over 2 years ago - /u/IntrepidStudios - Direct link

βš” πŸ‘€ Check out our June Development Update to catch up on the latest news, including a slice of our basic melee weapon attack combos! https://youtu.be/4sUTuUAgavE

πŸ—‘ πŸ€” What was your favorite part of this update?

External link β†’
over 2 years ago - Ashes of Creation - Direct link

Transcript (by Youtube)


0s [Music]
20s hello everyone salutations and welcome
23s to our glorious ashes of creation june
26s development update we hope that everyone
28s is well and safe and been having a
30s wonderful month we've got a three-day
32s weekend coming up we're excited hello
35s it's fourth of july
37s yeah here in the u.s so
40s we're excited about that and of course
42s we're excited to show off a little bit
43s of combat so if you um
46s don't know us i'm margaret crone our
48s community marketing lead and with me as
50s always is the one the only stephen
52s sharif aka our creative director
55s um and his beautiful blooms behind him
58s the orchids
60s oh yeah that's right
62s the orchids can i see that yeah they can
65s see that
66s um and of course uh today we will be
69s going over our quick reminders and then
71s we'll be showing off something you all
72s have been anticipating which is
75s a small slice of combat but this will be
77s our basic weapon attack update we'll be
80s also showcasing some character arts
82s updates and doing our studio update and
84s then q a doing stuff in a little
86s different order because we want to get
88s straight to the juicy stuff because we
90s know yes we have taken your feedback
92s into our run of show and margaret has
94s changed things around so we get to the
96s meat faster
98s all right and of course for that uh we
101s have our next dev discussion which is
104s going to be
105s about
106s i mean it was already up already it's
108s about gear color customization so we
110s asked you how do you feel about dyeing
112s your gear how far would you like the
114s system to go do you prefer a full color
116s range that allows for some odd color
119s combinations or more limited one that
121s preserves visual fidelity and realism so
124s if you haven't gone over to our forums
126s given us feedback on that please do um
129s because we would like that and then of
131s course our next one will be on world map
133s discovery so definitely toss us your
136s feedback on that there's been some
138s changes on the world map front but uh
142s i think we'll save that for a future
143s update but there has been some
145s significant changes yeah just to tease
148s that
149s i mean that's going to be a fun update i
151s can't wait to
152s i can't wait to showcase that
155s and of course we have our comment of the
158s day
159s um or of the month i should say and if
161s you would like your comment to be chosen
164s all you have to do is when we upload
166s this to youtube go over there leave us a
168s comment make sure you subscribe to us on
170s youtube and if you are subscribed we
172s will be picking a random subscriber to
175s be showcased and for this one we've got
178s uh rom slb who wants to know or who
181s noted love this idea and impact of
184s seasons in the economy however i feel
186s that one week real time per season is
189s way too short it should be like a month
192s in my eyes otherwise uh this this vision
196s of people carrying things around won't
197s really happen people will just stock up
200s a lot for the winter and that's it
203s so that's an interesting comment and and
205s um actually just want to touch on it
207s real quick
208s the weather systems the season systems
211s that's going to be a obvious point of
214s testing for alpha 2 of course you know
216s we're going to play around with the
217s different cycles and and times
220s and how they impact the economy the
222s rotation of resources the movement of
224s goods like all of those things play into
227s the purpose one of the purposes of
229s having seasonal systems so
232s that is something that we are going to
233s play with during our alpha 2 testing and
236s will land on what feels both most
238s comfortable
239s is visually appealing but also has the
242s impact on the economy that we desire to
244s see
245s on the design side
247s yes so of course thank you all for your
249s feedback we've got a ton of seasonal
251s feedback and
253s we'll be compiling some of those things
255s and sharing them with our development
256s team so we really super duper appreciate
259s all of that
260s um and of course just a quick reminder
263s that our opulent negotiations uh
265s cosmetics swap over will be happening
267s july 13th at 11 am pacific uh reminder
270s that all of the variants made from these
272s sets you'll see in game is npcs
274s creatures buildings etc and we'll
276s actually be showcasing some variants
278s today if you don't follow us super
280s closely for those of you who do you
282s might uh have already seen some of those
284s but we've made some updates to the
286s imagery and with that um i think we can
289s go into our basic weapon attack combat
292s update yes
293s that's some preference i would like to
295s yes i'd like to preface the video
298s um so i made this uh
301s decision what was three weeks ago
304s i stepped into uh
306s it was like four weeks ago
308s yeah i stepped in and i i talked with
310s mark i had another topic originally
312s planned for you
313s however
315s it had been weighing on me
317s that um
319s you know i wanted to begin showing some
321s of the
322s combat that we were getting completed uh
325s for alpha 2. and rather than having a
328s big grand reveal of all of the class
331s kits and abilities and and the
334s combat changes that we've made i want to
336s segment up these updates into smaller
340s chunks so that people have an
341s opportunity to comment on specific
343s aspects of the changes that we've made
346s for combat
347s and the first and foremost one that made
349s sense for us to do which is probably the
352s the most foundationally core aspect of
354s combat is going to be the basic weapon
356s attacks and i wanted to showcase and
359s focus on the changes that have been made
361s with regards to the directional movement
364s functionality root motion versus split
367s body the ancillary components of combat
370s that are animation vfx and audio
374s and just show that at a base weapon
376s level so
377s we decided that for this month what
380s we're going to do is give you guys a
382s look at those basic weapon functions
384s there's a couple of skills that are that
386s are thrown in there from our weapon
388s master class but
389s um it's primarily focused on the feeling
392s of that basic weapon combo attack right
396s and um i want to make sure
398s that you content creators out there uh
401s who who make content for for ashes and
404s kind of you know relate to your
405s audiences the updates that we provide
407s that you contextualize this update in
409s the appropriate manner because of course
412s our engaged audiences they see this
413s update they've been watching our
415s progress for
416s a significant amount of time and they
418s can they can touch point a to b to c and
421s see that progress but unengaged
423s audiences they look at something and
427s they don't necessarily always have the
428s best context for active development and
431s what is a work in progress of course and
433s they will look at something and assume
434s it's a vital product as you know this is
436s not the final product we always iterate
438s we continue to improve there's a lot of
440s stuff that still goes into making combat
443s a good thing and combat's a really
444s touchy subject because
446s you know you see weather effects and you
448s see seasons and those can look
450s universally good or you see
453s a character creator you get the
454s versatility and the functionality that's
456s present there the customization options
457s those can those can be universally
459s perceived as very good
461s combat is a very
463s different type of subject right
466s there are a lot of different ways that
467s combat can be portrayed in games
469s all of us have our own uh subjective
472s view of what is good combat do we want
475s super fast pace very tactile uh slower
478s pace tab targeting all those types
480s there's there's a realm of
482s preference exactly there's a realm of
483s preference there but with that being
485s said
486s we have taken feedback specifically from
488s alpha one um and we've tried to iterate
491s upon that feedback and present it in
494s such a way with this video that gives
495s you context for those basic weapon
497s feelings those root
499s foundational types of movement and
502s pacings
503s that exist so keep that in mind when you
506s content creators out there are kind of
507s relaying this information to the
509s audiences that might not be as familiar
510s with the project
511s let them know this is just to focus on
514s the basic weapon attacks it is focusing
516s on that aspect of combat we will we will
519s unveil additional aspects of combat
522s being ability systems
525s class rotations we'll talk about the vfx
528s pipeline and how that advances with
531s with the ability system as well um you
533s know those are going to be additional
535s beats that we hit leading up to the next
538s few months that we'll showcase on these
540s streams but this first one is the
543s melee specific basic webinar yes that's
545s right
546s absolutely yeah exactly absolutely so
549s keep that in mind um i i had a great
552s time filming this yesterday uh i think
555s the team has done a phenomenal job if
557s you do some comparisons between where we
559s were last year and where we are today
562s there's a significant difference so i
564s have taken your feedback from alpha one
566s absolutely you all sent us a lot of
568s great feedback a lot of those things
569s were things we already were thinking of
571s adjusting and changing as well so we
573s hope that you see that culmination as we
575s showcase this and you know as we
577s showcase further along the other pieces
579s that steven just mentioned uh we will
582s hopefully you'll be able to see some of
584s the feedback just from this update
586s absolutely very excited guys
589s enjoy ready all right we'll see on the
591s flip side
594s [Music]
609s so
620s [Music]
622s hello everyone and welcome to another
626s live stream day for ashes of creation
629s super excited to be with everybody today
630s we have a pretty awesome showcase
632s i think it's something that the
634s community has been asking for for a
636s little while actually i think the last
639s time we showcased uh some combat
641s gameplay was a year ago
644s roughly almost um but i am very excited
647s to show you guys what we have in the
649s works today um
650s i have
652s joining us with me today two of our
655s extraordinary engineers
657s adam and kenan how you guys doing hello
661s stephen
662s doing well how are you i am doing very
664s good running around like a chicken with
666s its head cut off but otherwise very good
670s nice keenan how you doing buddy
673s i'm doing good glad to be here awesome
676s i'm excited to have you this is your
677s first stream i believe correct this is
679s my first stream very cool adam you've
680s been on a couple ones before this yeah
683s yeah yeah it's good to be back
