Arcane Odyssey PVP Is Horrible

Game Discussion
1

There are so many issues with Arcane Odyssey PVP. I am going to list them in a mega complaint here. :nod:

The Issues

Server / Client Lag (ms/fps)

It is not unknown that AO suffers from extreme lag problems. If you aren’t lucky to get into a brand new server, you will have to suffer through 200-300 ping which causes a substantial delay in using moves.

Especially in clan fights, maintaining 60 FPS (even on a high end PC) is nearly impossible. Because of this, fights between equally skilled players typically equate to who has a better PC or who is located closer to the server region.

Destruction (sucks)

From an immersion standpoint destruction is a really cool feature; from a practical standpoint, destruction really sucks. Why (as a magma user) does the ground below me break when I use my aura spell? Using aura at areas with thin grounds causes you to fall a substantial distance downwards. (case in point, Sailor’s lodge).

Especially in a war between people with high destruction magics, getting stuck in the ground is a very common occurrence. This, more often than not, causes you to die.

Projectile Desync

This issue has literally plagued Vetex games since World of Magic. In a game where taking damage is detrimental and parrying is an option, why can projectiles desync? It is literally impossible to know whether or not an attack is going to hit you when an attack can appear at a substantially different position than it actually is.

Mobility (is akin to DBZ games)

The most annoying thing to deal with as a slow magic user is conjurer/warriors excessive movement options. Why can the poison dagger fling you 100+ studs? Why is it so easy to air stall or run from fights?

Why are grab moves practically just free flight/air dashes? If the game wants to go in this direction, it seems only fair to give mages equal mobility—mage snare has no dash and a massive end lag.

high ping + dashes + destructive terrain = vetex’s ideal mobility

Magics (are fundamentally unbalanced)

  • some magics specialized in synergy (fire, ash, magma) while others specialized in very high stats, but not much synergy (shadow, light, lightning)
  • vetex gutted interactions (capping to 10%/20%) but did not gut (or substantially nerf) any magics that didn’t have many interactions to begin with
  • consequently shadow and other similar low-synergy magics are OP/very meta right now

Slow Magic Mages

As known, mage was heavily nerfed last big balance change. While this has definitely helped in terms of PVP quality, its results have disproportionally affected slow magic mages as compared to fast magic mages. In the change, Vetex heavily nerfed explosion and pulsar. These two moves were the backbone of slow magics; blasts are much less effective when your projectile moves at 2 MPH.

While I am not saying slower mages are unusable, there is now a substantial power difference between lets say a magma mage and a shadow mage.

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Nerf Shadow

My friends and I created a bot to determine the differences between magics. I am going to show you how shadow towers over most magics.
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(Keep in mind, while water has more interactions, 75% of them are negative)
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(wood has slightly more size for way less speed)
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(while fire may have a dot, dots can often be outregenned and if someone kills you, they heal–the dot wont kill them)

4 Likes
2

The PVP isn’t horrible. The optimization is. Heavy magics are meant to be used in close range or with predictions.

3

Shadow does need a nerf though. A nerf to it’s speed wasn’t really enough, the damage should be reduced to 0.925

4

read the entire post before commenting

5

I saw your title sooo

6

this is true, I play on 200 ping at all times and 15-25 FPS

These are in my home regions, USE/USW. It wasn’t this bad in WOM or when the game was in 5 player servers or before the first update.

7

Btw, if you compare shadow and snow, Shadow has:

  • +0.025 damage
  • +0.1 speed

Over Snow Magic, and Snow Magic is considered a bad magic, despite it having actual synergies unlike Shadow. People simply don’t look into magic stats enough.

That being said, shadow does not need a nerf.

The desync and lag are annoying, but it can only be helped so much with how the game is structured, but the magic balance isn’t nearly as bad as you think it is, if bad at all. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect either though.

1 Like
8

deal with it, this is part of the combat. Also, if you’re having trouble landing hits as a slow magic user, try to get up close as much as possible and punish each attack the enemy uses. Prediction also works(like predicting where they will fall)

9

“snow also outclasses other magics so shadow is fine”

1 Like
10

the fact that some synergies (around 70% of snows) can be negative means that shadow is FUNDEMENTALLY better.

snow loses 10% damage when paired with fire, acid, magma, flare (20%), ash, plasma, explosion… you cannot say shadow does not need a nerf with a straight face.

11

predicting when the move takes 3+ seconds to get to them isnt predicting, its your enemy being a doofus and walking into your moves

1 Like
12

You are a magma conjuror, here: @Dibs he’s the best conjuror I know, and he’s a magma main too. He sweeps me every time we fight, except for those three times we don’t talk about. And I’m not a noob my self, you can even check my videos.

13

Snow also clears 9 different status effects and has a stacking blind effect (though mild), so I think that balances it out pretty well with shadow in the big picture.

As for the comparison with Wood, Wood has decently high damage synergies with most magics and applies bleed, which is a sizeable effective damage increase in most situations.

15

wood vs shadow

same damage
shadow has +0.4x speed
wood has +.05x size

17

uhh, no it doesnt. shadow has more damage and speed while snow has less in both fields. in terms of synergies, snow loses damage in the majority of synergies (-10%).

18

again, if it takes 3+ seconds to get to you thats plenty of time to react (either by blocking it, clashing it with dumb moves like Tempest, or simply dashing again)

1 Like
19

You’re not supposed to have negative synergies apply from status effects that you apply, which is a bug. With that fixed, Snow would be relatively balanced to Shadow.

21

regardless if thats true, just because snow is a good magic does not make shadow balanced. I think you purposely did not include how shadow is objectively better than wood, fire, and water.

23

we’re all talking about mage why do u keep pinging conjurers and warlocks lol

25

im talking about mage btw, not conjurer/other meta builds.