Roles

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Icon Archetype Type.[1] Role.[2]
Bard2.PNG Bard Arcane Support
Cleric4.PNG Cleric Arcane Support
Fighter2.PNG Fighter Martial Damage
Mage3.PNG Mage Arcane Damage
Ranger3.PNG Ranger Martial Damage
Rogue2a.PNG Rogue Martial Damage
Summoner3a.PNG Summoner Arcane -
Tank1.PNG Tank Martial Tank

Ashes of Creation has the traditional trinity of Tank, DPS (damage dealers) and Support (healer or non-healer) roles.[3][2][4]

We have our eight base archetypes; and the trinity is a pretty strong influence with regards to the eight base classes. However the area in which we actually begin to play with that line between the trinity is in the secondary classes that you can pick. That's where we begin to blend those spaces and allow people a little bit of influence over their role and whether or not they fit perfectly within a particular category within the trinity.[5]Steven Sharif

Balancing

There will be match ups in 1v1s where one class will be superior to another; and that application should be a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. We want there to be counter-play between the different classes... Instead it's going to be a group focused balance, where as long as you have the diversity of classes present, that's going to be an equal level playing field. It's going to be very dependent on skill and strategy.[8]Steven Sharif
Balance-wise, there's a number of different interactions mechanically that you have within an ability that you can adjust in order to balance its power. The most most common ones are: Cooldown, Mana consumption, Damage done, Effect status conferred, Promotion of that effect status, Range.[9]Steven Sharif
When we move into Alpha 2 and we have a lot of data that's supporting the use of these particular abilities in combat settings, how often they're used, how often they result in death, what the average damage done by this archetype is comparatively to other damage done by different archetypes: All of that data gets logged and all of that data gets queried in order for us to refine the abilities so that they live in the environment we want them to. Now, that's not to mean that we're going to have a perfect balance across the board between the archetypes. Again, we're taking a rock-paper-scissor approach to balance, which means that some archetypes will do better against other archetypes and vice versa; and we're also not creating an environment where we want to have 1v1 balance. We are focused around group balance. Group composition is important.[6]Steven Sharif
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
Even though augments do radically change the way your active skills provide you abilities, there's still a primary focus on the base archetype itself and not the 64 whole classes.[7]Steven Sharif
Certain archetypes are capable of moving the gap between their counterpart per-se. If I am a Tank archetype and a Mage is my counter, I can take a Mage secondary and bridge the divide slightly; and then move my identity that direction ever so slightly.[17]Steven Sharif

Class abilities

Alpha-1 preview primary skills.[18]

If from the eight archetypes whatever you choose as your secondary, you're going to receive a choice of augments that relate to some core ideal of that class. You know like a tank is about controlling the battlefield, is about surviving. The mage is about dealing damage and elements and ability in AoEs. The rogue is going to be about stealth and critical damage. So those augments are going to to play towards those identities.[19]Steven Sharif

The idea behind the system is that you're skirting the line through these augmentations of your role, right. We have the traditional holy trinity that's present in class designs for MMOs and it's often that those either are not deviated at all or completely deviated from entirely. The augment is to offer a balance between that where you still maintain the semblance of that trinity system while offering the opportunity to customize your play experience towards one of the other angles in the triangle.[20]Steven Sharif

Primary skills (class abilities) are based on a player's archetype.[21][22]

Skill points

Alpha-2 Ranger skill tree user interface.[28]

What you're seeing at a high level here is just what you'd pretty much expect of a traditional skill. We're doing something a little more advanced than just like a bottom up structure, because we're being a little bit more free-form in this iteration. This will obviously see more UI iterations in the future, but you'll see a mix of active and passive abilities here. Actives are indicated by their square shape, while the circular ones are representing passives; and one thing to note as well is that these passives are aiming to be a little more interesting than just like, this ability does more damage now, or it has a lower cooldown. We do have some of those too, but the goal with a lot of these passives in addition to that is to allow people to lean into unique play styles. So you'll notice that some of them are are changing your gameplay in meaningful ways; and that's the direction we want to take um player and character customization as a whole.[28]Tradd Thompson

