December 31, 2022

[2022] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 12th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2023!

To me, 2022 hasn't seen much of a change compared to last year. It's been another busy and expensive year where most of my time was spent on my LEGO projects, or work on our Youtube/blog. Work has been piling up; mainly in the form of unfinished blogposts. Those that come to mind: the Xenoblade DE article and MapleStory's Destiny revamp.

Truth is, work on these blogposts have consumed my daily life for months on end*. After working on and off on the DE article for about one-and-a-half year, I parked it to work seven months on our Multirandomness video. After that, I've started writing the Destiny blogpost. By the time that blogpost is published, a total of two-and-a-half years have gone by; and I'm not getting that back. That made me reconsider to scale down the amount of time I spend on my blog.

Moving forward, I'm going to put the Xenoblade article on ice. After publishing the Destiny blogpost, I'm going to take a break from writing long blogposts. Because as it currently is, the amount of time I've spent on these things has gotten out of hand, and it's been detrimental to my health. Knowing myself, I'll probably continue and finish the article at some point in the future, but it's clear to me that I'm currently in no shape to do so right now.

*This is also why the amount of new blogpost has considerably decreased since 2020.

With that out of the way, let's get to those statistics of 2022.

The Youtube Department (Rayque3 Staff)

General
- Our 14th anniversary!
- Reached 13.660.000 total upload views!
- Reached 12.000 subscribers!
- Uploaded only two videos?

Huh, only two videos. Well, you got that Multirandomness video that I worked seven months on tirelessly. It's been out for eight months now and it's barely got any traction. Thanks, Youtube.

Meanwhile I produce another High-Dex Hero video in a matter of days and it has the same amount of traction in less time. Hmm.

And yes, I haven't forgotten about last year's tidbit. I'm afraid I don't have any news on that. Sometimes it do be like that. Stay tuned.

The following data is simplified in order to improve readability.

Analytics for this year (+% compared to gain in 2021)*
- Obtained 230.000 views (-23%). Previous year: 300.000 views (-35%)
- Obtained 2000 likes (-17%). Previous year: 2400 likes (-12%)
- Obtained 50 dislikes (-50%). Previous year: 100 dislikes (-38%)
- Obtained 330 shares (-30%). Previous year: 430 shares (-19%)
- Obtained 90 subscribers (-40%). Previous year: 150 subscribers (-31%)

*Youtube Analytics no longer tracks the number of comments gained.

Top 10 Most Viewed Videos for this year
2. [+0] Mario Party 7 - All Mini-Games (35.000 views)
6. [+1] Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses (6.300 views)
8. [-2] LEGO® CITY Undercover - Main Story (2.500 views)

Top 10 viewed countries for this year
1. [+0] United States - 85.000 views (37%)
2. [+1] Japan - 15.000 views (6,7%)
3. [+1] United Kingdom - 11.5000 views (5%)
4. [-2] Canada - 10.000 views (4,3%)
5. [+0] Brazil - 5.600 views (2,4%)
6. [+0] Mexico - 4.900 views (2,1%)
7. [+0] France - 4.800 views (2,1%)
8. [+0] Italy - 4.000 views (1,7%)
9. [+1] South Korea - 3.400 views (1,5%)
10. [-1] Germany - 2.500 views (1,1%)

Traffic Sources for this year
1. [+0] Youtube Search - 76.000 views (33%)
2. [+0] Homepage - 67.000 views (29%)
3. [+0] Suggested videos - 38.000 views (16%)
4. [+0] Playlist - 19.000 views (8,2%)
5. [+0] External - 7.500 views (3,2%)

