KMST 1.2.455 - Moar changes

@KhainiWest; I never said the game was free to play, I said there are things you can do in the game that don't require you to throw piles of money at it, and there are, because some people seem to think that you can't get anywhere at all in this game without breaking the bank, and outside of bossing there are plenty of things you can do.

What you mentioned are chores. People do them because there's nothing else to do. FFS I play omok than anything else on maplestory (nearly 7k games). I don't boss on my character anymore, there's no profit in it, it's not fun for me smashing the same keys. You take bosses off and all you have is collecting meaningless crap, some that take weeks to find, others that are impossible to complete because of glitchy monsters who don't drop cards or familiars. If I recall, you have to refill your famliars as well, which is a chore not a delight.

What ever happened to spamming that you were selling crap in the Free Market entrance,
do people not do that anymore?

Botters outspam you and most players completely avoid the entrance and go right into the rooms, especially with a new room changing feature. And what are you going to sell? Scrolls? There's barely a market outside of popular class weapons and glove attacks. And most of them are less than 3m.

With the way NX is, you're gonna have to drop $10 if you wanna buy a permit. Or, possibly buy one from a friend with mesos, which is ~90m in Windia, ouch, tough for a new player, or borrow one until you make enough to pay them, or hell, ask if they can sell your stuff for you.

You'd most likely get scammed out of the stuff, if it's worth selling. As a new player what would you have to sell? All the equips that monsters drop are worthless, majority of the scrolls too, if not so insignificant that it's not worth even trying.

Everything outside of boss drops isn't exactly worthless. Monsters still drop scrolls, recipes (mostly worthless, though), and those new weapons that look like Cash Shop items, they're worth a pretty penny. Even the equips you get, NPC them, sell them as is to other players, extract them and sell the crystals, or use the crystals to make your own equips. They're not worth much in comparison to boss drops, but they're not worthless.

Yes you can make a lil bit of money doing event's but at this point you're looking for excuses and overlooking the limitations that these players have based on an economy that is supported by nx and the blackmarket. It makes everything in the game that can be found absolutely worthless, empress equips in my server (a whole set) is worth less than a bil. You know how much a bil is? 10 frekin dollars. What are you likely to do, spend years fighting the in game method of making money making a billion or just throw 10 frekin dollars at it? You play maplestory the right way and you're making penies a day in progress, hell half of pennies a day.

Seriously the biggest drop you can find, is primal essense, assuming your server didn't dupe it, and it takes players years to find it. At a lower scale, a recipe that takes days to find, for some profit. The game says "Buy nx, or work months to accomplish the same satisfaction as 2 hours of minimum wage would!". Yes money should make the game easier for the consumer, but this. This is ridiculous. You go from building a pyrimid in ancient times to building it with lego's with a credit card.

There are six out of, what, twenty three classes now, that require skill books from Zak, which you can now get from Hilla, and if you happen to choose one of those six, neither boss is that difficult such that you would need massive upgrading to do, especially with a group. You're not required to go through this game alone, after all, and it'd probably be a lot harder if you do.

All adventures from my understanding need to unlock their goddamn skills, no? Then you have horntail, who unless it changed, but the fact it was at one point ridiculous, is the only monster in the game that drops/dropped zerk 30. How stupid is that exactly? And how exactly would you upgrade at all to reach that point. Although I do recall saying that you could possibly struggle with as high as targa, otherwise you're screwed. Then we are back to square one, relying on a group. Which is laughable in todays metagame most people breeze through these bosses without a second thought, sure you could get someone to kill it for you, if they were bored enough. All that aside it's still beyond the point. You shouldn't have to rely on people to help you get basics to your job advancement, maplestory is an mmo, it should offer you a path that doesn't require money to be successful on your own. The game used to offer those oppurtunities, in fact encouraged it. But with a game that revolves around a standard known as cubes, that is longgg gone.

It's not like any old Angelic Burster can walk up to Magnus and wipe the floor with him. I don't think anyone expected her to be able to solo it, but one guy wanted to, he beefed up his character to the very extreme, and he did, and he couldn't even do that until the buff AB got from Hyper Skills. It wasn't an expected outcome, it was a fluke. And now it can't, it took half the time before, and now, with the last patch, and this one, over half its damage is gone.

