The Aion Experience

If you’re Asmodian and you’ve hit your high teens, you’re most likely familiar with the quest that has you locate a book in the Library. I can’t remember the name of the exact quest, but it doesn’t tell you which book you need to find (psst it’s the one at the far end of the left balcony if you’re facing into the Library =p), and instead you are left to open any book you can find that’s sticking out or otherwise obviously different.

During my travels of opening EVERY other book instead of the right one first, I came across on titled Interesting Asmodae which, when opened, showed a really cool cut scene. Hubby mentioned that he never saw/found that book when he did the quest, so I decided to capture the cut scene and share it here for him and anyone else who might have missed it.

It also follows on with some text (the actual book) after the cut scene finishes:

*****

The Invasion is a pivotal moment in our history. After centuries of isolation following the Cataclysm, it was the first time the survival of any of the missing Five Empyrean Lords or their followers was confirmed.

The existence of the Elyos society on the opposite continent cast our experiences into shard relief. Comparing our lot with our soon-to-be enemies allowed us to appreciate our true strength.

The story of the invasion begins with Deltras and the Storm Legion.

Lead by Deltras, the Storm Legion was one of the most elite Legions in Elysea.

The prevailing opinion is that their mission was strictly a reconnaissance. They never intended to confront our forces, and certainly not Lord Zikel himself, which explains their lack of preparation for the event.

Had this incursion not been discovered, it seems likely that the larger Elyos force would have followed, perhaps achieving complete surprise. The capture of Deltras and his Legion was a fortunate event for the Asmodae.

Credit for detecting the invasion goes to a desert scout of Morgeim whose name has sadly been lost to history. Noticing movement in the terrain, he approached and was surprised to discover slender, milky-skinned warriors with neither manes nor sharp claws.

Seeing the Elyos for the first time, he was more curious than worried about them.

However, the Elysean language was incomprehensible, and when Deltras grew weary of the effort to communication, he ordered his Legion to dispatch the dutiful Asmodian Archon.

When the Archon resurrected at an Obelisk, he reported these vents to incredulous superiors. Shamefully, they were slow to act on his initial incident.

In the meantime Deltras and his men crossed the Salintus Desert, seeking the rift through which they had traveled to Asmodae so they could return with the information they had gathered.

However, their grace period was short-lived. When they reached the rift, Lord Zikel and his Shadow’s Guard Legion were waiting for them.

Lord Zikel was in a four tempter, as his scouts had never returned from the Abyss, and he saw reason to believe that the Elyos had intercepted them.

According to his attendance, Lord Zikel was so upset than even Lord Azphel hesitated to speak to him.

Archons advised Lord Zikel to kill the Elyos immediately, but he rejected this suggestion. He wanted answers.

They found common ground in an ancient Human tongue, and Zikel made an offer. He’d spare their lives if Deltras would confess his mission to spy on Asmodae, and deny his Empyrean Lord Nezekan.

Typical of the pride and self-absorbed Elyos, Deltras cursed this generous offer, dooming himself and his Legion.

True to his word, Lord Zikel vanished most of the Elyos where they stood. Some cowards killed themselves rather than face his fury.

From that moment forward, we have been at war.

*****

I’ve never been a huge lore follower in the past – my partner can attest to me having never read a single quest in WoW and simply looking for enough information on what exactly I had to kill/collect and how many. For some reason, I’m finding the Aion lore quite engaging and am enjoying it thoroughly. I think the cut scenes really help with that… it’s like picture books for those who don’t like a lot of reading lol.

Killer’s Eye is one of the new Assassin abilities I received at level 10, and I have to admit, the tooltip confuses me. The one shown at AionArmory is incorrect, the in-game version says:

For 10 sec, boosts the effect of Physical Attack Skill used right after the skill by 50%, and increases your Accuracy by 500.

I get that it boosts your attack skill, which I assume means your base damage you do? And I get that it boosts your Accuracy which is great. But what does it mean by “boosts the effect of Physical Attack Skill used right after the skill” ?

Does that mean it activates the 50% boost after you press the Killer’s Eye ability? Or does that mean it only boosts it by 50% to any step 2 chain abilities? I realise it’s probably very obvious to most… but if anyone could explain it to me, that would be great.

Also, since we’re on the topic of this ability, do you (”you” being all Assassins) use it before you engage? Or at a certain point in the fight?

