How will abyss ranks work in classic?

[Guest Sportman]

Will it be GP or AP as before? I know GP wasn’t mentioned for classic, but AP can be boosted and was previously abused for achieving ranks. I wonder if they will adjust anything for that? Or maybe its no big deal now?

[Cyfur]

2 hours ago, Guest Sportman said:

Will it be GP or AP as before? I know GP wasn’t mentioned for classic, but AP can be boosted and was previously abused for achieving ranks. I wonder if they will adjust anything for that? Or maybe its no big deal now?

There is no GP in Aion Classic, it was introduced much later in Aion.

AP is everything for rank. GP destroyed the value of AP,  Classic brings AP back to  the status it should be.

You want to be governor, you gonna need a lot of AP.

[Squid]

Thankfully it will be back to AP.

[Guest Sportman]

Oh dear, I sense AP boosters will come back then. I hope its not as big of an issue this time.

[Arhangelos]

We are going back to AP, you will see the highest ranks being pve heroes that will avoid pvp like a plague fearing they will lose hard earned AP. That kinda also means perma ranks, aka even if someone doesn't feel like playing much, their rank is there and stable.

[Guest MIphaBae]

3 hours ago, Guest Sportman said:

Oh dear, I sense AP boosters will come back then. I hope its not as big of an issue this time.

Yeah afraid you can't avoid exploiters sadly.

[Guest Sportman]

7 hours ago, Guest MIphaBae said:

Yeah afraid you can't avoid exploiters sadly.

I can’t remember if you were on Siel back in the day Mipha, but if you were, you would remember how clarity AP boosted Trevyn to governor because the our governor for a while (huby) had to go away and just had so much more ap than everyone else before departing.

[Guest Sportman]

11 hours ago, Arhangelos-KT said:

We are going back to AP, you will see the highest ranks being pve heroes that will avoid pvp like a plague fearing they will lose hard earned AP. That kinda also means perma ranks, aka even if someone doesn't feel like playing much, their rank is there and stable.

@Archangelos-KT, wasn’t the way to earn AP in the past thru PvP rather than PvE? I remember the higher rank officer you killed, the more AP you got. On the other hand, the higher rank you were, the more AP you lost if you died. 

[Cyfur]

2 hours ago, Guest Sportman said:

@Archangelos-KT, wasn’t the way to earn AP in the past thru PvP rather than PvE? I remember the higher rank officer you killed, the more AP you got. On the other hand, the higher rank you were, the more AP you lost if you died. 

Death is nothing compared to the amount of AP you loose when you buy a piece of AP gear.

AP is not just about rank, which has limited slots anyway.  AP is a  currency you need to buy good gear (Assuming you have collected enough  gear medals)

[Guest st0n3]

Obviously u can't get gear if you lose more ap than you get on average

[Supvolcom-DN]

AP ranks are the way to go. Sure we had some higher ranked players wasting slots because they were too scared to lose AP, but its nothing compared to sieges in 6.0+. During 6.5 neither faction actually cared about capturing Lakrum fort.

Those who wanted GP would more or less suicide in early to snag the first mobs, securing the few extra GP needed to keep rank. They wouldn't use transforms for capturing the fort, only for killing mobs before dying. Forts became useless, which means transforms became useless, and in turn, even GP became useless - but it didn't stop them from this stupid cycle.

[Cyfur]

5 hours ago, Guest st0n3 said:

Obviously u can't get gear if you lose more ap than you get on average

That's why bots have crappy gear, they get farmed by the opposite faction for AP and quickly drop down the rank.

[Arhangelos]

12 hours ago, Guest Sportman said:

@Archangelos-KT, wasn’t the way to earn AP in the past thru PvP rather than PvE? I remember the higher rank officer you killed, the more AP you got. On the other hand, the higher rank you were, the more AP you lost if you died. 

Exactly, but this means the highest ranks preferred to be killing AP mobs non stop for hours to earn AP and make sure they would not lose any in the process. Also the AP from players was restricted, you couldn't keep killing players and keep earning AP, you would get the hour limit pretty fast.

I remember this very vibrant, that when the transform was ready, the high ranks would get out of town for 10 minutes to farm AP from pvp and then vanish again. When we got GP the highest ranks changed their habit and the highest ranks were pretty much the biggest pvpers due to sieges and their need to have the advantage of the transform when needed our in the field.

6 hours ago, Supvolcom-DN said:

AP ranks are the way to go. Sure we had some higher ranked players wasting slots because they were too scared to lose AP, but its nothing compared to sieges in 6.0+. During 6.5 neither faction actually cared about capturing Lakrum fort.

