Ascend: Hand of Kul Beta FAQ

**Omg Lazer Kittens** · 05-20-2014, 08:54 AM

Game Details

Spoiler:

Q. Is this game in BETA?
A. Yes, Ascend: Hand of Kul is currently in Open BETA. This means that anyone is welcome to play the game, however, you may once in a while experience some gameplay issues such as bugs.

Q. I've never heard of this game before. What is it?
A. Ascend is a free-to-play third-person, action RPG, with seamless single - and multiplayer gameplay on Xbox LIVE and Steam!

Q. What inspired Ascend?
A. The inspiration at first was just doing an RPG with scale (big, small, and little!) There's a bit of Dark Souls in there and, believe it or not, a lot of CoD. As with everything, eventually over time it all takes on a life of its own and becomes what it is…which is Ascend!

Q. What's this I hear about seamless single and multiplayer gameplay?
A. You are never alone in the world of Ascend. You will be able to play with AND against other players as you each journey through your own private yet parallel paths to Ascension. Interact with players using Crusade Spells!

Q. How much is Ascend going to cost?
A. Glad you asked! Ascend is absolutely free and a true Free to Play down to its core with no premium currency with weekly and community challenges that will have you coming back for more!

Q. Does ascend run on one server or multiple ones? Why don't I see a lot of players in game?
A. The game is all on one server housed in Oregon, USA. All areas in Ascend are currently limited to 4 players max. As a player enters an area they do automatic matchmaking in the background. If a game is found then they join it, but if not then they begin hosting a game. Your game will continue to look for a game to join until it matches up with at least 1 other player.

Q. Will I be able to play Ascend with online friends?
A. Of course! Each player will be experiencing their own single-player world but you can cooperatively (or competitively) work together. Exciting PVP and co-op updates are coming soon! Information on these features will be released when available.

Q. Can I run Ascend with my computer's specs?
A. Try going to this website to check if your computer will run Ascend: Hand of Kul.

Q. Can I use a controller to play the game?
A. Yes, but Ascend PC only works with official controllers by Microsoft and Sony at this time.

Q. Will I be able to transfer my stats from the Xbox 360 version of the game to the Steam version?
A. This is a feature being looked into at the moment.

Q. Is there a wiki for Ascend?
A. Yes, an official wiki can be found here which is all hosted by Curse.

Q. What new content will be added in the future?
A. There will be Co-Op, PvP, and two new additional regions: Badlands and Swamplands.
Note: There are no specifics at this time on each feature.

Reset Information

Spoiler:

Ascencion and Transcension

Spoiler:

Q. What happens when I ascend my character?
A. The battle isn't over! Your Ascended Champion actually becomes an NPC in the game that fights on your behalf in the Crusade! You will also be able to Legacy any item from your Ascended character, which then become permanent items in your inventory and available to all future characters. This feature allows you to mix and match items, spells and weapons from different alignments and create far more powerful Caos Warriors.

Q. Should I ascend as soon as I get the option to?
A. It's always good to Ascend early and often - the Emblems you unlock can stack quite powerfully and make a big difference at higher-levels. We are working to improve the messaging during the Ascension process to make sure it's clearer that additional legacy pillars can be unlocked.

Q. Can I reset my character? Just how permanent is everything?
A. There is currently no reset function in the game, but there isn't really too much that is permanent. The only part about the game that is truly permanent would be how that exact version of your caos (with its god and gear) at the time of ascension will always be the same and saved in your crusade tab in the menu. You can actually pick a new god and customize your character every time you ascend! So, you don't need to reset anything, as you can change at every ascension.

Q. Is there a limit to the number of times I can ascend or transcend?
A. Nope. The only time that you will be unable to do either is by making that choice yourself (after a transcend, you will be able to start ascending again). So, there is no need to be worrying about "missing" any ascends, and you will still be able to collect all emblems.

