Hello,
I hit 60 a little while back (about 2 weeks) on my Slayer. Since hitting 60 I've encountered a number of roadblocks. Right now I consider myself a pretty heavy gamer, as I spend alot of time on the MMO that I am engaged with. I do enjoy TERA but have encountered the following problematic experiences.
1.) I have run all the dungeons outside of FoK and BT. Due to the amount of kicking and grief I've heard about with instance matcher groups, I prepared profusely before even attempting to queue for the dungeons.
-I have 143 gold quest gear, a 136 sword that was the best I could possibly find on the auction house (Enduring Blade), 2 141 earrings, 2 133 rings, and a 139 necklace. I queue with a full set of green mutinous slaying crystals and green % less boss damage armor crystals. I have 2 earring crystals. This is the BEST gear you can possibly get without directly buying sleeper gear from FoK out of the auction house for thousands of gold. Despite this level or preparation the 2 times I queued for FoK and BT I was removed from group all three times for being "undergeared." While attempting to find a local server group, I found that these 2 dungeons and their associated running groups are very "inner circle" and usually consist of a few +9 geared people carrying newcomers of their guild through the content. Overall, the endgame dungeon running was very inaccessible to a newcomer 60 without a guild and the success of running this content was more about "who you know." This was the first roadblock I hit: endgame accessibility.
2.) Disheartened with the dungeon experience, I dropped that idea and went into crafting. I hit the 250 crafting wall and spent hours upon hours farming archrunes to skill up. Upon reaching 260, I found that the archrune requirements almost doubled and crafting past this level became near impossible without spending over 10,000s of gold on directly buying the materials out of the auctionhouse. Also farming was not an option due to the loot penalty a level 60 gets when attempting to farm the required advancement mats from underleveled mobs. Roadblock 2: post 250 crafting.
3.) I have several real life friends playing the game that are at random levels. Assisting them destroys their EXP gain and I've only been able to help them by solo running dungeons on CD and sending them rare drops that sometimes slip through the level 60 penalty box. Occasionally I attempt to clear their BAM quests. However, remaining in a party with them and boosting them through quests severely hurts them and they end up underleveled for content when I leave. Overall the penalty system severely punishes me for attempting to help my friends at a high level. While the new guide on cross level playing was appreciated by me, the reality of the situation is that attempting to assist lowbies on a max level character is cumbersome and ends up hurting them by taking the challenge out of content and soaking up XP and drops. I attempted to advertise my services for helping lowbies outside of my friends list but many don't response or decline due to leveling penalties. People don't even respond when I attempt to advertise free full runs through dungeons. This is another roadblock I hit: harsh penalties for helping or grouping with lower level players.
4.) I do nexus when I can, but most of the time it consists of removing all my crystals and striking the boss until I hit low health, then grabbing motes and running to a campfire for a lot of the fight. It's a nice diversion but personally I think it doesn't hold much play value because its very short. I do plan on eventually gaining T13 gear through nexus. Zerging nexus without crystals and not paying attention to health is also a good way to die 50 times and get the Angel of Death title if you don't mind the run back. I don't see this as a roadblock, but it's appeal is limited.
5.) I do my dailies each day, these I don't mind at all. I plan on maxing every rep. and they don't take much time to do. I feel the same way about these as I do with nexus.
6.) I love to fight BAMs but due to the lack of rewards and interest parties are never forming. Another roadblock: Community disinterest in BAM quests.
__________________________________________________________________________
While this may differ from player to player, the truth of the situation is that at level 60 this is the reality of the game for many people. I consider myself a very patient person and hope that more to do at 60 will be added to the game to help remedy alot of these roadblocks. I know many players (especially those who get bored easily) may not have as much patience as I do, so many of these problems will be gamebreakers for them.
I definitely plan on continuing to play and get the most that I can out of my TERA experience. At this point I did the only thing that I could do in order to keep myself engaged and busy in the game: I rolled an alt mystic.
Right now my play cycle involves me simply logging into my Slayer, finishing dailies and doing nexus if its up, then swapping to my Mystic. There really isn't much more to it than that. Sometimes I queue up for Ebon Tower or Labyrinth of Terror for fun. I attempted to get into FoK and BT a few times afterwards, but generally I don't push too hard for it. The community surrounded the 2 endgame dungeons feels very exclusive both server wide and in the instance matcher tool. Every now and then I see people with endgame T12 gear and notice that they all have matching tags or are part of the same "inner circle" group.
This isn't meant to be a complaint or a praise. This is really just an honest assessment of how my current TERA experience is as a player. I won't say its bad, but sure it could be much better.
