TERA Closed Beta

I had a blast playing this game in Korean retail.. got a Priest to lv 37 and it never felt like a grind. Compared to games like Aion and Lineage 2, Tera feels like a game that was designed with the western audience in mind.

Aion was far more grindy than this game.. I quit Aion at lv 28 because it was too grind heavy (at launch, I don't know what they've done to it now).

Most of the quests in this game are standard mmo fare and they haven't gone to great lengths to hide the fact that they are kill quests or fedex quests but the game is fun to play for me because it's not just stand in one place and spam skills until the monster is dead.

I like the more active role in combat, even for the healing classes.. heals have to be targeted and in a boss fight or a BAM (big-ass monster) fight, no one can afford to be lazy. The only one who can even remotely stand in one spot is the tank, but even then the boss monsters are prone to jumping around randomly, leaving the tank following the monster and trying to regain its attention.

If I recall correctly I needed about 2 million exp in K-Tera to get from lv 37 to 38, but I had a quest log full of quests that give 50k to 150k exp each and monsters to kill that give 6-8k exp per kill. Leveling isn't light speed, but it certainly isn't ridiculously slow either.

I'd have probably played to max level but some folks in my guild ran into financial troubles and couldn't continue their subscription.. so I let mine lapse too.

They've made leveling faster for the NA version.. I got to level 11 and off of the start island and got my mount in about 3 hours and got to level 22 (the cap for the first beta test) in another 4-5 hours. If that is your definition of grind, then I don't think you've played any games where there was truly a grind
 
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Korean "hardcore" market's loss is definitely a gain for the rest of the world. This is the first Korean MMORPG I've played that feels like its part of the post-WoW era, thus far. For instance, there's a DECENT LFG and Guild-browsing system. There is also a built in zoomable map, "transparent minimap", and "compass-style Map" all of which allow you to track quest objectives and enemies. I'm eager to see how the "government" is going to work, but I have to admit I don't like the fact that you HAVE to be a Guild Leader to get elected to anything. I do like the Guild Quest availability.

I like that each class is given a rating of difficulty from the start, and that no two classes share weapons, and armor is either cloth/light/heavy. The dynamic combat is fun so far - I picked a Warrior (dual wielding, leather armor, Avoidance Tank and or Sustained DPS), despite its difficulty rating because I gravitate towards that kind of character. I'll likely also make an Archer and some form of caster. More later on this..

The one thing I don't like is the apparent censorship. Honestly, I couldn't give a damn for the Elim character models (ie. The race exclusively made of pixie-like girls), but I don't like the idea that we in the West are oversensitive to the point that we can't deal with what appears to be no worse than children in bathing suits. When we talked about how Chinese WoW censored and changed the Forsaken designs because of cultural taboos regarding bones,everyone said how foolish and backward it was. Doing the same to Tera is at least as bad.
 
What characteristics are people looking when they consider a game too "grindy?" In terms of leveling speed this game seems fairly tame so far from the CBT, but capped at 22. And from what I hear as well of people with experience in Korea it is overall very tame as well.

Having tried some PVP dueling now, the combat mechanics make this aspect quit refreshing for me. Previously it just seemed like mmorpg PVP just came down to level/gear from time/money investment and who could execute builds and skill sequences they looked up online better.

They've made leveling faster for the NA version.. I got to level 11 and off of the start island and got my mount in about 3 hours and got to level 22 (the cap for the first beta test) in another 4-5 hours. If that is your definition of grind, then I don't think you've played any games where there was truly a grind

Care to share some tips on doing it faster? :p

I'm not sure how long it took me to get to 22 in hours, but it was 2 days. Although I spent most of the first day constantly rerolling and trying each class and didn't play much day 2.
 
It's not just another Korean MMO... I am enjoying it a lot.

Questing and leveling speed are similar to wow, action combat and skill chains are fun.

I haven't got into the crafting yet, but I hear good things.
 
Anyone know about the pvp? Is there objective based pvp stuff in the open world? Rvr type areas? Just meaningless griefing? Heard we may not know until cbt2 though. What rewards are there for killing people in the open world?
 
