Greetings, glorious testers!
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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Ashes of creation thoughts.
Takemyarrow
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Alright from a mythic wow raider who played wow since vanilla. These are my thoughts:
- bosses way to simple and have little nostalgic feeling. They don’t feel unique and need more setting between each of the dragons to really feel impactful.
- classes got little fantasy behind them. It feels more like an mobile mmorpg classe then a real PC fantasy classe with so little lore / abilities / passives. Inside of them.
- quests didn’t really feel impactful. Could use a more narrative driven style of questing. I really wanted to feel that holy moly we just got into a new dangerous world we need to be on our toes and get strong. While I felt like here we are just smack some raptors and scrap some metal.
- everything on graphics is amazing the tree’s the clouds just everything looks amazing. Now I just want to feel amazing as it looks. As of right now it feels very much like Everquest 2.
- I did very much enjoy the combat system and play style of the classes. And I think u can do much more with it then what it is now.
So in my opinion right now everything except the looks of the game feels to basic.
Would love to hear all of your thoughts!
- bosses way to simple and have little nostalgic feeling. They don’t feel unique and need more setting between each of the dragons to really feel impactful.
- classes got little fantasy behind them. It feels more like an mobile mmorpg classe then a real PC fantasy classe with so little lore / abilities / passives. Inside of them.
- quests didn’t really feel impactful. Could use a more narrative driven style of questing. I really wanted to feel that holy moly we just got into a new dangerous world we need to be on our toes and get strong. While I felt like here we are just smack some raptors and scrap some metal.
- everything on graphics is amazing the tree’s the clouds just everything looks amazing. Now I just want to feel amazing as it looks. As of right now it feels very much like Everquest 2.
- I did very much enjoy the combat system and play style of the classes. And I think u can do much more with it then what it is now.
So in my opinion right now everything except the looks of the game feels to basic.
Would love to hear all of your thoughts!
1
Comments
I firstly want to pre-face the below points by acknowledging that I understand that the game is still in its fledgling state and there is a monumental amount of work required in order to make this a MMO a competitor of the mammoths in this current market. I have the utmost confidence that all of my concerns come Beta will be cleared up, but as we don't have a roadmap of what Intrepid are going to be working on prior to Alpha 2 / Beta, I think I'll voice them here to ensure I have shared my thoughts in public.
- I believe it's really important that Verra's world is packed to the rim with unique environments / characters / quests / encounters / items / mobs, particularly because of the size of the world which Intrepid are creating. With a world this size, it could be difficult to ensure that the world does not become stale, with people sticking to the beaten path and not straying off because areas are densely filled with packs of mobs that fail to intrigue the player into exploring the world. Examples of this would be lakes with hidden treasure at the bottom guarded by a water serpent, that when you open the chest you are rewarded with a quest item that takes you on a random journey to new and unique areas you wouldn't have perhaps gone through. Another idea could be a quest in a small village of Bogmin that need you to help them with collecting enchanted mud and building a golem to protect them from Scalerunners that have been attacking their camp, when the golem comes to life it has an existential crisis and runs away and you find it later on in the swamp and have to build him a wife....haha I'm just brainstorming here, but you get the idea. (Btw Intrepid, if you're reading this. Hit me up for Narrative & Quest ideas, your boys got loads)
- I WANT TO FEEL WEAK, what do I mean by this? When I spawn in, on my character, I want my Armor to be bare bones, no shoulder pads, no helmet, no gloves, just a weapon and a quest, and from that point on I want to have the excitement of when I loot my first pair of shoulders or cloak, even if they are of little to no value in stats, I want to see the progress of my character take place, for me what an MMO -must- above all else, is have a compelling journey that players get lost in, the world of Verra sucks them up and they remember characters, quests, events, achievements along the way to reaching max level where the journey continues, not starts. (WOW's problem)
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- Animations for movement, each race has a different set of animations for movement in most if not all of the MMO's I've played. I hope that this will be the same for Ashes.
- Please make it so that "E" for interact is able to be Right Click in both tab target and action combat and that a loot box opens / auto loot is able to be toggled on off. Feels like I'm playing fortnite haha.
- I can't make my mind up whether I dislike or hate the "go faster" border when sprinting. Also would like to see sprinting capped by stamina and also usable in combat. Because once you get a mount, sprinting is kind of obsolete.