Did you know...
- This year shares a content drought with 2017 to 2020? In these years, only two to three videos were released?
- That it's the first time in three years to see another entry in the Multirandomness series, and that it's the first time in two years to see another entry in the High-Dex Hero series?
- That it's the first time in three years to see any of Luxatus Patella's walkthrough videos in our Top 10 Most Viewed Video for this year? This is also the first time for any of his Harry Potter walkthrough videos to appear on the list!
- That this is the first time our Constructor sound effect video appears in our Top 10 Most Viewed Video for this year? Fun fact: that video was only made to provide a sound clip for the Constructor project, so it's weird to see such a low-effort video appear as one of our most viewed videos of the year.
- This is the fourth time Mario Party 7 - All Mini-Games isn't our the most viewed video of the year? Ever since its release in 2013, this video has been consistently the most viewed video of the year until 2018, where it lost to our Kirby Return to Dreamland video for that year and 2019. Mario Party 7 briefly reclaimed its throne for 2020, but has lost to our Subspace Emissary video since 2021.
- That this is the first time no changes in rankings are found in Traffic Sources for this year?
- That any of our growth predictions for 2022 were off? In last year's summary, it was expected that our LEGO CITY Undercover video would reach 100.000 views and that our Subspace Emissary video would reach one million views. Unfortunately, the annual growth of both of these videos have declined this year, so it hasn't reached those milestones quite yet. Maybe next year?

The MapleStory Europe Department

General
- Reached Level 266!
- My 10th anniversary for Ribgol!
- My 15th anniversary of playing EMS!

In-depth articles

Obtained
- Obtained the Yeti x Pink Bean title!
- Obtained the Abrupt Expert title!
- Obtained the Cursed Blue Spellbook!
- Obtained the Ancient Slate Replica!

Upgrading
- Upgraded my Ribgol's Additional Potential to Legendary!
- Upgraded my Princess No's Medal's Additional Potential to Unique!
- Upgraded my Berserked to Legendary Potential!
- Finished scrolling my Berserked!

5th Job - V-Matrix
- Obtained Crest of the Solar!
- Maxed out Crest of the Solar!
- Maxed out Erda Nova!
- Crafted and maxed out a new pair of Enhancement Cores for Raging Blow / Final Attack / Valhalla.

5th Job - Grandis Force
- Raised Cernium's Symbol to Level 9!

Union
- Upgraded my Union to a Total Level of 8652!
- Got my I/L to Level 246 during the Hyper Burning event!*
- Recreated my Bishop and got it to Level 220 during the Tera Burning/Breakthrough event!
- Got my Mercedes, Demon Slayer, Angelic Buster, Demon Avenger, Aran, Evan and Ark to Level 210!
- Got every character to at least Level 200!

*I should reach Level 250 with my I/L late January.

Remember, mule levels are free. Not only are Level 200 Storm Growth Potions free, Level 210+ characters are now also free. Why spend any time in grinding Union if you can go down the lazy road, instead? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Miscellaneous
- Started Housing! Got my Caretaker's stats fully maxed out.
- I've managed to solo Normal Guardian Angel Slime for the first time!
- Completed the Monad Mission board; I've obtained all Monad titles and medals.
- Our guild FallenAngel has reached Level 27! Accumulated a whopping total of 11.210.000 Guild Contribution, going past the 10 million barrier! Once again another perfect contribution score... can I pull it off again next year?

Well then. How much did last year's protests affect MapleStory in 2022? 

Barely. As I've predicted last year, the game state's a mess. While we've gotten a lot of long-overdue quality-of-life changes, none of the actual systems that needed a thorough change got one. At best, some minor improvements to Star Force and Potential but nothing spectacular. Monster Park Extreme and EXP for completing Grandis dailies are great and much-needed for 260+ but in MPE's case it's locked behind a ridiculous funding requirement. And at worst,
we've had the dumpster fire that were the Destiny and Ignition class revamps. Revamps that were received so poorly that in hindsight, Nexon gave up on their initial plan to update every class to 64-bits.

So, in short, nothing changed, and we're just doing the same ol' MapleStory shenanigans like always. What a surprise. Dare I even say that the protests hasn't earned the right to consider itself a substantial influence on the status quo, nor to have contributed to any major quality-of-life update or improvements to the relationship between Nexon and its community, simply because if we look at the game's extensive update history, none of it is really new or any different.

