I have been playing Mabinogi on and off since early G4, i can't even remember how many years it has been now, it must be at least 8. I have seen this game go through so many phases, completely change, get better, get worse, get better again. I feel like this might be one of the hardest feedbacks to write, because Mabinogi is such an expansive game, and i will need to cover so many areas. Unfortunately, since this is just the nexon forums, it will probably never reach any of the developers ears, and even if it did, i doubt it would even matter. But i feel like i wanted to write it anyways, because this game has been such a large part of my life.
First, lets start off with why i think Mabinogi was good. Why did i stick around and play this game over others back when i first started?
I think it was the uniqueness of the game, alongside the extremely large amount of freedom it gave players. I wasn't pigeon holed in to a specific class, i could mix any combat skills together to make my own style. The game didn't hold my hand at all, it made me learn and play through all of the story even though it was slow and difficult. I liked that about the game, i knew that when i made it through the content, that everyone would be able to tell "that guy put in the effort". It wasn't like newer games where they just give you crazy xp boosts, beginners packages, and skip you to the end of the game.
Mabinogi had a really rich story, and it wasn't just another cookie cutter fantasy game with orcs and elves. It was truly a unique world. With each new update, they would add a new chapter to the story, it all went together. And with the fact that you never really hit a max level, you never had to feel like the game was over, so i could just keep playing and getting stronger.
Second, is Mabinogi still good? Has it gotten better, or worse over the years?
I think all of the content in Mabinogi fit well, and flowed together, all the way up to G11 or 12 at least. It wasn't until G13 came out that i finally had to sit back and wonder "Huh? Is this Mabinogi? Why did they take it in this direction?" In G13, they started with the Shakespeare storyline. It felt completely out of left field, and didn't meld with any of Mabinogi's original storyline or style. It really started to destroy the games vibe. It was at this point that i feel Mabinogi started on a downhill trend. Something in development had changed. They either lost their passion for the original Mabinogi, or they were desperate, or something happened, because from this point onwards, they completely disregard all of the things that Mabinogi was known and loved for and started adding in random things just for the sake of making things 'different and new'.
From here, they stopped making combat skills freeform. Instead of just having a lot of combat skills that you could mix and match to make your own playstyle, they started adding in 'skillsets' that had to be used as an exclusive set. Now you had more and more and more skills that required a specific weapon to be equipped and couldn't be mixed with any of the other skills. Nowadays you just equip a shuriken and use the ninja skills, or you equip a gun and use gun skills, etc. They continued with every major update to just add another skillset that was more powerful than the last. The Ninja update was the first one that truly blew my mind. Everyone up to this point struggled and grinded to level up their melee skils, they had to deal with mana or stamina costs, they had to use their skills strategically to counter the enemy. But when ninja came out, they give you a 2 handed ranged weapon that has no ammo cost, no mana costs, no stamina costs. Their skills gave more stats than any of the old combat skills, they were way easier to train, etc. It was like a huge slap in the face to everyone who had worked so hard in the past to become strong. Now all you had to do was equip a shuriken for a day or two, max all the skills, and suddenly you were doing top tier damage. This trend of adding new weapons/skillsets continues again and again, now with chainblades giving hundreds of luck, a stat that has always been considered exlusive and hard to get, for good reason, now they just throw it at you like its worthless. All those expensive and rare luck/crit enchants we had to work so hard for? Why bother, now you can get hundreds of crit just from leveling chainblade skills.
I just cant wrap my head around it. I love the idea of them adding new skills, but why did they have to completely abandon all the old ways in the process? Why cant the newer skills just give an average amount of stats, like 10-15 str per skill, instead of 30 stats per skill? Why cant they have a proper stamina cost for using shurikens and other new weapons to maintain the balance between them and older weapon types?
Another problem i have had with Mabinogi is the exclusivity of content. A VERY large amount of content in Mabinogi is locked behind old events or cash shop sales. There are a ton of extremely powerful items that were only available in specific events or sales, so if you missed it, you are S.O.L. and basically forfeit your chances of becoming a top tier player. The most notable one being the events that gave out Pet Max Level potions alongside the limited time sale of some of the best combat pets in the game. These two things when added together with the Divine Link skill will literally allow those players and their pet to become virtually invulnerable. Basically any content in the game becomes easymode. But if you weren't around during these very specific events and sales, you will forever feel behind, watching some of these other players solo content that was made for 4-8 players. I don't usually mind exclusive event content, etc. But sometimes in Mabinogi it can go into the extremes. Where if you miss out on something, you REALLY miss out on something that will permanently put you behind in a way that you may never recover from.
Third major issue with Mabinogi: It has too many systems in play at once.
With every new major content update, they seem to add an entirely new 'system' the game now. You have way too many things to keep track of, and work on all going on at the same time now. Especially for the players, it must be EXTREMELY overwhelming to the point that most people won't bother and will just quit. People have to work on all of the basics of the game like training skills, leveling, getting titles, and gearing. But then on top of that you have like dozens of other systems you have to learn and work on separately now.
First there are multiple transformations, and instead of updating old ones, they keep adding new ones that work differently and have completely different systems.
Then players have to deal with the talent system, the renown system, the exploration system, commerce, enchanting, transformations, the base gear upgrades, then red/blue upgrades, then Erg, then Spirit Weapons, then Techniques, Potential System, Combo Cards, Specific Generation-exclusive skills/buffs, Echostones, Falias Treasure, Totems, etc. There are so many seperate systems going on that i can't even recall them all.
A lot of the older systems become almost obsolete, but they are still left in the game, just there to clutter and confuse newer players. For example, you can get skills from the G13/14 storyline that will give you a small bonus to stats (like +3), or activatable buffs that might give you 50-100 of a stat for a couple minutes. But these unlockable skills/buffs are so small now and require so much work, that they don't really have a place in the game now.
How should new players understand the difference between Paladin/Dark Knight, Crusader, Awakening and Nascent? Should new players focus on dungeons, or shadow missions? Should they start from G1 or skip to something more imporatant that will help? Should they focus on leveling up Renown now, or just save it for later? Should they work on Erg level, or a spirit weapon first? Echostones, or Falias Treasures? With all these systems piling on top of each other and most of them all doing the same thing (making you stronger) its no wonder no new players stick with this game. How can you ever expect anyone to want to sort through so many things that all have their own completely different system and have to be learned individually?
Instead of just "adding Erg" upgrades to the game, what they should have done is something like replace/update the blue and red upgrades with the Erg system. What they should have done instead of adding Echostones to the game, is just replace/update the Falias Treasures. What they should have done instead of adding Crusader and Nascent skills, is upgrade paladin and darkknight, etc.
All in all, Mabinogi is suffering from power creep, as well as too much content being piled up, rather than replaced and updated. And too much exclusive power from old events.
At the very least, at least we are done with that abysmal shakespeare phase and back into a 'bit' more original mabinogi style story. I just really hope they can focus more on balancing the content that is in the game, instead of just adding new weapons and skillsets that nearly obsolete old ones. They also need to make some of the exclusive power more accessible to other players. The reforging system is basically entire pay to win, and there are too many overpowered pets and skills from old events that will likely never be attainable again. They should redo these events/sales once in a while to keep giving players access to some of that power.
