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.
Comments
For anyone's visual aid
I like the idea that all the items are player made and that brings a uniqueness to the game
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
Im keeping hope because my main want/desire is to make an Inn/tavern and really up until the "holiday cooking" that was mentioned the idea of food/sleep is always taken a back seat in MMORPGS and i was having a feeling that yall might be overlooking cooking/brewing/tavern stuff because its "not as essential" as armor/weapons when I hope it would be just as essential
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
I really enjoyed it and I loved the crafting aspect (like how it worked) and I really got how things get from gathering to crafting.
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
I LOVED IT!!! OMG!!!
What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
I honestly loved that Idea, maybe also a high level crafter can take like base L1 item and make a L2 item instead of a L1?
I'm really looking forward to the A2.. as a crafter it looks like a game I can play alot. I did like the idea Steven said of if someone wants to take time and effort making Alts then they can cause really I like aspects that most people very much overlook and ignore because "it's not relevant for endgame" and with me really wanting to farm/cook/brew and with barely any talking about it in the livestreams i kinda feel ill have to become a master brewer from my guild/alone for my own pleasure but have a char that I normally game with others with
I imagine it will need to be double or triple that to end up being viable on a low population / inactive server
In regards to the animation of an NPC when processing your recipe, while it is unique to the individual, it is not going to mean much when you have 100 people piled on top of the NPC waiting for their time sink to finish. This will make it so that you can't even see the NPC regardless of whether its crafting or not.
The processing also seems to be easy outside of having a time sink. For those of us who wish to be crafters first, PVE/PVP second, I hate the fact that if my freehold has other people trying to craft at the same time, ill be punished and won't be able to do the thing that I enjoy most in the game. Personally, if i can't craft at cap level because stations are in use by other freehold members, it's enough for me to log out and not play at all.
I loved everything, but I do have one thing that needs to be mentioned. Commas are important. While watching the stream, I asked myself "What's a Night Opal Moonbell?" only to find out those were two different materials.
Another thing that would help would be color coding the items so you know what profession can harvest or process said material. Something like blue for mining, green for herbalist, or yellow for lumberjacking. It not only helps players know what to look out for when they leave town, but they also know what kinds of player shops to visit in case you need to buy extra resources.
1.-What excites you about playing and interacting with the Artisanship system?
The possibilities that the Artisanship system has, not only for now but for the future, because DEFINITELY as the world of AoC continues to improve and nurture more content more things will come and that is a factor "x" to take into account because new possibilities for the Artisanship system will come.
A future well underway holds many incredible potential possibilities for the ArtisanShip system.
2.- Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
Particularly the forge anvil to start creating things seems to me very small and does not fit much with the magnitude and the giant potential that the Artisanship system has, I would have liked to see something more ostentatious, like what was shown here
I hope that for each node or Freeholds you can customize those things because in my opinion it is too small or not so showy for the potential it has.
3.-How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
I love it, I hope that in the future it does not stop, I mean I hope that in the future, when AoC continues having more content those cycles BE BETTER, have more challenges, more things to do, much more content, that evolves at the same time as the content of AoC evolves.
In other words, with the potential of the Artisanship system I hope that it will always have something new to offer in terms of new materials, new combinations, new challenges, new needs, that it evolves along with the content and updates of AoC.
ArtisanShip system static = bad
ArtisanShip system evolving and adapting = good.
4.- What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
Sincerely is something that every MMORPG should have, it gives so much utility to the world that is supposed to be a LIVE world in the MMORPGS, I'm really glad that Intrepid put so much effort to those things, those details that make and give "those special things" that make something different and better.
5.-What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
Again, I find it so well thought out, AoC is giving life to things that have been forgotten for a long time in MMORPGs.
A MMORPG world should feel like a LIVING world where most things are correlated and therefore give the environment a feeling of mutual need to improve in that world.
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about Ashes of Creation’s Alpha Two Artisanship Preview shown during the November Development Update
For the Intrepid team
You are doing an excellent job, thank you very much for trying to do the right things and having those little details that make little things better and make a MMORPG world feel more alive.
I have a lot of faith that you will return that pride, admiration and respect that emanated from the true master artisanship, the MMORPG world needs it.
