[Feedback Master thread] Alpha Two Phase One | First Weekend Test Impressions

This is a master thread for general feedback coming out of the first-weekend test for Alpha Two Phase One! Feel free to leave your multi-topic, all-encompassing feedback posts here

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HeetCrusher

The world is beautiful and I am enjoying it very much. Understanding that it is Alpha really just wish the WASD was better. AD for me is strafe but I prefer turn on it but the turn is so so slow. Maybe there is a way to make it happen just haven't found it yet. Because I have to use toggle action mode to move all the time. The key bindings are not working properly it seems. But over all just a learning curve and the detail of the world is amazing loving it.

LordXp

I feel like "first impressions" shouldn't even exist yet as the game isn't close to being done. There's no impression to be made, the mindset should be "what technical issues can i report on to make the game better at launch and beyond". The alpha isn't there to help sell more copies or convince anyone to buy into the game, it's to test and perfect the systems being done. Just my two cents.

amvin

Ashes Feedback after 15 minutes

Positive:

Music: 10/10 awesome, I would even consider buying it

Interface: Ability to customize it

Movement feels responsive

Ideas for improvement:

Interface:
Is it possible to change just the width of your abilities? My ability square was overall getting smaller when trying to just change the width. It was like I was holding the top left/right corner of the abilitysquare and making it smaller. I wanted to change it by holding the middle of the left/right squarde but everything was getting smaller then (sorry, it's a bit hard to explain I hope you get what I want to say)

I just saw 3 abilitybars. Feels a bit weird to position them because I had 2 on the bottom and 1 on top of them both in the middle. It would be cooler if there was an option to add more actionbars like in WoW. Also I want to be able to put action bars on the right side of the screen and if they are vertically.

Movement:
I have a big problem with how you move. Sorry for keeping referring to WoW but I feel like it is unbeatable in that regard. So I want to talk about the side straving and the turning. So in WoW it is like straving and turning left/right is combined when you are holding the right mouse button. When you are just standing still or walking without holding the right mouse button you are turning left/right. When you are holding the mouse button you are straving left/right which makes sense because you are already turning with your rmouse. In Ashes it feels kind of awkward when you are pressing the turn left/right button while holding leftclick and want to move. I don't want to use straving and turning with different hotkeys.

Blink ability from Mage:
I was blinking over a small wall down a road in the beginning of the game. I kept the momentum from going downwards and got the distance from like maybe 2 blinks by that. It felt inconsistent and lucky if you get that kind of distance.

Sometimes the cooldown of blink wasn't correct. I clicked it with my mouse button and then the cooldown was 21 seconds even though it should be 30. It was inconsistent, sometimes it was working but 2-3 times it was not.

Autoattack:
When I first wanted to attack a goblin I was rightclicking it, expecting to start autoattack. Why can't you change start autoattacking with the right mouse button? It's not even possible to change that keybind to that. When pressing the right mouse button on a mob, I just get an option for something, I think to put on a mark on it. Enemy frames with a portrait would be better you can click on to put marks I feel like.

Frostbolt: Not spammable? So basically you are autoattacking for the most part and pressing the ability every 8 seconds of something. I don't like if I like the design but maybe it will be ok after getting more abilitys. I don't really like autoattacking as a mage. Wanding in WoW is also not that fun.

Keep on going we gonna make it

xDrac

Since the servers are down for maintenance right now I thought I'd share my initial first impressions and some general feedback/random thoughts:

Flagging PvP I very much enjoy having the option and freedom of being able to engage in PvP right off the bat. It introduces you to the system and player conflict early on in the game. However I would maybe make the room you spawn in (where the divine gate is) a safe zone, as well as towns (inside Lionsarch) a safe zone and as soon as you go out, you can PvP as normal.

Encouraging social behavior. I very much enjoy that there isn't arrows indicating everything and pointing you into directions.I enjoy having to ask around where x or y is.

Visuals. I noticed quickly that to me personally, houses, stations and whatnot it all looks very similar and samey. It's quite tough to differentiate. What makes a weapon shop a weapon shop, except for the one small sign hanging off the wall? This leads to another issue, where I am entirely lost sometimes where crafting or processing benches are, I simply have no idea, there is not "enough" of a visual indicator to me. I also dislike that in an established village like Lionshold there seem to not be dedicated shops. Have the weapon vendor sell his weapons in his dedicated shop that you have to enter. I don't expect him to carry all his goods around with himself. Not to mention he doesn't even really look like a weapon vendor... I always liked how L2 did it, where you entered a shop and it had a distinct visual and music to go with. It felt immersive. In A2 I searched very long and thoroughly for crafting and processing stations or vendors and instead of enjoyable the search felt more... frustrating.

Visual identity, that applies to the game as a whole imo and also to zones. I do know we are in the biome of the riverlands and yeah it's all going to look relatively similar but I still feel like "zones" if you can call them that inside this biome all look pretty much the same with different enemy types, they lack a distinct theme or feel but maybe I haven't explored enough yet. It still feels very generic running through the world and the visuals as a whole just strike me (personally) as generic. Pretty, gorgeous even. But generic. Even Tarisland mobile garbage to me looked more visually distinctive and pleasing than current A2. Yes, I know it's an alpha, yada yada yada, but those are my two cents. It feels like the game comes fresh off of UE5 and it doesn't look like it's own unique game.

User Interface. Briefly, but I'm sure this is common knowledge to Cody and the gang, I the UI especially the font is close to unreadable in certain UI elements and should definitely be adjusted imo. Maybe not using a serif font in all instances too.

