MapleStory 2, welcome.

I agree with byakugan, the potential system was completely unnecessary and was only created to satiate Nexon's greed rather than for the benefit of the game. There were balance issues even before the potential system came to be, but subsequent attempts to balance classes, monsters, and bosses post potential have literally destroyed the game beyond repair. I don't think even Nexon knew what it was doing to the game until it was too late. They can't very well strip out the potential system now that so many people have spent money on cubes.

I think the best thing they could do now would be to make the potential items such as cubes available in game, but the best thing they could have done would have been to never add the potential system to begin with. All it serves to do is make the gap between the rich and the poor larger and shift the game from community based to solo play. I realize some people like solo play, but if I wanted to solo things I would be playing a single player game. Personally the community aspect was a huge part of the initial draw of the game for me.

I think Nexon should have made MapleStory 2 more true to the original, but without all the things people hate about it such as potentials. I think a big part of the reason for MapleStory's success was that it catered to a niche of gamers who weren't interested in the mainstream 3D dominated MMO market. I could be wrong, but it depends on a lot of factors. We will have to wait and see, but I'm personally not interested in a 3D MapleStory, especially when there are games such as Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft which already dominate the 3D MMORPG market.