Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
The 2 Main Reasons people are quitting P2 already
BRAD_AoC
Member, Alpha Two
1.Leveling
The current leveling experience is beyond awful. Obviously we're desperately missing alternative progression paths with Questing and Story Arcs, but even without those features it's laughably obvious that Intrepid put absolutely no thought into what a current player's leveling experience is going to look like.
There are only a very small amount of suitable grinding spots in the game and the mob distribution across the map is annoyingly random. Overall the world feels like it is completely void of any understanding how people are actually leveling right now.
How about grouping up mobs in a way that makes sense for people to pull those packs instead of scattering them around an entire zone for no reason when that is the only way you guys provide to level? How about providing enough mobs to kill so more than a single group can populate a PoI? How about temporarily raising the XP for killing mobs so this insanely monotonous grind at least feels somewhat rewarding? How about you provide alternative mob spawns when you take crucial ones away to spawn things like Freeholds? How about adding temporary grinding spots to service the massively increased server capacity?
Even for somebody that is part of an organized hardcore guild and has a much higher tolerance for tedious grinding than the average player, the leveling experience is incredibly draining and most definitely not fun whatsoever. It really feels like the Developers are completely disconnected from what leveling currently looks like because it's so much easier to just boost yourself up with an admin command.
2.Gathering
The feedback from Phase 1 was loud and clear. There are simply not enough resources to gather, especially copper. And for some reason, absolutely nothing has been done about this for P2 besides a cheeky comment from Steven that there apparently is enough copper being gathered and it's apparently just sitting around in player's inventories. What a bunch of BS.
Gathering currently is completely unenjoyable and I know a lot of people that normally love gathering and crafting, but simply can't enjoy it in AoC, because running around for hours and not being able to find resources kills any amount of motivation to test the profession system. This once again feels like a major system that Intrepid pushed into the game without investing a single thought into the actual player experience.
If Intrepid wants people to engage in the crafting system so bad, how about we don't lock the most basic materials behind hours of mindlessly running around without any direction in hopes of finally finding what you need to get started?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Overall thoughts on Phase 2
Let's be honest, this should be barely allowed to be called Phase 2. It's literally just Phase 1 with 2 new races, a "not remotely close to being shippable" extension to the desert, storefronts that lack even the most basic of quality of life features on top of making the entire launch experience miserable by shoving tons of players into the same world while not providing meaningful countermeasures to ensure people still have a decent time.
Phase 2 is significantly more buggy, the server performance is a lot less stable and the amount of disconnects & crashes people are experiencing is way higher than in Phase 1. Overall it is pretty obvious Intrepid rushed Phase 2 out to be able to deliver an update before Christmas and completely disregarded the player expectations in the process. Overall this release makes me a lot less optimistic about the future of this game if this is the type of update we can expect every 2 months.
Unless we get some massive sweeping changes to these very obvious pain points in the very near future, the player retention will drop massively within the next month of two. And while that's expected to a certain degree because of general fatigue, the poorly designed leveling progression and gathering experience will without a doubt be the main reasons for that drop.
The current leveling experience is beyond awful. Obviously we're desperately missing alternative progression paths with Questing and Story Arcs, but even without those features it's laughably obvious that Intrepid put absolutely no thought into what a current player's leveling experience is going to look like.
There are only a very small amount of suitable grinding spots in the game and the mob distribution across the map is annoyingly random. Overall the world feels like it is completely void of any understanding how people are actually leveling right now.
How about grouping up mobs in a way that makes sense for people to pull those packs instead of scattering them around an entire zone for no reason when that is the only way you guys provide to level? How about providing enough mobs to kill so more than a single group can populate a PoI? How about temporarily raising the XP for killing mobs so this insanely monotonous grind at least feels somewhat rewarding? How about you provide alternative mob spawns when you take crucial ones away to spawn things like Freeholds? How about adding temporary grinding spots to service the massively increased server capacity?
Even for somebody that is part of an organized hardcore guild and has a much higher tolerance for tedious grinding than the average player, the leveling experience is incredibly draining and most definitely not fun whatsoever. It really feels like the Developers are completely disconnected from what leveling currently looks like because it's so much easier to just boost yourself up with an admin command.
2.Gathering
The feedback from Phase 1 was loud and clear. There are simply not enough resources to gather, especially copper. And for some reason, absolutely nothing has been done about this for P2 besides a cheeky comment from Steven that there apparently is enough copper being gathered and it's apparently just sitting around in player's inventories. What a bunch of BS.
