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About Aion Gameplay, for a PvPer
ok, I played open beta and wasn't impressed, but heck, I only did the first 10 lvl and I love PvP mainly so, about the gameplay:
How fast is it?
(responsiveness, action)
How diverse are the combat options?
(you need to know how to react vs the many tricks Players can come up against you)
How cool are the classes and skills?
(The spectacular and fun things you can do)
WoW is AAA in all these categories, that's why it has by far the most exiting PvP gameplay, of all the MMOs I've tried that is, but I tried many.
Comments
All of these are subject to opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. Personally I very much enjoy Aion BUT if you don't like to group and don't like a game where it takes quite a while to get max level, you will not enjoy Aion, period. I like it because I don't look at my XP bar (barely) and don't care if I don't hit 50 before Xmas... (that said Im in my 30's for being a casual gamer but anyways I digress)
Ill try to answer your questions the best I can.
1) How fast is it?
All depends on what you mean by "fast"? Do you mean length or the action itself? Both of these varies, but what I can tell you is everytime I see a random person in open PVP my heart starts thumping... I love the thrill and excitement. The other thing I very much like is that every player is seen as ?? for their level - some people view this as a negative but I think its very much the opposite. Not showing them what they are makes you REALLY think - should I be jumping this player? It makes it interesting and they have an online armory similar to WoW so you can go check it out after if you wanted to.
2) How diverse are the combat options?
Again, very subjective. I very much like the chains and I've noticed it makes a HUGE difference what order you do things in and what chains you execute first. You can't just /faceroll the keyboard and expect to be very good. The game SEEMS very simple at first, but when you start getting up in the 30's and getting more and more skills it makes very much a huge difference (Yes Im looking at your Face Smash ....
)
3) How cool are the classes and skills?
You like subjective questions don't you?
lol - Personally I think ALL the classes are fun and interesting. My least favorite is probably the Gladiator, mainly because I feel they don't do anything extremely well and there are about 9 thousand of them per server :X Apart from that (And don't get me wrong, Im sure they are a fine class down the road) I feel all the classes are great it just depends on your playstyle. Rangers, Sorcerers and SM's currently have the advantage in PVP IMO mostly due to range - makes it more difficult for melee classes to catch up. That said, like in WoW many of those classes have snares, roots, etc to even out the playing field. Personally, I like it... check out the aionarmory for some more details on the class structure.
There's a lot of whiners out there saying how terribad the game is... truth be told Aion isn't for everyone. You will not level as fast as you can in WoW (currently) - but if you take in what the game offers (crafting, PVP, rifting, questing, etc) you will very much enjoy yourself. This game is very much about the journey as well as the desination. Really depends on what you are looking for
Having played both WoW and Aion, they both have a lot of pro's and con's. WoW was a very good game but right now it does absolutely nothing for me... where as Aion does (hence why I play it) 
One last comment.... WoW has PVP? Really? lol... Aion PVP is very much different than WoW PVP. There's no BGs or Arena in Aion, where as that's WoW's primary focus. Aion is all about the world PVP, small groups via rifts (to run to opponents leveling zone), or fortress sieges (Which right now are a little buggy/causing some ppl to crash). Im sure its being worked out but wanted to give you fair warning up front.
Hope that helps
i'll say a lot of bad things about aion but gameplay will never be one of them. Its the best mmo since WoW for gameplay, very smooth not sluggish at all.
i canceled my sub but gameplay def wasn't one of the reasons.
TBH, the game in its current form severely limits your ability to actually PVP. The abyss has many issues, too much to go into, but suffice it to say that by and large it doesn't cut it.
