User blog:Rpaarl/Plans for second half of 2021: Baldera opened

There was some time ago (2nd of May) meeting with TERA producera and developers with announcements about future plans and player questions.

Video from meeting in on KTERA YouTube channel but it's over 3 hours and in Korean. Luckily Lucks on main Korean TERA website wrote down main points of Q/A. This is google translate (with some manual fixes) of main parts of Lucks' article.

Roadmap from June 2021
Baldera is opened after 10 years!

New area includes a storyline. New storyline will continue the early TERA story. Re-appearance of Manahan and Argon-related story continues.

A battle with Rogash, who is captivated by the madness of losing Lumikan, the commander of the High Dragon, awaits. This concludes the Exodor - Draakons story line, "Rogash gains supernatural power using the orb he made for Lucmia, and this power causes the current Arborea area to connect to another dimension. This is called a dimensional passage, and users use this passage to move to a completely new place from the previously experienced dungeon." This phenomenon is called dungeon resonance, and as the same dungeon is changed to a completely different dungeon, new rewards and play environments are expected to be provided.

Preview image is from Saleron's Sky Garden which is transformed into something twisted and sinister.

In a way, the northern Arun continent was a side story of the main world view, but it seems to have become a side story of the side story through Exodor. At the end of this summer, the story of Exodor's High Dragons will come to an end.

New equipment is released with Rogash of Madness dungeon.

There is plan to release new equipment every six months. New equipment will work like previous, with enchantment, random options, infusion and etching slots.

New system will allow transfer of "reinforcement values" between equipment of the same type.

[This might mean you can transfer stuff like random options to the new gear.]

Reworking Combat System
Users get specific items (tentative name: runes) through in-game play, and when equipped, it is possible to change the abilities and appearance effects of existing skills. For example, archer's shot changes into a multi-shot that hits number of targets by equipping a rune, or a chain lightning shot that gives a chain reaction to nearby monsters.

There is a plan to simplify/merge skills that have no use or see little use.

Player Feedback
Players hate the +9 option in current gear (it procs for 15 seconds, with 60 cooldown). They ask to change is to work like brooch (manually activated).

"We would like to apologize in advance for the balance of the 9th gear option." "This season's equipment enhancement step-by-step add-on option was one of the wrong choices." It still won't be reworked since there's little time to next update.

Players want Dreadspire back (Tower of Illusion, hope this is correct meaning)

Q. Please make a lot of Elin costumes.

"Even now, more costumes of the Elin race are coming out. We will do our best to produce more attractive costumes, including Elin."

Q. Plans for open world PVP

There is lots of bullying in PVP, like focusing on weak characters or weak guilds, guild war declaration, dungeon/battlefield exclusion.

"We will review the direction of activating the field focusing on specific areas/contents such as PVP zones or party hunting zones rather than saving the entire field in the long term." "First, there seems to be a need for open field PVP in addition to special spaces such as battlefields."

Previously, tried to revive PVP with new PVP content through the Core Area, but it was eventually closed with around 5 users per day on average.

Q. Class Balance

Class balance is tracked monthly. Classes are balanced with new gear (including +9 options). There is big balance patch in the second half of the year. Also skill rework is part of this.

Q. Farming is not fun because you only run similar dungeons repeatedly.

"Some of you may be able to easily clear dungeons with equipment level 501 or higher within minutes, but by Korean standards, the average clear time of 18 minutes ... overseas is higher than that of Korea. It takes 10-30% extra time."

Q. Warrior's Aerial Scythe is hated in PVP and those who don't play warrior want it removed.

"This is a part that we are aware of, and before a full reorganization, we will individually identify skills with CC or high efficiency so that we can adjust them through the May or June patch."

Q. Is it difficult to add an all-purpose elixir to the monthly pass?

We will review it in the direction of adding a universal potion.

Q. It would be nice to have a ranking system where even beginners can participate and enjoy the guild.

"PVP content such as the current guild battle is the main competition, but in the second half of the year, we plan to configure the guild competition system in a way that not only PVP but also play such as dungeon content such as PVE can become an axis of the guild competition."

