Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Our Issues with Combat and Gear in Alpha 2

Hi Guys, I gathered ideas from multiple people on different classes to try and develop a list of issues we'd like to see improved. We're trying to start a discussion about some of the issues we've seen after doing a solid amount of group PVP (15+ people). Whether you agree or disagree please push the conversation forward so we can continue to make Ashes the best game through our input.
Issues with Combat:
• Change some activated abilities, pressing a button, to be active abilities where you need to try and hit a target in an area of effect. Whether it’s a cone, line, or circle, more skill-based abilities are necessary so gear is not the only factor leading to victory in fights.
• Nerf auto locking abilities across the board (Heals, Damage, Buffs, etc.) so they are less impactful due to ease of use.
• Reduce the visuals of abilities and have clean animations for identification in PVP. It is already hard to see what’s going on in a melee with a group of 8. 100 people PVPing in a small area will be seizure inducing.
• Spell identification – I need to know what’s a friendly and enemy spell.
• Diminishing Returns – Vines should not work perfectly 3 times in a row.
• Dodging I-frames should last the entire dodge roll, excluding jumping at the end to increase distance. Dodging should also be impacted on the gear worn. See gear weight below.
• Active Block needs a better place in the game so other classes will want to use shields. Give us shields with int!
• TTK is excessively quick. Legendary gear should provide a boost to damage, however the levels of gear is on an exponential curve instead of being a gradual increase.
Issues with Gear:
• Gear should have weight and provide benefits based on the pieces you use. Heavy should not be limited to physical users while still providing the same mitigation. However, there needs to be a drawback to using heavy gear as with medium and light. This could be speed or stamina reduction.
• If waterfall stats are the end all be all no one will ever go for anything else. Casting speed isn’t really good if I still only have 250 magic power and go up against a mage with 500 magic power.
• Let players change additional waterfall stats on crafted gear to fit their play style and build. If a heavy piece has con and I change the strength stat, that I would get for crafting the item as legendary, into intellect I should receive stats for mag power, casting speed, healing rating or something of this sort. Could be coming but wanted to mention it.
• Allow gear to be crafted past the recipe level cap. This would allow lower-level POI sets to remain viable at level 50.
Issues with Combat:
• Change some activated abilities, pressing a button, to be active abilities where you need to try and hit a target in an area of effect. Whether it’s a cone, line, or circle, more skill-based abilities are necessary so gear is not the only factor leading to victory in fights.
• Nerf auto locking abilities across the board (Heals, Damage, Buffs, etc.) so they are less impactful due to ease of use.
• Reduce the visuals of abilities and have clean animations for identification in PVP. It is already hard to see what’s going on in a melee with a group of 8. 100 people PVPing in a small area will be seizure inducing.
• Spell identification – I need to know what’s a friendly and enemy spell.
• Diminishing Returns – Vines should not work perfectly 3 times in a row.
• Dodging I-frames should last the entire dodge roll, excluding jumping at the end to increase distance. Dodging should also be impacted on the gear worn. See gear weight below.
• Active Block needs a better place in the game so other classes will want to use shields. Give us shields with int!
• TTK is excessively quick. Legendary gear should provide a boost to damage, however the levels of gear is on an exponential curve instead of being a gradual increase.
Issues with Gear:
• Gear should have weight and provide benefits based on the pieces you use. Heavy should not be limited to physical users while still providing the same mitigation. However, there needs to be a drawback to using heavy gear as with medium and light. This could be speed or stamina reduction.
• If waterfall stats are the end all be all no one will ever go for anything else. Casting speed isn’t really good if I still only have 250 magic power and go up against a mage with 500 magic power.
• Let players change additional waterfall stats on crafted gear to fit their play style and build. If a heavy piece has con and I change the strength stat, that I would get for crafting the item as legendary, into intellect I should receive stats for mag power, casting speed, healing rating or something of this sort. Could be coming but wanted to mention it.
• Allow gear to be crafted past the recipe level cap. This would allow lower-level POI sets to remain viable at level 50.
6
Comments
If the overland mobs matched the level of the highest person in the group, let's say that's Level 15, what happens when there's another group there contesting the mob spawns, and their highest person in that separate group is Level 14? The Grem can't be both Level 15 and Level 14.
If every class must have 1-2 of them fine but be sure to balance it for pvp by adding a strong and reliable diminishing returns. Immunity to having them spammed on you.
Do not take WoWs example.... Their diminishing returns are laughable at best. A 10 second CC in any form with no cooldown even with DR is NOT something we should ever see. Stuns need long cool downs....
Solid feedback.Hopefully Intrepid takes this kind of structured input into account as they keep refining the systems.
If you want to be able to use a bow as a Mage you should have to spec into Ranger.
If you want to be able to use a wand as a Tank you should have to spec into Mage/Summoner.
This would give each class identity with weapons.
Or you could instead buff everything a bit which is not auto locking.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
For sure, the inverse of that would be fine also, but again you're looking at TTK issues. We'll have to see on the 27th if it feels better with the changes being released.