AION 2 Disables Direct Player Trading at Launch to Fight Bots

AION 2 is making a significant change to its global economy before launch. Following the conclusion of the Launch Scale Test, NC has confirmed that direct player-to-player trading will be disabled as an anti-bot measure. Instead, the Market will become the central place for players to buy and sell items from one another.

That may sound like a relatively small economic rule change, but it has much wider implications for AION 2. Direct trading was previously listed as one of the benefits included with Special Quai Membership, meaning NC has effectively removed a feature it was still advertising as a Membership perk only a month ago.

It also means players will not be able to simply meet a friend, open a trade window and hand over equipment, materials or other tradable items. If something is going to move between players, NC wants that transaction going through the Market instead.

Direct Player-to-Player Trading Is Disabled

NC announced the change immediately after the Launch Scale Test ended. In its post-test update, the company described the decision specifically as an anti-bot measure and said that direct trades between players are disabled.

The wording is important because this is no longer simply a restriction applied to the temporary Launch Scale Test. During the test, trading, the Market and the Quna Exchange were all disabled because the economy itself was not active. The new announcement comes under NC's post-test launch information and explicitly identifies direct trading as something being disabled to combat bots.

The Market remains the central hub for player trading.

That changes how AION 2's global economy will function compared with the more traditional MMO model where players can choose between auction-house trading and handing an item directly to another character.

Why Would Removing Direct Trading Hurt Bots?

Direct trading is wonderfully convenient for normal players. Unfortunately, it is also wonderfully convenient for bots, gold sellers and real-money trading networks.

If two accounts can exchange items or currency directly, moving value between automated farming accounts and customers becomes considerably easier. Transactions can take place privately, quickly and without passing through a central marketplace where pricing patterns and suspicious activity are easier to monitor.

Forcing player commerce through the Market gives NC much more visibility over the economy. Listings can be logged, unusual prices can be monitored, transaction histories can be analysed and automated systems have fewer ways to quietly transfer valuable items between accounts.

That does not magically eliminate bots. MMORPG history has demonstrated that bot developers regard every anti-bot system primarily as an invitation to become more creative. But removing direct trading closes one of the easiest routes for moving farmed value between accounts.

This Changes Special Quai Membership

The awkward part is that NC previously advertised Personal Trading as one of the benefits of AION 2's Special Quai Membership.

When 30 days of Membership were added to every Founder's Pack in August, NC listed the Membership benefits as including Remote Storage, Personal Trading, Wind Breeze Merchants, increased Odyle Energy capacity, Market access, the Quna Exchange Shop and additional Odyle Energy Cube reward selections.

Personal Trading can no longer function as advertised if direct player-to-player trading is disabled globally.

We therefore need to update our earlier guide to AION 2 Membership, Market access and trading. That article reflected NC's official Membership information at the time it was published, but the situation has now changed.

What NC has not yet published is a replacement Membership benefit specifically compensating for the removal of Personal Trading. Until the company provides an updated Membership feature list, we should not assume another perk automatically takes its place.

The Market Becomes Much More Important

If direct trading is gone, the Market suddenly becomes one of the most important systems in AION 2's entire economy.

Need crafting materials from another player? Market.

Want to sell a valuable drop? Market.

Want to move a tradable item to somebody else? Unless NC introduces another system, the Market becomes the obvious route.

That makes one existing detail particularly important: Market access has itself been advertised as a Special Quai Membership benefit.

NC has not announced that Market access is becoming free as part of the new anti-bot policy. Based on the latest published Membership information, access remains listed among Membership perks.

If that remains true at launch, AION 2's economic model becomes much clearer but also potentially more controversial. Free players cannot simply bypass Market restrictions by trading directly with another character, because that alternative is being removed entirely.

We will need updated launch documentation from NC to know exactly how restrictive this feels in practice.

You Cannot Just Give Gear to a Friend

For ordinary players, the most obvious consequence is social rather than economic.

MMOs have traditionally allowed a simple little ritual: somebody in your group gets an item they do not need, notices that it is useful for you and hands it over.

Without direct trading, that interaction becomes more complicated.

Whether individual dungeon drops, crafted equipment or other specific item categories can be transferred through alternative systems will depend on their trade restrictions. But the traditional character-to-character trade window will not provide a general solution.

That can be annoying for guilds and groups of friends who enjoy pooling crafting materials or helping newer players gear up. A system designed to make life harder for gold sellers inevitably makes a few perfectly innocent things less convenient too.

Bot prevention tends to work like airport security. Everyone agrees there is a reason for it. Everyone would also quite like to keep their shoes on.

Crafting May Feel the Change Particularly Strongly

This could become especially relevant for dedicated crafters.

Our comparison of AION 2 Global and the Korean/Taiwan versions already showed that crafting progression has been altered in the global test build. Higher tiers appear more dependent on transfer crafting, and some resulting equipment becomes bound rather than freely tradeable.

Combine that with the removal of direct trading and NC appears to be building a much more controlled player economy for the global service.

That could help limit real-money trading and automated farming, but it also means dedicated crafters may rely heavily on whatever items NC permits them to sell through the Market.

The exact economic impact will be impossible to judge until the permanent servers open and players begin discovering which items actually retain trade value at endgame.

This Is Part of a Much Larger Anti-Bot Strategy

The trading change does not exist in isolation.

NC has also updated its launch queue policy, with accounts in good standing receiving access to a priority queue when servers reach capacity. Accounts facing disciplinary action or suspected of violating the Terms of Service can lose that privilege.

During the global test, players also discovered indications of additional account-trust systems inside the client, although NC has not officially explained whether those systems will appear unchanged at launch.

Together, these decisions suggest NC expects bots and illicit currency trading to be a major concern from the first day of the global service.

That expectation is hardly unreasonable. Free-to-play MMORPG launches are extremely attractive to automated farming operations because accounts are cheap to replace and a large new population creates immediate demand for currency and progression shortcuts.

Will Removing Direct Trading Actually Stop Bots?

Probably not completely.

Removing direct player trades can make real-money trading harder, but bots can still farm resources, list items on the Market and attempt to manipulate an economy through other methods. NC will still need detection tools, account enforcement and economic monitoring once the servers are live.

The relevant question is whether the inconvenience imposed on normal players is outweighed by the additional friction imposed on bot networks.

We will not know that in October's first week. Bot economies take time to develop, and so do player workarounds.

But NC has clearly decided that the traditional trade window presents enough risk to remove it before the global economy even opens.

AION 2's Economy Is Changing Before It Even Launches

This is exactly why pre-launch MMO information should never be treated as permanent.

In August, Personal Trading was an advertised Membership feature.

In September, after the Launch Scale Test, direct player-to-player trading is being disabled to fight bots.

The Market now becomes even more central to AION 2's economic design, which makes NC's final rules around Market access, Membership and tradable items increasingly important.

Advanced Access begins on September 30, followed by the full free-to-play launch on October 5. Before then, NC really needs to publish a fully updated Membership and economy breakdown so players know exactly what is free, what requires Membership and what can actually be traded.

One thing, at least, is now clear: if you planned to hand valuable items directly to your friends in AION 2, you need a new plan.

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AION 2 Ends Its Global Test at 69% Positive on Steam: Players Are Still Divided

AION 2's first global public test is over. The temporary characters are gone, the Playtest servers are offline, and tens of thousands of players now have roughly eleven days to decide whether they want to return for Advanced Access. The first measurable verdict is not overwhelmingly positive, but it is considerably better than it looked during the opening hours. At the time of writing, AION 2's Steam Playtest sits at 69 percent positive user reviews, placing the reception firmly in mixed territory rather than producing either the disaster or runaway triumph some corners of the MMO community were predicting.

That number becomes more interesting when viewed across the entire test. SteamDB recorded the Playtest at around 48 percent positive during an early snapshot on September 17. Later data showed that climbing into the 60s, and after Day 2 the score has reached 69 percent. Steam ratings can continue changing as more people submit reviews, so 69 percent should be treated as a snapshot rather than carved into the walls of Atreia. Still, the direction is notable: the player score improved as the test went on.

