Party Quest: CPQ

The Carnival Party Quest (Abbreviated CPQ) is undeniably the fastest way for characters 30 to 50 to train, especially if you’ve got at least three other players who you know you can trust, or even if you’ve got one friend who has two computers (three in all).

The Basics

CPQ is the closest thing MapleStory has to PvP. It consists of two parties (Of 2~6 people each) facing each other in the “Monster Carnival.” One party creates a room through Spiegelmann in the carnival lobby. He’s also the NPC that warps you to the lobby, and he’s in Kerning, Orbis, and Ludibrium. Once one party creates a room, another party can request to challenge them. If the leader of the first party accepts, the second party is warped to the waiting room for a 10 second count down.

Once the countdown is over, both parties are warped to another map (Determined by the room that the first party chose), where monsters spawn. Some monsters are slightly invisible (Like a Rogue in Dark Sight), which means that they are for the opposing team. You cannot hit them, so just focus on the ones that aren’t invisible. The objective of the CPQ is to kill as many monsters as you can, because each one you kill gives some Carnival Points (CP). At the end of the round, the team with the highest overall CP wins. As CP is collected, it can  be used to spawn harder monsters for the enemy team, buff the monsters to make it harder for the enemy team to kill them, or place conditions (Such as Darkness/Lower Accuracy) on the opposing party members.

Occasionally, the monsters may drop Maple Coins. These can be collected and exchanged for prizes later on, so grab them when you can!

At the end of the PQ, the teams are awarded a ranking and EXP, depending on how much CP they gained. I’m not sure of the rewards for every ranking, but B rank is somewhere around 25,000 EXP and requires 250 CP. A rank is 30,000 EXP and requires 500 CP.

Trade Wins (TW)

Many players choose to do this: Two parties agree to “trade wins,” one party wins the first time around, and the second wins the second time around, etc. This is great EXP and definitely the way to go if you don’t have multiple computers.

My method

At my house, we have 3 computers, but only my brother and I play MapleStory. We load a dummy character on the third computer we don’t use, invite another player to the dummy character’s party, then start a match and kick the other player. This way, we win every time. We always get B rank (We’re only level 37 and 35), so that’s 25k EXP every time, on top of all the EXP we get simply fighting the mobs. Once we get a little higher level we’ll be getting A rank every time. In a little over an hour and a half of using this method, I leveled 4 times (33~37) on my Dexless Assassin, McPvvn.

Party Questing: ME FIRST!

When PQing, I occasionally run into these kind of players:They always expect to get exactly what they want, every time. For instance, this last time I quested, this chick “AngieIsDah1″ was in our party. First of all, she just plain sucked at jumping. Then, she kept going “OH I was here first… Ldr didn’t u see I was here first?” I mean, on STAGE TWO she was complaining because someone else was on ‘her’ rope. It happens a lot, and generally someone will move in a second or two, but neither would budge. She kept going on about how she was there first, so I told her to get down and did it myself for the rest of the PQ. She then continued to complain about the fact that I made her sit out. Reaalllly ANNOYING.

Let me tell you now guys, it’s called a party quest for a reason. During a party quest, the 4 (or 2,3,5,or 6 depending on what quest you are doing) players need to learn to work as one unit. Granted, there are a few aspects that are very hard to get people to work together on, such as looting the squishy shoes or who gets to kill neckis, etc, but in the parts like the first stage, players need to help each other get cupons.

Now that my rant is done, here are a few more pointers for Party Questing:

Stage 1
When you first get in and read your question, tell the rest of the party what number you got. Ex: if the riddle was what level a player gets the Magician job advancement (8), then, in party chat, simply type “8.”

If you got the question about how much SP you get opon leveling (3), or some other low number, then don’t just get your pass and sit there, go back and help out!

Stage 2
Pick a rope, any rope. It doesn’t really matter which one. If someone jumps onto the rope you’re on, move. It takes less time than arguing with them, and it’s not worth proving a point over. Once everyone’s on a rope, move in a clockwise position. Ex: People are positioned on the two bottom ropes and the top left rope. The combo is wrong, so the person on the top left rope moves over to the top right. Wrong again. The bottom left person then moves to the top left so that the two top ropes and the bottom right is occupied. If this is still wrong, then the bottom right person moves to bottom left. This is, of course, the last combination and must be right if the others were wrong.

Stage 3
Get on a platform that has either 1, 2, or 3 kittens. Once again, it really doesn’t matter, because this stage is easy as heck. If you’re on the third plat, it goes like this: 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4. If you’re on plat 2, it goes 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3. If you’re on plat 1, just stay there until they tell you to go to 2!

