Two more notices have been posted on the MapleStory homepage! The first is ‘We are Preparing a Customer Conference.’ where they say they are going to hold a conference with MapleStory customers in April to discuss changes to MapleStory. The second is ‘We Apologize for the Discomfort Caused by our Usage of Inappropriate Terminology.’ which talks about explaining some of the inappropriate terms used in-game. We are Preparing a Customer Conference This is MapleStory’s director Kang Won-ki. Although it is late, we would like to humbly prepare a place where we can communicate honestly with our customers who care about MapleStory. I would like to sincerely apologize once again through this event, and going forward, create a forum where we can speak candidly about MapleStory. We will provide information about the customer conference. We are in the process of developing a plan with the goal of holding a customer conference in April. Both face-to-face and non-face-to-face are being considered as the methods may change depending on the quarantine rules at the time of the conference. At this customer conference, we would like to invite people who can represent the opinions of a variety of customers. In addition, rather than being a one-time event, we are also requesting that this customer advisory panel regularly share their opinions of the direction of MapleStory’s changes and check our progress carefully. We will provide information as soon as the details have been confirmed. Until the customer conference, please continue to voice your opinions through the [Discussion Board] and we will share our thoughts. The ‘homepage reorganization to allow smooth communication with customers’ that we mentioned in our last notice has just begun discussions so it will take a little more time until it is finally reflected on the site. We will hurry our discussion board reorganization so that it can be used as a more meaningful forum for discussion. We would like to talk to about the opinions given through the Discussion Board. Until now, we have seen a lot of feedback from customers on the Discussion Board about the ‘Heartfelt Apology to All Players’ reward composition. The development team is also very sympathetic to the fact that it is very difficult to satisfy all customers with this composition. Realistically, because of the situation where a decision had to be made while thinking about the impacts it would have in the game, there is no way to apologize to the many customers who feel disappointed. As a result, it is with a heavy heart that we will explain the situation and why the ‘reward composition will be the same as the information given’. But first, we would like to share the factors that the development team were thinking about while explaining the background of the compensation plan, focusing on the parts which many customers had commented on. Q. I want to receive the mesos required to enhance the Arcane Symbols. Q. I also want to receive Core Gemstones and Authentic Symbols which are not currently in the rewards. Q. I want to receive a permanent Sherbet pet, not a time-limited one. Q. I am curious about the reason why a PC Room Arcane Shade Weapon and a Sherbet pet were selected. A. The development team also thought a lot about what kind of rewards should be given to help more customers. We wanted to give rewards that would be more useful to customers and make playing more pleasant, but at the same time, the rewards would be changed into other types of goods, so we thought about a level which would not damage the value of items that existing customers had. Therefore, we selected items that would be useful for many people while focusing on items that could not be traded or easily obtained. Q. Zero cannot use the PC Room Arcane Shade Weapon so please provide an Arcane Shade Essence. If we were to provide Zero with an Arcane Shade Essence, we could not apply the fixed potential and enhancement restriction like the Arcane Shade equipment provided to other characters, and because of this, they are inevitably restricted. Q. Demon Avenger’s main stat is HP, so the ‘Rebirth Flame Points Error Correction Exchange Rate’ was not applied. Q. Please include HP in the all stats % line. The ‘Rebirth Flame Points Error Correction Exchange Rate’ that was determined for each stat type was calculated using the difference between the weighted probability and the actual results that would have used if there were no errors. In the case of HP, although the appearance rate of the HP stat was affected by the frequent appearance of the STR stat, the difference was relatively insignificant compared to other stats. Therefore, the error correction exchange rate was not applied, and only the 100% rate was applied. In addition, including HP in the all stats % line is a matter that requires more careful consideration in job and equipment balancing apart from this additional options compensation, so please understand that it is difficult to give specific details at the moment. Q. In the Ability Error Correction Compensation, only 1 2nd Manji Coin Point was given for Circulators, which is not enough to pay for 19.8 million mesos used to purchase them. This was actually a typo in the notice, and we were going to give 2 Points (20 million mesos). We apologize not only for causing confusion with our incorrect notice information, but also for not being able to quickly correct any mistakes in our notice. Q. I cannot apply the Chew Chew Island Set Voucher to both Alpha and Beta at the same time. We have changed the compensation contents not just for Zero but for all users to give 2 Chew Chew Island Set Vouchers. In addition to the discussion board, we have also checked the contents of questions sent to the Customer Center, and updated the details of the [Additional Options Situation’s Compensation and Entire Reward Information]. Although it is cumbersome, please check the exact information once more. We would like to share the development team’s concerns and talk with our customers. We are grateful that many customers have already given us a variety of opinions. We will consider them as the precious foundation for MapleStory and listen to them without exception. Even until now, many efforts have been made to improve, but in reality, there are problems which are not easy to solve. For the purpose of making a better MapleStory together, we would like to share the development team’s thoughts and ask for our customers’ valuable opinions. 