MabiPro: The Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience

Should we focus on LESS content and MORE enhancing the MabiPro private server experience?

Since few people have addressed it, I would like to start by saying LESS NEW CONTENT AND MORE ENHANCING THE MABIPRO PRIVATE SERVER EXPERIENCE!

Let me clear misconception and clarify exactly what side I'm on. New content is not wrong. It's almost unavoidable. However, my side is that the raids and the quests are too early in the game to be considering. I'm just saying that if it has the possibility to become like official Mabi, I have to say something and to people who joined for the MabiPro experience, this stance has changed MabiPro's appearance drastically.

Now, to be fair I love Port Cobh but it's just an empty town at the moment. And I love development. I'm not even going to stop people from making new content. I don't want to appear like someone who complains about anything and everything. I don't want to be "MUH CONTENT" or "MUH AUTHENTIC MABIPRO PRIVATE SERVER EXPERIENCE" I just want to say that this is a time in MabiPro where decisions will make a really big impact for the future and we need to think methodically, work together and come out with something new and old players can participate in. Something that will benefit everyone in the long run. Not just end game. Not just newbies.

Everyone. Even your future babies.

What are your thoughts?! What has raids offered to the game as a whole? Will it be a positive or a negative influence?

Even if we keep the new content and just begin focusing the enhancement process that's cool too

Raids? I've done black herb. My character, still a bit early. I would estimate needing about 400-600 more levels, before i'm confident of holding my own properly. For that reason, the stuff intended for after black herb, i have flat out not done.

As for new content, it is my understanding that different staff members work on different aspects/regions. Such as, i believe cor region was all jade, and i think vales region has been astra.

Yes, there are things i'd like to see before a bunch of new content (pot stack size increased) and probably some things i'd be pleasantly surprised that others have in mind.

For these reasons, i'm going to abstain from voting for now. With the way things are getting worked on, i'm fine with a casual approach, and a little complaint here and there about what i'd like to see. GMs made a separate chat to help with more development, so i'd give it a couple weeks and see how things smooth out since we had a nice sized update recently.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods

I can't really vote one way or the other but if I had to choose one then enhancement because that's easier to implement than new content. We don't want to add too much junk and become Official ver 2.0 though.

Here is a question, what do you consider to be an enhancement? As far as I'm concerned, new content is an enhancement. I'll be perfectly honest, the nostalgia of classic mabinogi wore off a very long time ago for me, the main reason I still play on this server is for the new content. Now, new content needs to stay balanced with the rest of the game, we don't want large parts of the game to become pointless to run.

I want to make sure players like the idea of new towns and new currency before going all in on it. It's hard to do that when you have no idea what the community's reaction will be. This isn't a one and done update, more will come in the future to help enhance the experience., of course, this includes Port Cobh and the new dungeons.
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I am Astra.

So, I wanted to comment on this especially in regards to the A1S2 content and raid. I've been playing this server for well over a year now and I can quite honestly say the raid has given many end game players, like me, incentive to play the game. It's fun, rewarding and quite frankly one of the best updates Mabi-Pro has had to me personally (and I think to most end game players).

I can very easily explain why this is the case, and why even if you can't really enjoy the experience right now, you will greatly appreciate this update once you hit end game. End game mabinogi is stale. You can run peaca int, yes, but the novelty wears off pretty fast when really there's nothing new or experimental about them. The raid that has been introduced has some interesting concepts that it explores, can be done by a LOT of people and the way loot works encourages this. The summons present in the caves, the fact everyone gets rewards from the bosses that spawn, all of these point towards party play. I think I have had more fun the past few weeks of playing mabi pro than I have in the entire time I've played mabinogi, and that's not some kind of exaggeration.

Pretty much all of A1S1 was geared towards early-mid game players. Most of the custom missions have scaling difficulty and even within A1S2 you have Black Herb and the custom quest lines which can be done by early-midgame players. A1S2 is really the only update geared towards end-game players, and without content like this I think a lot of us would end up getting bored and leaving.

That's not to say though that all content will be like this. Like I said, the majority of the content has not been geared towards end game players, but rather made to be accessible to everyone. The thing is, when you do reach end-game, you will want goals to work toward. If there are no updates that cater for this then end-game becomes feeding your ego, doing boring life skills, and farming for remaining enchants to get best gear in slot. Not much of that is particularly fun, so rather than viewing the raid as inaccessible it should be viewed as a goal to work towards, because without them end-game goals, why would you bother to invest time into your character or make it stronger?

