Dungeons

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Alpha-2 upcoming Befallen Forge dungeon scheduled for Alpha-2 phase-2.[1]
Dünzenkell Crypt open-world Dünir dungeon in Alpha-1.[2]

Half the problem won't just be solving the dungeon, it will be solving other players too.[3] – Jeffrey Bard

Dungeons in Ashes of Creation will range in size and will be mostly open-world.[4][5][6][7]

  • Open world dungeons will be populated to facilitate multiple groups within the dungeon.[5][3]
    • 80% of dungeons will be open world.[8][9]
  • Instanced dungeons will also be present and will cater for solo and group questlines.[3]
    • 20% of dungeons will be instanced.[8][9]
    • Some boss rooms (within larger encounters) will be instanced.[4]
    • Instances will either be individual or party instances, and in rare cases raid instances.[5]
    • Instanced dungeons and raids will utilize room locks or other mechanisms that restricts the encounter to its target audience.[4]

Different tiers and types of dungeon content will be more or less relevant to specific groups or class compositions.[10][5][11]

Q: With most dungeons and POIs being non-instanced, how large and intricate can we expect dungeons to be in order to accommodate many groups and PvX potential? For example, how many players do you expect the Tower of Carphin to accommodate?
A: Let me break that up into two sections. First it's important to note that while the vast majority of our playable areas are within the open world, there are some that are contained obviously within instances. Those instances being either individual instances, party instances, or even, in some rare cases, raid instances. with that being said however, part of the dynamic that a PvX game wants to emphasize when it comes to open world dungeons and playable spaces is the natural friction that occurs when scarcity is a real thing; and scarcity means that not all hunting areas are going to be the same quality. There are going to be specific loot tables that are relevant to certain hunting areas. There's going to be certain spawn rates that is relative to experience values for those areas. And there's going to be different compositions of mobs that are relevant to the areas as well; and so because there are these tiers of quality of hunting grounds, that creates a rarity value essentially to those locations, of which then there is a level of scarcity because there's limited space. So we are going to be creating spaces that are very large, to answer the first part of the question, that will host many many many groups; and we're also going to have spaces that are relatively small and might only be able to cater to one or two groups.
Second part of your question as it relates to Carphin. Carphin is broken up as a hunting area into two primary sections: There is the tower itself and then there is the wreckage of the city in which Carphin existed beneath. Now, the beneath section is the wreckage itself, is generally catering towards groups of three to five players. So it's not so much a solo area, but it is an area where you might go with a few friends. But if you went with a full party then maybe your kill rate needs to be really high; and there's a few sections that are in the wreckage area that could support that, but not the entire wreckage. Okay, so that's an important distinction to keep in mind when thinking about the dungeon itself. The tower is intended for full parties and there are I believe five levels above the base level, so six total levels that are playable; and each of those levels will support anywhere from three to four groups essentially. So it is a relatively large structure: a vertical dungeon that we're expecting groups to spend a lot of time in. And it's not intended that the groups go between levels. It's intended that they find a level and they carve out a section of that level that they're going to be hunting in; and then another group's going to be near them and maybe there's going to be some friction because they keep pulling mob from your section and you're like, "Hey what the hell dude, get the hell out of my section", and they're like "No, you're gonna die now!"[5] – Steven Sharif
  • Dungeon difficulty will increase the further a player ventures into a dungeon.[12]
  • Mobs and mob mechanics will become more difficult.[12]
  • Terrain and environmental dangers will increase.[12]
Deeper darker types of interactions will be found deeper in the dungeon.[12] – Steven Sharif
Q: Will open-world dungeons have a negative feedback loop for those who are busing or carrying dungeons for lower level players?
A: There is a level disparity mechanic that prevents players who are outside of 9 to 10 levels of the highest level within the party from collecting experience through their adventuring. So, to some degree there is a safeguard with regards to that; and then obviously the way that we cater the encounter experience, depending on those locations, are going to require that a party is operating at at a high efficiency level in order for it to be efficient for that lower level player to participate and gain levels in a way that makes sense. So, I think there are some safeguards with regards to that. And the other thing is that, if you're paying other players to power level you, or you're engaging in any type of RMT, we have behavioral heat mapping which will help us identify those individuals and take action.[13] – Steven Sharif

There were 13 dungeons in Alpha-1.[14] Originally this was estimated to be 6 or 7.[15]

Dungeon locations

Dünzenkell Crypt open world dungeon near the Alpha-1 starting area. Alpha-1 screenshot. Image credit: User:Asenscient

Dungeons and other points of interest are located throughout the map in-between the 85 node locations.[16]

