Never been one for the forums all these years but I figure I should change that going forward.
Skip down to the bold and underlined highlighting if you do not like large walls of text.
So let me just start by saying I LOVE this game. It has been with me off and on throughout early teens and unto today. No matter how many times I have taken a break I always find myself coming back. Mabinogi as a game just can’t be replicated in any other MMO.
Take an online fantasy game based off of ancient Gaelic/Celtic lore and give it an anime moe aesthetic and somehow make it work? Yeah, only Mabi. From its heart-wrenching and tragic mainstream quest line to the classless rebirthing system that lets me do anything I want, no matter how much I look or hope, I cannot find any other game that does what Mabi does.
That being said, it has aged some for sure, but I do not believe that is the game’s main fault.
Despite its age I have brought many a friend IRL into the fold. Without exception they have all loved the setting and core system the game had to offer.
… Without exception they have all been driven away by the games predatory cash shop.
Whether it is someone I have brought in or talked to, I have seen so many players, some that have been playing with me since the game’s first year, leave because Nexon always seemed more interested in cashing in on dying whales rather than decade-oldade old bugs and rejuvenating content.
That is not to say that they have not been trying. This last year in particular it really does seem that the team has been listening to some of the major complaints and actually trying hard to bring us new content, fix old gripes, and reinvigorate interest in the game. It amazes me that they can do this while at the same time continue to kill the game…
Years of these predatory practices have finally caught up with the gaming community as a whole and we see actual world governments stepping in on the matter; something I would rather not see happen yet have no other solution for a community that has little interest in keeping itself in check.
Yet with all this happening it baffles me that companies are still trying to ride this train to its inevitable ruination. Morality be damned, if I were a CEO of a gaming company standing out in front of this, I would want off this ticking time bomb as soon as possible.
I would want to win the good graces of my audience and look for a way to bring in more players/customers with a more honest and less manipulative monetization system. If you ask me, the long-term profits of acting in good faith with your customers far outweigh the profits that can be seized by attaching yourself like a parasite to the few that are easily manipulated into this wretched form of gambling. Tell me which is more? 100 people spending $1000 or 10000 spending $100?
Listen, at the end of the day, I just do not want to see this game die. If and when new laws are enacted to crackdown on these loot-boxes and other predatory/manipulative systems, what then will happen to this game? Will it be abandoned by the publishers under the false pre-tense that it can no longer be maintained? Will we, all of us who truly do, at its heart, love this game, be abandoned by a company that was just too tone deaf to understand and too weak willed to try?
Now it is not like I am saying I want it all and not have to pay for it. I understand that any f2p title must have alternative forms of monetary transactions to stay afloat and profit. Furthermore, being a capitalist at heart I understand that one must absolutely profit. So, at the very least, I have the start of a solution.
The first thing is first. In order to reinvigorate interest in the game, get old players back and bring new ones into the fold, a couple of things HAVE to change.
Naturally balancing and bug fixes have to be addressed, along with the limitations of this dated engine, but for starters, let us keep it simple.
I am genuinely impressed with the textures and visual quality of much of the new content. Going back, updating and improving old textures and just adding more flair to the visuals via ENBs and lighting etc would go a long way. I have seen some of the content on the far eastern servers and I do not think I am mistaken to say that their product is visually superior to ours.
Obviously this should be among the last things to place focus on; Things like bugs, engine inefficiency, balancing and network issues should come first when we are talking about the core fundamentals of the game itself, but I have seen Korean and Japanese modders that have made this game look stunning in comparison, so at the very least it should be possible. It would certainly go a long way in attracting new eyes.
Now on to the main point, and the one I spent paragraphs complaining about above.
This abhorrent and evil cash shop that I am surprised does not keep the Nexon teams awake at night. Dear Lord it is terrible and the shame I would feel to be a part of it…. How does any company let a system come to this?
