Danievictria

Though I do miss how quiet Tarlach was, I think the merge was a good thing for the community overall. It brought a lot of players who had wandered away back, and the larger population means it's much easier to find people to help you gain certain "you must party up with someone to learn this one" skills...Looking at you, Fusion Bolt and Mana Shield! (Really, locking skills behind an extroversion wall. What's next? A skill that requires you to wear a full set of clothes colored with blinky dyes to get it?!)

Plus, since the merge, I've been seeing new guilds forming (or old guilds re-forming) non-stop. It's bringing people together, which is a good thing in this kind of game.

Tisk, tisk, tisk. This thread RIGHT HERE.

I mean, pranking the AFKers maybe once in one week could be considered acceptable...but I have a feeling there's more than a few cans of spam involved in this mischief...

Let's go one step further: Have all of your bags in one tabbed window, with a scroll bar for bags that are larger than the size you have your window set to. Then, you can stow the "Bags" window beneath your main inventory window for easy access to your items and to easily keep track of your inventory space without filling the screen with minimized bag windows or constantly having to open and close bags to conserve screen space.

Kensamaofmari wrote: »

Crims wrote: »

Can we stop getting age pots plaz?

But they're ageless cosmetics.

I've ended up with a huge stockpile of them from the Parcheesi board thing. It's not even worth trying to sell them, since everyone and their grandma has a bunch already...

Personally, I'm not a fan of the glut of expiring items either. I mean, I keep getting training potions from the event for skills I'll never train on the character I'm using for it. And when I did get some music training potions, the expiration date on them means I need to use them up BEFORE the Starlet hero rebirth goes up or toss them.

Hammers of Proficiency or Durability are no problem for me, since I still have plenty of non-upgraded weapons and gear to use them on real quick (helped me get a fully normal upgraded Wooden Sword...which isn't all that impressive, really, but I delight in it for the sheer frivolous novelty of the thing...plus, it's one that dropped from a Metal Skeleton, so it's got a few attack points more than one you'd get from fishing, which makes it a pretty nice early-game weapon at 22 minimum, 40 max attack...plus, I ended up with an intelligence reforge on it, which is useful for my mage). But with stuff that would be nice to save, like upgrade stones or training potions, the expiration dates are a bummer.

Lutetium wrote: »

Danievictria wrote: »

You know, the "RPG" in "MMORPG" stands for "Role-Playing." Just putting that out there.

Yes as I'm sure anyone with a triple digit IQ does, but I understand your instinctual reaction to talk down to me in response to a comment made in jest due to the off topic nature of that which it was in response to.
However regardless of that Mabinogi is an action sandbox MMO not an MMORPG. Mabinogi has some RPG elements like the stats system, but you can slap a character level on a first person shooter as well, it does not suddenly become an RPG. An RPG involves above all else choices an consequences, Mabinogi as a sandbox lacks these things, at no point are you actually role playing in the game outside of self imposed restrictions, which are unrelated to game design, Mabinogi does however contain some "Illusion of choice" in some of it's storylines, moreso with the recent ones but your choices are, as the phrase implies, an illusion and have no effect on the outcome of the story or influence on the world because the game is a sandbox which must remain in a singular state for all players so they can go through the linear storylines too.
The closest things to actual choices with consequences in Mabinogi are which race you play, and if you're a human which transformation you decide to use, an (MMO)RPG would involve those sorts of choices throughout the storylines and the world, in Mabinogi if you cut down a tree the tree never disappears, it simply "runs out" of wood and eventually regenerates, keeping the world in a static state for the next player who wants to gather wood.

Danievictria wrote: »

And, yes, while for some players the meta and min-maxing their character to perfection is the end-all-be-all of the game, others do play it for the thrill of adventure and to play out their fantasy of being on an epic magical journey as *insert classic RPG character type or mix of classic character types here*.

That's an artificial restriction imposed by the player while playing the sandbox, and not a game mechanic of Mabinogi, a discussion of gameplay balance needs to involve discussing the actual balance of the gameplay and not arbitrary self imposed restrictions the players may or may not impose on themselves.
I personally respect anyone's right to play any video, tabletop, or otherwise game however they wish but those choice can't be accounted for when balancing a game that simply is not designed to cater to that sort of gameplay where the player has choices to make.

Danievictria wrote: »

The only character type not properly represented in this game? Rogue. What are rogues known for? Stealing, stealth, and...say it with me now...dual-wielding daggers! If we can't get a proper rogue talent, the least we can get is Elves dual-wielding daggers.