Those who wanted GP would more or less suicide in early to snag the first mobs, securing the few extra GP needed to keep rank. They wouldn't use transforms for capturing the fort, only for killing mobs before dying. Forts became useless, which means transforms became useless, and in turn, even GP became useless - but it didn't stop them from this stupid cycle.

Perma AP ranks where far more obnoxious, people would only play the 10 minute window of their transform and then vanish. Forts became useless in 6.0+ because of mechanics meaning they were far less important to own because the legion owning them didn't necessarily earn anything worhty.

Also you got less GP for owning a fortress and keeping it after the siege than attacking it and not capturing because of guards giving too much GP and pvp gave far less GP. And this means by the first days of the season of ranks, the attackers could literally get a governor the first day while the woners would have to wait about 2~3 sieges worth of time to accumulate enough to have a governor. And that is a design flaw of the amount of GP given by mechanics not the GP system itself.

The GP system is still by far the best system and when they decided to have the ranks reset every month is what made it the absolute best. Before we had the top 100 players not playing at all, logging once per month to keep their perma rank and not participate in anything depriving the community from the much needed transforms. I know that very well because our top 10 in Asmodians KT were these people.

[Guest Sportman]

40 minutes ago, Arhangelos-KT said:

Exactly, but this means the highest ranks preferred to be killing AP mobs non stop for hours to earn AP and make sure they would not lose any in the process. Also the AP from players was restricted, you couldn't keep killing players and keep earning AP, you would get the hour limit pretty fast.

I remember this very vibrant, that when the transform was ready, the high ranks would get out of town for 10 minutes to farm AP from pvp and then vanish again. When we got GP the highest ranks changed their habit and the highest ranks were pretty much the biggest pvpers due to sieges and their need to have the advantage of the transform when needed our in the field.

Perma AP ranks where far more obnoxious, people would only play the 10 minute window of their transform and then vanish. Forts became useless in 6.0+ because of mechanics meaning they were far less important to own because the legion owning them didn't necessarily earn anything worhty.

Also you got less GP for owning a fortress and keeping it after the siege than attacking it and not capturing because of guards giving too much GP and pvp gave far less GP. And this means by the first days of the season of ranks, the attackers could literally get a governor the first day while the woners would have to wait about 2~3 sieges worth of time to accumulate enough to have a governor. And that is a design flaw of the amount of GP given by mechanics not the GP system itself.

The GP system is still by far the best system and when they decided to have the ranks reset every month is what made it the absolute best. Before we had the top 100 players not playing at all, logging once per month to keep their perma rank and not participate in anything depriving the community from the much needed transforms. I know that very well because our top 10 in Asmodians KT were these people.

Well it sounds like this is a lose-lose situation. The AP won’t be an issue in the short run. However, in the long run, the hoarding issue and perma-ranks will most likely come back. And this is a very annoying problem, especially if your  xforms dont participate when you need them most.

If NCSoft did GP in classic, it wud be the same thing: Kill mobs, forget pvp and capping, everyone for themself.

I feel like the only reasonable solution is for them to reset AP at the end if each month to keep active players rewarded. But then you would have no AP to buy gear unless you got it quick and the founders packs would be devalued (who cares about earning AP if it would go away?)

Unless the xforms actually work for the faction, this system will be flawed. But that was the classic way, so I don’t expect any changes.

[Arhangelos]

23 minutes ago, Guest Sportman said:

Well it sounds like this is a lose-lose situation. The AP won’t be an issue in the short run. However, in the long run, the hoarding issue and perma-ranks will most likely come back. And this is a very annoying problem, especially if your  xforms dont participate when you need them most.

If NCSoft did GP in classic, it wud be the same thing: Kill mobs, forget pvp and capping, everyone for themself.

I feel like the only reasonable solution is for them to reset AP at the end if each month to keep active players rewarded. But then you would have no AP to buy gear unless you got it quick and the founders packs would be devalued (who cares about earning AP if it would go away?)

Unless the xforms actually work for the faction, this system will be flawed. But that was the classic way, so I don’t expect any changes.

The GP was supposed to fix this issue and by a lot it did (reset every month without removing much needed AP, while still awarding you something in return of the lost GP of the reset). I also allowed for AP to be earned in bigger amounts without altering ranks etc, so mobs and pve were free from the ranking system. They could specifically use a different "currency" for ranks exclusive to sieges -> GP.

The problem was never the GP rank system itself as it is pretty much the only thing that can work, the problem is always how the developers decide to award the GP. When guards are far more important for GP acquisition than killing players, o capturing/keeping a fortress, then all the problems you mentioned arise.

• Owning a fortress and keeping it -> max GP (most contributors) = 300 GP, owning the fortress gave nothing special to the faction or the legion holding it.
• Attacking a fortress and still losing it -> You could get thousands of GP because each guard gave 60 GP on its own (5 guards alone = 300GP, same to winning a fortress)

If guards were giving 6 GP instead of 60 and keeping a fortress on top contributors gave you (e.g.) 1000 GP then the problem of not wanting to have the fortress would have been solved!

