Development Update: Apr 28, 2023

Discussion & Outline Summary

Community & Reminders

• They are spotlighting 1 YouTube comment per development update.
  • One of the ways for certain systems to interact with “camping” dungeons, is initiating guild wars, or the flagging system. There are opportunities for player friction to occur if players are doing things that are not received well. The politics in an open world game, is the life blood to keep players invested in the game. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if a group of players try to exert their power, but rather an opportunity for a political engagement to happen. There are anti-zerg mechanism, such as not having access to fast travel. Points of frictions are opportunities for engagement of players and thus they do not want to do anything that may inhibit that healthy engagement.
• The Dev Discussion for Dungeon Delving is still up.
• There are still regular office hours that you can provide input on discord with the team.
• Cosmetics swapping over on May 10^th 2023, at 11AM PST.

Mage Update

• Not all abilities are displayed, only 9-10 of them.
• The Electrical and Frost abilities were the focus of this mage in this preview, as well as their synergies.
• The location of the video is the Hall of Judication, in the Riverlands, it was an Aelan prison/trial location that they kept criminals for court.
• Abilities:
  • Blink (20s Cooldown)
    • Instantly teleport a set distance in the direction you are moving
  • Shell
    • Create a protective magical shell around yourself that absorbs a large amount of damage before breaking.
  • Ball Lightning
    • Create a large ball of highly charged electricity that travels slowly forward dealing rapid periodic lightning damage to enemies it overlaps with and applying an Electrified stalk to targets with each hit.
  • Blizzard
    • Channel a massive blizzard around you, raining a barrage of hail shards upon your enemies while channeling. Each shar impact deals ice damage in a small area around it. All enemies in the blizzard also accumulate a stalk of Chilled periodically. Activate the ability again to end the channel early.
  • Frost bolt (20 Mana, 40m Range, 6s Cooldown)
    • Launch a bolt of frost towards your target. Dealing Ice damage and applying 2 Chilled Stacks to the target on impact.
  • Cone of Cold
    • Blasts a cone of cold in front of the caster, dealing ice damage and applying a stack of Chilled to each enemy hit. The blast also leaves behind a field of ice mines that explode on proximity contact, causing additional ice damage and Chilled stacks to nearby enemies.
  • Lightning Strike
    • Call down a bolt of lightning upon your target, dealing lightning damage and applying two stalks of Electrified to the target.
  • Arcane Volley (40 m Range)
    • Fires a volley of arcane missiles at your target, dealing arcane damage with each hit.
  • Elemental Empowerment
    • Whenever you cast an elemental spell, your weapon attacks deal additional damage of that spell’s element and apply a stack of corresponding element status effect to targes hit. Casting a spell of a different element switches this effect to the new element.
  • Chain Lightning (30m Range) 
    • Release a powerful streak of lightning that hits your primary target and then chains outward to all nearby enemies from that target, dealing lightning damage and applying 3 stalks of Electrified to each target hit.
  • Slumber (30m Range)
    • Applies the sleeping condition to targets affected within a small area around the primary target, rending them unable to move or take any action., Any damage dealt to a sleeping target will break the effect.
  • Fireball (40m Range, 3 Charges)
    • Instantly hurl a ball of fire towards your target. Dealing fire damage and applying one stack of Burning to Target on impact.
  • Magma Field
    • Erupts the earth at target location, forming a boiling pool of lava that deals fire damage to enemies per tick while periodically applying a stack of Burning to enemies within the area.
  • Fissure
    • Calls for a series of jagged spikes of earth in a line in front of the caster, dealing earth damage and applying two stalks of Earthen to each enemy hit along its path, and then launching them the air.
  • Arcane Empowerment (50 mana)
    • Temporarily dramatically increased cast time while active. Consumes all spell charges for increased duration per charge consumed.
      Spell charges are generated whenever you cast an offensive mage spell while not under the effects of Arcane Empowerment. Each cast generates 1 charge up to a maximum of 10 charges.
• Statuses:
  • Chilled: Slows EnemyFrozen: Frozen, Cannot MoveElectrified: Reduced Magical mitigationShocked (10 stalks of electrified). Damage will consume electrified stalks to deal additional damage.Shatter:Burning: (unknown)Sleeping: Unable to move or take actions
  • Earthen: (unknown)

An AoE combo for more of a mage/fighter combat style was displayed, as well as a single target combo.