So far I’ve been using the following opening rotation:  Hide > Surprise Attack > Killer’s Eye > Swift Edge… etc… I found if I activated it prior to engaging, the buff was half gone before I began actually attacking.

While Executive Producer Lance Stites took time to address some of the most prominent issues raised in the Aion community last week, we want to specifically address another issue that is a top priority for the team here at NCsoft: in-game real money trading (RMT) advertisement, sometimes referred to as “gold spamming.” These activities are something we’re actively combating right now. They are also something you can help us with, and something that we are committed to addressing continually in the future.

Read more »

I labeled this post with the ‘Part 1′ title because I’m hoping there will be a part 2, 3, possibly 4 and even maybe 5 where I can go, “oh WoW, 16 was good, but at level xx I got THIS ability which is totally awesome”. Worst case scenario is I come back with a part 2, tail between my legs admitting defeat once again. Either way, I can’t imagine there being only one post on the subject.

Of course, as my title gives away, I dinged level 16 on my Ranger last night. Yipee! It was a very exciting moment and all thanks goes to my pity party for carrying my sorry pathetic ass all the way. My “I can’t believe you’re already level 18″ Chanter husband slummed it back in the lowby areas to help me and, honestly, I would not have made it without him. I just don’t have enough patience to continue dying, or almost dying in order to level to the supposed fun times. My Ranger would have sat abandoned at level 15, only reaching that level due to 4 levels of the same pity party that mercilessly shoved me over the finishing line. But shove they did and last night I got to head back to my Scout trainer to find out just what was so great about that magical 1-6 level.

Boost Parry I A new ability that increases your parry rate. Good to know. Handy for all the times I can’t keep the mob at a distance…

Counterattack II An upgrade to Counterattack I that inflicts 160~187 physical damage upon  success Evasionion and comes with the odd chance to temporarily stun. Not really useful for me since I very rarely swap to melee weapons even at close range combat because it takes me longer to swap weapons than it does to just kill them with arrows. Can only assume that’s due to lag.

Soul Slash II An upgrade to version one, rank two inflicts 167~194 physical damage on the target and is step 2 in a chain after executing Swift Edge. Again, not really useful for me as it requires melee weapons. IF Aion would automatically switch to melee once the mob is close enough to kiss me, then I might be excited. Until then, no sorry.

Arrow Strike I A new ability that fires an arrow at a target within zero meters to inflict 229~256 physical damage. Finally, something to make me sit up and pay attention. Arrow Strike is step 2 in a chain after Swift Shot which I use in every fight. So basically this gives me a second lot of damage to deal with my arrows of doom! I can’t see one new ability being the ground breaking change that makes soloing super easy, but it’s a start.

Poisoning Trap I Last, but by no means least is a new trap that lasts for 60 sec, during which time it will explode and poison any enemy that comes within five meters of said trap. Nice. Of course it uses 1 Tripeed like my first trap that I rarely used – again, lag. By the time I laid the damn thing I could have just killed the mob. With one that assists damage however, I might lay it at my feet each time and it can help finish the mob off once it’s close and whacking away at me.

Of course, that means Arrows + Tripeed + Odella = an expensive class. How exactly am I meant to cover my trade skills as well?

Still, nothing huge there I could see that would be the difference everyone is telling me to hang out for. The only other difference was a new bow, which granted can make a big difference, but I got the impression from everyone I chatted to that it was something skill based that occurred, not just an upgraded weapon.

Nokir's Bow

And technically this is not related to level 16 at all, the bow is received at the end of the Fear This quest line. I just happened to obtain it at the same time as I dinged (just after), so factor it into any improved game play. That said, there were definitely improvements – noticeably so. I was able to take mobs down without nearly dying, and without waiting half an hour to finish it off. My auto attack is still @#$% up and aggravating me nearly every fight, but there’s nothing I can do about that until NCSoft get off their rear ends and fix it. But the additional arrow shot is certainly a noticeable difference in my damage.

Unfortunately I only got half an hour to test this afternoon, but I only died once in that time (green ribbet with their super poison zomg!) and all in all thoroughly enjoyed myself – the first time since dinging level 10 on Alexan… sweet. The biggest change I noticed was that I could solo!

I took some video footage to share that shows how much better I am doing after only just entering level 16…

Now, there are a few things to note.

