Two new notices were posted today, as promised in the last one. The first is the Discussion Board’s Opinions About the 1st Discussion Topics, a summary of what players talked about on the discussion boards on the homepage. The second is the Developer Comments About the 1st Discussion Topics, which is what the developers thought about the opinions shared by both the user advisory group and the discussion board, as well as what they plan or don’t plan to implement. I’m not gonna translate the stuff about the discussion board reorganization because these notices are already super long and it’s pretty boring so I’m sure 99% of people don’t care about it lol. Discussion Board Opinions About the 1st Discussion Topics Hello. This is MapleStory. We would like to give our sincere thanks to all the players who participated in the discussions on the discussion board and shared their many opinions from June 30 ~ July 26. In this notice, we would like to show the top 10 opinions about the 3 topics suggested by the development team, as well as the positions that ‘agreed’ and ‘disagreed’ with those opinions which were expressed by other players through the comments. We read the posts written by many players, and they were all valuable opinions. However, since it was difficult to include all the information on this page, we have used the ‘agree number’ to show the opinions which players agreed with. Although we are only talking about the top 10 posts due to space limitations, we would like to let you know that we are considering the other posts when we decide on our development direction. Currently, discussion topics are based on the [10 Topics to be Discussed with the User Advisory Group] and will be suggested accordingly. We are also reviewing the opinions sent through the ‘Leave a topic you want to discuss’ option and will inform you about the next discussion topics and schedule in a future notice. Boss Reward Reorganization [Go to Page] Please let us enter daily bosses on other characters if we have completed the pre-quests on our main character. Reorganize this because it takes a long time to clear the boss pre-quests for each character. Agree: It is inconvenient because it takes a long time to clear the quests on each character. It would be positive because reducing the number of accounts acquiring rewards would also decrease workshops. Hope they change the clear record to be per world like weekly bosses. I don’t want to repeat the same quests with simple scripts that have no differences for each job. If you limit the number of Intense Power Crystals acquired, I think it could prevent repeated meso supply and demand. Disagree: A repeatable meso supply and demand and increase in boss reward supply could adversely affect the economy. Since stories are an important part of MMORPGs, I think sharing quest progress is unnecessary. I don’t want to share quest progress but simplifying them is necessary. Reorganize the Cygnus entry materials. Remove the boss entry materials and make entering Normal Cygnus easier. Agree: It is cumbersome to have to collect the materials repeatedly and move through a lot of maps every time you want to defeat the boss. It would be convenient if the entry material became a permanent item like Horntail. Disagree: Since it’s an entry material that appears in the game’s story, I think it would be difficult to simply delete it. Please change the boss entry portal. / After completing a boss, let us use the NPC Chat/Gathering key or the mouse on the portal. (Same topic) Reorganize this to prevent user error and convenience. Agree: It is necessary to let us choose to have the option to use NPC Chat/Gathering key in the settings. It is necessary to change it so that an NPC that lets you exit appears after defeating the boss. Exiting using mouse clicks is still inconvenient and needs to be improved. It is necessary to change it so that only very important bosses let you exit with the mouse. We request that you improve it so that we can choose the boss exit portal usage method we want. Disagree: If used with the NPC Chat/Gathering key, it could use some skills when exiting. If the portal becomes easier to use, you might exit without looting the rewards, so I agree with keeping it as-is. Certain jobs (ex. Battlemage) need it to be kept the same. Remove shared rewards and replace them with individual rewards. Reorganize it so that when bosses are defeated in a party, the rewards are obtained by dividing them into 1/n. Agree: After changing them to individual rewards, drop rate needs to be adjusted to ‘1/number of party members’. Item drops need to be removed and the Intense Power Crystal prices and material item drop rate need to be increased. A direction where after acquiring rewards, you can go to Auction House on the spot and divide profit. Disagree: If more items are given out, there are concerns about the game economy. It is natural to share rewards since we all worked hard together, but there are concerns that distribution would be difficult if they’re changed to individual rewards. Boss Party Recruitment System Reorganize