Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Class played: Bard
PVE:
Adventuring
Combat
Professions
PVP
The Finest Adventurer
So far, this is a great alpha. There's a lot to fix but they will with even more to come from Intrepid. I've found myself itching to play through the day and my natural disappointment that I can't. Though I've been a supporter since the Kickstarter, I'm extremely picky about the games that I play and will drop it quick if I'm not having fun. Ashes of Creation is scratching that MMO itch I've been having for a long time in spite of being a consistent WoW player. I want this game - and Intrepid - to succeed.
-- As a nerdy side note: Every time I see the night sky in Verra my first thought is: "There's coffee in that nebula." That one's for you, Steven
Combat feels fantastic when servers are performing. Buttons are responsive, being able to move while casting spells is amazing, and just enough monsters feel engaging without every one of them feeling like a mini-boss, while keeping some "fodder" monsters who don't have a lot of abilities and are there just as sort of an HP bar. Being able to actively dodge spells kicks so many kinds of ass. Seriously, the ability to avoid damage by paying attention is just so... chef's kiss.
Mount movement feels really good (except when strafing left or right while moving forward, which feels a little "floaty"... I don't know how else to describe it).
The environs are wonderful. The world is absolutely beautiful and I find myself wanting to just run through it to look at all of the scenery and see what kinds of monsters are lurking about.
The user interface is shockingly friendly right now. Being able to hold Alt so that buffs and debuffs are explained is fantastic, and even the skill trees are quite intuitive for a game at this stage of development.
The Not-So-Good
I would REALLY, REALLY like to see solo play be more enabled, particularly at lower levels. If you could just do a pass at some numerical adjustments to the XP rewards for quests and commissions, it would go a long way to people being able to fill their time outside of groups with reasonably productive activities and would probably spread players out as well. The number of people crammed into popular group grinding areas like Highwayman Hills creates some amazing potential for PVP but also leaves players without consistent groups feeling a bit left out. If doing commissions solo was 80-90% as efficient xp/hr as grouping up and grinding, it would go a long way to making the new player experience a lot better and help people stay moving at lower levels even if their group isn't online and available. To go along with this, it would be nice if commission boards gave quests that were actually nearby the node where they're picked up, but if the XP reward is worth the long travel time, this is secondary.
Not having a Bard and Cleric in your group feels really bad. I hate to bring up ghosts of MMOs that shall not be named, but the game could do with some slight homogenization (aka, bring the player not the class) around certain quality-of-life buffs in groups. It could be balanced out by making these abilities not scale to higher levels so we don't have endgame class homogenization, but keep quality of life high at lower levels. A Mage being able to provide a mana regen aura or a tank being able to provide an hp regen aura or a fighter being able to apply a movement speed or damage buff aura or cooldown (all of these would be available to spec into and not just stock provided skills) at lower levels would really increase quality of life at lower levels. Also more than just Cleric should be able to resurrect.
Recovery of mana and hp outside of combat feels pretty bad right now. Rations should tick 10 times, but are only ticking 4-8 times consistently. The resting buff also doesn't seem to actually do anything, despite its tooltip saying that it does.
Guilds need to be able to be larger players, or we need to be able to form multi-Guild player organizations so that we can have cross-guild communication in-game.
Add additional Embersprings - basically every major and minor POI should have one nearby.
For gathering - give us an ability to track gatherables on our map/minimap in some way, and make gatherables more obvious in game. Sometimes it's very difficult to tell whether a tree or flower or outcropping of rocks is just a doodad making the scenery pretty or if it's actually gatherable. Just general quality of life around this would be great.
Another couple of quality of life feature for artisans - give us a way to move materials to and from our storage en masse. It's too many clicks right now. Also, I should be able to complete mayoral commissions from inventory that's in my storage, not just what I'm carrying.
Conclusion
All in all, seriously fantastic work so far. I am making it a point to get on every weekend and spend some time in-game and it all feels very worth it.
edit: Dev Discussion #69 - nice.
Positives:
Negatives:
I can't wait to get back into Verra!!!
i did encountered some problems with controls. played la2 for a long time i changed flag to ctr and dodge to shift. it was a bit annoying when character start to dodge when im typing in chat or tryin to split stacks or need shift in any other menu (well i did it to myself xD)
its great to see the quests are the way that they are and not just go from point A to B accept accept skip skip skip
i runed around explored the world reported some bugs overall experience was exactly what i wanted from joinin alpha thx to everyone workin on it.
i would love some directions from the devs for testing. like if they told us " go craft stuff this weekend that what we need now" or "go run around the map find the cracks in the ground we need to fix that" something like that would be great
I respect your commitment to staying independent developers—it's awesome.
I’ve studied Unreal Engine and 3D modeling as a hobby myself. So, let’s move on to my feedback.
1.The main thing that probably worries me the most is that this game is about interacting with other players.
But if you need to go to work, you fall behind other players, and in groups, there’s an experience penalty for those who are lower level.
This forces you to play solo. And playing solo, I have no chance to catch up to my friends who are leveling up in a group.
This means I’m left playing solo, falling further and further behind all the other players.
I don’t remember which game it was—maybe WoW—where offline players accumulated rest points,
which gave an XP boost and offered at least some chance to catch up with friends solo. Otherwise,
the game is over for me; I can’t play with others, but this is a game about interaction and communication.
2.Crafting system:
It's not very convenient that you can only process a limited number of resources at a time.
Tool replacement – I crafted an axe for myself, then wanted to make the same axe for a friend,
but it turned out worse. My good axe disappeared, and that was really disappointing.
3.Quests and the database system – If the player's progress is saved in the database (which makes sense),
there are some issues. At the beginning of the game, I completed the first quest, which rewards you with tools.
After finishing it, I decided to return to the starting location and do some more quests.
I took the same quest again and ended up losing my axe for the second time.
If progress is saved in the database, something clearly went wrong.
4.Scaling objects—this is just my personal opinion, and it might not be correct.
When you mount the cat and then dismount, the character becomes larger.
This might be due to the fact that the cat was scaled up after being imported into the engine,
and its scaling is transferred to the character during interaction. But again, this is just my guess.
Overall, I’m very satisfied with what I see in the alpha—it’s really awesome!
The fact that you listen to your community is also very cool.
Keep up the great work! I wish you huge success and look forward to the project’s development.
9 races, 64 classes, 15 weapons and 22 artisan professions provide a lot of options to help make a character feel like your own, which is certainly one of the biggest draws to the game for me, as I like to really get into the roleplay of my character and use the systems available to reinforce a concept or style I like. However, disregarding that we don't yet have access to some of those features, there are some notes I have on the sort of progression systems in play here.
Weapons having their own skill tree is good, but it's a little tricky to know what weapons are viable for your chosen class. While I appreciate being able to use almost any weapon with any class, I think it would be nice to have all of the weapon skill trees clearly visible on the skill selection screen instead of just the one equipped, as well as 'recommended' weapons being highlighted for each class.
As for professions, I would appreciate if they also followed a similar system. They already have a 'skill tree' of their own, so why not utilize it for the artisan progression system? Like weapons, they would have their own pages with upgrades visible throughout, allowing you to better track and manage them, and eliminating the need for certification quests. Now, those quests could still be used as content, but I wouldn't gate progression behind them since none of the other character's skills have associated quests barring progress, so why professions?
