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
Alpha Two Update Notes 0.7.1 - Friday, March 28, 2025
These are the update notes for changes to the Alpha Two that went to testers on Friday, March 28, 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 0.7.1 - FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2025
As a reminder, if you come across bugs during Alpha Two testing, please report them to us in-game using /bug
KNOWN ISSUES
- Deconstruction has been disabled as we investigate issues with this system
- Caravans may disappear on launch
- Some Enemy NPCs are not dropping anything besides Glint
- Turquoise Sea landscape and foliage at a distance will not render currently so the zone may look and feel sparse
- Caravel ships may lose their Potion Launchers when crossing a server boundary
- When declaring a Node Siege, if a mayor isn't online they won't correctly become the leader of their team. Mayors may want to stay logged in to ensure they get team leadership if their Node is sieged
- Unadorned Daggers, the Rogue archetype starting dagger, is missing textures and showing up green in-game
ALPHA TWO UPDATE NOTES 0.7.1 - FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2025
- Freeholds - Purchasing Freeholds and placing Rooting Balls on Freeholds has been reenabled
- Caravels and Potion Launchers can no longer be healed by characters
- Caravans can no longer be purchased or launched while a character is launching a Caravel ship
- Potion Launchers can no longer be targeted
- Potion Launcher visual effects have been improved, including the animation for a character controlling the Potion Launcher
- Deconstruction Kits have been changed to be tradable
- Possible Salvage Results from using Deconstruction Kits will show the correct number for possible results
- Fixed an issue that prevented some Plumeria from being able to be gathered
- Fixed issues with some Armorsmithing and Tailoring recipes
Roshen
2
Re: Our Issues with Combat and Gear in Alpha 2
A big thing for mmorpgs is to be very careful with CC, roots, stuns etc. You really do not want to overdo it.
If every class must have 1-2 of them fine but be sure to balance it for pvp by adding a strong and reliable diminishing returns. Immunity to having them spammed on you.
Do not take WoWs example.... Their diminishing returns are laughable at best. A 10 second CC in any form with no cooldown even with DR is NOT something we should ever see. Stuns need long cool downs....
If every class must have 1-2 of them fine but be sure to balance it for pvp by adding a strong and reliable diminishing returns. Immunity to having them spammed on you.
Do not take WoWs example.... Their diminishing returns are laughable at best. A 10 second CC in any form with no cooldown even with DR is NOT something we should ever see. Stuns need long cool downs....
Dryadez
1
Re: Dev Discussion #74 - Rogue Archetype
In all games, I main assassin—this is the fantasy I love playing and is what determines if I'll keep playing the game. In Ashes, I will definitely main the rogue as well.
My first impression is quite positive, and it seems to be in a direction I will personally like. I see good mobility, combos that require skill and planning, bleed, spell resets, obviously stealth.
My first thoughts on stealth in PvE:
- The range restriction on the stealth activation feels bad—it should lowered (~5-10m) or even removed if no actor has a line of sight on me—the line of sight factor being particularly important.
- It's unintuitive that stealth is not a permanent toggle. It lasts long enough to "forget" that you have it, and then it goes on cooldown so you can't re-activate. I assume that it's like this in order to plan its usage, but in practice, and due to the range restriction, it's unpractical to use and not very assassin-like.
- In addition to the above two points, the cooldown after de-activation should be removed—there's not much point in it because of the activation restrictions.
- The stealth sound effect is quite loud and I don't think it's very representative of what it is... it doesn't feel like I'm entering stealth
- After some more time playing, I found out a nameplate issue: sometimes, I can see stealthed players when they are within 15-30m of me because their nameplate appears.
The other things I noticed, for now:
- "Throw" hitting two enemies is very unpractical. I would generally use that ability to pull a mob away from a group, otherwise I'd engage with feint or shadow step. The second hit should be an upgrade, not by default.
- Feint's range is slightly too low in my opinion. Also, terrain blocks it in a weird way right now—it should require line of sight to be cast.
