Player death

Alpha-2 Player death and resurrection during the Beneath the Stone Shadows event.

Alpha-2 Player death UI showing XP debt penalty.

When a player dies they disintegrate into ash. The ashes contain any items lost by the player due to applicable death penalties.

• These ash piles are immediately lootable by any player.

• Player flagging can be triggered by looting a non-corrupted character who is not in the same raid, party, or guild within a certain timeframe.

We have the concept of introducing flagging as a part of looting a body that is not a member of your raid, party, or guild; and if you do loot that body successfully after the required time you will be flagged and then can become a valid target in PvP.

• The developers intend to have a visual callout and a minimap indicator to identify a player's own loot pile.

• Certain bags may have reduced PvP looting times.

It might even be the case that their particular bag space doesn't have available location for a three-by-one log; and you're a lumberjack and they see you just chopping down these trees and you're like, there's no point in me engaging with this person, because I have nothing to gain due to my capacity. – Steven Sharif

• There will be a period of time following a player's death before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.
  • If the mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items according to the player's death penalties.

• Players do not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level.

• Glint looted from a dead character by any other player, regardless of affiliation, becomes stolen glint. Character's who loot their own bodies will recover their glint in its non-stolen state.

• Death by falling is possible.
  • Fall damage that occurs while mounted will be first applied to the mount; and if the mount dies as a result, then the remaining damage may overflow onto the player, but this will be determined based on testing.

• Death by drowning is possible.
  • Players that drown will respawn on shore. Players on destroyed ships may respawn at the nearest harbor.

Death penalties

Player death in an open world dungeon in Alpha-1.

There are three primary consequences for dying; and obviously the way you die can influence the balance of those three consequences. First and foremost is you have a death debuff that lasts for you know anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes depend depending on how often you've died. That death debuff is going to have some stat and dampening effects. It's going to influence you negatively. The second thing that you have that happens to you is you acquire experience debt. Experience debt is something that lives on your progression tracker. This is experience debt that you need to go and gain experience in order to recover. Okay, now experience debt- the more you accumulate, the more impact it has stat dampening on your efficacy in battle and this is efficacy in battle with PvP or PvE. It doesn't matter. Now, the ceiling for that is, if you accrue 100% experience debt within a level, you're going to have to work off that 100% experience debt; and you will have roughly 20% max ceiling on how much your efficacy is curbed. The third thing that happens on death is that you drop parts of your material inventory: a percentage of your material inventory. Now, you could drop potentially completed items if you're corrupt when you die, so it depends the state in which you're dying. If you're when you die: if you're participating in PvP, you will suffer less consequences across the board for those three things. – Steven Sharif

• Non-combatant (green players) suffer normal death penalties, which include:
  • A death debuff that lasts between 5 and 10 minutes depending on how often the character has died.
  • Experience debt (negative experience). Experience debt scales to approximately 3 to 4 percent of the total XP for that level (subject to change based on testing).
  • Dropping roughly 20-30% of carried gatherables, materials, and glint. The percentage values are subject to change based on Alpha-2 testing. Glint drops as stolen glint on death. Items made for final consumption are not dropped, such as consumable items created by the Cooking and Alchemy professions.
  • Skill and stat dampening, such as Lower health and mana.
  • Reduction in loot drop rates from mobs.
  • Durability loss.

  When players die and they take durability loss, our durability loss isn't like other games where it's a gold sink so to speak. It's a combination of both a gold sink and a material sink. So in a sense, even if you only have completed items, when you take that durability loss you are losing out on materials. It's just a debt to the materials that you are losing instead of the active loss of that material in your inventory. So now you are accruing a material debt if you want to repair and increase again the performance of those particular items that take that durability loss. – Steven Sharif

• Combatants (purple players) suffer death penalties at half the rate of non-combatants.

• Corrupt players (red players) suffer death penalties at four times the rate of non-combatants.
  • Corrupt players also have a chance to drop any equipped items based on their current corruption score, including dropping weapons and armor.

