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Ashes of Creation is gearing up to be an exciting and fun game to play, with the focus orientated around group play, exploration, economic and political tensions and ultimately, a sandbox for us to be challenged in. However, as I’ve played through most of Phase 2 as a solo player, I feel as though some tweaks may be required to balance the experience of those players who can’t find groups, have groups to play with or are a little time-poor. The reality is that these players will always be part of the community and given Intrepid are going through a feedback cycle, the best time to share these thoughts is now.
As promised, links and timestamps below:
The Decision Tree – https://imgur.com/a/P9u5AsF
Ashes Codex – Enchantment Guide – https://ashescodex.com/guides/ultimate-guide-to-enchanting-in-ashes-of-creation
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
04:00 Solo Play Verse Group Play
06:55 Solo Play Options
10:00 Gear as you go
13:00 Archetype Teir List
23:00 Farming Efficiency
29:00 Feedback on Farming Efficiency Discussion
32:00 Contribute to Nodes?
40:00 Crafting
46:00 Enchanting
51:00 More Feedback Discussion
58:00 Outro
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First view even – I win the game!
Pre-video impressions: I think the game is actually extremely solo friendly. Even having my (adult) son to play with every single day, we wind up doing solo stuff at least 50% of the time just because we enjoy gathering, which is HIGHLY solo-centric.
I am cleric, and my son is bard – we 100% think that cleric is the better solo class if you value your time, but bard can kite for days if you do not.
Great video.
I do not have many of the issues that you do with how this is all set up and balanced, but it probably depends on your end goals. They have always said that the game will be focused on group play, and the whole point is to be social and make groups more and more for harder content.
Gathering is extremely solo-friendly, and I have most of the "end game" gear just from selling materials, so between the hard group content and the casual/solo gathering and crafting system, I just do not have much of an issue with it currently.
Seems like your definition of "solo" is pretty extreme compared to the average player. I think most solo/casual players will be fine using the market to get one or two mats from another stranger if it's decent gear. I do think they should lessen the barrier to entry with early white level crafts… if you novice fish/cook, you should be able to create simple dried fish (fillet+fuel) that is at least as good as rations. A weaponsmith should be able to make a base sub lvl 10 weapon with only ore…without needing enchanted butter or copper infused hickory smoked blackberries. Save those complexities for higher tiers imo. Also, hot take, they should just remove any craftables from venders and simplify those recipes. It was annoying to find out that food I just got access to craft was being sold by a vender for pennies.
nice work here putting things in numbers! i totally agree – if the current balance is what the aim for at launch it might scare off a lot of solo players (or just those without a big guild) that need to put in 10x the amount of time to stay competitive in pvp
i dislike solo play in ashes, it's one of the biggest issues i have becasue rn with the game. i don't like crafting and i have to choose specific class to grind mobs solo. i wish and hope there will be alternative ways of gaining xp and wont turn into archeage bdo style grind, which is absolutely terrible for me
Interesting takes on the loot drops for solo vs group. I think a way to mitigate some of this is to adjust drop chances for groups as they start to fill up. So a potentially higher drop chance against mobs closer to your level as a solo player, and then each player that joins said group adjusts the loot table drop chance. Considering TTK in a group is significantly higher than solo, this would mean that farming for loot is a lot faster in groups, but adjusting these drop rates slightly could help keep things even.
Now the flip side of this is that since there are more players trying to roll for gear/items in bigger groups, it might make things even more difficult for groups to loot farm.
Just a thought as I definitely don't know what the impact this would have on the big picture. I enjoy groups so I would still like to see incentives for joining groups, but also there are times I don't want to talk to anyone and just vibe on my own.
Regarding the solo mana management, I think one thing that may be overlooked is that after leveling a weapon up and attaining the "Refreshing Follow-through" passive, pretty much all mana issues go out the window. The passive lone solves pretty much all mana issues from a solo perspective. I think your tier list might be applicable at the earliest levels of a character, but very quickly levels out to a pretty good state.
For solo survival the ranger is terrible.
Yes you can run away but you enviably pull more and more mobs that chase you forever. The kiting nature of the class means over pulling is also likely.
Eventually there wolves and you die. If you don't save all you cc and gap closers for these moments you will die every time. The lack of healing, huge agro chase range and lack of deaggro stealth make this suck a pain.
As solo I have never died so much as an archer class.
There is only one option my friend….and that is stepping away from a job and becoming a content creator around ashes. Thus allowing us to have the time needed for this glorious game. You have taken the first step my friend and I applaud you!!!!
Level 25 mage and level 25 bard, leveled entirely solo. I just like wandering around a dangerous world, leveling my artisan skills and doing my own thing at my own pace. But I do love participating in events with my guild and cooperating with other artisans as well (artisanship definitely my favorite part of the game).
I am finding solo levelling in Ashes to be soul crushingly tedious and awful.
really thought out explanation, I'm an oldie gamer that has ground my way through many an MMO I'm 75 a lot of them on my own and a few within guilds.But this game i am really enjoying I only hope I get to see the finished article ,but I intend to make the most of it.I am trying to level and craft as I go ,I am experiencing getting to a point as you mentioned that i cant level another skill. I have levelled 1 to master ,1 to jorneyman, 3 to apprentice .So I am having to buy other mats I cant create, I may have a solution soon a few of us solo players have created a guild called Solo its small and mostly new players but we hopefully will soon be able to help out each other ,if they get a guild storege sorted out soon.Ps thnx for your lvling tips im grinding lvl 13 1star minataurs to lvl to 17 .sorry for long post but its a topic that needs a bit of love .Excuse typos its late here in uk and im getting tired.
Great work. I am an engineer and would still have had to dig up the math to figure out the odds and time. Even then would have gotten to about where you did before I stopped. As a person who has limited time to devote to a game I fully agree. I stopped grinding levels at around 12 amd just started traveling and gathering. More enjoyable than killing the same thing a few hundred times for a level. Contribution to the node when doing that where I can.
You're doing great do. Genuinely and sincerely. This was a long ass video and I watched it until the end. Thank you.
I leveld up solo to 22. Its not that hard. Till lvl 15 its sooo fast. Then after lvl 15 its faster in a group. From 20 to like 24 its again very fast to level solo. For gear go in marketplace. You can ez solo level in this game
I also chose cleric as my "solo" class for someone that plays ~ 2 hours a night max…. i enjoy the gathering and both my GM artisan skills will no doubt be gathering centric, and have been fortunate enough to find groups (not until i was about lvl 15+) to play with rather quickly, one of which asked me to join their guild, participate in their citizenship and voting and before i new it i ended up not so solo anymore. I 100% agree that the game pushes HARD in the group play aspects, but i do think there is a great opportunity there even for "off time" and "low time" players to participate. The advent of things like discord makes that even easier being able to set up events and group play sessions outside of game time… i was able to participate in a "grand caravan" the other night where 8 carvans launched, with 20-30 defenders/attackers all running wild.. one of the most uniquely enjoyable moments yet. I started my journey as a solo player, but like you came quickly to the conclusion this game is just… not intended to be solo friendly, so I ended up jumping in with 2 feet and have had an absolute blast with it.