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Patient is 23 years old, pixelated, presents with gamerboyitis due to infection by foreign games

omfg my shad is cookt i dont even have real shifter anymore and my smoke is a tiny poot now. and i have stance?? what am i, a warrior??? fk dis game

So the cool thing about MapleStory is that you can play it in whatever style you want and build your character however you like. Back in the day, games like this were called “RPGs”. But as explored previously, I can’t be too sure that this rather clunky term (Arpy Jee, the protagonist of a pulp sci-fi short story from the 1970s) still means anything anymore.

Nevertheless I shall defend MapleStory anyway, as is my wont. Typically it goes something like this.

Daedalus: So nightlord and corsair are basically the same class, right?

deer: No.

Daedalus: Right, so my question is: if I’m playing sair and I’m sweating my ass off the whole time toggling boat for 1⧸1s and jockeying for position, then why does the NL deal as much or more DPM than me by just Shiftering everything and holding down the TT button?

deer: That’s… an oddly specific question.

Daedalus: Okay but, surely, you agree that if I really am putting in that much more work, then I deserve something, at least. More DPM? Maybe the NL shouldn’t even be able to do this in the first place. He should at least have to use HP pots if he wants to humiliate me like this and bring great dishonour upon my house.

deer: Erm. Okay, I think I see the problem…

Could you not take ſome occaſion vvithout giuing ?

As discussed previously, MapleStory isn’t a competitive game, and in fact isn’t even a game that one can “win” at all. Thus one of Daedalus’s assumptions is already false: no humiliation is actually occurring, and no dishonour is descending upon anyone’s house.

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xXEpicSairXx: thx 4 inviting me, the haste helps a lot

Daedalus: oh that’s not why i invited u.

xXEpicSairXx: hm?

Daedalus: ur here so i can call forth a plague upon ur house.

I’ve dramatised the situation, but even in cases where no envy is evident, this is the spirit animating aspects of the syndrome outlined throughout this essay, and ultimately also the closely-related phenomenon of construing game “balance” unidimensionally. If MapleStory is really about envy, competition, jealousy, “winning”, etc., then all that matters is that I’m at least as “good”(‽) as everyone else, and all that’s needed for such comparisons is a one-dimensional, lineär ordering.

It’ll be useful to distinguish between the first-order game, which is MapleStory as such, and the second-order game, which is how we choose to play the first-order game.

MapleLegends provides us with a simple demonstration that competition (read: rankings) isn’t part of the first-order game…:

Much like I don’t mean to suggest that numerical considerations be banisht from the design of the first-order game, I don’t mean to suggest that second-order considerations be banisht from it either — clearly, a dialectic occurs here. But there are two grave faults in the admission (tacit or otherwise) of specifically competitive &/or win-condition–based considerations:

1. Such considerations demand, for their own sake, that the first-order game’s basic design be distorted beyond recognition. More on this below.
2. Such considerations are, unlike some other second-order considerations related to e.g. partying, not at all suggested by the first-order game. No first-order game-content nor game-activity is meaningfully enhanced on its own terms by the wilful shoehorning of competitive elements into it.

Note that rankings, for instance, don’t constitute an exception to (2.), for two reasons: rankings don’t enhance the game-activity on its own terms (even if they do enhance it), and they aren’t shoehorned into the game — especially seeing as rankings can in principle (and often enough, in practice) be constructed by players who do the data-collection themselves. Similar considerations apply to commonplace competitions loosely affixed to the game, e.g. MapleLegends’s “community events”.

Role & desert

But Daedalus makes another erroneous assumption: that a player unmediatedly “deserves” something as a result of her situational efforts, when those efforts are above & beyond “merely playing the game”. By this logic, all classes should be equally “good” at all things in all situations when played by players of equal “skill” who are each putting in an equal quantity of “effort”! Thus the question of desert is closely intertwined with the question of role & qualitative uniquenesses.

The qualitative (read: putting aside unidimensionalisations like DPM for the time being) outcome for the NL is a matter neither of “effort” nor “skill”, but rather, an emergent consequence of the basic mechanics of the first-order game. If the assassin throughclass (which includes hermit & NL) is anything, then it’s:

• Claw-&-throwing-stars–focused (and everything implied by this!).
• Single-target–oriënted: No access to attacks of 2+ targets until 3^rd grade (Avenger).
• Evasive: Nimble Body, Shadow Shifter, typically high-LUK.
• Highly mobile, stealthy, slinky: Dark Sight, Haste, Flash Jump.
• Pecuniary: Drain, Alchemist, Meso Up, Taunt.

