[EMS] Neo - 5th Job's eighth wave!

The power of the suuuuuuuuuunnn! - Dave Rodgers, probably.

Released back in 2021, the Neo update brought us our next 5th Job skill: Crest of the Solar (COTS). For a while, it became the final 5th Job skill wave as later that year the Pangyo truck protests happened. This incident changed the course of the game forever, as it assigned Changseop as the next KMS director, who had different priorities in mind.

The next following years, we've had the Destiny, Ignition, New Age, Dreamer and Milestone updates. These updates placed a greater emphasis on fundamentally fixing the game, rather than padding the game with more 5th Job skills. 

More importantly, New Age saw the introduction of 6th Job. As our latest Job Advancement, sporadic releases of new 6th Job skills are now the next big thing. Thus, with all the attention going there, we haven't seen new skill waves until two months ago. This out-of-nowhere release has taught us that there's still a place for 5th Job in the modern era with the latest skill (Holy Fountain), as 5th Job is perfect for closing the gap between classes through new support skills.

In today's blogpost, we'll take a closer look at Crest of the Solar. I initially planned to publish the big 6th Job blogpost later this year after finishing the Destiny blogpost, but because Ouroboros had some unforeseen development issues, most of my time this year was lost fixing that. I'll start working on the 6th Job blogpost next year.

[Other] 64DD!

The commercials with the guy shouting Rokuyondīdī! will forever live rent-free in my head...

Causality. It's a thought process that I keep coming back to. As a hobbyist in both gaming and LEGO, an important moment in history that has shaped both hobbies was the cancellation of the SNES-CD. Without it, we wouldn't have had the Playstation and Nintendo's attempt to answer it: the 64DD. The 64DD's been on my wishlist for over fifteen years, and after a few failed attempts I've finally managed to save up enough for one and bought it earlier this year.

The 64DD is a Japanese exclusive add-on to the Nintendo 64. It adds a boot menu and a drive for specialized floppy disks to the console. These disks could either be games exclusive to the 64DD, or expansions for existing games. It was bundled with an online service, but the entire platform lasted only 15 months. Little over 15.000 units were sold.

Nintendo had big plans for the 64DD. It was intended to be released with the console, but it went through development hell. By the time it was ready, it was too late as the GameCube was already around the corner. Thus, the 64DD stayed in Japan. While it was planned to have dozens of disks developed for it, only ten ended up released: eight games, one expansion and one for the online service. The way the 64DD works and how it communicates with the console could warrant its own blogpost! Fun fact: when this add-on was available, I never even heard about it or saw it advertised at our local media store, despite living in Tokyo at the time. I didn't discover it's existence until the early days of Youtube.

Nintendo made sure that the short-lived 64DD wasn't in vain though, as they took the best ideas and repurposed them for the GameCube, Wii and DS. It's too much to go through for a blogpost, but there's a lot of good videos about it. It's hard to believe that if the contract between Sony and Nintendo didn't fell through, many of my favorite games wouldn't exist, and more importantly: LEGO wouldn't have gone nearly bankrupt. That's like, half of my niches and identity!

The F-Zero X Expansion Kit provides us an extremely comprehensive track editor. You can really go nuts with this one...

So, what's the reason why I wanted to have the 64DD? It's simple. Games! For some weird reason, none of these games have ever been re-released at all. Stuck on the 64DD. Doshin the Giant was remastered for the GameCube, but it's such a drastic departure from the original that it's hardly the same experience. But there's one 64DD floppy that eclipses all: the F-Zero X Expansion Kit! It's the sole reason to get a 64DD - the true killer app. It's ironically also the only expansion kit that came out for the 64DD, seeing as the 64DD was intended to have many more developed for it.

Talking about the F-Zero franchise warrants its own blogpost though, which I might do at some point. But I have to say, F-Zero X with the expansion is a significant upgrade. I think I might even prefer this over F-Zero AX, which I otherwise would've considered the best in the series. But speaking of AX... that's definitely going to be a story for another day.

But before I wrap up today's blogpost, I'll have to clarify that I'm not aiming for a complete 64DD library. While I have six out of the ten disks, Doshin 2 and Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 are not worth the insane price. I am planning to get the two other Mario Artists games at some point, though. There's also plenty of other N64 games that I want, but until then I'm going to enjoy my time with my good ol' friend, the Nintendo 64. Now fully decked out, the way Yamauchi intended.

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

[EMS] 17 years of Rayque!