That feeling of saying "I AM THE MASTER ARTISANSHIP WITH THE CAPABILITY TO CREATE MASTERPIECES, LEGENDARY SWORDS LEVEL 100, THOSE THINGS THAT MADE YOU HAVE RESPECT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY REACHED THAT LEVEL OF EFFORT.
That was true master artisanship and from what I see Intrepid has a lot of respect for that.
Thank you very much
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Artisanship system?
The most interesting aspect to me is how important player made items will be. It gives me some motivation to not only interact, but feel being involved in the world. We're not gearing ourselves with items that were crafted thousands of years ago and dropped by mobs: we're building something.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
Excited with the variations a crafter can impart an item simply changing the quality/grade of a material. But I fear it's a double edge sword, more on that later on...
Concerned with the processing part, having a NPC doing the work felt... disconnected or at least odd. As if it wasn't so much a skill you improved but instead gaining more access privileges to a machine. See next answer for details.
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
Gathering and crafting itself seem fine, but I'm not sure if the processing step is interesting enough to be whole professions. Seeing a NPC doing it was kind of telling and on the nose. Unless processors (
Examples: Metalworking. From ore, smelted into ingots, then mixed with other types to create alloy ingots, then processed into sheets, or wire, or rods for crafters to work with.
If the main purpose of processing is to be a time gate to for raw resources to enter the crafting stage, no one should have to spend skill points/time for that, make it a node/freehold service accessible to all or be incorporated into the gathering or crafting sides of artisanship.
Maybe it's just me not being into the "place a bunch of orders and wait" type of gameplay. If so, ignore me hehe.
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
I like it! I can see how some resources become rare simply because of combining different factors. Plants only blooms at night, in the summer, in a mountain biome, right after an area as been cleansed from corruption. Or the opposite, these rocks are always there, so they're common.
What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
That was nice. I can't wait to see how this will explode when it comes to more complex crafting. How a single component for a ship could vary and how it impact the whole stats of the vessel. The down side I fear will happen is that players will shun anything but the best. Yeah yeah, I'm already hearing people retorting that scarcity and costs will take care of that, but I'm still convinced crafters will struggle to sell any basic items while making a profit. The raw components will be worth more than the final product. Improving a skill will remain a money sink.
As for the darkness. Dark is fine, but hopefully there will also be light sources, either portable (torches, glowing weapons, etc.) or in the environment.
Question: Is it envisaged to create a guild of lumberjacks, miners, alchemists on a par with the Academy of scientists or the guild of thieves? A social organization of this type could give its employees unique tasks to work within their skill, and guild members could have a higher status in the city than ordinary citizens, allowing them to buy a house or shop at a discount, for example. Depending on their skill level, the items they produced would be valued more not only by the players, but also by the NPCs
I couldn't agree more with this part. But hey, maybe they have already planned to make the processing/crafting more complexe the more you level up. Maybe we can actually craft it ourselves manually with a window pop-up minigame with fuel/fire/hammer and shaping the sword once we reach master or grandmaster. 🤔 And maybe since we craft it manually, that's how the quality goes up cuz we did it ourselves.
Anyway, I hope they plan to make it more complexe.
or will we be able to be grandmaster in a gathering profession and also a crafting or processing? What are the limitations?
- Appreciating the fact one can wear items that increase profession stats without them altering a characters looks (00:19:34). Also the future toggle function is very nice.
- The debarking of wood (00:42:31) took longer than crafting (01:02:45) the actual sword. That doesn't feel right.
- The experience when unlocking a perk (apprenticeship) (00:36:00) was underwhelming. No animations or sounds were triggered to cause a dopamine shot on gaining a new certification.
- The crushing of minerals (00:48:00) took a long time. It also lacks a nice animation when the NPC is ready. It would be nice to watch him put the stuff in crates and sit down to wait for you to pick up the order.
- NPCs seem to be available day and night. They never sleep or spend time with their families? A 'sleep state' at night that causes a reduced availability of NPC services would be nice.
- It might be an idea to have bushes and shrubs causing a slowing effect on the character movement. Like wading through water but less pronounced. This way a straight pathway is not always the fastest. Which might create great game play in PvP or when fighting Mobs.
- Nicheing in professions (flexible talent tree and recipe quality differences) sounds like a wonderful opportunity to stand out as a player in server community.
