Ashes of Creation PvP Sucks For The DUMBEST Reason

[@ZybakTV]

Please follow me on other platforms as KZbin is unreliable! linktr.ee/zybaktv 0:00 - The good parts about Ashes of Creation PvP so far 5:48 - Why PvP sucks in Ashes of Creation at moment 9:42 - Why this is a high priority issue 12:21 - What do we do now?

[@CrixGuides]

I've talked to a couple devs and they said they'll have it fixed before the wipe and I sincerely hope that they do. I have a Mage in full Legendaries and my shatter can hit for 12k. Each Firebolt hits for 5k+, we can duo world bosses. Its unfair and Its insane and its even easier to get that Legendary gear, since theres ways to 'cheese' the mats. If they dont adjust rates, the gear, the rarity of the mats how easy it is to obtain all of them, we will all be in full Legendaries week 1. I also really like that you mention how bad the defense is on the leggo gear too. I was still one shotting a tank who was also in full legendary gear and had 9k HP or something

[@ZapatosVibes]

Good to hear.

[@JonBondgsr]

As an alpha tester I hope you are sending bug reports about cheesing the mats instead of just "playing" the game.

[@CrixGuides]

@@JonBondgsr Yeah ofc. I don't only send bug reports in, but I clip or record the bug and personally send the big ones to like 5 different devs, and when they're in chat, I'll show them. The last thing I want is a shitty bugged game

[@saint1xd913]

Time to kill in this game is completely fast. Me as a fighter I had no time in most of my times to stack the Momentum bar, I'm dying before it or killing before it. I think even for basic rare gear in level 25 is still high numbers of damage. I want to be a fighter and not a fucking assassin that will get in and one shot them before they one shot me. Mage is an example of that, the fire mage was one shotting me instead of dealing high burning damage. Please, Crix, help us talking to those devs to have a higher time to kill, the highest TTK the highest we can show our skills and mechanics.

[@definitelynotadam]

Thats great feedback. Luckily for everyone this is the best time to gather such data :)

[@RyveGenesis]

As someone in that gear I agree. Itemization and TTK are completely messed up right now.

[@ZybakTV]

Yea I don't even think it's fun for people that have the gear. Especially in these later weekends when guilds start handing out the stuff to everyone.

[@RyveGenesis]

​@@ZybakTVagreed

[@carl5939]

steven sharif literally RMTed in other games, dunno why u would expect good pvp ever. he is just paying ppl to D ride anything he does or says. he made his fortune as a professional scammer along with his mother too.

[@dizzydwarf502]

@@ZybakTV Yeah, I've been handing out legendary weapon and shield for tanks level 1-8 (but it's only the level 1-10 gear, the 10+ legendary gear is a big jump).

[@irishned6464]

Hey man this isn’t directly related to the topic of this video but I’m a fighter on the Castus server and (assuming PvP gets fixed) Id love to see some videos where you go over some PvP gameplay and discuss what’s going on, why your using various abilities, explain defensive and offensive combos, spacial awareness, engaging and disengaging, how to counter various archetypes etc. I’ve mainly been focused on exploring the game and it’s various systems but now that I’ve hit 25 I wanna PvP. Anyways I’ve been enjoying your videos keep ‘em coming!

[@ZybakTV]

@@irishned6464 I’ll definitely be doing this in Phase 2. Just need to get more practice myself 😅

[@RTS-v5f]

Crafted gear should be the best in the game, but I agree the gap is way too big atm.

[@FirestoneTales]

Crafted gear should match the rarest, high end boss dropped gear.

[@definitelynotadam]

@@FirestoneTales That's not the point here, the point is that gear is everything atm and removes any kind of level of player factor in combat.

[@Nyce-Gaming]

A perfect representation of AOC TTK 6:38

[@ZybakTV]

I've actually died faster than this before to a Ranger. 💀

[@dizzydwarf502]

