Genuinely how would making it appear in layer 1 or even stay in layer 3 with a higher spawn rate just to make the process of getting it at least somewhat bearable, mess up the lore in any way that isn’t almost entirely negligible. It being in layer 1+ of the dark sea is already plenty enough for it to be considered rare in-universe without many players, if any, raising an eyebrow.
If the quality of the game suffers a good lot because of it and the effect of making it a bit more common or easier to get has minimal effect on the lore then yes it is odd.
If the only reason it exists is because people wanted it, then there’s no need for it to be so heavily restricted because lore. At worst just make it a non-canon thing the same as Prometheus Acrimonies. Stuff like that ain’t even all that uncommon in games like this it wouldn’t be ruining everything. Although again as I said before making hecate essence just a little easier to get really wouldn’t mess anything up at least as far as I can tell.
Okay not only is not being able to learn every single fighting style not a problem that exists in universe which seems like a bigger deal than Hecate essence being made more common, but the things you’re mentioning are not the same. We’re talking about the ability to change a key part of your loadout, something that isn’t remotely as difficult with any non-magic loudout.
frankly I don’t care if vetex could or would agree to it.
the issue is that all logic and his actions before the update dictate that he should agree to it and, in spite of everything, he isn’t.
I get where you’re coming from, but if you’re having problems with the Far Reaches being 1/12, you better be prepared for way rarer essence spawns in the earlier layers. Lore wise, neither of us can genuinely comment on this.
Again, another lore assumption based on what? Vetex apparently has the lore planned out, so you don’t know if this would be a “minimal effect” as you put it. You either stick to the lore, or risk messing it up by changing it as you go. AA Lore was all over the place as far as I know, Vetex didn’t even know about the Acid Samurai or whatever it was at one point.
I could argue the quality of the game suffered when Vetex increased the costs of some spells/techniques to reflect the “lore strength” of them. This one is also far more egregious than the Hecate essence stuff since unlike Hecate essence which is tied to a deceased god of magic, these are skills that don’t have any technical importance to the lore.
People wanted it, they get it early, but it’s like I said. I won’t repeat my earlier point, but if Hecate is getting this treatment unlike the acrimonies, maybe, just maybe, they’re just more important to the lore than we realize? Beyond that, in my opinion, the bigger issue is Vetex making the Dark Sea so big since it takes an entire hour or so just to start looking for the damn thing if you aren’t using a speed build.
My solution? Probably letting people skip the early sections of the Dark Sea via some kind of way. Maybe joining your fleet in a conquest expedition could fast forward you to a specific layer in the Dark Sea when those are added. By the time you have a good enough fleet to do this you’d probably breeze through those sections anyways, especially with a convoy protecting you.
I also have another idea, but I haven’t thought too much on it to put it out there.
I admit that FS/Weapons aren’t the best of points, but it’s mainly me pointing out the interaction between gameplay and lore. If magic worked like fighting styles where you had a trainer teach you it, then believe me, we’d probably have magic trainers all over the place (or a few masters of specific groups of basic magics), but we don’t. Magic doesn’t work like fighting styles (lore wise you can’t just forget it), and as far as we know, the only place where Hecate essence can exist is in the Dark Sea’s Far Reaches. Then again, I think minds were kinda retconned no? Or at least written out of the lore, I might be wrong though.
Anyways, I just realized I was misspelling Hecate since I read and imagined it as Hectate for some reason.
what do you think I’ve been trying to do?
you’ve jumped in to say “nah vetex wouldn’t do that” literally every time.
I don’t care if he could or would because I’m going to keep trying regardless until he does.
I hate pushing developers but damn there comes a point and Hecate Essence is well over that line.
When I gotta go to the deepest darkest most dangerous
depths of the dark sea for a slight chance of finding hecates booty hole air just because I don’t wanna be chained to the shackles of light magic anymore
I’m not saying you can’t disagree with me, but the whole “you have to deal with it” type of argument is stupid and doesn’t comprehend the point of discussion.
