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 Master thread] Alpha Two Phase One | First Weekend Test Impressions
This is a master thread for general feedback coming out of the first-weekend test for Alpha Two Phase One! Feel free to leave your multi-topic, all-encompassing feedback posts here 
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Comments
Positive:
Music: 10/10 awesome, I would even consider buying it
Interface: Ability to customize it
Movement feels responsive
Ideas for improvement:
Interface:
Is it possible to change just the width of your abilities? My ability square was overall getting smaller when trying to just change the width. It was like I was holding the top left/right corner of the abilitysquare and making it smaller. I wanted to change it by holding the middle of the left/right squarde but everything was getting smaller then (sorry, it's a bit hard to explain I hope you get what I want to say)
I just saw 3 abilitybars. Feels a bit weird to position them because I had 2 on the bottom and 1 on top of them both in the middle. It would be cooler if there was an option to add more actionbars like in WoW. Also I want to be able to put action bars on the right side of the screen and if they are vertically.
Movement:
I have a big problem with how you move. Sorry for keeping referring to WoW but I feel like it is unbeatable in that regard. So I want to talk about the side straving and the turning. So in WoW it is like straving and turning left/right is combined when you are holding the right mouse button. When you are just standing still or walking without holding the right mouse button you are turning left/right. When you are holding the mouse button you are straving left/right which makes sense because you are already turning with your rmouse. In Ashes it feels kind of awkward when you are pressing the turn left/right button while holding leftclick and want to move. I don't want to use straving and turning with different hotkeys.
Blink ability from Mage:
I was blinking over a small wall down a road in the beginning of the game. I kept the momentum from going downwards and got the distance from like maybe 2 blinks by that. It felt inconsistent and lucky if you get that kind of distance.
Sometimes the cooldown of blink wasn't correct. I clicked it with my mouse button and then the cooldown was 21 seconds even though it should be 30. It was inconsistent, sometimes it was working but 2-3 times it was not.
Autoattack:
When I first wanted to attack a goblin I was rightclicking it, expecting to start autoattack. Why can't you change start autoattacking with the right mouse button? It's not even possible to change that keybind to that. When pressing the right mouse button on a mob, I just get an option for something, I think to put on a mark on it. Enemy frames with a portrait would be better you can click on to put marks I feel like.
Frostbolt: Not spammable? So basically you are autoattacking for the most part and pressing the ability every 8 seconds of something. I don't like if I like the design but maybe it will be ok after getting more abilitys. I don't really like autoattacking as a mage. Wanding in WoW is also not that fun.
Keep on going we gonna make it
Flagging PvP I very much enjoy having the option and freedom of being able to engage in PvP right off the bat. It introduces you to the system and player conflict early on in the game. However I would maybe make the room you spawn in (where the divine gate is) a safe zone, as well as towns (inside Lionsarch) a safe zone and as soon as you go out, you can PvP as normal.
Encouraging social behavior. I very much enjoy that there isn't arrows indicating everything and pointing you into directions.I enjoy having to ask around where x or y is.
Visuals. I noticed quickly that to me personally, houses, stations and whatnot it all looks very similar and samey. It's quite tough to differentiate. What makes a weapon shop a weapon shop, except for the one small sign hanging off the wall? This leads to another issue, where I am entirely lost sometimes where crafting or processing benches are, I simply have no idea, there is not "enough" of a visual indicator to me. I also dislike that in an established village like Lionshold there seem to not be dedicated shops. Have the weapon vendor sell his weapons in his dedicated shop that you have to enter. I don't expect him to carry all his goods around with himself. Not to mention he doesn't even really look like a weapon vendor... I always liked how L2 did it, where you entered a shop and it had a distinct visual and music to go with. It felt immersive. In A2 I searched very long and thoroughly for crafting and processing stations or vendors and instead of enjoyable the search felt more... frustrating.
Visual identity, that applies to the game as a whole imo and also to zones. I do know we are in the biome of the riverlands and yeah it's all going to look relatively similar but I still feel like "zones" if you can call them that inside this biome all look pretty much the same with different enemy types, they lack a distinct theme or feel but maybe I haven't explored enough yet. It still feels very generic running through the world and the visuals as a whole just strike me (personally) as generic. Pretty, gorgeous even. But generic. Even Tarisland mobile garbage to me looked more visually distinctive and pleasing than current A2. Yes, I know it's an alpha, yada yada yada, but those are my two cents. It feels like the game comes fresh off of UE5 and it doesn't look like it's own unique game.
User Interface. Briefly, but I'm sure this is common knowledge to Cody and the gang, I the UI especially the font is close to unreadable in certain UI elements and should definitely be adjusted imo. Maybe not using a serif font in all instances too.
The world / especially starting zones feel a bit too "grand" for a humble beginings type of scenario to me. This might very well just be a personal thing though. But if this is just one biome and it already takes tons of time to get from one node to the other, I'm not sure how it'll be once all of them are in the game and there's more continents. I don't mind travel time, but player numbers will dwindle inevtitably one day, and the more people spread throughout this huge gigantic world, the less full and lived in it will feel. Already, some parts feel quite barren and I miss the feeling of TL where there are hundreds of people running around everywhere.
Combat feels surprisingly responsive. I have only dabbled a little with the Fighter archetype, but the 2h greatsword auto attack to me feels too... slow? It feels like there is too much of a windup and it feels too slow when used with other skills or as means of dps. Maybe that changes later on, I cannot say.
Gear Progression. I love that you can literally get a new sword or something as a drop from monsters or some public event. Or that you can buy actually relevant gear from a vendor. And the visual progression is great. I literally saw a guy being Lv 5 with a cooler sword than mine and wondered where he got that from. Or when people run around with actual armor and not the scraps of clothes you spawn in, it makes me wonder where they obtained them. Gear feels visually distinctive and reflects progrssion and I like that a lot.
Those are just some initial impressions/thoughts after the first few hours.
Full Transparency: I was not expecting to love this Alpha experience. I figured I was going to log in for a couple hours each day, do my civic duty of reporting bugs and trail off to other weekend experiences. In reality, I have not wanted to move from my chair. My guild is active, everyone is working together, and we are playing the crap out of the game as if it were launch! This was a complete surprise to me, personally.
General Feel: This game feels like an old school RPG to me, which has been amazing. The quest markers are minimal and the game does not hold your hand. It is a bit jarring at first, due to being spoiled by the conveniences of modern MMO's. Once you are accustomed to it, it feels very good. I love having to go back to my journal/quest text to find where I need to go next.
Sense of Scale: From the beginning steps the game feels massive. I feel a true sense of adventure as if I will need many hours in the game to feel comfortable. The zone is huge, open, and delivers the feeling of danger if you don't pick and choose wisely (risk vs. reward). I had a situation arise where I could have traveled 'as the crow flies' and reached my destination much sooner, but chose to stick to the roads as a safer path. Well done with the delivery of this very much missed feeling for me!
Visuals: Granted the visuals are in the Alpha stage and have a lot of optimization left, the world is beautiful. The character renders at this stage are very well done (albeit glitchy), all the way down to the fabric on my starter clothing. The environments are stunning and the attention to detail is excellent. In our show, I used the simple example of wood to detail my point - rough sawn edges with knotholes and splinters, realistic wood grain, rough edged pallets, and even live edge wood on some of the structures! Just very, very well done. The hanging signs on buildings, banners in settlements, townsfolk going about their daily work - really gives a sense of a busy little medieval town.
Combat: Feels visceral and impactful. I play a ranger and probably won't touch another class for a long time. He feels quick, agile, and effective in combat. Sounds from his bowstring letting loose to the impact of the arrow is just fantastic. Group play, even in a large raid is very fun! The game is running silky smooth for me despite a billion effects going off around me. Granted I play on a very good rig, but nonetheless I am having a great experience.
Nodes: We settled in New Aela and I watched my guild transform that place into a village overnight. I went to sleep working on commissions and woke up to a bustling little town. It was incredible to see this happen. I am very satisfied with the progress of the system.
Improvement Suggestions:
Most (if not all) of these have been reported in-game, but I do also have some general suggestions.
1. F key not functioning correctly on some NPCs
2. Cloaks not displaying correctly
3. Clipping/Sinking of character into ground textures such as rocks, cobblestone roads, and grass.
4. Mobs rubber banding, stuck in features like trees/rocks, warping to your location.
5. NPC's/Vendors not buying my items in town.
(Again, these are general and have all been reported in-game)
General Suggestions:
1. More guild functionality would be amazing! Ability to make officers, etc. (thank you for the guild limit of 50 btw)
2. Whisper function: Not sure if this will be in later, but an essential function IMO.
3. /Roll function: This is very handy for group/raid gameplay to sort out gear drops between players.
4. Which Horse is mine? Some type of indicator, even if subtle, would be greatly appreciated!
5. More chatter from townsfolk that appear to be talking, even a mumble would be awesome.
6. Sounds from more items in towns, such as animals, chatter, smithy, etc (may be there just not operating correctly).
Overall, we are having a blast. It has been a long time since I've had the feelings I am experiencing in an MMO with this Alpha. The potential for AoC is massive. So keep on truckin' friends. You have a lot of players in your corner. We're rooting for you!
Kash | Content Creator/Podcaster | Twitter X @KashQuests | Twitch.tv/LoreForgedHQ | LoreForged.com
Just some general feedback while the servers are down for an update:
Joinig a large group and adventuring and exploring has felt great! Yes, there have been bugs here and there throughout the adventure in Verra, but it's an alpha test and by now the whole community should know that. The feeling of exploring with a large group as Ashes of Creation has complimented with this platform has been an experience that has been missed in gaming for a long time! The ability to create large raid parties and adventure together, farm together, engage in battles with the enviroment, and others without a major detriment to XP earned or drops allocated has felt, just amazing. The groundedness of the game and the weight of your choice, how you respond to others in the social aspect, to PVP or not to PVP, to loot a body or rez, is awesome!
The interdependancy of archetypes within groups has been built REALLY well so far and we still have yet to see the summoner and the rogue implemented and the added benefits and weight of those archetypes. But I have to say that taking that into consideration, party composition, feels great, really well done, put together properly with care and understanding for the group mentality. There dont even seem to be major imballences, even being in an alpha, and it's only day 2. The absolute size of the world (only the riverlands, that I've be able to explore so far) is just insane, it's wonderous, some aspects feel a bit empty and lacking mobs or materials, but right now from my experience those places are edges of the ZOI's, and I imagine they will be fleshed out in the future when other landmasses are added.
The nodes have been awesome to build up, to see advance over time and to feel like what you are doing in game for that area actually matters to the overall world, watching the progress bar go up based on comissions and activity in the area has been a driving force for continued engagement and social interaction.
The quests and commissions so far seem a little basic, but at the begining of alpha 2 while the world is still in the process of being built, makes total sense to me. Get feedback and iterate, polish and really refine things down the road.
There have been quite a few issues I have come across that dont feel as great as the above statements and some feel flat out bad, but with the knowledge that things are in testing, as we are in Alpha 2 and its all a work in progress, I have to say the easiest thing to do in those situation is just type /bug and then fill out the form properly, and dont let it get you down as a "player" put as much detail as possible in the form and if you get ganked by a player or murdered by a mob while filling out the bug report, who cares, it's alpha testing! It'll all be wiped eventually anyway! Helping build up the game with the community and such a passionate team, makes it all worth it! You can see, hear, and experience the determination and drive this team has for this game, and it's community.
The feels-bad-man: Things not being able to be sold to vendors, incorrect quantity of loot/items showing in inventory, node storage stored items, materials etc. disappearing, tareing of the land assets, blinding lighting changes, character model assets artifacting from random verticies, random slowed run speed debuff, are among some of my experiences.
I cannot wait to get back with the guild, with firends, and new aquantiences and build up Verra and report as much as we can while farming, gathering, grinding, taking in the sights and testing all the things that Intrepid has built for us to explore and tinker with.
Note to Intrepid!
Keep up the great work, it may not be "fast enough" for some, but thats because they desperately want what you are creating, keep up the pace, I'll keep reporting things I find, and taking notes!
See you all in Verra and let's squash more bugs!
/tell NAME msg
Thank you! I should have thought of that one lol!
Kash | Content Creator/Podcaster | Twitter X @KashQuests | Twitch.tv/LoreForgedHQ | LoreForged.com
1) Level of people in your party should be displayed with their HP bar.
2) We need a social tab for friends for easy DMs, the guild tab can be condensed within it.
3) Quests and commissions do not give enough XP, OR the amount of XP required to gain levels is too high.
I understand that this is a return to the slow, grindy ways of the past, I'm all for it but; quests should not be as useless as they are now. 700xp-4000xp is a joke. The only one that even felt worth doing was the horse one. Quests should definitely result in a piece of gear more often than they currently do.
4) Looting should have the option to be right clickable, not just aim and F. Looting is really janky in the way you have to specifically aim your camera.
5) Block, sprint, dodge, AA, should all be moveable to your action bars, and the circular action bars they are on should be able to have spells bound to them, as well as the option to remove them entirely.
6) Quest related NPCs should be more obvious, with a symbol above their heads unless they are specifically supposed to be hard to find. This does NOT mean I want waypoints.
7) Horses should not die. It's really annoying.
8) The open world is, in general, underpopulated with NPCs, and I often find myself running across fields with absolutely nothing in it.
9) You should be able to use an item, *hearthstone, cough* to return to your home emberstone, and keeping with risk vs reward, either on a long multihour cooldown whilst not a combatant/corrupted or provided you aren't holding any resources.
10) Foodbuffs should not expire on disconnect. -9 copper lmao.
11) Fall damage is too forgiving IMO
12) On some older (but not bad) GPUs the game looks pretty blurry and bad. This is because of limited anti-aliasing options to help us dial in our graphics compromises to our specific cards. I would like to see that expanded upon for people like myself who can't afford to get 40 series graphics cards.
Something that almost went on this list was the lack of auto-attack, but it's actually in the game somewhere in settings, if that helps anyone else out. I was getting carpal tunnel spamming those strong mage autos XD.
Overall, one of the best alphas I've participated in. It's a great start.
-Vissox
- The game launches quickly.
- Ambient music is incredible, it enhances immersion.
- Starting area is top tier, aside from the little jumping stair puzzle everything feels great.
- The map and world design are amazing, some of the best I’ve seen in any MMORPG.
- Graphics are generally excellent, though some lighting and shadow effects need adjustment.
- The starting area is visually stunning.
- Playing as a Bard is highly enjoyable.
- Map render distance is impressive, maintaining immersion at a distance.
- POIs are F- amazing.
- Mob variety is great, however, their density is a little weird. Sometimes there is too many of them, sometimes there is none. Maybe some "ambiant" mobs would fix the issue, like deer , birds, rabbits, boars,... that aren't aggressive but make the world more.. Alive ?
Cons:
- The character creator falls short of expectations based on previews from YEARS AGO. Most characters look unattractive, and it’s impossible to create anything decent, let alone beautiful. "Appearance saves and loads" are buggy, and there are more tattoo options than hairstyles (??). Hair shadows are also buggy, and the hair itself appears stiff and unattractive.
- Server performance was poor, with even a single nearby player causing visual lag and “teleporting” effects. Server meshing technology does not appear to be working as intended.
- The Bard class is overpowered. While balance isn’t the main focus of phase 1, the Bard's class kit is far above other classes. Ideally, other classes should be brought up to the Bard’s level without nerfing it. Also the tomato toss? EW.
- The massive floating spellbook feature is unnecessary and feels awkward. Maybe make it smaller, or make us hold it in hand, but this is goofy and really breaks immersion
- Leveling is too slow. This is frustrating for alpha testing, where it would make more sense to let players explore all systems rather than focusing excessively on grinding. Quests, commissions, and events give almost no experience or are broken, making mob grinding the only way to level up. I get the old style vibe, but this just feels bad. If the MSQ and side quests aren't ready for alpha 2, then let us level boost.
- Some zones feel empty, with zero trees and sparse mobs. While every area doesn’t need to be a forest, the emptiness of certain areas is jarring and doesn’t resemble realistic environments.
