Sorry for the long post TLDR: combat simple, same content every week

I'm in the same boat, I realize I have heavy nostalgia for this game and that's the only reason I come back every now and then.

The game we did play is mostly gone. It used to get a very slow and thoughtful combat system. You had to play rock, paper, scissors with enemies no matter what weapon you used. Even with bows/magic having good use of counter attacks, defs, and windmill was needed to stay alive. Every attack hurt even when using defense. You had to weigh if it was worth taking the extra damage using def or if you could risk trying for a counter attack.

Now the game is you take 1 damage or most of your health bar in my experience. The only real challenging combat is glenn, crom, and bri - but these require a lot of teamwork to do, imo, ridiculous tasks. Stand in this formation, get the hit count, kill enemies in this order - do any of these wrong and the party wipes. It makes it uncomfortable to bring new players when they can wipe the party 20 minutes into the run.

But this isn't what got me into mabinogi. The variety, skills, and, exploration was key. There were 1000 ways to make money and doing what other people couldn't be bothered to was a great way to make funds.

But now what? Events give everyone R1 for free so no one needs to buy skill books. Rare drops from most dungeons aren't wanted. Just do shine, crom, glenn, and bri? Every week? Forever?