685s very cool and then i also have
688s joining us today one of our senior game
690s designers mr trad how you doing buddy
694s i'm doing great i'm glad to be back on
696s stream welcome back very excited to show
699s what you guys have been working on what
701s the team has been working on
703s i know i probably already said this on
706s the stream but i'm going to reiterate it
708s here
709s that this what you're about to see is
711s not the final combat in ashes
714s this is a portion of the combat systems
718s obviously a lot goes into making combat
720s right
721s from a visual effects perspective from
723s mechanics and functionality on the
725s engineering side
726s the design elements and how it
728s synergizes with our class kits and
729s ability systems the
732s you know balance of these things the
733s audio component the ui there's a lot
736s that goes into making
738s combat
739s for an mmorpg and the combat you're
742s going to see today is very focused on
744s one component actually two components
746s i'm sorry
747s um the first of which is
749s our basic melee weapon
753s attacks
754s in addition to our floating text ui so
759s keeping that in mind that is the context
761s of today's presentation previously
764s i had decided that i wanted to wait to
766s showcase combat until
769s excuse me until we had um
773s pretty much everything done and ready to
775s show
776s and as
778s time grew i decided what i wanted to do
781s instead was showcase little portions of
784s each uh component of the combat system
787s starting with the
789s basic melee weapon attacks and then
791s we'll move into in a later live stream
793s the ability systems and the class kits
796s and of course we're not going to show
797s every class kit and you know everything
798s that's going to be in alpha 2 we want
800s some of that to be a surprise right but
802s we do want to showcase
804s um the work that's been done
807s and the direction that's been taken so
809s that we get player feedback and
811s personally you know playing this i think
814s it feels
815s amazing i think it looks great i'm super
818s impressed continually by our team's
821s talents um as i know a lot in the
823s community are after having seen the
825s character creator and the
827s weather systems and season systems um
830s you know there's a there's a very high
832s quality bar that we're we're setting
833s ourselves up for uh with ashes of
836s creation and i i think it is it is what
838s you know the community wants um but it's
841s great to have these touch points where
842s we get um where we get your feedback so
845s focus today is going to be on basic
847s melee weapon attacks um it's going to be
849s on root motion versus split body the
851s types of agency that's provided to the
853s player while also respecting the
855s weightedness we want from certain weapon
857s groups and also talking about the ui
859s element and showcasing floating text and
862s the types of customization options that
863s players are going to have so keep that
865s in mind that's the context of of today's
867s presentation
868s and when you give the commentary let's
870s let's focus on what you like and what
872s you think there could be improvements on
874s um from that perspective so without
877s further ado we are in probably an area
880s that you guys are familiar with um
882s this is the riverlands biome yet again
885s um you saw this in the the last month's
888s livestream
890s but we are in an area that is known to
892s harbor
894s um some scary things
896s um so i'm just gonna start kind of
899s walking down in this area and um adam
902s keenan tratt if you guys want to talk a
904s little bit about
905s how this process began
907s all those months ago on defining
911s good combat for ashes of creation
916s uh sure um
917s [Music]
918s i would say you know it starts with
921s you know all of the hundreds of
923s thousands of hours cumulative hours of
926s mmo that we have under our belt right we
928s have a lot of hours of mmo gameplay
930s under our belts
932s we just got to push a couple buttons and
933s we're immediately like oh it feels good
935s or it doesn't feel good you know it's
937s funny keenan actually you say that
939s one of the koala i mean you guys all
941s know this because every one of you went
943s through an interview with me but one of
944s the qualifying aspects of joining the
946s team is what type of mmos do you like to
948s play
948s [Laughter]
951s nice
952s yeah so it starts there uh and then from
955s there we sort of do our research you
957s know we have to take a look at the state
958s of the art
960s and then we we
963s we study it we form hypotheses about
966s what exactly it is that makes things
968s feel good or not feel good
971s um and then we make those things in as
973s controlled a manner as we can and then
975s we turn the knobs we tweak things we see
978s what feels good what doesn't feel good
980s we come up with some rules some
982s processes and then uh we put them to the
984s test
986s and this is this is what comes out
988s yeah it's um it's very iterative
990s iterative process right like you know
993s none of these things are like you form
994s your theory on paper and then you go and
997s you make the thing and it comes out to
999s be exactly what you see now right like
1000s it starts out the first time not super
1003s great and then
1004s what we have to be able to do is
1006s engineers is
1011s [Music]
1015s as long as you keep making it better
1017s each time eventually you're going to end
1018s up with something good
1020s yeah and for uh this exercise and
1023s finding what makes ash is great
1025s specifically
1026s we wanted to approach it from the ground
1028s up
1029s answering individual questions about
1032s our hypotheses and what we think is good
1035s right so we we really
1038s focused on individual aspects
1040s that we think makes good combat and
1042s answered them one at a time in a very
1044s tightly uh
1046s very tight iterative process
1049s and
1049s we ended up at something that uh we
1052s think feels really really good so yeah
1054s just just playing this i am loving the
1058s hit reacts the visual effects all the
1061s ancillary components that go into making
1063s the combat but but more importantly
1066s the pacing of this kind of heavier
1069s weapon group
1070s um
1071s also as a side note uh outside of the
1073s combat
1074s one of the things i've not necessarily
1077s liked about mmos traditionally in the
1079s past is that
1081s excuse me every portion of land is
1084s covered by some type of monster right
1086s and it kind of gives you this
1088s weird feel but here like this is a very
1090s dangerous area that we're in the
1092s environment and part of it gets
1094s communicated by the
1096s you know aspect of these rocks and like
1098s the
1099s specific types of materials that's
1100s represented here but you don't know
1102s exactly where the threat lies per se
1105s right you kind of move up into an area
1108s and if you move too far you get the
1111s audio cue of the of the monsters like
1113s arising your character gets into the
1115s combat stance they have some really cool
1118s aspects of
1119s of animation the animation team did an
1121s amazing job with the rolls here i am
1123s loving and also they're like death it's
1125s just like swinging away and then flying
1127s off that is so great
1130s yeah i really like like the camp feel of
1132s of this area where you know you don't
1134s just see these guys scattered around all
1136s over the world no matter where you go
1138s there's like something that's going to
1139s aggro you it's more like i'm going to
1141s grind here for a bit
1144s yeah steven
1146s you were talking about how you like
1148s how heavy the wet the sword feels and um
1152s that weight
1153s impact that is one of the combat pillars
1156s that we have been studying and honing in
1158s on in our development process
1160s the other side of it is um
1163s the other side of it being uh also like
1166s agency you know to what extent does this
1168s weapon respect your intentions and
1169s that's the part that's important to me
1171s i'm a
1172s you know i'm a classic player i come
1173s from traditional mmos right like i i
1176s want to be able to move and attack at
1178s the same time right yes and that was a
1180s huge point of feedback actually that we
1182s received during alpha one
1185s was that we started with this more root
1188s motion approach to the basic weapon
1190s attacks
1191s and ultimately we
1193s we called an audible mid test
1196s i remember it was in that that end of
1198s july or beginning of august month um
1200s where we decided to implement a a
1202s completely split body approach and get
1204s player feedback and of course the
1206s feedback was was very positive or
1208s soundingly positive right um that
1210s players prefer that agency
1213s over that weightedness but they also
1216s there's a little bit of a conflict there
1218s because they also didn't like the floaty
1219s feeling which comes along with
1222s not having the weighted approach so how
1225s did that play into your guys's
1227s defining this current approach on the
1231s weapon attacks how did you blend those
1233s two
1234s yeah so
1235s we kind of approached it from looking at
1238s player agency primarily as kanan had
1240s said and
1241s the games that really handled uh uh
1244s player agency the best are those like
1245s classic mmos right
1247s players really like how smooth uh the
1250s classic mmo feel how much player agency
1252s they get out of it and then we we took
1254s that and we tried building the sort of
1257s impact and weight on top of it really
1259s making attacks feel satisfying making it
1262s feel like the inertia of the weapon and
1264s your movements are are accurate you know
1267s physically accurate and we accomplished
1269s that through a number of ways really
1271s again talking about the process we try
1273s to identify each individual aspect of uh
1277s of what we got out of these you know
1279s more
1280s modern action games and tried
1282s incorporating that into our classic mmo
1284s base
1286s you know i think
1288s i think it all comes down to looking at
1290s it not as a binary of
1293s you know are we doing split body or are
1295s we doing root motion combat it's looking
1297s at everything as modular pieces and then
1299s dialing in those numbers to
1302s make something that
1304s feels
1305s high in player agency feels very
1307s impactful like it has a lot of inertia
1309s it feels very physical
1312s yeah my litmus test for agency in combat
1315s is take any moment in combat pause time
1318s look down at your hands look at the
1319s keyboard
1320s the buttons that you're pressing should
1322s be the directions that your character is
1324s moving
1325s so with these weapons even though there
1327s are little uh
1329s like little bits of root motion here or
1331s there they're always respecting your
1333s wondering input and i think that's what
1335s makes them feel good
1336s i think another thing that you guys did
1339s that helps with that is the
1341s timing of what that gets registered
1343s right like it's not you know at one
1345s point one iteration we had it where
1347s it
1349s detected what your input was at the
1350s beginning of the attack and that just
1352s felt like if i decided to change my mind