As for classes? I appreciate there's some good variety of classes available, and while we only see the initial 8, I am keen to see what the multiclassing system does to further give these classes more identity. I only did PvE content, and I'm a little reluctant to get into PvP because it's not content I really want to engage with. In fact, the fact that AoC borderlines PvPvE is a bit of a concern for me because while a lot of PvP and PvE content is kept separate, the idea of open world PvP strikes me as a tool for griefing. I would definitely if PvP was to happen in an open space, both parties would need to opt into it.
If we look at Fallout 76 with uses a very similar system, not many people engage with PvP because there isn't a lot of reward for doing so compared to just teaming with people and trading, and those that do tend not to get very far or make many friends. This led to them actually getting rid of the dedicated PvP mode, and subsequently making it so PvP was an opt-in feature. I feel AoC should do the same, avoid making the same mistakes, and make PvP a purely optional aspect of the game.
That brings us onto nodes; I like the idea of areas developing and advancing depening on player contribution, but I also feel a bit skeptical about how they interact with players. Having player properties is a nice touch, but how much competition for real estate is there likely going to be? Open-world property is an intriguing idea, and drawing parallel to Fallout 76 again it's very nice to see other people's creations, but there are still hard limits to how many locations can be occupied. Fallout 76 counters this by allowing you to just move server, something I don't think is possible with AoC, which means not everyone is going to have opportunity to have non-instanced properties where they would like in the world.
Is this a big deal? Not really, but I feel there could be ways to ensure people aren't competing to real estate and can freely occupy places of their choosing without conflict. Right now the prerequisites are that a player must have citizenship, purchased the property, paid tax, and the node can support them. While that is already a steeper requirment than most, what if it isn't enough? Perhaps a different approach could be taken; a node can support any amount of citizens, but the physical properties are instead occupied by those who are within the biome, with priority given to whoever was logged in first. Is it ideal? Perhaps not, but again, it's a system that works for other games, and I don't see it being too out of place here.
For my final note on nodes and PvP, I think the idea that nodes can be sieged by other players is something that not many people are going to want to engage with, from either side. Sieges seem as though they're going to be one-sided affairs, because people who want to siege are going to, while those that don't are... just gonna be sieged without much effort to defend themselves. Not ideal at all. Perhaps instead, sieges could be restricted to PvP-flagged vassals that border territories on the map; much like the systems used in Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2. These nodes would advance quicker, though would not support properties, acting as a sort of 'military campaign' style of node activity. Again, not an ideal solution, but one that works in other games. Now, nodes that aren't PvP flagged could still be under threat from NPC sieges, and could potentially reduce the nodes advancement by one step if failed to defend, which I think is something more likely to engage players that are invested in nodes but dislike the notion of PvP being a concern.
My closing note would be that this is an excellent concept for an MMO, but please, please don't force PvP on people who don't want to engage with it. Nobody wants to invest time an effort into their character, community, or personal property with that sort of uncertainty looming over them; make it an opt-in feature, be selective about the battlegrounds, and ensure that people can't just use PvP as a griefing mechanism.
Thanks again for working so hard on this game, looking forward to more testing!
As far as issues go, there are a bunch of little things that would be more suitably addressed during the polishing phase than an alpha, but a couple core things would be:
One quality of life improvement I would suggest is an option to auto-face targets. It was frustrating in group fights when I can see the target and then realize that the character isn't attacking.
If possible, another nice feature would be to attack hostiles targeted by an ally you have selected, or if that is a current feature, make it more obvious because I didn't want to accidentally attack a friend.
Camouflage: Better protection from wildlife would be wonderful. When I'm out trying to explore and have stopped in one place to look at a view or type a bug report, it is insanely frustrating to suddenly get attacked by an animal that wandered closer from behind. Maybe holding still in general being a buff to camo.
Also, having a more clear idea of how detection works could help.
Gathering: PLEASE have more readily accessed options to replace/repair the most basic tools. Or have the basic ones last longer? I don't know, but it stinks that I can't do herbalism, lumberjacking, or mining anymore because the tools broke and I can't find more nor the materials to remake them.
Another quality of life: Let the / key also automatically go to the text entry and add the / character. It is a feature in other games and would make quick bug reporting and emoting easier.
Overall enjoying things. I think the thing that frustrated me the most was getting jumped by random wildlife while camouflaged and moving around quietly. And also just how absurdly far some wildlife would chase you, even with all the sprint boosts I've had birds and bears chase me for what feels like miles when I never did anything but walk or stand nearby while camouflaged. Players and even monsters wouldn't bother me as much, but something about the degree of abuse from animals while moving around felt very frustrating.
For this first impression I will say I played a mage and made it to about level 10. Mage feels very good in my opinion, every level gives a very gratifying boost in power with spells looking and feeling both strong and satisfying. The majority of issues experienced in the alpha are easily shrugged off because it is an alpha, going into the game expecting a buggy mess like most alphas left me very pleasantly surprised and dare I say a little inspired seeing the progress of the game itself. The game runs well enough though the quests being bugged and the ui having issues that I am sure will be solved as the game development progresses I was very pleased with he experience.
Things I would like to see more fleshed out and improved on (or even reworked in the worst of cases, cons if you will)
* More direction at the start while this very well may already be in the works with the intro quests and such there was a very quick sense of confusion and a feeling of being lost.
* The world difficulty in of itself I would not say is bad though I feel a way for solo or not so social players to get there footing and also feel like they are contributing to the world could go a long way. I do understand the game is designed around group play and team focus but for the less hardcore players (the casuals) it feels like all content has to be experienced with a group and this may keep people from wanting to experience the game.
* The biggest issue I ran into was the crafting system, I understand the want for certain crafts to be timed but the 10 mins to craft enough linen to make a single piece of armor feels not the most intuitive or satisfying. I feel like the time constraints make sense for higher level play especially when it comes to guilds going to war and the high tier pieces that will have a demand in the global market, I just don't think a person starting crafting should have the same constraints and time sinks ( I may not have scraped the surface enough and this may just be a noobs take, but hey its a first take not a pros opinion)
Things that I praise and have some amazing potential (pros if you will)
*The leveling length itself adds satisfaction to every level and the power scale you feel is amazing compared to current popular MMORPGs'
*Spells look amazing (especially lightning orb), though some also have some rough sound scaling and you may accidently deafen yourself when you cast it (lightning orb)
*the fact that you can breed and tame your own mounts is great I hope the amount of mounts and animals that become mounts is expanded on (why ride a horse when you could have an otter, spider, or graveyard golem )please
*the world size (not much to expound on its just awesome)
and finally id like to make a Wishlist or just things i hope to see in the game in some compacity.
*bards being able to use midi files or a way in game to make and play their custom music (could be used for bands of bards to give a powerful buff or some sort to listeners guilds could make or pay bands of bards for these)
* more spells and maybe even spell crafting for the strongest of sorcerers(greedy mage wants to mix spell effects)
* more quests (they do not have to even give large amounts of experience but be more for world building and direction)
* cults (think evil religion trying to take over cities / or npc villages that are normally hostile unless you join them could even go to war with nodes villages. or the obvious pirates )
* a change to the kill credit system, if a player damages an npc before they hit 75% give them credit for quests or even partial exp without hurting the person who pulled. there isn't a lot of reason to want to help someone struggling since letting them die means you do not have to wait for a turn.
