is this game worth it ?

[rina]

i am sure there have been so many similar threads to this , but as someone who have played so many MMOs and now taking a break from ffxiv , i am very familiar with how they work so i am not looking for an easy game like aura kingdom , i want an mmo that has some challenging content , or at least some stuff to do and not just boring endless mindless grinding .
in terms of content and gameplay is this game worth playing these days ? does it get expansions , updates , events very often ? is the community still alive ? is it p2w ?

[Chouno]

Wow Talking about training boosters is just sad, those are random garbage givin out in every single event, and those services are a joke.

How about you try to refute the original point instead of talk about garbage boosters? The only time mabinogi was objectively P2W was when they did premium Character cards, and had strict limitations on rebirthing.

Mabinogi is pretty F2P friendly, especially if you're new. Free rebirths, free pets, free bombs, and free revives. Especially if you compare it to when I started back at launch, when everything had to be paid for. If you think this is an agregious p2w model you don't know what your talking about; Whether it be mabinogi or any other mmo.

[Nocturnalist]

Originally posted by Chouno:

Wow Talking about training boosters is just sad, those are random garbage givin out in every single event, and those services are a joke.

How about you try to refute the original point instead of talk about garbage boosters? The only time mabinogi was objectively P2W was when they did premium Character cards, and had strict limitations on rebirthing.

Mabinogi is pretty F2P friendly, especially if you're new. Free rebirths, free pets, free bombs, and free revives. Especially if you compare it to when I started back at launch, when everything had to be paid for. If you think this is an agregious p2w model you don't know what your talking about; Whether it be mabinogi or any other mmo.

I don't play the game and I don't care what u can get in events. Bottom line is you can buy items to progress your character past a f2p person by opening your wallet, so if there sad or not holds no water at all in this discussion. Point is you can pay2win or pay 2 advance either way.

Its a shame you guys support such a cancer company and business practice, Nexon is resposible for killing more games then any other gaming company hands down.

[Chouno]

you've never met EA, and those items don't progress anything, you still need ap to advance them, which is locked behind a timewall.

[Nocturnalist]

oh you still need ap, which is payed currency....Lmao, Timewall or not.

oh wow, you guys have a good time with your dying nexon games lol. How many they lay off this last time, gl.

[Chouno]

ap is acquired 1-1 ratio from leveling...........

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Chouno:

I'm just going to make this simple, since you still don't get it.

1.)Nexon cash shop is almost entirely centered around FASHIONOGI, gachapon are just filled with random crap to make your character look good. if you doubt me, go on the auctionhouse right now, (doesn't matter the server) The most expensive items are not dps gear! Just bought ice spear explosion radius 19 level; and an outfit that makes you turn into a cat was 3 times more expensive!

2.)Trying to say "well items xyz exist so its p2w" is a dumb statement. When those items are not acquireable to over 99% of the community and only a handful of min-maxing whales have them. (Those items were also up for gold, even though it was an absurd amount.)

3.) Nexon does not measure their pen and paper min-maxers as their end game. The game's difficulty would be radically different if that was the case. Spoilers! You dont need +15-35 damage enchants on every slot, red upgraded weapons, and 20 level 3 bar reforges to beat G21 finale, or the rundal nightmare dungeon.

4.)F2P has alternatives to Pay items. Min max some battle swords (if you're poor) or celtic swords (if you're less poor), they'll be fine.

5.)There is no need to break you bank account to get BIS items, thats a huge waste of money, get something on the market thats similar, it'll be fine.

6.) min maxing does not have much of a point, average mobs against any difficulty are just destroyed by a high total with garbage gear. The only thing that would warrent it at all are the raids, but their rewards suck anyway. Go ahead and spend thousands so you can have gloating rights that you solo'd a sandwurm, who cares?

Also most damage reforges suck compared to range or cooldown ones. Adding 30 damage is not comparable to final hit distance,cooldown, or duration increase. Just like increasing the radius of Rain Casting, Shock, and Ice spear is great. Reforged R1 3 bars with great effects are pretty much the best thing you can look for at higher levels. Also you can do that FOR FREE.

Trying to tell players "Rainbow beam sword don't seem to compete on the highest levels of play. If you're going for a medium level of play, an average person in the game, sure"

is disingenious. If your yard stick ends in pen and paper nx whales you need to switch to metric.

What makes you stronger in mabinogi is an absurd amount of time. The more talents to master/grandmaster the more stats, which exponetially increase your damage. All the reforges and gear in the world wouldn't make the difference between ttl 1 and ttl 10k. a 10k ttl could literally bare handed punch that player a single time and drop them.
Can't Buy The time it takes to grind out all those levels.

