Get naked - the crazy things that happen in TMW

This is a crazy story, bear with me for a moment. So I decided to host a round of Candor. In the last minute before Candor started my laptop wireless bugged out. No matter what I did with the wireless switch it wouldn't turn  back on, so I rebooted...

Of course by the time I logged in again Candor had already started. And stupid me, I had exactly 23,000 GP, the amount it cost to start and advertise Candor, but not enough to get home.

So I decided to get naked in an attempt to kill myself outside of Candor, thus returning home. The first thing I attacked was a Clover patch...

Wouldn't you know it... a 4 leaf clover dropped!

Naked in the clover patches. What luck (bad then good).

Warrior Damage Per Second online tool!

Garrett has created a wonderful Warrior Damage Per Second (DPS) tool for the warrior class in The Mana World. I've followed it for a couple of levels on a new character and it's been mostly accurate (there seemed to be a slight miscalculation of stats for the one level in one area, I was 1 stat point less). It's definitely made a difference in terms of warrior damage.

The tool can be found here:

http://tmw.gjr.gr/warrior.php

Shyro PK'ed

Shyro archer PK'ed in the Terranite Cave

As a rule I don't like to PK (Player Kill) people - I personally think it makes the game more frustrating and less fun.

In fact of all the opportunities there's only ever been a couple of players I've went after. The first player was testing his new archer against me as a tank. I know this player's other archer could take me down given the right set of circumstances. The second player (a recent addition) was Shyro, but the circumstances were different. I had been in the red slime area of the terranite cave for about 5 minutes when Shyro came down from above and started firing at all the slimes, including the ones I was attacking. I think most players would agree it's a pretty rude thing to do, just enter an area and start plugging away at slimes someone else is attacking.

If Shyro asked when I was going to finish I might not have PK'ed him. Of course there is no protocol for playing and a game is a game. Some people would say that because tanks are slower that's tough... but then in places like the graveyard archers would be lost really quickly, so please remember and respect the role of tanks/warriors.

Interestingly this is how I first met Prsm as a player before he was a GM. I was hunting mogguns trying to get enough coal for Warlord armor when Prsm came in to the cave and picked off one of the mogguns... but as soon as he saw me he stopped, apologized and we started chatting. It turns out that at that time him picking off the mogguns was helpful, because they'd go after him and I, the weaker player, got to hit them without worry of damage. We've been friends ever since and I have great respect for him.

Terranite Chest Armor - is it worth it?

Purging of stash

Yesterday I purged a fair amount of junk from my stash and finally coughed up the 500,000 GP, 40 Terranite Ore and 250 coal for the Terranite Chest Armor. Until this point I've stayed away from the Terranite Armor because the cost just seemed too much for the benefit. The Warrior full plate armor has a higher defense, and as a warrior it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

So what changed? How is the terranite armor better? M. Defense goes up significantly by 10 full points, accuracy goes up by 1 point, attack delay goes down by 1 point (good), and damage per second goes up by one point. The armor does appear to have significant benefits, and for a ranger I'm sure it's the cat's meow, but I still have to put the armor to the torture test between a couple of terranites or against fallens and skeletons. The normal warrior armor is pretty solid against a couple of terranites.

Cave snakes at level 49

A couple of posts ago I said it took 400 cave snakes to level. At level 49 I noticed it takes about 8 cave snakes to get 1% of experience, meaning it takes approximately 800 cave snakes to go from the beginning of the level to level 50. I should mention that at this stage you might have more success as an archer targeting skeletons in a group or working over green slimes (which brings both gold bags and better experience).

So why cave snakes? It's partly about the grind, and partly about daily quests. As a warrior cave snakes are no trouble, you barely even get a scratch. Archers have to run around and constantly get killed by skeletons even when they're careful at lower levels (of course a warrior would fare even worse at this stage). As you're killing cave snakes you're also picking up cave snake tongues and cave snake lamps both of which are quite useful. The cave snake tongues are one component of one of Auldsbel's quests. The cave snake lamps are used in the Doug's cave snake lamps daily quest. So why does this matter? Well at lower levels 40-50 the daily quest can really help you level. Say you have 20 cave snake lamps, each 5 give you 5000 experience and 5000 gold. This means each day you're getting 20000 experience and 20000 gold pieces.