it so that players can look for parties without having to use their own items. Agree: Opinions that if a party recruitment system is introduced, it would be good to show Mu Lung floors and main stats. It is inconvenient to have to personally buy a megaphone to recruit for a party, so a recruitment system needs to be introduced. A system that automatically matches users who meet the minimum entry specs (ex. Urus matching). Please increase the rewards from top-tier bosses. / Hard Boss rewards. (Same topic) A request for additional rewards to match the time and effort invested into defeating top-tier bosses. Add a ceiling system for each boss’s unique items, guaranteed reward items, and the Pitched boss set items. Agree: The issue where top-tier boss rewards are too low leading to ‘CRA mules’ needs to be changed. Opinions that additional cosmetic items (e.g. Damage Skins, name tag rings) that don’t affect specs should be added as rewards. Guaranteed rewards from top-tier hard bosses are required to motivate players. Opinions that Cash items like Additional Cubes, Black Cubes should be added as rewards. Opinions that the rewards would become more meaningful if upgrading the Pitched Boss and Arcane items was more feasible. Opinions that after defeating a top-tier boss, there would be a chance for a shop NPC to appear that sells good items at cheap prices. Opinions that Additional Cubes that can be used up to Epic rank should be added as rewards. Disagree: It needs to be changed so that you can only get rewards if you deal more than a certain amount of damage. Opinions that the currently acquired rewards are sufficient as boss rewards. Opinions that characters who clear top-tier bosses don’t agree as they are getting enough money. Reorganize the maps on the way to boss rooms that have random mobs. Remove the sections where you must defeat regular monsters on the way to entering a boss. Agree: Maps that don’t have monsters but you must move through before entering a boss like Pink Bean need to be improved too. Improve it so you can skip the sections where you must defeat random monsters if you defeat a certain boss. Disagree: The random monster sections before entry are necessary to some extent when they’re not excessive like Normal Cygnus. It’s nice to stack certain skills before entering a boss so removing them is unnecessary. Please improve the method to acquire Pitched Boss items. Adjust the Pitched Boss set items’ drop rates to be higher when the number of party members decreases. Agree: It is necessary to introduce a ceiling system for Pitched Boss items like with Magnus Coins. If the items acquired through the ceiling system are set to be untradeable, the market prices will not be affected. It would be good if all party members acquired them even if the drop rate had to be set a little lower. Disagree: Since there are support classes, changing the drop rate based on number of attackers would be negative. Opinions that if the acquisition method needs to be improved, it would be better to just increase the drop rate of Pitched Boss items. Opinions that changing tradeable items to be individual rewards would have significant side effects. Character Growth Experience Reorganization [Go to Page] Please greatly increase the number of pet buff slots. A request to increase the number of pet skill slots so that more buff skills can be used. Agree: If it is difficult to make skills into passives, then we hope that it can be improved by increasing the number of pet buff slots. We hope that it can be improved so that 5th job buff skills can be added to pet buffs. It would be a good idea to release a Cash item that adds pet buff skills. Disagree: If it’s made excessively convenient, then it may cause an increase in automatic hunting. Buff usage is also one of the fun elements of the game, so I don’t think making it excessively automatic is right. Link Skill slots A request to expand the number of Link Skill slots as new jobs are added and the number of Link skills is increased. Agree: When the number of new jobs increases, the number of Link Skill slots should also be increased to motivate Union growth. Opinions to release Link Skill expansion items in meso shops/Cash Shop. Disagree: Opinions that are concerned adding Link Skills could break down balance. Selling Link Skill expansions in the Cash Shop would promote excessive spending. Opinions that are disappointed Link Skills are being standardized recently. Please change the number of times MVP Experience Coupons can be traded to 1. To prevent the prices of MVP Experience Coupons from increasing through abnormal methods, change them so they can only be traded once and become untradeable when they are traded. Agree: You can adjust the price of experience coupons by hoarding them, so limiting their trade count is necessary. In addition to experience coupons, we hope that this can be applied to other consumable items that are traded a lot. Disagree: Opinions that it is not right to intervene with prices which are determined naturally by demand. The changes in prices of MVP Experience Coupons