- After 8 years of development, the progress feels lacking. It seems like the transition to UE5 may have reset parts of the project. If that’s the case, this should have been communicated earlier, as it would help set expectations. Knowing this phase represents around 3 years of development since the UE4-to-UE5 transition would clarify why almost all the Alpha 1 features are missing.
- The render distance for mobs, NPCs, and caravans is problematic. Sometimes, mobs appear far off, while caravans spawn abruptly at close range. Other times, mobs only load when they’re close enough to accidentally trigger aggro.
- Quests ? Where's the RPG from MMORPG
- AI Voices are weird for the most part, I usually skip through them not to hear them talk. Maybe ask players to voice act for you, or turn them off until they're fixed ?
Lobby:
General:
Bards
I htink bards are in a pretty good place. I had an 'aha' moment at one part that thrilled me where I was using clever retort on cooldown to apply humiliated, and I noticed I cancelled the whirlwind attack that the Minotaur berserkers do that really hurt our party.
I hadn't even noticed I could see the cast times.
I've said many times that GW1 Mesmer is my favourite class ever - and this is a huge part of the playstyle.
Right now Bard melodies are an illusion of choice. Pensive Melody is pretty much required on every bard. Even if you have 2 bards, using Pensive Melody with Resonant Weapon to keep mana totals high is better than literally anything else you could be doing.
Fighters
During the stress test, I played as an archer-fighter primarily with the bow (using the melee attack only when something wandered too close). This feels pretty good just with the momentum from attack speed. However it felt bad to put so many points into skills I had no interest in.
I'd like to see Fighters do more with weapon combos. The Bard's Resonant Weapon should afford similar things to Fighters to proc various things on their weapon combos to make them feel more like a master of weapons. If you don't intend to give fighters actual ranged powers, at least give them more passives or utility so that players building this can path around the 'useless' abilities.
Stat Sticks
Under current implementation the weapons in both slots add their stats to the character. This is bad design and isn't always intuitive - I'm frequently telling the players in my party to fill their other slot. Spellswords for Mages, Greatswords for Rangers, Longbows for Fighters, scepter & focus for bards and clerics.
My opinion - ditch this. Only apply the stats for the actively equipped weapon and balance around that.
Zerg
Zergs are META. The raid size penalty iesn't significant enough to deter zerging through high level content with no risk, and open world bosses that are challenging for leveling groups of 4-6 people do not deter zergs. Open World bosses should frequently have abilities and tactics that will BTFO players that are underleveled and undergeared. Zerg groups should be fighting things withing their level range or face a lot of death penalties - even if they have a higher level tank trying to carry them.
Node Citizensip
We rushed to a node asap to get it leveled to level 3. It was level 3 before most of us were level 10. Another guild came along and the vote for mayor happened in all of about 2 hours before most of us were level 10 (many of us took forever to get in through that initial queue).
2 hours is not enough time for the electoral process. Should be bare minimum a full day for nominations an another full day for voting.
It also apparently costs gold to change the tax rate - the first Mayor of our node lowered the tax rate and softlocked the node since it now doesn't have enough income to do anything else on the node, or even change the tax rate back.
Here are some feedback about various aspects of the game about the first week-end :
Immersion :
Immersion is incredibly good. The aesthetic of the game is excellent.
Splendid landscape, majestuous POI, great ambiant music and sounds, this has been a fantastic first experience in Verra. I've loved every little tiny part of this. From the goblins "Ooya ooya !" (
Tab targeting vs action mode :
I had a hard time with the 2 modes approach while starting the game. Not being able to click my inventory or skill panel has been troublesome during the first fights.
Difficulty :
On the + side :
I've liked the "demanding" aspect of the game :
- About the mobs. Some of us got killed a couple of time by some crazy whirlwind and poison skills, a good reminder that even basic mobs are not here just for decoration.
- About the need for professions. A faster steed, some decent food / potions / equipement, I felt like there was a real need for all of those things while playing.
- Death penalties, for now, seem to be a reasonable price to pay.
- I liked the fact that we could take head-on stronger monsters with a decent group composition.
On the - side :
- There is a severe lack of equipment (armors/weapons/etc) between lvl 1 and 10. Most of my guildmates and I had to stick with our lvl 1 equipement until lvl 10 because we did not found much of it, despite targeting humanoids in order to get some.
- Some events are reaaa-lly not great to play. I'm thinking about "Pillars among beasts" for example. It gave me a bad "Diablo IV feeling". Everyone around rush there when the event spawns (which is often), slaughtering helpless minotaurs with 0 challenge, and getting exp / glint rewards that exceed by far commissions or mob grinding. That's just too good to not do it in order to progress quickly, which… is not fun.
- Getting specific information can be difficult (in the bad way). For example : I've reached lvl 10 in herbalism, found the guy to raise my certificate, but… I can't harvest higher tier gatherables because I lack an apprentice scythe. And despite searching and asking, I'm still not 100% sure about how to get one. Having specific NPC giving information about that would be appreciated.
Solo vs group play :
I very much appreciated the synergies between classes while playing in a party.
For exemple, as a cleric, getting the Bard mana buff early on was a great plus. And being able to give my "Bless weapon" to some mates with high mana consumption also helped a lot.
But still playing in a group was not mandatory in order to progress, which is appreciated too.
Skills and skill tree :
On the + side :
I like a LOT the adaptable side of the skill trees. I mean being able to chose which skills to invest in, and more importantly the ability to enhance some skills. This is something I'd like to experience to a higher degree, with some additional enhancing options.
In addition I like the ability to charge spells such as Delivrance and Resplendent beam. This is really a great mechanic to play with.
Also, the Cleric skills are visually beautiful. Good work with that too
On the - side :
- I'm a bit disappointed with the "almost every skill has a cooldown". It seems to prevent a deep specialization in a specific gameplay.
Let's say I want to play a melee-oriented heal. Healing touch seems the skill to go, since it gives a lot of HP in short range… but with a 25s CD I definitely can't base my gameplay on this skill.
The same goes for multi-target Healing skills. I'm glad we have access to several options here, but I feel they can't whistand a very demanding "lots of people to heal a lot" situation (although to be fair I have been in no such situation so far).
- Also, I have a hard time figuring out if I do have enough class ressource for this or this spell. Let's say I want to use my class ressource in order to cast a shield without losing HP. It's not clear to me whether I have enough class energy to do so or not. Which can really be annoying at time.
Other feedbacks :
- I very much appreciate the communication effort you're doing to keep us informed in Discord. Thank you
- I did not manage to do some keybinding with "mouse Wheel up and down". It would be nice to have that option.
- I have some difficulties targetting allies properly in order to heal them. On that regard, I liked a lot Wow macros, where I could press a key in order to select a skill and then click a party member on the party board in order to heal them with the skill. Having this kind of option would be highly appreciated.
- The spellbook is cool.
- I do like the commision concept, but it gets quickly overwhelming while having a lot of them at a time.
- I like a lot the node atmosphere. That being said, the surrounding area seems empty (I believe that's due to the space anticipated for metropolis level).
-There have been a few queue and server crashes, but overall I was expecting a lot more for a first week-end. Good job
--
Again, globally this first A2 week-end has been a very enjoyable experience for me. Thank you for your amazing work bringing such a formidable world to life
I haven't played MMOs since GW2 which I quit years ago because of health issues. I know AoC is a traditional holy trinity type game with focus on group mechanics and competitive elements. I don't expect it to reinvent the wheel - and my first impressions is that it certainly won't!
Combat felt okay. Nothing terrible and nothing out of ordinary here. It's certainly not going to win awards for originality. Being able to dodge and guard are a nice bonus and give it a bit more action feel which I like. Mobs are still dumb as rocks and content to watch their pals being slaughtered a few steps away, and it's easy to kite them or attack them from "tactical positions" where they can't attack back. The former clearly a design choice, the latter might need work.
Note: I do appreciate the benefit you can get from tactical positioning but maybe consider giving every mob ability to reach someone out of reach: a ranged attack, a knockback skill, and in the case of flying enemies actually allow them to fly.
Crafting is a big disappointment and I hope it's a work in process. Standing around picking your nose while watching a progress bar crawl is mind numbingly boring. Seriously, I was hoping that after decades of design people could come up with a more interesting system, and I truly hope this is not how it will be in the actual release.
