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
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Comments
Another thing is that there is no current way to view the population of a node. Unless you know everyone who has claimed citizenship, it is impossible to tell how far away from the needed people for voting to begin. Once voting does begin there is no way to check the remaining duration of the vote once you close the window. We had a vote for mayor at one point and stood around for hours after waiting for a mayor to be announced. No one payed attention to how long the vote timer was going to last and are not sure if the vote got bugged and failed or if we are still waiting for the vote to end.
This last one is just a personal gripe for the current content and I know will be completely different down the road, but I have tried to do the little crafting that is in alpha 1. Sadly the only items worth crafting require higher tier materials than the stock vendors sell and, with the state of electing a mayor who can build better vendors, is impossible to craft those items. I would like some way to get those higher tier materials without needing a mayor, getting the other resources is time consuming enough and then to make it require a mayor for level 9 gear is pretty annoying atm.
Coming from having played Guild Wars 2 for 14k hours. i am here to feedback on how appealing an mmorpg can be to players.
In Guilds Wars 2 they have Dynamic Events in maps.
But what makes Guild Wars 2 addicitve is its World Vs World open world pvp that has castles, towers,keeps, open field fights. in mmorpg well Guild Wars 2 guilds often leave/join a server in a region and may leave in 1 day. cos they are constantly looking for Open field pvp called gvg in what they called Guild vs Guild, In Guild Wars 2 players form a large group and they can stack togehter and blast finisher for boons or what we called Buffs. So i recommend Ashes of Creation to consider. I have never quited during the 14k hours gameplay in Guild Wars 2.
Also. like in World of Warcraft, Players have been long following the Lore in the mmorpg. so a good Lore can set things well for Ashes of Creation.
Also You can build into better immersion.
I Recommend Guild Tournaments in Gvg Guild vs Guild with Guild going head on in tournaments.
In albion online they have Local Auction houses and Local bank. which means players have to travel. Having a mega server mega region trading post like guild wars 2 is bad. cos the items will get too cheap too low in value to be worth.
Also please avoid Pay2win i hope you guys will really consider carefully.
As Ashes of Creation is inspired by all the best from each mmorpg strong points. please consider my few written posts so far its the history of what i saw mmorpg grew to be over the spread of 20 over years and having 14k hours of gameplay in Guild Wars 2. If there is expansion planned for Ashes of Creation or even the progress of making Ashes of Creation itself, please avoid rushed project. we rather wait and have a Masterpiece.
In Elder scrolls online that game has heavy voice acting tho i do understand Ashes is more of a reading mmorpg i recommend a music that the game plays to be fun for players to read,
Also consider doing what Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls online do like having a player ID. so when he joins a guild all his alts is automatically tied to his ID.. so when he logs into the game he is playing on same 1 account. Doing this will make guild population healthy and easy to maintain. Not like World of warcraft 1k+ guild slots for members.
Consider Radar of like Elder scrolls online or Black Desert online. as it gives players a better sense of direction.
Consider not having mega region trading post or auction house to prevent items from getting way too valueless.
I do hope in Ashes of Creation players cant kill quest givers as a way to grieve players.
Please avoid Gender/race/class locks even if its due to Lore..... the limitations hurt.
I was in Albion online as that game open world has little music sound track as its only ambience. Well ambience is great but Orchestral sounds of masterpiece is a great way for players to immerse themselves in exploration to the many places to be explored. Some people even take to lengths as to explore on foot.
I enjoy intrepid studios so far cos you guys always listen to us. I have to say listening to your playerbase will make the game really healthy.
A talk about 500v500 dream of Intrepid. well in Guild wars 2 they have a graphical option to set player models quality and amount of visible players. which i say can be great to consider.in black desert online that game is really animation effects heavy and which causes huge lags in pvp. so they have an option to dim animations effects to less appearance intensive. In my discussions with a pro player of pc games, he always turn graphics to lowest settings .Also i recommend dead players to not leave behind corpses so as to have less rendering.
twitch.tv/riot2g00d
Having said that, I am sorry if any of the following ideas/feedback has been left and this being considered a 'duplicate post' of another's. As stated above, losing sleep and wanted to put this out before bed, especially with it fresh in my mind, I have seen a bit of content from the team and the community, so I am trying to limit myself to ideas I havent seen or heard, however I am sure these have been mentioned within the community or at a dev level, so again, sorry for any duplications for I was going off of my experience first hand.