Do you want to know how much it costs to accomplish it? Close to about $1200-1300. That's from buying crap from hackers, in comparison to the near 10 grand you'd spend on cubing, shield warding and god knows what else. See that's the problem. Nexon sets a standard, oblivious to the standard set by the blackmarket. They think like you do, that you have to spend insane amounts of money to accomplish slaughtering their content, which they set based on their own perspective. Little do they know that people can get gear that years ago were private server specific. That's a big chunk of the community that can do that. So this whole "top 2% thing" is garbage. It's for anyone who plays maplestory as a hobby, the reason why you see such a low % is because that's how how little people actually play maplestory as a hobby.

The easy way out is to throw money at the game, but that's not the only way for everything. You don't have to go from beginner clothes to decked out in perfect 30% stat Empress equips, you don't have to instantly begin saving all your money in the hopes that one day, you'll get enough mesos to afford the absolute best equip. How to get some okay percent stat equips? Craft them, craft a million of them, earrings, belts, tops, bottoms, weapons, whatever. Monster Park, do it five times a day until you get what you want, fuse those, sell the other equips. You're not gonna be rolling in hundreds of percents worth of equips, or getting some 70% boss legendary weapon, but there are options. While we're at it, pots? Make your own, it's pretty cheap, and the comparison between crafted MP pots and regular MP pots is even better, and even the lowest ones heal 1k, better than the crappy pots that drop. Scrounge up your Aswan coins, use those scrolls, it'll take you days, probably, and unless you're incredibly lucky, it probably won't be very good, but it's okay. Even luckier if you're playing during a coin shop event, save up your coins, do all the events, get free pots from whatever boxes you're getting, buy weapons, buy scrolls, buy equips. These are all there, they're means. Why disregard it? Because it's difficult? Because it takes time? I don't promise that you can do this and become God tier, but you'll probably be better off than you were.

Because all of those things have limitations and won't even bring a dent to what you're suggesting. Hell, what if I struggle at those pq's you mention? What is my alternative? Log in day by day to slowly struggle to raise my traits, fuse in desperation? No. That's now how a game should work. I should be able to get decent gear by training at monsters at a fair rate. Why can't Mp3 drop stat % gear that I reveal not to be useless? That's how nexon works, they give you the option, dangle in front of you but expect you to run an obstacle course to get something that benefits your character. They want you to run out of patience and cave, that's their entire business model. The make things not impossible, but improbable.

Yes, this game can hardly be called free to play, but it's not completely pay to play either.

So becaues it's not completely taxing you at every step you take that makes it okay? Your options aren't realistic, they are chores, they aren't "aspects" of the game that were meant for fun, it was meant for growth of your character. Which is so microscopic compared to a cube spree.

All adventures from my understanding need to unlock their goddamn skills, no? Then you have horntail, who unless it changed, but the fact it was at one point ridiculous, is the only monster in the game that drops/dropped zerk 30.

As far as I can recall, only Heros, Paladins, Bishops, Arans, Evans and DBs need skillbooks from Zak/Hilla. The skillbook drop rate from Zakum has been lowered to nonexistent when it became instanced, for no reason I can see. So it's pretty much only Hilla.
As for Horntail - like almost all other monsters, it doesn't drop specific mastery books anymore. It drops Mystery Mastery Books. You have equal chance of getting Zerk 30 from an MMB purchased in FM off a botter, as from an MMB HT dropped for you.

As far as I can recall, only Heros, Paladins, Bishops, Arans, Evans and DBs need skillbooks from Zak/Hilla. The skillbook drop rate from Zakum has been lowered to nonexistent when it became instanced, for no reason I can see. So it's pretty much only Hilla.
As for Horntail - like almost all other monsters, it doesn't drop specific mastery books anymore. It drops Mystery Mastery Books. You have equal chance of getting Zerk 30 from an MMB purchased in FM off a botter, as from an MMB HT dropped for you.

...So that's what all the rage was about with the MMB, my god how stupid -_-.

