Arcane Odyssey Criticism Thread

Game Discussion
21

That’s the most prominent issue; full release not actually being the full release of Arcane Odyssey, as Arcanium, Cestus, whatever else weapon there are, were lacking, hence making a fair share of aspects; not fully released.

Can we just say full release was an elaborate ruse? so Arcane Odyssey can return to having a justifiable reason for being horrible in performance and lacking in features.

22

does being gay count as being neurodivergent

23

Woah no way neurotypical bros!

Real note, I don’t believe I’m neurotypical, I just haven’t gotten a diagnosis.

24

Did we just become best friends??

25

Neurotypical until proven otherwise

I’m also neurotypical

26

I don’t know, I never had a best friend…
Hooray new best friend!

27

Any time I ever disagreed with you is now forgotten

This thread is going swimmingly so far I must say

28

Agreed.
There’s not much else to converse about, other than the comment I have to rewrite once on computer.

29

Definitely true. More than that, he needs some people on the team who can look him in the eye and say “this ‘feature’ isn’t a good idea, my guy”. Because that’s still happening.

Especially not with Roblox trying to rake in more money than ever…

What.

30

Depends on how woke the person you ask is

31

You heard them.

32

Reminds me of the situation at Bethesda, the developers are scared to say no to Godd Howard

You heard me.

33
  • The weather events can be a problem for players going through the story quests.
  • The weapon and relic slots get in the way of the legs when the inventory is open, making it difficult to see for vanity.
  • Sometimes I am unable to turn my ship.
  • Mortars are more dangerous than normal cannons, while being easier to use, and more difficult to avoid in the case of NPC ships. I don’t like how it’s usually not worth it to use my main guns.
  • Aiming the cannons at the helm can be troublesome, it is hard to tell if I have a good angle. The lines will be pointing towards the ship, but if it’s only slightly too high, the cannonballs will fly over, and if slightly too low, the cannonballs will hit the water. A better indicator would be nice.
  • Beast Defense and Limb Protection should be removed from vanity and made into normal stats, and if the restriction on only having one pauldron/helmet item in vanity is due to this, the restriction should be lifted. I do not want to have to choose between gameplay performance and looking good.
  • Terrain destruction can be quite unenjoyable in environments where there’s a thin plate of terrain that might not get destroyed while the lower ground will. The player will have just enough room to get underneath, causing camera and movement problems.
  • Getting stuck in the ground during terrain regeneration isn’t fun. This is exacerbated by the above issue with terrain destruction, where those thin plates will prevent getting above ground.
  • The bottom of the Nimbus Lands is hollow/concave in some places. I have gotten stuck while gliding up.
  • I don’t like how I will need to make a trip to the Stepstones to pick up the climbing equipment on all of my characters.
  • If it is true that the banners in the brig’s interior indicate that a kingdom is no longer going to be somewhere we visit, then I think that is quite detrimental to the story. I don’t want to be told I can ignore Skyhall or Ravenna going forward. If I’ve been misled about those banners, disregard.
  • It is too difficult to tell whether a tower has been destroyed or not, making me disappointed when traveling to a tower only to find nobody’s home.
  • Perhaps it is because I knew about the Vents before this quest, but I almost always forget to do the Glider tutorial part of the story quest and have to walk back after getting the glider.
  • Sometimes I have too many of an item to vendor and have to use the bank to store excess before using sell all or whatever the option’s called, this is inconvenient.
  • I have run out of purchasable character slots and would need to use a second account to create more characters.
  • I was disappointed when Rain of Arrows did not make multiple acid puddles when imbued with Acid, instead making one big puddle.
  • Having to apply jewels and enchants one by one is tedious when you have to do so two dozen times across multiple items for one set of equipment.
  • Terrain/building destruction and rubble such as from Earth Magic not being consistent between clients is disappointing, but I get it’d be brutal on the servers.
34

Genuinely atrocious for QOL :sob:
Making a new set of gear feels so tedious even after you’ve collected everything needed

35

Ignoring the awful optimization, I just find the constant addition of grindy side content super irritating as it discourages the creation of alternate files and it doesn’t actually add anything of substance to the game. Professions are cool on paper but the way they’ve been executed is genuinely abhorrent, and fleets take a while to set up and get to a point where they can be self sustainable. The addition of armor getting ruined honestly just adds another completely unwanted layer of pointless busywork nobody asked for because now we probably have to worry about replacing armor pieces, and God forbid if SUNKENS can get ruined

36

I’ve updated my response.
@archrono

37

THIS, if i start playing on another file i’d be losing profits cuz of fleets. Professions are so hard to level getting it in more than one file is more of a flex.

