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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