Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
A2 Leveling & Gearing Feedback
Leukael
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Here is a little bit of feedback from this weekend:
- Experience and loot drop rate feel like they are conflicting with the game's general design. Ashes wants us to group up to do most things. But recent changes to loot drop chance and xp shares based on level feel a bit too steep. I understand this is to combat power leveling and I'm all for it.
I feel like loot drop chance and xp share penalties should follow some sort of uniformity around two questions: What level range is what you would like to see group together? (2 levels a part? More or less? Make that have no penalty and then apply your template for xp reduction after that "safe" range.) The same question applies to gearing. What level range would you like to see farming gear of an enemy? Try to have that range align with the answer to the prior (I understand some cases will vary.) That way it becomes intuitive and not as frustrating.
It doesn't feel good to exclude someone who is X and a half levels behind from a group due to optimization needs. It feels worse that it feels super ambiguous when considering xp share vs. gear drops. I feel like uniformity on this point would help to make it feel less obtuse. - XP beyond grinding does not feel worthwhile or prevalent enough. I think world events should be quite a bit more prevalent. I understand it is an alpha butt I want to let you know the game is fun but needs more events to pop up to break up the grind. Also, I would like to see board quests be more level appropriate. I am also open to different rewards from board quests like artisan xp or crafting materials.
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Comments
Drop rates in general are too low or maybe im just unlucky.
Besides the early game elite accessory drops and some early named elite drops... ive gotten nothing and am now lvl 12 with the same gear that I had as lvl 5.
Running big groups at church you might find one of two blue rarity swords or the regen ring from the golem boss. Theres not enough "normal quality or green" gear to at least help gearing up.
And killing stuff in big groups is not rewarding enough in general. Repairing my lvl 5 gear costs me around 30 silver which I dont or barely make from running a church group.
Who knows maybe im just very unlucky
What you said is a good example of it feeling non-intuitive. Drop rates are somewhat informed by the level of players in your group. Whoever is the furthest level from the enemy determines the drop chance. To me it makes sense for the game to say "the closer you are to the level of the enemy the more likely loot is to drop."
What I'm saying above is there should be a range of a few levels where there's no change in xp loss or lowered drop chance. Players aren't going to be the same level all the time. That should be okay. We should be able to be within 2 to 3 levels of each other and run effectively to get loot and xp. After that start penalizing xp and drop chance.