March 03, 2024

[EMS] That 6000 day milestone / Farming "Urus Leg Accessory"

Hi guys! Today marks the 6000th day* since my character has been created! The journey continues...

*Information about items that keeps track of how old your character is can be read here, although none of these have been reissued for a while.

Big news update! The Destiny revamp blogpost is scheduled for next month! I'm currently aiming for the symbolic 12th of April (which was the release day of EMS). I'm almost done with the images and tables, which gives me about a month for one final proofreading. I'll also make sure to advertise it on the right menu and upcoming EMS blogposts for the remainder of the year, alongside giving it its own category (called "Article") to make it easier to find.

Truly, no job is too challenging for the greatest thief in Maple World, huh. Don't see that every day. What a steal.
In last month's blogpost, I wrote about trying to get my hands on the remaining Urus rewards before he leaves EMS for good this Summer. At the time of publishing this blogpost, I was unable to obtain the fabled "Leg Accessory", even with applying the best of my knowledge. That was, until I had a recent breakthrough that finally brought the solution...

You see, after examining footage of several Bowmaster runs I did, I've noticed something odd about the distribution of my attacks. When you attack Urus, the appendage that is hit will blink briefly. It's pretty straightforward. Hit the head, the head blinks. Hit the leg, the leg blinks. At least, that's how it should be. That was not the case with Bowmaster.

For whatever reason, when Bowmaster attacks, all of the hitboxes of Urus blink simultaneously. That explains why I never was able to gather enough hits on the legs; the high rate of fire was spread thin. Pretty much all of the hits went elsewhere. So, assuming that this problem would also occur on any other hold-down skill that shoots projectiles rather than working with a static hitbox, I chose Phantom as it's one of the few that works with a hold-down static hitbox.

Phantom pretty much did the trick. Within 6 to 7 minutes, you are able to break the legs solo. You'll also have ample of time left to break the shoulder and head armor, so you can have your cake and it eat it too. Here's what you need:

  • 4th Job Phantom, any level as long as you have the Skill Points to max out Noir Carte. At least 1 SP invested in Ultimate Drive. 5th Job and upgraded gear are not required. You can do this on a cheap mule.
  • Boost its Critical Rate to 100% (if not, as high as possible) to activate Noir Carte on every critical hit.
  • Always use Judgement Draw on Auto Mode to maximize your rate of fire and to keep Noir Carte alive.
  • Mandatory steal:  Heal (Bishop, 2nd Job) because 20 potions isn't enough to stay alive for 10 minutes. 
  • Mandatory steal: Arrow Platter (Bowmaster, 3rd Job) to summon it to further increase your rate of fire. 
  • Optional steal: Frozen Orb (I/L, 4th Job) to boost that rate of fire to even greater heights.
  • Optional steal: Fire Aura (F/P, Hyper Skill) because we're bullying Urus at this point. Requires Level 140.
  • Optional: if you struggle with MP consumption, Evan's Union character effect and Monster Life's "Slime and Snail" improves your MP recovery at set intervals. You do not need to invest in increasing your MP (i.e. Skill Links, Hyper Stats, Union, Additional Options) or MP cost reduction Potential.
And it's really as simple and easy as holding down Ultimate Drive the entire run and aim for the giant forearm*. Focus only on the head and shoulder appendages when Urus is toppled, you'll have ample opportunity to do so. Tempest of Card is not recommended. Use Heal often to keep your HP high. Potions are not needed, but are nice for emergency. Arrow Platter must be reset often, because Urus moves around a lot. Luck of Phantom Thief provides death protection once every 30 minutes. If you want to increase your hit count, use Rose Carte Finale, Frozen Orb and Fire Aura when available. Remember to use quick slots. I would recommend to watch my video to familiarize yourself with how to do it.

*Standard Urus strategy still applies. Avoid the big red claw. Stay inside the giant forearm. Climb on top of Urus when he falls down on the floor.

One final advice regarding damage: you do not need it. When it comes to breaking Urus appendages, the game is only concerned about hit count, not damage dealt. In fact, the more damage you deal, the harder it becomes to farm these materials. The lower Urus' health is, the more attacks he'll unlock*. To maximize your chance at success and have an easier time doing this, unequip every Arcane/Grandis Symbol and Enhancement Cores ("trinodes").

*95%: ground attacks. 90%: eat/grab. 85%: dirt. 70%: bombs. Any of these can end the run immediately. Just unequip your symbols and trinodes.

