Aion 1.9 patch specifics with producer Chris Hager pt. 2

by Seraphina Brennan on Mar 4th 2010 11:00AM

Combat balancing -- new skills and two-handed weapon merge

Patch 1.9 will also be bringing 15 new skills to the table, spread across Aion's eight classes. Most of these skills are geared towards balancing combat, such as new skills that can break stun effects. Beyond the new skills, there will be around 17 to 20 class balancing changes as well, so keep an eye out for those in the patch notes.

However, a new major combat balancing component comes in the form of the two-handed weapon merge system.

"I always hated having my gladiator be unable to fight effecitvely with two-handed weapons because dual-wielding was more efficient," Hager commented. "Now, this new system should help balance the two combat forms out."

"And, of course, everyone's most wished for request finally came true -- the infamous money sinks of flight transporation, teleportation, and spirit healing have been reduced."

The merge system allows players to merge a more powerful two-hander with a less powerful two-hander, merging some of the statistics from the lower weapon into the higher one. A percentage of the stats, like damage, will be added to the more powerful weapon, but all of the slots of the lower weapon will be added to the higher one. This will bring two-handed weapons on par with those who dual wield, as they previously had double the slots available to them.

Money sinks down, experience gain up, item output up

And, of course, everyone's most wished for request finally came true -- the infamous money sinks of flight transporation, teleportation, and spirit healing have been reduced. Now you can keep some of that Kinah in your pockets, instead of shelling it out just to get around the world. In addition, more flight points and bind points have been added to the maps where players naturally congregate, facilitating quicker travel.

Casual players can look forward to getting more experience with the new "energy of salvation" system, which will function as a rested experience system for the game. All players can also look forward to finding that many quests will have their experience rewards raised while campaign missions will offer more powerful loot for their ending rewards.

Lastly, drop rates on instance loot have been increased. So, hopefully, you won't have to run an instance over and over again for that one piece of loot you really wanted.

And that's only the highlights

We've only hit the high notes of the patch notes, so there's many more secrets hidden inside of those files. Patch 1.9 is just reaching the Korean test servers now, so it will be some time until we see it here in the Western world. The patch is also still a work in progress, so expect some of these details to change and morph over time.

For the full 26 page monster, though, keep an eye on the main Aion website for the recently translated information.

<< Page 1 of Aion's patch 1.9 highlights

Reader Comments (22)

yes Aion does rock. Been playing it for several years now (Since betas opened up). have serveral toons and some of which are near max level (50 is max). This patch is more about filling in the gaps then anything else. Whenever you have such a large and extensive game you are bound to have a few things that need to be added.

Just to address some of the comments above:

Each class is pretty different than the others so if you have played one it is quite a bit different than the others. Well after level 10 actually. the lower levels are all very similar and the game is very linear at lower levels. its becomes the opposite at mid to high levels.

Here are the official patch notes:

http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/Korean+PTS:+March+3rd+Test+Server+Update+1.9+Announcement

Yes the gold spammers and bots are almost completely gone. I've not had a gold spam in at least 3 months. I have seen a few bots left but mostly they are gone.

Aion is not about smashing the same buttons over and over again like in some MMOs (WoW, LOTRO, Conan etc.) In Aion you have these chain skills and have to make choices constantly during the fight as to which route you wish to take the fight. Activating some abilities open up others or increase the chances of others opening up etc. You have to think during combat.

Ganking. Yes there is ganking and nope it will not go away. it's a PvPvE game. if you don't want to do any PvP then go play another game. there are PvP free or nearly free areas you can go into if you want a break.

Servers are filled completely and they have been opening up additional ones at a steady rate. Why would you merge servers? Aion is a channeled game by the way which means if too many people are in one zone it opens up duplicate copies of the zone (A different channel) so you won't see over crowding. Obviously you may need to change channels if your friends are playing as well so you all are all on the same channel.

The piano keys were added with the last new years holiday patch then removed when the event was over. guess it means they are bringing it back for good.

/wave at Tamat or Ayase who pretend to be "David"
The entire comment of "wink, wink" David is copy/paste of the community managers PR talk from Aion forums.
Servers are mostly empty in NA/EU. In EU there are just 4 out of 14 servers with sustained activity (forts, abyss PVP etc.).
I have played Aion,WOW, Warhammer, Conan and let me assure you that the most repetitive, blank, flavorless game play is AION. It is 1,2,3 button smash to the extreme. Due to the huge grind (killing 10.000 of stupid mobs with same reactions) you may end up at lvl 50 with a junks keyboard where 1,2,3 no longer work.

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