[XiaoChen]

What is the Eight Diagram Tactics?

Ba Zhen Tou - Also known as the "Eight kinds of Battle Array". It is the earliest military science in China and is a kind of battle formation and troops disposition in ancient battle. It is composed of eight battle arrays such as sky, ground, wind, cloudy, dragon, tiger, bird, snake. There are many records about Ba Zhen Tou, especially Zhuge Liang's "San Guo Yan Yi" is almost known by everybody. However, The origin of Ba Zhen Tou in the history is almost unknown.

Legend of Condor Heroes - First of Jinyong's Condor Trilogy. In the novel the Eight Diagram Tactics is a strategic area of Peach Blossom Island and it is a maze like area full of traps. The island is well known and secluded because of the Eight Diagram Tactics and the islands master Huang Yaoshi (one of 5 supreme martial artists) prohibits people in entering the island. In the story an old man (Zhou Botong) was trapped inside the island's cavern for 20 years because he cant figure out how to get out of the tactics. Eventually he was found by Guo Jing who is in search of food by following a tortoise. An exact duplicate of the Eight Diagram Tactics was also found in Lu Chengfeng's manor who is one of the six disciples of Huang Yaoshi. Yang Kang (Yang Guo's father) was imprisoned inside Lu Manor's Eight Diagram Tactics.

Moonbox Quest - In Conquer Online the Eight-Diagram Tactics is also known as the Moonbox Quest. The quest is a challenge for players and it consists of 8 areas which is Peace, Calmed, Disturbed, Deserted, Chaos, Prosperous, Death, and Life. Only level 70+ can enter and challenge the tactics and a reward will be given upon completing the quest. This will be the main topic of this guide.

Understanding the Quest

You must remember that the tactics are changeable. The teleporter will be randomly teleporting you to 7 possible locations; they are Peace, Calmed, Disturbed, Deserted, Chaos, Prosperous, and lastly is Death Tactic. In order to complete the quest you will need to have a complete set of tokens. A complete set consists of 6 tokens, one token per tactic (Peace, Calmed, Disturbed, Deserted, Chaos, & Prosperous). You can only get out from a tactic by showing a certain token of the tactic to the guardian ghost, no tokens will be dropped in Death tactic, so if you happen to teleport here without a complete set the only way out is by dieing. Also, all of the tokens and areas will look the same so you have to know or devise a strategy on how to sort or distinguish your tactics/tokens so you wont have problems in identifying or mixing them up.

Walkthrough

1. Find Fortuneteller. If you are level 70+ and want to challenge the tactics, he will teleport you to the entrance of Eight-Diagram Tactics.

2. Talk to Maggie at the entrance to know the stories. And she'll teleport you into one of the eight tactics randomly, but except for Life Tactic. There are Peace, Chaos, Deserted, Prosperous, Disturbed, Calmed, Death and Life Tactic.

3. After you enter a tactic, you do not know which one you have been at. You must kill the monsters in the tactic to get a token. With it, you talk to Guardian God, and he will tell you the name of the tactic you have entered, and the name of the token.

4. Take down the name and ask Ghost to teleport your out of here. After you talk to Maggie again, she will teleport you to another tactic randomly.

5. In this way, you gather the token of Peace, Chaos, Deserted, Prosperous, Disturbed, Calmed (the six tokens).

6. If you happen to be teleported to Death tactic, you will be told by Guardian God and Ghost that you enter Death tactic. If you do not have the six tokens, you cannot leave here until you die (you will lose items if you die, and if you log off, you will re-spawn at the same spot).

7. After you've collected all the six tokens, Maggie may teleport you to Death Tactic. Talk to the Ghost. He can make a Soul Jade out of your tokens and teleport you to Life Tactic.

8. Find lonely Ghost in this tactic. If you agree to help him get reborn, he will give you three meteors or a Moon Box. It is up to you. If you refuse to help him, he'll take away your Soul Jade, teleport you out and give you nothing. Be very careful

Strategy

In order to make things easier when making moonbox, you must first need a character that is strong enough to survive the tactics. A character with a very low defense wont be able to survive in this quest for long. Warriors and Trojans are good for this quest and reborn taos and archers with good physical defense can also do the quest if going melee. Having a high physical attack will speed up the process of getting tokens. Most 130 chars with dragon gems in their equipments make this quest with ease because they can kill the monsters fast but still its luck which determines how long a monster will drop a token or where you will be teleported to. Good luck!

This is the key that I have created when I started making moonbox 3 years ago. Its up to you if you want to do the same or devise your own strategy.

1. Plan where you will put your tokens and keep it on a certain warehouse. It is important to go out of the quest and return to town after collecting tokens from a tactic. This is to protect your tokens from dropping in case you be teleported to death tactic. You wont drop any because the tokens are not with you as it is kept in your warehouse. Also it helps you to identify which token is which, especially if you know what tokens are in a certain warehouse. You will be able to identify an unidentified token if you have planned it this way.

