PvP

PvP combat gameplay in Alpha-1 castle sieges.^[1]

Player combat in Ashes of Creation is both vast and intimate. It spans many aspects of the game itself. From great political battles held on the fields of massive castles, to open world conflicts fought for the pride of Guild Leaders. A player can choose to participate in the fate of the world by swaying the tide of battle with his or her combat prowess. Our PvP mechanics follow a flagging system, as well as static PvP zones at certain points of interest; fight for control over cities, castles, caravans, or hunting grounds. Our PvP is designed to offer the players a well-balanced and fair world to shape through the pen, or sword should they choose.^[3]

PvP (Player versus player combat) is the catalyst for change in Ashes of Creation.^[4] Player combat is intended to be meaningful, ranging from Caravan battles to vast open world conflicts fought for the pride of Kings and Queens.^[5]

Because players are motivated by different things, because they want something from the game that other players don't want, that's going to cause people to butt heads. Different players are going to want different experiences and the conflict between the two of them will create a bigger and better thing. Out of strife comes rebirth and that's a core symbol, it's a core theme that occurs throughout the game.^[6] – Jeffrey Bard

The majority of players will experience PvP through opt-in objective-based battlegrounds. These are high risk and high reward encounters that do not utilize the corruption system.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]
- Sieges.^[8]^[11]^[10]^[12]^[10]
- Caravans.^[8]^[10]^[11]
- Guild wars.^[8]^[13]^[11]
- Naval PvP in the open sea.^[8]^[14]^[15]
Better things in more abundance can be found in the open-sea zone. And as a result, that is why there's an added level of risk associated with opting into those locations.^[7] – Steven Sharif
- Death penalties (mostly) do not apply to objective-based events (also called sanctioned events).^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]
  - Gear degradation applies on death during Caravan PvP.^[17]^[18]

There are also reasons to engage in open world PvP, which is subject to the player flagging and corruption system.^[8]^[11]
- Contesting open-world dungeons or raids.^[8]
- Contesting scarce resources and hunting grounds.^[11]^[11]
The risk of gaining corruption is expected to deter the vast majority of players from griefing other players but this doesn't mean that PvP won't occur in the open-world.^[20]^[11]

Just because our flagging system gives corruption to PKers, doesn't mean PvP won't happen. There is plenty of reason for PvP to occur open-world.^[11] – Steven Sharif

Q: Have you considered a high-stakes loot drop PvP zone/area in Verra?

A: We have not; and the reason for that is our current PvP systems already allow for material risk essentially that's either through the flagging system or through other event-based pvp opt-in systems as well.^[21] – Steven Sharif

Archetypes such as Tank and Bard are viable in PvP due to the rock-paper-scissors design philosophy, where each class is naturally strong against certain skill compositions.^[22]

Background

While Ashes of Creation took inspiration from Lineage II (and other games) it has also addressed several flaws in the implementation of those games.^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26] The approach of the flagging system in Ashes of Creation is to further disincentivize griefing while still allowing the system to keep risk relevant in the open-world setting.^[23]

First and foremost, PvP in Ashes exists in both opt-in systems and events, as well as our open world flagging system. And while it is true that I enjoyed and took much inspiration from games like Lineage 2, we have innovated and adapted our approach to Ashes’ flagging system in order to further disincentivize griefing while still allowing the system to keep risk relevant in the open world setting. The overwhelming majority of player’s experiences with PvP in Ashes will be through consensual systems like caravans, sieges, wars, the open sea and other events. Players will make a choice to participate in those systems or not. And if they choose to participate there will be significant rewards for success.^[23] – Steven Sharif

PvP in Ashes of Creation exists in both opt-in systems and events as well as open-world PvP with a flagging (and corruption) system.^[23]

In the open world, when competing for the scarcity of resources, raids, dungeons and or hunting grounds, an important element of risk vs reward is introduced through our flagging system. Players must be aware of their surroundings and the reputation of other players who may be in proximity. The flagging system is intended to always provide an element of risk in all settings, but also architected to ensure that griefing and PK’ing is almost never worth it. The subtleties of this system are complex, which is of course why it will require considerable testing and feedback.^[23] – Steven Sharif

Corruption gain takes into account level disparity between the attacker and the player that was killed. The greater the disparity the higher the corruption accrued.^[24]^[27]^[28]^[29]^[30] Corruption penalties occur as the corruption is gained.^[31]

These are all things that I've changed in the system that help to safeguard some of those loopholes. Now of course, as we said, we can't and we don't want to 100% remove the ability for that risk to be alive- for that risk to be realized. But what we do want to do is make sure that those occasions are few and infrequent, and are not the majority of a player experience, let's say in the open world; and we do so by incorporating all of those risks and costs into a decision to gain corruption and then PK another player in the open world. It's just not going to be done often and that is my expectation and opinion. It's also the goal of the system is that griefing is not a viable option or play style. And as a result of that desire for the system, we will fine tune it in such a way through testing that that outcome is achieved. And that is the intent and purpose of the design.^[32] – Steven Sharif

Increasing corruption score adds increasing levels of skill dampening for PvP combat.^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]^[30]

Working corruption off through XP grinding takes significantly longer than Lineage II.^[24]

There is also a bounty system that reveals corrupt player locations on the map.^[24]^[25]^[33]^[34]

Abilities with CC effects do not apply to non-combatants. This prevents players from opening attacks that stun unflagged players.^[24]

Players who heal, buff, or otherwise support corrupted players will flag as combatants.^[32]^[35]^[36]^[37]

Corruption score has a scaling impact on skill and stat dampening that will ultimately make them ineffective at PvP.^[32]^[8]^[29]^[24]^[38]^[39]^[40] This dampening only affects PvP combat.^[41]

Non-combatants can attack corrupted players without flagging themselves as combatants.^[32]^[34]

There is a 60 second timer to logout while corrupt. Force-disconnecting the client during the cooldown will leave the character in-game.^[32]^[42]

Objective-based PvP battlegrounds

The Event system will also create a variety of PvP situations in the open world. From small skirmishes that lead into sieges to battles over capture points during a node or castle siege, PvP objectives will play a crucial role in determining the tide of battle.^[43]

The majority of players will experience PvP through opt-in objective-based battlegrounds. These are high risk and high reward encounters that do not utilize the corruption system.^[8]^[9]^[10]

The majority of PvP that players will encounter- the vast majority- will be through consensual systems, meaning opt-in systems like sieges, like caravans, like wars, or going out into the open sea. These are conscious decisions that players will make knowing the risk profile- assessing that- and they will opt-in to those things..^[8] – Steven Sharif

These events will flag participating players as Combatants (purple) and players will remain flagged for a period of time after leaving that battleground.^[9]^[44]^[30] Corrupted (red) players will remain red during PvP events.^[45]
- Node sieges.^[8]^[11]^[10]
- Castle sieges (potentially).^[8]^[12]^[11]^[10]
- Caravans.^[8]^[10]^[11]
- Guild wars.^[8]^[13]^[11]
- Naval PvP in the open sea.^[8]^[14]^[15]

Death penalties (mostly) do not apply to objective-based events (also called sanctioned events).^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]
- Gear degradation applies on death during Caravan PvP.^[17]^[18]

In a sanctioned event- sanctioned meaning that this is something you have the option to opt-out of. That's a castle siege, that's a node siege, that's a caravan, that's a guild war, that's a node war. You can drop your citizenship. You can drop your guild tag. You can drop participating in one of those things. In any of those types of opt-in and opt-out events, the death penalties do not exist. These are sanctioned. They're intended to allow people to engage in PvP. Now if I die to an NPC while I'm out hunting, or if I die to another player through the flagging system, those are where death penalties come into play; and that's where debt experience can be earned; and that's where corruption can be had. So it's important to separate those two realms.^[16] – Steven Sharif

Outside of these events, normal PvP flagging and corruption rules apply.^[16]^[8]^[10]

During PvP events such as caravans, guild wars, and sieges, the death penalties are disabled between participating characters on opposing sides. Attacking and killing players on the opposing side doesn't trigger the purple and red flags, nor does dying drop any resources or loot. However, you can't hide in this state as a Red corrupted player either. If you are Red, you'll still be Red in the siege or caravan and open to anyone to kill you and drop your loot, regardless of the side you are on. Being Red trumps everything.^[45]

There will be limited functionality for spectating battlefields and potentially castle sieges from ghost cameras at fixed positions.^[46]

We will have limited functionality where players can spectate from either ghost camera from fixed positions at certain battlefields; some of which might include castles.

Open-world skirmishes may lead into sieges or other battles.^[43]^[9]

Our castle system, our sieges against nodes, the caravan system, battlegrounds that exist, guild wars: We want there to be a meaning to this conflict. We want players to actually have some skin in the game when it comes to participating in PvP.^[6] – Steven Sharif

Caravan PvP

Caravan PvP in Alpha-1.^[47]

You won't be able to see inside specifically but as part of the caravan structure itself there will be little hints as to what the the cargo is. So for example if you've seen some of our recent footage with caravans you kind of see sitting on top of the caravan there's some gold or some silver or some iron.^[48] – Steven Sharif

Caravans create an open PvP zone that flags players for combat (purple).^[49]

Players will not be able to see the exact contents of a caravan before they decide to attack or defend, however there will be some visual hints to the cargo of the caravan, such as gold, silver, or iron visible on top of the caravan.^[48]
- Cargo is represented in this way even if a cosmetic caravan skin has been applied to the caravan.^[48]
Players will be able to state their intentions to attack, defend or ignore via a user interface window.^[50]^[51]^[52]
- The proximity that the UI window appears is determined by the player's performance as either a defender or an attacker in previous raids.^[50]
A group will be required to successfully attack a caravan.^[53]^[54]
Basic attacks will not slow caravans, but certain items, attacks, or status effects can slow or block caravans.^[55]
A caravan will persist in the world for a period of 5 to 10 minutes from the time its owner logs out or is disconnected from the server.^[56]
Each caravan is its own bespoke event. Players can't participate in more than one caravan event at a time, but running decoy caravans is a valid tactic.^[57]

It's still intended from a design standpoint to be a window that is presented to the player based on proximity; and that proximity it can be greater depending on your performance as either a defender or an attacker in previous raids.^[50] – Steven Sharif

There will be incentives and risks for both caravan attackers and defenders.^[17]^[18] These will be tested and refined during the alpha and beta testing phases.^[58]

Death penalties (mostly) do not apply to objective-based events (such as caravans, guild wars, and node sieges).^[17]^[18]^[19]^[59]
- Gear degradation applies on death during Caravan PvP.^[17]^[18]

There is a level of risk that comes with the attacker. We have progression paths that exist for bandits and that exists for defenders; and if you choose to opt into a caravan attack- you sign up for that attack and you fail that attack- it is detrimental to your path of progression down the bandit area. That's one thing: Two is of course you have gear decay. You have degradation that can be suffered if you die. That is a cost. And then you also have a reputation; and if your reputation precedes you when you want to transit goods across the world; and you see somebody who's doing it and you want to participate as a defender or a participant, they might say hey screw you, you were just murdering my people last week and I saw that you're like on the top of the bandit list for killing caravans. So it has repercussions in the sense that it locks you out of certain player groups. It provides decay to your armor. It has deleterious effects on your progression, and the attacking- and the bandit progression of caravan attacks or defense.^[17] – Steven Sharif

