TERA Online

[Mow Yun]

You can't add or change your subscription without EME's site going haywire and demanding that you put in a credit card. Even if you don't use it.

And also, its his credit card/bank account information, not mine. It's not up to me to decide how secure he should keep his information. Supposedly he plays WoW with game time cards, I suppose he's expecting TERA to have the same kind of service. (My assumption)

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Dist

Warrior tanking is much more dependent on the whole team however, and how they play with you. I can tell you that it is not easy - if not impossible, to tank some dungeons as a warrior.

That won't matter when Queen of Argon Pt2 goes live and Warrior tanking is buffed and they're able to queue in Instance Finding as tanks.

[Dist]

Originally Posted by Westlo

That won't matter when Queen of Argon Pt2 goes live and Warrior tanking is buffed and they're able to queue in Instance Finding as tanks.

How's that even related? It's still more team dependent .. If you don't understand this, you don't have a warrior at maximum level. Warrior tanking may be buffed but the fact is still that warriors cant block ; they must evade. You're gonna move around a lot, and that is team dependent .. Do you even know what that means? And since you can't block, if you fail to evade, you die. That simple .. It's much more harder than tanking as a lancer.

I can expect that when the content is released, we are going to be seeing a lot of noob tanks in instances who queued to get instant group but have no idea what they are doing. I sincerely hope that when you queue, you can pick whether you are dps or tank warrior ..

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Dist

Warrior tanking is much more dependent on the whole team however, and how they play with you. I can tell you that it is not easy - if not impossible, to tank some dungeons as a warrior.

I'm talking about from a sorc's perspective.

A good lancer tank keeps the mob so still I just sit there staring at its ass, mashing spacebar. It's boring. It reminds me of "those clicky-tile MMOs" because I'm not doing what makes this game great (i.e. moving around and dodging and narrowly avoiding certain doom).

A good warrior tank never lets me pull aggro, but... the mob is definitely not stationary. I have to work to maximize my DPS, and it's a lot more challenging/enjoyable.

I'm a veteran MMO player, obviously, having played many different MMOs and in many different roles, from tank to dps to healing. But I'm not one of those Stop Having Fun Guys who just wants the mobs to all line up in a row, every kill to be flawless, and every piece of the best loot to drop, and if it doesn't they get pissy and douchey.

Some of the most fun I have in instances are when I use the instance matcher and end up with a crappy party. Last night I queued for Labyrinth of Terror and got a group of idiots. On Killian, everyone but me died at around 43% health, and I kept on holding the boss, actually taking his health down from 43% to 20-something by the time everyone got back--and were instantly killed by the dispersus pylons in front of the portal.

I think I finally died due to my finger slipping when the boss was at 18%. This kind of thing is the most fun stuff--doing crazy shit that the developers never intended for you to do (and at least EME seems to be a good sport about it, not banning people for soloing party mobs like Blizzard does). I often really enjoy getting a terribad party from the instance matcher and while they're dying left and right I'm still kicking ass.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'm talking about from a sorc's perspective.

A good lancer tank keeps the mob so still I just sit there staring at its ass, mashing spacebar. It's boring. It reminds me of "those clicky-tile MMOs" because I'm not doing what makes this game great (i.e. moving around and dodging and narrowly avoiding certain doom).

A good warrior tank never lets me pull aggro, but... the mob is definitely not stationary. I have to work to maximize my DPS, and it's a lot more challenging/enjoyable.

I'm a veteran MMO player, obviously, having played many different MMOs and in many different roles, from tank to dps to healing. But I'm not one of those Stop Having Fun Guys who just wants the mobs to all line up in a row, every kill to be flawless, and every piece of the best loot to drop, and if it doesn't they get pissy and douchey.

Some of the most fun I have in instances are when I use the instance matcher and end up with a crappy party. Last night I queued for Labyrinth of Terror and got a group of idiots. On Killian, everyone but me died at around 43% health, and I kept on holding the boss, actually taking his health down from 43% to 20-something by the time everyone got back--and were instantly killed by the dispersus pylons in front of the portal.

I think I finally died due to my finger slipping when the boss was at 18%. This kind of thing is the most fun stuff--doing crazy shit that the developers never intended for you to do (and at least EME seems to be a good sport about it, not banning people for soloing party mobs like Blizzard does). I often really enjoy getting a terribad party from the instance matcher and while they're dying left and right I'm still kicking ass.