Players receive skill points at specific points as they level.[29] These can be used to level up skills (increase their rank) within their active, passive or combat/weapon skill trees.[30][31][32][33]

Making active skills capable of receiving additional skill point allocations and unlocking additional features so that from a player agency standpoint it's going to be up to you whether or not you want to be more diverse but less depth- wider and not taller, in some of these skill choices. Or if you want to be very very tall, that's going to be something that is up to the player in that regard.[34]Steven Sharif
  • Skill points will accrue at specific XP milestones, such as 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 progress through the level, so as to avoid creating an imbalance with experience debt.[29]
We do have this concept of experience debt that does accrue and we don't want to create an imbalance between skill points acquired versus experience, so we're going to predicate your skill points acquisition based on benchmarks you reach when leveling through a level. So these are going to be at specific points in the level, like one quarter progress, to half progress, to three quarters progress: you're going to get an influx of skill points and then you'll be able to allocate them into your skill tree.[29]Steven Sharif
  • Skill points can be used to unlock universal skills at the expense of unlocking class-specific skills.[35]
  • Respeccing (resetting and reallocating) adventuring skills may require travelling to a specific location rather than being able to be done on-the-fly.[36][37]
  • Augments do not cost skill points.[38] It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.[39]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.[33]
  • In terms of skill progression, players can choose to go "wide" and get a number of different abilities, or go "deep" into a few specific abilities.[40]

Best-in-slot items

What is considered best-in-slot is based on a character's role and the type of encounter they are facing.[41][42]

  • The goal is to not have overarching best-in-slot items that are meta for all situations.[41]

Meta

A goal of Ashes of Creation is to emphasise micro metas that work for specific encounters, and de-emphasize macro metas that work for everything.[41]

What we're doing with this approach is we're de-emphasizing a macro meta and instead emphasizing a micro meta. And the difference between the macro/micro is that on the micro level you have metas that might form based on each individual type of encounter or experience. And in those senses, yes, there's going to be a most optimal: There's going to be a best in slot. There's going to be whatever that pertains to that particular challenge rating. But there won't we there will not be an overarching meta that says from a macro level, hey, if you got this shit, you're good to go for everything. That's boring, that's unfulfilling, that is not interesting; and it is just something that that dumbifies the experience.[41]Steven Sharif
  • Increasing difficulty ratings inspire more of a traditional vertical power progression that is common in other MMOs.[47][46]
Oftentimes you just have a very vertical power scale and that determines chase, but when you have a variety of relevance across certain types of adversaries and that variety changes over time because of player activity- and then that affects the economy and the crafter system and who was producing what for what demand- and everything gets shaken up. That's a very fun environment to exist in. It presents a more dynamic situation rather than a quote-unquote cookie-cutter type selection.[46]Steven Sharif
  • The intricacies of how nodes interact with predicates in the world means that it may be possible but difficult to achieve meta server builds.[48]
Q: Do you have any concerns on players eventually discovering a meta server build with nodes due to players heading to specific nodes and regions because they find that content more enjoyable; and if so how would you go about getting players to shift around the world to break up the meta?
A: I think it's interesting if players have a concerted effort across a server to interact with one another, learn from their actions, mistakes, successes, and effectuate that on the server. That's interesting, but I don't believe we'll see a meta form. I think that the intricacies are too great when it comes to how predicates are formed in order to elicit world state changes.[48]Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse class kits

Six classes will be present in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.[49]

These classes relate to the trinity of classes: Tank, DPS and Support.[49][50]

  • Skills/abilities are not tied specifically to weapons in castle siege mode.[51]
    • It was previously stated that weapon skills are applied to augment a class' base skills.[52]
  • Base class skills may be able to be selected from a host of available skills for that class based on a player's progression within that season.[52][53]

We had a little bit of an idea that we're going to explore with regards to each of the classes having a range of skills and abilities that players can customize that skill kit based on their progression within a season, let's say; and that progression can be gained from any of the modes and it would grant you the ability to customize that skill kit for the before the siege mode or the horde mode. But that's something that might come at a later date.[53]Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse classes only apply to Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.[54]

