Khushi

There are also a number of unrevealed features such as item enchanting, stigma, and many unexplored professions/crafting. Seeing from a new party concept called alliances, where multiple parties can join into one group, it is safe to assume that raids, hunts and RvR will be balanced out fairly well even after reaching the max level.

Just because the main concept of the game is PvP it doesn’t mean all you have to do is grind the battlefield. A substantial amount of RvR & raids will get ‘GG’ from players and victory(?)

Life is to be lived alone! Solo Play

Then how will leveling up work in Aion?

If I were to refer back to my experience from FFT, it was similar to World of Warcraft. Most classes, including the healer, did not have much trouble progressing through the game and just by completing the quests, the players were introduced to newer areas with more powerful mobs.

Based on FFT, leveling up = WOW

Seeing how there were quite a number of quests even before level 10, it can be expected that in Aion, you probably won’t have to grind, and much like WoW, get to the max level just by completing the quests.

Most normal quests weren’t very difficult, providing an ideal environment for players who want to solo. In FFT, even priests and elementalists, who had the worst settings for soloing, were capable of playing the game solo if the player really wished to. (of course, compared to the other classes these two classes weren’t as capable in soloing)

There are differences between classes but its not so bad that you can’t even hunt without a party.

In addition, in FFT there was a case where high level elite mobs gave an abnormally high amount of experience which made the players rush to the elite mobs and ‘put off the quests for later.’ But we were told that this will be fixed in CBT and is nothing to worry about.  Just keep doing quests and suddenly you’ll be at the max level? Even healers can ‘do it alone’ fine!

Bonuses from Party play

Even if Aion is solo-friendly, it doesn’t mean the game was made entirely for soloing like many once-popular domestic MMORPGs. Aion quests are divided into ‘normal quests’ and missions, with ‘mandatory high-difficulty main story quests’ available in each area, which made party play fairly natural.

Plus elite monsters which could only be defeated with a party often offered more experience than soloing.

It’s too early to say so, but due to the fact that leveling up was so quick and the majority of character classes were capable of dealing damage, it was easy to form an efficient party. Under the same conditions parties show more efficiency.

But due to the lack of hybrid-class (being able to heal & do other functions as well) in the game it was difficult to find certain classes to form a party (esp. healers). The ‘traditional’ and the only available healers were priests alone, and the only other class that could make a substitute was the chanter. There’s a lot less healers and you require about two per party, it seems likely that gamers will suffer from the lack of healers in CBT.

Plus the fact that mobs weren’t packed into an area but spread out across the map made it difficult to enjoy an effective party play. People would solo until they came across a quest or dungeons that required a party to complete, form a quick party with random people you hardly even know.

It could be disappointing for players who enjoy hunting in grinding groups for several hours in the same location.

But, if the areas are turned into instanced dungeons or battlegrounds the situation can make a 180′ turn.

Parties in Aion are much like WoW where you split after completing a quest. It seems efficient in own way

Hunting & raids after reaching the max level

The main focus of the game is RvR. In order to participate, it’s obvious that you will need a bit of preparation. This ‘preparation’ can be done in raids and dungeons.

According to the interview, among the instanced dungeons there are places where PvP and PvE can both take place so it looks like it’s encouraging a gameplay where both factions can just jump into the abyss and kill the boss mobs.

This can also make the battles more exciting as the players will have to worry about both the other faction as well as the boss monster.

Raids & wars at the same time! If only the system is fine-tuned it may have a very pleasing result.

If these two conditions are met, an Aion player will

• 1. 1. Level up in the safe zones by soloing
  2. Clear the instanced dungeons to obtain stigma and craft items
  3. Participate in comparatively safe ‘own faction’s raid’
  4. Participate in warzone raids
  5. invade

Are the options you can take.

Summary

For those who are too lazy to read the whole thing (…) if I were to summarize it’s like this.

1. Mob hunting will be a necessary process (duh) and even after reaching the max level, players are encouraged to participate in raids and dungeons and such to obtain stigma and obtain craft items.
2. There are slight differences for each class, but it is possible for all the character classes to solo.
3. Leveling-up is quest-based. Occasionally ‘missions’ (main-story) will bring party play.
4. Party play is possible, but leveling up will most likely be solo-based.
5. Most classes have multiple skills that deal out nice damage so it’s not that difficult to form a party.
6. But there are still not enough healers (…)
7. Boss raids in the Abyss will most likely let the players experience RvR and PvE at the same time.
8. I didn’t mention it before because I couldn’t find the right section to put it under (…), but there’s an experience penalty when you die. But, with a little bit of money most experience can be recovered. (based on FFT really just ‘pocketchange’)

I tried to summarize but it’s still long (…) I mentioned a lot of useless crap but in the end, users that enjoy RvR, PvP, or PvE won’t have to worry too much with Aion. Even if Aion is a RvR-based game, it isn’t likely that NCsoft will so easily abandon the PvE system featured in City of Heroes or Lineage series.

Plus, Aion abandoned the inflexible, tight party system in Lineage 2 and by giving each class a more distinctive role, made it possible for players to form more efficient parties. There’s also much less pressure to feel when leveling up because of the fixed level cap and quick leveling rate. In that perspective, Aion may seem like the most ideal PvE game that ‘anyone can enjoy’ (…)