FFXI, Aion, and what you should know.Follow

Enjoy your 18 levels of Qufim grinding on worms crabs and pugils, followed by 37 levels of colibri/puk/eruca/imp grinding.



That's a low bar.



You are every time you sit around with your flag up. Unless you like seeking party. Really, unless all you do is solo in FFXI you are spending a lot of time waiting to like the game. Aion is plenty fun as it is, we're just making suggestions on how it will hopefully be improed even more.



Fair enough, it is very pvp oriented from the mid 20s onward. I'm not a big pvp person usually but I am enjoying it in Aion.

Low bar? Didn't I already state some people like the game and some won't. So my standard is low because I don't share your opinion? Umm ok. You can have that one troll I'm not going to start a flame war over that.

Waiting to like the game by LFP? I'm guessing you need a little reading comprehension because obviously if I'm "waiting to LFP" I beyond liking the game or there is no wait there to like anything. People through this thread said they are lvl 20 or so and not feeling the game, then others are saying to wait and give it more time. Which is why I typed what I did. Whooooosh on your part I guess.

Oh and I rather now wait 1-4 hours just to log on because of where I live at. Child>Job>Gaming. 1 hour to play then having to go to bed doesn't exactly make me think I should continue paying for it until they "fix" it.

Sorry my opinion is this. If it doesn't grab me within a day of playing I won't play it again. I started FFXI and it had me not even a hour later. Started WoW played it maybe 30 minutes I logged and I uninstalled it. lol again IMO.

I am a bit late but I wanted to add my opinion to this thread.

I've had a chance to sit down and play Aion, and those coming from FFXI will notice a lot of differences in the game.

Starting out, you will find making your character unique in that you can make various different changes to how your character looks. You get a choice of many different face styles, and you can further modify specific parts of the face such as Ear Length, Nose Length, etc. If you want pointy ears like an Elvaan, it can be easily done. You also have the choice of skin color, eye color, hair color, and other features like height and body size/type. There are also 3 different voice types to choose from (Normal, Young, Callous).

The chat window is re-sizable and movable and you can set the font size to three different sizes. As far as RMT spams, you can just right click on a persons name, click block, and they are blocked. Usually after you block a few, you are good for a few hours. You'll see a few pop up here and there, but they are easily blocked. The party bar (Showing all your pt members) can also be re-sized and moved anywhere on screen to your liking.

As you start to level up, you are given helpful guides such as how to pick up loot when it drops, and how to activate skills. The first 9 levels or so, you will begin to see the TNL (To Next Level) rise significantly, more so than what a player from FFXI may be used to. In FFXI, the final TNL to get to 75 is 42,000 exp. In Aion, you'll need almost as much to go from 7 to 8. Now before you freak out, you should know that exp rewarded is pretty generous and scales up by level. At level 8, killing level 8 mobs gives around 750ish exp, and fights usually last around 30-45 seconds. At around level 13, the TNL jumps to around 200,000, but you can fight mobs 3-4 levels above you and get 2-3k per battle. I had a level 12 Cleric (Aions version of WHM) that was going around killing level 16 mobs without difficulty and gaining around 3k exp per battle. There are also main missions and quests that you can take as you level up. Some of these quests are very generous with exp as well. At level 12, there is a campaign quest that gives 108,000 exp for completing. Not all quests are like this, some give a few thousand, some give 20-30k exp, but it adds up when you do them.

A neat thing about quests is that in your quest window, you can click on a specific quest and it puts the details in the sidebar. If you are on a fetch quest to get dropped items, when you pick it up, the quest updates itself and shows you how many more of specific items you need. If you are having a rough time finding a specific NPC, within the quest details you can click on the NPC's name and click on "Locate" which will put a marker on your map as to where to find the NPC.

Another big difference you will see is that every class has MP. Most skills use MP to activate. Also, downtime is very minimal. Resting for HP and MP blows FFXI out of the water as you can recover 1000 HP and MP within about 10-20 seconds or so. The game itself is very skill heavy. For instance, from 10-20 Assassin (Aions version of THF) learns about 15 skills, so you stay pretty active while playing.

