Summoner Showcase, Future of Fishing, and Community Feedback Response | Ashes of Creation September Livestream Summary
Corruption spread may need to be nerfed with how it seems to have infested the official Discord lately
This September’s Livestream is our first deep look in some of the major updates coming this Autumn, featuring some of the most anticipated fundamental systems of MMOs: Summoner Pets & Fishing Minigames.
Summoner Preview
The Summoner Archetype utilizes summons called Vessels. Currently, players may only have active vessel at a time, but this may change once class combinations are released.
Summoners may summon one of three Vessels:
Spirit Guardian
Tank Vessel that can hold aggro
Key Ability: Stomp
AoE Damage with high threat
Spirit Hunter
Melee and ranged damage dealing Vessel
Key Ability: Eviscerate
High single target strike that has bonus damage when used from behind
Spirit Mystic
Heal, shield, and provide ranged AoE damage
Key Ability: Recreate
Single-target heal
Under special conditions can turn into a group heal
The Summoner Class Resource is Essence, which can be generated from weapon combos and the active Vessel’s basic attacks.
Summoners kit focuses on Damage-over-Time, Area damage, and resource management. Some of the Summoner Archetype kit includes:
Spirit Shred: single target DoT that generates essence
Mortal Blast: AoE that spreads Spirit Shred
Hex: ticking debuff on enemies that can be hastened by damage to explode early
The Summoner will be available for PTR Testing on September 30th, 2025.
Harbinger System Breakdown
We are joined by several pivotal members of the Intrepid Studios team, from Narrative to Content Design for this section, as they thoroughly detail the entire event loop of the upcoming Harbinger Story Arc.
Story Arcs in Ashes of Creation are the main narrative vehicle in which the world of Verra will undergo changes - where success and failure make a real tangible difference in the world.
Harbingers Lore
Harbingers are pieces of the Ancients home world that were destroyed when the celestial battle occurred.
This will introduce a more gory aesthetic to the world, which will drastically alter the environment.
Harbinger Story Arc Phases
These events will start in pocket dungeons but will eventually scale to full-scale dungeons. This will drastically alter the mobs as well as the resources within these areas.
Pre-Phase 1
Story Arcs collect data from world state conditions, like killing mobs, gathering resources, crafting, levelling up settlements in order to push an internal corruption ticker that will eventually trigger Phase 1. These include:
PvP
Settlement upgrades
Boss deaths
Crafting
Wars & Sieges
Corrupted Elites that attempt to reach Harbinger Portal
Phase 1
Harbinger Ancient Commander arrives in a drastically buffed state, and players have a small window of hours to possibly defeat this boss and end the corruption event
This will also create a lawless area where players who want the corruption event to continue can contest those who want to end it. This lawless area persists throughout the Harbinger Story Arc.
If the Ancient Commander does not fall, corruption grows, and the Void Gate arrives.
Phase 2
Forward Void Gate is summoned and Void Channelers hold it open.
These Void Channelers are also drastically buffed, and will be difficult for players to defeat.
Void Channelers Defeated
Players have another opportunity to defeat the Ancient Commander, who will be slightly weaker.
Void Channelers Persist
Corruption spreads, and a foothold is established
Phase 3
This phase will take several days depending on player activity to defeat. This consists of several major parts
Coalition Outpost
Will have unique NPCs, crafting tables, and more
Players will have to bring construction crates in order to successfully build these outposts
Stabilize Lesions
Players can craft Heartwood Infusion Crates at Coalition Outposts that are used to heal & seal lesions in order to make Void Channelers vulnerable again
These crates will also be targets of player friction due to them also having a high value for trade-in
Slay Void Channelers
Once these lesions have been sealed, the Void Channelers are now vulnerable again and can be defeated
As players take longer to complete each of these parts, the corruption area grows based on an RNG factor and multiple pre-determined paths, making each incursion varied and semi-unique.
Timed events will also be occurring during this time for players to interact with from both a PvP and PvE perspective.
Once all Corruption areas have been pushed back, players have the ability to slay the Ancient Commander again
Phase 4
The final phase will spawn the Ancient Commander in its most weakened state, allowing players to finally defeat the incursion and receive the Story Arc rewards.
Players will receive unique rewards based on their contribution in defeating the incursion at all stages, from building construction & Heartwood crates, completing mini-objectives, crafting, killing PvE mobs, as well as defeating incursion bosses.
There are three unique Ancient Commanders with their own loot tables that can spawn.
Some additional information regarding the Harbinger Story Arc:
These events are located in the Sandsquall Desert, Jundark, Turquoise Sea.
Each biome has their own internal Corruption ticker, and can spawn multiple Harbinger incursions within each zone
These incursions can go from days to up to a month, depending on how dedicated players are in fighting it back.
Each incursion has multiple paths of evolution that results in RNG growth
Currently, nearby Settlements will not be impacted, but this will change in the future so that Settlements will be directly impacted by Corruption as it grows
Sport Fishing
Thomas Blair - Lead Combat Designer - joins us to discuss fishing and the naval system in Ashes of Creation.
Sport Fishing will be introduced along with the current AFK fishing that exists in the game.
Ships will be used for players to travel to fishing nodes in both oceans and lakes. When players catch a large fish, they will equip them similarly to a crate,
These equipable fish will have different visual aesthetic based on size of fish, and type, allowing other players to see the value of what you’ve caught
Players can throw chum in the water at these fishing nodes that will allow any player to now fish in these waters. Players can progress through the sports fishing progressions system the more they engage with it, as well as obtain more valuable lure.
There will also be a lure progression system that players can progress through to allow players to find larger fish & more lucrative fish.
Fishing Minigame
Very similar to some existing fishing minigames, where players attempt to tire the fish out
Fish goes right, move rod right
Fish moves left, move rod left
Wear the fish down until it stops fighting - more valuable fish are more difficult to wear down
Once the fish has stopped resisting, players will swim out and physically equip the fish like a crate
Freshwater Fishing can be done in lakes/smaller bodies of water safely, but have a lower ceiling of rewards
Open-Sea fishing can only be done in the Open Oceans which are lawless by nature
Expect players to engage in piracy for these more valuable fish often
Sport Fishing Types
Freshwater Fishing
Can be done in lakes/smaller bodies of water safely, but have a lower ceiling of rewards
Open-Sea Fishing
Better reward table
Lawless open-sea zone
New ship class - Corsair - can have multiple fishing holds for players to gather many large fish, and will have multiple attachment options that will focus on fishing
Harpoon that shoots snare grab bags that stick to another ship to slow it
Players then have to manually remove these bags from their ship
Fishing Holds to carry more fish
In the future, ships will be limited to how many players can be on the ship with the buoyancy stat, resulting in drastically reduced speed if capacity is surpassed.
Community Feedback Response
Steven and Margaret highlights how much they’re listening to feedback and want to address specific points regarding some of the major topics the community have brought up. Here are some of the highlights of this section:
There were underlying issues with some services in collecting Settlement Experience, but also issues regarding the UI displaying the incorrect experience amount
Many of these issues have been addressed, but some are still in progress
The purpose of marketing the test in November is because Intrepid feels like the current test is in a place where they’re ready for new players to join and provide additional feedback outside the core audience
How does the current feedback translate to the greater audience that have less dedication to the project?
This will include ad-spends
We are aware of edge cases of people abusing corruption mechanic through friends killing and looting friends who go corrupt, or unstuck causing death
Unstuck will not be changed in the short-term, but will not lower corruption status in the future
Methods of avoiding intended corruption penalties will be addressed through the same methods they address all feedback, through iteration
Will be addressed in the milestone after the Harbingers milestone
Economy system is extremely complex and will not be a quick fix
Acknowledge they missed the mark on Phase 3 economy, and two entire teams are fully dedicated to working on the economy in order to make a positive change in the future
Anticipating a November deliverable for a major economy update
Recipes are actively being worked on
While static rarity was previously removed, when clustering was introduced, it used old tech for predetermined rarity
This will be addressed within the next couple of releases to return to random world chance for clustering
Player actions webpage will be deployed in the future to provide a more transparent look at account actions Intrepid takes, updated consistently
This is a pivot from preexisting policy to not share any account actions, due to overwhelming player feedback
On Monday, Intrepid will release a few characters of accounts that have been actioned, as well as very brief summary of the account action
That’s it for the September Development Livestream! Check out the full livestream on the Ashes of Creation channel, and make sure you submit any clips/highlights you record to the Ashes Moments Website for your chance to be featured in an upcoming video!
I’m your Host Ily. Take it easy!