When I became aware of Ashes of Creation, I didn't expect too much (it's been 21 years of WoW); I always said solidifying rotations while it can be a test of mechanical skill while looking out for windows and avoiding danger, it's over-simple, rigid, and possibly most importantly disallows for any sort of improvizing (it's hard set only changing slightly between aoe and single target), with that said ignoring this is in WoW there are examples of its development age and having insane funding which is basically: #1 Off-Rotation abilities tend to be fun, allowing for improv and clutch plays, and even unique (which is rare in abilities these days).
So, I became more interested in Ashes of Creation of which one of the premises was avoiding stoneset rotations, and looking into a few spells checked out as competent to me, 15-20 can be equipped which is a pretty hard to complain about number. Also, having played a bit of Shadowbane back in the day (one of my older bros favorites and probably most played), I always wondered why nothing else attempted what it did for at least a decade or more, and secondly, the Bane system (let's guild no days in advanced when there city is going to become vulnerable to this as opposed to survival games where offline raiding is regularly practiced, sometimes even unintentionally when the attackers find no one's home. So I really thought what could be so wrong after what I've seen the game's design philosophy seems to be (given that I didn't look into something that's rarely the case).
The Irony is probably mostly that I looked at what the game is like 'IN THE ENDGAME' as most seasoned MMO players would (My opinion of course). I very muchso didn't expect that (and I'm the type that can stay working on a dense project ad absurdum) these cool features would be impeded by immensely slow (relatively speaking) leveling. Now, we all know some things left behind in old school games might deserve a revival in more modern games, but I'd never heard 'I want the game to take much longer level up' and grinding is almost always beside a negative connotation. So, honestly, even with classic WoW leveling I'd diligently push through it, BUT HOLY COW, does it feel unrewarding: I mean there's literally quests where you travel for like 20-30 mins to get a tenth of a bar of Experience at levels 1-10, then at level 15 it's even more slow. IMO a leveling 'journey' can't simply be spending an entire day farming the same group of enemies, if i were to slow the pace down it would be for the great story arch or I'm getting super cool things like new abilities every half hour (I haven't even looked into what some do) but saying players should enjoy 'the journey' when we have a kit of the same 5 abilities waiting half a day for the 6th.
Fellowship was designed and is popular for THIS EXACT REASON. They decided, hitting the same few keys over and over again for days of work is more of a model to squeeze monthly subscriptions then for any sane gamer to enjoy. Why did WoW receive huge praise for revamping its leveling system and why do they ensure you have at least 1 character that can be maxed out in a day, why does Guild Wars 2 let you boost 4 characters to damn near endgame right off the bat, I can't think of a single game or ever hearing or reading that slower leveling isn't just downright inferior, Again, FF14 has boosts but no free boost, BUT the story arch is HUMONGOUS and most if not all of leveling is accomplished through it, not camping mobs for respawns which btw, with such a system respawns really need to come back faster or enemy population density increased because pretty much every camp with a commission behind (and more) it has someone/or a party sitting there waiting to kill the next enemy that spawns not even leaving you stragglers. Also the traveling, especially early game when you don't know what's worth doing; in fact last night I realized I was looking for something that maybe would have been worth a 5th of a bar and I realized I was still sitting at 90% to next level after several hours of just traveling, seeing this, I just couldn't justify playing more last night. Again, I'm pretty diligent but why obscure all the good systems, I'm interested in seeing what my class kit feels like to play in challenging combat with teamwork but I won't be able to for potentially over 200 hours. Why stretch out the most tedious portion of the game THAT MUCH at least.
