How to make Aion Classic successful (@NCW)

[Vinley-KT]

As a community I think it's important we at least do our part in voicing what we think is important for the long term health of the server(s).

I and many other players played the Korean model and while we love the game, there are some key things that should be addressed for Western audiences, given what we now know.

The "Battle Pass"

30%, 8% and 120 CRIT scrolls should not be offered on the battle pass quest rewards at all. These are key economy building items that are integral to the health and growth of crafter income. Unlike aion retail which killed crafting, Classic lived and died by crafters, and for good reason. It's a core gameplay mechanic and nothing from the cash shop or battle pass should intrude on that.

I am not personally against early game scrolls in the battle pass (10%/20%) to assist people leveling, those aren't real economic drivers, nor are they viable in pvp and could be used for people's alts.

No crowns should be on the battlepass. While the one crown per month is not a big deal and we know, as vets, it doesn't mean much... it just sets a bad precedent and is an extremely bad look. Buying AP in no way should ever be a thing in a pvp game, no matter how small.

What can't go in the battle pass?

I get that NC runs a business and they need to make money. But you need to look at the long term. Aion Classic is launching on shaky ground, and anything viewed as even remotely P2W will look really bad to a western audience that already fled your game once because of your complete abandonment of principles in server balance and pvp balance. Since 4.0 this company has fully embraced P2W and slowly cut Aion off at its legs, turning a once beautiful game into a baron wasteland.

In a game like aion, EXP boosts are P2W.

There's a time when EXP boosts can enter the game for monetary purposes. That time is 2.0+ when the veteran playerbase only has 5 levels to complete and that won't be a significant advantage to get it a few hours earlier. In Classic, from 1-50, boosts are advantages, and advantages are P2W.

Some will disagree, but I believe boosts are monetarily acceptable after 2.0 launch because it gives players an option to catch up alts and new players/friends to relevant content, and veterans spending money on the game in non-gamebreaking ways is a good thing. Even games like XIV use content skips and monetary catch up for old expansions.. Thats overwhelmingly viewed as OK. But at launch it is not ok, so please no EXP boosts at all in classic except for what's available in game via quests already.

If anyone has ideas for what can safely go into the battle pass I encourage you to give your opinions! I think it's important we voice our opinions before release. NCW has culturally lost sight of how to run a balanced game, and economic health, and P2W are complete blind spots judging by Live's current economy and cash shop.

Many of us want this to succeed. I want to give NCW my money for entertainment. I, and many players who love aion, will pay for something just to support the game. But you have to build players trust and offer an even playing field..

Aion was built in a way that didn't support a battle pass or P2W. You had to systematically change the game step by step to make P2W viable. Aion was always a game that your time and efficiency determined your progression, not your wallet size.

Thanks! @Kibbelz

[Aelar-DN]

There's only two possible things that can go into a battle pass anyway, cosmetics or resources, and there's only so many cosmetics that existed around that time anyway so the obvious fillers would be resources, such as boosts, manastones and enchantment stones. This being NCSoft, it wouldn't shock me at all if some of the milestone rewards consisted of entire sets of gear bundled into a chest.

Either way, they'll find a way to recoup the drop in profits from retail players migrating over to classic and to fund the man-hours required to deal with the inevitable backlash from both games.

[Attestant]

In order to make the Classic Server a success, this is what they would have to do:

• They would have to close the Aion-Current servers and send rewards based on the tier of progress of your characters in the Aion-Current servers. The rewards would have to be housing items, skins, emotes, motions, pets, mounts, and titles as that doesn't affect strength of a character. *
• They would have to sell only housing items, skins, emotes, motions, pets, mounts, titles, name change tickets, and appearance change tickets in the cash shop. *
• They would have to sell a subscription to play model. **
• They would have to increase the chances item dropping and experience gain to make it casual and make QoL changes so the availability of items is reasonable.
• They would have to make simple changes to the skills so that the classes are balanced and don't have useless skills. For example, Barrier of Severance should have a cooldown reduction and a cast time reduction.
• They would have to change godstones to make them similar to the strength of S-Rank minion proc skills.
• They would have to improve PvP Curses so they get applied after someone has killed far too many people and have it removed after two rift spawns.
• They would have to make the race balance buff not applied during non-siege times.
• They would have to adopt the GP system into the game.
• They would have to make the PvE instances far harder.
• They need to change the reset times of instances to be daily and to have multiple entries to make up for the loss of entries.
• They would have to monitor the game for botting or limit trading.
• They would have to have all UI options available from the Aion-Current servers, no auto-hunting.
• They would have to keep updating the game as long as possible until another Aion comes out for PC that isn't a joke. They cannot update into the 4.0 era, they must stop before 4.0. They need to have good events as well!

