Corruption

Corrupt troll concept.

Corruption in Ashes of Creation refers to:

• Player corruption gained through the PvP flagging system.

Corruption tarnishes the character’s spiritual essence. Their ability to utilize the Verra’s magic found within them is diminished. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted Essence is the negative aspect of The Essence, spread by The Ancients during the Apocalypse (Lore). This form of corruption is present in Corrupted areas/zones that evolve with node progression.

Corruption is a representation of The Ancients' magic: The Ancients hatred. The Ancients desire to strike back at the creation of what their the gods who banished them to the void have tried to accomplish on Verra. And so corruption is this influence of The Essence that permeates around locations in the world and tries to pervert what that creation really is. – Steven Sharif

A great calamity

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Ashes of Creation Apocalypse lore

Divine gateway in the Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale (BR mode) staging area.

This lobby area where you see players load into- this is unfinished- but this will be one of the capital cities that you are about to enter through the great divine gateways... You're trying to flee; and in this particular game mode you are a part of some unlucky few who didn't quite make it out. And unfortunately after entering the great divine gateway fell back to the planet. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse lore takes place during the exodus from Verra.

• Some unlucky citizens didn't quite make it through the gateways in time and fell back to the planet to fight for survival. This underpins the battle royale mode.
• Certain citizens are fighting for control over Castles that they believe to be last bastions of defense against the forces of corruption. This underpins the castle siege mode.
• The last stand against the forces of corruption takes place in the horde mode.

Initially you're playing the Battle Royale you're a part of the last group of survivors to try to leave Verra. And as you're leaving you get cut off. The slipstream ends and you start falling back to the planet. Now the activities that occur and the fighting amongst yourselves is a result of the influence of corruption: Corrupting your soul basically; and as we move into the Castle Siege mode that's where you see the survivors now trying to seek refuge in some of the last defendable bastions of of society. So you're fighting over those for your families and your friends to get into that keep to try to ride out the storm so to say; and that's what the Castle Siege is predicated on. Then moving into the Hordes is this is now the final showdown. How long can you last? And that's the narrative behind Apocalypse as a whole. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse lore is split into chapters.

• Chapter 1 is called The Exodus. It takes part in the initial stages of the fall and sets the scene for upcoming chapters.

What happened before you came back? What did your ancestors have to go through? What did these civilizations have to endure? ... You get to experience the world of Ashes of Creation. You get to take a peek under the hood of the art assets and the style that that art will be when you play the game; and at the same time while you're doing all of that and we're hitting the servers with as many people as possible, we are continuing production and implementing new art; and we are updating those those chapters of this story; and that's what each season so speak is called for us is a chapter. In fact the first chapter of Apocalypse will be titled the Exodus. So chapter one is the Exodus and players will have an opportunity to earn unique rewards in each chapter. So that chapter's period of time is roughly ten weeks- between eight and twelve. We'll see how those go, but right now it's set for ten weeks; and every ten weeks you're going to see an introduction of new content. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse quests

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse quests.

Questing in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse contains lore that gives insight to the happenings on Verra during the fall.

• Daily and weekly quests allow players to gain up to 50 levels. Leveling allows players to unlock unique cosmetic rewards, such as weapon skins.
• Days and weeks end at midnight UTC, with weeks ending on Sunday, 23:59.
• These quests give lore that relates to the story of Verra during the fall, thousands of years before the start of the MMORPG.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale corruption storm

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale corruption storm approaching.

Corruption storm circle timings in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale.^{[ citation needed ]}

Circle number	Duration (mm:ss)	Shrink time (mm:ss)
1	0:30	0:05
2	0:60	0:60
3	0:60	0:30
4	0:60	0:30
5	0:60	0:20
6	0:60	0:15
7	0:60	0:05
8	0:30	?

Player corruption

Corrupted player in the Alpha-1 preview.

When you gain that corruption you have the potential of losing your completed items, your weapon, your armor, stuff that is very difficult to achieve; and then the other aspect of that is, that in order to deter basically players taking alternate characters and saying this is my PK alt, the more players you kill, the more corruption you gain, the higher your combat efficacy in PVP diminishes. If you're out there and you killed 20 players... you will not be able to perform in PVP any longer. You will need to take that character and go work off that corruption. The other aspect of corruption is that if you kill another player, who is a non-combatant and the level disparity between you and that player is great, you will gain a higher amount of corruption from that single kill. To the point where you should not be killing a level one character. – Steven Sharif

If a combatant (purple) character, or their summon, kills a non-combatant (green) character, or any of their controlled entities, in Open-world PvP, they will be flagged as corrupted (red). Corruption gained for killing controlled entities is a lower value than killing players. Player corruption has been referred to as a status condition.

