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.
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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
UI for it was literaly just the New world townboard quests
its only half ur material drops on death
But other than that it seemed pretty good
i kinda wouldnt mind seeing some more chase for much further than they currently do. If there a few mobs that chase for much longer or even until kills or till you get to settlement it add a bit more diversity/threat to encounters. You can just add certain mob names would chase you for a long long time like minotaur hunters or bloodhounds for example where player would learn from experience on what mob names will pursue for much longer than normal mobs or you could just have a universal suffix or something to indicate the threat that wont give up the chase as easily. I kinda miss thing like mob trains in Everquest it added a real dynamic danger to things like dungeons for example.
Questions:
What happens when a node levels up while you are in the location that updates? Let's say I just cleared out a ruin of mobs. My health is low but I calculated my fights accordingly. Suddenly the node levels up. Am I now surrounded by a new set of mobs to fit the new event? Do I simply die and accrue exp debt because of something I couldn't control?
When happens to quests that you for an event that ends, or commissions after the 30 minute period? Do they disappear from my journal? Do I get partial rewards for however much I did complete? Am I still able to complete them and turn them in if I run into the event again?
Feedback
I love what I saw with the dynamic quests that can show up around you as the world progresses, but I do worry that it may get overloading and stressful for some players. We can already see where you can get overwhelmed with quests from watching Steven play. He starts leaves Miraleth with 2 commissions, and then in less than 30 minutes he has been sent on errands, killed a miniboss, killed mushrooms, and even missed another side quest at the start. While I am excited about the prospect of always having something to do and some quest drawing me in, I always worry that I personally will get overwhelmed when I suddenly am getting pulled in 5 different directions with 5 new quests and each quest that I complete leads me to 5 more quests. I'm not sure what you could do to alleviate this, or if you should do anything, but I figured I'd leave this here as food for thought.
I really liked seeing how mobs tether. I always hate it when I accidentally go out of the tether range of a mob when it's at 1% health and then I have to watch it run back to its initial position and regain all of its hitpoints. I think having them run back and slowly heal while remaining vulnerable is a nice compromise and I'm excited to see how it plays out in real scenarios.
The lighting in the rain felt off to me. It still felt far too sunny. Shadows were too well defined. I liked the wind and the rain effect itself, but the lighting killed the illusion for me.
Overall I'm impressed as always and I'm eagerly awaiting the Alpha2 release. Keep up the good work! Intrepid is a light in the industry. I have great faith in your entire team and have no doubt that you'll deliver a game that you all can be proud of.
VFX are looking awesome, love the new ice and lightning skills on the mage, blink as well, rez on the cleric, overall very well done with those vfx looking like a finished game. The weather was great, the environment looked awesome,
something I noticed is that you shouldn't ever be able to outrun mobs like Steven did, that makes it so that if you are in a mount or playing a more mobile class you will just ignore everything, mobs should have CCs and slow you down when you get hit in the back,
also something thing to point out, based on a game I am currently playing, MoE, its such a shame when developers put in the work to make a game look great at high settings but allow players tu just turn off grass/fog/shadows that give you a significant PvP advantage being able to see loot/things on the ground and spot players easily with graphics turned down... I really hope intrepid thinks about this, playing on ultra should not put you at any disadvantage in a pvp game, you want players and streamers enjoying and showcasing the looks of the world at high settings, so please don't allow for fog/shadows/vegetation to be removed think about different ways to optimize the game in lower settings.
finally, combat-related... I'm not sure why it seems we moved back to full split body with no movement reduction when using a greatsword, but its looking a lot worse than what was shown back in 2022 with how the melee basic attacks used to be, its bland and slow now, used to be snappy and made sense with a partial body animation and reduced movement based on the weapon, I hope what you have now is just placeholder but I'm not sure why would that be the case since it used to be a loot better and was working just fine,
Its a a Public Quest system with a little more depth. PQs themselves just dont feel as exciting as they did 15 years ago.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Commissions system?
Should be good to promote foot traffic to specific areas, and make me personally invest in the areas I play in most.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Commissions Preview?
Level ranges for commissions are gonna be hard to balance. Are there any that promote pvp?
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Its the public quest system from Warhammer. For those interested here's a video:
How do you feel about the way Commissions, side quests, and story arcs worked together during the Commissions Preview?
Should be fine
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 Commissions Preview shown during the February Development Update
its kinda a standard feature nowdays. Id like to see comissons have a little more spice to them. Maybe not every quest selected switches every 30mins. but instead some stick around until specific requirements are met. Maybe the ability to fail them affecting what cards come up at a later time. Just somethign to make them a little more.