are due to a drop in demand for MVP charging services rather than merchants. I think that changing the number of trades will not be very helpful. It is necessary to shorten the duration of the Wealth Acquisition Potion from 2 hours. Change the Wealth Acquisition Potion’s duration from 2 hours to a minimum of 30 minutes to 1 hour so it doesn’t force users to hunt for longer periods of time. Agree: We hope for a change in the duration to reduce the pressure of having to grind for 2 hours. A suggested reorganization so that you don’t need to use Safety Charms below level 200. Remove the ‘experience reduction’ penalty because characters below level 200 tend to die frequently while adjusting to gameplay. Agree: The death penalty needs to be removed since characters below level 200 have low health and can die frequently. We hope that the penalty duration would go down even when not connected to the game. Disagree: Opinions that Safety Charms can be purchased with Mileage so it’s not a big burden. Cross Hunter shop items reorganization. Add items that help character growth to the Cross Hunter shop like Rebirth Flames. Agree: We hope that the Mastery Books can be changed to be put into storage. We hope that equipment required for growth like shoulders and belts will be added. Story Skip Feature Creation Add a Story Skip feature for users who don’t want to watch the story. Agree: I think a Story Skip feature is essential because this is a game where you make a lot of side characters. Complaints that overseas MapleStory servers can skip all stories, but it is not supported in Korean MapleStory. Improvement for the different up jumps of each class. A request to unify all classes’ up jumps so that they can be used by entering the up-arrow key and jump key together. Agree: It is necessary to improve the inconvenience that each job has a different way to jump. We hope that the text will all be improved like the Demon and Cygnus jobs. Disagree: Opinions that there could be another type of discrimination for jobs that don’t have up jumps. Please increase the lower range of vac pets. A request to expand vac pets’ item and meso acquisition range. Agree: In some cases, they don’t loot items that are directly below them, so it needs to be fixed. Disagree: Opinions that they are concerned that if the lower range is increased, jobs that can hunt in one spot will become macroers. You don’t receive drops from Elite Bosses if they appear during the Rune’s Curse stage 4. Reorganize the issue where you don’t acquire any items from Elite Bosses during the Rune’s Curse stage 4. Agree: Opinions that hope this issue will be more visible as sometimes you don’t realize the Rune’s Curse is active. Reorganized Discussion Board Opinions [Go to Page] TN: I won’t be translating this part but if you’re interested, you can see the full page here. We request your opinions to create a better MapleStory together going forward. Thank you. Developer Comments About the 1st Discussion Topics Hello. This is MapleStory. In order to improve the various situations which need to be solved in the current MapleStory. we have requested the opinions on a set of topics from the discussion board and the user advisory group. Both the discussion board and the user advisory group gave a wide variety of in-depth opinions, and we were able to think a lot about our development direction going forward. We would like to express our gratitude to all players who have been thinking about MapleStory’s future. Rather than giving individual answers to each opinion, we will be telling you about the summarized development direction which was decided after reviewing all your opinions. We will be focusing on the direction of the changes the development team has thought of so it will be easier to predict what future changes may be like. Boss Rewards Reorganization 1) Boss Rewards Reorganization’s Direction This boss rewards reorganization’s direction is focused on two things: “suppressing meso inflation” and “providing a goal to challenge high-tier bosses by providing rewards that match the bosses’ difficulties”. While the current boss rewards are fixed, as the character’s level of growth increases, the difficulty of defeating bosses becomes relatively low, reversing the efficiency of boss rewards in specific sections. To solve this issue, we are developing a system where the selling price of Intense Power Crystals changes dynamically by measuring all users’ boss clears and difficulty indicators each week. We expect that boss rewards will be more reasonable than they are now, but a sudden change in the amount of mesos acquired can have a big impact on the game economy, so the Intense Power Crystal price changes will be set to be within a maximum of 3% per week. The experience of acquiring Mileage will also be improved. The Mileage you get from defeating daily bosses will be slightly decreased, but the Mileage you get from defeating weekly and monthly bosses will be greatly increased. Also, the Mileage given now from certain weekly/monthly bosses will be expanded to be given from all weekly/monthly bosses. Daily