One thing I like about PvP is the unpredictability for the most part of fighting against a living breathing player who can be affected by stress, emotion, bloodlust, confidence, or panic. All these things factor into most PvP matches when the adrenaline starts pumping and no pussy ass DBM or Omen addon can win the fight for you and hold your hand. No in PvP my friends, it should be a battle of wits and skill.

Keyboard turners are fucked. Here’s a diagram showing you how your character’s movements can affect your combat potency, thoughts?

Note the green arrow indicator on the UI

So what’s the Dreadgion? It is a massive battleship that occasionally appears in the Abyss controled by the NPC faction, teh Balaur.

With a size bigger than a fortress, this giant ship is armed to the teeth with powerful guns. Its mighty hulls are powered by dragonic reactors and gravity controls.

It functions with one goal in mind; capture of the fortress. It appears during Abyss sieges and drops down numerous Lv50 elite troops, and neutralizes the targeted fortress within minutes.

In order to defend from such an attack, it not only requires the help of the Guardian NPC, but also large organized groups of players.

This may be the largest threat you will ever face in the Abyss and is essentially unstoppable by any conventional means.

Schematics:

• There are 3 targetable parts on a Dreadgion. All of these have a legendary amount of HP with powerful attacks.

Draconic Cannons

• These are orb-shaped objects that are installed all over a Dreadgion.
• They will attack any targets that get too close to the ship.
• These guns use a skill called “Shockwave of Destruction” that does around 3k~4k damage to a Templar in lvl 50 unique gear. If you get channeled in it for too long, there’s no way you’ll survive. Most of these are also installed in pairs and have range of 30m. Not only that, but they also use beams that paralyze players and use other AoEs.

Reactors

• It is not exactly known what these parts do. Getting within a certain proximity rewards you with a face full of “Barrier of Destruction” and a quick trip the Soul Healer.

Gravity Controls

• We don’t know exactly what these things do either. These structures occasionally emit beams that decrease your movement speed/flight time. It won’t damage you but it will pretty much make you leave you dead in the water.

When does the Dreadgion spawn?

While the exact conditions are unknown, Dreadgions seem to appear most frequently during fortress sieges (in which case everyone in the fortress got slaughtered, usually). This is probably true since Dreadgions were designed to balance RvR.

Upon complete emergence of a Dreadgion, everyone in the area is alerted with its appearance, and its location becomes marked on the map. If you want to see it in person, you can just visit the area marked on the map. Just remember not to get too close or you will get owned.

Can it get worse? Yep.

It always moves with the same goal in mind; get to the targeted destination and drop the troops to conquer the fortress. It simply moves toward the fortress and by the time you see the warning message; lvl50 elites are swarming at the gates.

If anyone ever experienced getting wtfpwned near a fortress; you’ll notice that 8~10 elites spawn around the fortress each time you see the drop animations.

Lvl 50 Elite Guards can’t even put up a fight.

Draconic Elites:

There are basically two types; Elite and Heros. They only appear in presence of a Dreadgion.

They’re strong enough to blast through Lvl50 Elite guards and have a huge aggro range, making it very hard to pull them one by one. Best to go after them with a full party and pulling one at a time into a hidden corner or alcove and dispatch them fast before they call for help.

• They have different ranks supposedly, but only the Upper class has been seen.
• There’s fighter, sorcerer, cleric, and ranger for Hero type and fighter and cleric for legendary type.
• If killed, they drop slightly more Abyss points than regular elite mobs and have identical drop table as regular lvl 50 draconic mobs.
• They disappear once the fortress is captured (guardian NPC is defeated)

They spawn en mass around the Guardian and move in for an epic battle with him.

Majority of the skills it uses are frontal AoE attacks. It damages all targets within 10 meters to its front by 3000 and with a 3 sec stun follow-up; very scary.

It’s supposedly a sorcerer but it’s armed with a sword that shoots lasers. It also summons a lvl 40 hero ranked fire spirit.

It’s supposedly a ranger but it can transform you into trees for some reason. Getting owned by its skill-spam as a helpless tree will leave you speechless. Walking into 4 traps at the same time is not a fun experience either.

Even the balaur knows that dual wielding is the best. It’s massive burst can make an assassin cry.
To really hunt for these, you need to have at least 2 parties sticking together.

