My Opinion on the State of AriesMS

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Konada

Member
Jul 21, 2018
58
43
18
Singapore
This is the mentality I'm talking about in my post. Instead of choosing to ignore the Angry comment you tend to flame more? Very Mature of you sir.

I read through your whole post and it is contributing nothing to the original question. All I got from your post is how you're so good and things should be expected the way they are.

If you think AMS staff cares - Why don't they have a separate support channel in discord which could help out new players? Often times I've asked questions in the General chat and I've been ignored or told to google.

While I advocate a nicer attitude to newbies, there are certain offenders that expect to be spoonfed everything while the answers can be easily found with a google search.

Sometimes, newbies also have to take responsibility for finding out easily accessible information for themselves too.

The attitude these offenders take is similar to a beggar asking for free change when there is a Mcdonalds advertising for walk-in interview for a full time position beside him.
 

lodist1

New member
Aug 7, 2021
10
18
3
singapore
This is the mentality I'm talking about in my post. Instead of choosing to ignore the Angry comment you tend to flame more? Very Mature of you sir.

I read through your whole post and it is contributing nothing to the original question. All I got from your post is how you're so good and things should be expected the way they are.

If you think AMS staff cares - Why don't they have a separate support channel in discord which could help out new players? Often times I've asked questions in the General chat and I've been ignored or told to google.

Tbh I wouldn't expect much from someone who literally wrote an entire essay to compliment and justify himself. The majority on discord do not find communication an uphill task so just ignore certain narcissistic bigots and move on. Most questions have been asked more than once in discord history so just look it up, otherwise, I'm sure there will always be genuine people willing to help newbies out.
 

Spyro

Well-known member
Jul 17, 2018
4,869
892
113
Dragon's Cave
Paragon Access

We fully acknowledge the ridiculousness of the EXP required to achieve Lv.300 and despite the multipliers in Aries, it is still relatively difficult.

We want to allow players to access Paragon without sacrificing the efforts that Paragon-enabled players have already achieved, and still be able to offer players who have achieved significant progress towards their character levels.

That said, our plan is to provide Paragon access to players at Lv.275 + a certain requirement that will be revealed once it's ready for release. This requirement will ensure that players have spent a decent amount of effort on their accounts before they are able to access the power that Paragon grants. This will be the current plan moving forward, and for future regular increments from official servers. We have ensured that the requirement does not tie to any point of an endgame progression, and remains realistic to achieve.

Starforce Rates

Starforce rates have been quite the discussion ever since the release of 16 to 25 stars enhancements.

The current player base heavily relies on the 'Star Force Super Scroll' protection boxes to enhance their equipment beyond 17 stars, and we have noted the concerns that many players have expressed towards the reduction of success rates when compared with GMS. While we wanted to retain most of the difficulty in progression, we also wanted to ensure that Aries progression was easier to achieve than the original game as well as provide a more fulfilling experience when you progress your characters.

Our plan for Starforce rates is that the protection boxes will remain in the game. However, there will be changes made to how success rates will play out depending on the usage of these protection boxes. Once this update is live, players will be able to enhance their equipment with the success rates from GMS, on the condition that there are no protection boxes used along with the enhancement. The boxes can still be used along with your enhancement, but the success rates will be reduced or will be what the current rates are as of now.

As for the acquisition of these boxes, they will take much longer to review and we will leave this to Phase 3. We expect Phase 3 to be somewhat completed by the end of the year, if not early next year.

Revelry Points Acquisition / Super Scrolls / Power Gap

When we implemented Revelry Points, we wanted to ensure that it was a currency that all players would be able to achieve, but yet ensure that there is a certain difficulty in acquiring some of the items. As of now, there will not be any changes made to how Super Scrolls are acquired, and we advise players who have put their 100% focus towards acquiring these scrolls to seek alternatives until they can be achieved. The power gap that ensued was a necessary and unfortunate result of the adjustment to the accessibility of Super Scrolls.

Stale Content

We understand that most of the "content" in Aries runs on a rotation and its mechanics and/or gameplay reuses the same style from past occurrences. We want to achieve the most sustainable mode of releasing "content", albeit cosmetics, as well as be able to implement unusual events that aren't normally seen every now and then. We feel that the current system is in a more consistent spot than the experimental gameplay in 2016-2017, but it can use more improvements to become better.

