(I'm not sure if anyone else has an issue with this but I just decided to share my thoughts on this topic.)
I've been playing Mabi seriously for a few months now and I can't help but notice something pretty annoying...
So I'm currently at rank 4 Windmill and I noticed something mildly concerning. As a human I'm only getting about 0.06 EXP from a single use of Windmill on defeating a Boss level monster. Which would be fine if not only for the fact I need to then grind it 1500 times, then 2000 times, and then another 2000 times just to get rank 1. This is, of course, without mentioning the fact that this only nets you about 30.00 EXP out of the 100.00 needed.
Tendering potions are also a thing you can use, but that costs
real money to obtain. Even if you do get some occasionally from events it's still not enough.
Even if buffing the amount of EXP is a no-go, at least think about how we'd have to train this. Just to get all 100.00 training points to reach rank 2, I'd need to grind for hours on end just to get it at least 30% full. Considering Windmilling several Strong level enemies only nets you 24.00 EXP after about 40-48 times being used. Which brings on even more grinding with having to kill Boss level enemies 1500 times (750 times with 2X training exp). Which only brings you to about 69.00 total training experience. Then you can kill several Strong level enemies 30 times just to get the rest at a reasonable pace. (Considering you have to defeat Strong level enemies
3000 times just to get 30.00 training EXP.
Sure you can use skills like Puppeteering to make the grind more bearable or maybe even just get a group of friends to help you, sure. That still doesn't solve the underlying issue of days of grinding that people without those luxuries have to go through. Which is a HUGE turn-off for early players that just want an AOE attack to help deal with large groups of enemies. (Which is usually their only option in these cases.)
In conclusion; I think that Windmill is a useful early game skill that should be more accessible to early game players. Putting it behind a huge wall of EXP that only gives a minimum pay-off seems absurd. Considering Windmill can be easily outclassed by many other AOE attacks in the game that require the same amount, if not
less, amounts of grinding.
What does everyone else think?
edit: replaced Awful with Strong in a few places\
cut-down on pointless sentences
Also bringing this in from one of my comments:
"Consider Kunai Storm for instance. It's a move that only requires you to do basically the same thing but with easier pre-requisites. It might have a slightly slower cooldown, but consider the fact it is actually easier to train Kunai Storm, at around rank 1-3, comparatively. It also has better damage overall and can be used at a distance.
Kunai Storm wiki link
Here's the Windmill wiki link if you need it too
Comments
Rank 4
Defeat a powerful enemy. 0.01 3000 30.00
Defeat a very powerful enemy. 0.01 3000 30.00
Defeat a boss-level enemy. 0.06 450 27.00
Attack several powerful enemies. 0.65 40 26.00
Defeat several powerful enemies. 2.50 30 75.00
Math time: 75+26=101
You only need 40 powerful
with combat talent you only need 20
Tendering potion is free
USE THE WIKI
https://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Windmill
https://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Tendering_Potion
also i think they already changed the training for wm. it's alot easier now
Also, since i like WM skill, i use it a lot and before i knew it i mastered that skill and now i'm about to Dan 1 it. I wasn't even using any training bonuses, i purely trained it up from Rank 1 to Dan 1 just by doing dailies and dungeons... Since we know that dungeon monsters mostly end up being "Weakest", then i can say i ranked it by doing Elite/Lord Shadow Missions and some few HM ones too.
Oh I did miscalculate that, oops. I must've read it wrong or something. If the skill is easier to train now I can't imagine what it was like grinding it even with tendering potions. Basically all I was saying is that most players at an early level don't have any good AOE attacks to help deal with large groups of enemies.
Consider Kunai Storm for instance. It's a move that only requires you to do basically the same thing but with easier pre-requisites. It might have a slightly slower cooldown, but consider the fact it is actually easier to train Kunai Storm, at around rank 1-3, comparatively. It also has better damage overall and can be used at a distance.
Kunai Storm wiki link
Here's the Windmill wiki link if you need it too
I also noticed I made the mistake of putting Awful instead of Strong, so I apologize for that.
Okay, this sort of comes across as jaded, sorry to say. Considering you're mentioning things most new players won't be able to do. Unless maybe they get carried by people who have been playing long enough and are at upwards of about 2k or higher TTL. That is, assuming they trained the appropriate skills to deal with large mob groups. Then you need to actually hit and kill the mobs to even get the training EXP, which is highly unlikely if you're running with randoms.
Please leave mid-game training options out of this discussion.
Also, if you're new you should be likely sticking with Combat Talent to start anyway, and typically if you ask a number of players for advice, they'll say to rank Windmill ASAP. Don't forget that players under 1,000 levels get the ability to reset their skills to rank F for free so they can offset that issue with CP to begin with too.
I'm no expert on game design mind you, that's just my two cents. This game is severely outdated and needs some form of an overhaul. Like what they did with the dynamic combat system in 2005.
Also tendering potions come free from saga coupons
If they don't want to waste any ap or can't get boss enemies, then the best way would be to make some friends and borrow some cp gear. That'll put them at negative cp
I'm an elf(they suck at melee) and back before there were talents, I just asked my guild leader to borrow cp gear. It took hours of spamming their method. My cp wasn't low enough to train on foxes and tendering pots were very rare.
You, the player, aren't meant to reach "End Game" in a week either. -_-
Also, here's my two cents. You're making a suggestion to make Windmill easier and you haven't even TOUCHED the most glaring portion of the skill's ranking that would most help your argument.
https://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Windmill#Rank_4 Here's a link to the Wiki Windmill Page. Compare the Giants' training to Humans/Elves and then get back to us.
