Looting

Alpha-2 looting UI preview.

In the group loot obviously there's a lot of functionality here that parties have the ability to customize. There can be loot master, there can be round-robin, there can be need/greed/pass that's applied on a per rarity basis depending on the party's choices. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 vote to change loot allocation method UI.

Ashes of Creation intends to use traditional loot rules, selected by the party or raid leader.

• Group loot rules are defined on a per-rarity basis.
• A majority of party members must vote to approve any changes to group loot allocation changes.
• The developers are considering using a double-tap interaction to loot all containers within a close proximity radius.
• There won't be auto-looting pets.
• It will be possible to kick a player from a party prior to them acquiring loot.

Yes, technically it would be possible for you to kick a player prior to acquiring loot. However, again because we are a game that relies on social interactions, there are reputations to be had; and if you acquire a reputation as a raid leader, or as a party leader, of doing something dirty like that, then it's unlikely you'll be able to Garner the support of future party members and/or raids to lead efforts against these raid bosses. – Steven Sharif

Free-for-all.

• Whoever is first to loot gets the loot.

Lootmaster.

• A master looter (or lootmaster) is a player designated by the party leader to decide how loot is distributed in a dungeon or raid party.

Round-robin.

• With round-robin looting, party members take turns looting.

Need or greed.

• This is a traditional need before greed system based on dice rolls.
• Since there is very little gear binding in Ashes of Creation, it's left to the party to deal with players who excessively roll Need on loot.

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Bidding system.

• Intrepid are investigating a potential bidding system, which allows players to bid on items instead of rolling for them.
  • The highest bidder wins the item.
  • The gold then goes into a pool that is split among the rest of the party members.

Loot tagging

Looting rights (also known as Loot tagging) is based on a blended tag and damage done system.

• The first party to obtain a tag (on a mob or boss) will gain an approximately 5-10% edge over competing parties in terms of the total damage done when determining looting rights.
  • These numbers will be balanced based on testing.
• At the end of the fight, the party with the highest damage done, including first tagging bonus, will be granted looting rights.

We have a blended approach of damage done and a tag benefit. So if you tag the boss first, or you tag the loot- whatever the loot target is first- you're gonna get a benefit in the damage overall determination. So if you need to have 51% of damage done in order to qualify your raid, or the plurality of damage done if there's even three or four raids, then tagging first might give you a five or ten percent edge. We'll play with that number- balance it based on testing, but generally that's our approach in competing loot rights – Steven Sharif

Q: If looting rights are based on a blended tag and damage done system, will there be any mechanics in place to ensure roles like tanks and healers have an equal shot even when they haven't dealt as much damage?

A: That's the reason for the blended approach. The reason that we're doing a hybrid system between tag and damage done is for the purposes of those classes who may not be as DPS oriented as other classes. The tag system- all classes are going to have a sprinkling of immediate effects- of instantaneous casts and they can use that to tag a target, and that'll give them a modifier on the looting rights: So plus 10 or plus 15 will balance that, but it'll give them plus 10 to 15 on overall damage done if they tag the target and then their damage will make up the remainder of that percentage completion. So if I do 50 damage to a target but someone else has the tag I'm not going to be able to claim that looting right. They'll have done the other 50 plus 10 or 15. – Steven Sharif

Master gatherers may have the ability to "spoil" a boss' loot.

If you want to be able to get those mats from the boss, they're just not going to drop for anybody. They will only drop for a master gatherer who is capable of extracting those resources from the creature itself... The reason why we say there's a lot of interdependencies between the crafters of the world and the raiders of the world and our PvPers of the world is because we don't want to house the capability to attain these things all within the adventuring class. We want there to be an influence necessary from the craftsmen's guild to come in to either come and participate and spoil the boss and gather the goods or something along those lines. – Steven Sharif

Loot tables

Alpha-2 Looting UI.

Loot tables (drop tables) of world bosses or dungeon bosses have a small RNG chance of dropping gear (completed items). Monsters drop hunting certificates, Items and crafting materials rather than gold.

• There is a much higher chance that materials and unique recipes are dropped that can be used to craft items of equitable value.
• There is a small RNG chance of looting rare and legendary items or crafting materials from mobs based on the level, status and type of mob. This also applies to harvesting resources with a gathering profession.
• Crafted gear is the best gear in Ashes of Creation.
• Legendary equipment is only dropped by Legendary world bosses.
• Stats on dropped items will vary based on the rarity of the item.
• Loot tables are disabled for player controlled monsters.
• Experience debt decreases the drop rate percentages from monsters.
• Loot tables will likely not be affected by weather conditions. This was previously listed as a possible effect.

Hunting certificates

Hunting certificates are bound items that house the value of a mob's death and are also provided as rewards for completing certain quests, events, and achievements. These are intended to be the primary method to generate gold in the Ashes of Creation economy.

When you kill certain monsters or when you complete certain events and/or achievements, you will be granted some number of certificates; and you will take those certificates to Hunting Lodges that exist within different nodes around the world, and you will trade those certificates in either for a direct gold value or for commodities; and if you're trading them in for commodities, those commodities are tied to the economic region where the commodity is granted; and that commodity can only be traded in at a nearby economic region; and the greater the distance is from the originating location of the commodity to the turn in location of the commodity is what determines the ratio of return for gold given. – Steven Sharif

• Hunting certificates are specific to an economic region and may be traded with hunter NPCs at hunting lodges within nodes for commodities. These commodities can then be transported to nodes in other economic regions (via caravan or merchant ship) where they can be traded for gold.
  • The level of the node and the distance of the node from where the commodity was obtained will determine the gold value of the commodity.
  • Commodities are provided in sealed crates, which can become unsealed if the caravan or merchant ship transporting them is destroyed, or if the crate is dropped on the ground and broken into. Once unsealed the crates may yield stolen certificates, which may get redeemed for a lesser value at black market locations.
  • The value of certificates is calculated (by the world manager algorithm) based on the volume of certificates being redeemed in each region.

