Amazing world, painfully dull grind

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.

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Lark Wyll

There is no endgame atm. Caravan's aren't endgame content. Everything in the game is placeholder sandbox or old school monotonous stand in one place for hours upon end bored grind.

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.

Volgaris

@Lark Wyll the fall off the small groups or single guilds is what worries me. I don't think it'll be from needing a guild but the inability to really compete for anything meaningful. I haven't played in a few months but at that time it was being tailored for the hardcore no life players and multi guild groups.

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.

Caww

everything seems to have a generic mmo feeling to it and nothing really stands out and screams "this is why AoC is unique and fresh"

ShaggyRyn

Caww wrote: »

everything seems to have a generic mmo feeling to it and nothing really stands out and screams "this is why AoC is unique and fresh"

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.

Arya_Yeshe

Caww wrote: »

everything seems to have a generic mmo feeling to it and nothing really stands out and screams "this is why AoC is unique and fresh"

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

Lark Wyll

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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?

Azherae

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

ShaggyRyn

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

SmileGurney

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

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.

If your actual game content is hidden behind 100s of hours of dull grind, then you are setting yourself up for failure. I'm a sucker for sandbox and group gameplay, but the majority of the current "game" is atrocious. There is little satisfaction in levelling (nevermind solo), gathering, crafting, levelling guild or even gear progression. Grind and drop rates feel like a chore atm.

Lark Wyll

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

While I agree, there has been no indication that I'm aware of that that is AoC's design intent. Definitely possible and maybe even likely, but still conjecture at this point.

Lark Wyll

I agree with skill tree diversity issues with some classes. Ranger's tree is relatively one dimensional at level 25 with very little variance in builds between players even between pvp and pve focus. Other classes like Rogue and Bard that I've played have much more expression and diversity in skill tree pathing and options at level 25. Fighter and Ranger need work to that end.

ShaggyRyn

Lark Wyll wrote: »

I agree with skill tree diversity issues with some classes. Ranger's tree is relatively one dimensional at level 25 with very little variance in builds between players even between pvp and pve focus. Other classes like Rogue and Bard that I've played have much more expression and diversity in skill tree pathing and options at level 25. Fighter and Ranger need work to that end.

Even though the rogue has a little bit more to invest in it still is narrow. I think they should have skills locked out unless you invest is 2-4 other skills. You could make build paths that specialize in certain skills/play styles.

Azherae

Lark Wyll wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

While I agree, there has been no indication that I'm aware of that that is AoC's design intent. Definitely possible and maybe even likely, but still conjecture at this point.

Fair enough, this is all I got (from the wiki) and definitely therefore can see how my perspective is conjecture.

Certain higher-end weapons and armor will have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.[57]
Active skills that do get associated with certain types of pieces of armor and/or weapons: those will be much on the higher-end if they're an active ability that comes with those things. But I still don't think that the intended impact of those types of abilities is for us to radically redefine the way a particular archetype might play.[57] – Steven Sharif

Similarly I can see how 'will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played' can get into semantics about what that means, but even considering all that, I don't think Ashes is going to simply 'fall short of Throne and Liberty for no reason', and I also don't believe the Immortal Titanic Quakeblade and Abyssal Renaissance Foci would count as 'radically redefining', despite genuinely altering an available Active skill.

Dezemi

Guess my ARPG side will be showing, but I actually kinda enjoy the current ways of grinding mobs, as long as it is challenging enough to keep you on your toes.

On the opposite side, I never been a fan of quests in MMO-RPGs. To me, they are much more chore-like than flat mob grinding - especially with mandatory storylines that just force players to complete a quest chain before they unlock certain areas. Warframe (not an MMO-RPG) is an expert at those. "Hey, wanna come do some <insert content> with us?" - "Oh, sure. I just gotta do this 4-8 hour long quest-chain first to access the area." (Mind you, in Warframe these quests are also often forced solo quests, meaning you have to play them by yourself.)

Though I would advocate for a "why not both"-argument, and thus bringing multiple ways of leveling into the game - one way is usually superior than the other, often resulting in the latter

ShaggyRyn

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

While I agree, there has been no indication that I'm aware of that that is AoC's design intent. Definitely possible and maybe even likely, but still conjecture at this point.

Fair enough, this is all I got (from the wiki) and definitely therefore can see how my perspective is conjecture.