What? It is not at all a lore assumption we know basically everything we would need to know about hecate essence. We know where it comes from, what it does, and it’s rarity. Making it more convenient for the player to get it by putting it in layers 1 and 2 as well or just increasing the spawn rate would not be enough disparity from canon to fuck anything up. I wanna be clear here if I wasn’t already, I’m not asking for them to canonically be less rare, but making them less rare by the amount I’m asking would not create a big enough disparity that people just couldn’t believe it if someone said it was rare in-universe. Acting like I’m acting on a baseless assumption is genuinely ridiculous though there is more than enough info to work with here.
Hecate wasn’t even part of the lore until like month before Empires released. The use of hecate shards in game won’t even be canonically used by the main character(which I can provide proof of if you like). While there is the slim possibility that they might do something in the story there is more than enough reason to heavily doubt it and act on the assumption that it isn’t. Even if it for some reason is I’m even more doubtful making it less rare would mess that up. Since AO’s major events were more than likely planned out long before Hecate was introduced to the lore I doubt it’ll have any importance to any significant event. Thus I find it very hard to believe that decreasing it’s rarity would have any devastating effect.
There’s really just a lot of reason not to believe hecate essence will be all that important and not a lot to suggest otherwise. At most there’s the fact that Hecate essences’ existence is canon which doesn’t really say much especially in the face of everything said above. Like with all that in mind I find it more likely that Vetex just found it a convenient way to make magic changes into lore, definitely takes less assumption to get there.
Sounds like it would still take way longer for a magic user to get to a point where they could reliably change their magic at least somewhere near how easily fs users change change their fs which is the big problem here. You haven’t really done much to address that and like I just said the fleet thing is a pretty big time sink to be able to somewhat conveniently get a magic change especially compared to what little work other classes have to go through.
I have not once argued that magic should work like fighting styles. Only that it shouldn’t be nearly as difficult as it is to change your magic compared to changing your fighting style.
Never did don’t know why you keep acting like I did, I’ve never said anything to make any egregious changes to lore or any gameplay changes that would be an egregious afront to it.
This is just blatantly false. Hecate blew herself up like over 1000 years before the dark sea was even a thing. People were already using her shards already to mutate their magics long before the dark sea came around. Essence being the other thing that came from her blowing herself up
has been around since before the dark sea. It literally does not make sense if it couldn’t exist outside the far reaches.
I can understand wanting to keep the gameplay as lore accurate as possible but if that comes to the unfairly make the game worse for certain people than it’s really not worth it. Especially when again there’s not much reason to believe that decreasing the rarity just gameplay would do much of anything to the lore. So far almost everything leads me to believe the opposite. I won’t deny that there’s a very slim possibility that hecate essence could be important, but given what I stated earlier, it’s so unlikely that I don’t find there to be good reason to treat it like it something that could reasonably be reality. I’m not saying it’s wrong to account for that possibility, but it is wrong to try to dismiss arguments on that possibility when it’s so incredibly unlikely.
Summarize what you know real quick then. I wanna see, since I haven’t looked into AO or it’s lore in a while.
Does the guy in sailor lodge still say Lost or Ancient Magic Scrolls? Or something along those lines?
We’ll see, with how quickly the game is worked on we might get a better idea by 2026.
The fleet is something you’re going to build up anyways.
Lore-Gameplay interaction wise, unless we could literally convert hecate essence into fragments (like I said in another post) to use any time. Maybe getting 3 and you can pop them to spawn in the essence, which either you or a friend can use. This would at least let you farm up magic resets, and if Vetex wants to argue that Hecate essence can only exist in the Far Reaches, then fragments of it (since “shards” can apparently exist for lost magic outside of the Dark Sea) should be able to exist anywhere.
It’ll always be difficult. If the FS system is gold, and the magic system is copper; then all you’re doing is putting a silver lining on copper with the system you’re suggestion. Let’s be honest here, Vetex if he made Hecate essence available in earlier layers will make it so rare we might as well see it once every solstice.
Finally actually showed me something here (I’m not on the discord). Although going with this being the case, it would make sense for the Hecate shards in the early layers of the Dark Sea to basically be non-existent because of explorers picking it clean. At least, you can argue this for layer 1 or whatever you call insanity 0. Insanity 1 and beyond, I don’t think anyone besides Wotan and the kingdoms would even consider sailing there (even then it’s probably just mainly Wotan).
