Conman

Yes, it's bad...

It's "good enough" I guess. But nowere near geared. And that is paying! Can you imagine without buying the pass? No +10 Zapiel for sure. People say there is enough content to make a lot of AP this patch, and I totally agree. The problem is when you lose 80% of your PvPvE encounters to geared players, getting 50% less AP as reward in the case of Dredgion or 90% less AP in the case of Tiak, it's going to take you 2 TIMES LONGER (please pay attention to this, it's important) to get to the same level of gear as they are now. I blame thet in the lack of a proper matchmaking system (gearscore or ranking). It's all RNG, and RNG always beats the undergeared/new players. No one here wants instant gratification as someone else said here or in another post, but if you start now you are already behind and only to think that it would take you at least 6 months to start catching up (And don't think for a second that you will have endgame gear in 6 months in the current state of the game lol. Maybe 9 months?)... Why would you bother with that in a dead game? Again, think as a new player. If you are here for a while and have a geared static then getting more gear or more AP is not a problem for you. Only the people that truly love the game are still around.

Still expensive for a 15yr old game. Developers charge $40 for new AAA titles lol. One time purchase, not monthly mind you. Yeah yeah servers cost... please!!!! Any $500 server can handle <1k players.

Are you talking about this? https://myaion.eu/Player/866977 Do you honestly consider that to be "geared" for today's standards? I don't. I have 2 pieces of 55e armor not enchanted and with white stones (one of which was given for free in a survey), lvl 30 abyss accs that I bought (cough cough) from the shop, and the Zapiel's Spear +10. BTW I got the enchants from the pass! I have 300k AP in relics that I got from the event pass (cough cough) which I'm saving to get the 55e chest piece next. But to answer your question: Absolutely yes. I'm FAR from a whale, but I do buy the pass + aura (and some event passes, not all though) every month. Thanks for asking! Unfortunately if you want any kind of meaningful progress you have to buy the pass, or farm every instance for enchantment stones or to sell LR that you can do daily, but I don't have the time for that (6h+ daily?). About my Zapiel's Spear, I worked freaking hard for it. I have 6x SMs in a separate account to summon people that help me near the islands, and I have often dual boxed to help on DPS. I did not buy it, I farmed it. I spend around $40 monthly since I came back 2 months ago to get some progress going... It may not seem much for you maybe, but it's a shitload of money for a old game. I only pay because I really, really like the game.

I'm pretty sure people still buy candies. But yeah, RMT is much cheaper so people tend to go for that more often. You forgot to mention Daeva Pass: Default pass, Beginner pass, Event pass, Returnee pass. The amount of enchantment stones in the pass is CRAZY. Plus candies (can't sell them but it doesn't make it less P2W), P2W title (even has pvp damage lol), extra Boons... and all of the above is on the DEFAULT PASS only. We have had a 250k AP pass, some coins pass thatr you could buy all sorts of things with... I mean, you can't possibly deny that the game is P2W, even taking RMT out of the equation. INB4 "yOu CaN bUy EnChAnTs WiTh KiNaH" yes, that is true. But it's much, much faster (several MONTHS faster) if you open your wallet.

2.2 Update: https://aion.plaync.com/board/hotissue/view?articleId=61f367fc617135734942d286&viewMode=compact&size=18 - Opening of Esoterrace; - It was made faster to level from 1-50. More EXP on campaigns on the levels 30-40; - Steel Rake becomes a solo dungeon and you can get the full set + weapon in 4 runs through quests; - They added something to Dark Poeta that makes it faster to get enough points for S rank (much faster runs, no need to kill all bosses); - Lower Abyss fortress are excluded from the faction ratio calculation. 2.4 Update: https://aion.plaync.com/board/hotissue/view?articleId=6270e105617135734945c87c&viewMode=compact&size=18 https://aion.plaync.com/board/hotissue/view?articleId=627df3fdbf8bcb6d4e1794aa&viewMode=compact&size=18 - New Dungeon: Rudra Stormwing (?). A boss-only dungeon to kill Rudra Stormwing to get improved PVE weapons. It's very hard and balanced for top-end PVE geared players; - Arena ranking; - Divine fortress instance Dungeon for the faction that owns Divine (12 men instance); - Making it easier to finish campaigns. Some group campaigns will become solo ones, or made much easier to finish; - Class balance.

All they did was increase drop rates, they didnt change the loot tables, so it seems. So if you want lvl 20-43 stigmas, you should grind Alquimia Research Center for the Asmodians, or Aetherogenetics Labs for the Elyos. I can't guarantee you that those intances drop all the stigmas, but I did get a lvl 28 stigma to drop in Alquimia, which should not be the case before they messed up with the loot.

The only thing that I think they should fix about transformations is only being able to use them DURING SIEGE and only on the map that has the siege active. I.E: If you transform in the Abyss when a siege starts but you return to Ingisson or Gelkmaros (that are also maps where siege happens, but not at the moment) you should not have the transformation buffs (you can keep the status so if you go back to the Abyss you still have the buffs). Sounds complicated but it really isn't: Xform during siege in a map where siege is happening = status + buffs (hp, pvp damage, etc); Moved out of the map = keep status (saying that you have xform active), but no buffs; Went back to the map where siege is happening = buffs are up again. Xforms for 10 minutes are ok, as long as they can only be used during siege and the timer runs out when offline (this is fixed in 2.2 or 2..4 iirc).