Gear

Alpha-1 character sheet early concept UI by Ryan Pearson.^[1]

8 装甲 slots
5 Jewelry slots
2 武器 slots
1 Ranged slot

Empyrean tier 1 (level 10) early Alpha-1 leather armor non-cosmetic set 3D renders.^[3]

We're going relatively traditional in the gear access points by being driven by level tier that players will have access to. So as you advance in your adventuring class you will begin to unlock the ability to equip gear of a higher level.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Empyrean tier 2 (level 20) early Alpha-1 leather armor non-cosmetic set 3D renders.^[5]

Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a player's overall power in the game.^[6]

There are tiers of gear that players can access based on their level.^[4]^[7]

Gear types

We like to really refer to ourselves as a PvX game, because in those systems of PvP, PvE, crafting they're all intertwined: They're interdependent on each other... Our system of development really requires some interdependence there between those things. You're going to need a crafter to give you the best items. You're going to need PvPers to secure cities and castles. You're gonna need PvErs to take down those world bosses for those materials to craft.^[8] – Steven Sharif

创造的灰烬 is a PvX game.^[9] Players will naturally encounter both Pvp and PvE elements.^[10]^[11] It is unlikely that a player could purely focus on just Pvp or just PvE.^[11]

There is a balance between Pvp and PvE in 创造的灰烬.^[11]
Some servers may be more PvP focused than others.^[10]
There will not be different Pvp and PvE gear types.^[12]
进展 in the game might require PvE elements.^[11]
All stats relate to a player's combat effectiveness in PvX.^[13]

We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay.^[14] – Steven Sharif

Weapon types

There is an even split between melee and ranged weapons.^[15]

Axes (One and two handed).^[15]
Bows.^[15]
Clubs.^[16]
Crossbows.^[17]
Daggers.^[15]
Hammers.^[18]^[19]
Lances.^[20]
Maces (One and two handed).^[15]
Orbs.^[15]
Polearms/Halberds.^[15]
Potion launchers.^[17]
Scepters.^[21]
Shields.^[15]
Spears.^[22]
Spellbooks.^[15]
Staves.^[15]
Swords/Rapiers (One and two handed).^[15]^[23]
Wands.^[24]

Armor types

Early Alpha-1 Vaelune armor 3D renders.^[25]

Armor types in 创造的灰烬.

Skills and stats on gear

Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.^[33]^[34]

Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.^[33]^[35]
- Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.^[36]
There will also be methods of moving stat blocks around but this won't necessarily be an easy task.^[33]
All gear will be able to be assigned any stat.^[33]

Crafters will be able to 'rejigger' stat blocks; and there will be a couple of other ways to move things around to create both the look and the stat block that you're looking for. It's not always going to be easy. There will be a lot of challenges involved with that. But the goal is to give you guys the option to customize your gear the way you want them to be.^[33] – Jeffrey Bard

Not all armor sets will be the cookie cutter kind of set. They will have the influences from the crafter available in it, if it's a crafted set.^[34] – Steven Sharif

Gear is broken down into Core Stats and Additional Stats.^[37]

Best-in-slot items

Best in slot weapons and armor is based on a character's role and the type of monster they are facing.^[38]

Gear sets

Kaelar tier 1 (level 10) early Alpha-1 cloth armor non-cosmetic set 3D renders.^[39]

Gear sets (also known as tier sets) are a part of 创造的灰烬.^[4]^[7]

Different tiers of gear are accessible based on a character's level.^[4]^[7]
Players gain bonuses depending on the number of pieces of the set they have equipped.^[4]^[7]
- An overarching set effect is granted to wearers of exclusively one type of armor, for example: all cloth, or all plate.^[40]
- Certain set bonuses may trade off core gear stats.^[41]
- There may be set bonuses that members of certain communities will obtain based on gear set type.^[7]
There are passive abilities that can be chosen to become more adept with certain set types.^[7]
There will be viable non-set builds.^[41]
Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.^[42]

Mana-forged armor

Mana-forged armor sets may be achievable in the Ashes of Creation MMO.^[43]

They also appear to be base variants of Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor sets.^[44]

