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
Who made these stat changes?
Who ever did this, reverse it.. this shit is so outlandish i didnt believe it would make it out of the PTR... no shit it went live... whoever spent the time recoding this shit wasted their time... revert it back to how it was.
Aladaur
1
Re: 📊 Gear & Stat Tuning Feedback Thread – Help Shape Phase II Balance
Your class, level, and average gear tier
level 25, average lvl 10 +10 epic gear
The content you tested (e.g. dungeon, PvP arena, solo mobs)
1v1s, 8v8s, asymmetrical medium-scale pvp
Feedback
Gear: Pretty boring gear implementation. Increased stats for rarity upgrades are not very interesting. I don't see how you can balance straight-up stat increases and rarity upgrades and not blow up power creep. Recommend looking into perks for gear heroic+. Don't like that every helmet now gives mentality either and every should con, etc..., it feels very streamlined. But I'm willing to live with it if it's better for balance.
Power upgrades and power progression curve: I think we are at a much better place than we were before. Some people will complain that the upgrades are not enough, gear is useless, and enchanting is not worth anything anymore, but they are coming from modern P2W mobile MMO design. Games that give 200% upgrades per progression step incentivize you to spend money to get stronger, to be able to compete. That's not a healthy design, and that's the reason games like ArcheAge do so badly.
In the golden age of PVP MMOs, like Lineage 2, the progression philosophy was: The deeper you are into the game, the more you need to grind, for less % gains. At the end, you were grinding literally hundreds of hours for like less than 1% power gains. This is necessary, otherwise no new player joins the game late and is able to participate in content with the already established players
Enchanting to +10 now gives an 8% power upgrade. That's huge, and you can bet players at endgame will enchant their items. Anyone saying otherwise doesn't understand MMOs and wants to be carried solely by gear in a low skill ceiling game.
Diminishing returns: Very good, necessary for allowing for building diversity. Without it, ppl will infinitely stack power (or their main stat). Hopefully, it's here to stay. It can be tied to char level or tier of gear.
Gear drops and crafting: Players engaged with level 10 gear crafting because it was better than level 20 gear that mobs dropped reliably. This is not the case anymore. With the future increase in level cap and mobs dropping gear in a future launch, players will completely bypass early-level crafting, rushing to max level by acquiring the gear they need to keep grinding stronger mobs by grinding mobs (self sustaining self contained loop, that is the most efficient progression path, this is not good). No systems in the game will matter before max level, no one will run a caravan, and no one will care about gathering low-tier mats unless it is to progress their profession. Players probably won't fight for it. This destroys the early game professions economy, increases power disparity between sweaties and casuals, and makes every single system in the game irrelevant until players reach endgame.
If low-rarity gear mob drops are removed (rare and below), players will have no choice but to engage with the economy and make crafters relevant for gear. They will be soft-locked into progression by node progression (and crafting benches), temporarily reducing the power gap between try-hard players and casual players. The incentive to rush to max level is reduced, because now you are in lower level gear, grinding inefficiently to reach a level that is meaningless because you won't be that much stronger than a guy that is just grinding 2 hours a day and the rest of the time engaging with all the other systems and enjoying the content. Players will have to gather, fight for resources, and run caravans even at early levels to get gear. You still have progression avenues like enchanting, increased rarity upgrades, gems, and all that in lower-tier gear, and sweaties won't run out of things to do. You retain some of that dopamine hit by substituting gear drops with valuable material drops that are used for crafting gear, and you still maintain that dopamine of dropping high rarity gear (heroic and above) without being reliable enough not to engage with the rest of the game.
In short: Remove rare and below gear drops from mobs past level 10 (or at the very least level 20 gear and above), leave it for level 0 gear since the nodes won't be progressed for an economy to exist.
TTK:
The improvement on TTK is incredible. It might be too short on some occasions (especially DPS survival), but overall, on the scenarios I tested (duels, group v group, old level 10 BiS enchanted gear), great start, it feels mostly ok.
I am worried tho, once elixirs and pots become more common, players adjust to the meta with the new level 20 gear, we are going to go back to some low TTK. Hope that doesn't happen.
