It's hard to say really. The way the story is going currently leads towards a Hilla V2 boss fight, with arcane force requirements. I think eventually it'll lead towards actually having the black mage as a weekly boss fight, perhaps they'll pull a hekaton and make it a server wide event? Not sure what kind of rewards they'd be adding, highly doubting there will be a new arcane symbol for the "last" area of arcane river.
But when/if the black mage gets beaten in a lore perspective, I assume they'll start to focus on the grandis regions story. They've been expanding it and we've barely seen the main players of grandis. I'm sure any new classes will be either part of the nova race or more flora. I highly doubt they're ever going to make another explorer class. Who really knows where they're going to go after the black mage though. They might start expanding on the Demon story for all I know.
They really would have / will blow my mind if instead of Lotus or Damien she summoned Freed and Afrien. My lord that fight would be so full of feelings and epicness.
I don't think they can exactly get away with another Pink Bean/Cygnus deal where no one can beat him until over a year after release in this day and age. But doing anything less than that would be an insult to the man's legacy. After all, Pink Bean was his apprentice and the evil future Cygnus was his creation. And even before Maple Story actually had a story out in the open and nobody did quests since the EXP rewards weren't worth it compared to pure grinding, the Black Mage was mentioned in quests. He's been around forever. So to finally fight the guy after over a decade of foreshadowing only for him to not be the most insane boss in MMO history..... wouldn't feel right.
Not to mention power creep has gotten more insane over time. Now every class can fill the screen with damage cap numbers from their multihit attacks. So how much HP does the guy have to have just to get people to party together instead of whales soloing him?
I don't think they can exactly get away with another Pink Bean/Cygnus deal where no one can beat him until over a year after release in this day and age. But doing anything less than that would be an insult to the man's legacy. After all, Pink Bean was his apprentice and the evil future Cygnus was his creation. And even before Maple Story actually had a story out in the open and nobody did quests since the EXP rewards weren't worth it compared to pure grinding, the Black Mage was mentioned in quests. He's been around forever. So to finally fight the guy after over a decade of foreshadowing only for him to not be the most insane boss in MMO history..... wouldn't feel right.
Not to mention power creep has gotten more insane over time. Now every class can fill the screen with damage cap numbers from their multihit attacks. So how much HP does the guy have to have just to get people to party together instead of whales soloing him?
I agree with you, feels like Raftel in One Piece, we have nearly no information about it(Black Mage is getting more information, but it's combat have infinity possibilitys) that's hard to even imagine much about without beying complete wrong or in case of Black Mage imaging a battle that isn't underwheling or too overwheling to actually win.
So...
Before Ark: Ok... this seems to be the Final Boss for this game... Back Mage, here we go!
After Ark: Black Mage is the Disc-One Final Boss. Seems that an intergalactic empire is even worse than that.
Darmoor has been teased as the new villain after the Black Mage since Kaiser + Angelic Buster's storyline.
Although I think the Zero storyline said something about them joining forces and trying to merge the Maple World and Grandis. And then that the three transcendents of the new world would be Black Mage, Darmoor, and Zero. (If they accept the offer, which obviously they didn't.)