Kroene

I think there is an importance on how the grinding is executed. Nowadays there aren't really payoffs to have such tedious requirements for training. Besides of you dont have the gaming skill or experience to play mabi it really doesnt matter if your ranks are high if you dont know how to use them in combat. If your ranks are low you can still wipe the floor with ninja if you can play the class properly.

I just don't think this is such a pressing issue as people make it to be. There are legitimate changes nexon can make to combat to make skill botting to make it less relevant, but they and everyone else seem to have no problems with the skill requirements outside of those who bot.

The reason I brought that up was to show that grindy does not = bad. And you can't blame Mabinogi's diminishing playerbase on grindy skill training when the game has consistently gotten easier.

Nexon can make botting less relevant by clamping down on botters. That's all they need to do. A significant portion of this community defends botting by saying training is too tedious, but there are no skills grindy enough to justify this argument. They are botting. Botting is against the rules. They should get punished.

With x2 training, Smokescreen takes approximately 7 hours to bring from r2 to r1. That's only assuming you're using the skill at the precise second the cooldown ends.

The solution is not to R1 Smokescreen cause it's dumb. Or you can wait for an event with 2X training or 2X potions.

By the time you R2 Smokescreen, you should have R1'd everything else but Shadow Cloak and Sakura Abyss

But didn't you just say that no skill is too tedious to justify it? You're now basically admitting they are.

Not at all. One of the biggest reasons to train Ninja is for the prestige of the Master title. You don't need R1 Smokescreen for that.

2x Events and event potions are more than common enough to be considered a regular part of the game.

Also, these botters are not just using their bots for just R2->R1. They are afk training the whole thing

I think there is an importance on how the grinding is executed. Nowadays there aren't really payoffs to have such tedious requirements for training. Besides of you dont have the gaming skill or experience to play mabi it really doesnt matter if your ranks are high if you dont know how to use them in combat. If your ranks are low you can still wipe the floor with ninja if you can play the class properly.

I just don't think this is such a pressing issue as people make it to be. There are legitimate changes nexon can make to combat to make skill botting to make it less relevant, but they and everyone else seem to have no problems with the skill requirements outside of those who bot.

The reason I brought that up was to show that grindy does not = bad. And you can't blame Mabinogi's diminishing playerbase on grindy skill training when the game has consistently gotten easier.

Nexon can make botting less relevant by clamping down on botters. That's all they need to do. A significant portion of this community defends botting by saying training is too tedious, but there are no skills grindy enough to justify this argument. They are botting. Botting is against the rules. They should get punished.

What if a person replies 'yes.' How, then, would you tell whether or not they are actually botting or being sarcastic?

I think your best bet in that scenario would be to call them a "big fat liar" and then CC

I usually get straight to the point.

Me: "Howdy"
Person: (no response)
Me: "Are you a bot?"

If you ask them right away there's no chance of scaring anybody. Or making them think you're a creep

There is hardly a difference between auto-skill training and botting. They both come with the same outcome of endless grinding. These people can get the seals and bot at night. They just use the seals on things that can't be botted. The adventure shop seals are terribly slow to use as well and aren't an effective form of skill-leveling unless you are ranking something like enchant. Most seals are part of the cash shop; which is inherently pay2win. A lot players do not have the luxury to pay for pots or skill seals.

In a sense people purposely don't rank skills UNLESS there is a 2x event. Why would they purposely spent more time then they need to if a 2x event is around the corner? Skill training should not be the only aspect of the game, and spending endless hours is just not possible for most people.

I think personally think enjoyment is important in gameplay. If these players are resorting to bots to enhance these skills, it means they do not enjoy the training aspect of the game, but they continue because of other contributing factors.

There is a huge difference between auto-skill training and botting. Auto-skill training is an actual part of the game, intentionally implemented by Nexon. Botting is the use of an illegal program/macro to train a skill in a way that Nexon does not want you to.

Grinding has been a staple in almost every MMORPG to date. If you don't want to grind, you should stick to games like CS:GO or Overwatch where the only downtime is in waiting lobbies. All of this negativity about grinding is out of place when its a major component of the genre.

And it's not even necessary to bot these skills. There are plenty of things you can do in Mabinogi without R1 Shadow Cloak. These players just want to obtain high ranks without working for them, to the point where they would use illegal tools to do so. Why you guys are trying to justify this is beyond me.

Mabinogi is having a big problem with people count as it is. When there are no people (even those who use bots now and then) it does not attract people (the reason I have left). And skill training pots is the least of the profits they get. The main income is gatcha, sales of cosmetic items and pets, and "shopkeeper sales". If they would be having cheats that would allow them to get all the goods for free, then yes, I see why it should be their priority, but having a bot does not harm them since they will invest either way, but for other different things.

I have never purchased a single thing for skills, because it is a waste of NX; should I be banned now?

Training potions and tradeable skill training seals are valuable commodities obtained primarily from the Cash Shop. Tradeable skill training seals can go for well over 1mil on Mari. Ninja training potions are >500K, and this price would easily double if Nexon clamped down on botters.

Botters deflate the value of these items by lowering the demand for them. So Nexon is losing out on potential money because of these botters.

You say that using a hack to obtain goods for free is a serious matter. Botting is essentially the same thing. Let me explain.
For legit players, leveling a skill requires an investment: time/effort or a training potion (money). Botters bypass this investment and obtain a higher rank for free.
From a fair play standpoint, there is no difference between this and:
- collecting gold from a bunch of gold-farming bots, then using that money to buy a training potion
- using a hack to generate a training potion in the player's inventory
In either scenario, the player uses an illegal tool to obtain something (time or money) that he/she didn't work for.