Hi guys! Today's the 30th of September. I've been playing EMS daily for 17 years now!

Past year has been a wild ride. First year of 6th Job and it started out strong. It's a shame though that we have to wait a bit longer for the next skill wave, but Holy Fountain as our next 5th Job skill is fantastic. KMS has been substantially improving the game by addressing the many fundamental problems that were created in its early years. It continues to move forward, even if some decisions were difficult to make. If anything, Changseop's tenure is very much like Anna's.

Unfortunately I don't share that enthusiasm for EMS, looking back at the past year, or the three years after Anna left. In fact, management is in a worse state than between post-migration and Anna's temporary return. Sally was supposedly her successor, but left quietly at some point. Hyun (who's presumably Mjolnir) took over with Dennis and Inkwell joined earlier this year. Under their management, EMS has gone backwards and the future isn't looking great either. It's hard to be excited for any KMS update when the GMS team openly flaunts they might not implement any of it. Dare I say, it's become hard to be excited for anything related to EMS at all, in general. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Last year I expressed "if only they could do something about gear progression", and that happened. Potential in its entirety got reworked the same way that happened when Enhancement Scrolls became Star Force. The rework is a straight upgrade; you'll always have the maximum tier up rates, there's a guarantee on rank-ups and it even has the before/after choice for both Potential types. It no longer requires Maple Points - it's become mesos-only. This way it's no longer affected by the fickle Meso Market as pricing is now at a fixed rate. This is the update that Maple needed the most for over a decade. But as you know by now, only KMS has it. Other versions have no plans to get it, even though Maple Coin Exchanger pretty much is a direct upgrade revenue-wise. They killed their golden goose. What a shame.

If I had to make an educative guess for the future of EMS under the new management, is that Nexon's long-term plan for EMS is to consolidate Reboot with Luna and to reintroduce the original geo-blocking from 2007-2016. Reboot is on its way out, even here. I'm surprised it took them this long because Reboot repeats all of the same mistakes that the Supreme server did. It really is a repeat in history, although you'd be hard-pressed to find people that understand this. Knowledge on Supreme has always been esoteric. Anyone able to tell me the three revenue models for Supreme?

But why do I expect geo-blocking to return? It's because the GMS servers continue to siphon European players away. I can't imagine EMS staying financially viable for another decade, unless hard calls are made. Keep in mind that in only six years, we've gone from every channel almost full to more or less empty. Whales can only contribute so much.

According to the rankings, we've only had about 20.000 characters (not accounts or people) on Luna this September. Specifically, characters that have gained any EXP. This week, it's only been 6000 characters*. To give you an idea on how few 6000 is: every week I gain any EXP on about fifty. Granted, I'm an outlier in that regard. But with how Union artificially inflates the character count, we're realistically looking at only a few hundred weekly recurring players at best.

*I specifically keep Level 10 mules to be able to monitor these statistics. Next year we'll discuss how little EMS has recovered from the 2016 purge, as we'll be nine years pre-migration versus nine years post-migration. Yes, we're at that point in 2025. The post-migration numbers are concerning.

If there's anything most people seem to be unaware of, is that GMS/EMS is a small percentage in Nexon's revenue and that Nexon themselves report that it has a staggering operational cost for how little it generates. For that reason do I have a hard time believing a larger team and branching off the KMS roadmap can be financially justified unless they're planning to offset these costs by doubling down on monetization. The fewer players would need to pay more.

Anyway, don't forget that Changseop and Inkwell are both working under Wonky. Same plan. Although that doesn't mean that each team produces equal results. Obviously I'm curious to see the updates they're hyping up for the next two years, but I haven't forgotten the damage Inkwell and his prior did to MapleStory in its early years and how often EMS steered away from it. Fun fact: some KMS stuff we're not getting are those that changes Inkwell's old stuff. Oh.

Jokes aside, the last thing I want for EMS is to remain in a status quo. That's why I was excited for those major KMS updates, especially the rework for Additional Potential. With European Maple Points skyrocketing in price, it currently costs 400m (!) for a single Additional Potential reroll in EMS. And that price is only going up. It's also without the before and after selection. Imagine how expensive this becomes after totems are back, as that'll cause even more inflation. So much for addressing spawn modifiers over the past couple of years. All of that effort gone just for a quick buck.

