Aion Riftshade

After quite a few years i've decided to give Aion Classic a go, i was playing on the original release from day 1 for a really long time, so naturally seeing my favorite version re-released, along with the nostalgia made me come back. Boy am i disappointed, just when i thought my opinion of GameForge as a publisher couldn't possibly be any worse, you guys sure found new ways, it's impressive.

At this point i am fairly certain that GF had a couple of meetings, patted themselves on the back about their "groundbreaking" ideas and just released the game without ever giving it any internal testing.

Let's dive in, shall we?

Siel subscription. You took an ancient game re-released it as an F2P and removed EVERY. SINGLE. basic functionality that the game has at its core and hidden it behind a subscription, like earning AP, trading, etc etc. The game is literally unplayable without the Siel's blessing, and please don't tell me about the 1 hour free per day, unless you plan on doing just a couple of dailies that 1h is insulting to players. On the next patch remove the ability to use the flying system and add that to siel, that'll work.

Economy, oh boy... from a little light reading around the forums i came upon a number for the drop rate decrease. 90%, i don't know how accurate it is but it actually feels like it. The overwhelming majority of monsters are completely empty and on the off chance that they do drop something it's usually a poweshard or a natural recovery elixir.
You decreased the value of junk loot and armors/weapon drops and by extension the player ability to generate kinah through the game besides player transactions.
You also set a daily limit of 1mil on sales via NPCs in a tragically misguided attempt to deter gold sellers? Yet bots are running rampant all around the server, sometimes in droves. If the plan was to make farming monsters so unrewarding that not even gold sellers would bother, imagine how HORRIBLE it would be for actual active players.
Yet all NPC prices remain absolutely the same, you had a Kinah sink that was required and it was actually designed very well in the early versions and you raped it completely to the point when you need to save every single piece of kinah to be able to buy your skill books from 3 levels ago.

All that and gold sellers are still there spamming on LFG like they always have, so clearly it didn't do nothing for them.

Entire groups are forming now to do various dungeons and try to sell the loot for like 2 mil and splitting that 6 ways in order to get some minuscule income that barely covers their consumables. This was not how Aion was meant to be played.

So at this point i'd like to pose 2 questions that probably shall remain unanswered, from anyone that actually has a clue anyway.

1) Did you guys at GF actually played the game? If yes did any of those things ever come up as a dumb idea?

2) Since it clearly isn't working, can we expect an actual fix on future update or are we doomed to empty loot windows in perpetuity ?
Thanks.

Look on Na Classic Server and you have an idea where GF will goin....

Rise droprate? Forget it!

I've released a similar topic on the german forum, called "Dear GF-Team, do you even care for our opinion"/ "Liebes GF-Team, interessiert euch überhaupt unsere Meinung". A good read, if I may say so myself . You can use google translate in order to gain another insight into the game.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind paying 15 Euro (which is pricey in todays time!) for a 14 years old game with an outdated engine, as long as the publisher actually cares for the entire community, communicates with the entire community, stays true to their own rules and actually does something against illegal activities.

The only thing they do is publishing events such as the current "Loot-Buff event" in order to show the player that they do care for their opinion.

Newsflash: They don't. They use those events (Loot-Buff, Stigma-Buff) in order to keep the players quiet for a few weeks. Afterwards, the same issues still remain: nonexistent OW-Drops, Botting, Kinah-Selling, Cheating etc. etc.

Last but not least, my favorite catch-phrase for GF: Looking at your events, GF, it appears as if you are trying to put out a forest fire with a watering can.

you give them too much credit. those events also happened on na.

Would love to have any response from GF about economy in this game. What was purpose of nerfing price for selling droped white/green items by so damn much, removing kinah from campaigns where basically you are not able to buy skills while you lvl up to 50 etc. I´m not saying we should get fabled item from every mob!!

This definitely should be some kind of road where you slowly making progress, some joy of drops or enchanting weap/armor to +10, BUT when GF makes players struggle purposely with kinah so hard only makes them leave instead of paying siel aura again or buying premium pass.

GF, as a publisher, definitely has the authority to release certain events/features at a certain time. Great example would be the Quna-Shop. Available in Classic NA and KR. But not in EU.

Plus:

people complain about lack of AP, it's harder to catch up, some people leave (GF looses money) -> AP-Boost event

people complain about lack of Stigma-Drops, prices for SW are way too high, some people leave (GF looses money) -> Stigma-Boost event

people complain about roadmap, lack of communication from GF, people are dissatisfied, some people leave (GF looses money)-> Loot-Drop event

Edit: SukiHideharu probably because they want us to buy more items from the AionShop and sell those items for Kinah. I'm not taking "prevent botting" as an excuse anymore...

Did GameForge playtest the game and consider the impact of these changes?

Publishers and developers typically conduct playtesting and analysis of changes before implementing them. However, it's important to remember that decisions related to game design, monetization, and mechanics can be complex and influenced by various factors, including business considerations. While playtesting might identify potential issues, it's possible that certain changes were made with the intention of addressing specific problems or aligning with the publisher's financial goals. Unfortunately, some decisions may not always align with the players' expectations or desires. [...]

Game updates are common in the gaming industry, especially for live service games. Developers and publishers often monitor player feedback and game data to make informed decisions about future changes. If players are expressing concerns about the current state of the game and the issues you've mentioned, it's possible that GameForge may consider making adjustments or improvements in future updates to address player feedback and enhance the overall gaming experience.

Edit Olly : Advertising.

I've played Aion on so many servers (official and not) since its release and this is the first time when having kinah for skillbooks and soul sickness is a problem. Not to mention bigger goldsinks like crafting, motion cards or deavanion sets. There's probably a bunch of people who already left, because who the f*ck wants to grind a 14y old game more than they had to a decade ago, especially if your average player is probably in their late 20s/30s and doesn't have time for this shit anymore. You're supposed to make it easier, not harder. I don't get who these kinah nerfs benefit, unless GF/NCsoft start selling kinah themselves GW2 style. And I don't mind spending some money on the game, but how about you release more cool cosmetics instead of making players' lifes miserable.