Creation October Development Update
PVP And Griefing, Gathering Updates, Survey Profession
Oct. 28, 2022
TL;DR
- HUD will be highly customizable and allow presets
- Interpid's sticking to their "risk vs reward" philosophy, but griefing will be ticketable offense
- Most PVP will be consentual
- Gathering system is immersive
- Land management is important
- Surveying profession reveals resources and information
Following seasonal changes, new map reveal, combat demo livestreams is not an easy task, but Interpid keeps on delivering high-value and detail-rich updates. This month’s theme - Gathering.
Will HUD in Ashes Of Creation be customizable?
October livestreamed kicked off with a YouTube comment asking about customization levels of Ashes of Creation’s HUD. The players want to know if hey will be able to hide name tags on themselves, other NPCs, and make other changes that may help with immersion? As pointed out by Steven, customization of UI is “top desired aspect of UI team.” They have been working towards having the most customizable options, which includes having UI presets and being able to switch them on the fly.
PVP Griefing Concerns
There’s been some discussion and concerns in Ashes of Creation’s community regarding PVP and griefing recently. So, this section was includeed in the livestream specifically to address PVP griefing and risk vs reward philosophy of Ashes of Creation.
Once more it’s underlined that pvp and risk is supposed to be meaningful, and a catalyst for change in the world. Community’s concern with this is “what happens when PVP systems are outside of your control?” What if players are forced to participate in a system they don’t want to participate in? As Steven Sharif explained, Ashes of Creation will take PVP systems from the past and try to refine them in such a way that is keeps the risk of PVP, but stops the loop in which players are constantly interrupted in their gameplay, and feel like they don’t have a say in it.
Interpid believes corruption system should alleviate the preassure and prevent constant griefing loops. They believe that majority of players will not risk “going red” (PK-ing), since they will accumulate their corruption levels so high that it will simply become too risky to engage in any combat whatsoever, since there’s a very high chance they will drop their gear.
This will be tested throughout Alpha 2 testing phase, and corruption will be tweaked high enough to deter players from constantly disrupting other players’ gameplay for no reward other than joy of griefing. Steven also mentioned that player who work outside of system (possibily exploiting it) leads to “actionable events.”
When/How Will Players Encounter PVP?
Majority of PVP players encounter will be through consentual systems such as sieges, caravans, wars, open sea PVP. On the other hand, since there’s an open-world flagging system, players will be able to “interrupt” dungeons and raids.
What Happens With Target Harassment?
Target harassment, which includes following a player and harassing them, if done repeatedly, is straight up a breach in code of conduct of Ashes of Creation. It is a ticketable offense.
Bottom line, griefing will not be vible way of playing. Systems will be tweaked and changed, but will never stray away from Ashes’ core principles and approach, which is risk vs reward.
Gathering Is Immerse, Economy-Changing System
Last time we saw gathering was in Alpha 1, and gathering shown in this video is highly improved compared to that version. There is a big step-upo in visuals and sound design. Again, Steven prefixed the video with “keep in mind where it (the system) was, and where it is now. This is work in progress and will be iterated on. What we saw in the video is higher sound and visual fidelity, more immersion with the sound of tree snapping as the tree’s falling to the ground. When the tree hits the ground, it does not go through, but collides with the ground - both trunk and the branches. Additonally, the tree hitting the ground stirs up dust or snow particles. The tree respawn is also made to be more immersive, since it doesnt just reappear, but grows through different stages (sapling to a grown tree).
One important quote to take away from the video is: "if you see a tree, you can chop a tree, if u see a rock, you can mine a rock."
Surveying Profession Reveals A Lot About Gathering
In Ashes of Creation resources are not just given to the players. Sure a player can stumble upon a vein of certain resrouce, or accidentaly mine it from a rock, but in general the resources will need to be found, and even then players don’t know “what’s in the rock” until they mine it. This is where surveying comes into play. Surveying is one of the systems that helps players identify locations where resources spawn. The system will also allow players to uncover hidden resources, and reveal information, such as in what season plant grows, breakdown of rarity, etc. It’s important to know that this system is reserved for gathering profession branch.
Survey action gameloop would pretty much look something like: take survey tool -> put it down, scan the area -> extract information.
Players can become proficient with the tool and speed up the process, increase AOE (area of effect), increase survey time, and so on.
Land Management Dictates Spawn Rates
Resources in Ashes of Creation spawn at a set rate, which can be influenced by how players interract with these systems. If some area is overharvested, its land value will drop, which will result in it taking longer to spawn new resources. Similarly, if players “overhunt” predators, other animals in the food chain will “overspawn”.
Low land management score will negatively impact resource respawn timers, allocation of rare spawns, return rate of resources. In order to avoid this, players may enact policies to protect resources, or hunt down poachers.
Profession Progression
Progression within profession speeds up gathering time, allows players to access resources at earlier stages (sapling stage), increases yield amount, etc. Profession level also dictates what tools players can use, which also means that gathering with other players (combo gathering) will be a thing in this game - simliarly to Lost Ark.
Bandits and Weapons
Character art section showed us some skeleton warriors, bandit models, and weapons that will be “shown in game very very soon.”
Gathering in Ashes of Creation showed a huge progress compared to its state from Alpha 1 testing phase, and promises to be one of the best in MMOs by the time the game comes out. If you are interested in the update you can check out the VOD here.