User interface

Alpha-2 UI customization.^[1]

The UI implementation will be highly customizable, whether it be from resizing, a movement, recoloring, different types of UI flavors that will be presented and offered to players as well. We want to have a very very robust UI system so we know that that's something that's more personally oriented in people's preferences rather than something that can be a one-size-fits-all.^[2] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 raid frames UI with proximity tracking.^[3]

The Ashes of Creation user interface (UI) and HUD is built with customization in mind, rather than being one-size-fits-all.^[4]^[5]^[2]^[6]

Users will be able to quickly customize UI elements on-the-fly (default keybind: Shift + H) to suit the PvX nature of the game and different styles of combat. This includes moving UI items around the screen, adjusting their sizes, and showing or hiding specific items. Not all UI elements can be individually hidden, but this will likely be expanded during Alpha-2.^[4]^[1]^[5]

You can also move those elements around the screen: position them where you want them to. You can increase and decrease the sizes of those elements. Customization is obviously a very important aspect of UI, because each of us has unique preferences that are predicated on what we've enjoyed in the past and in how we want to play our game, so we are totally on board with customization.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Customization of UI elements, especially there on the HUD is a top desired aspect of our UI team.^[5] – Steven Sharif

Users will be able to save and load UI profiles, such as switching to a custom UI profile for raids.^[7]

One of the first things we did when we were starting to block in the very base features of our HUD editor was talking about saving and loading profiles. We're going to have options for, when I'm in a raid automatically change my UI to this UI.^[7] – Colby Marchi

The user interface in Alpha-2 will have options to support hover-over casting and double-tap application of AoE effects on the cursor location.^[8]

One of the big goals of our UI team and our design team is to accommodate a whole host of different types of user options that they're capable of setting, because we all have different play styles; and in that regard those include things like hover-over casting, double-tap application of AoE effects on cursor location- just a lot of different options, because people like to play different ways.^[8] – Steven Sharif

The UI in Alpha-1 was placeholder and will not be fully implemented until Alpha-2.^[9]^[10]

Q: Can you guys make an option for UI elements to be switched off or on? For example, I always loved to play with less info on my screen so I feel more immersed. I would love to be able to turn off the nameplates, health bars, and mainly the glowing circles under every target or player.

A: Colby and Grat and the UI team in general agrees with this sentiment. I do as well. We want as much customization as possible. Currently you can disable some of those elements. We're going to be expanding that to all elements in the future.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Tutorial systems

Tutorial systems are intended to be in place for Alpha-2.^[11]^[10]

We do intend to have and this is for entrance criteria of Alpha-2 a trigger response when players engage with certain systems for the first time, or when they are entering a certain area for the first time, or entering a node for the first time, that they will be able to be prompted with information about how they should go about first-time user experience sort-of-thing. That is going to obviously help orient players to the different systems within the game, because there are many.^[11] – Steven Sharif

First-time user experience

A first-time user experience system is expected to be implemented during the beta testing phases.^[12]

The first-time user experience is something that's going to have a lot of love and attention during Betas, but is not going to have much attention during Alpha-2. But it is intended for us to have a very in-depth first-time user experience to introduce players to the number of different systems. They're not going to be super in-depth. We don't believe that first-time user experiences should handhold players through all of the processes and reveal the world, so to speak, but just to give them a shallow touch for these systems so that they understand the concepts and essentially how to navigate.^[12] – Steven Sharif

Character

Character nameplate

Nameplate in the Alpha-2 party UI.^[13]

The icon in the corner next to Steven's nameplate: that little icon is actually his secondary archetype that he hasn't unlocked.^[14] – Margaret Krohn

Alpha-2 nameplates, targeting plates, and raid frame UI.^[15]

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.^[15] – Steven Sharif

Nameplates are displayed above the head.^[16]

Player character nameplates will have first, and optionally last name (surname).^[16]
- The name of the character's guild is displayed next to their name.^[17]
- An icon will identify the character's class.^[18]
- Hovering over a player nameplate will show information such as level, class name, and archetype combo.^[18]
- A buff icon will indicate the character's gear and grade.^[18]^[19]^[20]
- 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.^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26] This information will instead be displayed in quarters. A player may be able to progress to see sixths or eighths.^[22]
- Nameplates in the party UI indicate the player's choice of secondary archetype.^[14]
  - A padlock icon indicates that the secondary archetype is not yet unlocked.^[14]
The size and priority of nameplates will be relate to their distance (away from the camera).^[27]
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.^[28]^[29]
UI settings will enable nameplates to be hidden, resized, and customized.^[21]^[30]^[31]