1. ALL of those fights are without the Poison Trap. I didn’t have any Tripeed on my when I started, and some bright spark over in programming decided to have multiple tabs on NPC vendors and I didn’t even know I could buy some in Basfelt until I saw the tabs along the top. So all fights are without that added damage…
2. In the 3rd fight you might notice my auto-attack didn’t come on. That was not due to me not trying, I was mashing the crap out of my ‘c’ button to the point I thought I was going to break it. There is something really stuffed up with auto-attack for all classes, yet for some bizarre reason, Rangers cop it the worst apparently. Really @#$%ing frustrating – see, I don’t normally swear, that’s how annoying it is!
3. I have my Dodging I skill incorrectly in my rotation. Because it goes for 1 minute duration, I should be activating it before I even engage. For some sadistic reason, my brain got it in it’s head that I should use it during a fight, and of course no auto-attacks happen when you’re casting it, so that takes away my damage. Every fight as I watch that first arrow leave my bow, I mentally kick myself when I realise I haven’t clicked it. I will learn…While I’m on the topic of moving skills around, I also can’t decide if I should be moving Devotion I to the front of the line too. 5 seconds really isn’t long enough to be much use and so far I have been saving it to help boost my pathetic auto-attack damage. But I’m starting to wonder if I should move it to the front to increase the special abilites. That might help the mobs drop quicker before they actually get to me. Can any Rangers out there shed some light on that for me?
4. And lastly, you’ll notice I never switch to melee weapons. I can’t. The lag we have is bad enough that it makes it a pointless act. It takes at least 10 to 15 seconds to switch, and then again to switch back to bow. If I just stick with my bow and arrow I can kill the mob in the same time. This will of course affect my damage slightly and thus, other Rangers who have a better connection will do better.

Over all though, not too bad. The biggest factor for me was enjoyment – and enjoy myself I did. My little Ranger candle of love flickered and then came back to full strength. And, like a golfer that records his swing to analyse, the frustrations and now, mini triumph have allowed me to really analyse what was or wasn’t causing the problems and learn more about the class.

The next spell level is 19 (arg 3 level gaps) where I receive Devotion I to Accuracy by 200 for 1 minute and Stunning Shot I which I am really excited about. Stunning shot fires an arrow at a target within 20m of you to inflict random physical damage between 253 and 257. And as the name implys, the target becomes temporarily stunned. Sweet!

Greetings,

A lot has happened since I last addressed our community. We’ve launched our long awaited product Aion and have been pleased and challenged with keeping up with the massive player demand.

There’s no doubt that we’ve done some things very well with Aion: the product is polished and incredibly fun. We managed to deploy to North America and Europe within the same week and have experienced strong demand. As most of you are aware, this has come at a cost in the form of queue times. This is by far our biggest challenge and has led to some frustration as players wait to enter their server of choice.

In preparation for Aion’s launch, we ran calculations of our presale numbers with historical conversion ratios and expected concurrency numbers, which led to our determination of launch day server needs. In addition, we had a 25 percent additional capacity in hardware reserve and the ability to increase server population. We’ve further responded to the overwhelming demand by adding additional server worlds in all languages, and still we are working around the clock to address the incredible demand. For example, we’re seeing timeframes where 60 percent or more of our players are playing at any given time. This is a significant event by any MMO standard. Another surprising development is how long players are staying in game—I think that’s a testament to the enjoyable nature of the product.

I’m sure many of you are thinking, “That’s all fine-but how does that help me get in and play the game? What is NCsoft doing for me?” Fair question. First… Read more »

The Aion customer support hot topics page has been udpated as of October 2nd and currently looks like the following…

Queue Times and Waiting to Play

The popularity of specific servers has caused queues to be necessary. These queues are based on the given server load. The wait times for our more populated servers will be longer than the wait time for less populated servers. You can use the tracking tools on the Aion website to determine which servers are most populated and which ones will have the longest or shortest wait times in the login queue. Login queues will shorten (and disappear) over the next several days as players spread out across our currently available servers. We are also working on several ways to alleviate the wait time in the queues.

Faction Balance

We will only be allowing players to create characters of one faction on each server. For example, if you create an Elyos character on Siel,you will only be able to create Elyos characters on that server. Because of this, we will be closely monitoring the faction balance on each server during launch and after. If we see a particular server is starting to become unbalanced in favor of one faction, we will temporarily disable character creation of that particular faction on the server. Please be aware this temporary character creation block could change every few hours. If you find you are unable to create a character of your preferred faction choice, please wait a while and try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience this maycause, but we feel this is a necessary step to maintain a well balanced server.