There are no discoveries (aka GW2), no active minigame crafting (EQ2, Vanguard: SoH), no recipe book without clicking a crafting station (or maybe I was just too dumb to find it). It has literally nothing going for it other than plugging in stuff and waiting.
The worst is that it's just so much simpler to buy stuff than craft it - and a pox on whoever thought it was a great idea to put carpenter and weaver on opposite sides of the map and make crafting items depend on both (okay this is more of a placement issue).
Gathering suffers a lot from the same as crafting in being "stand around while looking at a progress bar"... and my gawd why do I have to wait for a special critter to spawn to "hunt" it when there are dozens of its kind getting mauled to death next to it. Not only it's a huge dissonance thing but it's also dumb as hell AND frustrating. Let me actually hunt my prey!
Note: Seriously. Move the hunting bow thingy into actual skinning tool or something else and allow us to skin our defeated foes or those defeated by others.
The World/exploration aspect is very meh. I mean there's really not much for an explorer like me other than the pretty scenery - and that goes only so far. There are no exploration badges, no experience reward or even a fanfare from finding new locations, no jumping puzzles, no "breadcrumb" quests that actually result into something interesting, no finding master trainers, no finding exploration skills through actual exploring etc.
The scenery is just there but not much reason to stop admire it - and it's not even that great! The mobs still utilize a flat plane! It's kinda boring when there's no flying or water ambience. Why are the ravens loitering on ground instead of being on the sky or trees? Underwater is completely empty of creatures, scenery and resources. Sky is void of ambient birds and ground of ambient small animals like rabbits or rats - which btw could be used for gathering. There aren't even butterflies or other insects around (i.e. like in Skyrim).
Rewards feel quite lackluster. I mean I understand that glint is "buy anything you want" resource but I kinda like being rewarded items when I do quests. Now there's very little difference between doing quests for glint or grinding mobs for glint - except grinding is much easier and faster. Especially since there's nothing special going on with the quests. They are standard mmo bread and butter stuff minus the enjoyment of getting something concrete out of them.
Now I guess the main selling point of the game is supposed to be node development and guilds and dynamic world and PvP... and maybe this all proves AoC will be greater than any of its peers and there will be new and exciting mechanics. That being said GW2 already does dynamic events and the AoC ones feel pretty similar.
Closing Words: If I've to go by current implementation I'm hard pressed to see what AoC offers other than a temporary distraction from its peers of which many have had more interesting mechanics out of the box and certainly have the advantage of being established for many years.
Again I hope this is just alpha stage and especially crafting and exploration will be reworked to be more interesting and active. I can stomach the dead world (as far as ambience goes) and stupid mobs as long as the game is otherwise interesting.
The Good
- Combat: The combat is really enjoyable. I like it more than the combat in other games such as WOW, FF14, & Guild Wars 2. The choice to choose between tab targeting and action combat really works. As some classes work better with tab targeting and others feel better with action combat. Their still needs to be some work to polish it up. But, it is nearly there and already very fun and engaging.
- Classes - The classes all seem to be very fun. I love that each class has its own unique identity. I hope they keep their identity and do not become homogenized. Every class has a role and brings something unique. I am excited to play with the Rogue and Summoner once they are released!
- Socialization/Grouping: I love that this is a group focused MMO. I got way more social interaction in this weekend alpha then I have playing some MMOs. People are actually wanting to group up and work together. It feels like I am actually playing an MMO! I hope Ashes can retain its group focus and continues to improve it.
- World: The world is beautiful and has a very grand feeling to it. It is going to be absolutely massive when it is completed as the one zone we do have is massive! I would love to see more incentives to explore the world, which I am sure will be added eventually. I think there is a lot potential here already and I am excited to see the rest of what Verra has to offer.
- Nodes: I only got to see an early stage of the node system. But, I really like it. I am excited to see how they progress in the future and how they change the world around them. I already feel like one of the nodes is my home base for me and my guild. I feel like the politics of the node and how they are ran will be interesting.
The Bad
- New Player Experience: Obviously since this is an alpha, I understand this is not a priority. However, I think it is worth mentioning because it needs a lot of work. Most things are not explained to you at all. And you just kind of have to figure it out. I get that the game should not tell you everything. But, the game is responsible for teaching the player the basics they will need to get started and I don't think it did a good job of explaining core things the player needs to know. I eventually figured it out but sometimes it was a pain to do so.
- Stability/Playability: It is an alpha so I expect their to be issues. We all know that the server crashes frequently and that logging in even has some issues. I am sure this will be addressed eventually
- Bugs: There are a lot. You can get stuck in places you should not. Lots of Enemies completely bug out and do nothing. Sometimes things that should work just do not.
- Map: The map is not great. It can be hard to find your party members on the map as their markers are very small and navigating using the map is not ideal.
- Questing: One word Terrible. I get that questing was not a priority at this stage in development. I just think it needs to be significantly improved before the launch of the game and I am sure it will. In 2024 and beyond MMOs should have better offerings other than fetch quests as well as kill and collect quests. I do hope Ashes actually makes a quest feel like an adventure and not busy work. Also since the world is massive getting to the quest objective and turning in quests takes forever. I would rather grind mobs than do quests at this point because the travel time is not worth it.
- Commissions: I do not like these at all. I hope that if they must be included that they are entirely optional content that players can completely avoid doing if they do not want to. And that there are other ways to level your character. The commissions have the same issues that quests do and even less entertainment factor. This is the type of MMO slop I can't stand. I just feel like I am wasting my time while doing these and I could be having way more fun playing just about any other game instead of doing a commission.
Those are my thoughts. I can see Ashes becoming my next gaming addiction! I am excited to see where it goes but I am liking what I am seeing besides the bugs, rough edges, and lack of content. I think if Ashes can polish this game up and deliver on its promises this game will be amazing! So, glad I decided to back the Kickstarter!
(add options later to show buffs like Berserker etc and ability to filter per class)
Nameplate Above a Player should also show if they are flagged.
Add Different procs/buffs for different parts of weapon attacks, not just finishers
Fighter
Sometimes Weapon Attacks and Brutal Cleave don't hit.
(tested with a friend who was not moving, not sure what is causing this)
Swapping stances is clunky because of "cast" time
(would be better to just have an FX with no cast time and usable whenever)
Wallop needs more oomph
Using abilities should not reset weapon combo if you are holding down LMB (letting go of LMB should)
As an example for what i'd like to be able to do as a fighter
Be in Form of Ferocity -> Hold LMB -> Weapon Attack until next attack would be finisher -> Swap to Form of Celerity -> Brutal Cleave -> Finisher Weapon Attack for Atk SPD/DMG Buff -> Crippling Blow/Cataclysm -> Maim
Would allow for more situational play if you know what attack is coming next or when to reset weapon combo.
Action Camera
Target does not swap in the middle of an attack/ability even if you are hovering over a completely different target
Hard to target different mobs when mobs are clumped up
Think a good option would be to "lock" to a target if you are holding down LMB but if you are not holding it down, you should always target whatever is under your crosshair, even in the middle of an ability.
(would allow letting go of LMB in the middle of an attack/ability to switch targets and then hold it down to "lock")
Distance of Clicking a target in TAB and seeing the Nameplate vs Hovering over a target in Action Cam and seeing the nameplate is way too short in Action.
i will list all the positives in another post because in this post i would live to give some feedback on a couple of systems that i think need to be worked on but let me just say for the most part absolutely great job so far.
however.. a couple of things i would like to see some huge improvements on, and bear in mind this is a network test i know so this may all just be subject to change
The world
The world looks great, the graphics are nice, the lighting is next level, the water is beautiful, the things that work, work really well and as someone that was extremely worried that the game would not look like the showcases i am glad i don't have to worry about this anymore. However, ill try to put this as bluntly as possible, there is definitely something missing, the world its self looks beautiful but you just don't get the impression that you are in or belong in the world.
I think alot of the assets are scaled poorly and the character model does just not fit in whatsoever.
