Safe zones

Freehold owners are able to set permissions that grant access to their artisan and business buildings' services.

Freehold ownership is designated by one account only and then the family system is the system that facilitates multiple accounts having permission basis within that freehold. – Steven Sharif

• Freehold permissions are intended to work with the family and guild systems.
  • It is still not determined if freehold permissions will be able to be granted to individuals outside those social structures.
  • Freehold permissions may only apply to battalions/micro-structures within a guild.
  • Interaction with the guild system will be tested in Alpha-2.

• This includes permission to enter the homestead, interact with furniture, access storage, interact with crafting or processing stations, and harvest resources.

Permissions to help manage your home are handled through affiliations like your Guild and family system. When setting permissions for your Freehold to do things like enter the house, interact with furniture, access Freehold storage, interact with crafting and processing stations, and harvesting gatherables on a Freehold, you can set if your Guild or family members should be able to do these things.

• Permission to decorate a freehold is restricted to the owner of the freehold. Previously it was stated that permission to decorate but not take anything from the house would be able to be assigned to other players.
  • Family members may be granted permission to apply their cosmetic skins to freehold buildings.

Players cannot steal from a freehold under normal circumstances.

• Items stored in a freehold become lootable after a successful siege against their parent node. It has not been decided which players get to loot the debris field during this period.

Only players given permission to do so will be able to do things like access your Freehold storage, and harvest crops and animals on your Freehold. These permissions are capable of being individually assigned per interaction. Note that if the node associated with your Freehold is successfully destroyed during a siege event, attackers will be able to assault Freeholds, and have a chance to pillage them for their resources.

Players cannot PvP while inside the footprint of a freehold homestead even if the doors are unlocked. This does not apply for a period of two hours following a successful siege against its parent node.

Your home building is safe from PvP. While on the footprint of your home, you can not be harmed by damage from other players.

• NPC guards may be available for hire to defend freeholds after a successful node siege. NPC guards that permanently exist on a freehold are not a planned feature.

• Duels may be initiated within a freehold or node as they are considered self-contained events that are opt-in by all parties, and do not fall under the player flagging system.

PvP/PvE servers

• There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers but some servers may be more PvP focused than others.

• There won't be separate roleplaying (RP) servers.

Threat assessment

You decide to gank the player, but find out that you have been ambushed!

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.

• This will indicate the type of armor (cloth, leather, plate) that they are predominantly wearing.

You can target a player. You're going to see what type of armor they have based on a buff they have available to them because obviously cosmetics can change appearance. You might have different silhouettes as a result of that. – Steven Sharif

• The border will indicate the level and quality of the tier set.
  • This also indicates if the gear is enchanted, along with visual effects associated with enchanted items.
• The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior".

When you see a player approaching you and they're wearing a transmog 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 what they're going up against if they're actively checking that, and that will be available. – Steven Sharif

Caravans

Alpha-2 caravan being escorted to the Miraleth node.

The Caravan System is a major aspect of the economy in Ashes of Creation. While the rewards can be great for moving massive amounts of Commodities and other materials across the world of Verra, players can choose to be Caravan attackers or defenders, making these hotspots for PvP battles.

Caravan PvP in Alpha-2.

Caravans are vehicles that facilitate the transfer of cargo across Verra.

Caravans are the induction of emergent gameplay, which means you cannot predict the situation you're going to be in when you use a caravan. That's part of the risk: The risk is the unknown. If you could predict it then your ability to mitigate that risk would unfortunately remove that dynamic- that ratio of risk versus reward. – Steven Sharif

• Personal caravans are used to transport cargo for one or more players.

• Mayoral caravans are used by Mayors to transfer cargo between nodes with established trade agreements or alliances.

• Caravans are initiated from and arrive at caravansary node buildings within Village (scena 3) nodes and above.

• Caravans create an objective-based PvP event in the open-world that players can choose to attack, defend, or opt-out of.

• PvE caravan events can cause roadways to be blocked off or hostile mobs to spawn to attack the caravan.

• It is possible to launch decoy caravans and merchant ships, but there are visual hints of what is contained in a caravan. Decoy crates may be available via social organization progression.

Caravan PvP

Caravan PvP in Alpha-2.

