Theories Tested - Interesting Results

[Sitka]

I set out this weekend, Dropslash's Rati' guide in hand, with the intent to farm Ratis. Ketchup and others put a lot of stock in them, so after my mag poll, I decided to give them a try. When I farm, I farm big and this time was the biggest farm I've yet tried. I gathered 16 mags from various characters so I would have a multitude of beginning colors to see what effect, if any, that would have on the final project. In following Dropslash's guide, he preferred to use an Oran Racaseal, so I created one from scratch, filled my banks with meseta stolen from other chars and started farming. While waiting every 3 mins to feed the mags, I thought I might just start running Forest-Falz, maybe pick up a few things along the way, and test some different theories. I twinked her rotten. I gave her every advantage I had available to me including equipping a hacked mag. I ran through Forest-Falz on normal, trying to avoid the four-light rooms and beat Falz on level 18. Next on to Hard, beat Falz on level 29. Next on to Very Hard, beat Falz on level 41. Next on to ultimate, where I've been playing Forest-Ruins for several hours and have her up to level 50 now. This was all done on the xbox, trying to only kill neccessary enemies until I got to ultimate. Several theories were tested: 1) How can anyone claim to get into ultimate at a level lower than 40 - I tried to be perfect and the best I could manage was 41. 2) I have 7 characters now in ultimate. On 6 of those characters, I started seeing good rare drops in very hard and regular rare drops on ultimate. I could always count on seeing photon drops, cross scars, justys, body parts and such and usually by the time I was in ultimate Ruins, my damn bank was full of common rares. With the hacked mag Racaseal, I didn't see a single red box - not one - zippo. That's 50 levels, several hours in very hard and ruins, and not so much as a photon drop. Yes Virginia, I think the drop rate has been altered on xbox. 3) I'm not sure if the base stats have been affected by wearing the hacked mag. Ketchup posted on one of my threads that it does not (I believe), but I didn't have my chart for the Racaseal's stats available, so I'll double check that later today. 4) Last night I also gave my Racast (lvl 174) some extra dark protection to test his ability to withstand megid attacks. Equipping a DF Field, 4 x devil resists and a Delsaber's Shield, I pumped his EDK to 102. I've poked ob lilys, del lilys, gran scorcers and even the Great Dark Falz himself, all on ultimate, and stood in front of megid attack after megid attack - nothing. With 102 on edk, none of their attacks can hurt me. I have yet to try a Hildetor or a Mil Lily, so that will be the next part assuming I can find one. We did try Mericol and his attack killed me immediately as Asia Skyly, laughing heartily, explained it's a physical attack, not a magic attack. Now mind you, while I was experimenting as a megid magnet, I was taking heavy damage from Falz freeze/darvant attack because I didn't have my cure freeze equipped and I'm not sure the tradeoff is worth it for that particular situation, but high EDK definitely has its advantages for many places on PSO. My ratis are coming along, now about level 65, and I'll be back online later for further experimentation, but I thought I'd post for your amusement/information and I welcome other thoughts about what I'm doing here. If I've missed something obvious here, help me out.

[Dhylec]

my eyes are bleeding with a 42-line paragraph! line break are free, feel free to use them.. plz!

your topic involves a number of subtopics.. you could break them up & put them in the corresponding forums

[Sitka]

LOL. I have been accused of rambling from time to time. Point well taken.

[Malkavian]

About the lv to reach Ultimate...
Maybe you did some unnecesary rooms. or there is always the possibility of some enemies killing themselves. Confusing them gives a 20% of experience less.

Im sure is possible to do under lv 40. My lowest was 41 too but I didnt make it perfect.

[Sitka]

I entered Falz on level 40 and leveled up at 41. Looking at the other thread, I see where Kef and others say they made it at 37-39 and I believe them, but you would have to be perfect and not kill any enemies you don't have to. I've just heard many others claim to make it in the mid-30's legit, and that I find not plausible. The next part of this challenge will be to do it with a 100% legit character and try to better the level 40.

[lain2k3]

You can get in at ~36 if you do perfect runs through episode 2 all the way through. Ep.2 gives less experience.

And 100 dark resistance will gaurantee that you cannot die to megid, ever. I believe ep.1 hildetorr megid is the highest in the game, which has a 95% chance of killing you with 0 EDK. every one edk reduces the chance by 1%, making 100 guaranteed survival.

[J3553]

Interesting. Having 100 EDK would be awesome...I'll have to try and gather the equipment for that one day.

And Sitka: http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_eek.gif Holy crap, 16 MAGS! Sounds like fun...http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

[Dana]

39 was my lowest in ult, and it was a bit hard but fun, too many mags, i hate them at the moment, and OMG 100dark def(what about your other stats)anyway i'm not one for dark def, i have about 18-25 norm and i don't care one bit

[Sitka]

I really appreciate the comments that some of you have ventured. I continued with the testing throughout this weekend (sorry for my mates, that why I wasn't online this weekend - I'll try to make it up this week).

1) Completed farming 16 mags into 100 level Ratis with 12 def, 38 pow and 50 dex. They are simply beautiful. All have red bodies (couldn't get a blue one), but the wings are spectacular: blue, green orange, red, purple, white, grey. Next I'll split them up and start raising specific areas for different characters (I have all the mind SATOs I need).

2) Logged six additional hours in ultimate forest/caves/temple with Racaseal with hacked mag. No rare drops. Implication: don't use a hacked mag and don't allow hacked mags in your game if you're playing xbox and you want rare drops. Offline or online. This is what the veterans have been claiming and my experiment so far seems to confirm it. It may still be possible to get a rare with a hacked mag on, but it would truly be a rare-rare.

