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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
"The Living Cavern” – a server-wide PvX endgame idea for the AoC Team
Babyjezuz
Member, Alpha Two
Hey Ashes community,
I am, just like many of you, a passionate Ashes of Creation player and have been thinking about this game and its potential endgame for quite some time.
I’ve actually been sitting on the idea you’re about to read for a while now, but yesterday’s livestream finally convinced me that it’s time to stop keeping it to myself and share it with all of you – and hopefully the Intrepid team as well.
I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts, feedback, and criticism, and to discussing how (and if) something like this could fit into tje game.
Its a longer text ^^ therefore I wrote done some notes beforehand
.
Note 1:
If Steven and the team are already planning similar mechanics for the Harbinger system, this design might serve as an idea pool for later iterations, extensions, or additional event types. The concept is deliberately structured so it can hook into Harbinger events or build on them without interfering with Intrepid’s internal plans. I developed this concept independently, but consciously aligned parts of it with the Harbinger fantasy. Since none of us know the exact scope and details of Harbingers yet, some of this may overlap with what’s already in development – or it might be useful as a complementary layer later on.
Note 2:
If you’d like to start with the story and atmosphere for this idea, you’ll find it in Part 1.
Note 3 – Structure of this post:
Part 1 – Lore Story: “The Depth that Breathes”
Part 2 – Abstract: Short summary of the idea
Part 3 – System Design & Mechanics
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Part 1 – Story: “The Depth that Breathes”
They say not every cavern in Verra was born of stone. Some are wounds.
It began with a whisper beneath the city – a faint tremor, barely noticeable, like the breathing of a sleeping giant. In the taverns they spoke of cracks in the rock, of warm wind slipping through cellar doors, and of merchants who swore they heard distant rumbling under their warehouses at night.
When the first scouts were sent down, they did not find a simple cave.
They found a maw that was growing.
Beneath the city, a living cavern had opened: tunnels shifting like muscle fibers, walls glowing with deep-red veins of pulsing corruption, and floors littered with shards of forgotten artifacts, as if someone had carved old battlefields into the earth and stacked them atop one another.
Soon, not only scouts came, but fighters, clerics, mages all of them – and craftsmen.
Carpenters set up their workbenches at the edge of the abyss and built small, reinforced chests in which to store ore so heavy with curse that even seasoned smiths hesitated to open them. Hunters broke in animals such as ravens and pack bears, whose eyes gleamed in the dark. Some said those beasts carried the paths of the old ways in their blood, from a time before the world fell.
“Put the most precious ore in the pouch, tie it to the raven – and let it fly,” they said.
Many descended into the depths, certain that what they found would find its way home, even if they themselves never did.
Deep below, entire raids of adventurers fought creatures that looked as if they had been rebuilt from the bones of long-gone ages. Other groups saw no monsters in those halls, but rivals: steel met steel, banners of different territories fluttered side by side – first in the wind, then in blood.
The further one advanced, the clearer it became: the cavern was reacting.
Tunnels collapsed, others opened up. Torches flickered in unexplained drafts, as if something vast and deep was holding its breath. Scouts reported a massive shadow, motionless like a statue yet pulsing with a heartbeat that could be felt even through stone.
Scholars found names in ancient writings. They spoke of an entity that did not merely lie in the depths, but was the depths – an embodiment of corruption, fed by every careless act, every greedy thought, every drop of blood spilled upon the cavern floor.
The nodes argued. Some wanted to seal the cavern, others to claim it at any cost.
In the end, a council was formed – not of crowns and offices, but of those who had stood in the darkness most often and of those who carried the voice of the city. They decided which paths to take first, which halls to hold, which sacrifices to make.
Those who first reached the heart of the cavern later spoke only in fragments:
Of a titan of black stone, with corruption burning in its chest like liquid fire.
Of limbs that had to be brought down one by one.
Of totems like nails, pinning something ancient to the bottom of the world.
When the heart finally broke, the surface trembled. Houses shook, well water rippled, and for a long moment it felt as though Verra itself were holding its breath.
Where once there had been a gaping maw, now there was a crater. Hot air rose from it, mixed with a fine, shimmering dust. Those who dared stand at the edge felt strength surge into their limbs for a heartbeat and their senses sharpen, as if the victory itself had touched them. The blessing was fleeting – a gift of the moment, not something to be owned.
Weeks later, when the first green pushed up between blackened stones, gatherers found plants that had never grown anywhere else and veins of ore glowing in colors no miner had ever seen. Merchants spoke of a new age of trade, adventurers of weapons the world had not yet known.
And somewhere, deep in the chronicles of the cities, it will be written:
“It was not a single hero who defeated the depth,
but a fellowship of peoples and cities,
willing to carry their time, their craft, and their blood into the darkness.
Those who gave more received more in return – yet no one was left without leaving a mark in the depths,
and without at least the chance to claim their share from it.”
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Part 2 – Abstract
What is “The Living Cavern”?
“The Living Cavern” is a large, time-limited, open endgame event that manifests as a living open-world dungeon beneath a node and can be tightly connected to the planned Harbinger feature (e.g. as a consequence of a Harbinger event, or as an additional evolution step of that system).
