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Should i play Aion?
After Months without a MMO i am thinking about giving Aion a shot. I've played beta(lvl25) so at least i know i like graphics/mechanics.I will probably wait for patch 1.9 so i don't have to grind that much until max.
About me: I've played numerous MMOs ...WAR, AOC, DDO, some F2Ps but the only ones i have sticked longer with are WoW and Guild Wars. My last game was WoW,which i quit because of the changes in Wotlk. I loved WoW classic in PvE and PvP.
Basically i am looking for something like WoW classic with a heavy focus on PvP. I don't mind grinding in higher levels. I like reading forums and looking for new tactics for pvp. I prefer playing in a group. I want mass-pvp.I like doing a dungeon once in a while. With these things said an some questions following i'd like to know : Will Aion be my next love?
What i want to know now is. How is the Endgame?
What is the abyss like in high lvls?
Are the dungeons fun?
I will probably have +-4 hours/day +2x3 hours at the weekend. Is this time enough to play the game seriously?
What about balancing?
How much time is needed for grinding? (for gold/materials)
How is the community?
Server stability?
Performance in the Abyss( running a Core2Duo @4000mhz 4gb ddr2 radeon 4870 oc @1680x1050 vista 64)
How fast can i catch up to the midfield of the gamers in terms of gear? In general im fine with doing some work for top gear.But can i earn some at least "mediocre" gear in about 2-3 months endgame?
What about goldfarmers/bots? are the servers flooded with hordes of bots?
Something else positive or negative i should know?
Thanks in advance
Sorry for my english 
Comments
bump
Sorry for my english
um... sure.
It's not really a grind game if you are used to actual grind games like Lineage 2 or Archlord or any number of actual grind games.
I think higher lvl pvp is fun but I also think that keep flipping really isn't satisfying. I've been in some great larger fights. However, if you don't like being ganked then I would say it's not your game.
You can avoid pvp if you want but to be honest I don't think the dev's/marketing/cm's were as up front with the players as they could have been before launch.
So sure, you might see a message indicating an abyss gate is open but you might miss it or there might be players roaming around and you migh be surprised by them.
Conversely if you are a hardcore pvp person you won't like it either. There are lull's between rift gates so it's not like it's non-stop pvp.
Personally I like the game. I wish it had a more open world and I wish it had sieges more akin to lineage 2.
My two cents.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
i don't have a problem with being ganked...just would be annoying if it happend too often while lvling.
Concerning the grind: im not used to really hardcore grind like L2 or most F2P, what im used to is grinding in WoW classic(for mats and i think from 56-60) so occassional grinding is no problem, i just don't want to permagrind while leveling. It would be okay to get in a new zone and do some grinding afterwards. But i'll puke if i have to grind serveral levels without seeing a quest.But i hope there will be a good balance between grind and leveling with 1.9.
Thanks for answering
Sorry for my english
Well this game doens't come close to L2 so no worries there.
Before it was released the devs said that the leveling was a bit longer than classic WoW.
There are many quests so I don't really think you have to just "grind" for grind sake.
There are areas that have no rifts so no pvp. However there are specific lvl ranges for those areas. So I believe one area is about lvl 23 to late 20's and then it starts againt about 41 or so.
If I had an extra guest key I'd throw it your way but it's really only good to about lvl 7 or a few days (whichever comes first). Given that I can get to lvl 10 in about 3 hours (some say it takes 2 hours... not sure about that) it really wouldn't give you a good idea.
So "yes" I think you should try it. It's very polished and I believe a good game. My opinion is that it's not yet a great game and will require one of the major updates to push it into better territory.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
For some background I am currently a lvl 50 cleric on the Triniel server. I have particpated in every single aspect of the game that there is (crafting, pve, pvp, pvpve, etc). I am only a few pieces away from being done with my gear. Still a solid chunk of time to go but 4/6 pieces done for endgame. Anyway enough about me let's look at your questions.
For one thing, don't worry about waiting for 1.9 to start. Getting to lvl 30 or so is pretty fast and painless. If you have the funding wait for double xp weekend. Hit lvl 10 in less than 2 hrs and start crafting, when you are done you can be lvl 25+ not even maxing out 1 craft. You then go gain entry to abyss and run your first instance there Nocshana Training Grounds/Camp. Without funding just skip the crafting and go quest, you will have plenty of fun and it's not much of a struggle pre-30's. Also it is worth noting to start sooner rather than later. 2.0 Patch will introduce 5 more lvls with a cap of 55 so I would want to at least be 50 (you can actually earn 51 while 50) prior to that patch dropping. It's a tough grind to 50 and you aren't going to want to have just hit 50 and hear 5 more lvls to grind. I've heard rumors that it will drop sooner, but I doubt we will see it till winter of this year.
