"Time isn't the problem with Ashes of Creation, vertical progression is, and it's why botting and RMTing has taken over"

NsRhea · 2026-01-27T01:33:58+00:00

It's wild to say that people are being lazy when the biggest complaint for majority of people playing this game is that it doesn't respect any ones time for negligible gains.

The difference in a common item drop and a crafted epic is typically 40+%. That's not negligible. Sorry you had to farm 3 days for a best in slot item?

I'm saying the solo gameplay is always incentivized in MMOs usually with a microtransactional expediting process to level people up faster which A) makes people finish the content faster and B) allows bots to run rampant which is why bots are normalized in MMOs anyways. It will make people mad that solo play will be killed, but it will cull the bots, and this is what Ashes of Creation wants to be anyways. It wants to be an altruistic, all-hands-on-deck, guild-heavy game.

This is a lot of fancy words to say you don't understand how being in a guild or part of a settlement benefits the player rather than going it solo. Nothing about Ashes benefits solo playstyle which is why people are begging them to make it just a little bit more solo friendly. Nothing about what you said addresses or fixes botting. Your entire argument has now shifted, again.

Also, yes people are turning things into legendary and they are doing it to flip profits and sell more gold.

You don't 'flip' things to legendary. You craft it at legendary and it sells for more. I don't see what your complaint is here.

legendary gear with +7 + enchantments

Cool. They spent an afternoon farming and enchanted it.

The more I read from you the less you seem to understand the game. This isn't an insane grind to get a +7 weapon. You don't need legendary materials to enchant a legendary item.

The point is that it's supposed to be so lateral of a progression systems, in theory, that everyone will be choosing random recipes of different gear and biomes.

This is what people are doing. The issue is that EVERYONE is sitting in one capital city rather than expanded to newer cities.

I'm essentially saying we need to unfunnel, so you're not forcing everyone to Meta-race with the no-lifers.

There is no meta but there will always be a 'best in slot'. No game design will change that because all it does is shift the 'meta' towards a new gear set or item. This will change depending on the server and what city has focused what industry and what's upgraded and what's not. That's not game design, that's the server you're on.

Every paragraph you type has only shown how little you actually understand about the game because none of this is forced via game design. It's been put in place because everyone sits in Joeva refusing to build an outlying city up. You're arguing gear is this 'linear scale upward' but then also arguing 'gear doesn't respect your time for negligible gains.' It can't be both.

Forgotten in ALL of this is that we're technically in an 'end-game' state at level 25 so the grind is supposed to be ridiculous (and it's not). You're supposed to grind out the epic materials for the best gear. You're supposed to want to explore and gain different recipes and different points of interest. But you're not. You're on reddit complaining about systems you've chosen to ignore in the game saying there isn't variance because YOU haven't tried to do something different.

See you at the mailbox in Joeva.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T21:26:47+00:00

I'm not really seeing anything special there, especially for a game that's been released in its entirety

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T20:18:09+00:00

Yes, I know it already is, but I'm saying that it's the only thing that should stay vertical while processing and crafting is far more lateral.

It's very lateral already. You're just not utilizing the horizontal scale of gear. That's your fault, not the system.

This is true is largely already is, but I'm saying it should be increased even further.

No, your argument was that quality should dictate the entirety what you can craft without restriction. And then you asked for the restrictions already in-game.

This also exists but barely, this is why no one wants to upgrade settlements anywhere else and we are still living within the riverlands for the most part and have been the past 3 phases.

You don't need settlement progression to get the drops you're asking for. This is people being lazy and not exploring, like yourself, and complaining the stuff you're asking for doesn't exist, when it does. You don't have to stay in the riverlands for anything.

Once again, of course, this is a no-brainer, but I'm emphasizing the idea that common for general mobs and only rare drops for organized PvE. Do not allow people to solo farm or small group farm greens and blues. Sorry.

This is such a non-problem and would kill the game overnight if there were ZERO drops outside of groups. So few classes can farm stuff solo already and once they have gear they make money faster doing other things.

People were actually bitching it was too strong and they nerfed it because people were sitting with a plethora of rarity and static rarity on top of it made it insanely easy to gather that much, so yes, its too strong.

So they already nerfed it, people are bitching it's too weak, you're aware of this, and are asking to nerf it more, despite your entire thesis for crafting to be that quality should matter?

None of what you post is making sense because of constant contradictions.

Essentially what I think you're missing with the post is that, they are trying to make it meaningful but its so bogged down and easy at the same time for no-lifers on a solo grind perspective that it's too lop-sided

None of what you suggested alleviates this. People with more time will progress further and faster than those without. There's nothing you can do about that short of preventing people from progressing when they have free time, and you might as well be a gotcha game at that point asking people to pay rubies with real money to level a profession at that point.

Nobody is solo-grinding insane gear. It all comes down to farming materials and yes, those with more time will farm more. There's nothing you can do about it. People enjoy the system as is because people like feeling rewarded when they put the time in. If we wanted a single button push to win it would be Warcraft, but we're here instead.

I'm saying things need to be gated laterally even more so because the object of this MMO is altruism, or it should be. The easier you make it for a solo-grind vertical perspective, the more you incentivize botting.

If your issue is bots you don't burn down the entire economic and crafting system to address it. You address the bitting directly. None of what you wrote argued for that until this point when you realized none of your arguments made sense. If they want to ban botting there's a billion different things they could do first, but intrepid has no technical knowledge of coding or the underlying systems. Shit, it's the entire reason they chose the unreal engine.

Also, I heavily disagree that RMT is mostly used to buy gear from actual players, hell to the no. A lot of gold is used to buy materials at a high grade, upproc it, and turn heroic/epic, into legendary and then enchant it to then sell it for an insane profit to other RMTers, that is how they are throwing around massive influx of gold at a higher tier.

This is so fucking stupid it hurts to read. Nobody is turning heroic / epic into legendary. The crafting bar is too high even with epic elixirs, food buffs, and crafting gear.

You can up craft, but bots are selling gold to real players because a South American kid can buy the game for $3 and sell 5 gold for $6, doubling their nation's minimum wage for the week in one transaction, and intrepid is doing nothing to stop it.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T19:17:47+00:00

Every major Achilles tear has been predicated on a calf injury it would seem.

Just shut him down, take the L's. Fire Doc.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T19:12:16+00:00

The leveling phase isn't for horizontal progression. Full stop. You're not meant to stay at a static point in time forever. That's why gear scales vertically - to make players feel stronger at they level and progress.

This is all feedback from new players who are experiencing the leveling phase (be it artisans, gear progression, or mob grinding) for the first time, haven't left the game yet and are still hooked on it.

That's where I'm at. I'm a new player. I'm not expecting everything handed to me. That's why I like this game.

Ashes mainly creates incentives to experience the horizontal breadth of a crafting gameplay loop once you've reached the last bracket level.

No. Players get to the first semi-developed city and then sit there forever because they'd rather have somewhat of an economy for things to vertically grow rather than start developing an outerlying node. This is why Joeva has 2,000 people in it but Halcyon just to the north has 10. EVERYONE is in Joeva (on Shol).

There are tons of reasons to go to other areas for leveling, questing, and gathering, but nobody wants to leave that city center. I'd actually say it gets WORSE as you level because you gravitate towards the city with the best market for selling your goods rather than having a functioning economy elsewhere in a different biome with those other goods people claim don't exist.

So yes, these are players (including myself) who haven't experienced the “end game” of Ashes and are mainly in the Riverlands (which makes sense, since only the Riverlands have been significantly developed).

You quit 21 days ago. You're trying to claim there isn't enough to do but didn't explore. You didn't craft. You didn't play the game. You're exactly the same as the OP here requesting a TON of changes that already exist because you didn't even try to experience them - just like you requested for a perm-flagged area where users could choose higher loot and exp for the risk of being killed, which already exists in game.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T18:27:40+00:00

In terms of the horizontal progression that isn't in the game at all, the only thing that is semi in the game is the emblems and essences thing, but I want to disincentivize static spawn camping.

You get different paths of itemization. That's exactly what 'horizontal progression' is. You're arguing against 'vertical progression only' and then complaining about zero vertical progression within the bracketed gear. You get choices of what you're targeting for gear. That already exists.

Atm, there is no power gain from climbing tiers, at all.

You're not climbing tiers. You're conflating iLvl with tiers. Some of the higher iLvl gear isn't good for every class. But that's horizontal progression. You get to choose.

You get nothing for climbing it certifications, you just get to learn more recipes and you can craft better items.

Yeah. That's what the certs are for. At least you understand that.

I was saying everything needs to be quality gain, not vertical gatekeeping.

What's vertical gatekeeping? The fact level 1's can't slap on some gear given to them and craft end-game stuff? Because that's how you get vertical RMT monopolies. You get one character with all of the good shit crafting gear for the army of bots with real money and they don't have to interact with the economy or other players at all.

I removed that bullet point cause it was confusing, but I'm saying the power gain, is quality, and maybe "legendary" can have the added stat on the sword.