bosses will give 30 Mileage, weekly bosses will give 200 Mileage, and Black Mage will give 1000 Mileage. The daily maximum Mileage amount will be increased from 5000 to 10000 accordingly. Other than that, tradeable consumable items will be added to rewards to increase the level of rewards based on boss difficulty. In addition to Rebirth Flames, things like Experience Coupons, Incredible Chaos Scrolls of Goodness, Premium Accessory Scrolls, Premium Pet Equipment Scrolls, and Magical Scrolls will be added to enhance boss rewards. For the Pitched Boss set which is one of the current top-tier boss rewards, we are not reviewing the addition of a ceiling system or significantly increasing the drop rate to reduce the acquisition difficulty. A slight increase in drop rate may be reflected depending on future circumstances, but at least for the rest of this year, it will remain at its current level without any changes. One of the reasons why players are interested in the Pitched Boss set is because they are used as proof of why highest-tier bosses’ level of rewards are too low, so together with the boss reward reorganization direction described above, we will increase the high-tier bosses’ reward level step-by-step. We have not considered a way to ‘use up’ items to control their supply and demand yet. First, we will observe the effects of the overall boss reward reorganization. The development team thinks that boss rewards should be determined based on the boss’ level of difficulty, and if you defeat the same boss, the total amount of rewards should be the same. Some think that since it is more difficult to defeat a boss solo than in a 6-person party, the total amount of rewards should be increased, and conversely, the lower the specs of a character that solos a boss, the more difficult it is and so the total amount of rewards should be increased. However, many others would find this unreasonable. We think that the core problem is that although bosses have differences in difficulty, the difference in rewards based on difficulty are not big enough. As described above, we expect that this will be gradually improved by adding tradeable items as rewards to match the difficulty and by adding a system that changes the Intense Power Crystal’s price based on difficulty. In order to prevent problems when distributing boss rewards, we are preparing an option to set the party’s reward acquisition permissions to ‘All’ or ‘Party Leader Only’. In addition, we are planning to change certain bosses’ individual rewards to shared rewards. It could be possible to solve the distribution problem by changing all current shared rewards to individual rewards, but if this were to be done, then the drop rate would be lowered by the number of party members and so the variance in the reward acquisition experience could increase. Therefore, the development team’s big goal is not to make boss rewards into individual rewards, but in consideration of bosses’ unique characteristics or existing experiences, certain bosses will maintain their individual rewards. Reboot World’s Intense Power Crystals’ selling prices will be increased from 3x to 5x. 2) Boss Accessibility Improvements The current boss UI removed the existing matching feature and provides only a teleport feature. The ability to move to boss content has become convenient, but we are aware that there is no feature to recruit party members to clear bosses, so it’s inconvenient in that sense. We think the need for a boss party member recruitment feature has greatly increased after the NEO update in particular, since the proportion of boss clears has increased. The development team is preparing an “improved party matching” system. The “improved party matching” system will not simply form a party with other characters that can enter, but it will match party members based on the highest chance of clearing, using characters’ specs and past play history. We are currently researching this, and the introduction schedule will be announced separately when it becomes more concrete. We are planning to gradually expand the ability to choose whether or not to do boss pre-quests and quests required to enter content based on if you have already cleared them before in the same world. Improvements were made in the past for bosses that had difficult to obtain entry materials, and in this August’s update, we are planning to apply changes to Normal Cygnus’ entry materials to make them easier to get. It will be improved in the August update so that after defeating a boss, you can exit by pressing the up-arrow key like other portals. In March, the exit method of all boss portals was changed to prevent mistakes and maintain a sense of unity. We were concerned that there would be additional confusion if we applied a different exit method based on the clear status of the boss, but we confirmed that many players still prepared the old play method of exiting bosses using the up-arrow key, so we plan to change it so you can do so after the boss is defeated. Character Growth Reorganization 1) Novice Development and Growth Path Reorganization