Community Manager Notes
Click Here to Read Notes From Community Manager Serth
This patch looks to finish up the Agaia set with the release of the Agaia necklace and Demokron Factory (Hard). As always we are striving to improve the state of the game and provide a better experience, and based on your feedback we hope that this patch also addresses some of the issues with the current accessories…
As mentioned in previous design notes, we’re trying to strike a balance between gear being readily available, but also wanting to provide a rewarding progression path. One of the draws of private server Tera was that you could gear up with relative ease when compared to retail. The hassle of dealing with EP, pets, skill advancements, and even gear itself was no longer a big deal, allowing people to quickly pick up the game and return to dungeons with friends relatively quickly.
However, this eventually raises another problem: what happens after you finish gearing, and have exhausted the available pool of dungeons? At the end of the day, we’re not a company the scale of Bluehole. We currently don’t have the resource to pump out new dungeons and challenges as fast as we’d like. Gearing isn’t the only source of progression – competition helps a lot with this; the people I know with the highest clear counts are those who have dedicated hours to improving and perfecting their leaderboard scores. We are looking at encouraging this by creating events and driving community interaction in the future, however one of our biggest challenges currently is designing and implementing long lasting content that will reward players for their time, but not feel forced or like it restricts players from competing.
Going back to gearing, the item exp system comes with a number of advantages and disadvantages, and we are constantly looking into this and reviewing the good and the bad. My DMs are open if anyone cares enough to discuss in detail, howver this post is already getting on. However, for the most part we’ve received the message that the process could be made easier. Interestingly, initially we actually had concerns that we had made it too easy – We had seen players enchant their circlet and rings in a few days after patch, granted with some impressive playtimes. However, not all players are as available to put in the time required for this, nor for multiple characters that they would like to gear. A lot of players have felt like returning would be too hard, seeing the high item exp cap and are put off by this. As such, we’ve introduced a number of ways for players to catch up on experience and materials, both inside the current dungeons and via other methods.
At the end of the day, we want people to enjoy playing here, and to feel rewarded for their time. There are other ways to provide a sense of progression, however for strict gear upgrades we’ve learnt a lot with this. This is also important for us to get right, as our next major content updates will be looking at introducing a new gear set, amongst other things (including revamping the new player experience, increasing community interaction and many other projects I can’t go into detail on just yet). Feedback is important, especially given that there’s only so much resource on our side. We’re trying to do our best to pick and choose what’s the most important parts to make it from patch to patch, but this can only be improved with your assistance. I’ve created a form containing 3 simple questions to help us keep on track, so if you’ve read anything here, or just feel like you want to comment, it’s always super appreciated.
Finally, as is tradition with these posts, I’d like to say thanks to members of the community. Our team has been putting in a lot of hours, but seeing certain things within the community has really given me the motivation to keep trying. So, to everyone who’s sent me pictures of their guilds, to those communities who stick with us despite having high ping (I’ve been made aware we even have a few JP/TW/Thai players), to those who submitted art for contests or otherwise, I’d like to thank you. To those who’ve got involved with discussions in discord, and to my 3-4 remaining guildies who support me I’d like to thank you for your faith in us as undeserved as it may feel sometimes. With each week we’re improving, and I hope to deliver a better game for everyone.
Much love,
Serth
Community Manager, PvE
Dungeon Changes
New Dungeons
The following dungeons have been added:
- RK-9 Kennel – Item level 472.
- Dragon’s Lair (previously Commander’s Residence) – Item level 481.
- Demokron Factory (Hard) – Item level 485.
Dragon’s Lair will be available twice per character per day on the weekends, and the vanguard will be claimable once daily on Saturday + Sunday. Notable rewards include: Refined Mana Essence, Agaia Material Tokens, 10K Item XP. The raid can be accessed via scrolls sold by the Specialty Merchant, or via instance matching.
Demokron Factory will be accessible as normal, and has been opened as a 10 man raid. Accessory rewards covered in the gear section below.
Dungeon Adjustments
The dungeon changes below hopefully reflect feedback received from the community. The general consensus was to reduce time spent on preliminary bosses of dungeons such as Manaya’s Core and Sky Cruiser Endeavour, making the dungeons more enjoyable. Across the board, there have also been number of damage reductions on boss attacks which we felt were overtuned, allowing classes with lower endurance and defence modifiers to survive them. Draakon’s Arena (Hard) received a HP increase of 6 billion – being one of our core hard mode dungeons, we felt players were able to clear a bit faster than intended following the new accessories as well as the class fluidity improvements implemented last patch.
We have also reviewed the lower tiers of dungeons and ensured that there is a clear and fair path of progression for those returning or picking up the game. While the new player progression pathway is far from perfect, we believe this is a step in the right direction.
- Increased Agaia material drops from all sources, and added in smaller quantities to older dungeons.
- The following dungeons have been removed for future reworks:
- Bathysmal Rise
- Bathysmal Rise (Hard)
- Akeron’s Inferno
- Akeron’s Inferno (Hard)
- Ravenous Gorge
- Gossamer Vault (Hard)
- Bahaar’s Sanctum
- Kaia’s Anvil quest requirement has been changed from Gossamer Vault (Hard) to Ruinous Manor.
- All remaining dungeons have had their item levels and drops adjusted to better reflect gear requirements and difficulty.
- Vanguard reward boxes have also been adjusted and Luminous Mana Essence rewards buffed slightly.
Rampaging RK-9 Kennel
- Decreased Ventarun’s reflect damage.
Sky Cruiser (Hard)
- Decreased HP of mobs + Nightmare Putrion significantly.
Manaya’s Core (Hard)
- Decreased attack speed of Nightmare Hrathgol and Nightmare Melkatran to original 1.0 values.
- Decreased HP of Nightmare Hrathgol and Nightmare Melkatran significantly.
- Decreased damage dealt by Nightmare Melkatran’s Parasitic Bite debuff to 50%.
Akalath Quarantine
- Reduced damage dealt by Akalath Travan’s swipe attacks by 30%.
- Reduced damage dealt by Akalath Kashir’s jump attacks by 20%.
Draakon Arena (Hard)
- Increased HP of Nightmare Commander Kalligar from 38 billion to 44 billion. Previous leaderboard entries have been reset.
Lilith’s Keep
- Reduced overall attack of Pyrepelt + Arachandlebra.
- Reduced Arachandlebra’s puddles to 25k flat damage (from 100k).
Leaderboard Changes
- Ventarun and Hexapleon timers no longer count towards the leaderboard timer for Rampaging RK-9 Kennel. Previous leaderboard entries have been reset.
Gear Changes
New Accessory upgrades
- Radiant necklaces can now upgrade into Agaia equivalents.
New Upgrade materials
Ruined Medallion
- Used to upgrade Radiant Necklaces.
- Can be obtained from Demokron Factory (Hard).
Agaia Material token
- Used to exchange for any Agaia accessory material.
- Can be obtained from Dragon’s Lair.
Accessory Infusions
Blazing Necklace Resizing Stone
- Used to infuse Agaia Necklaces.
- Can be obtained from Demokron Factory (Hard).
- Potential options reduced dramatically.
Radiant Accessory Changes
- Reduced enchant costs and changed required materials.
- Luminous Mana essence now functions similarly to Refined Mana Essence – adjusted as follows:
- Luminous Mana Essence can no longer convert to Radiant accessory materials.
- Luminous Mana is now required as a separate enchanting material for Radiant accessories.
Civil Unrest Changes
- Civil Unrest Points Distribution
Entire Civil Unrest points system has been changed – Civil Unrest is now K/D dependent. Points will be counted as shown:- Last Tower Standing: 2500 Points
- Destroying tower: 1000 Points
- Remaining HP: 0 Points
- Kills: 50 Points/kill
- Deaths: -25 Points/death
- Tower’s uptime: 0 Points
- Tower’s placement: 1 Point
Battleground Changes
Rating
- Rating system has been adjusted to apply correct amount of points each game.
