Greetings and Salutations, Forums! Welcome to the sixth day of the Week of Discussion. Today we have one of the more open ended topics, which is on the future of the game set out in the roadmap
Today the conversation does not involve Nimbus Story but instead the other updates in the roadmap.
I will be writing my own detailed analysis on this as well.
Some ideas:
Feasibility of Roadmap
Your most anticipated updates
How the updates will affect the game
How monthly updates will affect the game
How you want certain features to work.
What does vet need to do to make the features more fun for everyone.
The empires update clearly. Its going to be so good. Clans have a reason to go to war. Small clans can have a nice lil island to chill at. I as a lone player can try and make my very own lil island. Its going to be great. Tho i can see that there are going to be WAY more complaints about PvP because of it because PvE players wanna build their perfect island in peace.
Feasibility of Roadmap
very reasonable and i think itās however there is a i feel a lack of updating already added systems like Castaways, Hunger, ETC
*Your most anticipated updates
dark sea diving, (PLEASE)
Auction house
How the updates will affect the game
i feel like it would get more and more overwhelming to new players, do think it has to be a pipe line for the players to follow as, well: less and less max levels players will be around to teach players just starting off
the inventory will need work, not kidding it needs it
How monthly updates will affect the game
i think itās better for the game but i would be lying if i said that slow large updates are more of my jam a mix of both is what i think is best, i donāt mind if the monthly updates are smaller if we get a large update every so or so
How you want certain features to work.
ghost-ships as dark sea diving
What does vet need to do to make the features more fun for everyone.
how are players intended to learn this?
vetex needs to limit player freedom at the start of the game more
I think itās quite unlikely that we will get all of those updates this year, considering itās nearly April and we are only just about to get PART of the first update. Plus with the new monthly structure, the updates wonāt come out in that exact order anymore
Either the empires or full release updates. I love building stuff, and the full release has a ton of new content to look forward to
New content and story is always a plus so I see no issues with anything
Now we wonāt have massive gaps of no new content, so the game will feel fresher and the player count should become higher of average too which is nice
I hope spirit weapons are unique and not just a mixture of drawback, weapons and magic. I also hope the building system works similarly to fallout 4s settlement building system
I guess just try and cater to everyoneās play styles and keep everyone happy, so new pve content, and new pvp content that wonāt effect pvers in a bad way. Also just make sure itās all balanced and not insanely grindy
The 2024 Roadmap is in an ideal world. It is likely to not be complete.
However by the end of 2024, I believe Nimbus will almost be finished.
Monthly Update Prediction
ā Unlikely to happen exactly like this, quite hopeful ā
April: (Small) Easter update And the start of Kingdom Alignment and Tasks
/ + Story
May: Finishing Kingdom Alignment, Start of Empires
/ + Story
June: Empires finished.
/ + Story
July: Warden and Spirit Weapons
/ + Story (?)
August: Legendary Ships / Ghost Ships - Full Release
September - Professions Pt1 / Sensing
October - Professions Pt2
/ + Story
November and December - Further Story Progress
Without monthly updates there is no chance this will happen anywhere near the roadmap.
The Endgame
It is my opinion that the single best thing for AO and the max level experience is variety. Currently the only āendgameā content is PvP, Dark Sea and Fishing. If we ignore fishing, thatās only two things.
However, the dark sea and pvp will improve over time which is good, I guess. The endgame will be much better when a full array of features is added, ideally giving us a large list of content:
Dark Sea
PvP
Profession Progression
Kingdom Alignment and Tasks
Clan Building, and ideally additional PvE opportunities due to this.
Ghost Ships
Legendary Ships
Promise of more story, and exploration areas.
My Hopes
Kingdom Alignment:
A large variety of Tasks, enemies that can spawn and task spawn locations.
Interesting effects of Alignment and Island Status - Pirate attacks / Bandit spawns / Assassin camps etc
Good vanity rewards
Empires:
Both PvE and PvP content: It would be interesting if there was a way just for clan builds to switch between PvE and PvP however that could easily go badly.
Allows us to place our Deckhands and Quartermasters on the island to guard
Reagent farming
I canāt beg for this enough: Pirate Raids against your fortress.
Legendary Ships:
I think at least two, ideally more legendary ships should be added with Full Release. Each one should have its own unique bossfights with good, exciting but not overly rare rewards.
Unique Boss Themes
Please please have the ship be part of the fight rather than just an enemy on it.
Sky legendary ships?
Ghost Ships:
Unique items
Unique music
At least two on full release
Professions
No profession should take away from the current game or effect the current three skills (Cooking/Brewing/Crafting)
They only add to current features
They each should have a unique way of upgrading the profession.
I think they will be kinda similar similar to the aa boss ships like the shining king, so they should have unique boss themes and a unique ship to fight
Honestly, I doubt weāll see vimir sea this year. Nimbus is going to be one of the biggest seas in the game presumably, so vetās going to need a lot of time to work on it over the course of this year, with other updates too.
Really excited for whenever second awakenings come out. Itāll be really cool when we can start seeing all sorts of crazy things like mages with three magics, warlocks getting another of one of their specialties, so on and so forth.
I feel like theyāll all be really good for players, each extremely fun long-term. Stuff like professions will add a new skill to players for the rest of their file and stuff.
Vetex actually said all seas will be a similar size, plus vimir has jotunheim, an island twice as large as sameria. So if anything the vimir sea will be the largest on a technical standpoint
Highly doubt weāre going to be able to get spirit weapons in a timely manner but I still think the next update (empire update) will come out on 4/20.
I severely doubt weāll get the whole roadmap, but fingers crossed we get most of nimbus, Iāll cry tears of joy if we get second awakening by the end of the year
Easily second awakening, Savant will finally have something that can compete with and maybe even outclass hybrids and pure classes.
Pretty pumped for lost magics and fs too, as well as legendary weapons, thoseāll probably keep the savants with double imbues in check.
The game has done a decent job of being straight forward with most stuff and it seems Vetex is trying to make things easier for new players too with these tutorial quests, so I think itāll be fine in that area. So long as there isnāt anything too horrible in an update the game should be fine
I definitely prefer large updates that add a lot to do at once, but Vetex has proven he can do a decent amount of stuff in a month, so Iām not too worried. Itāll definitely be good for anything that needs balancing sooner rather than later.
I hope to God that double imbues donāt get nerfed into the ground, Savants are probably gonna get creamed by lost and eventually ancient magic and fs, legendary weapons, and probably other stuff too if double imbues arenāt at least decent.
I donāt know about everyone else, but parts of the story outside of the bosses needs to be more fun. Rn the bosses are pretty much the only particularly fun part of the story gameplay wise, so when theyāre not fun to fight the whole chapter is kinda screwed. If there was more to do that was actually fun in each chapter aside from the boss I think it would make playing through the story a lot more enjoyable.
Also I swear to God if we have to do anything like what we had to do to get the first awakening in order to get the second awakening Iām gonna lose it.
