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📝 Dev Discussion #69 - Alpha Two First Impressions 💪

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  • Yatashi MajereYatashi Majere Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    played all 3 weekends, and overall i feel good about the game state and progression.


    The good stuff:

    - combat from the mage perspective feels good and it flow well vs mob's and 1v1 pvp, success in a combo feels very rewording and not restricting as happens thanks to status effects and not just the same attack pattern witch give a lot of versatility to get to the same combo (on a mage that is).

    - crafting is slow and that is not a bad thing it is semi complex even now and i hope to see the development of it keeps its current level of difficulty and maybe even making it harder and more complex, right now if you do not like to go out of town and in a good party or guild that will provide the rare/heroic materials you can just spend all day crafting and it will not be boring, or buying in bulk common materials so you can place some big 4 hour crafts and then go farm some xp or run couple of caravans.

    - caravans are just awesome ! i think running my first caravan in week 3 was the highlight of the 3rd weekend, it was all i hoped for and more, the collecting of glint and conversion into crates are interesting and not static as each town have its one pricing and different materials and it was fun running all over the nodes with the guild to find out witch are the cheapest and that will provide the most profit, then the caravanning it self was slow pacing and scary, as lvl 14 mage during 3rd weekend it felt as if i decided to transport all the gold from fort knox to the hart of mounting doom and that every single player and monster are laying in hiding just to jump on us and steal every thing, it was trilling and fun at the same time but after the first 2 runs you start to relax a bit more and actually zooming into a first person view of the horse pacing on the road, red, orange trees of the autumn on the sides was so awesome and placed the whole experience to the top of actually enjoying the game and its world, 100% what i am planning to do in 4th weekend all of it.



    The in things i am not sure about: (stuff that had no impact or any meaning and felt a bit disappointing)

    - quests, at this point of time the quest just feel useless and unmotivating or interesting to do, i think removing them or just making them not active for this duration of testing phase would actually be better as they mostly bugged and unrewarding, keeping the important ones like the artisan and horse and maybe changing the others into some that actually teach a bit more on how to play and do stuff in the appropriate location would probably be better, then having 20 quests i have no idea where around lions hold that half are bugged half can't be completed as you nee 1 mob to kill that 50 other players tag before you or just spawn kill so you get more frustrated, and even if i do manage to get it spending so much time and effort will reword in nothing from the quest making it just a huge waste of time i would rater spend in a raid party or gathering materials.

    - commissions and mayoral commissions must have a different look or place then quests, and a different tracking on progress as at some point i have no idea what is going on and when you get to 30/30 of them you just go so lost to what you have that i just start to see them all as the unrewarding quests and i just ignore all of them or just remove all.


    The bad stuff:

    - materials spawn in the world are just big pile of sh**... sory but to have 2-3 copper appear in a node is just ridiculous compere to the fact that literally every craft of armor, tool, weapon and others need it for the basic gear that you loss all need in as soon as you get to lvl 10 and find a common lvl 10 gear from monsters that is stronger then rare and even heroic beginners lvl 0 gear, it is just frustrating because the spawn rate for it super low and the locations are mostly dangerous, all the more that toy see apprentice and journeyman materials in abundance all over the places, just laying there whit literally no one mining them as there is not a single smite that was build to provide the option to get an apprentice pickaxe, and not a single place to even mage gear out of the apprentice materials even if some how you manage to mine them.
    i do think a low lever essential tools and gear must be actually common material almost like granite and basalt that are everywhere, and that higher rank ones be not harder to find but in the appropriate zone for the lvl of gear they meant for,

    - the caravan is bugged, as much as i love running the caravans right now there is more risk in them from a simple DC then a attaching raid party that try to steal it, as to the fact that as soon as you summon a caravan the moment you DC (witch happens a lot in this state of the alpha testing) the caravan and all what's in it are just nuked and destroyed on the spot and there is nothing you can do about it just cry about the 4 hour grind you did to collect all the glint for it, same with login out, caravan is a long process and a trip from Windsted to New Aela would take around 1.5-2 hours and the fear of disconnecting in this time is just too real to ignore or even risk it so much, not to mention the other bugs around the cargo of the caravans on arrival becoming unsellable and worth 0. not just them but every single next caravan you do after the first time you get that bug have its cargo worth noting on arrival and exiting game or server reset fix that.
    like i said before this if in my opinion the best mechanic of the alpha and the last 2 days of the testing i was not running it as it was to dam frustrating to see half my guild members enjoy the gold at the end half cry about a DC or unsellable crats.
  • RockshowRockshow Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    Personal note: I have tens of thousands of hours in MMOs going back to the release of Anarchy Online in 2001. I have played just about every MMO that has been released. I have been hard core raiding (like AO or The Secret World), focused on PvP (like WoW), grinding (like BDO (was working on Pen gear when I stopped playing)) or casually (like Tera) just to name a few.

    I have played a bit every weekend for the past few weeks and in general I'm really impressed both by the base game as well as the improvements made from week to week however I do have a wish list:

    1. Grouping up is currently a PITA, we desperately need those group boards in the nodes that are planned, there's only so many times I feel like spamming global chat for a group. I have found memories of spamming chat for groups back in the day, but man I'm to old for that now, don't get me wrong, I don't want a dungeon finder either, but there are many excellent systems in between where you can just sign up your group and what you want to do.
    2. Travel is also a bit of a PITA, I don't want to see fast travel but auto-pathing while riding would be really nice, just set your destination and go grab a cup of coffee, it works great in BDO for example. You get the same time investment but you can either enjoy the views rather than staring at the road or you can pop out to do something for a bit (at your own risk ofc). Honestly just rip off everything related to horses from BDO, from fluid riding animations to breeding, I have never seen a MMO come even close to it for mounts, was by far my most favorite thing of that game.
    3. Many older MMOs had classes that could summon party members, I think that could be awesome for AoC as well but with the caveat that some carried items should block you from being summoned (like how you can't teleport with metals in Valheim). So basically you would have to clear out your inventory before someone can summon you. I think that would also play in nicely with the social aspects of Ashes as it requires you to actually talk to someone to get summoned. It will also make grouping up to do stuff much faster at the tradeoff of having to spend some time preparing before you go out grinding or dungoneering.

    Short term I'd like to see the quests sorted out, I haven't been able to clear out half of the quests in my list or even figure out where to go, I'm not sure if it's due to bugs, design or my own fault, but there's something lacking there.

    Long term I'm a bit worried about the map size, I know it's really big right now, but when we starting seeing freeholds properly I suspect it will feel fairly cramped even if they are rare and spaced out. I could however be wrong on that one, but it's a slight worry at least.

    I can't really say much more than that at this point as I haven't really gotten in to the game fully as I'm hesitant to really dive in and grind etc during an alpha.

    Edit: General advice on crafting - make it require a massive amount of resources in exchange for a massive a mount of XP when you actually do it. So very many games get it wrong, especially New World screwed it up massively, you want to maximize resource drain while minimizing how many items flood the market when people are trying to skill up. Another horrible offender of this was Fractured. I myself crafted enough Jewlery to outfit the entire server just to skill up in New World and I could easily supply swords for everyone on the server in Fractured just to advance to the point where I could craft the stuff I wanted for myself. Multiply both resources required and XP gained by like 10 or something, that makes gathering more valuable, it makes the items crafted rarer and more valuable and it makes crafting more rewarding. This is extra important when you can repair to max durability and when you have rare drops from bosses and stuff in the mix.
  • crusaduruscrusadurus Member, Alpha Two
    I have really enjoyed playing in the alpha so far! There are sad times when it isnt working but we knew it would have rough spots, what does work has been alot of fun!
    First off we need more copper, not sure if u made copper spawns share with iron so once a node spawns as iron it can never be mined or what but without copper we cant even make better tools that i think let us harvest faster?