Notice how claims about DPM, interclass damage comparison, etc. are — shockingly, for Daedalus — absent from the above list. As noted previously, quantitative comparisons do sometimes yield qualitative differences; but here, such comparisons are irrelevant.

We cannot blame the assassin throughclass for its identity — that’s what makes it what it is. Nor should we consider in any way eroding that intrinsic identity for extrinsic purposes.

Likewise, we can construct a parallel list for the gunslinger throughclass (which includes outlaw & corsair). The resulting list has little, if any, overlap with that of the assassin, thus revealing Daedalus’s ostensibly direct comparison to be a mystification.

The corsair is qualitatively unique in playstyle (more on playstyle below), although this is only truly seen when considering the PC in manifold different situations. Thus we have yet another of Daedalus’s mistaken unspoken assumptions: that isolated gameplay situations are already representative of gameplay in general.

But if game reward bad player, then all player will be bad?

To be sure, MapleStory has an enduring problem with underincentivising things, and this problem becomes serious when it renders the thing obsolete. We wouldn’t wanna obsolete the poor sair by literally (read: figuratively) forcing everyone to play NL instead, would we?

But this is a mere equivocation. For starters, clearly no game-content is obsoleted in this case. More to the point, no game-mechanics nor classes are obsoleted either, because — as I’ve stressed thus far — the difference is a qualitative one.

Even in the widely-feared (but, within reason,^[2] fictional) case where the Endy McEndgame™ gameplay-loop clearly & unconditionally prizes A (e.g. the NL) over B (e.g. the sair), we retain the silver lining that B at least remains a fully-fledged class with its own uniquenesses and, if it’s your kinda class, rewarding gameplay-styles. We’ve also the further consolation that, contrary to Daedalus’s prejudice, the Endy McEndgame™ gameplay-loop is neither the most important part of the game, nor the part that most people spend much (or even any) of their time playing.

Indeed, if we were really worried about obsoleting game-mechanics, then we’d have far more to fear in Daedalus than in someone^[3] who doggèdly insists that making all those game-mechanics & classes shine with their full prismatic brilliances is the whole point.

Okay but maybe sometimes “balance” is just balance

Yep! — on the condition that the relevant class identities and game-mechanics aren’t collapsed (or better yet, are uncollapsed). It’s better to have a not-entirely-“balanced” game than to have one where even a single mechanic or qualitative aspect of a class is mangled or obliterated.

For instance, in Daedalus’s case, simply directly nerfing the NL’s relevant DPM (TT, presumably?) by a reasonable amount oughta be enough to satisfy him without doing any collapsing, nor really any meaningful qualitative changes to NL whatever.

Gamerboyitis

I’m unsure what it is about MapleLegends in particular, but reflexions upon their attitudes in the gamerboyitis department were what led me to write this dreck get this off my chest to begin with. Said attitudes seem oddly widespread amongst ML addicts endgamers, but I cannot attest to them being widespread amongst MSPS enthusiasts in general.

Oh, right. I should define gamerboyitis. Basically, when it’s collectively decided that MapleStory doesn’t actually intend to offer a variety of playstyles to a relatively general audience, but is in fact a Very Serious Game For Pro Gamers Only™, your mushroomb game comes down with a bad case of gamerboyitis.

The Pro Gamer™ playstyle is already well-supported by MapleStory, and requires no further imposition. Also well-supported are the playstyles of those less pro or, alternatively, more inebriated or, god forbid, simply trying to relax and play a dumb pixel game from 2003. The coëxistence of playstyles isn’t contradiction; it’s design.

To be blunt: playing a “boring, easy” job isn’t a sin unless it actually is an assassin, and playing a more “exciting” class is also cool, if that’s what floats your Battleship.

Sounds like a skill issue 😬

It will be objected that my defence of MapleStory as a first-order game ultimately flows from my being bad at videogame. After all, what do I know? I’m just some doe.

First of all: rude as h∗ck. Second of all: I basically hold the world record for Hinamatsuri (give or take four seconds…), and I’m a better sed target than your shad with my eyes closed and a pair of Sky Skis strapped to my front legs. Third of all: Objection! Irrelevant. Case dismist. 👩🏽‍⚖️

Okay. So what?

If one were down with the sickness and the sickness were gamerboyitis, one might pursue the following line of reasoning:

1. Shads have high LUK^[4] (→ high AVOID) and Shadow Shifter and Smokescreen AND Meso Guard. [Premiss.]
2. Shad is basically a baby class for littol babies whom’st cannot even use a keyboard so they need all their easy-button skills and AVOID. [From 1 & gamerboyitis.]
3. Baby classes are bad and must be reformed into proper adult classes for Real Gamers™. [From gamerboyitis.]
4. Shad must be reformed by invasively altering at least a few of the “easy mode” game-mechanics underlying it. [From 2 & 3.]
5. Lowering the AVOID bestowed by LUK, and stripping Shadow Shifter of its original mechanics so as to make it more suitable for Real Gamers™, are commendable courses of action. [From 1, 4, & forgetting that other classes that aren’t thieves can have LUK too.]
6. 4^th-grade thieves who aren’t using ranged attacks rely in significant part on AVOID &/or Shadow Shifter to maintain an attacking position (amongst other things). [Premiss.]
7. In most cases, shads will become effectively unplayable if (5.) is pursued in isolation. [From 6 & dimly glimpsing the errors of one’s ways.]
8. Shads are basically warriors now that we’re committed to (5.), so they need stance. [From 7 & wilful ignorance of all warning signs.]
9. Shield Mastery is basically useless anyway, so it can just be the stance. [From 8 & long since forgetting that WDef is a real stat that could be useful if we cared to ponder it.]
10. Smokescreen is another serious problem faced by (4.), so it must be transmogrified into a Real Gamer™ skill too. [From 1 & 4.]
11. Intraparty interactions are basically worthless, since MapleStory is really just about being a Real Gamer™, anyway. Alone. With nothing but the faint sound of keyboard-clacking to keep one company. [From gamerboyitis & deep-seated psychological affliction.]
12. Lowering the duty cycle, making the duration short enough to be more of a slight annoyance to party members than to be anything else, and effectively removing meaningful interaction with TL, Berserk, etc. should be enough to turn Smokescreen into a Real Gamer™ skill, or at least to neutralise it. Yeah, let’s do that. [From 10 & 11.]

Oh, wait…

Transcription of the above

too much avoid from base stats

reduces the need for skillful play,

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• Shadow Shifter — Skill reworked (May 2025)
  • No longer has a passive effect
  • Skill activation now dispels Stun
  • (Shadower only) Active effect duration last [sic] 20⁢ seconds at all ranks
  • (Night Lord only) Active effect duration last 15⁢ seconds at all ranks
  • Now has an active effect that:
    • Gives 100%⁢ avoidability
    • Has a cooldown of 120⁢ seconds at max level, 265⁢ seconds at level 1
    • Note: Active effect does not avoid unavoidable attacks e.g. Pink Bean musical note, Zakum pillars, etc
• Shield Mastery — Now passively grants a maximum 75% passive Stance effect when wearing a shield (May 2025)
• Smokescreen
  • Cooldown reduced from 5⁢ minutes to 2⁢ minutes (May 2025)
  • Duration has been reduced from 45⁢ seconds to 12⁢ seconds (May 2025)

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avoid-optimized mule characters

It’s so predictable, it’s almost sad. Or, if you’re like me, and you actually enjoy MapleStory as a game for some godforsaken reason,^[6] then it is indeed sad. 😔

Red herrings

In the course of these kinds of dialectics, red herrings are typically pretty easy to come by. Maplers instinctively seek to water down the game for the sake of petty grievances,^[7] as a result not only of myriad false analogies with other unrelated games, but also of collective insecurities engendered by Necson^®’s manipulative design & practices. This is further compounded by the literal decades of continually bouncing introjected simulacra of said manipulative behaviours amongst those of the MSPS “community”.

As for red herrings in particular, how about œconomicks?

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Economy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An economy is like a domain of human sociality, but where all of the actual social bits are replaced with money and also more money.

Etymology

The word economy in English is derived from the Middle French’s yconomie, which itself derived from the Medieval Latin’s oeconomia, meaning “please kill me”.

Nope. If AVOID etc. were actually a significant problem inflationwise (it isn’t), we’d just take ordinary counterinflation measures like slightly raising NPC shop prices, adding new meso sinks, lowering sell-to-NPC prices, etc..

Got any other red herrings for me? Do I have to explain yet again how nothing — not even in principle — in a PC’s stats tells you anything about whether they’re a “mule”? No? Okay, good.

So yeah! — I’ll say it!! If anything, AVOID from stats — especially DEX (and not STR FFS!!) — could’ve actually used an ever-so-slight boost. It’s a matter of making AVOID meaningful. And hey; the archers don’t have stance, and who doesn’t wanna play a gaw damb DEX warrior, right? Why not have some fun spending AP like it actually matters for literally anything that isn’t just damage output?

I am actively Threatening to go Berserk at this point

Alright, I’m done. Obviously this is a farce, so let’s end on some comic relief, shall we?

What if you gamerboyitis’d your way into mutilating one of the simplest & most elegantly beautiful skills in the game until it became a 5^th-job hypermultiskill abomination?

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Berserk — Skill has been reworked to contain passive and active components. (May 2025)

• Berserk Passive
  • Damage scaling has been reworked
    • Below the skill HP threshold (55% at level 30), max damage bonus is fixed at +110% (i.e. no longer scale [sic])
    • Above the skill HP threshold (55% at level 30), damage gradually falls from +110% to +0% at full HP
    • [Berserk formula & graph]
    • Berserk lower skill level damage and threshold have been rescaled
    • [Berserk lower skill level graph]
  • Dragon Blood and Cleric’s Heal will no longer heal past the HP threshold during passive Berserk (still possible to heal past the HP threshold during active/unleashed Berserk)
• Berserk Active
  • Active Berserk now contains two parts:
    • Activation (first part)
      • Lasts 20⁢ seconds
      • Cleanses all status effects except seduce once on activation
      • Dark Knight is immune to Damage Reflect during this part
      • Grants a damage bonus of +100% and starts a hit counter limit (max 18). An attack that deals at least 1 damage is considered 1 hit, regardless of the number of “damage lines” or targets hit
      • If number of hits is 18 or greater at the end of the duration, second part of the active Berserk is granted (Unleashed Berserk & Runic Shield).
      • If the hit check is failed, second part of active Berserk will NOT be granted, and the Berserk passive bonus will be reactivated
    • Unleashed Berserk (second part)
      • Lasts 40⁢ seconds
      • Grants a damage buff of 120%
    • Runic Shield (second part)
      • Lasts 20⁢ seconds
      • Blocks all stuns and seduces
      • Literally teleports you to fucking Maple Island
  • Cooldown 60⁢ seconds
  • Cannot be dispelled
  • All active/unleashed damage bonuses are given regardless of current HP level (passive bonus is ignored)
  • Active/Unleashed formula: $$\mathrm{activeDamage}=\left(10+\mathrm{skillLevel}\times 3\right)\%$$ $$\mathrm{unleashedDamage}=\left(30+\mathrm{skillLevel}\times 3\right)\%$$ $$\mathrm{skillLevel}\left\{0,30\right\}$$
  • Introduction of new visual effects between the transitions of passive/active/unleashed Berserk

Okay, I admit that was more horrifying than humorous. Sorry. I’m actually not funny at all, and I only say insufferable yet deeply depressing things about stuff that either doesn’t matter or that only nerd scientists & shit care about. LF>bf

But when it comes to warrior skills, not even The Good Ol’ ’Zerk™ can compete with the O.G.’s. Particularly Threaten, the stalwart best-of-both-worlds attack & defence, physical & magical, that almost single-handedly defines the entire page throughclass (which includes WK & pally). Surely, such an illustrious & crucial skill couldn’t possibly be neglected just because it requires very little “skill” to use on most bosse—

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Footnotes

1. [↑] Actually, in what I can only assume was the merciful act of a benevolent god, Lewontin died in 2021 before MapleLegends got the chance to make this change. R.I.P. 🪦

2. [↑] “Within reason” is meant to intimate that, barring the kinds of wild numerical distortions that any Balance Team™ is beyond sensitive to anyhow, any nonodd PC of the highest grade (4^th, in this case) and of a modestly high level is gonna be able to do stuff pretty damb well.

   For instance, they’re all gonna deal a sh∗rtton of damage anyway. To anyone who doubts this, I point out that even a balance fanatic with his “DPM only” blinders on (one wonders what he looks like without them) has the minimal perspicacity to sense the qualitative difference between, for instance, I/L and a single-target–focused class.

3. [↑] What? Don’t look at me…

4. [↑] As discussed previously, this isn’t a valid premiss, and not merely because “odd” jobs exist.

5. [↑] If you’re still reading this somehow, I promise I’m not actually unhinged. I have healthy ways to deal with the resentment stemming from my protectiveness (not to say “mama bear behaviour”) towards the game formerly known as “MapleStory”. Like spending hours of my life writing drivel, for instance. It could be worse, you know — you don’t see me complaining about my actual problems. 🙂

6. [↑] Scientists are still actively researching how this is even possible.

7. [↑] Not the least of which is so-called “quality of life” (≝ QoL), a term stretched by Maplers so far beyond any meaning it might’ve once been possessed of that it can be used to justify virtually any change to the game whatever. Grinding to level 70 is tough, so we’ve enhanced the QoL of 2^nd job advancement by making it instantly level you to 70. And it completes 3^rd job advancement for you too, whilst it’s at it. Plus, we know it’s a long time to wait for the server to eventually go offline for good, so for the sake of QoL, we’re expediting the process by throwing our server rack into the ocean next week to simulate decades of global warming.