ok, srsly, next time play the game before speding so much time talking about stuff you clearly do not even understand. EVERY game has RNG, it might not be the chance to stun, but its the chance to crit for example.
and complaining about long cooldown abilities, srsly? do you even have a clue what those do? oh I see, you just want to be able to spam the same uber skill over and over again kinda makes half your post redundant
I would really enjoy having the PvP content available earlier. Still as it stands it doesn't take long to get to 25, so hopefully that won't be too bad.
If Aion was going for an Arena, "e-sport", model like WoW than I would agree that RNG would want to be delt with. For a large scale game like it is though I don't really see it as a problem, even though I will say that I haven't had the chance to play a lot in regards to PvP. Still Lineage II had a lot of RNG in PvP, especially with lethal shots, abilities with low land rates and such and it is my favorite PvP MMO, and I also think it is (or at least was, idk) a quite balanced MMO.
As for the blue text, I've learned that there are only 8 possible slots (to be added in upcoming patch). This is another pet peeve I have with Aion: Lack of character customization. I've only found around 10 (11 for templar) listed stigma skills; that means that there are only 10 choose 8 possibilities for each class, which equals (10)*(9)/2 = 45. At first glance, that might seem like a lot, but the fact that they form an ordinal makes the most powerful stigmas in the later levels trivialize some of the early ones, reducing that number significantly. The irony is that there were MORE possibilities when there were fewer slots: 10 choose 4 is 210. While this might not seem intuitive, the reason is because the optimum for the number of choices is at n/2, so actually the degree of customization is decreasing when you increase the number of slots past that. Also when counting the number of things you can choose form a set, a lot of the smaller choices will be seen as the same one in larger sets.
The red text I agree with 100%: I think that is the core of the argument; this game, much like WAR, was intended for large group play and not so much solo.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Originally posted by //\//\oo Originally posted by Nadril
I do think that stigma stones are going to help.
If Aion was going for an Arena, "e-sport", model like WoW than I would agree that RNG would want to be delt with. For a large scale game like it is though I don't really see it as a problem, even though I will say that I haven't had the chance to play a lot in regards to PvP. Still Lineage II had a lot of RNG in PvP, especially with lethal shots, abilities with low land rates and such and it is my favorite PvP MMO, and I also think it is (or at least was, idk) a quite balanced MMO.
As for the blue text, I've learned that there are only 8 possible slots (to be added in upcoming patch). This is another pet peeve I have with Aion: Lack of character customization. I've only found around 10 (11 for templar) listed stigma skills; that means that there are only 10 choose 8 possibilities for each class, which equals (10)*(9)/2 = 45. At first glance, that might seem like a lot, but the fact that they form an ordinal makes the most powerful stigmas in the later levels trivialize some of the early ones, reducing that number significantly. The irony is that there were MORE possibilities when there were fewer slots: 10 choose 4 is 210. While this might not seem intuitive, the reason is because the optimum for the number of choices is at n/2, so actually the degree of customization is decreasing when you increase the number of slots past that. Also when counting the number of things you can choose form a set, a lot of the smaller choices will be seen as the same one in larger sets. The red text I agree with 100%: I think that is the core of the argument; this game, much like WAR, was intended for large group play and not so much solo.
As far as stigmas go you don't just use stigma skills, but stigma stones as well.
THIS is a list of stigma stones in the game (idk if it is all of them or not, or how up to date aion armory is). So it does actually have a lot more customability then you would think.
THIS is a list of stigma stones in the game (idk if it is all of them or not, or how up to date aion armory is). So it does actually have a lot more customability then you would think.
Turns out we were both wrong: The link provided showed the stones are the requirement to actually use the skills. I was wrong, however, about the skills being trivialized at later levels as there are clearly more powerful versions of the skills on the stones your link had.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Originally posted by //\//\oo Originally posted by Nadril
THIS is a list of stigma stones in the game (idk if it is all of them or not, or how up to date aion armory is). So it does actually have a lot more customability then you would think.
aion.onlinewelten.com/articles.php Turns out we were both wrong: The link provided showed the stones are the requirement to actually use the skills. I was wrong, however, about the skills being trivialized at later levels as there are clearly more powerful versions of the skills on the stones your link had.
Hmm ok, I kind of see. Of course I can't read German but I get the gist of what you are saying.
I kind of think you're putting too much emphasis on 1v1, where as Aion seems to be much more about larger fights. In that case a lot of skill comes from dealing with a bit of RNG. For one it kind of conflicts with your second point about fights all being the same, because the very definition of RNG means that there are going to be some "random" things happening in fights that players will have to react to. Unlike WoW Aion isn't build with something like small scale arena in mind. Obviously in WoW it makes much more sense to get rid of RNG, but part of the problem of that is it also starts to make fights more of math calculations then skill. If you know what is going to happen all the time it is much easier to think of a chain of events to use. Case in point players in WoW are very calculated in the arena, it is easy to get a very strong idea of what a player will do based on their class and spec choice (usually you can tell that by what gear they use). I know what a mutilate rogue is going to do, I know the rotation that a ret paladin is going to do, and I know the various things a disc priest are going to do.
The fights themselves aren't the same, the strategy and ability rotation is the same with RNG deciding the winner. Assassin vs Assassin video is perfect for showing this because it is mirrored matches, everyone uses the same skill rotation and who ever is the luckiest wins. Watch the first fight in the video, he lands every ability and kills him within less than 5seconds because of RNG.
u might have some good points there... but on the other hand both rogues uses the same build + weapons, rng based dodges, resists, (blocks) and crits plus neither of these games are based around 1v1 which ur only talking about. in fact wow is a 5year old polished PVE game while aion is a new PVPVE game. u cant really compare them and ur talking only about AION v1 not v1.5 which will be realsed as the game hits the west...
Pure speculations based on thoughts, no facts included. Might wanna wait with your trashing on a game when its been released and some people reached max level before you talk crap.
If you know that som skills are "random", and that and that, then the the end of the batle will not be teterment out of luck, but how the difrent players adapt to the "randomnes":D. IMo, the Randoms the might or might now happens is greait, all you realy need to conter it is a back upp plan, and skills to make em On the fly.
Wow pvp was way to easy that way, as stated befor, me as Caster know that when i see a rett pally or a rouge i might as well give upp, or worriors = easy kill,, no skills needed in wow pvp, just knowledge on how the difrent classes worked,
Originally posted by jflanden WoW isn't the holy grail, it''s just the game I am most familiar with and already has dealt with many of the issues that Aion has at the moment so I am using WoW as an example. Most people have played WoW, so using examples from that game will help people better understand the issues plaguing Aion.
I never played WoW, and this thread makes me glad that I never did.
WoW did this, WoW did that, WoW hit me with a wiffle ball bat.
Seriously man, you need to stop dissecting games so much and just play to have fun. This is just my opinion but I think you're taking mmorpg's way too seriously.
I love how someone makes a huge, long, thought-out post and all the fanbois come along and take one or two comments out of it and use those comments to attack the poster and their credibility....all the while ignoring all of the relevant information provided. I am sorry but this reminds me of the Age of Conan forums. Someone posts information with valid points criticizing the game and the fans ignore it and just make rude, insulting comments against the poster and ignore what was said. I don't agree or disagree with the OP simple because its pointless to at this point but I think its just sad that people rather insult the poster than try and refute his points. The community really needs to wake up and realize that many (not all) are becoming a major distraction for this game and is quickly becoming its biggest issue and will cause many not to play. Some people ask for basic information and the replies and comments are usually insults against the person asking the question than anyone trying to provide helpful info. Not everyone who hates Aion plays WOW, not everyone who hates Aion likes WOW, and for many of us who did play DAOC, Aion is FAR AND AWAY anything like DAOC. Its an insult to DAOC to even compare the two in my opinion.
I didn't think his criticisms were valid. It's how they do it. So he might not like it but it's not the first time an NC game utlizes random numbers.
Working as intended is not broken.
And though one might have valid criticisms about Aion, and there are certainly a lot of valid ones, it seems to me that many of the criticisms stem from the "I don't like it therefore it's broke" school of thought.
