Revised Athena Voyage

  • RedEyeSith
    Vanguard
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    So, people toss around ideas fairly often on things to do with Athena. I am among those who agrees that this Faction is long overdue a little bit of love. And while I certainly would like to see a new Voyage added for them, I also would like to propose an update to how the current general Athena Voyage is handled.

    The original gimmick, for lack of a better term, with this Voyage was that it was a combination of all the stuff you had done from the various main Factions all bundles into a single Voyage. However, as more Voyage types have been introduced for the other Factions, we've only seen one update that applied these to the Athena structure (Cargo, which outright replaced Animal Acquisition entirely in the structure). But, it was just all kind of dumped on you with no sense of connection.

    So what I propose is still providing this, but tossing in some of the newer stuff and making something of a micro story out of them by having them run in something of a chain. To start with, I say we give them a slightly different name - for the sake of the post we can call them Athena Adventures (very open to better names).

    So, say this starts off with giving you a Lost Shipment Voyage, this would play out as normal except when you get to the Shipwreck you will find a Captain's Log (Book, but it can be opened) in place of the Manifest which has a bit of RNG story stuff and a Riddle as well as some Athena Crates in the hold too. Solving the Riddle on the correct island will produce a Collector Chest that contains a Wayfinder Compass and a couple Athena Trinkets. Following the Compass will guide you to an island that has Ghost Ships around it waiting for you. Defeating them you will find among the Loot a Bottle which has a Skeleton Bounty at another island and maybe an Athena Keg in the mix as well. You head to the island and complete the Bounty which will net you a Skeleton Captain's Orders which is an X Mark Map and a couple Athena Skulls. Completing this Map on the proper island will finally score you the Chest of Legends.

    This hits all of the higher tier Voyages that are presented by the other Factions, along with a couple of the lower tier ones as well. It makes it seem like there is this sort of story unfolding as you move through the events, gets you a spread of different kinds of Athena loot and culminates with the Chest of Legends as always. If the length feels too short (could be since we cut some Voyage types out, and didn't double up on any like we do now, though some of the higher tier tasks tend to take longer than others) we have a few spots where we could double up some things (like when we get the Bottle, or when we have the readable Book we might have multiple Riddles to solve). So it is still essentially a collection of what you have already been doing, but the presentation of it is a little more engaging than what we presently have.

    Then, of course, we should get a higher tier Athena Voyage as well for when you make it to Rank 10 (just like you unlock the Voyage types in the base Factions). People have proposed a lot of ideas for what this could be, and I hope we see something someday soon. But I do also feel like the first Voyage for the Faction could use a little love and attention now that the other Factions have a lot of variety to them that isn't being tapped. And to do it in a way that feels a little more epic than just doing another Voyage by making the parts tie together.

    Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

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  • MaironDS88
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    @redeyesith

    I'd love to see an update like that on athena's Voyage. But for me, their big problem is how long it takes to complete, and the distance that has to be traveled. Thieven's haven also takes a long time to complete, but the places are close by, so the distance and exposure to the risks are smaller

  • RedEyeSith
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    @maironds88 well, I think that it taking awhile to do is pretty intentional. This process would equally take a bit to get through as well which falls in line with what I believe the intent to be, it just makes it a little bit more interesting.

    And you could potentially have variants of this process, since I didn't technically make use of every Voyage type (which originally also seemed to be the intent, though that got lost more over time). The key would be presenting it all in an interesting and seemingly connected fashion at least. The potential for variation is also very welcome, and would sort of make Athena seem like some kind of gran culmination of everything you had done before into something greater than the parts that make it up.

    Of course the RNG would only be able to supply so many permutations of story, like with any Voyages, but the actual process would feel more interesting than the random collection of tasks we have today.

  • testakleze
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    @redeyesith
    I was actually thinking about the same thing over the last few days. I never fully decided what the voyage should consist of but I did start it with a lost ship voyage like yours.

    You would find the ship sank near an island with ghost ships around it, forcing you to fight the ships before searching the shipwreck. The ship would have a map to that island that leads to a collector's chest with the wayfinder compass inside.

    I wanted the compass to point to map fragments, but to two maps on different islands. These would each have a vault key. These would work the same as goldhoarder vault keys but the vaults would have athena items inside as well as a chest of legends locked behind the puzzle instead of an ancient chest of tributes.