Discord Verification

For the verification of Discord accounts, and as mentioned on Discord on Aug 26, 2021, we have plans in implementing a better verification system that will be autonomous and players will be able to do so at their own time. I previously mentioned that a forum account would be required, and would like to update players that this is no longer necessary. As much as we hope to implement this as soon as possible, we would like to seek your patience and allow us the time to ensure that this system is reliably stable.

Discord Support

In our Discord server, we hope to be able to offer solutions as quickly and as easily as possible, whilst managing approximately 200 over tasks. Aside from the exaggeration, we want to remind players that the most common questions can be found by searching Discord chat history and or from browsing our forums. We also have a Dyno bot on Discord, and the information that it has been given should help you for most of the way.

That said, there are still some unique issues that require 1-on-1 assistance, if so, we would appreciate it if users provide the full details and information including steps on how these issues are replicated. Vague and impatient inquiries will not only slow down both you and the staff but will also lead to an inefficient troubleshooting process.

Bug Reports & Status

We acknowledge the confusion that players have had for the past few years with regard to the status of bug reports.

We are looking to add prefixes in the near future for the Bug Report section to allow players more insight into their current process and whether or not a certain issue is being worked on. The recent lack of bug fixes was due to the staff's focus on implementing new features as well as system revisions. We will revert our focus on bug fixes soon, and any inconvenience this has caused is much regretted.

Constructive Criticism

As compared to the early years of the server, we've improved transparency with players and have been open-minded in welcoming suggestions that improve the overall gameplay. We want to maintain this, and we hope to make more improvements as the server grows.

However, one thing that has aged and hasn't changed is the way some players have chosen to express their concerns or suggestions. We fully understand the concerns, however, there are many times that a straight answer will not sufficiently address and I would like to personally reiterate that: just because there isn't a response from the staff team, that does not mean we do not acknowledge nor care about them.

We sincerely appreciate it if future suggestions are neutral and are as to the point as possible, and do not include passive aggression that may otherwise slow down the overall process of gathering opinions for improvements.

As much as we welcome suggestions, they should be realistic and necessary for the betterment of the server as a whole.

Have a good one.
 

notaphantom

New member
Sep 2, 2021
2
14
3
Thailand
Well, that is completely everything I had in mind before deciding to quit.
I joined AMS back on June, it took me about two months to level to 275
with about 36-40k stats only,
but sadly, i couldnt enter Paragon anymore (i hit 275 like a week after the level cap increase).
i only managed to get half of my gear scrolled up with SS and half left unfinished
2 or 3 shots were needed for ecrilia and earc

I joined the server discord asking for advice
hoping to convince the admin or GM's to actually reconsider about change the paragon level
(cus i heard that u could sell the box for 5-6k under the passing condition.) (for a new player like me I used to get probably a bil per hour drops included)
and not to mention the godly badge nova pride which gives a lot of stats
I was hoping a private server would help welcome a newcomer like me, or atleast hear me out
R2dfW2P.png


this is the chat on discord general room, where i got a reply from someone, i dont know who he is,
i thought he was a GM but apparently he had another role, another nametag color.
he was atleast acting like a GM to me (cus actual GM didnt respond at all) which was totally fine, but the language he used, i didnt like it much
like being sarcastic and stuff, asked me if i had ever considered something i had no idea of? now thats a real "wow"
The general chat is great example of what an unfriendly community is like, Ive often seen new players get criticized
for not knowing something that is exclusive only on this server.

apart from critizicing, theres always threatening (to get banned or blocked) or its just me who always feels that way idk
5Ver0Zx.png


I am one of the people whove been on a lot of servers GMS, THMS, Ristonia, Cantaloup, Extalia, SEA not to mention many more in the past
i can honestly say that not all of the private servers ive played had the helpful community
but remember there was no discord no nothing not like today, u have whats called the convinience to listen to voices like cmon


As I have barely active anymore, might come back if theres a better or improved in whatever has been said
please remember that i dont mind much about the game being difficult to play
but atleast give newcomers some motivation, maybe they might end up being biggest donator, who knows?


if youve read everything to here, thanks for reading
 
Last edited:

Cupboard

Member
Dec 4, 2018
127
9
18
Singapore
Bug Reports & Status

We acknowledge the confusion that players have had for the past few years with regard to the status of bug reports.

We are looking to add prefixes in the near future for the Bug Report section to allow players more insight into their current process and whether or not a certain issue is being worked on. The recent lack of bug fixes was due to the staff's focus on implementing new features as well as system revisions. We will revert our focus on bug fixes soon, and any inconvenience this has caused is much regretted.

