Ashes of Creation Alpha Two Bard Archetype Preview

We are extremely excited to give you an early preview of the Bard Archetype in Ashes of Creation! This 4K video is just a taste of what's to come!

Reminder that Ashes of Creation is an open and transparent development project. As such, you will see work-in-progress art, systems, and mechanics. Leave us your thoughts on our progress in the video comments!

💬 If you have any feedback on what was shown, please share it with us over on our Forums!

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[stevenjsharif]

Thank you everyone for tuning in! As always, this is still a work in progress towards our Alpha II starting in October. Lighting is in the middle of a significant revamp, so some areas may be too dark and VFX overexposed, we are working on that and will have more updates next month. Leave us your thoughts on what you enjoyed about the Bard Archetype for Alpha II. What would you change? We do these updates to hear your thoughts! Excited to see you all in A2 soon enough! Much Love <3

[sammohsen]

cracking up at the dwarf just standing behind a dwarf size shield at the start

[HungarianWarHorse]

Seeing a dwarf in the party really makes the game feel real now

[Jedicake]

I don't think you realize just how much I love Bards. I can't thank you all enough for the hard work you've done. I love everything about them. Versatility, jack of all trades, silver tongue, musical prowess, I could go on.

[dvd]

As a milenial that used to make Lineage 2 videos maining a swordsinger elf hearing the bard draws inspiration from said archetype made me wallow in nostalgia, thank you Bucky.

[chriskw]

This was ALPHA 2? Most of the new games come out like this as “finished”😂 Aewsome job and progress keep it up!

[DoingFavors]

Watched the video on twitch, the Bard is everything i was hoping for and more. Plenty of times I've seen a Bard archetype in other MMO's and its never close to what I'm looking for.

The kit is perfect, cannot wait to see the final product combined with class augments. Those animations are perfection btw.

[andrewbako]

As a historically healer class in MMOs I'm glad to hear that they are keeping a distinction between the lesser healing classes and the primary healing class. Following this for years now I've always been interested in just how they're going to balance eight different archetypes and 64 different classes. Though it's not my class I do appreciate and love the depth of thought put into the Bard!!

[traviscue]

Wild to check this game out every few months, its looking better and better.. The UI still needs work for sure, but outside of the small things. Looking good!

[zincmeskalin]

absolutely gorgeous. it looks so great! edit: 29:15 this skill is so sick, the sound impact is awesome and the animation is on point

[Hazels_]

I love what you all are doing here. The team is very talented, keep it up!

[xlinnaeus]

Hoping you guys can help out some of the newly laid-off talent from Bungie this week. Thanks for being a great pro-consumer AA studio and giving me some hope for the industry at the moment!

[jourdanzero]

the amount of customizability in this game is gonna be insane. everything about your character just feels so personalized. races, the specific dimensions and features of the actual character made in the cc, your first weapon, your second weapon, your first class, your second class, your playstyle and what skills you spec into, your profession, your secondary profession, where you live, your guild, etc. Say you have two people make a basic human warrior character. one could be a tall darker skinned warrior that dual wields swords and uses a pet with the summoner secondary, specced into a full lifesteal build, an animal breeder and cook. while the other one is a short lighter skinned warrior with a scar and tattoos that uses a knife and a mace, specced into rogue secondary poison stealth build, and is a shipwright and weaponsmith. those are both a human warrior but they sound like two completely different types of characters . just makes it feel like your character is unique and gives it a real identity and i love it. it also means the game will age extremely slowly because the replayability will be through the roof. usually its like "ok ive tried everything in the warrior class, ill make a hunter alt so i can try something new. but in ashes, there would be so many different warrior combinations and playstyles you could try before you got bored enough to try a new class

some feedback thoughts:
- pls keep the sitting for mana i know people dont like it but i think itll be good. I think that it adds a nice little 30 sec to a minute where the group can talk about the fight, strategize, maybe crack some jokes like you guys did and if you were streaming maybe look at chat or something before the next pull. it feels like that old school mmo/d&d comradery that you guys want to bring back instead of just speedrunning mobs and silence. its also realistic because if you were really an adventurer who just finished a battle with your party youd go rest somewhere to recover before continuing.

-i think you all do a very good job of making us want to play every class. im not usually like that in other games at all but every showcase im thinking ooh i really want to play that maybe ill be a [insert class ] instead.

-everything's been getting better month to month you can see the improvement in little areas here and there

-the effects and animation still need some tweaks but all look very much improved. if it were me i would use less saturated colors for the abilities i think they look the nicest with the realistic graphics aoc is going for.

-some of the lighting spells maybe could be a softer or less saturated blue similar to the mage shield, the purple auto attacks from the spell book could more like the purple from the maddening dance, and the green spread arrows for the hunter could be more like the softer green from its other abilities.

- i like the change to the moving lighting ball where you can't really see the hard outline of the circle anymore and its just kind of an rippled space aura looks much better. i understand that you want people to be able to visually identify what things are tho so some of these make sense staying as is. the spells that are looking the best to me are the bard and clerics spells. that being said, you could not change a single thing from how it looks right now and the game would hundred percent meet my visual fidelity expectations as a consumer

[timcopley]

Wow guys well done! Seriously the Bard looks ace! Sheet Music instead of a Spell Book would be cool too.

[Zenny]

Anthem of Alacrity was my favourite showcase. Would love to see a class combo built around time, like a chronomancer/time mage.

The sounds across the board were fantastic. I got Legend of Zelda vibes from some of them!

[Tamz_TvT]

"Please don't kill me Steven"...

[danieldickson]

hey guys from Australia its me your biggest fan... I am 12 mins in and very happy and excited you guys are talking about Accuracy of spells a classic element that can be good if done right. like for pvp or fighting skull bosses etc.... 'mI also really happy to hear the Bard has a passive song, strategically that makes them a target in pvp and we will know if we stand next to one we might get heals, so people might target them in tight pvp battles to turn the tide of fight.... its just another small but important thing that shows how much care is being taken for proper gameplay mechanics that breeds strategies and gameplay ideas. 10/10 guys hope yas doing well really loving the bard so far :)

[LIFnOOb]

Finally, after years of patient waiting, the bard is here. And I gotta say, this class looks really fun to play! from spell/class/sound desing to the armor that is shown, I love it. Well done, looking forward to Alpha2!

[APlasticLemon]

Best part of every month - thanks Intrepid for working hard to resurrect the genre we all love!

[epg-]

Finally, a dwarf! (albeit a clean-shaven one)