[DEV NOTE] KTERA Upcoming Gear Update Background

    What follows is a message directly from one of the developers on TERA. This message is concerning the gear change update that recently went out in the KR version of the game.


    Hello, my name is Gon. I’m a developer for TERA.

    First, I’d like to apologize to all of you that we had not fully explained the background information on the latest TERA update.

    We’ve heard that many of you have expressed a great deal of concern about the gear we added with the July 23 update.

    We hope that this note will not only inform you how to utilize existing gear, but also alleviate your concerns by explaining the purpose behind the design, as well our future plans regarding the gear update, which we’ve not addressed in previous developer’s notes.

    The Intent of the New Gear

    First, let me give you a little information on the background of the new gear update.

    Currently, TERA’s gear upgrade system is a “vertical upgrade” system, with a total of 36 enchanting grades and 4 upgrade levels, ranging from Guardian gear up to Heroic Oath.

    When we first introduced Guardian gear, we reorganized the gear system in order to simplify the enchanting process and minimize grinding, thus improving the players’ access to gear.

    However, the current system for gear is showing the same issues—in different forms—despite our initial intention and efforts to lower the barriers to upgrading gear.

    So, there is still a big gap in item level that players own, because of the enchanting rate and cost. Additionally, the high enchanting cost required at every stage does not guarantee a similar increase in the gear’s performance, leaving players feeling unsatisfied.

    The existing system of enchanting and upgrading gear doesn’t allow a means to skip any steps, and makes it more difficult for new and returning players to adapt to the game.

    So we’ve reorganized the gear upgrade system to resolve such issues, and we have introduced new gear that has a more stable upgrade system for all players.

    New Gear Organization

    The origin of the idea, and our primary consideration when we came up with the new system, was how to make use of existing gear.

    Considering the time and effort players have spent on upgrading their gear, we wanted to ensure that any existing gear could still be effectively utilized, even after the introduction of new gear.

    With that in mind, we moved forward with setting up the new gear specs with these main goals in mind:

    • Distinguished performance and purpose of existing gear
    • Different methods of obtaining and enchanting existing player gear

    Distinguished Performance and Purpose of Existing Gear

    In order to ensure that players’ existing gear remained desirable and useful, we could not simply grant higher stats to new gear.

    So with new stat sets for Physical and Magic, we designed new gear with special attributes.

    Gear now enhances the player’s Power and Crit Factor, and players can enhance desired attributes using crystals, but the new gear has Physical and Magic attributes and provides improved performance through random options.

    Also, new gear has variables: The coefficient of skills and Physical/Magic resistance changes the player’s DPS.

    Such features can be useful when players are focused on dungeons, but Guardian gear provides more stable DPS in any conditions.

    Different Methods of Obtaining and Enchanting Existing Player Gear

    As I mentioned above, we introduced new gear to improve the existing gear upgrade system.

    One of the main characteristics of the new gear is how it can be obtained and traded via grinding.

    New gear will be provided as an alternative to help make use of player gear for new and returning users that could not easily acclimate to the game, because they were not able to upgrade their gear to proper levels. This new system should also aid players who stopped upgrading their gear due to the heavy burden imposed by enchanting costs.

    But new gear will have a variety of specs, including grade, number/type of options, and each option’s performance. It will be easy to increase their stats to a certain level, but difficult to reach max level.

    The burden of the high enchanting cost also has been eased: The enchanting cost of new gear is lower than the enchanting cost of Guardian gear.

    New gear can be upgraded faster, with fewer hurdles, so that more players can upgrade their gear without all the stress.

    All the stats of the new gear have been set up equal to or lower than higher-level gear, but some gear can be upgraded up to a higher level than “Heroic Oath gear” through enchanting above the specified level.

    But it will still be difficult to enchant gear above the specified level, as it can result in item level drop, or even damaging of the item.

    Existing Gear’s Place in the Gear Hierarchy

    Now that I’ve explained the reason for—and the direction behind—the new gear development, I will tell you about the new gear’s place in the overall hierarchy of gear—and how to utilize it.

    Gear Hierarchy

    First and foremost, I’d like to let you know that the current gear positions will remain the same.

    New gear has been added to resolve longstanding issues in the gear upgrade system, not merely to offer higher tier of gears.

    We understand and appreciate the time and effort you’ve spent on upgrading your gear, and we want to help you to continue improving your gear.

    In this Skywatch update, the Heroic Oath gear will have stat levels comparable to the new gear for max level (Legendary).