Gear for the game usually comes from random mob drops. If you don't like the particular color of gear that you are wearing, you have the option to buy colored dye from an NPC and dye your armor a specific color.

I don't really want to jump into the fray on this one. I'm currently playing Aion myself (31 chanter, 27 assassin) and they are games that really defy comparison. I'll agree with the poster that said Aion's done some things very well, and some things poorly, same as FFXI.

But in regards to the above Quote from Tummie; I wanted to expand on this point. This is one thing Aion has done marvelously- I don't mean the dye, though that is a plus; once you get to lvl 30 you can remodel items entirely.

Let's use the example of the Optical Hat. Sure, it's no longer the end-all be-all piece of armor it once was, but it will serve for this example. Great stats, fugly model. In fact, I'd wager the devs laugh themselves to sleep each night on the fugly models they make the player base wear in the name of good stats. Let's say you hate the Optical Hat's looks(which most sane people do) but you love say, the Luisant headpiece's looks. In aion you could take both pieces of gear to an NPC and change the Optical Hat to a Luisant Salade while keeping the O.hat's original stats.

Vaagan, why don't you just shut the hell up, honestly. I know you're the white knight and all and I'm a demon from hell for all this HORRIBLE miss information, lies, and slander but did you ever sit down to think why I wrote the damn thing in the first place?

I'll give you one point. You were right, you can check to see how armor looks by CTRL+Left clicking on it. I wish some one would have informed me of that sooner.

As far as the other points go, again, you're taking things I say completely out of context, like when I said "Quests start dying around 20-22 or so" and then put a specific level on it, when I pointed it out you did something as retarded as saying "Ohh, you're going to play the 'or so card?'"? What the hell does that even mean? Is there even a "Or So Card"? I'm not trying to make everything an exact science here, just describing how I feel, which you can't seem to get over.

Speaking of which, another thing you neglected to read is when I said the books I bought at level 22 were for a FEW LEVELS. I never even gave an exact number, I wasn't trying to be exact. If memory serves me correct I was buying the skill manuals from level 18-22, but all you can do is go on the defense and start having a rage fit like a damn 5 year old because some one insulted your new favorite game. Grow the **** up, honestly.

I get called a fanboy, yet I express my honest opinion on how a game is going so far for me and all -some- of you can do is tear me apart limb from limb for it. Even if you do make some points, you're missing the whole damn point of this thread, which I explained in the OP but you seem too mentally disabled to read. "This MIGHT be what some folks from FFXI COULD experience when transfering over to Aion" and how I felt so far.

I even gave the disclaimer that the game wasn't all bad, and once again I'm still playing it. To be honest, I never said I hated it. But the fact remains that it still feels a bit boring and lackluster in some departments. It still feels a bit like a big fetch quest game with PvP mixed in. And the grind can still get insanely boring. Why else would I be saying this? I know Aion isn't going to be FFXI. If I wanted it to be I'd not play it and just put more time into FFXI, and not have spent the money on it, or for that fact still be playing it.

I'm sorry that people have differing opinions from some of you diehard fanboys but stop being so damn full of yourselves and making some one out to be the devil if they insult your new love interest.

For the record, I recommend ANYONE who is interested in Aion give it a shot. I certainly don't regret buying it and it's been a interesting experience. Some people might like it, I'm not trying to discourage them either, go ahead and try it. Once again, I was simply warning people what they might run into or feel, as I had felt in the first few weeks of my playtime.

Also arguments saying "You suck!" "Learn to play" "Ur doin it wrong!" and "You're pathetic for not being higher in that amount of time" only take credence from your arguments and make you look stupider, as anyone with a brain knows everyone plays differently, and some people take more time to play. If some one with 10 years of MMO experience and 6 or so years of FFXI experience can sit down and have this experience, they might face similar encounters. Take it for what it's worth, I'm not trying to write a gospel. Also, grow up, and respect other people's opinions.

I've slogged through this whole thread, and I don't see a single person claiming it's the best game ever. What I do see are people trying to correct some of the misleading comments or offering their own perspective on the game. Why can't other people have fun doing things you don't like?

