I'm still out of touch with what makes an MMO an MMO. Tera still feels Massively Multiplayer like Call of Duty is Massively Multiplayer. All the content that involves other people is reached the same way you'd play a game of Call of Duty. You say "I'd like to run a dungeon" and the game pops you into a dungeon. Replace that with "I'd like to play a round of team deathmatch" and you get where I'm coming from. The difference here is that instead of going through and selecting perks for your classes between dungeons you're moving around the world doing quests with other players around you.
"Around you" was chosen as the way to word that on purpose. There have been many times I've been doing a quest where I'm tasked with killing a bunch of monsters. When I get there, there's someone else killing those monsters. I can stand right next to that person and also kill those monsters until I've finished the quest, but we'll never interact. I've even taken it to the next level and tossed out heals to people I've seen doing the same quest I'm doing and the most I'll get out of them is "ty." Never a group invite, never a questing buddy... just "ty." The only exception to this was when Palmer and I were killing a BAM (Bad Ass Monster) someone ran up and started spamming "inv me!" We did, but after he got his kill he wandered off and didn't take part in the next BAM. He didn't take that opportunity to get to know us, run along and kill a bunch of BAMs for experience and loot, or queue for a dungeon. He got his BAM he couldn't get on his own and then wandered off. The best part was that he was the same level we were and it would have been a great group to kill a whole pile of BAMs... but he wouldn't even respond when I sent him messages. Odd.
So, there are people all around you doing things. I'm hoping they'll buy my stuff when I make things via alchemy, but other than that, they are only really there when you queue for a dungeon. Which I did... A LOT from 21 to 31.
Dungeons General
Bastion of Lok was my (and everyone else's) first experience in dungeons. Up until this point playing a Priest was no different from playing any other class. The only tangible difference was that I was able to heal myself... but I almost never had to. The time in between fights was plenty of "out of combat" time to not even need a heal. Then I ran my first dungeon. It was an eye opener because it actually forced me to learn my class specific spells (heals) and how to manage my mana. Those are two things I never even looked at prior to the first dungeon. I ended up changing all my skill bindings after just one run and having a very different outlook on being a Priest in Tera. It was a lot of fun! I realized this is the core competancy of Tera. The world is basically a holding pen for people waiting to run dungeons. There are no raids and I am not high enough level to experience a Nexus, so this is where the game shines for me.
So, you have a dungeon finder. If you listened to our last podcast you'd know my feelings on match making in games... if not, here we go again. I feel like dungeon finders make you worse at your role. Combine that with an open world that gives plentiful experience without any need for your class specific abilities and you have a player base that has no idea how to fill their roles. I actually tried to be ready to be a healer and just couldn't find the motivation to experiment. Even if I wanted to I'd need to have someone to experiment on and with how isolated people are... even when in close proximity to one another... it was impossible. So, I went into dungeon number one as the group's healer with no idea how my heal spells worked, how my mana would hold up, etc. As it turns out, having a general knowledge of how healing works in groups was enough to muddle through. Like I said above, I completely overhauled my skill binds afterwards and had a much better experience afterwards, but I actually cared about my performance and play a role that could get anyone killed at any time, so I can't really afk my way through my life in Tera.
The skill levels of the players I'm being grouped with is all over the map. I've had lancers (tanks) take zero damage the whole run and never lose aggro. Then the next lancer will be at half health with mobs running all over the place. I've had sorcerers get blown up 4 to 6 times in a single run and other sorcerers never take a hit. I feel that as a healer I'm in the unique position to focus on who's taking damage when and how much. I really can't tell which dps-ers are doing better or worse, but I do know that a living dps who's taking part in the fight is better than one who gets liquified in a single shot due to poor positioning.
Due to the dungeon finder I haven't been able to make any decent connections with anyone who has done a good job because so far I haven't met anyone from my server who stood out. The two tanks I really enjoyed running with were both from the role play server and like I said, I have no idea how to gauge DPS performance as there are no numbers for other players' DPS. No parse = no opinion beyond life/death and time I spend paying attention to their health bars. Combine this with the overall lack of motivation to do well and the result is an uncomfortable dungeon run with very little trust in anyone the whole time. I am constantly keeping an eye on dps-ers because they have a tendency to just sort of daydream instead of killing stuff.