Certain higher-end weapons and armor will have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.[57]
Active skills that do get associated with certain types of pieces of armor and/or weapons: those will be much on the higher-end if they're an active ability that comes with those things. But I still don't think that the intended impact of those types of abilities is for us to radically redefine the way a particular archetype might play.[57] – Steven Sharif

Similarly I can see how 'will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played' can get into semantics about what that means, but even considering all that, I don't think Ashes is going to simply 'fall short of Throne and Liberty for no reason', and I also don't believe the Immortal Titanic Quakeblade and Abyssal Renaissance Foci would count as 'radically redefining', despite genuinely altering an available Active skill.

To me this is a missed opportunity. You could add different passives on gear that buff or change a specific skill that turns it into your main source of damage that you might typically not use. You could even do this with the class combinations as well. Like you could ass something like “ if you hit a snipe from more than x meters away it does more damage or trips from a bow and then it does more damage if you hit from behind your target if you’re a /rogue ”. This would allow people to invest in what they want.

Aszkalon

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Amazing world, painfully dull grind

The "Grind" was the very Reason for my Burnout about Three or Four Weekends after Alpha Two began last Year. In the Middle of November, i just couldn't put pressure onto my brain anymore.

How many Thousand Goblins do i need to slay, for a single Level or so ? Am i freakin' Goblin Slayer or what ? lol

Part of me wonders if i could still do this, if i would be still in my Twenties or so - but i doubt even that. This is just to dull. To jaded. I wanted to be part of a Node - and the first thing i get to know is that i need to be LvL 10 to get anywhere in the World of Verra.

Then i level until i almost want to kill "myself" instead of the Monsters of Verra.

Only to then find out, that after i finally became a "Citizen" -> i still can't understand Jack-shxx what the NPC's of the Node actually want from me.

I see a few Menu's,
a few Lists,
a few Items i have absolutely no Idea what to use for,

i see i can get a few of them for "Glint" if my Memory serves correctly,
then i see that i need like 300 to 3000 of them for a Cape or something or anything else -> and i find out that i would need to play ("GRIND") at least several Hours for the likes of 3 to 7 - or 9 to 15 or that or something.

Oh, neat. Just what i needed. More Grinds until i think i might be a Servitor in the Warhammer40K Universe instead of a Node Citizen in Verra that actually wants his Node to get somewhere.

While i am 100% confident that i will understand more about WHAT to do, with exactly WHAT from which Node, as soon as the Game nears it's completion and a German Client/Version of all the Text will one Day be available,

right now i have like +90% more missing, non-existing Oversight over everything, than i had in WoW Vanilla during the middle 2000's or something. Even there i knew exactly WHAT was going on "where" exactly and what i could do and/or attain by doing what for Content.

This here ? Hell i am too stupid to even get my APPRENTICE Pickaxe somehow. I think i managed with the Apprentice Axe for chopping Tree's somehow - but this is just ridiculous. I feel more like a Liability for my fellow Verra Re-Explorers and Adventurers, than being an actual help.

Welp. At least i slaughtered countless Goblins around Aela to never even get all the Items full which i was supposed to get from them and deliver to an NPC Questgiver which i completely forgot wherever that Guy was standing when he gave me the Quest,

and at least i destroyed numerous Undead ontop of that Structure of Aela plus killed a huge bunch few Griffins which i think look absolutely majestic and which i think i was told to exterminate because they were told to have killed and eaten a Child or something.

Not bad at all. But the only thing which made the State of all that somehow acceptable was the fact, that this was EARLY Alpha Two and that things are still mostly a Placeholder compared to how it is all supposed to be during Launch.

Embrace the fact that MMO Players get older and older, Everyone. And i doubt really hard that "Gen-Z" or Millennials or whoever else will have the Patience and Span of Attention and/or Stamina to endure this never-ending Grind.

For THAT kind of Grind, the MMO Gamer World is truly about 20 Years too old by now. With one of the few, cool Exceptions being Peon/HiddenDaggerInn, who levelled amazingly and most of the time - because he also deeply craves a Place for RP and hopes he can own a Tavern someday in the Game - should it finally release by then.

Azherae

ShaggyRyn wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

While I agree, there has been no indication that I'm aware of that that is AoC's design intent. Definitely possible and maybe even likely, but still conjecture at this point.

Fair enough, this is all I got (from the wiki) and definitely therefore can see how my perspective is conjecture.

