The Aion Experience

I have to vent a little – I’m finding the tradeskill system in Aion extremely frustrating. The work orders are handy to help level your skill in that you are given the core part of the combine and you can simply purchase the other pieces to complete it – so no farming involved. But for me, the work orders also feel like I am just throwing money away, a feeling I don’t like at all. So yesterday, I decided to gather my mats together and craft some Thin Durable Leather Leggings to raise my skill. Not only do those give me just over 2,000 Kineh when I sell back to the vendor, but I also have the chance to proc Noble Thin Durable Leather Leggings which can sell for a good sum more to the brokers.

I kicked off eleven combines yesterday and walked away to finish some other stuff. I came back to see seven procs and smiled! That smile however, quickly vanished when I noticed I only had ONE skill increase! The leggings were a yellow skill combine, and I got ONE skill increase out of 11 combines that proc’ed 7? I would expect at the very least to get a skill up when I proc an improvement. You’re telling me I don’t learn anything from that?! C’mon…

So, apart from the potential money made if they sell, it was a complete waist of time to actually craft usable items. How does this encourage players to craft items outside of the money hungry jerks that charge ridiculous amounts for their “time and skill”?

The lack of skill ups when I am working on anything other than work orders just adds to the frustration pile that includes the inordinate amount of kineh required to level up just one profession. This of course triples when you’re a nutter like me and not only want to dress yourself (Tailoring), but also want to supply your own pots (Alchemy) and food (Cooking) – that’s three professions for me to blow my Kineh on!

For the first time yesterday I sat down and seriously considered not worrying about any of my tradeskills and simply selling off any mats I collect and just buying my armor, pots and food from now on. But I’m a gluten for punishment and enjoy my professions – I’m not liking Aion’s version, but I enjoy the idea behind trade skills in general. I think I raised all but weaponsmithing in WoW, although I’ll hardly go that far in Aion. Outside of the ones I am currently working on, that will be it! Hubby is working on Handicrafting and Weaponsmithing so between us we have just about everything I’ll ever need.

At this point I can only assume that NCSoft wants us to raise our skills via work orders, which is fine, I’ll accept it, but I don’t like it. Not only are they mind numbingly boring, they are nothing more than a money sink and time away from actually actually playing the game. I’d really like to see a change implemented that rewarded players for crafting items that others can make use of instead of NPC work orders that disappear when handed in.

In a game that has the worst infestation of gold sellers I have ever seen, of which is ruining players gaming experiences (I already know of a couple of people who stepped away due to the in-game spam), NCSoft further inflames the issue themselves by requiring so much of the Kineh being sold to levelling tradeskills. If crafting items had a better chance of skill ups than the 1-per-work order rate, players might not need to blow so much money on it and would instead use the mats they collect to raise their skill. Would the price of mats then go up and the need for Kineh still be as bad? Possibly… but not everyone buys all their mats off other players and would instead spend time farming themselves.

Not to mention the satisfaction that would come from earning skill ups while crafting instead of the current system where I kick off a set of 6 or 9 combines and then go back to watching TV, playing with my toddler, the new puppy or, like yesterday – cleaning my entire house. Even worse is hubby who has it running in the background at work while he does them…

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Aion Gathering 101

Coming from WoW where you had limited profession slots to use up with your choices, it’s a bit difference experience in Aion where gathering skill (also know as the extracting skill) is basic to every class and both factions. Basically everyone starts with it. I always enjoyed Herbalism in WoW, both for the ease of the profession itself (herbs were everywhere), but also because of the money that could be made from selling the raw herbs themselves. Of course in Aion, the market is going to be flooded with the different ingredients since everyone can collect them.

Then again, this is a good thing because it means you shouldn’t need to spend too much of your own Kineh purchasing those ingredients for your chosen profession should you wish to skill up quicker than you’ve gathered. Especially when you realise that the gathering skill is not profession specific – all players can gather apples, herbs, and metals, etc.