1355s and go left instead of right
1357s in the middle of that attack
1359s it's too bad it already kind of cute
1360s that and so i think now what you guys
1362s are doing is
1364s having it happen at like swing time
1366s right
1368s yup it's constantly looking at your
1370s input and adjusting now i've equipped
1373s these these daggers
1375s this dual wielding uh uh these dual
1378s daggers talk to me a little bit about
1380s the differences between the heavier um
1383s weapon group and the light weapon group
1386s yeah um so initially in our uh
1390s investigation we wanted to start with
1392s the the light weapons to figure out
1395s how to really blend
1397s uh uh the the weight of an attack um
1401s and and
1402s introduce or start with player agency
1404s and then introduce that weight of the
1406s attack into it we figured the least
1408s risky weapon to start with would be the
1410s lightest weapon possible you know little
1412s daggers that move very fast very high
1414s player agency and uh not necessarily
1417s focused on
1419s big weight much like a heavy sword so
1422s um we started with that and tried
1424s introducing little bits and pieces here
1426s and there like small bits of root motion
1428s to get that nice like dashy feel in when
1430s you're when you're attacking and uh play
1433s into that inertia um i know uh
1436s keena might want to talk more about the
1438s uh animation timing sheets we introduced
1442s for figuring out these uh timings that
1444s feel good
1446s yeah that's part of our process for
1449s communicating cross-department is using
1451s frame timing diagrams and being specific
1453s about how we not only want to animate
1455s but also how we want to move during
1457s different frames of the animation
1459s and we found that to be very successful
1462s but one of the things that makes the
1464s daggers different than the sword is that
1467s the daggers never really slow you down
1470s they're both respecting your directions
1472s but the swords will actually slow you
1473s down at certain times like leading up
1475s into the strike your split body movement
1477s is sort of uh
1479s blending down towards zero and then you
1482s strike and then it blends back up toward
1484s to one the daggers are are not doing any
1486s blending like that you're just split
1488s body and then you're striking and then
1489s you're back into split body and it's
1491s sick of seamless process
1494s yeah i'm just playing with the
1495s directionals here i mean on the
1497s animation team they did a a phenomenal
1499s job i'm loving
1501s the kind of foot placement and movement
1504s the
1505s strafing feeling on the body there i
1507s know alexi did a lot of work on the ik
1509s as well that we can see like when you're
1510s you know kind of stepping up different
1512s portions um that's it feels really good
1515s to play
1518s oh yeah considering how uh physically
1521s based we are and animation driven our
1522s combat system is
1524s uh it was super important that the
1525s animators you know get all of that right
1528s and they absolutely knocked it out of
1529s the park i mean one of the biggest
1531s things i think
1532s uh to making good feeling attacks is
1535s getting all of the departments involved
1538s in what feels good and on the same page
1539s right
1540s getting everyone iterating uh so you
1542s know like in the process we started with
1544s chopping up animations to build an
1546s ability that we thought felt good and
1548s then we wanted to pass that off to
1549s animation to finalize those animations
1552s by chopping up our abilities and making
1554s animations that feel good and then we
1555s can all loop everyone back together and
1557s finalize that ability uh you know vfx
1559s has the same process too so
1562s you know it's it's a bunch of different
1563s departments iterating on a very micro
1566s scale to build something that is just
1568s awesome
1570s yeah the animation team definitely had
1572s to take a deep breath when we went to
1573s them like hey
1575s you know those three-part weapon combos
1577s that we like so much uh we want
1579s different ones for each direction that
1581s you can move in
1583s oh and also you need to be able to weave
1585s between the directionals at any time
1588s that is pretty funny um one of the
1590s things that's uh interesting and is
1593s always a point of contention for those
1595s of us who have perhaps played different
1597s games and have become accustomed to a
1600s specific
1602s visual representation of these these
1604s damage
1605s floating text right
1607s and i want to showcase a little bit
1609s i'm going to let them hit on me for a
1610s little bit just so you can kind of see
1612s directionally damage you take which is
1614s indicated in this red number floats
1617s towards
1618s your left hand side and when you do
1620s damage to a target they float to your
1623s right hand side
1625s now
1626s one of the very important aspects of
1628s these floating texts
1630s is providing the player with
1632s customization options that they can
1635s adjust the size of the floating text
1637s they can adjust the color composition on
1640s how these texts are represented they can
1642s also include damage icons to indicate
1645s the ability that's used for those
1648s floating texts
1649s and importantly
1651s excuse me
1652s we also call out the um uh the crits
1655s that you do in a separate way how they
1657s pop in they're slightly above those um
1660s the other numbers um and then more so we
1663s also have additional functionality for
1664s cumulative damage uh value so i'm gonna
1667s kind of go through that you'll see here
1669s as i press
1671s um
1671s you know different option now we've
1673s changed the colors
1675s um whoops hold on let me see make sure
1679s is that color going off differently or
1681s am i just do i not have my
1684s hold on
1686s is it okay let me try this
1689s quick
1695s oh maybe that's not
1697s oh let me find a different monster i
1699s hope that's working if it's not we can
1701s show that um a little bit later
1704s uh
1705s let me press this button oh here we go
1707s okay so you see the color is changing
1710s now and that's something that the player
1712s has agency over right you can assign
1714s different types of colors that you want
1717s um
1718s that was changing i think the one i was
1719s pressing actually was changing the size
1722s so let me try to change that size again
1724s there you go you can see that size now
1726s is larger you can showcase xp if you
1728s want you can bold in
1731s the numbers a little bit as well but
1732s providing kind of maximum flexibility
1735s and character customization um excuse me
1737s player customization options for these
1738s floating texts i think is super
1740s important but i love the way that they
1741s feel that kind of classic um very almost
1744s um
1746s uh what are we saying canon very vanilla
1748s vibe
1749s oh yeah sometimes the best flavor is
1751s just vanilla
1752s absolutely totally agree
1756s yeah but the ui team's done a great job
1758s on the functionality for that i think
1761s it's feeling pretty good
1764s yeah that's very cool so
1766s where are we
1767s now when it comes to kind of the the
1770s spectrum of light to heavy attack
1773s options on these basic weapon
1775s attacks
1776s um what's kind of next for this as we
1779s showcase it to the players
1782s well i think we've sort of defined our
1783s spectrum with the light and the heavy
1785s when it comes to
1787s agency versus weight versus impact
1790s when you look at the heavy i think we're
1793s we're close to saying that this is sort
1795s of the most we want to compromise agency
1798s for
1799s weight and impact and once we have that
1801s upper bound we can sort of play with all
1803s of the different uh
1805s intermediate points right as we start to
1807s build out other weapons
1809s but we have interesting explorations as
1810s well and how all of this translates into
1812s ranged and um also ultimates we might we
1816s might take the limiters off for
1818s ultimates and just see what the coolest
1820s things we can make are yeah that that's
1822s going to be pretty interesting another
1823s component by the way of defining um
1826s kind of this weapon attacks is also the
1828s visual effects side um and weapon
1831s trailings the intensity of those weapon
1833s trailings how they scale based on the
1835s type of weapon the level of weapon that
1836s you have uh but not just the trailing on
1839s the weapon per se but also the grand
1840s ground decals like for this heavy weapon
1843s that first strike you see that kind of
1845s that decal in the ground is i love that
1848s look and even on the back swing like
1850s when i hit the ground behind me
1852s it's causing that decal
1856s yeah a lot of that stuff gets down into
1857s the really low level systems details
1859s like we want to pass
1862s the artists as much information as we
1864s can about actual combat ongoings so that
1867s they can inform the effects as precisely
1869s as they can
1871s or as precisely as they need to rather
1873s yeah and
1875s we really wanted to
1877s build the on a technical side we really
1879s wanted to build the combat system to
1882s like like i said earlier be as physical
1884s as possible so we have it very animation
1886s driven
1888s everything is handled
1890s based on a reference of animation as
1891s opposed to uh like
1894s nebulous timings right which allows it
1896s to feel very impactful and very
1899s responsive so when you hit the ground
1901s the ground decal actually
1903s appears on the ground when it should uh
1906s you know
1906s that's uh something that may not be seen
1909s in other mmos so we really wanted to
1911s make a big focus on that and and focus
1914s on the responsiveness
1915s yeah one thing i failed to mention by
1917s the way i apologize for that is actually
1920s um you guys are seeing
1922s the pi ray male for the first time in
1925s game i know we've showed him on this on
1927s the stream before
1928s um as these character races get further
1930s fleshed out but here you're seeing him
1932s in full flesh and blood so to speak
1935s virtual flesh and blood i guess um
1937s in the game that's that's pretty cool to
1939s see i can't wait for players to kind of
1941s get a look at the customization options
1942s and the character creator for this
1944s for this race um uh also another thing
1947s that's um
1949s you know
1950s really important i think is uh
1953s the audio component and cat has done a
1957s phenomenal job
1960s in both the sound design for creatures
1963s as well as for the
1965s the weapon and actually
1966s you guys haven't seen anything yet
1968s because we have a lot in store on that
1970s front that i think is going to be is
1971s going to be pretty cool and it and it's
1973s all part of the presentation right it's
1975s all part of what makes
1977s combat feel good is also the auditory
1980s component um in that talk to me a little
1983s bit about the capabilities that that the
1986s audio team has
1988s when it comes to accessing combat and
1991s the abilities
1993s yeah similar to vfx we plan on piping in
1995s a lot of information uh you know that's
1997s something we've been working a lot on
1999s recently
2000s is tooling for vfx and sound effects
