Bishop Syndrome

iirc Genesis got nerfed with Bigbang, and I think I can safely say most people here are not looking for post-bb gameplay.

 

Before 4th Job was released, Priests had poor offensive capabilities, but made up for it with utility skills like Heal, Bless, Dispel, Holy Symbol, Mystic Door, which made them favourable party members despite their lacking damage. Priests were also happy to team up with attackers since they benefit from HS and had a harder time killing mobs thenselves. This is how I see the term "utility" is used in games. People enjoyed Priests because they are useful to others, although it could be a tough class to play alone.

Then came Genesis, and suddenly Bishops were hauled to the lead in terms of mobbing and levelling and farming, while retaining their ever-useful arsenal of support buffs. They have moved on from being a utility class to an independent class that can train and survive on its own at a great pace. The only weakness remaining is that they have poor 1v1 damage. But otherwise, it is a rather all-rounded class. Being able to support and heal is no longer a sole reason to play them, they are good at grinding and farming items and mesos too.

 

Some of the arguments made in this thread made me dumber.
No its not a pointless thread just because OP failed to argue properly. Your posts are hypocritically as pointless and brings nothing to the discussion.
Also funny how majority of people arguing against this is selfadmittingly bishops or has taken part in this broken game mechanic.

Leeching is a broken game mechanic and a flaw in v62 and while it may be nostalgic to some, it doesn't change the fact. The 'nostalgic' argument is funny because I may also find KSing, mass defame wars, hacking, scamming and of course being able to burn my parents money on NX to my hearts desire nostalgic.
Yet much of this is impossible/almost non existing in ML because it simply is a negative game element. I don't see how leeching is anything other than negative aside from it being nostalgic as the others.
The leeching and bishop problem seems to intertvine and it promotes multi clienting/two computers which in itself is ridiculous requirement for being 'competitive'.
No the solution is neither to 'make one yourself'. First off it may be the case that you like to play this class but not everybody wants to play it, despite it seeming to be ridiculously easy to level from 10-80 with no funding compared to other classes.
Now it is a support class yet overall seems superior to all other classes except at bossing in which it still brings utility which is quite imbalanced for any support class in any game. Even at mid lvl(for this server) look at the cleric dominated gs2 where a cleric can go from 50-80 just by standing on a safe staircase spamming heal. If one support class dominates 11 other classes in lvling, mobbing AND utility basically till endgame it is not a balanced class

Both leeching and this class needs a nerf.

 

I agree that bishop is op but...

please someone fucking close this thread..

 

You're still seeing Bishops as a support class? Stop kidding yourself, @Wiseguy, they're not. Your statements are all based on subjective arguments. You think leeching is broken. You think that it's a negative game element. There's many arguments against that; leeching creates just another part of the economy. Playing a Bishop gets you money, yes, but do you even know how incredibly boring the game gets as a Bishop to 95% of the people? I hate playing Bishops, even though they are the easiest way to get more mesos, simply because playing them is so ridiculously boring and demotivating. Only LV. 70-80 and 120-130 are doable with the rush of getting HS/Genesis and feeling empowered, other than that, it's just a good way to destroy your brain (in my opinion). I'd much rather play a class that I enjoy that's slower and harder instead of a Bishop to induce suicidal thoughts, it motivates me to merch and make more money than a Bishop would.

You're also acting like Bishops and multi-clienting Bishops for leech is the only way to be competitive. Just to point out: I was one of the most funded and strongest players on another v62 server for a long time without having a Bishop. In fact, I was one of the weaker classes in the game, a Shadower. Leeching isn't a problem, it's a way to make money. Not the fastest, either; merching and bossing will get you more in the end if you do it right. So you're basically making yourself sound butthurt over not making a Bishop and not being able to control the market with merching and therefore not being rich.


And I agree with @Aero, this thread seems to go in circles. And the OP isn't bringing convincing arguments to the table...

If it wasn't clear yet, I'm against a change.

 

Bishops are fine. It has always been this way and yet on both GMS and EMS first lv 200 was a Dark Knight.

you need more exp from 185 to 200 then you need from 1 to 185 so I really don't see why you people are making a big deal out of it. The grind is long people are not even half way there.
Please stop complaining about it and just play the game. If you want to leech all day from a bishop and pay for it go ahead. If you don't then grind like every other person does. If you are jelous because you do not have a friend that wants to leech you for free. Poor you.

Go grind everyone and enjoy the game.
(Jk server restart can't grind)

 

Fuck this, fuck everything. update the server to V117.

 

You wasnt feeling that way when you pay neko for leeching dindt you?

 

You're completely missing everything being said. Wiseguy is making the point that it's ridiculous to claim Bishop is a support class.

And boohoo, I feel so bad for the people who choose to pick a boring class that takes absolutely no skill to play, a class so easy that clamping down one button on your keyboard and walking away auto levels you, a class so easily abused that people are making scripts to bot whenever they can. But if it's a boring class, one that's so soul-drainig to play, you simply shouldn't play it right? Yet people do anyway. This just shows again how broken the class is and yet how it's so popular despite being so boring to play. It seems most people aren't playing clerics for fun but simply for that character to be a means of leeching another character.

So if we nerfed leeching, maybe then people would actually have more incentive to play the game as it was meant to be played and actually have fun. The main problem I see with leeching is that it just isn't playing the game. It's just a boring business where you are paid to stand in one spot and press one button over and over again harder than Stanley Parable.

