[elliot]

Hello people, it's been a while since I posted here. I've been playing WoW lately since Aion decided breaking my heart with its release dates. Anyway, I've been browsing through Aion forums again and wanted to share some of the stuff thats going on in there. (Because most of you seem to be clueless on whats really happening)

This is a snapshot of General forum in aion official site today.




No, I didn't play closed beta. No, I didn't play open beta, No, I am not playing retail KR Aion right now, but it doesn't take too much to see the problems here.

This screenshot is a great outline of what is going on Aion right now.

1. Pathetic Class balancing

- Mages are OP, OP, OP right now. Their "Hellfire" hits for 2k+ damage. They can basically one shot you if you are a ranger, or assassin (or a mage : P), 2 shot you if you are anything else except priests (who have one instant heal). NCsoft responded to this problem by making mages super weak physically. Apparently you die in 3 hits from elite mobs. Making PvE difficult for a class is not the right way to balance PvP.

- Chanters' buffs are non factors. In fact, priests have better buffs than chanters right now. Their role in parties are very unclear right now. They have lost their place in wanted-in-parties status. More and more people are saying they'd rather take another assassin or another healer. Their role in PvP is a deteriorated version of a priest that also has heals/rez.

- Depressing Abyss PvP for melees. An equal lvl/gear/skill melee cannot win against another mage/ranger in abyss. It is simply not possible.

- Summons cannot fly :...:, rendering summoners absolutely useless in abyss. They are also the least wanted in PvE parties anywhere.

2. Oh NCsoft, you haven't changed!

- Bots, Bots, Bots, Bots, Bots, Bots. No comment.

http://aion.plaync.c...rootCategory=18

- Hacked? QQ QQQQQQQ

3. Other Issues


- Stiff Character movement. This issue was mentioned in not only open beta but also way back in closed beta stage. If you've been playing WoW, everything in Aion will feel unnatural and stiff, including flying.

- Ineffective Abyss balancing that NCsoft supposedly promised. I've seen an abyss status map from one of the servers and it showed 99% of the areas shown as Elyo controlled. If your server has overwhelminly large one race population, oh wells, better wish you are not on the minority side, because it means Abyss quests/loots/rewards will be sooo accessible to you. Hey, whatever happened to that dragon race?

- Questing is not the way to go past 20(Like you can't pull of that LEVEL TO 80 ONLY QUESTS! thing from WoW). Unless you want to be immensely frustrated and broke, you have to figure out which quests offer good rewards(and just do those) and play your character the classic grind style.

- Skill motion cancel got patched 12/3








But then again, there's still 3(?) months to go until we get to play the actual game. Let us dare to hope.

This post has been edited by elliot: 02 December 2008 - 08:15 PM

[lyankyj]

Thanks for this, elliot!

Regarding the questing issue:

While there are quite lots of quests, if you wanna level with only quests, you basically can't miss any of them. It is not taking so long to do them, but it takes time to find them (actually I enjoyed that part, most of the quests are not in major cities, you need to explore to get them).

In addition, quests are not given on each level, but on every two. What I mean by that is, for example, you got 50 on lvl12, but on lvl13, you won't get any. These 50 qs from lvl12 however are still enough to level yourself up to level 14, where you get your next bunch of quests.
Now the problem is that (it is there for both factions) quests given on lvl18 are not enough to get you through lvl20 (mostly are party quests btw). So you evidently need to "grind"/wandering around to explore all areas for at least a level. After that, it is okay again for a while, but on lvl28-30, the same problem appears again.

[B]Yet[/B], it cannot be said Aion is a grnder, because this issue is only there in certain parts of the game, it is the result of bad quest-management/distribution. It is extremely annoying, yes, but it could be easily fixed with attention.

//And YES, I have completed every single one of them (except one, which was broken in ob (on lvl14) so far, I exactly know what those koreans are talking about. I specifically play with my 'absolutely no grind if it is not necessary' style, so I'm familiar with this issue quite well.

The same goes with skills. You only get them in 'packages' on every 3-4 levels (2-4-6-10 on the same level), and as the result of that the difficulty of the game is fluctuating...when you acquire your new skills, you are strong for 2 levels, but on the next 1-2 until you get nothing, you are significantly weaker.

Spiritmasters

While they are not needed in teams, spiritmasters' pets are so OP you can even go against elit mobs (1 at a time), they are the best solo class out there.

This post has been edited by lyankyj: 01 December 2008 - 08:27 PM

[Saken]

Lets hope that they fix those issues before NA/EU launch...

This post has been edited by Saken: 01 December 2008 - 07:54 PM

[Vaucent]

Those are some serious issues.. I hope they get cleared up

[Sickbrain]

lol that's baaad.

