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TERA Impressions & Combat Explanation
Hello everyone. I've been reading MMORPG.com for nearly 10 years but haven't really wanted to post on the forums until recently. I've been playing MMOs for a long time and discovered this site to help me find the best games. I want to write a review of my recent experience in the Closed Beta 1 of TERA online. I also have some gripes at some people's opinions of the combat system, and want to clarify how comabt in the game actually works from a design perspective.
Character Creation
Upon logging in, I approved of the music and UI. I thought the character creation process was vey well done all around, it was some of the more detailed character creation I'd seen in awhile. I liked being able to control the shape of the face and other little features. The animations, stances, and outfits of the individual classes also was really cool. I like the art of the characters, although some of the races may appear too "sexy" for the western audiences upon first looking. It's a much more surreal art style than most are used to.
Questing
Leveling in the game appears to be done through the typical quest hub system implemented through WoW. The game already has repeatable quests, and the quest tab is divided into multiple compartments for different categories of quests. There is a main "story quest line" that you follow which delivers you to different quest hubs and major areas similar to SWTOR.
One thing I thought was cool was that as I got to level 20, the quest chains brought me to a zone filled with BAMs, "Bad Ass Monsters", that basically required a group to kill. As I walked around, there were lots of other people trying in vain to kill the BAMs in the area. I found that very often groups would form when me and others spontaneously worked together to bring a BAM down, then forming a party and continuing to work from there. I don't know if this will continue as the population of the game changes, but I really thought that it seemed like I was actually partying much more often in this game than I was in other theme-park quest system games. This felt refreshing, and honestly I haven't partied this much just "questing"/leveling in a long time. I hope that as 20+ continues that many of the zones are like this so that there is a constant need or at least encouragement for partying. The quests certainly aren't shakespearean story lines with dialogue, it's more along the lines of "go kill 10 of these super hard to kill monsters." I think this works well for the game, since battle against the BAMs is so much fun. It makes it feel more Phantasy Star Online/Monster Hunter if that makes sense to people.
Crafting
One thing I've very critical of in games is the crafting system. I still think Mabinogi has one of the most geniusly intricate and deep crafting systems of any game. I thought it was stupid that WoW/SWTOR limited the amount of professions and gathering skills you could have in the game. So, in this department I have to hand kudos to the developers to allow your character in TERA to master every profession and gathering skill in the game, at least from what I could see. I like this because it means crafting isn't something you just wrap up in a few days after you hit cap, you actually have to work at it. Obviously someone who has all the crafts maxed will be very capable of making money, and all the items they need for various occasions. I feel this adds a lot of unseen depth to growing your character in the game.
Crafting is also very difficult, as you can fail. However, I'm personally okay with a crafting system not being an utter joke for a change and something you actually have to work towards for a change. I can't speak for how useful crafting is in higher levels of TERA, but hopefully it's importance isn't just an afterthought like it sadly is in most games these days.
Game Interface (GUI) & Controls
The GUI in this game seems very polished. While I still think it's funny that personal UI creators like Tuk dominate what AAA companies can produce in terms of quality, creativity, and pixel perfection, the TERA UI is still very good. All of the elements are easily moveable, customizeable, and it's as easing as holding alt+click. I found myself having a lot of fun organizing the UI in and changing it as I played to morph around new gameplay mechanics I had discovered.
There is also an LFG tool, which I thought was nice because it isn't a Looking for Dungeon anonymous sorting tool, but rather a "party list sorter" in which community and interaction still seems to matter. I've heard they're adding some of the aforementioned mechanics with later patches, unfortunately, but we'll see how EME handles that and the community's reaction.
Customer Service
Obviously it's hard to judge a game on customer service this early on, but I'm a guy who has dealt with publishers like Nexon for years, so to me EME is a breath of fresh air and reminds me more of Riot/Blizzard. They seem to be very responsive in posting on forums clarifying about issues, and my support emails about my beta key were promptly answered personally. I'm hoping they don't dip at all in this department, and realize how IMPORTANT constant customer service is, especially in the MMORPG industry. I would have liked to see active GMs in the game to moderate the obsurdly fast-paced "SWTOR/WoW/ThisGameSucks" area chat spamming constantly. It seemed by Saturday/Sunday the chat was a bit cleaner and more civilized, so hopefully that trend continues as trolls leave.
