[GC] Maximum Attack 3

[Aleron Ives]

Defeat all
enemies in
the simulator!

Client: Principal
Quest:
Defeat enemies in
the simulator within
the time limit.
Reward: ??? Meseta

I've finished porting the Maximum Attack 4th Stage quests to GC using my original Triad -Maximum Attack- ports from Ver.2 as a base, which means these quests are quite a bit different from the quick conversions used on SCHTServ. In order to make it easier to tell which quest is which (since the BB quests all have the same names, regardless of episode), I've adopted the following naming scheme:

Episode I:

Maximum Attack 3.1a
Maximum Attack 3.1b
Maximum Attack 3.1c

Episode II:

Maximum Attack 3.2a
Maximum Attack 3.2b
Maximum Attack 3.2c

(There is no pre-existing MA3 on GC, so it wouldn't make much sense to call these MA4. The BB MA3 uses Episode IV, so it won't work on GC.)

I've turned these quests into "proper" maximum attack simulators, which means you are not allowed to pipe in them; however, you won't automatically fail if somebody dies without a Scape Doll. Instead, you lose 60 seconds on the clock every time a player dies. You may die as much as you want, as long as you don't run out of time. Unlike MA1/2, you don't keep points if you fail; if you run out of time, you get nothing. Your score only increases if you reach the end.

In order to facilitate the death penalty and to make the quests more balanced with GC equipment (since you don't have access to the items that BB players would have used to blaze through the quests), you get extra time. The base time for Episode I is still 30 minutes, but in Ultimate you gain 5 minutes for each empty slot in your team, which gives you 45/40/35/30 for 1/2/3/4 players. Episode II starts with 45 minutes, and Ultimate gives you the same 5 minute boosts as in Episode I, so you have 60/55/50/45 minutes for 1/2/3/4 players. (You will probably need the extra time to account for your own deaths more so than those of the enemies, as there are plenty of opportunities for instant death that will eat through your available time.)

In order to de-cheapen these quests in Ultimate, Baranz missle damage has been reduced from 250 to 50 per missile, which means a single Baranz without its shell will do 700 damage to you, instead of 3500 (~14 missles at once), so classes without Freeze Trap and Frozen Shooter now stand a chance against them. Deldepth Megid has also been reduced from level 22 to level 9, since all three Episode II quests spam Deldepths pretty heavily. I have also tried to fix the enemies as much as possible; various enemies are no longer stuck inside walls, and Recoboxes can actually spit Recons now. The "infamous" Poison Lilies in Cave 2 are also no longer on top of the water, so they can drop items.

As "proper" maximum attacks, these quests also award points, but unlike MA1/2, points are not the same as kills, so you can't spam Normal mode to build points quickly. You earn points based on kills in every difficulty, but higher difficulties award more points for the same number of kills. Points are shared between all three Episode I quests and all three Episode II quests, but points are not shared between episodes (so you can do A, B, or C in Episode I to build your Episode I points, and you can do A, B, or C in Episode II to build your Episode II points, but your score in one episode has no effect on your score in the other episode).

In the interest of full disclosure and avoiding "drama", I will reveal from the start that the prizes you can obtain from point milestones are the awards from offline Challenge mode (both shields and weapons). You aren't very likely to find people to play splitscreen with you in 2015, let alone people who are good enough at PSO to help you beat Challenge mode, and not everybody has PSO+ for playing Episode II stages offline in the first place (especially in Europe, where PSO+ doesn't even exist). As such, I've configured these quests to give you an alternative method of obtaining these items.

Episode I gives the Episode I shields, and Episode II gives the Episode II shields, as you might expect. The grand prize on each episode is the chance to pick one of the offline S-Rank weapons. Once you reach the grand prize, your points reset to 0, and then you can continue to acquire points for the ability to get Photon Drops. You may only get the offline Challenge prizes for each episode one time per character, but you may build your points to earn Photon Drops an unlimited number of times, as your points will always reset to 0 when you reach the point cap. The prizes do not change at all based on difficulty level; you only earn points faster on higher difficulties.