I think my "favorite" part is how summoners absolutely useless in mid air pvp. I bet NCSoft didn't see that coming!

[Kaey]

lyankyj said:

Thanks for this, elliot!

Regarding the questing issue:

While there are quite lots of quests, if you wanna level with only quests, you basically can't miss any of them. It is not taking so long to do them, but it takes time to find them (actually I enjoyed that part, most of the quests are not in major cities, you need to explore to get them).

In addition, quests are not given on each level, but on every two. What I mean by that is, for example, you got 50 on lvl12, but on lvl13, you won't get any. These 50 qs from lvl12 however are still enough to level yourself up to level 14, where you get your next bunch of quests.
Now the problem is that (it is there for both factions) quests given on lvl18 are not enough to get you through lvl20 (mostly are party quests btw). So you evidently need to "grind"/wandering around to explore all areas for at least a level. After that, it is okay again for a while, but on lvl28-30, the same problem appears again.

[B]Yet[/B], it cannot be said Aion is a grnder, because this issue is only during certain parts of the game, it is the result of bad quest-management/distribution. It is extremely annoying, yes, but it could be easily fixed with attention.

//And YES, I have completed every single one of them (except one, which was broken in ob (on lvl14) so far, I exactly know what those koreans are talking about. I specifically play with my 'absolutely no grind if it is not necessary' style, so I'm familiar with this issue quite well.

The same goes with skills. You only get them in 'packages' on every 3-4 levels (2-4-6-10 on the same level), and as the result of that the difficulty of the game is fluctuating...when you acquire your new skills, you are strong for 2 levels, but on the next 1-2 until you get nothing, you are significantly weaker.

Spiritmasters

While they are not needed in teams, spiritmasters' pets are so OP you can even go against elit mobs (1 at a time), they are the best solo class out there.

I to am like you, I avoid grinding 100% unless it is ABSOLUTELY NEEDED or I need it for money. Hopefully that doesn't become too much of an issue while leveling.

[Livvy]

Vaucent said:

Those are some serious issues.. I hope they get cleared up

I agree. I'm not liking what I'm reading one bit . If Aion is indeed a prettier version of lineage they'll struggle to be succesful in the western hemisphere .
The "once-every two levels-you get quests" is unwise . That reeks of not having fully designed PvE . It's not beginner-friendly either . Especially considering this :

Quote

While there are quite lots of quests, if you wanna level with only quests, you basically can't miss any of them.

Imagine someone new to the game- we all will be but at least we have all played MMO's before - those folks are very likely to throw their copy of the game on the shelf out of frustration before even reaching lvl 20 .


The fact some classes seem to be lacking utility is also not good. These are very major issues that need to be remedied prior to release in NA and EU . It's most definitely not good news .

[twostep]

i hope that some of these issues are the reason they have beta. some aren't that bad, there is always gonna be a class thats the best, but they will probably nerf the more powerful classes in later updates and higher levels, we don't know yet. i have a feeling that chanters are going to be an awesome class as you get higher in levels.

[elliot]

twostep said:

i hope that some of these issues are the reason they have beta. some aren't that bad, there is always gonna be a class thats the best, but they will probably nerf the more powerful classes in later updates and higher levels, we don't know yet. i have a feeling that chanters are going to be an awesome class as you get higher in levels.

Actually, chanters count more in the beginning. See the thing is that, their buffs and auras have effects that are set numbers. It isn't like attack power increase by 3%. its actually attack power increase by 30. Ok. doesn't sound too bad now? But it gets bad in higher levels. When everyone is rolling with 5000 atk power and 3000 defense. +100 attack power or +50 defense is not gonna matter. In fact, you can just eat food and have the same effect. You'd think those auras/buffs would be buffed as you go into higher levels, but the problem is that they are not being buffed/raised in higher levels enough to make a difference.

The dev guy said something about not wanting another l2 prophet something blah blah.

[Silvervain]

twostep said:

i hope that some of these issues are the reason they have beta. some aren't that bad, there is always gonna be a class thats the best, but they will probably nerf the more powerful classes in later updates and higher levels, we don't know yet. i have a feeling that chanters are going to be an awesome class as you get higher in levels.

but this isn't beta... it has been released in Korea for awhile now. This is all really not what I expected one bit.

[Sickbrain]

I'm sure some classes would get nerfed other boosted. That's what taking place in L2 with almost every chronicle. I think everyone was expecting mages to be over powered, but not to that degree. I was looking forward to play chanter, not so much anymore. Still going to play chanter most likely in hope they add more useful party buffs.

I think the biggest concern should be bots. Not the fact that moderators delete threads (I can understand "one post is enough" mentality), but the amount of threads about boting. The game went live what, 2 weeks ago, and official forums already flooded with bot threads. That means we are not talking about one here one there, but the amount that screws up your leveling and gaming experience ala L2.