Verra will be filled with many sets of armor, each set uniquely carved into the history of the world. Mana-forged sets are distinctly vibrant with luminescent magic, pulsating across the body of its hero. We hope you enjoy them, and look forward to many more glimpses into the armors of Verra, waiting for their champions!^[45] – Margaret Krohn

Regalia of the Iron Lion

The Iron Lion is a fairly new order, one formed out of a desire to control the unknowable. With the rediscovery of the old world, many Kaelar wondered what lay beyond, considering the incredible power the divine gateways represented. To this end, the Iron Lion focuses not only on martial combat, but also on the art of dampening magic. Without such knowledge, establishing a foothold may be all but impossible - rampant magic is an unpredictable, and many times lethal, complication in any sortie. Due to this, the Iron Lion puts forth significant effort in studying and learning about the magics they come across, hoping to minimize the dangers they pose.^[46]

Gear binding

There may be some gear binding (BoE or BoP) but it will be an exception rather than the rule, as this doesn't facilitate the objectives for the economy.^[47]

Very little gear will be account bound or soulbound in 创造的灰烬.^[48]^[49]
- The game economy is based around crafting and degradation of items.^[48]
Gear is obtained via crafting, gathering and processing along with raid and dungeon bosses.^[49]

A lot of what we experienced in games that usually come before us is that many things are account bound and they're soulbound to your character... Instead very little here is character bound. Very very little. The vast majority of gear- yes you will get quest related gear as rewards- but it won't be let's say one set in one dungeon and you must run the dungeon over and over. Instead we want to really emphasize the reliance on the economy and crafters and gatherers and processors to support a majority of the gear structure in-game, combined with that of world raid bosses and dungeon bosses; not a repetitive quest line through a single dungeon.^[49] – Steven Sharif

Grinding

Repetition will not be part of progression in 创造的灰烬.^[50]

There will be no "grindy" quests.^[50]
There will not be repetitive quest lines through a single dungeon to obtain gear.^[49]
The aspiration is to have more things to do in the game than a player has time to do.^[50]

Gear enhancement

Gear enhancements (power stones/runes) can be applied to weapons to add elemental or energy types of damage.^[51]^[52]

We are very likely going to have a rune system and then we'll have the ability to sort of enchant weapons outside of that too... That's not always going to be like a vertical progression... Some of it's going to be giving up something to get something else; so maybe I do less physical damage but more magical damage, that kind of thing.^[52] – Jeffrey Bard

进展 in various Pvp systems will unlock enchantment stones that grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system).^[53] Performance is measured over six month PvP seasons.^[54]
- 激战.^[53]
- 竞技场.^[53]
- Caravan PvP.^[53]

It's not as though you're going to necessarily acquire these once and then you're set for your PvP enchantments, but instead you'll have to continually perform month after month in order to keep having those slotted enchantments.^[53] – Steven Sharif

Enchanting

There are two types of enchantments for items: Vertical and horizontal.^[55]

Vertical enchantments are a power progression for a crafted item. More damage or mitigations, added effects or bonuses. Vertical enchantments include risks. ^[55]
- There isn't RNG in crafting but there may be a small amount of RNG in enchanting.^[56]
- 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.^[57]^[58]

When it comes to over-enchanting things, what we're going to do likely is have a safety- and this is something obviously it needs to be tested- but we're going to have a safety period of enchantment you know like in Lineage 2 I think you could enchant plus four or something. And so we're gonna have a similar system where you can enchant safely and then when you start to take risks, that percentage of potentially damaging your item either through the decay system or completely disabling it through the destruction system will be a risk that's present.^[57] – 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.^[55]
- This doesn't make the item more powerful, but instead more applicable to different situations, and less so to others.^[55]
- This type of enchanting assumes no risk, just time and effort.^[55]

Enchanting services are sold at player stalls.^[59]

Power creep

Power creep is a balance issue... When it comes to gear progression specifically, the idea is to create an open market that is not heavily dependent on soulbound items; and having many item sinks and gold sinks within that economy that allows for the potential degradation and loss of assets within that closed economy; and not introduce items from the market that companies put in from a pay-to-win perspective or from a pay-to-convenience perspective that undermines the economy that players have built. That is a huge mistake that companies have made in the past and that lends to the imbalancing of what designers maybe have actually balanced well.^[60] – Steven Sharif

