Accepted & Implemented Reduce CWK Signs to One Per Job

peoples always bring mules the same way, i think don't change anything if reduce

 

I do know one of the goals for my 12 chars in my final push to 120 will be getting my MoNs. If I can't find sellers because of this, I will definitely let you - and everyone else - know. =o)

 

It is 110 to wear MoN

 

I’m going to be an asshole and say I actually think the 2x class sign is kinda cool because it’s a relic of old, and being able to clear a cwkpq with a 3 man squad shouldn’t change the fact that the original design of the pq was intended for a larger group. In essence, this would be like asking for any expedition like Zakum to have no 6 man sign minimum in order to start the expedition.

I understand all of the logic behind why there shouldn’t be a strict requirement, but I find asking within your buddy or alliance chat, or through smega for signs to be an endearing quality.

Its more or less reminiscent for me to how it was in the past asking in chat for anybody who wanted free coins for NT. It brought people together in a weirdly unintentional way.

 

Just remind me, how does the signing for the cwk works again.
Does it count as a run if you dont go in, and can you help to sign after you completed your daily 2 run?

 

It does not count as a run if you don't go in. You cannot help to sign after completing 2 runs until the following reset.

 

Bump. Another take on this idea that has not been mentioned yet: one of the best in slot pieces of HP equipment is locked behind CWKPQ. Not that we seriously consider ourselves an HP washing optional server but, for those of us with characters where every bit of HP really counts, acquiring the Blackfist Cloak is made all the more difficult by requiring 12 signs for CWKPQ. I know its not an easy item to obtain *even with* regular PQing but it seems like unobtainium right now, given how infrequently CWK is run and how hard it is to organize.

Also, in response to ovv - Kimmy just stated in her recent thread that nostalgia does not take precedent over quality of life. Has anyone raised real balancing issues that implementing this change could cause in this thread? I don't think so - it's an off-meta activity anyways which is already muled by players that have invested the time to create those mules. I don't see why we should force all players to create multiple mules just to be able to enjoy CWKPQ. Shouldn't mid-game content be available to mid-game players? Would love to see staff engage on this idea meaningfully - in my mind the proposed idea is a simple change that opens up semi-dead content to newer players on the server.

 

if this ever does get changed or implemented. should also make it so you have to have the prequest done to sign up. same thing should happen to ravana instead of just getting smuggled in.
If you have to have the prequest to enter zakum and also HAVE to have the badge for HT. Should be consistant and do it for CWKPQ as well.

 

At this rate, I am not sure it is the signs or just the plain lack of coin pouch drop causing cwk to be neglected.
It has indeed gone the way with the rest of PQs I guess....

 

Although I agree 100% with this, if this were implemented, it would basically ensure I never do CWKPQ again in its current reward state.

 

Make cwkpq drop pouches

 

I think there's more people that are interested in enjoying CWK than you might otherwise expect. As an example, a couple hours after reset yesterday I tried to organize an impromptu 5 or 6 man CWK. After just one smega, I had all 5 signs and a solid team, as well as a buyer for MoN. Ultimately, I failed to organize the PQ because I couldn't find the last signs I needed. Granted I may have just gotten "lucky" with my responses, but its clear that there are still players that would like to participate in CWK, even with its current reward structure. How many times have you asked a buddy in game "Hey, want to CWK?" and the response you get is "Good luck organizing it *kek*". Most people know that you can't reliably get a team together for this PQ, so they won't bother agreeing to do it.

Most players agree that having more rewarding content is a good thing, and I agree that adding pouches to CWK is a good change because it would make CWK relevant content again. On the other hand, if I was forced to pick between adding pouches to CWK or reducing required signs for CWK, I'd pick the latter. The latter change is more beneficial to mid-gamers and those looking for more social play, while the former change would reward players that already have their CWK mules and probably lead to smaller less-inclusive CWK teams. Shouldn't party quests encourage social play? In any case I'm in favor of both changes, either of them would make it easier to find players that are interested in running CWK.

 

The way to improve participation in PQs is to incentivize them. The pouches will do the trick just fine. Quality teams requires a larger player-base, which this server does not currently have - therefore, sign mules will remain a thing - or someone who knows how to organize a fast CWK. I've been on a few of them and every single one of them does NOT know how to handle the boss stage in a fast manner, nor do they know the process to ensure MoN buyers get their MoN, but my sample size is very low, so I'm safe to guess that there are groups that actually know what they're doing. In any case, MoN purchases should be enough to bring people to WANT to PQ, but the Pouches should be dropping from them because that just seems fair with the fact that Papulatus and Latanica have a chance to drop them. My guess is that the CWKPQ coding is so brittle that trying to add pouches to it is so tricky that it's going to take more time to figure it out. If that's true, reducing the number of signs is just as tricky to do.

 

Even if they added pouches to CWKPQ (perhaps as a boss drop instead of bonus stage?) I probably wouldn't add it to my rotation of dailies. We're now at a point in the server where we have too much content to do but limited time, so we are more choosey with how we spend it.

