Hello,
I have been a part of Mabi for the last 4-5 years(? Give or take) I would like to give some feedback on my experience playing this game and my final thoughts.
Firstly I would like to start with the positives:
The Gen stories are extremely gripping and interesting, myself and my partner have enjoyed each characters journies and the writing is very well done.
The art style is very charming, we can fully appreciate some fine artwork, especially with my partner being an artist herself.
The graphics are very cute, having the update with the fingers being added on the hands was a lovely touch ( Perhaps the feet next..?? )
The interactions with your pets are really nice and occasionally with each other are also very nice. The interaction crafter especially as we like to personalise our journies and stories.
The music is absolutely incredible, I especially have gushed over this.
Mabi has overall done much what I have yet to have seen in other MMOs ( or at least not in the same manner ) and it truly adds to its appeal.
And now for the negatives, sadly these areas have caused both myself and my partner to take long hiatuses from Mabi several times..
The first thing we want to touch upon, which to us has been the most glaring issue, is the extreme use of RNG.. We understand part of the game is going to include this feature but from what we have experienced, virtually most, if not all areas of Mabi is RNG based.. Like other subjects we will talk about here, this reduces the incentive of wanting to do many things as it feels little to do with skill and more to do with lottery and luck, this in turn dampens the want or desire to improve.
Second issue, the excessive grinding... I would like to touch upon that myself and my partner are not considered beginners but neither are we veterans. This poses a problem for us as we cannot benefit from the beginner stuff, neither can we do much of the veteran stuff ( Tech Duinn, higher end raids like Kraken probably etc. ) - we are middle of the road. Our cumulative level is between 9,500/10,000 so the update for the beginner side ( to consider a character a beginner up to cumulative level 10k ) is hardly going to help us.. Then we are left with ever pressing problem of extensive grinding, again proving you also have the AP to advance which sadly my partner lacks.. In order for her to gather even enough to advance 2 or 3 skills, it brings her back to this very problem: more grinding.. to the point it feels like months or years where you actually feel like you've gotten at least a little bit further. It feels like the time it takes to progress is higher than the progression itself. Me and my partner understandably have lives outside of Mabi ( as do others of course ) and we don't have all the time to dedicate to small amounts of progression, yet we would love to be able to enjoy and experience the higher end content; we would like to better progress without feeling we need to spend months if not years to only advance the tiniest amounts.
The time it takes to progress does not feel like it reflects the progression you get; it feels highly unbalanced.
Then training: This goes hand in hand with the grinding and RNG we mentioned earlier. The points of training are actually quite pitiful and the amount of work that goes into training the skills is unnecessarily grindy ( even with the help of training seals, which without events is again very grindy to get. ) I would like to take Magic Craft as an example, even with the Pet Trainer talent it's still extremely slow to train.
Also many times the success rates of crafted things - or at least your gathering - are pretty bad and feels even more so the higher a rank you are ( this is backwards - it should feel easier the better you are ) which in turn requires you to rely again on RNG and grinding to retrieve the materials you spent forever getting in the first place..
We have felt that the higher ranks only make you worse.. so where is the skill value? Where is the incentive to rank up?
Events.
I wanted to touch upon this, I wanted to specifically talk about the AFK events, where you are mainly standing around for hours on end just waiting reduces all want to participate regardless of the rewards.
Obtaining useful gear to strengthen our characters is equally just as difficult as the above reasons. It's all to do with grinding and RNG, not to mention for the likes of us, extremely expensive, though the inflated economy doesn't help.
This is more of a side note again in relation to RNG, drop rates need to be fixed. The amount of money I have spent on gachas only to get very bad drops rates is terrible. This causes us to lose all interest to take part in them. Drop rates however are not only an issue with gachas they are also a major issue with mob drops. It's getting a little bit tiring to run a dungeon or SM tons times in order to get 1 of the material that I need multiple of for whatever. Because of this we are having to rely on auction which, while it's a decent incentive to promote trading, the stuff in AH we 9 times out of 10 cannot afford ( as many times we see them costing tens or hundreds of millions, which is nothing we have the chance of getting without a very popular gacha or event outfits/items )
Beauty coupons: This is another thing where we struggle to get anything we'd love to have, but the scarcity of those we'd like is massive, which, again, leaves you having to rely on auctiion house for coupons which we cannot afford or simply cannot get as they don't exist or haven't existed in it for a ( long ) time. I like the feature that has been introduced that lets you keep the eyes, hair and features you spend your money on, but I don't like the fact yet again those hairstyles are hidden behind coupons; these should in my opinion be bought with pon instead - I've come to understand, or heard at some point that it was one of the most bought product, so it would make plenty of sense.
