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Can someone who isn't a complete troll or fanboy explain this to me?
Armisael191
Member Posts: 162
in Aion
How is this game TRULY doing? I played it at beta before launch, and hated it because of the grind. After hearing that the end game was virtually not existent unless you wanted to fight in the abyss over and over, I loss interest in this game entirely.
Has the game improved upon anything or is it still hurting for end-game incentives or a bad level grind?
I realize grind is a relative term, so anytime I have to GRIND MOBS to level, is a grind to me. If I have to grind 150 quests to level, that's not fun either. I consider WoW's leveling too easy if that helps at all.
Comments
It's funny you should say that. If WoW hadn't come out all MMO's would probably still have had mob grinding for levels. It's the first MMO that gave full quest levelling till max level.
How can you taste the grind playing in the betas ? Did you actually level your char to the max level offered in the beta ?... If so bah good job.
as far as grind blablabla... Nothing has changed... They have not added more quest, neither increased XP rate.
Rest Energy ( w/e they call it in english ) is now at 40%. NCsoft has begun something called double Xp weekends for those who are between lvl 1 and 35 but it is only temporary. This measure doesnt affect quest XP only mobs, gathering and crafting.
QUESTION:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xridnasa:
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What's a "grocery store"? Is that like McDonald's?
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ANSWER:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sidimazz:
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Kind of, just without the rapist.
mm wow is still the king!i play it and men it fucking packed with player not one server packed 10s of them are full 2 are closed(too many player)20 or more are very high)etc etc etc
true the fact ice corwn citadel opened made a big impact
I read it was for all levels now, not just 1-35
Yea there is still a grind involved with it, which is why I left. I just dislike cut and dry grinding. WoW merely masked its grinding with quests and what not, so it wasn't cut and dry. Just so you don't think I'm talking out of my ass, before I stopped playing I had a 42 assassin and a 45 ranger. I just found myself not really wanting to log in at one point.
In my own opinion, I think there are still quite a lot of people playing it. I feel though that a good percentage of them are simply playing because there is nothing better out there, and/or they don't want to return to WoW or another prior MMO. Others, I think it's probably because they've made some friends, or have a fun guild and it's helping them stick with the game. Of course, there are those who genuinely enjoy the game. Things will probably shift as other MMOs are released.
Also on a side note, I feel this game is more for hardcore players. If your casual it will take you ages to get things done. I wish there was an mmo that catered to both hardcore and casual players. A sort of balance needs to be maintained. Yea, it's probably a tough thing to do, but I don't think its impossible.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
The one thing i dont understand tho is , wouldnt u rather join a group and grind as a group for xp and at the same time have a chat with your fellow party members , its alot of fun , and befor u know it your up by a few lvls , or u can do quests , yes mindless quests , go here get that , get this do this , plz fetch this , walk 10 miles and get this , make me dinner , wash my clothes... etc... you see its mindless , so u wouldnt rather just join a xp grind group??
This weekend and the following two weekends there is double exp. They plan to do this a couple times a month after these three weekends until they dev in the needed experience nerfs. I am not a fanboy of anything really. The game has it's pitfalls. It does feel korean if you will. But then again, I haven't been reading the quest text since level 10 either. Expereince with that double bonus is definitely nice. Have not seen light past Lv36 as it was a Chanter and I was tired of failing in PvP. Rolled a Rng and liking it so far. Spirit Masters now have flying pets. If you can find yourself a decent community I recommend giving it another go. I play on Oceanic Nezekan as Xerg if you'd like a pal.
Cheers
Ok, from what I read of the OP, to answer your question I do not think that Aion is the game for you. Even with the bonus exp this weekend I find myself at 37 grinding mobs, even grinding a few coin quests or repeatable quests here and there. I enjoy the game as it is and I really like the slow grind.
To me it sounds as if your playstyle and Aion's design wont mesh well. I myself love the game but I realize it's not for everyone. I am a level 37 sorceror and I still have that fresh game experience. I just find there is so much to do in Aion, even if its grinding mobs here and there. The way the leveling process is designed in the 30's is that I find myself criss crossing all over the map to Elthen, Heiron and the Abyss for different quests. It seems like each new level brings me back to an old area where some new quests opened up.
Aion is a game where its more about the journey and enjoying the time it takes to get there then making it to 50, anyways good luck with your choice
To the OP : no the game has not changed at all on that point. There has not been any new content or significant changes since the release. They somehow raised the xp coming from certain quests, but it's still way too low and past a certain level you have to grind on mobs... alot.
There is a double xp week end running now, but it's only the mobs that give double xp, not the quests. So they turned it into a brainless mob grindfest for everyone wanting to optimize its xp (quest xp rewards are just ridiculously low compared to what mobs give atm). Does not change this game is a grind, makes it even more of a grind... just a bit faster
Check my blog on mmorpg.com.
I read it was for all levels now, not just 1-35
My bad, you are right... I just read that too... well that's a good news pal
I have probably nothing to complain about then
QUESTION:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xridnasa:
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What's a "grocery store"? Is that like McDonald's?
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ANSWER:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sidimazz:
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Kind of, just without the rapist.
You (the OP) will find this game grindy by level 35 or so and unbearably grindy in early and late 40s. No it has not gotten substanially better. I would not reccomend playing this game if I were you. That is not a general reccomendation that is only for the OP. Its not that the game is not fun. But you will get the feeling that you are spinning your wheels.
NCSoft looks like it would like to do something about that but does not really know what and also seems to be mis-identifying the portion that is bugguing ppl. I say this because of the recent stuff focusing on pre- level 35 xp. Which is really not all that bad except at certain points.
The main thing to realize here is that quests in Aion are, for the majority of them, simply window dressing meant to entice people whose MMO world view is shaped by WoW into playing the game. In the grand scheme of things Aion is a mob grind game, it has quests. The majority of xp you will get is from killing mobs. Many quests are actually detremental to xp gain. Quests start to be crap around level 19 to 25. They can be worth doing, but many ppl assume they are worhtwhile xp. They are often are the complete opposite they lead you away from grinding mobs.
This is the way the game is designed. This becomes quite obvious once you hit MistaMane or the elyos version where you need Hair or Molars and the the next one with lepharists oaths. You need to collects 100s and 100s of these things in areas meant for groups where you only get one person per kill and do not alway get one per kill. That means you must kill 1000s of these mobs ina group of 4 or so. You basically kill 1000s of the same mobs to get a few blues. Around level 35-40 ppl just camp these places and grind for hours and hours.
Is this good or bad? Anyone reading this is a big enough boy or girl to make their own decision. The OP clearly stated he does not want to do this sort of thing. And this clearly and obviously part of Aions core design. Nor has NCSoft hidden this. The quest thing is a little silly and sets up some ppl for disappointment, but at least on Asmo side if you make it to level 25 and didn't realize mob grinding is a signficant portion of the game then you are quite frankly close to brain dead.
I tolerated it for a while and was willing to do some amount of grinding in perpetuity but at level 37 (close to 38 really) I basically saw the writing on the wall and lost any real excitement for the game. I was willing to tolerate, but having it be the majority of the game and being signigicantly disadvantaged in the only break from it (PvP) if i did not do serious and regular grinding I was like "meh" not fun, not worth it. There does exist content at various points 37+ although certain levels are rough. But in the end all these places follow the same formula of Mismane.
What was told to the OP that there is not "content" in the high levels is not correct. Unfortunately what you tend to get is fans and fanboys listing all the content there is and neglecting to state that they all want 100s and 100s of or hairs or molars or oaths or whatever to trade of some trinket and that is all there really is to the game. In between grinding for hairs you solo grind for XP or money. Alot. That is the PvE of the game in a nutshell and doing this is quite important for PvP as well.
If that last statement had not been true I might have stuck around and maybe tried to find a dedicated PvP Legion. Keep in mind I had PvP +speed boots by level 34 so don't try to throw the PvP points buying gear BS at me. Its a crock for the most part until high levels and most high AP ppl got there by farming fort guards. I got my boots purely by killing ppl and I know what it takes to farm fort guards. And in the high levels it reqiures Fort siege tokens anyway.
You grind money/crafting and PvE tokens or you are seriously behind in PvP. That is a fact. And you do a lot of grinding. There is content although not tons of variation yet, which is to be expected and has already been remedied some. But in the end its the same stuff dressed up in different clothes. Anyone who has run fire temple 50 times knows what I mean. And alot of ppl have done that. It isn't that one instance is the same as the next, its that you will be grinding them with speed run after speed run after speed run. Some people like that and that is fine. But that is what it is.
I'd not recommend the game to you unless your willing to try something that takes a bit of patience... I find myself with more quests than I like and am constantly having to delete them to make room for others<shrugs> It's not LoTRO or WoW but I never really liked HAVING to grind quests... but to mix it up. I really think too many are ignoring parts of the game such as gathering and crafting that in the long run gives huge xp.
My experience of 40+ is actually a whole lot different than most here. It just opens up so much. Not only do you get access to Steel Rake you also quite a few other less large instances. I've found myself breezing through 40 in just two days... and I'm a casual player. Find steady good groups and you do fine and it's a whole lot more fun.
There's more than enough content here for a new game barely past a year old to hold me for a very long time past end game. It's a grind as are all mmos. Sometimes it's not even masked but there is a lot to do. I'll name a few things. Get mastery for both possible crafts(will take you quite some time) after mastery max them out. Get your 50 wings(expensive as heck). Siege.(very important in this game). Get your end game pve set(far easier to get than the end game abyss stuff). Get your abyss set... This should take you a very very long time mainly because after the first 10 ranks every time you die you lose a huge amount of ap. Meaning if you die your set back quite a lot. Only the most consistant players will probably ever manage all gold abyss gear. Do Dark Poeta. Do all the fortress instances... hmmm.
By the time I even get a partial bit through this list... there will more than likely be a new dungion or two to run though(yes I only tend to play at most 3-4 hours a day. I won't rocket through this) and who knows what else. No end game content... how come I have a feeling someone decided to gloss over a lot of content because they just never wanted to stay in the first place? Ahh well it's human nature.
I'm still enjoying the game at level 48 (Spiritmaster). There are some annoyances as there are in any MMO that I've played over the years, but the game keeps me interested.
On the PRO side, I like how the abilities and choices of the character class changes, not only in context, but during progression. It's not just more or higher powers of the same thing I did when I was level 24. There are abilities and choices that have come to the class and the level that have changed the role of the class for various contexts, whether solo PvE, or instance group PvE, or fort siege PvP, or rift/abyss small group PvP. The stigma system has worked well to offer several different options over the levels and as you reach higher levels, it becomes more and more easy to fool around with them.
I do tend to play at least one pet class character and the Spiritmaster is one of the best. I've played Necros and Druids in EQ, Warlocks in WoW, Werefoxes in Perfect World, Necros in AoC, Necros in SoV, Squig Herder in WAR, the maligned Captain in LotRO, the creature handlers in SWG, etc., and the Aion Spiritmaster offers some excellent quality of gameplay to compare to any of those. The differences in the pets matter. The handling of the pet controls is easy and fun (pets can fly). It may not have the beserk chaos of the 21 pets I had out as a Necro in AoC, but there are other frantic and important situations to contend with in Aion's pet class.
The PvP is very good in the game. I tend not to be a PvP player, but the Aion model is very good and fun, whether you're doing PvP by yourself, with a group, with a raid or the entirety of your side in some massive fort battle. In many cases, I find myself PvPing because it's fun and I'm not really getting anything other than fun out of it (low abyss points, not loot, just vengeance
), and the fact that they can bring that to the game to a person who doesn't normally care about PvP is saying something. Compared to other games: I wanted WAR to have as good a PvP system (I enjoyed DaoC back in the day), but there were definite issues with both the scenario and siege systems. I thought PvP in WoW or FFXI were fairly lackluster in terms of mechanics. SWG was fun, but could be critically one-sided depending on the lack of ability of the Rebels.
On the CON side, the game does have some grinding involved, especially for solo-oriented players. It's not as bad as some MMOs for sure (especially F2P ones - 600 chokti eyes in Silkroad???? blech), but it is definitely present. My quest log is full, but the majority of the quests are group-oriented. They very much could benefit from having more simple quests scattered around the world. It's interesting because I think there's more of a bad grind in the high 30s and low 40s than at the top of the game. There are some silly quests like 70 drops from elite mobs for a necklace in the water palace that just make no sense and so no one does them. A couple levels later, however, there are a variety of good soloable quests. It'd be interesting to see how the quest creation tasks were divided up among the game's designers because there are definitely some levels which are much better than others.
The crafting system is somewhat PRO and CON. It's very effective and easy to progress up to but not into the Mastery level. You can make money with crafting and you definitely can make some great consumable items (food & pots) as well as armor and weapons that match or better anything a quest can give you. The mastery quests, however, are pretty much awful. Probably the worst grind in the game and the economy of the fluxes makes it worse. Sad, because crafting is very effective for most of the levels of the game.
Anyhow, I'll be playing the game for a while still. I'll probably toy around with others that come out, but I feel it's better than many of the other games that fit in the classic fantasy MMO genre currently available.
Most 50s have canceled only 1 still playing are the 30s and 40s who log on to play 10 mins a day and dont realize how boring the end game is.
Wow, that's completely untrue on my server. There's still lots of content that noone has achieved for the 50s.
As for the 30s and 40s comment - also not true remotely on my server. It's like saying everyone quit WoW when they hit level 30 because it was so boring. I just didn't find that true either.
