Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Ashamanchill]

Weapons do affect your specials, at least they did on my Ranger.  I don't know how they do though and it might not be universal throughout the classes and skills.

Yup, the absolutely do. + Attack manastones, do not. So for a glad, they lose alot of bonus damage on their specials when switching from a high attack polearm, to a low attack but fast weapon, and it's better just to auto swing away.

[Redgiant]

It's probably harder to get rid of them than you think.  These guys have been practicing for years with WOW and Blizzard has never been able to fully get rid of them. 

The solution seems so simple if they would do it.

Ban the game key used for the account. They know what it is.

Then it isn't just a matter of leveling up another 5 (which probably takes organized spammers less than 30 minutes since I am sure they have pocket PL'ers for that job).

if you did that , they would have to get another game key and not just level another character named leyhflwhvlqawrvklfervlkuf.

[kondratti]

Well, they did something.  After Maintenance last night, the chatspam is gone from the channels.  PLayed for several hours after restart and saw no spam at all.

[BitWarrior]

To those whom wanted quest XP to increase: http://www.massively.com/2009/10/07/big-improvements-in-aion-1-5-1-patch/

Based on the table shown in the notes, quest experience is being increased; to the tune of almost 500% on average (if our calculations are correct). The craziest example is a level 44 quest going from 13,300 to 703,820 experience (53 times as much).

[Soln]

smart

[Simond]

It would have been smarter to do that before it launched in the west, natch.

[Threash]

I can get 13k from a single mob kill at 28, that lvl 44 quest had to be broken to begin with.

[Chimpy]

I think that the reason the gold spam is so prevalent is simply (as has been stated before) the nature of how crafted items are the most powerful in the game and the Zimbabwean prices on everything (especially tradeskill materials from the vendors).

[Draegan]

It would have been smarter to do that before it launched in the west, natch.

I believe it's mainly the last 12-15 levels.  If you're 35-40 right now you're ahead of the curve I expect.  There are some quests from 20-30 that needs some love.  There is a large difference sometimes.  Some give 15k some give 50k some give 100k and they all ask you to do relatively similar things.

[tmp]

They probably are working very hard on this, and are also out of their depth when it comes to the CS expectations of this market.  They clearly didn't recognize how far away from what some of their customers deem as acceptable they are.

It's not their first big MMO launch on the western markets by any means. If they still don't get the 'cs expectations' by now then perhaps they just never will, but i really don't see them as a company which should be cut any slack in this matter on basis of lack of experience.

[Ashamanchill]

the Zimbabwean prices on everything (especially tradeskill materials from the vendors).

Lol.

Everything in this game costs an arm and a leg. You died? 15,000 Kinah please (at least at my level); you want to teleport somewhere? 5k; did I hear you wanted to bind at this new location for convienience? 10k per; New wings? let's just say it's a good thing this game doesnt have player housing, because that bitch would have about three mortgages out on it right now. And thats not including the fact that you have to buy shit from the auction house because the quest rewards are almost always useless for their level. This game forces you to grind just to keep grinding.

I spent last night purely pvping, had a friggen blast. I can't overstate the fun we had. The final butcher bill after all the teleports to get back into the action, spirit heals from the invetible falls or when a mob would finish us off in the middle of a pvp match, left us 100 grand a piece poorer.

[Kageh]

Quest experience in general is somehow totally weird. Outside of campaign quests, most "run of the mill" fetch-me-10-rat-tails quests yield about the same amount of XP 2-3 kills of +0/+1 mobs would give, which generally only takes a fraction of the time, and the item rewards aren't usually that stellar either.  Given the amount of EQ grinding "experience" I have amassed, I sometimes just find a good spot and grind/harvest for 1 hour straight. It gets me random drops that I can sell, solid experience and is still way more fun compared to the 5 hours straight dervish camping in NRo. Come to think of it, that sounds pretty sad, no? 

[gryeyes]

The kill EXP from the first instance is insane, those things have to be 100k a pop. I gained almost an entire level from one run. Its also completely generic and short, with 1 blue dropping boss. Partook in my first siege/siege defense. Half the people crash to the desktop as they approach the conflict, some people crashed 9-10 times before saying fuck it. Melee seems to be fucked in general due to the mechanics of how the game wants to completely stop before initiating the animation, but does the range calculation after you have stopped. Meaning a target moving even a little bit will cause your attack/skill fail.

From a casual delving into PvP it appears that non-casters are at an extreme disadvantage in any form of pvp. Not just from the whole "interrupt your skill" nonsense but that in addition to how badly the game rubber bands in general. Seriously debating re-rolling a caster but im not sure that i have it in me. I know many skills have yet to be unlocked, but i dont see any skills being able to compensate for the "YOU ARE NOT IN RANGE, THAT IS NOT A VALID TARGET" that summarizes pvp. I would be more effective using my bow.