Gathering currently is completely unenjoyable and I know a lot of people that normally love gathering and crafting, but simply can't enjoy it in AoC, because running around for hours and not being able to find resources kills any amount of motivation to test the profession system. This once again feels like a major system that Intrepid pushed into the game without investing a single thought into the actual player experience.
If Intrepid wants people to engage in the crafting system so bad, how about we don't lock the most basic materials behind hours of mindlessly running around without any direction in hopes of finally finding what you need to get started?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Overall thoughts on Phase 2
Let's be honest, this should be barely allowed to be called Phase 2. It's literally just Phase 1 with 2 new races, a "not remotely close to being shippable" extension to the desert, storefronts that lack even the most basic of quality of life features on top of making the entire launch experience miserable by shoving tons of players into the same world while not providing meaningful countermeasures to ensure people still have a decent time.
Phase 2 is significantly more buggy, the server performance is a lot less stable and the amount of disconnects & crashes people are experiencing is way higher than in Phase 1. Overall it is pretty obvious Intrepid rushed Phase 2 out to be able to deliver an update before Christmas and completely disregarded the player expectations in the process. Overall this release makes me a lot less optimistic about the future of this game if this is the type of update we can expect every 2 months.
Unless we get some massive sweeping changes to these very obvious pain points in the very near future, the player retention will drop massively within the next month of two. And while that's expected to a certain degree because of general fatigue, the poorly designed leveling progression and gathering experience will without a doubt be the main reasons for that drop.
At the end of the day, it's night.
11
Comments
Just in case it needs to be said, this is not a 'gotcha' question nor an attempt to discredit the effort of your post.
Most of players are just playing today due to the FOMO sense, not to test the game as promoted.
Who is innocent enough to believe that who starts today will not be years ahead of someone that will start when this game released in the next 3-5 years? That's how Intrepid is playing with the community. Otherwise, they would accept refunds.
Rogue • Empyrean • youtube.com/@TebTarget
I'd say the overwhelming majority of people I've talked to in my guild and circle of friends don't enjoy the current state of gathering & crafting. For various reasons. But the most common one is that gathering doesn't feel good in terms of resource availability. Processing being clunky, especially only being to process in set amounts is another one I've heard a lot.
Answering this on my own behalf, but I am not playing the current p2 because hardly anything has changed, theres not really any new systems to test, and it doesnt seem like any of the feedback for the processing and gathering was considered.
I know freeholds are in now, but from what I heard they cost a ton of gold and you can only plant the most worthless of gathering materials there, trees. fucking. trees.
Node sieges are apparently in but this is so far off and hardly ever going to happen for actual testing. so its just not a system i would be able to get into either.
Then theres a new dungeon and new races, both essentially reskins of other content that have no new mechanical functionality to test.
Edit: I forgot about the new nodes, This is sadly the same as the above. Nothing new to actually test.
For example, Intrepid can maybe see that 'only' 2k players are actually consistently playing the game.
But those 2k players could all be 'just grinding even if they would rather be gathering', so without a survey, they wouldn't be able to say 'most people don't enjoy the current state of the game'.
From my side, the count is 3 out of 6, that 'are not enjoying the current', (and 1/6 that just isn't playing).
That said, answer appreciated, I'd guess 'guild' at 20+ and 'interested friend group' at 7-10, I guess.
But I think we'll have to just give our feedback about this stuff and wait, I don't want to be one of those "It's an alpha" people, but, it is an alpha and they're currently testing netcode and max server load, not resources or balance changes.
However, I have been in close contact with the crafters in my guild and their thoughts. There feedback is enough to keep me away from crafting. I am 100% in the wait to see if they will fix it camp.
I'll only continue playing when leveling with quests is really possible and there's more content.
At the moment it's just boring.
then they should add more servers to bring the amount of players in line with what would be expected populations of these regions instead of removing servers.
This isn't because Intrepid will fail to deliver the game Steven envisions.
It's due to a combination of mixed messages from former Intrepid staff over the years and the near impossibility of a dynamic world, composed of unique, ever-changing nodes, providing a cohesive, story-based leveling experience for 200 hours up to the cap.
These quotes align perfectly with the current state of the game.
Personally, I believe the populated servers, the grind, and the limited grind spots or resource nodes are fostering the kind of engaging player friction that Steven constantly emphasizes. I'm loving Phase 2 because of all this.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Agreed.
Quests will supplement grinding, but is unlikely to be able to replace it.
Eh, I'm just used to 'needing to gather actual data' for various reasons. So unfortunately I can't go with 'Intrepid launched less servers and Artisanship sucks so [insert correlation here]'.