Mage Showcase Questions

• Can you swap weapons in the middle of combat?
  • Yes, you cannot swap armor, but you can swap weapons.
• Is there an underlying system or is this a proprietary system?
  • It is Intrepid’s custom system.
• Can foliage turn transparent in order to not block the view mid combat?
  • Yes, those are higher fidelity polish that will be addressed later on in development.
• Action vs Tab basic attack, is mage more tab target vs hybrid?
  • It is important to note that when they talk about AoC hybrid design, there are abilities that are skill shot abilities, there are also a mixture of abilities that require targets. There are 2 alternate modes of camera setting. There is a soft lock mechanism to allow the users to use position or template abilities. They are creating a mixture of abilities that is cohesive in the entire design.  When you have your basic weapon out you can blind fire if you choose to, or you may soft lock to a nearby target.
• Is it possible to have only a single element mage, or do I always need to be a combo element mage?
  • There are benefits of selecting more than one, such as a chilled enemy, becoming frozen, and then using electrical damage to give the shatter affect. When building your class kit, you will want to take into consideration what type of intricate connections am I creating with my combos in addition how does that interact with groups that I’m going to interference with and other classes and archetypes that play off of the key word interactions from my abilities as well, because AoC is a group centric, group focused game which means you will need to take into consideration the party you are playing with. But yes, you could just focus on a single element.
• How will line of sight work with abilities in PvP?
  • One of the things the team is looking into is the ability for projectiles to path around corners. The reason for that is that some abilities might have indirect fire. Such as an archer who has the ability to select mage as they secondary class and augment a snipe ability in order to go around a corner, those interesting types of interactions play with the problem statement where you can play around a corner to block line of site. Some abilities might not care about that line of sight, they might care about the distance of the path.
• At higher levels, how much will mana management matter to mage players?
  • Mana management, for all class, is a relevant resource mechanic that must be taken into consideration when they are utilizing rotations. There are going to be abilities that use your mana faster than others. There will be mechanics, and/or class synergies that you can spec into to help mitigate it, there is itemization that you can utilize from a set bonus perspective or certain types of weapons or tattoos, there are enchantments that might reduce the mana used, or increase your mana regeneration or pool, there are even specs you can build towards if mana management is your issue.
• In large scale PvP with a of players, how will particle effects not become overwhelming?
  • There will be features from a scalability stand point that will allow players to tone down the bloom and brightness of effects, in addition to the channels of those effects.

Art Update

• Skeleton Axe and Shield model
• The Featherstone Expedition Pack model and turn table (January 2023 – February 23)
• Ward of the Implacable model (January 2021 – February 21)
• Godsinger’s Garb model (February 2023 – March 2023)
• Cows model and turntable (multiple varieties)
• Sheep model (multiple varieties)
  
  

Studio Update

• A principal animator, lead animator, a couple VFX artist, some audio programmers/designers were hired in the month of April.