And even if we dismissed the Potential rework, as far as basic changes from KMS are concerned, there's a lot we do not have. Guaranteed Potential rank ups, reduced Star Force costs, dynamic Boss Crystals, Maple Coin Exchanger, no more paid battle passes* and Sol Erda from Reward Points to name a few. Having daily caps for mesos and Sol Erda would've further helped to contribute towards an even playing field, get players to do dead content and combat inflation while also keeping the prices for staple goods in check. There's only one good roadmap: catch-up with KMS.

*These passes used to be generous and worth spending mesos on. Nowadays they are more expensive and stingy, and have outdated rewards.

I'm sure that the new World Tour content will be fun 'n all, especially considering we haven't had many good ones in years. It's just that in the grand scheme of things, we need those drastic updates more than World Tour fluff. Look no further than how quickly abandoned that budget-shattering Phantom Forest revamp became. And as far as expensive efforts go, it's such a shame to then also leave out parts of KMS updates. Destiny, Ignition and New Age started that roadmap in improving the game drastically and we would've continued that streak of good will with the Dreamer and Milestone updates, weren't it for all of this. Then we also have to talk about the inevitable "Inkwell spaghetti code"...

But I digress. Regardless, past year did see good progress. Level 285, two Hyper Burnings and 9000 Union. Most of my equipment has Legendary Additional Potential and there's only one Grandis symbol left until 290. Although within the current economy, it's starting to become really difficult to proceed much further. Trade restrictions are a pain, and those monthly (Reward Point) Additional Potential cubes are worthless since we should've had the rework by now. Both Star Force and Additional Potential have become such poor value that I'm better off redoing my equips, rather than continuing with what I have. As such in the next upcoming year, I'm expecting to have my first pieces of Eternal. 

Level 290 is likely to happen by the end of next year, as event EXP adds just enough to make that possible. Wouldn't be possible without (paying). As for 6th Job progression, Raging Blow VI is maxed out and I should have Sol Janus done before the end of the year. After that I'll max out Rage Uprising VI and start boosting some 5th Job skills. Next year we should have our guild Level 28 and have most of the Guild Castle unlocked. There's still a lot left to do, huh?

And let's not forget that this year also saw the release of the Destiny blogpost, which I was working on for almost two years. It's only been five months but KMS has introduced some changes that does solve some issues. Coincidence? Probably. But any change is any, and I'll gladly take them. That was the point of that post: to move (the game) forward.

Anyway, that's it for today guys. I'll see you guys again next post. The journey continues!

[EMS] Level 285!

Nice, and that unlocks the sixth Grandis symbol. Carcion's story was a bit clichéd at times, but the overall character development and story progression are good. I have a suspicion about what the writers are cooking...

I'll be monitoring the daily EXP yield for the next couple of weeks and estimate how long it'll take to reach Level 290. Hit Level 285 a few months earlier than expected, so I might be able to reach Level 286 before the end of this year.

Sol Janus is Level 24 and I'll need 60 Sol Erda to max it out. Assuming that High Mountain's 4x bonus EXP isn't as effective anymore past 285, I'm considering to keep my leftover Maple Points and start saving up mesos for Eternal. Plus, I've gone way over budget in Bugcat Capoo crossover items. This year alone I've spent over 30 billion mesos (!) in crossover events lol. Worst part is, I cannot transfer these to Rayque as long as the trade restrictions are at play.

By the way, it's unlikely that I'll have the 6th Job blogpost published this year. There were numerous unforeseen issues with one of my LEGO projects and that has moved most of my plans for this year to 2025. My health hasn't been doing great either, so productivity remains limited. Crest of the Solar's blogpost shouldn't take more than a few weeks. I think I'm going to aim for an October or November release. Writing that 6th Job blogpost however, is going to take a while.

Oh, and the next two High-Dex Hero videos are finished. One last quality-check and they're good to go.

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

[EMS] Level 284, Hyper Burning #4 and more!

Last month's blogpost has aged like milk. But in this case, that's a good thing.

After asking around I found a Maple Points supplier. It's not easy to find one in EMS because it requires Maple Point vouchers to be gifted, and gifting items from the Cash Shop can only be done by paying. It's the only way as a trade-restricted player to get your hands on Maple Points in bulk, as we don't have access to the Meso Market. Suppliers in Luna are also in high demand, as many trade-restricted players* are competing for the few that are left.

*Keep in mind that a large portion of EMS players are from The Netherlands, and that EU Reboot players are also participating in our Meso Market.

