TERA: Game is out! You should come play it!

Arthil

MyDcmbr wrote:

http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/Closed-Beta-Dress-Rehearsal-2355

GO GO GO GO!

... YES the EU servers just went down too.

Beezel

I made my mystic. My comp destroys this game haha but jesus it's so pretty. controls take a little getting used to. I gotta go to work now though oh god it's torture!

Basil

Faaaan guddamn tastic. This is exactly what I was looking for. Someone took the menus and restricted world out of my Monster Hunter.

Tried out Berzerker and got to six or so, which got me a couple skills, a whirlwind and an overhead knockdown. It felt very much like playing with a GS/Hammer, just with a different moveset. I'm very happy with it.

The builder is just a stand and fite combo I can easily block out of, and that's fine with me. Going into combo is just something you do, lining up your position and knowing when you can get away with a charge attack is the important part. Heeeee.

Beezel

reVerse wrote:

The main reason I heard for the game bombing in Korea was rampant botting. 90% of player base were bots or something crazy like that.

From what I heard from Steparu and other kTera streamers is that the game released way too early. The easy leveling curve, combined with the lack of anything to do at the then max level of 50, left nothing but boring pvp grinding so a lot of the initial player base quit it. A year in a lot of endgame content and systems were added in and it's been gaining in subscriptions and popularity. The Japanese version is still stuck in a level 50 cap timewarp while the NA and EU get all this updated content.

Archonex

That makes sense. I'm fairly impressed with the work this company is doing to bring the game up to speed. Most companies would just do a direct translation a bunch of versions behind the original release country version and call it even.

The fact that we're getting an updated game re-tooled to cater to western audiences (Supposedly.) says that someone in both companies has their head screwed on straight. That's what killed Aion. Well, that, and a complete refusal to listen to their playerbase western or eastern.

Beezel

well EnMasse entertainment is the direct western arm of Bluehole studios. Some industry vets are working at the company currently. one of the ANet cofounders, Patrick Wyatt, also worked on the first Guild Wars. NCsoft West employees that left the company , dissatisfied with how Aion was handled in the west, among them David Noonan, former employee of Wizards of the Coast. (though I heard he was mediocre and was fired from WotC so take his being on board with a grain of salt)

Despite the problems they have been having lately I have to say that I like how they've been handling communication with their potential customers. Most anecdotes I've heard regarding their customer service have been very positive.

MyDcmbr

Okay, so now that I am at work, I can give my after action report from my 1.5 hours in TERA. (I played right up until I absolutely HAD to leave to get to work on time)

I started off with a Castanic Berserker. Very fun. The attacks are definitely on the slow side, but man do they hit hard. Cyclone is a really nice whirling AOE charge up attack, and that overhead knockdown slam is awesome. I got to duel a Warrior (I won) and it was a difficult fight. They move so fast, it's hard to line up a good smack. I can see why Berserkers aren't real popular in PVP. I got to level 5 and change.

Question before I continue: Does anyone know how to "rest" and regain HP? After my duel I was almost dead, and couldn't figure out how to rest. The basic regen is sooo slow, and those bandages aren't much better.

After my duel, and my inability to regain HP at anywhere near a decent rate, I created a Castanic Priest. Heal Thyself is awesome, and the 3rd person shooter aspect of combat is really neat. The mana regen ability is also super useful. I got my Priest up to level 7. Level 6 got me the fiery escape or whatever ability, and that was super effective at getting me away from any mobs that got too close.

When Beta starts on Friday, the first thing I will be trying out is the Warrior class. I am hoping that melee combat will be more fun with some more speed. Right now, I am leaning towards Priest as my main because of the self sustainability of the heal and mana regen. I hate being forced to use consumables to be effcient out in the field.

Beezel

MyDcmbr wrote:

Okay, so now that I am at work, I can give my after action report from my 1.5 hours in TERA. (I played right up until I absolutely HAD to leave to get to work on time)

I started off with a Castanic Berserker. Very fun. The attacks are definitely on the slow side, but man do they hit hard. Cyclone is a really nice whirling AOE charge up attack, and that overhead knockdown slam is awesome. I got to duel a Warrior (I won) and it was a difficult fight. They move so fast, it's hard to line up a good smack. I can see why Berserkers aren't real popular in PVP. I got to level 5 and change.

Question before I continue: Does anyone know how to "rest" and regain HP? After my duel I was almost dead, and couldn't figure out how to rest. The basic regen is sooo slow, and those bandages aren't much better.

After my duel, and my inability to regain HP at anywhere near a decent rate, I created a Castanic Priest. Heal Thyself is awesome, and the 3rd person shooter aspect of combat is really neat. The mana regen ability is also super useful. I got my Priest up to level 7. Level 6 got me the fiery escape or whatever ability, and that was super effective at getting me away from any mobs that got too close.