I would guess this has a huge deal to do with UE5, Whilst i agree UE5 gives a great base and the assets look beautiful for what they are, for a fantasy game it really does the genre an injustice. PLEASE don't let ashes be just another UE 5 game, before its to late whilst the biomes are 90% empty, design some of your own art, don't use UE 5 assets for the entire map, we highly need more fantasy, we need mystery and immersive Ness to the world that we are just discovering. it just does not feel right to go through a portal to a new planet filled with magic just to find it has the exact same rocks and tree's as every other UE 5 MMO released
Niche aspects
Now ill point out i absolutely love the fact that its going to take literal months and months of game time to hit max level/crafting. I love all the different progression paths and i love the fact that we are going back to our roots as MMO players the old school days, But this concerns me quite a bit and here is why.
It is common knowledge that this game is '' Not for everyone '' we all get this, players that want to play this type of MMO definitely will regardless, but the issue is going to be, so far it takes about an hour + to run around the entire riverlands and see most of the POI's, If not more. With the riverlands being 1/18 biomes + the underworld + the ocean + what ever else, the one thing MMO players don't enjoy is playing games that feel empty, i have a huge concern that the game will have a high pop and then drop off like they all do, but then we end up having 100-200 players per biome. This will cause a domino effect of more players quitting resulting in the world being even less empty. For the game that ashes is i highly think that servers need a population of 50,000 active players to sustain a healthy game, i think the current estimates are 5k-10k per server? i could be wrong, but please take this into account when creating servers for launch. Work on the queue times, Work on server meshing and bring us mega servers, Noone wants to see server merges or dead zones.
Communication
i see intrepid active in the discord and constantly giving updates, however it would be nice if we could get updates that are a bit less like you are trying to win an election and talk to us like we are not voting you into office, we don't need politicians, we all understand its an alpha and things will happen, but please be open and honest with us via timeframes, etc, alot of people sat in queues on multiple days waiting for updates just to recieve '' we are looking into it will update again in 90 minutes''
instead of this we would like transparency, so we don't waste our entire day just waiting in the queue, something along the lines of '' we are working on the issue's but this is expected to take at least another hour - 2 hours''
this also happened on the launch night with the queue, it seemed like we had one update the entire night with the {1} but and then nothing else till the early morning, it should not take the community to have to figure out our characters are bricked and we wont be able to login to them again, just tell us we need to reroll ( this was an issue in the spot testing a couple of times so i know it was a known issue ), we appreciate transparency, it may not always be what we want to hear but it goes a long way
final thoughts, test was way smoother than i expected, even with all the bugs it was a great weekend, and i am looking forward to what the future holds.
I know the game is an Alpha but the initial feeling is going into something heavily unfinished. I have friends who played a little and didn't like it but after a few tries they ended up loving the game as the gameplay and combat are very good. When I explained to them the PK system, Caravans, guilds, world bosses they ended up loving the project.
An initial tutorial where you talked about your systems would help all those new players coming in so they can get to appreciate the game. Even a mission about nodes, how they gain experience, mayorship, upgrading, etc. Plus it fits with the lore of building a new world, you just invite them to explore to start new settlements.
Also the quest indicators are very bad and very unintuitive. Also after doing a mission the book icon is still on the minimap, some can not be accepted and it is a bit annoying. I almost prefer visual indicators in game.
Server
For me the priority is to fix all that Desync and bad server functionality. It's not the same to find some bugs that are totally acceptable in an alpha than simply that everything goes wrong because of lag.
It's not nice to cross an imaginary line and see many players floating, a lot of NPCs that die suddenly after crossing, see your teammates or other players teleporting instead of walking, NPCS that react 5 seconds late to our attacks making the gameplay worse.
If the servers improve as the current gameplay is the game would improve a lot.
Own opinion
I personally enjoyed the Alpha and am looking forward to seeing how the project progresses. I hope you succeed despite the haters and that you can shut their mouths.
Detecting traps and other hazards, climbing/parkouring, and stealth were specifically mentioned as utility skills and that some of these are class specific. Spyglass and grappling hook for items. Currently everyone seems to be able to parkour but maybe this changes?
Honestly though I'd like to see these more as utility skill options available for all classes than them being exclusively locked to a specific class. Especially if the tradeoff will be spending skill points on utility instead of a class skill. Just give them class flavour.
For example if there's a "light" utility skill the light could be produced through a spell (caster) or through an implied item such as a torch (non-casters). Maybe just make some classes better at it. For example "stealth" could be achieved in a similar way through a spell (concealment spell) or through ability (camouflage). Just make rangers and rogues inherently better at it through complementary class skills or something.
Apparently there are also already jumping puzzles (I just either didn't recognize or find one). That being said I hope there is some type of "reward" at the end of the puzzle even if it's just an achievement because otherwise it's not much of a puzzle.
Speaking of achievements. Apparently they will be a thing. I'm looking forward to collecting exploration achievements.
Also I think I found a treasure map while exploring. Certainly I found something that started a quest. The thing with them is just that questing is kind of boring atm because it's only another source of glint as I mentioned.
Essentially I'm withdrawing my exploration complaint until I see more of this being implemented in the game. I'm not gonna withdraw the "world feels dead" part tho.
Thugs could be mugging someone or a group of cultist might have been performing a ritual - and when they spawned they usually ran in from a building or something. It felt like the NPCs had some other reason to exist than just standing around waiting to be killed. Not to mention the game utilized full 3d space (albeit it did so poorly with water).
Have a wolf pack? Have some sitting around, some lying around, some howling, some stalking after rabbits and other ambient prey. Static spawns of mobs standing around mindlessly just waiting to be slaughtered is 90s MMO design.
I'm somewhat used to impractical buildings with no doors or actual living spaces being a MMO stable, and I guess it's a question of how to best use limited resources, but the current buildings feel like they aren't spaces anyone would like to live in. I was hoping more Skyrim and less WoW. Even if the cupboards and such are just background scenery.
Like the primary selling point for me was the touted immersiveness and how the world is dynamic and alive. It's neither of those things atm or maybe I just have very different idea about what immersive and alive mean.
I'm a bit hesitant to write this because it feels like all this is more of a polish thing than actual alpha mechanic but I'm just putting it here in hopes it's not forgotten.
My friends and I have been waiting for this weekend for years. We had a lot of fun over the last 3 days and can hardly wait for the coming weekends.
We were well aware of the fact that the state of the game is a very early version when we bought the keys to A2.
Our expectations of the game were not very high. However, the current state of the game was significantly better than we thought.
You are working very hard and energetically on the game and you give us the feeling that this is happening with a focus on our feedback.
I have been part of alpha and beta phases for many games. No other development team has responded to our wishes, concerns and experiences as well as this one.
A big compliment and thank you for that.
Keep it up!
After participating in the recent Ashes of Creation Alpha tests, I wanted to share some feedback on areas that could enhance the game’s overall experience. These observations focus on server stability, gameplay mechanics, and balancing issues that I believe could benefit from some adjustments. I appreciate your hard work and dedication to making this game the best it can be, and I hope this feedback is helpful as development progresses.
Server Stability in Starting Zones:
The server stability in the starting zones needs significant improvement. Players who log out in these areas are often faced with longer queue times upon re-entering than those who have already left. This issue creates an unnecessary bottleneck and should be addressed.
Friendly-Aggressive Mobs:
Some aggressive mobs appear friendly, preventing players from attacking them despite being attacked. This issue sometimes affects only certain group members but can also impact all players in a group. Consistency in mob behavior is crucial to ensure a smoother gameplay experience.
Quest Tab Organization:
The quest tab could benefit from categorization by quest types, such as different commission board types, grouped by the Node where the quest was obtained, and quests from open-world NPCs. Currently, finding specific quests is difficult, especially those ready for turn-in, as they are not clearly marked.
Quest Tracking Persistence:
After relaunching the game, the system should remember which quests were selected for tracking on the map, so players don’t have to reselect them each time they log back in.
Quest Limit Increase:
The maximum number of active quests should increase from 30 to at least 50 or even 100. For players exploring the open world, the limit restricts the ability to accept new quests from encountered NPCs, which detracts from the sense of freedom and exploration.
Quest Marker Tracking:
The number of trackable quest markers on the map should either be increased or made unlimited to enhance gameplay and improve navigational ease.
Quest Turn-in Bug:
There is a bug in some quests where if a player initiates a turn-in dialogue with an NPC but closes the window before confirming, they are then unable to interact with the NPC again to complete the quest. This needs a fix to ensure players can finish their quests smoothly at any moment.
