Balance Changes/Vent

Hey so I thought I'd make this threat to vent about the balance changes I would like to see in ML. Most of these aren't major, and I think ML has been doing a good job of moving towards good balance overall. I play BM and bishop so I will go in depth on these. Feel free to join me and vent with your own ideas, or give your 5 cents on what you think of the ideas of others.

Bowmasters: Nerf concentrate's att buff to 15-20 but make it stack with other att buffs
Explanation: This in my opinion is the most realistic balance change as its easy to implement and doesn't have wide reaching implications on the class or ML as a whole. Concentrates cooldown when maxed is 3 mins (from the point the buff goes way), but its realistically used (ignoring use for just the MP % reduction) every 5-15 mins depending on if your using Ciders, Apples, or Coke pills. This makes it significantly less valuable as a skill as its not useful in every situation and may overwrite a weaker (but longer lasting) att buff that will then have to be used again in 3 mins when the skill ends. Imo attack buffs without 100% uptime should stack with other sources of attack, and the only other non 100% uptime att buff that I'm aware of is Bucc's "Energy Charge" which does in fact stack (there are other factors in this where energy charge can take effect without you intentionally casting it, but I believe this principal should apply to any non-100% uptime attack buff anyways).



Bishop (4rth job mages in general): Nerf ultimate drops and exp significantly
Explanation: I put this last because this has been said a million times and I didn't want to bore everyone right away. First off, let me acknowledge that this isn't a new idea and has been a hotly debated topic for a while, i don't expect this to be changed hence why vent thread, but thought I'd bring it up anyways. Its a controversial issue and I assume a lot of people will disagree on this take. I'm coming at this from the perspective of a bishop, and one who's main source of steady income is selling leech. Idr who but a game developer once said "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of any game". I believe (and i think most would agree) leech and ult farming (especially quad maging ect) is bad for the community.
It makes the leveling experience for many somewhat funded players simply pay money and afk, removes inter-player interactivity from a game by removing traffic from PQ's and other sources of group content, removes the feeling of achievement from the leveling process (ie. intrinstic motivation), also its objectively boring for both the leecher and the leechee and is feels like more of a job than a game(obviously this is subjective and there are people who feel differently/enjoy it, but there is enough of a general consensus on this that I feel comfortable putting it here).
The reason I'm bringing this up again now is because the best time to implement this change if at all will be coming off the momentum following the final implementation of the HP challenge series. HP washing to experience end game content necessitates leech (won't go in depth here as this is well known and is its own can of worms) which will be solved with the HP challenge implementation. And the longer we wait after its implementation, the less momentum will be left to affect an issue that has been ingrained in the ML experience (and will therefore get a lot of backlash as some mindsets will be "its always been this way so don't change it now"). Furthermore, the recent buffs to drop rates for non 4rth job mage skills will keep mages viable (not the best, just viable) for attaining drops without ult spamming. It will also help with the inflation problem of the maple economy.

I have some thoughts about Marksman and 4rth job mages (non-bishops) as well as they are very similar to the classes I play but won't mention them here for the time being.

 

I wasn't aware that energy charge didn't stack, that's my bad and a fair counterpoint. As a personal side note, I would love it if all attack buffs (including the hero party buff) were stackable but significantly nerfed in terms of the attack they provide.

I was expecting some disagreement on the Ult nerfs. This may just be an issue of what kind of experience we are looking for from ML in the first place. I don't expect my elaboration on this to change the mind of anyone who posted above but I'll give it a shot anyways. Mages are still by far the best mob farming class in the game even with the current nerfs to Ultimate drop rate (taking into context the recent nerf to DK's ult as well otherwise they would be the best). I personally believe that classes should offer a significant variety in gameplay and priority but NOT something like in game profit. I don't think there should be a "money making" class in the game which is effectively what they are at this point. The changes I'm suggesting would not change the identity of the class from a gameplay perspective. Ult's will not, and should not, become weaker or get a cooldown (like what OG maple did). But they should not be the absolute go to for income. Bishops will still be needed in literally all group content, not just HT. I completely agree that if this change were to go through, non-bishop mages would need buffs to compensate for it, I was initially planning to include my thoughts on this in the first post but decided against it. Some thoughts I had were a rework of magic amplification to not cost 7k mp per ult cast, a change to their party buff skill to have utility for non-mage classes, a change to their ultimate to buff their non-ult skills for a period of time (similar to the rework to assassinate). But of course there are many other ways to go about this as well.
If there are better ways to address leeching and overkill farming outside of affecting EXP/shared EXP/or drop rates then I'm not aware of them and would love for you to elaborate on what you believe them to be

