Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Feedback Thread - Alpha One Testing
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Once in game I didn't have many problems moving around, it was smooth and stable. I did have a couple of incidents where I was riding along the road on my mount when out of the blue, I was hit several times in the back by what seemed to be a ranged weapon and killed within a few short seconds. This was odd as I hadn't passed any mobs whilst riding, maybe it was some sort of severe lag.
I don't know if this is as intended, but for the first few minutes I didn't know where to go on my first quest. Eventually I saw the red marker on the map. Maybe it would be a good idea to mention this in the tutorial for anyone with the same problem.
Now, in MMO's I prefer to be a out and out Gatherer, and in previous MMO's played have enjoyed it immensely However in AoC it is very difficult to find enough matts to complete some quests, it also didn't help that when you get killed you lose half of what you have collected. I know this is Alpha, but hopefully in Beta and on release this would be made a little easier.
I hardly had any lag at all, that I noticed, and no crashes whatsoever. The game ran smoothly for me and was very nice to look at.
System Information
Time of this report: 7/13/2021, 09:24:35
Machine name: OLDMANRIG
Machine Id: {ABACE1C6-3071-4F52-BDDC-5DBBC04D5D64}
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 19042) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: PC Specialist LTD
System Model: Intel Z370
BIOS: 0409 (type: UEFI)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 32768MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 32698MB RAM
Page File: 6941MB used, 30620MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 120 DPI (125 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
Miracast: Available, no HDCP
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported
DirectX Database Version: 1.0.8
DxDiag Version: 10.00.19041.0928 64bit Unicode
Download/installation process
For me it felt good (adequate) but took longer then expected since my connection can do over 900 megabit/second (or 100 megabyte/ second). I saw three progress bar, the first one stayed at 100% the entire time (so not sure what's the purpose for it) and the other two was for downloading and installing.
Client performance
On my end I did experience many fps drops when I wasn't in a low population zone. I am only running an Asus GTX1660super...I though the minimum requirement was a GTX 1060, maybe just change that information for the time being. I was running over 40 fps at medium settings in a low pop zone and under 20 fps in cities.
Server performance
Servers are the better then I've ever seen so far. I got no rubber banding and my response time (when pressing alt-F) was staying around 20ms (and I'm in Canada). Not sure if this was a server issue or something on my end, players and monsters from a far looked like there where stuttering or maybe it was me skipping frames BUT just from a far.
PS
My rig is built with: cpu is an i5-9600KF, 32 GB of ram, hard drives are SSD (one m.2 Crucial and one 2.5 Kingston), MB is an MSI Z390 and video card Asus GTX1660 super, Monitor is 34'' running at 2560x1080.
PSS
Thank you to the entire Ashes of Creation team for there GREAT work !
Client performance - no issues, seemed stable
Server performance - impressive at this stage. Some stutter, and loading in issues (like falling through the map, etc) but overall very impressed and excited to see where we go from here.
The client load up and patch went well. No crashes, hiccups or need to reinstall. Server stability (north east) had little to no lag. I did questing and never dropped. My time is limited but managed to play a total of 2-3 hours. Since this is the only feedback you requested, I will leave it at that. Hopefully you request some feedback on questing hehe. Game looks beautiful! Have a great day!
Download/installation process
I got used to the fact that I have no issues at all, but since the launcher crash bug appeared, I cannot get rid of it. Deleting the .patcher folder works, but I have to do it almost every time (90%), when there's a new patch.
Download generally seems a bit slower than before (the crash bug), but it's not a huge difference.
Client performance
I had no crashes at all, logging in sometimes ran into a bug as I found myself under water, or falling - CTRL-T helped.
Server performance
Absolutely stunning (Tenok server EU West), no lag or rubberbanding, a very few very minor spikes when there were A LOT of things to load (at the entrance of the cave for example).
Overall
I streamed every day, my viewers were generally astonished with the game. There were some things they mentioned that they find not that good, or lacking, like shadows, graphics, buggy quests, movement animations etc., so nothing what was the purpose of this test, and they understood that this is a technical Alpha, as we talked a lot about the current development phase of the game.
My biggest problem was that changing keybinds is bugged and I cannot put strafe on the left and right arrows instead of A and D...
See you again on Wednesday!
Client performance: I didn't experience and issues.
Server performance: I had some issues with running into or monsters that would spawn right around me. I saw some mobs that would just disappear and reappear somewhere else randomly...like beach trolls walking along and just disappear to appear walking again 50 ft down the beach, or crabs just popping from one spot to another. I did submit bug reports. I had very few, maybe two, disconnects all weekend. Overall I was extremely impressed with how things went.
Downloading and installing went really smooth. I had no problems.
