Talk:2023-04-28 Video - Alpha Two Mage Archetype Preview

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Transcription brute

• 00:00

Hello everyone and welcome to another livestream in the world of Vera.

• 00:27

I am joined today by three of our absolutely awesome developers.

• 00:33

We have with us two regulars and one new face.

• 00:37

One of our engineers, obviously our glorious engineers, Keenan.

• 00:39

How you doing buddy?

• 00:41

Good.

• 00:42

Thanks for asking.

• 00:43

Welcome, sir.

• 00:44

Welcome back.

• 00:45

It's just, let's see, last time you were on was for the tank, I believe the tank showcase,

• 00:50

right?

• 00:51

Yeah, that's correct.

• 00:52

Yeah.

• 00:53

And then we also have, I think, as well from that showcase, one of our senior designers,

• 00:56

Mr. Trad.

• 00:57

How you doing, buddy?

• 00:58

Doing good.

• 00:59

Hello, everyone.

• 01:00

Good to see everyone again.

• 01:02

And then we have a new face with us, one of our senior visual effects artists, Mr. John.

• 01:07

How you doing?

• 01:09

I'm doing really well, man.

• 01:10

This is fun.

• 01:11

Yeah, this is fun.

• 01:12

This is your first time on, right?

• 01:14

Yes.

• 01:15

Yes, it is.

• 01:16

And you have been doing a lot of work on the visual effects side.

• 01:18

And today, I know many in our audience have been anticipating this early work in progress

• 01:24

look at the Alpha 2 Mage.

• 01:29

And we have, I'm sure, already the chat is ecstatic looking at the hot bars of abilities

• 01:35

that we're going to be looking at today.

• 01:37

We're not going to go through all of them, but we are going to go through, I believe,

• 01:41

the electrical spells, some of the utilities, and some of the frost abilities, right, Trad?

• 01:48

That's right.

• 01:49

Yeah, we're going to be looking at a bit of an ice lightning mage.

• 01:53

Ice will not be the only elements that you'll see on the mage, but that's what we're going

• 01:56

to be focused on today.

• 01:58

And just specifically some interactions between those elements and showing off how the elements

• 02:02

can be used together to create synergies.

• 02:04

Yes, and I know we've been talking about this, obviously, for a good amount of time and the

• 02:08

way that kind of the class kits synergize and work together.

• 02:12

And you guys saw a little bit of that with the tank demonstration between, I believe,

• 02:16

two abilities had like a staggered to a knockdown promotion.

• 02:21

Is that right, Tren?

• 02:23

That's correct.

• 02:24

Yeah, we're going to be diving a little bit deeper into that kind of stuff.

• 02:26

You'll see probably three or four different interactions within this kit, and that's just

• 02:31

the start of it.

• 02:33

Cool.

• 02:34

Now, we are in the Riverlands, of course, but we are...

• 02:38

Where are we right now?

• 02:39

I think we're at the...

• 02:41

This is like a...

• 02:43

What is this place called?

• 02:46

This is the Hall of Judication, which was an Aelan, I guess, prison slash trial location

• 02:55

that they kept criminals for court.

• 02:59

And we're not going to go inside this location because I think it's filled with some goblins

• 03:04

that might be a little bit beyond our pay grade.

• 03:07

But outside, I think there are some more friendly flowers, perhaps, that we can also play with.

• 03:16

And then maybe some rock monsters.

• 03:18

But what I want to do before we start there is I think it would be beneficial for us to

• 03:23

first get a kind of a base on what each of these abilities do.

• 03:27

I know that that was something that a lot of the players really liked seeing before

• 03:31

we actually get into some combat interactions.

• 03:34

And then later, I'm going to let Trad show off some of the intricate combos when we kind

• 03:41

of showcase the broader kit.

• 03:44

But one thing I want to tell the audience is that, you know, in our previous showcases,

• 03:50

we've tended to kind of showcase a little bit more gameplay oriented, kind of walkthroughs

• 03:55

of zones and areas and have elements of different encounter designs and monsters and whatnot.

• 04:02

Today we're going to really focus in on these individual abilities, their mechanics, and

• 04:07

what it means for the broader combat design of our archetypes in Ashes of Creation.

