X35 Earthwalker has played many games of pretty much all types but hardly0 any MMORPGs. The two that we have played are Skyforge and Tera. Both are focused on action combat instead of click and select and wait your turn. In both you move your character, time their attacks and decide when to dodge. Both have been good fun but which one is better?
First let’s make it clear that it’s only our view and opinion here. Both have interesting stories. In Skyforge players become an immortal who’s goal is to become a god and then hopefully move up to become a elder god while defending the world from many dangerous and powerful groups of aliens that invade and attack humanity (mainly mortals) like machines, fish creatures, snake like creatures, demons and more. In Tera, it’s not exactly clear from the start but basically you play a character that soon joins the federation which is a combination of the seven races who are fighting against the Argons who threaten the peace of the world. Argons use both magic and technology to reshape the world. They are a top level threat and eve working together, victory isn’t guaranateed. Both have large stories of planet scale battles and include gods (false gods) but only in Skyforge do you actually play as gods, plus there is more than one enemy and each enemy army have their own beliefs, schemes and gods of their own. Things are more interesting and a bigger story in Skyforge.
Now both are big games, really big. As in there is a lot to do, places to visit and stuff going on. Through our journeys we noticed that there is far more stuff in Skyforge than Tera. Literally you would have to play for a very long time to even become an elder god which is off course superior to regular gods. Now any gamer who actually has a life and doesn’t spend the whole day playing Skyforge will take months and even years to build all the god deeds to use to unlock all the god abilities, complete Flavius’s lab, get enough sparks to naturally unlock all the classes and much more. It’s so big that it’s actually ridiculous and we don’t plan on getting everything. That’s right, you heard us. We are busy people who have a lot of great things happening our lives and we don’t have a whole day to just play the game. So Skyforge can keep their power ups and mounts. Like seriously, who wants to be an elder god anyway. In all seriousness though both Tera and Skyforge have a lot going on. Tera has many areas to travel too, levelling up takes quite a while after a certain point where only main quests seem to really budge the leveling up. Both are big, they are MMORPGs after all but Skyforge definitely comes of as bigger and deeper.
Now both have interesting enemies. Skyforge have the Oceanids, Mantides, Demons, Reapers of death, Mechanoids, Phytonides who all are annoying by the way. Each invading army has their own unit types of Pack, Thug, Enchanter, Crusher and Boss. Pack are in groups but weak, thugs do lots of damage, enchanter create special effects like buffs, weaken or even summon others, crusher have lots of health and boss which speaks for itself. In Tera there are many types and races of enemies from different places in the world. If you go to a desert like area, you will see giant sand slug sort of like creatures that borrow through the ground. If you go to the harbour and beach, you’ll see crabs and tortoises. If you head into the mines you will find enemies with pick axes and giant preachers with sharp legs digging (sort of like Corpsers from Gears of war). Basically there isn’t separate factions really except one main antagonist group called the Argons. So in Skyforge, you have one or two of the different invading armies in the different levels. While in Tera there are different enemies in each of the areas. This creativity has allowed so many more enemies for players to face. There is fairy looking creatures, pirates, vampires, giant spiders, crab like enemies, bloated axe wielding humanoids, dwarfs, Loks, half horse half dragon and literally so much more. Skyforge may have organised armies who have giant bosses Nihaz but those bosses are not as frequent and giant bosses in Tera and you end up fighting the same enemies quite frequently. The variety in Tera is much greater and makes each different place feel unique. So tera wins this.
Playing through the story is different from what the story is. In Skyforge you you have to travel to the same places players already explored. The objective will be in a level and players will have to go there, fight through the level which stays the same to find the person (mainly) that you need to speak to. Then you have to head to another level or head back to the observatory to then be told to go to another same familiar level and do the same thing. We have to admit that the story mode in Skyforge is boring. We don’t get much cutscenes at all but only at crucial points. If players had to do the story first then the locations and enemies would be new and more exciting but since many did the campaign first we did all the levels, fought all the enemies and faced the same elder god boss already. It’s basically go here, talk to that person, go there, talk to that person, go here kill that thing and then talk to that person and repeat. In Tera it’s quite different. A superior gives instructions to go to a certain place and there, are many missions, side quests, enemies there. So it’s very different from Skyforge. Sure you have to go back to Valika to report to your superior and they then send you to another place but all these places are new. Never seen before so it’s fresh each time. They are not linear either. These levels allow for side quests and players can do what they want with numerous enemies around and things to find. In one area, everything is a tropical place that has a sea where players can swim, another place has a huge temple like area, another place has a giant mine filled with tracks and excavated area. They are so different, not linear and different enemies. The side missions and the main missions are of variety and each area has a dungeon which contains multiple boss enemies and a huge top boss enemy. So how you play the story is better done, more exciting and doesn’t get boring in Tera.