1. Even if the fashionogi becomes pay to win in this game. Not that the cash shop items are "mostly cosmetic" as you claim. Even the gacha is loaded with title coupons, glimmering supplements, crystal hammers of durability, etc etc. It's still a case that fashionogi sells for loads of gold, and even if you don't get items to power up your character, you can sell the solely cosmetic items and get truckloads of gold that help you character boosting items off other cashers or free players who someone got their hands on some.

2. Just because only 1% can afford the most pay to win items doesn't make the game not pay to win. Just because you set the bar at 10000$ or higher to get that massive damage cap doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And it doesn't mean that you can't also slightly power your character up for 20$ or 100$. Yeah you won't be reaching that cap but spending money on the game you can easily start improving your character very quickly. Nx goes a long way, and it won't be very long till another event comes out that has a gacha with another OP enchant/title/new weapons to die for.


3. And soloing phantasm rabbie? Especially with that room where you need an insane dps to get through. Okay so mabi is a game where everyone competes indirectly. Being able to do your dailies, elite missions, new content, new raids faster and easier than everyone is more useful. Is it required for the bulk of the content. Absolutely not. But even in the most p2w games you can argue "but yeah you can play fine without spending a dime". That's the point, it's to make your life easier, it's not usually required unless you directly compete in said games.


4. And here's the point, free to plays have alternatives, they just suck in comparison. They'll make do, on a basic level. But obviously someone is getting something far superior for money while you'll be putting in weeks or months of work for a decent celtic sword or two. Which is sorta, actually scratch that, flat out pay to win. Which is the point.


5. There's no point to spend real life money in any pay to win game, except to be one of the best in said game. Yeah you could go the discount route, but you're still paying to win, just on a budget.


6. "P2W doesn't matter, because the majority of the game is easy". Yeah, but even with those raids, the new ones, people are or were getting items worth 20m. Those rewards far from "suck". And the ability to carry people through phantasm or a hard shadow mission doesn't hurt. The matter of fact is once you've got a decked out character capable of destroying anything the game throws at you, you can focus on whatever you like when you don't have to worry about building up your character at all anymore. Focus on life skills, events, etc etc. You've basically broken the hardest part of the game.


7. It's just another point how broken reforges are if you're arguing that getting 20-38max damage are the bad ones. Which is true. But saying you can do this "FOR FREE" is disingenious at best. Yeah, enjoy milking 10 character per a free reforge event every day and maybe you'll get one peice of equipment to r1 with 3 lines if you're lucky. Like I said in a previous post, I've went through 4-5 of these events, 8000 hours on the game. And I've got 1 shieldless charge reforge on my wedding ring after all these years of playing the game. But yeah it's totally viable for free players to get amazing reforges. Totally~ Maybe if I throw another 8000 hours at the game or start buying reforges for the low low price of 400k each I'll get another r1 3lines on another piece of equipment.


8. My enchanted rainbow beam swords don't equal instant win either. Throwing them on my alternate character I still die tons doing raids, hard mode shadow missions, even storyline can equal a death left and right. Because guess what, I don't have the stats of having every skill being at rank 1, or my decent totems/figures/enchants/potential leve. Hell I can't even solo a girashy in under 15 minutes on my alternate character while using my "decent gear set" that I've worked hard to obtain over the years.


You don't just get some decent equipment and call it a day. Lots of other work needs to be put into a character, like skills, the ap needed to rank them up, etc etc. Just as you pointed out. And if you're focusing all day on getting your rainbow beam swords or weaker celtic ones, you aren't focusing on grinding out your character to make him more powerful in other ways. Time is power, and spending money to not spend time on your gear, is freeing up time. Again, pay to win. Thank you for pointing that out.


And then we come into training pots, double skill prisms/pots, double ap prisms, cash shop skill training seals. Badges that give 1.5 skill training. Rebirth/forgettful potions. All items that bypass the time it takes to grow your character. Hell I paid plenty of money for those badges because they were so broken to saving time and effort in the game.

[Chouno]

As i've stated before, equipment gearing low levels doesn't matter at all. Hell gearing against monsters that deal several thousand times your hp in damage, doesn't matter! When you max hp is like 70 all the gear in the world wont save you from the most basic of monsters.

The newest raids are more fair than field bosses, the monsters deal % hp instead of huge amounts of flat, meaning you can actually have healers. however lower levels even geared wont deal the damage needed (see millions of hp), but then again the content is season 21, try doing the other 20 first.

You must have as bad of luck with reforges as my friend does with artisans. I got my shieldless charge on a kusina wig I bought for 200k on the first try, and I got that reforge from the Treasure box event.

And 400k is not a bank breaker what is this G1?. It's just annoying when you get Ranged attack Ranged Attack Damage 19 level, but you'd know the pain of failed attempts if you ever actually ranked a special upgrade to 7. It's just as bad on your gold.