Stage 4
Oh noes! The cursed barrels! Calm down people, it’s REALLY not that hard. Just go in logical numerical order: 123, 124, 125, 126, 134, 135, 136, 137, etc… If you’re not sure, just watch how other people do it. Once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy.

Stage 5 (Last)
There’s really not much to tell here… There are 3 platforms that span the entire map, 10 monsters (3 Cursed Eyes on the first plat when you first jump down, 6 Jr. Neckis, and the Kingslime) that drop passes. Only the leader picks them up, and if you’re the leader, I suggest not picking them up until all the monsters are dead. This way, in the off chance you do die, you won’t have any of the passes and then can pass leadership to another player and allow the rest of the party to get their bonuses!

KPQ: Mass Combo

So I got on this morning thinking I’d run a couple of PQs and then maybe train at Wild Boars or something. I get into a party quest with some people, and they turn out to be total noobs. Luckily, my friend Tacuno, whom I had quested with yesterday, logs in. We gather up a party and I check my tracks. We find a party that’s in the last stage and we camp there, on Channel 9. We get in and we are booking it. We had this one NOOBY magician chick, and by nooby, I mean NOOBY. She wouldn’t listen to anything I said, and even though Tacuno was our designated scout, she went out EVERY time, even though I told her to stay. Somehow, though, we managed to get in over and over, completely dominating the channel, even though several times there were a few other parties waiting to get in. One of the party members quit at one point, without any warning, and there just happened to be another person (Docks3) chilling around in the KPQ area on our channel (CH-9). I invite him to the party, he joins, I click on Cloto, and we are IN. This is like our 18th PQ or so in a row.

Clearing stage 4

So we get in a few more times, and we’re fighting the Kingslime (Tacuno had called dibs on the Squishy Shoes if they dropped, which they hadn’t the whole time we were in that channel) and the magician chick steals the shoes! That was our last straw, so at bonus, I sent Docks3 to go recruit another player. He tells me to add OhorizonO, so I do, and I kick the magician chick, and we get in again. Anyways, we make it through several more times, when I ended up dying in the last stage thanks to my dad distracting me. It was time for lunch and my grandma was over, so I had to be all polite and whatnot. Docks3 had to go as well, so I went through my tracks, found a couple that were inside on a few channels, gave them to Tacuno, and logged out. All in all, it was a great day of PQing!

Partaaayyyy Timeeee!!!!!

One of the many random parties in the FM

One of the great things about MapleStory is the complete randomness of the players. Every so often, someone will randomly use a MegaPhone to say “Party in the FM, come nao!” or something to that effect and, because people are bored, they’ll just show up, sometimes in the hundreds! This is one such party in FM 3 CH 4 (On Bera, of course) at about 2:20 a.m. (EST, of course, cos that’s where I are). These parties are often shortlived, and even as I am posting this I’m watching the numbers dwindle away. It’s still fun to watch though, and these parties are often a great way to make new friends. Party time anyonez?

Party Questing

Party Questing is a very touchy subject. There are so many variables that go into it. For instance, unless you have a set party of three of your buddies, you never know what kind of party you’re going to end up with (Though you can bet that at least half the time there’s going to be some noobs!). Here are a few of the most common stereotypes of PQers I have run into:

The Noob

We all have to deal with them, and we’ve all been them at one time. They have absolutely no clue what they’re doing, and often times are almost entirely unteachable. In Kerning PQ, your first warning sign is right there in the first stage: “Ummm, what does this mean: Kill an amount of ligators equal to the answer to the question and pick up the cupons.” If you encounter one of these, and the channel you went in on is empty, I’d highly suggest you kick them, grab another player, and go back in. Don’t worry, they won’t be smart enough to track you/give your track away to other people

The Jerk

These people are generally somewhat good at party questing. The only problem is that they’re jerks to everyone around them. In the 1st stage, they’ll steal cupons from other hard-working players, slowing the entire party down. In the second-through-fourth stages, they may run for the easiest spot or sit out and force the party leader to both jump from rope-to-rope or pile of kitties-to-pile of kitties or barrel-to-barrel and click at the same time. Some jerks may also run for Barrel 3, even if they REALLY suck at the 4th stage. In the last (fifth) stage, they will probably rush to kill the Jr. Neckis and steal the KingSlime’s squishy shoe drops.

