This is a continuation of my thoughts regarding the level 70 update which was released in early April (for NA) along with thoughts about the Exodor content. Since that last update in August (when I hit level 68), my progress came to a slow halt (it became too mind numbing to continue. The largest part of my leveling progress occurred in late August with patch v85 (more specifically, the Azart Hatchery portal dungeon). Since that was highly RNG (chance to spawn a caiman and then a chance for that caiman to spawn a portal), you really had to kill (on average), several hundred level 66+ BAM’s (most folks raid farm the level 67 desert basilisks but the level 69 dracoloths are actually a better option (if geared enough) since I found them to be less annoying (the basilisks jump too much). After several days of no caiman spawns, I decided I was done (at the time, I was just a little over 50% through level 68).
I also began playing Guild Wars 2 though and ended up logging maybe only an hour of time in September for TERA. With the increased success in enchanting event running from the beginning of October until the Exodor patch on the 15th, I resumed playing and managed to make some progress again (most of it from doing the only Hatchery spawn I got during that two week period).
So the above (2nd image) was where I started patch v86 with (70% through level 68). This leads me into my thoughts on patch v86 which includes the new level 68+ zone (Exodor archipelago), the card collection system, and the new level 68+ gear system. Most of the Exodor quest line awards XP in the hundreds of millions (it takes 34 billion XP to reach level 69 though). As of October 18th, I managed to hit level 69 on the level 72 (Iridian Wetlands) island (the main story quests on Exodor reward 320+ million XP). Getting to level 70 requires 40 billion XP (I have only 5 more main story quests left which will give me only around 2 billion XP). So the rest will come from dailies on Exodor and the level 65+ ones on the main continent.
Regular mobs on the island have health points like level 67+ BAMs (but obviously don’t have the mechanics); translation: even with higher end existing gear (SC+7 and greater gear), killing regular trash mobs in just the first map (level 70) takes awhile (and well, everything else just takes longer). And with some of the dailies quest, you often times have to kill a lot more mobs than what is asked for due to RNG (the mob not “dropping” the actual objective). Translation? Grind. Still, due to the amount of XP trash mobs give, leveling from 68-70 will be faster on Exodor. There have been veteran players (who played at TERA’s original launch) who have been longing for increased open world difficulty; well, be careful what you wish for.
The layouts of some areas (excessive choke points) results in easily aggroing other mobs where you can inadvertently pull too many (likewise if other players are running past you training a bunch of mobs, some of them can get caught in your attacks and end up being aggroed to you). This is of course more of an annoyance when running the quests and amplified since the mobs here are tuned for the new gear. Basically, the whole area is really meant to be content that any player needs to “work” towards clearing more effectively where the eventual goal is to get at least blue (rare) tier gear, to get the materials (and gold) needed to enchant them higher, and eventually do the dungeon, Exodor BAM’s, and open world bosses to get the highest end gear (at which point, the regular mobs will be trivial again). This power creep will naturally later impact the balance outside of Exodor.
[Speculation] Which is why I see an eventual depreciation of the Arsenal update gear system (Guardian through Heroic Oath) and an eventual streamlining of the level 65-70 progression to include this new gear (along with the “mythic/unique” tier which will utilize Heroic Oath gear as fodder and eventually, “level 70” gear if Bluehole/Krafton decides to keep the level cap at 70). I think eventually, they will end up doing another level cap increase to make the break cleaner while squishing the amount of experience needed between level 65-70 since right now, its a massive bottleneck in terms of both leveling and gearing. And having this wall for too long is not going to be beneficial for the game when only a smaller fraction of the player base is even even doing content in that zone.
Even with the recent enchanting event, there is still a wall in front of the larger casual player base who don’t have the materials (some of this has been further relaxed with this patch BUT the enchanting rates themselves have reverted back to the base meaning there is still that grind element to get the existing tier up to a reasonable level; and it may be for naught since within the next month, the trade broker will be filled with level 68 uncommon green and rare blue tier that will be either equal to or better than Stormcry 0 through 9). Just 3 days in, a lot more rares are being listed on the trade broker (though most of the ones remaining are the wrong damage type for that specific class). The biggest sink for this gear will be gold costs (it starts at 2k gold for a rare weapon). Each piece can also be liberated up to 5 times (liberation scrolls are available from the cash shop only).
So yes, the design is targeted at the hardcore grinders and those who tend to spend a lot in the cash shop. Once those players graduate from enchanted rare tier, they can liberate it to trade and earn back some gold. The potential recipient will need gold to buy it (rinse and repeat once they get better gear and decide to part with it).
The new gear has bigger numbers but a lot of it (especially on the weapon) has to be taken into context given the removal of crystals (the stats from that have been rolled into those numbers). It’s meant to overlap existing level 65 gear. Equipping a base green weapon will show a larger amount of attack compared to higher end level 65 gear but that doesn’t tell the entire story since DPS wise, some of that calculation happens during actual combat (when the multipliers kick in including back crit). Basically, the base green (uncommon) questing gear that is rewarded, is equivalent to around Stormcry +0. If it is enchanted to +10, that will be equivalent to Stormcry +7. Base blue (rare) gear is equivalent to around Stormcry +6 while rare +10 is where it slightly exceeds Heroic Oath +3 (the highest enchant for level 65). Yellow (superior/legendary) gear at base is equivalent to Heroic Oath +0. It probably needs to be enchanted to at least +7 to begin exceeding Heroic Oath +3.