Setting that aside, I've enjoyed the newly introduced Housing content so far, but I do really dislike how event furniture are handled. The weighted drops and being at the mercy of RNGesus brings out the worst aspects of the game and throws it in side-content where it's out of place. Anyone that argues that "if you got unlucky with the event furnitures, try again next year" forgets that y'all said the same about the Murgoth event and that stopped after three years. And repeat events still doesn't guarantee anything to be different. You're probably going to end up with the same furnitures that you've found a dozen of times again. Event furnitures will eventually share the same fate as Adventure Rings, Sengoku Hakase Badge, Supreme Medals and LAB server blocks. Dare I say, it already has because those DJ Booth, Glimmering Mirror Ball and Ursus' Potted Lifetree aint coming back. And worse: the Jellyrash fish tank is unobtainable in EMS all-together. And for whatever silly reason, you can also no longer enter spaces or apostrophes for a custom house name, and there is no option to revert a custom house name to its default state (i.e. "Rayque's Home") either.

Anyway, for next year I'm looking forward to experience the sequel to Neo Tokyo and to casually start MapleStory M for that Union block. And since I've managed to find a reliable party to do Monster Park Extreme with, Level 270+ is now a possible milestone before next Summer. Yes, believe me when I say that the daily EXP gains have more than tripled since Ignition. Damn. If there's anything to call the best quality-of-life change in 2022, it would be that.

Next year, I should also finally reach my 10.000th Lith Harbor Commerci Voyage run. Also, if you haven't tried out Misty Island: it's a fun high-quality event. We don't get these kind of events often, and it's been a breath of fresh air.

The LEGO Department


General
- Still working on the Hailfire Droid (MK. 2) project!
- Still working on the Constructor (MK. 3) project!

Let's talk about my progress on the MK. Series.

MK. 2 - Hailfire Droid
The Hailfire Droid saw some unexpected strides. Let's start with the confirmation that shorter flip flops are no longer necessary, as I've found a workaround that keeps the build's structural integrity.

Not being satisfied with how bulky the "version 2" Hailfire Droid's wheels were, I've ditched the concept of using the three-wide tank thread pieces in favor of a different approach. With the introduction of the new panel pieces earlier this year, it is the perfect shape to get the wheels very close to how the wheels should look like.

Even better, a Technic set that comes out next year has already confirmed that there will be an adjacent panel piece that can replace the currently-used #3 angular connector piece. This will get the wheel design very close to perfection, and I'm very excited about it because it was the exact piece I was longing for. I can't wait for these to be produced in light-bluish gray, and I hope that I don't have to wait too long for them to appear in an upcoming set.

Also, most of the development this year was to redesign the diagonal supports between the head and the wheels, or "struts" as I often name them. Similar to the previous wheel design, I was not satisfied with how last year's struts were because they are not accurate enough to the source material. It's difficult to explain in words and neither do I know the exact terminology, but no matter from which angle you view the Hailfire Droid; whether from the front/back, from either sides or from above/below, the struts will always appear diagonal relative to the position of the head and wheels. 

It is a very specific shape, and a challenge to build structurally sound with LEGO pieces on such a "small" scale. There are no specialized pieces that matches the desired shape, so I've spent many months on trying different parts and different part combinations. Only a few weeks ago, did I stumble across a combination of CCBS and Bionicle pieces that works. I'm currently running placeholder colors, as I'm waiting for a Bricklink order to arrive.

Last, but certainly not least, the entire build should now be 100% legal. The previous method of connecting the wheels to the frame was dubious at best, and it took a while to find a method that doesn't slightly bend the parts. I've also tried to work on improving the gear train by reducing the space between the gears, but the parts required have yet to arrive in the mail. So seeing whether if that'll reduce the backlash in the gear train will be for early next year. Oh, and I've managed to fit an additional pair of lights inside the head, so the model now has the correct amount of glowing eyes!

MK. 3 - Constructor
I haven't been able to work on the Constructor this year, due to the aforementioned time-sink of the Destiny blogpost and focusing my efforts on the Hailfire Droid. However, there are a couple of interesting tidbits to share about it.

