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Give Players More Mobility

ZunqivoZunqivo
Mabinogi Rep: 940
Posts: 7
Member
in Feedback and Suggestions
I made a video on this topic here:

But the gist of the video, for those that don't want to click on it, is that Mabinogi is moving in a direction where the enemy designers can't create a new enemy without making it either too easy or too difficult. End game players either demolish mobs with incredibly high stats to the point where they can ignore all supposed mechanics that enemies have, or cheese all mechanics. One great example of this in recent memory is Alban Knights Heroic SS, where the original strategy was to ignore fighting the mobs head-on altogether and use Barrier Spikes, Ice Spear, an Ice Spear Explosion Range Glove, and the party finish set to Anyone. Nowadays, end-game players have so much stats that they can ignore the 50% max damage modifier altogether and easily one-shot or two-shot everything. In both circumstances, the game had posed no challenge to the playerbase that the content was catered to.

This discussion was inspired by the new end-game content that recently released in Korea last week. I talk about it in the video, but the important part is that fighting the boss is never fun because of the insane amounts of uncounterable, undodgeable, unreactable adds that spawn infinitely, along with the boss's OHKO attack that it can spam and it's crazy high defensive stats. It takes the average party over 2 hours to clear this fight, which is insane. But, even if you decrease the defensive stats, remove the adds, and nerf the OHKO, the fight still isn't fun because the boss doesn't do anything interesting because players will never attempt to dodge its attacks since it's not worth doing so. The new boss has no fun, interactive gameplay, and this has been an issue in Mabinogi ever since the Alban Knights Training Ground came out.

dashCONCEPT2.png

My solution is to give players a mobility skill, similar to how dodging/sprinting works in Genshin Impact. This mobility skill can serve as a springboard to all future and current enemy combat. Once the developers give players a fantastic mobility skill, then they can design content with that button in mind.

newsmashwolf.png

For example, Gray Wolves can now have a variant of Smash that causes them to leap forwards at the nearest target. If the target is still in its path, the Smash will connect, and the Wolf will grab the target and perform Smash. This is similar to Warwick's ultimate ability in League of Legends. This attack allows for the player to counter the Gray Wolf utilizing the dash/dodge skill, attack the Gray Wolf mid-flight, bodyblock the Gray Wolf with another player or a pet, walk out to preserve Stamina, and so much more counterplay.

Counterplay makes for a more engaging game, and Mabinogi's combat system has essentially no counterplay. Everyone would rather opt to use Blaze's invincibility, Anchor Rush's invincibility, Charging Strike, or even just tank the hit and drink a potion. In order for the devs to create challenging content without creating something either overtuned or underpowered, they need to give the players more tools to fight them without just increasing the damage we deal.
Crimsọn

Comments

  • CrimsọnCrimsọn
    Mabinogi Rep: 65,165
    Posts: 9,157
    Member
    edited August 9, 2021
    Well you got my support on this. It seems like all they do is just exactly as you say. They gimp us, put infinity tankier mobs, put more tankier mobs plus tankier bosses. There is no strategy except a uncreative middle finger to the playerbase. I get it that they are trying to make it more harder and more challenging but all they are doing is just making us not want to bother. TWO FREAKING HOURS and then probably will get NOTHING for it with the abysmal drop rates. What kind of incentive is that? That's just gone too far and it doesn't look like fun at all.

    This is making me dread the new content, not looking forward to it.
    Sherri
  • HelsaHelsa
    Mabinogi Rep: 23,380
    Posts: 5,763
    Member
    Nexon updated the combat system at the time they introduced the fighter talent, but did not update it for mobs. Before that, Mabinogi combat was much more difficult since we fought mobs on equal footing. Try logging into a pet and go fight things to see what it was like. If they put us back on equal footing by updating the combat system for mobs too and gave them access to the other talents, then they might be able to make fair yet challenging content without resorting to cheap tricks.
    Hisame621Sherri
  • ZunqivoZunqivo
    Mabinogi Rep: 940
    Posts: 7
    Member
    Helsa wrote: »
    Nexon updated the combat system at the time they introduced the fighter talent, but did not update it for mobs. Before that, Mabinogi combat was much more difficult since we fought mobs on equal footing. Try logging into a pet and go fight things to see what it was like. If they put us back on equal footing by updating the combat system for mobs too and gave them access to the other talents, then they might be able to make fair yet challenging content without resorting to cheap tricks.

