MabiPro: The Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience

I have a suggestion that would make Mana Crystallization more useful as well as make mana evaporation cause less suffering.

Currently there are 3 types of Mana Preservation Stones that can be made through synthesis, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Here's a quick rundown in case you don't know what they are.

Basic: When unequipping wand, preserve 100 MP. Requires Small Green Gem, MP 30 Potion, Clay Crystal
Intermediate: When unequipping wand, preserve 200 MP. Requires Small Blue Gem, MP 50 Potion, Clay Crystal
Advanced: When unequipping wand, preserve 300 MP. Requires Small Red Gem, MP 100 Potion, Clay Crystal
Note that if your max MP is lower than what the stone would preserve, then the stone won't activate and you still lose your MP.

Pros:
They do their job
They preserve more MP than the potion needed to craft them

Cons:
Can't auto-produce with synthesis
Small Gems don't stack, stones can be a huge space hog
Requires potions
Mass producing these things takes forever

My suggestion: Instead of synthing these stones, change the recipes a bit and craft them via mana crystallization. Instead of using small gems, use actual gemstones (both normal and Nekojima gems) and drain MP directly from the caster. Let the stones stack (like up to 10 per stack like potions, I suppose)
Crafting these stones with mana crystallization requires a magic weapon equipped.

Basic: Requires Clay Crystal, any gem, and drains 30 50 MP from the caster. 10%5% base chance to create a perfect preservation stone. rC Mana Crystallization required
Intermediate: Clay Crystal, any gem, drains 50 100 MP from caster. 20%10% base chance to create perfect preservation stone. r9 Mana Crystallization required
Advanced: Clay Crystal, any gem, drains 100 150 MP from caster. 30%15% base chance to create perfect preservation stone. r5 Mana Crystallization required
r1 Mana Crystallization bonus: increase base chance of creating perfect stones by 10%

Perfect Mana Preservation Stone: When unequipping wand, negate mana evaporation completely by consuming the stone.
For every 1cm on the gem you use, increase the craft rate of perfect stone by 5%.
If you're crazy enough to throw a 10cm gem in there, it rises to 100% no matter what.

New toggable action called Use Preservation Stone: When on, will consume preservation stones automatically when you remove your wand starting from the bottom right. Turn it off to prevent the stones from being consumed when you remove your wand, like when you're in town or something.


Pros:
Mana Crystallization crafting window has 10 slots, clay crystal takes one up, you can stuff the remaining 9 slots with gems and auto produce as long as you have mana
Gives purpose to tiny 1cm gems that no one will ever use
Gives more use to Mana Crystallization, which is something people will never touch again after ranking it to r1 for the MP
If you're afking, you're not using that MP anyways, might as well store it into a stone for later use

Cons:
You have to go to Taillteann
You have to dump AP into this skill (gives mana though)
Using this skill uses durability on the wand

I aprove of the idea! o .ob didn't need to thinker about it, Aus said it.

I...actually really like this idea. It gives new use to gems. I presume even the nekojima gems would work? (Hoping so anyway, they need a use other than ego food in my eyes).

10000000% this.
I support this.


This is how you suggest balance fixes.

I feel like this is a fine compromise in the whole Mana Evaporation debate. It keeps the mechanic around, but makes Mana Preservation Stones much easier to make and much more readily available, if you're willing to work for it, which I think was one of the main complaints in the first place.
_________________________

Hmmm...New actions are off the table, as they are represented as single-rank skills internally (requiring major work inside the native-code segments). Other than that, it's better than my own attempt at compromise (random % MP loss on unequipping wand) (^.^)

Note that some of the finer details of your suggestion may also be hardcoded into .text, and may not make the cut as a result (it's not guaranteed).

I agree with this except for the gem part - those aren't stackable either, and they're even more of an annoyance to get than the small gems. Just make the small gems stackable, and if a new rank of stone is added it can use the silver ones.

Nekojima gems are everywhere though. There's several people who sell ore for income and they very commonly get large amounts of nekojima gems that aren't good for ego feeding since they're so small and can't be used for gem upgrades.

As Despair and Lycoris mentioned, my only concern is the feasibility of this implementation. Many people have wild, new ideas but aren't or would at the least be very difficult to implement. I think if you're serious about continuing with this idea, you may need to think of ways to implement this such that it is not taxing.

I guess what you would need to know is the following.

1. Changing recipes to accept various gems (Probably not an issue?)
2. Changing recipes that require mana (Can probably be done)
3. Scaling a recipe with gem size (I really doubt this)
4. Changing the function of the mana evaporation mechanic involving stones (I kinda doubt this)

I imagine changing the recipe for an item or creating a recipe for a new item might not be that difficult. What concerns me is the complexity of the gem-scaling mechanic and tinkering with the details of the mana evaporation process. I know removing it can be done, but I don't know if can easily be altered. I think the two handed smash bonus, for instance, is an example of what seems to be a simple mechanic to change, but isn't.

I can't comment about actions, but Despair seemed pretty assured that it was out of the question. I think tossing your stones on your pet for storage and only whipping them out when you really intend on using them is a suitable middle ground.

Making gems stackable is not possible, they contain metadata like size that makes them impossible to stack.

But the possibility of making blue/red/green/silver gems stackable would be cool and use those no?

That defeats the point which was to create a resource sink for the Nekojima gems and the likes.

True, but would still be possible to use the other gems without making them stackable no?

That defeats the point of making the whole crafting less of a huge annoying pain. It'd be just as much of one if not more.

crafting on my point of view was never supposed to be easy.
Im ranking Blacksmithing, yes, can be annoying sometimes due to the lack of manuals that were gacha only(but they are said that are on the plans to be implemented in a different way sooner or later) but crafting in general is supposed to be a Meta, the more you invest, the better you become at it, isn't something you get to r1 in a day.

What you're describing are high-value life skills that create equipment. Mana stones are not that, they're consumables and in my opinion should be no more painful to make than potions.

On the contraire, it should work as a meta, exactly like potions do, you don't go around crafting potions of 300(even if you can) right from the start, any person that ranked Potion Making on the early days know well that you should start up to rank 9 by making 50 potions and never go over those, heck I would dare to say even to r8, because of the material cost they take to make, even at rank 5 you are probably stuck doing potions of 100 and barely touch the 300 ones, again due the material cost, its a progression, the more you rank up, the more you can do, but you gotta invest time on it(and time farming the materials to make the said potions) I think this should work the same way, yea you can make the adv ones right from the start, but the cost/success %? is it really worth it?

Yes, I agree. 50 and 100 potions aren't terribly difficult to make. I think the recipes for basic and intermediate stones would be best off if they were comparable to these in difficulty (both item wise and mechanically), while the advanced ones might be more challenging like 300s.