A quest system will track a player's successful or failed defenses and attacks. This will provide rewards that scale up over time based on the player's history.^[17]^[18]^[58]

Other incentives and risks are social and are created (informally) between players.^[17]^[58]

The caravan defender role is going to have its own progression questing and rewards associated with it that are going to attract a certain subset of players and then you know vice-versa wise we're going to have incentives that appeal to the more highway brigand type players; and you know you might not always be on one side or the other: that might change depending on what your interests are in the at the time. But obviously you know those types of systems need to have robust you know consequential type rewards and benefits associated with them in order to compel the player; and that's something obviously we're going to test in alphas and betas and see how performant it is in actually attracting players to participate and make sure it's not just one-sided so-to-speak.^[58] – Steven Sharif

Sieges

Castle sieges

Alpha-1 castle siege gameplay.^[1]

Throughout Ashes of Creation, the player has an opportunity to participate in massively multiplayer siege warfare. Since castles are likely the world’s most limited resource, it will be a task to secure and hold them. Involving hundreds of players on a single battlefield, our sieges will employ many moving parts and intricate design features. Because of the difficult nature of taking and keeping a castle there are great rewards available to the players for their efforts. Castles will allow players to exert control over nearby lands and allow for the development of unique buildings in the nearby towns.^[3]

Guilds participate in Castle sieges in an effort to capture and occupy one of the five guild castles in Ashes of Creation.^[60]

Sieges occur once a month within a server prime-time window.^[61]^[60]^[62]^[63]

The minimum goal is for 250x250 players to be on a single battlefield. It is hoped that this can be increased to 500x500 over time.^[64]

There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.^[65]

There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.^[66]
- It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.^[12]
- Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.^[67]^[68]^[12]^[69]

A guild that captures a castle will own that castle for a month before it is sieged again.^[70]^[71]

Each week leading up to the siege week... is a week that's dedicated to one of the three castle dedicated nodes. So around the castle there are three nodes. They represent week, one, two, and three; and then the fourth week is the siege against the castle. Those can only be elevated up to stage three. We've discussed this in the past and there's definitely information out there on the community ran wiki.^[70] – Steven Sharif

In the first three weeks that a guild occupies a castle they will need to level up each of their castle nodes to Village stage through questing.^[70]^[71]
- Each of the three castle nodes have a siege against it at the end of each of these three weeks.^[71]^[72]
The fourth week is declaration week, where other guilds have the opportunity to lay down their declaration flag or to sign up as a defender of the castle.^[70]^[71]
Depending on how well the guild defends their castle nodes results in better defenses for the castle.^[71]^[72]
Different siege weaponry will grant the attackers the ability to destroy walls, doors and sections of the castle in order to gain access to the inner keep area.^[73]
When castles change hands (following a siege), some taxes stay with the castle and some stay with the guild.^[74]

There will be benefits to attracting people... even if they're not in your guild or alliance – kind of a feudal like system, where you can attract other players who are just independent of this whole politic. They will have things to do there - benefits to receive - and there will be a reciprocal relationship between who you can attract, what they do for you; and how that benefits you and them.^[71] – Steven Sharif

Node sieges

Node sieges (Pre-alpha footage).^[75]

As some areas in the world grow, others will fall. This is the foundation of the living, breathing world that is Ashes of Creation, where players will have the ability to make important decisions that matter in the longevity of an area becoming a city, or whether to siege a rival town. Rise above the ashes, create the world around you, and be a part of the story that unfolds because of your actions and decisions.^[76] – Margaret Krohn

Node sieges enable players to destroy nodes starting at Village (stage 3).^[76] This paves the way for new development and access to the locked content in surrounding nodes. Due to this dynamic, political strife and intrigue play an important role in the structure of the world.^[77]

Sieging nodes will not be an easy task for the attackers. Cities and metropolises will have a considerable defensive advantage.^[77]

There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.^[65]

Death penalties do not apply to objective-based events such as node sieges.^[19]

If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city!^[6] – Steven Sharif

The majority (~80%) of content in Ashes of Creation is open-world but there may be instanced battles within castle and node sieges where specific groups can participate in small, short-duration objective-based battles for specific waypoints.^[66]

Guild wars

Guild war features are currently still in the design stage, but the overall goal is for guild wars to be objective-based with great risk for each side.^[78]

Guild war objectives are designed to be more fluid than castle siege objectives.^[79]
Guild wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during server prime-time.^[80]
- Players can kill each other at any time during the war (not only during server prime-time).^[80]
Guild wars will not be permanent. Definitive victory conditions exist that are based on the level of the warring guilds and the assets that those guilds have.^[81]
Guild wars are considered a core system of Alpha-2.^[82]

I can't really define exactly what those features are yet because that design stage is still up in the air from a discussion standpoint. There's a lot of different ideas that relates to how those two can come into play, but I will say that in every MMO I've ever played guild wars are very binary. They're very like 'Okay you've declared, you have a number of kills to deaths and the guild war's over, thank you...' My objective to kind of change that dynamic is to include greater risk for the sides to initiate the war and also to make it more objective-based than just a binary kill death ratio; and the fortresses and guild halls come into that type of facilitating that change.^[78] – Steven Sharif

Naval PvP

Operators of a ship's weapons platform can initiate naval PvP against another ship in the following three cases.^[15]

Another important change that has occurred is the open seas is now an automatic flagged location. So when you move off of land we have a flagging system that protects and the open seas are international waters where you need to be careful; and there is a lot of opportunity at Sea; and because there's a lot of opportunity that's unique to that content- that's unique to that sea: that's treasure finding; that's NPCs; that's a lot of different stuff there needs to be risk associated with opportunity.^[14] – Steven Sharif

