Threat assessment

You decide to gank the player, but find out that you have been ambushed!

Players will have a buff on their nameplate that indicates the gear set they are wearing. Other players will be able to see this buff by targeting that player at a distance.

• This will indicate the type of armor (cloth, leather, plate) that they are predominantly wearing.

You can target a player. You're going to see what type of armor they have based on a buff they have available to them because obviously cosmetics can change appearance. You might have different silhouettes as a result of that. – Steven Sharif

• The border will indicate the level and quality of the tier set.
  • This also indicates if the gear is enchanted, along with visual effects associated with enchanted items.
• The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior".

When you see a player approaching you and they're wearing a transmog you don't know if that person is a high damage mitigation against physical damage or against magical damage and essentially the way we overcome that is through you being able to target a player at a distance and they will have a buff that's present on them that you will see, which indicates that essentially the piece set that they are wearing. It is important for players to be able to ascertain from a threat assessment standpoint what they're going up against if they're actively checking that, and that will be available. – Steven Sharif

Health

During PvP, detailed information about your opponent's HP is obscured. This means you will not know the exact HP percentage an opponent has.

Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's exact health bar values or percentages. This information will instead be displayed in quarters. A player may be able to progress to see sixths or eighths.

• NPCs will always show exact health values.
• Previously it was stated that a player's name plate would deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.

If you are targeting another player specifically, another player not an NPC. If you're targeting another player and that player is not a member of your guild, alliance, raid, or party- those are the four affiliation factors. If they're not a part of those four groups you will not have specific information of their HP level. You will have quarters of information to their [HP] level and you may progress to get that a bit more granular, perhaps to sixths or eighths. You're not going to have exact information about what amount of hit points they have available to them. That level of obfuscation protects a bit of that engagement, that TTK interaction. So you might overshoot a target if you don't know exactly if they're down to their last 20% or 25%. That I think is a very healthy thing to have in PvP, but it is not a normal game design mechanic. – Steven Sharif

• Max Health is a Constitution stat in Ashes of Creation.

Nameplate

Nameplate in the Alpha-2 party UI.

The icon in the corner next to Steven's nameplate: that little icon is actually his secondary archetype that he hasn't unlocked. – Margaret Krohn

Alpha-2 nameplates, targeting plates, and raid frame UI.

There have been some updates to a little bit of the nameplates that Colby and the UI team have implemented, as well as some of the targeting plates as well. – Steven Sharif

Nameplates are displayed above the head.

• Player character nameplates will have first, and optionally last name (surname).
  • The name of the character's guild is displayed next to their name.
  • An icon will identify the character's class.
  • Hovering over a player nameplate will show information such as level, class name, and archetype combo.
  • A buff icon will indicate the character's gear and grade.
  • Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's exact health bar values or percentages. This information will instead be displayed in quarters. A player may be able to progress to see sixths or eighths.
  • Nameplates in the party UI indicate the player's choice of secondary archetype.
    • A padlock icon indicates that the secondary archetype is not yet unlocked.
• The size and priority of nameplates will be relate to their distance (away from the camera).
• The visibility of nameplates can be obscured by in-game objects, such as trees; by utility skills, such as Camouflage or Stealth; or through the use of disguises.
• UI settings will enable nameplates to be hidden, resized, and customized.

You can set nameplates to always appear. You can set it to only appear on targets. You can set it to only appear on targets that have taken damage. You can set it to only appear on targets that are aggroing you or your party members. You can set it for your allies, for yourself, for whatever: There's a lot of highly customizable options that are currently in the game. – Steven Sharif

• Summoner summons' creature type appears in the nameplate above the summon. This cannot be changed by the player.
• Mob nameplates will have indicators that identify resistances, buffs, end elite status.
  • A star format may be utilized to indicate hit point allocation.

Gear sets

2nd Sword Division non-cosmetic gear set 3D renders. 3D model by Keith Kovach.

Not all armor sets will be the cookie cutter set. They will have the influences from the crafter available in it, if it's a crafted set. – Steven Sharif

Equipping the Titanbark gear set in Alpha-2.

We're going relatively traditional in the gear access points by being driven by level tier that players will have access to. So as you advance in your adventuring class you will begin to unlock the ability to equip gear of a higher level. – Steven Sharif

Gear sets (also known as tier sets) are a part of Ashes of Creation.

• In general, higher tier gear will be from gear sets.

Q: How often will armor be part of an entire armor set with other cosmetically matching pieces versus unique armor pieces that don't match or go along with anything else in the game?

A: There is a balance of both set pieces and non-set pieces and usually you're going to see at higher grades within a tier are going to be more predominantly set driven; and the lower interstitial power levels of the gear for that tier are the potentially bespoke pieces; and obviously those pieces are catered around a number of different interactions, such as ones you get from quests, ones that you get from drops, ones that you can craft, ones that you get from legendary bosses, ones that you get from guild-oriented tasks, or in-game favor and unique currencies. So there's different types of acquisition models and each of them has a spattering of either bespoke pieces or set-oriented pieces; and there are even varying levels of set pieces as well. So you might have a full eight piece set, or a three-piece set, or a five piece set, depending on where it lives within the tier. – Steven Sharif

• Players gain bonuses depending on the number and tier of pieces they have equipped.

• Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.

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

• Approximately 49 unique gear sets were obtainable in Alpha-1 from crafting, quests, drops and exploration. These were unique sets with different stats, but some may be similar in appearance.

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

• There are passive abilities that can be chosen to become more adept with certain set types.
• There will be viable non-set builds.

See also

• Gear
• Combat
• PvP
• Character