[EMS] The axe forgets; the tree remembers.

So much for Guild Contribution. I haven't missed a single day but I can no longer say this is a perfect score. There's been plenty of close calls in the past nine years but the one thing I was ill-prepared for was the diabolical decision to increase the daily contribution cap for the 18th of March from 5000 to 35000 (and only for three hours). You can't make this shit up. Only in Maple can you continue to have a perfect daily track record and yet still losing out on 30k points.

This was a much longer blogpost, but I'm too pissed to give a damn. You can forget about the 6th Job blogpost, I can't be arsed anymore to write it for the foreseeable future. Losing this one is just one too many. I despise the demand to change dailies into weeklies. If you asked for it, I hope it was worth ruining the fun for others. Now leave me alone.

[EMS] Eternal set completed, catching up on bosses and more!

Hey all, today we'll look at some of the recent achievements and upcoming plans for this year. Let's start with the pair of new Level 260s - this season's Hyper Burning (Phantom) and my F/P from two years ago. This adds another mule to the weekly boss army, and I'll now work on raising my Bishop from 250 to 260. Next burning should be Mo Xuan.

The recent event introduces a new staple challenge for a free Plasma Heart voucher, which was an excellent incentive to get off my lazy bum and give it a shot. Before this update, I was content to settle on True Hilla as the highest weekly boss, seeing how quick and easy these runs have become thanks to 6th Job. The challenge however requires to clear at least Easy Kaling, which is further in the game. Not a boss I was familiar with to say the least, so I reserved a day to run practice mode and to study with videos. To my surprise, I had it cleared within four hours! Even better, as much as I was encouraged by friends to try out this challenge, I then found myself encouraging others to try it out as well.

At a first glance, Kaling overwhelms you with a bunch of stuff you have to learn and micromanage. Then I realized that most is irrelevant and that the boss is laughably exploitable. Defeating Hundun and phase 2 before the bind runs out eliminates most of the difficulty. It ensures you have ample time to safely clear the rest. To give an idea, this video for coaching (apologies for the subpar commentary; it's not my strong suit) was the third clear. Not sure if that video will be of use here but I figured its inclusion fits today's topic and may be interesting as part of this blog's recorded history.

With Easy Kaling being such a deceptively reasonable task, I've added it to the weekly menu. Seeing how quickly I was able to learn a new boss, I figured I might as well try out the others. I've settled on adding Normal Seren and Easy Kalos since these could be cleared immediately without much effort. I can't be arsed to practice Easy First Adversary, Hard Seren and Normal Kalos because the extra hour doesn't yield much. We don't have dynamic boss crystals and due to trade restrictions I can't sell the loot. The low effort 320 mill will do just fine. Plus, there's also Black Mage runs!

Now, the reason for this tangent has to do with the next goal. As expected, the Eternal set was completed last month. Aside from Star Forcing to 18 and grindstones, there's not many low-hanging fruits left to spend mesos on. It's been a while since I've had a massive goal to work towards (the likes of Mu Gong or Ribgol), and I fancy a new challenge to keep me occupied. I have something in mind and I'll be saving up mesos for the remainder of the year or until this goal is met. Whether if this will work out depends on the assumption that several things in EMS remain the same as they've been for years, but with the current management there's just no guarantee. I'll give it a fair chance, do what I can and we'll see where this goes. I'm pretty sure it'll work out just fine, but you can never be certain with these guys in charge.

Before I wrap up today's blogpost, a few other things to mention. Here's the regular reminder that for the next several months I'm taking a break from my LEGO portfolio in order to replenish the parts budget. Blueprints for Ouroboros legs are ready. It's got the power and the battery sorted out, so I'm fairly confident with this one. But as we all know, theory will take you only so far. I have most parts on hand, but there are several that need to be ordered in bulk, including a damn buyout. It's prohibitively expensive to do buyouts, but because it's a critical component it must be done. I'll order those later this year. For now, I'll try to publish the next 6th Job blogpost in either April or May. I'll get back to work now.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post! Wait, what do you mean Konami redesigned the Sacred Beasts?

[EMS] Level 291!

Ding! Just fresh from the oven. Events end today, so that's another stack of rewards that contributes towards today's achievement. With Level 291 achieved early, I believe Level 293 as a goal is possible before the end of the year. The next symbol (Level 295) is still a long way off, but there's a lot of EXP-related quality of life updates to look forward to.

To continue on last month's objectives, I was very lucky with the results from all of this season's event cubes. All of my high priority equipment, including my recently-obtained Eternal Shoes, are now fully ranked up to Legendary Potential. This includes Additional Potential as well, and I hit the jackpot with my Reaper's Pendant! It is my first six-liner, which is a significant milestone considering the ridiculous odds of that ever happening. Furthermore, I was also able to land the first Spikes on Shoes, which is kinda funny given last month's tangent. Though now I'm stuck in Return Scroll hell because I do not have the luxury of redoing scrolls on these shoes. If only they sold the scroll in El Nath, like in JMS... As for obtaining the remaining two Eternal equips: I have enough mesos to buy one, but they're currently out of stock.