...So that's what all the rage was about with the MMB, my god how stupid -_-.

It becomes even more infuriating when you realize that the only reliable way to gets these books outside of bosses Horntail and above is to buy from hackers/botters, and you have a such a minuscule chance of getting what you actually need.
If you're not a popular class your book is often going to get dropped since it isn't worth selling, and now that you can fuse mastery books for another mystery mastery book...lol

[MENTION=4235]KhainiWest[/MENTION]; Familiars are permanent. Of course you're collecting meaningless crap, none of this stuff actually means anything, it's a game. The meaning isn't in what little value the game puts into them, it's what the people who like doing them put in them. Look at [MENTION=4764]Bomber[/MENTION];, he's collected 300 familiars, and what for? He likes it. It's not meaningless to him.

You'll most likely get scammed, yes, but then again, and I completely overlooked this, do you really have to sell to randoms? What about friends who might need the item, you don't even need a permit then? Most scrolls are less than 3m, yes, but that's more than enough to buy pots, which is apparently a big issue. The fact that they're not popular doesn't make them unsellable. People still play the classes that need the unpopular scrolls, and if not that, people still want cheap scrolls to scroll their android hearts with.

Again, yes, it's easy to just throw money at the game, but, and I say this again, it's not the only way. The fact that there's an easy way doesn't invalidate all other possibilities. These aren't excuses, they're suggestions if you don't want to go the way of paying to win. Sure, I can go out and buy a cake, but that doesn't mean you can't buy a mix and make one, doesn't mean you can't make one from scratch. But hey, why even do that, it's easier just to buy the cake.

You don't have to get a primal essence to make it big. Saving does work, you know. Sure, this one individual item isn't nearly as good as a primal essence, but ten of them are better than one, and a hundred of them are better than ten.

Bosses don't even drop the specific mastery books anymore, and the lower bosses ones don't even drop Mystery Mastery books at a decent rate. I would say the only reasonable way to get the books you need would be to buy them, but, outside of that there are currently 3 quests, definitely not enough, and I always get crap, that are readily available after 4th job which give you a better chance at getting a book you need. I wouldn't even consider hunting them, since there are 200+ books can come out of it, close to 300 after the release of Angelic Burster, it's a really terrible system. kMS came up with this item that lets you fuse two crappy books into a mystery mastery book, but that's something you get from events. Another facet of events is, many times if your class is getting revamped or whatever, you can get one or two books that instantly upgrades your skills to max at a 100% chance, but it's not really something you should have to rely on. Long gone are the days when bossing was required to upgrade your skills.

The other aspects of the game aren't as hard as you make them seem. You're not gonna fail a PQ because you don't have hundreds of dollars worth of equips. If me, Danny, and Joe can finish OPQ on some unfunded characters in kMS with no % gear, I don't think anyone else would have much of a problem. Even training, outside of party play, and even with party play really, you can do without having super godly equips. The game is just that easy now.

My options are unrealistic if you want to be competitive and boss and all that, but in the end, having all that percent stat and crap isn't an absolute necessity to play this game, but all everyone thinks about having the easiest possible time at bossing.

Let's look at what exactly you get from each boss:

Zak - Zhelms, Skillbooks.
Every class gets a 12 stat hat that, and since a while ago, they only have to kill a boss to get. Getting a zhelm isn't really a necessity. It's not gonna boost your damage up all that much, and the game has gotten to the point where a team of okay players can kill it without much of a problem, without having insane amounts of boss damage.

Targa and Scar are also in the same boat as Zak, I would say, minus skill books.

Hilla - Necro Weapons, Skill books.
Pretty much the same as above, Necro weapons kinda suck in comparison to Reverse and Timeless, but hey, if you want them, go for it.

HT - HTP
There are alternatives to HTP now, like MoN, or if you don't want to team up with other players to get a pendant, you can go for the silent crusade one. It's no HTP, but it's a bit better than a dep star.

Akyrum - There isn't really anything of worth here, recipes that you can't craft without insane requirements.

VL - Coins
VL is a pretty good boss, I don't think it's really possible for new players, but you can get the coins for rather decent equips. But they aren't much better than Reverse unless you get the set effect.