The world / especially starting zones feel a bit too "grand" for a humble beginings type of scenario to me. This might very well just be a personal thing though. But if this is just one biome and it already takes tons of time to get from one node to the other, I'm not sure how it'll be once all of them are in the game and there's more continents. I don't mind travel time, but player numbers will dwindle inevtitably one day, and the more people spread throughout this huge gigantic world, the less full and lived in it will feel. Already, some parts feel quite barren and I miss the feeling of TL where there are hundreds of people running around everywhere.

Combat feels surprisingly responsive. I have only dabbled a little with the Fighter archetype, but the 2h greatsword auto attack to me feels too... slow? It feels like there is too much of a windup and it feels too slow when used with other skills or as means of dps. Maybe that changes later on, I cannot say.

Gear Progression. I love that you can literally get a new sword or something as a drop from monsters or some public event. Or that you can buy actually relevant gear from a vendor. And the visual progression is great. I literally saw a guy being Lv 5 with a cooler sword than mine and wondered where he got that from. Or when people run around with actual armor and not the scraps of clothes you spawn in, it makes me wonder where they obtained them. Gear feels visually distinctive and reflects progrssion and I like that a lot.

Those are just some initial impressions/thoughts after the first few hours.

KashQuests

Good morning! I'm finding these server downtimes are the perfect time to compile my thoughts and put them down in writing, so I'm (kind of) thankful for that, LOL. Having been in the test since Wednesday, here's where I'm at so far. Granted, many of these thoughts will be repeated from our latest LoreForged Episode being released on Monday, but I didn't want to wait to get this feedback to the team.

Full Transparency: I was not expecting to love this Alpha experience. I figured I was going to log in for a couple hours each day, do my civic duty of reporting bugs and trail off to other weekend experiences. In reality, I have not wanted to move from my chair. My guild is active, everyone is working together, and we are playing the crap out of the game as if it were launch! This was a complete surprise to me, personally.

General Feel: This game feels like an old school RPG to me, which has been amazing. The quest markers are minimal and the game does not hold your hand. It is a bit jarring at first, due to being spoiled by the conveniences of modern MMO's. Once you are accustomed to it, it feels very good. I love having to go back to my journal/quest text to find where I need to go next.

Sense of Scale: From the beginning steps the game feels massive. I feel a true sense of adventure as if I will need many hours in the game to feel comfortable. The zone is huge, open, and delivers the feeling of danger if you don't pick and choose wisely (risk vs. reward). I had a situation arise where I could have traveled 'as the crow flies' and reached my destination much sooner, but chose to stick to the roads as a safer path. Well done with the delivery of this very much missed feeling for me!

Visuals: Granted the visuals are in the Alpha stage and have a lot of optimization left, the world is beautiful. The character renders at this stage are very well done (albeit glitchy), all the way down to the fabric on my starter clothing. The environments are stunning and the attention to detail is excellent. In our show, I used the simple example of wood to detail my point - rough sawn edges with knotholes and splinters, realistic wood grain, rough edged pallets, and even live edge wood on some of the structures! Just very, very well done. The hanging signs on buildings, banners in settlements, townsfolk going about their daily work - really gives a sense of a busy little medieval town.

Combat: Feels visceral and impactful. I play a ranger and probably won't touch another class for a long time. He feels quick, agile, and effective in combat. Sounds from his bowstring letting loose to the impact of the arrow is just fantastic. Group play, even in a large raid is very fun! The game is running silky smooth for me despite a billion effects going off around me. Granted I play on a very good rig, but nonetheless I am having a great experience.

Nodes: We settled in New Aela and I watched my guild transform that place into a village overnight. I went to sleep working on commissions and woke up to a bustling little town. It was incredible to see this happen. I am very satisfied with the progress of the system.

Improvement Suggestions:
Most (if not all) of these have been reported in-game, but I do also have some general suggestions.

1. F key not functioning correctly on some NPCs
2. Cloaks not displaying correctly
3. Clipping/Sinking of character into ground textures such as rocks, cobblestone roads, and grass.
4. Mobs rubber banding, stuck in features like trees/rocks, warping to your location.
5. NPC's/Vendors not buying my items in town.

(Again, these are general and have all been reported in-game)

General Suggestions:

1. More guild functionality would be amazing! Ability to make officers, etc. (thank you for the guild limit of 50 btw)
2. Whisper function: Not sure if this will be in later, but an essential function IMO.
3. /Roll function: This is very handy for group/raid gameplay to sort out gear drops between players.
4. Which Horse is mine? Some type of indicator, even if subtle, would be greatly appreciated!
5. More chatter from townsfolk that appear to be talking, even a mumble would be awesome.
6. Sounds from more items in towns, such as animals, chatter, smithy, etc (may be there just not operating correctly).

Overall, we are having a blast. It has been a long time since I've had the feelings I am experiencing in an MMO with this Alpha. The potential for AoC is massive. So keep on truckin' friends. You have a lot of players in your corner. We're rooting for you!

Rogue_Si

So right off the bat, the cadence of communication and updates has been greatly appreciated! Huge props to the Intrepid team for the discord posts, the in game announcements and just the general communication consistancy.

