Make selling maps a bannable offence

I disagree, because I don’t think banning map-selling would have any positive effects.

I’m going to break my argument into two cases: (1) maps that are grind spots and leech spots, like gs2; and (2) maps that are leech spots, like ulu2. The assumption I will be making is that people who buy maps are leech sellers.

(1) for maps with grinders and leechers, availability is the biggest complaint. People who go to gs2 to grind get upset when they cc around and see mages using their ultimates. But if you were to impede on their ability to sell, for example by making it harder for them to buy maps to secure a leech spot, then what happens to the people who would have been involved in the leech?
- 2 leech buyers go grind on their own. So they end up taking a map anyways, or worse, taking up 2 maps; it’s not uncommon to see people grinding alone at gs2.
- Leech buyers who are heavily washing or very weak are less likely to find leech, making their lives harder
- That low level bishop just trying to make a living has to spend even more time finding a map. And if I were them, I would be more inclined to camp channels, waiting for some poor grinder to slip up by repotting or taking a long poop

So all the relevant parties (leech seller, leech buyer, normal grinder) are negatively affected.


(2) for maps with leechers only, securing the map is just the cost of doing business. Time really is money for a leecher; spending 1h trying to find a map costs 10x more than just buying it.

If you wanted to be even smarter, at the end of your leech, you could just sell the map. In effect you would have zero cost, and as a bonus to the leech economy, this minimizes the map’s downtime—i.e., we optimize the amount produced (leech sold) from the resource (the map). In theory this map-selling mechanism could have possibly boosted leech supply and led to lower leech prices for buyers (note though, this is just a theoretical claim that is not verifiable).

 

It seems like both points cater to leech. What about people who grind and can’t afford to leech or buy maps, or decide that its better to invest their mesos into equips and scrolling as opposed to leech? I think for new players, it’s hard to justify 5m to grind, especially with the possibility of DCing and losing a map. I think it’s important to also consider that 5m to those new players is more significant than* to older players like you and I.

*edit: a word

 

The grinders are only involved in case (1), and my argument for why they will be negatively impacted/not impacted is that having less leech sold will have no effect on the availability of maps for grinders. The people who would have bought leech will just grind instead, possibly taking up 2 maps instead of 1.

 

I agree that selling maps is lame, but I heavily disagree with making this a bannable offense. Just because something is lame doesn't mean you should make it bannable.

There are a lot of people that think selling leech is lame, so should we ban selling leech?

 

Neither map ownership nor the trading of it harms anyone so I see absolutely no reason why it should be bannable.

 

Find less meta maps to grind ,(or sell leech if you are a filthy mage).

There is plenty of space in ML to get exp at reasonable rates without having to buy a map.

 

Selling maps are in bad taste that i too do not enjoy seeing but i disagree that it warrants the need for suspensions, the lack of graciousness should not be compared with the same severity as abuse.

 

TLDR at the bottom.

I don't think my argument is getting across because this is not a response to my argument. I'll try to improve the wording.

For maps that are frequented by leechers and grinders ("case 1"), I'm assuming here that grinders do not pay to get maps (I think we can all agree that for most, that's a poor way to spend your money). So proceed for now with the idea in mind that leech sellers are the ones buying and selling maps.

Let's say we have ten level 60 characters who can train at GS2, eight GS2 maps, and one leech seller that bought a map and is holding it to sell leech. Let's also say that of the ten level 60 characters,
- Two people have some money to spend and decide to buy leech
- Seven people each found a map to train in
- One person is looking around but can't find a map, as one channel has a leech seller and the other seven have people training

Now suppose we ban buying/selling of maps, and that as a result, the leech seller couldn't get a map. For the ten level 60 characters,
- The seven people who each had a map are still training
- The two who wanted to buy leech now join the one who was looking for a map. Now those three fight for the one remaining map.
- One of those three will get the last map
- Two people are left without a map

Overall, we are worse off with the map selling ban, as we now have two people who can't find a map instead of just one. What's more, is that the leech seller is worse off as they've lost their source of income. This might make them want to steal a map from one of the eight people who are training.

You could argue that maybe those two people will train together, but we are still no better off than without the map selling ban. Or, you could argue that the leecher still manages to get a map, so nothing has changed and we are no better off.

So overall, there is no positive effect, only negative/zero effect.

If we relax the assumption that only leechers are buying/selling maps, and assume grinders might want to buy/sell as well, then you could say that grinders also have a source of revenue from selling maps once they're done training. For buying maps, I expect almost all grinders will not want to buy maps, unless they're heavily funded. I expect the argument against this notion is that people with more mesos have an easier time, but I don't think that's an issue because that's how everything works in this game.