This post has been edited by Sickbrain: 01 December 2008 - 08:33 PM

[Vex]

Thank you very much for the post. In regards to pve and class balance, I'm not overly concerned. Those are issues that can and will be addressed in time. I'm even rolling a spiritmaster and am a huge pvp fan but I am not worried about the whole flying/pet issue.

What I AM worried about are BOTS. 90%+ (at the very least) of lineage 2's population is botting. If I even catch a whiff of Aion letting bots roam free, I will have unsubscribed and burned my disks before you finished saying "Not again..."

Say NO to bots.

[Midgarsormr]

This will all be fixed by the time we are allowed to experience Aion for ourselves.

Therefore, I don't care :P.

[twostep]

elliot said:

Actually, chanters count more in the beginning. See the thing is that, their buffs and auras have effects that are set numbers. It isn't like attack power increase by 3%. its actually attack power increase by 30. Ok. doesn't sound too bad now? But it gets bad in higher levels. When everyone is rolling with 5000 atk power and 3000 defense. +100 attack power or +50 defense is not gonna matter. In fact, you can just eat food and have the same effect. You'd think those auras/buffs would be buffed as you go into higher levels, but the problem is that they are not being buffed/raised in higher levels enough to make a difference.

The dev guy said something about not wanting another l2 prophet something blah blah.

touche. i was thinking that the chanter was going to be more of a swordsinger/bladedancer type.

[Rathi04]

This is a bit disheartening, but I hope that these issues are resolved by the time we get the finished product. Good luck to NCsoft in getting this stuff ironed out.

[Sickbrain]

Midgarsormr said:

This will all be fixed by the time we are allowed to experience Aion for ourselves.

Therefore, I don't care :P.

If NCSoft didn't see how overpowered mages are or how underpowered summoners are when it comes to flying or how buffs become nonfactor at higher levels when they were testing the game for a few months, what makes you think that they will fix anything? These very obvious flaws could be fixed at the time of closed betas, I'm not even talking about OBT.

[lyankyj]

Sickbrain said:

If NCSoft didn't see how overpowered mages are or how underpowered summoners are when it comes to flying or how buffs become nonfactor at higher levels when they were testing the game for a few months, what makes you think that they will fix anything? These very obvious flaws could be fixed at the time of closed betas, I'm not even talking about OBT.

They see it, they know it is an issue. Devs said themselves these things were addressed and under care.
The problem is that they released the game earlier (because of financial reasons) than it supposed to be. It is a sad fact.
They ddnt finish to solve most of these issues and quite a lot of things were left out from the game by launch. They are aware of this, we can only hope they will change things soon.

This post has been edited by lyankyj: 01 December 2008 - 08:46 PM

[Fleiva]

elliot said:

Think of it as more like Lineage 2 back in beta with a prettier face. If you were looking for an cosmetically upgraded version of WoW like me, you are not gonna like it too much.

You have to be kidding me. Im almost level 30 and Ive been slacking a lot, Im not missing quests, 22-25 was lacking tho, 25+ isn't, I level around 80% with quests and then I do some group grind and new quests open. Bots aren't an issue tbh, haven't see one yet and it's up to them, I level fastly without it. Bots would mean free abyss points.

My server is balanced, 8% elyos, 76% balaur and 16% asmos. I doubt there is 99% in any server at this stage considering how hard the middle layer siege is. First castle was conquered like 2 days ago? It takes time for the guards to spawn making the castle siegeable, I know I've visited the 2 castles asmos have in the server n13 and there wasn't any guard.

The balance? Honestly, mages can't take me down on my level range.

Seriously, it's like if they were playing a different game, so surprised seeing this things considering I'm meant to be the one who can't access to the content due to language barriers.

[Midgarsormr]

Sickbrain said:

If NCSoft didn't see how overpowered mages are or how underpowered summoners are when it comes to flying or how buffs become nonfactor at higher levels when they were testing the game for a few months, what makes you think that they will fix anything? These very obvious flaws could be fixed at the time of closed betas, I'm not even talking about OBT.

During closed beta, they were still making Aion, people. Now, Aion is complete. Here comes the stream of polish work, then updates. That's how MMO's work.

There is NOTHING, to worry about folks.

This post has been edited by Midgarsormr: 01 December 2008 - 08:44 PM

[sejml]

elliot said:

- Stiff Character movement. This issue was mentioned in not only open beta but also way back in closed beta stage. If you've been playing WoW, everything in Aion will feel unnatural and stiff, including flying.

I played aion a day 2 days ago at dreamhack in sweden and i didnt think the movement was stiff at all i think it felt really nice 2 move around and fly around ^^