Thank you for putting together this thread as there is indeed much to discuss on the topic of how the World Leap event was handled and a world merge.
The World Leap event gave power to the Maplers on which world to leap to. Maplers were never forced to move to a specific world and it was a community effort to populate Bera. As a result, a number of worlds saw a decline of population and this is something we've taken notice to as well.
Could it have been anticipated that the community would select a single server to move to? Could we have been aware that this collaboration would cause the world to hit a limit? From what the initial announcement details entail, we didn't, and for that we apologize.
At this point it can't be helped with what should've been done, however, we can focus on what needs to be done. There are players who are unable to leap to Bera due to an issue that wasn't foreseen with the introduction of this event. Players aren't the ones to fault for this and we will be investigating if anything can be done to resolve the issue.
Now onto the topic of world merges, we hear you guys.
Everything is being taken into consideration as a world merge is no easy decision and task. We want to make sure we have all the data which means looking at the number of active Maplers on each world on the surface, internal, and seasonal. While it may be clear to many that a world merge should be in order right now (especially with the world leap event affecting population) the leap event makes it difficult to get a concrete data pull with the dust still being kicked and Maplers still moving. Once the dust settles and we have a firm grasp of the final data, we can take direction from there.
The loot lag and the kill lag are still there like you say. It's not that the care isn't there, it's more so that it's being worked on. I'm not sure why this has been an ongoing issue for so long, but it is being communicated currently.
The issue coming from excessive quests that require drop checks and quests that require kills checks being the root of the issue was well noted. There were various threads created across various channels that we've compiled and delivered for review to fix the issue.
We made a promise to keep the community informed ahead of time should balance changes to the drop rate be applied in the Global version of MapleStory.
We have confirmed that these balance changes will be a part of our v188 update. We’re aware of the initial feedback that the community had towards this change and we’d like to share the reasoning behind this decision. Progression for each Mapler is different and this progression was heavily divided by how fast and efficient an individual could farm for items.
From the release of new content, a visible line could be seen between those with a great deal of drop rate gear to those who could not acquire such gear. It is the intention of this change to address this widening gap and the balance of content completion across all Maplers.
With the changes to the balance of drop rate, the formula for drop rate gear will be changed. This means that stacking a great deal of items dedicated towards increasing drop rate will not have the same effectiveness as it does currently.
Again, we know that this will affect our hardcore Maplers who have invested time and resource into acquiring the best drop rate gear. Due to this, there will also be an increase to the base drop rate of highly sought after farmable items such as Nodestones with this update. Additionally, we will do our best to introduce more events with desired items obtained through previous means of farming as rewards.
We've reopened this discussion with the response that we've gathered from our CS and Investigations team. Apologies if an answer could not be provided to your question in this round of Q&A. We would like to hold more of these in the future in our hopes to provide Maplers with more insight into our constant battle with illegitimate players and the support that is provided. Thank you to everyone who participated in this Q&A by submitting your questions!
Q: Are there any future implementations on revamping the autoban system? Currently it appears to be banning a number of legitimate players? A: We know that there have been various cases of the anti-cheat system in MapleStory targeting legitimate players in the past. Most of the time this is in part due to new features, skills, item interactions, etc. introduced in game updates that inadvertently trigger existing criteria we have set in place. It’s difficult to predict when things might be triggered this way. We may test things extensively on our end prior to an update, but in a live environment things sometimes find a way to go wrong. Thanks, ‘Murphy’s Law’ . These cases are somewhat rare in frequency, and when it happens we are usually aware of the situation rather quickly. The investigations team will immediately reverse any of the blocks that are placed on the accounts, and those blocks have no bearing on any ban history. We also investigate what may have caused those mistaken triggers and work with our developers to remedy that situation as soon as possible. We understand our system isn’t perfect, and we are continuously working to improve it. If you ever find yourself in such a situation, we encourage you to submit a ticket about your case and we are more than happy to look at it.
Q: Are there any sort of 'second chances' being implemented for those that have been temporarily banned/removed off rankings? I know MapleStory has done so in the past, even lifting the bans off of permanently banned players. A: The second chance program initiated a few years back was an experimental program to see whether or not abusive players from the past could learn from those mistakes and play the game without the use of third party hacking programs. We have since finished the program and concluded our analysis. At the moment, we do not have any plans on reviving that program again.