 

This is my opinion and my observations alone:
I played in GMS Beta and many times after that. Each time getting glimpses of what the rankings were. Every single time it turned true that rankings were dominated by mages. In Beta lvl 50 was very high. And many clerics reached that by healing around Zombie lupins. The following attempts (take note, there were years between them) showed the ranks to still be dominated by mages. Occasionally a sole archer, a few warriors and a few thieves amongst them. Sure back then it was prefered to have an F/P mage or I/L due to powerful attacks at 3rd job. But Clerics always found a use and lvling fast at zombie typed mobs.

What I find here is the exact same rankings as it was on GMS around this version. I never witnissed the release of 4th job so I didn't see the changes. However, the rankings have always stayed more or less the same. Although, having gotten to high lvl during Open Beta (20x exp) and now during release (2x exp). I've seen and felt some things which make leeching so OP. During Open Beta I got to lvl 150 on my own. No leeching but full on grinding. Although I no lived it. I didn't feel that my progress was too slow at any point in time. The last 150 to 165 was leeched with a friend, since the release was announced. If it was faster, I cannot say as much. No direct comparison. Now during release. Even with no living it again. I find my progress to be lacking too much. Having to spend 8 hours a day for a single lvl. I feel that is too much. Yet I know that if I went leeching, I would get a lvl in less then half that time. Which makes the progress feel 'acceptable' again.

Maplestory is inherently one of the most broken games I've ever played. The game design is flawed that at times I'm baffled as to why it's so popular. As a student of Gametechnology and a fervent follower of Extra Credits (Youtube channel) I know how to put it to words, my own words: The activity you do the most in Maplestory is to train. To grind mobs to lvl up. Then you boss to get the good equips, such as Zhelm, HT pendant. BF and HH for deputy star and some of the exp involved. Lastly, there are the social activities such as PQ, simple chatting, FM. It's true some classes are meant to lvl by bosses. But in the end it's the quality/quantity ratio. A bosser class can easily compete with a Bishop when, and only with this condition, it has all bosses available to it. BF, HH, Anego. Yet BF is only 6 * per channel, same as HH and Anego is 1 * channel. However, the more bossing people there are, that quantity goes down. As you only have access to a certain number of bosses a day. Where as normal mobs spawn all the time. And bishops/archmages can efficiently take down 15 at a time. And other classes... Less so.

In the end it's a duality of facts that make bishops and archmages seem OP. The fact they can effectively kill one of the 2 high end mobs. Bossing is not very available due to the quantity needing to be shared by all attackers. Bossing classes being limited to the amount of mobs hitting to at most 1/4th of what Mages can. Mobbing options for bossing classes are very limited. The thing you do the most being limited...

How to solve it?
Well, it's a game and many aspects fall into this... There is the obvious gene/blizzard/meteor nerf. (Since nerving Gene would only make Blizzard and Meteor stand out) But it can also be solved by adding extreme high hp mobs with high exp rewards in low quantity groups.


TLDR:
Most people feel and/or cannot make enough progress that feels 'acceptable'. Where bishops and archmages can kinda always make 'acceptable' progress due to being the best at it. Thus leeching happens.

 

Subjective arguments? funny how you pointed that one at me as it seems to me that all the arguments
for keeping this game mechanic is just as subjective if not more. And yes it is subjective it is supposed to be
I never claimed to be objective.

Argument for leeching? Yes thats good, but you can argue for almost anything which doesnt make it more right.
The same way that YOU could argue leeching creates just another part of the economy I can argue
that scamming is just another part of the economy as well, if not better it draws paralels to the rl world and gives you a life lesson.

You bash me for being subjective followed by a subjective statement. Its not even an argument against it being imbalanced.
What i read here is: You're right its broken but I think its boring so its all fair.

I am not acting like it is the only way to be competitive. It was in response to other posts talking about how you could make a bishop
if you are eager to be competitive thereby the ''. It is neither an argument for bishops being balanced that you were one of the most funded and strongest player on another server. bravo on that though.

Well thats some unnecessary assumptions

 

Right. Or we can also say that vote abuse is good for the economy because it adds more items up for sale. Could also even say vote abuse is even more GMS-like, because some certain people used to dump WAY MORE money into the game than others!

Also about mage 4th job skills... another factor regarding this mob leeching is the NLC pots. It was mentioned before. Selling infinite potions which will restore % of HP/MP and stack up to 150 sp for cheap is pretty absurd. Elixirs and power elixirs have practically lost all usefulness. But the point is that the NLC pots are cheap and easy to comeby, and so it makes the high MP cost of those map aoe skills which was supposed to "balance" them meaningless.

 

You should "@ ????" that because that could be directed at 10+ retards on this thread.

 

To draw that parallel to the real world: Scamming is theft, which is illegal. Leeching is a service which you pay for, which is legal and what keeps the economy alive. I don't even know what you're trying to prove here.

This was merely a statement to point out what the majority (you can quote half of what I said but I actually said it) can most likely agree with. Not everyone thinks it's boring, but you're looking at leeching in a one-sided way, making your arguments of little value.

It might not be an argument, but I, as well as @Sam_Vosh, made it clear that it's certainly not a requirement to have a Bishop to be funded, high-leveled or competitive, it's not even close to it; it's just another way. A Bishop isn't funded or a high level if you don't put in a lot of time, whereas other classes require effort and more strategic approaches to making money and leveling rather than just time. In this way, the only thing I would call a Bishop is basic (they really are basic af).

 

It was not a banable offence, as long as 2 operating systems was used. But VMware wans't a thing back then.
People didn't really multiclient on 1 computer, people would just get more PCs. Neckson did not mind this at the time.

 

blizz and meteor use a shit ton of mana >_>

why nerf that..
look at genesis base damage and mana cost at lvl 1 compared to elemental mages

 

Can we just disable leeching altogether? Nobody used to leech before 4th job came out, and the game was balanced fine.