* = Either they should add ways to get all mounts and titles in game or they can make it exclusively cash shop, as long as there is an stat-equivalent option for a cheaper in-game way to get a mount or title that has a not-so-desired name or skin, otherwise mounts and titles are excluded. (Includes **)

** = The BCM cannot sell any tiered service for acquiring items having to do with progression.

 

I think I got most of the pressing issues.

 

I got a random idea as well, they can take the transforms from 6.0+ and make them into candies with the candy stats of Classic and make them event rewards.

[Vinley-KT]

29 minutes ago, Aelar-DN said:

There's only two possible things that can go into a battle pass anyway, cosmetics or resources, and there's only so many cosmetics that existed around that time anyway so the obvious fillers would be resources, such as boosts, manastones and enchantment stones. This being NCSoft, it wouldn't shock me at all if some of the milestone rewards consisted of entire sets of gear bundled into a chest.

Either way, they'll find a way to recoup the drop in profits from retail players migrating over to classic and to fund the man-hours required to deal with the inevitable backlash from both games.

They have untradeable scrolls in current Korean battle pass, which I think is a bad thing.

I think offering some starter scrolls to all players isn't a bad idea, but putting them into essentially a pay wall, no matter how few, is bad.

One thing I remembered is the game has a lot of timed skins, timed wings, timed pets, etc.

These are things that can be put in the battlepass. It would be a good way for people to try all sorts of different skins every few months (the pass is seasonal).
Titles, motions, those are good ideas as well, although titles beyond vanity are pushing it.

There are some low damage versions of the PVE godstones, that are mostly considered useless but they could maybe get away with throwing those in there so people have some slight damage benefits while solo grinding. (not the world drop ones, there's even worse ones that are untradeable)

They could also put opposite faction skins in there as well.

There's cube space and warehouse space as well.

I also forgot about housing stuff Motgar mentioned. There's a lot of possibilities there. They can throw basic housing stuff, the rest will be on cash shop. There's also temporary housing storage spaces that would incentivize people to continuously keep up to date their battle pass.

[Vinley-KT]

17 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

• They would have to close the Aion-Current servers and send rewards based on the tier of progress of your characters in the Aion-Current servers. The rewards would have to be housing items, skins, emotes, motions, pets, mounts, and titles as that doesn't affect strength of a character. *
• They would have to sell only housing items, skins, emotes, motions, pets, mounts, titles, name change tickets, and appearance change tickets in the cash shop. *
• They would have to sell a subscription to play model. **
• They would have to increase the chances item dropping and experience gain to make it casual and make QoL changes so the availability of items is reasonable.
• They would have to make simple changes to the skills so that the classes are balanced and don't have useless skills. For example, Barrier of Severance should have a cooldown reduction and a cast time reduction.
• They would have to change godstones to make them similar to the strength of S-Rank minion proc skills.
• They would have to improve PvP Curses so they get applied after someone has killed far too many people and have it removed after two rift spawns.
• They would have to make the race balance buff not applied during non-siege times.
• They would have to adopt the GP system into the game.
• They would have to make the PvE instances far harder.
• They need to change the reset times of instances to be daily and to have multiple entries to make up for the loss of entries.
• They would have to monitor the game for botting or limit trading.
• They would have to have all UI options available from the Aion-Current servers, no auto-hunting.
• They would have to keep updating the game as long as possible until another Aion comes out for PC that isn't a joke. They cannot update into the 4.0 era, they must stop before 4.0. They need to have good events as well!

* = Either they should add ways to get all mounts and titles in game or they can make it exclusively cash shop, as long as there is an stat-equivalent option for a cheaper in-game way to get a mount or title that has a not-so-desired name or skin, otherwise mounts and titles are excluded. (Includes **)

** = The BCM cannot sell any tiered service for acquiring items having to do with progression.

 

I think I got most of the pressing issues.

 

I got a random idea as well, they can take the transforms from 6.0+ and make them into candies with the candy stats of Classic and make them event rewards.

