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.
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⛰ June 2025 Development Update Livestream Discussion Thread ⚒
Glorious community,
Our latest Development Update Livestream has wrapped, and this month was packed with exciting reveals and deeper dives! From worldbuilding and player systems to backend insights and design previews, there’s a lot to unpack.
We chatted about the new starter zone, economy updates, new races, and how we’re preparing for the next phase of testing. You might’ve caught glimpses of work-in-progress tools, UI updates, and even a few surprises we’ve been forging behind the scenes. 🔨
What stood out most to you? What has you eager to jump in? Let’s chat below! 👇
🗣️ In case you missed it, our latest livestream dived into the upcoming Alpha Two Phase III, covering a new starting area, races, nodes, PvP, guild systems, and an econ & stat revamp!
https://youtu.be/6BG0kkSkNaQ
Our latest Development Update Livestream has wrapped, and this month was packed with exciting reveals and deeper dives! From worldbuilding and player systems to backend insights and design previews, there’s a lot to unpack.
We chatted about the new starter zone, economy updates, new races, and how we’re preparing for the next phase of testing. You might’ve caught glimpses of work-in-progress tools, UI updates, and even a few surprises we’ve been forging behind the scenes. 🔨
What stood out most to you? What has you eager to jump in? Let’s chat below! 👇
🗣️ In case you missed it, our latest livestream dived into the upcoming Alpha Two Phase III, covering a new starting area, races, nodes, PvP, guild systems, and an econ & stat revamp!
https://youtu.be/6BG0kkSkNaQ 
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Comments
What has me eager to jump in? Well it's hard to say from that stream. Econ and Stats sound like they are improving for the better but we'll see how that translates to the actual gameplay.
Since 'dynamic PvX events' is something I already have in Throne and Liberty that isn't really an additional 'omg cool'. If they do something unique, different, or improve combat beyond Throne and Liberty's combat system I'll probably be REALLY excited. For now it is 'neutral' and sounds like there are potential negatives for some players.
Lawless zones will be the downfall of this entire design. PvPers will complain that they have to travel to get pvp, while all the other pvp systems are not used, because they got nerfed to the groud. While pvers complain that pvpers get the best rewards in the game, because they can murder anyone in a lawless zone for free. Zergs will dominate the lawless zones and just snowball into beating everyone else outside of lawless zones.
On another note. Gamba in quests is the worst. At THE VERY LEAST make it optional, as I asked for in my thread about this
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/67749/please-no-gamba-in-quests#latest
And no mention of stat difference between a Tier 3 Grade 1 item and a T1G2 one was also a great shame. If higher Tier items are weaker than low Tier of the next grade - crafting is still in the hole. People will still just outpace crafting and will just grind mobs for gear, especially if we get more of low tier drops.
There were a ton of good points about other things, but those 3 are the only ones that stuck in my head. Probably mostly because lawless zones made me crash out and concentrate on the negatives more than the positives.
EDIT: here's a video about my thoughts on the lawless changes
Access to PTR for all Alpha 2 players is wonderful! Very excited to kick the tires as you develop things for Phase 3 in the next month.
Rolling back the processing recipe changes is huge, already making a big impact on my plans for crafting in the next month. Really happy it only takes 3 slate to make a slate mold again.
New questlines to test in Anvils is gonna be so much fun. More lore for the dwarves!
Steven standing by the current corruption system was fire. As someone who has rarely played PVP games before, This is what is needed to build a broader playerbase.
So excited for mules and crate transport gameplay. This is what my RP character is centered around.
QUESTION REMAINING:
Will we ever be able to mix rarities in processing? This was promised with the gathering updates rolled out through May 22nd, and never happened. My guildy just found ~30 legendary slate, but we'll never be able to use it cause there are that many legendary carcasses dropping legendary fat on the entire Shol server. Mixing Rarity in processing recipes is badly needed. And if you can't implement it... can we at least move non-central ingredients to "basic ingredients" instead of "quality ingredients"? Why are Legendary Slate molds held back by animal fat rarity anyway??
