Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
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 testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
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: Artisanship Team: You're Working Too Hard (02/25/25)
Ashes is not really past the L2 level yet.
I have various reasons to say it is actually considerably worse even in core implementation, in terms of 'fitting to the game's form', but I can't tell if my Alchemist bias and Econ Design bias are mixing together. I'll just give the usual 'this is a massive red flag for me if you also want me to care about Artisanship in your game'.
As usual, Throne and Liberty 'example'.
Right now, TL potions last the same duration as Ashes Potions as of this post.
They require 3 of a specific Green Grade Gem Ore and some Natural Essence (a drop from Dungeon mobs).
They cost only a tiny bit of time to make, and while I don't really 'believe in drinking ground up gemstones', I'm choosing to deludedly believe that they were trying to 'copy' FF11 and look enough like L2 at the same time. so their four types of Gem are just FF Crystal Drops to me.
So for FF players (confirmed that I did not have to tell people this for them to get the same view), this is 'Natural Essence, but processed using different methods' (Powdered, Heat Distilled, Compressed, etc).
So from that example, this is easy to work with. Those 'Crystals' are easyish to get, but interestingly not exactly. They are handling their 'Econ slots' well enough, and just once again 'making sure easily confused people don't care about too many names'.
There is Rubrix Ore (used for this and making Upgrade stuff), Rubrix (used for Weapons but can be used for Upgrade stuff but not for this, and no way to convert it back to Ore) and Polished Rubrix. They started from Rubrix, worked out the Econ slots, and adapted their items.
So when I see my Amitoi bring me back '25 Green Rubrix Ore', even though I have hundreds of Blue Rubrix Ore, I'm still a bit happy. A low level player who doesn't have the option to easily farm Blue Rubrix Ore, or a busy Dungeoneer, are also happy.
FF11 Equivalent, those people who would just try to grow the Crystals they needed with Gardening because they didn't need food ingredients as much as they needed Crystals.
I don't know what the Econ slots in Ashes are, I know my biased opinions of what they are, and because I have such a clear idea of all that, I shouldn't talk about it, probably.
But I can definitely say that the Surging Might Potion slot, for Ashes of Creation, is sus.
The 15-30s Stat/Buff-similar-to-stat slot is separate from the 5 minute one, and different again from the 15 minute one (in my experience, the Itemization team can get away with treating the 15, 30, and anything higher potions as all one slot, and the Econ team only needs to split those three into two categories, at their discretion of where the 30 min one goes).
So much data... but it's useless to spend time thinking and not typing, so...
I have various reasons to say it is actually considerably worse even in core implementation, in terms of 'fitting to the game's form', but I can't tell if my Alchemist bias and Econ Design bias are mixing together. I'll just give the usual 'this is a massive red flag for me if you also want me to care about Artisanship in your game'.
As usual, Throne and Liberty 'example'.
Right now, TL potions last the same duration as Ashes Potions as of this post.
They require 3 of a specific Green Grade Gem Ore and some Natural Essence (a drop from Dungeon mobs).
They cost only a tiny bit of time to make, and while I don't really 'believe in drinking ground up gemstones', I'm choosing to deludedly believe that they were trying to 'copy' FF11 and look enough like L2 at the same time. so their four types of Gem are just FF Crystal Drops to me.
So for FF players (confirmed that I did not have to tell people this for them to get the same view), this is 'Natural Essence, but processed using different methods' (Powdered, Heat Distilled, Compressed, etc).
So from that example, this is easy to work with. Those 'Crystals' are easyish to get, but interestingly not exactly. They are handling their 'Econ slots' well enough, and just once again 'making sure easily confused people don't care about too many names'.
There is Rubrix Ore (used for this and making Upgrade stuff), Rubrix (used for Weapons but can be used for Upgrade stuff but not for this, and no way to convert it back to Ore) and Polished Rubrix. They started from Rubrix, worked out the Econ slots, and adapted their items.
So when I see my Amitoi bring me back '25 Green Rubrix Ore', even though I have hundreds of Blue Rubrix Ore, I'm still a bit happy. A low level player who doesn't have the option to easily farm Blue Rubrix Ore, or a busy Dungeoneer, are also happy.