    I started playing Mabinogi in 2008, when G3 was the latest generation. I understand that Pre-Genesis was a different combat system, but I still don't think it would hold up well in today's world, especially since some of the prominent strategies at the time were cheese strategies that didn't let the mobs attack you like Pet Revolver, Windmill stacking, and Summon Golem (when G9 came out).

    Yeah, they definitely need to finally update the mobs to match our faster speeds and skills for Post-Genesis. Fighting enemies in general isn't fun. Most players, from newbies to veterans, actively try to avoid encounters with enemies because they're too easy or too difficult.
    Sherri
  • ChoCho
    Mabinogi Rep: 2,120
    Posts: 244
    Member
    You're touching on something I've been thinking about for a while but it feels like you want Mabi devs to go all in towards changing the combat vs trying to preserve the old style.

    You're comparing Mabi to League where League plays more like a Diablo-esque game and Mabinogi's roots are from a more slow/methodical playstyle. When you show your concept of enemy magic and attacks with telegraphs, it moves farther away from what Mabi was originally.

    You say that the gray wolves aren't interesting but they are relative to the way the game was. The gimmick to wolves is that they counter a lot so you should attack them with Icebolt or a ranged attack to break their counter. If you got countered, you could learn or gain knowledge of the counter skill. It also showed that, because some enemies circle around you, not all enemies attack you right away, with the same attack over and over, like spiders. So unless you went to the school and learned icebolt, bought arrows and a bow, or found and did the quest to learn windmill, you had to wait for the wolves to decide to stop countering. This is all considering you were new and not being fed information from another more experienced player.

    With enemies having exclusive telegraphed attacks, the game moves farther from the concept of enemies and players sharing a moveset. We already took a leap from that concept when they changed to the instant load-time dynamic combat system.

    Most combat talents since fighter feel like there was less ability for the AI to counter players.

    Fighter - stun locks enemies to death (counterplay: defense, counter, windmill, multi-aggro)
    Puppetry - all AoE/crowd control attacks with no defensive skills (counterplay: defense, counter)
    Dual Gun - AoE hit and run playstyle (counterplay: basic attacks have little stun, defense)
    Ninja - Single target/AoE Melee/Ranged mix with utility (counterplay: none)
    Chainblade - Large AoE "ranged" melee (counterplay: none)

    This leads to the only answers for harder difficulty being:
    1. Increase HP
    2. Increase no. of enemies (more multi-aggro)
    3. Adv. Heavy Stander
    4. Disabling popular moves (the worst answer imo)

    Combat is becoming less interactive and the AI is given less counterplay. Bash repeatedly stunlocks enemies to death. As a human, it and Final Hit are carrying the entire close combat skillset and that's bad.

    Magic never misses unlike Archery and was noninteractive but the trade off was that Mana was limited and hard to come by. Mana pots weren't in the shops, meditation was slow regen, mana regen was increased at night, mana was evaporated on switching wands. Intermediate magic had you locked to using your wand and if you switched you lost all your mana. Now there's a ton of mana regen with inspiration and bachram boost and no evaporation. What I'm saying is, there's a reason why it's strong against enemies (not very interactive) but it made sense in context as opposed to the newer talents.

    Then they made an effort to give players a defensive options vs enemy range and magic. Evasion and the magic shields were added. They could honestly update to give evasion (and tumble) invincibility which would give a defensive option against unavoidable boss AoEs. They could also update magic shield to be a temporary buff like music. (Similar to how you can move around when a flying puppet randomly gives you a shield)

    Adding a dash is a band-aid fix for bigger problems, like how the devs are handling the difficulty in response to the damage creep they created, but it can cause problems too. For one, promotes a speed meta. We're already at the point where fighting is just one-shotting enemies and moving to the next group of enemies. Chainslash's crazy damage % and AoEs already promote that and it was a big mistake because it dwarfs every other skill set when not taking reforges into account.