    I really think we need leveling to be quicker in this stage. Without questing, and with extra deaths due to bugs, abnormal mob spawns and movements, random aggros, and just less experience and knowledge base plus with wipes happening as needed please let us level faster. Both our players and professions. I feel I chopped well more than enough trees, with a starter axe cuz I only ever saw 4 copper nodes and lost it all (apparently there was storage in Lionhold but I never saw that oops!), to move up to to next rank and chop higher trees. I got to lvl 7 but its quite tedious and theres more fun things to test so i dont feel you will get much testing with professions in this state.

    Open world dungeon-like content.
    I know you want alot of this, i fear it will be hard to pull off.
    I think you should consider something like monster layering. Highwayman hills was okay but we had times where we had respawns just chaining into our pull to the point we likely killed around 10 enemies before leaving combat but some parties we survived. I feel the 3* pyro and sniper can 1 shot kill to eaisly but thats a diff issue. I went to oakenbane keep once and it was horrid. We barely got in the door and couldn't push any more as enemies just respawned behind us and chained into us before we could even kill the next pack. After chain deaths and strong enemies camping the respawn i just ressed at my home position and gave up, took quite a debt going there.
    Theres multiple things at play in these situations, ill leave PvP out of it as just thinking about these open world as a PvE experience a few things change from instanced in a big way. Having other players means a strong party can often just walk to wherever they want to go and try to monopolize the best spawns, no need to spend time fighting your way in and then players fight over respawns and both parties get less exp&loot than if they were alone in a location, this leads to parties moving around from spots (or PvPing but im ignoring that atm) and with this concern, if a party has a spot that works and are left alone they tend to stay put. I have spent over an hour killing the same respawns at the same location without being bothered by another party. This has a vastly different dynamic, it has some benefits but one large difference is many players wont see all the content in these areas. How many players will try to "clear" out one of these areas? I assume there will be quests designed to encourage this gameplay and that will help but will make farming different as rather than trying to do quick runs of a full dungeon parties will prob just move around the best areas (that they can easily farm) and try to just spam kill these enemies as they respawn quickly so no need to waste time on trash, just find a room with an area boss and kill it and the nearby enemies over and over.
    Now the main reason I consider layering enemies so each party has separate enemies is largely as I dont know how you will ever manage to have enemy respawns work well as having them respawn too fast that they appear on top of players mid fight is a problem, having too many enemies too closely prevents players from having good places to fight where they are less likely to have the prior issue, but that also increases the space needed for these areas. However with how large dungeons were in WoW classic maybe its not an issue making them large, but they exist in physical space here and people also need to be able to get around them. Not sure how you plan to handle these areas, and bosses especially, that feels fair and satisfying.
    I really dont want a situation where multiple groups have one member standing where the boss spawns constantly swinging their sword around hoping to get the first hit (they dont even need to target to hit if they know where it will spawn) but since I think loot will be given based on what party does most damage it will change things. Now a party of say 7 dps and 1 support, no tank could potentially out dps and kill the boss faster than a traditional, safer, party with a tank, healer, support, and ~4 dps. One very amusing interaction/counter would be for the party to just STOP tanking and let the other party burst it 3 sec in and pull aggro and die.
    I also dont want to see a situation where parties feel like they need to RACE and cannot play in a safer manner. this could make it much harder for weaker parties to get the gear needed to become stronger.

    Thank you for allowing us to respec for free outside of combat, i CANNOT decide what build i like most on my mage, they are such good abilities! So hard to choose and things like shatter and some of those final tier traits really complicate combat in an interesting way that makes what other abilites to choose difficult.
    Thanks for all your hard work to even get the game this far. I still joke about this game like Star Citizen as a game that I hope comes out one day. Even as unfinished as it is the game feels real now which means alot. Time to spend the next year deciding what class to main, mage has been my primary plan but in the beta phases when we actually will see finished classes, abilities and subclasses I will have my damn work cut out for me as so far every class shown has looked fun. I couldn't say that about WoW classic, as fun as it was not every class sparked joy or interest like this game has.
    ps plz no pvp in town for non-flagged, or atleast make banks/storage areas safe zones plz.
  • piipapoopoopiipapoopoo Member, Alpha Two
    Here are some of my notes of this weekends session:

    1) Map indicators placed should either show the direction of them on the minimap or on your actual screen. As is, the map indicators are not too helpful.

    2) Adding more juiciness to things. Particularly levelling up. I want a big sound, some shiny lights and a yellow shining border on an image somewhere which shows that I have skill points to use. Now I went to lvl 3 without realizing I had levelling up. Same for completing jobs and getting jobs. I want sounds and flashy colors!!

    3) It would be nice to be able to change the speed the NPCs talk with. I've got ADHD and it is difficult for me to focus on voicelines that are delivered too slowly for me!

    4) Adding NWSE indicators on the map. I'm not a native English speaker, and sometimes I confuse them. As AoC convos have a lot of directions in them, it would be useful!

    5) "Cannot interact while busy" is quite annoying. Slight movement when gathering should be just halted all together when f is pressed to gather.


    All in all I had an absolute blast of a time this weekend. I had my doubts regarding AoC prior to this but they all just basically evaporated. Now I know the game will be awesome. Thanks devs, you all deserve a cold beer.
  • PadoxPadox Member, Alpha Two
    at first thank you to the devs/team behind all of AoC

    i didn´t read all the posts befor so i don´t know if anyone mention it.

    the only problem i have right now is, you have to turn on pvp and get purple to attack an purple guy who attacked you first.
    it dosen´t make sens in any cases, i allready figured some examples out, the attacker has more benefit from this system than the one who get attacked, so its more pro **** and gankers.

    1. lets say you are alone gathering mats, i come attack yo ufrom behind because i want to robb you, so you can´t fight back till you turned to me get me in the target and than you have to decied, can i beat him or not
    and that is stupid thats atleast 1-2 seconds more, instead of just fighting instantliy back.
    the thing is if you decide to fight back after the first 2 seconds i am sure you lost allready around 25% life and if you die while you are purple the attacker gets all your loot and no sentence
    and also if i see my opponent is much stronger than me, i don´t want just to stand there and wait till he killed me, even if you want to stunn him and try to run away you have to go purple for that and if you die you lose all

    i have more examples like this but it is just unsatisfactory for the one who gets attacked.

    solution: change just 1 thing you can attack and kill purple players without getting purple PLEASE
  • NAZBOZNAZBOZ Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    good for an alpha!
    just needs more pvp content (not just flagging)

    grind levels > grind gear, nothing to do with the gear
  • JudgeMentalOneJudgeMentalOne Member, Alpha Two
    I have kept an eye on this game since pretty early on. I played a few rounds of the battle royale testing back then just for referance. I have played most of the bigger named MMOs that have come out (BETA tested a few of them). I have also played a few relatively obscure MMOs that many have probably never heard of and even I can't remember the names of off the top of my head.

