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.
why are you putting the cart before the horse?
KrystalKitten
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
so I'm kind of a filthy casual and a gatherer/crafter that has very limited hours in the game and I'm kind of scared for the future of ashes.
because of changes to apprentice needing 2x some things, and with people surging to L20 with L20 drops actually a thing, crafting really is useless. as long as people can power level to 20 and get ANY type of L20 drops (full items) no one cares about crafting until we get to Journeyman and by then the power levelers will be at 20 and up their crafting skills and even then its's just gonna be wiped in a month so us casuals who don't care about PVP and only care about the gathering and crafting of the game....well we really are useless and don't really matter. why would anyone buy a L10 gear that took me 4 hours to gather and craft when someone can grind Carphin for 40min and have a L20 item that is so much better? you wouldn't.
With the Caravans breaking and the large guilds PVPing everyone out of existence there is also no way for a casual to make gold needed to level up crafting, you almost HAVE to be in a big guild to matter at any level and if you aren't by the time you level then the big guilds crafters can out pace you every day of the week.
Don't get me started on Farming and Cooking, I have spreadsheets on this and Steven really I could present to you how complicated it is and why some things going to needing 2x the needed materials makes things 3-5X more expensive so its really hard to start these professions.
I get it, because of the wipes you have lost alot of testers but right now the game is a PVP grind to 20 and then PVP. the whole leveling thing through quests (that still don't work half the time and take WAYYYY too long to complete for the reward because of disappearing quest markers) and gathering and crafting...well unless its an Epic or Legendary and even then large guilds will have a Carphin drop or one of their guildmates make it there really is no point to leveling nodes for Journeyman stuff when you can just have L20 gear drops.
if you really want to test the "crafter is king" stuff Steven says...well put the horse before the cart...and this will piss off alot of people
1) NO COMPLETED ITEM DROPS, ONLY THE RECIPIE AND MAYBE 1 SPECIAL THING NEEDED TO CRAFT, THATS IT. (people who power level to 20 can deal or help raise the node so we have Journeyman crafting before they get past starting Novice gear.
2) seriously go after the hackers and RMT people, its easy to see who levels faster and who has more gold faster, you have 3 versions of resets and can see who power levels the right way and who is hacking
3) make Cooking a Craft not a Process. (seriously i have spreadsheets and graphs on this Journeyman level cooking is complicated and the having to have everything the same rarity and now 2x some things make it a nightmare i am willing to talk to whomever does Cooking programing because honestly its well thought out and designed but in practice of playing i can tell yall had unlimited gold and storage space when internally testing)
4) SEROUSLY FIX THE QUESTS SO THEY COMPLETE OR WE CAN ABANDON AND TRY AGAIN AND COMPLETE THEM
5) I hope this is fixed with gathering trees but the random rarity shouldn't be a thing, the higher you go in gathering, the better tools and the better specs you have in your tree should determine rarity. the better gatherer you are with better cloths and tools the better stuff you find. same with processing and crafting, the better you are and the better stuff you make the more likely you can upgrade things.
6) there needs to be biome substitute for things (say Fish can be used as droppings in farming recipes, or Acacia wood can be substuted for Oak in tools. Otherwise to do alot of things people HAVE to stay in the Riverlands which prevents people from spreading out into the world (also each Biome should have L1-30 creatures, the Desert and Jungle are pretty much end game places but as a nonL20 i can still gather and be out there....but why would I when none of my tools or cloths or anything can be used to upgrade my gathering tools???)
I really hope P3 changes alot and yes im even saying this as someone who is tired of wipes but we need another wipe.
Make the Nodes STATIC FOR NOW. Figure out a good this goes here, that goes there up to Journeyman and allow us to gather and craft. make the spawns fast and rarity easy to obtain, you dont want to get to Pre-Launch and find out that if I make a copper sword out of all but 1 Legendary part but because of my crafting level the sword is still Legendary but because of the code and that 1 common part I now have a +99999999 to everything and even hit nothing but constant Artifact rarity stuff when gathering by simply having it equipped. Or if i take my caravan off this specific cliff it crashes the server.
Testing Economy and balance is good when ALL SYSTEMS ARE IN PLACE, until then Gold and Rarity on gathering should be useless things (its just gonna be wiped anyways) and we need to make sure if we ride our cats into mountains or bridges we don't clip through (gee wonder why i got specific there). I honestly LOVE Ashes, but it feels you are catering to the Hardcore PVP guilds because they are the majority of testers, and testing a game and playing a game are 2 different things because you can call it an Alpha all you want but right now it just seems like a PVP grindfest with seasonal content and occasional wipes.
