time and was recorded during
the
Hello everyone and welcome to yet another stream in the world of Vera.
I am joined by two absolutely awesome and stellar developers on Ashes of Creation with
whom you have actually experienced a live stream with before.
They are our glorious engineer, Keenan.
How you doing buddy?
Good.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Happy to be here with you again.
And then we also have one of our senior game designers, Mr. Trap.
How you doing Trap?
Hey, good to see everyone again.
Good to be back.
So we are in a new biome that actually I don't believe anyone's ever seen before.
Where are we?
We are in the...it kind of looks a little bit like the Alpine Forest, but actually this
is a part of the Riverlands.
This is up near the Alpine Forest area.
So you're going to see some western larks and eastern hemlocks.
We're obviously at a bit of a higher elevation.
If you look off to the east over there, you can see kind of where the starting area for
the Aelan humans, excuse me, the Kalar and the Vellun would start in Alpha 2, down in
the basins of the Riverlands.
But we are somewhere else.
And the reason we're up in this higher elevation is because we want to show to you guys the
night and day cycle, a little bit of some of the cemetery areas with some undead.
And there's some constellations I think we're going to be taking a look at today as well
that we'll get a good vantage point from up in this elevation.
And also you may notice two familiar characters.
We have the ranger that you guys saw a little bit.
Keenan, you're playing the ranger, right?
Yep.
All right.
Now don't...there was a lot of commentary about my playing of the ranger and some people
didn't think I played it very well.
So we're going to have to make sure that you're on your game today with that ranger.
I'll show them how it's done.
Taking your job.
Exactly.
And then we also have, Chad, you're playing the fighter, right?
Yep.
I'm going to have to substitute as the tank role of the party.
Oh, that's...
The actual tank.
That's right.
We haven't shown off the tank yet.
So the fighter is going to be our tank today, which I think is fine.
Let's start heading down this way a little bit.
What do you say?
Let's go.
Let's do it.
Let's do this.
So what do we have today with the cleric, Chad?
We're going to be looking a little bit at the cleric and some of the new weapons.
The mace and the staff.
Is that right?
That is correct.
We've got a two-handed staff and a one-handed mace shield.
You'll also see four new spells that the cleric will be casting.
And I won't spoil too much on that.
You'll see them as we start getting into combat here.
Now Keenan, you play a cleric as a main in your MMOs.
Is that right?
Yeah, I typically play support.
And what is the most fun aspect of cleric gameplay for you?
Hmm.
Put you out of the spot.
For me, it's making sure it's being able to ensure that the party wins.
Yes, that is definitely the role I think of as support.
Any good player knows that supports win and lose games, in my opinion.
Apologies to all non-support players.
But you know, when you think about the...
Oh, let's hold on.
Let's pause here.
This looks like a little bit of a scary area.
And as a matter of fact, let me see if...
But you know, we might need some supplies in here.
Let me just see if I can chop down some trees.
You know what?
I think there was some oaks down here.
These oaks might come in handy later.
We'll see.
But you know, when you think about cleric gameplay, that whack-a-mole that Trad said,
that's kind of, I think, what a lot of MMO players are accustomed to, right?
Yeah, probably.
It's like following your party's hit point bars in...
Health bars in the party window and just clicking between them and making sure you're like maintaining
rotations and cooldowns on your heal abilities.
You know, saving the really high mana usage ones for emergency situations and just ensuring
that your resource management, as well as like, you know, who your tanks are, who your
fighters are, if a DPS gets out of position and starts taking a bunch of damage, like
they're ruining your mana management essentially, right?
So it's a little bit of dependency on like your party, as well as your own rotation.
Yeah, it's a very reactive play style that I like.
A lot of, you know, a lot of the time when you're playing DPS, it's like a lot of things
are kind of predetermined with your rotation and all that.
And obviously there's like reactive elements there that you're reacting to external variables
and the encounters and such.
But you know, with clerics, there's generally not as much of a rotation.
You're kind of responding every moment based on what's happening to your party.
Yeah, there's a lot of predictive opportunities as well, like making sure that you're in the
right place at the right time.