One of the most important aspects of caravans is that there is no reward without significant risk in Ashes of Creation; and the caravan system is of particular risk, because it is how materials and commodities are transited within the world of Verra; and it's difficult to navigate the world of Verra: It's a large world and the terrain is not always kind, especially to large vehicles like a caravan. – Steven Sharif

Caravan PvP party icons

	Friendly defender
	Friendly attacker
	Enemy defender
	Enemy attacker

UI message when opting in to join the defenders of a caravan PvP event.

Caravans create an objective-based PvP event in the open-world that players can choose to attack, defend, or ignore via a UI window.

• Only the caravan owner and those in the caravan's raid group will be able to see it on the world map.

You will only be able to see the caravan if you are a member of the caravan's raid or if you are the owner of the caravan on the map. If you are not one of those, then you will not see it on the map. If you come within proximity of the caravan you'll be prompted through an event UI to participate if you wish as a defender or an attacker. – Steven Sharif

• Players that choose to attack or defend the caravan will be flagged as combatants.
  • The UI notification will include the caravan owner's name and guild.
  • The proximity that the UI window appears is determined by the player's performance as either a defender or an attacker in previous raids.
  • Once registered as a defender, a player can't switch to attack the caravan.
  • The proximity radius for notification of nearby caravan events can be increased or decreased based on the caravan's components or a player's progression in the highwayman system.

At a certain proximity to the caravan, any player will receive the event notification to participate either as an attacker or as a defender. That proximity radius can be augmented either through players advancement within the Highwaymen system, which is for defenders or attackers you can increase the radius, but also the components can increase and or decrease the radius of that event notification as well. – Steven Sharif

• There will be visual hints relating to the cargo being transported on caravans, but players will not be able to see the exact contents of the caravan. Cargo is represented in this way even if a cosmetic caravan skin has been applied to the caravan.

• Players can be registered participants in a caravan event involving multiple caravans. It is not possible for a player to participate in more than one caravan event at a time.

As a player you can participate in events that have as many caravans collocated as you want. So if you have 20 Caravans that you're trying to move all in a single caravan raid with all of your players you can join all 20 of those caravans into the same caravan defense group; and that is that is the intent of the system. The same is true for the attackers. The attackers can join against all of those caravans. – Steven Sharif

• Caravan components can be individually destroyed by directional attacks against the caravan. All components are destroyed if the caravan is destroyed.

• Some defensive abilities may be effective against blocking projectiles from hitting caravans.

• Basic attacks will not slow caravans, but certain slowing abilities may be able to do so.

• Players or mounts trying to block caravans will be pushed out of the way.

As it stands currently it would be difficult for players to be able to block the caravan. Now that's not to say that certain types of effects cannot be applied to the caravan through ability use, such as slowing effects, or pause effects, stun effects, against the caravan itself, not the rider. But right now we do have a collision priority system which means that vehicles move players and mounts. Mounts and players cannot stop vehicles from moving the vehicle. Its collision has priority; and then ships have the ultimate priority. Nothing can move ships or block ships. – Steven Sharif

• If a caravan's driver is killed or otherwise removed from the caravan then any player will be able to drive the caravan for a period of 15 to 20 minutes before the caravan despawns and becomes a wreckage. A caravan will persist in the world for a period of 5 to 10 minutes from the time its owner logs out or is disconnected from the server.

• There is no limit to the number of times caravans can be commandeered or the number of times caravans get destroyed and replaced.

Q: Will there be a limit on the number of times a caravan can change hands if successfully taken over during a journey from one node to another?

A: No. There is no limit a caravan can be destroyed. That caravan can be destroyed. The Caravan thereafter could be destroyed. The driver of the Caravan can be killed and commandeered; and done as many times as is permitted through the situation. That is player driven. – Steven Sharif

Niektóre z poniższych informacji nie zostały ostatnio potwierdzone przez programistów i mogą nie znajdować się na aktualnym planie rozwoju.

• A group will be required to successfully attack a caravan.

Sieges

Castle sieges

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.

Guilds participate in Castle sieges 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 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.

I love castle-based gameplay. I love trophies. I like rewarding risk a lot; and for me it's very difficult to imagine a MMO that I would want to play where there is not competition of strategic prowess that determines the outcome of these types of events and there is not a meaningful reward both mechanically and from just a bragging rights perspective that players can aim for and try to achieve. I think that it brings a lot to the game when it comes to motivations, to excel, to level, to gain power, to engage those different progression loops when there is an ultimate goal or trophy that is not static and doesn't exist forever once you achieve it, but that you must constantly perform in order to maintain; and that's really the purpose of these castles. – Steven Sharif

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 Village 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 – 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

Read more...