Again I LOVE the idea of Ashes, its why I backed the Kickstarter in the first place, to own my own tavern, but the more I play the more it seems the large PVP guilds are what will end up owning the game and the casual gatherer/crafter will just not play at all.
Kala Silverheart,
Head Chef of the Legendary Two Tailed Fox Inn/Tavern
because of changes to apprentice needing 2x some things, and with people surging to L20 with L20 drops actually a thing, crafting really is useless. as long as people can power level to 20 and get ANY type of L20 drops (full items) no one cares about crafting until we get to Journeyman and by then the power levelers will be at 20 and up their crafting skills and even then its's just gonna be wiped in a month so us casuals who don't care about PVP and only care about the gathering and crafting of the game....well we really are useless and don't really matter. why would anyone buy a L10 gear that took me 4 hours to gather and craft when someone can grind Carphin for 40min and have a L20 item that is so much better? you wouldn't.
With the Caravans breaking and the large guilds PVPing everyone out of existence there is also no way for a casual to make gold needed to level up crafting, you almost HAVE to be in a big guild to matter at any level and if you aren't by the time you level then the big guilds crafters can out pace you every day of the week.
Don't get me started on Farming and Cooking, I have spreadsheets on this and Steven really I could present to you how complicated it is and why some things going to needing 2x the needed materials makes things 3-5X more expensive so its really hard to start these professions.
I get it, because of the wipes you have lost alot of testers but right now the game is a PVP grind to 20 and then PVP. the whole leveling thing through quests (that still don't work half the time and take WAYYYY too long to complete for the reward because of disappearing quest markers) and gathering and crafting...well unless its an Epic or Legendary and even then large guilds will have a Carphin drop or one of their guildmates make it there really is no point to leveling nodes for Journeyman stuff when you can just have L20 gear drops.
if you really want to test the "crafter is king" stuff Steven says...well put the horse before the cart...and this will piss off alot of people
1) NO COMPLETED ITEM DROPS, ONLY THE RECIPIE AND MAYBE 1 SPECIAL THING NEEDED TO CRAFT, THATS IT. (people who power level to 20 can deal or help raise the node so we have Journeyman crafting before they get past starting Novice gear.
2) seriously go after the hackers and RMT people, its easy to see who levels faster and who has more gold faster, you have 3 versions of resets and can see who power levels the right way and who is hacking
3) make Cooking a Craft not a Process. (seriously i have spreadsheets and graphs on this Journeyman level cooking is complicated and the having to have everything the same rarity and now 2x some things make it a nightmare i am willing to talk to whomever does Cooking programing because honestly its well thought out and designed but in practice of playing i can tell yall had unlimited gold and storage space when internally testing)
4) SEROUSLY FIX THE QUESTS SO THEY COMPLETE OR WE CAN ABANDON AND TRY AGAIN AND COMPLETE THEM
5) I hope this is fixed with gathering trees but the random rarity shouldn't be a thing, the higher you go in gathering, the better tools and the better specs you have in your tree should determine rarity. the better gatherer you are with better cloths and tools the better stuff you find. same with processing and crafting, the better you are and the better stuff you make the more likely you can upgrade things.
6) there needs to be biome substitute for things (say Fish can be used as droppings in farming recipes, or Acacia wood can be substuted for Oak in tools. Otherwise to do alot of things people HAVE to stay in the Riverlands which prevents people from spreading out into the world (also each Biome should have L1-30 creatures, the Desert and Jungle are pretty much end game places but as a nonL20 i can still gather and be out there....but why would I when none of my tools or cloths or anything can be used to upgrade my gathering tools???)
I really hope P3 changes alot and yes im even saying this as someone who is tired of wipes but we need another wipe.
Make the Nodes STATIC FOR NOW. Figure out a good this goes here, that goes there up to Journeyman and allow us to gather and craft. make the spawns fast and rarity easy to obtain, you dont want to get to Pre-Launch and find out that if I make a copper sword out of all but 1 Legendary part but because of my crafting level the sword is still Legendary but because of the code and that 1 common part I now have a +99999999 to everything and even hit nothing but constant Artifact rarity stuff when gathering by simply having it equipped. Or if i take my caravan off this specific cliff it crashes the server.
Testing Economy and balance is good when ALL SYSTEMS ARE IN PLACE, until then Gold and Rarity on gathering should be useless things (its just gonna be wiped anyways) and we need to make sure if we ride our cats into mountains or bridges we don't clip through (gee wonder why i got specific there). I honestly LOVE Ashes, but it feels you are catering to the Hardcore PVP guilds because they are the majority of testers, and testing a game and playing a game are 2 different things because you can call it an Alpha all you want but right now it just seems like a PVP grindfest with seasonal content and occasional wipes.