Because you weren't able to fairly review the game with your opinions being based on facts? Every review is of course affected by opinion, but they should be based on facts, and not affected by opinion based on fiction to suit the opinion like what you did.


Yes, because when I gave example of level 20 to 21, your reply was that you said "20-22 or so" with the words or so in italic to try avoid being shown that you lied about grinding. I wouldn't have been as annoyed had you not call the other poster as a liar when he didn't lie, but when you did that, I think you crossed the line.

You felt that it took ages to get to 23, I get that. But again, the only reason why it happened to you is because of your own choice. You chose to not skill up gathering (which result in not being able to gather the wanted items in gathering quests). You then chose to not buy the gathering items anyway to get the EXP (which result in not completing the quest). The game offered all these options to you. You just chose not to do it. Then you felt the need to grind and blamed it on the game as if you had no choice. It's your own fault.

You even needed to read a guide that actually encouraged the players to grind. It's your own choice to grind. I'll repeat that again, it's your own choice.


So now you changed your story again. Okay let's put it this way, you bought the books for level 18-22 and it cost 100k+. The last time you bought a skill book before that was at level 16, and the next time you needed to buy skill books is at level 25. So between level 17 to 24, you needed to spend 100k+ to buy skill books. How the heck is that "expensive"? 100k+ for EIGHT levels is nothing. In eight levels, you can make WAY more than 100k (especially considering how slow you personally level up). Yet, your exaggeration somehow made it sound as if it's costing an arm and a leg.


Again, feelings/opinions are all fine and dandy. But it has to be based on facts, and not fiction made up to suit your feeling/opinion. I've never had any issue with you not liking Aion. My issue with your post is simply because it's based on fictional stuff being created to suit your opinion.

Not to mention that the interpretation itself being very questionable. For example, when you said that it's so difficult to make money in Aion because everything is so expensive. Do you ever stop and think how hard it is to make money in FFXI if you're new? It's so common that FFXI players have to stop EXP-ing for a week or so just to farm to fund new gear or camping NMs. Yet, in Aion, I have yet need to stop EXP-ing even once because while doing quests, it's also "farming" just from selling junks and drops. When crafting and gathering, we get little EXP too. And so on.

It's also questionable that you called me having rage fit as if I'm 5 years old while you were the ones posting with insults and even calling me too mentally disabled to read.


You sure have a funny way of recommending a game to people if the way you do it is by writing a review that consisted of 90% bad things and 10% good thing. If I write that kind of review, my conclusion is to not recommend the game to other people.


Just to clarify, I've never insulted your playing skills or gametime (heck, I have yet to clock in 3 consecutive hours while playing Aion, that's how slow I take my time in playing the game myself). When I said that you're doing it wrong, it's in reply to what happened to you in the game itself that resulted in you not enjoying the game. If you're doing it right, the game would become much more enjoyable and you'd have much more positive experience.

Imagine this in FFXI, let's say you start a new character in FFXI. You're alone, have no LS because you're afraid to talk to strangers, scared to ask strangers about what to do because there's no instruction what to do at the beginnning. Then once you figure things out and know that you can kill stuff outside cities to level up, you get annoyed because that's all you do and the mob drops little to no gil at all. Of course the game isn't enjoyable. Why? Because you're doing it wrong.

Now if you're doing it right, you start alone, but you should try to make friends, join an LS, get people to help you feel more comfortable playing the game. Because you're in LS of nice people, some even helped you out by donating 10k (spare change for those level 75s, but gold mine for level 1s) or lowbie weapon/armor. You'll receive suggestions on what to do and whatnot. Of course the game is much more enjoyable, right?

That's what I meant when I said you're doing it wrong in Aion by choosing to grind yourself, not skilling up gathering, not doing repeat quests cause of the little EXP reward, (not crafting?), not knowing that soulbound items can be extracted for good money from enhancement stones, not knowing that setting invisible will pretty much stop RMT whispers and mails, etc. Instead of acknowledging the bad decisions you've made so far, you turned defensive and tried to justify your bad decisions as if they were right (though it resulted in frustrating game experience).

You've learned a lot about the game from this thread, if you want to start again from new character in Aion equipped with this new knowledge, I'm sure that you'll level up way more enjoyable than grinding your heart out.


I'm not the one using insults and swear words, man.

Why would I base my opinion on Fiction? I can see some one who hadn't played Aion or who completely hated NCsoft and were trying to give them a bad rap doing that, but I was and still am a huge Lineage 2 fan, and don't hate Aion in every way, and in fact enjoy it in many. I think it has a lot of potential sadly. Why would I make up "fiction" to base my opinion on? "Facts" is a loose term as well when talking about a review, don't you get it? Not everything in a review is based off of complete factual evidence, but how some one feels, and the experiences they had. God damn, just get it. It's not as cut and dry as you like to make it out to be.



Reread the damn thread. You gave the example AFTER I said "Around level 20-22 and you start grinding" I used the example first, then you used your own example of a level. I tried to explain it wasn't an exact level, or one as low as you were pointing out, but that around that time it started to feel more like a grind-fest. Once again, all you're trying to do is win a damn argument. You're ignoring what people including myself are saying and just keep going back to this bullsh*t and rewording it how you like, and claiming things that aren't true.



Actually, for most of the gathering quests I did indeed buy the items off the broker to turn in for them. Even with that, you act like gathering some how takes the grind away. Gathering is a bonus, and gives you some side EXP, even from the gathering quests themselves. They don't give enormous chunks of EXP like you lead people to believe. Talk about lies? What a hypocrite.



Once again just proving your stupidity. In any MMO, especially Aion, you will have to grind. Even to the extent of having to grind out levels in Aion when the quests run dry. At what level? That's more up for debate, but it happens eventually. Go read any Aion forum, why do you think they're buffing the EXP rewards on the 24th? It's because of this very reason. Repeating yourself about how grinding is YOUR choice is a load of crap. Anyone can see that.



I never changed my story you dumbass. Again, read my freaking posts, reread them, and then reread them again till you eventually get it. Either that, or you get it and you're just trying to argue your own point with your own lies. @#%^ing fail more? You even go on in the next part to recognize that I DID say that. You're one of these morons who just can't admit when they're wrong or miss read something can you?

I can, I miss understood many things about Aion including the CTRL+Left click to view armor, but my review still stands and the game still gets grindy and boring, the armor is still lackluster in earlier levels, etc. Keep making up your own facts then accusing me of doing so to draw attention away from yourself. That's what all hypocrites do in their arguments. So damn annoying honestly. All anyone needs to do is try it themselves or do some research. They'll see who's right and wrong for themselves.



This is quite possibly the dumbest statement I've ever heard, and makes absolutely no sense. Do you even know the meaning of feelings and opinions? Do I need to quote the dictionary for you? Since when do feelings and opinions HAVE to be based on facts? Again, I told you before, I didn't intend for my review to be a gospel to scare everyone away. More of a warning or "You might experience this like I did". And how the hell do you make up feelings and opinions to suit your feelings and opinions? Do you even know what you're saying? That makes no sense, and no, you don't.



How many times are you going to repeat yourself? Like a broken record. Honestly you're not only sounding like a fanboy, but a complete douche. Why would I create fictional stuff to suit my opinion? If that's the case, why is my opinion the way it is in the first place? Where did the negative opinion come from? What is the need to base things off of fiction for the soul purpose of nothing? There is none.



Learn the difference between a rage fit, and a insult. I was questioning your ability at reading comprehension.



I stated in the OP I wasn't going to tickle people's ears, and that I was going to give them my cold hard feelings and how I felt so far playing the game. If that's 90 to 10 ratio so be it.



The thing is, in Aion I started with a group of friends, we always have at least 8-10 people on the legion as well. We've all tried figuring things out together and doing things together. I use google, I use search engines, I use AionSource and AionArmory, I use Zam.Aion, etc. And I'm never afraid to directly ask people what to do, where to go, or how to do it. So your point is moot and null.