    I am in my 40's and have been an avid gamer since before I was 10. My many years of experiance in playing games has taught me that as a unique indivdual (the same as everyone else lol), the chances of ever finding a "perfect" game for me is prbably lower than winning lotto. There are always going to be some things I wish were different or feel could be done better, you just gotta take the rough with the smooth as long as you are having fun.

    What originally attracted me to this game was the promise of a massive dynamic world that will change and be different based on what the players do. The idea that one server could be completely differant from another because the players on those servers leveled different nodes, in different areas and therefore have totally differnt dungeons and raids available really appealed to me. The fact that this game seems poised to actually deliver on this promise (some have made similar ones and failed to deliver) is why I am really keen to see this game do well. It is however also the reason I have tempered my excitement for this game pretty hard because I have been burned before.


    I only started on the 8th, the past weekend was my fist play. I rolled an Emperian(spelling?) fighter on Aeterna(again spelling?) the EU fresh start server. That was a bit of a strange deciscion, I am an Australian. When i logged in I noticed that sorted by ping for whatever reason the EU servers all seemed to be at the top. I figured it will be laggy either way and maybe where ever they put the servers happened to be closer to me so what the hell.

    Got said fighter to level 9. Armour smithing and alchemy to level 2, metal working was level 4 or 5, lumber jacking to level 6, lumber milling to 4maybe 5, mining and herbalism to level 5, fishing was level 5, hunting was level 3 or 4, farming was level 2, cooking, weaving, leatherworking, carpentry, jewler, and scribe were still level 1 but I made a few things. Unfortunately the greatsword recipe I bought from the western workshops smithy was bugged and gave me a "found unlearnable recipe" msg so never actually touched weaponsmithing.

    I spent A LOT of my time gathering, processing, or crafting as this is one of my main areas of interest. Found out last night reading a few posts that that's not really what was intended to be tested, but hey will give my feedback any way.

    Also, I understand that I was playing the game in a somewhat unintended fashion.
    Something in me heard Steven say "get friends, Solo players will find it very harsh, comuntiy orientated game" during the lets play Alpha 2 video, and seemingly took that as a challenge.

    Ontop of that since testing the crafting/gathering systems was one of my main objectives I didn't feel others would want to constantly wait for me as I gathered just about anything and everything in sight. Added to the fact I wanted to take some time to get a handle on how to play the game before I make a fool of myself in front of others, while lagging made me very wary of any PvP. As well as knowing i will eventually be on Oceanic servers, so I can't really make any long term game buddies, are the many reasons why I just kinda RPed as a lone wolf fighter/crafter trying to make his way in a harsh world.

    I grouped with some people here and there for quests to reduce the time I had to wait.

    My first impressions after playing quite alot this previous weekend, overall I would say are very positive. I have played many Betas (and in all honesty even full realeased games) that felt less finished and polished.
    There is a lot of good here, I will start with those and move on to the bad.

    There are some things that worry me, since I really want this game to do well. Somethings that irk me about this game, I find that the more I think about them the more I realise maybe they're needed for the direction the game seems to going in. Others however I truely feel need to be changed or toned down. I'll go into more detail as I go. Essentially I am keeping an open mind.


    THE GOOD:
    Combat for the most part felt pretty smooth, abilities were satisfing, the scenery was great, but night time was often a bit too dark.

    Every point I got to spend in the skill trees felt meaningful and sometimes hard to make a deciscion. At first the skill tree irked me as I felt I should get all my abilities at some point by leveling. Points should be spent on improving certain things. This is basically conditioning from most other games I have played.

    Over time however I kinda grew to like it, as I found I could make decisions and pick abilities based on what I was doing. Since I was generally soloing and pulling more than 1 mob meant death, I could hold off on brutal cleave, while things were dying pretty quickly I didn't need rupture that took 5 seconds to do it's real damage. I didn't like it to start but it really grew on me over time.

    I really like the realistic fantasy art style and that all the resources generally look differant enough that you can kind of tell them apart from a distance by sight. There was plenty to explore and I found a lot of areas with high resources yet fairly low mob density. Still I never felt like i was without risk or could zone out since often the mobs that were around were much higher level than me.

    In order to survive I found I needed to make use of the weapon swap alot to pull indiviadual mobs to me and strategise and almost any fight had a risk of dying unless i out leveled the mobs pretty highly.



    For how much fun I had I feel this section is too short and don't want the following parts to detract too heavily from it. None of these are deal breakers for me personally but I do tend to find them annoying, illogical, and/or worring because I feel they will turn others off.


    THE BAD:
    Loot dropping, especially in PvE. I am against but can live with loot dropping in PvP.
    However I really feel that death in PvE, the run back and xp debt should be enough. To lose stuff that possibly took hours to gather (zinc and copper were like hens teeth until after the first update during the weekend and even then they were rare) ontop of that I feel is overly harsh.

    I am mostly against death penatlies in general. I can see that in this type of game maybe they are needed. Otherwise PvP can become a never ending slug fest or stalemate as used to happen in many games. People just die, respawn and run back in. No one wants their caravan or castle to be sieged by a zerg that has no reason to fear death.

    In PvE I have played games with xp debt before, they were even harsher, and I am ok with it at the level it's at since it feels not too harsh. The dropping of your loot where any random that passes by your corpse can just take your stuff feels bad. The fact you lose anything at all to PvE feels bad. the xp debt and time lost running back already encouages you to get better, at least when the deaths are your fault.

    The real problem is that often deaths aren't your fault or due to poor play. No one can guantee the game will never crash, their computer will never crash, their internet wont randomly drop for a second or 2 and cause a dissconnect from server or many other possible things. In other games we have wiped because my healer mate's cat jumped on his key board during a boss fight and refused to move.

    Basic murphies law also ensures that almost anytime one of these things happen, it will be at exactly the time that will cause you to die, like just after you pulled that mob (this actually happened to me a couple of times, fire longbow, see it hit mob, game crashes, I start swearing). When these random things cause your death and you realise that now the last 30 mins+ of time you spent on the game were wasted it becomes a rage quit moment. As does if you happen to lose that super rare heroic material. Someone gets unlucky a few times in a row and suddenly you lose a sub.

    In a day and age where many people can only play for a couple hours a night, knowing it's possible for basically all your progress to be wiped can be a big turn off. I generally can look at it as "hey, I still have the gathering xp and I will definately be poorer that I thought but oh well, I'll earn it back eventually". Others might not deal so well.

    Removing loot drop from PvE deaths would also help stop griefers from training mobs onto people to kill them without getting corruption. Never happened to me, I hardly saw anyone even flagged. Not sure if that was because they were in other areas or if most people on Aeterna were unusually friendly or what.


    The sit and rest function is too slow. I am ok with every fight of a same level mob being somewhat of a near death experiance, but let me get back into the fight without it taking 5 mins to heal up from half or 2/3rd hp. Rations only recover 25%, and for some reason (not sure if it's a bug), I could only carry 1 stack of 20. It's not like you can just eat them all the time, or you would have to return to town too often. I think you could tripple the current rate and it would still take awhile to heal up while not feeling like you spend the great majority of your time sitting in place. After all I pretty much had to sit after every, single, mob.