Some of that stuff is beyond what NCW is generally allowed to alter with their development staff.

Some of it already essentially is a given, and some actually already exists as well. It will be subscription most likely, because Korea is essentially a subscription. The UI updates are applied from the 2.7 era, although I agree it would be nice if they could implement all the modern upgrades that came with 3.0+

All the skills are already updated to their 2.7 variants for 1.5. So for instance sins will have ripclaw, which didn't exist back in the day.

There BCNM in Korea doesn't have any monetary progression directly, but the battlepass does, which is a really bad look for NA release, because being P2W out the gate generally determines who will even give the game a shot and who wont. If you browse some generic forums pretty much the avg consensus on whether people will play Classic at release is "if it's p2w, i'm not touching it" and Koreas current battlepass is P2W for a fresh game launch.

Giving players from Live an exclusive skin of some type is a good idea. They did similar things with other games, like MXM. Obviously Live is still going to be maintained though, I mean after all they just launched 8.0 and are still patching it in Korea. It remains to be seen for how long though.

[Aelar-DN]

3 minutes ago, Vinley-KT said:

They have untradeable scrolls in current Korean battle pass, which I think is a bad thing.

I think offering some starter scrolls to all players isn't a bad idea, but putting them into essentially a pay wall, no matter how few, is bad.

One thing I remembered is the game has a lot of timed skins, timed wings, timed pets, etc.

These are things that can be put in the battlepass. It would be a good way for people to try all sorts of different skins every few months (the pass is seasonal).
Titles, motions, those are good ideas as well, although titles beyond vanity are pushing it.

There are some low damage versions of the PVE godstones, that are mostly considered useless but they could maybe get away with throwing those in there so people have some slight damage benefits while solo grinding. (not the world drop ones, there's even worse ones that are untradeable)

They could also put opposite faction skins in there as well.

There's cube space and warehouse space as well.

I also forgot about housing stuff Motgar mentioned. There's a lot of possibilities there. They can throw basic housing stuff, the rest will be on cash shop. There's also temporary housing storage spaces that would incentivize people to continuously keep up to date their battle pass.

You have to take into consideration how much of a complainy community Aion really is, though. A lot of the things mentioned are just plain useless. Anything that has a timer on it is instantly frowned upon, vanity items that are bleak or boring (which most cosmetics were back then, let's be honest) would be seen as unsatisfactory. 

Although the intentions of your suggestions is humble and would bring a lot of positives to the game, most players are just going to want useful items, such as resources so you should fully expect the battle pass and the cash shop for that matter to be fully decked out in items related to progression. That's just how it is unfortunately and there's no two ways about it in Aion especially. 

[Vinley-KT]

9 minutes ago, Aelar-DN said:

You have to take into consideration how much of a complainy community Aion really is, though. A lot of the things mentioned are just plain useless. Anything that has a timer on it is instantly frowned upon, vanity items that are bleak or boring (which most cosmetics were back then, let's be honest) would be seen as unsatisfactory. 

Although the intentions of your suggestions is humble and would bring a lot of positives to the game, most players are just going to want useful items, such as resources so you should fully expect the battle pass and the cash shop for that matter to be fully decked out in items related to progression. That's just how it is unfortunately and there's no two ways about it in Aion especially. 

Definitely agree that it's what Aion players specifically would expect, but in order to succeed Classic really does have to try and attract more than modern Aion players, because as proven already, modern Aion players are not going to keep the game afloat, because it's mostly people that have accepted and embraced bad P2W that NC has peddled. 

The game already has exclusive skins in Korea, and most of them didn't exist in that era. They can easily port any skin that currently exists in 8.0 to Classic, and in Korea specifically, there are skins that exist only in Classic and not in 8.0 that they've released as part of events and promotions.

When I read generic MMO forums, or talk to other people outside of the Aion community, their first concern is always P2W.

Look at New World's recent drama as an example. They put out a statement saying they'd consider adding boosts in the FUTURE and they got HUGE amounts of backlash and even put out multiple new statements clarifying and saying they would take feedback into consideration, yadayada...