• 04:13

And hopefully get some good feedback from the community on this direction.

• 04:17

And I know Keenan has some questions that he wants to talk about.

• 04:19

And John, I know we're going to talk with him a little bit about kind of the next, I

• 04:23

think, next edge kind of technology that we're utilizing for some of our VFX and how these

• 04:29

abilities interact.

• 04:30

So before we get started, let's go through these abilities one at a time.

• 04:36

What's our first one that we have here?

• 04:38

This is something that I think we had in Alpha 1.

• 04:40

This was our Blink.

• 04:41

Is that right, Tread?

• 04:43

Yep, this is one of the ones that we've brought back.

• 04:46

This was definitely, I would say, most of our favorite spells from Alpha 1.

• 04:49

So we had to bring it back.

• 04:51

Even the visuals were just awesome.

• 04:53

So, yeah, anyone who played Alpha 1 should be pretty familiar with that.

• 04:58

You know, I'm going to set my cooldowns to zero so I can show the abilities over and

• 05:01

over again.

• 05:02

So this is the Blink ability.

• 05:04

And obviously its purpose is to close the gap, to create a gap, to reposition.

• 05:12

Talk to me a little bit about the use case of a Blink from the Mage's kit perspective.

• 05:17

I mean, you covered it there.

• 05:18

It's a gap opener, gap closer, whatever you want it to be.

• 05:21

And you know, we'll showcase some kind of that, we'll showcase that kind of gameplay

• 05:26

and actual action once we get to the encounter section of this stream.

• 05:32

But you'll see that Mages will probably prefer to use this spell in different ways based

• 05:37

on how you're speccing the Mage.

• 05:40

So if you are a more ranged based classic Mage, you'll most likely use this to create

• 05:45

space to put between you and your opponent.

• 05:48

But like a more melee based Mage might actually want to use this to get on their opponent.

• 05:53

Yes, to initiate.

• 05:55

Absolutely.

• 05:56

That feels like the way I would use it.

• 05:58

And then after this we have a, let me see, before we get into the combat abilities, perhaps

• 06:05

we use, you know, actually let me show the shield.

• 06:10

Speaking of a combat Mage, if you're in the middle of fighting, talk to me a little bit

• 06:13

about the Shell.

• 06:15

Yeah, this is a pretty classic Mage spell that you've probably seen before.

• 06:21

It's just a big health shield.

• 06:23

It absorbs a bunch of damage and it has a duration.

• 06:26

So usually you want to time it with when you're going to anticipate taking a bunch of damage

• 06:30

at once.

• 06:31

And we'll show that off too in a little bit with some of our rotations that put the Mage

• 06:36

in a little bit more danger for greater payoff.

• 06:39

And this is kind of a short duration shell.

• 06:42

Now obviously duration, excuse me, can be one of the parameters that are augmented by

• 06:47

some of our augment abilities.

• 06:49

So it could be potentially extended by an augment in the future, but it's essentially

• 06:53

short duration for those temporary hit points.

• 06:55

Is that right?

• 06:56

Kind of like if you're stuck in a little bit of a bind.

• 06:59

Exactly.

• 07:00

Yeah.

• 07:01

And that's the point of the duration.

• 07:02

Like usually these health shields can be pretty strong.

• 07:04

And so timing that is part of the balance and also part of the gameplay skill that comes

• 07:09

into, you know, deciding when to use that and when to put it on cooldown.

• 07:15

And then let's show off this ball of lightning.

• 07:19

Now John, you have done a lot of work on the tech side for VFX with regards to, you know,

• 07:25

how lightning kind of interacts with surfaces from a sticky surface perspective and, you

• 07:31

know, just establishing what I think is a really cool even style guide and shape language

• 07:36

for this electricity.

• 07:37

And talk to us a little bit about what it took to create this.

• 07:42

You know, I think one of the things that helps set Ashes apart from an effects perspective

• 07:48

is that we want our effects to be dynamically generated.

• 07:51

We want them to interact with the world.

• 07:52

You know, we want them to feel like they are part of the combat.

• 07:57

So when we come to wanting to work with something like lightning, we actually want it to seek

• 08:02

out different things in the world and stick to them.