FF11 Equivalent, those people who would just try to grow the Crystals they needed with Gardening because they didn't need food ingredients as much as they needed Crystals.
I don't know what the Econ slots in Ashes are, I know my biased opinions of what they are, and because I have such a clear idea of all that, I shouldn't talk about it, probably.
But I can definitely say that the Surging Might Potion slot, for Ashes of Creation, is sus.
The 15-30s Stat/Buff-similar-to-stat slot is separate from the 5 minute one, and different again from the 15 minute one (in my experience, the Itemization team can get away with treating the 15, 30, and anything higher potions as all one slot, and the Econ team only needs to split those three into two categories, at their discretion of where the 30 min one goes).
So much data... but it's useless to spend time thinking and not typing, so...
Azherae
1
Re: Pylons as "Player-Driven Events"
This is the obvious solution. I have issues with it, too, but it's the 'thing I'd expect my junior dev to bring to me as the first proposal of how to do this' as soon as the word 'Pylons' came down from the Sandal Lord.
I'll detail my issues about it if you care about them, but note that it would get into 'offering solutions' territory.
I'll detail my issues about it if you care about them, but note that it would get into 'offering solutions' territory.
Azherae
2
Re: We are going to need gear rebalance after all those stat squishes
its okay for gear to exist that does not typically benefit players... believe it or not, some players dont just spawn in fully geared.. and SOMETIMES bad gear is still an upgrade for them..
If bad gear is an upgrade to some players - just imagine how much of an upgrade good gear would be.
Saying bad gear is OK because even worse gear exists is nit a good defense of that bad gear. The bad gear shouldn't exist, you deserve to upgrade to good gear.
the point i was saying is that not all gear needs to be best in slot
Obviously not.
However, all gear should serve a valid purpose, and be actually good.
The gear above is not good, no one should equip it, and if you have worse gear on than any of the above, that gear also shouldn't exist.
It isn't that it is useless to one person, it is that it is useless to everyone - or should be useless to everyone.
Noaani
2
Weekly Feedback Request - 02/27/2025
Greetings, Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Please share your top 3-5 most critical issues or feedback topics for this week's testing in the thread below using the following format:
======================
Alpha Two Phase II Feedback
Top 3-5 Most Important Bugs:
1.
2.
3.
Top 3-5 Most Important Feedback Topics:
1.
2.
3.
To keep the thread organized, we kindly ask that you avoid back-and-forth discussions, and stick to the format above for your posts. We'll be closing the thread on Tuesday, March 11 at 11AM PT
Important Note: While we greatly value your insights, please understand that we cannot guarantee all bugs or feedback topics will be addressed, or provide a specific timeframe for fixes.
Thank you for your continued support, feedback, and dedication to improving the Alpha Two experience!
Please share your top 3-5 most critical issues or feedback topics for this week's testing in the thread below using the following format:
======================
Alpha Two Phase II Feedback
Top 3-5 Most Important Bugs:
1.
2.
3.
Top 3-5 Most Important Feedback Topics:
1.
2.
3.
To keep the thread organized, we kindly ask that you avoid back-and-forth discussions, and stick to the format above for your posts. We'll be closing the thread on Tuesday, March 11 at 11AM PT
Important Note: While we greatly value your insights, please understand that we cannot guarantee all bugs or feedback topics will be addressed, or provide a specific timeframe for fixes.
Thank you for your continued support, feedback, and dedication to improving the Alpha Two experience!
Vaknar
1
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
I am wondering why they make it so punishing during testing phases? The idea is to get players to test all of the systems and areas. If you make the game unattractive, you lose testers. The current system is way to boring to have such a lengthy leveling requirement for a game that kind of wants to test a lot of the systems at max level.
I enjoy RvR. I would love to engage in the RvR system but I do not want to go through the Wall Of killing 10's of thousands of mobs just to reach the point where the game might be a lot of fun. The scary part of this is that 25 is not even the level cap.