I started last week, but I've been waiting for 7 years to get into gathering/crafting in this game. I'm currently level 10 tank, with level 20 mining, 15 lumberjack, 10 armorsmith, 10 herbalism. I'm not so much a sweat lord for fighting, but could call me a sweat lord for gathering. I just happened to stumble onto a guild that was looking for a tank focused on gathering/processing/crafting.... and just happened to be extremely useful to help push them getting tons of the legendary gear for 10+. Yes, it's that powerful and yes, they've been showcasing it to teach people they have to change their mindset of the game from raid, raid, raid for gear, and instead focus on gathering/crafting for gear. That being said, stopping crafting entirely would be the worst thing as it's literally been the focal point of development of the game since it's kickstarter over 7 years ago. A fix to the tuning of it is coming before Friday (and probably needed anyway). But, a crafting focused game is what this will be which is why this game will be so economy based. If you could just get the best gear from raid bosses, it would instantly turn this game into trash as it would ruin the entire basis of the game. People just need to get out of the mindset of that, which I understand is hard because it's what most of us have been used to for literally decades in nearly every single game. Again, I agree that getting the legendary gear is too easy right now, but it's supposed to be because they needed to allow everyone to test out the crafting systems and the rarity gear etc. I'm sure in Phase 2 it will be harder to attain, however, I do also believe that it will still be a huge leap in power from those ignoring crafting, as it should be because gathering/crafting in this game are what's going to drive the entire game, nodes, pvp, caravans, everything is centered around crafting gear.

[@ZapatosVibes]

Legendary gear needs to feel legendary, but not like this. Especially not in PVP. I know Steven said he didn't want dampening in PVP, but i'd say Legendary being about 50% stronger than greens would feel about right in PVP IMO, if armor/hp scales to match as well. I wouldn't mind gear scaling even better in PVE, although not to these absurd levels. If properly balanced though, crafted gear being BIS is great, and I love the current depth of the artisan system. Just needs some major tuning done in time for the wipe. Epic/legendaries also way too easy to craft right now because of other crafting tuning (you don't need anywhere near full legendary mats). Also, drops atm trivialize any crafting below high-heroic/low epic, so another change would be to severely reduce drop rate of completed item and limit them to greens from elites, and a bit better from bosses (better yet, have them drop materials). This way, crafting green & blue gear would be worth it (which is actually a lot of effort given the travel, cooperation and stations required). That would already be a great start to Phase 2.

[@ChristaphonZ]

"Mom, when I grow up I want to be a sweat lord!" *pats head "okay son"

[@GhostGG2123]

Okay i agree but when you say you can't test the game when balance is this off...I'd argue we tested and found the issue lol. The first 2-3 weekends basically no one was aware of the problem which gave great data, then we all became gods able to solo carphin without any danger....which also provided great data lol. For those unaware intrepid has said they are aware and agree legendaries are way too powerful.

[@wegbored]

Pretty much perfectly said. Glad to see it's getting fixed before the 20th!

[@Vysione]

Thank you for saying it, they 100% need to fix this before phase 2 starts. The damage in general and the burst is too damned high 🔥 Ashes WAS supposed to have a 45-90s ttk and even if they fix this a bit, we're going to be a long ways off from what was promised ☠

[@ZapatosVibes]

Really? 45s is absurdly high.

[@Vysione]

@@ZapatosVibes It's not a 1 to 1 translation, it's more or less translating a mix of developer speak and an idylllic "dream scenario" that isn't reflective of how fights actually occur. 15s ttk = games where you can one shot people 20-30s ttk = games where you can instakill people in a combo (Especially prevalent for ranged dps with travel time projectiles and such) 30-60s ttk = much more semblance of a fight in most circumstances, though people still die instantly to minimal coordination from 2-3 dps. 60-90s ttk = I don't know, but it's the right direction for an RvR game considering that even at 30-60s you still instagib people with some bursts and the random spam aoe will still alt f4 the melee in large scale. The above numbers showing 15-90s's are all like, if a developer who doesn't know how their burst buttons work goes and mashes their keyboard into someone who times their defensives against all of the right abilities and kites properly and overall just plays defensively perfectly but still loses the fight - it's not realistic. Most fights (especially in group battles and ESPECIALLY in raid vs raid or zerg fights...) involve people getting hit by stuff in the midst of a fight that they realistically have no reasonable way to know is coming, shy of specific things i.e. knowing that most raid fights open with 30 people spamming (Lets say Flash Arrow, as a T&L reference). Realistically speaking, the ideal scenario doesn't happen and solo it looks more like: In a game with a 15s ttk, you're going to kill people in

[@dizzydwarf502]

@@Vysione From what I recall Steven saying before is that the goal for timing of a 1 v 1 fight (even though the games designed around group fights) is 15-30 seconds depending on classes involved.

