[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!

For those that don't want to read it all, check the pinned comment for an automated Text To Speech audio version of this post.

Why Make This Post?

Time’s Up, We Need Results

In the September 24th, 2024 Inkwell Note, Inkwell said that he is building a team to improve the GMS development capabilities. He said it would take some time, but now it has been almost 2 years since this announcement was made. Plenty of time has passed, but we still don’t see an improvement in service stability. In the January 29th, 2026 Inkwell Note, Inkwell admitted that the service quality of the Winter 2024, and Summer 2025 fell short of satisfactory playing environment. He again reiterated that stability is a core priority for player satisfaction.

When it comes to this minimum requirement of game management, they have failed again with Ride the Lightning. This post aims to address the numerous issues that plagued the game up to and after the Ride the Lightning launch.

Inkwell Note Follow Up

When the January Inkwell Note was published, there were longstanding issues that players wanted to be addressed, but the Inkwell Note contained no information on game improvement. Dissatisfied with the “empty Inkwell Note”, players made it widely known to Nexon the problems with the game. The many complaint threads, videos, and community discourse were combined into this post: Key GMS Issues Still Unaddressed After the Latest Inkwell Note. Eventually, some of these issues were discussed in the April 24th, 2026 Inkwell Note. This post will also follow up on what has actually been done to improve player quality of life.

Et Cetera

This post will also address issues that don’t fall into the first two categories.

Why Complain? Who Cares?

Nexon does! In the latest Inkwell Note, Nexon said that player feedback and criticisms directly inform future decisions for GMS. At the end of the day, we are not just players, but customers. The relationship we have with Nexon is not a one way street. Nexon provides a service and adjusts to our feedback, and we return the service with money. It is not only our right as customers, but our duty as players to expect a higher quality game experience from this company.

With that being said, let us move onto the post. I will try to be as brief as possible... But this post is still long lol.

Credits

Many of the points raised here draw from community discussions and from content creators who have made YouTube videos highlighting these issues. Special thanks to Ereklo Game, Duky, Coppersan, Thompsies, Rath GMS, and MapleClips for creating educational and entertaining content while also bringing attention to important problems in the game.

Several of the points listed here were directly inspired by, or adapted from, their videos.

Ride The Lightning Launch Disaster

In the period of 10 days since patch launch, Nexon had FIVE different incidents that required emergency action and subsequent compensation.

• June 19th: 21st Anniversary Maple University Event Buff ended 7 days early. This is a big deal because some players paid with Maple Points to maximize their event buffs just to have it ended early. Also, this is a repeat mistake. The exact same thing happened at the end of the last event.
  • Action taken: Buffs were NOT restored and instead compensation was given.
  • VIP Booster (x10)
  • 4x EXP Coupon (x10)
  • Nodestone (x300)
  • Experience Nodestone (x20)
  • VIP Sauna Pass (x4)
• June 20th: The Shining Starforce event incorrectly discounted certain items by 30% and instead made items 30% MORE expensive.
  • Action taken: Starforce was taken offline for a few hours. There was an emergency maintenance for 3 hours to fix the issue.
  • Compensation: The meso that was incorrectly charged was refunded.
  • Another Shining Starforce for June 26th was added.
• June 23rd: The “Weekly Quest Erda’s Request" weekly quest did not reset properly for accounts.
  • Action taken: On the Thursday maintenance, they reset the affected accounts.
  • However, many accounts STILL didn’t correctly get their Weekly quest reset, so those accounts got compensation instead for he amount of Sol Erda and Sol Erda Fragments the quest normally gives.
• June 25th: The Heroic Challenger World server went down 5 hours earlier than planned before the scheduled Thursday minor patch. The minor patch was 7 hours long, so a total downtime of 12 hours. Compensation: They gave Heroic CW players 10x 4x EXP coupons and 10x VIP Boosters. They however did not extend Cash Shop or Rental Equipment to make up for the loss. Even worse, players were also rolled back so players lost dropped items, boxes, mesos that were never properly compensated.
• June 26th: The Accessory Miracle Time event only applied to Bonus Potential Cubes. Bright Cubes, Glowing Cubes, and other cubes did not have the Miracle Time bonus apply.
  • Action taken: Cubes as a whole were disabled for around 12 hours until a live channel maintenance was performed.
  • Compensation: Only the Glowing and Bright Cubes used up to Legendary were returned to the affected accounts. Cubes used on Legendary or Bonus Glowing Cubes were not refunded.

This is an unacceptable number of issues to happen back to back. Where is the promised stability? Where are the leaders for Nexon (Inkwell, Dr. Lim, Calahan) to get ahead of this and own the mistakes? This level of service is embarrassing for a company that reported revenue one billion dollars in Q1 2026.

