[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.