Rotating Lawless Zones, Economy Rework, and PTR for (Almost) All | Ashes of Creation June Development Livestream Summary
You wanted content? You got content.
Reminders & Notes
Creative Director Steven Sharif and Director of Communications Margaret Krohn are back running the livestream duo and started off with some reminders
Content Creator applications are soon to be closed, with over 3000 applications so far
Lots of fun things planned and expected to start in the next couple of months
All Alpha 2 Members will be invited to PTR testing on July 1st, along with a PTR test that will come online on July 1st at 10am PST
PTR will remain on visual NDA with strict penalties for those that break it
July 30th will be a fun event on Alpha 2 in both EU and NA friendly times
Purchased cosmetics will be removed from Alpha 2 as wearables, and will soon be available in Phase 3 as part of the Entitlement System to those that purchased them through in-game mail
Phase 3 - What to Expect?
Steven started this section of the livestream establishing that what will be shown is not part of the production environment and harkens back to the pre-Alpha 2 days, where content shown are being iterated on and have are actively being worked on.
Essentially, don’t expect anything you see in this section to be able to test any time soon, and it may look completely different when we do.
Unfortunately for Steven, that won’t stop any of us from getting insanely hype.
PTR Update
PTR will be opening to all Alpha 2 Testers on July 1st, with multiple testing periods, as well as multiple wipes.
This will be much closer to a testing environment than the existing Alpha 2 test.
Brief summary of upcoming testing periods:
July 14th to August 3rd
24h PTR uptime to prepare for Phase 3
Various events/contests will be held on the PTR for cosmetic items on A2 environment
As a result, todays update for the Shol MegaRealm will be the final update until Phase 3 on August 4th.
Reminder: PTR is under Visual NDA meaning no visual recordings or streams will be permissible, on penalty of account actions.
New Starting Area - The Anvils
Similar to how the Riverlands is one of the starting areas for all players (Lionhold & Samia’s Hope), the Anvils will house new starting areas for players to choose from on character creation.
Some things to expect in The Anvils:
Updated character creation to include a background quiz, as well as a choice of starting in The Anvils or The Riverlands biome
Updated mountain range along the perimeter of The Riverlands Biome
Will include two options for starting areas within the biome (Bonfire & Hammer Rest)
Will launch with 8 Pocket Dungeons
New Tech around NPC Mobs
Along with The Anvils, some new PCG (Procedurally Generated Content) tools are being developed that will result in a significant revamp in the overland population. NPC mobs will do more:
Patrolling
Interactions with environment as a result of attractors (bears attracted to rivers/trees and interacting with them, etc.)
Changes in mob locations as a result of weather (bears lower in altitude in colder weather vs higher in warmer weather)
These ambient movements of mobs in the overworld are vital in making an MMORPG feel more immersive and real, and with the amount of NPCs already existing, players should be excited to discover all the new ways NPCs exist!
Py’Rai Party & Niküa
Two long-awaited character races will be introduced in Phase 3, the Py’Rai and the Niküa! All armor sets have been deformed to fit these new races along, but bugs are to be expected.
The Py’Rai are a wood elf race, with strong ties to nature and the world of Verra, while the Niküa dwarves are a matriarchy rooted in the maritimes, who use their strength in fishing and pearl diving to their advantage
Along with these races, the character creator & in-game model will be having work done to make player characters look better in-game. This has been a major discussion point amongst visionaries within the game, who want the characters to look as beautiful as the world they exist.
One such update is with the Dünir Dwarves finally getting their own armor-sets. This means that new armor will be added to the game that isn’t Kaelar inspired, and instead show off the aesthetic of the Dünir.
Economy & Stats with Kory
With the tumultuous past few weeks in the economy, including the plethora of hackers decimating the economy, as well as the issues with gathering crafting material, Steven emphasizes that there was a lot of valuable data gathered during this time, that helped inform their upcoming decisions.
Crafting & Recipe Overhaul
Gearing and Crafting are getting a complete rework, with a focus on enabling players to easily gear as they level, but still allow for gear progression.
Crafting Update
Novice, Apprentice, and Journeyman Tier Craftables will now be called Initiate, Adept, and Radiant
This does not affect the names of Artisanship tiers
Each crafting tier will be separated into Grades - Low, Mid, and High
This will be denoted by numbers - 1 through 10 in Initiate, 11 through 20 for Adept, and so on
Low Grade craftables will be heavily based on abundant resources - Oak, Ash, Snowdrop
Mid and High Grade craftables will more heavily rely on rarer resources like Rividium, Iron, Weeping Willow, etc. while still having a base requirement in common resources
This allows for players to continue to progress in crafting as they level, without being stymied by needing an abundance of rare resources
Will be tested on PTR
Gathering Update
The tool discussed previously that allows for Gatherables to spawn in locations that make more thematic sense within Verra will come online in Phase 3, such as low elevation trees vs high elevation trees, gems being found more in caves, etc.
This should be more exciting for players who value exploration and getting familiar with the world, as this will mean full-time Gatherers who dive into new areas to utilize their knowledge and target farm areas much easier.
Update to Set Bonuses
Sets will be getting updated to also include active and proc effects that relate to the theme of the set. This is in addition to overall reworking of set effects, separating stronger sets from weaker ones, and so on.
These active effects will allow Intrepid to add extra interactions like trinkets or watermarks from other games without reworking individual classes.
Mob Loot, Quest Loot, and…Loot Boxes?
Mob loot has been a balancing nightmare recently, with players and Intrepid going back-and-forth over the recent months.
With the changes to crafting tiers, Intrepid will explore making low tier gear more plentiful in mob drops so players can still have that looting feeling, while making mid tier and high tier drops much rarer.