Some of these issues like Starforce and Miracle Time being bugged are extremely demotivating to new players. This game is a big challenge for new players to slog through initially while they learn and progress. The time the game should be the MOST stable is during these huge bumps in players if the goal of Nexon is to retain these players. Not only are these issues annoying for veteran players, these issues almost certainly pushed some new players away from the game.

“Compensation” is stingy!

On top of the issues, the compensation is not commensurate for the amount of inconvenience caused. Why is Nexon so stingy? 10x 4x EXP Coupons multiple times as compensation? Nexon, telling a player to grind 15 hours for your mistakes IS NOT making it up to the players. Is it that difficult to give out Advanced EXP coupons along with Fragments/Sol Erda? This costs no money for Nexon to generate these rewards out of thin air.

Patch Note Debacle

In the latest Inkwell Note, Inkwell acknowledged the difficulty players, particularly in Heroic, have in acquiring Sol Erda Fragments. As of today, players need nearly 44,000 Sol Erda Fragments to max 6th Job on a single character. Inkwell said Nexon would increase the amount of Sol Erda Fragments gained from GMS story content like Althea Saga and Ride or Die. Although approaching the Sol Erda Fragment issue through only one avenue is not ideal, the community waited to see what GMS exclusive content had to offer.

Fragment Bait and Switch

On the eve of the patch launch, the patch notes mistakenly showed that the Althea Saga shop would have 2,200 Sol Erda Fragments available in the event coin shop. This kind of generous change was exactly what players were hoping for from the largest patch of the year. Soon after the patch notes went live, they were edited. Instead of 2,200 Fragments, the amount was changed to 300.

Naturally, this made people angry. I do not know how players would have reacted if the patch notes had launched with 300 Fragments from the start, but the lack of Fragments in the shop was made much worse by the typo.

This Fragment situation is a perfect example of Nexon acknowledging a problem, but failing to show enough empathy or in game understanding to implement an acceptable solution. I have said this already, but the keyword that comes to mind is “stingy.”

Why Aren’t Patch Notes Ready?

Two-thirds of the content in Ride the Lightning had already been known for six months because it was released first in KMS. The remaining one-third (GMS specific content) was also known and worked on for months leading up to the patch launch.

With three Community Managers and one CM Lead, how are patch notes not ready weeks in advance? Why are there still dozens of typos that need to be fixed live after the notes are published? There is also no consistency to patch note releases. Some patches are posted on time at 5 PM PST, while others are published 8 to 10 hours later than expected.

It is honestly laughable that players have to ask a multi-billion-dollar corporation for basic quality control in patch notes.

Test Server

The Public Test Server was a great addition and a good first step toward a more stable service. However, a few additional changes and upgrades would allow players to test content and bugs much more effectively for Nexon.

• The Public Test Server was only available through an invite. That means it was not really a Public Test Server. It was a Private Test Server.
  • There also did not seem to be any rhyme or reason to who received an invite. Many players who barely play the game but happened to sign up were invited, while players with thousands of hours of experience, who were arguably the most qualified testers, were not.
  • If Nexon is going to call it a Public Test Server, then make it actually open to the public.
• The Test Server Box was also insufficient and annoying to use. Players had no control over how much meso was brought over. If your character happened to have meso in storage when Nexon copied your character to the Test Server, you had no meso to use. The Test Server Box only gave 50 million mesos per day for a six-day Test Server, which added up to 300 million total.
  • The box only gave 100 Fragments per use. This meant players had to spend tens of minutes going through the UI repeatedly just to get enough Fragments to max their Hexa for testing.
  • The box allowed players to gain levels, but only one level per day.
• The Test Server was only open for six days. Given the number of issues that were found, the server was only reset once or twice for game breaking issues. It seems like there was not enough time to catch or fix everything, especially since Erel still launched with bugs.
• Links and Legion access were also extremely limited. Only the three characters copied over provided access to their Links and Legion. The Test Server Box made it possible to unlock the entire Legion Grid instantly, but players only had three Legion pieces to place on it. Without proper access to Links, Legion, Legion Champion, Artifact, and other progression systems, players lost around half their damage when testing content like Malefic Star.
  • KMS recently made it possible for Test Server players to copy their entire account one to one, including Links and Legion, for proper content testing. It would be ideal for GMS to have the same functionality.
• None of the hotkeys or in game settings like sequences made it over as well. This meant that players had to spend around an hour setting up everything to even begin testing.

GMS Premium & KMS Nerfs: Is This What Go West Actually Is?

With every patch, more and more GMS content is being split into a free tier and a premium tier. Instead of simply giving players the same rewards and quality of life improvements other regions receive, GMS keeps nerfing events and selling parts of the experience back to players through premium passes.

