DoKing

My disappointment for Nexon is incalculably high. There is literally no sensible reason to change Korean content in a manner which nerfs the player experience aside from corporate greed to later sell the progression in cash shop. Nexons greed and hypocrisy is what will turn people away from a great game.

This is written from the hands and mind of a player who has been with this game for many years. I am loyal and willing to acknowledge the good in Nexon when it is demonstrated. But I cannot help but feel frustration over the most recent of attempts to force players to change up their equipment choices (not simply upgrading of a single equipment piece).

As with any game, what keeps it alive is an active playerbase which play the game and contribute towards the game as a revenue stream for the host company.

For Maplestory, these objectives can be achieved in the form of dailies, grinding, item progression and cosmetics sales.

Historically speaking, in a time before time, back in the days of nostalgia and childhood ignorance, the GMS community (by forums and proxy of Maple Leaf Council) was asked whether or not it wanted flames and a higher star cap. Back then, there was sufficient community opposition against these features as power creep was a major concern.

As a result, GMS progressed down an alternate pathway, fixating on NEBS (which we had before KMS had flames), implementing Gollux and Commerci (sweetwater), merging EMS into GMS but not implementing flames or stars (because they weren't necessary AND because of past opposition to flames and stars),a status quo had been sufficiently established around a 50m damage cap. Fast forward to 2016 and KMS reveals V, a 10b damage cap, the V-matrix system and suddenly the progression ceiling exploded in all directions. Power creep had come anyway.

In order to respond to this power creep, players had to heavily invest further into the NON KMS equips and features by spending time, money or both. Players would forego precious tyrant equips (KMS origin) and convert them into NON KMS sweetwater equipment via transposition which effectively killed the tradeability of these equips (barring 1 trade if you used a scissor) (keep in mind, while whales are most affected, players who were seeking the most efficient path of progression also went this route (refusal to cube 3 line reg pot and bpot for more reliable gains)). Players would heavily cube the far Superior Gollux equipment and players would spend additional time/cash to complete events such as Sengoku high for high stats pocket items. All of which are NON KMS. We played the Meta that Nexon America gave to us.

What has recently changed:

1) Nexon has finally agreed to give us flames

2) Nexon is also currently discussing releasing the 25 star system in Global Maplestory

3) Nexon has implemented flames in a manner which makes it extremely difficult for non KMS boss equips to acquire similar flames to KMS boss equips.

Touching on this last point, in its current state the tyrants which players sacrificed to convert into transpose sweetwater equips for set effect are now arguably better and more reliable. The sweetwater transposition system offers far too many disadavantages for too few advantages. Personally, IF I HAD KNOWN that this is how it would turn out, I WOULD NOT transpose my Tyrants. Having a greater chance of high tier flame lines AND unlimited (paid) tradeability is worth far more than a set effect which has been limited by its poor flame outcomes. The supposed upgrade which throws away tradeability is now WORSE than the original item. Is that how gear progression is meant to work? No.
However, I am in agreement that Transposed SW should not gain the 25 star cap. I believe they should behave like Tyrant equips but with a set effect (Transfer the superior status over during the transposition process). Normal SW should be permitted to reach the 25 star cap.

I do not mind that Arcanes are better under the flame and 25 star system. It is as it should be... its a higher level equipment set.

Call me a whiner/whinger but these actions are perfectly in line with Nexon's business goals. More gameplay - More revenue. If you spend more time on the game, you are more inclined to purchase cosmetics to make the visual experience better (dem sweet sweet pixels). If you are forced to constantly replace equipment with new equipment, you either spend even more time (Reboot) or even more money (Regular servers). Did I mention Marvel is about to hit?

Why is this not okay? Because as time went on, it became evidently clear that Nexon NA had less and less control in the overall direction of the game. It was never truly in Nexon NA's power to control the power creep of the game. More and more content gets released in the Vanilla version (KMS) and the ceiling keeps rising. Players who wished to play Maplestory and reach end game content, were by in large forced into Nexon NA's non kms meta (primarily gollux with sprinklings of sweetwater transposition). To do a 180 turn and say we have now decided to give you flames, but all your non kms stuff gets the shaft is insulting and just reaffirms my negative opinion of the company managing the game.

Prove me wrong Nexon. Give my cynical side a good walloping. Show me that this was just an honest mistake rather than a calculated move.

Where in game or on Nexons official notes does it explicitly state that atk speed is capped at 2 for all sources. The values of 2 and 0 were determined experimentally and validated via not so *nexon friendly* methods.

