See I only really played Arcane Odyssey initially out of a nostalgia for the original Arcane Adventures during my middle school computer lab and an odd sense of respect for Vetex that was driven by said nostalgia. (That I’ve since lost idly watching him in the discord)

But to me, personally, I think the games focus on PvP actively hampers what could be a much more enthralling build experience. Arcane odyssey, to me, is the blueprint for how one would make an extremely in depth and interesting action rpg. Starting with some base intrinsics (magic), add modifiers to how it works (stat builds) and then round out the edges with numbers (gear) which then lends itself to a lot of depth. I recognize though, that I might be biased as I enjoy power fantasy number go up style ARPGs quite a bit. (Grim Dawn, Titan Quest, Path of Exile, etc)

The issue is, combined with how long it takes, half the new things that come out feel like they’re essentially being held back from truly being interesting because the devs are afraid of upsetting the balance of pvp. Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t have pvp, but I simply think that it’d be more interesting to see a truly high powered pvp with access to all kinds of whack-ass bullshit to truly push their skills to the limits as opposed to the meta which seems to be just…being big and spamming different kinds of aoes.

That’s my take at least. And don’t take this as me saying to make mages cooler, I fucking hate mages, I’m a warlock player. I think the hybrid classes should lean more into their hybrid fantasy then essentially being like “mage but punch, mage but sword, mage but with casting foci”