Another good aspect of this is the fact that it makes gathering very simple… which could also be viewed as a negative if you’re like me and don’t like things being stupid simple. Keeping with the cons, because you can’t focus on gathering the materials you want (just herbs, just ores, etc), you not only do you get a whole bunch of other junk that you probably don’t need for the crafting profession of your choice, but with everyone being able to gather the same stuff you can’t really sell them very well.

This is where having a Legion (guild) comes in handy as you can play swapsies with everyone to get the items you need, and get rid of the ones you don’t.

Regardless of the unwanted clutter, it’s a fun skill that you don’t really have to do much extra to benefit from, so why not raise it as you go? At first most new players under-value the skill and will probably pass quite a few plants that can be collected because they are too busy with getting their character past ascension.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that you gain xp for every item collected with the collecting skill and many later quests will involve the act of collecting which will reward everything from reputation and exp, to items.

Who can pass up death-free experience? Not to mention additional quests for even more exp!

How to Gather…

The actual gathering process is a bit different if you’re coming from WoW. The act of gathering is the same – right click, double click or select the gathering icon on your hot bar. What’s different is when you start gathering an item, a success progress bar and a failure progress bar pop up. Normally this is all handled behind the scenes and you don’t get to see it happening.

The extent to which a success or failure progresses either bar is determined by your skill rank in relation to the required rank for that node. If the player’s skill rank is the same as that required to gather a given node, then there is about a 33% chance to fail the entire process.

The greater the player’s skill rank becomes in relation to the required rank, the lower the chance of an overall failure. Once the player’s skill rank surpasses the required rank by more then 20, it becomes impossible to fail. Success provides experience to the character and skill until the player’s rank surpasses the required rank by 40. At this point the skill can no longer gain rank.

So even if gathering fails, you still gain experience! (unless of course you’re 40 skill points above the item)

Players from levels one through to nine are treated as humans, therefore the only way to gather resources is to rely on the human method of pulling them out with your hands. At level 10, which is when you become a Daeva, you learn the ability to manipulate “Ode” energy. This replaces your human gathering skill and you gain two new skills.

One is Extract Life Force, which is useable on the same types of materials as you cou
ld as human – plants, ore, wood, etc. You gain the ability to extract the essence of the target and reconstruct it into its purest state without harming them, just like humans would with tools.

The second skill you gain is Ode Extraction, which only Daevas are able to perform and this starts at level 10. The main difference with this skill is Ode shards only spawn up in the air.

Ode energy is made up of the essence of all substances, and Daevas have the ability to extract the essence from the target resources and reconstruct them into their purest state without damaging them as humans would with their tools.

The Convert Substance skill allows you to reconstruct the essense and is obtained upon becoming a Daeva. The skill does not come with a skill level and initially you only have a few options. Additional plans and recipes can be purchased from NPCs.

The biggest difference from the gathering skill is that the Ode shards spawn only high up in the air. The Ode shards have the same properties as regular resources, but the type of Ode that can be obtained differs based on the chance.

Because Ode Extraction is an entirely new type of skill, it also starts at skill level 1 – note though that the extract life force skill will be the same as your gathering skill was before you ascended. Of course, the first ode’s you will see (as Asmodian) will be in the Altguard and will be too high to extract, requiring a skill of 50. This is probably to stop people simply farming those ones over and over to raise their skill.

A couple of other things to note is that the higher in the air a Vortex is, the higher level of Aether it contains, and the higher skill it requires to extract it. Also, while on the ground you can only gather three times from a resource, in the air, the vortex nodes yield up to five aether units, and staying aloft until you get the last one can be a dangerous challenge!

The essence of “Ode” exists within all things in the world of Aion. Its role is important enough to define the difference between humans and Daeva as beings who can’t manipulate Ode and those that can. The Devine Power is also a form of Ode, which is obtained when it is released from the enemy upon death, therefore being absorbed by the player and converted into the form of Divine Power.

Sharing is caring…

Or at least that’s what my mother told me. But when it comes to gathering, it’s every man for themselves! Each plant or node will usually give you 3 tries, with one (the middle attempt) often blowing up when attempting it. While other players can not steal your gathering during a specific turn, its 3 turns are first come first serve. So you will occasionally see a player wait until you complete one try and they will immediately go in for the second. I’ve already had this happen to me a couple of times which is annoying.