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.^[30] – Steven Sharif

Summoner summons' creature type appears in the nameplate above the summon. This cannot be changed by the player.^[32]
Mob nameplates will have indicators that identify resistances, buffs, end elite status.^[33]
- A star format may be utilized to indicate hit point allocation.^[33]

Character naming

Characters will have a first-name and an optional surname (last name).^[34]

Character names are unique per server realm.^[35]
- Character name changes will be possible during server merges.^[35]

There is a minimum length of three for a character name.^[36]
Special characters, including apostrophes and hyphens, are currently not allowed in character names.^[37]

Currently we don't allow special characters in character names (including apostrophes and/or hyphens). It's possible this changes in the future.^[37] – Ry Schueller

Character names will appear on the character sheet and optionally on the character website page.^[16]

In-game a character's name is displayed above their head. This can be the first or last name.^[16]

Character page

There is no planned in-game functionality to leave personal notes regarding player characters.^[38]

We don't plan to have in-game tools to provide that tracking. Instead you will be expected to track that yourselves.^[38] – 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:^[39]

What a character looks like.^[39]
Achievements and server firsts.^[39]
Info on a player's class.^[39]
Character's back story via journal entries (that are shared publicly by the player).^[40]^[41]
Traits can be applied that describe a character's history.^[41]

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.^[41] – Steven Sharif

The character page will be accessible in game by opening a browser through the UI.^[40]

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.^[40] – Steven Sharif

The player can manage what info is shown on the character page.^[39]

Friends list

A character may add another character to their friends list.^[42]

In the future there may be a web-based or launcher-based capability to add an account as a friend, but this is not definite.^[42]

Floating combat text

Alpha-2 Floating combat text work-in-progress UI.^[43]

Damage you take, which is indicated in this red number, floats towards your left-hand side; and when you do damage to a target they float to your right-hand side. Now one of the very important aspects of these floating texts is providing the player with customization options that they can adjust the size of the floating text. They can adjust the color composition on how these texts are represented. They can also include damage icons to indicate the ability that's used for those floating texts; and importantly we also call out the crits that you do in a separate way: how they pop in they're slightly above the other number; and then more so, we also have additional functionality for cumulative damage.^[43] – Steven Sharif

Floating combat text shows damage taken, damage dealt, cumulative damage, crits, heals, XP gained, and other important combat indicators.^[43]

Damage taken appears in red and floats to the left by default.^[43]
Damage dealt appears in yellow and floats to the right by default.^[43]
Crits appear larger and are slightly above the other numbers by default.^[43]
XP appears in white and is slightly lower on the UI by default.^[43]

Floating combat text can be customized by the player.^[43]^[9]

Damage Dealt Font.^[44]
Critical Damage Dealt Font.^[44]
Damage Taken Font.^[44]
Critical Damage Taken Font.^[44]
Health Dealt Font.^[44]
Critical Health Dealt Font.^[44]
Health Taken Font.^[44]
Critical Health Taken Font.^[44]

Providing maximum flexibility and player customization options for these floating texts I think is super important.^[43] – Steven Sharif

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

Damage icons to indicate the ability used.^[43]

Action bar

Alpha-2 Tank action bar (hotbar) user interface.^[45]

Players can build their characters with the active skills they want on their action bar (hotbar).^[46]^[47]^[48]

The maximum number of skills a player can have on their action bar will be around 15-20.^[49]^[50]
- Each archetype will have roughly 35-40 skills to choose from on average.^[51]
There will be an option to include multiple action bars (hotbars) on a player's UI.^[52]^[46]^[48] For example: One Fighter will be different from another based on what active skills they have chosen.^[50]

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.^[52] – Steven Sharif

Players are not given skills as they level up, they must choose what skills they take.^[53]
There is no spellbook requiring memorization.^[54]

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.^[46] – Steven Sharif

UI settings

Alpha-2 user interface settings work-in-progress UI.^[55]