When the ships move into an open sea (open waters/deep ocean) area. This will automatically flag players as Combatants (purple).^[8]^[14]^[15] Corrupted (red) players will remain red while in the open sea.^[83]^[45]
- Players entering an open seas area will be notified by the UI ahead of time.^[84]
- Open sea zones have better resources in more abundance to compensate for the added level of risk.^[7]

We have a very intuitive UI that that as you approach the border between open sea and coastal area you are notified of that. You are warned ahead of time. There's a countdown when approaching. We interpolate the distance travel and speed you're moving and you get to see "I'm entering open waters"; and when you do you have this big trophy call out on screen that says "You have entered the open sea. Territory fraught."^[84] – Steven Sharif

The result of events (such as guild wars or node wars) between the parties.^[15]
As the result of open-world PvP, utilizing the flagging and corruption system.^[15]

Server prime-time

Objective-based PvP events such as node sieges, castle sieges, guild wars, and node wars will occur within a prime-time window somewhere between 3PM and 9PM server time. This is subject to testing.^[62]^[63]^[85]

Guild wars and node wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during the prime-time window.^[80]

Open-world PvP

Open-world PvP in Ashes of Creation is subject to the player flagging and corruption systems.^[8]^[11]

Open-world PvP exists outside of opt-in objective-based PvP systems such as sieges, caravans, guild wars, node wars, and naval PvP.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]
Open-world PvP includes contesting dungeons, raids, scarce resources, and hunting grounds in the open world.^[86]^[8]^[11]
Around 80% of the content is open-world, where healthy competition is an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.^[86]^[87]
This friction presents an opportunity to engage in the political aspects of the game, which is the lifeblood of what keeps players interested and invested in the game.^[86]^[87]^[88]

Q: In the open-world PvP system, will there be a "prevent attacking innocent" option that when turned on will prevent me from accidentally attacking a non-corrupted player?

A: The open-world flagging PvP system requires what we call the "Force function" in order to initiate an attack against another player, and by default that's even against players who are already flagged, though not against players who are corrupt; and they're in the settings. You will have options by which you can persist that force function if you wish through another keystroke input. And then additionally you can set your AoEs so that if you initiate an AoE attack against a location and there are flagged players there, you will either- you can set it so that you can automatically hit those flagged players, but by default it doesn't. So, those are options in your in your settings that you will have access to and be able to adjust.^[89] – Steven Sharif

Player flagging

The open world PvP flagging system is designed to deter people from griefing other players without limiting opportunities for open conflict.^[86]^[87]^[90]^[91]

We do incentivize players to fight back, or to participate in PvP through the flagging system, but not to PK. Not to go corrupt.^[90] – Steven Sharif

Players can participate in open world PvP with one another without having to resort to murder.^[92]
- Players will gank other players, but the intention is for Ashes of Creation to not be a "gank box".^[92]
The penalties are intended to be severe enough to deter any type of spawn camping.^[93]
Summons follow the same PvP flagging rules as players and share the player's flag status.^[94]^[95]

There are three levels of flagging for world PvP in Ashes of Creation.^[30]

Non-combatant (green)
- All players start as non-combatants.^[34]
- Non-forced attacks, including AoE and status effects, will not hit non-combatant players.^[96]^[97]
- Green players killed by mobs (the mob deals the killing blow) do not flag attacking players as corrupt, but since the exact health of another player is not known (outside of the same party, raid, alliance, or guild), attackers run the risk of killing the player and becoming corrupt.^[98]
- Player abilities with CC effects do not apply to non-combatants. The target of a CC ability must be flagged in order to suffer the CC effects. This prevents players from opening attacks that stun non-combatant players during a pull for example.^[24]
- Non-combatants will not be flagged for looting bodies.^[99]
- Players will be able to opt-in (via a checkbox) to allow their beneficial spells, or non-beneficial AoEs to hit combatants.^[89]^[100]

If you have that check-box for flagging with your AOEs and heals available then you will flag. If you do not have that box checked then on completion of the skill it will not flag you because the check was made at the start that there was a flagged party member; and then he will not he or she will not receive the beneficial effect as a result or the damage, if it's an offensive spell.^[100] – Steven Sharif

Combatant (purple)
- Players are flagged as combatants if they attack another (non-corrupted) player when carrying out a forced attack. If the attacked player fights back, they are also flagged as combatants, otherwise the attacked player will remain flagged as a non-combatant.^[89]^[101]^[34]
  - This also applies to attacks made by combat pets, summons, or any other player-controlled entities.^[94]^[102]
- Non-combatants entering an open world battleground (PvP event) are automatically flagged as combatants and remain flagged for a period of time after leaving that battleground.^[30]
- Non-combatants who heal, buff, or otherwise (positively) interact with combatants or corrupted players will be flagged as combatants.^[32]^[35]^[36]^[37]
- Players can kill combatants without repercussions, and are encouraged to do so, since dying while a combatant has reduced death penalties.^[34]
- Players are not able to manually set their flagging status to combatant.^[101]
- Players remain flagged for a period of 90 seconds following their most recent attack on a non-combatant or another combatant.^[103]
- Players cannot log out while flagged as combatants.^[42]

You're not going to see griefing in the game very often; and that's because our flagging system. The corruption mechanics are based around disincentivizing a griefer or PKer but still offering the opportunity, should the occasion arise, where the benefits outweigh the risk, you have the ability to do so. If you gain corruption, which is killing a non-combatant - a player who is not fighting back basically - if you gain that corruption, your world has changed. It is not going to be a very beneficial place to be and you have the potential of losing your gear. Your combat efficacy decreases based on the amount of corruption you accrue. It is a comfortable balance between player agency and grief and basically removing player agency for other players.^[104] – Steven Sharif