Only thing that stood in my eye was the animations when the summoner minotaur was killed and it's summoned spirits just wanished without any death animations. It would look better if the spirits would vaporize when their master dies. I think this is temporary thing and will change in the process but I just wanted to give some feedback.
Overall this stream looked fantastic and I can't wait for the next livestream!
As far as commissions go I would prefer if you had to go back to the node and get your rewards from a Commissions officer NPC or something like that. I do not like when rewards are collected from a UI anywhere. Also because they can be shared by other players you should but the friction point on rewards collection not picking up the commissions because it is a more logical place for it. I do not want this to be a system where 1 guy goes back to town and mass shares their commissions to a raid and they never have to leave an area.
The chest spawn at the boss event for the "everyone gets a reward" will encourage large groups to just stomp this content for a quick reward and move to the next thing to stomp. Rewards MUST be limited to a certain number of players and hit diminishing returns for large groups very quickly. Event trains with huge groups are are not fun.
Not sure about the timer on commissions. I think I would actually prefer a refresh with a node currency cost instead so it would not feel like dailies. Not sure how that would be done though. This is something I want to play test to see how it feels.
Side note about the minotuar summoner. I think the summons should not instantly despawn but start draining health after their master dies. It is odd that there is no reason to attack them.
I think this is a fantastic concept that will allow players to remain engaged with the environment, allowing for them to earn additional rewards and possibly even discover small pockets of Verra that can trigger real-time events and add to the immersion of the game overall.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Commissions system?
Since these commissions rest on a repeated loop over time, I have a feeling that with how creative intrepid is, they will find a way to make it so that rare commissions appear during certain times. I also enjoy the extra crumbs of lore that these commissions will provide.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Commissions Preview?
I am excited to see as nodes progress, how the commissions may change, or even possibly offer rare cosmetics or other resources to the players.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
How do you feel about the way Commissions, side quests, and story arcs worked together during the Commissions Preview?
I have seen certain systems such as crafting writs, or other boards you can approach in MMOs which offer somewhat of a similar concept. One thing that I often loathe in gaming though is reputation grinding, but with commissions, it may make that a little bit easier on the player, which I am all for!
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Observation: I noticed the mini-map had very few indicators as to relevant quest markers (this may be by design to keep things "minimal", or "clean"). I just think making the mini-map more 'useful' would be great!
Suggestion: I think having an indicator for things like completed objectives - would be useful for users, so we aren't blindly searching.
bonus UX: An indicator could also have useful information on 'hover'. Things as simple as; an objective's NAME, SUB-OBJECTIVES, ETC. might be useful for a user. I recall some MMOs providing some great supplementary information on hover, so you can keep the map clean while providing more granular information for those who want it. This would make the mini-map so useful, and convenient- for many. It would give players a reason to engage with the map.
Observation: Going hand-in-hand with the lack of mini-map indicators...I noticed there were no special indicators on the minimap to represent a unique NPC like a boss/mini-boss.
Suggestion: I would love to see more emphasis on unique entities, like region-based mini-bosses, or world bosses. Many MMOs have done boss icons. I think seeing a minimap without it, made me really miss them. On one hand, we want a clean mini-map, but on the other hand- I want more useful information on there, especially if an exciting, new event has been unlocked nearby. GW2 rare boss/event icons really stirred up a TON of excitement, and I think AoC could benefit from the same, simple implementation.
Observation: I also noticed that the Quest log is arranged in an "Unsorted list". My first impressions of it seemed to be..."busy" or "cluttered". I wasn't able to easily track much useful information/data except for maybe...the (Quest Title)?
Suggestion: I think a simple addition that might make the quest log/tracker more immediately useful is being able to track the distance to the object. I've mocked up an example with color-coded distance metrics to the right of the quest titles/labels.
Here is the example displaying meters (m) and kilometers (km):
Observation: Finally, I noticed that when a player completes an objective, there is very little visual confirmation- or very little visual fare/confirmation. Yes, I saw the little flash of the green checkmark (after the third time watching it over)- but not until many times over. I think completing any objective should FEEL rewarding, and we could visually reinforce that with users.
Suggestion: In addition to the flashing checkmark>green animation in the Objective Log/tracker, you can produce a modal component to provide some cool, celebratory dialogue that automatically fades away after a short delay. You can make it unobtrusive, while still being obvious. Throw in some cool effects and animations and you have a "feels-good" moment each time. Which drives players to.....play and complete more tasks. I've mocked up a very simple example as a proof-of-concept. I'm sure your Art and Design team can come up with something more refined.
Here is an (isolated) example of a simple message dialogue:
Here is an example of the dialogue placement in the viewport:
I really appreciate all the hard work the team is pouring into this project. Hope this feedback helps!
