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.
Amazing world, painfully dull grind
TheDarkSorcerer
Member, Alpha Two
One thing Ashes of Creation really needs to address is the grind, and I get it, before anyone jumps in with “but it’s Alpha,” let me just say: yes, it’s Alpha, but that’s exactly why this feedback matters now.
Right now, the path to max level in Alpha feels like a chore. Grinding mobs for hours on end is the core way to level, and that’s not engaging gameplay... it’s exhausting. There's very little meaningful content in the early to mid-game that introduces you to the world, its systems, or even gives you a sense of progression outside of mob density and XP bars.
Compare that to something like Elder Scrolls Online, where levels 1-50 serve as a structured and immersive tutorial. You’re still learning the game, but you’re doing it through main story quests, world events, dailies, and public encounters. It makes leveling feel rewarding without forcing repetition. And importantly, it brings the world to life from the moment you start playing.
With Ashes, it feels like all the attention has gone into endgame systems; node sieges, caravans, raid bosses. But the early game lacks the foundation to draw players in. Verra is supposed to be this rich, dynamic world, but right now it doesn’t offer that sense of wonder or discovery early on. New players should be excited to log in, not burned out from killing the same mob type for three hours straight just to hit a soft milestone.
If Intrepid wants this game to succeed long-term, they need to make the journey to the endgame just as compelling as what waits at the top.
Right now, the path to max level in Alpha feels like a chore. Grinding mobs for hours on end is the core way to level, and that’s not engaging gameplay... it’s exhausting. There's very little meaningful content in the early to mid-game that introduces you to the world, its systems, or even gives you a sense of progression outside of mob density and XP bars.
Compare that to something like Elder Scrolls Online, where levels 1-50 serve as a structured and immersive tutorial. You’re still learning the game, but you’re doing it through main story quests, world events, dailies, and public encounters. It makes leveling feel rewarding without forcing repetition. And importantly, it brings the world to life from the moment you start playing.
With Ashes, it feels like all the attention has gone into endgame systems; node sieges, caravans, raid bosses. But the early game lacks the foundation to draw players in. Verra is supposed to be this rich, dynamic world, but right now it doesn’t offer that sense of wonder or discovery early on. New players should be excited to log in, not burned out from killing the same mob type for three hours straight just to hit a soft milestone.
If Intrepid wants this game to succeed long-term, they need to make the journey to the endgame just as compelling as what waits at the top.
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Comments
AoC isn't a game yet. Every stage falls flat and is under developed and lacks appeal.
One problem they have atm is not only arw things under cooked they're also convoluted and/or hidden which won't draw the masses.
A large % of players will require a guide to provide content for them by dragging tgem around the map to experience things found only by mining 3rd party websites like Ashes Codex. There will be large falloff from the more casual and small groups and solo players who lack a guide via a guild leader etc.
The sandbox element coyld work but only if there are numerous fun and interesting and rewarding paths players can take to embark into the world with (gathering, crafting, adventuring, exploration, economic, etc.)
Atm gathering is faulty and overly difficult to obtain low level mats of certain types so it is a non-starter path to play the game.
Processing/gathering needs a lot more dev time but also is non-functional from a game loop standpoint to engage with.
Solo players can do very little past level 10 as an adventurer. Can't kill much of anything at your level solo as you advance towards level 20. There is no solo content and many classes go OOM after two rotations through their kit so playing solo is non-viable. By the time you're strong enough to pull packs of mobs to solo grind them you hit the 10+ level block preventing drops from being awarded making that non-viable even for glint.
Exploration is do-able but with how fast mobs are compared to our characters you're pretty much dead as a low level if you go into any dense mob areas solo at low level while traversing the world.
To your point on early game the only thing players can do functionally is group farm mobs gor hours. Everything else is non-functional or barebones leaving a poor player experience
It still feels to me like we are testing primarily their server stability performance while they slowly develop the bones of a game that are vacant.
Placeholder is a bad word to me now too. There needs to more communication between testers/future players and the dev team.
I'm a little worried about its success and actually getting released on time or even within a year of planned release. But it is alpha so.. but beta will be the real look into the systems, I wouldn't expect major changes during beta.
I think this will be the 64 class system and the dynamic world. The world truly needs to feel alive by things changing depending on what the players are engaged with. If they fail to create unique class combinations that actually function and play differently from each other I will probably not enjoy this game. That is the single thing that draws me to the future of this game. In every mmo I play I want to feel different from everyone else. If I don’t feel that it’s not exciting.
Well, AoC follows game design from the 90s when spawn nests were introduced, is anybody surprised?
I'm not sure if there's anything worst than nests
Hit 25 on Ranger and there is no reason to ever use your melee weapon in pvp and besides aoe cleave there's not much purpose even in pve to them other than as a stat stick for your main hand. No abilities use them so what is their point?
Whether your first point is right or not, the second part could easily just be because the transformational effects of certain weapons aren't implemented yet.
Right now, there's no weapon you can equip that will change an Archetype skill into something more suitable for the weapon, but this would probably be the most common way to actually give things like that a purpose.
Same for Augments/Secondary Archetypes.
Ya and Iv made post about this. I just hope they can make the skill trees have different builds that lean more into ranges or melee. I think each class could have at least three skill builds in their tree. I’m made post about this before but we need diverse builds in the skill tree if the class combinations don’t change much or even if they do it would be awesome.