Update washing to encourage new players and existing players

This is the core issue. Funnily enough, the solution already exists. The legends library is underutilized and can be so much more than just a drop table. Having the library be a central info hub for the server combats much of the current misinformation happening. Using the hp challenges as an example, there are so many threads from the staff with bits and pieces of information. It's confusing for both current and new members. Problem is solved when there is a comprehensive single write-up added to the library.

 

I think there's not alot of volunteers willing to keep the library updated so its up to the community and threads to create guides.

 

wait, how is the library relevant to issues about washing? does the library contain any info about washing?

but yah i agree that in general that an updated library would be quite useful.

 

The library is a source of information for ML specifically. It contains all of the skills in the game (although they arent the most updated versions of them ans they probably should be). All of the monsters. It contains the exp curve and the sum of exp at specific levels. Wensley is saying that the hp challenges information should be added somewhere in the library as the current information regarding which class has which HP is fragmented and all over the forums. The most up to date info about them are in balance patches, but players might not know where to find them.

The HP challenges are very generous in how much hp they award. On my Corsair I knew I wouldn’t want to wash because I wanted her to be strong so I didn’t invest any INT. Using exclusively INT gear I managed to wash an extra 1.2k hp or so onto her. In the first 3 tiers of HPC she only managed to benefit from about 300 or so free hit points. Fortunately I got to benefit from the challenges without needed to wash out hundreds of INT as well. Arguably she’s worse than a newer challenge character would be because she’s also washed down to minimum mp while they would still have their extras.

Personally the only change I’d like to see for HPC, and this is just hypothetical as they’re fine as they are, would be to have the players opt in to them sooner rather than at level 100. Rather than lock the players out of adding any points to HP I’d prefer to see them locked out of adding into INT (mages would obviously need to be treated differently which is probably why it works the way it does). That way the challenges could add a flat amount of HP and players could still wash out their extra mp to make some marginal gains over time.

 

Personally, I see the best balance in 3 tiers:

1. Bring HP base formula up so that it gives you at or just below the bare minimum HP threshold. A game by design should barely get you in the door to make you want to work more for it. 2005's Maple seemed to be one of the only games where you were gatekept behind a paywall just to enter the threshold of mid-to-late game bossing. It's just objectively bad game design, despite the profits N saw.
2. HP Challenge gives you a comfortable cushion. Nothing will take you to 30k, but that's where the devs could tweak things to keep it fair. Maybe a baseline thought could be "boss attack + 1 add damage."
3. 30k HP Washing becomes a luxury that simply doesn't take as long to do. It still takes a long time, well over a year for just about every class, but it's no longer the go-to discussion outside of the niche areas people go to to discuss this stuff.

Unless new players are well funded--and they never are by definition--they're still going to take a year or longer to get to 150 anyways. That should be the barrier to entry, not additional gates they had to somehow vote years prior to have a chance, or HPC quests that are often discussed like we should be making them take longer to do.

 

This touches on something I've been talking about with some others.

There's still a lot of (old, outdated) job guides on this forum that say you *have* to wash if you want to boss. Guides that haven't been updated since the release of HP challenges, yet still show high in google search results for "maplelegends [class] guide"

These guides will start new players on a course of leveling, say, a sin, as their first character, leveling it with 100-200 int, and only doing 1-2 fresh HP washes per level. And these players following these guides are unaware that HP challenges exist, and would give them more HP than their current washing path, without the struggles of leveling with int or saving nx for APRs

It seems at least once a week there's a new player on discord asking if they should wash or not

 

Just too bad that we aren't that devoted to write new guides...
We just need 3~4 weeks maintenance again, to make us feel nothing to do but write guide

 

It would be nice for staff archive all the outdated guides. They'll still show up on google but...

 

Figuring out which is outdated and which is good to follow, is also players job. There's no absolute rule like 'here the guide is, so this must be respected and followed', when guide is also written by humans, not from the god.

I actually have no idea why i'm getting heard 'but there was guide said so to me!' over and over, whenever I tell someone 'that's wrong/outdated information' from counselling request I get. I can be wrong, Guide can be wrong aswell.

Be skeptical, make your path with your own decision, not by others. Guides can give you more detailed informations, but it's eventually yourself who combines it and make decision, and path.

It's your story.

 

meta slaves

 

tbh itd be fire if there was an NX item you could buy to just increase your HP by the amount one washed AP would for your class instead of having to fuck around with AP resets, would remove intlords/adjacent from the game entirely, improving PQ quality and letting people play characters without worrying about how they have to remake but leech the whole game this time. it's crazy how the NX to HP process is so exhausting and has to be as excruciatingly painful as possible to participate in

 

I moved this comment to its own post cause it got really long.

Spoiler: See comment

I started playing on this server about 2 years ago, made an archer and was just enjoying my time and the nostalgia. I got to about level 40 before I heard anything about HP washing (I had never heard of this back when I played Maplestory). People started asking me why I wasn't washing... so I read up about what this mechanic was and my mind was blown.... you're telling me I need to invest all points in INT, be completely useless and forced to leech my way all the way into 4th job????? Not only that but my current character is un-washable so you have to start again. What an incredibly demotivating thing to learn as a new player . I can't play the class I wanted, instead I have to go and make a mage to leech myself. Plus I have to make a new character and start again. I know level 40 is nothing and takes one day for you pro gamers but seriously, what a bummer for a new player experience when up to that point I was having a blast. After that I stopped playing on the server for a while. I eventually came back and rolled a mage, but for many players they may never come back. I think HP washing in it's current form severely hurts the new player experience when the player first learns about how it works after reaching level 30-50.

