The Dark Sea Update [Feedback Post]

[Crusade]

The way I see it is this way:
Sea Monster spawns are boosted in the first layer, rarely giant sea monsters (insanity 0)
Giant Sea Monsters spawn rate boosted in the second layer (insanity 1)
Most common giant sea monster will be poison jaws
Giant sea monster spawn rate is further boosted in third layer (insanity 2)
Poison jaws becomes a tad more common, giant white eyes become fairly uncommon
Insanity 3+ giant behemoth tiers become common, and potentially abyssals and above can start spawning here.

Move the giant white eyes to a bit deeper in the Dark Sea, it’s like if we had an Alpha White Eyes just chilling on the insanity 3 zone every 2 minutes. Most of the time they just ignore you unless you go directly over them too, it’s more of a nuisance than anything. Also I would like to get more sea monster weaponry this update, but to be fair I’ve gotten everything except the swivel cannons for my mage to effectively use them.

[pristine]

@Artanaris

• Do you think the Dark Sea Update has improved diversity in terms of builds?

Absolutely. This is mostly due to the changes to the stat formula rather than the items offered themselves, but there are some cool new options, and the ability to split up your stats with the new enchants is great.

@Artanaris

• Do you think the Dark Sea Update has made min-maxing mandatory given the balance changes to items?

Definitely no longer mandatory.

@Artanaris

• Do you think the Dark Sea Update’s jewels and the balance changes related to them have improved the mechanic itself and the interest in it?

The new jewels and stat changes are great, aside from a few useless outliers, such as Painite and anything with Intensity due to its current state.

@Artanaris

• What do you think about the Rough Seas present in the Dark Sea? Do you think they are too obstructive?

They’re a little annoying, but nothing too awful.

@Artanaris

• What do you think about Rain Poisoning?

It’s a fair mechanic. Makes micromanaging a lot more stressful, which is a good thing.

@Artanaris

• What do you think about Atlantean enemies?

Their scaling can be pretty insane, but I think that’s a good thing. Having insanely strong enemies to fight is fun.

@Artanaris

• What do you think about Sirens? Are they too difficult to find?

They spawn frequently enough and are very easy to kill for good loot.

@Artanaris

• What do you think about the Brig? Do you think it’s mandatory to use for the Dark Sea?

Absolutely mandatory. The loot of the first range is awful.

@Artanaris

• Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming? Should the length of the layers be lowered?

It is a little too time consuming for the loot you get. Dark Sealed rates need to be increased across the board.

@Artanaris

• Do islands spawn often enough? Do they present any issues?

With multiple players, island spawn rates are fine. Solo, they are horrible.

@Artanaris

• Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?

The rewards are absolutely sufficient, but should be less grindy to get. Dark Sealeds really need to be buffed in frequency, especially on islands, which are typically near-barren.

[WarmWater]

bro that’s awesome it should stay in the game tbh, just make it rarer

[RaveNitro]

i think island spawn rate should be buffed a little

[Pelgonia]

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update has improved diversity in terms of builds?

Yes by alot

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update has made min-maxing mandatory given the balance changes to items?

yes

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update’s jewels and the balance changes related to them have improved the mechanic itself and the interest in it?

yeah

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Rough Seas present in the Dark Sea? Do you think they are too obstructive?

not alot, but yeah

@Artanaris

What do you think about Rain Poisoning?

its ok

@Artanaris

What do you think about Atlantean enemies?

very interesting, but i think drops are too scarce

@Artanaris

What do you think about Sirens? Are they too difficult to find?

i haven’t find any so i think yeah

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Brig? Do you think it’s mandatory to use for the Dark Sea?

yeah, its too difficult to do in any other ship or just impossible

@Artanaris

Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming? Should the length of the layers be lowered?

yes its time consuming but i like the challenge

@Artanaris

Do islands spawn often enough? Do they present any issues?

i think they should be more often, not much but sometimes i find none in some time

@Artanaris

Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?