Instead of a single instanced raid, the server gets a dynamic, multi-week/month campaign in which the entire playerbase of a server descends – together and against each other – into a gigantic, mutable cavern. The players’ actions steadily weaken its corruption until a titanic final boss can be defeated in multiple segments.
Progress in the cavern is persistent – there is no classic boss reset when someone dies, logs out, or leaves the cavern. Groups can freely enter and leave, repair, sell, secure resources, live their real lives and later return with the same or a different group, while in the meantime other players push the campaign forward.
Different entrances scale the content for smaller groups and large raids, and the whole system is deliberately designed as PvX: PvE encounters, node/zone politics, logistics through crafting, emergent PvP battles, ad-hoc diplomacy and scout roles all interlock.
Those who invest more time achieve more – just like in real life: hardcore players bring more resources to the market, gain market control and may reach their gear goals faster, but at the same time their increased supply pushes prices down, allowing casuals with little gold to buy more. However, the loot table is always the same for everyone, and there is a tangible random-luck factor.
Professions like Carpentry and Hunter become relevant logistical key roles by providing small, secure storage crates and automatically moving courier animals (e.g. ravens that “love” small glittering sacks of ore) that carry rare materials back to the home node without requiring active escort. Their capacity is much smaller than that of caravans, but the risk is drastically lower – making them a clear anti-griefing pillar.
“The Living Cavern” creates a long-term, repeatable endgame layer that can sit on top of Harbinger systems, makes the world feel reactive, supports the economy, and generates exactly the kind of spontaneous, social stories players will still talk about five years later.
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Part 3 – System Design & Mechanics
3.1. High concept, goals & Harbinger connection
High concept:
A multi-week, server-wide open-world cavern event with persistent boss progress, building on the fantasy of a Harbinger-driven large-scale occurrence: a Harbinger impact, anomaly, or cosmic trigger tears open a “Living Cavern” beneath a node, whose corruption can only be broken after many days of joint effort.
Key goals – and why the design looks like this:
⦁ Endgame longevity instead of one-and-done raid.
The Living Cavern is not meant to be content that a handful of progress guilds clear in a week and then discard. It’s intended as a recurring campaign framework in which an entire cluster of players cycles in and out over weeks, building progress, taking breaks, and returning later. That’s why progress is persistent and linked to server/zone- and player-level metrics.
Progress is generated by defeating small monster packs in the tunnels, taking down larger bosses, or overcoming some not fully defined “presence” or manifestation (possibly tied to Harbingers) that attacks raids and must be pushed back.
⦁ PvX integration as the core, not an add-on
The event is crafted so that PvE, PvP, politics, diplomacy, crafting, and logistics all depend on one another:
– players who just want PvE can clear sectors,
– those who love conflict fight for entrances and hotspots,
– strategic-minded players take on scout, diplomacy, or logistics roles,
– crafters and gatherers provide the means to safely extract rare materials from the depths in the first place.
⦁ Effort vs. reward (“like in real life”) without a hard paywall for casuals
Hardcore players should objectively achieve more (more resources, more currency, faster gear, more influence), but the loot pools remain identical. Through RNG and price deflation triggered by hardcore players, casuals still have real chances at resources (and thus strong items) and legendary moments, instead of being “balanced out of” the system from day one.
3.2. Structure of the Living Cavern: layout, entrances, dynamics
Multiple entrances with anti-exploit logic:
⦁ Small entrances
Deliberately tuned for small groups and off-peak play. They offer lower monster density (or sometimes none), a few resource pockets, and a lower contribution value. This prevents them from turning into “low-risk high-reward” exploit routes, while still giving solo and small-group players a structured, meaningful play space.
Anti-exploit mechanic for small tunnels (raid detection & escalation)
To prevent large raid groups from systematically steamrolling tunnels designed for small parties, each small entrance has a cavern integrity check: as soon as the number of active players in that tunnel (e.g. based on group/raid IDs and presence in the volume) exceeds a defined threshold, the cavern reacts aggressively.
⦁ The first enemy in that narrow tunnel is then spawned as a clearly empowered “warning mob” or elite champion, whose health and damage spikes unambiguously signal that this path is not intended for raids.
⦁ If the group ignores this warning, stays in the tunnel and tries to exploit it regardless, the system escalates: subsequent enemies in that tunnel, or boss/cavern abilities specifically targeting that group/raid ID, scale up so hard that the oversized group is very likely to be completely wiped.
Smaller groups below the threshold experience the same tunnel in a normally scaled, manageable configuration and can play it as intended, while raid groups are naturally pushed back toward the broader main entrances – without using hard gates or invisible walls.
⦁ Large entrances
These are deliberately tuned for bigger groups and organized alliances, with denser monster waves, more complex events, and boss segments. They create the big PvX battles where, for example, Group 1 can dive into Group 2’s backline at any time and engage. These entrances provide proportionally more progress and currency – still from the same loot pool.
