HP washing mechanic - potential fix

I was trying to sort through old posts (while I procrastinate from study ) to see if a similar idea had been proposed and rejected but couldn’t find one so I’ll make this post. Also I notice 2 posts in the past few weeks of people who hit ~120 and didn’t wash or don’t know how but want to and certain responses are telling them to wait until they have the NX to reset stats into INT before continuing to play the character, or out and out to just restart their character which I would hate to hear myself as its effectively saying to continue playing the game you have to stop playing the game until a certain amount of time has elapsed.


Am I qualified to write this? Likely not since Ive never actually been on a boss run as an attacker but I like theory crafting and numbers. Also apologies for the atrocious formatting I copied from Word.


Potential solution to making HP washing beneficial while simultaneously ensuring non-washers have the ability to pursue endgame content if desired:

- In short it would be creating a Hyperbody-like set of consumable items that gives a static boost to maxim HP for a set duration allowing non-washed characters to effectively boss. But with an attached time commitment to gain that still makes washing worth-while in the very long run.

Below is a general outline of the system, a list of pros and cons about the system I can think of off the top of my head, and a rough example set-up of what it could look like in reality:


Features of the consumable:

1. How to get the items
a. It would be gained by completing a quest (likely an exchange but it could be made more involved if desired) that would including:
i. farming monster items…as usual. But at a significant amount of time to complete – think eliminating the drumming bunny time levels or more
b. It could include:
i. Static meso cost for an additional meso sink
ii. An additional “light” item cost of something like a few processed ores (more on this later)
c. Sold by an NPC – doesn’t particularly matter where but perhaps Altaire Camp in Ellin forest since I like the place and feel it’s a shame it doesn’t see more traffic – for the lore-mongers say the spell is an old magic which has since been lost due to some bad guy… I recall a black mage or something (I really don’t read the lore so someone else should do this part )

2. Effects of the items
a. It would increase the users maximum HP for a set duration
i. Say 1 hour greater than the time it takes to kill the longest boss (I’ve never pink beaned so if PB takes 3 hours then the consumable would last 4 hours, or maybe 8 hours for those people who like to try to solo bosses)
b. 2-4 tiers available with scaling effects
c. DK skill hyperbody would apply to the user’s total HP calculated after application of the item effect and would not overwrite it
d. It would have one of the following 2 characteristics (not sure which would be easier to code)
i. Drastically reducing MP pool to a set minimum level to avoid overpowering mages
1. For example a 3000 base HP buffing potion gives
a. 3000 HP for all classes but reduces maximum MP by say 12000 to a minimum of 5000
ii. Have variable effects depending on the class that used it to avoid overpowering mages
1. For example a 3000 base HP buffing potion gives:
a. 300 HP to mages
b. 3000 HP to ranged classes
c. 4500 HP to melee


Benefits (also counterpoints to potential rebuttals against my system, no particular order)

1. Does not detract from benefit of people who have already washed:
a. Can stack the buff on themselves to hit that 30k HP threshold easier, potentially even without HB
b. Light washing means they will be able to get away with only using the lower tier of buff for bossing = less grind time in the long run
c. Heavy washing means they do not have to grind for these items at all, saves time in the long run, also more efficient potion use while grinding
d. Washing is still a part of the game as people who want to boss consistently should at least consider light – medium washing for the eventual time savings. PB and other high thresholds can be achieved by the buff. In the very long run the heavily washed characters will save time in grinding and money

2. Makes currently non-washed or inadequately washed characters viable
a. Got a high level character you made before realizing you needed to wash? You can play them if you put a bit of time into getting the required items

3. Increased accessibility to casual players for endgame potential
a. If someone only wants to try bossing a few times at the end game and otherwise just wants to hang out they can spend a bit of time getting the items together for a few buffs and try it out. Want to try pink bean once in your life with your favourite NL class but don’t want to invest 1.5million NX worth of voting time into the character? Just level very quickly do some grinding for a few hours and use your special one-time buff to play it once.
b. If they then decide to do heavy bossing, they can choose between getting the buffs continually for their current character or redoing a character with heavy washing now that they know the ins and outs; but the option to go play their first character is always there, just at an increased time cost.

