[NEW MILLETIANS] Please note that all new forum users have to be approved before posting. This process can take up to 24 hours, and we appreciate your patience.
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the
Nexon Forums Code of Conduct. You have to register before you can post, so you can log in or create a forum name above to proceed. Thank you for your visit!
Comments
I bolded, underlined, and italicized it.
While what constitutes a steep loss is subjective, and our patience differs, I am going on a limb and saying that many people hate losing literal years of progress. That's what a character essentially is, and that's where one derives most of their strength. Most games with permadeath do focus much more heavily on equipment, with character building much easier than Mabinogi.
At this point, I could say if we want to make the game hardcore, why not cut off a finger in real life per Mabinogi death, or give up $500 per incapacitation? The point of these exaggerations is that yes, we probably have one or two people who would play Mabinogi like this, but it is relatively safe to say not many people would ascribe to it. Likewise, I do not believe people would like to play with Permadeath like this, because the loss is too great.
In any case, why need permadeath? If people want to do a no die run, they simply have to say to themselves "No dying, or I will delete this character myself". Or something of the such. Does this server even need to exist if we are going to not talk about unique modifiers like monster health and damage dealth, which are out of the player's control?
None of us can divine the future, but that doesn't make assumptions like mine unreasonable, especially based on given history. Consider my suggestions to make this feasible, such as much lower AP cost, or less experience needed to level.
MMMMMmmmmm I love the idea of permanently losing a character due to circumstances I can't control, yep.
This happened to me so many times in the past.
I don't really mind it too much. A lot of people commented but there wasn't a lot of unique thought here. I don't know if I can convince people who say Mabinogi is a casual game with a casual playerbase but in the same post talk about it taking years to make their character good and talk about how hellish life skills are to grind out.
You're talking about a normal Mabinogi experience. I agree you can invest a lot of time into a character. But I disagree that you MUST invest a lot of time to be decently strong.
I see your minecraft example and I'm not a minecraft expert but I did play Terraria. I feel that a survival game with permadeath is a different idea. You're not playing with others. There's no sense of rivalry or competition unless you're specifically doing a coop ironman or seeing who can stay alive the longest with a friend.
In a server that I'm imagining. You don't go in with the expectation to clear everything right away. You don't even think about G22 until you're god-like. Characters aren't forever but the good part comes from having a strong character in a world where anyone can die at anytime. You gain influence and wealth. People pay you to hunt with them. Players don't just run into a dungeon naked with weapons only because they're risking their character. Players who buy cash items would cherish them a lot more and bank anything precious and only use it if they absolutely needed too. You could just try my idea. Go play on your server and try not to die for a long time. It's fun if you challenge yourself.
I think the server would require a permanent 20x Rainbow on EVERYTHING, from skill exp, combat exp, AP, to small things like NPC intimacy.
I did address that point. If you read it I mentioned how I disagreed with how much gear is worth in a game like this. Because he's clearly saying character stats are more important than gear in a game like Mabi and I agree that but I disagree with the implication that doesn't help a low leveled character much. And after that, he talks about end game which is irrelevant until someone actually reaches that point in a server like that. There are people who play MMOs for the experience and not just to sit around AFK in Dunbarton with end-game gear.
Your suggestions are find but in a way kill the spirit of a Permadeath server. If the theme is a hardcore experience where you have 1 life. What's the point if it's easier than normal Mabi? People would just shoot up in levels and rank and sit comfortably farming gold and playing like normal. There's no reason to lower AP costs. If you plan a build you're be fine withing a few weeks. Now if you want to say Rebirth every 3 days, then I'm alright with that. The difficulty stays where it is and people are able to grow faster. The downside to this is everyone's fear of players abandoning the normal servers to play on the Permadeath server could come true if you could rebirth sooner.
Why can't you just lower your expectations on how strong a character should be? There was a time where even hitting 1000 was a big deal. It could be like that.
That's a really cool video from 2012. Yes the servers were like that but I think they've gotten a little better since then. I haven't experienced it in years but I don't if anyone else has. And that's such a rare occasion. It would be the biggest shame if that happened to someone. But it's definitely not common that people are surrounded by powerful enemies right during a lag spike.
I think 20x is a bit overkill. I can understand 2 AP per level maybe even 3 per level but that's about it for me. Considering 2x EXP pots and training pots are still in the Cash Shop and it'd get the same events as the Normal servers. I've been told to think of the monetization 50 or so times in this thread so there's some NX spending for ya.