yeah but as i said again, drops of atlanteans should be greater

@Artanaris

Does the rain in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

by alot, i sometimes can’t see anything because of the rain

@Artanaris

Does the fog in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

not much but i can see people with low graphics that can’t see anything

[Perf]

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Rough Seas present in the Dark Sea? Do you think they are too obstructive?

the waves are way too high it looks kinda goofy + its impossible to find ghost ship cargos

@Artanaris

What do you think about Rain Poisoning?

makes it impossible to even attempt to explore without a brig, getting 400+ damage out of nowhere while exploring islands is just not fun

@Artanaris

What do you think about Atlantean enemies?

they scare me which is nice

@Artanaris

What do you think about Sirens? Are they too difficult to find?

theyre annoying to kill more than anything

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Brig? Do you think it’s mandatory to use for the Dark Sea?

yup because of rain poisoning

@Artanaris

Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming? Should the length of the layers be lowered?

i still hate that you cant just drop sealed chests from tall islands smh

@Artanaris

Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?

takes like an hour to get chests just for pablo2014Xx to gank you with his friends while your ship has 2000 hp when u get out and they get all the reward for doing basically nothing and not even getting punished for it, worst case scenario they lose 200 fame, im MALDING

@Artanaris

Does the rain in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

its annoying at high graphics, 24/7 rain is kinda boring + it makes my fire conjurer file even worse because enemies are soaked all the time

@Artanaris

Does the fog in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

not that much

[AwesomeOS]

@Artanaris

What do you think about Atlantean enemies?

Honestly I think they’re a little bit weak

[SCD]

weakness is relative

[AwesomeOS]

Wtf is that

[AwesomeOS]

Fax it takes way too long

[RedNinja]

Can anybody answer me how clear water poisoning, cause i don’t know how and my friend has died twice from it (not me though)

[machapella]

It’s rough out there
cant even explore islands without getting my ship swarmed

[WarmWater]

you take a shower

[Ramen1]

I like the update a lot, it would be better if this was considered
Dark Sea “Downed” QOL Change - Suggestions - Arcane Odyssey
as well as players in parties allowed to use the bathing system 100% of the time without the bug that prevents players from doing that

[Crusade]

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update has improved diversity in terms of builds?

I haven’t really delved too far into it myself (died to an atlantean twice when I had another big haul), but from what I’ve seen it certainly does.

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update has made min-maxing mandatory given the balance changes to items?

Probably, although it is the end game so min-maxing is probably all we really have left to do while we wait for Nimbus Sea. Dark Sea is pretty difficult if you come across a weapon using atlantean since their ranged attacks can rip you apart (for some reason bow and gun m1 attacks just phase through powerful magic, weapon attacks, or fighting style ranged attacks).

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update’s jewels and the balance changes related to them have improved the mechanic itself and the interest in it?

Honestly if you don’t get involved in jewelcrafting you’ll probably be screwed in most pvp encounters. These new exotic jewels are quite powerful, and have added to the overall gem loot pool so getting gems is actually easier than before (ignoring the fact the brig shreds every NPC ship and lets you absolutely just farm tons of sealed chests).

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Rough Seas present in the Dark Sea? Do you think they are too obstructive?

Honestly it’s not even that bad, while a bit obstructive, it honestly could be a lot worse.

@Artanaris

What do you think about Rain Poisoning?

Died because of it in the insanity 1 region as I was fighting an atlantean on my boat. Honestly I get if the insanity 1 layer of the Dark Sea has poisonous waters, hell, you can make it constantly toxic if you want (you get the damaging status every time you take a dip). I’d argue rain poisoning should be for insanity 2 and beyond though, or at least give us an umbrella item so we can chill while we do something else like fish or something.

@Artanaris

What do you think about Atlantean enemies?

They’re cool, good theme song, but I absolutely hate the weapon ones. To be fair, most weapon npcs with a ranged weapon tend to suck since they have aimbot levels of aim with their projectiles (at least the arrows are somewhat avoidable).

@Artanaris

What do you think about Sirens? Are they too difficult to find?

Haven’t seen any yet, but I haven’t really explored too deeply into the 1st layer of the Dark Sea (takes a bit to get there).