    In the game, Path of Exile, the meta right now is to go fast/kill everything so much so that the devs in the recent update, buffed a lot of content and made the game slower as a result. They added boss 1-shot mechanics, more mob enemies, added more HP. (Similar to Mabi) Alot of players hated this. Even casually, the meta is to get a flask that gives you a reusable speed buff, rather than more health or mana, to speed through the content as fast as possible. Then, when players are doing end-game content, suddenly they get killed without knowing what killed them. (It could be an enemy with reflective damage or an unfortunate set of modifiers like "Accurate+Always Crits+Fast Attacks") Adding a dash encourages the Mabi devs to continue making the content with the miserable one-shot AoEs you were talking about in the video.

    At least for Path of Exile, while adding that difficulty slows the game down, it begins to resemble the way the gameplay was, early in the games release. Adding a dash and telegraphed attacks changes Mabi into a different style of game. And because it also promotes a speed meta, I can see the next thing being the knockback system being removed which is a big unique factor in this game. I can see them switching knockback to stun/knockdown, so you wouldn't have to chase enemies around. Knocking enemies back now becomes kiting enemies around. Removing potion poisoning would be the final nail in the coffin. If you want that style of gameplay, there are so many other games out there.

    So rather than adding a dash, I think they should add difficulty by rebalancing a lot of the noninteractive talents and give them weakpoints.

    i.e Gun normals have low stun unless they crit. Now ranged weapon normals don't stun unless they crit (including chainblades)
    i.e Chain Sweep, Crisis, and Climactic Crash can be defended
    i.e Final Hit duration, cooldown, and reforges are halved (20/120) For players without FH reforged gear, it means it's up more but you can't abuse it for as long. So it's not a guaranteed room clear/boss killing move and it works better with Time Shift.
    i.e Getting attacked ends your Fighter combo and Fighter cooldowns are all on a 15 second cooldown.
    i.e. Defense cooldown gets lowered to 2 seconds.
    i.e. Getting getting knocked down grants the player Adv. Heavy Stander for 1 second on get up. (Enough time to get up and windmill or evade. Useful for obnoxious multi-aggro like Sulfur Spider or Shadow Realm Champion. Similar to how enemies instantly get up when attacked while downed but balanced for the player.)

    With these examples, the devs could start adding post fighter skillsets to more mobs without it being impossible to fight against. They could also stop gimping 1 handed swords and humans as a balanced measure.

    Then, they could start implementing non-one shot mechanics and less spongy bosses. I think Claimh Solas, Mokkurkalfi, or Dragons are almost in a good spot for how big bosses could be handled. Mokkurkalfi needs a tell for when it does the AoE where you need to stand in the protective circle. Dragons need a tell for their stampedes. Swipes and tail swipes need to be blockable/counterable. There's a lot that could be worked on.

    In response to what you mention about cheese strategies. Outside of actual glitches and AI resetting (like group windmill spam), I don't think coming up with strategies that work is a bad thing. Like, Smash tennis from way back or Meteor Striking the Dullahan from outside of the room in Fomor Attack. It feels like you're outsmarting the game. Sidhe Finnachaid's Dragons being killable with magic feels fair considering the game is and has been melee-centric forever. I don't know if they introduced any enemies that are completely resistant to melee yet besides the ones that can color change like Nightmare. There are a lot of common enemies that always have a resistance to range and magic. In Finnachaid, the dragons can die to magic and the final boss has regen and is susceptible to wounds as well as there being enemies you don't want to be in melee range of or you get a long debuff. It feels like it was made with magic and range in mind.

    You say that Nexon either makes content too easy or too hard but the real problem seems to be that they're making content almost future-proofed for damage creep and reforge players. Getting to stat cap, having R1 skills, and having fully upgraded gear and weapons should be enough for late-game contents. There is a huge gap between something like Advanced Hardmode or Elite Shadow Missions and Tech Duinn. Stats are capped and skills aren't doing enough damage. Even on the Dungeon Guide it jumps from Alby Advanced Hard mode to Sidhe Finnachaid Advanced or from Martials Arts Finals to Peaca Abyss. Then new content comes out and it's just damage creep like Glyphwright temp buffs or Stardust procs on skills.

    I hope you can see where I'm coming from with this.
    Sherri
  • ZunqivoZunqivo
    Mabinogi Rep: 940
    Posts: 7
    Member
    Cho wrote: »
    You're touching on something I've been thinking about for a while but it feels like you want Mabi devs to go all in towards changing the combat vs trying to preserve the old style.