Oh, then perhaps I myself am misunderstanding you. We may have different standards of what constitutes a well-built character. I will admit, 99% of content doesn't exactly hurt me or reward me.
To back up a bit, I suggested accelerated character growth for the type of game Mabinogi is, and where most of the satisfaction comes from. Mabinogi is game about level and skill grinding, and a great deal of it. Mabinogi is unique for its rebirth system, and the investment required is nearly unrivaled. Games with a permadeath system, from POE to Terraria, only require a few days at most, if not hours to reach most content.
Terraria and POE are heavily equipment dependent, and while permadeath sucks, it encourages caution without discouraging replay. We all have varying limits, yet having talked with many, if you make the loss devastating enough, then people stop playing. Up it to be severe, and the amount of people willing to replay goes down severely.
Hence the exaggeration of losing literal body parts, because out there, there is someone just as crazy as me who would probably do that. Yet, this doesn't make the person the rule, but the exception. You say you don't see many original thoughts, yet this is likely most of us agree that we wouldn't want to lose an investment with hundreds of hours logged in. (I myself likely have well over a literal year's worth of gameplay.)
Thus, it follows a permadeath server wouldn't be appealing enough on just the Mabinogi model to a vast majority of our current population of casuals. I don't even know players who frequent incredibly difficult games who would do so, without at least a timely way to recoup losses, to try again so to speak.
Remember Takeshi's Challenge? Jontron did a video on it, and it is by far one of the most punishing games in existence, and consider "kusoge" (Literally sh*t game translated from Japanese), making it one of the least well-received games of all time. This is based on the notion that most of us can agree with something if the thing is general enough, or we are opposing something extreme enough.
As Mabinogi is heavily reliant on character building versus equipment building, it would be far too punishing for most people to stomach, unless we were given accelerated growth rates. Otherwise, I play permadeath games myself often because while the investment can be large, it isn't suicided inducing. If I die, I can replay. With Mabinogi, it is not simply the type of game where one will pick up an alternate.
I gesture to player induced difficulty (Deleting your own character) because I don't see why people would ask solely for permadeath. Pokemon is not a difficult game, so people induce Nuzlocke settings by their own volition, and follow through on it. Why ask Nintendo to implement Permadeath, when they themselves could do it?
This is based on my categorization of difficulty traits, which are divided into player-controlled elements and player uncontrolled elements. There are many gameplay elements, like being armorless or character deletion, within our grasp. Many others are not, be it the maximum amount of damage a boss uses, the attacks the AI chooses, overall stat gains, and otherwise.
If people want to do permadeath, they already can and will have. This changes nothing of the base game, which is the second issue. Multipliers. What's stopping you?
He discusses endgame because invariably, that's where everyone aims for, especially in the type of games you are discussing. To finish the game on one life. Except, there is content that clearly does require a decently leveled character to be built. In fact, that's 99% of the game. (1% is equipment, let's be real here.) Equipment doesn't matter except in the early stages (A flat bonus) and endgame (A flat bonus+multipliers). Between then and there, character building is a prerequisite to doing basically all of Mabinogi's content.
You have to account for player psychology. There are outliers, but most people just wouldn't be interested in doing tough content that would lead to a high chance of permanent character death, leading to players "finishing" their characters early. The grind would be greatly limited because most wouldn't put themselves through a thousands of hours to waste.
I am asking how long have you played, or rather, when did you start? This is partially a means to assess your credibility, but I am more interested if you ever experienced the old days of yore. Mabinogi back then was very much a team based game. People died, and dying dropped items. Combat was a type of vicious rock-paper-scissors.
The point of that inquiry is that you don't seem too focused on anything other than something a player can clearly induce on themselves, versus the more sought after variables that can't be directly controlled, like leveling bonuses. I am already over 2k HP, and nothing so much outside of Magic and certain attacks scratches me. Most endgame players who suggest something similar would say something else to accompany this.
Take out bash, nerf Final hit, modify the renown system, have monsters do 3x as much damage, etc.
This doesn't even concern the type of game Mabinogi is right now, and the type of audience we have, nor does it consider that the game design itself is a patchwork of different directors with different views, or that no one knows how to code in the 2003's Pleione to fix old content, or...
At this point, a new game with Mabinogi's mechanics is a much better investment than a new server, especially in North America. Honestly? We're pennies to Korea and Japan. Our most populated server, Alexina, has 7 channels, versus the usually 5. Overseas? They have at least 14, and many of them busy.
