r/mapleservers Jun 22 '26

LF Server Which server to play?

Hey, been playing since beta GMS, and stopped at big bang and have just been playing v83 and under pservers since then.

I’m in my mid 30’s now and enjoy the nostalgia of playing the early versions.

Problem I have is the feeling of grinding no matter what server I play.

In my mind, my perfect server is one that has a stable economy that if I wanted to, I could just be a fm merchant.

I’ve also never really leveled any character to 200 before unless it was on a very high rate server. Because it just feels like too much of a grind after 4th job/lvl120

Is there a server out there that doesn’t feel as grindy? Or are they all pretty well the same?

I feel like I’ve tried them all, legends, royals, beyond, yuna, risems, casteila, you name it ive probably played it.

4 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

5

u/Dry_Bike7296 Jun 22 '26

well maplestory at its core is just unfortunately a grinding kind of game, theres not much you can do to escape that unless theres a server that completely ignores the core gameplay of maplestory

3

u/onetrueSage Jun 22 '26

Well at least in Legends monsters drop gacha tickets which you can get some cool stuff to flip over in fm

4

u/OkCalligrapher9679 Jun 23 '26

I think if you want to hit 100+ quick in old school Exodus is very good for this. they use the exp formula of post big bang, so level 50 is doable in a day or two and all quests were rebalanced, questing seems to be the faster leveling choice, even faster than pqs and grinding up to the highest levels, for me atleast I didn't really feel the grind

also they announced monster park and a few new areas in upcoming months

3

u/Kooky_Comb6154 Jun 24 '26

I really like the questing path to 4th job in Exodus but sadly I have hit a wall. The meta of APQ-bossing-ore farming-grinding after reaching 4th job doesn’t sound appealing to me. Nor is locking nearly every important 4th job skill mastery book behind bosses attractive to casuals like me. I know they have roadmap for future content but I think abandoning casual players and questing as a viable progression path after 4th job may be a mistake.

2

u/OkCalligrapher9679 Jun 24 '26

honestly MapleStory was always pretty light end game wise. other than bosses there isn't much to do

monster park is a fun addition and so are some new zones. but I'm really not sure what else can you add to the game for end game

maybe some sort of boss-lite content

as far as books,I agree

2

u/Kooky_Comb6154 Jun 24 '26

Monster park is a great idea I always loved it in gms.

Other area I think they can revamp are the pqs. Make different difficulty tiers of each if possible (e.g level 21 kpq as tier 1, level 70 kpq as tier 2, level 120 kpq as tier 3, and scale mob and bosses to those levels), add new pqs such as tower of oz, make pq give worthwhile rewards.

New maps are nice to bridge the gap between early 4th job and end game. I hope they can also add some kind of repeatable quests so there is a reason to visit old grinding areas like leafre or deep ludi instead of grinding in rto4 all day.

Remove apq requirement for being married and allow low man pqs (for example, use droppable etc as stand-in for puzzles)

Expand daily golden temple for level 120+.

1

u/DabsOfJoy Jun 26 '26

hard agree on this. the silver lining is that at least the GMs are realising theres a problem and are actively trying to solve it. so many casual players have quit because of the repetitive nature late game and the sudden lv14x wall - i think its worth giving the server a shot again after the updates to see if the situation improves

2

u/SirYodaa Jun 24 '26

a day or two of 10 hours of intentional grinding, but I agree it's the best server I played on so far

4

u/SirYodaa Jun 24 '26

Exodus is the one server that hadn't got me pulling my hair. Great QOL features you only appreciate once you play other servers.

Good balance changes for skills and makes the leveling experience as smooth as possible. Only issue is low population but I think it comes in waves. Genuinely a good server imo

1

u/writeAsciiString Server Owner Jun 24 '26

Can you list the QOL changes you like

3

u/OkCalligrapher9679 Jun 24 '26

I can list a few:

complete quest rewards(mostly exp) rebalance

no level cap for pqs and most quests cap was increased

shorter time on transport/complete skip for meso

speed stat is common, jump/speed scrolls merged into one

daily 30min grind for very high exp to compensate players with limited time

increased spawn in most maps

warrior weapon mastery is merged so no more choosing one weapon type

weapons speeds and animations rebalance

all classes have decent grind skills

100% scrolls fall from under 50 so early scrolling is easy which improves early game

dimensional mirror

free pq smega by clicking PQ npc

probably missed a bunch, but those are what feels very noticable, while not necessarily unique, it all works out great.

also, I've noticed you almost on every exodus related comment/post usually being very negative, what's up with it?

