Dark Sea Highways (Dark Sea Fast Travel)

[Presifir]

I’m sure all of you are frustrated with Dark Sea travelling right now, especially with this update since the main appeal is fighting dragons where making mistakes means about another 20-30 minutes to get to i4 range just to get a guaranteed dragon tier that you want to fight. All this suggestion is asking for is to make it faster to travel into the dark sea ranges but not when going back to the war seas.

Considering Vetex doesn’t like the idea of having separate instances for the dark sea nor having teleportation to a certain range in the dark sea, the only idea that could work is some sort of highway. This is inspired by the highways in deepwoken and also from 2b2t.

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Dark Sea Highways

• On every corners of the map, there will be paths that boosts the sailing speed of ships into the dark sea, for convenience sake this can be called as “Dark Sea Highways”. This can be indicated by a fast flowing water into the general direction of the corner that stretches indefinitely.

• These dark sea highways only speed boosts your ship towards the dark sea, using the highway in the general direction of the war seas will not grant you any speed boost (This should be possible using cone checks which rams already uses). To add onto this, having combat tagged will not provide any speed boosts to your ship to prevent abusing the dark sea highways as an easy escape.

• Using the dark sea highways will not cause any islands to spawn unless you get off the path but any environmental hazards can still occur, the reason is that you should still be aware of hazards while using the highways as the dark sea is supposed to be a challenge. While it is annoying, you still have to respect some of the design that the Dark Sea is supposed to be.

Example of Dark Sea Highways on Corners of the Map

Figure 1: The red arrows indicate the placements of the dark sea highways along with the direction it goes towards. As shown, there are only pathways towards the dark sea and none towards the war seas as these aren’t intended to be a fast travel to get outside the dark sea.

[BlueFighter15]

The one issue I see with this is players finding these too soon in the game, like at level 80 or something, and going to far reaches way too early. However, I do think there’s an easy way to prevent that.
I think the currents (I’d say this is a better name than highways) could only take effect if you complete a side quest at level ~150 or so that requires you to visit the Far reaches, and only after that do the currents take effect.
Better yet, have the quest have a step for each layer, so the more layers you visit, the deeper can the current take you.

I do think that maybe a slightly boosted hazard spawn rate while in the current does make it more balanced and likely to be accepted, so the player has to put in more focus but less time to reach deeper layers.

[Scandin]

@BlueFighter15

I think the currents (I’d say this is a better name than highways) could only take effect if you complete a side quest at level ~150 or so that requires you to visit the Far reaches, and only after that do the currents take effect.

The ship perk(s) possibly unlocked by Enizor?

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@Presifir

(This should be possible using cone checks which rams already uses)

No cone checks are required, it only requires a dot product to dictate which way you are heading, very cheap.

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Overall, pretty good QoL for end-game content.

[CookieTank12345]

nice

[Mutni_0]

@Presifir

2b2t.

Did someone just mention the oldest anarchy server in minecraft?

But this suggestion is a really good idea, I don’t see a reason not to have it considering how annoying it is getting back to a certain area of the dark sea. 9/10 oldest anarchy server in arcane odyssey

[Head_of_Tomato]

I wholeheartedly support the feature of some sort of quick way to get to further ranges in the dark sea.

I think that the way I’d personally implement it would be through some sort of quest from the siren queen that is going to be added in the future that’d award the player with some sort of horn that players use in order to summon sirens who escort the player’s ship until they leave the dark sea or get to the far reaches, and said sirens would prevent dark sea spawns while active since they’re guiding you and thus this allows you to avoid Atlantean ships and sea monsters (it’d also provide a speed boost allowing players to fairly quickly exit the dark sea if need be, but using the horn in the far reaches would summon corrupted sirens that would attack you.

[Midorinotmidori]

@BlueFighter15

players finding these too soon in the game

could u elaborate on this being an issue? From how I see it, well, what is level 80 little timmy even going to do in the far reaches? Kill a mythical dragon? Hecate his 2 second old slot? Defeat the omen? His ship can’t even handle the rough water anyways. I feel like that would just be overcomplicating things.

@BlueFighter15

I do think that maybe a slightly boosted hazard spawn rate while in the current does make it more balanced

even with my max speed brig it takes 20 minutes to sail to the far reaches. There shouldn’t be a downside to basic quality of life. The only balancing this would need is just how much it accelerates your ship, it’s not like it’ll be nigh instantaneous. Too fast and some peoples games wouldn’t even be able to handle it.

[Midorinotmidori]

should probably be called wind currents or something else less obvious for immersion reasons. Could build off of the existing feature of wind direction making your ship faster. They’re just way stronger in the dark sea because magic or something.

@Presifir

environmental hazards can still occur

Most hazards are more of a nuisance than a challenge, having them spawn in the middle of these is just even more of a nuisance, not an actual challenge. You just leave the current then go around the hazard and reenter. The real challenges come in the Far Reaches, and getting to those challenges is what this post is supposed to fix no? Since like you said, you need to get to i4 just to get to dragons that are challenging.

Though, maybe sea monsters could be more attracted to these? Save for giant krakens, annoying as hell. When more are added to the future though that could be interesting.

[TheoreticalExistence]

What if it was a thing where the obscenely fast current is hell on your ship and you have to do repairs pretty much as soon as you get out?