Same here. I guess, just don't test. I'll probably login for Rogue or when another Race comes out, but other than that I'm not testing anything unless they boost the exp, drops, materials, ect.(for the test, NOT the game) I gave up on actually testing because of inventory bugs deleting my items. I really wanted to dig deep into crafting so I went to go grind out some gathering again and just walked away. I don't expect a test to be fun, but also didn't expect to have to grind so much for it too.
Volgaris
1
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
It's almost as if Ashes is designed around having a high sense of risk vs reward more so than it is designed to be fun.
Seems as if someone forgot the notion that risk vs reward *can* (as in, not always) make a fun thing more fun. If the activity isn't fun, risk vs reward makes it even more not fun.
In order for a game with a high sense of risk vs reward to be successful, the core gameplay loops of that game (combat, gathering, crafting) need to be exceptional examples of their type. They need to objectively be the best of the best, not just average.
Seems as if someone forgot the notion that risk vs reward *can* (as in, not always) make a fun thing more fun. If the activity isn't fun, risk vs reward makes it even more not fun.
In order for a game with a high sense of risk vs reward to be successful, the core gameplay loops of that game (combat, gathering, crafting) need to be exceptional examples of their type. They need to objectively be the best of the best, not just average.
Noaani
5
Re: Cost to buy from NPC vendors is far less than cost to craft.
honestly vendors should only buy crap, and sell a few basic crafting mats and rations. they should not sell any gear.. and to make crafters even more important i also think gear should not fall from mobs.. only crafting mats should ( not like copper ingots or bear hide for example, but their emblems and such yes.) this keeps crafters relevant at all stages of game play. named bosses dropping completed items seems ok
Kicker69
1
Re: Why The Game Needs Fast Travel
exploring the world is interesting up to a point. When you learn everything, and this will happen quite soon, you will perform actions automatically. ignoring the environment. I played in others, no one reads the quests, no one looks around. no one cares. and this is a big problem. on the other hand, there is no fast movement - this is +. since you can kill players with resources, taking their loot
Re: Why The Game Needs Fast Travel
I know it's been said that the game will not have point-to=point fast travel.
However, I feel like this is a mistake. The points of not having fast travel are o encourage world exploration and open world PvP. Given that there are PvP areas, large scale wars, and a node spawn system that is dynamic, these reasons are already covered. We will have plenty of reason to go exploring the world.
There's simply no point in making us take 20 minutes or more just to cross the map. This is further exacerbated by all the different leveling areas being very spread out and not having any kind of combined storage. If you add in the fact that the map is nowhere near completed, and you'll have players spending the bulk of their time just to get from point A to point B.
Case in point was making a group for Oakenhold tonight. We invited a cleric who was in the upper left of the map - it literally took him 25 minutes just to get over to us. That's a lot of wasting 7 other peoples' time.
At the very least, we need what EverQuest had - classes with the ability to create portals and gates to other locations. Druids and Wizards both had the ability to travel around, and at later levels they could do so for groups.
Many of your players are going to be people with limited time. We're going to want to spend the time we have doing what we want to do, not auto running and staring at your mount's backside.
So, please, consider throwing us a bone or two here.
Disagree completely. You seem to want to do everything, all the time, quickly. What about the entire idea of an adventure? Needing to travel to a far away land and explore. You will have plenty of things to do but dont expect instant gratifications, we have plenty of those games, we dont need another.
The idea of AoC is that you wont be travelling from the top of the map to bottom every day. That will be a journey days if not weeks in the making. And its good, we will get living breathing world with literally empires on opposite sides of the map.
NO FAST TRAVEL.
Fast travel doesn't exclude the notion of exploration.
In fact, in most games, it requires exploration. If you can't fast travel unless you have been to the location, exploration is mandatory. In this situation, all fast travel is doing is removing the monotony of needing to travel along the same road all the time.umm I would argue the complete opposite is true, this is why something like ESO forces you to travel the zones by collecting those POIs is part of leveling your character.