To get 20 cave snake lamps it takes approximately 150 kills. The lower level character I tried this with took 143 while Tarq did it in about 170 (though much faster). You could store up cave snake lamps with a higher level character, but why bother, use them for bones (skeletons), and coal (mogguns).

Over the years I keep going back to cave snakes for leveling in this 40-50 range, they just seem really beneficial in the end.

Level 47 archer versus level 46 warrior

A couple of posts ago I posted some progression statistics on a warrior that leveled from level 42 to level 46. When that warrior reached level 47 I decided to switch classes briefly to see how he faired as a ranger. General wisdom in the forums suggest maxing dexterity before any other statistic. So as such his stats were as follows:

str: 1, agi: 4=1+3, vit: 1, int: 1, dex: 87=84+3, luk: 2=1+1

The pluses are because of the ranger outfit and a four leaf clover. This concentration on dexterity makes the character pretty unbalanced. Where the archer excels is the attack statistic, 221, compared to the 166 of the archer (based on his 40 dexterity). The accuracy is also higher at 134 compared to 86 on the warrior.

However one statistic stands out as particularly bad, and that is the attack delay which is 808 compared to 495. Of course on higher level archers this number will drop like a stone as agility is ramped up.

What I find interesting is that agility seems to affect more statistics than dexterity. It's also worth noting that both dexterity and agility seem to have an effect on accuracy (meaning you're more likely to hit monsters putting points in both agi and dex).

Hit points were also lower than the fighters though this is likely a result of vitality.

Looking at overall statistics the warrior actually looks better doing 335 damage per second compared to the archer's 273 damage per second. And keep in mind this is a level 46 warrior vs. a level 47 archer. As this character approaches 48 I'll switch back and stat him similar to before to give more even warrior statistic.

How many cave snakes does it take to level from 46 to 47?

I noticed it takes around 4 cave snakes to get 1% towards a level. This is an approximation because cave snakes are one of the monsters that can be worth more or less experience, the experience you get from them doesn't always remain consistent. Given 4 snakes it would take approximately 400 cave snake skills to reach 100% or level 47. Perhaps an hour and a half of playing given my stats.

Cave snake tiles may be hiding drops

Look carefully just under the tile

The cave snake cavern may be hiding drops on you. I noticed this morning an instance where tiles were overlapping drops. The first drop was a cave snake lantern, much harder to spot than the tongue pictured here. Look carefully when killing cave snakes around gravel tiles, you might be missing drops.
In this screenshot you can see half of the cave snake tongue is tucked under the gravel tile.

Some mid-to-lower level agility progression statistics

Since the Hitchhiker quest I've been working on an alternate lower level warrior. I spent a bit of time documenting some statistics leveling from 42 to 46. The only statistic I changed when I leveled was the AGI statistic. I'm documenting below how other statistics were influenced by the AGI increase. Keep in mind this is a warrior yet to do the speed quest.

From level 42 to 46 I increased AGI as follows:

21, 24, 28, 31, 24

% Accuracy increased as follows:

83, 83, 84, 85, 86

% Evade was as follows (including a +3 for ranger clothes):

67, 70, 75, 79, 83

Attack delay decreased as follows:

526, 519, 509, 502, 495

Damage per second increased as follows:

315, 319, 326, 330, 335

Hit points increased, but this was due to level and not AGI, but for the record I'll document them here:

n/a, 292, 298, 304, 310

I plan on continuing to document this character as he progresses to give players an idea of how AGI affects a character (warrior) at each level.

Raging with a Bull Helmet vs. Tanking

There can only be one!

After a little help from some in-game friends I finally defeated Valia for the first time, and my prize was a Bull Helmet and a few hundred thousand experience points.

To answer the burning question some of you might be having, is the bull helmet any good? More accurately how is having a bull helmet plus the raging skill better than being a tank?

The answer is that being a rager with a bull helmet is better in some ways and worse in others.

If you like being able to solo a couple of fallens stick with being a tank. However, if you're tired of everyone always getting drops on you, you might want to look at becoming a rager. In the candor session shown in the screenshot above I consistently got between 24k-32k experience killing jack'os and I helped make short work of fallens.

The problem I have with ragers is they need support. That bull helmet takes a chunk of defense out of you. I tried readjusting my statistics, investing more in vitality and Luck, but I still ended up getting hit hard by monsters due to the big negative the helmet gives to defense.

