Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Your greatest fears on upcoming AoC?
hulkmaster
Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Recently i was discussing the game with other fans, and they told me several of their fears about the game, wanted to share them with you, and also ask: what are your greatest fears on the upcoming AoC? 
Just remember!
These are just fears, which came up from previous "we will be wow killers" MMOs, which also told us how great they will be, and in the end..
Also some fears came from early gameplay, so its totally understandable that plenty of things will change, but fear will not go away, because we've seen what we've seen
So several of them:
1) Instead of immersive questing we will get just typical "kill 10 boars quests".
The fear comes from "130+nodes, each with 7 levels (zero included)"
It is just enormous job to create really cool content for that ammount of nodes
2) Boring battle system
We've seen non-target system in apocalypse, because of ping it looked.. so so (i live in Germany)
After looking at last livestream, i noticed how "static" battle system is. Steven with guys were barely moving. You can compare that to gw2 battle system, where staying in place usually means death (on 80 locations)
3) Class disbalance
64 classes...
Thats just.. a lot
4) If you're grinding and you're happy: clap your hands!
It was said, that game will require time, in order to achieve something, and it is a good thing!
But there are too many possibilities of what they were talking about
For example!
Typical "you need time" thing means a tonn of grinding, which is boring.
Good example would be
WoW raids (yeah yeah), where "time" comes when you need to:
- find 10 ppl
- train together
- try bosses plenty of time
So and what are your greatest fears?
Just remember!
These are just fears, which came up from previous "we will be wow killers" MMOs, which also told us how great they will be, and in the end..
Also some fears came from early gameplay, so its totally understandable that plenty of things will change, but fear will not go away, because we've seen what we've seen
So several of them:
1) Instead of immersive questing we will get just typical "kill 10 boars quests".
The fear comes from "130+nodes, each with 7 levels (zero included)"
It is just enormous job to create really cool content for that ammount of nodes
2) Boring battle system
We've seen non-target system in apocalypse, because of ping it looked.. so so
(i live in Germany)After looking at last livestream, i noticed how "static" battle system is. Steven with guys were barely moving. You can compare that to gw2 battle system, where staying in place usually means death (on 80 locations)
3) Class disbalance
64 classes...
Thats just.. a lot
4) If you're grinding and you're happy: clap your hands!
It was said, that game will require time, in order to achieve something, and it is a good thing!
But there are too many possibilities of what they were talking about
For example!
Typical "you need time" thing means a tonn of grinding, which is boring.
Good example would be
WoW raids (yeah yeah), where "time" comes when you need to:
- find 10 ppl
- train together
- try bosses plenty of time
So and what are your greatest fears?
3
Comments
2. Did you ever see Steven in ANY of the presentations? Nothing against him but.... he is pretty bad. They have a group dungeon gameplay where he stands in the way, does nothing as the tank and dies. (Most likely to show us how that looks *wink* *wink*)
3. They still want to show us the "real" battle system. They aim for a mixture of tab-targeting and action combat. We dont know how that will look^^
4. The classes will most likely be based on a rock-paper-scissors principle. Rogue kills Cleric, Tank kills Rogue, Cleric kills Tank as an example. They dont really have 64 classes, they have 8 that each has 8 underclasses to augment and flavour the whole thing with a bit more... spicyness. Want some more mobility? Turn your charge into a teleport.
5. All games are grindy. GW2 demands 500.000 blocks of antique wood to craft an epic equivalent.... Time in this context could mean litteral time investment (the nodes requires this amount of work, time and resources to level up) or Time could mean that we as players have to invest OUR COLLECTIVE time into the node. And I would call that fairplay, we are benefitting from it after all.
My greatest fear would be that:
1. They decide to hold off on some of their promises to a later date.
2. Or that they suddenly decide to downscale they grafics.
3. Or... Lootboxes.
4. Or.... (I dont even want to name it *sigh*) Exp potions *shudder*
5. They downscale Raids (I really want 40man raids back)
6. They reduce the importance of crafted items
1. Combat is boring, I really hated hows wands and bows/crossbows worked in apoc although I understand apoc did not feature the combat system they want on release. It'll be interesting to see how it all changes.
2. Quests are boring and meaningless, I believe quests should unlock entire areas and content for your character to experience, think runescape. I remember playing flyff and quests felt EXTREMELY stale.