- Combat...Combat has to be nailed, as much as I talk about the above, if the combat is not good, the rest of this can be disregarded. I like the direction with freedom of movement during combat, I found myself using the "action combat" more often once freedom of movement was an option. Some ideas from my point of view is that the attacks need to feel like they are more impactful and really building towards that end strike maybe the swings or animations need to be slowed & tested by the team to see how the combat feels, currently a lot of the player & mob animations / particle effects are not up to scratch E.G cleric abilities look a little lacklustre, same with tank. (I understand we are in alpha as stated above and the game will change) I would like to see spells (abilities) take priority over weapon swings, so if I am swinging and I want to throw a spell then that interrupts my weapon swing, I also feel like dodging should not reset your "weapon swings" so you can swing three times, dodge, swing a fourth time and land your "heavy" attack.
- Combat (Resources) I personally dislike the idea that classes should solely rely on a single resource for their abilities. I would like to see classes such as Cleric work on resources like Mana & Faith, mana being what they use to cast minor spells, and faith building during combat through weapon strikes & spells such as judgement that unlock the ability to cast a large and powerful heal. Similarly, Tanks (If that's what they will be called at launch) could have two resources, Hate & Fury or vice versa with points 5 points being built through the use of weapon swings & hate for large & impactful abilities to be used with animations that really WIND UP and deliver a punch so that the player feels powerful and like they are really causing damage. An example would be a spell called Sunder which is a huge arcing swing that sends out a wave of hatred toward their enemies, generating huge amounts of threat & reducing their enemies defensive stats for a short period of time, opening a window for dps to burst mobs / bosses.
- Mounts, not going to touch much on these, but the control of the mounts at the moment feels floaty, and what I mean by that the movement doesn't feel responsive, the mount kind of swings from side to side instead of being quite snappy which may be the way it's been designed because of the "style" that Ashes is going to be, but I think the movements could be tightened up. Would also be cool if the channelling for the mount was blowing a horn for a ram or whistling for a horse or casting a strange spell for the skeleton mount.
- Trophies, I loved this idea in Warhammer Online, they had feats that would be rewarded from a quest chain after a certain number of kills and a trophy could be hung on your armor. Example : Kill 10,000 trolls, unlocks the ability to pick up a quest given to you by the bounty hunters guild to kill the "Troll King" you then receive the troll kings head as a trophy that hangs from your belt or from your shoulderpad alongside a "Trollslayer" title. I loved it, because when you saw stuff like that, you immediately know that person has poured DAYS into getting that trophy and they could display that for all to see.
- Gathering, a lot of this was just placeholder, but obvious issues like the gatherable gameobjects weren't very unique or large (particularly the mining objects) and therefore they need to be worked on. However I believe that all gatherable should be able to be channelled whilst in combat, with the channelling only being disrupted by cc or damage. I'd also like to see progression tree's within the gatherings, I.E if you gather lots of herbs, you should be better at gathering more of them from one node, just an idea. Also, maybe XP from gatherables?
- Guilds are another one of those important elements that I think are often overlooked in terms of rewards, similarly to the trophies I discussed above, it would be so cool to be able to display your contributions to your guild such as Titles for your rank or in game cosmetics such as guild cloaks / guild mounts with the crest present on the banner that can only be used if you have spent a significant amount of time within the guild and feats such as player kills against enemy guilds, guild caravans defended, boss kills whilst with guild members. That sort of thing that make players want to 1. Join a Guild. 2. Make friends within a guild and actually participate in content with them. I also really like the idea of having perks whilst grouped with 2 or more guild members, such as having increased movement speed out of combat other stats could also be increased through buffs like "Rally" where the more members within the group that are guild members the better the buff is, therefore incentivising grouping up and going out into the world in a social way.
(Two small things that will likely be ironed out shortly)
Render distances were poor, some mobs would only become visible when on top of me, sometimes not at all but I would take damage from them. Also, as players got further away from me their model begun to distort and the animations begun to become jolty and generally poor quality. (A similar thing happened with Warhammer Online)
Please let me sheath my weapons and shield on my back or side
Once again, I reiterate that I understand we are in Alpha 1 and that there is a mountain to climb, but if I didn't express my thoughts now, I'd only kick myself later down the line if these things had been put in if I had just voiced my concerns / ideas.
