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.

Best Of

Re: 1 month of free membership seems like a small reward for supporting the game since the beginning

Elohim_Venture wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Elohim_Venture wrote: »

I'm simply pointing out that paying $100 to support the game at such an early stage, like Alpha 2, and only receiving one free month at launch feels like a small return.

Then don't.

That said, if you are pushing to get more for that $100, you aren't actually wanting to support the game. You are wanting to purchase subscription time.

It's typical childish reasoning. It's logical that as a buyer, one expects to get benefits commensurate with what one pays.

It is indeed logical, and everything I have seen from Intrepid - other than cosmetics - follow this basic reasoning.

This is why your complaint is essentially being mocked. None of us have seen any alpha or beta packs we consider to be less than acceptable.

If we look at the only pack being sold right now, it is $100. For that, you get $15 in in game currency, $15 in subscriptions time, and the remaining $70 is for late state alpha access and access to all beta tests. That is a good value already.

It also stands to reason that your comment about supporting this game "from the start" is just weird. I first gave money to Intrepid in 2018 (iirc), so anything you are doing now is not "from the start" it is after years of development when there is a solid assurance that the game will actually exist.

Nothing at all childish in that reply to you.

Noaani

Re: Ashes Terrain Topography and Cohesion

GreatPhilisopher wrote: »

but that sucks and most dont like it if not hate it , even in AA the ones who played with the game zoomed out to the point of modding it to like literally zoom out to space yet the world looked fine and on scale , so once again its not really about zooming they just suck at making actual right scale , it dosent matter if they want it to be played zoomed out or not they got the whole world and character scale straight up wrong and its legit the first game ever that i've had that problem with

In order to maintain your position, you would first have to accept that we had a game that was built with every intended principle Ashes had, but at a different zoom level. Fortunately we had such a game, it was Alpha-1 and it was located on Alpha Island and it was one of the best Alpha's of an mmo I have ever played from an art direction standpoint.

Let me bring this to the core topic at hand. My favorite example of a design that incorporates some of OP's suggestions while still remaining the level of flatness Ashes tends to have (I got receipts later in the post) is Zi'tah and Boyahda Tree in FFXI. FFXI depending on where you go has very flat terrain. There are definitely inclines, but due to the limitations of player pathing and level design sharper inclines were reserved for splitting up areas. The way they make this interesting is by incorporating 2 fantastical elements, mob design, point of visual interest design, and lighting SO MUCH LIGHTING.

fantastical element 'something is bigger than average'

fantastical element 'nature is your bridge'

mob design 'nature is alive'

Point of visual interest 'make it stick out and glow' (as above so below)

I cannot overstate how flat these zones are, they are some of the flattest in the game but you never feel it because there is just enough variance that your visual field almost never has to think about it for TOO long.

In Ashes Alpha-1 I experienced this MANY times, particularly in the jungle, mountains, and caves. I almost never experienced these same design principles in Alpha-2 by contrast due to how much further apart things seemed to be and how much more artificial the over all terrain design felt. But if you ever play Ashes at max zoom I'll say that you definitely notice this issue /less/.

fantastical element 'something is bigger than average'

mob design 'nature is alive'

Point of visual interest 'make it stick out and glow'

And just some random other screenshots from Alpha-1 era AoC that I think directly counter some of the points in OP

There is definitely some truth to what they were saying even in Alpha-1 to be clear

But over ALL the art direction definitely spoke a lot more to the types of design elements both big and small that tied together the game by a lot.

So why do I think you are logically correct and spiritually wrong? What Azherae said is true, max zoom matters for game design. We live in an era of streamers for starters. But we also live in a game that is for those 'try hards'. Not getting ganked in open world is core gameplay. Ashes HAS DONE BETTER. The problem YOU are complaining about is the max distance, not 'the capability of Intrepid'. However, it is almost impossible without a ton of work to shift design direction from the new zoom level back to the old one. Where as the design tricks above are still definitely possible in Alpha-2.

JustVine

Alpha Two Update Notes 0.13.0 - Thursday, June 26, 2025

These are the update notes for changes to the Alpha Two that went to testers on Thursday, June 26, 2025

As a reminder, if you come across bugs during Alpha Two testing, please report them to us in-game using /bug

KNOWN ISSUES

Waypoints and pings may stay on the map for an extended period of time, even if they're removed or new pings are sent
Waypoints and pings may get into a bugged state, if you place these while your character is mounted

ALPHA TWO UPDATE NOTES 0.13.0 - THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025

CHARACTER, ARCHETYPE & COMBAT

Enemy health bars will no longer disappear, regardless of what PvP status your target has
Bard Dance Mastery: Energy now properly resets Flourish cooldown at the end of the dance cast rather than the start
Fixed a bug that prevented hover targeting from working with some abilities
Buffs with infinite duration should no longer have countdown numbers
While typing in a chat field, pressing CTRL will no longer cause a character action (such as dodge roll)
When items are below 25 percent durability or broken, you’ll get a chat notification letting you know
When a character has experience debt, when they earn experience they will now see experience earned and XP debt being removed in chat
Fixed a bug that could make a white circle replace your weapon combo icon

