Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Falconeer]

I agree that you feel weak against mobs your level, Morfiend. But bear in mind that the whole system is conceived to have you becoming stronger EVEN WITHOUT leveling, due to enchantments. Since you can enchant everything to +10, believe me when I say the trick lies there. With my weapon enchanted at +5 and a few piece of good armour, as Xanthippe already proved, your relative strength changes drastically. Let alone using activable powershards.

In every level there's some sort of horizontal progression that lets you become stronger thanks to this kind of lateral-upgrading. I won't touch manastones as they don't seem so important to me in the first levels compared to enchantments. although HP and Parry ones seem to help my Gladiator, especially the occasional green (better) ones.

The monotony of the attack routine is all there, but honestly I feel that has been the same in all MMORPGs. Even Conan, despite its glorious (for a MMORPG) melee combat, in PvE relied on cycling the "routine" over and over.

[Threash]

I don't see that attack monotony on my assassin at all, i have a LOT of abilities i can use and there's no set rotation to them.  I can stun if i dodge an attack, and i have an activated dodge the next attack move, if the stun lands i can turn on my damage buffs and backstab if i'm fast enough or i can use my combo potion building ability or my straight up damage chain attack.  Sometimes just for fun i throw a kick to the face which doesn't actually do a lot of damage but looks very bad ass in a darth maul kinda way.

[tmp]

Hmm (some) european servers don't let people to connect because there is too many players. It looks even their queue system has a limit

[Falconeer]

Uh? Now I am worried. Boxes were available today on pretty much every store around here AND retail accounts will be able to log in in exactly 4 hours and 21 minutes. If servers are packed now, with just the preorderees, what is going to happen in a few hours?

[Draegan]

It doesn't matter my take on how fast or slow it is. I don't really mind, I will do it and I'll swallow it. Just saying that more than three hours of pure mindless grind for one level, halfway through the game, with a full group, in a high XP area (so it's all TOP condition) doesn't sound so sexy.

You're adding things in that I didn't say.  It's actually optimal with a 3 man group.  I bet two assassins and a healer can do it even better.  It's also not a "high xp" area.  It's just a spot we found, there are plenty of other spots that work.  Not very top condition at all.

Once you hit 25 you get into the abyss and the mobs are giving 50-100% more exp and when you do it in groups you have to keep your eye out for PVP so it's not all mindless.

Three hours grinding with two buds is just as mind numbing as three hours of doing quests in WOW.

Edit:
I feel powerful vs. other mobs.  Not sure what you guys are doing.  I can juggle two mobs at once.

Vanguard feel comes from the dot-con system they have.  Most mobs are 2 dots, then you have 4 dot mobs.  Then you have elites and their dot system, then you have hero mobs (bosses).

From what I've been told Glads are very boring to play.  Not much variation, unlike many other classes.  My ranger is fun to play.

And Morfiend, try getting a new weapon, or enchanting it.  If I enchant my bow to +10 it adds an extra 40 damage, and that is almost 25% increase and makes it an equivalent of a weapon that would be 10 levels higher than you.

Also buy cheap potions from the vendor.  Or gather Azpha and elemental stones and make them yourself.  People arn't limited to professions at the early levels.  You can level every gather skill to 399.

The game is grindy, but I don't find it unbearable like I did WAR for some reason.  Open world PVP is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.

[Checkers]

Regarding the grind . . . One thing this game has going for it is that you're not just grinding XP.  There are a variety of basic mob drops are extremely useful.  Almost too many, in fact.  Inventory management is already an issue at low levels.

Also, combat (though cartoony) looks great in this game, and the combos are fun.  It's exciting kill mobs (relative to most MMOs).  I think a lot of people will have a hard time going back to WoW's terribly dull combat after playing Aion.

[Falconeer]

Ok Draegan, I thought you were describing a very cool and high XP place in very efficient condition, and I went from that.

That said, comparisons with WoW are meaningless to me. I really didn't like that MMO and I can't remember much of the brief time I spent on it in 2005.

[BitWarrior]

Playing as a Templar, I hit 19 last night and got my Skill Chain 3 ability, Wrath Strike. I`m pretty sure I spent about 1 hour just pulling random mobs and doing the skill chain to watch the pretty animation. Definitely a fun treat.

Beyond that, I`m discovering there`s a lot more to this game than what appears on its polished surface. Yes, everyone can essentially DE items and re-enchant others. Crafting is a game unto itself, and I`m pretty sure I know the requirements these days for Noble crafting gear procs, which makes crafting exceptionally worthwhile even at the low levels. The only thing this game is missing I feel is a good LFG system. Beyond that, each day I become more impressed with the game.

[Checkers]

The Elyos quest and cutscene involving the Shugo/Kobold love affair was actually quite touching.  I hope there are more quests like it down the road.

A few random things that are nice, relative to WoW:

- account-wide slots in your warehouse
- no durability loss on gear (why WoW still has this irritating penalty is a mystery.  XP loss is actually less irritating.)
- small aggro radius
- mobs give up the chase fairly quickly
- no daze
- crafting is (arguably) useful at low levels, and maybe even a little enjoyable
- universal gathering skill

[Ashamanchill]

Yeah the combat animations are off the chain. Or on the chain. Whichever the good one is. The Glad Dp skill one had my jaw drop with how much fun it was to watch.

