Some feedback in regards to the gacha revamp

you do realise that with the new update there is actually no supply for scrolls anymore. STOCK UP WHILE YOU STILL CAN

 

So a market slowdown is happening because of a sudden increase in price levels caused by a supply shock due to the diversification of gachapon that suddenly has people talking about a 'problem' that has been brewing since the beginning of the server.

The slowdown/increase in prices is also being exacerbated due to the inequality that has emerged from letting this problem go unsolved for so long that certain people were able to 'saddle' the horse that is the maplelegends economy.. some of it legitimate some of it not so much

So.. i'm seeing that what, as a populace, we're looking for here is..

1. for the new players that didn't start april-june or aren't maple beasts like mesowine to have a shot at obtaining at least average equipment in a decent amount of time
2. a way to obtain rare items/scrolls/30% attack scrolls for all levels of players without having 1 class (bishops OP farming) or 1 scroll becoming to common (claw 30/gun30/bow30 becoming to common, thus NL/Corsair/BM become OP) with the insane amount of mesos farmed in comparison to say, a lvl 50-70 player
3. a way to decrease the cray cray inequality gap that has been created by hard work (meso farming with a bishop) or effective market play over an extended period of time

The diversification of items the gacha revamp provided was a GREAT start imo, as it effectively helped introduce many different types of items into the server that weren't being gached for before because all everyone wanted to do was hit the chaos/pgc at shrine for a huge payday from one of the current meso oligarchs. Reminder: aside from the truth that most of these people worked hard and are deserving of becoming mesoligarchs, we could have and should have began using some sort of inequality combatting fiscal policy on the legends population much sooner, and it would have been much easier.. but I guess fear of over introducing to many powerful things is ok Kappa

My suggestions on what should be done:

1. First and foremost, we need to incentivize server growth rather than the opposite, which means either the constant flow of new players or the constant flow of new characters, hopefully more of the former. We need to make sure these players do not become discouraged/flat out refuse joining a server that is not new due to the current price level state of the market. To do this changes must be made to combat future inflation using meso sinks while also combatting current inequality through improved opportunity.

But how do we go about improving opportunity without giving the OP farming classes, a large % of the mesoligarch class, more power?

This is the toughest question to answer. Quests/Party quests that don't involve the mass genociding of maple story monsters (something we like to call 'farming') for completion is all that i've thought of so far.

Y'know how parties split up drop value from zak/pap/ht once they've sold the books/equips/scrolls/etc? Could also be done at king slime.. or alishar.. or whatevertheOPQbossnameis.. orPPQbossnameis all BUFFED slightly of course to not guarantee completion. Also, even smaller periodic rewards coming from their respective bonus stages? Aside from adding new content (+a quicker introduction of the bossing/party quest/teamwork mentality), this is the best way I can foresee right now to combat inequality and encourage new character creation/server growth. Alternatively/Co-actively, could introduce/change (and promote) un-farmable quests that include the chance to obtain a demand heavy item.

(Feel free to add more ideas to #1 as it is in my mind the number one problem to be solved at this time)

2. We need a way to combat future inflation and current price levels by giving the mesoligarchs something to spend their mesos on. Yes, #1 would definitely help, but because no meso sinks have been implemented thus far it will definitely not be enough. This makes this another tough question...

Ap resets might make it happen but that has already been all but ruled out.. Owls? Vip Rocks? Hell, a potion tax hike for bishops/arches?!?! Other items that not so much improve gameplay (as in nothing that would +att to much, that should be hunted for themselves or sold to by another player) but streamline it? For gods sakes give these people something somewhat worthwhile to spend their insane farming dough on!!@11!!1@!

ideas?

 

Ideas for maple sinks:

1. Gachapon tickets that are about 1.2/1.5/2 x more expensive than the average price of all the available rewards on the FM.
This would definitely help reduce the amount of mesos in the server. Additionally it will increase the supply of items on the server.

Less mesos -> lower prices.
Higher supply -> lower prices.

Tickets could be bought for and at specific gachapons and have different prices to represent the different rewards at Gachapons.

2. We could introduce higher taxes on FM sales?

- Part of these increased taxes could be that not only the seller pays taxes, but that the buyer pays taxes as well to create a fairer economy.

3. We could increase the prices of boat/train/crane/genie/ship rides?

- We could base these prices on the level of the character. That way it's still easy to travel as a new player.
That way a player either has to pay more to travel or has to spend more NX on teleport rocks and less on gachapon tickets.

