Mage, Tank, & Leveling Guides, plus more DDoS Attacks | Ashes of Creation Weekly Newsletter
As Phase 1 members jump into the World of Verra, what better way to get started than with a host of experienced guides?
Whether you’re just starting in Ashes of Creation, or you’ve been following for a while but haven’t kept up-to-date with all the content, this weeks newsletter tailored directly for you!
Top Ashes Moments
Don’t forget to check out the Top Ashes Moments episodes released this past week! Make sure your OBS is running to while you’re exploring the World of Verra for your chance to be featured in the next episodes!
Visit the Ashes Moments website to submit your moments!
Patch Highlights - 11/08/2024
Check out the Ashes Moments Patch Highlights, or read the full patch notes on the forums
More DDoS Woes
Going into the 3rd week of the Ashes of Creation Alpha 2, we were hit with even more DDoS attacks right when the server hit. With over 100 MILLION connections (mainly routed through regions such as China, Indonesia, and Vietnam), the servers were stress-tested to the max this past Friday, November 09th, 2024.
Luckily, the amazing engineers over at Intrepid Studios have been working tirelessly, and even managed to improve overall server worker performance, while mitigating these malicious attacks.
This bodes well for the future of Alpha 2 and launch, with the knowledge and experience gained from this work paying dividends in the months and years to come.
Fresh Start Realms
To help give new players this weekend a fresh experience, 1 new Realm in each Region was opened: Castus & Aeterna
Whether you’re a previous player wanting a new experience, or a new player just wanting to feel the land rush all over again, nows your chance to go out and explore!
Poor Performance Refund
With the lack of proper optimization curerntly (not the primary focus for Phase 1), some players were apprehensive paying $120 just to find out they won’t be able to properly run the game for months.
Steven jumped into the Discord and set things straight, mentioning that playtime will be taken into account for refund requests. While we’re unsure what the max playtime is, less than 20 minutes should be safe to request one should your performance be unplayable.
Corruption and Bounty Hunter System
Some of the more PvP oriented players have had questions about how punishing the Corruption system is, especially with both loot drop AND stat dampening. Some even argue that it should be location based, and way less punishing in those locations (sort of like the Lawless Zones or Wildy in Runescape).
Steven joined the discussion on Discord, explaining how Corruption currently is only temporary: when the Bounty Hunter system comes into effect, Corruption penalties will be lessened.
While some may be disheartened to know that Corruption won’t be getting any easier to deal with in the near future, this allows Intrepid to gather as much data in the open-world as possible, without players leaving en masse due to poorly checked Corruption.
If Corruption was leasened without the proper checks in-place to balance it, the team would spend too much time trying to balance systems around PvP, instead of focusing on the major issues that affect the world around it.
Featured Content Creators of the Week
This week is all about Guides. Although balance is constantly shifting, these guides are great resources for both beginners AND experienced MMO players.
Mage Guide ft. Crix
Crix is definitely one of the most hardcore Mage players currently testing Ashes of Creation. With hundreds of hours on the Mage alone, powerfarming, PvPing, and *cough* bug-abusing *cough*, it’s undeniable he knows just about everything to know currently when it comes to playing the Mage in PvE optimally.
Tank Guide ft. NyceGaming
NyceGaming is one of the more veteran Ashes of Creation content creators. While most may enjoy his laidback personality and always friendly demeanor, he is definitely a veteran when it comes to theorycrafting and limit-testing classes, especially when it comes to PvP.
He jumped into Verra playing the Tank class, and no matter how much he hates the name, he definitely enjoys the gameplay. Check out his Tank guide below.
Leveling Guide ft. Joe Hammer Gaming
Joe Hammer Gaming set out to answer one of the most commonly asked questions for new players: how do I level up? With the new player experience not coming online until next year, new players jumping in for the first time might be confused and overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information and lack of direction when they first step into the world of Verra.
This leveling guide to level 10 should give some guardrails for a smoother experience when playing, allowing you to feel better about your time in the world, and less like you’re running around trying to find out what you’re supposed to do.
That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to subscribe to keep up-to-date on all the Discord leaks, dev updates, patch notes, guides, walkthroughs, and more, straight to your inbox!