TL;DR

• The game will have achievement-unlocked cosmetics
• Node layout tool being developed
• Combat system is being iterated on
• Items and crafting system is more complex than public knows
• A lot of different event systems and their triggers discussed

After big reveal of character customization, it is not surprising that we had less gameplay-rich update, but very information-rich nonetheless. April development update, named “Event System Overview,” focused a lot Ashes of Creation’s event system, and how different events impact the world and player’s day-to-day activities. In addition to this topic, Studio Update informed us that Intrepid hired 23 people since the start of the year, with a lot of people showing interest in working with Ashes of Creation. Additionally, development diaries are a thing being considered, and the company hit its first milestone of the year.

Ashes Will Have Achievement-Unlocked Cosmetics

“Will there be character customizations that will require certain in-game achievements? Quests that reward with unique appearance items?” was community’s question of the day. The answer came somewhat expected, as this is a pretty standard thing across MMO-s. The game will have unlockable features gated by number of sieges player participated in, or specific quest accomplished.

Node Layout Is Going To The Next Level

Brief introduction to Node System in Alpha 1 demonstrated it as pretty flat. Of course this was not the purpose of Alpha 1 testing, and it was very rudimentary, but Steven explained that with introduciton of Node Layout Tool nodes will have their own unique outlines. This is supposed to introduce a lot of diversity to the nodes in horizontal as well as in vertical outlook. Even though these node elevation changes will give some uniqueness to the nodes, some things will stay the same - service buildings. It is said that certain buildings (housing and service buldings) need to be consistent across nodes.

Nodes Will Have Specializations

In addition to node layout information, we got a brief update on service buildings and relics. This will be the gameplay of capturing and stealing relics for the benefit of the node. According to this information, nodes will have specialization paths that play along with relics, which will allow opening of new buildings, new rooms in buildings and so on. This way node may become centerpiece of specific area of the map.

Combat System Will Be Shown When It's "Presentable"

Combat was huge endeavor over the last couple of months, goomg through major revamp, with the team testing out different angles and iterations of it. As it’s a touchy subject for a lot of MMO players, Steven said that combat system has to be presented at the “presentable state,” so it does not give wrong impression, especially to the “unengaged audiences.” It is known that combat update would spread quickly and could quite easily bring wrong picture about the entire game and its development process. That’s why Intrepid is careful with this, and want the presentation to speak for itself, rather than having to constantly be backed up with “work in progress” label. An example of ready-to-go reveal was character creator, which was received quite positively. The team wants the same for combat update. One bit of information we got is that animations for assassin class with daggers are being worked on.

Crafting System Is Much Deeper Than Anyone Knows

It has been highlighted that gathering, crafting system and economy wil play major role of Ashes Of Creation. However, during this development update Steven expressed how little has actually been revealed about this whole story. Apparently the public has very rudimentary knowledge of these sytems, being familiar with just the core loops. A lot of it is being held under the wraps until Alpha 2, which will represent a couple of professions in their full potential, from gathering to procesing and crafting. One gameplay loop was mentioned though - land management. As players draw resources out of the land, it will affect it, and pose the question “How can players draw resources in sustainable way?” This should encourage movement across the world in order to get these resources. This loop will be tested in Alpha 2.

Other Mentions

Vechicle system, AI system, and networking were not covered in great detail, and were just briefly mentioned. Vehicle system, which covers mount controls, gliding mechanics, ships, siege weapons is being worked on and will be present in Alpha 2.

AI system is updated with requirements for behavior trees, which dictates how actions and responses trigger different behavior. Networking is apparently going through some updates as well, but no specifics were given.

Ashe's Events Will Be Seamless And With Consequences

This was the main part of the update - event system and its significanse in the world.

Events will be a way to introduce the content in a natural and seemless way. This progression-based way of the world is supposed to react to player activity. Meaning, each event will have a set of requirements that need to be fulfilled in order to trigger it. Some triggers being response from some NPC or monster faction (goblins assult a town). Event system is supposed to run in the background regardless of player behavior. If players don’t react to them (stop them), such inaction will have consequences on player’s day-to-day activities. For example, it can create obstacles in the world, destroy buildings that player need, etc. This should be a good enough reason for players to engage in this type of content.

There were couple of event types being talked about during the livestream:

Calendar events will be server-wide events that give unique content based on real-world or in-game holidays. These are not going to be immersion-breaking, as the team has a plan how to incorporate real-world holidays to be part of Verra. When it comes to in-game holidays, each race has culture backround, which is an opportunity to introduce these in-game holidays with actual base in race culture.

Node attacks will be the result of some events. As mentioned in the livestream, “some types of enemies have hate lists on certain buildings that players may build in a node.” Meaning certain buildings will aggro cetain monsters or factions. These monster attacks should be taken seriously, as they may weaken that node, and make it vulnerable for attacks by neighbouring nodes.

Monster coin events are natually triggered by monster coin mechanic, which allows players to become monsters and attack nodes. This should be a fun event that breaks out of the regular character class gameplay loop, but can also impact attacked node quite a bit.

POI events are Point Of Interests, towers or dungeons, which players will have to “address” in order to resolve the event. Some of these may be pre-requirement for node attacks. Furthermore, POIs are also tied in with storylines and give background to why some factions attack some nodes.

PVP events will surely be one of the most expected events, considering Ashe’s weight on PVP. Steven described these as open-world battlegrounds, or small skirmishes that lead to sieges.

When we’re talking about communicating events to players, pretty much everyone sees giant letters across the screen. Intrepid will attempt to solve this communication a bit differently with “environment changes.” This will be something happening in the enviropnment around the player, tree falling down, giant blizzard, clouds gathering, with audio queues. These events may start off with such small environmental signals, but if players don’t respond, it would increase regionaly. With this expansion, events will have some sort of leveling systems to them. “Content scales with the level of content that triggers it. For example. lvl 25 area event can be triggered by 10 lvl 25 monsters killed.” At the end, it’s highlighted that events are not going to be end-game only.

Scorpion World Boss Revealed

Character art update section gave us a couple of monster and mount concept art, with the big one being scorpion world boss.

For more information, check Ashes of Creation’s official livestream VOD here.