A big reason why the MMO genre has dwindled compared to the rest of the industry, which it use to dominate, is because of P2W. If you look at drama surrounding paid progression and loot boxes outside of MMOs, it got tons of backlash all throughout the gaming communities. Players overwhelmingly avoid it and I believe this day and age launching with that type of system in an MMO is going to limit its audience reach. If that's limited, it stifles growth, and anyone that has played Aion 1.5-3.0, knows that if the game isn't constantly attracting new people, it isn't a good experience for them, or for veterans. It limits world pvp options, it limits mid game progression and it hurts the economy.

My thing is, most of Aion's community is pretty complacent when it comes to constructive suggestions. Maybe if we construct opinions better, we can make changes in a new launch. There's no saving the state of Live because the damage is done, but I think if we yell loud enough, maybe we can contain NCW from making bad monetary decisions that will effect the reach and growth of the new servers.

[Aelar-DN]

2 minutes ago, Vinley-KT said:

Definitely agree that it's what Aion players specifically would expect, but in order to succeed Classic really does have to try and attract more than modern Aion players, because as proven already, modern Aion players are not going to keep the game afloat, because it's mostly people that have accepted and embraced bad P2W that NC has peddled. 

The game already has exclusive skins in Korea as well, and skins that didn't exist in that era. They can easily port any skin that currently exists in 8.0 to Classic, and in Korea specifically, there are skins that exist only in Classic and not in 8.0 that they've released as part of events and promotions.

When I read generic MMO forums, or talk to other people outside of the Aion community, their first concern is always P2W.

Look at New World's recent drama as an example. They put out a statement saying they'd consider adding boosts in the FUTURE and they got HUGE amounts of backlash and even put out multiple new statements clarifying and saying they would take feedback into consideration, yadayada...

A big reason why the MMO genre has dwindled compared to the rest of the industry, which it use to dominate, is because of P2W. If you look at drama surrounding paid progression and loot boxes outside of MMOs, it got tons of backlash all throughout the gaming communities. Players overwhelmingly avoid it and I believe this day and age launching with that type of system in an MMO is going to limit its audience reach. If that's limited, it stifles growth, and anyone that has played Aion 1.5-3.0, knows that if the game isn't constantly attracting new people, it isn't a good experience for them, or for veterans. It limits world pvp options, it limits mid game progression and it hurts the economy.

My thing is, most of Aion's community is pretty complacent when it comes to constructive suggestions. Maybe if we construct opinions better, we can make changes in a new launch. There's no saving the state of Live because the damage is done, but I think if we yell loud enough, maybe we can contain NCW from making bad monetary decisions that will effect the reach and growth of the new servers.

I would love to be that optimistic, but this is NC we're talking about. And besides, it's going to take a heck of a lot more than just 'good' monetary decisions to sustain classic and it's playerbase for any reasonable amount of time. What Korea and other regions get or does isn't necessarily what will happen in NA, at least not entirely. 

We are NEVER going to escape "Pay to win" features in this genre so as long as they remain free-to-play. Old school RuneScape is a perfect example of a classic version of itself executed correctly. Not only does it frequently add never-before-seen content (a lot of which is directly requested by the players), it also (in my strict personal opinion) nails the P2W problem by letting players buy tradable membership for real money of which they can choose to use, or sell for in-game money. If such a feature existed in it's purest form in Aion, theree would be an uproar of people crying "P2W" but in the case of RuneScape's community.. No one complains about it whatsoever.

It would be imbecilic to put NCSoft/NCWest in the same boat as Jagex (RuneScape developer) in terms of managing and responding to player feedback, regardless of how much potential we the players believe Aion has, whether that is retail or classic. 

I bash classic a lot, but it's not because I don't like it.. It's because I believe I know how it's going to turn out for both games based on my experience with Aion and NCSoft over the past decade. They have an almost EA (Electronic Arts)-level handling on their games when it comes to the contentment of it's players and only ever respond with positive or required feedback and updates when the pressure is too high. 

Believe me when I say this; I would absolutely love for both games to coexist equally and be successful, and I would sure-as-shit split my playtime between the two, but I know this company, and I know it's community even better. I feel like I can speak for a vast majority of players when I say this; We have no faith in NC to successfully deliver Aion Classic in a fair, nonpartisan form here in the West.

[Vinley-KT]

10 minutes ago, Aelar-DN said:

I would love to be that optimistic, but this is NC we're talking about. And besides, it's going to take a heck of a lot more than just 'good' monetary decisions to sustain classic and it's playerbase for any reasonable amount of time. What Korea and other regions get or does isn't necessarily what will happen in NA, at least not entirely. 