Constructive Criticism

As compared to the early years of the server, we've improved transparency with players and have been open-minded in welcoming suggestions that improve the overall gameplay. We want to maintain this, and we hope to make more improvements as the server grows.

However, one thing that has aged and hasn't changed is the way some players have chosen to express their concerns or suggestions. We fully understand the concerns, however, there are many times that a straight answer will not sufficiently address and I would like to personally reiterate that: just because there isn't a response from the staff team, that does not mean we do not acknowledge nor care about them.

We sincerely appreciate it if future suggestions are neutral and are as to the point as possible, and do not include passive aggression that may otherwise slow down the overall process of gathering opinions for improvements.

As much as we welcome suggestions, they should be realistic and necessary for the betterment of the server as a whole.

Have a good one.

I do agree that the Staff has improved transparency with players and have gotten more open-minded generally over the past few years. This is based on my own observations and interactions with certain people of the community, and also experiences shared by other players (most of whom have since quitted the game due to various reasons), but there is always room for improvement.

While we are on the topic of transparency, I acknowledge that there are some plans to improve the Bug Report section and related processes in the future. However, players do not know how long this change might take, when certain content & cosmetic updates already take months or even more than a year to be implemented into the game. The issues brought up by fellow players on the Bug Report section also applies to the Suggestion section, where we can see that there are threads from more than a year ago, but not acknowledged by any Staff with a reply. I personally feel that some of these suggestions, if approved, brings about more variety and QoL improvement into the game.

I am not sure about Aries' Internal Staff operating procedures, if any, but can I suggest that in the interim, the Staff acknowledge the issues/suggestions by replying a simple comment such as

"We acknowledge the issue, the matter is being worked on / investigated on / we require more information as to how the bug or glitch came about."
"We thank you for your suggestion. Your suggestion has been accepted / denied because _ (a simple short reply as to why the suggestion was denied? I fully understand that in some situations, a simple short answer may not suffice but at least an acknowledgement would be good?)"

Separately, can I also bring your attention to this thread, where you (Spyro) said that the Staff will review this suggestion again on 7 May 2020 but there have been no updates since then to the thread itself. I did a quick search on both the forums and Discord, and did not see this suggestion being addressed.
 

everynmn

Active member
Feb 18, 2021
65
126
33
Australia
Paragon Access



We fully acknowledge the ridiculousness of the EXP required to achieve Lv.300 and despite the multipliers in Aries, it is still relatively difficult.



We want to allow players to access Paragon without sacrificing the efforts that Paragon-enabled players have already achieved, and still be able to offer players who have achieved significant progress towards their character levels.



That said, our plan is to provide Paragon access to players at Lv.275 + a certain requirement that will be revealed once it's ready for release. This requirement will ensure that players have spent a decent amount of effort on their accounts before they are able to access the power that Paragon grants. This will be the current plan moving forward, and for future regular increments from official servers. We have ensured that the requirement does not tie to any point of an endgame progression, and remains realistic to achieve.



Starforce Rates



Starforce rates have been quite the discussion ever since the release of 16 to 25 stars enhancements.



The current player base heavily relies on the 'Star Force Super Scroll' protection boxes to enhance their equipment beyond 17 stars, and we have noted the concerns that many players have expressed towards the reduction of success rates when compared with GMS. While we wanted to retain most of the difficulty in progression, we also wanted to ensure that Aries progression was easier to achieve than the original game as well as provide a more fulfilling experience when you progress your characters.



Our plan for Starforce rates is that the protection boxes will remain in the game. However, there will be changes made to how success rates will play out depending on the usage of these protection boxes. Once this update is live, players will be able to enhance their equipment with the success rates from GMS, on the condition that there are no protection boxes used along with the enhancement. The boxes can still be used along with your enhancement, but the success rates will be reduced or will be what the current rates are as of now.



As for the acquisition of these boxes, they will take much longer to review and we will leave this to Phase 3. We expect Phase 3 to be somewhat completed by the end of the year, if not early next year.



I'm happy to see that most of the highlighted areas have been addressed, especially re-enabling of paragon access to new 275s in the future.

However I also would like to address the potential issues that may arise of because of the second mentioned change (implementing GMS success/fail/boom rates into aries) and also offer a counter-suggestion so that the staff team has more data to work off of in deciding how they will want to implement changes into the existing starforce system in aries.


Possible ways of balancing GMS SF rates if implemented in Aries
increase the meso cost per SF attempt.

