Dragon Quest IX has become a global phenomenon, even making it into the Guinness Book of World Records. DQIX is HUGE. With a dozen different vocations (character classes), over 200 unique quests, over 600 alchemy recipes, over 1,000 pieces of equipment, along with hundreds of Accolades, this game is undeniably big.

On top of all that, there are a seemingly infinite number of items known as Treasure Maps, and that is what this article is all about. The Treasure Map game mechanic is what keeps players busy with the game even after beating the final boss. There’s enough content bundled within just this feature of the game alone to keep gamers busy for hundreds and hundreds of hours; literally.

Unless you are lucky enough to receive a Treasure Map via Tag Mode, you will have to wait until you are around 30 hours into the story of the game before you come across an NPC with a quest that rewards you with your very first map. Of course, it’s very easy to overlook this quest and continue with the story, in which case you might not get your first map for a very long time. Nonetheless, right outside the town of Zere Rocks, not to be confused with Zere, is an NPC on the broken stairwell with a quest that rewards you with your very first Treasure Map.

Upon receiving your very first map, a new option will appear at the bottom of the Items menu called Treasure Maps. Selecting this option will open up an entirely new menu, where the bottom screen lists the Treasure Maps that you’ve currently collected whilst the top screen shows the location of the currently selected map. Additionally, the top screen will also list some data about the selected map, such as who discovered the map, who conquered the map, and the three treasures (and their drop rates) that can be “plundered” within each grotto.

The map shown on the top screen will be a close-up view of a region in the game. There will be a large red `X` at the grotto’s location. When you find the location of the red `X`, an exclamation point will appear above your head. Examining the area will cause a cave to rise out of the ground, where it will permanently reside. You can now enter the grotto and fight your way to the boss. This is the fun part.

How the Dungeons Work

Each Treasure Map has a level, which ranges from 1 to 99. Lower level dungeons, as expected, have easier enemies, less floors, and easier boss fights. The gear and items found in a level 1 map are also not going to be as good as the gear or items you’d find in a level 99 map; of course, this is probably obvious information and goes without saying.

Here’s some important information about grottos; I apologize for the following information being jumbled together:

Each grotto will have between 2 and 16 floors, not including the boss floor. There are a total of 12 unique bosses that you can potentially encounter. There are 12 ranks of enemy difficulty that you will find on each floor of the grotto. Every five floors that you complete will cause the monsters’ rank to increase by 1. Thus, the most difficult of dungeons will have enemies begin with a rank of 9, but by the time you reach the sixteenth floor, they will be rank 12. The treasure chests that you find in the dungeons have items that correspond to the enemies rank.

Breaking Down the Names of Treasure Maps

What have you noticed about the naming of your Treasure Maps? They all follow the same pattern. For example, I have a map called Granite Tunnel of Bliss. The game breaks it down like this:

Prefix + Type of Environment + Suffix

In order of difficulty, here is the full list of prefixes:

There are five environments in DQIX: (1) Cave, (2) Ruins, (3) Ice, (4) Water, and (5) Fire. This gets a bit more complicated though. The game has several different themes that it uses to describe the environment, and these themes determine how many floors will be in the dungeon.

Here’s a list of themes along with their floors:

The suffix simply refers to the boss you will encounter on the final floor of the grotto:

Here is a list of the bosses that you may encounter while “Treasure Mapping“:

I know that’s a lot of information to take in at once, but if you’ve completed a Treasure Map in the past, then it will all make sense for you, and this will perhaps become a useful tool in determining what to expect upon receiving a new treasure map. There’s one last thing I’d like to go over.

Determining the Level of Your Next Treasure Map

Dragon Quest IX uses a unique equation to determine the level of your next treasure map, and it is actually fairly simple. Let’s break it down. The equation is as follows (all variables refer to the current map that you’ve just completed):

Level of New Treasure Map = ((Number of Floors – 2) * 3) + ((Base Monster Rank – 1) * 3) + ((Boss Number – 1) * 3) + (Random Number From -5 to 5)

The formula is not all that complex, but you can see how it’s possible for your new map to have a lower level than your old map; that’s just downright bad luck. The only difficulty you will have in determining the next level is finding out the base monster rank.

Keep completing your maps that have the most floors and the hardest bosses and you will have the best chance in receiving a high leveled map. In some cases, high leveled maps are just too darn difficult to beat. I am in that boat; I repeat low level dungeons because I am not yet strong enough to beat any of the more difficult dungeons.

Looking at the charts above, you will notice that the base monster rank usually has a range of just two or three, so the only way to know for sure is to look online for other resources that have that information. I wish I could point you in the right direction, but either way you should be able to calculate the new map’s level with a fairly decent accuracy.

One more thing I’d like to address. Don’t forget that if you lose in battle, half of your gold gets taken away, so always remember to put all your gold in the bank before attempting any Treasure Map.

