Krythan's Journal

Entry #129 - Check-In #13

We recently marked-off the last of our recent medium-term goals. And, we're on track over the next month to accomplish two more of our long-term goals (30k HP and Level 180)! So, what's next? What's our goal?

Well, let's take a step back and as: "What is end-game?" As we've seen with recent Reset Pink Bean runs, any group of dedicated players, with time, patience, the ability to learn & adapt, (and enough apples) can clear pretty much any content in the game.

If "beating end-game bosses" is the objective, then we're done. We're one Core Blaze, and one Auf run, away from finishing Maple. But, it's more than that. The way I see it, Pink Bean is really just the starting point of the end-game. But after that, each player is going to have their own personal set of goals.

What's our end-game? Personally, I think the actual end-game is the ability to short-man content. The "final horizon" of Legends, is just doing the same content you've always been doing, whilst splitting the rewards amongst fewer people. If the game is about grinding up to beat bosses and collect drops, the end-game is about doing that more efficiently.

We'll likely be expanding our roster, but the current party line-up is in a good place. Our SE and I/L need some levels, but that will happen in time. For now, we want to keep focusing on the Night Lord, as we hope that will unlock more content options going forward. We hope focusing on this character is just the next step on the path forward to running more 6-man HT, duo-Core Blaze, and (the eventual goal) 18-man PB.

With that, we've added two new long-term goals! We'll be talking more about these in the next few posts...

We've also edited a real-life goal. Expanded our "Hike" goal to include "Running", and doubled the target to 200 miles.

What are our long-term goals?

• Run 18-man Pink Bean (0 of 2)
  
• Reach 30k HP on Night Lord (27,560 of 30,000) - Updated!
• Reach Level 180 on Night Lord (179 of 180) - Updated!
• Earn Experience from Bossing (2.2b of 5b) - New!

What are our medium-term goals?

• Upgrade Night Lord Equip(s) (1 of 4) - New!

What are our 2025 real-life goals?

• Hike & Run 200 Miles (28 of 200) - Updated!
• Bike 1,000 Miles (246 of 1,000) - Updated!

 

In the post above, we added a new long-term goal:

• Earn Experience from Bossing (2.2b of 5b)

Why this goal in particular? To quote our post above:

If this is our mind-set, the next question becomes... what does "more efficiently" mean? Well, simply put: "make more mesos, in less time". But in order to properly do this, we need much better EV estimates for each content type.

We currently track exp earned, and pouch drops for each boss run we do. Our goal is to be able to contribute to, and estimate, the exp/hr. and pouch rates for each boss. All within the context of trying to create better EV estimates for each type of content, and thus play more efficiently. There's many ways we could define this as a goal in-itself, but we wanted to identify a metric that would first-and-foremost be simple. And thus, adding "Experience from Bossing" is simply an easy-to-report-on metric that correlates to this endeavor. Plus, we need the literal experience, and the levels!

 

Two posts above, we added another medium-term goal:

• Upgrade Night Lord Equip(s) (1 of 4) - New!

Why this goal in particular?

With that, in the context of pushing forward into more end-game content, it makes one of our immediate focuses the need to continue to upgrade our equip(s). At some point in the not-to-distant-future, we're going to start saving for the ability to purchase a perfect or near-perfect Red Craven. But in the meantime, we still have a few immediate cost-efficient upgrades we can pull the trigger on. But we weren't sure how to measure or report on this objective.

We'd experimented with the idea of using "net value" as a measure for progress here. Or using an @dpm metric to represent the target. But, for the purpose of creating an easy-to-report-on metric that correlates to this endeavor, we simplified our next milestone to simply be a fixed number of equip(s) upgrades. For the purpose of measuring this endeavor, we're defining an "upgrade" as a new piece of gear that adds at least +1 attack.

We recently upgraded the rest of our stars to magic throwing knives, and our next upgrades are likely going to be from 10 to 12 cape, 14 to 16 gloves, and from 76 to 78 craven. The incremental cost for these upgrades (after selling current equip(s)) will likely be around ~1k-1.5k coins. Putting us at the point where we're paying around ~250c per each 1 point of added attack. But, we also didn't want to be married to these specific upgrades. Based on what comes up in the market, and how it's are priced, we wanted some flexibility in reaching this goal. Maybe a slot gets upgraded +1, maybe something comes on the market for +3 at a decent price, we'll see. That's why we settled on this softer metric specifically.

