Player movement

Walking and running shown in pre-alpha gameplay.

• Sprinting will consume a percentage of a character's mana pool. Sprinting will not be permitted while in combat.
  • A sprinting/dash skill with a cooldown was confirmed to be part of a class kit.

I've instructed design to incorporate a mana consumption that's percentage based for sprinting. So it'll be a similar amount of time that each class, regardless of their mana values, will have in order to sprint and it will not be accessible while in a combat. – Steven Sharif

• There is a toggleable walk/run (autorun) capability.

• There is not going to be any "go to waypoint" (auto-pathing) mechanics.

• Back-peddling (walking backwards) and strafing are slower than normal movement speed.

• Unreal Engine 5 mantling was demonstrated by the developers.

Utility skills

Pre-alpha rogue climbing a Metropolis wall.

We have what are called utility skills and a lot of MMORPGS really only focus on active combat skills, but some of the favorite things that I've had as a gamer is tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder or Dungeons and Dragons, and there are skills in those games that are relevant to either your environment or the quest line; and they're a little bit you know sometimes "story mode". – Steven Sharif

A utility skill is a non-combat skill that interacts with the environment. Utility skills lend themselves toward how classes navigate and deal with hazards in the world.

• Classes will have different utility abilities, such as detecting traps and other hazards. For example: The Mage's detection spell casts light and reveals magical explosive hazards.
  • Certain classes are able to climb/parkour in certain areas. This is not a free-form ability. It will likely be restricted to certain quests, locations or objects.
  • Certain classes (such as Rogues) will have stealth abilities.

Q: What kind and how many special or unique activities can we expect classes to perform outside of combat, such as rogue's opening locks, tracking enemies as a ranger, or removing corruption from the ground as a cleric?

A: Just thirty minutes ago I was talking about those utility abilities like finding tracks, or cleansing poisons, arcane eye to reveal secret passages. The idea is how do we blend the traditional tabletop RPG role of utility and/or skill checks into the setting of a graphical MMORPG; and I think that it's both a complement of the skill kit that's available and how it interacts with the world for those curated or special designs within these locations. So to answer that question: that is intended- we've shown a little bit of that in the past and it is something that we want to make feel compelling and rewarding and viable as a use-case scenario in many different settings that you might find yourself in within the world. – Steven Sharif

• All classes will have maneuverability/traversal utility abilities.
• Utility skills exist that can help players discover hidden paths and entrances and may lead to discovering hidden quests while exploring.
• Certain objects exist in the world (such as ladders and slides) that aid player mobility.

We don't just have the approach of your class being reflected in your combat abilities but also there are utility abilities that certain classes have that other classes don't have. – Steven Sharif

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

• There will be a grappling hook utility skill or item.
• Rogues may also have a spyglass utility skill.

Collision

There are player and spell collision mechanics in Ashes of Creation.

• Inertia and momentum physics will help prevent blocking doorways/access points. This is based on a character's direction and movement speed, and can be used to push people out of the way.

Mobility

Revamped Alpha-1 Mage Fireball ability.

The general approach that we're kind of taking based on a lot of feedback and just good combat design in general. You know philosophy is that we want to give more agency in the hands of the player and the antithesis of that is locking the player down for really long amounts of time. The sort of concept behind that is like you could make an animation effects as glorious looking as possible but if it's taking away control of the player, none of that really matters. Especially the 100th or thousandth time you're using the spell you're tired of that happening you don't feel powerful: You feel the opposite of powerful. So we're trying to like give a lot of control back to the player while they're using these abilities so they can still control their movements, they can react simultaneously while they're taking actions; and we just want to get overall more of a fluid flow, I guess, of combat. And that's kind of the general design philosophy we're using to approach the overhaul. – Tradd Thompson

• The revamped combat system features split-body animations, where the character's upper body can be locked by weapon attack animations while the lower body is free to continue moving.
  • The amount of mobility is determined by the weight of the weapon being used.
• Most abilities in Ashes of Creation are capable of being cast while moving. Some abilities may slow the caster down during the cast, but only rarely will the player be rooted in place.
  • Skills with the greatest power may require the caster to remain stationary while channeling them. This is a risk vs. reward mechanic.