Chaos Zak - Chaos Zhelm. Skill Books.
At this point, Chaos Zak is really the only realiable way of getting skill books, it drops them just like old Zak used to, if you happen to be one of six classes. Chaos Zhelm as a hat is aces, if you're not going for an Empress hat.

Chaos HT - CHTP
Awesome pendant, poor requirements.

I feel that it's wrong of me to judge them so, but all these bosses are kinda worthless. Most of them have poor drop rates now, and you can't even sell their crap without paying NX to do so. And without potential, they're not much better than any equip you can get outside of doing these bosses, with the exception of CHTP, maybe. Even with potential, if you're comparing rare to rare, it's not much better either, I wouldn't think. It's bleak, and this is just my opinion, but it's totally not worth throwing your money at the game just to do them.

PB - Reverse equips, Mystery Mastery Books
It starts to get a little interesting here, Reverse weapons are decent final weapons if you don't have the money for Empress, Mystery Mastery books even better, but there's little chance you'll actually get what you need. Items here sell for about 10m~20m, decent money.

Empress and V2 - Empress Armor and Weapons, Mystery Mastery Books
Here it is, cream of the crop, the best boss. Currently in Windia, our Archer, Mage, and Warrior equips span from 10m~20m each, Pirate a little higher, Thief capping off at 60m~70m. Weapons are dropping every day, with nothing over a bil except above average canes. The profit you would get from doing Empress is undeniable. Each equip freely tradeable as well.

These bosses are the ones that require the most monetary investment, and they give the most profit. There are only two of them. Outside of these two bosses, and eventually CPB and Magnus, you can get by without spending so much on the game, assuming a group setting, which while laughable, is still something people do.

In summary, I would really only say there are two bosses that you really need to fund yourself for, unless you want to solo the others, which I understand, and those two happen to have the most potential profit and you can really get by in the game well enough without needing to do them just to make ends meet.

Familiars aren't crap to me

Wait, Empress equips cost that little at Windia!? I thought my friend was joking when he said so before; meanwhile we get to pay about 300m to 1b+ for a single Cygnus equip.

[MENTION=1747]iAmFear[/MENTION]; has a good point though I think both points have validity, myself being an average player looking to solo a few bosses: I find classes like Angelic Burster to be disturbing even if very few can bust the damage cap as intended but I would also have to admit that an AB wouldn't really impact the other things I can do and I do find things like trait farming or doing quests fun (I'm in the midst of capping the entire Phantom storyline). You'll need money to get to the very top but it's actually possible to get halfway just by crafting, maxing out your traits and doing areas like the Monster Park.

@KhainiWest; Familiars are permanent. Of course you're collecting meaningless crap, none of this stuff actually means anything, it's a game. The meaning isn't in what little value the game puts into them, it's what the people who like doing them put in them. Look at @Bomber;, he's collected 300 familiars, and what for? He likes it. It's not meaningless to him.

Do you want to cast a poll to see how much people like doing these activities? Just becase I like bug collecting doesn't mean that's a legitimate reason to stick it as a popular hobby and assume that's a method a player will suddenly have fun doing. Not everyone simply likes collecting, I don't, yet most women that play maplestory like to collect chairs. Can't do that without bank. You can't even omok without money, I bet you didn't know that.

You'll most likely get scammed, yes, but then again, and I completely overlooked this, do you really have to sell to randoms? What about friends who might need the item, you don't even need a permit then? Most scrolls are less than 3m, yes, but that's more than enough to buy pots, which is apparently a big issue. The fact that they're not popular doesn't make them unsellable. People still play the classes that need the unpopular scrolls, and if not that, people still want cheap scrolls to scroll their android hearts with.

My god dude. This is getting old. I could come up with a million and one methods how tedious stupid sh`it can make money, such as training at pig beach until level 150, the point is it's not efficient and you're throwing in factors that are ridiculous. Most of my friends wouldn't mind donating NX to me, but I can't factor that in as a gurrantee. It's considered struggling, assuming you can even make friends considering how every other player in GMS is honing on how to profit off of you.

