Tera vs PSO2

[zemog]

Has anyone here played Tera before PSO2? Or after?

While I always loved "Phantasy Star", and get pulled to each new title based on title alone, and the nostalgia of it all, I'm personally starting to wonder if Tera is simply the better game (for now) and I should simply return to that instead... at least until PSO2 comes to NA officially. I think I'm done with PSO2 until then.

Anyways, I loved Tera because it felt like a MMO which played like PSO/PSU... and you can even play the archer / mage classes with the same manual-aim POV as PSO2, as well as with gamepad:

[spoiler-box]
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q260/z3m0g/TERA_ScreenShot_20120507_170706.png
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q260/z3m0g/TERA_ScreenShot_20120507_170406.png
[/spoiler-box]

Does anyone else here have personal opinions between the two games? Perhaps there is good reason to return to PSO2 instead, if it ever comes down to choosing.

- PSO2 is Free-to-Play and Tera is $15/month.

- PSO2 requires you to grind missions and improve for best completion time, while Tera is WoW-style quest-grind.

- GamePlay battle systems can be considered very similar between the two, or very different. It depends on how you want to play.

[NoiseHERO]

No...

No.

[sugarFO]

I never played Tera even though I really wanted to because of the monthly fee. Ellin are just tooooo cute!! Do you know if they have costumes you can get in Tera too?

I've also read some bad reviews about it... is the TPS style bothersome if enemies keep charging at you or whatever?

[gravityvx]

I play TERA, 60 slayer. The fun in that game wears off very fast with the non stop monster reskins after like 40. I love the games combat to death but I really really really hate how many reskined monsters are in that game, but the BAM fights feel ALOT more epic in that game than the boss in this one for sure, but that could just be me. End of the day though I think pso2 is alot more fun and the replay is alot higher, plus it's free soooo there's my 2 cent on that.

[zemog]

I never played Tera even though I really wanted to because of the monthly fee. Ellin are just tooooo cute!! Do you know if they have costumes you can get in Tera too?

I've also read some bad reviews about it... is the TPS style bothersome if enemies keep charging at you or whatever?

I'm sure it can be, but it is the same in PSO2 for me. I would get attacked from behind and sides quite often. So I actually recently switched to lock-on style play with my Ranger. But it's mostly because I prefer to play with gamepad, and I couldn't be efficient/accurate enough with manual aiming.

[Zipzo]

I have 2 level 60s in TERA currently, an Elin Archer, and a Human Female (have race changed to Castanic before) Warrior. I wanted to feel melee and ranged.

The game has some devastating flaws that are leading to its overall downfall. The core of the game is brilliant. Bringing action/aiming style combat to the open world MMORPG genre. The graphics are damn nice, and the BAM fights far and away shadow any boss available in PSO2 in terms of both difficulty and skill necessary to defeat. The dungeons themselves are a huge skill check (on hard mode), and decently difficult even on normal.

It's horrible-ness comes in the form of certain un-avoidable parts of the game that in order to keep up with everyone else, you must take part in...

- Enchanting. Oh my god. If you hate enchanting in PSO2? Stay far, far, far away from TERA. Enchanting goes all the way to +12 and it's required to have all of your gear at a decent + before attempting difficult content and the system is maddening. Basically for every single + up, you need a sacrificial piece of gear of both the same rarity in relevance to the +, and 12 powders that you can buy from a vendor. Now getting to +6 is not that bad because you can simply use the cheap powder, but once you try to go further where you need to basically be sacrificing gold gear of the same tier (only dropping in dungeons, where you have to roll for it against other players) to have a good chance of going up, you need a way more expensive alkahest. Every time you fail you lose both the sacrificed item and the alkahest. Basically, if RNG hates you, your gear will never + up, and you will do nothing but waste gold. Try after try you will watch your gold that you spent hours farming up go down the drain just because luck wasn't on your side. It's an absolute bullshit mechanic for a western game.

- Now I will not say this is a con per say, but unless you are on a PvE server expect to get ganked by every last piece of higher-level-than-you scum on the planet. You will not reach level cap without enduring at least a few nights of just being ganked. Over and over by people you have no chance against. The kicker? There is no "penalty" for them doing it. They are free to gank you as they please. The only penalty is they essentially get a big "I gank lowbies" sign over their heads until they go do the necessary actions to clear it, and when they wear that sign, they are free to be ganked in return by anyone without receiving the same sign.

