Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Pros:
- Combat feels amazing. Classes all work well together so far. Team dynamic is already high up there
- World looks amazing aside from the few visual bugs we've found and reported everything else is stunning.
- POI's look developed and well put together as well as mob density is great.
- Caravans although need more fundamentals to them are great ways to make money.
Cons:Combat
1) My most fundamental issue concerns a post I already made. The kill credit system does not work well, in my opinion. In order to get credit for a kill, you (or your party) seem to have to be the first to target an enemy; its seems that all other people doing damage to this enemy get nothing from it. This leads to three very troublesome issues for me. 1) Because I get no XP for killing someone else's target, no matter how much damage I do, I have no real incentive to come in and save someone who is in over their heads. As someone who has a hard time partying up with people, I have found that this "everyone working to get out of a scrape" scenario is what usually leads to me grouping up with people I don't know but now that I get nothing out of it, I almost always just pass people by in the open world to seek my own targets. Being a game of scarcity, I understand this to an extent but it becomes a real issues when combined with the next concern. 2) Being in a party automatically grants you kill experience even if you personally did nothing to earn it. I feel that this dichotomy leads to unfair gameplay where someone can join a large party that pulls and kills all the mobs in an area and can passively level up while I, in this instance a solo player, am having to pull single mobs on my own and usually rest after a few fights and thus am gaining experience much, much slower even though I am doing much, much more work. It is not a good feeling to watch a hanger-on in a large group blow past me as I slowly and methodically grind out my levels (this carries over into my small group of 2-3 versus the larger groups that roll in 8+ deep). 3) Finally, when specific mobs have to be killed as part of a quest or a hunt, it really sucks to do the most amount of damage to a them only to get absolutely nothing because it is unclear if you were the one that was going to get the credit for the kill and having to wait the allotted time for that mob to respawn, only to wonder which one of the gaggle waiting for that mob will get the credit.
TLDR: In my opinion, it makes more sense to allot kill XP to those that contributed to the kill, whether that be proportional to damage done or just giving a token amount to those that targeted it that are not the primary XP earner. This definitely makes more sense to me than distributing kill XP to everyone in a party, regardless of whether they are contributing at all or not. I know this is a social game but I do not want to feel relative punishment for only being able to play alone or with a few friends.
2) I think the distance a mob will chase you out of an area is far too long. I had an encounter where I had to run away from a fight and ran for a good minute only to have the mob drop down on me and kill me while I was trying to sit and recover far away from the location of the battle. I don't know that I should have to run back to a town to escape enemies.
3) For quests that require the killing of a specific mob, I think that the search area is a bit too large when the respawn timer is so long. There were times where I spent an hour or more looking for a specific mob to kill, not knowing if it was just on a respawn cooldown, if I was in the wrong area, or if the quest was bugged. Personally, I would like to see specific mobs needed for quests (not commissions) be instanced to the player/group needing it.
4) I am unclear, at this point, what the point of dodging is. Rock projectiles curve in midair to hit me when I dodge away from them, seemingly no matter when I initiate the action. I don't know if this is lag in the system that causes these attacks to always land or if the point of dodge is not to actually dodge attacks you can see coming but to create space before an attack (which also seems pointless as claw swipe attacks still land from 3+ meters away) but the ambivalence of its use is not a great feeling.
Performance
Most of my complaints with performance deal with mobs who either teleport to your location when you think you have gotten out of their line of sight or climbed to an area they can't reach or attacks that come through when you are well outside of the range of the mob only to have them teleport to your location after they have dealt damage to you. Overall, latency issues were pretty common this last weekend, even in areas where other players were scarce.
Miscellaneous
1) I know that Steven talked about this in an interview and that UI is not the focus of Phase 1 but having to physically loot a creature you won a roll for would be much better if that loot-able creature was made more obvious visually; maybe more of a gleam and of a different color so you know which creature you won the roll for.
2) This might just be an issue during Phase 1 but with leveling being as grindy as it is, I would like to see node citizenship requirements be lowered, level 10 seems like a big ask when by asking for that level you are effectively keeping players in the same, congested area for longer making commissions and bounties harder to fulfill, resources artificially scarce, and the need to group up with people (with the aforementioned kill XP problem) overwhelmingly strong. I do want to group up with people and form a community but I don't want to be forced into it immediately in order to make basic progress in the game.
3) The passive fishing XP seems like a bug that can easily be exploited. No other profession or gameplay loop allows you to go afk for hours and level up. I think, just like any other gathering profession, XP should only be awarded when you catch a fish and you should have to recast into the water every time you catch something.