Corrupted (red)
- If a combatant player, or their summon, kills a non-combatant player, including any of their controlled entities, such as their battle pet, mount, or summon, the player's character will be flagged as corrupted.^[105]^[94]^[91]
  - Corruption gained for killing controlled entities is a lower value than killing the players.^[105]
- A character's PK value increases with each non-combatant player killed over the lifetime of that character.^[8]^[24]^[27]^[28]^[30]
- The wider the level disparity between the players, and the higher the attacker's PK value, the more corruption score they gain.^[8]^[24]^[27]^[28]^[30]
- A character's corruption score multiplies their death penalties and reveals a their location to bounty hunters.^[91]
- If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant.^[34]
- Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.^[106]
- There is a 60 second timer to logout while corrupt. Force-disconnecting the client during the cooldown will leave the character in-game.^[32]^[42]

It's important to note that the idea is going to be that, unless a player is in your party, alliance, guild, or raid that you will not have definitive knowledge of their exact hit point values. So when you do something that's sketchy like that, where you want to bring them close to death and let a monster finish him off, you are taking the risk of overhitting and actually gaining the corruption.^[98] – Steven Sharif

Objective-based PvP events do not use the flagging system.^[8]^[59]
- A player may not flag on members of the same party, raid, guild or alliance.^[107]

Player corruption

Corrupted player in the Alpha-1 preview.^[108]

When you gain that corruption you have the potential of losing your completed items, your weapon, your armor, stuff that is very difficult to achieve; and then the other aspect of that is, that in order to deter basically players taking alternate characters and saying this is my PK alt, the more players you kill, the more corruption you gain, the higher your combat efficacy in PVP diminishes. If you're out there and you killed you know 20 players... you will not be able to perform in PVP any longer. You will need to take that character and go work off that corruption. The other aspect of corruption is that if you kill another player, who is a non-combatant and the level disparity between you and that player is great, you will gain a higher amount of corruption from that single kill. To the point where you should not be killing a level one character.^[38] – Steven Sharif

If a combatant (purple) character, or their summon, kills a non-combatant (green) character, or any of their controlled entities, in Open-world PvP, they will be flagged as corrupted (red).^[105]^[94]^[91] Corruption gained for killing controlled entities is a lower value than killing players.^[105]

There is no incentive to go corrupt... There's zero incentive for a player to go red. It actually gives you negatives for doing that- very significant downsides.^[90] – Steven Sharif

The goal of the corruption system is to keep risk alive while significantly curtailing or deterring the ability for players to grief other players.^[8]^[20]

It is my expectation that the system will perform very well in keeping risk alive, but significantly curtailing or deterring the ability for players to grief.^[20] – Steven Sharif

A player's corruption score (corruption value) increases with each non-combatant player killed.^[8]^[27]^[28]^[30] Corruption score has a scaling impact on the efficacy of a character's skills in PvP combat.^[32]^[29] The higher the corruption score:
- The more skill and stat dampening applies (lower health and mana, lower gear proficiency), until the corrupt player ultimately becomes ineffective at combat.^[32]^[8]^[24]^[38]^[39]^[40] This dampening only affects PvP combat.^[41]
The more corruption you gain, the less effective you become in PvP and there's going to be a certain period at which point you have gained enough corruption that you're going to be gearless and you're also going to have a massive reduction in your PvP efficacy.^[39] – Steven Sharif
- The higher chance of dropping of carried raw materials and gear (Weapons and Armor) when the corrupted player dies.^[8]^[28]^[38]^[109]^[39]
If you go on a murder spree and you have 10 pks under your belt then you might start feeling a significant dampening to your skill effects against other players. I don't want to give necessarily a number or curve for players to extrapolate prior to us having the ability to actually test these ideas and where those numbers are going to lie; but I would say what is the intent behind that dampening: The intent isn't to limit the fun of the player, the intent is to provide a give-and-take or a risk-versus-reward; and the risk of continuing down the road of accruing corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects but also your ability to perform in that activity.^[110] – Steven Sharif
- Corruption penalties occur as the corruption is gained.^[31]

Reward without risk is meaningless... Corruption is just another word for risk.^[111] – Steven Sharif

The wider the level disparity between the players, and the higher the attacker's PK value, the more corruption they gain.^[8]^[24]^[27]^[28]^[30]

Corruption value from PK'ing a non-combatant is based on level disparity along with the PKer's cumulative PK value.^[27] – Steven Sharif

Corrupt players suffer death penalties at four times the rate of a non-combatant.^[8]^[28]

You can't necessarily time perfectly the damage or understand even the health of the player. Unless you were in their party you cannot see an opponent's health as well, so that's another component that adds risk..^[112] – Steven Sharif

Corrupted players can be attacked regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.^[113]
- If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant.^[32]^[34]
- Non-combatants who heal, buff, or otherwise assist combatants or corrupted players will be flagged as combatants.^[32]^[35]^[36]^[37]

A corrupt player’s location is revealed to bounty hunters on their world map.^[24]^[28]^[25]^[91]

Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.^[114]^[106]
- Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters.^[114]

Player to player trading, interacting with vendors or NPCs, and the ability to access storage is disabled for corrupted players.^[115]^[8]^[116]
- Previously it was stated that corrupted players could not store items in public warehouses but could utilize private storage within their freehold.^[8]^[116]
- Corrupted players will still be able to enter and leave their freehold buildings but may not deposit or withdraw items from storage.^[115]

There is a 60 second timer to logout while corrupt. Force-disconnecting the client during the cooldown will leave the character in-game.^[32]^[42]

Q: Will there be any large-scale consequences when many players in a group guild region religion etc become corrupted frequently or for an extended period of time?

A: There are not group dynamics or mechanics that revolve around mass murdering people in the world. The corruption system is intended to deter mass murdering, not to provide incentives by which players can go out and gain corruption.^[117] – Steven Sharif

Q: If my guild has no one corrupted and your guild is like always killing people and always corrupted, will your guild have repercussions because they're corrupted versus my guild?