Character Creation Bugs:
Certain character customization options picked durning character creation (e.g., nose and teeth for the Vek race) are not consistently applied in the game. Additionally, saved character templates are not loading correctly, with some settings misrepresented in-game.
Cleric and Bard Balancing:
The Cleric and Bard classes require rebalancing. Due to their healing abilities, these classes, particularly the Cleric, are far more resilient than others, especially Cleric during solo AoE leveling. Adjustments to prevent them from becoming overpowered would benefit overall class balance.
Loot Drop Frequency:
Equipment (armor, weapons, and jewelry) drops from mobs too frequently. Reducing this drop rate significantly (by at least 10 times) would encourage players to engage more with the crafting system, which is now completely unprofitable. Recipe drop rates, however, should remain the same to maintain crafting accessibility.
Quest Rewards vs. Grinding Rewards:
Quest rewards should be balanced to align with the rewards earned through grinding. In my opinion, a better approach would be to reduce the amount of experience gained from grinding, thus extending gameplay and the time needed to reach max level, rather than increasing the experience reward for completing quests. This would help ensure a fair progression pace regardless of the player’s chosen playstyle.
Event Reward Nerfing:
Event rewards should be nerfed to prevent players from farming excessive experience and currency by participating in frequent events. A balance is needed to ensure that event participation is rewarding yet does not overshadow other experience-gaining activities. It shouldn’t be the case that even low-level players can participate in these types of events and gain such large rewards with little to no effort.
Thanks again for all your efforts and for giving us a chance to be part of the testing process. I look forward to seeing Ashes of Creation continue to evolve and improve.
Best,
Taneroth
I will start with a bit of an overall view of the game. For an alpha it is way better than expected given it is in 'early' stages of development. And yeah, people will say its been in development for 6+ years, but given they had to change the engine and redo a lot of the things, plus creating a solid base for a project of this size, it definitely takes a long long time.
Now for the actual game, the world is pretty great, the combat feels pretty good and most spells are nice (as I played a mage) but also abilities I saw from other classes near me looked cool, the gathering and crafting seems interesting but needs more testing/playing with it as it is a slow one to explore, the cities evolving bit by bit is great although it is hard to measure the impact of it this early (except the increased storage space you get, which was great for someone farming bunch of mats), the sound and music is great as well. The not so good part at the moment are more or less known - server stability, lag and de-sync, graphical issues, the quest system needing some polish, the game not remembering your realm on login and you having to swap it felt annoying after a while, the character creation needs a lot more customizations and polish, UI bugs, terrain bugs, NPC bugs and more that I will discuss later in this.
Lets get into a bit more detail, feedback and suggestions.
Animations/Graphics:
Overall the game looks pretty good, most things have ok animations and things are mostly telegraphed in a ok way. There is definitely a bit room for improvements. And for the people complaining the graphics look old and not up to date, we get that you must complain about something, else you won't feel good about yourselves, but the graphics are pretty good, it is just different style from the more cartoon-ish style of games like WoW and FF. (Also if you wanted some way more modern or amazing look of the game, consider this - to do something like this, it would have taken them at least 2-3 times more time to get the game to where it is today, as well as the space you would need to store those 'amazing' graphics could even be 100 times more then currently given the size of the game world and do not forget the PC requirement you would need for this).
Some things I found/saw:
PvE/PvP/Classes/Skills:
Fighting/Combat feels great, it is definitely in a pretty good spot. Skills feel impactful, cooldowns seem appropriate (As a mage at least) given you are supposed you use your weapon(s) as well and not be mindlessly spamming 1 skill like in other games. From what I saw in some streams and from players I played with for a quest or things like caravan escorts or events, they seem to be in a similar state, with different option to pick and each class has some uniqueness to it. Choices matter and depending on what active and passive skills you pick, you can build different things depending on your playstyle. The little PvP i had during a caravan escort also felt ok but it was 3 of us vs one enemy, so maybe in a bigger scale it will be more informative.
Some things I found/saw:
NPCs (mobs/enemies):
The agro is all over the place - sometimes you can pass by some mob and not pull it, other times you are on the other side of the map and you things from nowhere. If a mob quits attacking someone and you are on its path or nearby, it often switches to you. If there are mobs near each other, they don't always pull each other (as a group) and other you pull all of them and then even some more from the side. Some enemies moving sporadically and some cosplaying 'The Flash', some teleporting around. Enemies being faster they your character when on a mount feels bad. Also a lot of enemies you can attack but not damage them and a lot of enemies you can't even attack that are like stuck.
Some things I found/saw:
Professions:
Initial overview is that they are kind-a ok, and seems you can make some interesting things but it just takes too long to get to a position where I could have a better view over them.
Leveling any single one of them feels super slow, but if you consider that on launch people who spend time on leveling their profession can have an advantage over those that do not, even if they take way more time to get to max level. Also this system seems to be able to create big margins between players abilities to craft things, which initially will be interesting (until later point where everyone maxes everything).
The progression is not that clear - it is a bit confusing (like how to exactly get certification/next stage like apprentice/journeyman).
There were almost no starting things to gather except wood around the starting zone - you do need to go quite a bit out, in order to get things you can gather. In addition, the starting zones had a lot of mines or herbs that require you to be pretty high level in the given profession as to be able to get them, which is a feels bad moment.
Gathering is also kind-a slow, It can definitely make people quit that part of the game. This combined with the slow leveling of the professions make the whole experience pretty time consuming and when you add up that you need currency (gold/silver) to process those material (which you do not want to sell cuz you need them to level the professions ) and you got none from just farming, makes the whole experience a bit painful. So at the moment it seems to be in a state where you can farm for 1-2h then go kill stuff to get gold for 1-2h to be able to process your material as to level the processing professions.
For the hunting part - the progression feels even slower mainly cuz there are less things to gather and also the progression circle has 3 stages each taking like 5+ seconds whereas other gathering professions have more stage to their gathering progression circle. Also not being able to skin enemies you kill feels strange - hopefully the whole system will change cuz that is pretty bad atm.
Some things I found/saw:
Quest:
Descriptions for quests seem vague, not definite enough to point you to the right direction. Not all quests have quest markers on the map. Sometimes markers are at the wrong place (on one quest it was even 20min away by horse from the actual turn in). Some quests tell you to kill a given type of enemy at given locations show on the map by the quest marker, but there are no enemies of that type in that zone. Quest items do not go to the quest item inventory tab. The commission board giving you the exact same quest without limit feels boring. Some quests are also bugged.
Some things I found/saw:
Mount:
The mount speed just feels way too slow. Even the sprint is faster then it (30% m vs 40% s) but the sprint is limited to your stamina. The mount speed definitely needs some increase. Also having mobs be faster than you on your mount feels pretty bad. The need to call it twice is also pretty bad - what happens is when you leave it somewhere, your mount stays there, so your first call dismisses it (removes it) and your second call summons it at your location - definitely not good interaction. Also you mount can be killed wherever you left you and you end up finding out later when you try to summon it - this feels kinda unintuitive and also there were no notifications your horse died or was attacked. Sometimes your mount also gets one-shot from enemies,
Other:
There are probably a lot of other things I am forgetting for sure.
Overall, the game has potential to be great, some of the basic systems are in good condition and just need a bit of polish, the music and sound are pretty good, combat is good, party activities seem fine, so outside the bugs, which are expected the game as a whole is good enough to keep players engaged and interested for a long time especially with the planned phases and content that will be provided in them.
This is no longer alpha feedback per say but more like... hopes and dreams?
Quote: "In Ashes of Creation, the development of Nodes causes the world around you to change. But what if the world changes independent of those Nodes? We talk a lot in the office about the environment needing its own character. How can we give it character outside of just stellar art direction?
We give it life, and we give it meaning. Not just with a few visual effects, but with actual mechanics that reflect that life. <snip>"
Like I want to see spawned enemies be part of ambient life as I mentioned above and for critters to do their own stuff. For example you could introduce harvestable and huntable animals that are also ambient critters and hunted in turn by predators.
Ima build three hypothetical simple spawners. A prey spawner and two wolf spawners since I've a beef with the alpha test wolves. They are easy to plug in and have a minor dynamic element that is tied to the spawn itself, so they can appear basically anywhere.
