Preview: Hunting Revamp

Hey folks,

So hopefully as some of you might know, for some time now I’ve been planning a large hunting revamp of Aetolia. I’ve been sharing bits and pieces of it on occasion into the main Discord, however I wanted to put together the things I’ve shared into one post and explain the new system a bit more in detail to get everyone prepared for its eventual release. And of course, get you excited about it!

Please note the usual disclaimers apply; it’s still a work in progress and these displays, abilities, and/or names aren’t final. They may change between now and release.

The Goal

The goal of this hunting revamp is to escape the current one-button wonder of our current PvE experience and expand it out to have a bit more variety and choice.

A problem we often encounter is that newer players to the game often start quite excited to play, but once they found out the vast majority of our skills only work in PvP, it can be a bit disheartening.

With hunting being the first solo experience most of our players will attempt, it’s been on my mind for some time that we need to improve it and move toward a more advanced PvE system.

Hunting Trees: Unlock new hunting abilities

The first of these changes is going to be the introduction of Hunting Trees. Each class will have its own tree with 16 nodes that they can potentially unlock, but only a total of 8 points to invest into it, with the first being free. That’s 304 unlockables across all classes, whew!

Beginning with your basic bashing ability being the first node, each side of the tree will offer two different styles of hunting with a mix of major and minor skill nodes.

Major nodes often require a skill to be learned within your classes skillsets before you can unlock it for use in PvE, while the minor nodes usually give numbers-based benefits, but sometimes they can also further alter how an ability works, especially in the high end nodes.

For example, for Bards, one side will focus on Tempo, Rhythm, and other Performance attacks, allowing you to get multiple hits against denizens from one Tempo attack.

The other side focuses on a more supportive role, allowing you to utilise Songcalling for debuffs on denizens and encouraging the Tempo/Tearing attack cycle.

It is not necessarily a requirement to remain fully within one side of a tree. About half way through, there is a linking node that will let you invest into the other side of your hunting tree at the cost of one investment point for no benefits. This gives you the opportunity to build a hybrid style of hunting depending on what you like or see synergy for, but it will limit your access to high end nodes.

Eidolurgy: A new Mercantile skill

Our soon to be newest addition to the list of Mercantile skillsets; Eidolurgy will help you further personalise your hunting build into something that appeals to you – and I’m sure will be a favourite with anyone who loves loot!

By obtaining the help of an Eidolurgist, the core of this skill is to manifest your very own armillary at will, a physical representation of your soul, that will allow you to make modifications to your stats in PvE by defeating denizens of the realm and collecting animus.

Note: You don’t have to be a Eidolurgist to use this system much like a weapon user doesn’t need to possess Forging, you can simply request their services.

Ember animus will often provide you with passive number benefits, such as increasing your damage output or resisting damage from denizens, while Axiom animus (this name might change) will give you unique abilities that can heavily influence how you might want to approach a given build. Some Axioms will have more stringent requirements, like being in a certain class.

Beyond helping you manifest an armillary and upgrade it, Eidolurgy also largely has a number of abilities that will help you alter the values on your animus stats, although it does come with risks and a bit of praying to the RNG gods. It will mostly take a good amount of time to get the perfect build, if you do manage to get there.

P.S. In case you were curious, Eidolurgy is the evolution of Trinkets originally hinted at.

Conclusion

That mostly sums up the general overview of the hunting revamp. There are some greater detail things that I am not talking about at the moment on purpose, such as new PvE mechanic keywords or afflictions that can be given to denizens, but they’ll be talked about closer to release.

That’s all I have to share for now! Enjoy!