- The skill cap for melee is noticeably much lower than it is for ranged. Having played both Archer and Warrior, I can say there is a considerable difference in skill required. As a ranged class it is incredibly difficult to hit squirrely players, especially because you can not lead off, the shot is meant to hit the player from the point you release it, not after the travel time of the shot, so you have to basically be on-point when you release or you will wiff. Can you imagine trying to kite a melee that is absolutely destroying you, and as they are wiggling around you, stabbing you a million times, you shoot them with the only snaring ability you have, and you miss? It's now on cooldown. Goodbye. I found that beating Slayers or Warriors in duels as an Archer was essentially impossible (equal skill) if they weren't being stupid. That especially goes for slayers. Slayers are considered the most blatantly overpowered class in the game, and have been since the game released, and nothing has changed nor have the developers given any insight as to if it will. Slayers are the master class. Period. If you see a good/geared one, you will die. It's that simple. It is for this reason that the Slayer class itself dominates the statistics.

- The remodeling system is extremely limited. In order to use a piece to remodel to it must be a crafted piece. The remodel vendor offers you a few of the lower tiers of gear to remodel to for some hefty fees, but if you want any of the higher tier looking pieces you need to level up crafting (which is a whole 'nother can of worms), farm the extensive list of materials to craft the higher tier piece that looks like what you want, then you can remodel with it. It sacrifices the piece too, so if you get a new piece of gear you want to remodel, you have to craft another one. More gold.

- You need gold for everything. I mean, this isn't that surprising, but not only do you need gold but everything is expensive. Everything is so gold lined, that you have to farm gold regularly. An average person who doesn't hardcore all day can go to the best farming spots (and essentially all you do is round up mobs, kill, loot, repeat) and maybe earn around 100g every close to 2 hours. If you get lucky and get good drops to vendor maybe more. It takes thousands and thousands of gold spent every week to keep up with your enchanting, possibly remodeling, buffs (food/scrolls) for dungeons, and other activities. This means you spend a shitload of time just farming gold in TERA.

- When you first find a good piece of gear in a dungeon, the best potential pieces of gear will be "enigmatic". Which means you have to "identify" them to uncover a bunch of secret stats before you can even wear it. The base stats will also be somewhat lower than trash gear of the same tier, forcing you to have to go through the enchanting system before they become wearable. There are essentially 4 randomized stats, 1 on item stat, and 3 enchantment bonus stats, 4 for a Tier 13 crafted weapon. Basically you get an extra bonus at +3, +6, and +9, and on a crafted weapon you get one at +7. However, the randomized stats can be anything. They can be a bunch of useless stats. So you know what you have to do? You have to re-enigmatic the item, then re-identify it to try to get better stats. Didn't get the right stats again? Re-enigmatic it, then re-identify it more. Guess what? Each action is a scroll. You have an identification scroll, then a re-enigmatic scroll, and both cost gold. You could spend hours sitting there, scrolling your item back and forth until you get the best combination of stats, and even then you might not ever even get it if you're unlucky. You have the option to "spellbind" stats you want to keep for the next re-identification, but guess what, that costs an un-godly amount of gold each time you want to keep the stat for a re-identification, which would mean you could spend the shit load of money to keep a stat, then still the rest of the stats could suck. So it's more cost effective to just sit there and roll all of them forever until you get the right combo. It's a ridiculous and clunky system that makes no sense.

- The leveling is boring as shit. It's the first game I've ever played that makes pure questing feel like a massive chore. You do nothing but go from pub to pub picking up 10 "Kill 20 of this" quests. Imagine what that feels like once you're in your 50s. Yes, it gets tiresome. Quickly. Remember, I have two 60s.

All in all, my advice is to not try TERA, but in regards to its comparison to PSO2 I will not bother. PSO2 is aimed at a different audience. A more casual gaming audience. The thing about PSO2 is at any point in time, you can login, start a mission and blow stuff up. It's just fun at your finger tips.

In TERA, once you login, you're asking for a headache as you spend 90% of your time in-game farming for gold so you can actually do the fun stuff.

Take this as you will.

[Shadowth117]

But it's mostly because I prefer to play with gamepad, and I couldn't be efficient/accurate enough with manual aiming.
That's why I and every other console gamer clearly have no idea what we're doing in any FPS ever right?

Back on topic, the biggest turn off is the WOW related mission structure for me. Most things about that game bother me and that idea is no exception. I've always been a big fan of Sega's "Do this run as fast as possible!" gameplay they got from doing so many Sonic titles. The fact that a Time Attack mission exists and more will in the future helps for sure. I also love the setting a lot more in the PSO series because its Scifi-Fantasy rather than just the pure/steampunk Fantasy. I don't think I'd hate Tera, but I don't think I'd enjoy it as much as PSO2.

[Bael]

Ya, I've played TERA. Love the graphics. True action combat=LOLWHAT?
besides the Persistent vs. Instanced game style, They are pretty much the same game.
Both PSO2 and TERA get mind-numbing boring if you solo.
both have no endgame content. once your at the top, only thing to do is grind for money and drops.

