is there any way to really play in a worthwhile way without paying for leech?

Play hero

 

There are no shortage of great maps to grind at. People (including myself) spend too much time worrying about the "optimal" way to play the game. But what's most important is just relaxing, exploring, and just playing the game in any and all ways that you find enjoyable.

 

Just like Nightz said, it depends on your class, I leveled from 1-200 without ever leeching

 

I agree with what others have said in that: don't let your own experience be affected by others who may seem to be flying through levels by leech. There is no rush, enjoy the ride!
Also, a noteworthy advantage of grinding over leeching is you will get mesos. Mostly in the form of gachapon tickets (and getting lucky at some point or another, which, given you accumulate enough gachapon tickets, eventually you will end up getting something good.
65-70 is a bit of a dry patch. I decided to do some quests! Look for example at https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/good-quests.2947/ guide! Even though I had already completed all of the quests in it, I also looked at another guide on a forum from a competing server (not sure if I can link it, google "Maplestory quests worth doing 2.0". After I completed all of those, I did some additional random quests. Although this was probably sub-optimal, I made mesos from gachapon pulls and had lots of fun traveling to different areas!

Good luck!

 

Nearly all of us grinded our first char, eventually if you stay long enough everything comes down to an hourly game. If I can do something worth 20m/hour and buy 12m/hr leech, then I net 8m/hr by not grinding, etc.

Most of us are just chasing the most efficient gameplay

 

It's nearly impossible for a new player to buy leech for meaningful amounts of levels unless they completely lucked into a CS/WS
The vast majority of people will grind to a high level on their first character so you're not "missing out" so to say

 

You can definitely play how you want. I started at the end of April and hit 120 on my Dark Knight in under a month strictly grinding (roaring at CD's was a bit cheese but whatever). There's some great grinding maps in this version and the experience even for new players is not bad at all.

Just because leech is faster doesn't mean it's a better experience. I've made some good friends grinding away (especially Gallos) and its for those interactions that I've come to a classic server.

 

So far, I completely agree with OP here. I have a bishop, and all I do when I play is self-leech. I'm not sure if this is something that can be solved without a wipe, or some kind of official New-leaf thing that's officially supported by staff?

 

i think what OP is complaining about is not the existence of leeching but that there is 1)only a few meta maps 2)all meta map channels are taken up by leechers. Just trying to clear things up. Though are leeching maps other than Ulu2, petri, skele, ghost ship, full as well?

 

perhaps an unpopular opinion: I don't see leech as the bad thing that people see, it's even important for the economy, I know a lot of people who like it and sell it to make money, including new players doing low lv to provide initial funding, leech is only OP if you level more than one character, for solo there are very few lv ranges that give you more exp than solo (considering that it is not a char full of int), there are there are "n" other ways to grind, to make money, to make more exp than leech, but it a mmorpg, need to explore

 

I've been playing IL since 2017 and never once paid for leech. IL doesn't "need" leech the way some attacker classes do.

 

I've played with 4 IRL friends and we've grinded the entire way to 4th job. You *Can* self leech yourself until the end of time, but no one is forcing you to do so. If you're not a fan of leeching simply don't do it. You're missing out on the entire classic experience by leeching every class.