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Jahrakal wrote on 2010-05-21 21:21
[Also posted on Nexon Official Forum]
Mabinogi is not a very PVP friendly game. Although dueling system is somewhat plausible, overall PVP play concerning mass group of players is a little too underdeveloped.
The current Guild Battle system has numerous flaws that are preventing a lot of guilds from participating.
1) One-map open-field with barely any obstacles
Biggest problem as of right now is the dominance of archery in Guild Battle. Damage, Critical, Defense, and Protection do not take as big a role as they should in this mass-PVP system. More than half the time, across all servers, winning guild either has more guild members than others, or more archers in general.
Being in a large open field, it is hard to utilize your core skills(Windmill, Thunder, and so on) if you are not a range-oriented player. This is discouraging for more than third the actual population as archery is a dying skill set compared to say, Magic and Alchemy. Archery is still strong, but there are barely any new contents added to the world of archery and melee, whereas other areas are growing and attracting more and more players to expertise in the new and fun skills.
Right now, winning depends on how many people in the guild can shoot arrows the fastest from the furthest, which doesn't exactly promote organized teamwork.
2) Mounts
Currently, not having any mounts is a clear disadvantage in Guild Battle. "Go buy a pet if you want to cry about not having a mount" is rather a dumbfound argument as Mabinogi is clearly a free-to-play game. According to some of the recent released interviews with Nexon staff, no purchase is necessary to enjoy this game, but what if Guild Battle is something a person enjoys a lot, or what if it is the only thing the person enjoys?
Elves with Ego LLB on mounts in Guild Battle are key to the victory.
3) Points
Defeating a pointsman give you 50 points and any others 1 point each.
Having the top three individual scores provide some sort of competition among the players (this is actually not a bad idea). Winning the guild war as a guild, however, shouldn't be dependent on how many total number of people a guild killed.
If the winning guild was not determined by the total number of points(kills), discouraging younger and smaller guilds from participating would be eliminated.
4) Rewards
Current rewards include e-peen boost and a title you cannot even use outside the housing channel (at least not anymore).
This is not very appealing since a lot of people do not want to waste equipment durability, potions, and feathers just to shoot or get shot by some people. Other than the people who enjoy PVP and archery, it's simply a big waste of time and money.
What if the rewards were actually rewarding?
Suggestions/Proposals:
1) Change the system similar to castle-siege.
If the battle were to be held from just the outskirt of the castle all the way to the throne where you can take over, consisting of warps that connect one room to another, archery would not dominate anymore.
There will be advanced magic loaded and precasted on the warp. There will be players with Windmill loaded around each corner. Barrier Spikes, Golems, Ice Mines, and so on.
The "throne" where one guild can take over the control of the castle can either consist of an object that's breakable (something similar to WoE in RO), or a location where one needs to stand on top of for a certain amount of time (much like Nexus, another Nexon game).
This will offer a lot more involvements from variety of players prioritizing in many different skill sets. There potentially could be different roles for each person, like a tank who absorbs all the precasts, a breaker who focuses on breaking the object in the heart of the castle to take over, a healer focusing on healing the tank, and supports who can stay behind and shoot arrows to incoming opponents.
2) Mounts
Mounts should be disabled inside the castle. Mounts will most likely less used indoors due to many different obstacles that will prevent players from "rushing" to the throne.
Pet control is also a skill, but this would make things a little more balanced between players with cash and players without cash.
3) Points
As suggested in "1)" the winning factor should be who has the ownership of the castle at the end of the battle.
This would allow even the newest guild to have an opportunity to win the castle, delivering an upset to one of the major guilds in your server. Isn't that appealing to many young guilds out there?
Individual scores can still be kept and shown on the screen, giving people more medium to compete in. One can also add scores for actions like blocking the castle siege (killing the breaker while he's attacking the throne), capturing the castle, most damage done, most damage taken, guild who held the castle the longest, and so on. There can be a marquee on the top of the screen constantly broadcasting what's happening to the castle, and announcing top scorers in each category.
