User interface

Alpha-0 Launcher/login screen.

Pre-alpha PAX 2017 quest (UI iteration 0.2).

Pre-alpha unpolished UI screenshots.

Pre-alpha Arena UI.

The Ashes of Creation user interface (UI) is built with customization in mind.

The UI will be very adaptable for many play styles. – Steven Sharif

UI settings

UI settings are able to be saved locally.

Various display elements can be toggled on or off:

• Character names
• Guild names
• Enemy names
• Party names
• Alliance members

Action bar

Alpha-2 Tank action bar (hotbar) user interface.

Players can build their characters with the active skills they want on their action bar (hotbar).

• The maximum number of skills a player can have on their action bar will be around 15-20.
  • Each archetype will have roughly 35-40 skills to choose from on average.
• There will be an option to include multiple action bars (hotbars) on a player's UI. For example: One Fighter will be different from another based on what active skills they have chosen.

Some people like to have a very minimalistic number of hot bars. They don't need necessarily to have three, four, five hot bars that are available; but some people do like that: They want to have all their items listed on their hotbar as well as their abilities, as well as as their mounts, as well as anything that they can essentially interact with as an icon. – Steven Sharif

• Players are not given skills as they level up, they must choose what skills they take.
• There is no spellbook requiring memorization.

There will be multiple hot-bars that you obviously have available, because you're going to have consumables, you're going to have active skills and whatnot. But the number of active skills are not going to overwhelm necessarily the character and be irrelevant especially at certain stages. – Steven Sharif

Combat targeting

Ranger hybrid combat in Alpha-2.

Our desire has always and continues to be how we can create a mixture of tab target abilities and skill-shot oriented positional, directional-based ability usage and make something cohesive in that design. And I think that what we're achieving with that regard may not fully feel like an action-oriented game, but we've always intended to be more hybrid-oriented, leaning towards tab target. So you're going to see a mixture of abilities that require the targets and that don't; and then you're going to have an option as the player's perspective to utilize an action camera mode, which utilizes a soft target lock feature and our reticle. – Steven Sharif

Hard-locked friendly player target.

Hybrid combat refers to the choice between tab and action combat in Ashes of Creation. A toggle button (default Z, but can be re-bound to another key) allows the player to switch between action and tab combat modes.

• The action mode camera is tied to the to the player's reticle (crosshair).
  • There will likely be a hotkey that when held down will allow free camera movement in action mode.
  • In future the user will have the ability to choose from different reticle appearances.

• Targeted skills require either a soft or hard locked target.
  • Soft locking is when the reticle moves over a valid target while in action mode. The targeting plate will appear slightly grayed out to indicate that this is a soft-lock target. If the reticle moves away from the target or the target moves away from the reticle, the target is lost.
  • Hard locking is when the player uses right-mouse on a soft-locked target in action mode, or when the player selects a valid target in tab mode. The targeting plate will not be grayed-out to indicate that a hard-lock target is selected. Unlike soft locking, if the target moves out of the reticle, the target is not lost. Tab will still cycle between hard-locked targets in action mode based on proximity priority.

• Templated skills allow "blind firing" without a target while in action mode. If an entity moves into the path of the attack they can be struck.

Q: Is the development team moving away from action combat, or is action combat more prevalent with the melee classes, and the healing/range classes are more tab-target other than AoE spells?

A: We have not moved away from our hybrid approach to the development of Ashes of Creation's combat; and specifically to reiterate: that approach is incorporating elements of skill shots, fast and reactive gameplay that is situationally relevant, and incorporates the camera mode of both tab-targeting as well as action combat reticle. That's something that is still in progress. We haven't moved away from that however. To note, our approach of that hybridization is going to incorporate things like templated skill-shots, directionally relevant activated abilities, along with the ability to dodge to roll projectiles that can impact collision. Those are elements of action combat that are present. – Steven Sharif

Templated and targeted versions of skills will have different characteristics.

