January 11th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid introduces Margaret Krohn as new Community Marketing Lead, talks Apocalypse state, Castle Siege Maps/Systems, Siege roles and Classes.

Welcome Notice. Introducing Margaret Krohn as the new Community Marketing Lead for Ashes of Creation. Still working on last minute changes for My.com and Mail.ru games. Working on game center integration, updates will be provided soon via the channels on discord. Expect some downtime in a couple of hours. ‘AoCHype’ to enter Alpha 1 giveaway, case sensitive and spamming gets you removed.

Margaret Krohn is not the community manager, she works on higher level things such as marketing and community development, including content creators. They are hiring a senior community manager. The new CM will be announced soonTM. Due to the massive traffic during open beta, it helped highlight certain specific issues that required attention. As such we had to take it down to build the architecture which is essential for the MMORPG which is the purpose of the Apocalypse as a test bed. Everything is being worked on so that it’s ‘Live ready’ to be used in the MMORPG. Heavy focus on developing UE4 which is a new engine and offers so much right out of the box.

The first ever patch notes are live and can be found on the blog in the website or here. Also new bug submission form which can be found here . New website account issues are being fixed continually, username/password recovery and the migration from old website to new are fixed. Known issues regarding the previous purchases not showing up, players are requested to submit a support ticket here. Regarding the referral system, all the past data is stored and saved. However the data is being migrated over. Currently those that are not showing up are people that have not migrated their accounts over, regardless we will be migrating it over ourselves even if they dont over time. The launcher and installers are going through new iterations, new error reports and new skin changes for the launcher are being put up. Various things regarding apocalypse are being looked at, queues, combat, balancing etc. Duos are down currently so please queue for solos and squads.

The focus is to get all these bumps solved in this stage so that we dont have to go over it during the MMO or ever ever ever again.
Regarding things that they thought was working right, but actually is different. Scaling things from a small number of users to a larger number causes numerous issues and that’s one of the problems that were there with the old website, where the surge caused downtime due to not expecting the large influx of players. However these are great as they prevent issues when going live on day 1 (Launch day). All the work done such as the back end and front end, all of it contributes towards the MMORPG. All of this benefits the prep for Alpha 1.

Castle Siege Design (Maps)

Two castle types

Dwarven Castle: Tunnels, lots of ways to go underneath. Built into a cliff side. Attacker battlefield against the precipice.
Aelan Castle: Ancient humans (desert themed castle)

There are 5 Castles are intended for the MMORPG. Very likely to include all 5 in apocalypse. 2 Sides, attackers and defenders. One of 6 classes when you pick a side. You have prep time to take positions and set up. Siege weaponry will be present. First phase involves getting into the castle. Once the walls are breached, Second phase involves capping points (Changes respawn points, provides buffs and affects respawn timers). Can respawn at captured points. The Castle Siege in apocalypse is modelled after the MMORPG primarily. The core combat in this game mode will be similar to the MMORPG. The mechanics, objectives will be the same as the MMORPG, defenders have to hold out and survive, will also be able to counter-attack, damage their ability to siege and reduce their spawn time etc. All of it will be very similar to the MMORPG. Primarily focused around guild play. Rock paper scissors type of interaction. Mobility will play a big hand, playing strategically around choke points etc. all of these ideas are tested in apocalypse to prepare for the MMORPG. As they scale up the number of participants, they’re able to build on the limited classes and functions as they relate to roles within raid compositions. No dragons in apocalypse.

Siege weaponry available in Castle Sieges – Ballistas, Catapults, Battering Rams and Trebuchets

Breakdown of the 3 roles and 6 classes

DPS Classes

Archwizard is focused on AOE damage. They dont have focus fire ability, but lots of AOE’s, tricks available as they are wizards, such as backwards teleport with a decoy, a flame thrower cone (channeled). Important to test how magic damage affects various classes, and armor. We want magic to do more damage to armor. Hawkey has certain skills that bypass armor (pierce).

Hawkeye has a grappeling hook that lets them scale walls and shoot people from afar. Lots of abilities lock them in place. When they fire the arrow, you can control the arrow as a guided missile, can go around walls etc. You can shoot the grappelling hook at the edge of a wall and fly over it, not just hit the edge and fall down (has to be fixed).

Warrior Classes

Guardian has big health pool and focuses on moving people out of the way. Has an AOE pull (+ taunt?). Lets them deploy a mobile shield that attaches to a character and can be moved around. Can be used to absorb damage and then explode outwards to deal damage.

Weapon masters can get in, disrupt things, has a leap skill and a ground pound AOE. Also has Spin2Win whirlwind.

Support Class

High priest is focused on spporting and keeping people alive. High Priest focuses on health and engineer focuses on armor and mana. Still experimenting. Each class gets two weapons, the high priest scepter, any allies that it hits, it heals, any enemies that it hits, it damages. The scepter same as drifter, has homing component to it and is easier to heal/damage due to homing. Lots of AOE heals, including AOE healing pools. Clerics will be given divine form, similar to alpha 0. Gives increased damage mitigation, heals allies and damages enemies in big AOE. No confirmation on revives/resurrection.