When Beta starts on Friday, the first thing I will be trying out is the Warrior class. I am hoping that melee combat will be more fun with some more speed. Right now, I am leaning towards Priest as my main because of the self sustainability of the heal and mana regen. I hate being forced to use consumables to be effcient out in the field.

Yeah I heard berserkers don't really come into their own until you get their chain skills and aoe slow/disorient. They also get a chargeable strike that steals HP from the mobs it hits.

Edit: @MyDcmbr: I don't think there is a "rest". I think the closest thing are potions and campfire consumables that seem to quick heal as well as recover stamina. I'll ask around more.

Beezel

Gentlemen, do we know what server we're playing on in the CBT yet?

MyDcmbr

Err...

I didn't scope out the names. I am down for whatever one is suggested first though lol.

Beezel

They only had one server open for the "dress rehearsal" and that was Arachnaea. The other server is called Dragonfall

heenato

Hmm. This actually looks interesting. The fact that it's got a subscription means I'll never really be able to play it, but maybe I'll at least get into one of the beta tests.

MyDcmbr

Then I say Dragonfall for two reasons.

1. Does not remind me of spiders.
2. Is not the server they had up today.

Beezel

I think Arachnaea is going to be full of 4channers and Reddit. Dragonfall I think is where goons are going.
In either case turning off general and area chat are going to be the first things I do

MyDcmbr

Speaking of 4chan and Reddit.

I saw a lot of Elin running around tonight lol.

Blendtec

I was too busy playing Amalur to check this, missed out on the test thing tonight, oh well. Good idea on their part though to test some basic stuff now rather than waiting til the weekend.

MyDcmbr

Also Slayers.

Good grief were there a lot of Slayers.

Beezel

MyDcmbr wrote:

Speaking of 4chan and Reddit.

I saw a lot of Elin running around tonight lol.

By not rolling Popori they've already proved themselves inferior in my eyes.

MyDcmbr

I think numbers wise it went:

Castanic>Elin>Aman>Human>Popori>High Elf>Baraka

At least from what I saw, but I wasn't paying super close attention. Also, I saw more male and less female Castanics than I was expecting.

CripTonic

Played for about an hour before they took the servers down as a Mystic. Combat is fun and the game looks and run well, but man did it feel like I was playing a straight eastern MMO. Tons of seemingly useless consumables, no auto-facing correction on cone skills, minimap and an overlay map (which complimented eachother because both seemed to be lacking in different ways), things that weren't explicitly meant to be AOE'd had a good chunk of HP to work through for seemingly no reason...

I'm looking forward to the weekend tests to get a better opinion of the game, but absolutely nothing about the game seemed "Westenized" at all... beyond the little girls wearing boyshorts instead of thongs.

MyDcmbr

Westernization was more about leveling curve and quests than it was about mechanics.

Also, with cone skills, they go off where your reticule is aimed, so make sure you are aimed at what you want to hit.

CripTonic

MyDcmbr wrote:

Also, with cone skills, they go off where your reticule is aimed, so make sure you are aimed at what you want to hit.

they most definitely don't... it's based on character directionality, not camera, so strafing aims left/right and S key runs backwards instead of backpedaling, so it just shoots backwards.

Beezel

I keep hearing that archers are bad pve dps but from the skill descriptions their skills and shots do the most damage from almost melee range. They even get a crit multiplier the closer they are to a target I don't think the class is going to play like the typical archtype and is going to rely more on ranging than on a skill rotation. yet every video I've seen of archers has them sitting at range plinking away. It's very strange, seeing as they don't seem to have a lack of escape options should they need them

Also on the camera it's all true. Melee range cone abilities don't autoface and require you to point your character towards the mob. The controls took me some getting used to because the camera is actually independent of your character. I found that to be a pretty.....odd design choice.

MyDcmbr

CripTonic wrote:

MyDcmbr wrote:

Also, with cone skills, they go off where your reticule is aimed, so make sure you are aimed at what you want to hit.

they most definitely don't... You would think they would like Cone of Cold in WoW, but the certainly do not.

My Metamorphic Blast did on my Priest.

Did you have any latency issues that may have caused it?

Astale

Ahhh, I thought this was F2P, given it's origin. No biggie given I wasn't hinging my calendar on it, but that's unfortunate. I'm guessing there are a lot of people who might have given it a shot if it wasn't a paid mmo that aren't going to bother.

If it's paid I'm assuming there is a box sale price as well?

Glal

MyDcmbr wrote:

Speaking of 4chan and Reddit.
I saw a lot of Elin running around tonight lol.

Pretty much every Elin I saw was a troll (ie, had 'pedo' or something else similar in the name). So far, annoyance at the reaction at Elin > annoyance at their dodgy concept, good job internet.

For me, the only thing that triggers "Eastern MMO" in this game for me is the UI. And I'm okay with that, at least it's not yet another copy of WoW's UI (hi, LotRO, RoM, Aion, Allods and oh so many others).

MyDcmbr

So I have decided that if the campfire thing is the only way to regen health faster than just standing around, I am going to main a Priest because I hate consumables just that much.

I don't mind using a health pot for a bad pull or a mob spawn right next to you, but to have to use them to regen health at a decent rate while out of combat?

Nope.

Beezel

I actually like the UI. It's modular and I can move, stretch, squash or turn off any aspect of it I don't like without having to resort to third party mods. Personally I think more mmos need to have UIs like that from jump street and I'm baffled that sort of customization isn't standard.

Glal

MyDcmbr wrote:

So I have decided that if the campfire thing is the only way to regen health faster than just standing around, I am going to main a Priest because I hate consumables just that much.
I don't mind using a health pot for a bad pull or a mob spawn right next to you, but to have to use them to regen health at a decent rate while out of combat?
Nope.

Normally I'd agree, but during normal gameplay my health never dipped so much that my normal regen wouldn't get it back up before/within a couple of fights.
Also, I love the stamina boost from campfires. +25% max health for just stopping by a camp fire every now and then? Yes please. I'm looking forward to whipping out a fire in the middle of a dungeon and sitting down with my group to shoot the bull for a bit as ginormous beasts patrol in the background.

Also, the game is so pretty. At multiple points I just Ctrl-Z turned off my UI and played it that way for a while.



So pretty.



(he's not fat, he's REGAL)

MyDcmbr

Perhaps...

I know I didn't have much issue with my Berserker until I had that duel, but I was also only lvl 5. Ah well, that's one of the perks of Beta, testing things out so I don't sink a bunch of time into a character that I end up hating in release.

Beezel

Does anyone here have any experience with Bandicam? I was thinking of giving it a try over fraps because I heard there's less slowdown while you record.

Glal

If you make a video, perhaps take the time to explain your abilities, then point them out and explain why you used them in combat. I think the main reason combat looks dull in videos is because you're not seeing the mechanics, you're just seeing some dude swing his sword (or pew his laser). Slayer combat visually just looks like slashing swords and occasionally bouncing around, but it's all about positioning and predicting enemy attacks.

Beezel

I'm maining a mystic. So I dunno if that's the best class to pick for that but I'll try haha. Something I noticed about the health orbs. They're not immediate heal but a hot. And it's broken if the one who picks it up takes any damage before the duration is finished. healing in this game is a little weird because there's so much personal responsiblity for your own health that the healing classes end up being reactive support to catch mistakes. Almost all the damage in the game is completely avoidable via dps escape mechanics, manual evasion or just straight up blocking it in the case of the lancer.

MyDcmbr

Blocking is a Berserker thing too.

Also, interesting fact about the pretty graphics. Those weren't the High definition graphics. Those aren't going in until CBT2.

Adda

CripTonic wrote:

MyDcmbr wrote:

Also, with cone skills, they go off where your reticule is aimed, so make sure you are aimed at what you want to hit.

they most definitely don't... it's based on character directionality, not camera, so strafing aims left/right and S key runs backwards instead of backpedaling, so it just shoots backwards.

Not sure if the option exists when using KB+M as I use a 360 pad, but I could set the game to attack in character facing direction OR reticule direction.

Beezel

yeah it was going to be a seven gig patch but they couldn't get it to pass their testing in time for this CBT because it had other bug fixes attached. So in the coming weeks we should have more crap to download via the launcher. I actually appreciated how open they were about that. Game still looks awesome though.

Beezel

Adda wrote:

CripTonic wrote:

MyDcmbr wrote:

Also, with cone skills, they go off where your reticule is aimed, so make sure you are aimed at what you want to hit.

they most definitely don't... it's based on character directionality, not camera, so strafing aims left/right and S key runs backwards instead of backpedaling, so it just shoots backwards.

Not sure if the option exists when using KB+M as I use a 360 pad, but I could set the game to attack in character facing direction OR reticule direction.

This game has a lot of options in the settings I'm not used to seeing in an mmo. I didn't get a chance to sit down and look at them all. Stuff like having big fat icons of what abilities your party members use still strikes me as incredibly convenient.

MyDcmbr

Yep, but I really can't wait to see it with the high definition textures.

Glal

MyDcmbr wrote:

Also, interesting fact about the pretty graphics. Those weren't the High definition graphics. Those aren't going in until CBT2.

Nah, that's the US version, the EU version is the full one (it's a 24GB install).

@TeraEurope wrote:

@fietsu We used the client with high res textures, there might still be some changes until the release version.

MyDcmbr

What the heck.

Clarify which version you are posting screens of then!

Geez.

:P