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.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Githal

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

What I really don't get is how anyone could look at the leveling speed Intrepid have intended for this game, and can come to any conclusion other than a dull grind.

The way Intrepid can make it not a dull grind and keep the leveling speed is by reducing the importance of leveling, and increasing the importance of node development for example.
So for example all citizens of a node get large exp boost depending on the level of the node. This will force guild wars, commissions, crafting, caravans and ect. The leveling speed will be faster as a whole with the exp boost, but the time it takes to level as a whole wont be different, since you will spend a lot of time developing your node.

Most new players aren’t logging in with the dream of being a background NPC helping some mega-guild build a metropolis. They’re here to grow their own character, forge their own path, and feel the impact of their personal decisions. Making node development the primary driver of progression risks turning the early game into a passive, community-serving grind that only benefits the few sitting at the top.

Tying XP gain to node level sounds great in theory, but in practice it creates a system where new or solo players are either locked out of meaningful progress or forced to follow the agenda of larger zerg guilds. That’s not fun, and it doesn’t foster true player agency. Don’t force players to care about the political drama of node wars before they even understand their class.

I dont see your reasoning why you say that small guilds would help mega guilds a metropolis?
All citizens will benefit if the node progress to metropolis. Solo players / small groups / mega guilds. all will benefit. So if you gonna benefit - why would you feel like NPC helping someone else, when you are helping yourself also.

even as a solo player this will be a chance to have chance to win vs mega guilds. Why? Because the number of citizens of nodes are same, no matter if 1 has mega guild in it, or the other has same number of solo players

Azherae

Githal wrote: »

Because the number of citizens of nodes are same, no matter if 1 has mega guild in it, or the other has same number of solo players

Wait, why exactly do you believe this is true? I don't think we have a 'citizen limit' (if so plz link me or quote wiki).

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Wait, why exactly do you believe this is true? I don't think we have a 'citizen limit' (if so plz link me or quote wiki).

It has a soft limit through the citizenship costs. Or at least that was the plan previously.

So, while smaller nodes will probably be filled with megaguilds (if those decide to overtake a smaller node) - I'm not sure if metros (or whatever they are called now) will be overtakeable by a single entity. I guess some truly huge meta-guild with hundreds upon hundreds of members, but at that point I feel like splitting your forces into a wider control structure would be more beneficial.

But who knows.

Azherae

I'd assume that bigger guilds would have more money to throw at the problem.

That's how it works in every other game I'm aware of.

I agree that a much wider control structure would be beneficial though, especially since Trade/Election collusion is much more powerful than 'one big guild piled into one City'.

Githal

Azherae wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

Because the number of citizens of nodes are same, no matter if 1 has mega guild in it, or the other has same number of solo players

Wait, why exactly do you believe this is true? I don't think we have a 'citizen limit' (if so plz link me or quote wiki).

Only soft cap, But TBH i think they should put Hard cap also. For example every town get 300 citizens, city gets 500, Metropolis gets 800-1000. Will make both node wars and siege wars more equal. I even think that if the citizen count is even less than this it will be even better, since you may need alliances with other nodes to fill the missing spots in node/siege wars that you cant fill by yourself. This will make the social gameplay a lot more interesting.

Also by having hard cap - it will force players to spread to different nodes. Which will create more competition. Will force node wars to make sure your node is the 1 that gets ahead and blocks the neighboring nodes from progressing.
Instead without hard cap, most players will try to get citizenship in the node that has highest chance to advance to next stage. Removing the competition from the game.

For example - imagine there are 2 neighboring town nodes. 1 with 30% progression to city, the other with 60%. All players will choose the 1 with 60% progression, making it progress even more. But if the 1 with 60% is capped, You may be forced to go in the 1 with 30%. And then do Node war to steal some of the progression, and have the chance to get to city first.

I think i will even put this in new thread. Since i think its important for Intrepid to implement

Caww

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Caww wrote: »

grind is what keeps subs on-going so business-wise, grind it is

Yes, but it's not what attracts new subs.

Agreed... that's the purpose of hype, graphics and feature list (however poorly implemented).

Aszkalon

Caww wrote: »

Agreed... that's the purpose of hype, graphics and feature list (however poorly implemented).

Thing is ... ...

... ... if they don't put into the Game towards Release what was announced in the last Years regarding Weather, "Graphics", Season-changes, etc. -> it will be "under false pretenses" yet again - right ? And keep some to possibly many People away which would have come otherwise.

I mean,
maybe they can even rightfully say " Fxxx that. Most People hate WoW and a few other Games right now anyway and probably come over to us. "

And damn they might be right.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Depraved

i hate questiong and i hate moving around just to progress. i like staying in one spot for 10 hours killing the same mobs. at least, im using my character and skills, i get to learn my skills, combos, builds, etc.

pressing wasd and f to talk to npc is barely using my character.

i suppose the game is catered towards people who are more like me, or people who dont care about the grind, since they will get to do other things in the game, eventually.

not everybody wants to run around talking to npc's all day. thats boring. grinding mobs and fighting for leveling spots is core. if you must quest to level up and you cant complete your quest because of pvp or not enough spots, then that feels bad, whereas if you lose your mob farming spot, due to pvp, you can go to another spot and keep playing. you arent limited by killing a specific mob to finish the quest.

to overcome that issue with questing, they would probably have to make it a solo or 1 party experience where you can quest from level 1 to max. or, just a lot of generic quests, such as kill x monsters in this node, no matter the type. or just let people fight for all the quests. there will always be people who wont be happy anyways.

im not opposed to 2 leveling paths tho, one where you can grind mobs without thinking about quests, and one where you can quest without too much grinding (but still have to interact with people in the world).

ordotemplarii

Lark Wyll wrote: »

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.