2002s right it's a super important part as you
2005s said of the package in order to sell
2006s that that weight and that immersion in
2008s the game
2009s and uh there's going to be a lot coming
2010s online
2012s so i'm you know really excited to see
2015s what we have in store for for that so
2017s yeah
2019s yeah i don't know if we'll
2020s show it on stream but we've
2022s we're building a sort of a
2024s singular tool that all of the teams can
2026s use to build abilities and tweak them uh
2029s sound of their
2031s sound effects visual effects animation
2034s design engineering all using the same
2036s tool gr
2038s grounded in animation
2040s you know to build these abilities
2044s yeah absolutely another component um
2047s adam which um
2048s you guys worked on is camera controls
2050s and adding
2052s um talk to me a little bit about the
2055s the kind of visuals that are provided
2057s through these cam additional camera
2058s controls for abilities and combat
2061s yeah so
2062s i mean the word of the day has been
2063s impact and weight right and a lot of
2065s that is sold through what the the player
2068s sees you know we didn't want anything to
2070s be uh nauseating or over the top and you
2073s know certainly people can adjust it in
2074s option settings but we wanted something
2076s that would uh that would sell a lot of
2079s the weight um
2080s without you know being too over the top
2082s and two sort of cartoonish right
2085s and so we implemented a few different
2087s camera effects you know things like uh
2089s camera shake radio blur and a few other
2091s uh things involved
2093s and
2094s really tried to
2096s maximize uh
2098s you know our bang for the buck with
2099s those to to sell the weight of these
2101s attacks and it really adds a lot uh
2103s especially um i've noticed a lot of how
2107s your peripheral uh interprets the the
2110s way that they attack really sells it for
2112s me as a player
2113s so that's something we've been focusing
2115s on and it's it's made huge improvements
2117s to the uh feeling of these attacks
2121s yeah absolutely
2123s i love it
2124s um
2125s so
2127s looking forward
2128s as we continue to flesh out both the
2132s medium melee weapons and we'll be
2134s showcasing our ranged weapons in combat
2137s in a future stream we're also going to
2140s be talking a little bit about and
2141s showcasing
2143s uh which you guys got a little sneak
2145s peek on a few abilities um some class
2147s kits and the ability systems as a whole
2150s um and what we're able to accomplish for
2152s alpha 2. um of course you know we
2155s promised at the beginning of this year
2156s that you guys would be getting some
2158s pretty exciting
2160s showcases of all the work that's being
2162s done on the project towards alpha 2. you
2164s got that with the character creator you
2165s got that with the seasons and weather
2167s systems now you're starting to get a
2169s little bit of touch on the combat side
2171s and i know that there's a lot of stuff
2173s that design has been prepping uh around
2176s you know the work that's been done on
2177s these class kits and and the the
2179s different archetypes that are gonna be
2180s playable across alpha two um but there's
2184s a lot in store and there's a lot of
2185s functionality that the engineering team
2186s has provided our designers when it comes
2189s to
2190s both the functionality of certain types
2192s of abilities as well as the synergies
2195s possible between them you want to talk a
2196s little bit adam keenan and trout about
2199s what's possible given our ability
2201s toolkit
2204s definitely yeah um i mean we've
2207s so this whole you know prototype process
2209s has been kind of you know two steps one
2211s of those steps was what you know adam
2213s and keenan were talking about a bit
2215s there with you know their
2217s hypotheses on you know what makes good
2220s feeling combat and they've done a great
2222s job on that but the other side of that
2223s was also
2224s just you know
2226s coming up with these almost mock class
2229s kits um and you know
2231s the idea was this might not be the final
2233s class but there will be things that we
2235s can take from it that would like and
2236s then get rid of that we don't like
2237s unless we make something
2242s some um peeks of that already from the
2243s assassin in the
2245s previous stream and now you're seeing
2247s something from weapon master that was
2249s the other one
2251s to experiment with and contrast these
2253s different
2255s types of combat and um
2257s what i was kind of going for here uh was
2260s you know getting last energies in place
2262s where you know
2264s maybe you know for example you've got a
2266s thing that if you kill someone with one
2267s of your other abilities it'll reset the
2269s cooldown on one of these abilities and
2271s there was a lot of that kind of stuff
2272s going on
2273s in this kit whereas there wasn't so much
2275s of that interaction in the kits and you
2277s know the previous outfit it was an area
2279s that we felt could really improve
2281s and the good thing about that
2284s whole exercise that we did is we came up
2286s with a lot of cool abilities you're not
2288s seeing them all here but
2290s they you know
2292s what it really did for us is it
2294s developed our tools because we realized
2295s oh we can't do this or we can't do that
2298s and so like the designers and adam and
2300s keenan uh here would
2302s kind of go back and forth and say like
2304s you know
2305s designers need to be able to do this
2307s particular thing that we can't currently
2308s do and then they would take that and
2309s make it
2322s oh i was just going to sort of build on
2325s trad's point like all of these exercises
2328s or throughout all of these exercises
2329s we're very careful
2331s on the
2332s ability system side to make sure that
2335s when we're adding something new we make
2337s it as modular as possible we really want
2339s to think of these abilities as being
2341s made out of like lego pieces
2343s not being sort of like molded from a
2346s single block of clay so whenever we are
2348s trying something and we build something
2350s new that's a new piece that we can have
2352s that we have to explore and combine with
2354s all of the other pieces that we've
2355s already made absolutely um the other
2358s thing that's important and
2360s is important probably for players to
2361s understand with regards to alpha 2 is
2363s that this is another testing ground
2365s right alpha 2 is a test and
2367s in alpha 2 we're going to represent
2369s components of the class kits and the
2371s ability system that may not make it to
2374s launch but it is a perfect area for us
2377s to kind of get both player feedback as
2379s well as
2380s for us to log data uh around its usage
2383s its impact its um you know feasibility
2386s as essentially a component of our class
2388s kits right we're going to be
2389s experimenting a lot
2390s with regards to that for alpha 2.
2394s so
2395s it's very exciting
2396s um oh definitely we're just getting
2398s started yes absolutely well guys this
2401s has been a
2403s fun stream i think um
2405s i really enjoy
2407s obviously talking about this stuff and
2408s showcasing the hard work that you guys
2410s are doing everybody on the team is doing
2411s across um everyone that makes combat a a
2414s fun and tactile thing for us to play
2417s with um there's a lot that goes into it
2419s but
2420s i think the team is hitting it out of
2422s the park with these showcases as we show
2424s you know essentially what our quality
2425s bar is for
2427s ashes of creation so i want to thank
2429s everybody for tuning in and watching
2431s please make sure it's very important
2433s that you guys give feedback uh with
2435s regards to kind of what you saw today
2438s you know it is always something that we
2439s are iterating upon
2441s but
2442s generally based on
2444s what feedback we already received out of
2446s alpha one and the pursuits that our
2448s engineering side as well as our design
2450s side have been have been examining and
2453s and playing around with we feel really
2455s confident in this approach for the basic
2457s weapon melee attacks um but we want to
2460s hear your guys's feedback what you
2461s thought of today so make sure to comment
2463s both in the youtube section
2465s as well as on stream on our forums on
2467s our discord connect everywhere we value
2469s your feedback very much it is an
2470s important part of creating ashes of
2472s creation and remember this is a work in
2474s progress this is something that we are
2476s still expanding upon something that we
2478s are still improving um it is never truly
2481s finished but of course uh it is getting
2483s close to to alpha 2 ready um thank you
2487s guys again for tuning in uh adam keenan
2489s trad thank you guys for being a part of
2491s it always appreciate the insight and the
2493s talents you guys bring to ashes of
2495s creation as a as a game
2497s we're very happy to have you guys so
2499s everybody in chat give a give hearts for
2501s our awesome guests today and i will see
2504s you guys back on stream
2508s [Music]
2516s hello
2518s well there it is
2520s the we have ripped the band-aid off
2524s yeah so to speak um but i feel like
2528s from reading the chat i do have some
2530s questions that you all uh
2532s posted but it seems overwhelmingly like
2534s most of you like it there is a little
2536s feedback here and there and if you have
2537s feedback for us
2539s i believe right now if uh vaccinar is uh
2543s following along we will have a weapon a
2545s basic weapon attack combo feedback
2547s thread posted to our forums yeah and i
2550s just want to kind of comment real quick
2552s so the biggest takeaway that you can ask
2555s yourself
2556s after watching that if you're a member
2558s of our core audience who's been
2559s following development
2561s for the last
2562s few years
2564s is the direction
2567s and the improvements that you've seen
2570s here
2571s the right direction is that a positive
2575s growth from what you have seen last year
2579s versus
2580s versus to where you are seeing it now
2583s and if that is the the answer that you
2586s give
2587s then what that means from a development
2590s perspective is that it will continue to
2593s get better on that path
2595s and the reason for that is we are taking
2598s our time when it comes to the quality of
2600s this game
2601s and what that means is the additional
2603s bells and whistles the the more
2607s polished look of animations and visual
2609s effects and
2611s as we expand on this idea of combat with
2614s class rotations
2616s all this stuff is going to get is going
2618s to come together
2620s into a very tactile
2622s kinetic style of combat and that's our
2626s goal right and this this gives you a
2628s look at what that directional change has
2630s been
2631s and if you like that directional change
2634s realize we're not even in alpha 2 yet
2636s and this is where the combat's at so by
2638s the time we're close to launch
2642s you got to project out what that
2644s expectation is going to be
2645s [Laughter]
2647s games take time
2648s to make um yeah especially at the
2650s quality level
2653s yes especially good games look anybody
2655s can rush a game out the door right we
