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.
How's the progress going?
Volgaris
Member, Alpha Two
Hi to all the form lurkers!
I've shelved the game for a few months, now I'm curious to what progress has been made and if it's worth installing the launcher again.
1. How's the exploits? People still opening recruiting for exploits? Has that been address by Intrepid?
2. How's the overall atmosphere of the game? Still toxic and cringe at the POIs? Lots of cool people out there, but the POIs were turning into cesspools.
3. Any changes to the Mega Churches... I mean guilds? Zerg still the pvp meta?"
4. How's the gear balance and progression? Every class still only care about their power level?
5. Enchanting balanced?
6. Gathering still spawn a super node on server start?
7. Crafting have any use as you level? Or just hit cap then gather/craft?
8. Still grinding POIs to cap or are there some interesting quests to engage in?
9. The world expand at all? Last I was in the desert was new.
10. Caravans fix? Do they crash, despawn, ect? Are there name plates for them?
11. Are there nameplates on ashes?
12. Any new features out? I tried the rogue for a day but just couldn't bring myself to reenter Vera in it's current state.
Not sure if the game will be for a gamer like myself. It seems to be catered towards large groups, no-lifeing (node spawn camping meta and other mechanics like that, grinding isn't a no-life thing imo), and exploiting griefers. This ain't a blast towards people who like that stuff, I'm just not interested in it myself.
I've shelved the game for a few months, now I'm curious to what progress has been made and if it's worth installing the launcher again.
1. How's the exploits? People still opening recruiting for exploits? Has that been address by Intrepid?
2. How's the overall atmosphere of the game? Still toxic and cringe at the POIs? Lots of cool people out there, but the POIs were turning into cesspools.
3. Any changes to the Mega Churches... I mean guilds? Zerg still the pvp meta?"
4. How's the gear balance and progression? Every class still only care about their power level?
5. Enchanting balanced?
6. Gathering still spawn a super node on server start?
7. Crafting have any use as you level? Or just hit cap then gather/craft?
8. Still grinding POIs to cap or are there some interesting quests to engage in?
9. The world expand at all? Last I was in the desert was new.
10. Caravans fix? Do they crash, despawn, ect? Are there name plates for them?
11. Are there nameplates on ashes?
12. Any new features out? I tried the rogue for a day but just couldn't bring myself to reenter Vera in it's current state.
Not sure if the game will be for a gamer like myself. It seems to be catered towards large groups, no-lifeing (node spawn camping meta and other mechanics like that, grinding isn't a no-life thing imo), and exploiting griefers. This ain't a blast towards people who like that stuff, I'm just not interested in it myself.
1
Comments
It's either worth reinstalling because you want to test the game and assist with the issues you come across, or it isn't worth reinstalling until the game launches.
2 People still train and CC healers
3 This will never change
4 Gear has changed a lot and power has diminishing returns now so now its better to balance dps stats
5 Enchanting is actually balanced now
6 Not sure what what you mean
7 Crafting is even worse than it was before but for the last 3 weeks a massive economy change was "hopefully coming at the end of the week"
8 Questing is still not worth doing for xp but there are some quests that give really good rewards
9 We now have the Jundark which is south of new aela and the turquoise sea which is west of Halycon has been expanded as well
10 Caravans still bug out but actually flagging for a caravan event as a group is finally fixed
11 ?
12 Nothing major
New area might be worth hopping in for a bit. Glad hear of the stat improvements and enhancing balances. Those were rough. The hacking at this stage is kind of a good thing, gotta see if intrepid can keep the realms a fair field for competition.
The super gathering node was a node that would always spawn a legendary, so on server restarts people would search for that node and just log in for it. Really bad design. Supposed to addressed, there was a dev thread about it.
Nameplates would be something that would indicate what node or guild a pile of ashes belonged to beyond just their name. Same thing for caravans, trying to id friend or foe ashes and caravans was tough.
I'll do quests if they're fun. I actually don't like the whole quest exp mechanics. Item or material rewards are best for those. But I never ran across any that were fun or interesting, I hope there's some fun ones at launch.
Thanks for insights none the less.
and Ashe piles don't have name plates, best you can see is when you go to loot the pile it says who it belongs to only (not guild affiliation)
Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated.
