Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I would like to provide some feedback on all the elements that i have had a chance in participating and the hope is that future changes come from this feedback as well as improving player enjoyment.
Group Leveling:
I think the group leveling system is great the core setup of how the leveling works and how the team works together really fits the game and i personally love the grind. I would however like to see a type of bonus xp system for being able to keep a consistent flow of enemies being killed back-to-back for example Chain kill xp.
Death Looting:
The death looting can be a bit predatory it gets a bit annoying while leveling sometimes you die and before you can even get back up you are looted by your own team member or by a random player waiting to take your stuff. now i do understand this is part of the PVP aspect but it would at least feel better if my own team couldn't do it or if there was a timer before it allowed people to loot your dead body at least to give a chance to contest someone taking it.
Tank:
Tank needs a provoke of some kind or a threat generation ability that really helps with threat control. more than just some of the general abilities that they have.
Player Selection:
While in a party and healing it is very difficult to see who you are selected to if this can be improved or at least made more visible I think that would help a lot more. on that same note system states V is to cycle players but it does not maybe it requires more research on my end but I can't cycle friendly's. Currently just using F keys.
I will continue to submit more feedback as the time comes but I am happy to see this game headed in a good direction and I hope this continues.
Yeah um my life is probably over when this releases haha. The crafting is going to consume me I love it
What general feedback would you like to share with the team?
I would only perhaps lookat doign more balanced pvp to stop griefing. obviously a higher level player will still have more skilss and agood advantage and perhaps higher rarity equipment, but I really liked the alpha/beta of new world whrer a low level playere who had skill and knowledge of the game could still stand a chance if they had the skill to time dodges blocks adn chain attacks based on the enemies (other players) movements.I know they changed it under pressure but people who jsut want to login and PVP can this way and it provide a sense of achievemnet beating a higer levelplayer is always fun. perhaps this could jsut be limited to running caravans to incentivize newer players as when I ran one as part of a group all level 6-10 haha we all got one shotted jsut before reachign the destination. Now Im not saying this is a bad thing and obviously this keeps and stops lower level alts fromover reaching but perhaps having a hogh level spawn at the entrance to areas would be enough to stop this. Bu tyeah The advantage would not extend outside of this environment.
as for the ganking penalty I believe characters who are continually killed by the same player in a agriefing manner. not like guilds who declare war on eachother but if it is a negsative behaviour that is limiting someones joy as in repeated ganks / spawn camping perhaps 15 minutes or an hour then they get a revenge buff against the player ganking them.obviously as a defender or attacker of a caravan this is different but a system to protect players from this negaative behaviour. I mean some of my best memories in MMORPG is the OG stranglethorn valley in WOW haha gettting ganked by 60's and then cryign for help to have strangers who love pvp to come from no where and start helping oout those getting griefed and quest through the area. Still keep in touch with some of those people in rl lol it was good times but a pain in the arse to level... whe I was younger who cared haha and maybe that needs to be taken the same way here... i remeber reading that there is a system that rewards/punishes this but yeah just something to keep the filthy casuals here haha as well.
comabt is fucking lit very fun I do wish the auto targeting though was more reactive. as in i found soemtimes i would be going to pull a group of mobs and my fireball would fly back tomy previous target on group pulls. not a deal breaker but unless im tabbed on a target and in action mode! i want to be hitting that other mob.
now respawn rate of key componenets for when crafting.. eg flax does it exist ahha. and is copper actually spawn hahaha in sayign this though I was forced to explore far and wide so im like yeah leave it as it is lol but that inner crafter says make it easier for me haha stays the same Im happy changes im happy honestly really fun all round and ready to consume me!
Loving the game. But....
1. The crafting as it stands is not reasonable. There are not enough zine, copper and ruby nodes to obtain materials to advance in several groups. I have played for hours straight without finding any copper, zinc or rubies. But there is a lot of useless iron and slate and other materials that use nobs have zero chance to mine and no recipes for.
2. Hunting is kind of cool, but it is hard to tell when a phase of the circle is finished. Maybe the character should kneel when the work is being performed.
3. I also think that when we disengage from an enemy and run away, it should not chase us for so long. There are some npc enemies that have literally chased my party member halfway across the continent. If they chased us for only 5 seconds it would be better. More than that is excessive since we probably will want to run back to challenge them again differently or to recover a party members body.
Players, feel free to support these arguments.
To the designers, thank for the fun!
What happened to that? I hope it is still the plan, and not whatever we have now where we need to spend hours killing same mobs for a level.
That is my top feedback at the moment - the basic XP grind is WAY too daunting and slow, and I sure hope it's not the intent.
My main concerns would be their impact on node control, future sieges, monopolization of the economy, server strain and overcrowding. We also have to consider this being important with open world raid bosses which they could just camp until the cows come home and kill anyone who gets near them.
It's understood that these games need to reflect life's challenges to some extent, fostering an environment where survival of the fittest prevails, and strength in numbers is certainly a part of that, but when it starts to feel hopeless a lot of people lose interest.
I have yet to see any decent ways to mitigate these effects other than giving streamers their own servers to fight each other for content. This creates a unique and compelling environment for them, but also presents what I assume would be a higher level of competition which I'm sure most of them would look forward to, especially since streamer vs streamer is always better for content and collaboration.
Hopefully the AoC team is aware of this and has plans for the future.