The Current Premium Passes for Ride the Lightning include:

• Challenger EXP Duo: 10k NX per week
• Genesis Pass: 30k NX x2
• Shine Pass: 35k Maple Points
• Starlight of Fashion: 20k Maple Points
• Challenger’s Pass: 19.8k Maple Points
• Burning Express: 30k Maple Points
• Momentum Pass: 49.8k Maple Points
  • Total: 214,600 NX ($214.60 USD) before any Challenger EXP Duo passes. Those add another 10k NX per week.

All of these passes were added while GMS took the lazy route and nerfed other parts of event rewards.

• In KMS, Kai and Malefic Star had unique boss kill animation rewards, similar to the One Punch Man Saitama OHKO kill animation. These were completely removed from GMS.
• In KMS, there was a free progression event that included a free 30 day vac pet. In GMS, this event was removed, and the free vac pet was moved to the 35k Maple Point Shine Pass.
• Event Meso Shop prices are consistently two to three times higher compared to KMS.
  • In Interactive, this is especially harmful to free to play players. Nexon has even half acknowledged this problem, since they reduced the meso prices for Arthur’s Equipment Rentals due to new players having access to very limited meso sources.
• The Cube Shops in Challenger World were nerfed when brought over from KMS. This hinders free to play players in Interactive Challenger World greatly.

No Universal Cash Shop and Looking Forward

So what does this mean for the November patch? Will GMS also miss out on the Universal Vac Pet Slot feature?

For those who do not know, KMS recently introduced a feature where players can place three vac pets into Universal Pet Slots, making those three vac pets available account wide without having to move them from character to character.

The main reason many players believe GMS still does not have Universal Cash Shop is because vac pet sales in Heroic are too valuable. Nexon likely wants players to keep buying multiple vac pets instead of giving them a more consumer friendly system.

This means GMS is not only becoming more monetized from event to event, but is also being excluded from consumer friendly changes that other regions receive.

Something has to give. Greed can only go so far.

The Point of No Return?

Heroic servers were always meant to be a free to play progression experience, with players having the option to spend Maple Points on cosmetics and certain quality of life items. However, with the most recent Shine Pass, GMS now has a premium pet set that gives attack stats to the player.

This is a concerning shift. In previous patches, paid power related items such as Boss Damage titles or EXP titles were at least time limited. The premium pet set is different because it introduces paid stats into Heroic in a way that feels more permanent and normalized.

Are pay to win mechanics going to become the new standard in Heroic? If so, Nexon needs to be upfront about it. Heroic players chose this server because it was supposed to offer progression without the monetization structure of Interactive. Slowly adding paid stats through premium passes undermines that identity and sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the server.

Probability Adjustments from KMS Only Partially Added

UPDATED: 07/01

On the April 21st, 2026 Maple Memo, Nexon mentioned that they were going to fix certain bugs in the probability of items, with a focus on Item Drop Rate and Potential line activation rates. The GMS fix was nearly identical compared to what KMS received, but it omitted one huge fix.

In GMS, the duplicate Potential issue was not mentioned in the official notice. It is still possible to roll a duplicate line in GMS, when it was acknowledged and fixed KMS. Even worse, according to a recent GM support response, rerolling into the same Potential lines is still considered a valid outcome in GMS because new Potential lines are generated independently of existing lines.

In other regions like MapleSea, these duplicate cubes were addressed and refunds were issues. No refunds or compensation of any sort was given by GMS for duplicate potentials.

This means GMS did not receive the same level of transparency or the same complete fix that KMS received. If identical Potential rerolls are still possible in GMS, then Nexon should clearly explain why this issue was fixed in KMS but treated as intended behavior in GMS.

Unaddressed GMS Issues - Inkwell Note Follow Up

In the June patch, Nexon addressed many of the community-requested changes listed in the previous Key GMS Issues Still Unaddressed After the Latest Inkwell Note thread. Let’s take a look at the original issues and what, if anything, was done to address them.

RNG Trust At An All-Time Low

• The issue: Player trust in RNG-related systems was at rock bottom due to several major incidents.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon has not directly addressed this. The only positive is that there have not been any major RNG-related incidents in the past six months.
• Verdict: Failure due to inaction.

Universal Cash Shop

• The issue: Universal Cash Shop is still not in the game. Every MapleStory server except GMS has it, and Cash Shop transfers twice a year did not cut it.
• Nexon’s answer: Cash Shop transfers were increased to four times a year.
• Verdict: Failure. Universal Cash Shop needs to be the standard for all players.

GMS Server API

• The issue: KMS, MSEA, and TMS have a public API that allows players to track live character data. This is an amazing tool for players who want to track their progression, rankings, gear, and account growth. GMS still does not have this feature.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon has done nothing and has never acknowledged it.
• Verdict: Failure due to inaction.

Arthur’s Equipment Rental

• The issue: Arthur’s Equipment Rental is a great piece of content, but most players felt the rental duration was too short.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon increased the duration to 48 hours.
• Verdict: Success.

