[Updated April 6 at 1:03 AM PT] We've included the Mechanical Hearts Season 1 and Season 3 starting quest names to clarify the coin reward requirement.

Hi Maplers,

We apologize for the recent Mechanical Hearts related issues and we’re aware of the discussion that our players have been having about Mechanical Hearts and other game and communication related demands. We are aware of what players are suggesting and we’re taking our players’ demands very seriously.

After thorough review, we decided to remove the daily monster drop coin cap for Mechanical Hearts with our April 8 maintenance so players can enjoy the event in various ways. To give you a bit more context, we have been adjusting the content to make each part of MapleStory well-balanced with each other by reviewing the content consistently. When Mechanical Hearts 3 was released last year, we aimed to lower the hurdle of the event compared to previous runs of Season 1 and 2, while providing more attractive rewards. However, you voiced that it is desirable to obtain coins through monster drops like it was in Season 1 and 2. So to reflect your feedback while still maintaining the balance of the content, we made it so that a certain amount of coins can be obtained through monster drops while allowing more coins to be obtained through completion of the season missions, compared to the previous runs of Mechanical Hearts.

We also combined the Season 1, 2, and 3 coin shops in hopes to provide more flexibility for you to play the content that you prefer. We added the limit to the daily obtainable monster drop coins because it’s possible to enter Investigation Mode without completing the Season 3 missions, so some players might obtain too many coins in a very short period of time. We apologize that we didn’t inform you about the change properly and we will put much effort on delivering the essential game information to our players. We will give out 1,000 Aspire Commemorative Coins during the April 8 maintenance to all players who have completed either Season 1 '[Mechanical Hearts] Digital Horrors' quest or Season 3 '[Mechanical Hearts 3] Returning to Aspire' quest before this announcement to apologize for the change not being communicated properly.

After we released the Mechanical Hearts event, we have been closely monitoring our community platforms and reviewing your feedback on the daily coin cap. We chose not to disclose that the event was under review because we were still in the reviewing process and we thought that it was too early to provide our players with the information. However, we understand that our internal processes may make you frustrated, since there is no way for you to know at all if we’re listening to you or not, and we sincerely apologize for that. We are trying to improve our overall communication with you as one of our goals for 2021. As such we are reviewing the ways to improve our communication methods and will let you know once our plan is finalized.

Here are our responses to the things that players are suggesting, taken from one of the currently popular posts on the MapleStory Reddit:

• Improve transparency and the software to check the odds
  
  • The development project to set up a real-time monitoring system for the in-game probability has already begun but it will take some time before we are able to present a completed version to you. We apologize again for not giving you any updates about it, and we will make sure to let you know when we have any updates.
• Constant communication with the player base and explanations for the changes
  
  • We’re currently hiring an additional Community Manager to improve our visibility and presence in the community. We will also brainstorm better ways to comment and explain about game changes that players need to be aware of, other than the memo letter, in order to improve communication.
• A reliable feedback system for bug reporting
  
  • We will start the discussion with the relevant internal teams to identify a better method of addressing and updating players about reported issues.
• Customer Service improvements and false bans
  
  • Reducing farmer activity has been one of our most important tasks since February of last year in order to manage a stable game environment and keep the value of your important game assets from being fluctuated by the farmers. We apologize for any false bans that have happened and the inconvenience they caused while we’ve been actively battling the farmers. We know that this is not an excuse, and our security team and patrolling team are working very hard to improve our accuracy detecting farmers and only farmers. We will continue to discuss with all relevant internal teams to see what else is needed to improve the process.
• Service quality and bug fix improvements
  
  • To improve the overall service quality further, we recently started collaborating and working closely with Nexon’s QA group in Korea. We apologize for recent critical bugs with the Haste and Mechanical Hearts events, and we’re aware that this cannot be excused by any means. We will review our processes thoroughly to reduce the critical issues in our service and to address them in a timely manner.
• Concerns regarding items and events that are no longer released and have been nerfed such as badges, Maple Tour Piggy Bank, totems and Kishin Shoukan skill
  
  • We’re aware that players are asking for these items to return or to be reverted but as we mentioned through our previous memos, some of these items had been designed to be aligned with the status and balance of MapleStory at the time and maintaining these certain past items sometimes becomes problematic as game balance and end-game content have changed. If we plan to make adjustments or if it becomes difficult for us to re-release an item as-is due to these reasons, we will make sure to give you a detailed explanation on the developmental intentions. As we mentioned above, we will also listen to our players more and will come up with a plan to make the decision-making or discussion process more visible to our players.
• Class balancing and timely fix of broken skills
  
  • Development team aims to make impartial decisions based on numerical data, but it is true that there are aspects that are lacking when viewed from the perspective of players with various personal experiences. We strive to emphasize the unique characteristics of each class and provide a fun experience when playing each class, while also thinking about how we can release attractive new classes without harming the unique characteristics of the existing classes. We will listen more carefully to your valuable feedback, and review if it will be possible to proceed with more frequent class balances. Additionally, we will work to prevent any skill related bugs during development while swiftly addressing any skill bugs that do occur.

We hope our responses above have cleared up some misunderstandings and answered questions you may have had. We are aware that some of our responses may not be as detailed or concrete as you would have hoped for, but we plan to come up with potential improvements by reviewing your feedback closely while providing updates on the progress. We aim to take a step towards the direction where we can make our players satisfied onward. Thank you for your support.

Thank you,
Anna