Skill points

Alpha-2 Ranger skill tree user interface (WIP).

What you're seeing at a high level here is just what you'd pretty much expect of a traditional skill. We're doing something a little more advanced than just like a bottom up structure, because we're being a little bit more free-form in this iteration. This will obviously see more UI iterations in the future, but you'll see a mix of active and passive abilities here. Actives are indicated by their square shape, while the circular ones are representing passives; and one thing to note as well is that these passives are aiming to be a little more interesting than just like, this ability does more damage now, or it has a lower cooldown. We do have some of those too, but the goal with a lot of these passives in addition to that is to allow people to lean into unique play styles. So you'll notice that some of them are are changing your gameplay in meaningful ways; and that's the direction we want to take um player and character customization as a whole. – Tradd Thompson

Players receive skill points at specific points as they level. These can be used unlock Active and passive skills in archetype and weapon skill trees.

• Skill points accrue at specific XP milestones, such as 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 progress through the level, so as to avoid creating an imbalance with experience debt.

We do have this concept of experience debt that does accrue and we don't want to create an imbalance between skill points acquired versus experience, so we're going to predicate your skill points acquisition based on benchmarks you reach when leveling through a level. So these are going to be at specific points in the level, like one quarter progress, to half progress, to three quarters progress: you're going to get an influx of skill points and then you'll be able to allocate them into your skill tree. – Steven Sharif

• Skill points can be used to unlock universal skills at the expense of unlocking class-specific skills.

• Respeccing (resetting and reallocating) adventuring skills may require travelling to a specific location rather than being able to be done on-the-fly.

• Augments do not cost skill points. It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.

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

• It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.
• In terms of skill progression, players can choose to go "wide" and get a number of different abilities, or go "deep" into a few specific abilities.

Primary skills

Alpha-2 Bard primary skills.

If from the eight archetypes whatever you choose as your secondary, you're going to receive a choice of augments that relate to some core ideal of that class. A tank is about controlling the battlefield, is about surviving. The mage is about dealing damage and elements and ability in AoEs. The rogue is going to be about stealth and critical damage. So those augments are going to to play towards those identities. – Steven Sharif

Primary skills (class abilities) are based on a player's archetype.

• A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.

• Outside of class-specific skills there may be a subset of universal skills, such as active block and dodge.
• Class skills are not affected by the type of weapon that is equipped.

• Primary skills in Alpha-2 are expected to be very different to those in Alpha-1.

Active skills

Alpha-2 Tank action bar (hotbar) user interface.

Players can build their characters with the active skills they want on their action bar (hotbar).

• The maximum number of skills a player can have on their action bar will be around 15-20.
  • Each archetype will have roughly 35-40 skills to choose from on average.
• There will be an option to include multiple action bars (hotbars) on a player's UI. For example: One Fighter will be different from another based on what active skills they have chosen.

Some people like to have a very minimalistic number of hot bars. They don't need necessarily to have three, four, five hot bars that are available; but some people do like that: They want to have all their items listed on their hotbar as well as their abilities, as well as as their mounts, as well as anything that they can essentially interact with as an icon. – Steven Sharif

• Players are not given skills as they level up, they must choose what skills they take.
• There is no spellbook requiring memorization.

There will be multiple hot-bars that you obviously have available, because you're going to have consumables, you're going to have active skills and whatnot. But the number of active skills are not going to overwhelm necessarily the character and be irrelevant especially at certain stages. – Steven Sharif

Respeccing skills

Respeccing (resetting and reallocating) adventuring skills may require travelling to a specific location rather than being able to be done on-the-fly.

I am still conflicted on whether or not I want to allow respecs on-the-fly. I believe that respecing should be done at a particular location that requires a bit of transit and some strategic thinking ahead of time about the encounters that you're expecting, but respecing your class should be relatively easier obviously with that constraint of being at a particular location. – Steven Sharif

• Swapping between multiple saved specs may be able to be done after a suitable cooldown period.