3. Your skill levels don't matter, going back to runescape, I loved how your skill levels were a DIRECT reflection on the gear you used, the quests you could or couldn't do, and even little stuff like the passive bonus you got from leveling agility.
4. Just like above, crafted items are important, lifeskillers should feel rewarded for the effort and time they put into their trade. I know they already said in a live stream or something that the best gear would be a MIX of boss drops and crafted items. Crafting Materials will most likely drop from bosses then have to be infused with items that already exist or also drop from bosses as well.
5. ALSO like above again, bonus exp or bonus exp scrolls or potions or anything that enhances your %xp gained are cancer. If devs feel xp rates are too slow they should adjust accordingly, not release xp potions or scrolls as that encourages only grinding/farming for the duration of the buff.
6. They ignore class balance or certain OP abilities for too long, or vice versa they listen to the minority complainers and nerf things based off a very small number of the community crying about something.
7. Some other things i wanted to say were already said above but should probably be given extra attention.
1) Some questing being "go kill x things" is fine, but fearing it's only that with no immersive questing is odd. The argument of there being so many nodes that immersive quests won't exist indicates IS wouldn't even try.
2) I can understand the fear of the battle system, but it seems like that fear is built on images of pre-Alpha 01 testing. In which case there is reason to fear the combat in all future games ever.
3) As Damokles said, only 8 classes.
4) long leveling time doesn't equate grinding. I can see how the two would be related without expectations of IS using imagination though.
I have never heard IS say they were going for a "WoW killer" either. To me these fears are mostly unfounded and related to a lack of knowledge of the current state of the game.
My goal is to not say the fears are "wrong" or "misplaced" but, in threads like these it's nice to have some context of other point of views in case visitors read this thread and assume everyone's fears are founded on facts. Which, of course, could be partially put to rest if they research the current state of the game and realize we are still in pre-Alpha 1. Also, i am not saying not to complain or express fears, but just to do so from more than one perspective.
My biggest fears:
1) Corruption has an easy work around that players exploit and is not addressed by IS. I think Ashes will be designed to be PvX friendly as indicated, but some things fall through cracks.
2) There are not enough players after 3 years to keep more than 1 node as a metropolis.
3) The chance that power creep enters with expansions and IS caves to players that speed through content and demand instant gratification.
4) Ashes tanks after several years and goes P2W or F2P. I know, IS has declared many times this won't happen.
Also not worried but iam curious about the final amount of content, total money that funded the project and release date. It just doesnt add up to me if you compare those with other big titles. But lets see :P
It's kind of a general fear, that you could have for any game in development. I trust the team (Steven's passion, Jeff's experience/smarts, all the artists' talent, etc.) to make a good game given enough time. I'm just worried it's going to take them longer than they everyone expects.
And that fear can't really be dealt with right now. It's too early in the development process to be able to see the end clearly. Just gotta wait and see how complete the game is in 6-12 months.
1. People will find a way around the corruption system and Ashes will turn into an unmitigated gankfest making it impossible to enjoy the game or get anything done.
2. The devs will balance the game around PVP and every time they make an adjustment it will affect the PVE parts of the game. To my way of thinking PVE and PVP stats and skills should be entirely separate that way you can adjust one without wrecking the other.
I also would hate playing a game in which the ability effects are extravagant and huge. I dislike massive flashes and colours for every single spell or sword swing, covering the whole screen.
actually i know at least two good examples of hybrid combat systems: GW2 and BDO
I caught myself in bad situation, when GW2 was released. Because technically developers did everything they promised, but it was made in.. bad? way.
I mean, for example, dynamic events: when somethin really happends in the world, it has direct impact on the world, and that impact is for all players.
Theoretically that system could have given GW2 really repeatable gameplay.
What we had? Bandits attack farm
You fail: just kill these bandits later.
You win? wait for next bandit attack
Generally it felt like goo' ol' quests, where you "kill 10 boards" and nothing actually happens
And these non-immersive events are 95% of the game even now :c
What i'm talking about: even if they will implement everything they promised: that might not meet our expectations.
1. Quests are abuot illusion of what you're doing being meaningful in some way.
Typical "10 boars quests" do not give that feeling - they are just "argh.. 10 more boars.."