Q. More character customization is needed.

Customization is a tricky part. "Adding customizing elements such as pupils or detailed body shape changes has requested a technical review." This has been requested and studied for 10 years now, still no solution.

Q. Please diversify the boss to balance the class.

TERA's early dungeons had a play time of about 20-40 minutes, and many named bosses appeared. However, many users who constantly complained about the burden of playing dungeons, and the stress of knowing the strategies of all bosses. To solve this problem, the transition was made and one-boss only dungeons created. Currently, this type of development process has been established, so it seems difficult to re-create a dungeon with the same scale as before.

Q. Any plans for a new class?

There are no plans for this year, and it seems that we will be able to deliver related news next year.

Q. Do you have any plans to address the graphics degradation issue?

The 64-bit update and the upgrade of Unreal Engine from 3.0 to 3.5 caused problems that did not exist before, and some textures were replaced with simpler designs than before. The texture crushing phenomenon you mentioned, it has been confirmed that this is happening due to an unintended automatic optimization system. Some LOD issues have been corrected, and we plan to take measures to prevent this from occurring through continuous correction.

Q. The tank/healer difficulty level is higher than other classes, so it is lacking. Is there any solution?

It seems difficult to modify the difficulty level of the role itself. Tankers are in a position where they can handle the entire dungeon play, so it seems that they need a higher understanding of patterns and higher skill in responding than general dealers. Since the healer also has an important position in attack, it seems difficult to lower the difficulty of the role.

However, it seems that the skill reorganization can be carried out to lower the difficulty of operation and operation of the skills of tanks and healers. For example, we will be able to adjust the difficulty related to the tank's aggro keeping, the timing of the finish, and the healer's sword purification(?) and buff/debuff maintenance. We will also improve the healer's knife purification timing, buffs and debuffs.

Q. Please preserve the value of the equipment.

(Long answer)

This is a concept that is difficult to adopt in the TERA development environment.

Q. I wish there was a skill reset manastone in the dungeon

Classes with long cooldowns are often not usable yet in the next boss entry stage after defeating the boss. So, there are a lot of troublesome people visiting towns, but rather than adding skill reset manastones to the dungeon, we are trying to solve this problem by using a bonfire that will be added later.

Gold farming is a big issue in Korea

In fact, this is the part the developers are struggling the most. In terms of global standards, only Korea is conducting a unique gold farming play at an incomparable level. Gold trading between users is also quite active.

Q. I hope the Naslow's (Wilson) map rewards will be updated.

"We have an update plan in place, so we will reflect your inquiry."

In the case of the premium dungeon, Ghillieglade (Gillian's Forest), the balance needs to be updated as well as the rewards, so we are thinking about remaking it or replacing it with a new premium dungeon. Ghillieglade is cleared in average of 500,000 times a month in Korea. The economic system would not handle the goods if that could be solved with a simple reward update.

Q. Please stop recycling the old dungeons!

The remake and recycling of existing dungeons will be carried out sequentially. We are also positively reviewing the request for a remake of Shandra Manaya, Vergos.

Q. Please provide a practice space that PVP beginners can use.

You can practice the rotations focusing on medium-sized monsters, but in the case of PVP, there is no such thing.

Therefore, we will prepare a separate special space such as ‘Apemanpe’ (Clawrider in practice dungeon) for PVP practice such as the same structure as the PC and NPCs that generate various reaction effects.

Q. Please reorganize the daily reputation quests.

Like the answer to the Wilson Map Reward Update question, I think this part has been neglected for a while. Several contents will be updated sequentially during the second half of the year, but we will also take care of the daily reputation quests.

Q. Please improve the Island of Dawn

There are also people who have written and shared suggestions in this regard. It has been very helpful in understanding your comments. The main suggestion is to configure it to the (old) Garden of Dawn, which was used as a tutorial map, and the (new) Garden of Dawn, which was used as field content, in different dimensions and operate as PVE and PVP fields, respectively.

We think your comments are very interesting and have a lot of room for meaningful action, so we will put them on the content roadmap and review them.