Read more »

It is with great disappointment, and a little sadness than I have to announce I made the switch last night from a Ranger to an Assassin. The switch is not permanent, and I am by no means giving up my Ranger completely, but it still makes me upset to not be playing my Ranger as my primary character. Especially as I so love the ‘bow and arrow’ play-style so much.

I kinda knew this was coming even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. My first impressions as a Ranger were not fantastic, but I stuck it out a few more levels as everyone told me that post 16 is far better. What frustrated me however, was that in order to get to level 16, I had to group with my husbands Chanter which honestly, was nothing more than a pity party. He didn’t need me. In fact most of the time I ran around gathering while he solo’d… I did nothing more than leech experience. What bothered me more was that I had to “stick it out” in the first place – no character should have to play through gritted teeth and clenched fists for 16 levels before you reach the fun times. And in fact I know a few players who haven’t – choosing to abandon their Ranger long ago.

While I am fortunate enough to be able to group with my partner to at least level 16 should I then wish to attempt the rest solo, is the fact I have lots to do outside of just playing Aion – I have this blog, which I love, as well as another blog based around The Sims which I also play. In Aion itself, I want to take my time leveling up and getting to really know my class well which all takes time. This all slows down a partner who doesn’t have as much on his plate and is happy to just play and experience. Then again, since I am the researcher of the family, he can just ask me anything he needs to know lol, he doesn’t spend the hours I do researching, reading and googling information.

All of this combined means that I slow down his leveling. He tends to bum around on alts while I do my stuff so he doesn’t out-level me, but then I feel guilty for making him wait around or not be able to play his character of choice because I chose to do other activities. During the week I told him to not wait for me any longer, just go out and level and I’ll give it a go on my own… after all, I was level 15 by now, surely it had to be somewhat easier than when I was level 10 and just finding my feet?

Wrong! Last night I jumped into game, solo, and went to fight some Nimble Aracha. Now yes, the game was laggy, but due to our location, and the fact Telstra likes to f#$% all their customers over, I’m always going to have lag of some sort. Last night’s 2,2000+ ms was particularly bad to start with, but by the time I was ready to actually play it had eased up some. Regardless of the lag factor, the Mosbear mobs I was fighting through to get to the Nimble Aracha were taking me down by at least half health each time. When I finally found my first Aracha, it freaking killed me!!

The death was the last straw and my camel’s back was well and truly broken. I couldn’t stand the fact that I had to sit and heal, or bandage, or use my Odella Powder collection to heal via my Herb Treatment after every mob I killed. I also don’t want it to take 5 minutes to kill a single mob that leaves me half dead! That’s just not fun.

So I cracked it! I threw a little tanty and rerolled.

When I first ascended, I struggled with the choice between Assassin and Ranger. I had planned to go Ranger prior to even stepping foot in game, yet the enjoyment and pleasure I received from the close combat fighting caused real internal conflict. In the end, I decided to go with my original choice of Ranger and ignored the slight glimmer of regret that would later fester and eat away at me.

I’m not deleting my Ranger, and I’m certainly not ready to give up on her yet, but I just can’t solo with her at the moment. For now she will remain my group character as I do love the damage she can do with her bow and arrow given the proper distance. And I still have some hope that I will be able to master her, but for now, I need… I need… A little less conversation, a little more action please. All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me. A little more bite and a little less bark, a little less fight and a little more spark, mobs need to shut their mouths and open up their guts… satisfy me…. satisfy me yeah.

*clears throat* Sorry. Proof reading what I wrote originally, I couldn’t get Elvis out of my head lol.

Moving on. I’ve heard great things about the Assassin, I thoroughly enjoyed the pre-10 levels before my Ascension, and am once again, at level 7, enjoying the play-style of surprising mobs from behind and then slitting their throats. One of the good points with an Assassin is I don’t need to constantly switch between ranged and melee weapons and this should alleviate at least one gripe right off the bat. That’s correct yes – I don’t need to switch weapons do I?