Dynamic geometry & living layout:
The cavern changes based on progress: some tunnels may collapse, new ones open, resource nodes shift. That means any optimized “farm route” is only temporarily optimal. The cavern genuinely feels alive and reactive, not like a static, fully memorized layout.
3.3. Progression: server, zone, player – and why it’s structured that way
Server/zone progress: corruption level as shared KPI:
The cavern has a global or zone-based corruption level (0–100%), reduced through player actions, and serves as a clear, visible KPI for the campaign’s overall progress. Every player – whether they joined yesterday, today, or next week – can instantly read how far the campaign has advanced.
Zone progress & politics - the Delve Council:
The zone in which the event takes place accumulates Delve Points, based on player activity.
A Delve Council is formed for each event, intentionally not made of a single individual but of elected representatives from among players with high delve contribution (the “frontliners voice”).
This council decides on strategic event buffs (e.g. focus on resource yield vs. combat strength in certain sectors) and sector priorities. All decisions are published transparently and put to a final vote (Top-3 or Top-N options) for players in the zone to approve, to minimize backroom deals.
⦁ Anyone who has earned at least 1 Delve Point can vote, by opening a dedicated menu Standing in the devle zone and reviewing the council proposals.
⦁ It works somewhat like a mayoral election, but with concrete policy choices attached.
⦁ At the same time, it avoids the classic “multi-alt mayor election strategy” (creating tons of lvl-10 alts to rig a vote). Here, those who actually play the content and contribute more have more weight in the council pool, but decisions are still democratically legitimized by the wider participant base.
Individual progression - event currency + RNG + market:
There is a random-luck factor: rare drops (special emblems, very rare mats, unique “animal items”, etc.) can drop from any relevant activity, so even a casual player who only participates on one evening can have that “crazy drop” story to tell.
3.4. Economy & “more effort = more reward” in detail
Consciously using the real-world analogy:
The economy is designed to feel like an amplified version of the real world: players who invest a lot of time, play in organized groups, take risks, and consistently engage with the event will accumulate more resources, more event currency, more market leverage, and more political influence in the zone. At the same time, the system offers mechanics that do not pull the ladder away from others, but actually let them benefit indirectly from heavy players’ behavior.
Heavy players may flood the market with cavern resources, pushing prices down and creating a deflationary effect on certain goods. This allows casuals with comparatively little gold to buy high-quality gear or consumables.
Casuals additionally benefit from luck-based drops and lower prices, giving them real entry points into gear and progression tiers that would be inaccessible in classic “no-lifer-only” systems – without hardcore players feeling like their time investment is artificially flattened.
Node/zone tax & wealth as balancing lever:
To prevent the economy from consolidating entirely into a handful of trade magnates, without punishing those who invest time and skill, the node/zone economy can use players’ wealth (gold, trade volume) as an additional metric for taxes and fees, so that very wealthy players naturally sink more gold back into the system.
Since Ashes already has dynamically node Citizen scaling taxes, this mechanic could build on top of that.
3.5. Professions & logistics: Carpentry, Hunter, ravens & pack animals
Carpentry + Hunter as a deliberately linked logistics system:
Carpentry and Hunter are designed as a combined logistics pillar that mitigates the high risk of open-world PvX without completely defanging PvP.
Carpentry:
Carpenters craft small, reinforced storage boxes or pouches explicitly designed to be attached to courier animals. They have limited capacity and are not a replacement for caravans, but they’re ideal for small, high-value payloads (rare ore, legendary essences, crafting emblems, grandmas beloved earring - your decision!).
Hunter:
Hunters tame and imprint courier animals – ravens that can carry small but valuable sacks of ore and herbs, or bears and other pack beasts that can carry slightly larger loads but move more slowly. Training defines which node/zone the animal recognizes as “home”, how far it can reliably travel, and how long it takes to arrive. Each animal can carry exactly one storage box.
Automatic routes instead of caravan escorts – with clear trade-offs:
Unlike caravans or large carriers, which require active player escort and deliberately expose themselves to PvP risk, courier animals use an automatic pathing/route system that doesn’t require the player to travel with them once launched. The idea:
1. A group farms rare resources in the cavern and does not want (or should not) keep everything in their bags.
2. There are designated safe zones inside the cavern from which a courier animal can be dispatched.
3. A player uses a previously crafted courier box and mounts it on a previously acquired courier animal.
4. Once the courier animal is dispatched, it disappears from the delve and follows an automatic route back to the home node. After a certain in-game time, the materials appear safely in that player’s storage.
5. The courier animal is then consumed (one-time use). It’s therefore recommended to bring several (stackable) courier animals with boxes, especially for longer delves and multiple extractions.
The trade-off is straightforward:
Caravans and player carriers move more volume, demand active player participation, and are attackable. Courier animals move much smaller volumes per run, but once they’re dispatched they can’t be attacked – making them ideal for extracting high-value loot. Players who invest in many courier animals from hunters and prepare multiple boxes can send many small payloads out safely – but pay with crafting/logistics effort, upfront investment and will only find their way home if dispatched at the correct location.
