I took some time to review my stuff, and here it is. Don't mind the fact that I use "we" sometimes even though these are my opinion.
Late Feedback
Service
[INDENT]Communication and feedback[/INDENT]
[*=1]We appreciate efforts put into communicating various issues and information to us, and we understand why you all may or may not be able to inform us about certain things. What we would like is a more user-friendly/less convoluted method of providing feedback to you all, as well as giving us more details when issues are made known to us - perhaps not necessarily more details, but definitely greater clarity as well as less ambiguity.
[INDENT] Reporting[/INDENT]
[*=1]Bug-reporting and hacker-reporting is extremely limited right now, in that we can only report once a day. That said, the encounter rate of hackers on a 1-hour basis can be extremely high, close to 20. Understandably the reporting system for hackers could possibly be subject to abuse. So a good compromise (assuming no account-switching etc.) would be to reduce the reporting interval to 30 minutes, or possibly even less. Alternatively, some form of verification system for GM-reporting could be put in place to reduce abuse too. As for bug-reporting, there is no way of doing so in-game... (see below)
[INDENT] Real-time assistance[/INDENT]
[*=1]We usually have no way of asking for GM assistance in-game, e.g. for reporting game bugs (or do we?). Such a form of assistance and reporting provides the most immediate form of feedback, rather than trawling through forums or opening another window for live-chat. This idea would need to be better-fleshed out and creases ironed out, but I feel that GMs providing various assistance and services is most relevant if it can be done in game (but of course the notices on the website etc. are still important!). IMO the live-chat service is more relevant to people who aren't in-game yet.
[INDENT] Maintenance[/INDENT]
[*=1]We feel that notifications for USCs should be done ASAP, and preferably giving at least 1/2 - 1 hour notice if it isn't crazily game-breaking. I also feel that much more could be done per maintenance, or at least make it clear to us what has happened - "back-end modifications" doesn't tell the layman anything to be honest. Where possible, we would like bug-fixing to take priority over events... Could you date the bugs in the Known Issues list so that you all/we know what was added, and also date the issues fixed in the Resolved Issues list (say, clear the issues that are 2 months since they were solved)?
Content
[INDENT]Gameplay
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[INDENT=2]- Diversity
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[*=2]Class and item diversity is great, but we would really like the diversity to be more spread out in terms of classes updated/newly made. Why so many warrior-type jobs, for example? But right now, I feel that we have more than enough classes/jobs. More focus should be given to item diversity and other content diversity.
[*=2]Theme dungeons for the level 60-100 range would be good too, to add on to the diversity of content.
[*=2]Would like more weapons or equipment with class-specific bonuses e.g. like (Dragonic) Askaron etc. They provide an interesting form of diversity too, much like the current item sets
[*=2]We also need more standard weapons after the Timeless/Reverse/Necro/Imperial range, because we don't want to just have e.g. RA weapons, or Empress weapons, or Terminus weapons as "THE end-game" equipment while there is a big gap in those and the obtainable T/R/N/I range. It feels odd to have standard equipment ending at levels 130-140 when the top level is 250 (or even 200, before the cap was raised).
[*=2]Consider how much content there is with respect to the levels, and compare it with the number of players in the respective level ranges. Is there enough content to match the player demographics?
[INDENT=2]
- Balance
[/INDENT]
[*=2]Too many bosses are out of reach of the average player, while some bosses have the option of soloing because they are no longer a challange. This dichotomy of difficulty needs to be addressed... at least let all bosses have the option of soloing to make things consistent. Yes some bosses should be exclusive e.g. the chaos modes, but why not have a more balanced normal mode that the average player can reach? Or are you trying to encourage partying? If so, why not make (big) bosses party-play too?
[*=2]EXP balance is quite poor in terms of Quest contribution and grinding and PQs. Quests need to give significant EXP, in the order of at least 0.5-1% of EXP to next level (depending on the parts). Consider revamping how EXP is given for quests, and provide suitable minimum/maximum EXP obtainable from quests if a level-and-percentage-based EXP reward for quests are to be implemented.
