Hello, considering I've helped revitalize Maplestory a while ago in a BIG way with my suggestions, which turned into the "Maplestory Reboot" update, which saw a massive increase in players & still has the most players out of any other Maplestory server, I hope you'd take my feedback seriously!
This is a list of suggestions to be done IN ORDER:
1. Merge all current servers. (The population of all of them is much to low currently.) This will be server 1.
The following suggestions will all be in regards to a second, new server. This will be server 2:
The following is more or less a list of suggestions for a NEW SEPARATE SERVER, that is more akin to the way Mabinogi was originally, a competitive/"hardcore" version! NONE of the following suggestions will effect the current servers,(unless you want it to, otherwise don't worry about it if you don't like the suggestions, as they won't effect your current version of the game! Everybody wins! Yay!)
Nexon still needs to realize something, that they don't seem to currently be aware of when most people play games. Competition, & Socialization.
Just like how Maplestory previously went downhill because of this lack of awareness, it's now happening to Mabinogi as well, but I'm here to help fix it, because I love both games!
There are a few main reasons, players end up quitting this wonderful game.
Firstly, the cashshop is a big reason! Many players want a sense of achievement & competition. Please take a look at the most played multiplayer games, ALL of them are fairly balanced, extremely competitive, and you can't BUY any advantages in them with real money. At best the only thing you MAY be able to buy in some of those games is UNTRADEABLE COSMETIC items, and nothing else.
Many players also will care about the in game economy of the game. The decisions made to Mabinogi over the last few years have totally ruined ALL of that, and as a result you see the decline in players. Many current players will DEFEND such bad practices because they still love the game dearly and are afraid that if they say something negative about this beloved game that it will hasten its death. I love the game enough to say that I will not stand idle and help dig Mabinogi's grave, instead this is my attempt to save it before it's to late! I'm here to tell you the truth about your dying game, if you shall care to save it!
Nexon, please understand, any time you allow players to obtain items/pets or exp services for real money or through limited time events, you are ruining your own game because many players, whether they admit it or not, care about competing with other players, many care about the economy when they want to buy or sell items, and many care about having a sense of accomplishment or achievement. When you make the content so easy to do like how you toned down the first few generation quests to make them so easy, or implemented memoirs to gain such massive amounts of EXP & rebirths to the likes of which I'm many times higher level than I'd ever been able to be before in this game, or chain blade making the game extremely easy killing almost anything with 1-2 hits, it's time to go back to your origins for this game!
Let me give you an example,
if I want to "compete" with other players for who has the most money or best items in the game? All I need to do is spend real money..
The next example, what if I want to have the highest level out of all of the players? Oh, look theres Blaanid and her memoirs, now I'm past level 5,000 in a few days, there's no point to levels now!
What if I want a sense of accomplishment or achievement for doing those very challenging generation quests? Oh, wait all of those have been made ridiculously easy to do now!
What if I want to get some of those exclusive time limited event items, but I'm not able to log in? Oh I guess I can't!
What if I want to play with my friends who are on a different server? Can't I transfer my character & pets? Oh..I can't. (Please note if my suggestions are implemented, please do NOT allow server transfers(from the current version of the game) to this server as it would totally defeat the purpose of it.)
What if I want to play with my friends who are from different countries? Oh, I can't..They are purposely being blocked from playing this version of the game!
What if I want to make some new friends? Oh most of the players are AFK or fly away before I can reach them on their flying mounts!
What if I want to do some of the generations quests with some other players? Oh, noone wants to do that content because they are busy AFKing at the events.
What if I want to do some part time jobs for NPCs, those give me good rewards right? Oh..they definitely don't.
I can make some money by leveling my life skills though right? Oh, compared to the cash shop items, they are barely worth anything at all..
What if I don't want to use Windows to play this game? Oh.. I have no choice but to use Windows.
What if I want to do some dungeons with other players? Oh, they are either busy afking at events or, noone does that content anymore, they race through boring shadow missions at Tara/Tailteann instead.. In fact, every shadow mission I joined, the players had raced through and defeated every monster and completed the whole mission before I could even reach them.