Both Skyforge and Tera have many items and weapons to equip and use. They basically have the same items in terms of healing items and removing negative status. There are resurrecting items, stat enhancing items. How the items are used are based on the mechanics of the game and the difficulty. For example you can use items to recover health way less frequently in Skyforge. The items all work well and feel the same except for the resurrecting consumables in Skyforge which for us don’t work. We checked online and some gave some strange guide. Why can’t it be simple. Why can’t we just stand near our dead allies, then use our item and they get up. We tried but all we did was stand there and glow for a while and when done, they were still dead. It should be clear. Tera have teleportation scrolls that allow players to teleport (duh) to different places in the world or same area. Skyforge won’t need those as there levels are smaller and linear as in you never have to really turn back. Skyforge have more reward items and boxes to open containing more items. There are items which grant sparks of transformation. Skyforge even has items like paralysing darts, fiery cocktails and more to assist you in combat. We feel there are more items in Skyforge and more rewards, especially since our bags in Skyforge get filled far more quickly (you really have to expand bag size). So Skyforge wins in items due to having much more. Now concerning the weapons, this is a no brainer. Tera is Cleary the winner. The weapons in Skyforge feel absolutely useless. Whenever we get a new weapon, they don’t add much at all. You never feel more powerful. It may say 17% damage boost but doesn’t look like it at all. We soon didn’t care about new weapons. In Tera though you can easily see the difference in power. You can even add stones to your weapon and enchant them to make them more powerful and grant new effects. They even glow. Honestly Skyforge needs to sort out it’s weapons as weapons are a huge part of games. So Tera wins for weapons.
There isn’t really any crafting in Skyforge. Some players say after you become an elder god or something but but if that’s the case, then it’s too long. In Tera players can craft from when they are level 15 which doesn’t take that long at all. You can do crafting for weapons, armour, etching and alchemy too. You find many items like rocks and crystals which we advise you don’t skip them but collect them. In sky forge you collect some items but there is practically nothing to do with them concerning crafting. So Tera wins easily.
Big MMORPGs like Skyforge and Tera have many areas, sections, activities etc etc. Obviously this will be confusing for new players… but one game is definitely more confusing than the other. Both do quite well in guiding new players in the earliest stage but Tera holds your hand more which is good. When it comes to combat things get real confusing. For a good while we never knew what moves should combo into what and what certain words mean. Like whats a pulse? Skyforge says some moves use or generate pulse but there isn’t any part in the game that explains what these are or what they do. We wrote a whole blog which goes into more depth about this in the past. While in Tera there is a section whiten skills that show the character’s combos and what leads into what. Making things simple as it should be. Tera even reminds players with the commands showing when we can use a move that directly combos into another. This gets players into the rhythm of things and eventually know what should be done without help. Our mounts wouldn’t work for a while, even when the game tells us to equip our mount (skyforge) and we tried but it never worked. We found a way but not what the game told us to do. There are many areas and things in sky forge that aren’t explained clearly, we were confused for a good while about multiple things while Tera made everything quite clear much faster. Matter of fact we were only confused about one thing unlike sky forge which didn’t even give players a heads up that you can only have a certain amount of adepts and can’t sign new ones until you dismiss another. So tera is less confusing and more new player friendly.
Now in terms of which game makes the character you control feel cool and powerful. Let’s compare two similar classes. From Tera we will use the warrior class and from Skyforge we will use the Paladin. Both are sword wielding melee classes. off course they aren’t exactly the same. When playing as the Warrior, you have many sword skills, you can poison the enemy, cut them up and slice them up. The warriors stays as a dangerous swordsman who never stops cutting. While In Skyforge you actually feel like your swordsman has actual power. The Paladin can strike with lightning as their sword connects, shoot lightning, summon shields and more. The sword class in Skyforge makes you feel much more powerful than the Warrior class in Tera. Off course this does come down to the fact that in Skyforge you play immortals and gods who are obviously more powerful than regular mortal characters in Tera. The point is that Skyforge makes players feel more powerful and cool.
