The "Filthy Casuals" of Aion

[Rinkusan-KT]

Lately, I've seen a few discussions on the topic of why the game is dying, with some talking about the intensive grinding and pay2win problems this game has. This thread is not about that. Or rather, this thread isn't about what it takes to stay COMPETITIVE. 

Many people think that this game is dying because it's too pay2win/too much of a grind to stay competitive. I disagree, but not because I think there aren't any pay2win problems currently in the game. What many people are over-looking are the people who play games for the general experience rather than the players who are trying to outrace their competition. So I thought I'd make a thread about the people who choose NOT to go the competitive route: the casual players.

I believe that Aion's underwhelming appeal to casual players is the reason why the game's population has been dwindling. To make my point a bit clearer, let's compare Aion to an MMO that, back in the day, did everything right: Runescape (2006). It was an MMO with an endgame grinding demand over a hundred times the grind Aion currently has, yet very few ever complained about it. Why? Because you could enjoy the game whether you were competitive or casual. You could be a competitive player who spent years grinding for those top-end dragon claws/lvl 99 strength/ancient magicks and training for those prayer-flashing/gear-switching techniques so you could beat people up in the wilderness OR you could be a casual lvl 50 who enjoys doing quests, exploring, and fishing lobster for a living so you can eventually build that player-owned house in Rimmington for that house party you always wanted to host.
The point here is that this MMO gave players plenty of OPTIONS of having fun no matter the level or gear. You didn't have to grind for the best gear to have fun. You didn't have to be competitive to have fun. 

But in Aion? Apparently, you HAVE to grind for the best gear to have fun. You HAVE to be somewhat competitive to have fun. Why? Because if you don't, you get locked out of most of the game. No solid PvE gear or PvE experience? No bastion of souls, ToE, CoE, etc. No solid PvP gear or PvP experience? No pre-made PvP instances to join; only quick-groups that more often than not end up being afk sessions. You're locked out of almost every enjoyable in-game content, and all you're left with is zerg-PvP, outdated housing content, coalition-based sieges filled with afk liabilities, the useless PvE instances, and mountain-climbing - a very limited and somewhat unrewarding hobby due to the many invisible walls the developers decided to place in every map (particularly Poeta :/).

The funny thing is that Aion didn't used to have such limited choices for having fun. During the 3.X patches, there were plenty of things you could do at ALL levels, both PvE and PvP. Open-world PvP and rifting was alive and welcoming for all levels because AP earned from kills on similarly-leveled enemies was extremely valuable back then, and there was an incentive to get gear from open-world bosses and instances at any level because you were going to stay at that level for a while. And if you were bored with both PvE and PvP, you could always craft recipes for a living. What I'm trying to say is that there was actual game content to enjoy at EVERY level and a variety of good rewards - whether PvP or PvE - NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL YOU WERE.

Fast-forward to today. All of the above are gone. All of the content from lvl 1 to 65 has been downgraded to something you're supposed to speed-run through in order to to become an archdaeva as fast as possible. Sure, many will argue that it's a "choice", as in you have the choice to play on the old maps the same way as you did in 3.X. No, there is no choice anymore; casual players don't stay at any level long enough for you to form PvE groups with them, rifting has completely died out, crafting isn't profitable, some instances have been cut short, and the entire progression system from lvl 1 to 65 incentivizes you to skip EVERYTHING. You do not have a choice anymore.

Bottom line: I believe the playerbase is dwindling because NCSoft's fundamental changes to this game are hurting casual players. They basically removed all early-game content to incentivize people to rush to end-game, leaving a giant hole of underwhelming gameplay at the beginning which ironically incentivizes casual players to quit prematurely. The casual players who stick around are punished by being locked out of the game because most end-game content happens to be fairly competitive. 

Anyways, I'd like to clarify that this opinionated wall of text talking about casual players was made from the perspective of a competitive player trying to empathize with casual players, so I welcome any counter-arguments to my possible misconceptions. Anyways, with everything said, I still appreciate NCSoft's efforts to update endgame content, but without a baseline of quality casual content that everyone can enjoy and a solid revamping of the pre-archdaeva progression system, I believe the population will inevitably shrink.
 
