Yesterday saw another Ashes of Creation livestream with several devs offering a general rundown of progress. The broadcast touched on a pretty wide swath of talking points, from balance adjustments in Siege Mode to large-scale battles to Nodes.
Balance does appear to be the watchword for Siege Mode updates right now: Tanks are described as “overpowered and unkillable” and mages are “too squishy” right now. There’s also polishing to be done, tweaks to capture points, bug squishing related to exiting siege vehicles, and notifications for points of interest during the match need to be added. The devs have also provided word on running large-scale battles with 5,000 simulated players and features to improve performance during such encounters; as the devs put it, “your potato will be able to play the game.” [The devs later clarified they are actually shooting for 1,000-player battles but are testing with 5,000 bots.]
The devs also went in-depth on the game’s Node system, which readers will recall is the system that governs where towns and cities spring from so long as they’re fed resources and influence and react based on what happens nearby. In short, the devs have worked out a random generator for where buildings pop up as Nodes grow in order to make them not appear cookie-cutter. There’s also work being done on housing, guilds, branching quest systems, voting systems, caravan systems, and event systems such as attacking or defending Nodes.
As for the Apocalypse battle royale mode, it appears that’s not entirely abandoned, as it has received a hotfix this past Monday. That said, Steam Charts is still reporting abysmal numbers, with only 4 players online an hour ago and a peak of 21 players in the last 30 days.
Fans should expect a video showing off the new variety of Nodes sometime later, as well as a letter from creative director Steven Sharif around the holiday break, a Castle Siege Phoenix Initiative test this Thursday, and some announcements for the first quarter of 2020 soon. For now, you can take in the complete broadcast below or scour this transcript for a briefing.