[@Label07]

I don't like huge power gaps with gear. I think gear should be small but noticeable when stepping up from each tier. 2 shotting someone at the same level is ridiculous.

[@Monbo3742]

Crafted gear was confirmed not to be scaling as intended and Steven says it should be resolved in this weekends patch

[@tylenolrx7699]

Bingo^

[@tylenolrx7699]

- Steven Glorious testers, we’ve discovered a few bugs relating to quality rating for crafted items resulting in higher than expected quality, rarity scaling for all items, and some opposed stat check failures, along with some NPC stat progression issues. We intend to fix some of these for Friday, which will result in stat adjustments for some of your gear across the board. This will have the highest adjustment impact for gear at higher rarity classes (such as legendary and heroic items). You will see more detailed patch notes on these changes this Friday 🙏💪👍 -from Steven. This was addressed last night Good video new sub here. -Death & Taxes

[@ZybakTV]

I was not expecting them to address it that fast. Crazy!

[@tylenolrx7699]

@@ZybakTV just shows you how good their code is to make those kinda changes on the fly. ❤️

[@ZybakTV]

Seems like they've built a lot of their systems with this kind of stuff in mind...which is very good long term!

[@MatthewKimberley-qw5wf]

Steven’s post seems to acknowledge this issue. Interested to see how the item adjustments play out this weekend

[@Mythrandir-L]

What's really wild is crafted gear will be the most powerful. Steven has clearly stated this, if you want to be better then get good at crafting. If you picked legendary gear with Con for the armor and health you wouldn't get 2 shot. My folks have tested this.

[@xenon1416]

This is a good take, I do like the short time to kill, but 1 to 3 shoting is way too high, when you get to the high end

[@sherpagoolsbee8390]

Let's have this discussion again when phase 2 comes out. Phase 1 isn't to test balance.

[@psylas5880]

That was a good fight we had at the end there. Pity you left out my revenge kill 5 mins later where I left you with cheetos all over your shirt :P Looking back on that clip I think I would've had you if I didn't run out of my chains AoE so early! Gg. Nice Vid!

[@ZombieBrainsDev]

There's a good chance it won't be fixed in phase 2 since its focused on nodes and economy. And yes, I will be this guy, this phase is intended for server stability and lag, only minor balance changes are being made. They'll most likely start major class and item balances in phase 3 when all classes will be in the game. I really doubt they'll disable crafting in the crafting testing phase.

[@DarkMitten]

I didn't know legendaries were this powerful... Thanks for the video shedding light on the issue :)

[@Dave-rt7jt]

6 days ago dude was hyped about trolling an entire server, now hes upset hes being killed lmao

[@Lamacide]

hes a great pvper see his Crowfall videos. 90% of the people one shotting currently will be sad when the gear is nerfed bro lol

[@keldornify]

This has been addressed. Steven said a fix is coming Friday. Was a bug.

[@irishned6464]

I heard a rumor that jewelry sockets will play a massive role in defensive capability come December 20th.

[@RandomActsOfGaming]

I'm so curious how gear will play out. I see a LOT of people complaining about the legendary stat squish in pve, I'd guess they're just going to have to add a pvp multiplier at some point. I like crazy stats for crafted gear in PVE, it feels pretty good to have better gathering tools once you've found enough rare resources, same for gear. But yeah this imbalance is crazy. LOL the guy who says 'OUTPLAYED' after 3 2k auto attack hits.

[@dolphcrane6420]

We need to see the other classes as well.

[@ZybakTV]

Rogue SOON™

[@dizzydwarf502]

@@ZybakTV Yep, this is why healers are so damn powerful right now, they don't have a counter class yet ;)

[@FairPlay012]

Ooooh snap. For me, it sucks so hard when PVP is based on who attacks first. There is no time for PVP to actually happen. Why have all these skills if time to kill is sub one second :D I bet they will fix this, nothing to worry about.

[@GravitoRaize]

The game is pretty dang fun despite the PvP flaws. IMHO, it's good we're running into this stuff now. There was so much jank last week when I would run into town with mobs on me the guards wouldn't kill them but they ARE obsessed with killing green cows in town for some reason. I crafted Tier 1 green armor and I was able to solo level 19 mobs at level 12 as Cleric without too much trouble. If they disable crafting I'm not going to test it. The whole point of testing is to test all aspects of the game. It sounds like they have enough PvP data right now and they need to fix that, not the crafting. They should disable PvP if it's so bad it needs balancing, IMHO.