 

 

[Neleth-KT]

I miss 3.0 it was the best time T-T

[zikira-KT]

There is no grouping basicall, except Duo's low level or please hold group.Friendships are rarely formed legion invite's are pretty much non existent.So yes you are encouraged to zerg 66 become archdaeva then what run instance's in crappy fledgling gear.

How many groups are going to take fledgling geared player's even in low instance's,not many im sure.And legions well goodluck with the amount requiring gear and certain levels to even get a foot in the door.

 I agree with everything you said, but pay2win is also killing this game ,why bother getting gear +15 when there's players in +20 and higher that  hammer you in 2-3 hits, it's utterly pointless grinding the medals and Ap gear.

Also even for pve even not zerging to 66, we couldnt make the millions of kinah needed for a basic gear set endgame,Like you said professions are worthless,gathering is terrible so all you do is Zerg to 66 and have nothing to do unless pay for a pve set and pvp gear,this all a new player is going too see.

[Aly-DN]

My answer to just about everything you mention is.. find a legion. (Zikira talks about legions with gear reqs. I would suggest you are looking at the wrong legions.) There are plenty of casual legions around, they just aren't super attractive to someone that doesn't want to be casual. These legions have good, honest, friendly people that are willing to teach and point you in the right direction.

My legion isn't exactly casual, but when we pug for AOE and lower, we absolutely do take people in the free leveling gear. We absolutely do take level 67s and 68s.

You can easily make kinah by running AoE and the arch-daeva versions Theo and Adma. Disenchant everything you get in there and sell the chrono stones. Sell the lesser enchantment dusts. Bank your wing marks to upgrade an Appollon's set or just buy it from the broker. Run your daily lunas to bank omegas. Make sure to get the greater supps from the UA and Levinshore (plus the ones from AoE). Enchant. Use the free 90 +6 manastones to fill that Appollon's set. Now you can run CoE full run. Level. Replace manastones as you can. Run BoS. Be prepared to join voice communication, though. It just takes time and a social attitude.

PvP is a bit harder to break into, but it's doable. Those people running around that hammer you in 2 hits were all where you are at one point or another.

@Rinkusan-KT.. I do see your point. A casual player without a legion is going to have a really tough time, even though there is so much more solo content as there was back in the day.

[Mempo-KT]

Give us unlimited and untimed Arena and FoO entries and I can tell you 100% it will fix Aion.

The players doing all the Arenas will trickle down (eventually) dirt cheap and usable PvP gear to the people who do not have the time to grind, and there will always be a decent (but not OP) leveling and PvP options available to those who want to put in the time.

Give us repeatable world PvP quests as well, just to keep the variety alive.

[LordVoldy-KT]

I totally agree with you.

As a casual player, (I live in the pacific, imagine the ping) I miss the times when winning a pvp against a roaming ely/asmo in eltnen/heiron/beluslan/morheim isn't about gear. But about knowing your class' skills.

Back in the day, (I think I played in a private server, still same content), we enjoy going to abyss and farming in the eye of reshanta. Looking for asmos/elys to kill while farming gears in the eye. But now even the eye is closed. 

Don't even mention professions... back in the day if youre a master tailor/armorsmith you can make a lot of kinah. But now all you can make are crap/outdated gears. Or skins... the only profession that survived are alchemy and cooking and both are on the verge of collapsing what with 5.8 coming and them adding more stuffs on aetherforging.. 

I dunno what went wrong with aion. But I think removing "these LITTLE things" made the game unplayable to casual players. We grind non stop to reach a lvl, well back then we do too. But instead of pining about that one level increase. We dont even bother because there are a lot of stuffs to do crafts, hunt, quests.. now. Grind or die. Gear up or die. Lol. 

No hate please... Lol.

[Aly-DN]

Farming gear in the Eye of Reshanta? What gear was that? The Eye had become outdated. It's closed now but will reopen with an updated version in 5.8. And please never ever compare your experience on a pirated version of Aion to retail. They are not even remotely the same thing.

[LordVoldy-KT]

I dont know the name of the gear. But its something that we sell and make some kinah. I particularly remember farming dark poeta for anuhart gears. 

And I dont know about pirated because we also use the nclauncher back then. We also used gamezaion... dunno. 

Still its the same aion. Lol.