POIs of this size do not normally attach to just a single node. Usually there are multiple nodes that can potentially influence a large POI. The theming within the node occurs around storylines or NPC spawns and events.[17] – Steven Sharif
  • The difficulty level and loot tables of these encounters will change based on this influence.[18][16]

List of notable dungeons

POI Thumbnail Type Location
Fallow's Hold Dungeon Torall

Underwater dungeons

Underwater dungeon early Alpha-1 preview.[19]

Underwater dungeons are part of Ashes of Creation naval content.[20]

Dungeon scale

Open world dungeon in Alpha-1.[22]

The intention is that dungeons are going to be "massive" in scale.[23]

  • Massive caverns and open world spaces.[23]
  • Places to suit larger and smaller commitments.[23]
    • Where people with 30 minutes can participate.
  • Dungeons are vast and have room for multiple groups.[24]

Dungeon bosses

info-orange.pngThis section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Harbingers

Dillia's diary concept art.[25]

The Ancients and The Others they found their way to Verra at some point and they came through what we call the Harbingers, which are essentially these celestial bodies- these almost comet-like structures that were traveling through space to find the location of the new creation; and within those harbingers is a very strong source of magic that essentially acts as a bridge between the Void and the Material plane where Verra exists.[26] – Steven Sharif

The Harbingers are comet-like celestial bodies powered by a very strong source of magic that essentially acts as a bridge between The Void and the Material plane where Verra exists.[26]

  • The worst thing the Harbingers bought to Verra was corruption, which twists and distorts everything it touches.[30]
The worst thing that the Harbingers brought was not the Others, but the corruption that they spread. It twists and distorts everything it touches. It whispers in the ears of men, and guides their hands toward terrible ends. There does not seem a means to stop it - our prayers do nothing, our spells are ineffectual. The awful truth is that the Others could simply watch as we burned Verra to ash ourselves.[30]

Dungeon content

Alpha-1 preview pirate themed dynamic point of interest.[31]

This is actually a dynamic POI. This one will evolve as players evolve the node that it's attached to. So this is its final state.[31] – Jeffrey Bard

New points of interest (such as dungeons, world bosses, and corrupted areas) spawn as nodes develop.[32][33] This content adapts to the node progression of the zone it is in.[31][34]

Certain dungeons and other points of interest across the map will all be affected by the server’s node development. Some dungeons will only be unlocked if nodes are developed to certain stages. The storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will also be dependent on the story arc paths chosen through the node system. The drop tables in area and dungeons will also be tied into the progression of certain areas. For example, let’s say that the humans have developed a node in Region A, and a storyline has opened up that leads players to inspect the ruins (dungeon) of a nearby area. And let’s say that this node was developed in a scientific (crafting) zone… Well before the node developed, this dungeon was accessible… But now the dungeon has propagated new monster assets that include a drop table catering to a crafting emphasis because of the development of that academic node. And perhaps, a new boss appears in different rooms of the dungeon that includes different adventure quest starts, like a mysterious item with a storyline that can only be progressed if a node develops to the metropolis stage in a certain region, across the world. Our system is so vast, when it comes to interconnectivity and how the world reacts to the players.[35]

Jumping mechanics

Jumping puzzle inside the Aelan ruins in the Riverlands biome. In-game screenshot.[38]
Jumping puzzle in an early Alpha-1 dungeon entrance.[39]

Jumping puzzles occasionally feature in the world.[40][39][41][42]

Dungeon difficulty

Tumok the Wretched Alpha-2 world boss.[43]

Raid bosses are aware of the number of combatants within an area in proximity to them and that awareness is part of an indicator to which behaviors they're going to utilize as part of their behavior tree. So as it's assessing the types of combatants that are facing it, the number of those combatants, the position of those combatants, the abilities and totals of those combatants, it weighs certain actions in its behavior tree and then it acts on those actions; and in the scenario where you're bringing overwhelming odds to a particular fight, that might weigh heavier the AoE options that the boss has access to, where they're utilizing a lot more AoE abilities during an engagement due to that overage of players. So in that sense it's a bit adaptive. It's a bit dynamic based on the encounter scenario.[44] – Steven Sharif

The difficulty of PvE encounters in Ashes of Creation is anchored to the PvX design of the game, which takes into account the unpredictable nature of other players into the encounter design. Ashes of Creation is not trying to directly compete against purely PvE oriented games.[45][4][5][46][6][7]

