Greetings and meetings, general discussion!

How's everyone enjoying TERA? Having fun? Been killing tons of BAMs? Hope everyone's been having a blast.

Now that said, I'm sure we've all run into little things that detract from the fun of it all. Little things, that make you wish and long for things in other MMOs were that feature is done better. Something where it'd be a realitively simple fix, as compared to having to overhaul the formula.

So as I've been playing the game, I've been making a list of things I think that could be expanded upon or fixed, but I'd like the communities word on what you guys also think could be improved on. If you want to contribute, keep this in mind!

Name of the 'problem'
Where it is commonly found
Why it should be fixed
(Optional) Proposed solutions

How about an example? Taking from the Prologue...

Vague quest text (Prologue: Quest X)
Prologue only

The quest says "fight and reach the top of the mountain", but gives no indication of what you're supposed to do outside of that. It's entirely too easy to slip past some mobs and be left stuck wondering why the next phase of the quest won't load up.

For a solution, I'd say just modify the quest text to "Eliminate all the demonic forces as you climb to the top of the mountain" to avoid confusion and help new players understand what the goal is.


See? Not too bad, right? Remember, it's the little things that count. No matter how small you think an issue is, it can be good to get that info out there, to let EME and BlueHole know, along with your fellow players. Not saying we have any right to design by comity now, which is why proposed solutions is OPTIONAL. Keep that in mind, kay? And don't go overboard with things, like radically overhauling the prologue to make it some epic, fantasy adventure. We're not trying to remake the game, only provide feedback for fine-tuning, to make sure the game stands tall against it's competitors!

If you're having trouble, just remember K.I.S.S. That is, Keep It Simple, Stupid***
If it's something too big to be explained quickly and efficiently, it probably needs too much work to be qualified as "polish." And remember not to treat this as a suggestion box! No doubt being able to engrave your name into a weapon's name would be cool, but it would require all kinds of new code and testing. Kinda out of the frame of this experiment, ya know?

Anyways, I'll be collecting all the ideas you guys come up with along with my own, and add them all to this thread with a mega-report, breaking things down into catagory and difficulty at the end of the month. So let's give it our best! I'll post the essay here for everyone to look over, so have fun with it, kay?



*** Cookies for anyone who knows what book series I got that acronym from. It's a good series, so go read it once the secrets out! If you'd rather it be in my Elin persona...

Keep it simple, silly!

Quote: delbozz on 05/04/2012, 08:49 PM - view

Yeah, in Velika for me it only gives two options. Invite to a party or whisper. Outside I have the full list,it's weird.

Quote: Baratan on 05/04/2012, 08:41 PM

It's still no reason not to change this. Far easier and it's a basic function in other games. Any report should also include an auto-block, just so everyone is clear on it. Memorizing chat commands or typing out "freezmmogolds.com.online" three times because of misspellings is not fun.

Quote: Sizuru on 05/04/2012, 08:33 PM - view

Please tell them to come to my server then. This guy has been spamming for over an hour and I'm not wasting my time hunting him down.

Love to get in on this too!

Guild: Black Lotus
Contacts: Kana, Akane, Kaedia
We're a small guild dedicated to playing the game and having fun, with leveling and PvE content in mind. Killing BAMs is our specialty, so if you want to fight, aim high! We accept any race and class, but be mature and respectful to other members.

So, as a few of us are probably (and sadly) aware, we've already got chat spammers and real-money traders in the game, spamming chat in Area. It's nice they can't do it in Velika until at least getting to level 11, but that's not really a detriment.

Now, you *can* report them, and it makes me think that eventually they'll be taken care of, but there is a problem with this. It's not instant, which means that they are still spamming after a report, clogging up chat channels with their crap. There is also a block feature, but for whatever reason I can't seem to use it just on anyone in chat. You either have to whisper them or physically find them to block them.

Can we please get a change so that reporting a player blocks them automatically? I can't think of a single reason I'd ever want to party with someone I've reported for language, spamming, RMT, etc., and I don't think anyone else would really want to play with such people either.

Pretty pretty please with a cherry on top EME? Can we get an auto-block feature added when we report someone?

Quote: Blindrat on 03/07/2012, 01:34 PM - view

Same, I only ever found out after someone else told me. Put it as a chat tooltip or in the manual as a tip. Especially if it includes something like "You can always remove them later if you desire!"

I know of a few people who wouldn't like to ignore someone if they thought it'd remove that person from their chatlogs for ever, but if they knew it was a temporary thing they controlled they'd be much more open to the idea. Like I said, meta-feedback! :D

Quote: Huxer on 03/07/2012, 01:10 PM - view

Sadly it isn't (XBL has had it worse for years), but I don't think we should be so complacent about it. Even if we all ignore the problem players, they still exist as a detriment for new players, especially new players to the MMO market. It took me awhile to even figure out there was a /ignore feature waaay back when I started playing.

Now if such a tip has helpfully included on in the manual for the game...

Okay, what follows may be something a few people don't want to hear, but I think it has to be said. We all want this game to succeed, right? We'd all love for TERA to be a massive hit and shockthe crowd, making the game last forever and evers. But the thing is, there is a pretty significant force that stands in the way of that, something that could wind up massively hurting TERA at launch and beyond. And if you, my hypothetical reader, are scrambling to the Comment button to post your agreement on how much the PVP sucks, or the Elin changes suck, or the Connectivity sucks, or anything sucks, stop. You are part of the problem.