Just some general feedback while the servers are down for an update:

Joinig a large group and adventuring and exploring has felt great! Yes, there have been bugs here and there throughout the adventure in Verra, but it's an alpha test and by now the whole community should know that. The feeling of exploring with a large group as Ashes of Creation has complimented with this platform has been an experience that has been missed in gaming for a long time! The ability to create large raid parties and adventure together, farm together, engage in battles with the enviroment, and others without a major detriment to XP earned or drops allocated has felt, just amazing. The groundedness of the game and the weight of your choice, how you respond to others in the social aspect, to PVP or not to PVP, to loot a body or rez, is awesome!

The interdependancy of archetypes within groups has been built REALLY well so far and we still have yet to see the summoner and the rogue implemented and the added benefits and weight of those archetypes. But I have to say that taking that into consideration, party composition, feels great, really well done, put together properly with care and understanding for the group mentality. There dont even seem to be major imballences, even being in an alpha, and it's only day 2. The absolute size of the world (only the riverlands, that I've be able to explore so far) is just insane, it's wonderous, some aspects feel a bit empty and lacking mobs or materials, but right now from my experience those places are edges of the ZOI's, and I imagine they will be fleshed out in the future when other landmasses are added.

The nodes have been awesome to build up, to see advance over time and to feel like what you are doing in game for that area actually matters to the overall world, watching the progress bar go up based on comissions and activity in the area has been a driving force for continued engagement and social interaction.

The quests and commissions so far seem a little basic, but at the begining of alpha 2 while the world is still in the process of being built, makes total sense to me. Get feedback and iterate, polish and really refine things down the road.

There have been quite a few issues I have come across that dont feel as great as the above statements and some feel flat out bad, but with the knowledge that things are in testing, as we are in Alpha 2 and its all a work in progress, I have to say the easiest thing to do in those situation is just type /bug and then fill out the form properly, and dont let it get you down as a "player" put as much detail as possible in the form and if you get ganked by a player or murdered by a mob while filling out the bug report, who cares, it's alpha testing! It'll all be wiped eventually anyway! Helping build up the game with the community and such a passionate team, makes it all worth it! You can see, hear, and experience the determination and drive this team has for this game, and it's community.

The feels-bad-man: Things not being able to be sold to vendors, incorrect quantity of loot/items showing in inventory, node storage stored items, materials etc. disappearing, tareing of the land assets, blinding lighting changes, character model assets artifacting from random verticies, random slowed run speed debuff, are among some of my experiences.

I cannot wait to get back with the guild, with firends, and new aquantiences and build up Verra and report as much as we can while farming, gathering, grinding, taking in the sights and testing all the things that Intrepid has built for us to explore and tinker with.

Note to Intrepid!
Keep up the great work, it may not be "fast enough" for some, but thats because they desperately want what you are creating, keep up the pace, I'll keep reporting things I find, and taking notes!

See you all in Verra and let's squash more bugs!

xDrac

KashQuests wrote: »

Whisper function: Not sure if this will be in later, but an essential function IMO.

That's already in! Use:
/tell NAME msg

KashQuests

xDrac wrote: »

KashQuests wrote: »

Whisper function: Not sure if this will be in later, but an essential function IMO.

That's already in! Use:
/tell NAME msg

Thank you! I should have thought of that one lol!

Vissox

I'm not putting bugs on this list (I've been reporting those with /bug, so make sure yall are doing that.) A lot of this stuff is simple QoL and TLC that jumps out at me as something the game needs.

1) Level of people in your party should be displayed with their HP bar.
2) We need a social tab for friends for easy DMs, the guild tab can be condensed within it.
3) Quests and commissions do not give enough XP, OR the amount of XP required to gain levels is too high.
I understand that this is a return to the slow, grindy ways of the past, I'm all for it but; quests should not be as useless as they are now. 700xp-4000xp is a joke. The only one that even felt worth doing was the horse one. Quests should definitely result in a piece of gear more often than they currently do.
4) Looting should have the option to be right clickable, not just aim and F. Looting is really janky in the way you have to specifically aim your camera.
5) Block, sprint, dodge, AA, should all be moveable to your action bars, and the circular action bars they are on should be able to have spells bound to them, as well as the option to remove them entirely.
6) Quest related NPCs should be more obvious, with a symbol above their heads unless they are specifically supposed to be hard to find. This does NOT mean I want waypoints.
7) Horses should not die. It's really annoying.
8) The open world is, in general, underpopulated with NPCs, and I often find myself running across fields with absolutely nothing in it.
9) You should be able to use an item, *hearthstone, cough* to return to your home emberstone, and keeping with risk vs reward, either on a long multihour cooldown whilst not a combatant/corrupted or provided you aren't holding any resources.
10) Foodbuffs should not expire on disconnect. -9 copper lmao.
11) Fall damage is too forgiving IMO
12) On some older (but not bad) GPUs the game looks pretty blurry and bad. This is because of limited anti-aliasing options to help us dial in our graphics compromises to our specific cards. I would like to see that expanded upon for people like myself who can't afford to get 40 series graphics cards.

Something that almost went on this list was the lack of auto-attack, but it's actually in the game somewhere in settings, if that helps anyone else out. I was getting carpal tunnel spamming those strong mage autos XD.

Overall, one of the best alphas I've participated in. It's a great start.
-Vissox

Falkath

Pros:

- The game launches quickly.
- Ambient music is incredible, it enhances immersion.
- Starting area is top tier, aside from the little jumping stair puzzle everything feels great.
- The map and world design are amazing, some of the best I’ve seen in any MMORPG.
- Graphics are generally excellent, though some lighting and shadow effects need adjustment.
- The starting area is visually stunning.
- Playing as a Bard is highly enjoyable.
- Map render distance is impressive, maintaining immersion at a distance.
- POIs are F- amazing.
- Mob variety is great, however, their density is a little weird. Sometimes there is too many of them, sometimes there is none. Maybe some "ambiant" mobs would fix the issue, like deer , birds, rabbits, boars,... that aren't aggressive but make the world more.. Alive ?