Training pots are sold for nothing by players, especially fighter, puppetry, music, and dual gun. The only ones that will run you to any degree are nice ones like enchanting or maybe synthesis, but those skills are basically useless now. And skill training seals can be obtained for free from adventure seals, or bought from other players. Rebirth potions are also given out as leveling rewards, and through events.

Also those 20m items for nascant divinity are just OK. The transformation is not actually that amazing. Bash and Lightning rod are just better. Those items are far more impressive as a cosmetic than anything else. Unless you REALLY need that blink 1.2m increase or the shield of trust 180-500hp.

And if memory serves right, the only thing in the current gacha that is noteable are the title coupons, they are slightly stronger than the last batch, and i do mean slightly. But please go ahead and scream pay to win and shell out 40 mil so you can replace your 2nd title with one that deals like 8 more max damage. CAUSE ITS SOOO NECESSARY!

Mabinogi is a game where your total compounded stats make the largest difference in power, and that no matter what takes time. Investing your time playing the game well is the best way to play the game. If you spent 1k in mabinogi and spread all of your specializations thin, and a f2p just went one talent all the way, he'd probably have an easier time.

Arguing F2P P2W with mabinogi is silly, the biggest disadvantage for new players is its going to take FOREVER to even get into the shadow of veteran players, and because those players are still currently playing, it is impossible for them to catch up. For many veterans their characters were developed over a decade. While new players receive many bonuses up to ttl 1k, after that they are going to be in the same rebirth every 6 days cycle as everyone else.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Chouno:

As i've stated before, equipment gearing low levels doesn't matter at all. Hell gearing against monsters that deal several thousand times your hp in damage, doesn't matter! When you max hp is like 70 all the gear in the world wont save you from the most basic of monsters.

The newest raids are more fair than field bosses, the monsters deal % hp instead of huge amounts of flat, meaning you can actually have healers. however lower levels even geared wont deal the damage needed (see millions of hp), but then again the content is season 21, try doing the other 20 first.

You must have as bad of luck with reforges as my friend does with artisans. I got my shieldless charge on a kusina wig I bought for 200k on the first try, and I got that reforge from the Treasure box event.

And 400k is not a bank breaker what is this G1?. It's just annoying when you get Ranged attack Ranged Attack Damage 19 level, but you'd know the pain of failed attempts if you ever actually ranked a special upgrade to 7. It's just as bad on your gold.

Training pots are sold for nothing by players, especially fighter, puppetry, music, and dual gun. The only ones that will run you to any degree are nice ones like enchanting or maybe synthesis, but those skills are basically useless now. And skill training seals can be obtained for free from adventure seals, or bought from other players. Rebirth potions are also given out as leveling rewards, and through events.

Also those 20m items for nascant divinity are just OK. The transformation is not actually that amazing. Bash and Lightning rod are just better. Those items are far more impressive as a cosmetic than anything else. Unless you REALLY need that blink 1.2m increase or the shield of trust 180-500hp.

And if memory serves right, the only thing in the current gacha that is noteable are the title coupons, they are slightly stronger than the last batch, and i do mean slightly. But please go ahead and scream pay to win and shell out 40 mil so you can replace your 2nd title with one that deals like 8 more max damage. CAUSE ITS SOOO NECESSARY!

Mabinogi is a game where your total compounded stats make the largest difference in power, and that no matter what takes time. Investing your time playing the game well is the best way to play the game. If you spent 1k in mabinogi and spread all of your specializations thin, and a f2p just went one talent all the way, he'd probably have an easier time.

Arguing F2P P2W with mabinogi is silly, the biggest disadvantage for new players is its going to take FOREVER to even get into the shadow of veteran players, and because those players are still currently playing, it is impossible for them to catch up. For many veterans their characters were developed over a decade. While new players receive many bonuses up to ttl 1k, after that they are going to be in the same rebirth every 6 days cycle as everyone else.

No, with both equipiment and stats, you can actually tank Abyss Coil and the likes at some point. In everyday mabi, when doing your dailies defense and other stats can make a difference in a multitude of places. Doing my saga daily nowadays is risk free. Worse yet Divine Link on a pet that's level 200 that was immediately leveled up can make a world of difference in nearly all areas of the game. Golems on Scathath Beach do a whole impressive 1 damage to my pet, and intermediate magic struggles to kill it, pretty much being the only thing that can hurt my pet at this point. But that cash item isn't pay to win, it isn't unfair, right?


But when you're right, you're right. There are situation points in the game where things hit you hard, where you can't use a godlike cashshop powered pet. In cases like that, you will die in one, thankfully there's this wonderful item that essentially negates death, blesses your items, fully heals you, too bad it's a cash shop item tho. One that has an insane value of 200k-1m despite alternatives existing in the game. People buy them up like candy too, gee I wonder why. It's almost like they provide an advantage.