Most abilities you'll find in Ashes of Creation are capable of being cast while moving. Some of those abilities might slow your movement during the cast, but you can continue to move. Very rarely, and depending on obviously the importance of the ability or the power level of that ability, you might be rooted in place. So, for example, the AoE ability [Chains of Restraint] has a lot going on. It has damage ticking over time, it is an area of effect, it also has a status condition application; and in those instances the player character gets rooted. – Steven Sharif

• Unreal Engine 5 has enabled improved forms of locomotion, such as crouching, tilting and mantling.
  • Crouching may or may not be in the game.
• The ability to prone is not be in the game.
• Moving backward will likely not affect block and parry.
• Player movement speed during combat is balanced for both PvE and PvP.

There's a balance in the game design between your movement speed on attack and the movement speed of your opponent. When you have a game that is both PvE centric as well as PvP centric, you have to make sure that combat is blended for both approaches; and we can always run into problems where, if you're significantly hampered in your movement speed, that has an effect on how we expect player versus player engagements to interact; and we don't want to restrict a player's ability to be mobile if they're the target of an attack. And as a result of that we need to make sure that we don't restrict the movement abilities of the player who is doing the attacking as well. So we want it to be relatively free for you to stay with each other. Your opponents move around the battlefield together and if we're hampering you on the attack action, we have to then implement some type of snare, or slow, or cc effect essentially on your opposing target; and that's not the approach we want to take for for PvP. – Steven Sharif

Q: If a ranger is super mobile, what are the melee's options in order to catch them?

A: Different class kits will provide different gap closers. They'll provide different mobility skills. They'll have lockdowns. They'll have chains to pull back. They'll have a lot of different things in the rotation. That's part of what an MMORPG experience is. You're not just restricted to three or six skills, you have a rotational suite; and depending on the type of challenges you face is going to help determine which of those rotations you spec into from your skill tree. – Steven Sharif

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Blink		Instantly teleport a set distance in the direction you are moving.	-	-
Rush		Rush toward a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down.	-	-

Dodging

Dodging in Alpha-1 early combat.

Another thing that's important about these action combats is the ability to dodge and moving out of the way of certain skill shots. – Steven Sharif

Evasion moves such as dodging and weaving will be present in Ashes of Creation combat.

• The developers are considering the inclusion of dodging in a subset of universal skills that apply to all classes.
  • Dodge rolling type skills were previously housed in the action skill sets of agile classes such as Rogues or Fighters.
  • The developers will be testing the use of separate energy mechanics for universal skills in Alpha-2.

• Dodging will not use I-frames (invincibility frames), but it may affect accuracy and mitigation stats when used.
  • Previously it was stated that hybrid combat will likely have true evasion skills relating to action-oriented combat and also have I-frames that apply to tab targeting.

So you see an animation windup that's a telegraph on what's coming; and then you have response actions that you can take as a result of that in order to dodge, weave, move, do whatever. It is both a combination of what your rotation is but also how you have reaction abilities ready to go that you save for certain circumstances that are important. – Steven Sharif

Armor characteristics

Kaelar armor.

You're not going to get one set of armor that's going to be situationally relevant for every encounter you might face- that's crazy- and as a result of that you're going to have to succeed in acquiring sets that are situationally relevant for the types of encounters you are intending to face. – Steven Sharif

Armor characteristics are in general determined by the "type" of armor (Light, Medium, Heavy).

• Stat values will be predominately the same but may be able to be adjusted by crafters who are capable with that type of armor.
  • Physical Defense Mitigation.
  • Magical Defense Mitigation.

• The stat values on armor can include both damage dealing and damage mitigation stats.

