Monster Carnival FAQ By MajesticMystic (aka RegalStar on the newer forums I go to) Version 1.01 March 24, 2008 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section Numberless - Version History ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v1.0 - I wrote this. (03/20/2008) v1.01 - Added some infos, updated Section 7 slightly. (03/24/2008) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 1 - A brief intro Section 2 - Requirements Section 3 - Preparation Section 4 - The Carnival Section 5 - End of the Game Section 6 - Maple Coins Section 7 - Strategy and Tips Section 8 - FAQs Section 9 - Contact Info Section 10 - Copyright Section 11 - Credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 1 - A brief intro ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a FAQ (aka frequently asked question, though most FAQs go beyond that) for the newly released feature in Global Maple Story called Monster Carnival. So what is this Monster Carnival, you ask? Well, it's kinda like a competition between two opposing parties. Basically, throw two parties in a map, have them kill monsters, and see which team's better at it. However, that's not all there is to it (otherwise it'll just be a comparison of level, gears, and character control). You also get to use various stuff to disrupt the other team, stuff that ranges from summoning more monsters, debuffing their characters, and buffing the monsters they have to kill. It's quite fun, really. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 2 - Requirements ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In order to participate in the monster carnival, you will need: -A party of 2 or more members with level between 30 and 50 inclusive -An opposing, qualified party with the same amount of members as you -An empty carnival field that is suited for the amount of people within each party Basically, assemblying a party is easy enough, as you have quite a lot of flexibility in what your party can contain. Unlike most other PQs, getting inside the carnival fields are also easy enough, given that there are 6 fields within each channel. The hard part is finding an opponent (or an opponent that won't squash you flat). You can either advertise for opponents (eg. "L> 4v4 opponents") in channel 1, just go to a channel and go to the entrance of a field to wait for an opponent to apply, or look for people who had done that. What people to bring? Well, higher level is obviously good (but keep in mind that higher level isn't EVERYTHING, and low levels still be helpful in various ways). As far as classes goes, pretty much all classes can shine. Getting a cleric will obviously be helpful, as with a spearman or a thief (with a high level of their respective buff, of course). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3 - Preparation ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, does Monster Carnival sound good to you? If it does, head over to Kerning City, Orbis or Ludibrium and talk to Spiegelmann. You can learn a lot about the carnival from him, but since that would run me out of business, let's just get inside, shall we? To form a party, the usual tactics apply - go to channel 1, spam "J>PQ [insert condition here like 40+ or 4v4 only or whatever] [insert optional amount of @]" like no tomorrow until someone invites you in, or make a party and invite some of the people shouting that. Once a satisfactory party is formed, the leader should talk to Spiegelmann. Spiegelmann will provide you with a list of available carnival fields. They can either be empty or have one party waiting inside. If you choose an empty one, your party will be inside the lobby, and for the next 3 minutes other parties can challenge you. If you choose to challenge a party, be aware that you can only challenge parties with the same number of people you have (ie no 6v2 or something ridiculous like that). Also, each carnival field has its own limit on how many people it can accomodate. Field 1 can only accomodate parties with 2-4 people, for example, while Field 6 can only accomodate parties with 3-6 people. Finally, whoever's inside the lobby first reserves the right to decline a challenge. Once two parties are inside, they're given 10 seconds to buff, chat, wish good luck, taunt or whatever, then the carnival will begin! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 4 - The carnival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basically, the carnival is a 10 minute battle of killing power. The parties won't attack each other (MapleStory isn't cut out for PvP, trust me), but rather, monsters will spawn, and you must kill them. Most monsters have a side, which means that monsters on your party's side are to be killed by the other team, while monsters on the other team's side are to be killed by you. You will be able to differentiate monsters on your side, as they are translucent and cannot be hit by you. During the carnival, you may not use ANYTHING you have in your inventory except for pet foods. Rather, the monsters inside will drop potions, which you can collect. However, any potions you pick up will be used immediately. Monsters can also drop stuff other than potion. Here's a full list of what they can drop: -White Potion -Mana Elixir -Party Mana Elixir -Elixir -Party Elixir -Power Elixir -Party Power Elixir -All Cure Potion -Party All Cure Potion-- *ahem* Poison (gg Nexon) You've seen most of the items above. The party version simply affects every member of your party. Here are the stuff that are dropped exclusively inside the carnivals: -Mini Cube of Darkness Looks like a small box with question marks. It inflicts a random status on an opposing party member. -Cube of Darkness Bigger than the mini cube. It inflicts a random status on all opposing party members. -Stunner Looks like a purple orb. It stuns an opponent. -Carnival Point 1 Looks like a blue orb. Gives 1 CP. -Carnival Point 2 Looks like a red/orange orb. Gives 2 CP. -Carnival Point 3 Looks like a purple orb. A bit larger than Stunner. Gives 3 CP. -Maple Coin More on that later. Now, every time you kill a monster, it gives you a various amount of CP. Not all monsters are scored equally - killing a teddy will give you only 1 CP, while brining down a Rombot will award you with 6. You can also collect CP from blue and red orbs and when an opponent leaves the carnival field. Remember how I mentioned you can use stuff that creates all sorts of trouble for your opponents? Well, you gotta buy them, and CP is the currency you'll be using. See that little window thingy on the upper left? There are three tabs: Mob, Skill and Protector, and you'll find the goodies you seek in there. The mob tab, obviously, summons more monsters for your opponents. The monsters you can summon ranges from a cute, (relatively) harmless teddy to a big, scary Rombot. Keep in mind that any monsters you summon will add to the spawn pool, meaning that they'll respawn when they die, so they're not an one time thing. Here's a list of monsters you can summon: Teddy - 7 CP (5 in field 5/6) Bloctopus - 7 CP (6 in field 5/6) Ratz (actually Retz) - 8 CP (7 in field 5/6) Chronos - 8 CP Toy Trojan - 9 CP Tick-Tock - 9 CP Robo - 10 CP King Blocopus (actually King Block Golem) - 11 CP Master Chrono - 12 CP Rombot - 22 CP (30 in field 5/6) The skills tab contains debuffs for your oponents, and you can inflict various ailments on your opponents. Seeing that summoning monsters will only provide more CPs for more adapt opponents, things under this tab can be useful as well. The list of skills you can use: Darkness - 17 CP - Inflicts darkness on all enemy party members 80% of the time Weakness - 19 CP - Inflicts weakness on all enemy party members 80% of the time Curse - 12 CP - Inflict curse on all enemy party members 80% of the time Poisoned - 19 CP - Inflicts Poison on all enemy party members 80% of the time Slow - 16 CP - Inflict Slow on all enemy party members 80% of the time Seal - 14 CP - Seals ONE enemy party member's skill Stun - 22 CP - Stuns ONE enemy party member (remember they can't use potions they didn't pick up) Cancel Buff - 18 CP - Dispels(?) one enemy party member Protectors are buffs for your monsters. Unlike normal buffs monsters cast on themselves (which they can't do here), buffs you cast stay forever, until they are broken. How? Read on. First, a list of buffs you can cast: Power Up - 17 CP - Raises monster's damage (by about 120-150) Guard Up - 16 CP - Raises monstet's defense Magic Up - 17 CP - raises monster's magic damage (only applicable to Master Chronos and Rombots) Shield Up - 16 CP - Raises monster's magic defense Accuracy Up - 13 CP - Raises monster's accuracy Avoidability Up - 16 CP - Raises monster's avoid by 30 (very effective. I MISS on an avoid'd monster on a BOWMAN) Speed up - 12 CP - Raises monster's speed Cancel Weapon attack - All weapon attacks do 1 damage (wow!) Cancel Magic attack - All magic attacks do 1 damage (Wow! - if they're filled with mages) Protectors are a little more special than the debuffs. Every time someone cast a buff, a pillar is raised on the upper plats with a gem of your colour (you can see what colour your team is by reading where your guild name normally will go). Once it's broken (as one would break a box), the corresponding buff will be broken as well. The thing with pillars is that - anybody can break it, including people on your own team. Thus, it's good to give a warning to people about not breaking your own pillars, even though they may not listen all the time (I had to kick someone today because he practically HOUNDS after my own buffs). Conversely, if you see a nasty buff, you should start looking for that pillar on your opponent's side straight away. Finally, dying inside the carnival will not reduce your exp, nor kick you out of the carnival. You simply appear in a resurrection room with a portal, which you can take to jump back to the action. You do, however, lose 10 CP. Obviously though, if you have less than 10 CP, you will only lose what you have. A list of carnival fields: Carnival field 1&2 Accomodates: 2-4 people Terrain type: Terrace Default summons: Brown Teddies, King Block Golems Split map: No Description: Basically, a really long, flat map containing both parties. The Pillars spawn on safe platforms above. Thieves feel right at home here. Not so good for other classes. Carnival Field 3&4 Accomodates: 2-4 people Terrain type: Path of Time Default Summons: Trojans, Robos Split Map: Yes Description: the maps are shorter, and the two parties cannot interact with each other (though they can see each other near the middle of the big map). Still flat terrain with pillars on safe platforms above. Suitable for mobby classes, particularly warriors. Archers with strong mobbing skill can also shine here, as with lit mages. Carnival Field 5&6 Accomodates: 3-6 people Terrain type: Toy workshop Default Summons: Rombots, Robos (neutral) Split Map: No Description: The map is composed of the bottom (where Rombots roam) and the upper aerial plats. The robos on the aerial plats are special, in that they don't belong to a particular group and can be killed by anyone. They're also not affected by buffs from any parties. Additional summoned mobs and pillars all appear on the aerial plats. Most people can find something they can do in this field. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sectino 5 - The end of the game ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During the game, on the top left corner you will see three CP amounts - the CP You have/earned; the CP your team have/earned, and the CP your opponents have/ earned. Once the 10 minute session is over, the party that have EARNED the most amount of CP wins. It is not determined by the amount of CP they have at the end of the game. (This is why you should not hoard CP for the sake of it) Now, regardless of whether you win or lose, you will be gaining some exp. Upon exiting, Spiegelmann will rank your team's performance. The lowest rank I've seen is D, but I suppose F is possible if you have 0 CP by exit. Your exp gain will be determined by the rank. For the losing team: F Rank - 0 exp (?) D Rank - 1000 exp C Rank - 7000 exp B Rank - 8500 exp A Rank - 10000 exp The winning party will get triple the amount, so if you win with A rank, 30000 exp will be yours (and everyone in your party's). You will then be outside, where you're free to have a rematch or find another oponent, reform your party, et cetera. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 6 - Maple Coins ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One thing you will quickly notice is that Maple Coins is something that doesn't get used outright as you pick it up (since you can't really use it, per se), and can actually be carried outside. What to use them for, you ask? Well, you can trade them with Spiegelmann for stuff. The cheaper option is to trade them for various level 35-50 weapons. A list: Warrior --- Name- Coins Cutlus-7 Lionheart-7 Traus-10 Zard-10 Jeweled Katar-20 Lion's Fang-20 Dankke-7 Niam-7 Blue Counter-10 Sabretooth-10 Buck-20 The Rising-20 Heavy Hammer- 7 Sledgehammer-7 Jacker-10 Titan-10 Knuckle Mace-20 Golden Mole- 20 Nakamaki-7 Axe Pole Arm-7 Zeco-10 Crescent Polearm-10 The Nine Dragons- 20 Serpent's Tongue-20 Wizards --- Name-Coins Wizard Wand-7 Petal Staff-7 Crystal Wand-10 Hall Staff-10 Arc Staff-20 Cromi-20 Bowman --- Name-Coins Red Viper-7 Vaulter 2000-10 Olympus-20 Heckler-7 Silver Crow-10 Rower-20 Thief --- Name-Coins Dark Guardian-7 Dark Avarice-10 Dark Slain-20 Gephart-7 Bazlud-10 Sai-20 Shinkita-20 These are basically copy pasted from DracoNova's guide on sw.net, because I'm too lazy to rewrite it. The REAL prize, however, is the pendant Spiegelmann has. It's a common class equipment with a required level of 30. It has the following stats: +1 Str (0-3) +1 Dex (0-3) +1 Int (0-3) +1 Luk (0-3) +27 def (26-29) +27 mdef (26-29) 3 slots available To get one, you need 50 coins. Also, the "scrolls" you use on it is also from Spiegelmann, which would be his marbles. THey're 40 coins each and unlike the pendant, the marbles are not tradable. Each marble has a 60% chance of working, and gives 30 HP and MP if successful. As the only other pendant in GMS is Horntail's Pendant, which I highly doubt will even exist legitly for quite a while to come, expect everyone and their grandma to do the carnival for a while. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 7 - Strategies and Tips ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, you've gotten the hang of the carnival, and now you want to win, huh? Well, having a strong party is important in winning. It's a real no-brainer. However, how you spend your CP is just as important. Here's a point form list of things I can think of: -Don't be an idiot and break your own team's buff. -Use CPs. Seriously. -Don't bother summoning Teddies and stuff. They'll just get walloped quickly and give your opponent more CP and drops (which can be bad if they're CP orbs or cubes). -Master Chrono is a very good summon. It has quite a bit of power, and can make pillar breaking difficult as it can knock someone off a ladder over and over again. Also, it has inherently good avoid, so avoid up tends to do a bit more with it than others. Great for against warriors. -Trojans, while being relatively weak, is also not a bad summon. It rams pretty fast, cannot be knockbacked by MISS, and also has good avoid. Trojan + Speed up + Weakness = assassins (and low level bowmen) neutralized. -Rombots are useful against low levels because it takes a while to go down and deals good damage. However, don't bother if your opponent has a cleric or a good number of high levels, because you'll be giving a lot of CP to the other team. -Do take note, however, that summoning mob is inherently double-edged. Sure, a