4) Rewards
For the week following after the Guild Battle, the winning guild would have access to the reward chest once a day for a potential rare item, or the winning guild would receive certain amount of gold to compensate for their hard work (lol),
The content of reward items could consist of Gachapon dresses, rare enchants, stacks of raw materials, or high-grade equipments.
If everyone in the guild were to get one reward chest each per day, the rate for rares can be lowered and rewards can include things like MP/HP/Stamina Potions or dungeon passes.
This way winning guild of the guild battle will not have a distinctive advantage over other players, but they will still enjoy the privilege offered to them.
As part of the reward system, winning guild will have 2~5 minutes to enter this pre-designed room, and after a long countdown the statue of the guild members will be made. For example, all the guild members will position themselves together on this "stage" setting as if they're taking a screenshot, and the statue will be created in one of the major towns for the following week. Attracting people who enjoy positive(?) attention.
Most of the suggestions come from my past MMORPG experience, and some of those features made even the most casual players to attend and have fun in guild wars.
I understand that suggesting a change in such a solid system in NA Mabinogi will not do much, but I wanted to hear some opinions. What would make you be interested in Guild Battle? How would you like to change it?
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-05-21 21:29
All I have to say is that it is a massive failure. Like you said it's all about archery. Being a melee play style person I can easily tell pvp in general to go screw itself, but guild battle most of all. Even if I had r1 on more archery skills like AR or Mag (only have r1 on range attack), I would still want diverse tactics to actually work.
Right now there is no plan at all, it's simply:
elf + mount + ego bow = win
if:other guilds have elf + mount + ego bows -> add more elves with ego bows on mounts.
Not only does that make it boring, but it also makes it frustrating and pointless.
In a similar way it's why I don't like field boss hunting in this game. There's no strategy, just everyone run into it and do as much damage as possible before you die, then hope you get a drop.
Apart from dungeons, there's no purpose to diversity and tactics in this game. So I just solo it.
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Jahrakal wrote on 2010-05-21 21:36
Yea you're right on the dot there. I can just never seem to enjoy the things you mentioned. I guess this is why some of my friends went back to play WoW.
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Tibarn wrote on 2010-05-21 22:01
You can certainly enjoy the GB without a horse. If you want to be one of the ones with an "advantage," then shell out the money for a mount. If not, then deal with not having one.
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Blassreiter wrote on 2010-05-21 22:05
PvP is utterly fail in this game. Every PvP here is basically Archer friendly/Anti-Giant. Archery can stop a Melee/Magic combo since Archery loads faster than both of them, and Archery can also defeat Archery too. Archery has good offense/speed so Archery will never be able to get comboed by Magic/Melee or a combination of both. GvG is fail as well. To win GvG you need an armada, then you're bound to get 1st place. They don't even have to be all Elf Archers, a 100 Giant guild will defeat a 25 Elf guild due to the quantity.
The only PvP system I liked in Mabinogi was the Capture The Flag Event. I have to say that so far is the most balanced PvP system. There's a damage modifier system which lowers the damage similar to duel so it won't be unfair to the weaker players who die easily from stronger players yet not too weakened for the stronger players to defeat others fast. It's also a fun competition. Even though the rewards are basically short, it's still fun to play it. CTF is a small area so if you're being attacked by multiple people your partners can arrive in time to save you (this goes for the enemy too however).
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-05-21 22:05
Quote from Tibarn;40964:
You can certainly enjoy the GB without a horse. If you want to be one of the ones with an "advantage," then shell out the money for a mount. If not, then deal with not having one.
I have 3, but that's not the point.
The problem is that's the only way to go about it. There's no diversity or tactics involved in something that very well could make use of proper planning and a varied range of skill sets.
