Best Of

It's almost 2026, and even traditional MMORPGs shouldn't force social interaction. I suggest recruiting NPCs as teammates, and even allowing for greater operational flexibility, such as adding an equipment system and growth potential for NPC teammates. Additionally, there should be greater convenience in terms of crafting, such as hiring NPCs who can work for players. Although the traditional slow pace is nice, games should still adopt more innovative systems as the times change.

For context I have played a Hunter in World of Warcraft for 15+ years. I prefer the Classic WoW iteration of Hunter, but I also enjoyed the Legion Melee Hunter and played a Hunter in Season of Discovery.

So far in AoC I have managed to get to level 19 playing almost entirely solo. I have mostly been focused on professions and completing all of the commission board missions multiple times per day. I have had a few PVP encounters, but they were mostly limited to high level players ganking me or low level players trolling me by killing my mount. I have had a handful of legitimate PVP encounters, they were all fun, but there haven't been nearly enough for my taste. Most of my experience with the combat system has been in the form of solo-PVE.

Right out of the gate I absolutely LOVE the movement abilities in this game. Traversing the world as a Ranger feels amazing. Strider and Call of the Wild let me sprint FAST and Disengaging up cliffs and over ravines literally never gets old. Jumping off a mountain and then using Disengage to take no fall damage feels slick. Air Strike + Disengage is like a double-jump. Even outside of combat these kinds of abilities feel great. I dabbled in Fighter a bit and Blitz is an equally satisfying ability to press.

I like the sprint and dodge mechanics, but I don't think I have ever used block even when I was wearing a shield. Dodge and Block need to be more responsive. The animation windows seem erratic. If I dodge at the exact same moment during an enemy attack animation, sometimes they miss and sometimes they hit me, it feels random. It feels odd that there is no stun or counterattack window for a well times block or dodge. Enemies just continue attacking like nothing happened which often makes it feel like I would be better off just standing there and attacking rather than trying to time dodges and blocks. Which brings me to my biggest frustration with combat as it exists right now. The weapon combo finisher system and the block dodge system work AGAINST each other and give the player conflicting priorities.

Dodging, Blocking, or using a movement ability SHOULD NOT reset the weapon combo counter. If I attack once, attack twice, then dodge an enemy attack, my attack sequence is reset. THIS IS WRONG!!!! My next attack after dodging should be the 3rd attack in the chain, the weapon combo finisher. This should probably be the case for certain skills as well. It feels exceedingly odd and frustrating to attack, attack, perfectly time a dodge or a block, and then have the attack chain reset. The way it is now just makes me want to stand there and get hit so I can finish my weapon attack chain. Players should be rewarded for executing well times blocks and dodges, not punished.

Ranger specific feedback;

• Hunts/Marks don't feel quite right either. Losing the passive buff when you activate the Mark feels bad and until I unlocked Siphoning Regeneration, I basically never used the active portion of any of my Hunts.
• The animation lockout after using Powershot is infuriating
• The little hitch at the end of Disengage is annoying. If I disengage off of terrain, let me get the extra distance, don't slam my character into a brick wall. This is especially annoying when fighting mobs because it gives you just a little less distance than you want. Even with the slow, mobs are right back on you practically the second you land.
• The delay when casting Air Strike is terrible. It takes like half a second before your character moves and then you hang in the air for an eternity before you start shooting. It makes it VERY hard to use in combat.
• Disengage and Airstrike should count as dodges if you time them correctly during an enemy attack animation. It feels odd to time a kickflip perfectly and then get hit by the cleave you just dodged even though you are 30ft away.
• I would love for Ranger to have ONE melee ability so that when an enemy closes on me I can press the melee ability and immediately switch from Ranged attacks to Melee attacks. Manually switching from bow to melee weapon and back again is awkward.
• Cast at cursor functionality? Does it exist? If not I need it for bear trap and vine field. Both of those abilities feel great by the way Vine Field especially feels completely unique and powerful Ranger exclusive.
• Snipe, Headshot, Lightning Reload, Thundering Shot, Salvo, all feels great 10/10.
• Focus seems a little undercooked. Powershot is your only tool for building and nothing else directly interacts with it outside of attacking to build more, but as previously mentioned its hard to get 3 attack sequences off and dodge enemy attacks at the same time.