Thanks to Regrets, fartsy, theclammiest, oldkev and everyone else who'd been jamming with me on Discord about equip(s) recently.

 

Entry #130 - @dpms

As a check-point, we've been testing our @dpm in various content. We were excited to hit 9m in Pink Bean statues. Considering 9m dummy dpm was our target for the longest time, there's something fun about seeing that number in actual content (even if it is on apple).

Pink Bean - Statues - @dpm 30
179 NL | 5793 ~ 10276 [apple] | Echo, MW30, SE, Apple: 9.07m



We whiffed Pink Bean on body, but still had an apple going, so skipped over to China to see what our dummy dpm on an apple was:

Dummy [apple] - @dpm 1
179 NL | ? ~ ? [apple] | Echo, MW20, SE, Apple: 13.27m



And some other misc. recordings. The shorter recording window doesn't quality them for DPM Compilation status, but they're useful as a baseline metric to track against:

Nameless - @dpm 1
179 NL | 3196 ~ 5665 | MW20, SE, Cider: 8.05m



Krex - Right Eye - @dpm 1
178 NL | 3534 ~ 6262 | MW20, SE, Cider: 7.06m



Jiaoceng - @dpm 4
178 NL | 3520 ~ 6223 | MW20, SE, Cider: 6.04m

 

Entry #131 - BWG

For 750c we upgraded to 16 att Brown Work Gloves. After selling our previous gloves, that puts this upgrade's cost at 285c per attack gained. Next up, we're going to see if we can't get our hands on a 78 Red Craven.

What are our medium-term goals?

• Upgrade Night Lord Equip(s) (2 of 4) - Updated!

 

Entry #132 - One Eighty

Oh yeah!!!! We've been running some NT content, namely Nib, and Nameless. At about 30-40m exp/hr. they add up over time. We also pulled a decent amount of exp sweeping at Nintos. When we boot up around Reset -1, we try and run 4x JC's back to back, 2x before, and 2x after recent with the same party for a nice ~35 minutes of 45m exp/hr. We also try to support our local small businesses, so whenever a new Bishop appears to be struggling to find buyers for their 2-hit skele, we jump on that. The rest of this exp came from sweeping, and regular HT, Zak, and Krex runs.

And with that, marking another long-term goal as accomplished!

What are our long-term goals?

• Reach Level 180 on Night Lord (180 of 180) - Accomplished!
• Earn Experience from Bossing (2.5b of 5b) - Updated!

 

Entry #133 - T6

We've mainly been focused on grinding up some coins for our next few purchases, but wanted to take a quick break from the grind. Our main Bishop's only at Tier 6 of their Monster Book Ring, so figured that would be a nice side-project to finish. New medium-term goal added!

The nice part, is as this was our first real character, we've got a lot of sets that are 2-4 cards already. So it shouldn't be too bad to wrap up some of these sets.

We've got tele rocks set at a few of the area bosses, so time to see if we can't grab 'em at off hours and catch the timers to farm their cards.

Over to Deep Ludi... Ghost Pirate and Dual Ghost Pirate were fun sets - the size of the mobs and the density of the maps makes it charming, so about 20-30 mins of Genesis-ing, and we wrapped up those cards. Thanatos and Gatekeepers were easy enough, thanks to our undisclosed friend. Even Master Death Teddies weren't too bad, and let us stock up some Binding Bridle etc's that we give to new players to pass in the Unknown Love ($) quest.

Next was Mu Lung, which is blessed with beautiful card drop rates. We already have all the low-level sets, thanks to time spent leeching alts, so we can take bird directly to the next town. Mr. Alli, easy. Captain and Kru, nothing a two-channel mage setup can't clear. Sage Cats were easy, but it's going to take a while for us to be able to finish the King Sage Cat and Tae Roon cards.

Next up? I think we'll wrap up some of the easier sets in El Nath next.

What are our medium-term goals

• Finish Monster Book on Bishop (217 of 300) - New!

 

Entry #134 - T7

Over to Orbis, we finished up Jr. Lucia, and Cellion, Lioner, Grupin. These are fun, as you can start in the mixed map, then go to the mob-specific map once you're down to a few cards.