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Shirayuki wrote on 2010-05-21 22:17
-inserts own opinion on 1v1-
Dueling in the game is damn balanced imo. I know giants who have the best dueling records in all of Tarlach due to:
1) Raw damage
2) Low AP for max in everything(since you are mostly melee)
3) Ego 2h's+Shield
4) 1.6s Smash
Dueling really doesn't come down to the ranks of your skills or how much of a hybrid you are, but it really comes down to what you can do with what you have. It's like an idiot with a shotgun vs. a ninja with a thumbtack.(iguess)
On the topic of GB though: It really is unbalanced mostly because of the use of ego bows/very long range bows. It would be way more fun if every archer limited themselves to a crossbow or ESB, since it would balance out with the range of other skills, yet still provide fast-paced combat.
-sorry if I sound stupid-
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Moppy wrote on 2010-05-21 22:23
I've never done a guild battle because of the obvious reasons.
PVP with a giant is fail.
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Drifter wrote on 2010-05-21 22:39
True, all you need to win GB is an elf armada on horses :/
that being said, the CTF event was probably the most balanced
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-05-21 22:42
I heard a lot of bad things about CTF, but I think most of it was due to packet editing or other cheating so not really the fault of the concept.
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Earthquake wrote on 2010-05-21 23:03
I've only done guild war once in my mabi life. From what I remember, MP isn't restored if you die?
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Trigger wrote on 2010-05-21 23:32
Quote from Osayidan;40955:
Apart from dungeons, there's no purpose to diversity and tactics in this game. So I just solo it.
There may be a purpose for tactics and diversity in dungeons, but even there it is far from necessary, and do remember that you're losing EXP at a rate directly proportional to the number of party members you have while your dungeoning speed may not be increasing by the same factor. Solo is just the way to go, period.
Quote from Earthquake;40992:
I've only done guild war once in my mabi life. From what I remember, MP isn't restored if you die?
Nope, MP is not regenerated when you resurrect on the battlefield, which is why guild battle hates mages. It's also the main reason I refuse to attend said battles.
CTF was a BLAST, and was the only time I have ever had real FUN in Mabinogi's PvP system. I wish they would have kept it as a permanent part of the game instead of letting it die as a temporary event. Yeah, there were packet editors ruining the game for people (where DON'T they ruin the game?), but they mostly stuck to channel 1 and I never played a CTF match that had a packet editor present.
You wanna PvP, go play
Global Agenda. I have not had more fun in PvP in a long time. If you're gonna play Mabi, ignore the PvP system altogether, because it's simply not worth your time.
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Fumy wrote on 2010-05-21 23:37
I've done GB twice and got 1st Place once :S You really don't need to be good at all (I was like total lvl 600 2nd Place was total 2k+) If you're an Elf you just gotta ride to the flagman shoot him really quick and move to the next one and that's how you get your points :S You just gotta be fast that's it...
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Aubog007 wrote on 2010-05-21 23:38
Never done CTF. Really wish i was around to do so.
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Juno wrote on 2010-05-22 00:10
You didn't improve GB so much as you completely replaced it with something else .-. Something horribly dominated by camping .-.
If you want to improve it the simplest way would be to allow charge to continue past it's range after the activation or to disallow pets like in CTF. That would significantly decrease the usefulness of mounted elves. Alternatively, it could take place in an area with more obstacles. Sen Mag has plenty, but is still open enough that melee has a hard time. Part of that will be remedied when charge is uncapped.
It's not impossible to thrive as a melee, it just takes a lot more work than archery. Either path is screwed if outnumbered but melee does fine in 1v1 on a field with moderate obstacles. With pets involved it's impossible to have a 1v1 fight though. In group battles, a melee group could beat a ranged group if the ranged group didn't have allies they could summon at will to disrupt the melee after charge. Assuming one can land a successful assault and not be interrupted by a pet, things work out.
GB could benefit from a more CTF-esque approach with greater damage reduction and a ban on pets. Charge also needs to be uncapped asap though a less likely but more satisfying adjustment would be a range nerf on ego bows...since it's kind of ridiculous right now. The scoring system is fine since guilds that try to win by mass numbers lose far more points through death than a smaller guild, but the reward definitely needs some work. Even if the title was working it's not really much of an incentive. Limiting the number of people that can come per gold to 25-30 would be a nice touch as well since Sen Mag just isn't big enough to support a couple of massive attendees.