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Please consider removing limits
I'd appreciate it if Nexon KR would consider taking away all limits for the NA server. I know Korea has rules about how long people are allowed to play video games, and that's the only reason why I'd see run limits being added as a positive gameplay feature, but we don't have government rules like that.
Especially considering our server is so much smaller, it'd benefit us a lot more to let those of us that like grinding long hours to be able to do so for any content as much as we want. That includes Tech Duinn, Crom Bás, Glenn Bearna, Uladh Dungeons, and Avalon Purifications. That way we could actually have materials being sold on the market for reasonable prices.
I'd appreciate it if they would consider our server size and the way our community likes to spend their time, rather than just porting over the same update that Mabi KR gets. I really appreciate the increased drop rates, but with people being unable to run tech more than 15 times a week, only 1 person in the party being able to get a nice prize, and our small server population compared to KR's population, it's going to make trying to play combat content and making good weapons not worth the effort anymore. The materials will be way too expensive, and your chances of finding the drop yourself will be really hard with the limits.
Comments
Things didn't get better for our Mabi guild until the Crusader Divine Knight generations introduced Girgashiy Raids, which actually brought content into the game that a large party could do all at once.
After that, Tech Duinn was the new End Game, and it was back to 4 person squads again. People naturally started becoming less active in our guild, but it was a slow death and not a sudden one, and those of us that were left got used to smaller party sizes.
The recent quality of life changes we've been getting have been so nice these past 2 years, that some of the people from our guild that left after Crusaders stopped being end game came back and started getting caught up. We had a blast running the last Bankroll event together. Some of my friends put a full 6 months effort, both summer and winter master plans and took full advantage of last fall's bankroll to get caught up so they could live inside Tech Duinn.
Now that's being taken away. So many people enjoyed the power balance Arcanas brought to the game and only just started getting into Techs (because without Arcana that content is way too hard for casuals), and now they can't grind that. We can't spend our time helping each other make Perseus/Revenant/Ruination/Demolition weapons. We can't social grind late into the nights anymore with only 15 runs a week. Even if it changes to a soft lock like Glenn Bearna where you can still go in but don't get rewards, you're not able to get an end chest and give the loot to your bestie, you're down one reward box. Making these changes to crack down on people that use alts is hurting the game for anyone that enjoys party play. Which is what an MMORPG is supposed to be all about. Even the people that like to solo will have to figure out something else to play once all their limits are reached.
With these changes in place, about a good half of my currently active guild has gone back to FFXIV again. And with that MMO changing their free trial to be unlimited and including a good majority of the expansions in the trial, I'm actually joining them this time. I'll never quit Mabinogi, but it doesn't have enough gameplay to be my only MMO anymore. And a good chunk of my guildies are quitting and never coming back to Mabi. And y'all lost a few good whales among them, too.
So please, take the limits off of the NA server. I know KR likes to call us the "cheater server" because we have Ruination/Demolition weapons and Shadow Mission Crystals, but our server isn't even 1/4th of their server population. Please don't think that whatever is working in KR will just work on NA. Materials will be nonexistent on our market, and we can't even have a large social time sink to attempt to grind for it ourselves anymore either with these limits in place.
"When looking at the play patterns of North American Milletians playing Tech Duinn missions, the dev team found that most Milletians who were playing the Elite missions were clearing them fewer than 10 times per week, and around 80% of Milletians were clearing them fewer than 5 times a week."
What the majority of the players, the minnows, do doesn't matter. The whales are the players you need to make happy. Yes, this is casino language, but a free2play game, where the majority of the profits you get and funds to maintain the servers comes from gachapons, you've already set up this game to run like a casino.
Those of us casually enjoying the game for free are less important. The people that like to throw all their "fun" money budget into gachapons, trying to pull a creepy/haunted or spooky/eerie or getting the best new gacha armor, are the players that should be considered when looking at anything related to Tech Duinn.
They are the reason the rest of us are able to enjoy this game for free. Tech Duinn is content the giga whales run when they hit their weekly cap limits for all the other end game content. If they don't have something to run after buying gacha to be meta, then you'll lose a good chunk of your funding, because they won't continue to buy gacha for a game that has no consistent gameplay for them.
Sure, the fashionogi whales will still be here. But you're losing your meta whales, and you should be trying to keep all your whales as happy as possible.
I don't personally like to make financial decisions like this, but I appreciate having a free to play MMORPG, and I'd like the people funding this server to be happy. The stats of how much casuals run Tech doesn't matter here. The few guilds that focus on grinding as much content as possible do.