Anyway, the rush for this blogpost is intentional because I'd like to chime in on the discussion about recent events. Not that I really expect any of this to amount to much, given how meager the viewership is for this blog and how few seem to actually read anything here (especially true for new blogposts), but I do believe that in moments like these it's worth adding to the conversation. I feel like nobody is talking about two major issues and it seems to be caused by a lack of awareness on either subject matters. I'll try to keep it short because this could easily grow into two lengthy blogposts.

It was brought to my attention that multiple language support was recently confirmed for the EMS/GMS conglomerate. It's a legitimate cause for concerns because this was an ill-fated exclusive feature of EMS that caused many unfixable issues for the game. It was supported for about six years but there's good reason why this feature never returned. The technical details on how it worked is beyond the scope of this blogpost; all you need to know is that everything broke. The game is barely functional as it is. Adding more languages multiplies the required effort. EMS started out with five and had to axe two (including Spanish) after four years. The entire system was dropped after the hackwave of 2012 was over. Inkwell is a fool if he believes he can do what Nexon Europe couldn't, especially since this is well-trodden territory. It didn't work for EMS, it barely functions on MapleStory N and anything Go West has a terrible track record.

Now, the other point of discussion is the ousting of Wonky. Specifically: the dude that takes over the entire MapleStory franchise. I'd be careful about rejoicing if I were you, because historically Gaga's up there as one of Maple's worst. For those unaware, Gaga is Inkwell's mentor and his two-year tenure introduced everything we hate about the game. He may not have been the brain behind most of the game's horrendous monetization practices (that was mostly Inkwell's), but Gaga was the one that greenlit it all and then gave his position to Inkwell to further drive the game into the ground. His grossest contribution to MapleStory is the complete removal of all overseas content for Korea MapleStory in 2010; a decision so baffling that after 16 years I still don't know why they insist on enforcing this rule. If you ever wondered why KMS doesn't have certain classes or items, now you know. KMS players have never stopped asking to revert this decision and not even Changseop was able to give a sensible retort. You tell me: do we want the butcher of overseas content to oversee our version? If there's anything that threatens Go West more than its own deranged creator, it's the anti-overseas hardliner who gave the lunatic a career and put classic MapleStory into freefall. You have been warned.

Well, the future of EMS is certainly going to be interesting. Let's see if any of the withheld updates from Korea sees a widespread release under the new stewardship, or if the exclusivity is going to get worse. I guess we'll find out soon...

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

[EMS] Spirit Caliber MAX! Silent Cleave MAX!

Well, that wraps up 6th Job. For now. All of the materials will be stashed until the next wave. Remember, you can store excess Sol Erda on every Level 260+ mule that you own. With so many Hyper Burninators, it's not uncommon to have several by now. In my case that's eleven, with more on the way. Currently burning Phantom for its Union bonus stats.

As mentioned last month, my Len is now Level 270 thanks to the plentiful event support. It is now my second highest character. Third place is my Wild Hunter. MPE should get it to 270. Furthermore, I've been working on other 250's and get them to 260, of which I recently finished Sia. I've decided to temporarily spend Level 250 pots and vouchers to aid in that endeavor, as I still have my original two Hyper Burnings who could only burn to 250. It wasn't until Ignition when they raised the support to Level 260 and introduced the daily quest EXP. All of my Level 260+ mules are now 6th Job!

Having them all 6th Job keeps the weekly bosses short. If a boss doesn't melt, it's simply not worth it. There's no cap on acquired mesos and every important item in Auction House is (dirt) cheap. This is why I strive to keep a tight leash on hours played because it's all too easy to lose track of allotted time. The quick, effortless and consistent cashflow is far more interesting long-term. Even better if you are mindful on mesos per minute. Having to spend extra minutes on low-end bosses isn't proportional when I can clear 60k an hour, or Urus in 12 seconds. Anyway, I've obtained my first Limbo/Baldrix Eternal (shoes), and I should be able to buy the remaining two equips next month to complete the set.

For upgrades, my Endless Terror's Additional Potential is now Legendary, and I'm now working on the Eternal Shoes. Redoing Spikes on Shoes is going to take a while, with how limited the monthly cap is for Reward Points. Buying all cubes and Monster Park tickets doesn't leave you with many spare points... Ya know, it's in moments like these where skipping the Potential revamp bludgeons all aspects of the game design, RP shop included. With how many items are in the shop, the monthly cap isn't high enough without having to sacrifice progress one way or another. It really sucks when trying to optimize scrolling (i.e. ICOGs). I'll remind you that the fabled Potential revamp's already two years old.

On the bright side, I'm almost Level 291. Yes, already. We might have sacrificed way too many good events in favor of some terrible exclusives, but I'll reluctantly admit that the Twenteena event has speedrun most of Level 290 because it keeps shitting copious amounts of Advanced EXP Vouchers. That's the blogpost for next month. I don't know when I'll start on the next 6th Job blogpost, because I've been so busy this month that I haven't had time to look at my blog. But rest assured, I should have plenty of time this year to work on some blogposts because I'm saving up, so progress on my LEGO portfolio will be limited in the foreseeable future. However, Ouroboros should have his first steps very soon.

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

[2025] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 15th summary on this blog, and we reached the milestone of over 600 blogposts! As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2026!

It's been a bit of an eventful year, more than I expected it to be. So without further ado, let's get to it before I turn into a popsicle as today's blogpost is written in a basement in Switzerland, of all places. How did I end up here? Who knows.