I started looking around, tryed the jump Steven did, got it first try. Found the movment to be very good. Enjoyed the responsiveness and flow. The dodge and sprint came natural, all though i figured i got to hone my dodge roll skills in this game. I think i picked up all the weapons laying around, prob hade 20 ish off them in my bag, hoping to sell them, but quickley remember that they are probably not that dumb (if you where i would be selling so many). When i started equping them, i saw that not all changed the same way, so there hade to be more then one weapons slot. But i hade noe idea how to change them for a while, probably killed 20 mobs before i saw the little arrows, and next day been smart enough or not too lazy to check the key bindings. After that Q became my weapon changer off choice. Think i hade my side mouse button at autoattack, but went for the good all left mouse button after a while. The key bindings are very peguliar, makes me think ill break somthing important if i change anything, so it tok me a while to just change things willi nilly, i hope i did not mess things up for my self in the future.
Now i knew from before(Narc), to start grinding the goblins, and boy I did. lvl 5 i think, so alot off time. But i enjoyed it, the grind is real, but so is the combat, i love it, the amount off damage you do and the hp mobs have are tuned so good. Its not to hard and not to easy, ive tryed five of the different classes to lvl 3 on the goblins, and 3 off them i love and 2 more i liked. They all seem fluent, have good class identety, they sound good and feel good to play. I wanted to heal and ended up on a Bard. got to lvl 9 now, and i want to play more. Left with all off this good choice, it's the one i go too, but its hard to pick one.
A few times I was luckey enough to find some people to group with at lvl 1. and we took it further to other locations and hade good social interactions. But it was hard outside off that. So finding a group or friends, was a bit trublesome, I could not find a way to add them to a list, maby there is one, i dont know. So i wrote a bunch off names down, and whispered around when i got on. If there was no reply i would run to a location i thought there was level appropriate mobs and start asking people to group. It worked, but then again not very practical. I was missing a good tool to communicate my "group needs", like did they need a bard and where on the map are they. Sometimes i would just run around looking at the world, hoping to stumble appon someone to play with. this felt tedious, but in the back off my mind i was thinking to take this casual, no need to hurry anything and just learn what this world had to offer now.
Ps: me been a dumb dumb, hade no idea where to mine the first rocks and ran waaaaay outside the beginning zone in hunt for some rocks. I got that mount very late, and not without help.XD
First impressions were that it was a buggy, laggy mess. =D
After getting through that the game has been quite enjoyable.
Classes are fun to play and the skill trees are a blast to fiddle with. One of my favorite parts of the game has been changing my skill tree to suit the team I am with, or situation I am in. I hope this functionality remains relatively free and easy, including at launch, as it is very satisfying to tweak on the fly.
Another aspect I really enjoyed was trying to find an appropriate place to go grind/farm with whatever team i could form close to me. I had some great times as a duo/trio roaming around the open world, finding spawn packs appropriate for our size, and gathering mats nearby.
It's kind of a shame that at the moment, my best gear seems to be 8 man grinding named mobs in Carphin far away from my node. There is a lot of time spent traveling the map to form groups, waiting on people, disbanding groups, going back to other things, etc. This is probably my least favorite part of the game. New Aela seems to be lacking in late game content, and will be in an even worse position with the new areas opening up. If i could do like 80% of my leveling/gear aquisition in node, and then travel for gold making, completing gear sets, or optimal group farming, that might make more sense. I guess it will change as more of the game systems come online.
Every caravan I ran was bugged and I have yet to turn in any caravan cargo for gold. Would like to test this system more but its still bugged out. Seems pretty important to get right.
I've mostly avoided PVP because even dueling with my friend made me corrupt. There is no point to fighting people cause i dont want to be a jerk and i dont want to lose xp debt.
The game looks beautiful: Again, only in Alpha right now and the landscapes look amazingly good. Landscapes/scenery is what I love about videogames the most. Everything right down to something as simple as water physics is what makes a game for me as a player. You always hear the most when it comes to combat whether that's PvE or PvP and that's usually the biggest selling point in games these days and for good reason. If combat is 'fluid' and "feels good" while in action that tends to sway players significantly. But for me, it will always be walking in the world itself. As we progress through the upcoming weeks I'm hoping to see more and more of what the team does for the actual world itself.
Fast Travel: I think that so far, NOT having fast travel has been a good thing for this game. It allows the player to try a feel more immersed in the game by it actually feeling like it takes actual time to get from point A to point B. For example the caravan quest, where you can either attack or defend. I chose to defend as the initial quest had asked. I was amazed at how long it took to go from Lionhold to New Aela (30+ minutes). I actually felt like I was on a mini journey because of how long it took. But in that time as we were slowly passing various POI's In my opinion it didn't feel boring or unnecessary. My hope here is that IF we do implement fast travel down the road, that it does not over take the map significantly or hinder the adventure of the overall game. I understand that the game is going to be massive in scale, but at the same time I feel as though this presents an opportunity to go against the grain so to speak of the current formulas of games and try something a little different. In the end I just want it to be more about exploration and discovery than "I got a quest from this NPC which wants me to deliver X, its 3 nodes over, fast travel, quest done. Like hooray I got XP, but also this was a boring and useless way to gain XP.
Combat: While I haven't had much hand in combat just yet. I do want to point out that it does feel ok right now. As far as I can tell I don't see any issues at the moment solely because it is in Alpha still. So in that respect its in a positive direction.