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, let's dismount and see what we got up here.
These look like some skin walkers.
What are these skin walkers?
Trad, you want to talk to us a little bit about them?
These are just one of your basic fodder enemies.
Like you know, they're not too dangerous individually, but you know, in a pack they could be something
to concern yourself with so you don't want to pull too many at a time.
Let's take them out and see what happens.
Not too bad, not too bad.
All right, it took some damage there.
A little bit of damage there.
That wasn't too bad.
Let me actually, hold on.
Let me adjust the master volume real quick.
Audio, you guys are going to see some outstanding UI work that's necessary.
I'm just going to pull down this little bit.
There we go.
All right, so that's still got some UI work to do on the settings panel, but you get to
see it in all of its work in progress glory.
So they did do a little bit of damage to you and talk to us a little bit about... Oh wow,
those guys actually got a little bit beat up.
Must be those buffs on chains.
Oh yeah.
I didn't actually even get to cast chains.
You got to cast it, it just didn't do too much.
Yeah, exactly.
So one thing we were trying to set up there that we'll of course get to see a little bit
more showcased in some of these tougher mobs inevitably coming up here is some class synergies.
This particular one is where we demonstrate setting up a status effect called stagger.
You'll see a floater text pop up.
Here, I'll show you.
Don't kill him, don't kill him.
Actually, you won't see it on my screen, yeah, but basically it sets up a status effect.
You can see a little bit of a VFX over his head and then as you see there, Steven followed
up with chains that triggers a stun on any target under that effect already.
Now up here I believe is an observation area where I am going to speed up time.
Now we talked a little bit about showcasing kind of night and day and up here if we make
it past some of these... This is like a cemetery, right?
Looks to be that way.
Oh yeah, these dogs are... These poor dogs, I feel terrible about them.
Oh, there's some zombies up here.
Okay, we got it coming.
They're starting to move towards me.
Not as fast though.
You can kite these a little bit.
Oh my God.
Never mind.
What the heck was that?
So much for kiting.
All right, get ready.
I need to drop a stun on them.
Or is it on cooldown?
Nope.
Okay, cool.
I'm going to go get the stun.
I'm going to go get the stun.
I'm going to go get the stun.
I'm going to go get the stun.
I'm going to go get the stun.
I'm going to go get the stun.
Nope, I got it.
All right.
Oh no, I accidentally canceled it.
Oh God.
Hold on, group heal.
There we go.
Okay, we're doing okay.
I got you.
I got you.
Some of them popped out of the ground.
I love the charge effect.
And it looks like they're...
Oh my God, a dog came.
I think we're hitting respawns.
We need to keep moving.
Oh God.
Want to pull them up this way?
Yep.
Now you'll notice my main heal actually can act as a damage if the enemy
target is...
If the target is an enemy.
And actually that can generate as a mechanic for the cleric some convictions.
Tell me a little bit about convictions, Tread.
Sure.
Yeah.
Conviction is a class resource we came up with for the cleric specifically.
Certain abilities will generate it based on certain criteria.
And as Steven was saying there, you can either use it to heal an ally or you can use it to
do damage to an enemy and generate conviction, which will then help you in the future heal
for more.
So kind of what Keenan was saying about predictive play being an element, not just reactive,
that would be one of the predictive aspects of the cleric.
Just kind of setting yourself up so that when things start looking a little rough, you've
kind of prepared that in advance by not healing as much early on and paying off later.
Now at this point, I think players are for the first time seeing one of the moons of
Vera.
And there are a few moons actually of Vera.
But you guys are going to witness me speeding up time because day and night cycles in Ashes
of Creation are actually over the course of a few hours between those night cycles.
So you're going to see the trees move all real rapidly and you're going to see the sun
drop rapidly and then you're going to see the night sky begin to form.
And we're going to try to identify some constellations if we can because constellations in Ashes
of Creation actually have a very relevant purpose across a whole host of different game
systems including on the narrative side, on mechanics like acquiring certain types of
relics for your node, on empowering certain abilities and or items that you have access
to.