These are for illustrative purposes only to demonstrate something I'd like to see!
Prey Spawner: Woodland animals
A node cell based spawner that spawns prey and ambient animals within the node's zone of influence. The animals and others are mostly sedentary in that they stay close to where they are spawned rather than patrolling.
Spawner Type: Resource Spawner
Spawn acitivity: Depends on node development stage. High for wilderness. None for Metropolis.
Resource: Rabbit prey spawn (can be hunted)
Resource: Deer prey spawn (can be hunted)
Resource: Butterflies/Moths (can be harvested, day/night)
Resource: Animal carcass (can be harvested)
Resource: Animal droppings (spawned around, can be harvested)
Note: This is separate spawner from plant spawners (plants and wood) because it directly influences the mob spawns that are carnivorous. Herbivore mobs naturally depend on plant spawns. I'd consider this a base level spawner in that the "woodland animals" spawner is a base level resource spawner.
I'd imagine the three resource spawner types to be: mineral, plant, and prey (animal). These offer three solid bases to build mob spawns on based on a simple food web thinking... though I'm not sure what eats/depends on minerals. Maybe elementals?
Wolf Pack Spawn 1: Nesting wolves
A stationary group of wolves hanging in one spot playing ambient animations such as sleeping, sitting, growling at each other, howling and patrolling.
Activity: Some of the wolves patrol within close proximity of the spawn location and attack any player or ambient prey animals that get close.
Alertness: Low for nesters. High for patrollers. Either don't chase far from the spawn.
Auditory clue: You can hear their howls from distance before you can see them.
Reinforcements: When attacked a patrol wolf calls to other pack wolves once it's close to death/if not killed within certain time limit.
Resource: Wolf skin, meat and bones harvested from corpses, droppings around the spawn site
Spawners: Spawned randomly on "nesting sites". 3-10 individuals per spawn based on player proximity.
Dynamic element: If local prey animal spawner runs out of spawns, trigger "ravening wolves event" where the nest starts spawning aggressive roaming wolves.
Wolf Pack Spawn 2: Hunting wolves
A pack of patrolling wolves that chase after players and prey. These wolves are not stationary but patrol the ZoI.
Activity: Patrol within ZoI. Chase after ambient prey and any approaching players as a group.
Alertness: High. Long chase distance.
Auditory clue: You can hear their howls from distance before you can see them.
Reinforcements: None but pulling one pulls the whole group.
Resource: Wolf skin, meat and bones harvested from corpses
Spawners: Spawned randomly based on prey availability and zone development level. 2-5 individuals per spawn based on player proximity.
Dynamic element: Once prey within area is exhausted the wolves start heading to nearest nesting site, adding to the number of ravenous wolves.
These are relatively simple spawns that don't include a lot of dynamic elements but that still give live to environment. They naturally require ambient animations and some mob AI but the game already has spawners, and resources, and triggers for the dynamic elements. They can be also reused for other similar beast groups.
I mean I'd be surprised if this is not what they are eventually aiming for considering all the talk about immersiveness... Hell I wish the game provided testers tools to build spawns like this. The devs can then put them in to appropriate locations. Yes, I know, kinda unrealistic expectation.
Edit: Forgot to say that it would also be nice from immersion point of view that if/when a spawn spawns they don't appear out of thin air. Like the hunting wolves could walk out from a nearby bush (that is, the spawner appears as a bush) and the nesting wolves could spawn with a "cave" or a burrow from which they appear to walk out, so basically the spawner would have its own visible object. I mean you already have movement animations for beasts so it's not like this is adding extra in that regard.
All of this has overall been a pleasant experience so far.
As a German playing on the NA realms, I noticed my latency (at least I hope it is latency that is shown on the minimap below the fps counter) was never above 20ms.
That is something I haven't experienced in any other game. The "lag" I encountered was never with my own spells and more animation wise on opponents and everytime I saw these things, my fellow NA players saw them too. So big ups for that! I am amazed by how smooth this was.
Another thing I really liked was the fighter combat. So far it felt snappy, I didn't get locked into place while fighting and the same goes for the mage I tried. Even though it is slower, being able to move while casting is so much fun and feels good. Abilities and spells feel impactful. The sound design was on point, although some abilities were a little bit too loud.
Exploration was fun, dangerous and sometimes surprising. There are obviously a lot of visual issues with some waterfalls, rockfaces, mobs being stuck in walls or underground but overall it was a pleasant experience. I haven't even managed to see all of the map, with Joeva being one of the completely ignored areas of the map for me.
I felt at times as if there are too few resources and mobs around, especially in Halcyon. That area seemed super lackluster compared to other nodes. There are barely any resources around, barely any mobs and it was completely devoid of any sort of events. Speaking of missing something: Where is all the copper? I wanted to try to level up some weaponsmithing but the complete lack of Copper around anywhere killed my excitement for that real quick. I think I managed to get my hands on roughly 50 copper in total which when looking at the Greatsword recipe alone would've been 3 crafts.
Another thing I didn't really like - but maybe more so because I don't understand it and I couldn't find an explanation in the game - was the use for Glint. Most of the people I talked to vendored it for silver but there is an option to turn it into crates. However people told me to not get those crates as they are not worth it. But I haven't found any information on what to do with these crates. Do I HAVE to transport the to other nodes via caravan before opening or can I just open them right there in the node? That was a bit confusing to me.
When going for quests it was sometimes confusing to figure out where to go, although I don't personally mind the scavenger hunting - I do in fact love things like that - other players I talked to really had an issue with it, so maybe at least for Lionhold a bit more handholding might be needed and more explanation as to what to do after finishing it.
The players left to their own devices and if they haven't kept up with the development of the game over the years had no idea what nodes are and what to do next. They probably need more hints on what to do next to progress. Too much freedom is scary for people not used to it and could turn into an insurmountable wall.
Traveling the world on the basic mount has been not fun. I often felt sprinting was more effective. The mount animations got stuck often and even though it has a speed boost on roads, it didn't feel that way.
The world feels dangerous, especially when you are alone and lose focus. Some mobs follow you forever unless you attack them at least once, which is kinda counterintuitive and made for a few very not so enjoyable experiences. Some enemies like Ravens and Wolves being quicker than the horse or your sprint is also very unforgiving, especially when you didn't see them due to them sometimes not rendering properly until they actually move at you.
I do enjoy the short staring contest before enemies come after you though. That can sometimes be very intense. Love it.
Leveling being slow was a fun experience, I wish nodes would level slower though. After all nodes hit the village stage I felt forced to go out and grind mobs to become a citizen. I wanted to focus on my professions and level on the side but with everyone trying to get to level 10 and the guild pushing to hopefully take over a node I felt peer pressured into it which didn't feel good.
Experience gains from quests are also very low, which makes them very unattractive. Every quest reward being glint also contributed to that. For convenience sake I just picked up commissions for things I was doing anyways. I also felt like some commissions were extremely confusing. I picked up one to kill "goblinoids" but the only area that had them was Lionhold and they were way too low level to warrant riding around the map for an hour just to get that done.
I do love however that some quests are not marked and have to be discovered by talking to folk around the areas and POIs. I want more of that, also more discoverable quests. The undeads above Lionhold had a lot of interactable things lying around, which is still a mystery to me but I would've hoped something would pop up while interacting with it. Even if it is just a hint to find a person who might now more, or report to a guard to get further directions, etc.
I absolutely love the Minotaur enemies, they have really cool abilities and are fun to fight.
Magic Armors are nasty. I hope summoners will be able to summon these things. They were cool as heck and also scary scary scary.
I also have a bone to pick with the scythe wielding mfer ontop of the church of the seven. I will be back for you, just you wait!