Player customization options are paramount when it comes to UI. That is a very subjective thing that we've all become- our own flavors we like out of certain components of the UI; and so instead of trying to force down the throat of our players a specific approach to UI, why do that when we can develop options and customization that the players can influence themselves: That includes color compositions, it includes text sizes, includes bolded, it includes options of which informations you're choosing to display, scaling.^[56] – Steven Sharif

User interface settings will have solid defaults along with detailed customization of Ashes of Creation for those who wish to customise their UI.^[7]^[2]^[57]^[6]

Our mantra is really solid defaults, so most people won't need to touch anything, but then the customization for everybody who wants to.^[7] – Colby Marchi

Selecting different UI flavors.^[2]
Resizing, moving, recoloring, and hiding UI components.^[4]^[56]^[2]
There will be an option to include multiple action bars (hotbars) on a player's UI.^[52]^[46]^[48]
Text sizes, text boldness.^[56]
Combat text, such as damage, criticals and crowd-control.^[43]^[9]
Target reticles appearances may be offered.^[58]
Combat targeting templates and decals may be offered.^[59]
Adjusting screen shake.^[60]^[61]^[62]
User interface scale adjustments may be provided.^[56]^[63]
Nameplates can be hidden, resized, and customized.^[21]^[31]
Saving and loading UI profiles, such as switching to a custom UI profile for raids.^[7]
User interface settings are saved locally.^[57]
- User interface layouts will likely not be able to be shared between players.^[64]

Various display elements can be toggled on or off.^[56]

Character names.^[65]
Guild names.^[65]
Enemy names.^[65]
Party names.^[65]
Alliance members.^[65]
Helmet.^[66]

Game settings allow players to fine tune performance to suit their preferences and hardware capabilities.^[67]^[68]^[69]

Particle effects and rendering.^[70]
Effects bloom and brightness.^[67]
Effect elements and channels.^[67]
Motion blur will be togglable on and off.^[71]

We'll have certain features from a scalability setting standpoint that will allow players to even further tone down both the bloom and brightness of these types of effects has. Also in addition some of the elements and channels of those effects as well.^[67] – Steven Sharif

Gameplay actors, such as foliage density will not be able to be adjusted by players.^[72]

Later stages of game polish will address quality-of-life issues, such as foliage blocking the player's camera.^[73]

We will not allow players to to adjust the density of foliage actors in the world. That will be universal... There are going to be areas that are more dense than others. It's meant to be part of the a part of the world that players can utilize for certain purposes, like hiding in for PvP. However, there will be collision with those foliage actors and the player capsule. So as you might see that bush moving and think, "Huh that's odd. That doesn't look like wind. There must be something there." And that's the immersion that we want.^[72] – Steven Sharif

Accessibility settings

There will be settings to aid colorblind players.^[74]^[75]

User interface elements will utilize textures and icons to distinguish them, in addition to color.^[74]

There may be an accessibility option to differentiate spells cast by enemies.^[76]

Camera settings

Camera perspective concept art.^[77]

The aim is to provide a variety of camera options in Ashes of Creation.^[78]

A "pretty significant" zoom out distance for the camera will be possible.^[79]^[80]

Things will render in the world out of your current vision. While the quality may change between high end and low end systems, and what settings players select, it's important to us to have the game render in an effective manner, that also adds to everyone's immersion while in the game.^[79] – Cody Peterson

Adjustments will be provided for screen shake and other settings that may be nauseating to some users.^[61]
First-person point-of-view may be able to be achieved by zooming the camera, but the game is fundamentally third-person.^[81]

We don't have the first-person zoom in because when you get into first-person there's a different animation set required for the holding of the weapon: The hands that you see in front of you; and we don't have those animations. So we're really focusing on third-person.^[81] – Steven Sharif

Q: What camera distance is Intrepid using for fights? (WoW vs FF14)

A: Closer to FF14. We want people to have a wide range of view, especially since our battles will be very large. We want people to be able to visually access their surroundings.^[82] – Margaret Krohn

The action combat camera is tied to the to the player's targeting reticle.^[83]^[84]

There will likely be a hotkey that when held down will allow free camera movement in action mode.^[84]
In future the user will have the ability to choose from different reticle appearances.^[58]

Later stages of game polish will address quality-of-life issues, such as foliage blocking the player's camera.^[73]

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

Camera field-of-view (FoV) is customizable.^[85]
Camera mechanics are similar to ArcheAge (hold mouse buttons to move the camera).^[86]