[Falconeer]

Patch notes for 1.5.1 say:

2. During Pvp, when casting a skill on a player and they run out of range during the skill cast, the skill will still go off if the target is still within a certain distance from the caster.

So melee PvP is being fixed with next patch. Yay.

[Ashamanchill]

The kill EXP from the first instance is insane, those things have to be 100k a pop. I gained almost an entire level from one run. Its also completely generic and short, with 1 blue dropping boss.

The exp is insanely awesome from that thing. I wish it didn't lock you out at 29. Also the boss is not guarenteed to drop a blue. In fact he's not guarenteed to drop anything at all. Of four times i did the instance (Training Grounds for the Elyos), he dropped nothing three of them. A quick check around the group and in chat revealed that it is actually rare for him to drop anything at all.

[Numtini]

If you don't have a preset guild/group/etc is it possible to get swept up into a random group/warband/zerg and pvp?

[01101010]

If you don't have a preset guild/group/etc is it possible to get swept up into a random group/warband/zerg and pvp?

I have tagged along on a few "fight back the elyos gank squad" groups. I believe they happen when a bunch of single players actually have a collective thought and mention it to the zone. It does seem to happen pretty easy, but not nearly as frequent as you'd think - blame that single player mentality and fucked game mechanics that continue to penalize players for grouping. Just once I'd like a game to actually reward group play with an XP modifier for being in a group with max group getting max multiplier.

[Shatter]

the Zimbabwean prices on everything (especially tradeskill materials from the vendors).

Lol.

Everything in this game costs an arm and a leg. You died? 15,000 Kinah please (at least at my level);

Yeah but at least PvP death only costs you 1kinah(at the soul healer) regardless of level, if you die in PvE than you pay

[gryeyes]

The exp is insanely awesome from that thing. I wish it didn't lock you out at 29. Also the boss is not guarenteed to drop a blue. In fact he's not guarenteed to drop anything at all. Of four times i did the instance (Training Grounds for the Elyos), he dropped nothing three of them. A quick check around the group and in chat revealed that it is actually rare for him to drop anything at all.

I know he has multiple items with the same generic prefix, I couldn't say how often he drops them. But it seemed the assumption was a blue would drop. Its really depressing how simplistic that instance was, there wasn't a unique behaving mob in it. Impossible to fuck up if you have the vaguest notion of what "pulling" is.

Im also a random player and did not find it difficult to get into a group, assuming you have no standards of how bad they suck at every conceivable task. The cool kids (after much bitching), eventually accepted the unwashed masses. But only till our defeat was certain and even then we were still out numbered 2to1 at the very least.

[Shatter]

I have to say that being a cleric in the game(level 33) is wicked awesome.  Last night in the Abyss I found a decent farming spot and every time I got attacked by 1-3 Elyos I could get away no problem.  If only 1 person jumped me every time I got away, healed up and went back and killed them.  Clerics are awesome since we can dispel almost everything off of us and heal through even the highest damage and slowly kill a non healing class.  At this point I have no fear of being ganked in the Abyss cause I know unless I get gangbanged by a large group I can get away haha

[01101010]

I know he has multiple items with the same generic prefix, I couldn't say how often he drops them. But it seemed the assumption was a blue would drop. Its really depressing how simplistic that instance was, there wasn't a unique behaving mob in it. Impossible to fuck up if you have the vaguest notion of what "pulling" is.

Not saying its full-proof, but take a spiritmaster and have him/her cast spirit erosion at 5% or so. I have been 3/3 on blue drops in there off that boss when i cast it.

[Chimpy]

We went and did the first batch of spy quests this morning with our group of 4. We were all level 27-31 at the time, and the quests are in a lvl 20ish part of Morheim. We actually felt a little bad for all the level 20-24 Asmos whose quest hub we effectively locked down while getting to our quest giver. They kept rezzing and coming back at us.

I don't know about the other servers (looking at server stats shows that the number of chars overall is now pretty even 51-49 to asmo for most servers), but Elyos are just plain dominant on Vaizel. Maybe it is because it is a west coast server, dunno, but as far as I know Asmos have yet to take a fortress in the Abyss, while Elyos have them all the time. Is kind of annoying for the "free the prisoner" quests that require the other side to have contrl of the fortress.

I am still having fun, though the grind (especially for cash just to do basic stuff) is getting to me a bit.

[Sheepherder]

Just once I'd like a game to actually reward group play with an XP modifier for being in a group with max group getting max multiplier.

Man, that's totally never been done before.

Okay, I'll go back to lurking now.

[Koyasha]

I much preferred Shadowbane's system.  When you group, you get...exactly the same amount of exp as if you were soloing.  Loot was finite, but exp remained pretty much the same, unless you were grouped with someone too high level for the mobs you're fighting.

