Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Best Of
Re: TTK and Power scaling can be easily fixed.
Well, they've already started on some of those things, mob changed included, so we'll see where it all ends up.With thar in mind, the OP's suggestion isn't just lowering player power, it is lowering player power in an imbalanced manner - offense is going down but defense isn't. That is the reason mobs need to he redone completely - the very nature of what they are facing (players) is being drastically altered, as opposed to just going through some power scaling.
Well, they've already started on some of those things, mob changed included, so we'll see where it all ends up.With thar in mind, the OP's suggestion isn't just lowering player power, it is lowering player power in an imbalanced manner - offense is going down but defense isn't. That is the reason mobs need to he redone completely - the very nature of what they are facing (players) is being drastically altered, as opposed to just going through some power scaling.
Yeah, what they are doing is adjusting mobs within the existing framework they have.
The OP's suggestion would have seen them have to throw that framework out.
Noaani
1
Alpha Two Update Notes 0.8.0 - Thursday, April 10, 2025
These are the update notes for changes to the Alpha Two that went to testers on Thursday, April 10, 2025
As a reminder, if you come across bugs during Alpha Two testing, please report them to us in-game using /bug
KNOWN ISSUES
ALPHA TWO UPDATE NOTES 0.8.0 - THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2025
CHARACTER, ARCHETYPES & COMBAT
Rogue
Fighter
ENEMIES & NPCs
NODES & WARS
NODE SIEGE
VEHICLES
GENERAL
As a reminder, if you come across bugs during Alpha Two testing, please report them to us in-game using /bug
StevenSharif wrote:Glorious Alpha Two Testers,
Today’s update marks the first major update of our ongoing efforts to refine stat balancing across Ashes of Creation in Phase 2. This patch introduces many incremental changes focused on core vertical progression systems—such as character leveling, gear stats, enchanting, mana/health regen, and TTK (time-to-kill).
Over the coming weeks, expect regular tuning passes as we hone in on the right feel and pacing for progression and combat. This will be a multi-release process, with changes evaluated through both your feedback and internal data.
We ask for your patience and sharp eyes as we iterate—these adjustments will require a bit of back-and-forth. Your experience, insights, and persistence are invaluable in this phase of development.
Thank you, as always, for being the blazing heart of this journey ♥
KNOWN ISSUES
- Murder Defectors, a new guild war, has issues. Due to NPCs for the event not spawning correctly in the Sandsquall Desert, the event may be unable to be completed in that area. Having multiple Defector wars active at the same time may cause them to share progress
- When playing a rogue, the icon next to your health bar may show as a white box, instead of the rogue archetype icon
ALPHA TWO UPDATE NOTES 0.8.0 - THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2025
CHARACTER, ARCHETYPES & COMBAT
- Reworked all equipment and items to follow new stat distribution curves, with a portion always allocated to certain attributes based on slot, thereby raising the stat floor. Also adjusted the distribution and availability of various waterfall stats. This will continue to receive additional rebalancing
- NPCs, consumables, set bonuses, and Caravans have also received new updated stat curves
- Addressed enchanting and gear quality scaling issues by inflating values by 10 times to give these systems more granularity
- Reduced the power of equipment by better accounting for other sources of player power such as skill trees, enchanting, consumables, guilds, and other various systems related bonuses
- Reworked base attribute waterfall stat distributions and added additional stats such as critical mitigation, disable resistance, and other defensive stats
- Adjusted how most rating stats convert to their non-rating counterparts
- Offensive and defensive stat pairs have had their baseline values adjusted, to even out the benefit provided by each
- Made diminishing returns properly apply to generic versions of certain stats when combined with their physical or magical counterparts
- Rebalanced Archetype specific stat gain curves
- Overall health scaling has been increased, and the health increase on melee archetypes was changed so it will stay more relevant at higher levels
- Diminishing returns have been added to how power rating scales
- NPC damage has been adjusted to compensate for increases to character health
- Fixed a variety of stat errors and scaling issues
Rogue
- Stealth activation is now more reliable
- Stealth activation observation distance has been reduced from from 20 meters to 15 meters
- Stealth will now break when a rogue takes 5% of their health in damage, opposed to 10% of maximum health
- Using Dodge and Sprint while in Stealth applies the "Noisy" debuff. Noisy reduces the rogue's Stealth level temporarily, making them easier to detect
