A Mabinogi-like

• Konrad wrote on 2016-08-29 21:08
  On the other hand, you can (in theory) do this:
  [video=youtube;_Mmg4R1gKx0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mmg4R1gKx0[/video]
  It all comes down to the type of content you're playing, how much variety you want to put in your play and to what extent your latency will allow you to do so.
• gundamweed wrote on 2016-08-30 02:02
  While it's flashy, it's showmanship at the cost of practicality and speed. Why use fighter in shadow wizard of all places when lance wm spam would take care of things far better? Heck, so much would be cut down if it was a human using final hit every couple minutes. Even using fighter, he could have made a faster time if he used overture and lullaby, but that wouldn't be very fun to watch. While it's theoretical to do what he did, in practice most people don't live in the los angeles county, let alone california. Nor would they necessarily want to.
  
  I get what you're saying, the options there, but to get my point across, Rydian said it himself perfectly when he mentioned the use of tactics in BDO. The option's there, but it's not rewarded over what's more pragmatic.
• Osayidan wrote on 2016-08-30 02:28

  Quote from Fabian;1297894:

  Kudos to whoever can tell me the name of that game. QQ

  
  
  Every MMO ever, just happens at different points in the game.
• Fabian wrote on 2016-08-30 08:14

  Quote from Tropa;1297955:

  I don't know, Fighter, Gunslinger and Ninja had a disgusting amount of grinding in them, even with 2x events.

  
  I'm not entirely sure. You see, I save ap and complete an entire skillset during training events, so it doesn't take long. I mean, just recently I completed Ninja and Archery in under a day at 32x training. I can tell you though; Artifact Investigation is worse than even Sakura Abyss/Shadow Cloak because I'm forced to have my inventory full of relics ready to be restored. Also it's cooldown is just long enough for me to forget about it, but also short in that it'll feel like I wasted a potential 10 trainings by the time I remember about it. :<
  
  

  Quote from Konrad;1297959:

  On the other hand, you can (in theory) do this:
  
  It all comes down to the type of content you're playing, how much variety you want to put in your play and to what extent your latency will allow you to do so.

  
  That guy is a fucking beast. o_o
  
  

  Quote from Osayidan;1297971:

  Every MMO ever, just happens at different points in the game.

  
  I thought the "10 levels lower partner hovering in circles around me while I killed stuff" would be a dead giveaway. It's FlyFF. Basically, back then, it'd take you a day to get to lv20, then a week to get to lv40, then a month to get to level 60, then 2 months to get to lv70, then 3 months to get to lv80, and so on. It'd take you like a year or two to get to lv120, then you have to reset your levels to lv60 Master. Once you are a Master, you gain an extra stat point per level up and keep your lv120 weapons with you, but you earn half exp from everything. It takes the same amount of exp to get back to lv120M, at which point you become a Hero. Then every level after 120 is the equivalent to the exp of all the previous levels combined. :D
  
  You said every MMO ever, but in Mabi I can go run Shadow Missions to level up, I can go spam MA, I can go run dungeons, I can go commercing, raiding (haven't done this), I can spam Saga, I could go do events, etc, etc. Tons of stuff in Mabi helps to alleviate grinding. Yes, there's grinding, in fact, I just spend weeks slaving away at sheep/spiders to rank Tailoring, just for me to fall short and use 1 training seal on Rank 2. No regrets.
• Osayidan wrote on 2016-08-30 12:18

  Quote from Fabian;1297977:

  I'm not entirely sure. You see, I save ap and complete an entire skillset during training events, so it doesn't take long. I mean, just recently I completed Ninja and Archery in under a day at 32x training. I can tell you though; Artifact Investigation is worse than even Sakura Abyss/Shadow Cloak because I'm forced to have my inventory full of relics ready to be restored. Also it's cooldown is just long enough for me to forget about it, but also short in that it'll feel like I wasted a potential 10 trainings by the time I remember about it. :<
  
  
  That guy is a fucking beast. o_o
  
  
  I thought the "10 levels lower partner hovering in circles around me while I killed stuff" would be a dead giveaway. It's FlyFF. Basically, back then, it'd take you a day to get to lv20, then a week to get to lv40, then a month to get to level 60, then 2 months to get to lv70, then 3 months to get to lv80, and so on. It'd take you like a year or two to get to lv120, then you have to reset your levels to lv60 Master. Once you are a Master, you gain an extra stat point per level up and keep your lv120 weapons with you, but you earn half exp from everything. It takes the same amount of exp to get back to lv120M, at which point you become a Hero. Then every level after 120 is the equivalent to the exp of all the previous levels combined. :D
  
  You said every MMO ever, but in Mabi I can go run Shadow Missions to level up, I can go spam MA, I can go run dungeons, I can go commercing, raiding (haven't done this), I can spam Saga, I could go do events, etc, etc. Tons of stuff in Mabi helps to alleviate grinding. Yes, there's grinding, in fact, I just spend weeks slaving away at sheep/spiders to rank Tailoring, just for me to fall short and use 1 training seal on Rank 2. No regrets.