- Fluctuation between resource abundance and scarcety based on time of day, climate, season sounds like a great opportunity to drive players move around the world and interact with eachother.
- Perhaps make NPCs and maybe also players collidable?
- Would it be an idea to gather / loot the wood from a tree not just by cutting it down but rather by reprocessing it after it is felled? Perhaps other players also could assist in reprocessing it further?
its a lot for an alpha and thats a good thing
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
gathering was like we are used to but refining raw matereals should do the player himself not an NPC. A Gatherer need time to collect raw materials and put himself in Danger but a refinery simply does the work an the player walks away? let the player character do the animation and so its balanced with pro/cons
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
refining is to meaningfull compared to gathering for now (save/Fast and end product is probably more expensiv as materials)
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
that's a good idea, also an high level sould produce bedder(crafting)/plenty(refinery) products from an low level
as someone mentioned all refinery/Crafting NPC should dissapear at night (they still can prosses in the background) so if an army wants to lay sidge on your town you sould be prepared to defend it long before
I cant wait to gather everything in my path when I make my journeys north to south, east to west and then either sell all for a profit or process or craft things out of it for my guild.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
I don't really understand why we would need NPC's to disbark the trees and crush up the ores or do any processing stuff while we as the player would gather the XP from it. I wouldn't mind spending some time doing the grind-y process myself, even if it's just Press E to interact with crusher or disbark station, and wait x time per x mats, while being locked into the processing animation and small processing interface for x time. Exit interface = stop processing.
In my opinion those NPC's only should process commodity/mayoral caravans' contents for example, or however else a node gets its raw mats that it needs to process as part of growing the place to its next level. For example through questing requirements (bring 150 wood to the logging cabin at the edge of the village) or if I trade 100 wood or ore to a NPC vendor, and the node needs those mats processed to advance, an NPC comes with a cart to pick up the mats and deliver them to their respective processing station.
Once that loop is completed I already got the gathering XP, but the processing XP doesnt go towards my character as processing XP but converts to node leveling XP.
Then, the NPC processor starts its work and after the NPC processor is finished, the same NPC bringing the mats to the processor picks them up and stores them in the warehouse for example, or brings them directly to a building site where the mats are needed.
I understand that NPC's doing the work in front of your eyes makes the node more lively, but i don't want my work being cut out for me. Let the NPC's be active when there is a necessity for them to be active. And if they are not active, let them have voicelines or storylines complaining! As an incentive for us the players to get them to work as how i have described it above. I'm sure an NPC processor would get busier and busier working for the node, not the player, the more a node progresses. You could make it so that when a NPC processer gets 100 mats it takes way longer for the NPC to process those mats than it would for us to keep the liveliness going in the node. Lets say 100 mats = 1 hour animation
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
I was sad to see (or to not see) the crafting minigame for smithing, I was looking forward to that the most. Or a basic animal husbandry interface and pre placed result of combining 2 different animals. But just as you guys always state, it's a work in progress so its understandable we have to be patient. Liked the new mining and the dropchance of gems. For woodcutting I would love to see after I cut down a tree, the log becomes a physical thing that I have to cut down into smaller timber pieces instead of after I cut it down just saying ''obtained 5 wood''. Also that UI could be more centered and bigger font.
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
I loved these dynamics! Would like to see more of those.
What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
I just hope that rare stuff is actually rare, just like royal flying mounts. If I unlock the option to craft The One Ring as the first player, I want it to be The One Ring. And no one else unlocks that option after I did (unless I fall down in a pool of lava and The One Ring gets destroyed).
8/10 stream!
Thank you for reading.
That's been changed. Steven confirmed in Discord after the stream that you can grandmaster two professions not from the same branch. It's possible that will change in the future, however.
It would probably be an unpopular opinion, but this could even extend to certain merchants, while others could come out only at night. Business hours. It would limit when you can craft and what even further. Unless certain NPCs are up at different hours, some being nocturnal while others are diurnal.
As for the artesian's stream update, I am most excited about how we can use different materials in one recipe to achieve different results. Better quality materials produce better quality equipment/results. However I would like to think this opens up avenues to exploration, discovery, and a way to learn new recipes.