    The resource spread was horrible. Don't get me wrong the locations and spacing of where the things I could pottentially gather made sense. The problem was that (other than trees and somewhat herbs) it really wasn't until I started just wandering around, often into areas where if I aggroed anything I would get near insta killed that i started to actually find things i could gather. All the low level areas everything seemed to need one to be apprentice. It would seem to me that the completely random spawning/respawning resulted in extreme rarity.
    Probably needs to be looked at, even if just the starter zones are locked to novice only materials. Also is cotton intended to be farm only? Seems harsh for leatherworkers.

    The difficulty of finding copper and zinc was horrendous, as were huntable Grems. Eventually I made myself a full set of heavy armour with a leather helm and a cloak from tailoring but it took so long that I spent a long time in pain running everywhere still wearing the starter armour praying for a zinc node. Looking forward to when hunting is implemented properly as I remember it being said it is a placeholder for now.


    Speaking of crafting I feel there are too many proffessions. This is me personally but honestly weapon and armour smithing should not be seperated, they are both just working metals to shape. feels like division for divisions sake.

    I also feel like processing should be given either to gathers or prefferably prodution proffessions to help them level. Making them thier own craft will just leave everyone beholden to glorified middle men. Under the current system I can kinda see no one being able to make much at the top levels unless they are willing and able to go without their arms, legs, and kidneys. No one will be able to afford to buy anything a a crafter makes as once you take into acount the number of people who needed to make a profit out of their step in the crafting process the cost will be higher than the proverbial kite, maybe even higher than hubble. I hope i am wrong.

    The time on processing feels a bit too long, but the main problem for me was the inflexible numbers. I can't set it to do 2, 3,or 4. Only 1, 5,10, 25, or 50. Even if the times didn't change it would be much better if I could just set how many I want. Really felt horrible to do one at a time 4 times, or realise I forgot to set it to 5 the first time, and now have to do it 4 more times.

    How many materials it needs to make things makes no sense. It takes 20 oak (amoung other things) to make a long or short bow, but I can make a customised carriage for a caravan with 10. I can make a heavy armour chest with 8 zinc. In the same line somehow it takes 6 zinc to make a ring? I feel this definately needs to be looked at.

    The base items you can make are identical to what the vendor sells. I got recipies for gloves, pauldrons, bracers etc that the vendors don't sell but the majority of stuff is the same. seems like the crafted versions should be at least slightly better.


    The costs are too high. they shouldn't exist at all really. The cost of the materials, fuel, often a store bought componant all add up to being more than enough of a sink without adding a further cost to everything you do on top of that. Every piece of armour I craft costs the better part of a silver and that not including anything else. If you take into account the amount you have to pay to process the zinc, basault, and grem skin, the fuel to let you process it all, the base cost to process it all, and the money you could have made from just vendoring all those materials it might be closer to 2 silver. Although at least for armour it seems you could still sell them slightly cheaper than the vendor regularly if you had access to a way to do so.

    To give another example lets go to cooking. You can make foods that do the same thing as rations but also give you an hour long buff (whitch all seemed decent btw). I had some large mouth trout from fishing and made some trout shashimi salad since it's buff seemed best.

    To make it you need Aelan spice, which requires you to craft with:
    pepper from the store 4c(I think), 1 each snowdrop and daffodil 10c if you sold them instead, 5 copper (if you sold whatever you used as fuel), and 8 more copper as the cost to craft it for a total of around 27 copper.

    Now you need some lettuce from farming which needs:
    oak mulch- oak woodchips 18c including fuel, some droppings (random and surprisingly rare drop from animals) but we'll be fair and call it 5c since they vendor for that, a seed you buy from the store I forget but lets go with) 4c, plus the usual 13c costof craft and fuel. for another 40 copper.

    Now there's the trout you have to fillet (cooking can process it's own ingrediants it seems) for 18c (trout, fuel, and base cost of crafting).

    Now you have everything and can put it all in and craft it for another 13 copper (fuel and base cost).
    I just spent 5 minutes (1 minute per thing to process or craft and that is not including the running around the differant benches) and 88 (give or take a copper or too as my vendor prices from memory might be inaccuarate) copper to make 1, YES only 1 item of food that gives a small buff.

    Even if an AH or other effective means to sell the things you're making existed, who would buy this item at a price that made all this effort spent worth your time? The better part of a silver for a beggining level consumable is far too much. The buff scrolls weren't much better but at least they lasted 3 hours and last through death.

    I like the complexity of the crafting and kinda even the amount of work it takes to level them I just feel the costs and time needs to come down.


    Then there's the fact that there isn't any good way to sell things other than to spam chat hope you get some sales before everyone on the server hates you. I know there are supposed to be stalls at night but I never saw them (though I saw what looked to be the area for them), and by all reports they would cost money to set up and the spots are extremely limited. It feels bad that it seems you need to go to a high leveled node to have any kind of access to the "player driven economy" and even then it will be limited. People need relatively quick and convieniant ways to sell their stuff.

    I feel players should be able to sell things at the equipment vendors on consignment. Add a tab there that lets people see whats available and the NPC takes a heavy tax. The stalls would still be sought after since the tax would be less but people might be able to make some profit for their efforts.




  • AlradonAlradon Member, Alpha Two
    The game as I have experienced it in the last 3 weekends is mostly what I expected. I did not think I would enjoy the game as much as I did given the amount of content currently in the game.

    Artisan skills
    Gathering feels great, exploring the world looking for rare resources feels great. Hunting requires a lot of work obviously. I have done quite a bit of it during the test and it seems that resources have heat maps/certain spawn areas, this is great as it gives experienced gatherers an advantage.
    I would rethink which resources are appropriate for each certification level of gathering to keep it immersive/intriguing/satisfying. For example western larch, rubies or bears I think should come with at least apperentice level certification. If you want a gem in the novice certification, there are many less know or desired gems which would feel more like something any peasant with a pickaxe could mine. This is just a detail though.

    Processing as it is now feels quite boring and doesn't feel like something people would want to have as a speciality. Unless you are counting on the freehold system to make it more interesting, I would give it a little bit more complexity so there is some skill expression. As it is now I doubt anyone is pumped about processing outside of animal husbandry which has great potential and is still far from it's intended state.

    Crafting is quite disappointing right now. It is definitely not the way of getting the best gear, which is a shame. The absence of a guild bank makes distributing recipes a nightmare. I realize the gear system is only temporary and completed gear is intended to be extremely rare or impossible to drop. That being said, crafting even as it is now requires cooperation and most likely a guild organisation to be viable, which I like.

    Questing
    Questing is unfinished and unuseable right now. Trying to do quests often ends with me questioning wether I have done something wrong or is the quest bugged. Many times I don't even know what to write in the bug report as the wording of quests is confusing and the quest window doesn't always indicate steps finished correctly. Also the rewards are not comparable to just grinding points of interest with a group. This has lead to many people ignoring the commisions and quests altogether. This for me is the biggest problem with the game right now

    Verra
    Exploring the world feels great. Especially as a gatherer always looking out for resources. The world is beautiful and being able to see the entire world from where you are at is the best thing I have seen in an MMORPG. Keep up the great work with the environment, there is nothing more I want from the game.