    You're comparing Mabi to League where League plays more like a Diablo-esque game and Mabinogi's roots are from a more slow/methodical playstyle. When you show your concept of enemy magic and attacks with telegraphs, it moves farther away from what Mabi was originally.

    You say that the gray wolves aren't interesting but they are relative to the way the game was. The gimmick to wolves is that they counter a lot so you should attack them with Icebolt or a ranged attack to break their counter. If you got countered, you could learn or gain knowledge of the counter skill. It also showed that, because some enemies circle around you, not all enemies attack you right away, with the same attack over and over, like spiders. So unless you went to the school and learned icebolt, bought arrows and a bow, or found and did the quest to learn windmill, you had to wait for the wolves to decide to stop countering. This is all considering you were new and not being fed information from another more experienced player.

    With enemies having exclusive telegraphed attacks, the game moves farther from the concept of enemies and players sharing a moveset. We already took a leap from that concept when they changed to the instant load-time dynamic combat system.

    ...

    The game has changed significantly. And, as the game changed over the years, so has the MMORPG audience. Mabinogi's combat system, both Pre-Genesis and Post-Genesis, have their problems, both of which stem from the fact that fighting enemies isn't fun. Whether you're a new player using the exact same strategy to kill early-game mobs without changing a thing until you reach Alban Knights Training Grounds and you get destroyed over and over, or an end-game player with multiple Erg 50s using Flame Burst to attack mobs without giving them a chance to fight back or ignoring all mechanics to focus purely on DPS with Knuckles, fighting enemies is a chore rather than a fun time.

    Think about this, if you were playing Pre-Genesis, did you ever fight enemies like a Bear for fun after the first time you killed one? What about Dungeon rooms, did you defeat every single enemy that spawned with the orbs? Or did you want to run past them? Same with Mimic pits or the Mimic corner rooms. Yeah, it was fun for the first few times, but combat was and still is extremely tedious.

    The way how the combat system in Mabinogi is doesn't work anymore. If you remember the 2020 Community Survey, 57% of all players that answered it started the game over 9 years ago. Yes, this is a survey and not a hard statistic, but even for just the players that want to answer surveys, that is definitely not okay. A large majority of the playerbase started when the game was in its infancy, while only a few players joined and stuck with the game for the past 8 years. And one of the many big reasons why the game doesn't appeal to prospective/new players is that the combat isn't fun, and it never was fun for them. People play old games with fun gameplay all the time (Runescape, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario 64, etc.), and the gamers nowadays don't enjoy playing Mabinogi.
    Cho wrote: »
    Adding a dash is a band-aid fix for bigger problems, like how the devs are handling the difficulty in response to the damage creep they created, but it can cause problems too. For one, promotes a speed meta. We're already at the point where fighting is just one-shotting enemies and moving to the next group of enemies. Chainslash's crazy damage % and AoEs already promote that and it was a big mistake because it dwarfs every other skill set when not taking reforges into account.

    In the game, Path of Exile, the meta right now is to go fast/kill everything so much so that the devs in the recent update, buffed a lot of content and made the game slower as a result. They added boss 1-shot mechanics, more mob enemies, added more HP. (Similar to Mabi) Alot of players hated this. Even casually, the meta is to get a flask that gives you a reusable speed buff, rather than more health or mana, to speed through the content as fast as possible. Then, when players are doing end-game content, suddenly they get killed without knowing what killed them. (It could be an enemy with reflective damage or an unfortunate set of modifiers like "Accurate+Always Crits+Fast Attacks") Adding a dash encourages the Mabi devs to continue making the content with the miserable one-shot AoEs you were talking about in the video.

    At least for Path of Exile, while adding that difficulty slows the game down, it begins to resemble the way the gameplay was, early in the games release. Adding a dash and telegraphed attacks changes Mabi into a different style of game. And because it also promotes a speed meta, I can see the next thing being the knockback system being removed which is a big unique factor in this game. I can see them switching knockback to stun/knockdown, so you wouldn't have to chase enemies around. Knocking enemies back now becomes kiting enemies around. Removing potion poisoning would be the final nail in the coffin. If you want that style of gameplay, there are so many other games out there.

    ...