• Hunting certificates will drop as stolen certificates on a character's death based on applicable death penalties. Stolen certificates are not bound to the character.

• Hunting certificates may also be used to pay housing taxes and citizen dues.

• Hunting certificates can be stored within node warehouses.

• Hunting certificates are not intended as crafting materials.

The important thing to note about these certificates is that they are also the basis of your tax economy. So you don't turn in certificates if you intend to use them for either citizenship dues or your land taxes and housing taxes. That means that you are not going to have the ability for players to RMT gold or to land baron essentially without them directly engaging with the game in some way shape or form, because those certificates are bound. – Steven Sharif

Resource quality

Flanggler (Flower angler or Mimic flower).

Resources will have differing tiers of quality for the same resource type. This is somewhat similar to Star Wars Galaxies.

• Gatherers who are more advanced in their artisan tree will unlock higher level harvesting tools that have a greater chance of collecting higher quality resources or proccing a greater quantity.

You will have an opportunity to proc certain qualities based on your progression in the Artisan tree. So if you are a gatherer; and as you advance in your gathering, you'll have a higher opportunity to collect better resources. – Steven Sharif

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

In Alpha-1 testing there are 4 tiers of gatherable resources across all gathering professions:

• Tier 1 (Common)
• Tier 2 (Uncommon)
• Tier 3 (Rare)
• Tier 4 (Epic)

Mount and pet drops

Mounts and pets are dropped by world bosses on a very rare basis.

Temporary mounts

Temporary mounts that drop from bosses will age and eventually die.

Caravan looting

If a caravan is destroyed (becomes a wreckage) it will drop a portion of the goods it was transporting. The remainder of the caravan's goods are sunk (lost) when the caravan is destroyed.

The caravan becomes a wreckage upon destruction and that wreckage is an interfaceable item that players can come up to and they can receive certificates for a portion of the goods inside the caravan. Now the idea with that certificate is that it must be taken back to the point of origin, or at least a region within that point of origin. We'll see about that last part because there's a few things I want to test in the Alpha from a gameability standpoint. The reason why for this is because what might happen is you may have some type of collaboration within a guild to game that system. Hey I'm gonna reach this caravan just to the border of the region and then we're all destroy it, collect the goods and take it to that region's warehouse; and have to skip out on the last half of the way. So it must successfully reach its destination before the goods can be considered a part of that region. – Steven Sharif

• Anyone may loot the caravan's wreckage.
• Caravan components may also drop when a caravan is destroyed. These components may be salvageable by the caravan owner or by other players, in the case of high grade components.
• Caravans drop certificates for heavy goods that are redeemable at the origin node for a portion of the goods.

Q: What is the reason for requiring the destruction of a caravan by the attackers as opposed to the attackers gaining possession of the caravan?

A: With caravans we really want to emphasize this idea of not necessarily stealing the vehicle, but being forced to achieve victory through destruction; and when you do you then have the logistical issue of how you're going to transport those goods on your own rather than servicing the transport of that by just hijacking. – Steven Sharif

AoE looting

AoE (Area of effect) looting is not included in the looting mechanics at the time of writing. It may be added based on feedback.

Player death

Player death in an open world dungeon in Alpha-1.

We don't have deleveling, instead what we have is experience debt. Now the more experience debt you accrue, the greater the detriment to your character; not to the point where you can not get out of the debt. There will always be a way forward to remove your debt. – Steven Sharif

When a player dies they disintegrate into ash. The ashes contain any items lost by the player due to applicable death penalties.

• These ash piles are immediately lootable by any player.
• Player flagging is not triggered by looting.
• Certain bags may have reduced PvP looting times.

It might even be the case that their particular bag space doesn't have available location for a three-by-one log; and you're a lumberjack and they see you just chopping down these trees and you're like, there's no point in me engaging with this person, because I have nothing to gain due to my capacity. – Steven Sharif

• There will be a period of time following a player's death before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.
  • If the mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items according to the player's death penalties.
• Players do not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level.
  • Players drop hunting certificates as stolen certificates on death based on applicable death penalties. Stolen certificates are not bound to the character.

Death by falling is possible.

• Fall damage that occurs while mounted will be first applied to the mount; and if the mount dies as a result, then the remaining damage may overflow onto the player, but this will be determined based on testing.

Death by drowning is possible.

• Players that drown will respawn on shore.

Full loot

There will not be a full loot (full drop) system in Ashes of Creation.

There will not be a full drop and the reason for that is because our intention when it comes to progression within the world is we want it to be meaningful and take some investment on behalf of the player; and if even if from a design standpoint we're like yeah but they have to choose to go to the area; we don't want a choice that a player can make where they delete their character so to speak. – Steven Sharif

Item rendering

Items that are dragged out of a player's inventory are destroyed.

• Allowing player-dropped items (such as Gear and Currency) to exist in the world is likely not going to be allowed.

See also

• Economy
• Group dynamics
• Encounters
• Artisan classes