They are trash, yes.

I understand the reasoning behind removing racial passives to avoid forcing players into a race they don’t visually like. That concern makes sense.

My issue isn’t about min-max pressure, but about meaningful world design. In a game like Ashes of Creation, which is built around long-term progression, player dependency, and a living world, races currently feel almost purely cosmetic.

If races don’t meaningfully influence gameplay, economy, or how players interact with the world, then their existence becomes questionable beyond visual flavor. At that point, having fewer races—or even a single race with cultural variation—would achieve the same result.

The node architecture and visual theming tied to dominant races is interesting, but it’s mostly aesthetic. Without deeper systemic differences, race choice doesn’t really shape the world or player behavior in a meaningful way.

I’m not arguing for hard min-max racials, but for design depth. Long-term MMOs thrive when choices have weight, not just appearance.

A lot of large, long-running MMOs have racial passives and they work perfectly fine. Players naturally choose between things like a strong, physical race, a nimble dex-focused one, or a more balanced option — and that choice becomes part of their identity, not just min-maxing.

The problem usually isn’t passives themselves, but when they’re tuned too aggressively. If racial differences are meaningful but not overwhelming, players feel they’re choosing who they are, not just what parses best.

It's not just the races. The world building is non existent.

A world needs to live even if no player is present. AoC doesn't do that. It feels hollow. The world is not build. There is not just bad world building. There is no world building. There is no reasson for any given asset to be at any given location. NPC camps are not placed where they would settle in a living, breathing world, they are where the next set of quests is neccesary to enable advancement. They don't interact with one another at any level. Cultures are non-present and have no relation to each other and the greater world. Any ruin present is there because otherwise the place would be visually empty or a place for a group of mobs is needed, not because there is a history, some lore, some reasson at all for there to be a ruin here. Best example, south start, going left. Goblins need to be slain on the route to the next camp. Does anyone know what these goblins are even doing there? Where do they come from? No one knows. They are mentioned never again and aren't relevant to anything. They are merely there to get you, the player, to reach level 2 before the next camp. There you are tasked to kill some badints and get prove of a brewing revolution. There is no reasson for those bandits being there and no explanation as to why they are there in the ruins or what their goals are. There isn't even a reasson for them to rebel, as there is no government or society present to even rebel against. Not that it matters, they are immediatly irrelevant as soon as you hit level 4 and get pushed to the farm. The farm exists because otherwise the map would be empty. This is clearly the case, as it is placed in rocky, hilly terrain, where no sensable culture in the history of ever would even attempt to farm. Unlike the flat area directly next to it, perfectly suited for farming, but currently occupied by a random set of mobs that neither fit the biome nor the climate present at this location.

AoC is a big empty map where steven and his team place random assets in ordner to enable use of mechanics. Not because anything makes sense at all, in terms of geographical choice, cultural choices that would dictate the use of any space for any given purpose or anything like that. The dwarfs start in the mountains because thats what dwarfs do. Thats what all dwarfs did in all of media since the concept of a dwarf was introduced, so thats why they are in the mountains. Where they have to deal with mud dwarf golems that somehow bleed for reasson unknown to man and dwarf alike. Not that this matters, as these mud dwarfs get never reused or explained or become somehow relevant at all ever. They are just exp sacks with a different look, so you won't notice that they might as well replace all mobs with target dummies and it wouldn't make a lick of difference to the setting as a whole.

Don't give me that "it' an alpha" answer, after showcasing it…

Funnily enough, this IS an alpha, and it sure sounds like you've encountered a bug. So you should report this bug from the game itself, so that devs can directly look at your character's logs, instead of trying to figure out what your character is from your forum post.

Hi guys. I don’t know if it’s just my natural hate of change, but man I really hate these new forums. How do you guys feel about them? Completely killed my desire to participate.

Your first sentence is just factually incorrect.

Yes, MMO's should force social interaction. Those not wanting social interaction should play a different genre.

The problem isn't that Ashes doesnt have this, the problem is that other games do.