I'm level 80 and not having fun

    I'm unable to create an account at the regular Aion forums because of a glitch, so I hope I can bring my questions here.

    I need a veteran player to give me some advice. I'm stuck. I don't know how to progress, or if there's much waiting for me now that I've reached level 80. But there has to be? My character seems so incredibly weak, and my surroundings are ruthless.
    I'm low IQ, obviously, have a short attention span, and the (lack of) excitement I've endured in the last 3 days has drained much of my motivation. Someone, tell me where to go..

    :!:BASIC INFO ABOUT MY CHARACTER:
    I'm a level 80 Asmodian gunslinger on the Katalam server. "Free to Play"; never paid for items or other benefits.
    I'm not part of a group and have no friends, LEWL.

    :!:THE SHORT STORY (if you don't care about the details):
    ?( The white wings are an unpleasant presence in PVP areas.
    ?( Fellow level 80 Asmodians appear stronger and faster than me, too.
    ?( I accept missions; then learn I can't do them, can't locate where I need to be, or targets aren't there.
    ?( Tremendous lag in populated areas.
    ?( Literally don't know where to go to improve myself.

    :!:THE LONG STORY (because details are important):
    The last time I played Aion was 8 years ago. Many things are recognizable to me, but enough has changed to give me trouble. I stopped playing, because PVP was a similar struggle back then;
    The opposition would sprint towards you like :scensored:, then kill you in three swipes, while you're being showered by a series of status effects, preventing you from fleeing. Not that I could, because even a speed potion, mount, or buff won't help me outrun the people I've come across.

    Elyos players are mad lads. If you fall into an inescapable lava lake, they'll jump in just to kill you faster. If you're standing in a camp inhabited by Asmodian NPC's, they'll walk right in to poke you out of existence, not even giving the retaliating guards a look.
    I can expect a screaming Elyos to pop up from the corner of my screen every 3 minutes if not sooner, really hindering my PVE missions now; the only way the game has taught me to level up or obtain items. I'm trying to focus on the golden arrow quests, but these "??? level"-players keep sending me back to a resurrection point, where merciless lag awaits me. Or it's a whole group that jumps me, because I'm a real threat. I'm exhausted.
    Why can't PVP have some restrictions, where underleveled and overleveled players can't engage with each other in this manner? It sounds lame saying that out loud, and it is, but I can't put a single step forward in this game. Near-death experiences in PVP is fun, but not instakills you can't avoid. I'm not having fun.

    If someone's level is a bunch of question marks, it's safe to assume it's way higher than yours? Then, how do I surpass level 80? I'm stuck on 100% and haven't received an on-screen message about having to finish other missions first. Do I need to do those golden quests the opposition is preventing me from doing? And if there's a level higher than 80.. why haven't I seen a single fellow Asmodian in Lakrum and Danaria higher than that, while every single Elyos person is a bunch of question marks?

    What a frightening situation for Asmodian players to deal with.

    Nevertheless, I think I'm also just not that strong. One of the golden quests I haven't been able to finish, because "level 80-grade 5" enemies are still too much for me. Yesterday I witnessed an aethertech ally one-shotting enemies that took me 5 shots of my double pistols/aethercannon. By the time I finished one or two enemies, he had cleared out the field. He was also level 80. Are aethertechs that much better than gunslingers? Did I choose a useless job..?
    Shortly after watching his performance, an Elyos sprinted past me, with an angry mob of Asmodian players chasing them down. I was like "REVENGE IS GOOD!", turned around, and joined the mob, but every single person in that group walked infinite times faster than me, I couldn't keep up. And the Elyos only had a quarter damage, despite the many Asmodians that had jumped them. Had no problem running away, as well, something I can't relate to.

    I've experimented with manastones, but didn't have enough resources to try it on more than 2 pieces of gear. Only 1 was a success, other failed. I've also tried to apply for a group and start one myself, so I can finally do a dungeon, but finding other players takes so long, and I'm not willing to sit around and wait half an hour or longer for a mission I don't even know is "worth it".

    So, what is worth it? Where can I go to get better gear? What do I do to surpass level 80? How can I deal with patrolling/camping enemy players?

    I've tried to look up similar questions, but either the problems/answers are outdated or incredibly defeatist. Surely it's possible to excel without spending money and regardless if there are more Elyos characters in a server.



    Illegal content.


    - Zapiel

    This is forum of european aion, meanwhile you have account on NA aion.


    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    ?( The white wings are an unpleasant presence in PVP areas.
    ?( Fellow level 80 Asmodians appear stronger and faster than me, too.

    Gear makes you do around 6x higher damage, also transformation increase your atk/cast/movement speed.


    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    ?( I accept missions; then learn I can't do them, can't locate where I need to be, or targets aren't there.

    No idea what you mean in there, tho there's enough quests you could just skip the ones you cannot do.


    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    ?( Tremendous lag in populated areas.

    Aion got +/- 11 years old and is made on extremely useless game engine.

    +/or your hardware is at fault.

    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    ?( Literally don't know where to go to improve myself.

    You should ask about it on NA forum (should be more accurate for NA servers), or you can check this forum, there were quite a few threads with some ppl explaining really well what you can do as fresh lvl80.


    That being said, aion is not a newbie friendly game, you will be always years behind the whales/extreme farmers, so if you're having problems with other ppl 1shotting you or being weaker than others and you're not planning to grind on 100 chars or p2w to catch up to them, i can't really recommend aion to you.

    The North American forums? So the "regular one" I'm unable to register for, or is it on this site?

    How does having multiple characters help you?

    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    The North American forums? So the "regular one" I'm unable to register for, or is it on this site?

    The NA Aion forum is there : https://forums.aiononline.com/

    However, I don't know how you can register if that was on this site you were having bug. (Katalam and Danaria)


    Here, you are on the European forums (British English, French, German, Polish, Italian, Spanish) for the European servers (Stormwing, Sillus, Odin, Ragnarok)


    The two forums are not linked at all :)

    You're on the EU servers forum while you're playing on the NA servers, since our publisher is different, I cannot really advise you as to how to progress or anything since I have no idea what's the situation there.

    I can answer a few questions:

    1/ Your opponent's level is always hidden, they, just like you, can't go above lvl 80 since it's the max lvl.

    2/ The fact that you are slower than everyone around you is because you don't have a good transformation, anything below legendary is trash and you won't be able to pvp at all with it, again I don't know how is the situation in NA, but I assume the only way for you to get a legendary transformation fast is to spend money on the game.

    3/ They 3 shot you because they have end game gear while you have starter gear, the difference in stats is insane despite being at the same lvl, not much to do here besides bearing with it while you're gearing up, you can take revenge on them once you're geared. The best pvp gear atm is the gold gear that you buy with genesis crystals in lakrum and you have to upgrade it all the way to ultimate for it to be competitive. (names of items and towns will be different in NA)

    I hate stupid people.

    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    The North American forums? So the "regular one" I'm unable to register for, or is it on this site?

    How does having multiple characters help you?

    Nah, you've stumbled upon the hellhole that's the "Gameforge Aion", which isn't the "regular" one, but the European version of the game. As far as I know, you don't have to register a separate account for the NA forums.


    Unfortunately, we aren't much help for you here. We do have some newbie boosts (legendary starting gear for fresh lvl 80s, along with other stuff) as well as different names for various dungeons (for example, Drakenspire Depths is called Makarna here). If you consider reading up a newbie guide on this forum anyways, keep the differences between our regions in mind.


    To answer a few of your questions though, the game is highly dependant on your gear. If you're fresh lv 80, you'll be the bottom of the food chain, so to say. It's pretty much normal that people will annihilate you at the start. You gotta farm your way up, soon you'll be able to at least show a bit of resistance and eventually start actually killing other players. This, however, will cost you a bit of time - not really easy for someone who says they have a low attention span.

    The "???-Level" players are level 80 most of the time. There is no way to surpass it. It's just the way the game displays enemy faction levels or monsters that are way above yours.

    The Aethertech is actually somewhat OP right now. They probably also have better gear than you do. Gunners aren't much of a popular class right now, but do have quite some potential. They're not useless at all. Again, it all depends on your gear.

    The game is quite old so lag is a common occurence. You'd be best off hitting Shift+F12 in highly populated areas to disable character models to smooth the game out a bit, as long as you're in said areas at least.

    Multiple characters can help you make more money due to having separate entry cooldowns for dungeons among other things that can help you boost your main character. You'll get into that matter if you decide playing the game further, don't worry.

    About movement speed: Your movement speed is determined by the speed stat on your boots as well as your transformation. You probably don't have a good transformation yet while other people will have legendary or ultimate grade transformations, which will bring them up to their maximum movement speed. This is also a thing you'll eventually get into sooner or later. It's gacha, if that term is familiar to you.

    People who dive into camps in Lakrum (the area you'll arrive at when hitting lv 76-ish) are most likely geared players who seek a little feeling of accomplishment when camping and killing new players who can't defend themselves. This is also fairly common in MMOs when bad players try compensating their lack of skill and game knowledge by seeking out weak opponents they can smash to feel somewhat strong.

    Lastly, you can improve by teaming up with other players to do dungeons on the PvE side of things. It won't take very long until you can also oneshot the stuff you now need 5 skills for. Basically, if you're still in the starting gear fpr lvl 75+s, you'll want to do (EU names, sorry again) Holy Tower (3-man instance), Makarna (Drakenspire Depths) and Prometun's Workshop (Again, no idea what it's on NA). There's also Narakkalli as a solo option for newbies. Just don't forget to ask for some explaination on the boss mechanics when joining up a group.

    And one more thing: Don't be frustrated when you get kicked out of a group after stating that you're new to the game. The community is extremely elitist and therefore shit, but eventually you'll find a bunch of people who will welcome you happily.

    I'd also recommend to join a guild. Just ask in the LFG chat (/3) for a noobfriendly legion. You'll probably also get invited into a discord for some external communication.