3.6. PvX, visibility, scouts & diplomacy
Seeing other groups – not just in the kill log, but in the space:
The cavern is designed so players perceive other groups not only on a UI list, but physically and atmospherically: distant lights, combat sounds, spell effects, and small UI hints about nearby battles or large pulls all make it obvious – even without voice comms – that “there’s something going on up ahead.”
Scout roles as real gameplay layer:
Groups should deliberately assign 1–2 players as scouts who run ahead, check the next tunnel, and bump into other groups, then decide on the fly whether to:
⦁ approach diplomatically, using emotes or quick communication to signal “We’re friendly, let’s do the next mini-boss together”,
⦁ or fall back and report tactically to their group: “There are 10 rivals camping the choke, we either push or rotate.”
Diplomacy thus becomes a gameplay element inside the delve itself, not just something happening on Discord or in forum posts.
PvP as a feature, not a disaster:
If the focus periodically shifts from PvE to large-scale PvP, that’s not a design failure – it’s intended. The system keeps some tools in reserve (e.g. waves of strong mobs that make sustained PvP nearly impossible until they’re dealt with) to ensure the final boss doesn’t remain untouched forever. Even if I like this idea in someway.
Otherwise, if multi-day battles evolve, that’s exactly the kind of emergent story people later look back on fondly (who else remembers the epic Tarren Mill vs. Southshore battle in wow
).
3.7. Aftermath, buffs & visual execution:
Pilgrimage moment with safe buff item instead of buff-griefing:
After the final boss is slain, a clearly visible crater appears on the surface (or where the cavern broke through), with swirling air, drifting dust, and environmental effects that communicate the victory and the lingering energy of the delve. A visual world-event marker.
Instead of buffing players directly in the crater (and inviting gank squads), players can loot a buff item at the crater’s edge, inside a small PvP-disabled area, that:
⦁ can only be obtained once per player per event,
⦁ grants a non-stacking buff (combat, resource, or XP bonus) of limited duration when activated,
⦁ and cannot be hoarded long-term, e.g. due to limited shelf life or immediate activation on use.
This gives players a strong emotional “pilgrimage moment” and a meaningful power bump shortly after the victory without turning it into a permanent world-buff meta or a buff-ganking carnival.
Medium-term world change:
Over the following weeks, the crater area transforms: blackened rocks give way to first plants, later unique resources appear that exist only there for a limited time, and optionally an enclave with merchants, services, or even housing hooks emerges. The victory is not just a moment, but is anchored into the persistent world state.
3.8. Session design & “drop in / drop out anytime”
A core principle of the system is that players can step away at any time without feeling bad.
⦁ Players with only 1–2 hours on a given day can take a small entrance, clear a well-defined section with a few events or resource pockets, use courier animals and storage to secure their loot, and then log off with a sense of completion.
⦁ Players with a few dedicated play days can join a raid and push through a larger entrance, participate in a sector event or a boss segment, then resurface to repair, sell, secure items, and go back to real life.
⦁ Semi-hardcore to hardcore players with many hours to spend can effectively “live” in the cavern for phases of the event, amassing massive amounts of resources and influence, potentially earning temporary titles or visible prestige markers as some of the richest or most impactful players in the region (purely cosmetic/prestige, without creating an unfair permanent power gap).
Crucially, progress is never tied to a single raid, a single group, or a single time zone: boss progress is persistent, the cavern continues to “breathe” while players are offline, and anyone returning later finds a changed state – but can immediately re-engage and contribute again.
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To sum it up:
⦁ “The Living Cavern” is a multi-week, open PvX endgame event beneath a node, in which the entire cluster of players in a region persistently weakens a shifting cavern and its undefined final entity in multiple segments – with no boss reset, no hard timer, and the ability to enter and leave at any time.
⦁ The feature is designed to be Harbinger-compatible: the cavern can appear as the aftermath of a Harbinger event or later as an additional Harbinger/world event type. If Intrepid already has similar systems in the works, individual modules (logistics, buffs, politics, scouts) could potentially be integrated in a modular way.
⦁ More playtime investment = more reward, but with a fair game architecture: hardcore players invest more time, risk, coordination and in return gain more currency, more resources, faster gear progression, and more influence in cavern-related politics, while the loot table remains the same for everyone. Luck and randomness still allow any player to land rare drops. At the same time, additional resources from hardcore players dynamically affect market prices, which in turn allows casuals with little gold to afford more.
⦁ Carpentry & Hunter form a shared logistics system: carpenters craft small storage boxes or pouches, hunters prepare single-use animals that automatically and safely transport small amounts of high-value materials back to the home node (in contrast to caravans, which require active escort but carry more). This protects high-value loot from extreme griefing without replacing the open caravan system.
⦁ The cavern is deliberately PvX-first: other groups are visible, scouts are sent ahead to identify monsters, other parties and potential diplomatic options, ad-hoc deals and conflicts emerge directly in the space itself, and large-scale PvP battles over entrances and sectors are not accidents but a core part of the event.
After victory, a visible crater appears with a short pilgrimage phase, where players can obtain a one-time, non-stacking buff item (combat/resource/XP bonus) in a small PvP-safe area. The crater then evolves into a temporarily special resource area and possibly an enclave – making the victory both emotionally tangible and durably reflected in the world state.
