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Fixing the lore/leveling/endgame
First of all, this is a suggestion/idea purely for discussion within the community. I'd like to get opinions from other players about this, and I don't expect anyone from EM to even read this.
To the point, here are some problems I hear from lots of guildies who now have quit the game:
One undeniable fact is that there are more and more regions in TERA that go virtually unused throughout the leveling process:
Fey Forest (lumbertown, gone), Tuwangi Mire (gone except on festival events), Bleakrock (I've only been there for yellow quests), Balderia (been shut off for ages), Chebika/Tulufan (you overlevel before you reach these areas), Serpentis Isle/Mistmoor Isle (same, overlevel), Some Essenian crest areas (overleveling), Scythera Fae, Freeholds, Most of North of Shara (you're level 60 by the time you reach these).
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This is a concequence of EM making the leveling process easier and better for all of us.
However why do these areas and the stories behind them go virtually unused?
Why not shift them from low level areas to level 65 zones? Especially if grouped in regions by theme (jungle, desert, snow etc).
The sugegstion is to narrow down the leveling progress, not much different than what it is now. Perhaps narrow down some areas that players don't even go to because of dungeon XP.
In end game, the player would have the linear story as is now, with the rotation of patch dungeons and gear progress. No changes to this.
However, in addition the player would be able to choose side story lines, which embark them on specific regions, each region featuring a set of permanent end game dungeons in the form of low-mid-high. These dungeons being non removable through patch cycles, and buffed in terms of BOSS HP with every patch.
For example, Chebika/Tulufan/Elenea could all group to provide the end game experience with a "Desert" quest storyline.
On top of this the end of the quest, finishing at the end of the high regional dungeon, would provide the user with gear, of low/mid average value, but with special buff for those specific regional dungeons. Player would choose to discard or keep.
Additionally, each new patch dungeon would feature a "region" flag, where this weapon would also have a buff. These gear would be non-crafable, only attained by quests.
The outcome gear-wise would be that the player chooses to get the all-purpose patch gear, or go for something quest based but of limited use. Players may decide to have one character per region, and use appropriately on the patch dungeons.
Additionally this would create more gameplay for end game which can gradually be added to game. Also the task to clear the "Desert" region would be something like the achievements we have currently in game.
In truth this would only help those of us who enjoy the feel of the game. It would not change anything for the ppl who play the game as is now, going through all the patch dungeons in the effort to get the highest gear etc etc.
New players who rush onto end-game to catch up on old players, would have more things to do once there.
Old players, bored af would have the option to get into more quests without having to level an alt. Especially if the regions are gradually added every 2-3 months.
The most important part is that there would be very little development needed to do this from BHS. It mostly involves, reusing content, moving teleportals around, adding some story progression that is probably already there in game maybe some strings translation. It does not require new dungeon mechanics etc, just to bring back these dungeons they keep removing, and keep them permanately in game in this form.
Finally, reminding this is just a bored-player's idea/suggestion, we'll never see it in game most probably. Also I know, I know there are far more important things for most of you out there to add to the game.
In any case I'd like to hear opinions on this from other players.
To the point, here are some problems I hear from lots of guildies who now have quit the game:
- There is no lore
- Leveling (especially 2nd char) is long and boring (even though EM has made it much faster in recent patches, I still get this from ppl)
- There's very little end-game, once they do the low/mid dungeons they quit.
One undeniable fact is that there are more and more regions in TERA that go virtually unused throughout the leveling process:
Fey Forest (lumbertown, gone), Tuwangi Mire (gone except on festival events), Bleakrock (I've only been there for yellow quests), Balderia (been shut off for ages), Chebika/Tulufan (you overlevel before you reach these areas), Serpentis Isle/Mistmoor Isle (same, overlevel), Some Essenian crest areas (overleveling), Scythera Fae, Freeholds, Most of North of Shara (you're level 60 by the time you reach these).
[/list]
This is a concequence of EM making the leveling process easier and better for all of us.
However why do these areas and the stories behind them go virtually unused?
Why not shift them from low level areas to level 65 zones? Especially if grouped in regions by theme (jungle, desert, snow etc).
The sugegstion is to narrow down the leveling progress, not much different than what it is now. Perhaps narrow down some areas that players don't even go to because of dungeon XP.
In end game, the player would have the linear story as is now, with the rotation of patch dungeons and gear progress. No changes to this.
However, in addition the player would be able to choose side story lines, which embark them on specific regions, each region featuring a set of permanent end game dungeons in the form of low-mid-high. These dungeons being non removable through patch cycles, and buffed in terms of BOSS HP with every patch.
For example, Chebika/Tulufan/Elenea could all group to provide the end game experience with a "Desert" quest storyline.
On top of this the end of the quest, finishing at the end of the high regional dungeon, would provide the user with gear, of low/mid average value, but with special buff for those specific regional dungeons. Player would choose to discard or keep.
Additionally, each new patch dungeon would feature a "region" flag, where this weapon would also have a buff. These gear would be non-crafable, only attained by quests.
The outcome gear-wise would be that the player chooses to get the all-purpose patch gear, or go for something quest based but of limited use. Players may decide to have one character per region, and use appropriately on the patch dungeons.
Additionally this would create more gameplay for end game which can gradually be added to game. Also the task to clear the "Desert" region would be something like the achievements we have currently in game.
In truth this would only help those of us who enjoy the feel of the game. It would not change anything for the ppl who play the game as is now, going through all the patch dungeons in the effort to get the highest gear etc etc.
New players who rush onto end-game to catch up on old players, would have more things to do once there.
Old players, bored af would have the option to get into more quests without having to level an alt. Especially if the regions are gradually added every 2-3 months.
The most important part is that there would be very little development needed to do this from BHS. It mostly involves, reusing content, moving teleportals around, adding some story progression that is probably already there in game maybe some strings translation. It does not require new dungeon mechanics etc, just to bring back these dungeons they keep removing, and keep them permanately in game in this form.
Finally, reminding this is just a bored-player's idea/suggestion, we'll never see it in game most probably. Also I know, I know there are far more important things for most of you out there to add to the game.
In any case I'd like to hear opinions on this from other players.
2
Comments
It's not possible. Even if you happen to propose this to the devs, and like Scrap said there's no dev here, it's just... not Tera, you're talking about another MMO, those changes are not even possible lol
Our player base isn't either big enough to shift player in regions like RO did with lvl brackets, you'll get ppl only attached to one specific area and not doing anything else, so, instead of players afking in HW, you'll find ppl afking in Chebika lol not much difference, you just spent tons of $$ to implement a nonsense shifting.
Or, ppl with "regional" gears will try to do patch dungeons and get roughly kicked out of parties, or find themselves unable to do anything with such a chaotic gearing process. It's overwhelming for a newbie, ask Revelation Online on that.
Truth is, leveling is not hard nor long, no need of narrowing it anyway, you maybe got feedback by new players.
Dungeon XP is vital for ppl loving to lvl 2 or more chars, you don't really want to force players to follow a story line (may it be even a story line they choose) like they did in BnS, or it becomes awfully boring. That's the reason why I quit BnS indeed.
So you can't really touch that part, but you would have to if you were going to really make something that much lore based.
You can't make a game for the ones who like to play it as it now, and the "others" lol
"In truth this would only help those of us who enjoy the feel of the game"
You said it. No1 really cares about the lore, and like I said, the playerbase is fairly low to do something like this.
I've been playing TERA for 3 years. Feed back is indeed by new players, old guildies unfortunately don't sit around in game. nothing to do anymore. we have a guild with 100 ex tera players on our discord and none of the 5-6 new players who are active in game and leveling at the moment.
I admit it would cause a rather "chaotic" gear progress if there's no intelligence behind gear item level and gear-buffed item level which is something that adds to the complexity of the idea.
And there's easily 20+ 65's that have been deleted... I still wish it was slower.
im guess this changes gets because like 2-3 years ago was a very dificult leveling in certain lvs with out XP boost/boddy up code /tera rewards exp for no elite players.
10 hours (continuous or not) for an experienced player. That's how much I would take to level an alt too.
However I see lots of people in my guild (which is a casuals one) who take time to visit areas, read the dialogs, not know what to do before hand, and they sometimes take a month, 1-2 hours of gaming per day to level. I like talking to these people, they're so excited for the game and everything in it.
Most of them lose their excitement by end-game, and/or when they get to end game, there's no more storyline, just farming and they leave.
When you play for some time, it all becomes a race to the end-game and this is exactly what I'm addressing in this post. Perhaps it shouldn't be a blind race to end game. Hence game needs lore through a linear, well defined storyline.
I think the reason why TERA has poor player retention is because game feels pretty easy till you reach hard mode dungeon and suddenly it starts feeling like you've hit a wall. People do not accept you into parties for HM dungeons because of +15 elitism , mid and easy-tier dungeons feel boring , BGs are a mess and people in general do not like repetitive farming such as IoD. We need more well structured end-game content.
If you don't want to make something like lvl brackets and low lvl HM dungeons like in RO, I feel there's no solution for this.
Also, they leave bc there's no more lore? Really? What game has an endless lore?
It's not a part of every MMORPG, it's just apart of most MMORPGs. Most of these games are produced in Asia and they like creating games with disadvantages and long grind to mimic the real world. Compare modern Eastern games to modern Western games of just about any genre excluding mobile and you'll see the differences in disadvantages, and grind, especially when it comes to pvp.
Don't have to be new classes but bring in new characters since ellion in the shadows