[*=2]Items in the past and items in the future are often poorly balanced. Consider the Time Traveller medal, which is extremely good for damage, and newer medals which perform significantly poorer against the said medal. Similarly for scrolls - can we make standard scrolls more relevant, or make event scrolls in the future less deal-breaking?
[INDENT=2]
- Attractiveness
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[*=2]New classes tend to have a "fad" period which make them attractive, but subsequently their attractiveness then resides in how powerful the classes are. Certain areas are also more attractive than others e.g. Omega Sector is virtually never inhabited...
[*=2]Make quests attractive, be it in terms of the content and storyline (the new theme dungeons are pretty good for this), item rewards (quite crap now to be honest) and EXP awarded (lower levels are good, upper levels are horrible).
[*=2]Grinding is often disproportionately slanted towards certain areas e.g. HoH. This is often due to lack of diversity/choices, and unattractive areas often due to spawn mechanics.
[INDENT=2]
- Older content
[/INDENT]
[*=2]The refreshing of older content needs to be done more systematically, and with an aim to encourage exploration of the refreshed areas etc. In addition, old areas tend to be forgotten... it definitely is nice to see refreshing changes e.g. continuation of story-line for Kerning Square, so keep this up for other areas e.g. Omega Sector.
[INDENT=2]
- Direction[/INDENT]
[*=2]A new class/job a year is sufficient IMO. Focus on the items, maps, monsters, quests and storyline. Don't juggle more balls than you can handle.
[*=2]Consider what you want to encourage - Partying? Bossing? Grinding? Or a free-for-all, OTOT kind of gameplay? Do you want to encourage more players to buy NX, or do you want to encourage greater spending on NX? I feel that a stronger strategic planning would help the game much more than having so much of everything sporadically. Make your direction appeal to us, instead of imposing the direction on us.
[INDENT] Cash[/INDENT]
[*=1]Generally few comments because I do not use NX. But I find that people much prefer buying the things they want, rather than buying cash items in a bundle (what they don't use becomes wasted).
[*=1]Also, the lack of permanent cash items is very disappointing. We would very much like a meso/item pouch to be available via mesoes (albeit a very short time duration e.g. 1-3 days, and a high meso price).
[*=1]We greatly, greatly dislike the inability to share cash items within an account. It is almost ridiculous to make all 24 characters buy 24 pets with item pouches etc. if a player rotates playing his characters. This of course is an exaggeration because many players have mules, but this is still an issue. What one sees as exclusive, is seen by another as inconvenience.
[*=1]Be less physical money-oriented, and more service-oriented. If people are satisfied with your service, they will keep frequenting you, and then Nexon earns by quantity which originated from quality of service.
[INDENT]
Economy (not dwelling too much here)[/INDENT]
[*=1]Too heavily dominated by event items - currency in terms of Evolving Rings? Looking forward to the new Auction House/Trading Post function.
[*=1]The prosperous will always proper, but the poor have difficulty even getting 10m mesoes. Manual looting is extremely, extremely inconvenient compared to having a pet (see below).
[INDENT] Events[/INDENT]
[*=1]In-game GM events are impossible for people who lag/have high latency. Planned events (the usual ones) often have better participation but the item rewards are often not consistent. In general we don't like time-limited rewards, and we prefer rewards to be attractive but not super game-changing/breaking. If the rewards for a season event for a particular year is too good, then it makes other years' event rewards look bad, and players will feel disappointed at the game and at the consistency.
Issues [INDENT]
Bugs and exploits
[/INDENT]
[*=1]Much, much too buggy at times. Some more significant amount of pre-release testing needs to be done... why not a test server? Prevention is much better than cure.
[*=1]Bugs that fix some things, end up unfixing others, or at some later point of time become unfixed again. Also, too many bugs that are left unfixed... have they been orphaned or forgotten? It's like walking in the rain with an umbrella with holes that aren't fully patched.
[*=1]The number of exploits leading to e.g. temporary blockage of purchase of certain cash items, is so high, one wonders if the exploiter/hackers are too competent, or that the software engineers...
[INDENT] Hacking
[/INDENT]
[*=1]A decent job done at banning hackers, but these need to be corrected at a more fundamental level, to find out why certain loopholes are present, then tie them up.
[*=1]We know that many legitimate players have been banned for various reasons or another. These make the game service look very bad.