If you'd like to try TERA there is a free 7 day trial out.

[Zipzo]

Ya, I've played TERA. Love the graphics. True action combat=LOLWHAT?
besides the Persistent vs. Instanced game style, They are pretty much the same game.
Both PSO2 and TERA get mind-numbing boring if you solo.
both have no endgame content. once your at the top, only thing to do is grind for money and drops.

If you'd like to try TERA there is a free 7 day trial out.TERA does have end game content. It's just not well structured.

[ShinMaruku]

No...

No.

You know you want castanics in PSO2. :E

Real talk I play both these games and for different reasons. PSo2 is a really enjoyable solo experience and Tera I do more group stuff.

The combat system in tera is really solid and the BAMs are really solid if they can work on some of the weaknesses of the game and add better content as they game progresses I think it can shape up really well. It also needs to be free to play but I got my chrono scrolls I ain't payin shit. :E

[Zyrusticae]

Um, wow. No, they're really not very alike at all.

Different art style. Different engine. Different setting. Different theme. Different tone (less outright silliness in TERA - unless you count the "armor" design). One is open-world, the other is heavily instanced. Completely different combat systems (the only thing they really share in common is the fact that they rely on actual hit detection - TERA has no weak points, no Just Attack, their equivalent of blocking, dodging, step, Just Reversal are all on cooldowns, it relies heavily on the holy trinity, all abilities are on the hotbar rather than left-clicking to change which ability you use). Different item systems (TERA has largely static items where only a few abilities change between them - PSO2 lets you change the entire set of abilities on every item, plus PSO2 has multiple "top end" items whereas TERA's top-end items are basically always one particular set - y'know, like a bog-standard MMO). One is big on 5-man instanced parties and massive bloody zergfests (Lagfes- I mean Nexus), the other caps out at 12 players per multiparty. One only lets you really customize the face, the other has customization for every aspect of your character.

Oh - and TERA is more difficult. :wacko:

I played TERA to cap, and it just got dull considerably faster than PSO2. Update schedule is much slower, the lack of randomness makes things static and uninteresting after repeated playthroughs, and currently the sole endgame activity aside from re-running the same instanced dungeons over and over and over again is a completely unplayable lagfest where your only participation is to try to at least do a little damage to a mob in each one of the three phases and that's it.

Also, fuck the community! It's FAR worse than PSO-World's. Seriously. No exaggeration. I know that sounds utterly impossible to some folks here, but it's true. It's full of elitist douchebags who will utterly refuse anyone who doesn't have a certain item level for the instance they're doing, even if it is proven to be completely unnecessary (especially when it's just one or two item levels, which makes almost no difference at all) - y'know, bunches of people using item stats to make up for their own lack of skill. Also, full of the prerequisite immature numbskulls and haters and assorted nonsensical douchebaggery you'd expect from WoW (I think the "edgy" art style attracts those kinds of people, too).

I even had a good guild that disbanded from lack of interest at endgame. Go figure! :-?

Sorry, I don't really have anything good to say about TERA other than the graphics are beautiful and the game was kinda fun from 1-60. After 60, though... forget it. No dice.

This is in stark contrast to PSO2, where I'm still playing even though I hit the level cap around, oh, say, 200 hours of gameplay earlier. I guess true, old-fashioned MMOs just aren't for me anymore.

[ShinMaruku]

If you ask me pso2 AND tera have terrible communities due to it picking up MMO rats (The worst community if you cna call it that in gaming)
Queen of the argons should shape up some endgame. I just hope they keep an eye on how it develops because from Korean release to US there have been a lot of changes I only hope they keep it up and keep content rolling atleast as fast as RIFT. And hopefully it can bleed off some of the fuck heads from MMOs in general.

[Zyrusticae]

Hah, on that I have to squarely disagree. My time in-game in PSO2 has been really good, with no big elitists or major douchebags getting in the way of my entertainment. I cannot get away from them in Tera. Biiiig difference.

[ShinMaruku]

You probably been in one of them odd servers with those fools. I just see em in lfg from time to time. Main reason why you see less in PSo2 is well you probably stay away from block 20 and most of the fucks can't impeded in your entertainment because well it's a Japanese game they are stymied from being too much of fucks outright.

My time in both games have been really good but I see the MMO rats and it's to be avoided.

All that needs to be said is when this comes to US they better just call the game as it is and not call it an MMO fuck the MMO community, get NEW people.

[FlameOfYagami]

Tera has WAY better female character models than PSO2...(to some of us that matters) That said it also has way better graphics than pso2.

I'm probably alone in this, but this really bugs me about pso2. I really hate the female character models in this game. I think SEGA really ****ed them up. Also, that silly ass stance they have doesn't help one bit ><

[Cyrillic]

...