Last year I've made the expensive decision to purchase the latest Mindstorms kit to replace my old EV3. The latest kit uses Powered Up components, which have a considerably better form factor compared to older LEGO electronics. Because of that, Powered Up components are easier to securely mount into Technic frames and this greatly reduces the loss of (mechanical) power between axles and moving parts. That benefit has been a huge boon for development, because the model's large and heavy moving compartments have been problematic for the old EV3.

However, LEGO has confirmed this year that the latest Mindstorms will be discontinued, giving it the shortest lifespan of any of the four main Mindstorms generations*. This makes sense because the latest Mindstorms is identical to its predecessor SPIKE Prime. They are interchangeable with one and another, including its software. I just wanted to clarify that it's not going to affect the project's development because I can continue to use my Mindstorms unit and update it through SPIKE Prime's software, which will continue to receive support. It was weird that LEGO was doubling their costs by selling the same product twice, with the only discernable difference being the unit's color.

*Not including Micro Scout, Spybotics, Inventor's Record & Play, or its predecessors Cybermaster and Control Lab.

The other interesting bit to share is the new heavy-duty worm gear that comes out next year (which debuts in the Police Training Academy). This is going to be a direct upgrade to my current approach, as the new gears should fold out the Constructor's legs even faster. I'm happy to see that LEGO's been focusing on releasing more heavy-duty components lately, with 2019's splat gears and CV joint, 2020's larger Technic frames, last year's flip flops and this year's extra long frame, swashplate, and the expansions (i.e. connections) to the old rotation joints. It's made building larger models and heavier mechanisms so much easier. The Constructor would not have been the same without them.

Obtained
No new Mokarr parts this year, but I did purchase some interesting (but ridiculously expensive) unreleased parts for future LEGO projects. What may they be, you ask? You'll have to wait to find out...

As is tradition, here are a few sets that I got my hands on this year that are my personal favorites:


Forget LEGO's 90th anniversary and its related product line-up, because this year saw the release of what I believe to be one of the best LEGO sets of all time: #10303 Loop Coaster. It scratches that engineering itch and mechanical finesse that I've found in only few other LEGO sets, such as our good ol' Droideka.

The LEGO roller coaster pieces debuted in 2018, with the magnificent #10261 Roller Coaster as the flagship set. However, as great as it was at release, the chain lift suffers from a couple of devastating design flaws that makes a continuous loop (whether by hand crank or motor) impossible without modifying the set.

The design team has listened to the feedback as 2022's Loop Coaster has almost none of the flaws that the original has, because they've built a shorter drive train and got rid of the chain lift entirely. Then, not only did they expand the roller coaster system by introducing us to the much-needed loop components and elevated curves, they've also made the building process of the set far more engaging and interesting by using out-of-the-box and unconventional building techniques with the 2018 track pieces, to form a phenomenal track layout. If the 2018 coaster is magnificent, the 2022 Loop Coaster is almost perfection. It is precisely what I wanted to see from an official LEGO roller coaster.

Although because the LEGO design team does not want to use too much Technic for these roller coaster models, Loop Coaster does suffer from the same structural problems that the 2018 one has. You can't move the set without tracks popping off, and while the elevator is in theory a direct upgrade to 2018's chain lift, in practice it needs a stronger drive train, a heavier counterweight (i.e. should've used boat weights) and a better flywheel akin to 2020's Haunted House. They should connect track pieces through part 19159 and build a strong, rigid foundation block (akin to The Mountain Cave) that holds the entire set together. At least, that is how I would've done it. That said, if you do purchase the set, just make sure to keep an eye on the tightness of the elevator's belt and remove individual chain links to make the belt shorter if it loosens up too much. The two white rubber bands also need to be replaced after they wear out because the station's feeding mechanism stops working when the rubber bands become too loose.

