2013-12-13, 09:39 PM
Quote:How do you feel about the community, difficulty, direction, etc?
Community:
I believe that the community for the game has become far worse than it ever was and can be for a game of this kind. Most people are obsessed with damage, doing whatever it takes to obtain that higher number. Most people have forgotten that MapleStory is a game, and take everything far too literally and far too seriously. I watch MapleStory forums, I've visited Basil more than enough times, and most of the time the attitude of the "elite" player is disgusting.
With some exceptions I find the community pretty bad. Granted, I don't play GMS, but I'm not blind.
Difficulty:
There isn't any. The game isn't hard, it's just time consuming. Whether that's in doing 20 billion damage to a boss so that you can kill it once, or in getting Level 200/250, it's all time consuming, but not difficult. There never has been any difficulty in MapleStory. That's not necessarily an issue, but when speaking plainly about the difficulty of the game I cannot deny that there isn't any.
The game is also pretty unfair, and improperly balanced to the content they've released. For example, instead of finding a way to deal with high HP vs low HP characters, they just created the 1/1 attack, which is borderline the dumbest concept that has ever existed.
Direction:
They are trying to fix their mistakes for the past three-ish years, and that's certainly a plus in itself, but the fact that they let the game get so out of hand in the first place is pretty inexcusable. It's like they were digging a hole for 3 years and then realized that soon the pressure and heat will kill them, and now they're trying to climb out of that hole, except they never gave themselves anything to get themselves out, no rope was ever thrown down, nor was a ladder built.
Is it possible to fix their mistakes? Yes. Do I think they will be able to? No.
I've said it in the past; they did some positive things in the past few years. Big Bang overall was not a negative change, but in fact the prior addition of potential that made Big Bang so negative in people's eyes. Big Bang brought many changes that were all needed, but it came with potential, which has overall ruined the game.
Comparing old MapleStory to new:
Overall, MapleStory has improved. Outside of the obvious P2W problems, MS is a vastly superior game than it used to be. In truth, if potential never existed in the first place everything that people complain about "new MS ruining" would probably still be around. Potential has made MS the solo-able game it is today. Everything that people miss - Partying, PQing, teaming up on bosses, etc., all of it is missing due to Potential. It makes you VASTLY stronger than you should be, with nearly no limits. If it had never existed, and then the game was built without it in mind, it would overall be a far better game than it is now.