Also as for the hearts, you do realize there are scrolls for 300k that people seek, specifically two hand for axe? What you want me to spend hours hunting those scrolls so I have potions? Do you know the drop rate on them, not in my favor for sure.

Again, yes, it's easy to just throw money at the game, but, and I say this again, it's not the only way. The fact that there's an easy way doesn't invalidate all other possibilities. These aren't excuses, they're suggestions if you don't want to go the way of paying to win. Sure, I can go out and buy a cake, but that doesn't mean you can't buy a mix and make one, doesn't mean you can't make one from scratch. But hey, why even do that, it's easier just to buy the cake.

No, see this is why your suggestions are stupid. Your suggestion is not to make a cake from scratch, your suggestion is to go open a farm, raise hens, lay eggs and make the materials in order to make the cake mix. You do realize back in the golden days you had to get up at 3am just so you could eat breakfast at 8am? You're over simplyfing the amount of time you'd have to invest just to get at a level to fight beyond HT. And if you aren't playing or even want to boss why bother upgrading at all? Just get to 120 and chill at henesys.

You don't have to get a primal essence to make it big. Saving does work, you know. Sure, this one individual item isn't nearly as good as a primal essence, but ten of them are better than one, and a hundred of them are better than ten.

-facepalm- You're overlooking the fact nexon makes it insanely difficult to deter you for taking the time to do it. Saving what? Your profits? I don't know about windia but in most markets to even step foot in the free market you better have a minimum of 50m (scania/bera/khaini are typical markets I browse) And that's for overpriced garbage that people want. Maple weapons are probably the only thing worth buying before level 110.

See the thing is, I did work for everything that I accomplished. I spent the time on a chief bandit, at florina beach hunting for str 60% scrolls, for profit and for my use. I spent the time doing pq's for scrolls, now people don't even hunt for them. It's not worth the amount of effort to do what a few dollars can do for you. People will be THROWING meso at you for 10 dollars in NX. It's not just the easiest way, it's the most reasonable way. You'd spend well more than $10 in freetime, and for the most slow growth rate in any game in existance I'd argue.

Bosses don't even drop the specific mastery books anymore, and the lower bosses ones don't even drop Mystery Mastery books at a decent rate. I would say the only reasonable way to get the books you need would be to buy them, but, outside of that there are currently 3 quests that are readily available after 4th job which give you a better chance at getting a book you need. I wouldn't even consider hunting them, since there are 200+ books can come out of it, close to 300 after the release of Angelic Burster, it's a really terrible system. kMS came up with this item that lets you fuse two crappy books into a mystery mastery book, but that's something you get from events. Long gone are the days when bossing was required to upgrade your skills.

Oh so buying from botters, better strat, I understand. Doesn't change the fact you need disposable income.

The other aspects of the game aren't as hard as you make them seem. You're not gonna fail a PQ because you don't have hundreds of dollars worth of equips. If me, Danny, and Joe can finish OPQ on some unfunded characters in kMS with no % gear, I don't think anyone else would have much of a problem. Even training, outside of party play, and even with party play really, you can do without having super godly equips. The game is just that easy now.

No one is saying you have to spend 5 grand to be able to play maplestory. You have to spend to upgrade your character to a reasonable/fair level of accomplishment. There's no feeling of accomplishment wasting 16 hours just to make 10 million mesos that gives you no flexibility for upgrades, ffs some maple weapons are worth more than that. You're protecting an oversimplified idea that people should stop complaining about the NX dependency because if you waste enough time you can "get by".

My options are unrealistic if you want to be competitive and boss and all that, but in the end, having all that percent stat and crap isn't an absolute necessity to play this game, but all everyone thinks about having the easiest possible time at bossing.

People think about efficiency. They want quick routes so they can flip for profit. But we're not discussing that, we're discussing how you can ever become someone who can boss efficiently without caving to nexon's unreasonable terms.

These bosses are the ones that require the most monetary investment, and they give the most profit. There are only two of them. Outside of these two bosses, and eventually CPB and Magnus, you can get by without spending so much on the game, assuming a group setting, which while laughable, is still something people do.

