Hi everybody! For those that don’t know me, my name is Serena, better known as Xxael or Xael within the Vetcord. I am currently a moderator supervisor, and have been on the moderation team one way or another for Vetex for almost seven years now. I am an avid lover of Arcane’s lore, games, and most of all it’s community.
It has come to my attention that there has been some drama regarding a certain person in the community, and a certain occurrence that quite literally and metaphorically blew the situation out of the water. I’m here to hopefully clear any misunderstandings, give me perspective on the entire matter, and hopefully put a staunch on flame fanning.
We all know of Vetex’s custom, a destructive carnal magic known as Cataclysm. We know of Arcanium Cannons/Rams that imbue with the power of a player’s magic. We know that a very recent event happened involving a cataclysm-imbued cannon barrage, stolen dark sea chests, and a sour note on everyone’s mouth.
Yes, I am the owner of those cannons, and so is Tech, and of course Vetex. However, no one else has a set. Not a single moderator, nor tester, has a set of either the cannons or the ram. They are unable to spawn, cheat, console command, or exploit them in (of course). My set of ram and cannon comes from Vetex himself. He has explicitly stated that no one else in the future will ever get a set other than myself or Tech.
This is not meant to brag, quite the opposite in fact, but there is quite a misunderstanding that any moderator or tester can get a set, and by extension give them out to clan members. This is false. I will not divulge why I have the privilege of owning a set, as it is not relevant to this post, but apart from the Co-Creator (Tech), and Creator (Vetex), there will never be another set in circulation, unless otherwise exploited in.
Yes, there are testers and moderators that have a “Cataclysm” Accessory, but those do not gain bonus stats. A Cataclysm Arcsphere or Bracelet has the exact same stats as any other arcsphere. They were given out to some as vanity.
Now that we covered who gets what, I’d like to give my perspective.
Yes, the cannon set and ram do indeed imbue with the multipliers of Cataclysm itself. Yes, that means they are singlehandedly the most powerful iteration of cannons and rams at the current moment. Yes, a Heavy Exploding cannonball will deal upwards of 500+ damage against a player. Yes, this means that, if hit, a player would most likely only be able to tank 2 or 3 if they have an average HP of 1.4k.
Is this unfair? If you exclude any and all other context, then I would agree so. If I land a volley, chances are if you are on the wheel, you will die.
But, a set of Dragonfire Carronades will do the exact same thing. For lack of a better example, lets use this video to demonstrate.
As you can see, cataclysm cannons or not, a volley from any brig using heavy exploding shells will kill regardless. You might think that the multiplier for Cataclysm cannons are probably like 6x, or 8x or whatever absurd multiplier you can come up with, but in reality its just short of double a Dragonfire Carronade. Yes, that is still alot, but the margin to kill someone with a volley from either is the same.
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The cannon and rams are a gift from Vetex, and to put it simply, I like to play the game too. I might be a moderator supervisor, I might have lots of standards to uphold, but in-game, I am also a player just like everyone else. I want to play the way I want to play.
I let people in Ravenna hop onto my boat and play with the cannons. Sometimes. I let them take it for a spin. And sometimes, I do feel a little devious and take it into the dark sea to plunder someone else’s haul.
PvP and PvE has always co-existed within every iteration of Arcane that Vetex has published. There will be frustrations from both sides against the other. We might never find the perfect balance, who knows? But, even though I am a moderator supervisor, it feels restricting if I can’t even play the game without catching flak for enjoying a gift. Hell, I am not even that big of a PvPer, and you can ask mostly anyone that knows me that I probably am lurking somewhere on the bottom of the barrel PvP-skill-wise.
I understand its frustrating being at the end of a dark sea haul, and getting obliterated into the Nimbus Sea by a custom set of cannonballs, but at the end of the day, any other brig could have done it. It’s the dark sea, its meant to be treacherous, and that includes players too. I’ve gotten shamwowed by other players inside it, and I will continue to occasionally shamwow.
TL;DR : Players are easier to kill than Monstrous Atlanteans.
Cheers,
Xael
