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Power Customization
Here is what I do not get about Aion.
So there are hundreds of options in terms of how your character looks.
Yet, as I level up, the only powers I get are the exact same one everyone in that class gets.
I cannot slot them differently or tweak them to work a little differently.
So other than gear, there is no difference functionally in a 10th level cleric, they are the same?
Won't that grow incredibly dull very quickly?
Even Warhammer Online lets you get some prestige tweaks to your stats, even if you get the exact same skills at the same level for the class.
Maybe I am missing some sort of power-customization that comes later that makes two characters of the same class and level different in ability?
Comments
You already mentioned it. Gear. The manastone system is designed to allow for customization, boosting particular traits of your character. Do they directly target your abilities? No. But a parry heavy modded armor set will make your character behave very different than a shield defense one. Or magic attack vs. physcial attack.
Is it the greatest "customization" system in the world? No. Are the AA points? No. Skill Points? No. Does that make Aions character and class growth less complex than other MMO's? Yes. Is it required for a good game? Not necessarily. Especially when PvP balance comes to mind. Does it work for Aion? Probably. However if it's an absolute must for you to have such a detailed character customization system in game, then Aion is not a game for you.
Starting at level 20, you can find 'Stigmas'. You can equip about 5 in the end, and recently they added slots for 3 more epic/super stigmas.
These provide tweaks to your character. (Allowing dual weilding on Gladiators, making this or that skill do much more damage, etc.) Different stigmas equipped means different play-styles.
Stigmas, manastones and godstones are your customization in the game.
Less customization allows a game to be balanced easier. I'm all for it and they are always adding new content, in 1.5 patch (release) we will even have more stigma options. Again though, everyone who cares will be using the same stigma's and the same strategies in PvP.
Even in Aion it comes to a point where:
"Do I want to add +Crit to add my dps, or do I want +HP in order to survive longer?"
"Do I want to use up slots for Flight time? Or perform better as a ground unit?"
However in the end everyone will have 3 sets of the same gear with different manastone specs. One will be for travel/flight, the other will be offensive and the other defensive. Such as an Assassin will always want 440 Crit, but after might choose for more Evasion, Magic Defense or HP. Then they'd have another set full of Flight time stones.
stigmas is the class custimization, i believe i read they added 300 or so in the 1.5 patch alone. and they are abilities and you can only socket so many at a time.
Main stat's are locked in order to get balance as close as possable in the game. Besides if they were unlocked everyone would add the stats the same, or use the epic stat guides that would be posted on the forums anyway.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
That, and allow me to add some detail.
Stigmas are your "skill trees", "talents", or whatever you may call - you have a limited number of stigma slots and a huge amount of stigmas to choose from (you need to drop/purchase one and have the amount of required stigma shards to equip it). They are skills and I think it's what you mostly wished to know if Aion had.
Manastones are your "gems" for your items, each equipment has slots in which you can put in a variety of manastone choices to increase a certain stat, like +evasion, +attack, +parry, +flight time, +magic resistance, +shield defense, +hp, +mp, +magic power, +critical, you got the idea.
Godstones are your "orb effects" (haha, got that one from DotA :P), "weapon enhancements" of something like that. You put those in your weapon to fit in the godstone socket slot for that weapon, and then you get a % chance of some effect when attacking.
There are also equipment enchanting, that ranges from +1 to +10 with enchantment stones that can be acquired by using extraction tools on equipments you wish to break and get these stones. Worst thing that can happens when you fail is losing that stone and one enchantment grade on the item (linear bonus, like +4 attack for bows per enchantment grade), can't fall below zero.
at higher levels you'll get a shitload of skills, manage them as you please depending on the situation instead of asking devs to limit our gameplay style by asking us to choose one and forget about the rest.
Don't Titles add a little customization?
This game has a lot of customization, get over the "Simple is best" formula that seems to be corrupting good games (IE WOW zomg, the overused mmo we compare with).
IMHO, Aion has as much, if not more, customization then most mmo's. The problem with it is that it's not all bundled up into one nicely fit category (ie. skill trees).
1) You have to pick a subclass at level 10 (is that permanent...I think it is, right? lol). Either way, I'm assuming it is. So while you can't change this 'customization' you have to pick which class/subclass is best for you amirite? And this only starts it.
2) Each subclass is different. You'll want to stigma/enchant/gem for different reasons too.
3) What you do most often in the game will probably be different then someone else of the same class. Most people are going to be pvping. But when you're bored of it, do you farm? Or do you pve instance/dungeon? OR are you going to do the PvP instance dungeons (so i heard)?
And that's just what I could come up with off the top of my head.
You have to understand that Aion is only about to be released. We should see a ton more items with more content patches =D.
Do you have the willpower to delete YOUR wow toons? XD
[Retired: WoW, RO, EvE, WaR, AoC, LoTR]