Dec 6, 2018

Community Announcements - ColonelPanic

Winter is upon us, the wilderness is dusted in snow (at least, for most of the northern hemisphere), and the holidays are upon us. Join us in MapleStory 2 for special events to celebrate the season with more fun and prizes than you can imagine, as 2018 comes to a close!

The Holiday Uproar

The Christmas celebration in the Merry Village is in full swing for everyone there... well, everyone but one little girl, alone for the holidays. Her family disappeared recently, and she needs a kind soul to help her find out what happened...

Complete the Holiday Uproar story to earn special prizes, including winter and holiday themed decorations, Golden Apples that restore health, a unique title and the most unusual of Reindeer to ride around on! You'll also unlock a pair of daily quests, which you can complete a dozen times to earn the Cozy Winter Name Tag and Chat Bubble!

Event Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, December 6th - End of Maintenance, Thursday, January 10th

Event Details:

When you log in to MapleStory 2, accept the Santa or Savior quest from the Available Quests menu (the exclamation mark over your portrait).
Use the button in the top-right corner of the screen to travel to the Merry Village and begin the story! Quests reward the following items:
- Quest 1: Carol Bell Tree interactive decoration
- Quest 2: 5x Winter's Golden Apples, which restore 800 Health when consumed
- Quest 3: Shoveling Santa interactive decoration
- Quest 4: Reindeer Doll decoration
- Quest 5: 5x Winter's Golden Apples, which restore 800 Health when consumed
- Quest 6: Happy Snowman decoration
- Quest 7: Snowy Holiday House decoration
- Quest 8: MapleStory 2 OST - Happy Winter (100 Performances) music score for the Vibraphone
- Quest 9: Santa of the Day title
- Quest 10: Happy Bobo ground mount
Completing the story quests will unlock the Fraidy Reindeer and Tree Trimming with Reindeer Daily Quests, that you can accept from Bobo
- Fraidy Reindeer quest rewards 5x Winter's Golden Apples when completed, which restore 800 Health when consumed, and complete it 12 times to earn the Cozy Winter Name Tag!
- Tree Trimming with Reindeer rewards 5x Sweet Hot Cocoa when completed, which restore 1680 Health when consumed, and complete it 12 times to earn the Cozy Winter Chat Bubble!
- These rewards are distributed by trophies that appear once the final daily quests are completed

Skybound Celebration

Join us for the first month of the Skybound Update for a massive giveaway for all players over Lv. 10! Jump a character up to Lv. 50, gear them up with Exceptional equipment, speed up your journey to Lv. 60 and more!

Event Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, December 6th - 3:30 PM UTC, Thursday, January 10th

Event Details:

Log in to MapleStory 2 during the event with a Lv. 10 or greater character and receive a pair of huge packages filled with goodies: The Advanced Training Bundle and Level 60 Achievement Package!
The Advanced Training Bundle contains:
- Level-up Booster Ticket, which gives a +50% boost to your Combat, Performance and Fishing Experience, 50% more Meso Drops and +3% Physical and Magical attack for 90 minutes!
- 30x Elixirs, which instantly restores 50% of your max health when consumed
- 30x Master Potions, which instantly restores 500 health when consumed
The Level 60 Achievement Package, which can only be opened by a Lv. 60 character, contains:
- Lv. 50 Level-up Potion, which instantly boosts a Lv. 1-49 character up to Lv. 50!
- Exceptional Adventure Gear Box, which contains a full set of Exceptional Lv. 50 armor and weapons for the character that opens it. These items will be bound to your character, and the package can only be opened by a character at Lv. 50 or above
- 2x Absolute Accessory Selection Box, which contains your choice of an Epic-quality Absolute Earring, Cape, Pendant, Ring or Belt. These accessories will be bound to the character that opens the Selection Box, and the package can only be opened by a character at Lv. 50 or above
- Epic Accessory Bonus Value Re-Roller: Allows you to re-roll the values of the bonus stats on an Epic Accessory. You will have the choice to take the new values, or keep the current ones. Must be used before 11:59 PM UTC on January 31st
- Tier 1 Gemstone Box, which contains your choice of a Tier 1 Accuracy, Dexterity, Life, Luck, Offense, Power or Wisdom Gemstone
Unless otherwise noted, rewards cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank

Schwanda's Holiday Gallery

Merry Village is full of fun things to do, and Schwanda's so eager for you to see it all that she's giving away special prizes for 36 little tasks in Merry Village and beyond!

Event Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, December 6th - End of Maintenance, Thursday, January 10th

Event Details:

Click on the new Schwanda's Holiday Gallery icon in the lower-right menu grid to see Schwanda's tasks
Complete the tasks for special rewards, including healing items, Rotors Walkie-Talkies, Auto Vouchers and more!
Complete all the tasks to earn the Holiday Portrait Box, containing a four-piece painting decoration for your wall, and the Holiday Melodies flying mount!

Holiday Dance Dance Stop

What's the holidays without a dance party? MC Kay has given the Dance Dance Stop arena a Christmas-y makeover, and you can get special prizes for both competing and winning, with the parties happening every half hour!

Event Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, December 6th - End of Maintenance, Thursday, January 10th:

Event Details:

Dance Dance Stop with a special Chistmas-y theme will begin at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour
Win a Dance Dance Stop game to receive, in addition to the normal prizes, a Festive Holiday Decor Gift Box!
Starting 12:00 AM UTC December 7th, speak to Ruby in Queenstown or Merry Village to get the Holiday Jump, Jive and Jingle weekly quest, which gives you 3x Festive Holiday Decor Gift Boxes for joining 3 Dance Dance Stop parties!
Festive Holiday Decor Gift Boxes contain one of the following decorations, selected randomly:
- Carol Bell Tree
- Chocoholic Bear
- Festive Light Partition
- Happy Snowman
- Holiday Sled
- Purple Star Candy Lamp
- Reindeer Doll
- Santa Gift Bag
- Shoveling Santa
- Snowy Holiday House
- Stuck Santa
- Yellow Star Candy Lamp
Rewards cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank
Note: Ruby's quest will begin with the weekly reset at 12:00 AM UTC on Friday, December 7th, not immediately as initially stated. We apologize for the confusion.