A: No I don't think so either. And the reason why is we want to deter it, but we don't want to make the system meaningless; and if the deterrent becomes too heavy-handed then it's a system without a purpose. And I think that the intent behind the corruption is that like during a rise in passion and like anger and whatever you want to make this decision and do something and you'll suffer the repercussions later. But if those repercussions are just overwhelmingly bad and even anti-social in the sense that like your guild is like hey man you went corrupted and this gives us like corruption points on the guild, and like you're out of here, then people just aren't going to choose to use it; and then at which point might as well just take it out. So I think there's a healthy balance between the type of deterrent used.^[118] – Steven Sharif

Players do not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level.^[119]
Player corruption is different to the corruption found in corrupted areas.^[120]^[121]

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

Corruption has a visible effect on a player’s appearance.^[122]

Hunting grounds

You are on the prowl, and notice an unsuspecting player chopping trees. What would you do?^[123]

Hunting grounds are open-world PvP corruption-enabled areas that encompass most of the map.^[124]

Hunting grounds refer to killing monsters or NPCs in the open-world.^[124]^[125]
This also refers to contesting resources.^[126]

One of the interesting components of Ashes of Creation and our flagging system is that it presents the potential for two conflicting parties to have open conflict in the open world over pretty much anything that they may want or disagree with; and if that pertains to a hunting ground, not just the caravan or the castles or the nodes or whatever, it can exist in that area.^[127] – Steven Sharif

Outside of PvP for certain things like caravans, sieges of nodes and/or castles is that you're going to have those open-world hunting ground fights that may occur. You're going to have resources fights that may occur. You're going to have political fights that may occur between members of guilds; and we're taking the guild politics to a whole new direction in regards to playing those conflicts out.^[126] – Steven Sharif

Our PvP mechanics follow a flagging system, as well as static PvP zones at certain points of interest; fight for control over cities, castles, caravans, or hunting grounds. Our PvP is designed to offer the players a well-balanced and fair world to shape through the pen, or sword should they choose.^[128]

Arenas

Pre-alpha arena combat footage from PAX West 2017.

Pre-alpha arenas.^[129]

Arenas are instanced PvP scenarios and are not part of open world PvP.^[130]^[131]

The arena system as we've spoken about before is going to have ladder systems where people can progress within certain seasons based on their win/loss ratios. The importance of arenas are obviously that players have an opportunity to participate [and] practice out certain builds from a PvP perspective and can compete with one another within the system.^[130] – Steven Sharif

Arenas will have 1 man, 3 man, 5 man and possibly 20 man Free-For-All (Deathmatch) group sizes.^[132]
- There won't specifically be guild vs guild arenas but team-based matchmaking allows teams to face other teams.^[133]
Arenas will have a minimum level requirement to participate.^[134]
There won't be bifurcated brackets with separate player pools.^[134]
There might be some form of an ELO system that gets flushed on a seasonal basis.^[134]
There will be an arena ladder system.^[130]^[132]
- Rewards for arena ladders will be revealed at a later time.^[135]
- Titles can be received from arena play.^[136]
- Arena points that can be used to buy gear are not currently in the design.^[136]
Mayors of military nodes are chosen from citizens through last man standing (gladiatorial arena style) combat.^[137]^[136]
The arena system may support cross-server combat.^[138]
Arena style combat is instanced but spectators may be possible through an interface.^[139]

Arena ladder

Pre-alpha Arena UI.^[140]

The arena ladder system records a player's progress within PvP seasons based on their arena win/loss ratios.^[130]^[132]

Titles can be received from arena play.^[136]
Other rewards will be revealed at a later time.^[135]
Arena points that can be used to buy gear is not currently in the design.^[136]

Factions

There are no predefined factions in Ashes of Creation.^[141]

There are pseudo-factions (temporary factions) in Ashes of Creation.^[142]
- Node wars flag the citizens of the warring nodes and their allies as enemies for the duration of the node war.^[142]
- Guild wars flag the members of the warring guilds and their allies as enemies for the duration of the guild war.^[142]
- Social organizations offer quest lines to assault other organizations.^[142]

We present the player with these soft friction events and then that determines who your friends and your foes are.^[142] – Steven Sharif

Because we are non-faction based, you want to grant the user the ability to either do things that are "evil" or "good", so there has to be a plethora of choice on the evil side for them to participate in.^[143] – Steven Sharif

Affiliations

An affiliation tree determines which entities can participate in attacks against other entities within its hierarchy.^[144]^[145]

Corrupted players can be attacked regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.^[113]
Node citizenship.^[144]^[145]
Alliances.^[144]^[145]
Guilds.^[144]^[145]
Parties.^[144]^[145]
Raids.^[144]^[145]
Family.^[144]
Religion.^[145]
Society.^[145]

There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members.^[144] – Steven Sharif

All of these things have some hierarchy; and within that hierarchy there's the ability to participate within certain systems. So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship.^[145] – Steven Sharif

Threat assessment

You decide to gank the player, but find out that you have been ambushed!^[146]

Players will have a buff on their nameplate that indicates the gear set they are wearing. Other players will be able to see this buff by targeting that player at a distance.^[147]^[148]^[149]

This will indicate the type of armor (cloth, leather, plate) that they are predominantly wearing.^[150]^[148]

You can target a player. You're going to see what type of armor they have based on a buff they have available to them because obviously cosmetics can change appearance. You might have different silhouettes as a result of that.^[150] – Steven Sharif

The border will indicate the level and quality of the tier set.^[147]^[148]^[151]
- This also indicates if the gear is enchanted, along with visual effects associated with enchanted items.^[148]^[152]^[151]
The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior".^[153]