In summary, I would really only say there are two bosses that you really need to fund yourself for, unless you want to solo the others, which I understand, and those two happen to have the most potential profit and you can really get by in the game well enough without needing to do them just to make ends meet.

Define so much, because I gurrantee if you want to challenge any boss higher than targa you will have to invest something, even if that means an incredible amount of time to offset your "free pass". Which isn't reasonable, and is ludicrous you would take such a stance.

[MENTION=4598]MoldyBunny[/MENTION]; Can you stop sucking fear's ass for a second and actually comment on why you disagree rather than hiding as per usual.

Anybody happen to have an image of the new Jaguar? =o
I've read that it's named the Onyx Jaguar, is it gonna be Mir-themed xD cause I'd be very into that~
(I'm imaging something like Snow White, but dark-blue in color, w/ Mir's golden symbol on it's head =3)

(And it's not like WoW is that much more complicated. It's just, you know, better designed.)

I've had a dozens of people tell me they would never play WoW, because it's too complicated compared to Maple. If that mindset doesn't tell me anything, then I don't even...lol

WoW bosses would wreck Maplers? Ha. Pit a party of average WoW players against Magnus and they'll have the death count down to 0 in three minutes. Moving out of the way of things that will kill them is kind of their weakness.

Most Maplers I've seen can't even count, let alone read. We had 3-4 people die to Empress DR last night, because they didn't even bother reading the timer we gave them. Nevermind the fact that we missed a bind due to Shinsoo shield and most of the group went gungho against Empress and it took 10 seconds of me and a buddy spamming "STOP" just to make them actually stop.

Now that I think about it, the playerbase of both games really isn't that much different LOL.

Getting friends for a PB run with a bunch of noobs doesnt even require time.
At this point anyone with a brain, a level 170 character, and a bunch of friends with a brain can kill PB without a problem.

Do you want to cast a poll to see how much people like doing these activities? Just becase I like bug collecting doesn't mean that's a legitimate reason to stick it as a popular hobby and assume that's a method a player will suddenly have fun doing. Not everyone simply likes collecting, I don't, yet most women that play maplestory like to collect chairs. Can't do that without bank. You can't even omok without money, I bet you didn't know that.

YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.

YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.

You said that to me a year ago when I said "whats a paladin"

Everyone asked me that question.

[MENTION=4598]MoldyBunny[/MENTION]; Can you stop sucking fear's ass for a second and actually comment on why you disagree rather than hiding as per usual.

I can agree or disagree with a post for any reason without having to actually post myself, that's why the system exists. If you don't like that you should probably try to get it changed.

As for why I happen to disagree with just about everything you've posted in this thread, is because you put so much emphasis on having the best equips and killing the top bosses instead of actually playing the game. You've mentioned that you can just spend money in order to get the best equips/mesos/NX, and while that's true there's nothing wrong with not having the best equips or being able to kill the best bosses. The focus on having the highest possible damage and being able to kill the hardest bosses in the game is what takes a lot of the enjoyment out of maple. There's nothing wrong with having that as a goal, but to suggest that the game is impossible to play without NX or spending money is an exaggeration. You're right that to get the best gear it takes actual money or NX, but there are plenty of ways to upgrade equips in game. Just because you can spend money to upgrade faster doesn't make it better, some people actually get enjoyment out of working towards their goals in game instead of just paying for them.

It's a game, it has no purpose. There are many ways to play the game and to suggest that not spending money and working your way up to better equips is bad because you don't find it enjoyable is wrong. I'm not saying that having the highest damage possible requiring NX is fair and that people shouldn't be unhappy with it, but if you find that actually playing the game and spending time doing in game things to be a chore then you're most likely playing the wrong game.

I can agree or disagree with a post for any reason without having to actually post myself, that's why the system exists. If you don't like that you should probably try to get it changed.

