[EMS] Monster Life - Level 40!

Sup guys! A few hours ago I've hit Level 40 on Monster Life, which is the maximum level in this mini-game!

Gotta love how Aya (the main NPC) responds with a "WOOOOOOOOoooooooo!" at your level up and then rejoices as she (well, technically it's Guwaru controlling Aya, so it's a he) finally can stop bothering you. The always-present sarcastic humor in Monster Life is just freaking excellent.

Anyway, Monster Life (or "ML" for short) is an interesting system by itself that is rare to see in MapleStory: it has little to do with your MapleStory stuff in-game at first. It's not like Star Planet where you control your own character to play mini-games, or some "player versus environment" content such as Commerci Voyages or Evolving System that is just a fancy (and often rewarding) way of pitting your main against hordes of enemies in an isolated gauntlet that is otherwise just normal MapleStory combat as it has always been. Monster Life starts your own farm where you can build stuff on it and keep monsters from the game as livestock. What? It sounds familiar? How the hell am I supposed to know? Pffft. I don't have social media so I don't know what on earth is happening on that side of the planet. *shrugs*

In my previous blogpost about Monster Life back in July I promised to go a bit more in-depth about whenever if Monster Life is actually worth your time. And I can be pretty straightforward with it before I would go more in-depth. The short answer is probably not. Why so? Because the average human doesn't want to spend time in something that gives little in return. Monster Life is just like bragging about your terrible Yut skills in Star Planet, kill stealing Elite Bosses in Arcane River, or sitting on an expensive chair all day in CH1 Henesys: you either like to do it or you don't.

So what are the actual gains in Monster Life and how does it work? To explain this, I'll probably have to make clear that there are several things in Monster Life that does (or, can) affect your MapleStory stuff.

There are two main things that makes Monster Life appealing:

• You can trade "Warus" (the coin currency that buildings generate for you) from Monster Life into "Monster Life coins" for you to spend outside Monster Life on your characters. We'll get back to this later.
• The monsters you have as livestock in Monster Life gives certain stat boosts to all of your characters outside Monster Life, that are linked to the account of this particular farm.

Before we go into the stat boosts to your account (cuz that is probably the main focus you want to know about), let's talk about the primary elephant in the room first: Monster Life is a huge time sink. Not per se a time sink where you have to spend lots of hours and be done with it. It's a time sink that will most likely require some daily effort in actually even getting to a modest level. And it took me close to a full year to get to Level 40, as my earliest mentions of Monster Life on this blog date back to the 13th of November, 2016. Most of you guys already have a lot of daily stuff in Maple - having another one of those on top of your daily bosses, Union system, Auction Housing, Meso Market-ing, weekly Mu Lung Dojo and (soon) six Arcane Symbol dailies might be a bit too much on your plate. You're going to need a bigger table and a lot more plates, that's for sure.

[EMS] Level 225!

 

Way ahead of schedule! Lots and lots of generous 2x EXP Coupons were given out from events this week. I would've hit Level 225 before the Nova update arrives regardless, though.

I'll start my Arcana quests tomorrow, as it is quite a lengthy storyline (like any of the previous chapters in the Arcane River). At least that symbol is going to level much faster than my Lacheln's...

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post! Which will probably be next week, as my Monster Life is almost at Level 40. Can't wait!

[EMS] Eighth Legendary Potential GET!

Hi guys! In preparation for next year's Murgoth event, I've decided to take a small sidetrack to change what items I think would be best to get to Legendary first. Usually this wouldn't really "matter" that much as I would prefer to get everything to Legendary before I would start pouring lots of Meister cubes on everything, but having certain items on Legendary as soon as possible does mean I can add certain Legendary-tier lines to my active layout that I'm using right now.