Q&A

• How many dungeons will a party of adventures have to access when they meet up each evening (i.e. will it be rare to find level relevant dungeon content, that is not already engaged by others)?
  • The intrepid team is purposefully launching with one of the most aggressive and ambition content schedules for an MMO at launch, so yes, a lot of different opportunities (that is predicated on which areas chosen to be leveled to unlocked zones). However, not all content is equal, they purposely create tiers of content areas and types of content areas. The tiers might relate to things like better drop rates, respawn rates, damage meditation for group composition, proximity to certain location. What you gain from those types of areas, might be more relevant for certain groups/classes more so than others. So yes, you will have access to a lot of different content, will the best/most relevant content (for you/your group) always be available? No. That is the element of competition. If things don’t feel competitive around what is best, then you have removed an element of the satisfaction when you have acquired/succeeded in participating in that content, which is a fundamental core pillar behind what Ashes is trying to achieve through the distribution of content and then players.
• Are there any passive skills in the crafting tree that allow you to drop less material on death?
  • Not in the crafting tree, but there are in the material inventory bags that you can acquire. In the crafting trees there are within those professions things to affect things like drops rates, and gathering speeds, and ability to survey, tool creation, but the dropping mechanics is more related to your bags. Bag will have item progressions as it related to quality of bags, types of bags and the materials they are most used for, some of them are more PvP oriented, that can reduce significantly drop rates as a result of that progression, there is complexity there.
• Player death means XP debt and losing materials, the RP community wants to know what are the in-game lore repercussions of revival upon death. For example: does my character lose memory, are they weaker, does a period of time occur before revival?
  • The question touches a little close to the metaphysical nature of the universe in Ashes of Creation, it is a difficult questions to answer without revealing too much of that metaphysical nature, the only thing he will say is that there is a spiritual element to ashes of creation and its universe and story and the lore, there is a spark, a mortal coil that the character has that relates to the interaction of resurrection or revival and how it relates to the goddess of creation and your existence within that universe as a mortal coil, there is lore, but Steven does not feel comfortable commenting on that prior to the games launch.
• Does a Caravan stop moving or slow down when it is attack?
  • There are certain attacks that can slow a caravan, but basic attacks will not slow a caravan. Caravan speeds are built around character speed so that the interaction and interval of distance traveled by a caravan vs when players are attack it are somewhat equitable, but there are certain types of items you can use that can slow/block caravans from a collision perspective, there are certain abilities/status conditions that can be applied to caravans, there’s damage that can done to components of caravans which would reduce speed, there are lots of different ways to affect that.
• Will there be items that let players resurrect other players?
  • Yes, there will be scrolls of resurrection that will be available. Although there is an element of resurrection that is important as it relates to experience debt and being able to recover portions of that experience dept when utilizing higher grade resurrections that are only available from classes, there are lower grade resurrections that can be granted through items, like scrolls of resurrection, that allows parties who may not have access to a resurrection class be able to continue on, at a deficit
• Since we received an immortal soul/spark of life by going through the gateway from Sanctus, how are the Tulnar players able to respawn since they did not go through the same portal?
  • Without getting too much into the metaphysical details, the Tulnar are descendants of the divine races, and the Tulnar sought refuge in an area of Verra that has some element of mystery around how that occurred (which players will need to discover) and there is a connection/spark that exist within the Tulnar as well. How that exist within the Tulnar is something that plyers will be able to discover as they progress through the storylines.
• What is the difference between biomes specific resources? For example: do different ores give different resistances etc.
  • Yes, there are associated with specific types of raw gatherables and resources that can be processed into refines materials that grant different elements of benefits/bonuses/abilities to the different types of itemization or recipes that are available. Based on where that element can be found, there might even be relationships that are shared across different materials/resources in those locations that share some of those characteristics that can be applied to items.
• Will gliding mounts be momentum based or features any speed boosting mechanics to make the experience more skilled based and interactive?
  • All mounts have the ability to acquire up to 4 abilities and skills. Some of those sills will be propulsion/speed based that can be enhance or increase or burst different speeds, some might be defensive based that would protect the rider and the mount for a short period of time, some can be offensive and that is part of what interfaces with the animal husbandry system and the ability to train those mounts in order to unlock the use of those abilities.  There is skill associated with gliding: Where is my launch point? Am I going to hit this ledge that I am drying to get over, when do I use the abilities.
• Does gaining crafting experience remove corruption?
  • Yes, any experience that is gained by the player whether it be through achievements in crafting or in adventuring or through other types of achievements, all of that experience goes towards your adventure class experience gained. Some experience can dual purpose into profession as well, if you reach an achievement in your crafting profession and that grants me additional experience within that profession to rank up, it will also grant the same amount of experience in your adventure level. Any time you gain adventure experience, you tick away at the corruption.
• Will the meta for guilds be to just create alliance with many small guilds with many skills rather than large guilds with less skills?
  • Alliances are limited, the number of guilds that can participate in alliance is a limited number. Achieving that ability to even launch an alliance is something that is late in the level process. Ashes is meant to have a duality between guilds that try to go towards population and guilds that choose to forgo population in exchange for a deeper access to the passive skills that the players have access to. Will the meta be smaller guilds to co-locate with each other? Yes, that will be utilized by some number of smaller guilds in order to try to combat the number that other guilds have access to. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But Steven believes that the meta will actually be a mixture of large guilds and small guilds that exist within the alliances so that they can overcome the types of challenges that occur in objective based gameplay in events where you need the smaller guilds with the passive to overcome the challenge rating, but you also need to the numbers from the larger guilds to engage with the opponents at the choke points. Will the largest guild section off into smaller guild ‘chapters’? Absolutely that will happen and the way that Intrepid is combating guilds doing that always is through how they design the encounters and events to incorporate the use case of where smaller guilds and their passive are required in order to overcomes certain challenges ratings. Will it always be most beneficial for guilds to do that? No, it will depend on what they are encountering.

Outline Contributors: Skylarck The Botanist