As for why I happen to disagree with just about everything you've posted in this thread, is because you put so much emphasis on having the best equips and killing the top bosses instead of actually playing the game. You've mentioned that you can just spend money in order to get the best equips/mesos/NX, and while that's true there's nothing wrong with not having the best equips or being able to kill the best bosses. The focus on having the highest possible damage and being able to kill the hardest bosses in the game is what takes a lot of the enjoyment out of maple. There's nothing wrong with having that as a goal, but to suggest that the game is impossible to play without NX or spending money is an exaggeration. You're right that to get the best gear it takes actual money or NX, but there are plenty of ways to upgrade equips in game. Just because you can spend money to upgrade faster doesn't make it better, some people actually get enjoyment out of working towards their goals in game instead of just paying for them.

It's a game, it has no purpose. There are many ways to play the game and to suggest that not spending money and working your way up to better equips is bad because you don't find it enjoyable is wrong. I'm not saying that having the highest damage possible requiring NX is fair and that people shouldn't be unhappy with it, but if you find that actually playing the game and spending time doing in game things to be a chore then you're most likely playing the wrong game.

I made you post this for a reason. I called you out because you didn't read my posts, clearly and took a bias stance for your friend. You should just stick to lurking, it suits you.

Edit: It helps when you don't down vote not even 4 seconds after the post. As I figured, you can't read that fast.

Let me elaborate since I'm home now. You sit here and throw this stereotype on me because I disagree, and yet my argument is nothing to do with that. If you want to accomplish at the most minimal level, it requires a dedication that would be equivalent to a job. When you play a MMO that is free, you choose to spend money to accelerate the process of whatever goal is attainable. You don't do that with CS. You get immediate results to half a year.

You can enjoy all the little quirky things MS has to offer, but theres a reason why everyone is quitting. Those little things aren't worth doing. Once you hit 200 where the game should begin, it doesn't, it ends. Pick your poison, but in the end there should be a reasonable method to get at least above average, not struggling and depending on events to give you free stuff, assuming they dont expire.

I've been playing this game for 6-7 years on a model of self-sustenance. That is, I don't have the time to throw hours into the game to merchant. I pick up my mesos, I'll dump anything that could be useful in the future on a mule, or sell a thing or two that could be worth something when I'm in serious need of cash. I spend NX on occasion (perhaps $10-20 a year?) for permanent pets/equips. I've probably bought <20 cubes of any sort.

So, after playing around 6-7 years without investing much NX directly into equipment/improving my range, what are my results?
Current total meso reserves: 150 mill.
Current total assets (excluding mesos): <2 bill.

Since I can't afford anything nowadays, I normally just spend hours farming equips at monster park and then fusing/crafting with my fingers crossed that I'll get something usable. My best weapon is a 132att dragon kanzir (and even that is probably worth less than 200mill nowadays), which I self-scrolled over the years of collecting scrolls of all sorts. Am I going to be fighting HT anytime soon? Probably not. Not with my 30k range (at lv16x), with probably less than 30% PDR, and only 10% boss damage from my DS. Will I ever get to fight HT? Maybe.

Any new boss that will be released in the future has nothing to do with me. While the rich players are soloing Hard Magnus under 5 minutes and getting a few bills in drops per run, I'm be here making barely 100k a day over a couple of years trying to defeat HT.

TL;DR. It took me 6-7 years to get a 30k range on one of my characters using the 'other methods' of making money that some people have been suggesting in this thread.

EDIT: So yes, other methods do exist, but are so painfully slow most would just give up. I think you need to actually experience what it's like playing the game NXless before you truly understand how terrible Maple has become.

I've been playing this game for 6-7 years on a model of self-sustenance. That is, I don't have the time to throw hours into the game to merchant. I pick up my mesos, I'll dump anything that could be useful in the future on a mule, or sell a thing or two that could be worth something when I'm in serious need of cash. I spend NX on occasion (perhaps $10-20 a year?) for permanent pets/equips. I've probably bought <20 cubes of any sort.

So, after playing around 6-7 years without investing much NX directly into equipment/improving my range, what are my results?
Current total meso reserves: 150 mill.
Current total assets (excluding mesos): <2 bill.

Since I can't afford anything nowadays, I normally just spend hours farming equips at monster park and then fusing/crafting with my fingers crossed that I'll get something usable. My best weapon is a 132att dragon kanzir (and even that is probably worth less than 200mill nowadays), which I self-scrolled over the years of collecting scrolls of all sorts. Am I going to be fighting HT anytime soon? Probably not. Not with my 30k range (at lv16x), with probably less than 30% PDR, and only 10% boss damage from my DS. Will I ever get to fight HT? Maybe.