So to answer your question, I think raids have been nothing but a positive addition. It was experimental, creative and brought a lot of players together to do runs who otherwise would solo content in order to progress their character. It pushed the boundaries of what we thought were possible and gave end-game players some much needed content to work through and if that isn't enhancing the Mabi-Pro player experience, then I don't really know what is.

I find your question difficult to understand, mostly 'cause I agree with Flandre: "new content is an enhancement". Yes there is a lot of things that can be 'enhanced' in the existing content of G13 Mabinogi, and the GM's have done and are still doing a good job of working on those. But by only enhancing existing content a game does not grow. Now that Mabi.Pro has been around for almost one and a half years there is a need for growth.
Remember what happened when no new content was released for over a year in EU?
And with the past content updates A1S1&S2 the game has offered a lot of new things to do, new goals to work towards and overall has been some of the most fun I have had in Mabinogi in general.
I think that if you want more "enhancement" you need to be more clear on what should be enhanced, you can even help out with the actual enhancing by joining the dev team.

The bits quoted, i feel apply to me heavily. To keep the rambling minimal, i feel that as an early 500 total, i fall in the mid-level category. I soloed the semi for black herb questline, and we cleared black herb with a party of 5. Honestly speaking, a healer, an ice spear user, few people not afraid to wm and have decent dmg, and some other hybrid is plenty sufficient. That will cover any immunities, due to players not having excessive health typically, healers can easily keep up and can effectively counter any magic type skills as the players won't get wounded, and the IS user can keep you out of some tight spots if you protect him/her. If you're willing to go through a lot of pots, you don't even need to be that strong for this quest line, just need to pay attention to AI and team mates, and make the most of your teamwork.

Having something to look forward to, that i hope is capitalizing on the teamwork aspect, and expecting you to have good damage, is an incentive to train. More of a proper and rewarding late-mid target area, would be great though, to fill what i believe is a void. At the moment, once you hit 300, you have access to HM Dungeons and Adv SMs by now, but now your next major goal is likely HM SMs, which are 1k.... I figure tackling anything tougher than black herb, before you hit that point, is likely foolish unless you expect to be carried. Which leaves me feeling there's a gap, once y ou hit 600-999 range, where the player is going to grow disillusioned for a bit believing there's nothing to do but skill train and grind for a while.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods

I only have overwhelmingly positive things to say about the new content that's been released, specifically with regards to the A1S2 update containing raids.

I think what's important to remember when implementing any change to this server is that it should not change the essence or feel of the g13 Mabinogi experience. I certainly think A1S2 does not change the feel and only expands the world we get to play in while maintaining the same core mechanics and approach to the game.

A big problem that actually exists in g13 Mabinogi, like others have suggested, is lack of endgame. It is really fun for anyone in endgame or even mid-end game players to be able to consume this content that works in parallel with the rest of the content. The main thing is that it isn't making anything obsolete and it is not by any means exclusive. The cave raid and the spiral hill boss both strictly encourage community involvement with the way the reward distribution works. In our cave runs we have pulled in so many members from the community because it can only help, and why wouldn't we involve other people when we can.

Even if some content is somewhat exclusive like the Unholy Bouquet, which requires multiple endgame players in the party and is mechanically intensive, it is positive to have this sort of content to work towards as an early game player.

Some of the other things I'm seeing mentioned are dead zones in progression such as the gap from 500-1k where advance missions are trivial due to our server's AP growth rate. That's another problem on its own, but personally I spent a lot of time during that period just gearing myself and hunting enchants and such. For me that was fun, and actually I think there's a lot to work on during that time because it's around then that you start finishing your core archetype skills and can start working on different life skills or having fun with different trees.

In either case, I think the criticism of the new A1S2 content is not very well deserved as I think it complements the game well and was generally very well implemented from a design perspective. It's also worth noting that on development teams it's often not a question of "if people are working on x it means they can't work on y". Different personnel have different skillsets and can work on different aspects. Just because someone is working on new content doesn't mean no one else is working on QoL improvements or other. Just my 2 cents.

Well, most new content has made old content obsolete or changed core aspects of the original mabi. Few examples are how rafting/exploring around cor for explo xp is basically dead due to the new explo level locations, certain items/enchants introduced has made old locations where they come from/inferior versions come from obsolete. Cypress from the swamps is a good example although there are many more, used to be 1m, almost pretty much auction only as metus was hard as balls (even though I got one cypress from there), now its worth like 200-300k and NO1 buys from auction anymore.