1. Eradicate gatchapons from the face of the earth. (or at least from the cash shop.)
2. Whittle down and destroy (and rebalance what cannot be eliminated) all pay to win features.
Now how do we do this and still make Nexon money? (Yes, despite my hatred and contempt for your cash shop I still want you to make money, Nexon.)
Simple.
• Add a dying system with Pon into the dressing room. For a game that is all about freedom, stop restricting our freedom.
Separate the dyes into various tiers of cost and you can even leave the more sought-after ones locked behind VIP access as another way to incentivize players into buying vip. Heck, adding a system where players can buy more style tabs and switch between them on the fly would be nice.
• Bring back the Beauty shop.
You have unused assets here. Some perfect hidden potential. Have Coco and Ropa sell Beauty Coupons and Rare Style only outfits that change over a period of time for Pon. Get em’ while the deal is hot, yeah?
Remove the cash shop beauty gatchas and the like and instead give Coco and Ropa daily or some form of repeatable quest that vip players can run in order to get random cosmetic based gatchas from these two. Have the gatchas change in the same way that the gatchas in the cash shop change out after fixed intervals of time. This appeases even the poor gambling addicted players out there that actually LIKE gatchapons.
• Change the majority of all items sold in the cash shop to cosmetics WITHOUT the gambling aspects. Throw out an outfit rental or shopping bag here and there in a similar way you do for Vindictus (Mabinogi Heroes, stop changing names.)
We will pay good money for outfits and other cosmetic based cash items and even feel good about it when we know we are not being cheated with some terrible gambling based system.
• Add in more pose changes and make them available through the cash shop system in some way.
Specialized poses, the majority of which already exist in some facet, that can work universally without the need of a specific outfit/weapon? Just buy a card and equip(?) it or whatever? That seems legit, no?
• In the same way that certain titles change the effects of certain skills, create a system in which one can buy and equip effect changing (cards?) for various skills.
Maybe I want my Lightning Rod or shoot Red Lightning or something like that? Simple changes like that.
Or not so simple changes where I want my meteor to turn into a shooting star or Eweca,/Ladeca or something like that.
• In the same way we bring back the Beauty Shop, bring in something similar based around the homestead.
Buy Backdrops, Sky Box Changes, Seasonal Changes, Roads and pathways, temporary/limited decorations and paraphernalia based around currently active events or the time of year.
Full Pon based painting as an option on top of mixing your own paint for things in your homestead.
Even items that would let us set the mood with togglable Lighting or Weather changes. Do you really think that certain people would not jump at the ability to spend money for such things?
• Remove things like Combat Buffs, Training Buff Potions, Combat Consumables, Spirit Weapon Repair Potions, Fire Erg crystals and even Nao Soul Stones from the store front.
Instead, make these items more readily available and craftable in game.
An argument can be made for the one-time purchase booster packs, so long as everything within those packs is made available in-game as well.
Let players be capable of crafting training potions or just make them exclusive to events. I am not sure the best balance here, but it is something to consider.
Give more ways to get Nao Soul Stones and maybe… MAYBE, make it so Soul Stones have better effects when are a premium/vip player.
Surely my ideas here are not terrible. Surely, they are supported by some level of common sense. Make the monetization of Mabinogi (and your other games, really) based around non gatcha/loot box based Cosmetic items and a more refined Premium/VIP membership.
The hardest thing to balance in my opinion would be the pets. Make a few with actual inventory space available to free players and rebalance how they work in combat. (AKA remove the ability for players to endlessly spam things like dragons or clouds to clear rooms and fully heal within combat.)
Maybe add a timer for a cooldown after so many pets are summoned in a row during combat, or a short timer for every pet of the same type consecutively summoned etc.
But we can talk about the balancing later, as I believe this post is already becoming quite massive… I may need to add a TL:DR.
Comments
1. Saved Outfit Slots: They could charge players either a monthly fee to get, say, 5 save slots for their favorite outfits and free or reduced cost withdraw from their collection for a month. Or, they could buy up to 20 permanent outfit slots for $5-$10 each.