* as much as I like the afk fishing, having an option for a mini game with maybe better or faster rewards would be nice, fishing is always hit or miss with people personally the occasional button press receive fish feels bland but a mini game goes a long way ie: Stardew Valleys
finally I would like to say thanks for consulting your community and listening to your players its a breath of fresh air in the gaming industry!
Praise be Steven may your ducks be in line and counted and your wishes granted.
I wish there was a way to inspect other players, with them being notified or not doesn't matter to me. But i like just checking out other peoples gear. Seeing what other people are running. Ask questions about it. You spend so much time trying to get gear but only you really know what you have ( i feel like a lot of people love flexing gear) .I think inspecting people also keeps people honest about gearing up and not trying to pt when you are rocking bad gear. I know some gear def looks different then others and such but I still don't know the name of it or anything besides that dudes sword looks different or cloak.
I know the economy side of game isn't implemented yet or not even 100 sure what it will look like but im lvl 12 highest so far and a lot of my gear isn't good. I haven't been winning drops. But i do have a decent amount of silver. I wish there was a local ah option I could buy from other players without looking at yells for hours.
I was at Highway exp spot and i saw a lot of flaming and person to person conflict w random people and even my party for people taking items after they died. Some people really lose it losing that glint.
I think if you were pvp flagged for x amount of time after looting another player body it would create a better system.
Right clicking on someone's name in world chat to send party inv would be nice.
Or a way to flag looking for party or filter to see people looking vs yelling all the time.
Exp debt for pvp doesn't feel good or promote healthy pvp imo.
I dont know if it was bugged or what but not getting exp on some mobs bc you didnt first hit or last hit or percent of damage dealt didnt feel good. I had multiple parties help* kill mobs only not to get any exp when it was our mob.
Something I seen friends say and i kinda feel same way is i dont consider myself a mega guild gamer. I will be in a guild but it will be smaller and hopefully just chill people who are just out for good time. I am curious how smaller guilds or solo or friend groups will do when mega guilds roll around. 10 friends cant compete in anything vs 300. Or if they make it higher. Idk the break down but i feel like most people dont want to be in mega guilds but no small guilds can do anything to 300 people. I hope that kinda stuff doesn't ruin game. I can see 15 person guild running caravan or something with hours and hours of grinding involved just to have 60 dudes show up and take everything. I can see people rage quitting when they feel like there is nothing they can do vs mega guilds. I cant tell you how many times i quit in ark for alpha tribes wiping server over and over.
oh last thing is controller support. I played ff11 and ff14 on controller and loved it. Would love to see that as an option for game.
like i said all out of love but i think some of these things would improve player experience
:
This is from the wiki
Reactive world-How the world of Verra evolves based on player activity.
Player interaction-Game systems and mechanics that foster player interaction.
Player agency-Systems that grow and shape player experiences in the game.
Risk vs reward-Activities that reward daring adventurers and foster meaningful conflict.
Engaging and immersive story-Tell the past and the present of Verra.
What i liked:
Reactive world
It was exciting seeing the roads change in Verra, watching the caravans go by, and seeing the mayors building the towns! It was also cool to discover how the world changes when night falls like monsters changing spawns. Although nodes are locked at 3 it was still a fun time helping artisans gather and make supplies to fill orders.
Player interaction
Being apart of a guild, we kind of made our own lfgs and groups so I cant really say much on the public side of meeting randoms but so far I havent seen anything outside the normal functions of an mmo. Being apart of caravans was fun though.
Player agency
Armor and weapons looked cool and i could understand the stats and bonuses they gave and how they related to my characters skills. Inventory was alright it took a second to get accustomed to it but once i did i didnt have anymore problems.
Risk vs reward
I didnt engage in pvp and I didnt do any treasure hunting so i cant speak on this unfortunately.
Engaging and immersive story
I love the map, the regions, and the lore of Verra. The fact that youre making your homebrew pathfinder setting into a game is so nerdy and i love it. Seeing the lore and then exploring it and seeing it in-game was very nice to experience. Most classes are distinct in what they do and they do it well. skills have alot of synergy with itself and other classes and im excited to see how augments will evolve this.
What i didnt like:
Reactive world
So obviously quests and artisan skills are not filled out yet and it shows. Quests were bugged and missing info that is relevant for us to discover the answers ourselves. Every artisan skill revolves around the same fuel system and is also hard to understand how it exists at this moment. While i like how artisan skills synergize and rely on other skills it would be good to kind of see how many artisan skills will be required for a recipe or item you are making. Events were also bugged and sometimes gave no rewards.
Player interaction
Looting other players bodies was rampant and caused alot of accidental conflicts amongst everyone involved. Also if I would die somewhere very far away and secluded and then go back to my body I find my loot is gone. I dont think someone looted my body given where i was so if thats not the case then my loot i lost is just despawned which i did not enjoy. I think it should also be made clear that the timer you have before respawning will teleport you to the selected option regardless of what you do. I also see that not only do a certain amount of my materials drop but some of it is just deleted as recovering my corpse does not return the full amount I lost. This is also not fun. I havent had alot of interactions with corruption so i wont speak on it.
Player agency
I get that you want loot to be valued so you make it not so common but i think a wider range of loot for every breakpoint would allow for more enjoyment to be had when getting loot. Leveling is fine but it does feel like farming monsters is the best and most sensible use of your time for leveling. Im not sure if this is intended but if I want to level my character thats all im going to do and that can only be fun for so long.
Risk vs reward
The caravan system was hard for me to understand. I had to read up on it on the wiki to figure it out but it was not clear at least to me on how to do it with the info in-game (maybe i missed something). Exploring the world was fun but I did not get any actual rewards for it. Maybe i find a good farm spot or a good resource heavy area but thats all.
Engaging and immersive story
It was not clear to me that you could spend points on both upgrades a class ability offered so maybe you need something to explain that. While most classes have alot going on for them fighter and ranger are feeling left out of the group. These classes both are said to need to get to 15+ before coming online and I think thats way too long for a primary archetype. The environments are diverse in terrain and climate but mob density could use some more work because its hard to explore the lands when every three feet there are just mobs all over the place. If you are in a high level area this is even worse as you cant even fight your way to exploring. Also as a ranger myself I would say that ranger needs some form of regening mana on the same level as the other classes. People say what they love about ranger is the mobility but that part of the class is also lacking so please take a look at ranger I understand it has this mobile, generalist vibe about it but it lacks identity and what identity it does have is weak.
Thank you for all your hard work and overall i'd give my experience so far (for an alpha that is) an 8/10 and I look forward to next weekend!
Soloing: I normally solo 90% of the time. Yeah, I'm one of those that play MMOs and solo, but I like being out and about and seeing other people around even though I don't interact. If they are in trouble, I help them if I can, and then head out. I expect as I get more experience with the system though, I'll probably group up a lot more. Soloing in the game is fun, but you have to be careful. That's perfect.
Difficulty: I spent 95% of the time soloing, and the difficulty is perfect. I need to be careful of what I'm pulling along with situational awareness of what's around. I died only a few times, but I'm careful of what I pull. In my opinion, difficulty is perfect right now.
