In the course of a Reboot player’s progression, they learn as they get into late-game that success is expensive. Even as they grind out levels, the money they receive isn’t enough to deal with higher-level content. So how do they combat this? Making a Kanna mule and mesofarming.
In the past, Kannas could farm meso in places such Ghost Ship, ByeBye Station, and Alien Base Corridor 6 in New Leaf City (Keep that last spot in mind.). The idea was to fund yourself until you get 120% meso lines and then start farming to fund your main for cubes. Being over 200 was recommended because of 5th job skills increased rates. Yet, that has changed. When the Nova patch released, Nexon enforced the drop level range penalty in all non-KMS maps. This killed the old method of mesofarming.
Today’s method involves getting a Kanna to 150 and staying there. They stay there by killing themselves many times to ensure that they go back to 0% to avoid the drop penalty. This, frankly, is ridiculous and shouldn’t have to be done.
The point of the game is to progress and level. If one needs to “de-level” to farm meso and stay within the level range for farming, then there’s obviously a bit of a flaw in Reboot’s overall goal when it comes to late progression. One user posted a suggestion for an item that prevents exp gain to prevent having to de-level. Akradian’s response on the subject was as followed.
The exp and drop penalty when killing monsters outside of level range is intended to force people to move from area to area as they progress in the game.
Spending 99% of your game time farming in a fixed map on a designated meso-farming character, instead of playing your main and gaining meso as you go, is not something Nexon likes. I don't know whether they intend to make more changes to push people away from that playstyle, but I am certain they will not do anything to encourage it, such as introducing this item you're asking for.
Nexon encourages a self-gain playstyle that rewards people for progressing in Reboot. Yet they don't seem to understand what's required to be a late-to-endgame player here. End-game players need to improve their range in order to take on later bosses, such as Chaos Root Abyss, Hellux, Hard Magnus, and up to even Lucid or at some point soon, Will. To improve on their ranges in order to even consider taking them on, they’ll need to get their equips to Legendary potential status, which can take up to hundreds of red and black cubes. Thousands if they wish to land on three lines of their mainstat%. For example, ZeroByDivide mentioned in a September 2017 video that he had spent around 53 BILLION on a single Shining Rod for a potential that still wasn’t 100% perfect. That 53b would have amounted to about 2409 black cubes, or 4416 if he were to stick with reds.
Because Reboot doesn't have bonus potential lines, getting legendary on everything is required around late-game. Nexon may not encourage people to take part in farming. Yet at the same time, conditions have pushed players to expect to farm at a certain point to get stronger. It’s Reboot’s meta.
In the Korean client of Maplestory, Kannas aren’t even a playable class. From my understanding, the only farming method players had was to kill mobs in the ToT for pieces of time. In some instances, one would yield only 50m after three hours. The Reboot servers in KMS died out from lack of interest amid such high costs to progress. I’m afraid that our Reboot could suffer the same fate if Nexon continues to take action against farming.
I was pondering a possible solution for a while and came up with something I got a bit too carried away with. After testing the waters with close friends and other members of the Reboot community, I realize this might seem more of a pipe dream than anything. I wanted to present it to you all regardless in hopes that other, more viable solutions might come about from other users.
First and foremost, I should make it clear that while I am aware that Nexon of America is a publisher and Nexon of Korea is the actual Dev, I’d like to push for an idea that could potentially solve this issue and somewhat normalize Reboot’s way of late-game progression: Add three new instanced maps in the Alien Corridor in New Leaf City with level 200, 210, and 220 mobs. If I’m not mistaken, Global Maplestory is the only version of the game that has this content and shouldn’t really interfere with other versions.
So how would one get to these theoretical new areas?
(Excuse the crude edit.)
A portal at the uppermost platform of ABC6 would lead to three new rooms through a selection window. These rooms would have the same map layout of ABC6. Lore could say that the maps are “Experimental Prototype Super-Soldier Facilities”. These new maps would contain mobs that are level 200, 210, and 220 depending on what map you choose. Since these maps would be instanced, they could have a timer of 2 hours, much like ByeBye Station.
These new mobs would be harder to one-shot to encourage players to become stronger on their Kanna. At the same time, this would discourage botters that happen to use weaker weapons and armor. When it comes to experience gained, I'd say to keep it around 2,000 per alien. If a player wants to get to the other rooms faster, they can work with others in the Arcane River to level.
When it comes to the meso drop itself for these new aliens, it would be the same drop rate as it were for Cogs and Miners. Meso obtained would reflect other mobs around 200+, around 10k-15k per bag.
With these maps added to GMS, Reboot players will be able to prepare for harder challenges. Players will also be able to prepare for upcoming content, such as Esfera. By doing this, farmers won't have to stress out and locking their farmer to 150 and potentially getting banned from killing themselves so much every 30 minutes.
TL;DR:
Late-game in Reboot ramps up the cost of progress and cannot be achieved through “gaining meso as you go while playing your main”. In many cases, this brings people to mesofarming with Kannas. I believe trying to lock one at 150 just to fund their main is ridiculous. My solution to this issue (As crazy as it might seem) would be for three new maps added into NLC which would perform like an instanced ABC6 with the alien mobs being 200, 210, and 220 depending on the room so that players can actually level their Kannas without worry and fund their main for end-game content.
Comments
Is this really what you think MMORPG gameplay should be?
If not enough meso can be obtained where one is training their main, various other solutions come to mind:
- Increase meso drops in higher level areas
- Increase the Reboot meso multiplier
- Decrease the Reboot exp multiplier (so you don't level so fast and reach "endgame" before you have the gear for it)
- Increase the NPC value of items like Spell Traces and Philosopher's Stones
- Increase meso rewards from bosses
- Add/increase meso rewards from other daily/repeatable content such as PQs, Monster Park, Kritias, DWT/Haven/Arcane River dailies, etc.
and I'm sure if we all put our heads together, we can come up with some other solutions that don't entail turning Maplestory into Cookie Clicker.
Well, grinding, and getting nodes and certain symbols already kinda is that. I agree with your point though, changing multipliers and meso rewards sound like better ways to resolve this issue.
Nodes and new symbols are meant to be obtained as you train, they really just need to boost droprate of both more.
I made a post in suggestions with different ideas, the ones u mentioned are included,id love nexon to see my.post and consider the suggestions.
Lowering the per-cube meso cost could be another possibility as well.
Please don't necro 5-month-old threads just to advertise your own threads.