Warborne Above Ashes

It's no secret I'm always on the lookout for any new MMO that isn't just a singleplayer RPG with added netcode. So much so that I'm willing to give almost anything a try. It is a bit of a sad state of affairs that Warborne Above Ashes is possibly the best such MMO to release in recent years, even though I can't in good conscience say it's even a good game.

Warborne prides itself as a 24/7 PvP MMO. Open world, dynamic battles, no story. From the way it describes itself it sounds more like Planetside, except with top-down MOBA-esque combat, but the reality isn't quite there.
There is definitely a large PvP presence in the game, and indeed you may be attacked anywhere on the map, but that's rarely actually the case. Most of the game is PvE, clearing various camps, loose enemies, bosses, or dungeons. That's not all the possibilities, and there's a ton of different content. It's actually quite amazing they have so much at launch. The reason this is most of the content is because this is the way you earn exp, levels, and most importantly, resources. While PvP can theoretically give much more of all of those, then in reality there has to be a losing and a winning side. The losers don't get much exp, and actually get some of their hard-earned equipment looted by the winners, forcing them to go back to PvE to re-earn that equipment. Not to mention you respawn at your base which is usually not next to where you died.

While slightly misleading, that's not the problem. PvE is fine. There are some questionable choices. Like your weapon deciding 3 of your skills and 1 passive, while your drifter (hero, character, whatever you call it) only deciding 1 skill and passive, which really kills the fantasy of "playing a character". Some of the mechanics are also awkward. Like the basic attack (which for some reason is your main source of damage, even on casters) stops attacking every time you move, forcing you to click it again. But these are not core gameplay issues. I think the core gameplay is fine, and would make for a great game, but there are just so many quality of life of problems. Were it just that, I could be apologetic, and say "oh, it just launched, they'll fix it", but I played the playtest half a year ago, and virtually nothing has changed. I'm not sure where they got the resources to make so much content in the first place but then not fix anything in half a year, and that makes me worried if they ever will. There is definitely potential here, and I believe every problem they have is relatively easily fixable, but if they won't do it, then it will remain a bad game.

But let's go through some of these problems and explore things you can do in the game while we're at it.

• I'm in Europe, and they enthusiastically launched 3 servers for it. This is a problem because 1 server got really full, and the remaining 2 had only a fraction of the players. Had they dynamically opened up a new server as the first filled, they would have ended up with one really full, and one reasonably full server, but now two are ghost towns while the first is...
• The first is so full that some factions don't have room anymore (more on that later), and all the content in the beginner areas worth doing is completed. Loot is shared, which is good, but that means you have 50 people swarming a small camp, 3 minutes of travel and waiting time, 15 seconds of combat, and everyone gets pennies. The day-by-day increasing level cap does help with players, who have more time, not leaving everyone else in the dust, but it locks half the map out for the first ~20% of the season.
• There is passive mining. Your income depends on where you place your base (which can be attacked). This would be a great idea of encouraging risk vs reward, but for some reason the areas don't always get more rewarding as they become more dangerous. Not just that, there just isn't enough room for everyone who wants to get a spot in those areas. This gets so bad people will grief their own team by blocking the good spots with other buildings before a base can be placed there, and it's literally a fraction of a second before you lose a spot because someone got ahead of you, and now you're stuck with worse passive income (of a very important resource) for the whole season. This is both bad map design and unnecessary inter-faction friction.
• Player numbers decide who wins and who loses. Both in small battles and the overall season. At the small scale, while groups of 10+ will show up on the minimap, allowing anyone to avoid zergs, the common friend group of 4-6 people will still get unexpectedly run over by 8-9 people cheesing the radar system. It's just generally difficult to practice PvP anyways, since losing takes such a big toll on you. So it's really unfriendly towards casual players unless you are only running around in zergs. And that's the other problem - that most people are basically not allowed agency. With such a focus on numbers, a smaller warband (guild) just can't compete with the 300-person ones claiming the whole map. You'll either be a disposable pawn to a zerg, or you'll lose out on rewards from being in a successful group. Individual performance just isn't rewarded that much. Add to that faction hopping to move to the winning side, and the end of a season is ruined too.

Honestly, I've prattled on enough. There are more problems to highlight, more stuff to talk about, but you get the picture. The combat is fine, not great. The core ideas in the game are good. But there are so many little problems that mount up to form this huge pile of garbage that it stinks up the whole game. And worst of all, they show no signs of resolving those problems. I will probably check back in a month or so to see how many people stick around for the next season, as well as if they're doing anything to clean up the game now that it's launched. I might return to play the game if they do, but as it stands now, I'm not hopeful and as such can't recommend the game, even if you like this genre.