[EMS] Spirit Caliber MAX! Silent Cleave MAX!

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

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

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

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

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

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

[2025] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

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

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

[EMS] Level 290! Guild Castle: Personal Research MAX!

One milestone at the start of the month, the other five minutes before it ends. At least, that was the case until daylight saving time (DST) pushed it past twelve o'clock, meaning this happens on the 1st of December. Oops. But as far as Maple's concerned, it technically is still within November as reset o'clock happens after this milestone. Fine, I'll allow it.

Level 290 is the big achievement of the year (it happened on the 6th of November), though it was guaranteed thanks to the amount of event support all-year round. The only thing I had to do was to participate and be diligent with dailies. Y'know, which for a creature of habit is easy. As DailyStory continues, let's see how many levels will happen next year.

The other achievement this month is quite a significant one that I've been working towards since its release. This week is the first official week where completing Guild Castle's Personal Research is possible*. It was easier said than done. 

*Interestingly, because the Personal Research skill tree was expanded within its first year (to accommodate for 6th Job and update the Cache of Greed to match Odium), it was never possible to have the original tree maxed out because it required about one-and-a-half year to unlock all of it.

You see, Personal Research is one of those long-term commitments that requires years of weekly attendance. You'll have to clear at least 5000 enemies in the Cache of Greed, turn in this weekly mission, start the Personal Research and then also claim it after a week has passed. The latter is the tricky part, because to log-in at specific times can be difficult when it must be done manually every week for two-and-a-half years. In practice, this log-in moment is often pushed back minutes or hours each week, which are made worse by (emergency) maintenances and DST. This is not a new problem, as this phenomenon is an inherent flaw of the type of (daily) reset it's using, which is a system that has been around since 2007. Yes, (daily) resets have been around for that long, and this wasn't even Maple's first attempt.

Anyway, for those two-and-a-half-years you'll receive plenty in return. At least, for Maple's standards, that is. The EXP per Cache of Greed monster is the highest in the game. Combined with Monster Park Extreme and Angler Company, that's still over 1% every week at Level 290 - excluding dailies. On top of that, dozens of Nodestones and Fragments to buy upgrades with. All of it adds up over time, and I certainly wouldn't have reached Level 290 this year without it.

Speaking of upgrades, the cooldown resets upon boss entry has been a huge boon. With so many characters above Level 250 thanks to the abundance of Hyper Burnings, they make short work of the small fry. I also forgot to mention that earlier this year I've levelled my Hayato to 260 through Mu Lung's Night Troupe, and I've decided to push my Sia to Level 260 for faster weekly bosses. Speaking of Mu Lung... You may be surprised to hear that after obtaining Level 2 Mu Gong, my collecting habit for Mu Gong shards continued and that's how I've supplied my army of mules with Mu Gong souls. Anyway, that's three billion mesos every week and my equips now have 18 Star Force... pretty good.

But you know what's not pretty good? The aftermath of the second purge. You may recall I kept track of the numbers, so I was able to compare it with the rankings after this purge. I expected Reboot to be hit much worse than Luna, but it seems my expectations were off. Reboot (Kronos) lost 800.000 characters, which is a lot, but relative to seven million, that's not even one-seventh. Compared to Luna, we lost one third (960k → 680k). Solis got a slap on the wrist (700k → 660k), so that rules out a lack of European player retention. It's depressing to think that our secondary server will be the larger server by proxy, or that we're less than one-fifth of what we used to be. The aftermath of the past nine years under Nexon US is getting a bit ridiculous, and I can't imagine it's going to be any better once Classic is added to our world selection list. Their expenses are at an all-time high and with how little effect it has on their returns, there barely is a sense of profit. I doubt that there's even a real plan for us past 2027, other than trying to see if any of their monthly experiments stick. It's hard to believe that any of this is sustainable, but I digress. It's pay to lose, y'all. Remember that.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post. Metroid Prime 4 will be out in four days. Let's see if it's any good.

