Calista-DN

I agree completely. NCSoft likely saw this as an untapped source of revenue since EK dried up. We all know how long that lasted.

1) why - unless you are planning a server merge? Are you planning one? EU used this but it was warranted due to mergers 2) there is absolutely nothing of any value on the gold ingot shop and the one item of value is way overpriced ( Daeva skill). It still in no way compensated me for the time I spent participating in segues and other activities. No I did not spend a significant cash nor did I AFK my way to my rank- so this is very much a slap in the face. 3) it it very much a loss since we are literally getting useless gold ingots- the only thing worse I think of is prestige coin, since that’s the only worse shop due to its exchange rate- although it’s items are better. Other regions supplied legendary transform contracts in their shop and other USEFUL items. This is in essence otherwise going to demotivate some of your most loyal players - exactly the segment you do NOT want to lose.

It's about bloody time we got bind.

Just to add a different perspective to this- really NC West doesn't seem to learn from the past. 1. Way back when Miragent/Fenris first came out, part of the quest was very grindy and was purely RNG (the proc on HHOM for the pants). I was super lucky (pretty much the sole time in all these years)- it procced on my first attempt. I knew many people that quit because after hours and/or a hell of a lot of kinah, dancing naked at the crafting station, hopping up and down, sacrificing a legion buddy, etc - no pants after multiple tries - 20 or more. Eventually , after losing many players- the quest got changed to give people the HHOM if they failed a certain number of attempts. 2. Does anyone remember when having a failure on socketing one manastone made them ALL explode? Again, many people quit because they couldn't taking all that farming for nothing- getting absolutely no sense of progression. Years later, where are we? Back to the same stupidity- repeating the same mistakes, in a sense. Requiring multiple procs , not just one- to craft gear. Requiring multiple +15 , not just ONE, to get both PVE and PVP gear. The rates are atrocious. Getting ancient gear should be a 100% success with ancient stones and not with a an abysmal success rate- like now. Getting legendary gear should be harder, but manageable given ancient and legendary. Getting ULTIMATE should be grindy. NOT before , and even ultimate should be achievable within a reasonable timeframe, with doing the content. Consider this from someone who is by no means impatient when it comes to upgrading gear - but from someone who wants everyone to have a reasonable chance to get good gear. It's not fun when people quit, or when they stand no chance in a fight purely due to a gear disadvantage.

Contaminated underpath bug - when I entered the instance, I was in the floor. Lost the run since I couldn't do anything. This has never happened to me prior to this patch.

That was announced prior to the update- the "event" temperings (and I believe omegas) were not eligible for exchange. However - another issue- if we get the 'pioneer's buff" it conflicts with the buff from the event (when you click on the coffin) - so you cannot get the evnt buff- can this be fixed please? Perhaps disable the Pioneer's buff while the event is on.

Agreed. After reading the patch notes on Aion powerbook, and all the hard work that @Kubei-DN has done, with the feedback from Korean players, and Youbtube, it became clear that there were a lot of negatives in the patch. Especially after playing on the PTS, and actually experiencing the transformation system (and there are other issues as well). It's understandable though, initially 6.0 sounded like a return of the original Aion in a lot of respects- it just got too twisted into P2W and RNG, and lot of people who really like the game don't want to see that.

To put another spin on it, I really don't care about short term solutions, as someone's who's played since 2009- someone who has no investment in the game could play and quit a day later- which is absolutely their right. We've had multiple mergers, after a certain point enough is enough . You pretend all you want that it doesn't affect the existing servers- but it does. There are other solutions beside a merger. In addition you act like a merger is free- it isn't and it isn't like this game has the resources (staff) to spare- it doesn't. When it was a subscription based game, things were different. Well said.

I'm still surprised that people are only now starting to realize that basically NcSoft screwed the pooch with 6.x in a number of aspects. Even if many people can or want to pay a monthly subscription, many of us won't pay hundreds of dollars on a game, even less on a dying game, when we have so many other things that we can get a much better return on with our money. As you point out, the transformation system is so central to the payer's experience in Aion that anyone without a decent transform is going to have a miserable time.It isn't even going to be in PVP, I'm sure that they will not be able to get into PVE content as well. I agree with supporting a game- it isn't a charity and development costs money- however i would much rather take the approach that "truly free" players have content or instance count restrictions. Let them pay to unlock a map, for example- rather than making them easy targets for P2W players. The new patches were supposed to diminish this, instead we have transforms, minions, bracelets, plumes - all that we lack is godstones. Agree as well- no need to refer to anyone as an "idiot" when you state your opinion.

Well, considering at the start of the game, when we had around a DOZEN servers, a lot of players have quit this game. When new servers have opened up in the past players rerolled for fun, however they still leave their mains, since some people want to try transforms, or they want a fresh start on a new class, or other reasons. As soon as they get tired of it- they go back to their mains. No matter what, this is a niche game, and an old game. Even 6.2 and 6.5 is falling back onto grind, P2W and RNG which isn't for a lot of people particularly in the West, as you just said it's painful to gear up - that's counter to what most people want. Also, a lot of people are more interested in newer games, or games on other platforms- like consoles. So , I really doubt that Aion will get more than a very few real "new" players.

People keep trying to insist that a merge is what *everyone* wants, and that this time is unique and special- but so was very time a merge was used. Don't forget, this isn't the first or even second merge. We had numerous servers when we first started, then those started merging. Then we started a new server (Kahrun)..then another new server for another reason (Beritra)...then another merge,m followed by another. So now some people are proposing ANOTHER merge plus another new server? Hello? there were good reasons each time for a new server, and each time, it was like putting a band-aid on a stump- we just bled out players. It's ALWAYS a temporary fix, and at some point people get fed up with mergers and don't come back. You're trying to make it easy for people who didn't invest anything into this game, either because they're new or because they're returning players. That should be balanced with those people who have invested time and effort into the game. I would prefer that they got a special buff (even for a month) rather than get a new server - so that they got help in PVP and PVE.

As GF announced, they're getting the 6.2 patch, which will include 6.0. The most surprising thing is that they will have a test server, which we haven't had for a very long time (and I'm sure we won't see again).

No, I don't think that anyone expected to get top-tear gear from their current gear. What they expected is that they would gear that would allow them to start doing entry level content with what an average-level (or what you may casual) player would have. A player that invested more (and/or paid more) should get a slightly high grade or gear, but not be wearing the best grade of PVE or PVP gear, i.e endgame gear. What they got was a spread sheet that wasn't tuned for are region events, drop rates, economy or player population but was a copy/paste from Korea. Not good, and not done in any other region, reasons having been posted previously in this thread. In any case Cyan is promising that the rates are being adjusted. In addition to that, @Cyan, the rates for low and medium tier ONLY should be more attainable, NOT the highest tier (if that's given out at all- I would say no).

I agree that money spent on pixels should be considered a luxury in any case- it will disappear one day- every game shuts down. However, I don not agree, since the game began gear hasn't become obsolete as per "Refly". For example, the original miragent gear was more than adequate for a long time. When IS first came out, we were perfectly capable of doing that instance in our Kahrun sets. It wasn't always easy, certainly not in comparison to when we had our IS gear, however a competent alliance would never think of refusing anyone in a Kahrun set, and that applied for quite a long time. I can provide other examples, but basically it doesn't apply to THIS game. In fact, it doesn't even apply to other NcSoft games that I've played. It's normal to progress, it's normal that due to an expansion, players need to improve their gear- BUT their old gear should be perfectly adequate to start the new lower level content. In our case, if NCsoft decided to change so many things, they should have based their enchantment rates so that at least the lowest tear gear was given out, and medium tier gear was a bit more realistic, with the very highest grade unavailable. In other expansions it's not normal to have such a wide gap so that you have some completely OP geared people, and a large group of people who will be semi or extremely undergeared. Isn't that part of what "Refly" was supposed to address?

To be more accurate, first Kahrun, then it was Beritra- so it was TWO new servers. Keep in mind even Korea does not have a master server any more - they don't have the population for anything other than the main release version. The surge in population that you are talking about is likely to be very fairly short-lived. P.S. I would bet 6.2 , not 6.0