Combat Explained
At first, I was honestly dissapointed by the combat. I was expecting an exact clone of Vindictus. Super fast, spammy attacks and instants. I expected to be able to turn mid auto attack to keep my aim precise, ala Vinditus/Dragon Nest. I reached the cap on the second day, and had most of that day + sunday to get used to combat at 22 as a Lancer. I practiced on BAMs and the 22 instance, SB. During this time, my stance towards the combat went from "meh" to "I get it now, I LOVE THIS!" I think this is where I've sadly seen many reviewers of the game fail. People just don't give it enough time. Frankly: most people suck at the combat and don't "get it" yet because it's new. By Sunday, after tanking the instance many times, my motions, skills, and attacks went from being clunky, slow, and frustrating to fluid and precise. It felt responsive and quick. It felt crisp, like I had exact control of my character. This was exactly what I wanted.
You see, where TERA's combat is unique is that every skill is instant. When you press a skill, your characer instantly starts to perform the motion of that skill in-game. So if you press "Sword Attack", your character must actually SLICE and finish slicing before you can move, change directions of the attack, or load a different skill. Sadly, many reviewers of the game that haven't "understood" the combat are so used to global cooldowns that they can't comprehend that a global cooldown is actually an antiquated technique to simulate what combat in TERA actually is. You see, a global cooldown used in traditional combat systems essentially adds in delay to simulate the idea that, physically, your character must take time to complete the motions of the attack before you can execute your next attack. For example, in WoW, if you are a rogue and you use Back Stab on a character, there is then a 1 second global cooldown that occurs directly after you press the button. During this time, your character performs the motions of the attack. In WoW and most games with this system, the motions of the attack don't necesssarily need to line up with the 1 second delay, so the motion of your character using skills can change instantly if you are using instant attacks one after another. The game is based around global cooldowns as a moderator of the pace of combat. In TERA, the combat and the motions of your character ITSELF is the moderator.
Where TERA differs, is that instead of simulating delay between possible attacks, your character's delay is REAL because your character is REALLY performing the attack. If you press "Lance Thrust", and your character takes .5 seconds to pull the Lance back to aim, .2 seconds to thurst it forward, and .2 seconds of motion afterwards to pull the lance back into combat stance, then and only then can you execute another attack. So you would have waited .9 seconds because your character took .9 seconds to complete the attack in the game world. So your global cooldown is what is actually happening in reality. People are so used to [looking] at their skill bar and waiting for the global cooldown to finish so they can execute another skill, that they don't get that in TERA, your eyes are always supposed to be on your character at all times. The motions and movements of your character and your opponents in combat ARE that delay. Once I started to understand this, I found that I was using my moves very quickly in succession and I actually felt like I could put strategy behind my movements and strikes. I became very good at aiming my attacks, where as before I was getting that "clunky" feeling. It felt visceral, alive, and like I was actually there in the fight myself. I hope that this type of feeling continues as the game progresses, and that others who don't understand the combat will learn and give it some time and practice before making an early judgement call.
I think it's a shame so many have dismissed the game, it's combat, and it's challenge, when, if we compared the game's current levels and content to WoW, would be like comparing it to Deadmines, boars, defias thiefs, and OMG HOGGER. I'm sorry, but having done Heroic Litch King before 30% nerf, and having played battlegrounds/arena(gladiator) for years, I can tell you that it would be absolutely unfair to judge WoW's combat based on just having leveled to Deadmines. Thinking from that perspective, I think it's quite amusing and sad that people dismiss a game so quickly based on it's challenge and their understanding of the combat, when they clearly haven't taken the time to reach any challenge or understand the game or it's combat at all.
Edit- I may add more to this later, and will post more follow-up information as the next Betas happen.
Comments
Advertising or not, I don't care. You seem to have some answers for me, if you don't mind :-)
Just two simple questions actually:
Are quest objectives shown on your map?
Do you see a lot of stuff in the distance you can't reach and explore? For example big monuments or mountains further behind the actual play field.
For the rest, yeah, good read.
Just sounds a little bit fishy. Do you work in journalism or something in real life?
Yes, 7 objectives visible. And yes.
Oooouuuuuuuuw that's one red marker right there.
Why did they have to show objectives on maps. I feal like swearing all over the place, I'm not going to do it here.
And the other part is also bad, aren't you at least hesitant on that last part?
