My initial impressions of Aion
Posted by: Snafzg
On: Jun 22, 2009 at 02:58pm
I've had a chance to play Aion closed beta several times now, so I'm starting to get a feel for the game. That said, I only made it to level 13 over the first weekend as an Elyos and level 10 this past weekend as an Asmodian, so there's no way can be considered a review of the game. What I write next will simply be my impressions based on what I've seen so far.
You can read these sorts of pieces all over the web so I'll try keep mine short and sweet and focused purely on what caught my attention.
Character Creation
Character creation is pretty sick in Aion. The basic look for each faction could be considered half-elven and half-human but the various customization tools allow you to look like almost anything that resembles a human. I've seen gnome/halflings, giants, dwarves, humans, elves, and a number of other typical fantasy races come out of the creator. You can't make yourself look reptilian, wolf-like, or cat-like or anything like that because it would break the lore.
My primary concern with character creation as of right now is that you can make your character too small, which will give you a significant advantage in PvP. One could argue that click-targeters are bound to fail at PvP anyway, but it's still annoying to see a tiny sprite of a person run around really quickly. I'm all for giving a smaller person a terrain advantage, but dropping the height and weight sliders all the way to zero makes you really tiny compared to the average size and I have a feeling everyone serious about PvP is going to go this route. That's going to be lame.
Graphics and Performance
You've heard it before. The graphics are stunning. I had all the in-game settings cranked to max and was still pushing 60-90 FPS most of the time. I have yet to test this in large scale battle but a few 4v4 arena fights ran quite smoothly. Hopefully, the Abyss fortress raids run just as good. I wasn't sure if I would like the "anime" graphics initially but the atmosphere, animations, emotes, character models, and anything else you can think of graphically made me a believer.
Classes
There are four basic classes from levels 1-9 that branch off into 8 advanced classes at rank 10. You've pretty much got all your bases covered with these classes. The 8 classes might sound good at first, but based on what I've seen and heard so far, there doesn't seem to be much that will diversify your Sorceror from someone else's Sorceror.
The answer to this is supposed to be Stigma stones. By rank 50, each character will have 5 Stigma slots where you can equip the stones. Each stone grants you an ability of a different class. This sounds neat on the surface and could work as long as there are many different options and no uber stones that everyone will want to wear.
Progression
From what I've see, progression is quite basic and quest-driven. This wouldn't be so bad if the quests weren't of the boring kill-ten-rats/collect-ten-foozles/delivery variety. The stories are interesting if you actually read them, but most people won't. The epic campaign stories are best of all, however, the tasks never stray far from the same boring forumula. Here's hoping they get better at later levels.
Mob grinding is actually quite a viable strategy in Aion. I was getting 3,000-4,000xp per quest and killing mobs that were giving me 700xp each. It may not be terribly exciting, but I'd probably progress faster if I simply skipped all the non-campaign quests and set up camp somewhere to grind.
As for PvP progression, I'm not entirely sure if killing players grants XP or not. The wiki doesn't say it does, so I'll lean toward no. If not, that really sucks. The Abyss PvPvE zone is supposedly an area with the best quests, gear, raids, and PvP combat. You can't enter this zone until you're level 25, so it's going to be a lot of boring and repetitive quests or grinding until you get there.
On the plus side (for me), I've heard that Aion actually forces you to group. Apparently, you can't complete your epic quest chains beyond rank 20 solo because the mobs and encounters are simply too difficult. This supposedly changes the dynamic of the game in the middle to upper half because players must socialize if they wish to advance in the best way.
PvP
I mentioned the Abyss above, which is a giant open PvP zone. I haven't been able to test it myself, but I hear it's the place to be. Also, there is no bolstering effect (Warhammer reference) so you're sure to encounter people higher level and better geared than you. I'm not quite sure how much difference a single level makes in terms of power, but I doubt you could take on someone more than 2 levels above you without a lot of skill, gear, or chance. I actually like this system and wasn't a fan of WAR's bolstering. Call me oldschool if you like, but if you're a lowbie, you shouldn't be artificially boosted so you can compete with the big boys - sorry.
I did get to play in the arena though. The arena is located in your capital city where you and/or your group can fight against others from your same realm. It really puts the organization on the player, which is kind of cool for a change. From what I can tell, it's a total free for all in the arena unless you form groups. That means everyone is an enemy if you go in solo and everyone not in your group is an enemy if you enter grouped. You don't really get much in the arena except practice from what I can tell.
I'm not sure if there's a way to remove auto-follow but attacking a player automatically sticks you to them so you move when they do. This is a bit annoying in ground combat if you try to use twitch movements but it's very helpful for aerial combat because of the extra z-axis you have to worry about. Actually, it's quite reminiscent of the /stick command from DAOC. I used to be a big fan of it back in the day but years of WoW, WAR, and other MMOs untrained me. I could probably get used to it again.
The action is quite smooth and fast-paced but maybe that's because I'm playing a melee char. Casters and hybrids have mana but pure melee characters do not have any form of action/energy to worry about. You have few abilities at the lower levels, so cooldowns are extremely limiting but may become less so as you gain a wider variety of skills in your arsenal.
I didn't do any PvP with my sorceror but my Assassin was killing squishies in 3ish hits if I was lucky with crits. I'm not sure how this will translate at higher levels.
Flight
Flight and gliding are pretty cool and many of the quests require that you use your wings. It does suck that there are a bunch of no-fly zones all over the place, but I guess it makes sense from a gameplay perspective even if you do feel a bit ridiculous running along some long and annoying path when you know you have perfectly good wings that the game is forcing you to tuck away. At least the Abyss has no flight restrictions.
I had a chance to do some mid-air PvP in the arena and it was pretty cool. Using your flight timer strategically will be key to preventing your victims from easily escaping. It was a bit frustrating as an assassin when I was out of points in my flight pool and a Sorceror escaped at nearly no life and began pelting me from the air. Gotta invest in a bow!
Conclusion (for now)
I'm still a bit undecided on whether or not I'm going to really enjoy Aion when it releases. The progression seems like it's on a very narrow railway track with a huge focus on PvE, which might be fine the first time through but not so much when you want to make an alt. The PvP sounds cool but I've yet to give it a good test drive in the Abyss, which is the only place that really interests me. I'm a bit miffed that you can't PvP until level 25 (sans duels and the arena), but I'm not disapoointed at the lack of a scenario/battleground system, which really hurt WAR at launch.
I've heard grumblings that there aren't really incentives to capture the fortresses in the Abyss and I'm hoping they don't opt for too many individual rewards because that really sends the message of "me me me" to PvP players. The PvPvE system seems cool. You basically have two player factions duking it out and a third NPC faction as the (hopefully) great balancer.
My biggest complaint about the game is the total lack of imagination when it comes to PvE. I've only experienced PvE up to level 13 but I found it pretty boring. Kill these. Collect those. Deliver this. Lots of travel time. Rinse. Repeat. Maybe PvE is simply boring, stale, and repetitive to me by its very nature. I could accept that as long as there is some way to progress via PvP. Like I said, I'm not sure if you can XP off players or if there will be Kill X Player quests, but I hope so. At the very least, PvEing in the Abyss should carry some sort of extra risk. Hopefully, that will spice things up. I'd better pick my main carefully though because I doubt I'll have the endurance to make an alt and bring it through the same crap all over again.
I will continue to play Beta because aside from Global Agenda, there really aren't any MMOs on my radar right now. I've still got my WAR account but I have no intentions of logging back into that game any time soon. I just can't handle the terrible bugs and performance issues (over 300 items in the dev tracker since patch 1.3...) and the endgame is completely "meh" to me. I think WAR might be a great game in another 6-12 months. It just isn't there yet for me.
You can read these sorts of pieces all over the web so I'll try keep mine short and sweet and focused purely on what caught my attention.
Character Creation
Character creation is pretty sick in Aion. The basic look for each faction could be considered half-elven and half-human but the various customization tools allow you to look like almost anything that resembles a human. I've seen gnome/halflings, giants, dwarves, humans, elves, and a number of other typical fantasy races come out of the creator. You can't make yourself look reptilian, wolf-like, or cat-like or anything like that because it would break the lore.
My primary concern with character creation as of right now is that you can make your character too small, which will give you a significant advantage in PvP. One could argue that click-targeters are bound to fail at PvP anyway, but it's still annoying to see a tiny sprite of a person run around really quickly. I'm all for giving a smaller person a terrain advantage, but dropping the height and weight sliders all the way to zero makes you really tiny compared to the average size and I have a feeling everyone serious about PvP is going to go this route. That's going to be lame.
Graphics and Performance
You've heard it before. The graphics are stunning. I had all the in-game settings cranked to max and was still pushing 60-90 FPS most of the time. I have yet to test this in large scale battle but a few 4v4 arena fights ran quite smoothly. Hopefully, the Abyss fortress raids run just as good. I wasn't sure if I would like the "anime" graphics initially but the atmosphere, animations, emotes, character models, and anything else you can think of graphically made me a believer.
Classes
There are four basic classes from levels 1-9 that branch off into 8 advanced classes at rank 10. You've pretty much got all your bases covered with these classes. The 8 classes might sound good at first, but based on what I've seen and heard so far, there doesn't seem to be much that will diversify your Sorceror from someone else's Sorceror.
The answer to this is supposed to be Stigma stones. By rank 50, each character will have 5 Stigma slots where you can equip the stones. Each stone grants you an ability of a different class. This sounds neat on the surface and could work as long as there are many different options and no uber stones that everyone will want to wear.
Progression
From what I've see, progression is quite basic and quest-driven. This wouldn't be so bad if the quests weren't of the boring kill-ten-rats/collect-ten-foozles/delivery variety. The stories are interesting if you actually read them, but most people won't. The epic campaign stories are best of all, however, the tasks never stray far from the same boring forumula. Here's hoping they get better at later levels.
Mob grinding is actually quite a viable strategy in Aion. I was getting 3,000-4,000xp per quest and killing mobs that were giving me 700xp each. It may not be terribly exciting, but I'd probably progress faster if I simply skipped all the non-campaign quests and set up camp somewhere to grind.
As for PvP progression, I'm not entirely sure if killing players grants XP or not. The wiki doesn't say it does, so I'll lean toward no. If not, that really sucks. The Abyss PvPvE zone is supposedly an area with the best quests, gear, raids, and PvP combat. You can't enter this zone until you're level 25, so it's going to be a lot of boring and repetitive quests or grinding until you get there.
On the plus side (for me), I've heard that Aion actually forces you to group. Apparently, you can't complete your epic quest chains beyond rank 20 solo because the mobs and encounters are simply too difficult. This supposedly changes the dynamic of the game in the middle to upper half because players must socialize if they wish to advance in the best way.
PvP
I mentioned the Abyss above, which is a giant open PvP zone. I haven't been able to test it myself, but I hear it's the place to be. Also, there is no bolstering effect (Warhammer reference) so you're sure to encounter people higher level and better geared than you. I'm not quite sure how much difference a single level makes in terms of power, but I doubt you could take on someone more than 2 levels above you without a lot of skill, gear, or chance. I actually like this system and wasn't a fan of WAR's bolstering. Call me oldschool if you like, but if you're a lowbie, you shouldn't be artificially boosted so you can compete with the big boys - sorry.
I did get to play in the arena though. The arena is located in your capital city where you and/or your group can fight against others from your same realm. It really puts the organization on the player, which is kind of cool for a change. From what I can tell, it's a total free for all in the arena unless you form groups. That means everyone is an enemy if you go in solo and everyone not in your group is an enemy if you enter grouped. You don't really get much in the arena except practice from what I can tell.
I'm not sure if there's a way to remove auto-follow but attacking a player automatically sticks you to them so you move when they do. This is a bit annoying in ground combat if you try to use twitch movements but it's very helpful for aerial combat because of the extra z-axis you have to worry about. Actually, it's quite reminiscent of the /stick command from DAOC. I used to be a big fan of it back in the day but years of WoW, WAR, and other MMOs untrained me. I could probably get used to it again.
The action is quite smooth and fast-paced but maybe that's because I'm playing a melee char. Casters and hybrids have mana but pure melee characters do not have any form of action/energy to worry about. You have few abilities at the lower levels, so cooldowns are extremely limiting but may become less so as you gain a wider variety of skills in your arsenal.
I didn't do any PvP with my sorceror but my Assassin was killing squishies in 3ish hits if I was lucky with crits. I'm not sure how this will translate at higher levels.
Flight
Flight and gliding are pretty cool and many of the quests require that you use your wings. It does suck that there are a bunch of no-fly zones all over the place, but I guess it makes sense from a gameplay perspective even if you do feel a bit ridiculous running along some long and annoying path when you know you have perfectly good wings that the game is forcing you to tuck away. At least the Abyss has no flight restrictions.