Battlegrounds
- Fraywind Canyon is finally back! The battleground will hold Shore Hold pyres. For now on you will not get any points for killing enemies, can be changed later.
- Gridiron will be back to host 10vs10 with some minor adjustments.
Gear
- All Battlegrounds will be hosting the new equalised gear.
Rotations
- We will be having a Battleground rotation:
- Corsair’s Stronghold, Fraywind Canyon, Gridiron, Champion’s Skyring for 2 seasons.
- Corsair’s Stronghold, Shore Hold, Gridiron, Champion’s Skyring for 1 season.
New Rewards
- Murderous Intent:
- A new buff has been added to the rewards, Lethal Intent Buff has been removed.
- <Murderous Intent V1>: Increases Power by: 2, Attack Speed by: 1.5%, Crit Factor by: 5%, and Movement Speed by: 5%.
- <Murderous Intent V2>: Increases Power by: 5, Attack Speed by: 3%, Crit Factor by: 10%, and Movement Speed by: 10%.
- <Murderous Intent V3>: Increases Power by: 10, Attack Speed by: 5%, Crit Factor by: 15%, and Movement Speed by: 15%.
- <Murderous Intent V4>: Increases Power by: 15, Attack Speed by: 8%, Crit Factor by: 20%, and Movement Speed by: 20%.
- Cooldown of the Buff will be 5m, and the buff will also last for 5m.
- The buff will be disabled in Battlegrounds.
- Curse of PVE: Decreases damage to monsters by 50%.
- TOP 10 of ALL Classes will receive the up coming rewards:
- Rank 10-6: <Murderous Intent V1>
- Rank 5-3: <Murderous Intent V2>
- Rank 2: <Murderous Intent V3>
- Rank 1: <Murderous Intent V4>
Gold Income
- Gold income has been increased to be giving:
- Corsair’s Stronghold: 30k Gold from Vanguard Claim.
- Fraywind Canyon: 30k Gold from Vanguard Claim.
- Shore Hold: 20k Gold from Vanguard Claim.
- Champion’s Skyring: 10k Gold from Vanguard Claim.
Open World PVP
PVP Gear
- Added 25k Physical and Magical Resistances to all PVP chest pieces. This is to counteract the effect of amplification pets in open world PvP.
GvG Changes
- Surrender time has been changed to be 3 minutes after a GVG has been declared, and costs no funds anymore.
- Safe zone has been reverted back to Velika instead of Highwatch.
- GvG declaration/withdrawal/surrender message will now be smaller.
Class Changes
State of Tanks: We’re aware of the of the challenges tanks might face with the latest roster of dungeons, in particular Lancer. As Undying Warlord and Draakon Arena were released, we heard your feedback on the class and have buffed Lancer in such a way that makes manually blocking much more rewarding, as well as other QoL and damage buffs across the board.
In Review: The team is currently looking at other classes which may struggle in the new dungeon timers and fight structure, such as Ninja and Berserker, as well as QoL changes to improve the feel of gameplay. Warrior Tank is another tank that we’re paying close attention to – while it’s capable of putting up competitive leaderboard timers, we’re reviewing changes to overall make the tank feel “better” to play with, personal-damage wise. We’re also aware of the challenges Mystic faces in dungeons where they are unable to pre-stack motes and actively working on an alternative to fix these outliers.
As ever, we’re open to hearing your feedback on these changes so please do let us know.
Archer
- Increased base damage of Radiant Arrow, Penetrating Arrow, Gust Arrow, and Thunderbolt by 5%.
- Increased buff of Howling String from 10% to 20%.
- Decreased base cooldown of Windsong by 5 seconds.
- Archers are now correctly receiving fast-fastyness alongside other classes.
Archer has been performing fairly poorly amongst the other DPS classes, even after considering that the current roster of leaderboard dungeons are tough for archer. Following from some discussions in the Archer section in Discord, the direction we’d like to move archer in is more dynamic in its rotation and less reliant on Rapid Fire resets, particularly during Windsong. These changes lay the foundation for further changes while also looking to make archer more competitive short-term, as we look into what’s possible with Powerlinks, Find Weakness, and Shrieking Arrow passives.
Slayer
- Increased Overhand Strike Focus duration from 7s to 10s
- Split damage is now added to Unsheathe (Ultimate).
- Punishing blow now applies propulsion effect (reduces the cooldown of Unsheathe again) (in PvP).
Maintaining Overhand Strike Focus stacks are extremely important for Slayer’s DPS, and boss mechanics that force the players away from the boss for several seconds is detrimental to their overall damage. Increasing the duration should help with keeping those stacks up.
Gunner
- Increased chance to spawn Arcane Splash upon successful Mana Missile hits.
- Increased projectile speed of Mana Missiles by 50%.
- Adjusted Burst Fire and Targeted Burst Fire’s scaling with Magical Crit Power.
- Balder’s Vengeance is now stunnable (in PvP).
We are aware that Gunner is a bit underwhelming right now, so these changes/bugfixes are the first step to make Gunner overall better. The increased chance to spawn Arcane Splash helps Gunner to be more consistent with the previous changes made to Mana Missiles, while the Burst Fire/Targeted Burst Fire buff rewards players prioritizing those skills.
Lancer
- Pumped Stand Fast: 50% chance to increase power by 25% and crit factor by 25% for 10s on a successful block.
Previously: 30% chance to increase power by 15% for 10s - Powerlinked Stand Fast: Increases skill damage of Shield Counter by 50% for a few seconds.
Previously: Increases skill damage of Shield Counter by 25% - Empowered Onslaught: Increases skill damage by 40%.
Previously: Increases skill damage by 25%.
We feel these changes should make manually blocking, and chaining Shield Counter from block much more rewarding than previous patches. In the latest roster of dungeons, where Lancer finds itself trading HPM for survivability, the aforementioned changes should complement the reactive nature of Lancer’s gameplay, while increasing its damage output particularly in dungeons where blocking incoming boss attacks are mandatory. We’ll be paying close attention to how Lancer and Lancer-based part compositions perform in the next few weeks, tweaking values and potentially adding additional buffs where suitable.
Priest
- Reduced healing of Healing Immersion by 30% in PvP.
- Increased duration of Divine Charge from 11s to 12s.
- Increased cooldown of Divine Charge from 24s to 25s.
Among leaderboard and parse parties, Priest has already become popular for parties and classes that burst every 58s because of edict buff synchro. This change is a little sprinkle on top for priest competitiveness. The extra 1 second cooldown means you only need to cast one divine charge per edict, which allows priests to minmax their edict rotation with less drawbacks to their uptimes.
Warrior
- Scythe PvP damage has been reduced by 40%.
Warrior (Tank)
- Attack Speed Glyphs from other classes now stack with Warrior Traverse Cut (Party)
Previously, classes with attack speed glyphs (eg. Gunner, Ninja, Warrior etc.) would have these overwritten by the party Traverse Cut buff, effectively reducing their speed when playing with a Warrior Tank. Increasing Warrior Tank’s desirability amongst DPS classes is something we’re currently looking into, but this is a small change that should help for the time being.
Mystic
- Increased HP and Defense of Warding Totem.
- Thrall of Life healing has been reduced by 10% in PvP.
Note we are also currently looking into Mystic’s inability to prestack motes in certain dungeons.
Brawler
- Added ‘Sapping Provoke’ glyph:
- 100% chance to stun target for 2 seconds when attacking a monster.
Ninja
- Attunement now applies all effects and goes on cooldown as soon as the skill is cast.
We are looking into further changes for Ninja and hope to have something for next patch.
Berserker
- Cyclone PvP damage has been reduced by 30%.
Sorcerer
- Split damage is now removed from Implosion (Ultimate).