A better criticism would be "NC uses a random number generator but it doesn't work well and weights numbers thus". that would be an example of a valid criticism [which I made up but who knows] based upon how NC built Aion. But if someone feels that incorporating it is the game's downfall, then that is their opinion. They are welcome to it but I would't be surprised if they got some push back for that statement.
Of course, one doesn't have to like games that rely upon random numbers but I see it as the same as "omg, I hate dance music and all the clubs have it!!!".
My reply would be "don't go to the clubs".
Another example, if one doesn't like, for lack of a better word, "standard" mmos then of course one might not like Aion. And of course they are free to post thier opinion but it does not mean the game will fail or is broken. It does boggle the mind when people complain about that particular thing and NC always said that they were making a standard mmo. One can state their like or dislike but saying a game is broken or doesn't work or will fail based upon the idea that they just don't like something is a bit foolish in my opinion.
If Aion was filled with bugs and crashes all over the playce then yes, i can see someone saying it would fail. if Aion was aimed at the Hardcore audience then yes, I would say that Aion would fail to capture the Hardcore audience's attention.
So other than stating that something is not to one's taste, my thought would be "ok thanks for sharing". I would prefer people to make criticisms that were something other than " I don't like the color blue therefore the game 'blue world' is going to fail".
Saying that one hates pvp therefore Aion is not designed well because there is no way to absolutely avoid it, doesn't work. Saying that one only wants hardcore pvp therefore Aion will not work also "does not work".
Saying that Aion's world seems a bit linear and that IF the rest of the game continues that way then it will have a lesser feel of a world, seems apt and up for discussion.
Saying that the classes aren't balanced well and then showing examples works. Saying that the game is eastern flavor and therefore there are a lot of flashy effects and huge swords and therefore the game is crap is more a personal observation.
If one wants to criticize then take what NC wanted to make and has made and then decide, given those parameters, whether they were successful. That seems to be a better way to start off with criticisms.
So as I said before, NC utilizes random numbers. It is more than possible that this type of thing is intriguing to them. Therefore one might not like it but it is, most likely, working as intended.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I do think people complaining about RNG haven't really played Lineage II though. I mean, NCSoft managed to make it work quite well in that game and I'm sure it'll work in Aion as well.
And in some cases Lineage II RNG was even a bit worse.
I do think people complaining about RNG haven't really played Lineage II though. I mean, NCSoft managed to make it work quite well in that game and I'm sure it'll work in Aion as well. And in some cases Lineage II RNG was even a bit worse.
lol, yeah... I suppose it was in some cases.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I read through OP's post word for word since it was well organized. However, I have to point out that there are many general ideas that the OP spoke of are either incorrect or very personally biased.
OP pointed out the game relies quite a bit on randomness on skills.
Yes that is true, I played the beta and tried all kinds of jobs including Assassin which have alot of their skills based on random chance. However, that is how Assassin is designed to work and not allow assassin to stun lock someone by spamming skills. Another reason why this is a game design is the higher level godstone and manastone that can improve stun chance. Yet another worhty note on stun is that, some stun will very likely to go off on certain conditions such as carved seal explosion's stun rate rises if you have high amount of seals carved into the enemy when executing it.
True the combo doesn't vary, but it is not designed to vary. Combos are designed so that damage are dealt in bursts and not in one shot. Stopping an enemy combo and anticipate their combo is a part of PvP. Which is why alot of frontline jobs have skills that force a one time 100% evade/block/parry enemy attack and a counter skill to stop the enemy from executing the full combo.
On the issue of interrupting spell casting. Yes, sometimes hitting a casting enemy sometimes will interrupt their cast, but I do not see anything wrong with it. (BTW, critical hits will interrupt the spell cast very well, which is another game design)
Yes skills can miss, there is no such thing as a 100% hit. Evasion and accuracy sets apart the character classes. Assassins are designed to have high accuracy and evasion. However as I said before, there are alot of skills that can be used at the right time to reduce a skill's damage or nullify it all together. This is Aion's combat design, it is actually more complex than just simply compare whose skill is more powerful. If someone is skilled enough, they can for example use the 1 time evade skill as the enemy is executing a knockdown/aerial siege skill after certain combo. Due to there are previous chain skills that were used, there are clues that certain skill might be coming. However, since there are alot of different single use skills that can be thrown in to prevent the enemy from reading your chain or throw in extra normal attack to throw the enemy off, it is not always readable.
PvP fight can take a while later on. It only ends fast if you allow enemy to execute their most powerful combos without trying to interrupt them. Yes this PvP system is not about pure stats, there are some luck elements to it, but it is not a dice roll like the OP stated, it is much more complex and based on when a skill is executed and how it is executed. (Player skill anyone?) If you want a unblockable/undodgable deathray, I suggest looking into other games that doesn't care about balance.
Well after vanguard, aoc and warhammer, Aion is the most polished/balanced game we are going to play (IMHO). AFAIK Aion's balance is based one the large scale rvr. I'm not a fanboy of aion and i pretty much hate the anime style graphics, and all those cute looking monsters you have to kill. The thing i'm looking for is the ORVR area, Abyss, that we are going to see within t he next cb phase.
To the OP about balance in other games: i'm curently playing WAR and i'm playing an bw, with my guild group of 6 we can wipe 1-2WB's without any to big problems, we are all rr70+.
In playing many games over the past few years all I can say is people should try a game based on their decisions and not base it on forum posts , many people come here to bash games or give there opinions "which are just that " their opinions . I am not sure how Aion will turn out all I know is that I have a copy and so far am enjoying the perks of beta's every two weeks , NO game is going to be perfect in the beginning and with time classes that are OP usally get nerfed , and weaker ones get buffed up .
Lineage 2 was one game that went through many changes , I remember at lvl 4 getting owned on noob isle many times buy lvl 21 rangers yes I can say it was very anoying but tbh it brought people together it gave you a reason to be a member of a clan to have that protection so that your clan members would come out and take care of that 21 ranger , dungeons were nasty people would heal mobs and train a whole dungeon to kill a group of players trying to lvl up . The drop rate in that game was .0000007 on most items, so when you got an item and someone killed you it was a pretty nasty loss .. but it made it a challenge, many of those things that I actually enjoyed were changed over time and unless you turned red you didn't lose items but games evolve to what the masses like and if they don't usually there isn't a recovery and people move on .
As for wow ...In games now people move from guild to guild there is no ties to keep people there and after Ulduar your gear is usless anyways =D cause there is bigger and better coming in the next patch besides it takes 3 warlocks (immolate conflagrate hmmm didn't touch him lol , oh crap how many pets do they get =P) to kill a DK cause they are soo OP but im sure they will get a buff next patch them devs seem to like them XD, personally I loved that game pre b.c when world pvp brought guilds together , anyone remember southshore ? flying in to die at the flightmaster lol... the fights were amazing and you could literally spend hours fighting back and forth... Pallys well again them devs seem to luv them bubble ftw /stun = interesting fight
Vanguard .. bugs bugs and more bugs , oh and lack of content , besides working on a quest for days to get legendary items to find it gets nerfed in half is interesting to say the least
AoC... Actually I loved my TOS in this game it was so OP in the beginning it wasn't even funny im sure you could get to 80 in a week solo lol , but overall the gems in this game killed it for many and the bugs or lack of end game content /castle seiges was a bit frustrating
Warhammer = Scenarion hammer , great looking game just the constant running back from noob land as a chicken after a server crash from too many lowbs in the pvp area's got a bit old but seeing over 200 people as chickens was worth the cost of the game haha.
I guess my point is , you can wait and wonder if a game will be good but unless you try it you will never know as for skills they are constantly evolveing so I wouldn't count on anything staying the same post your likes and dislikes maybe it will change
Nobody gave damn about it on Aionsource and no one cares on MMORPG.COM. You need to try hard dude.
yeah that's why this thread has 1,500+ views cause nobody cares...oh wait.
But anyway yes the wide random numbers seem a bit strange (snare for 4-16 seconds?). But remember in WoW there is a lot of randomness too, crit chance for example. No fight is ever really the same especially if you work in teams.
I agree with the OP that all of those things you brought up are problems (save the RNG) but that doesn't ruin the game for me. Like you said WOW fixed those problems, maybe AION will. Nevertheless playing WOW now is like playing an atari game, its classic but fun now only in minute doses.
RNG is good for the masses and helps balance out fights to be more fun for everyone then just the young sober dudes *yea i like to get a little #$#cked up before i play sometimes*...
In my opinion AOC and SWG had the best combat system in place, though AOC fights ended to fast. I loved SWG's random weapon RNG based on crafted loot and the random chance of an extrmley good weapon dropping WITHOUT logging hundreds of hours of raiding or playing.
But AION makes up for its faults in many ways. I'll definitley give it a shot
Comments
tl;dr :P
ok, srsly, next time play the game before speding so much time talking about stuff you clearly do not even understand. EVERY game has RNG, it might not be the chance to stun, but its the chance to crit for example.
and complaining about long cooldown abilities, srsly? do you even have a clue what those do? oh I see, you just want to be able to spam the same uber skill over and over again
kinda makes half your post redundant
I would really enjoy having the PvP content available earlier. Still as it stands it doesn't take long to get to 25, so hopefully that won't be too bad.
I do think that stigma stones are going to help.
If Aion was going for an Arena, "e-sport", model like WoW than I would agree that RNG would want to be delt with. For a large scale game like it is though I don't really see it as a problem, even though I will say that I haven't had the chance to play a lot in regards to PvP. Still Lineage II had a lot of RNG in PvP, especially with lethal shots, abilities with low land rates and such and it is my favorite PvP MMO, and I also think it is (or at least was, idk) a quite balanced MMO.
As for the blue text, I've learned that there are only 8 possible slots (to be added in upcoming patch). This is another pet peeve I have with Aion: Lack of character customization. I've only found around 10 (11 for templar) listed stigma skills; that means that there are only 10 choose 8 possibilities for each class, which equals (10)*(9)/2 = 45. At first glance, that might seem like a lot, but the fact that they form an ordinal makes the most powerful stigmas in the later levels trivialize some of the early ones, reducing that number significantly. The irony is that there were MORE possibilities when there were fewer slots: 10 choose 4 is 210. While this might not seem intuitive, the reason is because the optimum for the number of choices is at n/2, so actually the degree of customization is decreasing when you increase the number of slots past that. Also when counting the number of things you can choose form a set, a lot of the smaller choices will be seen as the same one in larger sets.
The red text I agree with 100%: I think that is the core of the argument; this game, much like WAR, was intended for large group play and not so much solo.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
If Aion was going for an Arena, "e-sport", model like WoW than I would agree that RNG would want to be delt with. For a large scale game like it is though I don't really see it as a problem, even though I will say that I haven't had the chance to play a lot in regards to PvP. Still Lineage II had a lot of RNG in PvP, especially with lethal shots, abilities with low land rates and such and it is my favorite PvP MMO, and I also think it is (or at least was, idk) a quite balanced MMO.
As for the blue text, I've learned that there are only 8 possible slots (to be added in upcoming patch). This is another pet peeve I have with Aion: Lack of character customization. I've only found around 10 (11 for templar) listed stigma skills; that means that there are only 10 choose 8 possibilities for each class, which equals (10)*(9)/2 = 45. At first glance, that might seem like a lot, but the fact that they form an ordinal makes the most powerful stigmas in the later levels trivialize some of the early ones, reducing that number significantly. The irony is that there were MORE possibilities when there were fewer slots: 10 choose 4 is 210. While this might not seem intuitive, the reason is because the optimum for the number of choices is at n/2, so actually the degree of customization is decreasing when you increase the number of slots past that. Also when counting the number of things you can choose form a set, a lot of the smaller choices will be seen as the same one in larger sets.
The red text I agree with 100%: I think that is the core of the argument; this game, much like WAR, was intended for large group play and not so much solo.
As far as stigmas go you don't just use stigma skills, but stigma stones as well.
THIS is a list of stigma stones in the game (idk if it is all of them or not, or how up to date aion armory is). So it does actually have a lot more customability then you would think.