Cons:

- The character creator falls short of expectations based on previews from YEARS AGO. Most characters look unattractive, and it’s impossible to create anything decent, let alone beautiful. "Appearance saves and loads" are buggy, and there are more tattoo options than hairstyles (??). Hair shadows are also buggy, and the hair itself appears stiff and unattractive.
- Server performance was poor, with even a single nearby player causing visual lag and “teleporting” effects. Server meshing technology does not appear to be working as intended.
- The Bard class is overpowered. While balance isn’t the main focus of phase 1, the Bard's class kit is far above other classes. Ideally, other classes should be brought up to the Bard’s level without nerfing it. Also the tomato toss? EW.
- The massive floating spellbook feature is unnecessary and feels awkward. Maybe make it smaller, or make us hold it in hand, but this is goofy and really breaks immersion
- Leveling is too slow. This is frustrating for alpha testing, where it would make more sense to let players explore all systems rather than focusing excessively on grinding. Quests, commissions, and events give almost no experience or are broken, making mob grinding the only way to level up. I get the old style vibe, but this just feels bad. If the MSQ and side quests aren't ready for alpha 2, then let us level boost.
- Some zones feel empty, with zero trees and sparse mobs. While every area doesn’t need to be a forest, the emptiness of certain areas is jarring and doesn’t resemble realistic environments.
- After 8 years of development, the progress feels lacking. It seems like the transition to UE5 may have reset parts of the project. If that’s the case, this should have been communicated earlier, as it would help set expectations. Knowing this phase represents around 3 years of development since the UE4-to-UE5 transition would clarify why almost all the Alpha 1 features are missing.
- The render distance for mobs, NPCs, and caravans is problematic. Sometimes, mobs appear far off, while caravans spawn abruptly at close range. Other times, mobs only load when they’re close enough to accidentally trigger aggro.
- Quests ? Where's the RPG from MMORPG
- AI Voices are weird for the most part, I usually skip through them not to hear them talk. Maybe ask players to voice act for you, or turn them off until they're fixed ?

Caww

seems like a normal game and genre I can enjoy even though it is for testing

SonicXplosion

Guild Wars should not be artisan competitions. Artisan competitions should be something mayors can initiate to drive taxes to their nodes through entrance costs.
Quests need to tell you the amount of steps you'll need to complete before you accept the quest. I will never accept a quest if I don't know how long I’ll be strung along before I get my reward. The quests also just don't feel very interesting.
Commissions need to offer something unique. No one will do something that is nonoptimal in every scenario (compared to grinding mobs). Commissions require you to go out of your way to a place that likely isn't optimal for you. People only accept a commission if it is already aligned with what they wanted to do.
Nodes are completely ran by zerg guilds. This is further worsened by limiting node citizenship to level 10. It excludes basically 90% of non-zerg guild players. It will also get even worse when housing as a requirement is included, and when ramping citizen dues is introduced.
Mining nodes need more rhyme and reason applied to their spawns. There's not enough obvious patterns that players can use to find the spawns they want easier.
Dungeons do not feel like dungeons, and are boring. They feel like places with higher level mobs and nothing more. They each need multiple quests, multiple events, multiple story arcs, and multiple bosses with slight cinematography to them (like firebrand flying down)
Class Identity needs a lot of work for all Archetypes besides Bard:
- Fighter needs other playstyles besides berzerker.
- Ranger needs a more interesting class mechanic than Hunts/Marks
- Cleric needs more depth than just holy/healing, and a more interesting class mechanic
- Mage needs more DPS abilities to support each element. Also, I think elemental empowerment should apply to all the Arcane spells similar to how the mages basic attacks are (for example: frost blink that would leave a trail of frost).
- Tank needs more abilities provided up front to it, people unanimously agree that tanks early levels suck. Cleric gets 3 spells at level 1, so should Tank. I think Tank should get Taunt and Javelin level 1. Tanks also need AoE CC and Clumping ability. Also many of Tank's abilities are broken (Vengeance) or are unpickably undertuned (Tomahawk, Protect, Inciting Strikes, Shake It Off). Also, CC abilities feel very delayed/desynced.
Mobs, NPCs, and Players models are not highlighted enough compared to the world/environment.
Range is just busted compared to melee. Even tanks are heavily relying on range.

Crowigor

Launcher:

I don't particularly like that authentication is required to download and update the client. I understand this approach for NDA tests, but for open tests involving many people, it creates issues. Authentication can crash, as we've seen before; the load balancer or two-factor authentication API may fail, etc. Problems can always happen. Therefore, it would be wise to allow people to download the update or client before authentication.
The issue of logs filling up the disk could be solved by checking for old logs and their size after launching the launcher. If there are many, you could offer to clear them, keeping only the most recent ones.

Lobby:

When we enter the lobby, we are immediately connected to some server, which is not quite right. First, people often connect randomly; second, the server we connect to might fail, and you end up stuck in connection when you could have been playing.
Queues are not so much troubling in themselves, but the prospect of having to leave your character in a deserted place every time to avoid queues when entering the game is concerning.