Some more changes to looting:
Rework of Starting Gear Quest (in Samia’s Hope/Lionhold)
Quests will reward Loot Boxes that players can choose multiple options from, as opposed to quests providing a fixed reward
Loot boxes will now be available through multiple avenues, including Node Currency, Quests, Events, and drops
These will not be purchasable with real money, but are another Node Currency sink, as well as provides players more optional opportunities that can provide a variety of reward
Commission rewards being updated to include more variety of loot
Vendors will be reworked to provide more specific loot to citizens for Node Currency, to reward players who invest within the Node, as well as limiting gear to low grade gear
Additional Updates to Economy/Stats
New weapons will be coming in Phase 3 including:
Rapier, One-Handed & Two-Handed Axe, Two-Handed Mace, and Two-Handed Spear
Intrepid are also rebalancing waterfall & primary stats so they feel more impactful, as well as changing how some waterfall stats are built. This will also include updated tooltips in the character sheet for players to better understand their build paths.
Part of the purpose of this change is to preserve some waterfall stats for later progression in the game, and specific itemization paths.
Archetype ability costs will also be looked at, including damage, cooldown, mana costs, and more.
Crates & Caravans - Not Just For Cats (with Abs)
Caravan PvP UI is getting reworked to be more clear when travelling throughout Verra. Nameplates will now be used to easily convey attacker, defender, and neutral caravans.
The UI box that would appear when travelling is now replaced with hovering scales that players can instead choose to interact with to decide whether or not they want to participate in Caravan PvP.
Crates as a Service
Crates are interactable, physical objects that other players can see on players from a distance. They will provide a movement speed debuff, but otherwise not impede PvP.
There are various types of crates including:
Construction Crates for Node Resources
Personal Crates for large amounts of materials
Relic Crates
Construction crates will be used to interact with under-construction buildings to provide more visual feedback to players who contribute to their Node.
Economic regions will also be introduced to allow for greater returns when transiting commodities, along with diminishing return modifiers that update every 7 days depending on the amount of commodities transported to that region.
Some more details regarding crates:
Crates can be crafted at Artisan Stations
A crate exists for each gathering and procession profession
Crates will abide by existing corruption rules - does not flag you on pickup
Crates found by other players can be picked up and transported without flagging
Crowbars - now with a channel time - can be used to open a crate instead of turning it in, which will flag you
Mules will be introduced as a new mount later in Phase 3 as the only Mount type that you can ride while transporting a crate
Commodities will now be available using a wide variety of currencies
Market Commodity: Trade Gold and Glint for Gold
Citizen Commodity: Trade Node Currency for Gold
Guild Commodity: Trade Gold and resources for Guild XP
Node Commodity: Trade Glint and resources for Node Currency
Harbor Commodity: Trade Gold and Glint for Special Materials
Smuggler Commodity turned in at Lawless Outposts for various rewards
Commodities will now be crafted using reagents purchased from node vendors, with a variety of rarities available.
No Node for Old Men
Level 4 Nodes (Towns) will be introduced in Phase 3, with City (former Node Level 5) being removed (Metropolis is now Node Level 5).
Metropolis Nodes will now own two Towns (vassalized), with subsequent Node Level owning one node of the earlier level.
Service buildings will be taking a page out of the crafting overhaul book, with buildings being split into low, mid, and high tier Artisanship buildings that can be gradually built over time.
Lawless Zones Dynamic Lawless PoIs
On a rotating schedule, PoIs will become lawless overtime, with more experience gained from mobs, better loot tables, and more.
After a period of time, every player within that PoI will be flagged for PvP, and players can fight over the better rewards, such as relics and higher rarity gatherables
This is very similar to the Blood Moon PvP event within the World of Warcraft Season of Discovery, a fast-hit amongst PvP diehards.
PvP Flagging
By default, players targetting a flagged player with an ability will no longer need to manually flag up to attack them. There will be a setting available to disable this, but this should make it easier for newer players to respond quicker when getting attacked.
The toggle to Force Flag is now removed by default, as players have occassionally forgotten they have enabled this toggle. Instead, players now need to hold Alt and engage with a non-flagged player.
Non-combatants will also now be immune to crowd control by flagged players, which was always the design intent initially but was yet to be implemented. This should stop players from CCing players who are gathering or leashing their team.
This change does make mob training more of an issue however, as one of the easiest way to stop this is to CC the trainer before they reach you. However, Mob Training is being looked at by Intrepid, with changes to mob aggro making it more difficult for mob trainers to engage in this action.
Guild Progression
Guild Skill Trees will be reworked into a Guild Point System, as opposed to being gated by a progression track. As you level up you Guild, you will be able to attribute special points into building your Guild Identity, whether it’s zerging, PvP, PvE, gathering, etc.
Weekly Guild activities will also be available for members to passively contribute to in order to gain Guild XP and some personal rewards.
Guild Storage will also be introduced, with Guilds having to choose a Node to house their Material Storage for players to access. Guilds can expand guild storage Item and Material storage using Guild XP as well as additional resources.
Viewer Q&A
Some highlights from the question & answer section of the livestream
Summoner will not be available on Phase 3 launch, with a possible release in September/October
Dynamic Gridding will be available to test on PTR on July 1st, 2025
Patch Highlights
Check out the Patch Notes for this past week, and follow @AshesMomentsYT to get the highlights every week!
Pawkets Quest of Champions
Content Creator @PawketsArt has started a weekly challenge for players looking to stay engaged for Phase 2.5! We’ll be featuring the best clips on our Twitter account, so check in regularly!
That wraps the Ashes of Creation June Development Livestream! For those that want the full video, check it out here, and don’t forget to submit your moments on the Ashes Moments website, and subscribe for more content!
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