My Early A2.P2 Player Experience Feedback

Lark Wyll

I'm going to share some points of emphasis from my player experience that were noteworthy, both good and bad.

The Good

1. Overall game stability and server uptime has been much better than I expected. Yes, there are countless issues with server performance, but the servers haven't had major prolonged outages throughout the holidays when most of the dev team is out of office. So bravo.
2. I like the overall aesthetic of the game, especially regarding mount detail and flourish, player outfits, the towns, and the semi-realism landscape design.
3. Mantling/Parkour - I've seen dev streams showing off some jump puzzle mantling but the amount of rogue style adventuring that players have already found to short-cut major POI's is incredible for an early Alpha test iteration of the game. The POI's seem well designed overall in this regard with a variety of pathing options to traverse via climbing, diving, mid-air leap dodge rolling, etc.
4. Player Market Stalls - These have been a great addition to the game's testing phase and given me major original Runescape vibes spamming chat trying to help sell my wares. I dig it. The keyword search function is a nice early feature that makes finding items to buy from 30+ pages of listings manageable, so well done there.
5. Under-Water camera POV is excellent. I oddly think the world looks cleaner through the under-water camera lens and I prefer it. The above ground camera looks fogged over in comparison, but that's just me.
6. Mount Swimming animations are terrific (both Bear and Wolf so far that I've noticed). If you tilt your camera you see their paws doing a swimming motion and that level of detail this early is incredible.
7. I played the first couple of weeks with no audio. I turned audio on this past week and the audio suite is pretty nice both in music and for player abilities. (Some of group player audio do seem to peak too much (Bard flute or songs are a bit grating).
8. Forge PVE area is pretty sweet.
9. Early crafting stations are pretty decent.
10. I've seen a few Caravans rafting rivers and for an Alpha test this is impressive that it is functional. I'm excited for the concept of taking caravans through river canals, etc. like the one currently in the South-East towards the desert zones. I would like to see the ability to directly ferry into town without having to convert back to a land caravan though to turn in.
11. The player UI features are all easy to manage and functional for their purpose (barring inventory issues with managing content).
12. I enjoy being able to capture mounts in the wild and train them at a station to turn into a mount (needs to be more interactive though. Instead of a stationary mob that you stand next to and click F-interact key 3x to capture, imo Hunters should simply need to kill mobs of the specific type of animal mount they desire with a drop chance to acquire the mount. That way Hunters aren't combing the world looking for stationary white icon mobs and get to actually play the game. And it would be more interactive. I'm not sure why Hunting needs a bow tool if all they need to do is press F 3x to gather like the animal is a flower for herbalism.
13. The sky box or w/e the industry term is seems to be going in a good direction. Not nearly as pitch black horror game darkness at night time as in one of the dev streams. Characters can navigate during day and night.
14. The overall concept of the game seems viable, with some caveats I'll discuss below.

Uncertainty

1. Weapon Finishers & Trees - The current trees don't feel engaging or interesting. I don't fully understand all of the variety of Finishers either. It is currently an overly convoluted system for how little complexity there is in the trees. The main issue being Finishers aren't intuitive. Finishers, Extended Finishers, Deadly Finishers, etc. They aren't explained well via the tooltip's so it will require players to perform a lot of testing to figure out the most optimal weapon tree for each. I'm not a fan of the design direction at all. What makes Weapon Trees fun is how New World has their trees set up that vary abilities. Currently the weapon trees in Ashes only purpose seems to be a convoluted math problem to identify the highest output that is marginally better amongst the variety of options. Everyone will look up a guide once its solved per/weapon and use the exact same weapon tree. Main issues for me atm with weapon Finishers & Trees is that they're uninteresting, convoluted, and also largely unnecessary. If weapon trees were removed all together and players were given an appropriate scaling stat buff I don't think any testers would care. They only serve to be a very tedious min/max math equation.