Talents: This is an issue we both noticed. We unfortunately found only later on down the line that race played a massive role in what talent(s) you "should" be. ( E.g Elves specialise in int and dex, therefore Magic and Chain Blade is their "role", while Giants would be roled to Close Combat )
I will take my character as an example: I play a Human and I wanted to be a Close Combat, that's my thing - I like playing a warrior, - however we didn't realise until later on that this talent was geared more toward Giants. Yes, Humans do of course have Final Hit, but that's primarily it. Being someone who loves playing a tank character ( sword and shield ), I've come to see that for a Human, this isn't a viable method of playing and that's more for Giants, which isn't a race I'm interested in maining. Not only that, but as a Human, I lack speciality in something, which I've come to feel is almost necessary in Mabi; that if you're not specialised one way or the other, you would always be behind both Elves and Giants.
Equally my partner plays as an Elf and she feesl terribly weak ( though this is understandably the downside to Elves, being almost like glass cannons ), she's come to realise that she's having to stray away from my main Magic talent to other talents to get defensively stronger, as otherwise doing tougher Gen fights is virtually impossible without falling after just two hits.
What is the point of choosing a talent when every race virtually is being forced into specific roles or even jack-of-all-trades? Even the Blaanid Memoir feels like it's hinting at this and so are the techniques.
From my experience with other MMO's, you can do just fine with your main talent/class/job.
In many ways from our experience, it does feel like much of what we see feels catered towards old/veteran players, which is understandable as per a survey I noticed that most Mabi players fall into that category, but sadly this pushes the likes of ourselves from the game, despite our massive love for it.
I think there might be a few more things we wanted to mention but we unfortunately cannot think of those right now, however these have been our most pressing concerns.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, despite what it may look like we do truly love this game and it's very dear to our hearts also for personal reasons and we would love to enjoy it further, sadly at this present time the negatives are outweighing the positives and are taking most of that enjoyment away, we however still hope the best for Mabinogi and that these will get addressed in the near future.
Kind regards,
Eliyen and Akiharyu.
Comments
2. Seals, my friend. Training seals if I'm too lazy or the training is too tedious. The only skill I'm complaining is the Fynni related skills, as Fynni skills requires you to run MagMell, has a low success rate, or Real time requirements.
3. Nexon REALLY needs to take out these Mules. I don't know if outright banning them or flagging them for trades would solve them. But I recommend they take a page from Valve: Introduce a system that disallows newbies to participate in events. Yes, this is cruel, but It has to happen. Like CSGO, These Newbies and their accounts are disallowed to take in Competitive, or in this case, Events. They want to participate in events? Well, here's what they can do.
- Buy a "Premium Event Service" - This one time buy allows them to participate in events.
- Complete Chapter 1 -3. This means G1-3, G7-12.
- Be a certain total level - The Devs really need to calculate how much Blaanid Memoir levels it gives you and put it to a high level. Though It can be combined with the above.
- Be a certain Talent level - Or have multiple Talent level. The Dungeon Guide's Support Box is disabled.
If anyone has any more ideas, then be my guest.
3. Mabinogi's on the Road Gaiaonline's Economy is. Inflated. All it needs now is Gold Generators. Oh wait. There is. Commerce.
4. All these late game materials and weapons can be compared to CSGO knives. This economy and user base does not know "Need Before Greed". The AH community is hostile and toxic. They need to be regulated. If only there was a way to buy Gold with Real money- from Official sources, that is. No, this idea isn't ridiculous and full of ****. WoW lets you buy official Gold by selling their Tokens, which their price is fixed. Perhaps there should be a NPC that sells pets and other gear in high prices as a Gold sink. I wouldn't mind spending 1m to get the materials and weapons I want from an Overprized NPC. (Dalaran Mount Shop)
5. I would like the Beauty coupon be a consumable that unlocks it free of use for future uses on the account. Or at least be always available to the less unfortunate.
6. Maybe I don't want to play as a Giant. Maybe I want to play as a Human. Maybe I want to play as an elf. Don't get me wrong, Giants are ugly and customization are either "Off" in some way. I see Female Giants as the Amazonians of Futurama (Insert Snu Snu jokes here), and the male giants being... well, annoying as hell in bandit encounters. I see them as a whole as a "I'm supposed to be a Dwarf, but became a Giant because i don't want to copy WoW!". Why I want to play as a Human? Final Hit. Dual Wielding. Well balanced of the other two races. Also that it was recommended to get two support character cards back in the day. And most equipment during the days I can equip. Why I want to play an Elf? Same anatomy as a Human. Faster. Horseback Archery. Hide. Near to same equipment as Humans. Giants? Different equipment. Different skills. No archery. 2-3 Race updates. Left the Elves on the dirt. Can't play dead. Can't yeet rocks (They should, it would be a boulder/golem). I may be missing stuff like Wind Guard, Taunt, but again, I don't have the patience to run these storyline AGAIN and techs to test them out myself.