  
  
  The grind is there regardless of MMO, they just have varying degrees of success at making it fun. Mabi is one of those games where it's mentally a lot better, however it doesn't change what it is.
• Kingofrunes wrote on 2016-08-30 13:45

  Quote from Rydian;1297889:

  Mabinogi has multiple concepts that don't appeal to the average player, such a combat actually requiring tactics, and it's a hard game to adjust to when coming from others. So it may not be seen as viable in terms of the market.

  
  
  Ha, that's a laughable statement. Combat that actual requires tactic. Have you seen some MOBA's or the raid system of games like Final Fantasy XIV? Heck most Mabinogi combat is spam X skill to win these days with only things like Girgashiy involving any kind of strategy and I hear that Final Fantasy XIV raids are still better and have more strategy than that does. Mabinogi's combat system is absolute crap and it's completely laughable especially compared to more modern MMO's. Frankly I'd rather play Overwatch and try and counter the various heroes with another hero and strategize around actual team synergy and team composition as it actually matters in that game if you don't want to constantly face defeat. Well most of the time, sometimes you can say fuck it and go full d.va with 1 healer to support the D.va takeover
  :whisper:
  
  Granted that isn't an MMO but frankly the whole MMO scene I've found to be incredibly meh and the only MMO that's resonated and stuck with me is Runescape. I'll just have to make sure what happened in Mabinogi doesn't happen to me in Runescape and change my password more often. Upside is that unlike Mabinogi, Jagex is smart and has two factor authentication setup to protect your account >.> Guild Wars 2 also has a two factor authentication system. Most modern games today have that in place. It's inexcusable that Nexon won't invest into implementing that kind of system.
  
  

  Quote from Fabian;1297894:

  I'm asking myself the same question. The way Mabinogi handles grinding is genius. You don't actually feel like you are grinding at all. I wish more companies would try to alleviate grinding on a mmo before focusing on the money making part of it.
  
  I shudder when I remember spending 8 hours a day with a partner 10 levels below mine, hovering around me while in a party full of 6 others doing exactly the same thing as me just to get one level. Kudos to whoever can tell me the name of that game. QQ

  
  
  The Mabinogi skill grind is a lot more tedious and annoying than any Runescape leveling I've encountered. At least with Runescape you can distract the monotony with an anime or video and mostly AFK a good chunk of the grind. With Mabinogi most of the skills require your active attention to train the very very specific requirements and the CP requirements are incredibly annoying to deal with. My least favorite part about Mabinogi was the skill grind.
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  Now that I'm done tearing apart some of the things I didn't like (There's a lot more but I'll save that for when someone brings that up) Instead I will say one positive thing I did like about Mabinogi.
  
  Mabinogi's music system was really nice and refreshing and I really liked the vast majority of clothing, dyes, and customization options you had for cosplaying/customizing your character. No other game has had this kind of customization. That's the one thing I'll miss about Mabinogi is those two things. However getting hacked and losing all that customization I had spent years obtaining and dying was unacceptable for me.
• Syliara wrote on 2016-08-30 16:43
  Heres a vid of a fight that made a lot of statics disband a while ago. It was a very difficult fight and took us over a month of lots of wipes to kill it (albeit we kept having some other issues prior but thats beside the point). Even after we got it down it still required us to be at the top of our game every week to kill it or we would spend hours wiping again. That being said, with girgashiy when I was running it before lots of people quit you could fuck up so many things each time you entered and still clear it in a few seconds. The difference in difficulty and skill level necessary is miles wide.
  [SPOILER="Vid"]
  

  [Video: https://www.twitch.tv/xxkaozkingxx/v/34730252]

  [/SPOILER]
• Rydian wrote on 2016-08-30 22:29
  To clarify, I'm mainly talking about normal combat. Not raids, not unique bosses. The core of the combat system. If you want to bring up stuff like "big raid bosses in other games need this", hey, Girgashiy is a thing and it either counts for both or neither.
  