In the Aries system currently, protection boxes are the only way to realistically go from 17/18 stars to 21stars and the rate of acquisition of these boxes and also the cost of buying each pass attempt for the boxes are constant (6k dp/31b mesos per star at current meso:dp rates) regardless of the level of the equip.

Running simulations for GMS SF costs (https://brendonmay.github.io/starforceCalculator/),

- cost of a level 200 equip's 17>21 is 54.5B (11.5B for clean equip replacement for boom + 43b meso cost)
- cost of a level 160 equip's 17>21 is 22B + 1 boom
- cost of a level 150 equip's 17>21 is 18B + 1 boom

- cost of a level 150/160/200 equip's 17>21 in aries costs 125b
if we consider only buying passes and not self farming those boxes, which would make it time gated but significantly cheaper)

problems with doing this:
changing the existing SF system in Aries by introducing GMS rates will heavily break and unbalance the existing ecosystem of items and economy, because existing 150/160 items are priced with the cost of each star above 17 being considered constant (at 6k dp per pass) and will become heavily devalued if GMS prices are used, even if the meso cost per SF attempt were scaled up by a certain rate (more on this later).

Looking at possible ways to decide how much meso cost per SF attempt could be increased by:
So right now, if the SF success rates were to be implemented, the meso prices per SF attempt would definitely have to be inflated accordingly due to the much higher meso and additional nx/farming rates. Looking at the numbers, since we have 2x-4x the farming rates of GMS (2x if we consider purely mesos, close to 4x if we include NX, elite coins and nodes).

Below are several ways to decide how much to inflate the cost of each SF attempt by (for 17>21):

Assumptions:
mid-late game meso rates in GMS are 600-700m/h? + nodes (negligible for now) + traces (negligible for now)
Aries meso rates are about 1-1.4b/h + 800-900k nx (0.9-1b mesos if converted) + coins (negligible for now) + nodes (negligible for now)
Mesos are considered at the current dp:meso rate of 1k:5.2b


- purely considering meso rate (2x):
for level 200 items, this would now cost 95b~ mesos with regular SF (inclusive of boom cost), as compared to the protection box rate of 125b (about 76%~ of the original cost)
for level 150/160 items, this would now cost 40b~ mesos with regular SF (not inclusive of boom cost due to varied eq prices), as compared to the protection box rate of 125b (about 32%~ of the original cost)

- considering all earnings from farming (meso, nx, coins, nodes) and converted to meso (4x)
for level 200 items, this would now cost 185b~ mesos with regular SF (inclusive of boom cost), as compared to the protection box rate of 125b (about 150%~ of the original cost)
for level 150/160 items, this would now cost 80b~ mesos with regular SF (not inclusive of boom cost due to varied eq prices), as compared to the protection box rate of 125b (about 64%~ of the original cost)

- making the price of SF-ing 17>21 items align with the cost of paragon boxing them from 17>21. Not recommended because paragon box service price changes might cause this to become massively inaccurate in future
for level 200 items, this would now cost 125b~ mesos with regular SF (inclusive of boom cost), as compared to the protection box rate of 125b (same as the original cost)
for level 150/160 items, this would now cost 45.8b~ mesos with regular SF (not inclusive of boom cost due to varied eq prices), as compared to the protection box rate of 125b (about 36%~ of the original cost)

Pros and Cons of the above
with these data in mind I want to list the pros and cons of implementing the GMS SF rates (30% pass with low boom chance) into Aries:
Pros:
- faster progression for players looking to SF their items above 17 stars due to cheaper costs
- no time gating of SF progression, purely meso/effort gated
Cons:
- crashing of the market/heavily devaluation for existing items that are above 17stars
- existing players feel like their effort into their 18 star+ items has been significantly undermined due to such changes
- meso supply will not be able to keep up with demand if costs were inflated to a point that is in line with current prices for paragon box passes
- more luck based than existing protection box system due to high variations in price needed to reach a certain SF (because of luck, article on this below)

My thoughts on this matter
While I support a more fulfilling progression path and also easier/faster progression than GMS, I feel like this could be achieved in a more thought out manner that will not break the balance of the existing system due to how delicate it is with the large number of min-maxing and custom systems that Aries already has.
Which is why I have some possible suggestions on how this could be achieved by possibly making slight modifications to the existing protection box system that Aries has rather than introducing a secondary system in parallel (GMS success/fail/boom rates)

In GMS, each boom can easily spike the cost of getting SF back to where it was, and also the trouble/price of getting new clean equipment.
Part of what I feel makes SF a fulfilling experience in aries is because with protection boxes, there are guaranteed to be no booms from 0 to 21 stars which is part of what makes the protection box system less painful because of a somewhat linear progression in SF. for players This is a good read if you're more interested in the variance between mesos needed for different players' progression due to luck in the GMS system: www.reddit.com/r/Maplestory/comments/ob913x/just_be_lucky_a_more_complete_look_at_starforcing/

I feel like a complete system overhaul for SF (introducing GMS rates) is not really required because it might include way too much to review when considering the rippling effects it would have on the other parts of the game, and that minor tweaks (to protection boxes) would be easier to implement and balance.