    Indeed, that's the place I meant. Can't log in, it asks you to select one of your characters to do so, and that list is empty for me.

    Not even sure why I didn't go for an European server, I'm European.

    This forum seemed to me as the only next place available to ask questions, but if things are so much different, I'll just have to wait until NCSoft helps me with registering.

    Most importantly, create a shout macro for those odd occurances when you do manage to kill someone and write "woof?" and "Jsed?".


    That's the first thing I do in any new character.


    Best of luck,

    Precision and Aura, thank you for your replies.

    So level 80 is truly the last stop and -as expected, pretty much- gear is the only way to "level up" now. The problem is that I'm not familiar with where to get this better gear, or even the materials to improve what I already have. When I try to do missions, my head gets punched in by a white wing before I can reach the location.
    Still, I can't recall if the missions I accepted give those type of rewards to begin with..

    Will the dungeons give me the gear and stuff I'm looking for? To take a closer look at the chat group assemblies should be my next step, then.

    I'm not sure what else to ask you guys, if the servers and way they operate is so different for us.

    Quote from Gzus

    Most importantly, create a shout macro for those odd occurances when you do manage to kill someone and write "woof?" and "Jsed?".


    That's the first thing I do in any new character.


    Best of luck,

    how to make people remember your name 101

    can only recommend. made three entire legions on my server completely butthurt by my mere existence :thumbup:

    Gzus, I don't care about boasting over a victory, the only thing I want in life is to write out "lol" as I'm being killed or copy-paste the Bee Movie script before I collapse.

    But some things remain a dream.

    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    copy-paste the Bee Movie script before I collapse.

    based

    Well there are a ton of things you can upgrade, your gear being one of them. You can also enchant your stigmas, your advanced skills, your minion, and so on. For the PvE side of things, quests won't award you much stuff for progress. Dungeons are the way to go here. They will award you with Ancient, Legendary and Ultimate grade gear. Just keep in mind to communicate that you need a certain piece of gear before rolling. As a Gunner, you'll want to keep an eye on leather pieces with magical attack on them.

    Aye, leather and magic-related increases, important, my incompetent brain did at least pay attention to that.

    I updated one minion yesterday, but I've been pretty lazy with that. Stigmas, besides one stone in my warehouse, I've all activated.. but to enchant means something else? I'll look into that too.
    If normal missions are of no help, then I'll give up for now and focus on these things. And finally getting inside some dungeons, I'm bored out of my mind.

    Quote from VampireMeerkat

    Aye, leather and magic-related increases, important, my incompetent brain did at least pay attention to that.

    I updated one minion yesterday, but I've been pretty lazy with that. Stigmas, besides one stone in my warehouse, I've all activated.. but to enchant means something else? I'll look into that too.
    If normal missions are of no help, then I'll give up for now and focus on these things. And finally getting inside some dungeons, I'm bored out of my mind.

    Stigma enchantment is basically the same as enchanting your gear:

    WkDGeIz.png


    So yeah, you can upgrade them to make them stronger. Acquiring them is only the first step. Again, you'll eventually get into this sort of stuff when you're further into the game. Don't worry about it too much for now. First off, try to socialize a bit, find a guild, make some friends. And, uh, maybe get rid of that "I'm a retard" attitude.

    Alrighto. Where I am now this option isn't available, I noticed, I thought that meant I couldn't update my stigma anymore. So I'll have to go to a different region.

    I'd say I have a "too long, didn't read"-attitude, more than anything. The fact I've gone from level 1 to 80 within 3 days, without throughoutly reading the NPC dialogue and mission details says alot about me, but also Aion.

    Well, upgrading via Stigma Enchantment isn't a thing the game teaches you directly. You just, well, kinda get into it.

    Also, that tl;dr attitude is justified when leveling up. Tbh there is no reason to have a leveling process at all at this point. The game is entirely endgame-focused.

    I suppose it expects you to when you've hit a wall.

    People would argue that the PVP is what makes it worth it and is the real point of the game.
    I don't feel like I can form an opinion on that yet, though, some of the remarks posted in this thread are not news to me. I read alot of online complaints of people who find Aion's PVP, or the game overall, not that great. And these complaints are spread all throughout the many years, like nothing ever changed.

    Aion charms me enough to come back, though.

    Pvp on equal footing is great tbh. The combat mechanics, chain skills, debuffs, locks, etc are so much fun.


    The issue is most of us are returnees... There have been people no-lifeing and multi-accounts exploiting for years. They wouldn't get their vanilla tool money's worth if we could be on the same level that fast.


    Find people that can articulate more than "y u no heal" or "gg dps" and you'll be fine. EU servers are a collection of squatting slavs and AionDB rejects. Still, there are fun people around (but stay on NA).


    Good luck,

    I can't say there's a single game in my library I find worth it to spend years of effort into, but as long Aion still offers me things to do and some sort of growth, I don't mind sticking around.

    Thank you for the advice and info, my guys.