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
Artisan testers being tortured
Can we please get a SLIDER for processing quantity instead of fixed stack numbers?
Its completely insane that if we have 99 mats, we need to do NINE separate processing steps split in 50 + 25 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 and you are REQUIRED to stay in the station for 5 hours because you cant simply set a slider to 99 and let it process
Who came up with this idea intrepid why torture your testers
Its completely insane that if we have 99 mats, we need to do NINE separate processing steps split in 50 + 25 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 and you are REQUIRED to stay in the station for 5 hours because you cant simply set a slider to 99 and let it process
Who came up with this idea intrepid why torture your testers
Liniker
7
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
My take on the punishing things is this:
- Loosing XP for dying, it's generally annoying
- No fast travel at all, except if you die ......
.. to expand on the fast travel, I'd be happy with a one-hour CD type hearth.. It helps if you need to log off suddenly and is generally a nice way to round out a session of gaming.. ie hearth, repair, park- Loosing goods from inventory if you die
... eg so you've finally found copper .. then u loose it- No way to lvl up except grind mobs
- Resources required for levelling Professions in early levels need to be plentiful.. otherwise.. why both trying?
- Repetitive grinding Elite mobs at higher levels ,, I just can't do this type of thing, groups speed pulling.. over and over and over the same thing.. ><
- Unattractive face options for female characters
- Vibe is generally just too serious
- I have heard finding things on the market is difficult too ..
- Probably more things but I quit a few weeks ago .. so can't remember them all
I'd love to come back. Once I hear people are actually HAVING FUN and my personal time seems worth spending, I'll come back.
Until then, I'll be lurking in Discord and here on the forums.
Thanks for clarifications, I hope it helps the team.
Hopefully someone will let you know when they think you will start to have fun, based on your list above.
Azherae
1
Some art complaints are missplaced
I write this post because I see many complaints about art in Ashes of Creation. I also feel worried about some parts of the game’s art direction. However, when people address these problems, they mostly speak about environmental assets and world style. I think the real issues are in other areas, and I want to explain that in this post.
Intrepid showed they are able do very nice environment. The weather showcase environment is awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhvQEPuexjg
Compared to that, the current environment feels weaker. Even areas that look good have problems, like low-quality textures, poor lighting, or not enough different assets.
I believe if they fix shaders, improve lighting, update some textures and particles, and add more variety in tree shapes, the environment could become really great. Concerns about world style are easier to solve, as Steven mentioned in his recent interview with TheLazyPeon. He said they plan to add more assets to PoIs and other quirks that make the world of Verra unique. So, I am not that worried because Intrepid proved they can deliver high-fidelity worlds—like in the weather showcase. Even winter parts of it look good. I don’t see strong reason to worry about environment style yet.
What I do worry about is character models and NPCs. It’s difficult to create models that fit nicely in a beautiful world. Right now, the player models and NPCs look terrible—like they’re all clownish or drugged. With games like Concord, I hope Intrepid tries very hard to make appealing models that match the environment’s quality. Even if they produce high-quality models, they must ensure the style is not simply unattractive. Concord had good quality models, but they were still ugly and unappealing.
I have similar concerns about Ashes of Creation armors. I do believe Intrepid will make high-fidelity armors, but since they want a more realistic style, I fear it might end up like New World’s armors: high quality, but ugly or boring in style.
It’s possible to add props or adjust lighting, but some things are not so easy to change later. For example, I don’t see them redoing entire landscapes now. That’s why I bring up these concerns before many sets are already made. It’s okay for level 25 sets to be a bit plain, but lots of players want unique, interesting fantasy armor at level 50. We should remember that “fantasy” doesn’t have to mean “cartoony.”
I also want to mention two small things. One is the current Riverlands landscape. I think it might be too late to change it. Another is how nodes fit in the world. For both, I refer to screenshots from Crimson Desert:
When you look at Crimson Desert’s landscape, it feels geologically logical, giving strong immersion. In Ashes of Creation, the terrain seems kind of random, like a designer just placing hills without thinking. Making terrain that feels natural in real life is very underrated. Unfortunately, like I said, it might be too late to fix that now.
