AION 2's first Halloween: how Trick or Treat works, what the Pumpkin Coins buy, and what the skins cost

AION 2's global servers got their first seasonal event with the October 13 (PDT) / October 14 (CEST) maintenance. It is a classic login-and-missions event: show up, do the weekly content you were doing anyway, and spend the coins at a merchant in the first town. Everything below comes from NC's own patch notes and skin notice; where the notes are silent, we say so.

The dates

The Halloween event runs from the maintenance on Tuesday, October 13 (PDT) / Wednesday, October 14 (CEST) until the maintenance on Tuesday, November 3 (PST) / Wednesday, November 4 (CET): three weekly resets. Two things attached to it end on other days. The Conquerors of the Abyss sale closes with the October 27 (PDT) / October 28 (CET) maintenance, and the Halloween skins stay in the Atelier until the November 24 (PST) / November 25 (CET) maintenance. (Clocks go back on October 25 in Europe and November 1 in North America, which is why NC's notices switch from PDT to PST and CEST to CET mid-event.)

Trick or Treat: 620 coins for logging in

The attendance board, under the in-game Attendance menu, pays Halloween Pumpkin Coin (Event) for 14 days: 35 coins on each ordinary day and 100 on day 7 and day 14, 620 in all. The event lasts 21 days, so there is a week of slack for the days you miss. The notes do not say whether the board is per character or per account.

Weekly event missions: up to 230 coins a week

A new Event tab under Season Mission lists ten missions, each once per week per server:

• 25 coins each: hunt 10 monsters in the Abyss; clear a Transcendence dungeon; clear an Expedition Conquest; clear an Ascension Trial; clear any Nightmare stage.
• 30 coins: log in three times.
• 20 coins each: obtain one piece of Unique gear; use five scrolls; take part in a Dimensional Invasion; take part in a Shugo Festival.

That is 230 a week, 690 over the three resets, and 1,310 coins in total with full attendance. None of the missions asks for anything beyond the weekly content a level-45 character already runs; the Unique-gear one is the only mission that may need a drop.

The Coin Merchant, and what to buy first

A Coin Merchant NPC stands in the starting regions: Dawn Legion Base and Zumion Village in Verteron for Elyos, Safe Haven and Nornir Assembly in Altgard for Asmodians. The stock, in Halloween Pumpkin Coins:

• Special Halloween Chest, 250 coins, one per server, level 10. It holds the Spooky Scary Skeleton breastplate skin and 10,000 Pet Soul Crystals. The skin exists nowhere else, so this is the first purchase.
• Skin Chest (10 times), 15 coins, five per server per week, level 10.
• Odyle Energy, 10 coins, four per server per week, level 45.
• Lower Abyss Rift Stone, 30 coins, two per server per week, level 45.
• Nightmare Dungeon Challenge Ticket and Shugo Festival Reward Key, 7 coins each, three of each per server per week.
• Instant Clear Ticket: Daily Dungeon, 3 coins, seven per server per week.
• Resurrection Spiritstone, 2 coins, ten per server per week.
• Life Crystal, 2 coins, 20 per character; Halloween Candy and Halloween Cookie, 2 coins each, 10 of each per character.
• Superior Power Shard, 1 coin, no limit, for whatever is left.

Everything is bound. By our count, buying every weekly item at its limit costs 258 coins a week, so 774 for the event, plus 250 for the chest and 80 for the per-character consumables: 1,104 coins against the 1,310 a full run earns. The shop is sized so that a character who logs in daily and clears the ten missions can take everything, with about 200 coins left for Power Shards. If you will miss weeks, the chest, the Odyle Energy and the Rift Stones are the items worth the coins; the tickets and spiritstones are cheap filler.

The candy and the cookie are five-minute food buffs. The candy gives Attack 25, Defense 250, Max Stamina 300 and 40% natural stamina regeneration; the cookie gives Max HP 500, Max MP 250, Max Stamina 300 and the same regeneration.

Candy Keys: the dungeon side of the event

Expedition and Transcendence dungeons drop Candy Key Fragments for the length of the event. Sixty fragments morph, at 100% success, into a Red, Yellow or Blue Candy Key, each colour once per week per server, and the keys open the event candies placed around the towns. The notes list what each candy holds:

• Red Candy: 20 Growth Pet Chests, 10 Battle Enhance Scrolls, 5 Halloween Candy, 5 Halloween Cookie.
• Yellow Candy: 10,000 Abyss Points, 10 Life Crystals, 5 candy, 5 cookie.
• Blue Candy: 4 Odyle Energy, 10 Resurrection Spiritstones, 5 candy, 5 cookie.

That is 180 fragments a week for all three keys. NC does not say how many fragments a run drops, so whether a casual week covers one key or three is something only the first reset will tell. Fragments you cannot use morph one-for-ten into Superior Power Shards, so nothing is wasted. The Blue key's four Odyle Energy are the prize for anyone already running Expeditions and Transcendence; the Yellow key's 10,000 Abyss Points are a lot for one key.

Conquerors of the Abyss, the same two weeks

Separately, from the same maintenance until the one on October 27 (PDT) / October 28 (CET), the Wind Breeze Merchants' Special tab sells an event Abyss Rift Stone for 50,000 Kinah (NC's global notices spell it Kina), seven per character per week, level 45 and up. The same patch adds Abyss Entry Stones to two weekly Abyss missions (spend an hour in the Abyss; defeat the Boss Guardian Lord Nahma once), caps accumulated Abyss entry time at seven hours, and promises less stuttering in large battles. Together with the Lower Abyss Rift Stones at the Coin Merchant, October is the month to learn the Abyss.

The paid side: the Halloween skins

The Atelier's Halloween collection runs until the November 24 (PST) / November 25 (CET) maintenance, with prices as listed for the PURPLE store:

• Three skin sets at $29.99 (4,350 Mileage each): Monarch of Blood, six pieces including a cloak; Midnight Witch and Midnight Slasher, five pieces each. The pieces can be customised but not traded, deleted or stored.
• Halloween Night weapon skins at $11.99 (1,750 Mileage): eight of them, one per weapon type, and each can only be bought by the class that uses it.
• Two pets at $19.99 (2,900 Mileage), Pumpkin Carriage and Little Ghost, once per server each.
• Spider Wings at $19.99 (2,900 Mileage), once per character, bound, claimed through the Cube.
• Fifteen head pieces at 300 Quna each: four helms and facewear (Dapper-O'-Lantern, Jack-O'-Lantern, Face Bandages, Frankenstein Bolts) with no purchase limit, and eleven Decor eyewear and facewear pieces (Tears of Blood, Clown Facepaint, Pumpkin Clown, Red Scar Facepaint, Death Mask, Black Cat Facepaint, Vampire Night, Ghost Tattoo, Pumpkin Cutie, Dracula Fangs, Slasher's Muzzle), once per server.

NC's Daeva Lookbook page shows the three sets on a male and a female character. The free Spooky Scary Skeleton breastplate from the event chest is the only Halloween cosmetic you can earn without paying.

What the notes do not say

Whether missed attendance days can be caught up; whether the attendance board is per character or per account; how many Candy Key Fragments a run drops; and whether Ludra's return, which the Producer's Letter posted the same day names as the next thing on the calendar, overlaps with Halloween. We will update this page when NC does.