Rifting is its own slice of fail, given that it works on a system where every 2 hours new rifts spawn. When they spawn, they generally (probably a good 80-90% of the time) only spawn one outgoing, and one incoming rift. The rifts spawn in one of seven locations linking Morheim to Eltnen, and Heiron to Beluslan. They each have their own sets and as previously mentioned, will generally have 1 outgoing and 1 incoming. The trouble sets in when trying to find a rift. Sometimes an obvious rift location will appear, and members of your faction can quickly locate and point them out. Others, the general populace is no help at all in finding them, and it can take you upwards of 30 minutes to locate one. The rifts spawn in level-appropriate areas for the rift's designated level caps (low level rifts spawn with caps of 32, near mobs around 26-28, which will send you to an area on the other side with equivalent mobs). This is kinda where you hit your next glitch on your way to PVP. If you're unfortunate when you set out looking for rifts, and find that none are available for your level, your options become pretty limited; wait 2 hours for the next set, or hunt for the higher level rift. If you take the latter of the two options, best of luck. Once through, you'll be in an area with mobs that will be highly dangerous to you, and players that are far higher than your own level, the worst part of which is that if you make any attempt to head near players your level, you'll quickly be bottlenecked by a town, or guards with almost no chance whatsoever of getting to your desired area. The BIGGEST problem with all of this is simply that it isn't conducive to good PVP at all because if you enter the rifts too low, you're going to get spanked. Go in too high, and you're just going to steamroll your opponents and get jack for abyss points. Granted, sometimes rifting can lead to the most fun this game has to offer, but it's extremely sad how rare that occasion is.
I love the combat mechanics of the game, and have thoroughly enjoyed myself on a few occasions when not really trying to play with any goal in mind. That said, if you're really intent on PVP'ing in Aion, the game takes so many measures that are counter to quality PVP that it's mind-boggling for a game that's supposed to be centric to it. Of course, the game's problems aside, the players certainly don't help when you have bored players in their mid-late 40s, or 50s who go to a lowbie area with the sole intent of sniffing out low level rifters and shutting them down in a hit or three out of sheer boredom (which is all I can assume, because a level 50 player killing a level 25-35 will get a mere 1 AP and there is certainly no more content for a 50 in morheim/eltnen).
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
To be honest, this is a bad place to ask for opinions, considering that like 90% of the people who actually reguarly check these forums are trolls, but anyway...
Fast - it's comparable to WoW, but different in some ways. Some people are saying its not as fast as EQ or LoTRO but that's just craziness - they obviously didnt get very far. At the beginning it's a tad bit slower, but later on once you get some decent gear for speed/flight time it's actually quite a bit faster than WoW in some aspects (meanin combat speed/responsiveness) - for example, there is no GCD, your attack time with special moves is dependant on the actual attack animation - and +speed gear actually increases your attack animation speed. You fly quite a bit faster than run speed, and adding another dimension can add quite a bit to the action at times.
If your asking about how fast is it, meaning how long do the fights happen for, the fights are quite a bit longer than WoW's - especially modern WoW with the huge spike damage.
How diverse is the combat and do you need to know tricks? That's dependant on who you are with and what you are doing to be honest. I had to take some time to learn how to combat each of the classes in PvP, and depending on character, the movement buffs actually do make a difference, and having the defensive movement buffs can really help in PvP if your with a coordinated group. People have to watch when they run forward as well, as this makes them take more damage when they get hit, and smack someone unaware in the face and you can take out someone quite a bit faster than the opposing team. That's why some melee's have problems - if you run straight your penalizing yourself 20-30%,if you strafe away or back off you will instead be buffing yourself. In the Abyss, you need to employ a few more tricks because of the added dimensions, and when it comes to the combat for ALL classes, at times it's equivalent to being a DK and having to manage runes in PvP - because many of the stronger moves share a combo opener on lets say a 10 second cooldown, so you have to choose which combo path your going to do - make a wrong move at the wrong time and you could be dead (like on a DK).
How cool are the classes? Well, they arent quite as customizable as WoW's talent trees BUT you get more actual abilities from you spec than you do in WoW. In WoW the talent trees are made up of mixes of passsive buffs with a couple abilities, and normally you get a select few moves. In Aion you select stigmas which are all new abilities, and you can choose 8 of them. So less passive buffs, but you choose 8 skills instead.
That said, most of the classes are fairly centered towards certain roles - so it may take a bit of experimenting to find the class that is really for you. It's a bit harder to play most classes properly compared to WoW - tanking is harder as a templar than it is in WoW (you dont have any taunts that auto snap aggro yourself, and limited multi target aggro so you have to manage threat well, it takes a good player to be a good tank), rangers need to be skilled at jump-shoting to kite which is a limited form of twitch skill because if you miss a jump-shot that could mean your caught and your dead.