  

  Quote from gundamweed;1297958:

  You're a big boy, you can look up fights yourself.

  Wanna' put your money where your mouth is? I already have stuff like this pre-recorded on the Mabinogi side (combat against standard enemies) from having this discussion a number of times.
  
  I've played a few other MMOs like Archeage and Tera, and those don't compare to Mabinogi in terms of reacting to enemies to change the flow of battle.
  
  So come on. You say it exists, show it to me.
  
  

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1297980:

  Ha, that's a laughable statement.

  You too. Let's compare and contrast, or else retract your statement.
  
  

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1297980:

  Heck most Mabinogi combat is spam X skill to win these days

  That's two things.
  
  1 - Being jaded, it's because you're strong that you can do that.
  
  2 - Some skills are imbalanced, which is why I'm trying to put together a skill rebalance suggestion to send in.
• Kingofrunes wrote on 2016-08-30 22:49
  Good job pointing out the obvious to my statements *slow clap*
  
  Kudos to you. I stand by what I said. Am I Jaded? Of course I am. Thus I will tear apart Mabinogi like no tomorrow and laugh the day it finally does die. Frankly all I see Mabinogi as these days is a cash grab, granted even when I wasn't playing much I could see that's all it was but I kept hanging on to a thin thread of hope.
  
  That thread of hope is now gone.
  
  But sure, continue tearing apart anyone with a counter argument just cause you still have a hard on for a game that rarely updates outside of crossovers/cash grabs and is run by a greedy company.
  
  Now let's talk about regular non boss mobs. It still spam x skill to win with the only mob variations being more defense and HP with no additional AI added on. The only places that have somewhat interesting mob UI would be Rabbie Phantasm but it's piled in with so much other bullshit throughout the dungeon that it makes people resort to cheese tactics just to get through. Granted most MMO's doesn't have the most engaging combat but I will say that GW2 combat to me feels more fluid and interesting than Mabinogi's. When doing shadow missions and dungeons it felt more like an annoying grind than actual fun. Well I suppose eventually GW2 and Runescape fighting also bores me too. Maybe it's just I'm over with MMO's. *shrugs*
  
  The only combat that felt somewhat satisfying for me in Mabinogi was Magic. That usually felt somewhat fun compared to other skillsets.
• Rydian wrote on 2016-08-31 00:04

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1297991:

  I stand by what I said.

  Put up or shut up.
  
  Go record yourself doing some normal combat in another game that you say has more tactical/involved/active combat than Mabinogi, and we will actually examine/compare it.
  
  Because either of us can make all sorts of claims and insults, but I'd like to actually discuss this and make comparisons... which is going to require you to actually have something on your side to show.
• Syliara wrote on 2016-08-31 00:20
  Mabi combat whether it be for bosses or normal combat was not fluid in comparison to current games imo. Even tera to me was more fluid in terms of linking skill usages together and generally being able to have an enjoyable and fluid fight with the things you are fighting. Mabi combat tends to feel clunky compared to other games ive played since a lot of the skills needed to be loaded and then used which caused a lot of delay between animations and skill usages and created an atmosphere that revolved more around set up or nuking which is what most of the combat ended up turning into in the end. Its nowhere near as fluid as something like Blade and soul, and even FFXIV tended to have a more fluid system even with its gcd's. Black desert looked a lot more fluid in combat as well though I never played it.
  
  Tl;dr Mabi's combat system feels clunky and not fluid and caters more towards prior set up or nuking.
  
  As for difficulty of combat, mabi honestly has slim to no mechanics especially in non boss fights. The majority of its difficulty revolves around artificial hp increases, advanced heavy stander, movement speed increases for mobs, and increased damage. In the end all this encourages is more prep, higher stats, or both. This doesnt equate to actual difficulty, all it equates to is that you should get more gear or use as much cheesing as you can. As far as the argument about gear goes, the fact that its even possible to just overgear any fight means that the difficulty is artificial at best. If you dont have the gear, ya it might be difficult but its only artificially difficult not mechanically difficult. That isnt fun, thats just boring.
• Yoorah wrote on 2016-08-31 00:24
  Agreed with what gundamweed said. Mabinogi felt tactical at first, and it was cool, but once you realize how that works, it no longer makes the game's combat challenging or interesting. I guess it requires more skill than pressing the same button in MapleStory, but that's about it.
  