Q: How do you intend to satisfy those who love difficult end-game PvE content, such as hard mode trials of ESO, ultimate raids of Final Fantasy 14, or Word of Warcraft mythic plus dungeons?
A: To be honest with you, I'm not sure that we're trying to compete with those games and the content that they provide in that arena, because we're a different game. We're a PvX game, which means the types of challenges that PvE players can expect from us will oftentimes revolve around the additional component that players- that you can't predict their actions- provide the encounter design. So that's something that's systemically built in a PvX approach.[45] – Steven Sharif
Q: Could you explain if there are mechanisms particularly during boss fights that protect players from PvP interactions, such as room locks, or are all raids intended to remain fully open to PvP?
A: Some dungeons do have instancing. Some boss rooms are instanced. In those locations, yes they will be serviced either through a room lock or some other mechanism that protects the engagement- the environment of that encounter to who is intended to be there, but the majority of our encounters can be interrupted. They are open-world; and in those events where you have two groups that are coming together that might be at war with one another, where open flagging is not necessary, they are just flagged combatants with one another. They're going to have to manage the battlefield between what they're achieving in the PvE encounter versus now what they are experiencing in the dynamic player versus player encounter.[4] – Steven Sharif
Q: How challenging will raid boss mechanics be given the given that players may need to simultaneously fight other players while also fighting the boss?
A: It depends. The great thing about our encounter system is that it has a wide scalability from encounters that some might consider easy given their composition to encounters that some might consider impossible until they get their gear level to a certain stage. The level of interaction with other players is really predicated on the encounter itself. We may have some encounters that are in instances although the predominant portion of those will be in the open world, in which case they do have the potential being contested; and these encounters, especially the big ones that might land in contention, are giving some of the best-in-slot gear you can get in the game. So it's important that they are contested because it is a significant victory point; and one of our core pillars is risk versus reward: and the higher that risk the higher that reward should be. So those two things seem fitting and then in addition we do have the concept of winners and losers. Not everybody in Ashes of Creation is going to be a winner; and that sucks if you're not I guess, but there is opportunity for you to continue to excel and become one. But it gives much more meaning to an achievement when not everybody gets the achievement. That's our philosophy.[46] – Steven Sharif
Q: So it's the sort of thing where it might be, we're going do a dungeon that's oops, all fire golems, so if everybody straps up with plate armor and fire resistance, you don't have to worry about the magic fire: you've got the fire resistance for. And when you start getting punched around, that's why everyone's come in with plate?
A: The encounters design team presents a particular type of challenge rating- for those you're familiar with playing DnD or whatever, challenge rating gets informed by a few different vertical power levels, but then there's also the horizontal perspective: That is, what tools does your party have to address the challenge rating of the situation and some of the horizontal progression exists within how you kit your equipment slots. Some of those can be enhancements or stones, as you're discussing with fire resistance. Some of those are base stats that exist on a particular item, such as physical damage mitigation versus magical damage mitigation and what subtype of damage is incoming based on that. These are the ways that we emphasize that more rock-paper-scissors type of interaction with balance to where it's okay to have asymmetric imbalance if there are horizontal methods by which you achieve the challenge rating.[48] – Steven Sharif
How does the state tree of the NPC respond to the actions of the players? Well, it weights certain actions and behaviors based off of what the players are doing and as it weights those things, it makes decisions that will be unique according to the encounter that's occurring in front of it. So, each time might be different as a result of that. That's one section. In addition, when we talk about the adaptive scaling- this isn't scaling in like power relation to the level of the player- this is scaling in the quantity of participants; and that means that it starts to weight the behaviors that include AoE actions higher than others as a result of the number of players who are present. This intrinsically increases the challenge rating of the encounter, because those AoE abilities are providing a higher return on DPS overall to the to the raid encounter for the monster.[52] – Steven Sharif
Attunements are a gatekeeping mechanism. They are a way to mitigate the potential PvX interaction that could interrupt your raid, because there is some level of effort that must be exerted by antagonists who would hope to interrupt your efforts. Now that was a specific narrative mechanic in A1. Is it possible that we will see those throughout the rest of the game? Absolutely, 100%. That is a valid design mechanic.[57] – Steven Sharif
  • There will be mobs who's level is above the player level cap.[49]
Both in Alpha-2 and when the game launches, there will be monsters whose technical level is above that of the cap; and the intent there is obviously again to provide some level of challenge that exceeds a comparable level challenge rating.[49] – Steven Sharif

Scaling

Levels or stats of bosses will not scale due to player levels or numbers, however boss AI is able to adapt to player numbers through the selection of mechanics and behaviors.[58][59][60][61][62]

Q: Will world bosses scale when it comes to player levels and is it based on players or the zone itself leveling?
A: They will not scale based on player level, no.[60] – Steven Sharif

Leader boards

Players will be able to opt-in to track certain achievements on leaderboards, such as.[65]

Leaderboards may be seasonal.[66]

We have many dreams that we want to do with game-to-web and game-to-mobile in regards to showing stats and being making things shareable for you. We know how social media works; how sharing content with friends works. But those things will come in due time.[65] – Margaret Krohn
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Videos

Visuals

See also

References

  1. ↑ 2024-11-27 - Development Update with Alpha Two Giants and Demons.
  2. ↑ Twitter - The way is shut! Trapped in this dwarven crypt.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Livestream, September 27, 2018 (43:21).
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Podcast, May 10, 2024 (46:50).
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Podcast, May 10, 2024 (10:16).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Livestream, June 1, 2017 (39:21).
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Livestream, May 22, 2017 (20:59).
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 openworldinstancedsplit.png
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Livestream, March 28, 2020 (1:48:36).
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 steven-dungeon-tiers.png
  11. ↑ Livestream, April 28, 2023 (1:15:22).
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Livestream, April 30, 2020 (1:32:06).
  13. ↑ Livestream, April 30, 2024 (1:08:20).
  14. ↑ Alpha-1 map.
  15. ↑ Livestream, March 26, 2021 (39:08).
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Livestream, July 25, 2020 (46:08).
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 steven-pois.png
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 steven-dungeons.png
  19. ↑ steven-underwater-dungeon-leak.png
  20. ↑ Livestream, May 17, 2017 (30:53).
  21. ↑ Livestream, July 3, 2024 (1:59:34).
  22. ↑ Livestream, March 28, 2020 (1:53:18).
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Livestream, May 19, 2017 (23:00).
  24. ↑ Livestream, February 9, 2018 (45:30).
  25. ↑ Dillias diary.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Livestream, November 8, 2020 (0:00:00).
  27. ↑ Livestream, November 8, 2020 (11:48).
  28. ↑ Video, March 31, 2023 (7:41).
  29. ↑ Livestream, November 8, 2020 (12:47).
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Week 1, entry 1.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 31.6 Livestream, March 26, 2021 (50:33).
  32. ↑ Livestream, March 26, 2021 (22:53).
  33. ↑ Livestream, November 17, 2017 (36:22).
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 34.4 Livestream, November 17, 2017 (18:29).
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 MMOGames interview, January 2017
  36. ↑ Livestream, April 29, 2022 (40:21).
  37. ↑ jindrack-pois.png
  38. ↑ Video, September 27, 2024 (10:58).
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 39.2 Video, May 31, 2020 (26:42).
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Video, March 31, 2023 (8:47).
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Livestream, February 9, 2018 (10:42).
  42. ↑ Livestream, July 28, 2017 (39:49).
  43. ↑ Newsletter - June 2023.
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 44.2 Livestream, January 27, 2023 (1:34:06).
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Interview, October 16, 2024 (29:32).
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 Livestream, May 27, 2022 (1:20:35).
  47. ↑ steven-instancing.png
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Interview, July 9, 2023 (1:40:41).
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 49.2 Livestream, November 30, 2023 (1:53:50).
  50. ↑ [to https://twitter.com/AshesofCreation/status/1571960759894286336 Twitter - Creature resistances.]
  51. ↑ Livestream, June 25, 2021 (1:08:23).
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 Podcast, May 10, 2024 (48:54).
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Interview, June 13, 2021 (22:20).
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 Livestream, November 30, 2020 (1:16:09).
  55. ↑ Interview, July 19, 2020 (17:12).
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 Interview, July 19, 2020 (14:51).
  57. ↑ 57.0 57.1 Podcast, October 12, 2024 (47:01).
  58. ↑ Livestream, August 30, 2024 (1:01:40).
  59. ↑ Video, August 30, 2024 (36:44).
  60. ↑ 60.0 60.1 Livestream, May 31, 2023 (43:55).
  61. ↑ Interview, June 13, 2021 (24:14).
  62. ↑ Video, April 5, 2018 (40:08).
  63. ↑ steven-loot-level-disparity.png
  64. ↑ Interview, October 14, 2024 (6:29).
  65. ↑ 65.0 65.1 65.2 65.3 65.4 65.5 65.6 Livestream, May 31, 2023 (2:21).
  66. ↑ 66.0 66.1 66.2 Livestream, July 18, 2017 (58:50).
  67. ↑ Livestream, May 15, 2017 (44:10).
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