This is a Solutions i can provide to Maplestory based on the assumptions i will make below. I got this assumptions through reading several memos released by Maplestory team. Eventhough some of the assumptions might be wrong, but i Hope it can help you gain more ideas on how to solve the kishin problem.
1st PART
But firstly i want to give more insight that not every players hate kanna that much. Not every players think farming mesos on kanna is a burden. People just need a different point of view. one main point is that, Farming mesos on Kanna is not a must. It is just some people is forcefully unwilling to farm on kannas.
Noone is forhibited to make kanna and farm using kanna. but instead, farming on kanna have created a very unique trait on maplestory. It give us players a way to get our boredom playing main char all the time. When people complaining that they need to farm on kanna is the same as players complaining to why we have to level up 43 different class to level up our legion or to get link skills. You don't have to if you don;t want. But you will lose the link skills and legion boost. So do we delete legion and link skill coz players only want to play their main? HELL NO.
No players are restricted to farm on kanna. It is just some players are too hated and unwilling to play kanna to farm mesos. Every class has their own uniqueness. it is like an NL complain why they don;t have damage party buff, or a bishop complaining why they don;t have summons that can clean up a lot of monsters in maps similar to Lumi. Cmon, if you want mob class, go main lumi or I/L. If you want bossing class, go try NL or Aran or maybe some other class. if you want buff class or classes with good buff, try Bishop, Wild HUnter, Shade or some other class.
Kanna itself is not a must. You are not restricted to farm with Kanna if you don;t want. At level 230ish, you can still gain around 200mill perhour without Kanna. with legion mesos coupons gaining around 300mill perhour. But of course it will be less than having kanna which can get you around 600mill perhour+. If you want to farm without kanna, then just farm for 2-3 hours, and you will get the same amount as farming with kanna. You can;t wish for everything perfect. But you can always make a kanna if you wish to.
About having kanna on the 2nd computer, In my honest opinion, it is one of the best feature Maplestory have in order for players to share and help each other. I know some players have 2nd computer with kanna and they help give kishin to other players. That is creating bond between players. but yeah, not many actually want to do it. But players can still farm by making a kanna and gain around 200mill perhour+ at first. but after a while they will gain to around 500mill perhour or even more.
If we want all the classes are the same, please I want my NightWalker to have summons similar to Lumi. The summons can attack by itself every second. I also want My Nightwalker Starthrow to be like Luimi can chain attacking mobs far away from me. I also want my NightWalker to have bishop shield protection. Why the hell only bishop can aovid death several times, while my NW don’t have. I also want kanna boss damage 45% skill. Pls give physical attack buff on Kanna as well, why kanna only buff magic attack?. This is so unfair to non-mages class. My mages friend, Ice Lightning and Lumi would be really happy if they can get Flash Jump.. It is so unfair they can’t FJ at Spirit Saviour daily at Arcane map level 225. Pls give all mages FJ. My friend NL also ask for teleport. Coz mages can tele through the Lotus 1st phase laser while his NL can only run into the top hidden teleport to be save. Why mechanic only can create a tele door. Pls other classes also need it example to fight Lucid to avoid the dragons 1 hit kill. I also want my NW can fly like Illium, Xenon, Demon avenger or Demon slayer, I need it to avoid Lotus 2nd phase laser on the ground. I also want mages 5th job skill invicibility 3 seconds. Why only mages can get invicbiility for 3 seconds. All other classes also need it. So unfair.
All classes are different. But you can play them. Noone restrict you from playing them. If you want to farm, just make a kanna and go farm. It is not like you are only allowed to play kanna for 1-2 hours and after, you are not allowed to. Kanna itself is already really good at farmng.
2nd PART
This is the assumptions and solutions to Kanna problem that cause lag, based on my own analisys. I might have a wrong judgement on my analysis but I hope it to help Maplestory teammore ideas and test it out.
Assumptions and Facts :
1. The increase on latency, lag and game crash are caused by a huge numbers use on Kishin
2. Major contributor to the server lag is specifically the Kishin skill and how it functions
3. Kishin skill allows maps to have more monsters and increases the rate at which they reappear after being defeated, and because of the sheer amount of players in the game
using this skill at the same time, this causes a lot of technical issues that are difficult to solve
4. Kishin’s ability to increase monster spawn rate needed to be reduced to provide a smoother experience for all players.
5. After maintenance, they server ussually feels light, but after few days, the lag increases
6. I believe, somehow GM have a way to refresh the server without mainteanance, and it lighten the server, until few days later, it gets heavier again.