4. We could consider selling freemarket related NX items for a lot of mesos. (like owls or something)

5. We could consider charging an entry fee for events (which would also mean increasing rewards for winning)

6. We could introduce some kind of guild membership fee. Based on your level and your rank you're expected to pay a certain amount to MapleLegends?

Economy ideas:

1. Introducing the 'Maker' skill in magatia will increase the trade in ores/crystals and will reduce the amount of useless equips sold.

It will also make grinding more attractive.

(tell me if this is a problem because it is technically a 0.73 feature)

 

EZ. Add cooldowns for Genesis, Blizzard, and Meteor. Who needs meso sinks when you can completely eliminate the only way to make mesos fast on the server? Mages get to keep their skill, but only use it for show and tell.

 

Yes cause a complex problem like this always has an easy 1 sided solution.

 

Can we stop with the ideas that punish leveling, like I said before they are stupid and discourage grinding.
Edit: Also adding cooldowns has been discussed and will most likely never happen.

 

Note: Obviously I'm not omnipotent so I won't be able to catch the flaws to my suggestions, but here's what I have to say:

A complex problem would never be resolved if you ignored every suggestion. The underlying issue is the gap in wealth between new and existing players. Newer players like me for example, will spend months to reach a level where we may be able to farm somewhat effectively while existing 4th jobs have a wide range of resources and skills already provided to them. In fact, I haven't been able to save more than 100k due to pot costs in the last two weeks of playing whereas I'm sure mages who already have their ultimate are making millions a day.

Increasing taxes and general meso sinks would also only make it more difficult to newer players to afford the bare minimum. Taxes in shops could easily be avoided by using arrows priced at 49,999 per item. Other items such as scrolls would be bought by the pros at the most opportune time as opposed to the middle and low classed players who are trying to just get decent gear for leveling. They would end up selling their bulk of demanded scrolls when the price spikes up and seldom buy scrolls for themselves to use on their equips. Imagine having to increase boat fares. Those who haven't reached fourth job yet still have to move back and forth through multiple towns just to train, do their job advancement quests, and travel to newer party quest areas. If that were the case, I would have quit long before reaching third job because I could barely afford to buy pots, let alone one piece of equipment.

Everyone acts as though if the staff were to implement changes that give the player a choice, that would solve the problem, but it won't. It's because we're not complete idiots when it comes to spending our mesos. If there's a more efficient way to invest our money, we will take advantage of that. When you make a general change, the only people who suffer from a shift in the economy are the poor unless specifically targeted to the more well-off players. Anyone who already passed the point where they can just build their meso count instead of spending it on basic necessities have many more choices to pick from.

Unless you give newer players a boost (which may also keep them from quitting within a day) and close the gap between the richest and the poorest players, any effects from meso sinks won't be very effective in terms of balance.

 

If you are having trouble with pot cost up to 3rd job then you are doing something wrong. I had no help when I started and after mid 20s I did not have trouble with pots. And for the record, no, my first char was not a mage, I just looted everything that dropped.

 

Unfortunately, most of the higher levels that play this server are adolescent or uninformed people who have no idea how to "guide" the economy. Most of the lower levels that you see have mains of some sort, and most of these guys aren't even willing to party for the sole fact they have their own buttbuddies, or they just like being a cunt like eucielle and her other chars.

Yeah, to be honest, i don't have a meso problem at all... But i merched when the prices weren't so jacked. But even with common sense, it's not THAT difficult to collect mesos. Exceptionally, the higher the level, the easier it is to make money. As long as the newer players have some common sense, they should be able to profit whilst training

 

Not ignoring at all. Just pointing out that saying something like this is 'ez' is freaking idiotic imo.

I have been playing for about 5/6 days now and Im upt to 11 million with a starter of 100k. You're doing something fundamentally wrong if you're not making money because of pots and it's not the game's fault.

I'm pretty sure that all my suggestions were aimed at the rich. I'm also not claiming to know it all and my suggestions definitely need work, but at least I've made sure that they target the rich. Also why are you buying pots? I have bought pots maybe twice in the last week. LMPQ gives tons of pots. LPQ gives tons of pots. KPQ gives tons of pots. Quests in general give tons of pots. PQs and Quests give equipment and stuff.

How does this work? I'm genuinly curious.

Yeah, that's how an economy works. We're not trying to close a wealth gap. We're trying to lower the general price level. No one is starving. People just want to be able to buy good stuff.

First of all:
Taxes on FM sales = not a choice.
Boat ride fares based on lvl = not a choice.
Gachapon Sales = 1 choice (to buy or not to buy)
Guild membership fee = not a choice.