I also worried about a larger scale. While on small-scale pvp feels ok, the highest TTK goes is 8v8s. After that, with increased DPS proportion on parties over support classes (and some support abilities being limited to party only, not stacking), TTK is going to go downhill fast. 2x the DPS numbers double the damage, but 2x the number of tanks doesn't double raid survivability. And in the current 8v8, it's not that high to begin with.
I hope for 40v40s and bigger, TTK don't devolve into press W and throw damage abilities again. But if it does, I believe TTK can be increased by increasing base survivability overall (except tank maybe), defensive abilities power, and increasing debuffs (wounds, shaken, volatile, etc) power to balance it so TTK is higher at a base value, but can be decreased by proper skill and coordination. I don't think this will make the smaller scale bad, and it could significantly improve the large-scale.
But that remains to be seen for now. I still think we should increase it a bit more until players unanimously decide "now it's too much," rather than stop at a place players are familiar with. Younger players are not familiar with old-school TTK design and won't know to ask for it.
level 25, average lvl 10 +10 epic gear
The content you tested (e.g. dungeon, PvP arena, solo mobs)
1v1s, 8v8s, asymmetrical medium-scale pvp
Feedback
Gear: Pretty boring gear implementation. Increased stats for rarity upgrades are not very interesting. I don't see how you can balance straight-up stat increases and rarity upgrades and not blow up power creep. Recommend looking into perks for gear heroic+. Don't like that every helmet now gives mentality either and every should con, etc..., it feels very streamlined. But I'm willing to live with it if it's better for balance.
Power upgrades and power progression curve: I think we are at a much better place than we were before. Some people will complain that the upgrades are not enough, gear is useless, and enchanting is not worth anything anymore, but they are coming from modern P2W mobile MMO design. Games that give 200% upgrades per progression step incentivize you to spend money to get stronger, to be able to compete. That's not a healthy design, and that's the reason games like ArcheAge do so badly.
In the golden age of PVP MMOs, like Lineage 2, the progression philosophy was: The deeper you are into the game, the more you need to grind, for less % gains. At the end, you were grinding literally hundreds of hours for like less than 1% power gains. This is necessary, otherwise no new player joins the game late and is able to participate in content with the already established players
Enchanting to +10 now gives an 8% power upgrade. That's huge, and you can bet players at endgame will enchant their items. Anyone saying otherwise doesn't understand MMOs and wants to be carried solely by gear in a low skill ceiling game.
Diminishing returns: Very good, necessary for allowing for building diversity. Without it, ppl will infinitely stack power (or their main stat). Hopefully, it's here to stay. It can be tied to char level or tier of gear.
Gear drops and crafting: Players engaged with level 10 gear crafting because it was better than level 20 gear that mobs dropped reliably. This is not the case anymore. With the future increase in level cap and mobs dropping gear in a future launch, players will completely bypass early-level crafting, rushing to max level by acquiring the gear they need to keep grinding stronger mobs by grinding mobs (self sustaining self contained loop, that is the most efficient progression path, this is not good). No systems in the game will matter before max level, no one will run a caravan, and no one will care about gathering low-tier mats unless it is to progress their profession. Players probably won't fight for it. This destroys the early game professions economy, increases power disparity between sweaties and casuals, and makes every single system in the game irrelevant until players reach endgame.
If low-rarity gear mob drops are removed (rare and below), players will have no choice but to engage with the economy and make crafters relevant for gear. They will be soft-locked into progression by node progression (and crafting benches), temporarily reducing the power gap between try-hard players and casual players. The incentive to rush to max level is reduced, because now you are in lower level gear, grinding inefficiently to reach a level that is meaningless because you won't be that much stronger than a guy that is just grinding 2 hours a day and the rest of the time engaging with all the other systems and enjoying the content. Players will have to gather, fight for resources, and run caravans even at early levels to get gear. You still have progression avenues like enchanting, increased rarity upgrades, gems, and all that in lower-tier gear, and sweaties won't run out of things to do. You retain some of that dopamine hit by substituting gear drops with valuable material drops that are used for crafting gear, and you still maintain that dopamine of dropping high rarity gear (heroic and above) without being reliable enough not to engage with the rest of the game.