    Just because there's a dash button doesn't mean that they will put in one-shot mechanics or unbalanced AOE attacks. Games like FFXIV and Genshin Impact still don't have one-shot mechanics, but are fun to play because the dash/dodge options allow them to kite or maneuver around the attacks. No, these games aren't necessarily hard in the grand scheme of things, but the player feels challenged enough to have fun without the games being frustrating. That's the balance that a dash button will try to achieve.

    The playing field has changed. This is why I suggested that the developers implement a modern ability found in many popular games with great success - the dash button. The Pre-Genesis style of RPS/AI Prediction, along with the Post-Genesis style of mobility and instant skill-loading, have been proven multiple times to no longer work. The real spirit of Mabinogi is the ability to use any weapon and any skillset whenever you want. It's the freedom of combat that gives Mabinogi its edge over other games within the genre. It's not about AI predictions or RPS combat anymore, as gamers nowadays don't care for it or don't want to put in the time to learn it.

    As the audience changes, the game has to change with them, or else it will die. Many games have changed with their audience with relatively decent success, like World of Warcraft. The numbers for Mabinogi are already showing that the game isn't popular with new players at all. It's now time that the game changes, too.
    Cho wrote: »
    So rather than adding a dash, I think they should add difficulty by rebalancing a lot of the noninteractive talents and give them weakpoints.

    i.e Gun normals have low stun unless they crit. Now ranged weapon normals don't stun unless they crit (including chainblades)
    i.e Chain Sweep, Crisis, and Climactic Crash can be defended
    i.e Final Hit duration, cooldown, and reforges are halved (20/120) For players without FH reforged gear, it means it's up more but you can't abuse it for as long. So it's not a guaranteed room clear/boss killing move and it works better with Time Shift.
    i.e Getting attacked ends your Fighter combo and Fighter cooldowns are all on a 15 second cooldown.
    i.e. Defense cooldown gets lowered to 2 seconds.
    i.e. Getting getting knocked down grants the player Adv. Heavy Stander for 1 second on get up. (Enough time to get up and windmill or evade. Useful for obnoxious multi-aggro like Sulfur Spider or Shadow Realm Champion. Similar to how enemies instantly get up when attacked while downed but balanced for the player.)

    With these examples, the devs could start adding post fighter skillsets to more mobs without it being impossible to fight against. They could also stop gimping 1 handed swords and humans as a balanced measure.

    Then, they could start implementing non-one shot mechanics and less spongy bosses. I think Claimh Solas, Mokkurkalfi, or Dragons are almost in a good spot for how big bosses could be handled. Mokkurkalfi needs a tell for when it does the AoE where you need to stand in the protective circle. Dragons need a tell for their stampedes. Swipes and tail swipes need to be blockable/counterable. There's a lot that could be worked on.

    ...

    Your mechanics are fine, but they still don't tackle the main issue - fighting enemies still isn't fun. Think about it from a new player perspective, they won't notice or care for almost all, if not, all of the changes that you suggested. They will still get one-shot by Thunder, they will still die for no reason, and they will still do the same strategy over and over to the same basic mobs over and over again.

    Most players who play an MMORPG for the first time will give the game 2 hours to see if the game is right for them. If you need to tell them that the good fights and good bosses take over 10 hours of gameplay to get to, they will quit the game. You need to ease in the player to get to these telegraphed mechanics by sprinkling them in early on, which is why I brought up Gray Wolves. They're an early game mob that would teach the player about the dash button, and as the player continues with their adventure through Generations or content, they'll find more attack patterns that they can avoid to try and deal damage.
    Cho wrote: »
    In response to what you mention about cheese strategies. Outside of actual glitches and AI resetting (like group windmill spam), I don't think coming up with strategies that work is a bad thing. Like, Smash tennis from way back or Meteor Striking the Dullahan from outside of the room in Fomor Attack. It feels like you're outsmarting the game. Sidhe Finnachaid's Dragons being killable with magic feels fair considering the game is and has been melee-centric forever. I don't know if they introduced any enemies that are completely resistant to melee yet besides the ones that can color change like Nightmare. There are a lot of common enemies that always have a resistance to range and magic. In Finnachaid, the dragons can die to magic and the final boss has regen and is susceptible to wounds as well as there being enemies you don't want to be in melee range of or you get a long debuff. It feels like it was made with magic and range in mind.