Example of where to put tokens:

Average Moonbox Maker (limited to 20 tokens per warehouse)

Twin City WH - Peace Tactic Tokens
Phoenix City WH - Calmed Tactic Tokens
Ape City WH - Disturbed Tactic Tokens
Deserted City WH - Deserted Tactic Tokens
Bird City WH - Chaos Tactic Tokens
Market WH - Prosperous Tactic Tokens

Pro Moonbox Maker (has 6 accounts just for token storage. Up to 140 tokens per account)

Name your token holders with the name of the tactic so you know what token a character is holding.

2. You must know what tactic you are into. The best way to know a tactic is by getting a token from a Toughhorn and to show to the guardian ghost, but there are also times when its taking so long for a monster to drop a token. There is another way to identify a tactic without a need of token. You can ask a person who is also inside the same tactic with you or know what kind of pots the monster from the tactic drops.

Peace Tactic - Panacea, Pearl Ointment
Calmed Tactic - Panacea, Soul Pill
Disturbed Tactic - Ginseng, Soul Pill (same with deserted)
Deserted Tactic - Ginseng Soul Pill (same with disturbed)
Chaos Tactic - Ginseng, Recovery Pill
Prosperous Tactic - Vanilla, Pearl Ointment
Death Tactic - Vanilla, Refreshing Pill (You dont need pots to figure this one out)

If you can notice the pots that are dropped in Disturbed Tactic and Deserted Tactic are just the same. You have no choice but to wait for a token to be dropped if you wanna figure out the what tactic you are in. Disturbed tactic has slow token drop rate so figuring it out might take some time.

If you seem to be in a tactic where you already collected many tokens then you can just let the monsters kill you if you want to save time. Use water elf, divine hare, or night devil if you have so the monsters can kill you. Only non reborn warriors without night devil has the problem in killing themselves. They mostly unequip one of their items either headgear, necklace, or armor. This is very dangerous especially in death tactic and you might drop your unequipped item. There is no guarantee you will get it back after dropping it.

3. Make a list of where you put and how many your tokens is and update it everytime you collect new tokens. You can also assign a definite key slot for certain token when exchanging tokens to moonbox. This way you can keep track of your tokens that even if you messed your tokens up you will not be so confused on sorting it.

4. Learn to use a set in search of a certain tactic. Since you can go anywhere when you have a complete set, try to look for a tactic where you need tokens most and get some of it before you exchange your set for moonbox.

5. If you have 2 strong characters like trojan or warrior try to have them both enter a different tactic. This is only if you can multitask between your 2 chars. This will save you time in getting the other tokens you need. You can also put a water tao reviver and token keeper inside of each tactic. This is just a security in case you get pkd inside and will also serve as a storage for your tokens inside the tactic this way you can get more tokens on the tactic you are in to.

6. Know the drop rates. This is from easiest to hardest (top to bottom). This is just my opinion from my experience. (After the lotto patch looks like the drop rates have changed. I hope someone can help me clarify this.)

Peace Tactic
Calmed Tactic
Prosperous Tactic
Deserted Tactic
Chaos Tactic
Disturbed Tactic

7. Use a reborn with divine hare if you have for exchanging tokens into moonbox. This will cut off travel time in search of death tactic.

Awards on obtaining a Moonbox

1. You can sell it for cash depending on its price on your server

2. It will give you things at random when you open it. These are the things that you can get from a moonbox.

- refined socketed necklace/bag/ring/bracelet/boots (rare)
- meteor and refined necklace/bag/ring/bracelet/boots
- unique necklace/bag/ring/bracelet/boots
- elite necklace/bag/ring/bracelet/boots
- three meteors

[XiaoChen]

The 25 Vagrant Ghosts in Life tactic

This is what I am researching now. I will post all the coordinates where you can find these ghosts in Life Tactic. If anyone wants to help me in researching if these ghosts have something to do about the rates of opening soc items please post the ghost coordinate where you got the moonbox and what items you got after opening it. This is my first set of (25) moonboxes and I havent got any soc items from it yet. If anyone can try opening 25 moonboxes from a single ghost and record the results please message me.

052, 042 - Unique Necky

056, 098 - Elite Boots

061, 030 - 3 Mets

081, 132 - Ref Boots + Met

083, 105 - 3 Mets

084, 084 - 3 Mets

089, 050 - Unique Necky

095, 043 - Elite Boots

096, 075 - Ref Ring + Met

102, 111 - Elite Necky

116, 069 - 3 Mets

123, 180 - Ref Bag + Met

124, 141 - 3 Mets

127, 102 - Elite Boots

134, 126 - Ref Bag + Met

136, 098 - 3 Mets

140, 125 - Ref Necky + Met

141, 158 - Ref Bag + Met

154, 113 - Ref Ring + Met

158, 121 - 3 Mets

162, 163 - 3 Mets

177, 125 - 3 Mets

185, 189 - 3 Mets

186, 137 - Ref Boots + Met

186, 167 - 3 Mets


RESEARCHERS
XiaoChen - Diamond Server
Aithe - Diamond Server
Panda-chan - Triumph Server

[Panda-chan]

Hey I'll be part of your research. Once I hit 127, which should be tomorrow, I'll see what I can do.

Great guide and tips. Well explained.