So the wig thing is odd, you have a tendacy to prove what you're trying not too. You bought a wig, this wig was... a cash shop item? Yes. No. If it was rank 1, then it certainly was. Are you trying to prove how necessary gacha and the items you get from it are? You're at the mercy of someone paying to win selling you the item at a decent price. Try getting up your own item reforged to rank 1. Enjoy that 1% chance after you manage to get to r2. Which you surely will have to do for several pieces of equipment, because you aren't gonna find r1 reforged weapons, accessories, shoes, gloves, clothes constantly in the player market all for an insanely low price like you claim to have found.



But even if you couldn't tank high end areas with better equipment, which you partly can. Damage is everything in mabi. Sooner you kill, less likely you are to be 1hit. Less potions you need. Etc etc.


Training pots are sold for nothing by players? Last I checked Synth pots are a 1m, enchanting 1.5m. Double complete skill pots 1 day, 1m. Generally the harder the skill is to rank, the more valuable the training pot. Each allowing you to skip months of work potentially. And they're cash shop items, usually littered around in every gacha. It's still pay to win. You're essentially paying another player for their cash shop purchases, partly because they want your gold or because they can't use it. All you've proven here is that it's indeed pay to win, that cashers let free to plays get in on by trading their hard work.


In the end someone is still paying Nexon to win, to bypass the grind, the time it takes. "yeah but cash shop players sell it to us for an affordable price". A price you deem affordable. Badges aren't afforable. Reforge plus isn't afforable. Enchanting or synth training pots aren't afforable. Buying 20 reforges isn't afforable. Buying rainbow beam swords which are generally considered ♥♥♥♥ weapons nowaday aren't afforable for the 2m minimum each they'll run you down if you can find them on the dead servers in the first place. Free players have other places to worry about spending their gold, they aren't overflowing with it constantly, they have to balance spending on repairing weapons, upgrading, buying better bags or cosmetics they want before they become rare and out of rotation, shadow crystals, supplies for skills they're currently grinding sometimes. And it's a million gold alone to grandmaster a title.


I don't even know why you're bringing up the current gacha. Whether or not it has broken items for sale in it atm isn't what determines whether or not Mabinogi is pay to win. They come and go, as a marketing tactic to push players into limited time purchases(this is my only chance to get that glimmering supplement that breaks the game, better buy a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of gacha now, but don't worry, once it's out of rotation, the game is no longer pay to win, right right??). People paid nexon, and they effectively win more at the game. Pay to win. How useful their god gear and skipping work is all you can argue. No amount is acceptible, any in a game makes it p2w.


Regardless if you view that it's possible for a free to play to catch up or do reasonable close too(even tho they're gonna have to put in lots more effort), it's still pay to win. Otherwise no game would be p2w, as the same applies to practically every pay to win f2p mmorpg out there. Pay to skip the grind is still heavily p2w.

[Chouno]

You're missing the entire point, Do you HAVE to spend real money in mabinogi to reasonably progress, or even do most of the in game content?

Can everything be done and acquired by F2P players?

The answer is yes. I know whales that have not completed any mainstream content, nor can, and I know F2P who have done all of it.

And the arguement "well someone is spending money so the game is inheriently P2W" doesn't matter, because do you have to spend it? Most are buying for fashiongi, trying to roll those expensive cosmetics. It's why things like divine demigod suits are listed for 30-50m and final hit cooldown 19 level are like 8-12m.

When I first started mabinogi the only way to dye clothes was with dye ampules. Is that somehow pay to win? was gold from dye sales so op that it factors in a new accessability that all other players don't have? The short answer is no. Most items in the cash shop are given out so often in events you should never spend anything on them. You can count on players selling everything from the gachapons unless it's some nonsense super rare outfit. If you play efficiently you could acquire those items.

Before you run on some dumb tangent about how new players couldn't afford xyz, they simply don't need them. A new player that just acquired final hit doesn't need a reforged set for final hit. Base stats matter more at lower levels, and good news! High base non-upgradeable items are easy to acquire from other players.

If a new player started now, was taught what to: rank, focus, upgrade, level, buy, sell, and etc. They would be FINE and have relatively easy experience. They could easily stock up on items from events, buy them cheap from shops, and acquire things like pets and bags from events. They would just have to play the game. Nexon's events have been everything from worthless to generous, from dropping hp 100 potions to reforges and pets.

Who cares if in season 1 an overpowered item existed in a single gachapon and never again. For all intent and purposes those items don't exist, and a few players still have them and even fewer have many of those items. If for some reason you need to have a measuring contest you should do it in a mmo that actually rewards it, *spoiler* most don't.