And it is of course relevant that I am playing as a Vec.
Vec, as many of you may know, do worship and obviously study the stars.
So let me see if I can go ahead and speed up that time.
Standby.
There it goes.
The trees.
Look, I love it.
It's kind of like Time Machine a little bit.
Oh, and the moon changed positions.
It's now dead up in up and we see another one of the moons.
Now of course, as you guys may know, this is of course a work in progress, right?
We're working towards our Alpha 2.
So some of this stuff will likely change, especially on the art side.
But I love what the new skybox is doing and I mean it's just visually great.
The ambience of course changes now to include a different nighttime feel to it.
And the lighting actually in the night is not too bad.
I mean it gives you that kind of sense of dark darkness, but it's not inhibiting your
ability to play the game.
Now we are trying to look, we need each of us to kind of look in the sky in certain directions
to identify one of these constellations.
And I think what we are looking for is what was once called a Begorimal, but now is called
a Dawnbreaker, I believe.
So try to look all around as you can in the night sky and identify the location of the
Dawnbreaker.
Where is the Dawnbreaker?
I am not yet seeing it.
Are any of you seeing it?
I don't see...
Not on that.
Can we not find the Dawnbreaker?
Maybe we'll find another one of them.
Where is it?
Hold on.
It should have told me where it was.
Oh, there we go!
We found the Dawnbreaker!
You guys, oh it's right next to the destroyed moon.
Oh, that'll help.
There we go.
Oh, it looks so good.
I love it.
Now this is, that's, oh it went away.
Sad.
Sadge.
Now there is supposedly another constellation that is deeper into the cemetery if we want
to progress that way.
What do you guys think?
Let's check it out.
Yeah, but wait, before we go, let me give us all just a group blessing.
The four of us, the three of us, sorry.
I've got a buff before.
Let's do this.
I think that'll wear off long before we get to use it.
Oh yes.
Gotta conserve your mana.
I know.
Well, I'm trying.
Are we going the right way?
Oh, I think and healer are going different ways.
Uh oh.
We gotta avoid the pulls.
I think I might have pulled one.
There's one coming over this direction.
Oh god, they're here.
Where?
Where are you?
Oh, you're here.
Ah, okay.
You guys take care of it.
The zombies will never catch us.
Nice, we got that.
Where are you at?
There we go.
Yeah, it looks like we aggroed one.
Here, let's just get this guy real quick.
Oh, aggroed a lot more than one.
Oh my god.
Okay, let's tread carefully around these cords apparently.
We're doing okay I think.
Maybe I should take my staff out for this.
Oh, you know, I haven't shown any active blocking yet.
That's another thing I wanted to show you guys is the active blocking.
Are there creatures down here?
Yeah, there should be a pack down here I think.
All right, let's take a look.
What is this?
This is the graveyard.
Oh, it's a respawn point.
A resurrection.
Different kind of graveyard.
Yeah.
I love this environment and the fog on the ground is so...
What behind you is that?
Oh my god.
Here.
Oh god.
I'll let you tank for a little bit.
All right.
I have my active blocks up.
Oh boy.
There's a lot.
Okay, he doesn't seem to be doing much damage to me, but of course it would normally consume
stamina.
Is that correct, Tread?
Oh, that depends.
We're still kind of discussing our resource systems, but you know, that is one thing that
we can potentially explore.
Oh, don't stand in that.
Oh no, what do those do?
I know Doug and Chong were working on the zombies.
Yeah.
Using some of our new AI systems, right?
Don't stand in the green fire.
Don't stand in the vomit.
It actually hurts a lot.
Let me see if I can generate some convictions.
Oh, I have convictions.
Oh, and now you can see because I have convictions, my cleansing wave actually bounced to an additional
target.
That's pretty awesome.
We hit all three of us that time.
Yeah, that's nice.
That is very nice.
All right.
Let's keep moving forward.
Did I hit all three of you guys?
I noticed I have some conviction buff on my life bar right now.
You hit one additional target for each stack you have.
Oh my God.
You guys are hearing my steam, I think.
Apologies.
