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Closed Forced Solo Memory Dungeons need to be removed
They are just flat out TERRIBLE pieces of content. And from a story telling point of view, utterly pointless. All they do is serve to be the very antithesis of what Mabinogi advertises to be.
Mabi says you can come and be anything, living a fantasy life. Well let's say you make an awesome bard because you like music. Now let's force you to not only play as someone else other than the character you have put lots of love and effort into, let's make that new person not have any of your skills, stats, or talents! Oh, let's also just completely nuke your hotbars! Just so you can have the fun and joy of having to see what the poor puppet you are forced to inhabit can't do. And they usually can't do anything much.
"But Memory dungeons help tell the story from another point of view" I hear you say. How? How does being forced to play an under equipped, under leveled, under talented character that isn't your own, possibly help with the story? You just crawled through the dungeon. You could have done that on your own character. You would have still run the dungeon which ultimately is just a time sink. Unless there is a cut scene, you running a dungeon as anyone other than your own character is meaningless from a narrative point of view. And even then you could just put in a cut scene and bypass the dungeon all together!
Mabi says you can play with your friends. NOPE! So much of the main story line I have found is FORCED SOLO content only. That is just bad planning and design by the devs and they should feel bad. For this I wish the most horrible pain I know of upon them. May whoever came up with this idea stub their pinky toe daily. Doing this removes the MMO in MMORPG making it just an RPG. And the RP part gets hijacked adding even more shame to whoever came up with that idea.
Clearly the devs know how to scale missions. There are different difficult levels on the shadow missions and regular dungeons. All missions should be scaleable. Anything else is laziness and poor form. While I am on missions in general, piling HP onto monsters is not a substitute for increasing difficulty. It just increases the level of tediousness.
For those of you that made it this far, the reason for this rant is because I am playing this game with my sister. We are trying to do the main story line together but inexplicably can't because raisins apparently. A MMORPG that FORCES solo content. What the fox says about this is that it is foolish at best. Forced multiplayer or single player content never works out that well. Making it optional does. And like I said, scaling is a thing. Anyone I am done ranting now.
Comments
Most of my time with RP dungeons is never that of anger, just boredom and a desire to get it over with. Often because of how easy they are.
I mean sure, some need you to set hotkeys, but that takes literally seconds. The majority of RP missions even give you time to set them.
Heck, a large amount of RP missions aren't even solo. Most of the solo ones are in fact the easiest RP quests out there.
Or some are just long and tedious. Looking at G2 animal form dungeon.
Unless you are talking about the Saga RP quests. Those are a beast of their own and we shall not speak of them.
...the storylines being solo only bit though...honestly kinda depends on the player itself.
A lot of players are strong enough to wipe the floor with everything storyline related, so some might see groups as overkill.
Most of my experience with story bosses is often killing them in 1-5 attacks.
Some also have mechanics that make sense in a solo environment, like G12 Final's Nuadha fight and the use of the feather item.
Although you can do G10 with a royal alchemist for a body shield and do G11 as a group and win in 10 seconds.
Only time you won't do such is G19 and G20 final, but by then you should have all other storylines complete and can just summon a shield with demigod mode and wipe the floor with everything as usual. Only at a slower pace, now enemies might take a 6th attack.
Like I mentioned in my OP, I'm playing Mabi with my sister. The point is to do things together. Sort of hard to do when you are shoehorned into these boring dungeons solo as we are trying to go through the story together. We're on G10 (coming from Gen 1 jumping to Gen 8 because the game decided to just give us those mission) , and we just had to both individually walk Arenen's sorry butt through a dungeon that he honestly shouldn't come within 5000 km of. He's hopelessly underpowered for that dungeon. He has no ranged option, horrible defense, a tiny supply of potions, and no magic at all. It took us a combined 3 hours to do that dungeon. Maybe we're bad and should feel bad for being bad, but again, Arenen is a pathetic little man. Hits from the mobs take out huge chunks of his HP. On my character it would be probably a single HP. You can't taunt to pull in mobs, you can't use a ranged option because you flat out don't have one because you are forced to play a bad character who is under equipped. Your defenses are terrible. Oh and your don't have any damage output when compared to your own character.
And you know what the very best part of the whole dungeon was? That the entire time you suffered through not being your main character was so you could get a short cut scene where you watch Arenen lose what little manhood he had. Honestly, even if you are going to go through all the trouble of forcing a player to go to a dungeon and crawl it, nothing of value from a story telling point of view was gained. You could have just been shown the scene and it still would have the exact same impact.
The forced solo experience as another person achieved nothing. It actually might have achieved less than nothing and incurred a negative value in the pointless time sink that it was.
It's been part of the game since g1, I don't see the need to change it. Actually the new versions are a lot easier than the old RP dungeons when you needed 2-3 people to complete while only the player playing as the "MC" could progress the quest line.
None of the RP are challenging, they just require thinking and calm planning since you aren't able 1 hit kill everything with your own character.
What is: Spamming smash? Defending? Countering?
And controlling aggro, and knowing how to use melee, and...etc.
You keep saying "If only I was my character", but apparently never learned anything while doing such.
The dungeon is actually very easy if you just use what is given to you.
Take your time, plan your approach. Avoid multi aggro at all costs. Don't just rush basic melee.
I had no problems with it, its actually one of the least frustrating RP dungeons in the game.
You almost need to let enemies hit you there. Even if you do die, there is next to no penalty for reviving at the cube/statues.
If you want to see a true nightmare of an RP, see Saga 2 with Treasure Hunter's wonderful gunner dash.
You will lose every inch of sanity you ever had, provided Saga 2's quests did not do that already by that point.
All that said I have no insight on how Nexon runs or what the shape of Mabinogi's code is. Judging by how buggy and old Mabi is the coding could probably use a full renovation (Literally speaking drastically slow/stop content development and create a new engine and build the game up from scratch).
In short the code might be too cluttered to realistically rework the solo memory dungeons.
Unless you understand the context of the story different points of view, it's going to be very one-sided and you won't understand why certain events happened or why certain characters are the way they are. It may sound boring, but think of it this way: it is a challenge for you to find a way to be able to fight outside your comfort zone, which is a problem for a lot of traditional "spec-locked" MMOs. You're normally a ranger? Ok, what if your bows died due to forgetting to be fixed and you only have melee weapons left while in the middle of a dungeon? Again, just think of it as minor challenge instead of plowing through everything just for the sake of getting it done.
To he honest, the solo dungeons are just fine, until you get to things like G19 and G20 (And I'm a vet player who actually had a few issues completing these two generations). That's when the solo stuff gets pretty intense, but that's under assumption that you have done the previous generations to pick up skills/items that are only obtained through generation quests. You have to bear in mind that even as an MMO, almost all stories revolve around one particular 'hero', or even a group of heroes, who do quests, thwart evil, and ultimately save the world. This is pretty much how it is for almost every MMORPG out there. Even WoW still does this for some of their quests, and no one's complaining because it's TEMPORARY, and probably only even done once, which is the general rule for almost all generation quests (Some side quests can be unlocked and done as dailies, but they are usually just "fetch quests"). There are times that there are limitations to simulation the situation for the story, which shouldn't be a problem for most players who are pretty versatile and know techniques within the game to help compensate for the lack of power/gear of the RP character you are 'forced' to play with.
To put it bluntly: NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO PLAY THE GAME SOLO OR IN A GROUP. It is only certain aspects that are solo while others may be party, but that will be based on the content and context of how it is being presented. Trust me, I played with my sister as well when I was pretty active, but both of us knew that there are some things that are solo, but I can support her in different ways, either as a remote reviver if she accidentally dies in a dungeon and I can't reach her, or even fight alongside her if it is possible (Especially during G9 to G12 since I got Royal Alchemist status to help bounce her along the storylines on her squishy elf).
Besides, while there are solo storyline aspects, the rest of the game is pretty much open to both solo and party play, whether you're running around, doing dungeons, exploring, working on life skills, or just hanging around in town.
Smash has a cool down, Defending only stops 1 attack, counter likewise only one attack. Both defensive skills take time to load in, in which time you more often than not get hit because the server always wins over the client. You could whirlwind but that also not only has a load time, you have to click somewhere near you to activate the skill as well when often times you just need it then and there to get some breathing room. When you do get hit it isn't for a hitpoint or 10, it's for 50+. You have about 6 hit before you die and when you die you do take a severe penalty. A reduced overall HP pool. And you only have 20 hp pots. And saying "Don't get hit" isn't legitimate advice. You are going to get hit because you cannot perfectly control the situation at all times. Something will get you. Especially the archers.
Okay I will concede that you can't run in and melee. What other options do you have? Tell me what is the ranged option to pull a single target? What about a magic option? Do you have any way to recover wounds? How do you pull a single target in melee when they are all clustered together? By spending 10-20 minutes per room as you hope one wanders away from the pack? Smash doesn't always 1 hit kill either. Nor does a normal attack combo.
And yes I say my normal character would have an easy time of it because I'm prepared. I took the time to get good armor, a good shield, a good sword, and a suite of talents and skills that let me handle situations. I have javelins as a ranged option on top of magic bolts. I can heal myself with magic, I carry bandages with me because I know I am going somewhere dangerous and could get hurt.
And Saga 2 and I are not on speaking terms right now. I have finished 1-4, can't muster the will to do 5, and the Prologue is dead to me.
The challenge argument isn't a good one. I mean what is just handicapping yourself for no gain.I mean, you might as well tell people to spend a day of their lives not using their hands at all, just their feet. Why? For the challenge! No a proper challenge doesn't force constraints on you, it lets you come at it however you want but still require brains.
And I fail to see any value or context that was added by forcing the player to play the dungeon as Arenen just to see a cut scene of his gf sitting by a campfire with the scumbag Voight. I know Voight is a scumbag. I know Voight and Arenen used to be friends but then things went south over a girl. I already knew all this from talking to the NPCs and putting it together. I learned nothing new. They could have just played the cut scene and it still would have had the same narrative impact as it did. Only you know, you wouldn't have had to play as Arenen. If I wanted to play a sad pathetic human I would have played my alt human who has done nothing in his life but turn in fish and Admiral boxes. He's about the same level as Arenen and might do just as well.
