Rift: Planes of Telara

[March]

The concept of tanking is awful (in the sense that it is a highly critical role only a limited number of people need to fill) although I think we all understand why it is there.  Still, fighting lots of monsters is more fun that fighting one (CoH pre-purple patch, for example) but the concept of boss fights is so ingrained...

If ever there was a game to "fix" DAoC PvE, this would have been it.  Build concentric layers of difficulty that get easier as you add more folks; the fact that you could switch roles would make the entire group composition thing fun again.  We used to do an awful lot of content without the slavery to a "perfect" group... VV on HibGuin "tanked" legion with our 2h Champ because, well, he was the guild leader... aggro would bounce, folks would have to call it out, and poor healers like me (in the absence of any sort of workable GUI) would have to type /Target XYZ, then heal.  I'm even ok with zerging content... the limiting factor is reward v. time for zerging.

This isn't pure nostalgia calling... I just rather liked looking at the folks on hand, the content and just figuring out a way to do it... sometimes we added more DPS, sometimes CC, sometimes we just slowed down... but there was an open sense of gameplay that made things (to my mind) more fun than what I didn't like about EQ (and subsequently WoW).  Seems to me that the Rift soul system would provide exactly the right tools to attempt as much content as the group could handle without the omnipresent problem of redundant or inefficient classes preventing the people behind the toon from being able to play your game.

Without this sort of fudge-factor, I think Maledict is right... there is no room for sort-of tanks when you need a tank, or sort-of healers when you need a healer.  And if every encounter is balanced around 1 tank, 1 healer and x NPC DPS, then the soul concept will face the inexorable grind to sameness - which we are already seeing in the discussion posts above.

I'll certainly play upon release, but I'm playing with a sort of melancholy suspicion that the greatest days of the Soul system will be the first ones, before the Warrior boycott. 

[Nebu]

Here's what I'm reading between the lines.  Please correct me if I'm missing something.

"With so many spec/skill options, balancing this game will be impossible.  Thus, PvP will be a complete joke or, at the very least, devolve into the same rock-paper-scissors game as we've already experienced."

[Modern Angel]

Here's what I'm reading between the lines.  Please correct me if I'm missing something.

"With so many spec/skill options, balancing this game will be impossible.  Thus, PvP will be a complete joke or, at the very least, devolve into the same rock-paper-scissors game as we've already experienced."

That's why they have the PvP souls, which all have abilities tied to "on player" use. So yes, rock paper scissors, I suppose. It *is* impossible to balance all the souls in a PvP environment which makes the contradictory PvPer demands of "everything must be viable!" and "everything must be balanced!" that much starker. I do think there's a lot of room to play with PvP Soul Primary-Other Stuff combos.

Doesn't matter because I'm still trying to figure out how anyone got the impression that PvP was a main focus of this game.

[Threash]

Not only the pvp souls but also the extreme ease of switching between four roles for your base class at any point you desire.  They are not trying to balance soul against soul, they only worry about warrior vs rogue vs cleric vs mage balance.

[Ratama]

Doesn't matter because I'm still trying to figure out how anyone got the impression that PvP was a main focus of this game.

Trion said it would be a focus (not only in general, but certain aspects in particular). If they were smart, it WOULD be a main focus; instead, it looks like they're trying to out-PvE WoW, which is a fucking retard's endeavour.

The ease of switching souls is going to bite them in the ass (re PvP), I think; since the ease of change will almost certainly mean that PvP will be balanced solely around the top specs, a lot of folks are going to be pissed about not being able to play 'their' build/playstyle in PvP w/o being a victim-by-design.

[Modern Angel]

They already are and they already have PvP centric and specific souls. I also wouldn't overstate WoW's edge in PvE for a lot of people anymore.

[Ratama]

I think the PvP-specific souls are a bad idea, too;a separate DAoC-style PvP progression would have been better.

Why not Raid Souls, Solo Souls, Crafting Souls... why ruin such (superficially, now) deep char customization with more choices?  More pigeonholes for everyone, imo.

