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.[1]
- 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.[1] – 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.[1][2]
- 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.[2]
- Increasing difficulty ratings inspire more of a traditional vertical power progression that is common in other MMOs.[3][2]
- 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.[2] – 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.[4]
- 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.[4] – Steven Sharif
PvE difficulty
The difficulty of PvE content, such as raids and dungeons will adapt based on the performance of the raid or group against previous bosses in that encounter.[7]
- Higher performance in earlier phases will increase the difficulty of subsequent phases of the encounter.[7]
- Certain AI behaviors might activate based on progress within an encounter.[6][8]
- Bosses and mobs will not auto-scale based on group size, but AI behaviors may dynamically adapt to the number and types of combatants in proximity to the encounter.[6][9]
- Both in Alpha-2 and when the game launches, there will be monsters whose technical level is above that of the cap; and the intent there is obviously again to provide some level of challenge that exceeds a comparable level challenge rating.{livestream|2023-11-30|1h53m50|V9F_AJl9ozY}} – Steven Sharif
- The higher the difficulty, the better the loot tables will be.[7]
- Q: How challenging will raid boss mechanics be given the given that players may need to simultaneously fight other players while also fighting the boss?
- A: It depends. The great thing about our encounter system is that it has a wide scalability from encounters that some might consider easy given their composition to encounters that some might consider impossible until they get their gear level to a certain stage. The level of interaction with other players is really predicated on the encounter itself. We may have some encounters that are in instances although the predominant portion of those will be in the open world, in which case they do have the potential being contested; and these encounters, especially the big ones that might land in contention, are giving some of the best-in-slot gear you can get in the game. So it's important that they are contested because it is a significant victory point; and one of our core pillars is risk versus reward: and the higher that risk the higher that reward should be. So those two things seem fitting and then in addition we do have the concept of winners and losers. Not everybody in Ashes of Creation is going to be a winner; and that sucks if you're not I guess, but there is opportunity for you to continue to excel and become one. But it gives much more meaning to an achievement when not everybody gets the achievement. That's our philosophy.[11] – Steven Sharif
- Q: So it's the sort of thing where it might be, we're going do a dungeon that's oops, all fire golems, so if everybody straps up with plate armor and fire resistance, you don't have to worry about the magic fire: you've got the fire resistance for. And when you start getting punched around, that's why everyone's come in with plate?
- A: The encounters design team presents a particular type of challenge rating- for those you're familiar with playing DnD or whatever, challenge rating gets informed by a few different vertical power levels, but then there's also the horizontal perspective: That is, what tools does your party have to address the challenge rating of the situation and some of the horizontal progression exists within how you kit your equipment slots. Some of those can be enhancements or stones, as you're discussing with fire resistance. Some of those are base stats that exist on a particular item, such as physical damage mitigation versus magical damage mitigation and what subtype of damage is incoming based on that. These are the ways that we emphasize that more rock-paper-scissors type of interaction with balance to where it's okay to have asymmetric imbalance if there are horizontal methods by which you achieve the challenge rating.[3] – Steven Sharif
Gear progression
Weapons have their own progression paths.[14][15]
- Each type of weapon has its own skill tree that grants passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][14][24][25]
- The weapon combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.[14][25]
- Ancillary effects proc based on enchantment types.[25]
- Gear enhancements (power stones) can be applied to add elemental or energy types of damage.[25]
- Dual wielded weapons will have its own progression based on weapon type.[26]
- Weapon proficiency (based on length of use of a weapon) is not a planned feature.[24]
- 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.[25] – Steven Sharif
Best-in-slot items
What is considered best-in-slot is based on a character's role and the type of encounter they are facing.[1][27]
- Crafted items are best-in-slot in Ashes of Creation.[28] Previously it was stated that crafted items will be on-par with best-in-slot items.[29]
- Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot. These can only be found in the open world.[30]
Gear enhancement
Gear enhancements are possible both during and after an item is crafted.[31][32]
- 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.[31] – Kory Rice
- Crafting recipes can be enhanced by adding higher rarity or different crafting materials into their selectable crafting slots at crafting stations.[32][33][34][35]
- Enchantment scrolls and tempering allow gear to be enhanced post-crafting.[32][36]
- The bulk of a weapon's power comes from its crafting recipe and the materials used in its construction.[37]
- 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.[32] – Steven Sharif
- Runes/Power stones are a potential methods for enhancing weapons.[25][38]
- Enchantment stones are potential rewards for performance over six month PvP seasons. These grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system).[39][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.[32][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
Game balance
The way that the systems are being designed from a balancing standpoint we're taking into account how we would like the nodes to change per-se how often and we've designed attrition systems for certain cultures that may have more dominance over others. These are things that in Alpha and Beta we will be testing and watching and making sure that our objective is achieved from a gameplay standpoint and if it's not we'll come back and recalculate.[45] – Steven Sharif
Class balance
- Balancing in Ashes of Creation is group focused not based on 1v1 combat.[46][47][48]
- 1v1 matchups will have a rock-paper-scissors dynamic, where one class will be superior to another.[46][48]
- There will be match ups in 1v1s where one class will be superior to another; and that application should be a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. We want there to be counter-play between the different classes... Instead it's going to be a group focused balance, where as long as you have the diversity of classes present, that's going to be an equal level playing field. It's going to be very dependent on skill and strategy.[48] – Steven Sharif