[INDENT] Latency
[/INDENT]
[*=1]One must understand how the game works - a person playing with a slow connection is extremely vulnerable if he wants to loot things, because the moment he/she presses the Pick-Up key over an item, he/she cannot pot/attack/use spells. In addition, manual looting takes place item-by-item, in that you must press once, let the server reply, then press again over another item.
[*=1]In contrast, looting with a pet solves all these issues because there is no delay involved, and this then partially addresses the vulnerability of players with slow connections. Having a slow connection shouldn't be a "crime", but the game could be adjusted to make playing with high latency less painful.
[INDENT] Disconnections
[/INDENT]
[*=1]Disconnections are punishingly painful. Disconnecting in a boss run or PQ causes them to lose an entry count for no good reason. We should have events like those attendance ones that check based on total time spent on Maple, not a one-shot thing.
[*=1]Buffs lost are also very painful - EXP buff coupons last for 30 min - 1 hour, but most of it is wasted if people use them during 2X for greater efficiency but get disconnected after 5 minutes. For people with poor internet connection, this is much more unfair to them.
[*=1]So many players end up disconnecting during 2X. It speaks volumes about quality of play during peak hours. Also, consider why peak hours exist.
[*=1]Sometimes, disconnections aren't their fault - a hacker using a DC hack...
[*=1]Being disconnected for sending too many packets/killing too fast (e.g. Extreme MP, Ludibrium clocktower map) is a poor way of keeping abberant behaviour in check - it stops normal players while incompletely stopping malicious users.
[*=1]If people DC every 5 minutes, and it is something that they cannot help, they will eventually leave the game due to frustration.
[INDENT] Inconveniences[/INDENT]
[*=1]We would greatly like most non-exchange-related quest/event items to not show up on the inventory, or have a separate tab/pouch for it. E.g. collecting maple leaves is fine because those are exchangables, they can go into the ETC. tab, but things like collecting 30 of XX and YY to complete an event/quest... can we have them not clog up our inventory?
[*=1]Too many USCs at times, leading to excessive downtime. For people who can only play at certain periods of times, the (U)SCs already put them at a disadvantage for things like GM events, attendence events. While I am glad to see that most (but not all) attendance events affected by (U)SCs are addressed, the consistency must be kept up. Remember that players remember bad things much more strongly than good things.
[*=1]Sometimes I feel that the price for conveniences is much too high... like item slot expansion and hyper teleport rocks and pets/pet pouches. The great cost to attain comfortable playing convenience over a player who doesn't spend cash on these conveniences is actually very significant, that it makes playing without conveniences like a burden or a punishment.
[*=1]Are there more chairs than there are set-up slots?
[INDENT] Professional quality and consistency
[/INDENT]
[*=1]Professional quality stems from the ability to provide the basic game services well under all circumstances. "Extra" services like in-game events etc. should be secondary to maintaining a good primary outcome.
[*=1]Spelling mistakes tend to crop up too often, occasionally making them hilarious. But untranslated text appearing just doesn't cut it. Rigorous checks are either insufficient, or insufficiently rigorous.
[*=1]Ensure that fixes made to reported problems are also broadened, by checking everything else that may be spilled over e.g. if a hover-over text isn't appearing for a boss, check the text for all bosses.
[*=1]Too many, too many similar items but with different tags - why are there 3-4 different Power Elixirs in the game that do not stack at all? A serious cleanup is needed. One is tempted to assigning hiring a software engineer to deal with bugs and consistency alone... A bug highlighted and left unaddressed for 3 months is still a bug (if nobody reports it, that's a different matter), no matter how trivial it is, and we feel that addressing bugs and maintaining consistency is an important issue. Nexon must quickly address what is important, and what is urgent, while having consistent back-end clearing of the relatively unimportant issues.