If you list a whole pile of things that are standard to testing, and ask if they are dealt with so that the test is worth installing again, the answer is no. Even if those things were dealt with, there would then be another whole pile of other issues that would show up, that would then need to be dealt with, then another pile, then another pile.
When there are no more piles of things that need to be fixed, the game is ready to launch (it would probably have launched a few years prior to this, to be fair).
Testing isn't for eveybody, and your OP reads very much as if it is not for you.
If the comment provided is of no use to you, you are free to ignore it.
However, as I stated above, your OP essentially reads like someone not willing to test a game that still has issues.
As such, my reply was based on reading the OP as someone not willing to test a game that still has issues.
If that isn't the case, as I said above, feel free to ignore it.
On the other hand, if you are willing to try out new problems, every build has new problems. It could be that leveling was made too hard, or itemization was made more stupid, or mobs were changed. If it is new problems you are wanting to find, there is no need to uninstal the game as there is a constant flow of new problems.
It is also worth pointing out that some of the issues you pointed out are features of the game. Large guilds will always be the meta, and the game will always be toxic. Don't ever expect a "fix" for these.
Ashes is an open world PvP game.
It will be toxic.
Steven has said this himself. They have taken measures they believe (incorrectly) will lower the toxicity a small amount, but the game will inherently be toxic.
Large guilds may not stay as they are now, but they will always be the meta.
That is because this is a game about force. If I have 500 people fighting on my side and you have 25, I win in every situation against you.
The only time I lose is when I come across a force larger than mine. If you want to win against me, your only option is to become part of a force that is larger than mine.
That is just the nature of things. There is no way around that. Intrepid have no real control over this, because any control they attempt would be on the organizational structure of guilds, but most guilds these days aren't organized within the game they exist in.
If you give large guilds a penalty and small guilds a bonus, then those large guilds will organize themselves in to many smaller guilds in game, using their out of game organizational structures to maintain the guild as a cohesive unit.
If Intrepid then somehow adds in some forced conflict between guilds, that organizational structure will be put to use in order to game the system for the benefit of the larger guild.
It just is how it is. The more organized and determined a guild is, the less Intrepid can do about it.
I didn't post an opinion, just objective fact.
You can not accept it if you like, but there is nothing there to disagree with.
The game will be toxic, and large guilds will be the meta.
- Apparently there are hackers roaming about, so this is worse than before. As far as I am aware, Intrepid is monitoring it rather than just banning right away in order to counter hackers better at P3/beta launches.
"How's the overall atmosphere of the game? Still toxic and cringe at the POIs? Lots of cool people out there, but the POIs were turning into cesspools."
- More POIs, and in my experience there is mostly plenty of room for those who want to play. Lower level POIs like HH and Church are still a bit "meh". But like you said "lots of cool people" still about - I don't really feel like POIs are that much of an issue at the moment.
"Any changes to the Mega Churches... I mean guilds? Zerg still the pvp meta?"
- Not really any changes, I suppose. But as the world grows larger I've noticed them personally less and less. Until we have proper guild talents that are tuned so on and so forth, we'll probably continue to see zergs as PvP meta. ... We do however, of course, have a lot of solo PvPers in the shape of rogues atm.
"How's the gear balance and progression? Every class still only care about their power level?"
- Nothing's changed. So, yes.
"Enchanting balanced?"
- Honestly do not know, I don't think so.
"Gathering still spawn a super node on server start?"
- Yeah, and that is probably intentional for testing purposes. (I assume, anyway.)
"Crafting have any use as you level? Or just hit cap then gather/craft?"
- Plenty more than before, I suppose, as looted gear has become rarer.
"Still grinding POIs to cap or are there some interesting quests to engage in?"
- I seen plenty more quests, but I don't really like questing and kinda like grinding POIs so I can't really answer. There is no proper quest chain the way there was pre-pre-Alpha though. That is probably not going to show up again until P3 and/or beta.
"The world expand at all? Last I was in the desert was new. "
- Desert and tropics were expanded and made into proper nodes. Jungle node (south of NA) is coming up - the area has opened up but there are no nodes there yet.
"Caravans fix? Do they crash, despawn, ect? Are there name plates for them?"