    Combat
    Some mobs are way too difficult to get away from unfortunately - *WOLF*.Risking your life around high level NPCs for rare resource spawns while exploring feels like game inside a game which I love to play. I think giving non star mobs one off gap closers or some sort of cc is a fun way to make them challenging while still alowing for counterplay and escape potential.
    The visual effects still need work obviously, I'm personally looking for more clarity on important skills. This is maybe where reducing some of the effects of player abilites would do the trick. Playing solo the effects are fine, maybe lower them when 4 or more players are within a certain radius of the player.
    Some of the obfuscation can also probably be atributed to incorrect tracing of projectiles/lag.
    This also ties into NPC movement which is also many times unclear (rubber banding, teleporting, showing incorrect position).

    Overall I can say I'm very happy with how the game feels. There is a need for comunity, there is so much to explore, the world feels immersive, I love there are places with no mobs, there areas you can't go to alone. The game really makes you try to avoid death, which is great as it gives an imperative to survive which helps with immersion. The artisan skills have great potenial. Most of what I have criticised is not intended design and is in need of fixing or expanding. Keep up the great work.
  • So much feedback. 😲 Thank you for your attentive work, alpha devs and community managers. 🥰
    The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
  • Tuffman29Tuffman29 Member, Alpha Two
    If I genuinely didn't know anything about AOC, I'd think this was an early or mid-level Beta test. It's really well done for where its at in development.

    I got to play a bit this past Monday (11-11-24). With having played a bunch of AOC Apocalypse, I felt the combat is so much smoother and more fluid of motions and attacks than that. And yet, the combat took me back to the battle royale in many ways too.

    I can't wait to see what's to come and explore the WHOLE world itself! I hope everyone at Intrepid is having fun doing this amazing work and doing well too!

    As far as I can tell, final release is within sight!
  • CrossiCrossi Member, Alpha Two
    I try to make it as short as possible.
    - I love the slow xp way in all kind, lvling and jobs. That prevent many problem like abusers, bots cheaters (Cause a ban would hurt) and so on. and it give us oppurtunity to enjoy every single phase on the long way to the big endgame. Also the open pvp (and im not a big friend of non safe zones except housing) solves the bot problems in my eyes since we just can kill them now.
    - like other ppls written i also dislike the most dmg drop on casual mobs. this is ok for bosses but it is making it harder for solo ppl to get done their quests or even get any drops. If we the most time are in groups its ok, but as soon u decide to make an alt char and start u will get this trouble.

    I love Game, the afford from whole stuff and community.
    The idea of the whole system looks great and i hope this will stay till release ans far behind :)
    Ty all for creating/supporting ashes <3
  • This was my first weekend playing.

    The EXP reduction caused by level difference in a party feels absolutely awful. You can't invite a random solo player who is on the same spot as your party just because he is 4 levels higher than you lowest member. Otherwise the lowest level will get only half the EXP. You either have to have a massive guild that organises a party for the appropriate level or spend 30 minutes searching for people. No unstructured cooperative social interactions.

    The game world feels flat and empty in a lot of places. Subjectively the flat areas without a forest feel weird. The ground feels flat and static monster groups give those areas an artificial feel. Especially "man-made" structures with a flat ground feel too big or empty.

    The skill tree for the tank is too simple. I might as well have a list of skills to choose from instead of a tree. Weapon and stamina skill trees are better but didn't excite me either.

    Still had a lot of fun with the game. Hope it improves a lot.

  • MadeUpNounMadeUpNoun Member, Alpha Two
    first week of testing, thought i would hate the combat for being mostly tab target as a ranger but the inclusion of abilities that require skill shots is exactly what i was hoping for.

    one of my biggest concerns however is the absolutely massive aggro range mobs have, you could be on a mount and run for miles and they will still chase you down, with some mobs even chasing you for half a node.
    this is especially bad in solo play where even with a horse your unlikely to even be able to evade them so if your just exploring or for example gathering (which will likely be the thing players do solo the most) it makes the average world way to dangerous
  • RiplyAnklebiterRiplyAnklebiter Member, Alpha Two
    I have Alpha/Beta tested several MMOs and Ashes is definitely the best I have played in an Alpha state.

    I didn't spend as much time worrying about progression as I did testing and exploring. Yes there are tons of bugs, crashes and queues, but I expect that in an Alpha. But what I can say is Intrepid has a pretty amazing response time on issues, and transparency is awesome. I think if the studio keeps going in the direction they are this could turn out to be a great MMO.

    Notable Issue:
    1. Animations - Character movement is really stiff feeling and needs work. It is not terrible, but definitely does not feel natural in any way.

    2. Camera - Please work on this, this was terrible. Between the weird fish-eye view you get from panning around with the camera to the general placement, it was just bad. Nothing kills my MMO experience faster then having to fight with the camera.

    3. World Geometry - The way I test is if I see it, I try to get to it. Several times I found myself stuck in the geometry of the game. I don't think its much worse then any other MMO I have test, but it could use some polishing.

    4. UI - It just needs work, a lot of work
  • SmolSmol Member
    My biggest concern comes with PvP. As I just initially started playing, there was a big issue. I spawn in just to get targetted by a PK and my character dies as I first start the game. Starting zones need to have PvP disabled or have guards protecting them so anyone who attacks gets attacked. As most people should have also seen Asmongold also suffered from this and it reminds me that an MMO was killed by just targeting new people joining the game or new toons.

    I think the system would have worked in 2010 tops, when streaming wasn't a big thing, but now groups that enjoy destroying mmo's can target streamers and force them out of the game, this would be a good way to kill AoC. I think you guys might need to rethink how to handle this from now on, 2024 and so on have a few new things that didn't exist before and this is probably one of the biggest threats AoC as an MMO is facing at the moment.

    Please consider something like safe zones or something.
  • flameh0tflameh0t Member, Braver of Worlds, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Good stuff

    The connectivity was great and server response had improved drastically from the Pre-Alpha. I didn't disconnect at all (did suffer from that Queueing issue though)

    I felt like there needed to be more variety/grindy mobs.. Got sick of goblins..
    Made me kind of curious as to what end-game content looks like? Once you're max gear and max level, what is there to do? Just PvP?

    Hopes for the game

    impactful utility skills
    I really hope that, when implemented, the mentioned class utility skills that interact with the environment are very prominent - Eg, the rogue finding hidden paths in a dungeon. I would love for that path to be completely undiscoverable without the rogue having been there, the rest of the party thinking the dungeon is complete and about to leave, only for the rogue to push a hidden rock switch opening a whole extra deeper level of the dungeon for the party to continue to raid and find extra tier loot..
    Or like a mage reading and deciphering an inscribed text on some pillars otherwise unacknowledged by the rest of the party, to have the mumbo jumbo chicken scratch hieroglyphs light up reacting to the mages utility skills and open a wall to continue delving deep..

    Basically, want something that the whole party can appreciate. I don't want it to be lame and just be like a door opens and there's another loot chest..

    The bad stuff

    Whilst leveling seemed okay at the start, basically hit a brick wall at level 6 and the grinding felt slow as, felt like the commissions basically did nothing.

    Very happy with the games progression so keep up the good work.
  • hellsingtwinhellsingtwin Member, Alpha Two
    Hello, I started playing on Sunday the 10th and was able to enjoy the bonus day on Monday getting myself to lvl 6. I am not that good at this kind of thing so this might be bare bones.

