Leech Mechanic Discussion

I would like to see ML stepping away from leeching meta and would very much welcome ppl getting together to train in a party, chatting, socialize.

It is not about how can i zoom from.1-200 very fast. The journy is the thing i am looking for.

Just my 2cents and i am a filthy casual.

Peace

 

To be clear, I look at it as a very oldschool MMO junkie.

I was an EverQuest, Ms beta, WoW launch, PSO, FF11, you name it I deep dove into it kinda chick.

I hate the leech meta. It sucks the life out of the game for me to be absolutely unable to find people to play the game with outside of smegas to PQ which just dries up after 100, then no one really wants to group up after that stage.

For me MMOs are entirely about the adventure and experience are something many lose in the race for experience, and while that may be something you're fine with to say that it does not impact those who yearn for said classic MMO experience which foundationally created the private server communities themselves seems rather selfish and short sighted, imo.

Yes leech has always been a part of the game, but in its current state it's far less what it was even back in the GMS days where usually I'd see people who were simply too weak for an area chatting with friends and guildees and being a piece of the game.

Maybe it's yearning for a bygone era that cannot be returned to, or simply the generation on the game and servers left me and my behind. But I still believe there is absolutely room for more of a middle ground and what we currently have is antithetical to the core tentants of both MMOs and what created the PS communities as a whole.


Little rambly but it's 11pm and I just got off work with a migraine sorry.

Tl;Dr I do not play MMOs, private or retail to ignore the game and focus on profit or efficacy over adventure and social.

 

I think the leech meta is fine the way it is. You're exchanging your own (current) assets for the service of others, these also don't come cheap, and to top it all of, it isn't particularly quick other than when you just hit the threshold level for a new leech.

I don't think removing this meta is going to make people socialize more, it might honestly drive some people away. Why? Because nowadays you see a bunch of people in the fm afk, and so little of them are chatting. Plus some people just don't want to chat extensively (just small chit-chat here and there), some just want to focus and do what they want to do, if you want to chat, that's what guild/alliance are for, not to mention we also have a discord server.

Honestly, as mentioned before, i think the social aspects (in-game) in the maplestory we knew back in the days is probably dead.

All in all, i think the implementation of party-play maps like LHC or HoH (doesn't have to be these maps ofc) is the way to go, because grinding to about 70 was okay, it was do-able, then out of nowhere, the mobs start to hyperscale, and they become exponentially hard to kill, for instance, Slimy (GS2 mob) has 5800hp at level 63, while Mr. Anchor (GS6 lvl 68) has almost 2x the hp of Slimy being only 5 levels ahead, and it only gives 25 more exp than Slimy (that's a measly 10% increase).

The reason why leech becomes the prevelant meta after these level stages should be evident. Windraiders have roughly 2.6x the HP of Slimy, but they give 3.2x more exp. CDs have about 1.4x (7.9 to 8.5k) the HP of Slimy on average, and gives about 3x the exp of Slimy. And then you can keep comparing the previous leeching spots to the succeeding one. (Wr will then be compared to WS, WS to Viks, so on and so forth) With the only exception being WS that does not have a favourablr ratio, but this works out due to mob density in the WS map, which is also a factor that can be considered.

Not only that, I think all endgame grinding spots out perform endgame leeching spots. From what I heard, 7f gives about 50-70m eph, while endgame leeching spots only give 20-30m eph. And i think this is because of how 4th job scales later on.

So building off this idea, we need mobs that scale well with third job, since grinding during 3rd job is a pain in the ass since mobs are so ridiculously strong compared to 3rd job skills.

Nerfing the leech rates however is an idea to discourage leeching, but I can then see more inflation happening since peoople wouldn't care but would buy leech for their characters anyways, and seeing as now leeching will take longer to level a character, leech prices would then increase, causing some sort of domino effect. Not only that, with the recent nerfs we've been receiving, why not buff party play instead? This seems to be the crux of this discussion anyways.

General tendency: if there would be an implementation of party-play maps, i don't think leech rates should be affected, because the choice should be yours whether you want to grind or leech, instead of being discouraged to do one thing over to the other.

TLDR:
1) Talk to your guildies or go on discord if you want to socialize
2) Third job skills are pretty weak to grind with from mid to late 3rd job compared to 2nd and 4th job skills with their respective training arenas.
3) Buffing active party play instead of adding something else to the list of nerfs.
4) It should be your choice if you want to grind or leech.


EDIT: If you're so dead set on grinding, you could join the Osslock thing or make your own challenge where you don't leech, but don't have the restrictions Osslock players do.

 

hey leech is legitimate, interactive party play!!

 

all that 3rd job grind to make turning 120 feel accomplished. its delayed gratification.