We are NEVER going to escape "Pay to win" features in this genre so as long as they remain free-to-play. Old school RuneScape is a perfect example of a classic version of itself executed correctly. Not only does it frequently add never-before-seen content (a lot of which is directly requested by the players), it also (in my strict personal opinion) nails the P2W problem by letting players buy tradable membership for real money of which they can choose to use, or sell for in-game money. If such a feature existed in it's purest form in Aion, theree would be an uproar of people crying "P2W" but in the case of RuneScape's community.. No one complains about it whatsoever.

It would be imbecilic to put NCSoft/NCWest in the same boat as Jagex (RuneScape developer) in terms of managing and responding to player feedback, regardless of how much potential we the players believe Aion has, whether that is retail or classic. 

I bash classic a lot, but it's not because I don't like it.. It's because I believe I know how it's going to turn out for both games based on my experience with Aion and NCSoft over the past decade. They have an almost EA (Electronic Arts)-level handling on their games when it comes to the contentment of it's players and only ever respond with positive or required feedback and updates when the pressure is too high. 

Believe me when I say this; I would absolutely love for both games to coexist equally and be successful, and I would sure-as-shit split my playtime between the two, but I know this company, and I know it's community even better. I feel like I can speak for a vast majority of players when I say this; We have no faith in NC to successfully deliver Aion Classic in a fair, nonpartisan form here in the West.

You're definitely not wrong, and I feel the same way about NCK/W in general.

I'm just doing the little I can to make a difference, in the hopes that they for once in their long career listen to players in such a colossally important decision making process that will determine the success and future of the IP as we know it in the West. The wrong decisions with this launch will literally determine the fate of the Aion brand from here on out, and I feel they have zero staff that actually understand and play the game, and have experience with the patch they're about to release.

Players like us have been there, we understand the patch, and we know what it takes to maintain the community. We understand why people left, we know the faults, etc... There are small things they can do to give Aion Classic its best chance to succeed.

ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS LISTEN. 

@Kibbelz

[Attestant]

@Kibbelz

You cannot have both Aion Classic and Aion Current. It gives NCsoft the option to decide it was a short term thing and screw everyone over. What everyone wants is a long term solution until a serious Aion remake on PC. If they close down the Aion Current servers, they are forced to make a more serious attempt at Aion Classic and an Aion remake. You cannot trust NCsoft to focus on priorities without the closing of Aion Current, just look at what difficulties they are having in Korea with Aion Current and Aion Classic, everyone is mad because they are focusing on Aion Current instead of Aion Classic. If they don't close Aion Current you can never trust they will give Aion Classic and the Aion remake their all. If Aion Classic turns out to fail then Aion wasn't meant to be, and the same would have happened to Aion Current. There can always be an Aion remake. And when I talk about an Aion remake, I'm talking about a serious Aion remake on PC.

[Khonsu-DN]

20 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

@Kibbelz

You cannot have both Aion Classic and Aion Current. It gives NCsoft the option to decide it was a short term thing and screw everyone over. What everyone wants is a long term solution until a serious Aion remake on PC. If they close down the Aion Current servers, they are forced to make a more serious attempt at Aion Classic and an Aion remake. You cannot trust NCsoft to focus on priorities without the closing of Aion Current, just look at what difficulties they are having in Korea with Aion Current and Aion Classic, everyone is mad because they are focusing on Aion Current instead of Aion Classic. If they don't close Aion Current you can never trust they will give Aion Classic and the Aion remake their all. If Aion Classic turns out to fail then Aion wasn't meant to be, and the same would have happened to Aion Current. There can always be an Aion remake. And when I talk about an Aion remake, I'm talking about a serious Aion remake on PC.

This won't happen. Aion Live won't close down so NCwest can magically make Aion Classic better. If anyone believe NCwest will do anything more than what NCsoft Korea has already done with classic, has their expectation and hopes WAY WAY WAY too high. Aion classic here will be 0% different than Korea. It will be a p2w bot fest with a play limit and player cap. NCwest 100% will not put any more effort towards classic than they do for current servers.

Why do people keep thinking classic will be some magical dream world? Did everyone forget all the problems classic has? Classic is just as broken as Live.

[Squid]

@Vinley-KT

What can't go in the battle pass? 30%, 8% and 120 CRIT scrolls should not be offered on the battle pass quest rewards at all. 

