Found this interview about Aion Abyss PvP after following a few links. After reading it, the WoW PvP grind pre honor revamp sounds tame and fun compared to high-ranked Abyss ‘PvP’, and WAR’s keep swapping has NOTHING on Aion’s PvQ (Player vs Quest) end-game. At least during the old WoW grind you still had to PvP, you just had to run in a pre-made and play the same battleground for 16 hours a day for a few weeks. Sounds like in Aion once you get high enough, you can’t PvP and instead run quest after quest to ‘earn’ your PvP gear.
Since TheMercs quit DarkFall and moved to Aion (hard to keep your e-rep up when your exploited character are no longer miles ahead), any bets on how long it takes them to find some NPC exploit/dupe and reach Supreme Commander after the first few weeks, followed by a month or two of PvP rape and e-thuggery before they Merc it and quit?
Not that any of this is truly shocking, considering the idea behind Aion’s end-game has both a PvE element and a risk/reward ratio that favors not dying over fighting, and due to the PvE element allows for the PvP part to be bypassed. Somewhat funny is the line about PvP being the most fun at the lowest levels, sounds very WAR-like in that regard. I just wonder which game will find a fix for its broken end-game first.
Hardcore Casual 
Note that my comment is free of the burden of actually having played the game (but intending to try it), but since your post also enjoyed the same freedom I think it’s reasonable.
It’s hard to know how generalizable the interviewees experience is because he is at such a high rank (only 100 max per server if I am reading the chart linked below correctly), but for the vast majority of players the risk/reward spread on killing/being killed is likely much more even and more players will be in the rank range he described as “Rambo Mode” and some in “Guerilla time”.
http://impetusium.blogspot.com/2009/08/abyss-compendium-access-points-ranks.html
“…Aion’s end-game has both a PvE element and a risk/reward ratio that favors not dying over fighting, and due to the PvE element allows for the PvP part to be bypassed.”
Hi – the PvE has to be done in a PvP area, not unlike DF, a game you at least have a clue about.
I’m going to give you some credit and assuming you are trolling, because you can’t possible be missing the difference THAT badly here.
PvP area, and INSTEAD of PvP are a little different. I can’t exactly go grind mobs in DF to take a city now can I? Nor can I go grind mobs until I have all the best gear, then go out on a PvP rampage and murder everyone without a second thought using that gear, can I?
I mean if you really can’t see the difference between Aion and DF in terms of the PvP/PvE mix and how it influences player behavior, it’s going to take next to forever to explain it here.
Call it a reflex post, but this is the statement i have a problem with:
“…and due to the PvE element allows for the PvP part to be bypassed.”
You can’t bypass PvP at all. The few quests available to get Abyss Points (think honor in WoW or RP’s in WAR) are in PvP areas. Think a land mass 1/10th the size of DF and imagine trying to farm for you gear there…
You further state:
“Nor can I go grind mobs until I have all the best gear,…”
You can’t? Where else do you get gear? its all PvE and crafting right? even if you loot another player its due do his pve/crafting efforts that may lead to a gear upgrade.
PvE quests in a PvP zone just means you have to run away from any 2+ group of players you come across, and with safe zones in that PvP area, you can ensure you won’t have to fight. Keeps in WAR were also in PvP areas, and when taking one was worth more than defending, what happened? Now replace slowing your RP grind in WAR with losing progress in Aion, and do you see the problem?
As for DF PvE, you discount the fact that DF is full loot. I can go grind the hardest mob and get the best gear, yet if I’m wearing it you can be sure in any major battle the other side is gunning for me, and soon that gear is gone. (or in the most extreme case, it will break from use). In Aion once I have that top-end gear, I can charge as recklessly as I want, knowing my PvQ grind gear is safe and sound. Plus you forget that at any time I’m PvE’ing in DF, I can jump right into PvP and not miss a beat. In Aion, only a complete fool would stop the PvQ grind near the top to help in a 2v5, or jump into a 100v100 Fortress battle. It’s just like the old WoW system, once you commit to getting the top stuff, you stop playing for fun and grind until you get there. In WoW it took 6 weeks of 8hr+ days 7 days a week on a decent server, Aion being Asian, something tells me it might take a little more than that.
“with safe zones in that PvP area, you can ensure you won’t have to fight.”
Running to a “safe” zone is hardly safe.
