This CBT4 was my first one. So i didn't know how it was before this.
Just a quick intro. Im a casual gamer, but a huge fan of mmorpgs and i beta tested few f2p and p2p.

My impression was that lvl 1 - 11 was the intro part of the game and as a 'newb' to the game i like to learn all of the aspects of it as of fighting, gathering, gearing, questing and perhaps also dying... and i had all of them while playing.
I tryed a lancer and a zerk and i found that they were quite the same thing to play as of survival and game style (regarding atck speed rate) or perhaps i learned how to survive with zerk becouse i played lancer first and died once with him, but anyways.
Low lvl content its supossed to be easy, becouse its the intro for the game, just like u have a tutorial in most one player games, if you get low lvl areas to be as dificult as high lvl it just not make any sence for me.

Let's go back to my experience playing -> playing a melee was easy and fun, i soloed everything in the first island, even the last quest with the help of that mercenary npc (great job with that guy, it helps a lot). Playing the first part of game and even after that and beeing able to solo everything its a great thing to do. Some ppl are not pro players and have lots of friends that can guild them and cannot find group that easy, so having a lot of solo content is a great idea. I remeber some mmorpg focusing in group quests starting in low lvl areas and ppl just getting really annoyed and just quiting the game (DPS classes). So for me it was great, i had to keep moving to avaid dmg from monsters and trying to get a good position to get my 'no aoe' lancer to hit them all. It was fun!
As a zerk it was easier to get the little guys with the aoe, but i had to move more to avoid more dmg, as i didn't had that shield abaility that is awsome.

I read that most ranged classes, specialy healing classes found everything waaaay to easy. Ok, as most mmorpgs i played healing classes are ALWAYS overpowered in the begining, and why? Becouse they can heal! Simple as that. In the low lvl content its hard to get a big diference in dmg output in all classes but most mmoprgs can fiz that in mid and high lvl areas. This is a normal and expected thing to happen, even the most old and famous mmorpgs cant balance all classes in low lvl content.

One thing that i saw in game that could maybe change a bit its the atck rate of ranged classes like priest, mage and mystic, i think its way too fast. Making the animation a little bit slower and adding something like 1/4 sec cooldown it would help a lot. I remember running to a group of monsters and trying to charge them with my lancer and a mystic was already spamming the basic attack so fast that i couldnt even get to them to get a hit. Maybe thats something you could do to make ranged classes more fun at low lvl areas so they can 'learn' how to avoid monsters and dodge atacks and maybe die once... ;]

But in the end, it was really fun playing the game and i didnt expect it to be so nice by the CTB4, great job guys!

First closed beta.

I leveled 2 characters to 20+. 4 to 13+

What is your general impression of the current experience for level 1 - 15 in CBT4?

Fun but easy all around. The lancer was probably the hardest as my very first character. Timing blocks without standing there all day took a tiny bit to get used to.

On a 1 - 10 scale with 1 being the easiest, what was the difficulty of the new experience for level 1 - 15 in CBT4?

3
I never died once at all on any character. I almost died once on the sorc when I pulled 6 mobs by mistake because of their respawn and a bad kite path. Having said that though I did have to watch what I was doing and it was by no means auto leveling.

Does the HP decrease encourage you to use more of the action combat element, such as dodging or blocking?

I would have done that anyway. That was part of the fun leveling not getting hit or trying not to on each pull. I never felt in danger with the HP I had at any point in time. In fact I had some friends who also pre ordered with me commenting that you would have to be mentally disabled to die on the first island.

The basic's is that if I got it wasn't much on the lancer or beserker the other characters just dodged most things. If I did get hit my HP bar didn't fall enough to make me really go OH GOSH better dodge. I think if people don't dodge the mob should kill them for it. Not they live and then spam general with "HOW DO I REGEN?"

What is your general impression of the current experience for level 1 - 15 in CBT4?

Started a berserker during the weekend and I completely forgot about the difficulty increase. It seemed around the same, there were times that I dropped to less than 30% hp but it wasn't a big deal as the fight ended at that point.

On a 1 - 10 scale with 1 being the easiest, what was the difficulty of the new experience for level 1 - 15 in CBT4?

2/10 Very easy


If you have played through level 1 - 15 during previous CBT's and again in CBT4, do you feel that the experience has become easier / harder / stayed the same?

Prior to the difficulty increase I would give a 1/10 for the difficulty. it is slightly more difficult but overall very easy.

Does the HP decrease encourage you to use more of the action combat element, such as dodging or blocking?

It does encourage more use of doding and/or blocking as getting hit isn't too much fun.

I feel 30% works fine for the start. If it is too difficult then it would put off new comers, slow down leveling, and make the game less enjoyable for them.

I'd like to have a 30% decrease in health overall but that's just me, I'm used to being one or two shotted in some very difficult games.

This was my first CBT I played as a Mystic from 1-19. I had no issues and did not die once. I would give the difficulty a 2.5/10.