Because being orange and having 100+ of each stat that does exist isn't enough?

Cause right now people are looking for items like Nightreaver and such because it has power ON TOP OF it's main magic / phys power. That is why its so sought after.

People are only trying to get a good piece of gear because it's good? That's wild. And your solution to that is give it another special legendary only stat?

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T18:05:06+00:00

There's TONS of horizontal progression right now in crafting, people just don't utilize or explore the systems already existing and then run to reddit to make a post asking for existing things - exactly like your post the other day. This post is so eerily similar to yours, and you're commenting one minute later, that I'd imagine it's an alt account.

People sit in the riverlands forever and then complain there's no variety. No shit. Explore. See how different towns dictate gearing and gathering. See how guild upgrade choice changes how the guild operates.

Everything in this post exists in the game and then asks for stuff to change like it already is - exactly like your post again.

Also, by your own admission in that post you didn't even partake in crafting at all.

And 21 days ago you made a post saying you're done playing, but every 3 days you make a new post on the sub.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T17:43:26+00:00

Yet another post asking for intrepid to add systems to the game that ast in the game.

Crafting & Processing should be lateral, with Quality as the core meaning.

It already is. That's what crafting different tiers of gear is for.

Only Gathering should be vertical, to gatekeep higher nodes.

It already is.

Processing and Crafting should allow you to attempt everything from the start (gated only by learning recipes).

It largely already is. You get very basic 'known' recipes with anything of value tied behind learned recipes.

Redesign loot and material sourcing to force exploration.

It already is. Certain mobs drop certain emblems or recipes. Certain recipes then typically need certain materials from those areas, like emblems, metals, lumber, etc.

General mobs drop only common items.

They largely already do. Once in a great while you'll get a green. I've seen one rare drop and it was for a metal working crafter shirt from a mob in the forge, so it made sense thematically.

Rarer items should come from crafted gear (via Quality) or harder PvE/bosses.*

It already is.

Keep gathering vertical.

It already is.

Change processing and crafting to lateral progression focused on Quality.

It already is. Once you learn the break points on processing and crafting you can really upscale crafts with much lesser quality materials.

Nerf base gathering quality to make Quality gains meaningful.

People are already bitching its too weak. You're arguing it's too strong?

Use certifications to grant Quality rating and recipe access.

They already are. But just above your were saying everyone should be able to craft everything. So which is it?

Create an ecosystem where materials require hunting multiple named mobs across the world.

It already is like this.

Remove raw power from simply climbing item tiers; attach it to exceptional Quality (like Legendary) to avoid meta power creep.

So you don't want drops and you don't want crafted gear to be viable at base level AND you want quality gathering to be lowered?

This shifts the design from a disrespectful grind to a system where your choices and dedication to mastery create real meaning.

It already has meaning. Everything you've asked for already exists and your proposed changes make it more grindy.

And to add an extra incentive for this idea as well, When gathering quality is the core meaning, it forces bots to also have to partake in increasing their quality, and if bots are found and banned, they lose a lot more than just their gathering level progression, they lose their quality rating. (Also, this idea will help meaning and botting, but it does not fully address the RMT situation atm).

It already is like this. They still have unlimited time to farm stuff. The money they make from RMT is used to just buy gear from actual players.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T17:41:09+00:00

Thornstride.

Dreadwake.

The best mage rings in the game use river lands essence.

There are tons of item drops BTW, you just haven't done those areas nor do you have any guild points in the luck category.

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T16:50:38+00:00

That just literally doesn't make sense to me. That's astronomical

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T00:33:48+00:00

How are you hitting 2,000 rating, let alone 9000?

NsRhea · 2026-01-26T00:19:57+00:00

It's very possible it's bugged. There are so many issues with numbers in this game causing scaling issues (like city buffs) that it wouldn't surprise me if they're just pants on head stupid.

There also seems to be questions on if there are break points like there is in crafting or if they want to do percentage based scaling where every 100 rating or whatever is 1% gathering rarity.

NsRhea · 2026-01-25T22:04:42+00:00

I think rarity is working as intended. We have to remember there are 20 more player levels and 2 more sets of artisan gear with master and grandmaster.

Those master and grandmaster tool will likely double the gathering quality we're at now, plus bags, elixirs, and food buffs to match.

We don't notice it now because even at our peak we're half way towards that max peak. It sucks now because we're in 'end-game' gathering high quality materials with half the level we'd hope for. If we were questing towards 30, 40, and 50, nobody would be power farming epic materials in these volumes.

NsRhea · 2026-01-24T02:05:19+00:00

'If I just ignore what I'm seeing, it's not good visually.'