I also like the idea that maybe scribes could record, copy, and sell these recipes. Imagine having jobs in high demand where you never leave a city/freehold. Kinda like OSRS, where you might have hard core crafters that focus entirely on their crafting skills. They might suck at everything else, but they might be able to make that legendary armor you want, so they get their respect nevertheless.
Could also make for an interesting escort mission when those type of players are needed out in the field.
Next, I had an idea for camouflage. What do you all think about extra dedication to color and materials being added to your equipment so you have a better ability to hide. A cloak that allows you to look like a swath of grass, plate and shields that let you blend in with rocky outcroppings? Maybe you could have artisan skills dedicated towards stealth rated equipment?
Thoughts anyone?
I think that limiting players to master multiple artisanship professions is not a good approach for economy and playerbase reasons. Let me try to explain myself.
1. The world is HUGE and travel is limited. Keep this in mind, because it is time-consuming.
2. They talked about resources that won't be gathereable during certain seasons, so people won't be able to gather within that time period. Those resources will be limited in that regard.
3. They talked about the land that won't grow the same plants over and over again if too many people keep gathering them. In that regard, some resources won't be gathereable if too many people gather them at the same place. Plus, with corrupted zones, there maybe won't even have those resources there.
4. Gathering, processing and crafting are time consuming. I hope that on AoC release, there will be enough content that we won't have time to do everything in one playtime (x hours of playtime per day). I mean with what they have planned, artisanship could be a little part of the game because we will have a lot more to discover (Naval content, raiding, PvP, story, siege wars, arenas and more).
5. Let's say we were able to grandmaster every profession. For sure they would be able to sustain themselves, but it would take a SHIT ton of time and they would probably end up buying things off the market instead. If crafting is heavy resource demanding, they will buy instead because that would take a lot of time. Great example is Guild Wars 2. Can't farm everything because there is too much content. Plus, a different currency for each map so we can't farm one map and buy other things from the other maps with that currency. That's how AoC should work. If you want to buy certain items within that node, you should play in that node and contribute to it.
6. Last but not least, new players are good for the economy.
My final thoughts are that limiting what players can do in the world is immersive-breaking. I think you will rely on other people even tho we can master lots of professions. With 22 professions, 2 grandmastering is nothing.
Anyway, alphas and betas are made for testing, aren't they ? 😁
The Night is ACTUALLY somewhat dark. I like it. You can not see as far so easily. It makes Sense to use Lightscources like Torches or Spells that can create Light.
Artisanship Previews and Examples were nice as well. The Thought that you can improve your Craftsmanship only by doing, is also nice.
Yes, you can use rarer Materials to make better Weapons of the very same/single Type, right ?
But you can also only make a certain Sword like for Example a "Night Blade" very well, if you kept forging Nightblades for Gods-who-knows how long and often.
Kinda like in ElderScrolls, where You level up your Abilities by doing them several times over and over.
I like it.
It makes Sense, is realistic - and Players tend to memorize things more, which they did for a certain Amount of time. It works against being forgetful.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
the large majority were happy with the stream, the changes were positive because they kept the limitation on the highest tiers while now providing a bit more flexibility as well, and keep the design of players needing other players, but there was some that wished we could only get 1 profession to T5 instead,
most are very excited with the bag and material system and how these are presented with the use of stacks and slots, there were some confusion about glint or glint bags, and concerns about people filling up 3 bags of glint and not needing to use crates on caravans/mules
there were some concerns that many believe it should take a significant amount of time to level the artisan professions, they don't want people to rush through the tiers and they feel like even working as a large guild it should take a significant amount of time, they hope that leveling up to the highest tiers of crafting is very difficult and on pair with other monumental achievements in the game (freeholds, flying mounts, artifact gear or relics)
most are also happy with the new night/day lighting and overall aesthetics, a lot of compliments to the rendering distance that seems to be improved and corrupted zone lighting vfx and camera effects with the particles, fireflies etc
very positive about the use of RNG to combat bots/farm routes with resources spawning randomly and using seasons and day/night for rare resources
very positive reception about using different tiers of materials to change the recipe stats and rarity, overall feedback was positive and people are excited to get their hands on A2 testing since there are a lot of questions and input that require some testing to give accurate feedback
Loved the bags and the geometric shapes and the possibilities this adds to the game, for managing what you are caring and what what you might leave behind.
