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 nehézség
A PvE tartalom nehézsége, mint a Raid-ek és a Dungeon-ök, önmagától változni fog az adott helyszínen, az alapján hogy a csoport a korábbi Boss-ok ellen mennyire volt sikeres.[5]
- Jobb teljesítmény egy Raid Boss első fázisaiban, nehezebbé teszi a későbbi fázisait.[5]
- Minél nehezebb, annál jobb a loot (zsákmány).[5]
- A Boss-ok és a mob-ok nehézségét közvetlenül nem befolyásolja a csoport mérete.[6]
Gear progression
A fegyverek saját fejlődési úttal rendelkeznek, továbbá saját fegyver készségekkel.[8][9]
- A fegyver-kombó rendszer határozza meg a kiváltódó hatásokat, a fegyverfejlődés alapján.[8][10]
- Lehet fegyver képességekre specializálódni, ami további kombókat ajánl, a fegyver típusától függően.[8]
- Kisegítő hatások kiváltódnak, a fegyver bűvölése alapján.[10]
- Felszerelés bűvöléseket (erőköveket) lehet alkalmazni, az elemi vagy energia sebzés kiváltásához.[10]
- Van egy készségfa, ami hatásokat ad: erősebbé teszi őket, de lehet más irányokba is kiterjeszkedni.[8][10]
- Passzív készségekkel a fegyver mesterévé lehet válni.[11]
- A fegyver-jártasság (fegyver használatával eltöltött idő alapján) nem egy tervezett funkció.[11]
- Q: Are weapons balanced towards a proficiency system (i.e. the longer I use a sword, the better my damage will be), or will it be a normal RPG stat system with no long-term scaling?
- A: We will not be using a proficiency system as described, but players will have passives available in their skill tree that will increase effectiveness of certain weapons. Becoming a master of swords will be something that is possible, just not in that particular manner.[11] – Sarah Flanagan
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 that impacts the world... We want the weapon system and add an element of that as well... You can determine special effects that proc from currently the combo system right; 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.[10] – 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][12]
- Crafted items are best-in-slot in Ashes of Creation.[13] Previously it was stated that crafted items will be on-par with best-in-slot items.[14]
- 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.[15]
Gear enhancement
Gear enhancements are possible both during and after an item is crafted.[16][17]
- 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.[16] – Kory Rice
- Crafting recipes can be enhanced by adding higher rarity or different crafting materials into their selectable crafting slots at crafting stations.[17][18][19][20]
- Enchantment scrolls and tempering allow gear to be enhanced post-crafting.[17][21]
- The bulk of a weapon's power comes from its crafting recipe and the materials used in its construction.[22]
- 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.[17] – Steven Sharif
- Runes/Power stones are a potential methods for enhancing weapons.[10][23]
- Enchantment stones are potential rewards for performance over six month PvP seasons. These grant temporary Pvp-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system).[24][25]
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.[26][27]
- Enchantment scrolls can be sold on the open market.[17][26][28]
- Enchanting does not increase an item's level requirement.[29]
- 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.[29] – Steven Sharif
Játék egyensúly
Ahogy a rendszereket tervezzük, egyensúly szempontjából, figyelembe vesszük a Node változását egyenként, és azt hogy milyen gyakran kell ennek a változásnak megtörténnie. Ez alapján csináltunk kopás rendszereket, ahol különböző kultúrák dominánsabbak másikaknál. Ezek olyan dolgok amiket tesztelünk, és odafigyelünk az Alfa és a Béta teszt során, és megbizonyosodunk hogy úgy működnek ahogy azt elterveztük, ha pedig nem, akkor visszatérünk rá és újraszámoljuk amit újra kell.[30] – Steven Sharif
Kaszt egyensúly
A hatvannégy (64) kaszt felosztható nyolc elsődleges archetípusra. Az aktív képességek egyensúlya csak erre a nyolc elsődleges archetípusra vonatkozik.[31]
- Minden archetípushoz hozzá van rendelve négy csoportnyi augmentáció. Az augmentációk egyensúlya a nyolc archetípus négy-négy augmentáció csoportján múlik.[31]
Az egyensúly egy oly fontos része a kaszt rendszernek, hogy biztosra akarunk menni, hogy van betöltendő szerep minden lehetséges kombináció számára.[32] – Steven Sharif
Nem azért csinál az ember 64 kasztot, hogy aztán csak négy legyen kihasználva.[32] – Peter Pilone
Az egyensúly az Ashes of Creation-ben "csoport orientált".[33]
Lesznek olyan viszonyok 1v1 helyzetekben, ahol az egyik kaszt egyértelműen jobb a másiknál; és itt egy kő-papír-olló dinamikának kell lennie. Azt akarjuk hogy legyen ellenszer a különböző kasztok között... Így csoport egyensúlyra fog a játékegyensúly koncentrálni, ahol ha megvan a megfelelő kaszt-változatosság egy kompozícióban, akkor igazságos lesz a játszma. Nagyon is a készségen és a stratégián fog múlni.[33] – Steven Sharif
Bizonyos másodlagos archetípusok képesek "áthidalni a rést" az ellenszerük ellen.[34]
Bizonyos archetípusok képesek kezelni a rést az ellentettjük ellen önmagukban. Például ha én egy Tank archetípus vagyok, és az ellenszerem a Mage, a Mage-et másodlagosként választva valamilyen szinten áthidalom a különbséget; és az identitásomat valamelyest abba az irányba mozgatom.[34] – 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.[35] – 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.[36]
Továbbiak
Hivatkozások
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Interjú, 2023-07-09 (1:43:38).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Podcast, 2021-04-11 (54:35).
- ↑ Interjú, 2023-07-09 (1:40:41).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Élő adás, 2023-04-07 (1:15:02).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Interjú, 2020-07-19 (14:51).
- ↑ Interjú, 2020-07-19 (17:12).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2019-05-30 (58:28).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Élő adás, 2020-01-30 (1:28:40).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2018-05-04 (45:37).
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Élő adás, 2018-06-04 (1:11:19).
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 February 8, 2019 - Questions and Answers.
- ↑ Élő adás, 2020-05-29 (1:33:11).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2022-06-30 (1:18:55).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2017-05-10 (14:45).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2022-03-31 (1:19:41).
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Podcast, 2023-12-03 (17:10).
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 Élő adás, 2023-11-30 (1:38:47).
- ↑ Video, 2023-11-30 (1:01:04).
- ↑ Video, 2023-11-30 (59:21).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2017-05-26 (5:25).
- ↑
- ↑ Élő adás, 2023-11-30 (1:54:37).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2018-06-04 (21:37).
- ↑ Interjú, 2020-07-18 (16:34).
- ↑ Interjú, 2020-07-18 (14:22).
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 Élő adás, 2022-05-27 (1:20:00).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2017-05-26 (51:37).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2017-05-17 (58:55).
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 Élő adás, 2021-03-26 (1:15:57).
- ↑ Video, 2018-04-05 (49:36).
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Interjú, 2018-10-20 (2:40:17).
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Élő adás, 2017-05-24 (35:11).
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 Podcast, 2018-04-23 (59:28).
- ↑ 34.0 34.1 Podcast, 2018-04-23 (1:01:01).
- ↑ Élő adás, 2021-06-25 (1:10:52).
- ↑ Interjú, 2018-10-20 (2:53:52).