http://tera.enmasse.com/news/posts/time-to-tame-your-very-own-nether-dragon
The ones I am talking about are the “nether” versions which have the Crit Power passive as well as the roar skill (for extra damage after dismounting). The direct purchase cost is 7,995 EMP (1 EMP is nearly at a 1:1 ratio with $1). That is for a single character bound mount. The best version of this mount is only available via a loot box where the odds are always a low chance to get the desired item.
As much as I enjoy TERA, I’m also not going to hesitate to call out this sort of blatant cash grab that is also the definition of P2W because unlike the older crit dragon mount which you can earn in game (after farming up enough Dragonscales), you cannot with this one (which has that extra roar skill).
I know they need to make money but it’s not like this all translating into a better game experience; crap optimization for one as well as very little actual new content (I know some of it is coming to K-TERA in the next few months but it is literally going to be one new zone with associated story line). The chase of enchanting to higher tier gear is literally not fun once a player hits Frostmetal (I stop at Frostmetal 0 myself and will fall further behind without any sort of catchup provision).
Basically, the premise that the Arsenal upgrade would be easier compared to the old method has not really panned out given the amount of materials that one has to go through to get to Stormcry (and then repeat trying to enchant Stormcry). I have zero idea how many players are equipped in Heroic Oath tier gear (the current high end). These kind of progression walls normally help to drive players away from the game (which is exactly what has been happening to the population of the game).
Merging the servers is only a temporary bandaid fix with making the game look a bit more populated but it doesn’t solve the underlying root cause issues that are causing players to quit. Bluehole’s continuation along this status quo path without even considering what NCsoft is undergoing with Blade & Soul (upgrading it to use Unreal Engine 4), is going to put the company at a huge disadvantage. Ascent: Infinite Realm is not going to be the next big thing as far as I am concerned and they literally have nothing else in the pipeline as TERA ages into eventual obsolescence while PUBG is burning through cash to fix the issues/optimize it (which is almost an oxymoron when it comes to Bluehole in general).
There is of course the Devilian IP that is now sitting idle but as I’ve noted before, they don’t have a clue as to what to do with it. The whole thing needs to be redone from scratch because it doesn’t make sense to rewrite a good portion of the client to get around issues that cause it to hard crash with later Windows 10 builds while the underlying game has issues that also need to be addressed. The only thing that will result in some reactionary decision making by Bluehole is IF Project TL and LOST ARK are successful in South Korea. The latter has a good shot depending on the business model that Smilegate RPG goes with. NCsoft will have an ability advantage given their use of Unreal Engine 4 for Project TL but it will really depend on the game play design. Business model is going to be the usual NCsoft drek though.
At this juncture, the private server route is looking more and more appealing.