December Daily Rewards

It's the giving season, and we're giving out a wealth of items to make your holidays fun and stylish! Play MapleStory 2 for just 30 minutes for 14 days and get Instant-Gathering, Auto-Performance and Auto-Fishing Vouchers, Revive Vouchers and Recovery Elixirs, plus the full (and adorable) Happy Reindeer outfit!

Event Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, December 6th - 3:30 PM UTC, Sunday, December 23rd

PST (UTC -8): Ends 7:30 AM, Sunday, December 23rd
EST (UTC -5): Ends 10:30 AM, Sunday, December 23rd
BRST (UTC -2): Ends 1:30 PM, Sunday, December 23rd
CET (UTC +1): Ends 4:30 AM, Sunday, December 23rd
AEDT (UTC +11): Ends 2:30 AM, Monday, December 24th

Event Details:

Login to MapleStory 2 to get the following prize each day you spend at least 30 minutes in-game:
- Day 1: 5x Free Rotors Walkie-Talkie
- Day 2: 10x Revive Vouchers, which must be used before 11:59 PM UTC on January 31st
- Day 3: Happy Reindeer Hat Headgear Outfit
- Day 4: 5x Recovery Elixir, which restores 50% Health and 70 Spirit. Must be used before 11:59 PM UTC on January 31st
- Day 5: 20x Instant-Gathering Vouchers
- Day 6: Auto-Performance Voucher (30 Min)
- Day 7: Happy Reindeer Gloves Outfit
- Day 8: Auto-Fishing Voucher (30 Min)
- Day 9: 20x Instant-Gathering Vouchers
- Day 10: Happy Reindeer Shoes Outfit
- Day 11: Auto-Performance Voucher (30 Min)
- Day 12: 20x Instant-Gathering Vouchers
- Day 13: Auto-Fishing Voucher (30 Min)
- Day 14: Happy Reindeer Suit Outfit
Rewards can be viewed in the Rewards Calendar option in the Character menu list, and are delivered via the in-game mail
Rewards cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank
Rewards can only be claimed on one character per account
Each "Day" begins and ends at 12:00 AM UTC

Double Guild Saturdays

Guilds are expanding with the Skybound Update, and you can help get your Guild into top shape on Saturdays starting December 15th! Run your Guild Quests and get twice as much Guild Funds and Guild Experience with each completion!

Event Duration: Every Saturday, December 15th - January 5th:

UTC: 12:00 AM Saturday - 12:00 AM Sunday
PST (UTC -8): 4:00 PM Friday - 4:00 PM Saturday
EST (UTC -5): 7:00 PM Friday - 7:00 PM Saturday
BRST (UTC -2): 10:00 PM Friday - 10:00 PM Saturday
CET (UTC +1): 1:00 AM Saturday - 1:00 AM Sunday
AEDT (UTC +11): 11:00 AM Saturday - 11:00 AM Sunday

Event Details:

Guild Funds and Experience from Guild Quests are doubled

Dec 6, 2018

Skybound Sales

Community Announcements - ColonelPanic

December is here, the holidays are rapidly approaching and with the Sky Fortress aloft, the factions are looking for noble warriors to take up their cause. We have a bevy of sales for you this month, including an update to the Style Crate, packages with armor styled after each group on the Sky Fortress, adorable kittens and much more!

December Style Crate

We've updated the Style Crate and Coin Shop for the season, with warm coats, winter and holiday themed outfits and special emotes to get you ready for the end of the year! You can check out the full list of items on the Style Crate Contents page, including special weapon skins, badges and more!

Sale Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, Dec. 6th - Start of Maintenance, Thursday, Jan. 10th

Sale Details:

Price: 300 Merets
Contents:
- One random item from the full list of included items
- Unwanted Style Crate items can be turned into Style Coins, which can be exchanged for additional items in the Style Coin Shop
- Style Crate contents can also be purchased directly from the Meret Market or Style Coin Shop
- See the full list of items on the Style Crate Contents page!

Maple Alliance Outfit Packs

The Maple Alliance has launched the Sky Fortress, and the factions aboard are equipping themselves to show their pride in their cause! Get a special package of outfits, designed for each of the factions, with the Maple Alliance Faction Outfits packs!

Sale Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, Dec. 6th - Start of Maintenance, Thursday, Jan. 10th

Sale Details:

Maple Alliance Luminary Outfit Pack
- Price: 2,240 Blue Merets
- Contains the following items:
  - Maple Alliance Luminary Weapon(s) for the current character's class
  - Maple Alliance Luminary Hat
  - Maple Alliance Luminary Top for the current character's gender
  - Maple Alliance Luminary Bottoms for the current character's gender
  - Maple Alliance Luminary Gloves for the current character's gender
  - Maple Alliance Luminary Boots for the current character's gender
Green Hoods Fiore Outfit Pack
- Price: 2,240 Blue Merets
- Contains the following items:
  - Green Hoods Fiore Weapon(s) for the current character's class
  - Green Hoods Fiore Hat
  - Green Hoods Fiore Top for the current character's gender
  - Green Hoods Fiore Bottoms for the current character's gender
  - Green Hoods Fiore Gloves for the current character's gender
  - Green Hoods Fiore Boots for the current character's gender
Royal Guard Fealty Outfit Pack
- Price: 2,240 Blue Merets
- Contains the following items:
  - Royal Guard Fealty Weapon(s) for the current character's class
  - Royal Guard Fealty Hat
  - Royal Guard Fealty Top for the current character's gender
  - Royal Guard Fealty Bottoms for the current character's gender
  - Royal Guard Fealty Gloves for the current character's gender
  - Royal Guard Fealty Boots for the current character's gender
Lumiknights Honour Outfit Pack
- Price: 2,240 Blue Merets
- Contains the following items:
  - Lumiknights Honour Weapon(s) for the current character's class
  - Lumiknights Honour Hat
  - Lumiknights Honour Top for the current character's gender
  - Lumiknights Honour Bottoms for the current character's gender
  - Lumiknights Honour Gloves for the current character's gender
  - Lumiknights Honour Boots for the current character's gender
Dark Wind Vigilance Outfit Pack
- Price: 2,240 Blue Merets
- Contains the following items:
  - Dark Wind Vigilance Weapon(s) for the current character's class
  - Dark Wind Vigilance Hat
  - Dark Wind Vigilance Top for the current character's gender
  - Dark Wind Vigilance Bottoms for the current character's gender
  - Dark Wind Vigilance Gloves for the current character's gender
  - Dark Wind Vigilance Boots for the current character's gender
Packages can be purchased once per account
Contents cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank

Cute Kitty Pets

KITTY! The Meret Market has received three of the most adorable little kittens, with Cheeze, Millie and Sasha now available to keep you company in Maple World, feed you potions and bat away tombstones that land on your head!