Understand that this is at level 95. Levels make a huge difference, a few extra points, or an item or two can make an enormous difference. For example, with the Heart of Isis and a Ruby Ring I would probably make a totally different statement about Ragers. But a Ruby Ring is 1 million and the Heart of Isis is an extremely difficult drop to get from Valia.

For now I'm enjoying the rager, he works great in groups where you have mages to heal and awesome for lesser monsters like red slimes (who die like a knife through butter).

How to make 1,000,000 GP in a short time

Did the title of this post get you excited? Sorry to disappoint you but the title is a question? I've tried several strategies: farming red slimes, farming green slimes, selling different items (without pitching all the time in town), even selling most of my stash, and I always end up in the poor-house.

What do you do to become rich? Selling rare items? Just grinding until it hurts? What's your strategy?

Terranite Cave

Double trouble Terranites

Lately I started spending some time in the Terranite cave again. I'm usually in one of a couple of places for you PKers, either the red slimes or Terranites. If you see me at the red slimes spot I'm likely gathering cash to host Candor. Lately it seems the best way to gain the most experience in a short time. Kill me if you will, but if you like Candor you're shooting yourself a bit in the foot.

The Terranite spot is all about experience, though I'm also trying to get the components for the Illia Sisters quest again. My last bit I gave to another player so they could attempt it. I still haven't completed the Illia quest once and I'm quite close to level 95 (69.7% as of this morning). It's not for a lack of trying, made it once to Valia with Veryape, but two warriors alone were not enough to beat her.

One down, one to go

So my strategy in the Terranite cave has been to try to take on two at a time. Normally I have concentration potions and iron potions stocked for when there are three Terranites, but I find it mostly unnecessary when taking on two Terranites.

Still far away from a beanie. For some reason I never saw Candor as being much fun, though lately I have to admit it really is. Perhaps it's the wait period, but it's nothing compared to waiting for the Illia Sisters quest, so Candor has become more fun.

I still usually don't get drops (mind you I don't try too hard, I'm usually concentrating on experience and don't even bother pressing z most of the time) in Candor, though a few weeks back I picked up several while I was on the raging stint (didn't like it much, hit too often).

My last word is on the glove quest, which I haven't forgotten, but kind of sidelined. I stopped counting the number of mountain snakes I killed. I'm up to 7 sets of gloves (1 from Candor which makes me wonder because I didn't think Mountain Snakes showed there).

Yes, I was a developer once...

Under My Projects: TheManaWorld

What happens when you use a search engine other than Google, sometimes you find surprising results: apparently I had developer status in The Mana World back in April 11, 2004. All I remember contributing back then were ideas for monsters, still it's cool to see that I wasn't imagining things and that I have been a part of TMW since 2004. So where did the 2004 come from - an XML file I found here: http://sourceforge.net/api/project/name/themanaworld/doap

Spectacular defeat in candor

The Candor jig

About a week ago there was an update that included a Candor update to prevent people from squatting in Candor while others did all the work. That update seems to have made it a bit more difficult to win.

Today we tried with a crowd of over 20 that included several people with Banshee bows, Bull Helmets and other 90+ level items, and we failed miserably.

In the end it was Nitayandarama, Baeda and myself (with Nitayandarama falling [but healing us] first, myself second, then Baeda). The stacks of monsters were pretty intense (the screenshot above really doesn't do it justice).

But it was fun. We usually don't fail at Candor which makes me wonder what was different this time, especially with so many high level players.

10 Pairs of Leather Gloves

Fighting Mountain Snakes

So begins the next crazy quest, to obtain 10 pairs of leather gloves. If you haven't guessed yet it's not a real quest. In the past I've set created several of my own quests to keep the game interesting, there's only so much you can do before the release of new quests. I find making your own quests up makes the game more interesting, especially when masses of people are grinding on a particular quest.

So what about the statistics? Well there's about a 0.02% chance of a snake dropping a pair of gloves. My first pair dropped at roughly 130 mountain snake kills. The second pair dropped before I hit 200 mountain snake kills. Now I'm up to 326 kills, but no pairs of gloves have dropped since. Other drops include 22 Mountain Snake eggs, 19 Mountain Snake tongues, and 5 snake skins.

At 326 mountain snake kills I've accumulated 166602 experience points. At this rate it will take over 26,000 mountain snakes for me to level on mountain snakes alone (no, not my goal here and even I'm not that crazy).

