[Megathread] Aion

[Achaman]

I tried really, really hard to enjoy Aion. But so many things turned me off. Not the least of which was that flying had a time limit on it, and that that grind was monumentally long and boring. I gave made props to anyone who managed to get to cap level in that game.

yeah they advertised the flying like there was no tomorow but once playing you could barely use it and the spots you could you were too busy looking at your timer to notice your dying or not gathering some stupid crystal thing

honestly the grind is still as bad as launch and the leveling is just as painfull and dull as before

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:26 AM ----------

U don't even have to buy the game to play it? I might have to just go see it

i got the stupid LCE for the ingame items only to have them sell a 10buck upgrade so you could get the ingame items with the basic game so i wasted an extra 15 orso on some crappy figurine and soundtrack i didnt care for... it took gameforge ages to finally give people access to their veteran rewards and LCE stuff and i still ahve the crappy box near me annoying me everytime i look at it because its fucking useless now

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:30 AM ----------

I wanted to like it, but the combat was super clunky and didn't feel right.

---------- Post added 2012-12-25 at 02:58 PM ----------

Here is 2/3 of the new classes in action:



Bard class is a healer debuffer



Long range explosive user.

sorry but the bard looks super gay...

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:35 AM ----------

hah sounds a great way to stop botting but yeh sadly they've ignored the downside for people who aren't bots.

seriously its hard for me to read them sometimes i endup going through tons till i see one that doesnt require a codebreaker to decipher...

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:36 AM ----------

ugh guess a new aaccount would have to be made to try the US servers since gameforge doesnt have any of the newer options like fast track and apparently a dungeon finder..

[Cludo]

I played it, me and my cousin both bough it at the same time. We were both pretty young back then and clueless how "servers" worked so we joined any random one. I remember lagging like a bitch, I don't think I joined a US server. So i quit after a week. Was a decent game though, AI was pretty shitty and uninspiring though quest were bland at early level.

[Notos]

I played for a while at launch, but the grind was just mind-numbing at the time and I had a heavy load at school so I had to give it up. I log on from time to time to check out the new stuff and mess around with the player housing. It's still a very pretty game and the pvp can be fun, so I recommend anyone who has some free time to check it out.

[bamf775]

I thought it was too asian themed for m taste and too plastic looking. It looked like everything was made out of plastic

[zito]

sorry but the bard looks super gay..

It's more classical themed music rather then todays standard, except for the butterfly's.

[Trevor7782]

Hi all,

Just wondering since going F2P has it made Aion any better? I tried it first month it came out but havent looked at it since - Is the game pvp or pve focused? I'm guessing they have instances/dungeons etc?

Any comments greatly appreciated =)

Nah man im in the US version.

[Achaman]

if your in EU then no its still utter shit and its pvp focused

[edgecrusher]

Hi all,

Just wondering since going F2P has it made Aion any better? I tried it first month it came out but havent looked at it since - Is the game pvp or pve focused? I'm guessing they have instances/dungeons etc?

Any comments greatly appreciated =)

Nah man im in the US version.

US version is great. 100% of the game is available to you as a free player; no subscriptions or cash shop unlocks to gate what you have access to.

They've dramatically reduced the grind, adding in hundreds and hundreds of quests, and a fast-track server with 100% bonus experience in lvl 1-50. There are instanced dungeons and a few instanced raids, but much of the "endgame" is focused on castle sieges, which are a mixture of PvP and PvE. If you have any interest and have some time, I highly recommend trying it out again. Doubly so with the 4.0 patch coming out soon that's basically an expansion; new content, more levels, and 3 new classes.

[Xeonde]

Very mixed reviews. Which was the same reception I got for Rift...and that game just didn't do it for my friends and I at all. I guess just like GW2 lost it's luster... man.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

They tend to be very polarizing. You generally either loathe it or love it. lol

[theredviola]

I played Aion for a few weeks. I stopped because I got tired of the grind fest that it started to become. That and some of the obsenly stupid characters people would make thanks to the all to generous character creator.

[Tiili]

Played it in beta and at launch, made it to.. uh, I think somewhere close to 50 before quitting. My friends quit and so did I.

[Elexo]

Saying they added quests to kill out some grinding is not enough.
The quests themselves ussualy just involved grinding anyway, most boring quests of any MMO currently out there.

The sort of space zone with all the pvp and flying around was actually very fun, I had a great time there, but I never made it to the levelcap, the game was just too damned dull.

[Army Dreamer]

Played. Dropped. Not coming back. Total waste of money.

[edgecrusher]

Saying they added quests to kill out some grinding is not enough.
The quests themselves ussualy just involved grinding anyway, most boring quests of any MMO currently out there.