Q. Why do I drop in level every time I ascend, is this a bug?
A. This is not a bug, and is basically a sacrifice to your god. The game drops you by roughly 20% of your level after each ascend, which allows you to earn more souls before the next ascension, and increases the longevity before transcending.

Q. Do you need to buy legacy item pillars once or every time you ascend?
A. You will have to buy your legacy pillars (except for your free one) each time after you ascend if you hope to use the pillar. Your items that you legacy will remain legacied until you sell them.
Note: Transcending will give you an additional free Legacy Pillar.

Q. How do emblems work?
A. Your current characters gains the benefits from all of your emblems. Previously ascended caos should have the benefits of that emblem, and all previous ones, but not ones you earn after you made him.

Q. Is there a level cap?
A. Yes, 60, for now.
Note: At Level 60, the option to Ascend is replaced with the option to Transcend!

Q. What is Transcendence?
A. Transcendence is the ULTIMATE form of Ascension - it is an endgame feature unlocked once you maximize all of your Ascension Levels (across all 3 New Gods); this is similar to a "New Game+."

Q. What happens to my items when I Transcend? What are the benefits of Transcending?
A. Transcending will give you an additional (free) legacy pillar (up to a max of 10, and 1 per transcend), give you a Transcending specific emblem (not yet implemented), but at the cost of all of your legacy items, spells, level, and story progress.
You will keep your souls, emblems, vanity items, and previously ascended caos.

Combat, Dungeons, and Loot

Spoiler:

Q. Does the option to perform a finishing move appear randomly?
A. Yes and no. On enemies such as caos, ogres, and troll champions there will always be a finishing move when they are low on health, but smaller enemies such as broodlings and guardians will have a random chance for a finishing move, and you will also gain health from the finisher. However, it's not the only way to heal, as eating humans and animals also recover health.

Q. What enemies are in the game?
A. All of that information can be found on the wiki article

Q. Should chests ever be empty? Whereâ€™s my loot!?
A. Some chests are intentionally empty, however if you're experiencing a whole dungeon or area of empty chests. Gold chests should have a 0% chance of being empty.

Q. When does the world reset?
A. Dungeons and chests are reset everyday at 4:30pm PST, so dungeons are restructured and chests are restocked. In addition to chests resetting everyday at that time, they will also reset every time you ascend!
Note: Story progress only resets when you transcend.

Q. Why is my gear breaking in the Endless Dungeon?
A. It is only the Xbox 360 version of the game that has unbreakable gear within the Endless Dungeon, but Xbox 360 players do not receive XP (except for finishers) or Souls for their kills. On the PC version of Ascend, your gear is still breakable within the Endless Dungeon.

Q. Is there currently a full set of Gold tiered gear in the Beta?
A. Yes, Gold gear is available from chests and in the store, usually attained at higher levels.

Q. What are the highest quality and most valuable items in the game?
A. Gold tiered gear at level 70 would be the most valuable gear that you can receive, especially when upgraded to V.

Q. Are new armor styles achieved via leveling or Ascending?
A. A lot of the armor now appears pretty early on, and there's less variety at the higher levels. We will be adding more alignment armor to the game, particularly the late game. This will be done at a later point during the beta.

Q. How do I repair my items cheaply?
A. You can repair your gear for free at one of the six forges. Which can be found in the Sanctum, Valley of the Pilgrims (Mount Crimhorn), Fotress Ur (Ruined Cliffs), Wisp Grove (Ghostfang Wildlands), Gor Loch (Arkan Moors), Temple Gates (Valley of the Dead). Each of them will repair your equipped gear at a rate of 3600%, so it will only take several minutes to get all of your gear back to 100%. You can also buy durability boosts that will stop your items from taking any damage with one of them being for a half hour and the other for the entire week!

Leaderboards and the Crusade

Spoiler:

Q. Is there a guide on Invasions somewhere I can read?
A. Yes! This Guide will also give you information on Crusade Points.
You can find the guide by following this link.