- Love
frogbound
Point 1: Server Performance and Stability
I was surprised that the servers managed player loads reasonably well. After initial login difficulties, I could create a character and log in. However, in the starting area of Lionhold, rubberbanding was frequent, and other players appeared stationary when they were moving. The minimap didn’t display accurate player locations, and NPCs either didn’t appear or showed up with delays. Mob “aggro” was inconsistent, with incomplete animations, making combat a bit of a guessing game as mob health bars sometimes displayed incorrect values. Queue issues were resolved by developers towards the end. Once in-game, there were few disconnects, but I did experience 3-4 full system crashes, likely GPU-related, which required restarting my PC.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 2: World Design and Aesthetic Depth
The game world is vast, especially the Riverlands, which generally looked great, but some elements appeared overly “clean.” Ruins should look old and weathered. The day-night cycle felt abrupt, and smoother transitions with dawn/dusk effects would improve immersion. Nights felt too bright, and the sky was missing the stars shown in previews. Seasons didn’t appear to be in place, as it remained autumn throughout. Mounts felt slow, particularly the starting horse, and I was faster on foot as a Bard with speed buffs. It would be great to have quicker mounts and a small speed boost on roads.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 3: NPC Interactions and Visual Consistency
NPC interactions worked well, though adding start/end animations could add realism. The AI voiceovers were fine but have room for improvement. Some NPCs with bright hair or unusual costumes broke immersion as they didn’t fit the setting. Variations in NPC visuals felt minimal, and some models repeated across nodes. However, enemy variety was good, with different types, elites, and minibosses. Server lag seemed to affect mob behavior, making some abilities unpredictable.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 4: Quest Design and Exploration
The quest system felt unclear. The journal lacks sorting options (e.g., by location or type), which were shown in previous showcases. Precise quest markers detract from exploration; a more approximate indication of quest locations would encourage players to engage more deeply with the world. Currently, quests offer little EXP relative to mob farming, which is counterintuitive to the game's goal of reducing grind. It would be rewarding to earn class-appropriate starter gear in main/side quests, teaching players about key stats.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 5: Character Editor and Customization Options
The character editor is basic. The red swelling effect when switching races was distracting, and customization options were minimal. Sculpting partially worked, but blending was absent. Saved presets occasionally failed to load correctly (e.g., a female preset loading as a male with a beard). Many color options and customization features were missing compared to what was previewed.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 6: Crafting and Gathering Mechanics
Crafting feels like a placeholder, offering only basic functionality. I tried hunting, which connects with the Animal Husbandry system, but it lacked depth. Integrating “essence” into hunting could enrich the experience (e.g., summoning an essence bow to target animals, adding a timing mechanic for loot quality). Currently, hunting doesn’t feel very immersive.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 7: Class Skills and Combat Mechanics
I mainly played as a Tank and Bard. Class skills felt fun and allowed experimentation, especially with no-cost skill resets. However, weapon skills seemed confusing and repetitive for my guild. The Tank’s block mechanic felt lackluster; it would be useful if blocking could fully negate damage sometimes. Balanced groups are essential for gameplay enjoyment, but I haven’t tested PvP balance extensively yet.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 8: Leveling and Grind Reduction
Developer Steven mentioned that reaching level 25 would take about 100 hours, with the goal of avoiding grind-heavy design. Currently, AoC is very grind-centric, as quests offer little EXP, and mob farming remains the primary leveling method. If Steven’s 100-hour goal is maintained, it would benefit from more varied activities. Longer, meaningful quests with scaled rewards could encourage players to pursue quests over grinding.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 9: Guild Interface and Node Citizenship
The guild menu is barebones, only allowing creation and invitations. Additional roles and permissions (e.g., guild leader/officer roles) would improve organization. Unfortunately, I couldn’t test node citizenship as I experimented with multiple classes, but social structure options are currently limited.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 10: PvP and Corruption System
We had one PvP encounter as a group, which was generally positive, though the system feels unclear. During events, accidental AoE damage often tagged other players, triggering corruption. I couldn’t find an option to prevent this. I plan to test the corruption system more thoroughly.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 11: Caravan Events and Trade
The caravan system functions in a basic sense, but we encountered role-assignment issues in events, and the trade system between players has a long cooldown, which felt unnecessary.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 12: Public Events and Dynamic Encounters
Events are currently too visible, with timers on the minimap, leading to overcrowded areas that end quickly. It would be more immersive if events only appeared as players approached, with natural cues (e.g., smoke, bird flocks) to draw attention. Event rewards felt minimal relative to effort.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 13: Node Development and Layout
Nodes change with levels, which is engaging, but the minimap becomes cluttered with overlapping icons for NPCs and facilities. Node designs were also repetitive, with identical layouts and assets across different nodes.
Improvement Suggestions:
Point 14: HUD/UI Customization
I was happy with the HUD customization options, though the grid setting was buggy. I’d like additional options, like color schemes for HUD elements. Some customization, like the enemy HUD adjustments, requires interaction with an enemy, which was unintuitive.
Improvement Suggestions:
I plan to update this post with additional insights as I continue testing. For now, I hope this gives an overview of my experiences and suggestions.
Also: viewing the feedback from Lucky Ghost might be a good thing for the devs.
My feedback:
**Graphics & Art Style:**
- The art style feels overly generic and lacks the unique visual identity needed to define the Ashes of Creation world. A distinct style is critical for immersion; iconic games like *WoW* and *FF14* made a lasting impression with visually stunning, memorable environments that created a magical experience.
- On 4K epic settings, the visuals didn’t feel UE5-worthy, appearing somewhat dated, it reminds me of Unreal 3 or 4 engine games.
- Running at about 90 FPS on an RTX 4090 with DLSS enabled, the framerate feels mismatched to the visuals.
- The font is small and difficult to read, which could be a more personal preference, but it impacts readability.
**Performance:**
- While rubber banding and server issues are expected in Phase 1, they significantly impact gameplay.
- Although aiming for a 250 vs. 250 PvP experience or even 500 vs 500 sounds cool and epic, a more manageable cap, such as 100 vs 100, would be much better for a smoother gameplay experience, rock-solid server stability, improved graphics and FPS.
**Questing and Map Design:**
- Map design needs improvement to be more user-friendly and intuitive, indicating quest locations, NPCs, shops, and quest turn-in points.
- Quest markers above NPCs’ heads to distinguish quest types would make navigation easier, such as:
-Gold exclamation points for main quests, blue for side quests, green for crafting/gathering quests, and red for dungeons.
- Integrating these markers on the mini and main maps would enhance clarity.
- The lack of unique quests leads to an early feeling of grindiness.
- While repeatable quests are a good content fallback, they lose appeal quickly when repeated.
**Crafting & Gathering:**
- Crafting is extremely slow and tedious; taking 15 seconds to process a single low-level item feels inefficient. Having or creating my own shop and being proud of what I’ve crafted is one of the things I really look forward to, but this system and way of working won’t be it.
- Adding a batch creation option would improve this experience.
- Gathering is difficult without guidance on where specific nodes are located; having these nodes appear on the mini-map and including visual cues would aid navigation. Distance indicators that improve with gathering skill would be beneficial.
**Leveling, Loot, Rewards, and “Cool Stuff”:**
- The current loot and rewards feel unremarkable, failing to add excitement or motivation.
- Leveling relies on a slow, old-school grind. Though nostalgic for some, modern MMOs typically avoid this approach. Creating a more engaging leveling system would enhance the overall experience. And for that to happen, you need one thing. Content, content and content. Good content offcourse. Anyone can throw in a "kill 10 wolves" quest just for the sake of it, but let’s be honest, those aren’t exactly thrilling anymore, are they?
**Solo Experience:**
- The game strongly favors group play, leaving solo players at a disadvantage. Although group-based play is a nice concept, in practice, it can be frustrating and tedious when players struggle to find groups. And this WILL happen to AoC, starting zones will be an empty graveyard and creating an alt character will be pure torture. A balanced experience for both solo and group players would make the game more accessible and enjoyable, especially for those with limited free time.
I know this game is designed with a PvP focus, and I'm excited about that. However, the majority of players on my server spent their time on PvE activities! 😊 This makes it clear that observing player behavior and preferences is crucial. Designing a world and questing system that harmonizes with these natural player choices would add a lot of depth. By aligning the game world with actual player tendencies, the game could offer a more engaging experience that respects both PvP focus and popular PvE interest.
**Scope of the Game:**
The world feels overly expansive, potentially diluting content quality. I’d suggest halving the total world size for launch and reserving the other continent for a future expansion. This approach would speed up development and ensure richer detail and content within a more focused area. Even if they launched just a single continent, the world would still be twice as large as New World.
You can process 1/5/10/25 at a time