Since it is difficult for new and returning users to experience and become familiar with the various content in the game, we will begin to improve this going forward. We will make it easier to adapt to the game with game guides that use more videos. We are planning a major overhaul of the Maple Guide’s base system, guide missions, and rewards with a goal of applying it by this winter. In addition, we will review the application method and timing of providing medals and titles for new users. We will make improvements to the growth path and quest path to reduce inconvenience, and in the development process, we will reorganize it so that you can enjoy a variety of growth paths. In the Union growth process, we hope to reduce the negative experiences of having to repeat the same entry quests repeatedly by expanding the per world skip feature to apply to already completed entry quests. After checking this change in character growth, we will also consider introducing feature that lets you skip or speed up story cutscenes and dialogue. 2) Hunting Experience Improvements and Hunting Ground Improvements We will try to improve the situations where hunting ability is different based on your job by adjusting skills and diversifying the types of maps and monsters to expand the number of optimized hunting grounds available for different job characteristics. We will proceed with the addition of hunting grounds in stages in the second half of the year. In the job improvement process mentioned above, we will adjust each job’s different mobility and operation methods to provide a more standardized operating experience and user experience. In order to prevent excessive differences in the number of buff skills used by each job, we are planning to expand the number of pet buffs per pet from 1 to 2. This will be reflected in the August update, and the number of pet buffs will be expanded to 2 even for existing pets with the Pet Auto Buff skill without additional charges. We considered allowing skill macro hotkeys to be put int pet buffs but since skill macros could include attacking skills in addition to buffs, there were many other things to consider, so we decided on a method that could be introduced more quickly. We confirmed that the experience penalty after dying had a negative effect on the current growth experience, so in the August update, we will significantly reduce its duration. For below level 200, the duration will be fixed to 5 minutes, and for level 200 or higher, the duration will be halved. Burning maps were introduced to reduce the difference between popular and unpopular hunting grounds. Therefore, during times when the usage of hunting grounds was low, we stopped Burning maps’ stages from increasing to prevent all hunting grounds from becoming ‘stage 10 Burning’. However, the current actual hunting ground usage time and the time when the Burning map stages stop increasing don’t match, and we plan to adjust this in the August update. As stated in the guide on the homepage, the Burning stage increase currently stops from 10 PM to 8 AM the next day, but we will change this to be from 2 AM to 10 AM. In addition, starting from the next event, we will adjust the times for events that don’t take place at late nights or early mornings to match actual participation records. Elite Monsters are intended to be defeated as soon as possible after they appear. We believe that the current Elite Monster’s duration from spawn to disappearance is not too short and will maintain it. Afterwards, we will observe any changes in the number of cleared Elite Monsters compared to their spawns and confirm if there are any needed adjustments to the timing. In the process of growing characters below level 200, we will improve other hunting grounds to alleviate the issue of specific hunting grounds being overcrowded. And when improving the Maple Guide system, we will increase the level range you can teleport to areas to reduce the inconvenience of moving to different maps. We are planning to add new areas for level 280 and higher. However, we are in a situation where we are considering what we should prioritize and focus on, between ‘adding new high-level areas’ and ‘reorganizing the growth path and enhancing stories’. We will talk about this again when our direction becomes clearer. We have confirmed that the level 250 section of hunting grounds which were not adjusted in the NEO update was alleviated to some extent by adding the new Limen area hunting grounds in June. Additional adjustments to the level 250 section will be made in the upcoming winter update. Finding a party and hunting together is one of the important elements of an RPG. However, in MapleStory, the sizes of hunting grounds have gradually decreased, and the ranges of skills have increased over a long period of time to the point where most hunting grounds are most efficient when hunting alone. Since many players have had experience in playing like this for a long time, we do not plan to drastically change the play experience for party hunting currently. But we plan to enhance the fun of party play through boss content and party only content. In addition, although not immediately, we will review improvements to cross world party quests in the long-term, including measures against bad manners. As mentioned in previous developer comments on the discussion board, increasing the number of Link Skill slots requires more review to consider overall balance. In addition, if the duration of Wealth Acquisition Potions was decreased from the current 2 hours to 1 hour or 30 minutes, meso inflation could intensify due to the increase in the amount of Wealth Acquisition Potions used and their overall time. Therefore, we ask for your understanding that we are not planning to shorten the duration. 