AION 2 Finished With 73,761 as Its Steam Peak

The final player numbers are now available as well. AION 2 reached an all-time Steam peak of 73,761 concurrent players on September 17. Day 2 came remarkably close, reaching a 24-hour peak of 73,739, just 22 players short of the first session's record.

That is useful context because the second test window did not collapse after the curiosity of Day 1 wore off. The audience returned at almost exactly the same peak level for another six-hour session, despite knowing that every character would disappear when the servers closed.

As we noted when AION 2 first hit 73,761 concurrent Steam players, these numbers still exclude everyone using NC's PURPLE launcher. The actual global test population was therefore larger, although NC has not provided a combined concurrency figure.

The Review Score Started Much Worse

The change in Steam sentiment may be the most interesting part of the test.

Early reactions were rough. During the opening period, SteamDB captured a review percentage below 50 percent. At that point, many of the complaints focused on exactly the things that make the strongest impression during AION 2's first hour: auto-navigation, the interface, extremely easy introductory combat and the feeling that parts of the game resemble a mobile MMORPG transplanted onto PC.

That criticism did not disappear. Steam discussions are still full of players complaining about auto-run, auto-potions, menu design and the generally streamlined structure of the opening quests. Some players tried the game for twenty minutes, decided they had seen another familiar Korean MMO formula and uninstalled.

But other players did something rather inconvenient for an immediate internet verdict.

They kept playing.

AION 2 Seems to Have a First-Hour Problem

Yesterday we looked at the first AION 2 player impressions after Day 1, and one pattern appeared repeatedly: players who disliked the opening hour sometimes became substantially more positive after additional skills, progression systems and group activities unlocked.

One highly discussed MMO community post came from a player who initially disliked the combat, auto systems and mobile-like presentation, then continued playing with friends for five hours and ended up disappointed when the servers closed. Other reactions described something similar. Combat starts extremely simple, but becomes more interesting once classes gain enough abilities for chained skills and actual rotations to develop.

The Steam review curve does not prove that every negative player simply needed to play longer. Plenty of people remained unconvinced after several hours, and that is perfectly legitimate. But the improvement from an early sub-50 percent snapshot to 69 percent after the full test is at least consistent with the idea that AION 2 makes a weaker first impression than it does a third or fourth impression.

The Mobile-Like UI Is Still the Biggest Recurring Complaint

The criticism that refuses to go away concerns AION 2's interface and automation.

Players repeatedly describe the UI as mobile-like, with large interface elements, strongly guided navigation and several automated conveniences. Auto-movement remains particularly divisive. Some players treat it as a harmless option when moving between quest objectives. Others see its presence as symbolic of exactly the sort of MMO design they hoped AION 2 would avoid.

The strange part is that the world itself is receiving plenty of praise. AION 2's vertical environments, floating architecture and large landscapes are among the most consistently appreciated parts of the test, which makes automatically following a route through them feel particularly odd to players who would rather explore manually.

NC now has a useful problem to solve. The systems that make AION 2 approachable may also be the systems making some veteran MMO players dismiss it before its stronger combat and progression have time to appear.

Combat and Progression Are Helping the Other Side of the Argument

Positive reactions tend to focus on a different set of features: combat once more skills unlock, character progression, the pet and mount collection systems, visual quality and the sheer number of things available to improve.

AION 2 constantly gives the player another number, item, passive tree or system to develop. That can eventually become dangerous in an MMO, because today's satisfying progression menu can become next month's list of mandatory chores. But across twelve hours of temporary testing, many players clearly enjoyed the feeling of continually unlocking something new.

The game's combat also has more going on beneath the simple opening than first appears. NC continues adjusting systems such as animation cancelling and skill chaining, while the eight launch classes develop significantly as additional abilities become available.

That does not erase the criticism of the first few levels. It simply explains why somebody can dislike AION 2 at level 5 and enjoy it considerably more later the same evening.

The Test Was Missing Some of AION 2's Most Controversial Systems

There is another major reason not to treat 69 percent as a review score for the complete game.

The Launch Scale Test disabled the Shop, Quna purchases, Membership, the Market, Quna Exchange and other payment systems. The level cap was 37, Founder's Pack items were unavailable and every piece of progression was wiped after Day 2. NC's official test rules were explicit that this was a limited scale test rather than a complete representation of long-term progression. ([steamdb.info](https://steamdb.info/patchnotes/25369750/))

That means players were unable to properly experience one of AION 2's most controversial subjects: monetization. We have already looked at how the $15 Membership affects Market access and other systems, and NC has now clarified after the test that direct player-to-player trading will be disabled as an anti-bot measure, leaving the Market as the central trading system.

The economic conversation will therefore change considerably once the permanent servers open.

NC Is Already Making Changes After the Test

The Launch Scale Test did more than produce a Steam score. NC used Day 1 feedback to push crash fixes, improve quest-object interaction ranges and open four additional European servers during the test.

After the test closed, NC also confirmed changes to its launch queue policy. Players in good account standing can enter a priority queue when servers are at capacity, although NC stresses that priority does not guarantee immediate entry. Accounts under disciplinary action or suspected of violating the Terms of Service can lose that privilege.

Steam users must now uninstall the separate Playtest application and download the retail AION 2 client before Advanced Access. PURPLE users do not need the same extra step.

69 Percent Is Neither a Disaster Nor a Victory Lap

A 69 percent Steam score is exactly the sort of number that allows everyone to find evidence for whatever they already believed.

If you expected AION 2 to be another polished but over-automated Korean MMO, plenty of reviews will support that conclusion. If you hoped for strong combat, beautiful environments and an enormous progression-heavy MMO, there are plenty of players saying they found exactly that too.

The more useful observation is that sentiment improved during the test while player concurrency remained remarkably stable between the two sessions. AION 2 hit 73,761 players on Day 1 and 73,739 on Day 2, while the Steam review percentage climbed substantially from its early position.

That is a much healthier story than a test where everybody arrives once, hates the first hour and never comes back.

It is also far too early for celebration.

The real test begins when the wipe is gone, the economy is active, Membership matters, endgame progression starts consuming weeks instead of hours and players have to decide whether AION 2 deserves a permanent place in their MMO rotation.

For now, 69 percent positive feels strangely appropriate.

AION 2 has convinced a lot of people. It has annoyed plenty of others. And with Advanced Access beginning September 30, the argument has barely started.

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AION 2 Added New EU Servers During Its Global Test and Pushed a Crash-Fixing Hotfix

AION 2's Launch Scale Test did exactly what a scale test is supposed to do: put thousands of players into the game, expose a few rough edges and give NC enough live traffic to start adjusting things before the real characters arrive. During the first test session on September 17, NC opened four additional European servers in two waves, then followed Day 1 with scheduled maintenance and a hotfix addressing client crashes, quest interaction ranges and several smaller issues before the second session began.

The server additions are particularly interesting because they arrived very quickly. According to NC's Day 1 notices, Vaizel and Triniel opened 48 minutes after the test began, followed by Kaisinel and Lumiel roughly 40 minutes later. NC did not publish capacity figures or explain exactly what triggered the additions, so we should not claim the original servers were full or that the company underestimated demand. What we can say is that European test capacity was expanded twice within the first 90 minutes.

Four New European Servers Opened During Day 1

The first new pair, Vaizel and Triniel, opened at 06:48 PDT on September 17, 48 minutes after Day 1 began. A second pair, Kaisinel and Lumiel, followed at 07:28 PDT. NC listed the server names under separate Elyos and Asmodian columns, continuing AION 2's faction-based server structure.

• Vaizel — Elyos
• Triniel — Asmodian
• Kaisinel — Elyos
• Lumiel — Asmodian

The names will be familiar to long-time AION players, which is a nice touch for a sequel otherwise busy rebuilding large parts of the original formula. More importantly, these are the first concrete European server names NC has made public during the global test. The company has already confirmed that the final global service will include Europe, North America, South America and Japan as server regions, but a full launch-world list has still not been published.

It is also worth remembering just how much traffic the test was handling. We reported yesterday that AION 2 reached 73,761 concurrent players on Steam during Day 1. PURPLE players are not included in that figure, so the total number of simultaneous players was higher. Expanding European capacity during that same session is therefore hardly surprising, even if NC has not provided the exact load figures behind the decision.