2. Lots of Cash Shop Outfits: With one free style tab, players will be more inclined to buy cash shop outfits. Guaranteed outfit bags would become quite a bit more enticing then...especially if there were bags that will give you either the male or female outfit AND bags that will give you both outfits (that cost about 80% more than the one that just gives either/or) out at the same time.
Players will be happy to be able to use the style tab freely and have the option to buy/rent more outfit slots, as well as being able to straight-up buy whatever outfits they want instead of burning through their fun budget on gatchas, and Nexon will be happy making a bunch more money from all of the people buying extra style tabs and all those shiny outfits. It's win-win.
From a business standpoint, I believe Mabi's current state will earn them the most money, even in the long-term.
For example, the Adorable Box:
- Have all of the "new" items available for a set price (like 15k-20k NX for the full set of Adorable Pintuck) for the duration of the gacha;
- Have the gacha be offered at its current price (1x 1.5k NX, 11x 15k NX, 45x 57.5k NX)
- Make this item available in-game through the standard arduous means. For example, it could appear once in a blue moon in the Adventurer Shop or at Price's, for a certain amount of Gold, or make its pattern drop from certain content (great way to revitalize old content like Raid Bosses).
If a gacha has enough interesting items, then chances are players will go for the gacha first, then direct-buy what they couldn't get. The fact it's available in-game makes
squattersfree players on a F2P game able to get these items without requiring someone else to buy it or gamble for it, and it ensures that the item remains available without affecting sales. More importantly, the game economy would be for the better, as featured items will now represent a more accurate cash-to-gold conversion.And I have to disagree with your standpoints. Even if there is no large influx of new players that come in, I personally know dozens of old players that would rejoin at even the hint of Nexon taking the initiative in this regard. Further, the fact that I have brought in numerous players myself only to see them come to the same conclusion... simply put... earn the good graces of the players that remain and more will return. Keep a system that will not scare away new players and over time the community WILL see new players accumulate. After this is fixed, updates to the visuals and bug fixes will see the game continue to grow.
Granted, my own experiences and the handful of individuals I have talked to with the same conclusion are not the experiences of all, but one step behind the scenes of the political sphere of gaming and no one can tell you that loot boxes look to have a long and healthy life ahead of them. Even if this is the easiest way for them to make money now, what about when governments take hard stances against these practices?
I will reiterate. I love this game. I do not want to see it die... but I agree with the largely accepted conclusion of the gaming community as a whole that Loot Boxes have to die and likely WILL die in the future.
Please share with me if you have any information to counter this.
Your suggestion I would say is at least a start. Putting aside the questionable ethics of gatchas as a whole, I believe the best long term solution for Nexon and any company as a whole is to do away with this system as the world governments themselves are speaking out against it, so I believe it is just a matter of time.
Granted... I personally cannot wait for that time to come, even if I am worried about the overall consequences of more government in gaming.
At the very least they should start with your suggestion.
Companies will lobby and appeal to governments, the item of gacha will likely be changed, still exist as an item, but will fall under the legality of new regulations. Of course,t his will depend on what country's laws and regulation. If gaming companies remain indifferent on this situation, they will put themselves in a bad spot for business going forward.
Of course, one would have to follow closely at what certain companies will do. If it's a public company, then it's easier to obtain knowledge when they have certain public events or earning reports to see if and how they will address this issue.
It certainly has the possibility and even likeliness of being bad, but regardless of what it COULD lead to does not change the fact that these companies are losing both in the political courts and the courts of public opinion, so get off the train already, I say.
I do agree with your summarization though.
What'd be cool is having Reforges be tied to a new crafting system, maybe with increasingly epic tasks to complete depending on the Reforge you want (like building a lightning rod on a mountain and charging your item with a thunderbolt for a Thunder/LBolt/LRod Reforge). But that's a lot of effort, of course; just making Reforging Tools accessible without spending a dime would be acceptable, and leagues better than the tripe we have right now.