There are several other factors though given the elemental damage amplification (physical and magic) along with physical and damage resistance on armor (mobs can do both types of damage). Damage is meant to be more variable with the new gear with the ultimate goal of having higher peaks than level 65 gear (which has more consistent output when it comes to front or more optimal, side/back damage). Armor may offer a bit more defense compared to existing level 65 gear though. I plan on replacing my SC+9 glove and shoes first with enchanted rares due to the increased defense. My chest is SC+8 and weapon SC+9. I plan on continuing to use those and will only replace my weapon once I have enough feedstock to enchant the base rare shuriken that I have to +10.
This is where part of the cash grab is happening (EME has this Jagged Federation Crate lootbox which has one of the five different type of Exodor materials). Their drop rates are really low (some of the quests rewards them and can also be purchased with Exodor reputation credits from completing dailies there). You’ll also need a lot of them (as well as gold) since enchanting has a low success rate even going from +0 to +1 using the non-improved version (I have no idea what percentage the success rate is increased with the improved versions).
Part of this overlapping design was done to try to “preserve” the time and material/gold investment for players who had previously gone through the original (before the material and gold costs were nerfed at least twice) enchanting of Frostmetal through Stormcry (and then, Heroic Oath). Veteran players however will recall how their Visionmaker gear would eventually be supplanted by newer questing gear with later content updates (good example being Guille gear). This will eventually be the case with this new gear. Players stuck in that level 65-68 grind will be in that weird spot though until Bluehole/Krafton decides to depreciate the level 65 gearing. My point is that the design of the Exodor content will appeal mostly to the hardcore grinder types that always chew through this type of content fairly quickly. It’s not a design however that will be remotely appealing to most everyone else.
Since you cannot fly in this region without a buff (from Azart Elixir), you have to explore the old fashion way. Except there really isn’t anything remotely worth exploring given the design of the terrain. Some of the main outposts have teleporters that remain locked until the islands reputations are unlocked (teleport scrolls from NPC’s can be purchased once the reputations are unlocked). Locations can be stored in the Travel Journal as an alternative (Bluehole/Krafton really needs to increase the limit of 10 saved locations though). The only aerial transport to the smaller outer islands are the special platforms (you have to unlock the islands reputation and earn the credits from the Exodor dailies in order to purchase Azart Elixir from the island NPC’s).
Speaking of terrain, the graphics folks did a really shoddy job since I’m finding there are a lot of gaps in the collision maps (aka invisible walls) especially near the edges where if I Impact Bomb (on ninja), I find I have a 50% chance of landing into one of those gaps and end up under the map or falling to the next texture layer (which this region has a lot of). The following is on the Verrak Fortress island; I was doing one of the quest mobs where the golden dots and found myself jumping back into the hill, fell through a gap into water “terrain”, and managed to swim out to this texture.
The entire zone is comprised of these large blocks of textures (the spaces between the main land masses and smaller outer islands are just textureless but are part of these collision maps which means that once you are out of bounds, you can run around on top of them/drop through different layers (and navigate around the entire region outside of the normal pathing). There is nothing exploitable though (and the entire zone is an instance) so getting under the map here is pretty much just a benign annoyance.
The grind for the Exodor Superior Mask is real… 400 Azart Tokens… Did I say this patch was grindy? (well, this is what happens when Bluehole/Krafton hires designers that worked on Black Desert Online PLUS metrics that reveal the hardcores and tryhards who oblige this sort of grind).
As for the card collection system, it’s also a grind (there are starter quests where you have to kill hundreds of the same mobs in various zones). Card fragments are part of the loot table for field monsters as well as obtainable from fishing and gathering. Some can only be obtained from clearing specific dungeons or from PvP battlegrounds. While there are vestiges of the Talisman card system from Devilian (set bonuses plus equipped cards being limited by a cost associated with those cards), the crafting and combining/growth elements do not exist. Card slots are opened up with gold versus levels. It is like other recently released systems (where you get bonus attributes and is more or less pertinent to the min/max crowd) and has a grind element to it. There are some players grinding that out; I did some of the starter ones and stopped after getting the next objective which tripled the amount that needed to be killed since I felt it is better for me to focus on Exodor quests.
As expected, the hardcores are already farming the dungeon and world BAM’s on Exodor. The trade broker is already flooded with the rewarded green quest gear while blues are slowly filling in (since that is going to be the most common drop from the dungeon). Give it another week or two and the prices will come crashing down. The same will end up happening with yellow gear (the problem there is obvious though; supply will end up exceeding the demand since only a smaller percentage of the player base are even at level 69+). The problem over time also won’t even be the rarity of yellow gear; the problem will be getting the 3 random lines with the optimal properties.
The drop rates are also terrible so you’ll need to run the main dungeon a lot (for a chance at drops) or open world mobs to get the materials for enchanting the new gear or tokens for the above. And for the “craftable” box gear (Argog Weapon Box), it requires dismantling a lot of rare and yellow gear for the materials. I seriously don’t know how much players they will end up losing (from disinterest/burn out) from this type of content though. The zones (from an aesthetic point of view) are underwhelming (garish or dark) with limited exploration. There really isn’t a main hub city either; just a small outpost area (it is green at least) with NPC’s (merchants, banker, dailies quest givers). I guess once I finally hit level 70, I will have an updated perspective of this patch (and based on how I feel now, it likely won’t be a positive post).