In short: Remove rare and below gear drops from mobs past level 10 (or at the very least level 20 gear and above), leave it for level 0 gear since the nodes won't be progressed for an economy to exist.
TTK:
The improvement on TTK is incredible. It might be too short on some occasions (especially DPS survival), but overall, on the scenarios I tested (duels, group v group, old level 10 BiS enchanted gear), great start, it feels mostly ok.
I am worried tho, once elixirs and pots become more common, players adjust to the meta with the new level 20 gear, we are going to go back to some low TTK. Hope that doesn't happen.
I also worried about a larger scale. While on small-scale pvp feels ok, the highest TTK goes is 8v8s. After that, with increased DPS proportion on parties over support classes (and some support abilities being limited to party only, not stacking), TTK is going to go downhill fast. 2x the DPS numbers double the damage, but 2x the number of tanks doesn't double raid survivability. And in the current 8v8, it's not that high to begin with.
I hope for 40v40s and bigger, TTK don't devolve into press W and throw damage abilities again. But if it does, I believe TTK can be increased by increasing base survivability overall (except tank maybe), defensive abilities power, and increasing debuffs (wounds, shaken, volatile, etc) power to balance it so TTK is higher at a base value, but can be decreased by proper skill and coordination. I don't think this will make the smaller scale bad, and it could significantly improve the large-scale.
But that remains to be seen for now. I still think we should increase it a bit more until players unanimously decide "now it's too much," rather than stop at a place players are familiar with. Younger players are not familiar with old-school TTK design and won't know to ask for it.
Imnotkio
3
Re: Massive step in the right direction with PVP TTK changes
Intensive testing? Seriously?
Two days on the PTR, one day on the alpha… we’re clearly not using the word "intensive" the same way.
Definition – Intensive Test
An intensive test is a rigorous evaluation method that pushes a system, product, or individual to its limits, in order to measure resilience, performance, or reliability under extreme or prolonged conditions.
Honestly, I don’t understand the enthusiasm around this phase. How can we talk about thorough testing when:
Some items still show up with six stat lines, despite attempted balancing.
Even then, the balancing feels very shaky. We’re seeing level 10–20 gear with absurd values. Item colors have lost all meaning—why bother going for epic gear when heroic already gives you everything?
TTK has been increased, but the method used is questionable. They just inflated numbers across the board, without setting caps, in an already complex system. Take the "Strength" stat for example: it increases Power Rating, and then there’s a separate Power Rating line below. It’s just stacking effects with no real logic behind it.
In any well-built MMO, the foundations rely on a coherent stat system. Here, to fix the TTK issue, they simply multiplied values. And the consequences are immediate:
- Mobs are no longer threatening,
- PvP is dominated by evasion and lifesteal,
- Healers can easily keep entire groups alive.
And yet people are calling this progress? I really don’t get it.
I honestly don’t see how Steven can approve this direction. If I were in his shoes, I’d be concerned. He’s funding a team that’s supposed to build solid foundations, with reliable formulas and balanced systems. But the more layers you add, the harder it becomes to maintain balance.
Once again, everything depends on having a strong foundation. Here, it feels like they’re just buying time—"look, we increased TTK"—but without any real long-term vision.
Personally, I stick with what works. You sit down, do the math, and build a clean system. When I see level 20 weapons with 2,000 physical power and 345 Strength, I have to wonder: what will things look like at level 50?
- Armor should provide defense (magical, physical, crit reduction, mitigation),
- Jewelry should offer offensive or defensive bonuses based on role (magic, physical, tank, healing),
- Weapons should give offensive stats—magical, physical, or maybe even both for future hybrid classes.
Keep stats simple, with realistic caps. For example: 15 Strength at level 10, 17 at level 11, and so on.
The enchantment system feels better now, even though it was far too strong in its earlier form. Again, the root issue was a lack of consistency.
And above all, stat separation is crucial:
- Intelligence for magic damage,
- Mentality for healing.
- Otherwise, we’ll once again end up with healers doing way too much damage.
To sum up, I’m genuinely surprised to see so much satisfaction about what’s being called an "intensive test," when we’ve seen no sieges, no large-scale PvP, no real mass combat. Three days of testing under these conditions don’t qualify as intensive by any serious standard.