General:

I would like to see fewer unfinished elements. In the world, you can find many different developments like textureless statues, which will later become points of interest, etc. It's unclear why they are made if they are not used and unfinished. And they may even be deleted in the future. From a client's perspective, this is just clutter that is loaded for no reason. If something is not used, remove it.
Let's not make hasty fixes, like moving workstations. If you need to move workstations, place them properly, not into a stone. All these little things spoil the impression.
Fix the balding issue! Seriously, my character has been constantly balding for several months now, and it's getting tiresome.
Mob corpses at the borders. I think there should be a check for corpses and mobs a bit earlier, otherwise, we see packs of dying mobs, and sometimes mobs appear right in front of you. The load might increase, but random deaths can be avoided.
The XP penalty kills the desire to engage in battles for spots. For instance, receiving a 1/3 level penalty from mobs that finished you off makes it easier to change spots rather than continue having fun. It turns out that the reward is pointless and it's easier to give up. This is detrimental and kills the fun in PvP. Perhaps, tie the penalty to the flag: if flagged, then the penalty is less. This would lead to more flagged players and more PvP.

ShivaFang

I largely agreee.

Bards
I htink bards are in a pretty good place. I had an 'aha' moment at one part that thrilled me where I was using clever retort on cooldown to apply humiliated, and I noticed I cancelled the whirlwind attack that the Minotaur berserkers do that really hurt our party.
I hadn't even noticed I could see the cast times.

I've said many times that GW1 Mesmer is my favourite class ever - and this is a huge part of the playstyle.

Right now Bard melodies are an illusion of choice. Pensive Melody is pretty much required on every bard. Even if you have 2 bards, using Pensive Melody with Resonant Weapon to keep mana totals high is better than literally anything else you could be doing.

Fighters
During the stress test, I played as an archer-fighter primarily with the bow (using the melee attack only when something wandered too close). This feels pretty good just with the momentum from attack speed. However it felt bad to put so many points into skills I had no interest in.
I'd like to see Fighters do more with weapon combos. The Bard's Resonant Weapon should afford similar things to Fighters to proc various things on their weapon combos to make them feel more like a master of weapons. If you don't intend to give fighters actual ranged powers, at least give them more passives or utility so that players building this can path around the 'useless' abilities.

Stat Sticks
Under current implementation the weapons in both slots add their stats to the character. This is bad design and isn't always intuitive - I'm frequently telling the players in my party to fill their other slot. Spellswords for Mages, Greatswords for Rangers, Longbows for Fighters, scepter & focus for bards and clerics.

My opinion - ditch this. Only apply the stats for the actively equipped weapon and balance around that.

Zerg
Zergs are META. The raid size penalty iesn't significant enough to deter zerging through high level content with no risk, and open world bosses that are challenging for leveling groups of 4-6 people do not deter zergs. Open World bosses should frequently have abilities and tactics that will BTFO players that are underleveled and undergeared. Zerg groups should be fighting things withing their level range or face a lot of death penalties - even if they have a higher level tank trying to carry them.

Node Citizensip
We rushed to a node asap to get it leveled to level 3. It was level 3 before most of us were level 10. Another guild came along and the vote for mayor happened in all of about 2 hours before most of us were level 10 (many of us took forever to get in through that initial queue).
2 hours is not enough time for the electoral process. Should be bare minimum a full day for nominations an another full day for voting.

It also apparently costs gold to change the tax rate - the first Mayor of our node lowered the tax rate and softlocked the node since it now doesn't have enough income to do anything else on the node, or even change the tax rate back.

Ael

Hello,

Here are some feedback about various aspects of the game about the first week-end :

Immersion :
Immersion is incredibly good. The aesthetic of the game is excellent.
Splendid landscape, majestuous POI, great ambiant music and sounds, this has been a fantastic first experience in Verra. I've loved every little tiny part of this. From the goblins "Ooya ooya !" (

) to the ability to climb everywhere in order to get a nice view!

Tab targeting vs action mode :
I had a hard time with the 2 modes approach while starting the game. Not being able to click my inventory or skill panel has been troublesome during the first fights.

Difficulty :

On the + side :

I've liked the "demanding" aspect of the game :
- About the mobs. Some of us got killed a couple of time by some crazy whirlwind and poison skills, a good reminder that even basic mobs are not here just for decoration.
- About the need for professions. A faster steed, some decent food / potions / equipement, I felt like there was a real need for all of those things while playing.
- Death penalties, for now, seem to be a reasonable price to pay.
- I liked the fact that we could take head-on stronger monsters with a decent group composition.

On the - side :

- There is a severe lack of equipment (armors/weapons/etc) between lvl 1 and 10. Most of my guildmates and I had to stick with our lvl 1 equipement until lvl 10 because we did not found much of it, despite targeting humanoids in order to get some.
- Some events are reaaa-lly not great to play. I'm thinking about "Pillars among beasts" for example. It gave me a bad "Diablo IV feeling". Everyone around rush there when the event spawns (which is often), slaughtering helpless minotaurs with 0 challenge, and getting exp / glint rewards that exceed by far commissions or mob grinding. That's just too good to not do it in order to progress quickly, which… is not fun.
- Getting specific information can be difficult (in the bad way). For example : I've reached lvl 10 in herbalism, found the guy to raise my certificate, but… I can't harvest higher tier gatherables because I lack an apprentice scythe. And despite searching and asking, I'm still not 100% sure about how to get one. Having specific NPC giving information about that would be appreciated.

