Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience
Feedback on Sky Palace
Posted at 10-18-20, 08:18 pm Link | #1
Seeing that I shamefully have spent countless hours running Sky Palace, and that it is edging towards a year since A2’s release, I wanted to write down some of my thoughts about the content as a whole. I picked up that it has been rather divisive for a plethora of reasons but these are my personal thoughts.
The bottom line, at least for me, is that Sky Palace and A2 is definitely one of my favorite additions to the server. While the lack of progress towards your main character puts off a lot of people, I adore the change of pace it has from the main game. I love trying out new play styles (I have shattered four Leucosia shards as of this post because I have never played mage) and I especially love how it forces you to play more carefully and methodically unless you want to lose your crystal. If the beginning of A2 was not just a bit overwhelming, I think it also offers a great tutorial into the different combat styles that Mabinogi has to offer.
Speaking of the class styles, it really shows how much care and precision the content creator, whom I presume is Jade, put into it. While I am not the person to talk about game balance with, I enjoy the amount of detail that each class has. Little things like how Mari has a Soulstream class, an allusion to her rebirth as Nao, or how Jenna’s classes tap into her Temple Knights history drive home how much care was put into the content’s construction. Even the relic orb ghosts and their messages flicker with lore, which is something most of the players miss out on because of cutscene skips and the lack of translation. The vaguely rage-inducing things of Sky Palace like getting caught by a frozen trap while running for a Consub Gnu or having only 17 arrows on the eighth floor with no Tiro in sight are well-designed in regard that they value caution and planning. They’re also peak-Mabinogi as well, a mess of luck and RNG.
Naturally, I do have some gripes about the content. The vast reward pool for most of the chests, and the inaccessibility of Glimmerings most of the time are frustrating, especially when you are rewarded with ten firewood. Clearing out the floors takes some time, even with a party, and I’ve counted runs in the double digits of not getting a single Glimmering chest. I also find some of the bugginess of SP game breaking, like how letting a finish expire would bork the entire floor set or getting knocked back into a wall and dying will mean shattering my crystal because my teammates can’t resurrect me. The solutions, in my opinion, are to offer a bit more of an incentive to run SP, like maybe a gold/EXP reward for clearing a floor set. I know nothing about game design so I’ll let someone else speak on the more technical gripes. And even then, these are not barriers in any shape or form in running the content.
Either way, I immensely enjoy Sky Palace and I think it is one of MabiPro’s shining examples of a dedicated content team and their creativity. Many of my newer guild members have remarked how much they enjoy the content as well, and there have been many points where we grinded the hell out of it for hours. I really look forward to future floor sets and what Jade has up her sleeve.
The bottom line, at least for me, is that Sky Palace and A2 is definitely one of my favorite additions to the server. While the lack of progress towards your main character puts off a lot of people, I adore the change of pace it has from the main game. I love trying out new play styles (I have shattered four Leucosia shards as of this post because I have never played mage) and I especially love how it forces you to play more carefully and methodically unless you want to lose your crystal. If the beginning of A2 was not just a bit overwhelming, I think it also offers a great tutorial into the different combat styles that Mabinogi has to offer.
Speaking of the class styles, it really shows how much care and precision the content creator, whom I presume is Jade, put into it. While I am not the person to talk about game balance with, I enjoy the amount of detail that each class has. Little things like how Mari has a Soulstream class, an allusion to her rebirth as Nao, or how Jenna’s classes tap into her Temple Knights history drive home how much care was put into the content’s construction. Even the relic orb ghosts and their messages flicker with lore, which is something most of the players miss out on because of cutscene skips and the lack of translation. The vaguely rage-inducing things of Sky Palace like getting caught by a frozen trap while running for a Consub Gnu or having only 17 arrows on the eighth floor with no Tiro in sight are well-designed in regard that they value caution and planning. They’re also peak-Mabinogi as well, a mess of luck and RNG.
