MabiPro: The Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience

As it currently stands, I believe the overwhelming majority opinion of Red Envelopes is that they are trash. I haven't heard a single good thing about them. If I am mistaken, please correct me and we will run a poll on it to confirm. So, I believe this warrants suggestions for changes if we're going to continue having them in the game if not outright removed. I'll just toss out my thoughts on the matter. I think that red envelopes have potential to be an exciting dynamic, but after running through a few solutions in my head, none really seemed to stick except for one. The following paragraphs are my thought process.

Now, I actually like the idea of Red Envelopes very much like I like the idea of red coins. Red coins can turn any boring grind into a series of pleasant little surprises since they're a universal drop. Red envelopes are a universal drop in dungeons as well. When I first got one, I was really excited by the warning message that I should get a party together because who knows what opening it might attract? When I opened one for the first time, I was seriously disappointed by the fact that I got a party quest. I was especially disappointed by the fact that it was a shitty, unrelated party quest. After opening a dozen more, I decided there was nothing good about them. What keeps me clinging to the idea though is that I had never ran into one before, and for a moment there, I was excited at the prospects of it. I don't know if anybody else had similar experiences, but for that reason, I'd like to see them reworked to be a fun concept for the players. I think there's a lot of promise in the principle of these drops.

An elegant solution didn't seem possible. No matter how much I thought about the idea of party quests, I just couldn't think of an easy implementation that would keep party quests relevant to the dungeon. It would also have to be relevant to the difficulty of the dungeon as well. Any kind of creative, scaling solution to these just doesn't seem like an easy implementation, so I abandoned that train of thought.

A hamfisted solution didn't seem pleasing either. I thought, what if they spawned mobs for you to fight? For newer players, spawning a pack of gargoyles could be suicide, a decent challenge for characters ~100, and just trivial for anybody over that level. Furthermore, I can't imagine any real rewards for that that would also be equitable across all levels.

I felt a throwback to classical gaming elements though. What was exciting in an older game was the occasional power-up drop that let you just go buck wild for a short time. The boop on a block in Super Mario that gave you a star was always thrilling. I thought, why not implement something similar for red envelopes? Say these envelopes were reworked into a gachapon for buffs, such as mana elixirs, life elixirs, weapon damage potions, magic damage potions, etc. That's the foundation of my idea. Of course, this requires some balancing.

You might say: well, what's the point of buying these buffs then?
These drops would need to be more rare, as we would not want people acquiring 30 minutes of +20% damage every single dungeon they run, or multiple times per dungeon. That, or a non-stop bukkake of mana for a mage.

You might say: this would flood the market with buffs, or you would just hold them until the boss room.
You can make the envelopes drop with a short expiration time (<2 minutes), and instead of dispensing party quests, they would dispense buffs also with <2 minute expiration times. This way, buffs would not be removed from the dungeon for sale on the market. There are some flaws, such as, "If you feed an herb pig a mana elixir and return it, does it conserve the mana elixir time?" That might be troublesome to work around.

That's the rough idea I have. I think it's equitable across levels as mana is always good, and the magic/wep atk buffs are % bonuses rather than flat. I think it would make the red envelope system actually quite interesting for players, without doing significant damage to the game's balance. With a sufficiently conservative drop rate, these would be rare luxuries for those running dungeons.

If you like the idea but have criticisms, please let me know and we can iron those out before making a community vote. If you have criticisms against the system as a whole, please hit me with those too.

I like this idea a lot.

Yes, envelopes are trash atm.

Buff possibility? I'd consider it, but i personally refuse to back it without an understanding of the general workings of it. Leading with a comparison of mario and starman, not a good example. Starman A, makes you invincible and B, is placed in preset locations in specific areas, effectively controlling the destruction you can do since it will time out. (old mario) That also sums up my concern with buffing us, some areas could majorly buff the player before the benefit is honestly useful (last floor of peaca int anyone?) while others you wouldn't benefit much at all from a buff, and players would again feel the reward is useless. Give me +999 min/max in alby normal, just an example, i won't truly be killing faster as i can already kill everything there fast already.


Personally, i'd just put the envelopes only in reward chests, at the end of a SM or dungeon. At that point, i mean it's part of your reward. As such, i'd up the reward for doing said quest, significantly. Maybe revamp the requirements to clear all quests, while balancing the reward equally. Say if you had to kill 10 goblins for 5k gold, up that to 30 goblins for maybe 10k gold, similar effect to xp. That or trade off the xp/gold reward, for say a consumable item. Dungeons give pots, SMs can give unique crystals like Life Drain or Summon Golem. Anyway, general thought process that i have should have gotten across on that, so i'll stop there as i'm not trying to fully flesh it out.

Seeing the envelopes get changed into something useful, would be nice. I'm not sure how much time our staff's spent on adding and tweaking them, but i know someone did seem happy to get them working. So i really would like to see them become something that everyone enjoys.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods

When I say buffs, I mean buffs that are already within the game. One of the primary foundations of any suggestions I make is ALWAYS, always a simple implementation. I mean buffs as in receiving something along the lines of a weapon attack potion, a magic attack potion, HP/stamina/mana elixirs, a full recovery potion, experience boosts, monster drop boosts, or anything else you can think of along those lines. Just a disclaimer, once again because I know people reading this have insane knee jerk reactions, do not be alarmed by the mere suggestions themselves. Hypothetically, a 0.01% chance of getting a 2x exp for 30 minutes should not be cause for alarm.

Being concerned with the timing or relevance to the player's playstyle I think is largely unimportant. Catering to the solo player's desire to ALWAYS get what they're looking for out of the envelope is a big mistake. I think what's important is the possibility of getting something relevant. People love to gamble, and free gambles are the best gambles, especially if there's something you might like from it. Now, what this means for groups of players that have more diverse play styles amongst their party is that you might be able to distribute in a way that at least benefits somebody.