Details:

Price: 1,290 Merets:
Available Pets:
- Cheeze Capsule
- Millie Capsule
- Sasha Capsule
Meret Market pets have the following abilities:
- Non-Combat Pets
- 14 Slot Pet Inventory
- Auto-Revive
- Auto-Potion
- Auto-Loot
- Cannot Level Up or be used for Fusion
Capsules cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank
Once Capsules are opened, pets within are bound to the opening character

New Weapon UGC Templates

A new job means a new UGC template for you to be creative with... and then we tossed in three more for good measure! A simple cube and a complex dodecahedron for the Soulbinder's Orb weapon, a blade template with a detailed pommel and crossguard, and a crescent-shaped chakram with plenty of room for creativity. Get them from the Maple Workshop and create your own masterpiece!

Details:

Price: 500 Merets
Available Templates:
- Sharp Blade Template
- Crystal Orb Template
- Orb Template
- Crystal Moon Chakram Thrown Weapon Template

New Hairstyles

Paulie's been practicing and has a new quartet of hairstyles you can get from his special hairstyles! With the Medium Volume Perm, Casual Parted Hippie Perm, Cute Ribbon Hair and Softserve Hairdo, there's no bad styles with Paulie!

Sale Details:

Male characters have a 5% chance each to get the Medium Volume Perm and Casual Parted Hippie Perm hairstyles from Paulie's Special Hairstyles
- Medium Soft Curls and Messy Shag Cut hairstyles now have an 11.25% chance each
- Frost-Tipped Punk Hair and Raised Regent Cut are no longer available
Female characters have a 5% chance each to get the Cute Ribbon Hair and Softserve Hairdo hairstyles from Paulie's Special Hairstyles
- Romantic Half-up Hair and Baby Short Twin Tails hairstyles now have an 11.25% chance each
- Dual Spirit Hair and Glorious Heart Bun are no longer available

Holiday Furnishing Package

The holidays are upon us and we have a special Furnishing package to help you celebrate it! Grab the Holiday Furnishing Package, and get a collection of holiday themed decorations for cheap!

Sale Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, Dec. 6th - Start of Maintenance, Thursday, Jan. 10th

Sale Details:

Price: 476 Merets (62% Off)
Contents:
- Gift Box Pile
- Green Snowflake Emblem Wall
- Gold-slime-in-the-box
- Happy Holidays Cake
- Holiday Tree
- Lonely Snowman
- Red Ribbon Carpet Block
- Reindeer Chair
- Rustic Snow Globe
- Snowflake Emblem Carpet Block
- Snowman Scarecrow
- Tin Scarecrow
- White Tree
- Winter Tree Wall
Can be purchased once per account
Many package contents can also be purchased individually from the Furnishing menu:
- Gift Box Pile: 50 Merets
- Green Snowflake Emblem Wall: Free
- Gold-slime-in-the-box: 50 Merets
- Happy Holidays Cake: 30 Merets
- Holiday Tree: 50 Merets
- Lonely Snowman: 50 Merets
- Red Ribbon Carpet Block: Free
- Reindeer Chair: 50 Merets
- Rustic Snow Globe: 50 Merets
- Snowflake Emblem Carpet Block: Free
- Snowman Scarecrow: 300 Merets
- Tin Scarecrow: 300 Merets
- White Tree: 50 Merets
- Winter Tree Wall: Free
Package cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank. Furnishings within will automatically be added to your account's available decorations

Ice Rink Furnishing Package

December is here, temperatures are dropping and the snow is falling, and you can decorate your house to best fit the frozen outdoors with the Ice Rink Furnishing Package, featuring 13 decorations at a 24% discount!

Sale Duration: End of Maintenance, Thursday, Dec. 6th - Start of Maintenance, Thursday, Jan. 10th

Sale Details:

Price: 273 Merets (24% Off)
Contents:
- Bell Ornament
- Golden Snowflake Lights
- Holiday Ornament Fence
- Ice Pattern Block
- Silver Snowflake Lights
- Skating Penguin
- Snowflake Light Ornamented Tree
- Snowflake Pattern Block
- Sparkling Holiday Arch
- Sparkling Holiday Pillar
- Spinning Polar Bear
- Star Streetlight
- Tree Ornament Fence
Can be purchased once per account
Many package contents can also be purchased individually from the Furnishing menu:
- Bell Ornament: 30 Merets
- Golden Snowflake Lights: 30 Merets
- Holiday Ornament Fence: 30 Merets
- Ice Pattern Block: Free
- Silver Snowflake Lights: 30 Merets
- Skating Penguin: 50 Merets
- Snowflake Light Ornamented Tree: 30 Merets
- Snowflake Pattern Block: Free
- Sparkling Holiday Arch: 30 Merets
- Sparkling Holiday Pillar: 30 Merets
- Spinning Polar Bear: 50 Merets
- Star Streetlight: 50 Merets
- Tree Ornament Fence: 30 Merets
Package cannot be sold or traded, but can be transferred to other characters on the same account via the in-game bank. Furnishings within will automatically be added to your account's available decorations

New Face Styles and Cosmetics

Doctor Dixon and Ren have everything you need to give your face the perfect makeover! Dixon has four new cheerful face styles, and Ren has a trio of holiday-themed cosmetic additions to accentuate the season!

Sale Details:

Visit Doctor Dixon at Tria Plastic Surgery on Beauty Street to purchase one of the new Face styles!
- Deeply In Love: 330 Merets
- Crystal Heart Face: 330 Merets
- Happy Smile: 330 Merets
- Shiny Eyes: 330 Merets
Visit Ren at Rosetta Beauty Salon on Beauty Street to purchase one of the cosmetics!
- Mistletoe Face Paint: 50 Merets
- Christmas Tree Tattoo: 50 Merets
- Snowman Face Paint: 50 Merets

Dec 5, 2018

Skybound Expansion Phase 1 Patch Notes

Community Announcements - ColonelPanic

MapleStory 2 is only just finishing its second month of service, but we've been making so many changes to the core systems that we need a special post just to cover them all. We've made all of the below changes in response to your valued feedback and harsh-but-fair criticism, and we hope that the below changes make MapleStory 2 the best game it can be.

Hard Adventure Dungeons

Hard Adventure Dungeons have seen some of the biggest changes, as we work to smooth out the difficulty for players gearing up for Chaos Raids (more on them in a bit).

Prior to the Skybound Expansion, all of MapleStory 2's Hard Adventure Dungeons were intended to be roughly the same difficulty, and had identical reward structures to match. The unfortunate result of this was that players seeking to simply hit the Gear Score requirements for Chaos Raids would repeatedly run "The Fire Dragon" dungeon, as it was the quickest and simplest dungeon to complete, causing progression to feel more and more repetitive.

With the Skybound Expansion, we are adjusting the Hard Adventure Dungeons to fit into three tiers of difficulty. As part of that, The Fire Dragon and Labyrinthine Halls final bosses will be weakened, reducing their health by 10% and attack by 25%. In addition, we are adjusting the formerly-identical Gear Score requirements for the dungeons to the below:

Note: It was deemed that the difficulty and complexity of the BeyondLink Tris and Rune Temple dungeons were already above that of the other dungeons, and would not need to be made more difficult.

Additionally, the rewards for those dungeons are being adjusted. Previously, you could get Epic-quality gear for any item slot from any of the dungeons, which only encouraged repeatedly completing the easiest and fastest one. Instead, each Tier of dungeon will reward from a more limited selection of items, to make finding just the right sword or breastplate easier, as well as a few other additions...

Bonus Re-Rollers allow you to re-roll the types and values of the bonus stats on the noted type of gear, so that if you'd like a second chance at getting better types of attributes on your enchanted gears, you can re-roll using these and keep or discard re-rolled bonus stats. It takes 30 runs of BeyondLink Tris or Rune Temple to get enough fragments for an Epic Weapon Bonus Re-roller.

Bonus Value Re-Rollers allow you to re-roll the values of the bonus stats on the noted type of gear, so that if you find an item with the bonus stats you need, but too low to be useful, you can take another roll and keep whichever numbers suit you best. It takes 6 runs of BeyondLink Tris or Rune Temple to get enough fragments for an Epic Armor Bonus Value Re-roller.

Meanwhile, 100 Toad's Toolkit Fragments can be used to create one Toad's Toolkit, an Enchantment Wildcard! These toolkits can be used in place of a copy of the item you're enchanting, making it much easier to get the items you need to upgrade your best gear past +10!

We hope these changes will help you get your gear in top shape and make yourselves ready for the challenge of Chaos Raids, and speaking of those...

Normal and Hard Chaos Raids

Chaos Raids are the most challenging content in MapleStory 2, and we didn't want that to change. We want your first time taking down Devorak, Captain Moch and Papulatus to make you shout for joy, to be something that truly must be earned...

...but we also recognize that the jump in difficulty from Hard Adventure Dungeons to Chaos Raids was too much, and there needed to be a stepping stone to get you to a place where you feel like you have a fighting chance on your first go. The natural solution was to create that stepping stone, renaming the current set as Hard Chaos Raids and creating the new Normal Chaos Raids!

A Normal Chaos Raid is a blend of the accessibility of Hard Adventure Dungeons and the challenge of Chaos Raids:

Gear Score requirements are the same between Normal and Hard mode.
A maximum party of 6 players can enter a Normal Chaos Raid
Normal Chaos Raid Bosses have considerably less health and do less damage with their attacks, but you still must defeat the boss in under 15 minutes and safe revivals are still limited
Normal and Hard Chaos Raids share daily and weekly raid limits
Ludibrium Clock Tower is only available in Hard Difficulty, no easy mode for the clock master!
The rewards are as follows. Playing only Normal Chaos Raids can eventually get the same quality of equipment as Hard Chaos Raids, but will take considerably longer:

Daily Missions

We're also improving Daily Missions, so that you can get more consistent rewards without needing to grind through all the missions every day. With the Skybound Expansion, you will instead gain Weekly Mission Points with every Daily Mission you complete, with the points carrying over day after day.

With every 300 Mission Points you earn each week, you'll earn a Gold Mission Complete Box, containing a set array of items; no more needing to pray to the dice for favor. Do your daily missions and you'll be able to pick up the following prizes!

300 Mission Points: Gold Mission Complete Box (Tier 1), containing 2,400 Onyx Crystals, 10 Blue Stars, 8 Metacell and 4 Chaos Onyx Crystals
600 Mission Points: Gold Mission Complete Box (Tier 2), containing 4,800 Onyx Crystals, 20 Blue Stars, 16 Metacell and 6 Chaos Onyx Crystals
900 Mission Points: Gold Mission Complete Box (Tier 3), containing 7,200 Onyx Crystals, 30 Blue Stars, 24 Metacell and 10 Chaos Onyx Crystals

That's not all, of course. While the changes to Hard Adventure Dungeons, the addition of Normal Chaos Raids and more reliable Daily Missions are the big headliners, we also have dozens of other changes. Check out the full patch notes on the official MapleStory 2 website, because they're too big to fit here on Steam!