Other than these things, I have come to see the logic of other issues I have and that things I may not necessarily love are in line with the pillars of the game and things I will get used to and eventually appreciate. I really hope server stability and speed improve before the next wave of players comes in on the 20th but other than my kill credit gripe, I am loving the experience so far. Keep it up, Intrepid!
Here is my review after two weekends in the game,
To clarify my MMORPG history, i've tried many of them from GW1, WoW to GW2, BDO, Rappelz, Lineage, Throne and Liberty, FFXIV, Neverwinter, Lotro...
You get it, i'm a MMORPG player. I love the genre, I love good MMORPGs. My top three would be GW2, WoW, GW1. So far those are the game with the most interesting diverse content, gameplay and replay value. Balanced PvP and welcoming for new payers. Large scale PvP. Challenging content and casual content.
What I look for in MMORPGs : a unique class that I can enjoy coming back to play, good combat obviously, challenging group content - I LOVE killing hard bosses - a great engaging story, I love knowing the depths of the world i'm exploring and cohesive story makes a game so much more successfull in my opinion. Cinematics.
I approached AoC with a great open mindset, ready for anything, i've been following the game since the kickstarter, I'm SO EXCITED for that game. Keeping in mind the idea of AoC is to bring some fresh air in the genre with an oldschool approach. That's what I get from the communication.
First review, the game got me wanting to play more. That's a good sign.
Let's put my ideas into points. I'm pretty positive about the game but I'm gonna focus on the things that are quite underwhelming so far. Obviously as constructive criticism. Overall the game is super promising.
Classes :
So far that's my favourite feature of the game. The class system is very nice and unique, each class has their own identity and purpose. Quite complementary to each other. The classes are pretty common yet they feel different to play from other MMORPGs. Looks extremely promising for the future. Big enough skill tree with the need to make choices. I like the idea of not being able to have every skills unlocked and pick and chose to create a build of your own. The animations for an Alpha are very cool. I feel like you nailed that part, I'm very positive and excited about secondary class system and how it can expand the gameplay even further.
I've tried most of the classes to lvl 2/3 to get the feeling of each playstyle. I picked the Bard. If you love the mesmer on GW1/2 you will love the bard. Very interesting concept, very beautiful visual, very interesting support while being quite offensive. That class gets me excited to level up. Good job on one of the biggest portion of the game.
World :
Visually ? For an Alpha ? Impressive ! Some games do come out being much uglier than what the Alpha brings on the table. I really love the aesthetic of the game. The colour palette, the overall cohesive world. Feels very oldschool fantasy. It looks like a third person Baldur's Gate game.
Exploration and progression :
That's where I want to open discussion for the future of the game on that part. So far questing and exploring feels very pointless, not so rewarding and not engaging. The world of Verra looks big, mysterious and you wanna go out there and get lost, but there's not much groundbreaking things to find yet. I'm quite lost at finding quests and understanding them most of the time. The rewards are very underwhelming. Exploring areas does not feel fun, i'd like for you to consider puzzles, underground areas, verticality or climbing, hidden NPC's, spells to unlock through quests or bosses maybe, exploration, hidden paths and so on... for the future of the game. I know that's only the alpha, that's why I'm putting that on the table. The world does not feel so alive so far.
Leveling :
Since combat is so fun and complementary with classes, grouping with players feels rewarding and quite important, which gives a sense of community. BUT the game is not very clear when it comes to understanding the system, where to go, who to talk to, what to interact with. I know it's not supposed to take you by the hand and make it easy but I find it to lack clarity. It's not so fun to be clueless around for UI reasons. Since the rewards of the quests are pretty low, the most efficient way to progress is farming mobs. Which is pretty disapointing so far. Spending hours of killing mobs for a small amount of XP is not so engaging.
UI :
One of the most unclear UI i've experienced, the map feels attrocious to read, the quests are not easy to read and find. No NPC stands out, if you are looking for a quest or who you need to talk to, everything is super unclear.
The overall game lacks clarity and does not feel good to read.
This needs to be added later :
A proper introduction and a proper story to the game. An introduction cinematic, some major NPC's who are part of our story. Something to engage the player, someone to relate to.
Take WoW, Jaina, Sylvanas, Thrall... those are major part of the game and make the game feel alive and meaningfull.
Same for FFXIV, without the main NPC's the game would lack heart and depth.
For the future of AoC I would love some iconic NPC, cinematics and story telling. Something to ground the foundation of the game and give it meaning.
So far the game puts you there, find your way to a node, survive and figure everything out with an unclear UI.
Character creation :
Again, I know this is for the Alpha, it's just temporary for the sake of playing, at least I HOPE. This has to be the ugliest characers i've ever created in a game. The hairstyles are attrocious. I do not enjoy looking at my character and barely seen a good looking player so far. This feels very old, cluncky and your character in game does not feel true to what you customized in character creation.
