With the recent 0.8.0 update to Ashes of Creation Alpha Two, players have experienced the first major phase of gear and stat rebalancing. This update has brought many incremental changes focused on core vertical progression systems, such as character leveling, gear stats, enchanting, mana/health regeneration, and of course, time-to-kill (TTK).
Players across every server logged in this past week to see their stats greatly dampened due to these changes, with one of the biggest changes being a large decrease in their physical/magical power. One of the primary reasons of this change was to improve the overall TTK to make the overall PvP experience more enjoyable (and realistic).
What was TTK Looking Like Before These Changes?
Previously, if certain players were fully maxed out (which at the time meant highly enchanted level 10 gear), they were able to defeat other players at the same level within a few seconds – and possibly even in one hit. Even if both players were maxed out, the overall gear and stats were designed in a way where essentially the first player to initiate the attack had a major advantage (as it only took a few hits, if that, to take the other player down).
In a previous interview, the Intrepid team shared that time-to-kill in 1v1 PvP is expected to be between 10 and 30 seconds for the same players with equivalent gear, which can vary based on the archetypes in question. This recent change to gear stats and attribute stats in general has greatly extended the overall TTK, making it quite a bit closer to what the team has intended.
Changes to Enchanting Level 10 Gear
Additionally, enchanting level 10 gear was previously the best way to maximize your stats (instead of even touching level 20 gear, which was not the intention). With these recent changes, level 10 gear is not nearly as powerful as it used to be, and in most situations, players would want to utilize level 20 gear instead (even if the level 10 gear is greatly enchanted).
One of the primary reasons for this, too, was the change to Physical and Magical Power Rating, which now leads to less direct damage output. Although these numbers visually look much higher now, the conversion of this stat to raw damage output has greatly changed, leading to less damage output across the board.
The images below help illustrate some of these changes for both level 10 and 20 gear (before and after the update).
The Future of TTK
Many players knew this change was coming, and there will be many, many more changes coming soon to ensure that these systems are in the most optimal position as possible in preparation for the official launch.
Starting on May 1, Alpha Two Phase Three will be live, which means hundreds of players will be going through the leveling process up to level 25 again. With this amount of data, the team will be able to gain a better understanding of how these TTK changes not only impact PvP, but also the PvE and leveling experience. Based on how this goes, there likely will be more updates and changes to ensure both PvE and PvP have a reasonable TTK that’s enjoyable and positive for the game.
If you want to learn more about Ashes of Creation and participate in Alpha Two, click here and begin exploring the world of Verra.