 

I think leech is fine. As some have mentioned on this thread, there's a great period for leech between 67-125; even if it were spotty leech it would still be beneficial. Yes, some players go to the extreme with multi clients and leeching multiple characters at a time, maybe we could discuss a limit on how many leechers can be in a pt. Regardless, leeching should stay in legends, but with some minor tweaks could balance it out some. After all, the premise of this server is to bring the nostalgic aspect of maple as we once remember it being years ago, just better .

 

What are the views on this:

Maintain the existing leeching mechanics and consider the introduction of a new quest exclusively available for characters between level 70 and 120. While the quest is active, monsters have a chance to drop exp tickets. These tickets would offer immediate exp point rewards upon looting, and only be visible to the player who actively engaged in combat with the monsters and had dealt the most damage.

To promote party gameplay, a portion of the exp gained from these tickets could be shared among active party members. The specific amount of exp gained would be based on the defeated monsters’ exp. This adjustment aims to slightly smooth out the leveling curve, potentially reducing the required exp from level 70 to 120 through active grinding by approximately 5% to 30%, influenced by the number of active party members participating.

This approach is designed to maintain the integrity of the existing formulas and provide flexibility for adjustments.

 

Man i fucking hate leeching.

 

just because i hate it dosent mean i dont practice the sin
good use of your time btw

 

The sheer split nature of the community is what makes me feel the way I do about it.

It's clear there's a not-insignificant portion of the community who feel their experience diminished by the prevelance, superiority or precieved that there of leeching.

I think it at the very least highlights a need for the community to take steps at working towards a different mindset to better meet each other in the middle than what I see many see as either extremely "elitist" (I don't fully agree with this, a bit too meta focused maybe but not elitist) and a bit too "casual".

All in all I truly believe it to be something that isn't going to change with balance but with work from within the community itself to better work to bridge the, imo perceived gaps in the midcore and hardcore playerbase. There's too much dismissal of each other's playstyles from people who are just focused on hitting end game bossing on their characters and from those who enjoy the leveling experience with friends and can't really get that right now.

 

Leech isn't free, everyone has to pay their grinding dues in one way or another

Imo the root issue is that alternative options for leveling are really mediocre. It's usually faster to grind for money, then spend a portion of those funds on leech than directly leveling

The joy of nostalgia doesn't trump my need to chase the carrot on the stick more efficiently

 

I do think I'm overexplaining and being too wordy but, I think?

My point makes sense.

I think it's a community issue not an ACTUAL numbers issue.

But see, I don't disagree, ok this is what I'm saying.

We cannot DISMISS that there are people who aren't trying to play in this way. Look how split the community consistently is on this and tell me there isn't *something* wrong.

Simply dismissing the issue as "well it doesn't stop ME" is what I'm saying is muddying the argument too much. I think this is far more of an issue that needs to be a headspace from both efficiency "hardcore" and community "midcore" focused players. Not "nostalgia" driven that's not the term I am using you don't need to be nostalgic to want to focus on the social and adventure aspects of an MMO.

 

There's nothing stopping all you anti-leechers from joining parties and grinding amongst yourselves. The problem is no one wants to do that so you have to force everyone else to do it.

 

You've entirely skipped what I said.

Again and proved what I reiterated multiple times.

This is far more than a systemic issue about leech and down to an issue with a split community of two gameplay styles who immediately dismissed the others concerns with "well just x" "just y".

But circular talks are pointless since the last 3 replies clearly aren't even reading what my appeal to community unity said so ig I'll dip and let this continue being a worthless circle.

 

rather than nerfing leech why don't we instead buff grinding? Its somewhat ironic because I sold you leech today lol

 

I would definitely argue that leveling each char 1 at a time would yield you far more gach overall

 

"Balance" is arguable. Very few of the people who buy leech from me are newer-to-ML characters. I'd estimate around 80% of the people I leech already have a somewhat established character that they use to fund the characters. Speaking to/dealing with the "20%" of people that do buy I'd say it's mainly the cost factor that is the issue. I don't think a nerf is the right approach, being the person first hand who does the work during the leech it may seem quick/easy to the people buying, but having self-leeched some of my own characters its very, very slow. If those 5 players were grinding together in a party they'd FAR outlevel my leeching abilities of them. When my now-BM was at cd's I spent all of my money back into the gear, and was fairly strong for my level. I remember averaging around 10-12m exp/hr with 2-3 attackers+priest. No matter what people will find a way to further optimize leeching whether with multi-mage leeching and the sweat's will further benefit, while casual leechers (1-2 times/week max) will take a huge hit financially.

I think rather than nerfing leech, leave it an option for the casuals (lol me, work too much+kids, rarely get time to play) instead give grinding, active players some sort of buff whether it be through exp, or drops, etc to further encourage party-play.

 

You are comparing the work of one person selling leech to 5 people actively playing, that doesn't seem very fair does it? Compare 5 people leeching to 5 people actively playing for the same amount of hours and you'll see how little value actively grinding has at certain points of the game (leeching wins out pretty much always).