    ...

    If the main way we all get past intended mechanics is by not doing them, then it makes you wonder why did they waste their time in putting effort into making these mechanics in the first place. The game doesn't feel cohesive or well-thought out if players are just going to find ways to not play the game. This is the pinnacle of bad game design, you don't want the playerbase to not play the game because the normal way isn't fun. Players feel fantastic when they figure out how to beat enemies with the tools that the game gives them, like a puzzle. In games like The Legend of Zelda series, the developers give the players the tools to beat enemies in such a way that the player feels clever or thinks that the designers are challenging them in creative ways. In Mabinogi, there is nothing clever about ignoring a mechanic like the ice witch circle in Crom Bas by stacking up all enemies in a corner and DPSing them with Flame Burst until they die. There is nothing clever about seeing a Sword of Strife on the ground from when you accidentally kill one of the wisps with Firebolt as you continue to Firebolt the dragons to death.
    Cho wrote: »
    You say that Nexon either makes content too easy or too hard but the real problem seems to be that they're making content almost future-proofed for damage creep and reforge players. Getting to stat cap, having R1 skills, and having fully upgraded gear and weapons should be enough for late-game contents. There is a huge gap between something like Advanced Hardmode or Elite Shadow Missions and Tech Duinn. Stats are capped and skills aren't doing enough damage. Even on the Dungeon Guide it jumps from Alby Advanced Hard mode to Sidhe Finnachaid Advanced or from Martials Arts Finals to Peaca Abyss. Then new content comes out and it's just damage creep like Glyphwright temp buffs or Stardust procs on skills.

    With the direction Mabinogi is going in and will always go in at this point, power creep will always be an issue. No fights feel innovative, instead they feel like a waste of time. This is why I suggested a full mechanic added to the game, rather than just reworking what we have. By giving the game another layer of depth, the developers can now challenge the player in more ways than an HP + defensive stats meatsack.

    Mabinogi's combat system has no depth. It never has. Not even with the Pre-Genesis combat system, where the game was pushing to the point where people will one-shot or cheese everything already (and ignore RPS/AI predictions), and not with the Post-Genesis system where we still have one-shots and cheese on everything. A universal mobility skill gives the game real depth and breathes new life into the combat system, for new players and old time veterans alike.
    Sherri
  • nomigid15nomigid15
    Mabinogi Rep: 3,870
    Posts: 247
    Member
    If this would help me not get combo'd to death by the Gremlins in Barri Brown, I'll support it.
  • ChoCho
    Mabinogi Rep: 2,120
    Posts: 244
    Member
    Zunqivo wrote: »
    Think about this, if you were playing Pre-Genesis, did you ever fight enemies like a Bear for fun after the first time you killed one? What about Dungeon rooms, did you defeat every single enemy that spawned with the orbs? Or did you want to run past them? Same with Mimic pits or the Mimic corner rooms. Yeah, it was fun for the first few times, but combat was and still is extremely tedious.

    The way how the combat system in Mabinogi is doesn't work anymore. If you remember the 2020 Community Survey, 57% of all players that answered it started the game over 9 years ago. Yes, this is a survey and not a hard statistic, but even for just the players that want to answer surveys, that is definitely not okay. A large majority of the playerbase started when the game was in its infancy, while only a few players joined and stuck with the game for the past 8 years. And one of the many big reasons why the game doesn't appeal to prospective/new players is that the combat isn't fun, and it never was fun for them. People play old games with fun gameplay all the time (Runescape, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario 64, etc.), and the gamers nowadays don't enjoy playing Mabinogi.

    I have fought enemies like a Bear for fun, pre-Genesis, because as you're ranking up your skills, they get stronger and it makes you want to test your damage against something that used to be difficult. For instance, I might've wanted to see the way Windmill's range increases at r5 and r1 and I would test it out on the Bears near Dunbarton. Of course it gets old eventually and combat becomes a flowchart for killing enemies. This is true for all games. Do you think someone is pogging when they kill a basic enemy in Runescape or a Goomba in Mario 64? The first time, it might feel exciting beat but eventually you just start to avoid them when you get better at the game.
    Zunqivo wrote: »
    And one of the many big reasons why the game doesn't appeal to prospective/new players is that the combat isn't fun, and it never was fun for them. People play old games with fun gameplay all the time (Runescape, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario 64, etc.), and the gamers nowadays don't enjoy playing Mabinogi.

