Odyssey: Praise, Complains, and General Comments

After a week I think we have seen enough of Odyssey to make some general statements about what went right, what was wrong and how to improve from this point forward with events. For background, I just finished all the missions (at 2:30 this morning*[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]* ) and am looking to give feedback about the game mode in general. This is going to be exclusively about the gamemode and the associated missions, it will not look and any event aspect beyond that. Full disclosure, I like the game. I had a lot of fun playing in general and hope to see more like this, even if the 2 aug mission was very, very frustrating. However, there is room for improvement, so I am hoping to give Riot a rundown of pros and cons as well as get some community consensus with a vote and a mega thread to hold as much of the praise and criticism in one place as possible.

The Good*[slayer-jinx-catface]*

1. Augments - and all feel like playing better versions of the champions. I cannot play in regular play, but found myself doing surprisingly well with a bit of practice. is a champion who actually does things; she is not merely a vessel for getting onto as many champs as possible like she is on the rift. has a bunch of possible play-styles, including one that had to be hotfixed for its brokenness. can be made into a super ult machine, or given great cc/utility in the rest of his kit through augments. Personally, seems the worst one in this category. When I've seen her, which is rarely, she generally plays as global DoT mage with her ult. This seems completely counter to her rift style of right-click to win. But I don't particularly like adc's so I never played her, and I haven't seen her often, so this is just my own opinion and observation. Overall good champion choices and great way to promote multiple play-styles while keeping the core champion identity and it has enough depth for multiple good builds and great theory crafting opportunities. A complete upgrade from runes/masteries in my opinion, and while it would be impossible to implement to all the champions in league for balance and time reasons, I hope Riot works 5 champs at a time like this because these augments are amazing adaptations to the traditional play style.

2. Great PVE - Getting together with a group to do some epic PVE is a blast, plain and simple. This may just be me, but I experienced virtually no toxicity, and had an absolute blast. Now in fairness, most of my time was spent bouncing around with broken w's and grinding missions with premades (the only way to get missions imho), but they were strangers I found online during the event. I just went to the recruitment board and friended anyone looking to complete the 2 aug mission. We then got on League voice and coordinated our assault. We also failed a lot. I understand that I fortunately had the time to sink into this so I could wait and friend online strangers to create the perfect group to assault , and retry a million times. Others may not have that time, but for me coming together with 4 other people to conquer a great terror was incredibly fun.

3. Rewards - Whether you think they are worth it is another matter entirely, but the ability to buy 2 Odyssey Orbs (each with a skin shard), an Odyssey Gem (I chose revel to give 5 total shards including a legendary and an epic), a new shard for the new epic skin, and several exclusive bling icons, emotes, and a ward skin to show off how hard you worked. Personally, the icons I like most are the ones you earn through trials, basically as a badge of honor. So having the one for the 2 aug mission is now my new favorite, replacing the Gangplank one I earned from the Bilgewater event because that was insanely obnoxious to earn. Again, some might not feel they are worth it, but I think we can generally agree they are good. Some may feel the effort outweighs the reward, but the rewards themselves are fine.

**Mixed **[fiora-cool]

1. Champion Selection - I'll be honest, I never play any of these champions, except when they get picked for me on ARAM. I have mastery 5 on because I abused her during the ardent debacle, but other than that I have no connection to these champions. That being said, I see why they were picked since they all have a purpose in a balanced team comp and I don't think they were bad choices, but not my champs personally. Seeing one of your favorite champs in events is always more exciting even if you can acknowledge they are not the best choice. For example, 's single target pull and stealth would be useless in a horde mode, but his resetable execute ult would probably be broken, so there is virtually no way he could be here. The cast is diverse as well, but honestly I don't think was needed for anything other than for banter. Adc's are generally single target champions, and, while q avoids this somewhat, she still seems out of place without , imo. Again, I only saw her rarely, and when I did she was a long range DoT mage, essentially . Which is disappointing because if they wanted , they should have added . But, I also spent most of my time on 2 aug, so that may have something to do with it and color my perceptions. Also, mostly felt there to pair with , as to play him as an extension of the rift version, you are an ult bot, and that alone is not strong enough to warrant his inclusion on a team without imo. It might be possible to build an aggressive damaging set with the right augs, but the dps aggressive build is one Rito has actively nerfed in the past on rift, so it feels weird to be played here. Generally good champion selection within the limitations of the game mode, but I wish there were more.

