Welcome to the second thread where I post several ideas that other Testers and I have for the PvE and QoL parts of the game!
This PvE & QoL series edition is much beefier than the previous one as includes more ideas than those in the last edition!
Storyline
This part is pertaining to the Storyline; this section is where you will usually find changes to the Storyline itself and/or mechanics pertaining to it.
RAVENNA’S POINT OF NO RETURN
Being locked out of towns and, consequently, shops, might not be the best way to introduce the ‘stealth’ section of Ravenna.
To certain players, it might be very frustrating that they suddenly lose access to everything only because they didn’t know there would have been a point of no return, so, to avert this issue, a warning should be given to players SHOULD they approach Sir Gaius.
“Are you sure you want to involve yourself with the kidnapping?”
This way, players are warned that something might happen and are given a chance to grind before proceeding into the storyline.
- Night
AUTOMATIC FULL SHIP REPAIR FOR STORY THAT REQUIRES A SHIP 
The game should repair the player’s ship before any story-related missions that REQUIRE the player to use their ship. For example, Iris, Morden, and Neviro (and Edward Kenton) all repair your ship before busting you out of Ravenna jail.
“The bronze fleet is going to be on our tail, and we found and repaired your ship before this. We have to go, NOW!”
Additionally, for this story part in particular, the game should automatically provide you with a sailboat at this point, alongside an instant boat despawn upon death similar to how it works for rowboats. The instant despawn will be a mechanic so long you are at those two storyline parts of the Ravenna escape sequence.
This could also be expanded to storyline parts where you must travel to a new area. This should only occur only once as soon as you reach that part, however, to prevent abuse.
- As some of you may already know, this feature has been shipped into the game!
Some of you may also remember the Ravenna and Bounty suggestion that I made, and well, that one was added in a broader way!
Treasure Charts
Because of how many suggestions there are for this mechanic in particular, we decided to group them under a common category.
Chart Level Requirement (40 → 30) -Polar
Currently, the level you must be at in order to find charts is 40, the issue with this is that most players are going to be zooming through to the story at that point in the game, so they will have little to no incentive to go back down to the sea from Cirrus Island in order to find where a treasure is buried. Bringing it down to 30 helps fill that gap from the end of Frostmill to the beginning of the Stepstones / Cirrus story by giving players more to do. One of the biggest problems with this gap is a lack of things to do that are rewarding, charts could help with this.
Earlier Treasure Chart Quest - Polar
This goes hand in hand with the suggestion of lowering the chart’s level requirements for finding them down to 30, which was previously 40. An NPC at Palo Town or Frostmill could give you a quest mentioning how they don’t have the strength left in them to find a buried treasure they found a scroll for on a nearby island, and you offer to dig it up for them in exchange for a split of the loot. They give you a shovel and give you the chart which is for a predetermined location, not random. (maybe on Mango Isle? Since the island doesn’t have any chart exploration task, it wouldn’t be a way for players to cheese the exploration task, but it could be on just about any island.) You find the treasure, (maybe could also give a guaranteed Sealed Chest to also introduce players to that mechanic) talk to the NPC again, and they say you can have all the treasure since you did all of the work anyways, they don’t need the loot, they were simply curious what was buried there.
Nearby Treasure Locations Generated from Charts - Inferno
Treasure charts should point towards treasure within proximity of where it was picked up (to avoid a chart from Frostmill telling you to go to Wind-Row).
Level-locked Treasure Charts - Cursed/Polar
Islands should have an internal level so when you pick up treasure charts at level 40, you won’t be asked to explore Ravenna which isn’t even unlocked on your map yet. The level required could possibly be just below the level in which the first quest (minus fighting style quests) for each island are unlocked. - Cursed/Polar
Treasure Chart Bias - Flame
Treasure charts’ locations could be biased, not guaranteed, towards islands whose treasure charts you haven’t completed yet. Would help in completing the map given how common Ravenna charts seem to be.
