Open world battlegrounds

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The Event system will also create a variety of PvP situations in the open world. From small skirmishes that lead into sieges to battles over capture points during a node or castle siege, PvP objectives will play a crucial role in determining the tide of battle.[1]

The majority of Ashes of Creation players will experience PvP through opt-in objective-based battlegrounds (also called sanctioned PvP events).[2][3][4][5] These are high risk and high reward encounters that do not utilize the corruption system.[4][6][7]

The majority of PvP that players will encounter- the vast majority- will be through consensual systems, meaning opt-in systems like sieges, like caravans, like wars, or going out into the open sea. These are conscious decisions that players will make knowing the risk profile- assessing that- and they will opt-in to those things..[4] – Steven Sharif
  • Sanctioned PvP events allow players to join different teams during the event.[2][3][4]
There are going to be events with sanctioned PvP, where there are multiple team options to join.[2] – Clayton Stamper
In a sanctioned event- sanctioned meaning that this is something you have the option to opt-out of. That's a castle siege, that's a node siege, that's a caravan, that's a guild war, that's a node war. You can drop your citizenship. You can drop your guild tag. You can drop participating in one of those things. In any of those types of opt-in and opt-out events, the death penalties do not exist. These are sanctioned. They're intended to allow people to engage in PvP. Now if I die to an NPC while I'm out hunting, or if I die to another player through the flagging system, those are where death penalties come into play; and that's where debt experience can be earned; and that's where corruption can be had. So it's important to separate those two realms.[3] – Steven Sharif
During PvP events such as caravans, guild wars, and sieges, the death penalties are disabled between participating characters on opposing sides. Attacking and killing players on the opposing side doesn't trigger the purple and red flags, nor does dying drop any resources or loot. However, you can't hide in this state as a Red corrupted player either. If you are Red, you'll still be Red in the siege or caravan and open to anyone to kill you and drop your loot, regardless of the side you are on. Being Red trumps everything.[10]
We will have limited functionality where players can spectate from either ghost camera from fixed positions at certain battlefields; some of which might include castles.[18] – Steven Sharif
We will have certain systems that won't lend well to streaming, because certain systems have a requirement of secrecy and/or at least some level of strategic ambiguity. So players need to be conscientious of that fact when they're intending to both stream and play Ashes of Creation. Those are things that we cannot solve because intrigue is an intrinsic part of the game.[19] – Steven Sharif
Our castle system, our sieges against nodes, the caravan system, battlegrounds that exist, guild wars: We want there to be a meaning to this conflict. We want players to actually have some skin in the game when it comes to participating in PvP.[20] – Steven Sharif

Sieges

Node sieges

Node sieges (Pre-alpha footage).[21]

As some areas in the world grow, others will fall. This is the foundation of the living, breathing world that is Ashes of Creation, where players will have the ability to make important decisions that matter in the longevity of an area becoming a city, or whether to siege a rival town. Rise above the ashes, create the world around you, and be a part of the story that unfolds because of your actions and decisions.[22] – Margaret Krohn

Node sieges enable players to destroy nodes starting at Village (stage 3).[22] This paves the way for new development and access to the locked content in surrounding nodes. Due to this dynamic, political strife and intrigue play an important role in the structure of the world.[23]

  • Sieging nodes will not be an easy task for the attackers. Cities and metropolises will have a considerable defensive advantage.[23]
  • There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.[24]
If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city![20] – Steven Sharif

Castle sieges

Alpha-1 castle siege gameplay.[26]

Throughout Ashes of Creation, the player has an opportunity to participate in massively multiplayer siege warfare. Since castles are likely the world’s most limited resource, it will be a task to secure and hold them. Involving hundreds of players on a single battlefield, our sieges will employ many moving parts and intricate design features. Because of the difficult nature of taking and keeping a castle there are great rewards available to the players for their efforts. Castles will allow players to exert control over nearby lands and allow for the development of unique buildings in the nearby towns.[27]

Guilds participate in Castle sieges in an effort to capture and occupy one of the five guild castles in Ashes of Creation.[28]

