World bosses

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  • World bosses will spawn at variable locations at variable times.[2][3][4]
    • Bosses may also spawn based on predicates that can be met at any time, such as when a story arc or an event begins somewhere in the world.[2][4]
    • Some world bosses and elite mobs will path/roam throughout the world.[2][5]
The general philosophy is that respawns will be variable. We don't want to have set specific times in which respawns will occur, so that they can be camped and farmed. But there'll be variable location respawns as well as variable time respawns. And then that provides opportunities for different parties to engage at different times and locations.[3]Steven Sharif
  • Some world bosses will have stages of progression, such as defeating acolytes, then lieutenants, then generals, then the world boss itself.[8]
    • At each stage there is increasing difficulty. This may be parsed out into different time periods and be behind a wall of development.[8]
  • A single digit percentage of the population will be capable of defeating certain content.[8]
  • There will be ancillary effects that happen as a result of downing certain world bosses.[9]
  • Around 80% of the content is open-world, where healthy competition is an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.[11][12][13][14][15]

List of world bosses

info-orange.pngThis section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Open world

Alpha-1 open world dungeon entrance.[16]

80% of the content that will exist in Ashes of Creation is open-world and there's a specific reason for that. So because of the way that friendships and or enemies are forged in the game and people have the opportunity to create their own friends or foes. We want that to play out from a contesting standpoint as well. So a lot of these hunting grounds or raid bosses that people are going to have opportunities to kill, they're going to be essentially contested potentially by your your enemies that you've created in the game or you can work together to create alliances in order to defend those contested zones.[17]Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation will be a seamless open-world experience.[18]

  • No loading time or loading screens between regions.[18]

There will be an approximately 80/20 split between open world vs instanced encounters.[19][13][17][20][21]

  • Around 80% of the content is open-world, where healthy competition is an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.[19][11][13]
In situations where we want to contain a particular type of raid, we will utilize instancing; and that can protect certain engagements with certain bosses. But that's really more on the 20% of the scenarios will have instancing protection like that. Around 80% of the content is open-world, where competition is- healthy competition is an instigator for soft player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. So that's an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes. It's a core philosophical point. And just to be clear, that is not for everyone. We are not trying to make a product that appeals to every MMO gamer. That's impossible; and so we've been very upfront and forthright with what we are trying to accomplish and what our core pillars of philosophical design are.[13]Steven Sharif
  • Castle and node sieges may contain instanced locations where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.[22]
  • Dungeons and raids will maintain an open world feel while also capitalizing on the benefits of instanced mechanics.[23] Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal.[13][24] Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else.[18]
There will be some open dungeons that have bosses at the end of the dungeons. There will be some open dungeons that just have a multitude of dungeon bosses, not necessarily world raids or something; and there will be lots of different rooms and they'll be progressive in the sense that in the earlier parts of the dungeon they'll be lower level and then at the later parts of the dungeons deeper down they'll be higher level and more difficult; and that creates again I think an ecosystem of where players across a multitude of levels have an opportunity to coexist within certain areas of the world; and that's good from a social dynamic. It's good from a recruitment dynamic. It's good from just a liveliness and relevance of particular areas. So that you don't end up with these locations that once you pass a certain level like it's empty.[25]Steven Sharif
We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get.[18]Jeffrey Bard

The PvP flagging and corruption system is in place to safeguard against griefing without limiting opportunities for open conflict.[27][13][28]

  • Healthy competition is seen as an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.[27][13]
  • This friction presents an opportunity to engage in the political aspects of the game, which is the lifeblood of what keeps players interested and invested in the game.[27][13][25]
Q: When you reach the bosses in [open world] dungeons can you be jumped?
A: For the most part if there are bosses at the end of dungeons, it is possible for you to get jumped.[25]Steven Sharif
Q: In an open world dungeon, what prevents others from just waiting until you're at the boss and then killing you and taking your boss's loot? What prevents mega guilds from just owning an area and preventing you from accessing or enjoying it?
A: In a majority of cases, we do not want to prevent another group from engaging potentially in PvP. We disincentivize it by creating safeguards within the flagging system that make that decision very concerning for the people that might go corrupt; and if you're in the large enough group of numbers I doubt you're going to experience that unless there's some rivalry between guilds. In which case there's apparatuses like Guild Wars that are more opt-in. You can drop guild tag if you want. But anyways, the competitive nature of this environment is a PvX element.[13]Steven Sharif

Boss mechanics

Boss fights will have fairly intricate mechanics.[30]

Combat itself will be pretty intricate mechanics-wise. We're going to have different phases of the bosses, there's going to be a lot of adds stuff, there's going to be random oriented skill usage. We're not going to have telegraphed templates on the ground, but we will have telegraphed animations, so it's going to be location, mobility, strategic. It will be something that can not be repeatable in the exact same way from raid to raid, but has a variance between the combat, so raiders are going to have to be fluid in thinking on their feet.[30]Steven Sharif
Anytime the boss is telegraphing an ability, that is an opportunity for you to direct the location of that effect; and so in that sense, yes you could use a boss's mechanics in an interesting way to affect an enemy raid.[32]Steven Sharif

Telegraphs

In specific circumstances there will be telegraphs (tells) to communicate something that's happening.[33]

  • Animation tells.
  • Templates.