Feedback
Basic Attack as "Q" feels off to me (I'm sure I will adjust or keybindings will be available in the future to set) however in 'tab mode' having the option of right clicking for attacks would feel nice in my opinion
Horse Sprint to be bound to Shift - maybe even instead of a skill cooldown, a gallop/energy system = energy per second consumed and each mount tier has a 'base' amount of energy.
Horse Items? maybe something like mount modifications, like spurs or shoes or a saddle or reigns that will add some effect to the mount EG increased speed, or sprint or reduced snare (see Mount Snaring Idea below) would be a great addition to the crafting system (if it hasnt been thought of yet)
Horse Leveling/training - travel X distance while mounted and x distance while mount sprinting to either sprint for longer (or if going off of the energy system above, providing more energy) or something of the accord.
EG Mount Sprint for a tier 1 mount = X seconds of use increased speed that recharges in X amount of seconds, at the rate of X unit per seconds, then allow the skill (for example sake) to be 10 seconds long, if you sprint for 4 seconds, you still can for 6 seconds, and it will start to recharge the skill, or have 10 energy and each second used sprinting is 1 energy and can be halted use vs using the entire 'skill' and then begin recharging.
Since Mounts will be ever so common of a luxury, to free up the hot bar for skills or potions, add a 'mount' button like the basic attack just on the other side and also allow "H" to summon it, as well as dismiss it
Allow using a spell or basic attack while mounted, however it will trigger you to dismount FIRST, but only if you have targeted a unit
(Mount Snaring Idea) if deemed 'in combat' on your horse, either block the sprint skill or allow enemies to easily snare/prevent sprint, many people are using the horse sprint to bypass creatures entirely (this one is more of an observation but with feedback for a possible solution)
lower the 'get out of combat timer', it feels too long, especially when getting a material or trying to avoid aggro'ing another mob
"rich resource nodes" - if a material node/asset hasnt been mined in a while add a chance to proc an extra item gathered, or a gathering skill perk tree perk (if this hasnt been thought of/or is a WIP yet)
have the higher tier materials have a chance at dropping lower tier items too EG Silver has a chance at providing stone as well or maybe even some essences depending on the tier
if there is going to be an enchantment system (assuming there is), I would like to see gathering tool modifications too, maybe like an extra proc for an additional material or even faster gathering
a 'craft X amount' feature for crafting/smelting etc
"L" keybind for quest menu, and provide option for fade, and the "L" again to hide, same thing for the chat window itself. in regards to chat itself, it being hidden makes me feel isolated from the world in communication. I am also assuming that designated chats in specific areas will also be a thing (like how wow has town general chat and trade chat) Unsure if this is my ignorance and overlooking, but having a specific party only chat would be nice too
This one I am on the fence with about including, but it is an idea nonetheless, maybe provide a small 'sack' or 'chest' or reserved inventory space that is extremely limited in size, like 2-4 spaces that will allow the persistence of dropping extremely limited inventory upon death, so that we can prioritize which items we are farming etc maybe even incorporate this into the crafters tree as a higher tier reward etc
Sorry for the list, I love sharing ideas, take anything from here with a grain of salt. again, sorry if these have been posted/spoke of/on in the past or are currently in the works, I just want to add to the cause
Thank you Intrepid for all that you do, I look forward to this month, and many more sessions in Verra
Went as I expected...no hiccups for me - (It would be nice to have a pause option)
Client performance
Server performance
I am going to lump these together and explain my experience, as I am not experienced enough to know whether this is client side or sever side:
*Frame rate drop in highly populated areas
*Other players, in party, characters not visible
*Players, (in party), appear to be in one position stationary then disappear and are teleported to a different place on the map.
I will leave this here...In case.
*Many quests are not functioning - (Not sure whether this is needed for this part of feedback but maybe this is brought about through server side issues?)
It takes me about 2 or 3 hours to do a simple patch. I've tried the "repair" route to see if this helps, but it takes just as long. It's almost like the game is being downloaded from scratch. The general feeling I get from other players is that they don't really care about it due to their connection speeds. I'm currently on a 50/50Mb fibre line, which is higher than average for what people in my country normally have.
