Helloo~ (˶ˊꇴˋو(و ⁾⁾

I’m Nexon Picker Dalnyang.

What do you think is the fun part of raising multiple classes in an online RPG?

For me... hmm... the big reasons are getting to experience completely different combat styles with each class

and the fact that a newly raised character eventually helps your other characters grow too.

MapleStory especially has so many classes that even when you’re doing the same grinding or bossing,

it can feel pretty different depending on the character.

My main character is Kinesis, but while working on Link Skills and Union,

I naturally ended up raising a bunch of different classes one by one.

At first, I was going in with the mindset of
“I have to raise this character for the Link anyway...”
but once I actually played it, the main skill range, movement style, and resource management all felt totally different,

and a lot of the time I ended up finding a kind of fun I wasn’t expecting.

Some classes make grinding so comfy that I want to keep leveling them, while others feel so satisfying in bosses when you dump all your skills that I get more attached than I expected.

In this post, I’m going to go over MapleStory’s class variety and the fun of raising multiple classes based on what I felt while personally leveling a bunch of characters.

| Table of Contents |

① Same game, different gameplay: the fun of class-by-class combat

② If you raise alts, does your main get stronger too? Link Skills and Union

③ The unexpected fun that comes from raising multiple classes

1. Same game, different gameplay: the fun of class-by-class combat

When you raise multiple classes in MapleStory, the first thing you really notice is that

even though it’s the same game, the way you play can feel pretty different.

It’s not just the weapon or skill effects that change, either.

From how you move, to how you use your main attack while grinding, to the flow of dealing damage in boss fights,

there are real differences from class to class.

└ That’s how my alts suddenly multiplied in no time..;

For example, my main, Kinesis, originally used a separate resource called PP instead of MP,

so from the moment I first picked it, I liked that it felt a little different from a typical mage.

(Honestly, it was mostly about the style.. I picked it purely for the black-and-white skill effects)

On the other hand, when you try raising other characters,

“Wow, this one is so easy to grind on?”
“This class has really great mobility.”
“My hands are ridiculously busy in bosses with this one...”

and you immediately start feeling each character’s strengths and weaknesses.

I think that difference is one of the biggest reasons raising multiple classes is so fun.

Playstyle	What to check when choosing a class
You like comfortable grinding	Main skill range, movement style
You want that satisfying hands-on feel in bosses	Burst structure, skill combos
You like simple controls	Resource management, whether combo skills are involved
You enjoy unique playstyles	Class-specific systems

So when I raise a new character, instead of only looking at performance,

“Maybe this time I should pick a class that plays in a way I haven’t tried yet?” is actually a pretty fun way to choose.

You might get to experience a kind of control feel you never noticed on your main,

and you might even discover another character that just clicks with you

2. If you raise alts, does your main get stronger too? Link Skills and Union

This is honestly one of those systems you can’t leave out when talking about Maple.

When you talk about why people raise multiple characters in MapleStory, one thing that’s hard to skip is

Link Skills and Union.

As you keep playing, you need to work on your Links, and then your Union too, and
before you know it, your character slots are slowly filling up with alts..

But the interesting part is that these characters you raise don’t just sit there on their own.

They eventually help your other characters grow too.

|| Link Skills that let you apply unique effects from other classes ||

Ta-da~ wondering what this is?

Link Skills are a system that lets you apply the unique effects each class has to other characters as well.

You can check them in Battle → Link Skills in the menu,

and you can see both the Link Skills currently applied and the ones you own all at once.

For example, there are Links with survival-focused effects like “Unfading Glory,” which I’m using right now,

and there are also Links that directly help in combat, like Critical Rate or Boss Damage,

so you end up mixing and matching them depending on the character or content.

And on top of that, the Link Skill screen has presets that let you save multiple setups in advance,

so you can swap your Link setup around depending on the situation, like grinding or bossing.

At first, you think,

“Do I really have to raise this class just to get this one Link..?”

but once you start gradually collecting the Links you need, it ends up being surprisingly satisfying.

|| Maple Union grows bigger the more characters you raise ||

Along with Link Skills, one of the biggest reasons people raise lots of characters is Maple Union.

You can check it in Character → Maple Union in the menu,

and the different characters you’ve raised so far get registered as Union characters,

and as your character progression stacks up, your Union rank and all kinds of stat bonuses grow along with it.

On the Union screen, you can directly check and set the stats you want, from basic stats like STR·DEX·INT·LUK

to Critical Damage, Boss Damage, and Ignore Enemy Defense.

So unlike just continuing to raise only your main,

“Looks like I’m missing XX for my Union this time.. maybe I should level this class a bit too?”

and naturally, you end up branching out into other characters as well.

When I look at my Union screen now, I can see not just Kinesis, but also Lain, Zero, and Mercedes,

all the characters I’ve raised so far gathered in one place.

Seeing the results of raising all those different classes piled up in one view adds an extra layer of collection fun too.

Of course... the amount of mesos I end up investing into characters also doubles! Ha...ㅠ

3. The unexpected fun that comes from raising multiple classes

And when you raise a lot of different classes, something happens more often than you’d think.

Basically... “Huh...? This one’s more fun than I expected?”

Sometimes a character you only planned to level briefly for Link or Union ends up being so easy to grind on,

or you really like the skill animations, or the feel of controlling them in bosses, so you stick with them way longer than you expected.

└ One of the reasons I thought, “I’m really glad I raised Kinesis.”

Even for players like me who already have their main character decided,

raising new classes gradually helps you figure out what kind of playstyle you like too.

For example,

• whether simple classes feel better for you than complicated resource management

• whether comfortable grinding matters more to you

• whether the hands-on feel of controlling a class in bosses is important

• whether you’re more drawn to character design or skill animations

Trying multiple classes actually makes these preferences a lot clearer.

So in MapleStory, I don’t think of raising multiple classes

as just “homework where you have to make a lot of alts”.

You get to directly experience classes you never would have known if you only kept playing your main,

and discovering another character you really like along the way

is the kind of fun you can only really get in an online RPG with lots of classes, at least in my opinion.

Especially if you tend to get a little bored playing just one character all the time

or you enjoy personally trying out a variety of combat styles,

then raising multiple classes will probably suit you pretty well.

Alright, that’s where I’ll wrap things up for this post.

I’ll be back next time with another game story.

This was Dalnyang!