First Impressions of the Aion Server Merges

20Jul10

The merges, in my experience, have been a rousing success even if my server’s Elyos / Asmo PvP balance is fubar (Israphel).

As far as rifting and some of the outcry so far, I have an alternate view: it’s nice to see what effort spent improving your character can lead to. For everyone that is upset that they were rolled by a fully twinked out rifter in full PvP gear I hope that you look at that as a goal, or at least, as something equivalent to reaching the next level. These people have made an obvious effort, both financially and in terms of time spent, to get their characters to a point where they are the ultimate killing machines for their level range. Personally I think it’s great to see these rifters try (and often succeed) to kill characters that are much higher level than they are, but much less geared. The ability for well geared players to bridge the level gap is lacking in many popular MMOs, and this is one of the modern examples of an attempt to solve that issue. I think Enchanting goes a long way to solving the level disparity, which is great to see (+1 seems to relate roughly to .75 level on a piece of gear, so +10 makes you function as ~7 levels higher than you actually are, though there are diminishing returns).

As far as griefing goes (what I’d term ganking that affects you repeatedly and in such a manner that prevents you from making progress on your character) I can’t really sympathize. After level 20 there are always multiple options for leveling areas, including areas that are not PvP flagged at all, perfect for escaping the paranoia of facing a marauding Sin for a while. By level 30 you often have 4 or 5 prime areas to be questing and grinding for your level. At 38 I’m constantly struggling to clear my quest book of quests that I want to keep simply to remind me to go there to find out if it’s another quest hub for that level range! Also your corpse is never tied to a spot (unlike WoW) with the obelisk respawn, so unwelcome griefing is almost impossible to maintain without willful participation.

A brief aside on the “stun lock” paradigm of rifting – it is in a word false. True in the 20s and 30s those characters with stun are very deadly (and not coincidentally usually the classes of choice for the dedicated rifter) this complaint is actually a result of three things which stuns exploit so well:

• Preparation Disparity
• Extending the Opener
• Focusing on Frustration

Preparation disparity – rifters are prepared, questers are not (usually). There are potions to escape stuns that are fairly cheap and even the result of quests (though to be very fair, those rewards that I’ve encountered were added in 1.9 to the x10 repeatable quests). In addition, stun lock is usually not long enough to kill people by itself. It’s the addition of a helpful mob that usually seals the deal, which leads to me to my second point.

Extending the Opener: Rogues, Sorcerers and Rangers (some of the best gankers/rifters) exploit the opening as long as possible. This means keeping that mob hitting on you (keeping you stunned and/or rooted), or simply blowing you up before you can react. They get away with this because questers are usually not prepared (see above) with healing potions, cooldowns, DP, food or scrolls (all things any rifter worth their salt will have at the ready, as will anyone worth hunting in the Abyss). Extending the Opener is frustrating because it takes the player completely out of the fight almost instantly, leading to my final point: ganking sucks because it’s non interactive.

Frustration is all about understanding that players might enjoy PvP, if they ever got to engage in it. I know I’ve been the victim of a marauding Sorcerer on my Chanter before (he was 22-24 at the time) and there was quite literally nothing I could do. I had no potions on me, no scrolls, no food and no prayer. He would approach me, murder me, and move on, all in the space of seconds. I even got the jump on him once near the Morheim icefall and he calmly popped a cooldown, a shield, and murdered me. It wasn’t fun, and I only escaped with the help of some friendly passerbys that eventually found him.

However this experience didn’t frustrate me very much, though I can certainly understand why it would the average player, as I was able to maintain some perspective. I had choices and options available to that would have given me a fighting chance against this guy, most of which didn’t involve grinding for hours, gaining levels, or spending infinite on twinked gear. I could’ve gotten Speed Scrolls and DP food to pop my 2K ability (100% attack boost) and been able to counter his CC ability with my improved speed and really hard melee hits. One of the weaknesses of Extending the Opening focused PvPers is that their mid-end game is non-existant, so surviving the opener instantly gives you the edge. To ensure I survived, I could’ve purchased a few Greater Life Serums (which are surprisingly cheap on the broker!) which function as almost full heals. Gank that!

I hate that I come off as a rampant fanboi of Aion on these articles, but it’s frustrating to see such negativity for a game that I think has so much going for it. It’s certainly refreshing, and this is coming from a long time FFXI and WoW player (and MMO player back to the days of EQ launch), to participate in a distinctly Eastern flavored MMO, with player freedom at a premium and railroading/handholding at a minimum.

Since 1.9 I think this game has reached a point where I wouldn’t quite consider it mature, but where I think it has begun to truly hit its stride. If the server PvP balance can be figured out (hopefully with some judicious but behind the scenes nudging of players off and on to lower populated servers) by the time 2.0 comes out this game could be a serious contender. That would be great to see as the Rock-Paper-Scissor balance is, once again, both refreshing and really enjoyable, and the flat level curve (though frustrating at times) allows for leveling gear to feel worth attaining rather than temporary trash to be traded up at the very next town.

-talisien/thargor

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