Q. How do you challenge another player, or invade an altar/shrine?
A. At present your Ascended Champions will automatically invade other player's contention points, and tribute their victories to you. If this happens while you are playing Ascend you will see a popup-notification that tells you whose game they are invading, and whether or not it was a success. We have improvements and extensions of this system in the works.

Q. What is the cap on soul income you can earn from dominion site(s)?
A. The soul income has a storage cap of 44,500 souls. Locally controlled sites are at a rate of 25 per hour and sites controlled in other players' games at 5 per hour with a max of 2500 per hour.

Q. How does the 'Best Ascend' leaderboard work?
A. This is how much your champion is worth, so the higher value of items and spells that your champion has equipped at the time of ascension will give you a better score. Value does not mean how much you spent on the item, but the upgrades that are applied and the runes that are used. The 'Best Ascend' leaderboards are the only ones that will reset each month.

Q. How are crusade points calculated, and how can I get more?
A. Crusade points work in a similar way to the 'Best Ascend' leaderboards, but just that it counts all of your champions together.

Q. Is there a level cap for invading players? I keep getting high leveled Invasions!
A. This is actually supposed to be capped to 5 above or below. If you are seeing Champions 10 levels higher than you it is a bug. We have had a few reports of this and are looking into it.

Q. Where do I purchase Crusade Spells (Banish, Curses, Blessings)?
A. Under “Spells,” toggle between screens to display Crusade Spells and Player Spells.

Q. Someone blessed my character with a blessing, do I have to activate it?
A. Players can send blessings into each others worlds (purchasable on the Crusade Spells page of your Spells inventory). The blessing is activated the moment you activate it on the pedestal that they summoned into your game. It works just like a boost that you can buy yourself, and even stacks with similar boosts. If you look below your health bar you can see little icons for all your active boosts, and the time remaining on them. That guy just gave you a half hour of double XP. The different alignments have access to different types of boosts. Void can grant magic cool down and double XP.

Q. When in a dungeon and I get invaded, and then proceed to warp back, I start at the beginning of the floor I was on, is this a bug?
A. It will always return you the beginning of the floor that you were on, because the dungeons can randomly change and we don't want to warp you into nothing.

Q. For invasions, are we able to send ascended champions into specific areas?
A. Yes. You just need to control that area in your local game, so you are able to select which Champions to send in to invade other players' shrines / altars at that point. Head over to the Global View on your map and select the shrine or altar you would like to invade, as well as which Champions you want to assign to it. They will attack that shrine in other people's games as a priority.

Xbox 360 Specific

Spoiler:

If you have any ideas for a question to be added, then feel free to post about it within this topic!

**Sean** · 05-20-2014, 01:17 PM

Trimmed some of the questions down from the old version, updated some of the information to be relevant to the PC, and also added a nice little section at the bottom for any Xbox 360 specific related questions.

Also now have a permanent redirect stickied in the Xbox 360 Bugs forum for this topic, so that it will be easier to have just one FAQ for all of Ascend.

------------

New QA: "Can I reset my character? Just how permanent is everything?"
Changed: "Does ascend run on one server or multiple..."

------------

New QA: "What new content will be added in the future?"

------------

New QA: "Is there a limit to the number of times I can ascend or transcend?"

------------

New QA: "What about the leaderboards? Will they ever be reset?"
Changed: "Can I use a controller to play the game?"

------------

Merged: "Combat and Dungeons" and "Information on Loot" into "Combat, Dungeons, and Loot"
New QA: "When does the world reset?"

------------

Changed: "How does the 'Best Ascend' leaderboard work?"

------------

New QA: "How do I repair my items cheaply?"

------------

Changed (Minor): "Why do I drop in level every time I ascend, is this a bug?"
Changed: "What is the cap on soul income you can earn from dominion site(s)?"
Changed: "How do I repair my items cheaply?"
Changed (Minor): "How are crusade points calculated, and how can I get more?"