THIS is a list of stigma stones in the game (idk if it is all of them or not, or how up to date aion armory is). So it does actually have a lot more customability then you would think.
aion.onlinewelten.com/articles.php
Turns out we were both wrong: The link provided showed the stones are the requirement to actually use the skills. I was wrong, however, about the skills being trivialized at later levels as there are clearly more powerful versions of the skills on the stones your link had.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
aion.onlinewelten.com/articles.php
Turns out we were both wrong: The link provided showed the stones are the requirement to actually use the skills. I was wrong, however, about the skills being trivialized at later levels as there are clearly more powerful versions of the skills on the stones your link had.
Hmm ok, I kind of see. Of course I can't read German but I get the gist of what you are saying.
There are tools that allow you translate any webpage to almost any language with a push of a button. I use one myself on Firefox.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
e..
Wellcome to RPG games?
Sure you know RPG games are originated on tabletop, and are played with DICE's.
Luck is the fusake base of RPG games. There are RPG games that even have Luck as any stat ( like Strengh, Wisdow) ...think Critics as a stat.
RPG games are not fair, sports are fair, games like FPS's are somewhat fair, but don't make sense for RPG game to be fair.
You (and all these high-end pvp players) are tryiing to use RPG games like a e-sport, and is not, and can't be!ç
OP = EPIC FAIL
The fights themselves aren't the same, the strategy and ability rotation is the same with RNG deciding the winner. Assassin vs Assassin video is perfect for showing this because it is mirrored matches, everyone uses the same skill rotation and who ever is the luckiest wins. Watch the first fight in the video, he lands every ability and kills him within less than 5seconds because of RNG.
u might have some good points there... but on the other hand both rogues uses the same build + weapons, rng based dodges, resists, (blocks) and crits plus neither of these games are based around 1v1 which ur only talking about. in fact wow is a 5year old polished PVE game while aion is a new PVPVE game. u cant really compare them and ur talking only about AION v1 not v1.5 which will be realsed as the game hits the west...
www.aionsource.com/forum/general-discussion/20946-patch-notes-v1-5-update-shadow-balaur.html
and why are u trying to trash talk this game as much as possible? if u dont like dont play it...
Pure speculations based on thoughts, no facts included. Might wanna wait with your trashing on a game when its been released and some people reached max level before you talk crap.
If you know that som skills are "random", and that and that, then the the end of the batle will not be teterment out of luck, but how the difrent players adapt to the "randomnes":D. IMo, the Randoms the might or might now happens is greait, all you realy need to conter it is a back upp plan, and skills to make em On the fly.
Wow pvp was way to easy that way, as stated befor, me as Caster know that when i see a rett pally or a rouge i might as well give upp, or worriors = easy kill,, no skills needed in wow pvp, just knowledge on how the difrent classes worked,
I WANT A SCI-FI MMO!! (NOT EVE, or Fom, or FE)
I never played WoW, and this thread makes me glad that I never did.
WoW did this, WoW did that, WoW hit me with a wiffle ball bat.
Seriously man, you need to stop dissecting games so much and just play to have fun. This is just my opinion but I think you're taking mmorpg's way too seriously.
I didn't think his criticisms were valid. It's how they do it. So he might not like it but it's not the first time an NC game utlizes random numbers.
Working as intended is not broken.
And though one might have valid criticisms about Aion, and there are certainly a lot of valid ones, it seems to me that many of the criticisms stem from the "I don't like it therefore it's broke" school of thought.
A better criticism would be "NC uses a random number generator but it doesn't work well and weights numbers thus". that would be an example of a valid criticism [which I made up but who knows] based upon how NC built Aion. But if someone feels that incorporating it is the game's downfall, then that is their opinion. They are welcome to it but I would't be surprised if they got some push back for that statement.
Of course, one doesn't have to like games that rely upon random numbers but I see it as the same as "omg, I hate dance music and all the clubs have it!!!".
My reply would be "don't go to the clubs".
Another example, if one doesn't like, for lack of a better word, "standard" mmos then of course one might not like Aion. And of course they are free to post thier opinion but it does not mean the game will fail or is broken. It does boggle the mind when people complain about that particular thing and NC always said that they were making a standard mmo. One can state their like or dislike but saying a game is broken or doesn't work or will fail based upon the idea that they just don't like something is a bit foolish in my opinion.
If Aion was filled with bugs and crashes all over the playce then yes, i can see someone saying it would fail. if Aion was aimed at the Hardcore audience then yes, I would say that Aion would fail to capture the Hardcore audience's attention.
So other than stating that something is not to one's taste, my thought would be "ok thanks for sharing". I would prefer people to make criticisms that were something other than " I don't like the color blue therefore the game 'blue world' is going to fail".
Saying that one hates pvp therefore Aion is not designed well because there is no way to absolutely avoid it, doesn't work. Saying that one only wants hardcore pvp therefore Aion will not work also "does not work".
Saying that Aion's world seems a bit linear and that IF the rest of the game continues that way then it will have a lesser feel of a world, seems apt and up for discussion.
Saying that the classes aren't balanced well and then showing examples works. Saying that the game is eastern flavor and therefore there are a lot of flashy effects and huge swords and therefore the game is crap is more a personal observation.
If one wants to criticize then take what NC wanted to make and has made and then decide, given those parameters, whether they were successful. That seems to be a better way to start off with criticisms.
So as I said before, NC utilizes random numbers. It is more than possible that this type of thing is intriguing to them. Therefore one might not like it but it is, most likely, working as intended.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I do think people complaining about RNG haven't really played Lineage II though. I mean, NCSoft managed to make it work quite well in that game and I'm sure it'll work in Aion as well.
And in some cases Lineage II RNG was even a bit worse.
lol, yeah... I suppose it was in some cases.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I read through OP's post word for word since it was well organized. However, I have to point out that there are many general ideas that the OP spoke of are either incorrect or very personally biased.
OP pointed out the game relies quite a bit on randomness on skills.
Yes that is true, I played the beta and tried all kinds of jobs including Assassin which have alot of their skills based on random chance. However, that is how Assassin is designed to work and not allow assassin to stun lock someone by spamming skills. Another reason why this is a game design is the higher level godstone and manastone that can improve stun chance. Yet another worhty note on stun is that, some stun will very likely to go off on certain conditions such as carved seal explosion's stun rate rises if you have high amount of seals carved into the enemy when executing it.
True the combo doesn't vary, but it is not designed to vary. Combos are designed so that damage are dealt in bursts and not in one shot. Stopping an enemy combo and anticipate their combo is a part of PvP. Which is why alot of frontline jobs have skills that force a one time 100% evade/block/parry enemy attack and a counter skill to stop the enemy from executing the full combo.
On the issue of interrupting spell casting. Yes, sometimes hitting a casting enemy sometimes will interrupt their cast, but I do not see anything wrong with it. (BTW, critical hits will interrupt the spell cast very well, which is another game design)
Yes skills can miss, there is no such thing as a 100% hit. Evasion and accuracy sets apart the character classes. Assassins are designed to have high accuracy and evasion. However as I said before, there are alot of skills that can be used at the right time to reduce a skill's damage or nullify it all together. This is Aion's combat design, it is actually more complex than just simply compare whose skill is more powerful. If someone is skilled enough, they can for example use the 1 time evade skill as the enemy is executing a knockdown/aerial siege skill after certain combo. Due to there are previous chain skills that were used, there are clues that certain skill might be coming. However, since there are alot of different single use skills that can be thrown in to prevent the enemy from reading your chain or throw in extra normal attack to throw the enemy off, it is not always readable.
PvP fight can take a while later on. It only ends fast if you allow enemy to execute their most powerful combos without trying to interrupt them. Yes this PvP system is not about pure stats, there are some luck elements to it, but it is not a dice roll like the OP stated, it is much more complex and based on when a skill is executed and how it is executed. (Player skill anyone?) If you want a unblockable/undodgable deathray, I suggest looking into other games that doesn't care about balance.
Oh my gosh, what a post, you should become a writer for MMORPG.
But, the point is, your points are wonderful! Even though Aion sucks, it is fun, with constant updates, and awesome! I love it.
Summary:
If its not like WoW, it has to be changed to WoW.
