guy who doesnt know anything plays a game

howdy,

i'm just a guy that used to play original maplestory when they were a kid. never went hardcore, don't think i got a character much above level 40 if even that. still put a lot of time and love into the game, to the point i "accidentally" stole 100 bucks from my mom to get a NX card at the store. good times.

i have a routine of falling back into MS every like 2-4 years or so, usually for just a week or two. this current run's been lasting longer than most, nearly a full month now.

i've been having fun poking around the newer classes on the official server, being surprised what's clicked with me. (been having a blast with corsair of all things, only having tried it out to recreate a character i like -- i know it's not a "new" class but it is to me, anything that's not the original 4 explorers is scary and strange territory :'D )

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somehow, the thought of old school servers never even occurred to me until very recently. ML was the first to show up when i searched, and, here i am.

i almost scared myself away from playing by looking into the guides here. there's almost too much information on optimal play :'''D i had to remind myself that i'm not here to play optimally, i dont need to plan things out for years in advance, i'm here to hold a button for 10 seconds until a single enemy dies and repeat, like the good old days.

like the good old days, i'm going bishop (or at the very least aiming for cleric). i might make a corsair one of these days, though i have no clue how they play in old school and im not very fond of the idea of spending hours and hours to find out if i like the playstyle to begin with :'D

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i currently have a level 18 mage. been bouncing between guides and just mindlessly grinding and wandering, honestly having a great time. having that direct comparison of exploding 20 mobs with a single button press on official VS taking 20 seconds to kill a slime on ML is amazing. i had honest to god heartrate-raising fear accidentally falling into a pit surrounded by boars, mashing my potion key as fast as possible as i tried to jump out of there. it was great!!!!

it's scary running into actual people while playing, since I usually withdraw into the least populated servers and channels on official to avoid others. especially on a smaller server that seems to be mostly populated by very dedicated people, IDK, it's just kind of intimidating.

uhhhhhh anyway, enough yapping for now. probably will not be the last yappost, i wanna have a consolidated place for my goals (cosmetics/dressup!!) and guides i'm using (though i dont think i can link anything til i make a couple more posts ) and other general fun points of comparison or silly issues i run up against (i spent 5-10 minutes trying to research where the hell you buy pet food x_x)
i also might draw some things idk, i love making/drawing weird little guys <3

links for my own reference:
bishop guide
training guide
beforebigbang
owlrepo
pathfinder

 

yeah not being able to max everything SP wise is stressful, been very thankful for Latte's bishop guide to hold my hand through it :'D
monster card hunting sounds really fun honestly, i've had a nice time just wandering the maps and seeing where all the weird dead ends go and just spending time with mobs and maps that i dont get the time to appreciate on the official server. had no idea monster cards gave a reward at the end, seems like a nice solid goal to work towards!
(most doodles i got rn are of official server content but ill try to cook up some more "relevant" things to post here )

oh wow, had no idea about those commands, those're super helpful!! i might poke around more of the guides once i have a bit more of my bearings on the basics so i dont get too overwhelmed haha

 

thank you, and thats good to hear :'''D was worrying about standing out being the clueless casual haha

not sure i'll be brave enough to be joining any parties any time soon but it'll be nice as an option, haha but it does seem like people're rather nice here

uhh to yap about my current game progress, just about to hit level 27! i do kind of want to do KPQ before i outlevel it but im not sure there's people to do it with? :'D in any case i need to watch an old video to remind myself of how it all works. one of my most fond memories of original MS was fighting to get noticed and added to a party for KPQ, but then having people clamber to invite me once i became a cleric. makes you feel pretty cool when you're like, 10, haha

!!--!!

as i was writing this idling in kerning city i was invited to join KPQ with someone i still cant share images yet (i think this is my last post before that restriction is lifted) but thank you kind soul for reaching out through the screen as i was typing this somehow <3 <3 we're still waiting on a third but hey i have high hopes

 

i played kpq for FOUR AND A HALF HOURS until i got to lvl 31 i had such a great time

someone very kindly invited me (he hadn't done KPQ in a long time either so we were both going kind of blind which reassured me that it was OK to not know everything ahead of time)

Spoiler: fast/jittery gif

we found a silly jump spot and kept going back jfkdlsafk;dls

after a couple hours we ran into another 3-person group doing KPQ so we merged for a full party!