Dec 4, 2018

Producer Blog - State of the Game Week 8

Community Announcements - ColonelPanic

Dear Maplers,

As we head into the Skybound Expansion this week, this week’s blog will go into further detail about the Maple Arena and cover an overall summary of the update.

It has already been two months since we kicked off our journey, and it has been a fantastic experience to work with the community and the development studio. We hope that the Skybound Expansion and other adjustments we are putting into the game can make a difference in your experience, and we look forward to your feedback as we continue to make necessary changes and improvements to the game.

The Skybound Expansion Phase 1 comes with major content including a new hub, new epic quest, new missions, Maple Arena and the new Soul Binder job. Also, tons of adjustments to existing content including a Hard Adventure Dungeon structure revamp, the addition of Normal Chaos Raids and Daily Mission revamp.

First, let’s look a bit more closely at Maple Arena!

Maple Arena

We have more details on the Maple Arena - the new, purely skill based PvP - and would like to share some of the more intricate details here. It is quite a lot of content and if you are interested in showing off your skill, prepare yourself for the battle!

Content Outline

Maple Arena is a 1-vs-1 PvP game mode where players compete against other Maplers.
All Lv. 50 and above characters can enter the arena.
Best two rounds out of three wins the match.
Various stats are scaled and powerful Arena-Exclusive equipment can be purchased for mesos to maintainan even playing field.
Potions and consumables can't be used.
Valor Tokens are given as a reward based on your performance in Maple Arena, and the tokens don’t reset. These can be used to purchase outfits and a unique mount in the Arena Shop.

How to Participate

Adventurers Lv. 50 and above can queue for a match in the Maple Arena menu. The match-making system gathers all queued adventurers in 4-minute intervals and pairings will be determined by your Match-making Rating.
If you are matched and decline to enter, a penalty will be applied and you will be unable to queue for 30 minutes.
If you check the “Spectator Notifications” box queuing, you will instead be invited to spectate the match between the two highest rated players queued.

Match Rules

Best two rounds of three, with each round lasting 120 seconds.
You win the round when the opponent's health reaches 0, or by having the most health when the round ends.
All buffs will be removed and only your character’s skills can be used during the match.
Skill cooldowns reset at the start of each round.
There are 10 arena maps and the arena will be selected randomly.

Rules for Scaled Stats

The health of players are adjusted in Maple Arena to better fit the 120 round duration.
Increased attack from enchantment on regular equipment will be scaled down significantly, making increased Gear Score from the enchantments meaningless in Maple Arena. This is to ensure that PvP is about players’ ability, not what equipment they’ve earned from other game modes.
Pets can't be summoned, and attribute increases from gemstones and most gear effects won't apply in Maple Arena.

Ladder Score

After a Maple Arena match, your Ladder Score (scores players can view) increase or decrease based on your performance. Ladder Score can't go below 1,000.
The following ranks are given to characters based on the Maple Ladder Score. You get more Valor Tokens the higher your rank!

3,700 points: Grand Champion
2,800 points: Champion
2,200 points: Diamond
1,800 points: Platinum
1,300 points: Gold
1,060 points: Silver
1,000 points: Bronze

The max Valor Tokens you can obtain resets every week, and that limit is increased when your rank increases:

You can have up to 30,000 tokens in your wallet

Shop and Seasonal Ranking Rewards

With Valor Tokens, you will be able to purchase unique items from the Arena Shop.
PvP equipment will be purchasable via mesos, and due to the PvP-specific bonus stats, it will be the best equipment to use in the Arena.
PvP gears cannot be dismantled nor enchanted, nor gain sockets for gemstones.
Each season is 4 weeks long. Players will be getting mesos and the top 10 players will be getting a 4-week duration mount - a gigantic Victorious Pyrros Fard ground mount. Also, Rank 1 - 100 players get an exclusive name tag created for the global service.
First place gets 10,000,000 mesos, second place gets 5,000,000 mesos, and third place gets 3,000,000 mesos. More details will be shared soon with the full patch notes.

Let’s also briefly go over each new content and adjustments.

Sky Fortress

The addition of the Sky Fortress will feature new epic quests, a variety of weekly missions and the coin shop. This content is designed to leverage the large variety of content that MapleStory 2 offers, and will let players who like to explore and do things other than dungeon runs work on their overall progression

Please check the details of the faction shops and mission structure in the State of the Game Week 7 - Part 2 blog.

Soul Binder

We are already bringing in another new job - the Soul Binder. This unique class will add more variety to the gameplay, with a powerful magical assault and flexible support to keep the team going. To let players make faster progress with the new class, we are giving out a Level 60 Achievement package!

Lv. 60 Achievement Package:

Everyone will receive this package once you reach Lv. 10 or have any Lv. 10 character in your account during the first month of the Skybound Expansion
You will need to reach Lv. 60 with any of your characters to open the package. If you already have a Lv. 60 character, you will be able to open the package and use it immediately
This package includes a Lv. 50 Level-up Potion - which boosts your character’s level to 50 and automatically completes the epic quest line
You won’t be getting any of the rewards from the epic quest, thus we are giving out 2x Absolute Accessory Selection Box, Epic Accessory Bonus Value Re-Roller, Tier 1 Gemstone Box with the package
Everything is bound to account, meaning you can transfer these to your other characters via the in-game bank

On top of this, you will be getting an Advanced Training Bundle, with a level-up booster ticket and White Elixirs and Master Potions to help you get to Lv. 60.

Make sure to log in after the update, and also don’t forget to invite your friends to the game, since this would be the perfect time to start playing with your friends!

Content Adjustments

As we have discussed in previous blogs, we are rolling out major changes to the overall gear progression system:

Hard Adventure Dungeons will now have different Gear Score requirements and will be dropping different parts of gears. Learn more in the Week 6 and Week 7 Part 1 State of the Game blogs.
To experiment with progression for epic gears, we are running a month-long event with Toad’s Toolkit fragments dropping from Hard Adventure Dungeons. Learn more in the Week 7 Part 2 State of the Game blog.
- Note: For jobs with two weapons that can be enchanted instead of one, Toad's Toolkits counts as two weapons, to ensure that all jobs benefit equally from the toolkits.
Normal Chaos Raids will be added to the game to provide a stepping stone for the players at Gear Score 4,500. Learn more in the Week 6 State of the Game blog.