Items on back and belt

Backpack sockets (slots).^[61]

A big component of the MMORPG that - half of that you know acronym is RPG role-playing game. And in order to role-play you need to be able to represent kind of what your character is doing in that world and you know part of what animation is doing is creating these sockets on the let's say the belt or the back that you know can plug in certain types of props or items that are created by the character team, like Carson, you know might be a scroll tube, it might be a potion, it might be whatever: Those players will have the ability as we've discussed in the past will have the ability to select what they want to be represented in those sockets and then animation will make sure that jibe well in movement.^[61] – Steven Sharif

Items attached to a character's back or belt represent items they are in possession of. Players can set the appearance priority for the items they wish to show.^[62]^[63]^[64] Only one item can show at a time, and that is determined by player choice.^[65]

The idea is to kind of move away from the mundane kind of application of belts in previous MMOs where they don't really have a lot of character so to speak. But in reality you know as an adventurer you come with a lot of tools and things that you have to use out in the wild in order to achieve what you're trying to achieve. So we wanted to kind of represent that on your character and give you something that can actually be tangible for your character and see there. I think it adds a lot of character and flavor to your identity.^[66] – Steven Sharif

Back slots include.^[65]

Belt (hip) slots include.^[62]^[65]

Melee weapon (2 slots - one on each side).^[65]
Potion, pouch, scroll.^[62]^[63]

There'll be a priority system behind that that'll determine... do I show the Bow if the Greatsword is unequipped or do I show the Polearm if the Greatsword is unequipped.^[64] – Jeffrey Bard

Ranged weapons

Pre-alpha Ranger bow modeled by Jon Arellano and concepted by Jeff Delierre.

A character may equip up to two hand weapons and also wear a ranged weapon on their back.^[67]^[65]

Characters performing ranged abilities will switch to the ranged weapon, then can switch back to the melee weapon and shield or two-handed melee weapon.^[67]
The weapon held in the main hand slot determines the active weapon ability.^[67]

Do I want my main hand to be my ranged weapon or do I want my main hand to be my melee weapon with regards to skill usage. For example, with the Ranger, if you have a range skill it'll automatically swap regardless of what your main weapon hand is, but for the combat ability for the "Auto Attack" feature it would be your chosen weapon.^[67] – Steven Sharif

Rangers are going to have a minimum distance requirement where they are eligible to use their ranged weapons.^[68]

While melee characters have a max distance proximity where they're eligible to use their sword and melee weapons, Rangers are going to have a minimum distance requirement.^[68] – Steven Sharif

Melee weapons

Melee weapons have a maximum range of effect.^[68]

There are two melee weapon slots: One on each side of a character's belt.^[65]

Dual wielding

Dual wielding will be permitted for one handed weapons.^[69]

Shields cannot be dual wielded.
Great swords probably can't be dual wielded.^[70]

Weapon swapping

Weapon swapping in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[71]

Weapon swapping in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG will be subject to a cooldown period following any damage taken or done by the player.^[72]^[73]

The cooldown will be in the range of a few seconds.^[73]

For the MMORPG we want there to be some time between damage received or damage done before you can swap your weapon. It's not going to be substantial. It will maybe be a few seconds.^[73] – Steven Sharif

Players cannot switch armor while in combat.^[72]^[74]

Item rendering

In-game rendering of dropped items (such as Gear and Currency) is not a planned feature.^[75]

Class weapons and armor

武器 and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor.^[76]^[77] Certain abilities require certain items to be equipped.^[78]

Weapons are intended to be somewhat agnostic in the sense that you can find a way for a weapon to be utilized by different classes. Not just the rogue is going to be able to use daggers. Because if you restrict equipment through that, it makes the economy more difficult to have sustainability across the market of items.^[79] – Steven Sharif

Racial weapons and armor

装甲 racial appearances in early Alpha-1.^[80]

Violet light and myself are wearing exactly the same armor set right: Same stats, same everything, but it drops for her it looks one way, it drops for me it looks another way; and... a small part of that is gender, but then the other part of it is race. So because I was a Vaelune in that playthrough my armor was in the Vaelune style; and when she picked it up it was in the elven style because she was an elf. So that kind of gives you an example of sort of the breadth of looks that we're going for and how we kind of try to capture like who you are as as a character and kind of allow you to kind of build your look that way.^[81] – Jeffrey Bard