[Cheesecake-DN]

Gamez was nothing like retail. lol

[Ashtar-KT]

1 hour ago, LordVoldy-KT said:

I dont know the name of the gear. But its something that we sell and make some kinah. I particularly remember farming dark poeta for anuhart gears. 

And I dont know about pirated because we also use the nclauncher back then. We also used gamezaion... dunno. 

Still its the same aion. Lol.

I think you're referring to Elder gear that used to drop in the abyss there. It most definitely is pirated, purposely broken, and not worth the time if you actually want to experience this game as it was meant to be.

[Aly-DN]

"Private server" is another word for "stolen". The game is the intellectual property of the developer (NCSoft). The Developer pays the programmers, artists, musicians, voice actors and everyone else who works on the actual making and continuing development of a game. The publisher of the game pays the developers for the rights to put the game out. For us it's NCWest, whose parent company is NCSoft. For EU, for example, that would be Gameforge. Someone that sets up a "private" server steals the developers property. They don't ask if they can and they certainly don't pay for it. They pay for the server and nothing else. So basically all the money they get is pocketed. They don't have to pay anyone for their work.

Anyway.. back to the OP. Despite the addition of a bunch of solo content, the appeal for a more casual player has diminished. Though I would also suggest that there are also more "hardcore" players who want to be handed everything and are unwilling to work for it.. either in game or by paying for it.

[Ashtar-KT]

I'm a casual player and I still find it enjoyable to play although I don't try to stay competitive. I mostly enjoy crafting and questing nowadays instead of running instances due to not having as much time to play as I used to. I think different people play for different reasons. We all just have to find what we enjoy about the game. Sometimes I get too frustrated and take breaks but I always end up coming back because I start to miss it. 

[Belldandy-KT]

Aion NA's current playerbase can be divided into two groups:

The die hard, "far too invested, (both emotionally and fiscally), to ever quit now", player.

And the brand new, "hasnt been here long enough to be scared off by, (or yet to even be aware of), Aions quirks just yet" player.

The gap between the two is what we refer to as "casuals". Casuals are the heart of any MMO, the meat in the hamburger, if you will. Sure, die hards supply ample money keeping the game funded, and newbs keep the base replenished with new bodies. But without casuals to sustain the games core activities, (long enough for newbs to eventually develop enough interest till they themselves becoming "die hard"), you end up with a lonely, featureless and bland chasm in between the two that most players find unappealing and simply move on. Die hards stay commited, while newbs simply get bored and leave. The games pop stagnates.

Basically: Its near impossible to cultivate a healthy player base from just die hards and newbs as they represent polar opposites. The road between the two is simply boring asf in Aion which inevitably leads to shrinking pop. No legion can fill the gap of loneliness and inactivity between 1 and 65 in this game, and getting to 65 just marks the beginning of the $#!t sandwich.anyways, as you're introduced head on to untouchable haxors, exploding gear, and endless hardcore grinding.

The Aion devs plans of getting new players to 65 asap, (imo a lazy attempt at pulling a rug over the mess instead of cleaning and fixing it, in this case, hiding the featureless and dull middle experience), has basically gutted 75% of the game. That being the case, dunno why they dont just provide level 65 toons from the start and be done with it. The game would probably garner more interest that way. 

[Rinkusan-KT]

3 hours ago, Ashtar-KT said:

I'm a casual player and I still find it enjoyable to play although I don't try to stay competitive. I mostly enjoy crafting and questing nowadays instead of running instances due to not having as much time to play as I used to. I think different people play for different reasons. We all just have to find what we enjoy about the game. Sometimes I get too frustrated and take breaks but I always end up coming back because I start to miss it. 

I'm glad you were able to find things to enjoy at endgame. I realize that the things that each casual player enjoys are subjective, but even in your case, I believe that your options of having fun as a casual player nowadays is extremely limited. There were more viable crafting opportunities back then, and quests were more in-depth, rewarding, and varied; by varied, I mean that there were all kinds of quests you could do, from the typical "kill X mobs for some cash" quests to "assassinate this guy hidden deep in the Eltnen forest" and "use this special flute to awaken a hidden boss". There were more quests, particularly quests that gave you an incentive to explore, back then. Quests nowadays are the generic "kill X mobs/X asmodians for cash".