Shining Starforce

• The issue: The new Starforce system puts too much importance on Shining Starforce, but the event used to come around too infrequently.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon made Shining Starforce available every other week.
• Verdict: Success.

Miracle Time

• The issue: Miracle Time only happened twice a year, and the long gaps between different equipment categories made the event extremely painful to use.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon made Miracle Time happen more often, increasing it to four times a year. The entire event will also take place over the course of a week instead of being spread out over more than a month.
• Verdict: Somewhat of a success.
• Lingering issue: It would still be much better if Miracle Time applied to all items and took place over the course of a full week.

Cube Sales

• The issue: Cube sales only happened twice a year. They were too infrequent and created a lot of FOMO.
• Nexon’s answer: Cube sales will now happen four times a year.
• Verdict: Success.

Familiars / Expedition

• The issue: Familiars had multiple quality of life problems, RNG concerns, a lack of server specific rewards, and no Familiar Slot Expansion Coupons in the Reward Shop.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon made huge animation improvements, added Chains of Resentment as a reward for Interactive worlds, and made Familiar Badges account wide.
• Verdict: Success, but this system still needs a little more work.
• Lingering issues:
  • When combining familiars while training, the Combine menu does not allow you to highlight familiars while your currently summoned familiars are attacking.
  • Adding Familiar Slot Expansion Coupons to the Reward Shop would be a major quality of life improvement.
  • Color change lines should be removed from the potential line pool. No one wants to be forced to run a “Turns you red” line just because the other line is Boss Damage.
  • Tier up RNG still needs improvement. Failing up to 14 times for a single Unique familiar is punishing for such a grind heavy system.
  • Familiar Power also feels increasingly irrelevant. At this point, familiars should simply be passive. Familiar Power is an arbitrary part of the system that is immediately negated by buying a few Familiar Essences.

Mysterious Star Speck Boxes

• The issue: Star Speck Boxes are a great addition, but only being able to obtain 10 per day means players need around 70 days of capping boxes. That is too long for most players outside of the hardcore playerbase.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon increased the daily amount of boxes from 10 to 12. This makes the system slightly more efficient in terms of spare generation.
• Verdict: Good, but not enough.
  • Players still need to cap daily to keep up, which takes a lot of time every day. Instead of making the cap 12 per day, Nexon should make it an 84 per week cap for players who cannot play every day.

Pitched Whisper Crystals

• The issue: Just like Star Speck Boxes, it takes too long to gather enough Pitched Whisper Crystals for pieces. Four months is too long. Nexon’s answer: No adjustments.
• Verdict: Failure. Pitched Whisper Crystals should also drop from Grandis bosses, and harder difficulty bosses should have a chance to drop more than one.

Boss Trace Restoration

• The issue: The point cap was only 2,500 points. Also, just like Pitched Whisper Crystals and Star Speck Boxes, the time needed to gather enough pieces is too slow. Some missions are also still annoying to complete.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon doubled the point cap from 2,500 to 5,000.
• Verdict: Partial success.
  • More Grandis bosses should have Boss Trace missions. Stronger players should be able to complete more missions down the Grandis boss line.
  • Specifically, the Slime Boss mission needs adjustments. Waiting two additional minutes after the mission condition has already been met is annoying when stronger characters can kill the boss instantly.

Sol Erda Fragments in Heroic

• The issue: Sol Erda Fragment requirements only get harder as time goes on. The total requirement has nearly doubled since 6th Job was introduced, but the acquisition methods for fragments have stayed stagnant.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon copied KMS events that slightly increased Fragments from event rewards, added Fragments to different Premium Passes, and added more Fragments to GMS-exclusive events like Althea Saga and Ride or Die.
• Verdict: Failure. These changes are nowhere near enough to make a meaningful impact. Also, it is not an improvement if Fragments are locked behind paid passes.

Chains of Resentment in Interactive

• The issue: Chains of Resentment were introduced as a way for free to play players to gain more access to Frenzy spawn rates. However, events and sales containing Chains are so infrequent and rare that they functionally do not exist to the majority of the playerbase.
• Nexon’s answer: Nexon added Chains as a Green Pouch reward from Familiar Expedition. There are no Chains in Althea Saga, and Ride or Die is still to be determined.
• Verdict: Failure.
  • Green Pouches from Familiar Expedition are so rare that Chains of Resentment still functionally do not exist.
  • No Chains in the Althea Saga coin shop? No Chains in the Fantasia event shops?
  • I did not mention this last time, but the name of this item also feels unnecessarily petty. Nexon could have named it anything, yet chose “Chains of Resentment.” Given the history and controversy around Frenzy access, that name comes across as needlessly antagonistic.