    You could argue it's because it doesn't have mainstream fame. The people who like Mabinogi tend to stick with it. There's no other game like it. If you're comparing it to Runescape, Runescape is a classic that people will learn about from the countless Twitch streamers that play it and older gamers who had it as their first MMO and a lot of the time, even the players don't find it fun. They're grinding woodcutting the same way we're grinding weaving but the stars just aligned correctly for Runescape.

    Mario 64 and Melee are the same way. These are games from peoples' childhood. They have a lot of bias attached without the same stigma . People hate Nexon, vigorously, for absolutely no reason yet people praise miHoyo when their monetization is way more aggressive and to a wider audience and that says something.
    Zunqivo wrote: »
    Just because there's a dash button doesn't mean that they will put in one-shot mechanics or unbalanced AOE attacks. Games like FFXIV and Genshin Impact still don't have one-shot mechanics, but are fun to play because the dash/dodge options allow them to kite or maneuver around the attacks. No, these games aren't necessarily hard in the grand scheme of things, but the player feels challenged enough to have fun without the games being frustrating. That's the balance that a dash button will try to achieve.

    The playing field has changed. This is why I suggested that the developers implement a modern ability found in many popular games with great success - the dash button. The Pre-Genesis style of RPS/AI Prediction, along with the Post-Genesis style of mobility and instant skill-loading, have been proven multiple times to no longer work. The real spirit of Mabinogi is the ability to use any weapon and any skillset whenever you want. It's the freedom of combat that gives Mabinogi its edge over other games within the genre. It's not about AI predictions or RPS combat anymore, as gamers nowadays don't care for it or don't want to put in the time to learn it.

    We disagree on this. The spirit of Mabi is learning and growth. You learn enemy attack patterns. (Wolves like to counter, Bears like to run up and Smash, Ogres most likely have stomp, Ghosts teleport behind you after you knock them back) You learn different ways to easily secure materials. (Metallurgy > Refining > Ingot Synthesis or Fragmenting 50 Potions for basic herbs instead of scouring a dungeon) Your skills grow heavily at ranks 9, 5, and 1 and things that were difficult (like crafting) become a lot easier. But like you said, it's not fun when the solution is to just brute force it with high stats.

    Nowadays, Mabinogi would be a bit too complex for the average gamer but that doesn't mean it should alienate it's existing playerbase to casualize the gameplay to imitate modern action games. You use FFXIV and Genshin as comparisons. I don't play either of these games but from what it looks like, Genshin is a hack and slash action game. We have dashes in the hack and slash action Mabinogi called Vindictus. As for FFXIV, from what I looked up, the sprint ability is a speed buff similar to March Song. (No idea if specific classes have their own dashes) As well as the fact that FFXIV is a different type of MMO. It's the click/wait/skill rotation spam type where the only type of difficulty that the devs can give to raid bosses is by making everything a bullet hell by creating danger spaces on the ground. Movement probably doesn't matter outside of raids and telegraphed attacks since every enemy tracks the player. Meanwhile, in Mabi, positioning is important even in solo play.

    And you said it yourself that Crom Bas has one-shot AoE patterns at a certain amount of health. You see random AoEs on bosses like Merrow and Song of Grief. If they were to add a dash. Logically, they would then add more mechanics like AoEs to dodge, getting out of danger zones, AoE boss dashes etc.
    Zunqivo wrote: »
    Most players who play an MMORPG for the first time will give the game 2 hours to see if the game is right for them. If you need to tell them that the good fights and good bosses take over 10 hours of gameplay to get to, they will quit the game. You need to ease in the player to get to these telegraphed mechanics by sprinkling them in early on, which is why I brought up Gray Wolves. They're an early game mob that would teach the player about the dash button, and as the player continues with their adventure through Generations or content, they'll find more attack patterns that they can avoid to try and deal damage.

    I'm pretty sure most players either get hooked or they dont. Convincing someone to dedicate a lot of time into an MMO isn't easy and a lot of MMOs that are successful, get new players because players want to play the popular game with the big playerbase. If they're successful, it's easy to stay successful unless they actively mess it up.

