MapleStory has no shortage of skilled content creators. Among them, today’s guest is the one many players affectionately call “Mae-seonsaeng” (“Maple Teacher”): Doru. This summer, during a historic wave of new and returning players, he was one of the creators who proved especially helpful to beginners.

Together with the “Maple Teacher” who cares about Maple more than anyone, we looked back on this summer season and the key takeaways from the September 12 live broadcast.

When the issue is complicated, you always give clean answers—Maple Teacher! Today we’re joined by MapleStory content creator “Doru.” Hello!

Nice to meet you. It’s always a good day.

Please give us a brief self-introduction.

I’m Doru, and I primarily upload Maple content on YouTube.

What made you really dive into MapleStory, and what keeps you playing for so long?

Strictly speaking, my first try was back in grade school, when the Adventurer Pirate first came out—but how much real play can an elementary schooler do? I’d play over school breaks, quit, come back—that cycle—until the “Black Mage” event, which is when I got serious. I think that was the stretch when the framework of modern Maple was set in place. The game clicked with me, so I’ve kept going. Of course, that’s how we old-timers feel; players who started more recently won’t necessarily resonate with “Black Mage.” But there was a kind of romance to that era.

Could you walk us through your in-game specs?

My main is a Night Lord at ~108k Hexa-conversion (“10.8”). I have a lot of alts: Dual Blade, Xenon, and Len in the mid-70k Hexa range; and on the lighter side, an Angelic Buster and a Bowmaster in the mid- to high-50k range. I also have a second Night Lord built for pre–Black Mage soloing.

Long term, I’m aiming to bring my main Night Lord into the low-to-mid 110k range, and one of my alts—either Xenon or Len—into the high-90k range. After much hemming and hawing, it’ll probably be Xenon. Content-wise, on my Night Lord I do up to Hard Baldrix in parties and solo Chaos Kalos; on alts it ranges from running Extreme Suu all the way up to solo Hard Seren, depending on the character.

This summer was a very special season for MapleStory. The influx was so big that “record-breaking hit” didn’t feel like hyperbole. What’s your take on the summer season?

You can’t deny it was a huge “hit.” People typically measure that by active users, PC café share, and mesos price inflation relative to the off-season. This ASSEMBLE season hit historic highs on all three, and for its specific timing, I don’t think it falls short of the old “Black Mage” boom.

The heart of it was the generous rewards in Challengers World plus the popularity of Len—“my wife, Len,” as I like to joke. None of it was some never-before-seen patch; it was the same ideas done “big and well,” and fundamentals matter.

But paradoxically, I think more than 70% of this season’s success came from Challengers World and Len, which makes the ceiling for future seasons feel obvious. I’ll have a deep-dive video on that soon, so please look forward to it.

If you had to pick one thing MapleStory did best this summer—and one thing that disappointed you—what would they be?

Best: the rewards and QoL that clearly targeted new/returning players, and—after the servers blew up early on—the faster feedback compared to the past.

Weakest: quality dropped a little toward the end of the event runway. The balance patch stands out here.

Recent updates sped up progression dramatically. Do you think the pace is appropriate?

The faster average progression is obvious. Even in the NEXT update, with a seasonal world and some inflation, the share of new players reaching the pre–Black Mage solo threshold wasn’t that high. The entry barrier was definitely steeper back then.

This season, tons of new players reached that pre–Black Mage solo level, and folks with established mains pushed alts up to solo Hard Seren and above. The director even mentioned on a recent live stream that Union Champion had too many entrants relative to the perks it provides, so they raised the unlock requirements a bit.

I wondered if the average progression got too fast. The director then adjusted pre–Black Mage bosses’ drop rates; you can tell the supply of clean (unscrolled) Pitched Boss accessories dropped meaningfully, which suggests a pretty sharp cut. I understand the rationale, but new players are inevitably unhappy. Both sides have a point, and there isn’t a single “correct” answer.

MapleStory is in the middle of a large-scale job balance patch—some changes are practically remasters. What’s your view on the current direction?

I’ve put out a lot of balance-patch videos over the years, and I repeat the same thing: “There’s no such thing as a perfect balance patch, but you do have to show the effort—which means balance cycles that aren’t slow, data, and job-by-job communication.” Compared to the despairingly slow cadence up through Milestone, the pace has improved a lot—and that’s good.

But communication and data are still in a dire state. In the 9/12 stream, Director Kim Chang-seop said they have internal standards based on “job difficulty, utility,” etc.—but it’s extremely vague. Back under Director Kang Won-gi—yes, the one who got flak for balance—the then–planning lead Kim Chang-seop actually showed both scarecrow DPM (with job names hidden) and live-boss graphs (Hard Lotus, Hard Darknell, Verus Hilla), and explained how theory vs. practice diverged and how they’d respond.

Now? Nobody knows what bosses they’re using as baselines, whether the averages include everyone from newbies to 1.2m (120k Hexa-conversion) players, or if it’s keyed to some specific spec. If you’re going to say you have standards, you could at least share what you consider an appropriate damage gap between top and bottom jobs. As it stands, it’s a black-box balance patch.

I’m not saying “publish all your internal data.” If you list DPM 1 through 46 by job name, you’ll start a war. But like before, you could mask the job names and present “this is the current gap between top and bottom averages; these are the target bosses; and here’s the direction of changes.” You did it before—do it again.

Also, when you patch balance there’s a lot to weigh, but the most important input is the players of that job. Sure, some requests are over the top—“Give us +50% final damage!”—those should be filtered out. But separate from dramatic FD changes, there are structural fixes that mains have been asking for. For example, among my chars, Night Lord players have wanted Origin skill visibility improvements, and Angelic Buster players want cooldown desync (“cooldown drift”) fixed. Players have been asking for ~2 years; still no ETA.

