Hi.
In my opinion, it seems that nowadays the problems in aries have been stacking up but there has been little to no express of interest from any of the staff to fix these issues. Even issues which have been promised to fix are extremely slow-moving and had no real progress updates on.
Some of these issues are:
This is my projected timeline if I (10T~ exp per hour) were to go for level 300. I know the top mobbing classes like kanna and such have better rates and I have asked other mid-late game kannas who can 1 shot at ecoral 4, their best map, for their hourly exp rates (13T~) and this is what it would look like instead.
We also have to take into account that current new players do not have access to paragon stats/medal, nor paragon boxes which means it is not feasible for them to actually farm at the best maps, which leads to even lower exp rates and a longer time required to reach 300.
I forgot to mention but these rates are with maxed out EXP stacking (VP 2x green coupon, 2x legion/vp, mvp atmospheric, holy symbol, pink bean buff, kishin ++). I am actually required to spend resources to level and it is easy to see how much resources/investment are required for these exp rates.
I don't think that many people who play private servers for faster progression are willing to spend 750-1000 hours (more without maxing out everything I have listed above) just to reach the level cap. We can see from the website rankings that the top 5 players are at 289-291, and top 6 is at 286. Barely anyone is interested in spending those hundreds to thousands of hours just to reach level cap as things are.
Regarding the advantage of paragon, since most of the paragon enabled players are around p40-60 (including myself), I have tried inputting my stats into a stat calculator and the difference between having paragon stats and not having them is about 14-15% final damage.
This is an extremely important amount of damage in a game like maplestory where everyone is trying to min-max every way possible and funding large amounts for incremental gains (every 3% dex for me is only 0.2% final damage increase).
I hope the information above shows how antiquated a system paragon is and that something needs to be changed in some way.
I indeed understand that paragon was designed for post max-level content, and that there is no easy way to fix this “without sacrificing the original idea of Paragon”, but the game has updated and changed, and there is no reason for Aries to stagnate when the system clearly needs to change alongside the base game.
While I understand that this is not valid criticism since different servers have different ways of doing things, it really sets Aries more behind when players are anticipating these bosses/content to be added but have been waiting months with no progress updates or news from the staff while other servers have had them for a long time.
I understand that this is getting reviewed and fixed in p3 but there is no date in sight for revelry phase 3 and new players are getting stuffed because of no real way to progress after a certain point. If we expect new players to wait 3-4 months or however long that future update will be, how many players would we lose (and how many more can we really afford to lose)?
The other issue which has not been addressed is the high price of super scrolls, and more important the time gating it has been placed under. Revelry phase 2 patch notes mentioned that they wanted players to explore/consider/use other scrolling options, but the thing about that is that eventually players will have to move on to super scrolls at a certain point and the prices of these scrolls will still remain high (relative to previously).
The other issue with this is that players using suboptimal scrolling options will still have to starforce them (likely to 17 stars for the attack boost) and then scrap those equips later down the road and inno them/buy new ones to use super scrolls on which further burns their resources on the progression road forward.
The last issue is that the newly added pink scrolls do not even exist for certain class weapons and equipment and they have to rely on even weaker options which doesn’t really make much sense to me.
It feels to me that the people making these decisions do not fully understand the progression paths in aries, or simply don't care because it now feels worse to try to progress past the early game after nerfs over and over again for new players and effectively making it harder for them to want to stay in the server.
Suggestions on forums are not even acknowledged by the staff and in the off chance that they are replied to, it's often 1 sentence answers for rejection with no justification as to why and no address of the arguments that users make despite the large effort put into these suggestion threads. There has been 1 page (about 20) of suggestion threads in the last 3-4 months, surely some could get better replies (or even a reply at all), especially those with large amounts of traction from other users signifying that it's an issue that means a lot to a lot of the active player base?
Suggestions on discord usually end up with little to no reaction as they tend to get ignored despite being asked multiple times by different people.
In the case that they do get replied to, it ends up being condescending for some reason despite the suggestions coming from a good place/genuine concern? I'm sure people who have gotten their suggestions on discord replied to can understand what I mean. It almost feels as if they just reply for the sake of shutting discussion down and not try to understand where the concerns are coming from.
I have talked to a bunch of people I know regarding these issues and it seems that I am not the only one of these opinions and concerns. I decided not put this in suggestions because this tackles more than 1 aspect of the game and each suggestion thread only allows 1 issue, but I really hope something can be done about the state of affairs in and outside of the game because I really enjoyed the server over the past few months/years and it pains me to see it dwindling like this as more of my friends in the server continue to leave due to discontent.
I guess this is more of a rant post because I don't expect most of the staff to see this, or to acknowledge it even if they did see this. I had a sliver of hope that something could have changed but with the current trajectory of where things are going, it doesn't seem hopeful which led to me making this post after some deliberation.
In my opinion, it seems that nowadays the problems in aries have been stacking up but there has been little to no express of interest from any of the staff to fix these issues. Even issues which have been promised to fix are extremely slow-moving and had no real progress updates on.
Some of these issues are:
- Long time bugs (some more than 1-2 years old) that have existed but just ignored by staff and not even been addressed (a simple, “we are not fixing this”/”this is low priority for us”, would be better than nothing).
- Permanent, significant, advantage (more on this below) that old players have over new ones. I am a paragon player myself which means I am benefitting from this, but for the health of the server as a whole I do feel like this needs to be tweaked somehow by either reducing the benefits which paragon provides (which GMs do not want) or making level 300 easier to achieve so that new players can actually have a chance of reaching paragon?
