General

[quote=melonmel]@DwerG YES! That's such a good idea! Make an option for PQ party finding to be like the League of Legend's waiting queue! That would be awesome[/quote]

Glad you like the idea! Not played League of Legends myself so I wouldn't know how similar it is, so I'll take your word for it! Anyway, had some free time today, so played around with some mock UI images of how it might look. Probably going to put them in a descriptive graphic and submit to Basil as a screen sometime. http://i.cubeupload.com/o8k1Fc.png

Planning on making a minimised version too, which will have the "Party Quest Finder" bar, with that bar duplicated beneath and the player indicator lights in that.

@DwerG YES! That's such a good idea! Make an option for PQ party finding to be like the League of Legend's waiting queue! That would be awesome!
@maplerescue The Gate to the Future questlines give such bad experience is horrific. I got 1% for finishing that quest that told me to kill 500 snails like WTH. NO.

There are so many quests and you can tell that they put effort into them but nobody is appreciating them because they absolutely suck! Maple Guide is stupid too. Exp is bad and people on youtube have better guides than the one provided by the game

I completely forgot about chryse but you know what, that was a pretty good story. I did it with my friends when it came out. So annoying but worth it, because I was with my friends. They should revamp it and make it a high level area, then people would actually visit orbis and kill Xerxes.

The party quest rewards aren't even worth it. They're not good and nobody completes the actual party quests unless it's Ludi. I want to see what Tangyoon's kitchen is like, sounds fun but everybody wants to go R&J

I hope sea tower will promote going with a party but sounds more like a ripoff of dojo where everyone's gunna solo.

I agree with the party quest system and how totally nonexistent it is. I do enjoy having the solo DIPQ as it lets me get away from some of the idiots that roam that pq and is not a bad training place (considering the lack of effort and funds needed), even in the 190's.

With the small revamp we had with Elite, monsters in those dead places aren't exactly half bad anymore. I remember getting 0.12% at Lunar Pixies or somewhere in Orbis. All of the boar areas in Perion used to have a terrible spawn rate and made killing 150 fire boars take forever so no one went there. It's no where near as bad now and I've gotten a few levels there. The quest system is outdated though and especially with this same revamp, a lot of the quests (in Orbis/El Nath I've noticed) are glitched. I don't think any new characters can buy all cures from Alcastar anymore because of it. It would be nice to have quests that gave somewhat decent experience (especially the Twilight Perion quest line with those evil golems). Before most of the theme dungeons were taken away, they pretty much held your hand to about 100 and the quest lines kinda just stopped. Most people don't even know about Golden Temple or thought it was only for an event. Temple of Time quests aren't even worth it unless you want to kill Pink Bean since the level requirement between some of the quests are too ridiculous.

I would love to see better theme dungeons that give experience even half as good as the Riena Strait quests in the higher levels when training options are so limited. Quest lines like Chryse, which only makes you kill about a million monsters and pick up every etc. item available, deter people away from the more rewarding ones. If story lines could be as tear jerking as the first book in Grand Antheum, I feel like more people would actually do questing. I've done well over 1300 quests on my main, even after that terrible reset, and it makes killing monsters so much more enjoyable/rewarding when you have a purpose other than just for experience.

Sorry for the wall of text!

I agree, PQs definitely need an overhaul, but I don't think that would even help finding a party really. Doesn't seem to me that having a party quest lobby area for every PQ has helped that either. I always enjoy doing Nett's Pyramid, but if I ever try and join at the party quest area, people just add me for R&J. In fact, even if I'm trying to recruit for Nett's Pyramid people try to add me for R&J... The cross world party quest thing seemed like it would solve all the problems, but having only one PQ available for it per 2 weeks (or whatever it was) just made it into a total waste of time and effort in my opinion.

I had the idea for a party quest queuing system a while ago, where you'd sign up for whichever PQ you'd want via a separate, small UI window wherever you are in the world (think the Maple Guide UI but for PQs), and the game would add players as they're available. So you'd pick your party quest in a drop down list, click "Find a party", and the game would match you with people who are looking people in the same PQ for your level. While the game looks for players, you'd minimise the window and continue doing whatever you were doing. The minimised window would have lights or numbers to indicate how many party members are available (like for a party of 4 there'd be 4 red lights, each going green when a party member is found), then when you have a full party for the PQ, you'd open up the UI again and click "Start PQ". If all the members click start within a certain time, let's say 1 minute or so, all the party members are teleported to the PQ lobby, put into a party and they can start. If one of the party members doesn't click start within the time, they'd be kicked, one of the lights would go red and the game would search/wait for another player.

Clearly I have absolutely no idea what it would take to implement such a feature, but if it were possible it would eliminate waiting for a party and allow you to do something besides stand around while you waited.

[quote=Anthoy84]
I miss the complexity of old PQs that required the teamwork of all the members to complete it efficiently. I miss that several classes were absolutely required to do parts of a PQ.[/quote]

You're right! What I miss most of all is making friends and teamwork. I mean, you can still do it now but when grinding in a PARTY PLAY area.
I really hate it when companies do this. I've been part of forums for another game who went solo P2P and a minecraft server who was doing the same.
After watching them go from #1 to rock bottom what I've learnt is that the main thing that keeps players playing, is community and friends.

