It can be fun and educational to run instances with non-standard class compositions. Players sometimes have rigid perceptions of what will and won’t work, and in my experience, those (narrow) perceptions are often inaccurate. I enjoy trying different specs and group compositions to see how they perform.
Thankfully this morning I PUG’d with two very skilled and open-minded players and learned a lot in the process.
I joined a Templar’s Recruit Group for Fire Temple on the LFG channel very early this morning, so there weren’t many players online. After a Ranger and Sorcerer joined, the Temp said “OK let’s go” and I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I wasn’t sure whether my 35 Chanter could handle solo healing duties but I was certainly willing to try.
The Sorcerer went LD on a pull when we had a couple adds and didn’t come back. From a cynical point of view, I don’t think that was an accident. The Sorc gave up instead of even trying. Fortunately, that didn’t affect our ability to clear the instance twice and get some nice blue mat drops in the process.
Here is footage of the 1st time we downed Kromede.
I went ultra-conservative on this attempt…I
- didn’t melee
- spammed Healing Light non-stop
- chain MP potted most of the fight
- stacked the deck in our favor by using the awesome group DP buff Word of Wind
Turns out it was a very easy and smooth fight. As you can tell from the footage, the tank (Inlove) used great positioning. He and the Ranger Maddux were very skilled players and it was awesome grouping with them. We handled some multi-mob pulls that I’ve seen wipe full groups.
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
Nice video. Grouping with a different set-up of classes for something like this can be refreshing and rewarding! Major prop’s for 3 manning the whole instance.
Question:
How do feel/think about the recent XP “boost” for levels 1-35ish, I have read that the real problem with XP comes in about level 40-50ish and that the grind could take a few days to just get 1 level.?
What are your thoughts on this and do you see Aion being a contender in the future if they don’t address the XP/grind “problems” that are so freely complained/spoken about?
Thanks for great videos!
Kal
The recent XP boost was a breath of fresh air. I gained 1.5 levels over the weekend, which felt “normal” compared to other games.
Aion simply takes too long to level. With the exception of people who have a lot of time on their hands, I think for most players the XP mechanic is a huge issue.
It discourages players from making it to end-game on their main, trying out different classes, playing alts, etc. And that is really bad for a game’s population growth in the long term.
In addition, the problem with Aion isn’t just the slow leveling – the content is pretty limited as well. On Asmodian side from levels 22-25 and 29-36, I’ve run out of non-repeatable solo quests and have had to grind mobs to level.
The game needs a faster leveling experience and more and better content. I’d settle just for a faster leveling experience, because really what I care about in any game in the end-game experience, because that’s typically where a player spends most of their time on a character over the long haul. The weird thing with Aion is how tedious and slow leveling is. My main is level 36 and it’s been 3 months since the game launched. Granted, I have a 33 Sorc and 20 Cleric, but still, I’ve typically played multiple classes in games and still gotten one to max level within 2 months.
If NCSoft doesn’t address the slow leveling experience within the first quarter of 2010, I expect to see a steep dropoff in terms of the numbers of subscribers. Aion might up end paralleling the fate of WAR in terms of subscriber attrition, but for very different reasons.
A big part of me still wants to get into this game, but I don’t have the time or energy (READ THIS NCSOFT) to invest like that.
When I was reading what the bloggers who still play Aion have said about the Xp boost and then read how Aion went about giving players the boost, I felt like they were baiting. Doing this solely for old and new players to re-sub. I don’t think they addressed the main issue which was XP quest turn-in ratio to XP per mob-grind values.
Yeah, I agree that if NCSoft doesn’t make drastic XP/leveling and quest improvements by the first quarter of 2010, it will see the same fate as Warhammer Online.
Warhammer Online is doing great, more active than ever it seems, since the latest patch. I would still say 20k-30k strong.
Are you talking total subs or subs on your server?
30k subs is, at max, 450k USD a month in subscription fees. That’s not a lot of money to support the game development staff, QA staff, customer service, server infrastructure, etc.
My biggest issue with Aion right now is that the grind has increased almost exponentially. Since hitting 35, I’ve started running out of quests, and had to resort to simply grinding. Which becomes mind numbingly dull very quickly.
Now that my Chanter is 37, I’ve found that there’s little to no solo quests anymore. They are all Mistmane group quests. If I’m low on time, or don’t feel like PuG-ing (since my legion is mostly 40+ and 33 or lower) I’m stuck with grinding. It’s even worse since the double XP weekend, as I even felt the grind with that.
Checking on the next few levels on AionArmory and it shows that there’s even fewer quests I can solo, all with poor XP. It’s made me not want to log in anymore.
Simply put, I feel that Aion needs a LOT more quests/dungeons to fill out its PvE. A slow levelling speed is fine as long as there’s stuff to hide it.
As for the Kromede fight, I’ve never melee’d her as her AoEs are a bit rough. I just stand back, and HoT the melee types, tossing in the occasional Healing Light when it’s needed (we usually have a Cleric). I also pop Word of Protection when I can, or Word of Life on bad AoEs. Word of Wind is glorious though. My guildies have enjoyed it immensely.
The grind to me is not too much of an issue. Seems like so many people think that once they hit the max level they are done with the game.
You gotta think though. This game has actually been out over a year. Aion was first capped at level 40, then it was raised to 45, then 50. We in the USA started out with it capped at 50!
Consider this, let’s take LOTRO for example. I think it’s now max level of 50. Was originally level 40. What if LOTRO was released to the USA with a level cap of 50 or even higher? It might have just as much level grind feel as AION does. I wander if Aion would’ve only set the cap to 40 or 45, would that have helped?
But really my biggest issue with Aion is PVP right now. I am level 47. There is really only 1 viable rift I can go into now. It’s mostly players too low for a challenge and an occasional bot. So rifting is no longer fun. I should’ve just stayed at level 40 to enjoy rifting to the max ;)
The Abyss is empty. There are a few sub 40’s running around. Most people are now just guard farming for AP.
Once I hit 46 I was excited for the Dregdion PvPvE scenario/instance. I have had some of the best pvp and some of the most boring time in the game ever here. If you have 2 balanced sides and both sides want to fight then it can be very fun. But usually one side is missing a healer or a few short of the full 6 man team. Or what really sucks is when one side resorts to training mobs non stop. So I am kind of disappointed with the Dredgion.
actually it started as 50 and is now 65