I am, just like many of you, a passionate Ashes of Creation player and have been thinking about this game and its potential endgame for quite some time.
I’ve actually been sitting on the idea you’re about to read for a while now, but yesterday’s livestream finally convinced me that it’s time to stop keeping it to myself and share it with all of you – and hopefully the Intrepid team as well.
I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts, feedback, and criticism, and to discussing how (and if) something like this could fit into tje game.
Its a longer text ^^ therefore I wrote done some notes beforehand
.Note 1:
If Steven and the team are already planning similar mechanics for the Harbinger system, this design might serve as an idea pool for later iterations, extensions, or additional event types. The concept is deliberately structured so it can hook into Harbinger events or build on them without interfering with Intrepid’s internal plans. I developed this concept independently, but consciously aligned parts of it with the Harbinger fantasy. Since none of us know the exact scope and details of Harbingers yet, some of this may overlap with what’s already in development – or it might be useful as a complementary layer later on.
Note 2:
If you’d like to start with the story and atmosphere for this idea, you’ll find it in Part 1.
Note 3 – Structure of this post:
Part 1 – Lore Story: “The Depth that Breathes”
Part 2 – Abstract: Short summary of the idea
Part 3 – System Design & Mechanics
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Part 1 – Story: “The Depth that Breathes”
They say not every cavern in Verra was born of stone. Some are wounds.
It began with a whisper beneath the city – a faint tremor, barely noticeable, like the breathing of a sleeping giant. In the taverns they spoke of cracks in the rock, of warm wind slipping through cellar doors, and of merchants who swore they heard distant rumbling under their warehouses at night.
When the first scouts were sent down, they did not find a simple cave.
They found a maw that was growing.
Beneath the city, a living cavern had opened: tunnels shifting like muscle fibers, walls glowing with deep-red veins of pulsing corruption, and floors littered with shards of forgotten artifacts, as if someone had carved old battlefields into the earth and stacked them atop one another.
Soon, not only scouts came, but fighters, clerics, mages all of them – and craftsmen.
Carpenters set up their workbenches at the edge of the abyss and built small, reinforced chests in which to store ore so heavy with curse that even seasoned smiths hesitated to open them. Hunters broke in animals such as ravens and pack bears, whose eyes gleamed in the dark. Some said those beasts carried the paths of the old ways in their blood, from a time before the world fell.
“Put the most precious ore in the pouch, tie it to the raven – and let it fly,” they said.
Many descended into the depths, certain that what they found would find its way home, even if they themselves never did.
Deep below, entire raids of adventurers fought creatures that looked as if they had been rebuilt from the bones of long-gone ages. Other groups saw no monsters in those halls, but rivals: steel met steel, banners of different territories fluttered side by side – first in the wind, then in blood.
The further one advanced, the clearer it became: the cavern was reacting.
Tunnels collapsed, others opened up. Torches flickered in unexplained drafts, as if something vast and deep was holding its breath. Scouts reported a massive shadow, motionless like a statue yet pulsing with a heartbeat that could be felt even through stone.
Scholars found names in ancient writings. They spoke of an entity that did not merely lie in the depths, but was the depths – an embodiment of corruption, fed by every careless act, every greedy thought, every drop of blood spilled upon the cavern floor.
The nodes argued. Some wanted to seal the cavern, others to claim it at any cost.
In the end, a council was formed – not of crowns and offices, but of those who had stood in the darkness most often and of those who carried the voice of the city. They decided which paths to take first, which halls to hold, which sacrifices to make.
Those who first reached the heart of the cavern later spoke only in fragments:
Of a titan of black stone, with corruption burning in its chest like liquid fire.
Of limbs that had to be brought down one by one.
Of totems like nails, pinning something ancient to the bottom of the world.
When the heart finally broke, the surface trembled. Houses shook, well water rippled, and for a long moment it felt as though Verra itself were holding its breath.
Where once there had been a gaping maw, now there was a crater. Hot air rose from it, mixed with a fine, shimmering dust. Those who dared stand at the edge felt strength surge into their limbs for a heartbeat and their senses sharpen, as if the victory itself had touched them. The blessing was fleeting – a gift of the moment, not something to be owned.
Weeks later, when the first green pushed up between blackened stones, gatherers found plants that had never grown anywhere else and veins of ore glowing in colors no miner had ever seen. Merchants spoke of a new age of trade, adventurers of weapons the world had not yet known.
And somewhere, deep in the chronicles of the cities, it will be written:
“It was not a single hero who defeated the depth,
but a fellowship of peoples and cities,
willing to carry their time, their craft, and their blood into the darkness.
Those who gave more received more in return – yet no one was left without leaving a mark in the depths,
and without at least the chance to claim their share from it.”
##########################################################################################
Part 2 – Abstract
What is “The Living Cavern”?
“The Living Cavern” is a large, time-limited, open endgame event that manifests as a living open-world dungeon beneath a node and can be tightly connected to the planned Harbinger feature (e.g. as a consequence of a Harbinger event, or as an additional evolution step of that system).
