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Rebirth simplified, randomized, made intuitive

THICCthighssavelivesTHICCthighssavelives
Mabinogi Rep: 6,855
Posts: 790
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edited May 3, 2018 in Feedback and Suggestions
When I first started, I didn't want to rebirth because I wasn't sure if I would lose stat points or equipment. Age choice affecting stats (which I thought were permanent) was also very confusing. In this suggestion I try to simplify rebirth and character attributes. I try to not add a change if it just punishes players without adding a benefit. For example, just adding a stat penalty to hunger would get annoying very quickly. By adding a positive side effect to hunger, the player has more strategic choice and is more like to use and enjoy the change.

Rebirth and Randomized Physical Features

At each Rebirth, a character's physical features should be randomized, including hair, skin, body, and more. Hair color, natural shape (wavy, curly, straight, etc.), and distribution (hairline) will be random. If you want to try to style your hair the same way in Erinn later, that is up to you, but it might not look exactly the same. Skin tone will be random within a certain range. You choose between Dark, Medium, and Fair, and the game will give you a randomized skin tone within that subset. Bodies will get random height, random weight, random facial structure, and random natural body markings like moles and birthmarks. Non-natural markings like tattoos, piercings, and scars can get added later in Erinn (see below).

Style Coupons for Physical Features

Style Coupons make physical features selectable during Rebirth and prevent them from being randomized. Hair, skin, face structure, eye, and body style coupons will exist, and they will be mostly permanent unlocks. Style coupons for rebirth age will be rewarded from quests or potential system. One-time-use style coupons will exist, but only for special physical features.

Quick Body and Style Modification in Erinn

Tattoos, hairstyles, unnatural hair color, body markings, body piercings, and others can be changed in Erinn, either at an NPC or through the services of another player. Scars appear naturally through grave injuries, but can also be added through elective body modification. Age lines, wrinkles, posture, idle animation, and other things will be determined by age and life experiences (see below). Titles and equipment will still alter idle animations.

Diet and Activity Cause Long-term Body Changes

For characters of all ages, their diet and activity will determine their body composition. There will still be three main characteristics: Upper Body Muscles, Lower Body Muscles, and Fat. In addition to changing a character's appearance, these three also affect gameplay. Food will be very important again.

Food: Non-food means of hunger satiation will be nerfed/removed. Nerf: Trans, Bachram Boost. Removed: Level-up, logging. Hard-coded long-term food effects (like +upper, -lower, +STR) will be removed. Instead, all food will have only their temporary stat boosts plus simple calorie counts. Hunger past 50% will make your stomach growl, change your idle animation, increase monster aggro chance and foil play dead attempts (due to the stomach noise), and may cause you to automatically pick up food on the ground. Being very hungry has benefits as well, including keener sense of smell (increased ingredient drops) and combat bonuses (all enemies appear graphically as giant food items).

Fat: Consuming more calories than one burns will result in increased fat gain, with the fat distribution areas being determined mainly by gender but also a random influence on each Rebirth. Excess fat reduces character speed slightly, increases stamina usage, slightly reduces dexterity, slightly increases durability usage on worn equipment. Excess fat reduces the need for food over longer periods since it's a storage of energy. Larger body mass in general reduces enemy-on-player pushback and knockdown distance, also increases defense/protection slightly and increases charge damage. The other extreme also has good and bad effects. Those who never eat food but are very active will have no fat reserves, and their body will begin breaking down their muscles for energy (stat penalties and physical looks change). Low body fat increases dexterity and speed slightly, and lowers stamina use. Lower body mass in general, either from not eating or from being very young and small, greatly increases enemy-on-player pushback and knockdown distance, lowers protection, and reduces charge damage. It is possible to be very young and have a lot of fat, either through the randomness of Rebirth or through deliberate effort.

Upper/Lower: Upper body activities (swinging a weapon, steering a raft) will cause the muscles of the upper body to develop, while lower body activity (running, leaping skills, riding galloping mounts, carrying lots of items) will cause the lower body muscles to develop. Muscle mass will affect appearance and only moderately affect stats.