[The Secret Cow Level]

7 hours ago, Mempo-KT said:

Give us unlimited and untimed Arena and FoO entries and I can tell you 100% it will fix Aion.

The players doing all the Arenas will trickle down (eventually) dirt cheap and usable PvP gear to the people who do not have the time to grind, and there will always be a decent (but not OP) leveling and PvP options available to those who want to put in the time.

Give us repeatable world PvP quests as well, just to keep the variety alive.

If FoO entries are unlimited then everyone will just bot that instance until they are level 75 with 100% exp bar (608,905,517,162 exp total from level 1). This will also result in the market flooded by:

• Ancient Coins
  • Archdaeva's Rexxxed weapons and gear
  • Unbinding Stones
• Wing Features of Oblivion
  • Enchantment Stone Dust
    • Enchantment Stone
      • Shining Enchantment Stone
  • Chronos Stone
    • Chronos Stone Powder
    • Ancient Crafting Stone
      • Ancient Crafting Stone Powder
  • Eternity Stones
    • Eternity Stone Powder
      • Chronos Stone

And the wings will be so common to the point that the most cost effective way to +15 these wings is to use black enchantment stones all the way.

[Ashtar-KT]

50 minutes ago, Rinkusan-KT said:

I'm glad you were able to find things to enjoy at endgame. I realize that the things that each casual player enjoys are subjective, but even in your case, I believe that your options of having fun as a casual player nowadays is extremely limited. There were more viable crafting opportunities back then, and quests were more in-depth, rewarding, and varied; by varied, I mean that there were all kinds of quests you could do, from the typical "kill X mobs for some cash" quests to "assassinate this guy hidden deep in the Eltnen forest" and "use this special flute to awaken a hidden boss". There were more quests, particularly quests that gave you an incentive to explore, back then. Quests nowadays are the generic "kill X mobs/X asmodians for cash".

You are right about that. You used to have really work hard to get things you wanted or spend a lot of time acquiring them. Now everything is much easier. I miss the old days that is for sure.

[Rinkusan-KT]

6 hours ago, Aly-DN said:

My answer to just about everything you mention is.. find a legion. (Zikira talks about legions with gear reqs. I would suggest you are looking at the wrong legions.) There are plenty of casual legions around, they just aren't super attractive to someone that doesn't want to be casual. These legions have good, honest, friendly people that are willing to teach and point you in the right direction.

My legion isn't exactly casual, but when we pug for AOE and lower, we absolutely do take people in the free leveling gear. We absolutely do take level 67s and 68s.

You can easily make kinah by running AoE and the arch-daeva versions Theo and Adma. Disenchant everything you get in there and sell the chrono stones. Sell the lesser enchantment dusts. Bank your wing marks to upgrade an Appollon's set or just buy it from the broker. Run your daily lunas to bank omegas. Make sure to get the greater supps from the UA and Levinshore (plus the ones from AoE). Enchant. Use the free 90 +6 manastones to fill that Appollon's set. Now you can run CoE full run. Level. Replace manastones as you can. Run BoS. Be prepared to join voice communication, though. It just takes time and a social attitude.

PvP is a bit harder to break into, but it's doable. Those people running around that hammer you in 2 hits were all where you are at one point or another.

@Rinkusan-KT.. I do see your point. A casual player without a legion is going to have a really tough time, even though there is so much more solo content as there was back in the day.

I absolutely agree that there are more opportunities to get into the competitive grind than there was previously. This thread isn't about that, though. We're talking about casual players; more specifically, the ones who choose not to take part in the gear race or the PvP ladder. What I was saying was that for the typical casual player who made it to end game, there are very few things they can do to have leisurely fun. Sure, from lvl 66-68, solo instances like fissure of oblivion could be fun. After that point, it's a repetitive grindfest, at which point, you'd be playing semi-competitively in order to get the level and gear to do the hardest instances. Of course, there's nothing wrong with grinding hard to be competitive; there's everything wrong, though, with not having anything to do if you choose not to be competitive.

[KnightZM-KT]

I completely agree with Rinkusan, and other hand people were speaking about maybe finding a good legion would be the answer. But I remember back in the day you could join this game with a bunch of friends make up some random nyerk legion and just enjoy the game. I feel like this game Is way too much grinding for new players to enjoy/stay in the game with no incentive.