Skill progressions, skill point allocation is determined by the player. The player will be able to choose either more tab-target oriented skills or more action-based skills and customize their playable experience to what accommodates their preference. From a balancing standpoint for us developers, we need to make sure that certain abilities house certain functions so that there's a balance between skill shots and tab-target abilities. – Steven Sharif

• Targeted skills will be greyed out if the target is not within a valid range but templated skills will generally require the player to assess the correct range for the skill.

• Different ranks of the same skill can change the skill from tab to action or vice-versa.
  • Variables will change based on which version of a skill is chosen.
    • Damage.
    • Charge up time.
    • Accuracy.
    • Evasion.
    • Crowd control.
    • Cooldown.
    • Energy consumption.
    • Cost to spec.
    • Attack range will likely remain the same; as it is driven by the weapon or skill itself.

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

• It may not be possible to be able to fully spec into just action or tab targeted skills. There might be a 75% cap on choosing skills from any one type.
• For the purposes of balance, certain skill types will be either tab or action oriented skills.
  • Hard CCs may be housed in action oriented skills because they are skill shots that are more difficult to land.
  • Softer CC's would be housed in tab-targeted abilities.

As an example: Let's say you're playing a ranged class. You could have an action-oriented power shot in your skill tree or you could have a single target power shot that ramps up and does more damage. – Steven Sharif

Gear slots

Alpha-2 Fighter character sheet UI.

We wanted to create something that would handle a couple of different roles, with obviously your equipment slots for what we call a "paper doll", which is that display of your character. Eventually it won't just be a image of your character, we hope to have the 3D character and be able to rotate around, look at what you're wearing. And then we wanted to support a couple of different features here, with some base stats; the equipment, which will show what equipment you have available to quick swap, so you don't have to have your inventory and the screen open; detailed stats for those people who want to get into all of the details; and then of course gear sets. So this is going to be able to swap to your sets of gear quickly; and being able to save different loadouts. – Colby Marchi

There are multiple gear slots in Ashes of Creation.

• 3 Back slots.
  • 1 Ranged slot.
  • 1 Cloak/cape slot.
  • 1 Backpack slot.

• 3 Belt slots.
  • 1 Mainhand slot equips a player's primary weapon.
  • 1 Offhand slot can equip shields, spell focuses, sigils, and dual weapons.
  • 1 Potion/Pouch/Scroll slot.

• 8 Armor slots.
  • 1 Helmet slot.
  • 1 Shoulder slot.
  • 1 Chest slot.
  • 1 Wrist slot.
  • 1 Glove slot.
  • 1 Waist slot.
  • 1 Leggings slot.
  • 1 Boot slot.
• 5 Jewelry slots.
  • 2 Accessory slots.
  • 1 Necklace slot.
  • 2 Ring slots.
• 3 Artisan gear slots.
• 1 Artisan tool slot is used to equip gathering tools.
• There may be a specific slot for musical instruments, but this has not been finalized yet.

• Previously it was stated there were 16 gear slots.

• Gear is not subject to inventory weight limits.

Control settings

Alpha-1 default keybindings.

Players will be able to customize their keyboard control scheme in Ashes of Creation.

• Keybinds were not yet adjustable (in Alpha-1).
• Action targeting can be toggled via a key to enable mouse targeting via a reticle that feels similar to a third-person action game.
• Players will be able to trigger skills with combinations of different keystrokes, and reuse the same keys as part of different combinations.
• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse included hotkey customization.

Macros

The issue with macros is that from an anti cheat metric perspective it's difficult to define what a macro is against a script. And in order to catch all scripts sometimes you have to prevent the macro usage. So really that's a that's a data issue. If we allow for macros then we lose our ability to precisely ban script users, botters. – Steven Sharif

Controller support

The game is not designed around controller support.

Controller support will likely be something we work on closer to launch. – Steven Sharif

Camera settings

The developers aim to provide a variety of camera options.

