Instancing

Instanced content is meant to provide rails for an experience the designers want to achieve, such as a set party size, specific environment, or storyline, which can include class-based, culture-based, or node-based storylines.

• Instances not intended to be places that can be farmed repeatedly.
• Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot items.

They won't be best-in-slot type items. You will not accomplish that from in from instanced-based content. Those will be found within the open-world. It'll be a competitive area for you to achieve those things, because other forces will want to achieve them as well; and because it's open-world there will be a limited number of those who can successfully complete on: Whether it be some timer for a world boss, or some condition or other world state predicate. Those are things that people are going to have to contend with each other for. – Steven Sharif

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.

• Castle and node sieges may contain instanced locations where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.
• 地下城 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 system presents an opportunity for open conflict.

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

PvP Arenas

Pre-alpha arena combat footage from PAX West 2017.

Pre-alpha arenas.

競技場 are instanced PvP scenarios and are not part of open world PvP.

The arena system as we've spoken about before is going to have ladder systems where people can progress within certain seasons based on their win/loss ratios. The importance of arenas are obviously that players have an opportunity to participate [and] practice out certain builds from a PvP perspective and can compete with one another within the system. – Steven Sharif

• 競技場 will have 1 man, 3 man, 5 man and possibly 20 man Free-For-All (Deathmatch) group sizes.
  • There won't specifically be guild vs guild arenas but team-based matchmaking allows teams to face other teams.
• Arenas will have a minimum level requirement to participate.
• There won't be bifurcated brackets with separate player pools.
• There might be some form of an ELO system that gets flushed on a seasonal basis.
• There will be an arena ladder system.
  • Rewards for arena ladders will be revealed at a later time.
  • Titles can be received from arena play.
  • Arena points that can be used to buy gear are not currently in the design.
• 市長 of military nodes are chosen from citizens through last man standing (gladiatorial arena style) combat.
• The arena system may support cross-server combat.
• Arena style combat is instanced but spectators may be possible through an interface.

攻城戰

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.

行会 participate in 攻城戰 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 攻城戰 occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.

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 村莊 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 – kind of 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

Alpha-1 攻城戰

Alpha-1 preview castle.

Trebuchets in the Alpha-1 preview castle siege attackers headquarter camp.

Alpha-1 preview castle siege gameplay.

Alpha-1 攻城戰 are based on Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges.

• Players will be able to join guilds. These guilds can register for the siege events.
• Castle siege events will be 100v100 battles that occur daily and will last for three hours.
• Attackers will start on the opposite end of the map (from the defenders).
• Attackers will be able to use trebuchets to drive to and assault the castle.
  • Trebuchets have a single primary fire that does a small amount of damage to players and heavy damage to buildings.
  • Trebuchets will be fully physical when they are being driven.
• When the attackers have breached the castle they will be able to channel a cast on the relic in the throne room to try to capture the castle from the defenders.
• The victors of castle sieges will receive benefits, such as cloaks, flying mounts for guild leaders and potentially also for guild officers.
• Alpha-1 攻城戰 are in a separate zone that is accessible via a NPC teleporter.

  Currently the siege zone is actually in the open world, but separated by mountains and off in the sea a bit. There is actually no instancing in A1, although the siege zone will only be accessible in A1 through a registration NPC teleporter. – Steven Sharif

  • This zone includes the following raid bosses.
    • Elder Dragon of Flame
    • Elder Dragon of the Tundra
    • Elder Dragon of the Wood
  • These bosses will also appear in the open-world (outside the siege zone) with slightly different mechanics.
• The opposing team is notified when these raid bosses are being attacked.
• Teams who get the last hit on these bosses will receive buffs that will help them in the siege battle.

Last year, I spoke of attempting to incorporate sieges into the Alpha One experience. This has obviously been a goal of mine because it provides considerable data and a consistent event within the world that players can participate in to help stress test the deployment. Well, I am happy to say that it is appearing more and more likely by the day! Initial implementation of the Apocalypse siege code has been migrated into the Alpha One client, and we should begin internal testing next month. I will caveat this expectation with the fact that we are cutting it a bit close from an internal QA standpoint, but I have some confidence that the system will be online and capable of inclusion for the Alpha One test in the month of June. The siege component will obviously not be representative of what the siege system will be at launch, or even in Alpha Two. – Steven Sharif

• Destructible structures (such as walls and gates) are present in Alpha-1 攻城戰.
  • The ability to repair structures (and siege weapons) is a long term design goal that will not be present during Alpha-1.

Instanced apartments

Pre-alpha apartment complex in a metropolis node.

公寓 are internal only (instanced) spaces within a node that offer some housing functionality. There will be an initial 50 apartments available for purchase when a node advances to a 村莊 (階段 3). Additional apartment buildings can be built at Town (階段 4) if the mayor chooses to construct them and if there is an available plot to do so.

• The number of available apartments increases as a normal part of node advancement.
• It was previously stated that apartments would be available at Town (階段 4) or above.

The mayor may additionally construct apartment buildings when the node hits stage 4 at one of the building plots in the node, along with cities gaining additional static housing and apartments by default as a normal part of the leveling process. – Steven Sharif

分流

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

其他

• 伺服器
• Encounters
• 競技場
• 玩家房屋
• 伺服器