- I believe they've fixed most (?) of the bug issues - but with everyone cramped on one server, running caravans is very difficult unless you're up at odd hours (for the NA players).
"Are there nameplates on ashes?"
- Not sure what you mean with "nameplates" - we can still see the name and approximate HP of people around us.
"Any new features out? I tried the rogue for a day but just couldn't bring myself to reenter Vera in it's current state."
- Not that I am aware of. At this point, I assume they are saving everything for P3 and just using the rest of P2 to attempt to find counter-measures to all the exploits and hackers.
"Not sure if the game will be for a gamer like myself. It seems to be catered towards large groups, no-lifeing (node spawn camping meta and other mechanics like that, grinding isn't a no-life thing imo), and exploiting griefers. This ain't a blast towards people who like that stuff, I'm just not interested in it myself."
- I am none of those (belonging to a large guild nor someone who can no-life as I have work and family) - yet I think AoC will keep me occupied for years. Many of the issues with large guilds running wild is an issue appearant because the map is "small." If anything, I worry if Intrepid will be able to keep the servers full enough for their gigantic world to feel alive and well when the post-launch peak is dipping.
Still disagree. You need to do the rest of the list. Your opinions keep up at night, I can't sleep without your wisdom!
It's not likely I'll return in it's current state. I just don't think there's anything of value I can give, the grind wall for testing is too steep and I burnt myself out in P1 I guess.
Nameplates are identifiers on things like players, caravans, ashes, ect. So for example if I run across some ashes it'd say the same, but unless I know that person I don't know if they're friend or foe. Assuming I'm working with a Node towards a common goal I don't want to be stealing their materials or ashes, actually I'd defend them or return the materials to the owner. It would help with cohesion and combat the chaotic nature of open world pvp. Same to be said with caravans, we should be able to ID the caravans faster to know if they are part of a friendly faction or not. I like PvP if it has some meaningful structure, but the PvP in ashes last I played lean to heavy towards a FFA gank fest. Give me something like DAoC but better lol.
I am curious though. You said:
- I am none of those (belonging to a large guild nor someone who can no-life as I have work and family) - yet I think AoC will keep me occupied for years. Many of the issues with large guilds running wild is an issue appearant because the map is "small." If anything, I worry if Intrepid will be able to keep the servers full enough for their gigantic world to feel alive and well when the post-launch peak is dipping.
I do think it has a chance, assuming exploiting can be kept in check and large guild aren't steaming rolling all your groups progress. What do you plan to do? What will exist in the game to keep you engaged? I personally enjoy the feel of combat as an action game, but the rpg aspects (stats, attributes, ect) are severely lacking, so it does get old after a few weeks of play. Outside that I've struggled to find something fresh and fun. The life skills (farming, fishing, craftings ect) were in a sorry state and I fear their 'placeholder' status will become permanent. The other stuff like freeholds, keeps/castles, being something only multiguild groups will be able to engage in.
I have nothing to add on to what has been said in regards to the rest of your complaints.
What I generally do in MMO-RPGs - a little bit of everything. I've played MMO-RPGs since I was 9 years old, and I've always been the kind of player that loves experiencing most of what a game has to offer. I am also a "veteran" ARPG player, so grinding for experience instead of doing questline after questline is something I find refreshing and fun - even though I've done it for many hours already.
Thankfully, the one thing I rarely engage in unless it is mandatory for the game, is crafting. If crafting is of interest, then I can very much see how AoC would perhaps fall short. I am a gatherer at best. I tried both processing and crafting in P1 and I am not doing that again. Ever.
What keeps me engaged in AoC are the following:
* Exploration - while waiting for my friends to make time (I am on maternity leave) I take my time to explore while gathering. AoC has been very fun exploring even in Alpha-state. I was so thrilled first time I found the Oath Bearer, the first time I saw a tamable scorpion or griffon, when I encountered my first named mob (apart from the named bandit south of Lionshold) etc. Finding hidden caves, mysterious ruins etc. Exploration is often what makes or breaks a game for me. The sound team has also nailed their work, making exploration much more enjoyable!
* The group orientation - I enjoy playing both alone and with friends. I like the idea of having to "gather the party to venture forth". Either going exploring together, working for goals like freeholds and whatnot together or just grinding levels/gear etc becomes much more enjoyable when you're doing it with people who can keep you entertained.