When friends start leaving or you stop meeting people, games can get boring and people leave. Some people like it when it's empty but I'm one of those who don't. I loved maplestory because it was mainly chat based, I could use it as a messenger, use F2 as emoticons, jump around to express my feelings. I was a real henehoe but I liked meeting people and talking. I liked having friends all the time. Nexon did the wrong thing by promoting solo play and solo play only. Solo play is good, it's good to take a break from the hustle and bustle but Nexon put solo play in only a few maps. With such a large community and no party play, you couldn't find a map to train for the fastest exp. Alternatives gave you MUCH LESS exp which really sucked because nobody is going to go to alternatives, we're too lazy for that LOL.

Nexon needs to bring back party play and fix PQs. They need to make worlds accessible for anyone. The game is too empty now so they should let people select different worlds, not transfer, just select like a channel. That will drastically change economies but just look at poor Khani and Renegades. Nobody's there

To be honest, they should also get rid of the damn cash inventory. Just make all characters have the same cash inventory. I have a feeling that will make people buy nx because it's more useful to them. I don't like it when companies do the "Get new players and quickly get their money before they leave." tactic. It's horribly greedy and annoying.

Maplestory was such a great game. I don't want to play maplestory 2, I play Maplestory BECAUSE it's 2d. I like the 2d. It runs smoothly! DAMMIT NEXON FIX YOUR GAME.

RANT OVER

PQs desperately need an overhaul. When grinding inside a stage inside the PQ gives significantly better experience compared to completing it, there's something very wrong (R&J PQ).

I miss the complexity of old PQs that required the teamwork of all the members to complete it efficiently. I miss that several classes were absolutely required to do parts of a PQ. Now that everything is streamlined, it's boring. Like you said, we might as well be grinding.

[quote=ken2334]I think party quests should have more stages where you communicate more with other players, not like "Kill 10 of these", "Collect this". I mean whats the point of gathering 4 people and do quests when you can do them yourself o.o

Yeah I think all maps also should have around the same health exp ratio so then there wouldn't be a specific map that would be better than other maps in that level.[/quote]

PREAAAACH! One person can just kill all the mobs and I hate that. I hate the KILL MOB TO COMPLETE STAGE because that's just grinding. I'm doing a PQ coz I don't wanna grind.

I want the old slime PQ number guessing thing instead of the maths questions.

Maybe something like a puzzle map (NOT A JUMP QUEST FOR THE LOVE OF MESO) like the ones in Portal Stuff that makes you think and you need more than 1 person to do.

[quote=ken2334]I think party quests should have more stages where you communicate more with other players, not like "Kill 10 of these", "Collect this". I mean whats the point of gathering 4 people and do quests when you can do them yourself o.o

Yeah I think all maps also should have around the same health exp ratio so then there wouldn't be a specific map that would be better than other maps in that level.[/quote]

I totally agree with this. PQ's need more challenges that actually make people have to think and communicate with each other rather than just killing monsters.

I think party quests should have more stages where you communicate more with other players, not like "Kill 10 of these", "Collect this". I mean whats the point of gathering 4 people and do quests when you can do them yourself o.o

Yeah I think all maps also should have around the same health exp ratio so then there wouldn't be a specific map that would be better than other maps in that level.

[quote=Reticent]Yeah. I agree with the party quests needing better exp. Though honestly, why would you want to meet people in a pq. All I've ever met are people who can't do math in lpq, people who attempt to ks the crap out of you in R&J, and rude afkers. Every time I say "J>some 120+ pq" people in the party quest area say I'm a noob. I just want to play a game and have fun by pqing! What's wrong with these people. </3 </3 </3
Even if pqs gave better exp, a majority of ms players are just too dumb to complete them properly.[/quote]

Woooow seems like you had a bad time I rarely meet those people and I'm on Windia too. I meet some every so often and sometimes I get a party that doesn't talk but when I do get a party that socialises, it's great!

You mainly keep buddies if you see them often and the best way to do that is go to the same place. Having training at the same place would defeat the purpose of our want for variety but if PQs were improved, we could always meet them at the PQ Lobby.
Lobby has crappy map design for players though. I can't see anyone half the time coz of all the wings =__=

Hey that's actually a really good idea if quests gave scaling exp!

Yeah. I agree with the party quests needing better exp. Though honestly, why would you want to meet people in a pq. All I've ever met are people who can't do math in lpq, people who attempt to ks the crap out of you in R&J, and rude afkers. Every time I say "J>some 120+ pq" people in the party quest area say I'm a noob. I just want to play a game and have fun by pqing! What's wrong with these people. </3 </3 </3
Even if pqs gave better exp, a majority of ms players are just too dumb to complete them properly.

I agree party quests need better exp when you complete them. I made almost all my friends from party quests. However, they won't be fixed. Nexon is lazy and dead set on only have 3 - 4 places for people to train. I agree that Orbis and other empty areas need to be improved but Nexon enjoys having everyone train in just 1 map. They believe sending everyone to one spot especially during 2x is fun. I think every town should have one great training map so people can spread out. I think for quests they should make the completion exp relative to your level so people can go back and do quests anytime and get nice exp. Mainly, I just want all PQs to be fun and give a lot of exp so people can play together.