As for the reward distribution, after breaking the legs, shoulder and/or head, you're eligible to receive between 0 to 3 materials from each respective appendage. It is common to not receive materials. Even with 3 runs every day, expect to only receive 1 to 2 "Urus Leg Accessory" a day. If you are going for the chair and the two damage skins, you'll need one hundred of these. The outfits and pet are not permanent, they expire after 30 and 7 days, respectively.

Anyway, with that said, this strategy is something pretty much anyone playing this game can do. It's not complicated, and you do not need to learn how to play Phantom properly. It's pretty much as easy and accessible as it can get. Though there's a lot of technical stuff that went behind optimizing this strategy. I've left that out intentionally for the sake of keeping it simple. I do wonder though, why this strategy hasn't been covered before. This should've been possible since its release in 2015. There's gotta be some foreign post I missed... I can't possibly be the first one, right?

Good luck hunting Urus until the Dreamer update, Maplers! I'll get back to work. There's still much left to do...

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

February 19, 2024

[EMS] Level 281, and a lot more!

Ding! Time for this (and last) month's news roundup. 

Today I've hit Level 281, which took less than two months. Even though the required EXP has doubled, I still manage to get more than 1% every day. The weekly Cache of Greed, monthly Monster Park entry tickets and the occasional event EXP adds up. But with the New Age events having ended, so did the temporary Hunting Zone perks, so I'm not expecting levels to go as fast until we have the Dreamer update, which introduces High Mountain and Sol Janus.

I've also managed to complete Hyper Burning last month, with two weeks to spare. Man, Hyper Burning has become effortless with the changes made during Ignition and New Age. During the original Hyper Burning, I had to grind daily chunks for two months straight to reach the Level 250 goal. The final twenty levels required at least an hour each day, for a consistent 10%. Ignition's introduction to daily EXP through Arcane River dailies reduced that grind to about half an hour. But it was New Age that changed everything: I hit Level 260 by only doing Arcane Symbol dailies.

Doing Arcane Symbol dailies on a Hyper Burning character should only take less than 15 minutes a day. As I tend to be a cheapskate with these types of events, I prefer to run absolute minimal cost, and I also don't want to compromise any resource that could've gone to my main instead. So nothing fancy like Frenzy, Firestarter, MVP, EXP Accumulation Potion, or even gear that's expensive. No Monster Park runs or event EXP either. Just the basics that anyone can do. Free Sengoku gear and boss accessories sourced from daily bosses. Running 6% Potential with 12 Star Force is more than enough to one shot all the way to Level 260. Don't even need to care about Additional Options. Don't even need the recommended Arcane Force, so I won't pay for what I don't need. If the class can use Elemental Staff, I'll use it - just because I can. Total investment cost? Less than 500m. That's literally one hour on Thursday (weekly bosses).

So basically, nobody in their right mind should be able to fail Hyper Burning from now on. You don't even have to really one shot monsters, to be honest. It's all about clearing the daily quests. It's anything goes, so you could get carried for all I care and it would still work. Nodestones? You get thousands for free. Hyper Rock? No need, it's been irrelevant since Maple Guide. Nexon's been aiming to make Level 260 much more accessible by fundamentally improving the game on several fronts, including the long-standing issues with the levelling curve. They've definitely been successful. Stop wasting mesos on expensive gear and hours on grinding. Embrace the "ghetto build" and be diligent on dailies.

Speaking of "ghetto build", New Age ended with the usual Double Miracle Time. I was lucky enough to rank up three items to Legendary Additional Potential! Granted, the Potential update should arrive this Summer (which will make things a lot easier), but any progress is still progress, and the cubes were free anyway. But until Dreamer, we're in an awkward position where spending mesos for upgrades isn't worth it - so I'll just save up mesos for now. Personally, I can't wait for the Potential update. It's been long overdue, and I've been eagerly waiting for this update for well over a decade now. It's precisely what the game needed the most, and it's also one I'll greatly benefit from. Time for progress.

Last but not least, I've obtained every Urus medal! In 2021, I've organized daily Urus runs for about a year, which was when I got most of the medal challenges done. However, the "Master of Assists" medal challenge is one that's been difficult to obtain. With Urus being removed with the Dreamer update, I decided to speedrun this challenge solo. For which nearly 6000 days worth of experience and knowledge accumulated into a madman piloting two computers at once. The optimization iceberg went deep enough for me to use the oldest raid tricks in the book. Ancient knowledge from the bygone era of when we could enter bosses and party quests with up to thirty people through the defunct expedition system, which ultimately evolved into the 100-player Hekaton and 18-player Urus raids. Surprisingly fitting.