Loved the night time vs daylight materials being required to harvest at different times. Also liked the materials change in the corrupted areas. Hopefully there will be more of this like tidal areas where if the level of the ocean could change what is available to harvest. Other factors could be burned areas, where a large battle has happened, places a world boss has died, etc.. the options are almost endless.
Liked how the better quality of material made the item from the recipe better. I enjoyed the item that was created had added effects showing off its heroic quality.
I am glad you covered how your still moving forward with manual crafting. Progress bars are boring. I don't mind the idea of you do the manual bit of the prosses then have to wait X amount of time for the item to be finished to throttle the creation speed of items and resources. After all an epic weapon should take a long time to make. I do think that the manual part of the crafting should be done each time you craft and not at certification. The only time I might go with no manual crafting is if the item you are making is trivial and you have to make a lot of them for whatever reason. For certification perhaps add a quest to get said certification and not just I made it to x level. Or a more complicated (mini game) that introduces a new crafting element with the change in your rank.
I hope so many resources are not so clustered together in the game making people explore more to get what they need. Hoping it was this way to make the stream faster.
I would like to see more agency for the crafter when you make an item. For example in the stream the uncommon Night Blade stats were 15 physical damage and 10 magical penetration. As a novice crafter these stats would be locked no changing them. As an apprentice ranked crafter you could move 1 point thus if I wanted to I could make the sword 16 physical damage and 9 magical penetration. The number of points you could move would go up along with your skill. The amount of point movement depends on how important 1 point to any given stat is and that of course we don't know. We also don't know if say using ash if possible instead of oak could change the stats while keeping it uncommon.
Will there be a way to repair gear?
The fuel name at first made no sense till I saw it was used to make the crafting station work. I don't think fuel is the right term to use for this requirement......Not sure what is though since I don't see how adding a log to a crushing device would make it work... Now if I am paying for the npc to work the station maybe it should be gold or materials he takes in trade for the work.
Lastly, if you can change into your crafting outfit but still be equipping your combat gear then why would anyone show anything but your crafting outfit to hide your gear, level and combat type from anyone who might pvp. Also if you where going out to attack some folks you would all want to look the same as possible so the enemy does not know who to target and kill first thus you would all show your crafting gear.
Keep up the great work
I echoed Liniker’s concerns about having everyone gathering up low level items and what that means for the environment management system.
As well as the concern of having more than 1 grand master level, the part that I am excited about is being known for a being a grandmaster herbalist gatherer in the region, but increasing the number of grandmasters cuts into that. This may be managed with how difficult it is to maintain a grandmaster level or something else but none the less it is a concern.
I'd like to see the exploration of skill based crafting somehow, seeing as there will be the possibility of a game overlay on certain artisan professions it seems doable.
Also seeing how resources just scream "here I am" from a distance, would it be worth exploring camouflaging or obscuring some resource nodes so there actual 'searching' involved and not just scanning the horizon. I'm not expecting full realism in searching for minerals or plants, but I think it could be a bit more immersive and there could be some player skill and in game skills that help locate things in the world.
Also with Alchemy and Cooking, I hope there's the ability to experiment to discover new recipes. Just as there are many fuel sources in the game, it'd be great to see a dragon heart used for meatloaf, and alchemical ingredient, or even as a magical fuel source to craft epic things.
Love all the progress that's happening and I'm excited to see more!!
The Artisanship-Skilltree looks too basic, i would like to see more option and ofc. no chance to max-out every skill.
Also impactful choises, it should feel the same as equipment/skill/class balance, so the Artisanship-skilltree should be near impactful then the gathering-gear or just function in another way.
Like:
-5yield but 5% more rare skillable up to 10levels
+5yield but 5% less rare skillable up to 10levels
+5 gatherspeed ...
Bag-related skills, like less weight or higher stacks
Maintaining skill for more durability
Skills that, if you destroy equipment you dont need, you get the base material back with scaling "destroy-yield"
Maybe a low chance skill that you get cross-materials from other sources
(like chopping a tree and "oh wow there was a little bit copper in it")
(or like fishing and the fish ate fresh berriers or bread, so you get this too)
Maybe some unique skills like very low chance to get already finished prozesed materials
(like mining copper and getting finished copper-fragments)
just some ideas.