* The challenges - I have not played the games that AoC took most inspiration from. I come from the "easy" MMO-RPG era: World of Warcraft, Guild Wars (1+2), Black Desert Online, Aion etc. I have a frightening amount of thousands of hours put into GW2 and WoW, and I've tried most MMOs that came out between the two. When I heard about the death penalties of AoC the first time, I was extremely intrigued. Neither positive nor negative to it; but curious. In the games I've played; participation rewards has almost always been the name of the game. There was definitely some tag-wars in the old WoW days, but definitely not in the way that AoC has. And I ended up kind of liking it. (I still think tanks shouldnt suffer as harsh death penelties as everyone else though.)
No they don't.
I've been posting on these forums (and the previous version) for the best part of a decade. In that time, I have not once assumed anyone cares what I have to say. Not players, not Intrepid, not you, not even me a lot of the time. I have said as much in discussions you have been a part of.
I'm sure you don't understand this at all. I'm sure you think "person posts a lot, must mistakenly think people care", but that really is a reflection on you and your obvious assumption that people are one dimensional and you can pick out peoples motivations based on online activity.
The 'weird' thing about Ashes is that it supposedly offers all the things that, as Dezmerizing said later, go against all the piles and piles of 'Easy Mode Gratification' brought by one side of the genre, they're just not in yet.
I'm not trying to convince you to try again until they're actually in, but MMO devs often overfocus on certain types of progression activity and then negate the effort required because of their inability to fill extra time with fun stuff, and that's mostly what we're seeing now in Alpha, it's just that 'it's just Alpha'.
It's definitely hitting the same 'warning sign' feeling that one gets from games like New World, where things are all 'ok we made endgame and making numbers go up the main thing, so everything else not in service of that is pushed aside', but it's just that Intrepid doesn't benefit from doing the other part of the calculation at this stage.
Basically I'm saying that if Ashes releases and someone plays for around 3h a day and it looks like:
30m fishing/other Artisanship, 30m exploring and chatting, 20m economics, 20m Node stuff/hanging around their house/apartment or Freehold, 45m dungeons/questing, the rest a bit of PvP...
That same player, right now, only really has maybe an hour out of those 3h 'active' in the development cycle we're in. But if they do log in for that hour or so of dungeons and PvP, it still helps Intrepid because they're not testing fishing/exploring/housing right now.
tl;dr older/non-lobby style MMORPGs are full of small enjoyable things that 'pad out' a lot of the quieter time for quite a few people, and Ashes is just not at the stage where most of that is in yet.
I'd say so much of that time can be taken up by those sorts of things, that OldSchool RuneScape is probably a better example of what many people experience in MMOs than anything else currently popular outside of the big 2.
The list Noaani. You forgot the list! WE MUST KNOW!
I guess what I'm seeing still is an unclear picture of what these systems will be. Most systems. I think they got the combat pretty locked down and each iteration seems to bring some good changes. I still think they have some massive technical mountains to cross though. Between the server meshing and performance in these dynamic Nodes. Then some architectural challenges of how each of the features will interact and support each other or they'll just conflict and negate each other. None of this is talked about in detail it's glossed over in dev reviews and interviews. These are things that are traditionally worked in alpha, and maybe they just ain't there yet, but beta isn't that far away... At the current pace beta will be moved to the right. Seems like the efforts are put in the wrong place and resource are getting wasted. I mean damn they have different meshes for armor depending on your race. It just magically poofs to new armor from race to race... 1 armor had to be created 6 or 8 times, they could have created more armor. So many more assets, makes me feel like all the presales went to that.
Lol I guess it's the same worry as any game, delay release or release it unfinished and broken...
I don't think that beta would be soon, in case you didn't know, part of the reason you're not seeing 'progress' is actually that Alpha II Phase 3 start was delayed until August, and in the meantime we're getting a few stopgap fixes to keep testing 'not unbearable'.
It's also somewhat likely that they don't have a clear picture of how some of these systems will work, since other aspects of the game's design were shifted to fit Steven's preferences in certain things (I hope this isn't a misinterpretation of what happened) and with those shifts, came some additional uncertainty.
Usual curse of MMORPGs, I guess.
You're luckier than me in that regard, I don't even like the combat...