I was not in the previous CBT's but I feel that health was never an issue. The game was definitely easier than I had anticipated. Maybe giving the mobs more health, have them do more damage, a higher frequency of attacks or make the enemy attacks harder to avoid. I really wish this game had an active "block" mechanic.

It was rather boring to have no real dodge short of teleport. I feel that could be saved for later in the game and just give us an actual dodge.

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It still felt the same, honestly I would not have even noticed the changes if I didn't read the patch notes.

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1- It was still very easy, and very boring.

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Like I said before, I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't read the patch notes.

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Not really, I could still stand there and get hit while holding down the mouse button. I didn't really even pay attention to HP half the time.

I have played since CB2. That starting area has gotten a bit harder, but is still pretty easy.

I would like to point one thing out. Can priest get explosive escape a bit earlier? It is their only dodge, and you don't get it until 8 or 10 ( I forget), which if you want people to focus on learning how to play seems silly because that encourages me to just stand there and get hit for a 4th of my bar. Priest don't have an easy escape or way to create range without it so end up just taking the hit or running aimlessly until you decide to just take the hit to kill it.

All and all the starting area is still pretty easy, and not really much of a challenge. The only challenge I have seen in the game at this level is the escort quest with the fairy, which if you don't have bandages can be a bit hard only because there are tons of mobs attacking at once so you have to take some damage while completing it.

What is your general impression of the current experience for level 1 - 15 in CBT4?

It was great, very user-friendly. It wasn't too hard or too easy, quests and new skills were fun, well planned and helped to understand the game.

On a 1 - 10 scale with 1 being the easiest, what was the difficulty of the new experience for level 1 - 15 in CBT4?

3/10. I think the best difficulty is the difficulty that makes possible learning how to play the game without dying or being too hard, but at the same time it makes you use a good part of the resources you have (skills and potions, in this case) to get used to fights. TERA was a liiiittle too easy. I had to use a lot of support skills sometimes, but it could be better.

If you have played through level 1 - 15 during previous CBT's and again in CBT4, do you feel that the experience has become easier / harder / stayed the same?

Didn't play any other CBT.

Does the HP decrease encourage you to use more of the action combat element, such as dodging or blocking?

Yes, it does. It didn't happen many times, thought. it happenned twice or three times against normal mobs (aggroed more than 2) and against major mobs and boss.

i did 2 characters again from 1 to 12-13, and one from 5 to 13 this beta test.

classes: mystic, priest, archer.

difficulty - 1

no difference as far as i can tell. no real pressure is applied to the player. even with the reduced HP players have more than enough tools to negate that handicap. i have been in every closed beta test so im sure experience with the game is a factor. first time thru i took a few more hits when compared to this weekend.

my 2 cents: as somebody that knows the game i have no real problems with that lvl range in terms of difficulty. altho i can see how it might be an issue for new players looking for a challenge. i use it to test other classes i have interest in, and its something you can get past in a short amount of time. the overall impact of the change seems minor. modifying the attack animation speed of mobs might have more impact. or giving some mobs a weak ranged attack so ranged has to at least think about moving every once in a while. or possibly linking mobs, even weak minions can be a problem if they swarm you. of course that's class specific.

All I have to say is this:

That last thing you as a developer want to do is make the game so hard at start, that it becomes frustrating.

I cringe when all these people here say its so easy to level. I found the game fun and challenging to level in cb2-3. While I didnt make a new character in cb4, I never once thought this game was too easy. It felt right.

I dont want old school EQ1, WoW, or Daoc style level curves. Keep it as it was. All these people who are ranking the leveling 1-2 will be sorry if the devs read this and charge up the leveling to 7-10. And---
even more so when you can be attacked by other players at 11.

Bottom line- keep the leveling as it was.

Started a Warrior for this CBT.

Difficulty: 5, partially due to my somewhat suicidal play style (more on that in a moment).

Overall, it's sort of harder to level now. However, this handicap is fairly easy to overcome, since mobs at those levels usually telegraph like crazy and tend to die fairly fast. Warrior, obviously, has a dodge and the skills you get a low level have damage reduction built into them anyway so damage isn't necessarily a concern. Having done the starting island several times now, though, I was going out of my way at several points to just gather as many targets as possible to attack all of them at once to try to make the experience go faster. Obviously, this made it more likely for me to get hit. Bandages helped though, and I know when to dodge for the most part anyway. It was actually noticeable when I screwed up this time around though, which is important to teach people the game. I had no sense of difficulty prior to this change.

Overall, I like this direction. I'd also like to suggest that the levels at which skills are initially gained gets looked at to further improve the rate at which your character begins to round out; for several classes, the game doesn't even really seem to start until 20 or later.

One issue: Warriors have a skill-- Combative strike-- that uses HP instead of mana to deal damage and also speeds of Rain of Blows. The reduced HP does make using it even a bit more problematic than it did before; perhaps the cost could be looked at if it hasn't been. For low levels at least.