Over in El Nath, we did a few of the misc. ice mobs, including Dark Yeti, and Lycanthrope. The Lycanthrope (and Werewolf) cards are fun, as you can drop a Dimension Door at the top of Wolf Territory V, drop down, and clear 1-3 maps worth, then Return Scroll and enter your Dimension Door as their 1 minute re-spawn has happened by then. We tried farming the area boss Snowman. The Yeti cards dropped quick, but Snowman has been holding out on me. It's been pretty farmed recently, so hard to catch enough spawns so might skip that set. The "The Crown-Flyer" map is magical, made for mages to ultimate, as Pepe and White Fangs drop like candy. We even did Snow Witch on this character... however I would no recommend it, as the drop rate for that area boss in quite lower than I'd expected.

Over in Ludi, we skipped over to Ludi tower, and cleaned up Chirppy, Helly, and Propelly. Planey was holding out on us, so we skipped that one.

Finally over in Leafre, (I know, skipping around a bit), we finished up our last 2 cards for Red Wyvern, which took longer than expected. Then we brought in our Night Lord to farm Rextons. While I would recommend the Rexton and Brexton cards, we needed the etc's for a mount. Then, were lucky enough to catch enough spawns over a day or two to finish our Griffey set, and get 3/5 for Manon. We kept checking Leviathan... but no luck... I'm not even certain that boss spawns as we have yet to see it.

Next up, Show Town next...

What are our medium-term goals

• Finish Monster Book on Bishop (248 of 300) - Updated!

 

Entry #135 - T8

Apart from logging ~dozen hours at viks in the past week, continuing some misc. cleanup on our Monster Book. The Snowman, Old Fox, Tae Roon, and King Sage Cat are still holding out on us, so might have to take a break from checking their spawns for our own sanity. At least we were able to close out Eliza, Seruf and Dyle within ~3 visits.

Over in Korean Folk Town, we finished the Yellow, Blue, and Red King Goblin sets. Apart from Pinbooms and Centipede, these are likely the easiest sets in the game. Simply buy the USE item from the FM, and spawn them until the cards drop. Bonus points if you use a second character to catch aggro and lure the non-boss mobs out of the way.

Over in Singapore we wrapped up Emo Slime, and Rodeo, then skipped over to Mushroom Shrine. In about an hour we were able to close out Water Golbin, Paper Lantern Ghost, and Big Cloud Fox. Then we skipped over to Showa Town. We'd already collected Male Boss cards from when we finished our NL's T10 ring, so we skipped right to Showa Street #2 and wrapped up Extra A, B, C, and Leader A on the same map. We got decently lucky with the timing, and finished all 4 sets around the same time. From then, skipped over to the Finance of Flaming Raccoon map to close out Leader B and Extra D cards.

Next up? We've been shopping for our next claw. We're tempted to swoop up the 81 Red Craven that's currently on the market, but we've being advised to hold off on it in order to save for a perfect craven (or better).

What are our medium-term goals

• Finish Monster Book on Bishop (266 of 300) - Updated!

 

Entry #136 - T9

The launch of the Anniversary Event combined some interesting balance patches has been a rollercoaster. We'll hold off on addressing these too much at the moment, but we're selfishly hoping for some discount claws to hit the market. Apart from our NL becoming generally just more annoying/tedious to play, it's been rough week as we've had to cancel a number of Pink Bean runs due to backlash from buccs affected by these changes (whom were already in short supply).

Meanwhile, on our Monster Book, we've been doing the Pink Bean pre-quest on a few more characters, finishing up some of those monster book cards. Completed a few of the Magatia sets as well, pushing us into T9. Next up, we have some of Deep Ludi to finish, then we might try out some of the new cards that were recently added to the Golden Temple mobs.

What are our medium-term goals

• Finish Monster Book on Bishop (285 of 300) - Updated!

 

Entry #137 - Eighteen!!

18-man Pink Bean!

With recent balance patches, a bunch of players have been dropping out of Pink Bean runs. One slight benefit there is that we got invited to fill a last minute slot in one of the weekly eighteen man Pink Bean runs! Thanks to a roster of seasoned Pink Bean runners, it was a smooth run. And with that, we're able to update one of our original in-game goals! It was interesting seeing the slight variations between thirty-man and eighteen-man runs. Doing right bird last for phase 4 and 5 was new to me, with the biggest consequence being that we spent a lot more time with the confused status than we're used to. Plus, this was the first content we've run using the new active shifter (uggh) mechanics, as well as reduced avoid... so there was some @dpm loss, but that just means room for improvements. Ended up logging 8.7m in statues, and 3.1m in body, with a borrowed cape (disclaimer) and some gelts.

What are our long-term goals?

• Run 18-man Pink Bean (1 of 2) - Updated!