Instead of a single instanced raid, the server gets a dynamic, multi-week/month campaign in which the entire playerbase of a server descends – together and against each other – into a gigantic, mutable cavern. The players’ actions steadily weaken its corruption until a titanic final boss can be defeated in multiple segments.
Progress in the cavern is persistent – there is no classic boss reset when someone dies, logs out, or leaves the cavern. Groups can freely enter and leave, repair, sell, secure resources, live their real lives and later return with the same or a different group, while in the meantime other players push the campaign forward.
Different entrances scale the content for smaller groups and large raids, and the whole system is deliberately designed as PvX: PvE encounters, node/zone politics, logistics through crafting, emergent PvP battles, ad-hoc diplomacy and scout roles all interlock.
Those who invest more time achieve more – just like in real life: hardcore players bring more resources to the market, gain market control and may reach their gear goals faster, but at the same time their increased supply pushes prices down, allowing casuals with little gold to buy more. However, the loot table is always the same for everyone, and there is a tangible random-luck factor.
Professions like Carpentry and Hunter become relevant logistical key roles by providing small, secure storage crates and automatically moving courier animals (e.g. ravens that “love” small glittering sacks of ore) that carry rare materials back to the home node without requiring active escort. Their capacity is much smaller than that of caravans, but the risk is drastically lower – making them a clear anti-griefing pillar.
“The Living Cavern” creates a long-term, repeatable endgame layer that can sit on top of Harbinger systems, makes the world feel reactive, supports the economy, and generates exactly the kind of spontaneous, social stories players will still talk about five years later.
##########################################################################################
Part 3 – System Design & Mechanics
3.1. High concept, goals & Harbinger connection
High concept:
A multi-week, server-wide open-world cavern event with persistent boss progress, building on the fantasy of a Harbinger-driven large-scale occurrence: a Harbinger impact, anomaly, or cosmic trigger tears open a “Living Cavern” beneath a node, whose corruption can only be broken after many days of joint effort.
Key goals – and why the design looks like this:
⦁ Endgame longevity instead of one-and-done raid.
The Living Cavern is not meant to be content that a handful of progress guilds clear in a week and then discard. It’s intended as a recurring campaign framework in which an entire cluster of players cycles in and out over weeks, building progress, taking breaks, and returning later. That’s why progress is persistent and linked to server/zone- and player-level metrics.
Progress is generated by defeating small monster packs in the tunnels, taking down larger bosses, or overcoming some not fully defined “presence” or manifestation (possibly tied to Harbingers) that attacks raids and must be pushed back.
⦁ PvX integration as the core, not an add-on
The event is crafted so that PvE, PvP, politics, diplomacy, crafting, and logistics all depend on one another:
– players who just want PvE can clear sectors,
– those who love conflict fight for entrances and hotspots,
– strategic-minded players take on scout, diplomacy, or logistics roles,
– crafters and gatherers provide the means to safely extract rare materials from the depths in the first place.
⦁ Effort vs. reward (“like in real life”) without a hard paywall for casuals
Hardcore players should objectively achieve more (more resources, more currency, faster gear, more influence), but the loot pools remain identical. Through RNG and price deflation triggered by hardcore players, casuals still have real chances at resources (and thus strong items) and legendary moments, instead of being “balanced out of” the system from day one.
3.2. Structure of the Living Cavern: layout, entrances, dynamics
Multiple entrances with anti-exploit logic:
⦁ Small entrances
Deliberately tuned for small groups and off-peak play. They offer lower monster density (or sometimes none), a few resource pockets, and a lower contribution value. This prevents them from turning into “low-risk high-reward” exploit routes, while still giving solo and small-group players a structured, meaningful play space.
Anti-exploit mechanic for small tunnels (raid detection & escalation)
To prevent large raid groups from systematically steamrolling tunnels designed for small parties, each small entrance has a cavern integrity check: as soon as the number of active players in that tunnel (e.g. based on group/raid IDs and presence in the volume) exceeds a defined threshold, the cavern reacts aggressively.
⦁ The first enemy in that narrow tunnel is then spawned as a clearly empowered “warning mob” or elite champion, whose health and damage spikes unambiguously signal that this path is not intended for raids.
⦁ If the group ignores this warning, stays in the tunnel and tries to exploit it regardless, the system escalates: subsequent enemies in that tunnel, or boss/cavern abilities specifically targeting that group/raid ID, scale up so hard that the oversized group is very likely to be completely wiped.
Smaller groups below the threshold experience the same tunnel in a normally scaled, manageable configuration and can play it as intended, while raid groups are naturally pushed back toward the broader main entrances – without using hard gates or invisible walls.
⦁ Large entrances
These are deliberately tuned for bigger groups and organized alliances, with denser monster waves, more complex events, and boss segments. They create the big PvX battles where, for example, Group 1 can dive into Group 2’s backline at any time and engage. These entrances provide proportionally more progress and currency – still from the same loot pool.
Dynamic geometry & living layout:
The cavern changes based on progress: some tunnels may collapse, new ones open, resource nodes shift. That means any optimized “farm route” is only temporarily optimal. The cavern genuinely feels alive and reactive, not like a static, fully memorized layout.
