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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.
Feedback 10/5/2025
Jesana
Member, Alpha Two
Feedback at the time of 10/5/25:
Performance
I've seen marginal improvement in improvement since 9/20 when I left my last feedback. By marginal improvement, I mean that my computer doesn't completely crash every time I'm in a level 4 settlement - still does, mind you, just not every single time. Still getting UE crashes, lots of rubberbanding, etc. Still worse than what I experienced in April. This has to be top priority.
Artisan System Economics
I know this is being worked on, so I won't belabor why this is important - you know it's messed up and needs fixed. I do want to point out that when I considered starting up weaving this morning, I took a look at the cost of the reagents plus the processing cost fee and shook my head and walked away.
The expense to level plus the scarcity of gold plus the interaction of drops has created a mess.
Gold Scarcity at Low Levels
I very much get that this is a game that is intended to be grindy. Grindy or not, games are supposed to be fun. Challenge is essential, feeling like you're making progress is essential, and the journey has to be fun. At low levels, feeling as though you are a pauper scraping the street for loose coins is decidedly not fun. The cost of rations is a perfect example - base level rations should be very very cheap.
Catch-Up Mechanics
I'm hearing more and more complaints from people with low level characters that it is miserable to try to catch up in this game. If the catch-up mechanics are not there, people get isolated and feel frustrated. Then they leave before ever reaching the level where the bulk of the population resides.
Death Penalties
1. People are avoiding difficult content. I've had multiple cases where people take a look at an area populated with mobs that they might be able to kill and go nope, not going to try it, not going to risk the xp loss. This can't be the intended result. This is a MMO. We should be testing ourselves, trying tough challenges, and if the death penalties are so high that people straight up avoid challenge, only go up against things they know they can win against, then what's the point of playing?
2. People are quitting fights due to the stat suppression and xp loss. Once they've died a couple times, people are done. I have a history of raiding in other games. Some of my best memories are of going up against a raid boss and dying over and over and over again, working out how to strategize, finding creative solutions, fine-tuning coordination. None of that is functionally possible when the death penalties are so high that people quit encounters.
3. Tanks need help. Given the death penalties, tanks need some kind of talent or something that reduces the cost of dying.
4. The loss of xp is a no-go for a lot of people. For me, it's not the end of the world, but there are different mindsets among players, and for some it feels like their time was stolen from them. They won't risk it - either they'll avoid content or they won't play this game.
5. A suggestion - suppression of xp for a period going forward would give you a penalty without it feeling like xp was taken away.
To wrap up - players shouldn't be disincentivized from tackling tough content. Right now, they are via this system.
The Grind
Games should be fun. Feeling like you are progressing is fun. I understand that the plan is for the leveling process to be a lot slower. This already feels VERY grindy and tedious. And a slow leveling process is one thing, but I would strongly suggest that you include a lot of horizontal leveling options in that case - so the overall slow leveling is punctuated with achievements that allow us to feel like we're making progress.
A wish -
I wish, I wish for secondary archetypes to be a robust system. Give us real options. If you reskin some abilities and call it done, that would be extremely disappointing.
A warning -
If you make this game intentionally miserable to play, people will go elsewhere. If you create an economy and world that is dependent on large numbers of players to function and then people leave due to un-fun mechanics, then you will see a very quick hollowing out of the population. This is how games die.
Performance
I've seen marginal improvement in improvement since 9/20 when I left my last feedback. By marginal improvement, I mean that my computer doesn't completely crash every time I'm in a level 4 settlement - still does, mind you, just not every single time. Still getting UE crashes, lots of rubberbanding, etc. Still worse than what I experienced in April. This has to be top priority.
Artisan System Economics
I know this is being worked on, so I won't belabor why this is important - you know it's messed up and needs fixed. I do want to point out that when I considered starting up weaving this morning, I took a look at the cost of the reagents plus the processing cost fee and shook my head and walked away.
The expense to level plus the scarcity of gold plus the interaction of drops has created a mess.
Gold Scarcity at Low Levels
I very much get that this is a game that is intended to be grindy. Grindy or not, games are supposed to be fun. Challenge is essential, feeling like you're making progress is essential, and the journey has to be fun. At low levels, feeling as though you are a pauper scraping the street for loose coins is decidedly not fun. The cost of rations is a perfect example - base level rations should be very very cheap.
Catch-Up Mechanics
I'm hearing more and more complaints from people with low level characters that it is miserable to try to catch up in this game. If the catch-up mechanics are not there, people get isolated and feel frustrated. Then they leave before ever reaching the level where the bulk of the population resides.
Death Penalties
1. People are avoiding difficult content. I've had multiple cases where people take a look at an area populated with mobs that they might be able to kill and go nope, not going to try it, not going to risk the xp loss. This can't be the intended result. This is a MMO. We should be testing ourselves, trying tough challenges, and if the death penalties are so high that people straight up avoid challenge, only go up against things they know they can win against, then what's the point of playing?
2. People are quitting fights due to the stat suppression and xp loss. Once they've died a couple times, people are done. I have a history of raiding in other games. Some of my best memories are of going up against a raid boss and dying over and over and over again, working out how to strategize, finding creative solutions, fine-tuning coordination. None of that is functionally possible when the death penalties are so high that people quit encounters.
3. Tanks need help. Given the death penalties, tanks need some kind of talent or something that reduces the cost of dying.
4. The loss of xp is a no-go for a lot of people. For me, it's not the end of the world, but there are different mindsets among players, and for some it feels like their time was stolen from them. They won't risk it - either they'll avoid content or they won't play this game.
5. A suggestion - suppression of xp for a period going forward would give you a penalty without it feeling like xp was taken away.
To wrap up - players shouldn't be disincentivized from tackling tough content. Right now, they are via this system.
The Grind
Games should be fun. Feeling like you are progressing is fun. I understand that the plan is for the leveling process to be a lot slower. This already feels VERY grindy and tedious. And a slow leveling process is one thing, but I would strongly suggest that you include a lot of horizontal leveling options in that case - so the overall slow leveling is punctuated with achievements that allow us to feel like we're making progress.
A wish -
I wish, I wish for secondary archetypes to be a robust system. Give us real options. If you reskin some abilities and call it done, that would be extremely disappointing.
A warning -
If you make this game intentionally miserable to play, people will go elsewhere. If you create an economy and world that is dependent on large numbers of players to function and then people leave due to un-fun mechanics, then you will see a very quick hollowing out of the population. This is how games die.
2
Comments
Just as a lot of people likely feel the way you do about some of your concerns, some also, like me, does not want them moving too far towards an easy-mode game. Part of the struggle becomes the reward, because you feel better about overcoming the challenges and setbacks along the way.
Personally, I most agree with your sentiments on the economy.
A lot of the other things can be overcome by simply making the rewards more in-line with the risks. You are correct that people are skipping the more challenging content, but often it is because the reward is either non-existent or very underwhelming. So for those instances my recommendation is make the rewards commensurate with the risks instead of lowering the penalties from the risks.
Your points are well made. I'd like to see them try a few solutions. If increasing the rewards is enough to counteract the deterrent of death penalties, then lets do it. But what they're doing right now is definitely not working well.
I've had parties where I died way more than I would have liked but I didn't notice it really exp wise as after every death, my exp buffer was gone after a 1-2 pulls. The worse part of it was the loss of glint but that's honestly the price of dying....
But to your point of people don't want to do content fearing the penalty... that's not a game problem... that's like saying... people don't want to pvp because they don't like pvping so we should change pvp so they do like it. Death penalty is part of this game and it's not that extreme (it use to be worse).