Gear slots

Alpha-2 character sheet work-in-progress 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.

Back slots

Backpack sockets (slots).

A big component of the MMORPG that - half of that acronym is RPG role-playing game. And in order to role-play you need to be able to represent what your character is doing in that world and part of what animation is doing is creating these sockets on the let's say the belt or the back that can plug in certain types of props or items that are created by the character team, like Carson, might be a scroll tube, it might be a potion, it might be whatever: Those players will have the ability as we've discussed in the past will have the ability to select what they want to be represented in those sockets and then animation will make sure that jibe well in movement. – Steven Sharif

Back slots include.

• Ranged slot.
• Cloak/Cape.
• Accessory (backpack etc).
• Shields.
  • Shields have likely been moved to an offhand slot.

Belt slots

Mage character with material components for spell casting attached to its belt.

The idea is to move away from the mundane application of belts in previous MMOs where they don't really have a lot of character so to speak. But in reality as an adventurer you come with a lot of tools and things that you have to use out in the wild in order to achieve what you're trying to achieve. So we wanted to represent that on your character and give you something that can actually be tangible for your character and see there. I think it adds a lot of character and flavor to your identity. – Steven Sharif

Belt slots (hip slots) include.

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

Mainhand slot

A player's primary weapon is equipped in their mainhand slot.

• Players can select which weapon they wish to use as their primary weapon for basic attacks.
• Two-handed and dual wielded weapons occupy both main and offhand gear slots.

Offhand slot

Alpha-2 Spell focus offhand item.

Offhand items are items that can be equipped in a player's offhand slot, such as shields, spell focuses, and sigils.

• Only one-handed weapons may be equipped when the offhand slot is in use.
• Previously, shields were equipped in a back slot.
• Dual wielded weapons occupy both main and offhand gear slots.

Jewelry slots

There are 5 Jewelry gear slots.

• 2 Accessory slots.
• 1 Necklace slot.
• 2 Ring slots.

Artisan slots

Artisan gear slots

Work-in-progress Alpha-2 character user interface showing three gear slots for artisan gear at the bottom right of the paper-doll.

There's gear for all of the different crafting, gathering, and processing professions that'll help you do those different trades. – Kory Rice

Artisan gear boosts artisans in their gathering, processing, or crafting professions.

• Profession NPCs sell lower level artisan gear. Higher level gear is crafted by players.

• There are three artisan gear slots on a character's paper doll UI. Previously these was referred to as undergarment slots.

• Artisan gear and adventuring gear do not need to be swapped for either to be effective when they are equipped on a character, but players will be able to toggle gear visibility between their adventuring and artisan gear.

If you want to be seen as wearing the herbalists outfit, you're still going to have your adventuring gear present and on the character, and benefiting from the stats that are conferred by them; and vice-versa. – Steven Sharif

• The developers are planning to have artisan gear sets available for Alpha-2.

• Gathering tools and artisan gear have stats that affect gathering rates and yields.

Gear for artisans are going to live alongside your adventuring gear. So you will currently- the approaches, and we'll test this but currently- the approach is you'll have artisanship oriented gear. This might be beneficial for your gathering; it might be beneficial for your processing, or crafting, or whatever it is- your profession. Essentially you will craft that gear, you will equip that gear, it'll live almost as a undergarment slot so to speak; and then you can activate that and it will show the appearance if you wish during the activation when you gain the benefit from the from the gear itself; and then could disappear afterwards and go back to your adventuring gear. That's the current approach. We're going to play with that a little bit. There's some discussion and disagreement on the team about how we do that, but our hopes are for Alpha two, we will have I think a couple of sets at least. We're demonstrating all of the artisanship from gathering to processing to crafting in limited fashion in Alpha 2 want to have that gear present to play with this approach. – Steven Sharif

Artisan tool slots

Crafting an apprentice herbalism gathering tool in Alpha-2.

Different professions will have a number of quests available to introduce players to their first toolsets; and then, their toolset sustainability will be incumbent on the player to continue to gather the resources necessary to repeatedly create these tools, because they have a durability that gets expended when interacting with the resources in the open-world. – Steven Sharif

Gathering Halcyonite using a mining pick gathering tool.

Each gathering profession will have three tools. The tools come online as you progress through the profession; and the different resource types for each one of the professions may require different tools. So, you basically want to carry around the right tool for the job. And tools along with artisanship gear will have stats on it, so you can itemize towards how you want to gather, how fast you want to gather. – Kory Rice

Gathering tools (also referred to as harvesting tools, artisan tools, and toolsets) enable the gathering of resources in Ashes of Creation.

• Each gathering profession has three gathering tools. Each tool allows gathering of different resource types.
  • Each profession has quests that introduce players to their first toolsets.
  • Gathering tools and artisan gear have stats that affect gathering rates and yields.

• Gatherers must meet the required artisan certification to utilize tools of that level (or lower).

• Gathering tools are equipped to a character's artisan tool slot.

• Progression in the gathering artisan class unlocks higher level harvesting tools that enable gathering of higher level resources.
  • Artisan progression unlocks higher level surveying tools that enable better identification of gatherable resources within a location.
  • Higher level of progression can also speed up gathering times, resource yields, and may allow access to resources at earlier growth stages.
  • A gatherer at maximum proficiency will unlock master toolsets that will grant them access to the highest quality gatherables.

Tools do advance within the artisan tree, so your ability to either gather, process or craft will require the equivalent tools necessary at that stage of crafting in order to accomplish the task at hand. So, you could not mine copper and mithril with the same tool. – Steven Sharif

• Tools will have durability and lifespans.
  • The amount of usages of a gathering tool increases as the gatherer becomes more proficient in the gathering artisan tree.
  • Tools may become non-repairable, requiring re crafting.

• Artisans will not need to rely on other trees in order to make their tools.

• The developers are considering the introduction of gathering tools that require two players, such as two-person saws that can fell larger trees.

Your progression within the profession will take account what tools you can use. There might even be some opportunity to do some gathering with other players that . Typically in other games that I play you usually do the gathering alone. You're venturing around alone; and we wanted to take a look at maybe having a friend to help you with a two person saw on a larger tree. Maybe there's some panning that you could do as opposed to just hitting with the pickaxe. So, we'll have other tools that are part of that progression path and other activities that players can do if they would like to gather together. – Kory Rice

Switching gear/loadouts

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

• 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.

• Weapon swapping is possible while in combat but armor cannot be swapped while in combat.
  • 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

Appearance priority

Players can set the appearance priority for the items they wish to show in their Back and Belt slots.

• Only one item can show at a time, and that is determined by player choice.
• 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 automatically swap in and out as required by the skill.
• Weapons are able to be sheathed.
• Idle animations will be selectible by players in the character creator.

Visuals

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  2020-08-28
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  2018-05-20

See also

• Weapons
• Armor
• Gear sets
• Backpacks
• Accessories