Control settings

Alpha-1 default keybindings.^[87]

Players will be able to customize their keyboard control scheme in Ashes of Creation.^[88]

Keybinds were not yet adjustable (in Alpha-1).^[89]
Action targeting can be toggled via a key to enable mouse targeting via a reticle that feels similar to a third-person action game.^[89]
Players will be able to trigger skills with combinations of different keystrokes, and reuse the same keys as part of different combinations.^[90]
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse included hotkey customization.^[91]

Controller support

Testing Ashes of Creation Apocalypse controller support.^[92]

The Ashes of Creation MMO is not designed around controller support.^[93]

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse may have controller support.^[94]

Controller support will likely be something we work on closer to launch.^[95] – Steven Sharif

Localization

Ashes of Creation is aiming to be available in the following languages: English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Portuguese.^[96]^[97]^[98]^[99]

Previously it was stated that English, French, German, and Russian will be supported then Italian, Polish and Spanish be added later.^[97]^[100]
Other languages are being considered based on interest.^[96]^[98]^[99]
User interface localization tools are available in the chat window.^[101]

The current plan is for Ashes of Creation to be available in the following languages: English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Portuguese. Although this may not be the final list of languages we support, we are still looking at which other languages into which the game may be translated.^[96]

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

Servers won't be language locked.^[98]

There may be separate servers in the EU region based on language type.^[97]

World map

Updated Ashes of Creation map.^[102]^[103]

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.^[103] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 work-in-progress map UI.^[104]

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.^[105] 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.^[106]

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.^[106]

Information about the world will be presented directly to players through the world map UI as it is gathered.^[107]^[108]
- Node tax rates will be visible on the world map by hovering over a node location on the UI.^[109]
- The map UI will potentially incorporate player created location markers that are visible by other party members.^[110]
- Previously, detailed information about the world was only available through the Library unique node building.^[111]

Not every server realm will share the same map, as player decisions will vary between servers.^[112]^[113]^[108]

The map will have geographical choke points caused by non-traversable obstacles (such as Mountains).^[114]^[115]^[116]

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.^[115] – 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.^[117]

Mini map

Alpha-2 minimap and compass UI.^[118]

There is an in-game minimap and compass user interface in Ashes of Creation.^[118]^[119]^[120]

The goal is to allow pings and other forms of communication tools via the mini-map.^[121]^[122]

In-game chat

Text chat channels

Alpha-1 work-in-progress chat interface.^[123]

We are working on a new chat log! The new log includes tabs for general, party, siege, guild, and more!^[123]

In-game text chat channels.
Channel	Command
Local chat.^[124]^[125]	`/say`.^[126]
Shout.^[124]^[125]	`/yell`.^[126]
Party.^[124]^[125]	`/party`.^[126]
Raid.^[124]^[125]
Guild.^[124]^[125]
Private messages (PM).^[124]^[125]^[127]	`/tell (playername)`.^[126]
Tavern.^[106]
Node citizen chat.^[128]^[129]^[124]^[125]^[130]
Global (Enabled for Alpha-1 testing).^[126]	`/global`.^[126]

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

Trade chat.^[124]^[125]
Alliance chat.^[124]^[125]
Social organization chat.^[129]^[124]^[125]
Religion chat.^[129]
Chat initiated with people on a player's friend list.^[127]
User created chat channels.^[127]

Voice communications

In-game voice communication channels.
Channel	VOIP	Proximity-based
Open-world.^[131]	No.^[132]	No.^[131]
Party.^[133]^[134]	Yes.^[132]	No.^[135]
Raid.^[133]^[134]	Yes.^[132]	No.^[135]
Guild.^[134]	No.^[132]^[134]	No.^[135]
Tavern voice chat.^[106]	Yes.^[132]^[106]	Maybe - based on testing.^[135]
Marketplaces/Stall districts.^[135]	No.^[132]	Maybe - based on testing.^[135]
Dungeons (limited rooms).^[135]	No.^[132]	Maybe - based on testing.^[135]
Points of interest.^[135]	No.^[132]	Maybe - based on testing.^[135]

Voice chat will have fully functional mute and chat preferences.^[134]

Q: Will there be VoIP options for people?