• Camera field-of-view (FoV) is customizable.
• Camera mechanics are similar to ArcheAge (hold mouse buttons to move the camera).
• First-person point-of-view may be able to be achieved by zooming the camera, but the game is fundamentally third-person.

World map

Updated Ashes of Creation map.

The new world map in all its 1,200 square kilometer glory. So you're gonna see some names here- a little bit of a reveal of some of these locations in these areas- and you're also of course seeing similar biomes that are present as well. But more importantly what you are seeing is the orientation of these continents and these islands that are facilitating specific types of inter-continental trade gameplay; and they support the relevance of these caravans moving across the land mass to locations that will now incorporate these harbor areas, which aren't identified on the map here... But the important part was providing a lot of coastal naval gameplay between these zones and trade routes between land base. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 work-in-progress map UI.

The world of Verra features an in-game viewable world map. This map is not randomly generated, and begins covered in a fog of war. Players will not be able to see the world until they have explored it or gathered information about it. The world is also full of imperfect information, which will require the player to act on it for verification.

For example, you may hear a rumor in a tavern that tells you the location of a cave full of weak Kobolds, but this was not accurate as the rumor was started by well-equipped bandits in order to waylay overconfident adventurers.

• Information about the world will be presented directly to players through the world map UI as it is gathered.
  • Node tax rates will be visible on the world map by hovering over a node location on the UI.
  • The map UI will potentially incorporate player created location markers that are visible by other party members.
  • Previously, detailed information about the world was only available through the Library unique node building.

• Not every server will share the same map, as player decisions will vary between servers.

• The map will have geographical choke points caused by non-traversable obstacles (such as Mountains).

Even though we're an open-world that doesn't mean that from a design perspective, especially with the way our economic systems work, that we will want to create Geographic choke points. – Steven Sharif

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

• Zones in Ashes of Creation will cater to all levels.

Mini map

Alpha-2 minimap and compass UI.

There is an in-game minimap and compass user interface in Ashes of Creation.

• The goal is to allow pings and other forms of communication tools via the mini-map.

Character creator

Scars in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

The cool thing about this character creator is that it's not just intended for your character. It has application with NPCs that you might hire. – Steven Sharif

We're gonna use similar tech for implementing things like Animal husbandry. – Zachary Mallet

Kaelar Alpha-2 character creation (first pass).

This tech is 100% created in-house at Intrepid and is not metahuman. – Steven Sharif

We'll be adding many, many more customization options to the character creator. – Cody Peterson

The character creator (or character customization system) allows players to define the look of their in-game characters, hired NPCs; and potentially creatures raised by the animal husbandry profession.

• Character appearance can be adjusted through a wide range of presets and sliders.
• Character blending provides easy to use customization by morphing together two or more character presets.
• Character sculpting allows detailed customization of every aspect of the body.

The Ashes of Creation character creator is 100% developed in-house by Intrepid Studios and is not MetaHuman.

Additional character creator features include.

• There will be unlockable features for character customization.

You have that scar because you participated in this siege, or these many sieges; or you have this tattoo because of your of a cultural background, or because of a quest that was accomplished where you're able to get that. – Steven Sharif

• The ability to save and potentially to share characters with other players.

The beauty of it is that you can save your character- and we already have some of those features available- and load them; and in the future we want people to be able to share those characters amongst each other. – Margaret Krohn

• The ability to undo changes (Ctrl + Z) will be supported, including undoing changes that were made several edits earlier.
• Choosing base idle animations of characters will be possible in future.
  • Certain animations, such as blinking, will be present when they don't interfere with the customization process.
• Certain ability sound effects will adhere to character customization selections, such as race.
• Adjusting the background scene and lighting is a planned feature.

There's going to be a lot of environmental controls that are offered to the character creator so that people can set it up their scene the way they want to grab screenshots or to grab recordings or whatever they want to do. – Steven Sharif

• Asymmetry in terms of manipulating different components of the body or different body features such as hair, beard, and eyes.