- Removed instant Stealth from Umbral Cloak with Advantage
- Smoke Bomb has been changed to allow instant Stealth with no activation distance limits and a shorter cooldown while within, instead of periodically granting Advantage
- Smokebomb and Shadowstep abilities will no longer cancel auto attack
- Feint will now be more reliable to move rogues to their targets
- Grappling Hook timing has been changed to be a bit slower and line up with animation better
- Poison stack status between multiple rogues on a target has been changed. Each set of Poison stacks can be seen separately per rogue
- Sap has been changed to require the target to have some Poison
- Sap has been changed to consume 10 stacks of Poisoned on the target, and it will always consume the oldest stacks
- Explosive Throw’s passive can now be triggered by other characters
- Soothing Shadows passive has been changed to be percentage based, and will scale better at lower health values
- Shadow Step has been improved, so it doesn’t teleport characters to unintended places
Fighter
- Blood Fusion mana return has been increased from 35% to 50%
ENEMIES & NPCs
- Fixed a bug that could cause some NPCs to be unable to attack or leash to reset
- Fixed a bug that could prevent some NPCs from resetting to their correct leash location
- Added cast bars for some NPC abilities that were previously missing
- Fixed an issue with enemy NPC behavior, that would occur after enemies crossed invisible boundaries in the world
- Tumok the Wretched’s summoned spirit wolves should orbit as expected
- Tumok the Wretched’s totem tree thorns should appear correctly
- NPC enemies have been moved, to be where they were intended to be in the Turquoise Sea
- Rock Elementals should no longer stop doing their activation animation when they detect an enemy
- Birdmen Necromancers should now be able to target Foragers and Stalkers with their Raise Dead ability
- Spider enemies should no longer be able to float over the terrain in certain areas
- Highwayman Assassins headgear should no longer go through their foreheads
NODES & WARS
- Squall’s End Node can now level up to a Village (Stage 3)
- Djinna Node can now level up to a Village (Stage 3) and uses a new coastal layout
- Murder Defectors, a new war type, has been added for Guild Wars
- A Harbor Master has been added to the outpost in the Turquoise Sea
- Sandquall Desert Node Wars have been updated to use locations in the zone for territory wars
- Buy Orders in the Sandsquall Desert have been updated to ask for materials found in the desert
- Sandsquall Desert Commodities have updated icons
NODE SIEGE
- Characters will no longer revive in place during periods of server lag
- Channeling objectives should successfully complete during periods of server lag
- Node Siege teleports are now more reliable
- Characters must be closer to the capture banner to be able to interact with it
- When characters are removed from a Node Siege team, they are now teleported out of the area instead of killed
- When characters log in during a Node Siege event, if they are not part of the event they will be teleported to the nearest respawn shrine, instead of being killed
- Added additional crowd control protection to the characters channeling the capture banner
- Increased the wave respawn timer, so the maximum time is 45 seconds
- Once a siege event begins, a different soundtrack will play in and around the Node being sieged
VEHICLES
- Caravel Storage - Storage has been added to Caravel ships. This functions similar to Caravans
- Carvel ships should no longer be able to be spawned on land
- Fixed a bug that allowed people to use the Caravan Request Beacon to summon a Caravel ship on land inside Nodes
- Fixed bugs that prevented Caravan Request Beacons from being able to be deployed on some terrain
- Caravel ship wave pattern visual effects have been improved
GENERAL
- Further increased guards Stealth perception
- Fixed a bug with the Guild Skill Update Menu where the “confirm” button wouldn’t display
- Improved lighting in Turquoise Sea Pocket Dungeons
- Additional polish and bug fixes in the Turquoise Sea
- Fixed some issues where parts of the landscape would not render at far distances in the Turquoise Sea
- Oceans should display better at further distances
- General updates to terrain around the world
Roshen
6
Re: Build diversity
On top of Azherae's question, I'd like to clarify what exactly do you mean by "stat build" here? And what other things could gear even provide?See just difference stat build on gear is not enough. If you want your gear to really matter it needs to offer more than stats. This way you have people picking off preferences more that what is strictly better.
Cause, as I imagine them, the dials should range all the way from "you get 1 str" to "+15% chance to resist poison attacks from amphibious animals".
Like, what else is even possible, if gear is not giving you some kind of stat gain? Oh, and I see any potential party synergistic effects to be "stats" as well. "your water spells do 10% more damage, if there's a mage/archer in your party" is still a stat bonus to me.
