[Formal Proposal] Quester's Ring

Imagine, for a moment, a game where quests aren't just dead content past level 50. A Maple World where players of all levels can come together to experience the joys and pains (mostly pains) of questing!

I consider this proposal to be the culmination of all the discussion me and other players have had about a potential Quest Ring, brought together into a cohesive idea. It's my belief that the best way to change or add to the game is to specify exactly what you want, and so I hope to do just that. Without further ado, allow me introduce you to...

~Quester's Ring~
Concept Sprites for the ring (with big help from cobbages)​

Table of Contents​

1. Questing: The Facts​
2. Why Quester's Ring?​
3. Proposal: Mechanics​
4. FAQ/Common Concerns​

Thread layout plagiarized from Blu301's Shadower Guide. Thx Tim!
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1. Questing: The Facts
(Data from Quest Rankings as of April 29, 2020)

130,480 characters have completed at least 1 quest.

Out of those,
1,230 characters, or 1 in 106 have completed >=500 quests.
and
123 characters, or 1 in 1,060 have completed >=900 quests.​

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2. Why Quester's Ring?​

• Many, many quests in maple are worthless content with very little reward. The addition of a meaningful purpose for this forgotten content will add to the gameplay diversity and holistic appeal of MapleLegends.
• Similar to card hunting, it will breathe new life into forgotten and dead areas of the game.
• The ring will further alleviate the contentious problem of HP washing by providing additional damage reduction, similar to how the Monster Book Ring provided extra HP.
• It will give us a tangible way to show off how many quests we've suffered through.

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3. Proposal: Mechanics

v4.1
My concept for an NPC. Her name? Questelle! Sprite by me.
partly inspired by Monster Hunter

Spoiler: Questelle V1

Spoiler: Questelle V2

Spoiler: Questelle V3

Spoiler: Questelle V3.5

Spoiler: Questelle V3.6

​

Parallel to Monster Book Ring, the Quester's Ring will start with no stats and have ten upgrade tiers. Every 90 quests completed will unlock another upgrade. Each upgrade will add additional stats, as follows (numbers subject to change):

Spoiler: Initial Proposal

First Revision

Req. Level Clarification
The idea behind required levels is that the quest to upgrade the ring won't unlock until the given level. EX: When you've completed 450 quests and hit level 70, only then will you be able to upgrade the ring. This is intended to achieve two things:
1. You won't be receiving a broken amount of DEF at a low level for hardcore questing.
2. You won't end up with a ring that you can't equip due to being too low level.

How Effective is DEF?
For those unaware, the general rule of thumb seems to be that 2 DEF = 1 point of damage reduction. I am not sure of the exact formula, so these numbers are wholly subject to change and balance.

DEF and Damage Reduction - Through the Levels
Here's some data I recorded by throwing my naked self at some popular training mobs. It should give a good perspective on how much DEF is appropriate at a given level:



Additional Idea for Upgrades
Requirements to upgrade the ring (ex, from Tier 1 to Tier 2), other than quest completion, could be sadistic fetch quests of their own; scouring the Maple World for obscure and rare materials (think Arwen's Glass Shoe, or Nependeath's Honey). This way, hardcore questers wouldn't be able to immediately "cash in" for free stats, plus it would add some fun and uniqueness to the concept.

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4. FAQ/Common Concerns​

Q: Why Weapon Defense/Magic Defense instead of HP?

• Extra Defense will benefit ALL class types including DKs and heavily washed warriors who already hit maximum HP - meaning that everyone can benefit from questing.
• Defense has the unique property of reducing damage taken, effectively cutting potion costs. This makes a nice and unique reward for questing.

Q: Why no main stats? Why Accuracy/Avoidability/Speed/Jump instead?

• This will make the ring unique in comparison to Monster Book Ring, instead of being a re-hash.
• Fairness. When Monster Book came out, everybody started at 0 cards. However, quests have been around since the beginning and many users have completed many. It would not feel "right" if those players were immediately able to cash in for free main stats.

Q: Why 90 quests per upgrade, amounting to 900 total for the final upgrade?

• Any player should be able to complete 900 quests eventually, regardless of how many "missable" quests they didn't get.
• It's the most convenient number and ties in nicely with the MB ring. Think of 3 quests as being equivalent to 1 complete card set.

Q: Won't this be unfair to players who haven't been hardcore questing?

• Referring to above statistics, it's clear that a very, VERY small amount of characters have completed 900 or more quests. Even the amount of characters who have completed more than 500 is very small, relatively speaking.
• The ring will not have any main stats, just QoL and extra damage reduction.
• Even though there was no reward at the time, questers still went through the trouble of completing many tedious quests. It's not as if they didn't earn it.

Q: Won't this be unfair to players who missed quests?

• Some quests in this game are missable, e.g. if you skip the quest lines on Maple Island and decide to just grind instead.
• However, I'm 99% confident (not having done the exact math) that even if they missed every single missable quests (highly unlikely unless you're trying), a player should still be able to complete 900 total eventually.

Q: Aren't you just asking for free stats because you've already completed a lot of quests?

• It's true, I've already completed over 900 quests on my main character. However, in making this proposal I'm far more concerned with helping new players and improving the content of MapleLegends, than I am with receiving a free reward. I want the game to be more enjoyable, and for all players to have a good reason to get questing!

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I'm not selfishly demanding our lovely developers to slave away at another project - If accepted, I am totally willing to help out with this content in any way possible, whether it's artwork, QA, balance, or writing, and I'm sure many others are too.

Let's make the quester's dream a reality! Feel free to share your own thoughts, criticisms, ideas, anything to further flesh out this concept. Looking forward to your feedback.

 

Pretty good point brought up by DOOOOOOSTOEVSKY (who's that guy anyway?). Ideally the ring's DEF/MDEF would scale more similarly to the way mobs' damage increases by level (early on they hit for tens or hundreds, then they crank up to 1k-2k+ at later levels). So here's a few ideas for fixing that:

• The majority of the DEF could be gained in later tiers, with only small amounts early on.
• The total number of quests required could be increased, requiring a higher character level to achieve higher tiers.
• Suggested by Mr. Sushi, minimum levels could be enforced on the ring and its upgrade quests.
• The total DEF of the ring could be decreased.

Or any combination of the above.

 

I kinda like this idea, certain questlines being required in order to advance/upgrade. Has potential.