You also have to think of how games even attract audiences. Few games remain steady, and this is often due to blockbuster publishers like Blizzard and their brand name. Most games decline in audiences. People like the new, the new attracts talk, it garners press coverage. Once the hype dies down, and the audience establishes, the game regresses in population, experiencing brief moments of increased activity, but otherwise subjected to a dwindling playerbase as newer games hemorrhage it. Nothing points to Mabinogi is a real exception to this regard.
It is extremely difficult for a game of Mabinogi's established age to attract newer players for this reason, alongside many other games. It doesn't help we don't have a community that isn't as passionate as more independent MMO, but instead are playing something a bit more soulless and corporate.
Mabinogi's gachapon design awards money, not skill, not caution, in the form of better equipment. While character building is important, selling power would anger many individuals who want genuine difficulty and the rewards to go with it. Gachapon is a spit in the face, yet it is by far the biggest source of revenue. Why would Nexon, something interested solely in money, make a server that disallows gachapon spending?
They wouldn't, and the continued pushing of Gachapon over sensible content shows. Life skills like blacksmithing haven't been updated with regards to rare manuals. I have to pay $6 to preserve hair I spent $150 getting, or 50 million in-game gold. I don't trust Nexon with sensible game design, considering that bash is a freaking slap to the face of the old combat, and much less so when money is involved.
You never had issues? I forgot, but were you talking of the people who maintain the game here, like Nkeona and Mewlynne and Tasket, or people who actually think of these updates?
Just gonna say this: Permadeath server is going to be permadead. No one is going to use it and most likely hackers would swarm it instead.
Sorry if I don't address everything and I miss something.
I'll assume some people think that Gear to Character importance is like 70% Character (Stats and Skills) 30% (Gear) and later in the game 50% Character 50% Gear. I think depending on what you do to the gear it can be a 50-50 balance early on if not 60-40.
I've made a bunch of new characters since I've been playing and it usually takes about 4~5 rebirths before I'm comfortable on hard mode. Less if I make an effort to finish Quests that give large amounts of AP like Shadow Mission Dailies, Saga, G1~G3. If I focus on a single Talent the AP from the journal can give a good amount to help get started.
As for gear, an artisan weapon can give good stats. 30~40 Strength that gets used through all my skills, balanced to help with my low dex. I might build crit because my luck and will isn't high enough where I have inate crit yet. On my archers, things like Spider Shot and Handmade arrows help boost damage. Making sure to rank the cheap weapon masterys give a very good early bonus. Bow and Sword Mastery are only 157. Armor and Shield Masteries give me good defenses way before I can ever afford to upgrade armor. Smash, Magnum, and Firebolt are the fastest ways for me to have some good damage in case I really need it so once that's maxed I can at least lure strong monsters and 1v1 them. I'll judge whether it's more efficient to run ADV which might give less exp but is faster vs Hard which might give 2x exp but is 3x slower with better drops. It snowballs from there.
Having good gear with Artisan Stats, upgrades, high base crit, really gives a good boost early on and then eventually your stats become better than your weapon and you make a better weapon that needs less balance and base crit etc. By the time you do surpass your gear, you should be pretty stable.
The problem with self induced challenges is that it's just you alone in that sort of atmosphere. Also, it being unofficial feels more relax and less dangerous. If my character died for a stupid reason I could just say, "That doesn't count" and respawn versus being forced to accept the loss and restart. With a server, it's a whole "world" with that restart rule. Everyone from every server can participate in trying to stay alive.
There's also the psychology of it. In normal servers, who needs a healer? Who needs a potion maker when there are tons of potions from events? Will people buy more potions? Will magic shields and CC abilities be way more valuable early on? Will people actually EAT food?People won't have luxurious amounts of AP to hoarde and spec into everything. People will have to decide early on if they want to pick a CC weapon like control bars or something back-line supporty like bows and arrows. When you see someone with a hybrid talent title, you know they're specced into what it says and not just some character that happened to max out everything.
I know that there are people who might try it and give up but that weeds out those people and eventually you're left with a tight knit community on the server. Not to mention people are free to try again whenever they want. There are so many people who log on Mabi and get overwhelmed with how many things are available to do and then they just quit. Something like this might be a better experience for them. It gives then a reason to focus on something rather than spread thinly.