Naturally, I do have some gripes about the content. The vast reward pool for most of the chests, and the inaccessibility of Glimmerings most of the time are frustrating, especially when you are rewarded with ten firewood. Clearing out the floors takes some time, even with a party, and I’ve counted runs in the double digits of not getting a single Glimmering chest. I also find some of the bugginess of SP game breaking, like how letting a finish expire would bork the entire floor set or getting knocked back into a wall and dying will mean shattering my crystal because my teammates can’t resurrect me. The solutions, in my opinion, are to offer a bit more of an incentive to run SP, like maybe a gold/EXP reward for clearing a floor set. I know nothing about game design so I’ll let someone else speak on the more technical gripes. And even then, these are not barriers in any shape or form in running the content.
Either way, I immensely enjoy Sky Palace and I think it is one of MabiPro’s shining examples of a dedicated content team and their creativity. Many of my newer guild members have remarked how much they enjoy the content as well, and there have been many points where we grinded the hell out of it for hours. I really look forward to future floor sets and what Jade has up her sleeve.
Posted at 10-21-20, 09:48 am Link | #2
I'm on the other side of the fence honestly, in that small reward for my character so don't want to spend a lot of time there. Objectively though, I'll toss my feedback in too, after reading everything.
I've played Mari, Jenna, Ruairi, and Tarlach. I've played live for a long time, giant as main but plenty of time on other chars mainly to familiarize myself with other skillsets. I feel the balance of what's available from the shop, both in terms of skillsets and design, are pretty good. Unfortunately, I've only made it to probably 26-28F range, since I've only soloed. All in all, take what I say with a grain of salt since end game tends to be the primary focus.
The risk/reward... Normally you'd want to more carefully consider before messing with it, 10% more XP+Gold doesn't sound like much most of the time, but this alone can make a huge difference in incentive, grind time, and even comfort zone. There seems to be some rather nice rewards from SP, so I'll say that boosting incentive is a double-edged blade in drawing more people wanting to run it but also because more of the rewards will be circulating in the player market and thus lowering the incentive for newer players to investigate SP. After all, if the point is the rewards, and there's ample of it, most will get what they want off guildies and a good chunk of the remainders will likely just throw up a buying ad.
Anyone still reading, will likely also know that more than just practicality, the overall mentality of a community, in anything and not just games, can be the end all be all. Aesthetics are a pretty big deal, despite similar stats players will still avoid something that is clearly designed to be ugly over something that was meant to be appealing, but reserved. In fact, people aren't shy about sacrificing extra stats for fashion until in very high pressure content.
From here, I'm just rambling about things to think of for redoing some rewards.
I don't think a slight boost to xp and gold would be a major problem. I personally would like to see more "Junk" type rewards, rebalanced. I'm not saying place highly desirable items. However, shift firewood to average or fine, quantity of 3-5 maybe. Fine Handcrafted Bandages, Wound Remedy 30 or 50 at higher rewards, 30 pots if they're mixed, 50 for more normal pots, etc.
Point is to make stuff that people aren't normally gonna go out of their way to farm or probably even buy, but there could still be value in holding on to it. 10 Firewood, yeah there's a bit of value, but as a general mentality it isn't perceived as interesting as 2-3 average firewood, better is that the rate and size makes the average more worthwhile to keep on a pet. As a bonus, they're not going to have to go out of their way, like SP all the way to Dugald, to refine some rather awkward and high quantity items to make them worth keeping regularly. While going as low as 1 may be fine, I honestly feel like it's going to feel more as an insult than a reward.
Unless the buy value off an NPC for the items you're getting exceeds 2k, I would strongly advise against putting in rewards that can be bought from generic stores. Fabrics can be bought, but get expensive quick above Cheap. Bandages can be bought, but are really cheap and don't NPC for much of anything. Fine Handmade Bandages are rather effective, but won't frequently be used still cuz it's easier to just nao or use the healer most the time. When Nao's not available many people lose drive and just want to afk anyway. Leaving the usefulness to the general population, as honestly rather low. The biggest concern is likely going to be fragmentation of some rewards like this.
