Mabinogi should stop focusing on combat entirely. - Page 2 | Mabinogi Talk

You know. I read the title of this thread, and came in here expecting to hate everything you were saying (Koishi). And although I do think you're sort of just putting numbers out there, wow, you have gotten me convinced.

I have played Mabinogi since open beta with two long hiatuses, and all throughout that time I have not enjoyed combat at all expect briefly when Merlins came out because I could actually combo two unrelated skillsets together. But even my joy from that died out. Thinking back, the things that kept bringing me back to Mabinogi had nothing or little to do with combat.

Sure there was in part the rebirth system, letting me progress my character without grinding. This gave a sense of progression and a sort of instant gratification but when you think about it, for me anyways, the reason why I like this system as opposed to what other games have is because you don't have to grind. You can just do casual gameplay, be patient, and continue to play how you play and overtime get what you want a LOT faster than a game like MapleStory for example, which has you grinding for hours on end to make very little progress in your character's development. My conclusion is the reason I like the rebirth system is because it allows me to progress and actually see my progression, without having to grind, or in other words, without having to spend time doing hours of combat.

What avenues of content had me returning? When I think about it, Story, my guild and ingame friends, Homestead and updates to it, music, doki doki island, the halloween events. And guess what? I was bringing my money with me. It actually managed to convinced me to spend money on things that don't bring me back but are still there, like combat and fashion. (I'm including pets in that category since they're mostly just combat incentives and cosmetics.)

You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? The inventory system. I have multiple times in the past felt nostalgic, logged into the game, taken a look at my inventory, and just logged back out. You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? Skill training. I see where I want to be and spend 5+ hours a day working at it and for what? To make it a third of the way from rank 6 to rank 5?

What do these have in common? They're overwhelming and it's hard to see any sort of progress in them. I could spend weeks grinding on a skill, grinding only makes me more fatigued for the game, not more enthusiastic. I could throw my money and I buy pets to shoo my inventory problems away, that's an instantaneous solution. I'm only delaying the inevitable.

You know what brought me back to mabinogi? G15. Why G15? G15 made a bunch of items stack and introduced the special inventory tab. Suddenly my inventory which was filled with mostly items from storylines that I can't drop felt a little bit less daunting.

You know what COULD bring me back? A skill training overhaul. Yes yes, there are multiple avenues to train your skills and you don't have to do just one thing, but that's meaningless when you have to do 8 out of 10 of them to rank your skill. And they're all mostly the same thing. Attack an enemy. Knock down an enemy. Kill an enemy. Knock down a strong enemy. Kill an awful enemy. Spend days searching for CP gear so you actually can spend half an hour figuring out where to find an awful enemy to kill cuz everything is strong or boss and the skill you've been finally making progress on is suddenly halted. And then spend several hours grinding there once you have found it.

I was gonna write more about how I don't see how PvP is even on the board at all but I think I got across my point. The things that bring me back to mabinogi are almost never combat related. It's those things that make me notice mabinogi as opposed to more combat based MMOs, and I really don't think it's in DevCAT's best interest to try and compete with those MMOs.

That is all. :gloom3:

Quote from Kapra;1298818:
You know. I read the title of this thread, and came in here expecting to hate everything you were saying (Koishi). And although I do think you're sort of just putting numbers out there, wow, you have gotten me convinced.

Thank you, and yeah I wasn't looking to make a super precise argument. This is basically based on what I've seen dealing with a pretty big cross-ection of players on Alexina.

I have played Mabinogi since open beta with two long hiatuses, and all throughout that time I have not enjoyed combat at all expect briefly when Merlins came out because I could actually combo two unrelated skillsets together. But even my joy from that died out. Thinking back, the things that kept bringing me back to Mabinogi had nothing or little to do with combat.