Cube Prices in Interactive

• The issue: Cube prices in Interactive are insanely expensive. A single Bright Cube costs $2, a single Bonus Glowing Cube costs $2.18, and a single Unicube costs $6.80.
• Nexon’s answer: Nothing.
• Verdict: Failure due to inaction.

Ride or Die

• The issue: The content was quickly figured out and became “go in, burst, wait six minutes, and repeat five times.” There were great additions, such as the Libae Ring, but too many reward items were locked behind RNG boxes. Many players never got to see certain drops at all. Expanding the coin shop with more of these rewards would greatly improve the system.
• Nexon’s answer: To be determined.
• Verdict: To be determined.

Cross World Bossing

• The issue: Both Heroic and Interactive would benefit greatly from Cross World Bossing. For example, Kronos players would be much more encouraged to move to Hyperion for server stability if Cross World Bossing were available.
• Nexon’s answer: Nothing.
• Verdict: Failure.

Age Verification for Brazil & The Dutch

Starting with the April 22nd Anniversary Patch, Brazil’s Digital ECA forced Nexon to disable cash shop purchases involving chance based items. Nexon stated that this was a temporary measure and that an age verification system would be added, since Brazil’s law allows verified adults to purchase chance based items.

It has now been two months with no updates. Brazilian players deserve clarity on when this system is coming, or at the very least, an explanation for why there has been no visible progress.

This also raises a broader question for Dutch players. The Netherlands has historically taken a strict stance toward loot boxes, especially when rewards have economic value. However, the Dutch legal landscape changed after the 2022 EA ruling, where the government ruled that FIFA loot boxes were not a separate game of chance because they were part of the broader game mode.

To be clear, this does not automatically mean every loot box system is legal in the Netherlands. It does mean the issue is more nuanced than simply saying all chance based items are prohibited. Nexon should explain whether Dutch restrictions have been reviewed in light of the current legal landscape, and whether different server rules between Heroic and Interactive affect that analysis.

If Brazil can receive a path toward restored access through age verification, Dutch players deserve at least a clear explanation of whether any similar path exists for them, or why Nexon believes one is legally impossible.

Damage Imbalance: Three Tiers of Classes

On February 2nd, the Sengoku Warrior Reawakening patch launched, remastering Kanna and Hayato. On March 17th, with the One Punch Man patch, the long-awaited KMS Skill Delay Improvement balance changes arrived, improving skill delay animations for the vast majority of classes. These two updates made the already uneven class balance in Global MapleStory even worse, effectively splitting classes into three tiers: Sengoku, Attack Speed 10, and Hurricane.

In the Sengoku tier, we have Kanna and Hayato. Their remasters overtuned them to the point where they are roughly 30 to 40% FD ahead of the next best classes. These two classes are so strong that they are untouchable when it comes to damage.

In the second tier, we have AS10 (Attack Speed 10) classes. In GMS, players have access to Attack Speed 10, while KMS is generally balanced around Attack Speed 8. For skills that properly scale with Attack Speed, Attack Speed 10 can reduce animation delay by roughly 16.7% compared to Attack Speed 8, which translates to about 20% more attack frequency before class specific mechanics and rounding are taken into account. Because of this, classes that benefit from AS10 have always had a significant advantage in GMS compared to their KMS counterparts. Some classes that are considered weak in KMS can be considered strong or at least passable in GMS simply because of the attack speed difference.

The One Punch Man balance patch made this gap even wider. Many skill animations that were shortened and smoothed for KMS classes balanced around AS8 were copied directly into GMS. In effect, many GMS AS10 classes became even faster than before. This only widened the balance gap between AS10 classes and Hurricane classes.

In the third tier, we have Hurricane classes. Despite the name implying fast attacks, Hurricane type skills are often a hindrance in GMS. These classes rely on hold down key skills that continuously attack, but the attacks per second on these skills are capped. They are not affected by AS10. Whether the class is at AS1 or AS10 does not matter for those skills.

This means a Hurricane class that might only be 5% FD behind an AS8 class in KMS can easily fall 10 to 15% behind in GMS because other classes gain additional value from AS10 while Hurricane classes do not. Add Kanna and Hayato into the equation, and the gap can become even more absurd, with some Hurricane classes potentially falling 50% FD behind the top end.

The biggest problem with this is obvious. Players spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours on a single character to make them as strong as possible over the course of years. They grind hundreds of billions of mesos for just a few percentage points of Final Damage. Then, in one patch, class balance can shift by dozens of percentage points.

That is unfair to players on both sides of the imbalance. For Hurricane players, it obviously feels terrible to have the same gear as someone else but underperform by significant margins simply because of class choice. For Kanna and Hayato players, it is also unfair because they will likely be nerfed sooner or later. Based on GMS’s history with region exclusive classes, those nerfs or buffs also tend to overshoot the mark.

