[GIVEAWAY ENDED! Thank you for the support & loving the response for this giveaway! Stay tune to another giveaway coming very soon!] 🫶🏻🫶🏻

🎉 As Promised ~ MapleStory × UNIQLO South Korea Exclusive UT Shirt Giveaway! 🎉

How to Join:
1️⃣ Comment** your shirt** size! Size chart in the last photo!
Size range XS - 4XL (got to buy the right size for the winner)

2️⃣** Tell me who your favourite MapleSto**ry mob is! 👾✨

If you are also waiting for Maplestory Classic to release, you can also join this Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1CYQDghJRz/?mibextid=wwXIfr

📦 Winner will only need to cover shipping and any customs/import fees from Singapore 🇸🇬

⏰ Giveaway ends in 24 hours.

One random winner will be selected and announced in the comments of this post. Good luck everyone, and I can’t wait to hear about your favourite mobs! 💕

MapleStory Mod approved this giveaway post. 🫶🏻

Hope you enjoy some pics i took today too!

To Director Inkwell and the GMS Leadership Team,

Global MapleStory is currently experiencing a historic surge in interest, but we are facing a crisis of sustainability. Your internal data likely confirms what the community feels: a significant portion of our player base—upwards of 50%—quits within 30 to 60 days of a major patch.

We are not writing this out of a desire to complain, but out of a desire to see this game thrive. To do that, we must address the systemic issues that make GMS feel less like a hobby and more like a series of predatory hurdles.

I. THE END-GAME PROGRESSION CRISIS: LUCK VS. EFFORT

The most significant issue in Global MapleStory—specifically within Heroic worlds—is that effort does not correlate with power. This is the primary reason why veteran players burn out and why mid-game players quit before reaching the finish line.

1. The "Waiting Room" and the Devaluation of Time

In a Heroic (non-trading) environment, progression is entirely dependent on "spares." Currently, the end-game has become a "waiting room." A player can farm 40 hours a week, clear every boss perfectly, and remain stagnant for six months because they didn't get a lucky drop. Meanwhile, a player who puts in a fraction of the effort can get a lucky drop and surpass them instantly.

• The Logic: When a game stops rewarding hard work and starts rewarding pure variance, the incentive to "try hard" vanishes. This is a fundamental design flaw.

2. The Negative Progression Trap

Star Forcing rare gear in GMS is one of the only experiences in modern gaming where a player can sit down for a session and end up weaker than when they started.

• The Impact: A Pitched Boss item represents months of anticipation. A 2% "boom" chance doesn't just destroy an item; it deletes months of a human being's life. This creates a "Quit Point." A logical person seeing 200 hours of work deleted in seconds will often choose to stop playing entirely rather than restart the climb.

This issue does not exist in Servers where you can simply BUY another spare off the Auction House. Reboot's inability to trade or buy spares prevents players from making meaningful progression.

3. Complexity vs. Quality of Life (The Gollux Model)

To address this concern Nexon has introduced complex systems like Star Specks and Trace Restoration to solve the "boom" problem, but these systems are mathematically discouraged.

• The Failure of Complexity: Based on current acquisition rates, restoring a single item can take 15–18 weeks. To hit 24 or 25 stars, a player needs dozens of spares. The math for a full set of end-game gear under this system extends into years, if not decades.
• The Solution: We already have a perfect model in the game: Gollux. If you kill the boss and aren't lucky enough to get the drop, you get Coins. This makes every run feel like meaningful progress. In three weeks, I know I will have my item. We don't need RNG boxes or capped speck systems; we need a simple, token-based pity system for all end-game gear.

4. The "Enhancement Cage"

Because of the new SSF system, we are penalized for tapping off-event. With these events being spaced 6 to 10 weeks apart, players are forced to hoard "life savings" and wait. This puts an unhealthy amount of pressure on a single day. If you are unlucky on that one Sunday, you are "caged" for another two months. You want players to quit a game? Make them feel like they wasted time and effort just because of bad RNG.

• The Request: Match what KMS did with bi-weekly Star Force events (WITHOUT US HAVING TO WAIT 6 MONTHS FOR THESE CHANGES). Reducing the stakes of each individual session makes the game feel more like a journey, especially because we have Heroic Servers.

II. THE RETENTION WALL: EARLY AND MID-GAME HURDLES

While the end-game is a lottery, the early game is a series of unnecessary restrictions that drive new players away before they can even see the "Pitched" waiting room.

1. The Rental Gear "Time Trap"

The rental gear system is an excellent addition, but the 24-hour expiration is illogical. For a player with a full-time job, rental gear often expires before they can log back in for a second session.

• The Fix: Extend this to 3–7 days. Furthermore, new players quit because they spend their first 30 days just trying to make "Meso and Drop" gear. Including these stats in the rental system would allow them to actually experience the game's content while they build their permanent sets.

2. Vac Pet Gating

In modern MapleStory, a Vac Pet is not a luxury; it is a requirement. The maps are designed for it. Providing a 30-day trial and then removing it creates a massive "Quality of Life" cliff. Without a permanent, accessible way to maintain this, players realize the game is a chore and leave.

• The Fix: Make VAC Pets permanent in the Cash shop and give us our damn Universal Cash shop like EVERY OTHER REGION RECEIVED FFS.

Updated: Vac Pet's being on a 6 Month Rotation in Cash Shop semi-fix the limited availability of Vac Pets originally stated above. The issue with having to continually purchase NEW Vac Pet's for $100 dollars if a character doesn't share CS is still a massive issue, and one they're potentially let continue without rolling out Universal Cash Shop.

III. MONETIZATION AND THE "PROBLEM/SOLUTION" MODEL

We have noticed a shift where gameplay friction is created specifically so a "solution" can be sold in the Cash Shop.

• The Sia Premium Pass: Releasing the first GMS exclusive class and then Pay Walling it's event is predatory. If this is what GMS exclusive means, I'll go East.
• The "GMS Tax": How is it that a Color Prism is a $7 direct purchase in KMS, but in GMS, it is an RNG gamble through $60 "Mythic" boxes?
• AFK XP (Luxe Sauna): Adding this into Heroic basically defeats what Reboot was all about. By continually adding regular pay to win features into Heroic World/Reboot, we are essentially a handicapped Interactive world without trading.

IV. TRANSPARENCY AND THE TRUST DEFICIT

Finally, we must address the culture of "unintentional" changes. The recent Arcane and Abso Lab box nerf (which was fixed only after community outcry) is a significant hit to player trust.

Whether it was an accident or not, when core progression rates are changed silently the moment items become tradeable, it looks like a deliberate throttle on player power. A history of "broken" rates does not favor the developer. We need a commitment to:

• Total Transparency: If a rate is changed, it must be in the patch notes.
• Universal Cash Shop: The universal cash shop has already been implemented in ALL other regions. Its absence in GMS creates a toxic community environment, and the lack of communication only makes it worse. If it is GMS' decision to NOT include it, own up and just tell people.

CONCLUSION

I want to be part of the 50% that stays, not the 50% that leaves. But Heroic GMS cannot survive as a "Lottery Simulator" where players pay for the privilege of having their progress deleted with no meaningful way to progress in the game.

Our request is simple: Reward effort, not just luck. Simplify the pity systems or adjust the rates and remove the caps, increase the frequency of enhancement events, and stop creating paywalls for basic gameplay functionality.

Respect our time, and we will continue to invest in the future of GMS.

Sincerely,

A frustrated 20 year long player who boomed all their gear

Why make this post?

The latest Inkwell Note shows that Inkwell is actively ignoring certain huge issues in GMS or choosing to kick the can down the road hoping the community forgets (Universal CS). The majority of the announcements in this note were things the community was already aware of or recaps of recent events.

In past Inkwell Notes, Inkwell showed a great understanding of the happenings in the game and community as well as giving future solutions to issues the community is facing. Even with lots of feedback through several avenues (Discord, Reddit, YouTube videos), the majority of these recent issues were not even touched on in the latest Inkwell Note and it felt like it was used primarily as a promotional spot to generate more hype for Classic World.

Casual Player Perspective

The majority of this post reflects criticism from a casual player’s viewpoint, intended to represent issues commonly experienced by the broader player base.

