Gear progression
Weapons have their own progression paths.[3][4]
- Each type of weapon has its own skill tree that grants passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][3][13][14]
- The weapon combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.[3][14]
- Ancillary effects proc based on enchantment types.[14]
- Gear enhancements (power stones) can be applied to add elemental or energy types of damage.[14]
- Dual wielded weapons will have its own progression based on weapon type.[15]
- Weapon proficiency (based on length of use of a weapon) is not a planned feature.[13]
- Ashes of Creation is all about providing many progression paths... The reason why we don't like the term endgame is because with the amount of progression that's available with the amount of diversity and player agency that impacts the world... We want the weapon system [to] add an element of that as well... You can determine special effects that proc from currently the combo system; you can determine ancillary effects that proc based on enchantment types; you can power stone weapons to add different either elemental types of damage and/or energy that play rock-paper-scissor with player defenses ... and then you can skill tree out how those effects that are granted ... you can make them better you can branch them off into a different direction.[14] – Steven Sharif
Combat skills
Weapon skills grant passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions, rather than usable skills on a player's action bar.[18] The more skill points that are allocated to the weapon tree, the greater a player's weapon familiarity. This influences things like the number of attacks, attack speed, and increased chances of proc effects from carrying out basic attacks with that weapon. These procs may offer synergy with the player's active skills.[19][20][21][18][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][3][13][14] This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.[20][22]
- Weapon skill trees are skill trees that you can unlock and invest points into as you continue to develop your experience with certain weapon types, certain weapon groups, like a dagger; and when you're doing your basic combo attack with those weapons, which is universal for all classes- anybody can use any type of weapon because stats can be changed on these weapon types through crafting and through drops- there will be certain proc effects that live on the weapon skill tree as you advance in them; and those proc effect effects will be able to interact with your archetype skills because they will have promotion type effects that occur when they synergize with one another.[19] – Steven Sharif
- The weapon combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.[3][14]
- These procs may reduce or reset cooldowns on other skills on the player's hotbar.[23]
- Certain rotations can ensure the best chance of triggering a weapon proc, but there is no reliable way to ensure that proc activates.[24]
- Weapon progression such as set bonuses may change at what level any proc effects occur.[9]
- Our approach is not going to be providing skills through weapons. It's going to be providing skills through classes.[5] – Steven Sharif
- Players can spec into weapon skills on their weapon skill tree (also referred to as Combat skills[11], and Combat tree[12]) based on their preferred weapon types and the grade of the weapon.[6][7][8][10][12][11][3]
- Dual wielded weapons count as a single weapon type on the weapon skill tree.[24][25]
- Let's say a dagger has some slashing effects that bleed the target or that cripple the target... Every time you attack you have a chance to proc that effect. That effect then can synergize with what your active skills tree has available to it. So let's say your backstab deals 30 additional damage to a bleeding target. If you attack with your main weapon first and the target gets the bleed proc off and you do your backstab skill then you're synergizing your effects.[12] – Steven Sharif
- Let's say backstab that you can apply to deals damage to the target and it'll have a conditional modifier on that damage if you're behind the target, and it'll have a conditional modifier deal additional 50 damage if the target is under a bleed effect. So you want to synergize essentially your weapon proc conditions with your active skills so that you're timing your certain active skills appropriately with the status conditions that the target has taken.[11] – Steven Sharif
- Certain higher-end weapons (and Armor) have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.[26]
Gear enhancement
Gear enhancements are possible both during and after an item is crafted.[27][28]
- There is a combination of systems that take an item to its max potential. Players will need to contribute in a certain number of these systems to reach max. Some of the systems are an either/or situation.[27] – Kory Rice
- Crafting recipes can be enhanced by adding higher rarity or different crafting materials into their selectable crafting slots at crafting stations.[28][29][30][31]
- Enchantment scrolls and tempering allow gear to be enhanced post-crafting.[28][32]
- The bulk of a weapon's power comes from its crafting recipe and the materials used in its construction.[33]
- The contribution of materials to crafting an item results in advancing the rarity of that item. Now, that doesn't exclude players who don't have the legendary or the higher quality contributed resources from progressing their common item up the rarity tree through enchantments such as scroll enchanting or through tempering the gear. Both of those can affect the quality and the rarity of the gear that you produce, but by contributing the resources during the crafting process you are getting a head start with the higher quality item and now are less dependent on those other avenues to achieve that, which might be again a different vertical space of progression that you don't have as good of access to.[28] – Steven Sharif
- Runes/Power stones are a potential methods for enhancing weapons.[14][34]
- Enchantment stones are potential rewards for performance over six month PvP seasons. These grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system).[35][36]
Gear proficiency
Gear proficiency is based on selection of passive skills to increase proficiency with armor and weapons.[37][13]
- There are three specific categories in the skill tree for your classes. There is passive skills and these will- you can allocate skill points there that are going to essentially increase your proficiency with certain armors or with specific weapons, or you can add to your passive stat effect bonuses, like mana regeneration, health regeneration, health pool, and all those types of things.[37] – Steven Sharif
- Weapon proficiency based on length of use is not a planned feature.[13]
- Q: Are weapons balanced towards a proficiency system (i.e. the longer I use a sword, the better my damage will be), or will it be a normal RPG stat system with no long-term scaling?