I've basically made my piece with the grind in this game. Once my firends and I get to the low level pvp (Damn you Draegon.....i wish I was where you are) it wont matter to us as we will basically park our asses there for a while.

I've got two more beefs that are bugging me though:
1: the game doesn't tell you the effects of your stats. I will have 205 Block, and 185 evasion, but have no clue what the hell that means. I have no idea what those actually traslate to, and it irritates me.
2: When I exit the game it sends my internet browser to their fucking website. Fuck you NCsoft, if I wanted to see what was going down with that, I would have gone there myself.

Oh yeah, actually one more thing. It's really small, and has no effect on gameplay, but made me do a facepalm when I saw it. The world map for sanctum has South on the top of the map and north on the bottom.  

[Draegan]

Regarding XP loss.  At level 26/27 a death costs me around 10-11k.  An item around level 26 sells for 30k or so depending on the slot.  A level 27 bplate sells for 44k and a helm or gloves sell for 22k.

2: When I exit the game it sends my internet browser to their fucking website. Fuck you NCsoft, if I wanted to see what was going down with that, I would have gone there myself.

Oh yeah, actually one more thing. It's really small, and has no effect on gameplay, but made me do a facepalm when I saw it. The world map for sanctum has South on the top of the map and north on the bottom. 

As far as directing you to the website, you can turn that off in options in game, and I think from the login menu options as well.

I think they are fixing that map thing in the next patch.  I remember reading Korean patch notes about it.

[Ashamanchill]

Dammit. How dare they fix my list of complaints too quickly. Now what the hell am I going to bitch about?

[Morfiend]

And Morfiend, try getting a new weapon, or enchanting it.  If I enchant my bow to +10 it adds an extra 40 damage, and that is almost 25% increase and makes it an equivalent of a weapon that would be 10 levels higher than you.

I'm going to have to look into enchanting. I think I missed the info about this. And I did just get a full suit of green armor, and a new weapon.

I am actually considering rerolling assassin, because the combat seems a little more interesting.

Another thing I was thinking about was binding my entire rotation to one of my logitech g5 buttons. Since it pretty much never changes. Although that would make combat even more boring.

[Falconeer]

There's a lore reason for south being in place of north. No, I am stupid.

[DLRiley]

So what is necessarily stopping people from enchanting the higher level weapon?

[Ashamanchill]

  Well, just for starters, not being the current level able to wield that weapon.

[Venkman]

I don't see that attack monotony on my assassin at all, i have a LOT of abilities i can use and there's no set rotation to them.

On my Sorcerer I have a set rotation, but it's based more on refresh timers than any one best way to do things. I actually have three different ways, and one ideal that I rarely use because I'd rather have sleep and root up for surprise adds.

The only monotony I've found is with mana refresh. Without consumables, that feels DAoC-slow (though thankfully not EQ1 slow). Hence, Alchemy. Though I just started trying the crafting thing out (mindless grinding).

[Ashamanchill]

I can't beleive I did not notice this before, your skills 'level up' the more you use them. I used to have Ferocious Strike II at lvl 2. Now it's level five and does more damage. That's a pretty cool feature to tide me over until I get the next skill up.

[Morfiend]

I can't beleive I did not notice this before, your skills 'level up' the more you use them. I used to have Ferocious Strike II at lvl 2. Now it's level five and does more damage. That's a pretty cool feature to tide me over until I get the next skill up.

I think your skills level up when you level up.

[Falconeer]

Heh, yes.

[Threash]

I can't beleive I did not notice this before, your skills 'level up' the more you use them. I used to have Ferocious Strike II at lvl 2. Now it's level five and does more damage. That's a pretty cool feature to tide me over until I get the next skill up.

It levels up when you level.

[Ashamanchill]

Ah. Seen.

[amiable]

Regarding the grind . . . One thing this game has going for it is that you're not just grinding XP.  There are a variety of basic mob drops are extremely useful.  Almost too many, in fact.  Inventory management is already an issue at low levels.

Also, combat (though cartoony) looks great in this game, and the combos are fun.  It's exciting kill mobs (relative to most MMOs).  I think a lot of people will have a hard time going back to WoW's terribly dull combat after playing Aion.

Are we playing the same game?  It seems to take forever to kill mobs with my sorcerer, and there is a ton of downtime (I basically have to mana treatment myself after every other pull)...  i find killing mobs in this game boring as having my teeth pulled.  Hell LOTRO grinding was more fun.

[Draegan]

Sorcs have mana problems until the mid teens or so, but they are some of the fastest levelers.  Buy some potions.

[ajax34i]

I think a lot of people will have a hard time going back to WoW's terribly dull combat after playing Aion.

Why do you care what "a lot of other people" will or will not do in the future?

And, this is probably not the thread for such a discussion, but WoW's Cataclysm expansion vs. Aion...  well, I know I want to see the changes to Azeroth, even if I only log in briefly and fly around for a bit.

