Instancing

Dungeons and Raids

Alpha-1 open world dungeon entrance.

80% of the content that will exist in Ashes of Creation is open-world and there's a specific reason for that. So because of the way that friendships and or enemies are forged in the game and people have the opportunity to create their own friends or foes. We want that to play out from a contesting standpoint as well. So a lot of these hunting grounds or raid bosses that people are going to have opportunities to kill, they're going to be essentially contested potentially by your your enemies that you've created in the game or you can work together to create alliances in order to defend those contested zones. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation will be a seamless open-world experience.

• No loading time or loading screens between regions.

There will be an approximately 80/20 split between open world vs instanced encounters.

• Around 80% of the content is open-world, where healthy competition is an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.

In situations where we want to contain a particular type of raid, we will utilize instancing; and that can protect certain engagements with certain bosses. But that's really more on the 20% of the scenarios will have instancing protection like that. Around 80% of the content is open-world, where competition is- healthy competition is an instigator for soft player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. So that's an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes. It's a core philosophical point. And just to be clear, that is not for everyone. We are not trying to make a product that appeals to every MMO gamer. That's impossible; and so we've been very upfront and forthright with what we are trying to accomplish and what our core pillars of philosophical design are. – Steven Sharif

• Castle and node sieges may contain instanced locations where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.
• Masmorras and raids will maintain an open world feel while also capitalizing on the benefits of instanced mechanics. Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal. Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else.

There will be some open dungeons that have bosses at the end of the dungeons. There will be some open dungeons that just have a multitude of dungeon bosses, not necessarily world raids or something; and there will be lots of different rooms and they'll be progressive in the sense that in the earlier parts of the dungeon they'll be lower level and then at the later parts of the dungeons deeper down they'll be higher level and more difficult; and that creates again I think an ecosystem of where players across a multitude of levels have an opportunity to coexist within certain areas of the world; and that's good from a social dynamic. It's good from a recruitment dynamic. It's good from just a liveliness and relevance of particular areas. So that you don't end up with these locations that once you pass a certain level like it's empty. – Steven Sharif

• There was no instancing in Alpha-1.

We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get. – Jeffrey Bard

The PvP flagging and corruption system is in place to safeguard against griefing without limiting opportunities for open conflict.

• Healthy competition is seen as an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.
• This friction presents an opportunity to engage in the political aspects of the game, which is the lifeblood of what keeps players interested and invested in the game.

Q: When you reach the bosses in [open world] dungeons can you be jumped?

A: For the most part if there are bosses at the end of dungeons, it is possible for you to get jumped. – Steven Sharif

Q: In an open world dungeon, what prevents others from just waiting until you're at the boss and then killing you and taking your boss's loot? What prevents mega guilds from just owning an area and preventing you from accessing or enjoying it?

A: In a majority of cases, we do not want to prevent another group from engaging potentially in PvP. We disincentivize it by creating safeguards within the flagging system that make that decision very concerning for the people that might go corrupt; and if you're in the large enough group of numbers I doubt you're going to experience that unless there's some rivalry between guilds. In which case there's apparatuses like Guild Wars that are more opt-in. You can drop guild tag if you want. But anyways, the competitive nature of this environment is a PvX element. – Steven Sharif

PvP Arenas

Pre-alpha arena combat footage from PAX West 2017.

Pre-alpha Arena UI.

As arenas são cenários de Pvp instanciados e não fazem parte do PvP de mundo aberto.

• As arenas terão 1x1, 3x3, 5x5 e possivelmente um Free-For-All de 20x20 (Deathmatch).
• Não haverão especificamente arenas de guilda vs guilda porém, um matchmaking baseado em equipas, permitirá um grupo enfrentar outro grupo.
• Haverá um sistema de rank de arena.
• As recompensas para os ranks de arena serão reveladas mais tarde.
• Títulos poderão ser recebidos por participação em arenas.
• Pontos de arena que podem ser usados para comprar equipamento não estão planejados no momento.
• Os Prefeitos de bases militares são escolhidos entre os cidadãos através de um "last man standing" (estilo arena gladiatorial).
• O sistema de arena poderá suportar combate cross-server.
• As arenas serão instanciadas mas podem haver espectadores através de uma interface.