PvE difficulty

Tumok the Wretched Alpha-2 world boss.[34]

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 of players. So in that sense it's a bit adaptive. It's a bit dynamic based on the encounter scenario.[35]Steven Sharif

The difficulty of PvE content, such as raids and dungeons will adapt based on the performance of the raid or group against previous bosses in that encounter.[36]

  • Higher performance in earlier phases will increase the difficulty of subsequent phases of the encounter.[36]
  • There will be mobs who's level is above the player level cap.[39]
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.{livestream|2023-11-30|1h53m50|V9F_AJl9ozY}}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.[40]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.[41]Steven Sharif

Level scaling

Levels, stats, or skills will not be scaled to allow low level players to participate in encounters with higher level players or world bosses.[6][42][43]

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.[6]Steven Sharif

Looting

Alpha-2 looting UI preview.[44]

In the group loot obviously there's a lot of functionality here that parties have the ability to customize. There can be loot master, there can be round-robin, there can be need/greed/pass that's applied on a per rarity basis depending on the party's choices.[44]Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 vote to change loot allocation method UI.[45]

Ashes of Creation intends to use traditional loot rules, selected by the party or raid leader.[46][47][48]

  • Group loot rules are defined on a per-rarity basis.[44]
  • A majority of party members must vote to approve any changes to group loot allocation changes.[45]
  • The developers are considering using a double-tap interaction to loot all containers within a close proximity radius.[49]
  • There won't be auto-looting pets.[50]
  • It will be possible to kick a player from a party prior to them acquiring loot.[51]
Yes, technically it would be possible for you to kick a player prior to acquiring loot. However, again because we are a game that relies on social interactions, there are reputations to be had; and if you acquire a reputation as a raid leader, or as a party leader, of doing something dirty like that, then it's unlikely you'll be able to Garner the support of future party members and/or raids to lead efforts against these raid bosses.[51]Steven Sharif
Free-for-all.[48]
  • Whoever is first to loot gets the loot.[46]
Lootmaster.[44][48]
  • A master looter (or lootmaster) is a player designated by the party leader to decide how loot is distributed in a dungeon or raid party.[48]
Round-robin.[44][48]
Need or greed.[44][48]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
Bidding system.[48]
  • Intrepid are investigating a potential bidding system, which allows players to bid on items instead of rolling for them.[48]
    • The highest bidder wins the item.[48]
    • The gold then goes into a pool that is split among the rest of the party members.[48]

Loot tables

Loot tables (drop tables) of world bosses or dungeon bosses have a small RNG chance of dropping gear (completed items).[53][54]

Q: Can only one gathering artisan harvest resources from a single boss, or can multiple different artisans harvest different parts from a boss for different resources? For example, a lumberjack gets a special wood from Tumock's tree weapon, while a herbalist gathers the flowers from that same tree.
A: We don't have the concept of harvesting from bosses. NPCs follow a reward table format, where those reward tables are global. They're not unique to particular players. So, once the NPC is vanquished, you have access to the loot container that is its corpse; and it has a static value of either materials or items that get dropped; and whatever the party loot settings are that you might be a part of, or if you're a solo player you will be able to recover those things.[71]

Loot tagging

Looting rights (also known as Loot tagging) is based on a blended tag and damage done system.[73][47]

  • The first party to obtain a tag (on a mob or boss) will gain an approximately 5-10% edge over competing parties in terms of the total damage done when determining looting rights.[73][47]
    • These numbers will be balanced based on testing.[73]
  • At the end of the fight, the party with the highest damage done, including first tagging bonus, will be granted looting rights.[73][47]
We have a blended approach of damage done and a tag benefit. So if you tag the boss first, or you tag the loot- whatever the loot target is first- you're gonna get a benefit in the damage overall determination. So if you need to have 51% of damage done in order to qualify your raid, or the plurality of damage done if there's even three or four raids, then tagging first might give you a five or ten percent edge. We'll play with that number- balance it based on testing, but generally that's our approach in competing loot rights[73]Steven Sharif
Q: If looting rights are based on a blended tag and damage done system, will there be any mechanics in place to ensure roles like tanks and healers have an equal shot even when they haven't dealt as much damage?
A: That's the reason for the blended approach. The reason that we're doing a hybrid system between tag and damage done is for the purposes of those classes who may not be as DPS oriented as other classes. The tag system- all classes are going to have a sprinkling of immediate effects- of instantaneous casts and they can use that to tag a target, and that'll give them a modifier on the looting rights: So plus 10 or plus 15 will balance that, but it'll give them plus 10 to 15 on overall damage done if they tag the target and then their damage will make up the remainder of that percentage completion. So if I do 50 damage to a target but someone else has the tag I'm not going to be able to claim that looting right. They'll have done the other 50 plus 10 or 15.[74]Steven Sharif

Visuals

See also

References

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  3. 3.0 3.1 Livestream, May 31, 2023 (41:16).
  4. 4.0 4.1 Livestream, March 31, 2023 (1:20:41).
  5. Livestream, March 26, 2021 (54:26).
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  9. Livestream, November 19, 2021 (55:31).
  10. Livestream, May 31, 2023 (42:06).
  11. 11.0 11.1 Livestream, May 31, 2023 (45:47).
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  15. Livestream, June 1, 2017 (37:39).
  16. Livestream, April 30, 2020 (1:05:34).
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  19. 19.0 19.1 Interview, September 10, 2023 (58:47).
  20. openworldinstancedsplit.png
  21. Livestream, March 28, 2020 (1:48:36).
  22. Livestream, January 28, 2022 (17:50).
  23. dungeon open.png
  24. Podcast, September 29, 2021 (34:11).
  25. 25.0 25.1 25.2 Podcast, September 29, 2021 (35:17).
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  28. Livestream, May 19, 2017 (24:17).
  29. Forums - Dev Discussion #52 - Boss Mechanics
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  31. 31.0 31.1 Livestream, May 27, 2022 (1:14:46).
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 Interview, September 10, 2023 (32:16).
  33. Livestream, May 22, 2017 (49:38).
  34. Newsletter - June 2023.
  35. 35.0 35.1 35.2 Livestream, January 27, 2023 (1:34:06).
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