Never in my 29 years of life playing MMOs have I experienced a mechanic quite like HP washing, requiring you to completely nerf your character from level 1 to the point of unplayability and leech through until 4th job. This process seems completely antithetical to a 'classic' maple experience. Not only that but the difference in HP pool between a washed and unwashed player is HUGE. This is even still true for HPC to an extent (more on this later)

Why HP washing sucks
I see a lot of people talking about the time taken to earn the NX required, I actually don't think this is an issue at all. Even if it takes years, that is fine as a long term goal for players. Here is what I think the real problems are;

1. The first reason HP washing sucks is it forces you to nerf your character to the point you can't kill anything and have to leech. Not being able to kill any monsters on the character you are levelling feels terrible, you basically cannot play that character as they are completely dead weight. The result is forcing leech as the only way to gain EXP. This also forces players to not play the actual class they want to.

2. The second reason why HP washing is a bad mechanic is because is requires game knowledge that you don't have yet from before you even create your character. If you didn't read a bunch of stuff on this forum before starting to play (who does that?) how are you supposed to know about this mechanic? If you didn't roll 10 int on the dice, you are already messing up. Fundamentally this creates a bad new player experience. Players should not need to be interacting with this mechanic from level 0 while they are just learning the basics.

3. It creates situations where characters are forever limited to less HP than they could have had. Forcing situations were people need to reroll the same class just to reach their HP goals. IMO It's fundamentally bad design in an MMO to forever limit future potential in such a big way because of a mistake you made in early game.

HP challenges
At this point I hear you asking. But Clean, don't you know about the HP challenges? The staff already created a solution for new players! They address your problems right?
I love the concept of the HP challenges. I think it's a great step in the right direction & it gives me even more hope for this server and its amazing staff.

Having said that, here is why HPC doesn't fix the problem for me; You want me to accept that on my Archer I only ever get 12k hp, and I will never be able to go above that. While its possible for me to have gone up to 30k HP with washing. Washing can give you 2.5x the max HP. It doesn't matter if you only need 12k hp to do all the content. MMO players want to be able to grow the power of their character over time, especially in a game like maple where you can put thousands of hours into a single character. The idea of never being able to go past 40% the max HP that I could have otherwise is simply demotivating, regardless if it affects my ability to do content. The idea alone is enough to not want to play my archer anymore, even if in reality I may never reach the level where it affects me. I think MMO players are always going to think like this and there's no way around it. It just feels really bad.

This is why I the HPC system in its current form is not very appealing to me. I don't want to put in all that time on a character that in the end is always going to be limited to 40% the HP.
In my opinion the HPC is a great first step but there still needs to be a way to continue to increase the HP further after completing the HP challenge to eventually bring HPC character in line with a washed one. With that, let's move on to my ideas for a solution.


Possible solution
Create a time machine and go back to 2015 and get Kimmy to remove HP washing from the server. ok lets look at some more realistic ideas;

Create an Item in the NX shop, lets call it item a 'MP token'
The 'MP token' further increases your MAX MP by a small amount.
The amount of MP gained can be increased if the 'MP token' is used while equipping INT gear, but base INT does not affect it. Thus the INT gear & economy is still useful, but loading up on base INT is no longer required.
The player can then choose to use AP reset to lower their MP and add HP in the traditional style of stale HP washing.

Maybe this item could be only usable after completing some part of the HP challenge quest line (or if this is too hard to implement maybe a level requirement like 100+).

Balance the NX cost of 'MP token' such that it makes up for the amount of NX you would have had to spend on those extra AP resets. Such that it is similar NX cost to wash a ranged class from 12k to 30k as it does to wash a ranged class to 30k now. Keeping in mind, with this system the more INT equips you have, the less total NX it will end up costing to wash your character because each 'MP token' would give you more MP.
Staff can balance the exact numbers for;
- the NX cost of 'MP token'
- the base MP gained by MP token
- formula for how much equipped INT increases that MP gained when using the MP token.
The intention would be to balance these numbers so that INT gear is still as valuable for washing and NX cost remains similar to original washing.

*Heavily diminishing MP returns (or a cap) may have to be implemented after a certain MP is reached (based on class) to prevent easily going to 30k/30k
Likewise for Mage, at a certain HP they should also have diminishing returns (or a cap) on their stale HP wash to prevent 30k/30k easily. Need some help ironing out this part.

Disconnect the HP washing process from levelling by normalizing the MP gain formula on level up. The fact that HP washing revolves around the levelling up process creates this issue of requiring players to interact with it from level 0. Which is a huge issue for the new player experience (I would consider up to level 50 on their first character as the new player experience). HP washing is something that you do for end game bossing, as a result it should be something that you can work on after level 100, just like the HP challenges.
Disentangling HP washing from levelling by replacing it with the 'MP token' would also get rid of the awful situation where a character is doomed to be limited to a certain HP. Let players progressively work on their max HP goals and not be doomed.

The effect of INT increasing your max MP on level up is what ties HP washing to levelling up. This is what forces us to go all INT and no main stat making our character virtually unplayable. This needs to be addressed. INT should not have any effect on MP on level up.

Normalize MP gain on level up and make the 'MP token' the only way to further increase your MP (and therefore HP) besides the HP challenge quests.

Conclusion
This system would allow players to incorporate both the HP challenges and HP washing in their character progression. Giving players the near term goal of completing the HPC & long term goal of washing to 30k to aim for, while still allowing them to play the character they want to while working towards that goal. Leaving nobody doomed to have to reroll or have a character that can never reach their HP goal.

I believe these changes would address major issues with the new player experience, and the worst aspects HP washing. While respecting the existing players who put in huge effort to wash their characters (New players would still require similar NX and time investment to reach 30k) as well as preserving the INT equips market, and the voting meta.

Curious to hear other people thoughts & if there are any major failures or unintended consequences in this system that I have not considered. I am a casual player so this is all theory-crafting for me.