Because WoW, Rift, SWTOR, and other major MMO's have quests that don't primarily focus on killing a set number of enemies, killing enemies for a drop, finding an object in the world that's usually behind a camp of enemies, and talking to NPC's?

[Lysah]

Because WoW, Rift, SWTOR, and other major MMO's have quests that don't primarily focus on killing a set number of enemies, killing enemies for a drop, finding an object in the world that's usually behind a camp of enemies, and talking to NPC's?

And GW2*

Which is hilarious because it was heralded as the next generation of MMORPG, real ground breaking stuff (go kill 10 bandits).

[edgecrusher]

And GW2*

Which is hilarious because it was heralded as the next generation of MMORPG, real ground breaking stuff (go kill 10 bandits).

It's a much different delivery system, but it does boil down to the same activities (though admittedly GW2 does add in a fair number of non-standard activities as a diversion while leveling).

[philefluxx]

It's a much different delivery system, but it does boil down to the same activities (though admittedly GW2 does add in a fair number of non-standard activities as a diversion while leveling).

I dont really understand what people expect or want as the alternative. I mean its not like games today have a Kill 10 this, then Kill 10 this, then Kill 10 this. There is a pool of quests flavors, some games with bigger pools, to choose from its really not the same as long as its dressed up with story. I mean did any of you ever play RF Online? Or Lineage 2? Those were quests to complain about.

[Malderon]

OP, I played Aion to the almost high lvl , I can't tell you much, it's good in some way, there are some awesome features, but... I strongly suggest to try TERA if u want break from wow, Tera is like unti-wow, many features in Tera are like unti-features to wow. First, there are no target system, second amazing graphic, last but not least, open pvp. Btw, I don't know why but I lost all interest in AIon when it became ftp.

[dennisdkramer]

I strongly suggest to try TERA if u want break from wow, Tera is like unti-wow, many features in Tera are like unti-features to wow. First, there are no target system, second amazing graphic, last but not least, open pvp. Btw, I don't know why but I lost all interest in AIon when it became ftp.

OP would enrage at TERA's form of opn pvp if I had to guess. TERA's combat is definitely something different, but I didnt think it was anything special. It felt very clunky and slow, anyway... my perspective on TERA is highlighted here.



Why hello Xeonde, I just so happened to play Aion! Let me illuminate why (in my opinion) Aion was unsuccessful in terms of gameplay. There are a lot of things I could say about aion, from limited use of wings to very 'tracked' levelling/zone progression, but here is where I think AION fell flat in the western market while able to succeed in the east:

It took too much effort to kill individual quest mobs while levelling.

Let me elaborate - In WoW, which we will assume does some things right, with decent gear you can literally press nothing and autoattack quest mobs to death. As you approach max level, the scaling changes such that you have to use a little bit of effort, up to the point where you hit max level mobs. These mobs, serving a purpose for max level players, must be tuned to assume the player has some max level gear, and often are significantly harder than before. This, as well as the increased experience requirement approaching the maximum level, create a dragging usually painful experience for the player. Fortunately, the end is in sight at this point.

In AION, the levelling experience (in my experience) requires your full attention and performance on every mob. This is fun sometimes, but at release, levelling in AION was very slow. The levelling curve has been improved, but the fact remains that normal quest mobs being a challenge is not fun for the average western player. We (heavily generalizing based on personal experience) expect rewards for our efforts. If I have to try really hard to kill a mob, I expect it - or the quest which instructed me to kill it - to give significantly more experience. I don't expect every single butterfly mob to be that hard.

In GW2, normal quest mobs often required some level of performance, but this was perfectly fine for a few reasons:
- Really trying on a mob you'd decimate it, especially as your build and playstyle came together
- health regenned quickly out of combat so it was no big deal if a mob hurt you a bit
- you could always quest in a lower level area for slightly less (but still viable) xp
- GW2's questing was faaaar superior to wow/aion in terms of the content and story of the quests. Anyone who says otherwise must have somehow been playing wrong, seriously.

Where GW2 fell through in comparison to other MMOS (aside from the combat system which some people never really grew to like) was that the lack of carrot-on-a-stick content really doesn't work for most players at endgame. It was far too easy to feel "done" with the game. Honestly something as simple as timed dungeon leaderboards and pvp rankings would have gone a long way.


As for the rest of AION, all I know about it is from a friend who played a lot longer than I did:
- absolutely absurd cost to craft good gear at max level requiring weeks of grinding to make one piece
- no real pve endgame
- imbalanced pvp

On a different note, haev you tried firefall yet? It has no guaranteed endgame and no "questing" but its a nice game to pop into and explore, gather some materials, get a couple upgrades, kill some dudes, etc..