3) Base stats on Racaseal were not affected by wearing the hacked mag through the leveling process. I still highly recommend playing the game properly and not using a hacked mag, but that commonly held belief was not confirmed in my tests, thus far. Ketchup was right again.

4) Megid survival. Lain is right. I can survive both Mil Lilys and Hildetor's megid attack. With 102 EDK, you can survive any megid attack in the game. You cannot survive any attack that takes your hit point to zero (Mericol, Ill Gil). With a very high level character, I can justify swapping out the God Battle (my Racast uses a frozen shooter, so God Battle is not critical), and my cure stuff (carry sol atomizers and wiggle like Hell!!!). My hit point total is over 1900 so the extra defense from better armour/shield is not critical plus, hell, I'm a ranger - I don't get hit that much anyway. It's a nice feeling when you can walk into a room and not have to worry about the Ob Lily in the corner that you didn't see!

Again, if you see anything wrong with this stuff so far, please let me know. The whole idea was to confirm or dis-prove some commonly held viewpoints being expressed in the games that I play in. The ratis were a bonus.

[Evolution]

Hey sky, you tried doing it with the 99x items on? the one that lets you have 99mates and fluids? I wonder if that has the same effect as the hacked mag.

[Sitka]

I have not tried experimenting with any other hacks/tricks. My goal was to simply focus on the hacked mag. It's usually pretty obvious when a player is using a hacked mag. Not only are they doing excessive damage for their level, they usually do not accumulate any PB (there are some exceptions). As Arislan pointed out in another thread, one way Microsoft could be adjusting the drop rate for rares is to move the decimal over one place (i.e. .087 to .0087) when a hacked mag is on a character (or in the chars' bank).

If we eliminate the hacked mag, then we'll look at items like hacked units/armour/weapons and the fluid/mate stacking issue. Of course the easiest thing to do is play 100% legit and make sure your mates are 100% legit. I just want to make sure if I challenge a char joining my game re: his mag, items, weapons, etc., I'm talking the truth and not bs. I hate the flaming that's rampant on xbox right now.

When they are complete, I'll be offering my mates legit 200 lvl Ratis if they destroy their hacked mags. Call me crazy, but I feel like Mario Sunshine.

[Evolution]

hey, I'm gonna get on in a bit, im still looking for that MKB, wanna do some east tower runs under skyly ID?

[Sitka]

Absolutemently. I'll bring out MEGID-MAN: Sitka Blue D. 2 legit, 2 legit 2 quit! Almost to level 175 (damn, this takes time). I'll look for yous. Dav 10? Around 3:30 p.m.ish West Coast (GO LAKERS!!!).

[gream-green]

As Arislan pointed out in another thread, one way Microsoft could be adjusting the drop rate for rares is to move the decimal over one place (i.e. .087 to .0087) when a hacked mag is on a character (or in the chars' bank).


Seems like they could just as easily say something like -

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$drop{rate} = '0';
}
or something like that in whatever language they use; I dunno, stoopid hacked mags. but I would like to see the drop rates set to 0 for hacked items and mags. Or even better

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$inventory{bank} = 'default';
}

Go Lakers!

[darthsaber9x9]

On 2004-06-01 13:51, gream-green wrote:


As Arislan pointed out in another thread, one way Microsoft could be adjusting the drop rate for rares is to move the decimal over one place (i.e. .087 to .0087) when a hacked mag is on a character (or in the chars' bank).


Seems like they could just as easily say something like -

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$drop{rate} = '0';
}
or something like that in whatever language they use; I dunno, stoopid hacked mags. but I would like to see the drop rates set to 0 for hacked items and mags. Or even better

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$inventory{bank} = 'default';
}

Go Lakers!



im no hacker/programmer or whatever but that has to be against forum rules lol

[Jack]

On 2004-06-01 13:51, gream-green wrote:


As Arislan pointed out in another thread, one way Microsoft could be adjusting the drop rate for rares is to move the decimal over one place (i.e. .087 to .0087) when a hacked mag is on a character (or in the chars' bank).


Seems like they could just as easily say something like -

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$drop{rate} = '0';
}
or something like that in whatever language they use; I dunno, stoopid hacked mags. but I would like to see the drop rates set to 0 for hacked items and mags. Or even better

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$inventory{bank} = 'default';
}

Go Lakers!



I'd prefer the code to be:

10 CHECK MAG LEVEL
20 IF MAG LEVEL > 200 GOTO 30
30 PRINT "ARSE"
40 GOTO 30
RUN

[gream-green]

On 2004-06-01 16:00, Jack wrote:


On 2004-06-01 13:51, gream-green wrote:


As Arislan pointed out in another thread, one way Microsoft could be adjusting the drop rate for rares is to move the decimal over one place (i.e. .087 to .0087) when a hacked mag is on a character (or in the chars' bank).


Seems like they could just as easily say something like -

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$drop{rate} = '0';
}
or something like that in whatever language they use; I dunno, stoopid hacked mags. but I would like to see the drop rates set to 0 for hacked items and mags. Or even better

if ($mag{equip} > 'lv. 200') {
$inventory{bank} = 'default';
}

Go Lakers!



I'd prefer the code to be:

10 CHECK MAG LEVEL
20 IF MAG LEVEL > 200 GOTO 30
30 PRINT "ARSE"
40 GOTO 30
RUN



LOL

[iamfanboy]

ROFL