That said, I'm planning to only exchange mesos for Maple Points until I either hit Level 285 or max out Sol Janus. The reason for that is because of the exorbitant pricing of Maple Points. You see, the mistake on my end was assuming that the pricing on Maple Points have remained stable and affordable as it has been for many years. But with many players moving to Reboot and the trade restrictions at play, the pricing for 60k Maple Points over the past few weeks has been at least 7.5 billion, and peaked at 9 billion (!) mesos two weeks ago. That's quite the monthly expense.

For reference, that amount can buy you Eternal gear or one of the commander accessories. 9 billion mesos a month isn't impossible for trade-restricted players, but without being able to sell high-value equipment and expiring vouchers you have to resort to dozens of hours of meso grinding. That isn't worth my time, plus the inevitable release of Maple Coin Exchanger is going to further increase the value of Maple Points. Without dynamic boss crystals and Potential revamp, progression in Luna is only going to get worse as inflation remains unchecked. Which is one of the reasons why I've been considering to replace my Amaterasu set with Eternal, but I'll save the explanation for a future blogpost.

Anyway, I hit Level 284 on the 3rd of this month and I'm expecting to hit Level 285 in early September. The Dreamer update has been incredibly generous with EXP rewards. The Guild Castle update from TMS look fantastic; I hope we'll see that soon here. That one is definitely going to help making Level 290 a possible milestone next year, alongside the release of Angler Company this Winter. Speaking of Guild Castle, I've recently maxed out the Cache of Greed skills!

Furthermore, I've hit Level 260 on my fourth Hyper Burning character yesterday. I initially planned to burn Viper, but seeing as how effortless it became I've decided to work on characters with the best Union effects instead. This time I picked Zero and I'm preparing Mercedes for the next season. Oh, and expect two High-Dex Hero videos soon.

Before I wrap up, a couple of other achievements of note: I've obtained all of the Pharaoh Treasure rewards and my shoes went to Legendary Additional Potential. I've also maxed out my Arteria symbol! But because I have to focus my mesos on Maple Points, I can't level up my symbols for now. And yes, I'm close to maxing out my Odium and Shangri-La symbols. Will I have these maxed out before I unlock Carcion's? Find out next episode, on Rayque's Blog...

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

[EMS] Level 283, Sol Janus and more!

The Dreamer update is here, alongside the new 6th Job skills and High Mountain!

Dreamer improves the levelling speed yet again - it's only been a month since I've hit Level 283 and I'm already close to Level 284. Daily EXP has increased with the release of Sol Janus, and High Mountain adds another 4% (!) a week. That High Mountain 4x reward rate is nuts. At this rate, reaching Level 290 next year is definitely going to happen.

Although, that's what I'd like to have said, weren't it for trade restrictions. Since, y'know, Maple Points are required for High Mountain and that's only a problem for trade-restricted players. EMS is currently having the worst of three worlds with half-assed game updates, meaningless developer memos and tone-deaf community responses. I'm starting to run out of Maple Points soon, despite I saved up a decade's worth of Maple Points (hundred thousands). That's two levels less a year for the same amount of effort, for absolutely no good reason. This damn country won't stop being a pain.

For many months I've been trying to write at length about the current direction EMS is heading, and how it's starting to buckle under a multitude of bad decisions that's been piling up since the 2016 migration. However, each time I end up finding myself just discarding all of that. Today was no exception. Truth is, writing about it makes me feel miserable. If I had to pinpoint my breaking point, it was Inkwell's return and his first decision to cancel the Potential revamp, to gloat about it and seeing players praise that snake feels like a dystopian nightmare. Doesn't bode well for future updates.

The decline of EMS at the hands of GMS is not a subject matter I really can avoid, but I prefer not to spend time on it because I already have enough on my plate as it is. To me, undying loyalty is everything. That is what having autism means. Expertise is your life, your identity and your only source of happiness. To be more machine than man. But to see decades of that remain unfulfilled is incredibly unrewarding. To be denied results because it's entirely in the hands of others is inhumane, and to be berated in every step of the way makes it worse. That's the godforsaken environment my entire life is, and nothing is exempt from that fact, not even those 202 months on Maple. Just let me cook, dammit.

That said, I'll do what I can. I've spent 18 billion mesos in Sol Fragments to secure Sol Janus Level 30, because I can't spend the mesos elsewhere (Guild Castle smuggling can only do so much). Maxing Sol Janus should be everyone's highest priority right now; it'd be foolish to do otherwise. Its return on investment is unmatched, as it makes every other progression faster, including 6th Job itself. Of course I've been thoroughly examining our 6th Job skills in preparation for that 6th Job blogpost. You'd be surprised to hear that Sol Janus Dawn is absolute dogwater compared to Dusk.

