The other day I started raising a Pink Eye, effectionately named Minda, for combination and testing how much longer the Suezo breed's life stages last with the second The Tree upgrade. I decided to send it on Errantry a few months in to while away its childhood, and after several tries, I got frustrated with the nasty layout of the Int map and started poking around the others. That's when I noticed something unusual about the maps as the weeks passed.
While some had the same layout with different tile placements, the Speed Errantry was completely different; it was a huge network of intersections and loops. A few turns in, I noticed that the tile placements were a lot more convenient than those of the other maps. I managed to get several extra turns and successful drills very easily, while I could barely manage four consecutive successes elsewhere. I decided to tough it out and see how long I could last before I ran out of turns.
The results were astounding:
Before: Spd: 113, Lif: 104
After: Spd: 896, Lif: 438
+1 new tech
This is the result of about two hours of play, including a couple of short breaks to rest and charge my DS (I hadn't charged it for a few days). I got excited and rested it twice to minimize its stress and fatigue so I could send it again as soon as possible. Unfortunately, when I sent it back to the Speed location, the map became inconvenient again. so I reset and went on to check the other maps to see if they changed. Int and Ski were a bit more convenient, but not by much, as there were still far too many straight paths. Pow was more convenient than the other three, but I wasn't going to last more than 15 minutes on it.
Finally, I sent Minda off to the Def Errantry course. Luckily, it was just what I was looking for; convenient loops and intersections aplenty. However, I still didn't last very long, especially since Pink Eye has rather low Def gains. After about a half hour of practice, I eventually got a very good feel of the board, and managed to get her Def up from 85 to 506. Her Lif was abouts 600-700, I can't recall exactly. She also learned a new tech from the trip.
I rested my monster twice and sent her there again; the map was the same. On my first attempt, I managed to last for over an hour, with the following results:
Before: Def: 506, Lif: ~600-700
After: Def: 1111(!) Lif: 945
+1 new tech
Simply amazing. And this is coming from a book monster. It's currently 10 months old, and still hasn't reached its prime yet. I'll see if I can find a convenient time to boost Int and/or Ski, then go on to thrash the official tourneys, as they're still a tiny bit over book level (223, 179, respectively).
It appears that one of the five courses ends up with a very convenient layout every now and again. It could always be the case, but I'll have to do some more testing before I can confirm this.
Interestingly, the Def map was like this during December and February. I believe either the month or the season affects the maps, as opposed to the weeks; I've done some limited testing, and no changes are apparent from week 1 to 4 in any given month.
I'll see if I can draw a diagram of the big gain maps within the next few days.
Does anyone else care to try this out?
By mike10003 on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 05:10 pm:
I have played the favorable blue map, which I assume is defense from past monster ranchers, and gotten well over 600 in defense just like you did. Its the only layout which I have managed to get dice over and over like that. Haven't combined any monsters yet, but Ive got a 10 month old Phoenix with 800ish defense, a 1 year old Dullahan with 900ish defense, and my Henger Dragon that discovered the board with 1200ish defense.
I havent come upon the speed one yet. Ill keep that in mind for the pixie Im training. The Int boards really irk me, I usually get the one that makes you go in a snake for like 30 spaces. I forget if its Int, but one of the boards has these squares of 4/6 spaces all bunched together, so you can go around literally in circles. There are some dice spaces, but hardly any stat gainers, couldn't pull off a +500 like in defense.
The +2 new tech is new to me though, thats pretty neat.
Actually, that was a small mistake on my part. I got the first tech from the first trip, and the second from the follow-up trip. Still one per trip.
I visited the Speed location again and found an even better map. A tiny T-shaped branch in the route allowed me to continue for an even longer time. However, it was extremely tough for me to keep it up and I stopped landing on the green spaces. Here are Minda's stats at a year of age:
When she returned to the ranch, she looked like she was drunk, probably from a huge amount of stress due to the nigh on endless turns. Fortunately, though, on later trips, she started with 10 turns as opposed to 4. I believe that landing on a certain number of spaces during your monster's lifetime increases the number of turns you get at the start. Very convenient for the less convenient boards.
Speaking of less convenient boards, they indeed change with the seasons. I've checked the whole of year 1009, and the boards only change every three months, and never during a season.
The Map changes are tied to the Season in which you visit that particular location. The perfect Guide shows different maps for each location. Each location has 4 maps - one for each season. The seasonal changes also apply to Safaris. There is a red crystal in each of the Safaris that changes location according to the season. I will post images of the maps as well as graph layouts.
Here is a test map -
Forest (Summer)
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Legend - B = Beginning S = Training Success F = Training Failure R = Bonus Die Roll L = Lose Die Roll M = Monster ? = ?
By Thorr on Monday, October 15, 2007 - 05:50 am: