The PvE in this game is still pretty poor. You'll get quests to kill upwards of 30 and 40 mobs for a single quest. I led me to wondering whether or not I'd be better of just finding a decent spot to stand around and grind mobs all day. Even so, I've always found Aion's PvE about as fun as beating my head against a brick wall with all the mobs that can take half my health away in one hit and how kiting is so necessary for some classes yet so difficult for quests in tight spaces.
The binding system is taken straight out of early 2000s EverQuest where you can bind in one zone and when you die, no matter where you are in the world, you respawned where you died. Even if you're in the same zone, it can be a long haul bck to where you were questing. Then there's the whole thing about constantly chugging money away for mana/HP potions.
I think Aion could be a great game if not for some design decisions I find questionable and that's not even touching on the issues people have with the Abyss. As it stands now; however, TERA is, I believe, far superior to Aion and should easily achieve more success than Aion ever did as a P2P title.
it is so damn easy to lvl up fast to lvl 18 and still is after lvl 18.
... really no clue what this is about.
it may be easy but it still takes a while. Not everyone can quest for 30 hours just to be able to compete. New players like me are even more screwed because we can't enjoy pvp unless we level up 5 other chars to lvl 30, or grind many more hours to 50+.
How is repeating instances/daylies over and over not grindy?
I started about a week and a half ago on a Gladiator, fresh account, F2P, no gold pack (no AH, no trade)
Aion thus far to me was easy until around 25 then I was victim to griefers in Eltnen pretty much every morning, I couldn't even do my coin quest for 10 minutes in peace (toons with purple names and buffed into oblivion talking gibberish in chat, I couldn't figure what language that was lol)
One would have to pay me to run instances like Lochsana Training Camp more then 2 or 3 times.
That leaves crafting to level up (after completing the lv 20-25 part in Theobomos)
.. which is very grindy in my opinion. 4 Workorders, turn them in, get the same again, stock up vendor mats every few cycles, rinse-repeat lol
Game is definitely hard for new players after lv 25-30 (most people I came across that I added to my buddy list are sitting in that level range and haven't seen them logging in for much
Not considering buying their gold pack atm since that's basically a 10 bucks subscription fee.
Also I hear the rich players even sell those for like 7 Mil Kinah to other players which I consider a huge damaging factor to the economy ...
"if" you actually can use the broker which requires to be Veteran ( = impossible to new players) or buy a gold pack.
3 out of 4 people I meet in game have rather poor English. All guilds I got invited to have been non-english based. I'm getting random tells along the line "you polish?" which can be fun at times though : )
Also I can't see any RP going on which I consider an integral part of a fantasy online game.
tl;dr
So there's 55 (60 for NA) levels of grind if you want to play the real game (quests/story is generic trash, no RP, no immersion whatsoever)
Biggest problem is can see is how everything evolves around gear, getting better gear, enchanting gear etc. ... only to get to max level and try to get into "serious" PvP (this affects both story-focused/PvE players as well as PvPers)
Gold selling spam has increased dramatically. I am sure the spammers know that NCSoft is no longer policing their game.
Hacks are becoming an issue.
The new server is Asmo dominant. The Elyos don`t even bother to show up.
Most of the pvp gear is obtained through pve.
Most of the current high levels have raced to cap and now just grind pve instances for ap and gear.
This week I couldn`t shake the fact that it felt like I was playing a game from Perfect World Entertainment.
I was all for the new server a few weeks ago but now its obvious that NCSoft has abandoned any support and put in (putting in) mechanics to force you to use the store.
it may be easy but it still takes a while. Not everyone can quest for 30 hours just to be able to compete. New players like me are even more screwed because we can't enjoy pvp unless we level up 5 other chars to lvl 30, or grind many more hours to 50+.
In 30 hours you'll probably be pushing in to the 30s-40s. Soloing a SM at a non-optimal pace I took them from 7 to 22 in maybe 7 hours. I have no doubt I could've done it faster if I focused entirely on maximizing my XP gains (no running back to turn in 80k xp quests when I could kill 100k xp worth of mobs in the time it costs to do so for example) let alone if I dumped Kinah in to the character via my lvl 60. Hell even a new player can get level 15-20 enchant stones easily/cheaply enough (as well as via the atlas) and in the case of casters, enchanting your Ascenion quest's weapon to +5 is pretty huge, especially for casters as it's an extra 100 MBoost.
If you don't mind spending a few bucks you could sell socketing supplements or life leaves. Sell one of either and the millions you get will last you as a new player for a long time. You could probably upgrade your quest wepaon to +10 for 200k or less, dependign on stone costs on your server. That extra damage will make you blow through lower levels because even an extra 100-150 magic boost is massive.
e: It is worth noting that their "pve for pvp gear" situation has always sucked. They really need to steal Warhammer's symbol system or something. That game had hit the "pvp for xp and gear" setup pretty nicely since you can basically do nothing but PVP and you'll still level and get geared. In Aion you get negligible xp for pvp and the AP from pvp can't compare with instances. Spend an hour in a large choppy fight for maybe 1-2k AP, or run an instance and get 3-5x that.
Dredgion's nice but you can only run it a few times a day. Getting 4-9k AP for an hour of fighting is nice, shame it's not like that in normal PVP unless you're heavily geared and ganking people in droves.
