Alright Nexon, I'm going to do your a huge favor here as I have decided today that I'm quitting your game and will never login again.

Gear progression is the biggest problem with MapleStory 2. The dungeons/raids aren't even that hard. The RNG itself is what dictates the difficulty of even being able to clear the Raids. Not the mechanics. Players could probably learn the mechanics of the Raid in under 50 attempts which would only be... 50x15 mins /60 = 12.5 hours. But it'll take you much, much longer than that due to a crappy gear progression system that they're just going to continue to throw Band-Aid scrolls at instead of actually fixing.

Let's say we removed stats from the game and normalized everyone's damage and scaled all the fights accordingly. More than 60% of people who actively Raid would've cleared CPAP by now. But the problem is that CPAP is hidden behind a wall of RNG that takes the average person at least 800-1100 hrs in-game to jump over.

The new Raid that comes out in 2-6 weeks will take probably another 400 hrs in-game to jump over on top of what is already there. Just because of gear. It will have an accuracy requirement of around 124 (unbuffed) since it has an evasion of 130... Think of how long it will take you to get 42 accuracy from your gear. That's how long it will be before you can go into that Raid without getting carried and clear it.

If a gear progression system requires that much time of yours to be wasted, is it worth buying into? For me that answer is definitely No. But if it's worth it to you then by all means, Maple your hearts out.

Most people who Raid come from an MMORPG where Raiding involved clearing a huge-ass dungeon with anywhere from 4-13 bosses inside of it. Not just one boss. Being stuck on a single boss for that long, being stuck on clearing the SAME boss for that long... Is way too stagnant for a Raiding environment. There's a much smaller sense of progression in this game and it feels that way because these Developers have designed their Raids around a 1-Boss system. So, in order to increase the longevity of the content... They waste YOUR time instead of investing more of their's to create more content. They do this by adding a time limit to the raids so that you can't meet the DPS requirement to clear them. I'd rather not play a game from a lazy developer.

That being said, without this time limit, clearing the raid would become SOLELY about skill (which is how it should be in a game like MS2, which plays more like an arcade game than a normal MMORPG would). It's actually harder to clear a raid when you're doing less damage because you have to deal with the mechanics for a longer period of time. Remember the 20-25 min Fire Dragon runs at 2100 GS? That's much harder than going in there with 5k+ atk and destroying it in 5 minutes, I think we can all agree on that. As such, there shouldn't be any time limit on Chaos Raids, and that would solve most of the problem. They could still give rewards for meeting certain time limits, or clearing it with a reduced number of party members like they currently do. But clearing the raid shouldn't be solely about meeting a DPS requirement when it comes to progression - and that's what Raids in MapleStory 2 are. DPS checks.

However, Nexon is probably never going to remove the time limit, so...

Now, as for how to fix your game as far as gear progression overall. It needs a complete re-work so just throw everything you've done with it down the drain.

- No more RNG for Gear Progression whatsoever.

- Resources would be spent towards upgrading gear, similar to the current enchantment system for Peachy, but not the ridiculous amount of resources that she takes, and only one set of materials per level (instead of the 100 sets of materials that she requires - RIDICULOUS).

- This system would be applied to basically every gear progression system that you have (not just armor/weapons, accessories too), thus eliminating MOST RNG from the game.

- Stats that you roll on your gear would start at the absolutely MINIMUM value possible. Enchanting the gear would increase that (at some sort of rate) towards the maximum value that can be obtained for that roll on gear. 100% chance to succeed. The player always feels that their time spent in-game is progressing their character. Nexon said this is their goal, well, this is how they achieve it. A system where there is no % chance to fail on any sort of enchantment or upgrade.

- Rolling correct stats on your gear would still be necessary with this system. This is the one form of RNG that I think should still exist. However, the only change with stats that would be needed is pruning useless stats. If spending time in the game is supposed to progress our character then Defensive stats need to be removed from the game, as they don't progress our characters. Defensive stats are worthless in this game and no one wants them. As such, removing them from the available stats that the player can roll on gear is necessary, and simply adding them as base values to the gear itself (in the case of health, physical, and magic resistance - which is already the case for these stats) is a necessary step. In PvP they are worth having, but there is a pre-determined set of gear that everyone has to wear in PvP. Defensive stats don't concern the PvE environment in any way whatsoever because of how the aggro and the combat systems work. Therefore, removing them from the possible rolls on Bonus Stats makes the most sense, and would speed up gear progression considerably, as well as meet Nexon's goal that they recently stated in the Week 9 State of the Game Dev Blog.

- For anyone confused as to what I'm talking about, here's a list of the stats that need to be removed from the available rolls on Bonus Stats: Stun Duration Reduction, Elemental Damage Reduction of any type, Melee Damage Reduction, Health, Evasion, Critical Evasion, Health Restored Upon Defeating an Enemy, Debuff Duration Reduction, Magic Resistance, and Physical Resistance

- Sockets and Gems are no different. Upgrading these shouldn't have a chance to fail. It should simply be a resource requirement and, if you meet that requirement and invest the time/resources, it should upgrade.

IN GENERAL: Time should always = Progress. That's how MMORPGs are supposed to work and this game craps all over that concept and feeds it to you. I can't live my life this way, I can't play this game anymore in its current state.

Treat your players better Nexon. This is absolutely ridiculous. Do not waste time on this game until they decide to treat you better.

It's a Developer's ethical responsibility to make sure that people are able to progress through their game at a reasonable rate so that they don't waste their entire life trying to get where they want to be. THESE ARE GAMES. They are supposed to be FUN. This game is NO LONGER FUN - AND IT FEELS LIKE WORK.

That's when you know your game is no longer a game worth playing.

There are THOUSANDS of other games we could be playing. We've got families. We've got jobs. We've got goals that don't involve gaming at all. You don't need to suck people's lives away like this for them to invest MONEY and time into your game. You're greedy, you're lazy, and you can (and should) do better. Not really sure how you guys take pride in what you do, honestly.

If people were actually enjoying your game they'd spend even more money on it... But your financial advisors have you so focused on making people spend time in-game instead of actually enjoying the time that they're spending that your game is going to die. Soon. Hope it was worth meeting that ridiculously useless metric.

That's my advice. Take it or leave it. Maybe MapleStory 3 will get it right.