Node sieges

Node sieges (Pre-alpha footage).

As some areas in the world grow, others will fall. This is the foundation of the living, breathing world that is Ashes of Creation, where players will have the ability to make important decisions that matter in the longevity of an area becoming a city, or whether to siege a rival town. Rise above the ashes, create the world around you, and be a part of the story that unfolds because of your actions and decisions. – Margaret Krohn

Node sieges enable players to destroy nodes starting at Village (scena 3). This paves the way for new development and access to the locked content in surrounding nodes. Due to this dynamic, political strife and intrigue play an important role in the structure of the world.

• Sieging nodes will not be an easy task for the attackers. Cities and metropolises will have a considerable defensive advantage.

• There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.

• Death penalties do not apply to objective-based events such as node sieges.

If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city! – Steven Sharif

• The majority (~80%) of content in Ashes of Creation is open-world but there may be instanced battles within castle and node sieges where specific groups can participate in small, short-duration objective-based battles for specific waypoints.

Read more...

Hunting grounds

You are on the prowl, and notice an unsuspecting player chopping trees. What would you do?

Hunting grounds are open-world PvP corruption-enabled areas that encompass most of the map.

• Hunting grounds refer to killing monsters or NPCs in the open-world.
• This also refers to contesting resources.

One of the interesting components of Ashes of Creation and our flagging system is that it presents the potential for two conflicting parties to have open conflict in the open world over pretty much anything that they may want or disagree with; and if that pertains to a hunting ground, not just the caravan or the castles or the nodes or whatever, it can exist in that area. – Steven Sharif

Outside of PvP for certain things like caravans, sieges of nodes and/or castles is that you're going to have those open-world hunting ground fights that may occur. You're going to have resources fights that may occur. You're going to have political fights that may occur between members of guilds; and we're taking the guild politics to a whole new direction in regards to playing those conflicts out. – Steven Sharif

Our PvP mechanics follow a flagging system, as well as static PvP zones at certain points of interest; fight for control over cities, castles, caravans, or hunting grounds. Our PvP is designed to offer the players a well-balanced and fair world to shape through the pen, or sword should they choose.

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Player flagging

The open world PvP flagging system is designed to deter people from griefing other players without limiting opportunities for open conflict.

We do incentivize players to fight back, or to participate in PvP through the flagging system, but not to PK. Not to go corrupt. – Steven Sharif

• Players can participate in open world PvP with one another without having to resort to murder.
  • Players will gank other players, but the intention is for Ashes of Creation to not be a "gank box".
• The penalties are intended to be severe enough to deter any type of spawn camping.
• Summons follow the same PvP flagging rules as players and share the player's flag status.
• Items are not provided to players until crafting or gathering interactions are complete. Players interrupted before completion will not lose these items or resources.

There are three levels of flagging for world PvP in Ashes of Creation.

• Non-combatant (green)
  • All players start as non-combatants.
  • Non-forced attacks, including AoE and status effects, will not hit non-combatant players.
  • Green players killed by mobs (the mob deals the killing blow) do not flag attacking players as corrupt, but since the exact health of another player is not known (outside of the same party, raid, alliance, or guild), attackers run the risk of killing the player and becoming corrupt.
  • Player abilities with CC effects do not apply to non-combatants. The target of a CC ability must be flagged in order to suffer the CC effects. This prevents players from opening attacks that stun non-combatant players during a pull for example.
  • Non-combatants will not be flagged for looting bodies.
  • Players will be able to opt-in (via a checkbox) to allow their beneficial spells, or non-beneficial AoEs to hit combatants.

If you have that check-box for flagging with your AOEs and heals available then you will flag. If you do not have that box checked then on completion of the skill it will not flag you because the check was made at the start that there was a flagged party member; and then he will not he or she will not receive the beneficial effect as a result or the damage, if it's an offensive spell. – Steven Sharif

• Combatant (purple)
  • Players are flagged as combatants if they attack another (non-corrupted) player when carrying out a forced attack. If the attacked player fights back, they are also flagged as combatants, otherwise the attacked player will remain flagged as a non-combatant.
    • This also applies to attacks made by combat pets, summons, or any other player-controlled entities.
  • Non-combatants entering an open world battleground (PvP event) are automatically flagged as combatants and remain flagged for a period of time after leaving that battleground.
  • Non-combatants who heal, buff, or otherwise interact with combatants or corrupted players will be flagged as combatants.
  • Players can kill combatants without repercussions, and are encouraged to do so, since dying while a combatant has reduced death penalties.
  • Players are not able to manually set their flagging status to combatant.
  • Players remain flagged for a period of 90 seconds following their most recent attack on a non-combatant or another combatant.
  • Players cannot log out while flagged as combatants.