Engineer is focused on siege weapons and keeping things up or blowing things up. Each has their own specific pools that they manage. Engineer is primarily a pre-AoC class, wont see it during the MMORPG. Crossbow primary, have an earthquake arrow that when fired, pounds the ground and knocks people around. New skill Gizmo of Ingriss, which lets allies get a 1-time catfall boots use.

Apocalypse has infinite lives, upon death you join a shared team respawn timer where you respawn with everyone else who is also dead. In BR, you find armor and equip to get armor pool. However in castle siege, you will spawn with armor pool and engineers can help you recover armor. Also armor recovery is a buff for capturing control point.

QnA Session

Q: Are new classes being added to the siege or is it the standard BR stuff?
A: We have 6 classes associated with castle siege in Apocalypse.

Q: Regarding balancing within castle sieges compared to BR.
A: Abilities will use stamina and mana more often in castle siege than the BR mode. Mana will have passive regen, some class in the future will interact with it. However no mana drops on field. There is no dual wielding class currently in castle sieges. During castle siege class selection phase, you’ll be able to see what other classes your team has picked to help you balance your team.

Q: Will we be able to swap classes mid game mode?
A: Still being discussed as it has both pros and cons. Currently not allowed to switch. Dont want class switching to develop into a meta.

Q: Will apocalype still run after MMORPG has launched?
A: Yes, most likely. Goal is to have both products up. Apocalypse is meant to test and preview things before they go live into the MMORPG. It is very helpful to test various systems without revealing everything. Also lets us scale the number of players, lets us do controlled experiments.

Q: Plans on adding more classes?
A: The idea is the provide a range of skills and abilities that can be customized within a season. This will let you customize things for siege/horde. However this will come at a later time. As for adding classes, not sure as unsure about timeline.

Q: As apocalypse is a testbed, and since Apoc is a bit delayed, can you talk about how it doesnt affect or delay the MMORPG?
A: When you have a large team working on multiple milestones for delivering various things, it works differently. Helps us solve issues that would have cropped up in the future and have affected the MMORPG. But now these things wont happen. Select number of devs reserved for apocalypse.

Q: We have talked about balance in apocalypse, what imbalances need more attention?
A: Bonesmasher will be addressed in next patch. Data is still being looked at and gathered. Ranged seems very weighted on melee. Still waiting for more data to come through. The way we approach balance. Balance issues fall behind bug issues as bugs are a higher priority, especially during the beta phase. After the beta phase, the balance changes take priority.

Q: Will there be a reputation or standing system for guilds/alliances to set on each other in order for politics to come into play?
A: It is a cool idea, however the current standpoint is a specific system that works on inviting guilds into an alliance that lets you combat/chat/warehouses/quests/node warfare. Neutral states /guilds lets you have trade agreements and war on guilds. And this baseline will be what we are focused on and will be in the guild leader UI. Dont want to go beyond the current scope. We do want to have as much of it in there as does promote relations within the game.

Q: Will there be hidden within every apocalypse mode and are there rewards and will there be rewards for finding them?
A: So far so good, it’s hidden. There will be some interesting easter eggs hidden in the game.

Q: With 64 class combinations, what are some things the team is planning to facilitate for the secondary classes?
A: Due to secondary augmenting the primary, tanks will be different from fighter and rogue etc due to primary being different. The augments are unique to each class. Tanks that choose mage will get unique augments. If Fighter choose mage, they get specific augments to the fighter class. They are baked into the classes and they wont feel the same. Augments are not within the class option alone, there are quests and society things that change quests, letting you change radiance skills to darkness skills, fire to ice, etc. Not just vertical progression but also horizontal progression. So progression from exploration, society, node progression etc will all provide uniqueness and abilities. “I have seen a shield wall spawn and I know this belongs to X player because only he hasit”.

Q: Can you share progress update on the core MMORPG systems such as nodes/caravans etc. and how these systems are progressing and how your thinking has developed or changed regarding these systems.
A: Core vertical slice for nodes etc has been ready since over a year ago, especially during alpha 0. You have seen the speed at which we have progressed at each stage, with pax, apocalypse and so much more. The progress on systems and core technologies are in a state of active development and being prepared for alpha 1. The desire to see these will be in a presentable state as we get closer to alpha 1. Things have to be tested and locked in before they are announced as they require significant tweaking when they actually enter testing. But most importantly, when they’re ready to be shown (near the end of Q2 2019), they will be shown. Nodes 3 are confirmed and will be included in this. Bacon and the environment team are hard at work on the node systems as the node system is the crux and the baby of this whole project. The progress of the tech behind the nodes is amazing and in a great position, however it still requires polish. We dont want to show something that we might have to step back from. Dont want to show things that we cannot fullfill. Lots of cool things coming up in the future.