• 08:06

We want it to feel like you are actually in control of that lightning, not just plastered

• 08:10

on top.

• 08:12

So what we've been working on are kind of behavior systems where you model the behavior

• 08:18

of the lightning and how it should work and then, you know, those systems get put into

• 08:24

our effects and you get a very consistent repetitive, not repetitive in like its motion,

• 08:29

but how it behaves result from it.

• 08:33

Yeah, I think it looks great.

• 08:36

I love this ability too and when we get into combat you guys will see kind of its use case.

• 08:41

I will say this is one of my favorite spells just to use not only visually but like for

• 08:47

reasons you'll see later, but like it's a zoning tool.

• 08:50

It's like a mobile zoning tool.

• 08:52

It's great for applying status effects because it's hitting very rapidly.

• 08:55

There's lots of different ways you can use this thing to your advantage.

• 08:59

I'm sorry.

• 09:00

This one was so much fun to make.

• 09:02

People aren't supposed to be using it.

• 09:04

I have cooldowns.

• 09:05

I'm sorry.

• 09:06

I set my cooldowns to zero so I'm launching like a whole bunch of them, but I just really

• 09:09

love the effects.

• 09:12

I think it's so cool.

• 09:13

It's just fun to figure out how to get it to stick to the floor and make it actually

• 09:17

kind of walk along, you know?

• 09:18

Oh yeah, absolutely.

• 09:20

Now we also have a little bit on the frost side.

• 09:25

Let's talk about this ability and this one is a blizzard.

• 09:32

Explain a little bit about blizzard, Keenan.

• 09:38

Blizzard is a very complicated spell.

• 09:41

I have thought a lot about blizzard.

• 09:44

It rains projectiles down that deal damage but also does a fairly frequent burst that

• 09:50

applies shield stacks.

• 09:53

It also has a little bit of mobility into it, which is something we talked about quite

• 09:56

a bit.

• 09:57

We felt that it was important to maintain some control over this ability even though

• 10:02

it's very powerful just to give players that maximal sense of agency as they are destroying

• 10:08

the battlefield.

• 10:09

Oh yeah.

• 10:10

I mean, I love the visuals here as well, John, the decals on the ground with the frost and

• 10:18

the impacting ice shards.

• 10:23

Talk to me a little bit about how you create from a visual effects perspective these individual

• 10:27

elements and their reusability.

• 10:31

One of the things that's really good about working here is that we are involved very

• 10:36

early on and we can look at the things that are going to be challenging from what design

• 10:41

and engineering team want to build from an effects perspective and then inform them on

• 10:46

those things.

• 10:47

When we want really cool frost zones all over very uneven terrain that they build out cool

• 10:54

displacements in the ground, there's not a button for that.

• 10:59

We have to go and work really closely with tech art and figure that stuff out and then

• 11:04

how do you make sure that the particle systems can drive those decals and they can be animated.

• 11:11

Being part of that process very early on, working with the concept team to identify

• 11:16

what the challenges are going to be and then really being able to communicate with those

• 11:19

teams about how to accomplish it before it hits our desk is really powerful.

• 11:27

I remember when you showed me your first iteration, John, I was like, how does it look when you

• 11:31

move and you were like, what?

• 11:35

That is definitely one of the things that you are so very good at, Keenan.

• 11:40

You take whatever system we have designed and you find the one thing almost immediately

• 11:45

that we didn't account for and I appreciate you for that because once we fix it, it looks

• 11:50

so good.

• 11:52

Absolutely.

• 11:53

It is a very difficult process creating these abilities in a way that obviously answers

• 12:01

the call from a design perspective in the kits that we want to create and the interconnectivity

• 12:04

between those kits, but also establish what players want to see out of a class fantasy

• 12:10

and the mage is a very near and dear to many people's hearts.

• 12:15

I know it is to mine as well.

• 12:17

There's just so much space here to create strong visual languages around the different

• 12:22

types of magics and elements that are utilized.

• 12:25

That's a very strong part of the Ashes of Creation class kits.

• 12:31

So we have another ability called Cone of Cold.

• 12:35

Talk to me a little bit, Tratt, about Cone of Cold.

• 12:38

Yep.