You also have an incentive to kill every enemy now, as doing so will yield a point bonus. If you kill every enemy, you will receive additional points equivalent to having killed 100 extra enemies. You will see a message confirming that you've killed every enemy when you reach the PC at the end of the quest (assuming you've killed everything). Of course, you shouldn't try to kill every enemy unless you're sure that you'll have enough time to beat the quest, because you get nothing if you fail. As such, it's better to race to the end and get some points than to try to kill every enemy and run out of time.

Do note that I've configured the prizes for these quests to be entirely internal, which means that I will not be porting or translating the so-called "Deep Sea Rendezvous" Episode II prize quest, as it is no longer needed: MA3 directly gives you all the rewards on its own.

--Attention--

These quests track your kills by writing data to your character file, just as MA1 and MA2 do. I have chosen a flag that is not used by any known GC Sega quests, so your MA3 scores should not interfere with any official quests; however, now that there are multiple private GC servers, each with its own set of quests, it is possible that the point system in these quests could interfere with some other unofficial quest on a different server. The first time you play these quests in both Episode I and Episode II, you should talk to Irene before you leave Pioneer 2 at the start of the quest. She will tell you your current score when she describes the simulation, and you should verify that your score is 0.

If you've never played these quests before but your score is not 0, then that means you have played some other quest that is trying to save data in the same place that I am. If you're in this situation, please contact me (e.g. via PM), and I can reset your score to 0 for you. If you want your score in these quests to work correctly, you can't play any other quests that try to save data to the same spot that I do. (I am currently unaware of any other quests that would cause a conflict, but there are plenty of quests on other servers that I've never played. If you only play quests on Sylverant, then you shouldn't have any problems with your MA3 score, as there are no conflicts between our quests.)

[Sir Rappington]

In the interest of full disclosure and avoiding "drama", I will reveal from the start that the prizes you can obtain from point milestones are the awards from offline Challenge mode (both shields and weapons). You aren't very likely to find people to play splitscreen with you in 2015, let alone people who are good enough at PSO to help you beat Challenge mode, and not everybody has PSO+ for playing Episode II stages offline in the first place (especially in Europe, where PSO+ doesn't even exist). As such, I've configured these quests to give you an alternative method of obtaining these items.

Episode I gives the Episode I shields, and Episode II gives the Episode II shields, as you might expect. The grand prize on each episode is the chance to pick one of the offline S-Rank weapons. Once you reach the grand prize, your points reset to 0, and then you can continue to acquire points for the ability to get Photon Drops. You may only get the offline Challenge prizes for each episode one time per character, but you may build your points to earn Photon Drops an unlimited number of times, as your points will always reset to 0 when you reach the point cap. The prizes do not change at all based on difficulty level; you only earn points faster on higher difficulties.

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! *raises hand* I know what drama you're referring to!

I was never interested in the original MA1/2, but I'll admit this makes me raise an eyebrow. Not to complain, mind you - because put a legit Chameleon Scythe in front of me and I'd be all over that shit - but because I honestly think it takes balls to get back into this kind of thing, given your experiences at Schtserv.

I guess my overall question is: what's Sylverant's stance on a "dynamic" view of legitimacy? Because from what I've seen so far, we seem to be a culture of purists - yes there are custom quests, but they don't award quasi-unobtainable items (unless there's one I'm unfamiliar with). Having access to the Gods Shields is all well and good, but I've seen enough former Schtserv players in the last few weeks, complaining about the lack of ANH or whatever, to make me wonder... what's the official line when they start demanding that you give out Red Rings, hit% enemy weapons, or multiple Photon Spheres as quest rewards? Because I sincerely hope that never, ever happens.

Regardless, I'll honestly admit to being interested in this quest, if I can be bothered to figure it out (because instant death traps... ehhh).

(EDIT: Feel free to substitute your own personal equivalent of an "official" line, as I'm guessing these are just on your own ship?)

[BlueCrab]

Our "official" view of legitimacy is that I don't care about it, as long as everyone gets along. Remember, nobody can possibly play PSO online at this time and be 100% legit, according to Sega's standards -- Sega's server is long gone, so Sega's standard is that you can't play online anymore.

Basically, if you want to live in a "purist legit" bubble, you can. If you don't care, then so be it. Starting fights over that kind of stuff is a good way to draw my ire.

That said, Altimira has always been Aleron Ives' playground for his custom quests and such. According to the rules, certain things are allowed on Altimira that aren't on the other ships, and that's just fine.

