Livellamento

Alpha-1 early iteration of the level-up effect by Jim Sanders.

One of the cool abilities we all love seeing and gives us a major dopamine response is when our character levels up. – Steven Sharif

Livellamento won't follow a traditional linear path, although classic mechanics for leveling exist.

Leveling: the act of of going out and adventuring, of killing monsters, and combat in general is the most tactile and moment-to-moment type of gameplay that you're going to experience in Ashes of Creation; and I think at every step of the way in that adventure it should be fun, and it should be something that you enjoy doing, and it should be something that's rewarding, and it should be something that teaches you more about the immersive world that you're in and allows you to follow a compelling storyline. – Steven Sharif

• Players will have the option to rush their vertical progression to level cap or spend time building infrastructure through horizontal progression.

• Experience (XP) is gained through a variety of vertical and horizontal progression paths, such as Pvp, PvE, Esplorazione, Raccolta/Elaborazione/Crafting, Events/Missioni, Grinding mobs.
  • XP will be awarded for participating in objective-based PvP on a diminishing returns basis.

• A character's level is visible to other players.

• Some levels may offer more rewards than others.

I think you can emphasize some levels more than others and that's a great way to do progression. But I think ultimately that you should see a reward for your progress or effort spent. – Steven Sharif

• There will not be level boosts or auto-leveling (AFK leveling).

As part of our ideals as a game we're not going to give boosts away. We're not going to auto-level up a character. You have to spend time acclimating yourself to what this game is, to what the world that you're part of is; and that's an investment- a time investment; and that plays towards our ideas of risk-versus-reward; and I've always said our game's not going to be for everybody and that's okay. – Steven Sharif

• There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either Pvp or PvE.

If I have a skill that does a thousand damage to a target of equal level I don't want my skill to do zero damage to a target that's five levels above me. – Steven Sharif

• A player could in theory level to max level at a single node, providing that node was at a high-enough stage, but it would not be the most effective means of leveling.

Level cap

The level cap at launch is expected to be level 50.

• On release the developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days if playing 4-6 hours per day.
• The developers estimate that players will reach level cap before a quarter of nodes reach Village (fase 3).
• Alpha-1 had progression to level 15.
• Alpha-2 expects progression to level 30 (subject to change). Previously this was stated to be level 35.

Lower level characters will have usefulness in mass combat (such as Assedi al nodo) that is not directly dependent on their level, such as manning siege weapons, helping repair fortifications, bringing proximity-based buffs to key positions, using stealth or scaling walls. These types of things are relevant to the tide of battle and do not require the player to be max-level or have high combat stats.

The idea is not to be a game where somebody can essentially no life for a week and be max level. The idea is to incorporate some significant chunk of time but still respect the casual player, because the way we respect the casual player is not everything is driven in our game through the adventuring progression line. Not everything is driven through your class level per-se. There's a lot of different progression paths that are available and make you relevant within certain systems and mechanics within the game; and some of those paths are more casual friendly and some of those paths are more hardcore friendly. So with regards to the adventuring class, the idea is to make sure that investment needs to be pretty significant and that the reward then is respective of that investment. – Steven Sharif

Class progression

Come un giocatore progresses con il suo archetype primario (classe primaria), avranno l'opportunità di scegliere un archetipo secondario per augment le loro abilità primarie con gli effetti dell'archetipo secondario (classe secondaria). La combinazione di archetipi primari and secondari è riferita come una Class.

Se un Fighter scegliesse il Mage come archetipo secondario, il combattente diventerebbe uno Spellsword. Questa combinazione sblocca augments che possono essere applicati alle abilità nel loro skill tree primario. I combattenti hanno una abilità Rush che gli permette di scagliarsi contro un bersaglio; ed una volta raggiunto, infliggere del danno con una possibiltà di atterarlo. Un potenziamento Mage's escape può essere applicato all'abilità di carica, che può ora teletrasportare il giocatore verso il bersaglio; eliminando quindi il tempo di carica richiesto per l'abilità.

Ogni abilità nel primary tree avrà diverse opzioni di augment dall'albero secondario. Questo è un esempio di horizontal progression.

I giocatori ricevono skill points quando level. Questi possono essere usati per potenziare le abilità all'interno del loro albero.

• Non sarà possibile potenziare al massimo tutte le abilità di un albero.

Zones and progression

Dungeon, Incursioni, Boss del mondo, Mobs, Missioni, Events, Risorse, Narratives and other content within a node's ZOI will have a diverse level range; but will scale with the advancement of that node and its racial influence.

• Portions of the spawn tables (for mobs and resources) are static and other portions are dynamic and adapt to node development.

We don’t have a strictly level 25 zone. Instead, that zone might have some level 10 creatures near the road, some level 20 creatures deep in the forest, and some level 30 creatures up the mountain. These ratios will change based on the Nodes that inform them, becoming generally more dangerous as the Node grows. All this civilization attracts the attention of Things-That-Should-Not-Be. This does not mean that wilderness areas are safe, by any means. Some may be safe-er, but all will have dangers that even the most experienced traveler needs to watch out for. – Steven Sharif

Class abilities

Alpha-1 preview primary skills.

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

The idea behind the system is that you're skirting the line through these augmentations of your role, right. We have the traditional holy trinity that's present in class designs for MMOs and it's often that those either are not deviated at all or completely deviated from entirely. The augment is to offer a balance between that where you still maintain the semblance of that trinity system while offering the opportunity to customize your play experience towards one of the other angles in the triangle. – Steven Sharif

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

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

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

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

Rested experience

Taverns offer rested experience (rested XP) for those who rent rooms or spend time as patrons of the tavern.

• Rested experience allows players to gain experience at a faster rate for a period of time.
• There are no current plans to replace rested experience with another bonus for max-level players.
• Rested experience increases the rate that experience debt is paid back.

Pet progression

Combat pets will be levelable and will have gear available to them.

• Combat pets will incorporate some of their owner's power in a way that keeps the power progression horizontal.
  • Power is delegated to the pet when it is summoned and returned to the player immediately when the pet despawns.

Summoner summons (Summoner pets) do add to the summoner's power when they are summoned.

• Gear is not available to Summoner summons.

Combat pets, which can be acquired by any archetype- and this is essentially an item that exists within your backpack- you cast the item to summon your pet. When it is summoned it's not intended to be a vertical gain of power, because when you make combat pets a vertical power gain, then it becomes a no choice solution: you must have a combat pet if you want to play efficiently- you must have a combat pet; and I wanted to steer clear of that because the way I wanted to approach combat pets was more of a horizontal power choice; meaning: depending on the type of encounter you're facing, depending on the threat assessment you have, a combat pet might be relevant, or it might not. One combat combat pet might be more relevant than another combat pet and that's part of your gear acquisition, your item chase to attain this more comprehensive selection of combat pets that you can have available to you and can be summoned in the event that you want to engage an encounter with a different aspect of your power curve: Not vertical, but horizontal. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Artisan progression
• Esplorazione