I'm a player who enjoys competing with other players and feeling like I actually achieved something when I play games. Nexon, (not asking other players) I want to hear it from Nexon, please explain to me the need to invalidate the majority of your game's content just so that I can reach a high level and do the newest content only to make me consider quitting because there's nothing left to do at that point? Guess what Nexon, World of Warcraft tried that to, and guess where that got them? They are releasing a Classic World of Warcraft server now to bring back millions of players they lost from implementing such poor decisions!
Continued list of suggestions for Second Server:
2. Create a new, second server. (This is needed for the revitalization plan.) It would not be a good decision to make all these changes to the current server/s as there would be no point to doing so, since so many players already have so many unfair advantages in a competitive setting we need a separate server for the following.
3. Completely remove all of the cash shop & any microtransactions from the new Mabinogi: Origins server, except for 'VIP premium service'.
Since Nexon is a business, you want to make money of course, but I can prove to you that you can make more money in the longterm with a monthly fee than charging for gachapons/pets etc. The fee of the VIP premium service may be raised if need be in the interim.
4. On this new second server, VIP premium service will be needed to do any of the generation quests, access Belvast/Iria & rebirth once a week, otherwise without premium you can only rebirth every two weeks, and you can't do any generation quests or access other continents. I would like to discuss this with the other players to see what limitations they think may be better suited, because there NEEDS to be a limitation on players who aren't VIP, as Nexon has to make money somehow, it's just that we want it to be in a fair way for competition, instead of through unfair cash shop.
5. Remove summoning time from all pets, & make them last permanently, EXCEPT for flying pets/unfair advantage pets. All pets that would give an unfair advantage need to have a reduced summoning time. Flying pets should be the rarest pets and have a low summoning time. Unfair advantage pets would be those that are stronger than the player themselves or give the player access to abilities that most other players would not have access to/in an easier way.
6. Remove ALL of the exp increase items, training potions, exp crystals, nao soul stones, "bomb items", remote blacksmith/shop coupons, basically all of the cheat/unfair advantage type of stuff.
7. Put all of the pets/cash shop items except the unfair/cheat type items, into the game itself as rare drops from monsters/chests.
8. Remove the enhanced EXP gain from VIP premium service.
9. Remove the random items you get every day from VIP premium service.
10. Merge the VIP inventory tab with the normal one.
11. Make style tab permanent.
12. Make ALL past, present & future events, last permanently in game. NEVER put cheat/unfair type of items in events, and NEVER give EXP bonus/training etc. Most people don't even like the events, and just do them to get the items, that's honestly the majority of your players, they only like the "events" because of the items they can get from them. I'd suggest instead of these normal "events", when you make new events, you simply permanently add the event items to rare drop tables of monsters/chests. I think your players will have way more fun this way, honestly. You constantly have these "events" where the majority of your playerbase is standing around AFK and not even there!
13. Make VIP players able to rebirth only every 7 days, remove all rebirth potions.
14. Decrease the massive amount of EXP gains from Blaanid/memoirs.
15. Put all the generations back to how they used to be in terms of difficulty before they were changed to make them so trivial to do.
16. Increase the gold/item rewards from doing part time jobs by NPCs.
17. (Missing due to inability to edit the post initially.)
18. Remove "pon" from the game. Any things which required pon can now be obtained in the game through normal means.
19. Remove gender specific requirements for items, so now players can wear whatever they want no matter the gender of the character.
20. Allow players to use their flying pets to fly in Emain Macha & Bangor.
21. Reduce the massive amount of damage that Chain blade/slash skills can do to reasonable levels.
22. Remove all kiosks & player shops, and increase the amount of auction slots you can have to unlimited or as much as possible, (I'd say hundreds of slots. 500 Seems like a good amount! Also allow us to sell pet medals in the auctions to!)
23. Make a better trade channel instead of people using the party channel. We need to remove all the party channel spam. It's so bad that I can't even see what people near me are saying most of the time because the party channel spam makes it scroll off the screen.
24. Increase the duration of chat messages on the screen and the length of time dropped items stay on the ground. Many times when I'm fighting in a dungeon, by the time I finish fighting, all of the items that dropped have already despawned!