Normal Chaos Raids will have a 6-player requirement and will provide Legendary equipment, but at a lower amount compared to Hard Chaos Raids. Also, please note that Normal and Hard Chaos Raids share the same weekly/daily raids counts.

Daily Mission has been revamped to give weekly Mission Points, where you earn larger and more consistent items by completing daily quests over a week of work.

Holiday Event

We haven’t disclosed the details of the events yet, but be prepared for a variety of events for players to participate in and earn exclusive seasonal ground mounts, name tag, chat bubbles, decorations, a title, music score and more!

Please make sure to check out the patch notes and visit the amazing looking Merry Village to participate in the events!

Other Cool Changes

New weapon UGC templates will be added!
New drum-type instruments are coming to the game!

Note: This previously said that drum-type weapons were coming. We apologize for the error, and apologize further that you will not be able to smash slimes with a steel drum.

We are updating the voice recording for Joddy. Please enjoy the current voice acting before we update with the new one. @Lilypichu did a fantastic job with the new VO and we think it fits very well with everyone’s favorite cadet.
The guild size is getting bigger! You can now have up to 100 guild members.

Other Important Changes

Crystal Fragments will be now account-binding.
Onyx Crystals and Chaos Onyx Crystals from dismantling enchanted equipment will now become bound to your character. Also, when you dismantle +10 and above gears, you will get more resources from dismantling.
Additional rulesets to catch meso sellers have been deployed and we are seeing a huge number of automated bans. We are reviewing more systems which can help us track them faster.
We are definitely reviewing more ways to handle other activities disrupting the in-game meso economy. We are sorry for adding more restrictions but also want to let you know that we are working on a system that will address these disruptive activities better, and allow us to eventually remove some of the restrictions. We also collect logs any time you buy mesos from meso sellers through the Black Market, and those players that purchase mesos from them will get a 30-day suspension, plus lose all the mesos and items obtained by RMT. This is against the Terms of Service, so please stay away from buying mesos from these sellers.

We are already working on Phase 2 of the Skybound Expansion, and the game will get better every month with the new contents and adjustments. We hear other feedback regarding various different topics and want to share that most of the hot topics are already in review. We are only staying away from publicly discussing things until we have better defined what’s to come.

Please continue to share your constructive feedback!

Sincerely,
Jungsoo Lee

Nov 30, 2018

Producer Blog - State of the Game Week 7 - Part 2

Community Announcements - ColonelPanic

Dear Maplers,

As we have promised to share more details about the Sky Fortress, we are sharing part 2 of the blog today with more information on Phase 1 of the Skybound Expansion. The MapleStory 2 studio looked into progression as a whole and finalized the structure for the Sky Fortress content yesterday.

Not only that, but the studio has been actively reviewing the overall gear progression data for the past few weeks, and have finally confirmed one addition to the current dungeon. Please understand that sometimes we cannot disclose anything until we review and finalize details. Since dungeon changes can impact the overall speed of gear progression, which can impact the overall lifecycle of the game, the team here and at the dev studio have been pulling data and tracking gear score distribution every week to see the trend. And as of last night, we could confirm that we want to experiment with some things in the December 6th update.

Since everyone is really focused on the Hard Adventure Dungeon structure change, let me get to the dungeon change first.

Hard Adventure Dungeon Change

I wouldn’t call this particular part a change, but more an experiment to test the speed of gear progression in the form of an event. You’ll see this experiment in action from the newly added item in the reward lists of Hard Adventure Dungeons with the tag “EVENT”. Again, this is more of an experiment, but we decided to use the already existing “EVENT” tag for now.

Starting with the December 6th update, all the Hard Adventure Dungeons will be dropping an item called Toad's Toolkit Fragment (final name TBD). You will be getting 10 fragments per dungeon clear, and with 20 fragments, you will be able to create a Toad's Toolkit (final name TBD). This stone can be consumed instead of a copy of gear that you need to use when enchanting Epic gear. This stone essentially works like a wildcard, and can be used for any armor or weapon.

This is identical to getting 30 pieces of gear of your class and type (including weapons) which can be used for enchanting. This item was sold for NX in another region, but we are testing this in the dungeons as a drop to see how the inclusion of this item changes overall progression for the Epic gear.

This will be run as an event until January 10th. Before the event ends, we will evaluate how this change impacted overall progression and will announce the next steps after that.

This item was already in review by the MapleStory 2 dev studio for the past few weeks, and we’ve reached a decision and finalized the plan yesterday.

To summarize:

Newly proposed three-step Hard Adventure Dungeon will stay the same

We respect the MapleStory 2 dev studio’s design direction to get new players started in dungeons by letting players focus on the different parts of gear that they need step-by-step. This allows the community to go through a variety of dungeon contents earlier
This design will create a more structured flow to have players go through each dungeon and choose which dungeon to play based on their gear situation. For example, we are expecting players with high gear scores and Legendary gear will play the dungeons that have a shorter playing time to collect resources and players who need to focus on weapons to play the dungeons with weapons. Players who want to re-roll their optional stats for their already enchanted gear will play the dungeon with Re-roller fragments.

Addition of Epic Todd’s Enchanting Stone Fragments will be run as an experiment for over a month with the tag of “EVENT” to test the progression

Before January 10th, we will be reviewing the data and will provide information on the next steps
Depending on the data, we will be coming up with new system improvements or will continue with the experiment if we need more data points to better assess the gear progression design

I would like to emphasize that it is very tricky to make changes to intricate systems, especially when the game has been released and has already gone through a large number of changes. The development studio spent a very long time coming up with the specifics of MapleStory 2’s progression system, and as we work to improve it we need to make sure that the new models will work well.

We hope this month-long experiment can give the studio enough of data to make a decision on next steps, and create a better experience for the game going forward.