3) Measures to Expand Experience from Sources Other than Hunting We will provide various options for levelling up by increasing the amount of experience acquired from content other than hunting. We are mainly considering ways to increase the reward experience from currently underutilized content or add new content aimed at acquiring experience. Examples of this from the June update are adding experience rewards to the Arcane River daily quests, improving Monster Park experience efficiency, and adding new Monster Park stages. However, we try to avoid giving additional experience for content which already provides sufficient motivation to play with attractive rewards other than experience. Under this direction, we have no plans to increase the experience from clearing boss content, and as described in the boss reward reorganization, we would like to move in the direction of increasing the tradeable item rewards rather than experience. 4) Measures to Motivate Growth In order to motivate hunting, we are preparing a way for users to create small communities where they can find players with similar preferences such as various content, bosses, or dressing up, communicate with each other, and play together. In order to motivate levelling up, in addition to the merit of direct spec-ups based on level, we think that there should be more content which can be enjoyed as a character gets stronger. Other than adding high-level areas, we want to provide more motivation and goals for growth by diversifying the difficulty of boss content. In addition, we considered linking other systems like achievements as a means of motivating character growth, but it is optional content, and it could feel like another hurdle, so we are leaving it as optional motivation like it is right now. Achievements don’t give any additional rewards other than achievement points right now, so in the future, we will avoid providing rewards that help growth through achievements if possible. 5) Convenience Improvements In order to solve the lack of Set-up inventory slots, we are planning to apply a change in the August update so that you can use up to 5 chair and title bags. In the August update, we are planning to add a damage to normal monsters Hyper Stat and a Hyper Stat preset feature. We are trying to match the reset times as the current weekly resets’ days are different for each content. However, it may be difficult to apply this immediately because there are many types of data that need to be settled and reset, and we need to make additional considerations due to changes in reset times. We will try to make adjustments to unify reset times as soon as possible, and the development team is planning to adjust the standard daily reset time to 10 AM and the standard weekly reset time to 10 AM on Mondays. We are going to make improvements to Monster Collection in the August update. In order to improve convenience, we are lowering for the Around Victoria Island/Aqua Road/Nihal Desert/Mu Lung Dojo medal reward requirements, changing the Monster Collection Expedition Boxes to be storeageable, and changing certain untradeable awards to be storeageable. We also plan to add an Expedition Cancel feature. Vac pets’ downwards loot range will be increased in the August update. We plan to apply it as 60% of the upwards range. Changes to the MVP Additional Experience 50% Coupon’s trade status or a reorganization of the Cross Hunter Shop will be checked and reviewed after the boss rewards reorganization. 6) Reboot World Improvements Arcane River Droplet Stones have a very low drop rate and are material that was intended to be obtained through trading. We have decided that selling them in event meso shops was helpful for the supply and demand in Reboot World where you cannot trade, so in the second half of the year, we are planning to sell them in Reboot World’s shops for mesos at all times. However, alleviating the supply and demand of Core Gemstones should take into account the growth experiences of users of all worlds, not just Reboot World, so we will first analyze the overall user experience and value of trading. Reorganized Discussion Board Opinions TN: I won’t be translating this part but if you’re interested, you can see the full page here. Once again, we would like to give our thanks to the users who gave a lot of opinions on the discussion board. Thank you. Source: Orange Mushroom's Blog