So instead of stats like str, dex, etc, you could have gear that have abilities on them, some like you said that have specific % boots for an element/ type of dmg/or specific skill. Like in Ragnarok you had gear that had all of those various boots on top of some gear had slots where you could put in cards that could have more of those stats or even other classes skills. You still had min/max but the variety made it still feel like with a single class you had 3-5 builds.
I only asked because you have to remember that a lot of the people who still hang around these forums didn't get to play a lot of the games with meaningful diversity, or played them from the PvP viewpoint with various competitive 'limits' on their view of gear.
So I was 'worried' that your post might seem like 'asking for more than they promised already', but it sounds like you're just asking for it to at least be on the level of those games you played.
Azherae
1
Cleric kit feels outdated
Cleric Feedback – Post-Changes & Current Direction
Hi team,
As someone who has mained Cleric since Phase 2 start, I wanted to share some thoughts after the recent updates and with the broader TTK changes in mind. While I appreciate the continued iteration on support roles, I’m increasingly concerned about Cleric’s current gameplay experience, especially in comparison to other supports like Bard.
Key Concerns
Scaling & Feel
Bard’s shields and utility significantly outshine ours, especially when considering competitive PvP and meta compositions (e.g., 2 Bards 1 Cleric becoming standard, it turns out raw healing is way less desirable than the strongest cc and shields and WAY more damage than Cleric in the game).
Suggestions & Constructive Ideas
Thanks for all the hard work and for continuing to listen to community feedback. Hoping to see Cleric evolve in a direction that feels satisfying for long-term mains.
Warm regards,
Tyldor
Hi team,
As someone who has mained Cleric since Phase 2 start, I wanted to share some thoughts after the recent updates and with the broader TTK changes in mind. While I appreciate the continued iteration on support roles, I’m increasingly concerned about Cleric’s current gameplay experience, especially in comparison to other supports like Bard.
Key Concerns
- Sustain feels lacking, both in 1v1 and group contexts. A single DPS can currently outpace a Cleric's healing, which makes it hard to fulfill our role, especially when CDs are down. (Rogue's mana drain poison....., but also our long-cast strongest heal Deliverance is a lower value than burst damage that is instant from DPS classes)
- Group healing impact has diminished. Flash Cure’s nerf was significant, and while Mend and Soothing Glow received a buff, it doesn’t feel smooth or effective in practice. Deliverance also feels punishing to cast, even with stat investment. It’s less about "decision-making under pressure" and more about "hoping you can channel uninterrupted." Communal Restoration is one of the weakest group heals I've seen in MMO's, and I try to say that with all due respect.
- Class identity has become muddled. Cleric used to reward responsive, skill-based healing. Now it feels more focused on pre-casting or shield timing—but even those tools aren’t as strong or distinct anymore. Compared to Bard, Cleric lacks the flavor, synergy, and utility that make support roles feel exciting and reactive.
Scaling & Feel
Bard’s shields and utility significantly outshine ours, especially when considering competitive PvP and meta compositions (e.g., 2 Bards 1 Cleric becoming standard, it turns out raw healing is way less desirable than the strongest cc and shields and WAY more damage than Cleric in the game).
Suggestions & Constructive Ideas
- Bring back decision-making and synergy. A lot of the Cleric kit currently feels like isolated buttons without satisfying interaction. Skills like Divine Flare and Mend feel awkward, while others like Deliverance are only rewarding in very specific scenarios (praying you have Divine Infusion up or can get the long cast off before your ally is bursted down). Adding synergy between spells or giving us tools that reward timing and positioning would breathe life into the kit again.
- Reaffirm Cleric’s identity. Instead of chasing raw numbers, Cleric could offer unique tools that distinguish it from Bard — whether through utility, shielding mechanics that scale well, or rewarding reactive heals. As it stands, Cleric feels like the “stable choice,” but not the exciting one. The Bard kit, by contrast, feels like it delivers more value in almost every scenario. (Shield dance is a criminal outlier to me). I'd love to see Pain Suppression (World of Warcraft priest) or other flavorful things like that to beef up the Cleric kit, potentially reducing the raw healing aspect and leaning into more utility/more high impact abilities that make us stand out as a very strong option that is more than a heal bot.
Thanks for all the hard work and for continuing to listen to community feedback. Hoping to see Cleric evolve in a direction that feels satisfying for long-term mains.
