2013-02-26, 03:10 PM
I agree with the OP about new content being "uninspired" and that maple is no longer "fun". IMO there's one thing that is the root of every problem.
It's too easy to get strong (with money).
This includes cubing, guardian/prot/shield/return/innocence scrolls, 2x coupons, etc. This leads to a lot of things but here's one that's discussed in this thread:
=>Large discrepancy between funded and unfunded players
Of course, not everyone has the money to make godly equips, but that's exactly why it's bad. There's a huge discrepancy between funded and unfunded players. Funded players can pay basically to do anything to their equips. They can never miss a slot, control chaos scrolls, control enhances, etc. Anything that requires work to get stronger, other people can just pay to get past it.
=>Impossible to create content for both groups
Now, there's a significant portion of the player base both close to completely/normal funded (always has had a significant portion) and decked out in cubed gear, making it necessary to cater to both of these groups of players when making content. It's impossible to do that. How do you make a boss or a PQ that's challenging, yet possible for both someone who solo's zak in 30 seconds and someone who takes 30 min?
=>Most non-endgame content becomes obsolete, eventually
The result is there needs to be completely separate content for both groups, which does not work very well because as soon as the unfunded players start liking the game and becoming more serious (funded), the rest of the content that they used to do becomes obsolete because it's so much worse for them than the end-game content. This would be fine if there were just a few outliers of super strong people, but that is not the case anymore because anyone can buy stuff from CS to buff up their character within a few minutes.
=>Everyone eventually wants to just grind to 200 and then improve their gear for the end game
Because that's what matters in the end, and the end comes too quickly (again: easy to level, easy to upgrade).
Most people play games because they want a challenge and also the rewards/satisfaction from completing them. Maple is admittedly a more social game, but at its core it's still a game. If you just wanted to socialize you'd use MSN/Skype/Facebook/Omegle/Whatever.
Being able to circumvent every challenge in the game is what's killing it for most people. With this model, the only thing you can do is of course make your end game content entertaining/fun. However, due to the nature of how Maple is at the moment, "fun" means you do enough damage to kill the bosses that give good stuff, which gets old pretty fast. To fix this they need more group content and more creative content. Even after that, they still need to somehow overhaul the pay-to-own thing to make maple enjoyable to play (as defined by many who played prepotential) again.
And this is just the surface, because even further below that, maple's just a pretty shallow, one-dimensional game. Recent RA/Magnus is a step in the right direction, but they have a looong way to go.
No one can say how long maple will last but taking a look recent history along with my personal experience (friends leaving very often), I'd say it doesn't look good.
It's too easy to get strong (with money).
This includes cubing, guardian/prot/shield/return/innocence scrolls, 2x coupons, etc. This leads to a lot of things but here's one that's discussed in this thread:
=>Large discrepancy between funded and unfunded players
Of course, not everyone has the money to make godly equips, but that's exactly why it's bad. There's a huge discrepancy between funded and unfunded players. Funded players can pay basically to do anything to their equips. They can never miss a slot, control chaos scrolls, control enhances, etc. Anything that requires work to get stronger, other people can just pay to get past it.
=>Impossible to create content for both groups
Now, there's a significant portion of the player base both close to completely/normal funded (always has had a significant portion) and decked out in cubed gear, making it necessary to cater to both of these groups of players when making content. It's impossible to do that. How do you make a boss or a PQ that's challenging, yet possible for both someone who solo's zak in 30 seconds and someone who takes 30 min?
=>Most non-endgame content becomes obsolete, eventually
The result is there needs to be completely separate content for both groups, which does not work very well because as soon as the unfunded players start liking the game and becoming more serious (funded), the rest of the content that they used to do becomes obsolete because it's so much worse for them than the end-game content. This would be fine if there were just a few outliers of super strong people, but that is not the case anymore because anyone can buy stuff from CS to buff up their character within a few minutes.
=>Everyone eventually wants to just grind to 200 and then improve their gear for the end game
Because that's what matters in the end, and the end comes too quickly (again: easy to level, easy to upgrade).
Most people play games because they want a challenge and also the rewards/satisfaction from completing them. Maple is admittedly a more social game, but at its core it's still a game. If you just wanted to socialize you'd use MSN/Skype/Facebook/Omegle/Whatever.
Being able to circumvent every challenge in the game is what's killing it for most people. With this model, the only thing you can do is of course make your end game content entertaining/fun. However, due to the nature of how Maple is at the moment, "fun" means you do enough damage to kill the bosses that give good stuff, which gets old pretty fast. To fix this they need more group content and more creative content. Even after that, they still need to somehow overhaul the pay-to-own thing to make maple enjoyable to play (as defined by many who played prepotential) again.
And this is just the surface, because even further below that, maple's just a pretty shallow, one-dimensional game. Recent RA/Magnus is a step in the right direction, but they have a looong way to go.
No one can say how long maple will last but taking a look recent history along with my personal experience (friends leaving very often), I'd say it doesn't look good.