Wow, that's completely untrue on my server. There's still lots of content that noone has achieved for the 50s.
As for the 30s and 40s comment - also not true remotely on my server. It's like saying everyone quit WoW when they hit level 30 because it was so boring. I just didn't find that true either.
Honestly, don't even try... the person you/we quoted has NOTHING ever useful to say...
Just posts the same crap on every thread.... it's kinda sad - to be honest most people don't even reply to the guy... just ignore him like the ugly kid in class - you'll be fine.
Hehe - thanx.
I enjoy the game, but it definitely has plenty of room for improvement. Time and the presence of other games will tell how long I'll keep playing
Iv been having a great time so far in aion and i hit level 30 this morning. I havent felt any grind what so ever yet. Aion is the next mmo to keep people playing mmos since wow came out. ITs supose to be time consuming, just like wow was, and this caters to mmo enthusiast. I dont think theres alot of people that recognize this and think that this is something else, more like dragan age orgins that dosnt feel like a grind cause its simply a rpg. MMOs are mmos, rpgs are rpgs. Theres a big difference between the two and I feel that this is being misconstrued by new mmos players that dont exatly know what a real mmo is.
I think is aion great, and would suggest it to any one seeking a great massive multiplyer online game. Heres me last night reaching level 30, im looking forward to geting to the Fire Temple and tasteing what the first real instance is like in aion. If you take a look back not all that long ago, and compare some of the mmos that were released to aion, theres quite a leap forward I think. I think more patience is required in geting the players what they want out of aion north america and the players need to reliaze this. Why keep bashing a game when ncsoft clearly has been listening to there playerbase givening xtra xp weekends after only being released for a few short months. I think aion is compleatly perfect as it is, and shouldnt be changed for the minoirty of players gabling about there dislikes of it. ITs easy to critisze aion, but geting your own thing going is more of a challange and most of the players that gabble over it arnt going to do this, they want it handed to them on a silver plater. All in all, aion has so many players that even with the mass majority of personal critics bashing it, theres just to many people that realy think this game is great to let it die a miserable death. The only reason people are bashing it is beacuse its the first taste of a real mmo to release since wow, and since its just a taste and the only one thats been given it causes mass hasteria and peoples dislikes tent to show more. If this was a an american game , made by an american company, the game would be praised as better then wow and put on a pedistal for all other mmos including wow to live by.
when you ask about aion a) never take the opinion of someone lower than 35. b) if you already thought it was grindy at beta, where the cap was level 30 than I wouldn't suggest this game.
Aion hasn't changed at all since release 3-4 months ago, other than a few kinks and bugs to be worked out. Other than that there has been no real change to the game, but they have "visions" for the game that may or may not come into play. If you didn't like the game at beta its the exact same game you played. I'd wait to see what they do down the road.
This is something we finally agree on....
If you find the game grindy by level 30 - Aion certainly is not for you... On top of that - if you played Beta and didn't like it - you really won't get anything "new" or "extra" from this round. Nothing has REALLY changed except the Bots/RMT is completely under control now. Seriously - I'm even shocked myself... I logged in a solid 10-15 times since Friday and I have not seen even ONE RMT trader the entire time.... not one. Usually there's a horde outside of Panda/the Broker.... and I'm really impressed how well NCSoft has handled it. Even bots now are few and far between.
Apart from that - if you didn't like it then, you won't really like it now..... one thing I will mention the double XP weekend is just awesome. I went from 11-23 on my alt and loved it. Honestly think they should rework the curve slightly (maybe not double but at least address it) because I feel many more people would be more open to give Aion a try. I never minded the grind - even after 35+ but I would be lying if I say I didn't enjoy the weekend lvling curve.
Thanks for this. A refreshing perspective, and for once an informative post about Aion. I might check it out some day, but right now Im enjoying AoC. Have you played FFXI? Hows the grind compared to that?
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Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
I would say give it a shot to 40, if your not having fun by the time you reach 40 just quit
I don't want to sound like an ass or a flamer, but do you actually play aion, because then you would know why what you just said is impossible, unless before you know it is 3 days strait because they cut the exp u get from beasties while in a party horrifically.
Oh, and to answer the OP's question, I've noticed a lot of people have left the game, I had a friends list of around 40 and there used to always be like 20 on, now ill be lucky to see 1 or 2 on...and their the guys I barely know, aslo a jew guilds that I've been in have died off, and been canceled, or whatever its called when u destroy your guild, including one that used to be in the top 50 for weeks strait. People will probably start coming back though, now that NCsoft is starting to get their shit together and the double exp on weekends for all lvls, which sorta helps with the grind. Hope this helped answer your question.