The settings to change first
Option names below are exactly as they appear in the English client. Open the settings with Esc → the cog icon (Settings).
| Where | Option | Set to | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Key Settings → General | Macro | a comfortable key, usually right click | empty by default, and without a key the macro does nothing |
| Key Settings → General | Fly Up / Fly Down | comfortable keys | Ctrl+R and Ctrl+F by default |
| Combat → Target Scanning | Preferred Search Direction | Front of Camera | Tab takes the target you are looking at |
| Combat → Target Scanning | Target Scanning Detailed Settings | Priority Ranking, Hostile Players on top | in the Abyss, Tab grabs the player, not the mob |
| Combat → Auto-use | Buff Auto-use Conditions | In Combat | buff scrolls stop burning while you run around town |
| Graphics → Optimize | Effect Quality | Low or Very Low | the most FPS and far less flashing |
| Graphics → Optimize | Player Particle Effect Display | Self and Party or Self Only | the game stops drawing strangers' effects |
| Graphics → Optimize | NVIDIA Reflex | Boost | lower input delay (NVIDIA cards only) |
| Info Display → Common | Pets (other players' pets) | off | fewer objects on screen |
| Info Display → Combat | Display Boss Orientation Indicator | Front, Back or All | shows where the boss's front and back are |
| Graphics → Camera / Direction | Teleport Effect Color | Dark | no more white flash on every teleport |
| Graphics → Camera / Direction | Camera Shake Effect During Combat | off | a calmer picture (a matter of taste) |
Every one of these shows up in several guides at once (Grobs, couga54, FRESHY, Nova Gaming, Mako, MeinMMO). Below we explain what each option does and when to set it differently.
Graphics: more FPS without guesswork
Everything is under Graphics → Optimize. Instead of a ready preset (Very Low to Very High), pick Custom: keep what you can see high and lower what eats FPS (MistaWigglez, FRESHY, Solashur).
Display, resolution and upscaler
- Display Mode: Borderless Window if you Alt+Tab a lot (Discord, browser). Fullscreen gives the game a bit more resources and, on some systems, slightly lower latency (TroubleChute, MistaWigglez, FRESHY).
- Resolution: your monitor's native resolution. Don't drop from 1440p to 1080p; use the upscaler instead (FRESHY, MistaWigglez).
- Vertical Sync: off in game (Kephren, Nova Gaming, MistaWigglez, TroubleChute).
- Upscaler: the choices are TAA, TSR, DLSS and FSR; there is no XeSS (space4games, TroubleChute). NVIDIA card → DLSS, AMD card → FSR. TAA and TSR look blurrier (Kephren, TroubleChute).
- Resolution Scale: this is the upscaler quality. Start on Quality. Short on FPS at 1440p or 4K → Balanced (TroubleChute, Kephren, FRESHY).
- Frame Generator: only works with DLSS or FSR (space4games, TroubleChute). It adds frames but also input lag, so for PvP and anything reaction-heavy, turn it off and lower settings instead (Mako, FRESHY, Kephren, TroubleChute).
- NVIDIA Reflex: Boost on NVIDIA cards for lower latency (Nova Gaming, Kephren, FRESHY, AzuriteTV).
The options that eat the most FPS
| Option | Set to | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Effect Quality | Low or Very Low; Normal if you want it prettier | the biggest FPS impact of any option, and far less flashing (TroubleChute, couga54, Kephren) |
| Shadow Quality | Low, no lower | a clear FPS gain (Kephren, TroubleChute, MistaWigglez) |
| Reflection Quality | Low or Very Low | reflections are heavy on the GPU (Kephren, TroubleChute) |
| Cloud Quality | lower it when short on FPS | clouds cost a lot (Kephren, TroubleChute, MistaWigglez) |
| Global Illumination Quality | Normal or Low | Very Low gains FPS, but the game looks flat (Kephren, TroubleChute) |
| Vegetation Quality | Normal | above that, grass eats a lot of FPS (Kephren, MistaWigglez) |
| Volumetric Light Scattering | off | barely any visible difference, more FPS (TroubleChute, MistaWigglez, couga54) |
| Ambient Occlusion | NCAO | the other option (GTAO) costs noticeably more (TroubleChute, Kephren, Nova Gaming) |
| Water Reflection Method | Performance | cheaper water reflections (Kephren, Nova Gaming); TroubleChute keeps Quality because the cost is small |
| Post-Processing Quality | Very Low or Low if the blur bothers you | less bloom and blur (Solashur, Kephren) |
Safe to leave alone:
- Texture Quality and Model Quality mostly use VRAM and cost little FPS. With plenty of VRAM go High or Very High; on an 8 GB card, don't max them (TroubleChute, Kephren, Nova Gaming).
- Shading Quality barely changes the picture or the FPS (TroubleChute, Kephren).
- Anti-Aliasing does nothing with DLSS or FSR on, because the upscaler handles smoothing (Kephren, TroubleChute).
- Volumetric Fog: opinions differ. Kephren and MistaWigglez turn it off for FPS; TroubleChute measured no difference and keeps it on.
Big Abyss fights and crowded bosses
The game struggles with dozens of players on screen (Grobs, Medieval Marty). Before a world boss or an Abyss fight, change:
- Player Particle Effect Display → Self Only (only your effects) or Self and Party. This is the single most recommended change (Grobs, Medieval Marty, FRESHY, MistaWigglez, AzuriteTV).
- Mass Combat Quality → Low or Very Low. It's the first slider to lower in a crowd (space4games, FRESHY, Solashur).
- Identical Player Appearance → on. Other players get the same simple look, and your PC has far less to draw (Grobs, FRESHY, couga54, Solashur). AzuriteTV notes it only works in the Abyss.
- [Abyss] Display as Tier Icon → on. Enemy nameplates in the Abyss become small rank icons, so there's less text on screen (couga54, FRESHY).
Weaker PC: where to start
NC says it plainly on the Steam page: on minimum-spec hardware (GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB, 8 GB RAM) use the Very Low preset at Full HD, and on recommended hardware (RTX 2070 8 GB, 16 GB RAM) use Low. The game needs 100 GB of space and an SSD is recommended.
Start from that preset, switch to Custom and raise options one at a time. Begin with textures (if your card has the VRAM), since they cost the least FPS.
Combat: aiming and targeting
These live under Combat → Controls and Combat → Target Scanning. There's no single right answer here: melee, ranged and PvP all want something different.
Control mode: AION 2 or AION 1
Control Mode has two options. AION 2 is the action mode: a crosshair in the middle of the screen, the camera follows the mouse, and you hold Alt to show the cursor. AION 1 is the classic free-cursor mode. Most guides recommend AION 2 (FRESHY, Nova Gaming, Solashur, couga54). In AION 1 mode you can't put the macro on a mouse button (more in the macro guide). There's a separate key to switch modes (Switch Control Mode).
Hard lock and soft lock
When you aim at an enemy, a white circle appears around it. That's a soft lock: skills go there, but the target changes as soon as you turn the camera. Two arrows on its HP bar mean a hard lock: the target stays until you change it. Tab always hard-locks (Grobs, couga54).
| Option | Default | Who sets what |
|---|---|---|
| Set Main Target Upon Attack | on (every attack hard-locks) | Melee: turn it off. You jump from target to target quickly and lock bosses with Tab (Grobs, Mako, MeinMMO). FRESHY, Nova Gaming and Solashur keep it on. |
| Auto Target Upon Skill Use | off | Turn it on for open-world farming, especially on ranged classes: a skill with no target picks the nearest mob (Grobs, Medieval Marty, MeinMMO, FRESHY). Turn it off in PvP, where you need full control (FRESHY, Nova Gaming). |
| Pursue Targets with Skill Activation | off | Leave it off. When on, your character runs to an out-of-range target by itself, which gets in the way in PvP (FRESHY, MR4KTV, Solashur, couga54). For farming it can speed up moving between mobs (FRESHY, Nova Gaming). |
| Skill Queue | — | Sources disagree. Details and how to test it yourself: macros. |
Tab and Target Scanning
By default Tab takes the closest target, whether it's in front of you or behind you (couga54, Mako, MeinMMO). Change two things:
- Preferred Search Direction → Front of Camera. Tab looks where the camera points (Grobs, MR4KTV, FRESHY, couga54, MeinMMO).
- Target Scanning Detailed Settings → Priority Ranking, then move Hostile Players to first place and Players Attacking Me to second. In the Abyss an enemy player stands next to a mob, and Tab should grab the player (Grobs, Mako, couga54, Solashur, MeinMMO).
PvE only? You can keep the default priority order, but Front of Camera is still worth it (couga54, Nova Gaming). Instead of changing Tab, you can also bind Target Hostile Players in Key Settings, a key that only targets enemy players (Grobs, FRESHY, AzuriteTV).
Auto-use: potions, scrolls and loot
- Life Potion: the game drinks a life potion below a threshold, 70% HP by default. A lower threshold saves potions. X toggles auto-potions on and off (space4games, Solashur, Nova Gaming).
- Buff Auto-use Conditions → In Combat. On the default setting, buff scrolls also fire when you're just running around, which gets expensive (MR4KTV, FRESHY, couga54).
- Combat → Looting: filters what you pick up by gear rarity and item type. Handy when your bag keeps filling with junk gear (space4games, couga54).
Camera: less flashing and shaking
Under Graphics → Camera / Direction:
- Teleport Effect Color → Dark. By default every teleport flashes a white screen, which is brutal at night (Grobs, Mako, AzuriteTV, couga54, MeinMMO).
- Camera Shake Effect During Combat → off if the shaking bothers you. It's a matter of taste: MistaWigglez and AzuriteTV like it (Grobs, Mako, Nova Gaming, couga54).
- World Map Transition Animation → off. The map opens without an animation (couga54, Solashur, space4games, MeinMMO).
- Maximum View Distance → Far. This isn't draw distance; it's how far you can pull the camera back from your character (TroubleChute, Nova Gaming, Solashur).
- The camera speed sliders (horizontal and vertical) are effectively your mouse sensitivity. They're here, not under Combat (Mako, Solashur, space4games).
- Display Weapon Outside of Combat → on if you want your weapon always on your back. Pure cosmetics (Grobs, Mako, Medieval Marty).
Keys to bind right away
Under Key Settings → General. Change these on your first login so the habit sticks from the start (Grobs, FRESHY):
| Action | Default | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Macro | none | bind a comfortable key you can hold all fight, usually right click (Grobs, Mako, MR4KTV, couga54) |
| Fly Up / Fly Down | Ctrl+R / Ctrl+F | move them to comfortable keys or side mouse buttons (Grobs, Mako, couga54, MeinMMO) |
| Separate Defiance Hotkey | off | turn it on and give Defiance its own key. By default it shares Space with jump and glide, so under crowd control it's easy to take off gliding (couga54, FRESHY) |
| Target Hostile Players | — | e.g. middle mouse button if you go to the Abyss (Grobs, FRESHY, AzuriteTV) |
| Hotbar skills 5–8 | 5–8 | move them to keys closer to WASD or to mouse buttons (MR4KTV, FRESHY) |
Also good to know: Combat Analysis (Ctrl+X), the built-in meter for your own damage. Useful for comparing macro setups (space4games, couga54, Solashur).
Interface: less clutter on screen
Info Display
- Display Boss Orientation Indicator (Combat tab): off by default. Front for classes that hit from the front (Templar, Gladiator), Back for Assassin, All if you want both (Mako, MR4KTV, FRESHY, AzuriteTV, couga54).
- Aggro Range Display and Display Skill Range: show a mob's aggro range and your skills' range. Useful while leveling (FRESHY, couga54, space4games).
- Pets: turn off other players' pets; you can keep your own (Grobs, Mako, FRESHY, AzuriteTV, Solashur).
- Nameplate: hiding other players' names helps in huge fights. Your party's names stay (Solashur, AzuriteTV).
- HUD Key Guide: turn the key hints off once you know the controls (Solashur, AzuriteTV, Nova Gaming).
- Display Network Status: a ping indicator in the corner of the screen (couga54, Solashur, space4games).
- Floater is the flying damage numbers. You can turn them all off or one by one. Grobs keeps them but shrinks the UI (below), because without numbers the hits feel empty (Grobs, couga54, MeinMMO, FRESHY).
HUD editing and UI size
- UI Proportion (Graphics → Optimize) scales the whole interface together with the damage numbers. A smaller UI means smaller numbers covering the fight (Grobs, couga54, MeinMMO).
- Edit HUD in the Esc menu: move, resize and hide every element (Medieval Marty, space4games, AzuriteTV). Hide whatever you never look at. Medieval Marty, for example, removes the bottom HP and mana bars because he sees them above his character in combat.
- You can save several HUD layouts and export/import them, e.g. one for questing and one for group content (space4games, Solashur).
Controller instead of keyboard and mouse
NC said at Gamescom 2026 that controllers are supported (aion2hub), but its Launch FAQ (30 Sep) is more careful: the game is playable with a controller, but it is not officially supported (system requirements). The game's Steam page, however, doesn't list controller support among its features (as of 9 Oct 2026). Every settings guide we used describes keyboard and mouse play, and in practice the macro sits on a mouse button. If you play on a controller, the graphics, camera and Target Scanning settings in this guide work the same way.
Outside the game: Windows and drivers
- Update your GPU drivers before you start tweaking (TroubleChute, Kephren, Solashur).
- Check that Windows isn't holding your monitor at 60 Hz: Display settings → Advanced display → set the refresh rate to the maximum (Solashur, MistaWigglez, Kephren).
- Turn on Windows Game Mode (Kephren, MistaWigglez).
What not to install
Paid "ping boosters" (advertised by some creators) don't raise your FPS, and everything in this guide is free in the game menu. Third-party DPS meters and config file tweaks are a gray zone: we don't recommend them, because you're risking your account. The built-in Combat Analysis is enough to check your damage.
High ping? See which classes handle it best and how to set the delay in your macro. More things the game doesn't explain: 23 things Aion 2 doesn't tell you.
