Do you think Aion classic will recover

[5s1A2E69-DN]

Do you think Aion classic will recover  under NCSoft West and the way they run things? 

[Airashi]

Based on what has happened to Aion retail, no not really. With aion retail, from 2014 onwards, the palyerbase dropped with every successive patch. The incentives and events worked at the time to retain existing players, not necessarily gain new players.

Apply this to Aion classic, barely 3months in, the population has dropped off a cliff. Being 12year old game, they definitely wont be gaining new players. It's all about playerbase retention at this point and possibly gaining back the players who recently quit. No new fresh player will play this game. They've already stuffed it up with the shambolic handling of the SR banwave, and now banning the AP traders would be a conflict of interest

[PKfire-KT]

Yes it for sure will. AP trading is the biggest issue right now. Once fort instances are released it will solve the problem or make it less annoying. That being said I still believe NCsoft should strip any AP obtained through ap trading from said players. 

[Saitamasensei]

4 minutes ago, PKfire-KT said:

Once fort instances are released

Once it is realeased... AP Traders at that time had 50e armors, 50 Acce and 50e weapon.

GL, HF.

[5s1A2E69-DN]

3 minutes ago, PKfire-KT said:

Yes it for sure will. AP trading is the biggest issue right now. Once fort instances are released it will solve the problem or make it less annoying. That being said I still believe NCsoft should strip any AP obtained through ap trading from said players. 

TBH I think its going to be harder then you think. dred will be a nightmare and also most other AP related things, due to all the AP traders already being in +15 50e gear.

[5s1A2E69-DN]

the servers have dropped numbers big time

[Ele-DN]

Game was dead before it was even a week old.

[Fest-DN]

Gonna voice the devil's advocate position here and remind you all this is exactly the same laundry list of issues that plagued Aion at launch. The AP trading, botting, kinah purchasing (straight RMT instead of candy) all happened with similar or greater frequency but people just didn't care as much. I didn't start my eventual main until 1.9 and he wasn't in his first PvP set until 2.5~ since Zikel was a zergwall 24/7 and I had a great time despite getting rolled in dredge sometimes and getting smooshed by piles of Elyos. The reality was simply that other people would be more geared than you and AP traders were laughed at because they were absolute garbage in PvP. There were people getting dropped in their 50e while I was in fenris. It was bad. Hopelessly pathetic. That's what AP traders still are, pathetic. They can't wait until dredge or forts or all the other ap gain is coming because they think they need the gear now. Why? They're bad. They deserve their stuff stripped immediately and punished for violating the ToS. 

Everyone AP trading right now will be an absolute joke later. You know, if they don't quit, which they probably will.

Also all the people who are on the "Well if NC isn't going to punish it I'm going to do it too." You suck. You suck so much. It hurts how badly you suck. I understand why you want to but it just sucks. You'll just end up the same as the rubbish you're upset about now, upsetting some other player trying to play through legit. Ugh.

What makes this issue the absolute worst is that we're all justifiably upset that NCsoft is sitting on their hands despite mountains of evidence against the most obvious AP traders. I just don't find it worth quitting over since, at some point in the near future, I'm going to be in 50e and they'll still be bad. I can take a few losses now to relentlessly mock them later. Or maybe now. Again, they suck.

This is turning into a text wall but the final point I'll make is that playing through this will likely pay off in 2.0 since that amount of time will mean even if you lost every dredge you attended you'd still have 50e if you wanted it. I think that's worth it, I don't think my feelings will apply to everyone but I absolutely love this game and think that, even with poor management, it will be worthwhile. I'm glad we have classic, flawed or not, because it's vastly more enjoyable for me than 7.x (I know some precious few still like retail).

I'll prob get flamed out of existence given the current forum sentiment but eh.

[Alvie]

The poll assumes there is something to recover from, which is a value judgement not everyone shares.

[Coldspell]

I'm gonna stay. I've waited years to play a better version of what retail became before I came back. When eventually the AP traders are delt with the rest of us won't be behind but ahead. I personally am enjoying playing classic and getting back to the parts of the game I loved when it was new. I can't wait for eye pvp. I also believe that if they handle the hackers/ap traders a lot more folks will come back and stay. 

