Active blocking

Tank active blocking with a Shield in Alpha-2.

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 a dual wield. – Tradd Thompson

Cleric active blocking with a Shield in Alpha-2.

Active blocking (Guarding) is a universal skill that is able to be unlocked by all archetypes.

• Stamina is a universal resource that is utilized by active blocking, active dodging, and sprinting universal skills.

• Different types of equipment are catered toward blocking different damage types.
  • Shields are better for active blocking physical damage, but any melee weapon can also be used to parry with a lesser amount of mitigation.
  • Sigils are better at actively blocking magical damage.

Q: How are you designing encounters around active blocking? Will it be situational use, or would I expect to be laying on my block keybind for most of the fight to prevent getting deleted by bosses?

A: It depends really on the type of adversary you're facing. Some of them are going to have indicators or tells that a big attack is coming. It's an animation wind up where you'll have an opportunity to use active block in very unique situations that are based on timing and additional mitigation for those incoming one-off attacks. In other occasions you'll be able to use it off of rotational cooldowns, or if you're waiting for a particular ability or you're during the use of your Aegis. There's different situations for when active block is a relevant use-case. – Steven Sharif

• Some abilities may be able to overcome, surpass, or cancel active blocking.

If a player is in a state, such as an active block, or an active tumble state, there will likely be some types of abilities that interact with reacting to those types of states and will either overcome surpass or cancel out those states, particularly as it relates to not just active blocking, but also potentially passive blocking as well; and that would be something probably related to physical penetration values as a stat, or even CC breaks that could be relevant as well for those types of things. I think that's on the radar for the combat team. – Steven Sharif

• Previously the developers had not finalized designs for active blocking and were leaning toward using more traditional buff-oriented universal damage mitigation for the MMO, and were also considering interaction between action-based blocking and a passive block stat.
  • The Paladin's Might shield in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse had its own hit box and hit points (HP); that could actively block projectiles.

Skill	Icon	Description
Guard		Enter a guard state, blocking all incoming frontal attacks and consuming 100% Stamina relative to the amount of damage mitigated by blocking. While guarding, gain Mental Fortification . While guarding, gain Empowered Guard .

Dodging

Dodging in Alpha-1 early combat.

Another thing that's important about these action combats is the ability to dodge and moving out of the way of certain skill shots. – Steven Sharif

Active dodging is a universal skill that is able to be unlocked by all archetypes.

• Stamina is a universal resource that is utilized by active blocking, Active dodging, and sprinting universal skills.

• Dodge rolling type skills were previously housed in the action skill sets of agile classes such as Rogues or Fighters.

• Dodging will not use I-frames (invincibility frames), but it may affect accuracy and mitigation stats when used.
  • Previously it was stated that hybrid combat will likely have true evasion skills relating to action-oriented combat and also have I-frames that apply to tab targeting.

So you see an animation windup that's a telegraph on what's coming; and then you have response actions that you can take as a result of that in order to dodge, weave, move, do whatever. It is both a combination of what your rotation is but also how you have reaction abilities ready to go that you save for certain circumstances that are important. – Steven Sharif

Skill	Icon	Description
Guard		Enter a guard state, blocking all incoming frontal attacks and consuming 100% Stamina relative to the amount of damage mitigated by blocking. While guarding, gain Mental Fortification . While guarding, gain Empowered Guard .

Directional attacks

There will be directional attacks (back attacks, flanking attacks, frontal attacks) that deal additional damage depending on the positional context of the attack.

• Rogues will generally have more of these.

Cleaving

Weapon attack cone in Alpha-1.

As I attack I am hitting multiple numbers of these opponents; and that's important because all weapons, regardless of whether you are in reticle mode or tab-targeting mode will be able to have a action-based type weapon attack. Not active skill, but weapon attack. – Steven Sharif

All weapons have a forward attack cone, regardless of being in tab or action mode.

• The cone's arc and distance will vary based on weapon type.

Polearms for example will have a much wider arc and much further out. Daggers will have a more fine-tuned arc, so you have to be more precise in that regard. – Steven Sharif

This is described as a weapon attack not an active skill.

• It was previously stated that cleaving will be a class ability for some classes.

Mobility

Revamped Alpha-1 Mage Fireball ability.