  Any amount of corruption allows a player to drop equipped gear upon death. The higher the corruption the greater the chances. – Steven Sharif

  • Corrupt players respawn at random locations in the vicinity of their death, not at regular spawn points. Non-corrupt players always respawn at the closest active respawn point (to their death).
  • Corruption penalties occur as the corruption is gained (not just at death).
  • Death penalties for corrupt players apply in every location, including naval PvP zones.

Objective-based PvP events accumulate lesser amounts of experience debt on death, but other penalties remain. Previously it was stated that death penalties are not applied to event-based deaths.

• Gear degradation applies on death during Caravan PvP.
• Materials (and resources) will still drop on death during sanctioned PvP events.
• Previously it was stated that death penalties do not differ between PvP and PvE.

Non-corrupt players suffer reduced death penalties in naval PvP (open seas) zones.

• These penalties will be less than those for a green player.

Q: We know that the normal death penalty incurs a myriad of penalties for the player, but we don't know the numbers behind this penalty. For instance, what percentage of materials do players drop? What percentage of glint is dropped? How severe is the skill and stat dampening? What is the average time it will take a player to work off XP debt from one death?

A: You're asking about percentile values. You're asking about time that it takes to recoup the percentage and whatnot. Any time that we're at a stage we're in now, and that in Alpha-2 we're going to be testing this, those values are the most subject to change. So to be clear, we're going to do [a] best-guess balance pass for Alpha-2 with the full expectation and understanding that the purpose is- and take into consideration player interaction with those numbers, and what feels best. So just off the bat, those values are not what we should be focusing on at this stage; but, to give you an idea where we are: First of all, when we're talking about dropping items that are in your material inventory, whether that be glint or that be other material types, we're talking roughly between anywhere from 20 to 30% of a stack is going to be lootable on a per-death basis. Now, that is a value that can change based off of the types of bags that you are using to carry those materials. In addition, there's other progression that can allow you, and some stats I believe, that can allow you to mitigate that value also. When we are talking about the percentage that's lost, or excuse me, not lost, the percentage of your level that is accrued as experience debt from death, generally you can expect that that's going to live around three to four percent of the level in accrued experience debt per death. However, additionally, there is a way to mitigate that percentage debt; and that is through the resurrection ability that's provided to Clerics. So, Clerics have the ability to resurrect their allies, and that resurrection will return a percentage that would have been accrued as experience debt. And that return percentage is predicated on the investment into the resability [sic], as well as the stat of the Cleric that is tied to the resurrection effect as well. So those can return percentages, so you can mitigate that to a degree. How long will it take you to recover that, and what stat dampening occurs? Anywhere within a level, if you acquire 100% experience debt for that level, you max out the experience debt, essentially, you don't ever buy that down, you're probably looking around a 20% stat efficacy dampener. So on average, if you're at 100% debt for a level, and you got to work all that off before you can start progressing at the level again, you're at around 20% overall stat dampening. Time it takes you to regain that debt is predicated on the level you're at and how you exp. So, that's a highly variable value. – Steven Sharif

Experience debt

Experience debt (negative experience) is a death penalty that scales to approximately 3 to 4 percent of the total XP for that level (subject to change based on testing). This was previously stated to be 2 or 3 percent of the total XP for a max level player.

We don't have deleveling, instead what we have is experience debt. Now the more experience debt you accrue, the greater the detriment to your character; not to the point where you can not get out of the debt. There will always be a way forward to remove your debt. – Steven Sharif

• Characters accumulate experience debt on death. This does not delevel characters, but does have detrimental effects until the debt is paid off.
  • Objective-based PvP events accumulate lesser amounts of experience debt on death.

Experience debt is the bite of not achieving success. If I die to a monster because my strategy was bad, because my performance was bad, because my planning was bad: all of that means that debt is the cost I pay for the bad choice. – Steven Sharif

• Experience debt is paid down by the player gaining experience. This applies even to max-level players.

Experience debt is something that lives on your progression tracker. This is experience debt that you need to go and gain experience in order to recover. – Steven Sharif

• Resurrection skills allow greater recovery of experience debt than resurrection scrolls.

When we are talking about... the percentage of your level that is accrued as experience debt from death, generally you can expect that that's going to live around three to four percent of the level in accrued experience debt per death. However, additionally, there is a way to mitigate that percentage debt; and that is through the resurrection ability that's provided to Clerics. So, Clerics have the ability to resurrect their allies, and that resurrection will return a percentage that would have been accrued as experience debt. And that return percentage is predicated on the investment into the resability [sic], as well as the stat of the Cleric that is tied to the resurrection effect as well. So those can return percentages, so you can mitigate that to a degree. – Steven Sharif

• Maxing out experience debt for a level can result in roughly 20% stat dampening for that character. This percentage is expected to be highly variable.

If you accrue 100% experience debt within a level, you're going to have to work off that 100% experience debt; and you will have roughly 20% max ceiling on how much your efficacy is curbed. – Steven Sharif

• Experience debt applies to both PvP or PvE.

Experience debt- the more you accumulate, the more impact it has stat dampening on your efficacy in battle and this is efficacy in battle with PvP or PvE. It doesn't matter. – Steven Sharif

• Rested experience will increase the rate that the debt is paid back.

Q: Does experience debt at max level interact with rested experience? So, let's say I have experience at max level, will I be able to use rested experience to gain the experience back?

A: Yes. Rested experience is a modifier that occurs when you first receive the experience and then after that modifier happens where that experience goes to buy down the debt is what happens. So, if you have rested experience and you have experience debt and you go out to collect experience, you will be working that debt off faster because of the rested experience. – Steven Sharif

• Skill points accrue at specific XP milestones to avoid creating an imbalance with experience debt.

• Experience debt decreases the drop rate percentages from monsters.

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

• Reduction in gear proficiency.

Respawning

Attuning to a respawn point in Alpha-2.

Non-corrupt players respawn at the closest active respawn point (shrine/emberspring) to their death.

• An attunement system prevents players from respawning at shrines that they have not yet visited.
  • Characters can select a "home shrine" to respawn at when they die within the same biome that the shrine is located.

We'll see how many people are dying to respawn at their home shrine and that'll be part of the data set that we use in order to tune the system. – Steven Sharif

• PvP is suppressed for one minute when respawning at embersprings.

• Players that drown will respawn on shore.

• Events in progress may disable certain respawn points in proximity to those events, which might cause players to respawn further away.

• There will not be custom respawn points that can be placed in the world.

• Previously, shrines referred to placeable religious structures on freehold plots.

That has to do with the lore behind death and resurrection and what it means to have your soul connected as a conduit of that spark of life given from the Goddess of Creation, being that phoenix type of avatar; and if corruption has moved into an area and an event has started, the access to those ley line oriented respawn points may be obscured- might not be accessible. So that could create some additional distance that needs to be traveled as part of these types of events. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupt players respawn at random locations in the vicinity of their death, not at regular spawn points.

Respawn lore

Alpha-2 player death animation.

The lore behind how death and resurrection exists within Ashes of Creation is the concept of this Avatar of the Phoenix being represented of the Goddess of Creation, from which all life on this plane has has come from essentially... Because when you do get reborn it's that connection with your soul to the essence that binds you with the Goddess of Creation that brings that spark of the of that Avatar of the Phoenix back and brings you to life through that manipulation of the essence. So this is a little update on the ash effect. – Steven Sharif

Characters entering into the world of Verra are empowered with the spark of life that comes from the Goddess of Creation. This spark houses a portion of what represents their mortal coil/soul and their conduit to The Essence. When a character dies they disintegrate into ashes, in accordance with the mythology of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth that is associated with the celestial avatar of the Goddess of Creation, the phoenix.

• The ash pile conveys the location of the body, so that the character may be selected for resurrection.
• The ash pile is also interractible to allow players to loot any dropped items.
  • These ash piles are immediately lootable by any player.
  • Player flagging can be triggered by looting a non-corrupted character who is not in the same raid, party, or guild within a certain timeframe.
• This effect applies to players and not mobs.