[Dorito]

7 hours ago, Alvie said:

The poll assumes there is something to recover from, which is a value judgement not everyone shares.

I'll have what you're having.

[Saitamasensei]

8 hours ago, Fest-DN said:

This is turning into a text wall but the final point I'll make is that playing through this will likely pay off in 2.0

I don't think so, these AP traders will reign and crush you dredge, they will high likely also block the entrance of your beloved dungeons unless another AP traders arrive to the rescue. I will tell you, if you play fair and honest you'll never catch-up you'll be eventually burnt-up.

8 hours ago, Alvie said:

there is something to recover from

I agree with this, if NCWest takes the "right" action.

If they continue with this trend, not only their stocks will plummet (-177,000 KR /w in 7days) but their player base count due to angry players. Let this be an example for change.

3 hours ago, Coldspell said:

When eventually the AP traders are delt with the rest of us won't be behind but ahead.

The question is when? When it is too late its too late.

[marikazan-KT]

Pvp when the game was first released was just people in greens some blues and what nots now you can have +15 golds right off the bat and top of line stones.Add in the AP trade and you got decked out twinks in less than 2 months.

I did some research and people selling accounts with full 30/40 elite gear +15 already these people are involved in serious AP trading to get gear that fast.Guards at 35 give 70 ap a kill it takes a fair while to farm legit gear bearing in mind AP gain rate drops as you rank up.

You can barely even get half a quest done in Heiron without death squads nuking you.I think this *classic experience* is gonna tank super fast no easy way for legit players to get decent amounts of AP to stand a chance.

And the game is just plagued by everything it had on first release AP trade botteeing rmting and rampant hacking like meh why bother Ncsoft knows the issues but isnt acting.

[Fest-DN]

1 minute ago, Saitamasensei said:

I don't think so, these AP traders will reign and crush you dredge, they will high likely also block the entrance of your beloved dungeons unless another AP traders arrive to the rescue. I will tell you, if you play fair and honest you'll never catch-up you'll be eventually burnt-up.

I mean, no. First of all, this is straight up paradise compared to the original 2.0 days on Zikel-Asmo whether you're Asmo or Elyos right now. Again, 40e/50e was pretty standard for the well fed Elyos of the day who were brutally dominant and I won plenty of dredges during that nonsense. Not humble bragging, I got horrifyingly wrecked plenty of times but it's simply inaccurate to imply that dredge is going to be all AP-traders vs all legit teams. This iteration of dredge rewards crafty play and you can easily bridge the 30e <-> 50e deficit if you play like you're swinging up. You're not doing a 1v1 mirror match or something where you might feel the loss of some of those stats. I've watched more geared dredge groups get rolled by superior comp/play for years. There will always be certifiably terrifying insta-death groups but they're prob not the AP-trading groups, lol. AP trading right now is basically just admitting that you can't operate without advantage and that advantage is temporary as all hell. You're talking about them like they're unkillable if they're in 50e and you're in 30e and that's just not true. 50e is a nice upgrade after 30e but it's not some kinda insta-win heaven/earth split >_> that crap comes much later in like 6/7.x

Reality is 50e is achievable for every single person who wants it between now and 1.9-2.0. Dredge, fort instances, relic hoarding  and the gradual inflation of the general population's AP ranks are all going to snowball into very profitable PvPing. It's ridiculous to talk like it's some never ending AP-trader paradise when at the end of classic as we know it the max gear is ABG which is an extremely costly up-ish/sidegrade for most classes. Anything from 40e-ABG (bit class dependent here) will be at least somewhat viable in the hands of a decent player.

This doom and gloom crap all over the forum reads so lame. There is way too much time between now and 2.0 to not be in whatever gear you want to be in. It doesn't take away from how wrong it is that NC isn't taking this stuff seriously but it's hardly the desolate picture you're trying to paint.

[Saitamasensei]

19 minutes ago, Fest-DN said:

This doom and gloom crap all over the forum reads so lame. There is way too much time between now and 2.0 to not be in whatever gear you want to be in. It doesn't take away from how wrong it is that NC isn't taking this stuff seriously but it's hardly the desolate picture you're trying to paint.