Personally not 100% about the 120 crit scrolls but they do give the greater scrolls and they give greater recover potions and some normal potions as well. This tho is a non factor, I had to start being sparingly with my materials around level  35-40 and potions i ran out of long before even hitting 40. So from my experience on KR classic the materials you get from this will be a non factor. The first battle pass will offer 400 silver/gold/platinum coins to help speed up the levelling process. 

XP boosts, They will have a global 100% XP boost at the start of the server just like KR more than likely. Due to this boost if people decide after a month they want to play i believe that the XP boosts are not a game changer since those who will start at launch will have an a week or 2 of double exp. Also on top of that XP is gained i believe it was 1.5x faster than actual retail back in 2009.

I really only have 3 issues that i have mentioned that got changed by NCsoft due to exploitation. First is the 90 day subscription AP gifting and second is the candies for 100k kinah. The third is how nerfed the kinah is compared to old 1.X period. Everything is worth 5x less than what it was back in the day. While it is not that bad the servers that had the ability to sell candies had their markets ruined from day 1 for any player that was not selling candies

24 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

@Kibbelz

You cannot have both Aion Classic and Aion Current. It gives NCsoft the option to decide it was a short term thing and screw everyone over. 

Retail players are already being screwed over what do you even.

[Vinley-KT]

26 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

@Kibbelz

You cannot have both Aion Classic and Aion Current. It gives NCsoft the option to decide it was a short term thing and screw everyone over. What everyone wants is a long term solution until a serious Aion remake on PC. If they close down the Aion Current servers, they are forced to make a more serious attempt at Aion Classic and an Aion remake. You cannot trust NCsoft to focus on priorities without the closing of Aion Current, just look at what difficulties they are having in Korea with Aion Current and Aion Classic, everyone is mad because they are focusing on Aion Current instead of Aion Classic. If they don't close Aion Current you can never trust they will give Aion Classic and the Aion remake their all. If Aion Classic turns out to fail then Aion wasn't meant to be, and the same would have happened to Aion Current. There can always be an Aion remake. And when I talk about an Aion remake, I'm talking about a serious Aion remake on PC.

Aion Live will eventually shut down. 8.0 has already proved to be a flop in Korea and its only a matter of time before they are forced to go all in on Classic, or else they'll lose 90% of their revenue, which comes from Classic, and they even admitted that in their last financial report.

It will continue as long as it's printing money from a few remaining delusional people. Hell, if anything, Classic might HELP Live in NA because it's free marketing towards the brand, and people will maybe give it a shot again. The problem though, is MMO players run from anything P2W, and Aion is by FAR the most P2W AAA game on the market, full stop. There's no fixing it, because the damage is done. Unless they completely wipe the servers and remove the P2W cash shop, Live is never going to recover. Ever. Either accept it or move on, or enjoy it for what it is, because after 8.0 it's likely to go into maintenance mode.

2 minutes ago, Khonsu-DN said:

This won't happen. Aion Live won't close down so NCwest can magically make Aion Classic better. If anyone believe NCwest will do anything more than what NCsoft Korea has already done with classic, has their expectation and hopes WAY WAY WAY too high. Aion classic here will be 0% different than Korea. It will be a p2w bot fest with a play limit and player cap. NCwest 100% will not put any more effort towards classic than they do for current servers.

Why do people keep thinking classic will be some magical dream world? Did everyone forget all the problems classic has? Classic is just as broken as Live.

No offense but if you think Classic has even remotely as many problems as Live you are nothing short of delusional and there's really nothing constructive to debate with you here. I didn't make this thread to debate the viability of Live.

Classics biggest problem is content, which can be progressed to 2.0, which is an amazing patch, at pretty much any point.

The problems with Aion in general are inherent to faction based MMOs in general but they've already made more strides to solve those problems in Classic than they have made in 10 years.

[Attestant]

18 minutes ago, Khonsu-DN said:

This won't happen. Aion Live won't close down so NCwest can magically make Aion Classic better. If anyone believe NCwest will do anything more than what NCsoft Korea has already done with classic, has their expectation and hopes WAY WAY WAY too high. Aion classic here will be 0% different than Korea. It will be a p2w bot fest with a play limit and player cap. NCwest 100% will not put any more effort towards classic than they do for current servers.