[Sir Rappington]

Our "official" view of legitimacy is that I don't care about it, as long as everyone gets along. Remember, nobody can possibly play PSO online at this time and be 100% legit, according to Sega's standards -- Sega's server is long gone, so Sega's standard is that you can't play online anymore.

Basically, if you want to live in a "purist legit" bubble, you can. If you don't care, then so be it. Starting fights over that kind of stuff is a good way to draw my ire.

Hahaha, no worries there. I've served my time in the drama pits of Schtserv, many years ago. And I knew some real purists back then, to whom I made the exact same Sega-related argument. I will admit to being one of the early opposers of Schtserv's custom content (to put it mildly). But on reflection, that was mostly because Schtserv's approach to custom content was "sure, have a Red Ring, we'll just justify it by throwing 8 billion mobs at you and make it easier to hunt everything anyway."

Ives clearly takes a much more conservative approach to this sort of thing, which is definitely the way to go IMO. What piqued my interest is his opposition to other deviations from Sega's model (e.g. offline quests and the cmode order thing) while releasing something like this - but I will admit that I wrote most of my last post without the consideration that this was an Altimira thing rather than a Sylverant thing.

[BlueCrab]

There are reasons to be opposed to making the online quests available offline. To do it right (read: safely) would require work in modifying the quests. Plus, online quests keep you coming back to play them.

Note: I'm also opposed to making the online quests available offline.

[Aleron Ives]

I honestly think it takes balls to get back into this kind of thing, given your experiences at Schtserv.

I never stopped doing "this kind of thing", so it's not really fair to say that I'm "getting back into" it. I've made almost every unobtainable item on Ver.2 obtainable through one quest or another, and I see no reason not to do the same thing on GC.

I guess my overall question is: what's Sylverant's stance on a "dynamic" view of legitimacy? Because from what I've seen so far, we seem to be a culture of purists - yes there are custom quests, but they don't award quasi-unobtainable items (unless there's one I'm unfamiliar with). Having access to the Gods Shields is all well and good, but I've seen enough former Schtserv players in the last few weeks, complaining about the lack of ANH or whatever, to make me wonder... what's the official line when they start demanding that you give out Red Rings, hit% enemy weapons, or multiple Photon Spheres as quest rewards? Because I sincerely hope that never, ever happens.

My stance has always been that the quality of the reward should be similar to the amount of effort required to get it. I know that even today there are quests on some servers that give Photon Spheres for practically no effort, and as long as I have anything to say about it, that will never happen here. Even so, I believe that the items in the game exist to be used, so I think everything should be obtainable in some fashion. That doesn't mean I think you should get a Double Cannon for defeating one Booma, though, which has sadly been the attitude of many people who have used the quest editor. I disapproved of Strange Sightings as much as (and perhaps more than) everybody else did at the time, and I always strive not to go down that path when I make new content.

As BlueCrab said, Altimira is where I put my various projects, so if you want to experience them, you can play on Altimira. If you want a more vanilla experience, you can play on Iselia. That's kind of why we have multiple ships, because we surely don't need this many ships for the number of people who are still playing: we want our players to have the option to try new things or to play the game the way they always have in the past without forcing anything on anybody. I had the option to put this on Iselia, but I decided that since I had a bunch of different things I wanted to do that it wouldn't be practical to load everything onto the "vanilla" ship. I put all of my custom Ver.2 projects on Altimira, so it seemed to make more sense to put my GC stuff there, too.

As BlueCrab also said, the main thing we care about is that nobody fights over this kind of thing. If I get a Chameleon Scythe from MA3 and you think it's inferior to the one you got from Challenge mode, you're free to leave my team and make your own locked game so that you don't have to play with me and my "hax", but you can't ask me to leave your team for "cheating" if I pass the legit check (assuming you're using legit mode; if you're not using legit mode, you can't really complain at all even if someone with hacked 127% items and whatnot enters your team).

The basic understanding we operate under for Ver.2 is that if you're playing on Altimira, you're fine with all of the content I've released, and if you're playing on Iselia, you're probably more interested in following Sega's restrictions. You can play on any ship you want to use, but it's sort of expected that people will tend to go to the ship that has the content they want to play. Now that Altimira supports GC and has some new GC content, this applies to GC, too.