3.3. Progression: server, zone, player – and why it’s structured that way
Server/zone progress: corruption level as shared KPI:
The cavern has a global or zone-based corruption level (0–100%), reduced through player actions, and serves as a clear, visible KPI for the campaign’s overall progress. Every player – whether they joined yesterday, today, or next week – can instantly read how far the campaign has advanced.
Zone progress & politics - the Delve Council:
The zone in which the event takes place accumulates Delve Points, based on player activity.
A Delve Council is formed for each event, intentionally not made of a single individual but of elected representatives from among players with high delve contribution (the “frontliners voice”).
This council decides on strategic event buffs (e.g. focus on resource yield vs. combat strength in certain sectors) and sector priorities. All decisions are published transparently and put to a final vote (Top-3 or Top-N options) for players in the zone to approve, to minimize backroom deals.
⦁ Anyone who has earned at least 1 Delve Point can vote, by opening a dedicated menu Standing in the devle zone and reviewing the council proposals.
⦁ It works somewhat like a mayoral election, but with concrete policy choices attached.
⦁ At the same time, it avoids the classic “multi-alt mayor election strategy” (creating tons of lvl-10 alts to rig a vote). Here, those who actually play the content and contribute more have more weight in the council pool, but decisions are still democratically legitimized by the wider participant base.
Individual progression - event currency + RNG + market:
There is a random-luck factor: rare drops (special emblems, very rare mats, unique “animal items”, etc.) can drop from any relevant activity, so even a casual player who only participates on one evening can have that “crazy drop” story to tell.
3.4. Economy & “more effort = more reward” in detail
Consciously using the real-world analogy:
The economy is designed to feel like an amplified version of the real world: players who invest a lot of time, play in organized groups, take risks, and consistently engage with the event will accumulate more resources, more event currency, more market leverage, and more political influence in the zone. At the same time, the system offers mechanics that do not pull the ladder away from others, but actually let them benefit indirectly from heavy players’ behavior.
Heavy players may flood the market with cavern resources, pushing prices down and creating a deflationary effect on certain goods. This allows casuals with comparatively little gold to buy high-quality gear or consumables.
Casuals additionally benefit from luck-based drops and lower prices, giving them real entry points into gear and progression tiers that would be inaccessible in classic “no-lifer-only” systems – without hardcore players feeling like their time investment is artificially flattened.
Node/zone tax & wealth as balancing lever:
To prevent the economy from consolidating entirely into a handful of trade magnates, without punishing those who invest time and skill, the node/zone economy can use players’ wealth (gold, trade volume) as an additional metric for taxes and fees, so that very wealthy players naturally sink more gold back into the system.
Since Ashes already has dynamically node Citizen scaling taxes, this mechanic could build on top of that.
3.5. Professions & logistics: Carpentry, Hunter, ravens & pack animals
Carpentry + Hunter as a deliberately linked logistics system:
Carpentry and Hunter are designed as a combined logistics pillar that mitigates the high risk of open-world PvX without completely defanging PvP.
Carpentry:
Carpenters craft small, reinforced storage boxes or pouches explicitly designed to be attached to courier animals. They have limited capacity and are not a replacement for caravans, but they’re ideal for small, high-value payloads (rare ore, legendary essences, crafting emblems, grandmas beloved earring - your decision!).
Hunter:
Hunters tame and imprint courier animals – ravens that can carry small but valuable sacks of ore and herbs, or bears and other pack beasts that can carry slightly larger loads but move more slowly. Training defines which node/zone the animal recognizes as “home”, how far it can reliably travel, and how long it takes to arrive. Each animal can carry exactly one storage box.
Automatic routes instead of caravan escorts – with clear trade-offs:
Unlike caravans or large carriers, which require active player escort and deliberately expose themselves to PvP risk, courier animals use an automatic pathing/route system that doesn’t require the player to travel with them once launched. The idea:
1. A group farms rare resources in the cavern and does not want (or should not) keep everything in their bags.
2. There are designated safe zones inside the cavern from which a courier animal can be dispatched.
3. A player uses a previously crafted courier box and mounts it on a previously acquired courier animal.
4. Once the courier animal is dispatched, it disappears from the delve and follows an automatic route back to the home node. After a certain in-game time, the materials appear safely in that player’s storage.
5. The courier animal is then consumed (one-time use). It’s therefore recommended to bring several (stackable) courier animals with boxes, especially for longer delves and multiple extractions.
The trade-off is straightforward:
Caravans and player carriers move more volume, demand active player participation, and are attackable. Courier animals move much smaller volumes per run, but once they’re dispatched they can’t be attacked – making them ideal for extracting high-value loot. Players who invest in many courier animals from hunters and prepare multiple boxes can send many small payloads out safely – but pay with crafting/logistics effort, upfront investment and will only find their way home if dispatched at the correct location.
3.6. PvX, visibility, scouts & diplomacy
Seeing other groups – not just in the kill log, but in the space:
The cavern is designed so players perceive other groups not only on a UI list, but physically and atmospherically: distant lights, combat sounds, spell effects, and small UI hints about nearby battles or large pulls all make it obvious – even without voice comms – that “there’s something going on up ahead.”
