2014-09-05, 03:37 AM
VerrKol Wrote:I think we can all agree they've made some excellent progress. My personal theory was that everything that can be payed for should be possible to obtain for free, but with a lot more work. One of Maple's current errors is making this work exceedingly monotonous to the point of masochism as KhainiWest would say. The error in Nexon's current implementation of this is that spending a small amount of money is incredibly unsatisfactory. You can't make small progress in your itemization by spending less than $20. You're more likely to actually lower your damage than raise it. Thus, Maple effectively pushes away the more sustainable moderate customers in favor of the "whales". We could also look at the eternal cycle of upgrades and new item sets, but I think the picture is clear enough.
Looking at the top tier games, the discrepancy is pretty clear. They offer an enjoyable experience for free with convenient enhancements that are guaranteed to benefit the customer even at low purchase amounts. Since these enhancements are attractive to all customer levels, they manage to attract both whales and more average players. Seems simple enough that even Nexon could figure it out right?
I agree that a big issue with Maple right now is the gambling aspect.
A single cube is extremely unlikely to make your item any better than it already is. What's worse, the better your item is, the more likely a single cube is to ruin it. So one must be prepared to use up dozens of cubes at one sitting, or refrain from trying at all.
The black cubes are a little better, in that they won't harm your equipment, but players still don't like to spend $100 or more and end up exactly where they started.