So we are now saying that we must take a blind eye to it, same with what NC is doing?

I am a Process Engineer by profession and fixing the cause of the problem is my main job. Neglecting a small things now will hit hard later especially you work on big plants. Its always the motto that "NOW is the time to react". If you keep justifying that this is OK, you are normalizing which is NOT OK.

You are just justifying that it is OK because next patch will be OK... but what about NOW? Human live at present, and sadly most of us live on what we call "TODAY". You cannot finish anything if you always tell that you can do it tomorrow. You get what I am saying? Action must be done as soon as possible or else you loose more players. Who the crap can wait for more tomorrows. (Probably You and the AP Traders only)

You see, NC is now plummeting in their influence especially on their gamer and investor side. Stocks are down, Large player base are grievous not only in Aion but also in other games, they start to jump of ships on newer game developers. If they still continue on what they are doing, I bet even you and the beloved AP Traders will have no more game to play ( AP Traders cannot whale forever).

[Stormwing]

@Fest-DN:
While it might seem correct, that all the gear is achievable ingame if the timespan is long enough you have to see this long term as well. Once you finally complete your insert-top-gear the other party has enough abyss points already to purchase the next insert-next-top-gear which is around the corner or stack up on potions and seeds and so on. While you are gathering abyss points they are having fun with their full sets already (I do not really care whether they are allegedly good or bad). In the early version of Aion, if luck is not on your side or you are investing alot ot time in it, it is very difficult to close progression gaps. You may ignore them, play them down or just do not care about them, but they are still there.

[Blackhawk]

14 hours ago, Fest-DN said:

Gonna voice the devil's advocate position here and remind you all this is exactly the same laundry list of issues that plagued Aion at launch. The AP trading, botting, kinah purchasing (straight RMT instead of candy) all happened with similar or greater frequency but people just didn't care as much. I didn't start my eventual main until 1.9 and he wasn't in his first PvP set until 2.5~ since Zikel was a zergwall 24/7 and I had a great time despite getting rolled in dredge sometimes and getting smooshed by piles of Elyos. The reality was simply that other people would be more geared than you and AP traders were laughed at because they were absolute garbage in PvP. There were people getting dropped in their 50e while I was in fenris. It was bad. Hopelessly pathetic. That's what AP traders still are, pathetic. They can't wait until dredge or forts or all the other ap gain is coming because they think they need the gear now. Why? They're bad. They deserve their stuff stripped immediately and punished for violating the ToS. 

Everyone AP trading right now will be an absolute joke later. You know, if they don't quit, which they probably will.

Also all the people who are on the "Well if NC isn't going to punish it I'm going to do it too." You suck. You suck so much. It hurts how badly you suck. I understand why you want to but it just sucks. You'll just end up the same as the rubbish you're upset about now, upsetting some other player trying to play through legit. Ugh.

What makes this issue the absolute worst is that we're all justifiably upset that NCsoft is sitting on their hands despite mountains of evidence against the most obvious AP traders. I just don't find it worth quitting over since, at some point in the near future, I'm going to be in 50e and they'll still be bad. I can take a few losses now to relentlessly mock them later. Or maybe now. Again, they suck.

This is turning into a text wall but the final point I'll make is that playing through this will likely pay off in 2.0 since that amount of time will mean even if you lost every dredge you attended you'd still have 50e if you wanted it. I think that's worth it, I don't think my feelings will apply to everyone but I absolutely love this game and think that, even with poor management, it will be worthwhile. I'm glad we have classic, flawed or not, because it's vastly more enjoyable for me than 7.x (I know some precious few still like retail).

I'll prob get flamed out of existence given the current forum sentiment but eh.

+1 for this

and one more problem: bots. If they can do something against them and against AP-trading it would be a nice game, even with only 1000 player

[Blackhawk]

9 hours ago, Coldspell said:

I'm gonna stay. I've waited years to play a better version of what retail became before I came back. When eventually the AP traders are delt with the rest of us won't be behind but ahead. I personally am enjoying playing classic and getting back to the parts of the game I loved when it was new. I can't wait for eye pvp. I also believe that if they handle the hackers/ap traders a lot more folks will come back and stay. 

if you mean Tiamaranta's Eye it wont happen I think cause the classic will end with update 2.7.