Regardless, I'll honestly admit to being interested in this quest, if I can be bothered to figure it out (because instant death traps... ehhh).

What are you talking about? There are no Megid traps in any of these quests.

[Sir Rappington]

My stance has always been that the quality of the reward should be similar to the amount of effort required to get it. I know that even today there are quests on some servers that give Photon Spheres for practically no effort, and as long as I have anything to say about it, that will never happen here. Even so, I believe that the items in the game exist to be used, so I think everything should be obtainable in some fashion. That doesn't mean I think you should get a Double Cannon for defeating one Booma, though, which has sadly been the attitude of many people who have used the quest editor. I disapproved of Strange Sightings as much as (and perhaps more than) everybody else did at the time, and I always strive not to go down that path when I make new content.

Good to hear. Though to be honest, I'm struggling to think of any amount of effort which would justify the quite-broken Red Ring or any amount of Photon Spheres (which at one point turned Schtserv into "[the quest that rewarded them] or GTFO" as I recall).

As BlueCrab said, Altimira is where I put my various projects, so if you want to experience them, you can play on Altimira. If you want a more vanilla experience, you can play on Iselia. That's kind of why we have multiple ships, because we surely don't need this many ships for the number of people who are still playing: we want our players to have the option to try new things or to play the game the way they always have in the past without forcing anything on anybody. I had the option to put this on Iselia, but I decided that since I had a bunch of different things I wanted to do that it wouldn't be practical to load everything onto the "vanilla" ship. I put all of my custom Ver.2 projects on Altimira, so it seemed to make more sense to put my GC stuff there, too.

As BlueCrab also said, the main thing we care about is that nobody fights over this kind of thing. If I get a Chameleon Scythe from MA3 and you think it's inferior to the one you got from Challenge mode, you're free to leave my team and make your own locked game so that you don't have to play with me and my "hax", but you can't ask me to leave your team for "cheating" if I pass the legit check (assuming you're using legit mode; if you're not using legit mode, you can't really complain at all even if someone with hacked 127% items and whatnot enters your team).

The basic understanding we operate under for Ver.2 is that if you're playing on Altimira, you're fine with all of the content I've released, and if you're playing on Iselia, you're probably more interested in following Sega's restrictions. You can play on any ship you want to use, but it's sort of expected that people will tend to go to the ship that has the content they want to play. Now that Altimira supports GC and has some new GC content, this applies to GC, too.

Fair enough. At any rate, I've always said that I rarely give a crap if someone has duped / hacked stuff unless it's obscenely OP or if it breaks droprates. My big thing was always people who run ahead as if it's a race and not let anyone tag, so I'd sooner walk out on the guy with chargevulcs and a 50h zanba than the one who has a dark bridge from Schtserv.

What are you talking about? There are no Megid traps in any of these quests.

I was assuming this from the phrase "plenty of opportunities for instant death." Doesn't sound generally pleasant. But I'm sure the routes vary widely.

[K_I_R_E_E_K]

Calling the legit players as the players that play in a bubble is something i didn't expect from you bluecrab.
We play the game in it's default statistics so that when we talk about hunts, drop locations and efficiency it all matches, we play with players that play under the exact same circunstances.

Add different enemy statistics and you're screwed, change item equipability and you're screwed, change drops and you're screwed, nothing will ever match, we can't pull guides or drop charts because the entire game is different. (these are examples, but are applied to quest rewards and other changes, even on gc)
Time attack runs or even regular gameplay will behave differently.

For a person that encourages players to use the original version of the game and then say we play in a "purist legit" bubble, i mean, cmon.

We play the way we want and not you or anyone can decide who we play with.
Yes we do not acknowledge rare findings, we do not play with certain players, we do this because we don't know all the duzzens of changes, we prefer to talk and play with players on the same lvl.

We respect when others don't play like we do, they have their own game and we play ours, but please try and respect us aswell.

You want to atract players, then treat them well, all of them, even if they don't use the features made by you or other members.

[Sir Rappington]

Calling the legit players as the players that play in a bubble is something i didn't expect from you bluecrab.
We play the game in it's default statistics so that when we talk about hunts, drop locations and efficiency it all matches, we play with players that play under the exact same circunstances.