    Pros:

    The game looks incredible I am really excited to see how phase 3 polishes it up.

    I really like how the dev team has worked the combat. It feels that if you are not paying attention you will do some dmg but if you look and build your char right you can be a powerhouse.

    I love that there is no fast travel system. I have never enjoyed the idea of being able to cut out large portions of the world.

    I don't know to the extent that you are going to use it but the day/night cycle is really interesting to me. I hope to see some type of player interaction with it too. Are there going to be torches for the non-magical players to see in caves? It is a really fun addition to the game!

    Cons: This is an Alpha test so I will not be putting things like "this bug over here..." so this is going to be short.

    I wish the map was more customizable. think of a personal map that I can draw on permanently. I feel like with this game being as big and dynamic to the players as it is. it would be nice to say write down "enemy guild base here" or "good farming" on my own map that I can then show/sell this information to others. I feel so strongly of this that I hope to get a "wish" in game so that it becomes a thing. This might be a feature that you are planning on implementing later on.

    keep up the good work! the game is awesome!

    Hellsingtwin
  • MinGooseMinGoose Member, Alpha Two
    I've tried to play over the last three weeks and this past weekend was by far the best experience I've been able to have. Updates to server stability and graphics performance are excellent.

    As for playing as others have noted it's difficult to get credit and experience in popular areas. In my play time one of the more densely populated mob areas was constantly filled with two groups grinding out their levels. So when I would get to the location and group up we were not getting any credit for a majority of the kills. The only reason this is a problem right now is that it takes quite a long time to get between areas with such density at specific levels. So not getting any credit forced my group to leave the area and try a sparsely populated location and limited our character growth. This gap of players leveling up just because of group make up or game performance is a feel bad for players.

    For gathering the first few times it's unclear what it means currently that you don't have X certificate. I don't know if I missed a quest or anything that says you can only get the certificates after getting Y level but that could be explained better.

    I like the Points of Interest where you would have groups gathering to do an activity, but in some locations the area is so small that my performance tanked. This limited the engagement I was able to have at these small scale locations.

    Overall good experience with these first few weeks. Wish I could have more areas for meaningful progression at low levels. That could be just not knowing where to go though but I only have so much time in a day/weekend to participate in the testing.
  • hyperniahypernia Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    Played this weekend with a L7 Tank and L9 Bard. Quite different experiences between the different classes so far; and haven't experienced anything past there yet.

    Pros:
    - Combat felt great. Moving while casting and having movement skills (Flourish) were very interactive. Rotations and skill use was enjoyable, where weaving weapon finishers in between skills felt impactful.
    - Bard class had an amazing range of skills and ways to both damage and help allies. Loved playing this class and will definitely be carrying on with this character and rolling it again in phase 2.
    - Skill synergies made for a fun combat experience (especially thinking about the tank skill which guaranteed crits on snared enemies). This gives a cool feeling on combos without being restrictive.

    Improvements:
    - Solo experience was horrendous, especially playing on a tank. It was extremely frustrating trying to solo level, and if people aren't inviting you into their group you can't do anything to meaningfully compete for xp credit
    - Way too much downtime for solo players. While the sitting regen was buggy and much slower ticking than it should even if it was working correctly. This seems intended to get players to buy rations but frankly just means spending more time doing nothing watching your health go up and less time actually playing the game. Make out of combat regen free and fast, especially on my tank I could only kill a couple of same level mobs before needing to regen for far longer than it takes to actually kill them.
    - Blocking wasn't registering well to time it with enemy animations. May just be a server latency or may be a bigger issue. Even if you timed it right it wasn't saving a satisfying amount of damage taken.
    - Sword and Shield finisher after 5 attacks takes forever, that chain was too long and didn;t feel like a quick satisfying combo; more like having to wait for it to finish before I could use my skills again. 3 hits combo would be much more satisfying.
    - Mob ai seems like a cool idea but didn't feel like it contributed to decision making in any way. If the wolves run in a circle when they get low I either just wait for them to come back or use range - either way it's just mob grinding; this isn't some boss mechanic and it just feels pointless. Give them real skills or remove this.
    - Melee in all circumstances is much much worse than range. Manuverability was lacking, certain skills had very unforgiving hit boxes, and there wasn't a clear benefit in damage that melee diid better. Range classes seemed to do everything melee ones can do; except they also get to do it 100 ft away and melee can't.
    - Progression was crazy slow and the difference between soloing and being in a curated guild party was enormous. Feels like if you aren't attached to some huge guild the game won't be for you. It would be a shame to waste some amazing systems with not having good solo or small scale experiences
    - UI was horrible. Fonts in general were much too small and stylized maknig everything hard to read. Too many different thing you need to click are in different windows or far apart on different areas of the screen.
    - Not sure if sprint was meant to be togglable or just run your stamina down entirely every time you use it, but this felt totally useless as in combat you would prefer to dodge and out of combat you have mounts. If it's meant for running away in pvp it makes no sense as if you are running then the people following you can just mount up once you stop fighting back and run you down.
    - Some amount of signposting where to go and what level an area is for will be needed (without using out of game tools).
    - Lack of low level enemies and need to grind for levels may result in huge launch-day bottlenecks if the stating areas are much more crowded than during this test.
  • MindsEyeMindsEye Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    My impressions so far:


    Combat: this seems to be the most well thought out part of gameplay. Barring NPC issues (infinite leash, taking advantage they are not programmed to PATH correctly to the attacking user - giving free grind sessions without repercussions, or outright ignoring all CC techniques), the PvP seems quite well developed, just that to PvP for game progression reasons versus human vs human reasons seems to be lacking the most.

    Gear/Equipment: Most players obtained gear through drops via npc combat versus though crafting. The game needs gear progression tied to NODE DEVELOPMENT AND CARAVAN RUNS. Currently, the crafting isn't developed time-wise enough where we can make twink gear, but the best gear making lacks being tied to the node development and tied to caravan runs. Tying gear progression options to caravans and node development or another's destruction would give us players more avenues to obtain gear that currently do not exist in mmo’s currently. More paths to obtain gear, the better!

    Crafting: I have found this to be a time/resource sink currently that, is designed to be, but currenty prohibitively expensive for the short time between A2 launch and the first wipe. The majority of crafted items that are rare and up only have a “colored” border and no additional benefits such as rare crafted foods do nothing extra. Gathering tools take the same amount of time regardless of making the apprentice or grinding rare mats for them seems to not be in-game yet so the default lever 1 gathering time is the same at level 13, despite apprentice clothes being worn. Making items that take extra mats compared to the simplest lowest level only give the same default experience as a result and the experience should be scaled to complexity and larger volume of mats used on a single item. … for for now I am brute forcing my professions, to bypass the nuances of crafting, not yet in-game. Carpenter should be cheaper as it is CRITICAL to make the caravans so cheapen this at the table DRASTICALLY so we can PvP in caravans more. The high table cost is simply prohibiting caravan PvP gameplay and preventing you developers get Caravan input - why?????