The rules: no killing other monsters (except red slimes who live in the same cavern), pick up everything, stick to the same spots (it seems to help).

Take this job and shove it

Skill points are determined by job level

In most RPGs people pay attention to character level and experience points. The more experience points the higher the level.

Job and skill points work a little differently. Once you've acquired a skill you need skill points to increase the level of that skill. It works out pretty simple. For each skill you need that amount of skill points to increase to that level of skill. However, you have to have done the previous level of skills. For example: to get level 5 in a job you first need to put 2 points for level 2, 3 points for level 3, 4 points for level 4, and at last 5 points for level 5. To get skill points you need to kill monsters and get job experience.

This is where it gets interesting because the monsters that give the most experience are not necessarily the best monsters to kill for job experience. I posted before a chart for lower level players that outlined the best monsters to kill at lower levels: Monster kill statistics. At higher levels you're looking at significantly more job experience points. Ice Elementals for example are in the 630 point range. Here is a list of a few I've recorded so far:

Skeleton: 1467 job experience
Poltergeist: 1265 job experience
Wisp: 1210 job experience
Lady Skeleton: 957 job experience
Drunken Skeleton: 530 job experience
Tipsy Skeleton: 493 job experience
Drunken Lady Skeleton: 389 job experience

Job experience can vary if someone else has hit the monster before. The poltergeists I was killing had hit points in the 10k region so they were not quite as nice to kill as the 7k skeletons. Spectres gave less experience than Poltergeists and are quite a bit harder to hit, so I didn't bother even including them. I'll update this list with a more complete listing soon. For now just realize that there's more to killing monsters than just plain old experience.

No Alexander the fighter I will not give you my password

Alexander the fighter's whisper for password

This evening I was sitting in Hurnscald when a player named Alexander the fighter asked for my username and password (see screenshot to the left in the dialog).

Not sure if he things I'm stupid, but the answer is no. Takes begging to a whole new level.

Raging skill - high level tanks, you can do it!

The Raging Skill

I must have spent about 1500 apples trying to get the Raging Skill. Part of the problem of getting the raging skill was that when the quest came out I was already over level 90 (92 I think), which meant killing a lot of fluffies. The other obstacle was the fact that as a tank Tarq was pretty slow... at least this is what I lead myself to believe.

The real obstacle, however, was the fact that I was dropping like a sissy, I just didn't know how to drop correctly. Once I figured out how to drop correctly, combined that with concentration and iron potions, it only took a couple of rounds to kill 87 fluffies, enough to get the skill at level 94. While it's not nearly the 400+ of the best players, it's enough to move on.

87 Fluffy Kills

To drop correctly use the w key to open the drop window. Then open your storage and and drop apples in the first slot. Now when you're in the wilderness or somewhere like the quest press y to drop the apples in that first slot. You can set the amount that drops by opening the yellow bar at the top (hover) and press the i key to change the drop amount. I set the drop amount to 10. Yes, this spawned Yetis occasionally and was the cause of me dying a couple of times (3 yetis on me I just couldn't survive). Much of the time it doesn't spawn yetis and with one (even two) I was still able to kill between 84-86 yetis (thanks to tank defence and water). Remember part of the goal is survival.

I should mention that I did this alone, with no healer sitting outside. At one point another player came to watch (I did it a second and third time to confirm it wasn't a fluke). So high level tanks, it is possible, you just have to drop fast, drop 10 and hit like the wind with concentration and iron potions.

Luvia with verdo, Taco and veryape

Fighting Luvia

A big thanks to Verdo, Taco and Veryape for their help with the Illya sisters quest tonight. Veryape and I made it to Luvia, but bit the bucket under the pressure of all the guards, demons and of course Luvia herself. Verdo got slammed by a stack during a minor lag and I threw Veryape off when I split the guards. Having never even been to the guards before it was a great 4th experience.

I'm still not used to dropping Laurizite... not a fan of that part of the quest, but we did it in a time that wasn't terrible. Thanks to Veryape for the chicken legs loan, will try to remember I owe you 40.
I've seen verdo playing in various spots for as long as I remember playing since I started playing again (I've left TMW a few times, once near the end of 2004 and 2007). Since I started playing again in 2011 he's been around and is a really stand up player.