2. Voice over - Firstly, I want to start out by saying the voice actors and writers did an amazing job. Kudos to you. The lines were well written and well delivered. When I heard talking about hallucinating multiple versions of himself I actually laughed out loud (play 5 and listen just as you spawn in if you have no idea what I'm talking about). I am however, disappointed with some of the choices made. and obviously carried the brunt of the weight with the lines and they are hilarious, so why didn't you build on that more? Wouldn't it be hilarious to hear with them? I get that there are only so many funny champions in the game, but this is an alternate universe with different takes on characters. We could see darker characters given a light side in this universe. Also, I remember nothing says, and is completely mute. I get they is mute in cannon, and doesn't say much, but this is a new parallel universe, they can say things. Jokes about being extra talkative recently write themselves. Personally, I would have like to focus on other characters instead of the and show, even if I did enjoy them a lot.

3. Difficulty - Getting the last missions are hard, at least now that cheese is gone [slayer-jinx-wink]. This is both good as the rewards, which are good as I said, feel earned. However, not everyone will have the time needed to gather a group of like-minded people and grind until they get good RNG a good run. The missions require getting to know the enemies and environments. This is further extended by the RNG giving variable enemies on different levels meaning you have to learn different combinations and how to fight them. This means not everyone can get the best rewards, which is why they were allowed to be so valuable, exclusive icons are only good if they are exclusive, not to mention the Odyssey Gem. Also, maybe it was the comps I was playing, but the first stage and the stage were the most challenging ones I think that was because all the champs scaled so well of of items and levels, but it just seemed to have a weird difficulty curve. Overall, challenging in a rewarding way when RNG was on your side, more on that in a minute, which is either good or bad depending on your commitment and time constraints.

The Bad [sg-shisa]

1. "Aren't you gonna help that crew member" - I could have put this under voicing in the mixed section but this irritated me so much it's getting a section all to itself. and need to shut the [censored] up about downed teammates. They should say something ONCE as a player dies. That is it. But they keep talking and talking and talking about the downed player. I know they are down. I know. I knew last time you said something 2 seconds ago. I knew the time before 3 seconds ago. I knew 5 seconds ago when you reminded me. I did not know 7 seconds ago when they actually died so thanks for that ONE line, which is all I needed.There are so many times it is objectively the best decision to "leave that crewmember lying there" because although "friends are generally better when they are alive", they are much worse when their corpse baits you into death. I died half a second from reviving an ally so many times just to shut them up. They then talk twice as much since I'm dead too. I've taken to ~~passive-~~aggressively pinging my {{summoner:50}} cd when its not up. Other reasons it is objectively better to let the "bleed a lot over there" include: being too far away, having them surrounded by enemies, them being in the middle of storm/volcano/other hazard, being close to winning and wanting to just finish level, not having a chance to stand around for 2 seconds, their respawn time is low so you want to save your cd, an ally is starting it and you don't want to put both your {{summoner:50}}s on cd, etc. Maybe this is because I'm a support main, but I don't like to leave people behind even if that is the right call, so I tend to overextend and die both on the rift and here. These constant obnoxious reminders that people are dead just irritate me so much. I hate hearing the line thinking another player might need to be {{summoner:50}}d, only to see its the person I intentionally ignored because of one or more of the above reasons. I need to know when people die, and that's it. If I choose not to do anything then just shut up until someone else dies, because I need to know that too. Again, this one might be personal, but I killed me that they would not shut up so much I had to make a new section just for this.

