MabiPro: The Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience

Hide everything behind a paywall? That's only for people who don't have time, are lazy, or are just stupid. I played for years, never gave a dime to nexon, never will. I don't even use reforges. I can solo MA, not even get hit. I can solo forest purification, no deaths, which is harder than MA imo. Even scathach lord, i'd solo that if it let me in alone. Pay to win? Yeah. Pay to play? No. Just git gud as they say. Even when i die, i typically keep 10 guardian stones and 10 nao stones on me, just from daily crap; adventure seals and saga coupons. Game's a joke. Despite my best effort though, if i don't take advantage of cash features like reforges, my damage is still 1/10 of other players. It's demoralizing and very frustrating.

This is what you're essentially asking. Not the extremities that nexon currently has, but you want to creep into that territory. You can want that, but i do not, and i will vehemently object to it, as that's the primary reason i quit. Dull as crap now and effort means nothing.

There won't ever be a wipe. We would be throwing away over 20,000 hours of progress made by players. There is absolutely no way it would go over well.

The rates are not set in stone and may change at some point, but if they do, we aren't going to mess with any progress that was already made at higher rates.

The combined playtime of all characters is what exceeds 20,000 hours

They should leave the game the same. Plus it's not like people are getting to level 70 in 10 mins with this 2x training thing.

This explains it perfectly, but the main flaw is that tedium isn't achievement on any level.
Oh, you started breakdancing inside a clump of slow moving weaklings 500 times instead of 250? Wow man, you should get a medal!

I can't honestly think of any skill rank (or level climb, while we're at it) that isn't entirely composed of tedious busywork, besides the book ranks. The idea of feeling a positive sense of achievement from sitting in a ditch and pressing 5, or failing to gather materials, for 4 hours at a time, is astoundingly backwards to me. Wouldn't it be more rewarding to advance your mastery of a skill by actually doing something of note, if you're supposed to be notable for it? The skills that deal with books do this brilliantly, since you would normally only get those through an actual achievement of some sort.

You've already got the grinding aspect down with gaining levels and gathering up AP, so choosing not to defend "kill 10 wolves" as a progression mechanic honestly shouldn't be a hard decision here.