The light in the creation is so bad that textures looks worse than in game.
This is a major change that I expected for future versions of the game. But I know that will change, obviously. Just wanted to pu a finger on that.
That would be my review so far into AoC, a very promising Alpha, engaging game with easy points to focus on for a better game quite quickly since the core of the game is pretty interesting. A strong foundation with amazing combat, class system and VFX -for an alpha- if that's the game in it's early stage, it can only go up and that leaves us with great hopes for the release. Congratulations to the team.
Core systems like combat and character movement cannot be overlooked. At launch you will be setting forth a precedent on how core mechanics should function and feel.
I'm for skill based fluid combat, mechanic counterplay, and player+build individuality.
Theorycrafter, Engineer, Car+Engine Designer/tuner. Learning UE5
AOC Fighter Main
Make it take the full 25m, and use 25m worth of fuel.
- Fix the ignore feature.
It either falls off, is not account wide, or otherwise just doesn't work.
- Let us use /gu to swap to guild, /p for party /gl for global, etc.
having to click a drop down in the chat is unfun.
- After disconnecting and reconnecting, buffs are lost. It's fine for classic buffs, but when it comes to scrolls of xp or foods, it's a bit bothering cause those buffs costs.
- Not so sure it is a bug, but when you uncheck quests to be followed and disconnect, the selection is lost, which is a bit bothering when you have a lot of quests
- Balance drop rarity. I'm not sure if mining is the problem or if it's the others gathering jobs, but when mining, your bag is a rainbow of color, you drop legendary, epic, heroic and so on while with other gatherings it's even amazing to find rare. I chopped so many trees looking for something heroic and had only few uncommon. So I don't know if the rock is too op or the rest isn't enough but a balance is definitely needed. I'd say it would be somewhere in between imo.
- You know that but groups are fucked up on disconnection even tho a simple UI update do the trick (mode raid on then off for instance)
- I've been noticing pretty much all the time that mobs are finishing their cast bar display AFTER actually doing the spell. This is actually making tank life pretty though when trying to time blockings on the mob cast. Most of the time mobs send the actual attack approximately mid casting bar.
Not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but why does mobs hate my mount so much that even as a tank after I've hit them few times with spell and menace generating stuff, they keep^switching to it ?
Improvements
- We NEED a way to whisper or reply back by click on a names in chat. The /whisper command is fine until you encounter complex nicknames ^^ maybe before doing this or something alike, a /r command to whisp the last person who whisped you would do the trick
- I assume that you already know that but the pexing worth of the quests/commissions vs mob farming NEEDS to be balanced. Atm it's hellishly not worth to do anything else than farming mobs. Which also make the crafting kinda useless for a long while since we get stuff by killing the same mob again and again for hours.
- At the moment, PVP in the game is not only frustrating, but also not worth it at all. The corruption system is too much. I understand the idea behind it and think it's a good one to protect many toxic behavior. The thing is, on a game that is supposed to be social and very pvp oriented, it happened way to much to me or my guild mates to end up corrupted and loose some stuff. Don't get me wrong, the corruption is a good thing, but right now it's more like a punishment for even thinking about pvp. Having massive debuff + loosing some stuff + marked on the map + guards killing you is a bit extreme. Adding the combatant mode to someone who looted a body is a good first step even tho it seems to be a bit bugged. One of my guild mates fought with a combatant tagged person and got corrupted level 2.. Anyway I've seen many of my guild mates refusing to do any type of pvp content because of the frustration and fear of corruption even tho we are a pvp oriented group. Maybe adapt the buff depending one who you're killing? for instance remove the stats debuff if the corrupted player killed someone around his level and keep it if the killing was on some low level? Fix the fact that the only way to loose corruption is by dying right now?
It's very frustrating being literally insulted in chat and not able to fight for it..
- I've said that in my previous post but a way of seeing grouped people on the map would be great.
- The tab targeting now isn't the best.. focusing mobs that are way more far instead than prioritizing the closest one. Also maybe add SHIFT + TAB to cycle back? Also I've been struggling a bit sometime to understand where and which mob is my focus on. Maybe the targeting markers aren't really enough? I mean when in a 8 persons group, with everyone doing AOE and big effect you can't really see who's the focus on easily. As a tank, i need to cycle targets to deal with my aggro and it's not really easy i think.
- Speaking of tank. Is it possible to have a option to display the aggro % or visual indicators of how much aggro I have on different mobs? Maybe a target of the target icon next no every mobs in the pack? Or a color changing depending of how much aggro is actually on the mob?
I just wanted to say that the slow but impactful pace of upgrades is really great for me. I ran a few caravans and gathered enough rare materials to barter for a Runic Steed Friday night and I'm still happy about it, and I managed to grind tomake a blue apprentice sickle today and it's awesome too.