100% this. I don't know why people seem to think "its fine its just not a solo game". To me this is almost like saying "its fine, its just stage 5 lung cancer".

ordotemplarii

Aszkalon wrote: »

When i mine Ore's in the World of Worst of ever Story-written Warcraft,

i get EXP.
When i pick up Herbs in Worst of ever-Story-written Warcraft -> i get EXP.

I can't remember when this was patched in. But i liked it. I really really liked it. It was definitely one of the best Additions to the Content of the whole Game.

The Option to do something else than to senselessly slaughter countless Mobs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Did You Guys ever heard something,
alone the Lines of like : " Power ... ... ... ... usually always comes with a Price. "

When i - in Phase 1 during the likes of Middle-November or so,
had killed S~OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY Goblins - that i had the feeling between insane headache i had something that felt like a drop of blood maybe bleeding inside my brain or so,

you know a HOT-COLD-WET-"tingle" somewhere inside my brain. ( )

I decided the Prize is too high.
It is just too high.

I gave up around 5% of EXP after reaching LvL 11 towards LvL 12,

and i was disappointed into myself and felt bad for no longer being able to test. But that was my Limit.
Jepp.
Figured i better stop. I should admit it here right now.

In WoW Vanilla when levelling was insanely hard -> before Burning Crusade -> the ever first Expansion of Worst of Warcraft -> i managed to level THREE Characters up to LvL 60 back then - which was the Max-Level in WoW Vanilla,

and it was no biggie. It was doable. It wasn't bad. I don't know what was so different in Ashes of Creatio Phase 1 killing Mobs around Aela/the Starting Area.

But it felt different.
It felt like i am chained down. And i am struggling for every single Percent of EXP for every Level. Knowing fully well i would be set back should i die even a single time. .

I'm in the same boat as you, the 6 days played of solo questing in vanilla felt doable and even enjoyable. The clear difference in ashes is that the game does not feel intended to be solo'd, there is no clear progression durotar, to crossroads, to wailing caverns, etc. You do not feel like you're where you are supposed to be ever in ashes. I never got the sense that I had a functioning class and rotation.

Noaani

ordotemplarii wrote: »

Aszkalon wrote: »

When i mine Ore's in the World of Worst of ever Story-written Warcraft,

i get EXP.
When i pick up Herbs in Worst of ever-Story-written Warcraft -> i get EXP.

I can't remember when this was patched in. But i liked it. I really really liked it. It was definitely one of the best Additions to the Content of the whole Game.

The Option to do something else than to senselessly slaughter countless Mobs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Did You Guys ever heard something,
alone the Lines of like : " Power ... ... ... ... usually always comes with a Price. "

When i - in Phase 1 during the likes of Middle-November or so,
had killed S~OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY Goblins - that i had the feeling between insane headache i had something that felt like a drop of blood maybe bleeding inside my brain or so,

you know a HOT-COLD-WET-"tingle" somewhere inside my brain. ( )

I decided the Prize is too high.
It is just too high.

I gave up around 5% of EXP after reaching LvL 11 towards LvL 12,

and i was disappointed into myself and felt bad for no longer being able to test. But that was my Limit.
Jepp.
Figured i better stop. I should admit it here right now.

In WoW Vanilla when levelling was insanely hard -> before Burning Crusade -> the ever first Expansion of Worst of Warcraft -> i managed to level THREE Characters up to LvL 60 back then - which was the Max-Level in WoW Vanilla,

and it was no biggie. It was doable. It wasn't bad. I don't know what was so different in Ashes of Creatio Phase 1 killing Mobs around Aela/the Starting Area.

But it felt different.
It felt like i am chained down. And i am struggling for every single Percent of EXP for every Level. Knowing fully well i would be set back should i die even a single time. .

I'm in the same boat as you, the 6 days played of solo questing in vanilla felt doable and even enjoyable. The clear difference in ashes is that the game does not feel intended to be solo'd, there is no clear progression durotar, to crossroads, to wailing caverns, etc. You do not feel like you're where you are supposed to be ever in ashes. I never got the sense that I had a functioning class and rotation.

That is because WoW is a themepark MMORPG. right from the gate, you are given a class that makes sense and you only have minor choices to make, and you are given content that will continue to point you towards the next piece of content - until you hit the last piece.

Ashes is more of a sandbox (though not a full sandbox), where you are given the components of a class, but have to build it yourself (we don't yet have all of the components to build a functioning class).

Content is also very different to WoW. You won't be pointed towards the next thing, rather, you have to go out and find it - knowing that there may be no content to find other than a few mobs to grind on.

So, what the two of you are talking about here is - at least in part - the games intended design right from the beginning.

Enigmatic Sage

As of right now....

I'll probably be playing solo for a while in Ashes. I'll still find some groups to do content with but wont be running with a pack or guild for awhile. Assuming I don't get bored after the first month or so.. for what I want to do in the game wont be much of an issue considering how you can sign up for content IE caravans etc

I dont see a point in finding guilds now before there's an official release date. Too much drama and falling out non-sense to avoid. To each their own in that regard though.

Child Item