Two days on the PTR, one day on the alpha… we’re clearly not using the word "intensive" the same way.
Definition – Intensive Test
An intensive test is a rigorous evaluation method that pushes a system, product, or individual to its limits, in order to measure resilience, performance, or reliability under extreme or prolonged conditions.
Honestly, I don’t understand the enthusiasm around this phase. How can we talk about thorough testing when:
- Lifesteal still works at 100%,
- Evasion stats are just as effective,
- Three-star mobs can be soloed,
Some items still show up with six stat lines, despite attempted balancing.
Even then, the balancing feels very shaky. We’re seeing level 10–20 gear with absurd values. Item colors have lost all meaning—why bother going for epic gear when heroic already gives you everything?
TTK has been increased, but the method used is questionable. They just inflated numbers across the board, without setting caps, in an already complex system. Take the "Strength" stat for example: it increases Power Rating, and then there’s a separate Power Rating line below. It’s just stacking effects with no real logic behind it.
In any well-built MMO, the foundations rely on a coherent stat system. Here, to fix the TTK issue, they simply multiplied values. And the consequences are immediate:
- Mobs are no longer threatening,
- PvP is dominated by evasion and lifesteal,
- Healers can easily keep entire groups alive.
And yet people are calling this progress? I really don’t get it.
I honestly don’t see how Steven can approve this direction. If I were in his shoes, I’d be concerned. He’s funding a team that’s supposed to build solid foundations, with reliable formulas and balanced systems. But the more layers you add, the harder it becomes to maintain balance.
Once again, everything depends on having a strong foundation. Here, it feels like they’re just buying time—"look, we increased TTK"—but without any real long-term vision.
Personally, I stick with what works. You sit down, do the math, and build a clean system. When I see level 20 weapons with 2,000 physical power and 345 Strength, I have to wonder: what will things look like at level 50?
- Armor should provide defense (magical, physical, crit reduction, mitigation),
- Jewelry should offer offensive or defensive bonuses based on role (magic, physical, tank, healing),
- Weapons should give offensive stats—magical, physical, or maybe even both for future hybrid classes.
Keep stats simple, with realistic caps. For example: 15 Strength at level 10, 17 at level 11, and so on.
The enchantment system feels better now, even though it was far too strong in its earlier form. Again, the root issue was a lack of consistency.
And above all, stat separation is crucial:
- Intelligence for magic damage,
- Mentality for healing.
- Otherwise, we’ll once again end up with healers doing way too much damage.
To sum up, I’m genuinely surprised to see so much satisfaction about what’s being called an "intensive test," when we’ve seen no sieges, no large-scale PvP, no real mass combat. Three days of testing under these conditions don’t qualify as intensive by any serious standard.
Imanek
3
Re: Mobs and bosses should not drop completed gear
Completely agree on mobs, but bosses should drop 2-3 full items, given that their respawn timer is ~24h. Anything that respawns way more frequently should have a really low chance of dropping full items.
And from my side, with the benefit of 6 months of data, I'd like to rescind my original stance. So now I say:
It's not okay for bosses to drop completed gear pieces for any purpose other than to be deconstructed, in Ashes of Creation (I had time to confirm some stuff about player incentives in Lineage, TL and Ashes).
Azherae
3
Re: Head Start
Hmm any info years later? Or is it still pay to win for those who got it?
2 days of being on a server with most content turned off is not much of a benefit.
A few years on alpha and beta servers, getting to know the game and its systems, however, is.
Noaani
2
Re: 📊 Gear & Stat Tuning Feedback Thread – Help Shape Phase II Balance
I dearly hope that the current implementation sticks at least until P3, cause from all the things I've read in the feedback so far - effective changes seem to be incredible.
Obviously things still gotta be ironed out, but so far it sounds that you're back on the right direction.
If the changes don't stick around till P3, oh well, I'll just test whatever they are then
Obviously things still gotta be ironed out, but so far it sounds that you're back on the right direction.
If the changes don't stick around till P3, oh well, I'll just test whatever they are then
Ludullu
1
Re: Feedback on TTK, Gear Changes, and Mana (Post-Patch)
I'm not entirely sure about the fleahripper. With diminishing returns on the power stat, it looks more like a trap than anything else. It's got no substats like pen to help it out so raw power with dr isn't all that great.
mage blink bugged or intended?