Add different enemy statistics and you're screwed, change item equipability and you're screwed, change drops and you're screwed, nothing will ever match, we can't pull guides or drop charts because the entire game is different.
Time attack runs or even regular gameplay will behave differently.

For a person that encourages players to use the original version of the game and then say we play in a "purist legit" bubble.

We play the way we want and not you or anyone can decide who we play with.
Yes we do not acknowledge rare findings, we do not play with certain players, we do this because we don't know all the duzzens of changes, we prefer to talk and play with players on the same lvl.

We respect when others don't play like we do, they have their own game and we play ours, but please try and respect us aswell.

You want to atract players, then treat them well, all of them, even if they don't use the features made by you or other members.

While I wouldn't use the term "purist legit bubble" either, I'm sure it wasn't the aim of Ives or BlueCrab to disrespect anyone. Let's agree that the goal here is for everyone to play and have a good time, and then we can work on the details.

And correct me if I'm mistaking you for someone else, but you've been around long enough to remember the early Schtserv wars, right? So perhaps you can remember how their staff came to bristle at this kind of discussion (which is not to say that I approve of said bristling, but I can at least understand it).

[K_I_R_E_E_K]

I know things on GC were a bit worse than on v2 (community backlash), but from what i remember players seemd to relate well with other players. I know that the intention of both types isn't to divide the community.
Just like i don't reject the changes, the ones that make these changes also don't do them for the sake of ruining the player experience, they simply provide another way of playing the game.
And i play with the players that play the same game as i do.

In GC i believe the issues you are talking about are with exp gain, drop frequency, online and offline quests (which ones are online specific and which ones aren't), forced rare enemy spawns and the usual unobtainable items (red ring and all of that).
That is up for every player to decide really, it's rather easy to avoid red ring players, as for everything else, welll........gl
Since these things are allowed to a certain degree, just like schtserv you can't report anyone, so finding a reliable group to play PSO is the best option you have.
Obviously some changes to GC are fairly new, barely anyone will exploit these or other changes, but in time things might get just as messy as v2, with players using the changes they see fit.

[Aleron Ives]

Thanks to Kayak giving me the idea to check Stage4 in Episode II, I have discovered and implemented Sega's fix for targetting in Seabed. You can now get a target lock on the enemies from anywhere in the penultimate Seabed room in 3.2a/b/c. The time scales on both episodes are now equal, as well: you get 30/35/40 minutes in Normal/Hard/Very Hard, and you get 45/50/55/60 in Ultimate for 4/3/2/1 players.

I was assuming this from the phrase "plenty of opportunities for instant death." Doesn't sound generally pleasant.

I only meant that Episode II enemies are generally cheaper, so between Mericarols, Deldepths, Recons (if your HP is "too high") and Sinow Zoas dealing random damage with each hit, there are a lot of chances to die instantly in Episode II as compared to Episode I.

[BlueCrab]

Calling the legit players as the players that play in a bubble is something i didn't expect from you bluecrab.
We play the game in it's default statistics so that when we talk about hunts, drop locations and efficiency it all matches, we play with players that play under the exact same circunstances.

I'm not talking about the majority of "legit" players here. I'm talking about that small minority of "any sort of taint, including ever playing with someone who might have at one point played with someone who might have played with somebody who might have considered using the EP" people as those living in a bubble. Yes, there are a few of them around, and they keep to themselves. I may find their logic illogical, but that doesn't mean that I mean them any harm or to diminish their experience.

As already said, no disrespect was meant by this at all. Sylverant is a place where I want all types of players to be able to coexist, even if they don't necessarily intermingle. After all, Sylverant seems to be the last bastion of support for v1/v2 at this point, so I'm happy to support anyone who wants to play.

Anyway, this is getting really off topic for this topic, so I'll humbly request that we return to the real topic at hand here.

[Kayak]

We encountered a glitch in this quest today. We were doing Route 2C and we had 4 players. The 4th player (Blue Gem) Couldn't warp up to the final floor of tower, but could still warp to the previous floor where the room is split in half. The warp just wasn't working for him. It occurred when there were a few enemies left, and remained in effect even after all the enemies were defeated.

