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: Node Level Confusion.
@ELWOW
I think we just have fundamentally different priorities for what Ashes should be, and that’s okay.
You’re concerned the game might lean too hard into sandbox design—I’m more worried it won’t lean far enough. Personally, I’d be thrilled if they ditched most of the scripted story elements and leaned fully into a true player-driven experience, more like EVE Online on foot.
Ashes is going to be a niche game no matter what. The gamers who crave story, exploration, and hand-crafted lore already have tons of high-quality options. I doubt Ashes will pull many of them away from titles that already do that better.
Where I think Ashes has the strongest potential is in appealing to PvX sandbox players who want long-term investment and systems that create emergent gameplay. That’s the crowd that won’t get bored—just look at how EVE has endured for decades by staying true to its niche. It’s not mainstream, but it’s still thriving.
I agree node balance matters, but I see it more as a tool for emergent gameplay than as something that needs strict leveling ranges or developer-shaped hotspots. To me, a well-designed sandbox can outlast a sandpark if players are truly shaping the world.
Exactly, players that are only playing for some kind of storyline or questline, or just to grind to max level will only last a couple months in the game. The players that will be playing the game for years are the ones who are invested in the competitive node systems and the PVP around them. Part of that is having balanced options right from launch on which nodes to go grind at and progress.
It also helps distribute the player base so we arent all bunched up in one zone right off the bat either. If we could get to level 6ish from lionhold and then run to desert or jundark and start leveling/gathering, it would alleviate many of the "not enough copper" complaints.
I hope phase 3 starts out like this, but then how do they ensure that each node has item drop potential? Should every node have a tower of Carphin level POI, with a variety of bosses that can gear up players? They have invested alot of time and effort into getting the riverlands POIs well developed and fully sustainable.
I can understand the hesitation in making every node as complex as Miraleth or Winstead, but what is the alternative, cutting back on their content just to balance them with new nodes?
Xeeg
1
Re: Make PvP Viable
Oh please, i didn't said take it 1 for 1 but the concept is objectivly better than a system where you are "forced" to stop pvping because you risk your gear and i also didnt claim you should just sit afk you could also labour task you have to do in order to do your sentence. The idea of going to do to task in order to reduce your blight so you can kill 5 people again (as example) before you have to these tasks again is just worse design. You may think otherwise but i am correct
davenb
1
Re: Node Level Confusion.
@ELWOW
I think we just have fundamentally different priorities for what Ashes should be, and that’s okay.
You’re concerned the game might lean too hard into sandbox design—I’m more worried it won’t lean far enough. Personally, I’d be thrilled if they ditched most of the scripted story elements and leaned fully into a true player-driven experience, more like EVE Online on foot.
Ashes is going to be a niche game no matter what. The gamers who crave story, exploration, and hand-crafted lore already have tons of high-quality options. I doubt Ashes will pull many of them away from titles that already do that better.
Where I think Ashes has the strongest potential is in appealing to PvX sandbox players who want long-term investment and systems that create emergent gameplay. That’s the crowd that won’t get bored—just look at how EVE has endured for decades by staying true to its niche. It’s not mainstream, but it’s still thriving.
I agree node balance matters, but I see it more as a tool for emergent gameplay than as something that needs strict leveling ranges or developer-shaped hotspots. To me, a well-designed sandbox can outlast a sandpark if players are truly shaping the world.
I think we just have fundamentally different priorities for what Ashes should be, and that’s okay.
You’re concerned the game might lean too hard into sandbox design—I’m more worried it won’t lean far enough. Personally, I’d be thrilled if they ditched most of the scripted story elements and leaned fully into a true player-driven experience, more like EVE Online on foot.
Ashes is going to be a niche game no matter what. The gamers who crave story, exploration, and hand-crafted lore already have tons of high-quality options. I doubt Ashes will pull many of them away from titles that already do that better.
Where I think Ashes has the strongest potential is in appealing to PvX sandbox players who want long-term investment and systems that create emergent gameplay. That’s the crowd that won’t get bored—just look at how EVE has endured for decades by staying true to its niche. It’s not mainstream, but it’s still thriving.
I agree node balance matters, but I see it more as a tool for emergent gameplay than as something that needs strict leveling ranges or developer-shaped hotspots. To me, a well-designed sandbox can outlast a sandpark if players are truly shaping the world.
Vhaeyne
2
Re: PvP arena in cities (like a colosseum)
And your response to Azherae just proved this to me. You only care about ganking someone for the sake of it, rather than for some other reason (such as loot or the content that they're doing). So if you just want to kill people, how would arenas not accomplish exactly that? All the pvpers can go hang out in the arenas and have their pure pvp fun, just as pure pvers will clear the story instances and move onto something else. All while the rest of the world should be dangerous at all times and at the same level, rather than only in specific spots and only at very specific times.
Like I've already said, majority of my gameplay in L2 consisted of pvping others for my pve. Yet none of that pvping required the game to have lawless zones. We simply had laxer corruption balance and proper war design. That's it. And that is exactly what I'm asking for Ashes.
And yes, not everyone wants the same thing. It's as if the game is not for everyone
HUH? clearly you misunderstood, i advise you to read again, and its becoming to be clear you simply dont have the capacity to understand or more like choose not to understand, so its kinda pointless to keep on going... (plus i did mention above (guess you didnt read as well...) that i am a versatile pvper i dont only gank, ive successfully defend camps/keeps/towers/castle many times, take them as well ofc not alone, 1x1 in most cases actually skilled pvpers, small scale fights as of gankers/roamers against guess? other gankers/roamers, gvg even and also large scale zergvzerg or blobvblob, sometimes around 150+), for more than 10 years that was pretty much all i did in an mmo)
Kallysha
1
Surnames, Titles
Have Interpid mentioned anything about having surnames? I miss the old EQ days when it was an accomplishment to reach high enough level to earn your surname.
How about titles? It'd be cool to have that "Hunter of Grems" title
How about titles? It'd be cool to have that "Hunter of Grems" title
Re: Quest Rewards
Quick heads-up: there’s a thread pinned at the top of the forum all about quests, opened by one of the community managers.
If you’ve got feedback, ideas, or just want to share your experience in-game, feel free to jump in and post.
The more voices we have, the better the game can grow.
If you’ve got feedback, ideas, or just want to share your experience in-game, feel free to jump in and post.
The more voices we have, the better the game can grow.
Imanek
1
Quest Rewards
I am hoping that the quest rewards don’t end up being like WoW’s rewards where it’s just absolutely useless where at times you don’t even sell it because it’s so bad. Instead I would love for the reward to be where you unlock an area whether it was a small secret area or not also instead of gear as a reward maybe make it so you unlock a skin/transmog when you complete the quest line kinda like FF14.
Sen_Rin
1
Grieving by training
group of 3 trying to wipe our group of 8 for a boss by training mobs on us, they did it a total of 3 times. https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/krqUJo6lC0qzktB9h?invite=cr-MSxVWUUsNzAwNTM2NDk This is the video of it happening
Zaos
1
Node buff ui on large map
Would be nice to see the node buffs available from mouseover on the large map. Didn't matter as much in the beginning with only 5 nodes, but now with like 20 nodes its starting to become a pain in the butt to find the right node buffs. You can spam global but if no one responds then you have to travel the whole map for an hour or more just to see what nodes have what buffs.
Travelling is already a big time commitment, shouldnt have to do it just to find node buffs.
Travelling is already a big time commitment, shouldnt have to do it just to find node buffs.
Xeeg
1