Derping was alive and well way before you could be dropped into an instance with strangers from every server, but the way Tera works there's no way to tell who's good and bad when it comes to dps unless you judge them on everything but dps. That means they can just sit back and auto attack if they'd like to and I'll never know. . Tanks are easier to judge because they need to manage aggro... which seems to be the bottom of most tanks' priorities list once the fight starts. If a mob or 5 peel off and try to kill me it's on me to train them back on the tank and hope the AE portion of his attacks clip them.
I know how this is going to sound but...
BACK IN MY DAY, TANKS WERE ALL ABOUT THE AGGRO. If a mob peeled off to beat on anyone else it didn't matter what you were doing... YOU GOT AGGRO BACK... AND STAY OFF MY LAWN.
Healing beyond tab targeting
I was really curious how healing would work seeing as I can't target anyone for heals. This leaves AE healing, targeted AE healing, and reticle lock on healing. It's all pretty straight forward, but the violent camera swings it takes to lock on multiple players with the reticle can be tiresome. I use 3 heals primarily. One is a low cool down lock on heal that takes 3 actions to fire: activation, lock on, fire. The lock on is accomplished by moving your reticle over the person you want to heal. I can currently heal up to 3 people at once with this ability for around 3,000hp per heal. It has something like a 3 second cool down. The other two are both fixed distance AE heals. One heals for about 500hp a second in a small circle with a center point 10 meters in front of me. The other heals for 5,000hp immediately in a circle that starts at my feet and goes forward. It's an easy system to get a hold of and it makes for some interesting decisions from time to time. It's a very mobile and active skill set that doesn't allow me to just sit in the back and heal from a distance. The other major role I have is cleansing de-buffs. When a de-buff is applied the player's health bar goes from blue to purple (and there's a colorblind mode, so don't worry about that, colorblind guys). The only way I have to cleanse people is a large AE cleanse that requires me to be pretty close to the targets in order to hit them effectively.
In between these heals I have two mana return spells that I need to cycle depending on how the group is performing.
It's a very active lifestyle as a healer. I can even throw in a tiny bit of dps from time to time if the group is strong enough to not need constant healing. Pretty cool if you ask me.
How does it compare with other MMO healers in dungeons?
EverQuest is pure tab target while sitting on a mount in the back of the group healing. No other role outside of healing. No DPS at all. You get aggro? You die. The tank has to be aware of your position at all times just in case because without you, the group is history. 100% the opposite of Tera's healing experience.
Rift has tab targeting, but keeps you active by having a ton of different healing spells that need to be cycled. While I have 4 or so heals in Tera... I had something like 20 in Rift. I did find myself sitting in the back in Rift, but only between fights. I'd say Rift's Cleric is more of a traditional healer (when using Ward/Sent healing in particular). You can still contribute a little to the damage, but for the most part you'll have your hands full with the healing the whole time. I found myself staying mostly stationary so I could be found if I pulled aggro.
So...
Anyways, the dungeons have been fun. So fun, that I've decided to stick with Tera a while. I understand why they hold back the core game play for a while, but I was ready to give up from boredom. I picked a healer but never healed. By that measure, I might as well pick any other class (er... there are only 3... tank/heal/dps). I am guessing that the devs were afraid of creating a game that didn't feel like it had an open world or they would have had a dungeon available at level 1. As it plays now, I was on the verge of un-installing before I found the content this whole game is designed around. The content in the dungeons is nothing special. The boss fights are pretty simple with very few new abilities or problems. Not a lot of scripting. I enjoy them because I get to play my role and not feel like a gimpy hero from a single player game. If the dungeons were more complex and interesting it would help, but I'm not ready to say they all stink because I've only done the first two available and am not ready to write off the rest of them... however many there are. I just hope there's more depth to the encounters and a slightly higher learning curve instead of more hit points and damage... we'll see.
Anyways, I'm having a lot of fun with a game I hated at first. I'm glad Jay was so annoying about trying it, and if you are looking to kill some time, it's a fun experience for zero dollars.
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