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On another forum there's a thread thats getting heated about people loving or hating the whole "sexualized" young girl image etc etc. Worries about armies of "bunny sluts" or whatever the young female race actually is (Elin?). I agree that they really ought to tone down the sexy on young looking girls if they don't want to catch a raft of shit, but then again, maybe they want the attention for the free publicity it will get them.

Granted, those of us who know anything about Japan know that to them, this is the norm. Western people outside the gaming community aren't gonna get it though, and I can easily see some senator somewhere making this their new "poster campaign" of whats wrong with the gaming industry and why it needs more regulation.

Some of the screens I've seen don't look bad, some are questionable, even to me, but we'll have to wait and see what the final changes to the armor sets are like if they are indeed doing that.

It looks interesting in any case, but I dont see me shelling out for it even if I land a job.
 
Well, the game is already rated M and they added pants and covered belly buttons for the Elin and made sure that the nipples on the other females of the available races were not visible even as an outline through the armor.

I think it is kind of silly how touchy the American people are about anything approaching sexuality. The look of the Elin themselves aside from that.
 
I'm reading a few people in this thread (and other places online) talking about how the game didn't do well in Korea, or it's very grindy, etc, etc. Try it before you put it down too much, it's really a neat game.

I've been enjoying this first NA closed beta weekend with 3 of my friends and it's been very promising so far. Graphics are nice for an MMO (and they say that the current client lacks high-settings textures). Combat is simple and fun; aiming and manually dodging attacks is a great thing for MMO games. So far I have only experienced the questing system, which is nothing special. I don't think I can ever be entertained by quests, though, so I'm not going to criticize the game on that.

It's really not grindy so far. You can go 1-11 and leave the starter island in a little over an hour (and that's me as a slow and reluctant leveler).

I'm most looking forward to the guild vs guild PvP, the political system, and the open world chaos that should come with the PvP server launching in the next closed beta test.

I think this game will have a small but dedicated core following in NA; enough to successfully run a few decently populated servers. It's a lot of fun, but I can see how the aesthetic (sluts everywhere) would put people away from buying it.
 
Well, the game is already rated M and they added pants and covered belly buttons for the Elin and made sure that the nipples on the other females of the available races were not visible even as an outline through the armor.

I think it is kind of silly how touchy the American people are about anything approaching sexuality. The look of the Elin themselves aside from that.

It's because this country is filled with religious zealots who are prudes and think anything "sexual" is "bad". In that regard, I've enjoyed living in Europe much better. Nothing like walking through a mall in France and seeing all the stores lined with gorgeous bare-breasted model posters. In the US you would have fat-asses having heart attacks if they saw those posters. :D

I'm reading a few people in this thread (and other places online) talking about how the game didn't do well in Korea, or it's very grindy, etc, etc. Try it before you put it down too much, it's really a neat game.

I've been enjoying this first NA closed beta weekend with 3 of my friends and it's been very promising so far. Graphics are nice for an MMO (and they say that the current client lacks high-settings textures). Combat is simple and fun; aiming and manually dodging attacks is a great thing for MMO games. So far I have only experienced the questing system, which is nothing special. I don't think I can ever be entertained by quests, though, so I'm not going to criticize the game on that.

It's really not grindy so far. You can go 1-11 and leave the starter island in a little over an hour (and that's me as a slow and reluctant leveler).

I'm most looking forward to the guild vs guild PvP, the political system, and the open world chaos that should come with the PvP server launching in the next closed beta test.

I think this game will have a small but dedicated core following in NA; enough to successfully run a few decently populated servers. It's a lot of fun, but I can see how the aesthetic (sluts everywhere) would put people away from buying it.

I enjoyed my small time in the Beta this weekend. I really like the aim to fight system and not using tab targeting. The graphics are pretty good and the world has a great fantasy feel to it. One aspect I don't care too much for is they definitely are going with the "theme-park" route. All quests have easy pointers, map icons etc and I was killing level 12 mobs at level 4 with my Archer. I mean really?

I miss the old days of EQ1 where you had to speak to every NPC to get quests, there were no exclamation points holding your hand. You had to decipher quests, find things and explore. But that doesn't lead to instant-gratification which seems to be the tread these days. Not to mention a level 5 mob would beat your level 4 butt. :D

TERA isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I'd really like to know more about the PvP before I purchase it.
 
I think the consensus is that it hasn't done well in Korea because it wasn't grindy enough. Hardcore players can get to max level in a month and when it released in january of last year over there, they didn't have much in the way of in-game content available when they got there.

They've had a few major content patches since then and are starting to roll out a new one in Korea soon that revamps the entire 1-40 experience and fixes complaints about the warrior class, etc.

First pvp servers will be opened in the next CBT event for NA.. and will supposedly have a free-for-all ruleset after level 11.. will have to try it out to see how I feel about it. I typically dislike open pvp.. but without a rogue class to stunlock me and the combat system it might be fun in this game.
 
I played closed beta over the weekend my thoughts

Graphics are very pretty. Even my girflriend was like whoa what game is that! and she never pays attention to the games I play.

Combat is fun, repetitive, but what mmo combat isn't. It makes it interesting that you can block with some classes and you have to aim with ranged characters.

Leveling is very easy. Questing is standard boring simple fetch quests. Maybe it will get better later on.

I'm pretty sure ill buy the game.
 
As long as there's FFA PvP in the open world, I think I will like this a lot. I guess I could still like it without that, but I am looking forward to the PvP server test more than anything else.
 
It's because this country is filled with religious zealots who are prudes and think anything "sexual" is "bad". In that regard, I've enjoyed living in Europe much better.

Good, you can stay there. Your equally guilty of zealotism in your aggressive generalization of a culture you evidently take no share in. These kinds of comments detract from the discussion of the game, which is why we're all here reading the thread in the first place.

My personal philosophy is "their just pixels..." but I can plainly see why anyone (outside Korea obviously...) would censor that race. You don't have to be a religious zealot to see that.

Question to those playing: With the whole crosshair aiming "thing" going on, do you ever find yourself targeting ahead of your target in anticipation of where it WILL be? I can't imagine combat without some sort of auto lock.
 
So I have to ask myself if I really want to pick up a MMO again, or maybe buy a PS3 :p

Question to those playing: With the whole crosshair aiming "thing" going on, do you ever find yourself targeting ahead of your target in anticipation of where it WILL be? I can't imagine combat without some sort of auto lock.

You have to lead your targets even though the ranged combat is relatively "close" (archer arrow range for instance is 18m), most of the projectiles have what would be considered very slow velocities, for sure much slow than guns in something like BF3. But most mobs, at least up to 22 since that was the cap, are not exactly moving frantically about constantly like you would against someone in a fps game.

The need to aim is more apparent in pvp as you can side step (or jitter step) to avoid not just ranged attacks, but melee as well.

There are some skills that lock, but they don't auto lock. You still need to aim at your target first to lock onto it.
 
Good, you can stay there. Your equally guilty of zealotism in your aggressive generalization of a culture you evidently take no share in. These kinds of comments detract from the discussion of the game, which is why we're all here reading the thread in the first place.

My personal philosophy is "their just pixels..." but I can plainly see why anyone (outside Korea obviously...) would censor that race. You don't have to be a religious zealot to see that.

Question to those playing: With the whole crosshair aiming "thing" going on, do you ever find yourself targeting ahead of your target in anticipation of where it WILL be? I can't imagine combat without some sort of auto lock.

Talking about the possible censoring of TERA characters is talking about the game. I think you confuse the word "aggressive" with "accurate". Ignorance must be bliss. Once you have lived all over the world like I have, you gain a better perspective on things.
 
Once you have lived all over the world like I have, you gain a better perspective on things.

depends on what a person did. school, work, military, or just drifting from city to city would give different perspectives of varying value
 
Well I decided to try out the game by playing K-Tera and man I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having a great time. Definitely preordering this when I get the chance.
 
Do the attack animations planting you in place annoy anyone? I saw that in a YouTube video and it seems like it would ruin combat for me.
 
Do the attack animations planting you in place annoy anyone? I saw that in a YouTube video and it seems like it would ruin combat for me.