Finally about nodes. Intrepid is not yet at the stage of node footprint development, but Steven mentioned current footprints are internally called Winstead and Miraleth. I want to highlight how a city can look great if there is building variety, good scale, and it blends into the environment, like the screenshot above. I’m sure we will eventually get very interesting, non-flat node layouts. Right now, it’s just a flat village with some artificial high ground for the town hall, but I assume that will change in future.
Intrepid showed they are able do very nice environment. The weather showcase environment is awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhvQEPuexjgCompared to that, the current environment feels weaker. Even areas that look good have problems, like low-quality textures, poor lighting, or not enough different assets.
I believe if they fix shaders, improve lighting, update some textures and particles, and add more variety in tree shapes, the environment could become really great. Concerns about world style are easier to solve, as Steven mentioned in his recent interview with TheLazyPeon. He said they plan to add more assets to PoIs and other quirks that make the world of Verra unique. So, I am not that worried because Intrepid proved they can deliver high-fidelity worlds—like in the weather showcase. Even winter parts of it look good. I don’t see strong reason to worry about environment style yet.
What I do worry about is character models and NPCs. It’s difficult to create models that fit nicely in a beautiful world. Right now, the player models and NPCs look terrible—like they’re all clownish or drugged. With games like Concord, I hope Intrepid tries very hard to make appealing models that match the environment’s quality. Even if they produce high-quality models, they must ensure the style is not simply unattractive. Concord had good quality models, but they were still ugly and unappealing.
I have similar concerns about Ashes of Creation armors. I do believe Intrepid will make high-fidelity armors, but since they want a more realistic style, I fear it might end up like New World’s armors: high quality, but ugly or boring in style.
It’s possible to add props or adjust lighting, but some things are not so easy to change later. For example, I don’t see them redoing entire landscapes now. That’s why I bring up these concerns before many sets are already made. It’s okay for level 25 sets to be a bit plain, but lots of players want unique, interesting fantasy armor at level 50. We should remember that “fantasy” doesn’t have to mean “cartoony.”
I also want to mention two small things. One is the current Riverlands landscape. I think it might be too late to change it. Another is how nodes fit in the world. For both, I refer to screenshots from Crimson Desert:
When you look at Crimson Desert’s landscape, it feels geologically logical, giving strong immersion. In Ashes of Creation, the terrain seems kind of random, like a designer just placing hills without thinking. Making terrain that feels natural in real life is very underrated. Unfortunately, like I said, it might be too late to fix that now.
Finally about nodes. Intrepid is not yet at the stage of node footprint development, but Steven mentioned current footprints are internally called Winstead and Miraleth. I want to highlight how a city can look great if there is building variety, good scale, and it blends into the environment, like the screenshot above. I’m sure we will eventually get very interesting, non-flat node layouts. Right now, it’s just a flat village with some artificial high ground for the town hall, but I assume that will change in future.
Snekkers
5
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
I know the standard answer goes '' Well this game isn't for everyone .. so don't play it if you don't like the PVP/Lack of Fast Travel?Death Penalities/ Lack of Solo Play etc etc.
I say, why not make it more appealing to more people though? As an MMO Community we are kind've hanging out for 'the next big thing' for quite a while now. A lot of us have supported development by buying into the Alphas and giving 'testing' a go. We are entitled to give our opinions. A lot of us are old time MMO Players so we do have valid opinions. I for example spent over $700 Aussie Dollars supporting the game, so don't say I haven't been suportive
Why not tweak things so more players want to play? Why make everything super hard/super punishing? Many of us in RL have enough RL struggles,, we just want to escape into a game enjoy some playtime. We WANT to support a new game, a great game, one we can play for years! One we can solo OR group? Flag for PVP.. or not. Quest OR grind.
I agree, don't make things toooo easy - maybe the difficulty level of say Classic WoW -- which yes is still popular because it's not 'too' easy, people can play PVP or PVE, they can make Macro's, Quest, Spam Dungeons, Battlegrounds, Multibox (yes.. legally is ok .. don't get your knickers in a knot..) Group or not group etc etc.
I really don't get this whole NON fun, narrow minded approach?
Why? Because we have entire garbage bins filled with MMO's that have what you want. We don't need another. What I don't understand is why we have people like you constantly coming in here and trying to get dad gamer mentality shoved in.
I also have limited time, Im no longer a 20 year college student that has nothing going on. I won't be able to get to max level instantly, I won't be able to travel 4 hours straight in game, I won't get the best gear. THAT IS FINE. Not everything needs to be given on a silver platter all the time. The adventure is the fun, its what made old school MMO's fun. Like I said, there are plenty of games that offer that, go play those. Yeah thats harsh but what you want goes against everything Steven has said over the years.
I will say the same thing as Intrepid has, the game is currently in the worst state it will ever be. They will add more activities, solo content, features, etc. You will have stuff to do. Just don't come in here demanding Intrepid caters to players that want instant gratification, you have those games already, go play them or learn to appreciate what AoC is trying to create.
Tahiti02
4
Re: Choosing server
Hell on earth, ritual sacrifices to all the wrong gods, children crying behind you on the plane, some random dude kicking a dog... It's all bad there.You cannot just drop that and run. Why not Vyra? What is going on there?
Ludullu
2
How to fix node wars
Issue
the fix for out-of-war healing was a bad one. It's very unintuitive, a break in the flow of gameplay and allows for unintended consequences and sometimes accidental corruption
Reasoning
Players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties that decide to intervene in the war. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
This already happened multiple times since the fix was implemented. Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)
Suggestion
If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks you during a node war, he becomes orange for you and your fellow citizens. This orange status allows your node citizens to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Issue
Node war was supposed to be a gameplay for citizens, but the way it currently works it is a system for guilds and random citizens only hinder instead of aiding
Reasoning
Currently, the node system is taken by guilds. Guilds decide when they are going to war, against who, and for what reasons. Mostly, it's guilds declaring war on nodes owned by their enemy guilds. Random citizens are only present to give kills and consequently points to the enemy. There are no incentives to try and incorporate these random citizens into the war.
On top of that, the war system doesn't incentivize these random citizens to participate, as there is currently no outcome or reward to a node war, and there is no straight path for these random citizens to group up with each other and form a raid of their own. Adding to that, the random citizen who is not in the guild that "owns" the node has no attachment to the node and has no reason to care about the node itself. Whichever node you're a citizen of, it currently does not matter and I'm afraid that will remain the case regardless of stuff like relics. To top all of that, usually, the random citizen is not near as close as a hardcore player in the dominating guilds and he gets instantly deleted by the current power creep and low TTK design.
Suggestions
1. Kills should not reward points as it incentivizes a bunch of undesired behaviors like bullying low levels, creating alts for free points, and weaker players and random citizens being a hindrance to the war.
2. Give citizens better tools for grouping up and organizing PUG groups for war. Maybe a town board to form warbands, some better ways to communicate with mayor.
3. Overall citizens should have more of a voice on whether they agree to start the war or not, including them in the decision could help make them more personally invested.
4. War rewards, of course, appropriate ones (not created out of thin air materials and gold and resources).
5. I strongly suggest considering ways to increase citizen attachment to its node. Stuff like allowing the use of benches only on your vassal network, giving the option for mayors to block non-citizens from using their benches and shops, or a better control for mayors for taxing non-citizens
6. Increase the TTK design for god's sake, 10~15 seconds in a balanced 1v1 scenario means insta kill when power disparities are taken into consideration. No one enjoys dying without pressing buttons. Give even the weaker players the opportunity to press some buttons and contribute before dying.
Issue
Players who are not interested in participating in the war, for whatever reason, just log out and wait for the war to end.
Reasoning
Sometimes players feel like fighting the war is pointless. They are heavily outnumbered, or they don't have a group to fight with, or they are just way weaker than the war power average. When these players are caught in a war, and don't have the opportunity to run to a safe territory, they just log out and wait for the war to end. This is bad as it's literally keeping the players off the game. If a node engages in multiple wars and consecutive wars, players could be forced to stay logged out for days.
Suggestions
1. Heads-up timer of 5~10 minutes so players can scatter and reach a safe territory before the war starts.
2. Put a notification on your character selection screen if that character is at war and if he's logged off on a war zone.
3. Give every player the possibility to respawn in a safe emberspring (outside of the warring territories) to avoid players being eternally ganked into a node war. This way they can avoid the war without having to log off.
4. Diplomatic options for the node to call for allies (other nodes), surrender, and negotiate peace. This way, they can muster more numbers if they are outnumbered, or just surrender if they feel like they have no chance, saving everyone's time.
5. Possibility of dropping citizenship from different nodes. If a player really wants to be in his territory for some reason, like accessing his storage, and he's in a war, the only solution is to drop citizenship. But it's hard getting to the town hall in the middle of a war. If you could drop your citizenship from another node, that could be facilitated.
6. Refugee policy available for nodes: It would require the node to fund the stay of these refugees, with extra available housing and increased node maintenance. If the node decides to activate this policy, it would allow players to request refugee status, temporarily becoming citizens of that node, with limited availability per node.
Issue
Node wars are being constantly used and being spammed, for frugal reasons and troll mayors, to bully weaker nodes and to alleviate their boredom.
Reasoning
Warmongering mayors can cause real havoc without any intention of fighting all those wars. Warmongering mayors can also use constant wars to bully smaller and weaker nodes. This warmongering behavior has no real consequences as currently, it is almost impossible to oust a mayor who has a big guild and alliance behind him. Even with other ways of election, this won't probably change as big guilds/alliances will dominate economic and military nodes as well. This creates a situation of war exhaustion for their citizens.
Suggestions
A war exhaustion mechanic:
Every time a node goes into war, a war exhaustion bar starts to increase. It increases based on how long you are at war and how many wars you are in. The bar slowly decreases while you're at peace. The higher your war exhaustion, the more expensive it is to declare a war. Over 90% war exhaustion and you can't declare war on another node. War exhaustion only increases if you're the attacker, not the defender, or maybe have war exhaustion for defenders increase way slower than for attackers.
You could also add to the war exhaustion mechanic debuffs to players and hindrances. If war exhaustion becomes high while a war is active, players become weaker, they have increased respawn cooldowns, and other debuffs to accelerate the end of the war and incentivize peace negotiations.
the fix for out-of-war healing was a bad one. It's very unintuitive, a break in the flow of gameplay and allows for unintended consequences and sometimes accidental corruption
Reasoning
Players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties that decide to intervene in the war. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
This already happened multiple times since the fix was implemented. Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)
Suggestion
If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks you during a node war, he becomes orange for you and your fellow citizens. This orange status allows your node citizens to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Issue
Node war was supposed to be a gameplay for citizens, but the way it currently works it is a system for guilds and random citizens only hinder instead of aiding
Reasoning
Currently, the node system is taken by guilds. Guilds decide when they are going to war, against who, and for what reasons. Mostly, it's guilds declaring war on nodes owned by their enemy guilds. Random citizens are only present to give kills and consequently points to the enemy. There are no incentives to try and incorporate these random citizens into the war.
On top of that, the war system doesn't incentivize these random citizens to participate, as there is currently no outcome or reward to a node war, and there is no straight path for these random citizens to group up with each other and form a raid of their own. Adding to that, the random citizen who is not in the guild that "owns" the node has no attachment to the node and has no reason to care about the node itself. Whichever node you're a citizen of, it currently does not matter and I'm afraid that will remain the case regardless of stuff like relics. To top all of that, usually, the random citizen is not near as close as a hardcore player in the dominating guilds and he gets instantly deleted by the current power creep and low TTK design.
Suggestions
1. Kills should not reward points as it incentivizes a bunch of undesired behaviors like bullying low levels, creating alts for free points, and weaker players and random citizens being a hindrance to the war.
2. Give citizens better tools for grouping up and organizing PUG groups for war. Maybe a town board to form warbands, some better ways to communicate with mayor.
3. Overall citizens should have more of a voice on whether they agree to start the war or not, including them in the decision could help make them more personally invested.
4. War rewards, of course, appropriate ones (not created out of thin air materials and gold and resources).
5. I strongly suggest considering ways to increase citizen attachment to its node. Stuff like allowing the use of benches only on your vassal network, giving the option for mayors to block non-citizens from using their benches and shops, or a better control for mayors for taxing non-citizens
6. Increase the TTK design for god's sake, 10~15 seconds in a balanced 1v1 scenario means insta kill when power disparities are taken into consideration. No one enjoys dying without pressing buttons. Give even the weaker players the opportunity to press some buttons and contribute before dying.
Issue
Players who are not interested in participating in the war, for whatever reason, just log out and wait for the war to end.
Reasoning
Sometimes players feel like fighting the war is pointless. They are heavily outnumbered, or they don't have a group to fight with, or they are just way weaker than the war power average. When these players are caught in a war, and don't have the opportunity to run to a safe territory, they just log out and wait for the war to end. This is bad as it's literally keeping the players off the game. If a node engages in multiple wars and consecutive wars, players could be forced to stay logged out for days.
Suggestions
1. Heads-up timer of 5~10 minutes so players can scatter and reach a safe territory before the war starts.
2. Put a notification on your character selection screen if that character is at war and if he's logged off on a war zone.
3. Give every player the possibility to respawn in a safe emberspring (outside of the warring territories) to avoid players being eternally ganked into a node war. This way they can avoid the war without having to log off.
4. Diplomatic options for the node to call for allies (other nodes), surrender, and negotiate peace. This way, they can muster more numbers if they are outnumbered, or just surrender if they feel like they have no chance, saving everyone's time.
5. Possibility of dropping citizenship from different nodes. If a player really wants to be in his territory for some reason, like accessing his storage, and he's in a war, the only solution is to drop citizenship. But it's hard getting to the town hall in the middle of a war. If you could drop your citizenship from another node, that could be facilitated.
6. Refugee policy available for nodes: It would require the node to fund the stay of these refugees, with extra available housing and increased node maintenance. If the node decides to activate this policy, it would allow players to request refugee status, temporarily becoming citizens of that node, with limited availability per node.
Issue
Node wars are being constantly used and being spammed, for frugal reasons and troll mayors, to bully weaker nodes and to alleviate their boredom.
Reasoning
Warmongering mayors can cause real havoc without any intention of fighting all those wars. Warmongering mayors can also use constant wars to bully smaller and weaker nodes. This warmongering behavior has no real consequences as currently, it is almost impossible to oust a mayor who has a big guild and alliance behind him. Even with other ways of election, this won't probably change as big guilds/alliances will dominate economic and military nodes as well. This creates a situation of war exhaustion for their citizens.
Suggestions
A war exhaustion mechanic:
Every time a node goes into war, a war exhaustion bar starts to increase. It increases based on how long you are at war and how many wars you are in. The bar slowly decreases while you're at peace. The higher your war exhaustion, the more expensive it is to declare a war. Over 90% war exhaustion and you can't declare war on another node. War exhaustion only increases if you're the attacker, not the defender, or maybe have war exhaustion for defenders increase way slower than for attackers.
You could also add to the war exhaustion mechanic debuffs to players and hindrances. If war exhaustion becomes high while a war is active, players become weaker, they have increased respawn cooldowns, and other debuffs to accelerate the end of the war and incentivize peace negotiations.
Imnotkio
11
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
People don't like disrespect to their time.
This is basically what it boils down to.
Different people have different ideas of what disrespecting ones time looks like, but no one likes it when they feel their time isn't respected.
Noaani
1