The Current State of Onyx Apples

My guild in the past 4 weeks have been GPQing quite a bit. We jumped from 46k to 96k so 50k points and I believe we did not have any GPQ related crashes. Only time we got kicked out was when the person hosting dced and that was all. I'm not too sure if we just have been EXTREMELY lucky lol which I doubt bc 50k points is a lot of runs.

For rarity, I think GPQ wouldn't be a problem for that ,once groups get the hang of it. My Guild clears the PQs in around 15-35mins ,depending on our members who are running/people who know what to do/those good at jump quests.

The bonus stage is 30secs which I think is enough time if groups can finish the actual pq in a reasonable amount of time/ will be doing it multiple runs in a row within a day/week.

 

- Completely remove Apples, or at least until APQ comes out. They are too strong anyway.
Terrible idea. They've been out for far too long and removing them now would be really unfair. They've been used to farm tons of HT books and sell zhelms. Apples were a part of GMS, so they should exist here. We already don't have FS and SCGs, so apples at least balance this discrepancy out some. If APQ is actually actively being worked on, then sure remove them until APQ comes out. But we would need to be given absolutely certainty that APQ will be released and within a reasonable time frame (not 6 months to a year or longer).

- Have a NPC that sells them at a set (but high) price. Availability could be a problem.
Please no. This gives apples a set price and removes them from the free market and fluctuation in price/availability. You could argue this would be a good meso sink, but this is too custom and strays way too far from GMS-like features. Having NPCs sell things like this is a slippery slope into having custom NPCs sell things like the high rate private servers. This is a bad solution.

- Make them drop from Gachapon in tiny stacks.
This solution contradicts that the current system is vote2win and that it needs to be changed.

- Make them a drop from GPQ Bonus (Would require the crash during the transition to Bonus to be fixed)
This is a good suggestion and a temporary way to obtain apples until APQ is functional. But I don't want this to be a way to implement apples into a PQ and then just forget about APQ entirely. This is a good suggestion ONLY if APQ is definitely going to be implemented. A possible issue with this is that GPQ doesn't have a limit on how often you can do it (afaik, I never did it because it was pointless), whereas APQ does. So this is something that needs to be considered.

- Have them available for some sort of exchange (Such as Pieces of Time?) or something that would require effort/farming
This sounds like a good solution, but again I would prefer to see APQ added instead of all these alternate solutions to adding apples into the game.

And also this:

 

Gang But then how would you GPQ with retired Demurians

nubjulez non-gms doesn't imply non-v62

 

How is this comment even relevant? I was asking why they would prioritize more maps that might/might not be used (places like shanghai, floating market and ximending arent that useful) over apq.
I got my answer, they dont have someone able to code it. But i do know how fast poof is able to learn, and i admire it. I dont have a doubt that if she had the time (which unfortunately i think this is more a problem than skills) shed be able to work on it and develop it the way she did with Boss party Quest, neo tokyo and ninja castle

 

Raise the level needed to marry

 

Adding APQ is best option, other solutions are not really that great, maybe GPQ could be okay if the dc issue was fixed and the drop rate was well balanced.

 

SwordArt what exactly are you disagreeing with? Genuinely curious

 

While placing them in gpq is viable, I'd much rather this be a temporary solution- thematically speaking, apples seriously dont belong to GPQ. Minor complaint I know, but its seriously weird to find rainbow fruits in a sharenian ruins

 

Has the staff already decided the current system will 100% be replaced and want ideas/input about what the new system should be? If yes, what is the staff's idea of a new, more balanced system? Piety gave examples of what people have suggested, but what does the collective staff think is the best method of obtaining apples? The original five options posted seem to be the only ways to replace it (assuming APQ is off the table completely).

The only other thing I can think of is custom, repeatable quests that actually require you to play that reward apples. Something like "Kill one of every major boss in the game, and X amount of these different mobs to obtain X amount of apples." that could be repeated weekly. Of course this screws over low leveled players, though. So maybe you could have multiple custom quests based on your level. Low levels could kill lower level area bosses and low level mobs. You still get a weekly apple allowance, but now you have to actually play instead of voting.

 

Personally if a custom NPC was put into the game for a quest like this, I say don't worry about low level players. Apples are a great aid for high level content like HT and I think should be a reward for high level content if a quest was added. Also putting such a demand on the quest would make Muling the quest not an issue. That is my only concern with it. So keep it high level and I think it should be a weekly quest. This would do a lot of things for the economy where I think we'd see a decrease on apple based prices in FM, but see an increase in price for player sold boss runs to help meet quest requirements. I like the suggestion Ghost. <3

Another person stated an increase in price for divorce. THAT'S THE MESO SINK YOU WANT! Putting an NPC in the game to sell Apples is not the way to go, and I think controlling divorce prices controls the current marriage mule problem a little better. I would look more into that.