... and that's what great stories told in the inn afterward are made of.

[Dist]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'm talking about from a sorc's perspective.

A good lancer tank keeps the mob so still I just sit there staring at its ass, mashing spacebar. It's boring. It reminds me of "those clicky-tile MMOs" because I'm not doing what makes this game great (i.e. moving around and dodging and narrowly avoiding certain doom).

Get to level 60 first, then write this post again and lets see how it changes.

I am also speaking of level 60 Sorc's perspective, and even with best tanks I die. Alot. Level 60 instances are no easy feat, and hard modes are something way out there, not to be attempted until you have all gear at +7 or higher.

Lets take Fane of Kaprima for example. First boss .. If the healer fucks up the tower part, party wipes. Doesn't really matter here who's tanking. Second boss is a crab and pretty self explanatory, just watch out for the spikes .. Then what about a third battle? A lancer that turns away from the tank randomly and if hits anyone during that time, they will lose a lot of hp/get one shot. Near the end it will stack a buff that gives the lancer -defense and +attack meaning that aggro will be pulled even easier .. ONE hit from the lancer and your tank is dead if you have a warrior tanking. Even if the warrior can evade all of his hits (which I doubt), how are you gonna hold the mob still? If it turns away from you and you lose aggro, the whole party wipes. There's also a sort of puzzle on the next room that someone has to take care of quickly while battling or you wipe regardless.

The last battle is also sort of puzzle-ish and while probably possible, also very hard to tank as a warrior.

My experiences on Fane of Kaprima with lancer tanks led me to write the post where I said some dungeons are probably impossible to tank with a warrior. I can also say with certainty, that you can NOT just stand there and smash spacebar in Fane, no matter how good your tank is. (On that note, I dont even get why would you link all your spells to each another so that all you do literally is smash space .. whether you're moving or standing still.. Personally I don't use Chains at all because all Chain glyphs suck and I prefer to use designated buttons for each skill).

And don't even get me started on Balder's Temple or Ebon Tower Hardmode .. or even worse, Kelsaik's Nest.

I do seriously have to doubt if we are playing the same game if you can just stand there smashing spacebar in any of these dungeons if your tank is good.

With all that said, I do not know how warriors are changed after the Queen of Argons Pt2 patch. May be, that they can tank all of the above.. But as long as you can't block and dodge has a cooldown, I do have my doubts.

[synaesthetic]

Obviously I was exaggerating about the "stand still and mash spacebar" bit. Of course you still need to move, even on the easy fights.

BT and Fane don't seem to be that big of a deal, since my guilds' 60s are farming them without incident and rarely does anyone die (if someone dies, I hear a lot of cursing in gchat). Their tank is a warrior--there are no 60 lancers in my guild yet.

[Vexx]

Found a couple of more fan pics and found out who the artist is: Ririchya on Zerochan

Spoiler for There must be some way to thumbnail pics on AS archives... :P:

Oh, and if TERA doesn't pan out for mechanical reasons (all that stuff that got left out, etc) --- Blade & Soul appears to be something to keep on ther radar:
http://www.bladeandsoulonline.com/ga...-lyn-race.html

[synaesthetic]

It doesn't really take much for the cheaply-made Korean MMOs to stay afloat. A lot different than paying the bills on a $200 million behemoth like SWTOR.

[Kismet-chan]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Found a couple of more fan pics and found out who the artist is: Ririchya on Zerochan

Spoiler for There must be some way to thumbnail pics on AS archives... :P:

Oh, and if TERA doesn't pan out for mechanical reasons (all that stuff that got left out, etc) --- Blade & Soul appears to be something to keep on ther radar:
http://www.bladeandsoulonline.com/ga...-lyn-race.html

Yeah, I've shown her work to some people in my guild a couple of months back before. She is nipuni on DeviantArt. They like how she portrays the Elin with more proportionate bodies that make more sense scale-wise to the other races, and I agree. Basically, her art places them a bit farther away from the "child-like/loli" aspect, which I prefer a lot. That's how I personally prefer to draw the Elin, too.