Certain armor types are going to have certain type of predominant stat values. So there's going to be certain waterfall stats and/or certain primary attributes that are available on certain armor types; and then if you want to have the one that's not more prominently available- those will be rare to get- you'll have to elicit the services of a crafter who's very capable within that particular type of armor in order to get the non-traditional stats and/or waterfalls available. So there's still the ability to get whatever on these but they're going to be more predetermined for certain types of stats and waterfalls. – Steven Sharif

• Set bonuses are granted to wearers of exclusively one type of armor, for example: all cloth, or all plate.

There'll be certain types of set bonuses granted across specific full sets or partial sets of armor types. There will be a similar function in how damage is mitigated based on the type of armor you're wearing and how that relates to physical or magical incoming damage. So that's something to keep in mind. It's going to be situational what type of adversarial foe am I facing and what armor is the best against that to mitigate damage. – Steven Sharif

• The "type" of armor (cloth, leather, plate) a character is predominantly wearing is visible in their nameplate.
  • There will be strengths and weaknesses for armor sets that opponents can exploit with gear enhancements, for example.

You're going to have certain strengths and weaknesses of armor sets and those can be specced into by your opponents. For example, I might place some type of elemental enhancements on my weapon that horizontally changes my outgoing damage and that's going to reflect based on the opponent on my target opponent and what type of armor they have available to them to counter that. – Steven Sharif

• Itemization choice may potentially play into universal skill sets such as Dodge, Parry, and Active blocking.

We're playing a little bit with the idea of these universal skill sets, such as dodge, parry, block, active blocking, stuff like that; and progression within those areas. There is something to be said I think for incorporating itemization choice as part of that system as well; and how it might affect that system. That's something that I think is going to be coming up in the pitch phase here shortly from design as we implement those universal skills. So you can look out in the future for more information on that. – Steven Sharif

Inventory (weight)

Alpha-2 inventory user interface early preview.

Personal inventory limits are tied to a backpack. Material and gatherable items are subject to quantity rather than weight limits. Caravans and Mules are intended to be the primary mode of transportation of goods beyond these limits.

• Mules can carry roughly 10 times more than backpacks. Caravans can carry roughly 10 times more than mules.

• Caravans will have carrying capacity limits and customizable stats, such as defensive points, speed and number of hired NPC guards.
  • In addition to expanded inventory capacity, caravans also provide ancillary benefits relating to successfully completing trade routes and other quests.
  • Items transported by caravan must be stored in crates.

In my opinion, and this is of course subjective, but weight management is not a compelling mechanic for players to have to deal with in an MMO setting. – Steven Sharif

Inventory capacity has quantity (stacking) limits based on the type of item. For example: The stacking limit of potions might be one hundred. The stacking limit of food items might be 999 or 1000.

• A player's inventory has sections for different types of items. Quest items for example will not fill a player's regular inventory capacity.

• Inventory capacity will be relatively limited for new characters.
  • Additional capacity may be obtained in-game by purchasing higher quality backpacks from crafters.

• Players will have the ability to search for items they have stored in various locations (such as personal storage and node warehouses).

We want you to know where the things are; and then the meaningful aspect of that thing is traveling to those locations to access some of those things, particularly as it relates to materials and raw gatherables. – Steven Sharif

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

• Inventory expansion and weight management training certificates are available in the Galleria at City stage economic nodes.

Jumping

Jumping puzzle in early Alpha-1 dungeon entrance.

Jumping puzzles will occasionally feature in the world.

• Jumping puzzles were shown in the Alpha-2 Tower of Carphin preview.
• Jumping puzzles were present in early Alpha-1 dungeon gameplay footage.
• Jumping puzzles were present in the Alpha-0 Dünheim dungeon.

Swimming

Alpha-1 swimming.

Tidesnapper early Alpha-1 water animations.

Underwater content will be accessible, not cumbersome.

• Characters are able to utilize their abilities while in the water.
• Stamina does not limit swimming, however breath does.
• Navigational instruments are available to allow ships to detect movement under the water, such as aquatic mounts.

Treasures may be obtained through fishing and by exploring naval content.

Public transportation

There are multiple types of public transportation services where players can go AFK and be driven somewhere.

