[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
There's still the problem with skills. Sure tab targeting closes the gap a bit as there wouldn't be the need to aim at all (which is the biggest gamepad weakness), but still gamepads have fewer buttons, so they have to rely on profile changer buttons just like Tera and FF14, which means that if the skill you need is not in the initial face buttons, you have to first press and hold the profile changer(usually one or both shoulder buttons depending on the amount of skills), then the skill button. Something a KB+mouse player doesn't need to mind about. And believe me, it's harder to deal with profile changes even if, as is the case with Tera, you get a visual gamepad UI that tells you which profile you have on. I have played FF14, ESO, GW2 and several other asian MMOs with a controller, and all of those, some in greater way than others, present the same shortcomings.
I mean, take Sorcerer for example. Tera's gamepad UI can actually cram all of a sorc's skills into a gamepad setup, but when you see what you have to do to activate them.... Say. Face buttons for the most basic stuff, but we all know sorc has to use a bunch of skills after BoC to make itself relevant to the dps race. So you have to cram stuff into the left shoulder profile, other stuff into the right shoulder profile, more stuff into the profile that activates when pressing both shoulder buttons together, and even a few more that activate by holding a shoulder button and the D-PAD. Yes, even the D pad can have skills assigned to it when holding a shoulder button. Ingenious, but quite a mess to remember as well. We do have chains that alleviate this by assigning the skills in order to use as chained with X button (the same as spacebar chains for KB), but you'd still need to know where is what in case you get interrupted and need to retake the chain.
So yes, in the end, the more complex a game, the less useful a gamepad is. And Tera's old classes are all complicated enough.
On a positive note for me who always say I'm bad, I can handle archer on a gamepad running it nearly 100% manual.
If I had the money, I' prefer a steering wheel for racing games and an actual arcade stick for fighting games. But current economy dictates I'm poor, so I'll have to do with a gamepad for those as well.
Again, I would say it really depends on the game and the implementation. In TERA, I think the way they handle it is very awkward and the controller overlay is primitive (and doesn't even show all the skills). So many skills are buried under layers of complexity and there's no easy way to get to them. FFXIV, again as an example, requires you to always hold a toggle, so skills are more visible and consistently-accessible. When you get "advanced," there are extended controls that allow you to access everything without hotbar toggling. The way rotations generally work in that game (and the way fights are designed) is what makes it generally possible.
Anyway, I guess my point is that TERA has a long ways to go with its controller interface and approach before it could be said to be even near-equivalent, but I don't think it's necessarily impossible to get it pretty darn close.
Yes, most likely. I suspect they're collecting design input at this stage.
I must admit I never played FF14 with a KB+mouse so would have expected no profile switches on such setup. I personally didn't enjoy much the combat in that game, though, so maybe that's why I didn't put TOO much attention to it. It all felt too mechanic and other than some AOE circles, you could stand in the same place for the whole fight just spamming the same incrementing skills that had to be done in order anyway for them to even be relevant. ESO is a bit more moved, but the limited amount of skills one can slot and use at a time is kind of vexing if you take ESO as an MMO. Though if you take it as an Elder Scrolls game, the limit makes more sense. THOUGH,the main difference was that in offline Elder scrolls games you could pause the game, do all kinds of changes, then continue fighting. Can't do that online.
GW2 is a good game to setup a gamepad for. It doesn't have an overwhelming amount of skills to slot but not too few to make it boring. I did have to be a bit creative to shove it all into a Steam controller profile, but it all feels just right. The game recently added a camera setup that doesn't require the user to hold the RMB to move, which is a godsend for gamepad users. It also added a first person mode in case you want to go ranged at one of the many large bosses that dot their world.
I'm posting all these bits here in case they can be used as ideas or feedback. I didn't ask to join their input group, but maybe someone can read this here and bring it there or something. If it's found any relevant, that is.
I did play tera on an x360 pad for a long while. Other than never really remembering where most of my skills where on most of my characters, I didn't have any problem using the skills. The analog stick tied to the camera was an issue though, as it made turning around a very slow process. I since switched to a Steam gamepad and the track pad does a much better job at turning the camera around. The pad did take some practice to get it to work for me, but once I was done with that, the experience was much better.
Still, consoles don't have a gamepad that uses track pads for camera movement so they are still limited by the old analog.
Pardon my ignorance, cause i never played or even owned a console, but isn't the controllers of consoles come with a hell lot of peripherals? I remember one of my friends showed me once a Keyboard that you could attach to the Xbox controller and play games as if it where on a PC, or just chat.
Releasing TERA on consoles could revitalize the game, bring in more revenue, and maybe even cause the devs to optimize it for all platforms. In my opinion I feel the best option would be to rewrite the game in the UE4 engine. It is newer for one and would allow the devs to possibly add more features or better tweaks to future proof the game. Let alone the fact that there are a significant number of players TERA could reach. I can't say for PC but I know just on PS4 and Xbox One we are looking at around 60 million people TERA could reach, and that was just the last time I checked sales figures, it may have risen. Even if 1% of those people play that is a substantial boost to this games population ( a seriously needed one at that). I am all for it.
Yea...no, you musta had some pretty bad PC players, but FFXIV barely has any actual real raiders now. And now with more skills to hot key due to heavensward, and god knows whats coming in stormblood, KB and Mouse more than ever will pull out numbers gamepad just cannot do. Simply due to the fact that you can macro far more keys and reach them far more quickly, you have to use button combinations for most of your skills on gamepad while possibly dodging and moving around with the analogs, KB and Mouse can utilize various different movement types depending on the tools you are using while effortlessly using Macroed keys on both KB, and Gaming Mouse. I had 16 skills all programmed to the 16 keys on my Epic Naga, hardly had to use keyboard at all cuz of that.
Anyway necro, but sorry, Controller just cant beat Keyboard and Mouse in most genres. Are controllers more comfortable to use? Yes they are, TERA would benefit from them greatly for sure. But will it have the same precision and quick control as KB and Mouse? No, it will not. Seen and even proven that many times on FFXIV, one particular instance, I decided to play Ninja for awhile, only played it for 2 weeks after learning the rotations needed and got most of the best in slot gear, I outdpsed my FCs top ninja by about 4 percent dps, every single time, on bahamut and phoenix during 2.0 days. He was on PS4. He played Ninja since release and was heavily dedicated to it. I was able to do so simply because I had every single skill and had quick macro sequences for the Ninjutsu's, programmed to my 16 button mouse, and a couple on my Keyboard.
Just how its always been. But eh, if TERA came to Unreal 4, thus fixing all the performance issues, I may come back and play it, maybe even on a controller, likely the Razer Wildcat I would use, spite all the problems with PVP, Balancing, new classes being gender and race locked. Id give it a try again.