2657s see
2658s and
2660s i'm not talking negatively about like
2662s other game companies or publishers or
2664s whatever but the truth of the matter is
2666s is that there are deadlines that that
2668s projects have
2669s and
2670s whether something is finished or not
2671s sometimes that deadline doesn't move
2674s and that can result in the experiences
2677s that we've shared as a mmorpg community
2680s in other games the benefit or the luxury
2683s i would say excuse me the luxury that we
2686s have on ashes of creation
2688s is our goal is to create something and
2691s not ship it until it's ready
2694s and you as a community are part of the
2696s litmus test in determining when
2698s something is ready because our process
2700s is transparent we're showing you monthly
2703s updates so your feedback on something
2705s whether or not it looks good or it feels
2707s good is this ready
2709s to be launched into an alpha 2 or to
2711s launch totally that's something that is
2714s a question that gets asked to you guys
2716s right and to us and i think that's
2718s that's the important reciprocal
2720s relationship that we as developers have
2722s with with the community
2724s and that's why we ask for your feedback
2726s that's why we ask for you to get engaged
2727s that's why we ask for you to comment on
2729s forums on reddit on whatever right that
2731s is a very important part of our process
2733s and it's something i think that is not
2735s unique to to intrepid but it is
2737s something that is not done
2739s overwhelmingly across a lot of projects
2741s and so we want to capitalize that as
2743s much as possible and that's why the
2744s decision to release small trunks excuse
2747s me small chunks of the combat changes
2750s that have been uh presented and do it
2752s earlier uh was a good one to make and
2754s and i'm glad to see the response in the
2756s community i think we were nervous but i
2757s think
2758s we're nervous every time
2760s we never you know we always hope that
2762s you like what we should share our baby
2764s yeah but um at the same time we know
2766s it's a work in progress um and not
2768s everyone else can understand that so
2770s it's
2772s you know sharing our journey but there
2773s were some questions in chat i would like
2775s to try to get to some of those we do
2776s have a q a as well that we'll pull from
2778s the forums from previous questions that
2780s were already pulled but um these ones
2782s are specifically questions that people
2784s were asking whilst watching and the
2786s video playing in the background as well
2788s uh so just fine wanted to know can you
2791s have steven clarify what they meant by
2794s this is the upper bound for agency
2796s versus weight does that mean they want
2798s to go uh more heavy
2800s than this or does it mean there is some
2802s room for improvement there
2804s um well there's always room for
2805s improvement as i said it's a work in
2807s progress so we're going to be improving
2808s on those things however what's meant by
2810s the upper range of agency is
2812s there is a balance between player motion
2816s and agency as we call it right
2818s and weapon weightedness that
2821s almost locked in place rooted position
2824s the heavier the weapon is you know the
2827s more restrictions you want to place
2829s on that player agency to showcase the
2833s rooted effect that weight that
2835s heavyweight kind of aspect and so what
2837s we've done by presenting you guys with
2840s both the
2841s dual daggers and the two-handed weapon
2844s is we've kind of shown the range between
2847s that complete player agency
2849s a player agency in the light weapon
2851s attacks that's the dual daggers and the
2853s maximum range of of rootedness or
2856s weightedness that's present on the
2859s two-handed weapon and that's the
2860s spectrum in which our basic melee combat
2864s will exist within so if there are medium
2866s weapon groups that exist in between
2868s there it's going to be somewhere in
2869s between that that spectrum
2872s all right
2872s and then these next two questions are
2874s both in regards to ui and i already know
2876s the answer so that's why i'm mixing them
2878s together uh one is in regards to and
2881s this was a lot of people so i didn't
2883s quote a specific person there was a lot
2885s of people asking about this um but can
2887s they change the color of the text of the
2889s floating text et cetera customize it in
2891s any way like pick which one which color
2892s they want for crits etc and then snooki
2895s x or snucky ass
2898s will there be any hp indicators and
2900s things of that sort because they didn't
2901s see that in this
2902s yeah just just real quick so um when it
2905s comes to ui
2907s um we have a very talented ui team by
2910s the way in love with all the work that
2912s they've been doing so far
2915s and
2916s we are all in agreement that player
2919s customization options are paramount when
2921s it comes to ui right um
2924s that is a very subjective thing that
2927s we've all become you know our own
2929s flavors we like out of certain
2931s components of the ui
2933s and so instead of trying to force down
2935s the throat of our players a specific
2937s approach to ui why do that when we can
2940s uh develop options and customization
2944s that the players can influence
2946s themselves that includes color
2948s compositions it includes uh includes
2951s text sizes includes bolded it includes
2954s options of which informations you're
2956s choosing to display scaling
2958s absolutely like that is our approach
2960s from a ui's perspective 100
2962s yeah and as a content creator myself
2965s being able to customize the ui to match
2967s my overlays and things like that will be
2969s amazing and i've appreciated that in
2971s other games so
2972s we're definitely keeping those things in
2974s mind for y'all uh this next question
2977s there's actually two parts to it one is
2978s from one person one from the other but
2980s they kind of tie in um about the same
2982s topic so this is from the shiniest
2984s bubble wants to know i wonder how much
2987s moving the camera slash targeter affects
2990s hitboxes it seems like movement might be
2992s moving the hitbox during the attack and
2994s then mass 7 wants to know
2997s you should not be able to move that fast
2999s while swinging uh that's their kind of
3002s perspective of it so yeah i know it's
3004s all kind of tie-in well it's important
3006s to note that there's a balance in the
3007s game design between um your movement
3010s speed on attack and the movement speed
3013s of your opponent when you have a game
3015s that is both pve centric as well as pvp
3020s centric you have to make sure that
3021s combat is blended for both approaches
3025s and we can always run into problems
3027s where if you're significantly hampered
3028s in your movement speed that has an
3031s effect on how we expect player versus
3034s player engagements to interact and we
3037s don't want to restrict a player's
3038s ability to be mobile if they're the
3040s target of an attack and as a result of
3043s that we need to make sure that we don't
3045s restrict the movement abilities of the
3047s player who is doing the attacking as
3048s well so we want it to be relatively free
3051s form you to stay with each other your
3052s opponents move around the battlefield
3054s together and if we're hampering you on
3057s the attack action we have to then
3059s implement some type of
3060s snare or slow or um you know cc effect
3064s essentially on your opposing target and
3067s that's not the approach we want to take
3068s for for pvp
3070s cool
3071s um this kind of is like
3074s a segway from that which is uh from
3077s hadookai and ellit and they both want to
3080s know what are so will we have some
3082s avoidable attacks uh is there any chance
3084s for weaving or animation canceling oh
3086s absolutely
3087s yeah yeah there there are
3089s intended dodges and gap closers and um
3093s you know mitigating um uh increased
3095s mitigation effects for incoming damage
3098s um that are situationally reactively
3100s relevant right so you see an animation
3103s windup that's a telegraph on what's
3105s coming and then you have response
3107s actions that you can take as a result of
3109s that in order to dodge weave move do
3111s whatever right it is a it is both a
3114s combination of what your rotation is but
3117s also how you have reaction abilities
3119s ready to go that you save for certain
3122s circumstances that are important
3125s all right
3126s and then the next one here is from
3128s falcath and they want to know what about
3130s camera how far we'll be able to zoom out
3131s what will be like the min max of zooming
3133s in and zooming out i don't know if you
3134s have exact answers on that well i mean i
3138s personally tend to be a fan of having
3141s maximum zoom capabilities right i want
3144s to be able to see what's going on around
3146s me that's my experience as a raid leader
3149s as a shock caller as a guild leader i
3151s kind of want to have the perspective of
3153s the battlefield and i know a lot of
3154s other players like that too so again
3158s leaning into the player option side here
3160s allowing a pretty pretty
3162s significant distance on the zoom
3165s is something we're going to be going for
3166s and you can kind of see that as i zoom
3168s out in different sections of this combat
3170s it's pretty high up so um stephen does
3172s like to be zoomed out really far and
3174s i've gotten a lot of feedback that's
3175s like don't zoom out that far
3178s it's another subjective thing but
3180s whenever you have that that preferential
3182s or that subjective uh aspect give them
3185s the option give the players the option
3186s let them choose if they want to be
3188s zoomed out you know very far or if they
3190s want to be close in i mean how many
3192s times i've played a game where they have
3193s some type of mod that you can install
3195s that gives you a higher zoom distance
3197s and i'm just thinking to myself why do i
3199s have to have the mod why can't i just
3200s have this choice and that was a question
3202s we've already stated we don't want to
3204s allow mods but if there are things in
3205s customization that you want please send
3208s us that feedback because we want to
3209s implement the we want to implement those
3210s things we want them to be native to the
3212s game and for you to be able to customize
3213s them
3214s um so the next question here is from uh
3218s shaksimity and they would like to know
3220s will different races have different
3222s animation for combat sorry meyers
3226s well they won't what we try to do in
3228s order to to
3230s limit
3231s excuse me there's a lot of stuff to make
3233s in an mmo
3235s so i don't know you know i've often said
3236s this and uh you know
3238s um making games is hard making an mmorpg
3241s is probably the most difficult type of
3243s game you can make and our mmorpg is a
3245s particularly ambitious one when it comes
3247s to assets when it comes to animations we
3249s have to author um you know we want to
3251s save as much as we can in certain places
3253s while also keeping the level of um of
3256s quality that we want to hit so
3259s one of the ways we do that from an
3260s animation perspective is we're not going