[Falconeer]

i find killing mobs in this game boring as having my teeth pulled.  Hell LOTRO grinding was more fun.

We are all so different. LotRO is a beautiful game, I loved it and played it 24/7 for two months. But the combat was to me close to unbearable, and it still is (I made 5 levels recently to get into Moria).

[Threash]

My god im not killing those cute little monkeys that make kitten noises when you hit them.

[Zane0]

I dunno, I find combat a lot of fun as well. You get a lot of cooldowns fairly early, have consumable timers to juggle if you are so inclined, and each combat 'chain' is individually handcrafted. There's a lot to do to maximize your efficiency and doing it is relatively fun to watch--fun for long enough to reach a new tier of content, which opens a new set of experiences, and so on.

By every conventional metric, in my limited experience thus far, they couldn't have done a much better job with the early game.

[Venkman]

Regarding the grind . . . One thing this game has going for it is that you're not just grinding XP.  There are a variety of basic mob drops are extremely useful.  Almost too many, in fact.  Inventory management is already an issue at low levels.

Also, combat (though cartoony) looks great in this game, and the combos are fun.  It's exciting kill mobs (relative to most MMOs).  I think a lot of people will have a hard time going back to WoW's terribly dull combat after playing Aion.

Are we playing the same game?  It seems to take forever to kill mobs with my sorcerer, and there is a ton of downtime (I basically have to mana treatment myself after every other pull)...  i find killing mobs in this game boring as having my teeth pulled.  Hell LOTRO grinding was more fun.

I was with you until you said "sorcerer". How the heck does it take forever for you to kill a mob? Are you root/rotting and then autoattacking them? I'm too arsed to look up the spell names, but for me it's Fire>ChainFire, Water>ChainWater, Fire, autoattack. Or it's Fire>ChainFire, Rot, Root, auto. Or that with Water. Or if the big 2000dp spell is up, that. Sleep/Root adds as needed. I can take on two oranges no problem. Occasionally there's a resist that'll piss me off, but that's for the absorb shields and potions to take care of.

Whatever it is, the thing is dead in the way it is dead for any burst-damage class in any game.

Mana, yea. LoTRO though? Bleh. WoW combat underwater. Loved the world, bought midi cables for the music system, enjoyed the quests. Combat sucked for its sluggishness.

[Tale]

My god im not killing those cute little monkeys that make kitten noises when you hit them.

Every time you kill the monkey, God spanks a kitten.

[tmp]

I was with you until you said "sorcerer". How the heck does it take forever for you to kill a mob?

I think he means it takes forever relatively to LotRO combat at comparable level. And i'd be inclined to agree, the difference is easily noticeable even from the starting levels and it only gets worse from there (the equivalent of sorcerer that's rune-keeper also kills a mob in 2-3 hits early on, except these hits have no inductions and no cooldown which shaves lot from the combat time)

[Falconeer]

Last night I finally grouped with this international guild of Old Gamers I found (it only accepts people older than 25  ) and we headed for Black Claw Something which is a totally elite area, so definitely group only. We killed non stop for a while, completing quests and raking up XP. In two hours I got probably 40% of a level, possibly 60% by turning in the quests. That's awful compared to my solo grind, which gave me a full level in exactly 102 minutes.

It doesn't really say much, since I was "optimizing" my solo XPing before, while we, as a group, weren't. But other than for the Ventrilo fun, I really felt like grouping and doing those elite quests was somewhat of a waste of time (save for the fact that they were Campaign, so basically mandatory).

FACT: Killing an elite Black Claw with a group of 5 took us 4 cycles of my main skills cooldowns, for 3200 xp. Killing Lepharists bodyguards and shamans took me 1 and a half cycle, and yelded me 3000 XP each.

Not to mention that I died 8 times while fighting those elites and a few bosses, and had to spend about 19k to heal my soul. Zero deaths on my own.

[Outlawedprod]

we headed for Black Claw Something which is a totally elite area

For some reason elite mob xp was nerfbatted in 1.5

I remember playing that black claw outpost in closed beta and the mobs were giving 10k xp to each of us (group of 6).  I guess they nerfbatted it to prevent people from chain grinding on them or something.

[Gunzwei]

I got a 23 templar played up so I'll give my thoughts on AION so far. I think the subs on the game will drop off after the first month or two just because of the grind nature of the game as you hit the 20's. Personally I don't mind the xp grinding all that much but the time involved with crafting is very tedious at best. It makes me wonder if crafting is worth the time at lower levels due how heavy a time/money sink it is.

If the time required to progress in aspects in AION were lowered by say 10-20% I think it would fair considerably better since the goal is to keep people playing till they can enjoy that end-game pvp. Instead I can only see people getting burnt out before they reach it.

[Ashamanchill]

When does pvp start again? I'm sorry for carping on this point, I really am, but my RL friends are pvp maniacs and every time they level up and haven't even seen pvp drives them away a little bit. We are Level 18 now and all we've gotten to do is duel. When do those rifts start?