The community that's sprung up around this game has some of the most frightening horrible members I've seen, and the problem is most just feed off each other non-stop and across various threads. I've seen entire threads fizz and become little more than flame wars (Looking at you, Elin) as people simply scream insults at each other until a mod closes the thread, at which point the people simply move to another thread and resume the exact same behavior. I've seen posters insult and belittle other posters for not reason, and then do the exact same thing to the moderators, taunting them even after receiving temporary suspensions. The forums create an almost toxic level of bile at times, and the sheer number of posts in certain sections mean the most of the bile is clear and on display for the rest of it.

In game is little better, I've seen players sit in place and hurl insults like it's specific topics on the forums all over again. This isn't a "get thicker skin" thing either, and do you know why? Absolutely none of my friends and various people I've spoken with leave the General chat pane open. After CBT1, Day 1, we all switched over to either Party or Whisper and almost never swap back. The few times I either have or simply didn't switch on log-in, within minutes my log is filled with bile, elitism, or general insults hurled across every possible channel minus, oddly, LFG. So good on you guys for keeping that one clean, I appreciate it.

As for the point of this, is this REALLY the face you want to present to new players? In game is only marginally better than the forums as a whole, and a toxic community is the easiest way to destroy a game from the inside out. I love playing TERA and want it to succeed, and I'm assuming everyone else here (minus a couple obvious trolls) want to see the same thing. This doesn't mean you have to be nice to everyone, but it does mean that people need to grow up and learn how to talk like adults. The game has an 'M' rating, as most people love to trumpet, how about we, the community, learn to act mature first, then use that rating as a badge?

If you don't agree with someone, you don't have to insult them. Belittling or taunting won't solve anything and filling channels with bile and short-term self-gratification only leads to long term problems for the longevity of the game.


En Masse, I know having to put up with thousands of screaming voices can be tough, but please, for the sake of the community and the game, have a little more presence and force. The changes to CBT2 were great, don't get me wrong. It was a step in the right direction, but not a cure-all thing. There are still incredibly toxic threads and posts here, and players in the game that should be dealt with to ensure the best experience for everyone. I'm not advocating a crack-down of posters, just a little tighter reign on those who seek out to ruin the experiance for others.

For everyone, have a little thought for the other person in any kind of argument or discussion. If you can only prove a point with insults or threats, just ignore them and move on. We can be civil. We can make the community be a bright and shining place for EVERYONE to share. The game doubly so, to let it last for as long as possible.

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you all in CBT3! I hope you're as excited as I am (And take this as a little meta-feedback for the beta process at large).

-Scarlet Selene

Quote: Advanced on 2012-02-15 15:51:07 UTC

Oh, no, don't worry about having to make up tons of stuff just to get into role-playing. You don't have to have tons of conversation planning and backstory to make for some fun RP. If you want to try, next time the beta rolls around, give this a shot.

.5) Name your character something unridiculous, unless you're making it part of the character. Can even knickname instead of making a new character, but unless you're going for a compltely goofy angle, avoid something like x.Legolas.x or the like. :P

1) come up with a very basic personality for your character. Don't worry about backstory, that can come later if you want to keep going. But for now, are you timid? Brash? Bloodthirsty? Honorable? pick one or two and keep it in mind.

2) Go RP in the world! Just look at things as your hypothetical character would. You don't have to come up with much when the game already supplies a story for you. You can type in-game to people (or NPCs you hate/love), or just speak out loud if you feel like being silly and enjoying it.

Heck, during the in-game cutscenes I was rp'ing a very, very snarky and caustic Elin, back talking to all the NPCs during exposition. My friend thought I had lost my mind and thought I was being dumb.


She started doing it the very next cutscene.

So go wild! There's no limit to RP, and no barrier to entry. Can RP anything from walking to the bar for a beer to punching a giant snake-lizard-thing to death for kicks. Anything is a possible story!

Quote: suzakuex on 2012-02-15 20:38:27 UTC

I did enchant, and I can safely say it isn't something amazing. I was enchanting a pair of gloves, +1 gave one bonus armor and nothing else. +2 was another point of armor and a point of balance. Unless that changes the higher level you go, the first 3 levels are all minimal upgrades, +3 only sticking out because it's the first milestone of the tiers.

At best from my level 17ish gloves, a +3 would have been equivalent to a quest reward at the next hub in terms of stats, and maybe able to pull ahead with the first unlock. My gloves wouldn't have (they gave 2 crit, the ones I had already had crit and were better out-of-the-gate), but I wanted to try and get there to see how it'd look. 2 successes and three failures in a row later, I gave up on it. As it stands at that level, it's not worth bothering to invest in at all until you're at least max level.

Which is the crux of what I was getting at back in the opening. TERA forcus too much on providing gold sinks for max level characters, and not enough on letting newbies/low-levels getting to try the mechanics out. For a good comparison, check out the bag addition slots. First one is free, as part of a quest. Second one is very, very easy to acquire. So the first time you run into this mechanic, you get a very noticable benefit for not a whole lot of investment, *but* you don't get close to having the entire thing. You only get a taste, but it's enough to remember and bring the player back. Banking had a sample that made me want to come back for more. Enchanting was the sample that made me run for the garbage can.

Perhaps level ups will be more important with higher level gear (assuming they scale better then), but right now, you could give me full +2 and I'd have to debate if it's even an upgrade or not.