 

Entry #138 - Anniversary

We're a few weeks into the annual Anniversary event. We're still tired of the jump quest from last year. Fortunately, none of our characters really need AP Resets at the moment. It's the first time in a loooong time that I've been able to say that. So, we did our 8x cake boss clears for the Retro Hero Pendant on a few of our characters that would benefit from the extra attack, and called it a day on this event. I don't really enjoy jump quests. I'm neither good at them, nor find the experience enjoyable - so it's a little tiring when that's the main feature of events. But, I understand the each event doesn't have to be for everyone - it's totally ok to do the minimum and call it a day. Fortunately, the event still has a nice exp bonus that we'll be taking advantage of.

 

Entry #139 - PVM Bingo

Every month, the Reset guild runs a special event. For April, Aussiedit and Callie ran a new event called "PVM Bingo". Teams of 1-4 competed to fill out bingo boards, and win points for a 100m prize. All teams receive the same bingo card with identical objectives and points. Each objective earns a set number of points, and completing rows and columns earns a bonus +20 points. Here's our bingo card:



oldkev and I formed a team. We started out strong, crossing off half the board in the first two days. Running duo-content in Neo Tokyo, we were able to mark-off quite a few squares. We were in the lead for a solid week, having cleaned up objectives such as duo Targa/Scar, 3-minute JC, Zak Helm and Rav [0] Helm. Then, chaos struck. When the server came back online from maintenance, everyone was hit with a bug that reduced the amount of exp parties were getting in bosses... thus while we were able to run some last minute 3-man CWKs, we fell short as we couldn't rally enough players for enough Horntail runs in time! Ultimately, we had a good time, but came in at a close second, being beaten out by Aussieedit, JustBlast, MooBishop, and HeroAli.

In all, it was a refreshing take on content, and encouraged us to run content that's outside of our usual routine.

 

Entry #140 - T9.5

Inching closer to Tier 10 on our Bishop. Froscola, and Jester Scarlion in Malaysia were easier than I thought they were going to be. We also all-but finished (just need a Lyka spawn) the Temple of Time Pre-quest on all of our characters, including the remaining mages and SE mule. The mages are ~164 and at 6k HP (T0 Ring), so they're getting closer to being decent mules. They'll be able to hit 9-10k HP at higher levels, as we started to MP Wash them quite early. Plus, grabbed a few cards along the way.

What are our medium-term goals

• Finish Monster Book on Bishop (289 of 300) - Updated!

 

We've had some time to digest the recent balance changes (Part 1, Part 2). In any online game, balance changes are inevitable... it's just the nature of creating and sustaining a multi-player experience... but I wanted to touch on my thoughts in regards to why these changes have garnished so much feedback... most notable 26 pages followed by 15 pages of comments.

Link: See the full comment

TL;DR: It's unclear what the balance team was trying to achieve, and whether or not these changes were successful in their objective. While the balance changes did little to change the tier-list of classes across content, they made select classes more annoying to play, and changed the identity and feeling of these class... which is why player reactions have been so strong.

 

Last week's maintenance and downtime gave some opportunity to spend more time on the forums. Here are some of the fun threads from last week:

1. Updated Archer Washing Guide, based on community feedback. Reduced MP targets for Bowmasters, and did the numbers for a custom build upon request.
2. Updated Leech Buying Guide, based on community feedback. Most notably, adding information on common mistakes (selling ratio solo, buying solo hourly), as well as additional information on leechcalculator.com
3. Updated Getting Started Guide, to remove the recommendation of using the VoteLegends voting app. Unfortunately, we've been having too many issues, and appears support has been dropped for it, so removed as a recommendation.
4. Took a first pass at creating a per-content class tier list, while wildly inaccurate, it was an interesting though expiration on how to compare class viability across content.
5. ILOVEPOMU recently created an interesting thread called Leech time to Zakum, with a very cool chart that got me thinking on the relative value of different leech maps. Not every map is created equal, and some are a much better value for your meso than others. You can see that in the chart below, representing hours-per-level of the most popular leech maps.

 

Entry #141 - 29.5k

We're SO CLOSE. The Retro Hero pendant from the Anniversary Event added temporary +500 HP. Plus a few more AP Resets for Stale HP Washing. This has been a project of ours for a long, long time, and we're right on the cusp of our 30k Night Lord!

What are our long-term goals?

• Reach 30k HP on Night Lord (29,560 of 30,000) - Updated!