------------

Changed (Minor): "For invasions, are we able to send ascended champions into specific areas?"

------------

Changed (Minor): "How does the 'Best Ascend' leaderboard work?"

------------

Changed: "What is the cap on soul income you can earn from dominion site(s)?"

------------

Changed (Minor): "Q. What about the leaderboards? Will they ever be reset?"
Changed (Minor): "Q. Will our unlocked achievements stay unlocked after the Beta?"
New QA: "Q. Why is my gear breaking in the Endless Dungeon?"

**_Harest** · 06-08-2014, 08:19 AM

About this :

Q. What are the highest quality and most valuable items in the game?
A. Gold tiered gear at level 67 would be the most valuable gear that you can receive, especially when upgraded to V.

What is the accurate answer now ? Seems like the highest gold item level you can have in the store is 64. And someone found some purple items lvl 67 to 69 in chests.

And what are the leaderboards "Souls Collected" and "Ambient Creatures Killed" ?

**Rumira** · 06-08-2014, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by Omg Lazer Kittens

You will keep your souls, emblems, and vanity items.

Does anyone know what items count as vanity in this game? Completely new and playing the steam version so I'm totally clueless.

**Sean** · 06-08-2014, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by _Harest

About this :
What is the accurate answer now ? Seems like the highest gold item level you can have in the store is 64. And someone found some purple items lvl 67 to 69 in chests.

And what are the leaderboards "Souls Collected" and "Ambient Creatures Killed" ?

Highest I've seen is a level 70, but that was someone's screenshot of a different caos.
From what I have seen myself in-game has been a 69, but all of that was from the Endless Dungeon.

I threw an edit into the FAQ for the level 70.

Originally Posted by Rumira

Does anyone know items count as vanity in this game? Completely new and playing the steam version so I'm totally clueless.

Every time you ascend / transcend you can get faces, colors (which apply to both hair and skin), hair styles, and facial hair to customize your caos, and it is those that are vanity items. They also will always stay unlocked through transcending.

**Juggernaut** · 06-08-2014, 05:40 PM

only thing you can customize in vane is the parts of you you cannot see after putting on gear which doesn't stay the say appearance you want it to be for 60 levels straight

**Rumira** · 06-08-2014, 06:52 PM

Originally Posted by Sean

Every time you ascend / transcend you can get faces, colors (which apply to both hair and skin), hair styles, and facial hair to customize your caos, and it is those that are vanity items. They also will always stay unlocked through transcending.

Ah so let me see if I properly understood that. Vanity is the cosmetic properties of your Caos.
So if I were for example, buy all the face cosmetics in my next ascension, I would keep those when I transcend. Did I get that right?

Oh and thank you for the reply, really appreciate it. ^-^

**Sean** · 06-09-2014, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by Rumira

Ah so let me see if I properly understood that. Vanity is the cosmetic properties of your Caos.
So if I were for example, buy all the face cosmetics in my next ascension, I would keep those when I transcend. Did I get that right?

Oh and thank you for the reply, really appreciate it. ^-^

Yup, that is correct.

No problem

.

**_Harest** · 06-21-2014, 04:13 PM

Little bump about this question i asked 2 weeks ago :

Originally Posted by _Harest

And what are the leaderboards "Souls Collected" and "Ambient Creatures Killed" ?

**Sean** · 06-21-2014, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by _Harest

Little bump about this question i asked 2 weeks ago :

I think 'Souls Collected' is a leftover leaderboard from the console version, as the 'Souls' leaderboard on the Steam version acts in the same way as the 'Souls Collected' leaderboard on the Xbox version.
Beyond that for the 'Souls Collected' leaderboard, I have no idea.

Now for the 'Ambient Creatures' leaderboard, it would be for eating cows or other non aggressive animals.

Forums

Thread: Ascend: Hand of Kul Beta FAQ

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display

Ascend: Hand of Kul Beta FAQ

Posting Permissions