Not everyone wants to sit next to a plant with their arm extended for 60 seconds hundreds of times a day to skill up gathering. If you do and you find it fun, more power to ya, I can see how you would, but it's not everyone's thing, nor is crafting. And once again, neither give optimal EXP gain.



Have you ever heard, there's a difference between stupidity and ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of understanding and being uninformed. Ignorance is caused by not knowing what something is or not knowing any better because of a lack of being informed. Stupidity is being informed of something yet doing the opposite and questioning the outcome there after.

Forgive some of us who might start the game and not know everything, right? I guess not everyone can be so incredibly informed and intelligent as to know all these things. I'm sure you'll make the argument about the little question marks that tell you "Click the mouse to move!" and argue that they some how tell you everything there is to know, yet they don't. Just like how the quest indicators don't always tell you everything you need to know.



I have learned some things. Hopefully the people who have read this thread have as well, and will. Why would I make a new character? Mine is almost 25 now.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 2:39am by EndlessJourney

I love this. I seriously do. Being gone most of the day and getting sleep etc to log on to a EXP bonus. I wish FFXI had that, it would make leveling subs and new jobs so much easier. Considering how fvicking hard it is to get a party and you pretty much sit there LFP for hours on end unless your a RDM, BRD, COR. The longest I had to wait for a party on RDM and BRD was roughly 10 minutes. Now if I wanted to level/merit on my DNC or THF I can sit there for hours on end not getting a invite. Then people will shout accept a level sync party! Do Campaign! Oh yeah? Don't you think that is a little bit to much? Try leveling pre all of that and see how well you do. And the crafting? While sure I don't have any crafts leveled, it is nice to see that buying all the mats that cost you over 300k just to make something you really need just explode in yours and the crafters face. And is the crafter going to reimburse you on what you lost? More then likely not. Only thing they'll offer is to give it another go when you have the mats again.


Here is one thing! Camping Bounding Boots or Emp pin or what have you. You've been there for days putting off exping or what not to get the drop. And always get out claimed or out pulled by RMT or w/e twits around. In AION if your able to, you can change the channel and you might have a better chance of getting lucky of finding the mob up!

Or how about doing Dynamis for 4-5 hours with the currency going to the LS and again the AF you want still hasn't dropped or if it had it goes to the most stupidest person in the LS that ends up leaving two weeks later because they got it. You still don't get a reward for doing that. Instances in AION give you EXP and still the chance of getting rare items/drops/money.

Yes I think that something similar for FFXI would be great. Staying logged out for periods of time granting you an exp bonus that doesn't wear with time, but wears based on mobs defeated is much better. How many times have you used an exp ring in a party only to have it disband a short time later with your charge still active? Would give people who work a lot an incentive and wouldn't feel so far behind everyone else.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 8:53am by ImmortalAlchemist

I only read through the first page, so this may have been covered, but I felt it was a good thing to mention.



Body, Leg, Feet and Hand armor can be extracted. With Some extraction.. powder.. or whatever, I haven't played in a few days and never read the description anyway, you can turn your unusable armor items into enchantment stones. These can be sold for decent Kinah (better than NPC buy price of the armor you extracted) or used to upgrade your gear. I have a lvl 19 Gladiator that is wearing a level 7 body piece that is better than almost anything on the AH because I enchanted it to a +10 piece.

Each different slot enchants differently. Armor increases the defense by an amount specific to that slot. I believe it's +5 for Body per level and +2 to feet per level. A polearm (slow attck, high damage) gets +4 to its base damage rating where a sword (low to mid delay, low to mediun damage) gets +2.

If you use this properly you will save Kinah in the long run. you won't be running out to buy new gear every levl or 2 since what you have is much better than the AH armor. (not always, but usually.)

Yeah I know, Thoeblos is where I'm currently hanging out since I'm exping some on my Sorcerer and it only has two channels which is alright since usually channel 2 doesn't have anyone killing zombies. Lol.


And yeah I do love popping my EXP band in WG, and recharging it for double bonus only for the PT to break shortly after. I usually end up logging out at that point because its a waste of a bonus. Considering I'll be sitting there seeking for a long time before I'd get a party.