Why do people keep thinking classic will be some magical dream world? Did everyone forget all the problems classic has? Classic is just as broken as Live.

Well that's what it would have to be to be successful. Classic will probably fail though.

[Vinley-KT]

20 minutes ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

@Vinley-KT

 Everything is worth 5x less than what it was back in the day.

Do you by any chance remember for sure what whites and green were worth back then? Cause I sure don't. Is it 100% confirmed that the values have been nerfed?

 

As for candies honestly I wish they weren't even in the game. Any and all of the transformation bullshit ruins the overall fantasy feel of the game, never mind the fact it also has stat bonuses.

[Attestant]

7 minutes ago, Vinley-KT said:

Aion Live will eventually shut down. 8.0 has already proved to be a flop in Korea and its only a matter of time before they are forced to go all in on Classic, or else they'll lose 90% of their revenue, which comes from Classic, and they even admitted that in their last financial report.

It will continue as long as it's printing money from a few remaining delusional people. Hell, if anything, Classic might HELP Live in NA because it's free marketing towards the brand, and people will maybe give it a shot again. The problem though, is MMO players run from anything P2W, and Aion is by FAR the most P2W AAA game on the market, full stop. There's no fixing it, because the damage is done. Unless they completely wipe the servers and remove the P2W cash shop, Live is never going to recover. Ever. Either accept it or move on, or enjoy it for what it is, because after 8.0 it's likely to go into maintenance mode.

You provided reasons to shut Current down and used it to support keeping it up? Classic servers won't help Current servers, like at all.

[Squid]

11 minutes ago, Vinley-KT said:

Do you by any chance remember for sure what whites and green were worth back then? Cause I sure don't. Is it 100% confirmed that the values have been nerfed?

 

As for candies honestly I wish they weren't even in the game. Any and all of the transformation bullshit ruins the overall fantasy feel of the game, never mind the fact it also has stat bonuses.

I do not but i know how much crafted items sold for. There was a belt i use to craft with the super cheap boiling turquoise blood since every elyos had to do the quest they got a few and just whacked them up super cheap which was the bottleneck. This was one of the first things i tested after a friend got to high enough crafting level.

Keep in mind tho i did only start at 1.9 so maybe there was a price change then or NA had specific regional changes to how much items sold for? Anyways the raging leather belt use to sell for 131k and on classic it sold for 35k or something like that. 

[Attestant]

5 hours ago, Motgar-KT said:

In order to make the Classic Server a success, this is what they would have to do:

• They would have to close the Aion-Current servers and send rewards based on the tier of progress of your characters in the Aion-Current servers. The rewards would have to be housing items, skins, emotes, motions, pets, mounts, and titles as that doesn't affect strength of a character. *
• They would have to sell only housing items, skins, emotes, motions, pets, mounts, titles, name change tickets, and appearance change tickets in the cash shop. *
• They would have to sell a subscription to play model. **
• They would have to increase the chances item dropping and experience gain to make it casual and make QoL changes so the availability of items is reasonable.
• They would have to make simple changes to the skills so that the classes are balanced and don't have useless skills. For example, Barrier of Severance should have a cooldown reduction and a cast time reduction.
• They would have to change godstones to make them similar to the strength of S-Rank minion proc skills.
• They would have to improve PvP Curses so they get applied after someone has killed far too many people and have it removed after two rift spawns.
• They would have to make the race balance buff not applied during non-siege times.
• They would have to adopt the GP system into the game.
• They would have to make the PvE instances far harder.
• They need to change the reset times of instances to be daily and to have multiple entries to make up for the loss of entries.
• They would have to monitor the game for botting or limit trading.
• They would have to have all UI options available from the Aion-Current servers, no auto-hunting.
• They would have to keep updating the game as long as possible until another Aion comes out for PC that isn't a joke. They cannot update into the 4.0 era, they must stop before 4.0. They need to have good events as well!

* = Either they should add ways to get all mounts and titles in game or they can make it exclusively cash shop, as long as there is an stat-equivalent option for a cheaper in-game way to get a mount or title that has a not-so-desired name or skin, otherwise mounts and titles are excluded. (Includes **)

** = The BCM cannot sell any tiered service for acquiring items having to do with progression.

 

I think I got most of the pressing issues.

 

I got a random idea as well, they can take the transforms from 6.0+ and make them into candies with the candy stats of Classic and make them event rewards.