If the patching process could be made more efficient that would be a plus. Showing exactly how big the patch is, how much of the patch files have been downloaded, etc would also make it easier to provide feedback, were as atm all I can say is my game files get smaller, then they increase and then they get smaller again, fluctuating up and down with no real indication on how long the patch will take or what is being patched.
This patch has been downloading now for an hour and a half or so and is only 50% complete and all I see is that I've lost 10GB of game files somewhere which I assume is now being downloaded again?
Client & Server Performance I had trouble with the loading. I assumed it was because it was around 5 CST and it was the first day of new testing. It would let me hit log-in, select character, hit play, music would stop and nothing would happen for minutes at a time. I'd kill the launcher and try again. (I assumed this was the known bug where there was no error message). I tried multiple servers just to see, starting with Norlan (yellow), then both Resna (red) and Tenok (yellow). On Resna I'd see I was in the queue then same issue. The only error I got in any of these attempts said not enough memory for textures. So I rebooted and tried again. Eventually I got in on Norlan.
There was a little lag in the beginning town. In the first cave there was severe lag and there were only one or two other PCs in there with my party of two.
While playing the game froze 4-5 times and had to be killed through task manager. I logged in twice post crash in other places. My sister was grouped with me and the first time said I ran with mobs on me quite a ways and crossed a river. (My last view was me safely away from any mobs). Another time I crashed and she said my character just took off running through town (Winstead). I came back in and was facing a wall and unable to move. I killed game again and came back in able to move but under the floor. She told me a control command and then I was good. Of those times I only got one error message that the Unreal engine had crashed. I didn't note the error code. [Edit: just did it again error code was UE4-A0C- An Unreal process has crashed] My computer's pretty old but my specs are below and I did not adjust anything in game setting wise.
CPU: Intel Core i55-4590
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200
RAM: 16 GB
Drive: 223 GB SSD
Download/installation process:
On the first day i had 0 issues with the Download but today on the 2nd day with the Update and Wipe i downloaded about 1 Hour with 5Mb/s download speed.
It felt more like a installation than an update. If the update was large it is okay otherwise I think i had to reinstall it.
Client performance:
My Pc is okay but got a medium-low tier graphic card (Rx580,8gb) and i can run this Game on Ultra with about 30-40 FPS and on low with about 60. Some area it drops about 50 but for me very way playable and fun.
Server performance:
I play on Tenok and i live in Germany. I had 0 delay or other problems. Not sure if it is a server problem but i had some Problems with missing NPC ect.
Played yesterday (14 Jul 2021) for several hours and other than starting at #33 in queue and then getting 'stuck' on top of a player when the game first loads things went fine. (Cannot get off that other player they have to move or you are just stuck waiting) Died a LOT...I mean a LOT...but it was because I was pushing the levels I was attacking. Overall, first day was a nice experience...lots of quests added, did some gathering...
Today...(15 Jul 2021) is completely different. Tried to submit an in-game bug that bugged out (error 6).
Created three new characters (one of each class)...
Issues:
1 - Loaded a tank...once game loads I am stuck on top of another player. Cannot move...nothing seems to get me free...have to wait for that other character (player) to move.
2 - Got a quest...nothing showed up in the quest list.
3 - Tried attacking an animated armor...nothing. no damage, no aggro, nothing. It was like the game was frozen. Other players ran up to the same npc and attacked...nothing.
Tried to switch characters...was extremely slow process...but we are testing...once loaded...the cleric this time...
Issues:
1 - Loaded a cleric...once game loads I am stuck on top of another player. Cannot move...nothing seems to get me free...have to wait for that other character (player) to move.
2 - Got a quest...nothing showed up in the quest list.
3 - Tried attacking an animated armor...nothing. no damage, no aggro, nothing. It was like the game was frozen. Other players ran up to the same npc and attacked...nothing.
This test period is a waste tonight. Please work to get it back up and running again so we can actually test the game.
Will try again tomorrow (16 Jul 2021)
-I have had a few moments were the Frame rate has dropped but for the most part it hasn’t been a huge issue. I have been running the graphics on high and seem to be doing good so far, I have had a few moments when the gamma will flicker or go really dark in some areas but if I keep moving, it goes back to normal.