[Charts should be more likely, if not guaranteed to only be on islands you’ve visited, so that a level 40 who may still be using a rowboat is not asked by the game to go all the way to Wind-Row or Ravenna, and the island they may not even know the location of. - Polar]
Quality of Life
Changes that aim to improve the player’s general experience of the game.
Dash Cooldown Indicator - Fluect
Dashes should have a cooldown indicator somewhere. This indicator could be located right next to the stamina bar, as it is a fitting place.
Merchant NPC Inventory Scaling - Meta
Merchant NPCs on ships should have a bigger inventory based on their tier (Upstart 3, Common 4, Rich 5, etc.). Merchant ships are typically not worth buying from due to them usually selling only a few mid tier items; this should increase their chances of selling better items.
Criminal Shipwright on Wind-Row Island - Meta
There should be a criminal Shipwright NPC located at Wind-Row Island. Given that it is an island remote from other areas as well as being the home to a group of bandits, it would make sense for there to be one here while also making for a shipwright that criminals can access on the lower half of the Bronze Sea.
Camp Marker Reward for Munera Garden Quest - Meta
Sir Gavin should reward you with a camp marker and tell you how to use it for fighting at Munera.
More core combat UI effects/SFX - Meta
There should be more effects indicative of resource management and bars in general for combat to communicate certain events in combat to the player better, especially to account for the desync which can make it confusing to the player as to why they’ve taken damage.
- Health bar effect when taking damage
- Stamina bar effect when taking damage from exhaustion
- Energy bar effect + SFX when there is not enough energy to use a move
Ship Part Filter for Inventory - Meta
There should be a filter for ship parts in the inventory, as it is very annoying to find ship parts through large inventories due to there being no way to easily browse them outside of the shipyard.
Inventory Search Bar - Meta
Similar to the search function in the backpack, you should be able to search for items with a search bar in the inventory or trade tab.
Early-Game/General Sailing Improvements - Pika/Meta
Make early game sailing/exploration more bearable, some issues:
- Low default sailing speed: increase base sailboat speed by 5
- Cannons slowing ship further: reduce the speed penalty on cannons by 20%, and 30% for heavy cannon variants
- Wind direction having a greater effect due to less resilience: make sailing with the wind give a flat speed boost (+10 speed?)
Show Percentage Effectiveness next to Gear Stats - Meta
No more guessing how much you are actually getting from my points into stats. Players should be able to see the percentage effectiveness each of their stats give alongside the stat points acquired from gear. Power and Defense are already self-explanatory, so this is moreso for the other stats.
More detailed (though somewhat outdated) explanation here:
Guaranteed Common Drop from Killing Sharks with Attachments - Meta
Killing sharks with an attachment should guarantee their common drop. Simply put, the drop rate of common shark drops like shark fins/scales should be 100%. For the effort required, it really sucks getting nothing from killing them with attachments sometimes. For example, killing a White Eyes with an attachment would always yield their scale.
Making NPCS accept different variants of the same item for quests - Polar
NPCs should not be so picky about what sort of items I give them. If I pick up a blue clam for Enizor’s quest, he should be fine with that. If I pick up Giant Bananas for Ellie Bowen (Palo Town banana quest giver) she should be more than happy I am giving her giant ones, etc. If this is not doable, (maybe Enizor SPECIFICALLY needs normal clams, etc.) at the very least, they should accept items I get from ingredient bags or food crates, does the clam REALLY have to be from the shore? These sorts of quests are the type players already don’t enjoy, so making them less of a pain is better for everyone.