...

WHERE WAS THIS THREAD WHEN I BOUGHT IT LAST WEEK TO TIDE ME OVER FOR PSO 2?

[Zipzo]

Tera has WAY better female character models than PSO2...(to some of us that matters) That said it also has way better graphics than pso2.

I'm probably alone in this, but this really bugs me about pso2. I really hate the female character models in this game. I think SEGA really ****ed them up. Also, that silly ass stance they have doesn't help one bit ><
I refuse to agree here.

I'm much more attracted the female characters in PSO2 than from TERA.

[Zyrusticae]

Yeah, I can't agree with regards to Tera's female characters. I guess if you like those specific archetypes (and they're really awfully specific), they work for you, but the fact that you get zero body customization means you're completely SOL if those particular body types don't work for you. (That sounds kind of creepy reading it over again, but this is aesthetics we're talking about, so...)

Also, no muscular females. :(

But yes, the graphics are better. It's one of my only contentions with PSO2, the other being the insane RNG.

[Garnet_Moon]

TERA has unique features such as....

-10 Daily quest limit per day
Choose which faction you want to grind first, because it's going to take a while.

-Endgame is a Clusterfuck
I hope you didn't buy a brand new video card for TERA! If you want to play at an endgame Nexus event, you'll need to turn your graphics down to setting 0 and even then you're still going to be chugging along unless you have a supercomputer. Oh, you won't even see any mobs with literally the entire server at the event. I'm talking between 200 and 3-400 people at each nexus spawn. You will never see the trash spawns or all the AoEs being cast. Think AION sieges when it was in its prime. Only worse.

-Grindgrindgrind
Unless you grab every single quest, in every single town, and go out of your way to kill everything in an entire enemy camp/strong on your way to a boss, you will be grinding out numerous levels because the default chain ends roughly 50% of the bar. The other zones I mentioned? Not one single quest will lead you to any of them. You have to run out there and get them yourself. It's like they don't exist unless you go "exploring". Some of those distant towns only have 2 quests from about 40 NPCs. That's your reward for exploring!

-Barrens chat
Remember when EnMasse said there won't be a "Barrens chat" in TERA? They are right. It's not Barrens chat. It's global. And while they did ninja in a fix to put a timer between your global speech, you can put A LOT of text on your bar to send, so wallsoftext happen constantly.

-Lancer is the only tank
That's right. of all the classes in TERA, Lancer is the only tank that can queue as tank. And let's be honest. Nobody just forms a party and walks up to the dungeon anymore. You can't fill the party with a a warrior, some DPS and a healer and expect queue to work. Warrior isn't a Tank! Warrior will be able to queue as tank soonish, but if you've partied with warriors, you'd rather quit the second you get a Warrior tank in queue and eat the dungeon deserter debuff and try again for a superior Lancer.

-Content designed around a netcafe
If you play TERA from your PC all day, you'll find that you have plenty of time to do your home chores like cleaning and laundry! Why? TERA has nothing for an end game aside from Nexus. There's only a handful of dungeons, many of which are NOT newbie friendly. To save you from death, many Lancers will ask the party if it's their first time in a dungeon. Those who say yes, will recieve a swift kick. It's not because there's nothing else to do in the game... oh, right. If you have limited play or play from a netcafe, then you'll probably never see the evils this game has to offer. And that is what it was designed for!

-Queues Queues Queues
Lancer(tank) is instant. Healers are instant to 30 minutes, DEEPS may as well go watch Titanic. When it's over they can come back and most likely still won't have a party.

All of this and more can be yours should you choose TERA!

That being said, FFXIV has more to do at end game than TERA does. And FFXIV is still shit. I still have my collectors box and I still update it.... praying 2.0 doesn't suck...

[Polly]

Tera's community is the reason I quit, because hooooooooly shit, did I end up finding nothing but the douchiest of elitists that pretty much put a stop to my progress and enjoyment of the game. GEAR LEVEL GEAR LEVEL GEAR LEVEL LANCER LANCER QUEUE QUEUE QUEUE DON'T WANNA COMPETE WITH YOU FOR GEAR GAME IS SO SHITTY!

[Garnet_Moon]

Tera's community is the reason I quit, because hooooooooly shit, did I end up finding nothing but the douchiest of elitists that pretty much put a stop to my progress and enjoyment of the game. GEAR LEVEL GEAR LEVEL GEAR LEVEL LANCER LANCER QUEUE QUEUE QUEUE DON'T WANNA COMPETE WITH YOU FOR GEAR GAME IS SO SHITTY!
My guild was one of the ones that openly said they regularly have guild runs.

What they didn't say is it was a circlejerk.