  When I tried Final Fantasy XIV back when it came out, I was blown away by how much teamwork coordination and tactics bosses (and even simpler dungeons, if you're not over-geared) required compared to what I was used to in Mabinogi. It just wasn't comparable--and neither was the satisfaction you got from success. Period.
  
  You should probably give it a try. Though you'd need some commitment, as you can't solo your way through the game--and random parties don't work well for the hard stuff, either. You actually need to build a well-coordinated team that practices together.
• gundamweed wrote on 2016-08-31 00:40

  Quote from Rydian;1297993:

  Put up or shut up.
  
  Go record yourself doing some normal combat in another game that you say has more tactical/involved/active combat than Mabinogi, and we will actually examine/compare it.
  
  Because either of us can make all sorts of claims and insults, but I'd like to actually discuss this and make comparisons... which is going to require you to actually have something on your side to show.

  
  
  You know you've lost the argument when you can't refute anything and can only respond with "put up or shut up." Get that huffpuffchest shit out of here. On topic, girgashy ain't SHIITTT. It's laughable to beat and even more so to bring it up as a raid boss in comparison to REAL raid bosses. "b-b-b-but muh mechanics and teamwork!" yeah, using shield when you see hail is soooo hard. A single boss in something like FFXIV's Weeping City, which is regular casual content, requires far more in terms of mechanics dealt with than ol' girgashy.
  
  And buddy, whatever combat you've recorded got on the mabinogi side of things, I don't need to see it. You're preaching to the choir that's seen it all. As a former pvp enthusiast with 3000 duels and a 70%+ winrate under my belt, I can safely say no other kind of player is more about maximizing their gameplay than an avid duelist, and I've first hand seen and experienced the best this game has to offer. If you want to refute that that's meaningless, then I could mention I've obtained first place in my race's category in boss rush trials, for both dungeons and even maintained that spot for a long time. While I'm now only second place for giants in ciar, I'm still numero uno in rundal, and 2nd place OVERALL. If you want to refute that and say those are meaningless, I've solo'd alban heroic. There's nothing you could show me as far as mabi gameplay goes to make me think this game's tactical.
  
  You, however, are very lucky. There's a disgusting amount of frag videos for these other games. You can more than easily go to youtube and look up these A V E R A G E boss fights and be amazed yourself at how big the world is outside of mabi.
• Konrad wrote on 2016-08-31 00:57
  I don't think that "tactical" is the best world to describe what I like about mabinogi's combat system. Failing to find a better term, I'd just say its "unique." While tab-target at it's core, it has (imo successfully) incorporated elements of action game like counters, knockback or avoiding projectiles and that particular mix is what got me. Sadly, all of the above is purely optional or outright unusable in late game content, but I'm still trying to have fun.
• Rydian wrote on 2016-08-31 08:27
  [video=youtube;GscviP0CkW8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GscviP0CkW8[/video]
  
  At first, I attack the enemy when it has defense loaded. This is to show two things.
  
  1 - The enemy is much, much stronger than I am.
  2 - Using the wrong skills at the wrong time can make things take a turn for the worse.
  
  After that, I actually attempt to beat the enemy, here's a notable list of my actions and decisions.
  
  0:55 - I open with Smash so that it can't immediately retaliate, since Smash has a high damage multiplier and forces a knockback.
  0:57 - I load Counter because I expect that the enemy will come back to attack me.
  0:59 - Seeing that the enemy loaded Smash itself, I go cancel Counter and run up to it to do a normal attack.
  1:01 - Normal attacks cancel Smash, so I get a combo off on the target.
  1:03 - I back away to give myself time to see what the enemy is doing if it decides to attack me.
  1:08 - The enemy is loading Counter, so I use Icebolt to deal a few hits of damage, knock it out of that and goad it into attacking me.
  1:22 - The enemy is likely going to attack be after that, so I load up Defense to prepare to block the attack that I think is coming.
  1:25 - The enemy hits my Defense, stunning it and letting me gbet a combo of skills off.
  1:30 - My Assault Slash lands me right next to the enemy with a recovery period, so I load Counter to be safe.
  1:34 - The enemy triggers Counter, putting it into cooldown. So I load Icebolt to stun and hurt the enemy a bit to give it time to cool down in case I need it again quickly.
  1:37 - I back away a bit as well to give myself time to judge the enemy's moves.
  1:40 - The enemy is running towards me with no skill loaded, so I load Defense to block it.
  1:42 - With the enemy's attack blocked by Defense again, I retaliate.
  The process basically continues until the enemy finally dies, despite being much stronger than my character.
  