Secondly: People are lazy in general. When you implement a change like this, the meso level will go down eventually, because people just want to do the easiest thing, not the cheapest.

Boohoo. People who come to this server know Maplestory and know what they're getting into. If they don't like the old style maplestory then they shouldn't have come.

Also again, we're not looking for balance in wealth. We're looking for a decrease in prices.

I'm a bit sorry for being so harsh, but it seemed like you didn't read my post at all, which kinda ticked me off.

 

Why are they stupid?

Also, if you are discouraged to lvl because you might have to pay a little bit more money on boat fares then you don't want it bad enough imo.

 

No, sorry bro, this aint the "underlying problem". It's basic law in any RPG based around getting stronger: the higher level you become, the more your stats increase, the more powerful skills you acquire. That simply means you beat up stronger monsters easier, and stronger monsters drop more valuable loot. Players that have put in effort for longer deserve to be at an economic advantage compared to new players.

Spoonfeeding all the new players makes the game boring. With all the quests available to low-level characters, they already have more than enough to get them started. But time after time someone who managed to completely miss all the signs and opportunities comes to the free market to beg or even here, to the forums, to complain how they just aren't making it. River is right: you are doing something horribly wrong. I advise you to stop.

The underlying problem is the inflation, and we need meso sinks to fix that. You said it yourself. 4th jobs (especially mages) can make millions of mesos a day. Now imagine all the higher level players doing this. Before long we have billions and billions of mesos floating around the server. They may be changing hands and a few are trickling out of existence via tax and potion costs, but it's more like the Niagara Falls being plugged up by one of those retarded children's toys that's like a sieve but with only 1 or 2 small holes.

With so much excess mesos on their hands, it's no surprise someone who's been playing 5-6 months can outbid someone who's only been playing 1 month. Giving new players retarded amounts of charity and welfare isn't the way to go. That's like the Neckson route, and it'll probably only encourage people to keep remaking new chars just to gain more free goodies.

 

If it wasn't obvious already, the tone of my first post was sarcastic.

Anyways, to keep it short, I'll explain briefly what I meant earlier. I agree with the ideology that Nikki described. I can see making every meso sink level based being an effective strategy, except it probably won't make much of an impact. The suggestion to hand out goodies to new players also wasn't meant to be extremified to the point where existing players would want to constantly create new characters. Increase in scroll prominence would be great if it weren't for the fact that they still hold value most of the time.

In any case, adding/editing game dynamics would come with their own consequences and honestly wouldn't hurt people further in the game as much as the beginners. Let's just see what else we can think of.

Btw, how did you even manage to get that many mesos without no-lifing on Legends for a week nonstop? I end up having to buy mp pots pretty often (I'm a cleric so 99% of the pots LPQ gives are useless to me.) Of course I don't go completely broke, but even npcing drops haven't net me more than a few hundred thousand mesos so far. Considering I actually read the forums and look out for guides, I can imagine many others being worse off than me.

 

Andy Hope You kidding ...
You can do 1-120 in 20 days (as Cleric) without funding and You will get 50M meso + until then if You know how to.

 

Just me 2 cents. I think the only problem is the small player base for such % chance of getting those needed items. It's possible if the average amount of people online was 500~1000. That would be perfect for a server like this one. But it's not. So it definitely needs an upgrade based on the amount of people that play.

 

I don't see why it's so hard to believe a new player could get lost in this game. I wouldn't know how to because I haven't done it before.

Just so we're clear, I don't mean to offend nor take offense from any of the replies!

 

I do the quests that have decent rewards. I sell my scrolls on the FM. Theres a quest with Jane that gives you a Glove ATT I believe. That's an easy 2 million right there. I sell my useless equipment on the FM. All the capes I got from LPQ alone got my like 2 milion. Also, I do quests.

If your lvl is accurate, then it is also not that weird that you dont have more than 1/2 million. You're not supposed to have a huge bank by lvl 30. It seems you are a new player. Is that correct? If so, then: 1. sorry for going at you so hard. 2. why are you trying to argue about something you don't know that much about?

Either way, I'm glad that you're not offended, because this is definitely not personal.

Whatever you thought you were doing, it was definitely not sarcasm. This post has exactly the same tone as the other one.

Why?

Again, this is not about making the game easier for new players. This is about reducing the general price level. If you want to talk about 'new player buffs' then make a thread about that. (for the record: new players definitely don't need help in the way of goodies. Asking another player for help is the best way to actually get something real and fun and rewarding out of the game.)