[Aleron Ives]

Uh... I have no idea how a warp could fail to work when all of the enemies are dead. The only thing that blocks a warp from working (to my knowledge) is if an enemy is standing right where the warp wants to send you, the warp won't work until the enemy moves or dies. Since there are two warps that lead to 10F, are you saying that even if he took the other warp that leads to the alternate route and then tried to take the second warp to 10F that that warp didn't work, either, so he was stuck warping between the two split routes indefinitely?

[Kayak]

Uh... I have no idea how a warp could fail to work when all of the enemies are dead. The only thing that blocks a warp from working (to my knowledge) is if an enemy is standing right where the warp wants to send you, the warp won't work until the enemy moves or dies. Since there are two warps that lead to 10F, are you saying that even if he took the other warp that leads to the alternate route and then tried to take the second warp to 10F that that warp didn't work, either, so he was stuck warping between the two split routes indefinitely?

Yes. He tried both, I used proxy shenanigans to even go back a floor to try the warps myself and they worked for me.

[Aleron Ives]

Thanks for the report; I think I found the problem. The quest puts four Del Lilies in the second wave of 10F, and one of them is sitting right where you need to warp in. What happened is that at least one of you on 10F were using Demon's to kill the Del Lilies, and when he hit the poorly positioned one, either the Demon's didn't count as activating on the blue player's client, or the blue player got damage cancel on that hit, so the lily didn't lose enough HP to commit suicide. The lily died for the three of you, though, so you thought all of the enemies were dead. For the blue player, though, there was one lily left, and it was blocking the warp, so he couldn't go to 10F. (I moved the warp location a bit, since it was too close to the wall originally, which is probably why the two of them conflicted.)

In order to prevent the problem from ever happening again, I have rotated all of the Del Lilies in that wave by 45 degrees: they now appear in the four corners of the blue tile area, rather than north/south/east/west. This should leave the warp location clear, so even if the lilies glitch again (which they will, since the client controls lily suicide), everyone will still make it to 10F. Someone may just have to fight an invisible Del Lily all by himself.

In other news, I have also fixed Ultimate Mericarol's experience on 3.2a, b, and c. Thanks also go to Kayak for reminding me that this was an easy fix to backport to MA3.

[Aleron Ives]

I've updated all six of these quests to store your points on the server, so that you can use any character you want to acquire points. The old system required you to always use the same character if you wanted to make any progress, which was a pain for people who have all 12 classes. Other changes include:

• The maximum number of points is now 50000 in each episode.
• You get prizes at 10000, 25000, and 50000 points.
• Your points reset to 0 after you hit 50000, so you can continue playing to get more items.
• Points have been rescaled in 3.1c and 3.2c. The A and B quests have more monsters, but the C quests have an extra area compared to the A and B quests, so they now award the most points per episode, since they're harder to complete.
• Playing the first side room in Mine 2 is no longer required in 3.1a.
• You can backtrack to the Lily room in 3.1b/c if you warp to the southern part of the map first, instead of being forced to go to Mine 2.
• You get iframes in Ultimate, so HUmar and HUnewearl in particular have a prayer of beating the quests.

Finally, the prize list is now split between episodes. Here's what you can get:

Episode I:

• GODS SHIELD GENBU
• GODS SHIELD SEIRYU
• TOY HAMMER
• CHAMELEON SCYTHE
• AKIKO'S WOK
• BROOM

Episode II:

• GREEN RING
• BLUE RING
• FLOWER CANE
• HARISEN BATTLE FAN
• SAMBA MARACAS
• CRAZY TUNE

[Aleron Ives]

I've updated MA3 with a few new features, since I was already backporting previous changes from GC to V2. Here's the list:

• If you run out of time, you no longer get zero points. Instead, you'll receive 2/3 credit for the monsters you managed to kill. You get full credit if you reach the end before the time limit. This hopefully makes it more desirable to try to get the maximum kills bonus, as previously if you tried to kill every enemy and ran out of time, you'd get nothing.
• The point scaling has been reworked for each quest. 3.1c and 3.2c now give even more points, as the previous boosts were not enough to compensate for their high difficulty. 3.1b and 3.2b give the second most points, as they have the second most difficult spawns. 3.1a and 3.2a give the fewest points, since they're the most straightforward.
• Once you move to the next area, you can no longer return to a previous area, as in MA2.