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Brig? Do you think it’s mandatory to use for the Dark Sea?

Unless you got a powerful enchanting scroll to supercharge a bronze hull armor to 29% stability, yeah it for sure is. Even if you do, the Brig just has so much firepower, and that bit of extra speed just makes it practically a necessity for even the insanity 1 layer.

@Artanaris

Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming? Should the length of the layers be lowered?

Either they get lowered, or we get visible wind superhighways to help boost our ships down and further into the Dark Sea. Wind superhighways would be a good way to somewhat organically reduce the time required to get into the Dark Sea, but it might cause lag. All I know is that the Far Reaches shouldn’t take an hour to reach by the time we start exploring that.

@Artanaris

Do islands spawn often enough? Do they present any issues?

I noticed a bunch of ghosts floating around, not sure if they’re from despawned islands or just something that happens in the Dark Sea. Although, I didn’t notice them when the update first dropped, it’s only on older servers so I assume that’s unintended.

@Artanaris

Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?

Still need to get some more of the loot, but in all honesty it’s not too ridiculous compared to stuff you can get from the Bronze Sea. If it’s at all more powerful than the bronze sea stuff, there is usually a downside which is usually either insanity or drawback.

@Artanaris

Does the rain in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

Rain is rain, it’s not going to be a significant contributor to obstructing my view.

@Artanaris

Does the fog in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

I can’t see more than 1.5 brigs in front of me sometimes on my monitor.
That’s not even a joke, sometimes I smack into an island before I notice it’s there (the grey stone texture blends into the fog sometimes).

[Archomas]

Pros:

• The enemies in the dark sea are challenging but fair (as long as you don’t venture too far in), atlanteans are some of the most fun I’ve had with enemies because you can actually use grab attacks on them, making it super fun to combo (although their damage in the later layers can get incredibly high). I’ve not encounted sirens that often, but they offer a good amount of dark sealed chests and are much more chaotic than atlanteans. All of the designs are also well put together and make great enemies.

• The new weapons, items, and enchants, all feel very satisfying when you obtain them. They’re all unique and feel rewarding. The “atlantean” versions of armor and weapons is a nice bonus as well.

• The dark sea itself is unique and made all of the NPC characters actually feel like they have personality. From having some of them panic and want to leave to others wanting to sail on. The ghosts found on islands are also interesting from a lore perspective. Ghost ships however are kind of lackluster? (would have been interesting to be able to talk to them or something similar).

Cons:

• Group expeditions are far too unrewarding to even consider. By the end of a 2 hour expedition you’re looking at maybe 3-4 dark sealed chests each which just isn’t worth the time. Furthermore I’ve done expeditions where people have crashed, resulting in their boat despawning and because you can’t spawn your boat in the dark sea, everyone dies.

• Far too many things obstruct your view. The rain and fog are already a hassle to deal with but having insanity on top of that constantly changing your screen from dark red to black is even worse. It makes it very hard to see events in front of you.

• It can be very unrewarding in general. Events don’t spawn nearly as frequently enough and islands can be a major hassle to deal with, especially ones that are incredibly tall. It took me around 20 minutes just to climb up and down a mountain because you can only carry one sealed chest at a time, and even then, sealed chests themselves rely on luck to get useful items, which can mean a long expedition turns out worthless. Coming back from long expeditions also runs the risk of you being killed by other players.

One of the main things I think would suggest to improve the dark sea is that it would be an entirely seperate server on it’s own, this means that it would be connected to your region resulting in less lag spikes overall.
By doing this, you can also scale up the rewards for group expeditions. Such as if a party of 4 entered the dark sea, they would get a lot more rewards/chests than a person with 2 party members. Enemy levels could also scale with the number of players to prevent people just bringing in alt accounts. When you wanted to leave the dark sea, you would just do what you do now with a compass and sail back, once you have sailed far enough it would say something along the lines of “would you like to end this expedition?” And all players would be teleported out with chests split equally among them (if there was an odd number, the group leader would get the chest).