I used to be interested in Blade & Soul (and I still am, to a degree). Before playing TERA, B&S was the game that I was banking everything on. I was basically in the "I'm definitely playing this no matter WHAT" boat, even from the moment it was first announced to the world. Now I'm not so sure anymore, for a plethora of reasons, especially since they've done a lot of things with the Lyn that I personally find highly disappointing and/or somewhat embarrassing. If I do still end up playing it, it's likely that it won't be as that race. :/

[Vexx]

Well, my Elin have some serious eye/face work to mitigate the dumb defaults and make them more like very ancient things with some childish attributes. (looks at Holo and Shinobu as reference types)

[Sagi]

If anyone wants to buy this game for half the price for just 24.99 today now is your chance.
http://www.amazon.com/Masse-Entertai...8030261&sr=8-1
It's my first time playing a mmo.

[Dist]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Found a couple of more fan pics and found out who the artist is: Ririchya on Zerochan

Spoiler for There must be some way to thumbnail pics on AS archives... :P:

Oh, and if TERA doesn't pan out for mechanical reasons (all that stuff that got left out, etc) --- Blade & Soul appears to be something to keep on ther radar:
http://www.bladeandsoulonline.com/ga...-lyn-race.html

Stuff that got left out? Exactly what is that? Afaik EME has everything Korean version has .. Or rather, will have. It would be pointless to release all the content there is to the game at game launch as people would soon move to other games .. Now there are various things to look forward to.

If you meant something else, please do enlighten me.

[Mow Yun]

Crafting quests got removed, so now it is insanely expensive to level up crafting between 250 and 280. Archrunes are going for 8-10g a each and recipes need tons of archrunes to even craft one. Supposedly there is no way to get certain glyphs as the area where you can get them is not present in our version of the game. Once you hit 280 or 290 or so, you can start using the cheaper keyrunes.

Crystals are supposedly quite expensive at the higher levels as well.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Dist

Stuff that got left out? Exactly what is that? Afaik EME has everything Korean version has .. Or rather, will have. It would be pointless to release all the content there is to the game at game launch as people would soon move to other games .. Now there are various things to look forward to.

If you meant something else, please do enlighten me.

Vexx is mostly referring to things that we expect to be in an average MMO, things that have been in MMOs since the days of the WoW launch. For instance, these are the bugs/things that bother me in TERA:

- there's no "walk" key
- there's no custom emote or emote "channel" (/em in WoW and SWTOR, this is very helpful for roleplaying)
- the number of animated emotes are severely limited, missing obvious ones like /sleep, /nod and /mad
- I can't try on crafted armor before making it
- I can't try on armor that I can't equip
- I can't try on armor from a link
- when I try on a weapon it remains sheathed and thus impossible to see; it should appear in your hand as if you were in a battle stance
- I can't link items from the AH
- flight paths don't link multiple legs of a trip automatically
- Elin hair and ears are locked together in character creation
- the instance matcher will kick you out of queue if you enter a quest "mini instance"
- the instance matcher will kick you out of queue if you join a party and then leave it
- the instance matcher will occasionally split your extant party up and spread it across two instance-matcher parties for no apparent reason
- the instance matcher will occasionally fail to teleport you to the instance
- the instance matcher will always give you the "deserter" debuff if you leave the party before all members of the party leave the instance, even if the instance has been completely cleared
- non-raid instances have lockouts (really?)
- the drop rate for runes is affected by your level, so it becomes nearly impossible to farm low-level runes at 60, making leveling crafts at 60 very difficult/expensive
- crafting quests were removed during the transition from ktera to natera for no apparent reason
- only guild masters can change ranks of subordinate guild members; officers cannot promote someone from "recruit" to "member"
- the guild bank cannot have rank-based access defined by tab--i.e. all members can access tab 1 containing spare crystals and potions, but only lead crafters can access tabs 2 and 3 for materials and tab 4 for runes
- many quest rewards and other miscellaneous items cannot be stored in your personal bank, despite the fact that they could easily be flagged as soulbound and then not usable by your alts
- most token rewards and some instance drops cannot be sold to a vendor
- area chat is not actually divided up by area, but instead is simply "general" chat for the entire server; there is no excuse for this now that the global LFG channel exists
- the game client has a persistent and recurring slow memory leak that causes a crash to desktop resulting in an "error ffff:ffff" from the launcher
- the carry distance of the /say channel is much too far, making RP difficult in crowded areas; there is also no /shout channel
- the UI hotbars are not configurable enough
- the textures for elin armor (especially cloth) are much lower-resolution than other races
- the launcher randomly stalls out at the login window when I attempt to log in; the fact that I have to log in through a launcher (and thus leave it constantly running in the background) is absurd--why can't the login screen be shown when the game itself is launched?