Assassins are much harder to manage their version of combo points than WoW rogues because certain moves can only generate lets say a max of 3 points where another can go up to 4, so you have to manage your cooldowns intelligently, plus the points are generated on the TARGET so this means if you have 2 assassins the combo points are cumulative - i generate 1, u generate the 2nd, etc - so assassins involve quite a bit of micromanaging and strategy to play properly, but they are quite a force if played well.
All melee classes (and rangers to a limited point) have to "Weave" or else they are nerfing their DPS - weaving means if you time your attacks precisely as the animation goes off you get both a normal attack + your ability damage, which for most classes involves a 25-50% boost in damage if done properly. So combined with these plus the class mechanics, there are quite a few areas for the player to use "skill" to improve their gameplay.
It takes awhile to learn the PvP system in depth, especially how to combat all the classes, and takes some work to learn to coordinate with others properly as things are quite a bit different from WoW - but it is quite rewarding if you do.
Holy Batman!
A detailed and intelligent post on combat mechanics - thank you - this is the reason I put up with so many of the trolls here - makes it worth it
All of these are subject to opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. Personally I very much enjoy Aion BUT if you don't like to group and don't like a game where it takes quite a while to get max level, you will not enjoy Aion, period. I like it because I don't look at my XP bar (barely) and don't care if I don't hit 50 before Xmas... (that said Im in my 30's for being a casual gamer but anyways I digress)
Ill try to answer your questions the best I can.
1) How fast is it?
All depends on what you mean by "fast"? Do you mean length or the action itself? Both of these varies, but what I can tell you is everytime I see a random person in open PVP my heart starts thumping... I love the thrill and excitement. The other thing I very much like is that every player is seen as ?? for their level - some people view this as a negative but I think its very much the opposite. Not showing them what they are makes you REALLY think - should I be jumping this player? It makes it interesting and they have an online armory similar to WoW so you can go check it out after if you wanted to.
2) How diverse are the combat options?
Again, very subjective. I very much like the chains and I've noticed it makes a HUGE difference what order you do things in and what chains you execute first. You can't just /faceroll the keyboard and expect to be very good. The game SEEMS very simple at first, but when you start getting up in the 30's and getting more and more skills it makes very much a huge difference (Yes Im looking at your Face Smash ....
)
3) How cool are the classes and skills?
You like subjective questions don't you?
lol - Personally I think ALL the classes are fun and interesting. My least favorite is probably the Gladiator, mainly because I feel they don't do anything extremely well and there are about 9 thousand of them per server :X Apart from that (And don't get me wrong, Im sure they are a fine class down the road) I feel all the classes are great it just depends on your playstyle. Rangers, Sorcerers and SM's currently have the advantage in PVP IMO mostly due to range - makes it more difficult for melee classes to catch up. That said, like in WoW many of those classes have snares, roots, etc to even out the playing field. Personally, I like it... check out the aionarmory for some more details on the class structure.
There's a lot of whiners out there saying how terribad the game is... truth be told Aion isn't for everyone. You will not level as fast as you can in WoW (currently) - but if you take in what the game offers (crafting, PVP, rifting, questing, etc) you will very much enjoy yourself. This game is very much about the journey as well as the desination. Really depends on what you are looking for
Having played both WoW and Aion, they both have a lot of pro's and con's. WoW was a very good game but right now it does absolutely nothing for me... where as Aion does (hence why I play it) 
One last comment.... WoW has PVP? Really? lol... Aion PVP is very much different than WoW PVP. There's no BGs or Arena in Aion, where as that's WoW's primary focus. Aion is all about the world PVP, small groups via rifts (to run to opponents leveling zone), or fortress sieges (Which right now are a little buggy/causing some ppl to crash). Im sure its being worked out but wanted to give you fair warning up front.
Hope that helps
^ ^ Hit it right on for me. I've been playing since closed beta and love it. Some don't seem to enjoy Aion much for whatever reason (likely because their bored of MMOs overall) but for those that do, they'll probly agree that it has the most fun and exciting pvp out right now. The only MMO that will come close to it anytime soon is Guild Wars 2 imo.
Good luck!
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
All of these are subject to opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. Personally I very much enjoy Aion BUT if you don't like to group and don't like a game where it takes quite a while to get max level, you will not enjoy Aion, period. I like it because I don't look at my XP bar (barely) and don't care if I don't hit 50 before Xmas... (that said Im in my 30's for being a casual gamer but anyways I digress)
Ill try to answer your questions the best I can.