I'm sorry.
I'm recording from home.
All right, here we go.
Let me see if I can generate some more conviction.
It worked.
These zombies aren't too bad.
The more convictions that I generate, the more amplified the abilities become.
Is that right?
That is correct.
I like that.
Obviously, as we create more and more abilities, there will be more interactions.
Right now, you only see four, but the final hit will have way more than that going on.
I'm going to take my staff out.
We must show these beings the way of the light.
Talk to us a little bit about the way of the light, actually.
How does radiant energy and energy subtypes work with regards to damage and creatures?
Obviously we're going to have different damage types and certain damage types will be strong
or weak against certain enemy types.
You'll have to be somewhat smart about who you're bringing where or what kind of abilities
or specs.
Obviously you'll be able to do the content, but you'll have an easier time with certain
contents if you're using a certain spec over others.
We're going up against undead and as is natural, they're probably going to be a little weaker
against your holy magic than Keenan's nature element, for example.
Wow.
Keenan, are you going to let them talk to you about your nature like that?
I do like that.
We'll see.
See if it's weak.
I do like the- When we go up against the air elementals,
maybe Keenan's time will shine.
Oh, there you go.
I like the actual different synergy between energy types and vulnerabilities of certain
creatures.
There's actually a lot of mobs here.
Yeah, we should be careful before going forward.
We got things behind.
Okay, let's grab some things behind.
Whoa, did they aggro me because I'm a cleric?
That was crazy.
They kind of ran at me.
They might.
I think they were coming at me and you were just in their way.
Very interesting.
It's all right.
We got this.
We got to move forward with caution.
All right.
Let's get these guys up here.
I should use them to generate some convictions actually.
Oh, you want me to hold DPS?
It's not in my..
It's not in your nature.
Oh no.
He's a pacifist.
Oh, I've got my DPS hat on
Talk to us talk to us a little bit. Oh wait. Are you gonna pull here?
So I think they're seeing us from over here trying to trick the Sunuras into this. Oh, yeah
Oh, they got you they found me somehow
I set them up for a stun. Perfect. Now talk to me a little bit about why that Sun just happened. I
Set it up with whirlwind and it flies these staggered effects and
Chains of restraint will stun any targets under the staggered. So right now that's one particular synergy but in
As the game continues to come together and you see more abilities
There will be all kinds of ways to set up that
That outcome
So
Even more. Yeah, a lot of a lot of essentially the different combat mechanics that work
between the different archetypes and classes
Rely on synergies in the progression of certain types of status effects, right? That's correct
This of course
synthesizes the need for certain party compositions to exist so that players can make sure they utilize the
strengths of their different types of status conditions and the the example we're showing here obviously is the progression of
Oops, sorry is the progression of the staggered condition into the stun?
We might need to find a place to rest here. Yeah
Let's move forward
Up this way maybe right like up here. Let's just track in the wolves
We got one zombie coming in from behind that's alright, let's take a bit you want to grab these wolves
And you'll see because they're stunned the chains actually go through the body that's kind of cool
What about right here? Can we rest here?
Let's um, let's move up the stairs a little bit just so we don't catch a respawn on the wolves, okay
Can we take a seat maybe up here right right here?
Yeah, let's sit down. Hopefully the zombies don't follow us too far. I'm gonna take a seat. I think we have aggro still
Yeah, they're coming for us. I think
Oh no, okay, all right
Keenan you need some
Take a break after we get these guys down
Oh, yeah last wave I promise
Can't use my abilities
If I was a bit higher level I could help you regenerate your mana
Yeah, one thing we should be doing is focus firing these guys one aspect of the zombies as they have
more health region than your standard mob and
one
Strategy against them is to burst them down. Let's rest right up here
Yeah, there's some mobs right up there right here right here
Right here oh there we go this has been a frightful journey actually
Yeah, and one beautiful
Yeah, you can see Keenan's mana
Was a little low there and so as you know a classic
MMO thing to do is to sit and rest as you get your your resources back now
What if you have certain types of items that you could use like a campfire or some type of you know?
bedding or something that would be kind of cool. That'd be pretty cool. It would be cool. I
Like the just the the subtle fog that's just flowing through
It's the rain is nice you yeah, the rain is nice I like the sound
Look at those old lampposts. I think that's been in the game since 2017
Although it looks like the materials might have gotten updated
It
All right, I'm feeling refreshed should we
All right, so we've got a group right ahead of us here
Oh
No, no, no not like this. Oh, no. No you're dead gotta come in you are going to die
There is nothing I can do for you. Oh
My god
Focus the scholars
scholars first
Why is there so many?