rombot will wreak havoc on a team with average level 34, but against a bunch of high 40s, all you do will be bringing CP to them. -Poison and Curse are useless. Poison does not kill (confirmed by me), and is only damage over time easily counteracted by potions. Cutting others' exp rate by half is NOT going to help you win (unless they need those exp to level up or something). -Weakness is good for pillar protecting, but it can be all cure'd so don't expect it to last long. It can also be used to disable assassins, particularly if you send some Extra Fast trojans along their way. -Slow is easily the best debuff to use, as it hinders pillar breaking, and just killing in general. It also cannot be all cured. However, it doesn't do that much against mages. Stun can be useful to knock someone off ladder or killing someone, but it only works against one person and is rather expensive. -Avoid Up is a really cheap way to disable most classes. Thieves and bowmens are still (mostly) unaffected, but warriors and mages will be decapacitated. Speed up works for the reverse, disabling archers and sins and also being cheap to use. Power up is also good if your opponent doesn't have a cleric. -Cancel attack buffs are expensive, and therefore not really worth it unless you have some way of protecting the pillars. If you do, however, then they rock. -Don't pick up potions when you don't need them. -Don't use your pet. If you MUST have the pet for some reason, take off its item pouch. That is, unless you're really laggy and can't pick up squat. Basic line is - if you can make do without a pet, don't use a pet. -Don't lose your cool if you're losing. I managed to pull a disadvantage of more than 100 CP around with my party today. Remember - it ain't over til it's over. You still get exp anyways, so no point fuming over it. -Have good sportsmanship. Don't get all pissy at your opponents because they beat you. Don't quit your paries just because you're losing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 8 - FAQs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Empty as I have no questions on me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 9 - Contact Info ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I play on Bera and can be reached by the IGN DMsRebirth (main) or ThunderSurge (carnival mule). Outside MapleStory, I can be reached by my gmail e-mail address with the username "ccplzoridefameu" (it's not serious). Suggestions? Questions? I welcome all of those. Flames? Spam mails? GTFO pl0x. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 10 - Copyright ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -This guide is writen by me, Wenqi Yang, in 2008, and is copyrighted by me as well. -This guide may only be posted in www.gamefaqs.com. -You may read this guide and choose to follow it, or choose to NOT follow it. -You may download this guide to your own personal computer. -You may give *unmodified* versions of this guide to your friends and enemies and strangers and whatever. -You may quote this guide or make use of its information as long as you give proper citations (read: gimme credit). -You may NOT post this guide on your website unless you're the owner of the sites listed above. -You may NOT request to post this guide on your website (well, you could if you want. I'll just say no). Nothing personal - I just suck at keeping track of whom did I give permission to and whom did I not, so I wat to keep it simple. -You may NOT plagerise from my guide. -You may NOT present this guide as if it's written by anyone else. -You may NOT change this guide for any purpose other than personal uses unless I explicitly say otherwise. -If you want to do something with this guide that I did not cover up there, ASK. Chances are, if you're the type that just go ahead and do whatever you want, whatever you want to do probably isn't OK to me. -Try not to do what I asked you not to do. I'm not easily angered, but if I am, retribution is usually swift. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 11 - Credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Draconova - For the first Mini-Guide on sw.net that gave me an idea of what this is about. I'll get started much slower without it. Random people - For partying with me/defeating me/losing to me. Obviously you can't learn without some real experiences. Wizet - For creating MapleStory and everything within, including the carnival. Nexon - For managing the version of MS I play on. It sucks as a company, but hey - gotta give credits where credits are due, and it's hell of a lot better than some others *coughijjicough* Sleepywood.net - For providing me a place where I can start and particiate in intelligent debates. GameFaqs MapleStory board - For providing me a place where I can watch real elitism at work. Here's a tip - don't ask for help on that board. You'll just get a stupid answer cuz every questions's stupid to the residents there. CJayC - For creating GameFaqs. SBAllen - For maintaining GameFaqs and hosting this guide. Cherry - No particular reasons relevant to the guide. Her presence is enough to be thankful for. God - For reasons I won't go into further, lest I be lynched by angry athiests. And um... that's it. I had a blast. I hope you do too.