Because I don't see guild members anymore I never know who they are, but I believe veryape is one of the members of CRC (of which I'm also a member). Veryape and I cooperatively killed Terranites before and was quite happy to share... now he's past me by having finished Luvia a few times.

Only Taco I don't know that well, but he was incredibly helpful with instructions and is powerful. Thanks Taco for joining us, we needed a strong mage.

Earlier, inside Luvia's area fighting her guards.

Again, thanks to all 3 for their help, it's certainly the furthest I've gotten... and we did it on the HARDEST level of the Illya sisters. I didn't know this until veryape mentioned it just before we took on Luvia.

Hoping to get a heart of isis when I finally do finish because I'm not much of a rager (still not fast enough to get the skill)...

In-game courtesy and ethics

WTH Tarq the archer?

The Mana World has been around for a long time now. If memory serves me correctly I started playing (under a different nick) around 2004 when part of Tulimshar was all there was. Spiders had just come out and looked like archants, not spiders at all.

In any game worth its salt there inevitably ends up with a few players who like to take advantage of bugs/flaws or other players. This post really isn't about them, they'll always be around, and they often really seem to enjoy tormenting players for kicks. Before diving into the main part of the post I thought I'd relate a real life story about one such person, Phil (not his real name). Phil used to love to snidely tease people, call them names, loudly proclaim any rumours about people, even physically poke at people. One day Phil chose to bug the wrong person and ended up in tears and extreme embarrassment.

Jen (not her real name) was pretty much a normal person who happened to sit in front of Phil in class. Phil would often call her names and make snide comments just loud enough so a few people around could hear, typical Phil. One day during an exam Phil started poking at Jen. I guess Jen had enough of Phil's B.S. and she turned around with a book 1 1/2 inches thick and cracked Phil right across the face. The sound of the book connecting with Phil's face was so loud that everyone in the class turned. Everyone started laughing at Phil, including the teacher of the class. Now I can here people saying why wasn't Phil sent earlier to the principal, why was he allowed to continue torturing people. Earlier age where more was tolerated. Jen? Who would fault Jen for helping herself. I think more than half the people, including the teacher of the class, probably wanted to give Jen a hero badge at that moment. You really had to see Phil cry and the look on his face to understand the joy people felt seeing a bully brought to his emotional knees. Now of course we have anti-bullying everywhere (not that it helps all the time).

Enough of an aside, I just wanted to point out that people who bully don't always get away with it.

What I really wanted to talk about and put forth is kind of an in-game courtesy and ethics post. I've been mulling about this topic on and off for a long time and partially mentioned aspects of it before, but I want to set in digital stone what I consider good in-game courtesy.

1. Warriors, if you're tanking for mages and archers don't abandon them to finish off that zombie. Catch whatever is closest to the mage or archer, the little bit of experience you'll get from the zombie isn't worth your allies dying. You may not think they're allies, but the speed of killing in groups will help your experience a whole lot more than solo killing.
2. If you ask someone to help you do a quest where it costs that person to travel to where you are doing the quest, at the very least offer to pay their way to and from that place. Payment could be in the form of something to sell, but you should at least pay their way. Don't assume because they're higher level that they just have loads of cash and don't care, just pay it, it's the right thing to do.
3. Power houses, share items if you're hunting in groups. This goes double if there's only a couple of you hunting and one of you is tanking for another. I've tanked for a lot of people in the graveyard and I've noticed a trend where people are extremely helpful lately asking if I wanted an item that dropped. Just because you can kill fast doesn't mean you're invincible. If someone is tanking for you, help them out a little too. (Not suggesting you give all your items up, but if 2 ears drop, what's the hurt in sharing 1?)
4. Player killers... oh you know I was going to get to you... kill away, but don't kill someone in the middle of battle with a couple of terranites, at least wait for them to finish and kill one on one. It's kind of like not trying to kick someone when they're already down (remember Phil).
5. More for you PKers. If you get something, like T-Ore from PKing someone and you don't really need it, give it back, you'll make the person feel less upset about being PKed (I think most people to pay the fee rather than travel the very long way to the PvP spot). If you really need the T-Ore give the player something else, a constellation prize is better than nothing.
6. Life's too short to hold grudges. Remember some players don't give a damn about ethics or courtesy, they think of it as weak. Remember that at some point in life they'll have a weak moment, no need to crush them, it happens to everyone.

Just play folks. Be good to one another and help each other.