The recent feedback through Southperry was the first one I did not participate in. In the past couple months I have done the same things in a few different areas and then I started wondering, maybe I should take this as a blessing. I was a common 12+ hour a week user, many time an easily 25+. What Nexon has done with the problems recently has actually done me a huge FAVOR. I am now barely spending 15 minutes a day in game, they have made it easy for me to break away. All the things I enjoyed about the game have been broken since UNLEASHED. I started wondering, how many other businesses that give my hard earned money to, would I BEG AND PLEAD to do better and still keep feeding them money. If you were out at a restaurant and they got your order completely wrong, your server did not even bother stopping by to see if you needed anything and the manager was not even around to listen to you, would you be begging them to take your money or would you find a different restaurant that appreciated your patronage. Thanks to comments made by Aurtax on the Maple Forum and inaction by the company he represents this is where I am. I have a date set, one that i feel is a reasonable amount of time for changes to start happening, and if they dont I will take my money elsewhere. Yes, I have noticed a many are also following this path already.
Eos Wrote:For the record, what are you referring to here?
I am referring to his reply in post 7 here, http://maplestory.nexon.net/community/#%2Fshowthread.php%3F973499-v141-Kanna-Boss-Potential-and-Nebulites-not-working-on-Haku%26nxid%3D6. The fact that he has says the fans are working as intended here, but it has not been mentions ANYWHERE else by Nexon bothers me. I guess they will use this one little mention as enough to cover then making an official announcement, as opposed to at least making a mention on the front page of their website. I know people who even last week were unknowingly still trying to cube to hit % BOSS on their 2nd fan, and were highly irritated at wasting extra cubes chasing something that wouldn't work.
Edit: I would think Aurtax would have enough pull in his position to at least get a 6 line notice on the front page of the website up.
Yes, that is why I used the term "have enough pull". I know he can not go and make the notice himself. I would just think he would go up to the NOTICE person and say something like: "Hey NOTICEMAN, look I am kind of new here and got thrown into the brier patch on a few things. Do you think you could do me a solid and make a 3 line notice concerning this subject. Do not worry about releasing a secret I already posted the issue was known on the Forums and the higher ups know about it and you can double check with them on it."
Except they've almost never been able to do that in the past, on virtually any issue, why should they now?
That was one of the things we repeatedly asked for regarding Elemental Wands/Staves where it got repeatedly ignored or claimed to be working as intended even after several revisions of how it was working. They do not have the authority to just post anything they want, and even a request to post most things takes weeks to get approval for, in the rare occasion that is even comes because the higher ups have priorities that have absolutely no relation to what players consider important.
Great posts, as usual. The reality is that even if a lot of these changes were to be implemented, we probably we wouldn't see them for quite a while and by then it would be too late.
People will pay for convenience. When business models are not convenient, people find other means that sometimes violate the rules. With Big Bang and cash item events private server activity dropped immensely. I'm sure even if Nexon were to offer a one time fee between characters to share cash items, people would do it. There are ways Nexon can earn small amounts of money through NX while adding conveniences that do not hurt the game. Making items like cubes available, and maybe offering premium versions in the cash shop may also be a nice compromise, or make the premiums available in game but at high prices. A limit could even be imposed on the amount of cubes that could be purchased all around.
How many people do you think resort to buying illegal mesos and hacking because it's too hard to play the game legitimately? At some point Nexon has to realize if their game is more streamlined and fair, illegal activities will drop as it's easier for people to enjoy and advance in the game legally. Nexon is lagging behind consumer habits.
ShinkuDragon Wrote:as terrible an idea as it is, and being the whole purpose of that thread, i couldn't bring myself to post there because just the sheer length of all that i would have to type (and my much larger pessimism lately) pissed me off to the point of not even trying.
i've tried enough in the past, i think i just crossed the line where i now think this game isn't salvageable.
Dood, you and me both. I have been writing my wall-of-criticisms threads since the very moment I participated in Southperry and frankly, I'm just tired of making all that effort anymore.
Savage Wrote:With Big Bang and cash item events private server activity dropped immensely.
It wasn't the cash item events that killed it. The problem was that Nexon was actively attacking anyone involved with creating a private server, and Big Bang was a major overhaul that required some serious time and effort to implement. Plus, players got tired of starting from scratch when their favorite server shut down thanks to a lawsuit. I've poured crazy hours into servers that don't exist anymore, so I get that.
But some private servers are still going strong. And the more pay2win Nexon makes their game and then doesn't beef up its customer service to show that they expect you to drop cash on their product, the more disgruntled players will leave and find better places to play Maple Story.
