Ideas for Maplestory Classic, taken from Chronostory.

I made a few ideas for Classic that were borrowed from Artale a while back. Despite being a mostly solo-based game, there are many nice concepts and quality of life updates that classic can borrow from Maplestory Worlds Chronostory.

1. Consolidate and buff defensive scrolls. In the original Maplestory, many monsters dropped scrolls such as Helmet for HP, Cape for MP, Overall for Defense, Earrings for Magic Defense, etc. Given that these items are mostly useless, it feels like a slap on the face to even see that drop. You could make an argument that maybe HP scrolls are great for making sure you tank higher level mobs but the benefit you get is very marginal at best. What I suggest is all mobs that drop defensive-based scrolls would instead drop <Equipment> for Defense (ie. Cape for HP becomes Cape for Defense). Each success at 100% gives +5 of each HP/MP/DEF/MDEF. 60% will give +15 of each and 10% will give +30 of each (maybe +45 to add some spice). I'm sure the numbers can buff a little more than that because even in Chronostory, defensive gear is fairly niche for squishy classes tanking one hit. However, at least it makes these scrolls worthwhile to keep around instead of dumping to the NPC for 1 Mesos or used for dummy scrolling. I could go and further suggest a Scroll Voucher system but it would be really hard to balance in a tradable economy so I'll keep it as making defensive scrolls relevant.

2. Field Boss Quota. I never really did field boss hunting in the original Maplestory but I heard that it uses a winner-take-all system for highest DPS. How about allow multiple players to each get their own drop loot individually, provided that they deal 20% damage to the boss. This is a fair balance as not only does this promote party boss hunting but also remains the aspect of resource competition while keeping less competent DPS classes relevant. The caveat is most field bosses have really really low HP so perhaps buff their HP. Another way to balance this is make it so highest DPS gets more Meso drops (similar to Artale).

3. Better spawn density. Not all maps need to increase spawn density. However, in the original Maplestory, only a handful of maps were above and beyond the best maps for everything while other maps were effectively useless. You had NLC for example. Gobies too. Resource competition is going to be inevitable and we're not going to enforce KS rules nor are we going to make instanced theme dungeons. A good compromise is to add more B-tier maps as reliable alternatives to A/S-tier. Design certain maps with variety so certain classes benefited better than others. Examples of variety include: AoE classes for multi-platform cluster spawns, horizontal mobbing maps, or maps with multiple safespots.

4. Remote Free Market Access Button. This might sound like it makes the game a lot easier because back then, people had to walk to town to enter FM portals. However, it's a fair compromise for not having an Auction House. If we're not going to have people easily sell their items and we want to invite more FM visits, why not make FM easier to visit? After all, we did have the MTS system and Cash Shop directly accessible from any map. Additionally, many maps don't have safe entry spots so perhaps adding FM would help alleviate that. A good balance would be if you attacked a monster (being hit doesn't count) within the last 10 seconds, you can't enter.

5. Training Tracker. I think this is in modern Maplestory but Chronostory uses this XP, DPS tracker, and meso tracker. It benchmarks how fast we kill mobs. Perhaps also adding a kill count and loot tracker would be nice too. This way we can crowdsource drop rates similar to Runescape Wiki.

6. Additional HP/MP on 3rd Job Advancement. In the OG Maple, only the 1st and 2nd job advancements increased a player's HP/MP. In Chronostory, 3rd job increases HP/MP (likely 4th job too when its released). Getting 3rd job is a big grind. On top of that, the job advancement takes an incredibly long time with all the traveling and requiring Dark Crystals then hoping you answered everything correctly. Additionally, monsters start to come close to 1-shotting squishier classes. We should be rewarded better for making it to 3rd job. We only get 1 SP. Increasing max HP/MP would be a good reward. I don't see how that hurts the game or makes it easier. Our natural HP/MP won't keep up with damage taken from mobs once you reach the 70s bracket.

7. Buffed Stat Equipment Bonuses. Artale also does this too. In the OG Maple, equipment didn't offer stat (DEX/STR/INT/LUK) bonuses that made it worthwhile to use. We had many Sauna Robe users late into 3rd job. I suggest increasing stat bonuses, the higher level equipment we get. For example, Brown Osfa Suit gave +7 stats of DEX/LUK with the potential for a +9. How about increase that potential to +15 like in Chronostory?

8. No Gender Locked Equipment. Also another Artale idea. I've always felt gender-locking equipment was an unnecessary restriction and inconvenience. It also makes equipment less liquidable. We don't need to force male characters to wear male-only equipment. I'm not an LGBTQ member but we live in the modern world where we're more open to dress whatever we feel like. Plus even in the original Runescape, male characters wore Plateskirts sometimes due to the lighter inventory weight for run energy conservation.

Overall, most of these are reasonable to improving gameplay experience, especially for a new or solo players. I'm sure there are a lot more suggestions I'd love to add as well but these are the only ones I believe are balanced enough to fit a tradable economy.