Skill Tree: So far I am loving how intricate each Tree is, I find that being able to customize your abilities and playstyle down to the smallest details actually keeps me engaged in the game longer. Can't wait to what improvements will be down the line.
Questlines: The only feedback I have here is that as far as my playthrough is concerned, 85% of the quests I have currently do not show up on the map. I have only had a handful that had markers at the very least but something as simple as the quest within Lionhold when you are asked to talk to the towns people about the curse and there's no markers of who to even look for is frustrating, especially if there are multiple questions that need to be fulfilled within the quest for completion.
Bugs: So I have reported a decent amount of bugs so far. Obviously that's what the Alphas and Betas are for. I find doing this at this stage of development does also keep me coming back to the game because it feels like I am making a small contribution to improving the game each time. Even if my bug reports get missed it still feels good that the Devs are looking for us to do this as much as we can because it shows us the players that they care a great deal about what we think. One critique that I would like to address would because to refine the Bug report itself just a bit. What I mean by that is maybe have a template of some sort that really explains what information is being asked for. For example, right now its basically "What's the bug found" and "What happened". Which is honestly good enough. However, I think that adding such things as location specifics would also help as well.
All in all I think this game is in a very good place and can only go up from here. I'm glad that the Devs are very involved and that there seems to be a good sized community that wants to see this game succeed.
Playstyle variety, and pigeonholing archetypes/classes to very narrow roles remains my prime concern.
Patch notes should be more precise. Please don't write "we adjusted loot drops". Say: "We increased/decreased loot drops from the mobs at the POI by 10%".
Healers and support classes could use functionality for being able target one enemy and one friendly target at the same time, as context switching atm is a pain.
Thanks.
Blown past falling sands…
*** Biggest Takeaways ***
I loved to discover all of the subtle improvements from my first weekend of playing through my second weekend. I did not expect so many things would be worked on and updated in such a short time frame. I am very interested to see what changes between now and next weekend! My most notable takeaways are:
- Network/Server Stability Improvements:
On my first weekend, I encountered a ton of rubber-banding for myself and NPCs, lots of NPCs that I couldn't damage, frequent disconnects, etc. On my second weekend, performance in this regard was vastly improved. I am sure all of this will be ironed out by launch.
- Mob Density:
On my first weekend, I felt that there were a lot of areas that felt very sparse and empty. I could run for minutes and not encounter a single NPC. Even areas intended to be farm spots felt sparsely populated. On my second weekend, I noticed a ton of new mob populations. It literally felt like mob density was increased by 2x or 3x. The world of Verra needs to feel alive, populated, and dense. This is a great direction and I hope this continues throughout all of development.
- Points of Interest:
One of my biggest negative impressions was that the world felt very generic for ~90%+ of areas. Just lots of hills, grass, and some roads with few packs of random NPCs scattered around. I would bet that a large portion of this type of content just hasn't finished being built yet, but just incase that's not the plan, I wanted to talk about it. I did notice that a few things were added from my first weekend to my second, so it bolsters my confidence that this will just come over time. By Points of Interest, I'm not talking about marked places on the map, but just random unmarked camps, monster dens, ruins, etc scattered all over the world to make traveling from Point A to Point B more interesting. I will go into more detail on my ideas for this down below.
- Combat:
Overall, I think combat feels pretty good, especially for an alpha build. I am glad that combat was the team's main focus thus far in development and it definitely shows. I think my biggest gripe right now is how inconsistent animations feel. For example, the Fighter has great animations. Their abilities showcase power and impact both with sound and animation. On the contrary, in my opinion, Cleric animations feel really bad. Everything is very slow and 'swooshy'. Nothing really feels impactful, etc. It feels weird to say, but I think animations are incredibly important for allowing combat to feel right. Animations, combined with sound effects, are how combat translates the power of skills to the player, the power of monsters, etc. Speaking of, a lot of monster animations feel extremely desynced, so that's another area I think there's a lot of room for improvements.
From here, I will focus on specific topics to offer my thoughts and ideas for improvement. For reference, I originally started as a Cleric and played to Level 8. I then created a Fighter and played to Level 11. I probably have spent about ~30 hours playing over the past two weekends and, again, this was my first time ever actually playing the game (although I have been following the game for years).
*** Exploring the World ***
I think this category is the biggest area that I'd love to see improvements in. As mentioned above, I felt that a ton of the world is underutilized. You can travel for minutes and not really encounter anything interesting at all. In a game where there's no plan for fast traveling, I think this is a massive missed opportunity. Here are things I'd love to see added:
- More Random Unmarked Points of Interest:
By this, I am talking about bandit camps, wolf/bear dens + caves, abandoned buildings overtaken by monsters, guard towers, etc. Additionally, I don't simply mean just add a few tents, 5 spawn nodes for bandits, and call it a day. I'd love to see the world actually feel alive. Here's an example:
Let's say you stumble upon a small camp of 10-20 bandits hidden away in a dense forest. You can clear out the camp and then a named bandit spawns for you to kill with a chance of dropping some Named quality loot. However, now that the bandit Named is defeated, after an hour or so, wolves/other scavengers move into the area and now it's full of aggressive wildlife. Maybe if the wildlife has enough time to build up, if cleared out, a Named Alpha Wolf spawns with some Named quality loot. Now that the wildlife are cleared, it opens up the opportunity for someone else to move in - maybe this time goblins or the bandits return.
