[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
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Comments
I think BHS should make starter zones for each class and that way it could be a little bit more refreshing to level up characters in some way.
That could have the purpose to extend the Lore about each class/race background aside from the one we already have. This, however, I think is something BHS will never do because it won't make them money in a direct way.
Another thing I think BHS should do is to slowly remove low level gear and push gardian set for low levels when we reach a new patch with a new gear. Buff monsters and bosses from low level dungeons so they can be a challenge in guardian set and make leveling progress faster, in a way we can be level 60 when fighting Samael and then level progression from there being slower until level 65 and then get to be able to get materials to convert guardian on Twisthard.
Its not use to have that much gear variety when you are discarding previous gear every 10 minutes and new players could get famirialized with the new enchanting materials and the way the gear progress to a better set.
The negatives behind making a unique starting zone for each class:
1. Development costs (there is a lot of classes)
2. Storylines. Would each class have a unique starting storyline? It has to last to level 10-11 and it would have to be different than the other classes (it doesn't have to be interesting as we see with Stepstone Isle)
3. The "open world" feel (which is already neglected by Stepstone Isle) would be even less existent as it would create segregation between new players for their first 10 levels.
Overall, if this was something that had been done when the game first came out, it might've worked. It's too late to try to make a new starting area for each class though. They did it with Reaper but Reaper starts "the game" at level 58 so it skips most of the questline anyway.
I do like the idea about introducing the Guardian set earlier though. The problem of course is that right now there are no "plans" in action to add more gear to the game. If they did add additional sets though, they could easily introduce Guardian at level 60 and let you enchant it up to +6 by level 64, and be given the materials to convert it to Twistshard from a quest at level 65.
I do think the entire leveling process should be revamped to be more interesting, but like you, I'm not sure if I really believe it will happen anytime soon with all the other issues. Regardless of what they do, there's still a big open issue of what to do with all the little-used/abandoned world zones; I'd like them to come up with an answer for that.
I also don't think they'll do the class-specific opening thing -- they did it in WoW, but don't think it makes sense for TERA unless they totally revamp the whole leveling system entirely.
Acharak FTW. So many hours spent there.
Most of the story on the island is either irrelevant, unnecessary, or directly contradictory to future story lines which makes it feel weirdly out of place.
The entire tutorial doesn't really teach you anything, the only real things you learn are incredibly basic MMO interactions like right-click to equip and F to loot, but you don't really get taught anything. It feels less like a tutorial and more like a story dungeon, you could skip it entirely and be no less informed about anything in the game than someone who does the whole thing.
From a new-player perspective it also seems really disjointed. The main enemy are the argon, who even when the new island was released, weren't an endgame threat any more. For a new player, it seems weird to make the main enemy seem like these random mobs you don't meet for 50+ levels, and only fight for like 3 levels before moving on to a new enemy.
Although I think all of it stems from the lack of understanding and cohesive decision from the developer about how players should level. The entire levelling process has been "revamped" in tiny chunks dozens of times with entirely different goals in mind every time.
As an example it feels so weird when I made another warrior a while back, and got scythe, a skill that's not really effective until endgame, several levels before I got rain of blows, a skill that I feel is really core to the warrior levelling experience. Which is made weirder since I remember it being one of the first skills you used to get when levelling a warrior. Similar issues plague other classes too during levelling making the entire experience a disjointed mess.
At the very least I don't think it's directly contradictory, provided you read all the quest text. It creates a sort of alternate path that still explains why Island of Dawn exists, why certain people still think or act like you were there, and ties to the eventual destruction of Island of Dawn. Given the constraints they set for themselves... at least in that regard I think it's okay.
The tutorial focuses mostly on combat and puts you in a bunch of situations where new skills are introduced and you're expected to use them to fight increasingly complex enemies, including bosses. I think the game needs to do a lot more to teach people the systems in general, but I don't think the new tutorial is particularly bad at the part it's supposed to cover. (They could potentially do more to reinforce class-specific rotations and combos after the first few encounters.)
And as for introducing the argons early and having the come back later... that alone I don't think is a problem. It's a sort of foreshadowing for what's to come that changes your perspective on what's going on around you (compared to the original version), but I don't think it's any more or less disjointed than what had been on Island of Dawn before they removed it. The original version of the game with the prologue and original Island of Dawn made the most sense in terms of continuity, but that had been butchered pretty seriously along the way already.
I recently leveled a warrior in the console test, and it happens to use the new skill tree (I guess they ported that forward). It is different if you remember how it used to be, but the net effect (that becomes really apparent on console) is that it creates more combos earlier in the leveling process. So having seen how it works on console now, I think I understand why they did it this way. (It auto-maps the combos to the button that starts the combo, which makes the system much more learnable and less button-reliant than PC.)
That said, I do sort of agree with the other point -- the overall leveling process from 1-60 lacks cohesion, and it reflects the fact that different teams worked on it at different times with different objectives. All in all, I feel like this is one of TERA's greater flaws -- the lack of a cohesive direction or vision for the product. All the changes they make seem to reflect the objective of the day, without addressiing it cohesively throughout the whole product. It gives the whole game a bit of a hodge-podge feel. That said, again, having experienced it again on console this past weekend with the new UI... it's something you notice more if you've been here for a while and notice all the "seams." It actually comes together reasonably well as a console experience, on the whole (though certainly not without flaws).
It was WAY TOO BIG to run on foot, but sure was way more worth the trip than Stepstone Island.
Let's be fair... They could give the horse on like, Lv 3.
Would be a really good chance to do it with the upcoming future story update, but I doubt they would add that, seeing as I'm sure it's set to release soon, seeing as it was already on the test servers.