My thoughts on Aion

I will preface this that I have played Aion for a long time, on and off. I've quit around 2 months ago so all the information will be about 5.8 patch. Soon there will be a 6.2 patch that will change the game entirely again, a reset if you will. They will have new level cap, and new gear, a lot of old stuff will be scrapped and replaced.


Leveling

The leveling in this game is a mix between grinding mobs and doing quests. The primary focus of quests should be campaign quests and blue quests as they give a lot of experience. Certain instances give great experience as well and at almost every level past 20 you have access to some instance; at level 15 you have Haramel, at 25 Nochsana Training Camp, at 27 Fire Temple, At 37 Kromede's Trial etc. Once you hit later levels starting from 53, the experience you gain from instances will be faster than any quest, so at this point you start doing Beshmundir Temple.

It takes an experienced player around 3 days to a week to reach level 66 which is considered the start of the end game. In this patch, from level 70 to 75 it takes quite a long period of time, but that will change in 6.2. I should also say that a story exists and there is lore, but I would say very poorly made.


PvP

I would say this is where the game shines, this game has the fastest pace in any MMO that I've experienced and 6.2 will only make it faster https://youtu.be/asbczMdry68?t=56 . I would say the game is balanced around group fights ( 6 vs 6 ) and I would also say that the game is heavily influenced by gear. Better gear wins, but unlike some MMO's this game features a very, very high skill cap which can allow you to beat better geared players. There's a big downside to this, as it takes you a long time to gear up, in order to fight other people. But if two classes of similar gear duel, there is a chance either could win. So I would say this game is pretty well balanced 1 v 1 in that regard, and 1 v 1 duels/fights was my favorite part of this game.

The game has two factions that oppose each other. Being PvPvE, it is focused "equally" on both PvE and PvP. There's countless 6 vs 6 instances, 1 v 1 arena, Chaos arena, tournament style 1 v 1 arena. There is siege where it's typically on populated server 300-500 vs 300-500, there are rifts, there is invasion. There even exists a zone with 4 "castles" once per week, where servers participate against each other. World PvP is mostly done by invading each other opposite zone via a rift.


Mechanics, what makes this game better than most MMO's.

This game doesn't have any global cooldowns. You get one potion that you can buy which dispells two debuffs and a remove shock skill at level 40 ( some classes get two ). This, combined with very fast movement and attack speed makes for very intense, fast paced duels. Where if you don't react properly you can die in 5 seconds, if you miss-use a skill or the debuff potion, same result. Per example if you use the potion to remove some random debuff instead of silence, you will die. It's very punishing.

Autoattacking in this game is super important as a physical class ( and some magical ) for both PvE and PvP. Due to the high attack speed, you can weave your skills as a Sin per example, and do almost double the DPS you'd do normally by just spamming the skills. This is not an easy thing to do in PvP and it takes a long time to master. There's also movement shots that you can time to gain distance advantage, again, very hard to pull off in PvP. A video do demonstrate this:

Gear switching macros exist in this game, and it's very useful for both defensive classes and offensive, being able to swap between magic resist to block to something else depending on your HP or circumstances adds another layer to this game.


PvE

In this game to do PvP you have to PvE sadly, the items required to enchant and socket your PvP gear comes from PvE. There are a lot of instances, most of them being very easy with the exception of the latest ones from any given patch. There's 12 man instances like Narakkali which can be done in hard mode or normal mode, it's relatively easy once you learn the mechanics. Compared to other games I would say PvE in this game is easy, but the DPS race is very competitive, there's two DPS meter programs as well as a ladder of all TOP DPS players a thttps://aionpveranks.com/Overview/ARM/index

Now here comes the part that made me quit

The publisher is utter garbage for EU at least, Gameforge. The game is not p2w, but it is insanely pay-to-convenience, you do things way way faster than you normally would playing the game. From experience, to gearing up as in socketing/enchanting your items.

I can put it this way, it took me 6 months to be top 3 DPS on my server ( while playing a class that's not meant for dps, Chanter ). This is because I knew the game very well, a new player? Easily one year to do what I did. If however you pay, you could do what I did in 2 months or less. Of course effort is required for certain things.

The game walks a very fine line between being p2w and being fair. Which is a pity, because there are very few games out there with the smoothness Aion has, the fast pace, the balance. I feel that given a different publisher that actually cares about the game, it would be huge. Sadly things have gotten worse with years. I would say the best patches were 3.* and 4.*.

In conclusion, I would suggest this game if you have nothing better to play, because it's free, but do keep in mind to get somewhere in this game requires a lot of time. I would compare it to Black Desert in that regard I guess. However, I don't suggest starting on this patch. I suggest waiting for 6.2 and playing then, because a lot of issues will be fixed and you will pretty much start equally with everyone.

Here's a random PvP video to see how Open World is and PvP. The characters look like that because they used a candy to boost their stats.