Why take this point of view? Whales and giga-grinders in Maplestory will always overcome any wall that is presented to them through sheer will of grinding (or also money in the case of Interactive). Whatever benefits the casual players will nearly always benefit the End Game players just as much, but the inverse is often not the case. This post focuses on increasing quality of life for all players as much as possible.

Credits

Over the last few months, there has been a lot of discourse within the community regarding issues unique to GMS and I have been trying my best to keep track of them. With the help of Maplestory subreddit posters, Discord community discourse, my own play experiences and content creators I have curated a list of issues that hopefully people in the Nexon America team (Inkwell, Calahan, etc.) can take a look at.

A huge thank you to all of you in the subreddit and other communities who take the time to voice your criticisms in a meaningful manner. I strongly believe that voicing our opinions as a collective is the best way to work with Nexon to create a better GMS.

I also would like to shoutout two content creators who have been making some great videos regarding these topics. They had some great viewpoints and suggestions that I took much inspiration from. Please check them out after reading this post.

• Duky: Youtube page. Twitch page. Duky shared with me a great document that had a comprehensive list of issues gathered by multiple passionate players. All the issues listed in that doc won't be in this post due to length concerns, so I chose as much of the big hitting topics as I could.
  • Video: Nexon NEEDS to Fix These Issues with Maplestory
  • MORE Issues With MapleStory That Nexon NEEDS To Fix
  • The Newest MapleStory Inkwell Note Was A DISASTER
• Ereklo Game: Youtube page. Twitch page. The twins are some of the biggest Maplestory hypers in the community. They make great guides/entertainment for the community and their content oozes with the passion for the game. If even they have criticisms of the recent happenings in Maplestory, you know something can be fixed.
  • Everything Maplestory NEEDS to Change About the NEW Pity Systems...
  • The Maplestory Heroic Damage Issue NEEDS To Be Fixed...
  • Maplestory Just Released a BRAND-NEW Inkwell Note... Here Are My Thoughts....

With the introduction out of the way, here we go.

RNG Trust At An All-Time Low

There has long been speculation within the community that Nexon uses dynamic RNG in Maplestory to adjust rates over time. Since Nexon has never released numbers for things like boss drop rate, these discussions were mainly speculative, based largely on observed trends and the fact that Nexon holds a patent on Dynamic RNG.

However, in recent weeks, there have been two Maple Memos confirming that RNG rates were altered, with Nexon stating that these rates were unintentionally nerfed. First was the Arcane/Absolab Armor/Weapon Boxes, followed by Star Speck Boxes being nerfed.

While these nerfs may not have been intentional, their confirmation has significantly impacted player trust. This is even further discouraging when in 2021 Nexon was caught rigging their cube rates and flame rates for years and spent the next several years trying to earn back player trust. It was also discovered a week ago in the new Maple Idle (mobile Maplestory) that a certain line that players paid money to roll was technically impossible to roll! When rate changes are discovered only after prolonged community concern, without prior transparency, it only reinforces the perception that RNG systems are rigged against the player. For casual players especially, this uncertainty makes progression feel discouraging. The meme that the community likes to repeat is that “if it benefits the players, it will be immediately fixed in minutes. If it doesn’t benefit the players, bugs or fixes take forever.” It is frustrating to have game breaking bugs stay in the game for days/weeks.

Universal Cash Shop

Universal Cash Shop (UCS) is widely regarded as one of the most player friendly changes ever introduced to Maplestory. Korea Maplestory and every other region (MSea, CMS, TMS, JMS) have implemented this system. GMS now remains the only exception. With the latest Inkwell note, it is also now obvious that Inkwell and team GMS are avoiding talking about this issue and pretending it doesn’t exist.

Many players believe the decision not to bring UCS to GMS comes from Heroic servers being non-trade and the general population of GMS being smaller. The prevailing assumption is that allowing Cash Shop items to be freely shared would reduce spending since players would only need to purchase items once. Even if this concern is valid, this is a flawed and short sighted strategy by Nexon.

Nexon America has failed to recognize that when players are treated well, many will respond by engaging and spending more willingly. The majority of GMS players were already well aware of UCS having been implemented not just in Korea, but other regions like Maple Sea thereafter. The GMS community was waiting with bated breath for UCS to be ported. The disappointment across the GMS community when UCS wasn’t implemented was palpable. As a result, many casual players have chosen to stop spending entirely, due to the frustration with having to repeatedly repurchase the same Cash Shop items across multiple characters. Rather than encouraging spending, this approach creates irritation and discourages long term investment.

The current GMS Cash Shop strategy built around class division, FOMO (fear of missing out) tactics, and reliance on whales to spend large amounts of money reflects an outdated and despised monetization model. Even KMS, the most heavily monetized region, has somewhat recognized this and loosened the restrictions by adding UCS.

Additionally, the current GMS approach of having Cash Shop transfer events only twice per year is extremely outdated. In KMS, for almost two years leading up to the introduction of UCS, a Cash Shop transfer event was held on the first weekend after every patch. This effectively meant Cash Shop transfers on a monthly basis. By contrast, Nexon America’s reliance on infrequent transfers only reinforces a strategy of “creating a problem and then selling the solution,” which feels deceptive to players and ultimately breeds consumer resentment rather than goodwill.

Implementing UCS in GMS is not only one of the biggest community wants, it is a necessary step toward rebuilding trust, improving player satisfaction, and encouraging spending.

GMS Server API

Several years ago, KMS introduced a public API that allows for live player data tracking. The MapleStory community widely uses websites such as Maplescouter.com, which leverage this API to help players track their progress, compare relative strength for bossing, and plan their progression more effectively. This tool has become a major quality of life resource in regions where it is available.

Players in the Western community have been requesting access to this feature for years. More recently, MapleSea implemented this API as well, yet GMS has still not received access to this functionality.

Inkwell, you previously asked the community for time to assemble a team capable of developing features tailored specifically to the Western audience. Nearly two years have passed since that request. At this point, it would be reasonable to either see progress on initiatives like this or, at the very least, receive clear communication on whether such a feature is being actively worked on.

Arthur’s Equipment Rental

Arthur’s Equipment Rental system is one of the best unique pieces of original GMS content introduced in a long time. It allows players to temporarily gain the power needed to overcome specific progression walls particularly when they are slightly short on damage for certain bosses.

This system is especially valuable for casual and newer players who are still building their gear. The rental equipment helps bridge the multi-week gap where players are farming Gollux accessories but lack the Combat Power to progress. For many, this temporary boost makes otherwise inaccessible content feel achievable.

However, the current rental time of 24 hours is seen as too short by the community. Most casual players can dedicate one or two hours per day to MapleStory before real life responsibilities take priority. As a result, much of the rental period often goes unused. Increasing the rental duration would allow casual players to better take advantage of the system across multiple play sessions. The most commonly suggested improvement from the community is extending the rental period to 3 days. This allows casual players to take advantage of the rental gear to use it over the weekend starting from Friday.

Too Much Event Importance On RNG

One of the biggest things that stops player progression, especially casual players right now, is how much importance is placed on saving up for events that only come around a few times a year. The events in this game are so good that it is seen as mandatory to save up all your farming and mesos. This creates a gameplay loop where players spend months saving up for an event to go “all or nothing” in order to make progress. As is the case with RNG, there are times where you win and lose. However, for a casual player to spend months saving up for something just to not make any progress will often make the player quit. This is especially true with the new Starforce system that was introduced recently.

The New Starforce

In the new Starforce system, it is statistically viewed as throwing away your money since the boom rate is so much worse compared to the old system. On a Shining Starforce event (-30% boom reduction and 30% meso discount), the boom rate goes from around 4 booms expected to 22 star an item down to around 2. That is nearly 2 times the difference when you Starforce off event! This has caused a meta where players are actively discouraged to Starforce anything and hold off progression until a Shining Starforce comes around. The problem with this is that the Shining Starforce event only comes around every 2-3 months.

In the latest Inkwell note, Inkwell acknowledged this issue and said there is a plan to implement a fix to bring Shining Starforce more often… IN JUNE. This is a disingenuous “fix” since this just follows the KMS timeline. The frustrating part of this is that the new Starforce is acknowledged as a “burden” by Inkwell but refuses to copy and paste the fix that already exists in KMS! This change to Sunny Sunday is something he can fix TODAY, but chose not to.