"Sorry... I have to save my dungeon cooldowns for my static"
"Oh hey! Wassup? Oh... Sure, I can join if you pass all leather drops for me. I need better gear for when so-and-so and thatguy and gomez come on and want to run!"
"Your ilvl isn't high enough to support my massive lancer epeen. Ask to join me later when you get some skill."

:V

[Zari]

...and some people use community as a reason P2P is "better" than F2P. haha no

[Home Dog]

I played TERA, it was freakin awesome! But there was something about it that made me get bored and stop playing. I can't really figure out what it was. I might have played the beta too much. But I am enjoying PSO2 mainly because I am used to the play style and all my friends are here. I had no friends on TERA and I was completely foreign to the game. But it was quite amazing.

[Garnet_Moon]

I played TERA, it was freakin awesome! But there was something about it that made me get bored and stop playing. I can't really figure out what it was. I might have played the beta too much. But I am enjoying PSO2 mainly because I am used to the play style and all my friends are here. I had no friends on TERA and I was completely foreign to the game. But it was quite amazing.

TERA was extremely fun to play on my warrior all the way up to 60. Soloing BAMs to learn the tricks and patterns was... exciting at times. Especially with the occasional PKer burning me down and stunning me and letting the BAM kill me so they don't get infamy. lol

The endgame, however, was... shallow.

[blace]

I've only participated in the beta testing and the true action aspect was lacking. No real experience with the community, but I get spammed to hell from En Masse to get the game.

[Crevox]

TERA was worse

[Sasamichan]

I still play TERA a bit, though I haven't reached endgame yet. I still enjoy it, though I have a hard time doing group quests.

Bonus: pic of my Elin. :)

[spoiler-box]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/zane19/TERA2012-08-1514-24-33-27.jpg[/spoiler-box]

[Mystil]

In TERA, once you login, you're asking for a headache as you spend 90% of your time in-game farming for gold so you can actually do the fun stuff.

Take this as you will.

Very much like Aion. And I personally don't recommend trying that game either. But Korean based games are ALWAYS about grinding hard with high risk high reward. It's how they roll.

[Ryock]

I play both games atm and I've capped on Tera, so I have a very good idea of end game. End game at Tera is basically grinding the same four dungeons for tier 12 gear so that you grind hard mode versions of Kaprima, Kelsaik's Nest, etc for tier 13 gear. This month Tera is getting battlegrounds and some new instances. I will be honest with you when I say archer is boring. One cool thing about Tera though is if you're good enough, then you can play the game for free thanks to an item called chronoscrolls.

Chronoscrolls are items that players can buy and then sell on the broker. If you buy it and then use it, it adds 30 days to your subscription, turning the game into f2p at that point. At end game, it's very easy to get at least 3-5k gold a month, hell a lot more than that. Chronoscrolls typically cost 1200-1900 gold. Tera's fun, as I have two more characters nearing the cap. But PSO2 and Tera are both a lot of fun. And as it stands right now, there isn't a whole lot to do in either of the games at end game.

You can either farm cash on PSO2 for all those pretty rares and severely overgear your character, or you can go to Tera to run the same four instances over and over again and hope the RNG system likes you when it comes to upgrading, as right now, Tera does not have battlegrounds. But as I said, Tera is receiving battlegrounds this month, so that will probably make Tera a lot more fun. Personally though, I'm having more fun with PSO2 than I am with Tera.

[Sasamichan]

Very much like Aion. And I personally don't recommend trying that game either. But Korean based games are ALWAYS about grinding hard with high risk high reward. It's how they roll.

Some Korean game elements were taken out like personal shops.

[Scarlet_Rain]

Had 2 60s in ktera, got bored in a month and the fee didn't help lol. Kind of on break from pso2 just because i feel like my drop rate broke.

[FlameOfYagami]

Yeah, I can't agree with regards to Tera's female characters. I guess if you like those specific archetypes (and they're really awfully specific), they work for you, but the fact that you get zero body customization means you're completely SOL if those particular body types don't work for you. (That sounds kind of creepy reading it over again, but this is aesthetics we're talking about, so...)

Also, no muscular females. :(

But yes, the graphics are better. It's one of my only contentions with PSO2, the other being the insane RNG.

Tera's females are much more "shapely" the ones on PSO2 are all skinny with the flatest asses you have ever seen.

Tera's lady's look more "realistic". I just really dislike what they did with females in PSO2 overall. PSU had much better females.

Also, i'm not into muscular females. I like nice tone curvy females (I guess a little bit of mussle tone is ok too). However as for actual muscular hell no that looks disgusting and very un "lady-like".