On top of this changes, weekly mission and Sky Fortress content will provide more things for players to work on to get the items you need for gear progression. Please see the details of Sky Fortress contents below!

Sky Fortress Contents

As mentioned in the previous blog, a new adventure is inbound and Maplers will soon experience Sky Fortress and faction missions! In today’s blog, we’ll give you a spoiler-free sneak peek at what the Sky Fortress is and the effect it has on Maple World!

Starting at level 50, you can begin your Sky Fortress adventures and gain favor from 5 powerful groups maintaining the safety and order of the citizens. For those planning to join the Alliance with Soul Binder using Level 50 potion that we are giving out, fear not! The Sky Fortress Epic Quests can be started at level 50 independent of previous Epic Quest progresses.

With the Sky Fortress, you can take on Field Missions, Daily Missions, and Weekly Missions for each faction. You can complete the following number of missions per faction:

Field Missions: 1 per day, 7 per week
Daily Missions: 5 per day, 35 per week
Weekly Missions: 3 per week

When you take the mission, you will be earning a reputation, and reputation will progress in the order of “Known” → “Trusted” → “Respected” → “Beloved” → “Revered”.

A certain level of reputation is required for you to participate in the mission as below:

Green Hoods: Available from the start.
Lumiknights: Available from the start.
Dark Wind: Available when your reputation for Green Hoods and Lumiknights is Trusted (Lv. 2). Achievable in 1 week.
Royal Guard: Available when your reputation for Dark Wind is Trusted (Lv. 2). Achievable in 2 weeks.
Maple Alliance: Available when your reputation for Royal Guard is Trusted (Lv. 2). Achievable in 3 weeks.

Also, by doing missions for each faction, you will be obtaining tokens that can be used to purchase items from the Faction Shops. You will be able to collect up to 1,260 Tokens per faction per week, and the items you can buy from each Faction Shop will include those listed below (a detailed list to be revealed with the patch notes):

Please note: you will be getting a weapon of your class when you purchase the weapon box from the faction shop. Also, all items will be Character Bound, except the Souvenirs)

Green Hood Shop - Green Hood Tokens

1,080 Tokens: Lv.50 Legendary Shoes Bonus Value Re-roller (1 per character per week)
450 Tokens: Exquisite Headgear/Gloves/Shoes Selection Box (Epic) (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Blue Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Green Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: 100x Crystal Fragment (3 per character per week)

Lumiknights Shop - Lumiknights Tokens

1,080 Tokens: Lv.50 Legendary Gloves Bonus Value Re-roller (1 per character per week)
450 Tokens: Exquisite Headgear/Gloves/Shoes Selection Box (Epic) (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Blue Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Green Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: 100x Crystal Fragment (3 per character per week)

Dark Wind Shop - Dark Wind Tokens

1,080 Tokens: Lv.50 Legendary Headgear Bonus Value Re-roller (1 per character per week)
450 Tokens: Murpagoth Warrior Weapon Box, Ancient Rune Weapon Box, MSL Onyx Weapon Box (2 per character per week for each type of weapon box)
20 Tokens: Blue Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Green Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: 100x Crystal Fragment (3 per character per week)

Royal Guard Shop - Royal Guard Tokens

1,220 Tokens: Lv.50 Legendary Bottoms Bonus Value Re-roller (1 per character per week)
450 Tokens: Exquisite Top/Bottom Selection Box (Epic) (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Blue Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Green Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: 100x Crystal Fragment (3 per character per week)

Maple Alliance Shop - Maple Alliance Tokens

1,220 Tokens: Lv.50 Legendary Top Bonus Value Re-roller (1 per character per week)
450 Tokens: Absolute Accessory Random Box (Epic) (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Blue Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: Green Crystal (2 per character per week)
20 Tokens: 100x Crystal Fragment (3 per character per week)

This new content will provide players with a variety of different gameplay experience, while supplying a large amount of supplies to help overall gameplay progression. Please look out for more details on the Sky Fortress with the upcoming patch notes!

Meso Seller & Bots

I have been seeing feedback regarding the overall restriction putting into the black market and the Crystal Fragments. We understand the inconvenience players will be going through, but after a thorough review, we decided to pull the trigger after ensuring it does not impact the normal gameplay.

The vast majority of transactions under level 50 and 60 at the Black Market were used by Meso Sellers, creating or transferring mesos to the RMT buyers. I assure you, we do have all the logs from Black Market who sold which item at what price, and our filters can easily catch who is making suspicious transactions with meso sellers. Please refrain from purchasing meso from these sellers.

We will be reviewing more measures which can solve the issue without creating too much friction on the player’s end, and will provide more updates later on.

We look forward to see everyone in game with the Skybound Expansion next week. The team here is working hard to prepare everything for the update, and to ensure that we have don’t face any technical issues with the major expansion.

Cheers,
Jungsoo Lee & LAMBCOOK

Nov 28, 2018

Producer Blog - State of the Game Week 7

Community Announcements - ColonelPanic

Dear Maplers,

With a new week, it’s time for a new State of the Game blog. Since the launch of MapleStory 2, we’ve been discussing many topics in detail each week and this week is no different. Let’s dive right in.

Overall Summary

Our main topic today is a continuation of last week’s discussion: gear progression. We’ll be discussing some additional changes we’ve made since the last announcement, centered around Hard Adventure Dungeons and Enchanted Item Dismantling, while also going over bits of info regarding December content to address the issues at hand.

Additional Change to Hard Adventure Dungeon

After last week’s Producer Blog, we’ve received an ample amount of feedback. After careful review with the team and dev studio, we have decided to make the following changes:

Keep the dungeon structure as we have announced last week:

After a thorough discussion with the lead designer and the dev studio, we agreed that this new structure is needed for not only the current community but also for future new players to better experience the game with a variety of dungeon content to enjoy.