There can also be subtle changes to the camp depending on who occupies it. If it's wildlife, all the tents are torn up and abandoned looking. If it's goblins, totems and other goblin environment items appear. Furthermore, if a camp is left alone for a long time, it continues to build up. Maybe after ~3 hours of being above a certain density, it starts spawning random patrols that start roaming around the area causing chaos. Maybe even have the chance for said patrols to visit other points of interest, fight the NPCs there, take it over and spawn another camp of their kind.
Something like this would truly make the world feel extremely alive. One day you run through an area and there's nothing of note. The next day, however, it's full of bandits and you decide to clear it out, encounter a Named, and get a cool item. Then the day after that, the area is full of wild life and you're getting mauled to death by wolves and bears so you take a detour.
These unmarked points of interest could also spawn random world events. For example, maybe the bandits have taken over the area and started sending out patrols. Maybe a patrol wanders towards a nearby bridge and they decide to create a blockade. Players traveling to that now either have to deal with nasty bandits blocking the bridge or band together to clear them out and free the bridge. Maybe once cleared, a guard tower can be built (controlled by a nearby node?) to keep the bridge safe for a period of time.
All of this is just one mere example utilizing a random unmarked camp of NPCs. This concept could be applied to all sorts of points of interest and create one of the most living, breathing, MMO worlds ever created. This is what I would love to see in a modern-day MMO like Ashes of Creation aspires to be.
- Lootable Objects:
One thing that I loved doing in New World was roaming around to random points of interest and opening storage chests and clearing them out. It was extremely rewarding. While it's a great argument that New World went too far in this direction, there's definitely ample opportunity for something in between. I think an easy way to implement this fairly is that lootable objects are first-come-first-serve. If a member is part of a party, all party members split the loot (if it's splitable, like glint) or roll for unique items/materials.
Wrapping back to my previous desire for unmarked points of interest, I think adding lootable objects would be perfect for there. Picture running from Point A to Point B and you encounter a small bandit camp. You notice a storage crate tucked away behind a pack of bandits. You clear out the bandits and then get a small storage crate to loot as a guaranteed reward for your efforts. I feel that most players would stop along their travels to do this - which is exactly the point and benefit of these types of "distractions". Once looted, it should despawn for quite awhile or until the entire camp is able to repopulate.
*** Combat ***
Overall, I think combat is in a really good condition for an alpha build. I played as a Cleric and as a Fighter, so I will focus on those two only.
- Cleric:
Overall, the Cleric felt kind of boring to play. Yes, I'm aware that they are the healers and they are meant to be played in groups. I am no stranger to playing a healer in an MMO lol. The reason I say that Cleric feels boring is that a lot of their abilities are just generic... Cast to Heal for X, or Cast to Damage for X. There was very little room to weave skills together to create fun combos and pop off. A simple example of what I'm referring to would be to apply Soothing Glow (Heal over Time skill) to a target and then using a secondary Skill to consume Soothing Glow stacks to instantly apply the heal to that target. Other examples could be things like using skills in certain ways to proc a secondary HoT, or to restore some mana back, or to proc a shield, etc.
I think the Cleric also needs more offensive skills. While it's great wishful thinking to expect every Cleric to spend their entire time playing in groups, each class has to be able to function solo when needed. Right now for Cleric it's mostly just offensive Judgment, Smite, and Auto Attack with Bless. I think EverQuest's Cleric was a great iteration of the class and I'd love to see more skills like that. In EverQuest, Clerics had great undead nukes, they could summon hammers for themselves that had special procs (this is similar to Bless right now), they had various CC with Turn Undead/Root, they had reverse damage shields which were a really cool concept, etc.
Now, the biggest reason that I find Clerics boring to play right now is because of my time playing as the Fighter.
- Fighter:
Overall, the Fighter feels fantastic. It's easy to focus on combos of skills and come up with a rotation of skills to really overpower enemies. I would shoot an enemy with my bow until it got into range of me, then I'd Overpower to Stagger, Crippling Blow to Trip, Maim with the extra Trip damage, then Lethal Blow to kill it and get some Health/Mana back. It just felt so smooth to play. On tougher enemies, I'd incorporate Knock Out to buy time and get distance. On packs of enemies, I'd incorporate Brutal Cleave and the AoE on Maim to deal massive damage. I'd cycle Forms to deal more damage, regen Health, or regen Mana as needed. I could add Rupture with Wounded/Bleeds to Hemorrhage and deal massive damage. On and on. All of the skills felt good, useful, could chain with other skills to get even more out of them, etc.
I would honestly say there's a few aspects that are legit overpowered with Fighter right now. While I'd love to remain overpowered if I main a Fighter on live, I do feel the following needs to be nerfed a bit:
Blitz: 30 meters is insane for a charge. I think ~20 meters would be a bit more realistic. Fighters should get mobility skills to move faster to close gaps to get within that 20 meter range.
Lethal Blow: Uncapped Health/Mana return is going to be an issue at higher levels. This should probably be capped at like 10% of Max Health/Mana or Fighters will be able to full heal by just using Lethal Blow on a low level or squishy enemy.
Knock Out: Exceptionally easy to basically permanently lock down an enemy. I was able to solo 2* enemies without ever really taking damage. I'd use my main skills to Trip it and burst damage, then use Knock Out for a 10s stun while running to max range. By the time the enemy got to me, I'd Trip it again, Knock Out, rinse repeat. It was kind of ridiculous. Knock Out needs a longer cooldown or diminishing returns when used on the same enemy multiple times.