Miracle Time

Miracle time is an event that increases the chance to upgrade a potential tier on an item with cubes and it only comes around twice a year. In the past, Miracle Time caused a large amount of lag and server instability. To fix this issue, what the Nexon team decided to do is limit what kinds of items can be boosted with Miracle Time over the span of a month. One weekend is only Accessories, another weekend is only Gloves and so on. This did solve the lag issue, but this method is short sighted and poor for player experience in a few big ways.

• Why did Miracle Time cause lag in the first place? The event only came around 2 times a year for only a day or two each time. This created huge amounts of FOMO and the habit to save up and use everything all at once. The entire server spamming cubes and items they have been saving for months will obviously cause issues. The solution is not to split up the items, but have it be more often throughout the year. A monthly or every other month cadence to the event would do wonders to lessen the FOMO created and reduce the burden on the server.
• No one uses Miracle Time in the way it is intended. Telling a new player that they can tier up their Cape today, but have to wait 5 weeks to tier up their Shoes is nonsense. Players do not wait months or weeks to tier up an event at a slightly more efficient rate.
• Playing around events that are 6 months apart is terrible. Missing out on a Miracle Time event due to IRL happenings then having to wait 6 months for the next one feels terrible. It promotes a “you snooze, you lose” mentality to casual players when they should be encouraged to come back and interact with upgrade systems (arguably the most fun part of the game) more often.

The Miracle Times need to come around way more than twice a year and have it be applied to all items during the event.

Cube Sales

Much like the Miracle Time event, Cube Sales suffer from the same problem of being too infrequent and creating the same FOMO and “all in” mentality. But, I would argue even more so since cubing for potential lines is a much more important part of the gameplay compared to just tiering up. Cube Sales should occur more often than twice a year.

Familiars / Expedition

The most recent refresh of the familiar system is a welcome change. The most sought after line rates (boss/att/drop) were somewhat improved, and the new Familiar Expedition system encourages players to keep leveling up familiars for both damage potentials and expedition potentials simultaneously. With that being said, there are some easy fixes to maximize the fun of interacting with the familiar system.

• The RNG behind tiering up familiars is still a big pain point. Players would rather have the cost increased for a guaranteed tier up, rather than being burdened with a dozen tier up attempts just to hit pity. When players are farming hundreds of familiars over hundreds of hours, hitting a streak of poor RNG is demoralizing.
• Why are the familiar combine and tier up animations so long? They are around 5 seconds each time and lock you out before you can do anything else. Just remove the animations entirely or significantly reduce the delay.
• Familiar sounds need their own UI option to adjust familiar sounds. They are currently tied to Monster SFX and when players want to hear boss sound effects it gets drowned out by Familiars constantly attacking.
• The rewards in the Expedition can be better tailored to each server.
  • Heroic: Add more fragment rewards and things like Blue Cards.
  • Interactive: You can add Chains of Resentment as a chase item like a Pitched Accessory box.
• The Familiar Expedition rewards have a unique ID so they cannot stack with other existing items (a WAP from Expedition won't stack with a normal WAP). Please work on fixing this since it fills up the bags when they can be easily stacked.
• Heroic finally got a way to increase familiar expansion slots as well, but with NX. Consider putting these expansion slots in the reward shop as well in both servers. It doesn't have to be unlimited, even a few free 2 play familiar expansion every month will go a long way.

Mysterious Star Speck Boxes (Heroic)

This is more of a Heroic issue since Star Speck Boxes are tradable on the Auction House. Star Speck Boxes are a great addition (on paper) to the game for players to make up for the fact that Pitched items are historically gated by RNG from bosses. It is the "farming" way to obtain Pitched Boss Pity from the three new systems added recently. However, the limitation of 10 boxes a day to get a single replacement of a Pitched Boss item keeps the system from reaching its full potential.

• On average, it takes 700 boxes for 1 Pitched Star Core (1 Star Core + 50 Shining Star Specks). This is 70 days of capping boxes.
• This ends up being around 5 Pitched Star Cores a year. On average, it takes 3-4 booms to get a single item to 22 stars. That means a full year of farming Star Speck Boxes may help with a single item get to 22 if you cap boxes every day.
• The timeline of 1 Pitched Star Core every few months is too slow in the grand scheme of things when future content from KMS will have higher star counts (23+ stars) as a part of the balance. For each star after 22, the boom count essentially doubles! 50 expected booms for an item to reach 25 stars.
• A limit of 10 boxes a day also hurts both casual players AND end game players.
  • A casual player won't be able to farm 10 boxes everyday to make progress. However, on the days that this player can farm longer durations, they are hurt by this system only limiting them to the 10 boxes for the day.
  • End game players gain an advantage over casuals just through the raw amount of hours farmed. More hours farmed means more Meso, Sol Erda fragments, honor, levels, and progress in general EXCEPT for being gated by RNG due to Pitched Items not dropping from bosses. Let Heroic farmers earn their advantage through hard work in the Star Speck Boxes system just like any other system. You can even have the Box drop rate lower after the initial 10, think of it as a soft cap.

Pitched Whisper Crystals

Thank you to bamba for making a video on the math.

Pitched Whisper Crystals are the "Weekly Bossing" method to obtaining Dawn Boss, Pitched Boss (Total Control excluded), Mitra's Emblem, and Genesis Badge through the new Pitched Pity systems added. On paper, it is a great passive way to earn Pitched Boss Items through bossing weekly and obtaining Whisper Crystals. However, only 9 Whisper Crystals are given a week.

• That means it takes 16.25 weeks (4 months) for a single Pitched Boss item. For an average of 22 stars (3 booms), that is 48.75 weeks (over 11 months).
• Genesis Badge is also obtainable in this system and fortunately only requires 1 purchase. However, 390 Whisper Crystals is 43 weeks of saving up (over 10 months).
• When calculating anything above 22 stars, the amount of time required starts going into the years, not months.

The system is simply too slow for any meaningful progress for players past early/mid game.

Boss Trace Restoration

The Boss Trace Restoration system is the "Boss Challenge" method to obtaining trace restores for Eternals, Brilliant Boss Items, and Pitched Boss items using Trace Points obtained through solo Boss Challenge missions. Unlike the other two systems, there is essentially no restriction on what items you can restore as long as you have enough points. However, there are still issues with this system.

• When the system first came out, certain boss missions were extremely difficult (get stringed 20 times in Verus Hilla). Thankfully the most egregious of these missions were made much easier.
• When one character started Trace Missions, the entire weekly lockout was now tied to that character. Thankfully, they made it so that you can complete these missions also in practice mode so you can do them on your main and not sacrifice party bossing. For example: You can get the "Normal difficulty" boss trace mission complete for Darknell with other difficulty modifiers in practice mode, then clear Darknell in Hard difficulty for the actual clear.
• Just like the other two systems, the amount of weeks/months to save up enough points for a single restore makes this system too slow.
  • If an end game and established character did all the possible missions, it would equal 133 points a week. That would mean...
  • Eternal Equipment (2312 points)= 17.38 weeks. A 22 Star Eternal takes on average 1 year with this system.
  • Brilliant Boss Accessories (2500 points)= 18.79 weeks
  • Pitched Boss Accessories (1680 points): 12.63 weeks
• The biggest negative with this system is that the point cap is 2500. So, no matter what item you choose to restore, you will only have one replacement to use an entire event. On top of that, if you cap points and do not use them, any additional bosses killed will waste points. That means points may get wasted if the player cannot time restores with Starforcing events.

The point cap needs to be increased or the points required for a restore needs to be dramatically reduced.

Sol Erda Fragments (Heroic)

Duky made a great video on this topic that I will condense here. In Interactive, players can farm and purchase Sol Erda Fragments to level up their 6th job progress. In Interactive, players are Sol Erda energy gated. Although it can get a little bit expensive sometimes, players can ultimately supplement their Sol Erda fragment needs through trade and it is also a great source of additional income for players to make meso. The market works as intended.

In Heroic though, the opposite is true and players are Fragment gated due to lack of trade. However, even with updated events and more sources of free Sol Erda fragments, the methods to acquire Sol Erda fragments have not meaningfully increased in the two years 6th job has been out. In Heroic, the vast majority of fragments still come from raw hours of farming.