Warm regards,
Tyldor
Re: Are servers still down?
There is a notice in the discord channel. Make sure to link your account to discord to get the appropriate channels. Servers will be up at 6 Central time from what I have seen.
dahyu
1
Re: No auto attack PLZ
So what you have for an auto attack does it's own combo attack. You can turn auto attack on and off, this helps a lot for grinding in PvE because your hand will become sore over time. as far as PvP goes it's better to have it Turned off because your character can start attacking when you don't want it to and ruin your timing when using abilities. at high level play you can factor in the weapon attacks and optimize your basic attacks (which would be your autos you turn on and off) to do a combo when it's necessary.
You won't be able to do anything in PvP with basic attacks so autos hold no weight there and in PvE your DPS is gonna be noticeably bad if you're just auto attacking and not using abilities
You won't be able to do anything in PvP with basic attacks so autos hold no weight there and in PvE your DPS is gonna be noticeably bad if you're just auto attacking and not using abilities
Apok
1
Re: TTK and Power scaling can be easily fixed.
And I say keep that hardcore grind, but make it fucking harder. Right now it's the easiest damn thing in the world. People who have a ton of time should spend infinitely more time to get an infinitesimal increase in power.
Separate substats from the main enchantment effect and make the substat enchantment insaaaaanely expensive/difficult AND rng-based. Only a select few on the entire damn server should be able to get to the peak of power and only after having spent months of their time and guild-based effort/money.
What this achieves in the end is to make the game 'dry' and more like FF14.
A WoW+L2 hybrid can work, an FF11+L2 Hybrid can work, but an FF14+L2 hybrid cannot work.
I base this opinion on the fact that whenever I do see complaints about changes in direction for Black Desert Online or lately Throne and Liberty, it's been from the type of player who wants FF14 style gameplay.
Those players play long enough to do the story, faff about in a new guild for a month, or try out a new weapon or something. They like the novelty and being able to achieve it, they're not here to hone anything. The problem is that Ashes' approach to gameplay doesn't hold them.
Ofc, the fact that the current stat design is (imo) somehow moving even further from being effective at the thing it needs to be is not going to help, making it harder on top of that would just be building its own coffin.
No matter how much I also like games like this, I have now concluded that they do not work without a much more complex approach to this feeling.
Azherae
1
Re: 🌼👋 Dev Discussion: Gatherable Spawning System
Bad, bad,bad idea . I have no idea who you guys have been listening too , but if you think
pvp for resources is a good idea wow. Firstly your taking single players out of the game . It's hard enough already . Secondly you will get guilds that are hundreds strong patrolling them for resources and wiping out anyone who tries to compete.
Resources should be random spawns all over the map . Then it would be joyous when you find something to mine or cut down or harvest. No timers , no set location pure random spawns totally unfarmable. Probably on the same frequency as now, but random.
pvp for resources is a good idea wow. Firstly your taking single players out of the game . It's hard enough already . Secondly you will get guilds that are hundreds strong patrolling them for resources and wiping out anyone who tries to compete.
Resources should be random spawns all over the map . Then it would be joyous when you find something to mine or cut down or harvest. No timers , no set location pure random spawns totally unfarmable. Probably on the same frequency as now, but random.
Re: TTK "fix" went from few weeks away to "no ETA"
Can't be mad about prioritizing making things work first - plus they're aware of the slanted balancing and very likely hard at work theorycrafting/testing solutions.
It would be great if the community didn't get as hung up on specific dates for specific things as the development team is wrestling this leviathan into shape.
It would be great if the community didn't get as hung up on specific dates for specific things as the development team is wrestling this leviathan into shape.
Re: TTK and Power scaling can be easily fixed.
And I say keep that hardcore grind, but make it fucking harder. Right now it's the easiest damn thing in the world. People who have a ton of time should spend infinitely more time to get an infinitesimal increase in power.
Separate substats from the main enchantment effect and make the substat enchantment insaaaaanely expensive/difficult AND rng-based. Only a select few on the entire damn server should be able to get to the peak of power and only after having spent months of their time and guild-based effort/money.
Separate substats from the main enchantment effect and make the substat enchantment insaaaaanely expensive/difficult AND rng-based. Only a select few on the entire damn server should be able to get to the peak of power and only after having spent months of their time and guild-based effort/money.
Ludullu
1