I have had a lot of new players/ returning players whisper me in game for advice etc and I can tell a lot of them finding it hard. they are forced to grind to Level 74-75 just to enjoy the game with some what fun. then once you grind your life away you find out you need +5 accessories that could possibly break, and +15 gear with like +10 manastones so you don't get 2 shot to death. or you find out you need to grind to get the best pve weapons which can cost you billions to socket and enchant, or to even buy for that matter.

Not everyone can drop there wallet/time to get the best gear in this game. and even grinding towards which the game forces you to, takes away from the fun.

Leveling - I think it''s great idea that ncsoft been cycling kumuki with 100% exp buffs as much as they have been. Really good job on that, but I feel as if they should reduce the exp needed for L70 - L75 by atleast 25-30%. also possibly upgrade those quest the shugo give from 100m exp to 200m.

Gearing - there a lot of options for gear in aion. But it's not accessibly within a certain time frame which you can agree should be the case or is in most mmos. Especially when we have stuff that break, then on top of that we need to spend billions on manastones and Major feli socketing. we have to pray we get lucky in an event or drop our wallet on the keyboard just to get decent sockets.

Back in the day we could +15 our gear then socket later with better manasotnes, because the gap in state difference was as "high" as it is now with these new manastones. I think they should reduce the drops with new manastones in events and increase felicitous socketing, but to make up for lack of manastones have series of quests like daily/weekies.

Daily - Kill 10 Asmo or Elyos in iluma - Reward (2) +6 manastones bundles

Daily - Kill 15 Asmo or Elyos in Reshanta - Reward (2) +7 manastone bundles

Weekly - Kill 5 Asmos or Elyos in each of the following maps EI. Levishor/Kaldor/Cygnea/Enshar/iluma/Norsvold/Reshanta Rep 2 times - Reward +10 manastone bundle. 

Maybe even have pvp weekly/daily for omega and tempering this might have some fun pvp outcomes in the more fun areas of the game. Even maybe see some western shard pvp again.

PVP/PVE - the pve in this game has been too complacent either they nerf everything where its no mechanics and you mindlessly DPS or it can be too hard where you need outrageous gear/states. Ncsoft should find a middle ground when nerfing these instances. On the other hand the gear difference in pvp is really crazy with people running around with +20 gear / +7 accessories, As much as an average player ties to compete and keep up with that it's way too hard without slaving your life away.

Incentives - I really think they should bring back incentives like what they had for asmos but on all servers, just maybe we can get some returning players/new players a board. But knowing how past has gone, Make incentives that will help in the current patch not just outdated gear.

Ranking - I think all glory points. across all servers should be reduced by 90% so any new players/returning user don't look up and see people with like over a million glory points. At this point I think a full reset will lose more players than it gains. Just have it reduced by 90% so its almost like we're new servers but keeps everyone happy because they get to keep there rank. Along with that GP should be reduced by 90% but reduce it even further were everyone is 3-5k from each other, so it keeps rankings competitive and people aren't holding 40k leads. if you look at KT-E 143,864 is 4 star, its kinda ridiculous.

Also the removal of arena tickets in BCM would be nice,but keep OW/IDL resets and reduce the amount of gp gained at the end of season. if they ever fix tournament rankings again. Th 30k wouldn't be needed as much then.

In all honestly I would like to see some GM play aion for a week and see how dull/toxic some of these things can really be.

[Azzmaria-KT]

I must say that I am agree with you. I think that are other reassons to the current situation for Aion, but wat you said is really important. Yes, we have no content now under 66. And even at 66 there is so few things. At that level basically you need to rush for exp and try to see how you get kinah for a limited variety of gear. Cause not every archdaeva gear is good. And we must try for apollon or harvester in PvE or Prime Royal in PvP. And lets be honest, are not hard to get those now. Not like it was some years ago to get the top gear. 

Somebody said about "join a legion and find casual gamers". I think he is talking about new players. He already knows how to play here. But the new players are on that issue and they do not come here to read. Joining alegion for them is hard, if you check LFG you will see that most of the legions now ask for a minimum lvl at 69 - 72. Yes. again. I know is not that hard to get there. But we know the game. We know how to level up in few days. We know wich gear to get, wich quests to do, wich manastones we need. 