7. The server lags more on 2x event.
8. Kishin skill stay effect for the duration of the kishin eventhough the kanna leave the map already until the skill effect run out after 150 seconds. To prove this, just get kanna to 1 map. Kishin the map and move the kanna to a different map. Kill monsters using any other classes without kishin. The map will still have kishin skill stack into it for 150 seconds.
My own analysis :
This is my own analysis what is happening inside the game based on above assumptions
1. A lot of players is keyweighting on kanna mule to provide kishin, on their kishin skill. This caused kishin skill to be spammed continuosly legit every half a second - a second. so in 60 seconds, each kishin mule will spam around 60-100 kishin skill. This will cause a heavy burden to the server. It might be coz it keep alter the game code to spawn more mob and increase mob spawn every second or every half second. It might connect to the server and cause disturbance to the connection on the server or heavy server load.
Just go to Arcane map level 225+, CLP map , which is the most famous farming map in maplestory. In case you don’t know where is CLP map, Just ask any high level Players they should know where is CLP map. You will see there are mostlikely 90% of the players there have kishin mule spamming Kishin every second nonstop. If they farm for 8 hours a day, simply kishin will keep spamming for 8 hours straight each second.
And this CLP map almost never empty, especially before 30 channles update. This not yet counting all other maps that has players spamming kishin by keyweighting it.
On 2x event, simply every players will get their kishin mule on and spamming kishin every second nonstop. This heavy burden simply enermous and kill the server
2. This 2nd analysis are related to point 5 and 6 on assumptions section above. According to my analysis, after 3-4 days after a server refresh or maintenance, I will see a huge numbers of maps will have the amount of monsters above the normal amount.
If GM, after 3 days of maintenance browse around Arcane maps level 200+ which is VJ, Chuchu, lachlein, Arcane or other maps, you will find a lot of maps have the amount of monsters above their normal numbers. Such as if the X map actually only have 30 monsters in it, when you arrive there, you might find around 40-50 monsters in that map eventhough noone in that map and no kishin. And that is not happening only to 1 map, there are hundreds of maps in that situation.
My analysis, this is due, after a map is being kishined, the amount of monsters in the map will stay above normal even after several hours, until someone clean up the map. But most players, after finish farming/training/grinding, they don’t clean up the map. They just leave. While kishin will still activate for around 150 seconds. Logically, No players will wait 2 mins+ until kishin run out and clean up the map to get the map back to normal amount of monsters. Players will just leave the map after they finish using the map.
This is combining with the assumption point 8 above, where after the players leave the map, kishin will still stay effect and keep the map with more monsters. Until maybe , if lucky, someone come to the map without kishin and clean up the mosnters. Simply, after 3-4 days after maintenance / refresh, you will see 70% of the map at level 200+ will have the amount of monsters above their normal amount. If only 1 map it is fine. But if 100+ maps x 30 channels have the amount monsters above the normal amount, it will heavily burden the server. Combine with my analysis point 5 and 6, I reached a conclusion that this might be the cause of the lag.
Possible solutions :
Before you nerf kishin you might want to consider this first.
1. Make kishin skill with 150 seconds uptime with 140 seconds cooldown time. No more kishin spam. But it will still spam message that players can’t use this skill, coz it is on cooldown. Not sure if it will still cause a burden to server. But there is 2nd solution below.
2. Make kishin skills unspammable similar to other skills. Example NW can’t spam triplethrow nonstop without moving. After around 10 seconds, they will sotp attacking. Make kishin similar to this sp players can’t spam kishin anymore. But some players still can avoid this by using random tele + kishin to bypass this (if you know I mean). But you might try.
3. This is to counter problem on analysis no.2. Making a code inside the game map, that after certain time, lets say 3-5 mins, if there are no players in the map, everymap will refresh by themselves. But not sure. Possibly if the map refresh every few mins, it will cause another server heavy load
4. Make a code, that in a map, if there are no players or no players after certain time, the monsters in the map will dissapear
5. To make a code, if there are no players in the map or after certain times, all monsters will revert back to the normal amount.
6. Make Kishin doesn’t stack to a map even if the 150 seconds of kishin duration is still running. As soon as the kanna is gone, the kishin effect will be gone. But this seems doesn’t really provide much help since after splayers move their kanna mule, they don’t bother to clean up the map. But this surely will reduce the ability of players to share kishin with others. I hope this is the last choice you will do. I highly don’t recommend this coz this is one of the feature in Maplestory to help players gain more friends by helping each other.