3262s to be having i think unique combat
3265s animations however we will have unique
3268s non-combat animations such as your idol
3270s your walk your run cycle things that the
3273s combat attacks do not have to blend back
3275s into right those combat attacks
3277s animation-wise blend back into the
3279s combat idol stance and then when you're
3281s out of that combat idol stance into a
3283s non-combat idol stance that's when you
3285s take the unique poses or the unique walk
3288s and run cycle just to give it you know
3290s character flavor for what the specific
3292s race you're playing is and that's how we
3294s mitigate the bloat that would come if we
3296s had to make all of our combat animations
3298s idle as soon as you blend back into the
3300s combat idol stance if that was a unique
3302s one
3303s i mean one one of those swings like they
3307s have to make so many different
3308s animations just for that one swing
3309s because of like all the options that you
3310s could choose go left right straight
3313s backwards like it's not just one
3315s animation that they make for one swing
3317s it's uh it's a lot of transitions that
3320s they have to make
3321s from just that one swing absolutely um
3324s we would be here forever if we answered
3325s everyone's questions so i'm going to ask
3327s this last one and then we're going to
3328s transition because we still have more
3329s stuff to show you all
3331s um
3332s so first or so this last one is from how
3334s to lose and i know you asked a very big
3337s question but i'm going to consolidate it
3339s and their basic question is that we had
3341s stated that we were going to allow
3343s people to use like any uh class
3345s combination which would be both your
3347s archetypes together being able to use
3349s any weapon do we see problems that could
3351s occur with that for instance like a bow
3353s tank or an orb tank or things like
3357s will there be some strangeness there or
3359s are there problems that you first are
3360s foreseeing in the future is the question
3363s do i foresee problems or strangeness
3365s from allowing player characters to
3366s choose the types of well it's more will
3368s there be any functions to discourage
3370s people from using certain combinations
3373s or oh we're giving a lot of flex
3375s we're giving a lot of flexibility to the
3377s crafters in our game they get to help
3379s define the stat block that a particular
3381s item weapon or gear has and that stat
3384s block can be relevant to any particular
3386s class or arc or arc type combination um
3390s so in that sense the idea is no not to
3393s see any strangeness there or not to see
3395s any um you know
3397s elements that would dissuade a person
3399s from that that customization perspective
3402s okay uh so you know we'll let you know
3405s if things change from there and of
3407s course just a reminder we do have a
3408s feedback thread up if you have any
3410s thoughts which from the chat it seems
3412s like you all have a lot of thoughts head
3414s on over to our forumsforms.com our
3416s forums dot ask.com i like it
3420s i wonder where that goes
3422s have a spike in traffic
3424s um and toss us your feedback it's in the
3426s general uh feedback thread for this live
3429s stream so uh we would love for for your
3432s thoughts and we will consolidate those
3433s for our design team and with that we
3435s shall move on to some really cool stuff
3439s uh which is our character art team's
3442s goodness and you're gonna go straight
3444s into seeing the dread crawler
3446s which was done by danny this is one of
3449s our burrower demons and it's super cool
3453s yes it is very cool so this guy is a
3455s boss that you'll be seeing in alpha 2.
3458s he lives in the desert biome but his
3462s um story
3464s is during the fall and i guess i won't
3466s expand too much on it but
3468s during the fall he was essentially a war
3471s machine he was used by the ancients to
3474s help defeat certain cities in the world
3477s and he did so by both burrowing under
3480s those cities and coming out from the
3482s ground from within causing chaos while
3484s the outside forces would attack that
3486s city or he could be used as a war
3488s machine to just demolish the walls and
3491s break through for those ancient legions
3493s um to make their way in
3496s all right well you get a little lore too
3499s yeah a little snack
3500s uh
3501s oh we have a little turntable of him as
3503s well so you can see the 3d
3506s i love that i love the interactions that
3508s danny has on the top of his head the
3511s little dude that pops out and his little
3512s projectile that he shoots yeah you can
3514s see it sticking out there if you're
3516s wondering what that little piece is
3519s it is pretty cool
3520s it is very very neat the little touch as
3522s everyone puts on things i mean it goes
3525s back to like the passion that we have
3527s everyone is super passionate about their
3529s expertise and their field and you just
3531s see that in the work that they put out
3533s it's pretty amazing
3535s uh
3536s stephen has mantled together uh
3539s quite a group of people
3541s yes we have pulled together
3543s some very talented people for sure and
3546s this one is the mantle of radiant grove
3549s we actually have a few different
3550s variants of this as well
3552s like we said these
3554s are going to be used for npcs or you can
3556s see the weapons here as well um
3559s in the world so
3561s uh one of our developers was like maybe
3564s we could make it so the npc based on the
3566s season would change the leaves would
3568s change color
3571s i think is cool i'm manifesting that
3575s or some of the leaves just fall off as
3577s you're running and you just have like a
3578s little trickling of
3580s leads behind you
3582s sorry jim your team we're just gonna
3584s keep adding more things to your team
3586s they already have that effect for the
3587s trees we could just apply it to the
3588s costume well
3590s i think you'd have to have a smaller
3592s amount you don't want like a
3594s whole tree falling down of course they
3596s adjust it but that's a slider
3599s it's just a slider jim it is a slider
3602s uh and then next up we have our curse
3604s charger so this is kind of what i wanted
3606s to showcase is like this is the cursed
3608s charger that you all have seen um this
3610s is a little touched up better if they've
3613s been touching up all of the creatures
3615s but here are the variants that you're
3616s seeing come from them so it looks quite
3618s different if you've watched a lot of our
3620s other streams or seen actually our
3622s in-game footage you've probably seen a
3624s lot of variants as well but i just
3626s wanted to kind of show that a little bit
3628s more for you guys um especially for the
3630s folks who don't maybe follow every every
3632s little post that we put out there
3634s um
3635s but yeah uh
3638s yeah ginseng
3640s took these and made them even better if
3642s that's possible she's just amazing
3645s um and eli did the mantle of the radiant
3648s grove
3649s yes and last but not least you did see
3652s the pirae in game but we have some
3654s updated images if you follow somebody
3656s some booties get ready for some booties
3658s if you follow us on social uh yeah so i
3661s tried to post these on a discord to our
3663s pi people and it was not letting me
3666s because
3667s it was getting flagged for
3669s i was getting flagged for nudity
3672s but
3672s uh
3674s yeah they look amazing we've taken a lot
3675s of your guys's feedback uh we still have
3677s the branchlers even though some people
3679s don't like them but
3681s you know there are other races that you
3682s can choose from if you don't like branch
3683s layers and and as we demonstrated by the
3686s way i know you guys are going to be
3687s asking this question
3689s yeah
3691s we demonstrate it in the character
3693s creator there are sliders we do have
3695s sliders
3697s that is it is a thing yeah
3700s and i'll show you the this will prompt
3702s the slider question i'm sure
3705s by the way not just one not just one set
3707s of sliders
3708s this is an equal opportunity sliders
3711s there's equal opportunity sliders so
3713s let's be clear on that i wish i could
3714s like zoom in on your face when you said
3716s that um but yeah so we
3720s we have taken your feedback
3722s and uh we've made some adjustments and
3724s of course i i believe um if you follow
3727s us on social stephen actually teased
3728s these already and uh vaknar did update
3731s that thread the pirate thread with the
3733s new images so if you have any feedback
3735s on them uh you can go over to that
3737s thread and if we see an uh like a large
3741s amount of differences in the feedback
3743s we'll definitely relay that over to our
3745s development team but we've already sent
3746s them over a report and that's why
3748s they've made the changes that they have
3749s made
3750s um and then this is the mail version
3753s i was going to say do we not have the
3754s mail one yeah we have the mail
3757s just you know going equal opportunity
3760s equal opportunity maggie
3762s well sometimes we only show one over the
3765s other people that's true
3767s know and
3768s women's bodies tend to be very
3771s controversial so we usually start with
3774s uh some
3776s of them
3777s yeah
3777s people have thought some feedback on how
3779s they should be you know portrayed so
3781s that's true um but i think that you know
3784s we'll we'll provide you guys with
3785s sliders that you can adjust based on the
3788s different races and how far along those
3790s scales we want to showcase and if you
3792s haven't seen our character creator like
3794s if you're new to ashes of creation and
3796s this is your first stream that you're
3797s watching oh my gosh go to our youtube
3799s channel go search in the little search
3802s box character creator and go watch our
3803s character creator our team is
3806s like that's not even our character
3807s creator finished so let's go look at it
3809s it is phenomenal
3812s absolutely i'll play the 3d version
3816s and then we will get to our q a
3819s and wrap up the stream actually do you
3821s have any studio updates that you want to
3823s talk about
3824s uh
3825s hiring is going great um
3828s we had i think like
3831s uh i think we had almost 400
3834s applicants last month and we accepted i
3837s think
3838s 14 of them
3840s um
3841s so we are
3844s we are doing a great job on that front
3845s very excited with the talent that we
3847s have that's joining the team we are
3849s continuing to grow
3851s so things are going really good on that
3852s front
3854s sweet sweet
3856s yeah and i think with that we'll pop
3858s over to our q a segment if you're good
3860s with that stephen
3863s absolutely all right now play the video
3866s in the background
3867s um
3868s so we have something to look at will we
3871s go through them uh so our first question
3873s here is from north the mage and el
3876s windrill and they both wanted to know
3878s about naval mechanics are there any
3880s plans to have wind in sailing and i know
3883s we've talked about this topic a little
3885s bit but we haven't gone into super depth
3887s with it uh yes there is wind um wind is
3891s an important component of the open sea