Dünir and Empyrean racially styled armor concept art by Keith Kovach.^[82]

武器 and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.^[83]^[84]

Racial appearance of gear is focused on 装甲, not 武器.^[85]

The customization of equipment per race is really focused on Armor sets not Weapon props. Weapon props will, from a model standpoint, will translate pretty one-to-one across the races.^[85] – Steven Sharif

Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks.^[85] – Steven Sharif

Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.^[42]

When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that you know Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to kind of tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race.^[42] – Steven Sharif

Crafted gear

Crafted items will be on par with best in slot items.^[86]

Highest tier items will be a combo of both crafted and boss dropped.^[87]
Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.^[33]^[34]
- Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.^[33]^[35]
The rarity of the items will be commensurate with the effort required to gather, process and craft the items.^[86]
- Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.^[36]

That plays into our crafting system in and of itself right. The idea is for those stats to be variables that can be kind of dictated based on the mastery level of the particular crafter; and the higher they become a master of those professions, whether it be for armor or for weapons or for accessories, they're going to have some agency and put their mark on essentially what items they're introducing into the economy.^[36] – Steven Sharif

Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items will look like.^[33]^[88]

At the moment, harnessing corruption to warp items into demonic or decayed things is not on the cards.^[89]
A crafter's name is embedded in the items they craft.^[90]

We believe that every item that exists in the world should in some way reflect its creator. As such, there will be extreme versatility in our crafting system – giving crafters the ability to create unique items that represent their strengths and weaknesses.^[91]

Crafting and World Bosses will be the main way to obtain high-level gear. There are some exceptions to this in the form of Legendary items (single server drops or discoveries), and other equipment that may drop wholesale, but we want Artisans and top tier raiding to produce the lion’s share of high level, high effectiveness equipment.^[92] – Sarah Flanagan

Item creation suite

An "item creation suite" that allows crafters to create unique appearances for items has been discussed as a future possibility.^[93]

Gear inspection/ Threat assessment

Players will have a buff on their nameplate that indicates the gear set they are wearing. Other players will be able to see this buff by targeting that player at a distance.^[94]^[95]^[96]

This will indicate the type of gear (cloth, leather, plate) that they are predominantly wearing.^[95]
The border will indicate the level and quality of the tier set.^[94]^[95]^[97]
This also indicates if the gear is enchanted.^[95]^[97]
The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior".^[98]

When you see a player approaching you and they're wearing a transmog you know you don't know if that person is a high damage mitigation against physical damage or against magical damage and essentially the way we overcome that is through you being able to target a player at a distance and they will have a buff that's present on them that you will see, which indicates that essentially the piece set that they are wearing. It is important for players to be able to ascertain from a threat assessment standpoint you know what they're going up against if they're actively checking that and that will be available.^[96] – Steven Sharif

Being by default able to see a person's "gear score" / equipment list... may cause unwelcome behavior.^[98]

Character nameplate

A character's nameplate is displayed above their head.^[99]

This can be the first or last name (family name).^[99]
The name of the character's Guild is displayed next to their name.^[100]
The character's nameplate will deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.^[101]^[102]^[103]
An icon will identify the character's class.^[94]
Hovering over the user's nameplate will show information such as level, their class name and archetype combo.^[94]
A buff icon indicates the character's gear and grade.^[94]^[95]^[96]

Item durability

There is item durability (item decay) in 创造的灰烬.^[104]

Item durability loss occurs on death.^[105]^[106]
- Gear stored in a player's inventory (that is not equipped) does not lose durability when that player dies.^[107]
Over enchanting an item comes with the risk of durability loss.^[105]^[57]^[58]
Zero percent durability will unequip an item, increasing its repair costs.^[108]
Base materials are required in order to repair decayed items.^[105]^[109]^[110]

The decay system is not going to be some worthless "Oh I'm just going to throw some gold into this and it's a simple gold sink". It's actually going to require some base materials in order to repair decayed items; and decay occurs from death and also the destruction and disable system. For the weapons over the over-enchanting will require those materials as well. So creating that dependency I think is healthy for the crafting economy.^[105] – Steven Sharif