    Graphics: I am running a 2021 era legion laptop on lowest settings and the caravan performance was blocky at best and not smooth on screen. This appeared more to be the server side rather than my now afed latops 3050s/4050s graphics cards inability to keep up. The Vyra server Miraleth boss spawn by Steven my system had no problems drawing the active gameplay to kill the monster demon assault on the node, when 60+ players were all around smooth frame generation so my graphics cards age is not the issue, it appears there are several places where optimization need to occur: namely PvP centered around NPC pathing as that specific combo is what I found the servers were the limiting factor in frame generation and not my 2021 legion 5 pro laptop with its 50s era non DLAA capabilities.

    Questing: I found several timed events to be bugged at times, such as kill the spider eggs in X minutes. I hope for quests in the future to also include non-humanoid based quest NPC’s basing them on real events that have occurred in nature where an animal, in one way or another, asked for help, to help itself or help another if its kind. It could be simply being lead by the non humanoid npc to a location or enemy that is obvious, and one is suddenly rewarded without realizing it was even a quest, because you were curious to interact with a “strange acting NPC”. More questing related to curiosity please (going to the humanoid for the quest gets boring after a time as its always this!!!!!!)

    I hope in the future giving more options to existing MMORPG game play , for gear, npc interaction, tend to be the way forward. Expand these!
  • GrandbobbyGrandbobby Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    Here's my thoughts after playing two days playing and getting up to lvl 9 in no hurry.

    World - The feeling of exploration is good, and the environments feels immersive and easy to navigate.
    could be improved by more things to find (chests, rare mobs) and more polish (especially in regards to making the enemies fit into their surroundings - a clear example are the fully geared minotaurs outside Joeva just standing in a field. It'd make more sense if they had a campsite). Some areas need to feel more degraded to fit the lore you're presenting us.

    Enemies & AI - Pleased to see a great variety of enemies and different enemy behaviors. Still needs polish of course, but the only criticism I've got is that the world would feel much more immersive with more patrolling mobs.

    Gameplay & Ranger - So far it seems great, I love that I want all of the abilities in the skill tree - forcing me to choose a path and playstyle. The combat is engaging as a ranger, and I like the visual style and sound. The phasing is also good, each level feels impactful, the experience debt and loss of some materials is perfect. Will be interesting to see how it all fares in PvP, and I hope we see more skill tree additions that help evening out the battlefield a little against specific hard counters - like abilities that would throttle enemy healers or bards.

    UI - Needs to improve, it works but as you interact with it so much, it needs to be great. Often need to look around for the cursor, as it's too small, likewise with most text. The visual style could be improved, the current one feels out of place somehow. Would also love even more customization, and especially being able to toggle names/healthbars when in/out of combat/hostile/pvp-flag.

    Loot - I really like that it's hard to find gear, feels more rewarding when it actually happens. What I hope for is way more variety - and that you keep low level things looking a bit shitty/degraded/bad, so that it fits into the long adventure. I'm quite pleased being a nobody with nothing but a pair of fancy pauldrons right now. And on the same note, I hope that you never make equipment out-of-hand crazy epic and flashy. When time comes, and most are at 50, it shouldn't look like a circus of swirling colors and all. That's what we have DMT and mushrooms for.

    Grouping & Social - The gameplay loop and design really makes it feel great, I'm a solo player and I've had no problems at all finding random groups - and likewise solo content to farm. However, it might not always happen when I want to, but more sporadically, which is fine too. The chat needs work though, and I'm not in favor of a global chat outside of the alpha/beta stage, except potentially in an opt-in way like a custom channel that you join. Also, add in all the emotes.

    VFX - Implement a slider in the settings for the intensity of all flashing abilities. They look great overall, but let the user choose. I'd set mine at something like 40-50% of the original for sure.

    PVP - If I could have but one wish for PvP come release - add ways to do PVP without the risk/reward of the corruption etc. Meaning specifically something like duels (1v1), arena (something like 3v3, 5v5, 8v8) and battlegrounds (10v10, 15v15, 30v30). It just adds another layer and incentive to the end-game. I'm not sure how to solve it, as I'm also against the queue-content of WoW. But having these instanced places that tries to maximize some fairness in rules and players I think is a great thing.



  • z0ddz0dd Member, Alpha Two
    Like:
    * Mechanics of fighter was actually pretty fun. It'll be much more enjoyable too I think once the performance/lag is reduced.
    * I like that crafting is important and useful when leveling. Spending time crafting makes leveling easier. Likewise looting recipes was enjoyable as it felt like there could be a potential gameplay loop here (at least for a bit).
    * The terrain and graphics were very immersive/enjoyable, I enjoyed the different biomes.

    Dislike:
    * The environment felt kind of lifeless. Lack of ambient sounds, (animal sounds), wind etc.. Patrol paths for npcs and mobs/hunting animals.
    * Felt like there was a lack of clear direction. Not sure where to go/do once I finished the 1-6 board quests.
    * Party play grinding mobs is kind of boring when its just killing the same mobs for hours. Personally I liked traveling around and doing the quests in the different biomes.
    * Felt like it was hard finding people to hunt boss type board mobs. I feel like it might be nice to have the ability to join up for these "hunts" and get matched into a party. Or make these events be on the map like special events that all players can join together (like fates in ffxiv).
    * Could not find zinc/copper for the life of me. I found 1 in a lvl 13 region 20+ hours in (was actively looking for a long time).
    * Felt a little bad killing boss type mobs when I dont get the claim. Then I have to wait 15min+ for it to respawn and hope that I get the initial claim.
    * The town system wasnt clear to me. What are the caravans for? An introduction to these mechanics would be nice once you get to a player owned village. Part of the main quest would be useful.
    * Mob variety is pretty limited. Recycled mobs across biomes. I did notice some differences in certain parts with elementals/frogs and whatnot. But seeing the gremlings/spiders everywhere was kinda meh.
    * I would like a more depth in crafting. NM's and HQ mats I feel like should play a role in hq gear. Feels like somethings missing
    * I feel like there should be a main story quest that can be used to guide the user through the game, between regions etc..I don't know anything with respect to the backstory of the game which is a shame.
    * Increase the variety of board quests. Likewise after you complete some, cycle them out for others so we can get some variety instead of doing the same board quests over and over.
  • deadlyronindeadlyronin Member, Alpha Two
    I like the game overall, I feel maybe some more texture packs eventually added in? I do not ever wanna see fast travel of any kind input into the game. I have played alot of MMO and it just ruins the overall PVP experience. No guild should ever be able to dominate a server from sheer numbers. I feel as though corruption for PVP as a penalty for player killing is fair. I didn't see too much of a problem with people killing for no reason anyways. As far as level grinding go's i feel as though the EXP cap per level should be raised to make levels matter more. I like the idea of grinding and feel this game should be more of a true MMO grind and not like others. Overall love the game though!!
  • ExariExari Member, Alpha Two
    Making this its own post from my general feedback since this seemed to be a common theme among people I spoke with.


    I have been really excited for the past few years to make a male elf in this game, given the concept art and culture aligning with what I want my character to be like.

    Having played Alpha 2 and messing with a multitude of different customizations on the character creator, I feel that male Empyrean looks too alien from (1) their female counter parts as mentioned previously, and (2) the concept art provided. I fully admit, I am a tad biased and was hoping for more Tolkein-esque elves in appearance, but after a few hours of trying to make an elf I felt looked decent, I feel that I was unable to do so entirely.

