[EMS] Carcion Symbol MAX, Hyper Burning #5!

Hi guys! Time for this month's news roundup.

I've maxed out Carcion's symbol, which was faster than I expected. Because symbol selectors are readily available from events all year round, it only took five months. It could've been faster but I opted for rewards of a higher priority because I'm going to continue daily quests for their EXP, anyway. That said, I have yet to pay the required meso fees to unlock the final levels as the mesos are better spent elsewhere - it'll make more sense as I'll explain later this year.

The fifth season of Hyper Burning (and the Milestone update) wrapped up about two weeks ago and it was slightly more challenging than the previous two. You see, what sets apart the fifth season from the others is that you could Hyper Burn up to two characters - one being either Aran or Eunwol, as part of their class revamp during this update.

Seasons three and four of Hyper Burning were rather trivial as the combination of daily EXP and event support meant you could easily reach Level 260 within the event period. However, daily EXP is only for one character and Milestone's event support was not as generous as last season, as the change in events into the second month reduced the overall EXP yield. I also wanted to maximize the EXP yield for my main as Level 290 is currently the most important goal in the game right now, so I did not waste any EXP voucher or growth potion on the two Hyper Burning characters.

Manual grind on the second character was simply unavoidable, though it wasn't as bad as the original two Level 250 Hyper Burning seasons because New Age reduced the EXP to Level 260 significantly. That and Eunwol has access to Loaded Dice and Soul Splitter. Furthermore, 3x EXP coupons are now standard and we ended up with so many VIP Boosters that I couldn't even use all of them on my main with that daily limit. The surplus went to both burnings and by the time they hit Level 260, I still had dozens left that expired as these boosters were only usable during the event.

For this season, I picked Mercedes and Eunwol specifically for their on-grid Union effects. It was my plan to select future Hyper Burnings the same way, but as the NEXT update (pun not intended) introduces Union Champions, I will now select Hyper Burnings based on which classes I want as Union Champions. You might be surprised to hear I'm almost going exclusively bowman for this, however if you've been an avid reader of my blog it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm selecting characters based on my knowledge and experience with this game. Though the selection process is an entire blogpost on its own, the succinct explanation is that all pre-2011 bowman have the easiest time bossing because they attack from a distance, hold-down attacks allow for the best response time and they all have either heal on-hit or an aggro puppet. For Union Champions I'm not going to be messing around and there's no reason not to pick the best classes to take full advantage of one's proficiency. Better be caught well-prepared for this one.

Anyway, I should be Level 287 next month, so I'm still on schedule to 290 at the end of this year. I'm expecting to work on the 6th Job blogpost soon as I've done enough research and development on Ouroboros until the March parts (i.e. this and that) are available, though with the DEX releasing next month, some more medical status quo limbo, Cyber Shadow finally having a physical release soon and the Switch 2 around the corner, I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to get done before NEXT arrives. Oof. I've been doubting for a while if I should combine the two blogposts. As I've alluded before, the upcoming skill wave is so intertwined with the first two that it's difficult to examine any of these on their own. So the plan is to just write as much as possible and see where we go from there. I'll keep y'all posted.

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

[EMS] Milestone - 5th Job's ninth wave!

Finally, a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

Before delving into the 6th Job territory, there is one 5th Job skill left to discuss. Released after the Milestone update, Holy Fountain is the latest 5th Job skill after a three year hiatus. As alluded in my coverage of Crest of the Solar, Holy Fountain proves that there's still a place for new 5th Job skills in the current 6th Job environment.

Even though Holy Fountain is a 5th Job skill available to everyone, I would go so far as saying it's one of the better 5th Job skills, period. In today's blogpost we'll take a look at Holy Fountain, alongside a quick coverage of changes made to Hero's skills and examine how much any of this update addresses the Destiny revamp.

Reminder that this blogpost will act as a prelude to future 6th Job blogposts, but as with the COTS blogpost, it is not mandatory to have read either in advance. Where necessary, I will refer back to this blogpost in the same way I have referred back to certain chapters of the Destiny blogpost in the past.

[2024] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 14th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2025!

2024's been more or less much of the same as last year. It's been rough, but I'll manage. At least in terms of progress on my LEGO portfolio I've made some promising breakthroughs thanks to the financial aid that started last year. It's a small victory, but there's still a long and arduous road ahead.

The past couple of months have been busy, hence the lack of the usual Maple updates or anything related to the one LEGO project (Ouroboros) I've spent most of this year on. This year summary will double as a bit of a catch-up, but I'll definitely revisit these topics in future posts so that they are properly recorded on this blog. Keep in mind that because so much time went into Ouroboros this year, a lot of plans for this year couldn't happen. Sometimes it do be like that.

In my ongoing efforts to find a healthier balance with how much time I should be spending on my blog, I am going to scale down these year summaries moving forward but also take a more casual approach; matching my usual writing style. The statistical side of these summaries requires the most amount of work, and seeing as our Youtube channel has been plateauing in viewership and subscribers for many years now, I'll stick to only the interesting figures instead. 

That said, I will share my plans for the next few months of blogposts. Because it involves LEGO, MapleStory and this blog, it made more sense to discuss that here seeing as the year summary covers all topics of interest.

[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!