Arenas

Pre-alpha arena combat footage from PAX West 2017.

Pre-alpha arenas.

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

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. – Steven Sharif

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

Arena ladder

There will be an arena ladder system.

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

Metrics

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

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

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

Leader boards

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

• Dungeons completed.
• Raids completed.
• PvP kills.
• Caravans raided.
• Gathering activity.

Leaderboards may be seasonal.

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. – 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.

Military node arena

Military node mayors are elected based on trial by combat. During the election week the node will enter an open-PvP battleground state for hour-long periods where candidates (and their citizen supporters) compete to gain points by securing objectives. The highest point winner at the end of the week will win.

• Previously the developers were considering champions that fought in a last-man-standing arena.

Server vs server

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

The arena system may support cross-server combat.

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

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

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

Esports

Esports in Ashes of Creation.

Esports is not the main focus of Ashes of Creation, but the game may move in that direction if the gameplay is compelling, competitive, and fun.

What I would say as an MMO player is Esports tends to miss out on a core element that's unique to MMORPGs, which is progression; and it's difficult to represent that progression in the traditional Esports format that we see with other games and genres today. However, what I will say is that I have participated in some MMOs that have stood up cross-server competitions and I've really personally enjoyed those types of cross-server competitions where you bring the best that those individual servers have to offer with regards to groups, or teams, or constant parties as we like to call them; and you allow them to compete in an arena format, or in a castle siege format. Like that is super cool. I love that server versus server type of competition and I think that's where there is a potential to do something interesting with regards to Esports and the MMORPG genre. – Steven Sharif

Group sizes

Party witnessing the beginning of the An Ancient Violence Story arc in Alpha-2.

We're not creating a solo game, but it doesn't mean that we don't offer gameplay that is solo centric as well: It lives in addition to the social aspect of What MMOs provide; and so part of what we do in order to to give that element of gameplay is we have quest lines that are devoted towards solo players. We have hunting grounds. Obviously one of the benefits of being a solo player is you get to keep everything that drops. You don't have to share loot with a party or with friends; that's one benefit of being a solo player. But it's going to be more difficult to overcome challenges; and those individuals who are up to taking that additional level of of difficulty are going to excel perhaps in their character progression a bit faster than those who are more group-centric. It's going to be a little bit of a roll of the dice there because there are loot tables, there are reward tables that accompany that, but it's important to note that from a content perspective Ashes of Creation is looking to fulfill both that solo-oriented mind in gameplay as well as the group and social experience; and a lot of times those paths diverge: They move apart, they come back together; and that process is going to be seen throughout the leveling in Ashes of Creation where you'll have more opportunities for solo gameplay and some opportunities for group gameplay. – Steven Sharif

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

• Parties have up to eight (8) players in a single group.

The idea behind an 8-person group is to allow us to really amplify party roles, and to create a need for each of the archetypes in every party.

• Raids will have 40 man groups.
• Content will be tailored for 40, 16 and 8 person group sizes.
• Arenas will have 1 man, 3 man, 5 man and possibly 20 man Free-For-All (Deathmatch) group sizes.
  • There won't specifically be guild vs guild arenas but team-based matchmaking allows teams to face other teams.
• Castle sieges are expected to have at minimum 250x250 players to be on a single battlefield, with the possibility of increasing this to 500x500 over time.

The minimum goal is 500 players on a single battlefield. I think we will be able to hit 500vs500 but we shall see. – Steven Sharif

Artwork

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See also

• World PvP
• Combat
• Servers