• 12:39

Ice spells have a tendency to be complicated.

• 12:41

This is another one.

• 12:42

So this is a cone spell.

• 12:45

It's pretty simple in that regard.

• 12:46

You hit enemies in front of you.

• 12:48

You apply what is one of our elemental status effects called Chilled.

• 12:52

It does as you would probably expect.

• 12:54

It slows the target and it can stack for an increasing amount of slow per stack you put

• 12:59

on them.

• 13:00

But you might notice that there are some little crystals that it leaves on the ground there

• 13:06

and each one of those is a proximity ice mine that if someone steps on it will explode and

• 13:11

apply additional stacks and damage.

• 13:13

So it's really good at creating area denial between your opponent and yourself and if

• 13:19

you force them through it then you can count on being able to escalate your status effects

• 13:24

a little quicker.

• 13:25

Now I've aggroed this monster.

• 13:28

You guys will notice that it's not pathing towards me but that's because I want to show

• 13:32

off some additional abilities that require a target.

• 13:41

So Lightning Strike.

• 13:43

Talk to me about what Lightning Strike does.

• 13:46

Sure.

• 13:48

This one's a little more straightforward.

• 13:50

It's kind of one of your bread and butter single target abilities.

• 13:54

You can charge it for varying degrees of efficacy.

• 13:57

So you can either release it really soon to apply stacks quickly of the electrified status

• 14:04

effect in the lightning category or you can charge it up longer and do more damage.

• 14:10

So I guess I'll take this opportunity to talk a little bit about what you might be noticing

• 14:15

on the icons on these enemies but once you build 10 stacks of electrified on the target

• 14:23

you'll notice that they'll get another icon on them and that is the Shocked status effect

• 14:27

and what that means is that when you hit them with damage once that thing is applied it

• 14:33

will consume electrified stacks with each hit you do to them while that's active to

• 14:38

do or proc additional damage.

• 14:41

So I'll show that here.

• 14:44

You can see that electrified gets applied.

• 14:50

But one thing also that is interesting is this elemental empowerment.

• 14:54

Talk to me a little bit about elemental empowerment.

• 14:58

Yep.

• 14:59

So you might be wondering well how am I going to get all the way to the number of status

• 15:02

effects I need if my abilities are on cooldown and you know I need 10 of them to get there.

• 15:07

Well the one combo is or well your weapon combo in general on the mage is very good at

• 15:13

doing so because it will take the elements of the last spell you cast and for about a

• 15:19

five second period or so apply that element in status effect applications to the enemy

• 15:24

as you're attacking them.

• 15:25

So you might see that happening here.

• 15:28

So let's show off a little bit of that of that interaction after I kill this guy real

• 15:35

quick and the next one and how promotions work on those types of status conditions.

• 15:43

So what's a good promotion effect that I can do between electricity and frost right now.

• 15:49

Usually I like to stick with frost first.

• 15:52

So I'll open with do we want to show Frostbolt.

• 15:54

Yeah yeah.

• 15:55

So this is a single target projectile attack that applies two stacks of chilled to the

• 16:00

enemy and then after that hit him with a few wand attacks.

• 16:04

Now you'll see that you've gotten a frozen status effect on him and then he timed that

• 16:09

really well right there but like in that very last frame you'll see that he hit him with

• 16:13

an light lightning effect which triggers the shadows.

• 16:16

It's not even a condition it's just a reaction and that just triggers a bunch of damage.

• 16:22

So that's a good way to get your burst damage if you're rotating your spells and your elements

• 16:27

the correct way.

• 16:30

Yeah that's super cool.

• 16:33

Very cool.

• 16:34

Yeah that particular interaction is by far my favorite thing about this page.

• 16:39

Yeah I like the ability for a spellcaster or just any player with their archetype having

• 16:48

the option to kind of weave in between those rotations and those spells and to create successful

• 16:56

combinations within their kit that you amplify the DPS or the status conditions or the control

• 17:03

effects or you know whatever it is your is your end goal.

• 17:09

Having a rotation that emphasizes your ability to succeed or fail in those combos I think

• 17:17

is is compelling from a gameplay perspective.