I've seen your character and that type of muscular is a huge no no for me. That looks nasty to me. That said please don't take my coment personally. I'm just giving a personal opinion and does not reflect the way I see you as a person or anything like that. I have to say this because alot of people here get real butthurt over any lil thing lol. ^-^

We all have different taste. hell for all I know you may think the kinda girls i'm into are nasty, but that doesn't bother me^-^

[Lostbob117]

Who cares?

[Mystil]

Tera's community is the reason I quit, because hooooooooly shit, did I end up finding nothing but the douchiest of elitists that pretty much put a stop to my progress and enjoyment of the game. GEAR LEVEL GEAR LEVEL GEAR LEVEL LANCER LANCER QUEUE QUEUE QUEUE DON'T WANNA COMPETE WITH YOU FOR GEAR GAME IS SO SHITTY!

Or play with you, or talk to you because your gear is inferior..

[supersonix9]

TERA sucks. It's a typical Korean grinder with good graphics. That's it.

It's not even comparable to PSO2 anyways.

[ShinMaruku]

TERA sucks. It's a typical Korean grinder with good graphics. That's it.

It's not even comparable to PSO2 anyways.

If you call tera a grinder and don't call pso2 that I laugh. Plus play the korean version you'll love the grind of this.

ALL MMOs are grinds you just need to disguise them properly and make the content compelling

[Zyrusticae]

"Grinding" is such an overused (and misused) word.

Like I've said elsewhere, too many people mistake "grinding" with "I don't actually like this game that much". If the minute-to-minute gameplay is simply not compelling, why bother in the first place?

[Zipzo]

"Grinding" is such an overused (and misused) word.

Like I've said elsewhere, too many people mistake "grinding" with "I don't actually like this game that much". If the minute-to-minute gameplay is simply not compelling, why bother in the first place?
It's quite simple. The word "grind" is evolving in relation to its MMORPG affiliation.

10 years ago Grind = Killing mobs non-stop with no alternate objective other than specifically for experience and nothing else.

5 years ago Grind = An activity that requires active and consistent attention over a long period of time to actually achieve reward, usually longer than the user would wish to attribute.

Current day Grind = anything the user finds boring or unable to keep their attention.

[ShinMaruku]

"Grinding" is such an overused (and misused) word.

Like I've said elsewhere, too many people mistake "grinding" with "I don't actually like this game that much". If the minute-to-minute gameplay is simply not compelling, why bother in the first place?

When people go off on agame for being grindy I just move on. What they really mean is either they are not the player for mmo or the gameplay is terrible.

Not every games is for everybody.

[Ueno54]

Kind of hard to call pso 2 a grinder when we have quests that fill your exp bar more than half even after level 30. Daily quests where you can purchase all items off the market for cheap.

[Daiyousei]

I have a level 31 Elin in Tera and I got off it to play PSO2 lol. but each game does have it's charms I like the open world exploration of TERA, but PSO2 has a better community in general, both games have similar quests where it's basically collect some of this kill some of that to help with leveling. But the big difference to me is the community.

[ShinMaruku]

Kind of hard to call pso 2 a grinder when we have quests that fill your exp bar more than half even after level 30. Daily quests where you can purchase all items off the market for cheap.

In tera I have a quest thta give me 5 million exp and filled half my level bar. Tera in US ain't a grind.

[sugarFO]

I played Tera for about 20 minutes for the seven day trial. I loved my Elin priest character. She was so cute and I wish PSO2 had customizable movements and stuff, cuz Elin prance around really cute. But, as far as gameplay, I just did not get into it at all.

[Cyrusnagisa]

Tera's so called "controller support" is a complete joke

[Ezodagrom]

But, as far as gameplay, I just did not get into it at all.
I only tried Tera during the open beta, I couldn't get into it as well, somehow its gameplay feels kinda dull, I think.

[Freshellent]

Tera's so called "controller support" is a complete joke

Tell that to my guilds Slayer, he plays on controller with no problems and all it takes is a slight adjustment to the control scheme. He turns around faster than us, he performs far and away better than most people I ever encountered. And no, it's not because he's "just a Slayer".

People argue constantly about how good or bad an mmo and forget that they want the game to appeal to them and therefore can't communicate how it works without taking a side.

Tera is a wonderful title for people looking for a good, up to date Korean game. Arche Age has a while to go and there's plenty of PvP, PvE, and even (gasp!) RP to be had on the game. The server I played on was nothing but wonderful people and overall a much better experience than I've had on PSO2. Yep, that's just me though.

Now that GW2 is coming out, my interests shift, there's something more I want out of my game and Guild Wars offers it. That doesn't mean suddenly every other MMO is terrible.


Goddammit I hate some people sometimes.

[Angelo]

Tera's so called "controller support" is a complete joke

I agree.

No 360 degree joystick support, no walk > run, poor button mapping.