The general approach that we're taking based on a lot of feedback and just good combat design in general. You know philosophy is that we want to give more agency in the hands of the player and the antithesis of that is locking the player down for really long amounts of time. The sort of concept behind that is like you could make an animation effects as glorious looking as possible but if it's taking away control of the player, none of that really matters. Especially the 100th or thousandth time you're using the spell you're tired of that happening you don't feel powerful: You feel the opposite of powerful. So we're trying to like give a lot of control back to the player while they're using these abilities so they can still control their movements, they can react simultaneously while they're taking actions; and we just want to get overall more of a fluid flow, I guess, of combat. And that's the general design philosophy we're using to approach the overhaul. – Tradd Thompson

• The revamped combat system features 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.

A lot of abilities you have the capability of moving while casting. It's going to decrease your movement speed significantly or depending on the type of ability. We do reserve the cost- and that's really what it is when you tie ability usage to mobility- we do reserve the cost of requiring the character to remain stationary on some big effect type abilities. – Steven Sharif

• Most abilities in Ashes of Creation are capable of being cast while moving. Some abilities may slow the caster down during the cast, but only rarely will the player be rooted in place.
  • Movement speed can decrease significantly depending on the type of ability.
  • Weapon weight can also affect mobility.
  • Skills with the greatest power may require the caster to remain stationary while channeling them. This is a risk vs. reward mechanic.

Most abilities you'll find in Ashes of Creation are capable of being cast while moving. Some of those abilities might slow your movement during the cast, but you can continue to move. Very rarely, and depending on obviously the importance of the ability or the power level of that ability, you might be rooted in place. So, for example, the AoE ability [Chains of Restraint] has a lot going on. It has damage ticking over time, it is an area of effect, it also has a status condition application; and in those instances the player character gets rooted. – Steven Sharif

• Ranged archetypes will have gap openers to counter gap closers from archetypes like the Fighter.

That's the cat-and-mouse of these abilities. Like we've seen with the Ranger, they have a backflip, they have their Airdrop [sic] ability. The Mage has teleportation. There are going to be abilities that are tit-for-tat; and managing the resource of those abilities and the timing of when you use them to either correlate to your opponent's use of those things, or to save them for yourself when you want to get away, that's part of what makes the engagements dynamic and different each time. – Steven Sharif

• Unreal Engine 5 has enabled improved forms of locomotion, such as crouching, tilting and mantling.
  • Crouching may or may not be in the game.

• The ability to prone is not be in the game.

• Moving backward will likely not affect block and parry.

• Player movement speed during combat is balanced for both PvE and PvP.

There's a balance in the game design between your movement speed on attack and the movement speed of your opponent. When you have a game that is both PvE centric as well as PvP centric, you have to make sure that combat is blended for both approaches; and we can always run into problems where, if you're significantly hampered in your movement speed, that has an effect on how we expect player versus player engagements to interact; and we don't want to restrict a player's ability to be mobile if they're the target of an attack. And as a result of that we need to make sure that we don't restrict the movement abilities of the player who is doing the attacking as well. So we want it to be relatively free for you to stay with each other. Your opponents move around the battlefield together and if we're hampering you on the attack action, we have to then implement some type of snare, or slow, or cc effect essentially on your opposing target; and that's not the approach we want to take for for PvP. – Steven Sharif

• Melee archetypes will offer various mobility and CC counters against ranged archetypes, such as the Ranger.

If we're talking about Fighter, they're going to have a lot of heavy gap closers. They can probably be a little bit more liberal in the use of their gap closers because they have so many of them, versus let's say a Ranger that needs to choose when to use their escape abilities, because they have fewer of them. The same would be true for a melee character like a rogue. Their approach vector is going to be more stealth-driven than it would be perhaps let's say from a gap-closer perspective. – Steven Sharif

Q: If a ranger is super mobile, what are the melee's options in order to catch them?

A: Different class kits will provide different gap closers. They'll provide different mobility skills. They'll have lockdowns. They'll have chains to pull back. They'll have a lot of different things in the rotation. That's part of what an MMORPG experience is. You're not just restricted to three or six skills, you have a rotational suite; and depending on the type of challenges you face is going to help determine which of those rotations you spec into from your skill tree. – Steven Sharif

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Air Strike		Ranger	Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing (150%🢆) Physical damage to targets hit. Targets hit that are Snared become Rooted , and all Snared stacks on those targets are consumed.
Berserk		Fighter	Consume your Combat Momentum rapidly, gaining 30% more physical power and movement speed and immunity to disabling effects while active. Must have at least 20 Combat Momentum to activate, and the effect ends when all Combat Momentum is fully depleted.
Blink		Mage	Instantly teleport 20 meters in the direction you are moving. Breaks all rooting effects.
Blitz		Fighter	Charge directly toward target enemy, dealing (100%🢆) Physical damage to the target on arrival.
Call of the Wild		Ranger	Remove all Snared and Chilled statuses from the caster, and increase movement speed by 20% while becoming immune to all movement impairing effects for 8 seconds.
Caravan Trail Speed Bonus		Caravan	Minor speed boost for travelling on a simple trail.
Charge		Tank	Channeled Ability: Charge forward in the direction you are facing. Enemies you collide with take (50%🢆) Physical damage damage and become Staggered . Charge will be canceled if another ability is activated or if the Charge key is pressed again.
Disengage		Ranger	Quickly strike enemies in front of you while backflipping in the opposite direction. Targets hit by the strike take Physical damage and acquire 1 stack of Snared for 10 seconds.
Epic Melody		Bard	Nearby party members gain Epic Melody Melodies can be played concurrently with other abilities. Multiple instances of the same melody do not stack.
Exert		Fighter	Consume your Combat Momentum rapidly, gaining 30% more physical power and movement speed and immunity to disabling effects while active. Must have at least 20 Combat Momentum to activate, and the effect ends when all Combat Momentum is fully depleted.
Flourish		Bard	Slide forward gracefully in your aimed direction and gain Pep . Can be used concurrently with any other ability. Dance Mastery: Energy Dance Mastery: Power
Form Of Celerity		Fighter	While in this form, the caster receives +2% Movement Speed per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +20%. Overpower and Brutal Cleave apply Staggered to targets hit. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms. Triggers cooldown for 10 seconds when deactivated.
Form Of Fluidity		Fighter	While in this form, the caster receives +1.5% Evasion and +2.5% Disable Evasion per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +15% and +25%, respectively. Overpower and Brutal Cleave apply Shaken to targets hit. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms. Triggers cooldown for 10 seconds when deactivated.
Leap Strike		Fighter	Leap to target location and deal (225%🢆) Physical damage around you while applying Staggered to targets hit. Apply 3 stacks of Snared to targets hit that were Shaken .
Lunging Assault		Fighter	Spend 15 Combat Momentum to lunge in a direction a short distance and perform an upward swing upon arrival, dealing (125%🢆) Physical damage and applying Snared to enemies in front of the caster. The caster is immune to hard disabling effects while lunging.
Party Stride		Ranger	Applies Strider to all group members within 30 meters. Strider Increases ground movement speed of target by 10%.
Pulverize		Tank	Move to your target and strike them for 225% physical damage. Generates 300% additional threat.
Shield Assault		Tank	Lunge forward and deal 125% physical damage while applying Staggered to enemies in front of you. If a target was hit, gain 25 courage. Generates 300% additional threat.
Shield Slam		Tank	Lunge forward and deal 150% physical damage while applying Staggered to that target. Gain 25 courage on hit. Generates 300% additional threat.
Speed Boost		Caravan	Gives the caravan a temporary speed boost.
Whirlwind		Fighter	Channeled ability: Deal (45%🢆) Physical damage to all enemies around the caster with each spin while channeled, increasing the spin rate the longer it is channeled. The caster is immune to hard disabling effects while spinning. Activate the ability again to end channeling early. Deals 20% additional damage to Weakened targets.
Wings of Salvation		Cleric	Sprout phoenix-like wings and dash to target ally, granting Wings of Salvation to the caster and target on arrival.

Player movement

Player movement in Alpha-2 combat against a Bonebinder Kidnapper (3 star) elite.

• Sprinting (default C) is a universal skill that is able to be unlocked by all archetypes.

• There is a toggleable walk (RP walk)/run capability (default .).

• Autorun is toggleable (default Numlock).

• Players will have the ability to auto-follow another player, but this will be on a timer.

• There is not going to be any "go to waypoint" (auto-pathing) mechanics.

• Back-peddling (walking backwards) and strafing are slower than normal movement speed.

• Double-jumping has been considered as an option for player mounts.

• Mantling (climbing onto objects) is present in the game.

Collision

There are player and spell/projectile collision mechanics in Ashes of Creation.

• Inertia and momentum physics will help prevent blocking doorways/access points. This is based on a character's direction and movement speed, and can be used to push people out of the way.

• The Bard's Flourish skill turns off collision.

It turns off your collision so you can not get blocked or trapped. – John Collins

• Mounts and players cannot stop caravans and other vehicles from moving. Nothing can move or block ships.

• Specific ranged skills will have a pushback effect but this is not inherent to all ranged abilities.

• Player collision inherently limits the number of individuals that can be affected by AoE skills.

• Not all projectiles can be body-blocked.

Not all projectiles can be body-blocked. Some potentially can, but there will be certain abilities and effects, like a shield wall, that can that can be brought up and that will obscure line-of-sight to the target as well; and it will restrict some of those attacks from occurring. – Steven Sharif

Animations

Alpha-2 work-in-progress combat animations and decals.

The intensity of those weapon trailings; how they scale based on the type of weapon, the level of weapon, that you have; but not just the trailing on the weapon per-se but also the ground decals. Like for this heavy weapon, that first strike you see that decal in the ground is- I love that look- and even on the backswing when I hit the ground behind me, it's causing that decal. – Steven Sharif

• Combat is animation-driven to ensure it is impactful and responsive.
  • Basic attack animations are triggered by the weapon combo system based on weapon type.
  • Skill animations are (generally) not impacted by the type of weapon equipped.

We really wanted to build the combat system to- like i said earlier- be as physical as possible. So we have it very animation driven. Everything is handled based on a reference of animation as opposed to nebulous timings, which allows it to feel very impactful and very responsive. – Keenan Reimer

• Races will not have unique combat animations, but will have unique non-combat animations.

We're not going to be having I think unique combat animations. However we will have unique non-combat animations, such as your idle, your walk, your run cycle: things that the combat attacks do not have to blend back into. – Steven Sharif

• Animations that aren't significant to gameplay may be throttled to improve client performance.

Animation cancelling

Animation cancelling will not be a combat mechanic in Ashes of Creation.

• Players will be able to cancel channeled abilities.

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 player's reticle (crosshair).
  • There will likely be a hotkey that when held down will allow free camera movement in action mode.
  • In the future users 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.
  • 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.

• 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

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

• 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

• 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.

• 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.

Hitboxes

The developers are testing different approaches to accommodate varying hitboxes between the races.

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

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 just making it smaller for one and not the other. – Jeffrey Bard

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

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. – Steven Sharif

Switching gear

Alpha-2 Mage swapping from a Greatsword to a Wand while in combat.

• Switching weapons (default keybind `) is possible while in combat but armor cannot be swapped while in combat.
  • Some ranged or melee abilities require a specific weapon to be equipped. Weapons that are equipped in the character's ranged or offhand slots will be automatically swapped in and out as required by the skill.
  • Players can select which weapon they wish to use as their primary weapon for basic attacks.
  • Previously it was stated that swapping weapons (from inventory) into a hand or range slot is not possible in combat. Prior to this, weapon swapping was said to be subject to a cooldown period (in the range of a few seconds) following any damage taken or done by the player.

You may not swap armor when you're in combat, but you may swap your weapons; and there's obviously a few reasons of why this can be important: We're a itemization agnostic class design, so players equip with items that there are most necessary based on the adversary or the challenge that they're facing; and so we want that to be available for players to swap with weapons. – Steven Sharif

• It is possible to store and swap gear loadouts with a single hotkey button press when out of combat.

There will be a loadout system that you can use in your inventory to help manage those different types of set that you can customize. So you can do a simple hotkey press and be able to swap your armors, out of combat of course, with a single button click. – Steven Sharif

• Artisan gear and adventuring gear do not need to be swapped for either to be effective when they are equipped on a character.

See also

• Universal skills
• Combat
• Skills
• Weapons