My Counter suggestion for improving the SF experience
These changes will also not break the existing custom SF system (protection boxes) that Aries has had for years and I think would be positively seen by players due to improvement of progression in Aries

Better progression for paragon boxes could possibly involve:
-Slightly higher pass rates for 17-22 when using protection boxes (20%/15% ?)
-Lower cost of protection boxes in nova coins
-Easier acquisition/additional acquisition ways of protection boxes

I feel like this would be a positive change to SF progression (as compared to bringing over GMS rates) because
- it can keep the pros I have listed for the GMS SF (17-22) rates while also reducing/removing the cons
- will not break the existing custom SF system (protection boxes) that Aries has had for years
- would be positively seen by newer players because of the reduced difficulty in progression of SF
- will not as heavily impact the market/prices of existing high starforce (18+) equips
- win-win for both old and new players as this will overall reduce the difficulty of reaching higher SF for all players, while also not massively devaluing existing equipments



This is my opinion after obtaining a joint collection of input from various Aries players and GMS players on the matter.
I hope this gives post provides further insight to the staff team on whether or not to implement the new SF system with GMS rates, and also some possible ways in which progression could be improved for new players as well as mid/lategame players transitioning to the endgame. Happy to discuss this further on discord as well with other players who do not frequent forums.

If any other players have any thoughts/suggestions on the matter as well, it will be good to provide your input so that the staff team can have more opinions to consider, and there might be interesting solutions that have not been mentioned yet as well.
 
Last edited:

Spyro

Well-known member
Jul 17, 2018
4,869
892
113
Dragon's Cave
Well, that is completely everything I had in mind before deciding to quit.
I joined AMS back on June, it took me about two months to level to 275
with about 36-40k stats only,
but sadly, i couldnt enter Paragon anymore (i hit 275 like a week after the level cap increase).
i only managed to get half of my gear scrolled up with SS and half left unfinished
2 or 3 shots were needed for ecrilia and earc

I joined the server discord asking for advice
hoping to convince the admin or GM's to actually reconsider about change the paragon level
(cus i heard that u could sell the box for 5-6k under the passing condition.) (for a new player like me I used to get probably a bil per hour drops included)
and not to mention the godly badge nova pride which gives a lot of stats
I was hoping a private server would help welcome a newcomer like me, or atleast hear me out
R2dfW2P.png


this is the chat on discord general room, where i got a reply from someone, i dont know who he is,
i thought he was a GM but apparently he had another role, another nametag color.
he was atleast acting like a GM to me (cus actual GM didnt respond at all) which was totally fine, but the language he used, i didnt like it much
like being sarcastic and stuff, asked me if i had ever considered something i had no idea of? now thats a real "wow"
The general chat is great example of what an unfriendly community is like, Ive often seen new players get criticized
for not knowing something that is exclusive only on this server.

apart from critizicing, theres always threatening (to get banned or blocked) or its just me who always feels that way idk
5Ver0Zx.png


I am one of the people whove been on a lot of servers GMS, THMS, Ristonia, Cantaloup, Extalia, SEA not to mention many more in the past
i can honestly say that not all of the private servers ive played had the helpful community
but remember there was no discord no nothing not like today, u have whats called the convinience to listen to voices like cmon


As I have barely active anymore, might come back if theres a better or improved in whatever has been said
please remember that i dont mind much about the game being difficult to play
but atleast give newcomers some motivation, maybe they might end up being biggest donator, who knows?


if youve read everything to here, thanks for reading

If you're going to take things out of context by cropping images as you'd like, sure.

Also, keep in mind that regular players are not obliged to provide any form of assistance. If they do, they're going out of their way to do it, so please be grateful.

In the event that they respond in a manner that you either take offense to or you do not feel comfortable with, feel free to let the staff know (if it breaches the rules) or simply ignore and/or block them.

Back to the thread, since most of the concerns have been addressed, we will be closing the thread. Thank you all for the inputs.
 
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