Why? Generally accepted economic theory disagrees with you.

We're not talking about hurting. We're talking about systematically draining mesos from the server. If done correctly, people won't even really notice during normal gameplay, because we are trying to affect FM prices.
Also, WHY?

About what specifically?

 

Yes, I'm a new player. Just joined recently actually and love the server so far. The answer to the second question is because you basically put me on the defensive even though the point of this entire forum subsection was to brainstorm ideas, not shoot down each other's suggestions. However, rather than spending more time analyzing things I've said that weren't relevant to the issue, let's get busy figuring out the problem at hand. (I actually think we've derailed the topic pretty far already though haha.)

I assume we've all played online games long enough to know what happens when you let a small population of the players the ability to control S&D of the market. This is the the main point I'm basing my argument on. People in this category can just as easily change the way they spend their money when/if the staff decides to add in meso sinks. Yes, you will be draining mesos and people won't even notice it's happening, but the players that feel the effect of the implementations won't be the ones who generate mesos quickly.

I said the scrolls weren't going to make much of a difference based on the reason earlier. If players have BILLIONS of mesos already saved up from playing in the past, then we're looking at having to add in a very large sink that appeals to the wealthy, without giving them an economic advantage over other players. Scrolls, while they instantly drain mass amounts of pure mesos, hold their own value when liquidated or successfully used on equips to generate profits. This would solve the primary problem of the abundance of mesos sitting around, but creates the secondary problem of price control by the veterans as they're the ones likely to be the owners of a majority of the scrolls and valuable equips. If the server had more players, this wouldn't be an issue, but because this is a game and not real life, economy theory can be skewed depending on the situation. Here, we don't have to worry about our mesos becoming worthless nor do we worry about losing our method of income. It's not like we can go from level 200 back to level 1.

In regards to reducing price levels, I think if we turned the economy from a seller's market to a buyer's market where the buyer ends up with a net loss from their purchases rather than the seller then we might be able to steer the market in the right direction. By that I mean to edit drop tables to include non-droppable scrolls and edit their RNG rates. I know it's been mentioned a few times already, but while we're exploring more options, why not reconsider it? In the short run, mages will be able to make a huge profit by farming the scrolls, but later on they'll eventually lower in price due to the increasing supply. It would also promote players training in less popular maps and wealth being more spread out. Using gachapon to dispense the scrolls seems risky imo because it means you don't even have to play the game to earn mesos. The cons may outway the pros from this, but hey it's something to throw out there.

As for some suggestions, I'm trying to come up with ideas that aren't directly integrated into the game, but these are all I can think of so far.
(They're definitely not flawless, but plausible):

1. Lottery/Casino

- Implement a monthly lottery that doesn't limit how many tickets you can buy.
- Players DON'T HAVE to win every month.
- Pricing scaled to allow lower levels to participate and encourage the wealthy to try their luck.
- A tiered jackpot based on ticket level.​

2. Meso Tax

- Percent based taxing system on total assets per account.
- Regardless of level, drain mesos weekly if an account has more than a specified amount of mesos.​

3. Purchasable NX

- Turn the Legends Game Cash section into a category where you can only purchase aesthetic items with the NX.
- The NX : Meso rate could fluctuate based on the overall flow of the market.
- Exclude items in the "USE->Scroll" and"ETC->Store" sections.
- Add a 20% increase in the NX purchase price.
​

I'm basically just throwing ideas out on this thread, but my goal is to help the server rather than just be a normal player so excuse me for speaking without much prior knowledge of the server's economic history.

 

Well obviously, players who just joined the server and don't even have 1,000 mesos to their name will not seem to feel the effects of a NPC that sells gash tickets for 100k+ or so. Because obviously that player will most likely be buying much more important things like pots or better equipment.

There's no point trying to "fix" this inequality that always comes in games like this. But what can be done is limit its negative effects. In some meso sink examples from another thread, where either one can simply straight-up buy scrolls or buy gash tickets which then hopefully turn into the scrolls players want, this is an example of the rich spending their mesos, the money permanently leaving the server economy, and they got what they want. Without something like this... they STILL get what they want. Only it takes much longer, the price is highly inflated, and it means everyone else who is poorer can't get that item.

Andy lol, you get defensive and claim the forums was for brainstorming, not shooting down ideas, yet the first words out of your mouth basically indicated that the higher taxes and meso sinks were bad ideas. But trust me. Real money sinks are the only way to fix inflated game economies.