Aion does contain a heavy focus on pvp. However, it is up to you the player to seek it out. You cannot simply queue up for a battle and wait for it to occur (there's only 1 BG and you can only do it 3-4x a day at set times). Some people find this frustrating, personally I am a huge fan of open world pvp, I know where the enemies hang out to quest and grind and I know where the rifts are so no trouble finding the pvp. Also fort raids happen at set times each night, but particpation varies from night to night. As far as MASS pvp is concerned those would your abyss fort raids and they happen 2x a night @ 8 and 10PM generally speaking. In my experience I have seen as many as 200 v 200 without crashing or significant lag. I've been to a ton of sieges, successful and unsuccessful, with no technical issues at all (unlike AoC).
If you want Dungeons to do "every once in a while." They're their for you. While lvling there is approx 1 instance or outdoor dungeon per lvl cluster if you will. There are currently NO RAIDS unlike WoW. The game revolves around 6 man groups generally speaking so if raids are your thing you will not be happy. Mind you there will be some limited number of raids coming (there is one in 2.0 underwater for example).
Endgame consists of a massive gear grind either through pvp or pve depending on the set your choose, both are viable, but your class will affect your selection. On top of this you have crafting - many people find the system frustrating but this keeps the number of crafters and gatherers down and our prices up so as an expert crafter and gatherer myself I love it. You also have 5 fort instances that are pve and gain you AP pts to purchase gear as long as your side owns them in the Abyss. There is also a graded 6 man dungeon with pretty good loot that depending on how fast you move and what you kill you get better ranks, a tougher end boss, and the possibility of better gear. Starting at lvl 46, but I wouldn't go till 50, there is the one BG i mentioned. It is a spaceship with one team Asmo one Team elyos. The teams compete to reach a captain at the end while obtaining points through pvp and pve objectives throughout. It's fun, but needs some tweaking, which is coming in 1.9.
Class balance is excellent at 50. It varies throughout the lvling up process and melee still suffers some problems with aerial combat, but otherwise I have found more balance than I have most places. There are plenty out there that complain of OP Sorcs, OP Fear, OP Magic Resist, but these are really not OP they just require some adaptation on the part of the player. For example to combat sorcs or fear one can employ magic resist.
Time needed for grinding gold and mats....hmmmmmm....prior to 50 I spent no time doing this. The money I made off drops and regular play time was more than enough to get me all my skills, armor/weapon upgrades every 10 lvls or so, and anything else I might have needed. Now at 50 I spend a lot of time grinding gold through gathering or farming guards in the abyss. As an example last weekend I made 8 million just on gathering. Now in Aion this can be chump change depending on your goals, but for 2 days gathering that's a ton of cash.
End game Abyss....well you can cruise around and kill shit. You really spend the bulk of your time in the "core." Where both sides try to farm guards for a valuable rare drop known as Boiling Balaur Bloodstain. 125 of these are needed for a piece of the pve endgame armor and they sell for approximately 200k a piece. While farming these guards you also get roughly 60 AP per kill. The AP goes towards buying endgame pvp gear pieces. The core is open pvp so both sides are constantly farming each other as they farm guards. Huge sporadic battles can occur here, especially on well populated servers, and for those that have yet to take part, they're missing out.
Community....The same as any place else. The age range seems slanted a little older with all the players I have played with being college age or older, but there's still plenty of elitists and jerks, but just pick who you play with, find a decent legion, and avoid the drama and you'll do just fine.
Server stability.....no issues post launch. Initially some probs, but all of them have been fixed.
Bots and gold sellers.....running rampant at launch, now also virtually nonexistent. I block one maybe once a day if things are getting crazy as opposed to the 20 I used to have to block as soon as I logged in. Also I rarely see bots compared to how things were at launch.
You and I have similar PC's so you should run everything just fine on max. Need to turn down a bit on large sieges, but that's it.
