Mabi has a lot of old systems that need to be imrpoved and adjusted urgently but I think com the bat is one of the crucial ones. tbf, the combat system was fine until Nexon started mimicking the FF14 combat system and they only copied the bad stuff from it. I have to admit that, the fairest boss fight with the new combat system has to be Girgashiy. Excluding the fact that it can die in 5 seconds the moment he kneels, they are lots of good elements in it: 1) easy mechanic 2) combat is readable and can be dodged and 3) no adds. Then, the rest of the bosses exist just to annoy the players.
Let's talk about some annoying settings about the boss fight
Healing: Succubus Queen and Fluer will heal around 20%~40% when you fail the puzzle. We are not talking about 5%~10%. The healing is already insane then you have unlimited adds to shot you to death and the dps debuff will only extend the boss fight even longer.
Adds phase: Admiral's Lingering Spirit, a boss that has pretty decent mechanics but then the boss fight gets destroyed by the adds once again. In Admiral's Lingering Spirit's fight, the rats can each deal 200 damage hit with fast movement speed and high attack speed. Then you have 20+ rats, flying swords constantly stun players with lightning, and Admiral will desummon your pet after the dark clouds part. In a game that the tank role is close to non-exist, it is very unsatisfied.
The G26 boss fight was awesome until the moment they added adds in the final boss fight again. Their reason was, "we didn't expect that so many players to defeat the boss in the testing server so we are going to increase the difficulty."
Mabi combat system is failing because they don't provide players an opportunity to most of the attacks. In the FF boss fight has a set of routines to memorize, a single-target attack, an AOE attack that the ranged is shown, specific attack that can be dodged/share damage by reaching certain requirements. Mabi doesn't do that often in the latest content. For example, for the Feth's Gate, you can't predict which side the gate is going to shoot, you can barely dodge the attack (especially when you don't live in the US), there's no attack pattern you can remember... etc. The boss should indicate that what skill it is using, the range of the attack, and the attack countdown timer. Therefore, the players are allowed to dodge. By just adding these indications, it is fairer to the player and people might be more willing to do the newer content.
It's sad that Mabi could have been a great game. the gacha fashion is a lot better than other games, there are lots of interesting interactions, the story has been way better than before (they should just wipe the entire Shakespeare update)... But at this point, Mabi has way too many problems to fix or maybe even beyond help at this point. Like, Nexon seems to balance the contents based on reforge system, there is a lack of in-game progression (insane low materials' drop rate that makes the majority of the player base get stuck in mid-game), ridiculous success rate (anything that is below 5% is lunacy, especially when you can fail on 99% success rate very often)... etc Nexon doesn't really care what players think unless the KR players strike again. I guess we can just go back to afk until the game is dead.
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Also of all things to copy, why the adds... Homies hate adds. Homies hate seeing the earthen put up stoneskin.
But yeah this game is literally something to do kill time while waiting for the next raid tier cos nexon gonna be nexon. Sadge.
Boss fights shouldn't be easy
One big issue you seem to be facing is just lack of DPS. Another being lack of Defense.
You mentioned the Lord mission for the boat, and although it can be soloed, that doesn't mean it was designed for that. When I first did that mission, as a solo, I faced a little difficulty bc of the mobs, but nowhere near making the boss impossible to fight. The next time I went in with 1 higher level player and 2 much lower level players and the boss died within a minute.
Most boss fights are set to a few attacks, with some tells, ie illusion balor's lava pools. All the purification missions are simplistic and have 1 huge advantage over girg and hasi raids - they don't require a specific chain of skills to deal damage.
Bosses that heal can be annoying, but it's hardly something new to Mabi with the Succubus Queen and Fleur. It's hardly less annoying that mobs that are completely immune to certain types of damage.
I agree that the combat system could do with some reworks, but it would be better focused on removing the reforging gap (which is coming in a future update) and on the drop rates (which are supposedly being increased in tomorrow's maint). Otherwise it's just up to the players to figure out a viable strategy for each boss, and to get the gear/enchants needed to kill it.
1. Difficulty shouldn't rely on adds
Like I mentioned before, a lot of the latest boss fights are very dependants on adds. It is the biggest issue in lots of video games. In my experience, I've volunteered to help a game company, 10 Chamber, to do bug hunting and level balancing for a year now. The biggest issue of the balancing part is that they often simply add more enemies in few areas in order to make the game "much difficulty". As they said, sometimes it is the easiest and laziest way to "increase level difficulty".
The boss should be focusing on the boss, not the adds. If you put that many adds in the boss room, why don't you just cancel the boss itself and put 500 adds wave instead? Theta does an excellent job of prioritizing the boss battle. It's a interesting and challenging content even without adds. The boss mostly focuses on hitting the "tank role", which allows the DPS to do damage and only move when they are targeted by the boss's skill. There are clear attack ranges and timeframes so the players are allowed to dodge. The adds phase, which is the DPS check phase, requires teammates to do whatever they can to kill all adds and stop the AOE damage... etc. These are the elements a boss fight should have. I have never said the boss fight should be easy. What I mean was, every boss phase should be impactful and Theta is a good example.
I am trying not to bring FF trial up because there are few things Mabi will not be able to balance because of the current system we are using.
It's not combat-related but this is what they can do.
Add a daily quest for high end content, like Phan, Tech Dunns, AAHM, RAHM... etc. Their difficulty is decreased and the number of mobs are also slightly decreased. Boss will use less skill in the daily mission. However, all the reforging stats will be removed during the event. In exchange, you are guaranteed to gain the 1% above and below rate materials.
Then you had the normal run which contains the same difficulty as it is now. You will be able to keep the reforging stats. However, the reward rate will be slightly worse
>Implying that World Progression Raiding in XIV is easy, especially with Ultimates existing
I'm squishy and die from basically anything that multi-aggros because Mabinogi doesn't have tanking skills outside of Techs/Giant.
Can't defend repeatably? Dead from multi aggro.
Can't drop aggro quick enough? Dead because they aggroed you in a second. Sand Burst? Doesn't work at some enemies, lasts too short in order to be a long term effective use. Crisis Escape? Congrats, you're not helping your teammates! Or if you're using Divine Link, Congrats! Your pet is an issue! Lullaby? Song r5 is needed
Can't redirect aggro to a target? That's a tech, but situational without a coordinated party.
Tech slots being restricting? Sorry, I'm using BluntingField, VitalSurge for emergency HP, Redoubled for DPS, IronWill for "ScrewYous", and the 5th slot either being for TimeShift, DampenShock(Depends if I activate it or not), or Phantasmal Sight.
Mabi's combat system is: You don't want to get hit.