Hello

This time, the keyword is small group, and it led me to look back on memories of playing together with other users in-game

It has been quite a long time since I settled into solo play, but there was a time when I enjoyed the game with others and made a number of good memories that way, so I took this chance to reflect on them

Memories from [The Seed]

As for The Seed, only solo play is possible now, and you only run into other users in the lobby or rest areas, but before that patch, party play was available, so a great many players used to form parties and make their way through it together

Even then, parties could not stay together through every map, so there was the inconvenience of disbanding on certain floors and then forming the party again afterward, but it still felt well worth the trouble. At the most basic level, it let you feel at least a little of the fun of cooperation amid such repetitive gameplay, and on maps where the objective was defeating monsters, running it as a party could be a bit faster as well, so when it was later changed into a fully individual experience, quite a few people were left feeling disappointed

More than that, party play was not simply enjoyable in its own right. Before the revamp, there was also a rather brutal period when getting past floor 43 reliably required help from a party member

At the time, floor 43 in The Seed worked as a quiz in which Fleta asked questions based on the player’s exploration record, and although each question gave you three chances, getting it wrong meant you could not move on to the next one

• How many Seed Points did you have in the lobby?

• What was the order of the footholds on floor 9?

• What was the name of the BGM that was the correct answer on floor 24?

• How much time remained on floor 35?

Questions like these were bothersome, but since they could still be answered alone by checking your record, they were manageable enough. The real problem was that some of the quiz prompts were so oddly specific that they felt unreasonable, and the question asking for “the number of monsters defeated on that floor” was exactly like that

Among them, the one shown above that asked for “the number of Flower Golems defeated” was about as difficult as solo play could get, and the reason was simple

As you can see, two different monsters appeared mixed together, so there was no way to count them separately. The one reliable solution was to form a party and have your party member defeat all 300 monsters instead, so that the floor would clear and you could enter 0 as the answer

Back then, the special skill rings we know today could appear at random from The Seed’s ring boxes, and because the Grade 2 box awarded for clearing floors 41 through 45 was overwhelmingly preferred over the Grade 1 box from floors 46 through 50 in terms of difficulty versus reward, there were not many users like me whose goal was floor 50

Because of that, I remember players who were aiming for floor 50 helping one another on floor 11 in a kind of exchange of favors. Even if someone did not go down personally, it was still possible to help by using a Seed Practice Entry Ticket, and that at least made things a little easier to breathe through

I cannot honestly say I miss that whole process, but looking back now, party play in The Seed still remains a good memory in its own way

Party Quests I retried for [Monster Collection]

I also remember repeatedly retrying Party Quests to help someone else. These days, aside from Dimensional Crack, which is essentially the Ludibrium Party Quest, most of them have been changed to allow solo entry, which has made things much easier for people working on Monster Collection

That said, both then and now, this Dark Eye from Dimensional Crack still remains party-only, so I imagine it is still a fairly rough one. I remember registering it first in the early morning, and thankfully the person who had been aiming for it managed to register it too, so we ended up sharing that little moment of joy together

Next was Frankenroid from Romeo and Juliet, which I also remember struggling with quite a bit. Unlike the other two, it was the boss monster that appeared at the very end, so the whole process was especially demanding. Fortunately, both of us managed to register it

Lastly, when it came to Flying Griffey in Dragon Rider, I ended up doing nothing but failing until the easing patch finally arrived. On days when the Sunday Maple effect was active, I even brought in four different characters to keep trying. The fact that there was even a separate entry quest just to get in is part of why it stayed with me so clearly

Memories from [Challengers World]

When it comes to guilds, their role as a community is naturally important, but in present-day MapleStory there is a bit more weight on guild skills, especially Noblesse Skills. The same holds true in Challengers World, but one key difference is that in the early days after the world opens, building contribution is effectively a requirement

Your guild’s level only rises once guild contribution has gone up, and only once the guild level rises can you recruit more members, so in the early phase of Challengers World, alongside Underground Culvert and Flag Race, this is something you could really call essential

With that in mind, even the Challengers World-exclusive passive skill applies both the amount of guild contribution gained and the maximum obtainable amount at 2x

In any case, this contribution can be earned weekly through attendance, Underground Culvert, Flag Race, and defeating daily and weekly bosses. Of these, boss clears carry the most weight. You do get contribution for defeating them alone, but going in as a party gives even more, so it was very common to look for people in guild chat to run daily bosses together, and I did the same. It was a troublesome process, certainly, but for some reason it was also enjoyable

Mainly the four Root Abyss bosses (1,000 each), Normal Magnus (1,500), Normal Papulatus (2,000), and Hard Von Leon (2,000) were the ones we would do together. Normal Arkarium and Normal Pink Bean were usually left out, since they could drop items like the Dominator Pendant, Pink Holy Cup, and Black Bean Mark, which were expensive in Challengers World

Usually, once the guild reached around level 25, this stopped being something you had to do every single week, and while the task itself was not especially fun, it was necessary anyway and ended up having an unexpected charm of its own, so when Challengers World Season 4 arrives, I hope you will remember to keep up with it each week

On top of that, Challengers Partner did not quite work out the way I had hoped, so if it continues in the future, I can only hope it returns with those earlier inconveniences improved

Thank you for reading