Life skills such as tailoring and weaving have always been absurdly grindy. I think the original idea was that some people would rank that skill and make their profit nearly exclusively through life skills. But things change as the game evolves.
My tip for training. If you have plenty of AP (big if), get your character to level 200 (which is really easy to do in certain events like the recent beach one) in a talent you wish to focus. This will give you 2x exp and 2x counts. Combine that with training events and skill training pots, and the occasional temporary skill-training title, you can breeze through certain skills. I went from r8 to r1 metallurgy in 20 minutes using this method. --64x training!
When you are done with that talent, rebirth WITHOUT CHANGING LEVELS. Choose your new talent, yes, and you'll start off with 2x counts at 2x exp. Rinse, lather, repeat as far as your AP can take you. If you are willing, consider a skill reset but stay at level 200. You'll start finding skill-training a lot less time-consuming. Of course, the down side to this is that you won't be earning any AP through leveling, since you can't level beyond 200. But personally, I've found this approach rewarding.
And... there is good news on the horizon. The recent producer's letter said that skill training is about to become significantly easier.
2. Training seals are pretty much the only thing that's cut down training massively and in some cases outright skipped things that would be otherwise tedious. It's just hard to find the motivation to grind even them often. I guess this OX event thus far is about the best you can get at the moment.
3. I'm highly in agreement with this. I think the requirement should absolutely be something akin to completing G1-3 ( or one of them at least? ) and/or being high enough in a talent for the events. It's good to see some info to why the economy is so inflated - if only partial info.
4. I'm not sure I understand how Commerce is a gold generator. That's likely, because I'm not up there in understanding terribly on what's good. Is there something you can buy with ducats that's really valuable?
5. Eh, I'm a WoW player and I don't personally like the idea of being able to buy gold, and therefore find WoW Token ( and by extension Mabi Token if that'd become a thing ) a bad idea. But yes, the economy should absolutely be regulated, I think. At its current state, you're lucky you can get one or two of a material without going bankrupt. Things like Saint Guardian's armours going for 300-500m+.. Does anyone even have that sort of gold readily available?
6. I agree with this. This would be good. Still, it would be nice for there to be a means to get beauty coupons that you don't pretty much see after they get first introduced and eventually become really rare or non-existent. There's some nice one(s) that I don't see on AH at all that appeared once in a gacha from several years ago.
7. Giants are okay, but I don't really want to main them, yet they're really the only race viable for the play style I always opt for ( tank with sword & shield ) while Humans are more for DPS. And yes, Giants have far less customization than either Humans or Elves, which makes playing them even less desirable. And the cherry on top is that Giants and Elves cannot marry. My partner plays an Elf, so if I played a Giant, I'd need to switch to Human to be able to marry. As it happens I prefer to play Humans, but were it the otherway around, I'd be a bit displeased ( although for story reasons it's understandable why it's not possible, but we do have an Elf-Giant relationship in canon, so it's not impossible, even if frowned upon by their societies..! Maybe they could get wed in Human churches to get past the racial tensions? ) Doing the storylines all the way up to G25 again though.. yeah, not the most pleasant sounding thing, even though I really love the story - my partner and I both do.
Yeah, I can absolutely believe that. This was the case with me and retail WoW before I finally said enough was enough. Saddens me to leave years worth of work behind, but better that than suffer for the version I don't enjoy.
2. Train Seal to 30. AP Train. The summary of the skills I don't want to use.
3. I want to see how they limit the mules, assuming if they are one of the reasons why the economy is inflated. I've seen so many Enchant protect shops that Im to the point of "STOP. Others Users, stop feeding them". Im sorry, but Newbies will have to take the hit. There's a reason why the statement "Why we can't have nice things", since there is always a RC Hole ruining it for everyone.
4. Get to Silver 5 and the fun begins, assuming you can easily get the mats. A Wagon or better recommended.
5. I forgot to put on the idea of actually using a "Mabi token" to buy VIP service, or any service in gold. Until VIP itself becomes interesting, this idea is for the drawing board.
6. Still would like it as consumables and have the beauty coupons being a permanant cash shop or another Gold Sink item.
7. Yes, they're okay. But I dont want to play them. Investing the time to get where my main is at is too much. If only there was a way to skill boost your character to your main/skip generation service, I maybe would play as them. But no, no such service exists and many people hates the idea of throwing money to boost your character or skip generations your main character already done.
That training advice is very helpful most definitely, however my partner especially falls short on it as she lacks the AP, so that would only take her so far.
Hopefully that change will be significant enough to make it worth it. We truly hope so.