... and perhaps the most egregious violation of all:

- the game is still FAR TOO DEPENDENT upon gear to be truly called "skill based real-time combat"; the closer I get to 60, the more I realize this is true--there are a number of bosses that are just not possible to defeat without very high quality equipment, no matter how skilled you are, due to enrage timers

Originally Posted by Mow Yun

Crafting quests got removed, so now it is insanely expensive to level up crafting between 250 and 280. Archrunes are going for 8-10g a each and recipes need tons of archrunes to even craft one. Supposedly there is no way to get certain glyphs as the area where you can get them is not present in our version of the game. Once you hit 280 or 290 or so, you can start using the cheaper keyrunes.

Crystals are supposedly quite expensive at the higher levels as well.

The better crystals and the "subjectively better" crystals can be absurdly expensive. Carving cruxes (level 58 critical strike bonus crystals) go for around 600-700g each, but actually boost DPS less than half of what the 200-300g mutinous cruxes (flat damage increase against bosses and BAMs).

People like seeing big crits, but since I swapped out my crit-related crystals, my DPS is overall higher, less spiky and less likely to pull hate off the tank.

For boss fights I typically use 3 mutinous cruxes, each granting an additional 7.8% bonus damage vs. bosses/BAMs, and a fine swift crux, which improves movement speed by 15% in combat (helps a lot for kiting).

[Mow Yun]

Actually, I believe Area chat is divided via provinces.

[Vexx]

I believe Syn covered everything in my list of "things left out" and then some.

I'd also remark that there's no housing or guild hall - though there's obviously places for them in the cities. For now I'm assuming they'll come later so not a big deal yet.

Nearly 3/4 of the list are simple basic "MMO 101 Basic" items that require no rocket science (i.e. Very Old Reliable Technology) at all. Many of the missing standard features actually pre-date WoW by a number of years (WoW was more a collector of features than an innovator).

Remember this isn't just a "Korean MMO F2P transplant".... they sold it on the Big Stage with subscription fees, etc. The Big Stage standards apply (though many Korean MMOs actually have a lot of the missing features).

It does many things very well.... but it is also a fact game producers will sit on their "laurels" if the subscribers don't make sure the rotting albatrosses aren't kept on their necks.

[synaesthetic]

Not to mention there's an absurd difficulty spike (and it's all Fake Difficulty, baby) going fro 58 normal mode instances to 60 normal mode instances.

The final boss of Balder's Temple is not skill at all, it's a pure gear check, plain and simple. You can be the dodgiest, most awesome kiter in the universe, great at always sticking behind the mob and managing your MP and all of the other fun things sorcs must do to be awesome, and you still fail because you can't burn it from 30% to 0% before the enrage timer runs out.

Because your gear isn't good enough. Not because you're not good enough. So much for "true action combat." I'd be thrilled to death if EME deleted gear from the game, converted every piece of equipment into pretty clothes and outfits, and let skill be the #1 deciding factor for everything. Because let's be honest here, gear checks and enrage timers aren't actual difficulty. They're Fake Difficulty, the same kind of stupid lazy shit game developers used to do back in the NES days. A gear check is even worse, because even those absurdly difficult NES games could be conquered through sheer skill alone. In any case, it was somewhat acceptable back then because they were heavily constrained by hardware limitations, but today, we're fucking not.

There's no excuse for this kind of lazy crap other than a timesink designed to keep the very skilled players from finishing content too quickly. EME better fix this crap soon or they're going to be forced to go F2P just to keep the lights on.

Here's a helpful hint to all MMO developers out there: make fun, complex, intellectually engaging encounters where a great deal of strategy is required, that have a random element in how the pieces come together so they're consistently challenging and keeping us on our toes even when the boss is on "farm status."