Cercos do castelo

Alpha-1 castle siege gameplay.

Throughout Ashes of Creation, the player has an opportunity to participate in massively multiplayer siege warfare. Since castles are likely the world’s most limited resource, it will be a task to secure and hold them. Involving hundreds of players on a single battlefield, our sieges will employ many moving parts and intricate design features. Because of the difficult nature of taking and keeping a castle there are great rewards available to the players for their efforts. Castles will allow players to exert control over nearby lands and allow for the development of unique buildings in the nearby towns.

Guildas participate in Cercos do castelo in an effort to capture and occupy one of the five guild castles in Ashes of Creation.

• Sieges occur once a month within a server prime-time window.

• The minimum goal is for 250x250 players to be on a single battlefield. It is hoped that this can be increased to 500x500 over time.

• There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.

• There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.
  • It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.
  • Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.

I love castle-based gameplay. I love trophies. I like rewarding risk a lot; and for me it's very difficult to imagine a MMO that I would want to play where there is not competition of strategic prowess that determines the outcome of these types of events and there is not a meaningful reward both mechanically and from just a bragging rights perspective that players can aim for and try to achieve. I think that it brings a lot to the game when it comes to motivations, to excel, to level, to gain power, to engage those different progression loops when there is an ultimate goal or trophy that is not static and doesn't exist forever once you achieve it, but that you must constantly perform in order to maintain; and that's really the purpose of these castles. – Steven Sharif

A guild that captures a castle will own that castle for a month before it is sieged again.

Each week leading up to the siege week... is a week that's dedicated to one of the three castle dedicated nodes. So around the castle there are three nodes. They represent week, one, two, and three; and then the fourth week is the siege against the castle. Those can only be elevated up to stage three. We've discussed this in the past and there's definitely information out there on the community ran wiki. – Steven Sharif

• In the first three weeks that a guild occupies a castle they will need to level up each of their castle nodes to Vilarejo stage through questing.
  • Each of the three castle nodes have a siege against it at the end of each of these three weeks.
• The fourth week is declaration week, where other guilds have the opportunity to lay down their declaration flag or to sign up as a defender of the castle.
• Depending on how well the guild defends their castle nodes results in better defenses for the castle.
• Different siege weaponry will grant the attackers the ability to destroy walls, doors and sections of the castle in order to gain access to the inner keep area.
• When castles change hands (following a siege), some taxes stay with the castle and some stay with the guild.

There will be benefits to attracting people... even if they're not in your guild or alliance – a feudal like system, where you can attract other players who are just independent of this whole politic. They will have things to do there - benefits to receive - and there will be a reciprocal relationship between who you can attract, what they do for you; and how that benefits you and them. – Steven Sharif

Instanced apartments

Complexo de apartamentos em uma base Metrópole no Pre-alpha.

Apartamentos são espaços exclusivamente internos (instanceados) dentro de uma base que oferecem algumas das funcionalidades das residências. Haverão 50 apartamentos para serem comprados em uma base

Esta tradução pode estar desatualizada

[[{{{2}}}]] (estágio 3) se o prefeito optar por construir edificações de apartamento, e se houver um pedaço de terra para que isso seja feito.

• A quantidade de apartamentos disponíveis aumenta como padrão da evolução de base.
• Anteriormente, foi dito que apartamentos só estariam disponíveis para
  Esta tradução pode estar desatualizada

[[{{{2}}}]] (estágio 4) ou acima.

O prefeito pode optar por construir complexos de apartamentos em um dos terrenos da base quando ela chega ao estágio 4. Além disso, cidades ganham mais residências fixas e apartamentos como padrão pelo processo de evolução. – Steven Sharif

Server instancing

There won't be server channels (sharding) on a server.

Ver também

• Servers
• Encounters
• Arenas
• Residência de Jogadores
• Servers