- Acrobatic strike's should detect before cast if the back of the target is not accessible, and in this situation do something else (or not be castable). Right now it feels bugged when this happens.
- Acrobatic strike's "off balance" is bugged: targets can turn around instantly, and they usually are turned even before I land. I also think that the character should land facing to the target, instead of facing away, but if "off balance" is fixed that would be less of an issue.
- Poisons being combat abilities that only last 10 seconds don't feel great and add quite the overhead to fights. I'd prefer having to apply a specific poison before a fight (with a cast time), and having it last a few minutes (eg. 20)
- The synergy of Soothing Shadows and Stealth seems abusive. Currently, it's like Soothing Shadows has a 10s cd, and spamming stealth to heal seems like something that shouldn't be a mechanic. Combined with my feedback about stealth above, Soothing Shadows could be a passive that increases health regeneration while stealthed instead of when entering stealth. To nerf it, it could have a maximum HP threshold, though I'm not sure I like that.
Finally, the positives:
- The potential of combos and the skill required to get them right is impressive. It's very appealing.
- Advantage is a fun mechanic.
- The feeling of autoattacks with daggers is very good. Autos are fast and feel impactful.
- The highlighting of spells that will give a stack of Advantage depending on the context is very nice.
- Generally speaking, and this is the most important, the direction of the skills and gameplay feel very appealing and I think it will please the majority of people who play assassin/rogue
My first impression is quite positive, and it seems to be in a direction I will personally like. I see good mobility, combos that require skill and planning, bleed, spell resets, obviously stealth.
My first thoughts on stealth in PvE:
- The range restriction on the stealth activation feels bad—it should lowered (~5-10m) or even removed if no actor has a line of sight on me—the line of sight factor being particularly important.
- It's unintuitive that stealth is not a permanent toggle. It lasts long enough to "forget" that you have it, and then it goes on cooldown so you can't re-activate. I assume that it's like this in order to plan its usage, but in practice, and due to the range restriction, it's unpractical to use and not very assassin-like.
- In addition to the above two points, the cooldown after de-activation should be removed—there's not much point in it because of the activation restrictions.
- The stealth sound effect is quite loud and I don't think it's very representative of what it is... it doesn't feel like I'm entering stealth
- After some more time playing, I found out a nameplate issue: sometimes, I can see stealthed players when they are within 15-30m of me because their nameplate appears.
The other things I noticed, for now:
- "Throw" hitting two enemies is very unpractical. I would generally use that ability to pull a mob away from a group, otherwise I'd engage with feint or shadow step. The second hit should be an upgrade, not by default.
- Feint's range is slightly too low in my opinion. Also, terrain blocks it in a weird way right now—it should require line of sight to be cast.
- Acrobatic strike's should detect before cast if the back of the target is not accessible, and in this situation do something else (or not be castable). Right now it feels bugged when this happens.
- Acrobatic strike's "off balance" is bugged: targets can turn around instantly, and they usually are turned even before I land. I also think that the character should land facing to the target, instead of facing away, but if "off balance" is fixed that would be less of an issue.
- Poisons being combat abilities that only last 10 seconds don't feel great and add quite the overhead to fights. I'd prefer having to apply a specific poison before a fight (with a cast time), and having it last a few minutes (eg. 20)
- The synergy of Soothing Shadows and Stealth seems abusive. Currently, it's like Soothing Shadows has a 10s cd, and spamming stealth to heal seems like something that shouldn't be a mechanic. Combined with my feedback about stealth above, Soothing Shadows could be a passive that increases health regeneration while stealthed instead of when entering stealth. To nerf it, it could have a maximum HP threshold, though I'm not sure I like that.
Finally, the positives:
- The potential of combos and the skill required to get them right is impressive. It's very appealing.
- Advantage is a fun mechanic.
- The feeling of autoattacks with daggers is very good. Autos are fast and feel impactful.
- The highlighting of spells that will give a stack of Advantage depending on the context is very nice.