And WoW's PvE edge vs games *doing the same PvE shit* as they are cannot be overstated.  Would they be vulnerable vs someone doing something new/different/better?  Yes.  Is Trion that company/Rift that game?  Fuck no.  Now go collect more bear uterii.

[Draegan]

I think it's going to end up being a more than reasonable assumption that 31 is going to be required in any given tree to make it competitive. Except *maybe* tanking.

What makes you think that?  What soul has a 31 point ability that is a must have?

[Modern Angel]

Druid, Justicar, Purifier, Sentinel, Shaman, probably Warden, Archon, Elementalist, Chloromancer for raids only, Pyromancer, Necromancer...

I don't think I need to hit the other two classes to make the point. Just because I still have it open, Lich Form for the Necromancer? A 2 minute cooldown transformation which gives you 30sec of 20% more mana regen, 20% more damage and 30% more pet damage? TWO MINUTES? If you don't think that's far and away necessary in that tree for group content of any size (assuming you go Necromancer at all) you're wrong. I don't have to even see the content to know you're wrong because that's absurdly good.

Or Justicar, at random. A five minute cooldown battle rez which returns the target to 100% life? That may not be sexy but every raid or serious PvP group in the game better bring that.

EDIT: Glancing through the other classes most of the melee ones are not so hot. But that Bard capstone is absurd.

[Sheepherder]

And WoW's PvE edge vs games *doing the same PvE shit* as they are cannot be overstated.  Would they be vulnerable vs someone doing something new/different/better?  Yes.  Is Trion that company/Rift that game?  Fuck no.  Now go collect more bear uterii.

WoW is having troubles with heroic dungeons at the moment.  More specifically, queue times for DPS is now roughly thirty minutes as opposed to ten.  Which means that roughly 2/3 of the tanks and healers who play WoW have decided to take their shit elsewhere: either doing invite-only, or just plain not playing anymore.

[Kageru]

There's something new in that? It's been the case that one class (healers mostly) ends up being the limiting quantity in forming groups. And that people with social networks (friends or guilds) try and form groups from amongst those before they PUG.

That said I do think the WoW experiment in making Heroics "challenging" is more what people say than what they necessarily want. And it automatically reduces the inclusiveness of getting groups (people get more picky). But I guess the question really comes down to whether you see group content as "end game" content.

[Threash]

When dps queues go from 8-12 mins in wrath to 30-45 in cata something has obviously changed.  Less people being able to do heroics also means less people being able to raid.

[Maledict]

When dps queues go from 8-12 mins in wrath to 30-45 in cata something has obviously changed.  Less people being able to do heroics also means less people being able to raid.

Um, this is a completely illogical fallacy.

Take a normal guild, like mine. We have 3 tanks, 22 dps, 9 healers. A couple of DPs are geared to off-tank obviously, but their main roles remain DPS and that's what they play when they can. YWith the standard WoW 5 player group make up, you can easily see why tanks queue almost instantly, healers take 10 minutes or so and DPs are 30 minutes+.

The reason queues were so short in Wrath is because everyone and their dog had a maxed level alt, and a large number of those could tank. The number of max level DK's / Paladins / Warrior alts is easily equall to all the other classes combined in my guild - presumably because people rolled tanks because of the queues, and also because of their power, and DKs starting at level 85 etc. 

That isn't the case now - I would expect that the average player has less alts maxed than before. A lot of players (like me), don't have ANY alts maxed because there's still tons to do on their main characters. The number of max level 85s is much, much smaller than the number of max level 80s we had in Wrath in the last 12 months when everyone rode the hamster wheel of LFD every day.This idea that vast amounts of tanks & healers have left due to heroics is nothing more than illogical hearsay based on a mesaure which doesn't in anyway accurately reflect the reaility. It's also slightly strange in that it assumes all the tanks and healers left - but all the DPs stayed behind because they enjoy 30 minute queues so much?