- Skill Augments:
One thing I'd love to see added down the road is more ways to customize skills. I think that this should be a mix of both through spending Skill Points (which some skills already have available), but also through items or some sort of other character progression system (like a rune system or something). A simple example would be the Cleric's Barrier skill. I'd love to have like 3-5 different ways to completely change how the skill works and/or amplify it, again, through a mix of skill points or some secondary system. I could have it so it uses Mana instead of my Health, or that it can apply to all Party members within a certain range, or just simply amplify the shield value, or provide a buff to the player while they are shielded, etc. If every skill can be augmented in this way, there would be an insane amount of customization that each individual player could yield over their build/playstyle. It would be absolutely amazing and truly help to make each individual player feel unique with what they can bring to their party.
*** Crafting/Itemization ***
I know that Crafting is very rough right now, but it's in-game so I'll provide my thoughts on it.
- Item Power Scaling:
Right now, it's somewhat easy to craft some basic Common tier items as needed (assuming Copper spawns are fully fixed lol). However, it is exceptionally difficult to craft Rare and above and takes a ton of time gathering to do so (which is not the problem - I am fine with this). The biggest problem is that there's no real point in doing so. By the time you can actually find the materials to make a Rare+ version of an item, you're already going to be Level 10 (or at least could have been with the time spent) and any Level 10+ item is going to be vastly superior. I spent hours and hours trying to farm materials for a Rare+ Greatsword and when I finally had enough quality Copper for it, I was already Level 10. The Common Brass Greatsword from the vendor was vastly superior to a Rare Copper Greatsword. This was very disappointing.
Now consider that in order to craft anything Level 10+, you're going to have to level that profession to Apprentice and need to find an Apprentice station on top of gathering all of the materials... or you can just reach Level 20 and get Common of the next tier and have better. It's not a good system as is right now.
I think Item Level Requirements should be removed (or significantly reduced) from all generic items and instead be replaced with Item Recommended Levels. If an Item's Recommended Level is above your Level, its stats are reduced. Having these tiers where you use X gear for Level 0-9, Y gear for Level 10-19, Z gear for Level 20-29, etc doesn't flow very well and feels very World of Warcraft-y. Reach a new tier? Replace every item immediately.
Lastly, I think the power difference between tiers should be way smaller. A Rare Copper item should be on par with a Common Brass item. A Legendary Copper item should be on par with the current Lvl 20 Commons. This would make spending the time and effort to gather and craft high quality items actually worthwhile if you can use it for many levels instead of instantly replacing it as soon as you hit the next item tier. This is also where the Item Recommended Level comes into play. For example, a Legendary Copper item could have a Recommended Level of 10 so that it isn't insanely over powered on a Level 1. By the time the player reaches Level 10, it's now at its full power and is vastly better than a Common Brass item.
- Processing Time:
Please remove the insanely long times to process materials. I don't really see any benefit to that being in the game and it feels very mobile-game like. If there's going to be queue times at all, it should literally be 1/10th of what it is right now. However, I'd much prefer a more interactive system, akin to how Final Fantasy XIV does it, rather than just a "click and wait" system. I know a system like that takes a ton of development work, so I fully understand why it's not in game at this time.
- Same Item, Different Quality Not Stacking:
I'm not sure what would be best for this, but it's very annoying when gathering to obtain so many different quality tiers of the same item and taking up all of your very limited inventory space. Perhaps there could be a system where different qualities of the same item stack onto itself - maybe into a psuedo container of its own? The way it is right now, I find myself literally just deleting so many lower quality materials because I am constantly out of unique bag space.
*** Quests and Commissions ***
I know that it's been stated that this is still a massive work in progress, but again, since it's in-game, I'll provide my thoughts.
- Retire Accepting Quests/Commissions System:
I think it is incredibly outdated and unnecessary to have a system where the player has to travel to a quest hub, talk to a bunch of NPCs or quest boards, collect a bunch of quests, then go out into the world to complete said quests. Once completed, return back to the quest hub, rinse repeat. It feels incredibly World of Warcraft-y and is not immersive at all.
I would much rather a system more akin to how Guild Wars 2 did it where the player can see what's needed in an area via their map. They can just simply travel to trouble areas, do the tasks if they want, and get their rewards for doing so. For example, let's say I travel to a new node and they're having trouble with the local wild life. I should be able to just look at my map and see a region highlighted that indicates I need to cull wolves, ravens, or bears. If I want, I can simply travel to that area, kill some enemies for a bit, complete the task and then move on. No need to go to a quest hub, pick up quests, find where to go and then do them. I can just explore, adventure, kill, and keep grinding.
Obviously, dedicated quests will still require talking to an NPC, learning story/lore, having multiple steps etc. I'm merely talking about the kill/gather x quests.
- Completing Quests Without Having the Quest Accepted:
If I find a bounty target and kill them without having the quest, they should just simply drop a scroll or something that I can loot and instantly complete the bounty (or start the questline). I shouldn't have to have a Quest Log full of random kill/gather x quests to get credit for doing those basic things. I should just be able to roam around, play, and get credit for completing objectives without specifically having a Quest Log full of them. The Quest Log should only be for bigger multi-step story quests.
*** Environment ***
I fully expect the physical world of Verra to massively evolve over time throughout development. However, again, just since it's what we can experience right now, I'll share my thoughts.