Anytime I'm asking myself whether I should leave this group and go solo simply based on the exp I'm (not) getting, there has been a design failure.

[Sheepherder]

Anytime I'm asking myself whether I should leave this group and go solo simply based on the exp I'm (not) getting, there has been a design failure.

Games where solo xp = group xp means you're roughly multiplying you're exp gain by the number of people in your group.  Which generally means the developer will set the experience threshold for a level at something appropriate for this rate, viciously fucking over anyone soloing.  The law of unintended consequences bites pretty hard in this case.

This would actually be an interesting discussion for development.  And I should learn how to lurk and watch developments more stealthily, because I suck at it.  In the meantime, how many people here are thinking of staying past the free month (or whatever)?

[Koyasha]

It doesn't have to be exactly like shadowbane where group = solo, but there's really no game that doesn't give way too big a reduction in exp when you're grouped.  Frankly, anytime I'm grouped I should be getting significantly more exp than I am solo, and it should be by enough of a margin that I never have to try and calculate 'would I get more exp if I went off and soloed' because the answer should be a blindingly obvious NO.

[Sheepherder]

From my experience with WoW even dividing experience equally (the bonus kicks in with three people) you're still getting significantly better experience between synergies, buffs, quests getting done faster, less competition for mobs, and your basic teamwork shit (like the other guy hitting the mob with a stun/taunt if you're low health).

[Shatter]

It doesn't have to be exactly like shadowbane where group = solo, but there's really no game that doesn't give way too big a reduction in exp when you're grouped.  Frankly, anytime I'm grouped I should be getting significantly more exp than I am solo, and it should be by enough of a margin that I never have to try and calculate 'would I get more exp if I went off and soloed' because the answer should be a blindingly obvious NO.

I have found soloing to be the best xp so far because I can grind out mobs very fast, basically at my own pace.  Usually if I group with people they dont understand the idea is to grind mobs fast, instead they are off picking nodes, afking and other shit which totally kills the pace.  I only group in game now if its an instance type deal or for a quest.  Also better to solo because then I get all the loot and dont have to split it. 

[gryeyes]

Its significantly faster for me to group with another dps to grind. You can kill bigger in probably a third or less of the time as solo, with no downtime. Even if you are merely maintaining the same xp rate, you are still killing higher leveled mobs who drop better gear. Find an area with two dot mobs a few levels higher than you both that have a repeat quest associated with them. Increases my exp accumulation probably by 50%, with the added benefit of relative safety. The ghost area on the east of abyss being my ideal spot.

[Shatter]

I found 2-3 people worked well when I was doing the repeatable quest in the abyss at level 25-29 ish.  WIth a partner you get credit for his and your kills so you can do the quest handin faster whcih gives 48000xp

[Threash]

Most people expect very little down time while playing, anything with long rest periods between fights is simply not going to fly anymore.  Grouping was meant to reduce downtime, a tank and a healer SHOULD kill a lot faster than a tank that has to wait for his hps to regen after every fight or a healer who has to wait for his mana to regen because he takes a lot more damage every fight, but this is just not the case in any game anymore.  I can fight 7 equal level mobs before i need to recover some hps, and this is usually a 10 second or so rest, grouping doesn't speed up my kill rate in any way shape or form in fact grouping with a non dps class lowers it by quite a bit.  Frankly i much prefer it this way, i alt tab and afk constantly while playing so i make a horrible group mate, if we went back to the days were grouping was helpful in reducing the downtime incurred by soloing i would simply quit playing, and this thread would be nothing but a bitch fest about the horrible fail that would come from that.

[Draegan]

I found 2-3 people worked well when I was doing the repeatable quest in the abyss at level 25-29 ish.  WIth a partner you get credit for his and your kills so you can do the quest handin faster whcih gives 48000xp

At 25 killing 5 mobs will give me the same amount of xp that quest gives.  Not sure if there is any benefit to that strategy other than saftey in numbers.

[Threash]

Abyss quests give a decent amount of abyss points, quite a bit more than just killing, so i can see how doing the turn ins faster would benefit you.

[Shatter]

I found 2-3 people worked well when I was doing the repeatable quest in the abyss at level 25-29 ish.  WIth a partner you get credit for his and your kills so you can do the quest handin faster whcih gives 48000xp

At 25 killing 5 mobs will give me the same amount of xp that quest gives.  Not sure if there is any benefit to that strategy other than saftey in numbers.

Well in doing this you still share the kill XP, the handin XP is like a bonus and you can hand the quest in 150 times or something.  But the goal is to kill as fast as you can and hand in repeatedly for maxed XP gain.  I blew through levels 26-28 pretty fast this way.  Quest also gives 5000kinah as well

[Threash]

For someone who can fly i sure fucking fall to death a whole lot.