The Ninja skill Kunai Storm still takes less time to train in comparison. Not to mention you can attack basically anything and get training EXP.
Who cares about what the giants require? If anything it's pretty dumb that they need to grind less to get where humans and elves take three times as long. It just strengthens my point if anything. My points still stand and you still have nothing to show for it. Thank you for your time.
edit: Also @IceCream, we're talking about people new to the game who have no idea what's even going on. At most they've played an MMORPG before. They won't know about these things unless they ask which already sets up a barrier to entry. Which, I say this again with a stronger voice, makes new people leave.
Which is fine considering how outdated this game is. There are WAY better MMO's to play these days. Without all the lag, terrible net-code and awful optimization. I'm really only here complaining because I like this mess of a game. This game was bad even when compared to a lot of MMO's from back in the day. Thank you for replying.
Also, this is probably just me having mastered Engineering and Magic Craft, but Windmill doesn't seem like that much of a problem. I just worry that if you make things too easy, that would drive players away just as much as something being too grindy. They wouldn't see a challenge. =T
While I agree it's unfair that giants have an easier time training combat skills, I think DEV did that for a reason. Considering that Giants mainly rely on physical damage to deal the BIG DAMAGE. It's still way too easy, but it makes logical sense, I guess. DEV doesn't really care about balancing so things like this probably won't be changed anyways. Still doesn't hurt to discuss it.
However, if you look at a lot of apparently "Elf-centric skills", they don't get that same treatment. (link to the Bow Mastery page below for an example) Which is another inconsistency with how DEV balances this game. Me thinks the people in charge of this stuff don't actually care or aren't aware enough to fix it. Which is pretty unfair if you ask me. Why do only giants get special treatment?
While I want this skill to be a little easier to rank for newer players, I also want balancing done to other skills. If Windmill is going to require specific training options, then the other skills should too. Windmill needs adjusting, not exactly being made easier. I realized these things after creating this discussion and doing a bit more research.
The Bow Mastery wiki page.
I've trained elves from rF-r1 in 2 hours with 8x. If the requirements were changed as I said, I could probably lower the time down to 30 mins.
Even at 100, you get that 1.5x exp thing for talent-related skills.
This can change the total number of points for (rank 3 was mentioned earlier) rank's Defeat Multiple strong enemies at once from 60.00 to 90.00.
That 1.5x drastically reduces the minimum number of uses per rank, so I'd definitely recommend that.
And it can stack with reforges if you care about that, but the 1.5x from level 100 should be enough, as the attack multiple combined with the defeat multiple is enough to get to 100.00 exp at most ranks, even 3/2/1.
Of course this requires you to be total level 500 just to access the missions, but it's not like that's hard since you can rebirth every day if you haven't already gotten a character to 1000 yet.
Even then, if you cannot wait until you get to total 500 to access the missions, a Level 2 EXP reforge is obtainable (on headgear) using the weak NPC reforges, and that's enough for 100 on most ranks from the "multiple strong"-type training.
Your argument appears to be predicated on the difficulty a new player would have with ranking Windmill.
The problem is, new players will necessarily be expected to have low CP.
That means that a great many types of mobs will appear as Boss to them, even without CP-reducing items. One particularly useful instance of this would be the Zombies in Tir na Nog, an area you can easily reach in G1, the first major storyline. They have over 2,000 CP, and are quite useful for new players to satisfy their Combat Skill CP requirements on, having low HP (250), a slow movement speed, and as field mobs, a tendency to grow in number the more you defeat.
Your issue, in reality, seems to be that you ranked the wrong skills up first, and boosted your CP too high, given that you mentioned using Tendering potions at all. Anybody who seriously plans to rank most or all of the skills in this game should start with the CP-dependent skills and move on to the other types later. Windmill, in particular, should be one of your very first skills you rank.
If this is the case for you, I suggest a visit to Duncan to reset your skills to rF, and start again.
As far as the training requirements themselves go, they are not anything special. In point of fact, you do not need to kill a single Boss-level enemy after r6 of Windmill, especially after the Baltane Mission update. Once you get to level 60, you can enter into the 'Nowhere to Run' mission. By default, every enemy in there gives at least 4,500 EXP (The Crystal Bear gives much more), and they are relatively weak. Getting to level 100 will net you a Training Experience multiplier of 1.5X, such that r4's 'Defeat Several Powerful Enemies', which would normally only give 75 Training Points, would give 112.5 Training Points.
Given that the 'Defeat Several Powerful Enemies' requirement only requires you to kill 4 Powerful mobs in a single Windmill, you can set your Party Finish Rules to 'Anyone in the Party' so 'Finish' appears above them after you defeat them, pile the bodies up near each other, and Windmill them when you have 4 near each other.
With the Talent boost X2 alone, this should only take you, maybe, 20 minutes per rank to do. The counts for this training requirement do not go above 40, which really means 20 with the talent, even if you don't have a 2X event going on (We do at the moment), any Combat Skill Training potions (They're common), or any Complete Skill Potions (Also common).
Personally, I think the training requirements are too lax. Windmill is a great skill, and this trend towards allowing players to easily finish skills in under a day is getting ridiculous. Skills should take days, at minimum, to fully cap off.
Define "easily". Reaching Tir Na Nog requires beating Barri Black, whereas some (like myself) can't even beat Barri Brown.
Barri Black is a 1-floor iteration of Barri. The most threatening enemy in there is a Wisp, and unless they've changed it since I last went, it was not affected by the dungeon revamp.
So, I guess I would define 'easily' as 'Something that anybody with r1 Smash and a decent rank in Lullaby can clear in 10 minutes'.
Edit:
Looking at the wiki again, it looks like Barri Black is actually easier than Barri Brown.