Information September 2023 Balance Changes [Explained]

Maybe the NL nerf we need is a change to the damage formula so that the only people who understand the effects of the change are those who can do the math, and therefore already understand that NLs are insanely out of line in terms of stat value, so we get less complaining.

 

Its literally old school vanilla damage formula. If a player have deep seated issue against it and find it so busted, what the heck are you doing on this server? Go play GMS.

 

Comparing nl to bm is not a fair comparison. Bm is a support DPS class and has the strongest buff in the game which nl depends on. Despite this bm can still do comparable dmg to a nl...

 

I mean the actual answer is that leaving the state of the game as is just because the way that it was isn’t healthy for the longevity of the server. Other classes have received enormous amounts of custom attention, abilities, and formulas on ML including Marksmen, Shadowers, and Buccs in a way that helps underrepresented classes find a place in gameplay. Most people don’t have an issue with this because it helps keep things stable and prevents classes from being entirely dead.

The opposite can happen, too. I’m not saying this is actually happening, but in a theoretical world where NLs do 10x the damage of everyone else because that’s how it could have been back in the day, and everyone ends up playing NL and nothing else, the server would probably die.

There’s a balancing act to be done by staff where they try to nudge things in a direction that will prevent the server from entering a death spiral while either positively affecting gameplay or minimizing negative effects. NLs are hardly unplayable right now, in fact they’re still probably overall the best class in the game. There’s nothing wrong with making custom changes to the game to maintain server health, provided it’s done with good justification.

Note that my previous comment was a joke, and I thought it was pretty obviously a sarcastic remark, as the math involved is incredibly simple. For what it’s worth, I don’t have particularly strong feelings on NLs personally at the moment. I usually don’t care if something is broken or too strong because I will happily just abuse it myself, and I’d much rather see BT address things that are too weak instead, such as DKs.

 

I think vanilla formula is fine but I’m not sure if it was intended in conjunction with so many 30% scrolls, scrolled gears, or base/total stats as we do on Legends. Lots of stuff were added over the years that amplify NL scaling relative to other classes like apples, gelts, facestompers, and increased ws/cs rates

 

To add on to what beegoratto said, I do think its fine to have NL be the king when buffs are considered and that weaker classes are improved, but there’s much more than just damage. I do think at the moment, things are mostly fine but my hopes is that there’s more utility provided from other classes in some way and that DKs specifically have an easier time playing the class but allow for skilled DKs to output crazier damage. Sadly there aren’t many classes but all classes can provide some utility with the exception of NL, Sair and Archmages. (Unless mini bean clearing is considered utility)

 

I'm sure staff intends well, but I'm saying its a dangerous game to play while tweaking with some of the core aspects of the game.

To be fully balanced, every class needs to have a single target dps skill, full map attack, and some form of teleport/flash jump. Viola, welcome to modern maplestory.

There are skills and formulas affecting class identity are really taboo to touch. Raising archer passive crit dmg from 40% vanilla to 50%, fine. If we start giving crit to another class, that would be too much for some people. Even the change like assassinate not requiring dark sight, urgh its literally modern maple.
Of course we are not there yet, but chipping away at the integrity of old school maple will reach a breaking point for everyone at a certain point.

 

the cheeses trolled me once, nowadays I use mana pill on ht

 

in counter point, ulu2 drops craven, nightghost drops cfa30, all u need to farm both is a naked fp mage (for nightghost less)

 

I wouldn't say it's particularly hard to farm any level 100 weapon or scrolls.

Honestly the cost of admission to play any class is there. I'm not strong in comparison with the people I boss with, but I'm okay with that because I enjoy playing the class.
However making alchemist essentially obsolete, shortening shadow star duration and increasing recharge costs affects the average player much more than the funded end game ones. They aren't addressing damage, they're making it cost even more to play the class.

 

I agree with you that all the nerfs to NL disproportionately affect unfunded players, but would you really rather have had a nerf that hurts the funded players more? Would you have preferred that the damage of the class was reduced instead? This means that proportionately, the unfunded players would lose less damage than the funded ones, due to the high scaling of nightlord.

 

If having slightly less dmg will make the other classes happy I'd rather have that than make the class have super high maintenance cost which basically gatekeeps newer players from being able to afford running nl.

 

I think if anybody works hard to fund their class they shouldn't be taxed more for their extra effort. In my opinion a nerf shouldn't target a certain group of players more than others. I don't really have a proper answer to your questions but personally I'd rather flat out do less damage than have to pay more to play the class and/or have my skills neutered.

 

Pour one out for the classes which both do less damage and have to pay more to play

 

When I first found out how many Sushis a DK has to pay for for a single Toad run I felt physically ill. This was back before the NLC pot changes when Sushis were considered disgustingly expensive.

 

It most certainly isn't a targeted effort. It's just the natural way of things with revenue and expenses. While expenses have gotten higher for everyone, only those with lesser earning potential feel the expenses cutting into a larger percentage of their profit margins. However, bossing as a whole has gotten more profitable as well. I'd speculate that a lot of people aren't considering their coin earnings as part of their splits, which is why they feel so meso poor. Sure, it feels weird to sell coins for mesos as it feels like you're backsliding on your progress, but in the long run, most players outside of super inefficient characters like 7k hp BMs running HT should be making a profit on average in end game content, otherwise it'd be abandoned. Challenge system will help players like that though, so there should be more economic-based inclusivity in the future. And to give a perspective of end-game/funded perspective, it feels weird for us too when 'repotting' for the content we run involves forking over large quantities of pcoin, but we just accept that this is how things are now.

What are your thoughts on other classes who have always paid a higher expense just to run the same content as you? Was it unfair then?

 

bms disagre with bow att 30 and self farm, but i got u point

 

Well people choose which class they want to play. I wouldn't say it's unfair some classes spend more mesos on pots for example, because the whole point of a thief is having high avoid and being able to dodge more attacks. What does seem unfair is skyrocketing recharge costs so we have to pay more to pay the class lol.
That and making our class specific skills worthless. In my opinion directly nerfing damage percentages make much more sense.

 

That's not true, though. You always have the option of using cheaper stars. Again, it's about managing expenses, especially if you aren't willing to do content that pays more.

 

Actually this is an interesting way of looking at it. If you use cheaper stars, it's like you have old recharge cost with less damage, like requested, but you also have the option of paying more for more damage if you want, kind of like using apples. That's a pretty unique tradeoff.