The reason for why respawning occurs, as you guys know, the avatar of the Goddess of Creation is the phoenix; and the phoenix obviously has some very stable mythological lore to it with regards to the cycle of life and death and rebirth; and that type of thing. As you enter into the world of Verra you are in a way empowered with the spark of life that comes from the Goddess of Creation herself, and in that sense you're able to house a portion of what that represents in your soul and your... conduit to the essence. – Steven Sharif

Resurrection methods

Characters can be resurrected via abilities and scrolls.

• Resurrection scrolls are high mana cost consumable items that resurrect players with extremely low health and mana. They will likely not return experience debt back to the player. These will potentially be able to be used in combat.

There will be scrolls of resurrection available, although there is an element of resurrection that's important as it relates to experience debt and being able to recover portions of that experience debt when utilizing higher grade resurrections that are only available from classes; and then there are lower grade resurrections, which are can be granted through items like scrolls of resurrection that allows for parties who may not have access to a resurrection class. – Steven Sharif

• Class-based resurrection abilities are exclusive to the eight Cleric classes. These abilities allow recovery of experience debt.

When we talk about the class structure and the eight different types of Clerics that there will be, the Cleric is going to reserve the ability to return experience debt to the player on resurrection. That won't be something that we delegate to an item. – Steven Sharif

• Battle resurrections are long duration, high mana cost, channeled abilities. Resurrected players are returned with limited health and mana, and they are resurrected at the location they died.

Q: Please elaborate on battle res. Can you res in combat? Is it mana intensive? Is there a big cooldown?

A: Battle res is essentially a long cast ability long channeled ability that incurs a lot of risk for the healer; but also when you return a player to the battlefield they're coming back with very limited health and very limited mana. It's a high mana cost action for the healer as well and then they have to follow that up by healing the target in addition; and they're not being pulled from the location they died at, they're resing on the spot, so positioning really matters. The timing of when they get resurrected really matters. If you're in the middle of a very intense fight, it's unlikely you're going to have the ability to spend that time to res that player, but we do want that to be an option, because it adds an element of strategy to the gameplay. – Steven Sharif

• Mass resurrection abilities may be included in Alpha-2.
  • Certain mass resurrection abilities will be conferred to vehicles, such as ships in addition to player skills.
  • They will be in-combat abilities.

List of resurrection skills

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Resurrect		Cleric	Resurrect target ally with 25% of their max health and mana.

Removing corruption

Cemetery concept art by Tad Ehrlich.

The primary means to remove corruption is through death. Multiple deaths may be necessary to remove all corruption. – Steven Sharif

Corruption score is granted by killing other non-combatants. That corruption score whittles away slowly based off of experience gained or death had.

• Dying removes a significant portion of a player's corruption score.

• Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score.

Any experience that's gained by the player, whether it be through achievements in crafting, or in adventuring, or through other types of achievements: All of that experience goes towards your adventuring class experience gained; and then some experience can dual purpose towards professions as well. So if I reach an achievement in my crafting profession and that grants me additional experience within that profession to rank up, it will also grant the same amount of experience over in my adventuring level; and to that point, anytime you gain adventuring experience you tick away at the corruption. – Steven Sharif

• A quest may be utilized to reduce the player kill (PK) count of a corrupt player in order for them to accumulate less corruption score in the future.
  • This is a design shift from a religious quest being used to directly reduce the corruption score.

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

• Corruption duration is reduced in military nodes.

Durability loss

The decay system is not going to be some worthless "Oh I'm just going to throw some gold into this and it's a simple gold sink". It's actually going to require some base materials in order to repair decayed items; and decay occurs from death and also the destruction and disable system. For the weapons over the over-enchanting will require those materials as well. So creating that dependency I think is healthy for the crafting economy. – Steven Sharif

There is item durability (item decay) in Ashes of Creation.

• Item durability loss occurs on death.
  • Gear stored in a player's inventory (that is not equipped) does not lose durability when that player dies.