- Balance-wise, there's a number of different interactions mechanically that you have within an ability that you can adjust in order to balance its power. The most most common ones are: Cooldown, Mana consumption, Damage done, Effect status conferred, Promotion of that effect status, Range.[49] – Steven Sharif
- Alpha-1 testing was focused on core functionality rather than combat balance.[50]
- Alpha-2 testing will begin to focus on balancing once populations and encounters have been put in place and are deep in testing.[46][51]
- When we move into Alpha 2 and we have a lot of data that's supporting the use of these particular abilities in combat settings, how often they're used, how often they result in death, what the average damage done by this archetype is comparatively to other damage done by different archetypes: All of that data gets logged and all of that data gets queried in order for us to refine the abilities so that they live in the environment we want them to. Now, that's not to mean that we're going to have a perfect balance across the board between the archetypes. Again, we're taking a rock-paper-scissor approach to balance, which means that some archetypes will do better against other archetypes and vice versa; and we're also not creating an environment where we want to have 1v1 balance. We are focused around group balance. Group composition is important.[46] – Steven Sharif
- The sixty four (64) classes are partitioned into eight primary archetypes. Balancing of active skills only relates to these eight primary archetypes.[47][52]
- Certain secondary archetypes are capable of "bridging the gap" between their counterpart.[57]
- Even though augments do radically change the way your active skills provide you abilities, there's still a primary focus on the base archetype itself and not the 64 whole classes.[47] – Steven Sharif
- Certain archetypes are capable of moving the gap between their counterpart per-se. If I am a Tank archetype and a Mage is my counter, I can take a Mage secondary and bridge the divide slightly; and then move my identity that direction ever so slightly.[57] – Steven Sharif
Siege balance
There are points of balance that we want to incorporate, such as the defense mechanisms that the defenders have, the types of buffs that are acquired through completing killing the bosses, or capturing control points, the stages before a siege when it comes to those node progressions in the preceding weeks: Those are all going to be balanced considering all things being equal between the two sides. But obviously we're not going to control the state of gear acquisition that one side might have as an advantage over the other. There might be a much better geared team over there. There might be a much better coordinated team. There might be a higher number of individuals who are part of the attacking or the defense. Those are components that we aren't necessarily going to put on railroads so-to-speak. But the aspects of design that we can talk about like the hit point health of a particular wall or door, or mercenaries that can be hired; what's their cost, what's their damage output: Those are things yes we're going to balance. But obviously anything that's player dependent or that has player interaction and activity and determination you can't always balance; and you don't want to balance. Those aspects you leave those to the players.[58] – Steven Sharif
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.[13]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Wywiad, 2023-07-09 (1:43:38).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Podcast, 2021-04-11 (54:35).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wywiad, 2023-07-09 (1:40:41).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Transmisja na żywo, 2023-04-07 (1:15:02).
- ↑ Newsletter - June 2023.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Transmisja na żywo, 2023-01-27 (1:34:06).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Wywiad, 2020-07-19 (14:51).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2021-06-13 (22:20).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2020-07-19 (17:12).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2023-11-30 (1:53:50).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-05-27 (1:20:35).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2021-04-30 (53:08).
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Wywiad, 2018-10-20 (2:53:52).
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Transmisja na żywo, 2020-01-30 (1:28:40).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2018-05-04 (45:37).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-06-30 (1:12:38).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-09-30 (53:15).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-09-30 (43:45).
- ↑ Video, 2022-09-30 (24:49).
- ↑ Podcast, 2021-09-29 (47:57).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2021-02-07 (49:18).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2020-07-19 (53:59).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2020-07-18 (1:07:51).
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 February 8, 2019 - Questions and Answers.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 25.5 Transmisja na żywo, 2018-06-04 (1:11:19).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2021-06-25 (1:29:39).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2020-05-29 (1:33:11).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-06-30 (1:18:55).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-10 (14:45).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-03-31 (1:19:41).
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Podcast, 2023-12-03 (17:10).
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 Transmisja na żywo, 2023-11-30 (1:38:47).
- ↑ Video, 2023-11-30 (1:01:04).
- ↑ Video, 2023-11-30 (59:21).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-26 (5:25).
- ↑
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2023-11-30 (1:54:37).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2018-06-04 (21:37).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2020-07-18 (16:34).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2020-07-18 (14:22).
- ↑ 41.0 41.1 Transmisja na żywo, 2022-05-27 (1:20:00).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-26 (51:37).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-17 (58:55).
- ↑ 44.0 44.1 Transmisja na żywo, 2021-03-26 (1:15:57).
- ↑ Video, 2018-04-05 (49:36).
- ↑ 46.0 46.1 46.2 46.3 Transmisja na żywo, 2023-12-19 (1:25:16).
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 47.2 Transmisja na żywo, 2020-10-30 (33:26).
- ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2 Podcast, 2018-04-23 (59:28).
- ↑ 49.0 49.1 Transmisja na żywo, 2023-12-19 (1:23:00).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2021-05-28 (1:13:05).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2022-12-02 (1:05:51).
- ↑ 52.0 52.1 Wywiad, 2018-10-20 (2:40:17).
- ↑ Podcast, 2021-09-29 (30:04).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2021-06-25 (1:05:01).
- ↑ Wywiad, 2020-07-18 (1:05:04).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2018-02-09 (41:56).
- ↑ 57.0 57.1 Podcast, 2018-04-23 (1:01:01).
- ↑ Transmisja na żywo, 2021-06-25 (1:10:52).