Ship Despawning - Polar
Shocked this wasn’t already on here, but this is something that should be a thing for a multitude of reasons, but for the most part it would just be nice for players who end up being on an island longer than expected, and since there is no way for them to despawn their ship, their ship may end up being attacked by sharks, pirates, etc, and by the time they want to leave, it’s either sunk or on the verge of being sunk and it makes the rest of their journey a slog. An example of this was when I was doing the Ravenna storyline, I had parked my ship, it got attacked as I was on the other side of the island, sunk, then I got to the point where I had to sail off the island, but the ship was completely broken, and since I can’t go into town or I’d be captured by the Bronze Legion, I can’t repair my ship at any shipwright, so the game asks me to sail to another island while simultaneously not allowing me to repair my ship in peace, since I’m being chased by a crazy amount of Ravenna ships, my ship can’t outspeed theirs because its broken, and I get into this loop of continuously trying to get out on my extremely slow ship that I can’t repair fast enough, even with a bronze repair hammer. One issue I could see potentially coming up with ship despawning is if a player has things like sealed chests on their ship or cargo, but the solution to this is to just tell the player to remove these items from their ship first. TLDR ; This is basically a must-have QoL feature.
2 minutes since it’s the same when you die; you mustn’t take any damage during this process to prevent any kind of abuse. - Night
Permanent Dye Merchant - Flame
Permanent dye merchant somewhere in the world so players don’t have to rely on randomly spawning merchant ships to access this feature. There could be an island dedicated to this npc like Thorin’s Refuge and its shipwright.
Blackwater Grotto’s Neutrality - Night/Meta
Neutral players should be able to talk to criminal shopkeepers so long they aren’t officially aligned as a good rep (Friendly+).
The reason is that when you reset your Bounty to enter the Assassin Syndicate you can’t even talk to the shopkeepers there and are forced to go to islands like Palo Town at first.
Sure, if you’re lucky you could hunt someone and have immediate access to shopkeepers, but that’s not ideal.
Island Infamy Clarity - Flame
Display infamy gain per 5 minutes for islands on the map when moused over (Change displayed below)
Visual Difference for Higher Quality Foods - Meta
Food made by skilled cooks should be colored more vibrantly. Make cooked foods slightly more vibrant based on the chef’s cooking level. - Meta
Partially Consumed Meal/Brew Placement like Cargo - Meta
Allow players to pick up and move placed meals like cargo rather than the meals being stuck in place forever after being eaten from. The same should apply for potion brews.
All Titles Made Account-Based - Meta
(Non-renown) titles should be account-based and not slot-based. If I have achieved something on a different slot and have a badge to show for it, why should it be completely void on other slots? Not to mention, if someone wants to delete a slot they got a badge like Bronze Sea Abolitionist on for whatever reason, their work in getting that badge would be void pretty much.
Map Reveal Metaprogression for Sea Explorers - Meta
Having the Explorer title for a sea should reveal that sea’s map for every character on the account as well as any future characters made on the account. Exploration tasks would remain incomplete in order to not lock out a source of XP.
Display Fish Hunger Value - Meta
The base Hunger value that a fish would give when cooked should be displayed on their tooltip. This value could be displayed similarly to food, but with a “when cooked/prepared” tacked at the end.
Reducing the Disenchantment costs - Night
Currently, disenchanting an item is very risky and very costly, with a Fair Amulet easily reaching over 1.4k Galleons to disenchant it; Sunken is even worse ranging at 5.2k Galleons.
The cost should be reduced to either 1:1 or 1.2x the enchanting price.
This way, players are given a healthy choice between the surefire way that enchantment scrolls are, and the randomness of enchanting and disenchanting without incurring huge losses in Galleons.
(Even better as this is beyond the 1:1 ratio!)
Jailtime Adjustments - Fluect/Meta
Jail Time should be notoriety-based rather than bounty-based. A 10-minute jail time should only be a thing if you have enough notoriety to have Rear Admirals after you. On top of a minimum jail time of 30s, a good rate could be something like 10 Notoriety = 1s of jailtime.
(This is assuming the galleon cost to clear Notoriety is equal to the Notoriety stat)
PvE Balancing
The section of pure PvE changes, this is where you’ll find changes regarding NPCs and Bosses.
NPC Bounty Hunt Renown Cap - Fluect
Bounty hunting NPCs past maxLevel * 10,000 renown should no longer reward renown, as this is the point when you would be able to max out your deckhands at the current cap.
