The MapleStory Suggestion Thread
Throughout playing this game over 7 years, I've always admired so many things about it. Art style, music, community aspects, and everything. However, there are longstanding issues primarily in gameplay that would be nice to see addressed. So often we complain, but we don't offer up solutions or suggestions for problems. I don't think this thread would get too far to Nexon, but who knows, maybe a community manager who knows some of the Nexon Korea overlords can persuade them to change a few things we suggest to improve the game.
Problem: Quests are nearly pointless due to low time:EXP or reward ratio (exceptions being Gollux, Commerci, and Root Abyss, and that's mainly because of their rewards.
Solution: Introduce a new system, that factors in a TON of different things. Perhaps one that runs strictly on percentages instead of flat numbers. Taking relative time to complete a quest, difficulty of the quest, and multiple other factors to give a FAR more rewarding questing experience that is either on par with that of training, or slightly slower but with good rewards like scrolls, multi-millions of mesos, or epic+ potentialed gear. I love quests, and sometimes get lost in a questline for an hour for their humor, content, and how interesting they can be!
Problem: Solo Play is almost always better than party play, save for Bishops and Kanna's, and sometimes Beast Tamers.
Solution: Everywhere is a party play zone. Maybe adjust the rate to better fit the level and area (20-30% per member for lower levels instead of the 50% for higher levels) but make it so that people want to interact with other players. Yes, people will party just for the EXP and nothing else, but there's always that chance that people will make new friends because they trained and leveled fast together instead of leveling slower together.
Problem: Good Range Too Difficult To Achieve
Solution: Make the materials that go into creating your multi-billion meso items less of a pain in the neck to get. Yes, this will make prices go down, but I believe selling many things that are affordable for more people are more beneficial than selling a few things that only a few can afford. Not only would it lower the gap, but it would help reduce the profitability of botting/duping, sending them to go find another game to exploit.
Problem: High Level Training Content.
Solution: Make more maps that have the same EXP and HP scaling as SDH, but different enemies and layouts. This could reduce the amount of people at SDH (since there are more level 165-250 players than there are channels per world...except the 3 people who play in Renegades...ohhhh I went there) and keep people motivated to ding that next level.
Problem: Stagnant Bossing
Solution: Rework boss attacks, but also rework how parties affect bosses. First off, Damage Cancel (where you only hit 1s with no negative effects on your part) is NOT good game design. Two days ago, I was fighting Horntail, and one of his preliminary heads (the left and right ones before you get to the real boss) cast damage cancel. What did I do? I went and did some of my stats homework, because it was more interesting. In summary, damage cancel kills pacing of a fight without introducing challenge. I should never want to go do homework instead of play the game. Damage reflect introduces some player skill, as it needs to be timed, and the player is encouraged to do as much damage safely when they know its cooling down. Damage cancel? I take stretch breaks, do homework, send texts, check emails, even gotten some food once while I waited.
For party play and bosses: Rebalance some of the older bosses so that they have their HP magnified for every player in the party. This will give the same EXP or more, possibly with a faster time to kill, and maybe introduce party only benefits. I'd like to see some pre-big bang style Zakum runs with a ton of people struggling to take this big dude down.
Share your suggestions! I'd love to know what would enhance yours, or the whole community's experience with Maple.
7 Comments • Newest first
[quote=Seatillite]Problem: Quests are nearly pointless due to low time:EXP or reward ratio (exceptions being Gollux, Commerci, and Root Abyss, and that's mainly because of their rewards.
Solution: Introduce a new system, that factors in a TON of different things. Perhaps one that runs strictly on percentages instead of flat numbers. Taking relative time to complete a quest, difficulty of the quest, and multiple other factors to give a FAR more rewarding questing experience that is either on par with that of training, or slightly slower but with good rewards like scrolls, multi-millions of mesos, or epic+ potentialed gear. I love quests, and sometimes get lost in a questline for an hour for their humor, content, and how interesting they can be![/quote]
>> It would probably be better to just raise the base values of quest rewards instead of factoring in all of those variables. Who would Nexon use to base these factors on? Someone new with absolutely zero funds? Someone who is expected to have sub-par 500k to 1m range? Someone who is a 2m-2m no clown?