Thank you!
I got one little suggestion to make the world feel more alive. This suggestion would be to, instead of having NPC standing in a place without doing anything, they periodically could be attacked by roaming monsters and see defend themselves. When a player arrives to an NPC, they could be standing still or fighting with monsters. When they are fighting, they aren't interactable. Players would need to help them kill mobs that are attacking the NPC. If the NPC dies, the players wouod need to revive him.
something i would like to bring up that i noticed during the live stream was steven Kiting about 25 mobs, that in its self wasn't bad but the issue i noticed was the mobs had almost no chance of catching up, i feel like the mobs need to have a greater movement speed than the player or a daze/slow mechanic on hit as i can definitely see this being abused in the future and nullifies the danger a little bit of the open world,
have a great day/week guys please add your opinions below id love to read them
i agree with you. i was thinking the same thing. if you mess up, you can simply just run forward until mobs get leashed back and avoid all punishment. it removes danger from the world
Hehe, nice catch! We caught that and fixed it shortly before the livestream, but the show had to go on!
yep! and not to mention anyone with a slow can just easily aoe them all down with 0 risk, im all for aoe farming but there has to be some risk involved haha
As for rewards, I like the traditional way of receiving quest rewards from an NPC rather than them appearing in your inventory magically. I enjoy that gameplay loop of adventuring around completing quests or other tasks and returning to town for turn ins, picking up new ones, selling items or using storage. Let Dynamic Event rewards, dungeons, drops, and gathering be the forms of instant gratification.
I particularly applaud how AoC is doing things differently than other games. Please continue doing this even if an occasional player complains about it. We don't need games just like other games, there is no point to that. Innovation!
I think it's personal tastes or maybe they are generalisms in MMORPGS , but for the distant future would there be a way for dialogues or quests or things that are presented in those ways to have a more fantasy style or a more AoC style?
To me particularly it seems to be a very generalized style seen in many MMORPGS and even breaks the AOC atmosphere with the black background .
Maybe the quest log/dialogues have a transparent background with more custom borders or with burning letters like the ashes of Ashes , things that make the Quest log /dialogues feel, hey this is an AoC thing and not something generalized.
- initially show the increase with a different color
- 2-3 seconds latter fill the additional segment
Reason is to allow player to see and quantify that increase, especially when it is higher, like final XP in a mission chain. As it is now, the player will see that something changed but will not be able to tell how much.
Why on player death the length of the xp filled section increased?
Bug reports:
- the mino when enters fight, should turn toward the player:
https://youtu.be/ydYFqNMQGkM?t=678
- Steven's cape was moving for no reason while he was sitting:
https://youtu.be/ydYFqNMQGkM?t=831
- Near Luna the Alchemist was a short passage through the mountain. It was still raining inside.
Suggestions:
- I would prefer the summoner's summons to survive a few seconds more after the sommoner was killed. In those few seconds, if the player would turn his back to run, the summons should gain speed.
- Sometime NPC agro range feels too small. They should notice the player sooner:
https://youtu.be/ydYFqNMQGkM?t=1298
- at the moment linked above, we see Steven clicking onto the NPC to select it. That action should happen automatically when a spell is cast unless the player selects it with a defined key to prevent the cast auto-selection.
- At the end, when the node leveled up and the area started to change, it is a good feeling for those who witness it. Can you somehow capture the moment for those who missed it? It is a memorable event in the node history and part of the character's journey.
- Increase difficulty to make players level together. I didn't liked that Steven was able to solo
I liked:
- the rain and the lightnings
- the length of npc agro lash
- the ending when the area changed as the node leveled up
The game looks good enough for an alpha 2 start.
If possible I would attempt alternative ways to level up: I want group content with more risk.
But the board system isn't very exciting. How about having this system without the commission board?
We know players will exploit every system, so how would this go here, with everyone seeing the same missions at the same time?
50 people waiting for the board reset, claiming the missions and steamrolling the content in like 10 minutes. The map markers pulling even more people in.
Nodes don't level up that often, and I've no idea how many different quests / events you have planned, how many different locations will be needed to spread players in the area and not having them raiding the content?
Since it's still somewhat static and depends on POIs or NPC locations, people will know what's going on very soon.
So what if the events/quests trigger when killing stuff in the world, walking around in the areas, spotting some elites or items that set off the missions and quest chains.
Of course also based on the node state and your system on when missions would be available.
Not everyone will be in the same area and there would be more reasons to go out in the wilds then just grinding or gathering and brainless board mission running.
Few more things:
What player level will events be based on?
Will players see events in their level range on the map (or some event element in the UI) or will everyone see everything?