Asymmetry is going to be functionality that's possible in manipulating either different components of the body or different features like hair. The beard we saw a little bit of that blending with highlights that you can do. Margaret talked a little bit about the eye asymmetry that you can include. Obviously those are going to exist within certain parameters that we want to define on a per-race basis, but it is something that we think is cool. – Steven Sharif

• Body adornments, such as piercings will be possible within cultural limits.
• The developers are considering whether to allow custom tattoos to be uploaded by users.

The aim is for the character creator to be on par if not much better than that of BDO.

Character appearance

Facial adjustments in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

There is a great variation that's going to be available from a character standpoint when creating your character, especially around the face. Whether it be the shape of the jawline, the cheeks, the ears, the nose, the lips. You know we want to provide a lot of options and an agency to the player to customize their character appearance. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 Py'rai female and male character models.

Character appearance can be customized in the character creator (CC) and via in-game salons/barbershops.

We want there to be a lot of room for people to manifest their own identity, to role play how they want to from an appearance standpoint. There's going to be parameters within which you will be able to customize a character. We want the culture and the identity of the races to exist in a range that makes them easily identifiable from other players and other cultures. So, because of that, we have to have a spectrum you can exist on. There will be a lot of hair variants you can do, body art tattoos that you can apply. You'll be able to play with the scales of the facial structure, the bones, the height, width, the body fat percentage. You'll be able to add body hair on different parts of the body. If you want to have hair on your feet, you can dial that up. – Steven Sharif

• Character models are focused on realism.
• A player will see a generic character before customization.
• Character designs will have influences from a wide range of cultures, such as European, African and Asian.
• Lolis will not be in the game.
• Sliders and other controls, such as color palettes, will offer flexibility in customization but there will be limits based on race, gender, and the artistic style guidelines that the developers are adhering to.

There's going to be constraints to the sliders, so that was one of those big questions as work began on the character creator: How much agency do you want to allow pulling like the lower lip all the way down in this weird deformed look, or having like [an] offset cheek that's just asymmetrical to the side of the face. There's not going to be the ability or agency to create those types of weird character things. However you will have the ability to move, slide, change, grow, decrease all those components, but they'll be kept in a more reasonable and presented way in the same sense you won't be able to change the appearance of the dwarven, nor the Dünir or the Niküan races to, in my opinion, create what would be traditionally considered a Loli character. – Steven Sharif

Character naming

Characters will have a first-name and an optional surname (last name).

• Character names are unique per server.
  • Character name changes will be possible during server merges.

• There is a minimum length of three for a character name.
• Special characters, including apostrophes and hyphens, are currently not allowed in character names.

Currently we don't allow special characters in character names (including apostrophes and/or hyphens). It's possible this changes in the future. – Ry Schueller

Character names will appear on the character sheet and optionally on the character website page.

• In-game a character's name is displayed above their head. This can be the first or last name.

Accessibility settings

There will be settings to aid colorblind players.

Maturity level

Dead bodies in a Pre-alpha raid encounter.

There may be an option to turn off blood and gore in the game.

There probably won't be swearing in quests.

The antagonists in this game are definitely dark... We're not going grimdark at all, but there are parts of it that get that way. – Jeffrey Bard

Addons/mods

Addons will not be allowed, in general.

• The developers don't want addons/mods to be necessary to experience the game.
• The developers believe that parsers (DPS meters) can have negative effects.
  • There will be leader boards.
• The design of the game API is still under consideration.
  • There will be integrations available for streaming services such as Twitch and a few other services, but it's not something that will be exposed through an API just yet.

We will have a lot of customization present in the both from a UI perspective as well as different data points that will be naturally in the game, but we don't want to open up the mod game just yet. That might be a decision we change in the future but, it's not planned for release. – Steven Sharif

In-game chat

Alpha-1 work-in-progress chat interface.