[Rendakor]

What happened in a lot of guilds is that tanks and healers run chain heroics as soon as they hit 85, get all they need from Heroics/JP/rep, and then only do one a day for VP. Since DPS cannot easily do that, the pool of DPSers stays much larger than the Tank/healer pool.

The other factor you're failing to consider is the increased difficulty. Tanking/healing in Cata is much more stressful than it was in WotLK, so a lot of DPS aren't offspeccing (or are trying then wiping/getting votekicked, and giving up) which further keeps the pool down.

For some more anecdotal evidence, my guild has 3 tanks and 4 healers. Two of the tanks (me and one other) run 1 heroic a day for our VP; the third (who was a huge fan of the WotLK AOE fests) only comes to heroics as dps, because he doesn't like the slow pulls with cc style of Cata. Of our four healers, two one run heroic a day for VP as heals, one respecced dps entirely (spriest), and one does heroics as DPS because he doesn't like how challenging the healing is and won't put up with it outside of a raid.

[rattran]

If tanking and healing are less fun/more stressful than dps, is it any wonder less people want to do it?

[Nebu]

If tanking and healing are less fun/more stressful than dps, is it any wonder less people want to do it?

People shy away more because tanks/healers get blamed for fucking everything.  Healing is probably the most underappreciated role you can play in an MMO.  When you do a fucking fantastic job, it's expected.  If you make one mistake, everyone is on your ass.  It's like playing QB in the NFL.  Tanks have it almost as bad. 

I love playing healer in MMO's but refuse to take the crap that goes with the job. 

[Shatter]

In WAR the DoK and WP classes were interestign because they were very strong both as group heal spec and Solo DPS.  Many players went solo DPS and this would piss people in Scenarios, etc if they were only healing themselves lol

[Ratama]

Can't blame devs for how broken their customers are; PvPers, especially, will usually get pissed whenever they see someone on their own side choose fun over winning.

But blame them for keeping the Tank/Healer/DPS trinity alive in PvP?  Yeah, fuck 'em all for that mess.

If tanking and healing are less fun/more stressful than dps, is it any wonder less people want to do it?

Smart Heals, better/easier to use tanking tools.  Tanking and healing are stressful by dev design, not by nature of the role; they don't *have* to be harder/less forgiving than DPSing.

[Modern Angel]

In that vein it should be noted that there is mouseover macro functionality in Rift by default. WoW players will be familiar with the mod 'Clique'. That's what it is. Mouseover healing should be standard in all MMOs which include the concept of healing in any form.

[Ratama]

Didn't DAoC have some sort of 'healing bank' as an Realm Point (w/e) ability for healers, where overhealing went in a healing pool that smart-cast itself when needed?  Why isn't *that* standard in MMOs?

Sitting on the edge of my seat, keeping myself ready to use said mouseover heals on a split-second notice or everyone's fun is fucked... pass.

 if I do try Rift, and try healing in raids or whatnot, it'll be as a melee-healing Justicar; if that isn't viable for main-healing, then fuck that in advance.

[Modern Angel]

Yes, tell me more about mouseover healing and your experiences with it.

[Ratama]

Yes, tell me more about mouseover healing and your experiences with it.

I meant, that making stressful healthbar-watching healing less clicky really isn't the answer.  It helps, but healing's still shitty, even with Clique/Grid/Healbot/w/e.

[Sheepherder]

The reason queues were so short in Wrath is because everyone and their dog had a maxed level alt, and a large number of those could tank. The number of max level DK's / Paladins / Warrior alts is easily equall to all the other classes combined in my guild - presumably because people rolled tanks because of the queues, and also because of their power, and DKs starting at level 85 etc.

Queues were 10 minutes right up until patch 4.0, at the end of the expansion, when traditionally large numbers of people have unsubbed and are waiting on the new expansion.  Now, when number of concurrent players is peaked and the grind to max level can probably be catassed in two days nobody can find tanks or healers.  That's a fuckup of monumental proportion, not a statistical aberration.

Trion needs to not be a collection of complete fuckups and they might actually be able to make good on the PR boasts, because Blizzard is begging others to eat their lunch.