I'm not saying these changes are bad per se, but it is very subjective whether they are:
1. good
2. should happen on a g13 server that's supposed to be ''old school''

And my personal opinion is that most changes have been good and should have happened (albeit some are questionable like how easy the dungeon is where cypress comes from and how often it drops). Although this opinion can differ for others, since I personally do not care for the ''old school'' besides retaining the old combat system perhaps. All I care about is a balanced mabi that's fun to play, and that doesn't involve P2W reforges/buying tons of OP sleep/heal/stun pets etc. (and a mabi where I have decentish ping), which is why live sucks and why I prefer this server much more. I personally welcome most additions live had, as long as they are balanced. If the GMs could magically take some of the skills from live and tune their power to be in line with what we have right now I'd be down for it for example.

I have to agree with other posters. I'm a newbie but I have played A1S1 and really enjoyed it. I feel like its implementation doesn't detract from the G13 experience in any way, it feels like it could be an actual part of the base game if I didn't know any better. Major props to the devs who worked on that (if anyone else other than Jade? idk).

Adding new content, as long as it doesn't outdate older content, is always a plus - especially when it fills a gap left by the base game. Since this is a private server, pushing out new content would take longer than if you had an entire company behind you. With that in mind, it just seems more logical to preserve content that is already developed by tweaking drop tables and exp gain for older content as new things are slowly added, to keep up with the new additions. Power creep is always and issue too though, and should be kept in mind.

So I guess... to answer your question, I think both are necessary to create a well-balanced but growing game.

An awesome post, thank you. Specifically the reason "Anything really" is in the poll option.

For more clarification for everyone else, I never said to remove raids. I'm going to address everyone who is replying to me in a single post to save time.

To Flandre.
Yeah, you're right. I did say new content is unavoidable but maybe I should have also said it was interchangeable. However, that isn't what I said so at the time I was referring to the people who joined for the private server experience. I'm not saying you're incorrect. I'm trying to avoid being "MUH PRIVATE SERVER EXPERIENCE" while also trying to make a point across. Maybe to help distinguish the difference between enhancement and content is not to think of nostalgia but gameplay experience. So without dragging it any longer, as everyone is probably already thinking, as long as it contributes to the gameplay positively, anything really goes. Content or enhancement.

Hi Astra.
MabiPro is epic! Appreciate the effort. In the hopes of not criticising too much I didn't want to go into any details but I hope you guys continue making content for the game and enhancing anything you need.

Lovebruehuehue.
I'm not a developer so I'm trying not to criticise beyond what I'm able to understand. I'm not saying something should be changed specifically. The more of both enhancement and new content is ideal really. However, there are areas that are lacking improvement as there will always be and the reason I made this thread is simply to get people thinking. I hope I am not misconstrued.

To everyone else:
Thank you and to add to this discussion, I hope new content and enhancements are added to the game more and more! The thing is, Mabi is a damaged game that will probably take lifetimes to fix. Probably better to make a new game. What makes MabiPro such a great game is the community and the development that everyone is working hard together to contribute. So rather than criticising a disabled person I think it's best to offer as much support as necessary. Pardon the metaphor I just wanted to add my feelings.

I'm happy that everyone more or less agrees with each other and believes that the new content is positive

To compare based on a much smaller scale, it is honestly better to use a model from something people are familiar with. I have warcraft 3 installed, years ago i found a final fantasy tactics map i liked, which was discontinued. It had a good base setup and was not protected, so i opened it myself to edit it. While i didn't change the terrain or anything, i did rebalance all the enemies, added a few basic characters you could hire that wouldn't be on the level of your hero, but still have unique aspects that felt similar to mabi in that they had basic black or white magic, with cast times to go with them. I even added my own custom sniper type hero. I edited enemy ai as well, because there was one job in the map that was just bullcrap and involved nothing short of nuking the whole stage, and the AI didn't have the same requirements to reach it as you did, they could get it much easier, and when you're just having fun but wanted a decent AI, they could quickly break the experience.