-I have issues of the enemies not spawning for about 10 seconds after I stop in certain areas.
Good news is I am having more fun in this alpha than I do in most games at full release, I think when there is some more mobility given to the action combat, the combat will be moving in the right direction I generally don’t enjoy tab targeting, so I am glad that the action combat is an option.
You guys are doing great, thank you for letting us test your game!!!
As of 21:30 EST July 15th, 2021 I have to say the improvements since last week are phenomenal.
Playing my dwarven priest on Norlan. The starter area quests all seem to work now. There are enough resources spawning. They move around somewhat when over harvested, although it doesn't seem quite as dynamic as the stated desired methodology. The basic XP gains from doing the start area quests will get you to level 4 and move you outward. That seems to be reasonable.
The Launcher and Client download and subsequent patches have gone well. The latest patch was much faster to download than the previous. Norlan was low population but hit medium while I leveled my character. There no real issues with rubberbanding, although sometimes my action combat default attack with the mace didn't fire evenly. It seemed like the server heartbeat skipped beats now and again, but too sporadically to justify complaining about it. Justy something to note. If I was in the middle of the weighted move forward on a default attack, spell casting did not fire properly and I had to hit the button again after the animation.
There we FAR less floating objects, especially rocks. Although the basic purple harvestable flowers did seem to float ON bushes here and there when spawned close to them. All in all a fun time was had and a lot less bug reports to fill out from the starting area.
-Grimm
/edit
I really hate the "weigh" forward on the "regular" attacks. I know they were voted for, but IMHO they suck.
Anyone with any weapon training knows this sort of thing is an "amature hour" wild clubbing of the air.
It certainly is NOT something anyone with a modicum of training would do.
I would like to see a compromise and make the move half the distance?
BUT I also understand that would require a redo of the animations to make it look and feel right.
It reminds me of the "breathing" and idle animations. WAY too over the top! Why do all the games do this crap?
It looks totally janky, no real person moves that much when breathing or when idle. LOL
/edit
I tired to submit a ticket on the support page but couldn't make a support account due to it being "unable to contact the Zendesk". I submitted the ticket still in the hope that being logged into my Ashes account might connect the ticket to an account.
After playing the Alpha 1, I can now confidently say that I truly believe this game has what it takes to be the best MMO of our time. The environment and game-play is honestly really impressive for an Alpha!
However I was not happy to see that our progress (after 1 day of the month-long Alpha) was reset.
It was my understanding from their schedule that all data would only be wiped about once a week during the 3-day maintenance periods in between the 4-5 days of game time throughout the month. Therefore I won't be playing the rest of this Alpha 1.
Peace
Becareful when you allow Exp Debts cos players can grief the people....
Logging trees, Harvesting, mining are at a great duration per gather. and the stand time to pick it up is great.\
Avoid static respawn location cos players can split in 2 groups to grief the players by farming them.
The mobs etc like bears have great animations and sounds they feel alive.
Current combat pushes the players forward it has cost me near death of my character a bunch of time cos when the last hit of that mob the player moves forward he then gets into another mob aggro range and is now dead cos he cant sprint in combat as the mobs are always faster.
Current Graphics is awesome really immersive for an alpha.. i was looking at different angles and it all looks great for a wallpaper. The music the sound ambience sounds so good.
Atm mobs have double aggro... when i run first time to a distance they stop for a moment and move away from me and return to chase me further. I think the mobs aggro range are too far, imagine a combat of pvevp.
The Quest tracker seems to disappear so fast, what instead you should do is when player hover mouse over the area the tracker shows up.
The current world map pin when a location is marked in red dot seems to be so hard to get to and the player have to zoom all he way in.
I've yet to see an mmorpg where when a tree is chopped and if it lands on you u are hurt.
Current out of combat health Regen and Mana Regen is at a great speed.
Current in-combat health Regen and Mana Regen is at a great speed.
Current Tank main hand attack is at a great auto-attack speed.
[*] Download/installation process
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The download speed is giga slow for me, Im from Norway with 1000/1000mb connection. Getting a download speed at 2.10 - 6.20 mb. Mostly staying around 3mb/s.
This takes ages to update, is there a way to maybe increase this?
Rest is smooth af tho!