Regarding the performance the client was good but sometimes some keystrokes seems to got los. I had the most problems when I tried to open the quest log "L". Sometimes it opens and sometimes not. If it didn't open I could workaround if I frist open the map "M" and then pressed "L".
Sometimes I had some lags, especially at the beginning. (Unfortunately I don't remember which server I was on, but I played on one in the NA and one EU (I'm in the EU))
I see alot complaining about the resource spawn for this resource but I must say I really really liked it. Yes it took some time but there are regions were you can farm them "quite" fast. I think 30 min to 60 min maybe have to check next Time. And what I liked the most was that it wasn't just Redwood Timber, but you could tell that it was a dead tree you had to chop. So that I don't just chop totally fine trees gave me a really immersive feeling for the environment .
Even though I didn't found it to difficult to farm the Redwood Timber for the Wand, I'm not quite sure if the penalty for death is maybe to high. One time I just gathered the 24 Reddwood and wasn't carefull on my way back and died just to find out I lost half of it and other stuff. To lose 50 % is alot, especially if you wanted to go to bed
Client Performance: Would encounter tooltip or item name would get stuck to mouse cursor even when nothing was being high lighted.
Server Performance :
NPCS would at times not load in if I was moving fast. Stuck swimming bug relogging would through me underworld.
Swimming with a mount and getting back to land causes you to not be able to get off the mount again.
My Questmarkers where not working at all.
I mainly have some general feedback on my experience thus far:
1. The client doesn't scan/allocate space to determine if it can be fully installed prior to beginning the download, I got ~90% of the way through the game download before I got hit with a notice of "you do not have enough space."
2. When I went to uninstall it, I had to remove about 39mb for it to uninstall before I could reinstall it on my other drive.
3. Providing a 'download' and 'install' sizes would be nice to see prior and during downloading and installing.
4. Upon Reinstalling the Launcher, the shortcut icon for the launcher went away
After installing the game on Day 1, there was a patch overnight. Going by game files the patch appeared to be 1-2GB in size but going off performance monitor + network usage the network used around 10-20GB
Checking disk usage i have a suspicion it is downloading entire pak files that already exist, checking them for changes, finding none and moving on. Not sure on how the patcher checks file difference / delta but worth looking in to
Client performance
Subpar, especially during the sieges it was struggling. 6700K with 1070 and 32GB of RAM running Win10. Not great specs but pointing out further optimization required
Server performance
Above expectations, especially during sieges. My number 1 issue was mobs loading in late / on top of me - may be due to playing from OCE on US servers, but was a big hinderence.
Overall:
Game was great, server performed well and client was good for alpha state. Pointing out the few issues here to bring them to light. Very happy with this game in it's current state and very impressed with the game, current design and work done by the devs + community managers
Full game downloaded at my full ~27MB/s rate when I did it a few hours after everyone else already had (4AM just too early) which was nice.
Client performance:
FPS is still an issue (i7 8700K, 16GB RAM, RTX 3080 Ti), especially in areas such as Illwind where there is fog effects which significantly drop the FPS. Fluctuating FPS, which normally G-Sync would solve however the client appears to suffer from lots of micro stutters every 5-10 seconds which removes the "smoothness" that G-Sync would normally add when the FPS fluctates this much.
Server performance:
No rubber banding which was great, but there were a few instances of what seemed like client/server sync issues where you would see an NPC running into a wall a few metres away and you'd be unable to attack, however a party member could be seen attacking it in another spot. Had to do a "switch character" to resolve these issues which would sometimes pop back up again later
Excellent i had no issues with it at all.
Client performance
I had no issues at all, was stable for me.
Server performance
Impressive for this stage. I did encounter some stutter and loading in issues for example like falling through the map for 4-5 seconds. Overall i am very impressed and excited for what the future has in store.
Download/installation process:
- No issues at all. The only particular is that while the client is grabbing a big file, there is no indication at all that anything is happening (it doesn't report download speed, progress of the file, it just sits on the biggest *.pak file until it's done. Once it gets through the meatball file, everything chimes in (except for the KB/s still reports running at 0.00KB/s until it shows the "Applied Changes Progress" ... which seems a bit counter-intuitive).
Client performance:
- Very few issues with the client. Generally speaking things ran quite smoothly (and I have all the graphics as high as the alpha will let me). I tested it at different levels, and it ran just as smoothly at the top end as it did at the bottom end, which is a pleasant change from games with terrible optimization (here's looking at you dinosaur breeding open-world survival game!) I also tested in windowed and full screen modes - and in all cases, the game ran just as well. This bodes exceptionally well for future playability!