3893s quote-unquote open seas so that's all
3894s non-coastal areas um
3897s and that open sea based on those the
3901s composition of wind and the open sea um
3904s will influence the speed uh
3907s directionally that a boat is traveling
3909s in um
3910s and and how that speed gets influenced
3912s by the winds uh that can be an important
3914s strategic component when discussing like
3916s timing for trade runs or timing for for
3920s you know what your location is in
3922s relationship to your target out at the
3924s open sea um and it just creates a little
3927s bit more fluid and dynamic experience
3930s when you're at sea that like you're not
3932s in this cove and you always you know
3934s know how you're going to interact with
3936s the open water and the speed that you
3938s have so you can predict accurately
3940s you know what your intercept rate or
3942s distance will look like if that is a
3944s variable and that variable changes right
3947s then you have to adapt your strategies
3950s for that variable and i think that is a
3952s very healthy and keeps things fresh from
3954s a perspective of a cat and mouse game
3956s that usually occurs between ships in the
3958s open waters
3960s i'm excited for naval combat yes it's
3963s gonna be fun uh next up we have kiwi
3966s asking about gear customization which
3968s you know we do have a thread about it uh
3970s so
3971s with the most recent dub discussion
3973s going on what are slash were your plans
3976s so far with color and dye system and the
3978s color system so one of the things that
3981s we want to do
3982s again talking about player agency is we
3984s want to give them the ability to kind of
3985s change the appearance of their armor
3987s sets that they're wearing and the way
3989s we've approached the dye solution
3991s is through a channeled system we have a
3993s two channel dye system where the first
3995s channel is a lower grade die that it has
3998s influence over between 10 to 20 percent
4000s of your overall armor appearance and
4002s then the second channel die is a higher
4004s tier die that you have to acquire and by
4006s doing so you can influence the remaining
4009s thirty percent up to thirty percent of
4011s that armor appearance so up to a total
4013s of fifty percent influence that can
4014s occur across all the pieces that you
4016s wear now
4018s one unique approach to the way we're
4019s doing this dye system is we're not
4020s allowing individual dyes to be applied
4023s on individual items but instead we keep
4026s a cohesion across the set by applying
4030s that dye channel to your character and
4032s when you equip a piece with your overall
4034s character it will assume that die
4036s channel from your paper doll so you
4039s apply the dies to your character and
4041s when you equip a piece of item it will
4043s take that uh die and it will influence
4046s the channel over that particular piece
4048s so that it comes into alignment and what
4050s the reason that we're doing that is
4052s there's a lot of options with regards to
4054s customization for your character
4056s appearance whether it be through
4057s transmog through costumes through mixing
4059s and matching sets and pieces that you
4061s can wear right and what we want to avoid
4064s is the rainbow effect where you know
4066s these pieces do not look good together
4069s and it creates the clown that's walking
4071s down the street and it's a bit comical
4073s to see the clown that's walking down the
4075s street so we've unified it through the
4077s die channel system that applies across
4079s your paper doll
4081s all right there's definitely some
4082s thoughts on that so
4085s our next question is from kraken and
4087s they would like to know about freeholds
4089s do you expect most players who want a
4092s freehold to be able to get one or will
4094s they be prestige symbols owned by a
4096s small fraction of players
4099s um that is a very good question i think
4101s the answer is that if a player wants to
4103s achieve a freehold
4105s they can achieve the freehold however
4107s the amount of effort
4109s resources and time that's required in
4112s order to achieve that that freehold is a
4115s large amount it is something that is a a
4117s monumental achievement for you to to get
4120s that freehold and the reason why is
4122s because freeholds tie in very heavily to
4124s the processing
4126s uh artisanship aspect some processing
4129s can be done in nodes but the best
4132s processing is done on freeholds and we
4135s want to make sure that there's a little
4137s bit of a throttle or gate on
4140s the amount of effort that's necessary to
4141s achieve that influence over the
4143s processing market um and and that means
4146s that it it takes some time to achieve it
4148s so um ultimately to answer that question
4150s anybody who puts the effort in should be
4152s able to achieve a freehold but it is
4154s going to be a major achievement for that
4156s character
4157s all right and our next question is from
4160s nixa and phantom and phantom x
4163s and they went and by the way i just want
4164s to make sure just want to make sure
4166s we're clear that a freehold is one of
4168s three types of houses
4170s right that you can own so just because
4172s the freehold is very difficult to attain
4174s doesn't mean that you don't have a space
4176s for housing and furniture that you can
4177s achieve through our apartment system or
4180s an inn or the static in node housing
4183s those are alternate methods as well uh
4185s but they do not have that aspect of the
4188s best processing is done there the best
4190s processing is done on the freehold and
4192s being able to customize the outside of
4194s your what your freehold looks like the
4196s static housing the static yeah apartment
4198s you can't you can customize the interior
4200s but the static housing and nodes they do
4202s have an outside area that you can
4203s customize yeah
4205s i was referring to the apartment yeah
4207s and specific absolutely and specifically
4209s on the freehold one thing that's unique
4211s is the blueprint system right acquiring
4213s specific buildings that you can build
4216s ancillary to your home on the freehold
4218s as well
4219s yeah
4221s and the next question is regarding the
4222s weather system which we showcased
4224s will there be flooding caused by heavy
4226s rain snow melting or storms with rivers
4229s rising and rougher waters on the ocean
4232s or the opposite with droughts
4234s um
4235s yeah i think that that we haven't done
4238s any work on that yet but
4240s in the weather and seasonal systems we
4242s have talked about the potential of
4244s including flooding um as well i mean the
4247s the arid or desert type climate system
4250s that can be applied relatively with
4252s these the flooding can be a little bit
4254s more tricky from a tech art perspective
4256s but it is something that we have
4257s discussed having certain submerged areas
4260s that flex between seasons of being
4263s flooded where it becomes an under
4265s underwater environment and having um
4268s times where it is a non-water
4270s environment for dungeons um that is
4273s something that we haven't worked on yet
4274s but we have talked about uh wouldn't be
4276s present in alpha 2 but it's something we
4278s want to uh explain very cool to have
4280s like that dynamic combat we're like oh
4282s during the winter you want to go there
4283s for this and during the summer you want
4285s to go
4287s and also on that side uh you know we
4289s have shown how our tide system works too
4292s so like oh yeah the tides yeah if you're
4294s interested in seeing that too
4296s um
4297s and we have from baumanizer they want to
4299s know about game settings will dense
4301s foliage be baseline in the game or will
4305s people turn them off
4306s in the settings to minimize pvp
4309s efficiency i think hiding in business we
4310s will not allow we yeah we will not allow
4313s players to
4314s to adjust uh the density of foliage
4317s actors in the world um that will be
4319s universal um
4322s so
4323s you know it's going to be of course
4324s there are going to be areas that are
4325s more dense than others
4327s it's meant to be part of the a part of
4330s the world that players can utilize for
4332s certain purposes like hiding in uh for
4334s pvp however there will be collision with
4336s those foliage actors and the player
4338s capsule so as you might see that bush
4341s moving and think huh that's odd that
4343s doesn't look like wind there's must be
4344s something there um and and that's the
4347s kind of immersion that we want right
4349s yeah we're and like when you're walking
4351s in the grass if things move and you're
4352s like what's going on over there right
4354s that would be cool
4355s um as a fellow pvp or that'd be fun uh
4359s triol wants to know about weapons well
4361s equipping different weapons change your
4363s skill set and if so
4365s how will you balance that in regards to
4367s class identity as in having character be
4370s defined by their equipment base as
4371s opposed to their class i i am not a fan
4374s of in
4375s mmorpgs um having equipment-based skill
4379s sets um i think that you have
4381s class-focused uh skill kits um
4385s and that if i know your class i know
4387s what you have access to i might not
4388s necessarily know what you've specced
4389s into um but i am sorry i i strongly
4393s dislike the idea of tying the skills
4395s into the weapon i think it's unique i
4397s think it's novel it's just not for me
4398s necessarily our approach is not going to
4400s be providing skills through weapons uh
4402s it's going to be providing skills
4404s through classes
4405s and then we have hamlet who wants to
4407s know about bugs and exploits are you
4409s guys open to server rollbacks in the
4411s event of an unforeseen bug or dupe that
4414s would introduce an economy-breaking
4416s amount of currency into the absolute
4418s economy server rollbacks are emergency
4421s scenarios um
4422s [Music]
4424s are we open to taking emergency action
4426s if it's necessary yes of course we're
4428s open to doing whatever is necessary to
4430s address unforeseen problems um but it
4432s should be a last a last-ditch option i
4435s was gonna say that too like from my
4436s perspective this is definitely my forte
4438s um
4439s you know if we had something like that
4441s we would remove the dupe anybody who
4443s exploited that you know we'll have lots
4445s of tools we would have precautions for
4447s those things yeah yeah exactly and we
4449s can remove we can easily remove those uh
4452s you know
4453s those pieces of economy from the system
4455s not just pieces those people yeah
4458s like i was saying there will be
4460s repercussions for the exploiters but i
4461s think sometimes there's a dupe and you
4463s don't know that it's happening right
4464s like you're just like oh i accidentally
4465s did something
4467s oh
4468s legendary items in my inventory how did
4470s this get here i have no clue if it was
4473s over and over you know what you're doing
4475s but if someone just did it once and was
4476s like whoa
4478s and reported it we just remove it right
4479s like i think there's 10 billion gold how
4482s did this get into my inventory there's a
4484s difference in exploiting versus someone
4485s happens dancing upon something and