Do you know some number of people, personally, who have access to Phase 2 but have already lost interest/hope because of the overcrowding or artisanship?
I had a feeling it might be this way,
but it seems Ashes of Creation still has a L~OOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG way still to go, before it arrives there where i think Sir Steven and his mighty Crew want it to be.
And just like that,
it's like all those " 2030 !!! " and " 2034 !!! " -Squallers and Shouters seem to be more right and on Point than expected.
Not meaning to take a shxt on Alpha Two at all. It just looks like this is still taking a whole lot longer than expected.
What is truly important right now -> is that Sir Steven and his mighty Team don't give up along the way.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
Posts like this don't add anything to the discussion. This is a real Alpha and feedback is needed. IS has been listening and making changes. Just digest we are not playing an early access game. We are here to test and give feedback.
I think there’s a lot of great ideas for the game. I also appreciate the monthly updates and openness with the public regarding timeline and development plans/progress. However the main reason I was fine with paying over $100 per person for two people to help test a game in the early stages (which is not the norm for mmos) is because I was fine contributing my money and time testing a game that had goals that aligned with my own ideals for an end product. I thought the initial gameplay that was lacking in quests for level progression was due to the nature of being an alpha but am now suspecting that is the intention and plan for the future after seeing Steven’s quotes about Ashes being on the “grindier side.”
I would have liked to join last week’s few test sessions where characters were given max levels so the developers could test specific aspects of the game, but these session were hosted during normal work hours multiple times. They were over by the time work and dinner were done so I was unable to participate, unfortunately. I did like the idea of those very specific tests, though, which would allow the developers to test specific things they wanted to work on, provided a goal and framework for players to know how they could contribute to testing, while also providing a rewarding experience for testers to see the potential of the game (max level means the opportunity to explore all the different skills and builds a player could look forward to).
This has been the plan since 2017. It's been talked about to death in live stream, interviews, pod casts, Alpha 1 players have been commenting on it on the forums, people like myself have been talking about it here as well. Every time they talked about the class structure, it's been mentioned this is not just the Trinity but also old school support classes like the Summoner and the Bard. Steven could not have been more clear on this.
The Wiki is a great one-stop shop for all things Ashes, Shinto:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Level_cap
Since it has been “talked about to death in live stream, interviews, pod casts, Alpha 1 players have been commenting on it on the forums, people like [yourself] have been talking about it here as well,” then I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to request that something that “has been the plan since 2017” should be included on the main page and alpha purchase page since it’s such an integral part of the game that most players who are new to or interested in Ashes would be interested in knowing. I also feel that the majority of people realistically don’t have time to retrospectively go through hours if not hundreds of hours worth of live streams, interviews, pod casts, and alpha forums, on top of the new info that is coming out. As someone who isn’t particularly new to Ashes but has been following the news over time here and there, the highlights I took from the newsletters, monthly video updates, and player review videos were regarding the innovative aspects of Ashes such as the nodes, community events in the world like caravans etc, and being a part of developing a city and participating in its politics.
Furthermore, I don’t have an issue with the classes, given that I’m playing a bard and was expecting to play a traditional class. My comment was primarily regarding grinding to level as opposed to questing for leveling.
I am aware my MMO-Friend. Maybe i am just to weak and/or to dumb and maaaaaybe not really up to the task.
I admit right away i am struggling "HARD" sometimes with the english Client. I am NOT saying i give up because of that. But i realise and admit it might make me a lesser efficient Tester. Which angers me a bit to be honest.
Giving up is not an Option.
The most (?) noteworthy Bug i found is that the "Camoflague" of the Hunter sometimes to actually MOST OF THE TIME - refuses to function in any optical kind of way.
It shows my Character as if i would not have activated that Ability at all.
I want to help. But i feel like i am a humble Peasant trying to help advanced Rocket Engineer's who launch Missiles into Space. I am not giving up of Course.
Damn. I had a Feeling Alpha Two would be hard and tough, but it is a lot harder still. Feedback is all we can do to provide help i guess. ( I mean i "KNEW" it was. But damn. )
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
Blown past falling sands…
At this moment the game is unplayable, I don't want waste my time with this, I hoped a real MMO experience doing quests, dungeons, exploring, PvPing, roleplaying, etc., but no, every time I enter the game I'm killing mobs in a spot to get lvl up and I bored the game.
Come back in the beta then before your final decision
Yes but, when beta will come? Nobody knows, I'm thinking with the current game state, it will be in too many years, then your proposal is not valid.