Now as to how fast you can catch up. Well....based on the play time you have available you can probably hit 50 in 3 months if that's your goal. Then depending on playstyle and whether or not you join a static 6 man team your endgame gear could take anywhere from another month to 3 months. If you are concerned about midgame gear there has been a surge in twinks especially with double xp weekends. Ppl power lvl to 30 through crafting from cash off an alt then twink it out in all lvl 30 abyss gear. Then they go rifting and gank. This armor is EXTREMELY powerful. A poorly geared 50 would suffer to beat a lvl 40 in that gear. Generally speaking the minority of players are decked out like this. So, I would just avoid being concerned about getting ganked on your way to your first 50. There's really no way to compete with someone with a lvl 50 main or 2 and 5 lvl 30 alts or something. I did not find any problem with this while lvling personally. The drops I found and limited gear I purchased kept me quite competitve until 50. You win some, you lose some, you keep logging in to fight another day.
The one additional thing you would really want to know is to choose your server based on time zone. Since the BG I mentioned pops at 12PM, 8PM, and 12AM respective of time zone you will want to choose the right one for you based on your availablity. Also, this is not a hard rule as forts go vulnerable at different times but, generally speaking forts will go vulnerable almost every day at 8PM and 10PM respective of your time zone so you will want to choose based on that.
If you are east coast I would recommend my server Triniel, great population, lots of activity at fort raids, and Asmos tend to wind up on top. Siel would be a great West Coast server, but I would recommend rolling Elyos there. On most servers the Elyos tend to have the upper hand. You can see all these stats on the aiononline website though. If you have any more questions feel free to post here I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you roll on my server (Triniel) please PM me to your heart's content my character's name is Nephandys, and I can probably ease some of the leveling pains.
Overall I love the game. It has it's pluses and minuses, but for the last six months + I've called Atreia home and been having a blast. I'll admit there is a grind, and it was tough and frustrating at times, but the accomplishments felt that much sweeter. There are very low drop rates on gold items (epics if you will) so you actually feel kinda special when you get one. Man, there's so much more I could say, but I see I've already placed a massive wall of text here so I'll just end and let you pick it up and judge for yourself.
Edit: As I wrote this other's and the OP posted concerning grinding just for grindings sake. Don't let anyone fool you there are not enough quests to gain lvls. At lvl 50 only 4% of that lvl's XP will come from the quests available the rest you will be forced to grind. Up until lvl 30 there are no problems, but especially after hitting 40 you are in for a GRINDY road. Someone just posted another chart of the lvling curve and quest xp to needed xp on the aion forums again today if you have the chance to check it out. I'm sure it can be found elsewhere on the internet as well.
Steam: Neph
I tip my hat to you and I am glad you enjoy the game but you really could have said everything in a few sentences instead of a wall of text. The game itself is a grinder. You can level off only quests up until around 25. After that you will need to add in mob grinding with questins,if you prefer, to get the rest of the way.
as i have mentioned i have already played beta until 25. i actually have a preorder account, but a few days before release some RL came in my way...and i just noticed that my reseller never send me my key to activate the game. that + too much free time at the moment made me think about aion again
about being ganked, what i meant was not that i dislike open world pvp and getting ganked once per hour while leveling is absolutly OK. I just can't stand it if i get killed by by pretty much everyone for months until i have some at least "mediocre" gear.
i think you made me want to play Aion, just have to wait if i can get my CE version key or if i have to buy the game a second time^^
Sorry for my english
no
Actually at around level 25 its faster and more efficient if you just grind rather than quest. There are a decent amount of quests but the problem is if you do all the ones you can for your level it'll round out to be 1/3 to 1/4 your totaly level leaving you to grind on mobs for the remainder.
thanks at frostbite and Sovrath...i'll definetly give it a try..maybe i will go for lvl 30 and wait for 1.9...maybe ill just try to grind my way trough...but sounds very promising...i like how the game does NOT give away free items like a certain MMO.
Timezones won't be a problem cause i am german. :>
Made my decision : gonna play it:) feel free to spam this thread with all kind of hater/fanboi garbage or just explain how WoW is superior in every aspect... i won't care
Sorry for my english
A tip try finding a clan to join to make it more enjoyable always better having someone to chat/laugh with then playing alone hehe.
Maybe.
I got half of 45 to 46 with quests. My playstyle does hearken back to L2 so usually I will take a few quests, finish them and just stay in the area and grind.
And of course with double xp weekends grinding does add a lot of xp.
But if there are quests that don't have me running across the world over and over then I'll take them.
The other nice thing is that you get xp for a lot of things in this game from gathering to crafting.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Originally posted by bloodaxes
A tip try finding a clan to join to make it more enjoyable always better having someone to chat/laugh with then playing alone hehe.
that's something i'll do anyway...there is no point in playing MMOs alone
Sorry for my english
Yeah I know but it's not the first time people complain on not finding groups yet they don't try joining clans or at least ask instead of waiting for someone to say something or whatever hehe.