Certain higher-end weapons and armor will have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.[57]
Active skills that do get associated with certain types of pieces of armor and/or weapons: those will be much on the higher-end if they're an active ability that comes with those things. But I still don't think that the intended impact of those types of abilities is for us to radically redefine the way a particular archetype might play.[57] – Steven Sharif

Similarly I can see how 'will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played' can get into semantics about what that means, but even considering all that, I don't think Ashes is going to simply 'fall short of Throne and Liberty for no reason', and I also don't believe the Immortal Titanic Quakeblade and Abyssal Renaissance Foci would count as 'radically redefining', despite genuinely altering an available Active skill.

To me this is a missed opportunity. You could add different passives on gear that buff or change a specific skill that turns it into your main source of damage that you might typically not use. You could even do this with the class combinations as well. Like you could ass something like “ if you hit a snipe from more than x meters away it does more damage or trips from a bow and then it does more damage if you hit from behind your target if you’re a /rogue ”. This would allow people to invest in what they want.

That's more of a personal thing though, so it might not be considered 'radically redefine' even if those exist, because those absolutely exist in TL also, in all sorts of ways, I only gave those two examples because they're extremely explicit and clear about the fact that they are changing a skill.

The Staff literally says "Changes a certain Ice Skill into a Lightning Skill and makes it do damage in an entirely different way than it did before."

There's another that has like 'Your damage is increased if you stand still for 2 seconds.'

I'd say that it's a semantics thing, if the concept of 'an Archetype' was quite flexible to begin with, then saying 'it doesn't radically change' makes more sense to most people.

ShaggyRyn

Azherae wrote: »

ShaggyRyn wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Lark Wyll wrote: »

There won't be 64 true classes. The dev team has said as much. Don't get your hopes up. If its anything like off-hand weapons they'll be minimally meaningful in combat.

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.

While I agree, there has been no indication that I'm aware of that that is AoC's design intent. Definitely possible and maybe even likely, but still conjecture at this point.

Fair enough, this is all I got (from the wiki) and definitely therefore can see how my perspective is conjecture.

Certain higher-end weapons and armor will have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.[57]
Active skills that do get associated with certain types of pieces of armor and/or weapons: those will be much on the higher-end if they're an active ability that comes with those things. But I still don't think that the intended impact of those types of abilities is for us to radically redefine the way a particular archetype might play.[57] – Steven Sharif

Similarly I can see how 'will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played' can get into semantics about what that means, but even considering all that, I don't think Ashes is going to simply 'fall short of Throne and Liberty for no reason', and I also don't believe the Immortal Titanic Quakeblade and Abyssal Renaissance Foci would count as 'radically redefining', despite genuinely altering an available Active skill.

To me this is a missed opportunity. You could add different passives on gear that buff or change a specific skill that turns it into your main source of damage that you might typically not use. You could even do this with the class combinations as well. Like you could ass something like “ if you hit a snipe from more than x meters away it does more damage or trips from a bow and then it does more damage if you hit from behind your target if you’re a /rogue ”. This would allow people to invest in what they want.

That's more of a personal thing though, so it might not be considered 'radically redefine' even if those exist, because those absolutely exist in TL also, in all sorts of ways, I only gave those two examples because they're extremely explicit and clear about the fact that they are changing a skill.

The Staff literally says "Changes a certain Ice Skill into a Lightning Skill and makes it do damage in an entirely different way than it did before."

There's another that has like 'Your damage is increased if you stand still for 2 seconds.'

I'd say that it's a semantics thing, if the concept of 'an Archetype' was quite flexible to begin with, then saying 'it doesn't radically change' makes more sense to most people.

For sure… I know this example isn’t a radical change but I feel like it’s another layer you could add to the game. I just want things that make my class actually feel different than everyone else. We will just have to wait and see as far as the augments are concerned.

Uncommon Sense

I recall during 1 of the early development updates (though I can't find the content on youtube) when Jeffery Bard was still Lead Game Designer, The was a question posed regarding MMO and the 'Grind' To which Bard responded and I paraphrase "Grinding sucks and it wont be the primary way to lvl in AOC"

I hope Bard's legacy holds true...

Ludullu

Uncommon Sense wrote: »

I hope Bard's legacy holds true...

It will not, cause, since he left, Steven has already said "yeah, we'll have some grind".

I don't really see how they even CAN get the "~225h to max lvl" design w/o grind. That would be an insane amount of questing, if you tried making that path non-grindable. And both mob and artisanry leveling is just grind.

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