Unfortunately, I have to settle with only just these medals. You see, there are still a lot of rewards from the Urus shop I have yet to obtain. In particular, the most difficult to obtain items require the "Urus Leg Accessory" materials. Urus is currently the only boss that has breakable appendages. Hit these appendages enough, and like a piñata it'll provide materials when they're destroyed. I would highly recommend to read this, if you want to know how these materials are distributed. Obtaining leg materials has been a bane for many years, and it's been rightfully criticized for its difficultly. 

I've been trying to force the leg appendages to pop solo, but not even controlling two Bowmasters is enough. You can obtain shoulder and horn materials with only one Bowmaster, no problem. It's just that the required hit count for legs to be fully destroyed is absurd. Bowmaster sports the highest hit count in the game by far, and I'm frustrated that piloting two like a madman isn't even enough. I yet again have to impose on others, if I want that last chair or any of the outfits. From my understanding, I would need at least one really good Bowmaster, or two decent ones. If only I had four arms.
Nope. I've tried with four Bowmasters, it wasn't close to fully breaking the leg appendages. It would need even more...

And believe me when I say that finding the right people for something like this, is easier said than done. I can hardly find people committed enough to appear daily at reset-o'clock for Monster Park Extreme, let alone people that are willing to sacrifice their Urus runs and are able to join daily for several weeks. If there's anything in this game that kills fun, it's being the only committed person in the room when multiplayer commitment is required for the fun rewards. Yet another reason to be upset at seeing the EMS community spread thin. We're short on good men. Thanks, Rebooters. While it would be nice to have these rewards, it's not worth the effort to find others. Unless you want to help me out.

EDIT: I've figured it out! The grind for leg materials starts now! You can now read my findings here.

Anyway, I'm close to wrapping up the images on the Destiny blogpost. I had some unforeseen problems with Blogger's HTML code, and that required several weeks to fix. It's now a matter of programming some tables and tossing in some GIFs and images. I should be done with that within three weeks. As for proofreading: I honestly have no idea how long that'll take. Keep in mind that I have to proofread 142 pages with 61500 words. My declining health hasn't really been helping with productivity, let alone that my eyesight has been deteriorating for months. Some days I've been requiring over 12 hours of sleep, to still end up feeling physically exhausted. Either way, I'll do as much whenever I can.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

January 01, 2024

[EMS] Level 280!

Ding! As usual, the coincidental annual tradition of a level up starting the new year. I could've easily hit Level 280 yesterday but I couldn't be bothered grinding 3% manually because today was going to reset Guild Castle, anyway.

Reaching Level 280 means one thing: Arteria! I've unlocked my fifth Grandis Symbol. One left to go! To be honest, when Arteria was revealed during the New Age livestream, I kinda shrugged it off, like what happened with the past Grandis Symbol releases. To my surprise, I ended up really liking Arteria as a story chapter because it has one of my favorites in writing: lots of character growth. Unlike the Arcane River, every chapter in Continental Grandis moves the story, world building and the characters forward. Ever since Karotte I've only been more eager to unlock the next as the writing quality has improved over the past couple of years (except that one time with NT2). Best part is that a lot of existing NPCs that were pretty inconsequential and flat are now given actual character and depth. Aint that great?
At this rate Twilight Perion will come true and Plan B is a grand success. As Will, member of Monad, has prophesized.

Anyway, the next goal is Level 285 - which unlocks Carcion. How long that'll take, I don't know. However, the Dreamer update is going to weigh in a lot with Sol Janus giving an absurd amount of passive EXP. I believe it's reasonable to expect 285 before the end of the year, as I've always been diligent with my dailies and I'll continue to do so. Now, if you don't mind, I'll get back to work. It's time to continue where I left the Destiny blogpost off... which is chapter 7.3.3.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

December 31, 2023

[2023] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 13th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2024!

To me, 2023's been a rough year. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to prevent several major setbacks that makes me unable to leave this godawful place. For the past 25 years I've been working myself to the bone trying to become a LEGO Product Designer and live a better life. But in every step of the way I keep receiving the short end of the stick.

Due to being born with abstruse health issues our government can't provide the necessary aid I need. I'm physically too disabled for a job, let alone self-sufficient. But as they can't identify what I have, they can't classify me as such, despite observations acknowledging that there is "at least something". On top of that, our government has been cost-cutting for decades on health care, which further makes it difficult to receive any aid at all. I've become stuck in a rather impossible situation to get out of, caused by an implausible scenario to begin with.