[EMS] Level 289, and a lot more!

Hi guys! Time to catch up on a bunch of stuff that has happened since late July.

October is usually the busiest month here with the games I play running their annual Halloween events. In particular, the contracts from Team Fortress 2 is a diabolical time sink and they get worse by the year. But I digress. With these tasks done, I should be able to start working on next year's Galidor blogpost. That said, I can only occasionally work on it as I'm too exhausted from all kinds of things. But give it some time and it'll be ready before you know it.

Now, let's talk about the latest achievements. Exactly two months ago, I've reached Level 289. As of today, I'm already past 66%! With the current event providing plenty of VIP Boosters, 3x EXP coupons and Advanced EXP Vouchers, I'm expecting to reach Level 290 next month. There's going to be another major milestone in November as well.

As for 6th Job, I've maxed out Incising VI and Aura Blade VI. What's left are Spirit Caliber and Silent Cleave. After that, I'll bank my Sol Erda (Fragments) and start upgrading my Union Champions. I'm currently at a minimum of two billion mesos each week, which can buy a lot of progress. I have enough to purchase one of the Limbo/Baldrix Eternals, but I'd rather wait for lower prices as they have been declining in value for a while. Folks can't get them sold, y'know.

Speaking of equipment: all of the essentials have Legendary Potential. There's still a handful of Additional Potential left to rank up, as that's limited by events because we aren't allowed to have proper updates. Eh, it's just a matter of time.
I should be able to solo Black Mage and Hard Seren now, but at the moment I can't be arsed. I'll do those next year.

Union progress has been going surprisingly well. I got lucky with finding a large number of Pitched Boss this year, so my Wild Hunter is coming along nicely. I'd rather not buy gear from Auction House because I can source most of these myself. Union Champions is really a long-term thing, and I treat it as such. As for Union levels, I've reached 9500+ and my Marksman and Bowmaster are Level 260. Sia from Challenger World got past Level 250. Thanks, I hate this class.

Anyway, I've procrastinated enough. Now that my schedule's free, I'll be spending the next three weeks contacting everyone to get their accounts unflagged, as discussed last month. To be honest, I'm dreading some conversations I'll be having (not everyone was on board last time), but the alternative (doing nothing) is much worse... Well, off I go.

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

[EMS] 18 years of Rayque!

I hope you've brought your gokiburi hoi hoi plus today, because you should've brought the whole damn aisle.

Today is day 6576, the 30th of September - which means I've been playing EMS daily for 18 years now!

As promised in last year's blogpost, I'd like to take the opportunity to continue the evaluation about the state of EMS. In particular, this year is very important historically as it's the point of equilibrium where EMS has been as long under its current management of Nexon US as it has under Nexon EU. The contrast between these two nine year tenures is concerning at times, and while I would love to write a more in-depth post I just don't have enough time for that.

However, what I can do for today's blogpost is to write a concise evaluation that probably communicates the point a lot better than something of the length of last month's blogpost. Besides, a more casual conversation like this might be a good palette cleanser after all that raw data. I can always revisit certain topics that we'll discuss today in a future post. With a more casual approach to this blogpost, I'm also just going to be yapping in a less organized, impromptu matter.

So, I'll just rip the band-aid off by addressing the Shrelephant in the room: EMS has not been performing well under the current management of Nexon US. You'd be hard pressed to find people who would disagree with this statement. 

I do believe this is a well-understood fact, but what is not is how damaging Nexon US and its community has been to EMS. Understandably not the prettiest topic to discuss, but it is unavoidable in today's topic given we'll discuss how little EMS has recovered from the migration purge and why that is. Understand that this topic is nuanced but I'll try my best to write it as best as I can within the week I've given myself. To my surprise, this wasn't the type of blogpost I was expecting to write because I was saving it for an autopsy whenever EMS kicks the bucket - yet here we are.