>.<
i can't even play a round of Bad Company 2 without using the chat
Sorry for my english
How is the Endgame? consists of fort raids/defenses. Boss raids for gear. Highend crafting. Really alot to do after you hit 50. In fact you still have probably 10-15% game content left to explore, and get ready cause you get to do it over and over and over.
What is the abyss like in high lvls? Same all the other levels. anything below 10 lvls cant touch you, anything over 10 will destory you. All classes are fairly balanced in PvP, except Ranger - they own PvP, and Templar - have no place in PvP.
Are the dungeons fun? the first 5 times yes, then it becomes a grind. You see there are quests that you have to run the instances 30(ish) times to complete.
Is this time enough to play the game seriously? Yes
What about balancing? PvE, all is very well balanced. PvP - see above
How much time is needed for grinding? (for gold/materials) eh, a grind is a grind. you will find gaps in the level structure where you have to grind to get to the next level to get quests. So there are many places to grind for xp and loot.
How is the community? Varies, you got your casual all the way to hardcore(do it my way or die) types. But if you ask a question in global it almost always gets answered.
Server stability? Very stable
Performance in the Abyss - you will have no issues.
How fast can i catch up to the midfield of the gamers in terms of gear? there is a thing called Daevonian armor you get at 30, you have to run up 6 toons to 30 to get each piece(once per toon basically). It is sharable with all toons on the account. Get that first then work on the 30+ content, life will be much easier till high 45+.
What about goldfarmers/bots? I don't see many running around anymore,. NCSoft has really cracked down on them. You get a gold spammer every now and then.
Something else positive or negative i should know? if you run alone expect to get ganked every 15 minutes after you hit 20+. there are zones to bypass this, but they are short lived and dont give good exp. Every so often a group of high-lvl anti gankers will be running around in your area, so you can actually get something done.
Ganking is why I quit. All my friends left the game(one by one) until it was me. when we ran in a group, we rarely got ganked obvisouly. When it got down just me, it was frustrating.
well i just hope i don't get ganked as often...but i think i can live with that. Going the way 1-30 6 times before starting with the upper lvl will be no option......just can't do it^^
Sorry for my english
You have to run 6(?) toons to 30 to get each piece of an armor ?
And only then you level to 30+ ...
I am beginning to understand a lot .
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
you are not forced to do that . speaking WoWish it would be like running Wailing caverns until you got the full set for your rogue(?) it may help you in the coming lvls, but it is not required.
Sorry for my english
The set is not needed to keep on leveling just like tier 3 is not needed to get to lvl 80, it's a nice set to have since it's "hard" and it's golden named or whatever I forgot but you can still level with the green/blue armor you get from drops/craft/auction.
The Daevonian set is not gold it is BLUE. So 5 toons to lvl 30 for a set of BLUE armor. This is a nice extra for an alt and easy to accomplish once you have a 50 alt to fund power leveling through crafting on double xp, but otherwise a bore and a chore. Might as well just hit 30 and grind out your ap for lvl 30 abyss gear IMO.
Steam: Neph
Aion is not for everyone. And I know the Devs have said this is a PvPvE game, but in reality it's a niche game for hard-core PvP. The PvE is incredibly boring and the end game for PvE is laughable.
However, if you like PvP go ahead and try the game. But it's just another Eastern-based anime heavy (with girly men) MMO. Nothing special about it.
Forgot to add, that hacking in Aion is a huge problem there. I heard it's because of thier lack of security for the game itself. Even thier main website is the most bug-filled game site I ever used. Sometimes I would post something on the forums and it would post it as someone else profile. Sometimes you can log in and sometimes you cant. Just very strange stuff happening there.
The hackers are mostly gold sellings striping accounts and deleting characters to supply thier coffers for sale. No one knows actually how it's happening though, but its a real problem for Aion. Just be careful of your credit card info and change your password alot.
Barry, this is not even close to a hardcore pvp game. Lineage 2 is hardcore, Eve is even more hardcore, darkfall is hardcore, Mortal Online seems Hardcore.
Aion is NOT hardcore.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
sounds good. I think i will really wait for a fixed release date of 1.9...would be a nightmare if i loose motivation due to the grind since im positive the endgame will be nice....grinding at max level is no problem...but i can't stand to grind for lvls^^
Thanks for the information
Sorry for my english