The Bad

1. I will be setting aside all server performance type issues as I don't think it fair to even discuss them in an Alpha 2 test in a critical way. It is what it is. So moving on from all of that work the dev's will be grinding on here are my list of negatives:
2. I still miss Alpha 1. The Alpha 1 test was so much more enjoyable for me. I had the time of my life in the Alpha 1 test. Alpha 2 while enjoyable larger in scale for the map and POI's than A1 is missing so much of the wonder and excitement A1 had for me.
3. The character creator was better in A1. I could create the character I wanted in A1, but in A2 it feels much more generic and crude design wise.
4. I miss the A1 music.
5. A1 Tropics design was much better. I liked the pirates of carribean areas and turqouise water color. It was fun to run around and fish and explore. The tropics we have now are obviously a blank slate and largely regressed.
6. Mount speed is much slower than A1, why? Some characters like Bards and Rangers are faster than mounted players currently. Why are mounts so slow? Makes traversing the world painful.
7. We should be able to teleport to/from any shrine in a metro node area freely at-will in network. Maybe charging a fee to transport materials so players can't use this to warp around with goods and circumvent the caravan system risk. Albion Online does this well. Having to run from one POI to another POI for levelling groups is such a massive pain point experience. The 'Family Teleport network' idea planned is to me not the answer and awards IRL group friend networks too much and punishes the solo player experience who won't have those close bonds with others to use to move around the map. It will be a major pain point later if certain players get to warp around freely while other solo players have to waste 30 minutes of their IRL time repeatedly to traverse a metro node map to get to one place to another. Please reconsider the Family free TP concept / scrap it, and do as I suggested with the IN-NETWORK EMPERSPRING SHRINE TRAVEL OF A NODE METRO STRUCTURE.
8. Gathering T2 Copper ore and T2 Willow trees is not viable in the A2.P2 testing and needs to be resolved so crafting testing can be reasonably performed by testers/players. We shouldn't have to utilize 3rd party websites for very niche remote player gated routes to find these low level (T2 is low level in any game) materials to progress. I see T3 mats everywhere, but not T2.
9. Inventory UI with this bag system is wonky. The main rub is pre-level 10 gathering levels where we can upgrade our bags it feels bad to manage inventory when gathering. Instead of a Good, Better, Best system currently Inventory management feels something like LVL 1 -TRASH, LVL 10 - STINKS, Higher lvl - SANITARY progression.
10. Mob's being able to warp around directly to you when you break LoS is bad.
11. Finding Groups as some classes in Global - There's been a serious fall off in being able to find groups as DPS roles. Its near non-existent if you're a Fighter above level 20. Other Fighters don't want other Fighters to roll against them for gear drops and that's all there is to do in the game once level 20+. So other fighters get iced out of groups and you have a hard time progressing getting invited to groups. This is more of a game design element that I think should be thought about. Should players have individual loot roll chances independent of one another that go straight to their inventory or should all loot drops be shared? Currently playing as a Fighter is being punished because loot drops are shared and there's no instanced content to do to progress our characters and freely join groups. What do players have to re-roll as a mage just to play a less selected class for w/e reason to get group invites? I don't blame the players for this as they're self-motivated to progress their characters and don't owe other players anything, but this is problematic for the overall health of the game when you can't progress your character due to the game design of how loot is awarded and divided. I don't mind rolling a virtual dice for loot chance, that's not the issue. The issue is not being able to join groups because people don't want to have competition for their drops with other players of the same role being in their party. This type of game design favors players who have strong player networks set up and heavily gate-keeps and punishes solo players without the same social group bonds to access farming groups. It will lead to a niche game population once players realize they are being stiff-armed from progression. Its a game design issue, not a player behavior issue.
12. Flying Mounts - I still dislike the idea that there will be 100+ varieties of flying mounts but only a few Mayors that can utilize them.
13. As a Fighter many abilities after use will switch from my melee weapon to my ranged weapon while being in melee range. Probably a bug.
14. Some dash/leap abilities like Leap Strike don't leap onto your tab-target player or mob, but require you to move your mouse to a location to leap to. But if playing in tab target you aren't using your mouse. I prefer action combat in games but if playing in Tab-Target, all abilities should work in tab-target mode not have a one off.
15. The game world is very empty. As empty or more so than the A1.