Effects and Speed of Age

Leveling will no longer give stats except for the permanent AP gain. Instead, characters will gain/lose stats during that lifetime through natural aging and lifestyle. Stat changes from aging are minor variations in the overall scheme of character effectiveness, but at extreme ages they can add up. Stat changes from lifestyle (diet, exercise) will be more noticeable but can be changed. All characters start at age 10 on rebirth unless they have unlocked another age through a style coupon (Ages 7 through 18 can be unlocked. Higher ages like 25 and 30 are single-use). Characters physically age 1 year every 2 days. Example: A 10-year-old character, after 1 week, will be a little over 13 years old physically. After a month, they will be age 25. After 8 months, age 130.

A young character's secondary sexual characteristics will change as they grow through puberty, including height*, facial hair, muscle mass*, shoulder width*, bust size*, and gender-specific facial structure. (*already implemented) Young characters will gain good amounts of strength and intelligence as they age through puberty, but lose luck and a bit of dexterity. Willpower rises during young adulthood.

Old characters will lose certain stats as they age, like a bit of strength due to muscle loss, a bit of dexterity due to bone and joint ossification, and small amounts of luck. Intelligence and willpower gains will taper off at a certain old age, then intelligence will start declining slightly at very old ages. What should be the limit for age-based stat changes? (suggestions welcome). Eventually, very old characters might resort to unnatural methods to change their appearance, like transformations, age potions, physical features for the style tab, or inhabitation of corpses/golems/puppets. Or they could just rebirth. :)

Summary

Rebirth will be simplified with everyone starting at age 10 and most physical features randomized. Style Coupons allow manual selection of physical features and ages. Stat changes within a lifetime will come from intuitive lifestyle choices and aging, rather than from timing of level-ups. Food and hunger made far more important.

Comments

  • ZuomoZuomo
    Mabinogi Rep: 2,015
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    Shouldn't you lose intelligence due to you slowly losing your mind to age? But seriously I don't think so many changes would be able to be done in mabi, and if so it's probably remaking game pretty much.

    Being able to rebirth and us choosing how we look in-game is more or less probably able to be explained away as "Godly intervention" in the form of Nao and the soul stream.

    Even with the suggested changes, I would keep speed of aging the same, to be honest. More or less because I enjoy games not being too easy.

  • THICCthighssavelivesTHICCthighssavelives
    Mabinogi Rep: 6,855
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    edited May 3, 2018
    @Zuomo Thank you for the feedback. I also think it's very unlikely any of this gets added, but it's nice to dream. I also like being able to choose how we look, but I'd like it to be a progressing reward system where we continuously unlock new rebirth options through style coupons.

    Edits to OP: Characters age 3.5x faster (1 year per 2 IRL days) instead of 5x faster. Intelligence drops at old age.

    I still want a gameplay benefit to being very old, suggestions welcome.
  • MaugreMaugre
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    The only way the randomized rebirths wouldn't enrage 99% of the population is if they were optional. Hordes of people would be up in arms or possibly just quit outright if their fashionogi was taken over by random rebirths, and forcing them to use coupons every time they want to go back to normal.

    Same thing with all these weird "survival mode" rules you're suggesting, really. I'm usually never one to shoot down ideas like this, but there's no way this would ever work out in Mabi.
    LeineiDarkpixie99Xanesh
  • SheenaSheena
    Mabinogi Rep: 5,515
    Posts: 381
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    edited May 9, 2018
    After reading "Randomized Physical Features"

    Worst idea I have ever seen around these forums in all these years and I didn't wanted to read anymore.

    So NO... Just no.

    4MQkDKm.gif
    YangKoeteEraleaXanesh
  • GretaGreta
    Mabinogi Rep: 51,805
    Posts: 6,975
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    Sheena wrote: »
    After reading "Randomized Physical Features"

    Worst idea I have ever seen around these forums in all these years and no need to read anymore tbh.

    So NO... Just no.

    4MQkDKm.gif

    Same thought. Who would even do this? Lol. The only purpose i see is purely for laughs, but nothing else. I already can imagine characters looking hideous as heck like some kind of awkward *beep* dolls LOL.
  • ZuomoZuomo
    Mabinogi Rep: 2,015
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    I think OP's intention with the randomized physical features is to be more realistic with a rebirth, as in not having some divine intervention where you can choose absolutely every feature of your character. (I know, it's fantasy and anything can happen) Of course if as suggested coupons were permanent, then there would hardly be a point to randomized features, as everyone would eventually unlock style coupons.