Again I LOVE the idea of Ashes, its why I backed the Kickstarter in the first place, to own my own tavern, but the more I play the more it seems the large PVP guilds are what will end up owning the game and the casual gatherer/crafter will just not play at all.
Kala Silverheart,
Head Chef of the Legendary Two Tailed Fox Inn/Tavern
0
Comments
Ruining the adventuring rewards and experience for those players to make crafters feel important isn't a good solution.
AoC instead should shift to an Albion Online system where gear drops on death in pvp or even pve but crafting and replacing gear is very fast, simple, cheap and mostly painless. Probably wouldn't work the way pve difficulty is set currently. But the game would be much more fun if pvp were encouraged and crafters in turn felt valued by making the gear replacements for pvp players. Would need a gear destruction % on drop from death like Albion has.
But neutering adventuring rewards to make crafters feel important just shifts the suck to adventurers. We should be aiming to make all aspects of the game feel good as that's what makes for healthy sustainable populations, not just our preferred focus.
Think of it the other way, should adenturers ask for crafting to be deleted so we can have more fun increased loot drop chance while we farm?
If the level 20 Hawk 'tua' bow as ex. were easily craftable with recipe though and an Albion gear drop on death while in pvp red/black zones system were in place (w/destruction chance) the crafting players could farm those mats and supply the demand.
Without gear destruction systems crafting will have to produce better items than what we can farm in the world as fast as we can level, ie. keep pace.
The game would be much more fun if gearing was 5,000x faster, and cheaper but gear broke or destroyed on death in pvp zones, and scale crafting to keep up. Right now pvp is not engaging, crafting is in a bad place, adventuring is in a bad place. Corruption system and punsihments don't make sense in conjunction with the gear system re-kit cost and time investment. We need solutions to all.
Atm the game is really designed for RMT abuse as the systems are all poorly thought out, and aren't sustainsble, ie. swipe to progress.
This A2.5 I've given up on the Caravan system because PVP guilds are already geared and kill on sight (and one person can take down a caravan) anything that isn't theirs (because they are board) and the hackers/RMT people (are the only ones i have seen) have killed the economy so that poop which use to be like 11 copper each are now 11 silver each (which kills the ability to buy/fast level Farming because poop is the ONLY thing used ((seriously why can't we use fish to make fertilizer??? we do that IRL))) and honestly we should have a way to fix caravans then have it be 100% destroyed cause you can be lucky and get good stuff but then BAM its gone. (I would rather see a Caravan Repair where you can spend some gold to "fix" the caravan that got destroyed (and with caravans also just teleporting/crashing to Narnia or someplace) where you could repair the one you lost with the same gear.)
if gear broke and would be destroyed that could work BUT why buy a crafted bow when the guild has grinded C/SB/D and have 10 Journeyman Bows on hand and can get more easily in a week? if they make stuff breakable that just means people will grind the dungeons more, it doesn't solve the problem. Actually the Caravan thing i thought about. Why spend gold to buy a bow from a maker if when you die it gets destroyed? at that point just farm C/SB/D for a dropped bow.
there needs to be a novice way to gather/process/sell to make gold on an individual level that is on par with big guilds grinding in 10 minutes (ive gotten a gold worth of glint in an hour with a good group, people who gather/process/sell should have an equal opportunity to also do the same)
And with Wipes coming (i am ok with this i played Icarus at launch) as long as people can Level up to 20 and then grind L20 gear in 72 hours. no one is gonna care about crafting (ive seen it, i care about Farming and Cooking and you know what are the LAST things to go up in nodes? Farming and Cooking houses (because those have herbalism and animal husbandry which is the only reason they go up))....im noticing it, we have enough nodes now to do Journeyman crafting but only the Riverlands are up and running, no one cares about the Desert or Jungle or Ocean really and why? because everything out there is L30 and the gatherable materials don't make ANTHING that help gathering/processing/crafting or PVP. you can just kill things for their full drops.
We JUST NOW got Apprentice level stuff but who cares? people are geared in L20 Journeyman level stuff, have been for about 3 weeks now and a wipe is coming in a month or 2? Just grind the dungeon for L20 stuff that is better then most L20 starter gear.
Know why I had the most fun in the last 2 weeks of the last 3 phases i played? its cause now people WERE FORCED to interact with the gatherer/crafters but as a Gatherer/Crafter for better gear
You know what I was wearing the last 3 phases? the same gear I got the first weekend from Carphen.
The point is to see if crafting a given range of items works.
Itemization balance like the OP is talking about is super important - but it is something that happens very late in development.
Obviously, how things are isn't good enough for a live game - but this is not a live game.