Don't just give a boss a few threat dumps and eleventybillion hit points and say "you have thirty seconds to kill it before it enrages and oneshots everyone."

Edit: To be honest, two of the biggest things I'd change about TERA would be to remove the aggro mechanic entirely (by definition changing lancers from tanks into something else, perhaps medium range pikemen type units) with the exception of taunts (giving all non-cloth classes a taunt, and make their cooldowns a bit longer), and severely reduce the effect gear has on the gameplay. Both of these things are "traditional MMO" lead shoes that are dragging the game down, making it less unique and different than it seems on the surface. Sure, TERA feels totally different than your average MMO when you're soloing a BAM or whatnot, but when you're instancing it becomes a lot more similar to the "clicky-tile MMOs" that EME claims TERA to be better than.

Of course, making these changes would require a lot of work and imagination, and would prevent easy/cheap to develop "non-content" like gear check bosses with enrage timers and eleventybillion hitpoints.

[SoulofSomfing]

Originally Posted by Dist

^Bah don't scare me like that. Well there's no reason I would be kicked out of my guild but still was a wtf feeling when I read that post. Are you sure you're on the right server? Zodiac guild resides in Dragonfall and my character names are Chiara, Chiyu or Chiyuri.

You should just find the guild from the Guilds on Server interface and apply through that.

lol oops i was using ur AS forum name cause i assumed u were using it. I applied now and my priest is called Class.Iinchou. If i get in ill c u soon probably

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Not to mention there's an absurd difficulty spike (and it's all Fake Difficulty, baby) going fro 58 normal mode instances to 60 normal mode instances.

The final boss of Balder's Temple is not skill at all, it's a pure gear check, plain and simple. You can be the dodgiest, most awesome kiter in the universe, great at always sticking behind the mob and managing your MP and all of the other fun things sorcs must do to be awesome, and you still fail because you can't burn it from 30% to 0% before the enrage timer runs out.

Because your gear isn't good enough. Not because you're not good enough. So much for "true action combat." I'd be thrilled to death if EME deleted gear from the game, converted every piece of equipment into pretty clothes and outfits, and let skill be the #1 deciding factor for everything. Because let's be honest here, gear checks and enrage timers aren't actual difficulty. They're Fake Difficulty, the same kind of stupid lazy shit game developers used to do back in the NES days. A gear check is even worse, because even those absurdly difficult NES games could be conquered through sheer skill alone. In any case, it was somewhat acceptable back then because they were heavily constrained by hardware limitations, but today, we're fucking not.

There's no excuse for this kind of lazy crap other than a timesink designed to keep the very skilled players from finishing content too quickly. EME better fix this crap soon or they're going to be forced to go F2P just to keep the lights on.

Here's a helpful hint to all MMO developers out there: make fun, complex, intellectually engaging encounters where a great deal of strategy is required, that have a random element in how the pieces come together so they're consistently challenging and keeping us on our toes even when the boss is on "farm status."

Don't just give a boss a few threat dumps and eleventybillion hit points and say "you have thirty seconds to kill it before it enrages and oneshots everyone."

Edit: To be honest, two of the biggest things I'd change about TERA would be to remove the aggro mechanic entirely (by definition changing lancers from tanks into something else, perhaps medium range pikemen type units) with the exception of taunts (giving all non-cloth classes a taunt, and make their cooldowns a bit longer), and severely reduce the effect gear has on the gameplay. Both of these things are "traditional MMO" lead shoes that are dragging the game down, making it less unique and different than it seems on the surface. Sure, TERA feels totally different than your average MMO when you're soloing a BAM or whatnot, but when you're instancing it becomes a lot more similar to the "clicky-tile MMOs" that EME claims TERA to be better than.

Of course, making these changes would require a lot of work and imagination, and would prevent easy/cheap to develop "non-content" like gear check bosses with enrage timers and eleventybillion hitpoints.

The pressure against such a "cool idea" (where skill is everything) is that all the pseudo-leet kids wouldn't be able to just grind their way to pseudo-leet status
But I think we're seeing the inherent danger in marketing without restraint. It isn't a *bad* game in the sense that it is no worse than the others... but it is micro-step different rather than qualitatively different. But hey, I bought in for six months if only for the RP goofiness so we'll see how they react to community input.