PvX system: I didn't attack any green players (not my style), but when a corrupted player was running down the road towards me, you bet I attacked. Right now, I really like that feature. I also look forward to the PvP organized features (town wars, caravans, etc.) and I will take part in that.
Grinding: I loved the gathering and grinding of mobs with some quests. I could roam around, gather stuff, fight mobs as I ran across them, and had a great time. Probably could use a bit more quests to direct you to various locations, but that will probably come later. Still lots of fun.
Classes: I don't remember ever running across a game where I enjoyed every class. Dang it... gonna be a lot of alts for me. I played all 6 classes to around 6-8th level (spent a lot of time gathering rather than fighting), all were fun in their own way.
State of game: I'm surprised the game is as stable and fun as an Alpha. I've played beta and released games with more issues than this. Great job.
Quests: I kinda touched on it above. I think there need to be more quests (I'm sure they are coming), but especially ones that take you to another location to discover another site, township, etc. Not necessarily to every location as some should be found, but definitely more in forcing you to move to other locations.
Gathering: Probably my biggest issue was this. I love gathering but it took a long time to find things that I could gather at my skill level. Especially true of mining. I searched for over an hour or two moving away from the starting area and finally found granite, basalt, etc. In my opinion, the lower-level stuff should be near starting zones to where we could begin working on our skills and get something from it.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful. I turned in alot bug reports on stuff, but the bugs in my opinion were mostly minor compared to what I expected and seen from other beta's I've been in... and I've been in a lot of them.
I've been playing the bard class which I think is a lot of fun and a refreshing new experience. Honestly don't have any complaints about that class.
I do wish all cities can have a river or a pond go through or near it like miraleth tho. The option to put your character to fish while processing so u can do irl chores, aka triple-tasking.. beautiful. Sadly don't have that option outside of miraleth and halcyon tho.
The queues are a bit annoying as I'm sure you are incredibly aware. But I do have the impression that it saves your spot if u get disconnected or computer crashes, which is great.
On the note of computer crashing there is something odd happening to mine from time to time that Ive never experienced before. I have a 3090 gpu and 3 times now it suddenly goes from running at a relatively moderate pace to the fans suddenly going max rpms followed by my screens going black. But I can still hear and talk with everyone on discord and hear stuff from the game.
I've had the card since the year they launched and its the first time I've had issues with it..
But because I gotta do a hard reboot and it seems incredibly random when it has happened I've no idèa beyond what Im saying here as to how or what it causing it. It is an odd one for sure.
Gameplay wise Id say the guilds with people from the PTR are obvious as they are leagues ahead of everyone else in the alpha.. those damn beaters. But it is enjoyable to figure out and learn the game at a relatively easy pace with everyone.
I will say I am looking forward to the npc movement and aggro range making a lot more sense than it is right now tho. They'll be floating in the sky, sometimes you can run right past them and not aggro, other times they'll aggro from a long distance away. Sometimes they'll kick your ass in a few seconds, other times they'll attack you once then fail to attack you ever again as you slowly gimprun out of there. So the npcs combat/behaviour getting sorted would increase the overall gameplay experience by a lot, I would imagine.
The gathering and logistics system Im mostly happy with but I gotta admit, Im no fan off the x amount of different rarities pr every gatherable item. Every gatherable feels like an rng lootbox from other games, except also adds a lot of clutter to your inventory storage management. Perhaps Im alone in this but I hate dealing with inventory management. Trying to sort and store a million different items and remember where you put them all afterwards.. one of the reasons I quit new world fairly fast and most survival games fairly early, lol. 10 minutes into the game and you got 30 small storage boxes with 120 different items in them.. fuck that.
Personally I think maybe it would be more fun to drop the different rarities and instead add different ores/flowers etc to the world so that you immediately and from afar can recognize a really rare gatherable and get the excitement/anxiety about rushing over to gather it before anyone else. Plus if someone sees you.. some incentive for pvp right there isnt it? because they know you just picked up a really good resource that they wanted. I like that approach a lot more, but perhaps Im ignorant of some obvious problems with that approach.
Yeah.. think that kinda sums it up. Overall great impression. Tons of things that needs improvement ofc but the vast majority of these I see happening down the line as its not really alpha focused material.
Janky npcs, janky mount movement, that one aspect of the gathering system.. yeah think that sums it up for now. I am only lvl 12 tho. Plenty I havent seen yet.
PS: I would absolutely love for you guys to add a similar music system as they have in new world where you can pick up instruments and search the world for sheet music to play solo, duo, trio or full band in stepmania style with other people. Albeit I hope if you do, you'll work it out a bit more than they did. More meaningful buffs f.ex :P I swear I loved to stand around in town and play their musical minigame as I was buffing people and every once in a blue moon be tipped for my troubles by a random player.
Alright, thanks for all your hard work. You are my only hope for this genre and I'm very grateful for you x) love from norway
Crafting/Architecture: From this weekend, the crafting system seemed like a placeholder implementation from its clunkiness and ineffectiveness to support a user-friendly experience. I understand the stations for different crafts but I should be going to specific places of the city like the Valley of Spirits in World of Warcraft for herbalism, mage skills, first aid, and cooking. A pure kind of feel for a pure kind of craft. The Shadow of Cleft depicts an almost opposite to the Valley of Spirits IN THE SAME CITY. Completely different aura, feel, vibe then the Sand City shown in the loading screen of the Alpha II Phase I test this weekend. It is okay for contrasting color scheming and templates for THE SAME AREA. The general theme for a specific zone like Duskwood being dark and light filtering is scattered amongst the thick foliage above.
These are all statements knowing that the zone and cosmetic effects like city model coloration will come in time. It is important though at this stage to DELINEATE from New World architecture of a cozy wooden brick town w/ celebrative flags across buildingtops.
Steven has a new game and can really make the architecture of the game CRAZY with unreal. Visual effects should be stacked or patterned to create creative signature that could be added to each unique zone/city/landmark. Landmarks should be HUGE and GLORIOUS and MAGNIFICENT like the fellowship of the ring witnessing the raw formidableness of The Argonath.
WHAT I LIKED FROM THIS WEEKEND:
Landmarks/Skybox/Soundtrack: Oh my goodness Monday night the skybox exploded with color and constellations of a phoenix, among other constellations. The use of the large planet in the last night cycle prior to server shutdown took me back to the legendary BC Outlands skybox. An orbiting asteroid field and flickering aurora borealis would be very interesting incorporation. Random night skybox events would have me playing the game just to charter stars and watch shooting stars and random events (maybe extravyrrestrial entities flying around in very random events?).
Seeing the HUGE ROARING BEAR HEAD ROCKFACE made me literally cheer out loud irl because I was waiting for a landmark to really knock me out of my boots and impress me. Half of my love of MMORPGS like DAoC, Everquest, Vanilla/BC/WOTLK WoW was just appreciating the random models thrown in by devs that would maybe tell a story of what happened in random wooded areas as I grind boars in the forest.
These random things make the gamer imagine that there is WAY MORE to the world of Verra then what meets the eye. I'm all about stopping and smelling the roses and I really hope that with such a big map that non-procedurally generated easter eggs (or just random environmental/objects that tell stories) are found randomly while exploring the world.