Solo vs group play :
I very much appreciated the synergies between classes while playing in a party.
For exemple, as a cleric, getting the Bard mana buff early on was a great plus. And being able to give my "Bless weapon" to some mates with high mana consumption also helped a lot.

But still playing in a group was not mandatory in order to progress, which is appreciated too.

Skills and skill tree :

On the + side :
I like a LOT the adaptable side of the skill trees. I mean being able to chose which skills to invest in, and more importantly the ability to enhance some skills. This is something I'd like to experience to a higher degree, with some additional enhancing options.

In addition I like the ability to charge spells such as Delivrance and Resplendent beam. This is really a great mechanic to play with.

Also, the Cleric skills are visually beautiful. Good work with that too

On the - side :
- I'm a bit disappointed with the "almost every skill has a cooldown". It seems to prevent a deep specialization in a specific gameplay.
Let's say I want to play a melee-oriented heal. Healing touch seems the skill to go, since it gives a lot of HP in short range… but with a 25s CD I definitely can't base my gameplay on this skill.
The same goes for multi-target Healing skills. I'm glad we have access to several options here, but I feel they can't whistand a very demanding "lots of people to heal a lot" situation (although to be fair I have been in no such situation so far).

- Also, I have a hard time figuring out if I do have enough class ressource for this or this spell. Let's say I want to use my class ressource in order to cast a shield without losing HP. It's not clear to me whether I have enough class energy to do so or not. Which can really be annoying at time.

Other feedbacks :
- I very much appreciate the communication effort you're doing to keep us informed in Discord. Thank you

- I did not manage to do some keybinding with "mouse Wheel up and down". It would be nice to have that option.
- I have some difficulties targetting allies properly in order to heal them. On that regard, I liked a lot Wow macros, where I could press a key in order to select a skill and then click a party member on the party board in order to heal them with the skill. Having this kind of option would be highly appreciated.
- The spellbook is cool.
- I do like the commision concept, but it gets quickly overwhelming while having a lot of them at a time.
- I like a lot the node atmosphere. That being said, the surrounding area seems empty (I believe that's due to the space anticipated for metropolis level).

-There have been a few queue and server crashes, but overall I was expecting a lot more for a first week-end. Good job

--

Again, globally this first A2 week-end has been a very enjoyable experience for me. Thank you for your amazing work bringing such a formidable world to life

northie

Disclaimer: This will not deal with class balance, bugs, crashes, or any such things that are subject to change. This deals with the "feel" and some of the mechanical aspects. Consider it more like me wondering what exactly is in store for the game and hoping the answer is "well, it's alpha!" - so take this post with a grain of salt if that's the case.

I haven't played MMOs since GW2 which I quit years ago because of health issues. I know AoC is a traditional holy trinity type game with focus on group mechanics and competitive elements. I don't expect it to reinvent the wheel - and my first impressions is that it certainly won't!

Combat felt okay. Nothing terrible and nothing out of ordinary here. It's certainly not going to win awards for originality. Being able to dodge and guard are a nice bonus and give it a bit more action feel which I like. Mobs are still dumb as rocks and content to watch their pals being slaughtered a few steps away, and it's easy to kite them or attack them from "tactical positions" where they can't attack back. The former clearly a design choice, the latter might need work.

Note: I do appreciate the benefit you can get from tactical positioning but maybe consider giving every mob ability to reach someone out of reach: a ranged attack, a knockback skill, and in the case of flying enemies actually allow them to fly.

Crafting is a big disappointment and I hope it's a work in process. Standing around picking your nose while watching a progress bar crawl is mind numbingly boring. Seriously, I was hoping that after decades of design people could come up with a more interesting system, and I truly hope this is not how it will be in the actual release.

There are no discoveries (aka GW2), no active minigame crafting (EQ2, Vanguard: SoH), no recipe book without clicking a crafting station (or maybe I was just too dumb to find it). It has literally nothing going for it other than plugging in stuff and waiting.

The worst is that it's just so much simpler to buy stuff than craft it - and a pox on whoever thought it was a great idea to put carpenter and weaver on opposite sides of the map and make crafting items depend on both (okay this is more of a placement issue).

Gathering suffers a lot from the same as crafting in being "stand around while looking at a progress bar"... and my gawd why do I have to wait for a special critter to spawn to "hunt" it when there are dozens of its kind getting mauled to death next to it. Not only it's a huge dissonance thing but it's also dumb as hell AND frustrating. Let me actually hunt my prey!

Note: Seriously. Move the hunting bow thingy into actual skinning tool or something else and allow us to skin our defeated foes or those defeated by others.

The World/exploration aspect is very meh. I mean there's really not much for an explorer like me other than the pretty scenery - and that goes only so far. There are no exploration badges, no experience reward or even a fanfare from finding new locations, no jumping puzzles, no "breadcrumb" quests that actually result into something interesting, no finding master trainers, no finding exploration skills through actual exploring etc.

The scenery is just there but not much reason to stop admire it - and it's not even that great! The mobs still utilize a flat plane! It's kinda boring when there's no flying or water ambience. Why are the ravens loitering on ground instead of being on the sky or trees? Underwater is completely empty of creatures, scenery and resources. Sky is void of ambient birds and ground of ambient small animals like rabbits or rats - which btw could be used for gathering. There aren't even butterflies or other insects around (i.e. like in Skyrim).