Lastly, all my assumptions and solutions might not true or not work. But hopefully can help the Maplestory team get more ideas. Cheers
Comments
But the problem is that players got way too used to using it. It's part of the meta and a lot of players refuse to grind without it.
The skill itself is a "Too good to be true" kind of thing.
You shouldn't be able to turn on a second computer and get insane buffs for free. (pretty sure this is against the terms of use anyway)
That's why Kanna needs an overhaul. It creates an unhealthy player meta.
From the Terms of Use: https://www.nexon.com/main/en/legal/tou/
"• Using macros, auto-looting or robot play, or any other behavior that allows you (or any character you are controlling) to automatically function or effect any action in a game with or without your presence."
Edit: To clarify, I don't think the problem is just the lag, but also the meta surrounding Kishin. It's not enough to simply fix the lag.
Nexon already started banning those kanna botters on crowded servers, which are the most affected by this issue.
As someone who does dailies around Arcane river, 30 seconds cooldown makes more sense or a debuff that increases your mana cost by 20 if you use kishin again within the 30 seconds up to 160. I wonder if Nexon ever intended to have a map Frenzied with Frenzy totem without the caster being in the map ever...
1. Kishin hadn't become the meta yet, less people were using it across less maps
2. GMS has been becoming more and more unstable due to slapping more stuff over a broken code base
It's bad game design to give players a method to just turn on a second PC for extra drops/exp/spawns.
If Kanna is going to give these things, it should be because another player is controlling it.
Also it's a bit hypocritical to tell people to save up and buy another PC when you're complaining that Frenzy totem is too expensive. (RNG)
@Fuhreak.
1. wth are you talking about? kishin hadn't become a meta yet?are you really play maplestory? You can go to any of the high level maps such as Lantern at lv 200-209 below the cave Vanishing Journey map,lv 210-219 Slurpy at chuchu map, lv 220-229 Chicken festival 2 or 3 at lachlein, lv 225+ CLP/uppermap/CLP1 map at Arcana, 99% players who farm there are using kishin mule. Are you kidding me? Kishin has become a Meta since years ago even when i started this game 2 years ago, or even before that. And today, even if you want me to find you people who use kishin mule, i can find you 20 easily in few mins. Are you seriously a Maplestory player?
2. The code is not the main problem. People keep blaming the code but noone ever say which code. It is just people assumption. Noone has ever specifically mention which code. People just suspect it is the code, but not directly mention which code or which update. That is why lag problem in Maplestory has never been fixed even though Maplestory team have been trying so many years to fix it. Probably it is time to try a different point of view. Kishin itself, if a players is lagging, the skill will stop. It means that it is server side. It means it create a burden to the server. Otherwise KMS will be lagging too. That is why currently GMS is trying to try going back to the basic to try as similar as to KMS without losing their uniqueness.
tho it doesn't mean they have to remove kishin content. They can try several suggestion i made above. one of the reason why i suggest it, coz on the previous test server, when the Game Master spawned a lot of bosses in Henesys with probably 50+ players in 1 map, I didn't experience any lag at all. Normally playing GMS, if i have bossing with or going to a map with lots of players such as ardentmill; on MVP, i would lag. on the test server, If there are 10 bosses in 1 map with 50 players hunting it down toegther in 1 map, I would lag like hell. But it didn't happened. No lag, not even a bitIt has the same content. But there were probably no kishin mule at all in the test server, since people won't bother. My logic telss me, there is 50% chance it is caused by people people spamming kishin skill on their mule every second. GM can probably start put a restriction for people to spam it for more than 10 seconds. and see how it goes.
Or there is a chance it also cause by the other things i mentioned above. or probably both cause the lag and makes it even worse.
When I said "hadn't become yet" I was using past tense. When Kishin was first released, it wasn't meta. You even agree with me on that.
Please read posts carefully before you belittle people. (Actually, don't belittle people at all, please.)
He asked me to explain why it didn't lag in the past, I answered the same as you.
As far as the code thing goes, we've had this confirmed before, recently, in fact.
http://maplestory.nexon.net/news/37875/maple-memo-an-update-from-jungsoo-lee
The reason the development team quote "have been trying so many years to fix it" and cannot fix it, is because the fix is to remove non-KMS content which conflicts with their own version.
The Korean Development team is basically having to fork their own project each and every time they create a major patch.
A "bad code base" might be a stretch, but as someone who has observed game development first hand for several years, I can tell you doing this is an absolute nightmare.
It's comparable to ports of games for PC/Console. There's a lot of bugs to work out, a lot of the time the developers just get a third party to handle it because it's such a hassle.