Alright, I'll get my two cents out there and express some of my biggest concerns with Aion.
#1: The grind.
A MMORPG needs to keep people playing, but at the same time it needs to add complexity to the situation or you feel like you are being scammed out of your time. I get this feeling some times while playing Aion. The grind up to about 20 is just fine, but after that the EXP doesn't really scale as well as it should. Monsters should honestly give a good bit more EXP per kill, and quests should give a good bit more EXP. The recent patch hardly even boosted quest EXP, and only pertained to a very few select quests at that.
Aion needs more than that, it needs some major changes as far as grinding goes. People eventually get bored. I don't mean to insult NCsoft but sadly a lot of MMO's that have a ton of grind to them, do so because they lack in content and end game content. It's sort of a lazy approach when designing a MMO to keep people playing as long as possible. But at the same time it will drive many people off as well. The quests eventually get tiresome, since most of them are simply "Kill X amount of monster" over and over and over again. Not only that, but you're usually going to the same area's to do so. There needs to be more variety.
I understand that you need to keep people playing the game, but you also need to not bore them to death either. I think the grind needs to be reduced a good bit, and more content needs to be added. At the very least, if people feel like they can actually make progress and don't get so bored with the grind that they quit, once they get to 50 they will be hooked on the game as far as getting gear, doing raids, fort instances, artifact raids, and of course, the PvP aspect which can keep people playing for a very long time.
I started Aion a day after it was released in north America and can say I'm seeing less people leveling up, and many friends I made during the first week or two ended up quitting once they got to about 20 or so. The grind is just too much, and too well... Boring? For most people. You can only do so many "Kill X mob X times" quests for so many weeks, and months, in the same area's, before it gets stale and you quit.
#2: Abyss Points.
I think this system needs to be overlooked and reworked. I think the system itself is a genius idea, but it has many flaws in it. Personally I would just like to see those flaws ironed out.
The biggest flaw is that it doesn't ease people into the system. Some of the lower level armor sets are much more expensive than they should be, considering the most basic and cheapest ones aren't even "That" incredible compared to some other gear you can get. People need to be eased into a system, and get a taste of what it's like to get them hooked on it. If the higher level, really good gold armors and such cost a lot, that is fine, but to get people to that point they should be eased into the system.
For the most basic full set of armor it costs around 50,000 abyss points, and it's made for people who are level 30 to boot. That means that you're obviously going to want to replace it, and there are even other sets of armor at level 30 you can buy with abyss points which are much better and cost a lot more. You have to calculate in how long people are going to be at a certain level, or use that armor, and be realistic about it.
Abyss point armor/weapons/accessories either need to be reduced in price or the rate in which abyss points accumulate need to be increased. I am level 34 now, and am rank 6 in the abyss. I barely have 22,000 abyss points, and have won a lot of PvP, have done a ton of quests, killed and farmed a ton of mobs in the abyss, done a good bit of instances there, and have even helped on a fortress seige or two. Even with all that and being almost 35 I'm not even halfway close enough to get the level 30 set of armor from the abyss. And even if I was? Once I bought it, I'd be back to little to no points again, meaning it would not be possible to get the level 35, or even 40 sets of armor without a unrealistic amount of work that people just aren't doing.
This entire work/reward ratio needs to be overhauled.
#3: NPC costs.
The most concerning is the cost of abilities and spells. For a Cleric to get all of their spells from level 1 to 50 is nearly 7 million kinah. Personally I have 500,000 Kinah right now that I've worked hard for, and to get all the spells I need yet don't have for level 34 costs around 475k. I don't think it should be so expensive just to get the abilities that you should already have to begin with. If it costs some Kinah thats fine, honestly I think questing for them or something, or giving people an option and letting them drop off of mobs might be nice. But making them so incredibly expensive, just to have your spells? It's very annoying and frustrating. This needs to be changed.
Not to mention the cost of soul healing. You lose a bit of EXP when you die even if you get your soul healed. That's how it should always be, and it should not increase for any reason. It needs to be a flat rate. I don't like how people basically have to pay money each time they die, and not only that but the amount can be catastrophic at higher levels, if you experience a few deaths in a instance or some such. Teleportation fees could use a overhaul as well, while not as badly as some of the other systems. A slight decrease in them would really be nice.
Personally, these are my opinions, and the opinions of many others I've spoken to about this subject on these matters. As I said, many people leveled up a bit and ended up quitting out of frustration. I know NCsoft is trying to keep people playing for a long time, but when you do so with minimal content and try to extend the duration too far without letting people enjoy themselves, they end up quitting, and you end up having a repeat of many MMO's that start out great and end up failing. I don't want to see that with Aion personally, and would like to see some of these changes that people ask for taken seriously.
Ohh, and one more minor tidbit that could be a very easy fix that would really help out a lot of us folks with less than perfect eyes, would be a option to change the transparency on the chat window. Honestly it's very hard to read some times, and when the background goes away it burns your eyes and strains them much too hard. A simple fix would just allow people to adjust and make the background darker.
Edited, Nov 22nd 2009 2:27am by EndlessJourney