4487s reporting it so if you encounter
4489s something please report it
4491s that way there's no action on your
4493s account uh golid would like to know
4495s about caravans caravan attackers have
4498s only the reward of stealing the caravan
4501s goods without any risk currently planned
4503s according to the wiki since the game is
4505s about risk versus reward what is
4508s what is the risk you plan to add for
4510s caravan attackers
4513s well um i mean there is a level of risk
4515s that comes with the attacker right we
4517s have
4519s progression paths that exist for bandits
4521s and that exists for defenders and if you
4523s choose to opt into a caravan attack you
4525s sign up for that attack and you fail
4527s that attack it is detrimental to your
4530s path of progression down the bandit area
4532s right that's one thing two is um you
4535s know of course you have uh gear decay
4538s you have degradation that can be
4539s suffered if you
4541s die
4542s that is a cost
4543s and then you also have a reputation and
4546s if your reputation precedes you when you
4548s want to make movements of good and
4549s transit goods across the world and you
4551s see somebody who's doing it and you want
4553s to participate as a defender or a
4554s participant they might say hey screw you
4556s you were just murdering my people last
4558s week and i saw that you're like on the
4560s top of the bandit list for killing
4561s caravans um so you know it has
4564s repercussions in the sense that it locks
4566s you out of certain player groups it
4568s provides decay to your armor it has
4570s deleterious effects on your progression
4572s and the attacking uh and the
4574s bandit progression of of caravan attacks
4577s or defense so there are there are costs
4579s there
4581s all right
4582s um
4583s our next question is from spiromancer
4585s and they want to know about looting if
4586s looting rights are based on a blended
4588s tag and damage done system
4591s will there be any mechanics in place to
4593s ensure roles like tanks and healers have
4595s an equal
4596s shot even when they haven't dealt as
4598s much damage
4602s um i think that's the reason for the
4604s blended approach um the reason that
4607s excuse me
4610s the reason that we're doing a a hybrid
4612s system between tag
4614s and damage done is um for the purposes
4618s of those classes who may not be as dps
4620s oriented as other classes the tag system
4623s you know all classes are going to have a
4624s sprinkling of immediate effects of of
4626s instantaneous casts
4628s and they can use that to tag a target
4630s and that'll give them a modifier on the
4632s looting right so plus 10 or plus 15 will
4635s balance that but it'll give them plus 10
4636s to 15 on overall damage done if they tag
4639s the target and then their damage will
4641s make up the remainder of that percentage
4642s um uh completion so if i do 50 damage to
4646s a target but someone else has the tag
4648s i'm not going to be able to claim that
4650s looting right they'll have done the
4651s other 50 plus 10 or 15.
4655s okay
4656s and then our last question is from
4659s lithion and they would like to know
4660s about artisan gear will gear for
4662s artisans be strong enough for a player
4665s to defend against an equal level player
4667s who is in combat gear gear for artisans
4671s um so we actually just had it
4675s i actually just had a conversation about
4677s the
4678s gear for artisans the gear for artisans
4680s are going to live alongside your
4682s adventuring gear
4684s so you will currently the approaches and
4686s we'll test this but currently the
4688s approach is you'll have artisanship
4690s oriented gear this might be beneficial
4692s for your gathering it might be
4693s beneficial for your processing or
4694s crafting or whatever it is right your
4696s profession essentially you will craft
4698s that gear you will equip that gear it'll
4699s live almost as a undergarment slot so to
4702s speak and then you can activate that and
4704s it will show the appearance if you wish
4707s during the activation when you gain the
4708s benefit from the from the gear itself
4711s and then could disappear um afterwards
4713s and go back to your adventuring gear
4714s that's like the current approach we're
4716s going to play with that a little bit
4717s there's some discussion and disagreement
4719s on the team about how we do that um
4722s but our hopes are um for alpha two we
4724s will have i think a couple of sets at
4726s least you know we're demonstrating all
4727s of the uh artisanship from from
4730s gathering to processing to crafting um
4732s in limited fashion in alpha 2. um and we
4735s want to have that gear present to kind
4736s of play with this approach
4738s um and then the flip side of this
4740s question in case they meant it this way
4742s um if you had crafted gear versus gear
4745s that you attained through like oh i
4748s thought they were talking about like
4749s professionals i believe that is but uh
4751s just in case that this is the other
4753s alternative way that they meant that
4755s question uh
4756s would how would crafting gear compare to
4759s like that of you know
4764s crafted gear in the game is the best
4766s gear
4767s um so i'm going to tell you one thing
4769s that i
4770s i cannot you know
4772s i'll be less inflammatory in my speech
4775s one thing that i'm not a fan of
4777s is that um
4780s you develop a crafting system in a game
4782s right and you've spent a lot of time
4783s making this from a material and resource
4786s perspective all the tables that you can
4787s receive all the
4788s all the connectivity in the economy and
4790s how crafting is associated with the game
4792s and then you undermine the crafting
4794s entirely by presenting a separate route
4797s of gear acquisition that is on par with
4799s the graft with the crafting efforts so
4801s here you have these people who are
4802s acquiring all of the resources getting
4804s all the recipes leveling up their
4806s professions and then everything they
4808s make
4809s is less or equal to anything you could
4812s just have chosen the easier path of and
4814s gone down the questing and received the
4815s best gear so what we do focus on is that
4818s crafters make the best excuse me
4821s the best things um they make the best
4824s things
4826s thank you very much
4829s so they make the best things and the
4831s reason they make the best things is
4832s because the effort required to make
4834s those things is monumental um and that's
4838s an important aspect of the whole
4839s gameplay loop
4840s awesome awesome and i'm pretty sure they
4842s meant it the first way but i think
4844s having both answers is great for the
4846s audience and with that we're going to
4848s wrap up our june update we hope that you
4852s all have had an amazing month we
4856s definitely have on our end we have so
4857s much more to share with you throughout
4859s the upcoming months so we hope that you
4861s will tune in next month for our july
4863s update and um any other final things you
4866s want to mention yeah i just want to say
4868s last year at the end of last year we
4870s promised you that this year would be a
4872s banger when it comes to
4874s the stuff that we showcase and i i'm
4877s i've been very proud of the quality that
4879s we've achieved in the showcase of the
4881s character creator of the weather systems
4883s of the combat direction
4885s and i think there's a lot of more a lot
4887s more great stuff in store for you guys
4890s so i just want to reiterate the most
4891s important thing is
4894s get registered on our forums
4896s go comment give us your feedback
4898s the big question is do you like the
4901s direction of today's update is it a
4904s positive change
4906s is it better than where it was right
4909s that is what's important give us your
4911s experiences give us your feedback do it
4914s on our uh on our on our forums or on our
4916s reddit or on our youtube wherever you
4918s want to do it wherever you feel most
4919s comfortable but feel free to get engaged
4921s that's the whole reason we do these
4923s updates is because one i mean we love
4925s showing the work that we do but two we
4928s want to elicit that feedback um so
4930s that's the important aspect yeah and
4932s right now there are quite a few threads
4934s up there's a gear color customization
4936s dev discussion and our basic weapon
4938s melee attack
4940s combos both of those feedback threads
4942s are up please give us feedback on them
4944s also just as a reminder our opulent
4946s negotiations cause
4947s negotiations cosmetics will be swapped
4950s over on july 13th so if you want to grab
4952s those grab those by 11am and of course
4955s thank you to everyone who tuned in live
4957s if you're watching this on youtube we
4958s super duper appreciate you as well and
4961s um you know we hope that you all stay
4963s healthy and safe and this video will be
4966s up on youtube as well as we will release
4968s the
4969s uh potentially the combat video as well
4971s uh we'll be discussing yeah i think
4972s we'll do that we'll do that right after
4974s the stream it'll be in 4k so you guys
4975s can head over to youtube take a look
4976s there and it's 4k gloriness yes and we
4979s will post that to all our social
4980s channels uh as well and of course you
4983s know this those will uploaded to youtube
4985s head on over to our youtube don't forget
4987s on the dev update if you leave us a
4989s comment and uh
4992s subscribe to our channel next month you
4994s could be spotlighted as our lucky winner
4996s and we might
4998s answer your question or talk about your
5000s comment um and with that we hope to see
5002s you over on our twitter facebook
5004s instagram discord
5006s snapchat whatever social platform you
5008s prefer we are there all the time we are
5010s interacting with you guys on a daily
5012s basis so please come hang out with us
5014s and tell us all the things and your
5015s thoughts and we will see you now do we
5017s have a do just
5019s i was just no never mind sorry
5021s go ahead
5022s all right i'm like wow where's going bye
5024s everybody
5026s have an awesome weekend
5027s have a good weekend
5029s [Music]
5056s you
5057s [Music]
over 2 years ago - /u/IntrepidStudios - Direct link

βš” πŸ‘€ Check out our June Development Update to catch up on the latest news, including a slice of our basic melee weapon attack combos! https://youtu.be/4sUTuUAgavE

πŸ—‘ πŸ€” What was your favorite part of this update?

External link β†’
over 2 years ago - /u/IntrepidStudios - Direct link

Originally posted by SoulSherpa

I don't see anything in this video that resembles targeting. It appears to be 100% action combat.

Intrepid's messaging regarding tab vs. action combat has changed substantially over time. Does this action combat video indicate the direction the game is now going?

Hey u/SoulSherpa,

You're not the only one to see it that way, and to clarify, what was shown on stream was not a full demo of combat. πŸ˜…βš”

What we shared during the June 2022 Development Update was intended to be a demonstration of basic melee attacks with a few melee weapons. Ashes of Creation will feature abilities that are both tab target and action combat.

For more info, check out this clarification post from Vaknar on our forums.