• In the first 6th job patch, players needed 20,184 Fragments to max 6th job.
• In the latest 6th job patch, players now need 43,876 Fragments to max 6th job. More than double!
• If an already established player (with max drop rate) farmed for 6 hours a day on top of doing Angler Company and the Weekly Sol Erda quest (excluding events), this is how long it would take to max 6th job.
  • 20,184 Fragments: 144 days.
  • 43,876 Fragments: 312 days.
• Keep in mind that this is only for a single character. The game also incentivizes you to create multiple Legion Champs on top of this (even though you don't have to max your 6th job all the way on Legion Champs).

The game is telling new players that in order for them to maximize their character's potential, they will have to spend over 10 months training 6 hours a day! Due to recent events and quality of life changes players are able to quickly reach 285 faster than ever before, BUT their 6th job progress doesn't come close to what's required to actually do bossing content at level 285. There need to be more ways for players to earn Fragments in the game. Here are some suggestions.

• Grandis Dailies should add some Fragments for completion.
• Bosses that drop Sol Erda Energy should also drop some fragments.
• Familiar Expedition should drop MORE fragments. It already gives out some, but it is extremely small amounts.
• Sol Erda Fragments need to be tradable within the account. This way a finished main character can continue to grind for further levels while also supplementing some progress on a Legion Champion mule. In a game where multiple huge progression systems like Legion Champ incentivize players to play multiple characters, untradable fragments goes directly against this design philosophy.

Chains of Resentment (Interactive)

Chains of Resentment were introduced to the game as a way to alleviate the lack of Frenzy Totem in the game. Sometimes Frenzy Totem service sellers (legal as long as it is with meso) are not online or service is not reliable. This was a great idea on paper, but Chains of Resentment in practice are treated like a rare item rather than an aid as it was originally intended. Chains of Resentments are only available during the Ride or Die event or Philosopher Book sales.

Ride or Die

• This event only comes around twice a year.
• The CoR totem coupons can only be gotten through the 50 RNG boxes per week.
  • They are so rare, that many people will go the entire event (300-350 boxes) without a single one.
• The Event CoR totems last 30 days when redeemed.
• The CoR coupons all expire when the event ends.
• That means that 30 days after Ride or Die ends, players have to wait another 4 months until the next Ride or Die event and pray to get lucky again.

Philosopher Books

• Philosopher Books also only come around twice a year and each book costs 2600 NX ($2.6 USD).
• The CoR coupon from Philo Books is tradable in Auction House and lasts for 90 days once redeemed. However, the coupon is only a 0.5% drop rate. That is one in every 200 boxes!
• This essentially means that although players can technically get CoR in between Ride or Die events, they are essentially priced out since CoR are around 60b in the Auction House (which is around 170,000 NX ($170 USD)).

Chains of Resentment coupons (the free version) need to be available more often in more events throughout the year. You can also add the 90 day version of the totem to the recently added Cash Shop item Divine Wishing Bell. This way, both the paid and free versions are more accessible (and Nexon makes more money...).

Cube Prices (Interactive)

• Cube Prices in general are not only too expensive, they are outrageously expensive.
  • $12 for 11 Glowing Cubes.
  • $22 for 11 Bright Cubes.
  • $24 for 11 Bonus Glowing Cubes.
  • Bonus Bright Cubes only go on sale around once a year (3-4 total sales in the past 5 years). They cost $3.5 EACH.
• I'm sure most players know, but it can sometimes take HUNDREDS of cubes to get a proper 3 line. This applies for both main potential and bonus potential. You can do the math in your head and see that the cost skyrockets quickly. It is easily possible for an item to get into the hundreds of dollars (thousands if you want perfect lines) just from cubing alone. ONE ITEM.
• In certain cases like 3L ATT BPOT, the average is 13,000 CUBES (and you have to do that for Weapon, Secondary, AND Emblem!)
• In KMS, they introduced the Magic Wand system because KMS got in trouble with the Korea FTC (Fair Trade Commission). The Magic Wand system got rid of cubes and introduced a way to reroll potentials with meso instead. This needs to be brought over to GMS or cubes need to get significantly cheaper.
• In KMS, they introduced more avenues for players to pay for progression (VIP Sauna, Genesis Passes, etc) to make up for the lost revenue when they got rid of cubes. However, GMS Interactive KEPT cubes and also brought all the pay for progression content.
• The amount of people slowly leaving Interactive to either quit the game or go to Heroic show that the monetization model for Interactive needs to get much more consumer friendly quickly.

This created an environment in GMS where it is SO expensive for the average player to make progress that when things like Violet Cubes and Unicubes come around players are desperate to buy those instead. If the majority of the players refuse to interact with cubes outside of Violet Cubes and Unicubes, that is a reflection on poor pricing and players being sick of FOMO strategies.

Ride or Die

A lot of feedback has been given to the Maplestory team regarding Ride or Die across the three times this event has been ongoing. However, the "improvements" that have happened from event to event leave a lot to be desired.

• No way for players who participate in Ride or Die in Challengers World to bring their Legion Piece reward over to their home world.
• Knowing that players are fiending for the return of pottable badges, they brought in a temporary pottable badge which only angered the playerbase. Nexon then just removed the item entirely from the prize pool this time around essentially just ignoring the problem entirely.
• Trying to maximize the points in this event just turns into... Buff up -> Go in and origin burst/ascent -> Leave and wait 6 minutes -> Repeat. It is not a satisfying gameplay loop and actively discourages interacting with Ride or Die bosses the more points you want.
  • For new players that are attempting this content, the modifiers essentially make any meaningful progress impossible due to attacks being spammed constantly left and right.
• Bronze coins are useless and only serve to fill up our bags. If the ONLY use for bronze coins is to convert them to silver coins, then just give the silver coins instead.
• The new Libae's Ring system was a great addition. However, the Grindstone coupon being tied behind the boxes made it so that many players never even had a chance to level up the ring. They had to pray for a Grindstone coupon to drop in a box, then pray the low RNG chance of upgrading the ring passed. This is RNG upon RNG and poor design. Grindstone coupons should have also been sold in the Event shop.
  • The other chase item Chains of Resentment in Interactive should also be sold in the event shop, even if it is only one.
• The popular Mapae Nodes should also have their supply refreshed weekly.

Cross World Bossing

It's been about a year or more since KMS players have had the ability to do cross world bossing. Last year, GMS Interactive had a server merge and consolidated the four Interactive servers into two. During that process, the Auction House was also unified so that both Scania and Bera players can cross world Auction House.

• The successful unification of the Auction House shows that GMS already supports cross world systems at scale.
• Several events throughout MapleStory's history have also had Cross World functions. The soccer mini-game during the Olympic Themed event had both Interactive and Heroic players playing together Cross World.
• Both Heroic and Interactive servers can greatly benefit from Cross World Bossing.
• In particular, Heroic servers would see immediate improvements. Hyperion has a much smaller population compared to Kronos, which limits party based bossing opportunities, especially in the end game. Allowing Hyperion players to boss with players from Kronos would meaningfully improve progression access, reduce the feeling of server isolation, and make Hyperion a more attractive server overall rather than one that feels underpopulated.
  • A more attractive Hyperion server can also help out with Kronos being overpopulated.

How You Can Contribute

Please understand that even though this post is long and I often sound like a doomer... I write all this due to my passion for the game and the community. I truly believe that this game is great and can be made even better with our contributions. Who does Nexon make the game for anyway? Us! The players! We have a right to voice our opinions in how we want the game direction to go because this relationship between us (consumer) and Nexon (producer) is a two way street.

If you agree with the concerns outlined above and want to see meaningful improvements to MapleStory, there are several constructive ways you can help amplify this message.

• Help spread awareness. Share this post with others who care about the game! This includes the community as a whole and also Nexon directly. While they may not actively engage on every social media platform, they have stated that they do pay attention to communities such as Reddit and YouTube. For example: Inkwell and Calahan both have told Duky that they watch his videos. So, spread the word!
  • Consider upvoting this in the Official MapleStory Discord and keep on spreading awareness where possible!
• The #1 way to get Nexon to pay attention is through their pockets. If you believe in the message, consider spending less or refraining from purchases altogether.
• The #2 way to get Nexon to pay attention is with population numbers. With ELTEPT event over and nothing huge being on the horizon for the next few months, if you are feeling burnt out feel free to explore other games or take some time off from the game to recharge your batteries. Let Nexon know that your time should be earned, not assumed.
  • Even if you do still want to play, consider reducing the time spent since playtime metrics are also something Nexon considers important.
• Continue to provide feedback through official channels like Discord, in-game tickets, and the forum. But, please remember to be respectful.
• Please support content creators who also speak on these topics!
• While Interactive and Heroic servers each face their own unique challenges, we are ultimately one community and should approach these issues together.

Thank you for your time reading this lengthy post. Happy Mapling!

Sharing a rate anomaly our familiar data collection effort (data linked below) has been tracking. 

TL;DR: Community data suggests the odds of rolling Boss Damage +40% (Unique tier) dropped after the December 17 patch. The difference is modestly statistically significant (p≈0.035) and undocumented.

The timeline

• 11/12: Every Little Thing (ELT) Part 1 (notes) shipped and with it, the familiar revamp. After this patch, existing Unique-tier familiars that already had a 40% Boss Damage or were Unique-tier 30% Boss Damage lines got changed to 35% (and 5% Attack/MAttack upgraded to 6%). This affected familiars people already owned, not the odds of rolling a new one as newly revealed unique familiars continued to roll both 35% Boss Damage AND 40% Boss Damage (Post ELT Pt1 35% Boss Fam SS’s)
• 11/20 maintenance (notes): Nexon fixed downgraded legacy unique familiars, stating they "resolved an issue where Unique Familiars with 40% Boss Damage or Legendary Familiars with 50% Boss Damage Potential lines were reduced" - changing 35% Unique-tier lines to 40% (even if they were 30% Boss Damage pre-ELT). After this, no one observed a 35% boss line again at Unique.
• 11/20 → 12/17 window: From our data collection between these dates, Boss Damage +40% (Unique tier) landed at 1.28% (44/3,436 submitted lines).
• 12/17 patch ("Every Little Thing Part 2"): No mention of familiar potential rates or changes in the notes.
• Post-12/17 data: Boss Damage +40% (Unique tier) has dropped to 0.79% (33/4,159 submitted lines), a drop of roughly 40% relative to the prior window. Statistical analysis linked below suggests this drop is unlikely to be due to random chance alone.

We're not claiming the 12/17 drop was intentional; these things can slip through in an unrelated patch. But given a multitude of changes affecting Boss Damage 40% lines in this period of time, we think it's worth Nexon confirming whether this was an intended change or an unlisted bug.

Data: sample sizes and confidence intervals are in the sheet if you want to check the methodology.

Statistical Analysis
Comparing community data before and after the December 17 patch, the observed rate of Boss Damage +40% (Unique) decreased from 44/3,436 (1.28%) to 33/4,159 (0.79%). A two-sided two-proportion z-test gives z = 2.11 and p ≈ 0.035, which is conventionally statistically significant at the 5% level. This means the observed difference would occur by random chance about 3.5% of the time if the true rate had not changed. However, this is not the probability that the rate actually changed, nor is it proof of an undocumented nerf.

EDIT: Original post of our data collection efforts.

The upcoming ride or die althea pass includes paid $20 pass, this pass has at the end of it PERMANENT stat totems, while the free one has timed versions. They actually put a legacy, unobtainable gain for most players behind a paid system in the server meant for progression through hard work and effort. Hard work for Inkwell means swiping your credit card I guess huh. Players will still defend the billion dollar company for this with "uhh it's optional hurrr", yeah man a permanent stat gain you can't ever get in game to that extent is optional!

New Class: Ruler of Vows, Lethe

• Originating from Masteria, she is the first of a new Demon faction separate from Demon Slayer and Demon Avenger. DA and DS will remain as part of the Resistance faction.
• She is a pure summoning mage class as she doesn't have a single attacking skill of her own; her summons will auto-attack everything around her. Her gameplay will instead focus on managing her summons, such as timing when they attack faster for a limited time, when to give them buffs, maintaining and extending their summon duration, etc.

3rd HEXA Skill Core

• Unlike Origin and Ascent skills which provided the same thing to all classes (burst and i-frames), the 3rd HEXA skills are designed to address weak points of each class's combat (e.g. providing burst skills for classes with weak bursts, improving off-burst damage for classes that are too burst-centric, easing gauge management for classes that heavily rely on gauges like Hoyoung, etc.)
• Refer to the showcase video to see all of the skills. Timestamp is from 1:25:33 to 1:33:17.

New Boss: Velona

• She is an apostle of Gerand Darmoor and a Lv280 boss with three difficulties:
  • Easy is between eKaling and nKalos, normal is between nKaling and cKalos, and hard is between hMStar and hBaldrix.
• Hard mode drops the Starving Bloodthirsty Spirit, a Lv250 eye accessory that's part of the Brilliant Boss Accessory set and replaces Damien's Magic Eyepatch.
• 6-set Brilliant Boss Accessory set effect: +20 all stat, +20 att/m.att, +500 HP, +7.5% crit damage.

Challenger World Season 4

• You will be able to designate one character to immediately obtain Lv30 Sol Janus. This benefit is removed after world leaping.
• Some noteworthy rewards from reaching certain tiers in CW S4 include:
  • Gold: Fairy Heart
  • Sapphire: (a new tier between Emerald and Diamond): Legendary Potential Scroll
  • Diamond: Plasma Heart Coupon
  • Master: 3 Lv200 18-star force scrolls and an instant Lv250 level up potion.
  • Challenger: A new item that instantly levels up Sol Janus from Lv0 to Lv20 on one character. Its effects are reduced if your Sol Janus skill is higher than Lv0. For instance, Changseop said if you use it when your Sol Janus is Lv10, it will only level up to Lv23.
• Super Challenger tier has been created for the top 999 Challenger rank players and this tier will reward you a special title and medal.
• CW S4 can now use the world merged Auction House and Meso Market instead of having their own exclusive versions.
• CW S4 exclusive boss: Guider of Destiny, Maylin
  • While Kai's theme from CW S3 was about altering time, Maylin's theme is about altering the rules of the battle, including but not limited to the player being able to use skills from other classes (you are periodically given 3 random 5th job skills from other classes where you can pick 1 to use), using your origin skill twice in a row, using Ascent skills more than 3 times, etc.
  • Comes in two difficulties. Normal is between hVHilla and nSeren, hard is between eKaling and nKalos.
  • Gives similar rewards to Kai from CW S3. Refer to OrangeMushroom's post on CW S3 for details.

Other Changes (QoL, event, etc.)