There is durability in the game... It's not going to be a trivial durability. There is a potential to destroy gear (weapons and armor), but there is also an ability to reforge that destroyed gear using a portion of the materials necessary as well as finding an item creator who can reforge it.^[104] – Steven Sharif

Item repair

Item repair will cost crafting materials.^[110]^[104]

0% durability will unequip items, increasing its repair cost.^[108]
Damaged gear can be reforged at a player stall using a portion of the materials that were necessary to craft the item.^[105]^[109]^[110]
There is no limit to the number of times an item can be repaired.^[111]

For example: if you have an iron sword and then the sword gets damaged from use, you have to use more iron to repair it; and what that does is... make sure that there's significant sinks in the game for base materials so that you are creating a scarcity and demand that's present on the creation of higher goods as well as supplying the necessary decay components for the world.^[110] – Steven Sharif

Legendary items

There is a small RNG chance of looting rare and legendary items or crafting materials from mobs based on the level, status and type of mob. This also applies to harvesting resources with a gathering profession.^[112]

There is a much higher chance that materials and unique recipes are dropped that can be used to craft items of equitable value.^[113]^[114]^[115]
Legendary equipment is only dropped by Legendary world bosses.^[116]

At each stage from Gatherer to Processor to Crafter you are required to have certain prerequisites before those elite types of materials can be essentially gathered, processed, or crafted.^[114] – Steven Sharif

Gatherers must have high quality tools to gather rare resources.^[114]
Processors must have high tier processing buildings on their freehold to produce rare materials.^[114]
Crafters must also satisfy certain prerequisites to craft legendary equipment.^[114]

The amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lends toward creating or crafting that legendary item... We want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed.^[115] – Steven Sharif

Discovery of legendary items will unlock further chapters of the 传说.^[117]

There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server at any given time.^[118]

A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.^[115]

It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, you know they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon.^[115] – Steven Sharif

Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.^[119]

A notable exception to this is Royal mounts.^[120]

The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary.^[119] – Steven Sharif

Switching gear

Weapon swapping in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[71]

Weapon swapping in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG will be subject to a cooldown period following any damage taken or done by the player.^[72]^[73]

The cooldown will be in the range of a few seconds.^[73]

For the MMORPG we want there to be some time between damage received or damage done before you can swap your weapon. It's not going to be substantial. It will maybe be a few seconds.^[73] – Steven Sharif

Players cannot switch armor while in combat.^[72]^[74]

Trading gear

创造的灰烬 concept art.^[121]

There will be player to player trading in 创造的灰烬.^[122]^[123]

Q: Will Ashes of Creation have player-to-player trading? Will there be anything stopping me from gifting a friend that's fresh to the game a bunch of in-game money to help them get on their feet quickly?

A: There won't be anything to stop you from doing that.^[122] – Steven Sharif

Sharing gear with alts

There are no specific barriers to alts.^[124] Gear will be able to be transferred between characters.^[125]

There will be a comfortable level of character slots available to players because we are a subscription model game.^[126] – Steven Sharif

Gear appearance

Alpha-1 female plate armor 3D render.^[127]

We want to be realistic with the application of particular types of armor, such as plate armor. In this regard for the different sexes there's a fine line that has to be drawn between accentuating the form of the sex as well as making it somewhat realistic and actually applicable to the environment.^[127] – Steven Sharif

Gear is intended to be realistic in appearance.^[128]^[129]

There will not be "oversized" weapons.^[130]
Armor will not be overly sexual in appearance.^[129]

We're going for kind of a more realistic look; not necessarily realistic setting, but we want our characters to have weight and kind of feel like they're there.^[128] – Jeffrey Bard

I'm more of the mind that it wouldn't really serve a purpose to have bikini plate armor, just in like reality, if you're going to have armor, it should be protective. I think from a fashion statement is enjoyable for some people, but it's a kind of an immersive issue.^[128] – Steven Sharif

Gear will have appearance slots (Transmutation/Transmog/cosmetic slots) that are used to copy the appearance of an item (in some cases).^[131]^[7]