- A: We will not be using a proficiency system as described, but players will have passives available in their skill tree that will increase effectiveness of certain weapons. Becoming a master of swords will be something that is possible, just not in that particular manner.[13] – Sarah Flanagan
Proficiency | Icon | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Weapon Mastery: Bows | Bow | Lowers the Cooldown of Barrage and Scatter Shot by 3s upon: Completion of a bow weapon combo; Firing a fully charged Longbow.[38] | |
Weapon Proficiency IX | Greatsword | Increased Attack Speed by 1%.[39] |
- Death penalties may lead to a reduction in a character's gear proficiency.[40]
Enchanting
Enchanting is not an artisan profession in its own right. Scribes create scrolls that can be utilized by different professions to create enchantments relating to that profession.[41][42]
- Enchantment scrolls can be sold on the open market.[28][41][43]
- Enchanting does not increase an item's level requirement.[44]
- You don't really push a particular item's level requirement or the identity of that item. You can enhance it, you can add enchantments to it, but it's still the item it is.[44] – Steven Sharif
Enchantments
There are two types of enchantments for items: Vertical and horizontal.[32]
- Vertical enchantments are a power progression for a crafted item. More damage or mitigations, added effects or bonuses.[28] Vertical enchantments include risks.[32]
- There isn't RNG in crafting but there may be a small amount of RNG in enchanting.[46]
- Over-enchanting items comes with a potential risk that the item decays or is destroyed if a safety margin is exceeded. This system is subject to testing.[47][48][49]
- It's a progressive tier of risk. At lower levels you have opportunities to potentially lose out on the pluses instead of breaking the equipment. But when you reach a certain threshold, there is an opportunity to essentially destroy the equipment, where you get resources back. But that's a risk that the player takes.[47] – Steven Sharif
- Lower levels of over-enchanting carries the risk of losing bonuses on the item. Over-enchanting beyond a certain threshold carries the risk of destroying the item and gaining resources back.[47][48][49]
- There may be mechanisms for achieving safer over-enchantments, such as difficult to obtain enchantment scrolls, or very rare material acquisitions.[50][45][48]
- Personally, I am fine with RNG in enchantment, so long as there are special ways to mitigate the RNG with investment, to a degree. For example, difficult to obtain enchantment scrolls that insure enchantment efforts, and including a buffer of safe enchantment in earlier pluses.[50] – Steven Sharif
- Horizontal enchantments are more situational. For example: I'd like my sword to do force damage instead of holy damage because the monsters I tend to fight are incorporeal.[32]
Power creep
The developers intend to limit power creep via item sinks, the lack of gear binding, and the absence of pay-to-win or pay-to-convenience in Ashes of Creation.[2]
Meta
A goal of Ashes of Creation is to emphasise micro metas that work for specific encounters, and de-emphasize macro metas that work for everything.[51]
- What we're doing with this approach is we're de-emphasizing a macro meta and instead emphasizing a micro meta. And the difference between the macro/micro is that on the micro level you have metas that might form based on each individual type of encounter or experience. And in those senses, yes, there's going to be a most optimal: There's going to be a best in slot. There's going to be whatever that pertains to that particular challenge rating. But there won't we there will not be an overarching meta that says from a macro level, hey, if you got this shit, you're good to go for everything. That's boring, that's unfulfilling, that is not interesting; and it is just something that that dumbifies the experience.[51] – Steven Sharif
- The effectiveness of classes, skills and gear is going to depend on the adversary or the encounter. There will be optimal builds for different challenges and difficulty ratings. This design aims to avoid any obvious meta or "cookie-cutter" builds in Ashes of Creation.[51][52]
- Different challenges are presented dynamically to players based on node progression and destruction. Situations that are based on a rock-paper-scissors design will inspire a horizontal gear chase. These dynamic challenges will change from month to month, causing a shift in demand in the economy as different builds are required by the new content.[52]
- Increasing difficulty ratings inspire more of a traditional vertical power progression that is common in other MMOs.[53][52]
- Oftentimes you just have a very vertical power scale and that determines chase, but when you have a variety of relevance across certain types of adversaries and that variety changes over time because of player activity- and then that affects the economy and the crafter system and who was producing what for what demand- and everything gets shaken up. That's a very fun environment to exist in. It presents a more dynamic situation rather than a quote-unquote cookie-cutter type selection.[52] – Steven Sharif
- The intricacies of how nodes interact with predicates in the world means that it may be possible but difficult to achieve meta server builds.[54]
- Q: Do you have any concerns on players eventually discovering a meta server build with nodes due to players heading to specific nodes and regions because they find that content more enjoyable; and if so how would you go about getting players to shift around the world to break up the meta?