Speaking of classes, there is 10 classes in Tera but in Skyforge there is at least 16. So there are more options in Skyforge; however the classes in Tera have more moves which means more progression with that character. In Skyforge you can unlock all the moves and abilities for your class actually quite quickly while it takes much longer in Tera due to it having more. So there are more options and progression of your character in Tera. The classes in Tera do feel mostly similar while Skyforge does have the variety like multiple projectile classes from pistols to big cannons, ice wielding classes and light binding. Much more variety in Skyforge.
Now both games can get difficult but one is harder than the other. In both games, players have health regeneration but it’s much faster in Skyforge but the regeneration cannot be interrupted in Tera (from our experience). Running away from fights is much harder in Skyforge, in fact, you can’t really run away as the enemies move incredibly fast if you try to leave, especially during those squad missions. Meaning they will chase you down and continue to inflict damage until you die. In Tera, the enemies chase you too but only speed up after chasing for a good while and even then you can still dodge any attacks they throw while running away. they then give up and return. So if you start a fight in sky forge, either you finish them or they finish you. While in Tera you can flee from a losing battle and live. Tera also has a much smaller cool down time for healing items, so you can heal multiple times during a fight while in Skyforge you can normally only heal once and that’s it. Bosses in Tera have an abundance of health, more than Skyforge bosses in general but Skyforges bosses hit much harder. There was a boss that killed our character in two hits but we have never met a boss in Tera that could two shot us dead. Lastly in Skyforge dying doesn’t matter, as players control immortals who are known for dying and then coming straight back. Even so Skyforge is the more difficult game.
It’s time for combat. Both have action packed combat giving players control over their character instead of click and command. In both, players decide when to attack, dodge and aim their attacks. Both have a MP system, mana point for Tera and just mana in Skyforge. Now in Skyforge, some moves trigger other moves to be instantly used again without any mana cost and some moves increase the damage of another move for a short period of time. Players in Skyforge also have the ability to instantly kill enemies with finishing moves if their health is low enough (there is a cool down for this). There is an ultimate move, divine abilities as well and even the ability to change into your god form who has increased, speed, health and damage and their own special attack. In Tera players have many moves and yes some also power up other moves and make others of instant use but there’s one big difference. There is actual real combos in Tera. Sure if you know what moves do what and what works well after another then you could do like two moves combos but Tera has actually combos and the game shows you what moves to do next to keep the damage going. There is a section in your skills tab that shows you these combos and the options you have and since their are more than one, you can almost always be chaining many moves together regardless of what you start of with making fights more focused and engaging. The combat feels more technical in Tera while in sky forge it’s more figure it out for yourself and do what suits the situation. While Tera gives more options gives moves for almost all occasions. We will say though that the poison stab ability for Warriors is terrible and needs to be more effective. if we just go by standard character and their moves then Tera is better but If we take in the whole picture Skyforge has better combat because it still does have some hidden but less combos but it has many special abilities, numerous passive and extra abilities, divine abilities, god forms, ultimate attacks and god form ultimate attacks which literally destroy everything.
Lastly let’s look at graphics. Both have big worlds with lots of variety and many things going on. Both have great graphics but only one game made us stop and truly look around and that was Tera. There is a desert area that has many rocks, ruins, relics, sand and more. We entered that area looked around and noticed all the details on the rock and how everything looked. We then saw what looks like a giant whale like creature swimming through the sky just doing it’s thing. It looked amazing. There is also some giant star sign blue clock hand looking symbol in the sky. It’s movements are smooth, looks beautiful and reminds us of something out of Final Fantasy Xlll-2 and we know how Good Final Fantasies graphics are. Sky forge has great graphics too like in that snow area and we looked up to see a Northern lights like sky, it was wonderful but Tera does look cleaner. So better graphics go to Tera.
Both games are very large and we are sure that Tera and Skyforge pros would have tons to say about the game instead of those stupid internet trolls who have nothing intelligent to say. both games are great and we are having fun with both. Tera has a more alive world, far more enemies of variety to face, better campaign, better and more effective weapons, has better weapon crafting system, less confusing and new player friendly and less difficult. Skyforge has a bigger and more interesting story, is a bigger and deeper game, more items, bigger variety of classes, the classes are more powerful and cooler, better combat and is more difficult. overall we would say that the better game is Tera. Now this isn’t a stomp by any stretch of the imagination. It was close and they are off course different. Skyforge is a bigger game, with a bigger story, with bigger characters and gods so yes Tera can’t compete with that but even though Tera is smaller we feel it has done it’s game mechanics and things better in more ways. Now both mmorpgs, Tera and Skyforge, are great, big games but none of them are bigger or greater than… the ‘Earth Walk!’
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