Obtaining Cetus Wisps

[Achaix]

Among the many new crafting resources introduced through POE, Cetus Wisps stand out (to me at least) as the most frustrating to obtain. In this post I hope to objectively express my grievances with them.

- Finding them in the first place depends entirely on luck at first, without any clarification on where to get them. If I'm not mistaken, a set amount are randomly generated every time a player enters the Plains, and they do not regenerate. Through multiple runs my collected Wisps per run are rarely more than five and have never reached or surpassed ten. Running Bounties for them is not a viable option since the Wisps compete against several other rewards in the table, only one is obtained, and only one Bounty option has them.

- While they stand out somewhat in daytime, during nighttime they are almost indistinguishable from the other dozen sources of bright blue light. Their audio cue, if they even have one, melds too much with ambient sound. Their minimal size certainly doesn't help finding them.

- Upon finding a Wisp, one cannot depend on Vacuum to pick them up: one must walk and pick them up oneself. However, their pickup hitbox, if I can call it that, doesn't seem to match their already tiny form. Several times upon running/jumping directly at a Wisp, it hasn't registered.

- If the Wisp is not picked up within a short timeframe, it shall begin to fly upwards. Although it's possible to catch it just as it begins to rise, many times the wonky hitbox will keep it from the player's grasp.

I understand the need for rare resources upon releasing new content: if the players could get everything in a single run, their invested time would be minimal and that would prove detrimental to the game's health as a free MMORPG. However, the amount of Wisps necessary to build the newest Operator-specific items seems to match a resource like Orokin Cells, which can be picked up normally and do not have these drawbacks in their acquisition.

Making Wisps difficult to find already makes them feel rare. Making them disappear if not picked up punishes slow players and rewards quick ones. But making their pickup hitbox seemingly smaller than they are on top of their difficulty in standing out at night only casts a negative light on them and the player's experience collecting them. Rather than rewarding, catching a Wisp feels stressful, needlessly difficult, and even more dependent on RNG than other resources.

I would recommend increasing their pickup hitbox at the very least and changing their energy colour, or keeping those as they are and removing their disappearing act.

I hope you'll consider what I brought up. Thank you for reading.

[xxswatelitexx]

Put Animal Instinct on your sentinal - Wisp appears as a white lootbox. 
Very rarely are there any white lootxboes that are not wisps near the water. So if you see one you can be with about 70% surity it is a wisp. 

[Achaix]

1 hour ago, xxswatelitexx said:

Put Animal Instinct on your sentinal - Wisp appears as a white lootbox. 
Very rarely are there any white lootxboes that are not wisps near the water. So if you see one you can be with about 70% surity it is a wisp. 

Actually locating Wisps isn't my main issue, it's the funky pickup hitbox that's a real problem.

[Aekhon]

2 hours ago, xxswatelitexx said:

Put Animal Instinct on your sentinal - Wisp appears as a white lootbox. 
Very rarely are there any white lootxboes that are not wisps near the water. So if you see one you can be with about 70% surity it is a wisp. 

That's...not been my experience.  I've gone all the way around the large lake with AI on my kubrow, saw plenty of white loot markers near the water, but only one of them was a wisp.  Usually, it's none.  I've been on the plains almost every day since release, and I just found my second wisp an hour ago.  To be fair, I only really started purposefully looking for them two days ago, but still, they're really hard to find, even when you know where to look.

[Lost_Cartographer]

1 hour ago, Aekhon said:

That's...not been my experience.  I've gone all the way around the large lake with AI on my kubrow, saw plenty of white loot markers near the water, but only one of them was a wisp.  Usually, it's none.  I've been on the plains almost every day since release, and I just found my second wisp an hour ago.  To be fair, I only really started purposefully looking for them two days ago, but still, they're really hard to find, even when you know where to look.

They spawn in greater numbers at night, and they do always spawn by water.  Most of the time you'll be getting EMPed by that water to pick them up.  More because:

3 hours ago, Achaix said:

Actually locating Wisps isn't my main issue, it's the funky pickup hitbox that's a real problem.

 

[Bibliothekar]

12 hours ago, xxswatelitexx said:

So if you see one you can be with about 70% surity it is a wisp. 

More like 20%. Could be a Mapricot tree, iradite or crate just as well.

[xxswatelitexx]

4 hours ago, Bibliothekar said:

More like 20%. Could be a Mapricot tree, iradite or crate just as well.

No most of those don't spawn at the border with the water. They will be a little distance away - which means they aren't a wisp. 

[Bibliothekar]

41 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

No most of those don't spawn at the border with the water.

1m or 5m doesn't make a lot of difference on the scale of the minimap.

[Reiyd]

Wisps are usually so close to the water that they look as though the loot icon may be on the water. Also, Animal Instinct stacks with Loot Radar aura and Thief's Wit. Just run around as Volt or fly around just a few meters from the ground until you see them on the mini-map.

[TmzOS]

I hope they increase the hitbox, it's really small.

[dudefaceguy]

On 10/20/2017 at 6:16 PM, Achaix said:

If the Wisp is not picked up within a short timeframe, it shall begin to fly upwards.

This makes me think DE is literally trolling us with Cetus Wisps. Why else would they make an already-frustrating resource literally float away into the sky right as we are about to grab it? I'm fine with the rest of the nonsense, but this pushes me over the edge. It breaks the immersion of the game and makes me feel like a loser for farming imaginary resources. This is the worst thing that you can possibly do to your players.

Edit: Wow, I was really salty about losing those wisps!

Edited October 22, 2017 by dudefaceguy
Upon review, I was surprised by how salty I was.

[Diarmut]

I would make them like ayatan sculptures and stars, something that we go over to and interact(X) with.