Having never played an Assassin style class before this should be an interesting journey. I loathed the repulsive, vile, inexcusably annoying Rogues of WoW. God I hated them, I mean really despised them as a class and all who played them. No matter what class I was on, they always induced cussing to run through my head that would make a sailor to blush should he have had the unfortunately experience of hearing it. But who knows, I might just grow to enjoy a new play-style with Aion’s Assassin…

So without further adieu, I present to you, Dewinter named after Milady de Winter, from the novel The Three Musketeers. A capable and beautiful spy, Milady was remorseless and unrepentant for her countless “misdeeds” and I feel my very own Dewinter will follow in those perfect little footsteps. Thankyou to my good friend Ebonclaw for the name… Shadow, Midnight, and all other “hiding in the dark” names were already taken. Damn you unoriginal character namers for taking all my other ideas!

Dewinter - Aion Assassin

Don’t freak out lol, yes there’s a new look to The Aion Experience. If you’ve bookmarked the blogspot address, please update your bookmarks as I now have my own domain name, yay! I’ve decided I will be sticking around Aion for a while so I felt it better to get my own domain and blog that I can back up and make sure it stays safe.

The theme isn’t 100% finished yet but I’m pretty happy with it to start using it live. I just need to “Aion it up a bit”…

Coming from a Hunter background in World of Warcraft, it constantly felt like something was missing when I was fighting mobs in Aion. Oh I know what it was – the bouncy red arrow above the mobs head indicating “he belongs to me”. The good news is you can mark mobs in Aion as well – it won’t give you any benefit like the Hunter’s Mark of WoW, but it’s still a handy way to show your group members which mob you are attacking, especially if your group resembles a peep of chickens (yes, that’s what a group of chickens is called apparently)…

Ok, so marking in Aion is part of the Branding System. Frustratingly, the branding functionality is usable only by group leaders, Alliance captains, or Alliance vice captain. As a Hunter, you can be designated puller for a co-ordinated group and as such, can be made leader to utilise the function for this ability. I’d really like to see Aion open the ability up to all group members as the ability for a sorcerer to mark a mob they’ve put to sleep (there’s a Zzz mark) would be handy for all the “Gotta touch them all” group members. Sadly, at this point, we’ll have to resort to screaming “DON’T TOUCH” macros. I so do still love the “You touch it, you f**k it” slogan I witnessed in a WoW group years ago. “You spank it, you tank it” another all time favourite.

The biggest reason to use branding however, for now, is that it allows for one-key-press assisting. See, branding works two ways:

1. Branding the target
2. Targeting the brand

Confused? Ok, in simple terms, say you and me are in a group along with 4 other players. I pull 3 mobs, one of which is put to sleep by the sorcerer leaving two beating on me. I know that mob xxx has more hit points and hits harder than mob yyy so I brand that one with an arrow as the first to be killed. Instead of you having to target me then assist, or having to write up a macro to do it for you, you can simply press the /selectbrand 9 which is the arrow  hotkey (or assign any hotkey you like for the select arrow option) and blam, you’ve now targeted the correct mob and can start wailing away.

Of course in smaller groups while you are leveling up this won’t be as big a problem, but when you come to the higher end instances, raids or even PvP, it can come in very handy. Especially if you’re with a group you run with constantly.

How to set a Mark/Brand

There are two ways you can do it. I chose to do it via Options >> Key Mapping. Hit your escape button, choose options, then Key Mapping. Scroll about half way down until you see the marks and assign a key beside the one you want to use.

The other way, is by using the in-built functions by using the Show Brand functions and Select Brand functions in the [Actions] tab in the Skill Window.

Note: The Select Brand function is usable only when a group leader or an Alliance captain assigns the brand to a target.

Of course, using the built in buttons will clutter up your hotbar but can come in handy if you are needing to use multiple brands – such as a kill marker and a sleep marker. That only clutters up the group leaders hot bar of course, for the remaining group members that simply need to make sure they are targeting the correct mob, if several brands are in use, then Ctrl+Tab (default) tabs through only the targets with brands.

If you, as the group leader/marker don’t want to clutter up your hot bars, you can take a few extra seconds to right click the mobs target frame (the info bar that appears at the top) and select the branding icon from there. Of course you then have to do that for every mob which is annoying when there are quick pulls but may come in handy when moving through an area slowly. If you are doing it this way, note that the three most recently used brand are displayed at the bottom of the target’s drop down brands list.

When a branded target is dead, the brand will be removed automatically.

As an ex-WoW Hunter, I naturally use the blue arrow to mark all my pulls. It may not be a bouncy red one, and it may not improve my damage any, but it certainly makes me feel special. =p