I forgot to say that anything in the cash shop would also have to be non-tradeable, non-brokerable, and non-sellable.

[Vinley-KT]

1 minute ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

I do not but i know how much crafted items sold for. There was a belt i use to craft with the super cheap boiling turquoise blood since every elyos had to do the quest they got a few and just whacked them up super cheap which was the bottleneck.

Keep in mind tho i did only start at 1.9 so maybe there was a price change then or NA had specific regional changes to how much items sold for? Anyways the raging leather belt use to sell for 131k and on classic it sold for 35k or something like that. 

Hmm, I was wpnsmith back then but honestly I can't remember prices at all. I played since beta but I dont recall major price changes. It could be something that change in 2.X era which effected the 1.5 drops. I'd have to comb through patch notes but I don't recall reading anything about vendor prices on the Korean patch notes related to classic changes.

[Squid]

Just now, Vinley-KT said:

Hmm, I was wpnsmith back then but honestly I can't remember prices at all. I played since beta but I dont recall major price changes. It could be something that change in 2.X era which effected the 1.5 drops. I'd have to comb through patch notes but I don't recall reading anything about vendor prices on the Korean patch notes related to classic changes.

Well there is a reason i remember the price of this item specifically because we got a guild story to go with it. Wont bore you with the story but that is how i remember its price to this day.

[Attestant]

1 minute ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

Well there is a reason i remember the price of this item specifically because we got a guild story to go with it. Wont bore you with the story but that is how i remember its price to this day.

Wait, a story? You tried justifying your prices?

[Vinley-KT]

18 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

You provided reasons to shut Current down and used it to support keeping it up? Classic servers won't help Current servers, like at all.

I mean I'm just being brutally honest. Aion was once over 1M subscribers in the West alone. Even when it winded down it was still able to hang on to numerous active servers. 5.0 put a nail in the game and everything since then has continued to put more nails in. Live is dead, and it would take large systematic changes and resets to even make it a viable game anymore, not to mention the need to then also remarket the entire game and somehow convince millions of players burned by Aion that it's actually playable again.

Classic is the best shot at a reinvigorated player base and it also is the best chance to attract new players. MMO players don't want to play on servers where they start from behind. There's a reason MMO players flock to new games; the best gameplay is found when there is a fresh starting point for everyone.

Again, I didn't make this thread to debate Live at all, and I'd like to forget about Live entirely. The hundreds and potentially thousands of players that return for Classic have no interest in Live, and I can promise you it will be a substantially larger playerbase than Live. Private servers get more players than Live. Even buggy ones ran by shady people. Live can continue to milk you and everyone else for all I care, and if Classic fails, you can bet that it won't matter one way or the other, because no returning player is interested in the pay to win slot machine that is 7.9/8.0

[Attestant]

2 minutes ago, Vinley-KT said:

19 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

You provided reasons to shut Current down and used it to support keeping it up? Classic servers won't help Current servers, like at all.

I mean I'm just being brutally honest.

What?

[Squid]

1 minute ago, Motgar-KT said:

Wait, a story? You tried justifying your prices?

Fine if you want the story then i will tell you the story...It legitimately only has meaning to my friends and I.

A friend was struggling for kinah so i was teaching them how to use crafting to their advantage with new players coming through the game and linked the item in guild chat. Another guildmember who was working on alchemy said they will only ever be an alchemist was seen at the tailoring table and the price of the materials for crafting the belt kept increasing. Then one day we asked him what they were doing at the tailoring table when all they will ever be is an alchemist. Turns out they were crafting the item i linked since i had a few 100m. However the funny part about it all is they pushed the price of materials so high that they were actually losing money on each craft and then they quit the guild.

See boring story for anyone outside of the guild i was apart of at the time.

[Kingofsexy-DN]

Classic Aion sounds fun, I just wish it were run by a different company than NCW. We can complain about p2w all we want but because it's run by NCW it's going to be p2w.  These idealistic posts are awesome to show how passionate players still can be about a game they love. At the end of the day the NCW Marketing team is going to ruin your idea of a non-p2w game. It's going to be p2w, it might not be very obvious in the beginning, to draw people in, but it's going to end up there. You can look at classic lineage 2 at any time of the year and find a p2w event going.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't be excited for classic aion, it's going to be up to you passionate players to ignore how badly NCW mistreats you. It's up to the players to find fun where they can!