Huge congratulations to the entire team on the success of the Alpha 1 and I look forward to a bright future for Ashes of Creation! Keep it up Intrepid!
3 of 8 archetypes in game so far. Most stuff is place holder or proof of concept.
Everything we are testing at this point is basic systems NOT content. Lore is being kept very close at this point. We know very little and every time Steven leaks something the rest of the team cringes.
We have yet to see any of the content your looking for. Wait for Beta's to get a better feel for this stuff.
2nd not trying to be WoW with everything being instanced. There will be very little of that stuff, Thank the Sandal Lord.
- remember these bosses are world bosses so you can’t really compare them to your mythic raiding. Although I think the mechanics they do have the damage should be upped
- the no of passives and skills is because it’s alpha 1….
- Surprised about your thoughts on questing. I thought it was narrative and more interesting than go kill 10 raptors
Yea there’s a lot of UI stuff missing around nodes, have node quests pop up for the node you are citizen of is a nice idea. Gathering is super basic atm so not really worth discussing yet tbh
As a mage, if i can cast a spell i can case a spell, i dont have to bloody some goblins first to fireball them.
As a cleric my faith in god should be my foundation, not something im coming to terms with mid fight, and not something i spend like currency for power.
These effects can be done through skill combos. Have fighters set up bleed with skills, and have skill cause knockdown on bleeding targets.
Have lightning spells chain to wet targets.
Have healing give bonus effects to those who have prayed recently to the same faith as the healer. Or have a heal on target chain to those nearby of similar faith with reduced effect.
Just some ideas. You can have thoughtful interesting combat without duel resource managment.
Im not a fan of duel resources because they make you play every fight the same regardless of the enemy. I need this skill to raise that stack, and i consume that stack for this skill, and so on. Duel resources makes your rotation more locked in reguarless of what you're hitting.
Making skills combo, stack, change due to status on the enemy, place status on the enemy, those things make you think about every interaction.
If i have to use a skill to generate my second resource in doing it first every day of the week. If i charge enough resource for my best skill im doing it every chance i get. It looks more complex, but i dont believe it is.
Also im not trying to be "resistant" to your point of view. Im down for a discussion.
Duel resources has its place, and i think some augments later on could add something similar to duel resources to active skills. But im a believer that i should feel my stongest before a fight begins, excpecially in a game with open world pvp. If a group of players just came off a fight and has all their second resource built up, and they just dump it on a nearby player who hasnt been fighting i think thats too exploitable.
Also i dont feel cleric should have to deal damage to heal. In some of my most exciting raids ive had to just stand around and heal, because the healing was so demanding on my mana i couldnt waste it on damage spells.
And its that player choice i feel ashes want to keep. They want you to have the choice of action vs tab, they want you to have the choice of back row vs front row, your choice of any weapon and armor. I feel you should have the choice for a pacifist cleric.
I also believe that the scenario where players can build points and then dump them is also akin to having a player have all their big CD's up and just dropping them instantly on an unsuspecting player, atleast with the "combo" you have to atleast engage with your opponent for a second or two in order for you to be able to nuke them, similarly to how mages work in wow, their pyroblast is an extremely long cast so takes time to drop their dmg.
Likewise not resistance, just thinking about my ideal combat whilst not making it a repetitive rotation because there is only so much you can do
But at the same time i know ashes has to try and let everyone play how they want, thats why i think having augments later on, and how those augment function will be a huge step in the combat of this game. I think it would be easier in both a development standpoint and a functionality standpoint for there to be just mana as the resource, and have augments change the functionality of the skills to something similar to a duel resource system.
I think ashes is setting itself up to be something different as far are repetitive rotations. With 8 player parties and what ive heard before "30 seconds to death fight times."
In a game of 8v8 so much can happen so quickly. And having all abilities available at all times help you react to those possibilities. But at the same time having a "30 second expected fight time" to first death isnt realistic when obviously players will focus fire on specific targets.
I liked most of what you said. I really liked one I don't know how difficult it would be to implement. The one with healing giving bonus healing to those of the same faith as you that prayed recently and a chain of reduced healing to those nearby of the same faith. That makes being around others of the same faith important. In life, people do have many benefits of being around those of the same faith or same non-faith. It would encourage some faith based groupings too. Heck, nodes could give a small benefit economic or whatever to those of the same faith as the leader of the node. Change leaders and you change who gets the benefit.