If I am to criticize the whole post I'd basically go way too offtopic on the matter. So I'll try to voice my opinion into the void regarding the limited runs and tangents regarding it:
1. "When looking at the play patterns of North American Milletians playing Tech Duinn missions, the dev team found that most Milletians who were playing the Elite missions were clearing them fewer than 10 times per week, and around 80% of Milletians were clearing them fewer than 5 times a week. When considering the now-increased probabilities of receiving many of the rewards, we felt that clearing the mission about 15 times was a reasonable level, providing a better experience in clearing without significantly affecting the value of the rewards obtained."
Flawed interpretation of the statistics. And lack of transparency regarding where these numbers really come from. Is this the overall median in the last year? 2 years? 3 years? What does "80% of Milletians..." mean? Does it include people who aren't actively doing them? You know, the type who spend on gacha and stay in Dunbarton ch1 all day? The ones who don't actively participate in this type of content? Are alts also included in the numbers? Why not tell us about the billionaire's bankroll event stats? How many elite runs are made during that time? Because that event shows the playerbase at its maximum potential of farming this particular content.
I'm not the type who spends all day farming techs unless I'm incentivised to do so. Such as the bankroll event. And I'm pretty sure I'm not a minority regarding this. Not to mention, to even do Elite missions you'd need to spend a lot of time farming the passes. Those 5-10 elites per week can have 10-20 Advance difficulty runs spent for the passes. So how do you take in consideration the aspects of player's time, willpower to continue the activity, and the reward? It sounds to me like the numbers analysed got simplified and weren't thoroughly explored.
2. "We have also prepared the methods for Milletians who want to clear missions more by making it possible to clear more than 15 times a week (25 times or more in total) using additional entry passes received through events and Adventurer’s Seal Shop. We are also open to the possibility of gradually easing restrictions when the demand/supply of rewards has stabilized in the future."
At least it's better than a hard cap of runs. With materials earned from the tech runs themselves (adventure seals) to put to good use if I want more runs. But why not keep the expanding cap fully uncapped? What if I have free time some weeks more than others? Why don't I have the proper control over how I should spend my grinding sessions? If we're going to have limited runs, at least give us the ability to keep pushing if we want to beyond the cap, at a cost of course. As of right now, with how inflation is going, Nexon can probably add further than 25 runs to require 1mil gold "passes". I'm sure the whales would be fine with such compromise considering the bankroll event in which they would buy them for 1-2mil each from other players, at least the Feth Fiada ones.
Alternatively, give us the ability to permanently expand our caps. This can be done in various ways, for example total level milestones, or even with gold, as a sort of gold sink combined with a long term investment to satisfy those who want to run beyond the normal cap, who can afford it.
3. "For certain items, the number and the probability of these items appearing in one dungeon run will remain the same regardless of whether it was cleared by one person or multiple people. Once the item’s appearance is decided, who will get the item among the party will be decided by an even probability."
I have to remind Nexon that Mabinogi is a Massive MULTIPLAYER Online type of game. This type of change incentivises people to NOT play with others since it lowers the chance for someone to get their own drop. This effectively turns Mabinogi into a mild social platform, mobile-esque, with a focus on single player if players working together are at a disadvantage regarding the reward. This is not as the landing page puts it "An anime MMORPG of endless freedom...your fantasy life is yours to create".
After brainstorming for a while I can't think of any unique system to make the drops feel fair for all playstyles, be it solo or party oriented. However, I think the billionaire bankroll event was a big step in the right direction. If the event became a permanent feature regarding the reward chests number, it would make for a better system to deter using alts. Sure, it would still reward solo players giving them more chests to open, but it wouldn't penalize group play as harsh as the Re-Fine system does.
This current change is a major catalyst to the limited runs for the worse. One of them would be bad enough, let alone both.
4. "We are also listening carefully to your concerns about situations that impede free play. We will continue to think about which values are most important from a long-term perspective and find solutions that offer enjoyable experiences."
Except for the fact that this topic has been discussed before when it first appeared in KR. And the feedback the players have provided has not been taken in consideration. Since then, people here have been constantly against this type of update.
I think the core problem stands with Nexon KR and the way it handles other regions, at least regarding this game. Most of the balance regarding rewards are taken from a region with a vastly different population size and culture than the NA one. There is barely any form of customization regarding each localization.
In my opinion, there should be some sort of representative or group of people in each Nexon subsidiary, for each region. They should take player feedback in consideration, correlate with the statistics they have behind the scenes and propose changes that benefit said region and customize all kinds of things if it's needed, either by tweaking or not implementing certain updates. This can be done either by existing staff members or a dedicated position, whichever works. These changes should obviously be approved by Nexon KR, but they should be directly addressed why they would refuse said localized changes proposed by each region.
I'm saying all this because, so far, despite what the quote above is saying, the updates that we have prove otherwise, time and time again.