- More Density!:
Right now, much of the terrain feels very sparse. There really aren't any areas I can recall that felt like true forests/woods. I didn't discover any caves or anything that went under ground. I think my favorite example of these types of landscapes would be New World. New World felt amazing to just physically run around. Forests felt like forests. Fields felt like fields. They did a tremendous job with the environment and I'd love to see that type of density added into Verra.
- Rivers:
I felt all of the rivers in the game were very generic looking. They were very flat/smooth, with virtually no objects or anything interesting in them. Easy ways to break this up is to add like fallen branches creating natural dams, rocks and stones to break up open areas, more details on shorelines, etc.
- Verticality:
The absolute best way to add depth to a point of interest where dozens of players overlap and farm an area is to add literal depth. There is only so much horizontal space on a map that you can add and at a certain point, it'd be impossible to create a point of interest for 50-100 players solely on horizontal area as it'd just be absolutely massive. However, it'd be relatively easy by adding vertical depth.
For example, I spent quite a bit of time farming at the church point of interest. Easy things to add would be multiple tiered basement/cellar areas, a second floor to the church, a nearby cave with some density, etc. The end result would be the same horizontal imprint on the map, but now the area could sustain 3-4x as many players and still have plenty of NPCs for everyone. Couple this with more unique Named spawns, random lootable objects, etc. All of a sudden the church would feel very immersive and deep without having to completely change the landscape of the area.
*** Conclusion ***
Overall, I am fairly impressed with the state of the game for alpha right now. I am very excited to see the continued development of this game and can't wait to play it each weekend for the time being. I imagine a lot of my feedback are things already being worked on, already fixed, or already things the team is brainstorming on. If you made it this far reading through my book report, thank you so much for your time and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Avid Gamer and Game Dev Looking For Work
Thank you again for everything you're doing its been great
I know there will be a transmog system later in the game, but please please please can you give us the possibility to hide helmets for our characters ? Even if the character creator isnt fully finished, I had a blast with it, and would like the result to show in the game (instead having everyone looking alike all the time)
Thanks !
Dear Intrepid Studios Team,
First of all, congratulations on the impressive work you've done since Alpha One. It's clear that you've put a lot of effort into the game, and we truly appreciate the opportunity to participate in its development.
That said, I'd like to share some feedback regarding Alpha 2, as there are a few areas that I feel could benefit from improvement:
Moob
during alpha one we saw original monsters that were part of the ashes of creation identity, like the plant monsters.
where is the ashes identity that we have in alpha one?
have you given up?
wolves, goblins and bandits, i want to play ashes of creation, not new world!
Quest System:
While the quests are an integral part of the game, I’ve found that many of them are difficult to understand or buggy, which can detract from the experience. More importantly, they don't seem to provide an effective means of leveling up. As it stands, players are required to grind mobs for hours to gain experience, which feels tedious and frustrating.
Repetitive mob farming as the sole means of leveling creates a toxic gameplay loop, where the primary goal becomes finding the most efficient mob farming spots. This isn't enjoyable for most players, and it leads to burnout. I believe that a stronger focus on quests could help improve this experience.
Suggestion for Quests:
I would recommend developing a broader variety of quests, especially those that provide players with different experiences and incentives. A good mix of solo quests, which can be engaging and rewarding on their own, and group-oriented challenges would be ideal. After all, while playing with others is an important aspect of an MMO, it shouldn't be the only way to progress.
Think of it as offering two distinct paths to reach the maximum level: one through solo play, allowing players to enjoy the game at their own pace and follow a story, and another through group content for more challenging and cooperative experiences. This would give players the freedom to choose their preferred method of progression, whether they want to explore the world solo or team up for tougher challenges.
give us a goal to reach, instead of just typing on moob for hours on end like a brainless gamer.
if you're looking for inspiration, take a look at guild wars2
Once again, I really appreciate the opportunity to actively participate in the development of the game. The work you've done so far, and the direction you're heading, are encouraging, and I’m excited to see the changes and improvements in future updates.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to the upcoming developments!
Best regards,
The tank archetype is really annoying to play. Not only does it not perform on par with other classes in solo levelling, in group levelling you are the one that dies most often and accumulates most xp debt. There is still a weird thing with Reflect - it sometimes gets cancelled by autoattacks. That makes the only way to recover some mana early impossible. I dropped the tank and started a Ranger instead.
I really dislike how you increased spawn time of some huntable animals by 10x - 20x. The activity is not fun, let it at least be quick. It makes no sense to me and discouraged me from gathering and training animals (meanwhile others took advantage of it earlier and are sitting on 300 pallas cats).
The mob levels seem somewhat randomly chosen in some areas of the world. There can be a lvl 12 Slate Wolf and next to it a lvl 20 one that kills me in two hits. It further caused frustration during hunting as I died constantly while trying to collect animals.
The mobs hold aggro FOREVER and are able to damage you even if they are away from you, just chasing (those goddamn wolves). Could we please agree that it would be better if mobs that did not receive damage from you had their aggro shorter, it's really annoying to run away 2 kilometers in a straight line because some random wolf aggroed while I was cutting a tree.
Ledges / terrain that can be climbed on foot, should be climable on your mount - now I have to dismount, climb, recall the mount and call it again. There can be some exceptions, like aquatic mounts.
Ranger is nice to play, feels dynamic, only the Concentrated Scatter Shot needs more polish as it lacks vertical targetting and misses if the terrain is not flat.
