Raids

Open world

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

Adaptive content

Alpha-1 preview pirate themed dynamic point of interest.

This is actually a dynamic POI. This one will evolve as players evolve the node that it's attached to. So this is its final state. – Jeffrey Bard

New points of interest (such as dungeons, world bosses, and corrupted areas) spawn as nodes develop. This content adapts to the node progression of the zone it is in.

• Additional buildings will spawn.
• Additional mobs will spawn.
  • Different antagonists/leaders with different story lines.
  • Populations will change.
• Content difficulty will change.
  • The content may be different altogether.
  • Additional quest hooks.
• Masmorras will be unlocked when certain nodes advance to certain stages.
  • Multiple nearby nodes may collectively influence larger POIs.
  • Larger dungeons will gain higher level content as nearby nodes advance.
  • Storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will depend on the story arc paths chosen through the node system.
• Drop tables in areas and dungeons will be tied into the progression of certain areas.
• POI events are events that relate to specific points-of-interest (POI).
• The location of points of interest will be the same on each server, but some servers may have limited or no access to them.

Certain dungeons and other points of interest across the map will all be affected by the server’s node development. Some dungeons will only be unlocked if nodes are developed to certain stages. The storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will also be dependent on the story arc paths chosen through the node system. The drop tables in area and dungeons will also be tied into the progression of certain areas. For example, let’s say that the humans have developed a node in Region A, and a storyline has opened up that leads players to inspect the ruins (dungeon) of a nearby area. And let’s say that this node was developed in a scientific (crafting) zone… Well before the node developed, this dungeon was accessible… But now the dungeon has propagated new monster assets that include a drop table catering to a crafting emphasis because of the development of that academic node. And perhaps, a new boss appears in different rooms of the dungeon that includes different adventure quest starts, like a mysterious item with a storyline that can only be progressed if a node develops to the metropolis stage in a certain region, across the world. Our system is so vast, when it comes to interconnectivity and how the world reacts to the players.

Group sizes

Esta tradução pode estar desatualizada

The minimum goal is 500 players on a single battlefield. I think we will be able to hit 500vs500 but we shall see. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation foi concebido para jogadores a solo, bem como para grupos grandes e pequenos.

• O tamanho de um grupo é de até oito (8) jogadores em um único grupo.
• Raids terão grupos de 40 jogadores.
• O conteúdo será adaptado para grupos de 40, 16 e 8 jogadores.
• 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.
• Espera-se que os Cercos de castelo tenham no mínimo 250x250 jogadores num único campo de batalha, com a possibilidade de aumentar este número para 500x500 ao longo do tempo.

A ideia por detrás de um grupo de 8 pessoas é permitir-nos realmente ampliar as funções do grupo, e criar uma necessidade para cada um dos modelos em cada grupo.

O conteúdo não é apenas exclusivo para guildas.

• Existem mecânicas dentro de conflitos maiores para que pequenos grupos e até jogadores a solo tenham impacto na batalha.
• Isto inclui sistemas que provavelmente se concentrarão em participantes de tamanho de grupo único enquanto a batalha maior ocorre.

Zergs

For every play, there should be a counterplay. We often see Castle Sieges turn into zerg-fests, which really doesn’t capture the epic, back-and-forth battles we wish to see in Ashes of Creation. One of our key pillars is that Choice Matters, and that applies to tactics and strategy as well. A well-formulated battle plan should win out over stat sheets and bodies. Zergs will generally be difficult to pull off, and will be eminently counterable through siege weapons, traps, and other battlefield tricks.

Zergs are empowered by fast-travel. Meaningful travel times are intended to prevent zerg play from being so much of an influence.

Encounters are designed to have meaning in terms of how boss skills and abilities relate to group compositions, tactics and strategies. Zerging is not experiencing content. There are different ways to make a fight more difficult for larger sized groups without relying solely on stat buffs or making the boss a "damage sponge".

• Raid and dungeon bosses have specific mechanics and abilities that players need to learn and react to. Zergs that are not aware of these mechanics or react to them appropriately will be wiped.
• There may be environmental hazards and AoE effects that cause more damage based on the number of players present.
• There is a give-and-take for guilds that want to see a larger number of members as opposed to a more focused group that may be a part of an alliance.

We're very cognizant of the fact that we don't want to see zerging be a mechanic that's utilized by guilds to accomplish content or just to steamroll over sieges... There are specific mechanics that we are working on that will be seen through the testing phases that relate to a degree of understanding of certain systems that can't just be overrun with numbers. – Steven Sharif

Mechanics that encourage political intrigue will play a role in destabilizing zergs.

The best way that I found in games I played previously to take down a zerg is to cause drama from within... It's that conflict inside of the politicking that happens in that big organization. If we provide opportunities for division to occur then it also provides stability to keep a server healthy away from that zerg mentality also... If we approach the castle siege and we've destroyed the walls and we're in the throne room and we're about to cast on the penultimate thing and I at this time am just so excited from what's happening that I'm like "screw it I'm gonna go for it". It's gonna be mine. I'm gonna take the taxes for the next month. I'm gonna take all the gear from the castle. I'm gonna take everything... We want that political intrigue to be present in the game. – Steven Sharif

Objective-based game play helps to balance the zerg mentality.

I always feel that if you balance based on groups that in your balance focus is to incorporate features that play well from a player versus player perspective as well as a player versus environment perspective: Having support classes, having DPS and tanks that can obstruct movement and/or create bottlenecks on the field and stuff like that. I think a well-rounded raid it will perform better against a non well-rounded raid, however then you incorporate the second aspect of numbers; and that's where again mobility, organization, leadership tactics. Having objectives in gameplay that make those important helps to balance the zerg mentality that a lot of guilds can tend to have. – Steven Sharif

Instancing doesn't play a major role in limiting zergs, due to 80% of content in Ashes of Creation being open-world.

• There may be instanced locations within castle and node sieges where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.

Zerging is always a problem in a lot of these MMORPGs where you really can't control the number of participants in certain open-world systems; and in that sense instancing is a great tool that designers can sometimes use to curate a particular number of participants that you want. But the predominant amount of content within Ashes of Creation, over 80% of which is is open-world content, so instancing is very limited. – Steven Sharif

Leader boards

Esta tradução pode estar desatualizada

Haverá masmorras e tabelas de classificação em raid.

• Algumas tabelas de classificação estarão em todos os servers.

Ver também

• Masmorras
• Arenas