  • The minimum goal is for 250x250 players to be on a single battlefield. It is hoped that this can be increased to 500x500 over time.[32][33][34][35]
  • There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.[24]
  • There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[25]
I love castle-based gameplay. I love trophies. I like rewarding risk a lot; and for me it's very difficult to imagine a MMO that I would want to play where there is not competition of strategic prowess that determines the outcome of these types of events and there is not a meaningful reward both mechanically and from just a bragging rights perspective that players can aim for and try to achieve. I think that it brings a lot to the game when it comes to motivations, to excel, to level, to gain power, to engage those different progression loops when there is an ultimate goal or trophy that is not static and doesn't exist forever once you achieve it, but that you must constantly perform in order to maintain; and that's really the purpose of these castles.[39] – Steven Sharif

A guild that captures a castle will own that castle for a month before it is sieged again.[40][41]

Each week leading up to the siege week... is a week that's dedicated to one of the three castle dedicated nodes. So around the castle there are three nodes. They represent week, one, two, and three; and then the fourth week is the siege against the castle. Those can only be elevated up to stage three. We've discussed this in the past and there's definitely information out there on the community ran wiki.[40] – Steven Sharif
  • In the first three weeks that a guild occupies a castle they will need to level up each of their castle nodes to Village stage through questing.[40][41]
    • Each of the three castle nodes have a siege against it at the end of each of these three weeks.[41][42]
  • The fourth week is declaration week, where other guilds have the opportunity to lay down their declaration flag or to sign up as a defender of the castle.[40][41]
  • Depending on how well the guild defends their castle nodes results in better defenses for the castle.[41][42]
  • Different siege weaponry will grant the attackers the ability to destroy walls, doors and sections of the castle in order to gain access to the inner keep area.[43]
  • When castles change hands (following a siege), some taxes stay with the castle and some stay with the guild.[44]
There will be benefits to attracting people... even if they're not in your guild or alliance – a feudal like system, where you can attract other players who are just independent of this whole politic. They will have things to do there - benefits to receive - and there will be a reciprocal relationship between who you can attract, what they do for you; and how that benefits you and them.[41] – Steven Sharif

Caravan PvP

Caravan PvP in Alpha-1.[45]

We're trying to create these ways for people who maybe are used to a more solo MMO-like gameplay experience to have easy ways to take that first step into collaborating or competing with each other. So that's really one of the things that we spend a lot of time talking about for this system.[46] – Nathan Moore

Caravans create an objective-based PvP event in the open-world that players can choose to attack, defend, or ignore via a UI window.[47][48][49]

  • Players that choose to attack or defend the caravan will be flagged as combatants.[50]
    • The UI notification will include the caravan owner's name and guild.[51]
    • The proximity that the UI window appears is determined by the player's performance as either a defender or an attacker in previous raids.[47]
    • Once registered as a defender, a player can't switch to attack the caravan.[52]
    • The proximity radius for notification of nearby caravan events can be increased or decreased based on the caravan's components or a player's progression in the highwayman system.[53]
At a certain proximity to the caravan, any player will receive the event notification to participate either as an attacker or as a defender. That proximity radius can be augmented either through players advancement within the Highwaymen system, which is for defenders or attackers you can increase the radius, but also the components can increase and or decrease the radius of that event notification as well.[53] – Steven Sharif
  • There will be visual hints relating to the cargo being transported on caravans, but players will not be able to see the exact contents of the caravan.[54][55] Cargo is represented in this way even if a cosmetic caravan skin has been applied to the caravan.[54][55]
  • Players can be registered participants in a caravan event involving multiple caravans.[56][52] It is not possible for a player to participate in more than one caravan event at a time.[57]
As a player you can participate in events that have as many caravans collocated as you want. So if you have 20 Caravans that you're trying to move all in a single caravan raid with all of your players you can join all 20 of those caravans into the same caravan defense group; and that is that is the intent of the system. The same is true for the attackers. The attackers can join against all of those caravans.[56] – Steven Sharif
  • Players or mounts trying to block caravans will be pushed out of the way.[60][61]
As it stands currently it would be difficult for players to be able to block the caravan. Now that's not to say that certain types of effects cannot be applied to the caravan through ability use, such as slowing effects, or pause effects, stun effects, against the caravan itself, not the rider. But right now we do have a collision priority system which means that vehicles move players and mounts. Mounts and players cannot stop vehicles from moving the vehicle. Its collision has priority; and then ships have the ultimate priority. Nothing can move ships or block ships.[60] – Steven Sharif
  • If a caravan's driver is killed or otherwise removed from the caravan then any player will be able to drive the caravan for a period of 15 to 20 minutes before the caravan despawns and becomes a wreckage.[62] A caravan will persist in the world for a period of 5 to 10 minutes from the time its owner logs out or is disconnected from the server.[63]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • A group will be required to successfully attack a caravan.[64][65]