You just seem to be butthurt that a cash shop exists at all, or at any mmo has one. Well good luck funding a game with subscription and expansion packs! Thats worked for soo many others. Even The titantic monster WoW has a cash shop, and you should see those prices.

side note: focused beam swords are like 1m tops, bargains are like 400k.
I also stated the ONLY expensive training potions are Synthesis (1m ish), enchant (800k-2m), and sometimes sakura abyss(700k-1m). Potions like dual gun mastery run as low as 100k. Commerce or shadow missions would make that easy.

All those cash shop items like nao stones and etc, are given out like candy. The stupid event right now gives you a box with them as a reward for just logging in for 36 minutes! Log in and play for free nx items.


TLDR Basically

Spending actual money in mabinogi is almost always gambling, you're most likely not going to get a decent return on it. All gachapons, reforges, and etc; are random. If you're thrifty or just plain lucky you can succeed with little to no investment. Especially if you have friends to give you a healthier start. And here this out, if you like something what's the big deal about supporting it?

So how about you don't go around telling people that you have to spend money on this game, you don't, it's not neccessary and you can do just fine. There are plenty of alternatives that also happen to be open to F2P players. you just have to keep them away from traps like Animal taming, or alchemy. hue hue hue

"But my min max best player in mabinogi item builds" ~ you
*rainbow* ~doesn't matter~ *rainbow*

All you're doing is preventing growth in an already small community. Instead of whining that cash items existing and complaining about microtransaction business models, you should teach people how to effectively and efficiently play for free. It's really not that hard, and it can be done.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Chouno:

You're missing the entire point, Do you HAVE to spend real money in mabinogi to reasonably progress, or even do most of the in game content?

Can everything be done and acquired by F2P players?

The answer is yes. I know whales that have not completed any mainstream content, nor can, and I know F2P who have done all of it.

Again, you apply this logic to any f2p mmorpg. Any game that's that highly regarded as p2w by the people who play or refuse to. Any Aeria game, which are all heavily p2w, and by this logic, none of them are. Even Starwars Battlefront 2 before they removed the powerful microtransactions wouldn't fall under p2w using your logic, because you can earn anything people can pay for. Therefor it wouldn't count.


That's the model of pay to win. You can keep up with people spending money in the game by spending 12 hours a day while they spend 2 or less. That describes the model of the worst of the worst p2w in a nutshell. Only the most atrocious of pay to win games don't allow you to buy cash shop items from other players. So I'm confused how you think the term even exists, because nothing can fall under your definition of it except games people have never heard of.

Of course paying is always optional. Because winning or being the best is optional. The logic that it's only pay to win if you can't play the game without it is ludicrious. All p2w games are designed so that free players can enjoy and play the game too, they're just gonna have a harder time, and they can pay for an easier one.


I don't care that mabinogi is pay to win, I'm just not so dellusional to accept when someone argues otherwise. It's fine that mabi has fairly heavy elements of p2w. Partly because mabinogi is a game where people indirectly compete. People paying to win often benefits the free players by carrying them even if they benefit more. They might be on top of the foodchain, but mabi is 95% a co-op mmorpg in design.

[Chouno]

https://massivelyop.com/2016/06/23/massively-overthinking-is-every-mmorpg-with-a-cash-shop-pay-to-win/

You must not have played many mmo's then bud, here's a few examples from most to least agregious.

Age of Wushu has literal paywalls, gear and pets that can only be obtained and are bound through lockboxes. A stupid ferret costs literally 600 dollars.

Dungeons and Dragons online has dead level zones, where you can't effectively level without adventure packs.

Star wars knights of the old republic free to play characters can unlock everything a subscribed players has with credits, in game. It's not hard, it just takes time to grind up some of the credits. (except the newset expansions, those become free over time.)
^-quality game, functions less as a mmo and more as a single player story game.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Chouno:

https://massivelyop.com/2016/06/23/massively-overthinking-is-every-mmorpg-with-a-cash-shop-pay-to-win/

You must not have played many mmo's then bud, here's a few examples from most to least agregious.

Age of Wushu has literal paywalls, gear and pets that can only be obtained and are bound through lockboxes. A stupid ferret costs literally 600 dollars.

Dungeons and Dragons online has dead level zones, where you can't effectively level without adventure packs.

Star wars knights of the old republic free to play characters can unlock everything a subscribed players has with credits, in game. It's not hard, it just takes time to grind up some of the credits. (except the newset expansions, those become free over time.)
^-quality game, functions less as a mmo and more as a single player story game.

I say you're so lenient in what you consider pay to win you couldn't consider StarWars Battlefront 2 p2w despite being known for it. And you link an article where some jerkoff argues basically that games like SWB2 aren't p2w because there's so much worse out there.