[Modern Angel]

You could get epic loot points for every single dungeon you ran in Wrath. Now you can only get them for the first random you do each day. That's why there's a discrepancy, not because healing and tanking is suddenly so godawful hard. The in demand classes are only queuing once per day rather than ten to twenty times a day.

[sam, an eggplant]

You could get epic loot points for every single dungeon you ran in Wrath. Now you can only get them for the first random you do each day. That's why there's a discrepancy, not because healing and tanking is suddenly so godawful hard.

It's the exact same system, but with the lower-tier points purchasing blue gear instead of epic. The only difference is the color. I'm sure that the color has some impact on the matter, but it doesn't explain why queue times increased by over 300%. I don't buy it.

The people saying Blizzard fucked up here are completely correct. They took a friendly endgame that allowed casual players to run an easy 30 minute dungeon after a 10-15 minute queue and turned it right on its ass. Those same people now have to wait 45-55 minutes for a 90-120 minute wipefest. It was a miscalculation on their part.

Those dungeons will get easier as gear inflates throughout the lifetime of the expansion, but the same inflection point (content patch) that triggers easymode also renders all the loot effectively valueless. And of course they promised new group content with each content patch as well, which will assuredly be extremely challenging upon release.

[Modern Angel]

What? No. There's an ilevel difference in the gear, too. You can buy your epic sets via the epic badges. There's an absolutely MASSIVE difference between the blue and purple versions of the points. Quite aside from the fact that I really do not understand how anyone could view Heroics as onerously hard the material difference in gear available and the fact that the purple loot hose is limited to one heroic a day is the reason you're seeing such shit queues.

Incidentally, let's make a distinction between "casual" and "bad". The game is just as friendly to "casual" players as it was before. I can run my heroics, get gear suitable to my time investment and go on my merry way. The game is no longer as friendly (but still not insanely unfriendly) to "bad" players.

[Rendakor]

Modern Angel, it's still the exact same system as pre 4.0. In 3.3, you got Frost Badges for your first Heroic which could buy 264 gear, then only earned Triumph Badges for each subsequent heroic, which purchased 245 gear. This system existed through all of WotLK, and it's the exact system that we have now; the only thing that changed is the name of the badges/points and the fact that the low-tier badges can only buy blues instead of purples.

[Modern Angel]

Right but there were several tiers of gear as opposed to one epic and one blue. Several sets and there were still best in slot items (I'm fairly certain) which weren't top tier. Plus epic gems. Maybe this all goes away once we're two or three tiers in but right now there's no real benefit to running more than one heroic a day. Combine the strict one a day approach with the heroics being difficult enough to turn away the "why can't I spam my ae and win anymore" crowd from tanking or healing and you have a situation where the queues lengthened.

Now, I'm firmly in the camp that there's a mistake that was made but it wasn't this. it was letting the genie out of the bottle in the first place. WLK was an abortion. Everyone should have access to content; I'm entirely sympathetic to that. But the ease of the game by late WLK created a cascading effect where the real dregs could do the "hard" stuff effectively which caused the queues to shorten (more tanks/healers in the mix) and then THAT caused everyone else to expect both easy content with fast queues forever. It was a castle built on a sand foundation.

We're also talking about WoW in another game's thread. Plus ca change.

[Rendakor]

Since you're missing the point, we'll go back to original WotLK. In 3.0, there were two types of badges: Heroism and Valor. For your heroic daily, you got Valor Badges. For every heroic boss kill, you got Heroism badges. Heroism badges could buy ilvl 200 purples (on par with Naxx 10/heroic final boss loot, a step up from regular heroic loot), while Valor badges could buy 213s (equivalent to Naxx25, OS25 and Maly 10 gear). This is EXACTLY the same system we have now: two tiers of gear from badges. The only difference is that now the first tier is blue, while before it was still purple. Epics gems were not purchasable in 3.0 since they did not exist until 3.1. Stop rewriting history please.