And I have to say that there is indeed someone forcing me, and anyone else who wants to continue the main story line, to play solo, the content creators. They designed the content to be RP solo only and to pass through that part of the content you must do it solo. Unless there is another way to continue the story without completing the solo only portions of it, you absolutely have to do it this one certain way. If you don't do it by their way you are cut off from that content and all other content gated behind it. Ergo, you are indeed forced to do it that way.
And in regards to seeing things from another pov, again do it as cut scenes/flash backs. Or have your character put on a disguise and limit the actions you can do. Ie have a section where you have to use only guns. For gun users it will be a breeze, for others it is something new to learn on the fly for that one section only. But you do it as you.
I will concede that doing an RP mission as someone else can be good IF something is gained from it. Take Saga 7 where you have to go assassinate King Oven Mitts. You play a gun wielding chick with maxed out everything and this serves to show you, the player, how awesome gun can be and might spark your interest in guns. There you get the narrative side of being the evil assassin instead of goodie two shoes, and you get to experiment with what at the time might be a new weapon type.
Another good example is in Gen 1 when you play as each other trio therefore showcasing archery, magic and sword and board to what would be at the time pretty new players. Gen 10 is old and thus far the RPs have only increased my disdain for slow puny humans and Arenen in particular.
At that point in the game, the power of those characters seemed unfathomable to the never rebirthed, paid content only player I was (At the time, you got a week of the premium when you started, and most junk was locked behind that wall.)
We've grown to the point where even in saga when the RP characters are blowing through everything in an effort to show how far /they've/ advanced. That these NPCs still can't measure up to our power.
I'm sorry new players can't get that feeling of immense growth from point A to point B, since they already seem to start at about 20% of the total growth as a player, and steamroll all those dungeons the RP characters slog through.
Most of the RPs just aren't worth the time they take to do as the characters anymore. They've lost most of their charm.
The G2 animal RP is important, it was always meant to be a bit of a challenge. The problem is they changed it so you cannot gain skill experience in RPs anymore. Meaning you can never rank your novice counter up to F. That particular RP has only gotten more difficult over time.
Honestly, I don't really care what happens to the RPs anymore, I have my memories.
Regarding RP dungeons, Marith hit the nail on the head with the part about them being way stronger than us for the most part, back then. It was actually exciting to play as these characters, not just because they were legendary figures of the main storyline, but because they were so OP. Not only that, but it made you feel pretty accomplished when you defeated enemies like the Dark Lord, whom even those heroes had trouble dealing with. What I'm saying here is that RPs are a useful story-telling/world building tool - yes, they show us the character's point of view, but they also show us what these characters are like compared to ours.
I still think we could use more stuff like this. And not just in the main storyline either; I'd like to see more optional RP quests from random townsfolk, like that one with Walter and Tracy. Stuff that gives us insight into their daily lives, and gives us something to compare our characters to. However, I do think they could be done better. At least in main storyline RPs, which we're forced to do, RPs should only be interesting characters with interesting perks. I know we've already gotten to the point where every RP character has to have capped stats at least to contend with us, but maybe they could have unique skills which we don't have access to, or maybe they could be responsible for protecting a party of RP characters (think of something like an Yvona RP, wherein you have to protect a group of adventurers or something).
About the forced Solo thing, I kind of agree. I miss the days where we could do generations with others if we so chose. It would make perfect sense in Divine Knight questlines, since we have to take on Girgashiy. However, I also don't like having to get people to do a generation to get something (that G10 RP with Ilsa and Voight). So I think it would be nice if they would mix it up a bit between generations. Each one doesn't have to be the same thing over and over again.
And that they didn't make us solo the 2nd Mores RP as Sheila.
I'm sure that would've been... fun...
G19 and G20 felt like a breeze compared to that.
How did the Voight and Ilsa RP take that long!?
Get Voight the 1v1 things with Smash or something, get Ilsa to either grab excess aggro with LB and play dead, or use her LB to stun enemies to allow Voight to chain smash.
Even before melee loading times were instant, this wasn't "hours" hard.
Off-tangent story time:
This reminds me of the time an old guildmate raged on how hard G2's Ciar/Nature(?) dungeon where you RP as a wolf. He was in the dungeon for 12 hours (probably an exaggeration) unable to figure out how to do it. Then he spend even more hours on the boss battle. No matter how many members of the guild said to use counterattack against the boss, he insists that he is using "counterattack" by hitting the boss after attacking (what the hell?).
Yeah fight smarter is they key to RPs.
Back in the day RP characters were stronger than yourself
Well when i was newbie i was doing that Voight RP with my bf before Close Combat revamp and it was a HUGE pain. It took us like 40 minutes or so to finally clear it and i think we failed like twice before that lol.
Now 2 weeks ago i helped a newbie to clear that Voight RP. I was pretty much prepared to be destroyed, but instead i one hit smashed them all... That was surprisingly too easy.