Ashes of Creation - New Sea Mount Details and More

The other day, September 30, Intrepid Studios held another almost two-hour stream dedicated to the development process of their ambitious MMORPG called Ashes of Creation . This time we were shown various design sketches and concept art, told about the new tropical biome, presented sea mounts and, as always, answered community questions. Below you will find a short transcript of this stream with the most interesting information.

Sea mounts will be able to move on land, in water and under water. Moreover, as we were clearly shown, the speed of their movement on land is less than in water. The situation is completely opposite with ground mounts, which, in fact, is demonstrated in the video below (available in 4k resolution). Thus, it turns out that in Ashes of Creation, mounts have strengths and weaknesses, or you can say that they are strictly divided by type and will not be suitable for performing the same task. Personally, it seems to me that all developers should do this, instead of creating “universal” variants of vehicles.

miscellanea

• We told a few details about the mentoring system. Unlike other games, it is based on a special node building, in which mentors will help their wards go through special quests aimed at escorting the NPC caravan, cleaning the dungeon, etc. For such tasks, rewards will be given to both veterans and new players.
• According to the developers, the same piece of equipment looks different on the character, not only because of gender, but also because of the chosen race. At first glance, this feature may seem insignificant, but it seems to me that adding such a division by race will have a positive effect, rather than a simple difference in the male and female versions of equipment.
• They showed the concept of a new land mount RamStraider - a kind of muscular version of a mountain ram. It will be available for taming in the open world.
• We also spent a little time on group mounts. Unlike single mount pets, this type has abilities that can only be used by your partner in the passenger seat.
• Based on the developer's answer, the speed of a mount directly depends on its grade and several other indicators. This clarification is especially interesting from the point of view of breeding mounts (one of the game systems).
• In Ashes of Creation there is equipment that you can equip your mount or pet. It increases their basic characteristics, and some items may have additional properties that affect certain indicators.
• Under water, sea mounts do not provide the character with an infinite supply of air.
• When submerged under water, a special “vision” mode is activated, which significantly impairs the field of vision. Most likely, the developers made such an effect to simulate the effect of immersion under water. This option is not final and may change during the "development" of the project.
• Ashes of Creation will have items that allow you to breathe longer underwater, increase movement speed underwater, and more. Despite this, you will not be able to improve your underwater vision. The feature described above should be fair and balanced for everyone.
• Sea mounts can be used as an analogue of a ship to study the sea content of the game, and they are also capable of submerging under water, which creates another additional opportunity for exploring the "location".
• Marine content includes ships of various classes (most likely, this means the possibility of their construction), treasures (memories of ArcheAge immediately flooded in), underwater dungeons, raid bosses, caravans, merchant ships, etc.
• The game provides for sea and underwater battles.
• The developers still have not decided whether they will impose restrictions on the maximum number of targets that can be hit by the AOE ability, but a few more tests will be required for the final decision. This information immediately reminded me of Blizzard, which will introduce such a restriction in the upcoming Shadowlands expansion.
• Apparently, the developers are planning to add group duels to the game, in addition to the already standard 1v1 option. But the introduction of such functionality will take time and configuration. In my opinion, this is a very interesting feature, to be honest, I cannot remember any MMORPG where you can challenge players to a group duel in the open world, usually everything is limited to 1v1.
• If a node has a shipyard, during a siege, tasks related to naval content and ships will appear. Thus, the attacking side will most likely be able to attack the node at the same time from land and sea.
• The guild system provides a detailed activity log, in which the player can find information about various activities. For example, the history of the deposit (who handed in and took what), entry / exit, increase / exclusion, and so on.
• The surrounding climate does not affect the condition of the clothes (say, the effect of icing or frost), but it does affect the character. For example, when using ice abilities in a snow biome, you will do much more damage. Apparently, such an increase will be expressed by a special buff on the character.
• The game will not have a system that limits how many times a player can repair the same item. However, the repair system itself requires resources in addition to gold, and most likely, depending on the grade of the item, more and more “cool” / high-level resources will be required.
• Users will be able to create equipment of the legendary grade by crafting. Unfortunately, the stream did not say how difficult and costly this process would be.
• In theory, players will be able to safely reduce the level of damage (PK aspect) of the character with the help of friends or acquaintances (killed, picked up the dropped items, returned), but it will not be easy. Firstly, you need to find a secluded place where there are no other players, and secondly, hope that there will not be a bounty hunter nearby who sees characters with damage on the map. In addition, with each death, a corresponding penalty applies to the character. The developers will not oppose this.