  Notice any sort of pattern? Most of my actions take into account what the enemy is doing (their positioning/timing/skills), and many of my actions are reactions that are capable of preventing the enemy from taking specific action (or turning it against them).
  
  I'd love to see a breakdown like this of normal combat in another game that's supposedly more tactical... because I'd love to play a game where you have to react like this (that's not broken in as many ways as Mabinogi is).
  
  
  

  Quote from Syliara;1297994:

  Mabi combat whether it be for bosses or normal combat was not fluid in comparison to current games imo.

  Definitely, Mabi's combat seems to be state-based (as put by somebody else), in fact the skill data uses terms such as "waitlock" which describe things well. Being stuck into place for many skills and inconsistent recovery times are annoying.
  
  

  Quote from Syliara;1297994:

  Even tera to me was more fluid in terms of linking skill usages together and generally being able to have an enjoyable and fluid fight with the things you are fighting.

  Tera was one of the ones I played in the hopes for combat like Mabi's, but in the end it was typical MMO combat, just with attack areas instead of auto-hit attacks. Don't get me wrong, it was smooth, but there was little to no interplay between enemies and players. We couldn't influence and stop eachother like this.
  
  

  Quote from Syliara;1297994:

  The majority of its difficulty revolves around artificial hp increases, advanced heavy stander, movement speed increases for mobs, and increased damage.

  One hard thing to deal with in MMOs is progression.
  
  When you're OP, you don't have to care about the little things anymore. This is true of most games. In Castlevania games going back through the entry rooms I don't even bother to dodge or use any MP because there's no need to. I take minimal damage from attacks and most things I do will kill the enemy by that point.
  
  How do you handle that in MMOs? If you can one-shot an enemy, tactics vanish, do you just prevent players from getting strong enough to one-shot things? That's why a lot of MMOs have such limited character growth, I feel.
  
  

  Quote from Syliara;1297994:

  This doesnt equate to actual difficulty, all it equates to is that you should get more gear or use as much cheesing as you can.

  Gear is debatable, but some skills are definitely OP. Lullaby and Bash being big ones nowadays. They're broken, they break the game's combat system to the point where Lullaby doesn't even work in the new-hardest dungeon (so that it's not a cakewalk). That's a balance issue though, nore a core issue, and it could be fixed if the devs would just fix it.
  
  
  
  

  Quote from Yoorah;1297995:

  You should probably give it a try.

  Show me why.
  
  
  

  Quote from gundamweed;1297996:

  You know you've lost the argument when you can't refute anything and can only respond with "put up or shut up."

  Never had a debate before? I'm asking for proof of your claims, if you can't back your claims then retract your claims.
  
  

  Quote from gundamweed;1297996:

  You can more than easily go to youtube and look up these A V E R A G E boss fights

  Boss fights aren't my main concern though, because they're generally unique by design. Even Runescape has boss fights where you need to follow specific tactics and there's unique attacks everywhere now (Arax and Telos for example), despite normal combat falling into my original line of using skills in a set order for best DPS. In fact, the game's most-used combat mode is literally the mode that uses skills in a set order for you.
  
  This is why I don't really want to discuss bosses or raids, because that's an easy cop-out on both sides. Games with boring by-the-number standard combat (like Runescape) can have crazy raids bosses, but they're individual instances and not indicative of the normal daily gameplay experience. I want to see a game that has tactical combat at the core, from the start, pervading the game.
  
  Also, Mabinogi has that kind of stuff now too. Bosses of the Abyss/Phantasm dungeons as well as Girgashiy require players to react to their skills to survive/win. So saying other games have this in bosses doesn't automatically put them above Mabinogi.
  
  

  Quote from gundamweed;1297996:

  And be amazed yourself at how big the world is outside of mabi.

  
  
  If I look up a video myself, I don't get a proper breakdown and comparison, and I can't discuss the content with you the way I could if you made it yourself. If I'm unfamiliar with a game, how am I supposed to break down what is going on in normal combat?
  
  "Oh that guy uh, sparkled a bit and then the monster-thing died? Wait he's reviving the monster thing, are they on the same side? Did something else kill the monster? Is blue gas good or bad to walk into? Was that attack strong? Why did he only do it once? Is it a cooldown or is it expensive? Why did he try to kick it in the junk? Why did the other people laugh when it didn't work, was it supposed to, is it a low chance to not work?"