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Information Summer Event 2021 Balance Changes [Explained]

Discussion in 'Update Notes' started by Nise, Aug 30, 2021.

  1. OP
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    Nise
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    Nise Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    The inclusion of coins should shift around the drops a bit, but the things that are of notable desire like the major books and items should be unaffected based on how we handled it~
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • Informative Informative x 1
  2. Jaewonnie
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    Jaewonnie Capt. Latanica

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    https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/nightshadow-badge-drop-rate-lower.41558/
    If you look at this post, each item in a drop table has its own drop chance independent of the total pool.
     
  3. Alyosha
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    Alyosha Skelegon Retired Staff

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    Now that I'm writing my thesis statement I guess I should ask if HT head cancels were changed this patch?
     
    • Agree Agree x 5
  4. Alyosha
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    Alyosha Skelegon Retired Staff

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    It's hard to know where to start as an essay could be written on the various topics from class balance to economic issues. Personally, I think that the game is broken from the top down, as the clear lines of progression aren't in any particular order and the theory behind the game suffers because of this.

    PART 1: Content

    There's one important frame of reference to keep in mind for this part: A level 165 bishop with mediocre gear and a level 80 Meso Up mule can make 13-14mil per hour at Ulu 2 without selling leech, after pot costs. This is a method that is quite easy, only requiring the player to move back and forth and requires no real skill and very little attention.

    This isn't one of the crazy methods that folks have come up with, because comparing everything against that is a foregone conclusion. This is something that your average player is capable of achieving in a reasonable amount of time.

    One can also add in the value of exp towards an attacker in the total. With current prices for 5-6 leech you can roughly value exp at 4 for 1 meso, making the total value of an hour at Ulu 2 with the bishop setup + attacker leech at 17-18.5mil/hr.

    Now we need values for other content by which we wish to compare this to. We'll mainly be comparing it to the content people want to enjoy with their friends, and see if it makes any real sense with general game progression. Currently it's not possible to assess the value added to the buffed bosses so for now the only thing we can compare to is CWKPQ, HT, and PB, and I'll be looking at the values from Akash's data. The most recent data I can see is from 140 boxes in CWKPQ with an average box price at 1.277mil. With data simplified to box EV it's more simple to calculate across numbers of runners but there is still better exp rates and badges for cleave, but at the cost of more potions depending on classes used. Overall I'd roughly guess that cleave have a 1-2mil meso equivalent advantage over range per run, given 15mil exp for cleave and 10mil exp for ranged. Without boxes the average value is very roughly 2.5-3.75mil. Next the boxes per player are added to get a full assessment of value from CWKPQ. With 30 boxes up for grabs it puts the total value of all boxes at an average of 38.3mil mesos, which gets divided among the runners. In a 3man run with exceptionally strong runners, it puts your average gain at roughly 15-16mil, value from both boxes and exp, with the challenge of taking roughly 1 hour to organize, travel, and complete the PQ with your friends. With lower level players and assuming an 8-man run, you can only expect 4.8mil meso value from boxes, along with splitting exp and badges further, with higher organizational effort required. This puts an 8-man CWKPQ run valued at 6.3-7mil converted meso value for an hour of effort. It's rather inefficient content and only really able to compete with a rather basic bishop at Ulu 2 when the runners have significant investment in the game.

    The next boss to look at is Horntail, and Akash's data of 63 kills has an EV of 107.7mil, including the major books, and the average number of equips per run pegged at 5.16 and average equip valued at 2.047mil. Exp is another major source of value from HT, and depending on run composition it can be as low as 40mil in a 12man or around 80mil in a 6man. So in a 12man with exp valued at 10mil converted mesos, and 107.7mil split 12 ways, the average expected value of a run is 19mil in 90 minutes(I'll choose not to value the transformation prequest, but if I did the value would be very roughly 6-10mil/hr in profit and exp) so the hourly profit of running a 12man HT is 12.66mil/hr, but that's a figure that doesn't account for 500k-1.5mil taken off for potion costs depending on class. Things look a lot better for 6man runs, with a hefty 20mil value coming from exp taking up most of the value, and an average of 18mil splits per run. Given a total run time of 90 minutes, this puts the hourly value of a 6man HT at 25.33mil/hr, before accounting for potions. This makes a 6man HT the first content that is better than running a bishop at Ulu 2 with MU and leeching your attacker, but it comes with a much higher barrier of entry, and the stipulation that exp is still valuable for you, so if you are already level 200 then over half of the value of HT is lost.