I loved leveling during the weekend but the best moment came from summiting one of the tallest southwest by south mountains and just as I reached the crescent of sunray filtering at the very top of the mountain I was met with a swelling climax of game soundtrack music. I hope to god that the team can find a great composer like Jeremy Soule who spoiled an entire generation with one of the best OST singles of all time-"Secunda" from Skyrim OST. The music of MMORPGS fill the user with vibes that only contribute to playability. Ever wonder why people love walking into SW even after logging thousands of hours into the game? The grandeur EVEN IN CARTOON STYLE art of the SW bridge accompanied by the Stormwind OST song hooked millions for the love of the game.
I would also love to see more transition from wilderness to city. Going straight from wilderness to a city reminds me of New World. I never felt like I was small in a New World city. Even in 2004 blizzard made EVERY SINGLE CAPITAL CITY feel like you were lost! And you did get lost! A lot!
I want to feel like I don't know anything in a game based on layering and complexity of combat, social interaction with other players, and the use of MULTI SIZE MODELS NOT JUST SMALL AND BOSS SIZE mobs. Nagrand in WoW made extremely good use of using all sizes of model thanks to its openness and flatness. I would like to see more roaming models, like the cozy use of Stitches who patrolled Duskwood and was instantly made into a video game reference legend. Even the use of random lore implementation like the huge elite dragon in Duskwood was enough to spike the curiosity of even the highest-IQ Halo 3 Gamer fuel geek of the time.
The Community: The server self-monitored itself pretty well for no ignore system being in place. If someone talked too much in Global, the self-policing of players would eventually correct the problem. I am trusting in the good-hearted nature of human beings to reign supreme and hopefully we can get Asmon back in.
Everyone was extremely friendly and I felt very welcome to be a part of the test. This alpha makes me feel like I am finally part of a game that I have been following for 7 years. My main suggestion would be to experiment with different art styles, cartoonish art can and was made into fantastical areas of interest in a zone and were players would often commune in older MMORPG's. A giant bioluminescent pool in a cave for a fishing meetup spot unique to a capital city would provide hubs for players to meet up and talk will doing something productive at the same time. Another idea would be specific PvP area like the sewer in Dalaran that seemed to fit with RP standards as a derelict zone that was not policed by Dalaran law enforcement.
Thank you Intreprid Team, Steven and Margaret for all of your continual hard work! I hope this is a game I will be able to play for the rest of my life like classic WoW, a game that became a part of my life because of the love and enjoyment that it created.
P.S. THANK YOU FOR ADDING SKY EFFECTS ON PATCH YESTERDAY (11/12) This weekend I moved my camera to the sky when I needed to do things around the house. I could play this game just to stare at the skies. I love the concept of a changing nightscape with easter eggs and plenty of intricacies (constellation rotation, faux orbital/moon cycles, etc.).
First, I want to say that I’ve spent a lot of time with the game this weekend, especially on the crafting system, and I can see the immense potential it has. I really appreciate each materials having it's own quality (common, uncommon, rare...) – it’s a fantastic system that adds depth and excitement!
Now, onto a few areas where I feel improvements could be made, especially regarding the professions.
Professions Balance: Gathering is challenging, which I expected, and it does feel quite rewarding. For example, collecting Epic Copper was a thrilling moment – it’s these highs that make gathering worthwhile! However, processing feels disproportionately advantageous. The way it’s set up, you can simply queue items while doing something else, which doesn’t demand much effort yet is mandatory for gear crafting. This creates a situation where processing is the most logical profession choice, which may lead to an imbalance in the professions system. Adjusting the time requirements or rewards could help make all professions feel equally viable.
Crafting itself is enjoyable but feels a bit limited in the early stages. I’m optimistic it will expand as the game progresses. However, the prospect of specializing in one craft is daunting if the economic incentives aren’t there. It would be wonderful if the gear economy could be designed to ensure that crafted items retain demand long-term.
Experience Leveling in Professions: Leveling experience for professions could use a little fine-tuning. For example, while I reached level 15-16 in lumberjack, my carpentry skills lagged far behind, even after using the materials for crafting. It feels counterintuitive, and it would be great if crafting higher-quality items provided higher experience gains, to make progression feel more rewarding. This would also add depth to the economic system, where higher-quality materials that aren't top tier hold more value. Right now I see very little needs for uncommon quality materials compared to common quality into the late game for exemple.
Rewards in Crafting: I understand that crafting is a journey with its own rewards, but at times, it feels underwhelming. For instance, after putting in a lot of effort to craft a Rare Copper Longbow, I found a common level 10 bow from a merchant that was significantly stronger. That wasn't a good feeling, especially that by the time I got that Rare copper bow, I was already level 9! A better balance of crafted gear versus merchant-sold items would make crafting feel more fulfilling, especially during the leveling stages.
Economy and Marketplace: Currently, gold feels undervalued in player trades from what I've experienced, and the lack of a global marketplace might be contributing to this. Without a central market, players rely heavily on bartering for materials, which can feel restrictive. I understand this might be intended to create localized economies, but I’m concerned it might lead to third-party sites filling that role.
Additional Notes:
Combat feels smooth, and the skill trees are fun to explore!
Boss commission quests could use a bit more attention in terms of rewards to make them feel worthwhile.
It would be helpful if mobs and players rendered at a greater distance to enhance immersion.
Space around Settlement/Villages feels a bit empty. Perhaps adding more environmental elements that evolve as nodes grow could make each area feel more unique.
Copper is very hard to come by – a slight increase in its availability might help the flow of crafting. Again, I don't know how this translate late game.
Overall, the game has so much potential, and I’m excited to see where it goes from here. Thanks for all the hard work – I’m looking forward to future updates!
Best,
Exp in groups massively overtuned
Loot after 3 level difference feels horrible
Mana feels absolutely Horrible.
if the servers arent at 100% then the creatures are non reactive unless you stand on their face and wait 5 seconds
Artisans are a placeholder, but their current state is completely ignorable and disrespects your time investment
Mana feels horrible
Exploiters who do it maliciously and continue to abuse get away with it, like Enveous guild, knowing they are to buddy buddy with intrepid for action to be taken, we all see it. WE ALL SEE IT.
Mana feels bad.
Game shows promise for the future
MANA BAD
I'd like to preface this post by saying that so far I only played the Bard Archetype and made it to level 20 in a single weekend exclusively mob grinding in an organized guild. Below I'm listing a collection of topics I'd like to share my opinion about. This however does not mean this includes absolutely everything, but rather the most obvious or most impactful point so far.
Before we get into some of the negatives, I'd like to point out that the actual moment to moment gameplay already feels pretty solid. For the most part, combat and movement feels responsive, abilities are satisfying to press and class identities are strong when playing in a group. Obviously animations and VFX still need more work, but the initial impression is pretty good, especially for the Alpha state we're in.
While the Skill trees for Archetypes feel pretty robust already, the Skill trees for weapons feel extremely generic and uninspired. Considering how basic attacks play somewhat of a big role in your rotation, I think the current direction for the Weapon Skill tree is very underwhelming.
While some of the keystone passives like "Refreshing Followthrough" feel like impactful upgrades, a lot of the smaller "+1%" buffs probably need to be condensed into more gameplay altering passives, instead of minor buffs. I also think Weapons should provide a couple of active abilities to use, which not only would improve the currently extremely lackluster build variety, but also create distinct identities for weapons.