Rewards feel quite lackluster. I mean I understand that glint is "buy anything you want" resource but I kinda like being rewarded items when I do quests. Now there's very little difference between doing quests for glint or grinding mobs for glint - except grinding is much easier and faster. Especially since there's nothing special going on with the quests. They are standard mmo bread and butter stuff minus the enjoyment of getting something concrete out of them.

Now I guess the main selling point of the game is supposed to be node development and guilds and dynamic world and PvP... and maybe this all proves AoC will be greater than any of its peers and there will be new and exciting mechanics. That being said GW2 already does dynamic events and the AoC ones feel pretty similar.

Closing Words: If I've to go by current implementation I'm hard pressed to see what AoC offers other than a temporary distraction from its peers of which many have had more interesting mechanics out of the box and certainly have the advantage of being established for many years.

Again I hope this is just alpha stage and especially crafting and exploration will be reworked to be more interesting and active. I can stomach the dead world (as far as ambience goes) and stupid mobs as long as the game is otherwise interesting.

Flashfirez23

I already love the direction of where this game is going! I am having more fun in this unpolished alpha then I have had with other MMOs in the last few years. Yes, there are issues but it is an alpha and I am excited to see the progress of this game and be there to test it each step of the way. Ashes just has a different feel to it then other MMOs. I like that is trying to do its own thing instead of the same old bland copy and pasted formula that other MMOs have been using for years. Here are my thoughts:

The Good

- Combat: The combat is really enjoyable. I like it more than the combat in other games such as WOW, FF14, & Guild Wars 2. The choice to choose between tab targeting and action combat really works. As some classes work better with tab targeting and others feel better with action combat. Their still needs to be some work to polish it up. But, it is nearly there and already very fun and engaging.

- Classes - The classes all seem to be very fun. I love that each class has its own unique identity. I hope they keep their identity and do not become homogenized. Every class has a role and brings something unique. I am excited to play with the Rogue and Summoner once they are released!

- Socialization/Grouping: I love that this is a group focused MMO. I got way more social interaction in this weekend alpha then I have playing some MMOs. People are actually wanting to group up and work together. It feels like I am actually playing an MMO! I hope Ashes can retain its group focus and continues to improve it.

- World: The world is beautiful and has a very grand feeling to it. It is going to be absolutely massive when it is completed as the one zone we do have is massive! I would love to see more incentives to explore the world, which I am sure will be added eventually. I think there is a lot potential here already and I am excited to see the rest of what Verra has to offer.

- Nodes: I only got to see an early stage of the node system. But, I really like it. I am excited to see how they progress in the future and how they change the world around them. I already feel like one of the nodes is my home base for me and my guild. I feel like the politics of the node and how they are ran will be interesting.

The Bad

- New Player Experience: Obviously since this is an alpha, I understand this is not a priority. However, I think it is worth mentioning because it needs a lot of work. Most things are not explained to you at all. And you just kind of have to figure it out. I get that the game should not tell you everything. But, the game is responsible for teaching the player the basics they will need to get started and I don't think it did a good job of explaining core things the player needs to know. I eventually figured it out but sometimes it was a pain to do so.

- Stability/Playability: It is an alpha so I expect their to be issues. We all know that the server crashes frequently and that logging in even has some issues. I am sure this will be addressed eventually

- Bugs: There are a lot. You can get stuck in places you should not. Lots of Enemies completely bug out and do nothing. Sometimes things that should work just do not.

- Map: The map is not great. It can be hard to find your party members on the map as their markers are very small and navigating using the map is not ideal.

- Questing: One word Terrible. I get that questing was not a priority at this stage in development. I just think it needs to be significantly improved before the launch of the game and I am sure it will. In 2024 and beyond MMOs should have better offerings other than fetch quests as well as kill and collect quests. I do hope Ashes actually makes a quest feel like an adventure and not busy work. Also since the world is massive getting to the quest objective and turning in quests takes forever. I would rather grind mobs than do quests at this point because the travel time is not worth it.

- Commissions: I do not like these at all. I hope that if they must be included that they are entirely optional content that players can completely avoid doing if they do not want to. And that there are other ways to level your character. The commissions have the same issues that quests do and even less entertainment factor. This is the type of MMO slop I can't stand. I just feel like I am wasting my time while doing these and I could be having way more fun playing just about any other game instead of doing a commission.

Those are my thoughts. I can see Ashes becoming my next gaming addiction! I am excited to see where it goes but I am liking what I am seeing besides the bugs, rough edges, and lack of content. I think if Ashes can polish this game up and deliver on its promises this game will be amazing! So, glad I decided to back the Kickstarter!

Mayhem

Need Option to show buffs/debuffs on Nameplate Above the Enemy like Bleed/Wound etc
(add options later to show buffs like Berserker etc and ability to filter per class)
Nameplate Above a Player should also show if they are flagged.
Add Different procs/buffs for different parts of weapon attacks, not just finishers

Fighter
Sometimes Weapon Attacks and Brutal Cleave don't hit.
(tested with a friend who was not moving, not sure what is causing this)
Swapping stances is clunky because of "cast" time
(would be better to just have an FX with no cast time and usable whenever)
Wallop needs more oomph
Using abilities should not reset weapon combo if you are holding down LMB (letting go of LMB should)

As an example for what i'd like to be able to do as a fighter
Be in Form of Ferocity -> Hold LMB -> Weapon Attack until next attack would be finisher -> Swap to Form of Celerity -> Brutal Cleave -> Finisher Weapon Attack for Atk SPD/DMG Buff -> Crippling Blow/Cataclysm -> Maim

Would allow for more situational play if you know what attack is coming next or when to reset weapon combo.

