Original: Brooklynn@Source
Summary:
This guide is intended to help out players new to Aion and give them a bit of a head-start in the leveling process. Being an Asian MMO, this game operates on somewhat different principles than what some people are used to with more western titles. I would describe this guide as "general use" rather than heavy on details. Rather, it provides you with flashpoint information for each level and things to look out for as you are exploring the world. I won't hold your hand through every quest, but I will give you a general roadmap to make your life easier from 1-20 (after 20 you're on your own!!).
Much of this is from my own experiences, but a bit was influenced by "For your psychological health: How to avoid ragequit and burnout" a very good general game guide by enfo.
Image credits are all mine except for the directional diagram, which I am unsure of the source. If anyone knows it please PM me.
This guide was created based upon Chinese Aion v1.2. Please note that the NA/EU live version will be on v1.5 and may contain some discrepancies with this guide.
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Table Of Contents:
1.0 - General Leveling Tips
2.0 - UI/Interface Tips
3.0 - 1-20 Leveling Guide
3.1 - Level 1-10
3.2 - Level 11-13
3.3 - Level 13-16
3.4 - Level 16-17
3.5 - Level 17-18
3.6 - Black Claw Outpost Level 18-20
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1.0 - General Leveling Tips:
- Gather everything you see. The exp is not negligible and you need to be able to gather for both crafting and certain quests
- Do not train mobs! Once you get into areas that have mobs that aggro, kill your way through the mobs rather than training/stealthing through. Characters in this game level primarily through kills and you are cheating yourself on exp by skipping these mobs. In some games (like WoW) it's actually faster to skip mobs that you don't "need" for a quest, but in this game it is not faster leveling to do that. You will also miss out on item/crafting drops if you skip lots of mobs.
- Learn about and use the directional model of fighting. Never stand still, in any fight, at any time (but be careful not to aggro nearby things).
- Keep Odella powder handy once you ascend. It saves you a lot of downtime to be able to mana/herb treatment out in the field. This can be bought from General Goods merchants in Pandaemonium and lvl 10+ area hubs.
- Non-elite mobs are serious business. That's right, this isn't like WoW where you can kill normal mobs from the comfort of your toilet. You can't auto-attack any monsters down in this game, and pulling extra mobs can be a real problem. Don't be afraid to use consumables if a fight gets hairy; dying kinda sucks in Aion so avoid it if you can.
- Change channels if there are too many people around. From level 1-20 you can change instances of the zone you are in, which is quite handy for avoiding that nyerkbag sorc who keeps stealing your kills. Just go to Menu > Support > Change Channel
- Create a special "PVP Alert" chatbox and have it display only "Combat Info - Third Party" and check all "Enemy" boxes. This chat box will alert you to the activities of nearby enemy player characters, often before you can see them on your screen. Since the chat boxes disappear when not in use, I put mine right smack in the middle of the screen so I really notice it when something happens.
- If you can afford it, buy skill manuals for later levels and carry them with you. Having the manuals on you when you level is nice, as it cuts down on travel time going back to a trainer.
- If you have to go afk, set up a personal store. The broker can get expensive, but Aion allows you to sell your items at a personal store, which you can set up any where at any time. You can't play your character when you do this, so the best time to do it when you have to afk. The way to open the store can be found in the menu. Even at low levels you can unload some of your crap for cash, especially around release when everyone is a lowbie.
- Learn to glide. This sounds simple enough, but gliding isn't just hitting spacebar at the top of a hill and floating to the bottom. If you push the left, right, and back keys as you are gliding, you can "catch the breeze" and increase your glide time by a huge amount. You can also pitch forward to increase speed. Try hitting the buttons at different times to see how much distance you can get.
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2.0 - UI/Interface:
- You can tell how difficult a mob is by looking at its portrait. The number of dots showing in the circle tells you approximately how hard a mob is. An elite mob's portrait is larger and more ornamented.
- You can also tell how difficult a mob is based on the color of the name floating over their head. White mobs are easy, yellow mobs are normal, orange mobs are hard, and Red mobs you'd better stay away from.
- You can get an overlay of the zone map by pushing "N"
- Auto attack can turn off sometimes. Make sure you bind a key to it.
- The quest interface is very robust, and you are able to find out more information about certain parts of quests by clicking on the blue underlined text. You can also "locate" items for quests by pushing the locate button at the bottom of the popup window.
- Your minimap is a radar. It will show all mobs, npcs, and players in your nearby viscinity. White dots are neutral mobs, red dots are agressive mobs and enemy players, and blue dots are friendlies. If you click on a mob, a yellow circle will appear around its dot, showing you the aggro radius of the selected mob.
- Quest givers will have several different types of icons above their heads:
A blue single arrow is a standard quest offer. A double blue arrow is a standard quest turnin, usually part of a chain. The last part of the chain will typically be a blue starburst. Gold arrows and starbursts refer to campaign quests. Double sideways arrows refer to quests that require you to make a choice.
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3.1 - Level 1-10
Here you start out on a normal human on your journey to becoming an immortal daeva. In the beginning, nothing will aggro on you unless you attack it, and the quests are all pretty linear. You should be gathering Angelica whenever you see it, as there is a quest to turn it in.
Try to pick up every quest you see, and make sure to do all of the campaign quests. Also, there is a "cube artisan" in the first village who will expand your backpack for a fee. As soon as you can afford it, you should do this. He also has a quest to do.
Hang on to any green items you can't use to sell on the AH once you get to a broker (First time you do is in Pandaemonium at lvl 10). Especially in a new game, these greens bring a good price.
Most of the quests are pretty straightforward: kill x of y, find q on the ground and bring it to me, etc. If you've played any MMO in the last 5 years you should have no trouble with the beginning areas. The mobs are a bit harder than some western MMOs, but for the beginning levels they are non-agressive and won't aggro on you until you attack them.
A couple of things to look out for: the kangaroo mobs that the old lady asks you to kill can randomly drop a quest to have you pull an axe out of a tree. The axe is very big and facing a small pond. This is a choice quest, and the correct choice is to keep saying "no that isn't my axe" until the guy gets to the iron axe. The reward for this is some xp and three axes you can sell to the vendor for Kinah. Also, another random drop quest happens in the graveyard; the vengeful ghosts can drop a silver necklace that starts a quest to pick up bones for the ghost npc that paths around the graveyard.
You should also consider completing the quest line that has you get a log book off of lefarist revolutionaries, as completing this quest line gives you the "Treasure Hunter" title.
The two most difficult areas from 1-10 are the graveyard and the mumu village. The graveyard is only difficult if you pull more than one ghost, or accidentally get the "cursed kerubim" guy. The mumu village has some tougher mobs, that are closer together, so you need to be a bit careful here. Also, it is best to leave the mumu farmers alone, as they are social mobs who will call for help or summon things, and they are really annoying. You don't need them for anything, as the mumu sentries drop the same thing as they do and aren't annoying. Also watch out for aggro from the watchtower sentries. If you hear the 'dinner bell' go off and you can't find what aggroed you, it might be a guy up on a tower.
When you hit level 9, it's time to ascend. Don't bother doing anything else, as you will get your entire xp bar filled up once you finish the ascention. The moment you hit 9 the quest box will pop up and tell you to go talk to Murin. You've been to him before, he's in the graveyard. After that, run back to Anturoon crossing and fly to adelle village, pick up the card from Urd, run down to the old lady in the woods, and then use "return" to go back to Anturoon for the last card. This is the fastest way to get this fedex quest done. Once you get all three cards, run back up to Murin and start the ascention. After that it will send you to Pandaemonium to get a weapon reward, level up to 10, and get your new skills.
Once you've done your ascention and chosen a class, it's a good idea to go BACK to ishalgen and finish up the quests you have left there. This is because this game doesn't have a dearth of quests and it is best to do as much as possible. Also, you get a nice title for completing the campaign here. It is possible to get through most of level 10 by doing this, and it gives you a nice headstart on Altgard. The campaign quest here concludes by sending you into a Mau cave to kill a boss mau and click on some colored pillars. The first two are on the ground floor and the third is up the ramp where the boss mob is. The title you get for doing this is "Raider Hero" and it is very good.
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3.2 - Level 11-13
Now that you have your raider title, it's time to teleport to Altgard. You also have the option of doing some of the quests in Pandaemonium, if you haven't already. The quests are decent money, but not so decent xp. Worth doing to see the city and get some of the story, though. There is also a choice quest from the daeva of music, where if you choose money you get money as a reward, and if you choose power, you unlock another quest line (not sure if it does anything else). This questline will eventually lead you into the arena in Pandaemonium, which is a place where other players of the same faction can kill you. Its a good idea to run up into the balcony before going in to see if anyone is camping the arena. It's a very quick quest but it can get you killed if you run into a nyerkbag.
Once you get to Altgard, this is a good time to check out the broker, the warehouse, and play around with your new wings. Also, hit up the General Goods merchant and buy a good amount of Odella powder.
There are a lot of quests here, and most of them are to kill monsters in the immediate area outside of the fortress. There will also be a quest to fly up into the sky and talk to a daeva up on a rock. This quest is part of a short chain at the beginning of the zone, and the guy on the rock can be a bit tough to find. He's standing on one of the "arms" of the big floating rock. This quest is meant to teach you how to use your wings.
This is also the first area where you can gather aether powder from the "small vortexes" floating around the fortress. It is a good idea to collect these if you are interested in crafting, as this skill can be a pain to level, and the powder you get is used in various useful recipies.
One quest line will take you underground into the Altgard dungeons. The entrance for these dungeons is in the northern part of the fortress, in a tunnel against the fortress wall.
In the forest beyond Altgard, you will find both campaign stuff and general quests. It is a good idea to do the kill x of y quests first as the Mumu farmland is a bit difficult. It will send you back in here several times, sometimes for more than one quest, so be ready to visit the Mumus a lot.
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3.3 - Level 13-16
Once you reach level 13, you should be ready to move on to Basfelt Village. You will want to have your gathering skill at 55 by this point or you won't be able to gather some of the stuff here.
If you are a class that has a tough time killing two mobs at once, you may have trouble with the mosbear cub/mother duo. However, if you kill the mother, the cub will run away, allowing you to heal up and kill it afterwards.
An easy quest at the beginning is to kill 3 mosbears in 10 minutes. You can go just west of the village and kill starved mossbears to get this done fast. After that you will get another quest to get 10 mosbear tusks in 30 min. I did this as a cleric in 15 minutes. It unlocks a sort of ****** title and gives you a very nice hat as a reward. The whole chain also gives about 6 bars of xp. If you wait until level 15 to do this quest, you can combine it with Geifon's quest to kill starved mosbears.
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3.4 - Level 16-17
Around 16 and 17 there will be a myriad of quests to do in the mosbear habitat, both acquired from Basfelt village and the habitat itself. Make sure to complete the chain to kill Komu Silverclaw, as you get the title "Legendary Hunter" which provides +6 parry and 2% speed (run speed).
It's at this time that you should also head over to Gribade Canyon and do the quests in this area. The first few are lower level but the rest of them are for lvl 17+. Finally, the "thing" you need to find for Germir is in a small box by the waterfall. Its important to do this quest, as it gives a ton of xp, a ring, and a title. When you get to the escort part, make sure to stay near the shugo as he will despawn if you get too far away. This escort can only be done at night. (type /time to find out what the in-game time is)
Also note that around level 16 you will begin to encounter gathering items that require a skill of 75 to pick.
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3.5 - Level 17-18
Once you're all done with Basfelt and the canyon you can choose to either do the Trader outpost quests or the eastern Altgard quests. Both are for the same level set. Most of eastern Altgard leads up to the Black Claw Outpost, which is a village full of elite Mau and requires a group. The canyon quests lead to the Impestium, which is pretty cool and you can fly in this area. The aether vortexes in this zone require a skill of 50 to gather. There is also a repeatable quest here to kill a bunch of monsters and get an iron coin as a reward. Four coins gets you a nice green, but it is random, and it takes a while to do the quest. Also, this quest doesn't grant all that much xp. It's up to you if you want to grind for the weapons, but really I only see this quest being worthwhile if you can't get a group for the elite areas and you're out of other quests. Watch out on the AH though, as people will sell these items. They are called "Asmodian Rank 9 _____". This is also a way to make money yourself if you want to.
For eastern Altgard, the swamp is just PACKED with mobs, so you'll have to kill your way through here each time you need to go to the quest hub. Bring 10 zucchini with you for a quest, as well as 10 Horto for the followup, and try to get everything done all at once because it is a big pain to come through the swamp more than you have to.
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3.6 - Black Claw Outpost Level 18-20
This is the elite village of the zone and it has quite a few quests to do. This is best done with a full and balanced group, as the NPCs hit very hard and have a ton of life. You also have to treat pulls very carefully as aggro can be an issue here. The mobs are worth a great deal of xp, have some interesting abilities (though the fights are primarily tank and spank, so only your healer will really notice this) and there are good gear drops here. While you can solo/grind out your levels from 18-20, this area makes it much MUCH easier if you can find a group.
