Will Ashes of Creation have PvP multiplayer?

Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMO from Intrepid Studios, and PvP is a major focus of the gameplay. This isn’t a unique concept, as games like Throne and Liberty and Lineage 2 before it have focused heavily on PvP. However, while there won’t be PvE servers for this MMO, they have been working on systems that should make it less frustrating for players who don’t want to focus on PvP as they explore the rich world set out before them.

There are two forms of PvP in Ashes of Creation — opt-in open-world PvP and Objective-based PvP battlegrounds to take part in. While you can’t necessarily make yourself immune to being PKed, there are systems to make it less desirable for players to grief, troll, or harass innocent players. Before you put that monthly sub down, here’s what you need to know.

Can you ignore PvP in Ashes of Creation?

You can’t really ignore PvP in Ashes of Creation, per se. You can choose not to fight back when a player attacks you in the world, but you do lose more of your resources than if you fight back when attacked. Players who aren’t targeting other players are labeled as non-combatants (Green).

Players who do target other players are labeled Combatants (Purple), and players who attack non-combatants become Corrupted (Red). As you kill players who are non-combatants, you will continue stacking penalties/debuffs, which increase the more Corrupted you are.

Here's a simple chart from the AoC wiki about how PVP flagging works. (Image via Intrepid Studios)

In addition, the wider the level disparity between the players, and the higher the attacker’s PK value, the more Corruption they gain. PK value increases each time a player kills a non-combatant player over the lifetime of that character. It does not appear to be able to be reduced.

What makes this system so interesting, is that it also affects your stats when fighting other players. Eventually, your Corruption in Ashes of Creation will get so high that you won’t be able to PvP other players — you simply won’t be strong enough. In addition, you can’t just alt-F4 out of the game as a Corrupted player. Normally, you have a 60s wait timer — if you choose to alt-F4 out, your character remains in the world.

So yes, players who don’t want to PvP can choose not to, you’re still going to be at risk. You work off Corruption by grinding XP, but it takes much longer than it did in games like Lineage 2. Another interesting facet is that Corrupted players can be attacked by non-combatants, without being flagged, and there’s also a bounty system to reveal Corrupt players on the map.

It's easy to see when someone is flagged as a combatant. (Image via Intrepid Studios)

You also have to consider that if you die, you do incur XP debt, and can lose some resources. Players drop roughly 20-30% of gathered items, materials, and glint. This is going to be frustrating, but hardly the end of the world.

Another PvP point to consider in Ashes of Creation is again, the Corruption system. If someone is harassing weak players or scamming players, that is going to get around. It’s much easier for hundreds of players to attack someone griefing weak players, than one player to do it.

That way, the Corruption is easier to deal with, and that jerk player gets taught a valuable lesson — in a perfect world, anyway. What makes players toxic like that is knowing there’s no penalty for them acting that way — there definitely is in Ashes of Creation. Players can spread out the penalty of PKing that one toxic player amongst each other, and return the favor, so to speak.

There is structured PvP if you're into that. (Image via Intrepid Studios)

While you can’t really opt out of PvP in Ashes of Creation in the open world, you can choose not to do Objective-based PvP — and there’s a lot of it! Whether you want to focus on ship-to-ship battles, castles, or guild events, there are quite a few PvP events in Ashes of Creation:

Castle Siege (potentially - this may not come to fruition).
Caravans: Moving commodities via caravan for great rewards.
Guild Wars: Currently a work in progress - wars between specific guilds/alliances.
Naval PVP: Moving a ship into open sea naval PVP zones automatically flags you as a Combatant (Corrupt players remain Corrupt).
Node Sieges: Attacking a village's resource nodes - players' homes are at risk during these sieges.
Node Wars: When a Mayor declares war on another node - Node war events can only happen during server prime-time.

Objective-based PvP systems don’t use a Corruption system, though — if you go into that kind of PvP, just know that you are always in danger. All classes will be viable in PvP as well, so that’s something to look forward to. One benefit of this Objective-based PvP system is that it's a primary way to increase your fortune — but it comes at a great risk. That's part of what makes it so exciting.

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Edited by Jito Tenson