Producer’s Letter: Discussing the January 2024 Update

Hi Milletians,

With our January 18th update, we have released changes to Mabinogi that we recognize many Milletians have strong feelings about. In particular, we would like to address the changes to Tech Duinn missions and the weekly clear reward limits that have been integrated into these missions. As with Crom Bás or Glenn Bearna dungeons which had weekly clears from the start, Tech Duinn has now been updated to introduce similar weekly clear limits. Along with this change, the mission format has been reorganized, consolidating difficulty levels from four to two (Normal/Hard), improving the ease and intuitiveness of mission puzzles, adjusting dungeon rewards, and improving dungeon drop rates.

Many of these changes represent improvements on the existing system, but the community has expressed considerable uncertainty regarding the weekly clear limits. The team has been reading and digesting the many thoughts and feedback you have. While adding a limit to content that was previously unlimited understandably may not sit well initially, the reasons behind the change have been reviewed and considered deeply by the development team, whose thoughts we will share with you below.

As Mabinogi’s publisher, we will review and scrutinize the many facets of the game’s content, while also placing our trust in the best intentions of our developers. Our goal as a connected team aligns in our desire to do what is best not only for the longevity of the game, but for the enjoyment of our community.

From myself, and on behalf of my team at Nexon America and Nexon Korea, we will continue to put our whole hearts into Mabinogi to provide a service that we can all enjoy.

Sincerely,
GM Mewlynne
Mabinogi Producer
[h3]Developer’s Comments: Behind the Change [/h3]
The core purpose of dungeon-related updates is to increase the value of dungeons and rewards. Most dungeons in Mabinogi have a lower chance of rewarding the most desirable items. This is by design, to encourage repeated playthroughs. The items given as dungeon rewards are typically also tradable, so the reward probability has to be determined by taking into account repeated play. Our development team believed that this was causing repeated negative experiences in dungeons.

After reviewing the data and play patterns of our Milletians, we decided that it was necessary to make improvements so that you could grow and acquire equipment. However, there were concerns that simply increasing the probability of receiving rewards would increase the supply of materials excessively, decreasing the value of items and ultimately leading to a loss of motivation to play dungeons at all. This is also the reason why the average number of runs required to obtain a desired reward set in general Mabinogi dungeons was not able to be adjusted immediately, even though it might have felt somewhat difficult for Milletians trying their hardest to grow. Our development team has thought deeply about the best choice we could make for Mabinogi’s future, and has significantly increased the probability of rewards while limiting the number of clears so that Milletians, in their quest to grow ever stronger, can enjoy a meaningful challenge in the dungeons they are focusing on.

In preparing for this update, we considered the appropriate direction based on these contents as basic premises.

1. Tech Duinn weekly clear limits
   Tech Duinn is a dungeon with the most direct rewards that Milletians can achieve as intermediate goals in their growth process. If you look at the status of Milletians playing Tech Duinn missions, they are generally receiving “Elite” passes on Feth Fiada Hard difficulty. In the case of Crom Bás, it is possible to enter without obtaining an entry pass to farm the Nightbringer weapon set, so the fact that you needed to separately obtain an Elite pass to acquire the materials for the Perseus weapon set felt like an unnatural part of the growth process. We eventually determined that to be one of the hassles, and thought of the way where you could play them without acquiring passes.
   
   However, as acquiring passes is no longer required and the drop rates for the rewards have been increased, we have concluded that the amount of acquired items could increase too excessively, without the limitation to the entry. As maintaining items’ value is also an important part of the game, we concluded that the entry limit is necessary.
   
   When looking at the play patterns of North American Milletians playing Tech Duinn missions, the dev team found that most Milletians who were playing the Elite missions were clearing them fewer than 10 times per week, and around 80% of Milletians were clearing them fewer than 5 times a week. When considering the now-increased probabilities of receiving many of the rewards, we felt that clearing the mission about 15 times was a reasonable level, providing a better experience in clearing without significantly affecting the value of the rewards obtained.
   
   We have also prepared the methods for Milletians who want to clear missions more by making it possible to clear more than 15 times a week (25 times or more in total) using additional entry passes received through events and Adventurer’s Seal Shop. We are also open to the possibility of gradually easing restrictions when the demand/supply of rewards has stabilized in the future.
   
   We are also listening carefully to your concerns about situations that impede free play. We will continue to think about which values ​​are most important from a long-term perspective and find solutions that offer enjoyable experiences.
   
   
2. Intention of introducing the Dungeon Re:fine system
   
   A lot of Milletians have been asking about the details of the Re:fine System and the intention behind it.
   
   Re:fine system is the system where the probability of a certain reward’s appearance remains the same regardless of the party member’s number. In practice, it works as below.
   
   For certain items, the number and the probability of these items appearing in one dungeon run will remain the same regardless of whether it was cleared by one person or multiple people. Once the item’s appearance is decided, who will get the item among the party will be decided by an even probability.
   
   In other words, if the probability of an item is 1%, and an individual clears the dungeon, the item will appear by 1% for them. If the dungeon is cleared by a party of 4, whether the item will appear or not will be decided by 1%, and the item will be given to the 1 of the 4 members by even probability.
   
   The initial purpose of the Re:fine system was to bridge the compensation gap, accounting for multi-client usage. Although this will now be addressed to some extent by blocking the use of multiple clients, we still have to take into account abnormal styles of play. In particular, the higher the expected reward of a dungeon, the more advantageous it is to clear it using multiple computers. We intended to prevent this type of play pattern from being encouraged. With the update, we applied the Re:fine system to certain dungeons while increasing the drop rates of major rewards, to prevent the situation of using multiple clients or computers being advantageous while increasing the level of rewards for playing dungeons.
   

The purpose of the development explained above is focused on changes for the long-term growth of Mabinogi. However, we believe that the freedom and variety of play styles that can be experienced in Mabinogi are also important values. We will strive to develop Mabinogi through a process of gathering opinions while doing our best to provide a sufficient explanation of our intentions to all Milletians.

Thank you,
Mabinogi Development Team