    I am absolutely ok with having the elves look different than "humans with pointy ears," but the males just look too alien to me. I am concerned that I would feel pressured to make a Kaelar vs Empyrean to achieve my desired look, but then I would not even be able to wear the elven-aesthetic if the mogs remain race-locked. A few of my thoughts:

    -The cheekbones are way too aggressive. The majority of the time my character looked like they had sunken cheeks and were mal-nourished. In order to combat that aesthetic, I had to plump the cheeks but that, in turn, made the character's face look puffier than what my goal was. Even the females cheekbones seem to work well.
    -The faces are too long. In every combination of facial features I tried, the face looked long and (as someone put earlier) snobby. I wasn't able to really pull any other emotion out of the mouth area so my character always looked unhappy and snooty.
    -The brows protrude a little too much over the eyes. If this is the intended look, great, but give more customization to players.
    -The nose felt off. I tried making a relatively "normal" nose and I had to adjust a lot of sliders in order to ensure it didn't have some sharp hook or weird curvature to it.

    I was really pleased with how the females have turned out thus far, but I cannot say the same for the male counterpart. I know that I, and some others Ive spoken with, would absolutely LOVE to see more of those elves with more human features; even if only given a few options in the character creator. This would allow players the autonomy to create a character that more aligns with what they want, and to create space for RPers to pursue a half-elf character if so desired, while still allowing for players to lean into that other-worldly character design.
  • rumshakrrumshakr Member, Alpha Two
    I had a blast playing my first weekend. Rolled a bard and got to level 10. Progression felt right. Resources were scarce because of all the competition, but it was fun to be IN it with my fellow gamers and working together for the most part.

    Traveling the world was fun and didn't feel annoying with no fast travel mechanics. We will see when it gets bigger. Maybe some bare minimum "fast travel" for those that are turned off by not having it.

    Friend system definitely.

    That's all for now, will add to it as I think of more.

    Super excited and thank you for all the work.
  • OthusOthus Member, Alpha Two
    Just wanna say, that you did a great job for an alpha. Very promising!
  • Tangent369Tangent369 Member, Alpha Two
    My First Weekend Playtesting Ashes of Creation

    After spending my first weekend in Ashes of Creation, I’m hooked. I started off with the Ranger class, reaching level 8.6 (yes, leveling in Ashes goes to a decimal point!), and the combat feels fantastic. My initial hours were spent figuring out keybinds and learning to use features like the action camera, which is a must for my multi-monitor setup. Without it, my cursor would constantly drift over to OBS or Twitch’s stream manager, clicking on things that definitely didn’t need clicking. Mapping the action camera to my left thumb mouse button and the in/out toggle to the center mouse button was a game-changer. I also have my dodge mapped to the left mouse button’s second click—for now, at least. One small wish: having the action camera available while riding mounts would be awesome. (It might be available, and I may have just missed it, as there’s so much to learn.)

    My first day was both overwhelming and amazing. I ended it by spending a solid 25 minutes stalking a caravan run by the Primordials Guild, which was wildly entertaining. I didn’t actually attack them, but the tension I added by following them was delicious. They couldn’t tell if I was scouting for a horde lying in wait or just trolling them. One player even flagged and took a shot at me, but I kept my distance, weaving in and out of the trees, refusing to take their 20-vs-1 bait. Watching their anxiety grow brought me great, devious joy—if only I could have heard their Discord comms! The dynamics of caravan transport are fascinating, and I can tell they’ll be a core element of gameplay for years.

    One surprise was the expense of crafting. I thought taming and training a horse would be easy until I saw the price. This means that crafted items will hold real value, making the risk/reward aspect of the game even richer.

    On my final day, I decided to explore, planning a route that would take me around the nodes and zones on the map. With a few breaks here and there (and the occasional whiskey refill), it took about three hours. There’s still so much to see, and I’m eager for a more thorough grand tour next weekend. Level grinding isn’t a huge priority for me, especially with the character wipe coming on December 20th. I’m still undecided on my long-term class choice—Ranger/Rogue or Rogue/Ranger—so it doesn’t make much sense to sink hours into XP right now. Exploring places like the desert biome, Sandsquall, was a highlight; it took my breath away with its haunting beauty at night, though getting too close to the scorpions was a quick reminder of its dangers.

    With only about an hour left in Veterans Day’s extended play session (thanks, Steven!), a chat conversation about a new graphics card inspired me to switch from High to Ultra settings. The difference was like night and day. I’d been playing for hours thinking the graphics were still basic, but in Ultra, it’s a completely different experience. The regret? I wish I had done it sooner! Now I feel the urge to revisit every area in its full splendor, especially the desert. Surprisingly, my RTX 3050 handled Ultra settings like a champ, though I’ll have to see if it holds up in large-scale combat. For solo exploration, though, it was buttery smooth.

    I’m counting down to this weekend’s playtest—though I’m not sure my family is quite as thrilled.
    Tangent369.com
    Ashes of Creation is the reason I stream!
  • DevlinaDevlina Member, Alpha Two
    Relhaz wrote: »
    [*] Click to detarget. I know some people like the "sticky" targeting but not me. Having to hit escape is annoying - especially as a bard where it cancels my melody too.

    I just wanted to comment on this as I also played a Bard and struggled. There actually is an option to drop target with click in the Combat settings if you scroll through the selectable options! It helped so much that I wished I found it before I hit lvl 15 .. lmao

  • OsierisOsieris Member, Alpha Two
    Really really like the game so far!

    So many good ideas have already been mentioned here that I probably don't have to go into them any further.

    But!..

    I'm a full-blood RPer and that's why I'd like to mention a few things in this direction.
    When RPers do RP, they want to enliven places, interact with things and bring some in. So why are there invisible walls at the entrances of tents, for example? This game has huge potential for Rpler, and if we feel comfortable in a game, we nest there and continue to play it even when we're already tired of the rest of the content. So please open such small borders for us. Let us go into tents, sit properly on chairs and benches, let us light small campfires to enjoy clear starry nights. Give us more animations for our character (emotes) that make our work in the world recognizable. These are the little things that we cherish so much and that allow us to thrive in your world.
    Because if you give us the opportunity, we will be able to experience stories inside your game that will stay with us for a long long time.

    And if you are already working on or thinking about something like this, I thank you very much ;)
  • DainsleifDainsleif Member, Alpha Two
    Game was much further along than I thought it would be, even with so many systems not enabled.

    A lot of my main issues I don't think will exist when players starting positions are more spread out by race (I assume that's the case?).

    Some things I really like about the game are also things I see people complaining about, so I want to address those as feedback that I like where the game is headed.

    1. Don't listen to all the PVP naysayers, they don't understand the systems in place to funnel players towards meaningful PVP instead of the gankfests they assume it will be. Other than maybe the newbie tutorial area, that should be a safe zone.

    2. The "empty" areas between POI's I enjoy, I greatly dislike games like ESO that have a whole new cluster of POI's beyond every hill, every forest, every crossroads.

    3. Less Cartoon graphics and less UI alerts, highlights etc. I've seen complaints about this, I personally love the current aesthetic. I don't want targeted mobs to be highlighted with giant rings under them, or resources to highlight and flash to let me know they're there. I don't want big flashy indicators to let me know I just gathered something, leveled up, etc.

    After these few Alpha weekends, I have faith in the direction the game is going and can't wait to see more systems enabled as we go, more races/classes added etc.
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