1/12 chance of spawning on islands that take eons to traverse
insanity 3 literally blinds you so you NEED a set or potions to even do anything
Absurd dmg on enemies on an area we’re “not meant to go there yet”
Purple fart cloud is hard to see and blends with the environment
Super easy to forget where you left your boat in the massive islands
Overall just incredibly boring in every way imaginable
Vetex can change the spawnrate at ANY moment and choses not to, seriously, what even is the thought process here? I dont get it. Make the spawnrate either 1/3, or make it spawn on every range, and PLEASE do it now. I dont wanna wait 6 months for something that should’ve been in the game since empires day 1.
We aren’t supposed to go to insanity 3 (we’re too low level still)
There is still a lot of content we have no idea how it’ll turn out (eg. Legendary Ships and their ship parts)
Skill Tree (could assist with traveling around outside of combat)
Future ships, ship parts, and enchants may reduce this to 20 minutes.
Only thing I can suggest is an agility build (unless Balance Team change goes through), and agility potions.
You probably should have a warding potion at least, I used to only explore around with warding potions because it kept my screen clear. You can explore the lower regions with warding gear and get reagents for potions if necessary.
Because we aren’t, have you seen their level? Don’t say “not meant to go there yet” like it’s not a point, it’s valid, it’s something we CAN do but doesn’t mean we should. It’s like doing a secret boss early in a game even though you know you can just return later down the line to fight it.
Fair, hopefully sensing can fix that, letting you sense the fart cloud.
No, I won’t consider any of this because none of these things are ingame and hecate essence is.
Hecate essence should have been catered to players around our current level. Requiring a brig and a deep dark sea expedition in the first place is a massive ask to change magic when every other class can do it in a couple button presses.
Magic changing should be just as easy as changing fighting styles.
I cannot emphasize enough, and I will repeat it until everyone understands: Vetex retconned minds, the entire reason any of these restrictions made sense in the first place. If not for lore, then what?
Hecate essence being nigh unobtainable because “we’re not supposed to find it yet” gives me flashbacks to when Arcane Lineage had a final boss that was so difficult you needed an entire squad of no-lifes using heavily gatekept strategies, because the devs would nerf anything that could actually beat it since you weren’t supposed to fight it yet
With hecate essence implemented the way it is, even if I was sitting on level 235098 and could instakill every atlantean I saw and face no threat whatsoever, I think I’d still get bored and give up before I found one.
I don’t like it either, but if you think is the single worst piece of game design ever then you must not play a lot of games or even know about many games.
If this were about just fighting extremely high level atlanteans or getting to epicenter or something along those lines I could agree. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with putting in things way above our current max level early as just some extra challenge for players who really want to push themselves.
However, I don’t think Hecate essence should be something meant only for higher level players. It’s a tool for changing the loadout of your build and it isn’t nearly as difficult to use the methods to change the loudouts for weapons, spirit weapons, and fighting styles. The most similar one to magic is fighting styles and the worst they have to go through is mastery and that really isn’t that much trouble. At least there’s a direct path for people who want to change their fighting styles, they know exactly what island to go to and then just have to jump some pirates or do a bit of fort castrum and then they’re done. If you want to change your magic you don’t even know where any of the islands it could be at are much less which one its on.
It’s just an odd choice to make changing your magic so much harder compared to changing anything else. I really can’t find any good reason to make it so changing part of your build is practically level locked til you’re like level 300 at the least and even then it’s a ridiculous tedious search while no non-magic wielding class has to deal with that. No one but the biggest losers would complain about it not being lore accurate for being too common if it was made to appear in layer one or even just increase the spawn rate. It’s such a pointlessly annoying challenge that seems to only serve to hinder the experience of any player who wants to change their on of their magics without restarting or wasting a stat reset.
The only thing that compares is the lost cities from RLcraft, otherwise making the player spend several hours wasting resources and agonizing about finding this one item tops everything else in terms of boredom
Talking about real games with quality btw, despite everything I still have AO in high regard which is why im holding it accountable when it pulls something like this
I know, but they do change your second which I’m pretty sure you could also do with a hecate. So if you wanted to change it you’d have to either go through the ridiculous challenge or finding a hecate or waste a stat reset.
Its an overreaction but I don’t think its a crazy overreaction.
Hecate essence is abysmal game design, it feels like it was made with the specific purpose of being as miserable and tedious to obtain as humanly possible.
Its not the worst thing I’ve ever seen but god I wish it was.
It was 1/3 for testing and only for testing.
I believe this is stupid because testers should be testing mechanics as they are released and not a toned down version.
I don’t even care that it’s rare its just that I have to burn hours on a completely out of the way activity which nets no other worthwhile rewards as part of the process
like Prometheus Acrimonies just drop from chests so stat resets are fine but Hecate Essence literally spawns over 30 minutes away from the spawnpoint on islands which are too large to be worth looting the way sealed chests work, and is so insanely rare that I could do it all day and still not be guaranteed to find one.
Instead me numbering points I’m just going to say one. The reason we have it now is because peopled wanted it, and no, it’s not odd to make it follow the lore. Not everything in the lore can be sacrificed for the sake of gameplay. Just like how we can’t learn every single magic, every single fighting style, master every weapon… There are limitations set in place on purpose, and you’ll have to live with that.
Only QoL addition I think Vetex could agree too is converting the essence you find into a shard, and using 3 shards to create an essence spot whenever where you or someone else can use it to reset your magic.
Now that I think about it, shards are lost magic no? Hectate Fragment then.