Can anybody kill these things!?

The almighty Dreadgion. There’s actually one place where you can see one that’s destroyed. If you visit the Ra Miran Island in Upper Abyss, you’ll find the remains of a once mighty battleship.

You can also find lvl 38~40 Draconic mobs hulking around in this area. I’m guessing these were the crew members. There’s also a Named mob called Captain Rahibre, whom I’m guessing was the captain of the ship. I wonder what it took to destroy this Dreadgion.

Developers and the likes seem to think that they need to bullshit some long story for a simple question, not here though. Example: “Are there plans for future expansion packs in Aion?” – “Yes. Next question. Of course there are…”

Pay extra attention to his take on PvP at the 4:00 minute mark (I fucking love it by the way) and at 13:50 when they announce NO WEEKLY MAINTENANCE.

I’m in the process of rendering chunks of the session and such but I want to take more questions to see if I can fit them in or include them in the next session. I’ll be updating this list with any new questions I have, please leave your questions in the comments section and quit spamming my YouTube inbox!

• How do you record videos?
• Are Sorcerers really over powered?
• What are the minimum system requirements?
• What’s the difference between the two races?
• Isn’t Aion just a WoW clone?
• Is Aion another Korean grind-fest?
• How do channels work?
• Do you have to group in this game or can you play solo?
• What’s with the crazy Asian yelling during combat?
• Do I have to PvP?
• Is there any PvE content?
• Will this game bomb like AoC and WAR?

This is a Rift

First and foremost, rifts are the only way for players of one faction to cross over and enter the continent of the opposing faction. So the only way an Elyos can enter an Asmodian zone is through a rift. They open at random in most of the zones level 20+ and can be used for a plethora of reasons from gaining access to instance dungeons on the other side of the world, or more… exciting prospects. Outside of the Abyss, rifts are the only way to engage in PvP in Aion.

Oh shit a Rift!

Now, rifts are one way portals. Once you make it to the other side you’re stuck there unless you die/release or return (hearth). When one opens there will be a zone wide (region) announcement. The only way to not be kicked from that zone upon death/release is to use a Kisk (portable rez point) and bind to it; it’s pretty key for your team to hide your kisk someplace where enemy players won’t typically find it and destroy it. Rifts spawn in 7 different locations in a region, 2-6 at a time is possible, and there is a limit to the amount of players and their level that can pass through.

Let’s look at a few maps courtesy of the Korean Aion Powerwiki:

Asmodian: Morheim Zone

Elyos: Eltenen Zone

The blue markers indicate where the home team can leave their zone. The red ones show where invaders enter the zone. Obviously the numbers/letters match up, 7 leads to G, 6 leads to F, and so on. Here’s a chart that shows the rift restrictions:

Symbol     Player Cap     Level Restriction           Cycle Timer

1/A                12 People                        28 or Lower                        2 Hours

2/B                20 People                      32 or Lower                        2 Hours

3/C                35 People                      36 or Lower                        2 Hours

4/D                35 People                      37 or Lower                        2 Hours

5/E                40 People                      40 or Lower                        2 Hours

6/F                 50 People                      40 or Lower                       2 Hours

7/G                50 People                       45 or Lower                       2 Hours

Those were the two lower level areas, you enter Morheim or Eltenen at Lv 20(ish) or the most part. One tactic that has had a major surge in popularity has been zerging. When you have a few high level invaders, about the only way to make a strong defense is to gather up tons of lower level players to chase them off. It gets very intense and hands down some of the most fun in the game outside of the Abyss. Most higher-ups are content to be playing for better rewards and more challenging gameplay in teh Abyss anyway. Here are the two other maps for the last two zones where rifts spawn as well as the restriction charts:

Asmodian: Beluslan Zone

Elyos: Interdiktah Zone

Symbol     Player Cap     Level Restriction           Cycle Timer

1/A                24 People                        35 or Lower                        2 Hours

2/B                36 People                       35 or Lower                        2 Hours

3/C                48 People                       46 or Lower                        2 Hours

4/D                48 People                      40 or Lower                        2 Hours

5/E                60 People                      50 or Lower                        2 Hours

6/F                 72 People                      50 or Lower                       2 Hours

7/G                72 People                       50 or Lower                       2 Hours

That pretty much does it. I hope you find this information useful as well as keep in midn that when the game makes its official release in NA/EU the locations might change somewhat. You can also find this information ina  few other places, namely the Korean Powerwiki, but I can’t read Korean.