Multi-mage farming is just too good in all aspects and will continue to take over the server if left alone. An hour spent doing content that is not multi-mage farming is mesos lost on opportunity cost. And more and more players are adopting this mentality of optimal time expenditure, which is why you're probably having trouble finding signs.

In the 50 or so times I've run CWKPQ, not once was a run cancelled due to a lack of signs. This is mostly due to the fact I run with more established players. I'd hazard a guess that a random 5-man group of people responding to a CWKPQ smega is mostly full of people who have never really experienced it before or who are fairly new to this server. IMO, this is where I'm more partial to forcing players to utilize the social aspects of this game through guilds, alliances, buddy lists - and even Discord. Sure, one could smega for a random group, but isn't it much more satisfying to run with people you already have established connections with? There are tons of discord servers out there that have bossing/recruiting channels, and CWKPQ counts towards that.

Hell, the last few times I've run CWKPQ were entirely for charity because a guildie needed help. The rewards were never the incentive.

 

All boss should be the number of sign reduced..
need 6 peoples to zak, 3 to jc, 3 to scarga, 2 each for cwk, 2 ravana, it only make peoples create more mules

 

Hmm I’d argue that if you’re in favor of people making connections in the game, then you should support a lower barrier for entry at CWK. Riffing off my example from yesterday, I might have met new people in game and made new connections if we’d been able to do the content together, but we couldn’t because of what seems to be an arbitrary rule. I try to run Zakum daily and generally organize impromptu runs. I’ve made plenty of friends through Zakum that I’ve spent hours in game with, but I’ve made exactly 0 friends through CWK because it’s got such a high barrier for entry and I haven’t been able to spend much time doing it. I guess my point is that I see no reason why a rag-tag group shouldn’t be given the opportunity to enjoy CWK. It’s perfectly feasible to clear it with 5 people you just met, and who knows, you might BL some of those people. Compare that to something like HT or PB and yes - it definitely makes sense to go to discord servers and spreadsheets. The logistics of organizing a run like that can be sufficiently complicated that you can’t expect to organize it through a smega in game. But does that have to be the case with CWK? I’d argue no.

 

CWK isn't the best content to run with randoms, tbh. It requires a good deal of coordination as far as splitting of tasks/muling goes. If a single person dies or dcs in a certain part, the entire run can get griefed, so it's a bit different than running bossing content like Zak or Krexel. CWKPQ was originally designed for 2 parties of lvl 140-150, but in MapleLegends, the higher-leveled player base optimized the compositions in order to maximize on reward benefits. The normalization of 4-man runs only happened after the novelty of the 'new' content had worn off in the server and when people realized sharing bonus boxes wasn't all that great.

Not to mention, almost everyone already uses the Discord bot to decide CWK bonus stage split. Trying to explain that to first time runners without Discord would be a nightmare.

 

Sure, I acknowledge that CWK isn’t as simple as running a boss but the logistics of successfully clearing/looting CWK seem a bit aside from the point here. I simply want to see the content available to a wider group of players. As it stands it’s generally only run by 4-6 players that all happen to have plenty of mules, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be available to 4-6 players that happen to not have so many mules. I don’t think a reasonable response is to say “well if you don’t have mules you need to 8+ man CWK” because as we’re all aware it’s only really “worth” everyone’s time when the party has fewer people.

As an aside, I’ve got no problem with putting in extra legwork to organize things, or extra legwork to create mules for the utility they provide. It’s just that in the case of CWK, it seems particularly arbitrary to demand 2 of each class sign up when it can be cleared just as well with only 1 of each class. To put it simply, CWK need not be mule PQ.

 

Just reiterating a past point I made. I do not care whether or not this gets implemented because it won't affect me at all - I don't run CWK because I think it's a waste of time, just like any other PQ out there.

However, I will say that making tons of changes to 'improve' QoL will diminish some parts of this game that I consider endearing (re: NT coin mule fiesta that does not exist anymore). Asking guildies/buddies for sign help will be gone, and that's a micro-social convention that exists in this format of the game that would be removed if this suggestion was implemented. Like I said, I only go to CWK to help people out with extra signs. With this change, I don't know if I'd ever step foot in CWK again, which is sad because it just further homogenizes my Maple experience.

 

Just a point, incentive rewards don't work long term, especially when you take something away to balance out with the rest of the content. It's been proven in studies that if you reward people for doing fun/interesting/challenging things, and then take that reward away, then they don't feel that it's worth doing anymore, even though they would have originally been just fine doing it without a reward to begin with.

The incentives to run CWK pq should be/are, in order:

1. You think it's fun
2. You need a MoN or other items
3. You can get profit off selling a MoN or other items

If we start adding pouches to the mix then people stop judging whether the pq is fun and start basing things off how efficient it is to run it to get pouches. On the other side, if a pouch 2 drop gets a balance patch nerf to pouch 1 because people are gaining them too fast, then suddenly the incentive isn't worth it.

I think it's just as important not to over-reward.