Well after vanguard, aoc and warhammer, Aion is the most polished/balanced game we are going to play (IMHO). AFAIK Aion's balance is based one the large scale rvr. I'm not a fanboy of aion and i pretty much hate the anime style graphics, and all those cute looking monsters you have to kill. The thing i'm looking for is the ORVR area, Abyss, that we are going to see within t he next cb phase.
To the OP about balance in other games: i'm curently playing WAR and i'm playing an bw, with my guild group of 6 we can wipe 1-2WB's without any to big problems, we are all rr70+.
In playing many games over the past few years all I can say is people should try a game based on their decisions and not base it on forum posts , many people come here to bash games or give there opinions "which are just that " their opinions . I am not sure how Aion will turn out all I know is that I have a copy and so far am enjoying the perks of beta's every two weeks , NO game is going to be perfect in the beginning and with time classes that are OP usally get nerfed , and weaker ones get buffed up .
Lineage 2 was one game that went through many changes , I remember at lvl 4 getting owned on noob isle many times buy lvl 21 rangers yes I can say it was very anoying but tbh it brought people together it gave you a reason to be a member of a clan to have that protection so that your clan members would come out and take care of that 21 ranger , dungeons were nasty people would heal mobs and train a whole dungeon to kill a group of players trying to lvl up . The drop rate in that game was .0000007 on most items, so when you got an item and someone killed you it was a pretty nasty loss .. but it made it a challenge, many of those things that I actually enjoyed were changed over time and unless you turned red you didn't lose items but games evolve to what the masses like and if they don't usually there isn't a recovery and people move on .
As for wow ...In games now people move from guild to guild there is no ties to keep people there and after Ulduar your gear is usless anyways =D cause there is bigger and better coming in the next patch besides it takes 3 warlocks (immolate conflagrate hmmm didn't touch him lol , oh crap how many pets do they get =P) to kill a DK cause they are soo OP but im sure they will get a buff next patch them devs seem to like them XD, personally I loved that game pre b.c when world pvp brought guilds together , anyone remember southshore ? flying in to die at the flightmaster lol... the fights were amazing and you could literally spend hours fighting back and forth... Pallys well again them devs seem to luv them bubble ftw /stun = interesting fight
Vanguard .. bugs bugs and more bugs , oh and lack of content , besides working on a quest for days to get legendary items to find it gets nerfed in half is interesting to say the least
AoC... Actually I loved my TOS in this game it was so OP in the beginning it wasn't even funny im sure you could get to 80 in a week solo lol , but overall the gems in this game killed it for many and the bugs or lack of end game content /castle seiges was a bit frustrating
Warhammer = Scenarion hammer , great looking game just the constant running back from noob land as a chicken after a server crash from too many lowbs in the pvp area's got a bit old but seeing over 200 people as chickens was worth the cost of the game haha.
I guess my point is , you can wait and wonder if a game will be good but unless you try it you will never know
as for skills they are constantly evolveing so I wouldn't count on anything staying the same 
post your likes and dislikes maybe it will change 
yeah that's why this thread has 1,500+ views cause nobody cares...oh wait.
But anyway yes the wide random numbers seem a bit strange (snare for 4-16 seconds?). But remember in WoW there is a lot of randomness too, crit chance for example. No fight is ever really the same especially if you work in teams.
Aion sucks.. period. Sadly another cookie cutter mmo that brings nothing new to the mmo table more than wings and gay characters..
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
lol... I just had to look at your name and avatar to start laughing.
I agree with the OP that all of those things you brought up are problems (save the RNG) but that doesn't ruin the game for me. Like you said WOW fixed those problems, maybe AION will. Nevertheless playing WOW now is like playing an atari game, its classic but fun now only in minute doses.
RNG is good for the masses and helps balance out fights to be more fun for everyone then just the young sober dudes *yea i like to get a little #$#cked up before i play sometimes*...
In my opinion AOC and SWG had the best combat system in place, though AOC fights ended to fast. I loved SWG's random weapon RNG based on crafted loot and the random chance of an extrmley good weapon dropping WITHOUT logging hundreds of hours of raiding or playing.
But AION makes up for its faults in many ways. I'll definitley give it a shot