In my personal experience, I opened 23 mbs. I believe I tried to get one mb from a different ghost each time thinking it might have something to do with socks you know. I opened them all at once, one by one. I got 2 sockets (ref. soc boot, and ref. soc bag). The rest were elites, lots of mets, and refineds.

[XiaoChen]

Originally posted by Panda-chan
Hey I'll be part of your research. Once I hit 127, which should be tomorrow, I'll see what I can do.

Great guide and tips. Well explained.

In my personal experience, I opened 23 mbs. I believe I tried to get one mb from a different ghost each time thinking it might have something to do with socks you know. I opened them all at once, one by one. I got 2 sockets (ref. soc boot, and ref. soc bag). The rest were elites, lots of mets, and refineds.

That would be great. I have been making moonbox for years already but its only a few times that I dared opening it after I opened 34 moonbox and didnt get a single a socket. There can be a lot of theories regarding the rates in getting items from moonbox and if there is a way in finding out which ghost gives the highest chance of getting a socket or does it change when someone gets a moonbox from a ghost thats what I wanna find out.

[khaled_eg]

Originally Posted by XiaoChen

That would be great. I have been making moonbox for years already but its only a few times that I dared opening it after I opened 34 moonbox and didnt get a single a socket. There can be a lot of theories regarding the rates in getting items from moonbox and if there is a way in finding out which ghost gives the highest chance of getting a socket or does it change when someone gets a moonbox from a ghost thats what I wanna find out.

first: thanks alot for this greate topic
2nd: u said u opened 34 moon box and found no socky items

if u sold the 34 mbs in my server X10 kk = 340 kk , then u can buy socky item



, i am sorry if i bothered u

thanks again

[Krab]

Ahoy,

I recorded myself while opening 20 MBs vid is here.
Results were pretty depressing, and for u theory believers, i got em all from first ghost in life tactic.
Enjoy

edit: for some reason the vid wont play in firefox for me, only in IE

[Mankemacho]

ULTIMATE MB TIP

- make 6 noobs
call the noobs
ChaXXXXX
ProXXXXX
and so on

put them on the house in plain (near entrance guy)
ppl might lure apperitions/bluebirds

logon a noob when done in a tactic
go out of mb
trade your tokens with the right noob

[Suicune]

Originally Posted by Mankemacho

ULTIMATE MB TIP

- make 6 noobs
call the noobs
ChaXXXXX
ProXXXXX
and so on

put them on the house in plain (near entrance guy)
ppl might lure apperitions/bluebirds

logon a noob when done in a tactic
go out of mb
trade your tokens with the right noob

You just summarized her guide.. -.-

[Panda-chan]

Originally posted by XiaoChen
That would be great. I have been making moonbox for years already but its only a few times that I dared opening it after I opened 34 moonbox and didnt get a single a socket. There can be a lot of theories regarding the rates in getting items from moonbox and if there is a way in finding out which ghost gives the highest chance of getting a socket or does it change when someone gets a moonbox from a ghost thats what I wanna find out.

Ya that wasn't my first try either. But it was my first getting that many because I didn't have the patience to let 10+ mbs unopened. I think it would have something to do with time... seems like everything is lol. We'll see. ^.^

[fFrag]

probly wrong place to ask but i gonna any way, is mb quest hard for a 112 water-troj? (pretty average equips 50 pct drags maybe and full elite)

[XiaoChen]

Originally posted by fFrag
probly wrong place to ask but i gonna any way, is mb quest hard for a 112 water-troj? (pretty average equips 50 pct drags maybe and full elite)

I started making moonbox when I was a level 110 warrior non reborn. With superman and with a +6 spear I didnt find the quest to be too hard. For you I think it wont be so hard if your just gonna aim for few or average number of moonbox to make because you have a guard that adds to your damage. I suggest you wait till your level is 120+ because the higher level of weapons /ring you use and the higher plus in it the faster you can kill toughhorns. The average HP of a toughhorn is 40k so you calculate on how many attacks you need to kill one.

[fFrag]

cool, thx

[C10uD]

you arent proficient in it till 115+ tho and you cant breeze through till 127-130....

One thing you didnt mention in the guide: if you are a tro or war, you might want to wear 1 or 2 pieces of garbage equipment that you can take off and drop if you get sent to the death tactic (this is only if toughhorns in the death tact do 1s or 2s) otherwise you end up sitting there forever trying to get them to kill you; on the other hand if you have nightdevil your set since they kill it in 2-5 hits ^^

[dapilgrim]

Originally Posted by C10uD

you arent proficient in it till 115+ tho and you cant breeze through till 127-130....

One thing you didnt mention in the guide: if you are a tro or war, you might want to wear 1 or 2 pieces of garbage equipment that you can take off and drop if you get sent to the death tactic (this is only if toughhorns in the death tact do 1s or 2s) otherwise you end up sitting there forever trying to get them to kill you; on the other hand if you have nightdevil your set since they kill it in 2-5 hits ^^

Ummmmm don't wear crappy equipment to take off there. the toughhorns can kill you when you use robot in a group of them. never take off equipment when you can die somewhere. just not a good practice. plus the better your gear the faster you kill.

[Starshine]

bump so that I may test something.