Information Christmas Event 2021 Balance Changes [Explained]

Reminder: This only contains the Balance related changes.

« Welcome to the final round of balance changes for 2021! This patch cycle has had a lot of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, but we've also been hard at work with balance changes. Our central goal for this patch is to bring about a healthier game state, bearing in mind two major considerations: (i) promoting more interactive gameplay with key bosses, and (ii) making gear progression more accessible. Read below to find out what we have in store! »



「 Prestigious Coins 」

The Prestigious Coin project was an idea that was developed earlier this year as a way to provide a consistent source of White Scrolls and Chaos Scrolls to the economy through a method that would reduce the disparity between bossers and farmers (as the current gacha-locked method heavily favored activities such as farming, grinding, and leeching). The idea was officially prosed to the community in July (see here for the thread), and passed the support threshold we were looking for, leading to a beta testing period during our Summer Event. However, the feedback (see here for the thread) we received seemed to echo our findings that the system at that point was severely lacklustre. Not only did it feel feast-or-famine, but the rate at which the server was generating these coins didn't seem adequate enough to counteract the continuing rise in price for BOTH of these scrolls.

As such, over the past few months, we went back to the drawing board. Based on the various suggestions from the community, we re-built the system from scratch with the goal to achieve the following:

1. Make the system more granular
2. Make coins feel less "feast-or-famine"
3. Incentivize larger party-play centric bosses over smaller, solo-able bosses

Today, we're proud to present the finalized version of the Prestigious Coin system, which will launch alongside the Christmas 2021 Patch.

• Bosses will now drop Mysterious Coin Pouches 1 - 5
• Mysterious Coin Pouches can be opened to receive a range of coins (higher tier pouches awarding more coins)
• Prestigious Coins can be used at the Prestige Shop located at the Temple of Time and Henesys
  • 100 Prestigious Coins + 10 mil can be exchanged for either a White Scroll or Chaos Scroll
  • White Scrolls or Chaos Scrolls can be exchanged for a Mysterious Coin Pouch 5
• Prestigious Coins and Mysterious Coin Pouches are tradeable
• White Scrolls or Chaos Scrolls are now untradeable

Boss Name	Pouch Type	Coin Range	Rate Details
Latanica	Mysterious Pouch 1	1 - 3 coins	[Rare]
Ravana	Mysterious Pouch 1	1 - 3 coins	[Rare]
Papulatus	Mysterious Pouch 1	1 - 3 coins	[Rare]
Jiaoceng	Mysterious Pouch 1	1 - 3 coins	[Common]
Scarlion	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
Targa	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
Vergamot/Bergamot	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
Dunas	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
Nibergen/Nibelung	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
Nameless Magic Monster	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
The Boss	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Uncommon]
Krexel	Mysterious Pouch 2	4 - 8 coins	[Common]
Zakum	Mysterious Pouch 3	10 - 20 coins	[Common]
Toad	Mysterious Pouch 3	10 - 20 coins	[Common]
Horntail	Mysterious Pouch 4	20 - 30 coins	[Common]
Pink Bean	Mysterious Pouch 5	80 - 100 coins	[Common]

​

*All bosses except for Pink Bean have a max of 1x Coin Pouch drop. Pink Bean has a maximum of 2x Coin Pouch drops.

Learning from our past experiences, we hope that this version of the Prestigious Coin system is able to meet our expectations and bring about a positive change to MapleLegends. We hope to make gear progression more accessible for players of all kinds and not have it barred behind supply issues. As with all our other changes, we'll be keeping a close eye on how this feels and adjusting it if deemed necessary!

「 Horntail Pre-Quest Changes 」

• "Making the Secret Medicine for Transformation" quest is now repeatable every 2 hours (reduced from 3 hours)
• When creating Dragon Elixirs Moira now only requires 10 Tough Dragon Skins and 2 Empty Dragon Elixirs (NEW ITEM!)
  • Moira will create 2 Dragon Elixirs (up from 1)
• Mos, in Leafre, will craft 2 Empty Dragon Elixirs for the price of 2 Mithril Plates and 2 Steel Plates
• Red and Blue Wyverns now also drop Tough Dragon Skins

The Horntail pre-quest is notorious for being long and tedious, requiring many quest drops with extremely low drop rates as well as area bosses needing to be camped. The pre-quest to obtain Dragon Elixirs to enter Horntail's Cave has therefore been changed to be less time consuming with the hopes to eliminate the necessity to "cave" indefinitely.

• To use "The Encrypted Slate Of The Squad" inside Horntail's Cave all party members must have the Certificate of the Dragon Squad
• To sign up for the Horntail Expedition players must also have the Certificate of the Dragon Squad
• The quest to obtain the Certificate, "Badge of a Squad Member", no longer requires Marks of the Squad dropped from HTPQ
• Respawn timer for Pianus (R) has been reduced to 4 hours
• Respawn timer for Pianus (L) has been reduced to 8 hours
• The drop rate for Pianus has also been adjusted accordingly

To counter-balance the reduced pre-quest difficulty, we wanted to push more of an importance onto the Certificate of the Dragon Squad and acquire the necessary qualifications before attempting to take down one of Maplestory's most fearsome bosses.

「 Mechanic Changes 」

• Weapon Cancels and Magic Cancels now share cooldowns for all monsters, making it possible for either Weapon Cancel or Magic Cancel to be cast during each skill rotation

Cancels have had a very long and tumultuous history on Legends going through many iterations. One such change we pushed a while back caused cancels to permanently alternate, which led to undesirable consequences such as affecting how cleave classes perform. After determining this led to an unhealthy meta shift favoring single target classes even more so than before, we've custom implemented a mechanic where cancels will share cooldowns. This will make it equally possible for it to either weapon or magic cancel for every available skill cast. This should make fighting certain bosses more natural and encourage the inclusion of cleave classes again.

• Monster aggro will no longer automatically shift upon being moved by rush-like effects (eg. Rush , Monster Magnet , Barrage , Corkscrew Blow , etc)

When looking into promoting more interactive gameplay, we of course couldn't ignore aggro. Aggro has always been finicky when it came to bosses, and in the context of Pink Bean, it was really pushed things to the limits. This spurred us to do a deep dive into how aggro functions. What we found was that rush-like effects not only moved monsters, but also force an aggro change. This meant that skills like barrage which cause rush-like knockback for every line of damage were forcing aggro to change for each and every one of its six lines. Multiply this effect with the number of Buccaneers using barrage and the number of overlapping aggro change requests just piled up. With this new found knowledge, it seemed quite apparent that these conflicting requests would cause monsters to behave incorrectly and cause boss fights to be much easier than intended.

As such, rush-like effects will no longer immediately take aggro. This should lead to things breaking less and promote more interactivity for melee attackers who will need to properly react to monster behavior, rather than just whacking it with any rush skill to control it.



「 Pink Bean Changes 」

• Statue changes:
  • Solomon, Rex, Hugin, Munin, and Ariel have had their knockback values increased to 200k
    
  • Solomon, Rex, Hugin, and Munin changed from auto aggro to normal aggro (these bosses will no longer attack based on proximity, and instead attack whenever they are hit)
  • Attack range for Munin (right bird) increased
  • Seduce range for Munin (right bird) is now map-wide
  • Banish range for Munin (right bird) is now map-wide
  • Dispel range for Rex (right man) is now map-wide
  • Dispel range for Ariel is now map-wide
• Pink Bean (main body) changes
  • Pink Bean knockback value increased to 200k
  • Pink Bean changed from "strong against holy" to "neutral"
• Mini Bean (summons) changes
  • Mini Beans changed from "weak against fire and ice" to "neutral"
  • Mini Beans changed from "neutral to holy" to "immune"
  • Mini Beans HP increased from 303k to 606k

In case the changes above aren't enough to get Pink Bean to behave properly, we've also adjusted the raw knockback value for the statues and Pink Bean so as to minimize cases of forced aggro switching during the fight.

Speaking of aggro, we've also decided that the era of aggro abusing Munin (right bird) by hitting it from the maximum distance is officially over. We've switched all the statues to normal aggro, which means that whenever they are hit (regardless of how far away you are) the statue should attack back. In line with this change, we also increased the effect range for all skills so that once a statue is aggroed, there is no hiding from its wrath.

One of the other changes frequently requested from us was to remove Pink Bean's holy resistance. However, while exploring this line of thinking, we realized that without any additional changes, well-geared Bishops could end up knocking back Pink Bean with Genesis. Pairing that up with their ability to clear mini beans, as well as the overall utility they bring to the expedition, we felt that such a change would cause Bishops to become even more overtuned than they already were. That said, we understood the importance of removing holy resistance for the sake of Paladins.