The Lower Abyss

So you’re wondering about how PvP works in Aion right? You’re a little frustrated at being forced to PvP in a little box dryfucking pillars and dealing with constant imbalanced bullshit right? No worries my friends, welcome to the promised land of PvP! But fear not my little carebears, there’s room for you in this world too. Get ready to thicken that skin and temper yourself in a world where the conflict set forth by lore isn’t just an afterthought to the gameplay.

A little while ago Ten Ton Hammer was able to interview Aion Producer Brian Knox during the San Diego Comic-con. The format below is going to be: bold text shows the question, blue text shows the answer, red text is my comparison to preset expectations (WoW).

Ten Ton Hammer: In some previous interviews, you’ve discussed PvE and PvP being separate. Is that really the case? I’ve been hearing about people who were in PvE having to engage in PvP against people that came to their area via portals and things like that. What’s the real PvP scope of Aion look like?

Brian Knox: Basically the scope is that PvE and PvP are blended together in Aion. That said, you can choose your path as far as where you want to go and you’re not penalized if you want to switch your mindset partway – if you want to go from PvE to PvP and vice versa.

There technically aren’t any pure PvE zones outside of the pre-level 20 areas. That doesn’t mean you’re under constant attack, just means that you might see enemy players occasionally.

TTH: So that’s where everyone was confused.

Brian: One of our major aspects of the game is the concept of earning Abyss points. You can earn these via PvP and PvE. So for instance if you’re out kill the Balaur, you can get – let’s say – ten Abyss points. And if you’re killing players you get ten Abyss points. You can earn the same gear by killing either the Balaur or the PvP.

You might make different choices in your gear depending on your playstyle, but you’re still earning points in a particular direction. You don’t have to “restart” if you decide that you want to play something different than PvP or PvE.

You also get experience by killing enemy players based on their rank and level. Too many times I’ve seen people do nothing but raid in WoW and then get bored and decide to PvP, they start off with no PvP gear and next to no experience at all. They get destroyed and it pretty much shuts that door of gameplay.

TTH: What about players that are in a dungeon or engaged in active PvE? Is there a chance for them to get ambushed?

Brian: There’s world PvP, but we also instanced PvP as well. When we launch there’s going to be sixteen new instances than what their is in beta. Everyone knows that you’re going in to fight against other players. But in the world PvP, if you’re on the Abyss you’re putting yourself out there on the line. That’s also where a lot of the good rewards are and – I think – where a lot of the fun is in Aion.

That said, if you’re on your side of the world, eighty to ninety percent of what you’re doing is basic PvE. Players can receive these “infiltration quests” however where they can jump through portals and go to the other side of the world. There’s a whole system in place to help stop griefing and that sort of thing, but it still keeps you on your toes. It should remind them that a battle is still occurring without having them be constantly harassed.

The system to stop griefing (not ganking) isn’t going to stop it completely but it does a good job. If a player kills enough enemy players in their own zones he’ll get certain debuffs that eventually make him visible on the zone map as well as announce him in chat by name. Killing this guy grants a major buff to players int he area of his death and he cannot resurrect in that zone or use the rift to re-enter for a while. The rift system is too keep reminding players that there is another faction out there, you do have enemies, and you’re not teaming up with them ever.

TTH: Let’s say players are in an end game raid sort of scenario. Is there any way for players from the opposing faction to get into that raid and mix things up with other players?

Brian: If it’s an Abyss raid, then yes. It could happen. But that’s the way the Abyss is designed. If you’re in an instanced raid that is your special little piece of the world.

TTH: Can you go all the way to the end game while staying on your floaty little continent?

Brian: Certainly.

TTH: Is the gear a little bit better in the Abyss? What’s the draw to go there?

Brian: There are some good pieces to be attained in the higher level PvE questing, but a lot of the really awesome rewards are in the Abyss.

There are a lot of great quests in PvE though, and we wanted players to enjoy PvE where players are enjoying what they’re doing without feeling like they’re being harassed all the time. We think the Abyss creates an environment where everyone’s on an even playing field with the different factions. You’re just always aware of what’s going on.

