Why You Should Be Playing Aion: Chain combat
by Seraphina Brennan 
Oct 21st 2009 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Game mechanics, New titles, Hands-on, Why You Should Be Playing
"Why you should be playing ..." is a freeform column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we're playing them, so you can know what to play.
I didn't give Aion the world's most glowing set of remarks last time I visited it, so I thought I should at least stop by and spend some time on a part of the game that I do actually like -- chain attacks.
Chain attacks do many things to help Aion's combat move smoothly and efficiently. They clean up the UI, they offer flexible choices, they keep the combat looking fluid, and they're a lot of fun to pull off.
Chain attacks do many things to help Aion's combat move smoothly and efficiently. They clean up the UI, they offer flexible choices, they keep the combat looking fluid, and they're a lot of fun to pull off.
I can finally see my screen!
Chain combat is exactly as it sounds -- it's a series of skills that must be used in a certain order before the next one is available. Skill 1 leads into skill 2, skill 2 leads into skill 3 and so forth. On the face of things, this sounds pretty mundane. Aion isn't exactly the first game to make people use skills in a certain order.
What Aion does do to make the concept fresh and unique is making use of the UI beyond the skill bar. In most other MMOs, you would have to put each skill separately onto the skill bar and then choose to execute them in order. While that's easy to do, it sadly takes up space on the UI and may force you to add more tool bars to clutter up the screen.
Aion's approach is more dynamic than manually slotting every single skill. When you use a skill that begins a chain, the next skill in the chain appears next to your character and the original skill is replaced by the upcoming skill in your hot bar. So, if you use skill 1, skill 2 will now appear next to your character and skill 2 will temporarily take up skill 1's slot in the hotbar.Choices, choices, choices.
The chain system also pushes the user to make choices in combat. Chains aren't always choice 1, then choice 2, then choice 3. Sometimes a chain can branch, leading the player to two different paths of options.
The options can sometimes terminate the chain early, forcing you to wait for cooldowns to expire before you attempt it again, or keep the chain going at the expense of missing out on a skill you may have needed in the other branch.
Take, for example, the Gladiator's skill chain at level 13. Pressing your chain button constantly will lead your Gladiator to three different types of hard one hit attacks, but if you perform the first attack and then look at the chain's options, you'll see an ability which provokes the enemy and forms a damage shield around your character. Choosing that shield ends the chain, but it absorbs the damage you're about to be dealt. So, the question becomes, do you want to make the fight last longer and take less damage, or end the fight faster and possibly take more?
Smooth animations for smooth chains
Setting the attacks up in this manner also allows the developer to know exactly what abilities will precede and follow others, letting them set up the animations to make combat look fluid.
The Gladiator's two strike chain makes the first attack hit the enemy from the left, but the second skill in the chain utilizes the momentum from the first to attack the enemy from the opposite side, just like a person would if they were swinging the weapon.
Combat looks more natural, all because the developer can anticipate a player's actions instead of watching as the player mashes buttons, canceling out animations that may only be halfway completed before a new animation moves in.
Chains: They do more than you expect
One single game design option that seems simple from its description has a substantial impact on how the player perceives combat from their UI, graphics, and tactical choices. This option really does offer more flavor to Aion's combat, and it's one of the reasons I'm still hanging on and playing Aion.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
noamraz05 said on 10:14AM 10-21-2009
It still sounds pretty mundane.
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fairyfay66 said on 10:25AM 10-21-2009
yeah i like the chains a lot as well. covered it well. very good game
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Jack said on 10:40AM 10-21-2009
its ok, however lag content in questing/none pvp fun/raids and so on.
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Jason said on 10:48AM 10-21-2009
This gets really old really fast because it's not exactly creative. The chains just make it so you can hit the same key several times in a row instead of have to hit several buttons in a sequence. You can't combine attacks to create your own unique combos or anything remotely interesting like that.
Also, after level 25 the game turns into a giant gankfest and you almost completely run out of quests to do, so you are required to run the same dungeon every day for XP, and that dungeon has a 17 hour reset timer, so ... yeah, Aion sucks.
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Super Healer said on 12:22PM 10-21-2009
@ Jason.
First paragraph, good point.
Second paragraph, this is not the place for your off-topic regurgitation of countless other peoples negative opinions, which have been covered on numerous other posts.
Some people like the game and dont need to be reminded of other peoples criticisms at every possible opportunity.
Adrian said on 12:46PM 10-21-2009
From the patch notes for patch 1.6:
'You can now change default order of combo skills in the combo skills tab. You can make those changes by simply drag + dropping the skills.'
java.scholl said on 10:49AM 10-21-2009
Hmm, chain combat... like AOC. But AoC has decapitations.. so AoC wins ;) I've been playing Aion, and the combat is really fun. But I've also reinstalled and now loving Age of Conan, which like Aion has the chain combat. Anything to make you more involved in combat, instead of button mashing is great for me. Keeps things interesting.
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CindyL said on 11:26AM 10-21-2009
lol that's funny I've also been thinking about AoC lately :D They have fun dungeons!
THAC0 said on 11:31AM 10-21-2009
I have really been thinking of re-installing AoC too. Cindy I agree AoC has great dungeons.
Jess said on 1:32PM 10-21-2009
Currently patching AoC. Despite previous hot hair and lambasting Funcom, I'm gonna give it a second chance come the expansion.
Kdolo said on 10:51AM 10-21-2009
I really like this, the less buttons to press the better.
LotRO does something similar with Wardens. For those unfamiliar with wardens, memorization of a certain sequence of mundane attacks unlocks a certain gambit. Aion seems to take a better approach. It's a little different, but comparable I think.
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Jess said on 10:52AM 10-21-2009
The best thing about this system is that it doesn't clog up your UI.
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Wisdomandlore said on 10:59AM 10-21-2009
AoC's combat is better. Chains are good for one thing primarily: less skill bar clutter. I like that they give you options (some), but they could have taken it further and created buff or heal chain skills for Clerics and Chanters.
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Paulie said on 11:37AM 10-21-2009
Who needs to chain when you can prance and fly and twirl and prance some more.
I only wish I had a unicorn!
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Como said on 11:56AM 10-21-2009
What would be really nice is if they had a chain bar. AKA a bar that when your start a chain pops up with hot keys on it and the skills for your current chain. That way I can avoid clicking the actual screen.
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Amritrao said on 12:42PM 10-21-2009
Why do you have to click the screen? When you buy the chain skill just put it in the hotbar in the same spot as its preceding skill and it will appear automatically to be clicked (in the hotbar) using the same number as the preceding skill.
When you have branch chains, just give each branch its own spot and the sequence will show up automatically when it's time to be used as long as you put each skill in the same spot as the one that precedes it in the chain.
Psychotic Storm said on 12:14PM 10-21-2009
Chains and... chains? that's sound boring, the other why should you play had more variety.
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Goonja said on 12:26PM 10-21-2009
They are not just chains but Aion also has movement buffs.The real thing is to master the chains with the movement buffs.
1.Forward
+10% Physical Damage
+10% Magic Damage
-20% Physical Defense
-20% Magic Defense
2.Strafe
+300 to Evasion
-70% Physical Damage
-20% Movement Speed
3.Backwards
+500 to Parry
+500 to Block
-70% Physical Damage
-40% Movement Speed
Jeez people are so lazy and Jaded and besides they (think)always know everything.
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Como said on 12:50PM 10-21-2009
Hmm this may be me misunderstanding something but for instance, I start a chain and for the continuing chain option it does exactly what you say but when I want to say go off on another part of the chain(as a templar in my case I may want to use my +attack spd and +defense skill) but this doesn't show up on my hotbar. I may be doing something incorrectly but I've played a lot of MMO's (playing since UO and EQ) and it seems to be a bit counter-intuitive. Guess I'll have to play with the interface more and figure it out.
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Doc said on 2:23PM 10-21-2009
I just cancelled my 2 Aion accounts today. Both me and the wife enjoyed our 30 days of Aion but decided WoW was more deserving of our money. We only reached level 27 and 28 so we cant speak for Aion endgame content, but our experience from lvl 1-28 was enough game time to see that Aion is not for us.
Also: I tried to dorment our Aion accounts so we could keep our characters and return to play at a later date (we've done this in WoW at least 3 times). However I removed my credit card as monthly payment method and lost our entire accounts, characters and all!!!! so we wont ever be back. No loss really....
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