Anyone still playing?

[Flattus]

Also for those playing, are those two free activation weeks active for the anniversary?

[Trichocyst]

They might be, I'm not sure. I'd have to ask the people I know at NC Soft. They just tell me what's up, lol.

[Flattus]

lol, i'll find out for myself and see if I can login

[Flattus]

No luck

[Flattus]

Spam: September 22 is when free reactivation starts according to the calendar

[Trichocyst]

Double drop week starts around then too. The 20th I think.

[Trichocyst]

Double exp, too.

[Pooky]

And this week is double crafting starting on wed, if that calendar is correct.


THIRD MASTERCRAFT HERE I COME -.-;

[Katlan]

is double crafting enh crit chance? I may try alchy test then

[Pooky]

is double crafting enh crit chance? I may try alchy test then

Skillups onry. Tests are so easy these days, just money.

[Flattus]

I was wondering if crafting was the same money hungry activity. But any game with the possibility to proc to HQ crafts, im a sucker for

[Corwen]

I did come back fairly recently, after a 5 month hiatus.

2.5 was a big step in the right direction with the addition of esoterrace. Both races should have access to it nearly 100% of the time (need to control at least 1 balaurea fort on your race's side) and is easily duo/trioed for roughly 25-60k AP in items every run which is a big help for the weaker race that was generally SOL in terms of abyss fort instances in the past. Unfortunately 2.5 also saw the addition of eternal PvP gear that needs an obscene amount of untradeable platinum medals, and plat medals are few and far between once you've used up your 20 repeats on the daily grind quests. Basically AP is nearly trivialized now, and platinum medals are the bottleneck for eternal gear, especially for those who didn't hoard platinum medals since 2.0's release.

Crucible is nice for the fact that each run you get a number of insignia (based on how far you got) which are used to trade in for gear. Basically, every run you're guaranteed to make progress towards some gear, rather than rely on RNG for the gear you want. Unfortunately, the instance in its current state has a rather big time commitment involved if you plan on trying to clear all the way to the end. Many groups on lfg, at least on my server, tend to stop after stage 6, as stage 7 tends to be problematic for groups with incompetent players. Alternatively you can join a party with somebody, enter the instance, then abort it immediately to get the minimum reward (350 insignia) which can still add up pretty nicely in the long run in combination with the solo crucible instance (455 insignia per run).

Crafting is still very money intensive, though not as bad as it used to be. Getting a craft to expert is very easy now, but anything aside from cooking and alchemy is very expensive getting to master (500). As mentioned, you can turn 3 crafted whites into a green, or 3 crafted greens into a blue, which does make it a bit easier to get the bigger HQ items crafted. One big problem is the extreme rarity of most endgame designs - many good expert/master designs will run 20-75m+ a pop which of course you need if you even want to attempt the big HQ crafts.

[Flattus]

Thanks for the info Corwen! The game sounds like it got a lot of new content since 1.9. From what ive heard from everyone so far it sounds like Aion is doing pretty good with these new updates they're coming out with. I think im most definately going to have to come back and try everything out myself.

[Gokulo]

They're having a two-year anniversary soon (like a week or so?) and I think anyone with a good account will be able to play. I'd like to try it once again too, but I remember last time I checked the game they introduced this weird pin thingy I might not remember anymore.

[Flattus]

Yeah its a security pin thing you have to type in with the top numbers or something and not the keypad. I remember that being very annoying

[Katlan]

Skillups onry. Tests are so easy these days, just money.

Please explain If there are tricks Id love to know before I try

Crafting is still very money intensive, though not as bad as it used to be. Getting a craft to expert is very easy now, but anything aside from cooking and alchemy is very expensive getting to master (500). As mentioned, you can turn 3 crafted whites into a green, or 3 crafted greens into a blue, which does make it a bit easier to get the bigger HQ items crafted. One big problem is the extreme rarity of most endgame designs - many good expert/master designs will run 20-75m+ a pop which of course you need if you even want to attempt the big HQ crafts.

So if i fail to HQ 3x I can turn it into the item I need (that definitely makes it easier)? Is there a recipe for this? Ive been gone for years so this would be nice to know. And also, I have the recipes for the expert test, but how do I get the trigger to start the expert quest? the NPC won't offer it to me (like I said i knew at one point but Its been so long I forgot)

Oh yeah, did they make proccing HHOM any easier? Im on that stage for my ranger and when I came back i got the Hearts of Magic from a survey

[Trichocyst]

HHOM is the same, but blood is much cheaper and making money is easier. And yes, you can turn 3 NQ into 1 HQ until you get to the blue/gold stage.

[Tortalius]

The Final HQ item is still the usual 1/4 shot, but the prereqs allow you to turn 3 NQ into a HQ.

I just tried to make the lvl50 Balic Book. Got a blue . I wish I had checked the recipe before actually buying it. It costs 108 boiling bloods to do it.

[Trichocyst]

Making my carved nanyu staff (55) I lost a fortune when I didn't get a HQ on the expert level.

[Corwen]

Please explain If there are tricks Id love to know before I try



So if i fail to HQ 3x I can turn it into the item I need (that definitely makes it easier)? Is there a recipe for this? Ive been gone for years so this would be nice to know. And also, I have the recipes for the expert test, but how do I get the trigger to start the expert quest? the NPC won't offer it to me (like I said i knew at one point but Its been so long I forgot)

Oh yeah, did they make proccing HHOM any easier? Im on that stage for my ranger and when I came back i got the Hearts of Magic from a survey

The recipes to make 3 NQ into HQ are available from your craft's shop npc under the "fine design" tab they added. The recipes generally call for 3 NQs, a small amount of fluxes, and some vendor mats which are relatively cheap, and it will give you the HQ version of that item. Again, its only available from white to green, and green to blue. Anything past that is still completely RNG.

Boiling blood is much easier to obtain, but the proc rate is the same as it has always been. The new survey does help in the sense that your first "free" attempt will come after attempt #2 as opposed to attempt #5. Esoterrace drops boiling blood left and right, full clearing it generally results in 20-30 total bloods per run with other money drops that will most likely allow you to afford quite a few more beyond that. It is easy enough to duo/trio, personally I run sin + chanter duo and can wipe the place clean of balaur + bosses in under 2 hours and we each come out with about 10 mil minimum to show for it.

EDIT: for expert tests, they modified it to where you make an item that uses mostly vendor mats. You can choose between attempting one with a 25% proc rate for about a mil per try, or one that guarantees you get the procced item for roughly 6 mil, which is a trivial amount considering inflation that happened since a year ago.