On Nintendo having permadeath, in a way they sort of do. The Battle Tower, the Battle Maison, the Battle Tree etc. Those spots where you bring in a small team of 3 or 4 and you battle trainers until you lose. The reward is seeing how far you got and also some battle points.
I've been playing the game since G2. I've seen it change a lot but it still has the same feeling mostly. There was a lot you needed to rely on others for. Missions you couldn't solo, Peaca, Alby Int for 4, etc. Party play still works in this game. People just don't want to anymore. Even in Shadow Missions, people run off on their own to solo different orbs and rooms in order to get out of the mission faster.
Final hit and Bash are really strong sure but I'll say this. Final hit is a race specific skill so I don't mind too much that it's powerful. Bash has a trade-off. On one of the new characters I made, ranking and using Bash I notice that it drains stamina very quickly when you don't have a huge pool to draw from. It wears out your weapon very quickly so that's bad news unless you have enough gold to repair it all the time, and it's single target which isn't good in multi-aggro early unless you're 1~2 shotting the monsters. Bash is only OP when you're already strong. If not it's a money/stam pot sink and you attacked by multi aggro.
Regarding business decisions and better investments of money, a lot of unnecessary things are added to Mabi. We just had a Re:Zero event even though the anime has been off for 2 years. In some dying MMOs they just stop patching the game because they can't afford to buy them from the Korean devs. There are so many long running games people are playing like League of Legends, Rainbow 6, Overwatch, etc. People can't be logged into Mabi all the time and some people don't even know about it. I've heard people call it a worse Runescape or a WoW clone. What I mean is, every server might not be full and it might not be as popular as Korean Mabi but I think it's doing well for it's age and the amount of exposure it gets. I still don't have specific info in how much adding a server could cost. It could cost $10 a month, maybe $50 a month.
You can get a lot from gachapons but it's usually never game breaking imo. Granted I might've missed the gachapon where they gave out a 1-hit kill sword or something. You can get a nice game experience without Gachapons. To me, buying one is just adding some flavor if you want it. I made a character recently as an experment and played as if I never bought NX. I only used what I had and the 2 starter pets they give you for free. (Eagle and Thoroughbred with no inventory) After a few months I had 5 pets (The mini cockerspaniel from this 1 event and the Bull from the Quiz Event) and decent store bought gear. The events give worthwhile, gachapon level items every now and again.
The GMs that helped me when I had tickets were Cicada and Radrodo. IDK if they're still around though.
If you're talking about G21 or G22, those deaths can be overlooked. Other than G21 and 22 that I haven't played yet, what are you talking about?
EDIT: Also EVERY ASPECT? Really? Death used to be the most punishing thing in this game with blessings and items lost and negative exp. Didn't you used to lose more exp when you were revived by someone much lower level than you?
This line specifically please explain. The changes I suggested it would take to make this work aren't that grand so I want to know what nonsense you're talking about.
Let's start with the story. Mabi's story people from another word being continually reincarnated. If death becomes permanent, then every part of the story that references a milletian's ability to do this needs rewriting. The rebirth system (and how it interacts with skills) stops making sense too as the notion of retaining knowledge from one life to the next is horribly at odds with permadeath.
Next let's talk about the pace progression in general. Games featuring permadeath (e.g. XCOM, Darkest Dungeon, every roguelike ever made, etc.) tend to have one thing in common. Dying is never a massive loss. In XCOM and darkest dungeon for example, an individual may die, but you still have other team members that you can use, your upgrades to your base/hamlet remain and you can level up a replacement while continuing with the game. In the likes of Crypt of the Necrodancer, a run usually takes like 20-30 minutes so there's no great loss having to restart. In Mabi, people spend years progressing, and to lose it all at once is a great way to make people quit.
Beyond just the pace though, there's also the issue of variance in progression; or rather mabi's lack of it. In the games I just mentioned, how a character grows is influenced by quite a few factors that you simply cannot change as such, every character ends up different to the last. That's not really the case in Mabi. If I want to play as a mage and then lose that character, the next character's just going to be another mage with more or less the same skills acquired in the same order.
Fourth is stability. Mabi has all sorts of jank. Eralea's video doesn't happen as much as it once did, it does still happen. I've disconnected only to log back in dead plenty of times. It's a minor nuisance now; but a complete deal breaker if it means restarting. I'd simply just play something else and uninstall this.