Any new boss that will be released in the future has nothing to do with me. While the rich players are soloing Hard Magnus under 5 minutes and getting a few bills in drops per run, I'm be here making barely 100k a day over a couple of years trying to defeat HT.

TL;DR. It took me 6-7 years to get a 30k range on one of my characters using the 'other methods' of making money that some people have been suggesting in this thread.

EDIT: So yes, other methods do exist, but are so painfully slow most would just give up. I think you need to actually experience what it's like playing the game NXless before you truly understand how terrible Maple has become.

THANKYOUSOMUCHIFEELYOURPAINBROTHER

Oh no. Maplers know how to play their game much better than WoW players know how to play theirs. (And it's not like WoW is that much more complicated. It's just, you know, better designed.) I know this from firsthand experience.

Rather laughable. Do you have pure facts that Maplers know Maplestory better than WoW players know WoW? I myself have stories of Maplers that can't do the Zakum quest at all, and needed someone else to do it for them. I can even recall players that didn't know X maps/monsters exist. It's all opinion right here. Sidenote, Maple is ridiculously simple when you can pretty much sum up training in 7 words or less: Skeletons/Scarecrow/Jesters/MP3/Aliens/LHC/Stronghold. Gearing up is summed up in one word: Potential. Saying WoW isn't that much more complicated is pretty silly in this sense.

Most WoW players are incredibly pineappleing stupid, whereas about every Mapler these days knows how to look up proper builds online at the very least.

How do you know that? And it's very hard to screw up a Maple build nowadays, given you will pretty much max nearly everything anyways due to how many skill points they give you. It's only a difference of what level you max it at; as far as you know that Mapler over there didn't max their weapon mastery until nearly 3rd job. Hell, as a Phantom I recalled once or twice that I stole a Hyper Body below level 20 and a Magic Guard below 15, and yes I made sure the player was at least 3rd job. Perhaps you met with WoW players of the bottom of the barrel, because every game has terrible players, no matter how popular or even obscure.

I can recall an I/L Mage back in Scania who'd go broke training even when armed with NLC pots (pre-Big Bang). HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK??

No, seriously, which playerbase is known for dying by standing in fires/poison/black puddles of death/bright circles in the ground/other obvious things that will kill you if you don't move out of them? (Hint: Not Maplers.)

Which playerbase is known for dying by still attacking Damage Reflected bosses after the DR symbol is up? Hint: Not WoW players. Also, I've had my share of standing in fire, despite also being aware enough that I'm usually already moving away from the ground hazard. The same can also apply to Maplers because everyone has died at least once to obviously telegraphed attacks that will strike X part of the screen.

.....And that's why I quit WoW. I couldn't get into a competent guild because I joined too late, so my raiding mostly consisted of me dying because of other people screwing up. Me actually reading up on Elitist Jerks and learning how to optimally play my class and watching all the Tankspot videos meant nothing because most people I grouped with aren't even aware of such websites, and went for whatever equipment raised their Gearscore more instead of the gear that is actually optimal.

There's your problem, sir. You were in a bad guild. You're biased towards bad WoW players because your guild consisted of bad WoW players. The bad apples have spoiled the bunch. Same can be said for Maple. Terrible guildies = Maplestory players are bad. I can do insane troll logic too.

WoW bosses would wreck Maplers? Ha. Pit a party of average WoW players against Magnus and they'll have the death count down to 0 in three minutes. Moving out of the way of things that will kill them is kind of their weakness.

This reeks of so much bias it hurts. And I'm very sure even the average Mapler will die very quick to Magnus as well, so it's a moot argument. Seriously, if you want to bash WoW players come up with more convincing arguments.

I like the fact that you think you're the one that has THE TRUTH on the matter. Both Dark Link and I are WoW players as well, while still playing Maplestory. It's quite easy to pick apart your argument using Maple examples to refute them all. Responses in bold. I won't deny there have been some really bad WoW players, but again I can say the same for Maple.