After spending 7-months in 2019 documenting my travails of hitting level 70 (when it was a major grind to get there from the prior level 65 cap), I ended up taking a break from doing anything in TERA. What actually broke the camels back was the blatant cash grab with the new Exodor flight mount (which was around the time of patch v88).
The current patch is v93 where a lot of changes were made to the level 65-70 progression as well as gearing. The APEX quest chain has been simplified (the need to kill multiple dragons have been reduced to one in each of the stages) and nerfed (mob health and damage reduced). The previous gearing system has been mostly depreciated; you can still enchant Guardian gear all the way to Heroic Oath using Metamorphic Tokens and gold with 100% success rate but it’s not really needed if a character hasn’t yet completed the APEX skill awakening quest chain.
As part of the revised APEX storyline, new Exodor starter gear is provided at the start (this gear is around equivalent to Stormcry (SC) and is more than sufficient to clear the nerfed awakening content). This “scout” gear can also be enchanted with weapon and armor feedstock specific to it (and this gear can later be disenchanted into materials that can be used to enchant the more permanent Exodor superior tier of gear). The prior green and blue (uncommon and rare) equipment drops are pretty much irrelevant (except for disenchanting for materials) because the yellow superior gear (Annihilation and Dark Light) now drop in abundance such that there are pages of them on the trade broker (just need to play through Exodor to hit 69 to begin using them). The scout gear is good enough to take a character through the Exodor story line. For characters that completed APEX prior to this change, the new enchanting with only Metamorphic tokens and gold can bring it up to SC+9 which is also good enough to complete the Exodor main story quest line.
All of the prior daily quests (that was required to grind from 65-70) have been removed and Vanguard Requests for those zones (which requires killing a 100 of those area mobs) has replaced that as part of the XP, gold, and material reward loop. The initial Exodor story line now takes a character from 65-68 due to the increased experience rewarded. Basically, all of the prior ridiculous grind (which was due to Bluehole/Krafton piecemeal releasing bits of content over the course of 2018 and 2019), has been better streamlined and reduced drastically to something that is more sensible. I resumed playing my main character (ninja) and simply purchased Dark Light gear (with the proper stats and whatever desirable random properties) from the trade broker. The success rate for enchanting has also been increased where you don’t go through 10+ failed enchants even at lower levels (presume that becomes the norm at higher enchants). Additionally, patch v91 (looking that up, this was around March) brought about the newer Mythic tier of gear.
I also played some alts that I had not yet played through the APEX awakening quest chain and then through the initial Exodor story line that leads to level 68 and the actual entry into Exodor. Basically, there was a reason I hadn’t bothered before and that was due to the unsatisfying grind involved. The previous Arsenal patch gear and enchanting system (with all of its different materials and item XP) also wasn’t lost on me. I never did tryhard enchant that tier of gear myself (the only time I did was during the special enchanting events where I finally got my main up to Stormcry). But I know others that did (spending a lot of materials and gold in the process, not to mention the item XP grind). For those alts that I did complete APEX for, I had to enchant the existing Frostmetal or Stormcry (SC) gear to SC+9 since there is no way to acquire the Exodor “scout” gear (it’s only available if a character has not completed the APEX quest chain).
In another twist of irony, characters that had already completed the entire Exodor main story, have a lot less advanced skill points unless you played a lot of Exodor content before these later patches. The reason again is that the revised quest chain from 65-68 rewards a lot of advanced skill experience. So some of my alts are sitting on triple the amount of advanced skill points at level 68 compared to my main level 70. This is typical Bluehole/Krafton though where their catch up mechanisms favor the “better off not to play for a long time” philosophy. The Exodor open world content is still unappealing meh though.
Humorously, it’s like the current TERA development team did a complete full circle with the equipment system where it’s now back to random properties and rolls with feedstock material used for enchanting. And since K-TERA is months ahead, a preview of a later patch shows they will be introducing the ability to re-roll properties (which was something that was part of the old Visionmaker gear system that preceded the Arsenal version) as well as a reutilizing the crystal slots (that are unused with the current Exodor equipment). That’s why I’m referring to all of this as the Dejavu gear system.
It also looks like Bluehole/Krafton is planning on something new with the games storyline since there is something in the skies above Arborea (they recently hinted in K-TERA that it’s a new planet). Great, seems like they are hellbent on the aliens from another planet angle versus trying to clean up the incomplete mess with the Island of Dawn.
While I know it was the prior team that had originally written the level 65 quest chain on the Island of Dawn where they had hinted it was slowly recovering (Signs of Hope quest in patch v68 below), everything there now seems to have come to a standstill in terms of that particular story line (I would’ve personally liked to see this current TERA team complete that and at least return the Island back to its prior colorful/unburnt out state).
Since the BAM’s there are largely irrelevant now, the zone is also no longer a major stopping point since the level 65 quest chain is now focused on the Exodor story line (and not the post Fate of Arun quest chain that took players to the Island of Dawn where the quest chain came to a sort of incomplete ending that looks like it was meant to be continued, but never happened as the development team ended up changing at least twice before the current team). This is pretty much the story with TERA’s chop suey handling of its story lines.
On the technical news front, K-TERA 64-client client test server was also recently closed so it is looking like they may deploy that during the summer in Korea (and likely the fall in other regions). This should eliminate some of the memory related issues which causes a lot of client related crashes. My expectations for dramatic improvements to the games content and graphics aren’t very high though. This is just something that will allow the game to run on updated/supported Windows systems (since Microsoft is slowly phasing out support for pre-Windows 10) for the next few years (TERA does fill a niche where there are enough hardcore players that still spend money on it in each region that can keep it afloat). Myself, it’s sadly no longer a play everyday game for me (taking an almost 6 month break can also do that). And this years anniversary (8th) events are also pretty lackluster (I remember last year, how much 7th anniversary scarves I had; the 5th year one was the most memorable since it was the last one with open world blue boxes and those cool Mystel wings in the above image).
As far as publisher En Masse Entertainment goes, no improvements there. I would say they’ve gone further downhill and have become even more loot box crazy (they now publish the percentages on these newer loot boxes) in terms of the newer stuff they have for sale. Thanks but no thanks. I guess I’ll see how long the current patch keeps me occupied since the only other game I’ve been playing has been ArcheAge Unchained.