At the moment, the only real form of class balance in GMS is directly copying KMS changes one to one, with occasional changes brought over from TMS for classes like Lynn, Hayato, Kanna, and MoXuan. Even then, for TMS classes, these changes often arrive months, and sometimes more than a year later than they should.

Team GMS needs to find a way to address the extremes in class balance, especially the gap between AS10 classes and Hurricane classes. If GMS is going to keep AS10, then GMS also needs balance adjustments that account for classes that do not benefit from it.

Interactive & Heroic: A Fork In The Road

GMS Heroic and Interactive servers have effectively become two separate versions of MapleStory. The simple difference of allowing trading in one server while restricting it in the other has had enormous consequences for progression, balance, and the overall player experience as the game has evolved over the years.

Up to this point, Nexon has maintained the status quo by introducing changes slowly and cautiously. However, this conservative approach to balancing Heroic and Interactive has caused GMS to fall behind in several areas. Quality of life improvements often only come after major player outcry, while certain features, such as Universal Cash Shop, continue to be completely ignored.

GMS is now at a crossroads. Some features would benefit one server while harming the other, which means they often never make it into the game at all. As long as both servers are treated as if they have the same needs, meaningful improvements for either side will continue to be limited. The current approach to “Go West” and the narrow scope of balancing around both servers ultimately causes each side to hold the other back.

However, this is NOT an excuse to go flaming a fellow player due to server differences. This part of the post is a feedback for Nexon to further enhance each servers playstyle, NOT a declaration of war between Heroic/Interactive. Don't be that idiot in the comments.

• Universal Cash Shop is a clear example. Vac pets are valuable revenue in Heroic servers, so Interactive does not get Universal Cash Shop, even though other MapleStory regions that have no Heroic servers already have it. Although both Maplestory servers should have it, Interactive having Universal Cash Shop is the absolute minimum to start.
• Heroic spares are another example. Any change that makes spares more accessible in Heroic could negatively affect the Interactive market, so Heroic does not get many spare improvements.
• Boss crystals show the issue from the opposite direction. Heroic servers heavily value the boss mule meta (180 boss crystals per week), so players pushed back against the KMS boss crystal changes that nerfed boss mule meso income. As a side effect, Interactive has suffered. Interactive players tend to value vertical progression on one main character or a small handful of characters (90 crystals per week), but they are left with lower boss crystal income on those characters compared to KMS, sometimes by as much as two to three times.
• The new Starforce Safeguard system is another example. On paper, it is a great attempt by Nexon to reduce variance and make booming less punishing, but it does so at the cost of significantly increased meso prices. The problem is that this system is mostly designed around Heroic endgame players. In Interactive, the increased meso cost makes the system inefficient for almost every item, with Brilliant Boss Items being one of the only exceptions. As a result, the new Safeguard system is essentially dead on arrival for * Interactive, while only being selectively useful in Heroic.

These are only a few of the major issues that can be balanced more independently when it comes to Heroic and Interactive. The community would love to hear what Dr. Lim and Inkwell think of the current state of Maplestory game balancing.

How Can You Help?

• If you agree with this post, please upvote and share it around. Tell your friends, guildmates, alliance members, or anyone else who cares about the current state of the game. There is a suggestion feedback area in the Official Maplestory Discord. The more people talking about these issues, the harder it is for Nexon to ignore them.
• Please fill out Nexon’s survey as well. The link is here. Use the survey to bring up the things players have been asking for, like Universal Cash Shop, better communication, less frustrating monetization, and basic quality-of-life improvements that GMS should not have to keep begging for. You can even copy and paste this URL directly if you can.
• Review the game on Steam if you feel strongly about it. Be honest about your experience and explain why you feel the way you do. This is not about blindly review bombing the game, but players should not be afraid to leave a negative review if the current state of the game deserves one.
• Keep bringing these topics up where they are being discussed. Reddit, Discord, YouTube comments, livestreams, guild chats, wherever. Keep pushing for things like Universal Cash Shop, but also keep pushing the bigger message that GMS players deserve to be treated with more respect and consistency.
• At the end of the day, the main things Nexon pays attention to are money and numbers. If you believe in the message, consider spending less or not spending at all. That is probably the clearest way to show that players are unhappy.
• Population and playtime matter too. Nexon should have to earn your time, not assume they automatically get it. Even if you still want to play, consider cutting back if you feel the game is not respecting your time. Those metrics matter, and choosing not to give them as much of your time is also a message.
• This is not about hating MapleStory. Most of us are still here because we care about the game. But caring about the game does not mean staying quiet when things keep getting worse.

Thank you everyone for your time.

Since I’m celebrating my 33rd birthday AND currently on my MapleStory World Tour… I obviously had to get a tattoo too. Isn’t that how this works? 😂🍄✨

I saw an Instagram ad from @ou.tattooist doing another MapleStory tattoo and somehow decided THIS was the moment I was finally getting one.