    For an example, please refer to the following table, which compares the new gear with Stormcry and Heroic Oath gear:

    New Existing
    Uncommon +0 Same level as Stormcry +0
    +10 Same level as Stormcry +7
    Rare +0 Same level as STormcry +6
    +10 A little higher than Heroic Oath +3
    Legendary +0 Similar to Heroic Oath +0
    +10 Higher than Heroic Oath +3
    • Heroic Oath gear is set to level 458 in the new dungeon. No special preparation is required to clear the dungeon when using this gear.
    • Gear is designed to provided fixed damage without regard to physical or magic resistance.

    How to Use Guardian Gear, Legendary Gear

    Existing gear will be used to help craft Legendary gear that will be arrive in a future update. Legendary gear will be new type of equipment and have characteristics as follows:

    • “Legendary” is a new type of weapon with unique options. It can be crafted using Heroic Oath and new gear.
    • Enchanting level of materials will remain the same. +0 and +3 Heroic Oath items will yield different results when they are used as materials for crafting.

    Legendary weapons are in the process of development, so I cannot provide you any more details at this time. I will provide more information as it becomes available.

    I can tell you that it will be introduced to the game as a big update, after careful preparation. We’re working hard on its development so as to meet your expectations.

    In Conclusion

    Again, I’m very sorry that the lack of information after the big update caused you all so much worry.

    I promise that we will definitely inform you about future updates in advance, through a developer’s note.

    Thank you.

    Am i misreading something or does this text look like a contradiction in itself? What was the use of this developer note other than confirming they don't know what good design.

    Bla bla bla, couldn't read it to the end, wasn't able to do so, just remove RNG from the game, make enchanting 100%, raise the amount of mats needed for a stage if needed, but make it 100%!


    Same goes for everything that is RNG based, we do not need RNG, we want success, we wanna buy the item that we desire and not a potion!

    This system seems to be a whole big flaw.


    Quote

    The enchanting cost of new gear is lower than the enchanting cost of Guardian gear.

    New gear can be upgraded faster, with fewer hurdles, so that more players can upgrade their gear without all the stress.

    And then

    Quote

    But it will still be difficult to enchant gear above the specified level, as it can result in item level drop, or even damaging of the item.

    This is just like current pvp equip but with more enchantments, right?

    So it is going to cost bucks anyway, adding the stress not only of failing it, but even lower the level/damaging it compared to current pve equip.


    Quote

    The coefficient of skills and Physical/Magic resistance changes the player’s DPS.

    Such features can be useful when players are focused on dungeons

    This.

    Leaving aside the fact that bonuses are random and cannot be changed, the fact that bosses have focused physical or magical resistance will lead to 2 things:

    -1st: to do more damage, we'll probably need a double set (so more rng and gold); the HO "neutral" set will be pretty munch useless anyway since a focused set will be more effective; this means more gold;

    -2nd: from what I remember, every skill has physical or magical atribute with dmg modifier; I suppose that some classes will be full physical/magical and other will be mixed, and I fear that, for some dungeons, only some dps will be requested.


    So, what I feel about this system is just more stress, more rng, more discrimination, more gold.

    they would prolly explain new pvp gear like:

    "the new set is easier to obtain and enchant"


    completely missing the point where it's either max or you're in disadvantage and getting to max is a massive rng hell with bgs that rarely pop because the system is built against them



    pvp gear should be 100% from 0 to +9 with good amount of grind but way less what we have now


    the only reason why this system is so rng is those devs have no idea what to do once players are "done" with the gear grind. they dont wanna add nice looking costumes or mounts+gold to grind towards with fun battlegrounds that ppl wanna play


    players are willing to bash eachothers faces in all day for the fun of it. but as soon as it becomes about farming same bg forever and after weeks you're still +6 broken and million less gold ppl just give up.

    ssion - mystic

    why are we still here? just to suffer?

    Quote from Kirino EU

    When we first introduced Guardian gear, we reorganized the gear system in order to simplify the enchanting process and minimize grinding, thus improving the players’ access to gear.

    Quote from Kirino EU

    One of the main characteristics of the new gear is how it can be obtained and traded via grinding.

    The developer contradicts himself this being one of the most obvious statements in that note, you can figure it out how it's going to impact gear progression, easier at early stages, even more complicated than it is now at higher stages.