This appears to be a deviation rather than a bug, as Nexon NA representatives have said in the past that GMS content is not explicitly identical to KMS or other localizations and features in one version do not necessarily need to to carry over to another as long as Nexon has decided so. An example of this was when Orchids badge was released in philosopher books, players assumed the badge carried the same damage reflect ignoring effect as seen in Taiwan Maplestory, it was later mentioned in an official statement that the skill was omitted on purpose. A deviation from original content. Our lack of flames, and 25 star cap is another deviation from original content.

By good planning or luck, the fact green potions permit players attack faster has allowed for GMS to remain balanced to KMS in terms of overall killing speed. Changing current mechanic renders the content obselete and also makes it so many classes become unable to clear the end game content despite capping (clearing content whilst carrying their own weight in damage to be more correct)

And also understand that in the past that players were able to go beyond speed 0. This was then patched by Nexon and thus shows Nexon were aware of this speed effect and decided to adjust it appropriately.

I think this is a deviation rather than a bug and it was a good deviation overall.

Hurricane classes still benefit from the speed boost when using their non keydown skills. Furthermore, whether or not booster is used, hurricane type skills do not get boosted. This points to being by design rather than a bug from the monster park green potion .

Atk speed boosts also do not affect summon type attacks and damage ticks. This shows that there are simply more than 1 category of attacks and attack speed boosts apply to only one category of attacks

I am going to add a point to this discussion.

Reboot was added after the flame/additional option system was implemented. Recently there has been a very controversial change to the progression of Reboot characters.

The problem lies in the fact that, Reboot by design requires sufficient character power to grind and meso farm in the recommended maps (as suggested by the Maple Guide), power which was not fully available to GMS players as they lack the flame/AO system to supplement their stats. The flame/AO system is competitive enough to contend against BOTH spell trace scrolling AND nebulites simultaneously.

Many players have expressed their concern that Reboot progression has been severely nerfed, and the damage gate is simply to high to farm at higher level maps (Such as arcane river) which the game intended you to farm at. In the past, GMS players would seek to overcome these requirements by cubing to high potential grades (21% stat and above) but with the implementation of the NON KMS map meso changes, the time required to reach these potentials and power to fight in appropriate maps has increased dramatically.

I believe it is due time to add Flames/AO to supplement player power at all levels of funding, which softens the blow on players just starting out on Reboot, and provides them with another source of power to actually handle the content that the game recommends.

As for how much AO/flames would add, and how would a newer player actually acquire said flames? Every new equip that is generated as a monster drop has the chance to come with flame stats. These stats are highly variable, but it is not uncommon for a player to play 2 hours a day for 2 weeks to not come across a reasonably good flame such as +60 stat on top of base stats. These stats are multiplied by potentials as well. Furthermore, that 60 stat was a very conservative mention because it is entirely possible to get that +60 stat + 4% all stats and this is more often seen as elite boss bonus stage drops and boss monster drops.

For example, an aquatic letter eye accessory in GMS Reboot when fully enhanced offers 25 all stats (25 primary stat and secondary stat which factor into player power/damage)

Meanwhile, an aquatic letter eye accessory with flames/AO could have an additional 50-60 primary stat (bringing that +25 primary stat to something like +75 or 85). This is one example as to where the early game damage of a GMS reboot player is far less than that of a KMS reboot player. Their equipment offers up 3x the stats in the early game!

We can always argue that gollux and codex stats (boss, ied) allow the mid to end game boss content to be cleared to similar success as KMS, but we must not forget that a big part of the game is the grind, the near endless PVE which takes up the majority of game time. As of current, attempting to grind ONE character to 200 (or further, access the most recent content) from scratch with the penalties in place, will be quite difficult and almost unbearable for players to enter the game. Understandably, it WAS a bug, but it cannot be denied, it was helpful for players to start off and gather a foothold in the game.

The weakness of the character becomes most evident at the Lv 160 to 190 mark (for Reboot) and within the Arcane river (Vanishing Journey for Regular servers AND Reboot) . If a player uses the in game suggested maple guide, they will hit the wall hard. I believe the flames acquired up to this stage can help these players leap over the wall and grind/meso farm all the way up as Nexon intended. Players should not, be spending more time on a farming character than their main, other games have made this mistake in the past and have suffered (Dragons Nest)

There is not better time than now to consider and implement flames into the game. This is damage control, else Reboot will suffer and GMS as a whole will suffer.

*This is in addition to my previous points on normal server progression.

Thanks,
DeathOFKing

It saddens me to see the current state of the ring. Its a disappointment to veteran players. Hope something good comes out of the discussions. Keep us updated.

Thanks,
DeathOFKing