You're not going to see griefing in the game very often; and that's because our flagging system. The corruption mechanics are based around disincentivizing a griefer or PKer but still offering the opportunity, should the occasion arise, where the benefits outweigh the risk, you have the ability to do so. If you gain corruption, which is killing a non-combatant - a player who is not fighting back basically - if you gain that corruption, your world has changed. It is not going to be a very beneficial place to be and you have the potential of losing your gear. Your combat efficacy decreases based on the amount of corruption you accrue. It is a comfortable balance between player agency and grief and basically removing player agency for other players. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted (red)
  • If a combatant player, or their summon, kills a non-combatant player, including any of their controlled entities, such as their battle pet, mount, or summon, the player's character will be flagged as corrupted.
    • Corruption gained for killing controlled entities is a lower value than killing the players.
  • A character's PK value increases with each non-combatant player killed over the lifetime of that character.
  • The wider the level disparity between the players, and the higher the attacker's PK value, the more corruption score they gain.
  • A character's corruption score multiplies their death penalties and reveals a their location to bounty hunters.
  • If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant.
  • Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.
  • There is a 60 second timer to logout while corrupt. Force-disconnecting the client during the cooldown will leave the character in-game.

It's important to note that the idea is going to be that, unless a player is in your party, alliance, guild, or raid that you will not have definitive knowledge of their exact hit point values. So when you do something that's sketchy like that, where you want to bring them close to death and let a monster finish him off, you are taking the risk of overhitting and actually gaining the corruption. – Steven Sharif

• Objective-based PvP events do not use the flagging system.
  • A player may not flag on members of the same party, raid, guild or alliance.

Read more...

Affiliations

An affiliation tree determines how entities are flagged against other entities within its hierarchy.

• Corrupted players can be attacked (or killed) regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.
• Node citizenship.
• Alliances.
• Guilds.
• Parties.
• Raids.
• Family.
• Religion.
• Society.

There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members. – Steven Sharif

All of these things have some hierarchy; and within that hierarchy there's the ability to participate within certain systems. So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship. – Steven Sharif

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Bounty hunters

Players can acquire the bounty hunter title through a quest available to citizens of Military Stage 4 (Town) nodes and potentially their vassals or affiliated nodes.

• Bounty hunters can activate their Pathfinding ability to reveal corrupted player locations on their map.
  • This will flag the bounty hunter for combat only to corrupted players for a period of one hour from the time of activation.
  • The pathfinding ability can be toggled on or off.
  • It is possible that bounty hunters will be permanently flagged versus corrupted players with the pathfinding ability toggled off. This design change will be decided based on testing.
• The accuracy of bounty hunter maps is determined by a player's progression in the bounty hunter system.
• Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.
  • Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters.
• Chief bounty hunter is a node government title that grants special access to NPCs in a node.
• Credit for killing a corrupted player goes to the bounty hunter who lands the last hit (killing blow). This may be changed to damage contribution in future.

Bounty hunter maps

Corrupted players with a high enough corruption score will be visible on the world and mini maps. These players will have markers posted on the map by an NPC from a Military node of at least stage 4 (Town), and will only be granted to players who have the Bounty hunter title. The accuracy of bounty hunter maps is determined by a player's progression in the bounty hunter system.

Taverns are one of the locations that bounties will be posted. As players gain corruption, taverns may offer bounties to eliminate those players; or have a specific area cleared of problem players, thus giving a POI (point of interest) on the world map.

Bounty hunter Pathfinding ability

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Pathfinding		Bounty hunter	Reveals corrupted player locations on the bounty hunter's map. Activating this ability will flag the bounty hunter for combat only to corrupted players for a period of one hour from the time of activation. The pathfinding ability can be toggled on or off.

Corrupt players killing bounty hunters

Corrupted players potentially gain rewards for killing bounty hunters.

See also

• PvP
• Combat