38

I do not believe any armors are excluded from the ruined list, is there a reason to why specifically sunken are worried about? iirc Omen Armor is so much more worse due to the 3-4x base worth of Sunken Iron Armor.

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39

Combat is fundamentally flawed at its core, due to all momentum and flow being constantly broken by the old, outdated design of every move locking you in place, not only disabling your movement but also locking you in place and cancelling velocity, in a game that ironically has an emphasis on movement.

It also severely limits options the player has and emphasizes punishing endlag and speccing into dexterity to reduce endlag to avoid being punished yourself, and makes it extremely difficult to fight multiple opponents at once who aren’t M1-only fodder NPCs.

I’m not just talking about in the context of PvP; if a combat system is flawed at its core in PvP, then it’s also going to be flawed in PvE. At the very least players employ strategies which can be learned and adapted to in order to exploit their weaknesses, but for NPCs? They don’t need to put any effort into jackshit.

Their performance in combat is heavily influenced by luck which is exacerbated by their sheer oppression, so fighting them is less of "learn and adapt” and more like zoning them via spamming projectiles, keeping distance at all times and hiding behind walls when possible, rather than engaging them head-on and learning their attack patterns.

The random (or seemingly random) nature of NPCs dodging, blocking and parrying artificially increases their difficulty, with the latter especially being problematic as they can randomly block a high-risk, well-timed attack just because they felt like it, which makes Magic - the zoner class - better than it should be, and Strength - the class clown - worse like it isn’t outclassed enough already.

Giving NPCs basically the same abilities as the player does not always make them good, let alone balanced or fleshed-out. It would be like if making every enemy in ULTRAKILL was V1 or a close copycat of it, or if every mob in Minecraft had the same ability to break and place blocks as the player.

There’s also major issues regarding balancing and depth: Magic is best in the game that’s built around ranged combat, Weapons are only close because of similar strengths, Oracle’s only real problem is that its progression sucks while being watered-down Magic, and Strength has it worst due to being the close-range, high-risk, high-reward class that doesn’t feel rewarding enough, and I honestly don’t know how it could be improved besides either reworking the class itself, reworking combat as a whole to better fit it, or removing Strength entirely.

Combat and AO as a whole also feel shallow and bloated: there seems to be tons of builds, tons of different skills, magics and weapon types, but a lot of them try to be distinct from each other via small differences that don’t actually make them distinct and they end up feeling like bloat, which only makes balancing more difficult. Some overlap can be good, nuance can be a good way to distinguish things from each other, but I don’t think AO does that right.

What "uniqueness” does Fire have as the DoT magic with area-denial when there are like 4 other magics that do the same things, only slightly differently? What’s the point in running Poison when there are way better Magics, other than it being "cool”? Why add 20 Magics, many of which are hardly different, in the same game that already lets you change your build via spell customization and gear that grant stats?

Weapons have a similar problem in terms of bloat, only being slightly better due to having some unique skills, but it’s still problematic. The current roster of Fighting Styles and Relics is mostly fine, save for Cannon Fist, but they still have their own problems in terms of being outclassed as well as their progression (FS mastery, Relic grinding).

AO’s combat as a whole is clunky, shallow, unbalanced and unfun.

40

I also want to add: No, taking things from popular games you like and putting them together does not necessarily equate to a good game. Drawing inspiration is a good thing, but what makes a game good is really just a matter of going through a lot of work experimenting what works and what doesn’t, on top of making it well-designed and balanced and giving it depth.