• Respeccing artisan skills is going to be more difficult than respeccing adventuring skills.

Class progression

Class progression in Ashes of Creation proceeds as follows:

• A player chooses their primary archetype at the start of the game.
  • A player cannot change their primary archetype.

• Players receive skill points as they level. These can be used to level up skills within their skill tree.
  • It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.

• A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. The combination of primary and secondary archetypes is referred to as a class.
  • The secondary archetype does not provide additional skills.
  • Secondary archetypes may be changed, but not "on-the-fly".
  • The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.

When thinking about how augments work, they represent the core function of the archetype that you're then getting augment schools for. – Steven Sharif

• Class progression does not relate to a player's artisan progression.

• World events do not directly impact class effectiveness but there may be ancillary effects in terms of availability of equipment, enchantments or tattoos.

Universal skills

Universal skills, such as active blocking, sprinting, and active dodging, are able to be unlocked by all archetypes based on a universal skill progression tree.

We are currently implementing, for the purposes of Alpha-2, a universal stamina system that all archetypes share. When it comes to active block, sprint, and dodge: those will be a part of a universal skill progression tree that players can choose to invest skill points into; and those skill points will share with their archetype active ability and passive ability skill points as well. So, if they're going to divest themselves of further progress within their archetype in lieu of investing in the Universal skill tree, they will have access to benefits that those universal skill tree progressions provide; and some of those benefits do include stat bonuses when utilizing those universal skills. Some of them include different types of effects that can only be granted the player through the universal skill tree as well, such as the ability to potentially parry an attack, or something along those lines. We'll be talking about the universal skill tree somewhere probably mids summerish timeframe, or late summerish timeframe, because it's still actively being developed; but the idea is to have that be an additional knob of customization that influences the way your character plays. – Steven Sharif

• Universal skill progression is intended to provide synergy will all archetypes.

Because it's a universal progression tree, the intent is to provide interactions with all the archetypes. So, it's not going to be specifically more beneficial for one archetype over the other. The intent is that each of the archetypes will have some synergy interaction benefit to their general kit identity through the universal skill tree. – Steven Sharif

• Skill points can be used to unlock universal skills at the expense of unlocking class-specific skills.

Q: Will each archetype be equally efficient with universal skills, like dodging and active blocking, or will each of them have their own versions and flavors, or will some people be more powerful than others?

A: We want to provide a progression path that's shared for those universal skills across all the archetypes. So when you spend skill points, you can choose to spend them within the universal skill set and unlock particular ability types for the universal skills as well, but you will be spending them from the skill points that you would normally spend within your class-specific skill tree; and this offers again a different wheel of customization that I think is interesting. – Steven Sharif

Weapon skills

Weapons with skill trees starting in Alpha-2 phase 1.

Weapon skills grant passive skills, proc effects, and status conditions, rather than usable skills on a player's action bar. The more skill points that are allocated to the weapon tree, the greater a player's weapon familiarity with that specific weapon type. This influences things like the number of attacks, attack speed, and increased chances of proc effects from carrying out basic attacks with that weapon. These procs may offer synergy with the player's active skills. This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.

Weapon skill trees are skill trees that you can unlock and invest points into as you continue to develop your experience with certain weapon types, certain weapon groups, like a dagger; and when you're doing your basic combo attack with those weapons, which is universal for all classes- anybody can use any type of weapon because stats can be changed on these weapon types through crafting and through drops- there will be certain proc effects that live on the weapon skill tree as you advance in them; and those proc effect effects will be able to interact with your archetype skills because they will have promotion type effects that occur when they synergize with one another. – Steven Sharif

• The weapon combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.
  • These procs may reduce or reset cooldowns on other skills on the player's hotbar.
  • Certain rotations can ensure the best chance of triggering a weapon proc, but there is no reliable way to ensure that proc activates.
  • Weapon progression such as set bonuses may change at what level any proc effects occur.

