(for a tl;dr just read the bolded portion.)
It’s safe to say that diversity is not a problem in Maple. There are over 40 playable classes, and multiple play styles for each of those classes (mobbing vs bossing). I have to give credit where credit is due, there is a *lot* of stuff to learn, about a lot of different characters.
However, there is a systemic problem with maple that can’t be overlooked. Maple is built around a system that undermines it’s own diversity by preventing people from achieving mid-late game on more than a few characters. People are incentivized and rewarded for leveling mules and alts (eg. Legion, link skills, etc), only to be dissuaded from playing those characters for a significant amount of time by crippling their ability to progress by putting real progress behind a year of arcane river dailies.
I would put forward that most characters don’t really shine until well after fourth job, and for some,not until after 5th job, and I don’t believe you can *really* appreciate a character until playing it becomes almost second nature.
Yet, there are characters I’ve played, and really enjoy playing, but I will never know if I would have preferred them as a main, because I simply don’t have enough time to play them due to time-investment required.
There are many different reasons for this, but the primary one I would focus on I mentioned above, arcane symbols via arcane river dailies.
The fact is, it takes about a year to max all the arcane symbols, per character. That's over 13k worth of stat locked away behind a year of dailies. On average it takes at least a half an hour every day for just arcane river dailies, and that’s with the first several regions only needing the first task completed and autofulfilling the rest.
Focusing on a single character at a time, it would take 40+ years to max arcane symbols on every playable class.
My suggestion is that after a given arcane symbol is maxed on one character, other characters in the same world receive 4x arcane daily rewards for the region where the previous character has a maxed symbol. Assuming six maxed symbols on one character, this would reduce the time required for leveling symbols on alts from a year, to about three months, which I think most people would consider far more reasonable.
If you think a character hasn’t earned the right to receive 4x rewards upon reaching VJ, you could prevent this bonus from initiating until either all six arcane symbols have been attained on that character, or until the following regions quest line has been completed (i.e. begin receiving 4x rewards for VJ after ChuChu quest line has been completed, and receive 4x ChuChu rewards after the Lach quest line has been completed, etc etc).
The fact is, we did our time. We spent over a year doing the same task every single day, I don't feel that we should be obligated to start that same procedure over every single time a new class comes out or we decide we want to try a new character. We already have a huge commitment ahead of us in terms of farming nodestones, droplets and meso for cubes and starforce, why obligate us to do another year of the same old dailies on top of this for our second or third mains? Plus, another entire year of DD or SS for each character is almost a punishment for leveling another character, not a reward for our continued dedication and support.
Sometimes we only continue to play the main we currently have precisely because we’ve already invested in so much time into the character and dailies, and while we would like to try another class that we were turned onto, starting from scratch with another year of dailies is a mental and physical roadblock that often dissuades us from playing a different class for any significant amount of time. It’s frustrating to want to try a new class, but be overwhelmed from the amount of time required to really enjoy that character. But if we stuck it out, and finished maxing the symbols on our first character, getting the next character done in a few months seems more reasonable than abandoning our current character and starting anew.
Honestly, I think the above is the best possible solution, in that it seems fair to both players and to Nexon/Maplestory, where it still requires a significant investment of time and effort, but rewards players who’ve already invested that time on one character, by reducing the time needed to do the same on subsequent characters. I would even support higher bonuses for each character who's reached maxed symbols (4x for one maxed symbol, 6x for two maxed symbols for the same reigon, 8x/cap for three or more...).
An alternative to this would be to make Arcane symbols an account wide system such as legion, and when dailies are completed, on any character, it benefits all characters on the same world. I like this idea too, but it seemed to favor the player over maplestory/nexon.
This is an issue near and dear to my heart, so hopefully it garners some consideration from Nexon.
Comments
It won't.
I mean, to be fair, that is probably the easiest solution. Just go back to the drop rates of yester-years where we could max a symbol in just a couple months of farming. I'd be ok with that too.
No matter the solution, the fact is that locking progression behind an entire year of dailies, for *each* character, is frustrating. Worse than that, its the same dailies... fourty years of doing spirit saver and dream defender is not a reasonable expectation of players.
*sigh*
Yeah, you're probably right.
I already asked for something like this some time ago, i was expecting the community to defend it but for some weird reason they didnt.
I support u man, i like to play more than 1 char but atarting arcane river dailies all over again is super annoying and frustrating.
The difference was you were asking to have a symbol maxed for one char be applicable for all characters, aka free Arcane Force for all characters. The compromise that the OP came up with of having a maxed symbol on one char = 4x (or whatever) progression on others is one that has a good balance between putting in the time and getting free rewards for (essentially) nothing.