    I feel that two keys from two islands leading to two vaults gives more opportunity for other crews to steal the keys or even the vault treasure. They might be ambushed clearing their first vault letting this other crew steal not only the treasure they have gotten so far, but treasure from the athena vault as well as a key for a second.

    I feel like this uses parts of the other faction's newer voyages well. The effort and time needed for each chapter could be adjusted to round out the experience and make the voyage the right length altogether. The treasure could also be balanced based on how far into the voyage you have progressed. The sunken ship having hardly any real treasure and the ghost ships dropping minimal items, but I do think they should be athena items. Most coming from the vaults.

  • RedEyeSith
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    @testakleze this could tie nicely into the idea I posted just above about being able to have variations of the process actually. That could keep it all just a little more fresh feeling from Voyage to Voyage if they didn't all play out exactly the same way every time (and makes coming up with a few mini plotlines a little easier since you don't have to hit every note in each version). With a few permutations of that you could easily have every previous Voyage type potentially represented. Maybe a total of 3 or 4 variants would cover it nicely and be enough to make it a little more interesting overall.

  • MaironDS88
    Marauder
    Insider

    @redeyesith said in Revised Athena Voyage:

    @maironds88 well, I think that it taking awhile to do is pretty intentional. This process would equally take a bit to get through as well which falls in line with what I believe the intent to be, it just makes it a little bit more interesting.

    And you could potentially have variants of this process, since I didn't technically make use of every Voyage type (which originally also seemed to be the intent, though that got lost more over time). The key would be presenting it all in an interesting and seemingly connected fashion at least. The potential for variation is also very welcome, and would sort of make Athena seem like some kind of gran culmination of everything you had done before into something greater than the parts that make it up.

    Of course the RNG would only be able to supply so many permutations of story, like with any Voyages, but the actual process would feel more interesting than the random collection of tasks we have today.

    Exact. I agree 100% with your idea of connecting quests, rather than a random cluster of them. Regarding the runtime, I also understand that it should be intentional, after all it is a legendary journey, but for me this is their weak point, and unfortunately nothing can be perfect

  • testakleze
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    @redeyesith
    I totally agree. The real objective behind it is finding out what happened to this Athena ship and setting out to discover their whereabouts. Finding its sunken remains leads to different plot elements and secret voyages they were on that your crew takes over. This could be a great opportunity to have athena and legend ship cosmetics applied to sunken ships too.

  • Liberance
    Master

    Sticking to the higher tier voyages from regular factions for the "combo of previous things you've done before" approach they have now for Athena would be nice. Each faction essentially has one type of voyage that is fun and another that isn't so fun, and having to grind through that last type on top of doing everything else is what makes Athena Voyages feel like such a slog.

    In an ideal world, Athena should have entirely new quests that are unique to them, but I'm guessing that has never really been considered seriously because it'd mean basically locking a whole lot of players out of content until they reach Pirate Legend. But at the same time, repeating old stuff is what makes becoming Pirate Legend so disappointing for many, almost as if it was kind of an endgame in a game that's supposed to have no end.

  • RedEyeSith
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    @liberance ideally, yes, but the Faction at this point doesn't really have a clear identity to use as a basis to come up with Voyages for them. Despite that, there have been many suggestions for additional Voyage types that could be applied to the Faction. I just don't expect them to wholesale remove the existing Voyage, since they historically haven't done that with other Factions when adding new Voyages (even the Merchant Animal Acquisition is still around, despite it now making more sense to possibly be a Voyage for the Hunters). Thus the proposition for at least refreshing the Voyage while staying in the same vein as we have right now.

    That said, if I really had my say, I would do a fairly comprehensive overhaul of the Factions which I could go into detail on but that isn't really the focus of this thread.

  • Liberance
    Master

    @redeyesith It's true that they don't have a clear identity. And this probably stems from not having designed unique content for them in the first place.

    But we know they are ghosts, and have been in the Sea of Thieves for a long time. In a way, they discovered it and also got each of us in there. All this is a good starting point to envision their identity and type of voyages.

    But for now, I think your suggestion to simplify and focus their current voyages is good enough to keep the game as is.

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