They kept promising they were going to add great controller support for the NA version, so I actually followed the game and was part of the community since around 2010.

The character creator is also awful compared to PSO2.

[Skye-Fox713]

I was able to play around with Tera during its open beta, it was a nice game though still used a lot of key binds for abilities, which isn't bad and the game play itself was interesting. In the end I ddin't buy the game because I was torn that it was fun to play but I didn't want another game that needed a subscription.



[SPOILER-BOX]I have 2 level 60s in TERA currently, an Elin Archer, and a Human Female (have race changed to Castanic before) Warrior. I wanted to feel melee and ranged.

The game has some devastating flaws that are leading to its overall downfall. The core of the game is brilliant. Bringing action/aiming style combat to the open world MMORPG genre. The graphics are damn nice, and the BAM fights far and away shadow any boss available in PSO2 in terms of both difficulty and skill necessary to defeat. The dungeons themselves are a huge skill check (on hard mode), and decently difficult even on normal.

It's horrible-ness comes in the form of certain un-avoidable parts of the game that in order to keep up with everyone else, you must take part in...

- Enchanting. Oh my god. If you hate enchanting in PSO2? Stay far, far, far away from TERA. Enchanting goes all the way to +12 and it's required to have all of your gear at a decent + before attempting difficult content and the system is maddening. Basically for every single + up, you need a sacrificial piece of gear of both the same rarity in relevance to the +, and 12 powders that you can buy from a vendor. Now getting to +6 is not that bad because you can simply use the cheap powder, but once you try to go further where you need to basically be sacrificing gold gear of the same tier (only dropping in dungeons, where you have to roll for it against other players) to have a good chance of going up, you need a way more expensive alkahest. Every time you fail you lose both the sacrificed item and the alkahest. Basically, if RNG hates you, your gear will never + up, and you will do nothing but waste gold. Try after try you will watch your gold that you spent hours farming up go down the drain just because luck wasn't on your side. It's an absolute bullshit mechanic for a western game.

- Now I will not say this is a con per say, but unless you are on a PvE server expect to get ganked by every last piece of higher-level-than-you scum on the planet. You will not reach level cap without enduring at least a few nights of just being ganked. Over and over by people you have no chance against. The kicker? There is no "penalty" for them doing it. They are free to gank you as they please. The only penalty is they essentially get a big "I gank lowbies" sign over their heads until they go do the necessary actions to clear it, and when they wear that sign, they are free to be ganked in return by anyone without receiving the same sign.

- The skill cap for melee is noticeably much lower than it is for ranged. Having played both Archer and Warrior, I can say there is a considerable difference in skill required. As a ranged class it is incredibly difficult to hit squirrely players, especially because you can not lead off, the shot is meant to hit the player from the point you release it, not after the travel time of the shot, so you have to basically be on-point when you release or you will wiff. Can you imagine trying to kite a melee that is absolutely destroying you, and as they are wiggling around you, stabbing you a million times, you shoot them with the only snaring ability you have, and you miss? It's now on cooldown. Goodbye. I found that beating Slayers or Warriors in duels as an Archer was essentially impossible (equal skill) if they weren't being stupid. That especially goes for slayers. Slayers are considered the most blatantly overpowered class in the game, and have been since the game released, and nothing has changed nor have the developers given any insight as to if it will. Slayers are the master class. Period. If you see a good/geared one, you will die. It's that simple. It is for this reason that the Slayer class itself dominates the statistics.

- The remodeling system is extremely limited. In order to use a piece to remodel to it must be a crafted piece. The remodel vendor offers you a few of the lower tiers of gear to remodel to for some hefty fees, but if you want any of the higher tier looking pieces you need to level up crafting (which is a whole 'nother can of worms), farm the extensive list of materials to craft the higher tier piece that looks like what you want, then you can remodel with it. It sacrifices the piece too, so if you get a new piece of gear you want to remodel, you have to craft another one. More gold.

- You need gold for everything. I mean, this isn't that surprising, but not only do you need gold but everything is expensive. Everything is so gold lined, that you have to farm gold regularly. An average person who doesn't hardcore all day can go to the best farming spots (and essentially all you do is round up mobs, kill, loot, repeat) and maybe earn around 100g every close to 2 hours. If you get lucky and get good drops to vendor maybe more. It takes thousands and thousands of gold spent every week to keep up with your enchanting, possibly remodeling, buffs (food/scrolls) for dungeons, and other activities. This means you spend a shitload of time just farming gold in TERA.