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse healing

Healing in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse will be reticle based (action targeted).[55]

We have a few design theories on action combat and healing to began with phase one. Part of that will be the implementation of a class system into the castle siege and horde mode of phase one. Those will be kits that play out as skills available from an action perspective. You'll be able to target in proximity, basically so positioning is going to matter. Importantly, for healers being close to the individual party members you wish to heal. Additionally, you'll have reticle based healing methods. This would be a template that could be launched in that direction as a pulse of heels or augments. So there's a lot of different systems are playing with that you'll see more of when we get to those when we get to the castle siege system and the Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.[55]Steven Sharif

See also

References

  1. Interview, July 29, 2020 (49:53).
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Group dynamics blog.
  3. Podcast, April 11, 2021 (13:30).
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Livestream, May 22, 2017 (46:04).
  5. 5.0 5.1 Interview, October 20, 2018 (2:40:16).
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:25:16).
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 Livestream, October 30, 2020 (33:26).
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Podcast, April 23, 2018 (59:28).
  9. 9.0 9.1 Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:23:00).
  10. Livestream, May 28, 2021 (1:13:05).
  11. Livestream, December 2, 2022 (1:05:51).
  12. 12.0 12.1 Interview, October 20, 2018 (2:40:17).
  13. Podcast, September 29, 2021 (30:04).
  14. Livestream, June 25, 2021 (1:05:01).
  15. 15.0 15.1 15.2 Interview, July 18, 2020 (1:05:04).
  16. Livestream, February 9, 2018 (41:56).
  17. 17.0 17.1 Podcast, April 23, 2018 (1:01:01).
  18. toast-keybinds-skills.png
  19. Livestream, October 16, 2017 (1:00:44).
  20. Interview, August 8, 2018 (22:27).
  21. 21.0 21.1 Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:20:41).
  22. 22.0 22.1 progression.png
  23. 23.0 23.1 Livestream, July 28, 2023 (1:04:27).
  24. class secondary.png
  25. Livestream, November 19, 2021 (50:38).
  26. Video, September 30, 2022 (17:00).
  27. Livestream, September 24, 2021 (1:18:06).
  28. 28.0 28.1 Video, December 19, 2023 (5:29).
  29. 29.0 29.1 29.2 Livestream, July 28, 2023 (1:03:27).
  30. Interview, July 29, 2020 (55:44).
  31. Interview, July 19, 2020 (53:59).
  32. Interview, July 18, 2020 (1:07:51).
  33. 33.0 33.1 Livestream, July 28, 2017 (19:05).
  34. Livestream, August 28, 2020 (1:19:24).
  35. Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:49:56).
  36. Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:46:12).
  37. Interview, July 29, 2020 (54:44).
  38. Forums - Livestream Q&A 2022-08-26.
  39. Interview, July 18, 2020 (1:07:06).
  40. Livestream, November 16, 2017 (30:02).
  41. 41.0 41.1 41.2 41.3 41.4 Interview, July 9, 2023 (1:43:38).
  42. Livestream, May 29, 2020 (1:33:11).
  43. Livestream, June 30, 2022 (1:18:55).
  44. Livestream, May 10, 2017 (14:45).
  45. Livestream, March 31, 2022 (1:19:41).
  46. 46.0 46.1 46.2 46.3 Podcast, April 11, 2021 (54:35).
  47. Interview, July 9, 2023 (1:40:41).
  48. 48.0 48.1 Livestream, April 7, 2023 (1:15:02).
  49. 49.0 49.1 49.2 Livestream, January 11, 2019 (41:20).
  50. Interview, October 20, 2018 (11:38).
  51. Livestream, November 22, 2019 (59:37).
  52. 52.0 52.1 52.2 Interview, August 17, 2018 (8:16).
  53. 53.0 53.1 Livestream, January 11, 2019 (58:40).
  54. Reddit Q&A, 2019-01-8.
  55. 55.0 55.1 Interview, August 8, 2018 (19:40).
  56. 56.0 56.1 Interview, August 17, 2018 (12:05).
  57. 57.0 57.1 Interview, December 6, 2018 (2:04).