(waiting for them to solve the barrel puzzle, accidentally cute screenshot )

i hit level 30 and had to shuffle off and remember how the h*ck you job advance in classic :'D it ended up being harder to find the instructor than the actual job itself


i eventually figured it out and the one who invited me that i've been playing with shouted me out

someone even complimented my name which made me happy, i'm glad there's people of culture here

alas, the level cap came all too soon (and it was also nearly 4 in the h*cking morning) so it was time to say goodbye T_T

have no clue if any if you use these forums or will ever see this but thank you all for giving me such a wonderful night <3

 

oh, no, is that a thing? i had typed up a long post with pictures sharing the KPQs i did and who I did them with but if thats frowned on here i'll keep the screenshots to myself

 

was mostly concerned of people not liking screenshots taken and posted of their characters without permission, unless I was misunderstanding what Jean was saying since most all of my screenshots were of my entire party as we were doing the PQ

 

its the workweek for me, so no more 13 hour days for a bit my ML has mostly been futzing with my FM shop (furiously looking up prices and praying that this junk gets sold since i have no room!!!!!!!!!) and slowly, slowly chipping away at this accursed quest that is eating my soul
i feel like im too far into it to turn back now but boy howdy i wish i was doing something else!

got to level 32 at least

 

wait real???? man i need to keep that in mind for next time ty!! (though im so unfamiliar with how to go anywhere outside of victoria island fjklasjfk;sdl and its so frustrating trying to look up info even on bbb, ill need to face that fear eventually)

i did finally get the rest of them! the last like third were a lot easier than the first majority of them and took like half as long


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it is the weekend (for me) finally so more irresponsible fixation! been spending too much time looking into stuff during the workweek anyway (went to bed late like 2 or 3 times cause i couldnt stop thinkin about this damn stuff)

i got a project or two started but ill save writing a whole thing up for that tomorrow since im about to pass out lol

 

ok hello good morning
so

idk exactly where or how but i got sucked into the vortex of researching odd jobs even though a lot of them tread the same territory it was really interesting how many there were and how varied they could get despite limitations

two of them called out to me, first the swashbuckler (though maybe only because one of the alternate names for it was "cowboy" and i have a contractual obligation to fixate on anything related to cowboys, like it was the reason i tried out corsair in official maple). i made one and i might invest more time into him later (after dressing him up maybe...) but there was another calling my heart even more strongly:

the pistolwhipper
say hello to my beautiful idiot son



i've tried to do so much research but besides the blurb on the oddjob website describing the job and a few odd (heh) posts only trying to categorize the job, there really isnt much info out there on how this job even works or what stats pistol whipping uses. i had to make a quick test character (RIP piswhip) to see whether or not DEX or STR was ideal (STR is the winner) as the initial damage upon job advancement is uhhh



1-2 against mobs with no w.def, 1 against all others (including even red snails) so it was a bit tough to even know which stats were doing what, if anything

after the gravity of the situation sunk in, my next priority was to single out which mobs to focus on and what areas that would be possible. unfortunately, there are no maps to my knowledge (after leaving maple island) that only feature low level mobs with 0 w.def, so each map is a compromise. you would think that the lith harbor maps would be accessible but ohhh no no no. red snails and slimes have w.def and are extreme pains to deal with.

even for mobs with 0 w.def, i can really only take them on one at a time under normal circumstances. the pistol whip animation, while perfectly consistent, is slow and stupidly/deceptively close range. when the most "ideal" circumstance is you can kill a snail in 4 hits, you get easily overrun with multiple targets.

the primary strategy going forward becomes singling out/baiting a target (ideally on a lone platform), pinning them to the edge, and painstakingly beating them over 30+ seconds. this method even works on higher w.def or HP targets as 1 damage is still technically damage, though normally is relegated to jumping targets to bait them over to smaller platforms for their beating




whacking things from out of reach is an alright strategy as well, though it runs into the issue that since you aren't consistently hitting the mob (as it runs back and forth), it can just get bored and leave and you have to bait it all over again. this is doubly so for platforms with more than one mob, as the random selection of who gets whacked means the guy you've been targeting for a minute can just walk away while 3 others meatshield him.

at current moment, i am prioritizing pigs and orange mushrooms as i am desperate to complete QUESTS. as mob grinding is so painfully slow quests are such a high priority as they can give me EXP faster than maybe one mob a minute (though usually half that) gives me.



(taken about 5 hours apart from eachother - granted part of that time was spent cash shopping and also on call)

i have a small feeling (maybe false hope but who knows) that once i get over this beginning threshold and am able to deal enough damage to consistently/easily kill lower level mobs it'll be a bit smoother sailing, even if the EXP is negligible. at least its negligible EXP after one or two hits rather than after 60 seconds of holding the button down once perfectly positioned

anyways, here's the boy now after about i'd say 7 or 8 hours of playtime? not quite sure, wasnt keeping track too closely

the biggest "improvements" are now i can deal 3-4!!!!! whole entire damage to mobs with no w.def. i can also do up to 2 damage to red snails. everything else is still 1 entire damage though :'D

i'll probably get bored of this sooner or later but for now i'm having a great time being entertained by how stupid this is. its such a funny concept and i love my idiot son

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43 pigs later yippeee

 

HUGE DEVELOPMENT
LOOK AT THESE NUMBERS!!


i remembered i could take some simple fluff quests in the nautilus which bumped me to 16, which means i could get a new gun and holy cannoli, 8???? up to 5 on a pig that i could only do 1 to previously?? we're almost at maple island numbers now h*ck yeah!!!