• Players can visit a node building and pay a fee to be driven via road to another node on their land mount of choice.
  • The node building can be upgraded to become a flight path, which allows longer direct connections to other nodes within a specific region that also have a flight path.

• Airships between metropolises. This was previously stated to be between scientific metropolises.
• It is possible that some public transportation services could be player-driven.

One of the nodes has the idea of an airship that can go from node to node and I'm certain that we will have harbors that do similar things with other node types... It might be something that could be player-driven... We're sure to have a taxi system you know where you load up a couple people and you drive them somewhere while you AFK. – Jeffrey Bard

Summoning mounts

Summoning a mount in Alpha-1.

We want to make sure that it's not cumbersome to quickly mount a steed and start moving... Steeds play a very important role in mobility. – Steven Sharif

Mounts are items that players carry then activate to summon the mount nearby.

• Mounts are generally able to be summoned during combat in the open-world.
  • There may be exceptions to this in certain dungeons, instances or other spaces where summoning mounts may not be permitted.

A mount can be an initiation vehicle; it can be an escape vehicle; it can be utility vehicle; it can be traversal. – Steven Sharif

• Animal husbandry mounts are summoned via an item that is obtainable from a stable (husbandry stall).

Mounts are going to be items that you will be able to carry on your character and activate to summon the mount in front of you or near you; where you can then ride the mount. – Steven Sharif

• A player can dismount and have their mount follow them.
  • In current Alpha-1 testing mounts are not separate from the player, but in future mounts will be.

Right now we don't have it where the mount is separate from the player per-se. You automatically mount the mount when you summon it in the in the alpha. But in the future you'll be able to summon it and you won't have to automatically mount it. It'll just be standing next to you. It'll follow you around and then you'll be able to mount it. – Steven Sharif

• De-summoning the mount returns the item back to the player's inventory.

Fast travel

Fast travel is limited in Ashes of Creation. None of these fast travel methods allow transportation of gatherables or materials.

There is very little teleportation in the world. Some of that does get unlocked through metropolises of a certain type. Additionally there are mounts that are faster travel and there are services that are fast travel between nodes. – Steven Sharif

• Scientific metropolises offer teleportation within their vassal network, which can extend across seas, and also include islands.
• Flight paths between coastal nodes or nodes within specific regions.
• Airships between metropolises. This was previously stated to be between scientific metropolises.
• Family summoning.

Faster travel in Ashes of Creation refers to the use of player ridden mounts and flying automated creatures that connect certain nodes.

Faster travel

Faster travel in Ashes of Creation refers to the use of player ridden mounts and automated creatures that connect certain nodes.

• Public transportation via system driven land mounts or flying mounts.
• There is not going to be any "go to waypoint" (auto-pathing) mechanics (outside of these mechanics).

There will be connection points between certain nodes via the use of like flying automated creatures that you can use. – Steven Sharif

Estimated travel times

So why is travel important? We've talked about this in the past, the reasons why. We've all existed in games where teleportation is very easy to use and sometimes that can be a detriment because you may have activities like a caravan run that's happening and one person sees you from a certain guild and they do the raid callout to their guild "everyone open your portals and come here within a split second and we're going to just mob this group". No, well instead that opportunity doesn't exist. If you want to provoke or to gank an operation of another guild, you need to have foreknowledge. You need to prepare. You need to place your forces around that area; and that is an important aspect. In addition, it makes that travel meaningful. If you are having to spend time to move to a location, you're going to think about what can I do along the way? Why am I moving to that location? How is it more beneficial for me to be in that location versus where I am now? This is also in association with the fact that you are a citizen of a particular node and that node needs your assistance within its vicinity; and if you want to move outside of that vicinity there should be a really good reason for that and there's lots of great reasons for it. – Steven Sharif

Travel objective	Running.	Mounted.
From one end of a Metropolis (stage 6) node to the other	2.83 minutes	1.67 minutes
From the center of a node to the center of its direct neighbor	5 minutes	3.5 minutes
From the northernmost to southernmost points of a continent	75 minutes	50 minutes

See also

• Mounts
• Combat