Fifth, it would take a ton of re-balancing. Have you ever been hit by a snap cast thunder and a lightning rod at the same time in Rabbie phantasm? That kills just about everyone in pretty much no time at all. Not all content kills people that quickly, but even content that feels fine and fair now would feel very different if it caused years of work to go up in smoke.
Also, mabi's a free to play game supported largely by gachapons. Now imagine spending a considerable amount of money trying to get that one item you want only to lose it; the game's business model would need a rework to support this.
So to review, we need to:
- Rewrite the story
- Come up with a new progression system
- Fix stability issues that devCat hasn't been able to completely solve for years
- Re-balance a large amount of content
- Change the game's business model
Sounds like a new game to me.
Ok so the problem with what you're saying is that there doesn't need to be story specific reasoning for a gimmick server. You're wrong. I've already explained that if you want a normal Mabinogi experience, you play on the other 4 servers. This does not take away from that.
EDIT: Even then, is rebirthing really your character dying? When you die I would consider it a restart yet rebirthing would still be in that server so rebirthing isn't even affected. The game isn't even 100% lore accurate anymore. Read the Icebolt, Firebolt, and Lightning Bolt manuals. There's so much flavor text that doesn't apply.
Second problem is you think it takes years to progress. You're wrong again. I've already stated that I have a different opinion on what significant progress means so you saying a blanket statement like "It takes years" is absolutely wrong to anyone who disagrees with that.
The third paragraph you mention your feelings about how you think someone would just make the same character again. Mabinogi offers variety, it doesn't force it. If someone wants to be a boring person, they will have a boring time. If you want to do the same thing over and over repeatedly, maybe you'll have less fun in this type of server or situation.
Trying to make up an unlikely scenario where someone spends years playing on a permadeath server, knowing the consequences, and has no fun doing so is a huge waste of my time and yours. This is an idea that adds to Mabi. You not wanting an addition is just denying something that could be fun for someone else to keep things the same for no reason.
You mention the lag video. If that still happens, that's terrible, I'm sorry for those affected but it doesn't happen to me often if not at all in the east coast far away from the servers on average internet speeds and I want to believe I'm not the only one.
Rebalancing is irrelevant. You shouldn't be thinking of Phantasm when you start out a lv1 on a new server with no items. Not being able to do 10% of content that might be the hardest content in the game doesn't invalidate the other 90% of content that is accessible. As people progress in the server, who knows what could be accomplished. I'm not going to pretend I've ran Phantasm or the have done every bit of content in the game but that doesn't invalidate the suggestion for this kind of server.
Also I honestly don't care about gachas or potential Nexon's profits. If Nexon looks at my idea and says "cool! we'll do it", I trust there was someone on the team who balanced the pros and cons of implementing it. I'm not Nexon's accountant. You can think of some ideas to monetize it and contribute it to this thread but if it detracts from the heart of my idea I'll disagree with it.
And the big main point you and everyone that comments seems to forget is that even if they quit the permadeath server, they could just return to the normal server. It's meant to be a temporary stay, not for them to keep their character permanently. I would expect that everyone on that kind of server will die eventually and if they don't then it would be impressive.
This is really frustrating to read because I said in the OP that you "return to the soul stream" and can choose another race when you restart at level 1. Even if we consider what you said from lore reasons. Your character is a soul from the soul stream which is why you can change your form and rebirth. Obviously lore like being able to respawn at goddess' statues would be wrong on a server like that but that's about it.
I understand that you're trying to make Mabi more exciting and I applaud that, but the system you currently have in place is too unforgiving to where I feel it could be viable. If skills could be gained in a fashion (especially life skills like I have mentioned)where losing them wouldn't be too horrible a hardship, then perhaps more would be fond of the idea. Currently, as it stands, the risk severely outweighs the potential reward and doesn't make for an attractive challenge. Not when so much can be lost as a result.
Like for example, if you could earn more mats from doing the daily jobs than you would via a normal server and you get double skill points from the ptj (in cases where you produce an item for them) that would be easier and be less risk. Maybe give the page related skills as an automatic "prize" for hitting x rank of something (say Ice Spear once you hit rank A Ice Bolt). Maybe skill seals could be dungeon prizes.
Another thing you could do is not have the player lose everything, but perhaps one skill? That would put a good amount of risk as players could stand to lose rank 1 Sakura Abyss vs. rank 1 Icebolt. Or maybe just make it a few ranks for whatever skill winds up on the chopping block. Players could still enjoy it while playing with chance.