1) How fast is it?
All depends on what you mean by "fast"? Do you mean length or the action itself? Both of these varies, but what I can tell you is everytime I see a random person in open PVP my heart starts thumping... I love the thrill and excitement. The other thing I very much like is that every player is seen as ?? for their level - some people view this as a negative but I think its very much the opposite. Not showing them what they are makes you REALLY think - should I be jumping this player? It makes it interesting and they have an online armory similar to WoW so you can go check it out after if you wanted to.
2) How diverse are the combat options?
Again, very subjective. I very much like the chains and I've noticed it makes a HUGE difference what order you do things in and what chains you execute first. You can't just /faceroll the keyboard and expect to be very good. The game SEEMS very simple at first, but when you start getting up in the 30's and getting more and more skills it makes very much a huge difference (Yes Im looking at your Face Smash ....
)
3) How cool are the classes and skills?
You like subjective questions don't you?
lol - Personally I think ALL the classes are fun and interesting. My least favorite is probably the Gladiator, mainly because I feel they don't do anything extremely well and there are about 9 thousand of them per server :X Apart from that (And don't get me wrong, Im sure they are a fine class down the road) I feel all the classes are great it just depends on your playstyle. Rangers, Sorcerers and SM's currently have the advantage in PVP IMO mostly due to range - makes it more difficult for melee classes to catch up. That said, like in WoW many of those classes have snares, roots, etc to even out the playing field. Personally, I like it... check out the aionarmory for some more details on the class structure.
There's a lot of whiners out there saying how terribad the game is... truth be told Aion isn't for everyone. You will not level as fast as you can in WoW (currently) - but if you take in what the game offers (crafting, PVP, rifting, questing, etc) you will very much enjoy yourself. This game is very much about the journey as well as the desination. Really depends on what you are looking for
Having played both WoW and Aion, they both have a lot of pro's and con's. WoW was a very good game but right now it does absolutely nothing for me... where as Aion does (hence why I play it) 
One last comment.... WoW has PVP? Really? lol... Aion PVP is very much different than WoW PVP. There's no BGs or Arena in Aion, where as that's WoW's primary focus. Aion is all about the world PVP, small groups via rifts (to run to opponents leveling zone), or fortress sieges (Which right now are a little buggy/causing some ppl to crash). Im sure its being worked out but wanted to give you fair warning up front.
Hope that helps
^ ^ Hit it right on for me. I've been playing since closed beta and love it. Some don't seem to enjoy Aion much for whatever reason (likely because their bored of MMOs overall) but for those that do, they'll probly agree that it has the most fun and exciting pvp out right now. The only MMO that will come close to it anytime soon is Guild Wars 2 imo.
Good luck!
True.
I think alot of the problem is it takes a bit of time to actually get accustomed to how this game works. People think they can just go out and solo amazingly after getting more used to smaller scale PvP in other games - but in Aion you can only solo decent if your a class made for it. Many of the classes are group based.
It's differnet when you have a game based around World PvP.
It also has a bit of a learning curve, which isnt to apparent when you first play. Not as big of a learning curve as Eve, but in many ways it's similar. You need to learn locations, you need to learn the flight gates, how to avoid gate camps, learn the areas of the good spawns, learn how to ap farm effectively, completely re-do your mindset when it comes to targeting priority, learn how to incoporate flight in to PvP. This is the first game since Eve that actually makes good use of a "tackler" role in PvP. Melees feel like they suck without people on tackler duty - but if you have a tackler as main assist melee's quickly become the backbone of the party. Being prepared with equipment for combat is a big importance as well. Taking out enemy kisks is a key role.
It's quite a bit "harder" than the competition as well. Meaning even the PvE is more challenging, as well as playing the classes to their optimum.
Even the top guilds are still learning how to play. People are realizing big zerg battles are crap AP generation, and you need top AP to earn medals. People are learning the tactics of organizing smaller warbands or parties - especially since they see a small group of higher levels could effectively take artifacts. For anyone who was there, think of DAoC RvR at release, and then think a year or 2 in once some people learned appropriate tactics how much of a different game it was. That's the change people are only beginning in Aion right now.