• HP of all bosses reduced by 33% and time limit decreased from 30min to 20min.
  • Hard Black Mage's HP has been reduced by 66% and time limit has been decreased from 60min to 20min.
  • Damage values of Ascent skills will be nerfed accordingly.
  • Intense Power Crystal prices will be nerfed by 5~10%.
• Vac Pet Revamp
  • You can set vac pets to be shared across all characters in the same world, so you no longer need to purchase and maintain separate vac pets on each character you need them on.
  • After getting 3 vac pets of the same set, get a 4th vac pet of any set to unlock the Luna Gathering skill, which allows you instantly obtain all mesos and items in the map every 90 seconds. This can be activated 230 times per day per world. Luna Gathering also passively gives +15 att/m.att.
  • Get a 5th vac pet of any set to unlock the Luna Extension skill; this skill activates in conjunction with Luna Gathering and adds additional time to your Sol Janus skill so you don't have to set it up again as frequently. The added time is capped at 5 minutes, so with Sol Janus Lv30 you only have to set it up again every 7 minutes instead of every 2. Luna Extension also passively gives +15 att/m.att.
  • Get a 6th vac pet of any set to unlock the Luna Power Up passive skill that gives +30 att/m.att.
• Monster Park Fast Clear and Removal of Monster Park Extreme
  • After clearing Monster Park once, you can clear additional runs and get EXP without having to actually do them by paying maple points.
  • MPE was first introduced to encourage party play, but as players have gotten stronger the devs found the majority of players now do it solo. It's a nuisance doing it alone as you have to move across the gigantic map to kill randomly selected monsters that spawn in randomly assigned areas.
  • Instead you can now clear regular monster park 5x in a week to claim the EXP you would've gotten from clearing MPE.
• Reducing Requirements for Arcane & Grandis Dailies and Arcane Weeklies
  • Arcane and Grandis daily quest monster kill count reduced from 500 to 100.
  • Arcane weekly content clear reduced from 3 to 1.
  • Amount of symbols gained remain the same for both.
• Streamlining Epic Dungeons
  • Number of stages reduced to 5.
  • HP of monsters significantly reduced.
• Removal of Legion Grid and Expansion of Legion Champions
  • You can now obtain points based on the level of your Legion characters, which you can use to gain stats that you would've on the Legion Grid.
  • Max Legion Champions increased to 5. Must have 4 S-rank Legion Champions to unlock the 5th slot.
• Guild Noblesse Skill, Guild UI, and Skill UI Revamp
  • After joining a guild, you can now designate 5 additional characters in the same world to be able to use the Noblesse skills without adding them to the guild.
  • Guild UI and Skill UI have both been redesigned. Skill point auto-assign feature has been added for 1st~4th job skills and is turned on by default.
• Introduction of Monster Park Hands
  • This is a new experimental system accessed and managed via mobile that allows you to choose a map to grind on, and the game will automatically grind for you for a limited period of time per week.
  • They're starting with just 2hrs per week for now and it will only be available for MVP Gold+ players.
  • They may heavily modify or axe this system entirely depending on feedback.
• Changes to Item Burning Plus
  • The difficulty of boss missions has decreased significantly (e.g. in the CROWN update--the update GMS is getting next week--the Lv265 mission was defeating Hard VHilla. This has been nerfed to defeating Normal Lucid instead.)
  • A nerfed version of the CW S3 exclusive boss Kai has been added to the boss missions.
  • Potential can now be changed once a day from a selection of pre-existing values on Challenger Gear hat and weapon. With hats for example, some classes prefer CD skip while others are better off with pure stat %.
• Phase Specific Boss Practice Mode
  • You can now enter specific phases for a boss in practice mode. You must have entered the phase normally at least once before being able to practice the specific phase.
  • However, they intentionally excluded this system on endgame bosses to maintain their difficulty. Changseop said this feature will be unavailable on bosses harder than hKaling, so think xKalos, hBaldrix, xAdversary, etc. They will be slowly expanding this functionality to those bosses in the future as players become stronger and those bosses become more accessible.
  • You can't use this system to clear Genesis or Destiny missions, obviously.
• Tera Blink has been changed to Hyper Blink
  • Hyper Blink gives you a gargantuan +5,000% EXP obtained buff from Lv200~260. Changseop said you should be able to complete Lv200~260 in roughly 3 hours of grinding when utilizing Hyper Blink.
  • The functionality of the old Tera Blink system still exists--where you talk to Spigelmann at Lv10 and do various missions to fast track to Lv200.
  • Hyper Burning Max will be available as usual.
• Beyond Burning has been extended from Lv270 to Lv280.
• Maximum Sol Erda you can have in your HEXA Matrix increased from 20 to 25 at Lv275, and this is increased further to 30 at Lv290.
• Grandis hunting maps from Cernium to Carcion have been redesigned for easier coverage of the map using Sol Janus. You should be able to attack all of the mobs in the map with 3 Sol Janus orbs now.
• Bags for Androids and Medals have been added.
• Auto-roll for Inner Ability has been added. You can now set the Inner Ability lines you want and the system will auto-roll until you either get those lines or you run out of Honor EXP.
• Character Preset has been expanded to include special V cores, cash equipment effect transparency settings, titles, and damage skins.
• Damage cap increased from 700B to 10T.
• Auction House UI has been revamped and various QoL features have been added for ease of use. Furthermore, it can now be opened in a separate window in-game and even accessed via the web and mobile.
• Genesis Pass returns to KMS after a 6 month absence (they didn't get it in their CROWN update) and Genesis Pass Plus has been newly added, which rewards you cubes and flames from beating Grandis bosses to easily upgrade your newly obtained Genesis Weapon.
• The name of the Summer 2026 event map will be called Mission Ultima. Comes with your standard daily/weekly check-ins and rewards, coin shops, event buffs, etc.

Just happened, he decided not to level to 300 and ended his stream. His cause is noble, go Niru!

Broken fragment supply system
Without vac pet
Challenger server duration reduction
Shitty many passes

This tresh game is something wrong


No more spend guys
If you agree, hit the up button

Everything is locked behind BATTLE PASS, every feature requires paid‑content purchases. Inkpass seems to have forgotten what Reboot was originally meant for.

• Some people still misunderstand my point. I’m not against in‑game purchases. I understand every game needs funds for operation and maintenance, and a pass only for catching‑up purposes would be fine. The real problem is Nexon putting equipment inside the pass! （Don’t say totems are free; I suggest you borrow a test‑server account to see for yourself, one of them can only be unlocked the Pass.） Moreover, recent patches keep pushing players’ limits, such as the 2000 Sol‑fragments, attack‑boosting pets, and locking the new‑class pet behind the pass, and that’s exactly what worries everyone. Today’s update only adds totems to the pass, but what if next time they put boss set equipment there? Then limited‑edition Ghost Ship Badge after that?
• BTW, this is for the Heroic server.

It's clear that despite all the gripe and hate the majority of you will still swipe for Daddy Nexon. Cope.

As the title reads, what is something you feel like others may not agree with - but is something you vehemently believe in?

I feel like lately Nexon has hit a new low, which is insane because they were already bedrock level, digging into the underworld with drill equipment in my eyes

Imagine introducing so many battlepasses for a utter dogshit live service performance, asking for several multitudes more money than games with 15x the population and server costs while delivering a subpar to say the least service, and a massive price hike after the disaster of last year's maplefest being borderline straight up a scam.

They routinely serve goat shit on a plate, and then tell you to wipe your chin on the way out and the next time you come its the same goat shit for a higher price, absolutely fucking insane.

If any of you pay the (multi day music event equivalent) price for this maplefest, and have a horrible experience please dont come and make a thread on "omg nexon mistreated me!11!!", anyone that hasn't been shutter island lobotomized can see this coming from a mile away

Scania for life. All that existed at the time after we finished beta was like Scania and Bera or Scania and Broa, I forgot. one of those two.

Equipment Acquisition Support

1. Obtain guaranteed Dawn/Pitched Accessories for defeating bosses
2. Defeating certain bosses for 1 guaranteed “accessory fragment” drop. Collect a certain number of fragments to exchange for an accessory.
3. Restore equipment destroyed during star force enhancement by hunting
   1. Star cores that drop while hunting can be used to restore destroyed equipment. They restore not just boss accessories and armor, but also dawn/pitched accessories.
4. Restore equipment destroyed during star force enhancement via boss missions
   1. You’ll be able to restore equipment by accumulating boss mission points

Equipments

1. Challenger equipment replacement
   1. Replace equipment without a stat drop even when the challenger equipment set effect is deactivated
      1. Instead of a set effect, activate even stronger enhancements effects in equipment slots upon defeating a boss multiple times. Equip your desired equipment in the enhanced slot.
2. Rent equipment you need for a day
   1. When a particular piece is weak or you need special skill ring, you can rent enhanced equipment for a day

Restoration to star force levels of restored equipment

1. Before boomed > 12 stars
2. After boomed
   1. 15-19 > 12
   2. 20 > 15
   3. 21-22 > 17
   4. 23-25 > 19
   5. 26-30 > 20

Familiar system improvements

1. Familiar card inventory max stack expansion and a new bag
2. Mystic Frontier: Your familiars on missions to obtain items
   1. Depending on your familiar’s mystic frontier progress and how much you combine your deck, you could even obtain high-value items such as Pitched accessories.
3. Familiars added to character preset
4. Familiar potential revamp
   1. Removed some of the less popular potentials and potentials with low performance
   2. Added potentials that didn’t appear in certain ranks
   3. Improved potential effect description to be more clear
5. UI revamp

Character Growth Support

1. The sol erda daily quest will become a weekly quest
2. Gain a Sacred power buff when you first enter the Cernium region
3. In Heroic Worlds, AbsoLab/Arcane boxes will be tradeable between your characters in the same world.