How many plots for artisan buildings will we have in the new t3, t4 and t5 nodes? We haven't had a server with all Journeyman benches built yet. Only had 5-8 nodes most of p2, and player interest has dropped off too fast in p2.5 Will there finally be enough building slots to fit all JM artisan skills in a biome?????
Would love more description of the new support buildings and final node plot availability before p3 release. There's a community of folks gaming out node configurations like a complex econ strategy board game. Getting more insight to the ruleset would help us prepare strategies for p3.
Keep going Intrepid! You've got the startup playbook running better than I've seen in any indie game development. Wishing you all the best,
Spark (Mage) and Breeze (Cleric) of Horizon
However, I don't agree with the changes done to CC vs white targets, as there is currently no recourse to dispute a resource other than going red, which to me seems like it further water downs the pvx aspect of the game into separated and zoned down pve/pvp zones, as there is no incentive to ever go red on someone gathering a resource.
Having penalties in sanctioned PvP events is totally fine, especially if they’re toned down. If the losing side doesn’t face any consequences, it opens the door for players who get mad at their team to just give up mid-fight, go AFK, or even sabotage their own group out of spite. Having penalties will encourage people to fight to the very end.
The crate system is shaping up really well.
POIs are a big deal, they’ll help fix a lot of the issues around player interaction and raiding.
There should be a node policy which players can vote and temporarily turn the node into a POI. That kind of policy will be useful for purging out spies, enemy collaborators, resource thieves, and other people who are straight out bad for the node and it's citizens.
The policy should go to a vote and activate within 15 minutes, since it’s meant to be used in emergencies, like when a crucial spawn appears and guilds from a rival node are rushing in to farm it. In those moments, you don’t have the time or resources to formally declare war on each one of them, so you need a fast way to respond. Kinda a panic button.
It will be interesting if guilds can’t unlock every possible skill. It will be a real decision between joining a massive guild or sticking with a smaller one that’s more specialized things that matter to you. It kills variety if every guild ends up having all possible skills, I agree that a fully maxed guild could unlock 2/3s of the skill tree.
I'm a little confused about the direction of crafting/economy. Is the goal to have a deep player driven economy? Or to allow players choose how they want to acquire their gear?
I'm mostly ok with extremely low chances for full gear drops from difficult enemies, but when they mentioned unlocking node vendors for the low grade gear, it made me worry. If players can just buy gear from a developed node, what happens to the low grade gear market? All the crafters who got in the market early get to benefit from selling their services to all the new players, while any new comers just get to craft items to be thrown away.
Would it be possible to have the best of both worlds? Could these node vendors buy player made gear to keep their stock of items up? This introduces a way for players interested in crafting to have a way to earn some money while leveling; rather than just crafting junk items for the exp. This also helps give crafters more of an identity and gameplay loop.
Two things were not so great imo.
1. I like the idea of roadmaps, knowing whats ahead in the next 6 months has a high value for the community imo.
But i dont like the communication around the roadmap right now. This livestream was designed to inform on the scope of the phase 3 launch and a lot of systems of the phase 2 roadmap didnt make the cut.
This is perfectly fine, plans are expected to change!
What i dislike is giving out information and then having loose ends that are unanswered ... it gives off the impression of sidestepping the topic... completely unnecessary. You had a livestream of 2,5 hours, taking 1 minute on the roadmap should have been in the scope.
2. I love the idea around the dynamic lawless POI system.
But i was a bit surprised to hear how its supposed to work.
The biggest concern players have, is a big mindless zerg that is dominating these zones.
The way you said you want to set it up " on a rotating schedule", "zone after zone", is very conducive to these zergs. There is a lot of ways to set that up, but you chose to use the 2 magic words every zerg wants to hear.