I hit 60 a little while back (about 2 weeks) on my Slayer. Since hitting 60 I've encountered a number of roadblocks. Right now I consider myself a pretty heavy gamer, as I spend alot of time on the MMO that I am engaged with. I do enjoy TERA but have encountered the following problematic experiences.
1.) I have run all the dungeons outside of FoK and BT. Due to the amount of kicking and grief I've heard about with instance matcher groups, I prepared profusely before even attempting to queue for the dungeons.
-I have 143 gold quest gear, a 136 sword that was the best I could possibly find on the auction house (Enduring Blade), 2 141 earrings, 2 133 rings, and a 139 necklace. I queue with a full set of green mutinous slaying crystals and green % less boss damage armor crystals. I have 2 earring crystals. This is the BEST gear you can possibly get without directly buying sleeper gear from FoK out of the auction house for thousands of gold. Despite this level or preparation the 2 times I queued for FoK and BT I was removed from group all three times for being "undergeared." While attempting to find a local server group, I found that these 2 dungeons and their associated running groups are very "inner circle" and usually consist of a few +9 geared people carrying newcomers of their guild through the content. Overall, the endgame dungeon running was very inaccessible to a newcomer 60 without a guild and the success of running this content was more about "who you know." This was the first roadblock I hit: endgame accessibility.
2.) Disheartened with the dungeon experience, I dropped that idea and went into crafting. I hit the 250 crafting wall and spent hours upon hours farming archrunes to skill up. Upon reaching 260, I found that the archrune requirements almost doubled and crafting past this level became near impossible without spending over 10,000s of gold on directly buying the materials out of the auctionhouse. Also farming was not an option due to the loot penalty a level 60 gets when attempting to farm the required advancement mats from underleveled mobs. Roadblock 2: post 250 crafting.
3.) I have several real life friends playing the game that are at random levels. Assisting them destroys their EXP gain and I've only been able to help them by solo running dungeons on CD and sending them rare drops that sometimes slip through the level 60 penalty box. Occasionally I attempt to clear their BAM quests. However, remaining in a party with them and boosting them through quests severely hurts them and they end up underleveled for content when I leave. Overall the penalty system severely punishes me for attempting to help my friends at a high level. While the new guide on cross level playing was appreciated by me, the reality of the situation is that attempting to assist lowbies on a max level character is cumbersome and ends up hurting them by taking the challenge out of content and soaking up XP and drops. I attempted to advertise my services for helping lowbies outside of my friends list but many don't response or decline due to leveling penalties. People don't even respond when I attempt to advertise free full runs through dungeons. This is another roadblock I hit: harsh penalties for helping or grouping with lower level players.
4.) I do nexus when I can, but most of the time it consists of removing all my crystals and striking the boss until I hit low health, then grabbing motes and running to a campfire for a lot of the fight. It's a nice diversion but personally I think it doesn't hold much play value because its very short. I do plan on eventually gaining T13 gear through nexus. Zerging nexus without crystals and not paying attention to health is also a good way to die 50 times and get the Angel of Death title if you don't mind the run back. I don't see this as a roadblock, but it's appeal is limited.
5.) I do my dailies each day, these I don't mind at all. I plan on maxing every rep. and they don't take much time to do. I feel the same way about these as I do with nexus.
6.) I love to fight BAMs but due to the lack of rewards and interest parties are never forming. Another roadblock: Community disinterest in BAM quests.
__________________________________________________________________________
While this may differ from player to player, the truth of the situation is that at level 60 this is the reality of the game for many people. I consider myself a very patient person and hope that more to do at 60 will be added to the game to help remedy alot of these roadblocks. I know many players (especially those who get bored easily) may not have as much patience as I do, so many of these problems will be gamebreakers for them.
I definitely plan on continuing to play and get the most that I can out of my TERA experience. At this point I did the only thing that I could do in order to keep myself engaged and busy in the game: I rolled an alt mystic.
Right now my play cycle involves me simply logging into my Slayer, finishing dailies and doing nexus if its up, then swapping to my Mystic. There really isn't much more to it than that. Sometimes I queue up for Ebon Tower or Labyrinth of Terror for fun. I attempted to get into FoK and BT a few times afterwards, but generally I don't push too hard for it. The community surrounded the 2 endgame dungeons feels very exclusive both server wide and in the instance matcher tool. Every now and then I see people with endgame T12 gear and notice that they all have matching tags or are part of the same "inner circle" group.
This isn't meant to be a complaint or a praise. This is really just an honest assessment of how my current TERA experience is as a player. I won't say its bad, but sure it could be much better.
Edited by: Lordhelmos
11 months ago