Will event content scale with player numbers?
Weather changes are nice, but the rain effect and sound get super annoying very quick, work in progress of course, but, same with the spell effects, less is more.
----
Also, can I please not drop loot in PVE?
I don't know, it's kinda weird, people die, lightnings happen, they get resurrected, waaait, need my loot first, oh wait that was yours... just bad.
keep in mind, Ashes is not a PVE game, there is no such thing as "no loot drop in PVE" when the open world is PvX a player can kill you during PVE and loot your corpse anytime you die, Verra is a dangerous world... which makes things exciting!
thanks mate
It's okay with player interference, but without, imagine your raid wiping at a world boss for example, 32 players running back to their loot, if not some random person looted everything meanwhile (0 risk). Or you just wait there until someone dies and grab the goodies, very .. "exciting".
There's no loot drop in objective based pvp, but why in non-pvp?
Commissions look really good. I liked most of what I saw. That's the bulk of what I can say. For me, these updates are definitely moving into the realm of, yeah I can comment on them, they look good, or this looks kinda off, or whatever. I need to feel them in game to really give feedback on them. I need to feel how they interact and play off of all the other systems and nuances of the game.
Excited for: being part of a node and having tasks to work on to better myself and my node. Working as a team with my guild or fellow node citizens to complete tasks for our mutual benefit. Having to plan to some extent my outings - optimizing what I'm doing when I leave town to adventure - I'm going to go here and do this commission, then hit the next POI over for this quest, then on the way back to town I can knock out this other commission because it's on the way. All of that, instead of just mindlessly leaving town and looking for things to press buttons on until I'm bored.
Concerns: the "event trains" a couple other people have mentioned. Robot-like people just zerging commissions down. Commissions being too rewarding. Commissions not being rewarding enough. The fact that rewards are in a participation trophy format, combined with sharing commissions, combined with them being repeatable and never ending - all of that combining in a way that makes the mechanic feel industrial, soulless, hollow, busy work for people who are just kinda half way paying attention to what they're doing. I mean that's all fine to an extent, it's an mmo, you grind, there's a loop, we're rats on a wheel. But the concern is the commission system feeling too much like that, too shallow, too artificial. I'm not actually worried about that being the case, but it is a concern that registers in my mind.
LOVE that you intend to make the world dangerous, not just through pvp, but the pve as well, even including basic hunting grounds and grinding spots. I don't think you're there yet though. It was good to see Steven running for his life some (and dying) lol, but yeah just being honest, I don't think you're there yet in achieving that goal.
General:
Good that commisions arent the only quests. The questboard should be ontop of regular quests.
Questboards can feel very "daily quests" which most dislike and becomes a "job" you have to do.
Its more immersive actually getting quests from different NPCs since it feels like your doing it for them and not the board.
Be it Witcher or New World, quests from boards were always the least fun about the game and felt like a sidejob you avoided until you had to do it.
Raindrops seems to move to much based on the button direction your pressing and all raindrops seems to be "sucked" towards one point on the screen. Needs to be made more realistic.
Weather sound effects are nice.
I like questchains, i think its nice to find those randomly aswell
2:35 You probably have already thought of this but the quests when you open up the menu should look like its written on parchment like on the actual board.
Also it might be nice if more rare quests will be written on larger/fancier type of paper.
Notes written by nobles could have one of those red vax sigil marks on them.
Also attached to board in different ways, by nail, a dagger etc.
6:27 Fog is starting to look better now.
7:35 I think the NPC should turn its head and look at the one talking to him.
11:10 Overhead text looks very bold and blurry here, should be changed to a better font
11:33 The birds shouldnt instantly dissapear but rather go up in smoke or something.
12:26 I like the Berserker Spin to Win animation.
21:54 Yea ofc big loot windows shouldnt appear infront of you in combat
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Even at its bare bones, it shows promise.
2.What excites you about playing and interacting with the Commissions system?
World changing based on players activity. What I would love to see are branching decisions in quests. What if you decided to kill minotaur instead for plotting against the tribe.
3. Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Commissions Preview?
a) I don't know if this is a thing, but small quest affecting the world is mind-blowing to me. Hopefully there will be quests outside commissions that permanently change the world.
b) Repetitive nature of commissions with a single outcome.
4. Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Yes, Guild Wars 2, with its events, which all have the same outcome. You have a chance to improve on their mechanics.
5.How do you feel about the way Commissions, side quests, and story arcs worked together during the Commissions Preview?
I would love to see some variety when it comes to how the quest triggers, changes based on dialogue options with NPCs and so on... My fear is that these commissions, events and quests will be streamlined and after a while they will get boring.