i logged on after around a year of not playing, to find that i suddenly had all of my training exp for my skills below rank 1 to be fully maxed out
at first i had assumed this was the outcome of some change that they had made; mayhaps they had altered the maximum training exp required to level up a skill
the reason i know this could not have been me neglecting ranking up my skills is the fact that i had multiple fighter skills ready to be ranked up, and with them being my bread and butter, it would have been inexplicable for it to have been nothing other than a bug
as i was ranking up all of my skills, i stopped after levelling up two skills that i knew i shouldn't have possibly been in possession of
i had miraculously scrounged up the training exp required to get chain blade's death mark and dorcha conversion to rank F, despite them both requiring quests to be completed
after i noticed that, i came to the realisation that i had actually ranked up a few other skills from novice to rank F in that short span as well, despite knowing that there was practically no way i would leave a skill at the novice rank-- not only have i never been cautious with my AP spending habits, novice skills take no AP to rank up, meaning that it is infeasible for me to have not ranked them up
i checked my quests and found dorcha conversion and death mark's quests still waiting to be progressed, very clearly not having been completed
i suppose one could simply rejoice for the free grinding that has been done and get on with just playing the game, but this is quite the impactful bug if i do say so myself
would that it bring one clemency, my character has not rebirthed in almost a year, and is still level 1 alongside that, so hopefully that prevents you to think of me as some villain with their machinations months in the making
i would have liked to post a gif scrolling through my remaining skills that i had not ranked up upon my realisation, but i quite literally could not get such a thing to work correctly
i have absolutely zero clue as to how i could even attempt to replicate such a bug, and i hadn't seen a single forum post about the topic (though, mayhaps i had not looked hard enough)
Comments
Did you do the Blannid memoir quest before realizing this? Or perhaps before you took your break? 'Cause by doing that, you do get skills like the chainblade ones without having to do certain quests. Also they rank up all your skills to a certain level...not r1 though, I don't believe. So actually I'm not sure if it even could've been blannids quest doing that.
You might've just got a really crazy bug
Thank you for this report!! I'll see what I can do, but I also might urge you to send in a Player Support Ticket if it hinders you at all, as well. ❤
That said, from your Chain skills screenshot, it doesn't seem like current Blaanid's doing, since I'd expect Death Mark (and others) to be rank-able. Though, there are other ways to bypass quest/item-based skill requirements, like training seals and certain events. Maybe something rings a bell?
Here's a screenshot from an alt of mine, where I've 3 Chain Slasher skills without completing their requisite quests:
You can safely give-up these quests, or complete them, if you wish. (devCAT foresaw this scenario and added a give-up option to many quests with Blaanid updates)
Also, because skill requirements were changed some time ago, with the NEXT: New Beast update, it's possible to overshoot maximum skill training EXP, which results in odd situations like (a current 300.72 out of max 150.72 ^^"):
Another possibility is de-ranked skills, where you can generally train these back up to their previous level without needing to satisfy training requirements. Though, this probably isn't the case if you don't recall using capsules, Duncan, or some other means to reset. (IIRC, Duncan was pretty pushy about it back in the day...)
It's difficult to say whether or not the New Beast update was the cause of the issue, as the affected skills are at the maximum Training EXP, with no excess on any of them that have a cap that is above 100.
Barrier Spikes is at 100/100 Training EXP with the bar indicating it is perfectly trained, while Mana Crystallization is at 100/200 with no perfect training.
It may be possible for it to be an issue with Blaanid, though I do not believe it was a result of me doing Blaanid content, and getting Training EXP from her, as I know the last time I had launched Mabinogi, I did naught more than look at my character and go to a spot to train Puppetry; meaning (forgive me for my lack of current knowledge) that the shift from Blaanid's old version to her current version may possibly have been the cause.
Another reason as to why it would be unlikely for it to have been caused by me partaking in Blaanid's content is the fact that I tend to level my Pierrot and Colossus one after another-- leaving one at 0 Training EXP after a rank up while I farm for the other. Despite that, both are of equal standing in terms of Training EXP, once again, not rising above 100.
At least, that's assuming there has been an update for her content, as I once again have the quest to unlock her as I no longer meet the requirements to open up Blaanid's Brave Boost menu.
Apart from that, I've used no training seals, nor de-ranking methods of the sorts.
On second inspection, the same bug has affected all my other characters as well.
Some of my characters have been last used long before Blaanid had even been added to the game, so mayhaps it is not entirely infeasible for it to have been an unreported side effect of the New Beast update.
Despite the shock, this occurrence has not caused any true issue in the slightest; merely an unexpected bug turning its head.
They did a QOL change to skills (late last year, I think) that made ranking up skills ridiculously easy. There is much less grinding than the days of old. Among the skill changes, depending on your settings, your skills can automatically rank up once you reach 100 skill EXP, so long as you have the AP. If you are trying to conserve your AP, you can turn this feature off.
I do loosely recall that when I first logged on after that update was implemented, I had skills that jumped a few ranks. I believe in some cases, the EXP reward for certain requirements was increased, and the game updated skill EXP earned for requirements already achieved, pushing them to 100+ EXP, automatically triggering the rank-up.
And, as others have mentioned, there are a few skills that can be acquired multiple ways. I know I have quests remaining to get skills I've already ranked up to 1. One of them is for Death Mark. It's quite possible to get them by accident.