The only? What about necromancers?! How about Deckers? Where are the corporations to even break into?!

Danievictria wrote: »

Besides, if you think dual-wielding is such an inferior strategy, what should it matter to you if one more race can do it anyway? It may not be optimal if you play solely based on numbers, but it's fun and it makes people feel bad-oars.

Because Mabinogi is an action sandbox not an RPG and the game mechanics for the supposed "melee oriented" races should actually reflect that by them having some sort of unique advantage in the same way Elves, the "archery and magic" should have legitimate advantages in those skills to make up for their lacking performance in others from a purely game balance point of view.

Danievictria wrote: »

As they say, sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good...

I only offer my opinions as a video game developer, published author, and avid player of role playing games in various formats, I don't claim "perfection" and as a proponent of free speech and open debate I welcome your disagreements with me, condensation included, and am willing to discuss them, and banter in return, in places where they are on topic and relevant, but the simple fact is this thread is a discussion of videogame mechanics and their balance in relation to other mechanics, and not a discussion of roleplaying inside the confines of a sandbox where it has no effect on the actual mechanics so I don't believe it's on topic to discuss that here.

Sorry if I ruffled your feathers a bit with my snark. And, yes, I forgot Necromancers, but I was thinking mainly of the go-to classic character archetypes: Mage, Cleric, Warrior, Ranger, Bard, and Rogue. Not so much their sub-archetypes, like Gunner, Necromancer, Adventurer, etc. As I said in my original post, I do definitely think that Elves need more magic support, but a little more support for their under-utilized stealth potential would be appreciated too. They are the quickest race, they are the squishiest race, and they have an innate stealth ability in Hide. If they could just dual-wield daggers (with some kind of special bonus added to their version of dual-wielding, as I mentioned above with giving them the highest dual-wield crit chance or a higher chance of inflicting bleed) and get access to Hide in combat (as an advanced skill from dual-wielding), they could make near perfect rogues.

And, yes, from a pure numbers perspective, dual-wielding has never been optimal, but as a game developer I'm sure you know that there's more to a game mechanic (and game balance) than just what's under the hood. How a mechanic feels to use is also very important. If the most supported way to play is not also the most fun, while the most fun way to play is poorly supported, players will be unhappy with the state of the game. Elves get more support for Archery, but Archery is not fun...at least not on the NA servers. It's clunky, slow, and the latency screws up your accuracy. Magic is more fun because even though there are charge times involved, your aim is 100%, the gameplay flows more smoothly, and the flashes, spell effects, screen shake, and sound effects make casting feel really satisfying. Melee is also more fun than Archery in this game because whether you're using a sword and shield, two weapons, a zweihander, or a mace, the combat feels fluid and your hits connect as they should. In fact, when most people cry out for the races to be balanced better, what they really want is more developer support for the more fun way to play and to make what's already there more fun as well.

For instance, the base human movement speed is...well, not fun. Pets, pots, and abilities like Final Hit, March Song, and Anchor Rush can mitigate it...but it's still pretty bad. In terms of creating balance through imbalance by giving humans the weakness of the slowest movement speed, while Giants are bleh Mages and Elves are the worst in-fighters, it looks good on paper. But, how it feels in-game, for the average player behind the keyboard...it feels terrible, so it makes humans seem not "equally unequal," but "broken"--in the bad way, not the fun way. And, yes, there is a way to make imbalance fun...but it has to be done in a way that doesn't just look good on paper, but feels good to the player too. Players shouldn't feel like their favorite race or class is neglected, or like they are being punished by the game for not playing a specific race or class, or like the game is trying to herd them into a playstyle that they do not find enjoyable because there is little or no support for what they do enjoy. (This, of course, is why there are also lots of complaints about the DPS-Over-Tactics direction newer high-level content has gone into of late.) Fun and mechanical balance are not divorced from each other, but rather two halves of the same whole. If something is perfectly balanced but not fun, players will complain or leave. If something is fun but poorly balanced, people will also complain or leave (though, because it's at least fun until the craters in the balancing really start getting on everyone's nerves, people will stay a bit longer).

I get where you're coming from on a pure numbers perspective, but player psychology is also important--how the game feels, how players view the game they're playing (a role-player versus a PVPer versus a hardcore endgame raider, and so on), and how well the game meets or exceeds a player's standards and expectations in terms of the game's genre. The man behind the curtain doesn't matter if the big head on stage fails to impress.