There’s my character fighting one of the BAMs or Big Ass Monsters in Tera. I love my archer as she can stand fairly far back from the action and still do a ton of damage. These dungens and boss battles are some of my favorite parts of this game. But how was my overall experience going from level 1 to level 65 in Tera, a Free to Play MMO?
Story
The story in Tera didn’t really interest me. I tried to pay attention for the beginning, but once I hit level 29 or 30, I stopped paying attention entirely. At that point I had spent around 1-2 hours running across the world to do different quests for NPCs. I decided against doing different side quests to try to finish the main storyline, but eventually I turned away even from doing that. The questing felt slow, and as soon as the dungeons opened up, I could get far better gear simply from doing those. By waiting around to do the story quests, I was struggling just to kill the enemies for my leveling quests. Without gear from dungeon I wasn’t having any fun. I remembered struggling when I had tried to play in 2016, now I know I would have loved the game had I done more dungeons.
I am now level 65, but I had to go back to level 30-40 areas to continue the story after I was done doing dungeons. Eventually I’m going to go back and finish the story, but it was definitely easier to do the Dungeons first. The dungeons gave you amazing gear that would allow you to one-shot enemies in your level’s area with ease!
Not really related to the story but still related to the section is the enemies in the different areas. I found myself not fighting them much at all besides killing a few for the quest I was in. Certain areas just seemed a bit bland with a few enemies plopped down in groups here and there, so I would skip as many as I could to finish the story faster. Other areas were fully themed castles which were pretty awesome.
Dungeons
The dungeons are sooo much fun. They are the absolute best way to level, I used to get around 5+ levels per dungeon that I did! I could have honestly leveled to level 60 in around 1 night if I had solely done dungeons. They are all so much fun with different mini-bosses and giant BAMS throughout each one.
Dungeons are usually fun the first time you run them. After that, they become a bit dry because the gear you get from the dungeon allows you to blast through every single enemy. The game doesn’t let you queue for dungeons that are more than 5 levels below your current level, but the gear you get in dungeons is so OP that doing it again will make it go much faster.
Only un-fun part about dungeons is that sometimes people will run through them to get them done as soon as possible, which can be fun if you have good gear but isn’t fun if you don’t have that dungeon’s gear yet and start to get smacked around by the smaller mobs.
Graphics
The graphics of this game are definitely quite dated. Even on the highest settings the game had its occasional lag spikes, and the textures on the enemies/environment looked quite muddy at times. The environments were so unique though, I wish that they would remaster this game like they did with Black Desert Online. All of the bosses looked amazing though, even if some of them were pretty darn creepy.
Overall I think that the lower quality graphics can be overlooked because the gameplay is pretty fun. If you have an older PC this might be the game for you as it came out in 2011.
Community
This game is a bit dead. Sometimes I would have to wait 5-10 minutes to get in a dungeon. Other times I would get in a dungeon within seconds. I really felt the dead section when I hit around level 40, I actually went back to the story to level until I could unlock another dungeon since I couldn’t find a party for the dungeon at my level. The community that is active seemed to be all old players who just played for the nostalgia. I didn’t get any guild invites, and when I got in a party barely anyone spoke. The majority of chat messages I got in the party chat were just “Thank you for playing” at the end of the dungeon.
The community isn’t toxic at all, but it does feel cliquey. I feel like the only way I might make friends would be to hang out in Twitch streams all day, which usually features endgame players, and try to play with/befriend them. So if you are looking for an MMO with a thriving community full of people to play with, this would not be the game for you.
Overall
I feel like this game has a lot of potential, especially for those with older PCs or who want to play something that has epic boss battles. I haven’t gotten to the endgame yet, and I’m not sure if I ever will. I feel like the majority of the appeal that this game has is just the dungeons, and to do that I never have to finish the story. I can now play some of the ultra-hard dungeons as I am at level 65, but I don’t know if I will put in the time to do so. The 21 hours I have spent in Tera so far seem well spent, but I am not sure if I will continue to spend time on this game.
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars for great dungeons, yet lackluster graphics, community, and questing.