Q: Is better training being done on the customer support teams to better assist us? Most GMs seem pretty incompetent on the happenings of in game events or items. Most don't seem to even play the game or have an understanding of it. They give inconsistent answers or simply copy and paste a response. A: MapleStory is a complex game that requires a lot of time and dedication to keep up-to-date on new systems, content updates, etc. Many of our agents are cross-trained to handle multiple titles, which depending on the workload, can make it a challenge to remain an expert. To address that, we will be making efforts to ensure that our agents take the time to understand the game, the events, new content, and even our internal policies better, without compromising our ability to provide the players the answers they need in a timely manner.
Q: For players who sell items for illicit currency such as Paypal (PP,) Western Union (WU) and other forms of money, how come those players don't get banned right away. I've seen players trying to sell on a daily basis through hire merchants or shop permits. A: We understand that RMT (Real Money Trading) is a big issue which does have a negative impact on both our business and game economies. To put it simply, it’s difficult to catch RMT activity happening outside of the game. Those transactions that you are describing happen through back channels and alternate accounts that are not linked to player’s main accounts. We simply do not have as much oversight on those transactions, which makes it difficult to conduct these types of investigations. In order to take any proper action on accounts involved in this activity, we need to have solid evidence of those transactions linked to the accounts. That alone takes time, which explains why you don’t see them get banned right away.
Q: Are the investigations regarding the December 2015 Cube Exploit ever going to resume? Many players were unfairly banned for coming in contact with items they had no clue were exploited, without any way to avoid it. A: We are no longer investigating this issue and we consider the matter closed.
To add a bit of transparency regarding the December 2015 cube exploit, I’d like to share with you some of the criteria we used for investigating the issue. First of all, there were a set number of players taking direct part in the exploit that allowed a player to exploit a hot time reward box, which gave players an unlimited amount of miracle cubes. Those accounts have been permanently blocked with no chance of release. The investigation didn’t stop there, as the team had to look for associated accounts involved with the exploit. We looked into the movement flow of items that were obtained by and given to direct exploiters for upgrade, but we didn’t place blocks solely on that. We had to look at other criteria as well, such as IP association, the quantity of items received from direct exploiters, and whether or not there was indirect trade activity or other types of behavior indicative of malicious intent to profit from the exploit. If any account fit these criteria, the accounts were found to be associated or tied to direct exploiters and were blocked.
Last year, the investigations team was made aware via forums and other social media channels of player's concerns about the resolution of this case. The team took another look into the investigation of the December exploit to see if appropriate actions and decisions by investigators were taken at the time. We came to the conclusion that the actions the investigators took to look into the accounts were appropriate. Because of that we consider the matter closed.
Q: Why are botters not being banned and roaming freely? They are always taking over maps in every channel which ruins gameplay experience for normal players. A: We do our best to catch and ban the players that violate our Terms of Service and continue to explore different methods to improve our abilities to do so.
Q: Are there talks in introducing the CAPTCHA text verification system back into GMS that is currently present in the other versions of the game (KMS, MSEA)? As far as I am aware they were removed because players used the "Lie Detector" USE item to pester players. A: We did in fact at one point of the service utilize a “Lie Detector” CAPTCHA system, whose purpose was to combat botting. But players ended up abusing the system during boss battles, jump quests and other normal instances. So we removed the CAPTCHA as it was ultimately ineffective. At this time we do not have any plans to bring back the lie detector, but we can certainly take another look at the item, see if it can be improved upon to prevent abuse, and put it up for consideration in the future.
Q: Why isn't Live Chat available around the clock, as befits a Global service? A: We understand players enjoy this service due to preferred direct Player-to-GM interactions and quicker resolution times. Unfortunately at this time, we can only accommodate the hours that we currently have for live chat. We'll continue to take a look at our operations as a whole to see if it could possibly be feasible in the future.
Q: Why aren't hackers permanently banned on their first ban? Being someone who has reported and gotten various hackers banned it always disheartens me when I see them back. These players know exactly what they are doing. You don't accidentally download and use hacks and they do the same thing when they are back or until they hit 250 in which they start doing it on a mule account.
Q: How is the length of bans determined? A more direct question: why is hacking given potentially as light of a ban as 2 weeks? I have seen many players using hacks to attack the entire map, and farm nodes/elite drops only get 2-4 week bans. This length of time seems more appropriate to a macro botter (that is a bot that doesn't hack). A: Ideally, we'd like to give an abusive player the benefit of the doubt that they had a moment of weakness when it comes to their decision making when deciding to use third party hacking tools. Also, we'd like to think that a minimum term of a two week suspension plus possible rank removal, is enough of a reason for a previously innocent player not to continue their cheating ways. Unfortunately, we understand that's often not the case, and we'll have to take a deeper look into that. Also, keep in mind that we take repeat offenses for hacking very seriously and will often institute a no-leniency stance on those accounts. At the end of the day, the lengths of the ban are based on the type of offense and frequency, and the Sr. GM is final arbiter when a decision needs to be made concerning ban leniency.
