Information February 2023 Balance Changes [Explained]

LFG!! I hope the new DrK meta will allow me to unclench my butt by at least 15% during boss runs.

 

So I'm a mage enthusiast and I was eventually planning on making one of these beginner mages purely to keep up with my fellow beefy mages, now this is unattainable and sure I understand it. I was wondering if some sort of correction will be done on the characters that already benefited from the beginner exploits since this change gives some characters a special unreachable status.

 

I don't understand the beginner job advancement change when it is very similar to 30k hp washed range. Are there any reasons that staff views high hp mages as bad for the server compared to 30k hp nightlords or range DPS?

Losing out on the SP was already a reasonable balance factor applied from a previous patch. Now you have a situation where CURRENT players have something that matters in actual gameplay that is not possible for new users to achieve.

Will staff retroactively take away HP from existing beginner mages? Will staff then do the same to 30k hp washed range characters? I hope that it ends here at restricting beginner job advance.

 

The issue is bigger than mages having high HP though, it extends to DRK farmers farming for cheap
The scenario is that of farmers using expensive NLC pots (mana bulls, etc) vs some few farmers using about nothing (unattainable advantage)

 

That's another case against the beginner job advance rework. Add on to the fact that dragons roar does not trigger on HP, the players who have trained beginner DK in the past patch have DK with extreme potion advantages.

Beginner dk can put pizza on their auto mp (heals 900 hp and 600 mp) for something around 1k meso whereas regular DK would be forced to use gingseng or ginger ale, which cost 3k / 6.5k respectively.

 

hell yea pizza and waffles

 

So is Aura just Power Guard now ?

 

Call beginner washing a bug and those who continue to use/abuse it bug abuse. ez

 

Mana Reflect is a bad skill so this must be bad too.

 

so it's Power Guard got it

 

Petition to remove channel 6 and replace it with channel 7

 

Everything looks pretty good! But noooooooooooo please stop removing channels no matter how empty it looks, we need more map bosses and BFs/HHs to kill. Otherwise maybe in the future have a new system where you get to kill a certain number of BFs or minor map bosses in your own instance per day.

Also please re-open the dungeons an all meta maps now if you are going in this direction for leeching. And also give the "good" skele map a dungeon too (While I am thinking of a wishlist). I know none of this will happen because there still isn't a Spinel in NLC but at least I can dream.

 

G

we now job advance at 29, get fancy int gears, and focus more on fresh wash

 

When are we getting a buff to bishops? Bishops need more love. We've been asking for years now and it's just been a nerf or indirect nerf to bishops almost every balance patch.

 

The beginner job advancement changes for balancing reasons doesn't make sense to me and feels like it could have been implemented with more careful thought.
If it is not balanced for mages to have 23.5k~24k base HP (estimated base hp for fartsie at level 200), would it be balanced for a select few to have 23.5k~24k base HP mages while everyone else is locked out? Should existing chars then be subjected to HP getting adjusted/nerfed retrospectively?

I think one of the reasons HP washing has not been removed from ML is that staff do not want to invalidate the effort that long-time players have put into washing their chars (as well as those who were in the middle of it saving or accumulating NX for years), similarly I think it would be vastly unfair for players who have invested so much into their chars to get their HP adjusted/nerfed (at least not to a large degree) retrospectively. The number of affected players are probably very small, but anyone taking up such a project would have to be a loyal & devoted long-time player/voter as it requires 8.27m NX (3.24 years of daily voting at 7k NX/day) up front before you can do your 1st job advancement at level 120 (assuming you start mp washing at lvl 10) and you'll require even more NX as you level towards 200 (additional 1.24m NX to mp wash from level 120-200, and 1.705m NX to hp wash from level 175-200 assuming an average of 22 hp wash per level making it a grand total of >11.2m NX in the char's lifetime) & I'm not sure if these are the players you'll want to alienate. I do not think these people should be ignored just because they are the minority. Back then when DEX buccs got rekt I think staff could have better handled it by offering a free full AP reset for all affected players as well (even though they're a minority, some of them could have 700 AP stuck in DEX as a bucc rendering their char completely unusable and invalidating their efforts if they did not have the NX to reset out the DEX to play it as a normal char).

Aside from common MMORPG tradition that mages are fragile classes with high attacking power, is a 20k+ hp mage truly any more broken than a 30k hp nightlord or bowman (who are also perceived as fragile glass cannons in MMORPGs)? If we're comparing 20k+ hp mages to traditional highly washed 10k+ hp mages (prob start mp washing at level 50 ish) or normal unwashed 3.6k base hp mages (3.4k lvl 180 hp challenge, with 20 levels of natural hp gain at lowest hp gain of 10 hp = 3.4k + 0.2k = 3.6k base hp), is the difference that significant compared to a 30k hp vs 12k hp nl just because we have magic guard (nls/shads have 30/40% evasion and shads also have mesos guard)?

As quoted in the original alpha test hp challenge thread, some points worth highlighting

One of the things I've always liked about MapleStory is the flexibility to build your characters the way you want after researching on lots of technical knowledge, which led to the creation of dexless sins and pure int mages in the original MapleStory. Coupled with the devotion needed for the game and the extended periods of voting (and hence, aid in exposure for ML), I think this is a change that should be retroverted like Holy Shield blocking seduce for bishops.

If staff wishes to "balance" it further, I think increasing the difficulty would be a more reasonable approach than locking the build out for everyone who has not completed their char yet. Though a 8.2m upfront NX requirement before first job change at lvl 120 (mp washing from lvl 10) is already an incredibly challenging task IMO, you would still need 6.9m up front NX if you were to start mp washing at lvl 50 instead of lvl 10.

All NX requirement numbers are derived from fartsy's beginner mage guide

 

Still hoping one day that Holy Arrow will finally get buffed so it's better than magic claw...