25. This will be a controversial change but I suggest removing the Tara & Tailteann shadow missions, OR decreasing the EXP of them enough so that the regular dungeons would give more EXP/items than doing Tara & Tailteann shadow missions. In my opinion they just aren't as fun as the dungeons & are laid out very poorly compared to the linear dungeons.
26. For the new generations you create in the future, go back to your roots, Generation 1-2 were the best generations and could be expanded upon so much with new storylines/content. Wouldn't it be fun to have much more of the other world to explore and do quests in?
27. Some places like Avalon/Iria, are so large that they are not filled with enough content. If you compare how the original continent is compared to Iria/Avalon, you see that there's content every few steps you take, but in Iria/Avalon it's spread out so much just to make the place seem bigger. So I'd suggest filling those large empty spaces with more content in the future.
28. Remove the ability of players to fly without a pet OR put a time limit per day of how long they can do so with the particular item/wings etc, and make sure said items are as rare as the flying pets.
29. Remove all unfair/cheat type of titles from the game.(You can keep the titles themselves but remove the insane amount of bonuses they give)
30. Increase the requirements for breaking the seals to new areas. Make sure there are seals at EVERY entrance to every area now.
31. Increase the amount of advertising you do for the game. I speak to many new people on a daily basis and I can assure you, there are thousands of people who play videogames that have NEVER heard of Mabinogi, and can't even PRONOUNCE the name of it, which is a TERRIBLE thing! You can't have brand recognition like this. So to further this suggestion. I present the following:
32. Rename the new server version of Mabinogi as, "Mabi: Origins".
33. Release the game a second time on Steam under a new name, such as 'Mabi: Origins'. This will get people to actually SEE this game and possibly take interest in trying it!
Thank you for your time & consideration. I love Mabinogi & wish it a long life!
Comments
TLDR: Here's a suggestion to be taken seriously: let's make a second server with mandatory VIP, half the features and PERMANENT AFK EVENTS!Greta, please explain your dissatisfaction with the suggestions.
2. Second server for what? We already have 4 servers, they are all quite empty. So i don't see a reason to have 2 empty servers.
3. Remove? What??? How are people supposed to get new pets and outfits then??? How Nexon is going to make better profits?
4. NO. This is going to really upset community. This is literally going to become huge p2w.
5. Why remove it? People will get way too better advantages with this and it even makes even less reasons for people to buy more pets. That would be a really bad business from Nexon's perspective.
6. I have no comments on this. How training potions can be a "cheat"? You are making me laugh.
7. Mind explaining who are these unfair type pets are?
8. And make VIP even more useless as it is already? Lmao.
9. Read 8.
10. Read 9.
11. At this point you really trying to ruin Nexon's marketing i see. How are they going to make money...?
12. Woah buddy. Some people will dislike rewards and some won't. Also the suggestion to make all events permanent is not possible as hell, unless you want to end up with a game full of glitches and Dunbarton filled with all kinds of Caravan Joe's LOL.
13. People pretty much already can rebirth every 6 days. People will use what they want to use. Never seen anyone being against any kinds of potions.
14. Probably the first one i would agree on.
15. No opinion on this one. Some newbies might quit if the game is too difficult right at the start. You should look more on a newbie's perspective.
16. Oh wow, another one i can agree on.
17. Oh wait. There's no number 17. LOL jokes on you.
18. More like: Remove Beauty Coupons and not Pon.
19. Been suggested several times already, but players made a conclusion that it will be too much of a work to remake them all so males or females wouldn't end up in awkward bodies.
20. Ok, i can agree. They might do that in the future.
21. Lul no. I love that Talent.
22. Can agree, but hundred slots would be too tricky to manage i think.
23. Options > Game > Chat > Tick Hide Channel. Problem solved.
24. I guess you need to get stronger if items get despawned before you kill enemies. Or get a Doll Bag. And i really don't want to see wall of text.
25. The exp most Shadow Missions give is already low as hell. Dungeons also give crappy exp and rewards. Both of them are waste of time mostly. Unless you run those for specific reasons like farming materials or when learning skills.