Addition of new rewards to the BeyondLink Tris and Rune Temple:

Based on player feedback, we learned that the community is mainly concerned about two things:

Players will end up running only Temple of Immortals and Lubelisk
Players will now be unable to get weapons and other gear at the same time, and this creates a disadvantage because players cannot see the new stats and options for the gear

As a remedy, we decided to add something which is very valuable for players to the BeyondLink Tris and Rune Temple. We are adding Epic Bonus Re-Roller Fragments to the two dungeons. When you run 30 dungeons, you will be able to get an Epic Bonus Re-Roller for your Weapon, and five Epic Bonus Re-Rollers for your Armor. These Re-Rollers will be bound to your character.

These Re-Rollers will let you re-roll your bonus stats and you will be able to choose to keep your current stats or the new one. Additional rewards will let you focus on each specific gear parts step-by-step and enchant them, knowing you can change the bonus stats later on.

Again, to summarize, with the new dungeon structure change, players will be getting specific parts of gear from each dungeon and a set number of Onyx Crystals and Chaos Onyx Crystals from the Normal/Hard Adventure Bonus Box. We have calculated the amount of Onyx Crystals and Chaos Onyx Crystals, including the amount you get from weapons from the weapon boxes, and tried to compensate the exact amount of resources players were getting from previous dungeon experiences.

Also, these resources will be now bound to your account and not bound to your character, as we have stated in the previous blog.

Reward Structure for Dungeons

Enchanted Item Dismantling

Last week we announced that Onyx Crystals and Chaos Onyx Crystals that come from dismantling enchanted gear will be bound to your character to combat meso sellers. And as mentioned previously, we expect to be able to give more enchant materials to players without benefiting meso sellers after this change is applied. As our first step towards this, we will be increasing the number of Onyx Crystals and Chaos Onyx Crystals you obtain from dismantling 10+ gear of any grade by approximately 50%.

December Content Teaser

Sky Fortress Faction Missions

Sky Fortress is right around the corner! And with it, brand new Epic Quests explaining the backstory of Sky Fortress along with Faction Missions will be added. You will be able to play new Epic Quest at level 50. These Faction Missions are where our next wave of changes have been made to provide you with additional/alternative means to obtaining gear and resources including items like Legendary Armor Bonus Value Re-Rollers.

Faction Missions are issued by, you guessed it, Factions. You as a character have a reputation with each Faction that you can increase by doing their Faction missions, and you can do multiple Factions' missions a day. Some Factions will require you to have a certain level of reputation from another Faction before allowing you to do their missions, so completing as many as possible will help you in the long run.

Completing Faction Missions will net you Tokens of each Faction you can redeem for various items. Each Faction has a different list of items available so make sure to check each of them. There are Faction specific vanity items like Name Badges, as well as gear progression related items such as Epic gear or Re-Rollers, including the Legendary Armor Bonus Value Re-Rollers.

I’m afraid that’s all I can reveal for today as we are still busy fine-tuning the expansion, but more details will be shared soon!

Guild Raid Content

With the Guild base size now expanding in the December update, we also have an exciting new Guild Raid being prepared. This new Guild Raid is called Guild Xenon System and it’s comprised of 3 Raid Dungeons that Guilds can enter together (you can progressively unlock the next Raid Dungeon by clearing the previous one) . Each Guild Raid will give rewards once per week upon completion, with various rewards including Guild Funds, Guild EXP, and Guild Coins. Now with new ways to earn Guild Coins, we’ll also be adding a new outfit set that you can only purchase with Guild Coins.

The main design intent of Guild Xenon System is to bring in a new dungeon that all guild mates can enjoy together. Cooperation will be the key to clearing these dungeons with various teamwork puzzle mechanics, while the impact from an individual’s gear will be minimum. We’d love to see your guild rise to the challenge as one team!

Maple Arena

With the December 6th update, Maple Arena, Maple Arena will also be here! It's a fairly simple concept of 1 vs 1 combat system but we do have some major differences in detail with other services. Since we're making some final adjustments to this system, we'll share more details on this topic before the update.

Other Important Upcoming Changes

Black Market / 1:1 Trade Level Restriction

Effective after November 29 maintenance:

Black Market / 1:1 Trade Level Restriction will require you to have level 60 character in the account to list / initiate and will require level 50 to purchase/accept.

I know this change may not seem ideal for players below level 50 or 60 but our ongoing investigations are finding unintended use of these trading systems by meso farmers at low-level ranges, which is fluctuating the market prices. With more than 20,000 malicious accounts being banned yesterday alone, we’d like to combat this as hard as we can to restore the market balance. This change will be applied with the maintenance scheduled on November 29.

As for the community’s suggestion about displaying market average prices of an item on Black Market, we’re reviewing this internally and will let you know as soon as we can provide more details.

Crystal Fragment Change

Another change we will be making to combat meso farming is making Crystal Fragments account-bound. While this shouldn’t have too much of an impact on normal players (as you can easily buy Crystal Fragments from any Supply Shop as needed), we’re noticing some suspicious activities around Crystal Fragments with meso farmers and would like to make a proactive change.

Fishing / Playing Instrument EXP Change

With the above Black Market changes, we are expecting meso sellers to look for different ways to level up the characters. To combat this, we are also going to lower the exp gained from Fishing and Playing Instruments to level 60. This only will apply to regular levels and we won’t be adjusting the Prestige EXP earned from them to reduce the impact of this change to normal players though.

In regards to the above changes we are making to combat meso sellers, we tried to minimize the impact our changes may cause toward our normal players. But we do know that some changes will inevitably have side effects, especially for newcomers, and we will be on the lookout for any concerns to ensure we can make right adjustments accordingly. Please do know though that we intend on making more adjustments to clean the streets of MapleStory 2 and are expecting to need to make more of these types of changes short term.

Skybound Expansion

We have released a microsite featuring the key contents which will be added to the game with the first phase of the Skybound Expansion! If you haven’t please visit the site here.

To clarify one of the questions we have seen from the community, YES, we are adding one new free character slot and one purchasable character slot with the update. Also, you get the level up potion one per account. Please share the news with all of your friends!

This is just a slice of what we’ve been working on for December, and many more details are coming very soon too! As always, we’re carefully listening and striving to make the right choices for MapleStory 2. Thanks for being the best community I know. See you in the game!

Sincerely,
LAMBCOOK