Lets be honest, the end game for Aion has to do with PvP. The ultimate enemy is the other player faction and the NPC faction of the Balaur. You find the Balaur predominantly in the Abyss, and you fight your enemy faction players there too.

TTH: What does fortress PvP look like?

Brian: There are three tiers to the Abyss. There’s a bottom layer, a top layer, and then the middle, core layer. Each of these layers is progressive in level. The Abyss is a lot of the end-game, but it’s not like you need to level to fifty to do it.

In a lot of games, your pay off feels like it comes at the end… in the Abyss, you really can start into the action at level twenty-five and the entire lower area is really geared towards that sort of player. You’ll be able to start sieging things and helping out with fortresses at level twenty-five.

Eventually you’ll graduate to the top level and then eventually to the middle, core area.

God I love this. In WoW, you don’t really get shit (lets not kid ourselves) until you reach the level cap. They even make leveling so fast and easy because they want you to experience the end game stuff. In other words, you don’t have jack shit to do until Lv 80 (the cap for WotLK) and that sucks. In Aion, you start enjoying the fruits of developmental labor right away at 25, just scaled down to your level. Imagine having an Ulduar quality raid at level 30? 40?

TTH: What can players capture in sieges?

Brian: You can capture artifacts anytime you want – there’s not set time limit on these – and they’ll give your legions (Aion guilds) buffs, or it will debuff the other side. You capture these artifacts and they’re actually really helpful in capturing the big fortress.

The fortresses are timed, but they’re not a once-a-week sort of timed events. They’re nightly and they vary.

So you’re not expected – if you hold a fortress – to defend it for weeks and weeks and weeks. It’s meant to fluctuate back and forth so players can enjoy the content. The Balaur – the PvE race – can own it as well. You have to compete against both factions.

Oh look, constant reasons to engage in PvP or group activity! God forbid! A 3rd faction that can own bases as well to keep things balanced and equalized? BLASPHEMY! Guild buffs for playing together like a team!? Hold on 2 drops of piss just came out I’m so excited.

TTH: Let’s say you’re a top-end guild. What are some of the advantages of concentrating your time on fortresses?

Brian: As you control the fortresses, your influence rations change in the game, which changes the tax rate. The prices on gear and items all go up and down based on your faction ownership.

You also gain access to specific shops within the fortress and in our launch version there will be dungeons that are a part of fortresses. These will be only accessible through the fortresses.

So engaging in PvP grants access to good gear, financial boons, and PvE content. Any complaints?

TTH: What if you have the highest ranking on the server in terms of Abyss points?

Brian: You can actually have a skill that turns you into a raid boss for a particular amount of time. Obviously this skill has a *long* cool down timer, but lasts for five to ten minutes-

Wait, so you’re going to have a way for people to actually know who’s a good player and give them reason to rally under him/her?

TTH: You’re badass!

Brian: Exactly. But it does have a cooldown timer so you can’t just sit around and grief people. There’s also a thing that lets people know that you’re in the zone and they should come and attack you to try to knock you off.

TTH: But you could use it if you wanted a really high-level person to try to help take down a fortress or something like that.

Brian: Right.

So let’s say once a week or whatever, you can become a raid boss, lead a charge and downright fucking annihilate the enemy winning a clutch victory for your faction. Or you can waste it by ganking and being a douche in which case people on the server will most likely shit on your name. I like this.

TTH: What’s the sweet spot for guild membership?

Brian: We actually limit guild numbers – I believe it’s max at ninety at guild rank 3. You have three ranks, and each time you rank up you can invite more players in and you get different ways to customize your guild.

Customization means being able to upload you own images to the guild tabard or Legion Cape or whatever they call it. You get access to legion shops. I like this concept of guild pride. Kind of how WoW was back before cross server battlegrounds and server transfers.

TTH: Anything else players should know?

Brian: I think it’s important for players to go in and try out our PvP experience during our beta event weekends that we’re holding. We’re going to open it up even further in our next pass, so players should get in and get to see how things operate.

Also, I think players should know that we are launching with three major updates on the game, so that means three major balancing passes already in place before people even get to jump into Aion.

So we’re getting a game that’s been balanced and tweaked for about a year already in the Asian market where PvP is like a fucking bloodsport and treated with the seriousness of the Olympics. I can’t wait.

Yes I’m comparing the two again, get used to it. My biggest and possibly only real complaint with WoW after all these years of loyal servitude is that gear plays pretty much a soulcrushing role in your ability to do anything in the game. Skill will get you far of this you can be sure, but the advantages granted by being overgeared are just too much to ignore.

Also, gear happens to be one of the only real motivators in WoW’s end game progression. Its typical of most MMOs and its naive to think otherwise, gear grinding in PvE raids is still grinding to me and one of the most deflating and short lived accomplishments that exist in gaming.

Getting back on topic; the video shows what a Lv34 Templar (plate wearing tanking class) in white (normal) and green quality gear can do when pitted against a Lv39 Gladiator (plate wearing 2H weapon using DPS class) in blues and an obvious 5 level difference. It takes the gladiator over a minute and a half to win the duel and the templar manages to bring him down below 10% health.

About the only real exception to this observation would be a sorcerer or a spirit master that deals primarily magic damage, fighting the same templar with the same gear and level differences applied. In that case, yes, the templar would get beat to shit so fast it’d make your head spin.

In the Abyss, you will mainly fight against players of the opposing faction for control of the land. Fortress keeps are captureable by players in the same manner that say, Wintergrasp Keep can be captured and they do grant access to vendors as well as 6man dungeons. On top of everything they also serve as excellent front line bases to stage raids and assaults from. Point being, you want to capture these. But enemy players aren’t the only thing you have to worry about.

The 3rd faction in the game are the Balaur and they are the NPC AI controlled race that can decide to either attack you or your enemy without any provocation at all. They serve as a balancing mechanic in the fight for control of the abyss between factions. To the winner go the spoils and I’ve already covered how owning more land in the abyss will give you more benefits in the regular game world, but remember that the balaur will take bases for themselves as well.

Enter the Dreadgion.

The Dreadgion is a massive flying battleship of the balaur. It has no set patrol and can spawn just about anywhere and attack just about anything, when it does spawn there will be a server wide message in the Abyss warning any and all players that it’s active and you will see the Dreadgion on the world map in the abyss.

This beast of a ship can raid bases and send down tons of dragon shock trooper elites as well as employ its cannons and such to nuke and instagib any players dumb enough to get close. It hasn’t been discovered yet how to kill these cannons or successfully destroy the Dreadgion. Good news is, you can raid the son of a bitch.

Think of Tempest Keep if it was an open raid dungeon and flew all over Outland. Both player factions can enter and fight their way to the end boss to collect legendary loot. It can become a full blown free-for-all brawl inside the ship between Elyos, Asmodian, and Balaur which looks to be like AMAZING gameplay.

Sorry its taken me so long to figure out a way to explain this and since my kids won’t keep quiet long enough for an audio recording, I’ll just write it out for you.

In Aion they don’t use PvE or PvP as the only means to describe the gameplay as you would so commonly find in WoW. There’s a direct distinction in WoW between PvP through battlegrounds, world objectives (lol whatever), or the Arena; and PvE which is namely quests, instances, and raids. This is what we’re all very familiar with and in all honesty its not a bad system.

Now where things start to get a little… wild in Aion, is the two seem to merge in and out constantly as you level higher. They don’t strictly separate the two but give you real choices in what you want to engage in. In order to properly explain how the system works you need to understand what happens when you die, what a rift is, what the Abyss is, and what the factions are.

DEATH!

In WoW:

1. You take durability and have to repair your gear.
2. You have to run back to your corpse.
3. You can res at a graveyard but you take more durability damage and get stuck with res sickness which makes you pretty weak.
4. Only certain classes can rez you.
5. Though you cannot exactly capture a graveyard in the game world outside of battlegrounds (some), there isn’t much to stop the practice of spawn camping and corpse camping.

In Aion:

1. You lose a very tiny chunk of your gained exp, you can pay a spirit healer to refund the lost exp, you can NEVER lose a level through multiple deaths and you do NOT lose exp when killed in PvP.
2. You can sit dead for up to 30 minutes waiting for a rez or you can release back to the bind point you set (for a fee) which also works as your home-point for “hearthing”.
3. You can buy and set down items called Kisks that act like mini bind points and are mainly used for PvP. They have their own health and can be killed by players.
4. Anybody with a resurrection stone can rez you (purchased from vendors). Clerics can also just cast the spell and bring you back up. Being rezzed doesn’t cause res-sickness.
5. Res-sickness happens after you release and spawn back at your bind point. It slows your movement down and cuts some of your stats down through the debuff. It wears off pretty quickly.

RIFTS!?

In WoW:

1. There are sanctuary, friendly, contested, and hostile zones where you are safe from PvP or not.
2. The world is pretty open and enemy players can enter any zone without penalty.
3. There is no punishment for ganking.
4. Mobs don’t behave any different typically towards enemy faction players than they would towards you.
5. There are different servers however, that let you decide if you want to have PvP or not as part of the experience. (I feel this cheapens the lore and the gameplay itself, but respect and understand why  players like it)

In Aion:

1. After the beginner zones (around level 20+) you will enter new much larger zones where rifts spawn. A rift is a one way portal from your side of the world to the enemy faction side of the world. There are 2 very tiny zones where no rifts spawn at all.
2. When a rift opens there is a zone-wide warning that goes out. Rifts can spawn in any of 7 areas in a zone sometimes 2-6 at a time.
3. For enemy players to be able to release from death in your faction’s zone and not be sent back across the world to their homeland they need to have a Kisk dropped and bound.
4. Rifts only open every 2 hours and players stranded on enemy land when the rift closes are essentially screwed.
5. There is a Slayer system for players invading your zone.
6. There is a level cap and player cap to the rifts which regulate who and how many players go through.

(Mark will like this)

The Slayer System

If you go on a killing rampage in enemy territory (does not apply to the Abyss), you will receive penalties for doing so. This is called the Slayer System. This system, is downright amazing as it doesn’t strictly prohibit or punish killing enemy players, but at the same time it discourages casual ganking. As the game ages, if you want to gank you’re going to want to have a large raiding party to do it. The effects are as follows:

• 1. Depending on the amount of kills you will receive points. If your points go over a certain limit, you will receive the penalty effects. If you kill lower leveled players than you, you will receive more points.
• 2. The penalty effects come in two flavors. One is a Curse which denies you the use of rifts. The second is a Judgment and under this effect you cannot be resurrected in any Kisk placed in the enemy territory, as well as use rifts.
• 3. The name of the Curse/Judgment depends on the race. If you are Elyos, you will receive Curse/Judgment of Asphel. Asmodians will get Curse/Judgment of Ariel.
• 4. Once you come under Curse or Judgment, your location will be revealed throughout the local map for the entire opposing faction members. Also, even if you are under a hiding skill, your title will be seen, making it even easier to be spotted.
• 5. You must go back to your own lands or the Abyss and wait for a certain amount of time for the Curse or Judgment to disappear.
• 6. If you or someone else kills a slayer, 12 nearby players of the dead body will receive buffs.
• 7. The killer of the slayer will be announced throughout the area chat under the format of [Race]’s Hero [Killer of the Slayer] has defeated [Slayer] while he was under [Judgment or Curse] of [Ariel or Asphel].

The Abyss

Imagine an entire world, I mean a massive huge world as big as both faction’s homelands. Flight is unrestricted other than the normal cooldowns/timers and PvP is pretty much free. That’s the Abyss.

• There are quests in the abyss and plenty of NPC mobs to kill.
• There are fortress/castles that can be raided and sieged and controlled by players/factions as well as artifacts that provide certain buffs for the controlling faction.

Other than enemy players you’ll have to deal with the NPC faction of Balaur. They can capture and siege castles as well as imploy a randomly appearing battlecruiser the Dreadgion that pretty much buttfucks anything in its path. This is a balancing and regulating mechanic, but you can actually raid the Dreadgion. Think of it as a moving raid BG both factions can enter at the same time and fight inside!

Also while fighting in the Abyss against enemy players, the Balaur can randomly show up en force and… help you. But who’s to say they won’t sudeenly start attacking YOU! It’s a 3 man free-for-all melee brawl in the Abyss, and it’s the most fun I’ve had in any MMO.