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.

Republish: Monster kill statistics

This is an article I originally wrote and published on the auldsbel.org server.

I spent a bit of time over the past few days compiling some statistics in the hope that it would help players advance a little faster. Part of this was to try to answer questions like: which monster is best to kill in order to level? which monster gives the most job experience (so skills advance faster)? which monsters give consistent experience?

I killed all these monsters at level 49. I was armed with a sword (I ran into the cave and managed to open the chest and get back out), shield, fairy hat, forest armor, jeans, fur boots, winter gloves, and wooden shield. My statistics were: 40,2,1,43+3=45, 29+3=32 (the +3s are from the forest equipment).
I died attacking a couple of monsters (I really would have survived one of the monsters, but accidentally attacked another and got swarmed) bringing you these statistics. I hope they help.

I have not included Black Scorpions, Grass Snakes, Fallens, Zombies, Skeletons, or any of the wisp, spectre family of monsters because I consider all of these are too difficult for a low level warrior (but may be okay for some archers).

Monster Name	Kill 1	Kill 2	Kill 3	Kill 4	Kill 5	Average	Job Exp
Angry Scorpion	37	37	37	37	37	37	5
Archant	91	88	72	87	89	85.4	14
Bandits	87	81	91	81	65	81	21
Bat	29	23	28	27	27	26.8	3
Butterfly	85	91	85	83	85	85.8	11
Cave Maggot	16	16	16	16	16	16	3
Evil Mushroom	233	231	236	233	230	232.6	35
Fire Goblin	34	38	45	41	45	40.6	4
Fluffy	81	80	100	103	101	93	7
Giant Maggot	136	136	136	140	136	136.8	14
Green Slime	302	302	305	302	307	303.6	96
Ice Goblin	85	64	73	74	75	74.2	10
Log Head	149	128	154	188	149	153.6	5
Maggot	6	6	6	6	6	6	1
Mouboo	491	497	499	497	497	496.2	16
Pink Flower	279	296	294	294		232.6	40
Pinkie	113	99	99	90	107	101.6	7
Red Scorpion	173	168	168	199	174	176.4	16
Red Slime	131	130	133	131	131	131.2	17
Reinboo	273	273	273	294	273	277.2	29
Rudolph Slime	101	106	114	101	104	105.2	8
Scorpion	13	13	13	13	13	13	2
Sea Slime	187	187	187	187	187	187	13
Slime Blast	20	22	20	20	20	20.4	8
Snail	177	182	205	180	181	185	18
Snake	371	361	361	402	371	373.2	56
Spiky Mushroom	54	45	54	42	54	49.8	5
Squirrel	34	34	34	34	34	34	5
White Slime	49	55	55	55	27	48.2	15
Wolvern	281	269	283	238	280	270.2	86
Yellow Slime	94	94	94	83	94	91.8	9

I guess I'm so used to killing cave snakes that I didn't include them for some reason. Averaging out 5 cave snake kills: 152, 148, 184, 148, and 122 we get 150.8 experience, less than the average for log heads, red scorpions, and sea slimes, but better than red slimes or pinkies.

Your best experience bet at low levels are green slimes, if you can suffer their damage. They're significantly tough at level 33, so it might be worth changing to an archer at this point if you've done the warrior thing.

The tipping point for hunting Cave Snakes

Hunting cave snakes

I like hunting cave snakes. Cave snakes give decent experience and can be killed at a relatively low level (20ish). With some decent armor or archery you can reduce the damage done to you to practically nothing.

But there comes a point where the experience gained from killing cave snakes diminishes significantly. That point seems to be level 33. Up to level 33 the amount of experience gained is at least 2% of the experience required to level. At level 33 the experience seems to drop to around 1.3% per snake. Don't get me wrong, this isn't terrible, but better prey await you at this point, and it might be better to restat for something like green slimes or reinboos.

Giving items

Die Jack'O die

One of the problems all RPGs suffer from is begging. Inevitably some player walks in to town and starts begging for things. It sometimes starts small, a few batwings, and turns into a "give warlord armor!!!" demand. Sometimes it turns abusive with the player slandering another player for not giving up items.

The solution to this problem came to me when I wasn't sitting on my can in town. High level players tend to sit in town quite a bit. Having done most of the quests, just boredom, or whatever reason, they just sit.

The solution is to get out of town and play again. How does this solve people begging in town? Well, it's actually not about not being in town, it's more about what the player themselves is doing. People come to town to beg, because they think it's a spot they can find lots of people, and someone will give them items. Out of town people might beg too, but at least out of town players have to play the game. Take for example the mountain snake pits. If you're down in the mountain snake pits you're probably capable of being there. I met a player who was very slowly killing snakes (archery) and they happened to need 3 Mountain Snake eggs. I had about 17 from killing mountain snakes in just that session, it was nothing to help the player out. I also noticed they didn't have decent gloves. The mountain snakes had dropped 2 pairs of leather gloves, so I gave up one. The point here is that the player was actually playing (they didn't ask, I asked them). I felt good because I knew this player actually plays the game, and I'm sure they felt good because it was another item down in what they needed.

So get out of town and move around. (Get up and boogie!)

A bit about yetis, daily quests, and working together

How many players does it take to kill all the yetis in the Cindy quest? Well, if you've read here before I once did it with 3 other players. That number has now changed to 2 other players: me (warrior), Lycan (archer) and NitayandaRama (mage).

Killing all the yetis took a bit of time, but we managed it. Better to play with a lot of players. The more players the better! If you're a warrior/tank you're not likely going to get drops (unless some kind mage or archer gives them to you). The simple fact is other players do more damage than tank warriors, it's a sacrifice. So what you really want to go for is the daily points. Daily points come at the end of the round when all the yeti's have been killed and Cindy has been saved. Daily points allow you to do more daily quests (Mike's stingers, Riskim's acorns, etc.). Ideally you want to do as many rounds of Cindy as possible. With a big crowd of people rounds go pretty fast (5 minutes to 10 minutes).


Why get so many daily points? Well if you can get yellow and white boxes 3 of each fetches either 5300 gold pieces (and 1300 xp) or 10800 gold pieces (and 2800 xp). The Angela's presents daily quest takes a lot more daily points. Without running Cindy a number of times you might only be able to do it once. Running Cindy you might be able to do it 3 - 5 times, fairly quick 50 grand.. and lots of fun and extras (tears, animal bones, etc.).

But I'm a tank warrior, how do I get presents if no one gives them to me? You don't necessarily have to get the presents from the Cindy quest. There are spots in the wilderness of Nivalis and in caves where you can solo 1 or 2 yetis. Solo yetis (or bring a powerful friend to help - even better) and you can collect presents, tears and bones. Try to think of the whole experience: you're getting good xp, you have a chance to get animal bones (used in high level quests), you have a chance to get tears (also used in high level quests), and you have a chance to get a silly yeti mask (which you can sell or just use to look like a hairy beast in town)... maybe someone will make a matching yeti armor set sometime... The point, yetis are fun. With my current set of statistics I can take a yeti without dropping below 700 hp (so less than 190 damage) before I kill it. Two yetis and I do a bit of dancing to make it so I take on one.