    As mabi is a social game, it won't be added, as being able to customize how you look and play is more than half of what matters in the game most likely. It's fun to entertain the idea of mabi being more survival/hardcore, though.
  • THICCthighssavelivesTHICCthighssavelives
    Mabinogi Rep: 6,855
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    Maugre wrote: »
    The only way the randomized rebirths wouldn't enrage 99% of the population is if they were optional. Hordes of people would be up in arms or possibly just quit outright if their fashionogi was taken over by random rebirths, and forcing them to use coupons every time they want to go back to normal.

    Same thing with all these weird "survival mode" rules you're suggesting, really. I'm usually never one to shoot down ideas like this, but there's no way this would ever work out in Mabi.

    I wrote in the suggestion that the style coupon would unlock a physical feature forever.

    Optional random rebirth. Hmm... sounds interesting! If you turn on randomized rebirth, you have a chance at rebirthing with rare features, like two-tone serene eyes or partner maid hair. On top of that, every random rebirth earns you a style coupon for use in random rebirth (the permanent ones described in my suggestion). The more you rebirth randomly, the better options you unlock. If you don't like the system or want a break from the randomization, simply opt out and stick with the basic system we already have.

    So the "survival mode" is not appealing. I tried to give players strategic choice by having physical fitness affect gameplay in a way where every option has its upsides. I actually created a new chore of keeping the optimal weight and physique for those who don't care about the other benefits. I removed choice. Maybe once again the solution is to make the system optional. If you want the combat bonuses of being hungry or well-fed and of being lean or massive, then opt in. If you don't want to worry about diet and lifestyle and don't mind your body never changing, just opt out. We can call the opt-out option the "roleplay/fashion mode."

    @Sheena @Greta Why don't you try reading it? The worst that could happen is you might like it.
  • EraleaEralea
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    I don't think you know what the words "simplified" and "made intuitive" mean.

    And you need to accept that some people don't like this suggestion instead of badgering them to "keep reading, maybe you'll like it!". If they don't like it, then they don't like it. It's nothing personal against you, it's just a gross suggestion.

    They've already pointed out the problems with randomised rebirths.
    Regarding the old age part - This is Tir na nOg, the land of youth. We don't grow elderly. It's been in the lore from day 1.
    If you want elderly nerfs, maybe don't play a game that's literally set in paradise.
    Xanesh
  • THICCthighssavelivesTHICCthighssavelives
    Mabinogi Rep: 6,855
    Posts: 790
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    edited May 8, 2018
    @Eralea
    I do accept that people won't like parts or all of it. I do my best to respond to that feedback and even edit the idea using what I've learned. I am extremely grateful for that feedback.

    I did not "badger" those two posters. I asked them, once, to read it entirely, in reply to their statement that they just read a paragraph (or less?) and didn't read further. I won't be asking them again.

    I'm very interested to know what makes it a "gross" suggestion.

    Regarding us not aging, I did not realize that was part of the lore. I might have to omit that part of the idea entirely or maybe work around the lore. Thank you.

    I do think it's simpler. Whether it's an improvement is up for debate... but the original idea sure is simpler. No more physical feature list, with some being marked in the corner, and some of which are sometimes free and sometimes aren't. No more stat growth charts and agonizing over which age to choose. No more eating certain foods to grow and shrink legs, weight, upper. Instead, you just live your life in Erinn, and your character changes intuitively as in real life. Eat a lot and don't move, you gain fat. Move a lot and don't eat, you lose fat, maybe too much. Intuitive is the key word here. You should just know, almost instinctively, how to get the change you want in your body by changing your diet and lifestyle. Aging is also just like you would expect in real life. You grow and change as an adolescent, then change some more as an adult entering dotage. I specified in my idea that the changes are minor in the context of character effectiveness. They're just there for completeness, attention to detail, immersion, roleplay, and for fine-tuning stats for hardcore players. Also, if you read through the thread, you see that I am considering making randomized rebirth and the body changes optional, based on poster feedback.
  • SheenaSheena
    Mabinogi Rep: 5,515
    Posts: 381
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    edited May 9, 2018
    Is not like I can find a Dowra Hair Beauty Coupon for 100G in every single personal shop of Dunbarton and Belvast nowadays.
  • NemesisNemesis
    Mabinogi Rep: 2,005
    Posts: 96
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    All you rebirth haters can just play a different game.

    All rebirthing is getting back to level 1 so I can get more AP for my sweet and awesome skills so I can kill more stuff and make my virtual character look pretty.

    People need to stop being so anal about making the perfect character.