1. Job Balance Adjustments Job balancing is an eternal assignment for the development team. The development team has tried to make neutral judgements based on numerical data, but it is true that there are parts which are lacking when looking at the individual experiences of all customers. This is because there are differences in how a character is played due to things such as a variety of state values, equipment levels, and job mastery. The direction of the job balance adjustments aimed by the development team is to make each class fun to play by using their individual characteristics. When releasing a charming new class, we also think about adjusting the performance in a way that does not harm the characteristics of each existing class. However, it is not clear where this line is properly set, so we are curious about what customers think. We would like to think about the direction of job balance adjustments again after listening to customers’ opinions. 2. Character Growth Experience Reorganization We think that in an RPG, the significance of hunting and levelling up is very high. Therefore, many customers have given their opinions on how appropriate the amount of experience required to level up was. In particular, since there were many opinions on the difficulty of the growth process, we have reduced the amount of experience required to level up every year, and in 2020 we improved Arcane River map efficiency so that experience could be acquired more efficiently. On the other hand, when adding a new area, we set the levels higher than the required level so that you can experience exploring a new area through the limited story quests where it is more challenging than before to reach the required experience and hunting environment. Nevertheless, we have confirmed that there are opinions where it is still difficult to grow characters, with complaints of fatigue from hunting for a long time, and that MapleStory should aim for lighter growth. Apart from this, we have also confirmed that there are opinions which complained about the convenience in the experience of having to repeatedly perform the same quests for every character when playing multiple characters. We are curious about the customers’ opinions as to what form MapleStory’s character growth experience should take. 3. Equipment Enhancement Experience Reorganization In order to reduce the problem of supply and demand of scrolls for enhancing equipment and the risk of item destruction, we added the Scroll Trace enhancement system in December 2013 and the Star Force system in July 2014. However, there were many negative experiences such as repeated failures or destruction due to the Star Force enhancements’ probability system. Although currently, we compensate for successive failures with Chance Time, there are still many situations of inconvenience in customers’ enhancement experiences. Together with this, because it is necessary to consider the change in value of equipment items which have already been completely enhanced, we have not made any further improvements since January 2019, when the chance to drop stars below 10 stars was removed and the 10~14 stars’ success rate was increased. We request your opinions on which direction we should take to improve equipment enhancement. 4. Meso Inflation Addressing meso inflation is very complex because there are so many factors involved in acquiring mesos and consuming them. Even now, there is an imbalance in meso acquisition efficiency, and as the deviation in mesos that can be generated per character increases, adding new methods to consume mesos would only make the imbalance of currently held mesos more severe. From this perspective, in 2020, we focused on actively blocking mass meso acquisition methods such as hacks/macros/workshops. First of all, we believed that we could only maintain a healthy game economy when abnormal meso generation at the organizational level was controlled. Next, we tried to adjust the prices of the Intense Power Crystals, which accounted for the largest proportion of in-game meso generation. As customers’ average specs have increased over time, the difficulty of boss content has become relatively lower than before. Therefore, we confirmed the data that the amount of mesos generated directly through boss content was steadily increasing, and we decided that a change in the amount acquired was necessary to prevent a situation where the value of mesos would be seriously lowered in the long term. The price adjustment of Intense Power Crystals was not reflected since we needed to consider additional boss reorganizations and connections. Meso inflation is still a problem that MapleStory needs to solve. We request our customers’ opinions so that the generation and consumption of mesos can be balanced properly. 5. Guild Reorganization For guilds, the efficiency of Noblesse guild skills, especially the ‘Big One Shot’ (increasing critical damage) skill, was so high that it created an inverse problem. We added Noblesse guild skills with high efficiency in order to activate guilds and give the joy of playing MapleStory together, but because of this, we have confirmed that various negative things occur within a guild. A common example is compulsory participation in guild content to acquire Noblesse guild skill SP, and in this process, many customers actively participate in the Sharenian’s Underground Culvert content at the same time, causing delays in the content itself. Although lately this delay issue has been significantly fixed, it is still not very pleasant. The development team is also thinking a lot about a guild reorganization, and we request our customers’ opinions on the direction of this reorganization. It is not enough to emphasize multiple times, but once again, we sincerely apologize for the lack of operation. Going forward, we will show communication and operation that customers can be more satisfied with. Sincerely, MapleStory’s director Kang Won-ki We Apologize for the Discomfort Caused by our Usage of Inappropriate Terminology This is MapleStory’s director Kang Won-ki. We sincerely apologize for the discomfort caused by the ‘inappropriate terminology in-game’ which many customers talked about