As of the September test server, they’re repeating August’s mistakes—nerfing grinding skill multipliers while shaving animation delays, or pushing heavy %-nerfs across many jobs. At this point I can’t tell if it’s a competence issue, or if they intentionally ship an over-tuned test build just to walk it back on live and fish for “Shin Chang-seop” compliments.

And I’ve said this forever: Maple’s test-server windows are far too short relative to the scope of balance changes. Forget the full two-minute-cycle standardization—this September update includes near-reworks like Luminous. That kind of change isn’t any smaller in impact than a new Origin or Mastery Core, which get two weeks of testing. Yet we’re still on one-week test cycles. That’s rough.

The September 12 live broadcast from Director Kim announced many updates and fixes. What’s the most urgent issue to solve now, or content you’d add?

As I wrote above about balance, the current director is excellent—to a remarkable degree—on some axes (e.g., convenience/QoL) but bizarrely poor or silent on others (e.g., balance). The disparity makes you wonder if it’s even the same director on the same game. I hope that gets resolved.

Content-wise, the core of Maple—no matter what anyone says—is bosses. A lot improved versus last year. The weird incentive where Easy Kaling solo was better than Hard Kaling party—and the atrocious top-boss rewards—got fixed. The addition of The First Adversary with tightly stepped difficulty gave many different spec brackets something to enjoy. And the live revealed more boss content slated for the second half, so expectations are naturally high.

But watching comments and thinking from the perspective of newbies to mid-low spec players, I think the motivation side could be stronger. Recently, pre–Black Mage (a.k.a. “pre-BM”) bosses’ Pitched Boss drop rates got nerfed, while Limbo/Baldrix/Kaling opened up new supply. I understand the intent, as mentioned earlier. Still, for the players whose “main stage” was pre-BM, it would help if they could feel, “OK, even if Pitched drop rates there went down, once I break into Grandis bosses this gets offset.”

There are many ways to do that. One example, using Maple’s usual approach: a coin shop. From Grandis upward, add a separate Grandis coin, dropped by each boss per difficulty. Let players buy things like weekly 4× EXP coupons, Golden Gears or Eternal Gears in set quantities. That would jack up EXP rewards and provide meaningful progression motivation. However you do it, I’d like to see stronger incentives to push into Grandis bosses.

What do you hope to see from MapleStory going forward?

Please give balance patches more care. Perfect balance is impossible in theory, but at the very least, no one should be saying “the devs don’t even play their game.”

Tons of people started this season. Even with improvements, Maple is still hard for beginners, and many make costly mistakes. What should newbies absolutely watch out for?

There are too many to list. My blanket advice: search, every time you’re unsure. Say you want to upgrade but you’re wondering, “Is it right to put 18★ on my Loose Control Machine Mark right now?” The answer depends on your budget, how urgent your next power spike is, and your item lineup. But it’s definitely better to spend a minute on Google/YouTube—“Loose Control Machine Mark 18★ expected value,” “Pitched accessory setups,” that kind of thing—than to blindly mash Star Force. The game’s old enough that there’s information on almost everything.

Build that habit, pick up the knowledge you’re missing, and you’ll end up a Maple mastermind.

If there’s one guide video every beginner should watch, what would it be?

Too many are equally important to pick just one. For gear-setup videos, I recommend focusing on the most recent ones. My “Maylog” series is both fun and useful, too.

Many beginners have finished leveling Len and are now considering which alt to build. The new event is optimized for alts, so choosing carefully matters. Excluding Len, recommend three alt jobs for beginners and why.

With the balance patch mid-flight, too many jobs are changing for me to confidently name three. If I had to pick one, it’s Bowmaster. It’s the closest in difficulty to Len—arguably even easier. On Len you still press periodic skills, but on Bowmaster you’re basically pressing Fury of the Wild (Hurricane) / Arrow Blaster—effectively one main button.

Like Len, Bowmaster can’t jump during moving-channeled fire, lacks a true invulnerability skill, and its gap-closer isn’t a teleport—so Len is a bit easier there. But Bowmaster hits a little above its weight tier. Trade-offs.

I am a bit nervous, though, because Bowmaster is slated for an October balance pass—who knows how it will change.

Any free words of advice for beginners?

Play at your own tempo. These days most of you watch Maple content—mine or others’—on YouTube. I see a lot of comments under my videos where people self-deprecate about their mechanics or spending. It’s a game. If you’re trying your best and having fun, that’s OK.

You’re active in your YouTube comments—lots of questions come in. Any that stuck with you, or ones you get asked over and over?

I didn’t use to upload boss guides, but demand spiked during this seasonal world, so I started to. I once got a “Please, a Verus Hilla guide—I can’t clear” request, and later the same person said they cleared after watching my video and thanked me. That’s the one that warms my heart. I hope they’ve cleared Hard Seren by now.

Maple players are curious about your character names—they’re so cute some people say they feel a “wall.” How did you come up with them? Any special story?

My first real alt was Dual Blade, and from the moment I created her I swore: “From now on, only female alts, and they must be cute and bubbly.” Naturally, the names had to match—so I went Dyucha-a → Pponahyun → Chaeyeon-kkong → Naeun-kkong → Chyoreni, and so on. People often ask for naming tips; if you care and think it through, you’ll find a pretty name that’s your own.

Your guide videos are known for their quality. Any spoilers on what’s next?

I need to finish the armor-setup video I had planned, and my Black Mage guide. After that… I’m mulling it over, but probably another “Maylog.”

Thanks for your time! Any closing words?

Have a great dayyy~

This article was translated from the original that appeared on INVEN.