Hell judging from this article you've linked, Mabinogi would actually classify as p2w. "provide an instant trip right to the top." In which case, yes, that is possible in mabinogi. You'd be spending a long time buying. But you can essentially throw money at nexon get ap faster, instant skill levels, better equipment almost instantly. Anything that you can earn over time, any sense of progression, can be bypassed with help from cash shop items. It's possible to get r1 enchanting and synth almost instantly if you've got the money for it. It's possible to obtain thousands of ap in a single hour if you've willing to spend like a whale.



Sounds like Age Wushu is hardly any different from Mabinogi from what I'm reading on it. Mabinogi has always had exclusive pets, usually with insane benefits. Gear and pets don't matter all that matters is if you can play the game on a basic level without paying. Then as you said it's not p2w. And from what I'm reading that's totally possible and easy to do so. It's only competing at the top levels where you can't play without paying. Which describes mabi in a nutshell. The only difference is the level whales can pay. And since mabi hides it's most OP items behind gacha, even 600$ trying to get what you want isn't a garentee.

[Chouno]

You do realize they completely revamped battlefront 2 right? you do know that....right? paid Lockboxes are completely gone, and all characters are de facto unlocked. Even leveling skills was streamlined. Of course you don't know.

If you wanted to talk about p2w shooters you should look at alliance of valiant arms or combat arms classic. Combat arms reloaded is much better, but still has some glaring progression issues. thats beside the point, you've made it quite obvious you don't know the difference between agregious monetization models.

And the point of the article explains P2W is a useless term that has gigantic differences in definition. And if you compare games that all all considered pay to win that the gap is vast and wide. Also stating that there is a cash shop in every mmo, so would that make them all p2w? Technically if you have to pay to play does that also not make it pay to win? I would ask you to find a mmo that does NOT have a cash shop or any influence on progression to any degree that is not monetized. otheriwse pot meet kettle.

Since cash shops are a feature of mmos you have to compare their restrictions and benefits. we'll use combat arms classic as an example (it's another nexon game!). Combat arms classic had weapons only acquireable through large purchases in their shop for nx 25.k+ ea. These items were objectively stronger than any free to obtain content, and it was not possible to obtain these through any other method. These exclusive characters, weapons, and weapon types gave a huge advantage over other players. Thats why in combat arms the term NX noob was very prevelant. buying a character that can use a 6 barreled grenade launcher and had ways to heal a whole team is PAY TO WIN. combat arms is a game without statistical progression, just flat numbers. Meaning that a cash shop that provides statiscal benefits over all players is a large more glaring issue than in one with a large progression.

Mabinogi's vertical mmo progression is undertiminable at a certain point, thats why they don't scale anything post 1k; how would you? While gear does increase stats and damage to a degree it is not the largest leaps in vertical progression, leveling is. Meaning that gear does not massive influence a character's strength at all levels. Gear scaling however does have a positive correlative relevance to maxium output at a given point. Meaning that it does factor in and scale, however it can take quite a bit to be relevant. Easy example is armor and shield, since there exist masteries for those, they dont benefit a new player as an experienced one. However their actual statiscal benefit comes in to question in the gameplay entirely. It doesnt matter if you kill a mob with 1 overkill or 10 million. It doesn't matter if you took 1 less damage or 99 less if you were in turn overkilled.

And before you go on some stupid tangent about how gear is ultra important you need to compare it to another game or mmo. How important is gear in mabinogi vs gear in world of warcraft? In other mmo's where gear is literally all of your stats, having a cash shop gachapon that has high level gear in it would be agregious, that's what age of wushu does, locks end game gear behind paywalls completely.

While there is quite a good benefit to focusing on a strong set of gear in mabinogi, you really don't need it. You can do all of the generations and most content basically naked. Which is completely unheard of in other mmos. Because your strength and progression in mabinogi is based on leveling, which is based on time. unlike other mmos which are based on clearing through 99% of all content to grind out the best gear at the need to stay relevant or compete on remotely compareble levels.

if you think age of wushu and mabinogi's pay methods are similar you are simply a fool.
Your definition is soo broad of what paying to win means i bet you think overwatch lootboxes are pay to win.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Chouno:

You do realize they completely revamped battlefront 2 right? you do know that....right? paid Lockboxes are completely gone, and all characters are de facto unlocked. Even leveling skills was streamlined. Of course you don't know.

Do you have amnesia or something?

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

Originally posted by Chouno:

You're missing the entire point, Do you HAVE to spend real money in mabinogi to reasonably progress, or even do most of the in game content?

Can everything be done and acquired by F2P players?

The answer is yes. I know whales that have not completed any mainstream content, nor can, and I know F2P who have done all of it.