That's all right three down
Walker
I can't it's on cooldown. Okay here comes oh my god. There's dogs
Ambush Houston Houston together oh
I almost got stuck in between all of them, too
I was terrible
Hey, we actually handled that not too bad. You got it
If we want to go this way right yeah, I'm super slow though
They put some type of plague debuff on me last time we got lost in here
It was it was a rough time now remember. We're looking for a particular type of constellation I
believe the ancient scholars of
The Vek refer to it as the great sundal
Whoops I totally misfire that rib how many look
Zombies
I
Have to say you are doing a great job with the Ranger well done here. Thank you. Yeah, you are
Where are we headed
I'm just I'm just running man. This is like a giant
Complex undead speaking of undead this is the first time I think we've ever shown undead in ashes
In fact these particular undead are a result I believe
for those of you who were watching the
livestream of
The wreckage of carfin the event that occurred there just before the exodus from from Vera all those years ago
Now where are we another scene walker?
I
This is an ominous
Passageway, I don't trust it. I like it. I also love the light effect that it has on my what
What is the name of this set? This is like the vindictus is it?
And oh that armor set yeah, you know we probably have already shown it on the street
So all of you. Oh, we will show
But I believe it's the imperious and the dictus or something along those lines. That sounds right
It's a very Latin sounding name
What is that? This is Vera? Oh
My god Keenan, I think you just summoned those with your sniper
They felt the nature
I
Murdered it
A little bit of help for me
Definitely me
Got to keep the healer safe yes
That is true. That is the primary role and responsibility of your archetype
Keep me safe
I like how they kind of pounce at you. That's their opening attack. Yeah, so
You see now the effect has staggered applied instead of stun
Because I did not use it at the right time with my fighter
All right, we're coming up across a bridge it looks like
Should we rest?
Maybe we should rest with the red logs. Yeah, that's a good idea
If we rest we should probably move off to the side over here. Where?
Wanna take a seat by the little river over here? Keenan's like, nope, I'm gonna rest right in the middle of the road
Gotta get those ticks. Sit by the river
It's a nice little spot
Yeah, it is a nice spot
I don't trust the water
Why?
Nothing bad happens in the water
It's just the depths
Think of all the secrets that the depths contain
Perfectly safe dark rivers in fantasy games
A zombie is totally not going to jump out of there and eat me alive
Out of the water?
No, that would never happen
Now remember for those of you who are watching during the extra life event
The Tower of Carthen actually rests upon a river
And some of the energies that were created when
Lamont actually did the...
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, they're shooting like necrotic bolts at you
Told you I didn't trust the river
Oh god, there's so many
There's a lot
I'm on the lamppost
Make sure you stay over here
Where are you, Dredd?
I'm still down here on the beach
Here I am
I got you, I got you
Here we go
We should probably get up onto this bridge
Yeah
I'm just trying to finish off this zombie first
I'm on the bridge
He's going to regen
Alright, he's down
Alright, let's get these two guys
But as I was saying, the Tower of Carthen event
That actually trickled out through the riverlands because of the rivers
And the undead began to form around these rivers
But you'll learn more about that during the story
Nice little
Stun these scholars real quick
Oh, they're dead
Nevermind
We're taking them off
Ranger's doing work
Let's go off to the side
What is up there?
That looks like something different
It's some type of little golem
Oh god
No, no, no
No, no, no
Oh, this guy's not that bad
Oh, he stunned me
Oh no
What was this?