Just was killed at a “safe” tower with guards around me because they were able to kite the guards with one member and the rest ganked me :)
And if you run from every single enemy, solo or grouped, you will hardly have time to kill pve mobs as you’ll be constantly running. Unless you play at odd hours. Really odd ones. I haven’t found a “safe” hour or a truly “safe” zone other than the original base I port into (Primum).
o.o so… yeah… didn’t read dates. ok… makes a lot more sense why people can’t put it into context now… fail me on really late comment. carry on, nothing to see here.
“Somewhat funny is the line about PvP being the most fun at the lowest levels, sounds very WAR-like in that regard. I just wonder which game will find a fix for its broken end-game first.”
Isn’t this whole post about risk vs reward? Which are you favoring? It seems you prefer risk free PvP a la WoW, vs having to risk something to get something a la Aion. Come on Springer, choose a side.
@copper: Aion, as you rise through the ranks, heavily favors avoiding PvP. There is no reward for pvp’ing at that point.
Isn’t that the ultimate test in PvP? Except you don’t lose your gear, just the chance to upgrade gear quicker. I think its a great compromise to the DF/UO formula.
The ultimate test is to play in a way that punishes you (PvP’ing after X rank instead of grinding quests), and setting yourself behind in the gear grind compared to those smart enough to complete said PvQ grind? Sounds like you have been playing a little too much WoW ‘hard mode’ content.
The top PvP clans don’t set out to do things the hard way, they are the top PvP clans because they do things BETTER than the average player. In DF, that means learning group combat skills and developing your character. In Aion, that means grinding PvQ and avoiding any and all PvP for months (or years, since this is an Asian MMO we are talking about here). Why in gods name would ANY good PvP clan take a fortress they have to defend before most of their players are ‘done’ with the PvQ grind, knowing that anyone still grinding won’t show up because they can’t risk even a single death?
Your point again is totally muddled. In DF you farm gear in a PvP zone to get progressively stronger in PvP. In Aion you can farm quests in a PvP zone to get gear to get progressively stronger in a PvP zone. Either way, someone can take your stuff if they catch you, the only difference being that in Aion its a loss of ‘honor points’ that allows you to buy that gear, whereas in DF its resources that allow you to make that gear (or actual gear drops from mobs).
Yea, those are my thoughts about Aion as well. Won’t stop me from playing it for a bit, but we will see about the long term.
I lost track of the irony there. Hang on, let me read it again…
Ok, I think you are saying Aion is not going to be good PvP? I am still a bit thrown by the pre-honor revamp WoW PvP being “tame and fun” part. Is that good or bad?
The odd thing I find is that while I was playing WAR I found the Scenarios both addictive and depressing, which is the main reason I eventually stopped. I found myself playing them for hours and then feeling a bit miserable afterwards, regardless of whether we won or lost or how well or badly I did personally. But now that I am playing WoW and doing the occasional Battleground, I keep comparing those unfavorably with WAR’s scenarios, for which I am developing an unhealthy nostalgia.
I think ultimately all PvP is intrinsically depressing, regardless of how well implemented, and especially regardless of how addictive it is. But then, my personal physiology treats adrenalin as a poison so it’s clearly not really good for me even to dabble, although I keep doing it.
I reckon I am safe from Aion though, since it’s so unpleasant to look at.
No, I’m not talking about the PvP itself, for all I know it might be as good or better (haha) as DF when it comes to the actual combat between players. What I am talking about is that in Aion, in order to reach the highest levels and get the best gear for PvP (aka: the point in a themepark), you need to stop PvP’ing and go grind PvE quests.
So the Aion gameplay formula goes: grind 25 levels, PvP until you get halfway decent, grind PvE quest, win. For a PvP-based MMO, that formula is only a LITTLE backwards.
@copper: Except it isn’t quicker. It will be quicker to do the PvE quests, as there is less risk and more reward. There is still risk, as it is a pvp zone, but it is less than going to look for PvP.
That interview is old, very old.
Yep. As soon as I realized how much of Aion’s PvP is mixed in with crappy PvE elements, I canceled my preorder.
Aion also mixes PvP with PvE. You have quests that at high Abyss ranks, is better for you to do than actually kill someone because your chance of dying and losing Abyss points is less. If these took place in a non-Abyss area, I would be very pissed, but they don’t, they take place in the Abyss.