Things I think are rather shy to be used as rewards but I honestly feel would have more value even at "lowish" quantities, would be herbs, holy water, or stackable PTJ materials even. Note the stackable, I doubt people will be pleased to get 10x apples as a reward suddenly, but 10 wool or something is more of a "don't want it but I know someone else who runs this might." The rate to acquire and number used for a PTJ are pretty different, but the space used for each can leave a rather bad impression for the apples.
And I'll end with saying, you're doing an RP dungeon, no matter the difficulty bear this in mind. It means you don't lose consumables, and dura only ticks from idling. This is likely why crystal costs are so high, but also means you're not running off to restock and repair to continue. For this reason, I can not advise high level pots and/or high quantity of restoratives in return. Doing SP is pretty wortwhile if your Naos are low as is, having it basically be the "My naos are down and I need to restock, SP while I recharge 2 Naos will have me good for a few days" raises a red flag in my mind, though others may disagree.
_________________________
Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods
I've played Mari, Jenna, Ruairi, and Tarlach. I've played live for a long time, giant as main but plenty of time on other chars mainly to familiarize myself with other skillsets. I feel the balance of what's available from the shop, both in terms of skillsets and design, are pretty good. Unfortunately, I've only made it to probably 26-28F range, since I've only soloed. All in all, take what I say with a grain of salt since end game tends to be the primary focus.
The risk/reward... Normally you'd want to more carefully consider before messing with it, 10% more XP+Gold doesn't sound like much most of the time, but this alone can make a huge difference in incentive, grind time, and even comfort zone. There seems to be some rather nice rewards from SP, so I'll say that boosting incentive is a double-edged blade in drawing more people wanting to run it but also because more of the rewards will be circulating in the player market and thus lowering the incentive for newer players to investigate SP. After all, if the point is the rewards, and there's ample of it, most will get what they want off guildies and a good chunk of the remainders will likely just throw up a buying ad.
Anyone still reading, will likely also know that more than just practicality, the overall mentality of a community, in anything and not just games, can be the end all be all. Aesthetics are a pretty big deal, despite similar stats players will still avoid something that is clearly designed to be ugly over something that was meant to be appealing, but reserved. In fact, people aren't shy about sacrificing extra stats for fashion until in very high pressure content.
From here, I'm just rambling about things to think of for redoing some rewards.
I don't think a slight boost to xp and gold would be a major problem. I personally would like to see more "Junk" type rewards, rebalanced. I'm not saying place highly desirable items. However, shift firewood to average or fine, quantity of 3-5 maybe. Fine Handcrafted Bandages, Wound Remedy 30 or 50 at higher rewards, 30 pots if they're mixed, 50 for more normal pots, etc.
Point is to make stuff that people aren't normally gonna go out of their way to farm or probably even buy, but there could still be value in holding on to it. 10 Firewood, yeah there's a bit of value, but as a general mentality it isn't perceived as interesting as 2-3 average firewood, better is that the rate and size makes the average more worthwhile to keep on a pet. As a bonus, they're not going to have to go out of their way, like SP all the way to Dugald, to refine some rather awkward and high quantity items to make them worth keeping regularly. While going as low as 1 may be fine, I honestly feel like it's going to feel more as an insult than a reward.
Unless the buy value off an NPC for the items you're getting exceeds 2k, I would strongly advise against putting in rewards that can be bought from generic stores. Fabrics can be bought, but get expensive quick above Cheap. Bandages can be bought, but are really cheap and don't NPC for much of anything. Fine Handmade Bandages are rather effective, but won't frequently be used still cuz it's easier to just nao or use the healer most the time. When Nao's not available many people lose drive and just want to afk anyway. Leaving the usefulness to the general population, as honestly rather low. The biggest concern is likely going to be fragmentation of some rewards like this.
Things I think are rather shy to be used as rewards but I honestly feel would have more value even at "lowish" quantities, would be herbs, holy water, or stackable PTJ materials even. Note the stackable, I doubt people will be pleased to get 10x apples as a reward suddenly, but 10 wool or something is more of a "don't want it but I know someone else who runs this might." The rate to acquire and number used for a PTJ are pretty different, but the space used for each can leave a rather bad impression for the apples.
