Post Live Stream Full Discord Q&A (Write Up Included) March 27, 2020

Simurgh

Catch the video with the full audio here: March 27, 2020 Post Live Stream Discord Q&A

Shout out to @Wandering Mist for doing the write up that I am sharing below!

You Rock #AshesFam

Ashes of Creation Q+A March 27th 2020

• Upgrading kickstarter packages

It’s difficult to amend pre-order stuff. Want to stay consistent and fair for those who already bought the more expensive packages. When we move forward to the next testing phases there is a potential for testing access to be available separately.

Possibly no new cosmetics next 2 months due to coronavirus and people having reduced income (unable to buy the cosmetics they want).

Cosmetics for March be the same cosmetics in April and May.

• Coming up next month

Lots of systems online, presentable state. Good reception from A1 preview. Great content schedule going forward. Housing purchasing and freehold systems in April. Rapid iteration on combat. More in depth look at previous displayed systems – dev diaries.

• Staff streaming Ashes content regularly through development?

Possibility of staff doing streams and maybe branching out to content creators to have access. Not in the near future but something they want to do.

• 30 day cycle on Mayor confirmed?

Yes

• Is housing still required to become a citizen of a node?

Correct. For the A1 preview they used GM powers to change the requirements of becoming a citizen in order to show off the citizen and Mayor-election process. When showing off certain elements if there is anything not up to standard it will generally be skipped or worked around for the showcase.

• Is there anything to limit changing citizenship regularly?

There will be scalable effects that come into play, not as a hard stop but as a lever. Taxation rate is higher for new citizens as an incentive to stay in the same node.

• Gathered wood from the village vs open world, any difference in quality?

Varying qualities of gathering items. Influence from Jeff Bard working on Star Wars Galaxies. The live stream was designed to showcase the process of gathering materials and using them to construct buildings in the node, in a quick manner. In reality players will be using more open world resources to contribute to buildings. Contribution will be based on the quality of the resources donated.

• How to get a Hero Statue as seen in the node?

Players convert materials into contributions to build things in the node, like the statue.

• Will there be access to minor skills e.g. bandages, etc that all players can use?

Players will have the opportunity to dabble in all the professions to get a sense of what they can do at a base level, including making basic consumables. From there you can progress on to master the professions you like.

• Will there be a waiting time or a minimum amount of people required before a Mayor can be voted in after a node reaches village status?

Once a node reaches village status there will be a 1 week period for players to gain citizenship (coinciding with the cooldown of players leaving 1 node for another). After that there will be a 1 week election process to elect a Mayor. Once the Mayor is elected the 30 day Mayor cycle will begin.

• What is the ratio of action to tab target combat?

75-25% max ratio one way or another

• Will we need certain tools to gather specific resources?

The gathering professions will require tools to gather the resources. The Processing professions will require blueprints and schematics for buildings. Gatherers may need to visit NPCs or buildings in a node to construct their tools but will have all the components necessary to make the tools.

• How will the fights for Mayor in a Military node fit with the 30 day cycle?

One of the reasons why we’re waiting on the divine and military node dev diaries is because we’re waiting still testing different ideas on how they will work. One idea for the military node is to for people wanting to be Mayor to have a champion that they can deck out in special gear and skills that will then fight of their behalf against other people’s champion in an arena. The player can feed their champion with gear, quests, resources or money to make them stronger. Testing in Alpha 1. Arena battles will be in an instance and view-able by spectators.

• Can you have multiple champions?

No, just 1. The reason for the champion is to avoid balancing issues since the game won’t be balanced around 1v1 combat.

• Would there be a practice tool available for the players to practice using their champion?

Yes there would. To clarify the champion isn’t an NPC. Instead the champion is like a separate character that the player becomes when they enter the arena (very much like the monster coin system).

• Will champions die and be gone if they lose a fight?

No, champions will participate in a number of fights and rankings determined on number of wins.

• Can a champion elect someone else to be Mayor after winning the election?

No, whoever wins the arena election will be Mayor.

• Will collision affect people in very packed places (i.e. marketplaces)?

Collision will be present at all times. In order to avoid issues in packed places there will be an inertia and momentum physics that will allow you to push people out of the way. Allowing people to block bridges, etc with caravans is bad game design and will not be possible in Ashes.

• In order to attack a caravan will you need to walk up to the caravan, or will there be a pop-up when you enter the area where the caravan is?

It is still intended for there to be a pop-up window presented to the player based on proximity. The radius of the proximity alert will be based on your previous performance as a defender or attacker.

• Cleric appeared to be OP. How is it designed?

When we design classes we have the holy trinity at the center of our class design with the added tweak of self-sustainability. What you saw in the showcase and will see in Alpha 1 is the progression from level 1-20. From a class standpoint you want to provide more self-sustainability and more rounded-out classes in the early levels. As you get higher you fine-tune what the class will do based on the holy trinity. The cleric for example will have access to better DPS in the early levels but in the higher levels will become much more about healing than DPS. This will feed into the secondary class system allowing players to better decide on their secondary class.

• How easy will it be to switch secondary classes?

Through skill management you can reset your skills relatively easily. There will be a mechanic to allow players to change their secondary class but it will be harder than just swapping the skills around. You will never be able to change your primary class.

• Can you see alpha 1 coming out by this time next year?

We have said that alpha 1 should be coming out this year.

TheGuardian

Cool Beans!

DrEpoch

I approve