Earlier today, the MapleStory team held the MapleStory Destiny Live Talk, a live Q&A with the general director Kang Won-ki and the planning team director Kim Chang-seop, to talk about things that they didn’t fully explain during the showcase as well as answer questions from players in real-time. I’ll summarize most of the main points that they mentioned, it might be a little vague in parts just because of the format of the event. And of course, tonight, the Adventurer remaster will be released in the test world! The post will probably take a long time considering I’ll have to translate 14 jobs’ skills so expect delays. I might post early and constantly update until I’m done as well but I’m not sure yet. Here’s the full video, it starts about 1 hour in. The entire thing lasted over 2 hours! They have the video split into different subsections so I’ll use them for the summary. Adventurer Remaster/All Jobs Balancing The balance patch will be released on the test world on January 18 (tomorrow’s patch will only include the remaster). It will be released on the official servers on January 27 together with the Adventurer remaster. On January 27, they will provide another Tera Burning Booster. The Adventurer remaster event will also provide a Fakesolabs (they are considering a Fake Arcane). After the Adventurers, they are planning a Cygnus remaster. Balance patches are based on hunting, bossing, and utility. The numbers are important, but they also try to differentiate each jobs’ experiences and fun. In the above graphs, the left shows the average number of mobs killed per minute (level 260+ on the top, all levels at the bottom) by each job labelled 1-45. The right shows the Jin Hilla solo clear times from July to December for each job labelled 1-45 (e.g. the #1 class solos Hilla in about 55% of the time as the #45 class). They will try to refrain from nerfing jobs and instead buff weaker classes. However, if certain classes become problematic, they will nerf them but not enough to completely ruin the experience of playing them. They will continue to improve jobs with structural problems with remasters, but before that, they will be improved through balance patches. This includes things like Battlemage’s Teleport jump problem, Soul Master’s forced jump problem, and Night Walker’s jump cancel problem. They are looking to equalize utility in terms of binds, up jumps, and stance. Erda Nova will be changed into an instant AoE bind with a lower cooldown. Up jumps will be added to jobs that don’t have them. 100% stance will be provided by default. Mikhail’s link will be changed to a different effect. They will continue to lower the number of buffs by changing them into passives. In the Adventurer remaster, all Adventurer jobs’ boosters will be changed to passive skills and Guided Arrow will be turned into an on/off skill. They will improve the inefficiency of Symbols for Xenon and Demon Avenger. They will be more careful when adding new items/buffs to make sure they include HP. They will add all-stats scrolls from Spell Traces and add a Star Force Conversion skill for Xenon. They are constantly looking at feedback from various channels, and encourage players to share what improvements they want for their jobs. Story The story will be built up more quickly. They will add more story related content that doesn’t necessarily relate to the main storyline. They will fix inconsistencies in the current story. The new boss Kalos has an important story and will begin a new part of the journey. They will add characters like Testonen to the Adventurer story. They have hired new staff that have played the game for a long time and have more knowledge about the lore. Bosses As an RPG, they must always add new higher tier bosses to provide end-game goals. They started working on Kalos as soon as Seren was defeated, if they waited until more people could clear a boss, it would be too late. They used numerical data to see where they needed to add new boss difficulties. (e.g. from September to October in Scania, 57.1% of people that cleared Hard Will did not clear Chaos Guardian Angel Slime and 84.4% of people that cleared Hard Dunkel did not clear Black Mage) For the Ethernel set, only 3 parts (hat, top, bottom) will be added at first. The other 4 parts will be released over time as the Grandis story continues, but not in the Destiny update. They will also shorten the time it takes to get them from the previously stated ‘6 months’. The Boss Crystal price changes are working as intended. They expect that the decrease in Chaos Root Abyss prices will stop within the month, and that the increase in other prices will stop within the first half of the year. In the above graph, from July to December, the purple bar is the percentage of mesos generated through Boss Crystals, the gray is meso drops from hunting, and the dark gray is from Ursus. Maple Guide & New Players They will significantly decrease the costs to level up Arcane Symbols up to Lacheln on January 27. They will also look into decreasing later areas’ Symbol costs afterwards. They will continue to improve the Maple Guide, like adding hunting grounds that are right beside towns. Mastery Books will be removed. The number of Storage and Damage Skin slots provided by default and the maximum slots will be increased. They are looking into providing Mega Burning through regular gameplay such as the Daily Gift instead of only being during events. Events The Stella Pass was intended as an easier way to get additional rewards from the event instead of having to invest a lot of time in Burning World, but they apologize for not considering any purchase methods other than Maple Points. The Event Ring Only Legendary Potential Scroll being untradeable was a beginner’s mistake and they apologize. They apologize that there was no Christmas event this year, they were too busy working on other content and events. Happyville actually had a bug that allowed players to access a GM map which is why it didn’t return. The next Beauty Awards event is scheduled for April. They won’t keep events hidden anymore. They have announced the Special Sunday Maple events in advance. Miracle Time – as before Petite Pet Time – base reward of a Sherbet pet, lucky reward of a permanent vac pet Shining Star Force Time – 5/10/15 and 30% discount on Star Force costs together Fashion Time – base reward of the Chew CHew set, lucky reward of the 1st~12th Master Label set Hair Time – base reward of a Custom Mix Dye Coupon, lucky reward of the 1st~12th Master Label Hair Coupon Future events were meant to have additional Harmony Coins and they apologize for not saying so earlier. Convenience The second player-developer conference will be held around the 19th anniversary. They are improving Nexon Now so you can check the logs, which will be provided within the first half of the year. They are still working on the smart Boss Matching system but it is delayed. They are considering adding a bulletin board type matching system in the meantime. It is expected to be added in the first half of the year. It is quite difficult to improve 2-handed weapon motions but they will improve things that block characters’ faces. The director said that high-level areas and stories that require you to level up are part of the experience of an RPG, and they will consider accessibility in the future but there will be no changes for now. However, they will make it easier to do things like replay previous stories, where you won’t need to actually perform any of the previous quests again to watch the story. They will improve the skill cooldown alert to increase visibility when skills are blocked by the countdown. They will also add an option for players to keep the older version if they want. Going Forward They will start a blog where MapleStory developers can share their thoughts. They will release a road map for the first half of the year together with the February Maple Update Info Centre video. They are giving out Live Talk rewards to all players starting this Friday. Maximum Growth Potion Selective Growth Potion Voucher Experience Core Gemstone Selective Symbol Voucher (100 Arcane Symbols or 25 Authentic Symbols) Mannequin Beauty Awards Face and Hair Coupons 1000 Melody Coins Source: Orange Mushroom's Blog