 

"I'm not saying my ideas are any better, I just dislike your approach to the issues." Totally fair, and no worries, we don't have to agree, its nice getting different perspectives on something like this. At the very least we agree on one thing which is the negative impact of leeching. I have a lot of issues with your statement starting from some classes being "money sinking" or money saving/producing classes. I view NL's being expensive as a byproduct of them being a popular class, not them inherently being money sinking, in fact, prior to the recent nerfs to alchemist and prior increase to star recharge cost, NL's were one of the more efficient classes to maintain (meaning not focusing on improving gear, just doing content) and are still pretty average in that regard imo. But that's a tangent for another day.
"GMS is a prime example of what happens when you go overboard "balancing" classes and they all become essentially the same. You sound like you are suggesting changing their identity" I DON'T think I'm suggesting changing mages identity, in fact i explicitly said that I'm not and I feel like your misconstruing my point. I said, and I quote "The changes I'm suggesting would not change the identity of the class from a gameplay perspective. Ult's will not, and should not, become weaker or get a cooldown (like what OG maple did)." I even specifically used OG maple as an example of balancing done poorly. The only way this misunderstanding makes sense to me is if you view mages identity as "money/item farmers", because I view their identity as "mobbers", and previously explained that I don't think any class identity should be the former.
"I think an obvious one would be preventing multiclienting, adjusting/changing party exp sharing based off of level difference"
I'm all for preventing multiclienting but my understanding as to why it was allowed in the first place was to avoid giving an advantage to people using workarounds such as a second desktop or virtual machines to have multiple instances of maple (which was what happened in OG maple). Adjusting/changing party exp would def fall under "affecting shared EXP" that I mentioned in my last post, but its a reasonable change that would help with the leeching problem (aside from stuff like high level leeching). However it would do absolutely nothing to address the issue of mages being a "farming" and thereby "moneymaking" class. I actually completely agree that group content should receive a buff (not to the point of becoming meta or equal to meta because then it would just be abused in other ways, imo stuff like PQs should receive an increase in NX dropped, and maybe drop a 20att usable buff as an alternative to ciders but with a longer duration)

P.S. Idk how to do the cool fancy quotations, sorry for my ghetto workaround.

 

Just to address the other stuff real quick I guess, I'm not a new player although I am new to the forums. I'm definitely not a late endgame player either but I have a fair bit of experience with the classes I mentioned. My concentrates at level 1 and I thought the downtime of maxed was 3 mins, was too lazy to look it up because it kinda doesn't change my point unless it has full/nearly full uptime anyways.
This very quickly turned into a burn the witch kinda thread, I was hoping for more of a vent and let others vent their ideal balance changes kinda thread.
And yea I totally agree that Arch mages need a buff! I mentioned some stuff that came to mind in my last reply

 

Well its unfortunate the conversation devolved to this. Your ignoring all my arguments for the changes, equivocating mages only utility as being kill quest mules, and attacking my playstyle while knowing nothing about it aside from the fact that I sell leech.

 

What bold claims am I making exactly? In regards to incorrect info, I was quick to retract my statement about concentrate after being corrected about the stackability of energy charge. If there's a correction to some half cooked info about mage ult's you wana lay on me then feel free. I explicitly said I know my statement regarding ults is a controversial issue, and that many won't agree with it, I even said that its nice getting opposing views as they bring other perspectives to the table.