When you see a player approaching you and they're wearing a transmog you know you don't know if that person is a high damage mitigation against physical damage or against magical damage and essentially the way we overcome that is through you being able to target a player at a distance and they will have a buff that's present on them that you will see, which indicates that essentially the piece set that they are wearing. It is important for players to be able to ascertain from a threat assessment standpoint what they're going up against if they're actively checking that, and that will be available.^[149] – Steven Sharif

Player health

Health is a stat in Ashes of Creation.^[154]^[112]

Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's health percentages or exact health bar values.^[98]^[154]^[112]
- This is not currently implemented in Alpha-1.^[98]

A player's name plate will deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.^[154]^[112]^[155]

With regards to seeing another player's health: As you know their name plate will deteriorate or give you an indication of like hey they've taken damage they're significantly injured, but you're not going to get a percentage. You're not gonna get an exact bar value, unless you're in their party or in their raid.^[112] – Steven Sharif

Character nameplate

Nameplate in the Alpha-2 party UI.^[156]

The icon in the corner next to Steven's nameplate: that little icon is actually his secondary archetype that he hasn't unlocked.^[157] – Margaret Krohn

Alpha-2 nameplates, targeting plates, and raid frame UI.^[158]

There have been some updates to a little bit of the nameplates that Colby and the UI team have implemented, as well as some of the targeting plates as well.^[158] – Steven Sharif

Nameplates are displayed above the head.^[159]

Player character nameplates will have first, and optionally last name (surname).^[159]
- The name of the character's guild is displayed next to their name.^[160]
- The character's nameplate will deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.^[154]^[112]^[155]
- An icon will identify the character's class.^[147]
- Hovering over a player nameplate will show information such as level, class name, and archetype combo.^[147]
- A buff icon will indicate the character's gear and grade.^[147]^[148]^[149]
The size and priority of nameplates will be relate to their distance (away from the camera).^[161]
The visibility of nameplates can be obscured by in-game objects, such as trees; by utility skills, such as Camouflage or Stealth; or through the use of disguises.^[162]^[163]
UI settings will enable nameplates to be hidden, resized, and customized.^[164]
Summoner summons' creature type appears in the nameplate above the summon. This cannot be changed by the player.^[165]
Mob nameplates will have indicators that identify resistances, buffs, end elite status.^[166]
- A star format may be utilized to indicate hit point allocation.^[166]

Nameplates in the party UI indicate the player's choice of secondary archetype.^[157]

A padlock icon indicates that the secondary archetype is not yet unlocked.^[157]

Player death

Player death in an open world dungeon in Alpha-1.^[167]

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.^[104] – Steven Sharif

When a player dies they disintegrate into ash. The ashes contain any items lost by the player due to applicable death penalties.^[168]^[169]^[170]^[40]^[171] These ash piles are immediately lootable by any player.^[169] Player flagging is not triggered by looting.^[99]

A non-combatant (green player) who dies suffers normal penalties, which include:^[40]
- Experience debt (negative experience).^[172]
  - Skill and stat dampening.^[40]
  - Lower health and mana.^[40]
  - Lower gear proficiency.^[40]
  - Reduction in drop rates from monsters.^[173]
- Durability loss.^[174]^[175]^[40]
When players die and they take durability loss, our durability loss isn't like other games where it's a gold sink so to speak. It's a combination of both a gold sink and a material sink. So in a sense, even if you only have completed items, when you take that durability loss you are losing out on materials. It's just a debt to the materials that you are losing instead of the active loss of that material in your inventory. So now you are accruing a material debt if you want to repair and increase again the performance of those particular items that take that durability loss.^[174] – Steven Sharif
- Dropping a percentage of carried gatherables and materials that are used in the generation of something else.^[176]^[170]^[40]
  - Items made for final consumption are not dropped, such as consumable items created by the Cooking and Alchemy professions.^[176]
  - A percentage of the certificates a player is carrying are also dropped.^[171]
  - If a player dies there will be a period of time before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.^[177]
  - If a player's mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items as the player.^[177]^[178]

A combatant (purple player) who dies suffers these same penalties, but at half the rate of a non-combatant.^[40]
A corrupt (red player) suffers penalties at four times the rate of a non-combatant, and has a chance to drop any equipped items based on their current corruption score.^[8]^[28] This includes:^[28]^[40]
- Dropping weapons and gear.^[28]^[109]
Any amount of corruption allows a player to drop equipped gear upon death. The higher the corruption the greater the chances.^[179] – Steven Sharif
- These dropped items may be looted by other players.^[180]
- Corrupt players respawn at random locations in the vicinity of their death, not at regular spawn points.^[181]
  - Non-corrupt players always respawn at the closest active respawn point (to their death).^[182]
- Corruption penalties occur as the corruption is gained (not just at death).^[31]

Experience debt will scale to approximately 2 or 3 percent of the total XP for a max level player. These numbers are subject to change based on testing.^[183]

Death penalties (mostly) do not apply to objective-based PvP (also called sanctioned events).^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]
There will not be death penalties applied to event-based deaths. The penalties are in the outcome of the event. So your number of deaths is likely going to impact your ability to win that particular event and that's going to be the penalty. This is it to encourage players to opt in to the events right because the more participation we have the more fun it can be; and we understand that the community at large- there's already a risk versus reward component to these events. We don't need to stack on additional risk versus reward to inhibit kind of- to increase the barrier to entry for players who may not be as interested.^[19] – Steven Sharif
- Gear degradation applies on death during Caravan PvP.^[17]^[18]

Death penalties do not differ between PvP and PvE, but this is subject to change.^[184]

Death by falling is possible.^[185]

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.^[185]

Death by drowning is possible.^[186]^[187]

Players that drown will respawn on shore.^[186]

If a player dies there will be a period of time before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.^[177]