over the weekend. In addition, I would like to provide additional information for the inadequate explanations given in the March 5 notice. We apologize for the discomfort caused by our usage of inappropriate terminology. When the Daily Gift achievement system was added in August 2017, when creating achievement names using parodies of memes on the internet and famous elements, we overlooked the negative meaning of the word ‘cherry picker’. There is no excuse for not having basic verification when using certain words. We sincerely apologize to discomforted customers. In addition, in December 2018 immediately after the start of the Tactical Relay event, an inquiry was sent to the Customer Center to ask if the ‘10597’ shown on the Tactical Relay Chair was intended to insult the customer. In reality, there was no such intention, but we have kept it unchanged until now, thinking that it would be misunderstood that it was intended, and we corrected it only after acknowledging the customer inquiry. Above all, we should have considered our customers’ emotions as the most important, but we are reflecting on our decision. Furthermore, we caused discomfort for our customers by using the expression ‘Time Between Dog and Pig’ without thinking. This name is one of the superpowers in Star Planet’s new minigame ‘Psychic Yutnori’ added in January 2015. This expression was created to parody the drama ‘Time Between Dog and Wolf’ which aired in 2007, using the matching animals in rolls: one (pig), two (dog), three (sheep), four (cow) and five (horse). Even after 2015, the same minigame was re-released repeatedly, using the same resources as before, but we did not consider that the implicative meaning of these words would change over time. We sincerely apologize to everyone who may have felt discomfort because we were not able to carefully grasp what all the experiences given from MapleStory would mean to customers. Starting on March 11, we will sequentially correct all inappropriate words used in-game. We will also clarify in-game probability expressions. We will clarify probability expressions which have continued to be used incorrectly. Starting on March 11, we are planning to change all ‘random’ expressions to more appropriate ones, and we will also improve things like scrolls to show probabilities directly, even if they were not clearly shown in the past. First, we will improve items like Chaos Scrolls,where the stat boosts change when the scroll succeeds, to accurately show the chances of each stat. We will explain the limitations of multiple lines in the cube potential reset logic. We will provide additional information for inadequate points from the cube probability logic and verification process through the [Cubes’ Potential Reset Logic and Detailed Probability Release]. We apologize for any confusion caused by not providing exact details all at once. The logic for limiting multiple lines when resetting cube potential is the same as the logic used in Royal Hair Coupons when your character’s current hair is one of the hairs in the rotation. The same description has been added to the [Probability Type Items Page] which was released on March 5. The following potential lines can only appear once out of the three lines when resetting. * If the first line chosen is one of the lines below, the second and third lines are reset using the list of lines excluding the corresponding line. If the second line chosen is one of the lines below, the third line is reset using the list of lines excluding the corresponding line. At that time, the probability of each line is calculated as the ‘probability/(100% – the sum of the probabilities of the excluded line)’. Increasing all skill levels Increase invincibility time after being hit The following potential lines can only appear twice out of the three lines when resetting. * If the first and second lines chosen are one of the lines below, the third line is reset using the list of lines excluding the corresponding line. At that time, the probability of each line is calculated as the ‘probability/(100% – the sum of the probabilities of the excluded line)’. Ignore monster defense +% Ignore damage % after being hit with a certain probability Invincibility for a certain amount of time after being hit with a certain probability Damage when attacking boss monsters +% Item drop rate +% We will improve the verification data for Black Cube tier up rates. In the last notice, the log extraction time period was limited to the last half year (second half of 2020) to quickly show the results of various types of verification. To show more accurate verification results, we will provide additional information by expanding the log to show the last 2 years (February 2019 to January 2021). Since there are more types of logs, this is a situation where the information will be delayed, so this notice contains only the ‘Daily Black Cube Potential Tier Increase Records’. The graphs below show the trends of Black Cube usage. The y-axis’ maximum value has been set to the maximum values of non-Miracle Time dates rather than the maximum values when Miracle Time was active. Because of this, we are informing you that the usage during Miracle Time dates (January 12, 2020 and January 17, 2021) exceeded the maximum values on the y-axis and could not be shown in the graph. In both the previously released verification data and the verification data released this time, the detailed specifications have been aggregated based on the total usage log of the same types of cubes. Cubes sold in the Cash Shop, cubes from events, and cubes that can be purchased in Reboot World have the same detailed specifications if they have the same name. The ‘Probability Real Time Monitoring System’ has already begun development, but regrettably, it will take some time before it is fully complete and ready to show to customers. Therefore, until the system has been introduced, we plan to update the verification data of probability type items on a monthly basis and post the monitoring results on the official website. MapleStory promises to thoroughly release and verify probability going forward. In addition, we will improve the overall game environment so customers will not experience inconvenience while using the game. Sincerely, MapleStory’s director Kang Won-ki Source: Orange Mushroom's Blog