[Felix_Talo]

I feel like the npcs should be significantly harder for the Dark Seas. Like they didn’t even get me to half HP. The PvE aspect is far too easy for what I expected.

[AgentWaffle]

@Artanaris

Do you think the Dark Sea Update’s jewels and the balance changes related to them have improved the mechanic itself and the interest in it?

I feel like a huge element of jewels was lost with the fact that they’re so much more difficult to obtain and thus create optimized jewel kits. I was interested in making a max knockback set at one point, now not so much because I know it would take literal weeks just to acquire all of the necessary gems I might want with a desirable stat roll; takes an absolutely unreasonable amount of time for a 10% swimspeed jewel

@Artanaris

Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?

No
Out of several hour long expeditions I only got an item that was useful to my immediate character once, the rest of it being ship materials I could use to do more expeditions. It’s kind of self perpetuating and it suffers from the exact same issue as the gem problem I previously mentioned.

The techniques also leave a bit to be desired since uppercut is extremely buggy does far too little damage for it to be used in a PvE setting (i was unable to get it to deal over 100 damage without reducing the height), and selino is unable to assist me at all with destroying ships because of the fact it is a multihit.

@Artanaris

What do you think about Atlantean enemies?

I wish their drops were more common, very cool head visuals not obtainable anywhere else in the game, but it’s a complete roll of the dice. I saw an anglerfish head I particularly wanted, but ended up getting an eyepatch instead. Maybe bar those drops from the loot pool so that you can only get atlantean-exclusive items from them instead?

[neqo]

@Artanaris

Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming? Should the length of the layers be lowered?

Yes, I traveled to the Insanity 1 range and explored there for a bit before heading back, but it took around 20-30 minutes on the return trip (My Brig being low health and one stop at an island outside of the insanity 1 range did factor into the time spent).

Speed Magics Dodge Reflexes

I use Lightning/Wind, and my brother uses Light/Plasma. We enjoy the PvE side of the game a lot more than the PvP, and play together frequently. We were extremely excited for the dodge reflexes considering the versions our magics would have were described as being a teleport. However, once we actually obtained the dodge reflexes and tried them out, they felt like a mid-air, normal (but fast) dash. We did have enough agility to be able to teleport with the T jump, but the dodge reflexes didn’t feel similar at all. Since the both of us are not too fond of PvP, we don’t have any idea whether this is the case due to PvP balancing or not. If this was an overlook, or wasn’t tuned right, it would be nice if the dodge reflexes for speed magics felt more like a teleport, similar to the T jump with high agility.

@Artanaris

What do you think about Rain Poisoning?

The water poisoning is a tad too frequent in my opinion. It’s not that fun to have to return to your ship 2-4 times while exploring an island, especially when the island is large. Getting water poisoning while sailing is also very annoying, since it’s safest to stop the ship and bathe, but that makes Dark Sea expeditions very time consuming in the long run.

@Artanaris

• Does the rain in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?
• Does the fog in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?
• Do islands spawn often enough? Do they present any issues?

My view in the Dark Sea is so obstructed to the point where I can’t tell if islands aren’t spawning often or if I just can’t see them. On top of having to use the brace feature so often (which zooms the camera in aggressively and seems to blur the camera) due to the sheer amount of waves coming from all directions it makes it even harder to see anything. It ends up feeling like traveling for ages while not even knowing if you passed an island half the time.

@Artanaris

What do you think about Sirens? Are they too difficult to find?

I found the Sirens at one point inside the insanity 1 range. The singing voices heard from afar was absolutely awesome, probably one of if not my favorite experience from this game so far. The fight against them was tough but seemed fair to me, although I’ve only fought them once.

@Artanaris

What do you think about the Rough Seas present in the Dark Sea? Do you think they are too obstructive?

In my opinion, the amount of waves is a little overwhelming. However, I do want the Dark Seas to be a REALLY difficult challenge so I’m rather conflicted on this.

Thank you for working so hard on a game we all love.

[Dudeman]

@machapella @flamingodust

WELCOME TO OUR CLUB