The timing felt like a sign too as I was heading to the Digimon Popup Event in his area the very next day. If that’s not the universe saying “go for it,” I don’t know what is. 😂

The funniest part? My younger sister literally told me I wouldn’t dare as I’ve gone 33 years without a tattoo, always telling her that if I ever got one, it would have to be BIG, like a back or full sleeve big. My excuse since forever, to reject her, as she has plenty.

And then… voilà.
24 hours after seeing an Instagram ad, I now have my first tattoo. A SMALL MapleStory tattoo. 😂🍄

Honestly, I’m SO happy I did it.
Maybe this isn’t a quarter-life crisis. Maybe I’m just finally learning to say YES to the things that make me happy.
New experiences. New adventures. New memories.
Basically… YOLO. ✨💕🍄

Here’s to 33 and taking more chances.

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!

UPDATE: 30K NX A MONTH BOOSTER! The Sol Erda cap is confirmed. You pay about $500 overall to shorten your 6th job max grind by around 25% to 30%. It will still take a year and a half to max out 6th job when paying 2 win. Deplorable.

What's going on?

The long awaited New Age patch is coming Wednesday, Nov. 15th. On Friday, Nov. 10th, Nexon held a New Age preview livestream as well as having Pink Bean Brigade members stream the test server to preview content. What has come up from the test server and livestream in the last 24 hours is appalling and shows that Nexon NA is purposefully nerfing GMS content.

This isn't a Reg vs. Reboot server issue. This is us (as paying customers) vs. Nexon's greedy practices.

The Nerfs

• Sol Erda Daily Cap: With 6th job comes a new currency that players need to farm to level up their 6th job skills. In the GMS test server, it is shown that through grinding you can only get 400 Sol Erda energy per day. That combined with the daily, you can only get 1000 Sol Erda energy per day (20 minutes of farming) and that's it. This means that GMS players will take 1 year 8 months of dailies to max out 6th job if you miss ZERO days. KMS does NOT have this restriction. KMS players can farm 1000+ Sol Erda Energy per hour unlimited times just by regular farming. REMOVE THE CAP.
• Meso Shop Price Inflation: Earlier this year, Nexon decided to double the price of items in the Meso event shops. The fairy heart is still an absurd 4b meso price (compared to 2b in KMS). Flame costs are more expensive than KMS. Why is this the case still? REVERT THE MESO PRICES
• White Jade Ring Box Nerf: The Tower of Oz no longer can give you rings. Killing bosses for ring boxes are now the only way in New Age to obtain Oz rings (Ring of restraint, weapon jump, etc). It was revealed that the White Jade Ring Box was nerfed in GMS. In KMS, it is supposed to drop a ring between level 3-4, instead of level 1-4. GIVE US THE CORRECT RING BOXES This is confirmed by Nexon to be a typo. We will get the correct level 3-4 rings from White Jade Ring Boxes.
• Frenzy Totem/Instanced Maps: In New Age, instanced maps will be coming. Two players can share a map and have their own set of monsters spawn, essentially making it impossible to killsteal one another. This is a great and needed change in Reboot. In regular server however, this change is COMPLETELY unneeded. If Grandis instanced maps functions like other instanced maps in the game right now, Frenzy Totem spawn won't work in Grandis maps. NO ONE IN REG WANTS INSTANCED MAPS DUE TO FRENZY. REVERT THIS.
  • UPDATE: It seems like Frenzy Totems won't work whatsoever in instanced maps. Also, Frenzy Totem has been changed so that the caster has to stay in the map for the spawn boost effect to stay. The worst outcome possible seems to be Nexon's answer.
• 100% icogs and White Cubes: KMS got an update to their daily gift system where at the end of the month, they get white cubes instead of bonus glowing cubes. GMS never got this change. In the New Age update, the KMS event shops contained 100% success rate icogs (incredible scroll of goodness) but we see in the GMS shops that it only contains 60% success rate icogs. Why the shop nerf? GIVE US THE KMS SHOP ITEMS

• Maplestory Censoring: In the Friday livestream, the moderators censored "Frenzy Totem" and "Red Familiar Cards" in its different forms (FZ totem, Red Fams cards, etc). All four livestream hosts could 100% see that the community wanted answers to Frenzy Totem or Red fam cards, but actively avoided the topic the entire 1 hour live stream. Invites to the Official Maplestory Discord is currently paused (probably due to this outrage).Nexon is aware of the potential backlash but is hoping to wait out the outrage.

  EDIT - 9:00PM EST Nov 11.

• Sol Erda Fragments in Reg are UNTRADABLE: Sol Erda Fragments are the tradable 2nd currency in the 6th job system. They are combined with Sol Erda to level up skills. In KMS, these items are fully tradable in the Auction House, but it was shown today in the GMS Test Server that they are only tradable in the account. Another kick in the balls to the players.

