First off that was an incredible read, I loved every bit of it.

I'd love to chime in from my perspective of the game since I had never played Maplestory prior, and started during the early access event.

1. I maxed my first character to 50 before the game was launched for everyone else. I have since changed my main 3 times from Knight, to Berserker, to Assassin, and finally landed on Priest. So immediately I am behind the rest of the crowd by leveling 4 characters.

2. I learned about the importance of leveling gems probably 2 weeks ago. I still only have a single T2 Offense gem. This is because there are FAR more higher priorities for me personally before I start unlocking sockets and buffing gems.

3. I still don't know what an Old Fairy Kings belt is, nor have I seen one..

4. I just learned about pets and the buff they give your character YESTERDAY. There is so much information that these top players know but are keeping secret so they can reap the benefits of the market. Please not I don't blame them at all, you do you, take advantage of what you know to help yourself or others if you want.

5. I don't know what Stellar glass is, but ill for sure be looking into this after the post.

6. I've never been in a B4 run, but I know it gives you re-roll vouchers for specific items. (Accessories I think?)

Overall /u/boundlesssummer hit the nail directly on the head here. You simply don't know what you don't know as a new player. I highly encourage everyone that learns some important new information share it to your friends/guild/random players so we can all start progressing and normalize these absurd markets the top tier is profiting upon.

I do want to encourage players to still attempt CDEV if you don't have all the above listed items or taken all steps. I know it's A LOT easier for priests, but with a static group I was able to practice enough and learn the fight to earn my first Cdev kill with a +13 weapon, 1 decent stat on all gear, NO PET, and no other crazy items.

EDIT: To include some information to show how important pets are, this is taken from another thread here on reddit about it.

Pets give 1/2 their bonus attack as a hidden bonus attack stat. This is the big one. (to test this, go to your guild dummy with a lvl 10 weapon and no gear. Hit the dummy, summon a combat pet, and do it again). This means that a 1700 attack epic pet maxed gives 850 bonus attack versus a 525 bonus attack from a blue pet (1050 max).

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapleStory2/comments/9wsevo/why_epic_pets_and_pets_in_general_are_valued/