• 17:22

Yeah I agree like they really are intended to be rotational drivers and help you get

• 17:28

introduced to a kit that you know might otherwise feel like just a disparate set of spells that

• 17:33

don't really belong together.

• 17:35

This is how just one way that we're really making them feel connected and it's not the

• 17:39

only way you'll see some other synergies that are a little bit more organic with a few of

• 17:44

these other spells that we have yet to get to but that's kind of the crux of how we're

• 17:49

getting those rotational elements down.

• 17:51

I think your ball lightning just shattered that for you.

• 17:54

I know yeah I timed it so that it would it would essentially hit the hit the target while

• 18:01

the frost application applied.

• 18:05

I used another ability called chain lightning.

• 18:07

Talk to me about chain lightning.

• 18:12

Yeah that's it's pretty similar to lightning strike except it's more of an AoE role that

• 18:17

it's filling so you won't see it here because you're only attacking one target but if there

• 18:22

were multiple targets you would see lightning branch off from the main target that you have

• 18:28

to nearby additional targets.

• 18:30

So it's really good at applying its status effect in a more AoE scenario which we will

• 18:34

also show you soon.

• 18:35

Let me see if I can sorry I spawned a few more targets just to demonstrate that.

• 18:40

Let me sleep them all.

• 18:42

Talk to me a little bit about sleep.

• 18:45

Yes this is an AoE CC that breaks on damage.

• 18:48

It's great for like creating space and setting up a window but you can't just like DPS them

• 18:54

down while they're sitting there weak so it's kind of a trade-off it's very good especially

• 19:00

if you're in a more organized group that knows to hold off and like you know kind of control

• 19:05

the battlefield without just throwing damage everywhere.

• 19:13

Yeah that is super cool but now John talk to me a little bit about the ability for this

• 19:20

lightning to kind of connect with these different points of collision.

• 19:28

So first working with this combat team so early makes things like the idea that they

• 19:36

want to be super twitchy and you know rotate the player while they're casting it very obvious

• 19:42

from the start as a you know a huge challenge.

• 19:45

So when we go about designing these systems we're looking for not only does it look good

• 19:53

but is it performant and you know building out the systems that can look for all of the

• 20:00

players the ground collision objects like trees or rocks and not only like collide them

• 20:08

but avoid them is just super satisfying.

• 20:15

Yeah I totally agree and that's one of the cool things you know you were talking about

• 20:19

like looking for that collision and one thing I want to demonstrate on that comment is let

• 20:25

me see if I can find a good spot to showcase that here hold on one second let me just spawn

• 20:31

a little dude maybe right here ish and then oh actually no wait we got a friend we got

• 20:39

a friend let's use him get asleep right there okay and let me get behind this rock whoops

• 20:49

sorry guys I'll launch around this area here oh that looked so good did you guys see that

• 21:00

arc that was so cool all hacks and you can rotate while you're casting it so we wanted

• 21:06

to really pay attention to that player agency that's been so important for the combat team

• 21:12

you know if if you're able to move and rotate and get out of the way and your effects suddenly

• 21:18

disconnect from you or don't feel like you're in control of them anymore that just it doesn't

• 21:21

look right and we really want it to look and feel interactive and fun you know we don't

• 21:26

want you to turn the effects off we want you to enjoy it I'm definitely not used to seeing

• 21:31

such like grounded lightning in games and even those especially I am a mage player and

• 21:40

bad lightning angers me so it was just not allowed like we had to do better and it's

• 21:48

still very much a work in progress but we are definitely on the right path and it's

• 21:52

performant and you know I think another aspect of this that's really cool is you're looking

• 21:59

at it as lightning right now but the same system that does lightning does the ice crystals

• 22:05

does the airstrike roots there's all kinds of different behaviors that these very performant

• 22:12

systems can handle absolutely all right next up we have arcane volley what is arcane volley

• 22:22

this is a single target arcane spell unlike the other ones we've shown you this doesn't

• 22:26

have any particular element associated with it and it might look a little underwhelming

• 22:32

at first but you can use this pretty quickly it's on a two charge cooldown and there is

• 22:37

a particular synergy that we all like to use with it if you haven't figured it out it's

• 22:42

how it synergizes with the shocked status effect the shocked status basically says the