We are working on a new chat log! The new log includes tabs for general, party, siege, guild, and more!

In-game text chat channels.

Channel	Command
Local chat.	/say.
Shout.	/yell.
Party.	/party.
Raid.
Guild.
Private message (PM).	/tell (playername).
Tavern.
Node citizen chat.
Global (Enabled for Alpha-1 testing).	/global.

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

• Trade chat.
• Alliance chat.
• Social organization chat.
• Religion chat.
• Chat initiated with people on a player's friend list.
• User created chat channels.

Importing images

Banner 3D renders.

The user interface will allow emblems, logos and symbols to be designed in-game.

• Guild emblems.
  • Flags.
  • Guild halls.
  • Mount barding.
• Ships
  • Sails.
  • Emblems may potentially appear on a ship's hull as a decal, along with the ship name.
• Character
  • Shields.
  • Cloaks.
  • Armor attachments.

Q: Do nodes provide their citizens some kind of clothes or ornaments, capes, tabards, or something that they can basically represent their node?

A: I mean technically the node does have a sigil or insignia and there will be certain armors that you can customize insignia and/or symbols on, so yes you could probably achieve that. – Steven Sharif

• Emblem editor functionality is tentatively planned for Alpha-2.

Logging out

There will be a logout delay to prevent players from immediately logging out of combat.

Multi-boxing

Multi-boxing/multi client polices haven't been finalized. In general, if a user has a legitimate account and is not botting then multi-boxing will be permitted.

Mobile/web application

Farmhands and NPC assistance

Based on node type and progression, players will be able to hire NPCs to work as farmhands on their freehold farms. Players will be able to command these farmhands in-game as well as potentially offline via an application (mobile app) or web interface.

• Crop rotation management.
• Plant or harvest specific crops.

City hall

Winstead Village (stage 3) node town hall in Alpha-2.

We want the City Hall to be the place where big decisions are made for each Node. It should be where the “ruling class” comes together and decides what to do (these decisions can quickly make them the “old ruling class” too).

Town hall (also called City hall) is a default service building that comes pre-built with nodes.

• Players can interact with the node board to get a list of its citizens. Clicking on a citizen will reveal information about their guild, society, religion, and property ownership.

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

• Mayors and node governments use city hall to visualize and control activities within their node. These capabilities will also be available via mobile/web interface.

• Status of the node's economy.
• Status of upcoming elections.
• Status of trade agreements.
• Status of caravans.

Character page

There is no planned in-game functionality to leave personal notes regarding player characters.

We don't plan to have in-game tools to provide that tracking. Instead you will be expected to track that yourselves. – Steven Sharif

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

A character sheet will be available closer to live launch that shows the following:

• What a character looks like.
• Achievements and server firsts.
• Info on a player's class.
• Character's back story via journal entries (that are shared publicly by the player).
• Traits can be applied that describe a character's history.

You will have a unique homepage for each character and that homepage will be able to be customized by the user to display unique information. It will have a small out-of-game RPG component where you can construct background and traits and stuff like that. – Steven Sharif

The character page will be accessible in game by opening a browser through the UI.

That's part of the character sheet desire for us which hopefully will be accessible in game as well by opening a browser through our UI where you can get back history of a character that that character has input themselves into journal entries that they may choose to share with others... For role play perspective we want people to be in depth with their characters. – Steven Sharif

The player can manage what info is shown on the character page.

Item rendering

Items that are dragged out of a player's inventory are destroyed.

• Allowing player-dropped items (such as Gear and Currency) to exist in the world is likely not going to be allowed.

User interface commands

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Command	Function
/say	Chat command.
/party	Chat command.
/yell	Chat command.
/global	Chat command.
/tell (playername)	Chat command.
/roll	Simulates a dice roll.
/e, /emote, /me	Textual emote. Example: /me chuckles
	Invite a character to join your guild.
	Add a character to your friends list.

Screenshots

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See also

• Character creator
• Ashes of Creation