This is my projected timeline if I (10T~ exp per hour) were to go for level 300. I know the top mobbing classes like kanna and such have better rates and I have asked other mid-late game kannas who can 1 shot at ecoral 4, their best map, for their hourly exp rates (13T~) and this is what it would look like instead.
We also have to take into account that current new players do not have access to paragon stats/medal, nor paragon boxes which means it is not feasible for them to actually farm at the best maps, which leads to even lower exp rates and a longer time required to reach 300.
I forgot to mention but these rates are with maxed out EXP stacking (VP 2x green coupon, 2x legion/vp, mvp atmospheric, holy symbol, pink bean buff, kishin ++). I am actually required to spend resources to level and it is easy to see how much resources/investment are required for these exp rates.
I don't think that many people who play private servers for faster progression are willing to spend 750-1000 hours (more without maxing out everything I have listed above) just to reach the level cap. We can see from the website rankings that the top 5 players are at 289-291, and top 6 is at 286. Barely anyone is interested in spending those hundreds to thousands of hours just to reach level cap as things are.
Regarding the advantage of paragon, since most of the paragon enabled players are around p40-60 (including myself), I have tried inputting my stats into a stat calculator and the difference between having paragon stats and not having them is about 14-15% final damage.
This is an extremely important amount of damage in a game like maplestory where everyone is trying to min-max every way possible and funding large amounts for incremental gains (every 3% dex for me is only 0.2% final damage increase).
I hope the information above shows how antiquated a system paragon is and that something needs to be changed in some way.
I indeed understand that paragon was designed for post max-level content, and that there is no easy way to fix this “without sacrificing the original idea of Paragon”, but the game has updated and changed, and there is no reason for Aries to stagnate when the system clearly needs to change alongside the base game.
- Slow implementation of bosses(and content). From my knowledge,it seems that aries’s developer(s) require accounts to access the content in gms so that they can use their data collecting software(?) to actually implement them in aries? (which is why they ask for accounts which can access that content or get it themselves). In the past we understood and accepted this slow uptake on bosses. However, for those of us who are well informed on the ecosystem of maple private servers, it does not seem like this is really required. The data for these bosses/in-game content are already in the files and there are other servers which have implemented all/most of the bosses, and in some cases even before their release in GMS (looking at Seren and Sacred force dailies like Hotel Arcs and Cernium).
While I understand that this is not valid criticism since different servers have different ways of doing things, it really sets Aries more behind when players are anticipating these bosses/content to be added but have been waiting months with no progress updates or news from the staff while other servers have had them for a long time.
- Slow address of pressing issues. The first part of this is related to paragon (again). Currently, with the nerfed SF success rates (see below), getting past 15 stars is already more expensive than GMS is, and for new players without access to paragon boxes, the only option they realistically have to go from 17 or 18 stars to 21 stars is paying 6k dp for a pass and not everyone has that option due to the high price.
I understand that this is getting reviewed and fixed in p3 but there is no date in sight for revelry phase 3 and new players are getting stuffed because of no real way to progress after a certain point. If we expect new players to wait 3-4 months or however long that future update will be, how many players would we lose (and how many more can we really afford to lose)?
The other issue which has not been addressed is the high price of super scrolls, and more important the time gating it has been placed under. Revelry phase 2 patch notes mentioned that they wanted players to explore/consider/use other scrolling options, but the thing about that is that eventually players will have to move on to super scrolls at a certain point and the prices of these scrolls will still remain high (relative to previously).
The other issue with this is that players using suboptimal scrolling options will still have to starforce them (likely to 17 stars for the attack boost) and then scrap those equips later down the road and inno them/buy new ones to use super scrolls on which further burns their resources on the progression road forward.
The last issue is that the newly added pink scrolls do not even exist for certain class weapons and equipment and they have to rely on even weaker options which doesn’t really make much sense to me.
It feels to me that the people making these decisions do not fully understand the progression paths in aries, or simply don't care because it now feels worse to try to progress past the early game after nerfs over and over again for new players and effectively making it harder for them to want to stay in the server.
- Little effort put in. The last verification was about 10 months ago, and we have been asked to “wait and wait” for the next time it opens. Now instead of doing that, they are further limiting the discord market time and time again due to a small number of bad actors (leading to the latest rule for verification).
Suggestions on forums are not even acknowledged by the staff and in the off chance that they are replied to, it's often 1 sentence answers for rejection with no justification as to why and no address of the arguments that users make despite the large effort put into these suggestion threads. There has been 1 page (about 20) of suggestion threads in the last 3-4 months, surely some could get better replies (or even a reply at all), especially those with large amounts of traction from other users signifying that it's an issue that means a lot to a lot of the active player base?
Suggestions on discord usually end up with little to no reaction as they tend to get ignored despite being asked multiple times by different people.
In the case that they do get replied to, it ends up being condescending for some reason despite the suggestions coming from a good place/genuine concern? I'm sure people who have gotten their suggestions on discord replied to can understand what I mean. It almost feels as if they just reply for the sake of shutting discussion down and not try to understand where the concerns are coming from.
I have talked to a bunch of people I know regarding these issues and it seems that I am not the only one of these opinions and concerns. I decided not put this in suggestions because this tackles more than 1 aspect of the game and each suggestion thread only allows 1 issue, but I really hope something can be done about the state of affairs in and outside of the game because I really enjoyed the server over the past few months/years and it pains me to see it dwindling like this as more of my friends in the server continue to leave due to discontent.
I guess this is more of a rant post because I don't expect most of the staff to see this, or to acknowledge it even if they did see this. I had a sliver of hope that something could have changed but with the current trajectory of where things are going, it doesn't seem hopeful which led to me making this post after some deliberation.