As such, the solution we ended up with was to remove Pink Bean's holy resistance, but in turn, make mini beans holy immune. While looking at mini beans, the mobs themselves did not pose much of a threat or hindrance to the party members based on how quickly they were cleared. To increase the difficulty and promote more composition variety, we decided to double the HP of mini beans and remove their weakness to ice and fire.

We wish expeditions the best of luck in figuring out new tactics to fight Pink Bean and hope the boss battle ends up more interactive than before!

「 Horntail Changes 」

• Horntail preheads will now properly prioritize targets on the top platform, rather than the bottom platform when choosing an aggro target

As we were exploring aggro mechanics, it came to our attention Horntail preheads prioritized those on the bottom platform rather than those on top hitting the head itself. This led to some squads not being damaged for prolonged periods of time during the preheads. This has now been fixed.

• Increased Horntail Left Arm's Weapon Defense Up buff from +85 w.def to +850 w.def
• Increased Horntail Right Arm's Magic Defense Up buff from +85 w.def to +850 m.def

These changes shouldn't be radical enough to affect most squads, but it should reward those with more active and attentive Bishops. These changes also serve as the basis for potential future changes, so please let us know how these changes feel (when they aren't dispelled).

「 Dunas Exp Change 」

• Dunas EXP increased from 5,750,000 EXP to 9,500,000 EXP

After further discussion, we believe the investment to clear Dunas and the rewarding EXP still remained quite disproportionate. We, therefore, bumped up the EXP once again, and hope that it helps improve the viability of running Dunas more frequently.

「 Elemental Resistance Changes 」

• Targa [1] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Targa [2] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Targa [3] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Scarlion [1] changed from "strong against lightning" to "neutral"
• Scarlion [2] changed from "strong against lightning" to "neutral"
• Scarlion [3] changed from "strong against lightning" to "neutral"
• Vergamot/Bergamot [1] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Vergamot/Bergamot [2] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Vergamot/Bergamot [2] changed from "strong against lightning" to "neutral"
• Vergamot/Bergamot [3] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Nibergen/Nibelung [1] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Nibergen/Nibelung [2] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Nibergen/Nibelung [3] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Dunas changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"
• Krexel changed from "strong against all elements" to "neutral"
• Castellan Toad [2] changed from "immune to poison" to "neutral"

We believe that all classes should have the option to participate in all the content on our server. The case of elemental immunities outright bar the participation of certain classes at a number of bosses. The biggest casualty being Fire/Poison mages with the overwhelming number of "immune to poison" bosses. Along with removing Pink Bean's "immunity to holy" we decided to remove the bulk of immunities that remained in end game bosses.

「 Misc 」

• Pac Pinky's attack range has been increased
• Slimy's attack range has been increased
• Selkie Jr's attack range has been increased

When one thinks of pre-bb gameplay, it probably doesn't take long until one person brings up the never-ending grinding at Ghost Ship involving nothing but pressing your skill button and moving at most every 100 attacks.

A few years ago it was suggested to us that we changed these mobs, similar to another server at the time did, because the gameplay is non-existing, and it's a paradise for farmers without costs.

The reason for this change happening *now* is better explained in the "end of the year" topic, which will be released on December 31.

• Many more behind-the-scene mob changes in preparation of future patches

「 Beginners 」

• Three Snails no longer require Snail Shells to use

The reason for this change will be more clarified in the "end of the year" topic, but the short answer is that we wish to push MapleLegends to a fun experience instead of being purely a nostalgic experience. Neckson changed this in v0.67 as a lot of quests require snail shells, rendering the skill almost completely useless with the requirements intact.

We are aware it's more realistic to need shells because you are throwing them, and to a lot, it's more nostalgic too. However, it's just for the better that the requirements have been removed, so that the skill becomes more useful during the Maple Island experience and a bit afterwards.

Once again more information will be provided at the end of the year since this change is only the start.

「 Shadowers 」

• Pickpocket now works on Assassinate

Due to an oversight in legacy code, Pickpocket was not triggering on Assassinate hits. Since this has now been rectified, each Assassinate damage line will have a chance to proc the Mesos drop.



While the class-related changes this time around were minimal, we want to assure our players that we are actively looking at ways to ensure all classes are equally viable and have different avenues in which they can excel at. We have lots in store for 2022 in more ways than one can imagine or tease, so we hope you look forward to it!

Special thanks as usual to all our current staff members as well as Gurk and Edann for helping with these changes.