered with that much anymore. Only thing I can think of are players that purposely stay within the leve range of Big Spiders. I saw a high level guy on Twitch that farmed the familiars just fine without staying within the levelrange though.
Kudos on removing the upper level restriction for Balrog, and here's to hoping they'll keep removing upper level restriction on anything that doesn't need it (i.e. pvp-related or competative content where your stats matter)
The XP-loss thing though, is the really painful thing. I'd accept a lot of punishment, including a net loss of xp to avoid an actual loss of xp after dying.
I agree with removing the restriction on Monster Park. It's pretty ridiculous, tbh. At level 159 you can still enter the level 120 map, but at 161 you can't enter the 150 map? Just because they're separate portals?
Regarding exp loss on death... It's supposed to hurt. It's supposed to strongly motivate you to avoid dying. I recommend getting Auto-HP for your pet. It's only 1000 NX (or Maple Points) and will save you a lot of visits to Matilda.
If I understand correctly, the mechanism you suggest is a sort of "curse" that lowers your exp-gain rate for a period of time. But for how long? As things stand right now, dying at level 11 loses you a few seconds of training, while dying at level 249 sets you back several hours. Would the curse last longer the higher level you are?
Would the curse count down while you're offline as well? Would curse duration be shorter if you were using exp buffs when you died?
I think it's a complicated mechanism that would need quite a bit of thinking to be balanced, and I'm not even sure how many people share your opinion that it would be better than a 1-time exp.
I repeat my recommendation for Auto-HP (and paying close attention when training at maps that have anti-AFK mobs).
the restriction on monsterpark on the other hand is a silly thing, and also just to update you on content, the level restriction on balrog is removed, has been since V patch (or maybe just before)