Action Camera
Target does not swap in the middle of an attack/ability even if you are hovering over a completely different target
Hard to target different mobs when mobs are clumped up
Think a good option would be to "lock" to a target if you are holding down LMB but if you are not holding it down, you should always target whatever is under your crosshair, even in the middle of an ability.
(would allow letting go of LMB in the middle of an attack/ability to switch targets and then hold it down to "lock")
Distance of Clicking a target in TAB and seeing the Nameplate vs Hovering over a target in Action Cam and seeing the nameplate is way too short in Action.

Chicago

During the weekend i played quite a bit, probably 20-25 hours, i hit level 16, and during the entire test i had a blast, for an alpha its an absolute pleasure to play, the combat is fun, the world is big, the leveling is difficult, i think we are in a great place.

i will list all the positives in another post because in this post i would live to give some feedback on a couple of systems that i think need to be worked on but let me just say for the most part absolutely great job so far.

however.. a couple of things i would like to see some huge improvements on, and bear in mind this is a network test i know so this may all just be subject to change

The world
The world looks great, the graphics are nice, the lighting is next level, the water is beautiful, the things that work, work really well and as someone that was extremely worried that the game would not look like the showcases i am glad i don't have to worry about this anymore. However, ill try to put this as bluntly as possible, there is definitely something missing, the world its self looks beautiful but you just don't get the impression that you are in or belong in the world.
I think alot of the assets are scaled poorly and the character model does just not fit in whatsoever.
I would guess this has a huge deal to do with UE5, Whilst i agree UE5 gives a great base and the assets look beautiful for what they are, for a fantasy game it really does the genre an injustice. PLEASE don't let ashes be just another UE 5 game, before its to late whilst the biomes are 90% empty, design some of your own art, don't use UE 5 assets for the entire map, we highly need more fantasy, we need mystery and immersive Ness to the world that we are just discovering. it just does not feel right to go through a portal to a new planet filled with magic just to find it has the exact same rocks and tree's as every other UE 5 MMO released

Niche aspects
Now ill point out i absolutely love the fact that its going to take literal months and months of game time to hit max level/crafting. I love all the different progression paths and i love the fact that we are going back to our roots as MMO players the old school days, But this concerns me quite a bit and here is why.
It is common knowledge that this game is '' Not for everyone '' we all get this, players that want to play this type of MMO definitely will regardless, but the issue is going to be, so far it takes about an hour + to run around the entire riverlands and see most of the POI's, If not more. With the riverlands being 1/18 biomes + the underworld + the ocean + what ever else, the one thing MMO players don't enjoy is playing games that feel empty, i have a huge concern that the game will have a high pop and then drop off like they all do, but then we end up having 100-200 players per biome. This will cause a domino effect of more players quitting resulting in the world being even less empty. For the game that ashes is i highly think that servers need a population of 50,000 active players to sustain a healthy game, i think the current estimates are 5k-10k per server? i could be wrong, but please take this into account when creating servers for launch. Work on the queue times, Work on server meshing and bring us mega servers, Noone wants to see server merges or dead zones.

Communication

i see intrepid active in the discord and constantly giving updates, however it would be nice if we could get updates that are a bit less like you are trying to win an election and talk to us like we are not voting you into office, we don't need politicians, we all understand its an alpha and things will happen, but please be open and honest with us via timeframes, etc, alot of people sat in queues on multiple days waiting for updates just to recieve '' we are looking into it will update again in 90 minutes''

instead of this we would like transparency, so we don't waste our entire day just waiting in the queue, something along the lines of '' we are working on the issue's but this is expected to take at least another hour - 2 hours''

this also happened on the launch night with the queue, it seemed like we had one update the entire night with the {1} but and then nothing else till the early morning, it should not take the community to have to figure out our characters are bricked and we wont be able to login to them again, just tell us we need to reroll ( this was an issue in the spot testing a couple of times so i know it was a known issue ), we appreciate transparency, it may not always be what we want to hear but it goes a long way

final thoughts, test was way smoother than i expected, even with all the bugs it was a great weekend, and i am looking forward to what the future holds.

Sarkgp

General

I know the game is an Alpha but the initial feeling is going into something heavily unfinished. I have friends who played a little and didn't like it but after a few tries they ended up loving the game as the gameplay and combat are very good. When I explained to them the PK system, Caravans, guilds, world bosses they ended up loving the project.

An initial tutorial where you talked about your systems would help all those new players coming in so they can get to appreciate the game. Even a mission about nodes, how they gain experience, mayorship, upgrading, etc. Plus it fits with the lore of building a new world, you just invite them to explore to start new settlements.

Also the quest indicators are very bad and very unintuitive. Also after doing a mission the book icon is still on the minimap, some can not be accepted and it is a bit annoying. I almost prefer visual indicators in game.

Server

For me the priority is to fix all that Desync and bad server functionality. It's not the same to find some bugs that are totally acceptable in an alpha than simply that everything goes wrong because of lag.

It's not nice to cross an imaginary line and see many players floating, a lot of NPCs that die suddenly after crossing, see your teammates or other players teleporting instead of walking, NPCS that react 5 seconds late to our attacks making the gameplay worse.

If the servers improve as the current gameplay is the game would improve a lot.

Own opinion

I personally enjoyed the Alpha and am looking forward to seeing how the project progresses. I hope you succeed despite the haters and that you can shut their mouths.

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