Also, shout-outs to this year's City's Double Loop Stunt Arena and the Ninjago spinning tops. As a fan of toy gimmicks, I absolutely feel spoiled this year. The motorbike loop sets are prohibitively expensive, but I love these type of sets. Getting the motorbike to run through these loops takes some practice, though.

Also uhm... yes. I know about next year's Bionicle GWP. It looks awful. The build just doesn't work for Bionicle models. It worked really well for The Sentinel in 2014, but Tahu looks way too flat, blocky and his head is too small. I said this last year and I'll say it again: (pure) System doesn't work for Bionicle. SCCBS is good, but it just doesn't get the feel or appearance right. System sets are too high on the parts count and set weight, so that already eliminates favorable low price points. Such sets themselves also don't have the same rigidness as the old Bionicle or CCBS sets, as seen with this year's Spider-Man action figure having issues with slopes popping off after posing or rough play. This is why specialized pieces exist and why they should continue to exist. But I digress; you get the point.

Other


That's a lotta new games and artbooks, damn.

Xenoblade 3. As equally great as every other Xenoblade game. Starts out with the promise of potentially becoming the best game in the series, peaks way too early during the Fornis region and then falls flat in the last two chapters. Rushed way too quickly to its ending, has some serious pacing issues there as well. Combat and gameplay is a fascinating blend of the previous three Xenoblade games. If I had to describe the game in one sentence: it's diet Xenoblade X, or Xenoblade X lite. Hey, at least I got my question answered: I've always wondered what if Yasunori Mitsuda was in charge of a Xenoblade OST, since he was the composer for Xenogears. The result? Fantastic.

Continuing within the Xenoblade franchise, I've finally gotten my hands on the artbooks for the original Xenoblade and Xenoblade X. Those two were the ones I was still missing, and I can confirm that the Xenoblade X artbook is probably the best artbook available for the series. Art of Mira is a really large book, with over three hundred pages containing a combination of the in-game models and (concept) artwork made by Yasushi Suzuki. The book includes a section for unreleased content, some of which are most likely saved for a sequel. And a shout-out to the nice paper quality.

Inti Creates. Japanese indie developer that I've mentioned a couple of times before, mainly known for their work on the Mega Man Zero and ZX series. Last year I've started to take an interest in exploring more of their recent works, and that I did. Not too the extent that I've wanted though, given that most of my time went in the aforementioned blogposts and LEGO projects. But after I've wrapped up with the Destiny blogpost, I'm going to spend that break by catching up with the small "Inti Creates backlog" that I have. Now here's a hot take: Luminous Avenger iX2 is better than Gunvolt 3 and it's the closest we've been to a sequel (gameplay-wise) to the ZX series. If you know, you know.

And last but not least, I've come full circle with Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, which released this year. During my childhood in Japan, I've been fortunate to have experienced the birth of franchises like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. While Pokémon continued to stay relevant to my day-to-day life, Yu-Gi-Oh kind of faded away when I left the country until I started my study. There, someone reintroduced me to it and when I went abroad for my graduation assignment in 2017, I binged the entire anime series and grew an interest in trying out the card game. Problem was, getting into the TCG is not easy when you live in the middle of nowhere. But with Master Duel, I've found a platform where I can scratch that itch.

Modern Yu-Gi-Oh has all the ingredients I'm looking for: a brutal learning curve, unforgiving match-ups, never-ending optimization, and a continuous barrage of new cards and opponents to toy around with. And what better way to learn a ruthless competitive scene, by choosing a mid-tier deck to climb myself up the food chain? It can't be typical Rayque if I don't have an all-consuming gimmick that I can dedicate myself to. For MapleStory that's Ribgol, for Pokémon it's Rayquaza. For LEGO that might be Mokarr, and for Yu-Gi-Oh it is the Sacred Beasts. If you are ever matched up against a madman that uses a 60-card Sacred Beast deck on ladder, that may or may not have been me. Who knows.

But that's it for this summary! Luxatus Patella and I wish you a great 2023! Cheers!

That's it for 2022! I'll see you guys again next year!
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