16. Mob Training - What a cancer. IMO fixing the mob training requires also aligning the intent with punishments. Fixing the issue isn't as simple as making it so mobs that are aggro'd on a player only chase that player and no one else. The dev's also have to turn off the ability for the mobs aggro'd on others from doing any damage to anyone else. If mobs trained by player A can still use an AOE nuke to 1-shot other innocent bystanders the problem with Mob Training will persist. If mobs trained on Player A can damage Players B-Z, then players that grief by training mobs need to go corrupt when they train mobs on others to kill them. They effectively dealt the killing blow so the action should incur a pvp system penalty of killing non-flagged players (which is the whole point of the corruption system to have a control on griefing behavior) so the corruption penalties need to apply to griefers who train mobs on innocent bystanders to kill them. That fixes the mob training issue by introducing a risk/reward penalty for the undesirable behavior.
17. Why do mobs warp spam on top of your character no matter how many movement abilities and dodge rolls you burn to create space? Unfun. I leaped over the lava chasm at entrance of Forge dungeon while running past a Forgeguard skeleton. Once I double rolled mid-air and landed on the other side I used mage blink/dash to almost make it to the catwalk 100m+ away from his spawn point, but the bastard warped like a magnet onto my back for instant massive damage and finished me with a second dagger toss to the back as I was almost away. I don't get why mobs are designed in this game to warp with a magnet onto your character model even if you're a mile away? I'm convinced these mobs could latch onto Steven as he uses GM powers to superman fly away for a piggy back ride from 12 zip codes away, their warp mechanic is so strong.
18. The idea of Citizen Tax tickets. I dislike it greatly. Don't tax me to death ffs this is a game. I don't want to have to go buy some **** virtual tax documents to pay by a time frame or else. What a chocomemy idea that is. Ditch that. Have a portion of market sales go directly to the Node coffers instead. We're already taxed there at 20%. Instead of it being a coin sink, have it go to the node. Nothing sells the idea of a fantasy game like having a fricking IRS tax date system in your face.
19. Fighter Whirlwind ability cancels early frequently.
20. XP Debt is way too aggressive and punishing for basic levelling/pve purposes. XP debt should be a punishment for PVP activity (I'm a pvp player at heart). Why are players being punished with XP debt and Glint loss when a mob gets trained on them by a griefer? This is insult to injury. It takes too fricking long and is watching paint dry to mob grind all of these levels. Going backwards routinely isn't risk/reward its just a long ass grind for the sake of being a long ass grind.
21. Glint loss on death (In PVE) - I don't feel like this should be a thing at all. Even if it is maybe it should be progressive. First death lose 10%, 2nd death in an hour's time frame 20%, etc. To lose half your glint on a single death when a mob is trained on you or your tank DC's and your party wipes doesn't feel like risk/reward at play, it just feels bad routinely for the sake of self-flagellation.
22. Moving from a town to deposit Glint to/from a POI farm spot you're levelling takes too long. It takes too long to grind for glint to begin with. It takes too long to find a decent farm spot that isn't highly contested. By the time you grind for a couple hours to acquire a decent amount of glint, you've probably died 1+ times to mob-trainers and lost most, if not all of it. Players can't leave to deposit glint as it is very unproductive to do so and wastes valuable time grinding, and parties normally disband if you do. Acquiring Glint via mob farming atm isn't RISK vs REWARD its just poorly constructed game design currently that incentivizes player griefing behavior (Mob-Training) to rat gold from one another that other players have spent hours to collect, with little effort by the Griefer to mob train and rat loot in seconds. Glint retention must be significantly higher in pve.
23. Ability visual effect overlap clutter - A problem I see a lot as a melee player (Fighter) is that Cataclysm ability of fighter and a Mage Volcano splash ability effect both mask visual effects on the ground from mobs/bosses that have 1-shot mechanics we have to see. One thing I'd suggest is to completely move away from GROUND DECALS for character abilities and only have ground decal indicators for NPC's, that way visual clutter isn't present and we can avoid NPC mechanics by being able to see what's going on. Currently the visual effect clutter is too abundant melee players have no clue where to stand if any number of abilities are being cast on a NPC. Alternatively if we could have a settings option to turn off all player/group ground decals/ability effects so we can better react to pve mechanics.