Or you can create some story about it - i'm not talking about wall of text, but rather something maybe visual, which will give you a feeling, that your actions really matter
2. I'm not sure if he wanted to demostrate something, but battle system (i know it is WIP!) looked really static, and "tank-dd-support" system might actually approve that behaviour: tank stays in place and just.. has dd and armor, everyone else are also staying in one place just hitting rotations. Sounds boring :c
3. yeah yeah, WIP, i am aware, these are just fears
4. it could be based on anything, but you have your primary class, for example, 10 skills, then you have secondary class, which will affect these 10 skills, making them, generally, 20 skills
and there are 64 classes to be:
- Balanced
- Made unique
- Made interesting
Sounds just like too much work
5. grind in gw2.. it kills me -_-
ANET, GRIND IS NOT FUN!
considering grind - it depends
Grind 5k arena kills? - sounds fun for these, who loves arenas
Grind top level raid? - if they are challenging, and will require tons of time investment, because it is hard, sounds like fun for raider
Grind 5k same mobs in 1 month? - sound boring (and fun for people, who loves grinding)
Grind 5k quests for metropolice? - depends on quests quality
These are just fears
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And while that's true for me it's a case of the ghosts of MMOs past. We've all heard similar things from the devs of other games before they launched. In many of those cases what was said either didn't make it into the game upon release, it was implemented badly or players still found a way around the restrictions and there was no follow thru by the devs after launch. I'm hopeful the Ashes dev team won't be that way but after all the times things have fallen thru with other games I now take things with a grain of salt instead of blind faith and optimism. So you'll have to forgive me if I still have some worries or fears.
Will it have a crunchy outer shell but be dead inside? Or will it be gooey? Many games release over the past 15 years seem to have a strong soul at launch or in development but just die or fade away shortly after.. A few games have death-throws for months and sometimes years, but in the end die as well.
Soulless and Hollowness can lead to premature death of a game.
"Soul" can be difficult to describe and is personal perspective of each player. Examples can be difficult.. EQ 1 and 2 can say they had more soul then say.. WAR or Horizons.. (just my personal opinion of course, others opinions may vary).
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Quests
Super important, I honestly think they should just say they only have 8 classes to curb expectations a bit and also if in the future they plan on adding a new class, they don't have to also add another 8 :P but I had a super long thread on the old forums about this and will refrain from that convo haha.
I have a similar fear where they feel forced (based on budget or keeping to old promises) to release a game that isn't very polished and the disillusionment among MMO people grows EVEN more haha, if that's even possible.
My only other fear is just simply the combat system, I hope the combat is good and fun.
Well A: no, and you shouldn't expect people to commit as much time as perhaps you do to keep updated on all the details, people have different levels of investment and that's allowed and B: this is where people discuss, sometimes the same shit over and over again. You choose what to engage with. If you want to share a link to help educate, go ahead. But don't bash people, if you get bothered then don't read or engage with it.
This is a very dangerous way to think, because we all have our own visions of what the game should be like, and chances are this will be different to Steven's vision of the game. My advice to everyone is to dial back your expectations a little and not try to compare Ashes to other mmorpgs too much. It's very easy to fall into the trap of saying "x feature in this mmo was really good, it should be like this in Ashes" without considering the bigger picture.
Think of it this way. Tractor tyres work very well on a tractor, allowing it to go through muddy fields without getting stuck. But you would never consider putting tractor tyres on a Mini Cooper would you? It wouldn't work, because the rest of the car isn't built to support those tyres. Similarly, if you were to try and take the combat system from say Black Desert Online and put it into Ashes, it probably wouldn't work.
There is nothing to dial back... the OP asks us to share our "fears"...
Thinking of answers for that question is not a trap - it's just a thought experiment.
I'd say concerns rather than fears, but...
1: That Ashes is just vaporware
2: That direct, non-consensual PvP combat is too prevalent
And I actually disagree with the expectation thing. The MMO community needs something to be excited about. I like "wish-list" type of posts unlike @unknownsystemerror hahaha. I think a healthy game will garner sufficient excitement to produce them. To me high expectations aren't dangerous, but rather having specific expectations is the problem. Ultimately, people's expectations should be grounded in playing a fun and refreshing MMO that they can engage in, even if it isn't exactly what they wanted, as long as it is fun most people will be happy. But to demand that the game is made the exact way you like it, that's the dangerous bit because then you can't enjoy anything for the most part for reasons you describe.