Scout roles as real gameplay layer:
Groups should deliberately assign 1–2 players as scouts who run ahead, check the next tunnel, and bump into other groups, then decide on the fly whether to:
⦁ approach diplomatically, using emotes or quick communication to signal “We’re friendly, let’s do the next mini-boss together”,
⦁ or fall back and report tactically to their group: “There are 10 rivals camping the choke, we either push or rotate.”
Diplomacy thus becomes a gameplay element inside the delve itself, not just something happening on Discord or in forum posts.
PvP as a feature, not a disaster:
If the focus periodically shifts from PvE to large-scale PvP, that’s not a design failure – it’s intended. The system keeps some tools in reserve (e.g. waves of strong mobs that make sustained PvP nearly impossible until they’re dealt with) to ensure the final boss doesn’t remain untouched forever. Even if I like this idea in someway.
Otherwise, if multi-day battles evolve, that’s exactly the kind of emergent story people later look back on fondly (who else remembers the epic Tarren Mill vs. Southshore battle in wow
).3.7. Aftermath, buffs & visual execution:
Pilgrimage moment with safe buff item instead of buff-griefing:
After the final boss is slain, a clearly visible crater appears on the surface (or where the cavern broke through), with swirling air, drifting dust, and environmental effects that communicate the victory and the lingering energy of the delve. A visual world-event marker.
Instead of buffing players directly in the crater (and inviting gank squads), players can loot a buff item at the crater’s edge, inside a small PvP-disabled area, that:
⦁ can only be obtained once per player per event,
⦁ grants a non-stacking buff (combat, resource, or XP bonus) of limited duration when activated,
⦁ and cannot be hoarded long-term, e.g. due to limited shelf life or immediate activation on use.
This gives players a strong emotional “pilgrimage moment” and a meaningful power bump shortly after the victory without turning it into a permanent world-buff meta or a buff-ganking carnival.
Medium-term world change:
Over the following weeks, the crater area transforms: blackened rocks give way to first plants, later unique resources appear that exist only there for a limited time, and optionally an enclave with merchants, services, or even housing hooks emerges. The victory is not just a moment, but is anchored into the persistent world state.
3.8. Session design & “drop in / drop out anytime”
A core principle of the system is that players can step away at any time without feeling bad.
⦁ Players with only 1–2 hours on a given day can take a small entrance, clear a well-defined section with a few events or resource pockets, use courier animals and storage to secure their loot, and then log off with a sense of completion.
⦁ Players with a few dedicated play days can join a raid and push through a larger entrance, participate in a sector event or a boss segment, then resurface to repair, sell, secure items, and go back to real life.
⦁ Semi-hardcore to hardcore players with many hours to spend can effectively “live” in the cavern for phases of the event, amassing massive amounts of resources and influence, potentially earning temporary titles or visible prestige markers as some of the richest or most impactful players in the region (purely cosmetic/prestige, without creating an unfair permanent power gap).
Crucially, progress is never tied to a single raid, a single group, or a single time zone: boss progress is persistent, the cavern continues to “breathe” while players are offline, and anyone returning later finds a changed state – but can immediately re-engage and contribute again.
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To sum it up:
⦁ “The Living Cavern” is a multi-week, open PvX endgame event beneath a node, in which the entire cluster of players in a region persistently weakens a shifting cavern and its undefined final entity in multiple segments – with no boss reset, no hard timer, and the ability to enter and leave at any time.
⦁ The feature is designed to be Harbinger-compatible: the cavern can appear as the aftermath of a Harbinger event or later as an additional Harbinger/world event type. If Intrepid already has similar systems in the works, individual modules (logistics, buffs, politics, scouts) could potentially be integrated in a modular way.
⦁ More playtime investment = more reward, but with a fair game architecture: hardcore players invest more time, risk, coordination and in return gain more currency, more resources, faster gear progression, and more influence in cavern-related politics, while the loot table remains the same for everyone. Luck and randomness still allow any player to land rare drops. At the same time, additional resources from hardcore players dynamically affect market prices, which in turn allows casuals with little gold to afford more.
⦁ Carpentry & Hunter form a shared logistics system: carpenters craft small storage boxes or pouches, hunters prepare single-use animals that automatically and safely transport small amounts of high-value materials back to the home node (in contrast to caravans, which require active escort but carry more). This protects high-value loot from extreme griefing without replacing the open caravan system.
⦁ The cavern is deliberately PvX-first: other groups are visible, scouts are sent ahead to identify monsters, other parties and potential diplomatic options, ad-hoc deals and conflicts emerge directly in the space itself, and large-scale PvP battles over entrances and sectors are not accidents but a core part of the event.
After victory, a visible crater appears with a short pilgrimage phase, where players can obtain a one-time, non-stacking buff item (combat/resource/XP bonus) in a small PvP-safe area. The crater then evolves into a temporarily special resource area and possibly an enclave – making the victory both emotionally tangible and durably reflected in the world state.
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