It’s up to you if you chose to respect the first come first serve rule and move on when you see another player gathering an object. Or if you want to be a Douche and try to jump in the second they stand back up. Personally, I’d like to think most people would respect and move on… sadly, there’s too many children and idiots infesting the servers.

The Different Things you can Gather

Plants, Herbs and Fruits are by far the most abundant type of resource and will likely be the main and possibly only thing you see during your first few levels. They appear everywhere on the planet’s surface so are great for raising your skill, however they do not appear within the Abyss.

Minerals and Gems are found both on the planet’s surface as well as in the Abyss and come in two forms. The first is minable with each new training level, while the other has node specific rank requirements and a different appearance. Gems are the rarest of the nodes found on the ground throughout Atreia and genera
lly appear where several can be found in relative proximity.

Fish and Shellfish are found where there is water (lakes, wetlands, marshes, etc) as one would expect. And lastly are the woods which contain the least variety and are found scattered throughout Atreia, although more common in the woodland type environments.

At this point, it’s fair to mention, that for most nodes there are two types of material that can be found. The regular version received 95% of the time and a rare version, often of the same material. The exception to this, from what I’ve seen, is woods.

That takes us to the aerial gathering skill and gathering from odes. Yes its odes, not nodes, in order to represent the difference between aerial and ground gathering. Odes differ from regular ground gathering in that there is only one available every 25 skill ranks. Additionally, they can only be found in zones where free flight is available.

The last manner of obtaining materials for crafting is the traditional method of killing mobs throughout the game. Mobs throughout the world drop several materials, although there are a couple key ones that will be found continually across all levels. The two important enough to mention are the leathers and the crystal balls. Leathers drop off of most mobs that you would expect them to, so anything with a hide. Crystal balls drop off everything and appear in three colours; red, blue, and white.

In closing it should be noted that most of the general materials also have different rarities. Two simple examples are gems and crystal balls. For gems, the node may produce a regular version of the material that is any quality. The rare version, when one is available, will always be of a quality a step above the regular version produced. The exception being that there are no unique quality materials at this time. In the case of crystal balls each ball occurs in different rarities and any colour crystal ball may drop in any rarity.

Gem and crystal ball rarities

What are the Crystal Balls?

The Crystals aren’t related to crafting. Instead, they are gathered version of potions basically. As mentioned above, there are three colours you can collect:

The Life Crystal (Red) restores 5,000 hitpoints.

The Mind Crystal (Blue) restores 5,000 mana points

And lastly, the Recovery Crystal (white) restores 5,000 hitpoints AND 5,000 mana points.

Unfortunately all the crystals require you to be level 50 or above…

Basic knowledge for your info

• Spawn locations of resources do not change in type when they respawn, they are always static, if you find a specific type of resource you want, you will be able to find it again in that same place.

• Material difficulties are increased by 5, and you can only gather materials equal or lesser than your skill level.
  

• Most materials spawns allows up to 3 chances to extract material from it, some special materials might only allow one chance. The gathering is also shared between other players.

• Only two things can happen upon extracting materials, fail, or succeed. As your gathering skill increases, it is easier and faster to extract lower level materials.

• Resource materials stack up to 1000!

Gathering Tips

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Tip #1 – Gather while you’re levelling, between skill cool down, and healing time so you don’t feel bored.

Tip #2 – I personally like to gather 1 type of material for 10-15 skill point gain, reason being as your skill increases it gets easier and faster to gather that type of material, and you still gain skill at the same rate between 1-10 skill points of that material.

Tip #3 – You must purchase level 2 gather after 99 skill points, level 3 after 199 skill points, etc… To acquire level 2, 3 and beyond, go to Sanctum if you are Elyos or Pandaemonium for Asmodian and learn it from Vitality Master which are located in the crafting area.

Tip #4 – How to stop instant fail. One of 3 thing will happen when your extracting materials, succeed, fail, and instant fail. The first two you will gain skill points from, but the third one you gain nothing. To stop instant fail while gathering either take 1 step at any direction or take a 1 – 2 second break in between attempts.