And I think that's the same for many if not MOST players. While I'm definitely a combat focused player, I am a distinct minority. Most players, even high level players, often either don't have any knowledge of build/gear/stat optimization, or have no interest. The only reason I encourage people to get into it because most new content is GATED by this optimization, which only a small minority is interested in pursuing. Guys like Twin and Kaeporo are a MINORITY. Hell, this site is a minority; the average TTL is something like 8k here, and that's with a lot of people who quit 2-3 years ago post 10k.

Sure there was in part the rebirth system, letting me progress my character without grinding. This gave a sense of progression and a sort of instant gratification but when you think about it, for me anyways, the reason why I like this system as opposed to what other games have is because you don't have to grind. You can just do casual gameplay, be patient, and continue to play how you play and overtime get what you want a LOT faster than a game like MapleStory for example, which has you grinding for hours on end to make very little progress in your character's development. My conclusion is the reason I like the rebirth system is because it allows me to progress and actually see my progression, without having to grind, or in other words, without having to spend time doing hours of combat.

The RB system is great. The main issue is they coupled it with the skill training system. It should be one or the other.

What avenues of content had me returning? When I think about it, Story, my guild and ingame friends, Homestead and updates to it, music, doki doki island, the halloween events. And guess what? I was bringing my money with me. It actually managed to convinced me to spend money on things that don't bring me back but are still there, like combat and fashion. (I'm including pets in that category since they're mostly just combat incentives and cosmetics.)

Most of the people who quit are not quitting because the combat is boring or frustrating, because they weren't into the combat beyond a casual level to begin with. They're quitting because there's nothing fun to do beyond just grinding skills and getting gear. Or the community goes into the shitter. But here's the thing, almost EVERY game has a shitty community. You don't see League bleeding players despite you get your game ruined by an asshole 10-20% of the time. And in League, you can't avoid the shitty community the way you can in a MMO.

You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? The inventory system. I have multiple times in the past felt nostalgic, logged into the game, taken a look at my inventory, and just logged back out. You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? Skill training. I see where I want to be and spend 5+ hours a day working at it and for what? To make it a third of the way from rank 6 to rank 5?

Interestingly, a lot of the same casual players that quit Mabi at like 2k or under TTL suddenly hop on BDO or FFXIV and cap with quality gear. So it's not an issue of laziness, it's to me there's something wrong with Mabi's combat systems that prevent it from having mass appeal. I think the overwhelming nature of skill training is part of it (I'd also throw in enchanting and special upgrading; imo reforges are the best instance of gear progression Mabi's had, except for the cash shop reliance, but nobody ever cries about enchants despite being even more cash shop reliant). The inventory system sucks as well.

One more thing I'd add is that the meta is really restrictive. You basically HAVE to build your char a certain way or you're basically doing it wrong. I have to tell so many new players, no you're wasting your time rushing Fighter or Alchemy or Gunner, no, sword and board is bad, and because of how broken the skill and stat system is, and how overloaded certain skills are, and how so much content is geared towards certain skillsets being super efficient, there's actually not as much skill freedom as you would think, at least until you have your core set.

You know what COULD bring me back? A skill training overhaul. Yes yes, there are multiple avenues to train your skills and you don't have to do just one thing, but that's meaningless when you have to do 8 out of 10 of them to rank your skill. And they're all mostly the same thing. Attack an enemy. Knock down an enemy. Kill an enemy. Knock down a strong enemy. Kill an awful enemy. Spend days searching for CP gear so you actually can spend half an hour figuring out where to find an awful enemy to kill cuz everything is strong or boss and the skill you've been finally making progress on is suddenly halted. And then spend several hours grinding there once you have found it.

Only thing I can add is that they removed CP based training for newer skills - but made them RIDICULOUSLY grindy to train. Gotta love it.

The things that bring me back to mabinogi are almost never combat related.

I think Mabi's staying power comes from the fact that it's still very party and community based compared to newer MMOs (Mabi is actually very old school in that you really do need other people to progress), it's fashion diversity (no game comes close, period), the kawaii aspect (not a lot of games really hit this nowadays), and a sort of sunk cost element where you spend so time on it you're loath to give it up.