- Generally speaking, and this is the most important, the direction of the skills and gameplay feel very appealing and I think it will please the majority of people who play assassin/rogue
Hylmew
11
Re: DPS Meter Megathread
Nah, that's still part of gearing, cause it's the main medium through which you're receiving power. A yet another solution to this could be implementation of the promised tattoos, which would boost your waterfall stats, while gear's waterfall stats stop increasing with enchantments.Yeah no kidding man, and its not even gear, its just enchanting.
This was L2's design, which allowed it to not get tooo crazy with OE powerlvling. Though I'd prefer an even tighter power scaling than L2 had. Minmaxers will still fight over 0.1% power increase, so it's not like they would suddenly leave the game just because they can no longer one-shot people. And those who do leave over that - fuck'em, the game definitely doesn't need people like that.
I revised my comment to show my actual stat structure... Its fucked up man. Levels should be 50% of the max power available, not 10%. (people are at 600 MP now)
Xeeg
1
Re: Fast travel
daveywavey wrote: »Adding it doesn't remove anything. If you want to spend an hour running from one location to another, you still can. If you want to use the argument of "I would walk if I have to but would use fast travel if it is available," then you should reconsider. You are literally saying you want to be a part of the game. left in the dust, you would happily bypass for more enjoyable content if you had the option to do so.
It's not about bypassing it for more enjoyable content. If one player is riding for 10 mins and another is teleporting, then that player has 10 mins more time for character progression. The player that doesn't use it is on the back foot and at risk of getting left behind.
A player that wants to be relevant at end-game will need to teleport, too, in order to not get overtaken. It'll turn into a necessity, despite their feelings on fast travel.
Not everyone has time to run haur from one node to another.... it`s stupid and autistic if devs totaly dont lisen people they will make game for self and autistic kids only and can play this trash 30 people total before will fucked to pay for servers.[/quote]
You know, there's a recently released game called TL where you can teleport wherever you want with an amazing animation. So, why not go play there?
Developers have to make choices, and a unique game that appeals to 6 billion people simply doesn't exist and has never existed.
Here, you come barging in with your big boots, with no other argument than, "I don't want to waste 10 minutes of my life, change your game because you made it for autistic people."
Honestly, if I were a developer, you'd get banned from both the forum and the game right away for your utter lack of respect and consideration for other users and those with disabilities.
So, here you are, representing the kind of people who've been ruining games for years by making everything bland and uninspired. You have dozens of games that suit your taste, where you click a button to form a group, or click a spot on the map to be instantly transported there. And when you encounter the slightest difficulty, you don’t even bother to say hello to the group because it's a waste of time for you, but you throw an insult instead. In short, your behavior here is a perfect example of that.
Ashes of Creation is about bringing MMORPGs back to their roots — a time you probably never experienced. That’s why we are here. And believe me, this community is far larger than your fast-food MMOs that you defend so much but don’t even play.
Take a look at the WoW Classic and Retail servers and see which ones are thriving.
I won’t respond any further to your rudeness and self-centeredness.
Imanek
2
Re: Combat - Why it feels basic right now.
That being said, I get what you mean about the feeling of auto-attacks being too present, and you explain it very well. Having to combine it with combos makes things feel a bit messy – it's hard to tell where it's going.
I agree with this sentiment, but my main issue is that it is an auto-attack instead of a proper manual weapon attack. The feeling I have is that the combo system was designed for a combat without auto attacks, and the QoL option of auto-attacks was added by A2 start, and it completely trivialized the system. Now you have to sit there and semi-afk combo to wait for procs before playing your class, instead of manually combing.
I'd hope for a weapon attack system either without the auto-attack options of with actual rewards and incentives to use manual weapon attacks, increasing the complexity and fun of the combat.
Imnotkio
2
Re: Combat - Why it feels basic right now.