A: Voice over IP is an intended feature that exists within three spaces: taverns, parties, and raids. So, otherwise we're going to rely on you and your social circle in Discord to have voice over IP; but in the areas where we expect players to interact with people they don't know, or to meet new people that they don't want to have to share a Discord link with, or take the interaction beyond just the surface level, 'Hey you're in the same raid as me.' We will provide that option through a voice over IP within those areas.^[132] – Steven Sharif

Chat bubbles

Chat bubbles will be able to be toggled on or off by players. There will be options to manage the bubbles to reduce visual clutter.^[136]^[137]

We do want to include chat bubbles. We do want to include a host of options that will allow you to manage those bubbles so you can turn them on, you don't see just a field of bubbles.^[137] – Jeffrey Bard

Voice controls

Raid and party leaders are able to control Voice chat.^[110]^[138]

Toggle (global) mute on the entire raid.^[138]
Define who has global speech capacity across the entire raid.^[139]
Granting administrative functions to raid and party members.^[110]

If you are joined in raid where you have multiple squads that have connected into a raid for the castle sieges, the leaders of those squads will be able to communicate across all members of squad. So let's say you have five teams of four, for a total of twenty people within a particular raid... there are five that have global speech capacity; and then in those individual parties they'll also have their own inter-voice communication. So party leader will be able to hear their party members and the party members will hear each other, but they'll also be able to hear other party leaders speak as well.^[139] – Steven Sharif

Tavern communications

Taverns offer private chat and voice communications for all patrons within the building.^[106]

Tavern proximity voice chat may be available based on testing.^[135]

User interface commands

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

Command	Function
`/say`	Chat command.^[126]
`/party`	Chat command.^[126]
`/yell`	Chat command.^[126]
`/global`	Chat command.^[126]
`/tell (playername)`	Chat command.^[126]
`/roll`	Simulates a dice roll.^[140]
`/e`, `/emote`, `/me`^[141]	Textual emote.^[142] Example: `/me chuckles`
	Invite a character to join your guild.^[143]
	Add a character to your friends list.^[143]

Macros

The developers are opposed to the uses of macros in Ashes of Creation. Their intention is for players to be able to play their characters without requiring macros.^[144]^[145]

Generally, I am opposed to macros, just to give my personal stance on it. I don't think that we should be building classes around the idea that people need to use macros in order to effectively leverage their skill with a particular class. So, in that regard, and given the likelihood of macros really to lead down a path that's not desired from a gameplay perspective, my disposition is 'No to macros'; and that's likely going to be the stance that we will use for gameplay in general. So, I would say, no we are not going to be friendly to macro usage. Macros should not be required to play our classes. This is a skill ceiling issue that we want players to be able to play the class themselves without needing to have a macro in order to play.^[144] – Steven Sharif

Macros may also pose a challenge in terms of distinguishing automated behavior from the likes of script users and botters.^[145]

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.^[145] – Steven Sharif

Character creator

Scars in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).^[146]

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.^[147] – Steven Sharif

We're gonna use similar tech for implementing things like Animal husbandry.^[148] – Zachary Mallet

Kaelar Alpha-2 character creation (first pass).^[149]

This tech is 100% created in-house at Intrepid and is not metahuman.^[150] – Steven Sharif

We'll be adding many, many more customization options to the character creator.^[151] – 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.^[147]^[152]

Character appearance can be adjusted through a wide range of presets and sliders.^[147]^[152]^[153]
Character blending provides easy to use customization by morphing together two or more character presets.^[154]
Character sculpting allows detailed customization of every aspect of the body.^[155]

The Ashes of Creation character creator is 100% developed in-house by Intrepid Studios and is not MetaHuman.^[150]

Additional character creator features include.

There will be unlockable features for character customization.^[156]

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.^[156] – Steven Sharif

The ability to save and potentially to share characters with other players.^[146]^[157]

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.^[146] – Margaret Krohn

The ability to undo changes (Ctrl + Z) will be supported, including undoing changes that were made several edits earlier.^[158]^[159]
Choosing base idle animations of characters will be possible in future.^[160]
- Certain animations, such as blinking, will be present when they don't interfere with the customization process.^[161]
Certain ability sound effects will adhere to character customization selections, such as race.^[162]
Adjusting the background scene and lighting is a planned feature.^[161]

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.^[163] – Steven Sharif

Asymmetry in terms of manipulating different components of the body or different body features such as hair, beard, and eyes.^[164]