Our approach is not going to be providing skills through weapons. It's going to be providing skills through classes. – Steven Sharif

• Players can spec into weapon skills on their weapon skill tree (also referred to as Combat skills, and Combat tree) based on their preferred weapon types and the grade of the weapon.
  • Dual wielded weapons count as a single weapon type on the weapon skill tree.
  • Weapon skills will progress approximately 2-3 times faster than adventuring skills. This is subject to change and tuning during Alpha-2.

Q: With weapon leveling, does it mean you will level per weapon type or will it be per weapon; and if I get a better wand, for example, will I still have to level that up again?

A: It's weapon type. So if you start advancing within the wand class of weapons, you will persist that progression across all wands that you acquire.

• Certain higher-end weapons (and Armor) have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.

Let's say a dagger has some slashing effects that bleed the target or that cripple the target... Every time you attack you have a chance to proc that effect. That effect then can synergize with what your active skills tree has available to it. So let's say your backstab deals 30 additional damage to a bleeding target. If you attack with your main weapon first and the target gets the bleed proc off and you do your backstab skill then you're synergizing your effects. – Steven Sharif

Weapon progression

In-game achievable sword and polearm 3D renders.

Power creep is a balance issue... When it comes to gear progression specifically, the idea is to create an open market that is not heavily dependent on soulbound items; and having many item sinks and gold sinks within that economy that allows for the potential degradation and loss of assets within that closed economy; and not introduce items from the market that companies put in from a pay-to-win perspective or from a pay-to-convenience perspective that undermines the economy that players have built. That is a huge mistake that companies have made in the past and that lends to the imbalancing of what designers maybe have actually balanced well. – Steven Sharif

Weapons have their own progression paths.

• Each type of weapon has its own skill tree that grants passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions.
• The weapon combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.
• Ancillary effects proc based on enchantment types.
• Gear enhancements (power stones) can be applied to add elemental or energy types of damage.
• Dual wielded weapons will have its own progression based on weapon type.
• Weapon proficiency (based on length of use of a weapon) is not a planned feature.

Ashes of Creation is all about providing many progression paths... The reason why we don't like the term endgame is because with the amount of progression that's available with the amount of diversity and player agency that impacts the world... We want the weapon system [to] add an element of that as well... You can determine special effects that proc from currently the combo system; you can determine ancillary effects that proc based on enchantment types; you can power stone weapons to add different either elemental types of damage and/or energy that play rock-paper-scissor with player defenses ... and then you can skill tree out how those effects that are granted ... you can make them better you can branch them off into a different direction. – Steven Sharif

Passive skills

• Passive skills are used to customize primary skills, weapon skills, and passive stats.
• Passive skills can be levelled up by allocating skill points on the skills UI.
• Passive skills enable players to work toward mastery of a weapon.
• Passive skills are based on the player's choice of primary archetype.
  • Some passives may be introduced with the choice of secondary archetype, but this hasn't been finalized yet.

All these passive abilities: mana regen, attack damage, critical hit damage, health regeneration, defense mitigation, maximum health: A lot of different changes from the passive side of things and these are based on what archetype you've chosen. – Steven Sharif

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Caravan Trail Speed Bonus		Caravan	Minor speed boost for travelling on a simple trail.
Healing Received		Utility skill	Increase the amount of healing received by 10%.
Instrument Drum		Bard	Choose to play your melodies with a drum.
Instrument Fiddle		Bard	Choose to play your melodies with a fiddle.
Instrument Flute		Bard	Choose to play your melodies with a flute.
Monologue		Bard	Increases the number of charges of Quick Wit by 1, but increases the cooldown by 2.
Resonant Weapon		Bard	Casting any non-melody ability will grant you 1 stack of Resonance. Stacks up to 10 times. Resonance
Shake it Off: Unyielding		Tank	Shake It Off breaks all disabling effects on the caster.
Weapon Mastery: Bows		Ranger	Reduce the cooldown of Barrage and Scattershot by 3 seconds upon hitting an enemy with a weapon combo finisher.

See also

• Skills
• Classes