[@BasedChadman]

Anyone who tries to argue against this video because of the development timeline doesn't understand why PTRs exist. I would have had no idea if not for content like this, and I agree this is terrible for pvp longevity. Most successful pvp games tend to have a higher ttk, and even fast-paced games like League have had patches to increase ttk across the board because you can't outplay a one-shot.

[@CCMyLife1]

100% Needs fixing. Great video man doing gods work.

[@n0t_s0_free]

After 8 years of development, they suddenly realize how absurd legendary gear is. It seems to me they didn’t conduct a single test to see how legendary gear would scale...

[@Mulchi14]

I agree its a bit weird nobody ever noticed how completely BUSTED the scaling is. Well maybe they did and just didnt think people would reach that level of progression before the 20th Dec. It's kinda crazy how many totally no-life this Alpha. Either way it took them not even 2 weeks to get the "fix" for it out after it became a discussion on discord. W in my book. Many things change during such a long development period, some things also get forgotten. They never had this many people playing and testing the game. They never really had this amount of data to analyze when it comes to player progression and gearing either. Most tests on PTR where like "Ok you're all lvl 25 now with 200 Gold and a shit ton of mats, please make sure to test this and this and this hard"

[@ZybakTV]

From my understanding it was a bug with something being multiplied instead of divided leading to insane crafting results. It wasn't an arithmetic error.

[@HalIOfFamer]

Yeah I've just seen a video of a ranger unload into a tank with a full rotation, deal like 1/3rd of hp bar then the tank pulling out a bow and killing the ranger with like 5 basic attacks.

[@sergeykaprantsev5192]

they need to fix that to 20 december

[@wackyguyoverthirty]

Hopefully, they address this soon!

[@veeshan222]

The scaling between quaility for gear i think are fine since crdoafting spose to be king and thee default craft will be heroic so there only realy 4 quality of gear trash mob drops, heroic, epic and legendary that being said though the defence scaling to offensense scaling it 100% off atm which is the issue, many people complaining bout scaling between quality which i dont think is the issues its the scaling between offence and defence stats on the gear thats the issue Like the difference between heroic and legendary weapons is like 60 magical or physical combat power which isnt a whole lot. but there defiently seems to be something off between the defence scaling and offence scaling. I also dont think people have a full set of legendary armor though atm due to animal quality drops are rare as. overall dmg and healing need to be reduced by like 40% i think across the board, also there a modifier for calculating combat stats that they could probaly tweak, atm combat power comes from dividing combat rating by 3 (Atleast for rangers is 33% reduction) they could probaly increase by dividing it by 5 or 6 instead of 3 to convert rating to actual combat power this would also fix mobs being way to easy which i think they are especialy 3 star mobs I do find it amusing that lvl 10 players can 1v1 lvl 25s though atm with the weapons lol

[@irishned6464]

Disabling crafting entirely is not really realistic, simply disabling a tier level or two of crafting so at a minimum you can’t craft legendary gear would be good enough.

[@ZybakTV]

That's more what I meant by that statement

[@imus68]

Thanks for making ashes content!

[@ZybakTV]

Glad you're enjoying it!

[@TeamFracture]

Hey just a quick point about the combat. It isn't perfect. its decent. You can move to the side of an enemy doing an attack animation and be completely out of the telegraphed zone and still get hit. Which feels very very bad.

[@scottii]

Still looks better than Throne and Liberty. I guarantee if I login from last week, my character is still CC'ed from the last fight.

[@Yianni-GR]

That guy will try and tell you he's on green gear too.

[@ashfield4313]

After 20th my guild will be rushing legendary gear. How long will it take? My estimation is about 5 days to collect the materials. I've got

[@ZybakTV]

Yep. They need to fix it ASAP and announce they've fixed it. Or else people will become slaves to getting this gear.

[@ZapatosVibes]

Legendary gear needs to be much MUCH harder to craft, on top of severely reducing the gap between green and legendary to something more reasonable.

[@henrifortier8621]

damn you're on Vyra and been wrecked by Elite Zenkai, I know the feeling kekw

[@anthonyscott3659]

I love the idea of open pvp like old UO days ... but to me the combat looks bad all i see is spamming AOEs and blooms everywhere just not my favorite type of combat

[@surma4620]

This, commenting for visibility

[@definitelynotadam]

I consider AoC pvp a comedy show. I don't treat it too seriously atm. There is very little skill expression. Numbers are everything. Time To Kill is lower than in some FPS games I play, and those games actually require some player ability and skill.