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.^[164] – Steven Sharif

Body adornments, such as piercings will be possible within cultural limits.^[165]
The developers are considering whether to allow custom tattoos to be uploaded by users.^[166]
A future development, post-Alpha-2 launch, may enable users to upload an image to use as a basis for a character's appearance.^[167]

The aim is for the character creator to be on par if not much better than that of BDO.^[168]^[169]

Addons/mods

Addons, DPS meters, and threat meters will not be supported.^[170]^[171]^[172]^[173]

My decision is not to allow DPS meters nor add-ons. I feel we have adequate measures in place to prevent a majority of potential third party trackers. I know this subject has passionate voices on both sides and I respect the various opinions and positions many of you have expressed.^[172] – Steven Sharif

The developers do not want addons/mods to be necessary to experience the game.^[174]
The developers believe that DPS meters (parsers) can cause toxicity and other negative behaviors.^[171]^[175]^[173]

What role DPS meters provide in online communities that I've noticed in the past my experiences: they can be a bit toxic, they can be a bit exclusionary; and that's why we don't want the DPS meters.^[171] – Steven Sharif

Threat meters will also not be present in the game. There will instead be visual in-game cues to indicate threat.^[171]

Meters in my opinion are a removal from the game immersion; and what I mean by that isn't necessarily even the fact that having the meter takes you out of the game per-se, but it is- there's a lot of diegetic approach that you can take that doesn't rely on UI elements like a meter to indicate how you should do a thing; and when you're not utilizing those types of meters you can do different types of strategies and encounter design. You can have things that can be more subtle and aren't going to be immediately given away by a meter indicating something; and that's the type of gameplay that we think that I believe we want to emphasize; and for that reason, we're not going to be including threat meters. What we will be including however are animation indicators. We're going to be including ability indicators to show the tank "hey I might be losing aggro here." I'm observing in the world these immersive elements that are not tied to any specific type of UI, but indicate to me that this monster might be moving off to attack somebody else in a very immediate future; and now I should be using the abilities that I'm saving to regain that aggro, or to lock them down with a taunt or something. That to me is a bit more representative of the type of gameplay we want to to bring in our encounter design.^[171] – Steven Sharif

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

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.^[176]
The design of the game API is still under consideration.^[177]

Combat logs

There are combat logs in Ashes of Creation.^[178]

We will be providing combat data for individual players in their chat window, that players can filter and analyze for themselves. The goal is to mitigate and make the practice less prevalent through the ease that DPS meters provide. Also to place actionable enforcement for players who attempt to circumvent the decision by use of 3rd party programs, for which we will be monitoring.^[179] – Steven Sharif

Emblem, logo and symbol editor

Banner 3D renders.^[180]

The user interface will allow emblems, logos and symbols to be designed in-game.^[181]^[182]^[183]

Guild emblems.^[182]
- Flags.^[184]^[181]
- Guild halls.^[185]
- Mount barding.^[185]
Ships
- Sails.^[186]^[181]
- Emblems may potentially appear on a ship's hull as a decal, along with the ship name.^[187]
Character
- Shields.^[181]
- Cloaks.^[181]
- Armor attachments.^[184]^[185]

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.^[184] – Steven Sharif

Emblem editor functionality is tentatively planned for Alpha-2.^[183]

Mobile/web application

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

A companion app (mobile app/web interface) allows players who are not logged into the game to have authority over certain services and mechanics.^[188]^[189] Some functionality may come post-launch.^[190]

Crop rotations.^[189]^[190]^[191]
Player stalls (Kiosks).^[190]
Mayoral duties.^[190]^[192]
Pay taxes.^[190]
Fishing (potentially).^[190]
Parlor games (Tavern games).^[190]^[193]
World event notifications.^[190]
Node citizenship notifications.^[190]
Player housing notifications.^[190]
Guild leadership tools such as calendar notifications is a possible feature.^[194]

Specific dates that you can have running as reminders in your guild UI, this will also be something that I would like to be available on the mobile companion app as well. So essentially you can receive notifications via a calendar update on guild events that the leaders or the officers have the ability to pin within the game will also give you notifications on the mobile app as well. That's my intention at least.^[194] – Steven Sharif

Some of it may come post-launch... but we do want people to interact with the game on their phones when they're away from the computer; and we're going to do as much as we can to make that cool.^[190] – Jeffrey Bard