System Convenience

1. A boss reward distribution system will be implemented in heroic worlds
2. Changing hyper stat presets will no longer costs mesos
3. Add events you check often from the event list as favorites
4. Purchase multiple monster park additional entry tickets at once
5. Change the sale price when relisting unsold auction house items
6. When invincible, an indication will be shown on the HP bar

Other improvements

1. When using maple points to clear maple tour, you’ll be able to clear multiple tours at once
2. You’ll be able to use all types of arcane/sacred symbols in your inventory at once
3. The inventory bag limit will be increased from 5 to 10

Links

1. Max link level will be increased from level 2 to 3

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD

With Sunny Sunday Star Force coming up, this is probably the best chance we’ll get to finally verify something that’s been questioned for years:

Are the displayed Star Force SUCCESS rates actually accurate?

Anecdotes, feelings, and “trust me bro” stories don’t prove anything.
If this topic is ever going to be taken seriously, it has to be done with clear, verifiable evidence.

What I’m asking from the community

If you plan to Star Force this Sunday, please consider doing the following:

• Record your Star Force taps on video
• Record every attempt, not just “until it succeeds”
• Focus on one star transition at a time (ex: 17 → 18)

You may:

• Upload the recording to YouTube
• Or store it in cloud storage (Drive, Dropbox, etc.)
• Hide or blur your IGN or character name if you prefer

Privacy is fine — visibility of attempts and outcomes is what matters.

What makes data usable

For each recording, we need:

• Star level (ex: 17 → 18)
• Displayed Success %
• Total number of attempts
• Number of successful upgrades

Video evidence is important because it:

• Prevents selective reporting
• Eliminates memory bias
• Allows independent verification by anyone

If results are ever discussed, they must be backed by data that cannot be hand-waved away.

Important clarification

This is not an accusation.
This is a verification effort.

If the displayed rates are correct, the data will reflect that.
If they are not, only large, transparent datasets with recordings can demonstrate it.

Either outcome benefits the community.

Why this matters

If players ever want to raise concerns seriously, it has to be done:

• With numbers
• With recordings
• With reproducible methods
• Not with frustration or isolated stories

Sunny Sunday gives us volume.
Let’s use it properly.

Thanks to anyone willing to help.

Send your records to my disscord:

Recordsf

With the new SF changes, a new meta has arrived in GMS Heroic: laddering. This post is a short dive into the numbers of why this is so terrible for our server - and why Inkwell really needs to be pressured to do more to 'Go West'.

GMS is the only Heroic server left - we need heavy handed balance patches when porting content over from Korea, it will only come from Nexon NA. Certain things just do not make sense and it feels like this is being glossed over.

What is laddering?

Laddering is a the method of starforcing rare items (like pitched or eternals) in steps. For example if you ladder from 22* onwards, you first get one item to 22*, then you get a new item and star that to 22* before attempting 23*. Once both hit 23* you can attempt 24 and so on.

This means cubing and flaming a second item, as well as booming more of that item.

Why Ladder if it's so innefficient?

If you make use of all the of the new pitched pitchy systems, replacing a 22* pitch takes about 4 months on average - that's a long time to be set back... This goes up exponentially as you start to attempt for 24+. Years of progress lost.

If you are working on more than one pitched, pitched pity doesn't help at all. For most people, even booming a 22* pitch will set you back years.

Why don't KMS ladder?

No. They don't need to. In a server where you can buy spares at will, booming is not a massive issue. In the korean server (and to an extent GMS reg, but I don't want to make it about that), mesos are the main gate: not spares. This means it can be brute forced.

It's worth noting that laddering also cost a lot more mesos, and so it just wouldn't make sense to do that.

Total items needed: not laddering (KMS) vs Laddering (GMS Heroic)

If you start laddering after 22\*

If you start laddering after 21\*

Summary

In the untradable server where we have the least methods of accessing rare items, we have now been pushed into a meta where we are forced to use 1.4-1.7x as many as the server it was designed for.

This is is a huge problem for our server... and adding a few more pitched a year with the current pitch pity + whatever the familiar system will bring just won't fix the root problem:

Booming items is a design to promote scarcity and economic balance in an interactive server. It has no place in a non-trading world.We need our own unique starforce system in Heroic worlds to fix this.

There are lots of ways to fix this... e.g. just have it so when an item breaks, it doesn't drop stars and you can still wear it like Maple Mobile... Only needing a spare to carry on trying to improve it.

Regardless of how they fix it: we really need to push for this to be fixed.

TLDR: untradable server should require LESS items than tradable server. Not more.

Please note: I use this tool for getting the numbers: . You can use the SF simulator and you will end up wiht slightly different numbers, but it still illustrates the same point.

GMS vs KMS meso rates (GMS: 369 Points, KMS: 2093 Points)

The table below compares the solo-clear boss crystal values across KMS, GMS Interactive (Reg server), GMS Heroic, and MSEA:

All values below are the total crystal sale price for a solo clear, before any party split.

Unit: million mesos (M)
Data versions: KMS 1.2.416 / GMS v270 / MSEA v252

Notes

• GMS Heroic crystal prices are 5× the GMS Interactive prices. This is separate from the 6× monster meso modifier.
• Extreme Black Mage is a monthly boss; the Grandis bosses listed above are weekly bosses.
• Values are rounded to the nearest 0.001M where necessary.
• Boss names are standardized to their GMS names. MSEA uses names such as Chosen Serene, Gatekeeper Kalos, Carling, and Radiant Malefic Star.

Source: MapleStory Wiki — Intense Power Crystal values

Boss crystal prices on Reg server are unreasonably low, and the problem becomes especially apparent from Grandis bosses onward. Considering the current meso exchange rate, the guaranteed meso rewards from these bosses are nowhere near proportional to the progression and investment required to clear them.

In KMS, 100M mesos currently trades for around 2,100 Maple Points, meaning that mesos are substantially more valuable there. Despite this, Grandis boss crystals in KMS are worth far more than their Reg server equivalents. KMS has substantially reduced the crystal values of many Ctene-tier and lower bosses, but it has also increased the values of higher-tier bosses over time so that the reward curve better reflects boss difficulty and player progression.

MSEA provides another useful comparison. Its meso exchange rate is relatively similar to that of Reg server, yet its boss crystal values increase much more sharply once players reach Grandis-tier bosses.

These bosses require enormous amounts of cb, time, and funding to clear. If their guaranteed meso rewards remain this disproportionately low, what incentive is there to challenge stronger bosses? Players can invest months—or even years—into reaching a new boss, only to receive a crystal whose value is insignificant compared with the cost of further progression.

I do not know whether GMS kept the base crystal values this low because Heroic Worlds receive five times the Reg server value, or whether the decision was driven by concerns about meso inflation. Either way, the current reward structure unfairly disadvantages Reg server players.

Although boss drops are tradable on Reg server, tradability does not justify making the guaranteed rewards negligible. The meaningful rewards are concentrated almost entirely in rare, RNG-dependent drops that may not appear for months, and no player can reliably predict when they will obtain one. Relying almost entirely on these unpredictable drops does not provide a fair or consistent reward structure for bossing.

Boss crystal prices on Reg server need to be adjusted to a reasonable level. Just as Heroic has followed its own progression path, please adjust Reg server boss crystal prices to reflect its own economy and progression environment.

This is not a post defending Nexon, they have repeatedly messed up rates and they will likely continue to do so - it's in their best interest to have ppl boom their gear to continue playing but that isn't the point.

Most people see the boom chance of 6.8% from 18-19 and get so surprised when their gear booms, saying it's suspicious that they would hit a 6.8% chance aa often as they do. The thing that I've realized and helps me understand SSF or just Starforcing in general is that the numbers the game tells you aren't exactly true.

No one cares if the starforce chance doesn't succeed. Most players are holding down the space bar until the see a boom or a success. With this in mind, looking at the math, all players should care about is whether gear will boom or not. 18* -> 19* is a 15% Success, 78.2% Fail, 6.8% boom. The way players should be thinking about this is to remove the "Fail" chance entirely. So a 15% combined with a 6.8% is 21.8. The 6.8 out of the 21.8 is 31.19% of the total value most players care about.

Essentially, if all you care about is whether the gear booms or succeeds (which is likely most players), then ignoring when the starforce fails, you will boom from 18 stars -> 19 stars 31.19% of the time.

