Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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 III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
Seems clear to me that crafters have no place right now
Trikki
Member, Alpha Two
Ridiculous pricing - triple dipping with double silver charges from basic ingredients and crafting costs, plus fuel
Broken resources
Missing recipes
Broken recipes
Missing apprentice bags
Node storage broken
Guild storage broken
Node progression broken
Wars allowing low levels to get ganked at crafting stations, losing tons of mats. Miraleth/Joeva war is now more than 24 hours, guards useless as reds stand in the middle of Joeva killing noobs
STILL an abomination of crafting UX after 3 phases. You changed one slider bar for quantity; now it's very slightly better than terrible
Gear frequency from mobs makes most novice and apprentice crafting redundant
You want testing? I say make it worth my time coz right now you're just wasting it
Broken resources
Missing recipes
Broken recipes
Missing apprentice bags
Node storage broken
Guild storage broken
Node progression broken
Wars allowing low levels to get ganked at crafting stations, losing tons of mats. Miraleth/Joeva war is now more than 24 hours, guards useless as reds stand in the middle of Joeva killing noobs
STILL an abomination of crafting UX after 3 phases. You changed one slider bar for quantity; now it's very slightly better than terrible
Gear frequency from mobs makes most novice and apprentice crafting redundant
You want testing? I say make it worth my time coz right now you're just wasting it
3
Comments
It has improved but its still a mess. Thing that killed me was spending 6hrs roughly to gather, process and crafting. We made two weapons, one for my wife's mage and a shortbow for my Bard. I cried when I saw my bow on the market for 22 silver. Thats less then an hour of grinding to earn that much glint. Also cost me way more then 22 silver to make lol
this is a good fix, you can still keep the RNG but at least its RNG within the specific type of preferred crafting.
Trade them with the other members of your guild for the ones that you want. Our level-grinders have been dropping recipes on our crafters since the start. A bit of teamwork, and you should get what you need.
That only goes so far. IS needs to design this to support casuel players. Week days I get 1-3hrs of game play. If im to keep up with my guild. I dont want to take 1/2 my play time trying to trade things. Unless IS has options that make that easier from the get go, with guilds having shared banks from the start. Most of the feed back being given is not for 2 years after launch. Its what the early game will be like, better that's laid out for all player types, the more will stick around over leaving from these frustrations. Gamers are big on quality of life in there games. Many coming from MMOs that have polished their QoL for 10-20 years.
Right now we are in a gear chase, been watching the markets. Not a very good situation right now, not seeing much in the way of new crafted products. Right now crafters are pushed to grind for cash to craft and yet drops happen during the grind session and then your faced with the question "Why am I trying to craft something that no one will need?" Grinders drop their excess into the market, but right now guilds are consuming most of their grind and are now halfway through their first round of alts to 25.
My major concern, if this is a test of active systems then let us know, otherwise certain expectations are being created that can undermine the success of a Beta launch next year. Crafting was one of those systems that I suspect was being tested, the problem is there is no economy to market products that are made, this is the "Chicken and the Egg" problem of what comes first, Economy markets or crafting?
Some of us are older gamers that go back over thirty years in MUDS and MMO's, we are still looking for that realm that has a balance to it where everyone can thrive. Right now get your grinding shoes one and put your shoulder to the grindstone.
Luck and good Hunting
I'm pausing my testing for now. Phase 3 wasn't ready. I'll wait. If we keep testing in these environments we're all going to burned out when the game launches.
Crafting has no value with drops so high at least until you're max level and start the gathering/crafting game loop.
Crafting is being being tested, (and it's better), but many players complained about the drop rate and they upped it. Good or bad? I say bad, but that's just my opinion. Crafting needs to come before the markets. Crafting progression, recipes, material balances, ect all need to be functional before an economy can even be balanced. This will also include gear drops by mobs or quests... Early game crafting still has little to no value, which makes your overall progression slow or stop. Trying to balance an economy on unfinished products would be a waste, they'll be chasing problems in circles.
I'm an older gamer who has many hours in MUD/S and MMOs. And I crave a game that gives that same feel of some of the MUDS, but this game is no where close to those right now and won't be even. So far the game is still light on the RPG mechanics as a whole. The stats are too basic to be meaningful. It's like they had no idea what to do, but a basic "Gear Score" or "Power Level" to gauge a characters overall strength is hardly even FPS levels of depth or complexity.
Start grinding away to get some gear that you can get from a drop or buy from the market? Why? It's a test, even if it wasn't a test why would I waste my time making an item when it can be obtained so much easier via another route? Because crafting is fun? It's not in this game right now. It's a UI clickity activity.
This is a genuine question; why would Intrepid need to support a playstyle it knows has no long term future in the game?
That's an opinion that's outdated. Currently, any MMO that's doing well has about 80% of its subscribers are casuels. No MMO is making it right now without them. This does not need to make the game dumbed down, or easy. Its making it possible with short play time progress that's meaningful and feels rewarding. Make the early game teach you the game by adding layers of depth over throwing someone in the deep end, requiring hours and hours of reading to figure out small things like how to craft or processs. Making the progression of these things add layers as you progress. Giving tools that support that play style, LFG tools, auto starting people in starter guilds, making simple pug groups at PoI have the recipes you need for the first 20 levels of your crafting, 20+ starts to point you in the direction of where to get the harder recpies to earn. There are so many ways to make Ashes casuel friendly without breaking the game. IS is a skilled team and can sit down and work this out, including QoL things, like markets that point you where to go to get what you need. Over guessing what settlement to randomly try next. Casuels need their time respected a little more. Early game should be easy to figure out with complexity added slowly. Over random drops you could give people options to pick recpies that would be helpful, maybe even have some smart options that detect what skills you are working on and give you a 10-20% higher chance to get something that makes sense.
I dont disagree.
However, look around.
Ashes is not designed for casuals.