The performance this weekend was significantly better than last weekend, still some stutters and low fps here and there, but overall great job guys!
Last but not least, I think at this stage the unholy amount of grind to achieve anything is way too much. Crafting timers should be cut significantly, animals respawn time should be decreased back to what it was before, mob xp should be increased to really allow us to have more fun with the systems, events should occur more frequently, etc etc to ensure we don't fall asleep while petting a spider to death. All with a disclaimer that it is buffed only for this stage. Then during stage 2 we can increase the timers and lower xp and at stage 3 we can bring it to a level that's desired to be final.
Please dont base your numbers on some streamers that play the game 16 hours per day and have hordes of followers to exp with them and give them materials. I'd like to achieve something fun inbetween wipes too, not only watch others do it on Twitch.
I see you are trying out a few concepts here let me offer some feedback
- Quest interactibles: Make interactibles clearly visible through models and place them in the world. It should spark the interest of a bypasser to see it that is the object they are looking for but it should not scream that into ones face
-- Too visible: Sparkles on interactibles in the world (like the Hearthwood splinters or the lost parcels). You can barely see what item is underneath all that sparkle. Also you see from miles away and that allow brain dead questing which I am not a fan of.
-- Too hidden: An interactible is too hidden when the model does not even show what you are looking for. E.g. the tower investigation during the after slaying the bandit commander. The whole tower is full of stuff that looks interesting but the interactible is a really plain object (trying to stay mostly spoiler free). When you interact with it it describes things that you don't see when looking at the object in the world.
-- I like the subtle interactible indicator that you also use for gathering nodes. It helps a bit while trying to find stuff but not too much. I think not all of them are visible in the same way when hovering looking in the right direction but an angle of ~30° in the field of view and ~50% or less cast range felt about right for spotting an interactible. Please don't make them much easier to spot. This is already a great help as is.
- Quest helper (Map): Use map markings that fit the quest. Think about what clues the quest giver or the quest giving object can provide and place map markers so it makes sense.
-- Go to a place or person I already know or that the person can exactly direct me to -> Marker with the exact position
-- Investigate something in the area the questgiver can direct me to -> marked area but no exact marker
-- Search for a location based on clues -> no map markers at all
-- Over all: be more consistant with how much you help and what needs to be done. E.g: the arch purifier's quest to investigate Warhelm Ruins was very irritating. While most locations just needed to come close to them 2 of them needed some special interaction that was rather unexpected. It would have been much clearer you had to inspect the interior of most rooms to identify what they were used for. Also having at least 2 more types of interactibles in many rooms made the situation quite unclear
- Quest descriptions
-- Locations: We need good location descriptions in the quests and some way to see zones on the map (e.g. when hovering over them, maybe only visible after you have been there once). There are currently too many locations that are no POI and and are referred to my name in the quest but that name can rarely be found anywhere (sometimes the name is shown on location change in the center of the screen but not allways). This makes finding quests currently pretty frustrating. A quest helper is in my opinion just a cheap fix but not a real solution to this problem.
I love to go questing and it is not a problem if I don't find where to go immediately. But descriptions should be somewhat clear (if not intentionally a riddle) especially keeping non-native speakers in mind. Stumbeling across a large zone with little to no clues for 30 mins+ should be a rarity and linked to some kind of detective style quests. Not all descriptions have to be given in the quest though directly. It could be that while searching the area you find clues that provide further information to finding where you need to go or what to do. Great would be to show such clues in the quest log so we can also read them later again.
-- Other: I really liked the scouting mission following the tower investigation in the bandit quest line. It was surely not holding your hand being labled lvl 7 and making you get close to 3-star-mobs more than twice as high in level than you
- Quest tracking
-- It is very annoying if you have a quest that tells you "ask people around here" progress 0/1 like in the burial rites quest. Please give some idea of how many people need to be asked/items collected etc or give some kind of feedback when a task group has been done "ask the guards". These task groups can be hidden until you complete them
-- Completing a task in a quest: Currently tasks done just immediately vanish from the tracker. Please keep them there for some time so you know what task you have completed. They can vanish after some time or you just keep them checked in the list
-- Giving feedback for untracked quests. I understand there nees to be some way of limiting quests shown in tracker and on the map but could you please give a quick indicator when a untracked quest completes (written on screen?) or maybe even updates quest progress (quick sound notification?)
-- Remember tracked quests
- Other considerations
--I really like when I come to a place and see that there is something to be discovered. Warhelm made me feel so very much. Though I stumbled across a lot of items/interactibles related in some way to quests (or maybe even events? Not sure if I found out all mysteries there). These kind of things make places a lot more immersive
-- Some of quests feel too guided now with the combination of map and quest tracking
-- Please remove the bright quest symbol on top of NPC's heads and the map when done with their quests (and no other quests are available at my level)
-- Not sure if commissions should become incompletable after some time maybe some just broke after logout or server restarts. If this is intentional please remove them from the log or at least mark them as incompletable. Quite annoying to find a commission elite mob, getting a group together and then not getting the quest updated
- Rewards
-- Sadly questing (not necessarily commissions) in the current stage did not feel rewarding. Often it was a pain to find what needed to be done (vague descriptions, missing map locations, missing/buggy map markers, resetted quest progress, broken quests). The story was cool and many quests were designed in an interesting way. BUT the exp and glint reward is not appropriate for the time I spent figuring out where I needed to go and what needed to be done. I don't want to do brain afk quests but then there also has to be a reward that suites the time spent doing those quests. If I am faster frinding low lewel mobs alone (not even talking about efficient group grinds) than there is something wrong. In other games quests reward the occasional item but that might not fit the Ashes way of life. I m not really sure what to do about this.