Right now every cc cancels the blink immediately (clip 1 and 2) or has a weird interaction where in clip 3 the tank uses his trip but the debuff never shows and the blink cancels itself out with the trip but does not apply the instant cast buff.
Clip 1: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4iyc2eRMhABPJEmf?invite=cr-MSxxMlosMjY4MzA5NTUw
Clip 2: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4j6X2SqTQCJvDJ8y?invite=cr-MSw4czIsMjY4MzA5NTUw
Clip 3: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4ibQPKnC7z5zec7A?invite=cr-MSxvVlYsMjY4MzA5NTUw
Are these interactions intended or just bugs? If they are intended it feels really really awful for the mage. Especially if u play vs higher skill opponents who are really good at finding the right timing. Someone could argue this is some form of skill expression like wait out the follow up cc and then blink. But in reality u either only have 1 sec to react or just die immediately (clip3) or the amount of cc thrown at you is just so much that you can not use ur cc break ability for several seconds (clip 1 and 2). From a mage POV it just feels extremely awful.
Also a 4th option where the mages gets flung away cc'ed: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4ipnx102lX7XLkxY?invite=cr-MSxsa0IsMjk1MzUwMDA0
I think some kind of immunity is required with blink. The ability is already heavily disadvantaged when u cant turn while cc'ed and have to blink potentially into the opponents team.
Clip 1: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4iyc2eRMhABPJEmf?invite=cr-MSxxMlosMjY4MzA5NTUw
Clip 2: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4j6X2SqTQCJvDJ8y?invite=cr-MSw4czIsMjY4MzA5NTUw
Clip 3: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4ibQPKnC7z5zec7A?invite=cr-MSxvVlYsMjY4MzA5NTUw
Are these interactions intended or just bugs? If they are intended it feels really really awful for the mage. Especially if u play vs higher skill opponents who are really good at finding the right timing. Someone could argue this is some form of skill expression like wait out the follow up cc and then blink. But in reality u either only have 1 sec to react or just die immediately (clip3) or the amount of cc thrown at you is just so much that you can not use ur cc break ability for several seconds (clip 1 and 2). From a mage POV it just feels extremely awful.
Also a 4th option where the mages gets flung away cc'ed: https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k4ipnx102lX7XLkxY?invite=cr-MSxsa0IsMjk1MzUwMDA0
I think some kind of immunity is required with blink. The ability is already heavily disadvantaged when u cant turn while cc'ed and have to blink potentially into the opponents team.
Re: TRUTHFUL feedback about TTK changes
Thank you for a well-written, thoughtful, and coherent comment.
I feel the same way. I’ve been frustrated all morning seeing what we were given—and wondering why such major changes only stayed two days on the PTR.
Changes like this need to be handled carefully, with proper planning and objective analysis.
Right now, it just feels like a temporary patch. Nothing about it seems coherent or built to last.
I feel the same way. I’ve been frustrated all morning seeing what we were given—and wondering why such major changes only stayed two days on the PTR.
Changes like this need to be handled carefully, with proper planning and objective analysis.
Right now, it just feels like a temporary patch. Nothing about it seems coherent or built to last.
Imanek
1
Re: Mobs and bosses should not drop completed gear
I agree that right now it's going to be a problem.
My solution would be:
Leave level 0 gear the way it is, because there will be no economy for players to acquire crafted gear before the node levels.
After level 0, remove any gear dropped from mobs from common to rare rarities. You can leave heroic+ as it's a very rare chance to drop, and players won't be able to rely on that to gear up. They will need to rely on crafting. Heroic+ drops just keep the possibility of a rare drop, and that feel-good moment.
My solution would be:
Leave level 0 gear the way it is, because there will be no economy for players to acquire crafted gear before the node levels.
After level 0, remove any gear dropped from mobs from common to rare rarities. You can leave heroic+ as it's a very rare chance to drop, and players won't be able to rely on that to gear up. They will need to rely on crafting. Heroic+ drops just keep the possibility of a rare drop, and that feel-good moment.
Imnotkio
2