The current UI is, bluntly said, really bad. Font Sizing is laughably small, UX is not very intuitive and a lot of UI interactions feel very unresponsive. The map specifically needs A LOT of love. The UI is also missing a lot of essential quality of life features like sorting or quick splitting. I won't go too much into detail here though since Steven already stated multiple times that the UI is still heavily Work in Progress. For now the UI is functional.
This is a big one. I'm not sure on the exact formula for grouping, but it is WAY too restrictive as it stands. If Ashes is supposed to be a social MMO where incentivizing grouping is a major effort of Intrepid, it should be made very easy for players to actually form those groups.
As it currently stands, this is not the case whatsoever. The level difference in the group needs to be absolutely minimal for groups to gain the full amount of experience, which means that if one or more players in your group is not available as much as the rest of the group, you quickly out level those players and are unable to form a proper group with them again without sacrificing a lot of experience.
When people were allowed to level as raid groups, the game felt extremely social because you were always able to fit in an extra player that might not have a group, but after this change you more or less have to have a perfectly set up group at all times. These two issues compounded into a massive feeling of exclusivity within guilds this weekend, which really hurt the first impression of the game for a lot of the Wave 1 Keyholders.
If I could adjust the current systems, I'd allow for 2 groups with a max of 16 players to level together and allow players within 5-8 levels with each other to play together, both without a massive XP cut. I get that the intended design is to play as party sizes of 8, but the way it's set up right now just doesn't feel good at all.
Another controversial topic that has been brought up a lot is the viability of solo play vs group play. Generally speaking playing as a group should be the vastly more efficient (and fun) way to engage with the game's various systems. However, I think there just needs to be a viable path for solo players to do stuff in the game and progress. It obviously should be inferior to playing as a group XP wise, but as it stands, playing solo doesn't feel like a very valid option for the vast majority of players.
I know there are people out there that manage to level up at a decent pace playing solo, but usually those players are more advanced players that have the necessary skill to pull off that more unforgiving way of progressing. Looking at more casual players though that the game will most definitely need to populate the servers, you can already tell how disheartening the current experience is for those types of players and I think that's a huge issue for the longevity of the game. We're obviously still missing a lot of key features like Questing that could help to alleviate this issue, but I thought I include it as food for thought in this post.
To touch up on Questing real quick. Questing is obviously unfinished, is not nearly rewarding enough, suffers from a major lack of direction and overwhelms the player with way too much unnecessary text. It might not fit the traditionally more classic approach of the game, but I think Quest NPCs should have clear quest markers above their head that also change based on the progress of the quest and varies visually based on the type of quest.
If questing is supposed to be a somewhat viable path to progress, there need to be a lot more Quality of Life and UI features to properly inform players where to start quests, how to actually finish the quest and where to hand the quests in.
Leveling is truly a throwback to more classic MMOs and I personally enjoy the slower progress. Getting levels feels exceptionally rewarding and I think it's in a good spot. Obviously the activities you're participating in currently to level are very one dimensional, but that should be fixed with more systems coming online.
The current Alpha 2 map already feels pretty extensive and as players have noticed it takes a good amount of time to traverse the map. I think generally this travel time really helps with immersion and the feeling of being in a big open world. However as the map expands with new biomes, I think it could slowly turn into an issue, where travelling becomes so excessively long that it disincentivizes people from ever moving around the map. If my friends are grinding in a spot that takes me 40 minutes to run to, is this really going to be a fun experience for me? Probably not.
That being said, I'm aware Intrepid is planning to add a very limited amount of fast travel through scientific nodes, and I also want to note that I'm not asking for instantaneous convenient fast travel all around the map, but rather a more reliant way to traverse large stretches of the map through a soft travel system. Think flight paths or Zeppelins in World of Warcraft (Maybe a form of faster Caravan on rails). The time to traverse would still be somewhat substantial (10m from one side of the Riverlands to the other side f.e.), but definitely lead to less fatigue.
Mounts in the current state feel really clunky. I know there are plans to expand the Mount system with "equippable" items and other additions through animal husbandry, but I'm personally not a big fan of the way the mounts work in general. Having to summon your mount before being able to mount it and then having to dismiss your mount first before being able to summon it again to then mount it feels extremely clunky.
I can also imagine that the added entities through summoning mounts could massively impact the game's performance negatively. I honestly think World of Warcraft's or New World's Mount systems are a lot more fun to use where you instantly sit on your mount when summoning it, but I can see how people would have different takes on that.
One of the things I've heard a lot is that Ashes is going to be a Gankbox. This is absolutely not the case. With the way corruption currently works, I'd actually say it's pretty much the opposite. Corruption is so punishing that you never ever under any circumstances want to get corrupted, which I know is intended. However, I personally feel like the first stack of corruption specifically is too harsh in a sense that you instantly become a sitting duck barely being able to defend yourself with the movement penalty and stat loss. And losing up to 3 pieces of gear for killing a single player seems a little excessive, especially since baiting people to become corrupted in PvP is so laughably easy.
I also experienced multiple scenarios where you want to fight another group over a grinding spot, but the enemy group strictly does not want to fight you under any circumstance. You tag them, they just heal each other back up and ignore you. And because corruption is so insanely punishing, you're trying to not poke too much to not get corrupted. This leads to complete stalemates that the system just does not account for whatsoever to the point where I think the way you acquire corruption needs to be completely overhauled. Definitely not a fan of how it currently works at all.
Because of the playtest extension on Monday, I spend a healthy amount of time looking into the various artisan skills. At first glance I find the New World - like progression where you craft many of the same T1 item even though they're basically throwaway items extremely unsatisfying. From a new player perspective it is also not clear how to acquire new recipes for pieces that make sense for your characters.
Gathering was overall a decently fun activity, even though a lot of the gatherables are very hard to spot from a UI perspective and some the resources seem way too rare for how much they're needed for basic profession crafts. Processing seems pretty straight forward, even though the idea of having to use other materials as fuel seems very awkward and does not feel like it makes sense either.
Item drops at the moment feel absurdly rare, which in return makes them also feel extremely satisfying to get. If the balance is right is up for testing, however I personally don't like the idea that exclusively humanoid and boss mobs drop gear whereas all the other mobs only drop Glint.
This makes a lot of POIs on the map instantly not feel worthwhile to go to, because the idea that there won't be any loot drops makes it a lot less exciting. And let's be honest, as MMO players loot is one of, if not the biggest motivator for us to do anything. I really feel like trading in the realism of only humanoids dropping gear to make every mob kill potentially exciting is a fair trade.
Another issue that we ran into a lot is that there seem to be vastly more physical medium & heavy gear drops than magical light gear drops. Caster mobs are few and far between in the game and due to mob grinding being the only viable progression path in the game, groups tend to exclusively focus on easily grindable Melee mobs rather than very deadly and often over tuned Caster mobs.
Once we hit level 20, the Tank, Fighter and Ranger in our group were completely out gearing our Mage, Bard and Cleric. Maybe this is because of the spots we specifically chose to level in (Oakenbane Keep & Citadel), but something that was definitely noticeable.
obvious ones that need changing that I probably don't need to elaborate on as others likely already have been, questing, mounts, crafting, artisan skills, zergs spawn camping people and preventing them from playing, crashes, etc. things that come with an alpha and learning what people want and what feels best.
