Intrepid Studios Talk About Improvements Made Based On Ashes Of Creation: Apocalypse Data

Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse into Steam Early Access. The Ashes of Creation spinoff was originally designed as a means of testing the MMORPG’s hybrid combat system in a quick-to-develop and quick-to-play PvP setting and the studio insists that that’s still the case in the official launch press release.

Apparently, Apocalypse’s Early Access launch has already helped the developers gather tons of information that will help them improve and polish both the MMORPG and the battle royale game. Intrepid Studios talks about it in last Friday’s developer livestream. According to the devs, Apocalypse has served as an unofficial stress test, giving the devs critical information on how their servers hold up with multiple players online, resulting in an overall reduction of lags, crashes, and rubberbanding.

Hierarchical Level of Detail (HLOD), which controls the swapping of low polygon models for distant objects to high-polygon for closer objects, has also been refined for both games based on data gathered from Apocalypse. Destruction mechanics are also being polished so destroyed walls disappear and don’t show up with HLOD when you walk away.

Blocking mechanics have also been reworked. Players will now stumble/stagger when their Stamina reaches 0 while blocking. Time To Kill (TTK) has also been increased to give the devs more data on how the game’s hybrid combat system functions in actual PvP battles and to allow for different player strategies to come into play.

The developers also talked about mounts and gave viewers a quick look at a few mobs including the Emberstorm Dragon and the Pridestalker. Creative Director Steven Sharif also let it slip that the first Ashes of Creation Alpha Test will likely take place before the Horde Mode launches in Apocalypse.

Check out the full livestream below. The livestream transcript is also available on The Ashes Post.