[Modern Angel]

I'm not rewriting anything. There were more than two tiers of epic gear *when the LFD system was released.* There were best in slot items in lower tiers. There were gems in lower tiers. Heirloom items were still semi-new and fresh. There were concrete and demonstrable reasons to chain run dungeons. We're talking about queue times not "remember when there were only two tiers of gear that was totally the same". In WLK the only time there were two tiers of gear, no gems, no heirlooms and all the BiS gear was available from one batch of badges was when it was first released *and there was no LFD*.

[Rendakor]

What we call queue times now, we once called spamming /2 "DK DPS LFG H DAILY". Nothing has changed.

Edit: My argument remains that queue times are longer now because heroics are more challenging, not because of loot (or the lack thereof).

[Modern Angel]

Uh, yes it has. It has entirely. I can still get an instant queue on my tank via LFD. Conversely, I bet you could get a local pug going on your server in shorter time than 45 minutes. Or, if you prefer, back in the halcyon days of WLK you could get your dps queues faster than the 20  minutes of local LFG. I also don't think we should change the subject since we were talking specifically about LFD queues.

I'm not saying that difficulty has a factor of zero. I'm saying that "all the tanks and healers quit because shit is hard" is false and that gear/points play a larger factor. There are zero incentives to keep running dungeons past the daily. Hell, I've never done anything BUT the daily and I was capped out in Heroic blues by a week and a half in. I have no incentive whatsoever to run more than the one because there isn't enough gear to keep me doing it.

[Rendakor]

Right. You're saying queues are longer because the rewards suck. I'm saying queues are longer because the DUNGEONS suck.

Also, regarding your earlier comment on casual/bad: the game is certainly less friendly to the casual player now. In WotLK a heroic pug was a reasonably guaranteed success; even a terrible group would at least complete the instance because two or three decent players could carry a few baddies. In Cata, even a single bad player can ruin the dungeon for the other 4; hell, you can get non-viable group comps just by poor luck of the /LFD. Just look at the Bad Groups thread if you need specific examples.

I'm not saying that difficulty has a factor of zero. I'm saying that "all the tanks and healers quit because shit is hard" is false and that gear/points play a larger factor. There are zero incentives to keep running dungeons past the daily. Hell, I've never done anything BUT the daily and I was capped out in Heroic blues by a week and a half in. I have no incentive whatsoever to run more than the one because there isn't enough gear to keep me doing it.

My point is that there has never been a large incentive to run more than the daily for very long, unless you started playing WotLK late in the content cycle. I played WotLK pretty seriously for it's entirety; every time a new content patch was released, I'd do chain heroics for a few days then go back to just running my daily. At no point in WotLK did anyone I know run chain heroics to farm gems or anything; that shit was only there so you had something to buy with the points you got incidentally while running your daily. The only reason I do more than one heroic a day (now or in WotLK) is to help out guildies.

Now, if you started playing in 3.1, or resubbed at some point after a long break, you're simply spoiled. That said, they ARE adding in a tradeskill commodities vendor for JP and Honor. However: "These are not intended to be a cost-effective source of these materials, but an option for players with lots of Justice or Honor Points who have already purchased all of the gear that interests them." Which means they STILL don't expect you to farm heroics for this shit, they're just throwing a bone to people who are JP capped and buying duplicate heirloom gear or third-offspec gear.

[Ashamanchill]

Now, if you started playing in 3.1, or resubbed at some point after a long break, you're simply spoiled.

I don't get the spoiled part. even these casuals/bads are paying 15 bucks a month. How is them saying 'I'd rather go to the dentist then run these heroics' spoiled? As heroics are the lowest reasonable tier to run, without that they have nothing.

[Rendakor]

Not what I'm saying at all. In fact, "these heroics are annoying/difficult/painful" has been the CORE of my argument. MA has been saying that the problem with heroics in Cata isn't difficulty, but lack of sufficient loot. Which is where my 3.1 or later comment comes in, because 3.1 and later is the point when there were 3+ tiers of loot available for the equivalent of JP.