I would like to see some variety on the seasons and a better understanding of how they affect the world outside just visuals, even though it is beautiful. Before it was said that seasons may impact, resources, events, travelling as water would freeze blocking some paths and opening others, etc. generally more info on seasons would be nice.
I noticed, that the Tank class is in extremely high demand to the point that it becomes extremely inefficient to do some content without one. I was wondering if that was by design, if changes are coming, or if class augments will remedy that?
I found that many nodes would keep their taxes low, then suddenly hike them greatly. Furthermore, I was wondering if that might be exploited if a guild had a mayor that lowered taxes for them on large purchases, then raised them again suddenly. Maybe a cooldown on changing the tax could be considered to prevent exploits and trying to force people away.
There are a very large number of multi guild zergs going around. I understand this is almost impossible to prevent, but just thought I would ask if there was anything happening in that regard. I'm fine with a maybe 2 or 3 multi guild organizations working together, but when it's like 10 guilds all doing the same things under the same banner forcing people out of areas and monopolizing resources, it's a little annoying. It's nice to have a big bad evil guy everyone can unite against, but sometimes there are forces too large to fight back against.
It would be nice to have a friends list and maybe a guild alliance list or something. Met a lot of cool people from other guilds and would like to make alliances with them somehow.
Overall love the game, the direction, the sense of community, the fantasy and realism, etc. Amazing experience so far and looking forward to more.
My biggest take-aways... (I have to keep reminding myself this is still Alpha.)
COMBAT EXPERIENCE AND QUEST MISSIONS FOR KILLING NEEDS CHANGED ASAP.
Please please please make it so people get the % of XP equal to the % of damage dealt to the create. Please please please make it so even if you get a shot in to kill a monster, it COUNTS for a quest as long as the beast is defeated, even by a group or someone running it, one-shotting it and running away. Re-killing the same creature 100x over just because you didn't "get the most damage" on it or another group did more damage than your group,... it's game-ending stuff.
The UI... PLEASE GOD IMPROVE THE UI. As a laptop user it is nearly unplayable, even zoomed out at 120% it's difficult.
I zoomed it all the way in and I still have visibility issues, but it's better. Whatever key (I think "G") for the hotbar? Doesn't even render. I can't see what key it is to dash. I have to manually click it because that does not render either and I have no idea what it is.
I kind of like the crafting so far, but the nodes are so far and few between it's a little silly with how rare they are for novice stuff but how plentiful they seem to be for more advanced levels.
The hunting skill is just petting animals and half the time it kills them......... ...what?
The towns seem to be quite "cookie cutter" and nearly exactly the same in each node; all I been to so far even with the same hill and path going up to the town hall. It is disappointing.
The voice acting... please hire actual voice actors or get various friends/family try to read lines - do multiple takes and use the best one. The tradesman in Lionhold is the worst of them.
MAJOR-NOTICED BUGS:
* Chop trees over and over but the tree never gets cut down.
* Looting a pile from something yields no dialog box.
* Monsters glitch and don't deal damage and also take no damage. This is especially bad for quests (examples: Undead in Wilhelm. Goblins in same area.)
* Corvid killing quest circle is in wrong specified location
* Quests bugged and can't finish - Splinter mission won't finish but she took my splinters. Curse mission won't update, Legion inquiries don't complete, etc.)
Not as big of a deal but I feel it could use a rework... I suggest for PvE players that there be no drops. Player drops encourage bad sportsmanship/player conduct. People are less likely to revive you unless they know you, because they'd rather you die so they can get your stuff. I have seen it a lot so far.
Here were my first impressions:
1. The world is gorgeous. While other games may expose you to a stunning scenic spot occasionally here and there, I felt like the entire zone was full of screenshot worthy locations. Just beautiful.
2. Levelling was very slow, but I actually liked it this way. Reminded me of the olden days of MMOs where it was about the journey rather that just get to max level.
3. I tried each of the classes, but only to level 5--7 and while I liked them, I did struggle with some classes (bard and cleric) when grouped and I had to switch to targeting myself for a heal. I played in action mode and that worked mostly, but at times, when I needed to heal myself I found it hard to quickly heal myself because something else always got accidentally targeted. This is probably why I ended up liking tank, fighter, mage, and hunter better. Maybe i need to go into non-action mode and use the Gameplay option that right click is self-cast and see if that works better, or I simply need to learn how to switch to myself somehow more quickly. I died a few times because a heal intended for myself went on to something else, even a random mount standing nearby, or a player who moved into my front view just when I needed the heal.
4. I didn't care that the only reasonable way, monetarily, to level was grinding mobs. I tried to level by doing commissions, specifically gathering commissions, but the coin reward didn't even keep up with the cost of repairing tools. Either tool repair cost needs adjusted downward, or commission coin reward needs adjusted up a bit, at least for gathering board commissions. Or maybe durability loss for gathering trade skills needs to be lowered. I will say that they did seem to wear out super fast, especially fishing poles, and that wasn't realistic at all, if you're going for realism. Also, there is a missed opportunity by not having any gathering commissions that consumed the gathered goods as that would create additional market demand for the gathered items. As it is, it was just gather whatever x number of times and you keep the materials, but with storage as it is, the storage became a cap on doing gathering commissions. I even saw players levelling up a gathering skill and leaving mats on the ground because they had no room. That's a sure sign of a need for some sort of balance adjustment here.
6. Tradeskills looked super interesting, but in my entire gameplay, I never once saw a copper node and it seems like tool upgrades were all going to require copper fragments, so either I didn't explore enough, or, more likely, from global chat, there was a severe copper drought. Having said that, I did not use much of my first weekend time really trying to get into tradeskilling, which is a huge part of what I love in an MMO.
6. I noticed that gear did not bind. While this may seem like a good idea, I can tell you from other MMOs that tried this, no bind of gear is a way to assure that there will never ever be any sort of player market for sustained gear crafting. Someone gets new gear, they just put their old gear up for availability since it was not bound so what is the point of ever crafting anything but the top stuff during the brief time when players need that stuff. Binding of items is essentially a way to create a market for gear, since the bind is the consumption, and crafters would be supply. No consumption, means no demand for newly crafted stuff. If you have an aversion to binding, then some consumption mechanic needs to be put in place, such as max durability loss over time, so that older gear eventually needs to be replaced. This, of course, has implications for the hard to get top level gear, so it's just easier to add a BOE mechanic. Maybe not realistic, but necessary.
7. I found combat level gaps to be significant, meaning there is little wiggle room to fight stuff very much higher than you as they absolutely would kick your butt, at least at lower levels. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand it made exploring a stressful, but also an engaging process because you had to be careful or get yourself killed. I think I like it this way, but boy did it add to the challenge and stress of exploring
8. I'm still trying to adjust to the sized-based storage of materials. As a huge gathering addict and crafter it's not possible for me to just go out gathering for several hours, mining, or picking any flowers I come across, hunting, or whatever, because it did not take long for bags to fill up. Initially I HATED this, but did come around a little as I played and I can see the other side of why it is limited this way. Still it does add a lot of running back and forth to storage. Also, I tend toward being a hoarder of materials and that was taken away a bit with this storage method. I guess that could be a good thing given my natural hoarder tendencies. But for me, personally, I feel like that was overall a diminishing of my enjoyment.