But try to remember how it was when you came here. Remember those first weeks on aion. And he is right! I started knowing nothing. Just doing all te quest on the way and trying every single item I got. I needed more people to do some quest. I grouped with other new players in the same situation. I did a lot of useless instances and quests with them, just because we did not know they were useless but we had fun. I made mi first game friends in Heiron collecting silver coins for many days with the same people. We created our first legion then. We used a lot of time helping each other and learning how to play. Was an adventure. 

But now, for a new player is a lonely start. You level up fast, yes, but you do not know what are you really doing. If you try to do some quest you wont find more people for that. If you try to join a legion at lvl 20, nobody will answer to you. You will try to read the LFG chat to see how is the people and will find a lot of troll conversations and kids trying to make sex jokes. And if finally somebody talks to you, he will tell yo to do lunas and yellow quest alone to level up. So.... yeah. totally funny. We do lunas cause we already like the game. But for a new player a repetitive lonely instance is boring. After a week playing alone he will be at 66 with only the free mythic gear and no clue about how to continue. Some people try harder and ask. But others do not and leave. I would like to see a reconstruction on the early campaings and making this game something similar than the previous idea. 

[Squid]

Honestly i think new players are more overwhelmed then people think with the amount of content in the game sure a lot of the content is just enhancing items but that seems normal for an MMO from my experience.

- PvE Weapon/gear/accessories

- Enhancing gear

- Socketing gear with decent stones

- Plume

- Bracelet

- Essence Cores

- Leveling

- PvP gear

- Socketing PvP gear

- PvP accessory enchanting

- Obtaining stigmas

- Enchanting stigmas

- Making alt army for events/ experiencing other classes.

 

You have to remember new players do not have the same knowledge old players have. When you look at that list above where would you start as a new player. Hell i do not think new players will even know Omega + Supps = 100% enchant so the first new 66+ weapon they get will blow up more then likely before +3.

If a new player/casual player comes to play this game they would only want to play 1 character not 20 alts to gain items this means they are forced to Cash shop and when they have had 0 player interaction in an MMORPG you will more then likely quit and find something else where they can enjoy the MMO part of the game because after all interaction with other players is why people play an MMORPG 

I have much more to say but honestly i been trying to type it out for about 5 hours now and it never sounds right when i read it back to my self so i will just leave it at this.

[KallSu-KT]

I agree with both Rinkusan (good post, trying to describe the current situation from an unbiased PoV) and Orihime. There are several reasons why casual players stopped to play Aion, since not everyone looks for the same thing in a game.

Earlier contents were certainly more appealing, since NCSoft invested more attention in developing the game, rather then throwing us a "toh, go to level up 10 more levels with a 0,05% exp for 30 minutes of your play-time". But the grind is not the main reason for me, so I don't agree that an unlimited FoO would solve the problem. At all.

All of these games that require a continuos gearing, will die at some point. Because the graphic and the gameplay will become old, and there won't be enough new players to compensate the leaving ones. We keep playing them because we invested a lot of our time on them, but if we had to start a new MMO, we would probably choose something else, more recent and fresh.

From my point of view, "wasting time" on a videogame is fine until you have fun. Repeating 30 times an instance until you find your weapon as loot, may be still ok, if you ran it with friends and had fun. But if you log-in and you already know that you have to waste 1 hour or more on boring and repetitive dailies (almost all in solo), just to gain few exp or stones (a chance nevertheless) to burn on gear that will become obsolete in 4 months... well, that's wasted time for me. When you realize it, you'll probably quit.

[Mempo-KT]

18 hours ago, mooMOOMooMoomoo-KT said:

If FoO entries are unlimited then everyone will just bot that instance until they are level 75 with 100% exp bar (608,905,517,162 exp total from level 1). This will also result in the market flooded by:

• Ancient Coins
  • Archdaeva's Rexxxed weapons and gear
  • Unbinding Stones
• Wing Features of Oblivion
  • Enchantment Stone Dust
    • Enchantment Stone
      • Shining Enchantment Stone
  • Chronos Stone
    • Chronos Stone Powder
    • Ancient Crafting Stone
      • Ancient Crafting Stone Powder
  • Eternity Stones
    • Eternity Stone Powder
      • Chronos Stone

And the wings will be so common to the point that the most cost effective way to +15 these wings is to use black enchantment stones all the way.