24. Selling Materials in non-Citizen Nodes - I heard Steven mention an Auction House coming soon which may solve this point, but atm not being able to list items you store in various nodes is too restrictive. A node isn't large enough that a player can only operate out of one node and bring all mats back to that node without a vast amount of wasted time transporting the mats back to the singular node. Until Auction House is available in all nodes, I'd suggest allowing players to create a Market Stall to sell their mats/goods in every node. It's a 20 minute ride from Halcyon to Miraleth if I want to transport my mats to sell.
25. Warehouse Inventory in all nodes (not just citizen) needs to be expanded, and/or the Gold cost to purchase another page needs to be reduced to start scaling at a lower base entry fee of 1g instead of 5g.
26. Guild Sizes - Way too small. Most of the guild I'm in can't fit in the guild so we have 5+ guilds, its silly. We can't cooperate well with the game systems intended.
27. Guild Wars - Most of our IRL guild members can't participate because we aren't in the in game guild that gets dec'd on. Why is this set up this way so that most of us can't engage with the content with one another? Kind of lame. Why is pve nonsense a part of any 'War' pvp content? PVE players have tons of pve content to engage with. Why does pve have to be the prevailing way to win a Guild War? I hope this isn't the game's design philosophy for live launch. These Guild Wars are just a gathering sim for RP'ers. Literally currently at time of writing this edit, afk fishing in the background for a node war, but I'm not in the main guild so am not contributing anything we think to our score. Lame all the way around from a game design concept. Non-starter.
28. Participating in pvp content like Node wars, guild wars, caravan attack/defense shouldn't incur gear repair bills or xp debt. Losing money and going broke shouldn't be a deciding factor in whether players engage with content or not. I had fun in a guild war once my guild was dec'd on, but I incurred a nearly 1 gold repair bill afterwards. This shouldn't be a thing for sanctioned pvp. The game should encourage all to participate, not punish them with gold sinks.
29. Attackers need a declaration warning wait time before being able to attack for both War Dec's and Caravan Dec's. These should not be instant Declare and nuke everyone. The system currently allows the attackers to get too much of a jump on the other side before they can hit back and TTK is so low striking fast and hard wins the encounter every time. Please introduce a 5-10 second count down for Caravan attackers to attack like for Caravan's themselves when they dock to a destination, and for War Dec's this should be a 30 minute or 60 minute prep phase, not war dec and murder everyone that's afk in town and has no idea that they're now randomly in a pvp threat environment standing in town. Letting the attackers game these systems too hard currently.
30. Node wars are complete garbage. You log in - one is active, you have no idea as a player. UI is garbage for them. No notification. Randomly getting spam attacked by reds everywhere you go. Miraleth is flooded by a Nova Ordem zerg everywhere on the map. Try to leave in any direction and you get spam attacked by their zerg everywhere as a solo player. Try to farm Carphin get spam griefed. Try to spawn at carphin tower, get spam griefed. Try to leave via the West road from town, get chased by zerg covering every section of the zone as a non-combatant because you're a citizen. Literally as a solo player with no affiliation with the node, your only option is to log out and wait for the node to end. This is a brain dead design currently. Solo players get mobbed by a large zerg guild in open world is a frankly shit experience you need to re-think. I literally have been attacked on every section and road for the last hour trying to leave the damn node of Miraleth so I can farm but I have Node Ordem chasing me everywhere. If I'm afk typing a message on a random hill side, their zerg-lings find you and attack you to kill you. You need to enable transportation options for players to get away from being griefed. This is a shit system. You literally cannot leave the combat area as you get attacked everywhere you go. Give us a way to escape the bull shit zerg griefing and get to another part of the map if we do not wish to participate in the Node War. I'm just trying to level as a solo player, not fight a massive zerg canvassing the node. Very dumb concept. Novo Ordem literally spawn camping every area so we can't leave. This is stupid design.
    
    
    
    
    If you keep it this way please have an epiphany and when players log in to a Node War or one begins give them the option to teleport away to a safe zone if they do not wish to participate.
    
    

I'd like to test more but atm with the way gathering mats are limited there's not much to do and its difficult to find groups as a Fighter to play the game outside of when the Guild I'm in is active and has available spots. There's a lot of reasons I'm seeing as someone that doesn't typically play theme park mmo's, for the convenience elements of modern game design. Players aren't gate kept out of progressing their characters. You can play the class you want and progress freely and progress without barriers to entry.

Hopefully I get to edit this in the months to come with more positives as updates to the testing phase are implemented. I've enjoyed the test but there are too many walls currently for testing progression stemming from game design choices.