    I've played many MMOs and a lot of the good ones show the players early, what they'll be like when they're high level. You see that in Mabi with some of the few Talent introduction videos, like Close Combat or Ninja. They also show you your future in Tin's talent testing area when you first make your character. Mabi is an open-ended game so there's nothing stopping someone from running straight to Rundal and dying at level 10. The generations do a good job of taking the player to different places. Blaanid and Stardust Sponsorships also encourage the player to try new things in different areas.

    Regarding avoiding attack patterns, that's the RPS system's job but it's flawed now because of the long cooldowns on counter and defense. If you don't one-shot or almost one-shot, you have to go through all of your skills in a rotation and hope you don't still have crucial ones on cooldown before the enemy dies.
    Zunqivo wrote: »
    If the main way we all get past intended mechanics is by not doing them, then it makes you wonder why did they waste their time in putting effort into making these mechanics in the first place. The game doesn't feel cohesive or well-thought out if players are just going to find ways to not play the game. This is the pinnacle of bad game design, you don't want the playerbase to not play the game because the normal way isn't fun.

    You could argue about the game design but it doesn't mean that it's unappealing. Dark Souls meta is all about abusing enemy AI, leading them off cliffs, attacking through barriers, and cheesing your way through the game. Smash Bros Melee's wavedashing and other techniques are all exploits and in each new Smash Bros, players look for exploits "because the normal way isn't fun". These are two highly regarded games. Even in platformers, devs put skip paths in the game to get around the normal way of play and players will still find shorter shortcuts because the exploration of shaving down time is fun. There's absolutely no way, when they made Sidhe Finnachaid and the entire Memento questline, that they didn't know that you could Dance of Death the "immune to everything" fish and skip using the Sword of Strife. I find it hard to believe the bone dragons low resistance to magic was just overlooked.
    Zunqivo wrote: »
    Mabinogi's combat system has no depth. It never has. Not even with the Pre-Genesis combat system, where the game was pushing to the point where people will one-shot or cheese everything already (and ignore RPS/AI predictions), and not with the Post-Genesis system where we still have one-shots and cheese on everything already (and ignore RPS/AI predictions), and not with the Post-Genesis system where we still have one-shots and cheese on everything. A universal mobility skill gives the game real depth and breathes new life into the combat system, for new players and old time veterans alike.

    This is incredibly wrong. When you fighting something that's on your level you can start with Smash, then either wait for it to run back and defend or counter. If not, you can Assault Slash and follow up with Windmill. While Windmilling, you can load defense and when you block you can delay and use another Windmill or attack and knock the enemy back. There's a flow. With archery there's synergies with icebolt's or Celestial Spikes slow to give you more aiming time, or putting up a barrier spike, or using a Shadow Golem to draw aggro to pick things off, or taming an enemy to support your range, if you don't have access to a pet.

    There's so much depth with how wolves like to counter, or knowing that poison goblins will multi-aggro you with goblin archers, or knowing that stomp doesn't affect you at the same range when you're walking. There's so much I could list but because overpowered players one-shot content way below their level or because later boss content doesn't use RPS doesn't mean that the game has no depth.

    The real issue is that later content is having less and less counterplay and you get punished when the game says that you can't Sand Burst this enemy with the Sand Burst you spent so much time ranking up or this enemy is immune to freeze or knockdowns. The fact that you can't use Anchor Rush or Tumble in Crom Bas is disgusting. No specific lore reason, just to make things more difficult when you don't have a way of avoid AoEs. Adding dashing as a basic ability means:

    1. Telegraphed AoEs can become a staple in the combat. This means more Crom Bas one-shots circles, more Song of Grief going invincible and spamming AoEs. More random Sephirot/Dragon Swipes. More enemies with Meteor Strike.

    2. Positioning means nothing anymore. You can chase down enemies with your skills, be very reckless, and just dash away when they're on cooldown. This then trivialize any enemies that don't use telegraphed magic/range/lunges. You would have to add dashing and AoEs to every enemy.
    Sherri
  • HainesaiHainesai
    Mabinogi Rep: 930
    Posts: 6
    Member
    edited August 11, 2021
    Stop trying to turn mabi into genshin, you have to remember mabi runs on a engine made from scratch and all those original devs are pretty much gone.
    Sherri