One of the 'early game psudo totorial' quests needs to be the role of glint and where to sell it. I forsee a lot of players dying with glint in their inventory and not knowing what to do with it. I myself (even knowing what to do with it) couldn't find a merchant in Lionhold when looking around (I did eventually find him... but only after actively looking about 5 times and giving up and running to the smiths to the west)
This needs to be one of the first quests you get - right alongside the commission board, embershrine, and tradeskills.
I also ran into a problem where I had died a few times and all my gear was broken and had no money, which made it hard to regain enough glint to repair.
On the positive - I found some bandit ruins (forget the name of the POI) that I was soloing until I ran into someone else. As we started winding down and were about to split up.. a 'spider hill' even started! What a great incentive to keep playing when we were getting bored with what we were doing.
Gathering Systems
It seems inspired by New World, but it’s not quite there yet. The system feels unresponsive and lacks the satisfaction and fluidity that makes gathering engaging.
Combat
The combat system feels like it draws influence from Guild Wars 2, but it’s missing key elements like movement and survivability skills. This makes combat feel slow and less dynamic. It’s not terrible, but it’s not fun yet either—it needs more depth and responsiveness.
Auto-Attack
The auto-attack system feels lackluster. I’d much prefer if each class had an impactful filler skill, similar to Guild Wars 2 or ArcheAge, rather than automatic attacks. These could provide more variety and player agency.
Mounts
The mount "skill" system seems inspired by Archeage, but the implementation feels incomplete. The cast time to summon mounts, their inability to follow, and the restriction against calling the mount in combat make them frustrating to use. Often, I find myself walking instead of mounting because the process feels clunky. Mounts also lack uniqueness, my bear feels like just a reskinned horse. Please consider making mounts more integral to gameplay, including short-distance movement and combat involvement. Remove the cast to summon it and allow us to use them anytime. Order them to follow us or stay put. And lastly, some mount should be faster than that, right now they are too slow in my opinion.
Caravan System
The caravan concept has a lot of potential and seems to take its systems from ArcheAge land traderuns, but it currently feels less fun to operate. While the idea is enjoyable, the execution makes it feel clunky and less rewarding. The Caravan itself is too slow and the process to launch one isn't so intuitive.
Graphics
While the game aims to leverage next-gen Unreal Engine technology, the graphics currently appear less appealing than games over a decade old. There’s noticeable room for refinement here.
Lighting
The lighting system seems intended to feel realistic, but the execution often makes the world appear flat and lifeless. It’s an area that could greatly benefit from improvements to enhance immersion without breaking the magical feeling of Verra. Right now I might find some white snow and everything else is pitch dark. It clearly doesn't work as white snow is supposed to reflect the light that makes it white. Maybe go back to basic fantasy lighting, not everything needs to be perfect to be pretty and playable.
Content
The game seems to aim for a D&D style adventures filled with exploration and variety, but right now, the experience is largely limited to grinding mobs and exploring new grind spots. Expanding on meaningful and engaging content would go a long way.
Node System
The concept is interesting and has promise, but the nodes themselves lack distinctiveness. They currently feel and look too similar, which detracts from the potential diversity of the system.
Character Creator
The character creator seems intended to rival Black Desert Online, but it currently falls short. In its current state, it’s less appealing than New World and feels underwhelming compared to modern standards.
Map Design
The Riverlands area feels well-designed, but the winter regions lack the same visual appeal and polish.
PvP
The PvP system is unbalanced and feels unpolished. There’s also a lack of compelling reasons to engage in PvP, which makes it feel optional rather than integral to the game.
Corruption System
The corruption mechanics are overly harsh and open to abuse, which might deter players from engaging fully in PvP interactions.
PvE
The PvE experience feels overly grindy and lacks engaging elements. It would benefit from more varied and interesting encounters.
Progression
The current progression system feels too grindy and uninspired. Even for an alpha, a basic msq should be implemented to provide structure and direction. The quests also feel uninviting and lack meaning or LORE.
Solo Content
So not everyone can play with a group every time they log in, and right now playing Ashes alone feels like a shore, nothing is engaging for solo players, please consider this aspect of the game.
If you read through this you probably forgot I started the post by saying I love this game and even tho I have all theses points to raise, I'm still hopeful for Ashes of Creation, but please, do not try to reinvent the wheel but instead take what's good from games that already exists ! GW2 Combat + Archeage traderun,naval and mount systems, New World gathering and crafting, BDO level of Character Creator, all this in a game so rich in innovative systems like the one Ashes of Creation aims to be cannot fail, but you don't need to reinvent combat, mount systems, .... when there is already good ones out there.
Thanks for reading !