You mention that leechers make less profits by buying maps, but you're not factoring in the opportunity cost here. If I can buy a map right away for 5m, then the cost is 5m. If instead I have to spend an hour trying to find a map where I earn 15m/hour from leeching, then the cost includes my time waste, which is worth 15m.

Whenever I've tried asking people if they're going to leave the map anytime soon, 9 times out of 10 they say no. I know many people who would answer no even though they don't actually have plans to sell leech there, and actually hold the map for hours while they go cook or do boss runs. By having a buying/selling system in place, you incentivize people to not hold maps for hours while not even using them.

Regarding the risk of paying but losing the map during the trade, no one will be willing to buy a map if the price doesn't reflect the risk of the sale not going through. But tbh, if you know what you're doing, you're not even going to lose the map to a map sniper in the first place.

TL;DR: just.. what Akash said. If you think it's shitty or too costly to buy/sell maps, then don't. Just like with 4th job advancement, some people will opt for waiting around for Manon & Griffey for free while some people buy the 10m scroll because they place more value on the time saved. My argument shows that there is no improvement to map availability when you ban map-selling (and that it's possible maps become less available), so I don't see why we can't let people choose whether they want to engage in map selling or not.

 

I don't see how making it a bannable offense would be helpful, but I agree that map selling sets a precedent that you could theoretically hoard maps for the expressed purpose of selling them to those who just want to train.

 

Just because it irks you doesn't mean that it should be bannable, or even necessarily considered wrong. Morals changed throughout the past and will continue to change into the future.

 

First bold
Life happens.

Second bold
Hogging maps? They're using it.

Underlined text.
Whats wrong with that? Its their map.

Third bold
Why make it a bannable offense? People in GMS, MSEA, KMS, JMS- any Maple Story server sell maps too.

TL;DL bold
No? If they hold the map, they get profit, they sell leech or the map its going to help them in the long run.

case 2 First bold
It doesn't hurt other leechers, mesos go around to come around.

case 2 Second bold
Thats entirely up to the person that was mapowner, to give it for free or to sell it, and its up to the new mapowner to do what they want with that map because they're the owner..

I'm sort of a new player here myself, but everything that you said here I decline.

 

I wouldnt mind. You could just argue that it is advanced account sharing.
Instead of straight up banning leeching I think it would be best to just tweak the party exp formula so that every member of a party would have to participate to gain exp.
Although it would be a nice change I am worried it is too late at this point after 5 years of leeching.

 

These are my personal opinions on the issue of map selling. I feel that it sets a precedence that further motivates a certain demographic of players to find and monetize anything that can possibly be monetized. I value having a friendly and co-operative community but this sort of highly capitalistic mindset undermines it. If map selling is left as it is, I'm a bit concerned that this mindset might eventually lead us to a point where we start seeing people selling PQ maps, high-demand boss maps, or mass selling popular maps with mules as the norm.

Although with that said, I don't think nerfing maps or making map selling bannable are good solutions. Allowing a certain degree of autonomy in the market is important, as much as I dislike map selling. If possible I think we should consider other alternatives first.

Regarding the complaints that regular players can't afford to buy maps, but would rather wait than train at alternative maps. As many people have pointed out above, the alternatives aren't as bad as people (especially newcomers) think, but I can understand why they would think that way. This is largely an issue of misinformation, and maybe we can tackle that with an updated, more in-depth training guide. Although in some cases, the maps really are unbalanced. Perhaps we can also consider tweaking some things to make quests in those level ranges more rewarding exp-wise so people don't feel that much disadvantaged not training at those popular maps. Again, just my personal opinions. Thoughts?

I think it's great that we are having these discussions, and I certainly hope that we can keep having civil, in-depth debates and innovative suggestions on how we might tackle this issue.

 

Better way: Mapowner last for 5 seconds since the last hit count on mob
more fun for everyone

 

the best alternative is to find decent/semi-decent maps and request for it to be buffed to match the rates of the current meta maps

 

No one should own a map. The map should be shared and owned by every player.

Best way to solve all these map issues is to just remove map owner command.

We let the player decide the rules of map ownership and not be bound by legend's rules

Mapowner is un-nostalgic and prevents player fun toxic interactions. like Ksing, pushing bosses to another player and killing them. Sure it creates drama, but so does map sniping,selling,hogging.

it also solves many reporting issues and other problems that gm's will face.