- When you first find a good piece of gear in a dungeon, the best potential pieces of gear will be "enigmatic". Which means you have to "identify" them to uncover a bunch of secret stats before you can even wear it. The base stats will also be somewhat lower than trash gear of the same tier, forcing you to have to go through the enchanting system before they become wearable. There are essentially 4 randomized stats, 1 on item stat, and 3 enchantment bonus stats, 4 for a Tier 13 crafted weapon. Basically you get an extra bonus at +3, +6, and +9, and on a crafted weapon you get one at +7. However, the randomized stats can be anything. They can be a bunch of useless stats. So you know what you have to do? You have to re-enigmatic the item, then re-identify it to try to get better stats. Didn't get the right stats again? Re-enigmatic it, then re-identify it more. Guess what? Each action is a scroll. You have an identification scroll, then a re-enigmatic scroll, and both cost gold. You could spend hours sitting there, scrolling your item back and forth until you get the best combination of stats, and even then you might not ever even get it if you're unlucky. You have the option to "spellbind" stats you want to keep for the next re-identification, but guess what, that costs an un-godly amount of gold each time you want to keep the stat for a re-identification, which would mean you could spend the shit load of money to keep a stat, then still the rest of the stats could suck. So it's more cost effective to just sit there and roll all of them forever until you get the right combo. It's a ridiculous and clunky system that makes no sense.

- The leveling is boring as shit. It's the first game I've ever played that makes pure questing feel like a massive chore. You do nothing but go from pub to pub picking up 10 "Kill 20 of this" quests. Imagine what that feels like once you're in your 50s. Yes, it gets tiresome. Quickly. Remember, I have two 60s.

All in all, my advice is to not try TERA, but in regards to its comparison to PSO2 I will not bother. PSO2 is aimed at a different audience. A more casual gaming audience. The thing about PSO2 is at any point in time, you can login, start a mission and blow stuff up. It's just fun at your finger tips.

In TERA, once you login, you're asking for a headache as you spend 90% of your time in-game farming for gold so you can actually do the fun stuff.

Take this as you will.[/SPOILER-BOX]

Yikes, even though it seamed fun to play that right there makes it sound a hole lot worse to play than WoW and what blizzard has done with wow in some zones that makes it look like the quests you do matter with their phasing that they have in game. Also the remodel system in tera yuk, I'd defiantly prefer wow Transmogrification over Tera's Re-model system.

[Cyrusnagisa]

Tell that to my guilds Slayer, he plays on controller with no problems and all it takes is a slight adjustment to the control scheme. He turns around faster than us, he performs far and away better than most people I ever encountered. And no, it's not because he's "just a Slayer".

People argue constantly about how good or bad an mmo and forget that they want the game to appeal to them and therefore can't communicate how it works without taking a side.

Tera is a wonderful title for people looking for a good, up to date Korean game. Arche Age has a while to go and there's plenty of PvP, PvE, and even (gasp!) RP to be had on the game. The server I played on was nothing but wonderful people and overall a much better experience than I've had on PSO2. Yep, that's just me though.

Now that GW2 is coming out, my interests shift, there's something more I want out of my game and Guild Wars offers it. That doesn't mean suddenly every other MMO is terrible.


Goddammit I hate some people sometimes.

When you tell your playerbase that you will support a game pad you support it......

PSO/PSU/PSO2 support game pads
FFXI/FFXIV support game pads
Tera Online?, has game pad mapping.

I watched Tera and also really wanted to play it...... but as soon as I realized how crappy the control support was, I dropped it like a rock.

[Aegea]

The problem I have with TERA, along with many of the WoW-derived MMOs, is the holy trinity. At that point, it becomes less about skill and more about class. And you can't advance without having a certain class in the party. *cough*Lancer*cough*

It's why I came to PSO2 in the first place.

[RemChu]

The problem I have with TERA, along with many of the WoW-derived MMOs, is the holy trinity. At that point, it becomes less about skill and more about class. And you can't advance without having a certain class in the party. *cough*Lancer*cough*

It's why I came to PSO2 in the first place.
Care to explain the holy trinity please?

I'm guessing it is a tank, healer and damage dealer sort of thing?

[Neirene]

You cannot compare Apples with Pears (_ _ フ

[DeathDragon2332]

Tera is amazing it is a great game I have played it for awhile now. There is also a *Certain* type of server available already I have tried it and it works fine. There is a free trial that you can just make a new account and redo unlimited times so you can try out all the classes my favorite is lancer.

[Dr.No]

Care to explain the holy trinity please?

I'm guessing it is a tank, healer and damage dealer sort of thing?

Correct. Tanks, healers, and damage dealers have been the standard in a majority of MMORPG games, thus it is called the Holy Trinity of MMOs due to how essential they are within those game combat systems.

[NightfallG]

All I can say about TERA is, at least it doesn't have a system-raping rootkit for its security.

[jimmehjam]

All I can say about TERA is, at least it doesn't have a system-raping rootkit for its security.

^True story