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Aion: Hey Look, I've Got Wings!
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Aion Correspondent John Price writes this very basic user's guide to wings in NCsoft's Aion, giving new players tips to flying and gliding their way to adventure.
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They're those feathered beauties plastered to your shoulder blades that magically sprout forth from the twisting aether once you have ascended past level ten. Apparently, you had them all along and just forgot they were there, which is understandable because when they're not in use they're nowhere to be seen. Here a few tips, tricks, and musings that can help you, the blossoming little Daeva that you are, keep from tumbling out of the nest and landing flat on your face.
Your wings are obviously one of the selling points of the game, and as such, it's advisable to get as comfortable with the controls as humanly possible so that you too can take to the skies and dogfight with the best of them. The controls, predictably, are quite customizable and you, the industrious tweaker that we all know you are, should feel more than welcome to change them completely. Page Up and Page Down are the default key bindings for take offs and landings and R & F are the defaults for rise and fall. From the moment I started playing the game I felt that rise and fall were much more fluid if done with the mouse alone by holding down the right mouse key, something the tutorials made no attempt to mention. Therefore, I switched around those two key bindings and now take off with R and land with F and have basically discarded the rise and fall bindings.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Probably the worst implementation of flight in a MMO to date. I certainly would not get excited about a feature that is so limiting in game.
I'd almost agree unfortunately. What's the point of flight if you can't really use it to go where you need to go and reduce travel time and expense.
they really missed a great marketing tie in wit hthe flight time potions
2 words
"Red Bull"
I liked being able to fly in PW def a fun thing to play around with.
Sad that, as this article says, Flight was a major selling point of the game.
And flight is limited.
Is limiting flight necessary for gameplay? No it certainly isn't.
City of Heroes and Champions Online pull flight+combat off quite well with numerous disadvantages and concerns for fighting whilst trying to fly etc. I understand that various other MMORPG have flight for players at an early level as well.
Aion could have introduced a mechanic where you can fly around for Travel purposes as long as you want, but flight in combat is limited, because after a certain time your attack powers shut off because you are too tired for example.
The way flight is represented in the game now makes it seem like a gimmick and nothing more than the old Carrot On A Stick type of mechanic from 1999 MMORPGs.
Complete, of course, with the requisite Time Sinks to grind out new wings or 12 second flight potions.
The fact that there are areas that seem as though they 'should' be explorable leads me to believe that perhaps Flight was once intended to be much more, but someone made a Business Decision to limit it and keep the game like a regular 2 Dimensional MMORPG...with a little hop and glide gimmick attached.
I understand that there is a strategic element to flight in the Abyss for PVP....but this could still exist whilst allowing normal flight. You would not lose strategic advantages/disadvantages to flight, it would simply be in a different form and could have been just as exciting.
But....I guess Business Decisions always win over Fun and player quality of life.
This disappointed me greatly with AION.
I've basically come to the conclusion that if the game is a AAA title, it will probably suck. I hope at least one of the AAA games I am looking forward to in the next year or so will break this mold, but I won't beat all shocked if they suck as well.
Indy games may not bring all the flashy next gen graphics and stuff, but at least the developers are not usually tied to some board full of suits who haven't played a game in their lives and are only concerned about extracting money, not delivering an interesting game. The masses will crap money out on any shiny thing they see, so you can't even really blame them.
Indy devs are more free to make decisions and be influenced by their niche user base. Sure, this can be good and bad, but I will gamble my money on an indy game over a AAA title these days.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
1. Most of your gaming time in Aion you will spend in the Abyss. Guess what? You can freely fly everywhere within the Abyss.
2. You can upgrade your wings, get gear and potions that extend your flight time extensively.
3. In all zones where you cannot fly, you can stil glide. Guess what? So far all the zones are very hilly and not flat. I have glide all over the place in every zone and it's actually more fun, then just pick off and fly whenever you want, wich get boring real quick. I see this gliding like a minigame wich is just fun! You actually have to think how you would like to travel through each zone and how you can do it most efficiently by making use of highest points within the zone and use glide.
Cheers
Therefore, I switched around those two key bindings and now take off with R and land with F and have basically discarded the rise and fall bindings.
There is one use for the rise function. Holding down rise while using the mouse to look down and move around makes it so that you can soar like a hawk, surveying the land below you for targets (whether that be resources, mobs, or someone to pvp).
I think u are not seeing the hole picture here , u can not fly everywere becouse .... if ppl could fly and fight while in the air they would use that to cheat and kill mobs from the air were they can not reach , it is done already near towns and it is a little help for low lvl to make some harder quests , and if they would have to implement flight all over they would have to change the mobs too and all the infrastructure of the game and the lore ( if u had read the lore you would know that the tower broke in big parts , that felt on the ground and those parts grand the ability to fly , and btw u can see the parts in every town ). Anyway i like it the way it is stop making false assumptions based on your wow experience , aion isn't wow and flull fligh would only transform it in an full time stupid recless ganking , wich is not verry enjoible ( even though u can get ganked even without flight becouse of the rifts ).
U are complaining about the transportation sistem and that u do not have money to use flight or teleport well that means u are bad at doing business , becouse i do not know about u but during ob i end up making arround 500.000 ingame currency not saying that i had almoust all the time best armour and wepon posible ( and that is pre lvl 25), and still had 125k left in my poket when the beta ended , so the money are easy to make , the transportation sistem is doing his job , but what can i say lazzy ppl want some way of getting to a place ( preferably boss/instance ) whithout getting their hands dirty
And if u remember first time wow lounched , no the first year wow lounched it had only a few tipe of mounts and almoust if not no way of travel except a few important teleport points
This is my opinion , and again if u do not like it do not play it if u like wow or other game that has tons of mounts ( perfect world) , go play that is simple.
LE: while in other games u can use your flying mount to go from town to werever u want and just fly with it in aion u can use your wings to escape or get an crucial pvp advantage, wich some times proves to be the turning point of an 1 vs 1 battle or more rvr scale battle, so the wings are primary designed for pvp not transportation ( and now let's be serious if u were a f... angel and you had to go to a place full with ppl would u fly there or just try to blend with the natives and not get to much attention but when the time comes use your wings and give divine punisment )
LE : 2 if u get to master gliding u can travel , catch up with your enemy verry fast is just a little harder at the beggining , i saw ppl who glided from town to almoust half of the map , but they did used flight time extension gear and pots
Geuss not many people really played the game, so thanks for sharing something that showsYOU played the game.
Like to add that I only became a Deava the last day of beta so my experiance is very limited, but even that limited I felt it was fun, I truly like the way you get tired, it feels real, I know many people do not want their game to feel real, and I am almost sure that NCSoft might dump it down to catter to those impatient people who try to play games in this genre as we see it done in almost every game where something might take abit of time people will complain cause they seem to want to play a game like a job and forgot how much more fun a MMORPG can be by not playing it like a job.
Also to be clear I never was excited for Aion before I actually tested the game in OB, hardly looked at news/previews or other info about the game, so I went in with hardly any expectations, for me this works best for entering MMORPG, I mean all those things developers say/promise and still people will swallow it like a christmas present to be only disappointed when the result is not what has been promised, I hope one day that type of crowd learns as then maybe we will see more MMORPG's instead of just MMO's
I didn't mention it in the article, but you can press scroll lock to lock altitude.
To all those complaning...flying in this game is imlemented better then in all others(excpet maybe those hero games i never tried them) its a tactic and its not a mount. They are talking about adding real mounts of some special sort.
Sad but true
Sad but true
Its limitations stand as a balance. There are outdoor elite areas (extremely tough mobs) that people would merely fly over and around for quick quest objectives that are worth obscene amounts of exp. They'd also skip straight to bosses, farming them for their loot with little to no time investment.
In PVP outside of the abyss, if flight weren't limited to certain areas, or if a player could glide/fly indefinitely, it'd be massively imbalanced. Without the cooldown, knowing how and when to glide would serve no strategical purpose whatsoever. Flying and gliding in this game actually requires thought. Without it, you'll find yourself run down by multiple attackers that might otherwise have not cauhgt you. Without knowing how to handle your timers, you will screw up, and you will lose. It adds a lot more than a Z axis.
"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
Sad but true
Its limitations stand as a balance. There are outdoor elite areas (extremely tough mobs) that people would merely fly over and around for quick quest objectives that are worth obscene amounts of exp. They'd also skip straight to bosses, farming them for their loot with little to no time investment.
In PVP outside of the abyss, if flight weren't limited to certain areas, or if a player could glide/fly indefinitely, it'd be massively imbalanced. Without the cooldown, knowing how and when to glide would serve no strategical purpose whatsoever. Flying and gliding in this game actually requires thought. Without it, you'll find yourself run down by multiple attackers that might otherwise have not cauhgt you. Without knowing how to handle your timers, you will screw up, and you will lose. It adds a lot more than a Z axis.
Well said Shiymmas. I think a few people took a long sip of haterade this morning.
While NCSoft has over played the "flight" aspect of Aion as a marketing scheme, their implementation is very balanced and well thought out. The location and time limitations on the flight mechanic provide a strategic element in PvP combat and as stated above help retain the PvE design intent. Plus, gliding is a fun technique to master!
Me too, and I'm surpriced Aion cant do better than that game (PW = Perfect World int or ms).
It might be one of the most important reasons I will quit Aion, not able to fly (or dive and swim into deep water) for unlimited time. Well, we'll see what they are gonna do.
ps,
And each comment about advantages in PvP or PvE are really nonsens (you better play some weeks on PW or other game where flyingtime is unlimited. There is also the possability of PvP and unlimited flying gives players the opportunity to "fly away" from that little boy who likes to attack other players).
Me too, and I'm surpriced Aion cant do better than that game (PW = Perfect World int or ms).
It might be one of the most important reasons I will quit Aion, not able to fly (or dive and swim into deep water) for unlimited time. Well, we'll see what they are gonna do.
Ever seen a bird that never stopped flying for all it's life?
Me too, and I'm surpriced Aion cant do better than that game (PW = Perfect World int or ms).
It might be one of the most important reasons I will quit Aion, not able to fly (or dive and swim into deep water) for unlimited time. Well, we'll see what they are gonna do.
Ever seen a bird that never stopped flying for all it's life?
Ever seen a player walking for all it's life?
Think before you talk please!
Few game implement "stamina" when running that makes it more realistic but there is, NCsoft wanted to make it more realistic. So now instead on unlimited flying you have to use your brain when to use it.
If that's a reason to unsubscribe from aion then why don't you stop just now?
Zoom, the point of the entire article just zoomed over your head. The point being this is the worst flight design most of us have seen in a MMO. For a game that is supposed to be the next coming it is a major drawback. They just wanted to make you grind for all those flight gimmicks and potions. Why NCSoft devs are known as grind a lot kids.
To those of you who can't think well, PW came up with a perfect solution for flight, if the mob can't get to the attacker it goes into super high regen mode, hence you rarely kill anything from the air and secondly if in a party you only do half damage from the air, unless of course the mob has flight ability itself, then it is just normal combat.
No it's not the "worst flight" aion's flight is nothing more then another style of fighting, having it unlimited would make rangers on advantage and you would see everyone flying instead of walking.
Unlike perfect world which there the wings is just a mount in aion is a part of their body which is different (Yes winged elfs have them on their bodies but if the rest could have unlimited flight and winged elfs no then it wouldn't make sense). Dunno in perfect world didn't play it much cause of the grind but in aion when you fly you have lower defense, so what I said in my earlier message and in this flight is just another style of battle tactic.
NCsoft never hyped aion about the wings(I could be wrong but i didn't see anything like that) but if you saw any were something like unlimited flight then it was from people's hype not the dev's fault if someone was spreading fake information.
You all that are thinking on unsubscribing because flight is limited shouldn't play aion then and go play perfect world with the unlimited flying and unlimited grind to max lvl.
Zoom, the point of the entire article just zoomed over your head. The point being this is the worst flight design most of us have seen in a MMO. For a game that is supposed to be the next coming it is a major drawback. They just wanted to make you grind for all those flight gimmicks and potions. Why NCSoft devs are known as grind a lot kids.
To those of you who can't think well, PW came up with a perfect solution for flight, if the mob can't get to the attacker it goes into super high regen mode, hence you rarely kill anything from the air and secondly if in a party you only do half damage from the air, unless of course the mob has flight ability itself, then it is just normal combat.
Perfect World and Aion are two completely different beasts. The reason the flying works in Perfect World the way it does is because it focuses mainly on PvE gameplay, whereas Aion is based around PvP which means that most of your strategic maneuvers (flying included) are going to get limited to some point. The flying in Aion is going to be fine, it isn't ultra-necessary before level 25 anyways.
Sure, the flying in Aion may be a gimmick to you, but you know what? It works! As long as gameplay continues to be fluid then I don't see the need to complain about such recycled arguments.
"IRL is a pretty upstanding MMO with thousands of classes, a lot of PvP and even some pretty unique emotes and titles you can acquire. Explore that world first, then we'll talk about this virtual one."
The timer would be 100% more bearable if resting replenished it faster. I find myself sitting around a lot in The Abyss because I'm far too lazy to wade through mobs.
Me too, and I'm surpriced Aion cant do better than that game (PW = Perfect World int or ms).
It might be one of the most important reasons I will quit Aion, not able to fly (or dive and swim into deep water) for unlimited time. Well, we'll see what they are gonna do.
ps,
And each comment about advantages in PvP or PvE are really nonsens (you better play some weeks on PW or other game where flyingtime is unlimited. There is also the possability of PvP and unlimited flying gives players the opportunity to "fly away" from that little boy who likes to attack other players).
To me unlimited flight would actualy ruine the play experiance I got, since they implimented it in a more realistic way.
I really would find it stupid if we could fly when ever we wanted, kinda the same with most other games where you sometimes loose some stamina when running, or when you want to swim you need either some sort of buff to hold your breath or some equipment, it makes more gameplay to the game then take the easy path of having these things unlimited.
I will say that for a very short period it might be fun for some people, but in the end it will make for one very boring experiance with these games if we got these things unlimited. Keep in mind this is my personal opinion, just like you shared your personal opinion, doesn't make either of us right or wrong, but just having a personal taste of what you like and what I like.