Skills Changes
- Retaliate is set to go on cooldown once casted (Slayer, Archer, Gunner, ect.). Players CANNOT reset retaliate anymore.
- Fixed a bug which allowed players to reset their racial abilities.
Battle Pass (Daily Hunter Event)
How it works:
- Claim your daily Battle Pass Missions via Parcel Post (5x Expert, 5x Novice).
- Complete dungeons corresponding to these missions and combine them with Battle Pass Dungeon Tokens obtained from Vanguard Rewards to receive Menma’s Hunter Fragments (Expert or Novice, equivalent to the mission list you decide to complete)
- Once 5 of the same Hunter Fragments have been gathered, collect your reward via the unlocked Vanguard quest.
- Both Expert and Novice can be completed once per day, limited to one character (or Expert on one, and Novice on another).
- Battle Pass Mission Scrolls are not bankable, so make sure you open them on the character you intend to receive the reward on!
- Menma’s Hunter Fragments (Expert/Novice) and Menma’s Hunter Token are not bankable.
Daily Expert Hunter Rewards
- 10,000 Item XP
- 250 Refined Mana Essence
- 400 Luminous Mana Essence
- 1 Menma’s Hunter Token
Daily Novice Hunter Rewards
- 5,000 Item XP
- 200 Luminous Mana Essence
- 1 Menma’s Hunter Token
Menma’s Hunter Token can be traded for exclusive rewards from the Kaia (Hunter Inquisitor) NPC in Highwatch. Rewards include new powerful inner-wears, cosmetic items, items experience boosters, Body Armor/Footwear Pumped/Keen etchings, Legendary Mount Tokens and a very exclusive event title with a mysterious effect!
Miscellaneous Changes
Appearance and Cosmetics
- Added new eyes for Elin and Castanic faces – Examples below:
Credits to Shistar (Shistar#1701) and Shion (endou#7852)!
Note – If you would like to contribute to the game and have your mods officially implemented, contact a community manager on discord!
Achievements
- Moved dungeon achievements for the following dungeons to the Legacy category: Velik’s Hold, Velik’s Sanctuary, Velik’s Sanctuary (Hard), Antaroth’s Abyss (Hard), Thaumetal Refinery, Red Refuge, Grotto of Lost Souls (Hard), Bahaar’s Sanctum.
- Moved the Celestial Arena achievement ‘Spotted The Hyena’ to the Legacy category.
- Moved dungeon achievements for the following dungeons outside of the Legacy category: Demokron Factory (Hard), Ruinous Manor, Ruinous Manor (Hard), Lillith’s Keep.
- Ended Season 1 of Achievements and adjusted the % of achievements required to reach each laurel.
- Added 77x clear achievement to Demokron Factory (Hard).
- Kumas Royale and Training Dungeons are no longer counted towards laurel.
QoL Fixes
- Bespoke Exodor Weapon Random Boxes now always give weapons with the maximum number of rolls.
- Increased the spawn rate of Rare Monsters found in Exodor Outskirts.
- Reduced CD of combat comsumables (eg. Rootbeer + Fruit Wine) to 55s.
- Added tradeable Tikat pouches to Tikat store.
- Increased Non-TC adventure coins to 3000 maximum and regen rate to 10/3min.
- Race, Appearance, and Gender change vouchers can now be traded.
- Renamed Verrak’s Fortress Teleport scrolls to Akalath Quarantine Teleport scrolls.
Bugfixes
- Elementalize is no longer incorrectly disabled + bugging on death.
- Moved shape changer items in Tikat shop to their proper category.
- Fixed issue causing Berserker’s Tackle to occasionally fail.
- Fixed splash image of Manaya’s Core (Hard) in Vanguard Request menu.
- The ‘Forbidden Arena is My Home’ achievement is now updating correctly.
- Fixed Brawler’s Flip Kick cooldown.
- Priest’s Focus Heal – Heal talyph is now correctly applying healing boosts from Noctenium + Buffets.
- Adjusted various tooltips.