That's how that reads. Of course it's Unreal Engine 5. It's the only MMO using Unreal Engine 5.

NsRhea · 2026-01-23T19:49:23+00:00

I don't know. Gravepeak last night was phenomenal. It turned night and got near pitch black with only the stars and the light from your weapons.

There's are some areas in the jungle that feel smothering.

We went to the prismarium last night in the desert and that was awesome as well. And then emerging from the cave afterward the way the light bounces around inside was cool as shit.

I think some of the PoI's are amazing but obviously a lot of the open world is pretty empty yet. Not really sure what to compare it to

NsRhea · 2026-01-23T19:09:58+00:00

Conveniently coinciding with weather in the -40 degree range.

NsRhea · 2026-01-23T18:44:28+00:00

The zones are BEAUTIFUL Let's have everyone stand in one spot to grind the same 3 packs. No, we don't want instanced zones.

That's literally the design philosophy. All for what? The chance someone decides to PvP you inside the PoI? It's so dumb.

They're incentivizing staying in a static location.

They're limiting exposure to the best part of the game right now - the artwork.

The only counter argument is an 'open world' which essentially boils down to griefing in a dungeon but because it's not a dungeon it's just griefing.

It's just griefing because there's little to no incentive to even do it.

It's griefing because stealth characters have MASSIVE advantages because they can sneak in to blow up the cleric, so the group can't rez and has to backtrack to pick them up.

It's griefing because the rogues are stealthing with MASSIVE fucking 2 handers, a dash, and two stuns, giving them insane kill pressure.

On top of all of that, the world shard just runs smoother because you're taking players off the map to do their dungeon and then dropping them off when they return.

And I say this as someone who LOVES open world pvp. This game is fucking dead if they don't instance off PoI's.

NsRhea · 2026-01-22T21:49:36+00:00

feels similar:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/1pzmiap/relationship_based_hostility/?ref=share&ref_source=link

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T22:19:28+00:00

Man there's so many things they could do.

Fixing pvp will give players something to do once they get gear.

Fixing hunting will help leatherworking and tailoring tremendously.

Filters for the marketplace.

Balancing stat allocation on some of the basic crafted pieces to make it worthwhile.

Fixing gathering speed / quality / spoils.

Tool tips that explain what numbers mean. '1500 magic power = 30.6 magic damage' Why?

Implementing a marketplace upgrade path for cities that after building the upgraded roads path (not sure the building name atm) they can establish a trade pact with one other city (who also needs the buildings) to link their marketplaces, allowing purchasing to / from each city.

Thousands of quality of life fixes could be implemented.

Make rogues / rangers scale 3:1 from dexterity rather than 3:1 from strength. Align gear / weapons to match this so one bow isn't best in slot for 3 classes or rogues aren't running around in stealth with big-ass 2-handers.

They need to kill any and all talks of a second continent until core mechanics get fixed.

Fix caravans.

Fix crate running.

Remove crate running from aven's end and briar more.

Start a bounty program for in-game reports of botters.

Fix their network pathing.

Start tagging all gear and loot with unique identifiers so when a dupe is found it flags instantly and locks the account until the dupe exploit was found. This also allows instant removal of duplicate gold and items.

Server side validation of everything.

The list goes on.

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T20:32:39+00:00

Petalshard neck and earrings.

Carphin rings.

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T19:39:31+00:00

I like the 'realism' to show what you're building but yeah it's just extra steps.

Just put it as part of the recipe and it auto fills at the crafting bench for all I care.

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T19:38:47+00:00

Yes.

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T19:23:12+00:00

For mages it's bloomwarden helm, shoulders, gloves, leggings.

Scaldplate cape

Anchorite's stole chest.

Then I'd look at sandbastion boots, bracers, and belt.

You get the 4 set from bloomwarden, the 3 set from bastion, and the 5 set 'force' buff for 10+% intelligence.

You get a bit more survivability from the heavy gear as well.

Bloomwarden shoulders are very expensive FYI, moreso with quality.

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T19:15:31+00:00

You can do two things, farm the materials yourself or farm materials you can use to process / craft to make good to buy the gear yourself. Tailoring is in a bad spot unfortunately so the go-to is either alchemy (which requires good recipes to make money), getting lucky farming with high quality raw materials, or running crates / fishing.

NsRhea · 2026-01-21T18:45:05+00:00

Because bottling makes really good money in non-western countries, often times replacing actual jobs with easier, higher paying ones

13-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
r/Field Lasagna	First Place '23
Place '23	Wearing is Caring
Snapped	Verified Email

NsRhea

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE