Guild wars
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Guild wars are objective-based PvP events between guilds.[1][2] Guild war mechanics are work-in-progress and subject to change.[3]
- Q: How do you plan on keeping wars fresh long term? Typically in other games wars become one dimensional in terms of strategy. Will intrepid be looking at map changes every few years, or will you give guilds / node mayors the ability to customize the layout or objectives of the battlefield?
- A: Our guild wars have objective-based gameplay that spawn in the world based on several different factors and predicates that might exist. Some of those predicates might be where is your guild a patron guild of? Does your guild have a guild hall? What node is your guild leader and/or officers a citizen of? What was your last completed raid boss? All of those can serve as predicates to then spawn a certain objective within the world that players have to either engage with in a number of different manners. Either they can be kill objectives, they can be control objectives, they can be capture and move objectives. They could be a caravan caravan summons that need to take supplies from those objectives. The idea is to incorporate all of these other ancillary systems that exist within the game in some way shape or form- tie it into the guild war, because we've created those systems for a reason. We want players to engage with those systems, so why not hook those systems into the guild war format? And I think that that creates a very dynamic setting where it is not just about killing and logging out, but rather strategy in both your resource placement, how you respond, and when you respond, the composition of your raid/group teams. Those types of things play a role now in the outcome of those guild wars and I think they keep it fresh because it'll be different per war.[1] – Steven Sharif
- The developers are considering an adjustment to the flagging system for sanctioned PvP events such as guild wars, node wars, and caravan PvP events to flag outsiders who heal or buff participants in the event.[4]
- Guild wars were released in Alpha-2 phase 1.[5][6]
 | Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap. |
Guild war objectives
Guild war objectives are work-in-progress and subject to change.[3]
- Q: What are the benefits for winning a guild war and what are the penalties for losing?
- A: I would punt that question because it's something that design is actively debating and it's something that they have a number of different approaches that they plan to institute as part of A2.[3] – Steven Sharif
| Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap. |
- There will be default guild war objectives as well as objectives that dynamically spawn in the world based on the assets guilds own, the activities guilds have participated in, and other conditions.[1][8][2][9]
- If the guild owns a guild hall, objectives might be related to capturing a quest item in or around the guild hall that is only visible to the warring guild. Capturing this objective may require channeling time.[1][9][2]
- If you have a guild hall and a certain type of guild war is declared that is maybe a higher stakes war, some of those objectives will be centralized either at your guild hall, at the opponent's guild hall; could be a progression step towards the guild hall. It might be a specific a period of time that accumulates into into a central battle at the guild hall for an objective.[2] – Steven Sharif
- If the guild has recently completed a raid, objectives might include stealing one of the quest items that the guild received from killing that raid boss.[1][2]
- Objectives may be based on whether a guild is a patron guild of a node.[1]
- Objectives may spawn based on the home node of the guild leader and/or officers.[1]
- Guild wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during server prime-time.[10]
- There may be bounty objectives to kill a particular guild member. The target may have increased damage mitigation and/or health against the warring guild and can call for help.[9]
- Guild war objectives are intended to be more fluid than castle siege objectives.[9]
Server prime-time
Objective-based PvP events such as node sieges, castle sieges, guild wars, and node wars will occur within a prime-time window somewhere between 3PM and 9PM server realm time. This is subject to testing.[11][12][13]
- Guild wars and node wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during the prime-time window.[14][10]
- The key about the server prime time is that events cater to prime time. So, these inflection points where our expectation from a gameplay design is to allow or afford players an opportunity to participate in highly impactful events within the game: Those get delegated to prime time.[14] – Steven Sharif
Guild war mechanics
Guild war mechanics are work-in-progress and subject to change.[3]
- There will be a preparation/declaration time for guild wars. This is intended to be worked on sometime in Alpha-2 phase-2.[15][16]
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![[10]](#cite_note-steven-wars-prime-time.png-10){kind=link}
| Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap. |
- Guild wars operate outside the PvP flagging system.[17][18][19][20][7]
- Player death during objective-based PvP accumulates lesser amounts of experience debt, but other penalties remain.[21][22]
- Guild wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during server prime-time.[10][23]
- Players can kill each other at any time during the war (not only during server prime-time).[10]
- Guild war objectives are intended to dynamically spawn based on various conditions that exist within each guild.[1][8][9][23]
- Guild wars are not intended to be permanent. Definitive victory/surrender conditions exist that are based on the level of the warring guilds and the assets that those guilds have.[8][7]
Guild fortresses
| Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap. |
Guild fortresses are siegable guild halls within Ashes of Creation. These are different from nodes and castles.[24]
![[24]](#cite_note-kickstarter_fortress.png-24){kind=link}
- Guild fortresses are objectives in guild wars.[2] These are contested on a regular basis.[25]
- The developers will decide if guild fortresses will be implemented in the game or shelved.[25]
- The fortress design is also something that might be on the shelf. We haven't decided yet. We're going to look into it, but the idea behind the fortress is that this is a competitive guild hall so to speak where you have to contend for it on a regular basis so to speak; or can be taken from you necessarily. Whereas the guild hall is a structure similar to freehold structure can only be taken through successful sieges against a node per-se are not taken but destroyed.[25] – Steven Sharif
Guild ladder
An inter-guild ladder will rank guilds based on their performance within competitive activities:[26][27]
When the guild participates in guild wars or they participate in sieges, you'll be able to climb the ranks of your inter-guild ladder as well so you get bragging rights amongst your friends.[27] – Steven Sharif
PvP seasons
Performance in various PvP systems (such as Caravans, Arenas, Guild wars) is measured over the course of ~6 month PvP seasons (season duration is subject to Alpha-2 testing). At the end of each season, a player's cumulative score may unlock various rewards.[28][29][30]
- Gear enhancement rewards.[30]
- Achievement ranks.[30]
- Purchasing power (Currency).[30]
- Potentially more granular player health bars.[31]
- The goal there is obviously that players can rinse clean the history in the season and start fresh. Whether or not those will be six-month, I think that's the goal of Alpha-2 is to help test that. It might be shorter than that, but the intent is to have a system that provides ability to track your wins and losses and to have those wiped fresh on some cadence.[28] – Steven Sharif
Gear enhancement rewards
Gear enhancements are possible both during and after an item is crafted.[32][33]
- There is a combination of systems that take an item to its max potential. Players will need to contribute in a certain number of these systems to reach max. Some of the systems are an either/or situation.[32] – Kory Rice
- Crafting recipes can be enhanced by adding higher rarity or different crafting materials into their selectable crafting slots at crafting stations.[33][34][35][36]
![[38]](#cite_note-enchanting.png-38){kind=link}
- Gems and sockets enable the addition of additional waterfall stats to items.[39]
- The bulk of a weapon's power comes from its crafting recipe and the materials used in its construction.[40]
- The contribution of materials to crafting an item results in advancing the rarity of that item. Now, that doesn't exclude players who don't have the legendary or the higher quality contributed resources from progressing their common item up the rarity tree through enchantments such as scroll enchanting or through tempering the gear. Both of those can affect the quality and the rarity of the gear that you produce, but by contributing the resources during the crafting process you are getting a head start with the higher quality item and now are less dependent on those other avenues to achieve that, which might be again a different vertical space of progression that you don't have as good of access to.[33] – Steven Sharif
| Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap. |
- Runes/Power stones are potential methods for enhancing weapons.[41][42]
- Enchantment stones are potential rewards for performance over six month PvP seasons. These grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system).[30][43]
Guild alliances
Guild leaders can create an alliance at a later stage in guild progression by completing a quest.[44][45] Once created, the leader can invite up to three other guilds to this alliance, but this is subject to change.[44][46][45]
- A guild may only be a member of one alliance.[47] There is no specific member cap in an alliance, only a maximum of four guilds.[45]
- Will the largest guilds segment off into different chapters of their guild that are part of small guilds? Absolutely that will happen; and the way that we combat the efficacy of doing that always is through how we design our encounters and our events to incorporate the use-case of where smaller guilds and their passive abilities are necessary to overcome certain challenge ratings. Will it always be most beneficial for larger guilds to do that? No, not always. It depends on what they're encountering, but you absolutely will see some guilds leveraging that for sure.[44] – Steven Sharif
- Guilds and guild alliances are designed to instigate competition within their membership, providing opportunities for political betrayal that leads to interesting emergent gameplay.[48][44][49]
- There's a competition for the scarcity of resources and there's an opportunity for political betrayal. I can't tell you how many times in the games that I played, where that scarcity of benefit has caused rifts between my commanders or between different groups within the guild that then can potentially erupt in a civil war. And those are the types of player emergent behaviors that we want to encourage by introducing these systems of soft friction where people compete for things.[48] – Steven Sharif
- There will be alliance specific quest lines.[50][51]
- Guilds may enter into trade agreements with allied guilds.[50]
- Due to the lack of fast travel, guilds will need to plan to have people in the right place at the right time. Alliances with other guilds will help enable that.[52]
| Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap. |
- Guild leaders will be able to pool resources into a guild alliance bank.[51]
- You can only invite a number of guilds to the alliance before you must form a new alliance; and then those alliance can have a de facto friendship but they won't have any game component of connection. What the alliance system would allow is pooling of resources into by guild leaders into an alliance guild alliance bank. Will allow certain participation in different quest lines. It will allow common area chat for members and it will allow affiliations and gear that can be attained as well.[51] – Steven Sharif
- Alliances will have affiliations and gear that can be attained.[51]
Ashes of Creation may have specific content that revolves around Alliances.[53]
- Progression pathways within alliances.[53]
- Guilds sharing common services with alliance members.[53]
- Node alliances.[54][53]
- Content that revolves around alliances specifically and progression within the development of that alliance; and the ability to share some common services between guilds that are part of that alliance. I think that additionally allowing alliances to toggle certain relationships with nodes as an interaction is beneficial. That's going to provide an interesting dynamic for players who are either members of the particular node that has the relationship established or members of the Alliance. So I think that obviously building systems is is about creating the channels by which these players can form bonds and the more layers you have around those channels of bonding between the different guilds or players, the more sustainable that relationship.[53] – Steven Sharif
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Interview, September 10, 2023 (18:10).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Podcast, August 4, 2018 (1:54:15).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Interview, October 16, 2024 (44:49).
- ↑ Interview, January 19, 2025 (3:50).
- ↑ Livestream, August 16, 2024 (55:12).
- ↑ Livestream, March 31, 2023 (1:24:21).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Livestream, May 15, 2017 (17:20).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Livestream, December 22, 2020 (1:08:41).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Podcast, August 18, 2018 (1:12:34).
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3
- ↑ Interview, July 29, 2020 (31:05).
- ↑ Interview, July 18, 2020 (13:13).
- ↑ Interview, July 8, 2020 (22:37).
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:48:21).
- ↑ Interview, January 19, 2025 (7:09).
- ↑ Livestream, January 11, 2025 (1:54:39).
- ↑ Livestream, February 24, 2023 (1:29:45).
- ↑ Livestream, June 30, 2022 (1:14:52).
- ↑ Livestream, August 27, 2021 (1:22:56).
- ↑ Livestream, December 22, 2020 (1:13:51).
- ↑ Podcast, October 12, 2024 (33:12).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (1:02:06).
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 Livestream, May 22, 2017 (52:01).
- ↑
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Interview, April 21, 2019 (45:45).
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 Livestream, June 25, 2021 (1:12:37).
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 27.3 Interview, July 29, 2020 (14:28).
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 Livestream, April 30, 2024 (1:11:12).
- ↑ Livestream, September 24, 2021 (1:22:46).
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 30.4 Interview, July 18, 2020 (16:34).
- ↑ Livestream, January 31, 2024 (59:45).
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Podcast, December 3, 2023 (17:10).
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 Livestream, November 30, 2023 (1:38:47).
- ↑ Video, November 30, 2023 (1:01:04).
- ↑ Video, November 30, 2023 (59:21).
- ↑ Livestream, May 26, 2017 (5:25).
- ↑ Livestream, August 16, 2024 (1:04:13).
- ↑
- ↑ Livestream, August 16, 2024 (1:04:20).
- ↑ Livestream, November 30, 2023 (1:54:37).
- ↑ Livestream, June 4, 2018 (1:11:19).
- ↑ Livestream, June 4, 2018 (21:37).
- ↑ Interview, July 18, 2020 (14:22).
- ↑ 44.0 44.1 44.2 44.3 Livestream, April 28, 2023 (1:28:14).
- ↑ 45.0 45.1 45.2 Interview, August 8, 2018 (16:12).
- ↑ Livestream, June 25, 2021 (1:25:55).
- ↑ Livestream, June 25, 2021 (1:29:26).
- ↑ 48.0 48.1 Interview, November 10, 2024 (13:47).
- ↑ Interview, June 13, 2021 (36:38).
- ↑ 50.0 50.1 50.2 Livestream, January 11, 2019 (1:04:32).
- ↑ 51.0 51.1 51.2 51.3 51.4 Interview, August 8, 2018 (17:13).
- ↑ Livestream, May 5, 2017 (23:26).
- ↑ 53.0 53.1 53.2 53.3 53.4 Podcast, May 11, 2018 (21:07).
- ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (2:10:23).