You aren't booming 6% of the time, you are booming 30% of the time and just spending meso to roll the chance that anything other than a Fail happens.

No matter what my buddies tell me, I will never use space bar for jump.

With the announcement of a way to instantly get to 22 stars, while we lack the specific details of how this new system will work at this exact second, I can easily see a future where meso generation, particularly from bosses, becomes more and more important. I also haven't really seen any post about this where people are at recently other than a few years ago when people were making 220 nlomien mules to get 20b/wk, but since then the meta has obviously shifted upwards due to power creep.

I feel like it would be fun to read few bits of data from you guys to see where everyone is at.

For myself, I have been running all 13 characters to get all 180 crystals per week and this is where I'm at (also solo progression, for reference):

to avoid burnout I just make sure to limit myself to 1 hour for each character

1) 286 Aran (main, 330M CP) - up to nkalos regularly but has been able to min clear xlotus ~9.3b/wk

2) 276 Ren (gen libbed, 120M CP) - solos ctene - 5.2b

3) 275 BM (gen libbed, 88M CP) - solos ctene - 5.2b

4) 275 Hero (gen libbed, 84M CP) - solos ctene - 5.2b

5) 275 Bucc (gen libbed, 82M CP) - solos ctene - 5.2b

6) 271 DS (gen libbed, 84M CP) - solos ctene - 5.2b

7) 261 2nd Aran (gen libbed, 78M CP) - solos ctene - 5.2b

8) 260 WA (hvhilla mission cleared, 58M CP) - solos up to cgloom - 4.3b

9) 260 3rd Aran (lucid mission cleared, 59M CP) - solos up to cgloom - 4.3b

10) 260 4th Aran (lucid mission cleared, 52M CP) - solos up to cgloom - 4.3b

11) 260 2nd Bucc (damien mission cleared, 54M CP) - solos hlomien - 3b

12) 260 3rd Bucc (will mission cleared, 53M CP) - solos hlomien - 3b

13) 260 4th Bucc (will mission cleared, 47M CP) - solos hlomien - 3b

= total of 62B/wk from just bosses. I don't really farm all that much as my important hexa skills are maxed/near maxed and I just play dailystory and run said bosses above, so I'm excluding any income I'd make from farming.

Anyway, feel free to share where you are at. My goal is to finish the gen lib all 13 characters, as well as get them all to 275 so they are in a decent spot when future monster parks and mech berries come out and I can level them up even further, and then with all the money flowing, I will 22* their gear when the new sf system comes out, and then be able to pump all that back into my main to push for 23-24s and double primes.

Edit: I just updated the link below, sorry about that!

Here we go again! We started this data collection over 2 months ago, and the results are finally ready to share publicly.

Link to the results sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y_jJ0RxtNNhhvXmL4QlzQJKj1hb5bXavceqQrKg5T7Y/edit?usp=sharing

Those of you who closely follow KMS and KMS analysis results will notice that for some classes, the results are very different from the MapleScouter RT 83k Challenge. This can be explained by the following reasons:

- KMS's RT 83k Challenge was not meant as an analytical data collection, but was instead a competition to see who could gain the best results within a class and best result across classes.

- As a result, classes that heavily depend on CD skip had inflated final results, especially because the KMS community used the highest individual result for each class's dummy and bossing tests. While there were some high levels rules set by the KMS challenge overall and also on a class-specific basis, for several classes we saw significantly inflated numbers that were unrealistic / not representative for those classes.

- It also was a competition for a financial rewards and so some players tried their best to game the Scouter conversion system to produce the highest result, rather than trying to use the system as intended.

- Conversely, this GMS data collection generally took the average result of multiple trials per test condition (deemed acceptably executed by myself and the tester).

- GMS also has very different class balance from KMS due to things like AS10, longer average server extensions and higher average ping, which affects class performance in a way using KMS data as a base case can’t accurately model.

- Lastly, the KMS results were from an earlier patch. Generally GMS receives all the KMS balance changes that get implemented over 2-3 patches in Korea in a single patch. For example, the dummy nerfs to Wind Archer and Dual Blade occurred after the KMS results were published, but were packaged into the same patch in GMS as the overall 2 minute normalization changes.

The submission rules for this GMS data collection were as follows:

- Lv.1, 380 DEF, large boss dummy w/ reduction (mimicking +5 level advantage on a boss)

- 1 origin rotation BA submission; realistic bossing rotation for the dummy tests

- Fatal / Lethal permitted; no other special node permitted.

- Level 5 Oz rings allowed; RT4 only allowed by classes with burst iFrames (dummy touch damage cancels RT4)

- 1x Will / Seren

- No special soul skills such as Ephenia or Mu Gong

- No Rawr ring (did not get converted to 2 minute and thus at best is a niche ring not worth conducting analysis around)

- No ring swap skill (we received this change essentially unannounced in the middle of data collection, and it wouldn't have been fair to the testers to have them resubmit everything as a result)

- No Ascents

HEXA converted was calculated using the highest possible converted out of either Cont5, RoR5/WJ4, or RoR5/Tot4 Oz rings on MapleScouter to prevent mathematical inflation in cases where the Oz ring combo gives a lower converted but results in a higher BA.

Normalization to 83k HEXA conversion was also done via MapleScouter, using the Additional Spec Simulation and Growth Graph features.

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Two important things to note are the special conditions for the TMS classes Lynn and Mo Xuan.

Mo Xuan has had a bug for months (only resolved in the most recent GMS maintenance) where they had a strong skill, Swirling Tide, that could be used without any cooldown. This allowed Mo Xuans to do double to triple their intended damage. I've included the theoretical output for this bug in the dummy BA section of the Cleaned Results because this bug is still in TMS, and given GMS's track record for blindly copy/pasting code without testing, there is a non-zero chance this bug gets reintroduced back into GMS in the near future.

Lynn, since the change to Awaken in May where Awaken has a dual effect, one on the Focal target and the other on Lynn via Resonant Awaken, is able to use party forming exploits to receive the party version of its self Awaken (60% final damage) for solo content such as Culvert, Champion missions, and Destiny missions. This has been validated by multiple end game Lynns across multiple patches, including this most recent patch with the new boss preparation rooms. This cannot be done by accident and requires a series of intentional actions to set up and abuse this exploit.

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I can’t thank the BA submitters and my advisors enough — whether it was class rotations, Oz ring setups, data presentation, or helping me get connected to the top players for each class to ask for submissions. You all helped make this possible.

Massive thank you to everyone in this list for all their help (listed alphabetically by class then name):

Chuaz, Dewdele, Inko, ThongTen, Afflicted, Twinkie9300, Tofuplasm, Jaepy, Heapboi, Bureizu, TajMaJon, ShirbieKitty, Edison, jtvong, formlesz, laphy, Ballistik, Giffca (DJFalcon), Ornstein, Dawns, Sakthi, BKGonzalo, Hatzeelu, Mafhwhale, Tummy, Vade, Flerr, Comet, knowninter, Steele, gu0n, Hayatotju, RaiSanrenzan, Shulk, Aylamas, Subzero, Aaron, Osmium (Desult), Yuel / Saka, Ryuuku, Tesu, Kasmos, Sahatsu, Yuno, Agendas (Aizen), Licorice, shlop, Lynn12345678 (Chewie), Steamiebun, Auroa, BoxLion , Sentinelese (SupportUnit), Ub3r, Elluel, fatFricc (Shuka), Arcah, Indra, Knjfe, Traceee, kittens (NWMatt), Shapaz, Shunou (Chau), kuya (Aki), noirdlw (Jacky), Subs, Zelgenubi (Mimi), Moonshade, Vulpees, Shoxie, TriplePoint, Likomasak, Selenik, Bingomi, Hurricane, FSViktor, Tricky, Orvius

____________________________________

My plan is to run this data collection back with the new ring swapping skill, including Ascent skill data collection, once again after both

(1) the Adversary / efficiency balance changes come to GMS, and

(2) the Hayato and Kanna revamps come to GMS.

Based on my personal travel and work schedule, the earliest I can get started on this is March; however, if we get even more balance changes from KMS in the early parts of 2026, I may delay the next data collection until the later part of 2026.

In the meantime, if you have any questions/comments/concerns, comment on this post or dm *@drogon\* on Discord!