And I'll end with saying, you're doing an RP dungeon, no matter the difficulty bear this in mind. It means you don't lose consumables, and dura only ticks from idling. This is likely why crystal costs are so high, but also means you're not running off to restock and repair to continue. For this reason, I can not advise high level pots and/or high quantity of restoratives in return. Doing SP is pretty wortwhile if your Naos are low as is, having it basically be the "My naos are down and I need to restock, SP while I recharge 2 Naos will have me good for a few days" raises a red flag in my mind, though others may disagree.
_________________________
Discord: Tonkatunk#7079
https://github.com/Tonkatunk/Mabi-Pro-Lazyfae-Mods
Sky Palace is difficult to critique without worrying about coming off as ungrateful as faintfreedom mentioned, it is both incredible content to play and has some of the best loot in the game. I'd go as far as to say SP is probably the top three shining gems of mabipro (along with cavern raid and bucket) that makes me always want to show it off to outsiders as an example of how amazing this server is.
But that obviously doesn't mean there aren't some glaring issues that need to be resolved. So I'm gonna have to parrot some common criticisms as well and get in to the things I'd probably change about SP if possible.
1. Fix the way keys drop so that soft-locks stop occurring. Enemies should drop key items on death, not on finish. Far too often, summons or even other players can completely kill a run by last hitting an enemy that was supposed to drop a key. This is actually an immediate problem straight from the tutorial as a lot of new players get stuck due to their necromancy skeleton summon stealing finishes and not being able to progress. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the way the game runs, or if it was a simple oversight. It would resolve nine out of ten run killing bugs with SP immediately.
2. A tiny bit more intrinsic rewards for clearing SP floors. The lack of personal character progression is probably the number one reason why people don't visit SP as much. I think each floor should probably reward you with some base token prize of some EXP and gold, to compensate for the amount of time you've spent there. Though this may be necessary when we...
3. Rebalance the rewards in the chests. Everyone was frustrated at spending 20 minutes doing a set of floors and coming out to be greeted with arrows, firewood, and beginner shirts. Of course the potential payout can be excellent and balance out these junk prizes, but at the end of the day its about the bad feeling of poor rewards, and I feel like the current consolation prizes aren't even consolation prizes. The shine drop tracker has only gone on further to prove that the drop rate is a little mean to the players, possibly even disrespectful of our time.
For starters, let's try to put a monetary value on what consolation prizes should be. IMO, the worst prize that comes out of a common chest should have a market value of approximately 10k gold. A single wave of a single room in a hard difficulty shadow mission will drop about 10k gold in drops. An adv ptj from Walter, which usually takes about 15 seconds to complete, will give around 11k to 13k gold. I just don't think its unfair to ask that something you spent 10~20 minutes on give 10k gold as a baseline minimum.
With that in mind, we need to eliminate arrows, bolts, beginner wear, handmade bolts, handmade arrows, and phoenix feathers from all rarity of chests. IMO the only type of arrows we should get are the Special Arrows and the various arrows with effects such as Frost and Snipers. Herbs and Firewood should be expanded to always be a full stack. Ingots (iron and copper) should be increased to a 10 stack as well. Fancy and Glimmering chests should have lower tiers of these mats eliminated altogether, so Fancy should give full stacks of average firewood, gold herbs, white herbs. Ingots upgraded to silver at a 10 stack. Glimmering should give a full stack of fine firewood (not OP, Ascon already gives 4 for literally making some paper), and should give you a chance at a black herb or maybe even an iridescent herb. NPC shop equipment such as daggers, long bow, leather boots, etc should probably be removed, or at least substituted with shop equipment that have higher base gold value since you know 100% of these are being used as ego food.
