First off, if you just do what Niru said to do, that would make the problems much worse. The correct actions to take is to listen to what he and other interactive players are saying, not to do what they say they want, but come up with a proper solution based on what they are saying that will be much better for the long term health of the game.
Second off, to fix interactive worlds will take over 2 years to do, maybe a year at the earliest. There is a lot of work that needs to get done in order to properly fix interactive worlds.
Third off, I would hold off on any interactive worlds merging at this current time. This is something that seems a little risky to do and it is better to try to fix the core issues of interactive worlds first and then decide if an interactive worlds merge is necessary after the fixes are in and have settled down for a bit.
Some potential fixes:
~ Either completely remove the spawn enhancement effects of Frenzy Totem outright and replaced with a different effect or nerf it by adding the mesos cap for interactive worlds to better control the mesos economy and increase the value of the mesos for interactive worlds. One of these actually has to happen for interactive worlds for its game balance and to create a better experience for interactive worlds players.
~ Interactive worlds has too much systems bloat. One improvement to this is removing Monster Life for the upcoming Legion Artifact for there is less burden of systems on the players to deal with.
Another thing that can be done is rework the scrolling system entirely so that it is a lot simpler and have less going on.
Example:
- All scrolls are removed.
- Equips can always hit that equip's max scroll number (max value no longer decreases with failed attempts).
- There is only "one scroll option" where you pay spell traces per attempt, no consequences for failed attempts outside of consuming spell traces, when it succeeds the next scroll attempt will have a lower success rate and more stats added on than the previous scroll (very similar to how starforce works) until you hit the max value of that equipment.
~ All bought cubes and bonus cubes should be permanent duration or at least extended to be 365 days duration if permanent cannot be done for some reason.
~ You probably would sell more and make more money with lower prices for things. Bonus cubes should match the price of regular cubes.
Would include a new aspect as well:
- Can pay for cubes by either 100% NX/Maple Points, 50% NX/Maple Points and 50% Mesos, or 100% Mesos.
UPDATE:
~ Can pay for cubes by either...
- With 100% NX/Maple Points
- With 50% NX/Maple Points and 50% Spell Traces
~ With 100% Spell Traces
Paying with mesos directly would have been redundant on interactive worlds since Maple Points can be purchased with Mesos, so the option to pay with spell traces or discount with spell traces would be the better improvement. Then can hand out more spell traces overall with more things able to used with them.
- Same goes for Miracle Circulators.
~ Reward Shop. Heroic Worlds need a much better reward shop and a lot of the above would fix most of the issues of Interactive Worlds reward shop, and improvements done for the Heroic reward shop should drip down to the Interactive reward shop, outside of adding things like Bonus Cubes and such to the interactive reward shop.
Some suggestions:
- Monster Park tickets sold in bundles of 5 instead of 1 at a time.
- Maple Tour tickets added and sold in bundles of 5 and not 1 at a time.
- Cubes sold in bundles of 5 instead of 1 (Bonus Cubes added and sold in bundles of 5), monthly quantity increased to 20 from 5.
- At least 3x Water of Life per month.
- Etc. (There is a more detailed post on the Reward Shop on the forums.)
Interactive World Passive:
Frenzy Totem, completely removed, this just encourages solo play for a world that is meant to work together to progress.
In its place, you get the Interactive World Passive which is for every additional active party member, that is also on the same map as you, increase the spawn by +40% and spawn rate of that map by +40% (up to +200% spawn and spawn rate when there is a 6-man party that is actively hunting monsters on that map, solo is base spawn and spawn rate).
Now everyone can essentially get frenzy service, but in a lot more balanced way for interactive world since party play divides the mesos among party members to have a better economy with less mesos in the world. This also better serves the interactive aspect that the world is supposed to offer.
In addition, both Heroic and Interactive Worlds will receive a permanent duration pet snail that can be taught pet skills for every single character, but the snail is hard locked to the character (so one cannot move the snails to one character and have triple permanent pets for free).
This will be a great help for both new and returning players since manual looting in MapleStory is such a turn off that it will turn players away from continuing to play the game and become invested into it.
UPDATE:
Starforce Improvements for Interactive Worlds:
Starforcing Fee for Interactive Worlds changed from mesos only to the option of...
~ Mesos Only per individual attempt
~ 50% of the cost with Mesos and 50% of the cost with Spell Traces per individual attempt
~ Spell Traces Only per individual attempt
Starforce Fee with Spell Traces will have their own set values based on equipment level and what star rank is being attempted.
This should help reduce the strain for needing a bunch of mesos to upgrade equipment by having the option to either discount or pay outright for starforcing with spell traces.
These are all surface level stuff to consider to improve, but interactive worlds need a lot of work to get into a good spot for the long term of the game.
P.S. I forgot to mention that...
~ Most-to-all cash shop items should probably be permanent duration.
~ Most items should be tradable since the point to interactive worlds is the tradability perk.
~ Sales limitation should be removed for most items (outside of monthly limitations for places like the Reward Shop).
~ Pricing for items should be decreased and most items decreased by a lot.
Matt (MisusingTV) made a YouTube video with some feedback as well to take a look at.
~ Also, World Merging does not help out Luna at all, all problems still exist for NA and EU Interactive Worlds.