Again, you apply this logic to any f2p mmorpg. Any game that's that highly regarded as p2w by the people who play or refuse to. Any Aeria game, which are all heavily p2w, and by this logic, none of them are. Even Starwars Battlefront 2 before they removed the powerful microtransactions wouldn't fall under p2w using your logic, because you can earn anything people can pay for. Therefor it wouldn't count.

This was the very post you responded too. I'm generally confused if you just didn't read, which would make sense with your responses, or didn't understand anything you read, which would make sense with your responses. Of course maybe you just don't know.

Originally posted by Chouno:

You do realize they completely revamped battlefront 2 right? you do know that....right? paid Lockboxes are completely gone, and all characters are de facto unlocked. Even leveling skills was streamlined. Of course you don't know.

If you wanted to talk about p2w shooters you should look at alliance of valiant arms or combat arms classic. Combat arms reloaded is much better, but still has some glaring progression issues. thats beside the point, you've made it quite obvious you don't know the difference between agregious monetization models.

And I'm beginning to wonder if SWBF2 does count as P2W in your eyes. You don't seem to acknowledge it. Yeah you acknowledge lootboxes are gone, and that characters were unlocked and leveling was reworked. None of those inherently being pay to win by any definition. You didn't say they removed the ability to purchase effective card buffs that give you legit in-game advantages rather than earn them very slowly. But then your comment seems to suggest that it wasn't p2w by immediately deflecting from it and bringing up worse cases. As if SWBF2 isn't bad enough in your eyes. That's not a conversation to be had, that's not a justification either. Because someone does it worse doesn't make something true and only worthy of the title of pay to win.


Pay to win means what it means regardless of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that article is spewing. Which is a mighty big load. You pay for in-game advantages, it doesn't have to get you a win, it can have a free alternative, you're simply paying to make the game easier and you more likely to win at it or have to do less work to do so. If he wants to say "well these advantages don't neccessary equal an automatic win, therefor we can't call it pay to win", good on hiim. He can have that opinion, I don't care that someone thinks pay to win means something it completely doesn't when 99.9% of people use the word just because he thinks it should be reserved for the worst of the worst. No, we call those games "heavily p2w" it's not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rocket science. Some games are worse than others, yes. But paying for an advantage in-game is p2w, regardless if you like that or not. If the advantage is tiny or barely there, we call it "slightly p2w". Adjectives exist for a reason.


Again you're swapping the term pay to win to fit whatever you deem to it be. Is that other game you mentioned pay to win? Yes. Absolutely. If it had the ability for cash shop players to sell those items to other players, it still would be. If it were less extreme in how much stronger these microtransaction items were aka only offered a slight advantage. I would still fall under p2w. You're either handing money over to Nexon in order to do better at the game or you're handing your hard work over to someone for something that was bought with money, because these items are so good you wouldn't want to play without them.


In mabinogi you have this weird idea that because gear doesn't offer the biggest increase in power or stats to players, that it's not an issue, that it doesn't count. And you keep downplaying the advantage it does offer. So gear doesn't give out 1000 str like you can earn from ranking up skills/talent titles, doesn't mean 200+ max damage and cooldown reductions or skill amplifications that high end gear can provide aren't extremely useful. Especially for the players who are already hitting that skill or level cap of what the game allows, if they wanna continue competing at the highest levels of the game, then they have to work on their gear. Which if you want the best, you have to pay or pay by working sweatshop hours to earenough gold.


All I hear about your warcraft comparison or Age of Wushu is that Mabinogi supposedly isn't guilty because it could be worse. Because gear isn't the strongest element in the game, when it is in those, which I disagree with. Gear is even more important than ranking up skills when you're talking about the highest possible. When everyone can reasonable get most of their skills to the max rank, the only difference in performance between players will be the gear. The fact that said difference could be between 10k dps and 50k dps is appauling. I'd trade my character with rank 1-dan3 in nearly every life skill in the game, almost all talents at master for low skill/0 ap character with the best gear/reforges possible. I'd already be more powerful than I currently am in just a week.


So that argument about good gear not being needed because all the storyline and content is doable naked, then how is Age of Wushu pay to win? I mean if I asked players there, they'd probably tell me you can play the game just fine without spending a dime. Because even if equipment matters there, if you can get by on free stuff, should be fine then? So long as you can do everything the game has to offer with what you're given as a free to play then it's okay if they offer in-game advantages for cash, right? I mean you clearly can spend to be the best of the best, but that's mandatory in mabi as well if you're competiting on the highest levels of the game.


Just because the game is doable with skill and stats alone, doesn't mean there's no value in taking quarter of the time to run elite shadow missions or a girashy solo.

[Chouno]

if your definition of p2w is soo entirely broad that any increase even marginal existing, then literally the entire genre fits that term; then the term is useless. That's like calling all television that invovles humans reality tv.