There is no incentive to go corrupt... There's zero incentive for a player to go red. It actually gives you negatives for doing that- very significant downsides. – Steven Sharif

• The goal of the corruption system is to keep risk alive while significantly curtailing or deterring the ability for players to grief other players.

It is my expectation that the system will perform very well in keeping risk alive, but significantly curtailing or deterring the ability for players to grief. – Steven Sharif

• A player's corruption score (corruption value) increases with each non-combatant player killed. Corruption score has a scaling impact on the efficacy of a character's skills in PvP combat. The higher the corruption score:
  • The more skill and stat dampening applies until the corrupt player ultimately becomes ineffective at combat. This dampening only affects PvP combat.

  The more corruption you gain, the less effective you become in PvP and there's going to be a certain period at which point you have gained enough corruption that you're going to be gearless and you're also going to have a massive reduction in your PvP efficacy. – Steven Sharif

  • The higher chance of dropping of carried raw materials and gear (Weapons and Armor) when the corrupted player dies.

  If you go on a murder spree and you have 10 pks under your belt then you might start feeling a significant dampening to your skill effects against other players. I don't want to give necessarily a number or curve for players to extrapolate prior to us having the ability to actually test these ideas and where those numbers are going to lie; but I would say what is the intent behind that dampening: The intent isn't to limit the fun of the player, the intent is to provide a give-and-take or a risk-versus-reward; and the risk of continuing down the road of accruing corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects but also your ability to perform in that activity. – Steven Sharif

  • Corruption penalties occur as the corruption is gained.

Reward without risk is meaningless... Corruption is just another word for risk. – Steven Sharif

• The wider the level disparity between the players, and the higher the attacker's PK value, the more corruption they gain.

Corruption value from PK'ing a non-combatant is based on level disparity along with the PKer's cumulative PK value. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupt players suffer death penalties at four times the rate of a non-combatant.
  • Death penalties for corrupt players apply in every location, including naval PvP zones.

You can't necessarily time perfectly the damage or understand even the health of the player. Unless you were in their party you cannot see an opponent's health as well, so that's another component that adds risk.. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted players remain corrupted when they enter naval PvP zones.

• Corrupted players can be attacked regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.
  • If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant.
  • Non-combatants who heal, buff, or otherwise assist combatants or corrupted players will be flagged as combatants.

• A corrupt player’s location is revealed to bounty hunters on their world map.

• Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.
  • Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters.

• Player to player trading, interacting with vendors or NPCs, and the ability to access storage is disabled for corrupted players.
  • Previously it was stated that corrupted players could not store items in public warehouses but could utilize private storage within their freehold.
  • Corrupted players will still be able to enter and leave their freehold buildings but may not deposit or withdraw items from storage.

• There is a 60 second timer to logout while corrupt. Force-disconnecting the client during the cooldown will leave the character in-game.

Q: Will there be any large-scale consequences when many players in a group guild region religion etc become corrupted frequently or for an extended period of time?

A: There are not group dynamics or mechanics that revolve around mass murdering people in the world. The corruption system is intended to deter mass murdering, not to provide incentives by which players can go out and gain corruption. – Steven Sharif

Q: If my guild has no one corrupted and your guild is like always killing people and always corrupted, will your guild have repercussions because they're corrupted versus my guild?

A: No I don't think so either. And the reason why is we want to deter it, but we don't want to make the system meaningless; and if the deterrent becomes too heavy-handed then it's a system without a purpose. And I think that the intent behind the corruption is that like during a rise in passion and like anger and whatever you want to make this decision and do something and you'll suffer the repercussions later. But if those repercussions are just overwhelmingly bad and even anti-social in the sense that like your guild is like hey man you went corrupted and this gives us like corruption points on the guild, and like you're out of here, then people just aren't going to choose to use it; and then at which point might as well just take it out. So I think there's a healthy balance between the type of deterrent used. – Steven Sharif

• Players do not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level.
• Player corruption is different to the corruption found in corrupted areas.

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

• Corruption has a visible effect on a player’s appearance.

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.

• 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.

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Bounty hunter maps

Corrupted players with a high enough corruption score will be visible on the world and mini maps. These players will have markers posted on the map by an NPC from a Military node of at least stage 4 (Town), and will only be granted to players who have the Bounty hunter title. The accuracy of bounty hunter maps is determined by a player's progression in the bounty hunter system.

Taverns are one of the locations that bounties will be posted. As players gain corruption, taverns may offer bounties to eliminate those players; or have a specific area cleared of problem players, thus giving a POI (point of interest) on the world map.

Artwork

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See also

• World PvP
• Player flagging
• Player death
• Lore