[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
[TERA Console] The Grotto of Lost Souls update (v85) is now live! Read the patch notes here: https://bit.ly/TERACon_v85
[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
[TERA PC & CONSOLE] Summerfest Part 2: The Beach Bash is on from August 11 until September 1! Participate in event activities to earn tokens redeemable for costumes, consumables, mounts, and more! Details: https://bit.ly/tera_sf20
Character Progression, Monetization, and Wealth Accumulation
I have been Tera since F2P and just wanted to share my thoughts on Tera's current character progression, monetization, and wealth accumulation.
Character progression during leveling
-Main quest line and dungeons are the primary methods to progress.
-New Tutorial island is much better as teaching the basics of gameplay to new players.
-New damage indicators is a great addition and reduces the learning curve for new players
-Vanguard quests needs to be explained better. Some new players think they should be completing all the vanguard quests when those quests are totally optional.
-Dungeon -> IMS has long wait time due to lack of healers and no option to queue without healer&tank. Newbies are thinking no one is queuing for dungeon when it is just a lack of healers.
->Soloing has difficulty increased substantially due to Boss HP increase. Although veteran players can still solo the dungeons (except SM's last boss), new players will not likely be able to solo at all.
->Manual PUG and guild runs. Used almost exclusively by veteran players and dungeon difficulty is trivial to those groups.
->Skipping dungeons. Will miss out on dungeon rewards, but soloing BAMs and doing main quest is viable but much slower.
-low level PVP is still allowed. This will hinder your progress if you chose to play on a PVP server.
Character progression at end game.
-Tera still very group centric for gearing at end game. Difficulty jumps substantially at DFNM. Manual grouping instead of IMS will be needed at DFNM and beyond for efficient clears. It will usually take a static group or being in a top geared guild to clear the hardest dungeon efficiently.
-Soloing: Can be used to acquire low/mid level PVE gear by completing quests at Island of Dawn/Celestial Arena. Clearing BAMs required for mid level gear takes a while with entry-level gear, and masterwork alkahests/feedstock shortage will occur. Acquiring wealth is difficult via soloing.
-PVPing: Very low win rate if you are soloing or group with inexperienced players. Max geared with max geared experienced teammates is the way to go for continuous wins. Definitely not a viable gearing path for new players.
Monetization:
Subscription/Elite + Cash shop.
Elite (30 days) is very useful IF you play Tera for numerous hours per day. The increase in credit boost and free consumables will play pay for Elite's costs overtime. If you are casual, it is usually cheaper to sell Elite and buy whatever to want off Auction House itself.
Costumes are still heavily monetized in the Cash shop. Loot box give costume as jackpot prize and the chance to get the costume is low. A fairly dated way to monetize as most modern F2P games sell costumes directly and heavily monetize gear progression instead. Since gear progression materials are given as consolation prizes from the loot boxes, there will be a huge influx of materials into the game economy anytime a popular costume is released. This will cause material prices to keep on decreasing relative to the value of gold.
Cash shop's search feature is much better now. Layout could still use some improvement. A fresh 65 who wants to spend $20 to help himself gear up probably won't know which items he should buy.
Wealth Accumulation:
Usually in a F2P MMORPG, players are given a choice to spend a unit of play time to acquire in-game rewards or spend money to acquire it instantly. The amount of play time needed is gated so that only a certain percentage of players will be able to fully gear up by playing alone.
In TERA, there is a great difference in the amount of rewards earned by a veteran player compared to a newbie player. This is mainly due of the back crit positioning system used by TERA. Hitting the boss from behind vs front/side produces damage output that is several magnitudes higher. Veteran players who have experience will have consistent backside uptime behind a boss compared to a new players. This is why veteran players can achieve 4-5x damage on a boss according to DPS meter vs new players. This leads to elitism, and why veteran players do not want to play with new players. Veteran players can clear dungeons and obtain rewards several times faster by grouping with other veteran players. I don't think it is possible for a developer to design content that gives a fair reward per time spent to new & veteran players with the back crit system in place. For players, it just means new players will not find it worth their time to play the game because they take much longer to acquire the same rewards compared to veteran players. If a new player isn't skilled enough to clear DFNM yet, and he can't acquire meaningful rewards per unit of player time, what is there to keep him to continue playing?
Conclusion:
TERA is a MMORPG with a high "Knowledge & Skill" threshold. I really enjoyed playing TERA and I think it is a great game if you can get past the "Knowledge & Skill" threshold to fully experience Tera's content. The team here at Enmasse seems like people who really care about this game and responds to concerns. I hope my post gave some players a little bit more insight into the the game from the view point of a veteran player. I wish you all the very best on your adventures in TERA.
Character progression during leveling
-Main quest line and dungeons are the primary methods to progress.
-New Tutorial island is much better as teaching the basics of gameplay to new players.
-New damage indicators is a great addition and reduces the learning curve for new players
-Vanguard quests needs to be explained better. Some new players think they should be completing all the vanguard quests when those quests are totally optional.
-Dungeon -> IMS has long wait time due to lack of healers and no option to queue without healer&tank. Newbies are thinking no one is queuing for dungeon when it is just a lack of healers.
->Soloing has difficulty increased substantially due to Boss HP increase. Although veteran players can still solo the dungeons (except SM's last boss), new players will not likely be able to solo at all.
->Manual PUG and guild runs. Used almost exclusively by veteran players and dungeon difficulty is trivial to those groups.
->Skipping dungeons. Will miss out on dungeon rewards, but soloing BAMs and doing main quest is viable but much slower.
-low level PVP is still allowed. This will hinder your progress if you chose to play on a PVP server.
Character progression at end game.
-Tera still very group centric for gearing at end game. Difficulty jumps substantially at DFNM. Manual grouping instead of IMS will be needed at DFNM and beyond for efficient clears. It will usually take a static group or being in a top geared guild to clear the hardest dungeon efficiently.
-Soloing: Can be used to acquire low/mid level PVE gear by completing quests at Island of Dawn/Celestial Arena. Clearing BAMs required for mid level gear takes a while with entry-level gear, and masterwork alkahests/feedstock shortage will occur. Acquiring wealth is difficult via soloing.
-PVPing: Very low win rate if you are soloing or group with inexperienced players. Max geared with max geared experienced teammates is the way to go for continuous wins. Definitely not a viable gearing path for new players.
Monetization:
Subscription/Elite + Cash shop.
Elite (30 days) is very useful IF you play Tera for numerous hours per day. The increase in credit boost and free consumables will play pay for Elite's costs overtime. If you are casual, it is usually cheaper to sell Elite and buy whatever to want off Auction House itself.
Costumes are still heavily monetized in the Cash shop. Loot box give costume as jackpot prize and the chance to get the costume is low. A fairly dated way to monetize as most modern F2P games sell costumes directly and heavily monetize gear progression instead. Since gear progression materials are given as consolation prizes from the loot boxes, there will be a huge influx of materials into the game economy anytime a popular costume is released. This will cause material prices to keep on decreasing relative to the value of gold.
Cash shop's search feature is much better now. Layout could still use some improvement. A fresh 65 who wants to spend $20 to help himself gear up probably won't know which items he should buy.
Wealth Accumulation:
Usually in a F2P MMORPG, players are given a choice to spend a unit of play time to acquire in-game rewards or spend money to acquire it instantly. The amount of play time needed is gated so that only a certain percentage of players will be able to fully gear up by playing alone.
In TERA, there is a great difference in the amount of rewards earned by a veteran player compared to a newbie player. This is mainly due of the back crit positioning system used by TERA. Hitting the boss from behind vs front/side produces damage output that is several magnitudes higher. Veteran players who have experience will have consistent backside uptime behind a boss compared to a new players. This is why veteran players can achieve 4-5x damage on a boss according to DPS meter vs new players. This leads to elitism, and why veteran players do not want to play with new players. Veteran players can clear dungeons and obtain rewards several times faster by grouping with other veteran players. I don't think it is possible for a developer to design content that gives a fair reward per time spent to new & veteran players with the back crit system in place. For players, it just means new players will not find it worth their time to play the game because they take much longer to acquire the same rewards compared to veteran players. If a new player isn't skilled enough to clear DFNM yet, and he can't acquire meaningful rewards per unit of player time, what is there to keep him to continue playing?
Conclusion:
TERA is a MMORPG with a high "Knowledge & Skill" threshold. I really enjoyed playing TERA and I think it is a great game if you can get past the "Knowledge & Skill" threshold to fully experience Tera's content. The team here at Enmasse seems like people who really care about this game and responds to concerns. I hope my post gave some players a little bit more insight into the the game from the view point of a veteran player. I wish you all the very best on your adventures in TERA.
2
Comments
I don't...what?