    The final boss is the latest addition to MapleLegends, Pink Bean. With the highest barrier of entry among all content in the game, and some of the drops selling for ~2bil, you'd expect that the value of the boss would reflect that. But the numbers appear to paint a more mediocre picture, as 30man splits destroy value for both exp and mesos. Overall, the EV of PB taken from 77 runs is put at 1.31bil. There's a heavy cost associated with running as well, anywhere from 4 to 8 apples along with roughly 2mil in pot costs. So the cost to run is between 10 and 18mil, and the 1.31bil EV split 30 ways leaves runners with an average takeaway of 43.66mil. Additionally if you are still under 200 and running PB you can increase that number by 5-7.5mil from exp, but that's a case by case basis so I'll ignore it, but feel free to include it if you wish. So the total profit, from just drops - cost, puts a low tier PB at 25mil per run, and higher tier at 33mil, for 90 minute runs. Profit per hour from PB is therefore between 16.66 and 22mil per hour, with slightly more value if you desire the exp. It's a boss that is technically worse than HT, but it's the only access to things like mw30 and can be fun to do mass boss runs so it's worth it for other reasons.

    This is the state of bossing currently, and it's important to consider these numbers in reference to each other and the effort required between them all. I don't think it's possible to consider the game balanced when struggling in the most difficult boss in the game leads to a similar profit to dragging a low effort bishop back and forth across a map while you watch Netflix. Before this patch it'd be rather simple to write off the rest of the bosses, like NT, as simply worse than even the high head count CWKPQ. I'm still concerned that post buff, they'll still be in a much lower category than Ulu 2, but testing will be needed to establish that fact.

    But that's only a broad scope of content as a whole compared to a single class farming a map to their heart's content. Getting into the intricacies of play and there are more glaring issues to make play seem almost paradoxical. We're fortunate that people are motivated by their own personal goals because without them, the game becomes a nonsensical mess and trying to make heads or tails of anything becomes troubling. You could make a shiny new attacker but what motivation is there to progress when all progress loses out to playing a mage? What motivation exists to play a mage when any attacker you make is worse off than what you are currently doing? That is the paradox present while currently playing. The game, stripped away to its essential parts, ceases to exist without a commitment to inefficiencies, and the path to progress simply fizzles away without being properly motivated by inefficient mindsets.

    I don't consider efficiency to be an issue, but the paradoxical nature of efficiency and progress has become a fundamental part of MapleLegends and it's quickly become impossible to keep a purely logical sense of progression within the bounds of play. Looking past the nostalgia, the various classes and their distinctions, reducing content to simple numbers, I don't believe that it makes sense for a game to peak in efficiency with a single low effort level 165 bishop and a MU mule, or later on a level 180 bishop at Skelegons with slightly more effort involved, when there is content that takes significantly more effort, more money, more time, for what ends up being a similar reward.

    Part 1 end, part 2: Class intricacies will be posted later, but for now I sleep.
     
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  5. joota
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    joota Mr. Anchor Retired Staff

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    you should join balance team
     
    • Like Like x 8
    • Disagree Disagree x 4
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  6. Nightz
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    Nightz Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    This means there is 0 incentive to be farming up on those coins as all coins will be wiped before the system is in play.

    So I'm not too sure what is being tested then? Because droprates are numbers that should be readily available to staff.
     
    • Agree Agree x 7
  7. RagePot
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    RagePot Blue Snail

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    Ironically, very valuable arguments so far by you. I'm sure your own bias towards this change is not at all affected by your own WS or whatever stash possibly losing value. Your previous argument of "people not giving a shit and not giving valuable feedback considering coin drops" is false as low/mediocre geared players are actively doing bosses of the lower end of the spectrum regardless if they drop coins or not, so there will obviously be valuable feedback.

    Your benefit =/= server benefit. Having more of these "endgame" scrolls circulating and having them possibly drop atleast somewhat in price is only a good thing, as it will make the "endgame" actually reachable even if you don't play mage and are instead maining a bosser, therefore not turning people instantly off from the server for not playing mage to begin with. In such a casual game and a private server on top of that it should NEVER take years to achieve a single perfected item. The server has gone through alot of balance changes, playerbase growth and all kinds of changes overall that have affected the market throughout the years.

    The change is beneficial to everyone except a small clique of elitists, who have perfected their gear or are holding a ton of WS to manipulate their price. The change also makes the gap between attacker and mage income slightly smaller, as you are able to farm certain bosses daily. Definitely doesn't close the gap by any means, but it helps.

    That aside, I think all of these changes are great and will look forward to them.
     
    • Agree x 17
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  8. tunafish
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    tunafish Slime

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    dude, regardless of this change, people will still be hexamage farming. The coin system just proves an alternative to earning mesos and to promote more bossing, instead of mage farming. But ofcourse, i think not being able to do anything with the coins just yet is the same as having no system as of yet.

    EDIT: Forgot the quotes
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  9. lv1crook
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    lv1crook Capt. Latanica

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    This balance change post was a pretty underwhelming read, but rope speed, puppet fix and bucc patch are cool so I guess it’s okay.

    I would have been more satisfied if there were some more class or skill changes besides what we already knew was coming months ago. Especially since the coins are just going to be etc trash, it feels like there was little point to even reading this at all.

    I would have also liked it more if there were any changes made to earlier game progression. I’m making some new characters so it’s a little sad nothing will really change for them besides being able to climb ropes faster (which like I said earlier, it’s a little spoiled to complain since that IS pretty cool).