There are rules when applying cosmetics to specific items, unlike costumes, which don't have level restrictions.^[132]
装甲 will take on a racial appearance.^[85]
- 化妆品 can be used by all races but there may be slight variations to make them work with the body builds of each race.^[133]
Cosmetic slots can be toggled on or off by the player.^[134]
- A "default player appearance" may be automatically applied during sieges or other large scale battles to improve client-side performance.^[135]^[136]

Players can change gear colors using dyes.^[137]^[138]

Helmet display can be toggled on and off.^[26]

Hair will likely be masked if helmet display is toggled on.^[139]

Particle effects are used to denote the importance and rarity of some weapons.^[140]

武器 are able to be sheathed.^[141]

Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items will look like.^[33]^[88]

Attachments

Attachments are able to be unlocked as flair pieces to armor to create a customizable look.^[142]

There will be hundreds of attachments available ranging from a small clasp to the front plate of a breast plate.^[142]

Racial skins

Racial skins enable a player to change their character's racial appearance.^[143]^[144]

Racial skins transform the race of the character to that skin. The original racial appearance of the character is entirely replaced.^[145]

Racial skins can be toggled on and off.^[144]

You're changing your race over to that, which means that you won't look uniquely different if you were a Vek angel or a Human angel.^[145] – Steven Sharif

Racial skins are not costumes. This means that armor and character customization is possible on these.^[146]

Skin color customization.^[147]
Racial skins appear along with any costume appearances.^[148]

There are plans to create other racial skins.^[92]

Some potential future ideas include undead and werewolf (lycan) skins.^[149]

Costumes

Vestments of the Runecarvers pre-order pack cosmetic costume.^[150]

The costume cosmetics that are included in each month's pre-order set are indeed a full piece, and when you put it on it will cover your entire appearance. You will not be able to mix and match/toggle those pieces individually (other than your helmet) when you're wearing the entire costume. This is partially why there is a separate category for accessories - those are able to be worn/equipped on a more individualized basis, so you can mix and match to your liking!^[151] – Sarah Flanagan

Costumes are available for purchase from the cosmetic store.

Costumes don't have a level restriction.^[132]
Costumes are not gender locked.^[152]
Costumes are one piece outfits that cover an entire (gear) set.^[151]^[153]^[154]^[155]

Full costumes do not mix and match pieces.^[155] – Steven Sharif

All hoods, whether part of a complete costume or individual gear, will have the option to be shown or hidden on the character by the player.^[151]^[156]
Costumes do not include any weapons pictured.^[157]

The costume cosmetic does not come in pieces. It will cover your entire set.^[154] – Margaret Krohn

Dyeable items

Dyes only affect tagged portions of dyeable armor or cosmetic items.^[158]

The dyeability of costumes depends on the specific costume.^[158]

Outside of wanting to keep maybe some identity from a lore perspective; for example if you have like a white lion's suit of armor, you may not want that white lion suit of armor to be black or blue. So, it's possible. It depends on the costume itself.^[158] – Steven Sharif

Modular armor

Kaelar base level Ashes of Creation Apocalypse robe set.

You can kind of start to see like some of the components that we put together that we can mix and match and kind of make new armors from. This is kind of like the base chassis for all of that.^[159] – Jeffrey Bard

This is what we call our t-shirt and pants. So this gives you a perfect example of just how the most basic you'll ever look in alpha. So even our most basic look, we're really trying to bring it and put a lot of detail in it.^[160] – Mat Broome

Empyrean level 20 (tier 3) plate armor.^[161]

Your base look for the character can be pretty boring, but what Steven gave us a challenge with from day one was to make sure even the base look, the t-shirt and pants, looked amazing... This is your zero character, if you will... Then you can go in and customize everything from the shoulder pads to the elbow pads, the belt that goes around them; do you want duel belts, you want to harness the clothes in the front. So every piece you see on here you can actually customize that at the front end. So what we do is we scale that up from zero, ten and twenty... We scale it up and we customize it; and then I want to really stress that each one of those looks as you progress is different. We're not just repurposing the same armor pieces. We're making unique sets that complement each other as you progress.^[159] – Mat Broome

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse will have three different armor themes: Plate, leather and robe.^[160]

You can actually have three different types of themes: You have plate, you'll have leather and you'll have robe. So for every armor set that we're showing at each one of those tiers, you're actually gonna have nine unique looks to pick from.^[160] – Mat Broome