[@BigSteelThrill]

Is it crafted or is the EVENT HANDOUTS legendary that Steven and the Devs did?

[@dizzydwarf502]

All the gear is craftable, so anyone can get it with a few friends coordinating and all spending lots of time gathering.

[@Lamacide]

lol glad i didnt invest much time and just pvped and had fun at low levels. My guild is going super hardcore and this straight up looks not fun

[@aphorizem]

in chat: "damn epherium got rolled"

[@TheCopiumClinic]

Solid takes.

[@krisumusic]

Isn't this like oneshotting people on WoW betas? Cause I always oneshot people in WoW betas. It's just numbers? Super easy fix :) (But someone should tell Blizzard that it's easy to fix)

[@ZybakTV]

They usually do fix that stuff pretty quickly to be fair. Especially if they're raid testing. Usually it's only a few specs that are out of control. Not the entire game.

[@krisumusic]

@@ZybakTV True!

[@sgtshatta01]

I’m personally not going to pay $120.00 to test someone’s product for them. I will behave as if this game does not exist until it’s officially released. The inefficiency of capitalism can’t be overstated, 15 developers only to make a game this massive is beyond stupid and credulous

[@SpaceCoconut]

Video outdated within hours lol

[@ZybakTV]

I'm VERY okay with this! Happy to see them fix my complaint so fast! The rest of the video is still relevant though!

[@brimstonevalar6053]

First of all legendary items should not be available for crafting end of story...they need to find a better and harder solution for players to obtain legendary items, in the end everybody will have legendary gear and if you don't you just getting farmed in pvp, you will never find balance in a mmorpg that mixes pvp with pve.

[@definitelynotadam]

This might be a hot take for some but the best pvp experience I have had in AoC so far was when both sides had shit gear.

[@Adlehyde.]

That's not a hot take. That's a low TTK skill v skill matchup. That's why it's better pvp.

[@elgringo4923]

These sound like balance issues, so they’ll probably fix them in phase 2

[@Toast_Deletes]

They nerfed the legendaries in the latest patch, fyi.

[@Mythrandir-L]

Pancakes account got zero'd because he exploited to get it all. just thought I'd throw that out there.

[@zpriestgg3118]

We did it without exploiting. The Artisan gear is what's causing it. It takes rare/heroic/epic materials (heroic average) to hit legendary with the artisan chest on. That being said, even if you got it without Artisan gear, it's very broken.

[@tiendang7984]

Lying for fun are we? I saw pancake with his gear before the servers went down, he seems fine

[@dizzydwarf502]

@@tiendang7984 I don't know about Pancakes, what he did or didn't do to get the gear, but I know with 100% certainty, the gear is easy to get with just a few people working together to gather/craft.

[@Cimarb]

Is that fighter you are playing? I only tried it out to lvl 2 so far lol

[@ZybakTV]

Yep! definitely a class that's ROUGH to level relative to the easier ranged classes.

[@Cimarb]

@@ZybakTV Yeah, I really want to play Tank, but after struggling all the way up to 7, and then trying a couple other melee classes, I went with Cleric and love it. I am doing the blessed weapon greatsword to still get that cool holy warrior vibe, but it is nice to have a big wind up nuke and heals to speed up the grind. If Tank had some self heals, which I think they will once we get the Cleric subclass (Paladin), I may go back to Tank main, but right now it is horribly slow to level a melee class.

[@mucxlx]

people dont realise that this is not for playing but for testing. Complaining about something like that 2 years before the earliest release is kinda stupid

[@sumasaum]

Movement COULD be good if they gave a way to increase mouse sensitivity.

[@ZybakTV]

I thought I saw a turn speed adjustment setting? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.

[@sumasaum]

@ZybakTV If you find it, please revisit this comment. I'd love to know.

[@Neeko90]

Whats crazier is how quickly videos like these talking about concerns regarding the game gets outdated..what was this, 2 days of being relevant? :P

[@buddnick22]

I was the mage u showed in the clip (one that 2/3shot u). another issue with legendary gear, that isn't as well spoken about atm is that it seems to make u invincible to non-legendary or epic players. honestly when u attacked me i looked at you as more of a pest and thought maybe you'd walk away after not hurting me. when you continued outside i barely felt like it was pvp, and more like swatting an irritating fly. the gear is a massive issue atm.

