Ashes of Creation Shows Updated Cleric, Highwaymen Hills Location, and Dynamic Systems in Verra

mmorpg.com:

The Ashes of Creation team held another end of the month development update stream. This time, there’s an in-depth update of the Cleric archetype and the Highwaymen Hills area.

The Cleric kit update from Alpha 2 is an updated look from last time, which Creative Director Steven Sharif mentions in the video. That preview was sometime last year, and so there have been updates since that they’re looking to show off.

In thismost recent preview, they're showing off essentially the result of the team having Incorporated previous feedback from playtesting and data to reassess and change things up a bit for the Cleric. Now, they have between 16-18 abilities in the latest preview, and the Cleric is coming together.

Highwayman Hills is a new place that they are also previewing, a location that  comes with a sense of danger since it is notorious for the bandits that occupy the area and the danger you risk if you take care of them through the territory. In introducing the area, there’s something notable in that a minotaur tribe had recently seized the area, so that when we are previewing it, the area is populated by minotaurs. 

This is one example, Sharif notes,  that what spawns in an area is affected by changes in that area, where story arcs will form in the world and be changed, and create change in the world, so you always have a particularly dynamic experience. This Is another example of how story arcs in Verra will depend on the world and what’s going on in Spawns are adaptive based on the state of the world.

As for the Cleric, the preview showcase lets us learn a little about the duality of a class like this. There was even a community poll on the broadcast asking whether a more dynamic ability system where, as you progress,