(This is under the assumption that deckhands will not be reworked)
Reduce General Argos’ Respawn Time - Meta
His respawn timer is much longer compared to other bosses, so it should be reduced. Otherwise, his drop rates should be increased if this is not feasible.
Gunpowder Barrels with Merlot/Kai - Meta
These two faction minibosses should either aggro when a gunpowder barrel is placed near them, or take significantly reduced damage from them when they blow up to prevent cheesing them with them.
Reduce NPC accuracy with Gun M1s - Meta
NPCs can fire and land gun M1s whilst moving around much more easily compared to their fast projectile/hitscan skills (Piercing Shot, Beams, etc.). The accuracy on their gun M1s should be toned down to match the accuracy of these skills.
Calvus Balancing - Meta/Xael
Calvus fight should get some changes to make the fight generally more fair and enjoyable:
- Calvus’s delayed orbs/swords attack should have an indicator of sorts of when it will fire. They could start growing in size or pulsate to indicate such. - Meta
- Move Calvus’s placed pillar attack’s magic circle from the ceiling to below the player, so that it is more clear that Calvus is charging it while out of sight. - Xael
Uncertain/Miscellaneous
This is what we have considered and suggested, though it’s not certain that these will be added.
Nerf cargo exp, slightly buff its Galleons gain? - Night
There are so many other activities in the game that are much more engaging and give better loot such as Diving Points, Treasure Charts, Ship Combat, Exploration Tasks and so on.
Cargo was intended to be a way to get Galleons albeit with the risk of losing your own cargo, and it should become like that because it’s not intended to be the main way to levelling, on top of also tackling the issue of funnelling/unintuitive levelling from players who might just watch a video and decide that it’s THE way they want to play the game.
Killing bosses should heal you by 10% of their base max HP, or at the very least, 10% of the damage you dealt. Eg. Calvus would heal you 450 HP if you soloed him - Meta
As opposed to normal NPCs, Bosses are difficult and getting a health pack to be ready to fight them back when they respawn wouldn’t be a bad idea to ensure a smooth transition between regeneration and fighting bosses.
Highly Requested
A section for suggestions that were noted to be highly requested/needed for the game by Testers, sometimes critical for its well-being (this doesn’t mean that other suggestions lack in importance compared to these, it’s just that these were often requested.)
Climbing Speed Buffs - Inferno/Meta
Climbing as it is right now is very slow-paced compared to the rest of the game. Given that some reagents will buff climbing speed alongside agility, it’ll still be far too slow compared to any other forms of mobility such as simply wall-jumping. Increase the base speed of climbing substantially. Additionally, reduce sliding down from latching onto a wall by half, as it makes climbing in general way slower as well.
- Base climbing speed: +60%
Wall grab deceleration: +100% (2x faster to go from a sliding state to a neutral climbing state)
Boss Drop Improvements - Night
Grinding is going to be a part of Arcane Odyssey, though this shouldn’t mean that players must grind the same boss over and over just to get that missing piece, even though trading is also going to be essential to the economy of the game.
- The more you defeat a boss, the higher the chance of a drop should become.
To make grinding a little easier and less painful on the time side, defeating a boss over and over without getting any drops should increase the chance of getting a drop by a set amount depending on how many drops the boss has plus the base drop chance as an example; the boosted drop chance would, of course, reset once a drop has been obtained and wouldn’t be shared between bosses.
- If you haven’t obtained all of a boss’ drops yet, there should be a “drop bias” towards it; would only count for the very first drops.
Pretty self-explanatory as sometimes the RNG isn’t going to be merciful and will keep giving you duplicates of what you already have; this will also serve to reduce the frustration of players.
And that’s it, as usual, I ask of you, on behalf of the PvE & QoL Team, to give your opinions on the ideas you have read.
Some ideas didn’t make it into the thread as they were too specific for a small mechanic, but that’s nothing to worry about as this thread’s purpose is to show you guys that we are actively suggesting changes for the PvE and QoL of the game, of course, while also taking your suggestions into consideration that is.
Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you in the next thread of PvE & QoL!
) or just having FS stats be public knowledge like clash rates