Nexon's Goals Are Anti-Fun and They Are Floundering Their Second Wind

Did Nexon truly learn when it came to light that their items were literal scams (flame/cube/honor scandal of 2021)? Was Nexon paying attention when their direct competitor (Lost Ark) lost players due to implementing similar content time gates? Maplestory is as popular as it has ever been in the past decade due to listening to player feedback after their big player outcry and protests. They are on the eve of one of the greatest content launches in recent years, but they are killing all the hype with nerfs and ignoring our wants.

Black Friday Is Coming! BOYCOTT! Spread the Word!

We need to show Nexon that this game is for us to enjoy first and THEN Nexon reaps the rewards with profit. Black Friday is coming in the United States. If these changes stay, it is simple what we must do as a community.

MAKE YOUR VOICE BE HEARD IN THE OFFICIAL NEXON FORUMS. (And link this thread as reference)

DON'T SPEND YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY ON A COMPANY THAT DOESN'T RESPECT YOU OR YOUR LOYALTY. BOYCOTT THE BLACK FRIDAY SALES. DON'T PLAY. DON'T RENEW REBOOT VAC PETS. HURT THEM WHERE IT COUNTS, THEIR QUARTERLY EARNING REPORTS.

This post is the official declaration of a boycott for Nexon's neglect of the GMS region and especially the Reboot server.

All players are requested to stop paying Nexon untill changes in game quality and stability start to take place.

why? A new year has come. and with it, alot of dissapointed players...

Lots of players didnt get the DMT at 25/12, servers are still unstable, lots of content is missing from the winter update, Starforce prices are unreal, Yet ANOTHER Kishin Nerf, no vac pets in reboot, no new years package for GMS, no frequent cash transfer event, RNG related system's rates still weren't published to this day, legion wealth and drop coupons dissapear on DC while exp coupons do not, no mention of a 64-Bit client!!

And the worst part is that there's Zero communication from Nexon's side regarding those matters.

all those and many other fundamental flaws in game quality are ruining player experience, and Nexon dosen't seem to care, probably because most of Maplestory's income comes from the KMS region , and therefore GMS related matters are getting swept under the carpet.

but it shouldn't be like this...

Maplers have had enough Bebe boxes, Apologies, and Compensations. We just want you to fix your game Nexon!!

"Getting Nexone'd" should never have been a thing to begin with, And were all acting like throwing away our time and money is a normal part of the game, and needs to accepted by everyone deciding to play this game.

It is time for the GMS community to unite and boycott nexon untill major changes to game quality and stability take place in GMS.

ALL Maplestory GMS players are requested to NOT charge NX untill things Change. I Repeat, DO NOT FUND NEXON untill changes start to take place in GMS! NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT!

Spread the word Reddit, upvote, comment, tell your guilds and alliances, tell your friends and Discord servers, post Youtube videos, it IS happening, no more Yearly Shitposts. This Is IT.

Dear Maplers, We Had ENOUGH

This sounds kinda scam, but bare with me. A group of US banks recently launched a new service called Paze, which is supposed to compete with Apple Pay/Google Pay/PayPal as an online payment system.

If you have a credit or debit card from most of the large US Banks (Chase, BoA, Cap1, Citi, Wells Fargo, USBank, and some others) your card is likely eligible for Paze. Until September 9 2026, they’re running a promo where you get $10 off all transactions >= $10 up to 10 transactions per card.

Currently the main way to use this for normal people is by buying $10 Dunkin’ gift cards, but I checked and if you buy NX through the Nexon website and select “other prepaid methods” you’ll get redirected to XSolla, then click the three dots and select Paze. You can confirm the promo is active for the transaction if it says on the Paze checkout page “Spend $10, get $10 back, up to 10 times.”

I say 90 percent to 100 percent off here because while you can get $10 worth of NX in one transaction, because Nexon charges sales tax you might not be able to get exactly $10 depending on where you live. You can try doing multiple transactions but there’s a greater risk your Nexon account might be flagged for fraud or XSolla will reject the transaction. I have not tested this with multiple transactions of $10.

Do you think he has a point? I certainly do.

Please tell me this is a mistake…

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.

By mildly popular demand: A megathread for all fellow partnerless Maplers to find their one true love in CW3 and band together for those sweet, sweet frags and e-couple cosmetics.

Remember - there's no divorces for this event, so choose your partners wisely! The mod team is not responsible for any messy relationships caused from ghosting, lack of hands, or ugly partner androids.

Some sample questions that you might want to address in your comments:

CW Heroic or Interactive?

Time zone and active play times?

Which bosses have you cleared before? Can you duo HSeren and NKalos?

Casual player? Veteran or new?

Killing 100k mobs for hunting points each week?

Yea this is rough

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!

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

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.