• Materials are required in order to restore the performance of decayed items.

• Item decay does not destroy items, but it acts as an materials sink.
  • Zero percent durability will unequip an item, significantly increasing its repair costs.

If you allow it to get to certain stages, or to get to a destructed stage then it requires a lot of material components in order to return back to its former glory. – Steven Sharif

• Over enchanting an item comes with the risk of durability loss if a safety margin is exceeded.

There is durability in the game... It's not going to be a trivial durability. There is a potential to destroy gear (weapons and armor), but there is also an ability to reforge that destroyed gear using a portion of the materials necessary as well as finding an item creator who can reforge it. – Steven Sharif

Player flagging

The open world PvP flagging system is designed to deter people from griefing other players without limiting opportunities for open conflict.

We do incentivize players to fight back, or to participate in PvP through the flagging system, but not to PK. Not to go corrupt. – Steven Sharif

• Players can participate in open world PvP with one another without having to resort to murder.
  • Players will gank other players, but the intention is for Ashes of Creation to not be a "gank box".
• The penalties are intended to be severe enough to deter any type of spawn camping.
• Summons follow the same PvP flagging rules as players and share the player's flag status.
• Items are not provided to players until crafting or gathering interactions are complete. Players interrupted before completion will not lose these items or resources.

There are three levels of flagging for world PvP in Ashes of Creation.

• Non-combatant (green)
  • All players start as non-combatants.
  • Non-forced attacks, including AoE and status effects, will not hit non-combatant players.
  • Green players killed by mobs (the mob deals the killing blow) do not flag attacking players as corrupt, but since the exact health of another player is not known (outside of the same party, raid, alliance, or guild), attackers run the risk of killing the player and becoming corrupt.
  • Player abilities with CC effects do not apply to non-combatants. The target of a CC ability must be flagged in order to suffer the CC effects. This prevents players from opening attacks that stun non-combatant players during a pull for example.
  • Player flagging can be triggered by looting a non-corrupted character who is not in the same raid, party, or guild within a certain timeframe. Previously it was stated that non-combatants will not be flagged for looting bodies.
  • A UI setting will able players to opt-in to allow (or prevent) their beneficial spells or non-beneficial AoEs, from hitting combatants.

There's supposed to be a combat setting that allows you to, by default, not affect non-flagged players with AoE. So, even if you're force flagged, that setting only applies the targeted spell against other flagged or corrupted players. – Steven Sharif

• Combatant (purple)
  • Players are flagged as combatants if they attack another (non-corrupted) player when carrying out a forced attack. If the attacked player fights back, they are also flagged as combatants, otherwise the attacked player will remain flagged as a non-combatant.
    • This also applies to attacks made by combat pets, summons, or any other player-controlled entities.
  • Non-combatants entering an open world battleground (PvP event) are automatically flagged as combatants and remain flagged for a period of time after leaving that battleground.
  • Non-combatants who heal, buff, or otherwise interact with combatants or corrupted players will be flagged as combatants.
  • Players can kill combatants without repercussions, and are encouraged to do so, since dying while a combatant has reduced death penalties.
  • Players are not able to manually set their flagging status to combatant.
  • Players remain flagged for a period of 90 seconds following their most recent attack on a non-combatant or another combatant.
  • Players cannot log out while flagged as combatants.

You're not going to see griefing in the game very often; and that's because our flagging system. The corruption mechanics are based around disincentivizing a griefer or PKer but still offering the opportunity, should the occasion arise, where the benefits outweigh the risk, you have the ability to do so. If you gain corruption, which is killing a non-combatant - a player who is not fighting back basically - if you gain that corruption, your world has changed. It is not going to be a very beneficial place to be and you have the potential of losing your gear. Your combat efficacy decreases based on the amount of corruption you accrue. It is a comfortable balance between player agency and grief and basically removing player agency for other players. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted (red)
  • If a combatant player, or their summon, kills a non-combatant player, including any of their controlled entities, such as their battle pet, mount, or summon, the player's character will be flagged as corrupted.
    • Corruption gained for killing controlled entities is a lower value than killing the players.
  • A character's Blight increases with each non-combatant player killed over the lifetime of that character.
  • The wider the level disparity between the players, and the higher the attacker's Blight, the more corruption score they gain.
  • A character's corruption score multiplies their death penalties and reveals a their location to bounty hunters.
  • If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant.
  • Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.
  • There is a 60 second timer to logout while corrupt. Force-disconnecting the client during the cooldown will leave the character in-game.

