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Eventually when you got into the higher brackets, everyone else had the mods too and it evened out.
. I still think it's in better shape now, and these all could be solved/tweaked with patches... they're not core game flaws. Now, onto the good: !
Below is my list... some of them are old concerns, some new. I am playing on Region 10 with 1.2 right now...
1) Death penalties are too harsh at high Abyss Point ranks (20+ kills lost for a single death!). This still happens... unless you're not trying to push high rank you lose a lot.
Valid concern. However, are you speaking from personal experience or from a source? Either way, this is a large critique: can you provide proof?
2) There's no reward for healing ala WAR/WOW/DAOC. You're better off to just damage an enemy if you're after points, rather than heal an ally. Still exists like this... people will do what rewards them in the end, not what is the "nice" thing to do in an MMO.
Note: There is no reward for healing outside of group. I'll be rolling in Open PvP/World PvP in groups for the most part, rather than running solo. As a result, I'll be relying on group members healing me while I dish out the damage as a sorc. If I get a kill, the AP will be split evenly across the group. I played WAR for a while, and while that system was cool, it really created a lot of greedy healers. With diminishing returns (which you would need to have with a reward-healing system), you would find a lot smaller groups or even solo healers being formed so that RP gain would be maximized. I dunno, to me, it kind of sucked as healers would break themselves off the group to better off themselves rather than think collectively. I like this system as I want to help the healer just as much as I want them to help me. In WAR at least, I felt it created a "scattered" effect by having so many groups thinking for themselves.
4) Bag space? I don't know if it expands later, but it seems small so far at 27 slots. It expands, but very slowly as you level and costs a lot of money for a first-time player to expand as you go.
You get 27 when you first start playing the game. You can get an additional 9 when you're level 4 for 1000 kinah (which isn't that much at even around lvl 5-6). You can even 9 more when you're level 11/12 once you get into Santcum/Pandemodiem for about 10k. You shouldn't be that strapped for cash at those levels, if so, you're doing something wrong. At lvl 16, I had to spend 45k for sorc training books... which was bearable.
5) Ignore feature: it seems to not work on some people, but does on others. I'm not really sure why. Still bugged sometimes, mainly an issue with goldspammers.
6) No dual targeting: you can't have a target to heal and one to attack without switching back and forth. Skill or not, it's a convenience most MMO's have now.
If you like this, play WAR. I personally don't like it that much, now that I think about it. It really gives a strong advantage for support classes as you're able to cast off both defensive and offensive spells without ever having to change a target. If you're not a healer, you're always pure offense and fighting a class who can do both spells without any "skill" required to switch back and forth under pressure, is sort of bogus considering how well clerics/chanters can heal in the game. Even as a sorc, range DPS, its goddamn hard to completely overpower a healer's heals (in early-mid game, dunno about late) since the heals scale very well. Like you said, its a "convenience" that other MMO's offer. If you need it, don't play a healer class in Aion or at all.
7)The game roots/stuns you as your cast animations finish after the buildtime is done for upward of 2 seconds depending on the spell. This makes it so you can't cast a spell and run, as well as introducing an artificial and variable global cooldown
I need to test this further. I could actually "jump" out of my casts when they were 80% done on my sorc during CB3. During CB4, I found that my casts that proc chains, it was really difficult to jump during end cast. Non cast chains, still work fine. I'll see whether the same thing persists on CB5.
8) Resurrection penalties are pretty stiff, even once you have the ones that summon you to your rezzer's location: huge stat debuff, high snare (40%+), and loss of XP/Abyss Points (depending on your level) for a minute or two. It makes combat rezzing a less useful tactic than it should be.
As how it should be. Death should not be considered lightly, IMO. To be honest, I LOVE THIS. That's the one thing that pissed me off about WAR.. how easy it was to just die, and being rezz'd almost instantly due to shaman & AM having no cast on ressurection. While it is nice being on the receiving end of that, it makes battles really boring and drawn out. I can't recall how many times I've had hour long fights between groups of 20-30 people, and killed literally the same guy 15-20 times in that period. This puts more strategy in each group's tactics and have to actually be concerned about death for losing the entire battle.
9) You can't swim. If the water's too deep, even in a lake you want to cut through, your character walks along the bottom and dies instead of just swimming across.
Agreed, this is pretty stupid. Wish we could swim.
10) No mounts (artificially inceased travel time, even with gliding).
The towns are actually pretty close, that I'm not worried about mounts. Going from Verteron to Tolbas village takes what... 3-5 mins, max? Teleporting, flight and gliding make the walking around bearable, considering there's lots of mobs around to grind off in the mean time. I can glide for pretty darn long distances if I get a good launch off. With travel scrolls and increased run speed potions being plentiful in higher levels... this isn't an issue.
11) You have to "rest" for 30-60 seconds to regain your mana after a bit. This is a pain in PVP where it makes you a sitting duck... I wouldn't care about the time so much if you didn't have to sit in one place while doing so (you have to activate a "rest" mode, you can't stand there, or just run around while waiting to stay safe).
I don't know what class you're playing in Aion, probably a healer, but that's bogus. I play a Sorc whose MP burn is nothing what you experience. If I'm not aware of what I am doing, after killing 2-3 mobs, I can go through about 2-3k MP (almost my entire bar). I duo with a Chanter and her MP bar never goes down as severely as mine does. However, once I got to the 'teens, I got a skill that regains mana every minute. That, coupled with Mana Treatment II, and some occasional mana potions (they're like 200 per potion and I have like ... 50-60k, which is considered poor), I hardly ever have MP downtime now. Sure its rough on Sorcs in the beginning, but it gets better later, especially if you're aware of what skills to use. In PvP, use pots and mana treatment? You can't expect to constantly heal on end forever without any burn can you?
12) I touched on this above, but the randomized global cooldown from the stun after casts finish, is very hard to keep track of (one heal might stun you for 1 second, but the main heal you use might stun you for 2, and this time varies from every single different spell type in the game).
Not sure what you're talking about here, haven't had exposure to it.
13) No real ranking system for PVP (Abyss Points get spent once you reach a certain rank, buying items and de-ranking you again... it's more like an alternate currency than a Realm/Renown Rank/Honor Rank type system).
Personally, I don't really mind. Makes it easier to get the Abyss gear, IMO. Since you get more AP for killing higher ranked enemies, ranking down and ranking up again will make it easier rather than constantly being on top. At least in Aion, ranking up in the AP system will get you the best gear with some determination and (hopefully) skill. I hated (in the past), that you had to run PvE instances of LV, Crypts, BS, to get gear, to want to do end-game RvR.
14) No /stuck command: your only options if stuck in the world are to either A) wait on a petition/support ticket, or B) hope a player stumbles upon you that is willing to duel and has a knock-away type ability to jostle you free.
Haven't had that happen to me yet. Surprising, considering I've probably played about 40 hours of CB, and was /stuck so very much in WAR release.
15) When flying, using the Rise or Fall keys to go straight up or down is about 1.75x as fast as just pointing your camera down and moving that way... so unless you dedicate two keys/buttons to those commands you are at a disadvantage, plus it's a weird annoyance to have to use them while steering with your mouse if you want to not be a snail.
I dedicate buttons to it .... lol. I just feel like you're grasping for straws here. If you don't want to assign two keys and have two spells there... then great, you'll be at an advantage to those who don't have two spells assigned to those keys. Basically you're saying "F U" to NCSoft for giving players to freedom to choose?
16) Guilds cap out at 90 characters (not players, characters...) at their max level (3), with fewer allowed (30/60) for levels 1 and 2. This is an annoying and unneeded artificial restriction that will make it so most good guilds allow mains only, leaving your alts without communication or alliance chat/other guild features.
I personally know a lot of guilds will be making alt guilds. TBH, most guilds who are level >2-3 will probably have ventrilo running or some 3rd party VoIP setup. Hence, I don't think communication within the guild will be an issue. The limit could be raised though. I think NCSoft seems to want to focus legions into players working cohesively, rather than zerg zerg combat (which I got fully from war)
That about sums up my complaints
If you really want to play it's not to late to join the beta tomorrow
Get your pre-order from Steam. They also give you 7 days extra play time free if you get it from them. Game releases on Sept 22nd, I get play time till Oct 29 before I get my bill.