That's a botting issue. Not an unlimited FoO entry issue.

And even if they were somehow unable to do anything about the botting (we all know they can), none of what you have listed would be a major game breaking issue heading into 5.8.

[GenericUser143]

To be honest, not a single friend that I made outside of Aion has joined Aion and stayed past level 40. It's either the lack of groups or the pvp that kills it for them. And I can't blame them. There's little to no reason to be under 66 now.

Even for me, a mostly competitive player, am getting tired of Aion. No matter what gear you get, you still die in 2s (particularly to hackers). NC undermines those that try to beat difficult instances such as bastion of souls by making the gear you get there rain from the skies. You got magic classes with 7k+ magic boost and 3-5k?+ magical accuracy, and vice versa with physical classes. The amount of stats you need to be effective in pvp is so high, I can understand why it scares off new players. I'm sure someone who kisses NC's butt will swoop in saying you can just afk lunas or some crap to gain what you need to gear up. But come on, who plays a game just to afk?

In my opinion, Aion has become too complicated. Plumes, bracelets, exploding gear (even with the omegas, it's just an expensive "hot fix" after people screamed about it for months), enchanting accessories, having to calculate the decay factor for archdaeva manastones. Crafting/gathering completely undermined by aetherforging, useless events like the arcade and tree. Level 75 elemental transforms. If you're losing in pvp? just xform to make up for your crappy skill/gear (not saying it always works). Hackers not being banned or punished, and I'm not one to call hackusations. Then there's no reason to be an officer other than to try to get into Panesterra. Yeah sure being able to xform for siege is nice, but NC seems to effectively be killing off sieges. Took away Tia siege, Gelk/Inggi, Divine. Then making UA siege point based with a crappy coalition system that holds people hostage. Along with encouraging people to afk the siege (don't get me started on healer aggro). Essence cores easily break, gotta go through dozens just to get a +5 let alone a +10 like john assumes is so easy to get and everyone should aim for to be able to play like the 75s at any level.

NC did really well with the October events and stuff. Everyone, most everyone, was happy. Then December rolls around and we get arcade and crap tree event where majority of what you get is dust (at least for me). And by god if they don't put that solorius furniture pack on bcm this year again I'm going to scream.

That's another thing NC is neglecting. People here love skins (can't fight crime if you aint looking cute), they also like the housing. I'm pretty sure they could make bank on housing if they bothered to take care of it. But they haven't updated it since its arrival in 3.0. You know how many people would lose their damn minds if NC decided to say... put some mansions/houses in Enshar/Cygnea/Norsvold/Illuma? On the topic of updating areas, good on updating Ishalgen/Poeta, now get to the rest of the maps. Because it's a huge disappointment once you leave the starter areas and go back to bad graphics.

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And the wings will be so common to the point that the most cost effective way to +15 these wings is to use black enchantment stones all the way.

Better set of wings than the ancient atreia ones. I'm all for not having to waste omegas on wings.

[Squid]

On 12/9/2017 at 9:32 PM, Rinkusan-KT said:

Bottom line: I believe the playerbase is dwindling because NCSoft's fundamental changes to this game are hurting casual players. They basically removed all early-game content to incentivize people to rush to end-game, leaving a giant hole of underwhelming gameplay at the beginning which ironically incentivizes casual players to quit prematurely. The casual players who stick around are punished by being locked out of the game because most end-game content happens to be fairly competitive. 

Anyways, I'd like to clarify that this opinionated wall of text talking about casual players was made from the perspective of a competitive player trying to empathize with casual players, so I welcome any counter-arguments to my possible misconceptions. Anyways, with everything said, I still appreciate NCSoft's efforts to update endgame content, but without a baseline of quality casual content that everyone can enjoy and a solid revamping of the pre-archdaeva progression system, I believe the population will inevitably shrink.
 
 

 

Where to start @Rinkusan-KT I think it is very interesting seeing where people think the issues lay as a competitive player and i feel there is no better person than myself to give you an answer as Wings of Divinity was a guild full of casuals. This guild had 90-110 active casuals and about 4-8 players who.
A fair few of our players were so casual that they had to use Facebook to communicate when they were going to be home since they only had 45 minutes to play during weekdays. This meant us who were a bit more time got the groups organized for them so as soon as they got home we ran IS/DR and other instances.

Wings of Divinity quit Aion for many different reasons and i will list the reasons first in order of why they quit.

 

1) Open world

The reason open world is number 1 is simple, When your a casual player you spend more time PvPing in open world especially as an Australian due to not being on during X or Y time to participate in PvP instances or do Arena and so on. 5.0 killed that for many of us as there was nothing really to do in open world it felt. You would run around do a few useless daily quests and that was it usually see no asmo's. We were not a guild of Skilled PvPers but we enjoyed what we did. Most of us back in 4.0 ran around in Bloodmarks or used IS gear as our PvP gear till EB game out. Losing or winning we had fun. 1 month in to 5.0 and we saw maybe 10 asmos so we had next to 0 PvP action.

 

2) Gear blowing up

As a casual you have far less time to play this means every piece of gear you get is harder and when you blow it up it makes it even worse. This may of edged out Open world for top spot but i put it number 2 anyways. To be honest we all probably quit before any meaningful loot change or decent PvE change came out, If we stuck around till 5.6 i am sure many of them would be happier with where the game is currently at.

 

3) Manastone prices

Similar to number 2 but slightly different i guess. The prices of items/availability to make new manastones were crazy so much in-fact that when people worked out how much it was going to cost they quit a few days later. Again like with number 2 things became easier and we did not know about luna at the time so again maybe people would of stayed around if they knew about these things.

 

4) Cheaters

This goes for all types of cheating.  I really wish i could use names but you can not shame people on the forums so it frustrates me not being able to explain this properly. Long story short a big time NA player got IP banned recently on the EU servers for botting. This is a big reason why WoD community left early 5.0 is this same person was leveling on EU and got banned for using wall hacks to walk through and kill a link gate boss. This got us talking on TS3 and we ended up coming to the conclusion that NCwest does not care about its player base they would rather give us a generic we will look in to it answer then actually do something. Where as people who complain about Gameforge when you hear the stories about the people going from NA to cheat in EU quickly return back to NA because they got banned for doing the same things that got you to your high rank. Then later cemented the fact that people who abused fallen poeta shows that they can do stuff about cheaters they just choose not to altho this happened well after we all quit.

Most cheaters cheat because they are way to competitive they have to have the best faster then everyone and for cheaper then most people. This means if they can not put out enough DPS they use hacks to increase that DPS but consider it to be their own skill which is sad. Note i am not saying you are like this rinku but i just mearly wanted to point it out that cheating is a form of being competitive and the 2 words can often be traded out for one and other.

 

I have actually spent a lot of time talking to WoD members over the last day about why they quit Aion and would they consider ever coming back to the game. I told them about the changes and what has happened to improve the game experience at 66+. Number 4 is the reason none of them ever want to open Aion again. The main reason i have came back is black desert is having connection issues for me and i am was being targeted by the Chinese in Ark survival evolved so the other 2 games i was playing i can currently not log in 2.

 

 

Now that all that is out of the way let me actually tell you why i quoted you for this post. Your whole post was actually directed at New player experience not casual player experience. Many casual players have quit due to reasons i mention above others have quit for other reasons but no matter how you look at this game it is what 8? or maybe 9 years old. Casual players that i know who enter an older games want to know if there are faster ways to level to get to end game. They care not for the first 65 levels if the game actually starts after 66.

Another thing is comparing Aion now to Aion 3.0 is not really a good comparison simply because the game went f2p and it had its largest influx of player base during that period.

It would be like comparing 4.X(when tempering was first introduced) To now and how hard it is to get +5 accessories and +7 or better plumes/bracelets this is because now you do not have the CC hackers supplying entire servers with items like Tempering and Feli for cheap prices.. 

 

 

 

P.S I am not trying to be negative so sorry if it reads like that as i did enjoy reading your post and i thought hard on how i was going to give you a counter argument. Infact it got me in-contact with some old guild members that i have not talked to since 5.0 was released so for that i thank you :D. I could go on and on to help people understand what angle i am coming from but honestly i am sure this is going to read fairly poorly anyways but i just had to type it out.

[Squid]

I guess in a way i actually just agreed with you just from a different perspective.