These would be Optional Yearly Subscription services at a variety of price points that offer a variety of items/services at a reduced bundle price.
Example Plans:
Basic Maple Sub: $200/yr
- Vac Pet Water of Life
- Extra Vac Pet Water of Life items purchased will have a 33% discount
- Erda Pass
- 4 Complete Daily Skip Passes: Usable for 1 day each, these passes would let you instantly Skip any Arcane River/Grandis Daily quests and receive full XP and Symbols, as well as Monster Park Extreme, and Event Daily Check-ins (allows dedicated players to take a vacation day from Maple every now and then, or several days in a row if they have an IRL vacation or just a busy week ahead of them, but don't want to miss out on daily rewards)
- Once Per Month, Per Boss, you can claim a Boss Clear Reset Ticket for a boss you haven't cleared last week (miss a week of weekly bosses? this lets you catch up)
Super Pass Bundle: $300/yr
- All above
- Includes all Event bonus passes for the year
Fashionstory Bundle: $500/yr
- All above
- 10 Hair/Face slot coupons instantly
- Expanded Cash Outfit Inventory
- Cash Outfit Presets 3->10
- Cash Shop Transfer Year Round
- 11 PSSB Boxes / mo
- 1 Royal Face and Royal Hair coupon / mo
- All cash outfits are permanent when purchased with this plan
I think plans like these would be very successful as offering yearly subscription versions of existing features in the game at a reduced cost would encourage more players to get these services. Keeping the cost for the bundles lower than the cost of the individual monthly cost of the items is essential to making the high upfront cost feel like a really good deal, and having any of these plans will keep players invested in the game year-round.
The added convenience feature of a few Daily Skip Passes per month would also help prevent burnout when players who aren't used to playing every day all year are encouraged to do so, as well as allow players who already do play every day to be able to take a vacation in real life without worrying about missing daily quests or weekly bosses.
The fashion pass especially would encourage a lot of players who are already spending on various outfits year-round to spend more as they'd get access to more convenient usage/storage of their outfits, as well as some boxes / coupons each month will encourage them to keep up-to-date with what outfits are in rotation and keep their foot in the door with rolling for the ones they want each month.
I think we mainly just need a burst key. I'd clear off like 8 keys if we just could tap one button to instantly activate burst buffs.
Cooldown skills should also be able to be included in macros.
Also add some more auto-buff slots, perhaps making Vac pets have 3 or 4 slots, or just adding a cash item that lets you expand your slots by 1 for a pet of your choice.
I think the Starforce system's Downranking and Destruction chance is pretty outdated in the modern day. Many players become intimidated/demotivated to upgrade gear, fearing they will end up weaker than when they started, or even completely losing a piece of equipment for a while.
However I fully understand that Starforce is a very powerful system that if changed, could have major effects on the economy and players' rate of progression.
These changes I think would retain the value of items and progression rate that the current system has, however it would remove the Negative Progression aspect from the game:
- Remove Down Ranking in favor of reducing chance to increase rank, as well as increasing cost, similar to what was done with 12-15 Stars, up to 22 Stars (standard stopping point for endgame)
- Replace Destruction Chance with "Damaged" Chance. Damaged Items would still able to be equipped, cubed, and flamed, however they cannot be Starforced without being Repaired. To repair an item, you need to consume a Spare of the item and the average meso cost to get to its rank in the current system. Items at 20 or more Stars can fail to be repaired equal to the current chance to boom them getting to that rank.
For example, if I have a Twilight Mark at 19 Stars and it is Destroyed, with the proposed system it would instead become Damaged. I can still wear and upgrade the item in other ways besides Starforce, however if I want to continue to starforce it, I must consume a spare Twilight Mark + the average meso cost to get it to 19 Stars to repair it.
With these changes, I believe the Economic value of the items would remain the same as the Average Meso Cost to reach each rank would be the same as the current system, and the Average Amount of Items Sunk to reach a certain rank would also be the same.
The main advantage is that players will no longer lose progress when spending meso to attempt an upgrade, and as a result one of the most important upgrade systems in the game becomes a lot more approachable to more casual players as well as players that don't understand the system very well.
Since Beast Tamer will not have 6th job skills at launch, it would be great if they at least could get some Placeholder Cores.
These Placeholder cores could literally do NOTHING, however they'd exist for players to at least make progress during 6th job and carry over to when the class gets the job advancement in a few months.
Basically it'd just be 1 Origin Skill Core, 1 Mastery Core, and 4 Enhancement Cores that just exist to be leveled up and have no function until the job gets their job advancement.
This would allow them to keep up with other players 6th job progress and not fall behind, which would especially be import with a daily cap on Sol Erda Energy since you can't grind to catch up to players that are ahead of you.
Sol Erda Fragments being capped and Oz Box rates being nerfed is horrible and needs to get reverted.
However I do agree Frenzy has to die someday. Having to pay / wait for totem service to grind is a bad game mechanic that ought to have been removed alongside wild totems. Frenzy owners got their money's worth from the item over the long time it's been out, just be glad it still works to 260 and gives you a fast-tracked pass to 10k legion.