Gear is not end all be all in mabinogi, at the end of the game its' only purpose is measuring. So what if some whale deals more dps than you? Mabinogi is a game that does not reward competition at all. Where all the players and rewards for: Jousting, pvp, guild battles, dps, and boss rush? Mabinogi might as well give out an in game shirt saying "I solo'd succubus queen and all I got was this crappy title".

If your trying to spend money or gold on "end game mabinogi", you're focusing on something that's cost inefficient, and that is not rewarded well. Every point of damage past the hp threshhold is ineffective damage, so if you're going to efficiency, overkill is a bad thing.

Also elite shadow missions don't take any time at all, only ones where you have to hit every room or wait for spawns take time; Like defensive battle or sulpher spider. Good luck solo'ing defensive battle! That would be the biggest waste of time and effort in the universe.

Soloing girgishy yeah who cares? Having multiple people fighting the raid boss would be more efficient anyway, being able to use multiple crusader skills through the shared cds. It's intended for multiple players anyway, you wouldn't trash your super expensive gear on easy content. Those exlusive 5x+ repair costs wouldn't be pretty, and god forbid you break a point. I can imagine the tears when you lose dura on a much too expensive sword.

Having multiple decent geared people is actually better than one extremely geared player in many other circumstances as well. More people can actually clear things like shadow missions faster anyway, Multiple rooms can be done simultaniously.

Anything that would radically increase mission time like long spawn time does not affect the overal time of a group who is doing simultaneous clears, even lag. Whearas if a highly geared player is getting a laggy dungeon he has to wait for all of the spawns in all of the rooms seperately. Not to mention they have to travel to each room.

Against bosses, multiple players literally increase the damage by a factor, and allowing damage to be split amoung many instead of 1. This also decreases the issues of multi-aggro or huge mobs.

The content as intended is extremely easy, especially with strong players. Regardless if they use enchants and reforges.

But never mind, that doesn't matter because this multiplayer game is designed for single person play centered around min maxing stat enhancing gear to optimally clear all content as fast as possible for the best rewards. Oh wait that's a different mmo.

And gear is not the most important thing without skills and stats, if you don't have the skills you cannot properly use the items. If your stats are a brand new level 0 character, and you're geared to the teeth. You can be clubbed to death by a 10k player with a big stick.

Strength adds damage and defense, int magic damage %, dex defense bypass, etc.

A player could have passively what many of those items would give. Having 1500 int and r1 magic skills is infinately better than having 0 int and a perfectly rolled staff. We don't even have to guess who is going to do more damage.

Arguing that you would rather have perfect gear and no stats/skills is dumb. It'll benefit you in a decade when you regain all those skill ranks; if that gear was preserved and not destroyed that is. However by that time mabinogi would release more skill trees, new content, and maybe overhaul the battle system again.

If gear influenced all of your stats like in other mmos, it'd be like equipping a level 1 character with level 100 gear, but in mabinogi that is not the case. The gear's actual stats are increased by skill ranks, often more than the actual item gives. Even many reforges that increase % damage would not benefit a low level character.

In other mmo's it's the opposite. Your damage is directly controlled by every individual stat on your equipment, and your character's level is just an arbitrary number used to give the illusion of advancement. That's why in mmo's like WoW you spend weeks grinding out higher Item level gear. Doing a raid to hopefully increase your item level by a single point. It's just gameplay padding. Mabinogi does gameplay padding by putting on time restrictions, and higher/harder training requirements.

Side note: SWBF2

The star wars battlefront 2 gachapon included star cards, characters, cosmetics, and boosts. The biggest complaint from the community is that acquiring these items without buying the gachapon was extremely difficult. Requiring dozens of hours for a single character unlcok.

They removed the ability to buy the pay currency and unlocked all the characters. Then they made the star cards and guns unlock from leveling the class, or by purchasing them with credits you obtain from playing the game. So everything in battlefront 2, other than expansion packs, which includes maps, starfighter battles, and gamemodes; is included in the base game and very easy to obtain.

Special characters were limited to 1 unique per team( ex: 1 darth vader, 1 darth maul), and only were playable pre-revamp by people who owned them. Meaning if you owned all of the characters, you could play them instead of the map freebies, letting one team have more heroes on the map at any given time. Considering heroes basically one shot players and are pretty hard to kill this was a big deal. The free heroes where almost always in play, so most were not able to play them.

They did not remove any items previously acquired by players and reimbursed people who had spent money on the gachapon with credits. For simple and obvious reasons. That did leave a weird imblance of people who had unlocks for a class that they didn't have leveled. However that sorted itself out over time as the entire community leveled.

SWBF2 was bad, now it's just battlefield; you're more likely going to be stomped by aircraft professionals than any high ranking player.