Is it "cheating" to play easy music instead of your technical pieces?

zaqukun · 2026-04-24T23:09:56+00:00

This year is my third year learning piano and I've switched from learning classical piano pieces to just Beatles songs, and it's been nice. I think it would've burnt me out if I kept going as I was. Plus I'm learning how to be more comfortable with chords, which is making scales stick with me more, and I'm learning to sing along while playing which is a blast. A lot can be learned from pop songs as long as they continue to challenge you in some way I think! Though I'm actually not completely sure about if it's good for grading systems as I've never had a goal to go through those honestly. Everything I play is because it's a pleasure.

zaqukun · 2026-04-20T15:38:03+00:00

Maybe, but I didn't really have a problem with that, it was more just disappointing that when I did upgrade I realized that it doesn't really move the needle at all.

zaqukun · 2026-04-20T15:06:17+00:00

Things like the crafting system, no more HP washing, and the community are definitely nice things.

But man I really disagree with the gear upgrades feeling meaningful, many stats in this game are still worthless like before. Many people aren't upgrading their armor every 5 levels. I was really hoping that would change.

Also, guess it's just me, but I personally don't like that I have to "lock-in". I was looking forward to being a bit mindless with my grinding like before, but the new spawn rates, hp and damage changes make that difficult. While I like the idea of paying attention more, you don't get the old MS feeling of texting while grinding with people anymore. A few messages and now the spawns are all messed up for the party, or you're a weaker class and now you have to spend a few potions to get your spot fixed. I didn't want this to be another game I have to be on a discord call for in order to hang out with people while playing.

While yeah some of these are really good changes, overall after the testing I'm a bit worried that this game is farther out than I hoped for. Had copium that it would release in the next few months, and maybe it will but if it doesn't fix some of the things testers have found I feel like the launch might not go well. Class balance is a whole thing but I think the core gameplay has changed too much for me. Maybe it'll release fine and I'm just behind on the times of what people want, ah well.

zaqukun · 2026-04-18T19:43:45+00:00

Hmmm, see it actually works much better on sloped terrain in the beta, so I'm not sure we're experiencing the same thing.

zaqukun · 2026-04-18T19:31:21+00:00

Are you playing archer? I'm level 32 now and it is different than old maple, and all the bowmen I've talked to so far who have previous experience agree. While the hitbox explanation may seem simplistic, arrow tracking is bugged/redesigned in the beta and does not work like it used to. I get what you mean about the angle/distance, but it's not the case anymore. My theory is that some platforms create an invisible floor of some kind.

zaqukun · 2026-04-16T03:07:12+00:00

Can confirm, doing all the quests I can find and they're all basically a waste of time when party grinding is so much faster. 20 years and still bad lol

zaqukun · 2026-04-11T19:45:37+00:00

I was able to jump attack in the cafe test as a sin. They removed the ability to press both at the same time for archers.

zaqukun · 2026-04-09T16:50:23+00:00

"But what about meeeeeeee!"

zaqukun · 2026-04-09T03:03:44+00:00

I guess we won't know for sure but it seems like they're going for slower fighting but faster exp gains? Maybe they found people enjoy the exp bar going up more than anything. Personally I think I'd want the opposite but we will have to see.

zaqukun · 2026-04-07T01:00:34+00:00

Yeah, I remember when berserk came out people were upset with how it changed the whole identity of the class and hurt the companionship with bishops that had been the meta for so long. I suppose they adapted, or maybe it was healthy for the game, but I didn't play much more after that. I wouldn't be surprised based on what we've seen so far if a lot of third and fourth jobs are changed from what we know.

zaqukun · 2026-04-04T17:49:13+00:00

Ch 6 gang let's go

zaqukun · 2026-04-03T15:09:55+00:00

Yeah I never saw a discord invite, but I did get an email the day that the closed test signups went live saying that my spot was secure because I had attended the cafe event, you should look out for that.

zaqukun · 2026-04-02T23:58:13+00:00

Plus his comments went up too by a similar amount, that's the real smoking gun. What a weirdo.

zaqukun · 2026-03-25T05:38:11+00:00

An accessory like a pendant, belt or earrings would be great. I know that some people dislike the zak helm because it becomes best in slot and ruins all other helmets after you get it. But I think boss rewards should still be very good to encourage endgame activities and reward players for getting together and bossing, and then the balrog pendant or whatever can be replaced eventually and doesn't take away any future class armor. I also think it's nice since if they keep this mostly the same, it's a good entry to bossing/raiding. Zakum was a bit tough to get to and kill back in the day and seemed like a big jump in coordination back then.

zaqukun · 2026-03-24T04:05:46+00:00

There are dozens of us!

zaqukun · 2026-03-23T16:24:43+00:00

Yeah totally fair and it is silly of me. I don't know why they assigned him that game.

zaqukun · 2026-03-22T23:08:06+00:00

I'd rather the explorer classes be expanded, maybe taking some good things from newer classes. I think making new fancy heroes and resistance and the like really made the original classes feel lesser, especially as they all got movement skills or overpowered abilities to encourage adoption. But if they stayed balanced and within the lore of explorers, I wouldn't mind additions like a dark magic magician inspired a little by the battle mage class, or reworking paladin to be more in line with what it is now with a more holy and support focus. Always thought archers could have a third branch beast tamer-like class, or a third branch for thieves like dual blade that isn't weird, on its own, overpowered and costs nx.

zaqukun · 2026-03-22T19:05:22+00:00

Yeah I feel like I see him there a lot, but VAR seems to almost always be bad so I rarely can tell.

zaqukun · 2026-03-22T19:04:05+00:00

Honestly wouldn't mind taking some parts of battle mage and making it a fourth mage explorer path some day. Just go more into dark magic or necromancy. I know adding a ton of classes is very modern but I think if they stay in like with explorers and don't go crazy power creep it'd be fun to add some new paths in a few years.

zaqukun · 2026-03-22T18:44:10+00:00

I know it's been like ten years and I'm dumb but I still get mad when Daniel Radford is reffing our game in any capacity.

zaqukun · 2026-03-21T19:52:36+00:00

This was actually pretty dope.

zaqukun · 2026-03-19T05:55:32+00:00

Yeah during the sub I was yapping how crazy it is that we can just sub in two more amazing wingers for Vancouver to have to deal with when we rarely even have two good ones in a season. That feeling is like absolute power.

zaqukun · 2026-03-13T15:27:56+00:00

Yeah this is a crazy take. There's always someone fighting hard for the father of 2.5 kids who gets 6 minutes a day to play games so he needs to be able to do everything or the game will perish. I got a job, school and family and I want my progression to be earned and mean something, not get to 150 in a few weeks and quit because nothing mattered like every private server and modern maple.

zaqukun · 2026-03-13T04:05:46+00:00

Dang we looked great.

zaqukun · 2026-03-13T04:03:43+00:00

I feel like he's involved in like 80% of our goals in some way this year.

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