I hope this information has helped you in any way. If you have any questions or comments, please oh please fill out the form below. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions related to this article, or Dragon Quest IX in general.

Happy leveling, fellow DQIX fans. This game is addictive, isn’t it?

Related posts:

1. Dragon Quest IX List of Accolades | DQIX Hints & Tips
2. Dragon Quest IX Quest #23 “Research Assistant” | DQIX Hints & Tips
3. How to Change Vocations in Dragon Quest IX | DQIX Hints & Tips

I find the human mind to be a fascinating piece of work. It’s amazing how very similar all humans can be, despite us picturing the spectrum to be vast and untapped. All humans share the same instincts for survival.

Let me refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow was born in New York in the early 1900s, and during his time as a psychologist he developed a theory of personality which has continued to be taught in schooling systems to this day due to it’s high level of practicality. I’m going to briefly explain this phenomenon, but if you find it to be interesting, I really suggest clicking the link to learn more in an in-depth explanation of Maslow’s findings.

Maslow theorized that all humans follow the same hierarchy consisting of five levels of needs. If one need is met, the next level in the pyramid will take priority, and so on and so forth. Let’s discuss these five levels:

1. Physiological Needs: These are the basic needs for survival, and they consist of food, water, oxygen, and a constant body temperature. A human will not seek friendship if said person is suffering from starvation.
2. Safety Needs: When the physiological needs for survival are met, and are no longer controlling thoughts and behavior, the next step in Maslow’s hierarchy is safety. This is a lot more noticeable in children than adults. The safety needs for an adult tend to be more passive and difficult to notice except in times of emergency.
3. Love, Affection, and Belongingness: When a person is no longer struggling for survival or safety, the next step in Maslow’s hierarchy involves escaping loneliness by finding friends and / or a soul mate. Feeling alienated can cause a human to focus their thoughts and behavior on ridding themselves of their lonely lifestyle.
4. Needs for Esteem: Once those three needs are all satisfied, a person will begin to focus their thoughts and behavior on self-esteem, and the esteem gained from others. No one likes feeling inferior, helpless, or worthless, so at this point in the hierarchy people will begin to work harder for respect from their co-workers, clean their house for the self-esteem boost, possibly try and eat a healthy, guilt-free meal, and things of that nature.
5. Needs for Self-Actualization: Once all other needs are met, Maslow describes the self-actualization needs as doing what one was born to do. A musician was born to make music, so once all other needs are met, a musician will go back to making music again. In terms of myself, when I am on the fifth level of the hierarchy, I will start programming games in my free time and working on my blog. You get the picture, right?

Maslow was a very intelligent man, and I find his philosophies on life to be rather intriguing, to say the least. So why did I decide to make a blog post on something so off topic? When it comes to computer programming, especially when making games, it’s very important (in my opinion) to understand basic psychological behavior in humans. People that make good games have a great understanding of what humans like. Psychology strikes me as a very important subject that computer programmers should take interest in.

Don’t expect me to write too many articles on this subject, but hopefully someone out there that read this found it to be enjoyable and possibly even enlightening.

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This is not the article. Rather, I created the article yesterday titled Where can I find Ash Titanium Stone in Final Fantasy 13? The reason I decided to make the blog post was as an experiment. I figured that the game is only a couple weeks old, and as a result there would not be that many people with the answer to that question. In addition, I had also encountered this error but could not find an answer on Google.

My idea was that since so many people are playing this game, it would be a common question that many would use Google as a means of discovering the answer. I’m still testing out how the article performs, but it has already received many visitors through Google since just yesterday.

Anyways, in the event that you are reading this blog post to find the answer, you could click the link above, or read on.

Basically, the Ash Titanium Stone is a transformational catalyst that is used for upgrading many weapons such as the Hawkeye into more powerful equipment. The reason that you are having such a difficult time locating the Ash Titanium Stone in Final Fantasy 13 is because the American localized version of the game refers to this item as a Perovskite, and it can be purchased in the Motherlode shop.

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1. Where can I find Ash Titanium Stone in Final Fantasy 13?
2. This Blog is Now Above Average
3. How Linear is Final Fantasy XIII?

So if you’re a blogger and still using WordPress 2.9, check to see if your articles are being properly indexed, because failing to make the upgrade to 2.9.1 can be costly to you. Installing the newest version should solve your problems.

Ever since I installed the update earlier today, things have been running smoothly as ever in terms of Googlebot indexing my site.

On a side note, I apologize for making so many articles regarding this issue, but it was something that needed to be resolved. I hope that anyone else suffering from this WordPress glitch has it fixed ASAP.

Detective Joe was on the case, and it is now officially closed. Have a nice day.

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1. Google Slow to Index Blog Posts
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