NODES & FREEHOLDS

Node Embersprings are now located in the middle of each Node, regardless of Node level
Services and Buffs will now display correctly when hovering over the Node icon on the map
Mayoral Election user interface has been improved
Fixed an issue that could result in Relics from disappearing from the world
Cacao Rooting Ball should now be able to be planted correctly on Freeholds
Fixed a crash issue related to Service Buildings finishing construction
Mayor Message tab now has a character limit
Removed the “Clear Rubble” button from the Node UI, since this isn’t functional at this time
Removed the “Show Unused Storage” checkbox from the Warehouse UI, since this isn’t functional at this time

QUESTS, EVENTS & COMMISSIONS

Warbler Warding event can now be completed correctly
Shellshock Shores event has been fixed so the reward chest spawns correctly when this event is completed
Vile and Villainous quest - Tul will no longer be standing on top of things, preventing characters from interacting with them

ECONOMY & ARTISANSHIP

Scorpion Broodling and Scorpion mounts now have their correct speed and max health listed on their tooltips
Where plant and mining gatherables spawn around Miraleth and Joeva has been adjusted to better fit the environment
Swiftclaw huntable NPCs are no longer present near Citadel of the Steel Bloom
Slagbreaker's Mining Pickaxe will now provide the correct stats listed on its tooltip
Halcyonite visual effects when gathering have been improved
Small visual improvements to crafting windows

CARAVANS

Caravan onboarding quest from the Caravansary Assistant has been improved
Dragging Caravan Components from your inventory to a Caravan slot will no longer prompt you to delete items

USER INTERFACE

Party and raid waypoints and pings have been added. Both personal and group waypoints can be set on a map. Options for this feature is in the Group Settings window
The way critical damage and heals display in combat logs has been updated
Nameplate settings now allow colors to changed for friendly, neutral, and enemy characters and NPCs. This is in options under Interface → Nameplates
The minimap should no longer overlap other windows and menus and minimap performance has been improved
When creating a new chat tab, filters will no longer be checked by default
Chat death messaging has been updated for things like falling damage, drowning, or using an ability that damages yourself
Fixed several bugs with characters moving strangely and camera perspectives in the Character Creator
The default background opacity for chat has been increased

WORLD

Jarrak's Throne, on a mountain west of Lionhold, has updated NPC enemy population
Tower of Carphin lighting on the third floor has been improved, and should no longer be too dark at certain times of day
Underwater visuals in several areas of the world have been improved
Visuals for how things in the world look when wet from the rain have been improved

GENERAL

Fixed a bug that could prevent NPCs and stations from appearing in starting areas and Nodes
Fixed a bug that allowed characters to interact with their storage while dead
Fixed a bug that prevented people from using ESC to open the game menu while their character was sitting
Fixed a bug that could result in characters showing the wrong PvP status when invited to your party when they were far away
Belt of the Wolfguard now has the correct equipment icon
Cargo Commodity icons have been updated

Roshen

Re: Mob drops, coexisting with crafters

Some more alternatives:

-Make sure that the dungeon sets and the Named drops are the bis, and let those only drop their crafting items/recipes. Playing and leveling is possible with dropped gear, but all the high end fancy stuff needs crafting. Also lowers the current pressure on the named mobs, which opens up the game more. And at the start of a phase, people can't power level by camping a particular named mob that drops overpowerd weapons.

-Make gear degradable. Dropped gear can't only be repaired X amount of time while crafted gear can be maintained indeffinatly, through crafting. This gives people a window to level with dropped gear but still presures the guilds and even servers to hurry up with getting crafting up.

-Horizontal progression. Earning a full set of carphen gear so you have a change to clear the higher levels of the tower. Same system for all the dungeons. Make them a lot harder as you progress in them and give them a dungeon set that helps you survive there.

-Let crafted gear be promotable through alchemy or someting. Turning one metal into another is a core aspect of that lore for example the legends of the philosopher's stone. So turning a level 10 legendary sword into a level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 would be possible with enough skill and mats. This would be especially worthwhile if all the enchanting, tempering, sockets, ... get maintained.

-Let only crafted gear be augmentable through echanting, tempering, sockets, ...

Areann

Re: Ashes Terrain Topography and Cohesion

Snekkers wrote: »

@Vaknar just look at it mate, this is Chrono. This is actual forest, that's how forests should look in ashes, that's how Jundark should look.

This is not even negotiable. This " IS " - how the Jundark should look. Maybe a bit more tropical but You get what i mean. The Jundark looks like a THICK (lol) Forest on the Worldmap.

It HAS to be a thick Forest, in the finished Game. Even the Riverlands need a bit more Trees around the Roads. Especially the Roads in the Middle between Winstead, Aela, Miraleth and the other Places. The Place looks like the whole Landscape was cleared from all Woodland.