[@ZybakTV]

As soon as I saw your mage bubble shield being as big as it was I knew I was cooked. 💀

[@wanderingoutcast3722]

Gear wall ftw

[@MrMalkraz]

I feel like I've seen this exact bald guy so many times

[@stanjd]

The game has left itself open for pirate activity like eve without ships. Kinda crappy imo. No way to opt out of pvp. Combat is similar to Throne and Tides. New World-esk zones with taxes and politics. I haven't seen anything new or ground breaking.

[@xDrac]

Good content my man! I agree!

[@ZybakTV]

Glad you're enjoying it!

[@jonny0s]

Why would whiping again be bad? I personally hope they whipe for phase 3 at least if not more often

[@ZybakTV]

Frequent wipes close together kill your testing base and cause players to play much differently than they would normally. They will wipe for phase 3 but that’s in May. What people are really against is a wipe after only a few weeks.

[@brimstonevalar6053]

​@@ZybakTVSteven said that he does now want another wipe after this one...sure we never know but that is what he said a week ago

[@mcjgenius]

albion online 200 v 200

[@ChristopherFryeWA]

LOL love the PVP right now.

[@williamlaprarie3007]

So far the entire game is dogshit. The only thing i found that was appealing was character movement, climbing and jumping feels really good, combat and skills are trash, crafting and harvesting is a total shitshow. As the base game feels like total trash and doesnt hold a candle to archeage.

[@Mbartels2078]

Glad this was fixed

[@me1134]

LOL another year and a half...it will be at least 4 more years.

[@definitelynotadam]

6:49 "skill".

[@ClaymoreTheMage]

Zenkai with screentime haha sweet

[@SecretSecretman-r2j]

This has already been patched

[@SteakSauceIceCream]

YO you killed BigTony. you must be on Vyra

[@ZybakTV]

Yea I'm on Vyra. Is BigTony a streamer/KZbinr? Not familiar with him.

[@wizwerd]

Welp, this video is already oudated lol

[@demonovmx]

the title is weird

[@definitelynotadam]

He is attempting to game the algorithm. Welcome to the YT with the way they promote content.

[@luanrato1]

pvp sucks cus alpha 2 is for testing servers only

[@ZybakTV]

That's obviously not true. It may be the focus but it's not the ONLY thing they're testing...otherwise they'd be conducting the testing much much differently.

[@gelbaits8362]

true stuff

[@nytman5048]

The next phase has to do with crafting tho... personally I think they should wait till rogue is ready then do the wipe.

[@kavontataylor]

once again wow is the better game

[@Auld17]

Already fixed when this video was uploaded. Well-earned dislike.

[@ZybakTV]

It wasn't. They did fix it pretty quick though.

[@liamlomax8760]

This is Alpha phase 1. Nothing but an Alpha phase 1. we are not testing systems; we are testing server stability. Alpha phase 3 is testing combat systems, class balance and all the other stuff. I am not sure that the gear we are getting now is the final gear or that the systems that run it are all up and running.

[@ZybakTV]

It's not binary...It can be multiple things at once. Why do you think the feedback forums are broken up into so many different categories? Because they want feedback about things. 🤣

[@oom415]

Disable crafting? You clearly don't understand how this legendary gear is being crafted in the first place. Maybe do some research and find out how the gear is being created in the first place. It would be in the best interest of your audience. You clearly are not a sweatlord lol

[@tiendang7984]

none the less, its too easy to craft these legendary sets they need to fix that. also the offensive/defensive stats, its too geared towards offensive

[@oom415]

Absolutely right. Would be good to talk about why these items are around and what we might actually be crafting after they adjust crafting.​@@tiendang7984

[@dizzydwarf502]

@@tiendang7984 I agree they are too easy to craft currently, however, I believe that was by design considering this is Alpha 2 phase 1, and still 2 more phases to Alpha 2. I believe they made it much easier to get rarity procs from gathering and then made procs in crafting easier as well, to test the systems they will use as well as get the word out more and more about how crafted gear is what this game is centered around. Personally, it's not something that NEEDS to get fixed right now, but I'm sure some tuning will be in order by phase 2 simple because: A. The word is out about crafting gear now. B. So they can focus more on node system testing. C. Their will be much more PvP in phase 2 than there was in phase 1.