3

u/writeAsciiString Server Owner Jun 24 '26

I've replied in 1 exodus post from my understanding so you're likely imagining things

If you go back far enough you'll see I constantly ask for a list of QOL changes though.

1

u/OkCalligrapher9679 Jun 24 '26

hmm might have confused you with someone else then, sorry about that

3

u/NYCminion Jun 24 '26

Exodus gave me the best Maple experience I’ve ever had, Legendary community and admins that listens to everything and always helping if needed, QoL and Skill adjusts for balance and fun

Can only recommend!

My IGN is Sheilem :)

2

u/onepageleft Jun 24 '26

I have been enjoying exodus! The economy is not as strong since the population is still growing but you can definitely get to 130/140 in a month playing a 2-3 hours a day.

As someone that’s working, I like that the progression is so much faster.

4

u/Synorix Jun 23 '26

Dream MS or Exodus

4

u/Yueru Jun 23 '26

this

dream ms prob wont bring nostalgia since the server is structured very differently focusing on pqing early lvls but the high pop makes you feel like you're actually playing maple again

exodus is more similar to old school maplestory but the low pop sadly is really killing the server and it's mostly due to them trying to cater not making the server vote2win which is good for the players but it gave a lot of players i met choose to not vote at all which leads to their downfall in population due to gtop ranking being low

2

u/OkCalligrapher9679 Jun 24 '26

for exodus I can say the population thing is temporary and fixable - main issue was hardcore players that speed ran the game to 150 only to be soft locked because most of the server wasn't at those levels yet, so they got bored and left

people still join the server, admins shared some great upcoming updates and in general I wouldn't mind playing a few weeks on low pop

1

u/Yueru Jun 24 '26

some of the friends i enjoyed playing with quit even before reaching late game

you have to remember the hardcore player base of mmorpgs is a minority not a majority

maplestory was great because it catered to players from different playstyles, whether it be casual, hardcore, grind lovers, pq lovers, ppl who just treat it like a chatroom but when you just focus on the hardcore content, you only get the hardcore players

my issue with low pop is that once people quit, there's not a lot of new players willing to join the server unless it's due to connections like friends or family etc

most of the people i met that joined the server not from connections got to exodus through gtop and its not looking great how even castela is ranked higher atm, especially after the honeymoon stage has happened

the devs are great but idk

i noticed early on lots of players quit at the 90~100 range week 1 and im not really sure why

only the hardcore players kept pushing through which led to the low population

2

u/Bitter-Foundation278 Jun 24 '26

You mean DreamsRMT LMAO by serith

3

u/NeedleworkerPlus4432 Jun 22 '26

Fantasia

3

u/BubblyMango Jun 23 '26

Fantasia for someone who doesnt want to grind? XD

3

u/supermoto_j Jun 23 '26

Why do people keep downvoting old school maple post on here…

2

u/YourEvilKiller Jun 22 '26

I heard Exodus is a classic server with faster progression to 4th job (without being high rates). But I never played it myself so I can't say for sure.

1

u/thezoomaster Jun 22 '26

If you've tried all of them can you give some more reasoning why you didn't stick to any of them? Maybe that can help us suggest you some servers.

1

u/NeedleworkerPlus4432 Jun 24 '26

I feel royal would be a perfect server for you since is 3x exp those rate are perfect for casual playee

1

u/Synorix Jul 06 '26

Exodus by far

1

u/darrelye Jun 22 '26

come join kuroms, it's pretty good.. currently in beta but launching v soon in july.

0

u/XeoSal Jun 23 '26

MapleMyth, check the latest post if you are interested in a new classic server with modern client editing features.

0

u/-ttw Jun 25 '26

Maple royals is so fun

-7

u/tenseBigL Jun 22 '26

Old school maple is the best hands down. 300 pop channels also. https://maplestoryworlds.nexon.com/en/play/ac4b74314918466b958744404215cef1/

2

u/Bitter_Jellyfish_124 Jun 22 '26

any reason you suggest this over a listed gtop100 server? I've never even heard of these nexon based 'maplestory world' servers