En Masse Entertainment posts 2019 Roadmap for TERA

Bluehole has for the time being, decided against introducing level 70 gear (realizing the negative response that will happen given the short notice in Korea).  Instead, they’ve decided to “bolt on” additional systems onto the existing level 65 gear.

The equipment merge system is something I am familiar with since Devilian had a similar mechanic where merging two of the same type of equipment, would allow the player to select which desirable properties they wanted to move over.  There’s probably a “folder” of ideas somewhere of designs that Bluehole (and then Bluehole Ginno) designers came up with for Devilian that are now being tapped for use in TERA.  Unlike in Devilian (where it cost only gold), the TERA designers (including the current team handling it) are requiring the process to have an RNG element (you cannot select the properties you want) along with other materials (probably for higher tiered items) besides gold (since the example shown mentions not requiring additional items to merge those displayed items).

The other new aspect is the addition of a new gear slot which unlocks for level 65 characters.  The slot is meant for a new Artifact (Hallow) and Relic item.  The items unsurprisingly will have tiers associated with it; uncommon ones can be obtained from the new story quests, field mobs and dungeons while rare and legendary ones can drop from field bosses and dungeons.  According to the above note, the details haven’t been finalized yet and are subject to change once the update is released.

These new items give additional properties like increased attack, power, crit factor, HP.  The higher the tier, the more properties it has.  Relics are the more powerful of the two having one additional property for each tier (uncommon ones have 3 properties while legendary ones can have 5 properties; Hallows have 1 less property for each of those tier types).  There is an upgrade system that will allow the ability (RNG based of course along with materials and probably lots of gold at the high end) to increase it to the next tier (I to II up to V).

The basic premise of these two new systems are simple; power creep of existing level 65 gear.  It does nothing to address the current equipment growth issues with Stormcry and Heroic Oath tier gear where successful enchanting is RNG based (requiring a lot of materials and gold for each try).  A lot of dungeon content is now locked behind item levels that less than hardcore/whales will ever achieve.  Additionally (as noted in the previous posting), the quest line for level 70 requires having completed the class awakening which itself, is locked behind an item level gate (439).For new players (and depending on region), there’s a bit of a item XP, material and gold grind to successfully enchant Twistshard to +9 and then perform the upgrade (also not 100% success rate depending on item XP at that point) to Frostmetal.  According to those who play on EU (Gameforge) and from my own experience leveling on SEA (Playwith), there is less of a grind because of how the publisher provides gold and enchanting materials (via Vanguards or events).  EME has gone with a less than generous approach (sort of following the way the Korean version was meant to be played) making the journey a bit of a frustrating one for many.

Considering some of the feedback Korean players have left on this note, even they are tired of this hamster wheel grinding design that TERA’s developers seem to think is fun.  Which is why I wrote what I did when it first became known in September that the game had a new director and development team; which I put in quotes to note that it was just a re-shuffling of designers/software engineers in the company.  Thus the actiual design mentality hasn’t changed where there is this philosophy of time sinks, RNG on top of RNG, and ridiculous amounts of unfun grinding (the keyword here is UNFUN).  So they shouldn’t be surprised about retention issues in Korea or even the NA server.

The addicted tryhards will always go at it (I give those folks credit for having the fortitude to quickly max out their fishing rods and getting their cooking to mastery within the first 24 hours after the fishing update was released in NA) since those same folks no-life guardian legions for the 40 daily boxes per character (and repeating them on alts) and do the same when the above types of updates roll out.  This is a game for gods sake, not a job.  As I’ve noted before, I enjoy TERA for its combat and world environments.  The grind to upgrade (as currently implemented) is where I have my limits though.

I’m actually liking what they came up for the new gathering and crafting though since it’s something to strive for (not just try harding it to get there in 24 hours like some folks feel compelled to do).  While the premise isn’t crafting weapons or armor (it’s about crafting foods/drinks that help with combat, flying, fishing, gathering, crafting), it does supplement the activities that one chooses to engage in.  This gives me something to strive for outside of the ridiculous gear enchanting/upgrading past Frostmetal tier (since I no longer run dungeons anyway and just do open world stuff).  As expected, I’m spending more quality time in-game (going out to various places in the game world in order to gather nodes) or occasionally leaving one of my characters to auto-fish for a bit in order to stock up on fillets from dismantled fish for future crafting/cooking.  Sure, it has turned TERA into a life style simulator instead of its core strength (action combat) for me (but I refuse to be forced into a ridiculous gear upgrading grind that past a certain point, is subject to a lot of failures).Statistics from data is the only thing that will get through to the Bluehole team currently handling TERA; if smaller percentages of players are actively upgrading gear and running the item level gated dungeons, they will eventually need to make changes.  The same goes with closing the wallet to the publishers.  If players are giving constructive critiques regarding the gear issue and they do not press Bluehole to make region specific changes, then the only way to send a signal is to hurt them in the metrics arena (where they cannot meet their monthly/quarterly/yearly revenue projections).