Caravan PvP incentives and risks

There will be incentives and risks for both caravan attackers and defenders.[5][16] These will be tested and refined during the alpha and beta testing phases.[66]

There is a level of risk that comes with the attacker. We have progression paths that exist for bandits and that exists for defenders; and if you choose to opt into a caravan attack- you sign up for that attack and you fail that attack- it is detrimental to your path of progression down the bandit area. That's one thing: Two is of course you have gear decay. You have degradation that can be suffered if you die. That is a cost. And then you also have a reputation; and if your reputation precedes you when you want to transit goods across the world; and you see somebody who's doing it and you want to participate as a defender or a participant, they might say hey screw you, you were just murdering my people last week and I saw that you're like on the top of the bandit list for killing caravans. So it has repercussions in the sense that it locks you out of certain player groups. It provides decay to your armor. It has deleterious effects on your progression, and the attacking- and the bandit progression of caravan attacks or defense.[5] – Steven Sharif
  • Other incentives and risks are social and are created (informally) between players.[5][66]

Naval PvP

Ships moving into an open sea naval PvP zone (open waters/deep ocean areas) will automatically flag players as Combatants (purple).[4][14][15] Corrupted (red) players will remain red while in the open sea.[70][71][10]

Another important change that has occurred is the open seas is now an automatic flagged location. So when you move off of land we have a flagging system that protects and the open seas are international waters where you need to be careful; and there is a lot of opportunity at Sea; and because there's a lot of opportunity that's unique to that content- that's unique to that sea: that's treasure finding; that's NPCs; that's a lot of different stuff there needs to be risk associated with opportunity.[14] – Steven Sharif
If you are not corrupt and you enter the open seas you will be taking a mitigated form of the death penalties, which means you will have a debuff applied upon death and in addition you will still suffer the gear degradation or gear decay upon death as well. But you will essentially be either significantly reduced in the experience debt accrued through death in the open seas if you're not corrupt, or there won't be experience debt accrued in the open sees if you are not corrupt.[70] – Steven Sharif
  • Open sea zones have better resources in more abundance to compensate for the added level of risk.[73]
We have a very intuitive UI that as you approach the border between open sea and coastal area you are notified of that. You are warned ahead of time. There's a countdown when approaching. We interpolate the distance travel and speed you're moving and you get to see "I'm entering open waters"; and when you do you have this big trophy call out on screen that says "You have entered the open sea. Territory fraught."[72] – Steven Sharif

Operators of a ship's weapons platform can initiate naval PvP against another ship in the following cases.[15]

Guild wars

Guild wars are objective-based PvP events between guilds.[74][75]

  • Guild wars are not permanent. Definitive victory/surrender conditions exist that are based on the level of the warring guilds and the assets that those guilds have.[78][80]
  • Guild wars are considered a core system of Alpha-2.[81]
Q: How do you plan on keeping wars fresh long term? Typically in other games wars become one dimensional in terms of strategy. Will intrepid be looking at map changes every few years, or will you give guilds / node mayors the ability to customize the layout or objectives of the battlefield?
A: Our guild wars have objective-based gameplay that spawn in the world based on several different factors and predicates that might exist. Some of those predicates might be where is your guild a patron guild of? Does your guild have a guild hall? What node is your guild leader and/or officers a citizen of? What was your last completed raid boss? All of those can serve as predicates to then spawn a certain objective within the world that players have to either engage with in a number of different manners. Either they can be kill objectives, they can be control objectives, they can be capture and move objectives. They could be a caravan caravan summons that need to take supplies from those objectives. The idea is to incorporate all of these other ancillary systems that exist within the game in some way shape or form- tie it into the guild war, because we've created those systems for a reason. We want players to engage with those systems, so why not hook those systems into the guild war format? And I think that that creates a very dynamic setting where it is not just about killing and logging out, but rather strategy in both your resource placement, how you respond, and when you respond, the composition of your raid/group teams. Those types of things play a role now in the outcome of those guild wars and I think they keep it fresh because it'll be different per war.[74] – 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.