Ya, I played an archer and every time I'd fire I would stop in place. It is pretty annoying. I wonder if they did that to prevent archers from being overpowered firing on the move.
 
Has anyone played end-game in Tera? I just spent the weekend playing the open beta and really enjoyed it. Thinking about pre-ordering it so that I get access to the rest of the beta.
 
Do the attack animations planting you in place annoy anyone? I saw that in a YouTube video and it seems like it would ruin combat for me.

That's the point of the combat system.
You have to know when to strike, when to egress, when to defend, when to evade.
Execution is paramount, and, especially in dungeons and tougher open areas, not knowing when to act will get you killed.
 
If the animations didn't have to "play out" where you attack from, the entire combat system would be worthless. You'd end up with what I call the "jedi knight" syndrome, where you attack while moving and end up with STUPID looking combat of people just strafing left/right swinging weapons, which looks terrible and plays terrible if you want any kind of context for actions.

That's one of the things that made severance have the best melee combat system.

I mean think about it in tera, what's the POINT of having a "dodge" move if you can simply move WHILE attacking? That would lead to people just running around spamming moves without regard to where they aim or where they are facing.
 
Are their servers getting hammered or something? When I first started my download I was getting 700KB/s or so(which is about as much as I can expect from my connection), now I'm looking at 200KB/S or less. 2 days to download this game? Ugh.
 
Possibly given that the beta opened 4 hours ago today.

But maybe give toggling the download options in settings (enable/disable P2P) a try.
 
Clipping along at 30Mb. It'll take about an hour and a half to download.
 
Yeah I think it was the P2P thing, I disabled it and it shot back up to max.
 
By the way has anyone played this with a roughly maybe GTX 580 or 7950 performance equivalent at 1920x1200/1080? Wondering how much an upgrade would do and this isn't one of the common benchmark games.
 
I play the game on max settings (I think, playing the Korean version) with a GTX580. Before I edited the .ini it would run up to 80fps (hard cap) until I limited it to 60fps. I think it drops a bit sometimes but barely noticeable.
 
What about heavier areas?

I have a 560ti at the moment. It does hit my frame rate cap (I have everything capped globally to 60fps via inspector) but in some places it drops to low-mid 30s which is kind of noticeable.

Also what about forcing AA via drivers? :p

Mainly a roughly GTX 580 type upgrade would probably be the minimum to be meaningful in general from my 560ti. So something I'll be looking into after Kepler comes out and seeing how prices may or may not be affected.
 
Trying out a Warrior... combat feels very smooth.
 
I played in the CBT3 ( March 9 -11). I fell in love with the gameplay right away. Played all the classes and liked them all. The action bases combat is fun, pvp is good too some people wont like it. However I am a fan of kitting people and killing 3 players alone due to dodge skills :). Already pre-ordered it and cant wait for more!!
 
This game have super legit combat and pvp. I might like GW2 design but I know I will like Tera better because of the gameplay.
 
I played in the CBT3 ( March 9 -11). I fell in love with the gameplay right away. Played all the classes and liked them all. The action bases combat is fun, pvp is good too some people wont like it. However I am a fan of kitting people and killing 3 players alone due to dodge skills :). Already pre-ordered it and cant wait for more!!

Not sure how far you got playing so many chars but the game picks even more the higher you go. For one the class distinctions become more noticeable due to the more skills added, especially with the melee type classes start to differentiate more. Also there gets more customization with in build choice with glyphs. PvE also really picks up more post 20 when you start to encounter BAMs and do dungeons.
 
Not sure how far you got playing so many chars but the game picks even more the higher you go. For one the class distinctions become more noticeable due to the more skills added, especially with the melee type classes start to differentiate more. Also there gets more customization with in build choice with glyphs. PvE also really picks up more post 20 when you start to encounter BAMs and do dungeons.

Yeah I got my Archer to lvl 28 it is very fun. I like sniping things allot and kiting in this game is amazing. I do want to play warrior a bit more tho just because I like a challenge.
 
i only got an archer to 12 and a warrior to 11, its a decent game, the combat and visuals are the best part but with GW 2 so close to launch and beta weekends for pre-orders and such.. I will most likely pass on Tera.
 
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