It's important to note that the idea is going to be that, unless a player is in your party, alliance, guild, or raid that you will not have definitive knowledge of their exact hit point values. So when you do something that's sketchy like that, where you want to bring them close to death and let a monster finish him off, you are taking the risk of overhitting and actually gaining the corruption. – Steven Sharif

• Objective-based PvP events do not use the flagging system.
  • A player may not flag on members of the same party, raid, guild or alliance.

Affiliations

An affiliation tree determines how entities are flagged against other entities within its hierarchy.

• Corrupted players can be attacked (or killed) regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.
• Node citizenship.
• Alliances.
• Guilds.
• Parties.
• Raids.
• Family.
• Religion.
• Society.

There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members. – Steven Sharif

All of these things have some hierarchy; and within that hierarchy there's the ability to participate within certain systems. So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship. – Steven Sharif

Mounted combat (death of mounts)

Mount combat abilities are unlocked through breeding via the animal husbandry profession.

• Players can't use their class skills while mounted.

Mounts will have a variety of effective pvp abilities, some viable in larger scale encounters when organized correctly. – Steven Sharif

• Mounts will have combat skills based on the breed and rarity. There will also be some RNG to the mount skills.
  • Charging through opponents (to knock them down).
  • Abilities to create a lance while mounted have been discussed as a potential design idea.
  • Specific weapons systems may exist on different riding points on group mounts.

• Some crowd-control abilities can dismount a mounted player. In that case the mount would persist with its own health pool and other stats.

There is danger to traversing areas with enemies nearby; and there are specific abilities that knock a rider off of their mount should they venture too close to enemies. – Steven Sharif

• The intention is for players to gain knowledge about mount abilities through observation rather than having that information provided to them in advance.

Q: How will it be evident to players in a PVP scenario what types of abilities they might anticipate from an enemy's mount if its owner has a skin of another breed applied to it?

A: Mount abilities are really meant to be a learned information source. This is not meant to be something that I can look at a mount and know without interacting with that individual- that player what that mount is capable of doing; and as such, when they have skins applied, whether it be through in-game earned or through cosmetic purchase, you will get a learning for what that mount does by observing its use-case and taking that knowledge that you have learned forward with you. – Steven Sharif

Mounts can be killed by players, but can be resurrected after a certain cooldown period.

• Potions obtained from the Alchemy profession can be used to reduce the cooldown.
• Mounts that die a certain number of times within a set period might gain a debuff that requires a different material component to assist with their resurrection.
• Fall damage that occurs while mounted will be first applied to the mount; and if the mount dies as a result, then the remaining damage may overflow onto the player, but this will be determined based on testing.
• Royal mounts that are killed during an event, such as a siege or war, will incur an additional cost to use the mount when the cooldown period has expired.

Mounts can be targeted separately from the player while mounted.

• If a player dies there will be a period of time before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.
• If a player's mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items as the player.

Full loot

There will not be a full loot (full drop) system in Ashes of Creation.

There will not be a full drop and the reason for that is because our intention when it comes to progression within the world is we want it to be meaningful and take some investment on behalf of the player; and if even if from a design standpoint we're like yeah but they have to choose to go to the area; we don't want a choice that a player can make where they delete their character so to speak. – Steven Sharif

Visuals

• 2024-03-18
• 2024-03-03
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  2024-03-01
• 2023-09-05
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  2022-12-04
• 2021-09-25
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  2020-03-28
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See also

• Looting
• Combat
• Player flagging
• Player corruption
• Item durability