[quote=Seatillite]Problem: Solo Play is almost always better than party play, save for Bishops and Kanna's, and sometimes Beast Tamers.
Solution: Everywhere is a party play zone. Maybe adjust the rate to better fit the level and area (20-30% per member for lower levels instead of the 50% for higher levels) but make it so that people want to interact with other players. Yes, people will party just for the EXP and nothing else, but there's always that chance that people will make new friends because they trained and leveled fast together instead of leveling slower together.[/quote]
>> I've noticed that friends are more easily obtained through guilds, rather than training. Majority of the parties I've seen in SDH were either in the same guild, real life friends or in-game friends for years.
[quote=Seatillite]Problem: Good Range Too Difficult To Achieve
Solution: Make the materials that go into creating your multi-billion meso items less of a pain in the neck to get. Yes, this will make prices go down, but I believe selling many things that are affordable for more people are more beneficial than selling a few things that only a few can afford. Not only would it lower the gap, but it would help reduce the profitability of botting/duping, sending them to go find another game to exploit.[/quote]
>> This is what the Vindictus (a different Nexon game) Team implemented in Korea and soon to arrive in America. I wouldn't mind seeing that become a thing in Maplestory.
[quote=Seatillite]Problem: High Level Training Content.
Solution: Make more maps that have the same EXP and HP scaling as SDH, but different enemies and layouts. This could reduce the amount of people at SDH (since there are more level 165-250 players than there are channels per world...except the 3 people who play in Renegades...ohhhh I went there) and keep people motivated to ding that next level.[/quote]
>> The only problem with this is that Nexon likes to create maps like LHC and KSH just to nerf them beyond hell. LHC came and went and HoH followed suit. I don't see SDH and FDH being a training spot in the near foreseeable future.
[quote=Seatillite]Problem: Stagnant Bossing
Solution: Rework boss attacks, but also rework how parties affect bosses. First off, Damage Cancel (where you only hit 1s with no negative effects on your part) is NOT good game design. Two days ago, I was fighting Horntail, and one of his preliminary heads (the left and right ones before you get to the real boss) cast damage cancel. What did I do? I went and did some of my stats homework, because it was more interesting. In summary, damage cancel kills pacing of a fight without introducing challenge. I should never want to go do homework instead of play the game. Damage reflect introduces some player skill, as it needs to be timed, and the player is encouraged to do as much damage safely when they know its cooling down. Damage cancel? I take stretch breaks, do homework, send texts, check emails, even gotten some food once while I waited.[/quote]
>> Super Weapon/Magic Defense was a thing prior to modern day Maplestory. It somewhat forced Zakum parties to have both melee and magic attack members. It's outdated by a few years and that's why you don't see the new age bosses like Magnus, cRA, Hilla, etc. have Super Weapon/Magic Defense. Instead, they have DR and %HP attacks.
[quote=Seatillite]For party play and bosses: Rebalance some of the older bosses so that they have their HP magnified for every player in the party. This will give the same EXP or more, possibly with a faster time to kill, and maybe introduce party only benefits. I'd like to see some pre-big bang style Zakum runs with a ton of people struggling to take this big dude down.[/quote]
>> We can only dream, but Maplestory's identity has been altered to that of solo-play and it's highly unlikely that it will revert back to a party-play game. It's only a matter of time before people start posting Lotus solo videos for bragging benefits.
Share your suggestions! I'd love to know what would enhance yours, or the whole community's experience with Maple.
I don't think bosses need to be re-worked in the sense as adjusting zakums HP for example, instead they should add way *more* bosses. I feel like zakum/other bosses need to stay the way they are. Right now, what I at least enjoyed with the game was working my way up the "boss food chain", but once you get to the point where hellux/CRA queen are, it's a pretty big step towards the next ones, I would love to see some more bosses around the empress difficulty that you could take on daily. As for party play on bosses? Sure I guess, but don't make it essential to have multiple people at all the bosses, that would ruin it for many people(like myself) who love doing my daily boss runs. You could maybe get an extra %droprate and %exp if you do it with party members?