Teh Pro

If you run into one of these, BUDDY THEM. A party of pros is your key to making it through a party quest quickly and efficiently, allowing you to run through many times in a row. The pro knows exactly what to do. Once in the first stage, they go directly to Cloto, read the riddle, call out the number of cupons they must collect, then lay waste to the ligators. They will call out “Done” when they’ve gotten all the coupons they need, and will continue to kill ligators until the other two players have gotten all the coupons they need. They’ll then get the pass, drop it near Cloto, and stand by the portal, waiting for the all clear. In the 3rd and 4th stages, they will often go for the 3rd spot and move quickly and efficiently through the patterns, allowing the party leader to keep a steady rythm of clicking. In the fifth stage, pros often like to challenge themselves to attempt to solo the Kingslime before the other players can make it down, though some may just go for the Neckis :].

The Tracker

I myself am a tracker. Before joining a party, I will quickly jump through all the channels, copying names to a Notepad document.  Once I’ve made it through all 18 channels (Excluding ch 1, cos that one is impossible to get tracks for!), I’ll run through again and check all the names, to see if any have gotten in. If they have, I’ll put an asterisk (*) next to their name in the track list. After making my second run through, I will go to channel 1 and create/join a party. If they don’t have their own track, I will give them the track I found or cycle through the channels again, checking all the names once again. By this time, at least one of the parties that I wrote down will have made it in on some channel, and we’ll have a track. I continue to cycle until the track we use gets into the last stage. I keep putting asterisks next to the names of players who are currently inside of a PQ. After we’ve gotten to the Bonus stage of a PQ, I will tell the others to remain in Bonus whilst I go out and write down the names of any players outside (And I often go recharge my stars at this point as well). The rest of the party will then attempt to rush. Often times, we get back in. If not, I’ve got a track. I put an asterisk next to the name(s) of the track(s) and then cycle through checking all of my tracks (Checking the ones that are already starred first of course). Wash, rinse, repeat. Having a good tracker in your party will greatly reduce waiting times, and will increase your chance s of keeping a running chain of PQs. If you have a REALLY good tracker, and a REALLY good party, you can rack up to 6 PQs-per-hour, or more if you get lucky!

The Ameteur

If you can’t get a pro, an Ameteur is usually the next best thing. They have a basic knowledge of how the PQ works. They’re great for Barrel 2 if you do not have 2-3 pro players present in the party. They usually listen to the leader, though some are stupid enough to listen to anyone who will bark out orders (Hence why you should watch out for Jerks). Ameteurs have great potential, and if you let them tag along for several PQs, you will see their skills improving. Do your best to teach them, remember, it’s always good to have another pro on your team. If you take the time to tutor an Ameteur, they will often be thankful to you and may buddy you as well.

If you can gather a close group of friends who are typically all on at the same time, you can go far! Good luck PQing!

My Characters (As of April 2009)

Currently, I am training on a Dexless Assassin (IGN: McPvvn). It’s currently level 23 and all tricked out with a +10 Dex Bathrobe, an 8 attack work glove, a 20 attack Garnier (That still has 1 slot left!), a 2 Luk Purple Bandanna, and +10 speed shoes. It’s also got 2 sets of Ilbi Throwing Stars and a set of  Steely Throwing-Knives. All this was graciously given to me by my brother. I also have a level 50 Ice/Lightning Wizard by the name of LiteralLight. This is one of my oldest characters and the oldest character I have access to. I also recently started a Cleric, which is currently level 33 (RawkAllNite). It’s been autobanned until May 12th at 5:00 P.M. and I’m not going to bother filing a ticket with Nexon about it because they never listen anyways (No, I wasn’t hacking!). I also have a level 32 Gunslinger by the name of Rawkx, which I haven’t really been training on in a while. Anyways, I’m mainly training on McPvvn right now, on Bera, so feel free to add me if you wish!

Emergence

Those who know anything about me know this: I’m big into MapleStory, and I’m big into Blogging. Therefore, I have decided to combine the two: I shall blog about my MapleStory. I have been addicited to MapleStory since participating in the Global server’s Beta Test stage. There’s been good times and bad times, easy times and tough times. I haven’t always been happy with MapleStory, and indeed, I have many qualms in how Nexon runs (and ruins) the game. However, like any great thing, MapleStory still enthralls me, and I will stick with it, through thick and thin, for no matter how hard I try, it is impossible to quit Maple! Anyways, thank you for reading what I’ve got to say, and I hope you enjoy what you read. Feel free to comment, in fact, I’d love it if you did. I’ve also set up a Twitter account so you can follow what I’m doing between posts. My Twitter account is @MapleTales. Oh, and, by the way, I’m a Beran for life~!