Honestly, it's really a matter of personal taste. Personally, I find the dynamic animations pretty cool and well-crafted. But you have to keep an open mind and remember that we're talking about a game still in development, with work that's already been done and plenty more to come – like 25 more levels to unlock and a dual-class system that's on the way.
That being said, I get what you mean about the feeling of auto-attacks being too present, and you explain it very well. Having to combine it with combos makes things feel a bit messy – it's hard to tell where it's going. Plus, the weapon trees feel quite similar, and the fact that everyone can use everything, I'm not really a fan of that. I'm really looking forward to seeing improvements on that aspect for Phase 3.
That being said, I get what you mean about the feeling of auto-attacks being too present, and you explain it very well. Having to combine it with combos makes things feel a bit messy – it's hard to tell where it's going. Plus, the weapon trees feel quite similar, and the fact that everyone can use everything, I'm not really a fan of that. I'm really looking forward to seeing improvements on that aspect for Phase 3.
Imanek
1
Re: Combat - Why it feels basic right now.
TTK issue aside, I find weapon "skill" trees mostly disappointing. There is nothing interesting about the vast majority of passive bonuses.
What I dislike about combat fundamentals is how you often get little feedback about that you are getting targeted, hit, and what skill is being fired at you or in your direction. I also had cases of a clear desync between VFX, SFX and what is happening on your screen. I would hear a snipe being fired, only to get hit 1-2 seconds later with NO visual indication of a projectile flying at me. My latency to the server is more than fine, obviously no idea about other combatants.
Also I would like that if I'm actually targeting someone ALL abilities should be shown as being cast under my target's nameplate, and not just selected few.
What I dislike about combat fundamentals is how you often get little feedback about that you are getting targeted, hit, and what skill is being fired at you or in your direction. I also had cases of a clear desync between VFX, SFX and what is happening on your screen. I would hear a snipe being fired, only to get hit 1-2 seconds later with NO visual indication of a projectile flying at me. My latency to the server is more than fine, obviously no idea about other combatants.
Also I would like that if I'm actually targeting someone ALL abilities should be shown as being cast under my target's nameplate, and not just selected few.
Soooo are JM lumberjacks the only allowed to make boat hulls :P
Not sure if you thought this one through all the way but u need 500 oak timber to make a hull and only way to carry 500 timber atm is 3 JM lumberjacking bags cause you need 25 3x1 slots :P
Veeshan
1
Re: Why Exclusive Flying Mounts Will Destroy a PvP-Driven Game Long Term
Indeed, I fundamentally agree: flying mounts are problematic for many reasons beyond PvP alone. Personally, I've never liked this system because it negatively affects immersion, the thrill of exploring, and the feeling of moving independently through the world.
As for Ashes of Creation, flying mounts are already highly restricted, and I recall Intrepid mentioning they were still considering further limitations—for example, allowing only mayors to fly exclusively within their own territory.
On one hand, allowing a mayor to have a flying mount adds a nice heroic fantasy touch. On the other hand, limiting these mounts to their specific territories or better balancing their use would be ideal.
I do, however, have a fond memory from Phase 2 when our caravan was attacked by bandits, and the mayor came to our aid from the skies along with reinforcements. It created a memorable and enjoyable moment.
Overall though, I share your opinion: flying mounts absolutely shouldn't become commonplace, as this would risk severely unbalancing numerous core features of the game.
As for Ashes of Creation, flying mounts are already highly restricted, and I recall Intrepid mentioning they were still considering further limitations—for example, allowing only mayors to fly exclusively within their own territory.
On one hand, allowing a mayor to have a flying mount adds a nice heroic fantasy touch. On the other hand, limiting these mounts to their specific territories or better balancing their use would be ideal.
I do, however, have a fond memory from Phase 2 when our caravan was attacked by bandits, and the mayor came to our aid from the skies along with reinforcements. It created a memorable and enjoyable moment.
Overall though, I share your opinion: flying mounts absolutely shouldn't become commonplace, as this would risk severely unbalancing numerous core features of the game.
Imanek
2