 

But then that also screws over actual married couples that wants to divorce- increasing fees would help, but you also need to remember that profit margin with apples is always gonna be greater than the divorce fee itself. Unless fees get drastically increased so that margin is very slim, I do not see any point of this.

If staffs really want to reduce the supply of apples accumulated by marriage mules, I would say extending the remarriage time to more than a week would be a better solution.
(not that I am in favor of this option either)

 

nerf apple stats

 

First off i'd like to say this is taken from my experience from various servers with a similar problem regarding onyx apples

• Apples OP?

Apples in themselves are OP, there's no question about that.
It makes nightlords ridiculously OP (15 minute total buff time) by doubling their damage.
This is an absurd amount, so yes apples in themselves are broken.
HOWEVER.
I do believe feel as if it is indeed part of a GMS like feel, and I myself would like to seem them stay within the game (but would like to see some difficulty in obtaining them).

• Marry2Win?

Marrying for apples is indeed vote2win, and though some of you may say that the the (money gained/time) is not efficient think of it like this .
It takes you 30 minutes to farm everything you need to complete the quest and in which you can finish getting married and receiving apples within the next 10 minutes.
You would gain 48m (4m/apple) - 6m (1m crafting + 5m divorce) = 42m/40 minutes.
In which time you could freely play the game to gain more money, OR you could just go on your merry way and do something else.
So unlike leeching, farming etc. It takes 0 effort at all to gain 42m (84m every 8 days if you marry 4 accounts).
This is why the staff is looking for different ways to implement apples, we want players to be rewarded for their efforts not mindlessly vote for money.

• APQ?

While everyone is saying APQ is indeed the right answer, I believe APQ in itself much more OP than the marrying system currently.
It takes you 20k NX to marry (cheapest way possible), and after that you essentially can farm apples with 0 cost.
In GMS you could go twice every 24 hours, and your apple gain could be 0-5 every run.
Players could easily just farm accounts to level 50 (Not hard at all for dedicated players), and farm apples all day.
The apple gained from spending 20k NX is infinite, even by averaging 2 apples/account you could easily gain 14 apples/week on 1 account (Very likely).
Though I would love to see this option as the answer, even if we managed to find someone to code APQ it would have to be tweaked in a way that would not yield the same problems.

• NPC?

I agree with Ghost.

Theres prob a little more I can talk about, but I'm sleepy atm.

Players have to understand that just because we are "staff" that mistakes can still happen.
I'd like to thank all the players here who have given their actual thought and ideas moving forward.

 

Apple's definitely made the game easier and the way they're obtained is very effortless. I believe that they should be removed and introduced back again when APQ is ready. I can't really say anything more cause Gang said it very well here:

and I'm just writing my opinion on why they should be removed and that is because I believe they're very op and it would make bosses "harder" and would require more resources.

Or lower the total amount gained from wedding to "2 per spouse" to make the NX cost not worth the apple farm but rather have weddings for it's purpose and that is not apple farming.

I don't mind if it was in GPQ bonus or as a meso sink but I'd rather have them removed until APQ is here.

 

I like the idea of implementing them into hunting gachapon ticket possibility. A set of of 1-3 perhaps, as a chance?
I never even held an Apple in MapleLegends, as I think its an endgame boost to take down horntail or The Boss or whatever. Some may use one just for fun.
But paying 26k~ nx for a wedding just for apples is just meh.
There should be another option to get them, so maybe a hunting gachapon ticket chance would be nice

 

(relevant meme)
I agree with you for the most part, but removing apples entirely does not seem like the best way to address the issue. Ever since its introduction, apples have served in saving countless number of hours at HT and other bosses as well for a price. Using apples for the most part is completely optional just as other boosters like heartstoppers, and I believe people are already spending a hefty price to shave off minutes from boss runs. Removing so entirely would not only hurt the current apple holders that have already purchased one, but also increase in SB price since HT runs will likely become much longer and more prone for attackers to die.

However, I do agree with some of solutions that you presented like drastically reducing the amount of apples gained per marriage and introducing them to GPQ instead. This way, it gives less incentives for people to spend their nx on apple farming and introduces some sort of skill to maintain the current supply of apples.

And once APQ is introduced, we can simply transfer over the drop from GPQ.

 

I’m fairly new here, so sorry if this has been tried before or isn’t possible. What if all bosses (even low level ones like Mushmom and such) had a small chance at dropping apples? The chance can go up depending on boss level if that makes more sense. But I think that would add extra incentive to do some of those low level bosses.

I like that you guys discuss changes before implementing anything btw