This same thing happens in every PvP MMO, hell Syncaine is a prime example in DFO. He’s been doing most of his PvE farming in a somewhat UNKNOWN dungeon that has relatively little PC traffic except for him. Wait, you’re playing an FFA PvP MMORPG and you’re avoiding PvP, how dare you. Yes Mr. Kettle, I’m calling you out.
Some people might compare this to WAR’s Keep hopping but I think there are some major differences. In WAR, Keep and Objective hopping were the norm once you hit end game RvR because it was the fastest way to earn renown. In Aion, questing is only the norm once you hit the upper echelon of people holding Abyss points so you don’t lose the ones you have to be able to purchase your uber item. Once that uber item is purchased though, you fall back down in ranking and will be PvPing again as questing no longer remains the easiest and safest way to earn Abyss points.
Right, I avoid PvP when I go out to PvE, because you know, I’m trying to PvE. But if our city gets attacked, you can bet I’m recalling in to defend, and dying in that defense won’t set me back days/weeks of PvE unless I decide it can by bringing out top-shelf gear. If your guilds Fortress is under attack, but you’re high rank and close to some item, you’re telling me you are going to put yourself into a zerg vs zerg battle and die multiple times? Or take a break from PvQ just to mix it up in PvP when you’re close to said item? Of course not. If you don’t see the problem in such a system, wait a month or two and watch what happens.
TheMercs? hahahaha… those have to be the same tards that started WAR on the Red Eye Mountain Server. Exploit to 40… act all badass… people start to catch up and pwn them… TheMercs quit because they already “won” the game and there is nothing else for them to accomplish.
They did the exact same in AC-DT, and I believe UO and SB as well. That’s the game they play, one month to exploit, one-two to talk trash and use their exploited character, third-four month they declare they have ‘won’ and join the next beta to learn exploits all over again.
Essentially most of them got banned from exploiting the battle spike bug on dragons or had their banks cleared. So they declared that they have ‘won’. but i agree typical behavior for “themercs”….and how do i know this, i grew up with a few members of themercs and they were discussing it in irc.
This is odd. You don’t “have” to do crappy PvE it seems, it sounds like they just added a large penalty for deaths beyond a certain point so that most players aiming for high point totals have to avoid risk and try PvE. Some context would be nice, is this “few people on the server” level of equipment or PvP rank, or “typical endgame raider” level?
It proves a point of mine, where if you increase the loss when a person fails, they will always choose to minimize it over accepting the chance to fail.
Check out the Aion wiki article on the topic. The key fact that people are forgetting here is that choosing to PvE over PvP is only beneficial to a total of 44 people on the server at any given time. Everyone else will gain more points per kill than they lose when they die. When you check the table on that page, you’ll see exact amounts.
If people below the top five ranks are choosing to PvE over PvP it’s because they die more than they kill, which would be a sad state if they’re actually hitting Star Officer status.
I see, so it is “few people on the server” level.
However it would depend on the pvp playing out. It might be very well safer to PvQ depending on your class or the amount of friendly or allied players. Its one of those things I think you’d have to really play a lot of to see how it works.
You’re a little misinformed here Syncaine. Check out the wiki article I link to above. I fail to see how 44 people doing PvE over PvP is any issue. Not to mention that the vast majority of players will never hit those ranks. For most players, the incentive will always be to PvP. That interview is misleading.
Unless I’m reading it wrong, if the top ranked player kills the lowest ranked player, he gets 120 points. If that same player dies, he loses 13k. So he has to kill 108 lowest rank players for every death just to break even in the most extreme example. But anyone, starting from a grade 5 soldier, can potentially lose more points from a single death than get from a single kill, and take a guess the type of players with 80/20 k/d ratios? It’s not Joey Casual trying Aion after playing WoW as his first MMO. Actually Joey will be getting insta-gibbed by someone from TheMercs, who two months in has all the top gear, knows all the systems, and 99% of the population won’t stand a chance against any of them. In WoW that just meant going to a different battleground, in Aion it’s going to turn that person into a loot pinata.
And I’m going to assume the item system works like the revised WoW system, that once you buy an item you keep it regardless of rank/points, which just further adds fuel for someone to grind out some PvQ, get the items they want, and THEN go on a rampage with OP gear.
I believe you’re reading it right. Since the game is based on group combat, however, I’d hope that players are killing more than they die all around. At least by the time they hit rank five soldier. If you’re playing solo like the guy in the article, you’re almost certain to lose more than you gain unless you’re exceptionally good. On top of that, people will prioritize their kills to get the most AP out of the fight. Any group that targets a rank three solider over, say, a commander doesn’t really understand how things work.