Nope, I just love the genre and know a lot about game design and mechanics. In real life I'm a web developer, hoping to specialize in cross-game web development, (think wowarmory, wowhead, and the LoL player judging system). Honestly I was hoping to provide a neutral review, but I suppose it does look a bit positive. I suppose that's because I enjoyed it I guess, and I don't often write reviews. Also, it was kind of pissing me off seeing some "professional" games/journalists write off the combat so non-chalantly.
Boring level progression and lack of end game is what kills MMOs. TERA has both of those, so no matter how good the combat and graphics are when the 2 big killers of MMOs are in the game.
Rather subjective, don't you think?
For me, while the quest system was the usual run of the mill quest hub, the combat system made the whole thing really fun to play and I was flying through the levels without noticing. Same thing that happened with SW:TOR, although there it was the story progression that helped, while the combat was an (minor) annoyance.
Regarding my second yes, I'm not entirely sure. THere are a lot of things in the distance that you can reach, but in two days I can't give a definite answer. THe game does use a system that you get very far visibility in the horizon and things look non-detailed and the more you come closer the come into focus.
Question to the OP concerning the combat.
Would you describe TERAs combat closer to:
A. Vindictus
B. Monster Hunter
C. Dark Souls/Demons Souls
From your description it seemed you would equate it to MH, yet from the footage (lvl 38) I've watched online, the combat looked a lot more "spammy" and without hard consequences (like Vindictus, where i can chugg HP pots and block every special from a boss)
Essentially i am asking if the game prefers button-mashing or an methodical approach.
MH didn't have as many abilities for example but the combat was extremely deep because of different weapons and behaviour. You needed to weight slashing, stabbing, slow overhead slashing etc. against that the mob is doing. From the footage it looked like you can do just about anything and the mob is going to drop at some point anyways as long as you remember to move out of the way of their attacks.
PS: The stun-mechanics looked massively OP in the footage.
I would say timed and methodical, spamming the keys does little.
TERAs combat is way closer to Monster Hunter in terms of speed and weight but also is skill spammy.
I can't say about Dark Souls/Demon Souls as I haven't played them yet. It has the same control scheme as Vindictus and Dragon Nest where you can't keyboard turn or anything, and hit alt to bring up the GUI. The combat is similar to Monster Hunter in that you actually let your attacks go through the animation of attacks to do damage. Vindictus felt much more spammy to me, but it did feel faster paced. I want to say that the combat is very much like Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe but with the addition of skills. For example, I've heard there will be haste on gear later that quickens animation speeds of attacks, and PSU had items that did the very same, quickening animation speeds to allow for quicker dodges or more attacks.
In saying no he was incorrect about this, if you take a good look you can get up onto any mountain and run across the top into other zones or whatever.
They just announced via twitter that they uploaded a guilde. Seems decent enough, listing for example racial abilities and other a bit more advanced stuff:
http://tera.enmasse.com/game-guide/veterans-guide/
So which one is it?
Phantasy Star or MH methodical?
Because PS is nothing like MH.
I've played neither, so no idea. The thing is, there is no point in spamming the keys, the attacks don't go faster or something like this if you do. You get better of timing your attacks when there is an opening, or evades when you expect incoming damage and so on.
I don't normally post on the forums but I just want to back up what the OP said. It is pretty spot on to my thoughts.
As far as the question asking about what combat is like, I have played MH and DS/DS. I am a HUGE fan of Dark souls and Demon's souls. IMO Tera feels like I am playing Dark Souls as an MMO. Almost like a mesh of DS and MH. I didn't like MH because everything was so slow. Tera is in between that and DS. When I first booted the game up I though "Man I am not going to like this" I didn't like that fact that I had no mouse cursor unless I hit escape. I also didn't like the fact that when I hit "S" to backpeddle, that I instead ran towards the camera. However...After a couple hours of playing, it just magically came together. I played a Slayer to 20 and my Mystic to 22. I will say that healing on that Mystic in Secert Base was the most fun I have ever had healing in an MMO. It is hard to explain unless you actually try it but with the main heal, I press the heal spell, then I need to hover my crosshair over a party member, that locks my heal to them, I can then pass my crosshair over 2 more party members and then you visually see all three party members highlighted green. Click the spell again and viola. Sounds tedious but it is great fun. On top of that I can drop healing globes around.
My friend and I had so much fun with the BAM's(Elite mobs) that we just kept farming them for EXP. The EXP for grinding mobs is amazing.
