I took an electronic vacation and I learned some things. Among those things, I discovered new concepts; some of which seem like they would fit in to Mabinogi.
Therefore, I propose a Swap Shop system.
It wouldn't be complicated to implement as I'm sure others will understand, because this system is already implemented in the form of the Dungeon System. In this system, the materials now fairly irrelevant to modern demand could find use in supporting modern growth, as they could serve as a new type of "currency" used to obtain materials -- possibly and yet not necessarily, Erg materials. The Dungeon System is an example of what I mean, as the Vouchers serve as a type of currency earned through gameplay in content and can be used to purchase support items.
But, what if we applied this concept to the materials no longer seeing use even in Erg processes? See, I think it was fine when this was done for the Erg system, pushing players to build otherwise unused weaponry (thereby, using otherwise irrelevant materials) to serve as ingredients for Erg leveling. But, why was it also not made possible to use these some of same materials and weapons for the sake of obtaining other materials? Those Broken Ring Frames, for example, don't see much use outside of crafting Celtic Wands and Staves that don't see much gameplay. What if we could trade that x100 stack (or two) of them in to a shop for something more desirable?
The market implications would and should solve themselves, as long as the calculations are mathematically proportional (possibly skewed to be more weighted in favor of retaining the difficulty of obtaining the desirables) to their respective drop rates -- a Ruptured Black Metal has a much lower drop rate and variation of drop location than a Frosted Borealis Crystal, so it would proportionately reflect this in the hypothetical Swap Shop. It would raise the value of, say, Frosted Borealis Crystals and Black Sealing Metals enough to allow upcoming players to trade those over to veteran players for a better profit margin while not necessarily decreasing the value of the rarer materials needed for Erg processes and rarer weapon crafting.
It wouldn't have to just be for Erg, either. It could apply to various things like Special Upgrades or Enchantment Scrolls and even could be worked into things like Festia games, Sidhe Finnachaid, and Iria Raids other than the Black/White Dragon. We could gather up dozens of the demonic materials that fall out of the White Dragon and Lords missions and exchange those for some other things that could assist with efficient playing (Recovery Potions or Power/Magic Potions).
The basic premise of this suggestion is to promote an idea of having more options available to the average player that would help everyone in the long term, rather than a one-sided, immediate proposition that solves only one side of the issue. If we look at the big picture, it doesn't necessarily have to be a Swap Shop. That's just one idea as to what I'm suggesting in this context of having more options available.
- Sophiedela of Nao.
Comments
Some 10/11 years ago on Mari server, my favorite dungeons were Ciar Basic and Albey in Tir Na Nog. I spent pretty much every day grinding those places, especially Red Gem Albey to collect Metal Skeleton scrolls for those quests so that I can build up money to save for a Dustin armor set. My greatest achievement was completing my Dustin armor set along with a Dragon Blade (end game at the time) and that's the time I stopped playing due to work and general adult life.
When I came back last August, the game was totally different to me and I wanted to catch up with the story as well as in terms of equipment. The server merge relocated me to the Nao server (I was looking for Mari and I thought my character was wiped out, but thank goodness I found him, pretty much naked just wearing a Sheep Robe just like when I left him!), the game's interface was a mystery to me, new skills looked awesome and everybody looked so fashionable or badass. I wanted to play around while also catching up.
I window shopped at the auction house and was astonished that a lot of the cute, good looking, or useful things cost not only in the millions, but hundreds of millions or even billions! When things are expensive, I always try to think about just buying the materials or hunting them down to create the item myself. Unfortunately, the materials seem to drop a little TOO rarely (as mentioned in the post above), which in turn of course makes it still very expensive (50 million for a crafting material and you need 8 or more of it?!).
As a returning player stuck with what was suddenly weak and inefficient equipment, it was quite very hard earning gold as a "Free to Play" player. At first, selling Holy Water allowed me to earn some money before the Holy Water prices plummeted. Collecting Fomor Scrolls or doing quests for gold was pointless because the quest/mission rewards do not match the current pricing trends set by players. Why would you spend 20 to 30 minutes running Red Gem Albey collecting Metal Skeleton scrolls just to earn 15K or so, when semi-useful items start at around 10M?
I started buying Mabinogi Webshop items to sell in the game to stand a chance at buying stuff that I found useful or liked. Fine Reforges sold decently, although sometimes they're slow. Sometimes, somebody would lower their price of Fine Reforges or other Webshop items to the point that those forever spamming Gold Bot Sellers were appearing to provide better value for the dollar. So when dungeon crawling, questing, or even selling items from the Mabinogi Webshop doesn't allow you to earn decent in-game money anymore (and the waste of real dollars hurts more than wasting an entire day in a dungeon), what do you do?
I believe this is a situation that most online games eventually experience. Obviously, veteran or long time players have the advantage and there's nothing wrong with that. You invest time and/or money in a game for a very long time (like Mabinogi, more than a decade!), you deserve to be able to achieve power and good things. But what about new or returning players? If the market of a game is focused solely with the purchasing power of veterans or the super rich in mind, how will the newbies or returnees catch up? Psychologically, when a player experiences that there's no "normal" way to catch up in terms of being able to purchase the latest items in the game no matter how hard they try or how qualified they are (dungeon or quest rewards are too miniscule compared to actual prices set by players, the newbie or returning player has already reached "end game" but still wears mediocre stuff), then it creates a negative mindset. It can create this atmosphere or mentality of "Why bother putting effort in the game when I won't be able to achieve the fun or good stuff anyway?", and eventually, this leads to players leaving the game and going elsewhere to satisfy their needs.
I agree with Sophie's suggestion to make old materials useful again. This gives incentive to newbies or returnees because even if things cost in the hundreds of millions or billions in the game right now, at least there's still a way for them to get materials that are necessary to create those items or to trade for them. Suddenly, there's hope for the non-long time players to be able to catch up again as long as they put in the time and effort. Gold alone won't be the sole determining factor whether you can get an item or not, you can now actually earn it little by little in a reasonable way.
I would also like to suggest that this "Dungeon Swap" system be given a little personality. Maybe we can have new npcs in the game who are buying/collecting/trading items from dungeons. Maybe they can be another part of the commerce system. Instead of Ducats, they collect dungeon or boss items. So for example, if you bring them 20 Broken Ring Frames, you can have a choice to receive 1 better/rarer crafting material. Think about it as reverse fragmentation. In Fragmentation, you can break down items to their basic ingredients. In this "Dungeon Swap" system, you can give the npc a number of materials and they'll give you a better or higher version.
Those are my thoughts for now, have a good day!