Arenas

Pre-alpha arena combat footage from PAX West 2017.

Pre-alpha Arena UI.

Arenas are instanced PvP scenarios and are not part of open world PvP.

Alpha-1 testing modes

Alpha-1 phase 1 is a matchmaking-based arena style testing phase with three primary game modes.

1. Alpha-1 battlegrounds.
2. Alpha-1 castle siege mode.
3. Alpha-1 horde mode.

Battlegrounds is going to be first introduction that starts next month; and then some short time after that we will be introducing the castle siege mode... And after that we are going to be doing our horde mode. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 battleground mode

Alpha-1 battlegrounds map.

Alpha-1 battlegrounds lobby screen.

Alpha-1 battlegrounds victory screen.

Alpha-1 battlegrounds (also referred to as Alpha-1 arena, Battle royale, or BR mode) is an Alpha-1 phase 1 testing mode consisting of up to 100 players.

• This is a last man standing PvP combat mode.
• Weapons and armor found in the world have unique skills associated with them. These interact with the terrain from defensive, offensive and utility standpoints.
• Players can build buildings and structures such as watchtowers, defensive pillboxes and arcane structures.

It's going to have a lot of high octane energy and activity. It's going to be very streamable. It's going to be no NDA. There's going to be a lot of different weapons and skills that were going to be testing. Each of the weapons and armor that you can find in the world are going to have unique spells and skills associated with them that interact with the terrain from a defensive standpoint, from a utility standpoint, from an offensive standpoint. It's going to be able for you to build buildings, complete structures, watchtowers and defensive pillboxes type structures: Arcane structures. You're going to have a lot of fun activity there. – Steven Sharif

Why did we go with Battle Royale as the first testable arena mode? And the answer for that is honestly, as we're testing and getting people into matches on our servers and testing the replication among players in a battlefield; and making sure that tech is present and capable for hundreds of players on the battlefield: We wanted to have a game mode that was still fun for players to test in: An environment that was fun to test in. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 castle siege mode

Alpha-1 castle sieges.

Alpha-1 castle siege combat.

Castle siege mode is an Alpha-1 testing mode that aims to test castle siege mechanics.

• There will be 200 players in a match (100 v 100).
  • Invite up to 20 guildmates to a match.
• Takes place in and around a large destructible castle.
• There will be objectives within the castle, such as killing guard captains.
  • Defenders must protect key strategic objectives to maintain advantage.
  • Attackers must destroy key strategic objectives to swing the battle in their favor.
  • Objectives will affect the respawn timers of defenders or attackers.
• Class kits come into play during the testing of Alpha-1 castle sieges.

It's gonna be sort of an abstraction of our castle system. – Jeffrey Bard

Alpha-1 horde mode

Horde mode is an Alpha-1 testing mode where 50 players defend a city against waves of incoming NPCs and player controlled monsters.

• Each wave is more difficult than the last.
• Between waves, players collect experience, money and weapons to take back to their hold to defend against the next wave.
• Monster coins enable players to join the game as part of the horde.

Horde mode will include adaptive AI boss mechanics. Rewards are obtained dependent on progress against these NPCs.

• Coins for character upgrades.
• Cosmetics.
• Pet versions of the defeated NPCs.

Horde mode will absolutely include boss mechanics, so some of the ideas behind that is going to have a wave mode of a variety of NPCs will likely include some achievable cosmetics as well in that mode depending on how far you can get and those cosmetics will include pets of the NPCs that you face, so like a little miniature version of the NPC's and we'll update those as well, that you'll have in the MMO. – Steven Sharif

Horde mode is specifically for testing.

• Testing the blackboard for the AI.
• NPCs with different different adaptive AI focuses:
  • Sniper
  • Ranged
  • Melee
  • Boss

It's a way that we thought it would be kind of fun to implement AI mechanics that we're looking to implement. Testing the you know the blackboard for the AI. Being able to have variable types of NPCs that have roles whether it be like a sniper, ranged, melee, boss, heroic you know kind of different AI focuses for those monsters during interesting situations. – Steven Sharif

Group sizes

Ashes of Creation is designed for solo players as well as large and small groups.

• The party size is eight (8) players for a single group.
• Raids will have 40 man groups.
• Arenas will have 1 man, 3 man, 5 man and possibly 20 man Free-For-All (Deathmatch) group sizes.
  • There won't specifically be guild vs guild arenas but team-based matchmaking allows teams to face other teams.

Content isn't locked behind guilds.

• Mechanics exist within larger conflicts for small groups and even solo players to impact the battle.
• This includes systems that will likely focus on single group sized participants while the larger battle is occurring.

Alpha-1 group sizes

Group sizes in Alpha-1.

• Alpha-1 battlegrounds will have party sizes of up to 5.
• Guild mode will have parties of raids of up to 20.
• Alpha-1 castle sieges will have parties of 5 within a raid, with 5 raids for each of the two teams.
• Horde mode will have a party size of 5 with a total of ten groups, making for 50 players.

There will be an option in the lobby where you are capable of joining a guild based match that you can link parties together up to a maximum of twenty individuals. – Steven Sharif

Arena ladder

There will be an arena ladder system.

• Rewards for arena ladders will be revealed at a later time.
• Titles can be received from arena play.
• Arena points that can be used to buy gear are not currently in the design.

Metrics

Ashes of Creation gathers tracking data to facilitate achievements, titles and other accolades on a server.

• Number of successful siege defenses.
• Number of successful siege assaults.
• Number of PvP kills.
• Raid participation points.
• Number of firsts.

Visibility of those types of things on the server help to promote a competitive atmosphere. If there is an attainable impression that you can work towards, so that others know your success, you have more drive to succeed. – Steven Sharif

Leader boards

There will be dungeon and raid leader boards.

• Some leader boards will be across all servers.

Military node arena

Mayors of military nodes are chosen from citizens through last man standing (gladiatorial arena style) combat.

Server vs server

The arena system may support cross-server combat.

• There may be monthly competitions where the winning server and winning team receive beneficial buffs for the month.

We definitely like cross-server play. I think it's cool because it is something that players get to participate in. – Steven Sharif

When you're talking about Arena play especially, one server might not be able to support that depending on what's going on with it, but across all the servers then we've got a really great pool for matchmaking. – Jeffrey Bard

Esports

eSports is not the main focus, but the game will naturally move in that direction if the game play is compelling, competitive and fun.

If we make the gameplay compelling, competitive and fun, that naturally it will move in that direction; and then we will find the ability to support it afterwards. – Steven Sharif

Artwork

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See also

• World PvP
• Combat
• Servers