Comments
The PvE in this game is still pretty poor. You'll get quests to kill upwards of 30 and 40 mobs for a single quest. I led me to wondering whether or not I'd be better of just finding a decent spot to stand around and grind mobs all day. Even so, I've always found Aion's PvE about as fun as beating my head against a brick wall with all the mobs that can take half my health away in one hit and how kiting is so necessary for some classes yet so difficult for quests in tight spaces.
The binding system is taken straight out of early 2000s EverQuest where you can bind in one zone and when you die, no matter where you are in the world, you respawned where you died. Even if you're in the same zone, it can be a long haul bck to where you were questing. Then there's the whole thing about constantly chugging money away for mana/HP potions.
I think Aion could be a great game if not for some design decisions I find questionable and that's not even touching on the issues people have with the Abyss. As it stands now; however, TERA is, I believe, far superior to Aion and should easily achieve more success than Aion ever did as a P2P title.
it may be easy but it still takes a while. Not everyone can quest for 30 hours just to be able to compete. New players like me are even more screwed because we can't enjoy pvp unless we level up 5 other chars to lvl 30, or grind many more hours to 50+.
lol dude, start with the campains and u will enjoy the game better?
How is repeating instances/daylies over and over not grindy?
I started about a week and a half ago on a Gladiator, fresh account, F2P, no gold pack (no AH, no trade)
Aion thus far to me was easy until around 25 then I was victim to griefers in Eltnen pretty much every morning, I couldn't even do my coin quest for 10 minutes in peace (toons with purple names and buffed into oblivion talking gibberish in chat, I couldn't figure what language that was lol)
One would have to pay me to run instances like Lochsana Training Camp more then 2 or 3 times.
That leaves crafting to level up (after completing the lv 20-25 part in Theobomos)
.. which is very grindy in my opinion. 4 Workorders, turn them in, get the same again, stock up vendor mats every few cycles, rinse-repeat lol
Game is definitely hard for new players after lv 25-30 (most people I came across that I added to my buddy list are sitting in that level range and haven't seen them logging in for much
Not considering buying their gold pack atm since that's basically a 10 bucks subscription fee.
Also I hear the rich players even sell those for like 7 Mil Kinah to other players which I consider a huge damaging factor to the economy ...
"if" you actually can use the broker which requires to be Veteran ( = impossible to new players) or buy a gold pack.
3 out of 4 people I meet in game have rather poor English. All guilds I got invited to have been non-english based. I'm getting random tells along the line "you polish?" which can be fun at times though : )
Also I can't see any RP going on which I consider an integral part of a fantasy online game.
tl;dr
So there's 55 (60 for NA) levels of grind if you want to play the real game (quests/story is generic trash, no RP, no immersion whatsoever)
Biggest problem is can see is how everything evolves around gear, getting better gear, enchanting gear etc. ... only to get to max level and try to get into "serious" PvP (this affects both story-focused/PvE players as well as PvPers)
The honeymoon period is over in the new server.
Gold selling spam has increased dramatically. I am sure the spammers know that NCSoft is no longer policing their game.
Hacks are becoming an issue.
The new server is Asmo dominant. The Elyos don`t even bother to show up.
Most of the pvp gear is obtained through pve.
Most of the current high levels have raced to cap and now just grind pve instances for ap and gear.
This week I couldn`t shake the fact that it felt like I was playing a game from Perfect World Entertainment.
I was all for the new server a few weeks ago but now its obvious that NCSoft has abandoned any support and put in (putting in) mechanics to force you to use the store.
In 30 hours you'll probably be pushing in to the 30s-40s. Soloing a SM at a non-optimal pace I took them from 7 to 22 in maybe 7 hours. I have no doubt I could've done it faster if I focused entirely on maximizing my XP gains (no running back to turn in 80k xp quests when I could kill 100k xp worth of mobs in the time it costs to do so for example) let alone if I dumped Kinah in to the character via my lvl 60. Hell even a new player can get level 15-20 enchant stones easily/cheaply enough (as well as via the atlas) and in the case of casters, enchanting your Ascenion quest's weapon to +5 is pretty huge, especially for casters as it's an extra 100 MBoost.
If you don't mind spending a few bucks you could sell socketing supplements or life leaves. Sell one of either and the millions you get will last you as a new player for a long time. You could probably upgrade your quest wepaon to +10 for 200k or less, dependign on stone costs on your server. That extra damage will make you blow through lower levels because even an extra 100-150 magic boost is massive.
e: It is worth noting that their "pve for pvp gear" situation has always sucked. They really need to steal Warhammer's symbol system or something. That game had hit the "pvp for xp and gear" setup pretty nicely since you can basically do nothing but PVP and you'll still level and get geared. In Aion you get negligible xp for pvp and the AP from pvp can't compare with instances. Spend an hour in a large choppy fight for maybe 1-2k AP, or run an instance and get 3-5x that.
Dredgion's nice but you can only run it a few times a day. Getting 4-9k AP for an hour of fighting is nice, shame it's not like that in normal PVP unless you're heavily geared and ganking people in droves.
If you are looking to Aion for pvp don't. You will be disapointed. Its pretty much all pve.
And just look at all the pet threads. I felt like I was playing Pokimon or something......