TLDR: Aion sucks.

Flying PvP is a bad enough concept, and NCSoft fails to dissapoint, with their terrible implementation of it!

Not only is the games netcode so horrible that you pretty much can't keep up with someone who is moving while flying, they'll randomly warp 50 feet!  
If you're melee and a ranged starts flying with you on them, you might as well give up right there because you're never going to catch them.  Hell, I do more damage AUTOATTACKING PEOPLE WITH MY BOW while chasing them than I do trying to hit them with my actual abilities.

In their wisdom, NCSoft decided that snares do not belong in Aion.  They decided that all the best stuns should be not usable on air targets.  They decided that the speed boosts your class is balanced around should not work while flying.

It's really not just the issues with lag/warping; it's that it's implemented badly regardless, they just take it from playable but bad to unplayable.

Speaking of flying, as you probably guessed the first time you ever read about Aion, it makes it ridiculously easy to run.  The first thing anyone does if you attack them is fly.  Some of them wait until they realise they aren't going to win though!

You can either:
A) Wait for them to fly first. If you do this, you'll never catch them, as there is an "arm" time on flying which means they'll be out of range when you can start moving.
B) Fly first.  If you do this, you'll run out of flight before they do, and if they start flying at anything resembling decent health you won't kill them.

At this point, with them in the air, you might as well stop chasing them, because you will not kill them unless you outlevel them massively, they're REALLY low (like 10-5% low) or you have a huge gank squad with you.

There's, of course, ways of combating this which i've found useful, in the flight speed scrolls and flight duration pots.  However realistically when people are actually out in the Abyss to pvp rather than grind mobs, everyone will be using these, cancelling out any advantage you may have had.


The ground PvP is not half bad, me and a Chanter friend went through a rift to Morheim and managed to lose a huge zerg on the ground, until another group found us.  We ended up tanking 5 templars for 20 minutes while everyone else res rushed us until we finally died, and we came out with about 15 kills, which isn't terrible when you consider the numbers we were dealing with.  

In comparison, we spent 2 hours pvping in the Abyss, we were wiped 0 times (I died once, my friend died 0 times), we got 8 kills out of about 60-70 engagements, those 8 kills were only idiots who were too slow to run, or who didn't run at all.  

Then there's the things that are just stupid and that make you wonder what the hell the devs were thinking, for example:

Holding shift=you can't turn your character.
Holding Ctrl=you can't turn, or move your camera.
Holding alt=you can't move your camera.

Conviniently, these are the only alt modifiers you can use.  Any MMORPG player with any semblance of decency will attest to camera control... and of course mouse turning, to be absolutely essential and any interruptions to your ability to use them is extremely detrimental.  In Aion, I hope you can reach your O, K, L and P keys.  You'll need them.

Most abilities with a secondary effect and damage have a CHANCE to do the secondary effect, such as stuns.  This is probably the best thing ever!  It's bad enough that you can't hit people, when you do get near them your stun won't do anything!

Let's not forget that the game is translated by Babelfish.


Watch out for that WIDE AREA RAGE.


This is a self buff this mob casts.  I don't really need to say anything.


Such "epic" death wails as Nefarian's pale in comparison to this monkey dudes "Quickly!".  Before you ask, no, it isn't calling for help.  That's just what it says.  I guess that's "You can't kill us all!" in whatever ******* language this dumb asian ******* monkey speaks.

There are plenty more I didn't SS, for example, Herbal Acupuncture Needle is cast by bee mobs.  A boss in this instance I did used Big Magic Spell, and sometimes swapped to Little Magic Spell.  Those same monkeys from earlier cast Throw Big Object on their unsuspecting foes.  Then there's 90% of mobs, who just use Strike on you.  There's the quest to slay the "Thiefs", my legion being "42th" rank on the server, hell, just read anything in the game, you will see what I mean.

Don't fall for the hype

The endgame of Aion is not going to be good, unless perhaps you're a ranged class.  The grind is easily the worst I have ever seen as well, so if you're just getting into it, or contemplating getting Aion, I seriously recommend stopping, unless you hate yourself like I do.  In the end, this is another Warhammer, another Age of Conan, another Vanguard Online as far as the NA Market is concerned. It might be enjoyable for a little while but in the end it's not going to last.


I'll probably keep blogging about Aion but it's definitely not going to be all positive like everyone elses Aion blogs, and i'm sure i'm going to maintain legions of adoring Aion fanboys who will reply to every blog telling me about how bad I am when they don't even use keybinds.  Speaking of which, THIS GAME HAS AUTO RUN TO TARGET AND AUTO FACING.  Yeah, you can click everything.

If actual objective Aion posts interest you, please say something in the comments or PM me as I need some motivation to keep going with this.  Don't bother +liking unless you want to because it tells me nothing.