~~
I was hoping classic would have the GP system but more fair this time, since Aion Classic is the old Aion but heavily refined for fairness, better experience and bug fixes.

[Cyfur]

22 minutes ago, Guest Sportman said:

Well it sounds like this is a lose-lose situation. ..

It worked previously for years, what makes you think it wont work again this time?

[Arhangelos]

6 minutes ago, Ferk-DN said:

It worked previously for years, what makes you think it wont work again this time?

...because it didn't work, if you could read the comments you would know why it didn't.

• GP ranks = oh this guy is good at sieges, apparently geared enough, knows how to earn GP in that chaotic event, is prepared, does pvp and stays until the end of siege to earn as much contribution as possible
• AP ranks = ...wow that guy played 5 hours more than me yesterday killing AP mobs, he surpassed me in ranks, gotta catch up and go grind.

[Guest Sportman]

16 minutes ago, Ferk-DN said:

It worked previously for years, what makes you think it wont work again this time?

Im hoping the AP system works. Im not saying it won’t, but i have my doubts over time. 

As long as people don’t become overly selfish, then it should. But given the history of Aion player behavior, I wish I could say that with confidence.

[Arhangelos]

3 minutes ago, Guest Sportman said:

Im hoping the AP system works. Im not saying it won’t, but i have my doubts over time. 

As long as people don’t become overly selfish, then it should. But given the history of Aion player behavior, I wish I could say that with confidence.

Mark my words, we are repeating history (not that I care too much for this), the AP system is not a pvp ranking system but a pve one. You do not even need PvP gear to be high in ranks.

Not only you do not need to be in a siege to be a high rank, you must actually avoid going. High ranks get marked 1 and everyone attacks them. You could lose a ton of AP by going there and you could barely earn any if you do not die. PvP will never award nearly as much AP as pve does.

[Guest Sportman]

25 minutes ago, Arhangelos-KT said:

Mark my words, we are repeating history (not that I care too much for this), the AP system is not a pvp ranking system but a pve one. You do not even need PvP gear to be high in ranks.

Not only you do not need to be in a siege to be a high rank, you must actually avoid going. High ranks get marked 1 and everyone attacks them. You could lose a ton of AP by going there and you could barely earn any if you do not die. PvP will never award nearly as much AP as pve does.

Well in that case I think ill just enjoy being soldier rank 1 in full pvp gear. 

[Arhangelos]

34 minutes ago, Guest Sportman said:

Well in that case I think ill just enjoy being soldier rank 1 in full pvp gear. 

On a second thought though, high ranks will be pve heroes aka not as pvp oriented as now. You won't have perma geared people running around with an OP transform killing everyone. So maybe an AP ranking system that favors pvers is the best thing for every day life, not so much for sieges.

[Guest UnknownUser]

The gain/lose ratio was major nyerkin problem before with AP ranks, but if I'm not wrong they were trying to fix this problem in classic with 1.5 or 1.7 (custom patch) by capping the ap loss at 1k (soldier rank1), but the gain remains unchanged.

[Guest Henk]

8 hours ago, Arhangelos-KT said:

Exactly, but this means the highest ranks preferred to be killing AP mobs non stop for hours to earn AP and make sure they would not lose any in the process. Also the AP from players was restricted, you couldn't keep killing players and keep earning AP, you would get the hour limit pretty fast.

I hope they change this. It was so stupid to reach the AP limit from PvP after a few fights. It pushed you towards doing PvE for AP since you would get capped way too easily if you wanted to make AP from pvp.

[Guest st0n3]

No matter which kind of restrictions they add, absolutely same people will take highest ranks, just because they want it too much to give up and ready to do whatever is possible to get AP. Dreams of casuals how they'd all be Generals and Commanders if only unfair advantages were fixed and nothing but delusion

[Arhangelos]

1 minute ago, Guest st0n3 said:

No matter which kind of restrictions they add, absolutely same people will take highest ranks, just because they want it too much to give up and ready to do whatever is possible to get AP. Dreams of casuals how they'd all be Generals and Commanders if only unfair advantages were fixed and nothing but delusion

This is partially true. I know when we got the perma ranks removed and got the monthly reset a ton of people complained, it was then when the exact opposite people got the ranks. I did play back on those AP days, I knew a lot of people that would wait when Tiamaranta eye would be safe zone and would play until the next day.

When pvpers want to get a rank they will either have to quit pvp or just drop in rank. So no matter how much they want either of them, they can't have both.

I know I sure made fun of all of them with memes back in 6.5 and then I ended up being the governor for a few months.