Nexon’s MapleStory isn’t often the subject of a big messy drama, but Nexon has gone and stepped in it with its big New Age patch this week.
The main complaint with the patch as originally announced was that it effectively added a new energy currency for leveling up a sixth tier of job skills – but there was a nasty cap on the daily acquisition of that currency, leading players to calculate that it would take more than a year and a half of dailies to accomplish. (Korean MapleStory players were not subject to this restriction, just the global version.) Additional gripes included upset over absurd cash shop prices, instanced maps, and the daily login system, in addition to frustration with Nexon for suppressing player agitation about it all on official stream Q&As.
Players have not been quiet about their displeasure in other avenues, of course. The subreddit has a massive post coordinating the anger, and indeed the sub’s header has been replaced with a logo that twists the “MapleStory New Age” term to “MapleStory Sewage,” which is still there as of this morning.
Nexon clearly heard the rioting, too, as last night it announced the removal of one of the more objectionable bits: the Sol Erda currency cap. The studio says it was trying to balance daily material acquisition, new vs. vet players, and grind incentives, chiefly to serve casuals rather than the hardcores upset over it.
“[W]e wished to lower the burden that our players might feel regarding play time and increase the accessibility for casual players by distributing the Sol Erda Energy and the Sol Erda Fragments through the Daily Quest. Additionally, we added the daily cap because we wished to narrow the gap that depended on playtime between the hardcore players and those who could not dedicate as much time to the game. We were planning to monitor the actual acquisition time of our players, the play time, and adjust the cap as needed. We understand that seeing changes like this being shown in gameplay videos and streams without detailed context from our team has caused a lot of anger and frustration with you all. We would like to apologize to our Maplers once again, since the design intention for this part has not been explained enough in advance. Regardless of the design intentions, we understand that there are many aspects to these changes that you are understandably concerned about, so in addition to the Daily Quest that will remain, we will remove the cap and explore separate improvement measures for parts that could be harmful for the gameplay experience.”
Whether that assuages enough people’s anger remains to be seen.
v.246 – New Age Patch Notes
Read: https://t.co/HZIS60rb4H pic.twitter.com/OXFYcz1KUL
— MapleStory 🍁 (@MapleStory) November 15, 2023