Going back to combat- Sure you don't select a certian slash/blunt/pierce weapon depending on what you fight but it truly is VERY fun. I imagine once you hit 30-40 it will get even better. You will at times wish combat was a bit faster but again it is still SUPER fun.
On the quest helper question, I will clarify- Turn in's for your quests will show up on the minimap- However where you need to go will not unless you click the link in the quest. And as far as I could tell, you could only track one thing at a time like this. Here is the great thing. As you wander around, when you see a mob, they will actually have an exclaimation mark next to their name denoting that they are for a quest. hovering over them shows what quest it is. Very nice feature.
Another clarify- Being able to see places far away that you can climb etc. This is not so true. Yeah you can see far away as far as mountains but they are not really climable as in say AoC or Skyrim. There are a lot of hills you think you cuold climb but Tera has invisible walls blocking them. I shrugged it off after a bit but atfirst I was turned off by the walls. There are also a lot of clipping in of the trees and mobs at a medium distance- Maybe just a beta thing? I had everything on MAX.
I am definitely buying this game as I have not had this much fun in a while. On that note- here are the things I dislike about Tera. Keep in mind that these may be MOOT points later on.
-Quests- Not much different than anything else- I wish there were more of the mini dungeons. Luckily the fun combat makes it more fun.
-Travel- I am sure some love it but I hate the fact that I am in the middle of nowhere and have to run all the way back to town. I am spoiled with hearth stones.... In Tera, you find teleport scrolls and they are few and far between. If you pick the right class, you can tleport to the first city every hour. travel from small town to small town is ok as you can pay the teleporter to teleport you there. This entire system may get better as you get higher level Luckily mobs rarely knock you off your mount and you get one by level 11 so it's definitely not a breaker.
-Looting- I again am spoiled by AOE looting. You will hit F a lot
Strangely it doesn't bother me as much as I thought though and if AOE looting never gets implemented, I am fine with it.
FOR THOSE MOUSE CLICKER PEOPLE- Luckily I am not a mouse clicker. For those that are, you cannot mouse click at all in Tera. It is all hotkeyed. Naga mouse is my friend
Maybe this is a good time for you to learn to hotkey though 
Closing- If you preorder this on Amazon or GS, you can return it for a refund. I definitely think it is worth trying out the next beta in 2 weeks. I probebly won't respond to questions. I am more of an in and out guy. Sorry.
You can climb in Tera, Just about every mountain, building, or object can be scaled. That does not mean that there are no inviso walls because there are a few places that have them, and some mountains might be too steep to climb but most of the time you can find an alternate path up the mountain.
~Op you view is dead on~
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
....and then people keep saying that p2p mmos are the best thing since sliced bread when all you get is the same 2 killer mistakes mmo after mmo.
Thanks for the responses about the distance views.
So I'll asume that what you see is what you can get. Not just beautiful picture in the background, but actual playfield. Appart from the invisible walls, I assume those walls would be just cliffs you can't get up to? But at least you can get near the clifs.
What would be great, is that there is something to do in every small corner, or at least some corners.
One thing I don't get about the combat, is why they gave players and mobs so much health relative to the damage they do. For a game that boasts of action combat, fights take a surprisingly long time..
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
When i played on korean servers versus BAMs it feelt like i had low amounts of hp and the BAM had tons, low level its hard to die though.
That's how I felt. Combat in an MMO for me is not the primary focus, though I'm clearly happy that new games are trying to improve on it, but in TERA it felt like a chore after a few mobs.
Because everything scales quit high in tera, its not uncommon for a lv58 zerk to drop 250k crits or more with the right conditions.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I have to say that the combat sounds great on paper. However if that leads to actual good gameplay with a good mix of skills and equipment. I guess I will find out...
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Warrior takes forever to kill stuff. Berserker 2-3 shots everything. Think combat takes too long? Play burst DPS.
I guess that is his point if a zerk can drop a same level mob in 5 hits but a low level zerk takes 25 then it is not scaling well? In fact you'd have thought it would be the other way round, quicker easier fights at low levels longer epic fights at high levels?
BTW OP thanks for the detailed review.
Do any of the classes have some skills with animations that do not 'root' you? i.e the animation can run while you move? Also be intrested in classes that might play a little quicker?
Not played yet but might jump in for the next beta. Currently playing Amalur, I hope the action combat there does not spoil me for Terra:). Mind you I hope Terras combat doesn't spoil me for GWII. I don't think it will though they certainly seem to have similarities I think GWII might actually be even more 'actiony'.