Not to mention the easier you make it to move around the map the worse off your economy is, games like NW and FFXIV have this problem where all your mats are either dirt cheap or super expensive cause everyone's just able to jump on the ones everyone wants or farm the hell out of basic stuff.
Collecting POIs serves zero purpose if you have no way to return to them except hopping on your horse. It’s not like the area doesn’t show up on your map. There’s no fog of war or anything similar. I can see Oakenbane Keep on my level 6 mage despite never going down into that area. Going there for the Emberspring serves little purpose as well, since you automatically have the nearest Emberspring as a respawn point if you die.
Further, again, dynamic spawns prevent the economy from worsening. There aren’t going to be set spawn points. I would argue that without fast travel people are more likely to farm the hell out of basic stuff. What am I gonna do with my time - ride 30 minutes and farm a small inventory’s worth of mats and ride back or ride around Winstead and farm ash and oak, basalt and granite? Most people are gonna farm ash and oak, basalt and granite.
Sidebar while I’m at it - we have nowhere near the amount of inventory and storage space we need when every type of material has 5 different rarities.Fast travel is shit in an MMO like Ashes for more reasons than just not allowing you to explore the world.
One such reason is Ashes has a heavy emphasis on open-world PvP, which naturally means there will be "zerg" guilds.
However, no fast travel fucks over zerg guilds. Lets say your guild plans a caravan run or an attack in a certain part of the map, and the zerg guild is spread around the map doing their own thing. With fast travel, they just fast travel to the nearest point to you in 2 minutes and fuck you over with no counterplay. Without fast travel, now they have to travel literal hours to all converge from around the map, by which point you've likely done whatever it is you planned to do. Ashes map is currently around 8% of the intended final size, and it already takes a fair few minutes to travel across the singular biome. Add in the Ocean and the other dozen+ zones, and you have huge map with no fast travel that fucks over those zergs.
So.. you’re telling me it’s better for people to be unable to participate in content? That’s not a winning formula for any game I’ve ever heard of.
There are much easier ways to prevent zergs, such as limiting the number of participants for given events. This is 2025, not 1999. Plus, even if you take EQ’s mentioned method of a few classes having teleport capabilities, it’d still take a fair amount of time to coordinate getting everyone to the point of conflict.
That only 8% of the map is currently complete and we’re already taking this long to travel does not bode well. Players want to be able to spend their time doing what’s fun to them. Running around on your horse for hours on end is not going to fly. That’s simple fact.
This is, again, especially true when leveling areas are very spread out. We don’t have all the 5-10 leveling areas in the same spots on the map.
Plus, Ashes is going to run on group content. Playing solo for most classes is difficult, and you’re not going to be able to kill starred enemies anywhere your level. It is therefore in the best interest of the game to facilitate ways for people to group up, get to the same location, and get to killing.
I love the non-instanced aspect of this game, and the 8 person groups, and the support classes. It reminds me very much of EQ’s early days. But Ashes is going to need to modernize at least some aspects of the game if they expect to retain players, and when you have MMOs coming up on 30 years old doing something essential better than you do, you’ve got to address that.
This is 2025 and not 1990. Great point! Notice how the MMORPG genre is on its deathbed for the last 20 years. Do you not see the correlation? Stupid point.
The MMO genre is not on its death bed.
The PvP focused MMORPG sub genre kind of is though.
The MMO genre is on its death bed since social networks appeared.
People used to play to communicate and interact. is no longer relevant now. only competition and pvp save
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
I am wondering why they make it so punishing during testing phases? The idea is to get players to test all of the systems and areas. If you make the game unattractive, you lose testers. The current system is way to boring to have such a lengthy leveling requirement for a game that kind of wants to test a lot of the systems at max level.
I enjoy RvR. I would love to engage in the RvR system but I do not want to go through the Wall Of killing 10's of thousands of mobs just to reach the point where the game might be a lot of fun. The scary part of this is that 25 is not even the level cap.
I enjoy RvR. I would love to engage in the RvR system but I do not want to go through the Wall Of killing 10's of thousands of mobs just to reach the point where the game might be a lot of fun. The scary part of this is that 25 is not even the level cap.
Mahes
3