Maybe in the end you’ll turn out to be right. People will do things with the least risk of loss, yet, I’m not sure it will actually turn out the way you and others fear.That’s not what’s happening in Korea and China and they’re already toying with the current version. I’d hope that people would choose to do what’s the most fun for them anyways, even if some would choose to grind over enjoying their play.
Still, even if some groups do decide that it’s “easier” to PvQ over PvP, they’re still in the abyss and will be all the easier targets. They can farm mobs while the rest of us farm them.
If the players in Aion pick fun over reward, it will be the first time in MMO history :)
Guess we will see how it plays out in a month or two.
The point is, the whole end game is designed around this system. You don’t just get Abyss points for killing other players – you get it for killing monsters and NPCs and quests in the abyss as well. Your rant is totally misinformed. Do your research here http://www.areyouhellbound.com/forum/showthread.php?t=398
or drop WAR and join us CoWs to see for yourself.
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I’m shocked at the AION hate, just look at this list of all the new and genre changing features it has like…
(crickets chirping)
…Ok so it’s like WAR and WOW rolled into a ball and given a typical Pillar of Gameplay Gimmick. Maybe I’m not informed enough, is this the one with the OMG You Can Fly Gimmick, or the OMG you can Capture a Tier Gimmick, or the OMG You can Make a Unique Costume Gimmick, or th OMG We have a STORY Gimmick?
It’s funny, when I look at all these MMOS basing there greatness off of one feature they are proclaiming to make revolutionary, it occurs to me that all those features alone are weak. In my mind, after 12 years of MMOS all the games should have those features, and do them all well. It’s sad the genre is selling games based off of doing one MMO feature well, rather than including them all, from PVP to Politics to Player Housing..wait I just remembered I play DF, and it does all that well…(leaves to go play Darkfall)
Well I’m not trying to turn this into DF > Aion, or to say that DF is flawless and Aion is terrible. Just having read that interview of one high-end players experience, and looked at how the Abyss system works ON PAPER, it just seems to have some flaws, ones that look/sound eerily similar to the old WoW honor system which everyone will agree was godawful back in the day.
My friend has been in beta for a while now. He still plans to play at launch. I asked him to describe it to me thinking I might be interested. I love products that do 1 thing, as long as they do it better than anyone else, like a cheese curd stand that you can only get cheese curds from, but they are the best damn curds around!
I heard this was the new PVP game, I was excited. Do one thing great then add more I thought.
He said “It’s like WOW with more PVP focus and more grind.”
After researching it myself I couldn’t help but think back to 12 hour AV days, and flawed WAR systems. So yes, judging from the information I have seen it appears to be on the same track, making the same mistakes that early WOW and WAR made.
The Abyss system is almost a copypasta of WoWs rep grind. I can’t see how anyone not completely blinded by fanboi euphoria can’t see this. Did anyone actually like the rep grind in WoW? It’s a limiting system that doesn’t encourage the actual game-play it is meant to complement. If that doesn’t set of warning bells, nothing will.
I really hope that this is the game that everyone wants it to be, and they find years of enjoyment out of it. In a year, if people are still saying the same stuff about Aion, I will swallow my pride and be the first one to jump off my rocker, and pronounce to the world how wrong I was. I will then immediately sign up to play the game myself and cancel the subscription to whatever other game I am playing.
I think my pride is safe though.
“The Abyss system is almost a copypasta of WoWs rep grind.”
Its actually totally different. Links and explanations of how and why its better are all over this comment section.
Or you could just believe Syncaine who’s basing his opinion entirely on reading a translated-from-Korean blog of one players’ experience and “my DF guild played and reported played mostly like anime DAoC but slightly off…”
That’s right,I forgot that you spend your rep to get gear. It’s basically the same system otherwise.
Earn abyss points through PvP that is mostly PvE > Advance through an exponential grind to gain ranks that are limited at the high end > buy gear > go to a fort and turn off enemy character models so the game won’t crash > repeat
Does that about sum it up?
Edit: Blame my comment tracker for popping this one back up thanks to “Aion Guide” and causing a crazy-late response.
I havent played WoW but I have played some other mmorpgs like RF Online Lineage2 etc and I would say that Aions end game content mainly the PvP side of it rules any mmorpg games end game pvp! The fortress battles are very intense and really make the game interesting to play.
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