2. Bugs - Expected to an extent, but annoying nonetheless, so they cannot be ignored. Watching overkill stand there and throw nothing is sad, missing people that you should have hit with a ult kills the cd with the right augs. Worst is the not revive bug, where you stand on a dead person and they don't revive and the whole time all you hear is "That crewmember looks pretty bad". I know. I knew 2 seconds ago when you said it last which is why I'm standing on them but they aren't reviving and oh my god just shut up. Have I mentioned I hate them saying this over and over and over. I have? Repeatedly? Well now you know what it's like being in game with a dead teammate. Totally not salty at all. A completely new mode like this with unique interactions on the augments, but I feel the bugs are generally acceptable for the amount of time and code this must have taken. I feel obligated to mention it, as some can be game ending, but overall I think the product more than outshines these bugs. If this was bad the bugs would be another nail in the coffin, but as they stand I understand there will be bugs and I think they are fine. The real complaint is why did this not go through the PBE first to help minimize the bugs here. I think everything would be forgiven if it looked like you did everything possible to avoid it. As it stands, they are annoying, but not enough to ruin the mode for me personally.

3. RNG - Riot has stated many time that RNG in general, is not bad for the game. They have continued to add and maintain practices like dragon spawns and crit chance that are luck based. However, Riot has distinguished between what they consider good and bad randomness. For example, 1% crit chance has such a low chance of happening, but such a drastic impact in some lanes, that it is considered bad since there really is no counter-play to fighting when you have the advantage, but losing 1% of the time because your luck sucks. Dragon spawns they consider good since it is foreshadowed and can be played around. The spawns in Odyssey can completely destroy your run with little input from you, and you have no idea its coming til your neck deep in tentacles, i.e. the worst of both worlds. The long range are near impossible to avoid if they have any sort of numbers on a large stage unless you have a team full of who all perfectly time their wind walls, and lets be real that's rarely going to happen even with voice.They just sit back and pester you with millions of orbs or a bathe you in ults in a way that make you feel completely helpless since they are on the other side of multiple impassible roots. The s can feel frustrating as well, but at least you can reset with some hard cc, or you can stay out of range and force them to move, which gives the short range champs counterplay. But the most frustrating by far is . Oh my. Just [censored] this champion with the business end of a rake. I hate him so much. Aside from auto attacks, hazard spawns, and Kayn, very little is unavoidable. Virtually every attack is somehow telegraphed and most are easy enough to dodge on their own, especially with {{summoner:52}}, the real challenge is dodging all the attacks from various directions while not wasting {{summoner:52}} so you have it for emergencies. doesn't play like that tho. We need Sky Williams back because when they have you gotta play Odyssey like a [censored]. if you even think about getting close he will stab you and drag you into the center of the hazard. So now you know you cannot be revived because your allies can't stand on a volcano for 10 years while you revive. You cant fight back, you've be suppressed. And some of the hazards can kill you from full health in the duration of stabbing. Heaven help you if RNJesus hates you and gives you on . One drags you into who beats you almost to death and at last you break free and try to run, only to have another ult you instantly dragging you to some storm to die miserable and alone. Being ulted is basically death sentence on most maps since even if there are no hazards, a mob of enemies can just bop you to death if you stand still and just take it. Making it to the final boss to see you have to never ever get near any of the swarms of skorpions that will kill you with one point and click ability with no warning feels terrible and unfair. There are other "you will die from full health if this hits" skills like the big q or a tongue grab in a crowd or bubbles. But they at least warn you and give you a chance. 's warning is existing. if you get close he will grab you and drag you to your death. Or at least to another who will then drag you to your death. It feels really bad to see a run get killed by having a difficult spawn, and feels completely unfair. Now I will say the comps I ran were all more than 50% (after cheese got rightfully nerfed), so these anti-melee champions may not have bothered others as much. But since your comp is set, seeing these can end a run with no warning since it is very difficult (but possible) to win against them.

Again I would like to reemphasize I like the game in general. I carried on for a bit about the frustrating parts, but only because i was committed enough that I played so many times these little grievances wore on me. Overall, I think this was a well put together mode. But as always there is room for improvement. Let me know if I missed something that should absolutely be said and vote in the poll to give riot some extra feedback on the general state of the game. I would love more of these in the future (hold the ), so I want to give Riot the feedback they need to make it worth all the effort put into the mode, and generally compliment them on a job well-done.