26. There's no reason to go back there. The story has ended already. Unless you want them to revamp cutscenes or something.
27. What content? Original content? Rofl. I'm getting meme vibes now. I could agree that it looks empty, but meh...
28. Okay LOL. You are literally wanting for people to stop using flight or something? Is this some kind of beef of yours? Why you don't want to see people flying??? Why is it bad that it needs a change?
29. Again with this i see. So far i see a game with no good pets, potions, no appearance because no Pons and now no titles. Might as well go in Phantasm naked then... Surprised you didn't ban reforges yet, because that one really needs to be.
30. Got nothing to say about that since i don't even know how it is now.
31. Won't work, unless they would finally decide to remove the EU region block, because we are forced to use Nexon Launcher now. Not that i find issue for myself, but i know some will.
I like the effort, but it needs to be thought out more.
I'm wondering if OP has done any of the new Tech Duinn content what with how they feel the Generations content is so 'trivial' to do. It is after all the reason they implemented Blaanid's Memory Books to help players get to the level of being able to play the content. Essentially, the Blaanid content sounds akin to the Hero cards, sans the requirement that you have an existing character of 1000 or 2000. It's a means to put a player on the fast track to getting to the up-to-date content and not being left behind by their fellows. That in itself can be a frustrating thing to experience.
Nao Stones are a good way for a player to revive back on the spot and head back into battle. For Tech Duinn Missions, this sort of item is critical, especially in reference to a certain Fog Mission and the stupid, flying circle of that fires death beams at you.
Training Potions help alleviate the grind in ranking skills, especially ones without talents like Magic Craft and Engineering. Leave those alone.
If you're referring to Limited Edition items like the anime-based items like SAO, Re:Zero, Fate/Stay stuff, then no dice. Nexon has to get permissions from whoever holds the licensing for said properties for them to release anime-based items to us and hold themed events. That requires a time frame for when the rights revert back to their holder.
It's also a bit presumptuous to assume players, as a whole, don't like the events. Sure, some complain about them, but they hardly represent the game's audience in its entirety. However, you are correct on one thing, players DO the events for the prizes. THAT'S THE POINT OF THE EVENT, TO EARN PRIZES. Furthermore, people that are AFK are AFK, but they don't have to be AFK to do the events like the Attendance ones. That's their choice.
Stating that the earlier generations were the best is also not a good way to take your argument. Sure, updating the character models (and basic hairstyles) could be done, but as Greta said, that part of the story is OVER. Spoiler alert, all of the characters involved in G1-2 reached a final conclusion in Saga (and Saga 2). There is literally no reason to bring it back. I'm done dealing with Ruairi being a fool. Personally, I want to see Filia and Vales get updated environmentally. I like how they've been handling the generations lately with the Knights content to now. They've been interesting. They know how to write characters unlike whoever decided to treat heroes like the Aces as bumbling idiots (in Saga 2) who can't hold onto a donation bag resulting in the following dumpster fire that was that concert. It was like who originally penned those characters didn't actually put any thought into how they would actually act.
Now then, if what you're saying is continue with Chibi Tarlach, then sure, if it works with the story (PROPERLY AND NOT SHOE-HORNED) then go for it.
Moronic would be the wrong choice of word. Foolish would be much better.
After reading through the suggestions, a couple of them do have merits but as none of them have much depth into why and how it should be changed. Some of them have been discussed before. I think things that can be done to revitalize the game if needed would need more of a well-constructed business proposal.
Unfortunately, what we have here doesn't cut it. But if willing to continue the discussion, then there is plenty of room to do so.
30. Got nothing to say about that since i don't even know how it is now. They need to definitely remove that block then, but it will work for some at least.
Construct out each of your points and I will be glad to offer a response, agree/disagree/counter proposal should I have the time.
Basically yes! Except, there will still be chainblades, it's just that my suggestion is instead to rebalance them(instead of removing them) so that they are no longer overpowered.
I've updated the original post quite a bit. When I get more time I'll probably do some further edits, feel free to take a look at it again and see if there's anything you want to discuss.