    To me and this is just my personal understanding of what the developer wrote after I read the post top to bottom, I think too much time, research and development have been spent on this upgrade to just roll it back and give up on it completely. Regardless the negative opinion of the players it's just one of those things that are just too good to give away and the game was already at a standstill with no new content coming out so this is going to stay no matter what and cannot be tweaked/modified to meet our expectations, nothing else was prepared or can be prepared in a timely fashion that would not hinder the development of the business or the revenue stream from sales and such as.

    Pretty much, our way or the highway!

    So I quit wasting time to enchant pvp gear cause all the effort you spend on getting the mats and gold go to waste without even enchant correction, so what BHS does?


    Bring it to PVE! GREAT FU MOVE!


    Bring enchantment correction to CORRECT THIS mess! GF should be serious about this if they do not want to lose players!

    Thanks for providing information.

    I have a feeling that case with players will end up as always, many complain and after patch is released, they just swallow it and... play... till next update to complain more...


    Vote with your deeds, not words...

    I won't bother with the new gear, every piece that I'll get my hands on will land on broker.

    I rather stay in my ho +3 than watch as my +14 weapon drops back to +10 and gets damaged in the process leaving me broke and frustrated.

    What is bhs even thinking, every idea they come up with looks like it was made by someone on a crack binge and thrown into the game without passing any sort of qa.

    Why can't those clowns look at other mmo's like wow or guild wars 2 that are successful and alive despite their age and having much worse combat than tera?

    But it will still be difficult to enchant gear above the specified level, as it can result in item level drop, or even damaging of the item.


    This is all you need to know.


    BHS noticed that many people get to HO+3 and then stay there at max level.


    So they now introduced a system similar to freemium games, where items break or lose level with enchant attempts. We already saw this in PvP gear.


    This ALWAYS results in the gear being extremely hard to get to max level, and hugely costly. It's very rare that you won't have to use real money to achieve max level, and the cost will be pretty damn high.


    It also means that rich whales can pay thousands and thousands for the new gear and have Legendary+10, which will be stronger than HO+3.


    And that's the whole purpose of the new update: ways to squeeze more money out of the whales.


    Sad to see the game go this way, but with Krafton it was just a matter of time.

    It may seem odd but check how items are upgraded on Metin2, it's a slightly toned down version of what the next patch brings.

    You can NPC upgrade, drag the item on the blacksmith NPC and try your luck, if that fails you lost the item, forever. Blessing scrolls can be used to upgrade an item and if it fails, it will reduce the quality of the item by 1. Ex: armor+8 fails to upgrade to +9, it goes back to+7.


    Consider yourselves lucky, on Metin2, the items don't even have bonuses until you buy them from the item shop, when you try to add bonuses they can fail and no extra status is added. In order to re-roll you need to buy from the item shop an item to do so. Ex: weapon will only have the damage modifier, mp return and punishing mark, that's it, all else on that weapon you must add via item shop.


    Furthermore the bonuses/stats that you add have multiple values Ex: damage +1/3/6/8/10, you cannot lock bonuses in place that you rolled max on, when you roll all the bonuses will get new values.


    You can fail to learn skills, only via the item shop you can buy an item to increase the chance to 100%, and to master a skill you need 53 of those. All progression, and I mean all of it, in Metin2 is done via the item shop, this is coming next to Tera.


    Oh and uhm, the shop items do drop but only from bosses, most have timers like world bosses, they drop a chest and if you win the lottery you might just get one item shop surprise in quantity of 1. But in oder to defeat a boss you need the best gear available and it needs to have bonuses/extra stats so, just bad luck I guess.

    1. "But it will still be difficult to enchant gear above the specified level, as it can result in item level drop, or even damaging of the item."





      can result in item level drop, or even damaging of the item.



      result in item level drop


      ok u want bring more casino RNG?? now even downgrade       item really u want to kill game again add downgrade again?? ANGRY GF need constant add ENCHANT EVENT or prevent DOWNGRADE!!!

    Do not breed panic.


    New equipment does NOT lose enchantment on failure

    this is a mistake in translating the text.


    When breaking, only other resources are needed. You have nothing to lose !!!!.

    Yesterday i tried with 30 relics and 30 halidoms to upgrade my current blue ones to level 3. Failed and wasted 300k money for nothing. Overall i am at around 100 pieces each and over a million of gold for just level 2.

    This is the future of tera.


    Currently saw ppl with level 4 relics. Kinda impossible for me.

    Oh ye that better. Let us punish people even further while enchanting. If losing materials and time isn't already punishing enough.


    And look how well PvP Gear works. Right PvP is dead. I wonder why.