And last but not least: lots of Additional Potential cubes from events, so there's been three rank-ups to Legendary. It's certainly going to help, but not by much. Aside from these events, the lack of Potential revamp just puts everything to a complete standstill. I just find it baffling how everyone accepted the pitiful five monthly non-black bpot cubes with open arms, whereas they should've asked their "lord and savior" why he didn't give us the Potential revamp instead. The joke about "taking a different route from KMS" is that it goes both ways. Or if history taught us anything, only one way.

Anyway, I'll get back to work. I've finally managed to get that mechanism to work, somewhat. The beginning, at least. It's not quite there yet and there are still a couple of things to figure out before I can truly consider it "functional".

But that's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post.

[EMS] And the final Monster Life follower count is...

562!

Today is the last day for Monster Life ("ML" for short), which ends with the Dreamer update tomorrow.

Seeing as my old Monster Life blogpost is this blog's most read post (over 3000 views!), I thought it would be nice to dedicate a post looking back at Monster Life and how that blogpost contributed towards this incredible follower count.

Back when I wrote that blogpost, I took the opportunity to share some of my thoughts about the system and gave it a little review of sorts. Although at the time I had no idea that this post would become a popular makeshift Monster Life guide, since this happened to be one of the few English pages about it. Of course, nowadays there are far better and up-to-date ML guides out there, but the particular tidbit of Pharoah Mummy service sent a lot of players to my farm.

You see, Pharoah Mummies are a very important staple for grinding levels in Monster Life. When combining it with a Rank A Yeti and Pepe, there is a small chance of producing the Pharoah Yeti offspring. Pharoah Yeti's are coveted for its EXP boosting effect, which made it a must-have for anyone that wanted to reach higher levels on Monster Life.

The problem however that I faced back in 2017*, was that Monster Life is unfortunately highly dependent on a large active community. Maintaining specials was already starting to become a problem back then, and I foresaw it would only become worse with the increasing growing popularity of Reboot causing a sharp decline in Luna's population.

*Keep in mind that progress on Monster Life was reset with the migration of November 2016. We had to start from scratch... again.

Seeing as I'm in the unique position of forever playing this game daily, I took the opportunity to maintain ten Pharoah Mummies indefinitely, which in turn helped to keep more players aboard. Especially during the past couple of months. With so many players trying to reach Level 40 last minute, I saw over 50 new followers this year alone! Although if you asked me back in 2017, I wouldn't expect to end up providing Pharoah Mummy service for 8 years right up to the end.

Monster Life is unfortunately closed rather unceremoniously... Not everything will be transferred over to Union Artifact, and somewhere I kinda wish Nexon tried harder to fundamentally fix Monster Life first before replacing it. However, its successor as a whole is a much better system, and because our small European population didn't allow us to do much with Monster Life to begin with, tomorrow's upgrade to Union Artifact is going to be all the more noticeable.

Anyway, Monster Life, you shall be missed. Gone too soon, but still lived longer than Veracent, the Supreme server and Monad combined lol. Wait, why isn't Urus removed? And we're only getting half of Dreamer's update, leaving out the most important changes we've seen in over a decade? Dang it. That's a can of worms I'll save for another time...

But back to building I go. Same thing as last month. I kinda want to have this thing working in less than two weeks. Consider it a soft deadline, if you will. Don't forget to check out the Destiny blogpost if you haven't already, by the way.

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

[EMS] Level 282, and a lot more!

Ding! Time for this (and last) month's news roundup. We'll start with last month.

A week before publishing the Destiny blogpost, I've finally hit a Total Union Level of 9000! As always, the levels on my mules are almost exclusively done with level up potions. In fact, all of my selected Union characters are already past Level 210! With the abundance of these level up potions, it won't take long until I have every class past Level 210... Oh, speaking of which! In February's blogpost I forgot to write that I've obtained the Abyssal Expedition Union block.

Towards the end of April, I've hit Level 282. Still on schedule for Level 285 before the end of the year. I still gain over 1% every day with all the (event) dailies. It's a shame though that Guild Castle's Cache of Greed has been bugged for three weeks now (monsters do not provide EXP). That's not the only content that was broken with this month's patch, as Commerci no longer keeps track of monsters defeated (no bonus Denaros can be obtained). Bug fix is taking long.