I have a really hard time imagining that Mabinogi has a lack of numerous consolation prizes that would feel a lot better to receive. High durability gathering equipment, dye gacha, special dye amp, fine/finest leathers, fine/finest fabrics, fine/finest silks, wood boards, unidentified gem, potion of proficiency, massive holy water, elite pass boxes, elven/ancient magic powder, and whatever various fashion items that problem exist and float in limbo in the client and hasn't been released or kept as event only from years back. I'd also be okay with some of the more rare items out of SP being a little more common, because god knows there's not actually enough open or closed door enchants circulating. I also remember seeing Domirade offering ungodly amounts of money for an item exclusive to SP that could let him transfer his ego without losing levels. Items like these could drop twice or three times as often and there would still be a competitive market for them.
But that obviously doesn't mean there aren't some glaring issues that need to be resolved. So I'm gonna have to parrot some common criticisms as well and get in to the things I'd probably change about SP if possible.
1. Fix the way keys drop so that soft-locks stop occurring. Enemies should drop key items on death, not on finish. Far too often, summons or even other players can completely kill a run by last hitting an enemy that was supposed to drop a key. This is actually an immediate problem straight from the tutorial as a lot of new players get stuck due to their necromancy skeleton summon stealing finishes and not being able to progress. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the way the game runs, or if it was a simple oversight. It would resolve nine out of ten run killing bugs with SP immediately.
2. A tiny bit more intrinsic rewards for clearing SP floors. The lack of personal character progression is probably the number one reason why people don't visit SP as much. I think each floor should probably reward you with some base token prize of some EXP and gold, to compensate for the amount of time you've spent there. Though this may be necessary when we...
3. Rebalance the rewards in the chests. Everyone was frustrated at spending 20 minutes doing a set of floors and coming out to be greeted with arrows, firewood, and beginner shirts. Of course the potential payout can be excellent and balance out these junk prizes, but at the end of the day its about the bad feeling of poor rewards, and I feel like the current consolation prizes aren't even consolation prizes. The shine drop tracker has only gone on further to prove that the drop rate is a little mean to the players, possibly even disrespectful of our time.
For starters, let's try to put a monetary value on what consolation prizes should be. IMO, the worst prize that comes out of a common chest should have a market value of approximately 10k gold. A single wave of a single room in a hard difficulty shadow mission will drop about 10k gold in drops. An adv ptj from Walter, which usually takes about 15 seconds to complete, will give around 11k to 13k gold. I just don't think its unfair to ask that something you spent 10~20 minutes on give 10k gold as a baseline minimum.
With that in mind, we need to eliminate arrows, bolts, beginner wear, handmade bolts, handmade arrows, and phoenix feathers from all rarity of chests. IMO the only type of arrows we should get are the Special Arrows and the various arrows with effects such as Frost and Snipers. Herbs and Firewood should be expanded to always be a full stack. Ingots (iron and copper) should be increased to a 10 stack as well. Fancy and Glimmering chests should have lower tiers of these mats eliminated altogether, so Fancy should give full stacks of average firewood, gold herbs, white herbs. Ingots upgraded to silver at a 10 stack. Glimmering should give a full stack of fine firewood (not OP, Ascon already gives 4 for literally making some paper), and should give you a chance at a black herb or maybe even an iridescent herb. NPC shop equipment such as daggers, long bow, leather boots, etc should probably be removed, or at least substituted with shop equipment that have higher base gold value since you know 100% of these are being used as ego food.
I have a really hard time imagining that Mabinogi has a lack of numerous consolation prizes that would feel a lot better to receive. High durability gathering equipment, dye gacha, special dye amp, fine/finest leathers, fine/finest fabrics, fine/finest silks, wood boards, unidentified gem, potion of proficiency, massive holy water, elite pass boxes, elven/ancient magic powder, and whatever various fashion items that problem exist and float in limbo in the client and hasn't been released or kept as event only from years back. I'd also be okay with some of the more rare items out of SP being a little more common, because god knows there's not actually enough open or closed door enchants circulating. I also remember seeing Domirade offering ungodly amounts of money for an item exclusive to SP that could let him transfer his ego without losing levels. Items like these could drop twice or three times as often and there would still be a competitive market for them.
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