If a player's mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items as the player.^[177]^[178]

Players do not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level.^[119]

At the moment, the plan is for players to not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level.^[119] – Cody Peterson

Combat revamp

Alpha-1 split-body melee weapon combat sneak peek.^[188]

I can move while swinging on this guy. I can back up then continue to attack him. Just have complete control over my character while attacking.^[188] – Steven Sharif

A revamped combat system will be rolled out during and post Alpha-1 testing based on player feedback.^[189]^[190]^[191]

The goal is to give more agency to the player and achieve a more fluid flow of combat with greater mobility when using abilities.^[192]^[193]
The current hybrid tab and action combat system will remain after the revamp.^[192]
This revamp will not represent the final form of combat, but will set the general direction that combat will be taking.^[194]
The revamp will be iterative and will be rolled out to testers in different phases.^[193]
The developers will be testing whether or not to use global cooldowns GCDs on different types of abilities during Alpha-2.^[195]

The revamped combat system will feature 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.^[188]^[196]^[197]

You'll be able to move forward while swinging your weapon; and this will allow you complete control over your weapon attacks for melee.^[188] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 combat was focused on core functionality rather than combat balance.^[197] Alpha-2 combat will include archetypes, significant ability support, augments, split-body combat, weapon attacks, and many additional items, among other things.^[198]

Changes that allow templated abilities to apply to 3D positions in the air or water will be prototyped and may be included in Alpha-2.^[199]

Safe zones

Players cannot PvP while inside (the footprint of)^[200] a freehold (except following a successful node siege).^[201]^[202]
Players are not able to be attacked or robbed while occupying their player stall inside the limits of a node.^[203]

PvP seasons

Performance in various PvP systems (such as Caravans, Arenas, Guild wars) is measured over the course of 6 month PvP seasons. At the end of each season, a player's cumulative score may unlock various rewards.^[130]^[204]

Metrics

Ashes of Creation gathers tracking data to facilitate achievements, titles and other accolades on a server.^[205]

Number of successful siege defenses.^[205]
Number of successful siege assaults.^[205]
Number of PvP kills.^[206]^[205]
Number of PvP deaths.^[206]
Raid participation points.^[205]
Number of firsts.^[205]

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.^[205] – Steven Sharif

Leader boards

Players will be able to opt-in to track certain achievements on leaderboards, such as.^[207]

Dungeons completed.^[207]^[208]
Raids completed.^[207]^[208]
PvP kills.^[207]
Caravans raided.^[207]
Gathering activity.^[207]

Leaderboards may be seasonal.^[208]

We have many dreams that we want to do with game-to-web and game-to-mobile in regards to showing stats and being making things shareable for you. We know how social media works; how sharing content with friends works. But those things will come in due time.^[207] – Margaret Krohn

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

Some leaderboards will be across all servers.^[209]

Guild ladder

An inter-guild ladder will rank guilds based on their performance within competitive activities:^[210]^[211]

When the guild participates in guild wars or they participate in sieges, you'll be able to climb the ranks of your inter-guild ladder as well so you get bragging rights amongst your friends.^[211] – Steven Sharif

Duels

Duels may be initiated within a freehold or node.^[212]^[213]

Dueling is a self-contained event that requires opt-in by all parties.^[212]
- There will be a way to auto-decline duel requests.^[213]
Dueling is not considered a part of the flagging system.^[212]

Duels won't be considered a part of the flagging system. The duels are going to be a self-contained event that gets opted into by the inviter and the participants.^[212] – Steven Sharif

Time to kill

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

The Ashes of Creation MMORPG will have a time-to-kill (TTK) of around 30 seconds to a minute.^[214]

Time-to-kill in the Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale testing mode is adapted for a traditional battle royale setting.^[214]
Time-to-kill in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges will be slightly longer than in the battle royale.^[215]
The developers do not want one-shots in the final MMORPG.^[216]

In the MMORPG we really don't want to see any one-shots. The time-to-kill needs to be strategic and tactical.^[216] – Steven Sharif

Hitboxes

The developers are testing different approaches to accommodate varying hitboxes between the races.^[217]

There may be a single unified hitbox with some exceptions or some special collision rules as opposed to having different sized hitboxes.^[217]

More than likely we'll have some sort of unified or unified-ish hitbox. But again it's going to probably have a unified hitbox with some exceptions or some special sort of collision rules based on them as opposed to kind of just making it smaller for one and not the other.^[217] – Jeffrey Bard

There aren't separate types of hitbox categories in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG as there were in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[217]

We don't have separate types of hitbox categories, for example. There's no head hit box in the MMORPG like there was in APOC. So from a critical standpoint you're not going to see a greater risk of critting for a larger hitbox.^[217] – Steven Sharif

Headshot mechanics

There are no headshot mechanics in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.^[217]^[218]^[219]

Headshots were a part of Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale.^[219]
Previously it was stated that headshot mechanics may be implemented in the MMORPG along the lines of a higher critical chance^[220]^[221] and that they would not be one hit kills.^[220]
- Headshots in action combat are equivalent to a critical hit in tab targeted combat.^[222]
- Players relying on tab skills will have a fixed critical hit chance every time they use an ability or weapon.^[222]
- Players using action-based skills are going to rely on getting a head shot or hitting a critical spot on the opponent.^[222]

Stat growth

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

Stat growth proceeds in the following order:^[223]

The race "seeds" a player's base stats.^[223]
The primary archetype grows the base stats.^[223]
The secondary archetype (class) does not contribute to stat growth.^[224] This is a revision of an earlier statement.^[223]

Different races have different stat compositions. Those stats can be important, but we also don't want them to dictate any kind of meta for what classes are best used with different races.^[225] – Steven Sharif

Choice of profession does not affect a player's stats.^[226]

Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a players overall power in the game.^[227]