Visuals

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Types of Events on Verra.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Video, September 29, 2023 (2:59).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Livestream, February 24, 2023 (1:29:45).
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Livestream, October 28, 2022 (24:28).
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 Livestream, June 30, 2022 (1:14:52).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Livestream, April 29, 2022 (41:27).
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Livestream, May 5, 2017 (14:26).
  8. ↑ Livestream, May 19, 2017 (45:14).
  9. ↑ MMOGames interview, January 2017
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 jindrack-pvp-events.png
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Podcast, April 11, 2021 (49:40).
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 pvp meaningful.png
  13. ↑ Livestream, November 17, 2017 (45:19).
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:00:14).
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 Livestream, April 30, 2021 (1:06:41).
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 16.7 16.8 Livestream, August 27, 2021 (1:22:56).
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 Livestream, December 22, 2020 (1:13:51).
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Twitch Bustin - PvP Spectating.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:14:00).
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Video, April 30, 2017 (5:31).
  21. ↑ Video, December 4, 2016 (0:02).
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Blog - Know Your Nodes - Advance and Destroy.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 A reactive world - Nodes.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Twitch Bustin - Practice Sieges?
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Livestream, January 28, 2022 (17:50).
  26. ↑ Video, May 28, 2021 (25:44).
  27. ↑ About Ashes of Creation.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 castle nodes.png
  29. ↑ Livestream, July 29, 2022 (1:12:14).
  30. ↑ Interview, July 29, 2020 (31:05).
  31. ↑ Interview, July 18, 2020 (13:13).
  32. ↑ Livestream, September 24, 2021 (52:48).
  33. ↑ Interview, July 8, 2021 (57:19).
  34. ↑ Interview, July 19, 2020 (44:28).
  35. ↑ castle-siege-scale.png
  36. ↑ steven-siege-zone.png
  37. ↑ Livestream, April 30, 2021 (41:18).
  38. ↑ Blog: Creative Director's Letter, April 14 2021
  39. ↑ Interview, September 10, 2023 (25:14).
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 40.2 40.3 Livestream, August 28, 2020 (1:43:03).
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 41.3 41.4 41.5 Podcast, April 23, 2018 (21:55).
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Livestream, August 23, 2017 (23:00).
  43. ↑ Podcast, April 23, 2018 (15:14).
  44. ↑ castle-taxes5.png
  45. ↑ Livestream, March 28, 2020 (1:27:28).
  46. ↑ Video, October 31, 2023 (21:17).
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Interview, March 27, 2020 (16:19).
  48. ↑ caravan UI.png
  49. ↑ Livestream, May 22, 2017 (40:40).
  50. ↑ caravan zone.png
  51. ↑ Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:32:54).
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 Video, October 31, 2023 (37:16).
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 53.2 53.3 Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:11:26).
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 Video, October 31, 2023 (29:36).
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 Livestream, January 29, 2021 (1:25:14).
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:32:04).
  57. ↑ Livestream, October 28, 2022 (1:36:10).
  58. ↑ Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:08:22).
  59. ↑ Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:33:48).
  60. ↑ 60.0 60.1 60.2 Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:30:52).
  61. ↑ Livestream, April 28, 2023 (1:21:29).
  62. ↑ Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:27:50).
  63. ↑ Livestream, July 25, 2020 (55:32).
  64. ↑ Livestream, May 15, 2017 (45:20).
  65. ↑ Livestream, May 22, 2017 (40:41).
  66. ↑ 66.0 66.1 66.2 66.3 Livestream, February 26, 2021 (1:16:21).
  67. ↑ Livestream, September 24, 2021 (1:22:46).
  68. ↑ Interview, July 18, 2020 (16:34).
  69. ↑ flagging.jpg
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 70.2 70.3 Interview, July 9, 2023 (36:56).
  71. ↑ jindrack-naval-pvp.png
  72. ↑ 72.0 72.1 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:03:43).
  73. ↑ Livestream, October 28, 2022 (1:41:55).
  74. ↑ 74.0 74.1 74.2 Interview, September 10, 2023 (18:10).
  75. ↑ Podcast, August 4, 2018 (1:54:15).
  76. ↑ 76.0 76.1 steven-wars-prime-time.png
  77. ↑ 77.0 77.1 Livestream, May 22, 2017 (52:01).
  78. ↑ 78.0 78.1 Livestream, December 22, 2020 (1:08:41).
  79. ↑ Podcast, August 18, 2018 (1:12:34).
  80. ↑ 80.0 80.1 80.2 Livestream, May 15, 2017 (17:20).
  81. ↑ Livestream, March 31, 2023 (1:24:21).
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