Most of the time the events and updates applied to the global version of MapleStory are from the Korean version; this shouldn’t come as a surprise to most players. However, our global version of the MMO forked away from Korea a while ago, and this week’s newest update – subtitled The Dark Ride – continues that trend with an all-new and completely unique event that gives the patch its name.
The Dark Ride: Ride or Die event pits players against six bosses each week, with three selectable difficulty levels, a list of challenge modifiers that players can engage, and a total of 20 lives to spend for the entire week. The objective is to clear the week’s boss fights to earn points, with more points gained for higher difficulties, more applied challenges, and the number of unused lives remaining. Naturally, higher scores grant more rewards including coupons, buff items, and coins to spend on other goodies, while a host of cosmetic items are available for simply participating.
On the subject of events, the patch has also begun the Page of Memories event quests, which lets players learn the history of the Black Mage’s commanders in the Dimensional Library for a suite of rewards like cosmetics, cosmic cubes, potions, and more. Players can also look forward to some new burning events to level up classes at hyper speed once again as well as login rewards for every Sunday from now until February 9th.
Another major part of the update is related to classes, as both the Shade and Aran have gotten “redux” revamps that adjust their abilities and add some new skills for each class’ six jobs, while multiple existing classes have gotten several balance changes and updates to their skills.
Other big features of this update include some leveling adjustments in terms of UI clarity and XP earnings, an in-game Maple Planner that lets players track repeatable tasks, new UI options to better display buffs, several revamps to guild castle activities, and updates to epic dungeons. It’s a frankly massive patch that players will want to come to grips with in the patch notes.