9. Nodes. They certainly look like they will be impressive. My guild went for a specific node and were quite surprised at how big even the first upgrade to village was. It was decent size and I can't imagine how big they get as you continue to grow a node. Really awesome sense of realism here which I loved.
10. Item drop on death. Initially, I thought this was too hardcore, but I think you found a nice balance. I assume that there will eventually be some penalty for looting player bodies that isn't in game, because during this alpha, anything you dropped on death was gone because players just routinely looted you. In fact, it was often a rush of nearby players gunning for your corpse so they could get what you dropped.
The old guild is back together and we had a blast grouping up and just doing stuff over the weekend.
One thing I can’t understand is why mining nodes are spread out all over the place?
Isn’t it time to bring an end to the scattered mining node system and just create some actual bloody mining locations? Underground cave systems or above ground strip mines/quarries?
Why is there such an obsession in making miners run all over the place?
I’d like to be able to visit a mine/quarry spend time beating on permanent nodes that offer a chance of obtaining stone, ore or gems, similar to how fishing currently works.
Even if I have to spend minutes to obtain a single item, it sure beats legging it around looking for that one node.
Having mines also encourages the creation of social mining communities, which results in a steady ore/stone/gem market.
Combat feels great
Movement feels great
Loot drops seem meaningful
The animations look good.
Cons:
Quests feel meaningless and sometimes confusing
AI voices in the game are terrible
Mount movement feels off
Character creation seems like a shell of what was shown off previously and the characters look rather plain or ugly.
Open-world PvP. I believe there should be open-world PvP but only when you do certain activities such as caravans, war, and in certain areas that make sense. I do not believe it should happen when you are just out questing.
There should be an auto attack. If there is I didn't find it.
Some changes I would like to see
Fighter Suggestions - This was the class I was testing and I only made it to level 9 but I do feel the low level experience can be important as well.
the server stability was good, there were a few disconnects here and there but queue times were low or generally non existent. rubber banding only happened a few time at i assume peak game times and high player counts, overall didn't effect gameplay very much.
there was an issue that happened a few times where i would travel 2 to 3 minutes then be teleported back to where I was.
very impressive for an alpha.
general thoughts -
crafting feels bad or boring. having % chance to hit a mount or beast of burden for the cost associated feels terrible. especially with death loot ( more later)
crafting feels boring, collect stuff, process, hit button boom item. with how in depth a lot of the systems are being talked about i was expecting a crafting system similar to EQ2 or Vanguard SOH. where i have to actively do something to ensure my item isn't ruined. This may be getting brought in for later etc. but the current system doesn't excite me which is a big bummer i love a good crafting system.
death loot - idk if it was a bug or something I'm misunderstanding. but say i had 100 dull glint, i die, i drop 25, my inventory should still have 75. but if i managed to collect my glint i would be at 100 again often i was well below this at 40 or so. like i had dropped 25 to be looted but also lost an additional 60 just for dying. it was very unclear and 0 explanation. this felt terrible because some crafting costs were very high and loot drop rates were very low.
loot drop rates - in general felt bad, i love the fact that i wasn't fully geared by lvl 10 HOWEVER due to the glint issue above i couldn't afford to buy the vendor gear and in the 15ish hours it took me to get to lvl 10 only two gear items had dropped. I'm not asking for diablo where a million items drop off 1 guy. and i enjoy getting a good upgrade or filling that fist gear slot. but seeing only 1 item in 4 hours felt awful. post lvl 10 gear was dropping more and it felt good to roll against party members and congratulate their wins
I may be a little critical here however this game is my last hope for a truly good mmo. I'm very grateful for what you have put forth so far. in the worst case scenario the game doesn't get any better i would be very happy to pay and play for what you've put forth. Thank you and the intrepid team for the work you have put into this and i'm looking forward to seeing everything you put forth.
Skill tree - Not enough customization, not enough skills and ways to customize and change the way they work. I know later we will be able to choose a secondary subclass but I still think it will not be enough, it's looking uninspired and it will get boring fast.
Item drops - I like the low drop rates, every time an item drops I'm happy and excited.
Combat- Casting spells and fighting is really good and fun. the only thing is auto attacking feels off, I don't know why and I can't give a specific reason but compared to casting and using skills it just feels a lot worse.
Quests - Why can't we have more precise information on the map/minimap about where we should do the quests? it's too hard to find quest objectives using only in game map and quest descriptions and in game quest tracking. the way it is right now people will just use external tools and sites to check quests and objective coords. i don't want to be forced to play with 3 monitors and external tools to do quests in the game.
Quests - Why there is a limit to quests I can track at the same time? let me track all the quests I want.
Stop casting key - The only way I can stop casting is to hit esc key. We need specific key binding just for stop casting
AI voices - Right now they are really bad but I am in favor of them being AI just needs to be improved
Mob tagging - When there is more than one party I have no idea who tagged the mobs first. sometimes I DPS mobs because I think I was the first one to hit them but I get no XP and no loot. it's just really confusing, there must be some indicator that shows who tagged the mob.
Story & Narrative
I found the AI voice acting to be so repelling I couldn't wait to get through the text so I skipped a lot of the initial quests. Then, when I realized the quests were borderline useless in terms of exp amount compared to just grinding/grouping I never picked up another quest. This is probably something that could use improvement. If I'm being honest, I don't even know why my character was doing what they're doing (lore wise), or even remember the name of the world my character was in. The presentation is just not compelling but I'm sure it's very incomplete.
Gameplay & Mechanics
I definitely enjoyed the gameplay in general. It felt appropriately difficult, but not too hard and having actual consequences for dying again in an MMO is great. The combat is fairly smooth for it being this early in development and there weren't really any glaring issues with any mechanics that I noticed beyond QoL features being broken or missing and balance issues which I'm sure are being worked on.
As a cleric, the biggest gameplay issue I would say is mouseover healing being completely broken despite it being an option in the UI. If this were a 4-5 person to a group game then it's a little easier to deal with but needing hotkeys for 8 group members is a little ridiculous. Cycling through allies is not an option, and point/click is archaic and slow comparatively speaking. This is probably my biggest annoyance with the game currently, which is pretty good considering it's playable without it, I just sweat a lot more.
Graphics & Visuals
The game really does look pretty good, and that's coming from someone who doesn't generally enjoy the UE look. The POIs seem well designed albeit a little empty right now. The spell graphics are really cool and character design is a solid base. Things do look a little grainy at the moment even on highest settings but I'm assuming that gets worked out later.
User Interface
It's awesome that this is pretty much fully customizable but the general design seems incredibly complicated and requires a massive amount of hotkeys to really optimize well. I don't see a way to make this less complicated considering the game mechanics, but just throwing it out there. I really think the game could benefit from a press, hold, double tap set of options on key bindings considering just how many keys this game wants you to have bound.
Please give us an ignore command and an LFG channel so we can turn off global. It's full of... well you've seen it. I'd rather get subjected to Barrens chat if I'm being honest.
Lastly, please fix mouseover healing. =P
Thank you.