- A: I think it's interesting if players have a concerted effort across a server to interact with one another, learn from their actions, mistakes, successes, and effectuate that on the server. That's interesting, but I don't believe we'll see a meta form. I think that the intricacies are too great when it comes to how predicates are formed in order to elicit world state changes.[54] – Steven Sharif
Zie ook
Referenties
- ↑ Livestream, 2021-04-30 (53:08).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Interview, 2018-10-20 (2:53:52).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Livestream, 2020-01-30 (1:28:40).
- ↑ Livestream, 2018-05-04 (45:37).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Livestream, 2022-06-30 (1:12:38).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Livestream, 2022-09-30 (53:15).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Livestream, 2022-09-30 (43:45).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Video, 2022-09-30 (24:49).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Podcast, 2021-09-29 (47:57).
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Interview, 2021-02-07 (49:18).
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Interview, 2020-07-19 (53:59).
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Interview, 2020-07-18 (1:07:51).
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 February 8, 2019 - Questions and Answers.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 14.7 Livestream, 2018-06-04 (1:11:19).
- ↑ Livestream, 2021-06-25 (1:29:39).
- ↑ Video, 2024-03-29 (47:43).
- ↑ Video, 2023-12-19 (7:26).
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Livestream, 2022-10-14 (18:34).
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Livestream, 2024-01-31 (5:00).
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Interview, 2023-07-09 (1:14:09).
- ↑ Livestream, 2022-12-02 (56:09).
- ↑ Interview, 2020-07-29 (55:44).
- ↑ Livestream, 2020-02-28 (1:10:21).
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Livestream, 2023-05-31 (1:12:58).
- ↑ Livestream, 2022-09-30 (1:13:23).
- ↑ Livestream, 2023-09-29 (1:15:47).
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Podcast, 2023-12-03 (17:10).
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 28.3 28.4 28.5 Livestream, 2023-11-30 (1:38:47).
- ↑ Video, 2023-11-30 (1:01:04).
- ↑ Video, 2023-11-30 (59:21).
- ↑ Livestream, 2017-05-26 (5:25).
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 32.5
- ↑ Livestream, 2023-11-30 (1:54:37).
- ↑ Livestream, 2018-06-04 (21:37).
- ↑ Interview, 2020-07-18 (16:34).
- ↑ Interview, 2020-07-18 (14:22).
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 Interview, 2020-07-29 (55:55).
- ↑
- ↑
- ↑ Podcast, 2017-05-05 (43:05).
- ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 Livestream, 2022-05-27 (1:20:00).
- ↑ Livestream, 2017-05-26 (51:37).
- ↑ Livestream, 2017-05-17 (58:55).
- ↑ 44.0 44.1 Livestream, 2021-03-26 (1:15:57).
- ↑ 45.0 45.1
- ↑
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 47.2 Interview, 2023-07-09 (1:50:10).
- ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2 Interview, 2020-07-29 (15:04).
- ↑ 49.0 49.1 Livestream, 2017-05-05 (20:41).
- ↑ 50.0 50.1
- ↑ 51.0 51.1 51.2 Interview, 2023-07-09 (1:43:38).
- ↑ 52.0 52.1 52.2 52.3 Podcast, 2021-04-11 (54:35).
- ↑ Interview, 2023-07-09 (1:40:41).
- ↑ 54.0 54.1 Livestream, 2023-04-07 (1:15:02).