At the start of this month I've maxed out Raging Blow VI! Finally. That took a while (about five months). I'm now saving up Sol Fragments for the next skill wave (Sol Janus and Rage Uprising VI), as it's not worth spending them elsewhere. I'll further elaborate on that conundrum in the upcoming 6th Job blogpost. I do not have an estimate for when I'll start writing either the Crest of the Solar or 6th Job blogposts, but I still intend to have them out later this year.

And last but not least, I've maxed out my Hotel Arcs symbol last week! Ya know, seeing how long it takes to reach 285, I'm expecting to have every other Grandis symbol maxed out before unlocking Carcion's... That would be awkward.

Anyway, back to building I go. There's still a lot yet to be solved, and in the past thirteen months I've been trying to get one particular mechanism to work. Although I am getting closer each time I work on it, so it's just a matter of time now.

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

[EMS] Destiny - Remastered Hero

"You may find these books particularly interesting, Adversary. Individually, they're glimpses into the origins of things. A bit incomplete, but a serviceable accounting. But taken together, they tell a story about how those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes." - Darmoa

I hate change, because it rarely is an improvement. More than often, Nexon makes the right calls when revamping Hero. If you're familiar with my blogposts, I'm usually positive about these updates because I tend to agree with the changes made as I understand them. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Destiny. It made Hero objectively worse.

The revamp is rushed, poorly thought out and should've been at least a month longer in development. In fact, Nexon admitted after its release that, in hindsight, the workload was too much and that they were short-staffed. Furthermore, the initial reveal trailer and test server over-promised what this revamp would bring, as it proposed a far better deal than what we ended up getting. They threw out thirteen years (!) worth of revamps out of the window with this one.

To make matters worse, Destiny as a revamp had more emphasis on player-based feedback than what came before. Any related forum quickly became a dumpster fire as it mainly garnered loud players with a lack of knowledge on the subject matter. Result? None of the right demands were made, and even when it rarely happened, it would never see the traction needed to be noticed by Nexon. And as a response to all of this, Nexon overcorrected by releasing too many shortsighted hotfixes back-to-back in an attempt to please the crowd, resulting in a jumbled mess of a revamp.

Because of that, the changes made to Hero are either a hit or miss. Only few changes are great, but most have been a downgrade for reasons I will explain. This revamp shows how much missed potential it was, how much has been forgotten about Hero's changelog, MapleStory's history, why things are as they are, and how easy it is to fix most of it.

Throughout this entire process, from the update's reveal to wrapping up this blogpost, I've been upset at the lack of knowledge and awareness the Hero community has on this game. I've been frustrated at how it negatively influenced the revamp. I've been disappointed in Nexon blemishing their otherwise great track record of Hero changes, and I've felt embarrassed as a bystander to see this entire debacle unfold. To that, I'll say: no more. I can either choose to keep complaining from the sidelines and lose my sanity, or I can make the best use of my experience and knowledge, and try to make things right. Two years later, and Hero is still a mess. It only further justifies the need for this blogpost.

In today's blogpost, I will examine the remastered Hero and give a critique on what we got. The discussion includes the changes introduced with the Ignition update, and those found in the update between Savior and New Age. Anything released after New Age will be saved for the dedicated 6th Job blogpost later this year, unless it's relevant to the discussion. As 6th Job builds on top of the Destiny revamp, consider that blogpost to become a continuation ("part two") of this one, as I'll be examining whether 6th Job addresses any of the issues caused by the Destiny revamp.

But to summarize, before we dive into the abyss: the Destiny revamp isn't well executed, as it fails to equally distribute its attention, changes and quality. It made for an unfinished end result, where certain parts of Hero had lots of work done on it, while others were left unchanged. There have been genuine attempts to solve some of the growing pains, but most of them are simply not enough. Believe it or not: some of these attempts made the end result even worse.

Of all the blogposts I've written in the past thirteen years, while this is not the longest blogpost I've ever written, it is the longest one that got published. But to say that writing this article wasn't fun would be an understatement. It had all the hallmarks of development hell and scope creep. I've been working on it on and off over the past 21 months, and I had to rewrite it at least thrice*. Let's see if this over 140 pages behemoth with 60000 words is going to make a change.

*You can read about how the writing process went at the end of the blogpost, in chapter 9.1. But keep this time frame in mind, as parts of this blogpost were written prior to any changes introduced during Ignition, Savior or New Age. I've done my best to update outdated bits as much as possible, but there may be a few that slipped through the cracks.

[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!

[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!

[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!