Fights
- I love the diverse mob mechanics and love to see more. Some that felt really good
-- 9th shield mobs and their death mechanics
-- goblin shamans and other poison orb throwers witht he dodgable orbs and the friendly fire
-- agro system of bears (not sure if its just them but for some reason I always noticed it on them)
- I liked the low regeneration rate of health and mana during the first weeks. now with the rations buff solo play got a bit too easy to sustain and discurages a bit to take a bard/cleric or just someone else to spread the damage with you
Crafting
- Please make material inventory less frustrating. I don't know how many times I was annoyed some supposedly higher quality item dropped but there was just no space. I understand there need to be limits but maybe you could allow mats to be downgraded so they fit an existing stack? they would be less valuable but it is better than just leaving them out in the open. I like some diversity in my gameplay and usually I go questing, gathering and exploring at the same time. When I am lucky things stack nicely but more than often I am a few minutes out of town and already playing tetris in my material inventory
- Ore spawn rates are extremely low. No chance to craft myself a whole set of common armor (not even talking about the higher ones). I ended up just buying it complemented with the occasional mob drop and 1 or two crafted items. Not really a great experiance for spending hours collecting resources.
- Trees, stones and flowers where certainly no problem, non-tabable animals were a bit scarce but still okish.
PvP
It is a good thing people cannot loot other corpses without flagging
Additional thoughts
- I love that some of the zones change at night and would be happy to see more of that
hello steven
congratulations on a job well done
however, the game doesn't take the promised path
typing moob for hours, weeks, months on end as your sole aim, your sole objective, to raise your levels is no fun at all.
grouping with others only serves to optimize moob bashing, it's pointless
hybrid action/tab target system makes gameplay difficult to master
it's actually boring and annoying to play this game that has nothing fun about it.
I congratulate you on implementing corruption rules that clearly tell player killers to switch games.
but if you don't add some fun quest to do, a pleasant leveling method that doesn't involve draining your brain, you'll be sending out a completely different message.
the visual identity, the aoc originality we saw in alpha one, has disappeared
we don't want a new world 2 or a lineage 2
we want ashes of creation
we believed in steven, he made promises of fun, original and incredible games.
now we're asking him to keep his promises.
in the hope that you will steer development in the right direction.
looking forward to seeing what you've achieved in the next few months
sincerely
I dont mind the caravans speed to be slow, but I do mind that We defenders dont have any possibility to adjust our speed to the same pace as the caravan we follow. The "rp walk" of our characters is too slow, and the rp walk of any type of mount (even horses) is too fast. This made me spend the chill time following caravan as guild (when there were no attackers, which was the majority of my time defending caravans) making circles with my too speedy walking mount to go from the front of the caravan to its rear, then being tired of doing it and climbing the head of the horse to be able to follow without being annoyed, but destroying immersion and looking stupid. Please change that
Overal first impression is REALLY positive. I truly missed the discovering of a new (large) open world, discovering new mechanics, getting excited about loot drops, and (maybe most importantly) the banter with my guild mates on discord while doing all this.
I personally haven't had a single bad experience with (needless) griefing yet. Even a guild we're 'at war' with was just happily jumping past me. I guess that makes me kinda biased, but I still 100% support the vision this game has for PvP. Hopefully we will get a feature soon for friendly duels. Maybe by adding an arena-like structure in the nodes, or otherwise by rightclicking on characters in game.
When playing MMOs, I usually can't stay in the same place for too long, which makes me terrible at long grind sessions. After half an hour I get the urge to move on to the next spot. Whenver possible, I try to get my exp through other means, but with so many of the quests bugged and resource gathering giving barely any exp, leveling is really slow. I hope that when the quests are fixed, the exp rewards combined with the commission board provide a viable path towards leveling at a somewhat acceptable rate.
As far as other feedback goes, I hope we do get some quality of life upgrades soon'ish.
- When launching the game, the default server is not the one with my character, so it'd be great if it would actually remember the last used server. I keep getting a small panic attack when I see an empty character roster, fearing I somehow lost my progress.
- I've had the problem quite frequently where if I alt-tab, and then tab back in, the game reopens on a different monitor. And then it's a matter of many attempts for it to randomly open on my main monitor again.
- when logging off (or losing connection to the server), you immediately lose your spot in the current party. It'd be great if you get your spot back upon logging in again.
- I've been changing some key bindings, where I rebound my 'dash' ability to shift. However, I now also trigger this ability when using shift when typing in chat. It'd be great if the activation of the skill would be disabled when the chatbox is opened/ active.
- When opening your map, it can be quite a challenge to locate your position based on the colour of your surroundings. Maybe you could add a small indicator/ highlight to your current location on the map.
- A feature to hide your helmet when you equip a non-default one. Because I spent too much time in character creation to hide it under a simple leather hood...
I suppose we're still in the 'honeymoon' phase, but after every weekend I'm already looking forward to the next one! Keep up the amazing work Intrepid. With the (honestly unexpectedly high) rate at which we're getting new updates, there'll be so much more to explore for so many years to come!
See you all in game!