You mention Albion, but left out the most important part about Albion's loot system. All gear drops in albion are player made. This is why the black market in albion exists; crafters sell their gear to the game, and the game distributes it to the adventurers.
I don't personally consider that an overly important aspect of Albion.
In fact, it wouldn't even be noticed if developers didn't say it was the case.
Essentially, according to the developers, players craft and sell items to NPC's, these items then essentially go behind an opaque screen, and they drop from mobs for other players at some point. It's the same items from that you players made, honest!
Any system that has an aspect of it go behind a screen like this is a system that isn't important or worth discussing, because we have no idea what actually happens behind that screen. We don't have any way of knowing if what the developers say is actualy true, or if it is just an empty marketing point.
But as for your list.
1) NO COMPLETED ITEM DROPS, ONLY THE RECIPIE AND MAYBE 1 SPECIAL THING NEEDED TO CRAFT, THATS IT. (people who power level to 20 can deal or help raise the node so we have Journeyman crafting before they get past starting Novice gear.
Some completed drops would be fine, but have them a ruined or damage version. Allow crafters to disassemble to learn the recipe or get materials from it. The catch 22 on the crafting just means avoid until max level. Join mega guild get power level. Or RTM those services if they suck that bad.
2) seriously go after the hackers and RMT people, its easy to see who levels faster and who has more gold faster, you have 3 versions of resets and can see who power levels the right way and who is hacking
Hackers and RTM should be outright banded, at least at launch, it's testing so let people test. Power leveling should never be a thing no matter legit or cheated. Nothing like devaluing the leveling process by adding a 'short cut', there's no point in the process anymore
3) make Cooking a Craft not a Process. (seriously i have spreadsheets and graphs on this Journeyman level cooking is complicated and the having to have everything the same rarity and now 2x some things make it a nightmare i am willing to talk to whomever does Cooking programing because honestly its well thought out and designed but in practice of playing i can tell yall had unlimited gold and storage space when internally testing)
I agree completely. They don't internally test as a normal player would. They need more in house testing to get direct and quick feed back about the clunkyness of some of these systems. I love that it is complex but don't make it so annoying to do.
4) SEROUSLY FIX THE QUESTS SO THEY COMPLETE OR WE CAN ABANDON AND TRY AGAIN AND COMPLETE THEM
Lol yeah
5) I hope this is fixed with gathering trees but the random rarity shouldn't be a thing, the higher you go in gathering, the better tools and the better specs you have in your tree should determine rarity. the better gatherer you are with better cloths and tools the better stuff you find. same with processing and crafting, the better you are and the better stuff you make the more likely you can upgrade things.
I don't think they know what it's supposed to be, maybe they have a loose idea, but the finished product of gathering is up in the air, which at this point worries me.
6) there needs to be biome substitute for things (say Fish can be used as droppings in farming recipes, or Acacia wood can be substuted for Oak in tools. Otherwise to do alot of things people HAVE to stay in the Riverlands which prevents people from spreading out into the world (also each Biome should have L1-30 creatures, the Desert and Jungle are pretty much end game places but as a nonL20 i can still gather and be out there....but why would I when none of my tools or cloths or anything can be used to upgrade my gathering tools???)
maybe for some items, but others no, you should be forced to travel to get some materials. That's kind of the point of it too force you to go somewhere to collect something to craft an item.
See that's the main problem I have, Right now we are capped at 25 but Ashes at launch will be L50 with the Archetypes, if that is the case then Crafting AT ALL will be Pointless because people will bum rush to L50 which is Grand Master Gear (and as someone who knows Cooking it's so complicated i would already say if i could make GM gear or grind it out in the world I would just grind it, I already have a problem with Apprentice Bread.....a stack of 250 takes 1000 of the starting ingredient...its crazy) because the Nodes would have to have GM stations (or the Freeholds) and again the amount of communal effort to get there no one would care until after they get to L50 which could take a very long time
This means that when the game is live, the fastest way (potentially the only way) to get to level 50 is to level up a node in order to open up higher level content.
As one of my former Guildmates said to me
We can only test the game as it currently is not as it is going to be...and right now Ashes doesn't seem to care about crafters and only sweaty large guild PVPers
This is good advice for a late stage beta test, not an alpha test.
In an alpha test, you should have an understanding of what is to come. You should be aware that systems will be dropped in to the test (test, not game) without the connections it will eventually have. You can and should test those systems, but you can't test those connections. Not until they are in the test.
If you are unaware of those connections and are informed of them after making you opinions on the unconnected system known, the appropriate response is more akin to "perhaps I should think on this with that new information at hand" than it is "my friend said I should provide testing feedback on parts of the alpha test that aren't made yet".