By the way, I’ve replying to these as I go down, I’m not reading the entire post then forming a reply. Also it’s past midnight and I’m gonna dip.
Yeah I’m probably not gonna write anything after this, I think I’ve made my point and tbh there’s been enough misunderstanding and misinformation in this argument that I don’t really wanna continue. I know it’s not intentional but I just don’t see the benefit in continuing to go on.
Putting this second to clear up the misunderstanding here, I call insanity 1 layer 1 and insanity 0 I call layer 0. I’ve been replying to these as I go to so a couple of these were made with the belief that you thought layer 1 meant insanity 1 as well.
We know they come from hecate splitting herself apart, we know that they’re rare based on the fact that they are y’know rare, and they can change magic and give magic to people without it. I know that last part can make it seem like making it rare is necessity as anybody would be running around with magic. However I don’t think even the most drastic case of hecate essence being in layer 1 causes any problems here considering not only do most people already really fear the dark sea, but it is dangerous enough most people wouldn’t make it or would go mad looking for it. While it might be easier for the player it can still be considered rare by everyone in universe who can’t tell the difference between layers and would search island upon island til they go crazy.
Edit: As you said you don’t think anyone besides Wotan and the kingdoms(I’m guessing you mean specific members?) would ever consider sailing to i1 or farther so again not much of an issue of most people getting magic. Also most people probably wouldn’t be aware of it’s existence either given how very few people go into the dark sea.
Pretty sure he says mutations which can happen without a shard if you have a previous shard user in your bloodline.
The second answer is a response to me asking how canon the hecate shards are.
We’re arguing about what should be done, obviously I wouldn’t want this so I don’t really get the point of you bringing this up or the idea that it would just have to be difficult for some reason. Ideally if it was brought to layer 1 it would keep the same rarity otherwise the move was kinda pointless.
Up until now everything I’ve talked about could have been mostly if not entirely figured out by looking at the lore doc. Heck you could’ve figured out that Hecate essence came from Hecate splitting her soul without patreon either it’s kinda obvious. I guess there’s the info on hecate essence giving non-magic people magic, but that didn’t really have anything to do in-universe with it’s rarity so I didn’t really think it was necessary information.
Again you’re just not gonna get it until way later on and I’m not entirely sure if it’d be something you do without going out of your way to do it anyways. It really shouldn’t be necessary in order to change your magic in a timely manner somewhere even remotely as fast as it is to change fighting styles.
Not much to say on this since it was written before you saw the info disproving that the hecate shards were only in the far reaches, but I will say I wouldn’t be opposed to this idea.
just pay an arm and a leg for somebody to find it for you
no like I literally was hired once to do that… for an acrimony since the guy was that desperate apparently
ok I’ma put this to you as straight as I possibly can:
Fuck the lore. I don’t care if the lore says there’s only one hecate essence across all of the dark sea, its dogshit for gameplay and lore will never be a good excuse to mess up gameplay.
Vetex can write the lore however he wants to, that’s not my business, nor do I want it to be.
I enjoy the lore as vetex writes it, however, I never want to see lore accuracy prioritized over gameplay quality.
There’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed there, and hecate essence does several frontflips over it.
I mean, you could argue that Vetex doesn’t write the lore with gameplay in mind, and by technicality Vetex said Hecate split themselves into thousands of pieces. In something as big as our planet, in lore you’d probably almost never see Hecate’s essence, and we’re probably extremely lucky to find them. But there are ways of maintaining the lore while not affecting the gameplay too negatively. I might suggest (it won’t be read) something Dark Sea related today or tomorrow, but we’ll see. I’ll split up the ideas into two, maybe three, just in case because some might be more questionable; it’s probably better to keep them apart so they aren’t grouped up in one (they don’t have to be together anyways).
then he’s failed at that for 3/4 of the builds ingame.
spirit weapons, fighting styles, and normal weapons can be swapped around just about freely lol.
I’d like to emphasize that, if this is the case, I’m glad he’s failed at it in 75% of builds.
If hecate essence is supposed to be the standard for changing parts of your build, then I’m quitting AO for good because its just not worth it.
