A Deeper Dive into Leech and its Adverse Effects on Holistic Balance

Haven't seen one of these threads in awhile... :^) Anyways, is it just me or does there seem to be a lot of problems going on in this server lately? I'm sure staff/balance team is hard at work on a few of these problems, but we all know that there is only so much staff can do at once.

This got me thinking - if there was one singular thing that staff could change about MapleLegends to cover the most ground of the list of problems, what would it be?

If I had to take a guess, my answer would be leech.

Let me break it down:

HP Washing/Hyper-Washing/DKs as Mules:
Leeching/self-leeching with its prevalence and ease has facilitated in this server completely shifting towards hyper-washing. This means that every new character that is being made is an INT mule with 300+ base INT and is slowly but surely being leeched to end-game levels.

If leech did not exist, 300+ base INT mules would not exist, and washing would be much, much harder. Sure, some people might grind it out slowly, but that is a huge barrier for entry that I do not think most people would be willing to climb.

A Non-Existent 2nd/3rd job:
When was the last time you saw a 2nd or 3rd jobber in this game that wasn't hanging on a rope? Save for the few new players (lol what new players) that happen to stumble upon this server, 2nd and 3rd job is non-existent in this game. The only classes that are really viable to play without massive amounts of INT are warriors, shads, and mages. Going further, when was the last time you didn't automatically NPC any non-end-game gear? A non-existent 2nd/3rd job means that any content made for those levels is useless - items, maps, and all.

If leech did not exist, players would be required to play through 2nd and 3rd job. This could revive utility in 60% weapon scrolls as players seek to create temporary weapons to help facilitate their grinding. Ghost towns of maps would get revisited. People would actually be spending time moving about on their characters instead of hanging on ropes to level up. Things would be a bit livelier, imo.

New Player Experience and Player Retention:
Taking into consideration the above, do you think that MapleLegends is all that welcoming to new players? There are other, newer servers out there that are better at catering to new players - albeit short lived - and I think that's at a detriment to all Maplestory Private servers since there is a limited supply of new players to go around. If I was a new player today and had to decide between servers, I'm not sure MapleLegends would have made the cut. Imagine being brand new to this game and not running into a single person for the first 130 levels of gameplay, or not being able to make friends you can play with until you get to bossing levels.

If leech did not exist, I think we could finally gap that bridge between new players and end-game players since end-game players would be forced to grind out in the lower levels alongside them instead of relying on leech/self-leech. Guild recruiting would be much more organic in this way as well.

End-Game Class Balance:
All the complaints about class balance and having everyone reroll into NL take into account a MapleLegends with leech and a shared 2nd/3rd job 'grinding'/leeching experience. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with NLs doing the most damage, but we can all agree that their journey to the end-game should be much harder than any other class.

If leech did not exist, NLs and other ranged classes would have to grind out the lower levels, presumably with some base INT, making their journey to the end-game much harder. Warriors, shads, mages, and such would have an easier path towards end game, thus justifying their existence slightly more.

White Scroll/Chaos Scroll Supply Shortage:
Now this part I'm really not sure of, but I do believe that mages have a nerfed drop rate for gachapon tickets. LeechStory has basically compounded the White Scroll/Chaos Scroll problem in that it using mages becomes one of the main ways to farm gachapon as players are inevitably forced to self-leech their INT mules through their mages. This way of normalized optimal playing has been accepted, but I think a lot of the problems also stem from our shrinking 2nd/3rd job class (in addition to our non-existent new player base).

If leech did not exist, more players would be out there grinding characters on non-mages, thus generating more gachapon per active player. In theory, this could lead to an uptick of the supply of White Scrolls and Chaos Scrolls, thus slightly alleviating the quantity demanded and lowering the cost.

My proposed solution:

• Nerf leech to the point it isn't so viable. We already know that the dev team has implemented code that can limit experience gained depending on character activity or not (EXP ring from Halloween 2020), so the implementation and tweaking shouldn't be too difficult or completely custom.

• Make base INT factor into your total weapon attack by a fractional amount. This would alleviate the grinding process for those who choose to heavily HP wash (and the sweaties will still do it anyways), but there will be a bigger trade-off, and the 30k hp meta will be far less accessible, yet still attainable.

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I know this is a loaded topic and I'm sure there will be a lot of good counterpoints, so I'm interested in what the community thinks. I'm saying this as someone who has leeched every character to end-game bossing levels, and looking back at it now, I kind of wish there had been a more fun path to it than just magestorying for the past two years.