• 22:49

with each hit it triggers additional damage and arcane volley is a perfect candidate for

• 22:55

that synergy you know I am going to make sure this guy's wings are good to go I trad I would

• 23:02

love for you and I'd perhaps swap places here and for you to walk us through some of these

• 23:07

more elaborate combinations one thing that is really cool guys I don't know it was about

• 23:14

a year ago or so we showed off this particular thunderbolt gliding mount and we put a little

• 23:22

bit more work Jason's been putting a little bit more work into the glide mechanic and

• 23:28

let's see if I can set myself up I want to fly you over to a little location trad where

• 23:35

you can demonstrate some of these combos so I think there's a plateau that's kind of near

• 23:40

here let's see if we can do this oh god and we're doing it okay so this is this is kind

• 23:46

of the gliding distance that you can develop a little bit with these gliding mounts so

• 23:51

there's some some good amount of distance traveled I think oh my god I pulled a little

• 23:56

bit too many troops hold on hold on you're getting more yeah yeah yeah wait wait wait

• 24:00

let me fly back out reset set all right wait we're good let's just walk over actually fly

• 24:14

to his little safer spot there we go oh and he's t-posing don't mind him he's good just

• 24:27

tell him to go away up and we got another one and he died okay we're good all right

• 24:39

let me just uh let me hold on I've got I hope I don't die all right get ready we're gonna

• 24:46

swap over here why are there so many creeps on this hill oh no I'm sorry guys oh my gosh

• 24:53

give me one second let me just see if I can reset them okay there we go we're good we're

• 24:57

good we're good we're good they reset they reset nope they're trying to path to me they're

• 25:06

very angry very angry oh why won't they leash they have a super long leash radius okay trad

• 25:19

let us let's you and I swap what do you think you want to swap and we'll do this over here

• 25:24

yeah good luck yeah hopefully they will reset us here yes all right big aoe pole all right

• 25:30

we're gonna swap give me one second and we are now swapped or we're swapping sorry trad

• 25:39

come on over and show us some of the magic in the combos

• 25:56

all right we are back I'm gonna do my best to salvage this situation here got a big pole

• 26:08

all right so first I'm gonna thin out this encounter a little bit I'm gonna demonstrate

• 26:16

one of the more single I just want you to know trad real quick that prior to you thinning

• 26:20

out the herd there that if it wasn't for my training all of those creeps you would not

• 26:25

have had this a spectacular opportunity to just showcase the sheer aoe potential in this

• 26:31

oh I see I see we're skipping straight to that then all right and he can do it without

• 26:35

the cooldowns to no pressure whatsoever all right no let's set the downs back to cool

• 26:39

downs back yeah you can do it all right doing it live let's see first so walk us through

• 26:49

kind of what you're gonna use so because this is gonna be a more of an aoe combo I would

• 26:55

say one of the better rotations for this is almost one of the more battlemage like rotation

• 27:01

so that this is gonna be something you could almost expect from like maybe age fighter

• 27:06

or something like that you know I'm gonna equip the great blade so this is just to show

• 27:11

that you know mages use non-conventional weapons and ashes of creation we're gonna show that

• 27:17

off soon especially with what we showed you earlier the elemental empowerment well this

• 27:22

will actually apply to all things that you hit in your cleaving radius with the great

• 27:25

sword oh here we go

• 27:47

oh god I cancelled my blizzard I cancelled my blizzard that was a rip oh that's so good

• 27:58

too many mobs dude oh we're good we're good we're good about that maybe they'll reset

• 28:02

that now you're reset you're good okay guys I just had to set trad up to die like that

• 28:09

I apologize I just wanted to just showcase that the mage is not a literal god like in

• 28:15

many games that if you over pull and you bite off more than you can chew you're still gonna

• 28:21

die I love it we can't ever get it the first try right that would be a boring no that would

• 28:28

be very boring there's there's a there's a little bit of a you know a little bit of a

• 28:34

difficulty challenge here oh you almost made it back this is nice not bad kind of like

• 28:43

a little puzzle to get back in here you did it pretty quick too I get lost yeah all right

• 28:50

let's see if we can get a little bit of a better setup here all right I'm gonna shelf

• 28:55

the AoE one and go to the single target one and then we'll we'll do the AoE one again

• 28:59

after that all right all right so this is a little easier one here we go you're gonna

• 29:09

need your wand okay yeah some big deeps there and that's because of the shattered you slept

• 29:29

the next one nice I love that ball now you're making quick work of these trad not bad yep

• 29:52

so that's that's the single target rotation I like a lot at least with this kit once you

• 29:56

start introducing some of these other elements in here that we're not going to show you this

• 29:59

time but you'll get to see them eventually it really opens like a whole realm of possibilities

• 30:05

actually we could even try it on this one this guy's got a lot of health this guy takes

• 30:10

a few rotations to bring down yeah I've been really practiced on this one and see how it

• 30:14

goes and now Keenan talk to us a little bit about kind of the process that goes into creating

• 30:21

these you know class kits for alpha 2 your strike team has been hard at work and kind

• 30:28

of developing phase one and phase two of these what exactly goes into those phases well it's

• 30:35

this pretty much a three phase process phase one is very open-ended to be pretty much try

• 30:40

everything under the Sun and we put it together in every way we can imagine and we try to

• 30:44

figure out what we like and don't like and iterate fast we usually do playables like

• 30:49

twice a week when we're in that phase what you guys are seeing here is actually abilities

• 30:54

that are in the process of passing phase two so they are approaching levels where we are

• 31:02

happy with how they play happy with how they look and some details may change over time

• 31:07

but generally speaking this is what we're going for and from here it would mostly just

• 31:12

be like like polish and assets and just getting like external feedback and stuff like that

• 31:20

very nice try to like your use of slumber there you're in a precarious spot oh god oh

• 31:31

my god I am literally on the edge of my seat just watching this hoping you don't turn into

• 31:36

ash oh god you're at oh my gosh that was crazy but chill I wanted to make it look close you

• 31:46

know it's good for the uh-huh yeah you know me too that's when I die it's because it's

• 31:52

you know yeah I mean it's dramatic effect yeah totally all right should we set our health

• 31:58

back up or do we have to wait for region here you know you can set it yeah you can uh you

• 32:03

can negative nuke yourself do the aggro range on these things I see why you dagger everything

• 32:07

so you see what I mean this is what I'm having to deal with right now

• 32:17

that's well done you see this audience utilize elements of the terrain to obstruct the pathing

• 32:24

from the monster while uh we're we have yet to stand up the right pathing

• 32:29

oh it's so good this guy's a little boy though he's not too bad

• 32:46

this is just more of like the single rotation kit yep and you do not have to build your

• 32:52

mage down this elemental path right that's one of the the design elements of this kit

• 33:00

is that there are a lot of different paths that you're able to take the mage down not

• 33:05

just the lightning and ice path or elementals talk to us a little bit about kind of the

• 33:09

composition of abilities that are intended between utility defensive gap closers and

• 33:14

mobility dps oriented one yeah I mean that's kind of what we've been demonstrating a little

• 33:21

bit with some of these other ones like this show has definitely saved me more than a few

• 33:25

times slumber as well like a lot of defensive utility goes into the mage being able to sustain

• 33:33

themselves you know when they're having situations like this where you know detected by mobs

• 33:39

and they weren't quite prepared for it and I think that's really what rounds out the

• 33:43

kit for classes like this it's not all about just dishing out dps all the time it's all

• 33:49

about it's really it really comes down to those like situational things and using those

• 33:54

things intelligently to come out on top see if we can get an aoe counter here by the way

• 34:01

if you want to if you want to turn around trad you're able to you can do like one two

• 34:05

and three just kind of in the middle just face directly into that dirt area there and

• 34:09

just num numpad one two three and it'll spawn just right in front of you and just turn slightly

• 34:16

yeah there you go perfect all right classic aoe counter here let's go and guys just to

• 34:21

give you context here as trad's doing this again we're taking a little bit of a direction

• 34:25

here with this showcase we wanted to kind of give you just how we do things from a combat

• 34:31

arena perspective and development perspective and how we iterate as Keenan was talking about

• 34:35

you know there are multiple iterations that occur during phase one development twice a

• 34:39

week almost with that strike team and they use arenas that are a little bit lower weight

• 34:44

than the than Vera than the ashes of creation world and that's kind of the combat arena

• 34:49

that has things like dummies and you know just a lot of different design oriented test

• 34:56

subjects that are helpful one of those is just spawning monsters as you need it yeah

• 35:02

one of our guiding theories is that the more iterations we can execute on the better the

• 35:07

game will be so we're all about minimizing that time to iteration yeah that's something

• 35:12

that's also really important for us when you guys are iterating so quickly you know we

• 35:17

want to make sure that the systems that are using that animation to really drive the effects

• 35:23

don't break every four days because you guys decided to change it up we really want to

• 35:28

only address changes for you know major differences in how the ability functions so these systems

• 35:35

are pretty robust yeah and I noticed there trad when you were swinging with your your

• 35:41

greatsword you had that elemental is it elemental empowerment elemental empowerment yeah that's

• 35:46

kind of what I was alluding to earlier like it's not just the wand that interacts with

• 35:51

these different abilities different weapons have different synergies with class abilities

• 35:58

which just introduces that extra level of depth right it's like you know how can I maximize

• 36:04

the effect of this and you know it's like I'm trading in this case my my range potential

• 36:09

for the ability to apply the status effects in a more aoe regard which makes the greatsword

• 36:16

a lot better for dealing with packs than the wand and you know sometimes you'll even be

• 36:21

able to use either one based on the situation right will allow players to swap their weapons

• 36:26

based on you know what they are coming up against and it creates a lot of answers to

• 36:32

different situations if you have the tools for it absolutely yeah just to be clear the

• 36:36

greatsword was dealing so much damage there because they were shocked exactly yeah it's

• 36:42

good it's a good aoe weapon but by itself it's not it's not that good it was really

• 36:46

the shock that was making it deal so much damage yeah well oh you got another little

• 36:52

friend there you can probably put press four a couple times you want to grab a couple more

• 36:56

of those I think we'll just put him to sleep good call well guys as always you know this

• 37:07

is a continued work in progress alpha 2 as you know is a big test period for us a lot

• 37:14

of the archetypes are going to be online to a significant level with a significant amount

• 37:18

of abilities that are going to be available to kind of test and as part of our monthly

• 37:23

showcases where we show you development in progress this is our opportunity to collect

• 37:28

feedback on what you guys have seen Keenan do you have some questions that are most relevant

• 37:34

for your teams with regards to the iteration and development of this combat that you'd

• 37:38

like to posit to the community yeah I would say there's there's three major things that

• 37:44

I'm interested in gathering feedback on and the first one stems from player agency which

• 37:49

is one of the things that we prioritize the most and so with in the context of this kit

• 37:56

what that looks like is how people feel about the amount of mobility that it has during

• 38:01

spells people may have noticed that the cleric was walking out of its spells and canceling

• 38:04

them but this page can actually continue to cast they just have a slower movement speed

• 38:08

how do people feel about that how does it look the second thing I'm interested in is

• 38:16

how the transition between spells is coming across does it look good does it look clunky

• 38:22

how do people feel about that and then finally the complexity of the kit are people pretty

• 38:28

happy with these elemental interactions and how they how they would think about them during

• 38:33

combat or are they interested in something more complicated or less complicated awesome

• 38:40

and guys as always remember this is a work in progress there is still iteration necessary

• 38:46

there's a lot of artwork that's still outstanding and requires second third fourth passes and

• 38:52

polish but we are showing you you know everything as it is in development because we find that

• 38:57

it's a very important interaction with the community to collect this type of feedback

• 39:00

and get your guys's thoughts on the direction that we're taking because at the end of the

• 39:05

day when we launch Ashes of Creation we want to make sure that we've had as much touch

• 39:09

point with the community as possible so people don't go what game is this but with that being

• 39:15

said John, Tradd, Keenan I want to thank all three of you for joining me today and showcasing

• 39:21

the hard work that you and the rest of the team have been putting towards developing

• 39:24

this mage and the other archetypes I know I speak for the community when I say thank

• 39:28

you you guys are doing an awesome job very excited to see this played by by players in

• 39:34

Alpha 2 and with that being said we will see you all back on stream bye guys