Solo Alchemist: you get a weapon attack potion. Who cares?

Party: You get a weapon attack potion. You pass it to the archer. They have a good time.

Even the buffs you desire might not always be relevant. Getting a weapon attack potion when you already one hit everything won't change the dungeon at all for you. However, in many cases, something like that does assist you in that it might be the difference between one hitting a skeleton 60% of the time to 95% of the time, which is a huge deal.

Again, the issue I see with the party quests is that unless the reward is significantly boosted (in exchange for reduced drop rates), there is no reason many people would go out of their way to do it. If I was running Fiodh Adv and it dropped a 10k goblin PQ (20k after boost), I probably wouldn't bother. To go all the way to ciar to kill 30 goblins for 20k is just not sufficiently rewarding. Pretty every quest would have to be seriously rewarding in an equitable manner for there to be any compelling reason to bother with them. However, I do like your suggestion of adding them as end rewards in exchange for non-expiring buffs, but they would need to be seriously rare to avoid crowding out Shyla as an option. I'd totally go kill 60 goblins for an attack boost potion. LOL

Now, you actually bring up and interesting point. I don't know if the implementation of the envelopes is such that it's a GLOBAL drop, but if you could specifically tailor it to dungeons, you could create multiple instances of the item and tailor the envelope contents to the dungeon. I don't know about the dungeon chests, but I do know that the end-reward chests can be specifically manipulated. So that's a possible avenue as well.

Imagine running Math Adv and getting a 15 minute quest for killing 100 ceo golems for an enchant protection potion. Now that's exciting.

Tailoring the envelope specifically for a dungeon, i doubt would be easy. I mean look at pass drops, whether elite SMs or dungeons. They drop specific passes, but each pass has their own item id. While i did bring up the possibility, i would expect that to implement making envelopes unique to each dungeon or even region, would require adding multiple red envelopes, giving them all unique IDs, so that when the player opens them they get something relative to their location. An easier to understand description would be to think of it as a different color envelope, or maybe a lettered/numbered envelope, for each reward chest. Ciar=green, ciar basic=yellow, and ciar adv=brown. So yeah, if not complicated, still time consuming.


As for travelling to say ciar for 20k gold, from fiodh, i mean it'd depend on the individual and what they're doing/how desperate they are. As someone who has spent the whole game broke, yeah that's appealing to me. Whether i go to ciar or barri, probably ciar for the herbs, i'll look for a reason to go there and do it. As for forming a party, i don't actually need to take anyone with me. I can throw a party up on the party board, set exp rule all to finish, and just announce that i am doing an envelope PQ for someone to leech off of, they can join the party for free xp/gold while they do their own thing and i can take my own time doing the PQ. Win/win since no one goes out of their way to help, and i get the stuff i need just as easily.


The problem with just random boosts, say 2x xp, drop rate, or anything like that is in that suddenly your priorities can change. If i'm running say a generation for someone, i'll stay to finish it for them. If i'm running say ciar basic, rabbie basic, or something else with an easy to get pass, i'll likely bail if i want to make use of my potion. It may be rude, but the fact i think of this, means plenty of others will, and in time it will be the norm. Moreover, if the buffs are even semi-common, i can just run alby or ciar beginner, quick and easy dungeons, to get the buff i want. I'll already have a pass for what i want to run with the buff, ready, or i'll have an unlimited pass just to take advantage of the buff. Then i can just use a waxen wing to warp to wherever i wanted to take my buff, and profit.

If there's anything you learn from playing mabi, it's how stingy and selfish people can be, even when there's not even a point to it. So i would ask you to weigh again the significance of certain drops, consider tailoring the rewards for an area/difficulty even if it is just possibly removing a buff, and consider carefully how it might be exploited by players, possibly at the cost of others such as leaving them unable to complete a dungeon because a player feels their time better spent elsewhere. This is one of the reasons i suggest making the envelopes end chest only, as that would help counteract any negative effect on a party.
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Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods

I agree that an overhaul on the red envelopes would be great.

So for my two cents, what if we make the envelopes into a type of currency similar to the red coins. The shop would be geared more towards Dungeon Passes or Shadow Mission Elite Passes, maybe even both.

Example:

50x Red-> Basic
100x Red->Int
etc

They could also bring back the old "content specific" Gachas (Beginner, Fashion, Alchemist, Soldier, Productions and Magician) and offer those in exchange for X amount of red envelopes. Maybe even exchange them for red coins?

I like the concept of red envelopes encouraging party play, but clearly as they are right now, they really aren't accomplishing that.

Buffs might be nice, but it gets complicated. If they are self-only buffs, not only does that not promote party play, but it would backfire. Everyone would scramble for them, possibly at the cost of their teammates. Party buffs might be nice, as if they're random, it would promote not only party play but also a diverse set of playstyles. A Mana related buff might not help your warrior or your archer all that much, but it would really help your mage, for example. However, as red envelopes are right now with no expiration, people would end up trying to stockpile them for more difficult content, and that sort of plethora of buffs could really unbalance the game. I'm not sure if it's possible to add an expiration timer on to them, but if the timer is short I'm not sure if they would be particularly beneficial.

As for currency, I personally am not fond of the idea, as it again could discourage party play, since if you're in a party it's going to be a competition to get them. Might as well go solo so you can get then all for yourself.

Easy Tweak. How about we still get some sort of party quest but instead of gold, we get currency that is only obtainable from these red envelopes. Just a thought, even though most of my mates just grind solo. Hard content in the end is what really promotes party play.

Until this sorta thing is done, could you lower/remove the dropchance? They are absolutely useless as of now.