And Tia Eye is a 3.0 content
 

[Fappachino]

The more time that goes on and NC addresses nothing, the less chance this game has to recover.  1.5 will bring people back for a while, but if the issues still aren't resolved, they are going to leave just as fast.

[5s124D6A-DN]

@KibbelzCan you please vote.

[Bip]

The only points I have to complain so far are:
1) SR bans (we will never know if people didn't abuse one of the methods available in there, though; It's NCsoft's word against players');
2) Hackers and AP traders not getting banned (although most of the times they are terrible at the game).

Other than those 2 I'm fine with everything else. And of those points, the one that might make me quit is AP trade. If nothing gets done about it I'll either quit or AP trade myself since it's allowed.

[Fest-DN]

7 hours ago, Stormwing said:

@Fest-DN:
While it might seem correct, that all the gear is achievable ingame if the timespan is long enough you have to see this long term as well. Once you finally complete your insert-top-gear the other party has enough abyss points already to purchase the next insert-next-top-gear which is around the corner or stack up on potions and seeds and so on. While you are gathering abyss points they are having fun with their full sets already (I do not really care whether they are allegedly good or bad). In the early version of Aion, if luck is not on your side or you are investing alot ot time in it, it is very difficult to close progression gaps. You may ignore them, play them down or just do not care about them, but they are still there.

The gaps are still there in some capacities (AP Consumables and the actual problem with AP-traders long term: Rank Hoarding) but we are working with more time, more resources, generally easier avenues to access instance loot and eventually even more instanced PvP opportunities (1.9 KR stuff) to stack up resources/AP. It's disingenuous to take the current forum sentiment (AP traders are going to dominate you 100% of the time no questions asked) and apply it without some counter points visibly present.

There was always going to be someone in 50e before everyone else. They weren't going to ruin the game for the rest of us and there is plenty of time to gear up. This is not a race  and if it was, nobody here complaining was winning it. Being frustrated by AP traders and NCsoft's inaction is completely understandable and justified without pretending that it somehow destroys Aion more than it did during its initial run. Literally everything happening now happened before. We have the correct social perception of these ToS-violating losers but with a strange undercurrent of "Well I'm going to do it too". That's on us, not NCsoft. AP trading is bad for the long-term health of the game, that's why you shouldn't do it, not because NCsoft might punish you. If you find yourself here, give that a real think (Not you, Stormwing, just in general). You're about to become the thing you're complaining about and making some legit player rightfully discouraged.

As mentioned in my previous post: ABG is the next step and, I'm not going to say 100% that I remember what the status of medals was during 2.7 (I forget if they ended up tradeable or not, we will have to see what KR gets) but they started as untradeable which means months of progression for even the most stacked of AP traders with some variation depending on if we get the fountain. Again, ABG wasn't a widely adopted upgrade during the actual 2.0 era with, if memory serves, most people opting to finish up 50e instead of building out an expensive new set with extremely prohibitive enchanting. Weapons being the notable exception.

[Magnitoz]

I hear in discord information , they ban hackers , and ffix client , hack - no gravity dont work . Lets tell the truth , no only bad but good  .  AP-trading  there are much fewer of them  . 90 % of bots after last fix with Siel Aura dodnt play anymore . 

 

You have absolutely no information about what NCsoft is doing. But you keep on blaming them for all their sins. I've never seen so much negativity. You kill this game from the start, and you kill it. NCsoft looks for solutions without logging into the game. This is their rule.

I want to appeal to players who are not fair. Guys, look what you did with  game . Online is falling down, some1 have been banned, some1 leave the game coz to many players dint play fair. What is the poit of AP-trading if Aion Classic NA die in two month? just think about that. And tell to all your friends.

[Stormwing]

@Fest-DN:
Those are different topics. I agree that people abusing the system are as bad as the system which allows it.

[Fest-DN]

24 minutes ago, Stormwing said:

@Fest-DN:
Those are different topics. I agree that people abusing the system are as bad as the system which allows it.

Yeah mostly only the first paragraph was meant to address your post. I agree that the gaps are there, I just think we have more stuff coming (NC)soon that addresses those gaps.