[tes3776]

Genuinly fast flowing water thats boosts you boat speed and let you travel easily in the dark sea was about what i was thinking to suggest in this forum, tho i was thinking of strong currents of water IN the dark sea, that act as typical boost pads. Tho im stuck with the problem that player might ragequit when they pick the wrong current and be GRRR.

[tes3776]

that would genuinly be kinda peak (depends on the quest tho ), but i dont blame people thinking this is to overcomplicated.

[wardcord1]

This is one of the most beautiful suggestions I have ever seen

[amaranna]

Basically perfect and an idea i was thinking of for a while. I get why the ranges are big, you want people to be able to spend time in the range they want to explore without the fear of accidentally going to another insanity level or constantly changing directions to keep yourself there, but it makes the stuff deeper in so far away. There’s basically no downside to this change and it probably wouldn’t be too complex to add

[pipop_pop]

i agree, but i think that theese currents should spawn randomly on the border instead of the corners cuz most of them would become useless due to them being behind the pelion rift or something.
Also have a designated area where they cant spawn so they dont apper in weird places

[Aine]

I doubt new players finding it too soon would be that much of a problem not gonna lie, despite the Nimbus border existing at the start I dont see a lot of new players being in the nimbus sea already

Plus since the currents only exists at the corners where players rarely go to, I really doubt that would be a problem, locking it to a quest would just be unnecessary and inconvenient as most quests would be are just fetch quests or conversations in this type of game

[Presifir]

@BlueFighter15

The one issue I see with this is players finding these too soon in the game, like at level 80 or something, and going to far reaches way too early.

Yeah this is most likely not a problem as seen with how rarely players below level 50 exists in the Nimbus Sea despite the border existing at Mount Othrys. I’d just be repeating the point of the guy above me but locking it to a quest is somewhat annoying, we could have one that introduces it similar to how it is for cooking, brewing, and jewel crafting I suppose.

@Scandin

No cone checks are required, it only requires a dot product to dictate which way you are heading, very cheap.

If that prevents a method where sailing in a slanted position where it doesn’t aim at the War Seas but still going in the opposite direction of the Dark Sea then sure, as long as there isn’t any way to cheat going back to the War Seas really easy since it’s supposed to be hard to get out of the Dark Sea.

@Head_of_Tomato

I think that the way I’d personally implement it would be through some sort of quest from the siren queen that is going to be added in the future that’d award the player with some sort of horn that players use in order to summon sirens who escort the player’s ship until they leave the dark sea or get to the far reaches, and said sirens would prevent dark sea spawns while active since they’re guiding you and thus this allows you to avoid Atlantean ships and sea monsters (it’d also provide a speed boost allowing players to fairly quickly exit the dark sea if need be, but using the horn in the far reaches would summon corrupted sirens that would attack you.

Would be overcomplicated not gonna lie, while it’s nice to have something unique and cool paired to this, I highly doubt Vetex would use that much effort over a QoL feature. Also I don’t think Vetex would like the idea of making it easy to get out of the Dark Sea since it’s supposed to be hard.

@Midorinotmidori

should probably be called wind currents or something else less obvious for immersion reasons. Could build off of the existing feature of wind direction making your ship faster. They’re just way stronger in the dark sea because magic or something.

Oh that’s actually a better naming idea, that way if Vetex ever plans on using this for the War Seas as well, it can just be easily explained.

@Midorinotmidori

Most hazards are more of a nuisance than a challenge, having them spawn in the middle of these is just even more of a nuisance, not an actual challenge.

I somewhat disagree with this not gonna lie, while it is a nuisance it’s still part of the challenge as maintaining the health of your ship is part of the dark sea expedition. At best most hazards would probably easily passed through the highway since we should be going fast enough to reduce the travel time to i4. The only worry would be getting water poison but at that point the owner can just stop the ship for a bit and then continue once clean since as long as the ship is facing towards the Dark Sea then the ship can be boosted.

@TheoreticalExistence

What if it was a thing where the obscenely fast current is hell on your ship and you have to do repairs pretty much as soon as you get out?

Oh this is actually a nice idea, small damage that can be mitigated by the ship’s stability or artifact could work. This way even if new players managed to use the highway, if they’re not prepared then their ship would be quickly destroyed from the stacked damage of rough seas and the water currents. Though at the same time, I’d rather make it be tied to environmental hazards instead as those can be avoidable.

@tes3776

Genuinly fast flowing water thats boosts you boat speed and let you travel easily in the dark sea was about what i was thinking to suggest in this forum, tho i was thinking of strong currents of water IN the dark sea, that act as typical boost pads. Tho im stuck with the problem that player might ragequit when they pick the wrong current and be GRRR.

Haha yeah, actually I’ve thought of that as well but I realized that since the Dark Sea permanently has rough seas, it’s gonna be hard to see it. So I thought of making it stretch indefinitely starting from the War Seas so that they can easily guess where the current is if they somehow get off the highway accidentally.

@pipop_pop

i agree, but i think that theese currents should spawn randomly on the border instead of the corners cuz most of them would become useless due to them being behind the pelion rift or something.

I don’t think this would be much of a problem since Vetex always gives space on islands near the border of the Dark Sea but yeah, he could mess with the placement to not be blocked by anything. Though making them randomly spawn is sort of an issue and require Vetex to code random spawning points which makes this somewhat overcomplicated plus it could potentially spawn in places where players often go to (Such as near Fort Talos) so it’s better to make them near the corner. Also it’s better to just make simple code for the feature itself and then deciding where he wants to place it.