The point in all that is, i spent a fair bit of time on the map, (no i don't have it anymore sadly) not because it was warcraft or what i could do with the editor, but because it was based on FFT and was fairly easy to edit it as it already had a setup for everything in place, which i could tweak or refine on. It may have been warcraft, but it still had a final fantasy tactics feel and appeal, which is what got me into it. Mabi Pro would be the same way. If it's no longer Mabi based, you wouldn't see nearly as many people. Yeah, people may be drawn to the game over time, but it would a different audience and likely to grow much slower. Even if it's heavily edited, what's gonna draw people is that it's based on Mabi and that's where people will get started. From there, people will look at the differences and decide whether they like it or not. It just would not be the same for most, if it were not already mabi to begin with, even if in the end it received serious overhaul.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods

Hi LazyFae,

So it appears that you're on the enhancement side of the spectrum like me. You're correct that Mabi has a specific demographic of players. However, I don't understand your point. You may have to elaborate on that. I also have Warcraft 3 but I'm not familiar with the custom map that you're referring to.

I could tell you many reasons why I agree with you so I won't do that. See, I happen to be tired of bullshit mechanics. I've come to terms that making a better Mabi may as well be making a better game. That explains why I'm accepting to new content. That doesn't mean I'm against it, it just needs to be considered thoroughly with demographics in mind.

The Port Cobh town was perfect. The raids were a little controversial but still received positive feedback. Though I'd like to see improvement on current content. I wouldn't blame anyone for trying to avoid it though. It's pretty much a lost cause.

Nah, after reading all the comments and thinking about it, i'd say i honestly lean more towards whatever. Yes, enhancing content that was from live would be nice, but no more so imo, than potential updates or inclusion of custom content. It will really depend heavily on how well things are changed/implemented, and how balanced everything is as a whole. Short term, i'd honestly love specific areas to be focused on, long term however, i can't claim i'd stay if we didn't see new content in some shape, being worked on. Rate of the progress is debatable.




Honestly, my own preference would be to more harshly examine various aspects of the current system, skills, and world itself. Increasing pot size would be awesome, personally i'd like to see stacks of 50 to save space, allow me to actually keep multiple stacks for when i don't feel like grinding out for pots and herbs for the long/hard runs, and will give me more reason to use more than just the standard 100 pots i'm going to make otherwise. Unique race skills could use some scrutiny. A giant's stomp is only used for utility; aggro locking, sinking ground in zardine to dodge dragon meteor, exploration/fishing, but outside of the utility it's total and utter crap even at r1, while still using a lot of stam. Most of the time it won't even one shot a bat or gray town rat, for example, which are the most common and weakest enemies you see regularly in dungeons. As for a mix of world/system, i really would like to see something done about camping penalties and the weak/weakest ratings that apply to field mobs and certain shadow missions. Getting 0 xp for killing something is a horrible mechanic, and as you get stronger it gradually becomes more noticeable. We don't seem to have any real botting issues, and this is the main reason those features existed, so it would be very nice to see them done away with all together imo.


Those are examples of things i'd place priority on, but at the same time doing much without getting a general idea of how the community feels can be bad. A trial period may be nice to see how the public handles it, but generally gamers seem to get mad at such thoughts for reasons i don't quite comprehend, possibly because i'm hardly ever above tinkering with system setup and customizations.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods

I just want content the makes the social aspect of this game fun. Now I'm not saying you can't be creative and think of games or stuff to do with what we have, I ran four tabletop games in Mabi so far with what we currently have, but I'd like more.

Like an actual PvP arena that's a scheduled event weekly, more handicraft items, and monthly events hosted at specific towns to get people together: They don't even need to give great rewards but something to encourage players to spend time working together. Maybe things like beach of scathach.

Even bad content, in the perspective of my friends, has given us laughs and fun. So really just anything works, but I fear that maybe one day that won't work anymore. If you focus too much on combat you forget what makes this game special.

I reckon one of Mabi's most noticeable features is the social aspect. However, organising events needs funding and people actively contributing and being online. Would be nice if we didn't have to look behind our backs every time we thought of a super cool idea. I'd be really happy about a social event and happy is not even enough to begin to describe it.

Social is a big deal, but at the same time it has to be well conceived.

I, for example, play games primarily to fight things and beat them up. Many games, especially more modern ones, tend to have mini-games scattered around, but the mini-games feel to me more like time-wasters, or sometimes obligations that i want nothing to do with. Mabi live is a great example to me. Most of the events i don't bother with, not because the rewards aren't good, but because it just feels so repetitive and tedious, that many don't offer a pleasant and fun enough experience away from the standard gameplay, that i want to actually participate.

I expect pro to hit that issue far more severely, as many of us come from live, and are critical of the handling of live, and as such i would expect to be more critical of the game. It may be disrespectful of me, but since i play for fun i want to see events that are actually enjoyable to me personally. It may be a high bar, but if i'm not enjoying it, why should i waste time on it? I'll do something more productive to my game in the long run instead.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods