[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
Comments
I find it hard to agree that someone who casually stands in a red circle or in a spot that deals constant damage to them and doesn't think to move out deserves to survive it. And what makes you think that a guy who would type "Tera df nm guide" into google will click on a launcher link and then read the page? We are talking about minimum effort here....
._. these were examples, shield and double circle are better example I agree.
Just to reflect on the new patch:
- Ruinous Manor - debuff switch
- Keeping Malgarios away from eggs, luring little spiders to the egg and not kill half your team (like in ABHM the first little mob
- Lilith horse - spirit killing mechanism
And I'll ask again. What makes you think that a guy who's too lazy to type a few words in google will actually click on a link and read a guide? The guides are not hidden in some secret place that only the special people know about, they are 1 google search away, minimum effort required. Everything one needs to learn about those things is the same whether they do it from Yosha or from EmE: internet, a browser, time to read and desire to learn. The extra 5 seconds for googling are not the straw that breaks the camel's back, are they?!
The type of people who ignore forums are the type of people who generally ignore the official site too (or welcome message). Do you have any idea how many people use incorrect crystals even though it's shoved in our face each time we login? How about patch notes, they are posted by EME on forums, and the site, these are easy to find, yet they get ignored too... Have any idea how many people are unaware of Gear Enchanting returning as a secondary means of enchanting? The option returning was in two patch notes even, since Gear Enchanting received buffs for 1->8 and 8->9.
Pictures really aren't helpful at all, and people are less likely to be interested in reading just a bunch of text. While I don't know why EME stopped doing that, I would imagine it's because people didn't bother with reading those or didn't find it helpful... Keep in mind, someone from EME has to take the time to get those images, type, and format as well as proofread all of it. You would have someone doing less of something else to create sub-par guides that honestly aren't going to be looked at by many, which is why I say promoting user created content is better. There are other benefits to doing this beyond saving EME some resources, it also allows the community to feel like they are involved in something more important, and a lot of other psychological positive things. EME could even reward people for being a positive influence, which Riot has shown that this is a good thing to do. They've done a lot of social/psychological studies on their player base that reveals a lot of things, if I can find it, I cna PM you links if you would like.
One thing to keep in mind is some people honestly don't want to get better, or don't care for it. Those that do care will happily type into google, or will already know where to find the information each patch without googling it.
A lot of that information would be in patch notes and not a 'guide'. Making a guide to restate information already present in patch notes is a waste of resources. It's just a matter of people waiting for said patch notes, and if they returned, then going back and actually reading it. Finding patch notes for patches you were gone for is actually very easy to do, but... people don't. Teasers aren't meant to provide a lot of information, at least it hasn't been in the region known as North America (At least in the US, I don't pay attention to many Canadian things if there are differences there), they are suppose to be a "tease", to provoke thought or a feeling, to build hype, etc. I can't put it in to words to explain what teasing is all that well, I'm not very good with words unfortunately. All I can say is, teasers are generally not meant to be specific and detailed, because later on those details are present in the official patch notes and specific details kind of ruin the whole 'tease' thing. Keep in mind Game Forge is European based, while EME is North American based, each region has their own preferences on how things are done. Just look at how they handle the same product (Tera). I imagine GF puts more resources in "looking good" all to make up for how dissatisfied their region is with their local Tera as people are willing to deal with higher ping to play on NA, now compare that to how many are doing the opposite...
I do agree they could bring up future changes on the forums that are targeted at alleviating the issues, but at the same time, I think they don't do this because then they are expected to give out time frames, etc. I suppose may be someone from the Player Council can do this? Or I can see if I can talk to Spacecats about arranging a way to have discussions about future content even if it's not something completely specific. At the end of the day though, BHS really just needs to question their systems more often, they seem to never set anything in place to discourage abusing things, and by the time they do anything people already heavily profited off of it anyways.
Regarding the 30 man raid and i-frames, I believe a lot of the attacks are changed to not be able to be iframed anyways. As for the damage, at least in NA, it has already been shown that people in NA are capable of clearing very fast even without talents, and keep in mind that not only do NA players do this without talents but also ping with a wide range unlike the Koreans. As I said, I would have liked the talents myself, as it would be an extra goal of some sorts beyond the whole get gear every time, but BHS has expressed they have no intention in having it put out anywhere else even after EME asked them.
That's not really the role of a publisher necessarily, it's just what a good publisher will try to do. The role of the publisher is like a store, they receive a product and they try to sell it to the best of their ability while telling manufacturers what they can do to improve. EME is the store, and Tera is the product with BHS being the manufacturers. EME can't make any major changes to Tera because all they have the right to do is sell it to us. The only things they can do to improve Tera on their own are more of band-aid fixes to make up for any mistakes BHS makes, like how they had all those events over the summer to gives us feedstock, the double VGs, etc. They can forward feedback to BHS, which I'm sure they do, but the issue is how willing is BHS when it comes to meeting the demands EME brings to them that the customers from NA has. The recent dragon issue is a good example of this, EME had a plan, and showed some of it off on a stream, and EME was ready to release it but BHS later said no. EME is the one who suffers here and not BHS, because EME is the one that looks bad. They made a promise, showed it off, and failed to deliver it. There is only so much a publisher can do when the developers are in heavy disagreement. While EME does have areas they can improve on, a lot of the things people do ask them to improve on are largely out of their control.
If all one asks for is the impossible they'll be given nothing.
You're welcome, and thank you for being civil while discussing something with someone else who has a different perspective.
There is no point giving a guide to complete newbies when they don't read them. Most of them don't even have the dexterity needed to macro manage a simple Timescape mechanic (which got nerfed).
The only thing I can say is, Tera is not Maple Story, you don't go in and mash random buttons to win. Even if you do read a guide you still need to be there in the dungeon being able to perform.
It's not always laziness. It took me 8 months of play to be comfortable coming to the forums for information. It seemed like an impenetrable wall of text, spite, bitterness and bile. I didn't want to deal with any of that so I avoided the forums like it was diseased. I play to relax. I get enough bile in the Real World. Eventually, I had to come here to find help with specific game problems and learned how to avoid the worst of the nastiness and ignore the rest. I'm betting there are more like me out there who have not yet been forced to confront their prejudice about forums.
Direct links to guides would likely help this group of people the most. No need for wading through ichor to find the treasure, just click and go.
I have seen this kind of "why bother" attitude in both PVP and PVE content. Yes there are those who refuse to learn.
But there are also those who ARE learning, and they are receiving the same attitude. I think we push away new players by not working to be accessible and open. If all you have played before is Maple Story, it is a fundamental shift in your concept of a game to look for information outside of the game. Links to guides outside the game from inside the game would be a hint that there is more to this, more depth of content, more to do.
The more times we invite them to our house the more likely they are to leave their comfort zone and come over to play. Some will never make the effort. But some will and isn't each one a victory? What if we inspire the next IdioticGenius to stay because we made the extra effort to reach out one more time to invite them to try harder and do better?
Google =/= forums. There are no comments, spite or bile when you do a google search. I can't understand how somebody who was too lazy to google search a guide might be defending others who share the same problem.
PS: How do I know you never did a google search? Because you called clicking the first result "wading through ichor".
My apologies, I did not mean the search process was "wading through ichor" I was using hyperbole to refer to the perception of the forums being filled with "spite, bitterness and bile." This is a prejudice that took months for me to overcome and I am generalizing from my experience that there might be more.
I did forget about YouTube guides. In my defense, I so seldom get anything useful at my level. Oh sure I can watch lots of people playing early to mid level dungeons, but no one (Except maybe that TERA 101 person) explains anything they are doing.
So when I searched for TERA guides for PVP, for PVP gear, and text guides for the BG. I got good advice on gear and crystals, some idea of skill differences, and knowledge of how the BGs are played from EnMasse, GameForge, and EssentialMana.
Nothing to explain abbreviations, chat commands, or common tactics. Ironically I can find all these things for KR, but not CS or FWC. I tried wading through both the guides section on the forum and the PVP section.
Google search ... most of what I get are the promotion pages from the game distributors. I have bookmarked a YouTube video I found this morning in the second page of links (Thank you TERA 101) and will watch to see if it has the missing information. If you hadn't brought up Google I wouldn't have rechecked my results. Google's search results are just so influenced by what one may have searched for before. Thank you for reminding me of this fact, and encouraging me to look again.
All of this is beside my original idea, which is that we make a lot of assumptions about why a player is not performing well. It could be laziness, or it might be thoughtlessness, or inexperience with researching a game. One is not fixable but the other certainly is. I do see people trying to reach out and educate on how to be more successful. I see people trying to encourage the use of guides. I think when we give up on reaching out to poor players, we diminish the games potential fun and it makes me sad. My most recent experience with not understanding abbreviated commands in CS made me sad. I was actively trying to learn and couldn't get a simple "yes/no" as to whether I had understood the orders correctly.
I understand we've all been burned by people who just want to be carried or nursemaided, but I think ultimately this attitude of rejecting "lazy" players harms us the most, not them.