4. Reduces need for leech while leech will still be sellable/used
a. No longer need to put base INT in (or get away with low levels) if you are not washing at all due to the buff. Opens up leveling the originally intended way as a viable option
b. Players who want to min-max and wash a lot will still be looking for leech
c. Players who get bored trying to go from 100-120 etc. may still purchase leech
d. Light washers still might want leech for a little while at least

5. Dark knight still relevant
a. Since this proposed item buff applies before HB the party buff is still relevant, allowing people to get to the relevant hp threshold temporarily for really important boss fights
b. For those people who are a few thousand HP short of not needing HB to do a boss run its still cheaper to get a DK in the party than to grind and spend the money on the one-time buff item – but this at least gives them the option to boss without a DK in the party

6. Optional meso sink
a. Can add a static cost to creating the item to reduce inflation across the server

7. Increase variety of map usage and monster killing
a. Item costs would ideally be from maps that are not currently popular for leech and farming but still have high enough spawn rate that they are not mind-numbingly tedious
i. Eg. Getting 800 crow feathers is a viable option for the item, 800 MT-09 fuel is not

8. Boost to relative value of multiple items available to new players early on
a. Adding in ore or jewel costs to buff prices creates a market for items that new players have access to via drops
b. Evens out useability of items to an extent (as an aside I was always annoyed that so many of the jewels and ores turned out to be largely useless with the crafting system, no reason to refine, just NPC the ores…so boring)

9. 1 hour above longest boss run given to allow a comfortable buffer for organizing the expedition and ensuring everyone is ready, also reduces worry that your buff will run out mid-fight if someone is putzing around prior to commencing
- can increase if people want to try solo bossing runs

10. Can maintain the current additions that give HP for different challenges
a. Benefits are still viable, it may drop you down a threshold for the buffs if you do this and the players who just want to stick their head down and grind a few maps for the buff instead of quest have that option
b. Increased variety of ways to get viable HP means you have something else to switch to, to achieve the same goal if you get bored with the first method


Cons

1 Boss runs are still risky due to cancel effect potentially – solution here would be to have this buff not cancelled by dispel from bosses, or that could remain a benefit to those who washed heavily….
o Another option would be to have it become an item in the etc. slot which will expire and leave the user’s inventory after the time has elapsed on the server (not sure on the coding viability). So if someone D/Ced with a tier III item at pink bean they could at least drown their sorrow by logging back in and doing Zak or something. This would indirectly fix the DCing concern as well as the item would still be there.
o I just realised mages probably run this death risk when magic guard is dispelled in battle so maybe just leave it as dispellable. If you DC well its always cathartic to yell at your internet….

2 Work to balance may be high as it would significantly change the economy
o It will likely tank the market for HP scrolls and equips to some extent but it doesn’t strike me as something people are heavily invested in

3 Requires some work to make it lore friendly – my half-hearted efforts likely aren’t enough

4 Would reduce NX demand and thus motivation to vote to some extent, however the goal would be to make these votes up by increasing accessibility to a new and casual player base.

5 Mages still ideal class for farming supremacy and money generation but I expect this should be maintained for the nostalgia feel of the server

6 I am unsure of any other item or buff conflicts that might occur and so couldn’t address them


Example sets (I couldn’t find the base HP numbers of each class at different level thresholds so this could be better tailored with that in mind, so HP levels are ball-park)

set of items with MP reduction – duration 5 hours for all or more if appropriate
- Old world Magic I (still workshopping the name of the item)
o +1500 max HP (prior to hyperbody)
o No reduction to MP – ideal for mage buff if necessary
- Old world Magic II
o +4000 max HP
o Maximum MP reduced by 19000 to a minimum of 5000
o (if you are wondering why it isn’t say 10k MP reduction it would be to avoid mages washing to 30k MP relatively easily and then just running bosses with 20k MP and +4k HP)
- Old world Magic III
o +7000 maximum HP
o Maximum MP reduced by 24000 to a minimum of 5000