Let's go too soon
Get out of here
Alright, we got more company
They're lagging behind a little bit
Cannot challenge me
Challenge me
Walk in the light
Okay, they're challenging me slightly
There we go
We did it
We've done it
So the active block actually works with any weapon equipped
Is that correct?
Is that what you arranged?
Oops
Tried to do that
Oh yeah
You get active block
One thing that we're kind of toying around with the idea of
Is giving everybody a universal active block mechanic
In which case
The shield version would probably be better
But you'd still be able to parry
Or whatnot
With a two-handed weapon or even maybe dual wield
Oh, that's pretty cool
We need to find this Sendahl
It's supposed to be kind of up near
Wait, maybe we need to go back a little bit
We gotta respawn
No, respawn?
Hold on, let's go over this way
I remember
I was told
That it was before this bridge
Oh no
Okay, let's just run through if we can
I want to try to find the Sendahl
Just keep on moving
Oh, don't die
Okay
Hold on
We're good
Are you surviving?
I think so
I mean, we'll be fine except for the wolves
I set my speed a little bit higher
Cheater
Oh no
What's happening?
It's definitely a cleric buff, right?
Yes, exactly
Provided by the range
See that?
Alright, I like my sleep
We can take these guys
Zombies are way behind
Alright, I'm ready
Easy peasy
Oh my god
They're never ending
Keep running
I think
Hold on, we gotta go up here
Up these stairs?
Yeah, up these stairs
Okay
Oh, good, we're up here
Hold on
I might need some help up here though
Let me see
Sorry guys
I just want to make sure we can find
the
the Sendahl
Maybe he meant
before the bridge
Like, before the bridge into the cemetery
Maybe
Oh, I made it on top of the
the light post actually
Oh yeah, there we go
Now this is tranquil
Like a true cleric
Don't die, I'm not with you guys by the way
Wait, nope
I don't even know where you went
We lost our healer, we're screwed
No, no, we're good
You guys just come out the front
Oh, I see you down there
Unless I find the Sendahl
Jump down, demon
Oh god, he's getting swarmed
Yeah, I'm definitely getting swarmed
Oh jeez
I'll save you
Here
It's the least I can do
Aw, shoot, I'm doomed
And the zombies are coming
Oh no, no, keep going
Wait
It was definitely at the entrance
I'm so sorry for this, I'm so sorry stream
I'm so sorry
I can't not show the
Sendahl
Totally messed up, now you know
we don't cut these or edit them
they're just
They are what they are
This is such a typical
MMO adventure
Just like, getting lost in a dungeon
area, healer body pools
Alright
There we go, we're good, I think so
Oh, okay, we made it out here
I can see the stars again
So you actually, you guys can see that
there are certain environments that
will just prevent you from being able
to look up
into the sky for some of these constellations
Alright, now we're looking
towards, oh wait
we're supposed to look towards that moon
Oh, I found it
We found the Sendahl
There it is
Yes
Are you dying? Don't die
And there is
the Sendahl, ladies and gentlemen
Well, I hope that you all
have enjoyed this sneak peak
at one of the areas
in the Riverlands
and also some of the updates to the
Yeah, let's take a seat, let's take a seat
and also some of the updates
to the cleric
as well as, you can see there's some UI here
between the icons and the mini map
as well as the targeting and
party UI
that we'd love your guys' feedback on
You also got
to hear a little bit about
the night and day cycle
see some of the updates to the mace and
shield as well as the staff
and also learn a little bit more about
undead and the energy types that occur
and synergies especially
between certain types of status conditions and effects
that might
exist in Ashes of Creations
With all that being said
I'd love to hear your guys'
feedback on
what you saw today. Make sure you guys go
and visit the forums, our Twitter
our Reddit, comment in the
YouTube videos, give us what your thoughts are
about what you saw today. As always
remember, this is a work
in progress. We are working towards
Alpha 2, but you get to see
a little bit every step of the way
each month. So I hope you guys
enjoyed. Trad, Keenan
thank you for joining us. That was
super fun and I'm surprised we
actually didn't die.
Same. It was fun. Thanks
for having us. Yes!
See you guys back on stream!