Right click to also cancel active spell casting, yesterday I recommended allowing right click to be for basic attack, adding to that idea, maybe something like "cancel current spell action" then allowing basic attack if clicked again
cleric healing an ally puts entire party in combat (in game report submitted)
Rock material nodes seem to have dropped off to extreme scarcity, even rarer than silver nodes, however I am aware that material nodes were addressed earlier
would be nice to be able to untrack quests but not abandon or at least a sort feature for difficulty, location or alphabetically, optional or by default. my OCD flairs up looking at my log sometimes, especially for quests I know I cannot do, like the level 15 ones - maybe have these level gated to only being obtained a few levels below when it is feasible, i can foresee some backpacking abuse for this, unless that is ok with Intrepid, in which I would agree with then.
when a new quest appears in log, open the log and flash or highlight the new quest, i seem to pick them up and realize it way after I am doing what I was doing and lose track of where i got it / what triggered it to appear
Add a 'player is busy' if they are currently in options/reporting bug/talking to an NPC if another player requests a trade (typing this sounds petty, but I was kinda stalked for materials I nabbed from someone who died) - this encounter with a player made me excited for PvP for ignoring them could have led to some spicy conflict, however I know they would have whooped my a## (see what I did there haha)
Another thing I know was reported, a rendering issue. I use a 2080 card and only noticed skipping and render issues while I was streaming, but none when I was not, so I have a feeling this is on my end. However I had an incident that all the starting locations walls and floors turned into clay like textures and it was super frame-y walking through, figured I would relog, and it took forever, spiking my pc resources and crashing OBS and froze my pc, again I have a feeling this is an issue on my end due to playing and streaming, and am aware the game is not optimized for its in development.
Thank you all again for another wonderful experience! Look forward to seeing you all in Verra soon!
Navigating quests was not easy with no sort of directional arrows. Even the stuff around chopping down trees wasn't clear, the first one I could interact with then no others, no clear direction on how to find more or to interact to acquire (lots of trees but none seemed to want to yield me any wood!). The map is very inaccurate in terms of where items display with small red dots and then the minimap.
The music was nice and the game looks pretty ,what I saw of early combat was OK, the effects were good, sounds were great.
There was no "you have new skills, click here" I guess perhaps some level of tutorial the first few levels or hints/tips on levelling up would have been useful.
People were talking in other chat channels yet I couldn't work out how to respond as there were no buttons etc.
I guess overall the impression was the game looks like it has all the bare minerals to be good but it is not intuitive, questing lacked navigation and the UI looks like something I played with about 15 years ago.
Server performance seemed fine, no major bugs. So keep working at it.
Launcher
Patching works fine
It would be nice, to see how big an Patch is, how much is downloaded and how much still must be downloaded
Client
Still got Client crashes with UE4 Error:
Fatal error: [File:Unknown] [Line: 198] Unreal Engine is exiting due to D3D device being lost. (Error: 0x887A0006 - 'HUNG')
The crashes happens not so often as before
After crashing and relogging, there was an rollback of around 10 minutes
General Feedback
The melee basic attack shouldn't move the Character forward with every hit.
It would be fine, when the Tank got an Shield from start
As a PVP mechanic I guess I can understand it. As a PVE mechanic especially now given how buggy the current combat mechanics are (ie dying for no reason to invisible sources) it's super frustrating and demotivating to continue spending time trying to progress in the Alpha and believe me I do want to play.
I've had several random deaths occur and watched as my corpse was looted by other players. Just my personal opinion but this isn't going to sit well with a broader audience. Especially while trying to progress.
Maybe this could be a max level mechanic? Upper tier levels?
I'm sure this is a hot topic area but it's a hard pill to swallow especially when the deaths are uncontrollable during alpha.
Not to mention the death penalty incurred from these random deaths.
Major kudos to the environment art team, the landscapes look amazing especially for an alpha!
No issues here at all
Client performance:
Would love to see the server selection stay on the server that you have characters on but no other issues. (Aside some already known topics)
Server performance:
1. Some periotic clipping / reset of the waves noticed.
2. Mob spawn in some areas seems delayed which has lead to my demise and a few random lag spikes but nothing outside of what I would expect in an alpha.
Additional items
1. I would love to see how much XP is required per level not just the percentage.
2. Is there any thoughts to showing contribution towards a node?