What they should do is make more things drop at bosses to make it even more worth- while. Yeah they added cubes which I think is one of the best updates in recent years, it makes me want to do my daily bosses! For example they could add as a drop respawn passes, exp charms, gach tickets and those type of items, wouldn't even bother me if it had a very small % chance of actually dropping, just knowing it's possible would increase the fun of it. ~Just my opinion
I agree when it comes to quests / party play, that's not a bad idea. However maybe not quite everywhere? Just like it used to be, HoH/LHC/SdH/FdH would be good for me.
"Good range too difficult to achieve" - Meh, if you only play the game casually now and then and don't actually invest your time to research how to get good and what to spend your money on, I don't think you deserve a "good range". People now just want things as fast as possible, in my mind, the whole journey to getting to that legendary 2-2 range is what it's all about. At least in my mind the thing that got me going was setting new goals for myself and just trying to achieve them one after the other. So much fun.
Yes there's a big gap in between players in this game, but isn't that the beauty of it? It's always been like this, look back a few years and everyone was complaining about how difficult it was to level, big bang came along and made it fair/easy for everyone and look at the response they got, all the rage!
Anyway, my point is I don't think new/inexperienced players deserve to have the same damage output as many who has played the game for years and knows every corner of it. The whole pay2win aspect of the game is there nothing to do about, if someone decides to drop 10k USD on the game to get godly, who can stop them. It's not a good thing but it's just the way it is.
My ideas:
-NEW training areas, right now there are more maps than ever, but only a few of them are valid to actually train on. They need to revamp older spots to make them good again(Curse Eyes/Golems>Clams at Golden Beach>Drakes>RnJ>Mp3/DI>FdH>SdH)
-Way more bosses around the Empress difficulty
-Daily objectives to do for reward points (example: kill a specific boss, loot 50 slime balls, fame an explorer magician, go to every map in Perion etc.) not the usual kill 300 monsters blah blah, getting real tired of that, why not mix it up a bit
-Release an update where you can earn various skills from completing long and challenging quests (For example, a 10% extra droprate skill, 10% exp skill etc.)
-A brand new job, we haven't really seen a new one since Shade/Zero/Beast Tamer, and I feel like it's time to release one again.
And last but not least...
-5TH JOB, this would require them to release a brand new continent with plenty of new mobs/quests to do, but if anything this would revive the game more than anything else, yes it would be a big update and they would need to re- work plenty of things, but it would be so much fun, a brand new life to the game, and it would keep people motivated! I would love it if it started at a higher level, 180-200 and you would get skill points all the way up to 230(just an example,but around there) We've only really seen revamps on classes lately, while that is fun, brand new skills that we've never seen before would be a blast! I'm really really hoping this will be a thing at some point <3 Not for a long time obviously, but sometime, please.
Good thread!
EDIT:
@benin2k6
What's so wrong with soloing bosses? It's so much fun, set goals for yourself and work your way up the "boss food chain", most fun I've had in Maple! And as for the removal of potentials, I see what you're coming from but that wont happen. Also the potential system is great, only problem is that the cubes go for an insane amount of NX as we all know. I would much rather just make it a bit easier to find/make/buy cubes. And I would like to see the price lowered by like 50% as well.
all they need to do is remove potentials or miracle cubes and bring back an emphasis on party play make it literally impossible to take on any boss solo
The problems you've listed are all on the top of my list as well. The issue of players complaining and not offering up solutions is because they often fall on deaf ears. The people tasked with keeping Global MapleStory running are often powerless to do anything about our complaints as they have to answer to HQ and the process can take a while to have anything materialize.
I agree, but Nexon NA can't do much since KMS is their boss, so to speak.
Quest system needs revamping asap.
Problem: No rainbow hair color
Solution: Add rainbow hair color