I had a chance to do some mid-air PvP in the arena and it was pretty cool. Using your flight timer strategically will be key to preventing your victims from easily escaping. It was a bit frustrating as an assassin when I was out of points in my flight pool and a Sorceror escaped at nearly no life and began pelting me from the air. Gotta invest in a bow!
Conclusion (for now)
I'm still a bit undecided on whether or not I'm going to really enjoy Aion when it releases. The progression seems like it's on a very narrow railway track with a huge focus on PvE, which might be fine the first time through but not so much when you want to make an alt. The PvP sounds cool but I've yet to give it a good test drive in the Abyss, which is the only place that really interests me. I'm a bit miffed that you can't PvP until level 25 (sans duels and the arena), but I'm not disapoointed at the lack of a scenario/battleground system, which really hurt WAR at launch.
I've heard grumblings that there aren't really incentives to capture the fortresses in the Abyss and I'm hoping they don't opt for too many individual rewards because that really sends the message of "me me me" to PvP players. The PvPvE system seems cool. You basically have two player factions duking it out and a third NPC faction as the (hopefully) great balancer.
My biggest complaint about the game is the total lack of imagination when it comes to PvE. I've only experienced PvE up to level 13 but I found it pretty boring. Kill these. Collect those. Deliver this. Lots of travel time. Rinse. Repeat. Maybe PvE is simply boring, stale, and repetitive to me by its very nature. I could accept that as long as there is some way to progress via PvP. Like I said, I'm not sure if you can XP off players or if there will be Kill X Player quests, but I hope so. At the very least, PvEing in the Abyss should carry some sort of extra risk. Hopefully, that will spice things up. I'd better pick my main carefully though because I doubt I'll have the endurance to make an alt and bring it through the same crap all over again.
I will continue to play Beta because aside from Global Agenda, there really aren't any MMOs on my radar right now. I've still got my WAR account but I have no intentions of logging back into that game any time soon. I just can't handle the terrible bugs and performance issues (over 300 items in the dev tracker since patch 1.3...) and the endgame is completely "meh" to me. I think WAR might be a great game in another 6-12 months. It just isn't there yet for me.
I feel the same way about WAR, btw. It makes me sad, because there are parts of the game I really miss (like my guildies on PT destro), but I just can't handle the bugs anymore. :(
A couple of points for ya:
1. Small characters having a small hit box has been patched out of the game in the Korean client. Now all targets have the same hit box, so there is no advantage in having an extremely small character. This should alleviate that problem quite a bit.
2. You CAN disable the auto-follow feature, it is in options. Makes the game a lot better in my opinion.
3. The world opens up a lot as you level. It seems like its on rails early but, from all I have seen, opens up tremendously.
I remember reading on aionsource that xp for pvp got patched into the korean client so perhaps from 25 and up you can progress that way
Have to disagree with you about Bolster. It at least makes you competitive rather than fodder.
The Abyss is looking to be even more PvE focused than WAR. Abyss Points from NPC's + Death Penalty = A lot of people avoiding PvP in the zone
I guess we'll find out in August though :)
The smaller character thing is a non-issue - all characters have the same sized hit box.
Re: the bolster effect. If there are areas for lower levels to fight in RvR and areas where high levels will fight, a bolster effect is not as mandatory. If it's a giant free-for-all though, you have low level characters routinely pitted against high level where neither side has any chance to affect the outcome of the fight. That loss of interactivity is poor game design.
Sure, it works for you if you're the type who likes to grind a lot of PvE, but it's not best for the majority of people.
Re: the auto-follow thing. Guild Wars had this, and I don't think I can ever play a melee character without it. I find melee really irritating when people can strafe around willy-nilly and mess with you hitting them due to lag. In a real life melee situation, anybody trying to pull that kind of crap would be clipped upside the ears rather quickly ;)
Re: motivations to PvP in the abyss. I hope there's very little in the way of motivation in terms of gear. I hope they make it (relative to other MMO's) easy to gear up to be competitive so that there's no need. Whenever a game gives gear rewards, the gear rewards take over, and people take actions to maximize their acquisition of gear. When you take that away, people actually play to win and the game is much more compelling (see Guild Wars for that one too, compared with something with laughable PvP like WoW).
oh and 1 thing you really think war will gt another 6-12 months with the new MMO merger? cause i don't see it lol
Beyond that, reading your preview made me want to renew my WAR subscription. I loved that you could level up in RvR. Any game that lacks this is behind the curve imo.
Looking forward to some big abyss fortress battles when I get level 50