NC Took the Servers Down for Maintenance After Day 1

When the first six-hour session ended, NC began scheduled maintenance at 12:00 PDT on September 17. The company estimated roughly 24 hours of downtime, lining the maintenance window up with the start of Day 2 rather than cutting into the second session itself.

That distinction matters because a 24-hour maintenance notice can look rather dramatic if read without context. The Launch Scale Test was always designed as two separate six-hour windows with a full day between them. NC simply used that planned gap to patch the client and prepare the service for another round of players.

For a test explicitly designed to prepare infrastructure for launch, that is exactly when you want maintenance to happen. Finding the client crashes and awkward quest interactions while every character is temporary is considerably preferable to discovering them during Advanced Access on September 30 or the full October 5 launch.

The Hotfix Addresses Client Crashes

NC's post-Day 1 hotfix contains four specific changes. The most important is simply described as fixes for client crashes. No detailed technical explanation was provided, so we do not know whether NC was targeting one widespread crash or several different problems reported during the first session.

Crash fixes are hardly glamorous patch-note material, but they are arguably the most useful outcome a scale test can produce. AION 2's global version needs to work across a huge variety of hardware configurations, particularly when the official minimum specification goes all the way down to a GTX 1050 Ti and 8 GB of RAM. A few hours with tens of thousands of players inevitably exposes combinations that internal testing cannot reproduce.

Quest Objects Should Be Easier to Interact With

The hotfix also slightly increases the interaction radius for quest objects. That sounds tiny, but it is the kind of change that can make a surprisingly noticeable difference in a crowded MMO launch.

When dozens of players are trying to click or interact with the same small object, having to stand on exactly the correct pixel quickly stops feeling like immersive fantasy adventure and starts feeling like attempting to use a self-checkout machine while twenty other people push the trolley.

A slightly more generous interaction radius should make those moments less fiddly without fundamentally changing how quests work.

Appearance Change Tickets Now Require Level 10

NC also changed appearance tickets so that characters below level 10 can no longer use them. The company did not explain the reasoning behind the restriction, and since the Shop and payment systems were disabled during the Launch Scale Test, it is difficult to judge how important this will be in the retail client.

It is nevertheless another example of why players should avoid treating every test-system behaviour as final. We have already found substantial differences between regions in our look at how the AION 2 global test build differs from Korea and Taiwan. Small rules can still move around before the actual launch client arrives.

Reporting Chat and Macros Has Also Been Fixed

The final documented fix concerns AION 2's reporting system. Players attempting to report chat or macro-related behaviour could incorrectly receive a message saying that the other player's information could not be verified. NC says that problem has now been resolved.

The mention of macro reporting is particularly interesting given NC's recent work on combat automation. The Korean service has already received several updates designed to reduce advantages from mouse macros and extremely aggressive animation cancelling. A functioning reporting system will obviously matter once the global servers become permanent and competitive PvP begins properly.

The Test Is Already Producing Useful Launch Changes

It is easy to look at a public test purely as free early access, especially when tens of thousands of players rush through the opening levels as quickly as possible. For NC, though, the Launch Scale Test exists to find exactly this sort of thing.

Day 1 produced enough activity for NC to add two pairs of European servers, identify client crashes, adjust quest interactions and patch several smaller issues before the next session. That is considerably more useful than a completely uneventful test where everybody congratulates themselves and the real problems wait politely until launch day.

Nothing from the test survives. The level cap remains 37, Membership and the player economy are disabled, and every character disappears when the second session ends. NC's official test rules still state that progression carries only from Day 1 to Day 2 and transfers nothing into Advanced Access or launch.

But the fixes can survive.

And that is ultimately the point.

AION 2 does not need the Launch Scale Test to prove that players can reach level 37. It needs the test to discover what breaks when tens of thousands of them try to do it at the same time.

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AION 2 Global Is More Different From Korea Than We Thought: What the Test Build Changed

When NC said AION 2 Global would launch with a modified version of Season 1, the obvious assumption was fairly simple. Global players would start earlier in the content timeline than Korea and Taiwan, but receive a year's worth of balance work, progression improvements and quality-of-life changes layered on top. After the Launch Scale Test, it looks like the word "modified" may be doing considerably more work than we realised.

Players comparing the global test client directly with the current Taiwan and Korean versions have uncovered changes across gear stats, enhancement limits, crafting, dungeon requirements, Daevanion progression, pets, Genus Insight and several other systems. Some numbers are higher. Many percentage-based bonuses are lower. Entire progression routes appear to have been rearranged.

Before going any further, there is one very important warning: this was the Launch Scale Test build, not the final September 30 Advance Access client. NC has not published official global patch notes documenting these differences, and several systems were deliberately disabled during the test. Anything discussed below can therefore change before launch.

With that caveat firmly attached, the test still gives us our clearest look yet at what NC actually means when it says the global version of AION 2 is not simply the Korean game arriving one year late.

Global Season 1 Is Being Rebuilt, Not Simply Replayed

NC already confirmed during Gamescom that the global version will begin with Season 1 rather than jumping straight to Korea's current content. Executive Publishing Producer Merv Lee Kwai described it as a modified Season 1 incorporating later quality-of-life and balance improvements. We covered that broader strategy in our breakdown of why AION 2 Global launches behind Korea while benefiting from its first year of development.

What the Launch Scale Test reveals is that these changes appear to reach much deeper into progression itself.

A detailed side-by-side comparison published by AION2 Hub, based largely on testing by Taiwan player Madsin and comparisons with Korean game data, found that global gear does not simply use the same numbers as the existing Asian versions. Base stats, percentage bonuses, enhancement caps and crafting paths have all been altered in the test build.

That makes this much closer to a rebalanced progression model than a localization exercise.

Global Gear Has Higher Base Attack but Lower Percentage Bonuses

One of the clearest differences appears on equipment.

Higher-tier crafted weapons in the global test can have larger raw Attack values than comparable Taiwan equipment. One example shown in the comparison is the Splendent Ebony Dragon Lord Longsword, called Splendent Wise Dragon Lord for Elyos. In the Launch Scale Test it appeared at Item Level 102 with 485 to 606 Attack, compared with Item Level 92 and 372 to 465 Attack on Taiwan.

That sounds like straightforward power inflation until you look at everything surrounding it.

Percentage-based stats have generally been reduced. Soul-binding rolls provide smaller bonuses, and the built-in PvE damage percentages found on Korean and Taiwanese crafted gear are absent from the global test equipment.

On Korea and Taiwan, Dragon Lord weapons can carry a flat PvE Damage Boost while armour and accessories include their own PvE-related bonuses. In the global test build, those built-in lines were missing from both crafted and dungeon gear.

Instead, the equipment interface shows the Potential system as available across more gear types. That suggests NC may be moving a larger share of PvE specialization away from automatically granted percentages and into progression systems players develop over time.

The important point is not simply that one version has bigger numbers. The entire distribution of those numbers appears to be changing.

Enhancement Caps Are Much Lower During Early Progression

The test also revealed significantly lower enhancement caps on early equipment.

In the Launch Scale Test:

• Green Rare gear capped at +5
• Blue gear capped at +10

On Korea and Taiwan, those same grades can currently reach +10 and +15 respectively.

This may be one of the more sensible global changes. MMO players have a remarkable ability to spend enormous quantities of resources upgrading an item they replace forty-five minutes later. Lower caps on early equipment reduce the temptation to over-invest in temporary gear while still preserving the enhancement system for items worth keeping.

Per-level stat gains appear to remain broadly similar, and Amplification still exists, so NC is not removing equipment progression. It appears to be controlling how aggressively players can push lower-grade gear.

Again, that is exactly the sort of thing a developer might change after watching an MMO operate live for a year.

Crafting Progression Has Been Reworked

Crafting may have received one of the larger structural changes.

In the global test build, only the first Dragon Lord equipment tier could be directly crafted. For Asmodians that is Star Dragon Lord gear, while Elyos receive the equivalent True Dragon Lord set.

Higher tiers were instead reached through transfer crafting, moving progressively from one tier to the next. According to the test findings, those higher-tier results were also bound rather than freely tradeable.

That is a significant economic difference from the current Taiwan structure.

If it survives into launch, the system appears designed to make high-level crafted equipment something players develop themselves rather than simply purchase from somebody who completed the entire crafting ladder first.

That has obvious implications for the economy and makes our earlier look at AION 2's Membership, Market and trading restrictions even more interesting. The importance of Market access depends heavily on which endgame items can actually move through that Market.

Dungeon Entry Requirements Are Lower

The global test also makes several early Conquest dungeons easier to enter from an item-level perspective.

Krao Cave and Draupnir reportedly required Item Level 700 in the test build compared with 1,000 on the live Asian versions. Urugugu Canyon dropped from 1,600 to 1,400, while Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den were reduced from 2,200 to 2,100.

Those are not enormous philosophical changes, but together they suggest NC wants the early PvE progression path to connect more smoothly.

That matches what Game Director Namjoon Kim told press before launch. One of the major lessons from Korea was that item progression initially felt disconnected, with large jumps between meaningful upgrades. NC says global is intended to provide a smoother progression curve where earlier investment continues naturally into later systems.

Lower dungeon entry requirements make sense inside that philosophy.

Players interested in the wider PvE structure can also see our guide to AION 2's solo, 5-player and 10-player dungeon content.

Dungeon Rewards Are Changing Too

It is not only the doorway that has changed.

The Ferocious Horn Den final boss showed a 7.5 percent Unique gear pool during the test compared with 10 percent on Taiwan. That should not be interpreted as proof that all global dungeon drops have simply been nerfed. Drop rates vary between bosses even in the existing Asian version, and we only have detailed comparisons for certain encounters.

Other reward systems may actually be becoming less frustrating.

Gear Change Vouchers appeared as guaranteed rewards across more Conquest content, and weapon conversion required fewer vouchers. Some fragment-style drops also appear to have been replaced with finished items, potentially reducing the amount of inventory clutter players accumulate while farming.

The broad direction appears to be familiar: slightly tighter numerical progression, but fewer awkward hoops around actually using the rewards you earn.

Daevanion Bonuses Are Considerably Smaller

One of the most dramatic differences appears in Daevanion progression.

Major nodes that currently provide bonuses such as 2.5 percent Combat Speed, 2.5 percent Cooldown Reduction or 5 percent Damage Boost on Korea and Taiwan were shown at roughly 1.5 percent, 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent respectively in the global test.

Minor numerical nodes are lower too. Attack and Critical Hit bonuses have been reduced, and the PvE-focused Ariel board was apparently absent entirely from the Launch Scale Test client.

This supports a wider pattern visible throughout the test: global seems to be reducing how quickly percentage bonuses accumulate across multiple progression systems.

That matters because MMOs often develop stat inflation not from one outrageous item but from twenty perfectly reasonable 3 percent bonuses multiplying together until the character sheet begins behaving like a financial derivative.

NC appears to be trying to keep that curve flatter from the beginning.

Pets Cap Earlier and Provide Different Stats

Pet progression is another example.

The global test used a pet level cap of 3 rather than 5, a change NC had previously discussed publicly. Individual pet stat packages also differ from the current Taiwan version.

Some offensive bonuses have been replaced or redistributed, again suggesting that NC is deliberately reducing the number of independent percentage modifiers available across the entire progression ecosystem.

Titles show a similar pattern, with generally smaller stat bonuses and certain specialized damage bonuses disappearing altogether.

Viewed individually, none of these changes seems enormous. Viewed together, they begin to look very deliberate.

Genus Insight Has Been Rebalanced

Genus Insight, another long-term character progression system, also appears to have received significant changes.

Smite bonuses that can currently reach 4.8 percent per enemy genus on Korea and Taiwan were limited to lower values in the test build, while several stat categories were reorganized. New options such as status-effect chance, resistance and percentage HP appeared, while offensive and defensive stats were more clearly separated.

If those values survive to launch, reaching certain accuracy, critical or damage thresholds may require more deliberate build choices than simply stacking every progression system in the same direction.

That could be particularly important later in PvE, where encounter tuning inevitably begins assuming players have accumulated whatever bonuses the progression system allows.

Hidden Cubes Suddenly Give Far More Soul Crystals

Not every change slows progression.

One of the stranger differences discovered during testing concerns hidden cubes. On Korea and Taiwan these provide 100 Soul Crystals. During the global Launch Scale Test, they reportedly provided 1,000 Soul Crystals each.

That is a tenfold increase.

Whether that is a deliberate global progression adjustment or simply accelerated test tuning is impossible to say without official patch notes. It is exactly the sort of number we should therefore avoid treating as guaranteed for September 30.

But it also demonstrates why comparing only individual nerfs is misleading. NC appears to be moving rewards and power around rather than simply reducing everything.

The Test Build Even Contains Systems Korea Does Not Have

Players also found signs of systems that do not currently exist in Korea or Taiwan.

One was a reported trust system briefly visible during Day 1, apparently increasing through normal gameplay and potentially restricting access to trading and the Market until sufficient trust had been established. That sounds like an anti-bot measure, although NC has not officially documented it.

The currency interface also contained something called Pending Quna, with a tooltip saying it converts into Paid Quna after a 72-hour waiting period. Again, NC has not explained how the currency is earned or whether it will appear in the final launch client.

Both systems are therefore interesting clues rather than confirmed launch features.

They do, however, reinforce one central point: the global client is not simply a translated copy of another region's build.

This Does Not Mean Global Is “Nerfed Korea”

That is probably the easiest mistake to make when looking at these numbers.

Many percentage bonuses are lower. Enhancement caps are lower. Certain progression boards are missing. Some dungeon drops appear reduced.

It would therefore be easy to conclude that the global version is simply weaker or more restrictive.

But base equipment stats can be higher. Dungeon entry requirements are lower. Guaranteed reward systems have been improved. Crafting progression is different. Some rewards are dramatically larger. And NC has already confirmed that one of its primary goals for global is making item progression smoother and reducing unnecessary daily and weekly pressure.

The actual question is not whether a global character has 5 percent where a Korean character has 8 percent.

The question is how all of these systems fit together.

A lower percentage bonus is meaningless in isolation if enemy health, base Attack, progression rates and encounter tuning have all changed alongside it.

Do Not Build Your Launch Spreadsheet Yet

Perhaps the most important lesson from all of this is patience.

The Launch Scale Test was exactly that: a test. Steam players were even told that the Playtest client would be uninstalled afterward and replaced by the separate retail client before Advance Access. We already explained that distinction in our Steam vs PURPLE guide.

The Shop, Market, trading and Membership systems were disabled. Content stopped at level 37. Entire systems may have been hidden because players could not meaningfully use them during twelve hours of disposable progression.

So if the test appears to be missing a recipe, progression board or currency source, that does not necessarily mean it has been permanently removed from global AION 2.

We need final patch notes and the September 30 retail client before treating any of these values as permanent.

AION 2 Global Is Starting to Look Like Its Own Version

What we can say with considerably more confidence is that AION 2 Global appears to be more ambitious than simply starting Korea's content calendar from the beginning.

NC had a year of live data before bringing the game West. It knows where progression accelerated too quickly, which early upgrades players wasted resources on, where dungeon requirements created unnecessary walls and which percentage bonuses eventually stacked beyond their intended value.

The Launch Scale Test suggests the studio is using that information aggressively.

Global AION 2 may start with Season 1, but it increasingly looks like a Season 1 rebuilt with hindsight.

That does not automatically make it better. We will need to see the complete economy, endgame progression and final balance before making that judgment.

But after the Launch Scale Test, one thing is becoming clear: anyone preparing for October 5 by blindly following an old Korean progression guide may be in for a few surprises.

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AION 2 Works With a Controller, but Full Controller Support Is Not Guaranteed for Launch

AION 2 can be played with a controller on PC. That much is confirmed. What is slightly less clear is whether the entire game will be fully controller-friendly when the global version launches on October 5.

In its official pre-release FAQ, NC says that AION 2 is playable with a controller, but adds that the team is still evaluating whether full controller support will be within scope for launch. That may sound like a small distinction, but for anyone planning to play from a sofa, handheld PC or television setup, it is worth understanding before launch.

Controller Support Is Confirmed

The good news is straightforward: you will not be forced to play AION 2 with keyboard and mouse.

NC has confirmed controller support publicly, and Executive Publishing Producer Merv Lee Kwai was even more direct during a recent Gamescom interview, saying that controllers are supported in the global version.

That makes sense for AION 2's combat design. The game is built around third-person action, movement, positioning, chained abilities and aerial combat rather than the enormous ability bars associated with older PC MMORPGs. The eight global launch classes still have plenty of skills to manage, but the underlying combat is far more naturally suited to an analogue stick than the original AION ever was.

What Does “Full Controller Support” Actually Mean?

This is where NC's wording becomes important.

The company has not published a detailed list showing exactly which parts of AION 2 may still require a mouse or keyboard at launch. So we should not invent missing features and present them as fact.

In general PC gaming terminology, there is a difference between a game being playable with a controller and offering full controller support across the entire experience. The latter usually means you can navigate menus, manage inventory, configure settings, enter gameplay and handle most normal interactions without regularly reaching for another input device.

NC has confirmed the first part. It has not yet promised the second.

That means combat could work perfectly well on a gamepad while certain menus, text entry or interface functions remain less comfortable. Exactly where AION 2 draws that line at global launch is something we still need NC to clarify.

The PC Interface Makes This Question More Important

Controller support is particularly interesting after the first day of the Launch Scale Test.

As we covered in our AION 2 first impressions roundup, one of the most common pieces of feedback concerns the interface. Some players feel the UI is oversized or mobile-like, while others appreciate how clearly many of its functions are presented.

A large interface is not necessarily bad news for controller players. In fact, bigger buttons and simplified menu structures can translate quite well to gamepad navigation. But that only helps if the entire interface has been designed to respond consistently to controller input.

This is why “controller supported” and “fully controller supported” are not just two ways of saying the same thing.

AION 2 Is Still a PC-First Global Release

NC is also being very clear about the platform priority. The global version launches first on PC through Steam and PURPLE. There is no global mobile version currently planned, and the Steam page lists AION 2 as a PC release arriving October 5.

That PC-first approach probably explains why full controller support is still being evaluated rather than treated as a hard launch requirement. Keyboard and mouse remain the default input methods for the release platform.

Still, the number of players using gamepads on PC is far larger than it once was, especially with handheld systems, living-room PCs and console-style setups becoming more common. An action MMORPG with aerial combat is exactly the sort of game many people will want to play away from a desk.

A Console Version Is Already Being Prepared

The more interesting piece of context is that AION 2 is already being prepared for consoles.

Game Director Namjoon Kim confirmed that work on a console release is underway, although PC remains the priority and no PlayStation or Xbox release date has been announced. We covered those plans in our AION 2 console and cross-play breakdown.

That makes controller development more than a small PC accessibility feature. Whatever NC learns while refining controller support on PC will inevitably be relevant when the console version eventually arrives.

A console release cannot rely on players occasionally leaning forward to click a stubborn inventory tab with a mouse. So even if the global PC version does not launch with perfect controller navigation, NC has a very good reason to keep improving it.

Console Cross-Play Still Looks Unlikely

The future console version also comes with one major uncertainty. NC has not made a final decision on PC-console cross-play, but the current expectation is that it may not be supported.

Kim has said differences in platform usage, gameplay and launch timing make shared operation difficult. That means the console version may eventually run as a separate ecosystem rather than simply joining existing PC servers.

That does not directly change controller support on PC, but it reinforces the fact that NC is treating consoles as a proper future platform rather than just imagining AION 2 streamed onto a television somewhere down the line.

Should You Play AION 2 With a Controller?

If you prefer controller combat, there is no reason to rule AION 2 out. NC explicitly says the game is playable that way, and its third-person action combat looks like a natural fit.

The caveat is convenience.

Until NC confirms full controller support, players should expect that some parts of the PC experience may be easier with a keyboard and mouse nearby. That may barely matter at a desk. It matters considerably more if your plan is to play exclusively from the sofa.

The current Launch Scale Test is therefore a useful opportunity to experiment before permanent progression begins. Try your preferred controller, explore menus and see whether the parts of the interface you use most feel comfortable.

Controller Support Is There, but the Final Polish Is Still a Question

AION 2 is not launching without gamepad support. That misconception can be put to rest.

You can play with a controller.

What NC has not yet guaranteed is that you will be able to do absolutely everything comfortably without touching a keyboard or mouse.

For most desktop players, that distinction may be fairly minor. For handheld-PC owners and anyone planning a full living-room setup, it could matter a great deal.

And with a console version already in development, this is almost certainly not the end of AION 2's controller story.

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AION 2 First Impressions: Players Praise the Combat, but the Mobile-Like UI Is Dividing People

AION 2 has finally spent a few hours in the hands of global players, which means we can temporarily stop analysing developer presentations and start analysing something considerably more dangerous: MMO players with opinions. Following the first six-hour Launch Scale Test session on September 17, the early reaction is decidedly mixed. Players are praising AION 2's world, progression and increasingly satisfying combat, while the interface, auto-movement and extremely gentle opening hours are repeatedly being criticised for making the game feel more like a mobile MMO than some PC players expected.

That does not amount to a verdict on AION 2. The test is capped at level 37, runs for only twelve hours across two sessions, disables several major economy systems and wipes every character afterward. But after 73,761 concurrent Steam players joined the first global test, there are finally enough people experiencing the same opening hours for some clear patterns to emerge.

The First Hour Seems to Be AION 2's Biggest Problem

One of the more interesting reactions comes from players who initially disliked AION 2 and then gradually changed their minds. In a widely discussed r/MMORPG thread, one player described actively disliking the game during the opening period before eventually spending roughly five hours playing and becoming disappointed when the servers closed.

The complaints will sound familiar to anyone who has followed Asian MMORPG design over the past decade. Auto-movement appears almost immediately. Tutorials aggressively explain where to click. The early main quest sends players back and forth between NPCs while combat encounters offer very little resistance. Combined with the interface, that creates a first impression that several players have described as distinctly mobile-like.

Another Day 1 discussion on r/MMORPG praised the graphics and smooth combat while criticising the early questing for providing little challenge and saying the UI and UX felt like a mobile application.

That criticism is worth taking seriously because first impressions matter. Telling new players that the interesting MMO starts several hours later has never been the strongest sales pitch in the genre. "Please continue until the game stops annoying you" is technically a retention strategy, but not an especially elegant one.

The Combat Seems to Improve Once More Skills Unlock

Combat produced one of the stranger patterns in the reactions because some players listed it as both a strength and a weakness.

At the very beginning, AION 2's combat can feel limited. Characters have relatively few abilities, gear is basic and the game's chain-skill systems have not developed enough to show what a full rotation eventually looks like. Several Day 1 players said combat felt odd or underwhelming initially, only to find it considerably more enjoyable once additional skills and progression systems began opening.

That fits reasonably well with what NC has told us about the combat system. AION 2 is built around chained abilities, positioning, timing and animation transitions, and the Korean version is still receiving changes to systems such as animation cancelling and skill chaining. A level 5 character therefore does not tell us much about how the game will feel after a proper build develops.

Players also seem divided by class. Gladiator has received some positive early comments for its direct, physical combat, while other classes take longer to develop their identity. That is exactly why the Launch Scale Test is a useful place to experiment with several options before choosing one from the eight AION 2 global launch classes.

The World and Visual Design Are Getting Plenty of Praise

Where the reaction is more consistently positive is the environment itself. Even players criticising the interface have highlighted the terrain, verticality and atmosphere of AION 2's opening zones.

The world makes immediate use of height. Floating structures, cliffs, distant architecture and areas visible far beyond the player's current route give the starting region a sense of scale that works particularly well with AION's winged identity. One Day 1 player described the map as feeling alive and specifically praised the amount of vertical space, while Japanese impressions from AION2 Times' three-hour Launch Scale Test session similarly highlighted the presentation and the experience of finally playing the Japanese/global build firsthand.

That does not mean everybody loves the art direction. Some players feel the extremely polished character designs and interface contribute to the mobile-game comparison. But the actual landscape and environmental presentation appear to be among AION 2's safer strengths so far.

Auto-Movement Is Already One of the Most Divisive Features

Few things announce "Korean MMORPG" quite as efficiently as pressing a quest objective and watching your character begin travelling there without further assistance.

AION 2 includes auto-movement during its main story progression, and reactions range from convenient to deeply irritating. Critics argue that automatic navigation undermines exploration, particularly in a game whose world is one of its strongest visual features. Others have found it less objectionable once they stopped treating the main quest as the entire game and instead saw it as a fast route through tutorials and progression unlocks.

There is a genuine design tension there. AION 2 gives players a large vertical world and then, during its opening hours, repeatedly offers to navigate that world for them.

Nothing forces players to stare passively at their character running along a road, but the existence of the feature contributes heavily to the mobile comparison. For some PC MMO players, auto-pathing is simply a red flag regardless of how optional it eventually becomes.

Progression May Be the Thing That Keeps People Playing

One of the more positive recurring observations is how frequently AION 2 gives players something to improve. Equipment, skills, passive progression, pets, mounts and dungeon rewards all provide separate advancement paths, creating a constant sense that something is getting stronger.

The pet and mount systems have received particular interest because creatures encountered in the world can become part of those collection systems. Field bosses also appear early enough to show players enemies they are clearly not supposed to defeat yet, providing a simple but effective reason to remember an area and return later.

AION 2's dungeon structure feeds directly into that feeling. We recently broke down how AION 2 spreads more than 200 advertised dungeon activities across solo, 5-player and 10-player PvE, and even the early instanced content offers progression rewards beyond simply producing another piece of equipment.

The possible downside is obvious: lots of progression systems can eventually become lots of chores. Six hours is enough time to enjoy watching several numbers increase. It is not enough time to know whether maintaining all those systems after two months becomes entertaining endgame progression or a second administrative career.

Playing With Friends During the Opening Story Can Be Awkward

Another criticism worth watching concerns the main story experience. Some early quests and story sequences are heavily instanced, meaning players entering the test together can find themselves progressing alongside friends in voice chat while technically completing large parts of the story separately.

Later AION 2 content is much more group-oriented, particularly dungeons, world activities and PvP, so this should not be interpreted as meaning AION 2 is fundamentally a solo MMO. But the first several hours do not necessarily make that clear.

For a game launching into a genre built around playing together, it is another slightly strange first impression. You recruit four friends into a new MMO, form a party, and the game politely asks everyone to go away and complete their homework individually before the multiplayer begins.

The Mobile Comparison Is Not Going Away

This is probably the biggest challenge facing AION 2's global perception.

The game is a PC MMORPG. NC has no current plans for a global mobile version, and the global client has been positioned firmly around Steam and PURPLE. Yet several elements of the experience immediately remind Western players of mobile MMORPG design: auto-navigation, highly guided tutorials, interface layout, numerous progression systems and an extremely streamlined main quest.

That does not automatically mean those systems are bad. Nor does visual similarity to a mobile interface tell us whether the endgame is good. But the comparison appears frequently enough in Day 1 reactions that dismissing it would be silly.

The question is whether players get past that initial impression.

Some clearly did. One of the most interesting Day 1 accounts effectively moved from "this looks like a mobile game and I dislike it" to playing five hours straight and wanting the servers to stay online. Others saw the same systems and decided they had already seen enough.

That is what makes these first reactions more useful than a simple thumbs-up percentage.

Six Hours Cannot Tell Us Whether AION 2 Is Good

The Launch Scale Test is deliberately a poor environment for producing a final review. The level cap is 37. Membership is disabled. The Market, Quna Exchange and player trading are unavailable. Progress disappears after Day 2, and most players have barely touched the systems that will define AION 2's long-term endgame.

Even NC describes this primarily as a scale and stability test rather than a complete content preview.

What Day 1 can tell us is where the immediate friction sits.

AION 2 looks good. Its combat appears to improve as classes develop. The world and progression systems are attracting praise. But the mobile-like interface, auto-movement and overly guided opening hours are absolutely turning some players away before those strengths have time to appear.

Tonight's second Launch Scale Test session gives everyone another six hours. After that, the temporary characters disappear and we wait until Advance Access begins on September 30.

At least now the argument about AION 2 has moved beyond screenshots and Korean gameplay videos.

Global players have finally played it.

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AION 2 Hits 73,761 Concurrent Steam Players During Its First Global Test

AION 2 has finally been placed in front of a global PC audience, and quite a few people apparently wanted to see what NC has been building. During the first day of the Launch Scale Test on September 17, AION 2 reached an all-time peak of 73,761 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB. For a temporary test running for just six hours, with every character destined for deletion, that is a fairly substantial first showing.

There is an important qualifier immediately: 73,761 is not the total AION 2 test population. The Launch Scale Test is available through both Steam and PURPLE, while SteamDB can naturally only see players using Steam. NC has not published a combined concurrency figure for the two platforms, so the actual number of people exploring the global version at peak was higher. How much higher, we simply do not know.

73,761 Players Joined a Test Where Nothing Survives

The number becomes more interesting once you look at the structure of the test itself. Day 1 only ran from 15:00 to 21:00 CEST on September 17, giving players a six-hour window. The second session runs from 21:00 CEST on September 18 until 03:00 on September 19.

NC has also made it very clear that this is not early progression disguised as a beta. Characters carry from Day 1 into Day 2, but everything is wiped once the test finishes. Nothing transfers into Advanced Access on September 30 or the full October launch.

The Market, Quna Exchange, player trading, Membership systems, Founder's Pack bonuses and all payment functionality are disabled as well. The level cap is 37. In other words, tens of thousands of Steam players turned up knowing perfectly well that everything they accomplished would shortly disappear into the MMO void. That is usually a reasonably healthy indication that people are curious.

This Is Not the Same as a Launch Player Count

It is tempting to take a SteamDB graph and immediately begin predicting the future. We would avoid that.

A free public test and a live MMO launch are two very different things. There was no purchase required, no invitation system and no meaningful commitment involved beyond downloading a rather large client. Some players will have logged in purely to inspect the character creator, test performance or satisfy their curiosity before deciding that AION 2 is not for them.

At the same time, the limited six-hour window works in the opposite direction. This was not a normal 24-hour period where players could log in whenever convenient. Everyone using Steam had to squeeze into the same relatively narrow block of time, which makes concurrency particularly visible.

The number is therefore best treated for what it is: the first concrete indication of global interest in AION 2 on Steam, not a prediction of how many people will still be playing three weeks after launch.

PURPLE Makes the Real Test Population Impossible to See

This is also why comparisons with other MMO tests need some care. AION 2 is not a Steam-only release. Players can access the global game directly through NC's PURPLE platform as well, something we covered in our Steam vs PURPLE guide.

Someone playing through PURPLE never appears on SteamDB's chart. That means 73,761 should effectively be read as “at least 73,761 concurrent PC players” rather than the complete peak for Day 1.

Whether Steam becomes the dominant platform after launch will be interesting to watch. Steam gives us transparent public concurrency data, while PURPLE does not, so the visible number will always represent only one part of AION 2's global audience.

The Test Is Also Doing What NC Actually Needs It to Do

The entire point of a Launch Scale Test is to put real pressure on infrastructure before the permanent characters arrive. NC opened the test to everyone with no keys, invitations or registration list, which makes a large turnout considerably more useful than a carefully controlled closed beta.

It also gives players their first chance to test many of the things we have spent the past week discussing theoretically: the eight global launch classes, the game's combat, regional latency and whether their machines actually meet the AION 2 PC requirements.

NC scheduled maintenance after the first test session, with the game servers temporarily unavailable ahead of Day 2. For a scale test, that is not particularly alarming. Finding problems while the characters are disposable is considerably preferable to discovering them on September 30 while several thousand Founder's Pack owners are staring angrily at a login screen.

Day 2 Could Push the Steam Peak Even Higher

The second Launch Scale Test session begins tonight at 21:00 CEST. The later European start and Friday timing could produce a different concurrency pattern, although there is no guarantee the Day 1 record will be beaten.

We will know the final Steam peak once that second session is over. For now, 73,761 concurrent Steam players is the number to beat.

Then comes the considerably more important test. Founder's Pack owners enter through Advanced Access on September 30, followed by the full AION 2 global release on October 5.

A six-hour test cannot tell us whether AION 2 will become the next long-term MMO success. It can tell us that a lot of people were willing to turn up for the audition.

73,761 of them on Steam alone, in fact.

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AION 2 Is Reworking Animation Cancelling to Reduce Ping-Based DPS Gaps

Animation cancelling is one of those MMO mechanics that can live somewhere between advanced combat technique, accidental engine behaviour and a minor form of witchcraft performed by somebody with a very expensive mouse. AION 2 has embraced fast skill chaining since launch, but NC has increasingly decided that there should be limits to how much damage depends on your hardware, connection quality or ability to automate perfectly timed cancels.

The Korean version of AION 2 received a major combat change on August 26 when NC introduced a minimum skill-cancel time across every skill in the game. The developer's stated goal was unusually direct: reduce differences in skill chaining, cancel timing and ultimately DPS caused by differences in players' game environments.

And NC is not finished. The September 16 Korean update goes even further, specifically increasing cancel delays on several Templar and Assassin skills to discourage mouse macros built around extremely fast animation-cancel combinations.

In other words, NC is not trying to remove fast combat from AION 2. It is trying to make sure that fast combat is decided more by the player than by the equipment sitting on their desk.

A Minimum Cancel Time Now Applies to Every Skill in Korea

The first major change arrived in the August 26 Korean update. NC added a minimum cancel time to every skill, explaining that differences in the player's game environment were producing too much variation in combo speed and damage output.

Animation cancelling itself is fairly simple in principle. Many attack animations continue for a short period after the game has already registered the important part of the skill. If another action can interrupt that remaining animation, an experienced player can move into the next attack faster and squeeze more skills into the same window.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Done well, animation cancelling can reward knowledge and execution. The problem appears when the optimal timing becomes so narrow that latency, frame rate, input hardware or automated macros begin deciding who can actually perform it consistently.

NC's solution is not to disable cancelling completely. Instead, a minimum amount of time must now pass before the next skill can replace the current animation. The very fastest cancels are therefore capped, narrowing the difference between players operating under different technical conditions.

This Is About More Than High Ping

It would be tempting to describe the change simply as an anti-latency system, but that is only part of it.

AION 2's combat rewards rapid chained inputs, and very small timing differences can accumulate across an entire rotation. A player with extremely stable latency and high frame rates may be able to execute cancels more consistently than someone on a weaker machine or a connection further from the server. Add programmable mouse buttons and macros to the equation, and a combat technique that originally rewarded practice can gradually become something else entirely.

That matters particularly for the global version. We already know from the confirmed AION 2 global server regions that players will connect through North America, South America, Europe and Japan, while Oceania does not have a dedicated launch region. Latency will inevitably vary dramatically depending on where people live.

A combat model where tiny differences in network conditions directly produce meaningful DPS gaps would therefore become even more noticeable once AION 2 expands beyond Korea and Taiwan.

NC Compensated Classes for the Lost Damage

The August change was not simply a universal combat slowdown. NC knew that introducing a minimum cancel time would reduce the theoretical damage output of rotations that depended heavily on extremely fast chaining, so the same patch included widespread class damage buffs.

Gladiator, Templar, Assassin, Ranger, Chanter, Cleric, Sorcerer and Spiritmaster all received various PvE adjustments as part of the wider rebalance. Some individual abilities received sizeable damage increases, while Templar and Chanter underwent deeper changes to their core mechanics.

That distinction is important. NC is trying to move damage away from exploiting exceptionally short animation windows and put more of it directly back into the skills themselves.

The result should theoretically be a narrower gap between somebody playing the rotation correctly under normal conditions and somebody performing frame-perfect cancels through an unusually favourable setup.

It also fits the broader philosophy behind the global build. As we discussed in our look at why global AION 2 starts behind Korea but inherits newer improvements, NC is using the first year of Korean live service to smooth out systems before they reach the wider audience.

The September 16 Patch Takes Direct Aim at Mouse Macros

The most interesting development arrived yesterday.

In its September 16 Korean update, NC specifically called out two animation-cancel combinations where mouse macros had become a concern.

For Templar, the cancel delays on Pummel, Punishing Strike and Judgment were increased. NC said the change was intended to discourage mouse macros used to rapidly cancel Pummel into Judgment. Several Templar PvE abilities received damage increases at the same time, including a 20 percent increase for Shield Smite and 10 percent increases for Warding Strike, Annihilate and Punishment.

Assassin received a similar treatment. Savage Roar, Savage Smash and Heart Gore all gained longer cancel delays to discourage macros used around the Savage Roar to Heart Gore chain. Again, NC compensated elsewhere, increasing the PvE damage of Quick Slice and several related abilities by 10 percent.

That makes the philosophy considerably clearer. NC is not simply trying to make combat slower. When an extremely fast cancel is restricted, damage is being redistributed into normal skill use.

Good Animation Cancelling Is Not Necessarily Going Away

This distinction matters because animation cancelling has acquired a slightly unfair reputation in some games. It is not automatically an exploit.

Timing an ability correctly, interrupting unnecessary recovery frames and understanding how skills flow into one another can add genuine depth to action combat. AION 2 would arguably lose something if every skill forced players to stand politely through a theatrical animation before the game permitted another button press.

The issue is where the line sits.

If two players understand the same rotation equally well but one produces considerably higher DPS because a macro fires inputs at mechanically perfect intervals, that is no longer much of a test of combat knowledge. If the optimal rotation only works properly below a particular latency threshold, geography has effectively become a character stat.

NC appears to be trying to preserve the responsive part while putting a floor under the time required for each transition.

Why This Could Matter Even More in PvP

The immediate class compensation in these patches focuses heavily on PvE damage, but animation timing obviously matters in PvP as well.

AION 2 has a substantial competitive structure built around the Abyss, Rifts, Arenas and Battlegrounds. In those environments, tiny differences in how quickly a player can transition from crowd control into burst damage can decide a fight before the opponent has much opportunity to respond.

Some of that should absolutely reward experience. A veteran Assassin should probably execute a burst sequence more cleanly than someone who discovered the class eleven minutes ago.

The question is whether that advantage comes from knowing the sequence or from owning a mouse capable of playing part of the sequence for you.

NC's latest adjustments suggest it wants the former.

We Do Not Yet Know Exactly What Global Will Launch With

There is one important caveat for global players: these specific changes are currently documented on the Korean service.

NC has already confirmed that global AION 2 does not simply copy Korea's current content timeline. The Western release begins with a modified Season 1 while incorporating later quality-of-life improvements, balance lessons and progression changes.

That makes the minimum-cancel philosophy highly relevant to global, but we should not assume that every September 16 Korean class value, cancel delay or damage percentage will appear unchanged in the global client on October 5.

The ongoing AION 2 Launch Scale Test gives players the first useful opportunity to see how combat feels under global network conditions. Once the live global build arrives, comparisons between Korea and the Western version will become much easier to make properly.

This Is Probably Healthy for AION 2's Global Combat

There is always a danger when developers standardize animation timing. Go too far and responsive combat starts feeling heavy. Every attack becomes a commitment, chaining becomes less expressive, and the player begins to feel as though they are politely requesting permission from the animation system before pressing another button.

But doing nothing has its own problems.

AION 2's official PC requirements are deliberately broad, ranging all the way down to a GTX 1050 Ti, while the global service will cover players spread across several enormous geographical regions. If the combat system only performs competitively at its best on exceptionally fast hardware, exceptionally low ping and programmable input devices, that accessibility starts disappearing rather quickly.

The approach NC is taking makes more sense: establish minimum cancel windows, compensate classes where that removes legitimate damage, and target individual macro-heavy chains when they emerge.

It is unlikely to end the argument. Someone will always insist that their seventeen-input sequence executed in the time normally required to blink was pure skill and absolutely nothing to do with the software attached to Mouse Button 4.

But for the global launch, a combat system where knowing when to press the next skill matters more than how quickly your hardware can press it seems like a fairly sensible place to start.

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AION 2 Has Over 200 Dungeons: Solo, 5-Player and 10-Player PvE Explained

AION 2 may spend a great deal of its marketing time showing winged warriors fighting in the sky, but NC is making an equally large promise to players who prefer their enemies controlled by a server rather than another human being. According to the official global Steam page, AION 2 contains more than 200 dungeons, ranging from solo challenges to 5-player party content and 10-player group encounters.

That is a very large number, even by MMO standards, and naturally comes with an important question: what exactly counts as one of those 200 dungeons?

NC has not published a complete catalogue breaking the figure down dungeon by dungeon, difficulty by difficulty and season by season. So it would be premature to read "over 200" as meaning that global players will log in on October 5 and immediately discover 200 completely different endgame raids waiting in a menu. What NC has confirmed is much more useful: AION 2's PvE is deliberately spread across several scales of content, from things you can tackle alone to dedicated party dungeons and larger 10-player encounters.

AION 2 Has More Than 200 Dungeons Across Multiple Formats

The official AION 2 Steam page describes the PvE structure as spanning more than 200 dungeons, including:

• Solo challenges
• 5-player party content
• 10-player group dungeons
• Seasonal challenges
• Competitive rankings
• Open-world PvE events

That immediately tells us that AION 2 is not building its PvE around a single traditional dungeon queue. Different activities are designed for different group sizes and progression stages, while ranking systems and seasonal structures give players reasons to revisit content beyond simply clearing it once.

It also fits what we already know about AION 2's combat. The game is built around positioning, timing and chained skills rather than a completely static rotation, and those systems have considerably more room to breathe inside encounters designed specifically around them. Choosing the right class will therefore matter for more than PvP, which is why our guide to all eight AION 2 launch classes is worth reading before committing to your first character.

Solo Dungeons Mean PvE Does Not Start With Group Finder

One of the more welcome parts of NC's description is the emphasis on solo instances. MMO endgames often reach a point where the answer to every progression question becomes "find four strangers," which is not always ideal if you log in at strange hours or simply fancy doing something without negotiating party composition first.

AION 2's Korean service already provides examples of the sort of solo structure NC is using. Nightmare and Ascension Trial are solo dungeon systems that have continued receiving new layers, bosses and difficulty levels as the game has expanded.

For example, NC's July Chapter 1 update added new bosses to Nightmare Layer IV and introduced a Doom difficulty for Ascension Trial. That specific update belongs to the later Korean content timeline, so global players should not assume every current Korean stage will exist on October 5. As we have already explained, the global version begins behind Korea in actual content progression.

The important point is the structure: AION 2 has a meaningful PvE path for players who are not permanently attached to a five-person static group.

Five Players Is the Standard Dungeon Party Size

For normal group content, five players is the important number.

NC increased Expedition and Transcendence dungeon party sizes from four to five players as part of the game's 2026 development, and five-player content is now explicitly part of the global version's marketing. That gives AION 2 a fairly familiar MMO party size and creates considerably more room for traditional role combinations.

A five-person group can comfortably accommodate a tank, healer and three damage-oriented positions, although AION 2's classes are not all confined to perfectly rigid boxes. Chanter in particular brings hybrid support tools, while Gladiator offers a different kind of frontline presence from the more dedicated Templar.

Whether the eventual global meta settles into a strict tank-healer-three-DPS formula remains to be seen. MMO players have an impressive historical talent for taking any flexible combat system and eventually converting it into a spreadsheet containing one correct answer.

Expedition and Transcendence Form Part of the Dungeon Structure

Two important names to remember are Expedition and Transcendence. These are established dungeon categories in AION 2's existing service and have received new instances, difficulties and reward adjustments throughout 2026.

NC's Chapter 1 update, for example, introduced the Expedition dungeon Citadel of the Fallen Daeva and the Transcendence dungeon Abyssal Horn Den. Both were designed for level 50 players on the Korean service, with increasing item-level requirements at higher difficulties.

Again, those particular Chapter 1 additions are useful examples of where AION 2's PvE goes rather than a promise that every current Korean dungeon will appear in global Season 1. The global build deliberately starts earlier in the content timeline while incorporating newer balance and quality-of-life improvements.

That distinction is going to be important over the next few months. Watching a Korean streamer enter a dungeon does not automatically mean you have somehow failed to unlock it on the global server.

Ten-Player Content Is the Next Step Up

AION 2's larger organized PvE uses 10-player groups. NC expanded Sanctuary content from eight players to ten during 2026, and the official global Steam description now specifically advertises 10-player group dungeons alongside five-player party content.

This is the part of AION 2 closest to what most MMO players would describe as raiding. Larger groups allow encounters to demand more coordination, wider role coverage and mechanics that would become rather unreasonable if attempted by somebody alone at two in the morning.

NC has continued building high-end Sanctuary encounters on the Korean service throughout the year, giving us a good indication that 10-player PvE is intended as a genuine progression layer rather than a novelty activity that players clear once and forget.

For guilds preparing for global launch, ten is therefore a useful number to remember. You do not need a forty-person roster held together by spreadsheets, attendance officers and low-level workplace politics, but organized endgame PvE will still reward having a reliable group larger than a standard dungeon party.

Dungeon Entry Has Already Been Made Less Annoying

Some of the most encouraging changes have happened around the dungeons rather than inside them.

During the July Chapter 1 update, NC removed the tickets previously required for Expedition and Transcendence dungeon entry on the Korean service. Rewards were instead tied to Odyle Energy. Players were also allowed to use mounts inside many dungeon areas, while the group-size expansion to five and ten players arrived at the same time.

Those changes are relevant to global players because NC has repeatedly said that the global version benefits from newer quality-of-life lessons instead of recreating the Korean launch exactly as it happened. It is the same philosophy behind smoother progression and reducing some of the pressure from mandatory daily and weekly routines.

That does not mean AION 2 suddenly has no progression currencies, reward limits or systems encouraging repeat visits. It means NC has already spent months discovering which pieces of friction players tolerated and which pieces mainly caused them to stare angrily at the interface.

What Does “Over 200 Dungeons” Actually Mean?

This is the part where we should resist turning marketing into mathematics.

NC officially says AION 2 has over 200 dungeons spanning multiple formats. It has not, at the time of writing, provided a public global-launch spreadsheet containing 200 individually named, completely distinct dungeons. Difficulty variants, solo challenges, seasonal content and the expanding Korean content library all form part of the broader PvE ecosystem.

So the sensible takeaway is not "AION 2 launches with 200 raids."

The useful takeaway is that NC is positioning instanced PvE as one of AION 2's major pillars rather than allowing the Abyss and faction warfare to dominate the entire endgame. Players who have little interest in the Abyss, Rifts and AION 2's faction PvP systems still have a substantial progression path built around PvE.

PvE and PvP Still Overlap in the Wider World

That separation is not absolute. NC specifically says the Abyss ensures PvE and faction warfare are never completely far apart, while open-world events provide another type of content outside traditional instances.

AION 2 is still a game about Elyos and Asmodians occupying the same rather unstable world. The difference is that you are not required to treat every evening as a faction war simply because you want better equipment.

The global version includes more player control over open-world PvP, while dedicated PvE offers solo, small-group and larger-group alternatives. That broader choice may turn out to be one of the more important differences between AION 2 and memories of the original game.

AION 2 Looks Much More PvE-Heavy Than the Trailers Suggest

Flight, faction warfare and giant airborne battles are much easier to put in a trailer than five people carefully learning a dungeon boss mechanic. But underneath the spectacle, NC appears to be building a fairly conventional MMO progression ladder with an unusually large amount of instanced content.

You can play alone. You can build a five-player party. You can move into ten-player group content. Seasonal challenges and rankings give repeat clears additional purpose, while later Korean updates show that NC intends to keep expanding all three layers.

Exactly how those 200-plus dungeons are distributed across the global Season 1 build will become much clearer once players reach the endgame after the October 5 global launch.

But one thing is already clear: AION 2 is not simply an open-world faction war with a few caves attached.

There is a lot of PvE hiding underneath those wings.

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