OR

set of items with variable class effects (I like this one better, effects as well as the name – hopefully it’s easy to code). Duration 5 hours for all – or whatever is appropriate
- Boon of Altaire I
o + 300 max HP to mages
o + 2000 max HP to ranged classes
o + 3500 max HP to melee
- Boon of Altaire II
o +700 HP to mages
o +4000 max HP to ranged
o +7000 max HP to melee
- Boon of Altaire III
o +1500 max HP for mages
o +7000 max HP for ranged
o +12000 max HP for melee

There are still a lot of options or ways you could take it – for instance adding a mage specific buff that gives some 500 HP and maybe 5000MP or something to remove the importance of MP washing relatively speaking.


Costing Example:

I have only completed the first few options as a very rough example (read: semi- random selections) as it would require much more consideration to balance time investments across all the options to ensure graded results across tiers.

Boon of Altaire I (goal would be maybe 2ish hours of grinding)
1. Lidium x3, 600 Crow Feathers, 600 plane controller, 1 million mesos
2. Silver x3, 600 solid horns, 600 tree trunks, 1 million mesos
3. Bronze x3, ligator skins, cold eye tails … etc.
4. Garnet x3, …
5. Amythest x3, …
6. Topaz x3, …
Boon of Altaire II (goal 4ish hours of grinding)
1. Adamantium x5, 600 binding bridle, 600 cogs, 200 pelvic bone, 200 horse skull, 5 million mesos
2. Orihalcon x5, 600 zombie teddy bear … etc.
3. Aquamarine x5, …
4. Opal x5, …
5. Emerald x5, …
6. Sapphire x5, …
Boon of Altaire III (goal 6ish hours of grinding)
1. Black crystal x7, 600 Butter-toasted squid, 600 receiving apparatus, 600 Green Helmet, 300 lime powder bottle, 15 million mesos
2. Dark crystal x7, 600 shark denture …etc.
3. Luck crystal x7, …
4. Wisdom crystal x7, …
5. Diamond x7, …
6. Gold Plate x7, …

Option to go different directions here as well – you could substantially increase the amounts of items and cost required of the above system but make the item affect all party members upon a single use by a party member (? Coding viability again), or give it an area of effect on activation like a skill.


Reasoning behind costs:

I have removed the following from the cost set-up – steel ore, mithril ore, power crystal and Dex crystal ore – mithril ore and power crystal ore already see heavy use with high prices, steel is relatively high use with a reasonable price, DEX is pricier than wisdom and luck and gets removed as I needed a number of options divisible by 3 for my setup. Also ill admit to slight personal bias since I really like my bowman and want to keep Dragon Shiner crafting prices down .

Ideally 6 options are created for each type to spread potential farming spots out. I always hated how heavily populated certain maps were since, as a semi-casual player I never got to experience them due to overcrowding…gives me flashbacks to Sophila’s Bedroom in the original MS.

No items from rare or boss monsters included as they are already hard enough to experience for casual players. The goal is to even out map usage and avoid the “hunting to extinction” effects of people timing spawns of rare creatures and killing them immediately. Opening up things like this as another viable way to get money etc. will hopefully reduce incentive to hunt these currently high value targets by making other equally high value targets

Options given roughly attempting to double the time investment as you move up tiers. That being said I have not fought all the monsters so I don’t know how long say green helmets would take at that amount. It might be that the overall item amounts need to increase or decrease substantially to make the system suitable.


Final thoughts:

If you made it this far thank you very much for the attention to my idea, it definitely requires more work but it seems like it might address a good majority of the issues people have with any proposed fix to the current system. Or someone has already thought of it and discarded the idea for one reason or another haha.

Regardless I like this server and would like to see it remain for years and years to come, and if this issue could be solved it might make room for some growth and support for continuation.

Feel free to poke holes or shoot it down – logically of course.
I have no intention to restart a cyclic debate so if this isn't viable we should close the thread down.

Happy Mapling