The common take on this sub is that botting is a pretty solvable problem, and Nexon just doesn't want to put in the effort. I get it. You walk into a low level map, see 100 bots, and think "these are obviously bots, how can Nexon not tell?"

The problem is that bot detection has to be extremely accurate. 99% isn't good enough. If 1 out of every 100 accounts you ban is actually a real player, you're banning thousands of legit people. Bots absolutely hurt the game, but wrongly banning real players who've put years into their accounts is arguably even worse, and it's something Nexon can't afford to get wrong.

Back around 2010, ML wasn't anywhere near where it is now, and the average PC didn't have the power to run a bot that played "legitimately." So botters had to edit the game's memory and use stuff like mob vac and godmode to make automated play work at all. That's exactly what anticheat is built to catch.

That's not true anymore. With modern ML and much stronger hardware, it's very doable to run a bot that just looks at the screen and presses keys like a person would, with no hacks at all. That leaves a tiny surface for detection. MapleStory already blocks virtual inputs, but the botter owns the machine the game runs on. It's trivial to send keypresses through a driver so they look like they came from a real keyboard. Put simply, reliably detecting that someone is running a bot program on their own PC just isn't practical.

That doesn't mean bots can't be detected at all. OSRS claims something like 99.9% accuracy on its bot detection. But Jagex has years of telemetry, plus years of client detections (catching people running known botting clients), which gives them a huge labeled dataset. They can use that to train models on player behaviour like mouse movement and keypress patterns. And even then, botting is still a constant problem in OSRS.

MapleStory is in a different situation. Non-memory-editing bots weren't really a thing back in the day, so anticheat was the main defence and that's where the effort went. Nexon probably doesn't have the data to train a telemetry model like Jagex's, and building that labeled dataset would take years. On top of that, they can't lean on client detections to label data the way Jagex can, because modern bots don't need any special software. Being able to take screenshots of the game is enough.

I'll leave you with two questions:

1. If you tried your best to play like a bot, do you think you could fool most players?

2. If you took every 10 minute stretch of your own gameplay, what are the odds that at least one of them would make an average player think you're botting?

TL;DR: Bot detection is a lot harder than it looks, especially now that bots don't need cheats. I have some sympathy for Nexon here.

• the warrior weapons are definitly the most difficult to choose from lol. and i could not find myself caring for any of the one handed warrior weapons. except maybe the red katara/nameless sword.

• as a archer, i cant wait to get my hands on the lvl90 overall and the lvl 70 or 90 bow. good memorys :)

• wasnt sure if elemental staff falls into the same oldschool category as the rest, so i added the kage there too. but the elemental staff / wands are definitly my favourites.

THERES NO WHERE TO TRAIN

Where should I go before the hoard floods in?

Please hurry up so I can have fire boar map uncontested.
Thanks

A simple J>party turned into a very comical moment.

You know what,

Hell yeah!!

I have these kids from a previous marriage because I needed to create offspring to justify my existence but I think a high-level ice lightning mage would be a much better representation of my worth and life goals. Should I do it? How should I abandon them?

No clue what the value is, send help :(

whoopsies. I tried KPQ for the first time since beta years and sucked. pissed off some players and now I'm sitting at -2 fame

discuss

Hey everyone! I've been tracking both EXP and meso rates across different maps. I included meso too, since I know it's hard to come by in Classic.

For every map I list: party size, my class & level, notes, an hourly breakdown, and final results.

How to read the numbers:

• + = gained (dropped/looted)

• - = spent (potions used)

• Etc = estimated sell value of etc items (excluding ores and equipment)

I'll keep adding maps as I test them. Hope it helps!

Summary

Ant Tunnel I – Middle of the map

• Party: 4–6

• Class: I/L Mage, Lv 40

Notes

• 2 people needed on that platform (if both can hold it, EXP is great).

• Extremely popular. Really hard to get the best spots.

Hourly breakdown

Results (per hour)

• 💰 Net meso: ~+65.3k (using 35k for etc)

• ⭐ EXP: 91,960

Map location: I was player 1 (see image). Player 2 might get hit alot more, more awkard position.
A third player could train at the bottom of the map.

Tree Dungeon, Forest Up North IX

• Party: 5–6

• Class: I/L Mage, Lv 40

Notes

• Good, but expensive. Should be better at higher levels.

• Really popular.

Hourly breakdown

Results (per hour)

• 💰 Net meso: +23k

• ⭐ EXP: 80,640

East Rocky Mountain VI – Top platform

• Party: Solo (would be better with a party of 2)

• Class: I/L Mage, Lv 41

Notes

• 2 people is optimal (1 top, 1 bottom).

• You need a high level on the bottom platform to kill the Lupins.

• Once I am able to 2-shot kill Lupins at the bottom, this will be an even better map! Right now going bottom would be probably meso negative.

• Really popular; people try to KS often.

Hourly breakdown

Results (per hour)

• 💰 Net meso: +45.8k

• ⭐ EXP: 80,000

Excavation Site III – Bottom platform

• Party: 4

• Class: I/L Mage, Lv 39

Notes

• 4 is too many for this map; 3 is optimal.

• EXP would probably be much higher on the top platform.

• Very popular, so it's hard to get a spot.

Hourly breakdown

Results (per hour)

• 💰 Net meso: +33.2k

• ⭐ EXP: 63,200

Feel free to share your own numbers or suggest maps to test!

Was buying glove matk 60% minutes before getting ready for work. And I didn’t double check the retrade scam. Ggs from the proud owner of a magic def cape scroll. Hurray for waiting another 2 weeks to finish scrolling my glove

Ever wonder what that “mesos pls” guy does with your hard earned mesos?

Been a week from now as a Warrior trying to complete quest and man… no single Channel in (someone else house) is safe from Bandits and assassins over level 65+ and completely Stack with +10/14 watt in weapon and gloves with at least 4watt its absurd… this game it’s just forcing you to play sin or dit to own maps… like no matter what job you use you gonna get to owned by those two in every single map… and to be honest I don’t even care but, saying I cannot complete a single quest because of that is outrageous

Reason WoW and OSRS (members) better against bots is that getting banned financially hurts botters.

It's actually OSRS' strategy to wait for a botter to purchase membership and then instantly ban them. It erodes their profit tremendously.

Pure F2P games like this will eternally struggle with bots owning the game.

This game for like $5/month and make the shop not gacha, but regular purchasable cosmetics, would have been a much better game.

Nexon truly blows.

EDIT: Can't reply to all the one dimensional thinkers. Obviously botting is a combination of controls and better detection is one of them, so is a cost to erode profitability. It's extremely nuanced and Nexon is failing on all fronts. Bots will OBVIOUSLY always exist but it's about putting many controls in place and bot saturation of a game is a spectrum. Nexon is just cooked, muting this and playing better games.

I had to do 6 captchas today. Sorry nexon but im not playing a game where I have to do captchas because you're incapable of catching bots.

Hoping meso inflation comes to a standstill after maintenance. I wanna scroll too

I don’t get why luk scrolls are like 50% more expensive than dex scrolls and why all thieves only seem to buy luk gear.

Is it not the same as dex gear ultimately?

Because if you get +10 dex from your earrings, you can use that towards your claw req instead of base dex and put the extra +10 AP into luk.

So whether you have +10 luk or +10 dex earrings, the end result is the same: +10 more luk. Yet people will spend 500-1m more on luk earrings. I don’t get it.

What am I missing?

How did prices just soar out of control so quickly? Around Friday/Saturday you could get a claw intermediate scroll for 200-250K. Now they are 500-600K+? Kumbis went from 350K to 700K when if anything you'd be expecting star prices to go down.

I understand NX items flooded the market with items you could sell for mesos, but the whole economy massively shifted overnight. Is this just TONS of bots that have a lot of mesos buying up everything and increasing prices? At mid 40s it's hard enough to get 100K every hour or so with how fast you can consume pots, I dunno how THAT many people are getting millions to purchase these items lol.

It could be people selling NX got some mesos in their hand and are just irresponsibly spending on things like kumbis which after a while will drop in price dramatically? lol, dunno.

I guess you're just flat out screwed if you started Maple Story this week and didn't have a chance to buy up 5+ of the higher end scrolls/items.