There is just just this ONE detail for me, that doesn't stop bothering me -> it can't be that Ashes of Creation is somehow inferior to a super-old thing like World of Warcraft in terms of how the Landscapes/Regions should look.

It can't be that "Elwynn Forest" in WoW looks better than the Riverlands or the Jundark, if you catch my drift. The whole Atmosphere. The Impression given to the Player. I am aware it's still an Alpha Two, but at this Point slowly it is turning to concern and from concern to worry.

I refuse to believe that Ashes can not be superior. Because it should be. The Weather-Effects alone like with the Questline with the Minotauer-Camp where it starts to rain, should prove that.

Enough ranting from me. All is said what should be needed to be said.

Aszkalon

Re: Action camera mode - Targeting - Something have to change

This is a good look into how current camera and targeting behaviors are being experienced!

It’s helpful to hear where testers are encountering friction in action mode, especially when switching between different targeting inputs. For those who’ve experimented with both styles, what have you noticed in terms of usability differences or areas where each feels stronger or weaker?

Vaknar

Re: Ashes Terrain Topography and Cohesion

UDPCast for my group and related people:

Yes, I know you're gonna want to discuss @Ace1234 's great post above, and I know at least some of you will absolutely derail this thread if you do, so plz wait for me to make a related Splinter Topic, if only for the sake of future Archives.

(to Ace, not saying at all that shouldn't be here, because that is absolutely what Vaknar 'asked for' and a great use of ChatGPT, I'm just getting ahead of a specific thing)

EDIT: Splinter created.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/67736/splinter-topic-narrative-design-hell-is-other-people

Azherae

Re: Mob drops, coexisting with crafters

Yeah, but not saying anything also doesnt help.

Just hope they acknowledge that a change is needed. Forward is forward.

GoodSheperd

Re: Mob drops, coexisting with crafters

Volgaris wrote: »

This has been brought up a few times. Here were the good ideas I heard. No particular order.

1. Mobs only drop "damaged" or "degraded" gear. So a mob would and could drop a copper greatsword, but it'd be a "damaged copper greatsword". The drop rate would still be low though, but higher than it is. Higher tier mobs drop have higher rates and chances to drop higher tier 'damaged" gear. This can persist throughout the leveling process. I'd advocate for very rear actual gear drops. So low, no one actually grinds for them, but have them exist.

2. Material drops from mobs at a low rate, about the same as the damage gear drop or a little higher. This might not be needed if gathering and markets are balanced. But it'd still give that combat focused player an easier in to crafting, or something to sell on the market if they don't want to bother with gathering or crafting. In no way should this be a faster way to get material actual gathering.

3. Gear should be dismantlable for either materials or study it for a chance of or progress towards the recipe. This should include all gear. Such as the rare drop in idea 1 that dropped from a mob, maybe you can dismantle it for a high tier material or study it to learn how to make it. Or you never got that one recipe of that super cool breast plate but now you can buy a number of them and study them to learn it.

These were the main ideas. There are a ton more. I'd like to see a dev discussion on this if there hasn't been one. The ideas above would allow for mob drops but would still hold crafted gear as the best and most common option. There would still be a lot of balancing to make all this feel right. Looks good on paper to me but implemented wrong it could be a mess.

Some of these points are better worded than my approach but cover the same idea.

It woukd benefit everyone without punishing the crafter, nor the grinder

GoodSheperd

Re: Mob drops, coexisting with crafters

Volgaris wrote: »

This has been brought up a few times. Here were the good ideas I heard. No particular order.

1. Mobs only drop "damaged" or "degraded" gear. So a mob would and could drop a copper greatsword, but it'd be a "damaged copper greatsword". The drop rate would still be low though, but higher than it is. Higher tier mobs drop have higher rates and chances to drop higher tier 'damaged" gear. This can persist throughout the leveling process. I'd advocate for very rear actual gear drops. So low, no one actually grinds for them, but have them exist.

2. Material drops from mobs at a low rate, about the same as the damage gear drop or a little higher. This might not be needed if gathering and markets are balanced. But it'd still give that combat focused player an easier in to crafting, or something to sell on the market if they don't want to bother with gathering or crafting. In no way should this be a faster way to get material actual gathering.

3. Gear should be dismantlable for either materials or study it for a chance of or progress towards the recipe. This should include all gear. Such as the rare drop in idea 1 that dropped from a mob, maybe you can dismantle it for a high tier material or study it to learn how to make it. Or you never got that one recipe of that super cool breast plate but now you can buy a number of them and study them to learn it.

These were the main ideas. There are a ton more. I'd like to see a dev discussion on this if there hasn't been one. The ideas above would allow for mob drops but would still hold crafted gear as the best and most common option. There would still be a lot of balancing to make all this feel right. Looks good on paper to me but implemented wrong it could be a mess.

Great summary - These indeed are ideas I've seen in the past, and all are interesting thought-starters! The team is currently working on some pretty big artisanship and economy changes that we'll be discussing on the Dev Update Livestream this Friday, so be sure to check that out!!

Vaknar