“Alright the quote thing isn’t funny”
(Likely) The Last Chance
Hi, it’s another one of those topics. Here are my criticisms and concerns around Arcane Odyssey’s next update, the Full Release.
I am interested in game design, I am interested in lore. These are just my concerns. They don’t have to be yours.
The Full Release is probably the last chance AO has (On Roblox, the books are a different issue) to majorly grow. It needs to be done right, and here are a few things which I see could be issues in the future.
Bosses
Full Release, if all the content we are hoping to get added gets added will see
- At least 1 Legendary Ship fight
- At least 1 Story Boss
- At least 4 Non Story Bosses
- At least 1 Miniboss
There is, on top of this, 2 more Non Story Bosses and 1 more Miniboss which are planned.
After fighting Calvus an ungodly amount of times to get the Sinister Gaze on two of my files, I have definitely come to appreciate his fight. His moves are well projected (bar array) and he has pretty good strengths and weaknesses. Argos, despite being slightly too weak for my liking, is also pretty good. He has well defined moves, and my only real complaint is his tendency to spam stuff in phase 3.
For the rest…
Elius is good if you take the time to learn his moves, but a bit too much of a step up in my opinion. Carina is dull, tedious and I hate her fight stop dodging for Poseidon’s sake. Maria is a good concept and good difficulty but my god please stop becoming invincible. Iris is just a regular enemy with a boss bar, Shura is a great introduction to bosses. Was going to comment on Cernyx but I lost him, pretty nice moves however when he’s not hiding down the cliff. All the faction minibosses and Evandar are fine for who they are I guess.
My only concern is that 4 of the bosses (Calvus, Carina, Elius, Maria) seem to just dodge lots. Fair to Calvus as it fits his fight, and Elius uses the pillars quite well. I think it’d be nice to see a boss who fights a bit differently.
If all of the bosses we are expecting get in, I hope some have a gimmick. I’ll use the Wind Temple Boss Colgera from Tears of the Kingdom for example here. Now here I was, flung up into the air by the bad guy, and I see the big purple area of ice you can dive through, as done in the ascent to the temple. I didn’t even realise you could shoot them with arrows until afterwards, I was just having that much fun diving through.
What I want to see, is some variation in the boss fights. I want some to be gimmicky. Perhaps we could be fighting wielding the glider, or bombarded with outside cannonfire. Perhaps rather than dodging they could tank the attacks and perform a counter, or create a shield which would have to be destroyed some other way than just blasting it.
Also if there is ever a Curse User boss please actually make it wield the Sea Curse in interesting ways. They aren’t just strong mages, they are the embodiment of their element. Make them avoid your attacks by turning into a pillar and appearing somewhere else or something 
wotan turns into a boat
trust me
Another note, Legendary Ships better have their Ship fight before the captain not just be a mortar spamming brig. Give them preset moves or unique deckhand abilities.
Side Content
Alright. So we have plenty of side content planned.
I think that to make full release really good, Vet needs to do well with the side content. Make it fun, make it hard, make it repeatable and rewarding. I don’t want it to be repetitive, nobody does.
My only extra concern is even though Vetex is offering a good variety, I don’t quite think it’ll be enough. He will still need to expand on these for a while after full release, even if only partially each update.
Lore / Character
Lore, lore, lore.
Either love it or like don’t
I saw a comment from someone and now I cannot remember who so if it was you please say, you made a really really good point.
Every NPC we talk to usually has some lore dialogue, or something additional to the quest they provide. I personally think it’s a great idea to disperse some less lore intensive dialogue between them. There are a ton of NPCs without dialogue at Sameria and Ravenna. Have them complain about their knee or mention the weather. Make the world feel quite alive.
This is also pretty easy to delegate to a team member. I’m sure somebody is happy to write some character dialogue just to make the game feel more WoM like with lots more player/world interaction. Journals as well. Let me read some random journal I found in the sand even if its about something completely unrelated to the AO world.
“Day 123, I ate a coconut. It was alright. Bit dry. Won’t do it again.”
QoL and the community
we love QoL
I’m aware that other people have said this in perhaps different ways, but here I am to say it again. Listen to the community. Yes most of them are insane but there will be some decent ideas within it.
If they want Hecate Essence to be made easier to find, make it easier.
This does not mean that Vetex should listen to the Balance Team in particular because fun fact - not everyone is in Bcord. It is definitely not the same community as the Forums.
Gauging community feeling over the entire range of different areas (Vetcord, Bcord, Forums, Twitter, even the less major servers like Clan Hub, Artcord, Gravycord and Asyncord) is a good idea. Not everyone can be happy with every change but if most people (across everywhere) are, it’s better than something nobody likes.
Marketing
I know a bit about marketing. Not much but I get the gist.
the Media Team are doing great, but they really, really need to go all in on Full Release.
I think that there should definitely be at least one midway through development teaser, ideally two, along with the release trailer (Which by the way, should definitely serve as an “Arcane Odyssey” trailer rather than an update trailer. Showcase the entire game so far rather than just what’s new. Use this as an excuse to use both the Dark Sea and main game music themes and feel godlike 
)
I think Vetex and Tech should do another QnA.
I trust that the media guys can do it
lets see these numbers again.
thanks people
topic