    Again, I don’t really understand this half-added ws coin system. Perhaps you’re siding with caution in case it performly differently than you expected, but if it’s going to garner any real player interest there should be at least some reward. Perhaps as a temporary measure you can allow the coins to be exchanged for 1/2 or 1/3 of the meso value of what they otherwise would be in relation to a white scroll. SOMETHING at the very least.

    In general, I would appreciate it if there was less of a fear of overtuning things. I do think the server is heading in the right direction every balance change, but always at a snails pace.
     
  10. Kimmy
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    Kimmy Administrator Staff Member Administrator Game Moderator

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    Unfortunately, that's how it sometimes has to be when you are dealing with a server on a 6 year old database with 6 years of progression on users. I've seen many, many servers come and go because they added balance changes too quickly, which caused the server to completely break. If not later in the server's lifecycle, it is at the beginning because they didn't anticipate end game users (Dream is slowly facing this issue already and they are now 4 months old...)

    I do agree it would be better for the server if things were faster, but it's just not that easy as it seems at times. At least some changes happen now compared to years ago, and at the end of the day, this server is an old school MapleStory server that was supposed to represent the old days. Of course, that is slowly moving away update after update, but I think we all (even I did) agreed that old Maplestory was... not so great at balance, or good in general when it comes to the gameplay itself.

    A lot of balance changes are much easier to do on fresh databases, which is why often servers appear that are 'MapleLegends / MapleRoyals killers' only for them to die anyway half a year later in because they added all those so-called 'wash/leech fixes' either poorly or without an end game in mind.
     
    • Agree x 8
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  11. joota
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    joota Mr. Anchor Retired Staff

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    If you wanna be technical about it, a very common calculation to evaluate these kinds of likert scales is NPS/NSAT which is more or less: % promoter - % detractor. Strongly support are promoters and neutral, slightly oppose, and strongly oppose are detractors.

    pseudo-NPS = 34.4% - 42.1% = -7.7%.

    You're welcome to make your own conclusions, but this to me is not a "yes, let's definitely do this" kinda conclusion.

    there's a reason why the "slightly support" is never considered 'positive'.
     
    • Informative Informative x 4
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  12. Snork
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    Snork Capt. Latanica

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    As far as I'm aware NPS/CSAT* is about customer loyalty and satisfaction derived from surveys and ratings... It's not something applied to all likert scale polls regardless of context.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  13. OP
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    Nise
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    Nise Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    I don't think the suggestion was ever described as a "yes, let's definitely do this". Hence the hesitancy & server wide test before a full implementation to see how the player base feels after seeing part of it implemented in the game.

    I was merely pointing out that the statement "the community kind of came to a conclusion that this coin idea was going to be bad" can't be justified. While I don't argue that the coin idea was concluded to be great or a godsend solution, from the numbers, I don't think it was received negatively.

    That said, I haven't heard of the NPS/NSAT before since I'm not from that industry, so I appreciate the insight ^^
     
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  14. joota
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    joota Mr. Anchor Retired Staff

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    youre right that it's not applicable everywhere, but I for one think this is a fitting place to apply NPS/NSAT*.
     
    • Disagree Disagree x 1
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  15. Jafel
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    Jafel Capt. Latanica

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    lmao thank you for common sense :) I was about to post this.

    People will always spin a narrative however it fits them. Some very vocal players are very good at making it seem like they're spitting facts, while completely disregarding any notion that they have a bias in it themselves.
     
    • Agree Agree x 4
  16. Nightz
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    Nightz Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    Maybe it's too much to ask but I kinda feel like the mesogears ring change feels very lackluster to me.
    This is mainly speaking as a mage (farming CWK exchange is already quite the effort for archmages due to elemental resistances) but I feel like 24 M.Att does not equal M.Att

    It does not even come close in any way and I thought usually potions like such would give more M.att to somewhat compensate for it.
     
  17. OP
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    Nise
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    Nise Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    Hmmm quick side note, but how does M.A potion scaling feel in general for mages?
     
  18. Jafel
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    Jafel Capt. Latanica

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    Ciders have no matt. Coke pills have 15 att and 15 matt. I don't actually think pots that offer both or are available commonly have much more.

    Yes, Guava has 30 matt (I think) compared to the 20 att. Energizer has 25 att and 30 matt. But I am not sure how big those differences actually are. Maybe we should see some calculations here what it would do for reasonably geared mages vs attackers?
     
  19. Lin
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    Lin Headless Horseman

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    I think they're analyzing human behavior as to what we would do once we get said coins.

    Do we advance, or do we destroy?
     
  20. Nightz
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    Nightz Supervisor Staff Member Supervisor Game Moderator

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    As bad as TMA scaling, but I don't think that's the issue here. Also possibly worth nothing that this is a 4 tma increase pot for arch mages since nothing stacks with meditation.

    Could probably calculate the exact scaling compared to other classes but I don't have the time right now
     
    • Agree Agree x 1

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