Sephie Wrote:Dood, you and me both. I have been writing my wall-of-criticisms threads since the very moment I participated in Southperry and frankly, I'm just tired of making all that effort anymore.
Agreed. I just try to ignore the negativity now and live in ignorance until the floor finally drops from underneath the game, sadly
ZeekFox Wrote:It wasn't the cash item events that killed it. The problem was that Nexon was actively attacking anyone involved with creating a private server, and Big Bang was a major overhaul that required some serious time and effort to implement. Plus, players got tired of starting from scratch when their favorite server shut down thanks to a lawsuit. I've poured crazy hours into servers that don't exist anymore, so I get that.
But some private servers are still going strong. And the more pay2win Nexon makes their game and then doesn't beef up its customer service to show that they expect you to drop cash on their product, the more disgruntled players will leave and find better places to play Maple Story.
Of course, it was numerous issues but there was a huge surge of updates that contributed. The lawsuits intimidated a lot of people, but private server owners fought tooth and nail. A lot of developers who were involved in pushing the source gave up because of that, and then we saw repack after repack, and interest just kind of died out.
Private servers were part of the fanaticism of MapleStory, in my opinion. I totally get the controversiality of them, and why Nexon chose to do what they did, but slapping a kid with a $3.6 million judgment for running a private server was a bit much and I feel like burnt a lot of bridges that maybe didn't have to be burnt. But that's a discussion for another day.
Savage Wrote:Agreed. I just try to ignore the negativity now and live in ignorance until the floor finally drops from underneath the game, sadly
It's hard to stay ignorant of a burning building as you watch from outside. And it's still our home... so we still check on it from time to time hoping to see if the flames died down enough to go back inside... before we're inevitably forced out again for the same reasons as before.
Some of us were like "noooo don't do that, it'll start a fire" and the landlord is like "nah it's good" and then we pleaded "no really, it's going to start a fire that has the potential to go out of control, and we don't like fires" but then they just ignored us. Then over time, a giant fire is just sorta there and the smart people, maybe partially burned, escaped and the more clairvoyant residents jumped ship way before because they saw the landlord's business practices... but there are still people inside paying rent, albeit unhappy, but still paying rent.
Then the bank calls the landlord and is like "what the hell, why is there a fire there to- uhh never mind, btw, give us our payments now so we can give you more debt while we expand / remodel / paint your building that's uhh burning". Landlord is like "oh no, there aren't that many paying residents left, can you help us out a little bit? Maybe deal with that fire?" Then the bank calls back a couple days later and says "sure, but only the things that keeps the building from falling down completely" and the landlord complied. And so, workers flew in a continent away to do a few touch ups to the house every so often, all to keep it from falling down into a fiery mess. But several months later, management feels the future isn't looking to good and gives out a message to all the old and current residents "guys, what can we do to get you back?".
So the residents came up with a makeshift list-o-complaints and came up with this: "I mean, it would be cool to have some indoor plumbing that actually worked most of the time, maybe a lock on our doors... that's kinda nice to have... especially with all the robberies that are happening, the brownouts that happen are pretty annoying because I have to turn things back on so you could work on that, the police arrested my neighbor with charges based on counterfeit operations so uhh I'd appreciate it if you looked into that a little, and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh maybe deal with that fire that started years ago?"
And the landlord was like "indoor plumbing working occasionally? You got it. Locks on the doors? Done. Well, kinda. We'll throw in some fancy curtains for you, but we'll need them back in 3 months".
You would think that some of us would roll our eyes... and we did! But we still took those beautiful beautiful curtains at the same time. And back into the burning building we go, all while the ones that stayed outside shake their heads in disapproval.
Where the hell is this metaphor going. I need sleep.
Wow! I'm shocked to see Nexon actually putting the hard-hitting questions on there, like "why are boss drops only in cash shop?" and "why can't free players get more access to resetting potential/bonus, nebulites, the free market, etc?" Listing those questions to see how many people 5-star them is definitely a good step.
...though I've learned about things being too good to be true. We might confirm that these questions are super important, but then the answers we get are gonna be dodged like crazy. Or simple told, "we're sorry, but no."