Server performance:
- There were very few server issues. But, there were a few points where there was a teensy bit of rubber banding on the first and second days. There were also a couple issues with getting held in spot then propelled face first over the edge of a cliff into the waiting maw of a pack of rabid monsters (or to my death on the rocks far below). Once or twice I got bumped upwards and took damage on falling, but that only happened twice that I can recall.
Others Hiccups/etc:
- There were several issues of swimming well above the water (especially in the ocean), floating resources (universally out of reach), horribly slow resource spawn rates (but monster spawns worked well). However, the giant swells of the ocean... I love, love, love that! I sincerely hope that the ocean (and all the world-surface that offers) will have something done with it (underwater cities, ruins, exploration, et cetera). I digress.
- Mouse movement was generally fluid barring the occasional hiccup, but it could do with a first person view and about a 20-30% further pull-back to get around those awkward vision blocks. Plus, target locking and auto attack would definitely help.
Overall:
I ran two streams (a total of two 4.5 hour sessions), and other than issues which I imagine will be resolved during further development (*cough*screenshotkey*cough*), there were remarkably few issues. Many of the bugs encountered had already been reported or were on the "to do" list. There were still odd clipping and mesh alignment artifacts , but those are largely cosmetic. I also noticed that some of the larger pieces of stout flora have been turned into pass-though objects! That was a lovely surprise that made world navigation much smoother.
Give me words, and I will illustrate the universe.
>>>D.A.Kelorii
I have issues with the launcher crashing when trying to patch. Using the repair otpion in the launcher resolve the crash issue (using the same option in the launcher shortcut does not). But ti seems that after repair, hte launcher think it has to redownlaod everyting and request 39Go of free space. I odn't have that free space because most of it is already on my drive...
Using restore deletes everything on my drive and download everything again. It still promp me a not enough disk space message at some point during the update but it does not prevent the download from finishing.
Client performance :
Overall good preformance, some heavy fps drop near cities.
Some part of the world have terrible load time, thinking about the dungeon at the end of the erudit quest line (zoology lesson, botany lesson, ...)
Server performance:
I think it's the siege map that show the best how well the server performs. I did not notice any strange things that would idicate bad server perf.
Download/installation process
---- Quite fast, the launcher to patch download went by with 0 issues and in a timely manner.
Client performance
Log in also went by smoothly, load screen time wait was present but minimal, expectations exceeded.
Client performance:
Overall pretty smooth, some hitching when changing field of view but serviceable to enable combat with mobs and vendor npc engagement.
General:
Mobs respawning way too quickly
Not enough lumber to harvest
Quest npc locations not apparent besides minimap.
Quest Log could use some work in regards to organization and option to pin to ui without auto minimizing.
Thats it for now, great first impression.
no real issues here
Client Performance
My connection was stable, i didn't experience disconnects. I did have a repeated issue when mounted, if I went in the water and back out I couldn't dismount it thought i was still swimming.
Server Performance
mobs not loading until I am completely surrounded and dead, Every so often I would get super speed. while it was funny it could be a problem if people figure out how to make that bug happen.
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
RAM: 16 GB
Installation: C:/AoC/
Drive Type: SSD
In past testing, the game client will use an ungodly amount of RAM on character login. It first came to my attention because it maxed out the RAM on my PC, causing the game and other applications to crash/freeze. Since then, I've monitored AoC on task manager and found:
The issue is on loading in, as there it can max out my RAM, causing a subtle crash of the game and less subtle crash of everything else. This issue happens on Medium graphics settings. On Low, RAM usage seems to peek at 6-8 GB while loading.
Due to this issue, I've been strongly dissuaded from playing AoC in it's alpha state.
Edit: I logged into the test today and even on Low settings, the RAM usage spiked up to 10 GB while loading and stayed around 10 GB while playing. This may be related to the number of players. Assuming it does not max my RAM again, I will get footage of task manager and the game to show the issue.
first of all i feel mobs do too much damage even if they are only 2 levels higher.
The death penalty is too heavy cos we lose 50% of out essences.
Character moves forward when attacking this is very bad for precision maneuvers.
The starter quest for blacksmith needed us to gather wood and ores but wood is so scattered and hard to acquire.
Server has great connection i have no disconnections, But the game stutters lags alot.
Am wondering if the system of Black Desert Online mount system would be good in Ashes of Creation.
I do hope we avoid Exp loss penaly of Black Desert online. That game has Heavy penalty at a certain level.
Do hope we avoid what World of Warcraft did to old maps, the mobs are all 1 shot kills making the old content bad. Try Guild wars 2 Level Scaling instead. Or even do wat Guild Wars 2 do to have Dynamic Events in a Ashes of Creation Style. In World of Warcraft they make older crafts useless cos newer expansion is the best pick. I hope we avoid that.
In World of Warcraft they reset Gear every few weeks just so people grind over and over again. I hope we avoid gear reduction.