Q: Why do people who have been banned for botting/hacking get to keep all their "progress"? The worst part about people coming back from a ban is that they lose nothing. This is why you have so many people who hack/bot and do not care because they know even if they get banned they'll still have everything after the ban. I know de-leveling players may cause issues but there has to be something else that can be done. People who bot or exploit should have all goods removed after their ban and more. A: To put it simply, it's easier said than done. Any kind of item, currency, progress, or purchase removal is a very tricky and timely process. This is especially more so in cases where a player may have had their account taken over by a third party source and used for hacking/botting. We can look at ways to see if removing gold, items, and EXP can be done for banned players in the future. However, in the priority of things, doing this will mean that we can’t do something else that would more benefit the players.
Q: Why aren't shops in the free market investigated? There are loads of shops that scream "hacker/botter". They are filled with elite boss items, legendary items and spell trace usually. A lot of these shops have been in business for years and are making thousands of dollars off your game. It wouldn't be hard to look into the shop owners and see what trades are being done to and from the player. You would get a large stream of accounts connected to it that are going to be hacking mule accounts and you'd also get the player's main. A: We do investigate Free Market shops. Often times it is difficult to identify if the item was obtained through illicit activities.
Q: Is it true that Customer Support agents are measured by the number of tickets they close and/or live chat conversations they complete?
If so, is there any mechanism in place to make sure their motivation to help the players and the game is higher than their motivation to close the case ASAP?
If it is not true, how do you explain the cases in which people got brushed off by CS agents, only to get a completely different response once the issue was escalated to a Senior GM, or the CM took notice? A. We do not solely rely on the number of tickets and chats completed to quantify an agent’s overall performance. There are multiple attributes that we use to measure performance, with most being quality based.
Please keep in mind that each agent has different personalities, methodologies, and ways of going about a solution. Sometimes an agent may not make the right decision when responding to a ticket or chat. That is why Senior GM’s exist: to identify where an agent may have erred in their response and to coach them on proper handling of the case. For the most part these same CS agents typically have gone above and beyond to assist a player and solve their issue. But when one agent’s response is taken, usually out of context, and displayed publicly on Reddit or a forum in a mocking or demeaning way, it gives a false impression that the agent doesn’t care or worse, doesn’t want to make things right for the player.
Q: Does it ever hurt or demoralize you to read, hear, or witness the things people say about you? Assuming you know the things people say about you? A: Of course it does. Contrary to popular belief, we’re not robots. We swear! Rather than see it as a mountain of negatives though, we try and use it as motivation to strive to make a better game for the players.
Q: My question is going to be this... When are you going to be a lot more pro-active in dealing with spammer bots in Towns and FM (Meso sellers, basically) and dealing with bots killing mobs in various locations? A: Everyday we are catching and investigating players that violate our Terms of Service.
Q: What is the investigations and CS team doing within the hopefully near future to become more transparent with the player base? A: Participating in events such as this. We do work with our community manager, Arwoo, very often to share appropriate and transparent messaging when various hacking incidents or major exploits arise. We also are continuously trying to improve our messaging in tickets and live chat responses to give a clearer picture to the player about any ban issues that players come across.
Q: Why is it so difficult to redistribute an item to a player if something unfortunately happens to it? Now I'm not talking about a player destroying their items with a scroll or the likes, but more for the players who accidentally drop an untradeable item or get hacked and lose their items. Other game companies are so helpful to these issues and will give players back their items, sometimes within 24 hours. However, with Nexon if this happens players who submit a ticket or go to live chat about this are basically told that there is nothing that they will do since they don't replace player mistakes. A: Investigating claims that something disappeared by accident can be very subjective at times. It's hard to discern off of the player's word alone whether a player's lost item was an accident or not. We understand where other game companies are coming from when they restore items for players, because of the way their item movement is structured there's really only few avenues for an item to be removed from the player. With a system like MapleStory, a player can drop an item to trade, destroy an item through various forms of enhancement, sell the item via market, and so on, to where it's easy for a player to make a false claim without proper investigation. Keep in mind, we do restore items in cases of unintended removal such as illegal access to the account or mistakenly written item descriptions. In those cases, we have to do a very thorough investigation to verify the claim.