As mentioned in my Mu Gong Soul Collector blogpost a few days ago, getting ten Mu Gong shards each day is unlikely to happen, even with an unrealistic amount of drop rate increase. However, any chance that I can increase, is better than leaving it as it is. I'm usually not one to choose to run % Item Droprate in my build, but with the Murgoth event, my own sense of honor would stand in my way of achieving what could otherwise potentially push me back another year if I don't make as good use of a short fourteen days of a single annual event. I know that the results are still heavily reliant on RNG, but I'd rather not miss this chance.

Fun fact: my Ani Pendant is a rare case of where my equipment has no scrolls on it yet. Readers with a perceptive observation would immediately notice that it has one failed slot on it, but nothing Clean Slates can't fix. My Ani Pendant (together with my Rex's Perfect Red Earrings) functions as a backup for Incredible Chaos Scrolls of Goodness (ICOG) from events, in case I wouldn't have any available slots left on equips I would be scrolling at that very time (i.e. Amaterasu's Hat having no available slots left while I have no mesos to purchase loads of Clean Slates) and to prevent the ICOG go to waste given it's usual expiration date of only 7 days.

Anyway, the % Item Droprate is just a small sidetrack in my build. By the time I have Level 2 Mu Gong in my Soul Collector, there's little use for me to keep those lines any longer. I will have to recube these items to perfection one day, y'know?

That's it for this small blogpost - I'll see you guys again next post!

[Other] Xenoblade X - 100% Survey Rate!

In anticipation of the third instalment of the Xenoblade franchise coming out in less than a month (Xenoblade 2), I've decided (like many other fans of this franchise) it's the perfect excuse to at least complete the Survey Rate on Xenoblade X before I get my hands on 2! My Survey Rate has been over 90% for the past year. I just had way too much fun building my character, and that has consumed at least two hundred hours, with still a few hundred hours left in sight.

A hundred percent Survey Rate in this game isn't "entirely" the same as completing the game 100%, as the Survey Rate only covers just the basics of the Mira world map. You also have achievements for the game, which requires much more (difficult) things to do, which one could argue that that's more like a true 100%.

Anyway, even if I'm done with the 100% Survey Rate, there's still a lot of things left in Xenoblade X for me to work on (building the perfect party with their own Skells each) - it's just an enormous time sink and I just have way too much stuff to do in my life. I'll definitely come back to this another day in the future, as I also have certain other things unfinished in the first Xenoblade game as well.

What do I think about Xenoblade X as a game? I think Xenoblade X is definitely an improvement on a lot of things that the first Xenoblade did "wrong" - this game just perfected the gameplay, added a ton of world and story building and in my opinion the world map of Mira (or well, as I prefer to believe, just one third of the entire planet so far if we look at the concept art) definitely was designed much more cohesive than the first game. If you loved the first game, get this one too. If you haven't played any of the Xenoblade games: get the first one, then get this one too. You can literally get both games on the Wii U (the first one as a digital download through the Nintendo eShop), as you probably do not want to pay crazy aftermarket prices for a physical copy of the first game.

Monolith Soft has definitely stepped up their game with X and has listened to feedback from the first game. And thankfully they are also brave enough to try out new things, rather than making all the games more or less the same. One of the first major improvements that caught my eye is the amount of late game content versus the previous game and the fact that nothing game breaking is truly missable in this game except for certain character fates in quests (or the two Miiverse achievements that will be permanently locked once Miiverse shuts down in a few days).

Of course Xenoblade X wasn't without its flaws (i.e. the reward ticket system and Nemesis bosses is definitely nice but it suffers from a declining player base as those content relies on an active community), but I'm sure that the next Xenoblade X game will have most of these solved again. It's just a shame that they won't bring out a patch just to make reward tickets become easier to get your hands on. Because this game will definitely suffer a lot when Nintendo will ever take down the online servers for this game in a far future, which is a shame...

Either way, Xenoblade X has definitely been an enjoyable ride and I'm looking forward to play Xenoblade 2 when I get my hands on my (obviously) pre-ordered copy. I've been following the news about this game on a daily basis for the past year and it definitely looks like Xenoblade 2 is in good hands. That's not going to be a lot of hours left on each day for anything else when it's here, I tell you...

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