Aion - The Tower of Eternity

[khalid]

Originally Posted by Marthisdil

WoW has a stranglehold because it's simple for the noobs. There's no complexity at all to it. Certain classes can use spell chains/priorities that amount to just a couple of buttons, and that's it. Nothing else.
/snore

So you believe WoW is popular because its so simple and nothing else? Do you seriously believe that?If that was the case, Warhammer would be crushing it left and right.

Now Im not claiming that talent specs are the only reason, or even the 5th reason, why WoW is so popular, but it adds a huge "replayability' aspect to the game. Bored with your healing paladin? Okay, respec. Bored with your rogue in pvp, changing specs often results in dramatically different playstyle.

I will grant you that when minmaxing for pve content, often it comes down to one spec only and everything else being trash. Still, for a huge percentage of players, it adds depth.


Also, of course all games do not need a talent tree. However, Aion hardly has a wealth of character classes. If the only way to customize your character is how stupid you can make your appearance, that is disappointing to me.

[Kaige]

Talent specs are good, but in the case of WoW it just got out of hand. If they would have kept it simple and with less points it might not have gotten to that point, but I guess they also never expected to make it this far anyway.

I skimmed through this thread and their site, but didn't catch a straight answer to a question. The site says PvPvE and castle siege type stuff, but does that mean PVP all the time? Only certain zones? All the high level zones? Or just certain realms?

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by khalid

So you believe

So roll up an alt? Functionally no real difference until you get into the late game meta. Okay let's put it this way. Yeah Aion has talent specs. Only in Aion it's called Ascention, you do it at level 9 and it's permanent. Hardcore talent specs.

Originally Posted by Kaige

I skimmed through this thread and their site, but didn't catch a straight answer to a question. The site says PvPvE and castle siege type stuff, but does that mean PVP all the time? Only certain zones? All the high level zones? Or just certain realms?

Think Warhammer. PvPvE is just a fancy way of saying "PvP with an exp grind"

We'll see though.

[Seig]

Yeah the PvPvE thing doesn't really seem to be what the initial hype described where the 3rd Draconian race would be involved in the pvp. There's just guards, gate guards, and bosses involved in the sieges. And the 3rd race are mainly the strong mobs in the abyss.

skimmed through this thread and their site, but didn't catch a straight answer to a question. The site says PvPvE and castle siege type stuff, but does that mean PVP all the time? Only certain zones? All the high level zones? Or just certain realms?

1-20 there's no pvp, after you enter the level 20 zone there's random floating vortex that pop up allowing you to travel to the other races lands(With around 10 uses then they disappear and it pops up in another random location). So there will be raiding parties, but there aren't any shared zones with constant pvp until The Abyss at level 25. I think the 3 Abyss zones are the only constant pvp zones the rest of them will just have occasional raid parties.

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

You end up with shit like paladins where each spec in any other game could be it's own class. Healadin = Cleric, Protadin = Templar, Retadin = Crusader.

The big difference being that switching roles is as easy as a talent swap vs making a new character. It's nice to be able to change up playstyles without having to level, gear, and faction up another toon. There are other ways to implement this (account bound gear, large xp bonuses when you already have a max level character, etc.,) but Talents work as a very simple solution. It also keeps the base facets of the class intact (form changing with Druids, totems with Shaman, etc.,) for those who enjoy them.

Yes, a job system would also be a great (or better) way to tackle this.

[Draegan]

I think stigmas will play an interesting role in character customization.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Draegan

I think stigmas will play an interesting role in character customization.

This pretty much. There's 5sigma slots, and they pretty much either give you new abilities, or change existing stuff a lot, so there will be sigma builds. Also gear is much more customizable than wow's, since it's a korean game you can +1 shit(or break it) and lots of gemming to do. You can build your gear and sigma around specific situations. You'll still be an assassin or a templar, but not necessarily the same as the next one.

Also while in wow talents tend to give choices for pve, in pvp there are rarely more than 1 choice for each class. Some pure DPS classes have 2 viable builds but out of the hybrids, only paladins(ret and holy) and druids(feral and resto) have viable dual specs for pvp.

[Naj]

The original Stigma system, where there was a stigma for virtually every single class ability in the game, was great for customization. You could essentially take 4-5 abilities from other classes and add them to your own. The current one where the stigmas are class specific really isn't. Each class only has about 10 (some of which are just multiple ranks of the same ability) and at 50 you can equip 5.

Plus some of them are clearly superior to others. Every Sorcerer is going to get the Polymorph Tree Stigma and every Cleric is going to get Blind.

[Ninen]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

To be honest any character customization is going to come from the character generator itself. I played around with it for several hours and while you can take one of the generic templates, change the hairstyle and log in, you can create some seriously creepy shit.

I wish I had taken a SS but my warrior was some 9 foot tall satan rape-machine looking dude. I was freaking myself the fuck out everytime I swung the camera around and felt my soul being sucked out. You can create some seriously alien looking dudes. I mean this shit puts the CoH character generator to shame.

Heh. One of the Asmod female's is a double pigtail thing, that with the right face is a near perfect Loli (goth Loli, but Loli none the less). Juiced her up to 9ft tall and.... GiantLoli was born.

That was fun.

[bubblegumbo]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

So roll up an alt? Functionally no real difference until you get into the late game meta. Okay let's put it this way. Yeah Aion has talent specs. Only in Aion it's called Ascention, you do it at level 9 and it's permanent. Hardcore talent specs.



Think Warhammer. PvPvE is just a fancy way of saying "PvP with an exp grind"

We'll see though.

No, more like factions fighting each other over dragons and griefing each other while they do bosses in Aion's case. Also there will be significant crafting bonuses for holding certain fortresses in the abyss from what I read.

[Ssinurn]

1.3 Patch Notes:

Content Update 1.3 - Semi-Official Content news - AionSource.com

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

NOTE: This is not a final list showing all the upcoming content of 1.3, infos were acquired via a sneak peek preview event.

3 New types of Instances, and New lvl50 Zone

NCsoft has some big plans for this summer. A lot of the things listed below are still under planning, and are not 100% certain to be added to the game, but I'm sure a lot of you still want to read what NCsoft is planning : )



1. 3 New types of instances!

- This will be a new approach compared to the traditional WoW-style instances. The first type of instance is an arcade instance. It's focus is going to be strategic group play to kill the boss as soon as possible.
- Both elyos and asmodians will be able to access these instances through rifts. You'll be traveling to the region that was recently conquered by the Dragons.
- The reward will vary depending on how you decide to clear this instance under how much time. Since you'll be killing dragons, you'll be acquiring abyss points. The final boss will also very depending on your strategy, meaning your reward will vary every time.
- It's up to you if you want to go for all DPS speed run, or full party extermination going for every Named Mob in the instance. The reward is going to be items with a grade or two higher than the currently highest grade Unique items.


2. RvR battle instance. Infiltrating a Dreadgion!



- The second type instance is a battleground style instance where Elyos and Asmodians will be battling through to progress. One party from each side will be entering a Dreadgion. They can either fight through or simply try to kill the captain of the Dreadgion first. Abyss points will be amonst the many rewards from this instance. If you die in here, you'll be able to revive in a set point within the instance.
- Players will have to decide how they want to deal with the other party and how to reach the final boss faster.
- This is not a regular Dreadgion you see in fortress seiges. This is going to be a special Dreagion only enterable at specific times.
- The regular Dreadgions are still floating battleships that will drop Blue Draconic gears.


3. Battle-shugos


- This is supposed to be a fun leveling instance for people still stuck in the leveling stage of Aion. This instance will be designed like a ship with evolved Shugos that are hostile to the players.This instance is designed with casual players in mind and will contain many quests.


4. What about the fortresses
- A lot of people are complaining that fortress seiges have no real incentive. There will be new reward type content for each specific fortresses.


5. New Quests
- Bunch of new quests related to new instances, and some class specific quests
- Lvl50 Daevanion Quest ' This won't be in form of current 'lvl 5 different characters' one. This is going to take a lot of time to finish as an end game content. Consdering the reward is a Unique grade Daevanion, it'll be worth the time.
- Final Mission - The mission cominng with this update will be the final mission of this Episode. It will sum up everything the player has done so far and foreshadow whats to come in the next episode.


6. Stigmas
There will be new stigmas for each class. Players will be able to increase the number of their stigma slots by 1 through a quest!
Right now the stigma system is providing a lot less choice than it was supposed to. This update will allow players to have varying set ups.

Also, they will not be increasing the level cap for a while.


7. New Items
There will be new set items with powerful set bonuses. There will also be new grade of items higher than Unique. These items will probably be acquired only through the new instances mentioned above




Things they promised us at release will finally be implemented!



NOTE#2
- So far, no sign of any new lowlvl contents
- Last content patch before expansion? ('Final mission' part)

[Kaige]

Using WoW-style terms to describe stuff in the patch notes kind of made me cringe. I don't have ill will for either game, but using one as a reference to something in another makes me a little uneasy sometimes.

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by Kaige

Using WoW-style terms to describe stuff in the patch notes kind of made me cringe. I don't have ill will for either game, but using one as a reference to something in another makes me a little uneasy sometimes.

Rarely do devs even give a nod to thier competition, interested as to what they mean exactly using arcade elements and WoW in the sentence could mean a ton of things. From the sound of it you can clear this dungeon with a full group of any class or variation of classes. Get a rank at the end which then drops loot accordingly. The reference to WoW may also mean how they do dungeons and raids like MC or ZG.

[Naj]

I don't like the fact that they are adding PVP instances. The world PVP in the Abyss is the major reason why I enjoyed Aion and decided to buy the NA version.

[Eonan]

Originally Posted by Naj

I don't like the fact that they are adding PVP instances. The world PVP in the Abyss is the major reason why I enjoyed Aion and decided to buy the NA version.

A successful PVP game can exist with both. You just need to give players an incentive to participate in both rather than just sticking to instances or sticking to open world.