The worst part about it, is that this status quo will not change unless either they adjust the law or my health recovers. The latter is completely out of my control as the only person that is able to make any meaningful changes to my health and get me out of this mess is also the one that knowingly condemned me to this fate and chose to feign ignorance.

Despite all of it, I'll do whatever I can do. Earlier this year, I did receive some financial aid from the government. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. I'm not allowed to sit on it, but it's good enough to invest in my future. But aside from that... this year I've exhausted the last options I had left. It's going to take several miracles to get out of here, and it's clear that I still have a long journey ahead. Dangit, I really can't catch a break now can I?

Anyway, let's get to those statistics of 2023.

December 16, 2023

[Lego] Spybotics!

Only at a place like Bricklink can you casually grab a complete set of sealed 21-year-old LEGO products... Insane.

I initially planned to get the remainder of the 12V train accessories, but I came across a much better deal. In my never-ending quest for collecting all kinds of (niche) LEGO products, my favorite chapter in the company's history is the time they went nearly bankrupt with a 800 million dollar unpaid debt: the Ploughman era. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

During this time (late 90s to early 2000s) lots of unique products were released, even more so were not. It was the time of great leaps in technological advancement, so much in fact that toy companies were threatened to become irrelevant. In response and an act of desperation, LEGO gave carte blanche to their development team. As a result, their unchecked expenses went through the roof and every LEGO theme except for Bionicle was running at a loss*.

*I'm currently reading the book "Brick by Brick" by David Robertson. It goes into painstaking detail on precisely why the company went nearly bankrupt under Paul Ploughman's leadership, and how Jørgen Vig Knudstorp dragged the company out of it. It's a fascinating read. I might eventually write a blogpost about it once I've finished reading it.

I've made it no secret that I firmly believe the company's most interesting and fascinating products come from this era. Any of these products have the same quality as any other LEGO product. It's just many older LEGO fans find that these products strayed too far from the traditional brick. It's easy to make the argument that unconventional products were the reason for the company's downfall, but the only reason why LEGO got out of troubled waters was by sheer discipline, planning, innovation and a bit of luck with Bionicle catching lightning in a bottle. Not just the traditional brick.

But enough talk about that - what are Spybotics? It's a short-lived offshoot of LEGO Mindstorms, aimed at a lower price point. Released during a time before adults were willing to spend a lot for LEGO products, Mindstorms (like the monorail) were priced exceptionally high. This was also before computers were readily available and user-friendly, let alone asking a child to program a toy was a tall order. Spybotics however, seemed to aim to address these issues.

Spybotics were priced at almost a quarter of the retail price of Mindstorms, it simplified the building experience and provided an easier entry to programming robots through play with missions on its CD-ROM. Released during the middle of a resurgence of the spy genre, it like many other products on the market, hoped to piggyback off of it.

However, Spybotics never saw success. Like how Galidor and Knight's Kingdom II met its demise by competing against Bionicle, the unexpected rising success of (hacking) Mindstorms blew the wind out Spybotics' sails. And like many other LEGO products at the time, Spybotics still couldn't sell even at large discounts. But unlike themes such as Galidor or Bionicle, Spybotics has almost no following - only a handful of fans*. It's a niche within a niche, if you will.

*As is common with many LEGO products, it's well researched and analyzed by fans and thus what is on that PCB board, how to run the CD-ROM on modern computers and connect the Spybotics through serial is well documented.

What we're left with, is a perfect encapsulation of the Ploughman era... or is there more to it? Aside from the coolness factor with these toys having a strong visual presence on a display shelf, Spybotics genuinely has things going for it.

While you can't add motors or sensors to these units, they are arguably the most compact remote-controlled LEGO unit, jam-packed with functionality. It includes all of the components found in the original Mindstorms kit: it reuses the same internal components found in the 9V motors, the light sensor and touch sensor. All of it is just integrated directly onto the Spybotics PCB. Furthermore, it includes the pinnacle and bane of Ploughman's carte blanche: the fiber-optics unit. And not only can you directly remote control the Spybotics without having to program it, because LEGO reused the base code from the original Mindstorms in all of its offshoots, you can let the Spybotics communicate with any of these (not just only other Spybotics), and vice versa. Spybotics is just a wonderful toy full of untapped potential.

Icing on the cake for these sets are the many exclusive recolors for parts, found nowhere else. It's stuff like this that comes from the Ploughman era that's never going to happen, ever again. Because remember: LEGO lost money for each single Spybotics produced. It's insane how that went. But like I said: it's the gift that keeps on giving. It's a rabbit hole you can spend your entire life digging into, and it's something I'm probably going to end up doing out of love.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!